the year in movies by and about women...

I have some stuff to say about how women were depicted onscreen this year, and how women made movies this year, at a roundup of reactions on the subject from women film journalists over at Women and Hollywood. I like this by me:

Surprisingly, that there were a lot, relatively speaking, of really good films of all stripes that treat women characters as people, as human beings with stories worth telling, from the wonderfully aggressive little girls of *Despicable Me* to Emma Stone’s smart sass in *Easy A* — the brilliance of which has now convinced me that Hollywood does indeed know how to tell strong stories about realistic women, it just chooses not to do so most of the time — to the force of nature that is Noomi Rapace in the *Girl with the Dragon Tattoo* trilogy, and Natalie Portman’s terrifying, but believable, performance as a women possessed by thoughts of perfection in *Black Swan.* And the aforementioned *Agora,* too. And *The Kids Are All Right* and *Winter’s Bone* and *City Island* and *Flipped* and *Ramona and Beezus* and on and on. From the arthouse to action movies to kids movies, there were a *lot* of great women onscreen this year. Not as many as they’re should be, still nowhere near as many of the great male characters we got. But maybe we’re seeing a bit of progress… if this year doesn’t turn out to be an anomaly.

But there’s more, too, plus it’s interesting to see what other women journos had to say.