Media Trends 12:30 pm S20: Film Industry Blog 5, Question 3 (March 3rd)

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Film Industry Blog 5, Question 3 (March 3rd)

Hollywood has started to take steps to address critiques over its lack of diversity, particularly in the areas of race and gender. What else, if anything, needs to be done to make the film industry (behind the scenes) and its products (movies) more representative of its audience? Limit: 8 responses

11 comments:

Samantha SheehyMarch 1, 2020 at 7:55 AM
Although we are still far from equality, steps have been made over the past few years to bring the film industry closer to equality. There has been a lack of diversity in the areas of race and gender. Minorities are underrepresented as well as women. This is a fault of the industry because viewers want to feel that they can identify with characters that look like them. After much research, I chose to focus on the lack of female representation in the industry for this reflection.

According to the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, only 12.3% of popular films had a balanced gender cast. Of the top 100 films of 2018, only 39 of them depicted a female lead or co-lead. In terms of genre, action and adventure films had the lowest percentage of females as they are often thought of as a “man’s” film. The report also explained that when these women were shown in the films, there were high occurrences of them being dressed in sexy attire when compared to men (Smith). This shows how females are treated as objects rather than as people in many of these films.

In an article in Vox, Kelsey McKinney explains the devastating gender disparity in Hollywood. She notes that there has been some improvement, but that it is far from enough. “Despite all this success, though, women still only accounted for 15 percent of leading roles in 2013. On top of that, only 30 percent of speaking roles in movies went to women. And those characters too often are placed in positions of inferiority or submission. They don't make their own decisions or control their own destinies,” (McKinney). Personally, it is even more important to me to note the way in which females are portrayed in these films, rather than just if they are appearing at all. McKinney explains that the women in these films are often placed in roles that make them appear weak and helpless, putting a large emphasis on their femininity. Yes, getting women onto the screen is the first step, but changing the way writers create these roles to honor women in their strength and talents is going to be necessary to create real change. Pay is another aspect of inequality that McKinney mentions in her article. Advocating for equal pay by those within the industry will help spread awareness to the public of this disparity. Many outside of the entertainment industry aren’t aware of the inequality and this will help everyone get on the same page.

Change needs to start from the top, whether that be with writers, directors, or producers. They have the power to create the change that is shown to the audience on the screen. They have the power to make groundbreaking films and make executive decisions that include underrepresented groups. In an article in the Hollywood Reporter, Katherine Schaffstall tells that “the percentage of female directors from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups has dropped from last year's 21.4 percent to 16.8 percent,” (Schaffstall). This is an unfortunate fact considering the small improvements that have been made in the industry. These female directors should have their voices and ideas represented through their films just as males are. Improving this statistic will make a big difference in what makes it onto the silver screen.

Sources:

Martin, Rachelle. “Annenberg Inclusion Initiative: USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.” Annenberg Inclusion Initiative | USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, annenberg.usc.edu/research/aii.
McKinney, Kelsey. “Hollywood's Devastating Gender Divide, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 26 Jan. 2015, www.vox.com/2015/1/26/7874295/gender-hollywood.

Schaffstall, Katherine. “Female Directors of Top-Grossing Films Reached 13-Year High in 2019: Annenberg Study.” The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Jan. 2020, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/female-directors-top-films-reached-13-year-high-2019-annenberg-1265541.

