This otherwise brilliant article in Bitch Media examining the findings of a new study by the Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative at USC Annenberg is titled “NEW STUDY SHOWS THAT FILMS MADE BY WOMEN HAVE BETTER FEMALE CHARACTERS”. It goes on to site some interesting statistics:
“if a film has even just one female writer, the percentage of female characters on-screen jumps from 26 percent to 35 percent. Similarly, when a Black director is present, 40.2 percent of on-screen characters are Black, versus only 10.6 percent when the director is not Black.”
This is fascinating and horrifying, but is it surprising? That women’s issues are only considered when a woman is present? That Black issues are only considered when there’s a Black director? That seems pretty obvious to anyone who’s had any kind of conversation ending in, “Oh really? I didn’t notice.”
Obviously we should be challenging any industry holding anyone back and it’s a no-brainer that we should have more women behind the camera and in the writing rooms. But I feel like there are two ways of tackling this issue. If you attribute the fact that women are so scarce on the screen to the lack of women working on films, then aren’t you letting the men off? If a film does not have a female writer, is it okay for the the percentage of female characters on screen to be just 26%? Of course not. We should be encouraging women to write and direct, but also encouraging men to write and direct films about women.
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