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The two definite highlights of the evening were Mo'Nique's win for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Precious and Kathryn Bigelow's win for Best Director for The Hurt Locker.

Kathryn is the first woman to ever win in the Director category, and as was pointed out by AnnaLeighClark on twitter last night, it happened just before midnight and the start of International Women's Day. Also, as Shelby Knox pointed out, the statistics about this award were pretty stark: 82 years, 400 nominations, 4 women nominated, 1 awarded.

Mo'Nique's win was breathtaking, and her passion was there in her acceptance speech. She also made a point of referencing Hattie McDaniel in her speech as well as her outfit. Hattie was the first African American woman to win an Academy Award, also in the Best Supporting Actress role in 1940.

Mo'Nique's acceptance speech:

First, I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics. I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to. Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey because you touched it, the whole world saw it. Ricky Anderson, our attorney of Anderson & Smith, thank you for your hard work. My entire BET family, my Precious family, thank you so much. To my amazing husband Sidney, thank you for showing me that sometimes you have to forego doing what's popular in order to do what's right. And baby, you were so right. God bless us all.

What were your highlights of the evening?

The Bechdel Test is commonly used to measure an authentic (or relatively more authentic) representation of women’s lives and experiences on film. I employ it usually when I’m on the fence about watching a movie. It generally works, at its simplest, to measure the value of women to the story, and at its most complex, as an exercise in realizing how undervalued women are in the movie business at large. Until I watched The Family That Preys, I never considered that a movie might pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors yet still ooze stereotype and misogyny. Or how my joy for a film stacked with amazing, but terribly underused female actors, may be despite the net effect of sending awfully negative messages about women. Talk about conflict.

Maybe it’s telling that my first FemFilm review centers a male writer-director as a point of discussion, but I couldn’t NOT write about this movie considering the irony of getting what you ask for as a feminist movie buff — top-billing and greater representation of women in film — in such a shitty package. I’ve seen some of the other movies in the Tyler Perry franchise and liked them fine, so I watched Family last night on TV without intending to write about it for this project. For one, it’s fluffier than what I was intending for the project, and two, it’s frought with a larger discussion about black filmmaking and art, especially with its creator, that I’m not expert enough to comment on any more than I do here. Others can elucidate why Tyler Perry, this movie’s writer and director, is so controversial, but if one wants to get a picture why he elicits so much vitriol for his stories, this one isn’t a bad place to start. As a storyteller, Perry relies heavily on cliche. Most of his movies are packed full of soap operatic drama, unbelievable twists, and schlocky moments that are meant to evoke themes of redemption, humility, and perseverance. There is little care in how a story develops, or whether it is believable, as long as everyone learns their place in the end. In a word, dude is hamfisted. On the other hand, much of Perry’s work seeks to represent the black middle-class family in a way that is mostly warm and funny and just not seen enough elsewhere. If you want to sit your brain on the shelf and watch a silly movie with your family, you could do much worse, but when your analyst brain is in function, Perry has serious problems with gender.

There are so many story lines in Family that it’s hard to explain how they all co-exist together. Let’s just say two matriarchs (Bates and Woodard) embark on an adventure so akin to Thelma & Louise that Tyler Perry probably owes someone for story rights, imitating the aesthetic down to the cowboy hats, honky tonk bar, and a photo of the pair taped to the dash of a sweet vintage convertible driving into the sunset. This teaches us, because there is always a moral to the story, that we need to learn to take risks (groan) because life is short. Another character (Sanaa Lathan) has an affair with a white guy, the guy who played a white supremacist in Higher Learning, no less, because she looks down on her husband’s blue collar job. She further emasculates her husband by having a fat bank account he doesn’t know about. In the end, she is punished thusly for being uppity and self-hating and adulterous by watching her husband become very rich while she becomes poor. This teaches us that (get ready for it) money isn’t everything, but also that while interracial friendships are okay, interracial fucking is not. And so on.

I mock the patness of Perry’s employ, but his work is not much different than many of the family comedies or romantic comedies that use cliche and stereotype to tell a story, and it’s certainly not different in its sexism. The big picture problem with Perry, as Alyssa Rosenberg writes, is the hegemony of his methods and his need to center a moralistic point of view (and himself!) in every story, and so his storytelling is flat and self-centered, which sucks because he commands such a huge market and could spread the wealth considerably for other African-American writers and directors more than he has so far. But what he does and does well, really well, is fill a huge gap in representation of black actors on screen. He has a knack for casting incredibly talented actors that aren’t getting steady, valued work in Hollywood, such as the primary actors in Family, Saana Lathaan, Alfre Woodard, and Kathy Bates.

