Posted in Film & TV on August 25th, 2009 by Morgan Elizabeth
Not since the coverage of JonBenet Ramsey in 1996, have we seen so much media attention paid to child beauty pageants. Only this time, it’s for a profit. Reality TV, documentaries and talk shows have all capitalized on the subculture, especially recently.
Baby Beauty Queens (BBC)
This feature-length documentary, created by the BBC and People Documentaries, looks at contestants with a greater depth than most reality shows.
To stream the full film for free on YouTube, see Parts[1] [2][3][4] [5] and[6].
Toddlers & Tiaras (TLC)
“Toddlers & Tiaras” shows how pageantry can breed conflict and resentment between mothers, daughters, and sisters. (Each featured clip is under 1:30)
Mother/daughter pageants seem less about bonding and more about beating down the competition.
With mom picking favorites, AshLynn fades into the background, while BreAnne can barely fit her head through the door. It’s a good thing pageantry pays well; they’ll need it for therapy in a few years.
Megan has no problem telling America where her priorities are.
Conor Knighton fromCurrent InfoMania recaps more pageant show highlights, in his segment “Itsy Bitsy Beauty Queens.”
Posted in Film & TV on May 3rd, 2009 by Morgan Elizabeth
As a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal founded the Tribeca Film Festival, in hopes of revitalizing the morale of lower Manhattan. Seven years later, the festival has gained international recognition, letting New York stand shoulder to shoulder with Sundance, Venice and Cannes in the top tier festival circuit.
TRIBECA FEMALE DIRECTORS 2009
“It is a great year for women filmmakers at Tribeca”, says Genna Terranova, Senior Film Programmer of the festival.
Get a glimpse of some of the newest indie films out there,
and the strong women who called the shots.
“Le Bal Des Actrices”(All About Actresses)
Director Maïwenn Le Besco, France
Director Maiwenn Le Besco
Maïwenn Le Besco credits “This is Spinal Tap” for inspiring her mockumentary on the film industry. Le Besco, an actress herself (Haute Tension, The Fifth Element), invited all of her coworkers to join in on the project.
Some humor might be lost on viewers unfamiliar with French film culture, but Le Besco assures us that it still reflects American Hollywood culture. ”Everything is fake,” she declares. “I’ve been famous, and I’ve been forgotten.”
Ironically, that same disillusionment with fame has now relaunched her cinematic career – only this time, she’s in charge.
“Serious Moonlight”
Director Cheryl Hines
Director Cheryl Hines
“They just went for it,” recalls director Cheryl Hines,referring to her leading ladies, Meg Ryan and Kristen Bell. “Watching two blondes rolling on the floor [in a fight scene] was very fun.”
“Serious Moonlight” is the Curb Your Enthusiasm actress’ directorial debut. This dark romantic comedy revolves around the failing marriage of a couple, played by Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton, whose problems only get worse when Kristen Bell and Justin Long enter the picture.
“TiMER”
Director Jac Schaeffer
Director Jac Schaeffer
New technology helps lonely hearts find love in the not-so-distant future. A wrist implant, called the “TiMER” lets people know the exact time they’ll meet their soul mate. It leaves the audience amused and perplexed, begging the question, “would you really want to know?”
Director Jac Schaeffer described her creative process, saying, ”I wrote TiMER because I couldn’t wait any longer. I had made this vow to myself that I would direct a feature before I turned 30, and I wanted to stop just saying that I was a filmmaker and actually make a film.”
“Queen to Play”
Director Caroline Bottaro (France)
Director Caroline Bottaro
Kevin Kline and Sandrine Bonnaire lead this film about “internal change, empowerment and evolution,” says director Caroline Bottaro. Kline said he took on the film as an excuse to work with “this lady who I admired for years.”
Bonnaire’s character, a woman from humble origins, has ability to master the game and ultimately beat her male teacher. Typically, “chess is associated with men, with the elite,” Bottaro says. So, she set out to challenge that standard and to shape a stronger image of women in her film. Bottaro hopes this film can send a message of empowerment for all women.
“Handsome Harry”
Director Bette Gordon
Director Bette Gordon
Steve Buscemi, on his deathbed, desperately seeks forgiveness from his past Navy crewman. It’s a story of breaking life’s comfortable monotony to finally confront the past.
