Women directors, women screenwriters, and the Bechdel Test

To pass the Bechdel Test, a movie has to fulfill these criteria:

1. It has to have at least two [named] women in it

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man

Doesn't sound too hard, does it?  And yet about half of the movies in the Bechdel Test database fail the test.  More than 10% failed all the criteria.  Just to recap, that means they didn't have more than one named female character in the whole movie.

Here is a list of some of the IMDb's top-rated films, measured against the Bechdel Test.  And here are some graphs.

So where are all the women?  Well, probably the same place all the female screenwriters and directors are.  In Hollywood, 19% of screenwriters are women.  In television it's 28%.

And, far from getting easier, it's actually getting harder for women to get writing work in Hollywood.  You can read more about that here.

As you'd expect, there's a connection between the number of women working as writers, directors and producers, and the number of female characters onscreen.  More on that here.

From The Guardian:

"The irony is that women were in at the birth of cinema. The silent era was a golden age with female screenwriters writing half of all movies between 1911 and 1925. Jane Cussons, chief executive of the industry body Women in Film and Television, says: 'Just think of Alice Guy Blache, who was the first woman ever to direct a movie. She directed 400 films, produced hundreds more and ran her own studio. Then when sound came in, film making became big business. Men moved in and women just got sidelined.'"

[you can read the whole article here] 

Perverting the course of poetry

"Let mit though hought lips com. If to rosy wheigh his ithought looks, But on heigh rosy looks, not is Adminders not is compests. Loveration th hought beark Thaken me mark Thakend wan ime's this neve removents. Loverief thought mar shat lov...ers ben."

"Let me no! it alters with his be edge of doom. If true marriage of doom. If though rosy lips and weeks, Or bending sickle's fool, the error and weeks, Or bends Admit is bends with his not with the star to remove alteration finds Admit although his thour"

- versions of Sonnet 116 via the Travesty Generator!

The Generator allows you to set the "travesty level" low, so there are only small changes, or high, so the words themselves are broken up. The second one was somewhere in the middle. I like the way the first one almost reads like dialect or archaic English - it looks like it makes sense if only you can figure it out! Like Robert Burns or Chaucer or something.

Rumour has it that They Might Be Giants and the Travesty Generator are jointly responsible for "Millennium hand and shrimp" in Terry Pratchett's Diskworld books.

Apologies to those who read this already when I posted it on Facebook!

Some geek humour

If you thought academic papers were required to be dry and humourless, try this neatly self-referential piece on rhythm in language from Cognition. For best effect, read it aloud. Thanks to RH for the link!

And if you liked that, you might also like the classic self-referential story This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself by David Moser.

And if you want something shorter, I love this limerick, courtesy of Wikipedia's Metajokes page:

There once was an X from place B,
That satisfied predicate P,
He or she did thing A,
In an adjective way,
Resulting in circumstance C.

What you can do in a single paragraph

The Moons of Jupiter

"Cousin Iris from Philadelphia. She was a nurse. Cousin Isabel from Des Moines. She owned a florist shop. Cousin Flora frm Winnipeg, a teacher; Cousin Winifred from Edmonton, a lady accountant. Maiden ladies, they were called. Old maids was too thin a term, it would not cover them. Their bosoms were heavy and intimidating -- a single, armored bundle -- and their stomachs and behinds full and corseted as those of any married woman. In those days it seemed to be the thing for women's bodies to swell and ripen ot a good size twenty, if they were getting anything out of life at all; then, according to class and aspirations, they would either sag and loosen, go wobbly as custard under pale print dresses and damp aprons, or be girded into shapes whose firm curves and proud slopes had nothing to do with sex, everything to do with rights and power."

-Canadian writer Alice Munro, from the story Chaddeleys and Flemings, in the collection The Moons of Jupiter. I've been a long time reading this book because it's so concentrated. Each short story is like a miniature novel.

You can buy it at Fishpond here.

So long, Noah

American photographer and blogger Noah Grey is a legend to anyone who ever saw his incredible pictures or read his writing. For many years he was an example of just how much great work could be shared on a website.

And now it's gone: his amazing portfolio in its ever-expanding glory; Grey Expectations, his daily photolog; and Noah's Lark, his blog.

For some years Noah lived in Redondo Beach, California, and his pictures were of beaches and seabirds and surfers and Californians in the sun. Then he and his husband separated and he went home to Texas for a spell: I remember pictures of liveoaks and leaves. Then, after publishing his book of lush Californian pictures, California, he met a new love, Barry, with whom he moved to Dublin, Ireland. His Dublin pictures were misty, foggy, rainy: as gentle and subtle as his Californian pictures had been bold and brassy. He wrote of his great happiness with Barry, and his new life in Ireland. And then the unthinkable happened: Barry had a seizure in his sleep and could not be revived.

