- 30/04/2021
- Category: Digital Intelligence Lab EN
Introduction
Women’s representation in cinema, both on- and off-screen, has long been a subject of debate among film practitioners and audience. The most common analysis of cinema is the male gaze theory, which argues that the portrayal of women in films is sexualized in a way that fits the erotic desire of a heterosexual male, represented in the film itself and by the male audience (Loreck, 2016). The dominance of men as the film industry practitioners who occupy important roles in filmmaking, including as a director, is arguably one of the determining factors behind the male gaze. As film, in itself and in its creation, is monopolized by the masculine, heterosexual perception, it is unsurprising that the values embodied in a range of popular films reduces women into mere sexual objects in order to satisfy the masculine gaze.
Indeed, statistics show that women are underrepresented in the creative roles of the film industry. The British Film Institute’s annual data on gender representation in the UK film industry reveals that only 4.68% of 10,942 credited directors were women (British Film Institute, 2021). The condition is not much different in Hollywood where women as directors comprised 16% and 18% respectively of the top 100 and top 250 grossing films in 2020 (Lauzen, 2020). While the two countries cannot represent the entire global statistics of women’s representation in the film industry, the United States and the United Kingdom are two of the leading film markets in which productions have reached and influenced a large mass audience around the world. According to Statista (2021), the US/Canada and the UK ranked respectively second and sixth for box office markets in 2020 based on revenue. Therefore, it can be concluded that women are significantly underrepresented as film directors in some of the major markets.
The acknowledgment of women-directed films is inseparable from their audience. They dedicate their time and energy to watch films, spread the words, and deliver appreciation when it comes to the films they deem as well-made and valuable. Third-wave feminism that focuses on the socio-cultural aspects of gender discrimination has also influenced the debate on women’s representation in popular culture, which is steered not only by the industry workers but also the audience (Garrison, 2007). With the advent and globalization of new media, more attention is being given to films by underrepresented groups such as women. Digital spaces have also become a place where audiences recommend films to one another and promote gender equality in the film industry by reviewing women-directed films.
Thus, this research aims to investigate the popularity trends of women-directed films throughout the years based on data retrieved from IMDb. First, the research will scrape data of women-directed films from IMDb and subsequently determine the number of films each year which can be classified as being popular. After data is obtained and processed, the discussion section will analyze the results and apply qualitative research to explain the findings.
Research Design
The data will be primarily based on IMDb (Internet Movie Database) data on user rating votes. IMDb is an online database that hosts information, numbers, and statistics on entertainment media such as films, TV shows, and others. It is currently the most active and sought-after database of references by media enthusiasts, where registered users are able to rate and vote for any media content they have watched. IMDb gathers information from both industry insiders and common visitors, while submitted and shown data are reviewed and checked consistently to provide high accuracy and reliability (IMDb, 2021a).
The measurement of popularity is based on the number of votes by registered users received by each individual film. This represents the number of individual users who actively participated in watching and rating the film. IMDb only includes films with at least 25,000 votes into its top-rated film list to consider the rating credible and popular enough among its users (IMDb, 2021b). This research will also use the same baseline of 25,000 votes to indicate a film as popular.
Data is retrieved by web scraping on IMDb Advanced Search page results. The following parameters were set for the generated advanced search results:
- Type/Title: Feature Film, Short
- Keyword: title-directed-by-female
- Adult Titles*: Include
- Display: Detailed
A total of 8,799 results were shown with a maximum of 250 films displayed per page. Individual pages were scraped using a method replicated from previous research done by Kurniawan (2019).
The replicated steps are as follows:
- Search results were scraped using a GET request &count=250&start=key from the URL.
- URLs were requested using urllib3.
- Datasets were retrieved by finding HTML tags designated for each content in the page.
- Data without number of user votes were cleaned.
Table 1. Table representing data contents retrieved from IMDb Advanced Search page
A final result of 3,041 films were obtained, after which data sets were grouped based on its release year and whether or not it had a minimum of 25,000 user votes. Visualization is done using flourish to provide an interactive animated visualization graph. A two-y-axis line graph is used as the data collected is continuous and temporal. The line graph is also ideal to compare trends and growth rate of variables.
Discussion
Graph 1. Two-y-axis line graph showing the aggregate number of women-directed films in a year and the number of women-directed films with at least 25,000 votes.
The graph above shows that the aggregate number of films directed by women has significantly increased over the years, with the most being 150 films released in 2017. Although no direct causality can be identified, second-wave and third-wave feminist movements that began in the 1960s and 1990s respectively continuously pushed for gender equality in the workplace and in cultural representations in the media (Smukler, 2018; Garrison, 2007). This has opened up more opportunities for women to pursue careers in public life instead of being tied to expected gender roles as caretakers at home. Thus, the impact of feminism on women’s growing role as film directors is reflected in the increase of the aggregate number of women-directed films, especially from the 1960s until today.
