
The film interweaves stories from teenage girls with provocative interviews to give an inside look at the media and its message. The film’s motto, “You can't be what you can't see,” underscores an implicit message that young women need and want positive role models, and that the media has thus far neglected its unique opportunity to provide them. The film includes a social action campaign to address change in policy, education and call for socially responsible business. The movie brought along a lot of positive movement and encourages those who viewed the film to take the pledge against gender misrepresentations by using hashtags like #RepresentHer and #DisruptTheNarrative.
The film previewed on October 18, 2010, at an awards luncheon hosted by the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. The film premiered on January 22, 2011 at the Sundance Film Festival, followed by screenings at the Athena Film Festival at Barnard College in New York City in February.
The cast included both celebrities and political members as actors. This included people such as Hillary Clinton, Ellen Degeneres, Dolly Parton, Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Palin, and more. For the complete list, [1]
Soundtrack and music
The film's soundtrack includes music from Metric, Alan Moorhouse, Van Phillips, Jules Larson, Chinatown, and Randi Skyland.
Help, I'm Alive -Metric
Gold Guns Girls -Metric
In The Swing -Alan Moorhouse
Tom Fool -Van Phillips
I Want It All -Jules Larson
Drive Me Crazy -Chinatown
This Is My Life -Randi Skyland
The Oprah Winfrey Network acquired broadcast rights for the film following its premiere.
Audience Award from
2011 Palo Alto International Film Festival.
2011 Sonoma Film Festival.
Official Selection at
2011 Atlanta Film Festival.
2011 Dallas Film Festival.
2011 Denver Film Festival.
2011 Newport Beach Film Festival.
2011 New Zealand Film Festival.
2011 San Francisco Film Festival.
2011 Silver Docs Film Festival.
2011 Sundance Film Festival.
Other
2011 Maui Film Festival: Movies Matter Award
2011 Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.
2012 Gracie Allen Awards: Outstanding Documentary.
Won WFCC Award for Best Theatrically Unreleased Movie by or About Women.
Miss Representation was the film to inspire The Representation Project, a non-profit organization using celebrity ambassadors to spread the messages of the film to the community and media. This organization was founded in April 2011 and has since created the award winning documentary The Mask You Live In, as well as built an online platform to provide tools and information for how to make a difference in your community.
A call-to-action campaign grew out of the film, including a Twitter campaign to call out offensive media, a crowd-sourced list of media that represent women and girls fairly, a virtual internship program to recruit representatives, guides for media representation conversation starters, guides for electing females for political office, weekly action alerts, gender equality principles and resources & tools for taking action.
Most filming took place in Los Angeles, California and San Francisco, California.
In March 2017 for the International Women's Day, Jennifer Siebel Newsom and The Representation Project (formerly “Miss Representation.org”) launched a campaign against hate speech ("#NotBuyingIt") asking Amazon to stop buying ads on website Breitbart and using the crowdspeaking platform Daycause to create a tweetstorm.