Hollywood Studies Show Few Gains For Women, People Of Color Directing Films In 2022

02.01.2023 - 21:37 / deadline.com

A pair of studies released Monday from San Diego State’s annual The Celluloid Ceiling report and USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative showed few gains for women and people of color working in the film industry in 2022.

In the SDSU study (read it here), which has tracked women’s employment on the 250 top-grossing films for the past 25 years, this year’s findings reveal that 11% of directors of 2022’s 100 top-grossing domestic films were women, down 1% year-over-year. Among the top 250 films, that number rose to 18%, up 1%.

Overall, women comprised 24% of all directors, writers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers working on the 250 top-grossing films of 2022, a 1% decline from 2021. In 1998, the first year of the Celluloid Ceiling report, that number was 17%.

Among 2022’s top 250 films, the report found, women comprised 19% of writers, 25% of executive producers, 31% of producers, 21% of editors, and 7% of cinematographers. But that meant 93% of those films had no women cinematographers, 91% had no women composers, 80% had no women directors, 75% had no women editors, and 70% had no women writers.

“On a positive note, the study found that films with at least one woman director employed substantially more women in other key behind-the-scenes roles than films with exclusively male directors,” wrote Dr. Martha M. Lauzen, founder and executive director for SDSU’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. “For example, on films with at least one woman director, women comprised 53% of writers and 39% of editors. On films with male directors, women accounted for 12% of writers and 19% of editors. These are non-trivial differences.”

The USC study (read it here), entitled “Inclusion in the Directors