However, as observed, the number of films released after 2017 decreased consecutively from 2018 to 2020. While there are still more than 100 women-directed films released in 2018 and 2019, the number fell drastically to just a little over 50 in 2020. This drop can be explained by the COVID-19 pandemic which began at the beginning of 2020 that has tremendously impacted the film industry. Film productions and filmings are being held back by the social-distancing and stay-at-home policies, thus limiting the space for film creatives to proceed with filming. On top of that, the pandemic has also caused instability to the global economic conditions, thus the film industry becomes one of the most impacted areas that experience severe budget cutbacks. Going on with production would mean that health protocols have to be strictly imposed which implementation, such as additional health screening tests and health equipment on set, could burden the already tight budget (Hall & Pasquini, 2020). Additionally, as film festivals are getting cancelled or postponed, there are less spaces through which women directors could showcase their works.
An interesting pattern can be observed in the red line that represents the number of women-directed films with at least 25,000 votes. The first positive constant only surfaced in 1982 with 2 films. Thus, none of the films directed by women released before 1982 can be considered as popular according to this data. Despite the release of 24 women-directed films in 1976, 1978, and 1980, the fact that none can be classified as popular leads us to question the factor behind this trend. The period between 1950s to 1980s is known to be a historical period for women’s second-wave feminism that focuses on the issue of cultural and political discrimination in the public life. Women demanded for equality in the workplace and the erasure of the traditional gender role of women as household caretakers. The film industry was—currently still is—one highly male-dominated public space, and the increasing number of women-directed films in that period signify women’s growing active participation in the film industry amidst a strong political movement to advance for gender equality.
Graph 2. Line graph showing the percentage of women-directed films in a year with at least 25,000 votes.
Women-directed films with at least 25,000 votes only emerged in 1982. After some fluctuations, the percentage of popular women-directed films reached 10% in 1995. The following years saw the trend remaining within the bounds between the 10 and 15 percent, with exceptions in several years. This means that generally, every year after 1995, at most 1 out of every 10 films by women directors in a year can be considered as popular. As the trend remains relatively stagnant between the 10 to 15 percent between 1995 to 2019, it signifies that the popularity trend of women-directed films has not remarkably changed. The figure reached a new peak in 2020 where 19.61% percent of women-directed films are popular, meaning that almost 2 out of every 10 women-directed films released are popular. Despite this finding, it is still difficult to conclude that the popularity of women-directed films is rising as there are not enough data sets.
Graph 3. Two-y-axis line graph showing the aggregate number of films in a year with at least 25,000 votes and the number of women-directed films in a year with at least 25,000 votes.
The graph above provides a clearer image on the popularity trend of women-directed films by comparing the aggregate number of films in a year with at least 25,000 votes with the number of women-directed films in a year with at least 25,000 votes. It can be seen that there are a number of films released before 1982 which can be considered popular, albeit none are directed by women. The graph also shows the disparity of number between popular films in general and popular films directed by women. Popular films reached a peak in 2013 with 215 films, while only 8 women-directed films comprise the total number of popular films in the same year. Even in the peak year of popular women-directed films, namely 2011, 2015, and 2017, the number only reached 15 popular women-directed films. Compared with the total number of popular films in those three year—202 in 2011, 189 in 2015, and 164 in 2017—women-directed films do not even comprise 1 out of 10 popular films in those years respectively.
While both the aggregate number of popular films and popular women-directed films show an increasing trend, it is notable that the number of popular women-directed films increase at a slower trend. The number reached a value of 10 in 2007 and continued to fluctuate between the value of 10 and 20 until 2020. In contrast, the number of popular films reached the value of 200 or more in some years such as 2009, 2013, and 2014. Based on the above interpretations of the graphs, it can be derived that while both the aggregate number of women-directed films and the aggregate number of popular films increase significantly, the growth rates are not reflected at a similar level in the number of popular women-directed films.
The popularity of women-directed films have been growing slowly despite the increasing number of women-directed films and the increasing popularity of films in general because there is a distribution gap between films made by women and men directors. Slated (2016) analyzed how films by women and men directors fare in terms of revenue and how they are distributed. By using data of films released between 2010-2015, they found that films with high budget (above $25 million) are distributed equally, while women-directed films with low budget (under $25 million) face less distribution in terms of the amount of screens their films can be shown on. Low budget films by women directors especially are highly under distributed with a ratio of 242 to 646 screens compared to their men counterparts.
