The women of Italy had a gigantic demonstration against Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi a few days ago. They have had enough of his sexist (and otherwise majorly corrupt) politics, demanding him to leave. Berlusconi has gotten caught in a sex scandal involving prostitutes and under aged girls. The demonstration, which took place on Sunday 13. February, involved women of all ages and occupations, ranking from young to old, Italian to foreign, hobos to nuns. This million woman (and men) march was not only a sign that Italians have had enough of political corruption, but also a beautiful manifest of female solidarity. That all of these women came together to express anger and demanding sexism to be stopped proves that Sisterhood is, and always will be, powerful!
Read a detailed and informative article about the demonstration here.
Also, for the first time since Dreamworks “Shrek” (2001) a major animated Block Buster film will be directed by a woman! “Kung Fu Panda 2: The Kaboom of Doom” will be directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, this being her first full-length feature film. Ms. Yuh Nelson has worked long in several Art Departments, and been one of the directors for the cartoon TV-show “Spawn”. Even if I disliked the first “Kung Fu Panda” film (found the story to be quite ordinary and maybe a bit sexist) I will definitely go and see this sequel. Very, very few animated features are directed by females, or non-whites for that matter. Jennifer Yuh Nelson is therefor an extraordinary chose for directing in two ways: a woman and Asian-American!
Whats sad however is that Pixar fired Brenda Chapman (One of the directors for Dreamworks’ “Prince of Egypt”, 1998) from directing there up coming film “Brave”. Ms. Chapman would have been the first woman to direct a film for Pixar’s studios. It deeply saddens me that they decided to wait even longer for their first block buster film to be directed by a woman. Not to mention that Disney has also yet to make such a revolution.
“Kung Fu Panda 2” will be coming out in May, this year. Here’s the little info there Imdb can offer.
And lastly, the entertainment Magazine “Jezebels” coverage of the 2011 Oscars.
On a personal note, I was furious that Debra Granik didn’t get a nomination for her work in “Winter’s Bone”. Seems like the Academy thinks it’s enough to give an Oscar for best directing to one woman and only have total of four nominees through out time. Well guys, it’s not!
Take Care/ Maaretta
Ruby Soup with Pearl Juice 
Sad to hear about Brenda Chapman being replaced as director of Brave, especially as Pixar has only used male directors up to now (and Chapman was the first woman director of a full-length American animation). She worked on projects as diverse as Roger Rabbit to Cars. Her Prince of Egypt may not be ground breaking, but she used a “odd vocabulary” of animation for it and drew powerful feelings from it, as well as giving us some laughs. Note the Funny “bad guys” here: Stylized, ominous and absurdly child-like. Done by a pro:
The Prince of Egypt – Playing With The Big Boys Now
And really looking forward to seeing what Jennifer Yuh will do with the Kung-Fu Panda franchise. If she goes the direction of this trailer it may have hope of being excellent:
And as for Berlusconi – well that’s what happens when you let one person control all the media in a country. Italy and the US have the same basic problem in this regard (see Rupert Murdoch), and the sights are now set on doing this in England.
Thank you for the clip from “Prince of Egypt”! The visuals are very good and the song is pretty well written. I think “POE” was pretty good, but a bit gory for kids. Should re-watch it sometime to get a more fair opinion though. But yes, truly depressing she was re-placed in “Brave”.
“Kung Fu Panda 2” looks visually great. Humor very self-referencing (what I could tell). I’m totally hyped about seeing this film!
Lastly: Yep, Berlusconi got what was coming for him! Let’s hope England learns from Italy’s and USA’s mistake and have a more open media. 🙂
You guys are ridiculous for crediting films just because they are directed by women. I’m a feminist and support women achieving top positions in workplace, but to degrade men just to glorify women makes you as bad as those who oppressed us.
And how was Kung Fu Panda sexist? The main female characters there are fearless professional fighters, and Tigress is the leader of the Furious Five. Seriously, can’t you find something else to whine about? (Btw Kung Fu Panda rocks!). The reason why Kung Fu Panda 2 looks great is thanks to the talented animators who happen to be male. Does that diminish the value of the film in your eyes?
And Berlusconi needs to leave not only because of his sexist attitude but because he is a corrupt politician who has links with the mafia. That is a much more serious issue than slapping some chick on the bum.
You may brand me as not fighting enough for women’s causes, but trust me I’m much more of a true fighter for equality than you will ever be.
Firstly, the reason why it’s important to support films directed by women is because there are so few of them out there. In Hollywood, only 7% of directors there are female. Also films directed by women tend to not get as much attention and compliments, since many of them are about women’s issues or female centered. This doesn’t mean that I think all movies directed by women are good, but I don’t think there much worse than other films directed by men.
“Kung Fu Panda” was sexist because even if the female warrior, Tigress, was far more stronger, well trained and competent, the hero was the lazy male panda Po. When Tigress actually put effort into training, Po just went around eating. The only way he finally gets trained is that they use food as bait. Po was a typical male character who doesn’t work to get what he wants, just kind of gathers he will get it because he deserves it. Po is a good for nothing guy, but he gets to be the hero, not Tigress. So it is sexist, for it felt like the creatures of the film were saying: “We know women are strong and competent, but be real here, it’s the mans job to save the day. Even if he’s a slob and a lazy person”. In other words, males are better than females just for being males. That’s incredibly sexist.
