Things have been rumbling in the film world for some time: Why is the silver screen so, er, white? And where are all the women anyway? #OscarsSoWhite but also #OscarIsADude! Many people in the industry have already expressed their displeasure at this. At the last Oscar ceremony, actresses aimed their arrows at equal pay, or rather, the lack of it. This year, many African-American actors and directors boycotted the ceremony. And with good reason: the Oscars seem to have little to do with quality and certainly nothing to do with representation of the film world, not to mention the real world.
Are we in Europe doing better? Time to dive into the numbers. EWA, the European Women in Audiovisual Media network, commissioned a two-year study in seven European countries on the representation of women in films. UCLA's Bunche centre did the same for diversity in US films and TV series. The results are not cheerful.
Figures don't lie
First but the European research: About half of film school alumni are women (44 %), but only 1 in 5 films realised is directed by a woman. Why is that? Where does it go wrong? Can women just not do it? The figures (thankfully) contradict that: in 2013, films by women were 10% more likely to be shown at a festival and 6 % more likely to win an award than one directed by men.
The Bunche centre for African American studies at UCLA, the University of California, also conducted research, but into the representation of multicultural America. Those results did not lie either: only 12.9 % of roles in films and TV series from 2014 were played by minorities. A year earlier, that was about 4 % more. This is extra shocking since minorities make up 37.9 % of the US and almost half of movie tickets are bought by minorities (46 %!).
Women come off equally meagre. Accounting for over half the population, but only 4.3 % of the directing credits of the biggest films, with only a quarter of the lead roles.
The film industry is still the stronghold of white men
To put it simply: because it always was. Asked about the pioneers of film, most people will mention Georges Méliès or the Lumière brothers, but not Alice Guy-Blaché. A lady who not only had her own studio, directed hundreds of films and made pretty much the first fiction film as early as 1896, but also pioneered sound, tinting and, yes, a non-creamy white cast. Only after her death have there been awards named after her, and now, almost 150 years after her birth, voices are beginning to be heard calling for her films to be included in universities' film curriculum.
The most powerful studio bosses in Hollywood are men, the most powerful juries at the major festivals ditto. Here in the Netherlands, by the way, we do slightly better with female directors of the Netherlands Film Festival, the IDFA, the Film Fund and Eye. Unfortunately, then again, the cinema offer is less diverse. For now, it seems that white men mainly want to see films by and about other white men. As long as there are so many of those in the entire film industry, it will remain difficult for the rest, the bulk of humanity.
Half the subsidy for half the taxpayers
What can we do to get a more balanced picture? EWA makes a number of recommendations, for example urging producers to support more work by women and continuing research into the state of affairs and statistics. In Sweden, there is already a small landslide to report. Anna Serner has been director of the Swedish Film Fund for three years. In that short time, she has secured that women should get half of the grants. This has succeeded. Compared to 15 years ago, the number of women directors has doubled from 19 % to 44 %, and producers from 28 % to 56 %. Her logic is as simple as it is effective: if women pay half the tax, they should also get half the subsidy.
Movies define our view of man
Film is a super-powerful medium to identify with. It is an empathy machine, even if a lead is not sympathetic, we still empathise, we can hardly do otherwise. And film and TV show you possible worlds. In a interview with the Guardian Geena Davis says of this: If you see it, you can be it. Positive role models show young women what they can do, for example in a series like CSI. Darnell Hunt, Bunche's researcher explains that our image of other population groups we don't come into contact with as much is mainly fed by entertainment: film and TV. When entire groups are absent or only stereotypically represented, it confirms all kinds of prejudices. It is precisely because what we watch influences us in how we think about ourselves (and others) that it is so important that there is more than one white, male perspective.
I am hopeful that the dust raised by the Oscars is far from settling. Surely, with a female chancellor, a black one, and next year probably a female president of the US, it should slowly sink in that the world is pluralistic. But until that realisation has penetrated everywhere, we need to keep doing research, provide data and keep hammering on.
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