PBS Kids Summit: Geena Davis Keynote Address

Changing the Status Quo: Industry Leaders Perceptions of Female Characters in Family Films
Geena Davis, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media


HISTORY
After doing Thelma and Louise, reaction of women was amazing to her.  Before this the reaction she had on the street was totally different. Literally the weekend it opened everything was different - women grabbed her to tell her their life stories.

Next movie was A League of Their Own - same thing happened but with girls, who would come to her and tell her they played sports just because of that movie.

This was a one-two punch to her and really made a strong impression on her. After this, she always kept the female audience in mind when making choices of her roles. Not role models, but characters with strong female roles.

When her daughter was younger she was watching kids shows, and immediately saw what she believed to be a gender disparity.  Found it was just as prevalance in kids media as adults media. So she would start to raise this with producers when talking about G Rated movies. Across the board all producers would say that this issue was fixed and always sited the one movie 'beauty and the beast' as the example.

She realized if she were to have any impact she would need the data. She raised some money with friends and they did the largest studies ever done on g rated movies and television shows for kids aged 11 and under.

Ratio in G rated movies -
- for every one female there were three male. Group scene was 5:1.
- aspirations for females were almost completely limited to finding romance.
- occupations were very limited. #1 occupation was royalty!

Since then she was involved with the UN - focusing on STEM and women.
From their research there were NO female characters in science, math, medicine, law, business in G rated movies at the time.

Also found the main function was usually to serve as eye candy. Loads of hyper-sexualization going on. So much so that the female characters in G rated movies wore the SAME AMOUNT of clothing as women in R Rated movies.  So - what message are we feeding kids?

They also found in this research that the more a girl watches TV the more limited she thinks her options are in life. The more a boy watches TV the more sexist that boy becomes.

LATEST RESEARCH

From 1990 - 2010
Findings:
- Equality is still non-existent (29% : 70%)
- less than 1% improvement over 20 years. Using math, we will achieve parity in 700 years!
- Females still function as eye candy in all family films. Sexy atire and small waists in far greater numbers than male characters.  In animated movies, female characters always had a body type that couldn't exist in real life.  In fact the waist size was comparable to that of their upper arm.
- It's a male dominated industry - about 5:1 writers directors producers are male.
- direct relation to women in writer, director, producer position and the lessening of gender stereotypes.

In 2009 asked industry people about gender balance in media.
- 43% said it was very important.
- 50% said it would not be hard to achieve.
- 90% said the would use this data / info to impact gender balance in their work.
- 98% said they would share the info with their peers.

Takeaways
- change is possible
- not all that difficult
- many wouldn't notice
- it's just a conscious choice people need to make.
- this study shows us there is no 'plot' in the industry. The default imbalance (male dominance) is she thinks based on being 'used' to this imbalance since the beginning of film/tv.
- decisions on gender are being made not just at the top but at every level of the movie making process.

What do we do with this research?
- take it to studios and networks and guilds and present.
- overwhelming reaction is one of shock.
- simple awareness of the data is our biggest tool.



PBS proves that media can be a powerful tool for un-stereotyped activities.
- 'if you can see it you can be it'.
- she only did one season of a show about a woman being president, but research showed that 72% of people questioned said that after the show they would be more likely to vote for a female president.
- her institution would love to work with PBS. Would love to know how they could help. Would love to consult on scripts, lend any advice.
- Have also started an education for gender awareness for kids and would love to speak to anyone who would be interested in collaborating on this.
- Kids TV does better in gender equality than G movies (from a study done 1990 - 2005).