All About Change - Geena Davis - Dying of Politeness

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Geena Davis is an actor, archer, advocate, and all-around badass! She made her feature film debut starring opposite Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. She went on to star in many films including The Fly, Beetlejuice, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Stuart Little, A League of Their Own, and The Accidental Tourist for which she won her first Academy Award. She was again nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for her performance in Thelma & Louise. Geena is also the Founder and Chair of the non-profit Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which engages film and television creators to dramatically increase the percentage of female characters and reduce gender stereotyping in media made for children 11 and under. In 2019, Geena was honored with a second Oscar, this time the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in recognition of the work Geena has done over the decades to achieve gender parity on screen in film and television. She is now recognized for her tireless advocacy of women and girls nearly as much as for her acting accomplishments.  In this conversation with Jay, Geena discusses her activism in Hollywood, as well as her latest book, Dying of Politeness: A Memoir, where she chronicles her "journey to badassery" and makes a powerful case for why Hollywood has a crucial role to play in promoting women's rights around the globe.  Please find a transcription of this episode: https://allaboutchangepodcast.com/podcast-episode/geena-davis/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once we gain ultimate control of our lives, we decide we are never giving it up. Hi, I'm Jay Ruderman, and welcome to All About Change, a podcast showcasing individuals who leverage the hardships that have been thrown at them to better other people's lives. This is all wrong. I say put mental health first because if you don't... This generation of Americans has already had enough. I stand before you not as an expert, but as a concerned citizen. And today on our show, Gina Davis.

Gina Davis is an actor, archer, advocate, and all-around badass. A two-time Academy Award winner, she is one of Hollywood's most respected actors, appearing in several roles that have become landmarks and symbols of feminism, self-agency, and empowerment. But she wasn't always as confident and loud about her beliefs as she is today. Finding her voice took a while. I was in a place where I still couldn't actually say no to anything.

And I didn't think about, well, I could just leave. Or I could just actually say, I'm not doing it. But I caved in and I did it. And, oh, it felt, ugh. But her rich life experiences working alongside legends such as Susan Sarandon and Thelma and Louise taught her important life lessons. I saw what could be possible if you were able to actually simply say what you think. I'm not talking about being controversial or argumentative or anything like that. Simply a feeling comes to you and you say it.

After achieving fame and success in Hollywood, starring in groundbreaking films such as The Accidental Tourist, A League of Their Own, and many others, Gina went on to found and chair her non-profit, the Gina Davis Institute on Gender and Media. Her goal is to engage film and television creators, getting them to dramatically increase the percentage of female characters and reduce gender stereotyping. Women are not 50% of legislators around the world, but it's fiction. You can make it up, be anything you want. Gina and I share many of the same goals and values, and I'm proud to call her my friend. This is her second appearance on our show, and she's here to talk about her new book, Dying of Politeness, which chronicles her journey to

badassery and makes a powerful case for why Hollywood has a crucial role to play in promoting women's rights around the globe. So Gina, great to see you and welcome to All About Change. It's my honor to have you on as a guest and I really, really enjoyed book it was it was it just flew through it it was very well written and I loved the story of your life thank you your book really focuses on your lifelong graduation from being unfailingly polite to being a badass but knowing you I think you've always been a badass you You're one of the most accomplished people that I have known and have succeeded in everything from acting to archery to activism.

How did this happen that you became unfailingly polite in all aspects of your life? Well, it's my parents. I mean, they were and instilled it on me. My mom's favorite story about me when I was growing up was we were in church one day when I was a baby and I was sitting on her lap and somehow I rocked and hit the pew in front with my head and made a huge crack sound and everything stopped. And my mom hugged me and said, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. And she didn't say a peep. That was my mom's favorite story that I was able to suppress my emotions when needed. So that was a value in your family, to be polite, not to disturb, not to impose yourself in any way.

Don't impose in any way, in any way, yeah. You grew up in Massachusetts and you had a paper route and you talk about delivering a paper to an older man that you would go up to his apartment on the second floor and that, you know, he would ask you for a hug and then later inappropriately touch you. And can you talk about what happened when you told your mother about it, and what did she do? Yeah, he touched me inappropriately, repeatedly, you know, every time I went there. And I was so naive that I didn't know anything about anything. I didn't even know those were parts that weren't meant to be touched by somebody else. But it was curious to me. I remember my mom was washing dishes, and I was standing nearby, and I said, you know what's weird?

