Story time!

What it's like to be a woman in Hollywood

"I'm going to begin today with a story and end with a revolution" 

A little summary of the Ted talk :

So I just watched this amazing TedTalk with Naomi McDougall Jones about what it's like to be a woman in Hollywood and what we can do to change that. She begins off by telling her story, someone who graduated and went on to become an actress, only every role out there for women were very sexist, and overall gave the women characters no substance or any sort of individuality at all. So Naomi went on to create her own film, despite countless people telling her that no one wants to watch a movie made by women, her film was successful. 

So the speaker is arguing that there is very little representation of women in Hollywood, and that that needs to change. She claims Hollywood always tells the same perspective, that of men. So we grow up, and that's all we ever know. She says that we deserve to hear all perspectives, because we should be able to hear all the different stories that exist. But Hollywood prevents these stories to be told.She then begins to give a four point plan toward revolution.Where she argues that change doesn't happen because "you ask the people in charge, they change because all of the people who don't have what they want to rise up and make that change happen". 

How the author gets her point across

So Naomi Jones is an award winning actress, producers, and writer  so she helps to use this to her advantage. During the video, she mentions this before she gets her point across, and this greatly helped her because she was seen as a more credible source since she has been a part of Hollywood and has been able to see this issues. She has also created a website that helps to spread her point across of supporting female movies. I think that her direct involvement with the industry as well as her projects that she been apart of to further her point across definitely does give her credibility. (Ethos)

I think that the logic of this presentation is very sound. Throughout her presentation she is able to use her credibility to her advantage as well as facts, statistics that help to further prove her point( women only direct 5% of expensive films, for example). She bases her argument on the combination of personal experience and information that is well known (all you have to do is pay attention to the movie you watch and research and you can see that what she points out is true). It could also be biased though, because she is a woman in the industry so that could bias her views, but I don't believe it do so. (Logos) 

I do believe that she appeals to emotion to some extent. When she was reading out the descriptions of roles that were available to her, as well as when she saying how Oscar-winning nominees tell her no to play the woman-card. It these instances she is trying to connect to the audience in a sad/angry sort of way. An emotion of like "can you believe this is the world we live in" sort of mood. She also uses a lot of humor in her presentation. This combination of the serious/funny emotions that she displays greatly help to keep the audience intrigued in what she is saying. (Pathos) 

Why did I choose this? 

I choose this at first because I was intrigued by the title, but then as she continued her arguments and her very well done presentation I was so hooked. As a feminist, I completely agreed with what she said about the lack of representation not only for women but also people of color within film and I was curious as to how a regular everyday person can change this industry that has been built so long ago. I also found it really interesting when she talked about perspective and stories she said "And right now, all of that is being funneled at us through the prism of this one perspective. It's not that it's a bad perspective, but don't we deserve to hear them all? How would the world be different if all of the stories were told?" and it reminded me of when we talked about the importance of multiple stories in TOK last year (shoutout to Mrs.Genesky). 

Purpose 

So to sum it all up the speaker wants to educated about the lack of representation in the film industry and how this needs to change. Her purpose is to change this and she did this by presenting four steps (detailed in the Ted Talk) of how to battle this inequality. She hopes to achieve an increase in female, as well as overall more representation with films. She wants to see new films, new perspectives from all around and watch new stories. She wants to also give children role models, and have films that can teach boys to empathize with female characters. 

"The time for waiting is over. The time for the revolution is now."