davidbeatty Let me state up front that I consider myself a strong and active supporter women although I refuse to label myself as a feminist since I think the true meaning of the label has been high-jacked and perverted by the self-proclaimed leaders of that movement. Rather, I prefer the label of "classical liberal" who is a staunch support of equal rights for women. And it for that reason I bother to write.I just watched your documentary "Miss Representation". I was incredibly frustrated and saddened by what I saw was golden opportunity missed. Golden in that chalk full of "real gold" regarding women's rights/equality issues, but, sadly, it was also so salted with so much "fool's gold" (i.e. damaging hyperbole and clear political agenda) that most viewer will disregard it as just another rampantly and irreparably partisan diatribe. What a shame. The truly tragic part is it didn't have to be that way. In fact, if could have easily been otherwise.You could have highlighted the treasure trove of gold (unflinching reality and "fair facts" regarding the issue) without the poison political pills you scattered among your extremely thought provoking points. Specifically you repeatedly leaned on the cliché rhetorical and political debate tools and polemics of the left. In so doing you, ironically, guaranteed that your documentary instantly alienates close to half the viewing public (non-liberals) who should be your target. Rather you are left preaching to the left, who are already your choir (i.e., modern "progressive", "liberals," old guard feminists).The reason that I am so heart sick over this fact is that the documentary did such a spectacular job of defining the problem including the etymology of the problem... which I would broadly state as the male dominated history of the world and its current iteration as viewed through lens of modern media.BUT THEN, it manages to eviscerates the power of that message by offering solutions... which were highly polarizing, politically... i.e, that the "solution" is yet more government, more legislation and more regulation... much of which will end up diminishing and dis-empowering the very women they were intended to benefit.The problem this documentary so beautifully elucidates is TOO IMPORTANT to have half the entire population grab the clicker to turn it off when it starts hearing the same old tired polarizing vitriol from the same old warn out pundits – the very ones criticized in the same document.Do you really believe that we need more regulation of the media, and free press, as several of your commentators suggest. Ironically the lines you up with the sensors on the right that want to dictate media content to THEIR moral standard.What irked me the most was that this political pandering, was COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE. You had so many credible, unbiased, fair and accurate feminist commentators (of all political stripe) that could have made your powerful points without politicizing and polarizing the whole piece (alliteration not intended). You could have easily veered off in uncharted territory – even-hand and politically unbiased pursuit of the truth, but chose instead decided to take the path "most traveled" and politically worn, all on the left side of the road.It's a shame you couldn't resist the pervading peer pressure to tow the liberal establishment line, literally and figuratively. Partisan pull is powerful.Criticism of misogynistic men in their thought and deed is 100% valid, and critically necessary. Lumping all men into that monolith makes it part of the problem of sexism, not the solution.I have a dream... that someday… men (and women) will be judged by the content of their character, and the gray matter a half an inch behind that "pretty face" (to paraphrase Dr. King). The greatest injustice man has ever perpetrated against itself during its entire history on this planet was to waste, minimalism, or at the very least underutilized HALF of the world's human resources.What would the world be like today if we had twice as many genius, artists, exceptional leaders and policy makers... from the beginning of time – who also just happen to be women. The mind boggles. I wish that point was more clearly stated. But I think its' at least inferred, which is good… or even great, since its' so rarely pointed out.I found myself agreeing with a surprising number of the opinions being expressed. You eloquently defined the true nature of the problem: the mangled misogyny so powerfully experienced and so compellingly articulated by a wide range of women in your documentary - many of whom courageously state that women themselves are as big a part of the problem as men. The discussion of the inherent power dynamic that operates to allow and encourage women to disenfranchise themselves was exactly on point. I just wished you had stated the obvious implication; that its women who innately have the power to instantly change virtually every aspect of their own status as "second class citizens" and virtually every other evil you illustrated – if only they self-actualized to true nature of the barrier that prevents them from doing so.The lens I filter it through is not democrat or republican, not one of liberal lemmings who can speak the feminist mantra but don't know the meaning of the words, or the soul crushing conformist conservatives who want to dictate to women how they should live and love.As I said, if I had to pick a label…it would be "classical liberal," ironic, I know, since modern "progressive liberals" are largely the antithesis of many of the true liberals that literally stand of liberty.Regardless, thanks for your efforts, and I hope you at least consider some of these thoughts going forward in your work.

