Making Moves: First Female CEOs, TED Talks, & Record-Breaking Films
Another week, another batch of inspiring women.
Every Friday, we here at C&C like to celebrate all of the incredible contributions women are making in the world. And as always, this was a good week for women. Read on to see women being featured in film festivals, moving up in business, and more!
Activist, writer, and educator Brittany Packnett gave her first TED Talk ever this week. The subject of the talk: confidence! Packnett says she has been working her whole life for this moment, speaking at the event TED2019: Bigger Than Us in Vancouver on April 16th.
She’s moving on up! Corie Barry, the current CFO of Best Buy, will become the company’s first-ever female CEO. Barry will become one of the few CEOs to head an S&P 500 Company and will officially take the role this June. Talk about being a boss!
“What, like it’s hard?” Kim Kardashian West is taking a page out of Elle Woods’s book and is planning to become a lawyer. KKW informed Vogue that she’s been studying law for the past year as part of a four-year apprenticeship available for those who did not attend law school. She is scheduled to take the bar exam in 2022 and credits her work helping Alice Marie Johnson get out of prison for this new endeavor.
Lights, camera, more female representation! This week, the Cannes film festival revealed its official selection of films to be screened this year. The News? They’ve tied their record for the most films directed by women to be considered for jury prizes, with four. More female directors are to be featured as well, with 13 of the 51 directors being women. To top it all off, the official poster (above) was made as an homage to female filmmaker Agnès Varda.
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Zoey Deutch Is No Flower In Her New Movie
But she is blooming brilliant.
"Flower," the new dark teen comedy from director Max Winkler, starring Zoey Deutch was made in 16 days with a half a million dollar budget. Not bad for a flick that's earned a yellow check as a NYT Critic's Pick.
Not bad for a film that begins with an underage girl giving a police officer a blow job.
That's right. When we first meet Deutch's character, Erica Vandross, she’s performing oral sex on a cop in his squad car. Nearby, her own squad secretly records the encounter in order to blackmail him. They score a paltry 400 bucks from officer Dale (the entirety of his bank account), as part of an ongoing extortion hustled up by Erica to earn enough cash to bail her dear old dad out of jail. What, you weren't a vigilante at 17? As Deutch says in the movie’s trailer, “Shaking down a child molester is our moral obligation.” Sure, at her high school she gets called a “slut,” but Erica, rather believably to the credit of Deutch's portrayal, does not care what anyone thinks of her. “It's called feminism," she tells Luke (Joey Morgan), the son of her mother Laurie's (Kathryn Hahn) new boyfriend.
There are male critics who don't love the flick. But women (and the New York Times) are in agreement: it fucking rocks. For Deutch, who played the *almost* only female in Richard Linklater's "Everybody Wants Some," and last year's "Before I Fall" it was an opportunity to play a role traditionally written for a dude.
Erica is confident, but manic. Oogles the hot old dude at the bowling alley. Wears socks with slides, rocks a mean mom-jean short, a "Daddy" t-shirt, enjoys giving blowjobs and drawing said penises in her diary of dick. In short: Erica's not "likable," or so say the powers-that-be-reviewers. There are a laundry list of unbecoming traits that friends and fam heeded the actress against. "I must have poor reading comprehension skills. I thought she was fucking awesome," joked Deutch. "The unanimous response was, 'Aren't you afraid of playing someone potentially so unlikeable?'"
The answer simply, was no. In fact the only part of the movie that flummoxed the then-twenty-year-old was a dancing scene. "Blowjob scenes, totally fine," Deutch jokes. "But dancing was the worst. I'm the worst dancer."
"Blowjob scenes, totally fine," Deutch jokes. "But dancing was the worst. I'm the worst dancer."
But the way she carries the film is a dance. That between "likable" and "unlikable," teetering between the two so deftly that you're not, NOT rooting for her. Despite her shortcomings and occasional cruelty, you want Erica to win at life, to love herself, to reclaim her innocence, at least in some capacity. She's not without soul. She's certainly not without heart. "Flower" shows teens as they are-- not as they ought to be.
It's also fun and so refreshing to see this part played by a woman, you understand.
"This kind of character when played by a man is morally ambiguous," says Deutch. "When it's a woman," she continues, again returning to that word women all too often hear in the workplace, "she's unlikable." Contrary to the warnings of peers, Deutch says playing the role of Erica "is the most profound and fun and fulfilling thing I've done in my career so far."
"This kind of character when played by a man is morally ambiguous. When it's a woman she's unlikable."
