Two really interesting thoughts I wanted to share, from an acting point of view…

Geena Davis has Two easy steps to make Hollywood less sexist

Viola Davis says I will never see myself on screen

Both pieces are kind of sad and hopeful, somehow, at the same time. The (very simple) steps Geena Davis proposes seem to make sense… I hope every writer has tried the gender switch- in both directions- with at least a couple of characters at some point in their career. It`s such a worthwhile exercise. We can make change with quantity alongside quality.

As for seeing herself on screen, well, Viola Davis has a point there. She says, basically, that it`s because her range of humanity doesn`t mesh with the portrayal of black characters. I`d step that out even further and say almost nothing she mentions meshes with the general portrayal of women on screen, either. It`s a shame that an actor as brilliant as Viola Davis isn`t getting a flood of great roles that she has to turn down because there are just too many to choose from. It`s a shame that she`s still seeing the things we all see and that make us all scratch our heads.

And I don`t see why we can`t keep these things in mind as we strive to build the new normal. The more we write a quantity of women who are three-dimensional, the more everyone will get used to reading it. The more it gets read, the more it has the chance to get made. So, let`s do more of this. We can always do more of this. Go.