BASIC REPRESENTATION SCORE: 0
FEMALE AGENCY/POWER/AUTHORITY SCORE: 0
[no significant representation of women in authority]
THE MALE GAZE SCORE: 0
[no issues]
GENDER/SEXUALITY SCORE: 0
[no issues]
WILDCARD SCORE: 0
Is there anything either positive or negative in the film’s representation of women not already accounted for here? (points will vary)
No.
TOTAL SCORE: 0
IS THE FILM’S DIRECTOR FEMALE? Yes (Angelina Jolie) (does not impact scoring)
IS THE FILM’S SCREENWRITER FEMALE? No (does not impact scoring)
BOTTOM LINE: Set almost entirely among a crew of WWII bombardiers and a prisoner-of-war camp, women are all but absent from this film. (Even the protagonist’s mother, in the brief scenes of his childhood, isn’t really a character in any true sense of the word.) And that’s okay. Calling for women to be better represented on film doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for stories that are all about men.
Click here for the ranking of 2014’s Oscar-nominated films for female representation.
Click here for the ongoing ranking of 2015’s films for female representation.
NOTE: This is not a “review” of Unbroken! It is simply an examination of how well or how poorly it represents women. (A movie that represents women well can still be a terrible film; a movie that represents women poorly can still be a great film.) Read my review of Unbroken.
See the full rating criteria. (Criteria that do not apply to this film have been deleted in this rating for maximum readability.)
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