Gender Equality Advocate Says New Study Could Make Movie Making More Inclusive, Urges More Women Participation

Joes Issa                                                  Frozen 2013

Encouraged by a study which found that films with female leads that pass the Bechdel test did better than male-led equivalents at every budget level, Champion for gender equality Joe Issa is urging more women to enter traditional male-dominated professions.

“I think the study should encourage more women to enter the male-dominated profession both in front and behind the camera. It should also inform the decisions of movie executives and help remove the stigma that women are a risk in a male-dominated world,” said Issa

The report, which is compiled by media research agency Shift7 in collaboration with leading agency CAA, assessed the revenue for 350 high-grossing films released between 2014 and 2017, and found that the average results for female-led films did best, at every budget level.

CAA agent Christy Haubegger reportedly said in a statement: “Women comprise half the box office, yet there has been an assumption in the industry that female-led films were generally less successful. We found that the data does not support that assumption.”

In reinforcing the findings, the report also reportedly analysed films that passed the Bechdel test – the informal measure that records if female characters interact and have agency in films independent of male characters.

The report reportedly concluded that, again, Bechdel test-passing films also outperformed those that failed. These included all the films that passed $1 billion at the global box office in the time period (though not all are female-led), including three Star Wars films (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and Rogue One), Beauty and the Beast and Finding Dory. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey from 2012 was the last $1 billion-plus film not to pass the Bechdel test.

Amy Pascal, former head of Sony Pictures, reportedly said: “This is powerful proof that audiences want to see everyone represented on screen … Decision-makers in Hollywood need to pay attention to this.”

Producer Liza Chasin is said to have added: “The Bechdel test is a low bar to clear, and it’s surprising how many movies don’t clear it. Understandably, the studios think about the bottom line, so it’s great to see a growing body of data that should make it easier for executives to make more inclusive decisions.”

The Bechdel test (/ˈbɛkdəl/ BEK-dəl) is a measure of the representation of women in fiction. It asks whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added.

Sometimes called the Mo Movie Measure or Bechdel Rule, the test was popularized by Alison Bechdel’s comic Dykes to Watch Out For, in a 1985 strip called The Rule.

It sounds like a simple enough request that all movies should be able to pass with flying colors, but a surprising number fall flat. (The entire original Star Wars trilogy, for one, only contains three female characters — and none of them ever say a word to each other.)

Many films are said to have passed the Bechdel Test and they include classic movies like Mean Girls, Bring It On, The Princess Diaries, Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Titanic and Frozen.

Some Blockbuster films that fail the Bechdel Test are The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003), Ratatouille (2007), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Avatar (2009), The Social Network (2010), 21 Jump Street (2012), The Avengers (2013), and The Imitation Game (2014).