What Movie Makers Say About Gender

Alexandra Pelosi directed the Nancy Pelosi documentary. Similarly, Lizzie Gottlieb directed the recently released Turn Every Page and women were one of the two producers and two directors of Fauci. Indeed, statistics indicate that, increasingly, women are doing documentaries.

Elsewhere, though, films are not female friendly.

Women in Film Jobs

The data that follow are from San Diego State’s Dr. Martha Lauzen and USC Annenberg’s Dr. Stacy Smith.

The Lauzen statistics came from her most recent paper on the females that make the films. Looking at a list that included directors and producers, cinematographers and editors, she focused on full length documentaries and narrative films at 20 major film festivals in the U.S. between July 2021 and June 2022. Meanwhile, most of our Smith facts came a 2020 paper covering 1300 top films from 2007 though 2019.

1. Directors

Dr. Lauzen’s film festival facts show the increasing presence of female documentary makers:

However, reflecting a male to female ratio of 10 to 6, most of the narrative films in the Lauzen study had male directors:

Similarly, the Stacy Smith 2007 to 2019 study showed egregious underepresentation of women:

2. Other Behind-the-Scenes Jobs

This graphic from the Lauzen study shows vastly more men with behind-the-scenes roles for narrative films and documentaries:

Like Dr. Lauzen, but in her earlier study, Dr. Smith found film production was not female friendly:

Our Bottom Line: Expectations Bias

Citing her concern, a behavioral economist would go straight to our expectations bias. Stated very simply, an expectations bias connects what we are used to seeing with what we think we will see. It can shape how we act and what we accept as normal. In film it not only can indicate current jobs but also show us why men hire more men.

Through behind-the-scenes jobs, the movies are perpetuating an expectations bias that ripples far beyond a screen. Still though, citing  “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Nope,” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” NY Times movie critic Manohla Dargis said she sensed a shift toward more women. Let’s hope she is right.

My sources and more: Yesterday’s NY Times provided the inspiration for today’s post. From there, I returned to Annenberg’s Stacy Smith and my new go-to person for women and film, San Diego State’s Dr. Martha Lauzen. Dr. Smith and her co-researchers had this 2020 research brief and this one from 2019. In addition, this study from Dr. Lauzen (at the Women’s Media Center) came in handy.