The lack of screens does not only limit access to women-directed films in general, but also affects the perception towards these films. As people have less access to watch women-directed films on large screens, films that could possibly satisfy the audience’s criteria for quality may not have enough audience to become popular. Additionally, low budget women-directed films also receive less production budget, causing lower production quality of their films in the first place. According to Paternot, the CEO of Slated, this becomes the perpetuating cause of the perception that women do not make enough films or that women-directed films are not as good quality as that of men directors, hindering the popularity of women-directed films in the first place (Sun, 2016).
Conclusion
Over the years, the number of films by women directors have continuously grown. Despite women’s increasing presence as an important stakeholder by being directors and the growth of films in terms of numbers, the popularity of women-directed films grows at a notably slow rate. The lack of trust on women directors by producers as reflected by the budget and distribution gap in the industry, particularly when it comes to lower budget films, is one of the explanations for the stagnant pattern of women-directed films’ popularity. Accessibility remains a problem for women-directed films, as these films are being screened less than men-directed films. Without more people gaining access to watch women-directed films, it is only inevitable that women-directed films end up gaining less popularity or that films with greater quality are not being seen enough.
Further research on this topic could probe into the correlation between the budget and popularity of women-directed films to either prove or disprove the argument that lack of funding and distribution for women-directed films is impeding the growth and outreach of women’s work and artistry in the film industry. Moreover, it is important to investigate why women-directed films released before the 1980s are not popular despite it being a historically important period for women, including women film directors. Additionally, as this research is only based on data collected from IMDb which was founded in 1990, it does not wholly represent the public’s interest in women-directed films, but rather only focuses on those who are actively participating in rating and voting for films through an online community such as IMDb.
Author: Safira Tafani Cholisi
Data processing: Vidiskiu Fortino Kurniawan
Editor: Josia Paska Darmawan
British Film Institute. (2021). BFI Filmography. Retrieved 9 April 2021, from https://filmography.bfi.org.uk/credits?filters=Zz0mZFswXT0xOTExJmRbMV09MjAxNyZkWzJdPTEmY1tjcjFdW3RdPUhvdyBtYW55IGNyZWRpdGVkIHJvbGVzIGhhdmUgdGhlcmUgYmVlbiBpbiBCcml0aXNoIGZlYXR1cmUgZmlsbXMsIGFuZCB3aGF0IGlzIHRoZSBnZW5kZXIgYmFsYW5jZT8mY1tjcjJdW2FdWzBdPWtleXJvbGVkaXJlY3Rpb25kaXJlY3Rvcm1hbGUmY1tjcjJdW2FdWzFdPWtleXJvbGVkaXJlY3Rpb25kaXJlY3RvcmZlbWFsZSZjW2NyMl1bbGZdW3J0XT1rZXlyb2xlcyZjW2NyMl1bbGZdW3NdPWRlZmF1bHQma3JbMF09JmtyWzFdPSZrclsyXT1hbmQ=.
Garrison, E. (2007). Contests for the Meaning of Third Wave Feminism: Feminism and Popular Consciousness. In S. Gillis, G. Howie & R. Munford, Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration (pp. 185-197). Palgrave Macmillan.
Hall, S., & Pasquini, S. (2020). Can there be a fairy-tale ending for Hollywood after COVID-19?. World Economic Forum. Retrieved 9 April 2021, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/impact-coronavirus-covid-19-hollywood-global-film-industry-movie-theatres/.
IMDb. (2021a). IMDb Charts: Top Rated Movies. IMDb. Retrieved 9 April 2021, from https://www.imdb.com/chart/top?ref_=nv_ch_250_4.
IMDb. (2021b). IMDb Help Center: Where does the information on IMDb come from?. IMDb. Retrieved 9 April 2021, from https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/general-information/where-does-the-information-on-imdb-come-from/GGD7NGF5X3ECFKNN?ref_=helpart_nav_24#.
Kurniawan, V. (2019). Investigating Genre Trends in Indonesian Feature Films. Center for Digital Society. Retrieved 9 April 2021, from https://cfds.fisipol.ugm.ac.id/investigating-genre-trends-in-indonesian-feature-films-2/.
Lauzen, M. (2021). The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top U.S. Films of 2020. Center for The Study of Women in Television & Film. Retrieved from https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/the-celluloid-ceiling-behind-the-scenes-employment-of-women-on-the-top-u-s-films-of-2020/
Loreck, J. (2016). Explainer: what does the ‘male gaze’ mean, and what about a female gaze?. The Conversation. Retrieved 9 April 2021, from https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486.
Smukler, M. (2018). Liberating Hollywood: Women Directors and the Feminist Reform of 1970s American Cinema. Rutgers University Press.
Statista. (2021). Leading box office markets worldwide in 2020, by revenue. Statista. Retrieved 9 April 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/243180/leading-box-office-markets-workdwide-by-revenue/.