Smith, Dr. Stacy L, et al. “Inequality in 1,100 Popular Films.” USCAnnenberg.org, 2018, assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/inequality-in-1100-popular-films.pdf.
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Charlotte GardnerMarch 1, 2020 at 11:07 PM
Part 1
Hollywood has tried to diversify within the film industry, but there is much more to be done. Focusing on the films themselves, it is hard to break the surface of box-office interest if a movie essays to break the stereotypical plot or cast of the “normal” hit. Movies that attempt to add diversity and inclusion are often overlooked for the next Marvel movie which boasts a predominantly white and male cast. This year, a reboot of Charlie’s Angels was made, starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and, Ella Balinska- all diverse in race and sexuality. The film was even directed by actress Elizabeth Banks and focused on the power of female camaraderie and friendship and made the core relationship in the film one about friendship. The film addressed social issues that females face on a daily basis such as sexism, sexual harassment, workplace harassment and toxic masculinity- issues that should be addressed more in mainstream content. Recently, the Harley Quinn spinoff, Birds of Prey, was released- a film that also had a diverse female cast created by a female director. Both of these movies, while heavily advertised and circulated on social media, were not successes at the box office, even though both films were very adequate in my opinion. However, with the incredible success of Jordan Peele’s films and their recognition at the Academy Awards, I believe that change is slowly happening: “In 2016, after the second year in a row of all-white acting nominees inspired boycott threats and the spread of the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, the Academy launched its A2020 initiative, committing to doubling the number of members of color and doubling the number of women in its ranks by the end of this year” (Keegan & Zauzmer, The Hollywood Reporter). The #OscarsSoWhite movement encouraged (or rather forced) the Academy to reevaluate and reconsider their nominees. But this posed the question of whether they were adding these films to genuinely have a chance at winning an Oscar, or just to save face after a large PR crisis. In an article from The Hollywood Reporter, writer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar asked a similar question in regards to the 2019 Oscars: “In other words, the three movies at the top of the list deserve to be there, but are they anything more than a cosmetic makeover” (Abdul-Jabbar, The Hollywood Reporter).
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UnknownMarch 3, 2020 at 1:48 AM
Brett Gosselin

. Only 33.1% of all speaking or named characters in the 100 top-grossing films of 2018 (n=4,422) were girls/women. The percentage of girls/women on screen in 2018 did not deviate meaningfully from the percentage in 2017 (31.8% female) or 2007 (29.9%). (Smith)

Is Hollywood struggling to find equality in film? I find it to be on Hollywood’s agenda to find a lot more roles for both women and other minority groups in their films. Sometimes however I feel that it’s too much of a focus. Eleven of the 100 top movies of 2018 featured a female 45 years of age or older at the time of theatrical release in a leading or co leading role. While this was over twice as many as 2017 (5 movies), it was less than half of the movies that featured a male lead or co lead 45 years of age or older in 2018 (24 movies). (Smith) That statistic alone helps show that there is growth in the industry, that women are more likely to be in films nowadays as opposed to the last couple of years. A perfect example of this would be the latest Ghostbusters remake from 2016. The four women were put in the movie just for the sake of having women be the leads. I hate to say it but I feel there’s some situations that it just doesn’t fit. You can end up hurting your reputation in this aspect, as fans were so upset over the casting change and the fact that there was both a reboot and how it’s completely different from the original. Besides situations like that, I feel equality should be a bigger focus in Hollywood. If there isn’t then we come across a lot of boring films with all of the same things. I feel the steps are currently being taken in order to make movies a lot more of a diverse place. Movies like Get out and Us Include predominantly African American casts, thus showing how much Hollywood has progressed. Is there room for improvement though? Yes absolutely. Just by the stats shown in the article, we can see women, and minorities are getting a lot more opportunity in film. We are seeing female directors receive a lot more recognition from not only Hollywood but for the Academy as well. Not only that but we have foreign films such as Parasite are winning best picture. Although these are great strides towards equality there is still work to do. The main thing is that the number for each group is still very low. White Males still double in leading roles across all movies. This doesn’t help that a lot of the MCU is full of superheroes who are Male. We need to keep going in the right direction. We don’t need to force a progressive agenda though as it will gain a negative response, such as with Ghostbusters. Regardless of the situation, equality is needed in Hollywood, white washing does nobody any favors, and it just makes Hollywood look bland and boring.

