Chantal Jena-Pierce in her “The Secret of Serenity”

I saw this movie as young, but I’m glad to have seen it as a woman. Though I’m not the kind of white man we see in these things, it was incredibly important to me that such characters and stories take place in a time and place where black people are seen and held up for our protection. You can’t be a woman in this industry without being pushed to do something different, and yet women are often held up for more than their talents. What I love about this new “Secret of Serenity” is the dialogue and music – which is sung by women (and it was written by, among others, a woman! I’m so proud!). I loved the relationship between these three characters: they’re friends, and love each other, but are still each other’s best friend, and also are each other’s enemy. It’s such a great idea to show the story is actually happening between the men, the women, and everyone in between. It wasn’t about the man’s character becoming the villain, nor was it about his wife becoming just another one of his people, he just started being this villain because he’s the man. Because in the comic we saw the love and friendship between these three people that we see in the show, and in the film it’s done with other people we’ve only seen in the series, and that’s awesome. I’m so thankful for that.

Pitch Perfect 2 – An excerpt from the script that’s all-female

I’m a huge fan of the Pitch Perfect films, and for me the whole world of this character and this story is so exciting, and it’s awesome that they didn’t feel like it was written for boys in particular, which was a big complaint we had before the film existed in theaters. I definitely felt very strongly about it when I first heard about it, but now that it exists in theaters, it’s kind of exciting, because I feel like we’re now in such a time where women and men of different ages and different backgrounds can tell their own stories about the same world and get to do that on a larger scale. I’m happy to see this new story get better in its representation and, if that’s what’s needed in Hollywood, for all of us too.

Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Bridget Jones’s Diary”