Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

#inspirationalmovies 

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984, Hayao Miyazaki) is a warrior-princess story. While it goes a bit further in the dedication-for-your-cause scale than healthy, requiring effort close to self-sacrifice, that does not change the fact that Nausicaä is beyond any pochahontas out there (well, apart from being a fictional while the other one was not).

Miyazaki does follow a feminism-of-difference argument on the innocent-girl-in-touch-with-nature saving her world and outsmarting the establishment, but that gets somewhat balanced with the fact that the invader leader is also a woman... Anyways, here you have a full-blown (animated) action movies with an underlying environmental concern with a great (very active and independent indeed) female lead. Inspirational it is.

Shanique ♥ Being a Girl

While going through the stories about the IPPF's Emerging Leaders' Summit celebrated a year ago, a initiative called The I'm Glad I'm A Girl Foundation caught our attention. It does sound like we have many things in common, so we asked it's founding member, Shanique Campbell to share her story. 

"I am Shanique Campbell.
I enjoy singing, chilling with the people I love and eating... I am a BIG foodie.

If I really stop to think about it, I started as small as 5 years old when I would get the most helpful certificate every year in school. But this really evolved in high school, selling newspapers for my key club that would then be used to purchase much needed items for children's homes all over.
In University, I became a peer leader for the premier leadership program UWILEADS; which had as a part of its function a Social Justice Programe that sought out ways in which both schools and communities could be engaged and people could become empowered.

Upon getting pregnant in 2011, the latter part of my second year of University studies, I had an extremely difficult time adjusting with what was to come not just physically but mentally as well and what started out as just a summer camp has now developed into being so much more. Not only did I give birth to a beautiful baby girl, but I also had the opportunity be a founding member of the only foundation of its kind in Jamaica; The I'm Glad I'm A Girl Foundation.

Our target was to empower girls who are currently in the most defining moments of their lives - puberty - and by way of doing that, not only empower them but help them to empower their friends and families.

I'm Glad I'm A Girl from Amina Doherty on Vimeo.

This foundation has redefined me and has really put into focus what I believe in. It has also afforded me the opportunity to travel and not only speak about Jamaica and what we are doing there but to also share best practices with other regions so that they too can help to uplift this vulnerable group. Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Conflict Resolution, Financial Literacy and Career Planning are all things that are needed to help to cultivate the world that we want to see.
I firmly believe that if you develop a girl, you develop a nation and as such I try to share my passion with anyone who will listen.

What makes me continue is really just a drive to see social justice and gender equality something that is a reality all over the world. I truly love what I do and as a mother, I want to be the change I wish to see in the world so that my daughter will have a different experience than I did.
As an Emerging Leader with IPPF and the youth advisor for the Global Coalition on Women and Aids, I see myself being able to give a voice to the voiceless and to help others find their voice along the way and it is a responsibility that I honor with pride.

The world would be a much better place if everybody would:

• See The Man with One Red Shoe with Tom Hanks and The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie
• Listen to Jill Scott and learn about the fat back...
• Read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Try zip-lining (it's amazing!) and following their gut 

Before I am 80, I would like to travel to at least 40 countries, to experience the many different cultures and of course try out their food. I would also like to be thought of as a pastry chef by even one person! :) "

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Made in Dagenham (2010)

#inspirationalmovies

Made in Dagenham (2010, Nigel Cole) is a dramatization of the strike that brought "the Equal Pay Act 1970, the first legislation in the UK aimed at ending pay discrimination between men and women, and the first such legislation in the world".

While you can read more in wikipedia and your history books, here you have a very nice and uplifting version. It shows the tensions that collective action creates (and sure created when striking wasn't something that feminized professions did), and the overt discrimination, patronizing and economic exploitation to be experienced by women that led to the strike. Even more, a prominent place is dedicated to our ever alive foe of second shift and the double standard that is expected from working men and women. Nevertheless, there are also  pretty dresses 60's dresses, the spirit of female friendship and solidarity, and happy ending*.

Made for those Friday nights when your drive for activism and feministing is down and needs a boost. Made in Dagenham will do the job.

* Well, the ending is relatively happy as in the EU28 we are still some 16% on average below the male wage (and some more in US and other places), see the chart for 2012 data below.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Julie & Julia (2009)

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Looking for a lift-me-up? This is the right one. Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia (2009) is all you need if you're into cooking, blogging and inspirational role models.

In one movie you get the always amazing Meryl Streep being Julia Child and fighting with French cooks in 1950's Paris + an office clerk blogging away. We have to admit that the Julia Child part is much more delicious than the contemporary one, although both are based in real people finding their creative exit in cooking (making food can be liberating if that's your choice and resonates with your most authentic self, no doubt).

Can't help but love the way how her passion for food (not fat shaming to be found in her approach to munching!), her wish to do something instead of being an idle wife, her relationship with her husband are depicted... You end up believing and enjoying! Bon appétit!

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Girl Superheroines

#inspirationalmovies 

Again and again, a disclaimer first. Yes, superhero movies are mostly already problematic. Lots of violence, lots of sexism. But being part of the popular culture, some inspiration can be drawn from the genre. Assuming you'd be obliged to look for superheroine movies, here is our take on those.

First of all, the stereotypical. Say hello to Kick-Ass (2010) and Kick-Ass 2 (2013). Apart from the extremely tough character of Mindy Macready / Hit-Girl there's not much going on for these movies. Flat, explicitly violent (rated R both of them) and quite boring. Gender-based jokes are less than tasteful and the whole genre could be classified as traditional superheroes meet mean girls.
Anyways, you may want to bear through those just to realize how bad the superhero thing is when it comes to heroines*.

