I believe that the things we don’t express will kill us. Kill us as a country, kill us as people. Paula Vogel Walking the streets of Philadelphia is […]
Author: Holly L. Derr
“Top Girls” is Top-Notch Feminist Theater
Few women playwrights have garnered as much praise and generated as much controversy as Caryl Churchill. Her work has been called feminist, post-modern, post-colonial, Marxist, experimental, irritating, innovative, ludicrous and […]
“Love Alone” Takes on Malpractice, Grief and Gay Rights
Deborah Salem-Smith’s play Love Alone is an intimate play about family and grief that also manages to take on gay rights and medical malpractice.
A Feminist Light in the Piazza
The success of The Light in the Piazza (it won eight Tony Awards) proves, yet again, that stories by women—even women in their late 40s!—do sell tickets and do make great art.
Binders Full of Women and People-of-Color Playwrights
Given the astonishing range of theater being made by women and people of color all over the country, the reluctance of major theaters to walk the walk they talk is increasingly at odds with the reality of American theater as a whole. Yet somehow, the argument is still being made that there just aren’t plays out there by women and people of color that are ready to be produced in the big time.
Women’s Bodies in Oscar-Nominated Films
One of the Oscars’ main gender problems is the Academy Award for Best Picture. Most films are produced by teams of both men and women, making segregation in that category impossible. And yet, the Best Picture category is where we can see the clearest evidence of the Academy’s preference for male-driven films.
How Much Do You Know About “Women’s Lib”?
During my years as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I took as many classes as I could in their well-reputed women’s studies department. When […]
Attacking Rape Culture with Gallows Humor
TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of rape and rape culture … When Jessie Kahnweiler started talking about making a comedic short film called Meet My Rapist about her personal experience with rape, everyone […]
A Feminist Guide to Horror Movies, Part Six: The Final Chapter
Already missing Halloween? Me too. Much to my dismay, this October featured only one horror movie release with Carrie. The next installment of Paranormal Activity (we’ve had one every October […]
A Feminist Guide to Horror Movies, Part 5: The Blood of “Carrie”
Carrie is largely about how women find their own channels of power, but also what men fear about women and women’s sexuality. Writing the book in 1973 and only three […]