This is what happens to me when I go to his house, Mr. Teller's house, and I did it on her. I did it to her. I touched her that way, and she flew through the ceiling. I didn't know what had happened or what had caused this enormous reaction, but she blazed out the front door and strode up the street in the middle of the road and disappeared behind the house. And I thought, oh my God, what have I done? What is the deal? But she finally came back and said, you are never to go in his house again. You leave the paper down at the bottom of the stairs. And that's all we ever talked about. We never talked about it after

that. And you were young at the time, like i think 10 years old something like that i was 10 why was this never brought to the police oh i think different age thing and also i don't think my mom would have been able to bear talking to police about it or you know i don't she felt that stopping it from continuing to happen would be enough i think but uh but it was probably the whole don't stir the pot kind of mentality. Right. You talk in the book about being diagnosed later in life with ADD. You talk about it as being sort of a power. Do you think that having ADD contributed to your success in life? I do. I do, actually. I didn't know what it was that was torturing me when I was highly distracted, you know, like studying for tests or completing the term paper

or things like that were very difficult for me. And I castigated myself relentlessly about being a bad person because I couldn't do that stuff. But the tremendous upside for me is that you also hyper-focus. When the gears mesh, suddenly you're in a really great sweet spot where you can accomplish so much. And I think that's really helped me with the different things that I take up. I always say that I have to be careful what I get interested in, because eventually I will want to go to the Olympics in it. Right. Whatever it is.

And you have. You've really reached the top in almost everything that you've attempted to do. In your early 40s, you put all your efforts into archery and became extremely successful, was ranked in the top in the 30s in the country. But you were dealing with a negative voice that your coach helped you deal with. As I tuned into it more, I realized that in fact, I was hearing this negative self-talk about everything. It wasn't just when I was shooting. The voice was interested in trashing me all day long. I think a lot of people are subject to that, to hearing an ongoing internal monologue about how we're going to get laughed at or we're not good enough.

As if life isn't hard enough already, we need to beat ourselves up. Once Don helped me realize what the self-sabotaging voice in my head can do to Orchard, I started to work on eradicating it from the rest of my life as well. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome. And have you been successful in negating that negative voice? Yeah, I've taken all, I've taken the power away from it. It's not like it never happens, but it's instinctual now. Something happened just this morning, in fact, where I started saying, oh no, you screwed up. And then my other voice says, nope, you didn't. It's all good.

So that's how I worked on getting it to quiet was to counteract it every time. That's great. And that's such an important lesson that people can learn from. When you were going through as a young actress, you obviously experienced sexual harassment and have handled it in different ways. Can you describe a scene, which I think has happened to a lot of actors, where there was an intimate scene that you were going to perform in a movie, but the director, in the presence of the producer, made you perform it on him? Yeah, you know, it was actually an audition for a role.

And there was a scene, it was a comedy. And there was a scene in the movie, I played a nymphomaniacal vampire, of course. My name is Odette. There's a scene in the movie where she's trying to seduce a newspaper reporter. She gets on his lap and is, him, and then she clutches his face to her breast. I want to kiss you. Can't we have lunch first or something? Put your hands on my hips. Okay. Put your arms around me.

Put your face to my breasts. So that was the scene that they chose for the audition, and it was just the producer and the director there. There wasn't any casting director. And the director said, okay, let's do this scene. And I started saying the words, and he said, no, no, no, but do it to me. And I just laughed. Oh, well, you're right, yeah, okay. And he said, no, I'm serious.

Just sit on my lap. I can't tell how well you can act the scene unless I actually experience you doing it. And I was so frozen. And I looked at the producer and he's just kind of grinning and shrugging his shoulders. Oh, well, that's the way things are. I was in a place where I still couldn't actually say no to anything. And I didn't think about well i could just leave or i could just actually say i'm not doing it but i caved in and i did it and and oh felt even just thinking about it now i feel so about it i'm sorry but i'm sure that that type of thing has happened to so many women over the years so much yes yes and worse you worse. Do you think that things like that have changed, you know, with the Me Too movement,

that people are on guard and it happens less than it used to happen? I hope that it's happening less. I know that there's this tremendous awareness about it. And when Harvey Weinstein, all that exploded, some people were able to come forward and share their experience with him and talk about it. So I like to think that it's significantly less now because we've been made aware of it. We've been made somewhat familiarized with it and made comfortable with it. And for example, no agent is ever going to send their client to a hotel suite anymore for their audition. So I'm hopeful about

