Annual
Women's
Studies Film Festival 2006
“WHY CAN’T I LOOK LIKE THAT MODEL?”
Body image
and women’s health
Women’s
Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, Oakland University
presents the 2006 Annual Women’s Studies Film Festival
and Seminar: "Why Can't I Look Like That Model?" Saturday,
March 11, 2006, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., 156 North Foundation
Hall (campus
map). Tickets cost $12 for the general public, and $8
for students and seniors.
Advertising and popular culture bombard women incessantly
with images of ideal beauty. Advertising encourages us to
buy cosmetics, hair products, diet foods and exercise equipment
in pursuit of that ideal. But advertisements also send a
contradictory message, promoting junk food and encouraging
the sedentary lifestyle that lets us watch more television – and
more commercials. For many girls and women, these mixed messages
are not only frustrating but dangerous. For women of ethnic
minorities, the prevailing northern European ideal of beauty
is particularly discouraging.
This year’s film festival
will explore these issues with two documentaries, a student
video and a feature film, all the work of women filmmakers.
Jean Kilbourne’s
1995 documentary Slim Hopes: Advertising and the Obsession
with Thinness examines the messages that advertising
sends women about their body images. In Black, Bold
and Beautiful, 1999, directed by Nadine Valcin and
produced by Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny, African-American
and African-Canadian women discuss why they do or do not
dress their hair to conform to European ideals of beauty.
Kelly Fitzsimmon’s video Untitled, a prize-winning
entry from this year’s Grizzdance festival, is an
Oakland University student’s take on issues of body-image.
This year marks our first showing of a film by an Oakland
University student in the Women’s Studies Film Festival.
The feature film Real Women Have Curves, directed
by Patricia Cardoso from a play by Josefina Lopez, tells
the story of a young Mexican-American woman coming of age
and coming to terms with her appearance and ethnicity.
| Schedule |
| 9:30 am - 10:00 am |
Sign-in and breakfast. |
| 10:00 am -10:30 am |
Slim Hopes, 1995. |
| 10:30 am - 11:10 am |
Black, Bold and Beautiful: Black Women’s
Hair, 1999. |
| 11:10 am -11:20 pm |
Untitled, by Kelly Fitzsimmons. |
| 11:20 am - 12:20 pm |
Panel discussions of the documentaries. |
| 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm |
Real Women have Curves, 2002. |
| 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm |
Panel and open discussion. |
| 4:30 pm - 5:00pm |
Reception and coffee hour. |
More about the films*:
Real Women Have Curves
- External reviews of the movie Real Women Have Curves: imdb.com
- Movie Trailers from: HBO Films, rottentomatoes.com,
videodetective.com, Avatarfilms
- Williams, Linda Ruth. "Real
Women Have Curves." Sight
and Sound, 13.2:60
- Jenelle Riley (2002). The
women behind Real Women: playwright Josefina Lopez and
director Patricia Cardoso redefine what's "commercial."('Real
Women Have Curves' debuts at Sundance Film Festival). Back
Stage West 9.42:7
- Mitchell, Elvis. Full
figured and ready to fight.('Real Women Have Curves'). The New York Times (March 22, 2002
pB24).
Related Books avaiable at the Kresge
Library:
- Bodies
out of bounds : fatness and transgression / edited by Jana Evans
Braziel and Kathleen LeBesco. Call Number: RC 552 .O25 B63 2001
- Women
and dieting culture : inside a commercial weight loss group / Kandi
M. Stinson.
Call Number: RM 222.2 .S842 2001
- Young
women and the body : a feminist sociology / Liz Frost. Call Number:
HQ 798 .F76 2001
- Am
I thin enough yet? : the cult of thinness and the commercialization of
identity / Sharlene Hesse-Biber. Call Number: BF 697.5 .B63 H47 1996
- Hair
story : untangling the roots of Black hair in America / Ayana Byrd
and Lori Tharps.
Call Number: E 185.86 .B96 2001
- Hair
matters : beauty, power, and Black women's consciousness / Ingrid
Banks. Call Number: E 185.86 .B265 2000
*Access
to some full text resources from off campus is limited to
current Oakland students, staff, and faculty.
Past Festivals:
2005,
2004,
2002