New role for Geena Davis: Getting Hollywood to fairly portray girls
by The Daily Eye Team July 8 2014, 10:04 am Estimated Reading Time: 1 min, 1 secGoogle Geena Davis and up pops the pose that established her as half of the “first selfie.” The iconic frame from “Thelma & Louise” was reprised and tweeted recently by her costar Susan Sarandon. The photo, and the movie’s recent ranking among Hollywood’s 100 favorite films, has the actor in the news. But what Davis has been doing behind the scenes in Hollywood is far more important than any trending celebrity story. In fact, it’s groundbreaking. For years now, Davis has been holding closed-door meetings with Hollywood directors, studio heads, screenwriters, producers and casting agents — all the people that bring characters and stories to audiences. She’s pressing them on something that supposedly progressive Hollywood thought it had overcome years ago: the alarming disparities in how the genders are depicted on screen. Consider something as humdrum and seemingly innocuous as crowd scenes. They’re overwhelmingly populated by male characters. Even in animated films, those kid-friendly box office hits that one might assume are held to a higher standard of inclusiveness, female characters are few and far between. Davis noticed this when she began watching movies with her then-toddler daughter.