DOCSLIB.ORG

Measuring Female Representation and Impact in Films Over Time

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Measuring Female Representation and Impact in Films Over Time Measuring Female Representation and Impact in Films over Time Luoying Yang 1, Zhou Xu 2, Jiebo Luo3 University of Rochester luoying [email protected] 1, [email protected] 2, [email protected] 3 Abstract the big screen is detrimental for young girls. They are dis- couraged from pursuing ambitions and participating actively Women have always been underrepresented in movies in social affairs (Haraldsson and Wangnerud¨ 2019). There- and not until recently has the representation of women in movies improved. To investigate the improvement fore, female under-representation is a critical issue that must of female representation and its relationship with a be addressed. movie’s success, we propose a new measure, the fe- In more recent times, women have made inroads into var- male cast ratio, and compare it to the commonly used ious fields and films have started to respond to female view- Bechdel test result. We employ generalized linear re- ers with strong and well-rounded female characters (Mur- gression with L1 penalty and a Random Forest model phy 2015; Heldman, Frankel, and Holmes ). There are many to identify the predictors that influence female repre- studies and projects devoted to studying evolving feminism sentation, and evaluate the relationship between female in films, centering on both the upstream effects, in which representation and a movie’s success in three aspects: content is structured through the actions of major filmmak- revenue/budget ratio, rating, and popularity. Three im- ers in gendered organizations who presume the public’s pref- portant findings in our study have highlighted the diffi- culties women in the film industry face both upstream erences, as well as the downstream effects, where audiences and downstream. First, female filmmakers, especially respond to content and attitudes are formed and reinforced. female screenplay writers, are instrumental for movies In our work of examining gender representation in films, we to have better female representation, but the percent- ask the following two questions: What factors in the film- age of female filmmakers has been very low. Second, making process have a significant impact on female repre- movies that have the potential to tell insightful stories sentation in films, and do films that feature more female rep- about women are often provided with lower budgets, resentation outperform those that do not commercially? and this usually causes the films to in turn receive more To answer these questions, we need to define a proper criticism. Finally, the demand for better female rep- measure for female representation in films. The Bechdel test resentation from moviegoers has also not been strong is a popular measure for examining how well-rounded and enough to compel the film industry to change, as movies that have poor female representation can still be very complete the representations of women in media are. The popular and successful in the box office. test asks only three questions: • Are there at least two women in the film who have names? Introduction • Do those women talk to each other? Film is a common entertainment form that fulfills the au- • Do they talk to each other about something other than a dience’s desire to make emotional connections with char- man? acters and learn about their social world. However, it was arXiv:2001.03513v3 [cs.CY] 31 Oct 2020 The test is simple and has been widely used in many film very rare for women to see inspiring counterparts on the big gender studies to measure female representation(Lindner screen in the past. Many key roles in film-making, such as di- and Schulting ; Lindner, Lindquist, and Arnold 2015). How- rectors and cinematographers, were for many decades dom- ever, one major criticism of the test is that it fails to re- inated almost entirely by men (Lauzen 2012), and women veal the hidden gender imbalance structure(Micic 2015). A did not have enough power to make demands in the film in- movie can pass the Bechdel test yet still portray women as dustry. Consequently, women have been constantly under- auxiliary characters with minimal screen time. For example, represented in movies. Even when they are present, women both Wonder Woman and The Martian passed the test even are often portrayed in circumscribed and subordinated ways though the importance of female characters is very different in traditionally feminine (i.e., stereotyped) roles, such as between the two movies. Therefore, we propose a new mea- nonprofessionals, homemakers, wives or parents, and sex- sure of female representation in films: the percentage of fe- ual gatekeepers (Collins 2011). Lacking a role model on male cast members in the whole cast. This proposal is based Copyright © 2020, Association for the Advancement of Artificial on the intuition that if more women are cast for a film, then Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved. women will have more representation on the big screen. In addition to a new measure of female representation, we tion budgets and consequently earn less money. However, would also like to consider different aspects of movie suc- given the same budget, female representation does not boost cess. Box office return is a popular measure of movie success the box office return (Lindner, Lindquist, and Arnold 2015). because it is directly linked to profit. However, movie ratings They have conducted a similar analysis for movie critics us- and popularity are also important measures of a movie’s suc- ing the same set of movies and obtained a similar conclusion cess. Public acclamation and popularity brings confidence to that female representation has little effect on critics (Lindner the studios and producers to inspire similar films or sequels and Schulting ). The analysis in these papers is the closest even when the box office return is not