All that remains of http://www.noahgrey.com/ is a picture of Barry, vignetted with shadows.

Noah has moved on, obviously. I hope he is all right, and still taking his amazing pictures and writing about things. In all the years I followed his website I never bought a print of one of his pictures, I never commented, I never emailed him. But I admired him hugely. Is it fatuous to say I revelled in his successes and grieved for his sadness?

So long, Noah, you are much missed. I'm sure many others feel the same.

Nice Terry Pratchett interview

Thanks to Jana, again, for pointing me to this interesting Times interview, in which Terry Pratchett talks about his writing and his Alzheimer's.

I thought his main reaction had been anger? He has to correct me again. “This wasn't anger. This was rage. You can smoulder with anger. I could weld with this rage. Actually, that's quite good, I should write that down.” Did he take it out on his wife? “No! That's the whole point, you save it up.

He wrote somewhere that his last book, Nation, a brilliant parable about reinventing civilisation after a tsunami, had been written with “filtered rage”. “Look, I'll own up, OK? Authors are good at this sort of thing. I've got some rage here. It is bloody good rage. It's like an artist finding a bloody good blue pigment, what can I paint with it? So this book is about a boy raging at the gods.”

Read the whole thing here.

Mixed mediums = roomful of clairvoyants

My philosophy about this blog is that I write about things that I love, find awesome, that are amazing, mindblowing, or cool. I only review or link to things that excite me. I *do not* whinge, moan or lambast, at least not here. ;-)

OK, permit me one small moan.

THE PLURAL OF MEDIUM IS MEDIA.
Please, please, if you write about art, remember: you have one artistic medium, but two media.

And if you have an artwork that uses more than one medium, that work is executed in MIXED MEDIA.

The only time you can have mixed mediums is if you have a whole bunch of clairvoyants gathered together.

Eileen Duggan: stunning poetry

Eileen Duggan (1894–1972) was well-known in New Zealand in the 1930s and 1940s as a leading poet; she supported herself full time as writer for 50 years, producing not only poetry but essays, reviews and journalism.

I first came across Eileen Duggan's work in the beautiful anthology My Heart Goes Swimming: New Zealand Love Poems , which also contains other New Zealand greats such as Katherine Mansfield, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Cilla McQueen, James K Baxter, Hone Tuwhare, Bill Manhire, Fleur Adcock, Lauris Edmond, and many others. Unfortunately this book is currently out of print.

Duggan's poetry is polished and formal, which will alienate some readers, and at its worst can be sentimental and contrived, but at its best I think it's breathtaking! I haven't been able to locate any of her books of poetry still in print, but some can be found in libraries. Meanwhile here are three poems to whet your appetite:

The tides run up the Wairau

The tides run up the Wairau
That fights against their flow
My heart and it together
Are running salt and snow.

For though I cannot love you,
Yet heavy, deep and far,
Your tide of love comes swinging,
Too swift for me to bar

Some thought of you must linger
A salt of pain in me
For oh what running river
Can stand against the sea?



Night

You are the still caesura
That breaks a line in two;
A quiet leaf of darkness
Between two flowers of blue

A little soft indrawing
Between two sighs;
A slender spit of silence
Between two seas of cries.



Illumination

The leaf was dark until a wind
Flung it against the living sun
And all the little cells behind
Were lit up one by one
...
Lord, if my green has power of fire,
Fling me against you love or ire
That I may give you out again
In one green, luminous amen.


You can read more about Eileen Duggan on her Book Council page, and there are some photographs of her here.

That's the spirit!

'When the Times of London reported in 1837 on two University of Paris law profs dueling with swords, the dispute wasn't over the fine points of the Napoleonic Code. It was over the point-virgule: the semicolon. "The one who contended that the passage in question ought to be concluded by a semicolon was wounded in the arm," noted the Times. "His adversary maintained that it should be a colon."'

Read more about these dangerous semicolons in this great story on Slate. Thanks to Jana for the link.

Uncle Fred in the Springtime

Fans of P.G. Wodehouse will need no encouragement to read this story in which the eccentric Uncle Fred meets not only the inhabitants of Blandings Castle, but also the efficient Baxter! Sir Roderick Glossop, brain specialist, has a small cameo part.

Yes, it's Edwardian country-house nonsense, with a plot so farcical and convoluted I'd hate to have to draw a diagram, but it's also totally brilliant and hilarious.

