Women accounted for just one third of all speaking roles in movies last year, a 3% increase from 2014, according to a new study.
According to a study examining 2,500 female characters in the top 100 domestic grossing movies, and the study found only 34$ of major characters were female, representing a modest increase from 2014. However, they do represent historical highs.
The study also found that females comprised only 22% of all protagonists in all movies considered, which is an increase of 10% over 2014, which was a historically bad year for women in the film industry.
“We saw marked increase in the percentage of female protagonists last year,” Dr. Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University said. “We will need to see a couple more years of data before we’ll know whether this is the beginning of an upward trend or if 2015 was an unusually good but aberrant year for female characters.”
Figures representing female characters of color have not changed, although there was a slight increase in black female characters since 2014. There was no change in the percentage of other ethnicities and there was a decrease Asian actresses in movies in 2015.
The study also found that non-white women of color were less likely to be major characters in movies than white women. 38% of films cast females as major characters.
From TheWrap:
Women accounted for just 18 percent of antagonists in the 100 films considered, and the percentage of male characters in their 50s is almost twice that of female characters in the same age range, coming in at 17 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
Interestingly, in films directed by women, 40 percent of the speaking roles and 50 percent of protagonists were female, whereas in movies directed by men, women only accounted for 30 percent of the speaking roles and 13 percent of the protagonists.
