By Zoë

Mad Max: Fury Road and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. It’s hard to dispute that the two films were both critical and commercial successes. Furthermore, they both achieved this while featuring well-written, complex female leads.

Both films could be considered ‘feminist’ in that they starred female characters who were not sexual objects, were multi-dimensional, and whose narrative arcs didn’t revolve solely around men. However, Fury Road and The Force Awakens had completely different approaches to the representation of gender and sex, and I want to explore this further.

In The ForceAwakens, gender does not matter. By which I mean, you could swap any of the male characters to female, or vice versa, and they would remain largely the same. The plucky desert orphan with a knack for piloting could have been a man. The runaway Storm Trooper could have been a woman. The characters’ defining traits were their skills, their personalities and whether they were on the side of good or evil. This is excellent, in my opinion, because it sends the message that it’s not your gender that is important, but what you do. Considering the number of children who watched this film, it’s a wonderful message for them to absorb.

This ‘gender-blind’ approach is often utilised in science-fiction, a genre which, owing to its fantastical nature, can disregard the prejudices of our own society. Jane Espenson, a writer on shows including Firefly, summed it up thusly: “If we can’t write diversity into sci-fi, then what’s the point? You don’t create new worlds to give them all the same limits of the old ones.”

Fury Road, however, takes a completely different approach. In Fury Road, gender – or rather, sex – does matter. It matters entirely, because the oppressions faced by the women in Fury Road occur explicitly because they are women.

Sure, Furiosa is never treated differently because she’s a woman. There’s no holding back from Max when they fight each other, and Immortan Joe’s men respect her command until they realise she’s gone rogue. But let us be clear – Immortan Joe’s kingdom is a patriarchy. It is ruled by men, and women suffer from their abuse. The abuse of the women that Furiosa rescues cannot be separated from their status as women. They are raped and forced to bear children, kept in sexualised outfits and essentially treated as chattel. Their inferior status is inscribed upon their female bodies. You could not swap the characters from male to female and retain George Miller’s highly political message about the abuse of women.

While The Force Awakens eschews gender politics, Fury Road confronts them head-on. The heroes of The Force Awakens fight the Dark Side, the heroes of Fury Road fight the patriarchy. They escape male oppression and search for a female-only utopia. Furiosa is a member of the “Vulvalini”, honestly.

I enjoyed both films immensely, as a film-lover and as a feminist. The difference was, The Force Awakens made me forget about sexism for two hours. (What a glorious two hours that was.) Fury Road demanded that I think about it. When it comes to gender equality, The Force Awakens shows us a world we’d like to live in. Fury Road, by contrast, shows us a representation of the world we live in now and just how devastating it is.

The oppression of women is an issue that we all need to be paying attention to. So thank-you, Fury Road, for making it the focus of a big, popular film. But sometimes, thinking about it all is unbearable. So thank-you, too, The Force Awakens, for giving us a fantasy to escape into. When it comes to female-centric films, we need both kinds. 

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Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is now showing in cinema.
Mad Max: Fury Road is nominated for Best Motion Picture at the 2016 Academy Awards. 

Cause a Cine do not take any credit for the images used in this post. 

By Claire

It's why were all here, really, but female directors are seldom talked about in mainstream media. In effect, the more casual viewer often say to me that they do not know of many women directors. Even in one of my cinema studies classes last year, students, too, had trouble making a list of female directors. 

I stumbled across this list of essential films by female filmmakers last year, and as a budding women in film activist, more titles surprised me than I would care to admit. 

When you really think about it, you may have seen more female-directed movies than you know:

Across the Universe (2007)

Directed by Julie Taymor

The Matrix (1999)
Directed by Lana and Lily Wachowski 

Whip It (2009)

Directed by Drew Barrymore

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Directed by Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton

Thirteen (2003)
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke

You've Got Mail/Sleepless in Seattle
Directed by Nora Ephron

Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Directed by Gurinder Chada

Wayne's World (1992)
Directed by Penelope Spheeris

Clueless (1995)/
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Directed by Amy Heckerling

An Education (2009)
Directed by Lone Scherfig

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Directed by Lynne Ramsay

American Psycho (2000)
Directed by Mary Harron

Selma (2014)
Directed by Ava DuVernay

You can check out the rest of the list here

Or join the pledge to watch #52FilmsByWomen, along with more lists and resources

What's your favourite film by a female filmmaker?