If “Kung Fu Panda 2” will be good, it will be for a lot of reasons. The animators play an important part, yes, but for me a goood animated movie is not only visually nice, but also has a good story. The directors job is make the story seem natural and entertaining. She or he decides how long each scene is, what kind of tone should be used, as for many other important things. A good film can only be made with good writing, acting, effects AND directing. In this cause, if “Kung Fu Panda 2” will be good it will be for the talent of the male animators and the female director. Both will deserve as much credit.
I mentioned in my post that Berlusconi’s politics are highly corrupt in general. He’s probably done far more worst things than what he’s on trial for. But he is not on trial for slapping some chick on the bum – it’s for under age prostitution. He not only bought sex from a minor, but also tried to get her out of trouble with the law after she stole some goods. Those are serious crimes, even if there are more serious ones, these are still no small crimes. It also shows an alarming state of how women are viewed by Italian norms. And unfortunately, it seems that only for these crimes Italy will finally be able to free themselves from Berlusconi. In the best of worlds Berlusconi would have gotten in trouble for his links to the Maffia, of course, but right now it’s important that the women of Italy come together and protest against Berlusconi for his sexist attitudes – it seems that’s the only way to get him to leave, as well as show a patriarchal society that women demand to be treated as equals.
I believe that when fighting for equality, it is very important to support other women in as many causes as possible. If women don’t get to have there say in film franchises or other popular media, how can they get their voices heard to a general population? And if the women of Italy want more equal rights and respect, I’ll support them. Women need to get their voices heard in order for male centric society’s to see that they are as good as men. Therefor it is important, to me, that women support other women as well as by cheering them on in protest as well as going to see a film made by a woman. The battle for equal rights can be fought by many different ways.
You missed the point of Kung Fu Panda or are taking it out of context. The moral of the story was anyone could be successful if you give them the right environment and the right kind of incentive. Po was chosen because he could survive the death touch due to his fat – something no one else could do. Tigress would have died if she faced Tai Lung alone. In fact Po proved to be quite competent for someone who only had a few weeks training ( while the other Masters practiced for years) so he does come off as worthy. If I’m not mistaken it’s the same team who wrote the first film who are doing this one. The only thing changed is the director who influences scene sequences and tone. She can’t make much of a change as it’ll damage the franchise, so we’ll probably see similar type of humor in the new one as in the previous film.
I do agree there are too few female directors out there, but we need to ask why aren’t there more women pursuing careers as directors rather than just saying Hollywood is sexist (even though it is to an extent).
The fact that Po became a good warrior after two weeks and happens to kill the bad guy does not erase the fact that he didn’t even bother to try at the beginning of his training. Po does nothing but eat and skip lessons at the beginning, only doing work later since he MUST. Even if he was a good warrior after forced training, the other warriors such as Tigress actually did everything to become good warriors, making actual effort. Po being fat and therefore deserving to become the hero does not make a good moral. It doesn’t mean I don’t agree that anyone can be successful given the right environment, but all “Kung Fu Panda” did was show a person who wants things without sacrifice, and the movie agrees with him since he’s male. The hard working women (Tigress, Snake) don’t deserve the things they want because there female. This could also be said about the hard working men, as well (Monkey etc.). And maybe with a little extra training, Tigress could have defeated the villain! But no, the lazy, selfish man has to be the hero. On a side not I can say I would have accepted Po as the hero if he would have actually done something to achieve his goals or at least not behaved so incompetently while being trained, but Po had to be eating other peoples foods and not showing up to class. Pretty awful character, really (stereotypical self-important and arrogant male characteristics, too).
As for “Kung Fu Panda 2”, I think we should at least give Jennifer Yuh a chance. Since the other crew seems to be the same people, the film might be good. Not all sequels have been bad, some really good ones have come out in the past years! If the idea of a sequel at all is bothersome to you, it’s not really Jennifer Yuh fault. Dreanworks as a company (run, most likely, by nearly all men) decided to make a sequel.
Talking about why women don’t decide to become directors more often could do some good, but the fact is that if Hollywood as for other major movie companies and places keeps showing more interest in male directors as for writers etc. of course women will be put of by the idea of getting involved with movie making. Discussion the issue as well as maybe changing attitudes should be both possible ways how to get more women into film making.
“Dreanworks as a company (run, most likely, by nearly all men)”
Your assumptions are way off base. The vast majority of Management at Dreamworks are female. Over 3/4 of the Producers at Dreamworks are female, and much of the top execs are female. We have many female artists as well, in all departments, including Animation. We’ve had more female Directors than all other major animation studios combined. I can assure you when Katzenberg gives someone a chance he doesn’t flip them over to check gender. It is very difficult to find someone who kicks as much ass as Ms. Nelson, with or without penis. If you look at the statistics of gender breakdown of artists you’ll find your answer: there are simply more men who do this. That is changing fast.
Thanks for the info. I went to Dreamworks studios to see if I had made the wrong assumption with Dreamworks; hard to see if there are a majority of producers and top exects are females, but didn’t see any info. But it did seem that many of the people working at Dreamworks were female.
It’s true that Dreamworks has actually, to my knowledge, hired the most female directors to direct their blockbuster films since by so far you (Dremaworks) have had two major films directed both by men and women (“Shrek, “Prince Of Egypt”), and one completely directed by a woman now (“Kung Fu Panda 2”), while Pixar and Disney haven’t had any (to my knowledge!). Kudos for that!
Yes, I am very exited to see how “Kung Fu Panda 2” turns out. What it sounds like, Ms. Yuh sounds like a promising director 🙂