and Barbie Directed by Greta Gerwig and focusing on a diverse female cast, the film became the highest-grossing film of 2023, and some may argue that its success reflected the diversity and inclusion of films that year .
But according to the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s 2023 annual report, that’s not the case.
The study found that compared to the same sample in 2022, fewer girls and women were starring in leading roles in the top 100 films in 2023, down to 30%, a 14% drop from the previous year and the same statistic as in 2010 .
“No matter how you examine the data, 2023 is not the ‘Year of the Woman.’ We continue to report on the same trends for girls and women on screen year after year,” said Annenberg Inclusion Initiative founder Stacey L. Smith in a statement. “It’s clear that either more than one or two movies a year treat women as viewers, they refuse to find ways to create meaningful change, or both. If the industry wants to survive in this current moment, it needs to One has to look at their own failure to employ half the screen population.
Annenberg analyzed the top 1,700 grossing films from 2007 to 2023, with a specific focus on the top 100 grossing films in 2023, examining a total of 75,328 voiced characters to explore gender, race and ethnicity, LGBTQ+ identity and Portrayal of characters with disabilities.
Only 11% of 2023’s top movies are gender-balanced, or have girls and women in speaking roles in 45-54.9%. By 2023, less than one percent of characters will be non-binary.
The report also noted a decline in intersectional inclusion. In 2023, there were only 14 movies starring women of color, down from 18 in 2022, but up from 2007 movies starring women of color. In 2023, there is only one movie starring a woman of color who is 45 or older.
The report included a “stealth analysis” that looked at how many of the 100 films reviewed were missing girls and women from certain racial and ethnic groups.
In 2023, 99 of these 100 films lacked an American Indian/Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander female character. Additionally, 81 films did not feature Middle Eastern/North African female characters, 62 films did not feature Hispanic/Latinx female characters, and 56 films did not depict multiracial girls or women. Additionally, 49 films lacked Asian female characters and 39 films lacked black female characters. By comparison, there were only 12 films without white girls or women on screen.
In terms of behind-the-scenes participation, the proportion of female directors in hit movies in 2023 (12%) is not significantly higher than in 2022 (9%), but it is a significant increase from 3% in 2007.
The study found that 98 women directed films between 2007 and 2023, compared with 878 male directors during the same period. Only 25 of them are women of color. Since 2007, there have been only 123 films made by women. In 2023, only 12.1% of the directors of the 100 highest-grossing films were women, while 87.9% were men. In terms of the racial diversity of the 2023 pipeline of filmmakers, only 21.6% are from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, while 78.4% are white.
The writers of the top-grossing movies of 2023 are finding similar issues. Of the 303 writers, 84.8% were male, while only 15.2% were female. The study noted that this situation has not changed much over the years, with the percentage of women receiving writing credits in 2022 at 16.3, up only slightly from 11.2% in 2007.
Looking by gender, there was a slight increase in diverse racial representation in leading roles, with films starring protagonists or co-leads from underrepresented ethnic or racial groups increasing to 37 in 2022, up from 31 in 2022. Progress is only slightly better than the 35 in 2022.
Annenberg found that the proportion of white characters among all speaking characters has dropped significantly, from 62% in 2022 to 56% in 2023, both down from 78% in 2007.
However, the share of Asians increased significantly from 2007 to 2023, from 3% to 18%, but this is only a slight increase from 16% in 2022. There were no other significant changes over the years.
But the percentage of underrepresented people (44%) is similar to the percentage of the U.S. population who identify with an underrepresented racial/ethnic group (41.1%).
As for on-screen disability representation, only 2.2% of speaking or named characters in the top 100 movies of 2023 were depicted as having a disability, unchanged from 2.4% in 2015. Forty-two movies lack characters with disabilities; And 75 movies lack female characters with disabilities.
In terms of LGBTQ+ on-screen inclusion, 2023’s highest-grossing film of the year didn’t feature a trans character. Overall, the number of queer characters is also down from 2022, with 87 LGBTQ+ characters in the biggest movies of the year. Last year’s top movies featured 60 LGBTQ+ characters: 20 were lesbian, 31 were gay, 8 were bisexual and only 1 was of another sexual orientation.
