I’ve been reading The Halo Effect: … and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers by Phil Rosenzweig. It’s all about how businesses create stories to explain success and failure instead of looking at hard data and analyzing what really happened. For example, when Cisco was riding high, its employees were happy, its CEO had a brilliant sense of making acquisitions, etc. When Cisco’s [...]
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discussion:Industry Buzz
When I was working in film, I asked many people why blockbuster movies so rarely featured female leads. In response, I was always assured that mountains of hard-data proof indicated audiences won’t accept female lead characters in blockbuster movies. For some reason, perhaps given the time period, Barb Wire (Pamela Anderson) was frequently cited as proof of this – as if nothing could have possibly [...]
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the Bechdel test. Many people think the goal is to pass the test, but actually, that’s not it at all. For those who don’t know, the “test” comes from a comic in which one character cleverly gets out of going to the movies with another by saying she will only go to a movie that contains [...]
Over the years since I started this website, I’ve had a few anonymous emails from young women complaining about similar difficulties at film school to the ones I experienced. But another experience I’ve heard recounted from more than one source goes something like this: Young woman: “I want to direct films.” Film pros/professors: “No, you don’t. All the real power is in producing. That’s what [...]
There’s a reason why I’ve never really stated whether I’m pro- or anti-porn: my position is not that simple. And I don’t understand why anyone thinks it can be that simple. Not everyone’s working from the same definition of “porn”, for one thing. But there are so many elements to this conversation. In fact, forget porn for a minute. Anemone distilled something for me a [...]
In 2008, two articles appeared on the online version of the London Times. The first, on September 6, asks: Was Alfred Hitchcock a misogynist? He was adored by actresses. The second, just a few days later on September 11, contradicts the first: Tippi Hedren: Alfred Hitchcock tried to destroy my career. Of course, in 2005, the very same website contains an article with this headline: [...]
Melissa Silverstein reported recently that Megan Fox is off the third Transformers movie because she’s sick of Michael Bay’s well-known verbal abuse and crap in general. This isn’t too surprising, considering Bay had Fox wash his car for her audition. But will calling him on his misdeeds hurt him any? Silverstein says: But he gets away with this shit over and over because no one [...]
