CELEBS: Catherine Zeta-Jones and others can reduce stigma of mental illness

April 14, 2011

On Monday, Catherine Zeta-Jones’s publicist announced that she’d been hospitalized for treatment of bi-polar disorder. She has bi-polar II disorder which means she has more periods of depression than mania. She’s had a stressful year and external situations take a toll on anyone and particularly those who already have a mental illness. The best part of this is that Catherine Zeta-Jones can provide a high profile example that mental illness is a disease like alcoholism that needs constant monitoring and treatment but shouldn’t mean that people feel the need to keep the person at a distance.

according to the CDC, 1 in 10 Americans reports depression at some time during their lives.

Although Tom Cruise disastrously stole away her true message, Brooke Shields wrote a wonderful book about her post-partum depression called Down Came the Rain.

Ashley Judd has a new memoir, All That is Bitter and Sweet, where she discusses her battles with depression.

Judd also stars in the film Helen [available via netflix instant] where she plays a woman who hides her depression and has a major breakdown. It’s an excellent performance and quite a good film. I have depression and I thought the depiction very accurate. Although depression manifests itself differently in everyone.

The rich and famous aren’t immune.

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Posted by Amy Steele

CELEBS: Gwyneth, Scarlett stand with Planned Parenthood

April 12, 2011

Congress is trying to cut federal funding for women’s health services with Title X.

According the Department of Health and Human Services:

The Title X Family Planning program ["Population Research and Voluntary Family Planning Programs" (Public Law 91-572)], was enacted in 1970 as Title X of the Public Health Service Act. Title X is the only federal grant program dedicated solely to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related preventive health services. The Title X program is designed to provide access to contraceptive services, supplies and information to all who want and need them. By law, priority is given to persons from low-income families.

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Posted by Amy Steele

Women’s History Month: focus on Jane Addams

March 30, 2011

Jane Addams [1860-1935]

–Founder of the Settlement House Movement in the United States.

–Established Hull House in an abandoned Chicago mansion. It offered medical services, child care, legal aid, clubs, and classes to teach English, vocational skills, music, and drama.

–Elected as first president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1919.

–She also founded the American Civil Liberties Union.

–Wrote several books including the well-known memoir Twenty Years at Hull House [1910]

–In 1931, she was the first American woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Posted by Amy Steele

Women’s History Month: focus on Anita Loos

March 23, 2011

Anita Loos [1893-1981]—screenwriter

–born in California
–by 1919, Loos had written scripts for 200 silent films
– The New York Hat, starring Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore and directed by D. W. Griffith, was her third screenplay and the first to be produced
–Loos was one of the best paid people in the film industry in the 1920s and 1930s
–kept her name when she married a colleague in 1919

–best known for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes [1926], San Francisco [1936] and The Women [1939]
–Loos also lived in New York and wrote for Broadway–plays she wrote included Gigi [1951] and Cheri [1959]

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Posted by Amy Steele

World Poetry Day, March 21: Dorothy Parker

March 21, 2011

Men
by Dorothy Parker

They hail you as their morning star
Because you are the way you are.
If you return the sentiment,
They’ll try to make you different;
And once they have you, safe and sound,
They want to change you all around.
Your moods and ways they put a curse on;
They’d make of you another person.
They cannot let you go your gait;
They influence and educate.
They’d alter all that they admired.
They make me sick, they make me tired.

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Posted by Amy Steele

Women’s History Month: focus on Willa Cather

March 19, 2011

Willa Sibert Cather [1873-1947]—writer

–grew up in as part of a wealthy family in northern Virginia
–went to the University of Nebraska
–in 1891, as a freshman at the University of Nebraska, Cather writes an essay about Thomas Carlyle. It is published without her knowledge in the Nebraska State Journal in March.
–Cather becomes literary editor of the Hesperian, student publication of the University of Nebraska. She holds this position from 1892-1893. She’s then managing editor until graduation.
–worked as a reporter in Lincoln, Neb. and then in Pittsburgh
–was an arts critic
–Cather meets and begins a relationship with Isabelle McClung in 1899.
–In 1901 Cather takes a teaching job at a Pittsburgh high school and moves in with Isabelle McClung at the home of McClung’s parents.
–taught high school from 1901-1906.
–At 40, her famous novel O Pioneers was published in 1913.