Martin, Rachelle. “Annenberg Inclusion Initiative: USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.” Annenberg Inclusion Initiative | USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, annenberg.usc.edu/research/aii.
McKinney, Kelsey. “Hollywood's Devastating Gender Divide, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 26 Jan. 2015, www.vox.com/2015/1/26/7874295/gender-hollywood.

Schaffstall, Katherine. “Female Directors of Top-Grossing Films Reached 13-Year High in 2019: Annenberg Study.” The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Jan. 2020, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/female-directors-top-films-reached-13-year-high-2019-annenberg-1265541.

Smith, Dr. Stacy L, et al. “Inequality in 1,100 Popular Films.” USCAnnenberg.org, 2018, assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/inequality-in-1100-popular-films.pdf.

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maevehenniganMarch 3, 2020 at 10:18 AM
Over the years, actors, actresses and even Hollywood executives have spoken out over the lack of diversity and misrepresentation that occur in the film industry. Though these voices protesting the lack of representation for women and the inclusion of all races has made progress in the industry, there’s still a long way to go.

When it comes to women’s roles in Hollywood, actresses need to play a bigger part in movies, and the way in which they are portrayed definitely needs to be improved upon as well. According to the study, “Inequality in 1,200 Popular Films” released by the Annenberg Foundation, only “33 films in 2017 and 34 in 2016 depicted a female lead or co lead,” (Smith). Though these numbers seem low, they are admittedly getting better. According to Vox, in 2013, “women still only accounted for 15 percent of leading roles,” (McKinney). Now that the amount of female speaking roles is on the rise, it's important to look at how they are portrayed on screen. In many films, women are objectified and overly sexualized. In fact, in many films, “13-20 year old females are just as likely as 21-39 year old females to be shown in sexy attire with some nudity, and to be referenced as attractive,” (Smith). Even though women’s speaking roles have been improving—the types of characters they play need some work before Hollywood can be deemed a fair playing ground for both men and women.

There are many other specific areas within the film industry that still need to be included, particularly within the LGBT community. When it comes to LGBTQ representation, only “1.3% of speaking/named roles were filled with LGB portrayals,” as of 2019 (Smith). In order to be more accepting of this demographic in society, the movie industry needs to find ways to incorporate meaningful LGBTQ roles into its films. When it comes to transgender inclusion, the lack of representation is much worse, with only 1 depiction throughout 500 top-grossing movies released between 2014 and 2018 (Smith). Even if films began including members of the LGBTQ community, it's important to acknowledge race and gender. On the rare occasion that an LGBTQ character has a speaking role in a movie, the character is usually a white male, revealing the disparity between the actual LGBTQ community and the community that is shown on screen. In order to truly represent everybody, it's important for movies to not only have an LGBTQ character, but to ensure that they aren’t consistently white and male.

The unfairness of gender and LGBTQ representation in the film industry parallels the unfairness of racial representation. According to The Hollywood Reporter, even though “minorities make up 40 percent of the U.S. population… only 12.6 percent work as writers and 7.8 percent as directors,” (Abdul-Jabbar). When it comes to on screen representation, “only 2.2 out of 10 lead actors in a broadcast scripted series are people of color,” while “whites comprised 77 percent of all film roles,” in 2017 (Abdul-Jabbar). Though the film industry has taken steps to be more inclusive towards minorities, an effort needs to be made to include minorities in all aspects of a film’s creative process. Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s necessary in order to accurately portray the world we live in. The world we see in most movies is a skewed one, since it does not account for the minorities, women of all ages and professions, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ community—all of whom play an important role in our society.
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Zach LoCiceroMarch 3, 2020 at 11:18 AM
Zach LoCicero

Although Hollywood has taken steps in the right direction for more diversity and equality, there is still a lack of equal representation and more proactive steps must be taken to address this issue. The film industry needs to be more inclusive to accurately depict the real world and so their audience can relate to the people they see on screen. Specifically, race and gender has been a hot topic in the industry and further measures must be taken to diversify an industry with a history of exclusivity.

