{"id":74,"date":"2010-04-07T16:41:24","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T16:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/commencement2009\/?page_id=74"},"modified":"2015-03-19T12:01:02","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T16:01:02","slug":"geena-davis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/annual\/y2009\/honorands\/geena-davis\/","title":{"rendered":"Geena Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/72Commencement2009Davis3457.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"135\" height=\"169\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" \/>Watching children&#8217;s television one day with her daughter, actress Geena Davis noticed that far fewer women than men appeared on the screen. This observation inspired the Academy Award-winner to assume an important new off-screen role. As founder of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegeenadavisinstitute.org\/\">Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media<\/a>, Davis supports research into the disparities between Hollywood&#8217;s depictions of women and of men. In 2008, the institute published a study by Stacy Smith of the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, which found male characters outnumbering females nearly threefold in a broad sampling of films. Even in scenes of crowds or animated schools of fish, Davis told the GDIGM Conference in 2008, &#8220;the worlds that kids are seeing are really bereft of a female presence overall.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Born Virginia Davis in Wareham, Mass., Davis earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in drama at Boston University. A role on the critically acclaimed sitcom <em>Buffalo Bill<\/em> (for which she would write an episode) in 1982 launched a film and television career whose many highlights include the films <em>The Fly, A League of Their Own, Thelma and Louise<\/em> and the <em>Stuart Little<\/em> series. Davis won an Academy Award for her performance in 1988&#8217;s <em>The Accidental Tourist<\/em> and, more recently, the 2005 Golden Globe for leading actress with her portrayal of the American president in the TV series <em>Commander in Chief.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>She is a member of Mensa and tried out for the U.S. archery team bound for the 2000 Olympics, placing 24th out of 28 women in a qualifying competition.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Keep Reading<\/h3>\n<ul class=\"pageChildren\"><li class=\"page_item page-item-1861\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/annual\/y2009\/honorands\/geena-davis\/geena-davis-address\/\">Address by Geena Davis<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-1851\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/annual\/y2009\/honorands\/geena-davis\/geena-davis-citation\/\">Citation for Geena Davis<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-2324\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/annual\/y2009\/honorands\/geena-davis\/video\/\">Video<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watching children&#8217;s television one day with her daughter, actress Geena Davis noticed&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":73,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-74","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3786,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/74\/revisions\/3786"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}