SHOUT NOTES: Teen Voices Goes to Hollywood

When Teen Voices Senior Peer Leaders Adanma Ude and Tanasia Barboza-White were invited to the star-studded land of Los Angeles, they didn’t just sit around watching movies; over two days at the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media Conference, they shared their perspectives on how the media inaccurately portrays girls. Surrounded by some of the most important media executives and producers (think Nickelodeon, the Noggin Network, and the creators of The Proud Family), the girls were a huge hit–but their exciting long weekend didn’t stop there!

California Dreamin’

Of course we had a million questions for the girls when they came back. Here are a few highlights.

Teen Voices: What was the most exciting moment of the trip? Why?
Adanma Ude: My most exciting part of the trip was the first day that we were on the panel and we were talking. I really enjoyed looking at the audience and seeing their expressions when we were talking. They were really into what we were saying.

TV: What was the most interesting thing you learned at the conference?
Adanma: The most shocking thing that I learned is that cartoon characters who are girls are made with very unrealistic “Coca-Cola” bottle shaped figures and waists the size of a rubber band. I’d never noticed that before.

(From Left to Right): Jenny Amory, Executive Director, Tanasia Barboza-White, Senior Peer Leader, Geena Davis, Adanma Ude, Senior Peer Leader, and Saun Green, Program Director. Credit Line: Michael Caulfield/WireImage/Getty Images.

TV: Who were you most excited to meet? Why?
Adanma: I was most excited to meet Geena Davis because she is this really big superstar who is committed to making change in the field that she works in. Also I heard that she was very tall, and I couldn’t wait to see if the rumor was true.
Tanasia Barboza-White: The best part was meeting Tom Lynch of the Tom Lynch Company. He is the writer of my ABSOLUTE favorite show, South of Nowhere, and he was a great person, really fun and down to earth. I also liked meeting Brown Johnson (the president of Nickelodeon). She was humorous and gave us a great interview.

Tanasia, Adanma, and producer Tom Lynch

TV: What was the biggest surprise of the trip? Why?
Adanma: The biggest surprise of the trip was that on our last day it was 70-something degrees outside and Jenny, Tanasia, and I spent a beautiful day on the Pier in Santa Monica.

TV: What was something funny that happened?
Adanma: Jenny made us get on the Ferris wheel and she was so scared after we got on! She was telling us not to move. We named it the “Carousel of Death.”
Tanasia: We were all dying laughing, so to the naked eye, one would think we were having the time of our lives, but we were really petrified.

Tanasia and Adanma enjoying the ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier

TV: What did you like most about California?
Tanasia: EVERYTHING! I CAN’T WAIT TO GO BACK!

Getting Down to Business
Tanasia Barboza-White

Peer Leaders at Teen Voices are exposed to many great opportunities because we do a lot of networking and advocating for our magazine and journalism program. But our trip to Los Angeles for the conference with Saun Green, our Program Director, and Jenny Amory, the Teen Voices Executive Director, may have been the best opportunity ever. The Geena Davis Institute of Gender in Media is a research group founded by the actress Geena Davis (A League of Their Own, Thelma and Louise) to point out the lack of complex female characters in movies and TV shows for kids 11 years old and under. This was the perfect cause for Teen Voices because our main focus is to change the world for girls through the media. On the first day of the conference, Adanma and I answered questions in front of some of the most influential people in Hollywood. When actress Aisha Tyler asked us what advice we had for the producers, we talked about wanting to see movies that showed multi-racial characters, larger girls (not just blondes with pony tails), more “real” families like single parents, and girls and boys as friends. It was a lot of fun.

On day two of the conference, Adanma and I served on a panel at the University of Southern California with two other girls from “Write Girl,” an L.A.-based journalism program. We talked about our favorite characters as kids, our concerns about what is currently on TV for kids, and how the media has shaped our aspirations. Then after an on-camera interview and a radio interview, we were done! The conference was over and we were happy and proud of our accomplishments.

Although we did a lot of work while in California, we did a lot of fun things, too. We went to the famous Fashion District, enjoyed great fashion at affordable prices, and shopped till we dropped. We also ate at widely known restaurants such as Fatburger and Roscoe’s Chicken ‘N Waffles. We even visited the Bubba Gump store—based off of Adanma’s favorite movie Forrest Gump. L.A. was such a blast! I definitely didn't want to leave.

Tanasia, Adanma, and Actress-Comedian Aisha Tyler

Making an Impact
Adanma Ude

Did I have fun in California you ask? OF COURSE! I never thought that I would have a chance to go to the “City of Dreams” and meet such significant people while helping move along such an important issue. We spent countless hours preparing for this conference, and it really paid off. People in the audience actually listened and really understood what we were trying to say. They cared about our message which was that girls are more than just pretty faces and skinny waists. When Tanasia and I spoke on the panel, it really helped to reiterate the point that girls are important, too.

Going to California changed my perspective on Hollywood and people in the media. It helped me understand that there are incredible people like Geena Davis, Stephen McPherson (the president of ABC Entertainment), Brown Johnson, and many more who really care about what girls have to say and the things that are affecting girls right now. Although the way that the media depicts girls in a negative light is only one of the many problems that girls and women face every day, I was happy to be able to share my opinions and voice to maybe make a difference. Not only did I have fun, it was a learning experience and I will never forget the impact that I made and the impact that was made on me.

Conference Findings

Researchers at the Geena Davis Institute and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication watched more than 400 movies dating from 1990 through today to see how girls and women are really portrayed in movies rated G, PG, PG-13, and R—that’s more than 4,000 female characters! So what did they find out?

• 73 percent of the characters in these movies were male.
• Females were over five times as likely as males to be shown wearing sexually revealing or sexually suggestive clothing.
• Females were almost three times as likely as males to have a thin figure.

Another study looked at 101 of the most popular G-rated movies that came out between 1990 and January 2005. The findings were equally dramatic!

• Fewer than one out of three speaking characters in these movies were female.
• 83 percent of the narrators were male.
• 85.5 percent of the characters were Caucasian; 4.8 percent were black; 9.7 percent were from other ethnicities.

CHECK IT OUT…The Geena Davis Institute is sponsoring a Public Service Announcement (PSA) Contest to GET GIRLS IN THE PICTURE! You can win a trip to Hollywood and the chance to show your portfolio to a Hollywood producer – visit www.thegeenadavisinstutute.org for details!