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.

Email Melissa

Purchase In Her Voice

Blog Roll

Media Alert: Op-ed in Washington Post

News

In case you haven't seen my tweets and Facebook posts from the weekend, I had an op-ed piece in the Washington Post yesterday.

By Melissa Silverstein
|
July 2, 2012 8:30 AM
|
2 Comments

Box Office

By Melissa Silverstein
|
June 25, 2012 11:15 AM
|
3 Comments

Blogs

That is the quote Meryl Streep uttered Tuesday night at the annual Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards. She was onstage to present Viola Davis with her Crystal Award for Excellence in Film.

By Melissa Silverstein
|
June 14, 2012 10:45 AM
|
10 Comments

Blogs

Here's my thing about the Oscars. There were women everywhere. We can't stop talking about the great dresses. Women were also there as great presenters (like the crew from Bridesmaids and Emma Stone) YET at the same time it felt like there were no women there. Because really, hardly any women won anything significant on Sunday night.

By Melissa Silverstein
|
February 28, 2012 12:00 PM
|
21 Comments

Blogs

The Hollywood Reporter released a story yesterday saying that Universal was planning on moving ahead with a Bridemaids sequel but that star/co-writer Kristen Wiig as well as co-writer Annie Mumolo are not interested in being a part of it.

By Melissa Silverstein
|
January 5, 2012 12:30 PM
|
2 Comments

Happy new year everyone. Thanks so much for the great support over the last year.

As we start the new year, I thought it would be interesting to look at the narratives that dominated the conversation over the past year. Would love to hear if you have any thoughts on other topics that dominated the conversations.

Here is what I came up with:

The success of Bridesmaids and the realization that women can be funny. (duh)

Winter's Bone and The Kids are All Right get best picture nominations for 2011.

Women directors not being in the conversation for the 2012 Oscar.

The breakout success of Jessica Chastain

The Help polarizes yet still succeeds at the box office.

Patty Jenkins gets hired and fired from Marvel's Thor 2.

Women make up only 33% of speaking parts in films and less than 10% of writers and directors.

Jennifer Yuh Nelson becomes the highest grossing women director with King Fu Panda 2.

By Melissa Silverstein
|
January 3, 2012 9:27 AM
|
0 Comments

Judd Apatow now knows that making a great movie targeted at women is a way to make money. You get the women and you get the men. Even though he looks prescient, he admits that he was making a movie targeted at women. But you gotta give him some credit because his whole point was that if you make a GOOD movie men and women will come. He just got them to walk through the women's door first which most people are afraid of. Now if only we could get the rest of Hollywood to understand this too. I'm not saying that Hollywood shouldn't make The Hangover, I'm saying they should figure out how to make The Hangover and Bridesmaids (or variations of comedies that star men, and comedies that star women.)

By Melissa Silverstein
|
December 21, 2011 11:56 AM
|
5 Comments

Brigitte Lacombe

Yesterday, the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild nominations were announced. Both The Help and Bridesmaids scored best ensembles nominations (which is their top award) which could be an indicator of potential Oscar love because the actors (a percentage of the SAG members pick these nominees) are the largest voting branch in the Academy. The Help actually scored the most nominations with four including both Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain in the supporting category.

Maybe being a movie about women won't hurt The Help, and the Bridesmaids nod along with the rising Melissa McCarthy makes me think it could potentially sneak in with a best picture nod because both men and women really love this movie. (As they should.)

By Melissa Silverstein
|
December 15, 2011 9:29 AM
|
0 Comments

Awards

This list reminds me that even though they have been upteen articles about how women are making great strides, there is still such a long way to go, because as I look at the lists I notice that there are very few female directors and creators.