From abuse to activism Tori Amos is known for “lyrically opaque but emotionally intense songs that cover a wide range of subjects including sexuality, religion, patriarchy and personal tragedy.” [Wikipedia profile] Her song “Me And A Gun” (1991) was a response to her brutal rape. She has openly talked about her abuse, and in […]
Creative Women
Drew Barrymore on real success
Flower Films was founded in 1994 by Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen, when Drew was 19. Their first production was Never Been Kissed (1999), followed by Charlie’s Angels, and others, including the 2017 Netflix show The Santa Clarita Diet. In a magazine interview, Barrymore commented, “I knew what our intentions were, but they had nothing […]
Healing and art: Exene Cervenka: “Something really bad is a blessing and a curse”
An article on the artist notes: “Exene Cervenka has transitioned successfully through a variety of career phases, starting with her stint in X, the band that perhaps best embodied the character of L.A.’s punk subculture of the early ’80s. “She moved on to the rootsy folk-country side project the Knitters with other members of X […]
Diablo Cody and strong female characters
One of the pleasures of many films of the 30s, 40s, and 50s was the dynamic presence and performance of women such as Myrna Loy (Nora Charles in The Thin Man series, etc). Jeanine Basinger, a professor of Film Studies at Wesleyan University, describes the impacts of these films in her book How Hollywood Spoke […]
Our culture still isn’t comfortable with women and power
Working as a director in the 1950s, Ida Lupino commented,”You don’t tell a man; you suggest to them.” Ally Acker writes in her bio, “The back of her director’s chair read, ‘Mother Of Us All…’, a nom de plume that Ida Lupino solicited, encouraged and used fully to subversive advantage. “It was her armor against […]