Greta Gerwig’s movie Barbie did really well at the box office and set a record as the movie with the highest earnings ever directed by a woman. But, a new study from San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film found that most big movies are still directed by men. This year, women directed just 16% of the top 250 highest-earning movies, which is a bit less than last year’s 18%. There was a small increase in the top 100 movies, with women directing 14% of them, up from 11% last year.
This report comes at a time when directors like Gerwig, Emerald Fennell, Celine Song, and Sofia Coppola are making movies that are getting a lot of attention and praise. Female singers like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are also doing well with their concert movies. But, even with these successes, there hasn’t been much change in how many women are getting big roles in the movie industry. In the top 250 movies, women only had 22% of the important jobs like director, writer, and producer. This is a little less than last year’s 24%. Most of these movies had many more men in important roles than women.
Looking closer, women were 26% of producers, 24% of executive producers, 21% of editors, 17% of writers, 14% of composers, and only 7% of cinematographers. Women became more common as composers, but there were fewer women producers, executive producers, and writers. The number of female editors and cinematographers stayed about the same as last year.
Is it sinking in that 'elevating' and 'centering' women and 'PoC' was a Trump-era fad abandoned under false cries of recession?
‘Barbie’ Broke Records, but Studios Employed Fewer Female Directors on 2023’s Top Films https://t.co/QARF8gUiDg via @variety
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Dr. Martha Lauzen, who wrote the report, said that even though Gerwig’s “Barbie” did really well, there’s still a big gap between men and women in the main jobs behind the scenes in movies.
The study also found that movies with at least one female director had more women working in important behind-the-scenes roles than movies directed only by men. When a woman was the director, there were more women writers, editors, cinematographers, and composers. But in movies directed by men, there were fewer women in these roles. Source
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