The recent revelations from Hollywood have shone a spotlight on the sinister practices of misogyny and sexual assault that have been going on since the start of cinema. It has also helped to highlight the overall level of sexism that runs throughout the industry.
The most visible aspect of this is the role of female actors on screen, where it is still a lot more likely for female characters to portray damsels in distress or the love interest for the male protagonist, such as in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). However, the old adage of ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease’ has meant that this has slowly but steadily started to get corrected due to the high profiles of women speaking out against the system, as well as the introduction and acceptance into the mainstream of both the Bechdel and Sexy Lamp Tests. These set out a general list of rules which help show whether or not a female character has agency within the plot (is there more than one named female role? Do they talk to each other about something other than men? Could their overall role in the story be replaced by an inanimate object?) or if they are merely put in there to appeal to the male audience in some role or another that doesn’t impact the plot in any meaningful way.
Unfortunately, these tests do not apply in reality, especially behind the scenes, where the glass ceiling appears to be the rule rather than the exception, in particular when it comes to the higher profile jobs, such as directing. A brief glimpse through IMDB’s top 250 films list, which is an aggregation of ratings by both critics and users of the website, shows a rather depressing proportion of films made by male directors.
As shown by the above graph, there are no female directors who are within the top 250 with the exception of one pair (the Wachowski’s, for The Matrix, made in 1999) who have since transitioned from male to female after making The Matrix Trilogy.
This is not to say that there aren’t any female directors making films, let alone ones which could be considered worthy of inclusion within the list. For example, Patty Jenkins directed the DC Comic live-action adaptation of Wonder Woman in 2017, which drew in $410 million and was the first live-action film with a female lead to top the summer Blockbuster charts. Another female director who has a slew of powerful films under her belt is Kathryn Bigelow who won the Oscar for Best Picture with The Hurt Locker (2008) and was nominated for the same award for Zero Dark Thirty (2012).
In order to ascertain whether or not the lack of female directors is due to older films (which are often considered ‘Classics’ by many) it is important to see when the majority of the top 250 films are made.
This chart shows that the top two years for IMDB’s best films are in 1957 and 1995 with a total of seven and nine films respectively. The implications from this allow us to understand more clearly the high number of male directors who appear in the list. In the 1950’s, it was still widely considered a woman’s role to be a housewife and look after the home. Whilst that aspect was slowly changing, it was still largely the norm with regards to women in the film industry. However, this was not the case in 1995, where several films were released by female directors, although there was still a large inequality in this respect with the low number of women behind a camera.
The chart also shows that, since 1995, there has been an increase in the average number of films that have achieved ‘top’ status, with the lowest years getting three films into the top spot as opposed to only one in many of the years prior to 1990. It’s hard to specify what caused the increase in popular films being made, however there is a slight correlation between the technological improvements within film industry and the top films.
Another equally concerning aspect of the top 250 films is the lack of ethnic diversity within the list.
Once again, the overwhelming majority (220) of directors are white males, with the second highest group (18) being Asian. It should also come as little to no surprise that most of the films are also filmed in the English language.
It is possible to explain away that final statement by taking into account that IMDB is a predominantly English website, and thus is more likely to have English speaking users. However, there is a worldwide aspect to the site, which is shown by the (admittedly small) number of directors from different countries.
Looking at the BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) directors, a large number of their films are also considered by many to be cultural touchstones, such as 12 Years A Slave (2013) by Steve McQueen which follows the life of Solomon Northup who spends 12 years as a slave following his kidnapping after becoming a free man. Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (filmed in 1954) also shows how the industry is influenced and draws inspiration from its peers and predecessors, as its story is the basis (albeit in a science-fiction setting as opposed to the ancient Japanese of the original) for George Lucas’ wildly popular Star Wars franchise, in particular Episode IV: A New Hope. The adaptation of stories is a common practice throughout literature and both these stories (along with many others) draw from Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces (written in 1949) for the key points of their plots as the book sets out the traditional story of an archetypal hero in mythology, which has been adapted many times over the years by people from all ethnicities.
Overall, the results from this analysis do not paint a positive picture on gender or racial equalities within the Hollywood Film industry. However, it is important to take into account the growing social movement that is seeing more and more equality, and with it fresh opportunities for everyone. Whilst the current list of 250 films is drastically lacking in diversity, as time continues, there is a much greater chance that this list will begin to show a much larger proportion of the overall population.
* All data correct at time of writing*
Graham Osborne's Data Journalism 