By Claire

I almost didn't want to write this post, because I feel like I am just constantly repeating myself, but if we don't get angry, how will The Academy learn?

Last night the 2016 Oscar nominations came out, and people can say all they want about "awards don't matter" or "the Oscars aren't relevant anymore", they really, really do, because it highlights and showcases what the industry deems "worthy" and "important." 

Last year the Oscars received backlash for their blatant omission of people of colour and women in their nominations with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. You think they would have learned by now, but if you can believe it, this year is worse!

Every actor nominated in either a lead or supporting role is white.

No women were nominated for Achievement in Direction, and none of the 8 films nominated for Best Motion Picture were directed by a woman (a drop from last year's Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay, which even then, was only nominated for two awards).

It has been six years since a woman was nominated for the direction category, which was Katheryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. 

This is all a major issue, as it actively demonstrates the systematic oppression of women and people of colour in the film industry. If women and people of colour aren't nominated, celebrated or acknowledge for their work in the industry, how can any women or people of colour know that they can direct, write, star in a movie, and be recognised for it? 

And it's not like 2015 didn't have the talent. 2015 was an amazing year for women in film, but the Academy don't seem to recognise it. 

I was talking to my latina friend, getting angry about the nominations. Like me, she is by no means surprised, but nonetheless disappointed in this years selection. As she pointed about, apart from the foreign films, Alejandro González Iñárritu is the only latino nominated, and no latina women are there at all, "I'm so TIRED of Latina women not being nominated for things because THEY'RE NOT IN THEM." 

Which therein lies the importance of viability and representation, which The Oscars, arguably the most important awards for mainstream Motion Pictures, constantly denies. 

People of colour aren't being nominated because they aren't being cast in any films, because they aren't being nominated and the cycle goes on. Or at least the films aren't being supported, because they are deemed "too risky" to take on. Which is stupid. 

Women driven and diverse cast movies make money in the box office, and are successful (never mind beautifully made, impactful and a CRAFT). But The Academy ignore's this, and thus the industry ignores this.

You can read the whole nominations list here, and Congratulations to Room, Brooklyn and Mad Max: Fury Road for their Motion Picture nominations, and to the following female directed  documentaries and foreign films nominated, which seems to be the only place we're seen: 

“What Happened, Miss Simone?” by Liz Garbus for Best Documentary Feature. 

“Chau, beyond the Lines” by Courtney Marsh, “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and “Last Day of Freedom” by Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman for Best Documentary - Short Subject.

“Mustang” France* by Deniz Gamze Ergüven for Best Foreign Film.

I am so rooting for you. 

By Claire

Rowan Blanchard is one of the most important young feminists of our time, and one of my top inspirations and role models for 2016.

At only 14, Rowan plays popular tv couple of the 90’s, Cory and Topanga’s, daughter, Riley Matthews on the Disney Channel hit Girl Meets World, (a spin off from the ABC 90s classic Boy Meets World, and discussed on the blog in this post).

In the world of constant connection and social media, Rowan uses her Twitter account to tweet and re-tweet articles and inform her 330 thousand followers of intersectional feminism, LGBTQ+ rights (which extends beyond being able to marry), depression in teenagers and the Black Lives Matter movement. She writes about these issues in the captions on her Instagram account, which has a staggering 3.3 million followers. 

Her writing provides an insight and eloquence I hope to one day achieve myself. 

At the start of this year, in the caption of a short video posted on her account, Rowan mentions going through depression in the past year, her lesson to live unapologetically, embrace her teenage emotions and support for all teenagers. In a society where teenagers are condemned for being emotional, are pressured into having their lives figured out, as young and foolish, Rowan embraces teenager’s right to be exactly who they are, complicated and full of emotions as they are, including herself. 

However, it seems that every day I am more and more inspired, and fall more and more in love with her.

In 2015, Rowan spoke on “gender inequality in youths” at the US National Committee for United Nations Women Annual Conference with Team HeFor She. The video of this speech is linked in the profile of her Instagram account, highlighting the importance gender equality is to her. 

