Where Are the Women? Woman in Gold

Too often, movies are about men grappling with their feelings about things that happen to women. This movie adds the woman’s story back into the mix.

BASIC REPRESENTATION SCORE: +10

+10

Is there a female character with significant screen time who grows, changes, and/or learns something over the course of the story? (for an ensemble cast, or a film with a male protagonist) [why this matters]

FEMALE AGENCY/POWER/AUTHORITY SCORE: +6

Is there a female character with insignificant screen time in a position of authority? [why this matters]

More than one? [why this matters]

Is there a woman whose role could easily have been played by a man? [why this matters]

More than one? [why this matters]

THE MALE GAZE SCORE: 0

[no issues]

GENDER/SEXUALITY SCORE: -5

-5

Is there a female character who is primarily defined by her emotional and/or sexual relationship with a man or men? [why this matters]

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: +11

IS THE FILM’S DIRECTOR FEMALE? No (does not impact scoring)

IS THE FILM’S SCREENWRITER FEMALE? No (does not impact scoring)

BOTTOM LINE: Quite often, a movie that should have been about something that happened to a woman ends up actually being about a man grappling with his own feelings about whatever happened to her. And while this movie does feature such a man, it also includes, as a coprotagonist, the woman herself, fleshing out her story… which encompasses both personal matters of life and death as well as matters with international legal import.

Click here for the ongoing ranking of 2015’s films for female representation.

NOTE: This is not a “review” of Woman in Gold! 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 Woman in Gold.

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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