Posted on 02/09/2006 7:21:15 AM PST by ibheath
Study: G-Rated Hits Favor Male Characters Email this Story
Feb 9, 9:44 AM (ET)
By DAVID GERMAIN
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Male characters outnumbered females 3-to-1 overall in top-grossing G-rated films from 1990 to 2004, according to a study whose sponsors say the disparity diminishes the importance of women in children's eyes.
"We're showing kids a world that's very scantly populated with women and female characters," said actress Geena Davis, founder of See Jane, a program of the advocacy group Dads & Daughters that encourages balanced gender representation in entertainment for children.
In the 101 animated and live-action films examined, 28 percent of speaking characters were female, and just 17 percent of people in crowd scenes were female, researchers found in the study released Thursday by See Jane.
"It's important for what kids watch that as far as possible, they see the real world reflected, to see men and women, boys and girls, sharing the space," said Davis, co-star of the female-empowerment film "Thelma & Louise" and star of TV's "Commander in Chief" in which she plays the U.S. president. "They should see female characters taking up half the planet, which we do."
Davis and others involved with the study - titled "Where the Girls Aren't" - planned to discuss the findings at a forum Thursday night in Los Angeles. They said they hope to use the research to push Hollywood toward giving female characters equal time on screen and encourage parents to vote with their wallets by choosing films offering balanced gender representation.
Spokesmen at Disney, which had the biggest share of films in the study, Paramount and Universal said studio executives declined to comment.
The results came as little surprise to researchers. Studies have found similar imbalances between male and female roles in films for adults and on TV shows, and anyone who channel-surfs or goes to the movies regularly knows anecdotally that men dominate the screen.
"There seems to be nothing new under the sun here," said Stacy Smith, associate professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication, who oversaw the study. "The only thing different is it's G-rated films."
(G-rated means: General audiences. All ages admitted.)
Of the 101 films, 71 percent were animated or partly animated features. Among the films studied: "Finding Nemo,""The Lion King,""Monsters, Inc.,""Chicken Run,""The Princess Diaries,""Babe,""The Santa Clause 2" and "Toy Story."
Joe Kelly, co-founder of Dads & Daughters, said as much as he loves "Toy Story," the study made him think about the movie differently. The movie has a positive message about two characters - Tom Hanks' Woody and Tim Allen's Buzz Lightyear - overcoming their differences and working together, but it does have a flaw, Kelly said.
"It wasn't until the study that I went back and realized there's only one toy that's a female character, and it's Bo-Peep. She's standing at the window going, 'Oh, Woody, don't hurt yourself,'" Kelly said. "Not that I want 'Toy Story' to be changed. I don't think there should be any sort of gender formula. But there are other movies to be made with powerful messages featuring female characters."
Breif appearance in TSII... as she was recieved as a gift at the end of TSI....
Have these buffoons watched any Disney TV or cartoon netword or nickelodeon? it is all dominated by female characters and PC gender politics.
This article is complaing the HITS are a particular way. It does not take into account the FLOPS.
They conveniently left out:
Little Mermaid
Beauty and the Beast
Milan
I think Beauty and the Beast had a profound (positive) influence on my daughters.
It is also a world that is populated with talking animals, characters that fall off cliffs and blow each other up without getting hurt, smash each others' heads with mallets, fly, run at the speed of light, shoot lasers out of their eyes and communicate with aliens.
Last time I checked kids realized that these things didn't represent the real world.
And I suppose that if someone made a G-rated movie with female characters that were positive role models, we would hear much wailing and gnashing of teeth about how they are really negative stereotypes unless they were a bunch of Thelma and Louise types. Snow White or Cinderella just won't do because they meet Prince Charming and live happily ever after.
BTW, aren't the villains in almost all of these movies male?
No, they only "level the playing field" when they have the disadvantage. In other words, politically correct in groups get rebalanced in their favor. If they're winning, nothing is done, mentioned, discussed. So there will be more homosexuals in movies but never a mention of number of Christians.
Some people don't have anything better to do than counting female faces in crowd scenes.
Make a movie featuring a female doing macho stuff -- maybe a pirate movie or something. Betcha that would do boffo at the box
I'm glad I'm not the only one who hated that movie....They HAD to go on the trap..they HAD to kill the guy...they HAD to rob the banks...they HAD to drive off the cliff. That's a great message for girls...that you have no responsibility in your life to make good decisions, and then blame everything on men. I was furious when I walked out of that movie. I went with a girlfriend who was all gaga over it...she ceased being my friend not long after that...guess why? She told me that after going to a shrink for a year, she realized that she had been molested as a child...that her memory had been suppressed and that was the reason for all her problems. I told her to grow up, I walked out the door and never came back.
"I don't think there should be any sort of gender formula."
Actually, that's exactly what they are suggesting. Instead of making their own 50% boy 50% girl worldview film, they want to organize a boycott against other film producers and force them to do the work.
Stop criticizing other's artwork and MAKE YOUR OWN. Put yourself out there in the public market and sell what you believe in!
Actually, all the villains in Snow White and Cinderlla are female.
I wish it were a joke.
In 1970 or '71, LOOK Magazine published an article about up-and-coming young actresses and the difficulties they faced in finding suitable female roles in Hollywood.
Farrah Fawcett complained that there weren't enough female roles, and that male actors got more opportunities than female actresses.
More than a third of a century later, the same old whine in the same old bottles.
That was the sister of "Sid", the evil kid in the first movie, not Andy's little sister.
(Ok, so? I have seen these movies a couple hundred times each over the last 12 years. :)
Judging from the closets in my house, they take up more than half.
52% of all movies made from 1998-2003 were R-rated movies.
G rated films constituted 4 percent of total films made. Yet they were 11 TIMES! more profitable than R rated movies.
http://www.dove.org/Frames.asp?URL=research/stats.htm
Would anyone who belives the entire world view offered to children comes from movies please raise their hand.
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