Geek Girl in Hollywood: The positive stuff happening for women

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about men who are feminist allies. The response to writing something positive was louder than I expected. It got me thinking about talking about the good things that are happening for women in Hollywood, as well as pointing out what’s wrong.

Now, I know we women get the argument, “But you have ‘Hunger Games’! See, there are ladies in lead roles,” as though that one film makes up for the utter dearth of female-led fare. I know how annoying that is. I mean, I’m giving myself a concussion with all the face palming. That said, it’s still important to talk about the progress we have made, rather than just addressing the negative.

This week, Anita Sarkeesian put out the first video in Feminist Frequency’s new series “Positive Female Characters,” and, though it likely won’t get the hits that talking about the negative ones does, it’s just as important. Sometimes it’s disheartening to constantly hear stories about how bad everything is, how we seem to be backsliding as a culture in terms of misogyny and harassment of women online. It’s time to talk about the good for a change.

Disney is doing a live-action “Mulan” film. Whatever your thoughts about remakes, this is a pretty fantastic story starring a non-Caucasian woman. (Please, oh, please don’t cast a white girl.) We just got a new trailer for “Mad Max: Fury Road” and Charlize Theron totally owns it. People like Keira Knightly are speaking out about the need for more female stories. Anthony Mackie just talked about how important it is that Marvel is introducing more female characters so girls have more representation. Angelina Jolie made a wonderful and inspiring speech about the importance of being different at the Kids Choice Awards, saying, “Different is good. When someone tells you that you are different, smile and hold your head up and be proud.”

Oh, you’ll hear me rail against misogyny in Hollywood, have no doubt about that. We need to talk about things that need to change and point out how we can do better, but we also need to take a look at how far we’ve come and be proud.

Follow Jenna Busch on Twitter @jennabusch and visit her site, Legion of Leia