An Odd Coincidence

Just the other day I stumbled upon this video from Feminist Frequency: Women’s Stories, Movies and the Oscars.

I always find the Feminist Frequency videos interesting, not because they tell me something I don’t already know, but because of the way they present the information. Sure, I know that Hollywood is male-dominated; but when you see 50 years of “best picture” winners in a row and only a handful of female-centered ones, it really hits home.

(While this next bit seems unrelated, it’ll all come together in the end…wait and see.)

Today I picked up on a scrapbooking project I had previously started (in 2008!) If I’m scrapbooking alone, I always like to have TV or a movie on in the background, although it either has to be something I’m not terribly interested in or something I’ve seen numerous times so that I keep my concentration on the project at hand. Today, I went with tried-and-true movies as my background. On the table were Waitress, The Jane Austen Book Club, and Persuasion. Two others that I considered but ultimately nixed (and did not need in the end for I was done with my project) were Persepolis and Sense and Sensibility. These movies cover widely different locales and time periods but there is one thing they all have in common – they are all women’s stories. (See, I told you it would all come around!) I did not plan this – indeed, I did not even realize it until mid-way through Persuasion. So, if you ever find yourself frustrated with male-centered movies, you might want to try one of these on for size.

Waitress

Pregnant and living with an abusive husband, pie diner waitress Jenna dreams of winning a pie-baking contest and earning enough money to leave her husband.

- Related to my earlier post on food-related movies, this one makes you hunger for some of Jenna’s unique and interestingly-named pies. Ned’s pies at The Pie Hole, while appetizing, don’t hold a candle.

- One thing that always gets me wondering about this movie – does anyone know where it is supposed to be located? The town seems rural and the residents’ accents sound Southern, but I don’t think the locale is ever named. The only state I know they aren’t in is Connecticut, as that’s where Dr. Pomatter has relocated from at the beginning of the film.

The Jane Austen Book Club

Five women and one man deal with the ups and downs of life and love as they meet each month to discuss the six major novels of Jane Austen.

Persuasion

At age 19, Anne Eliot was talked out marrying Captain Wentworth because he had neither title nor fortune equivalent to her family’s. Eight years later, Captain Wentworth has returned from war prosperous with Anne still in love with him. But Captain Wentworth’s affections now seem to lie elsewhere.

Persepolis

This autobiographical tale, told here as an animated film, covers Marjane Satrapi’s life growing up in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath.

Sense and Sensibility

After their father’s death, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are left in a precarious financial state and are forced to remove to the countryside. There, both deal with loss and love in their own way – Elinor with a practical outlook and Marianne all emotion and impulsivity.

The Feminist Frequency video notes that male-centered stories overshadow women’s stories because men dominate the movie-making process. It’s worth noting then that Waitress was directed by a woman and the other four movies are all based on books with female authors.