Amy Adams is amazing as Lois Lane in Man of Steel. Her version of Lois is fearless, witty and wise. Diane Lane and Ayelet Zurer as the respective mothers of Superman are also amazing, as is the fact that both Superman’s Kryptonian mother, Lara Lor-Van (played by Zurer), and his human mother, Martha Kent (played [...]
Summer always makes me a bit nostalgic for childhood. I remember fondly the excitement of being out of school, the long days with nothing to do but read and the cool refuge from the hot Texas sun provided by a matinee of a summer blockbuster at the local movie theater. Unfortunately, this summer’s action movies [...]
In a groundbreaking step for the comic book world, X-Men has finally released its first all-women superhero team. Marvel‘s latest issue of X-Men #1, Vol. 4, brings together six female mutants—Storm, Rogue, Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey and Psylocke—at the woman-named Jean Grey School for Higher Learning to form a mold-breaking ensemble, both for the 50-year-old X-Universe as [...]
For six weeks in the spring of 2013, Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In topped the New York Times bestselling nonfiction list. About exactly 50 years before, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique accomplished the same feat. The timing may be a coincidence, but it is not accidental that Sandberg’s work resonates with Friedan’s book: According to Jodi [...]
It’s summer, which means elite theater professionals all over America are headed to the country for summer stock. If you can’t make it up into the mountains this summer (or if you can’t afford the expensive tickets to these high-society productions), fear not: Our cities are full of all variety of underground artists hawking their [...]
Art can often be the most striking medium for inspiring change and sparking dialogue, and artists in the developing world are harnessing this power to see that their stories are told on a global scale. One recent dialogue-sparker is the play Cooking Oil, written by award-winning Ugandan playwright Deborah Asiimwe, which makes its U.S. premiere [...]
Earlier this week, Disney fans became outraged by the company’s decision to include Merida, of the animated feature Brave, in its new line of sleeker, sexier princesses. Admired for her tomboyish spunk and dudeless story arc, Merida stands out from princesses before her in ways that can be considered revolutionary for women in animated film. For this reason, [...]
HollabackPHILLY, a branch of the anti-street harassment organization Hollaback!, hasn’t taken many breaks in the last few months. They’ve placed campaign posters on Philly subway trains, have met with companies about removing pro-harassment messages from their advertising and, last Thursday, the group sent their newly finished anti-street harassment comic book to the printer. Hollaback! started in 2005 [...]
UPDATE: The L.A. Times reports that, according to a Disney representative, the company has no intention of abandoning its “sexier” new depiction of Merida, which will illustrate a limited run of products, including backpacks and pajamas. The rep said that the previous version of Merida would still be available on other Disney products. Bravery comes [...]
A longtime favorite of feminists, author/poet/social activist Marge Piercy wrote a short story, “Saving Mother From Herself,” that we published in the last issue of Ms. magazine—it’s about a women who resists her family’s efforts to clean up what they consider her messy life. We talked to Piercy about the story, her writing and her [...]