substantially high. to ours. However, this study only drew samples of 974 films Our analyses are completed in two steps. Drawing on a from the 2000-2009 decade and considered only a few con- sample of the most widely distributed films, we first com- founding variables such as the budget and genres. Our anal- bine a content analysis using the Bechdel Test with film- ysis include a larger sample from a longer time span with making data such as the budget and gender of crews to ex- a larger set of confounding variables to provide deeper in- amine what factors are influential on encouraging more fe- sights over time. male representation during the film-making process. Next, including all film characteristics such as female represen- Data tation, budget, genre, and many others, we further examine Three data sources are used in this project: the Bechdel whether better female representation can increase the chance Test Movie List 2, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) 3, of success for films while adjusting for other possible con- and the Movie Database (TMDb) 4. The Bechdel Test Movie founding variables. In doing so, we contribute to sociologi- List contains over 8000 movies crowd-sourced through the cal theories about the reciprocal impact of feminism. Internet with a flag showing if each of them passes the The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In sec- Bechdel Test or not. IMDb has an up-to-date movie dataset, tion 2, we review the background literature that studies the which is widely used among many movie related projects. gender gap in films and analyzes box office performance. In However, since IMDb does not provide an official API, we section 3, we describe the data features and the data collec- have limited access to some data, such as the full list of the tion process. In section 4, we present the methods and mod- cast and crew members of each movie. TMDb on the other els used throughout this study. We present our experiments hand is a crowd-sourced online movie database similar to and the corresponding results in Section 4. In section 5, we IMDb. It is used less often, but with the advantage of having present and discuss our conclusions and future directions. an API, we can easily access a variety of movie-related data of interest to us. Related work Most of the studies that center on gender inequality in me- Data Acquisition dia are content analysis (Murphy 2015; Heldman, Frankel, The Bechdel Test Movie List is downloaded using its API. and Holmes ; Micic 2015), which means they study how It contains 8190 movies at the time, with 7 fields. The rele- women are portrayed in media. While content analysis is be- vant features include imdbid (can be used to join with other yond the scope of our study, the related works have shown datasets), title, year, and rating (0 means no two women, 1 that the roles of women are evolving on the big screen. There means no talking, 2 means talking about a man, 3 means it are also many studies about female underrepresentation, al- passes the test). beit on a small scale and with simple analysis. Thomas has The IMDb dataset is downloaded from its website, where shown that in the top 10 worldwide highest grossing films of only the title.basic table is used. It contains 9 fields, includ- 2016, women speak only 27% of the lines (Thomas 2017). ing tconst (imdbid), titleType, primaryTitle, originalTitle, The finding is novel but the sample size is too small. A isAdult, startYear, endYear, runtimeMinutes, and genres. team at the Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke Univer- Getting the TMDb dataset requires more work with its sity published a report that movies which pass the Bechdel API. The first step is to obtain the tmdbids that are associated Test have a statistically significant higher return on invest- with the imdbids within the Bechdel Movie List.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Sofia Coppola and the Significance of an Appealing Aesthetic
    SOFIA COPPOLA AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AN APPEALING AESTHETIC by LEILA OZERAN A THESIS Presented to the Department of Cinema Studies and the Robert D. Clark Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts June 2016 An Abstract of the Thesis of Leila Ozeran for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Department of Cinema Studies to be taken June 2016 Title: Sofia Coppola and the Significance of an Appealing Aesthetic Approved: r--~ ~ Professor Priscilla Pena Ovalle This thesis grew out of an interest in the films of female directors, producers, and writers and the substantially lower opportunities for such filmmakers in Hollywood and Independent film. The particular look and atmosphere which Sofia Coppola is able to compose in her five films is a point of interest and a viable course of study. This project uses her fifth and latest film, Bling Ring (2013), to showcase Coppola's merits as a filmmaker at the intersection of box office and critical appeal. I first describe the current filmmaking landscape in terms of gender. Using studies by Dr. Martha Lauzen from San Diego State University and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to illustrate the statistical lack of a female presence in creative film roles and also why it is important to have women represented in above-the-line positions. Then I used close readings of Bling Ring to analyze formal aspects of Sofia Coppola's filmmaking style namely her use of distinct color palettes, provocative soundtracks, car shots, and tableaus. Third and lastly I went on to describe the sociocultural aspects of Coppola's interpretation of the "Sling Ring." The way the film explores the relationships between characters, portrays parents as absent or misguided, and through film form shows the pervasiveness of celebrity culture, Sofia Coppola has given Bling Ring has a central ii message, substance, and meaning: glamorous contemporary celebrity culture can have dangerous consequences on unchecked youth.
