Roberta McReynolds writes:  Some days pass without that beckoning call, but I stare off into space waiting for it anyway while still recovering from the latest traumatic event. Will I ever find pleasure in a project that has somehow become tangled in the emotions of a separate, turbulent situation?

—The White House Project: Film and TV

• In film, women constitute 16 percent of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers; this represents a slight decrease in their representation in these positions in the last decade.
• Among situation comedies, dramas and reality shows in the 2008-09 prime-time television season, women made up one-quarter of all creators, directors, executive producers and producers.
• Women don’t do much better on screen: across 400 top-grossing G, PG, PG-13 and R rated films released between 1990 and 2006, only 27 percent of over 15,000 speaking characters were female. African American women constitute only 7 percent of characters featured in dramas and situation comedies, Latinas constitute two percent, and Asian women account for less than two percent.
• Women own less than 6 percent of the full-power television stations in the US

Posted at the White House Project site is a New York Times op-ed by By Kim Elsesser, a research scholar at the Center for Study of Women at the University of California, Los Angeles:

"Many hours into the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony this Sunday, the Oscar for best actor will go to Morgan Freeman, Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, Colin Firth or Jeremy Renner. Suppose, however, that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented separate honors for best white actor and best non-white actor, and that Mr. Freeman was prohibited from competing against the likes of Mr. Clooney and Mr. Bridges. Surely, the academy would be derided as intolerant and out of touch; public outcry would swiftly ensure that Oscar nominations never again fell along racial lines."

"Why, then, is it considered acceptable to segregate nominations by sex, offering different Oscars for best actor and best actress?"

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The following is edited from Johanna Grossman's two parts at FindLaw's Writ (see below). Ms. Grossman is a professor and the John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar at Hofstra Law School.

"Larry and Joy Farr were married for thirty years — the first time around. Then, in 2007, three years after getting a divorce, they remarried. But this time, their marriage only lasted three years, at which point he filed for divorce and she cross-filed for an annulment — a declaration that their second marriage was invalid from the get-go."

"According to Joy, she only agreed to remarry Larry based on his representation that he had a terminal illness; she didn't want him to die alone. But he survived, and she cried foul. The second marriage, she alleged, had been based on fraud — a false representation that he would soon be dead."

"Is this type of misrepresentation, if proven, grounds for annulment? A Colorado appellate court said yes, in Farr v. Farr. In the first part of this two-part series, I will discuss the traditional doctrine of annulments based on fraud and the ways in which courts kept a tight leash on such claims. In Part Two, I will discuss the shift towards a more lenient definition of fraud that is exemplified by the ruling in Farr, an opinion I will analyze in detail."

.....

Annulments Based on Fraud: The Traditional Approach

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The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, is hosting an exhibit, Making Movies.

The exhibition is organized into two sections, the first of which explores the responsibilities of the director, producer, screenwriter, production designer, art director, actor, costume designer, hair and makeup artist, cinematographer, special effects designer, editor and music composer. In the second section, the original scripts of iconic scenes from about 10 motion pictures will be displayed alongside production materials for that scene — stills, memos, call sheets, production reports, storyboards, research material, production photos-and digital clips of the filmed scene to give visitors to a clear impression of the number of individuals it takes to realize a few seconds of performance history.

One of the research materials used in the exhibit is the censorship code, A Code to Govern the Making of Motion and Talking Pictures, imposed on the films beginning in the late '20s:

Murder
a. The technique of murder must be presented in a way that does not inspire imitation.

b. Brutal killings are not to be presented in detail.

c. Revenge in modern times must not be justified.

Methods of Crime Must Not Be Explicitly Presented
a. Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc., should not be detailed in method.

b. Arson must be subject to the same safeguards.

c. The use of firearms should be restricted to essentials.

d. Methods of smuggling should not be presented.

Illegal Drug Traffic Must Never be Presented

The Use of Liquor in American Life, when not required by the plot or for proper characterization will not be shown.

Among the exhibition's highlights will be a selection of important screenplays, from The Misfits to North by Northwest, Lord of the Flies and Shakespeare in Love. The exhibition will also feature correspondence, construction drawings and storyboards from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Top Gun, Spellbound, Black Narcissus and others, as well as costumes from Gone With The Wind, An Affair to Remember, Taxi Driver and Casino.

Some of the accessible features are:

The Financial Effects of Ingrid Bergman's Beauty:

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