After a two-year hiatus, the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative is back with its latest Inclusion in the Director’s Chair report.
The latest study takes an intersectional deep dive into the annual 100-highest grossing movies from 2007 to 2021, for a sample size of 1,500 films and 1,542 directors over the past 15 years. The topline: Women and directors from the global majority reached new highs during the pandemic, with female filmmakers peaking at 15 percent representation in 2020 (12.7 percent last year) and nonwhite helmers leaping from a 17.5 percent share of directing gigs in 2020 to 27.3 percent last year.
“This is the first sustained increase we have seen in the percentage of women directors since 2007,” AI2 founder Stacy L. Smith said in a statement. Even when we examined several different samples of top-grossing films to account for the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the results held. This tells us that we are seeing a true increase in the percentage of women directors of top-grossing films, though there is still room for growth to match the 51 percent of women who comprise the U.S. population.
To wit, across the entire 15-year span, women occupied 5.4 percent of directors’ chairs and filmmakers from the global majority 14.8 percent (for comparison’s sake, people from the global majority currently comprise 39.9 percent of the U.S. population). And the proportion of directors who are women of color — just 15 people, helming 18 movies in 15 years — has stagnated at less than 2 percent.
“It’s clear from the data that the perception of a woman director in Hollywood is a white woman, while underrepresented means an underrepresented man,” Smith said. “Yet our analysis also shows that women of color receive the highest average and median Metacritic scores for their work, outperforming white men and women as well as men of color. It’s not the quality of work by women of color but ongoing biases and prejudices that impede progress.”
As in years past, the AI2I study examined the roles played by the six major and two mini-major studios behind the films. Although Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. have released at least one film directed by a person from the global majority (and the latter two studios have also included at least one woman director on their slates) in each of the past seven years, there has not been a single year in which all eight companies did so. Sony has distributed the most movies directed by women of color over the past seven years – eight – while Paramount and Lionsgate have not released a single one. And the four streaming platforms that AI2 looked at (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and HBO Max) had greater percentages of women and directors from the global majority helming their original films than the theatrical studios did.
The pandemic awards seasons have coincided with unprecedented recognition for historically ignored directors, and the AI2 report has updated its findings accordingly. Over the past 15 awards cycles, 8.9 percent of Oscar, Golden Globe, DGA and Critics’ Choice nominations have gone to women (including Jane Campion’s Academy Awards nom yesterday) and 19.4 percent to helmers from the global majority. In the overlap of these two slivers are three women: Ava DuVernay (for Selma), Regina King (for One Night in Miami) and Chloe Zhao (for Nomadland).
In conjunction with its annual recommendations in this year’s report, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative is also unveiling its AI2 Accelerator, the first program from the group that will offer direct support for historically excluded filmmakers. The accelerator will award one $25,000 scholarship to a woman of color enrolled at a U.S. film school to help make a student film during her senior year. Applications will open later this spring, with a recipient announced in advance of the 2022-23 academic year.
“The AI2 Accelerator is designed to launch a next-generation filmmaker by providing a suite of resources: financial, relational and informational,” Smith said. “With this program, we are specifically targeting the place where we have seen the least progress over the last decade and a half and taking aim at the biases that continue to thwart inclusive hiring.”
In addition to the grant money, the Accelerator recipient will also meet with a starry lineup of industry advisors, including Universal Filmed Entertainment Group chair Donna Langley, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke, Universal Music Publishing Group chair and CEO Jody Gerson, Halle Berry, Melina Matsoukas, Kathryn Bigelow, Bad Robot co-CEOs J.J. Abrams and Katie McGrath, Rogers & Cowan PMK co-president of talent Lindsay Galin, M88 president and managing director Phillip Sun, CAA board member and motion picture group co-head Maha Dakhil, Film Independent board chair and Gamechanger Films co-founder Brenda Robinson and purpose coach Jay Shetty.
Source: Hollywood
