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According to a new study from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, Hollywood has tapped a record number of women to give voice to big movies in 2020.
Women made up 16% of directors working on the 100 highest-grossing films in 2020, a record for female representation behind the camera. That’s an increase of 12% in 2019 and 4% in 2018, and a sign that the pressure on studios to promote more filmmakers could lead to tangible change.
Of course, it was a year like no other, a year that saw theatrical activity virtually halted for months due to the coronavirus. It also meant that some of the most budgeted films starring female directors, like “The Eternals” by Chloe Zhao and “Black Widow” by Cate Shortland, saw their releases postponed until 2021. Zhao led hope at Oscars “Nomadland”, while another female filmmaker like Cathy Yan (“Birds of Prey”) and Patty Jenkins (“Wonder Woman 1984”) oversaw some of the most publicized releases of the year.
The study, published for two decades and supervised by the director of the center, Dr Martha Lauzen, attempted to capture the disruption in the exhibition sector. For the first time, the study also tracked the employment of women in films included in the Digital Entertainment Group’s “Top 20 of the 20 best videos watched at home” from March to December 2020. Women accounted for 19% of all directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors and directors of photography working on movies watched at home, which was slightly lower than the 21% obtained on the highest grossing movies. Just under 10% of directors working on home movies were women, compared to 16% of directors on top box office hits.
“The good news is that we have now seen two consecutive years of growth for women in leadership,” Lauzen said in a statement. “It breaks a recent historical pattern in which the numbers tend to rise one year and fall the following year. The bad news is that 80% of the best movies still don’t have a woman at the helm. “
The image may have been clearer for the directors, but it gets more and more blurry the deeper the credits go. Of the top 100 grossing films, women held 28% of producer positions and 21% of executive producer positions, an increase of two percentage points in both categories. Women made up 18% of editors, 12% of writers and 3% of directors of photography. The number of female filmmakers increased by one percentage point, but the number of writers and editors fell by eight percentage points and five points, respectively.
The study also found that films with at least one female director were much more likely to hire women as editors, filmmakers or other key behind-the-scenes roles. For example, in films with female directors, women made up 53% of writers. While on films with all-male directors, women made up 8% of writers. Women were editors on 39% of films with female directors and only 18% of films for men, and composed the music for 13% of films for female directors and only 4% of films for male directors.
Although the industry has made progress, the majority of films (67%) employed between zero women and four women in the main behind-the-scenes roles. In contrast, more than 70% of the best films employed 10 or more men as directors, screenwriters and other high-level positions.
“This imbalance is staggering,” said Lauzen.
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