It's a Man's (Celluloid) World: Portrayals of Female Characters in the Top Grossing U.S. Films of 2022. In 2022, 33% of films featured female protagonists, up 2 percentage points from 31% in 2021. Women comprised 38% of major characters, up 3 percentage points from 35% in 2021.
Women also made up 38% of the major characters – up from 35% in 2021, and 37% of all speaking roles – up from 34% the year before. The percentage of female speaking roles last year was an all-time high since the school began collecting data in 2002, when they received only 28% of all speaking roles.
In 2022, women accounted for 14.6 percent of all movie directors in the United States. This figure marked an decrease compared to the previous year, which represented the highest share of female directors recorded in the past decade.
Distribution of lead actors in movies in the U.S. 2011-2022, by gender. A 2022 report found that 38.6 percent of lead actors in films in the United States that year were female. A decade earlier, the share stood at 25.6 percent.
The percentage of U.S. top grossing films featuring sole female protagonists increased slightly from 31% in 2021 to 33% (33.3%) in 2022. 52% (52.2%) of films featured sole male protagonists, and 14% (14.4%) had ensembles or a combination of male and female protagonists (see Figure 1).
Why Modern Movies Suck - The Strong Female Character
Is acting male or female dominated?
According to The Guardian, in 2019 the number of women working in the film industry reached an all-time high, but men still outnumbered them four to one in key roles on film sets. In the classroom, I have also observed that in a section of 20 students, about four out of the 20 identify as female.
For while both male and female actors peak between 30 and 39, and while the 40s remain fertile territory for all actors, there's a definite gender skewing towards older male actors and younger female actors. Almost 25% of female actors book most of their roles in their 20s, against 11.6% of male actors.
Demographic information on Actors in the US. The workforce of Actors in 2020 was 32,753 people, with 45.9% woman, and 54.1% men. The average age of male Actors in the workforce is 39 and of female Actors is 37.6, and the most common race/ethnicity for Actors is White.
According to the 2019 Celluloid Ceiling report, a long-running annual study of the film industry, 21% of the directors, writers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers working on that year's top grossing 250 films in the USA were women. It's a figure on the up, but one that has risen only 4% since 1998.
The Chair of Time's Up UK, Dame Heather Rabbats, gave the BBC two reasons for the lack of women in directing roles. First, 'people tend to recruit in their own image': the majority of directors are men, and they hire men. Secondly, '[directing] has not been a role where women have seen many other women role models'.
Horror comes out in the middle of the pack, with just 5.9% of horror directors being women. This is compared to 15.2% for Romance, 12.4% for Music and 12.3% for Drama. But Horror does out-perform many genres, including Action (2.6% women), Sci-fi (2.8%) and Adventure films (3.6%).
So, how have female movie leads evolved in comparison to male movie leads, if at all? We analyzed fifty box office hits per decade for seven decades (1950–2020) to find out. According to our findings, the movie genres that feature the most female-led movies are action, comedy, and drama.
Give her strengths: A good female character will have strengths. This doesn't mean she needs to be physically strong. There are plenty of other strengths your character can have: intelligence, charisma, intuitiveness. The strengths readers can't physically see are some of the best, because they can be unexpected.
In 2022, women comprised 26% of directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers. By role, women accounted for 8% of cinematographers, 22% of directors, 23% of writers, 27% of producers, 29% of executive producers, and 30% of editors.
United States. The cinema of the United States, often generally referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. The United States cinema (Hollywood) is the oldest film industry in the world and also the largest film industry in terms of revenue.
The Motion Picture Association of America have released statistics that show that women watch more films than men. We make up 51% of the population, and 52% of movie goers, and this statistic has not changed much in years.
Is there a lack of diversity in the film industry?
Women and people of color have made progress in the key, powerful roles of director and film writer, but are still vastly underrepresented. Women are less than 22% of directors and 33% of film writers. And both male and female people of color represent 30% of directors and 32% of film writers.
Who is the most underrepresented group in Hollywood?
Altogether, individuals who identify as having a disability remain vastly underrepresented, he said. Comprising 26% of the adult U.S. population, disabled adults made up 9.1% and 6.1% of leads starring in the top theatrical and streaming films last year, respectively.
Hollywood can make any actor look imposing by shooting from a low angle or building sets with short door frames. But the fact is that we want our heroes big and our villains bigger, and the average male actor is about the same size as the average American male — roughly 5 foot 9 1/2.
In fact, she says, “those that are able to work later into their lives find themselves in a much smaller pool of talent than when they were younger. With experience and acting chops, there are still plenty of opportunities in theater, TV, film, and commercials for the older actor.” In other words, there's no age limit.
It may not be smooth sailing to begin with, but perseverance and persistence can pay off. So remember, it's never too late to become an actor and follow your passion. And, as they say in the theatre, break a leg!
Is it possible to get into acting at 30, 40, even 50 years old? For many now-famous actors, the answer is a resounding “yes.” There are plenty of real-life actors who started their careers late, including Jane Lynch and Alan Rickman.
The word actor refers to a person who acts regardless of gender while actress refers specifically to a female. The Dictionary states that originally the term Actor was used for both sexes.
Cross-gender acting, also called cross-gender casting or cross-casting, refers to actors or actresses portraying a character of the opposite sex. It is distinct from both transgender and cross-dressing character roles.
