News Archive
Geena Davis’ 8 Essential Film Performances, From ‘Thelma & Louise’ to ‘The Fly’
Geena Davis won her first Academy Award in 1989 for her supporting turn in Lawrence Kasdan’s “The Accidental Tourist,” but Sunday night will receive one of the Academy’s highest honors, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, for her work as an activist in Hollywood. Since founding the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2004, Davis has used her global pulpit as a celebrated actress of four decades (going back to 1982’s “Tootsie”) to champion parity for women and challenge female stereotypes throughout entertainment. Looking back on her storied filmography, it’s easy to see how that passion for authenticity in storytelling translated through work in front of the camera as well, with powerful roles in films such as “Thelma & Louise,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” “A League of Their Own,” and more films that queried the status quo for female representation onscreen. Read More…
Geena Davis Accepts an Honorary Oscar at Governors Awards 2019!
Geena Davis looks stunning while accepting her award at the 2019 Governors Awards on Sunday night (October 27) at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood. The 63-year-old actress, who previously won the Best Supporting Actress award for her work in The Accidental Tourist, received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. The award is given “to an individual in the motion picture arts and sciences whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry.” Read More…
Governors Awards: Honorees Lina Wertmüller, Geena Davis Call for Gender Parity in Hollywood
Oscar got a name change — and a jolt of feminine power Sunday night at the Governors Awards. “She would like to change the Oscar to a feminine name,” Isabella Rossellini said, translating as Italian director Lina Wertmüller accepted her honorary Oscar. “She would like to call it ‘Anna.’ Women in the room, please scream, ‘We want Anna, a female Oscar!'” Also during the black-tie dinner at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at the Hollywood & Highland Center — where the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences conferred its honorary Oscars a few weeks earlier than usual this year — Geena Davis, 63, became the 39th recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which celebrates “outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes” for building upon her acting career in films like The Accidental Tourist, Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise and A League of Their Own to become an advocate for gender equality in media. Read More…
Academy’s Governors Awards Puts Spotlight on Gender Parity
Lina Wertmüller wants to see a big change for the Oscars. The 91-year-old Italian director had Isabella Rossellini acting as her translator while accepting her honorary Oscar on Sunday night at the Academy’s Governors Awards in Hollywood. “She would like to change the Oscar to a feminine name,” Rossellini said. “She would like to call it ‘Anna.’” Earlier in the program, Geena Davis was honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her work fighting for gender-parity in media through her Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. “The message we are sending [in society] is that men and boys are far more valuable to us than women and girls,” she said. Constance Wu presented to Davis, as did her “A League of Their Own” co-star Tom Hanks. Read More…
‘Thelma & Louise’ Star Geena Davis Turns Rebel On The Run Once More In ‘Cowgirl’s Last Ride’ From Resonate Entertainment
With echoes of her role in 90s classic Thelma And Louise, GLOW and Eve star Davis will play Fay, an ailing but still rebellious Texas cowgirl who escapes a Dallas nursing home to live what’s left of her life on her own terms. She makes a perilous journey back to her native East Texas— first by truck, then by horse—while being pursued by her well-meaning adult son Randall (still to be cast), who can’t help but care about his mother despite the dysfunction he experienced as a child, and well into his adult life. Read More…
Geena Davis calls Hollywood gender imbalance an ‘embarrassment’
The under-representation of women in Hollywood behind the camera is an “embarrassment”, American actor and activist Geena Davis said at France’s Deauville Film Festival. Davis, who starred in the cult classic Thelma and Louise with Susan Sarandon, criticised the Hollywood gender gap from the red carpet of the festival, where she was promoting her new documentary. This changes everything on gender inequality. “I think I heard today that in France it’s 24 per cent are female directors, and in the United States only four per cent. I mean, 24 is not good enough either, but four per cent is an embarrassment,” she told the reporters. The documentary, produced by Davis and directed by Tom Donahue, features interviews with Hollywood actors including Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Jessica Chastain and Tiffany Haddish, and examines gender discrimination in the media and entertainment industry. Read More…
Actor Geena Davis tells Power of Inclusion Summit in Auckland that gender balance on screen can change the future
More women on screen is the fastest way to curb unconscious gender bias in the future, academy award-winning actress Geena Davis says. Davis, who made the comments as guest speaker at the Power of Inclusion Summit at Auckland’s Aotea Centre, has spent most of her adult life advocating for women and young girls on screen. She is founder and chairwoman of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a leading organisation working to achieve gender parity in film and TV. The institute’s manta: “If girls see it, they can be it.” Read More…
Geena Davis Unveils Partnership With Disney to “Spellcheck” Scripts for Gender Bias
During a closing keynote speech at the New Zealand Power of Inclusion Summit, the actress explained how a new digital tool will prevent film and television works from perpetuating underrepresentation and stereotypes — and their pernicious real-world effects. Geena Davis, the Oscar-winning actor and a tireless advocate for female representation onscreen, touched down Thursday in New Zealand to deliver the closing keynote speech at the country’s pioneering Power of Inclusion Summit, which was held in downtown Auckland. Read More…
When Masculinity Turns ‘Toxic’: A Gender Profile Of Mass Shootings
Soon after a 19-year-old man killed three people and wounded more than a dozen at a festival in Gilroy, Calif., in late July, California Gov. Gavin Newsom noted something often taken for granted about mass shootings. Caroline Heldman is a professor of politics at Occidental College, a senior research adviser for the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and executive director of the Representation Project, a nonprofit started by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the governor’s spouse, that is devoted to challenging gender stereotypes. Efforts to reduce mass shootings should emphasize reducing what is often termed “toxic masculinity,” Heldman said, the pernicious societal norm that being a man means “you can’t show emotion, that you can’t seek help when you need it, essentially that you can’t be fully human, you can’t be vulnerable.” Read More…
Women bosses in movies are four times more likely than men to be nude
If there is a film with a powerful woman making important decisions about the fate of the word, it’s a good bet that she’ll be making those decisions in a skimpy outfit while putting up with sexual harassment and fighting to be heard. Those are just some of the distressing findings in a new report from Plan International and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media. Their research says the entertainment media still fails to show what it calls “high-quality” portrayal of girls and women. Read More…
