Missing in action — women
Report finds females largely absent from creative TV roles
VANCOUVER — A lot of time, effort and public money may be going into filming some wellknown, live-action television series in Canada, but a new report suggests production is still missing one key element: women.
Women in View, a Toronto-based non-profit group dedicated to revitalizing the media industry by strengthening gender and cultural diversity, released a report Friday concluding females are significantly under-represented in key creative and content- creating roles.
The group studied 21 television series, including Being Erica with Erin Karpluk, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Rookie Blue, The Borgias, Republic of Doyle, Murdoch Mysteries, Flashpoint, The Listener, Lost Girl, and Hiccups.
“The purpose of this is to get a discussion going in the industry and in the Canadian population,” said Rina Fraticelli, executive director of Women in View.
“Does this matter? Why does this matter? What can we do about it?”
The report found that only 16 per cent of directors were female when it came to the 272 episodes shot in 2010 and 2011, and 11 of the series did not employ a single female director on any of their episodes.
Absent, too, were female cinematographers: none were employed in any of the series, and women represented only 36 per cent of the screenwriters. No women from any of the country’s minority groups were employed as directors, either.
The report also looked at ethnicity, as well, and found 13 of the series employed no First Nations or members of the country’s minority groups as writers or directors.
The report said the Canadian Media Fund has invested almost $100 million of public money into the 21 series.
The report did not look at documentary, lifestyle or children’s programs, sports or news.
Fraticelli said it took her organization and freelancers about eight months to research and write the report based on data from the Canadian Media Fund and confirm its findings with union officials.