Academy Awards: Should We Care That There are No Women Nominated for Best Director?

OpEd Project founder and folklorist Katie Orenstein weighs in on movies and the Oscars.

Movies aren’t just entertainment. They are modern myths through which we interpret the world and tell our story. Why are we here? What is the nature of our existence? What is it all for?

When I say “our story,” of course, I don’t mean all our stories. I mean the collective story that a small number of us imagine and tell for everyone else. Very few top-budget films in Hollywood have female directors. I spoke about this with the director Catherine Hardwick (Twilight, etc.) in Delta Sky Magazine a year or two ago (excerpt here). Budgets affect the kinds of stories that can be told, and how far they travel – whether we are talking about journalism or Hollywood. Awards and attention do too – which is why I hope everyone checks out this video acknowledging the past year’s great movies directed by women who aren’t up for Oscars.

Should we care that there are no women nominated for the category of Best Director this year? I think the real question is not about the movies or the directors we may admire or recognize tonight, but about the world we can imagine, or not – that does not yet exist. And about those who mediate our collective imagination, toward that possibility. What does it mean to be excluded from the ranks of such enormous interpreters, our modern day shamans?

Newshook & Opportunity for Population & Aging Experts

Robert Butler, who won a Pulitzer for his work on aging, and coined the term agism, died on Sunday. The New York Times notes:

In speech after speech, he pounded home the message that longevity in the United States had increased by 30 years in the 20th century — greater than the gain during the preceding 5,000 years of human history — and that this had led to profound changes in every aspect of society, employment and politics among them.

Intro/Have You Weighed In?

Hello. The new Social Media Intern, Jordan, here. For my first blog post, I wanted to take a little time to introduce myself, and then encourage you to weigh in on an extremely important current issue.

I am from Cambridge City, a small town in East-Central Indiana with a population of about 2,000. I am a senior at Oberlin College, where I am a History major and am working on minors in French, Jewish Studies, and Russian and East European Studies. I am passionate about AIDS research, human rights, and the environment. That last one is especially relevant now, with what is certainly one of the worst environmental disasters of our time - the BP oil spill.

Although many people are joining in this discussion and are representing many different perspectives, we want to highlight more women’s voices. I personally would like to hear from people with knowledge about the positives and consequences of oil as a fuel or political insight into the responses and actions of BP and President Obama from the past couple of weeks.

Here are a few different Op-Eds to get you thinking:

• OEP alum Christine Bader wrote a fun piece in the Christian Science Monitor titled “BP, Goldman Sachs, and Massey could learn a lot from ultimate frisbee” where she discusses government regulation of industries.
• In the Chicago Tribune, there’s an article about how “BP Bashing is getting a little out of control.”
• Columnist Anna Applebaum of the Washington Post wrote about the issues  behind President Obama’s “talking tough” in an article called “The Oil Spill isn’t Obama’s Katrina.”
• An article in the LA Times, “The gulf tragedy doesn’t negate the fact that oil is a green fuel,” discusses the use of oil rather than other fuels.
• And here’s an article from my hometown paper, the Palladium Item, about why the unrest about the oil spill is “Healthy in the Long Run”. Although I may not always agree with the spin on my local news (hardly ever, actually), I do agree that the oil spill has presented a greater opportunity for the search for alternative energy sources.

I’m glad to be here and I hope to read some of your insights!

Landmark Healthcare Reform: Have You Weighed In?

After a historic week for our nation’s health care reform, we want to highlight women’s voices on the bill and on the issue.  To OpEd Project alums with expertise in healthcare, we urge you to weigh in – we’ll happily match you with one of our mentor-editors if you’d like support.  We also urge you to send women with expertise in healthcare to the Project – this month, we will be reserving a set number of scholarships in our seminars nationwide for women in this field.  Meanwhile, thanks to The Women’s Media Center for gathering the below links – which spotlight key statements on behalf of women.

• NARAL  
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/news/press-releases/2010/pr03212010-finalhousehcr.html

• NOW
http://www.now.org/press/03-10/03-21b.html

• Planned Parenthood
http://www.ppaction.org/network/hcr10fvng?source=hcr10fv_pphp

• Raising Women’s Voices
http://www.raisingwomensvoices.net/raisingwomensvoices-blog/2010/3/21/health-reform-passes-congress-in-historic-vote.html

• Women’s Campaign Forum  
http://www.wcfonline.org/sites/wcf/index.php/sn/pyc2010_release_equality

• Catholics for Choice  
http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/OneStepForwardOneStepBack.asp

Woodhull Writer’s Retreat!

Raise Your Voices: An Intensive Nonfiction Writing Retreat for Women

April 9-11, 2010; Ancramdale, NY

October 8-10, 2010; Ancramdale, NY

November 12-14, 2010; San Francisco Bay Area

(Retreat starts Friday at 1PM and ends Sunday at 3PM)

Seminars by Deborah Siegel, Catherine Orenstein, Sunny Sea Gold, Kristin Kemp, & Barbara Victor on how to write an op-ed, how to write a feature article, how to write a book proposal, and generate non-fiction narrative and argument.

