Miss Representation: Rise Up Turns to Social Media and AI
Jennifer Siebel Newsom's new documentary, Miss Representation: Rise Up, opened on Thursday, October 22, at IFC in New York, with more screenings to follow. The film turns the spotlight from television and advertising to the phones in people's pockets and the artificial intelligence tools now spreading online.
Newsom is a documentary filmmaker and the current First Partner of California. She also directed the 2011 film Miss Representation, which looked at how the media portrays women and how that affects their chances of reaching positions of power. The Representation Project, the group behind the new film, says Newsom wrote, directed and produced Rise Up.
The new documentary argues that social-media platforms and AI tools are undercutting women and girls. It explores how these tools enable harassment and make misogyny spread faster, according to UPI. Its subjects include bullying and doxing, the practice of publishing someone's private details in order to harass them. It also examines the use of social media to create pornographic images of real people, including minors.
The film features appearances by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Amy Klobuchar, Jameela Jamil and Gretchen Carlson.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Newsom said tech leaders should be held accountable for the harm their tools cause to women and girls. She argued that these companies have put profit ahead of people's health and wellbeing, and that they have been left unregulated for too long.
Those are her views, and the film presents them as its central case. Newsom's interview was the first time she has spoken to the trade paper about the documentary's call for accountability in the technology industry. The film's New York run starts now, and further dates will be announced by its distributors.
For readers, the practical point is simple. If you have seen the 2011 film, Rise Up carries its title and its focus on the way images shape women's place in public life into the age of the smartphone and AI-generated content. If you have not, you can watch it in theatres where it is screening, with the story it tells starting on the day it opened.
