A full 77% of top-grossing films released in 2023 featured more male than female characters in speaking roles, according to a report released Tuesday by Martha Lauzen, founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University.
The latest "It's a Man's (Celluloid) World" report found that 18% of the films featured more female than male characters and 5% of films featured equal numbers of female and male characters. The percentage of females in speaking roles declined from 37% in 2022 to 35% in 2023, and the number of female characters in major roles remained the same at 38%.
The percentage of top-grossing films with sole female protagonists dropped from 33% in 2022 to 28% in 2023, Lauzen writes.
"Because 'Barbie' claimed so much of our cultural space in 2023, female characters may have seemed more abundant in films last year," she said. "But the overall percentage of female characters in speaking roles contracted, as did the percentage of female protagonists."
Regarding race and ethnicity, Black females comprised 15.3% of all female characters in speaking roles in 2023 in the top-grossing films, down from 18% in 2022. Additionally, the percentage of Latina characters decreased from 6.9% in 2022 to 6.3%, and the percentage of Asian and Asian American females increased from 8.1% in 2022 to 9.2%.
In 2023, females on film were younger than their male counterparts, with the percentage of female characters plummeting as they moved from their 30s into their 40s.
"The population of female characters contracts significantly at about the age of 40," Lauzen said. "Moreover, while we can celebrate the performances of Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Rita Moreno and a handful of other actresses over 60 last year, this age cohort comprised only 7% of all females in the top-grossing films of 2023, well below their representation in the U.S. population.
"Limiting the age of female characters also limits their ability to age into positions of personal, political, and professional power," she wrote.
Films with at least one woman director and/or writer were more likely than films with no women in these roles to feature higher percentages of females as protagonists, in major roles, and as speaking characters.
For example, in films with at least one woman director and/or writer, females comprised 48% of protagonists. In films with exclusively male directors and/or writers, females accounted for 19% of protagonists.
This year's study reports the findings of a content analysis of over 2,200 characters appearing in the 100 top (domestic) grossing films of 2023. Overall, the project has considered the representation of more than 29,000 characters appearing in more than 1,300 films released between 2002 and 2023.
For over two decades, Lauzen has conducted research on the representation and employment of women on screen and behind the scenes in film and television.
