Women in Film and TV

Sex Sells … Even in the Soap Aisle: What Does Sydney Sweeney’s ‘Bathwater Soap’ Say About Our Porn-Dominant Culture?

PUBLISHED 6/13/2025 by

“I need your thoughts on this.” Attached to this urgent text was a link my friend had forwarded to me: An article by Elizabeth Gulino titled, “You Can Buy Sydney Sweeney’s Bathwater Now.”

Upon my first glance at the article, I found myself instinctually grasping for some feminist argument of the campaign, which Sweeney claimed to be fulfilling her fans’ persistent and frankly invasive requests for her bathwater. However, the way our commercial society and the broader marketplace are structured encourages women to market themselves towards those often degrading desires and enables men to continue acting as if treating women as objects is acceptable. And the solution is not restructuring what we construe as feminism, but rather, resisting the urge to accommodate one’s power to what seems like inevitable exploitation.

Defending bathwater products in the name of feminism will not lead us to the kind of liberation we could want for ourselves.

Still Naming the Problem: HBO Documentary ‘Dear Ms.’ Celebrates the Radical Origins—and Ongoing Impact—of Ms. Magazine

PUBLISHED 6/6/2025 by | UPDATED 7/1/2025 at 4:01 P.M. PT

The new documentary Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print, celebrating the trailblazing history and enduring impact of Ms. magazine, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June and is available to stream on HBO Max beginning Wednesday, July 2, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

We are thrilled for the film’s release and the opportunity for millions more people to experience the story and legacy of the magazine. Ms. is more than a magazine—it’s a movement. And it’s crucial we continue to build an intergenerational, intersectional and diverse feminist coalition for the road ahead—because, as the film reminds us, we’re “at this crossroads moment for feminism, journalism and American values.”

Could Hollywood’s Vision of a Black Woman President Help Make It Possible?

PUBLISHED 5/29/2025 by

Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning featured Tom Cruise’s action hero Ethan Hunt deep-sea diving through a submarine 500 feet under the sea, swimming naked in sub-zero temperatures, and sky diving in the middle of a plane duel. And yet, perhaps the most implausible fiction was… a Black woman president of the United States?!

Black male presidents in film and TV set the stage for Barrack Obama’s election. Could more depictions of Black female leaders pave the way for a Black woman president?

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series on women leaders and feminist leadership. Part 2—out Monday, June 2—continues with a public syllabus.)

The Woman Behind the Fair Pay Act Comes to Life in ‘Lilly’ Film

PUBLISHED 5/13/2025 by

It’s tempting these dark days to dismiss the idea that any one person can make a difference.

And yet, every day ordinary people fight injustice. And some days, those people persist long enough, resist long enough, that their fights rise to national prominence. One such fight is chronicled in the new film Lilly, in theaters beginning May 9. The brainchild of director Rachel Feldman, Lilly tells the story of Lilly Ledbetter, “an ordinary woman who became extraordinary,” in the words of actor Patricia Clarkson, who portrays her in the film.

Unfortunately, Ledbetter didn’t live to see the film arrive in theaters. She died in October 2024 at age 86. “She was so profoundly happy to know that her legacy would extend in entertainment form,” Feldman says, “particularly so that young women would absorb the story.”

Blood Money, Blues Women, and the Power of Price: How ‘Sinners’ Rewrites the Gothic South

PUBLISHED 5/8/2025 by

Sinners is rightly recognized as a Black Southern gothic tale, with a plot driven by its male characters. Indeed, the film highlights the camaraderie and community of these men as sharecroppers working alongside their pregnant wives, or as wizened blues musicians who experienced and witnessed enough real-world evil to rival any vampirism.

However, if this “conjuring” is visceral and emotive through the blues music, it is the blues woman and conjure woman who provides its intellectual heft.

This film is a triumph and righteous rebuke of our present era of anti-DEI policies and ideologies. May this way of thinking survive and thrive beyond the vampiric impulse to erase and dominate. 

‘Companion’ Unmasks the Horror Beneath the Tradwife Fantasy

PUBLISHED 4/28/2025 by

Companion starts with a dreamy tradwife fantasy and ends in a blood-soaked feminist reckoning. Writer-director Drew Hancock’s film may nod to Scream, Ex Machina and Black Mirror, but it carves out its own smart, brutal allegory for waking up from the fantasy of obedience. Sophie Thatcher’s performance anchors the story as Iris evolves from Stepford-perfect to gloriously feral, reminding us that when women start asking questions, the whole system bleeds.

Female Filmmakers at SXSW Face a Familiar Challenge: Funding

PUBLISHED 4/2/2025 by | UPDATED 4/14/2025 at 10:24 A.M. PT

With South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin’s rearview mirror, some of its most talented female filmmakers still have a long road ahead to bring their movies to public screens. Even the women who clinched premieres at one of America’s most prestigious festivals have to hustle to support their craft.

“The streaming channels that dominate global viewership are no longer buying many smaller or risk-taking projects,” wrote Keri Putnam of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center.

“The number one challenge is fundraising,” said Anayansi Prado, director of Uvalde Mom, which premiered at SXSW and tells story of Angeli Rose Gomez made worldwide headlines during by jumping a fence during a school shooting and racing in unarmed to save her two young sons.

‘Uvalde Mom’ Shows the Courage of Angeli Rose Gomez—and the Failure of Texas Leaders

PUBLISHED 3/11/2025 by

Premiering at SXSW, Uvalde Mom follows Angeli Rose Gomez, the mother who defied police inaction to save her children during the 2022 Uvalde school shooting. The documentary not only captures her heroic actions but also reveals the relentless harassment she faced from local authorities in the aftermath. Through Gomez’s story, the film exposes systemic failures, community trauma and the power of mothers who refuse to stay silent.

Screaming for Change: Documentary Turning Women’s Fury Into Power Hits AMC+

PUBLISHED 3/9/2025 by

In OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage, Clare Major’s powerful direction and classical-violinist-turned-punk-singer Paris Hurley’s (of Object as Subject, an LA-based art punk band) high-octane music frame this riveting 30-minute documentary on Whitney Bradshaw’s ongoing social practice project, OUTCRY.

The short film follows the photographer from her home in Chicago to D.C. for a reproductive freedom march, then to Denver for an OUTCRY exhibition, and on to Dayton, Ohio, for a scream session just prior to voting on Issue 1, which enshrined abortion rights into the Ohio Constitution.

This film is available to stream from March 14 to April 12 in the AMC + “Future of Film: Athena Rising Stars” collection.