Jennifer Aniston was in Italy this weekend to accept the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Giffoni Film Festival which is Europe’s largest film festival for children. Youth from all over Europe were invited to participate in a Q&A session with her on Saturday.
One of the first questions Jen took from the audience was about women in film:
Do you think that the film industry could better portray the lives, struggles, and joys of real women? If yes, how in your opinion could that be done?”
Good question. And Jen’s response:
“Well, young writers, if any are in the room, need to start writing the stories. The stories need to be written, and then we can tell them.”
The next question:
Do you think it is important for famous women or actresses like you to speak about what’s wrong in Hollywood like sexism and to empower women?
Another good question. And Jen’s response:
“Yes! Yes indeed. And I think that the conversation has started, it’s become so glaring. Especially in tabloid media. And I think we need to empower women to not just be about dresses and beauty and selfies. We need to start having conversations and put our phones down and get out of social media, take social media breaks. That’s why we’re not seeing the right stories being told, because everyone is stuck in their phones. So empower each other and equality. It’s all it is. It’s being equal.”
THAT WASN’T THE QUESTION, Jennifer Aniston!
But the way Jennifer Aniston chose to address sexism and gender equality in a room full of young people is to say “write more and put down your phones?” Tell that to the independent female filmmakers who’ve been writing non-stop for a decade, and not on their phones, but can’t get their stories told because there’s a system in place that devalues stories by women about women.
And she is one of the people who can be a voice for change in that. Jennifer Aniston has the resources and the influence to rally, to be able to set an example. And she had the opportunity in that space to be the example, to talk about how she’s contributed to creating opportunities for other women, to support diversity, to engage in joining the movement.
Instead, she used this particular platform to, once again, advance her personal crusade against tabloid culture and social media. Because IN TOUCH Weekly reporting she’s pregnant when she’s not pregnant is why there’s a gender pay gap and women aren’t getting hired for top level jobs. What is a young filmmaker even supposed to do with that?