Her director, Max Winkler, agrees. "I'm really proud of her performance," he says. "For a twenty year old to be able to carry a movie like that...I'm still not jaded by how good she is." It's an enthusiasm he likewise shared for his crew. On set, he says, "Almost all of our department heads, except for the gaffer and the grip, were women." Adding, "The set ran so much better. Everyone follows the DP on set, and there was no ego, there was no fighting."
"It was so weird for me to realized that I had never worked with a female DP," says Deutch of Carolina Costa, the film's Director of Photography. From there Deutch started looking into other film set stats. "Did you know that less than one percent of women score movies?" she asks. She didn't. Now she does.
Though the film was made two years pre-#metoo movement, there are parallels that alone make the movie worth seeing. Without giving away any spoilers, while the solutions the teens come to in moments of revenge, and subsequent panic, aren't necessarily the best solutions, they are still taking action. Which is something that Deutch is all about. "We're not capitalizing on the movement," says the actress, "but the hope is that all of the discussions breed more action."
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How This Female Comedian Went From Master of None to Master of All
There's no such thing as a career path.
Noël Wells spent one-season on Saturday Night Live before she landed opposite Aziz Ansari on Master of None, where she played Rachel.
She's also writes and sings lead in her band @t.h.e.m.a.r.y.s. and Power Couple (working title) a show she created, wrote, and is attached to star, was picked up by Comedy Central.
If that's not enough, earlier this year at SXSW Wells made her directorial debut in Mr. Roosevelt, a coming-of-age comedy that Wells wrote, directed, and stared in. The movie follows a young comedian Emily, played by Wells, who has gone "viral" with a spaghetti vid. But going viral isn't all it's cracked up to be, and when the titular character (spoiler: her cat) falls ill, Emily treks it back to her hometown of Austin where she must face the life she left behind. Namely, her ex-boyfriend and his Pinterest-perfect new girlfriend, who has gallery-walled the living room space and has the pair off coffee.
What follows is a frank misfortune of events (plus some smack talking on LA Mexican food) that leaves Emily wondering WTF happened to her life? We caught up with the quad-threat to real talk airbrushed armpits and why "Hollywood is just a bunch of weirdos trying to find their way."
Important question first: Why name the cat Teddy Roosevelt?
I wanted the cat to have a sort of timeless iconic name, the sort of name a younger person would think to name an animal, but also one that could sound like an actual important person so audiences who haven’t read the synopsis could have the potential of being surprised about who Mr. Roosevelt is. Originally I named him Mr. Rogers, which felt very much like “childhood” and burying the past, but my producers were working on a Fred Rogers movie already and so we had to change the name. After a couple of ideas, Teddy Roosevelt felt like it matched a big, orange cat and had the gravitas of something bigger. Since then we have had a lot of weird Teddy Roosevelt coincidences surrounding the film, so it feels meant to be.
Second: Do you really think LA has bad tacos?
Well I think my real battle is the big burrito/taco standoff. Tacos beat burritos, hands down. As far as LA tacos vs. Austin tacos, I like smaller taco trucks in LA, but I think generally I prefer Mexican food in Texas. It’s just more flavorful! Please don’t hate me!
Now...Working with Aziz you said that you felt the two characters were “on equal footing.” Why, besides the obvious, was this important to you?
I just am not interested in being an actress or creative that doesn’t have some say in what’s happening. I like collaborating, I want to be engaged. I have too many things inside me and I need places to put them. When I don’t, I get really depressed and despondent.
Do you feel like you’ve been able to be your authentic self in Hollywood?
I’m sure we all cave to some pressure to be like “something” else in order to fit in, and as much as I think I’m always being true to who I am, I see many ways I chase after the wrong things or people in this town. That being said, Hollywood is just a bunch of weirdos trying to find their way, and because of that, I’ve been able to find my true self more and more and it’s even welcomed. The most awkward things for me are glamorous events. I’m not great on red carpets or photo shoots, but I’m learning how to have fun with image where before I would think I was a liar or faking if I dressed up. I think I’m realizing I’ve been in the glamour closet and I actually like being fabulous. Time will tell.
Wells in Mr. Roosevelt
You’ve been promoting your directorial debut, Mr. Roosevelt, which, you also wrote and star in. More women are taking their careers into their own hands. Why was this an essential part of your journey?
I am always thinking about things to make and write and create, it’s always in my head and I go crazy if I’m not making something. This just felt like a natural progression of that journey. I think now it stands as proof to myself and other people that I have the capacity to do much bigger things.
Speaking of your journey, in the movie your character, Emily, works an editing job while pursuing her dream, what are some of the odder jobs you’ve taken while hustling your dream?