To start, there is definitely some gender inequality in the film industry. There has been a history of favoring males in the industry and women have sort of been left to the side of the road. In Katherine Schaffstall’s article on The Hollywood Reporter, “the number of top-grossing films from female directors reached a new high in the past year. The study found that 10.6 percent of the directors of 2019's top-grossing movies were women, which is the highest percentage in more than a decade, 13 years to be specific, and a major jump from 2018's 4.5 percent,” (Schaffstall). Although there is this increase and the right steps are being taken, this is still a relatively low number. So yes, women are finally making their presence known in the film industry, but more measures need to be taken. Schaffstall then later talks about how their needs to be a change in the hiring process because the ratio of white directors to underrepresented directors in 5-1. She adds that women of color have the highest median and average Metacritic scores for their films compared to white men. These facts show that women are more than capable of directing and creating films, they are just not given the opportunity as much as they should. There needs to be a change in the hiring process to hire based of objective criteria, and not a biased view of who they think should be in charge of a film. I believe if a change to the hiring process is made to be more inclusive of women candidates, you will continue to see this number rise and women be successful in the film industry.

Race has also been a hot topic in the film industry. For similar reasons to women being unrepresented, people of all races are not included compared to the traditional white male directors. According to the study by Dr. Stacy Smith, Marc Choueiti, Dr. Katherine Pieper, Kevin Yao, Ariane Case, and Angel Choi, white characters are still 63.7% of the actors on screen compared to 36.3% of underrepresented ethnic groups (Smith). Although this nuber has decreased significantly since 2007, about 13% according to the study, this number is still very high. Yes, there are clearly steps that have been made but it has been a slow climb since 2007. When looking at it year-by-year, it is only about a 1% change each year. This number is too low and to be more inclusive of under-represented groups, the hriign process also needs to change. It doesn’t matter what race or ethnicity you are, if you can act, you can act. Anybody can be anybody on screen and it doesn’t matter what your background is.

One bright spot in the film industry is director Bong Joon-ho. He made history at the 2020 Oscars with his film “Parasite” which had six nominations and he left with best film and director specifically. According to Jen Yamato from the LA Times, “Despite the challenges that face foreign-language entries in breaking through to main categories, the international box office hit became an awards favorite as audiences braved the “1-inch-tall barrier” of reading subtitles and flocked to the film,” (Yamato). This shows how the academy is being more inclusive of foreign directors and this can be seen as a bright spot in the film industry. This shows how even the academy is being more inclusive, which is huge for Hollywood and underrepresented film personnel everywhere.
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Tyler PereiraMarch 3, 2020 at 12:25 PM
In the past few years, Hollywood has started to take steps in expanding their diversity in the areas gender and race. They have been progressing in recent years, but they are still far from where people, and themselves, would like them to be. Lack of female lead roles in movies was a big problem during the 1st decade of the century. Though the numbers are not fully where they should be, there is no denying that Hollywood has been progressing with problem. For example, since 2008, female roles have increased in movies in genres comedy, adventure, and anime (Smith, 2019). Smith suggests to, “Add Five Females to Scripts Per Year to Achieve Gender Equality Quickly,” then displays her theory with a line graph to back up her statement (Smith,2019). The graph makes sense visually but my concern is it being difficult considering movies for 2021 have already been in the making so adding female roles right now might be too late; but if able to extend Smiths theory past 2021, I think gender role equality is easily obtainable and should be obtained as soon as possible. Another big concern that Smith mentions is that, “only 9% of the movies in 2018 had gender-balanced casts,” which I think is totally unacceptable and needs to be addressed and fixed immediately.

