One thing that hasn’t changed in Hollywood: male characters still outnumber female characters by more than two to one.
NEW YORK — In recent years, the film industry has undergone radical changes. streaming revolutionthe pandemic, labor strikes And “Barbenheimer.” But after countless upheavals in Hollywood, you’re still twice as likely to see speaking male characters in theatrical releases as female characters.
According to the report, only 32% of speaking characters in the top 100 box office films in 2023 were women or girls. University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative Annual Report published Monday. That’s nearly the same percentage as when Stacy L. Smith began the study in 2007. Back then, it was 30 percent speaking characters.
The gender imbalance is also pronounced in other areas. Only 30% of leading roles in the most popular films are played by women or girls, a significant drop from 14% in 2022 and roughly the same as in 2010. Only 11% of films are gender balanced, with girls or women occupying 45 to 54.9% of speaking roles.
“No matter how you look at the data, 2023 was not the year of the woman. We continue to report the same trends for girls and women on screen, year after year,” Smith said in a statement. “It’s clear that there is either a rejection of women as an audience for more than one or two films per year, a refusal to find ways to create meaningful change, or both.”
“If the industry is to survive the current period, it needs to examine its inability to employ half the population on screen,” Smith added.
“Barbie” may have been the No. 1 film at the box office last year, but, as has always been the case, a few big releases alone aren’t enough to shake things up against persistent trends.
The USC study doesn’t analyze what Hollywood is doing, just what’s most watched in theaters. It leaves out a large portion of movies produced for streaming, as well as most independent releases. But by capturing the majority of popular movies in theaters, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative is testing how well the industry’s inclusiveness vows actually match what’s happening on movie screens.
In an election year where much of Hollywood will be in favor Vice President Kamala Harris to become the first female U.S. president, researchers concluded that “progressive Hollywood” is “actually not progressive at all.”
The continued lack of progress for female characters in film is all the more striking when compared to the progress made by underrepresented ethnic and racial groups. While major inequalities in this area remain, some results show considerable change.
In 2023, 44% of speaking characters were from underrepresented groups, roughly matching or slightly exceeding the racial makeup of the U.S. population (41%). The percentage of white characters decreased to 56% in 2023, from 62% the previous year. In 2007, 78% of all characters were white.
Among protagonists, underrepresented ethnic and racial groups made up 37% of main characters, a 6% increase from 2022 and more than ever before. In 2007, that figure was 13%.
Last year, the lead characters were 12.6% black, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino and 18.4% Asian. None of the top 100 films featured a cast that matches the U.S. demographic for Hispanics/Latinos, who make up 19.1% of the population — and even more of the ticket buyers.
Many other groups were closer to invisibility, if not total invisibility, in the top-grossing films of 2023. Only five out of 100 films had an LGBTQ+ main or co-character. Only 2.2% of films included a speaking character with a disability. And only four speaking characters were nonbinary.
