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

Star Trek Writer Sort of Apologizes for Misogyny in the Film

News

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

News

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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0 Comments

Features

As the Cannes Film Festival kicks off here is an infographic from French TV (and in French) that breaks down the difference between the US and French film industries.

By Melissa Silverstein
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May 15, 2013 11:45 AM
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8 Comments

News

Claire Messud's latest novel, The Woman Upstairs, has been getting a ton of great critical buzz (and was also in the recent women's fiction satire video Ron Charles released). In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Messud is asked about the likeability of her main character Nora. She completely calls out the interviewer--illuminating the sexism in a question that would not be posed to a male author in that way or asked at all.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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May 8, 2013 11:45 AM
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1 Comment

Features

When I was seven, my parents took me to a magic shop at Pier 39 in San Francisco. I bought my first magic trick, the Imp Bottle. I loved playing with it. Not long after that, my parents bought me a magic set with over 100 tricks. I performed just about every single one of them for the kids at my eight-year old birthday party. Some of them didn't always work right and I'm not sure the audience was completely attentive but I had fun exploring the mechanics of all the tricks. Years passed and I met many girls who were involved in community theater, but none involved with magic. Without any mentors or peers to encourage me, that magic set ended up in the closet.

By Tammy Caplan
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May 1, 2013 1:00 PM
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0 Comments

Video

Watch The Washington Post's book critic, Ron Charles hilariously satirize the idea of "women's fiction." He brings light to the sexism embedded within criticism and the truly horrendous VIDA statistics.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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April 26, 2013 11:15 AM
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0 Comments

Features

This came from Donnelly's piece on the latest episode of Mad Men in her ForbesWomen.com column.

By Liza Donnelly
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April 25, 2013 12:30 PM
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0 Comments

News

Last week at CinemaCon, they held a panel about women and the box office. Moderated by The Hollywood Reporter's Editorial Director, Janice Min, the panel touched upon the depressing statistics for female leads in films even though women drive much of the box office business.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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April 24, 2013 2:00 PM
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0 Comments

News

While we here at Women and Hollywood had many problems with the Oscars executive produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the Academy is very pleased that the show was able to bring in that coveted young male demographic. They are so happy that they made the early decision to rehire Meron and Zadan to be the 2014 producers for the event which will take place next March 2.

By Melissa Silverstein
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April 17, 2013 1:00 PM
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0 Comments

News

Actress Junie Hoang lost her lawsuit against IMDB for revealing her actual age online. Hoang first sued IMDB (and parent company Amazon) in October 2011 for $1 million for putting her actual age of 42 on the database without her consent.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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April 15, 2013 10:00 AM
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0 Comments

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