A Content Analysis of the Gender of Academy Award Nominees and Winners for Films Released between 1927 and 2010 A thesis presented to the faculty of the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the Master of Science Katie E. Labovitz June 2011 © 2011 Katie E. Labovitz. All Rights Reserved. This thesis titled A Content Analysis of the Gender of Academy Award Nominees and Winners for Films Released between 1927 and 2010 by KATIE E. LABOVITZ has been approved for the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and the Scripps College of Communication by _______________________________________________ Joseph P. Bernt Professor of Journalism _______________________________________________ Gregory J. Shepherd Dean, Scripps College of Communication ii ABSTRACT LABOVITZ, KATIE E., M.S., June 2011, Journalism A Content Analysis of the Gender of Academy Award Nominees and Winners for Films Released between 1927 and 2010 (92 pp.) Director of Thesis: Joseph P. Bernt Using a coding instrument designed specifically for this study, the researcher analyzed the gender of Academy Award nominees and winners in all categories in which potential for direct competition between women and men existed. This study examined if there was gender discrepancy in terms of whose work was recognized in the film industry by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Data from 83 Academy Awards ceremonies honoring the films released from 1927 to 2010 yielded 1,471 cases that, when analyzed, supported the statement that more men than women have been nominated for, and winners of, Academy Awards in every category other than Costume Design. Examining the results by year of nominations, wins, and categories showed trends in the numbers of women and men nominees and winners. Even though men nominees and winners still dominate every ceremony, there is a pattern of more women being nominated for and winning Academy Awards. Recent decades have also shown an increase in the number of categories that included female Academy Award nominees. Approved: ______________________________________________________________ Joseph P. Bernt Professor of Journalism iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I first and foremost would like to thank my parents, Paul and Sue Labovitz, for their constant support and epic amounts of laughter over the past year. I love you more than I could ever express with words on a page. Thank you to my sister, Sarah, and my brother, Jason, for your encouragement and constant wit. This study would not have been possible without the guidance of my thesis committee from the E.W. Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University. Thank you to Joseph Bernt, my thesis advisor and chair, for suggesting this topic and letting me run with it. Thank you to Marilyn Greenwald, for taking an interest in my ideas and agreeing to be a part of my committee. Thank you to Mike Sweeney for being an anchor when waves got bumpy. It is beyond refreshing to know that there are journalism professors who believe that entertainment journalism is more than just what one reads in the tabloids. Thank you to my dear friend Robin Donovan, a fellow graduate journalism student, for the conversations that kept me sane and smiling throughout this entire process. I would also like to thank the women who have been involved in the film industry. It is on your shoulders that we humbly stand as we look to the future of women in film. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract.......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements........................................................................................................ iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................. vi Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................1 Problem Statement...............................................................................................5 Purpose Statement................................................................................................6 Chapter 2: Literature Review...........................................................................................7 History of Women in Film Industry ....................................................................7 Studies About Women Who Work in or on Film ..............................................10 Glass Ceiling Issues and Women in the Workplace ..........................................16 The Importance of Awards and Other Forms of Recognition ...........................23 Film Industry Guilds and Associations..............................................................29 Literature Review Summary..............................................................................37 Research Questions............................................................................................38 Chapter 3: Methods Section...........................................................................................39 Definition of Terms ...........................................................................................39 Procedure ...........................................................................................................39 Measure..............................................................................................................41 Chapter 4: Results..........................................................................................................46 Chapter 5: Discussion ....................................................................................................66 Chapter 6: Conclusion ...................................................................................................71 Works Cited ...................................................................................................................79 Appendix A: Coding Instrument....................................................................................86 Appendix B: Coding Key ..............................................................................................87 v LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Percentages of Women and Men Academy Award Nominees and Winners Per Ceremony ...............................................................................47 2. Percentages of Academy Award Nominees and Winners by Gender by Decade......52 3. Gender of Academy Award Nominees and Winners Per Category...........................55 4. Women with most Academy Award Nominations ....................................................60 5. Women with most Academy Award Wins ................................................................64 vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow likely will be known forever as the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director for her film The Hurt Locker. Her victory came in 2010, during the 82nd annual Academy Awards ceremony. Absence of female film directors winning, or even being nominated, for Best Director Oscars is not a new phenomenon. Bigelow was only the fourth woman director to be nominated throughout the Academy’s history; the first woman, Lina Wertmuller, was nominated in 1977 for Seven Beauties (1975) (The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences). Female filmmakers have existed throughout the whole of film history, though; there just have been large gaps between their successes. Besides directing, women have also been writing, producing, editing, filming, costume designing, and participating in every other production role available on a film’s crew (Cherneff, 1991). Often, these women are absent from history books or film school curricula (Acker, 1991). Film can still be considered a relatively new art form, having begun in the late 1800s. Early films were crude compared with today’s cinematic offerings, as soundless black-and-white short films with little or no editing were standard fare. However, it was during those beginning years of the film industry when women were among those in control. During the silent film era (late 1800s – 1927), women were present before and behind the camera (Dargis, 2010; Hurd, 2007). The film industry during the 1910s and through the mid 1920s “offered women opportunities that existed in no other workplace” in that, outside of the film industry, women were not as well represented in positions of authority (Mahar, 2006, p. 1). 1 Mahar (2006), citing Wid’s Year Book, noted that women “directed forty-four feature-length films, headed more than twenty production companies, wrote hundreds of produced screenplays, became the first agents, and held positions as editors and heads of scenario and publicity departments” between 1918 and 1922 (p. 2). Though filmmaking is an art form, by the mid-1920s, the filmmaking industry had become a legitimate moneymaking business. Meanwhile, movies moved from silent pictures to talkies and women’s presence behind the camera began to dwindle (Mahar, 2001). A few women, like editor-turned director Dorothy Arzner, managed to sustain successful filmmaking careers as the industry became predominantly male-driven (Dargis, 2010; The Internet Movie Database). However, screenwriting seemed to be one of the only authoritative filmmaking positions in which women maintained parity with men (Mahar, 2001). In January 1927, Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer studio head Louis B. Meyer, and a group of filmmakers and actors met and collectively created the Academy of Motion