Actor, Advocate Geena Davis to Speak at U of A on Women, Diversity in Media

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Geena Davis

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Academy Award-winning actor Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, will give a free public lecture at the University of Arkansas on the ways women are represented in the film industry – both onscreen and behind the camera. She will also discuss the Bentonville Film Festival, created last year to promote and champion women and diversity in media.

The lecture will be at 2 p.m. Thursday, March 10, in Giffels Auditorium in Old Main. A reception will follow in room 523. The event is sponsored by the Department of Communication's Film Appreciation Society.

“While nowadays gender discrimination in the mainstream film industry seems to be coming to a head where it can no longer be silenced or ignored, Geena Davis has been strongly advocating for gender equality, both onscreen and behind the camera, for over a decade now,” said assistant professor Lauren J. DeCarvalho, who is adviser for the society. “Her initiative in co-founding the BFF is just one of several ways that Geena is trying to improve representations of women onscreen — and this is mainly by providing more opportunities behind the scenes to filmmakers who are women, people of color, people with disabilities, etc.

“As I always emphasize to my students, what goes on behind the scenes significantly impacts what goes on in front of the camera — and Geena is well aware of this,” DeCarvalho said. “What is even more interesting, especially for my students, is that her activism brings the conversation and awareness much closer to home, right here in Northwest Arkansas.”

GEENA DAVIS

Davis began her film career in Tootsie (1982), earned an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress in The Accidental Tourist (1988), was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for Thelma and Louise (1991), and won a Golden Globe award as Best Actress in A League of Their Own (1992). She won a second Golden Globe in 2006 as Best Actress in a Drama Series for her role as the first female U.S. president in the television series, Commander-in-Chief. That role also earned her Emmy and SAG nominations. In 2006, she received the Women in Film Lucy Award.

And those are just highlights of her still-active film and television career.

Davis launched the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007. The institute is the only research-based organization working collaboratively with the entertainment industry to dramatically increase the presence of female characters in media aimed at children and to reduce stereotyping of women by the industry.

The institute has collected research spanning 20 years on gender prevalence in entertainment and holds a biennial symposium for media leaders aimed at establishing a gender-balanced media landscape.

Davis received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College in 2009 for her work in this area.

In 2015, Davis and Trevor Drinkwater of Arc Entertainment launched the Bentonville Film Festival, an annual event highlighting diversity in film and screening films that prominently feature women and minorities both in front and behind the camera. The second Bentonville Film Festival will be held from May 3-8.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.