Channeling the Power of Women, from Oprah to the Number 101

 Happy Birthday to Oprah Winfrey who turned 60 today!

Have you listened to the wonderful speech Oprah Winfrey gave in December upon accepting The Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at The Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment breakfast? 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/oprah-winfreys-motivational-speech-at-665409

Very fitting for such a powerful woman to receive this award from Lansing, the groundbreaking most powerful woman in Hollywood, who at age 35 became the first female President of 20^th Century Fox. Winfrey defines Power as “Strength over time. Strength x Strength x Strength = Power.”

“Your real power lies in the opportunity that you have in this moment in time to use your life for something that really matters,” Winfrey said. “The common denominator in human experience is validation. Did you hear me? Did what I say mean anything to you?” She quoted Joseph Campbell, who said, “The privilege of a lifetime is to be who you are.” Winfrey said, “The real privilege is to use who you are to elevate the higher good of everyone else.”

100 Women have not let their gender get in the way of their career path as they were recently named to The Hollywood Reporter’s 2013 Women in Entertainment Power 100 List. 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/hollywood-reporters-2013-women-entertainment-power-100-664497

I wonder how they felt about their position on the list, whether they went up or down, that many of their ages were listed, what they decided to wear for their power shot. How many of these women have been called names behind their backs as they rose through the still male dominated entertainment industry? How many helped other women along the way? Hey Number 101, don't feel bad. Oprah says she has been all over the list from #1 to OFF.

What percentage of “power” positions do the top 100 Women represent? If Geena Davis’s calculations were correct, I would say 17%.

I recently got to hear actor* Geena Davis speak at Warner Bros. about her own Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. Davis, best known for her roles in iconic female buddy movies Thelma and Louise and A League of Their Own, calls herself an *actor, defined by Merriam-Webster as “a person who acts.”

She says she developed a heightened sense of awareness of how women are portrayed in media after those two roles and her own experiences watching

G-rated movies with her young daughter. She started to study the disparity and discovered that for every one female-speaking character in family-rated films

(G, PG and PG-13), there were roughly 3 male characters; crowd scenes rarely showed more than 17% women and that 3:1 ratio hasn’t changed since 1946! Oh, and the #1 occupation of females in family movies? Royalty. Even I don’t see those opportunities on LinkedIn!

Davis isn’t on a crusade, she just wants to even out the playing field in a non-threatening to men way so that Forensic Scientist isn’t the only new female occupation.

Read about Geena Davis’ Two Easy Steps to Make Hollywood Less Sexist:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/geena-davis-two-easy-steps-664573

Her organization at www.seejane.org has a simple message: “If She Can See It, She Can Be It.”

No matter what number we fall on a list we all have the opportunity and the duty to lead those around us on a path as a positive role model!

#OprahWinfrey #TheHollywoodReporter #WomenInEntertainment #GeenaDavis

Let’s Watch American Idol Together

American Idol Productions recently treated me to a trip to Hollywood (from Van Nuys!) to preview Hollywood Week. While I received travel, accommodations and tickets from American Idol, all opinions are my own. Here’s some of what happened:

By now, you’ve probably seen the photo of me with Harry Connick Jr. that I have been shamelessly posting (see what I mean about my photo skills?) But just in case you missed it ; )

It was a huge moment for the Idol Tweethearts when Harry walked into our American Idol behind-the-scenes tour. He had already opened our eyes when we saw a sneak peek of the Jan 15 Idol premiere. Now he grabbed our hearts as he went around the room and individually greeted us all. He took the time to pose for selfies, answer our questions, pose for a group shot and hand us individually autographed CDs. Babbling ensued. You can’t tell from this shot, but I awkwardly contorted my arm around him and my fellow tweetheart so I could touch his back, part of Pinky on the Pulse, literally.

Harry Connick Jr. epitomizes the Idol slogan #thisisreal. Under those Clark Kent specs lies a family man – an extremely talented, charming, funny, good-looking, not-like-anyone-I-know – family man. His comments come from a place of caring and knowing the real ropes of the music business.

And Idol is all about bringing back a family show this season. There’s no coincidence that most of the Idol Tweethearts are moms. They wanted us to get the message out that you can watch Idol with your family again.

While I’m not a fan of bickering and confrontation, there’s a different reason that I always return to American Idol. I watch in search of the perfect TV moment: when an unknown, yet wildly talented singer nails it, when they make me want to rewind and watch their performance over, sometimes just to listen to a single note.

My top AI moments:

Carrie Underwood sings “Alone” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMBSDpB3WB8

Jessica Sanchez sings “I Will Always Love You”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPX-H3KGjJI

David Cook sings “Hello”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTqBXr2-Q_8

Chills, right?