Oh boy. I’ve been working since I was 15, oftentimes having 2-3 jobs at a time so I’ve had many an odd job. A few that come to mind: I was a manager of an ice cream store, I created Wikipedia pages for businesses, I wrote and photographed how-to articles for listicle websites along the lines of “How to make a smoothie” or “How to give yourself a pedicure”...and I used to make my own clothes and sell them on eBay.
Mr. Roosevelt addresses the aimlessness that so many young women feel. What’s your advice to them?
We are in uncharted times economically as so many careers shift into tech and so much is being outsourced. I think my advice is really about healing and community. We’ve become so fractured as a culture, the only way to sustain ourselves is to come back together, and if you take care of yourself and get better, you’re going to be able to help other people too. This gives you a sense of purpose, and you get better, so it’s a win-win.
"The only way to sustain ourselves is to come back together."
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There’s a brief moment in the film when Emily looks at her diploma that’s been left in a box in a shed-- and there’s this universal feeling of 'oh, right, this thing. What IS this THING?' And she puts it back. Have you had similar moments?
Yeah. My favorite part about college was that I picked up a lot of useful skills in production classes, but I think in many ways, it seemed like a developmental delay. A diploma doesn’t really mean anything, really. After college I sort of realized I was trying way too hard to succeed in a system, and that success wasn’t really making me happy. I missed out on other real-world experiences I should have been having. But it’s different for everyone!
This also might seem rather minute, but when the she meets up with the crew at the swim hole, no one has perfectly shaved armpits. And it felt like another fresh breath of relief. Let’s not airbrush armpits! Let’s not airbrush life. There’s obviously some poking at Pinterest-life throughout the movie. “Pecans from another state,” meltdown in mind here. Would love hear your thoughts on this.
My big thing in life, is I’m just not interested in manufacturing or falsifying anything. Beauty is all around us in many shapes or sizes, and in many ways it’s all perception. We get to say what is beautiful. So for me, confidence is beautiful. Love is beautiful. Genuine self-expression is beautiful. So images can be beautiful, but often times, beauty gets distorted, and then the essence of what is beautiful is twisted, and it confuses people and makes them feel bad about themselves. I grew up hating everything about myself because of these distortions, and this has been my personal journey as a woman, to just learn to love myself. And part of that has been by seeing through these distortions, and also recognizing other people who are distorting things are also confused. So Emily’s critique of these perfect women is also problematic, if that makes sense. She’s not seeing them for who they really are, which are hurting women just like her.
"Beauty is all around us in many shapes or sizes, and in many ways it’s all perception."
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Accepting that everything changes is part of growing up. Do you remember a point like that in your life?
This is going to sound dumb, but just making this movie is a major lesson in everything changing. You have something very set in your head about how it’s going to go, you have all these plans and goals about what it will be and look like and what it will do for you, and by the end, if you held onto that image, you wouldn’t have made any progress and you would be in despair because it absolutely is not anything like what you wanted. But that’s okay, it’s been an insane ride and I honestly know I’m better off for it being so difficult and challenging.
Female friendships are super important in the movie. How did you find support while making the movie?
The female actors on the shoot were all really incredible, and they kept me going, and my cinematographer Dagmar Weaver-Madsen was my rock through the shoot. She totally understood the spirit of the film from the beginning, and is also incredibly perceptive about the pressures and roadblocks that women face day-to- day on set. Anytime I would get discouraged, she was there pumping me up and supporting me unconditionally.
Do you feel supported by Hollywood?
Hollywood isn’t really one thing or one entity. I will say I have found my people in the city of Los Angeles, and I’m working to find my creative partners as well. Like anything in life, it’s a journey trying to find where you fit in.
Do you feel stronger doing something on your own?
I’ve always been one to do things on my own, but this has shown to me you really could take everything away from me, put me on a desert island with nothing but some stick and some sand, and I’d still figure out a way to put on a show. But also, I don’t WANT to be on an island alone, I’m really sick and tired of doing everything alone. I want to make things with people.
What type of roles are you most interested in?
I like looking at people’s darkness, the thing that makes someone tick, and also the things that make them lovable even if they’re outwardly being bad or insufferable.
We recently talked to Zoe Lister-Jones who employed an all-female crew, which we found incredibly inspiring. Who have you recently been inspired by?
I’m really impressed with a lot of my female friends as of lately. After Trump was elected, it’s been a year where everyone is looking inside and at themselves and figuring out what they can do to change themselves so they can be of service to the world. I have friends who are hosting salons at their homes, organizing writer’s groups, spear-heading political fundraisers, getting us together to volunteer across Los Angeles, and creating content like I’ve never seen before. No woman I know is content with despairing for too long, we’re all figuring out how to come together.
