Following on from my previous post, Women in Film (USA) recently published research in to the under-representation of female characters in the top 100 films of 2011.  It found that women made up a mere 33% of all characters in these films, which is a 5% increase since 2002.  However, the percentage of female protagonists has declined: 2002 saw 16% female protagonists, while 2011 had 11%.

But that’s not all this study has to offer.  It also addresses age (25% of female characters are 40 or over, 4% 60 or over); race (73% Caucasian female characters, only 8% African-American, 5% Asian, 5% Latina, 4% other wordly, 3% animals, and ‘other’ at 1%); status (female characters are more likely identified by their marital status, have unknown occupations, or be out-of-work as either a homemaker or student).  Positions of leadership fall mainly to male characters at 86%, with female characters accounting for 14%.

This is something to think about further alongside my earlier post of the Top Grossing Women’s Films in 2011.  But considering the population split, and the cinema audience gender split, the representation of female characters is wide off the mark.

“It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: On-Screen Representations of Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2011”, Martha M Lauzen, 2012.

After the high hopes for women directors at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (a whopping 4 female-directed films made Palme D’Or shortlist!), Cannes has returned to its 2010 form and have NO films directed by women this year.

Out of the 23 eligible films for one of the most prestigious film awards on the circuit, not one was directed by a woman.  Two films directed by women made the “Un Certain Regard” category (for young filmmakers).  Nearly 1,800 films were submitted.  The submission list is confidential, but surely some women filmmakers submitted their films.  So why didn’t they make the cut?

Melissa Silverstein on her Women & Hollywood blog had this to say,

“Cannes is the most prestigious world competition and to have no female directors is just a slap in the face. I cannot believe there were no films worthy of inclusion. I just don’t believe it. The whole process is f***ed up that women can’t even get into the conversations about films that people are even thinking about will be included in lineups.”

The culture of the film industry is still male-dominated.  The big, narrative pictures still fall mainly to male directors, women still have limited seats in the most powerful positions in the industry (see my earlier post on The Celluloid Ceiling). 

Thank heavens for the Tribeca Film Festival, which has a good representation of female directors, including Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz), Julie Delphy (2 Days in New York), Lynn Shelton (Your Sister’s Sister), Tanya Wexler (Hysteria), Malgorzata Szumowska (Elles), Julia Dyer (The Playroom), Sharon Bar-Ziv (Room 514), Lucy Malloy (Una Noche), Kat Cairo (While We Were Here), and Beth Murphy (The List).

Lindy West’s recent article in The Guardian highlighted the (her) five most pathetic female film characters of all time: characters who stand by, waiting to be rescued or hunted, or without any desire to take control.

While I disagree with a couple of her choices, she makes a good point (especially with recent teen-film heroines).  Moreover, the comments that follow make for an interesting read: lists of other “pathetic” characters, lists of strong (“kick-ass”) characters (although I’m not sure that just because a female character can do some martial arts necessarily means they are strong characters with control over the narrative?!), and opinions on whether this is even a feminist issue.

Is there still a place for the damsel in distress? 

The Hunger Games took £4.9million in its opening weekend across 511 UK cinemas.  A pretty amazing feat considering it’s not a sequel and it’s March (not the usual blockbuster release season).

What’s interesting is that this is a film that is centred around a female character, a strong female character. It is well known that female leads don’t ’open’ a picture and that’s why Hollywood doesn’t favour them.  Generally, women go and see films about men, men don’t tend to go and see films about women. 

Although there is an element of romance, that is not what the film is marketed on.  Despite the fact that the publicity is of a young woman’s face and that the trailer specifically shows a young woman’s story, it’s not sold with a focus on the protagonist’s gender.  Therefore, it has a potentially wider appeal to all four ‘quadrants’ of cinema audience (women over 25, women under 25, men over 25, men under 25).

Does The Hunger Games mark the start of female fronted film franchises?

When Kathryn Bigelow won the Best Director Oscar in 2010, it was thought that the “Bigelow Effect” would prove a watershed moment in the recognition of women in Hollywood.  However, a recent study into women in behind-the-scenes roles shows that women are still vastly underrepresented.

The study analysed 2,636 people working on the 250 top-grossing (Hollywood) films of 2011 and found:

***The percentage of women directors has declined since 1998 while the percentages of women writers and producers have increased slightly. The percentage of women executive producers, editors and cinematographers have remained the same.

***94 percent of the top films of 2011 were directed by men.

***Women made up 14 percent of writers in the top films.

***77 percent of the major films of 2011 had no female writers.

***Women made up 25 percent of all producers on the top 250 films of 2011.

***Women made up 20 percent of editors in the biggest films of 2011, but 76 percent of those films had no female editors.

***There were fewer female cinematographers than directors on the top films of 2011: only 4 percent of cinematographers were women.

Source: Martha M. Lauzen, “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 250 Films of 2011”, Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, USA