Television & Media

Anybody who has ever met me can agree on one important point: I am a pop culture addict, with a list of favorite TV shows and movies a mile long. Some of my all-time heroes are fictional ones – which is why, when I think about women and girls in sports, my first thought goes to my favorite fictional female athletes – so here is my top five list:

5. Emily Fields, Pretty Little Liars

My number one TV guilty pleasure is the ABC Family show Pretty Little Liars – the scandal! The romance! The outfits! – and the series’ Emily Fields makes my list of not only one of my favorite fictional athletes, but one of my favorite characters on TV today. Read more »

I’ve been a longtime fan of the USA network TV show Suits – it’s set at a (fictional) law firm in New York, Pearson Hardman, and focuses on the exploits of a witty college dropout who has never been to law school and the firm partner who had the audacity to hire him as an associate. Last Thursday night’s episode featured Pearson Hardman taking on a class action lawsuit accusing a fictional company, Folsom Foods, of gender discrimination: they failed to promote qualified women. One of the lawyers on the case noticed that when women were denied for promotions, the company used the following descriptors to justify the choice: “high-strung,” “sensitive,” “aggressive,” and “abrasive.” These women were being passed over for promotions for reasons unrelated to their performance or their ability to fulfill their job responsibilities – but rather due to stereotypes about women in the workplace. Read more »

Given the fact that the anniversary of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was yesterday, it seems only fitting that this past week’s episode of NBC’s Parks & Recreation focused on gender equality in the workplace.

For those unfamiliar with the show, Parks & Recreation (or Parks & Rec, as it is known lovingly among its fan base) is about Leslie Knope, a mid-level government employee in a small town in Indiana. She is dedicated to her job and the town she grew up in, and many feminists and TV fans have lauded the show as an example of a great feminist character. And for good reason – Leslie is dedicated, passionate, and very human (she has an absolutely adorable relationship with her fiancée, Ben, and a deep love of waffles and whipped cream that I can 100% relate to). Leslie has grown from simply a government employee to a City Council Member, and she aspires to climb the ranks all the way to President. Plus, the show is just absolutely hilarious.

This week, the episode opened with the ladies of the Pawnee, Indiana Parks Department in a meeting with the first female city councilmember. She lamented about the fact that her male counterparts used to keep a calendar of her menstrual cycles – something that sounds beefed up for the sake of comedy, but actually hits closer to hope than you might think: In October, CNN posted (and quickly took down) a story saying that hormones can make female voters vote more liberally because it makes them “feel sexier.” Read more »

Becka and Danielle discovered one morning last week in the NWLC kitchen over coffee and yogurt that they shared a sense of confusion over a major news story – Manti Te’o – and why his saga was dominating the news cycle, so, being members of the Communications team, they decided to hash it out the only way they knew how – by blogging about it.

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o on field in 2010 Photo Credit: Neon Tommy

Danielle: So, let’s start out with a refresher on this Manti Te’o business and how it is that the story of a Notre Dame football player’s fake dead girlfriend came to be national news.

Te’o’s a linebacker on the University of Notre Dame football team and had a pretty spectacular senior season, capped off with an appearance in the BCS National Championship Game. He was nominated for the Heisman Trophy, and sports media spent a lot of time talking about Te’o’s on-field success while battling two losses: his grandmother and his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, who supposedly died within 48 hours of each other. His story was, obviously, extremely inspirational: Young man leads his team to championship game while dealing with great personal loss.

Becka: This had an inevitable book/movie deal written all over it. But there’s one problem: Kekua doesn’t exist. Sports blog Deadspin broke the news on January 16 and it feels like we’ve been hearing about this non-stop since! I heard about the news on Twitter first and then saw it reported as “Breaking News” on CNN and on the front page of the Washington Post. I’ve never been much of a sports fan, so the whole thing just baffles me – I don’t understand the fascination (and worship) of sports fans and their sports stars, but Danielle, I know you’re a major sports lover, so – what are your thoughts?

Danielle: As a sports fan, the coverage really frustrates me. The media blowup over this situation seems excessive. I really don’t care that much that Te’o was scammed or was in on some scam. If it was some sort of a point-shaving scam or something that actually had bearing on Notre Dame’s on-field play, fine. But part of this story is fake – so why has it been dominating headlines? Why was Te’o on Katie Couric’s show yesterday? Did we really need him to go on-air to hash out how he was fooled into believing he had an online girlfriend? Read more »

As the Roe 40th anniversary approaches, I’ve been reflecting on pop culture and what it tells us about how people feel about the issue of abortion. And, I’ve concluded, I think it reflects reality pretty well.

There seems to be a wide-spread assumption that Hollywood believes that abortion is too “dangerous” an issue to talk about. There have been myriads of articles about this that question why movies and television don’t show more women deciding to have a procedure that we know approximately one-third of women will have in their lifetimes.

Here’s the thing - the assumptions underlying this whole debate miss a really important point. There are many examples of films and TV shows that have proved that addressing abortion does not instantly turn a film into “box office poison.” There are both recent and older examples of films and shows that have succeeded – some amazingly – that included abortion storylines.

