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In recent years the movie industry has gone through the streaming revolution, the pandemic, labor strikes and “Barbenheimer.” But after countless upheavals in Hollywood, you're still more than twice as likely to see male speaking characters in theatrical releases than you are female ones.
Just 32% of speaking characters in the top 100 movies at the box office in 2023 were women or girls, according to the University of Southern California's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative annual report released Monday. That's very nearly the same percentage as when Stacy L. Smith first began the study in 2007. Then, it was 30% of speaking characters.
The gender imbalance was pronounced in other areas, too. Just 30% of leading roles in the top films were women or girls, a huge decrease of 14% from 2022 and roughly the same figure 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 in and year out,” Smith said in a statement. “It is clear that there is either a dismissal 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 wants to survive its current moment, it must examine its failure to employ half the population on screen,” added Smith.
“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 don't by themselves move the needle against persistent trends.
The USC study doesn’t analyze what Hollywood makes, just what’s most widely watched in theaters. That leaves out a wide swath of movies produced for streaming, as well as most independent releases. But in capturing the majority of popular films in theaters, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative tracks how much the industry’s vows of inclusivity actually line up with what’s on movie screens.
In an election year where much of Hollywood will be backing 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 to some of the gains made by underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. While there remain major inequalities there, too, some findings show considerable change.
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 year prior. In 2007, 78% of all characters were white.
Among protagonists, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups made up 37% of main characters, an increase of 6% from 2022 and more than ever before. In 2007, that figure was 13%.
Last year's main characters were 12.6% Black, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino characters and 18.4% Asian. None of the 100 top movies featured casts that matched U.S. demographics for Hispanic/Latinos, who account for 19.1% of the population — and even more of ticket buyers.
Many other groups were closer to invisible, entirely, in 2023's top box-office films. There were just five movies out of the 100 with an LGBTQ+ lead or co-lead. Just 2.2% of the films included a speaking character with a disability. And only four speaking characters were nonbinary.
