Like the title of this article says, “Let’s get mad!”
There. All better now, right? No? Hmm, does this mean we, like, need a real plan?
Let’s Get Mad: Center for Study of Women in TV and Film Releases 2013 Findings
by Susana Polo
Just a couple months ago, the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film released their report on the gender ratios of Hollywood’s workers, discovering that the ratio of women to men in various behind the scenes roles such as editors, writers, cinematographers, composers, and special effects supervisors has not changed more than three percentage points in sixteen years. That was pretty disheartening, but theoretically, men should be just as able to craft female characters that don’t play to stereotypical tropes as women are at creating relatable male characters. So how did that go?
Turns out it went 30%. 30% of the major characters and 30% of all speaking characters in the 100 highest grossing films of 2013 were female. The numbers were halved for main characters, with only 15% of “all clearly identifiable protagonists” being female characters. 15% is only a percentage point shy of the average representation of women (16%) across the most powerful jobs involved in the making of a Hollywood movie, director, executive producer, producer, writer, cinematographer, and editor.