The End

This week, my project partner, Liz, and I presented our project on the "Representation of Women and Minorities in 'Best Picture' Winning Academy Award-Winning Films."

We looked took the movies that won best picture over the last 10 years and by loosely using the Bechdel Test (which involves having movies where there are at least two women, who talk directly to each other, about something other than men) we looked to see if the best picture movies had women, who were not the love interest, wife or girlfriend of a male, and minorities in lead roles.

By looking that the last 10 movies that won best picture we found that the majority of them had white males as cast in the leading roles. Only 3 of the movies, (Chicago, Million Dollar Baby and Crash) had women in leading roles and only 1 movie, (Crash) had both women and minorities in leading roles.

We also looked at the top grossing films for the last 10 years to see if the average movie goers were drawn to movies that might have minorities or women cast in the lead roles, but the top grossing films were all white males in the leading roles.

I thought our presentation was really interesting because I didn't realize how many movies that I had seen that were mainly comprised of white males in the lead roles. When I do see movies that have a woman cast at the main character, she is often naive and ditsy...that's romance comedies for ya.

I notice things we have learned throughout the semester a lot more now, then I did when the semester first started and I have really enjoyed this class. It has opened my eyes to things I didn't really take notice of before.

Round 1

The first round of presentations was this week, and I thought some of them were really interesting...

I really liked the comparison between Nicki Minaj and Lil Kim. I think it's unfortunate that instead of working together and being proud of what they do, they turn on each other and same some pretty nasty things. I think Minaj should be thankful that Lil Kim opened doors for her, and Lil Kim should be thankful that someone looks, or looked, up to her. She was a role model and instead of acting like a role model, so kinda turns into a biatch about it. I thought it was interesting though. I don't know much about Lil Kim, but I do hear Nicki Minaj on the radio all the time and I didn't realize how crazy her lyrics were. It's interesting too, to see how they both changed themselves to portray what they think others want to see. With all the plastic surgery and what not. It's sad they think they have to pretend to be someone else to get people to like them.

I also thought the comparison between men and women's basketball was really cool. It's interesting to see that both the men and women's team get the same budget for whatever they may need in the seasons, but it seems the men are spotlighted more. Even though, with the newspaper comparison they presenters did showed that coverage was more or less the same. I also thought it was crazy that some of the sponsors only wanted to sponsors the men's basketball team. I think that is crazy and unfair for the women's team. Women's sports doesn't get much hype at all, I know I'm not crazy about women's sports. It's said, and hopefully one day it will change. I think a big reason no one really cares for women's sports is because it hasn't really been around as long as men's sports. So maybe the longer it hangs around the more attention it will get.