Geena Talks Gender - An analysis on "Reshaping the Media for Gender Equality"

  Geena Davis is not only an advocate for gender equality in media, but an actress that has starred in many films with strong, female leads (Thelma and Louise, and A League of their Own to name a couple). On May 5, 2012 she stood in front of the Women’s Funding Network and gave her speech, “Reshaping the Media for Gender Equality.” This speech was analyzed using a Neo-Aristotelian approach; and in this I found that invention was the bulk of her speech. Invention is made up of three artistic proofs: Ethos, is the credibility of the speaker, Logos is the logic behind a speech, and pathos is the emotion behind the message. Geena establishes credibility by mentioning her own institution, “The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media” which is solely dedicated to this particular subject. She exploits her past roles (both the flattering and not so flattering) as examples of how women can influence and how they can be objectified, also she uses this as a way to reaffirm her credibility on this subject. Geena refers to herself several times as a “data-head” as she spits out statistics left and right. By using statistics from research she funded to make the correlation between gender roles in “G” rated films and eventually achieving parity, Geena used statistics to represent logos. In an effort to reach her audience emotionally, Geena tells a personal story about how playing as a child, she would always have more of an interest in the more masculine roles because there were never any feminine roles that expanded her horizon on what was available to her.

  As for the delivery of her speech, Geena was organized in a manner that made the main points obvious to the audience. She would reiterate points for emphasis such as, “boys and girls need to share the sandbox equally.” Genna used simple and plain language, and was engaging; her tone was a nice medium between formal and conversational. She maintained eye-contact and kept a stern and consistent tone to her voice and only used hand gestures to emphasis specific points. Davis used hand gestures to elaborate on her claim that limited roles for women in film shows society that limited roles for women in other sectors is perceived as “normal.” It is important to note that she repeats the word normal several times. By doing this, she is creating a negative connotation with the word in the context of this speech. She has strategic pauses and ends with an influential quote from Martin Luther King Jr. referring to everyone as an “agent of change”, an effective tactic for energizing and leaving a lasting impression on an audience.