According to a study released Friday, the ratio of males to females in Oscar-nominated movies is roughly that pictured on this Ocean's Eleven graphic. (The male to female ratio here is 4:1; the male to female ratio in Oscar-nominated best pics over the last 30 years is 3:1.) I feel like a broken record broken record broken record reporting on this disparity year after year. Twenty years ago, studio executives said that this disparity existed -- that actors were more numerous in films and were paid higher salaries --because they were in action/adventures and those movies made more in the global box office. Ten years ago, studio executives said that this disparity existed because women moviegoers preferred seeing men to women on screen. (My argument to the execs both times was that moviegoers could see only what was at the multiplex, and that, by and large, were male-driven narratives.) What's the Twinkie Defense going to be this time? How should/can the movie industry remediate this gender/diversity imbalance?
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Carrie Rickey has been The Philadelphia Inquirer’s film critic for 21 years. She has reviewed films as diverse as “Water” and “The Waterboy,” profiled celebrities from Lillian Gish to Will Smith, and reported on technological beakthroughs from the video revolution to the rise of movies on demand. Her reviews are syndicated nationwide and she is a regular contributor to Entertainment Weekly, MSNBC and NPR. Rickey’s essays appear in numerous anthologies, including “The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll,” “The American Century,” and the Library of America’s “American Movie Critics.”
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on February 24, 2008 4:55 PM.
The previous post in this blog was Best. Oscar. Speech. Ever..
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Comments (6)
Because the industry is dominated by men and men are generally jackasses? I'm going with that.
Posted by JDM | February 24, 2008 8:43 PM
Posted on February 24, 2008 20:43
Thank You japanese domestic market for your insightful & well balanced remarks. By the way i think we have to go back to the writers (yes most of the films being made still have/had one of those) on this one are they unable to right good female parts because they are mostly men?
Or perhaps its just that male actors have longer more proliferate careers on average (yes that goes back to male industry domination) & can therefore be more "recognised" by the academy as having more "range".
Posted by USDM | February 25, 2008 10:23 AM
Posted on February 25, 2008 10:23
I don't think we can easily say the disparity in women's roles is because men are in charge now for the simple reason that men have always been in charge. In fact, I think there are more women screenwriters, directors, and executives now than there were in the 1930s and '40s, which was generally regarded as the time when women's pictures were a dominant genre in movies.
My theory, utterly unprovable: men liked women more in the 1930s and '40s. A depressing, but hard to avoid conclusion, based on the movies of our era versus that era.
A related malady: the male of the species wanted to be a grown-up in the 1930s and '40s. Not so much nowadays. At least judging by Hollywood movies of the past quarter century, it's tough not to believe that's true.
Put those two conditions together, and you've got a bunch of writers, directors, and execs who don't know much about, and really don't want to know much about, women, and assume the mass audience feels the same way.
(I've tried very hard to avoid sweeping generalizations here.)
Posted by wwolfe | February 25, 2008 2:10 PM
Posted on February 25, 2008 14:10
I liked my sweeping generalization then and I like it now. No flip flopping for me. I'm standing pat. LOL.
Posted by JDM | February 25, 2008 2:40 PM
Posted on February 25, 2008 14:40
Wwolfe,
In the decade between 1929--1939 14 women were nominated as best screenwriter.
In the decade 1989--1999, 12 women were nominated in the screenwriting categories. I'm not sure that things are better for women now than they were then.
Posted by Carrie | February 25, 2008 2:52 PM
Posted on February 25, 2008 14:52
Send our TROOPS home NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Anonymous | May 5, 2008 7:46 AM
Posted on May 5, 2008 07:46