    [Show full text]
  • Female Improvisational Poets: Challenges and Achievements in the Twentieth Century
    FEMALE .... improvisational - ,I: t -,· POETS ...~1 Challenges and Achievements in the Twentieth Century In December 2009, 14,500 people met at the Bilbao Exhibi­ tion Centre in the Basque Country to attend an improvised poetry contest.Forty-four poets took part in the 2009 literary tournament, and eight of them made it to the final. After a long day of literary competition, Maialen Lujanbio won and received the award: a big black txapela or Basque beret. That day the Basques achieved a triple triumph. First, thou­ sands of people had gathered for an entire day to follow a lite­ rary contest, and many more had attended the event via the web all over the world. Second, all these people had followed this event entirely in Basque, a language that had been prohi­ bited for decades during the harsh years of the Francoist dic­ tatorship.And third, Lujanbio had become the first woman to win the championship in the history of the Basques. After being crowned with the txapela, Lujanbio stepped up to the microphone and sung a bertso or improvised poem refe­ rring to the struggle of the Basques for their language and the struggle of Basque women for their rights. It was a unique moment in the history of an ancient nation that counts its past in tens of millennia: I remember the laundry that grandmothers of earlier times carried on the cushion [ on their heads J I remember the grandmother of old times and today's mothers and daughters.... • pr .. Center for Basque Studies # avisatiana University of Nevada, Reno ISBN 978-1-949805-04-8 90000 9 781949 805048 ■ .~--- t _:~A) Conference Papers Series No.
    [Show full text]
  • FIRST CENTURY AVANT-GARDE FILM RUTH NOVACZEK a Thesis
    NEW VERNACULARS AND FEMININE ECRITURE; TWENTY- FIRST CENTURY AVANT-GARDE FILM RUTH NOVACZEK A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Westminster for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2015 Acknowledgements Thanks to Chris Kraus, Eileen Myles and Rachel Garfield for boosting my morale in times of great uncertainty. To my supervisors Michael Mazière and Rosie Thomas for rigorous critique and sound advice. To Jelena Stojkovic, Alisa Lebow and Basak Ertur for camaraderie and encouragement. To my father Alfred for support. To Lucy Harris and Sophie Mayer for excellent editorial consultancy. To Anya Lewin, Gillian Wylde, Cathy Gelbin, Mark Pringle and Helen Pritchard who helped a lot one way or another. And to all the filmmakers, writers, artists and poets who make this work what it is. Abstract New Vernaculars and Feminine Ecriture; Twenty First Century Avant-Garde Film. Ruth Novaczek This practice-based research project explores the parameters of – and aims to construct – a new film language for a feminine écriture within a twenty first century avant-garde practice. My two films, Radio and The New World, together with my contextualising thesis, ask how new vernaculars might construct subjectivity in the contemporary moment. Both films draw on classical and independent cinema to revisit the remix in a feminist context. Using appropriated and live-action footage the five short films that comprise Radio are collaged and subjective, representing an imagined world of short, chaptered ‘songs’ inside a radio set. The New World also uses both live-action and found footage to inscribe a feminist transnational world, in which the narrative is continuous and its trajectory bridges, rather than juxtaposes, the stories it tells.
