Sexy Women and Comedy

Wading into the conversation about last week's 30 Rock and the convoluted relationship of feminism to women's humor, I want to first send kudos to Salon's Rebecca Traister and Women and Hollywood's guest blog by Emilie Spiegel.  You should know that my opinions come from my experiences performing in a Seattle late-night cabaret as a "babe"  - baby-voiced, blonde, and completely self-absorbed.  (Watch an old video of me in Freud & Box Envy on YouTube if you care to see where I'm coming from.)

Comedy with cleavage plays on the power of sex.  A gal who uses that power without admitting that she's doing it risks pissing other women off.  You can get the guys with testosterone poisoning to swear they love you for your brains, but don't expect me to buy the lie.  I don't mind if Babycakes gets what she wants by dumbing down or dressing up.  I mind if she turns to me with those same wide eyes and innocently demands I accept her status as coming from her brains, artistry, or great personality. 

Do You Write Like a Man or a Woman?

There's a program called the Gender Genie  that supposedly tells you if you write like a man or a woman.  It turns out that I write more like a man (Female score: 300/ Male score: 370)  Hollywood, do you hear?  I write like a man! 

How about you broads?  Do broads write more like men or women.  Post your scores and let me know.

A Super 8 Film Festival- Watch and Enter

Straight 8 is a film festival that invites you to shoot a film on one Super 8 cartridge. The entry fee includes the cartridge. They send it, you shoot and send it back. Then they process it, you send the soundtrack separately. No editing. They'll be at Sundance this year if you plan to go. Meanwhile, you can watch some of the best films from previous years here. Some really creative stuff. Entry deadline: March 1.

Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative

Met this great bunch of women working to raise awareness in Los Angeles of the stage work done by women.  They have launched an organization called the Female Playwrights Initiative - FPI.  The sad fact is that too few of the plays by women are getting produced and the skew in the voices is resulting in a skew in the stories.  I think that our stories are not serving us very well these days, caused at least in part by the narrow range of narratives that get exposure.  More women's voices would benefit not only the women writers, but the culture as a whole. 

It would be great if we would all take the time to go and enjoy the work of one woman a month, be it a play or a movie or an art exhibit.  Perhaps we can make it a group outing and meet and greet for a beverage or snack before or after.  We need to have fun supporting women or it becomes a chore. But if we don't support women in the arts, then how can we complain about the movies, the music, all the stories out there that fail to engage us because we're not the target audience.

So how about it.  Anybody up for a "women's work" play group to go to one event a month?

Who Gave You Your Inspiration or Aspiration?

I'd like to know who have been the women - and men - who inspired you to take on the creative life or who helped you give yourself permission to aspire to it.  We broads think we've got something to say that others need to hear, whether they know it or not.  How did we get so confident?  Or driven?  I'd like to see if we share common heroines, real or fictional.  Maybe there are some women who we should be recognizing as part of the festival for their contribution to our lives.

I have a host of women I can point to.  As I'm an old broad, mine are pretty old school. The first name I have to put on the list is Anita Loos.   Female scifi/fantasy writers like Ursula LeGuin and Andre Norton were other writing inspirations, though neither of these is funny.  Then comediennes like Carol Burnett and Jean Harlow. (Lucille Ball was not my favorite.  I preferred Ethel.)

Another role model for me from a young age was Barbra Streisand.  She did not look like any other woman at the pinnacle of American success anywhere, she had worked her way up with talent, and she took the reins like it was a woman's right to do so.  There weren't any women directors that I knew of.  (Okay, so there are only a few now.  At least there ARE a few.)  Streisand directed and I remember thinking, "Can she do that?"  I've come a long way, baby.

So how about you?  If you have time, please share your thoughts along with the names.  I think we are in trouble as a society because the stories manufactured in the marketplace are failing us.  I'd like to get down to the root with some real stories and see if we can make a fertile field for a new narrative crop to nurture our minds and spirits.

The Circle of Time

To celebrate the circle of yearly renewal instead of the line of time and entropy, here's a video from Sweden that gives you a year of nature in 60 seconds.

Guerilla Girls Girlcott List

The Guerilla Girls have released a list of theaters in the US who are not producing a single play by a woman on their main stages for the 2010/11 season with the intention of organizing a "girlcott" against their lopsided artistic vision. Coming from the theater to movies, every playwrights group I ever belonged to was around 50% female. The stats are sad no matter where you go.

To view the list, go to the full post. And shame on them all.