And this is the place where the invitation to go back to our childhood goes. Powerpuff Girls (1998-2005) as a somewhat healthy alternative. In order to convince you, the laborious people of buzzfeed.com have compiled a whole list of the reasons why "The Powerpuff Girls Could Have Replaced Your Gender Studies Class". Some of the reasons include, obviously, the fact they do not fit the "sugar, spice and blah-blah stereotype", had a male primary caregiver, did (together with many other characters) drag and dress-up, etc. And they fought patriarchy -in their cutesy and drawn baby-girl way - as they fought villains.

* Yes, Hunger Games are on and will be featured eventually. No, Catwoman or other female characters from different Batman movies do not count. The saddest of recent takes on women and superpowers ever was probably Watchmen (2009).

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Girls (2012-)

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This goes in the same way as Sex and the City (1998-2004). While you would like to hate it and tell everybody how shallow and untrue it is, you find yourself glued to the monitor. And being thankful that each episode is just about 20 min.

Again, this is mostly a story of how not to. And how we all do stupid things. And we all are somewhat anxious at times. While Girls (2012-) caused various storms in the US media bla-bla (well, see here where the series is compared with a 1925 hipster essay on emancipation and cliche formation, here, and here; and that's just one magazine that prides itself on going deep into pop phenomena), take it for what it is.
A story on being structurally privileged - go, google the whole thing about Girls lack of racial diversity, like this - and still very insecure. On being confused and very weird. Very weird.

Again and again, and it's impossible to repeat it too much, this is not role-model show. There are no such, btw. Watch it as an anthropological study on some girls in some place. I doesn't have to be representative. It doesn't have to be healthy. But it may take some stigma off from being weird, having mental health issues, dealing with your own body, being entangled in relationships that you know are no good, etc. The usual stuff.

The obvious bonus is that the creator of the series is a girl (Lena Dunham was born in 1986), so we can just relax and listen to her stuff. As an anthropology piece, we said.
Just to realize that the problem is not only the perfection, the girls that Courtney Martin describes as

"We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving… We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins… We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers… We are the daughters of the feminists who said, “You can be anything,” and we heard, “You have to be everything." (from this book)

We also have the other end of the messiness and anxiety spectrum. Plus all the shades in between.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: The Hours (2002)

#inspirationalmovies

The Hours (2002, Stephen Daldry) reflects the inner life of three very different women - one of the being Virginia Woolf - connected by Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Based on Michael Cunnigham's eponymous novel, the plot revolves around the fragile nature of happiness and how, even when satisfaction is expected, is does not always come.

Other recurrent themes are the complexities of affective relationships (love is complex, you know), sexual orientation and ways to canalize it (especially in oppressive setting), femininity and gender roles.

Of course, the three lead actresses - Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore - add value to the picture. Also, pay attention to the colours and to the beautiful, stream-like pace of the movie

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Sex and the City (1998-2004)

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OK, OK... this is one of those you never thought of this as being a feminist piece. Again. And each of those surprises have their own special reasons. Sex and the City, the series (1998-2004) is no exception (add the moves to this at your own risk).

An innovation when it comes to drama-comedy long term series. A series with 4 women as the central characters. A nonchalant attitudes about sex. Life beyond sex and men, like, emm, jobs. Outrageous dresses. Non-perfect women. So on...

Obviously, it can be annoying, stereotype-ish... Yes.
Here's the trick - and read the article linked below, it does a better job at explaining it - too many people all around the world took it as a how to be and what to strive for look-book.
In many most cases it's a visualization of how not to (the obsessions with looking for the perfect partner, making up drama for drama's sake, etc). Take it as a meditation of the flaws of the sexual and romantic liberation of women who are still brainwashed into looking for the right one while wearing dangerously high heels and managing professional lives.

If we can't convince you to give a second watch to Sex and the City, maybe this Emily Nussbaum's article will convince you about its special place in the pop history: Difficult Women. How “Sex and the City” lost its good name.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

#inspirationalmovies

OK, this is cult. This is scandalous. This is classic. If you haven't seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, Jim Sharman), drop everything and get a copy!

If you thought that Shortbus (antother must movie for people in SRHR, mind you) was outrageous, this is even better. No graphic sex but an even more whimsical take on sex and sexuality. Gender fluidity, happily (pleasurably!) lost virginities, ditching the monogamy... all that in 1975 and in drag!

In case you saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower and didn't really get the performance part, this movie is what they were mimicking. Being part of the fandom, obviously.

+ The soundtrack is the best. Here, have a taste!

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

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Probably the most gender-not-in-the-picture movie about a girl-child that you will ever know. Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012, Benh Zeitlin) is at the same time scary (be aware of the possible trigger of very rough kind of parenting) and somehow inspiring...

If you treat it as a metaphor (yes, again, as with Picnic at Hanging Rock) - and not as an actual story of a small child wandering around, lost and scared - it is a journey of a free person in the big, wide world. Occasional damage is caused, being nature and all, but things somehow make sense, there are people you can trust and even the scariest monsters (storms, police, actual monsters) can be tamed if you stand brave and look them into eye.

An additional gem is the very young Quvenzhané Wallis who we are waiting to see in upcoming movies. While so, she's already known for not playing dumb nor fake humble. And having been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar when you're 9 is, well, AWESOME!