Female directors still face roadblocks
Of 100 top-grossing films released in 2018, just four had women at the helm
Good news first: Hollywood studios have made solid progress hiring Black directors.
For the first time in more than a decade, Hollywood studios hired a greater percentage of Black directors to helm topperforming films — 16 Black directors in 2018, actually — according to a new study from Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
And yet, female directors continue to see no change over the same time period.
“Sixteen of the directors of the top 100 movies last year were Black — this historically high figure is nearly three times greater than the six Black directors working in 2017 and twice as many as the eight Black directors working in 2007,” said Smith in a statement. “While we do not see this finding mirrored among female or Asian directors, this offers proof that Hollywood can change when it wants to.”
Just how bad is it for women behind the camera? Well, out of the 100 top-grossing films of 2018, only four women were at the helm: Ava Du Vernay ( A Wrinkle in Time), Kay Cannon ( Blockers), Abby Kohn ( I Feel Pretty) and Susanna Fogel ( The Spy Who Dumped Me).
The numbers only get worse looking at the 1,200 top-grossing films released between 2007 and 2018, according to the study.
Only 4.3 per cent of all directors across the top films from 2007 to 2018 were female, a ratio of 22 male directors to every one female director.
Only five Black women, three Asian women and one Latina have worked as directors on those 1,200 films, with no evident change over time.
Asian directors represented only 3.6 per cent of 2018’s top 100 film directors. Across the 12-year sample, just 3.1 per cent of the 1,335 directors studied were Asian.
The report, titled “Inclusion in the Director’s Chair,” found that women continue to face major roadblocks industrywide. Women of colour “are nearly invisible in film production, whether as directors, producers or in below-the-line crew positions,” said Smith.
For the first time, the University of Southern California study looked at data on producers and so-called below-theline positions — film crew jobs — across the top 300 movies from 2016 to 2018.
Just 11 per cent of the “Produced by” credits over the past three years went to individuals from under-represented groups. Men held 97 per cent of the cinematographer jobs and 84.5 per cent of the editing jobs, the report said.
“Only one woman of colour worked as a composer across the 300 films we examined, and there were no under-represented female directors of photography,” Smith said. On the other hand, women fared much better in lower roles: they accounted for 34 per cent of second assistant directors and 32 per cent of unit production managers. Few women worked as first assistant directors, at 9 per cent.
The researchers also looked at the executive and board ranks of seven major entertainment companies. Women made up 25 per cent of board members, an improvement from 19 per cent last year. The study found 17 per cent of top management positions were held by women.
Looking more deeply at the film divisions, women held 23 per cent of the president and chairperson roles, with higher percentage in the executive vice-president, senior vicepresident and vice-president ranks. Women of colour held just 6 per cent of film executive team roles, the report said.