it. You write about another experience that was not sexual harassment, but was definitely made you traumatized when you're in this movie, Quick Change with Bill Murray and how he screamed at you. And that really, really made you feel uncomfortable. Right, right. It was the morning of the first day of shooting in New York, and we were shooting a scene outside at an intersection. And I had gotten all ready to act, and I was in the makeup trailer, and the wardrobe people said, Hey, just wait here a second. We forgot the belt. So I'm waiting, and the assistant director comes and says, We're ready for you. I said, Yeah, they want to bring me the belt.

Should I wait here for it or on the set? He said, just wait a second. We have time. So I'm waiting there. And moments later, the door bangs open. And Bill Murray comes storming in with a ferocious expression on his face. What the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck out of there. What the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck out there. What the fuck?

You're trying to ruin my fucking movie. And he came around and got behind me and was like breathing down my neck. Move, move, move! Faster! I was just like traumatized. I don't know what's happening to me. I just went into an altered state or something and we get

to the intersection and there's of course a hundred crew and there's, of course, a hundred crew, and there's about 300 extras playing a crowd that gathers, and then there's a real crowd that gathered behind a tape, so there's probably 700 people there, and he's screaming at me at the top of his lungs and points to my mark on the ground and says, stand there, roll it. We started shooting the scene, and fortunately, I didn't have any lines roll it. We started shooting the scene. And fortunately, I didn't have any lines in it because I couldn't have spoken. I was just literally just shaking and teeth clattering.

And after a few takes, Bill kind of nudged me with his elbow and said, what's with you? Come on, it's all good. Wow. Yeah. And then I saw him do that to somebody else almost every day. He'd tear somebody apart. I know you described a scene later on in life where you were on a set and I believe the director gave you a hug that was completely innocent, but said something like, oh, I just felt up Geena Davis. And immediately you responded, oh, that's so inappropriate. And you were proud of that moment. Right. There was no delay between thinking, oh, this doesn't feel right to saying something about it. It was immediate. Right, right. It's such a small incident, but it was monumental in my life. And that's why I

remembered it and put it in the book was because I said the right thing at the right time. And I lived with somebody who always thought of something that they should have said later. And I was really gleeful about it when it happened. I said, well, that's inappropriate. And he was so shocked. No, no, I'm a feminist. But it was very meaningful for me. How did you decide that you wanted to be a badass? And how do you define being a badass? decide that you wanted to be a badass? And how do you define being a badass? I knew that there were a lot of things I wanted to do and accomplish. And acting was the thing that I was absolutely, ridiculously positive that would happen, that I was going to go away and become an actor in film. But there was lots of other things I wanted to do.

And I kept running into people saying, you can't do that. You shouldn't do that. You're being too loud. You're being too much. And I kept falling into those traps because I clearly didn't want to be shushed. I wanted to expand and do what I wanted and be myself. And you're right. I always wanted to be a badass.

And so by definition of badass, let me think. I guess in my mind, it's just being somebody who lives the way they think. Okay, then listen. Let's not get caught. What are you talking about? Let's keep going. What do you mean? What do you mean? Go.

You sure? Yeah. Hit it. Yeah. Did it. Do you think that Susan Sarandon was the first person you met that you're like, wow, she is a badass? Yeah, definitely.

And the first woman that I'd ever met that was like that. It was astounding to me. Meeting her and seeing how she moves through the world was shocking. Just because I'd never seen a woman like that. I'd never been in the extended presence of a woman like that. So when you were in Thelma and Louise with her, that was a transformative experience for you. It was the most transformative experience in my life. Yes, for sure. It really changed the course of my life because I saw what could be possible if you were able to actually simply say what you think.

I'm not talking about being controversial or argumentative or anything like that. Simply a feeling comes to you and you say it. So that became my goal, was to be like her. Can you just describe the time where Susan Sarandon stood up for you and it was an attempt to have you go topless in the car. It's a small incident, but it really illustrates how hesitant I was still to speak up for myself. I don't know where he got the idea, but we were walking to lunch and Ridley Scott, the director, said, hey, you know that scene this afternoon where you guys are riding in a car and you're just feeling so free and so liberated. And what if you were just to sit up on the back of your seat in the car

and just take your T-shirt off and wave it around? Sort of like, was it Brandy Chastain who did that in the soccer? Anyway, and I said, I think they want me to have lunch right away, so I better go have lunch. Because I just couldn't think of what to say. How to get out of it. To try to get out of it, yes, exactly. And, you know, if I was another person, I would have said, oh, come on, you know, no.