Although most of you readers may be able to name some recent examples pretty easily (like Ides of March, Grey’s Anatomy and Girls) what you might not realize is that there are several iconic films and TV shows that most people don’t even connect with the issue of abortion – even though they contained an abortion storyline. Here are my top 4:

• Image courtesy of Great American Films Limited Partnership & Vestron Pictures

  Dirty Dancing: This classic movie about romance across class and ethnic lines is mostly remembered for Patrick Swayze saying “Nobody puts baby in a corner” and for the finale dance to “I’ve Had the Time of My Life.” How many people remember that the plot device used to get Swayze’s and Jennifer Grey’s characters together is a pre-Roe illegal abortion? The abortion (which nearly kills Swayze’s character’s professional dance partner) is also the means the screenwriters use to have Grey’s father find out about the relationship. Dirty Dancing succeeded both financially and critically, and it is still considered one of the most romantic movies of all time.

• Fast Times At Ridgemont High: If you are a straight man or a gay woman, your main memory of Fast Times is probably Phoebe Cates in the red bikini. For the rest of us, it is probably Sean Penn’s Spicolli ordering a pizza to Mr. Hand’s history class. But there’s a sub-plot involving Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character getting pregnant and going to a clinic to have an abortion. You may recall the scene where she tricks her older brother (Judge Reinhold) into taking her there and then he unexpectedly shows up to support her and take her home.

C.J. Cregg from The West Wing is the (fictional) person I credit most with inspiring me with passion and drive to get into the field of communications (after my mother, of course, who taught me that you could balance a career and family at the same time. Hi, Mom!). When I was 11 and watching the show with my parents, her grace under pressure and command of a press briefing room made me think, “I WANT TO DO THAT”.

As I got older and learned more about feminism, I thought about how important it was that I had that female role model to inspire me to go into a field that I knew so little about when I was younger, and today I’m starting out my career advocating for causes I so passionately believe in. So when I heard that the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media received a $1.2 million grant from Google to help analyze female portrayals in children’s media, my initial instinct was to let out a cheer. Read more »

Proud FloCrit grads

On last night’s episode of High School Moms, we saw Florence Crittenton students in the days leading up to graduation, taking final exams and preparing to say goodbye to their teachers and friends and go out into the world. Some of them are the first in their families to graduate from high school. It was very exciting and a little sad; the students talked about all they had been through together and about “leaving the nest” and tears were shed.

The show highlighted the stories of three particularly amazing students. For the first time we met Evangeline, who is 18 and has a 2-year old son and no help from the baby’s father. She takes a Certified Nursing Assistant class 4 days a week so she can get a good job when she graduates and goes to college. She works hard, and we see her pass the final test. She is named the Valedictorian of the FloCrit graduating class, and seems to be liked by all. You can tell she is going to go far. And clearly the supports available to her at FloCrit were key; in her graduation speech, even she says: “I came here thinking I’d never be able to graduate.”

Zoe Saldana, the star of basically every movie I love (including Center Stage … so sue me. I’m a sucker for a story of dedication to the arts, cutting edge ballet-rock-operas and really handsome male ballerinas) recently sat down and spoke with Amanda de Cadenet about women in Hollywood and entertainment. She made some really great points that apply to women in the workplace across a number of fields.

Saldana makes an excellent point: men and women aren’t equal in the movie/film industry – or in most workplaces nationwide. Read more »

Amber and her daughter

This week on High School Moms, the focus of the show was the Florence Crittenton School’s first-ever prom. It was completely planned by the students with some help from the community, including hundreds of donated prom dresses and free hair, nails, and make-up services donated by a local beauty school. The young moms (and moms-to-be) were so excited about it.

In this episode we met Carla Garcia, a 19-year old mom of a 3-year old boy, and Amber Martinez, a 17-year old mom of a 2-year old girl. When Amber introduced herself she said that her mom was a teen mom, as was her grandmother,  and she said, “I am going to stop the cycle.” I believe she will, not just because she is so self-aware and is quite the go-getter, which she appears to be based on her leadership role in the prom planning, but also because thankfully, she attends a school where she is encouraged to see graduation as a reality and college as a possibility worth pursuing. Read more »

Welcome to another weekly roundup! First up this week: the Half in Ten campaign’s new video connecting the hugely popular book/movie series The Hunger Games with cuts to SNAP (food stamp) benefits. It’s well worth the watch – check out the video below. (Need a quick recap on exactly what The Hunger Games is all about? Click here.)

I think the contrast here between a fictional dystopian society that controls its subjects through – among other things – hunger and fear and the mentality to slash a number of programs women and families depend on is striking. While reading The Hunger Games, sometimes that type of future society doesn’t seem possible… but with the dots connected like this, it really strikes home what real Americans, right now, are going through.

On a happier note, are you still looking for the perfect card to send to mom? Strong Families can probably help you out – this week they released a series of e-cards that break past the norm of “flowers and pancakes.” That’s what’s so great about these cards: they intentionally celebrate the many types of mothers and families nationwide. When’s the last time you saw a greeting card celebrating both of a child’s mamas at once?

If you’re interested in perusing these e-cards or sending on to your mom, head to mamasday.org. Read more »