“El Niño Pez” (The Fish Child)
Director Lucía Puenzo, Argentina
[no English trailer available; for Spanish trailer,click here]
Director Lucía Puenzo
“I was always fascinated by legends; they’re created from a very dark crime, an unsolved story,” says Argentinean director Lucía Puenzo. Such was the starting point for her new film, ”The Fish Child”.
It follows two young lesbian lovers who disregard all social hierarchies or boundaries of class. Puenzo is both brazen and non-judgmental in her directorial aesthetic, and often leaves situations open-ended. She insists, “People should have the freedom in it to see what they want to see.”
“Variety”
Director Bette Gordon
[no official trailer available]
Director Bette Gordon
This racy film comments on voyeurism and the porn industry, from a female perspective. A porn theater ticket-taker, played by Sandy McLeod, is infinitely curious about the underbelly of human sexuality, and begins to stalk a male patron.
Gordon made the film in 1983, and the restored film print was re-screened to accompany her newest feature, “Handsome Harry”. The film was provided courtesy of the Women’s Film Preservation Fund of NYWIFTand The Museum of Modern Art, Department of Film.
“Playground”
Director Libby Spears
Director Libby Spears
Libby Spears’ documentary, backed by George Clooney andSteven Soderbergh bravely explores the child sex trade right here in America.
The most common trafficking locales are New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. However, the epidemic is rising rapidly in Oregon, as well.
Spears went to Oregon, searching for one girl in particular: an abused foster child, who “disappeared” years ago into this nationwide network of child prostitution.
“Which Way Home”
Director Rebecca Cammisa
[no official trailer available]
Director Rebecca Cammisa
Two Honduran pre-teens go to any lengths to cross the U.S. border through Mexico. Their optimism and perseverence transcends even the most dangerous conditions. In this transient, modern-day underground railroad, it’s not uncommon to come across gangs, gunfire, drugs and murder.
Cammissa said she made the film because, “People are [trying] to get to the U.S. any way they can. And they’re making dangerous, dangerous decisions.” By highlighting the journey from a child’s point of view, she hopes to raise awareness and further American debate on reevaluating border control.
“Entre Nos”(Between Us)
Directors Paola Mendoza & Gloria La Morte, Colombia
Director Paola Mendoza
Director Gloria La Morte
Director Paola Mendoza admitted that it wasn’t easy getting Entre Nos made.This intensely dramatic film was based on own mother, and required her to explore the complexities and flaws of her personal hero.
It’s a story of poor immigrants attempting to raise several children in an unwelcoming American culture allowed the audience to “learn about what it is to lead a hard life, … that you don’t always have to be rich to be happy.”
Obsession with appearance hollows out many women on Reality TV. According to a Media Ethics Online investigation of reality television producers, the goal during production is to wrangle attractive people who will “create entertaining stories,” because health and normalcy are ratings killers.
The premiere of ABC’s 2003 series “Are You Hot?“was the network’s highest rated debut in 9 years, since “My So Called Life” in 1994.
The unabashedly superficial series was cancelled after just one season. The chairman of ABC’s entertainment division told Reuters the show was dropped because “ultimately … it was in bad taste.”
Howard Stern sues ABC over reality series “Are You Hot?”
What he didn’t say was that Howard Stern was suing ABC, claiming the show was “a blatant rip-off” of a segment on Stern’s radio show called “The Evaluators”, in which contestants are judged on whether they are “hot” enough to appear in Playboy or Penthouse. ABC was legally required to pull the program due to pending litigation, but they naturally chose a more image-friendly justification for doing so.
The three-season nightmare that was“Extreme Makeover”featured incorrigibly desperate people pleading with ABC to give them a plastic surgery overhaul. From 2003- 2005, the network treated 91 patients, and gave them an average of seven plastic surgeries per person.
Dr. Jon Perlman became one of the show’s resident plastic surgeons, and was often criticized for performing hyper-critical and unnecessary diagnoses on the patients. In 2007, two years after the show was cancelled, he conceded to these accusations. He said “participants could benefit from experts in hair, makeup, styling and fashion” and usually didn’t need the “dramatic changes” through plastic surgery.
In 2004, Fox and Freemantle Productions teamed up to create“The Swan”, a reality competition in which self-proclaimed “ugly ducklings” vied for the chance to be made virtually unrecognizable. The girl with the greatest apparent transformation, through plastic surgery and a stylist makeover, would win the title of “The Swan”.
From student to Stepford: “Swan” contestant Beth L.