Idol used to be the show we talked about at work the next day (pre-Facebook.) We would have private polls about who would go home. My friend Stephanie would write the most hilarious “Around the Idol Cooler”recaps that I couldn’t wait to read. I worked at Fox during S8 and would enter the weekly contest in the Fox Studio Store to guess who would be going home. I had a four-week winning streak until I was wrong about Anoop.

I’ve been a fan since the days when I had to strategically set my VCR because I could only watch one show and record another. For Idol I would watch and record. I would fall asleep hitting redial to vote for my favs. 

Now we have limitless choices of how many shows we can watch, when we want to watch them. I was fortunate enough to work at NBC during their “Must-See-TV” Thursday night domination. Now “must see” TV has a different meaning as less viewers actually watch shows on their TV as they initially air. Some shows are bringing the concept of “must-see” back though. Ironically, you have to completely unplug from any other devices if you haven’t seen a show and want to avoid social spoiler alerts.

Let’s try a new trend and “Experience TV.” Join me on Twitter @pinkypulse and #idoltweethearts to watch American Idol together. Note to East Coast friends: Don’t tell me who goes home!

#AmericanIdol #IdolTweethearts #HarryConnickJr #Must-SeeTV 

The Backstage Pass*

American Idol Productions recently treated me to a trip to Hollywood(!) to preview Hollywood Week. Here’s some of what happened:

I’m going to have to improve on my multitasking-while-giddy skills. As I followed my fellow Idol Tweethearts from the Roosevelt Hotel across the street to The Dolby Theatre for our special behind-the-scenes sneak peek at American Idol Hollywood Week, I was all thumbs trying to take pictures. Should I use my camera or iPhone? If I use my iPhone do I use the camera or Instagram? If I use Instragram should I post to Twitter and/or Facebook? For those unfamiliar with this section of Hollywood Blvd., we were also passing a slew of random celebrity impersonators like Spiderman, Barney and Marilyn Monroe, adding to my giddiness factor.

We had our official American Idol Backstage passes on as we entered the artist’s entrance. 

My first shot was of the Seth McFarlane Oscar poster.

It made me laugh after my Hollywood Bowl debacle
when I thought he was Peter Brady
(see FB post from August).

 Next, a bunch of directional signs, especially the “confessional” sign. Personally, I wouldn't want to be caught blubbering on TV, but that's the risk of a ticket to Hollywood Week!
















My third was of a purple wall, completely missing the RS dressing room sign for Ryan Seacrest.
My photo skills are top-notch, don’t you agree?

Meanwhile, as my colleagues were clicking and texting away, seemingly composing 200-word blogs on the fly, I was looking for the pen and notepad I purchased earlier that morning.

Our first stop was a catered lunch where I had a moment to compose both myself and my first tweet.

 You can take the girl out of print, but you can't take the print out of the girl. After all these years I still think lenticulars are cool. Google glasses would have made me happy too, but we probably would have had to turn those back in. Besides, it was Wednesday, 30 minutes before my favorite weekly tweetchat #printchat.

It was a good thing I got my little tweet out, because five minutes later all hell broke loose when Harry Connick, Jr. entered the room. (to be continued…)

#AmericanIdol, #idolsponsoredvip, #idoltweethearts, #printchat, #HarryConnickJr, #GoogleGlasses #SethMcFarlane

*While I received travel, accommodations and tickets from American Idol, all opinions are my own.

A New View of Los Angeles

Like many of you, I have been overwhelmed in the past few weeks with things I should have been doing, writing, accomplishing, checking off my list. I often find myself spinning in circles. I have a dog that does that constantly, I should just leave that to him.

Today I returned to Los Angeles after 12 days in McMinnville, a small town outside of Portland. I enjoyed my time with my Oregon family. For the first time ever, it did not rain while I visited, just a steady cold, foggy gloom. The McMinnvillians loved it. I missed the sun.

I like flying into Burbank on Alaska Airlines from Portland. It's a direct two-hour flight with free beer or wine. If I sit on the right side of the plane, I can spot my backyard as we descend. I love that I've lived in Los Angeles long enough to pick out buildings as I fly overhead. Today was a spectacularly clear day. I could see from the ocean to Century City, my house, downtown and the building I'm working in on the Warner Bros. lot. This panoramic view was awe-inspiring and helped me reset my focus.

Earlier this evening I noticed the moon, shining low in the sky, just the thinnest sliver. I missed the moon the past few nights. In my early LA years when I was in my late 20s I often spent New Year's Eve at my friend John's apartment in Hollywood. At midnight I would look out over his balcony at the moon and palm trees to make a wish for the New Year. It was always the beauty of nature that I focused on. I fell optimistic and hopeful then. Today, I felt the same way.

A friend had this link posted and I want to share it too. (via @Upworthy) http://bit.ly/1gu5omL

ORIGINAL: By Louie Schwartzberg and TEDx.