The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick
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In 1981, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally created an Oscar category for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
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Since then, men have been given roughly twice as many Oscars as women have in that category, and have been nominated three times as often.
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in the category of Best Visual Effects
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women have been nominated only three times since 1939,...
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One hundred percent of the top American films of 1954, the year Creature from the Black Lagoon was released, were directed by men. Ninety-six percent of the top American films for 2016, the year I started writing this book, were directed by men.
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In sixty-two years, we have improved gender equality in American film directing by four percent.
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There has been only one female cinematographer even nominated for an Oscar. Eighty-one percent of films do not have female production designers. Ninety-nine percent of films do not have any female gaffers or key grips.
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All of this...and women account for fifty-one percent of movie goers.
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Women have always been the most important part of monster movies. As I walked home one night, I realized why. Making my way down dark city streets to my apartment in Brooklyn, I was alert and on edge. I was looking for suspicious figures, men that could be rapists, muggers or killers. I felt like Laurie Strode in Halloween. Horror is a pressure valve for society’s fears and worries: monsters seeking to control our bodies, villains trying to assail us in the darkness, disease and terror resulting from the consequences of active sexuality, death. These themes are the staple of horror films.
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Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to. Women have to endure it, fight it, survive it—in the movies and in real life. They are at risk of attack from real-life monsters.
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Women need to see themselves fighting monsters.
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That’s part of how we figure out our stories. But we also need to see ourselves behind-the-scenes, creating and writing and directing. We need to tell our stories, too.
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Milicent Patrick was born Mildred Elisabeth Fulvia Rossi on November 11, 1915.
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She was born the second of three children
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Camille Charles Rossi
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Elise Alberti...
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If hate-lasers could shoot out of my eyes, I would have melted my glasses.
Chris Edwards
Ha! Nice!
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Kids vs Monsters,
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Just like before, she was reaching out her hand to me. She belonged in Los Angeles, working on movies. I belonged there, too. I followed her to find my career, so following her to my new home felt right.
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He also wisely invested in the best equipment of all: his writers.
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It is surreal to grow up in a literal wonderland, but I imagine it would have been even more surreal to grow up in a wonderland that was not your own.
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She reached into my purse, snatched my recorder, turned it on and then stuck it discreetly inside one of the pockets. “There! No one will know. Let’s go.”
Chris Edwards
hehe, nice
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This way of thinking is a maladaptation women have developed over the years to be able to deal with the fact that we’re getting passed on for jobs because we’re female. You force yourself to believe that there just haven’t been any women good enough for the job, rather than accept the fact that the entire system just doesn’t want you in it. Anyone who flouts that system must be an outlier.
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That’s the danger in having so few women acknowledged and hired in the film industry. Instead of looking at these women and thinking “Yes, I can get there, too!” girls can just as easily look at them all alone in a sea of men and think “They must have been perfect to get there. I never
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We need women to be allowed to be simply good at what they do. We need them on set, in meetings, behind cameras and pens and paintbrushes. We need them to be themselves, to be human: ordinary and flawed. That way, more girls can see them and think “I can do that.” That way, no one can look at them and say “She got that job because she’s beautiful. She just got that gig because she slept with someone.” Actually, she got hired because she was damn good.
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Putting all the imperfect parts of Milicent’s life into this book is just as important as putting in all the impressive parts.
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I’m worthy of respect, no matter what I look like.
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Her legacy should be founded on the strength of the art that she created and on the trails that she blazed.
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Good luck might come into play for slot machines, or avoiding troglodytes in the algorithms of Tinder, or whether or not your package gets delivered via UPS. When it comes to your career, though, I can guarantee that any moment that people attribute to good luck is at least half you.
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“How about a combination of man and halibut called the Xenobut?” he wrote. Xenobut, a name to truly strike fear into your heart and drive you to the movie theaters.
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Monster stories are powerful. They explore prejudice, rejection, anger and every imaginable negative aspect of living in society. However, only half of society is reflected in the ranks of the people who create these monsters.
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One of the hardest things about misogyny in the film industry isn’t facing it directly, it’s having to tamp down your anger about it so that when you speak about the problem, you’ll be taken seriously. Women don’t get to stomp around like Godzilla. Someone will just ask if you’re on your period.
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Women don’t get to be colossal monsters. Women don’t get to fuck shit up.
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Women need to be able to see themselves reflected in the monsters playing out these emotions on the big screen.
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“So many people, including youngsters, are so well-informed scientifically that even science fiction has to meet certain standards. Imagination by no means runs entirely riot. Somebody puts a foot down promptly if you ramble too far.”
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The thing about depression is that it lies to you. Depression will find the one thing you are worried most about and convince you that it is real.
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which means that Bud Westmore had to take in praise for Milicent even after she left.
Chris Edwards
Eat shit Bud!
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“Everyone is beautiful. Some choose to share it, while others hide it. It’s much better to share!”
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Since childhood, I’ve been faithful to monsters. I have been saved and absolved by them, because monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing.
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a librarian popping out of a secret passageway to give me research help is one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me.
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Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation
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The problem here is considering disciplines that are generally thought of as “women’s work” as lesser than other forms of art. At best, this thinking is stupid and at worst, it’s misogynistic.
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Which sounds like a group of ghosts or maybe demons that lived in the studio and wielded bloody brushes.