    [Show full text]
  • My Name Is Corrina and I'm the Founder of Bechdel Test Fest
    My name is Corrina and I’m the founder of Bechdel Test Fest - an ongoing celebration of women in film. I’m also a freelance critic for Empire Magazine and most recently have produced a documentary on Ava Duvernay for the BBC and have had the pleasure of working with debbie tucker green on the release of her forthcoming new film. In addition I am the resident film critic for Sunday Brunch once a month on Channel 4. I previously worked for Picturehouse Entertainment distribution company but now... My name is corrina and I’m the founder of Bechdel Test Fest - an ongoing celebration of women in film. I’m also a freelance critic for Empire Magazine and most recently have produced a documentary on Ava Duvernay for the BBC and have had the pleasure of working with debbie tucker green on the release of her forthcoming new film. In addition I am the resident film critic for Sunday Brunch once a month on Channel 4 I previously worked for Picturehouse Entertainment distribution company but now.... ...For the day job, I am the arts and culture comms officer for Hackney Council which has me working on events such as Windrush Festival, Hackney’s Anti Racism Plan, Carnival, Black History Season, Hackney Black History Curriculum and the forthcoming Census. I’m Hackney born and bred so... Right now, due to the pandemic, Bechdel Test Fest has been unable to screen films of course but we are still committed to celebrating the work of female-identifying women in film via our Friday newsletter and social which promotes all the week’s new releases and our podcast Who Is She which spotlights and usually interviews a brilliant female filmmaker.
    [Show full text]
  • Identifying Missing Component in the Bechdel Test Using Principal Component Analysis Method Raghav Lakhotia, Chandra Kanth Nagesh, Krishna Madgula
    World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Computer and Systems Engineering Vol:13, No:6, 2019 Identifying Missing Component in the Bechdel Test Using Principal Component Analysis Method Raghav Lakhotia, Chandra Kanth Nagesh, Krishna Madgula about how women are under-represented on screen. According Abstract—A lot has been said and discussed regarding the to the report "Celluloid Ceiling" [3], "women comprised only rationale and significance of the Bechdel Score. It became a digital 18% of all the directors, writers, producers, editors, executive sensation in 2013, when Swedish cinemas began to showcase the and cinematographers working on the top 250 domestic Bechdel test score of a film alongside its rating. The test has drawn grossing films in 2017". While in 2016, only 12% of films out criticism from experts and the film fraternity regarding its use to rate the female presence in a movie. The pundits believe that the score is of 900 had a balanced cast [4]. Men outnumber women in the too simplified and the underlying criteria of a film to pass the test film industry as well. The issue has long prevailed in the must include 1) at least two women, 2) who have at least one industry since, but the question arises; did we highlight this dialogue, 3) about something other than a man, is egregious. In this gender bias to the extent that we should have? research, we have considered a few more parameters which highlight In 1985, Alison Bechdel, an American cartoonist, invented how we represent females in film, like the number of female a score [5] to gauge gender equality on screen.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bechdel Test of Social Media
    Proceedings of the Eighth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media Gender Asymmetries in Reality and Fiction: The Bechdel Test of Social Media David Garcia Ingmar Weber Venkata Rama Kiran Garimella ETH Zurich Qatar Computing Research Institute Qatar Computing Research Institute [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Abstract assessing their own gender biases in their everyday behavior. To a great extent, gender inequality is exercised but not con- The subjective nature of gender inequality motivates the anal- sciously reflected upon, creating a pattern of biases that ev- ysis and comparison of data from real and fictional human interaction. We present a computational extension of the eryone experiences but nobody names (Friedan 1963). Gen- Bechdel test: A popular tool to assess if a movie contains a der bias, as part of the culture and ideology of a society, male gender bias, by looking for two female characters who manifest in subconscious behavior and in the fictions created discuss about something besides a man. We provide the tools and consumed by that society (Ziˇ zekˇ 1989). The emerging to quantify Bechdel scores for both genders, and we measure field of culturomics aims at a quantitative understanding of them in movie scripts and large datasets of dialogues between culture at a large scale, first being applied to cultural trends users of MySpace and Twitter. Comparing movies and users in literature (Michel et al. 2011), but also applicable to other of social media, we find that movies and Twitter conversa- traces of human culture such as voting in song contests (Gar- tions have a consistent male bias, which does not appear when cia and Tanase 2013), search trends (Preis et al.
