What it takes to make it as a modern female pop star

"At first glance, I didn't realize the most notable thing about the video, as I was totally distracted by McKee's very bright candy-colored hair: it's that she actually wrote every song she was performing. "Hold It Against Me." "Teenage Dream." "Dynamite." "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)." "Part Of Me." "C'Mon." "California Girls." "Wide Awake.""
                                                - Jezebel

It's a Man's Man's Man's World- METRO

Nikki Baughan, editor of MovieScope magazine, said Pacific Rim was in bad company at the box office this summer, with films such as Man Of Steel, The Great Gatsby and World War Z all incapable of meeting the three Bechdel criteria.
‘Yes, they have female characters in them – indeed, striking characters like Daisy Buchanan, Mako Mori and Lois Lane – but they all fail the test for one reason or another,’ she told Metro.
‘Unfortunately, these women are not independent characters in their own right, but designed to interact with and support the males around them...’

‘If girls grow up without seeing strong female characters on screen – leaders, engineers, scientists – it has a very real impact on how they see their place in the world,’ she said. ‘It’s a vicious circle and the Bechdel test is an important tool for highlighting this problem. The Bechdel test acts as a magnifying glass; by breaking down a film in these simple terms, it draws attention to the shocking gender disparity that exists in the majority of cinematic narratives. The Bechdel test isn’t intended as a mark of quality, rather of gender diversity within a narrative.’

The problem lies on the other side of the camera. According to research carried out by the University of Southern California, just one in six of the directors, writers and producers behind the 100 top-grossing movies at the US box office last year were female.

‘Women are under-represented in English language films, but it’s not surprising when you look at the dominance of men behind the camera,’ said film writer Stuart Barr, a contributor for movie websites Screenjabber and Chris And Phil Present.

Baughan added: ‘Male screenwriters write from their own perspective and experiences and that usually – though not always – results in female characters that are either absent or entirely unsatisfactory. It’s a sad fact that, for various reasons historical and financial, the mainstream film industry remains the enclave of the straight, white, middle-class male.’

Read the rest of the Metro article at The Bechdel Test and why Hollywood is a Man's, Man's, Man's World

"I Was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl" - New Statesman

"I’m fascinated by this character and what she means to people, because the experience of being her - of playing her - is so wildly different than it seems to appear from the outside. In recent weeks I’ve filled in the gaps of classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl films I hadn’t already sat through, and I’m struck by how many of them claim to be ironic re-imaginings of a character trope that they fail to actually interrogate in any way. Irony is, of course, the last vestige of modern crypto-misogyny: all those lazy stereotypes and hurtful put-downs are definitely a joke, right up until they aren’t, and clearly you need a man to tell you when and if you’re supposed to take sexism seriously. "

Read this article, and if you REALLY want to be disturbed watch Ruby Sparks.