I’ll admit, I probably enjoyed this movie more than I should have just because I was treated to Woodard and Bates. It’s hard to appreciate how difficult it must be to be a middle-aged woman in Hollywood of any size, shape, or color, unable to secure solid jobs despite the level of respect you command or the number of accolades you receive, until you realize how little you’ve seen either of these commanding women in the last ten years. It’s shameful that we lose out on their talents. And they shine in this movie, they do, even with the flat writing and hokey hijinks. Their invisibility, and my delight in rediscovering them, also reflects just how standardized white patriarchy is in movies altogether.

On the flipside, Perry, despite his affection for his female cast members, replaces the usual white patriarchy with black patriarchy disguised as uplift, a consistent message of his from film to film to film. As a feminist, this is one of the most frustrating aspects about Perry considering that his primary audience is made up of black women: the prevalence of messages about what makes a good woman, which usually means speaking softly, never losing your temper, obeying your man, and being a good Christian. Family is no exception. For example, the film excuses the emasculated husband when he hits his wife in anger because he is righteous in his bitterness, and the wrongness of his violence isn’t addressed other than in the desired effect that it puts his wife in her place. By the end of the movie he is righted as family patriarch. Most of Perry’s characters are good or bad with little in between, though it’s far more likely that the women in his work will suffer more harshly for their badness than the men for theirs.

For a long time last night, after I watched the movie and went to bed, I lay there thinking of what a double-edged sword it was, that one little flick can encompass so much of what’s wrong with the representation of women in the movie business while getting one other thing, a thing that feminists pine for, so very right. It also speaks to the limitations of the Bechdel Test, and to the tragic lack of meaningful stories for woman actors to portray.

Women & Hollywood has a fantastic guest post by L.A. Collins in which she interviews Lisa Cortes, the executive producer of Precious. She writes:

At the SAG Awards, critics darling and Oscar front-runner Mo'Nique flipped the script. She took a special, unexpected moment to give a nod to the dedicated and not-so-visible 'sistren' collaborators behind-the-scenes of Precious, the women whose focused energy came together in perfect parts to bring the little film that could to life.

One such fierce woman, Lisa Cortes, the film's executive producer, is all about the power of harnessing and circling energy in the art world: from film to music; corporate to non-profit; high art to folk. "In my mind producing films and supporting other arts are intertwined because the big picture intention is to increase the well-being of woman and mankind. Art opens the door to possibility ..."

Read the rest here.

And for more on Precious:
Precious, my Precious: Black Female Citizenship, Complexity, and the Politics of Unrelenting Survival
On Representation: Push versus Precious
Bad-Ass Woman: Actress Gabby Sidibe
Precious: A Feminist Must-See

Emily Abt is an award-winning feminist filmmaker and the founder of Pureland Pictures. Her first film, a documentary called Take it From Me, was about the impact of American welfare policies on individual Americans. Since Take it From Me came out in 2001, Abt has made several more films, including All of Us, which is about African American women and HIV/AIDS and most recently, Toe to Toe, a story about young women, race, sex and friendship, that screened at Sundance this year.

Abt, who spoke on a panel with our own Courtney Martin at the 92nd St. Y earlier this month, says that she hopes that the film will encourage audiences to think about the issues it addresses, and especially about the sexualization of young women and interracial friendship. This semester, she's teaching a class on social issue film at Princeton University, my alma mater, and my campus spies tell me that the class is "so damn good."

You can check out the trailer for Toe to Toe here, and learn more about Abt's earlier films here.

And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Emily Abt.

Chloe Angyal: What led you to making films, and specifically to making a film about the issues you tackled in Toe to Toe?

