Women and Hollywood

Melissa Silverstein is the founder and editor of Women and Hollywood, one of the most respected sites for issues related to women and film as well as other areas of pop culture. Women and Hollywood educates, advocates, and agitates for gender parity across the entertainment industry.

She is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of The Athena Film Festival. The 4th annual festival will take place from February 6-9, 2014 at Barnard College in NYC.

Melissa recently published the first book from Women and Hollywood, In Her Voice: Women Directors Talk Directing, which is a compilation of over 40 interviews that have appeared on the site.

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Blog Roll

Trailer Watch: Side Effects - Starring Rooney Mara

Video

Rooney Mara gets her lead post her Oscar nominated performance in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in Side Effects, a thriller from Seven Soderberg. It looks a bit messy but one can never underestimate Soderberg.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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November 12, 2012 9:45 AM
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0 Comments

Blogs

If this year’s Oscars known as the "women's superbowl" only attracted half (39.3 million to be exact) the viewing audience of that great male gladiator event, that’s still way more than enough people to make an enormous impact on the body ideals and aspirations of girls and women who buy the fashion lines and accessories and makeover surgeries (AKA “aesthetic medicine”) such as the silicone implants and butt lifts that inspire fans to become clones of their favorite hot movie star.

By Emily Fox-Kales
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March 2, 2012 10:43 AM
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4 Comments

News

At least they are all dressed. But all the satin kind of reminds me of a brothel. Thw women on the power panel which is the actual cover are Rooney Mara, Mia Wasikowska, Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain. And Jennifer Lawrence is in the top center. Smart of them to include the awesome Adepero Oduye.

By Melissa Silverstein
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January 31, 2012 9:10 AM
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3 Comments

Blogs

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hasn't opened at the level that Sony would have liked, just $27 million in 6 days of release, (see Thompson on Hollywood analysis of what went wrong) but it goes without saying that the character of Lisbeth Salander has gotten people talking. So much so that Entertainment Weekly has put Rooney Mara on its cover which will hit newstands tomorrow.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 29, 2011 3:06 PM
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3 Comments

Watching the bleak, intense, colorless, vibrant, taut thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made me elated and sad at the same time. Elated because FINALLY here is a movie with an amazing female lead and a great male lead who are equals as people, and sad because these types of films hardly EVER come along.

David Fincher, a man who is best known for dark, boy oriented thrillers, takes a beloved feminist book (and yes, I think it is a feminist book) and creates this woman onscreen who is one of the most truly original characters I have ever seen. And Rooney Mara. Seriously. That girl hit it out of the park. Her work is at Meryl Streep level in this film. She just disappears into Lisbeth and owns her. And I give David Fincher credit for fighting for Mara because he was right. She's beyond great.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 20, 2011 10:32 AM
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6 Comments

I for one am psyched to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (which I will be seeing later today.) But not all women are excited according to a piece last week in Vulture. Sony seems to be nervous that the film is not tracking well among women, which is one of the reasons why they are opening it up a day early because they need to build word of mouth. And remember that this is an R rated movies so the young teenage boys are not the target

The reason why they are nervous is because of the graphic subject matter of the book as well as the ads which are clearly dark and cutting edge. The tag line is the "feel bad" movie of Christmas. Doesn't give you a lot of cheer during the holiday season. I think women can handle cutting edge ads, but if you are targeting women and want them to see the film, especially women who really liked the book because those are the ones who will start your much needed word of mouth, you need to get them in the theatre and not piss them off.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 19, 2011 12:30 PM
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8 Comments

I like the Golden Globe show cause it's always goofy. People drink, say funny stuff and you get TV and film people in one place. People who are awards watchers don't take it too seriously because they have two different film categories -- comedy and drama -- which no other awards do. The also kiss a lot of celebrity butt in order to have a star ladened show rather than a serious awards show. So you must not take anything these people do too seriously.

But they do get coverage and they do get talked about so it matters that with 11 films nominated in the two categories there is not a single woman directed film nominated for best drama or best comedy/musical. The Help and Bridesmaids continued their good week and I think that we will have to settle for one (The Help) or hopefully both of these films representing the chicks at the Oscars. So it will be films about women that will represent women, not films by women. But weirdly, the Bridesmaids writers did not get nominated here, nor did any other female film writers (except for Angelina Jolie who got a best foreign language film nomination).

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 16, 2011 9:49 AM
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1 Comment

Blogs

Check out this audio interview I did with Scott Feinberg - Oscar analyst at the Hollywood Reporter. We talked about the Oscar race with a feminist slant. I really enjoyed the conversation.