Hollywood chose a record number of women to give the lead in major films in 2020, according to a new study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University.
Women represented 16% of the directors who worked on the 100 highest grossing films in 2020, a high point for female representation behind the camera. That’s an increase of 12% in 2019 and a modest 4% in 2018, and a sign that pressure on studios to promote more filmmakers may be resulting in tangible changes.
Of course, this was a year like no other, a year that saw the theater business practically paralyzed for months due to the coronavirus. It also meant that some of the biggest budget films with filmmakers, like “The Eternals” by Chloe Zhao and “Black Widow” by Cate Shortland, had their releases postponed to 2021. Zhao directed the aspiring Oscar “Nomadland” while other women filmmakers such as Cathy Yan (“Birds of Prey”) and Patty Jenkins (“Wonder Woman 1984”) oversaw some of the most high profile releases of the year.
The study, published two decades ago and supervised by the center’s director, Dr. Martha Lauzen, tried to explain the disruptions in the exhibition sector. For the first time, the study also tracked the employment of women in films included in the Digital Entertainment Group’s “Table of the 20 most watched at home” from March to December 2020. Women represented 19% of all directors, writers, executive producers , producers, editors, and filmmakers working on films watched at home, which was slightly less than the 21% achieved in the highest grossing films. Nearly 10% of the directors who worked on films watched at home were women, against 16% of filmmakers in the biggest box office hits.
“The good news is that we have now seen two consecutive years of growth for women who drive,” said Lauzen in a statement. “This breaks a recent historical pattern in which the numbers tend to rise one year and fall the next. The bad news is that 80% of the best films still don’t have a woman in charge. ”
The image may have been brighter for filmmakers, but it gets darker the deeper you go into the credits. In the 100 highest grossing films, women occupied 28% of production positions and 21% of executive production positions, an increase of two percentage points in both categories. Women represented 18% of editors, 12% of writers and 3% of filmmakers. The number of filmmakers increased by one percentage point, but the number of screenwriters and publishers dropped eight percentage points and five points, respectively.
The study also found that films with at least one female director were much more likely to hire women to be publishers, filmmakers or other important roles behind the scenes. For example, in films with filmmakers, women represented 53% of screenwriters. In films with exclusively male directors, women represented 8% of the screenwriters. Women were editors in 39% of films with filmmakers and only 18% of films with men, and composed the music for 13% of filmmakers’ films and only 4% of films by male directors.
Although the industry has progressed, most films (67%) employed zero to four women in important roles behind the scenes. In contrast, more than 70% of the main films employed 10 or more men as directors, writers and other important positions.
“This imbalance is impressive,” said Lauzen.