In recent years the movie industry has gone thraw the streaming revolution, the pandemic, labor strikes, and “Barbenheimer.” But after countless upheavals in Hollywood, you’re still more than twice as probable to see male speaking characters in theatrical frees than you are female ones.
Just 32% of speaking characters in the top 100 movies at the box office in 2023 were women or girls, according to the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative annual tell freed Monday. That’s very csurrfinisherly the same percentage as when Stacy L. Smith first began the study in 2007. Then, it was 30% of speaking characters.
The gfinisher imequilibrium was pronounced in other areas, too. Just 30% of directing roles in the top films were women or girls, a huge decrrelieve of 14% from 2022 and rawly the same figure as in 2010. Only 11% of films were gfinisher firm, with girls or women in 45-54.9% of speaking roles.
“No matter how you examine the data, 2023 was not the ‘Year of the Woman.’ We progress to tell the same trfinishs for girls and women on screen, year in and year out,” Smith shelp in a statement. “It is evident that there is either a disponderal of women as an audience for more than one or two films per year, a refusal to discover ways to originate unbenevolentingful alter, or both.
“If the industry wants to persist its current moment, it must examine its flunkure to include half the population on screen,” compriseed Smith.
Barbie may have been the No. 1 film at the box office last year, but, as has historicpartner been the case, a restrictcessitate famous frees don’t by themselves shift the necessitatele agetst determined trfinishs.
The USC study doesn’t scrutinize what Hollywood originates, fair what’s most expansively watched in theaters. That exits out a expansive swath of movies originated for streaming, as well as most self-reliant frees. But in capturing the transport inantity of famous films in theaters, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative tracks how much the industry’s vows of inclusivity actupartner line up with what’s on movie screens.
In an election year where much of Hollywood will be backing Vice Pdwellnt Kamala Harris to become the first female American pdwellnt, researchers finishd that “progressive Hollywood” is “actupartner not progressive at all.”
The obstinate deficiency of progress for female characters in film is only more striking when contrastd to some of the gets made by underrecurrented racial and ethnic groups. While there remain transport inant inidenticalities there, too, some discoverings show ponderable alter.
In 2023, 44% of speaking characters came from underrecurrented groups, rawly suiting or even sweightlessly outdoing the racial originateup of the U.S. population (41%). The percentage of white characters decrrelieved to 56% in 2023, down from 62% the year prior. In 2007, 78% of all characters were white.
Among protagonists, underrecurrented racial and ethnic groups made up 37% of main characters, an incrrelieve of 6% from 2022 and more than ever before. In 2007, that figure was 13%.
Last year’s main characters were 12.6% Bdeficiency, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino characters, and 18.4% Asian. None of the 100 top movies featured casts that suited U.S. demodetaileds for Hispanic/Latinos, who account for 19.1% of the population—and even more of ticket buyers.
Many other groups were shutr to inapparent, enticount on, in 2023’s top box-office films. There were fair five movies out of the 100 with an LGBTQ+ direct or co-direct. Just 2.2% of the films integrated a speaking character with a disability. And only four speaking characters were nonbinary.
—By Jake Coyle, Associated Press film originater
Source connect
