Women still striving to make their mark in film

Women still striving to make their mark in film

Any frequent cinema-goer will notice one thing during the summer months; there aren’t a lot of night time cinema goers. This is not just symptomatic among cinema goers, but also among its makers; less than 10% of directors are females, approximately 15% working as writers while just over 20% of producers are females.

These figures are discouraging and unfortunately carry over into the films themselves. Female characters made up only 28% of those who had a major role to play. A cinema goer said, “It would be great to see a strong, relatable female character as lead in a film. We are tired of the current crop of male-centric films out in cinemas at the moment.”

Women still striving to make their mark in film

Despite the male-dominated world, several women are making their mark in the cinema world. Sandra Bullock stars in The Heat, whilst Melissa McCarthy plays the lead role in the recently released Bling Ring. And it doesn’t just end there; Sofia Coppola wrote and directed The Bling Ring whilst another woman Katie Dippold is the writer of The Heat; a film billed as the modern day version of Thelma & Louise.

Women still striving to make their mark in film

The media gets very excited whenever a film is released that stars women and rightly so. Over the years many films have been seen as the catalyst for a change in the film industry; films such as The Hunger Games and Bridesmaids were hyped by the media as a movement for a new change, and yet nothing has changed. Geena Davis founded an Institute whose aim was to tackle gender representation of females in the Media.

Women still striving to make their mark in film

Her think tank undertook many studies involving the media and women. They discovered that in films that were aimed at families and children, there was a ratio of three characters that were male, for each female character even though 50% of film goers are female.