Given the recent exposure of sexual assault stories in Hollywood, what would you like to see change in the industry?
I just think I’m exasperated by the abuse on all levels. I am here to make art, and I wish more people were into the creation process rather than the fame or money or accolades. That may not change, so I think just rooting out abuse in all forms is what I’d like to see. Outside of sexual harassment, there are a lot of bad bosses yelling and screaming and abusing their employees, and there are people who commit a lot of creative “crimes” to get ahead. I wish more people would operate from a place of integrity and accountability.
Have you experienced situations that have made you uncomfortable and how did you handle it?
All the time. I’ve never gotten it quite right. I’d say about 50 percent of the time I stand up for myself in violating situations, and 100% of those times it initially appeared to backfire on me. But as time is playing itself out, I see now that defending myself or leaving a bad sexual situation or standing up to bullies was the right thing to do, and that will hopefully empower me to do that always. It’s better to be ejected from toxic environments than to stay and be eaten alive.
"It’s better to be ejected from toxic environments than to stay and be eaten alive."
What’s coming up next?
A lot of writing, a lot of percolating. Hopefully more directing and acting.
To check out Mr. Roosevelt, click here.
Top photo credit: Beachside
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Guess Which First Time Female Director Broke Records This Weekeend?
Is that a double power pose we see?
Merie Wallace / A 24
You might know Greta Gerwig from indie-movies like Frances Ha and Mistress America, but this weekend the 34-year-old actor, writer, and first time solo director broke box office records with Lady Bird.
A coming-of-age story about a young woman in Northern Cali, Lady Bird, charts the ups and downs of teen Christine McPherson, who has a clunky relationship with her mother and requires people in her Sacramento town to refer to her as "Lady Bird," the nickname of LBJ's wife.
(Side bar: Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson was First Lady of the United States, as the wife of the 36th President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson. Notably well-educated for a woman of her era, she proved a capable manager and a shrewd investor.)
Speaking with Rolling Stone, Gerwig said, "Writing this character was an exploration of all these things I didn't have access to or I couldn't be. In that way, it almost felt like this fairy-tale invention of a deeply flawed heroine, but one who I admire. I think she shows courage and a lot of character even when she's flailing."
Gerwig wrote the script between 2013-14, stumbling through numerous drafts and titles. The hard work paid off. Lady Bird broke box office records last weekend.
The lead semi-autobiographical character is played by Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan. The movie has been dubbed a smash success by critics-- "perfect" according to Rolling Stone-- and moviegoers, who turned out in droves this past weekend to see the film. Opened to limited audiences its first weekend, the movie showed in four locations, a "specialty box office opening." It grossed $375,612 in four theaters, with a theater average of $93,903. Those numbers blow typical small box office openings out of the water, making it the best speciality box office opening of 2017. Those numbers also make Lady Bird the best ever limited debut for a movie directed by a woman. With Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman breaking the record for highest-grossing live-action film directed by a woman in the world, it’s a landmark year for women in Hollywood.
Keep on soaring, LB. Keep soaring, ladies.
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Filmmaker & Cancer Survivor Encourages Young Women to "Dream, Girl"
Komal Minhas knows dreams are meant to be lived.
Erin Bagwell (L) and Komal Minhas (R)
It was a Kickstarter trailer that lead to a cold email that lead to a life-changing partnership. “It was an instinctual ‘I have to be a part of this,’ there was no doubt in my mind,” says Komal Minhas. “I knew I had to give it my all, and what that meant for me was being totally authentic, totally honest with why the project impacted me so much and why it meant so much to me.”
“This,” is Dream, Girl. A documentary from creator Erin Bagwell that features the empowering stories of female-led companies and their founders. From fashion to tech to non-profit, it explores the challenges, successes, the conventions that still hold women back, and the dreams that pull them forward. It is framed by Bagwell’s and Minhas’ struggle to make the movie.
When Bagwell launched the project on Kickstarter, the two women were complete strangers.
Minhas was in Italy on what was supposed to be vacation. Like thousands of others she saw the trailer one night before dinner and told her partner, Mitch, “I have to be a part of this, I have to figure this out.”
“I knew I had to give it my all, and what that meant for me was being totally authentic, totally honest."
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Initially launched with a goal of $57,000, Bagwell was seven days and $18,000 away from reaching her target, when the project received a boost from author and life coach Marie Forleo. Forleo agreed to blast the Dream, Girl mission to her email list of about 300,000 people. Money started pouring in and so did the emails. One of which was from Minhas.
