Miss Representation

Miss Representation is a 2011 American documentary film written, directed, and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The film explores how mainstream media contributes to the under-representation of women in influential positions by circulating limited and often disparaging portrayals of women. The film premiered in the documentary category at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
The film includes interviews with prominent women in media, such as Jane Fonda, Rachel Maddow, and Katie Couric, who discuss why their personal experiences have made them passionate about better portrayals of women in media. Siebel Newsom also uses this film to further her social action campaigns through The Representation Project, which was founded due to her frustration with the relationship between the under-representation of women in media and the under-representation of women in American politics.
Synopsis
The film interweaves stories from teenage girls with interviews to give an inside look at the media and its message that underscores young women need and want positive role models, and that the media has thus far neglected its unique opportunity to provide them. The film includes a social action campaign to address change in policy, education and call for socially responsible business. The movie brought along a lot of positive movement and encourages those who viewed the film to take the pledge against gender misrepresentations by using hashtags like #RepresentHer and #DisruptTheNarrative.
Screenings
The film previewed on October 18, 2010, at an awards luncheon hosted by the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. The film premiered on January 22, 2011, at the Sundance Film Festival, followed by screenings at the Athena Film Festival at Barnard College in New York City in February.
Cast
The cast consists of over 109 subjects, appearing as themselves. Raw footage of teenage girls telling their stories is shown alongside direct interviews with a multitude of influential celebrities, prominent political figures, activists, and accomplished filmmakers. These interviews included Katie Couric, Condoleezza Rice, Lisa Ling, Geena Davis, Marissa Mayer, Jean Kilbourne, Cory Booker, Rachel Maddow, Rosario Dawson, Jim Steyer and Jackson Katz.
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack includes music from Metric, Alan Moorhouse, Van Phillips, Jules Larson, Chinatown, and Randi Skyland.
"Help, I'm Alive" — Metric
"Gold Guns Girls" - Metric
"In The Swing" - Alan Moorhouse
"Tom Fool" - Van Phillips
"I Want It All" - Jules Larson
"Drive Me Crazy" - Chinatown
"This Is My Life" - Randi Skyland
Recognition
The Oprah Winfrey Network acquired broadcast rights for the film following its premiere.
Audience Award from
2011 Palo Alto International Film Festival
2011 Sonoma Film Festival
Official Selection at
2011 Atlanta Film Festival
2011 Dallas Film Festival
2011 Denver Film Festival
2011 Newport Beach Film Festival
2011 New Zealand Film Festival
2011 San Francisco Film Festival
2011 Silver Docs Film Festival
2011 Sundance Film Festival
Other
2011 Maui Film Festival: Movies Matter Award
2011: Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival
2012 Gracie Allen Awards: Outstanding Documentary
Won WFCC Award for Best Theatrically Unreleased Movie by or About Women
Advocacy efforts
Miss Representation was the inspiration behind Siebel Newsom's Representation Project, a non-profit organization using celebrity ambassadors to spread the messages of the film to the community and media. This organization was founded in April 2011 and has since created the award-winning documentary The Mask You Live In, as well as built an online platform to provide tools and information for how to make a difference in your community.
A call-to-action campaign grew out of the film, including a Twitter campaign to call out offensive media, a crowd-sourced list of media that represent women and girls fairly, a virtual internship program to recruit representatives, guides for media representation conversation starters, guides for electing females for political office, weekly action alerts, gender equality principles and resources & tools for taking action.
Filming locations
Most filming took place in Los Angeles, California and San Francisco, California.
Online activism
In March 2017 for the International Women's Day, Jennifer Siebel Newsom and The Representation Project (formerly “Miss Representation.org”) launched a campaign against hate speech ("#NotBuyingIt") asking Amazon to stop buying ads on website Breitbart and using the crowdspeaking platform Daycause to create a tweetstorm.
The #NotBuyingIt campaign is a movement meant to empower others and call attention to the misrepresentations of men and women in the media. Siebel Newsom encourages youth to go against dangerous and negative messages that come along with the influence of the media. Stereotypes that the media promotes is what Siebel Newsom hopes the youth will overcome through the campaign. So far more than 60 million people have been inspired with the campaign and have expressed their views on Twitter. Siebel Newsom wants to make it as inclusive as possible for anyone involved in the campaign. There are many small things people can do each day. Siebel Newsom claims that they lead to a larger impact. Siebel Newsom believes that standing up to the injustices seen in daily lives is how we are going to put a stop to it. Another action Siebel Newsom wants to take is adding media-literacy classes in schools. By doing this, Siebel Newsom believes this is another way to educate the youth about how to understand the media and its messages.
See also
Celluloid ceiling
Killing Us Softly
Media and gender
References
External links
American documentary films
American independent films
Documentary films about women
Documentary films about the media
Documentary films about feminism
2011 documentary films
2011 films
Women in the United States
2010s feminist films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films