I like superhero movies. I really do. They’re fun and fast and the costumes are faaaa-bulous. Straight men in stretchy fabric and capes – this is better than figure skating! This summer’s heroic roster includes Iron Man, Batman and The Incredible Hulk. And as great as those crime fighters are, they’re also a reminder that when it comes to superhero movies, no women need apply – this is man country.

New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis recently opined on the lack of women heroes and women— period — in today’s big budget blockbusters. Could this be the realization of Warner Brothers exec Jeff Robinov’s decree that the studio would not make any more movies with female leads? Dargis thinks so:

“Nobody likes to admit the worst, even when it’s right up there on the screen, particularly women in the industry who clutch at every pitiful short straw, insisting that there are, for instance, more female executives in Hollywood than ever before. As if it’s done the rest of us any good. All you have to do is look at the movies themselves — at the decorative blondes and brunettes smiling and simpering at the edge of the frame — to see just how irrelevant we have become.”

Ouch, but true. … continue reading

Once a year the U.S. pauses and takes stock of the important role that the administrative assistant holds in our businesses. Their tireless and often thankless efforts are what really gets things done in this capitalist world. So in honor of them, I thought I'd take a moment to recognize this day by looking at a few of our favorite paper-pushing women in television and film:

Pam Beesly, The Office

Photo credit: Mitchell Haaseth/NBC

Who wouldn't want to have someone like Pam Beesley (Jenna Fischer) working in his or her office? Pam is an adorable, cute-as-a-button receptionist with a high tolerance for her boss's awkward comments. I can only imagine all the work that I wouldn't get done trying to impress her with my office prank suggestions. … continue reading

It's hardly a news flash that misogyny is as American as, well, American Pie. Still, it's refreshing to stumble across a rant from a like-minded film fan to reassure myself that I'm not the only one who didn't find Knocked Up charming and funny. Or cry a little when Jack Black hooked up with Kate Winslet in The Holiday. Or, heaven forbid, see myself on-screen in Renée Zellweger's boy-crazy, insecure Bridget Jones.

And so I bring you highlights from a piece over at Radaronline.com, aptly entitled “No Country for Fat Chicks,” a snarky roundup of some of the most misogynist movies of the past decade. I'm just listing the past two years here, but here's the rest of the article for your entertainment.

The 2007 prize for sexism goes to Superbad.

Here's Radar's reasoning: “Seth is not cute. His cluelessness is not charming. He's a cretin. And the worst kind of cretin: a cretin who is afraid of vaginas.” It begs to be said: That is just super bad.

A runner-up for 2007 was Hostel: Part II. … continue reading

I’ve often thought that there’s a Ph.D. thesis to be written on the overarching effect of the internet on the gay and lesbian community. On the one hand, there’s the fact that the net potentially exposes the gay user to homophobic hate groups spewing more bile than (hopefully) he or she encounters in the real world on the average day. On the other hand, there are communities like ... well, like AfterEllen.com, which mean that you no longer have to live in a big city or be a bar bunny to gain some sort of feeling of belonging to a lesbian community.

And then there’s the phenomenon of the lesbian (or lesbianish) fan video. Fed up with searching for nonexistent out lesbian characters in TV and film, some people just get hold of a film editing program and create their own story lines and emphases out of the raw material provided by the networks.

Which means if I want to see a video that focuses on the subtexty bits between, say, Serena and Blair on Gossip Girl, then it doesn’t take me very long to find one:

And a well-made one at that. Admittedly, there’s a bit more of Blair rolling around with various interchangeable boys than I need to see, but I think this video does a great job of capturing the fact that the most powerful emotional relationship on the show is really between the two girls. Which makes a nice change after all the shows — from Starsky and Hutch to Nip/Tuck — focused on male pairs who secretly seem to need each other more than they really need the inconsequential women who pass between them.

Then there’s this video centered on Andie (Anne Hathaway) and Miranda (Meryl Streep) from The Devil Wears Prada: … continue reading