So I'm sitting on the couch of my next door neighbor, a lovely 69-year-old woman named Gail (good thing she's not online, or she would have my head and several other nonexpendable parts for revealing her age:), enjoying Oscar night at our neighborhood awards gala. Then,wouldn't you know it, history strikes; Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win the Best Director honor at the Academy Awards.
Suddenly the evening takes on whole new meaning; Gail and I stared into one another's tear-filled eyes and performed a spirited high five. Then we clasped hands and I said, "Let's hear it for the gals." Gail responded, "Yeah, this is for all the guys who said we'd never do anything. We've always had the babies, so we can do somethin'."
Yep, Gail, we sure can; here's to, not only the magnificent Ms. Bigelow, but to all the pioneering women who came before her. These range from silent screen pioneers Dorothy Arzner (the first female member of the Director's Guild, who also wrote and edited features during the silent era)and Alice Guy-Blache, the Frenchwoman responsible for directing one of the first fiction-based features, to more recent luminaries like Sofia Coppola and Barbra Streisand, who presented Bigelow with her award this evening.
As someone who just started her own woman-run media adventure, one that has come to be known as FemPower, I don't dare to aspire to the heights that Ms. Bigelow achieved (though I won't speak for Jana, who I'm pretty sure will run the world one day:). Yet women like her inspire us all to aim a little higher, get a little stronger, and aim for better than we have.
With that in mind, I'm pleased to make a couple of announcements: the first of which is that the first FemPower FemProfile, our interview feature that will spotlight important women in the adult industry, will focus on a major female adult film director. The other is that I'm about to begin researching and writing a book that deals with female pioneers in the film industry.
Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow, and cheers and high fives for all the ladies and the men who back us up; we really can do somethin'!:)
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