You can read the transcript of her speech here, so expertly written and spoken, as well as other responses such as her mini essay on the term “white feminism”, and sexism on the red-carpet. 

Alongside friend and feminist trailblazer Amandla Stenberg, Rowan was named Feminist Celebrity of the Year by the Ms. Foundation for Women. These two were placed number one, an top of an impressive list of ten including Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Lavern Cox and Viola Davis. 

Rowan Blanchard is a stunning, eloquent, educated, mature and beautiful girl who inspires me to do better every day. You can catch her on the Disney Channel show Girl Meets World, and follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

by Claire


Disney Channel Original Movies and TV Shows have always had great feminist moments. The importance of friendship, self-acceptance and growth all being reoccurring themes.

While I don’t keep up with Disney Channel as much as I used to (RIP 00s Disney), and I assume you don’t either, I have stumbled across Girl Meets World, which has become my current obsession, and for good reason.

Girl Meets World is a title that may sound familiar to you (mostly in northern America, but it depends on how hip you are with 90s television). This is because Girl Meets World is a spin-off of ABC’s 90s hit Boy Meets World. If you’ve ever heard of the legendary TV couple of Cory and Topanga, Boy Meets World is where they are from. Fourteen years after the final episode in 2000, Disney has released a spin-off series, based on Cory and Topanga's family, but mainly on their 13 year old daughter Riley.

As the daughter of the fierce Topanga Lawrence, it is no surprise Riley has picked up her mother’s feminist spirit in the most recent episode (now in Season 2), titled Girl Meets STEM. For those who don’t know, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, all subjects that have little female representation. 

In this episode, Riley’s class (along with her friends Maya*, Farkle**, Lucas and Zay) are divided into boy-girl pairs to conduct a science experiment. The instructions are simple: One student must return at the end of the day to drop a marble into a beaker, and the other student is to return the next day and figure out what the mysterious substance created by the marble is. 

In a move that is unsurprising, but nonetheless shocking, all the boy students automatically delegate their girl partner to drop the marble, while the guys “do the science.” This act is unquestioned, nor argued against, except by one person: Riley Matthews.

(From left) Lucas, Maya, Riley and Farkle hear about their science midterm. 

This episode looks deeper into what is on the surface (girls losing interest in science), questions why this is, and challenges it. Riley’s anger is used to awaken her fellow female students and fight back.

Riley refuses to drop her marble.

It is revealed that the science teacher has conducted this experiment every year for the past 35 years, as Middle School is the age where he notices girls start to lose interest in science—because the boy’s aren’t letting them.

Girls in STEM subjects is an issue Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls has discussed a lot in the past year, and is an important issue everywhere. STEM are male-dominated fields, for no reason other than girls feeling like they can’t, as demonstrated in this GMW episode.

While the episode was full of great lines, such as Riley listing the history of feminism after Farkle faints, one of the most memorable would be this: 

“By relegating me to a second class marble dropper, you are stopping me from realising my full potential.” 

Not only is this language very self-aware and sophisticated for an 8^th grader, it reveals the problem with the system, and why there are few girls in STEM in one line. Boys take charge and girls are too often stopped form realising their potential. Girls don’t hear about other girls in STEM and thus do not know that they can.

Riley's mother Topanga and Riley help educate her fellow classmates on being feminists.

This episode is full of many joys, which had me cheering to myself on the couch more often than not. However, one of the most ground-breaking (in my opinion) things about this episode is the use of the F word. 

That’s right, on this Disney Channel show about 8^th graders (currently), Riley and her best friend Maya ACTUALLY say “We’re feminists now.” Because guess what? ‘FEMINIST’ ISN’T A DIRTY WORD.

I love this show, and I loved this episode. Girls in STEM is hardly a topic covered in mainstream media (as far as I know) so it was really special to see it done so wonderfully here.

Rowan Blanchard, who plays Riley, is a feminist trailblazer herself, who will be featured in an upcoming post.

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Girl Meets World airs on Disney Channel, Foxtel, weekends at 7.50am 

For all you Boy Meets World fans:
* Maya is the Shawn to Riley’s Corey
** Farkle's last name, Minkus aka Stuart Minkus’ son, but he is actually a core character and not a punchline, so yay team