Study: Hollywood's gender bias against women makes little financial sense

[davidn3600]

Audiences and creators know that on one level or another, there’s an inherent gender bias in the movie business — whether it’s the disproportionately low number of films with female leads, the process of pigeonholing actresses into predefined roles (action chick, romantic interest, middle-aged mother, etc.), or the lack of serious character development for women on screen compared to their male counterparts. What’s challenging is quantifying this dysfunction, putting numbers to a trend that is — at least anecdotally — a pretty clear reality.

One of the most enduring tools to measure Hollywood’s gender bias is a test originally promoted by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in a 1985 strip from her “Dykes To Watch Out For” series. Bechdel said that if a movie can satisfy three criteria — there are at least two named women in the picture, they have a conversation with each other at some point, and that conversation isn’t about a male character — then it passes “The Rule,” whereby female characters are allocated a bare minimum of depth. You can see a copy of that strip here.

Using Bechdel test data, we analyzed 1,615 films released from 1990 to 2013 to examine the relationship between the prominence of women in a film and that film’s budget and gross profits. We found that the median budget of movies that passed the test — those that featured a conversation between two women about something other than a man — was substantially lower than the median budget of all films in the sample. What’s more, we found that the data doesn’t appear to support the persistent Hollywood belief that films featuring women do worse at the box office. Instead, we found evidence that films that feature meaningful interactions between women may in fact have a better return on investment, overall, than films that don’t.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-dollar-and-cents-case-against-hollywoods-exclusion-of-women/


In the article, the author says he actually went to the film industry and asked why the bias seems to persist despite box office numbers. The answer was quite simply...there are not enough female writers and directors in Hollywood and even only a fraction of those female writers actually write female characters into meaningful roles. There is also stereotypes that is difficult for Hollywood to get past. When you are going to dedicate millions and millions of dollars to a movie production, there is a sense to follow templates that have already proven to be successful rather than experiment with new ideas. This perhaps explains the problem many people see concerning a lack of originality. No one wants to produce the next Box Office Bomb.

Suzanne Todd, a producer that worked on various films is not optimistic about the future either... She says even today it's actually quite difficult to get a film greenlit that features a leading female protagonist. “In Hollywood, there are still a lot of dinosaurs behind the desks."

[KurtNYC]

1. Around 50% of current films in their study passed the test, up from 25% in 1970

so the old templates seem to be eroding at least. The budget differences may be because of high budget action movies, which don't pass the test, skewing the average.

The way that movies make money has changed a lot in the past 30 years -- NetFlix, and the like have made smaller films profitable and easier to distribute. Now theaters are all going digital so there is no cost per print (about $18,000 each) to open a film in say 1,000 theaters.

There are MANY films with strong female leads but somehow they seem not to be the films that get copied ("template&quot :
- The Hunger Games
- Steel Magnolias
- The Color Purple
- Fried Green Tomatoes
- The Help
- Waiting to Exhale

[JustAnotherGen]

2. All of those are adaptations

Strong female writers perhaps are sticking to the the novel?

If we go back further (just checked my posts in the movie group) and had to think about the DVDs in my bedroom - to me the templates are -

Grace Kelly in Rear. Window holds her own in that - and just about every movie she appeared in.

Charade - Audrey was indeed a damsel in distress but she overshadows Cary Grant.

Tootsie - Jessica Lang - she plays four different women very well.

Arsenic and Old Lace - the two sweet Aunts really are the main course.

Maybe Hollywood needs to go back further in time to find the magic of women on screen?

I'm in the same age range as Dicaprio and Winslet - he might have been the king of the world - but Winslet made that movie.

Monster, The Devil Wears Prada (adaptation) - and well I really like Something Borrowed (another adaptation).

Maybe the advent of the "chick lit) genre (Starting with Bridget Jones) dried up the female novelist as a source of the adaptation? I don't know why it would though. If they make it, and it's an iconic novel - we'll (women) will come. We will buy the DVD, buy a ticket, buy the book tie in . . .

There is an author - C. A. Belmond who wrote the "A Rather" series starting in about 2007. It was being floated and then talk of the movie died. The main character is a woman named Penny. If I ever have a few million dollars laying around I'm going to produce it. She's Audrey and Grace (in movies mentioned above) rolled up in one. She's the female hero.

And let's not forget the popularity of The Americans and Once Upon A time on the small screen. Those women kick ass, take names, are complex, have layers, are evil and good rolled up in one.

[KurtNYC]

5. many of the biggest money making films of all time have female leads

Gone with the Wind
Sound of Music
Wizard of Oz
Titanic

[JustAnotherGen]

6. And there ya go!

[davidn3600]

7. I think it is more about Hollywood wanting to reach a broad audience

There is a general belief that men will not go to movies where the female is a central character. Although there doesn't necessarily appear to be much truth to that perception. Last year, the Hunger Games sequel beat Ironman 3 at the box office. About 45% of its audience was male.

There is also the international box office. There is a belief that other cultures don't want to see women in strong roles because it goes against the cultural backgrounds. But the study I posted in my OP suggests that may not have much truth behind it either.

But the problem is not raw statistics but perception and just the way these dinosaurs higher up in the industry think. Also, I don't really think many writers have really figured out how to write women. I've read some books, even books written by women, that attempt to make a female character strong but end up kind of creating a mess. I've heard from authors in the past say things like that writing women is difficult because it seems as they they have to prove their worth and strength while with a male character, the reader sort of already gives it to him by default. So maybe that angle plays into it.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Within the linked article

Is a link to Women In Film - in depth study is there. Very interesting - http://www.wif.org/images/repository/pdf/other/2013_Its_a_Mans_World_Report.pdf

[KitSileya]

4. In fact, women in Hollywood are going as much backwards as forwards.

Of course there are not enough female writers and directors, when you have to be a man to get to be a writer or a director. It's a chicken and the hen problem that could be solved with affirmative action-type programs....but that would cause the men to cry sexism, wouldn't it?

[cthulu2016]

8. Domestic gross or total (global)?

It makes a difference. Male-type movies translate cross-culturally better. Explosions are explosions are explosions.

(It turns out that people didn't mind Ah-nold's accent so much when he was dubbed. He was a huge international star.)

I would expect "people movies" in general to do relatively better domestically than internationally.