“Erin went from having $30,000 to $104,000 in three days,” says Minhas. “The amount of press, the people-- when you’re cutting through the noise to get to someone who is that busy, who is getting cold attention, going from zero to hundred, I knew I had to stand out.”
Before she made any “hard ask,” Minhas thought about what she could offer. She had her own company, Montreal-based KoMedia, which she founded at 23. “I knew I could invest a little bit of the money I had saved up from the year of operating my company,” she says. Beyond that she could strategically supply “camera equipment-- I had a couple of 5D cameras and I had some audio equipment.” In her first email to Bagwell she outlined every provision she could make. Drafting what she called a “have-to reply.” Minhas says she “created an opportunity for Erin to respond, making the option of saying ‘no’ incredibly difficult.”
“I didn’t want to be overbearing,” she says. “I kept it light, but it was a rich ask and also, offer.” The response was not immediate. “It took Erin three days to reply after I sent a follow-up email. It felt like ages to me because I knew this was went I meant to do.”
Three nights later the two were on a Skype call. It was midnight in Naples, the connection kept cutting in and out, but where the internet failed, the synergy between the women succeeded. “We told each other our life stories, why we were each doing what we were, and I again reiterated the offer, the strengths I knew I had and what I could bring the partnership.” Bagwell, she says, “she was right there with me."
"Throwing it down, not being afraid to ask, but also, not being a crazy person,” that’s how she got in the door. “It’s a strange line to toe,” she says, but acknowledges, “I prefer more over less. Fortunately in this situation, Erin did too.”
From a Skype call, an in-person meeting, emails in between, and Minhas landed on set a couple of weeks later.
That first $104k gave the filmmakers enough funding to make it through about 8 months. “For the first time,” Minhas says, “I didn’t take a salary. It was almost a full year before I did because we were bootstrapping.” In the summer 2015, lead by investor Joanne Wilson, who appears in the film, they did a round of Angel funding. That raised another $100k. They did one final round of friends and family to “make it through the finish line.”
Though Minhas had never raised for business, she had done work raising money for charity. For instance, while at university she spearheaded a campus fundraiser that raised over half a million dollars for the Canadian Cancer Society. “I knew how to magnetize money for a cause,” she explains, “but when it’s a business you have to include how you’re going to share long-term revenue projections, understand distribution, and we had to convince our investors that beyond the social impact mission of the film we would bring them returns, and hopefully great returns.” It was a “learning curve when we were starting to pitch.”
And then there was the big curveball. “Back in March,” says Minhas, “I was actually diagnosed with cancer. I am survivor and was diagnosed cancer free a couple of weeks ago. But when we got the news March 2nd our premiere was set for May 26th at the White House. We figured it out and did our best.”
Erin Bagwell, third from left and Komal Minhas, fourth from left at the White House screening.
They premiered the film to a private, 190-person screening for women entrepreneurs, followed by a round table discussion led by Diana Doukas, the director of the White House Business Council.
The response was overwhelming and powerful. “It took two years to create the film and we’re anticipating it will take a full two to fully maximize the distribution. We’re not only creatives, but we made a film about business and we are running a successful business.” Since launching in June in New York, Dream, Girl has had over 100 screenings in seven different countries. They are planning to scale that number to over 1000 in the next year.
Another arm of the goal is to give young women “better examples of what wealth and what wealth in business looks like,” says Minhas. “We don’t want to be Wolf of Wall Street. That’s not our jam, but it’s a no-brainer that a woman can be in power.
"We don’t want to be Wolf of Wall Street. That’s not our jam, but it’s a no-brainer that a woman can be in power."
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Minhas and Bagwell are also turning the forty plus hours of unused footage into a web series called, Your Moment of Ambition, which they are looking to launch in 2017. The series will be 20 episodes at about 2 minutes each. "There are so many stories that couldn't make it into a film,” says Minhas. “Those of sexual harassment to a professor at Wharton talking about why it’s also a no-brainer that every man should be a feminist.”
They are not only incredibly inspired by the people they interviewed, but by what Minhas says are “the next generation of feminists like Zendaya and Rowan Blanchard. These are really woke women. They have Queen B to look up to and some of them are just thirteen, fourteen years old.”
She says “Maybe Gen Z won’t see the work and effort it took to get here,” but “there will be no barriers in this generation's mind that they can be limitless.”
Dream, big. Dream, Girl.
For more information or to host your own screening and bring Dream, Girl to your community, visit the site here.