Miss Representation Page #8

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truly crafting those stories,

writing them down directing them,

and giving them to people

to really emotionally

become impacted by.

Because when my mom tells me a story

or my grandmother tells me

a story, I'm riveted.

[laughs]

Davis:

None of us had any idea

what the response was gonna be

to "Thelma & Louise."

One time, I was at a red light,

and heard this honking,

and I looked next to me,

and there's a car full of women

who are popping out of

all the windows and the sunroof

and going, "Whoo-hoo-hoo!"

[laughs]

And I'm like,

"Well, this has certainly never been

the reaction

to any of my other movies."

Then the very next movie I made

was "A League Of Their Own,"

where I had 13- or 15-year-old

girls coming up to me

with the same kind of reaction.

"Oh, my God. You have no idea.

That movie changed my life.

I play sports

because of that movie."

And it really struck me

how few opportunities we give women

to have that kind of experience

watching a movie.

The media can be

an instrument of change.

It can maintain the status quo

and reflect the views of the society,

or it can hopefully

awaken people and change minds.

I think it depends on

who's piloting the plane.

Siebel Newsom:

I don't want to undervalue

the tremendous progress

women have made in America.

But if we look closely

at the way our history

has been recorded,

we start to understand

the crucial role media has played

in defining who we are.

Berg:
Patriarchy really is

America's default setting,

where men hold the positions

of privilege and power

and where women, very often,

are treated

as second-class citizens.

It's always been problematic

in American society

when women have gained power.

[big-band music plays]

During World War ll,

6 million women were pulled in

to take care of the factories

in the absence of the men.

But the time the war

was coming to a close

80% wanted to stay at their jobs.

When the returning Gls came home,

within two days of victory

in the Pacific,

800,000 women were fired

from the aircraft industry,

and other companies

began to follow suit.

We needed a huge media campaign

to get these women back

into the home.

One of the most effective ways

to do this

was through television,

so the television was part

of the re-domestication.

We had television shows

sponsored by numerous commodities,

the gleaming appliances

that June Cleaver would use

in the kitchen.

These commodities were being

linked to the good life.

Women rushed to their

new shopping centers

in their brand-new cars

and loaded up.

They didn't realize that

they were actually doing this

in the service of a strong

governmental imperative.

The notion of the commodity boom

was linked to capitalism,

which our government was supporting,

vis--vis the threat

of communism.

So you really see the linkage

of advertising on TV,

the pushing of capitalism,

and then our government

pushing capitalism, too.

[Jules Larson's

"I Want It All" plays ]

Now fast-forward

to the woman's movement.

Well, I can't help myself r.

I want it all

And I start to fall

I can't think at all

'Cause I want you, want you

want it all

And I'm standing tall

So don't make me crawl

I just want you, want you

want it all

Berg:
Women went

from being barred access

to the institutions

of higher learning,

not allowed to participate

in most of

the well-known professions.

Within less than a decade,

women gained tremendous,

tremendous power.

I want it all

And I start to fall

I can't think at all

'Cause I want you, want you

want it all

I want it all

And I'm standing tall

Don't make me crawl

I just want you, want you

want it all

Berg:
Then we get to the great

reality check of the 1980s.

There was a huge,

well-funded message machine

of conservative anchors

and the demonization

of the word "liberal."

If you took an oppositional view

you were almost un-American.

And who were the great targets

of this media machine'?

The woman's movement and feminists

because we were seen

as posing the greatest threat

to the social order of America

at that time.

Any time you move forward

in a culture,

there's gonna be a backlash

that's gonna try to move backwards

or stop the progress.

And so there's a constant tension

between trying to move forward

and advance the project

of human happiness

and equality and justice

and everything else

and, at the same time,

the attempt to maintain

the existing power structures,

and that tension

is a constant tension.

Steyer:
Starting in the 1980s,

really under President Reagan,

we started deregulating

the media industry

in the United States.

And the same people

who hung their hat

on the mantel of family values

were the same people who

deregulated the media industry.

The Chairman of the FCC,

Mark Fowler in those days,

referred to the television set

as just another piece of hardware,

and therefore, it should be

regulated or not regulated

in the same way that toasters

are or washing machines.

But you're talking about

images and messages

that shape our entire society,

our culture.

And to out back

on the regulatory structure

that oversees that

led to a lot of

unforeseen consequences

when it came to messages

and images for young people,

particularly for girls

and young women.

What you saw

was more and more content

fewer and fewer limits

on that content,

and a lessening of standards.

By the time you got

to the Telecom Act of 1996,

you had a chance to potentially

re-regulate, if you will,

the media industry.

But, in fact, that did not happen.

Berg:
We have huge

corporate conglomerations

controlling television, radio, cable,

newspapers, movie theaters,

theme parks,

huge amount of power in this country.

And most of these conglomerates

really operate

with an eye focused on

the bottom line,

not on fair and balanced reporting.

Pozner:
You have Fox News

and Bill O'Reilly

developing an entire strategy

to corner the market

in sensationalistic news

just to sell ads,

get eyeballs, et cetera,

and then all the other major

news outlets on cable

trying to compete,

so that who gets to shout the loudest

becomes a standard for news practice.

I could be delivering the same script

with the same graphics

in the same studio,

wearing the same thing,

but on two different days,

I could be delivering it like this,

[loudly] or I could be

delivering it like this!

And if I'm delivering it like this,

I'm gonna get double the rating.

[normal voice]

So that's why people yell.

I know that's a sexist comment!

- It totally is.

- But there's truth to it!

Greene:

The rise of punditry in America

is greatly adding to sexism

and bias in the media

and also confusing what is fact

and what is opinion.

Pozner:

You have less and less minutes

devoted to the pursuit of strong,

independent, long-term

investigative journalism,

more minutes devoted every year

to celebrity news, to gossip.

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