New research reveals–not surprisingly–that female writers, directors, producers, etc. fare better in the world of indie films–though still make up only about 24% of the field.

KRS-ONE says hip-hop needs more women. I’m not sure what happened to female rappers. We used to have Queen Latifah, Lil’ Kim, MC Lyte, where’d everyone go?

In its first weekend, the Michael Jackson documentary This Is It grossed over $100 million dollars across the globe, with 21.3% of it coming from the U.S.

A gay man in Karachi, Pakistan was beaten to death after being caught with another man in his home by an angry mob.

Oprah says audiences may not “enjoy” the gritty Lee Daniels film Precious but she says people will appreciate the experience.  The film opens on November 6.

West Hollywood, a gay hotspot in California, is trying really hard to reach out to gay and lesbian tourists in order to boost revenue for the city.

Black comedian Wanda Sykes is being criticized for using white sperm to impregnate her white wife–the couple now have two white babies.

Are the Bonobo apes riot grrls? An article about whether the primates known for living in an unusually matriarchal structure are feminist friendly.

Newsweek has an article on ten black women in North Carolina who are either missing or dead, in what might be a case of a serial killer.  The murders began in 2005, and have received no national attention until now–except not really.

Ten women have been found slain or have been declared missing in Rocky Mount, N.C., in recent years. But the rest of the country hasn’t heard about a possible serial killer stalking the young women in this Southern town of 60,000. The latest victim, Elizabeth Jane Smallwood, was identified on Oct. 12. Why have the Rocky Mount homicides been largely ignored?

It’s impossible to deny that these stories would have received more attention had the victims been middle to upper-middle class suburban white girls, and the article discusses that very issue.

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This isn’t the first time that Spike has talked about this issue so I’m not sure why the media is just now picking up on it (though it’s possible it is the first time he’s specifically mentioned Tyler’s name), but I have to say everything Spike is saying is what I’ve been saying all along about this man’s “films” if that’s what you want to call them.

And yes, Ed Gordon is absolutely right. Black people have no one to blame but themselves for these types of movies constantly being put out by Hollywood. It isn’t white people showing up to the theaters giving this man record box office receipts. And I’ll say the same thing I say to feminists who complain about today’s chick flicks. If you don’t show up for the good ones, don’t complain. Where were you when Miracle at St. Anna was released? Where were you when Akeelah and the Bee came out? If no one goes to see these films, Hollywood will not put them out.

There’s so many problems with Tyler’s films I don’t even know where to begin. But this Entertainment Weekly article puts most of the issues quite eloquently.

Is Tom Cruse a homophobe? The AV Club seems to have gotten that impression around the time that he was filming the movie Risky Business.

A federal bill was introduced Monday that would penalize anti-gay adoption states. States such as Florida and Arkansas would lose federal funding unless they changed their laws.

Former mob hitman Robert Mormando shocked a Brooklyn judge Monday by declaring he’s gay before being sentenced for his part in the shooting of a bagel store owner.

In spite of the fact that Adam Lambert is an out gay man, Details magazine still decided to sexually objectify a female model in the singer’s most recent photoshoot to promote his new album.

Gay Irish hurling star Donal Ol Cusack says the homophobic taunts and slurs have kept his mother from attending his games.

After reports that a gay man had planted a kiss on him at an appearance at a gay club, John Mayer sets the record straight partly because he doesn’t like the idea that gays can’t control themselves.

Illinois teacher David Burk was given merely a warning for making a comment disparaging “black fags” in the middle of class during a discussion about funding for the arts.

Rapper Warren G (yeah, I’ve never heard of him either) says he’s fine with gay people, as long as they stay in the closet.  ’Cause you know, people got kids and shit.

A lot of attention is paid to the diversity displayed on the small screen but Entertainment Weekly has an interesting piece discussing the race and gender of the people behind the scenes in the world of television. They mention some of our most successful and celebrated television show creators and producers like J.J. Abrams, Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon, Aaron Spelling, David E. Kelley, and the list goes on. Forces to be reckoned with in the television industry who have had a number of successes. But where are the people of color? Where are the women?

Even the shows that are female-centric like The Closer, Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, –they’re all created by white men. EW cites Shonda Rhimes of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice as well as Silvio Horta of Ugly Betty as some examples of non-white and non-male entities but Horta’s only success thus far has been Ugly Betty and Rhimes’ Private Practice’s long term success has yet to be seen.