–also wrote My Antonia [1918], The Song of the Lark [1915] and the Pulitzer-prize winning One of Ours [1922] among many others.
–Cather wrote about independent female protagonists in her book and included themes of frontier development and explored the idea of the small town and what it did to crush individuality.
–In 1929, Cather was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
–On April 24, 1947 — Cather dies from a cerebral hemorrhage in New York City and is buried four days later in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

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Posted by Amy Steele

Women’s History Month: some of my favorite films by women

March 16, 2011

Grace of My Heart [1996]
written and directed by Allison Anders
–Loosely based on the tumultuous rise of singer/songwriter Carole King, Grace of My Heart is a tour-de-force and one of my favorite films ever. Starring Illeana Douglas, Grace of My Heart takes viewers through the music biz from the famed Brill Building to communes and the hip 60s and beyond as one woman strives to find her own voice in a male-dominated industry.

Waitress [2007]
written and directed by Adrienne Shelly
–a charming and heart-warming film about an independent, spirited small-town woman [Keri Russell] determined to leave her abusive husband and make it big on her own.

Monsoon Wedding [2001]
directed by Mira Nair

Away from Her [2006]
written and directed by Sarah Polley
–a graceful love story about a woman with Alzheimer’s

Searching for Debra Winger [2002]
directed by Rosanna Arquette
–documentary on women in film, which includes amazing and very honest commentary from stars from Gwyneth Paltrow to Whoopi to Vanessa Redgrave to Salma Hayek to Charlotte Rampling to of course Debra Winger. It’s great that these women feel comfortable with age but sad to see the frustration and that there still is the issue of great roles for women over 30.

Broken English [2007]
Written and directed by Zoe Cassavetes
– story of Nora [formidable, immensely talented Parker Posey], a 35-year-old who seems stuck in a rut—both personally and professionally. Nora has become complacent and settled at her hotel job. She is beginning to delve into the Bell Jar after years of seeming to know what she wanted and now being at the age where she feels she should already be there.

The Namesake [2006]
directed by Mira Nair
–the story revolves around Gogol [Kal Penn], a mid-twenties architect who has been fighting against his traditional Indian family and heritage. He gets pulled back in by an unforeseen family crisis and it changes his outlook and future forever.

Bright Star [2009]
written and directed by Jane Campion
–wondrously languid, romantic and exquisitely filmed. It tells the story of the tender and tragic love affair between poet John Keats [Ben Whishaw] and his muse and love Fanny Brawne [Abbie Cornish] as told through her eyes.

Come Early Morning [2006]
written and directed by Joey Lauren Adams
–a woman [Ashley Judd] who struggles with alcoholism tries to get her life on track

Fire [1996]
Earth [1998]
Water [2005]
written and directed by Deepa Mehta

scene from Water

2 Days in Paris [2006]
written and directed by Julie Delpy
–an American and a Parisian talk a lot, fight a lot

Girlfight [2000]
written and directed by Karyn Kusama
–focus on female boxers

Somewhere [2010]
written and directed by Sofia Coppola
–a wayward actor [Stephen Dorff] and his heartfelt relationship with his daughter [Elle Fanning]

The Parking Lot Movie [2010]
directed by Meghan Eckman
–three years following the ins and outs of the attendants at a parking lot in Virginia. truly riveting. really.