But Susan was another person. I told her, I said, Susan, Ridley wants me to take my top off in the next scene. And she was already eating lunch, and she throws down her silverware and says, oh, for heaven's sake. And she goes over and says oh for heaven's sake and she goes over and says really gina's not taking her top off i came back and continued eating and i was like why can't i do that it was just so easy and natural and non-confrontational but you know that's beautiful yeah why do you think the movie thelma and and Louise has been so important to women for decades? Right. And I'll point out that none of us had any clue that it would get the reaction that it got.

We had no idea. We were hoping some people would go to it. It was a sort of small budget and we didn't know if they'd like it. So anyway, it really exploded. And it made me think a lot about why is that? it really exploded. And it made me think a lot about why is that? How is it that a movie where the two lead characters kill themselves at the end, why women are able to come, and some men too, come out of it feeling inspired and empowered. And I realized that it was because once we gain ultimate control of our lives, we decide we are never giving it up. And if we were to let ourselves be arrested or whatever, we'd be giving up control of our lives again.

We take it as far as you can possibly go. And I think that's what speaks to people. There's been people over the years who said, oh, I wish they didn't drive off the cliff. And I'm like, that's the whole point of it. And I think that's why it still speaks to people and it's so arresting you know that maybe that's why it's lasted so long it was shocking and and it was so such a beautiful movie do you still keep in touch with her have you guys remained friends you know all these years yes we're very good friends yes we stay in close contact

and you're both very passionate activists. Right, exactly. You know, I don't know if I consider what I do being an activist. I think of myself more as an advocate because I don't try to rouse the public to get involved. But my technique is to go directly to the people that I want to change and share data with them, which is meant to encourage them to change. Are you crying? Are you crying? There's no crying.

There's no crying in baseball. Why don't you leave her alone, Jimmy? Oh, you zippidaurus. A League of Their Own was also a real landmark film for women. I'm a baseball person. I loved the movie. Could you describe how when you were interviewed by reporters about being a feminist and how did you respond to those questions? A lot of reporters came to the set that wanted to interview us while we were shooting.

Everyone invariably said in a sort of hush-hush, naughty way, would you call this a feminist movie? And I would say, yeah. They said, what? It is? Yeah. No, it is. Sure. They said, well, wait, so do you mean that you are a feminist? And I said, yeah. Oh, yeah. They reacted like I had two heads all of a sudden. It was like so shocking. But you have to remember that at that time, 91 or 92, the word feminist was like toxic. Everybody was saying, I'm not a feminist, but, you know, I believe in women's equal rights. It doesn't make sense. But I had decided that I'm going to just say yes.

So this is your inner advocate coming out and just saying, no, this is what I believe. I did. See, that was another case of saying, I don't care. You were one of the top actors in the business. You went from Tootsie. You were in Beetlejuice, Thelma and Louise, Accidental Tourist, for which you won an Oscar, A League of Their Own. What happened when you turned 40 i was very familiar with this idea that floats around hollywood that roles for women dry up when

you hit 40 meryl streep and jessica lang and glenn close and sally field were all the sort of step ahead of me generation not quite, but they were ahead of me. And I thought, well, it's not going to happen to them. They're paving the way, you know, and it's going to change for everybody. If they don't fix it, it's not going to happen to me because look at the parts that I'm getting, you know, I've got incredible rolls. But it literally was once there was a four in front of my age, things started drying up. And I take it that things really haven't changed all that much. Well, no. And, you know, now, obviously, I have all this research to go by.