    [Show full text]
  • Open Thesis Final Copy.Pdf
    THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH THE ARCHITECTURE OF A THREE-DIMENSIONAL FEMALE CHARACTER IN SYLVIA PLATH’S “THE BELL JAR” AND ITS IMPACT ON FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE HOLLYWOOD FILM INDUSTRY KATHERINE ELIZABETH MURT SPRING 2014 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in English and Media Studies with honors in English Reviewed and approved* by the following: Lisa Sternlieb Associate Professor of English Thesis Supervisor, Honors Adviser John Marsh Associate Professor of English Faculty Reader * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i ABSTRACT Sylvia Plath is remembered in literary history for her complex and dimensional creation of characters through both her prose and poetry. Plath’s own personal experiences with emotionally challenging life events informed her collective works, and from these experiences she drew forth her seminal novel The Bell Jar, a semiautobiographical account of a young girl named Esther who moves to New York City for a new job and uncovers her own vast emotional depth and potential for instability in the process. Esther’s journey into the recesses of her own mind broke ground in that Plath exposed an emotional depth to a female character that had yet to be so explicitly explored outside of the confines of a male literary counterpart. Esther is a female character that stands on her own, and her three-dimensional emotionality constructed the blueprint for how we see modern females in literature and art. Following suit, the Hollywood film industry has produced countless films starring female protagonists with emotional issues, using these issues as a means to create depth in a character where depth does not truly exist.
    [Show full text]
  • Bechdel Test and the Social Form of Character Networks
    1 The Bechdel Test and the Social Form of Character Networks [Johns Hopkins University Press grants journal article authors the right “to include the Article in your own personal or departmental institutional database or on-line site … granted for the final manuscript version of the Article only, not the final published version in any format.” Copyright © 2015 Johns Hopkins University Press. This article first appeared in New Literary History 46, no. 3 (summer 2015): 505–23. muse.jhu.edu/journals/new_literary_history/v046/46.3.selisker.html] Do we know a feminist—or a non-misogynist—text when we see one? Are there structural criteria that might make a text definitively feminist? The Bechdel test implicitly proposes an answer to both questions, and we can see more clearly how it does so by relating it to social network analysis. As is well known, the Bechdel test gives films a pass or fail rating based on three linked criteria: “One, it has to have at least two women in it who, two, talk to each other about, three, something besides a man.”1 It originated with a 1985 strip of Alison Bechdel’s long-running comic Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008), which preceded her widely acclaimed graphic memoirs, Fun Home (2006) and Are You My Mother (2012).2 The Bechdel test is thus akin to film ratings warning viewers of strong language, violence, or sexual content, and in 2013 several Swedish cinemas made international news coverage by pledging to post Bechdel test scores alongside ratings. Like these ratings, the test advertises a horizon of expectation for the content of a film, but unlike them, it explicitly grants that content a political valence.
    [Show full text]
  • Reframing the Gaze: How Women Filmmakers Influence the Portrayal of Women On-Screen
    REFRAMING THE GAZE: HOW WOMEN FILMMAKERS INFLUENCE THE PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN ON-SCREEN by MEGAN DECK A PORTFOLIO THESIS Presented to the Department of Cinema Studies and the Robert D. Clark Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts June 2019 An Abstract of the Thesis of Megan Deck for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Department of Cinema Studies to be taken June 2019 Title: Reframing the Gaze: How Women Filmmakers Influence the Portrayal of Women On-Screen Approved: _______________________________________ Professor Daniel Steinhart This thesis was inspired by my passion for women filmmakers and my curiosity about how a filmmaker’s gender identity informs how women are represented in films. I investigated the complicated history of women’s role in Hollywood to learn why there are few female directors and writers working in Hollywood presently. I examined how the male-dominated film industry affects the representation of women on-screen using the concepts of the male gaze and the Bechdel test. I argued that if men create a distinctly male point of view in their filmmaking, women therefore create a female point of view, also known as the female gaze. I found that having men or women in creative production roles (directing, writing, cinematography, or producing) strongly affects how women in a film are portrayed in Hollywood films. To put theory into practice, I wrote, directed, and edited a short film with a female protagonist and recruited a film crew of all women to help me construct the female gaze.
