Women are Underrepresented in Media
One of my new favorite late night shows to watch is Busy Tonight, hosted by actress Busy Philipps. I love watching her daily Instagram Stories, so I was excited when she announced she would be having a show. She is (now was 😢as the show was sadly just canceled) one of two women in late night, the other is Samantha Bee who has her own show called Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. This fact alone shows how disproportionate the amount of men to women in media is.
On an episode a few weeks ago, Busy had Geena Davis as a guest. She was there to talk about her organization called the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media that works to research gender depictions in media, and specifically, media made for kids TV and movies. Through a partnership with USC Viterbi and Google, they developed The Geena Davis Inclusion Quotient (GD-IQ). It is a tool that uses audio and visual processing technologies to analyze media content. With the GD-IQ, they have been able to figure out how many female characters there are in a show or movie, how long they're on screen and the amount of speaking time they have. In all of these categories, women are outnumbered by men.
The organization’s motto is “If she can see it, she can be it”. They want women to be equally represented in media, especially media for children because young girls are affected by what they see in the movies and TV shows they watch. Media images are very powerful and having women equally represented in media has a big impact. In the interview, Geena explained that in 2012 the number of girls in archery grew by 105%, with more girls taking part in the sport than men and boys. This was because of two popular movies that came out, The Hunger Games and Brave, with female archers as lead characters. Girls saw these movies and were impacted and inspired to do what they saw.
I found this so interesting. I have never noticed that there are more men than women in media until it was pointed out to me. I think it is so important that women are equally represented in media and all industries. It is very empowering to have women that you can relate to and look up to and make you feel more included. I have noticed that there are more and more movies and shows coming out with females as leads such as Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. This so great to see and I hope it is not just a trend but change in the way women are represented in media.
Watch the clip of Geena Davis on Busy Tonight! ⬇️
I loved watching Busy Phlilips' show. One of my favorites was when Pam from The Office was a guest. I also never really realized the gender gap of the late night shows. Hopefully some day there won't be such a large gender gap. Although, It has been great to see so many woman as being the main role in a movie/T.V. show.
ReplyDeleteThis is truly eyeopening and is honestly disturbing how much women are under-represented in media. I do believe that we are are making some progress in this field by including more women in leading roles, but the fact is that men still dominate the media and film industry. In the past, women in films were only wives and mothers who supported their husbands, but now women can be superheroes, CEO's, and true badasses! I love Geena Davis and I love the programs she has put out to help with this gender gap and I hope that this is opens the eyes of others and some real change can be made.
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