Erin Albert's Blog

A lot of good responses out there on the previous post about The Bechdel Test – thanks.

I also saw this article today on how women watch media online.  I was glad someone posted it.  Because frankly, I don’t consume much media in terms of TV and movies at this juncture in my life.  However, what is on “traditional” media for women kind of…sucks. (Apologies for my unprofessional term.)  Let’s be real: most of it really is garbage, as we were all reminded of by applying the Bechdel Test.

What positive media out there exists for women?  I watch movies on iTunes, and frankly I really struggle to find something I’m interested in watching.  Granted, I don’t demand to be “edutained” every time I watch a film or a TV show, but I DO want to see what awesome looks like when it comes to the world and women.  I want to walk away from a film or TV show inspired – not feeling badly about myself and the world around me!

I’ll share a tiny secret with you – my faithful 13 readers: I’ve been thinking about and possibly working on some media programming for women that will be POSITIVE, that will CHALLENGE all of us to think bigger, and be edutaining all in one.  But I’ve got this icky not so little exam between me and it.  But I am thinking about it, because I think it’s time.

It’s time to show the next generation of women (and men, for that matter) what awesome can look like AND entertain us at the same time.  It really CAN be done.

Let’s see if I can get through the next couple of months so I can actually IMPLEMENT this big idea.

In the meantime, keep on rocking out there – and happy weekend!

After 15 seasons, ER is going off the air.  One of the most powerful and daring pieces of the entire series was that the writers and producers made the assumption that the TV audience was intelligent enough to watch and be interested in the medical jargon. (Ok, that and George Clooney.)  Actually, the medical jargon was one of my favorite things about the series. (George wasn’t bad either.)

As I watched last evening another new show, on another network, that I’m pretty sure only took a couple of brain cells to actually turn on the TV to understand, juxtaposed with this morning being reminded of ER, I’m left perplexed.  Part of the huge success of ER had to do with the intelligence of it.  Why, then, don’t more producers and writers assume that the audience watching is intelligent, and therefore give us more choices that are intelligent? Dare I use the word ‘edutaining’?  Dare we learn something while being entertained?  Is that really asking too much from our entertainment?

I don’t think so.