But there are some up and coming women whose careers seem promising.

There are, certainly, a few up and coming female executive producers these days: Rebecca Sinclair (an alum of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls), who turned The CW’s 90210 remake around; Stephanie Savage, who’s given both The O.C. and Gossip Girl bite (even though she takes second billing to the more auteur-ish Josh Schwartz);

The L Word’s Ilene Chaiken; and Weeds’ Jenji Kohan. Tina Fey’s one of the few female voices on the Big Four — and she’s clearly one of the most unique (not to mention critically drooled-over). But none of those ladies has gotten the chance to prove she’s more than a one-hit wonder.

Tyler Perry has had much success with his multi-camera sitcom House of Payne on CBS, and as everyone knows, has had enormous success with his feature films, but again, Payne is his only television success and we still have no examples of television giants like the aforementioned who don’t have white skin or a penis.  A few more examples of creative forces of color:

Larry Wilmore won accolades (and an Emmy) for The Bernie Mac Show, but he’s now taken to more freelance work — appearing on The Daily Show, writing for/appearing on The Office, and authoring books.

And in perhaps the ultimate statement on the fate of female and minority would-be auteurs, Mara Brock Akil — who created the long-running UPN/CW sitcoms Girlfriends and The Game, some of the last vestiges of African-American-targeted programming — has joined the writing staff of ABC’s Cougar Town (created by Scrubs’ Bill Lawrence) to make the jokes on the Courteney Cox vehicle more organically female.

This information is troubling but not shocking, as the most recent report on the demographic breakdown of writers in Hollywood was quite bleak for women. According to the Hollywood Writers Report done by the Writers Guild of America, only 28% of the writers for television were female. Does that really make sense to you when more than 50% of the U.S. population is made up of women?

One of my favorite bloggers Clay Cane interviewed rapper and actor Xzibit (you may remember him from MTV’s Pimp My Ride) who is promoting his new movie with Alfre Woodard called American Violet, and Clay brought up an incident that happened recently where Diddy had invited Xzibit to a gay club, and Xzibit was quoted by the media as having made homophobic statements on a radio show.

According to Xzibit, his words were taken out of context.  But more importantly, Clay asks him about homophobia in hip-hop in general, and Xzibit says the environment is a lot less homophobic that people think, that it’s “just part of the landscape”.

“It started as just common place; it was just part of the language. I think the overtones that it creates, is not what really exists. I don’t think if you are gay and you go to a hip-hop club that you’ll get beat up for being gay. That’s not what is going to happen. I think words are the way that people express themselves—just like if you say bitch on a rap record for a long time you can rally thousands of women that will say that’s incorrect. You can’t focus on one single thing or bad aspect of what happens in hip hop and try to blanket it. That’s not the root of the problem. It exists, I think it’s how you portray it, and it’s how you use it. You gotta paint with a broad brush when you talk about homophobia because it’s a lot of things that exist in hip hop that aren’t exactly right, but it’s part of the landscape.”

Strangely, I understand the point he’s trying to make.  The overtones of homophobia in hip-hop or the homophobic language that’s used doesn’t necessarily indicate intense hatred or homophobia.  Calling another straight guy a “fag” doesn’t necessarily mean that you hate gay people or want to do harm to them.

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Thursday we watched a film called Tongues Untied in my Advanced Video Production class, and given the subject matter of the film I was sort of shocked I had not only never seen it, but I’d never heard of it either.  In addition to the fact that it was extremely helpful by aiding me in determining how exactly I was going to use mostly stock footage to demonstrate how unequally we judge male and female sexuality, it was an beautiful film that addressed issues of internalized racism and self-hatred among black gay men.

It was made by Marlon Riggs, who unfortunately died of an AIDS related illness in 1994.  He’s a black poet, educator, and filmmaker that went on to make other films like Affirmation, Anthem, Color Adjustment, and Black Is…Black Ain’t (which he unfortunately didn’t finish working on before his untimely death, but was posthumously released in 1995.)  The film is not a typical documentary, in the sense that it has a purpose and it has a topic, but it doesn’t say “I am a documentary and I’m now going to tell you about something”.  It knows its message, it knows its audience, and once it starts it just goes.

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