2Fer - Sydney M.

INEQUALITY IN THE FILM INDUSTRY

There are many talented women in the film-making industry, but not as many as men. Even with this being, why aren’t the women mentioned as often? There has always been an inequality in the work area when it comes to men and women. Women have come so far from the past but still aren’t treated with the same respect and fairness as men. Women get paid less and don’t have as many opportunities overall. This goes for every work field that isn’t specifically a “woman’s” job, but why film? A lot of what happens in the film business is behind the scenes and is mostly on the computer, so why do people think that it still isn’t fit for women to handle? The Huffington Post and even the New York Film Academy have taken notice to the issue of gender inequality in the business because it is a rising issue. The problems range from how many lines female actresses get in movies to the 284 million dollar pay gap between them and the highest ranked male actors.  Ultimately, the state of women both behind and in front of the camera reflects that women are still expected to stay in their place. To basically just leave the hard work to the men.

A study that was done by Stephen Follows talks about gender split within film crews from between 1994 and 2013. People might think that with almost 20 years passed that things would have drastically changed. From 1994, the average amount of women on the film crew were 22.6% while the amount of men was 77.4%. When the numbers were recalculated in 2013 the percentage had actually decreased with only 21.8% of film crews being women. This percentage might as well be 0 when looked into deeper, because Women tend to have the less important jobs. Not that costumes and makeup don’t matter, it’s just not what makes the movie completely. When the percentages are broken down into specific categories such as wardrobe, casting, and makeup, otherwise know as the “easier” and more “girly” things, the numbers are high. 68.8% of the crew for makeup is female while only 31.2% percent is male. 66.5% of the casting department is female with males at only 33.5%. As the jobs on the list get harder or more “important”, the amount of females in the department decrease. For camera/ electrical only 5.1% of the crew is women while males come in at 94.9%. This article doesn’t even get into the inequality between men and women on the screen, from speaking roles to amount of nudity.

The film industry has always been a man's business and always will be at this rate of change. Everything in the industry is for what benefits or interest men. Male actors get paid millions more, they have more speaking roles, they don’t have to take off their clothes as often, they even get nominated for awards more. In the New York Film Academy’s study they found some very interesting statistics. From 2007-2012 in the top 500 movies 26.2% of female actresses got naked, while only 9.4% of men did. The amount of nudity in female teenager has even increased by 32.5 percent. Only 7.0% of men wore sexually revealing clothes while 28.8% of women did. Out of all of the 500 films, only 30.8% of speaking roles were female. The forbes 2013 list of the top ten highest paid actors and actresses, females made a collective 181 million dollars while men made 465 million.

The most disappointing part about this information that there isn’t much to do about it. At least not yet. This issue matter because it about time that women are treated with the equal respect that they deserve. People brush the issue off and hope that it will solve itself, but it’s time that a change was made. As soon as more and more people are no longer blind to this issue, women can the equality that they have been working to get for years. Even though this unfairness is something people know about, the seriousness of the issue goes unnoticed and it’s time that people started to pay attention.

SOURCES

SOURCE #1:

https://www.nyfa.edu/film-school-blog/gender-inequality-in-film/

Zurko, About The Author: Nicholas, and Nicholas Zurko. "Gender Inequality in Film - An Infographic." New York Film Academy Blog. New York Film Academy, 2015. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

SOURCE #2:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-ts-laham-/the-celluloid-ceiling-tru_b_11389544.html

Laham, Martha T.S. "The Film Industry's Problem Of Gender Inequality Is Worse Than You Think." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

SOURCE #3:

http://stephenfollows.com/reports/Gender_Within_Film_Crews-stephenfollows_com.pdf

  Follows, Stephen. "Gender Within Film Crews." StephenFollows.com. Stephen Follows, n.d. Web.    16 Oct. 2016.

SOURCE #4:

http://wmc.3cdn.net/2e85f9517dc2bf164e_htm62xgan.pdf

Women’s Media Center. "The Status of Women in the U.S Media 2014." Women’s Media Center, 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.