Cost: Due to the rising price of fuel Woodhull has adjusted their prices for the 2009, 2010 Calendar Year. While tuition will stay at $495 there is a fee of $100 a night for room and board. Seek scholarship from your institution or place of employment.

For sign-up and more info see: http://www.woodhull.org/writersRetreat.php?id=1

Op-Ed Opportunity: Superbowl Ad Crying out for Commentary

A new anti-choice advertisement slated to run during the Superbowl that “uses one story to subtly dictate morality to the American public, and encourages women to disregard medical advice, potentially putting their lives at risk.”

This situation is particularly striking, considering that CBS’s Superbowl ads have, in the past, been carefully vetted to exclude ads where “substantial elements of the community (are) in opposition to one another” – for example, ads from PETA and MoveOn.org.

In the ad—paid for by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family—Pam Tebow explains how, after contracting amoebic dysentery on a missionary trip to the Philippines, she refused to listen to the doctors who advised her to abort her pregnancy when “the medicines used for her recovery threatened her unborn fetus.” That fetus turned out to be football superstar Tim Tebow.

“An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year – an event designed to bring Americans together regardless of background, faith, ideology or political affiliation,” says Jehmu Greene, President of the Women’s Media Center.

Please consider writing an op-ed about this!

The Women’s Media Center has launched a campaign calling CBS to immediately pull this anti-choice advertisement set to air during Super Bowl XLIV and has been blogging about the issue here. Here are some angles they’ve suggested:

- faith perspective
- medical (doctor/nurse) perspective
- woman who faced same situation as Pam Tebow, made different decision
- diehard sports fan, keep your politics out of my football game
- parents of children watching Super Bowl – having the discussion the ad will bring up
- female athlete perspective – how would this conversation be different if a woman athlete was talking about choice

Democracy 911

Democracy and Civil Engagement Retreat

Presented by the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership

February 18-21st, 2010; Ancramdale, NY

Most U.S. citizens, even those with the most to offer as citizen leaders, know very little about how this country works and what they can do to make it better.  In a long weekend, a team of professionals will lead a true non-partisan “Democracy 911” retreat.  Retreatants will receive a core grounding in the principles of the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as a refresher on the separation of powers.

Speakers Include: Shahid Buttar, Catherine Orenstein, Jacquette Timmons, Naomi Wolf, Wende Jager-Hyman, Matthis Chiroux and Karla Jackson-Brewer

Cost: $395 plus $200 lodging, totaling $595.

Limited scholarships are available.

Contact Laura Sinkman at LSinkman@woodhull.org and at 646-435-0837. Or for more information or to register: http://www.woodhull.org/pageView.php?id=5

Don’t forget: America’s Next Great Pundit contest!

Don’t forget that The Washington Post is offering its readers a chance to write to change the world with the America’s Next Great Pundit competition. The deadline to enter the contest, with a 400-word argument, is 11:59pm on Wednesday the 21^st. If you’ve been to an OEP workshop, this is your chance to put what you learned there into action!

If you had 400 words to change the world, what would you write? Better figure it out soon, because the deadline is fast approaching!

Are you America’s Next Great Pundit?

The Washington Post is holding a contest to find America’s next great opinion commentator.  Is it you? You’ll never know unless you try. Here’s a description of the competition:

“Send us a short opinion essay (400 words or less) pegged to a topic in the news and an additional paragraph (100 words or less) on yourself and why you should win. Entries will be judged on the basis of style, intelligence and freshness of argument, but not on whether Post editors agree or disagree with your point of view. Entry deadline: Oct. 21, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Beginning on or about Oct. 30, ten prospective pundits will get to compete for the title of America’s Next Great Pundit, facing off in challenges that test the skills a modern pundit must possess. They’ll have to write on deadline, hold their own on video and field questions from Post readers. (Contestants won’t have to quit their day jobs, but they should be prepared to put in about eight hours a week for three weeks.) After each round, a panel of Post personalities will offer kudos and catcalls, and reader votes will help to determine who gets another chance at a byline and who has to shut down their laptop.

The ultimate winner will get the opportunity to write a weekly column that may appear in the print and/or online editions of The Washington Post, paid at a rate of $200 per column, for a total of 13 weeks and $2,600. Our Opinions lineup includes a dozen Pulitzer Prize winners, regulars on the national political talk shows and some of the most influential players inside the Beltway. We’ll set our promising pundit on a path to become the next byline in demand, the talking head every show wants to book, the voice that helps the country figure out what’s really going on.”

This is an amazing opportunity, for OEP alums, and for aspiring opinion writers everywhere. DON’T miss out. You’ve got twenty days to write the 400 words – the one argument – that could change your life! Get cracking!