Geena Davis, Boosting Breakfast in Classroom, Is in a Fundraising League of Her Own

By Mike Saucier

The message Geena Davis delivered to the packed house – with humor, self-deprecation and cold, hard facts — is still reverberating days after she exited the packed room and flew out of Sky Harbor.

Valley of the Sun United Way Women’s Leadership Council hosted the 2nd Annual We Are United Luncheon on Friday at The Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, with Davis as the huge draw.

On the strength of Davis’s appearance and the merits of the program, the signature event to fund Breakfast in the Classroom raised over $200,000 for the cause, which addresses the thousands of Maricopa County households that struggle to put food on the table for themselves or their families. The Valley of the Sun United Way is committed to provide breakfast to fund another 63 schools, out 130 total – that have high rates of poverty and hunger – and over 74,000 students in Maricopa County who have no access to the program.

Breakfast, as the old adage goes, is the most important meal of the day. Starting school days on empty stomachs can make students more easily distracted and fare worse in class than counterparts who eat breakfast. Students who eat breakfast each day, on average, score more than 17 percent higher on math tests and are 20 percent more likely to graduate than students who don’t eat breakfast at all, studies show.

This year the group brought a true Hollywood star. Davis, the Academy Award winning star of “Thelma and Louise,” “A League of Their Own” and “The Accidental Tourist,” was the keynote speaker at the luncheon. Arizona’s first lady Angela Ducey was the honorary chair of the event and in her remarks made the case for the Breakfast in the Classroom program.

Davis, a Massachusetts native, took the rapt audience on a journey through her life from when she got her first big break by getting cast in “Tootsie” to her Oscar-winning role for Best Actress in “Thelma & Louise” in 1991. The packed room laughed throughout as Davis made fun of herself for her height and previous lack of athletic talent (until she discovered it in her 30s and went on to become an accomplished archer and vied for a berth on the U.S. Olympic archery team.)

Seeing the effect that powerful female roles could have on girls, Davis began to develop a profound interest in how women and girls were depicted onscreen.

“The film that had the most impact on my life was ‘Thelma & Louise,’ which changed my life, sent it in a whole new direction,” she said. “It cemented my passion for helping to empower women and has driven my commitment to it ever since.

Davis said she wanted to be in the film so badly she met with her acting coach to go over the role, even though it had already been cast. It later changed, of course, with Davis getting the role of a lifetime.

“Thelma & Louise” – a critical and commercial success that received six Academy Award nominations – is now considered a classic and has been heralded as the last great film about women.

Ever since that empowering movie, Davis, in her acting choices, factors carefully what impression the character will make on female audiences, hoping that they will feel inspired by the female characters she plays. She was cast as the first female president on television in “Commander in Chief” in 2005.

When her daughter was a toddler, Davis sought to find out data on how many female characters there were in movies and television made for little kids. Because she had developed, as she said, a “spidey sense at how women were portrayed in Hollywood” she was “floored to see that there were far more male characters than female characters.”

“I thought, as a mother, surely, surely, in the 21st century we should be showing boys and girls in the sandbox equally but it didn’t seem to be the case,” she said.

Since she had frequent meetings with them, Davis decided she would bring up the topic with directors, producers and studio executives. She would ask them if they noticed how few female characters there are in movies made for kids. Davis said they all responded, sincerely, by insisting that it wasn’t true and the issue had been fixed.

The quest to find the answer took her life in another direction, she said. She became a data geek of sorts.

Her research institute which she launched in 2007 – Geena Davis on Gender and Media – has commissioned the largest amount ever done on gender depictions in TV and movies that is made for children 11 and under. “The result is stunning,” Davis said. “In a world that’s half female the message that the media sends is that women and girls are far less important than men and boys.”

Davis said: “What message are we sending to boys and girls if the female characters are one-dimensional, sidelined, narrowly stereotyped, hyper-sexualized or not there at all? We’re teaching them that women and girls are less important than men and boys. We are actually training them to see that women and girls do not take up half of the space in the world.”

“Think of how different the world could be if kids could grow up free of these [gender] biases,” she added. “By feeding our kids this serious imbalance since minute one we are unwittingly training generation after generation to see women and girls as less than.”

One advantage Davis has in being able to get her message out is that she is in the industry so she can go directly to the creators. Davis said she does this is a very private and collegial way.

The research conducted by her institution is delivering results, she said, citing data that showed most creators, after seeing her presentation, took action with their projects to add more female characters.

Davis ended her remarks with this: “I wish the day would come soon, maybe before the day my daughter’s all the way grown up when I can tell her this story: Once upon a time women and girls were thought to be a little less important than men and boys. She would look at me incredulously and say, ‘Mom, are you making that up?’”

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About Mike Saucier

Mike Saucier is the Editor of Frontdoors Media. He can be reached at editor@frontdoorsmedia.com.
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