Study Confirms Women Didn't Speak Much On The Big Screen In 2019
Hollywood's leading ladies are still being overshadowed
- by
Danielle Fowler
From Greta Gerwig's Little Women to Lorene Scafaria's Hustlers, 2019 was arguably one of the most triumphant years yet for women in Hollywood.
Yet despite the industry's leading ladies producing some of the most talked about movies of the season, the 2020 Golden Globes drew widespread criticism for failing to nominate a single female director.
Now, research has shown that women are also being poorly represented on screen too.
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According to a study conducted by San Diego State University, the number of female leads rose to a historic high of 40% last year - a 9% increase from 2018.
But before we applaud the promising (albeit long overdue) progress being made, it's worth noting that female actors only earned 34% of speaking roles in comparison to men who took on 66% of vocal characters.
Greta Gerwig's 'Little Women' remake was released in 2019
To further highlight the growing problem, that's a decrease of 1% when compared to 2018.
The study comes from the executive director of SDSU's Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film, Martha Lauzen, who examined more than 2,300 characters from the top 100 grossing films of 2019.
According to the stats, females accounted for 37% of major characters on the big screen - a 1% increase from 36% in 2018.
In stark comparison, men dominated the billboards scooping 63% of lead roles.
Margot Robbie plays Sharon Tate in 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood'
In conclusion, "audiences were almost twice as likely to see male characters as female characters".
Backlash over women's lack of speaking roles first emerged in 2019 when director Quentin Tarantino was quizzed over Margot Robbie's lack of lines in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
In response, he simply quipped: "I reject your hypothesis."
Yet actions speak louder than words, as he later added two minutes worth of extra Robbie dialogue to the final cut.
Interestingly, he wasn't the only director to come under fire for his lack of gender representation last year.
In November, Martin Scorsese was heavily criticised for only giving Anna Paquin just six lines of dialogue in widely-nominated The Irishman.
Anna Paquin stars in 'The Irishman'
Ultimately, the data simply reiterates what we already know: women need to support other women in order to make change.
Let's hope the forthcoming awards ceremonies give the industry's female power players the recognition they finally deserve.
