2014-02-23

Swedish Cinemas have a new feminist movie rating




SWEDISH CINEMAS LAUNCH FEMINIST MOVIE RATING

Nov 6, 2013





Folkets Bio in Sweden ( film exhibitor and distributor)  puts an A symbol next to films they screen that feature two women or more who speak about something other than men! Bravo!
This test was invented by graphic artist Alison Bechdel.

This is a great article. Only in Sweden has something been done to officially change gender discrimination. Hynek Pallas, a Swedish journalist received money from the Swedish Film Institute to make a film about Ingmar Bergman (so many films about Bergman......) so he is hardly in a position to criticize this policy (article comments taken down). What he is really attacking is Anna Serner, the CEO of SFI who alone at Cannes spoke about how Sweden was making efforts to put more women behind the camera. (http://www.sfi.se/en-GB/Press/Press-archive/The-Swedish-Film-Institute-celebrates-50-years-with-an-international-equality-initiative/)
Age old arguments by skeptics and cynics will do nothing to change the situation and just assures it will continue.

Sweden does not have "gender madness" as  Swedish mathematician Tanja Bergkvist asserts- - there is gender equality and if that is madness more of it! The two critics seem to forget the goal of this program: movie watchers rarely see "a female superhero or a female professor or person who makes it through exciting challenges and masters them... The goal is to see more female stories and perspectives on cinema screens." Most of Bio Rio's audience (Stockholm cinema house)  is young, and the critics seem to belong to another generation that expect equality to jump out of a hat like a magic rabbit. The point is also not that a Harry Potter film or a Bigelow film doesn't pass the test: the point is getting people to think and this is a great incentive. 

Jada Pinkett Smith seems to have her eyes open already.


"Here we are sitting and talking....about something other than men."

A mark on films shown in Sweden from Alison Bechdel, graphic artist. 


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