Jennifer Newsom, actress, filmmaker, and wife to California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, was honored at a private dinner party in D.C. Wednesday night for her 2011 documentary “Miss Representation.” The film, which chronicles the ways women are portrayed and sexualized in movies, TV, and ads, includes interviews with Condoleeza Rice, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Rosario Dawson and others.
Though “Miss Representation” received positive critical praise, Newsom says it wasn’t the easiest to cast. “There were a lot of women I wanted whose handlers wouldn’t let them do it,” Newsom told Yeas & Nays. Of the film’s featured interviewees, Rice took the most effort to land. “After three tries, we got her,” said Newsom, “and thank you, because I thought she was wonderful in the film.
Rice was important to the film for several reasons, one for her experience as a high-ranking woman in a mostly male White House administration. “She was in a boys world and she was alone,” said Newsom. But Rice was also one of the few conservative figures Newsom was able to secure for the movie. “It was hard getting Republican senators,” she said. “I captured stuff Olympia Snowe said, and some women who’d worked in the White House under Republican administrations. I captured that, but I didn’t actually get to interview them.”
Newsom says she was disappointed to miss out on more Republican voices, and one particular Democratic one: Hillary Clinton. “I wanted to interview Secretary Clinton,” she lamented, “but her spokesperson at the State Department said she couldn’t. She was very busy.”
