News Archive
Netflix 20th Anniversary: Beetlejuice was the first movie ever shipped
Time flies when you’re watching movies. The first disc ever shipped from Netflix was Beetlejuice starring Geena Davis, Michael Keaton and Alec Baldwin. Read More…
Looking at Children’s Programming through a #MeToo Lens
We are all familiar with the negative images of girls and women in movies and other media — and how ubiquitous they are. From the physical portrayal of women as ultra-thin, super sexy and scantily clad to the sexualized roles they often play, it’s enough to make you wish you could put your daughters in a bubble to shield them. Of course, you can’t. Even that “Prince Charming” narrative, in which their lives are not complete until they meet the right guy and that guy decides to love them in return, is everywhere. Read More…
Geena Davis, David Yurman brand seek change with new documentary looking at gender in Hollywood
According to a study released by The Times, women made up 11% of writers, 11% of directors, 16% of editors and just 4% of cinematographers on the top 250 U.S. films released last year. Only 1% of films last year employed 10 or more women as directors, producers, editors, writers and cinematographers — compared with 70% of films that had 10 or more men in key roles. “It’s not only on-screen. It’s who’s behind the camera,” Davis said. “Who are the storytellers? Whose point of view are we profoundly leaving out? Where are the intersectional women in all of these stories?” Read More…
Kidscreen Summit 2018 To Kick Off Exploring a Seismic Shift in the Emotional Landscape Of GEN Z with Geena Davis and Marty Krofft
After delivering a knock-out keynote address at Kidscreen Summit 2016 that had audience members rethinking their approaches to gender and diversity in the development process, activist and Oscar-winner Geena Davis is returning to the event to unveil exclusive new research from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media. Her latest study seeks to examine how products are being marketed to boys and girls through the use of brand mascots. It will analyze and identify current trends in the marketplace, and look at how the way brands portray different genders negatively or positively affects the way children perceive gender roles. Read More…
Hollywood’s dim view of banking and the real-world threat it poses
The film industry is painting an ugly picture of what life is like inside banks. And there are real-world dangers in that fiction. Top films about the industry from 2006 to 2016 showed bankers mostly as the bad guys — with an emphasis on the guys — an analysis conducted by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media shows. Men make up 81% of the characters, and are three times more likely than women to be shown in senior executive roles. None of the films portray banking as an industry where promotion is driven solely by merit; and in three-quarters of the films, bank employees are seen rising through the ranks at least partly because of cronyism and a willingness to bend the rules. Read More…
On ‘A League of Their Own’s’ 25th anniversary, Geena Davis still isn’t afraid to say ‘feminist’
It’s been 25 years since Geena Davis starred in “A League of Their Own,” a film that broke ground not only for its strong, mostly female cast but because it was a major film directed by a woman, Penny Marshall. Released July 1, 1992, the film was based on the true story of an all-women baseball league started during World War II and went on to become a beloved, and still all too rare, female-centered sports film. Coming out just a year after she and Susan Sarandon made movie history by driving their 1966 Ford Thunderbird into the Grand Canyon, “League” helped seal Davis’ place in Hollywood as a feminist voice. Read More…
CharityBuzz: Lunch for 4 with Geena Davis in Los Angeles
Bid now for you and 3 friends to enjoy lunch in Los Angeles with Geena Davis. Geena Davis is an American actress, film producer, writer, activist, and former archer. She is known for her roles in The Fly (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), Thelma & Louise (1991), A League of Their Own (1992), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), Stuart Little (1999), and The Accidental Tourist, for which she won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2005, Davis won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for her role in Commander in Chief. Read More…
A New Study Shows Advertisements Are So Sexist, Men Get 7 Times as Many Speaking Roles as Women
It’s well known that women are underrepresented throughout society—hello, Hollywood’s lack of female-driven films and that persistent gender wage gap—and a new study courtesy of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media shows just how marginalized women are in yet another arena: advertising. The nonprofit research organization, founded by the Oscar-winning actress in 2004, partnered with marketing firm J. Walter Thompson to examine how women are presented in advertisements for a report titled “Unpacking Gender Bias in Advertising.” They presented their findings on Wednesday at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—a global communications festival, not to be confused with the annual film fest—and what they revealed was discouraging. Men, on average, got four times as much screen time as women and seven times as many speaking roles. Read More…
Study: Men Appear In Ads Four Times More Than Women, As Gender Stereotypes Abound
A new study, just revealed at Cannes, has found that men appear in ads four times more than women and have seven times as many speaking parts. The study called Gender Bias In Advertising was undertaken by New York agency J. Walter Thompson and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and also found that there are twice as many male characters as female characters in advertising. Read More…
Why Women Remain Invisible In Most Ads – And What To Do About It
The advertising industry has certain “tent-pole moments” with amazing campaigns that rally around women, but when it comes to creating ‘regular’ ads for ‘regular’ clients, advertisers forget about them, said Brent Choi, chief creative officer, J. Walter Thompson New York at a Cannes Festival session on Wednesday. A JWT study last year found that “85% of women said that when it comes to representing them, the advertising world needs to catch up with the real world,” Choi added. The agency teamed up with The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media at Mount Saint Mary’s University and the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering to analyze audio and video content from Cannes Lions’ film and film craft shortlists and winners from 2006 to 2016. Read More…