Wodehouse's observations of his characters are inspired. Try this:

"...there entered a young man of great height but lacking the width of shoulder and ruggedness of limb which make height impressive. Nature, stretching Horace Davenport out, had forgotten to stretch him sideways, and one could have pictured Euclid, had they met, nudging a friend and saying, 'Don't look now, but this chap coming along illustrates exactly what I was telling you about a straight line having length without breadth'."

And try these, from Uncle Fred himself:

"'I seem to have a vague recollection of having met him somewhere, but I can't place him, and do not propose to institute inquires. He would probably turn out to be someone who was at school with me, though some years my junior. When you reach my age, you learn to avoid such reunions. The last man I met who was at school with me, though some years my junior, had a long white beard and no teeth. It blurred the picture I had formed of myself as a sprightly young fellow on the threshold of life.'"

"'We start out in life with more pimples than we know what to do with, and in the careless arrogance of youth think they are going to last for ever. But comes a day when we suddenly find that we are down to our last half-dozen. And then those go.'"

"'You can't compare the lorgnettes of today with the ones I used to know as a boy. I remember walking one day in Grosvenor Square with my aunt Brenda and her pug dog Jabberwocky, and a policeman came up and said that the latter ought to be wearing a muzzle. My aunt made no verbal reply. She merely whipped her lorgnette from its holster and looked at the man, who gave one choking gasp and fell back against the railings, without a mark on him but with an awful look of horror in his staring eyes, as if he had seen some dreadful sight. A doctor was sent for, and they managed to bring him round, but he was never the same again. He had to leave the Force, and eventually drifted into the grocery business. And that is how Sir Thomas Lipton got his start.'"

The Ode Less Traveled: Unlocking the Poet within

I picked up this book partly because it was by the always-interesting Stephen Fry, but mostly because of its sublimely apposite title. Turns out Fry has a passion for writing formal poetry, and he thinks we should all give it a go; I haven't worked my way through the whole book yet (there are lots of funny exercises along the way), but he has convinced me that there might be something in it. It's a fascinating and addictive book for anyone interested in writing or better appreciating poetry.

Incidentally, Stephen Fry has a brilliant blog.

The publishing lottery

This New York Times article details a few editorial blunders from the archive of Alfred A. Knopf Inc: books turned down that later went on to become bestsellers. As the article points out, Knopf was hardly unique: many of these books were turned down by a list of other publishers. The Diary of Anne Frank, Animal Farm, and Lolita are among the rejected manuscripts. So if you've ever been rejected by a publisher, you're in distinguished company!

Lulu and indie publishing

The Big Idea has this interesting article on internet self-publishing site Lulu, which boasts, among other things, the first book ever written on a mobile phone.

Natalie Buchanan, romance novelist extrordinaire

Natalie Buchanan writes saucy romances in between caring for her four young children. You can read all about it here.

Power of the press

This fascinating story tells of the poor Dalit man who takes on the establishment every week with his own newspaper, handwritten and photocopied, circulated in his local community in Eastern India.

A nest of singing birds

The New Zealand School Journal started out 100 years ago as a textbook-substitute, but it has evolved into a cultural and literary treasure. So many great New Zealand writers and artists got their break with School Journal.

To celebrate the School Journal's centenary, the National Library is showing a selection of original art contributed to the Journal by such big names as Rita Angus, Colin McCahon, Louise Henderson, Juliet Peter, and many others.

The exhibition takes its name from Alistair Te Ariki Campbell's description of the Journal's office as "a nest of singing birds"; A Nest of Singing Birds is at the National Library in Wellington until the 21st July. You can read more about the exhibition here. And some historical background here.

And if you want to send your own original work to the School Journal, this is the page for you.

New J.R.R. Tolkien book

Apparently the manuscript has been sitting around in pieces, and Christopher Tolkien has joined them together.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut died this week. I'm sorry that we won't have any more of his books to look forward to. He has left us quite a few, though...Fishpond has these.

The last one I read was Breakfast of Champions. Boy is it strange! It has no minor characters, and there are a lot of characters. Before that I read Bagombo Snuff Box, which is a collection of his earliest published stories, and an essay he wrote about the process of writing: it's a fascinating window on his creative process.

Serial novel

I've just read Alexander McCall Smith's Love Over Scotland. It's wonderful, and a wonderful form: short episodic chapters, originally published daily in The Scotsman newspaper. Each chapter gets to have either a cliffhanger or a punchline. How many regular novels have that?

McCall Smith's website is worth a look, too.