Emily Abt: I came to filmmaking in a roundabout way; I used to be a caseworker. And I was doing that right when the Personal Responsibility Act was going through, and the way we treated poor people in our country was changing drastically. There were time limits being placed on public assistance, and work requirements, and I felt very much in the middle of that, as a caseworker during that time. And I had always loved films, and I decided that I wanted to make a documentary that captured the human impact of what I was witnessing. So that's what I did. I followed four of my former clients over a couple of years, as they transitioned from welfare to work, and I ended up selling the film, Take it From Me, to POV, which is PBS' premiere independent documentary series. And that was an incredible experience, and I had beginner's luck in that I was able to sell this film, without having had a lot of experience beforehand. So that's how I got started, thirteen years ago.

I'm very much a social issues filmmaker and very much a feminist filmmaker, and I think that the two things that Toe to Toe deals with in terms of social issues are the sexualization of teenaged girls and race. With the character of Jesse, I'm basically trying to get audiences to look at the sexualization of teenagers, and of teenaged girls specifically, and ask themselves if that's always such a good thing. I think given current statistics - one in four teenaged girls has an STD, teen pregnancy rates are increasing - that it's a really good time to be having that discussion. So that's one of the things Toe to Toe takes on. It also focuses very much on race relations. I hope that people will be inspired by the authentic relationship that Tosha and Jesse have, in that the girls are very honest and direct with each other. They come from very different backgrounds, but what they have in common is that they're both truth tellers. It's not a "kumbaya" film; they don't have an easy relationship, but it's a strong and a real one, and ultimately they're willing to sacrifice a lot for each other.

That whole storyline was encouraged by the fact that for 87% of Americans, their interracial friendships end at age fourteen, which I thought very much went against the way we like to think about race relations as a country. That's a New York Times statistic from a story they did a few years ago, it was a series on race relations, and I read that statistic and it really really jumped out at me. So I'm hoping that audiences will be inspired to reach a little bit further in terms of their own relationships and not be afraid to have some of those awkward conversations that a lot of people avoid, but that ultimately can bring you closer.

CA: Who are is your favorite fictional heroine, and who are your heroines in real life?

EA: For fictional heroines, I like the two girls in my film, Jesse and Tosha. I think they're brave.

My heroines in real life are my mother, my aunts, my many good girlfriends. I'm a fan of Hillary. They're strong and outspoken.

CA: What recent news story made you want to scream?

EA: I think Martha Coakley has gotten pretty beaten up in the press, but I also think a lot of that is appropriate. I guess I sort of wish people would leave Sarah Palin alone. I sort of feel sorry for her, and I don't find it that interesting to keep giving her foibles that much attention.

CA: What, in your opinion, is the greatest challenge facing feminism today?

EA: I think that there's two. I think that a big challenge is getting young women to identify with feminism and as feminists. I also think that feminists really have their work cut out for them in terms of what's going on in countries like Afghanistan and the Ivory Coast, places where there's a lot of violence against women. I think the greatest push should be around those areas. Obviously, feminists in our country have domestic things to work on in terms of the availability of abortion and all that, but I feel like the most urgent needs are in places like the Congo and Afghanistan.

CA: You're going to a desert island, and you're allowed to take one food, one drink and one feminist. What do you take?

EA: I would take avocado, a big glass of milk, and Bella Abzug. She was such a badass. If I could talk with her anywhere that'd be great, and a desert island would certainly do.

The following post is by Marian Evans, writer and producer of Development. Marian was part of the Spiral Collective that published Keri Hulme’s Booker prize-winning the Bone People, and then a lawyer. She’s just finished her PhD about opening space in the New Zealand film industry for more features that women write and direct. In [...]

Quick: Name a movie from the past ten years that tells a story about pregnancy. There are probably quite a few films that spring to mind. Knocked Up, Juno, Waitress, Saved! — there is no shortage of movies depicting pregnancy. Some of these films are better than others — of those listed above, my favorite is [...]

Mo'Nique's performance in Precious was astounding--reflecting the horror and empathy of humanity in one small part. Her Golden Globe win on Sunday night was well-deserved. Her acceptance speech was unparalleled in its authenticity and inspiration. And guess what everyone can't stop talking about?

The hair on her legs.

That's right. AOL asks, "Is it empowering (or disgusting) for a woman to show off body hair?" (The comments over there are horrific, FYI.) I think the more important question is, is it legitimate or sexist/pathetic/tired for a massive media company to spend time focusing on a woman's beauty rituals at a moment when her artistry should be recognized? I think you know the answer.

Thanks to msmorris for the heads up.