SherryBaby [2006]
written and directed by Laurie Collyer
–after serving a three-year prison sentence, Sherry [Maggie Gyllenhaal] returns to New Jersey to try to re-establish family ties, including one with her daughter

The Hurt Locker [2009]
directed by Kathryn Bigelow
–heart-pounding thriller about the guys who diffuse IEDs in Iraq

The Kids Are All Right [2010]
co-written and directed by Lisa Chodolenko
–the teenage children of lesbian parents decide to contact the sperm donor and meeting him has implications on the entire family

Please Give [2010]
written and directed by Nicole Holofcener

Winter’s Bone [2010]
written by Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini
directed by Debra Granik
–a teenager [Jennifer Lawrence] searches for her father in dangerous, bleak meth-country

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Posted by Amy Steele

poem: EARTH by Amy Steele

March 14, 2011

The Portrait of Maud Abrantes, by Amedeo Modigliani

cool and damp
darkness surrounds me
claustrophobia engulfs me
but I don’t care anymore
I embrace it
Feeling the emptiness
my mind aches
my heart burns
my soul dissipates
Oxygen slowly escapes
this suffocating space
How did I get dirt caked under my fingernails?
Instinct
Because long ago I resigned myself to loneliness
To heartache
To disappointment
To an early, bitter, painful death

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Posted by Amy Steele

Women’s History Month: Focus on Jane Russell

March 12, 2011

Jane Russell [1921 –2011]—actress

–born in Minnesota
–she had four brothers
–in the 1930s, the family moved to San Fernando Valley, California
–Russell attended Van Nuys High School where she participated in drama and also took piano lessons
–after graduating from high school, she worked as a receptionist but also studied drama and acting with Max Reinhardt’s Theatrical Workshop
–In 1940, Howard Hughes discovered Russell and signed her to a seven-year contract
–Her film debut was 1943′s The Outlaw
–She played Calamity Jane opposite Bob Hope in The Paleface [1948] and Dorothy Shaw in the hit film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes [1953] opposite Marilyn Monroe for 20th Century Fox.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes [1953]

–to compare to actress of today, Russell was 5’9″ and her measurements were 38D-24-36
–In 1955, Russell and her first husband, former Los Angeles Rams quarterback Bob Waterfield, formed Russ-Field Productions. They produced Gentlemen Marry Brunettes [1955], The King and Four Queens [1956] starring Clark Gable and Eleanor Parker, Run for the Sun [1956] and The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown [1957].

The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown [1957]

I’m just a simple business girl. I sell a funny, phony little commodity called sex and if customers are hungry enough to buy it, I run my own factory in my own way.
–Laurel [Jane Russell]

–In 1957, Russell debuted in a successful solo nightclub act at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

Russell remarked in 1999: Why did I quit movies? Because I was getting too old! You couldn’t go on acting in those years if you were an actress over 30.

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Posted by Amy Steele

Women’s History Month: focus on The Shirelles

March 8, 2011

–originally formed in 1958 in by four friends: Shirley Owens Alston Reeves, Doris Coley Kenner Jackson, Addie “Micki” Harris McPherson, and Beverly Lee. They were all students at Passaic High School in New Jersey
–The Shirelles debuted in 1958 at New York’s famed Apollo Theater
–first major female vocal group in the 60s
–first girl group to have a number one single on the Billboard Hot 100
–crossover phenomenon with white audiences
–successful in Britain with Will You Love Me Tomorrow (1960)

listen to: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

–wrote their own songs and also provided early hits for Brill Building songwriters like Gerry Goffin & Carole King, Burt Bacharach & Hal David, and Van McCoy
–hits include: Soldier Boy; Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow; Dedicated To The One I Love; Mama Said

–The Shirelles earned three gold records and were named Best Female Group in Billboard and Cash Box for five consecutive years.
–In 1983, for the group’s 25th Anniversary, The Shirelles received a citation in the Congressional Record.
–headlined the first integrated show in Alabama
–performed for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson
–The Shirelles work for AIDS and USO fundraisers and the Mental Health Association in Passaic (NJ) County for which Beverly Lee has served on the Board of Directors.
–inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996

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Posted by Amy Steele

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