What’s Their Point?

A piece of cinematic history. That’s what I’ve heard Sex and the City referred to as. I finally saw the movie, and there’s no doubt in my mind as to why the film’s a hit, just as the series was. But, come on, a piece of cinematic history? Why? Because it stars four females and, according to a recent Reuters article, has grossed $345 million worldwide since its May 30 release? That same article calls it “the biggest chick flick of all time.” I say we will only achieve a mark of cinematic history when a movie about women will be released in the big theaters nationwide–—worldwide!–—and not be called a “chick flick.”

Two directors have decided not to wait for Hollywood’s re-evaluation of women in movies. Amy Sewell, writer of 2005’s acclaimed documentary Mad Hot Ballroom, and film producer Susan Toffler completed What’s Your Point, Honey? in January of this year and have taken it on the road, screening the film in independent theaters and private venues across America. The two first-time directors have concluded that a grassroots approach is the only way to have their movie seen. Why? Because it’s a movie about women. What’s more, it’s a movie about feminism, about young women fighting to achieve quality in the workplace, and in U.S. government—not a movie about attractive, rich white women who shop and gossip about men all day. So don’t call it a chick flick.

What’s Your Point, Honey? screened at Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center on a rainy Thursday, July 10. The documentary, which the ladies began filming in 2005, centers around CosmoGirls!’s (that’s right, CosmoGirl! is involved in a feminist movie) Project 2024. In 2002, CosmoGirl! teamed up with The White House Project to offer an internship program to college girls. It was named Project 2024 because that’s when the youngest readers would be 35, old enough to run for U.S. president. The program is intended to encourage more female readers to run for public office and to one day—if not 2024, then before—close the gender gap in presidential nominees. Not one female candidate running against eight male nominees, but eight women running alongside eight men.

Sewell and Toffler document seven young women who participated in Project 2024. Their stories are just one portion of the portrait painted about women and girls in America today. The film also follows three female tweens around New York City as they question kids their age and adults as to why there hasn’t yet been a female president. Another story is told, albeit subtly, through the eyes of teenagers as they learn about male-female inequalities in school and ignore it in their fashion magazines and the media-infested world around them.

 

The film is smart, funny, and a must-see, though sadly few will probably see it. So make an effort, people! What’s Your Point, Honey? will screen in San Francisco on Thursday, July 31, at the Red Vic Movie House, at 7:30pm, and on Thursday, Aug. 28, in Asheville, N.C., at the Fine Arts Theatre, at 7pm. Also, they now have DVDs available for sale through their Web site, along with educational guides that accompany the movie.

 

So check it out. And check back at PaperDolls next month, for an interview with Sewell and Toffler.

 

-Sofia