Percentage of female leads shrinks

Women made up less than a quarter of protagonists

Less than two weeks before the Oscars, here’s some not-wonderful news on the women-in-film front: It’s getting worse.

San Diego State University’s annual “It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World” report is out, and it shows that the number of women protagonists in the 100 topgrossing films of 2017 dropped 5 percentage points from the year before — to 24% down from 29%.

Looking at other categories, women accounted for 37% of major characters — no change from 2016 — and 34% of

speaking characters, an increase of just 2 percentage points from 2016.

The findings are a bit more positive regarding women of color on screen in 2017, which reached some historic highs.

Black females increased to 16% in 2017, up from 14%.

The percentage of Latinas more than doubled to 7% up from 3%.

The percentage of Asian females increased to 7% from 6%.

The overall numbers are in contrast to the visibility of female leads in the top three grossing films of 2017: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Beauty and the Beast and Wonder Woman, says Martha Lauzen, a film and TV professor and director of the university’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film.

“In an awards season when talk about women and gender has been top of mind, we need to separate hyperbole from reality,” she says. “The numbers do not yet reflect claims of a tectonic or massive shift in the film industry.”

The report, issued every year before the Academy Awards, is based on content analysis of 2,361 characters appearing in the 100 top films of 2017.

The study has looked at more than 16,000 characters appearing in approximately 700 films released from 2002 to 2017.

The center’s analysis shows that men continue to dominate on the big screen. Though only 32% of films featured 10 or more female characters in speaking roles last year, 79% had 10 or more male characters, according to the report.

Films with at least one woman director and/or writer featured higher — sometimes dramatically higher — percentages of female protagonists, major female characters and females in speaking roles than films with exclusively male directors and/or writers.

For example, in films with at least one woman director and/or writer, females comprised 45% of protagonists. In films with exclusively male directors and/or writers, females accounted for 20% of protagonists.

There were some notable contrasts in the demographics of characters.

Female characters were more often younger than their male counterparts.

The majority of female characters were in their 20s (32%) and 30s (25%), while the majority of male characters were in their 30s (31%) and 40s (27%).

Males 40 and older accounted for 46% of all male characters, while females 40 and older comprised 29% of all female characters.

Another difference between female and male characters is found in their onscreen goals and work roles, the study found.

Males were more likely than females to have work-related goals (42% vs. 34%).

Female characters were more likely than males to have goals related to their personal lives (20% vs. 13%).

Male characters were more likely than females to be seen in work-related roles only (65% vs. 44%), while female characters were more likely than males to be seen in personal life-related roles only (39% vs. 21%).