The New Group, New York, NY**
American Folklore Theatre, Fish Creek, WI**
Full Circle Theatre Company, Jersey City, NJ**
Park Players, Birmingham, AL**
Profile Theater Project, Portland, OR**
New Stage Theatre, Jackson, MS**
Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Chicago, IL**
A Noise Within Glendale, CA**
Seattle Shakespeare Company, Seattle, WA**
Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Cleveland, OH**
Theater for a New Audience, New York, NY**
American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, CA**
Delaware Theatre Company, Wilmington, DE
Florida Studio Theatre, Sarasota, FL
Ford’s Theatre, Washington, DC*
Hartford Stage Company, Hartford, CT
Laguna Playhouse, Laguna Beach, CA*
Lincoln Center Theater, New York, NY*
Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, NY
TheaterWorks, Hartford, CT
Ivoryton Playhouse, Ivoryton, CT
Trinity Repertory Company, Providence, RI
Signature Theatre Company, New York, NY
American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, MA
Connecticut Repertory Theater, Storrs, CT
The Repertory Theater of New Britain, New Britain, CT
Book-It Repertory Theater, Seattle, WA
Sierra Repertory Theater, Sonora, CA
Seaside Repertory Theater, Santa Rosa Beach, FL
Telluride Repertory Theater Company, Telluride, CO
Jewish Repertory Theater of Western New York, Buffalo, NY
Coastal Repertory Theater, Half Moon Bay, CA
Rocky Mountain Repertory Theater, Grand Lake, CO
Castaways Repertory Theater, Woodbridge, VA
Jonesborough Repertory Theater, Jonesborough, TN
Texas Repertory Theater, Houston, TX
Stageloft Theater, Sturbridge, MA
SecondStory Repertory, Redmond, WA
Third Rail Repertory Theater, Portland, OR
Repertory Theater of Iowa, Des Moines, IA
California Repertory Company, Long Beach, CA
McKinney Repertory Theater, McKinney, TX
Penguin Rep Theater, Stony Point, NY
Delaware Theatre Company, Wilmington, DE
City Theater Company, Wilmington, DE
University Theater of Georgia, Athens, GA
Diamond Head Theater, Honolulu, HI
Boise Contemporary Theater, Boise, ID
Boise Little Theater, Boise, ID
Illusion Theater, Minneapolis, MD
Theater in the Round Playhouse, Minneapolis, MD
Rosedale Community Players, Southfield, MI
11:11 Theatre Company, Boston, MA
Whistler in the Dark, Everett, MA
Lofte Community Theater, Manley, NE
The Attic Ensemble, Jersey City, NJ
Dreamcatcher Repertory Theater, South Orange, NJ
Theaterwork, Santa Fe, NM
Adobe Theater, Albuquerque, NM
North Carolina Theater, Raleigh, NC
The Clemson Little Theater, Pendleton, SC
Centre Stage, Greenville, SC
Mariemont Players, Cincinnati, OH
Showboat Majestic Theater, Cincinnati, OH
CATCO, Columbus, OH
Licking County Players, Newark, OH
Artist’s Cooperative Theater, Nashville, TN
Community Playhouse, Tullahoma, TN
American Heartland Theater, Kansas City, MO
Hangar Theater, Ithaca, NY
Lucille Ball Theatre, Jamestown, NY
San Angelo Civic Theatre, San Angelo, TX
Vortex Theater, Austin, TX
Beaumont Community Players, Beaumont, TX
Unity Theatre, Brenham, TX
Theatre Three, Dallas, TX
Ennis Public Theatre, Ennis, TX
Kaufman Civic County Theatre, Terrell, TX
Vermont Stage Company, Burlington, VT
Essex Community Players, Essex, VT
Northern Stage Company, White River Junction
Gala Hispanic Theater, Washington, DC*
Jackson County Community Theatre, Brownstown, IN
Sugar Creek Players, Crawford, IN
American Theatre Company, Chicago, IL
Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Chicago, IL
Oracle Productions, Chicago, IL **
Organic Theatre, Chicago, IL
Raven Theatre, Chicago, IL **
Remy Bumppo, Chicago, IL **
Signal Ensemble Theater, Chicago, IL
Steep Theatre Company, Chicago, IL
Strawdog Theater, Chicago, IL
The Gift Theater Company, Chicago, IL
The House Theatre, Chicago, IL
Hypocrites, Chicago, IL **
The Mammals, Chicago, IL
Timeline Theater, Chicago, IL
TUTA Theater, Chicago, IL **
Writers Theatre, Chicago, IL
Clinton County Civic Theatre, Frankfort, IN
Red Barn Theatre, Frankfort, IN
Fort Wayne Civic Theatre, Ft. Wayne, IN
Footlite Musicals, Indianapolis, IN
Mud Creek Players, Indianapolis, IN
Munster Theatre Company, Munster, IN
Richmond Civic Theatre, Richmond, IN
Community Theatre of Terra Haute, Terra Haute, IN
Colonial Playhouse, Aldan, PA
Act II Playhouse, Ambler, PA
The Actors’ Net, Bucks County, PA
Totem Pole Playhouse, Fayetteville, PA
Fulton Opera House, Lancaster, PA
Hedgerow Theatre, Media, PA

* indicates no women directors have been hired either
** indicates multiple years on the Girlcott List