Not all churches had women in leadership, but there were certainly women who functioned as deacons, widows, teachers, and apostles. It has been documented that women had leadership roles in early Christian churches. But as education became centralized and monetized, men often occupied leadership roles. In education, we know that the primary education of young children has been entrusted to women for ages. This has been a pattern in many fields and spheres of life. Owned by powerful men and backed by the male-dominated banking industry, studios began to exclude women from writing and directing and the unions followed suit. The scale of production and its costs ballooned, shutting down smaller studios and consolidating power into several large studios. Apparently, when technologies emerged that allowed sound to be incorporated in films, it required financial investment in these technologies as well as massive construction of sound stages where the films would be recorded. It was when the industry became more institutionalized and that women were pushed out of roles that shaped the content and production of films. I was surprised to learn that in the silent film era, women were commonly hired as writers, directors, and crewmembers. It became more patriarchal when it became more centralized and lucrative. What were these patterns?ġ – The film industry didn’t originally exclude women from positions of power. There are parallels between the way sexism manifests in entertainment and I, along with other members in the (predominantly female) audience, couldn’t help but see parallels in Hollywood’s patterns of exclusion and the discriminatory conditions we confront in numerous other industries and professions. What struck me at this viewing, though, was the way the film portrayed patterns that resonated with my experiences in academia and in religious communities. It is not the first time this theme has been explored in a documentary. This Changes Everything is about the representation of women in film, particularly their underrepresentation and misrepresentation on screen and in the film- and television-making process. I had no idea that this film would inform the way I viewed the movie industry and its most celebrated awards show. Spending Friday evening at a film festival seemed like an enjoyable and appropriate way to kick off a weekend that would culminate with the Academy Awards (the Oscars). Henson, Reese Witherspoon, Cate Blanchett, Tiffany Haddish, Jill Soloway, Shonda Rhimes, Jessica Chastain, Yara Shahidi, Chloe Grace Moretz, Amandla Stenberg, Alan Alda, Sandra Oh, Anita Hill, Rashida Jones, Rose McGowan, Judd Apatow, Rosario Dawson, Maria Giese, and many other influential voices in the fight for gender equality.Last week, I attended a film festival in Waco, Texas that showed the 2019 documentary This Changes Everything. Most importantly, the film seeks pathways and solutions from within and outside the industry, and around the world.įeaturing interviews with Geena Davis, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Taraji P. It takes an incisive look at the history, empirical evidence, and systemic forces that foster gender discrimination and thus reinforce disparity in our culture. Told first-hand by some of Hollywood’s leading voices behind and in front of the camera, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING is the award-winning 2019 feature-length documentary that uncovers what is beneath one of the most confounding dilemmas in the entertainment industry – the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women.
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