Today's The Day! The Bitch Pack, ‘changing women's representation on screen – starting with the written page’, has just announced the results of its first annual Bitch List (scripts with Brilliant, Intriguing, Creative, Tenacious Heroines). It's a tally of industry votes for scripts seen (but not yet produced) in 2012 that pass The Bechdel Test Each script must have:
1. At least two [named] women in it
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something besides a man.
It's a fine occasion and complements the Bitch Pack’s award at Shriekfest, for a horror screenplay that passes the Bechdel Test.
The Bitch Pack is not alone in its activism. The Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) diversity reports first exposed me to activism within that huge film industry based on the United States' west coast. Every two years, the reports examine trends in film and television employment and earnings and they continue to find that white men are given many more opportunities than women and minority writers. The WGAW has also established programmes that it hopes will effect change. Then I learned about the California-based long-haul work of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, Miss Representation and various academic researchers. But in the last year, the momentum has quickened. More women in the industry have established initiatives to advance the interests of their colleagues. And I'm excited about them all.