No diversity is found in the feature film industry.
The focus on diversity in Hollywood became clearer with the release of a Director’s Guild of America report showing that few feature films in the past two years were directed by women or minority filmmakers.
According to the DGA’s inaugural Feature Film Diversity Report, only 6.4 percent of the 376 features released in 2013 and 2014 were directed by women, and 12.5 percent by ethnic minorities. Of the films that grossed over $100 million in domestic box office, 96.8 percent were directed by men.
The report comes two months after a DGA report that found scant diversity among first-time TV directors.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is examining gender biases in feature and television directing.
In addition, emails revealed by the Sony hack disclosed apparent pay inequality for female actors, which has become a focus as well.
“What you will see is what happens when industry employers — studios and production companies — do little to address this issue head on,” said DGA president Paris Barclay. “The DGA, by detailing the state of director hiring with the precision of our data, hopes to draw further attention to this serious matter so that industry employers can develop concrete director diversity plans.”
“The numbers paint a grim outlook for diverse film directors — women in particular,” said DGA diversity task force co-chair Bethany Rooney. “Much like our recent reports on television director diversity, we hope this report will put a magnifying glass on a system that makes it disproportionately challenging for talented women and minority film directors to get hired.”
The guild also pointed to a cultural loss occasioned by a lack of diversity.
“What this report does not reflect is what people who love film — even our culture as a whole — are missing when such a disproportionate percentage of films are directed by one gender or one ethnicity,” said Barclay. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a metric for that.”
Hollywood 2015: No Diversity in Feature Filmmaking for Women and Ethnic Minorities
No diversity is found in the feature film industry.
The focus on diversity in Hollywood became clearer with the release of a Director’s Guild of America report showing that few feature films in the past two years were directed by women or minority filmmakers.
According to the DGA’s inaugural Feature Film Diversity Report, only 6.4 percent of the 376 features released in 2013 and 2014 were directed by women, and 12.5 percent by ethnic minorities. Of the films that grossed over $100 million in domestic box office, 96.8 percent were directed by men.
The report comes two months after a DGA report that found scant diversity among first-time TV directors.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is examining gender biases in feature and television directing.
In addition, emails revealed by the Sony hack disclosed apparent pay inequality for female actors, which has become a focus as well.
“The numbers paint a grim outlook for diverse film directors — women in particular,” said DGA diversity task force co-chair Bethany Rooney. “Much like our recent reports on television director diversity, we hope this report will put a magnifying glass on a system that makes it disproportionately challenging for talented women and minority film directors to get hired.”
The guild also pointed to a cultural loss occasioned by a lack of diversity.
“What this report does not reflect is what people who love film — even our culture as a whole — are missing when such a disproportionate percentage of films are directed by one gender or one ethnicity,” said Barclay. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a metric for that.”