Jennifer Siebel Newsom's documentary about how the media treats women like shit is playing Sundance 2011, and we're more excited about it than any of the genre films.
Miss Representation, directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom and written by Newsom and Jessica Congdon, uncovers how American mainstream media’s limited and disparaging portrayals of women contribute to the under-representation of women in power positions – creating another generation of women defined by youth, beauty and sexuality, and not by their capacity as leaders.
To quote Margaret Cho in the trailer (embedded below for your feminist enjoyment) "The media treats women like shit." And Newsom has some really awesome representations of women in her film (double whammy) to make up for it. Writer Gloria Steinem, Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House, United States Congress, you dummy), and Geena Davis (yes, THAT Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media) are just a few of them.
The fact that this documentary is getting played at a mainstream, huge film festival like Sundance is great news; it means that not only is this film being taken seriously, but the filmmaker herself is being taken seriously, and hopefully, hopefully, the film's message will be taken seriously as well.
This is really great and I'm not joking that it almost made me want to cry.
"I hurt" - Karen Cooper "Night Of The Living Dead"