NEW YORK — In recent years, the film industry has gone through streaming revolutionthe pandemic, labor strikes It is “Barbenheimer.” But after countless upheavals in Hollywood, you’re still twice as likely to see male characters speaking in theatrical releases as female ones.
Just 32% of speaking characters in the 100 highest-grossing films of 2023 were women or girls, according to the University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative Annual Report released Monday. This is almost the same percentage as when Stacy L. Smith began the study in 2007. At the time, it was 30% speaking characters.
Gender imbalance was also pronounced in other areas. Only 30% of leading roles in major films were women or girls, a huge 14% decrease from 2022 and about the same number as in 2010. Only 11% of films were gender balanced, with girls or women in 45-54 .9%. of speaking roles.
“No matter how you examine 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. “Clearly there is a rejection of women as audiences for more than one or two films a year, a refusal to find ways to create meaningful change, or both.
“If the industry is to survive the current moment, it must examine its failure 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 historically been the case, a few prominent releases alone don’t move the needle against persistent trends.
The USC study does not analyze what Hollywood produces, only what is most watched in theaters. This leaves out a wide variety of films produced for streaming, as well as most independent releases. But by capturing the most popular films in theaters, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative tracks the extent to which the industry’s inclusion votes actually align with what’s on movie screens.
In an election year in which much of Hollywood will support Vice President Kamala Harris to become the first female American president, researchers concluded that “progressive Hollywood” “is actually not progressive at all.”
The stubborn lack of progress for female characters in film is only more striking when compared with some of the gains made by underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. Although there continue to be great inequalities there, some conclusions show considerable changes.
In 2023, 44% of speaking characters came from underrepresented groups, roughly matching or even slightly exceeding the racial makeup of the U.S. population (41%). The percentage of white characters decreased to 56% in 2023, down from 62% the previous year. In 2007, 78% of all characters were white.
Among protagonists, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups made up 37% of main characters, a 6% increase from 2022 and more than ever before. In 2007, this number was 13%.
Last year’s main characters were 12.6% black, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, and 18.4% Asian. None of the top 100 films featured casts that matched the U.S. demographics of Hispanics/Latinos, who make up 19.1% of the population — and even more ticket buyers.
Many other groups were closer to invisibility, entirely, in the highest-grossing films of 2023. There were only five films out of 100 with an LGBTQ+ protagonist or co-lead. Only 2.2% of films included a speaking character with a disability. And only four speaking characters were non-binary.
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