Saturday, October 15, 2011

Miss Representation

Miss Representation is a documentary written and directed by Stanford University graduate Jennifer Siebel Newsom about how women are portrayed by the media. It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival under the Documentary competition on January 22, 2011 and was shown at the Athena Film Festival in New York City on February 12, 2011.

Its broadcast rights was bought by Oprah Winfrey's OWN to premiere on October 20 9/8c in the United States.



From its official website:
...the film exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. The film challenges the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions and for the average woman to feel powerful herself.
An interesting documentary this is. We've had two female presidents in the Philippines, have voted for female senators, Congress representatives and provincial governors, appointed female judges and Ombudsman and such but media still plays a strong role in packaging women in molds that place them on pedestals or re-create stereotypes that make them "desirable" and unreal.

In other words, we do have our own mis[s]-representations of women's issues that aren't fully addressed or handled exhaustively despite more women significantly visible in media as media practitioners themselves. Having more women in this field does not mean more women (in general) have become fully aware of their rights as citizens or of their roles in nation-building. One only has to note young girls' role models (mostly female celebrities on covers of the glossies) or the rising incidents of violence against women and children.[1]

More details on Missrepresentation.org

[1] "...From January through November, the (Philippine National Police) PNP reported 9,225 cases of domestic violence against women and their children, a 91 percent increase over the same period last year. This number likely underreported significantly the level of violence against women and children."2010 Human Rights Report: Philippines / Download the PDF

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