User:Morgan Glasson/Women in film

Pay and Representation:

At the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, 82 women stood up for gender inequality within the festival. They all gathered on the steps during the premiere of a film called “Girls in the Sun,” directed by Eva Husson, who was one of the few female directors nominated for “Palme d’Or” award. There were specifically 82 women, because that is the amount of female directors who have been nominated for awards at Cannes over the years, compared to 1,645 male directors nominated films.

Feminist Film Theory:

In films, there are power levels between male and female characters, and according to Jean-Anne Sutherland, a Sociology professor at UNCW, there are specific types of power structures in film. The different types are; power-over, power-to, and power-with. Power-over, when referring to a female character having “power-over,” a male character, has the female character being portrayed as having more “masculine,” in their physical appearance or interactions. This can be shown more in social class and race, and most of the time this is seen in “working class black and white women.”

Power-to, or “empowerment and resistance,” can be seen in films mainly about overcoming obstacles and going against “social norms.” Films that display “power-to,” mostly have middle and working class white women at the center of the story. Power-with, show an equal balance of power, or male and female characters working with each other rather than against each other.

Bechdel Test

According to a study by Andrew M. Linder of Skidmore College, and Melissa Lindquist and Julie Arnold of Concordia College, they researched how well movies that pass the Bechdel Test, do in the box office. In this study they discovered that, of most of the popular movies from 200-2009, a little less than half passed the Bechdel Test. These films also didn’t make as much money as more male dominated films or films that failed the Bechdel Test. Although, they don’t believe it’s because people don’t want to see female characters at the center of feature films, but rather because the films that do pass the Bechdel Test have a lower budget. Because of their lower production budget, they earn quite a bit less in the box office.

Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

The organization itself says they have the research spanning over 28+ years, on “gender prevalence in family entertainment.” Some of their “key findings,” from over the years include; “Gender Bias in Advertising,” “Female Characters in Film and TV Motivate Women to Be More Ambitious, More Successful, and Courageous,” “Representations of Women in STEM Characters in Media,” and so much more.