makhrinskyd While I agree that there is a huge disparity between the way that men and women are represented in the media, I believe that this documentary raises the right concerns without attempting to find a resolution. The resolution is not easy, and will not happen overnight but there should be more that women, and young women can do to improve depictions of themselves in mass media. On the other hand, this video places high stress on shattering media's depiction of beauty, while presenting women who are very obviously wearing a large amount of make up and are all on the thinner side of the body spectrum. I am not insisting that the women featured in this documentary should be bare faced or at an unhealthy size, but I do think that there should be a larger variety of women represented in the film because in this way they are still conforming to ideals that they themselves are attempting to break from. From an educational perspective, it is important for young women aged 12+ to watch this film and understand that they have the power to change the portrayal of their gender in the media from "Politician Barbie" to politician by challenging criticism and taking it in stride. I am hoping to see a second part to this documentary in the coming years, perhaps with more testimonials from young women and media figures.

mngnm94 To explain what is wrong with this movie's theory here is the description of my political beliefs from my dating profile:I like equal rights, but we need to consider EVERYBODY'S rights while fighting for the rights of minorities. The only thing that is excluded from this is Gay Marriage., because it WON'T affect anybody negatively. For example, Wayne Franzen upped the danger in his tiger act, because animal rights groups started to protest circuses, claiming that ALL circuses were abusive, so he had to make more money to keep his circus going, and, so, upped the danger in his tiger act. The result was... he was KILLED BY A TIGER! Did the animal rights groups, mean for him to DIE? NO! THEY just meant to protect animals, which is a GOOD thing. What they didn't consider is that people make their LIVING being in circuses. What they should have done instead is help develop ways to train animals humanly, so that way, there would STILL be circuses, AND animal rights WOULD protected, both sides win!Fortunately, Wayne Franzen's story is an extreme example, mostly, books and movies get labeled racist, or sexist, or both, because of of progression. This problem is caused by meta analysis, which here means "quantitative statistical analysis that is applied to separate but similar experiments of different and usually independent researchers and that involves pooling the data and using the pooled data to test the effectiveness of the results" (basicly Miss Interpretation) this presents three MAJOR problems:1. Does not treat characters as real people. (We CAN NOT control what race, sex, or sexual orientation we are born with)2. Judges whether the creator of the characters mentioned above as a bigot, WITHOUT talking to them. This thanks to the "Twilight Saga" has made this apply to not only creators of classic books (my favorites) who are dead, but also those who are alive. (Which in most cases the creators of the films featured in this documentary ARE alive and should have been interviewed on screen)3. Ignores the fact this accused media has NOT stopped the progression of human rights, as some EXTREME left people claim it does.4. The First Amendment says people can create any media that expresses any views Media Literacy can claim it does. and the fact that "Miss Representation" says media HAS TO is unconstitutional and American.(The fact that the First Amendment is the last thing I think to point out should disturb you, because like Women's Rights the Right to Freedom of Expression is a HUMAN right)I'll admit it is magical to see a character ALMOST just like you in media, mainly because these people don't know you exist. When a 16-year-old girl said she said the media did not include women like her, I told her a very personal story about my struggle to see myself in media:My Dad died, setting off a chain of events that didn't seem to match any of the "dead Dad" stories in movies, TV shows, and other media. Not even my favorite novel "The Phantom of the Opera" where the women saves two men, matched my own "dead Dad" story. Thus I felt alone. Then I saw "Saving Mr. Banks" six years after my Dad died, and it matched my "dead Dad" story almost exactly! Finally Hollywood had used it's Right to Freedom of Expression to include a women like me, and now everyone will understand what I went though when I reference "Saving Mr, Banks" I am not alone anymore! If you view enough media, I am POSITIVE you find a woman like YOU too.I would give all viewers of "Miss Representation" the same advice. Thanks to the Representation Project however if it works I won't be represented in media anymore, because it takes more than one piece of art to represent the human experience. Most of which will get destroyed by the Representation Test or simply because it was written by men. To fight the Representation Project with me use their website's Contact Us page to tell them how male creators of media have represented you, and use #NotBuyingit on them, using the method of analysis I gave you at the start of this review. Use #MeidaWeLike to support media YOU think is feminist even if the Representation Project says it's sexist. Because sexism in media is only do to Miss Interpretation.

evawatches This documentary doesn't break new ground for people already interested in the issues discussed, but I think that it gives a good perspective on why the representation of women in media is so important in our society, and why the way women are often portrayed is damaging - to media consumers of all genders (ie. all of us).I especially liked the focus on how female stereotypes in media affect young girls' self-esteem and ultimately their chances of growing up to be leaders. Obviously the documentary was US- centric, but these problems exist pretty much all over the Western world, where girls see very few really good role-models in mainstream media and where the few that exist are always heavily scrutinized and criticized.Since media has changed so much in the past 20 years, I agree with what was also said in the movie: That media literacy, the ability to understand media as products (created by humans with their own biases and agendas), has become almost as important as the ability to read. After all, these days it's pretty much impossible to shield children from harmful media messages, so it's vital that they have the tools to deal with those messages. This is true not just for girls, but also for boys.