News Archive
Geena Davis Explains Why She Took Up Archery — and How She Almost Made the 2000 Olympic Team
Geena Davis has played several adventurous, physically demanding roles over the course of her acting career — baseball catcher, pirate queen, sleeper super-spy among them. But her greatest athletic challenge came in her personal life, when she became an Olympic-caliber archery champion at age 41. It all started as an unlikely notion, Davis, now 63, tells PEOPLE, when she was watching the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and became fascinated with the sport of archery, where American Justin Huish won two gold medals. “They had a lot of coverage of archery because America was winning all the gold medals, And I was like Wow!” Read More…
Stay Connected With Us During Social Distancing – A Message from Geena Davis
We hope you are staying safe! We are all grappling with the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19, which is dramatically impacting our ability to connect, communicate and engage. Like all of you, we have also had to buckle down and postpone all of our live event programming and activities including our See Jane Salons, Global Symposiums, Influencer Screenings and presentations until the end of April. This decision was necessary to ensure the safety of our members and community partners, and of course, the Institute team. Read More…
Geena Davis’ Bentonville Film Festival Announces Date Change
Out of an abundance of caution and public health concerns regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19), and to prioritize the safety of our artists, partners, creators, brands, and team, the Bentonville Film Festival has made the decision to move the festival’s 2020 dates from April 29-May 2 to August 5-8. Read More…
Google Debuts Podcast on the Future of Marketing
The dominant player in digital advertising now has a podcast on digital marketing. Google released the first episode of a new podcast series today under its research and insights outlet, Think With Google. Each episode of the six-episode series will be 20 minutes long. “The podcast series … allows for a less formal conversation among marketers on some of the key topics that are most relevant to the industry,” said Kate Stanford, Google’s managing director for ads marketing. The first episode focuses on diversity and inclusion in marketing and features Google’s CMO Lorraine Twohill and Madeline Di Nonno, CEO of the Geena Davis Institute. While the podcast is about the future of marketing, it won’t specifically discuss the future of Google’s stronghold in digital advertising. Instead, Stanford said, the series will take a broader approach by discussing consumer behavior trends, effective marketing strategies and the changing role of the CMO. Read More…
Family films had as many women in lead roles as men for the first time, new study finds
Last year was a historic one for gender representation in family films. According to a new study from The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, 2019 saw just as many female lead characters in family films as male lead characters.
In 2007, just 24% of family films featured female characters in lead roles. Last year, 48% of the 100 top-grossing family movies featured lead female characters. (For the purposes of the annual See Jane report, a family film was defined as any live-action or animated film that was rated G, PG or PG-13.) “Media images have a huge impact on how we see ourselves and judge our value,” Davis told CNN via email. “When you see someone like yourself reflected, you take in the message: ‘There’s someone like me, I must belong.’ This is why it’s vital for children to see — from the beginning — fictitious worlds that reflect the real world, which is half female and very diverse.” Read More…
Geena Davis: Leading the Fight for Gender Parity in Hollywood
Long before the #MeToo movement, the Oscar winner and BU alum founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. Geena tells her story in Bostonia, Boston University’s Alumni Magazine.
Universal Teams With Geena Davis Institute, USC for Software to Increase Latinx Representation
Spellcheck for Bias will also be fine-tuned by industry advisers such as Kate del Castillo, America Ferrera’s company Harness and Will Packer Productions’ James Lopez. The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media has partnered with Universal Filmed Entertainment Group to pilot its “Spellcheck for Bias” digital tool, this time in order to help increase Latinx representation onscreen. Spellcheck for Bias, a collaboration between the Institute and USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering, analyzes scripts, manuscripts and advertising briefs to create a breakdown of characters and dialogue by gender, race, LGBTQIA identity and disability. Read More…
Geena Davis Remembers Brad Pitt’s Audition for (Shirtless!) Thelma & Louise Role: ‘He Just Had It’
Brad Pitt hasn’t forgotten his roots. The actor, who picked up his first acting Oscar on Sunday, made sure to thank actress Geena Davis during his speech. While it might seem random to some, it was a sweet nod to his breakout role in 1991’s Thelma & Louise opposite the iconic actress. Speaking to PEOPLE about the role, Davis, 64, remembers being impressed by a fresh-faced Pitt, then 26. “He just has ‘it.’ I could tell when he was auditioning that he was super talented,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. Read More…
WGA Awards 2020: all the winners!
Geena Davis then presented the Paul Selvin Award for “Bombshell” to Charles Randolph. “Thank you. Geena and her institute [Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media] are tackling the gender gap smartly, with ferocity and reams of undisputable data,” said Randolph. “Whatever project you’re working on right now, imagine Geena coming over to your table tonight and saying ‘Where are we?’ Do not disappoint Geena Davis. Make Geena your conscience. Thank you WGA. I’m very proud to be one of you. I love how movies have stopped treating politics like a sacred liability. I love that the scene that made me think the most this year was two Barbies fighting about objectification in front of a mirror.” Read More…
The Ten Best TV Shows Adapted from Best Picture Nominees
Perhaps encouraged by the success of a show like Hannibal, somebody got it in their head that adapting The Exorcist for television would also work. The 1973 film scared the hell out of American moviegoers in its day, but was also such a respected work of cinema by director William Friedkin (not to mention a box-office smash) that the Oscars nominated it for Best Picture (it would lose to The Sting). The TV adaptation starred Geena Davis but focused on a pair of priests tracking murderous/demonic incidents. All told, it was pretty good, with a decent twist along the way, even if it only lasted two seasons. Read more…
