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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Women and Hollywood

Sue Kramer to Direct Amy Fine Collins' 'The God of Driving'

Sue Kramer, director of Gray Matters, is set to direct her adaptation of Amy Fine Collins' The God of Driving: How I Overcame Fear and Put Myself in the Driver's Seat (with the Help of a Good and Mysterious Man).
  • By Kerensa Cadenas
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  • May 24, 2013 11:30 AM
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Lake Bell On Women Directors: If You Happen to Have a Vagina, That's Okay

Lake Bell, director of the anticipated summer film In A World, spoke in an interview for her latest film that she acts in, Black Rock, directed by Katie Aselton, about being a woman director in Hollywood.
  • By Melissa Silverstein and Kerensa Cadenas
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  • May 23, 2013 1:30 PM
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Forbes Names World's 100 Most Powerful Women

Forbes has just named the World's 100 Most Poweful Women of 2013. And it's a very impressive list. It includes women in politics like Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany who was number one, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, women in technology like Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg and many other areas like philanthropy, business and fashion.
  • By Kerensa Cadenas
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  • May 23, 2013 12:41 PM
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Sony Head Amy Pascal on Women Directors: The Whole System is Geared for Them To Fail

Holy crap. In a revealing interview with Forbes' Dorothy Pomerantz on the occasion of the publication of the most powerful women in the world list, Sony studio chief Amy Pascal, the only female head of a major studio, actually answered some questions about the status of women in Hollywood, especially related to women directors.
  • By Melissa Silverstein
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  • May 23, 2013 9:03 AM
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  • 5 Comments

Star Trek Writer Sort of Apologizes for Misogyny in the Film

After Star Trek Into Darkness premiered this weekend, my Twitter feed was in a frenzy discussing a scene where Dr. Carol Marcus (Alice Eve), a USS Enterprise science officer, suddenly and without reason strips down to her underwear and Kirk (Chris Pine) sneaks a peek. Many of twitter complained about the lack of depth of the female characters in the film and were particularly mad about this scene that just had no purpose whatsoever.
  • By Kerensa Cadenas
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  • May 22, 2013 1:00 PM
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  • 6 Comments

Disney Renders Merida Even More Unrecognizable

Remember when we all felt some vague relief while we briefly thought that Disney had pulled the new, sexy Merida due to protests. Brave creator, Brenda Chapman, called Merida's makeover "atrocious" and the petition to get rid of the new Merida received over 229,000 signatures.  That is a huge amount of signatures.  People are pissed.
  • By Melissa Silverstein and Kerensa Cadenas
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  • May 22, 2013 10:00 AM
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Francois Ozon Believes That Many Women Fantasize About Being Prostitutes

You gotta love the news that comes out of Cannes. In between burglaries (they should check and see if the Bling Ring posse is still in town) you get some wonderful juicy tidbits from artists which cause you to wonder what the fuck are these people thinking.
  • By Melissa Silverstein
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  • May 21, 2013 1:30 PM
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  • 19 Comments

Quote of the Day: Michelle Rodriguez on Female Writers

  • By Kerensa Cadenas
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  • May 20, 2013 2:25 PM
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  • 1 Comment

British Study Shows Older Women are Pushed Off Screen

A British study showed that as women television hosts age, they are increasingly pushed off screen. The study, which looked at BBC, Sky, ITN and Channel 5, tallied that out of 481 presenters at all the networks only 26 women over 50 are regularly on screen.
  • By Kerensa Cadenas
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  • May 20, 2013 12:30 PM
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2013 Cannes News - Part 2

More lady news coming out of Cannes.
  • By Melissa Silverstein
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  • May 17, 2013 5:30 PM
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  • 0 Comments

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