    [Show full text]
  • An Analysis of Narratology in Mainstream Film Through the Application of Gender Equity Critical Assessment
    AN ANALYSIS OF NARRATOLOGY IN MAINSTREAM FILM THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF GENDER EQUITY CRITICAL ASSESSMENT Vicki Gagiano Thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of English in the Faculty of Arts at Stellenbosch University April 2019 Supervisor: Doctor R. Oppelt Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za DECLARATION By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third-party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it to obtain any qualification. Copyright © 2019 Stellenbosch University. All rights reserved. Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION………………………………………………………………….. ii NOTES……………………………………………………………………………. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………. iv ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………. v SUMMARY……………………………………………………………………….. vi CHAPTER 1……………………………………………………………………. 7 INTRODUCTION 1.1 CONTEXTUALISATION AND PROBLEM STATEMENT…………... 7 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS……………………………………………… 13 1.3 RESEARCH AIMS AND OBJECTIVES………………………………. 13 1.4 THESIS STATEMENT…………………………………………………... 14 1.5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY…………… 15 CHAPTER 2.............................................................................................. 16 THEORETICAL EXPOSITION 2.1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………
    [Show full text]
  • Mediasia / KAMC2020 Conference Programme & Abstract Book
    www.iafor.org/about/partners IAFOR Global Partners University of Belgrade IAFOR has entered into a number of strategic partnerships with universities across the world to form the IAFOR Global Partnership Programme. These academic partnerships support and nurture IAFOR’s goals of educational cooperation without borders, connecting the organisation with institutions that have an international and internationalising profile, and a commitment to interdisciplinary research. The IAFOR Global Partnership Programme provides mutual recognition and scope for Global Partner institutions and organisations to showcase their research strengths, as well as engage in the development of projects and programmes with IAFOR. /iaforjapan @iafor.official @iafor (#iafor) iafor.org MediAsia/KAMC2020 Organising Committee Nasya Bahfen Joseph Haldane Bradley J. Hamm La Trobe University, Australia IAFOR Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, United States Virgil Hawkins Celia Lam Timothy W. Pollock Osaka University, Japan University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Osaka Kyoiku University & Hagoromo University of International Studies, Japan Paul Spicer Gary E. Swanson Hokkaido University, Japan University of Northern Colorado, United States (fmr.) 2 | IAFOR.ORG | MediAsia/KAMC2020 | Follow us on Twitter @IAFOR (tweet about the conference using #IAFOR) Letter of Welcome Dear Delegates, In more normal times I would be writing this letter to welcome people to Tokyo, however these are very different times, and so I welcome you instead online to The 11th Asian Conference on Media, Communication & Film (MediAsia2020) and The Kyoto Conference on Arts, Media & Culture (KAMC2020). While this conference is organised in the spirit of hope and with the possibilities of technology, it is also organised in a context of global uncertainty in the wake of the coronavirus, an unprecedented global crisis of enormous proportions.
    [Show full text]
  • The Representation of Female Characters in the Academy Award Winners for Best Picture of the Year
    The Representation of Female Characters in the Academy Award Winners for Best Picture of the Year by Briyana Dyer A thesis presented to the Honors College of Middle Tennessee State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the University Honors College Fall 2018 The Representation of Female Characters in the Academy Award Winners for Best Picture of the Year by Briyana Dyer APPROVED: ____________________________ Dr. Jane Marcellus Department of Journalism ___________________________ Dr. Philip E. Phillips, Associate Dean University Honors College ii Acknowledgments To my family and friends: Thank you so much for your constant love, acceptance and encouragement in everything that I do. Everything I do is made possible through your support. I love you all very much. To Dr. Marcellus: Thank you for being my voice of reason and clarity throughout the process of writing this thesis. I could not have completed this without your intellect, passion and commitment. To MTSU and the Honors College: Thank you for pushing me to think beyond myself. I am eternally grateful to have received an education that has challenged me and encouraged me to be the best that I can be. iii Abstract The representation of women in movies is critical to understanding how women interpret and view themselves in the real world. According to a study conducted by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, only 17% of the top grossing films of 2015 featured a female lead. In addition, there is a tendency for the American film industry to display a poor representation of these female characters.
    [Show full text]