Another problem that I think should be fixed even quicker is the lack of roles played by actor or actresses of color. Other than the majority of my favorite actors and actresses being of color, it’s just unfair how unlikely it is for them to get a lead role. Not only the lead roles, but also the lack of awards and nominees for awards for them. This problem is also moving in the right direction, for example, “The percentage of white characters has decreased significantly in 2018 (63.7%) in comparison to 2017 (70.7%) and 2007 (77.6%),” so these roles have been filled up by actors and actresses of color which is awesome. So what else can be done to fix this problem further? I don’t think anything different; the industry just needs to keep being proactive and progressive and further push these numbers until they reach equality. On the other hand, the Oscars lack diversity across almost all categories. Dino Ramos starts off his piece of writing with a scary fact. He wrote, The lack of women in the Best Director category is a sad tradition as only five — yes five — women have been nominated in the 92-year history of the Academy Awards,” (Ramos, 2020). This is concerning and must not only be addressed but it must be acted on. Oscars should have every category meet a quota of diversity. This would be fair across the board and defiantly would start to change numbers and broaden diversity. Pieces like Black Panther and the Get Out series have proven that directors and casts of color are as good, if not better, than white cast members and directors! “Hollywood has the responsibility to tell the stories of all of us — people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community — and also embody those lofty characteristics within the industry through its hiring practices,” says Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I think Jabbar is nailed it with this one. It Hollywood that needs to create change within their hiring practices, and they have been doing just that, but I would like to see them hire a wider diversity of ethnicity.
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Allison RoethkeMarch 3, 2020 at 1:31 PM
In the past decade, film has made some progress towards equality. But they still have a long way to go. Not many movies portray other races or gender besides white males. They lack representation of many other races and gender, especially black women.
Movies like Black Panther and Get Out have been given quite a bit of recognition because of their characters and story lines according to The Hollywood Reporter. You don’t usually think of a black super hero or a horror film with African Americans. Both movies were made by black film makers. According to a study done by UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report, “films with casts that include at least 20 percent actors of color tend to perform better at the global box office then predominately white movies.” Which makes sense considering how popular Get Out and Black Panther ended up being. “In 2017, films with less than 11 percent minority casts averaged less than $50 million.” This just goes to show the evolution of the film industry in the past decade. You have to include other genders and races to appeal to your audience and attract viewers.
When we look at gender specifically, the amount of females on screen hasn’t changed much in the past decade. When they are portrayed, they usually are sexualized. According to USC Annenberg’s data, 29.2% of women are shown in sexy attire when they are shown on screen.
When we are comparing men and women on screen, clearly women don’t get as much time or speaking parts. According to USC Annenberg’s data, if films were to add five females to their scripts per year, the percentages would go from 66.9% male and 33.1% female speaking parts, to 50% male and 50% female. Film makers would be able to achieve some sort of equality just by adding a few more female characters to each script. But why is that so hard?
I think that it is harder to add females to scripts because females aren’t the ones making the movies. Overall, from 2007 to 2018, there were only 58 females out of 1,335 directors in the industry. That is only 4.3%! Only 19 females out of 1,327 composed films as well. That is only 1.4%… How are directors supposed to advocate for each other when within their community they are also under represented?
I feel that it is unrealistic to try to receive recognition and be portrayed in films when there are low numbers behind the scenes. There is no one who can advocate for themselves because they lack those who are under represented. I think that if they want to change this culture, they will need to find more people who can direct and compose films. They need to have a voice.

Work Cited
Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem. “In Hollywood, a Decade of Racial Progress but at a Glacial Pace” The Hollywood Reporter, Dec. 23, 2019. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kareem-abdul-jabbar-hollywood-s-favorite-films-decade-1263590?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=THR%27s%20Today%20in%20Entertainment_now_2019-12-23%2007:02:56_ehayden&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_tie

Smith, Dr. Stacy L, et al. “Inequality in 1,100 Popular Films.” USCAnnenberg.org, 2018, assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/inequality-in-1100-popular-films.pdf.
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Media Trends 12:30 pm S20

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Film Industry Blog 5, Question 3 (March 3rd)

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Media Trends Blog 9, Question 1 (April 16th)

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