And we found in our most recent study of film that only 5% of characters are women 50 and over. So you're talking about an incredibly small little window for women over 50 to get roles, to get work. I have a theory about why that happens, about why women don't work that much after 40. And it's because if somebody's writing a script, a much larger percentage of scripts are written by men. If there has to be a woman, she's the girlfriend, she's the wife, she's the daughter, whatever, of the lead character. But all the other characters are default male because people just have that in their heads. It's, you know, we've been conditioned to think that, well, the plumber is a man and the police officer is a man and the judge and the, you know, whoever it is are male. And so they don't make those characters female. So what I'm proposing around town is that before they cast a movie,

look at the parts and see who could be male or female, and then see both for those roles. There's going to be lots of parts that women could play. As long as you're not in a sexual relationship with someone, typically it won't matter whether it's a man or a woman, or a person of color, or someone who's with a disability, or someone with a large body type, or over 50. In the first Stuart Little, there's a scene with a remote-controlled boat race on the lake in Central Park, and I happened to be watching as an assistant director set up the child extras. I noticed he was giving all the

remotes to boys and then choosing girls to stand behind the boys to cheer them on. I went over to the AD and quietly said, hey, what would you think about giving half of the remotes to girls? to girls. He looked at me as though thunderstruck. Yes, yes, of course, he said and winced. He couldn't believe that he hadn't thought of it himself. But the point was, he couldn't. All he was doing was what the culture dictated. Only boys like mechanical things. And he fixed it immediately when he realized how unconsciously he'd followed gender stereotyping, he still talks about it all these years later. I've really been impressed with your advocacy within the industry and the impact that you've had. And you talk about your initial research and that of the three speaking roles that men would have or male roles would have, there'd be only one female. there'd be only one female. And of the occupations that were portrayed, 81% of jobs were held by males. And regarding political office, of the 127 characters in political office, only 12 were

female, when actually 21% of global office holders were female. So it seems like you really were able to concretely point out the disparity that was just naturally happening in the industry. What struck me when I had those numbers was a lot of the numbers for occupations were lower on screen than in real life. And 20% is a failure that we're not 50%. Women are not 50% of legislators around the world. But it's fiction. And you can make it up, be anything you want. And unconsciously, people were choosing to make it worse than the abysmal reality. Where, in fact, if something happens on screen, it's very likely to happen in real life. Exactly. And you went on to talk later about how your plan was working,

that in the fall of 2019, female leads and male leads reached gender parity in family films. And then in 2020, the same happened for TV for children. Right. So these are huge successes. Obviously, there's a lot more to be done. But I'm wondering if you could talk about, because I really believe what you're saying, that what people see impacts-represented occupation of female characters was forensic scientists. Suddenly, women wanted to study forensic science in droves. Colleges were almost unable to keep up with the demand for courses in forensic science because of the interest of women suddenly just exploding.

But I'll tell you another story about the impact of characters. Fox asked us a couple of years ago to study the impact of the character Dana Scully on X-Files, played by Gillian Anderson. And so we did a big study, surveyed thousands of women in STEM, and 64% of them said that they were inspired to go into a STEM career because of Dana Scully. One character on one series, and more than half of women are going into the field because of that one character. It's astounding the impact that they can have. And I think you also talked about how in archery, in addition to your own example, the movie Hunter Games, the character Katniss, and after that film came out, so many girls went into archery.

Absolutely. And that's another example of how entertainment really impacts people's lives. There are woefully few women CEOs in the world, but there can be lots of them in films. How long will it take to fix the problem of corporate boards being so unequal? There are woefully few women CEOs in the world, but there can be lots of them in films. How long will it take to fix the problem of corporate boards being so unequal? Well, they can be half women tomorrow on screen. How are we possibly going to get a lot more girls to go into the science, technology, engineering, and math careers? They can be droves of women in STEM jobs right now in fiction.

And girls and women will see them and say, that could be me too. That's awesome. Gina, I really want to thank you for your time. Thank you for being my guest on All About Change. I'm sure you're going to continue to have a great career, both on screen and as an advocate in the industry. And I look forward to working with you and being in touch with you and it's been a real honor to talk with you and to and to know you. Oh Jay same for me I'm really really happy that we met and we're able to have conversations like this I really appreciate it and I admire you boundlessly also. Thank you so much. All About Change is a production of the Ruderman Family Foundation. This show is produced by Yochai Meitau, Jackie Schwartz, Mijan Zulu, and Rachel Donner. As always, be sure to come back in two weeks for another inspiring story.

In the meantime, you can go check out all of our previous content live on our feed and linked on our new website, allaboutchangepodcast.com. Lastly, if you enjoy our show, please help us spread the word. Tell a friend or family member or consider writing a review on your favorite podcasting app. I'm Jay Rudiman, and I'll catch you next time on All About Change.