There were 14% fewer girls and women in leading roles in 2023 films compared to the previous year, a new study by Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has found.
Their annual report, “Inequality in 1,700 Popular Films,” crunched representation stats for the 100 most popular films from 2007 to 2023 — tabulating for gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+ identity and disability.
Looking just at the top movies of 2023 — famously the year of “Barbie” — the study found that only 32% of speaking characters were girls or women and only 11% featured girls and women in at least 45% of all speaking roles.
“No matter how you examine the data, 2023 was not the ‘Year of the Woman.’ We continue to report the same trends for girls and women on screen, year in and year out,” Smith said in a Monday press statement.
“It is clear that there is either a dismissal of women as an audience for more than one or two films per year, a refusal to find ways to create meaningful change, or both. If the industry wants to survive its current moment, it must examine its failure to employ half the population on screen,” she added.
Of the Top 100 moneymaking films of ’23, only three had a female lead or co-lead who was 45 years or older, a stat that is on par with findings in 2007 and 2022.
Between ’07 and 2023, only 22 women over 65 were cast in ensemble casts and many of those roles were filled by the same 16 women, such as Jane Fonda, who was in both “80 for Brady” and “Book Club: The Next Chapter.” The only non-white actress over 65 to land a key ensemble role, according to the study, was EGOT winner Rita Moreno, who also appeared in “80 for Brady.”
The USC study similarly found few gains for women directors, writers, composers and casting agents in 2023.
