this is why Where Are the Women? is so necessary
Judging from some of the comments my Where Are the Women? posts are generating (some of which I’ve deleted because this is not an issue that has to be adjudicated over and over again), some people don’t seem to believe that there is any reason to complain about how women are represented onscreen. But once again, we have solid proof of a major problem. From The Washington Post:
So says the latest study by San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. According to the center, only 12 percent of protagonists in the top 100 highest-grossing domestic films of 2014 were female. In 2002, it was 16 percent.
Half the human race is at the center of a major movie only 12 percent of the time. But it gets worse… although not in any way that will surprise anyone who has been paying attention:
These numbers are, of course, in the aggregate. With Where Are the Women? I’m drilling down on a movie-by-movie basis to show where, precisely, the problems are (and, by extension, how those problems could be avoided). I hope the project will make the near absence of women in film hit home in a way that statistics have a harder time doing.