There is a lot of chatter about The Hurt Locker and whether director Kathryn Bigelow will serve up a feast of schadenfreude by besting ex-husband and douche James Cameron at the Oscars this year. Despite not having seen Avatar just yet, I did sit down to watch The Hurt Locker last night and was blown away (no pun intended).

Bigelow has a rather short resume as far as movie-making goes, though she did direct two notables in the 1990s: Strange Days, a cautionary tale of the merging of technology and fantasy that headlined the always fabulous Angela Bassett, and Point Break, the awesomely bad, infinitely quotable action flick about an undercover cop who solves a bank robbery and learns the power of surfing. Nevertheless, Bigelow has a winner on her hands with The Hurt Locker, a story revolving around three bomb-squad specialists in Iraq and their long, slow descent to psychological breakdown.

The primary characters are a team who disarm IEDs protected by little more than their own swagger, and who learn to embrace the unease of the constant adrenaline rush they need to power through crisis. What makes this movie much different than most war movies is that its storytelling lies in the quiet moments. Despite the subject matter there aren’t a lot of explosions, action sequences, or gunfire. Instead there is the shot of the injured cat limping across the street, or the endless strings of wires leaking from piles of rubble, or the long shots of a vast desert where gunfire appears to come from nowhere. The tension and despair are palpable, especially in the relationships between the soldiers and the Iraqis — some of whom may be going about their daily business and some who may be responsible for the bombs in the first place — and their mutual inability to trust one another’s decency.

The movie is weak in places, the end in particular, but it seems this is because Bigelow didn’t want to wax political or offer too many easy solutions. It does not glorify war, and in fact posits that war makes it harder for one to make and maintain functional human connection. One of the most compelling issues raised in the story is the need to cope with sorrow, illustrated in that the soldier whose experience of war is expressed in the most rational, healthy way is considered a liability to the team.

I’ll be disappointed if this one gets shut out of the Oscars like it did the Golden Globes because Bigelow has a real chance of snagging an Academy Award for Best Director, which would be the first win in this category ever for a woman. It also holds the distinction of humanizing traditionally stereotypical, macho subject matter, and being a war movie that is good without glorifying violence.

Some of us in the Caribbean region who have links to Haiti, a place we've worked, lived and visited, have made many friends there over the years. Among those friends are the amazing people at the St. Joseph's Home for Boys in Petionville. We heard yesterday that the Home was one of the collapsed buildings in the capital, and as we seek more information about the Home and many of our other loved ones, two friends and colleagues, Tonni and Cynthia, share this letter:

Dear Friends,

Many of you may remember in 2003 - 2004 Tonni [redacted] and I went down
to Port-au-Prince with only our cameras and dreams of making a
documentary on the reality of Haiti, one that focused on hope and not
misery. We were so very fortunate to have made incredible friends on
that journey, who not only sheltered us from harm but truly opened
their hearts, to share their stories and vision of hope for Haiti.

The news of yesterday's earthquake has devastated us, especially in
learning the St. Joseph's Home for Boys, which we featured in the
film, was one of the many buildings that collapsed. While both our
instincts are to get on a plane to Hispanola with camera in tow, to
help, and to tell the true stories from Port au Prince, we recognized
that what we needed to do right now is to share the one we already
documented. We spent a couple of weeks at St. Joseph's Home for Boys
in Petionville, Haiti (on the hilly outskirts of the capital),
capturing on film the lives and talent of these young orphaned boys.
Our documentary, Seeking the Soul of Freedom, which was inspired by
the Bicentennial Independence Celebrations, is a collage of intimate
stories of reconnection and hope for Haiti, and her people.

To watch the film visit
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyMhv_noP4s
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ4EHy08LVM

Because it is 15 minutes we had to break it into parts

For more information on St. Joseph's Home for Boys visit:
www.heartswithhaiti.org
You may also want to check out HaitiXchange.com for additional
information on the earthquake and all things Haiti

With all our love and prayers for Haiti,
Cynthia and Tonni

I couldn't stop talking about the documentary Examined Life after I saw it last March...as you well know since I couldn't stop writing about it. In any case, it's now out on DVD!

I wanted to let everyone know since I believe it only came out in select theaters across the country. Extra features include: two extra philosopher walks with Colin McGinn and Simon Critchley and Q&As with Cornel West, Avital Ronell and Kwame Anthony Appiah, with director Astra Taylor.