Miss Representation is a 2011 American documentary film written, directed, and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. This film portrays the struggles that women go through everyday. The film explores how mainstream media contributes to the under-representation of women in influential positions by circulating limited and often disparaging portrayals of women. The film premiered in the documentary category at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Apart from interviewing many powerful women in media, such as Jane Fonda, Rachel Maddow, and Katie Couric, it also gives these women a chance to tell their story and why their personal experiences have made them so passionate about better portraying women in media. Newsom also uses this film to further her social action campaigns through that was started due to her frustration with how the under-representation of women in media is contributing to the under-representation of women in American politics. #RepresentHer is one of Newsom’s campaigns that is a branch of the Representation Project, focusing on inequality in the workplace.
Synopsis
The film interweaves stories from teenage girls with provocative interviews to give an inside look at the media and its message. The film’s motto, “You can't be what you can't see,” underscores an implicit message that young women need and want positive role models, and that the media has thus far neglected its unique opportunity to provide them. The film includes a social action campaign to address change in policy, education and call for socially responsible business. The movie brought along a lot of positive movement and encourages those who viewed the film to take the pledge against gender misrepresentations by using hashtags like #RepresentHer and #DisruptTheNarrative.
The cast consists of over 109 subjects, appearing as themselves. Raw footage of teenage girls telling their stories is shown alongside direct interviews with a multitude of influential celebrities, prominent political figures, activists, and accomplished filmmakers. These interviews included Katie Couric, Condoleezza Rice, Lisa Ling, Geena Davis, Marissa Mayer, Jean Kilbourne, Cory Booker, Rachel Maddow, Rosario Dawson, Jim Steyer, and Jackson Katz among many others. For the complete list,
Soundtrack and music
The film's soundtrack includes music from Metric, Alan Moorhouse, Van Phillips, Jules Larson, Chinatown, and Randi Skyland. Help, I'm Alive -Metric Gold Guns Girls -Metric In The Swing -Alan Moorhouse Tom Fool -Van Phillips I Want It All -Jules Larson Drive Me Crazy -Chinatown This Is My Life -Randi Skyland
Recognition
The Oprah Winfrey Network acquired broadcast rights for the film following its premiere. ; Audience Award from
2011: Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival.
2012 Gracie Allen Awards: Outstanding Documentary.
Won WFCC Award for Best Theatrically Unreleased Movie by or About Women.
Advocacy efforts
Miss Representation was the film to inspire , a non-profit organization using celebrity ambassadors to spread the messages of the film to the community and media. This organization was founded in April 2011 and has since created the award winning documentary The Mask You Live In, as well as built an online platform to provide tools and information for how to make a difference in your community. A call-to-action campaign grew out of the film, including a Twitter campaign to call out offensive media, a crowd-sourced list of media that represent women and girls fairly, a virtual internship program to recruit representatives, guides for media representation conversation starters, guides for electing females for political office, weekly action alerts, gender equality principles and resources & tools for taking action.
In March 2017 for the International Women's Day, Jennifer Siebel Newsom and The Representation Project launched a campaign against hate speech asking Amazon to stop buying ads on website Breitbart and using the crowdspeaking platform Daycause to create a tweetstorm. The #NotBuyingIt campaign is a movement meant to empower others and call attention to the misrepresentations of men and women in the media. Newsom encourages youth to go against dangerous and negative messages that come along with the influence of the media. Stereotypes that the media promotes is what Newsom hopes the youth will overcome through the campaign. So far more than 60 million people have been inspired with the campaign and have expressed their views on Twitter. Newsome wants to make it as inclusive as possible for anyone involved in the campaign. There are many small things people can do each day. Newsome claims that they lead to a larger impact. Newsome believes that standing up to the injustices seen in daily lives is how we are going to put a stop to it. Another action Newsome wants to take is adding media-literacy classes in schools. By doing this, Newsome believes this is another way to educate the youth about how to understand the media and its messages.
