The Sydney Feminists

If you've been following the news stories around Jeffrey Epstein’s horrific sex crimes, you might already be familiar with the term, "underage women". It’s frequently used by mainstream media, including MSNBC and CNN, as well as Epstein's legal team to describe his victims, some of whom were as young as 14 years old. The term is problematic in more than one sense. The most obvious problem is that it's completely farcical - no "woman" is underage. An underaged woman is a girl. A girl is, by definition, a child. But the far more insidious nature of the term is that it muddies the waters and minimises the severity of the crimes in question, which are undeniably horrific. Many news agencies stated they used the term to avoid confusion over whether the victims involved were legally considered children (that is, pre-pubescent, which they were not). But their usage points to a larger and more disturbing cultural trend surrounding female victims: a tend...

Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland are two of the most famous actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Besides talent, they stand out from their contemporaries because they filed lawsuits against Warner Bros. Pictures. Both were contracted to the studio in the 1930s and were unhappy. Among many other actors of the time, Davis and Havilland were exploited by the studio but chose to take a stand in hopes of voiding their contracts. In a Hollywood contract, actors were expected to follow a strict set of rules – on a film set and in life – and had to make any movie they were given whether they wanted to or not. A studio essentially owned an actor. Bette Davis was born on April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her father left when she was young and she, and her sister Barbara, were raised by their mother. Davis showed an interest in acting from an early age and starred in High School plays. She had a successful Broadway career before making the transition to Hollywood. In 1931, Da...

  Hollywood quickly adapted once it realised the power A-list stars held over box office revenue. Within the first two decades of American cinema, a well-oiled machine known as the Star System had been created. Producers and Hollywood Executives would find an actor and mould their personality and talent into a product that could be sold and marketed. If someone wanted to “make it big”, they needed to adhere to a strict set of rules and guidelines. The stress took its toll on many. Some turned to drugs, some turned to wild partying and others became self-destructive. Studios put up huge sums of money to pay off journalists and media outlets not to run stories that could be damaging to their star’s image, such as Rock Hudson’s coming out as a homosexual. Women had little control over their personal lives and their bodies were forever the subject of scrutiny. The Early Years The first silent films had no credits and the public didn’t know actors’ names. Audiences star...

Over half the scripts written during Hollywood’s silent era were written by women. The women came from a variety of backgrounds when they entered the industry. Some were actors, some came from Broadway and others started off as journalists, to name a few professions. Largely unknown to a modern film audience, Frances Marion was one of the first well established and sought-after screenwriters in American cinema. During the 1910s to late 1930s, she penned many scripts for films that are now considered classics. She wrote across many genres and even received academy awards for The Big House (1930) and The Champ (1931). Born on the 18 th of November 1888, in San Francisco, her parents named her Marion Benson Owens. She would later be inspired and take her screen credit from famous American Civil War soldier Frances Marion. She started out as a journalist, model, career artist and World War I correspondent before eventually moving to Los Angeles. Marion’s Hollywood career...

Being nominated for Best Director is one of the most prestigious honours the Academy Awards has to offer. It’s the ultimate form of respect for a director’s hard work and achievements. Among the chosen are some of the greatest directors of all time, but only four women have been nominated since the Academy’s introduction in 1929. They are Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola and Kathryn Bigelow. Out of this list, only Bigelow has won the award for The Hurt Locker in 2009. Lina Wertmüller An Italian director born on August 14 1928, Wertmüller was nominated for Seven Beauties in 1976. The film follows the story of Pasqualino Frauso (Giancarlo Giannini) as he goes AWOL from the Italian army, during World War II, only to be captured by Germans and thrown into a prison camp. The movie was the tenth written and directed by Wertmüller, but is her most well-known. Her films are noted for their arthouse-style and focus on political and social issues. So...

  In film theory, the Hawksian woman archetype describes the female lead characters in movies directed by Howard Hawks. An archetype is a character model, or pattern, that is common in storytelling. Hawks made a number of films during Hollywood’s Golden Age that featured female characters with very similar traits. The Hawksian woman archetype stepped outside the Hollywood norm – his female characters were not reduced to being damsels in distress or sexualised objects – and instead had spunk, charisma, wit, intelligence and were cool under pressure. They knew exactly what they wanted and were not afraid to go after it, but, most importantly, had the respect of their male counterparts and were considered “one of the gang” among them. Film critic Naomi Wise (1945-2011) first coined the term Hawksian woman in 1971. Howard Hawks, himself, was born on May 30 th , 1896. He made his way to Hollywood in the 1920s where he landed a position at the Mary Pickford company. H...

Mary Pickford was an actress who is synonymous with silent film and early Hollywood. In 1919, she formed the film studio United Artists alongside other screen legends of the day; Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith. Chaplin had become famous playing the Tramp in comedies and was known internationally. Fairbanks was one of the most sought after male leads of his era and known for doing his own, dangerous stunts. At the time, he was also married to Pickford. Griffith was one of the first great directors. He popularised many common camera techniques and angles that, as a modern audience, we take for granted today. One of the first close-up shots in a Hollywood film featured Pickford in Friends (1912). Pickford had been acting in plays since an early age to support her family. Her mother, sister and brother – Charlotte, Lottie and Jack – were all vaudeville actors too. Pickford’s father died when she was y...