Fantastic!

Excellent but underrated film

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

'Miss Representation' is a film that has been created to bring about awareness of how women are negatively portrayed in the media; social media; television; news;newspaper; advertisement; politics. This film informs people that the media has a great impact on our society and the messages it sends. It impacts society by creating this illusion that woman's looks are what's most important instead of other achievements that have been accomplished. This is an highly dangerous message that the media is sending out to young people. Which in my opinion is contributing to street harassment and rape culture. 'Miss Representation' shows the importance it is to expose the media's stereotypical portrayal of women. I would recommend this film. I find it very interesting and educational.

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.

I give this a 4 because it was professionally done, in terms of editing and photography, but in terms of content, it really is sub par. Basically this documentary tries to build the case that media is an insidious influence, whenever it is convenient to their case, but ignores any evidence that doesn't fit their theory. For instance if media were so influential, Americans would be thin and fit, but we all know that isn't true. But more to the point the issue with this documentary is that it is not concerned with looking at its arguments in any depth, instead a cheap slogan type of declaration or testimony is put out by some talking head and in a few minutes of selective media clips they try to cover the lack of depth by jumping from topic to topic flooding you with a barrage of clips and speakers. It reminds me more of a political campaign advertisement than a serious documentary really interested in honest examination of an issue.They make points claiming that other countries have had women leaders before us because we don't depict them in the media, but does that even pass quick inspection? Benazir Bhuto who was a female prime minister of Pakistan lead arguably one of the most sexist countries on earth. So how does that argument even pass muster before they put it in the documentary? It epitomizes the level of thinking in this film.Margaret Cho for example claims that sexism was the reason her sitcom failed, but is that really true? Maybe she just isn't funny. It doesn't matter to this film because all they do is throw these statements out there one after another. Statements claiming that shows like jersey shore are sexist because they show women in a bad light are made entirely ignoring the fact that the male cast in those shows are hardly considered respectable either. This type of poorly thought out argument is the basis for the entire film sadly, and because it is so paper thin, they cut from topic to topic in a hyperactive manner.TV networks like FX have even been known to do things like pass on hit shows like Breaking Bad because they rejected the show based on their quest to break into the lucrative female demographic. Apparently the middle aged white lead was enough for them to pass on the show. But such facts do not matter to this film, which assumes sexism is always the answer to every question in the most simplistic way.My problem with films like these is that they are more about employing techniques of propaganda with selective evidence and shallow one sided argument rather than encouraging critical thought about a subject. To promote this as a feminist film is really to give women no credit at all.If one is going to claim that media does women a disservice, I would suggest this film is the most harmful of all. To use the words of Erika Falk PhD from the documentary against herself and the film itself, women like her and this film paint themselves as "more fragile, emotional, and more gullible than men, therefore they are irrational and cannot be trusted in positions of power".

Some will see Miss Representation as a bunch of hack women complaining about a problem and are not willing to do anything about it. It's an understandable reaction. I've seen so many documentaries that bathe the viewer in paranoia and fear without providing valid solutions or ways that they could fix potential problems. Food, Inc. for example; a well-made, yet somewhat heavy-handed documentary on the exploitation of how our food is made.Miss Representation's goal is to inform people about the blatant sexism in Television, advertising, society, politics, and film. It does a very nice job at providing each of their subjects with material and substance, also giving them enough time to get their point across. I believe more than eight minutes is devoted to the political aspect, and several more to Television and film. For an eighty-eight minute documentary, it covers a lot of heavy territory, and even, gasp, includes efficient solutions during the end credits.The interviewees are Geena Davis, Condoleezza Rice, Lisa Ling, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rosario Dawson, Jim Steyer, Dr. Jackson Katz, and Gloria Steinem, who all comment on the media's insidiously harmful portrayal of women. Comments are made on how advertising has evolved from genial snippets into racy, sexploitation spots begging to be noticed and controversial. It has been proved in the field of advertising that sex sells, and companies race their commercials and magazine advertisements to an invisible finish line to see who can be more daring and provocative.But what are the consequences for imposing such demeaning pictures of women? For one, there's the obligatory "striving for unsustainable beauty" argument. I don't think there is one person who believes that what they see on the front cover on a tabloid or a magazine has not been digitally altered or photoshopped in some way, shape, or form. Most likely, all three of those things have been changed on a picture of a woman, and it's not hard to find out. How many women do you know have pearly white skin and don't occupy a single blemish, mole, pimple, or scar? I remember on KISS FM's "DreX in the Morning" radio program they discussed how parental browbeating and mediocre, sometimes abusive relationships affect a woman's already fragile self-esteem and worth. They brought up how on a magazine cover, Brittney Spears' face was photoshopped onto the body she occupied in the nineties.Miss Representation doesn't break new ground or uncover anything that wasn't pretty much known before, but will likely be useful to teenage girls who are perhaps unaware of the media bias. I unfortunately missed a screening of this at my high school and a lengthy lecture following it. It would've been nice to see audiences reactions in the flesh. I can see some dismissing this as mock-feminist propaganda and I can see people being truly informed and moved by this documentary. Me, I stand where I usually am; in the middle. This is a well made documentary, but not without my personal quibbles and questions. For one, the film mentions that there are very few women directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, etc. Okay, but are women being forced out by the big, bad man, or are they just not showing a genuine interest in the behind the scenes aspects of the film industry? Another thing I must bring up; maybe it's not the studios' fault that women are portrayed so dimly in film. You can't tell me that actresses like Megan Fox and Jessica Simpson don't contract themselves to basically flaunt their stuff in films like The Dukes of Hazzard and Transformers. They know what they're getting into, and appear to have no problem showing what they have. I'm not saying it's right, but maybe the film is too quick to point figures at the provider rather than the person signing the contract and giving consent to be used as a basic caricature.Director Jennifer Siebel Newsom has done a bold and admirable thing releasing Miss Representation, not only letting it glide its way around the country in screenings, but by giving the distribution rights to The Oprah Winfrey Network. This is an informative and amusing documentary showing us that our biggest source of information also serves as our biggest influence on people, good and bad. I'll leave off with a quote from Jim Steyer, one of my favorite speakers in the film; "It's not a Liberal or Conservative issue; it's an American issue and an American problem." Starring: Geena Davis, Condoleezza Rice, Lisa Ling, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rosario Dawson, Jim Steyer, Dr. Jackson Katz, and Gloria Steinem. Directed by: Jennifer Siebel Newsom.