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Women made up 10.6% of directors of the top
movies last year, more than double the percentage in 2018 and
the highest percentage of female directors in the past decade, a
study by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of
Southern California found.
They comprised 20% of all directors, writers, producers, editors
and cinematographers on the top 100 grossing films of 2019, up
from 16% in 2018, according to a second report by the Center for
the study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State
University.
"This is the first time we have seen a shift in hiring practices
for female directors in 13 years," said Annenberg study author
Stacy L. Smith.
Greta Gerwig's "Little Women" and Olivia Wilde's "Booksmart"
also helped propel the record numbers.
The push for more diversity in directing and producing roles has
been a major topic in Hollywood for more than a decade, and was
given extra impetus by the #MeToo and Time's Up movements,
fueled by the sexual harassment scandal that has roiled the
entertainment industry.
Yet only one woman - Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker" in
2010 - has ever won a best director Oscar, and only four women
have been nominated for Hollywood's top awards since 2008,
including the Oscars, Golden Globes, Directors Guild Awards, and
Critics Choice Awards.
No women were included in the director nominees for the 2020
Golden Globe awards which take place on Sunday, and both Smith
and Martha Lauzen in San Diego said more work needed to be done.
"Men continue to outnumber women 4 to 1 in key behind-the-scenes
roles. It's odd to talk about reaching historic highs when women
remains so far from parity," Lauzen said in a statement.
"We won't know if 2019 was a single good year or the beginning
of an upward trend until we see the numbers for 2020 and 2021,"
Lauzen added.
2020 is already off to a good start with four of the year's most
anticipated blockbusters - "Mulan," Wonder Woman 1984," "Black
Widow" and "Eternals" - directed by women.
Smith singled out Netflix Inc for praise, saying that 20% of the
streaming platform's 2019 directors of U.S. fictional films were
women.
"Legacy studios must recognize that the world and the talent
pipeline looks vastly different from their hiring practices and
act to reflect that reality," she said.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
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