In Praise of Geena

The Long Kiss Goodnight, playing at Facets this Saturday at midnight, is an excellent addition to this session of Night School, which is devoted to female protagonists. Not only is The Long Kiss Goodnight a genre-busting action film in which the protagonist is a CIA agent-turned housewife-turned rogue agent, it also stars Geena Davis, who has dedicated her time and money to addressing the issue of women in Hollywood. Davis belongs to Mensa, a social organization whose members are in the top 2% of intelligence as measured by the IQ test, but it doesn’t take someone that smart to see that today’s Hollywood films lack interesting roles for women—let alone empowering ones.

In 1991, after costarring in Thelma and Louise, Davis realized how few characters in Hollywood films actually made women viewers feel empowered. In an effort to turn that tide, she accepted the role of a sword-wielding pirate captain in Cutthroat Island (above), directed by action filmmaker Renny Harlin. Harlin and Davis began dating during the production of the film, and later married, but the film was a box-office failure, hampering her thriving career. The couple next teamed to make the violent action flick The Long Kiss Goodnight, which provided Davis with another role generally reserved for male actors. Though the film made money at the box office, it did not make the blockbuster profits of other action films, and reviewers failed to see its subversive content, offering little critical support.

Still hoping to make a difference through her acting career, Davis starred in the television series Commander in Chief in the mid-2000s, portraying the first female President of the United States. This role garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series, and she also was nominated for an Emmy and a SAG Award for Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series.

Wanting to do more, Davis sponsored the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children’s entertainment at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, resulting in four separate studies. In 2007, she launched The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to further research the presence and image of female characters in the entertainment industry and to advocate the increase of female roles and to reduce stereotyping. For her work in this field, she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College in 2009. Next month, the Sarasota International Film Festival will honor Davis for her progressive film roles and her work in gender research.

As food for thought, here are a few statistics from the research uncovered by the Annenberg School and by Davis’s Institute.

• In analyzing children’s movies (rated G, PG, and PG-13, including animated and live-action) released between 1990 and 2009, the study found that 71% of all speaking characters were male and 29 % were female, a 2.42 to 1 ratio.
• Of all speaking characters, 32.4% are female in G-rated films, 30% are female in PG-rated films, and 27.7% are female in PG13-rated films. (Note: Females comprise over 50% of the U.S. population.)
• Not only were female leads in short supply in children’s films, but in crowd scenes and group scenes only 17 % of characters were women. 
• Main characters who are female are almost exclusively shown pursing a romantic connection and the most common female occupation shown to children is royalty.
• The average waist size for female characters in cartoons corresponds with the size of a character's upper arm. 
• A higher percentage of females than males are depicted under 21 (20.5% vs. 12.5%) and between 21-39 years of age (54.3% vs. 49.3%). This trend reverses for characters 40 to 64 years old, with a higher percentage of males (33.7%) than females (20.2%) shown in this chronological bandwidth.
• Females were over five times as likely as males to be shown in sexually revealing clothing, which was defined as attire that enhances, exaggerates, or calls attention to any part of the body from neck to knees. Nearly 25% of  females in the films had particularly small waists. Only 8% of males were featured with small midsections.

Come to Night School this Saturday night and hear Miguel Martinez introduced The Long Kiss Goodnight, starring Geena Davis, who puts her money where her mouth is.       

--Susan Doll