Major Studios’ Pledges to Hire More Female Filmmakers and People of Color Were ‘Performative,’ Study Finds
variety.comBrent Lang Executive Editor Despite the box office success of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Elizabeth Banks’ “Cocaine Bear,” female directors are not getting the same opportunities in Hollywood as their male counterparts.
At the same time, major studios, which pledged to reexamine their employment practices in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, fail to produce many films from people of color.
That’s the stark findings of a new report by USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative, which calls the entertainment industry’s pledges to support inclusion “performative acts” and “not real steps towards fostering change.” It’s the second report in as many days to find that despite some important box office milestones for female filmmakers — “Barbie” was both the year’s most successful film and the highest-grossing movie ever directed by a woman — studios still give their highest-profile gigs to male directors.
The other study was conducted by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. The USC report found that a total of 116 directors were attached to the 100 top-grossing domestic films in 2023, but just 14 of them, or 12.1%, were women.
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