Gender Politics in the Film Industry

Gender Politics 

History of Gender Inequality in Film

Gender inequality in film is a large talking point in today's society, although it has been largely debated and talked about for many decades. The idea of gender inequality in film surfaced as what is known as "feminist film theory", influenced by second wave feminism and developments of women's studies across the western world. Feminist film theory was first brought to the attention of the general public through the works of feminist scholars, such as Majorie Rosen's 'Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies, and the American Dream' (1973) (left) and Molly Haskell's 'From Reverance to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies' (1974) (right). Feminist scholars such as Rosen and Haskell were the first to take cues from second wave feminism and turn the ideas of the movement as a whole towards film and began analysing how women were portrayed in film and how it linked with the broader historical context, as well as the stereotypes depicted and how much screen time was given to women.

Current Statistics

New York Film Academy

Plenty of research has been undertaken to analyse different aspects of the extent of women in films. One piece of research I looked into is by the New York Film Academy which gives a visual interpretation of some statistics focusing gender inequality in film (right). Some of the statistics the study showed were that:

• on average, only 30.8% of speaking roles are given to women
•  28.8% of women in film wore sexually revealing clothes (while 7% were men)
• 26.2% of female actors get partially naked (while 9.4% of men do) 
• only 10.7% of films featured a balanced cast where half of the characters are female and half are male
• the average ratio of male actors to female actors is 2.25:1 
• the percentage of teenage females depicted with some nudity has increased by 32.5% from 2007 to 2012.

These statistics show that although gender inequality in film was first debated and talked about almost four decades ago, it is something which is very common in today's film industry and its severity, in some aspects, is increasing a huge amount in a little amount of time.

The video below is from an Australian News Channel, 'Sunrise', which gives a brief debate concerning the disparity of men and women in film. Much of the content of the video focuses on statistics very similar to that shown in the study by the New York Film Academy. 

A study by griid.org, similar to that of the New York Film Academy, presents information which highlights male dominance and gender representation in the film industry, focusing on some of 2012's biggest Hollywood blockbusters. 

• A statistic gathered by griid.org which shows clear gender inequality in films is displayed visually (right). The statistic shows that in 2012's top grossing films, only 12 of the films' main characters were female whereas 55 of the films' main characters were male. This clearly shows the extent of male dominance in the film industry and how unbalanced the ratio of male to female main character in major films.