Executive Producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz defended the series from its many critics, saying “This is a positive show where we want to see how these women can make their dreams come true once they have what they want.” The reason why it promoted physical change to achieve happiness – rather than emotional, mental or otherwise – was not something she was willing to elaborate on.
Spring 2009 brought a controversial reality show to FX in the United Kingdom: “Pimp Up My Wife”. Here, husbands compete for the chance to get their wives plastic surgery. Some of the women seem pleased, others are unpleasantly surprised by a camera crew at the door. Of course, the show producers are quick to say, “it is a voluntary program, and the wives are free to refuse our offer.” So can they also refuse the public humiliation that comes with it?
According to the London PR Newswire,
“Pimp Up My Wife” has been created following FX Channel market research, indicating: – before marriage, 20% wished their other half was better looking
- 52% of married men find their wives less attractive after five years of marriage
- 81% of married women are unhappy with their current body image
- 49% of women would consider a tummy tuck if they could afford it
- 59% of married men have considered cheating on their wives for younger, sexier woman
- 3 in 10 men admitted to thinking of someone else in the bedroom
Advertised by producer Ashton Kutcher as “the ultimate social experiment,” “Beauty and the Geek”pairs “hot” ditzes with awkward “geeks” in an attempt to make the hotties smarter and the nerds sexier.
The shameless stereotypes rule out any possibility of someone being attractive and intelligent, or being attractive because they’re intelligent.
Production on the 13th season of“America’s Next Top Model”began in Spring 2009. While the photo shoots can be creative, and the judges insist the show goes more than just “skin deep”, the CW has a hard time convincing critics that ANTM is harmless. After all, it advises the contestants to be hyper-critical of their already waif-like physiques, and if they waver in the competition, they need to “spend more time in the mirror”.
"America's Next Top Model", Season 9
Of course, some say any show rooted in the modeling world is inherently superficial. Executive Producer Tyra Banks urges critics to blame the fashion industry, not her TV show. With one glance at the number of model-hopefuls in line, ANTM’s impact is undeniable.
What she doesn’t address, however, is the fact that she repeatedly contradicts herself. Her passionate rants about promoting self acceptance and being angry with the modeling industry stand in blatant contrast to the unhealthy and degrading stereotypes cycling through her very own modeling show. How can Tyra hang girls’ dreams on the very industry you admit is hurting them?
The Spring 2009 ANTM casting call in Manhattan broke out into a frenzied stampede when a prankster yelled “There’s a bomb!”
The success of ANTM has spawned a host of copycat modeling shows. Bravo wrangled Tyson Beckford and Nikki Taylor (later replaced by model Nicole Trunfio) to host what’s generally referred to as the “bastardized ANTM”.
In “Make Me A Supermodel”, you’ll find much more emphasis on sex, especially since male and female models are competing. You’ll also find less emphasis on creativity, and no concern for harvesting emotional honesty on camera. This show actually makes “America’s Next Top Model” seem mature and profound, which is a frightening reality for us all.
Bravo's "Make Me A Supermodel", Season 1
E!’s “The Soup” host Joel McHale mocks the ridiculous and empty sexual nature of “Make Me A Supermodel”.
VH1 lowered the bar even further with their own reality model competition. Cheap, gimmicky exploitation has defined the network of late, and“America’s Most Smartest Model”is a prime example. The premise is rather basic: cast uneducated and delusional model-wannabes, ask them difficult questions, then laugh at their expense. Thanks VH1, for always keeping things classy.
VH1's "America's Most Smartest Model"
TV Land’s modeling competition“She’s Got The Look”features women over 35 who want to prove they’re still attractive. The show focuses primarily on projecting a youthful appearance, and rarely highlights their many otherbeautiful traits. But then again, who cares about being an accomplished CEO or a healthy mother of five, when you can look cute in a two-piece?
TV Land's "She's Got The Look"
Janice Dickinson, in all her desperate attempts to brand herself as “the world’s first supermodel”, is primarily known for crude language and an angry demeanour, above all else. After she was booted from the “America’s Next Top Model” judging panel, she decided to create her own modeling series on Oxygen, simply named“Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency”.
On the show, she lives with the models, monitors what they eat, who they sleep with, what they buy, how they exercise, and then strictly inspects each individual model’s body before a photo shoot.
A behind-the-scenes example of how money and sexism dominate advertising today.
