Geena Davis – Gender in Media

Geena Davis – Gender in Media

HollywoodOn Productions: Janet Donovan & Brendan Kownacki

“I don’t know about you, but I think almost everyone in America last week was watching The Roosevelts, Ken Burns’ PBS series,” said Pat de Stacy Harrison, President and CEO for Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB).  “And I wonder, as you watched did you notice that Sara Delano Roosevelt is no longer portrayed as the one-dimensional evil mother-in-law, but instead as a strong force, always there affirming her son, The President of the United States?”

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Pat Harrison

“And for the first time, through this series, we can really see the courage that it took for Eleanor to push away from the ugly duckling story she had inherited and the world wanted her to accept, to instead emerge in power and true beauty to become a leader on behalf of so many. Public Media tells these stories beyond the one size fits all approach, which let’s be honest, we know is the biggest lie in fashion. It doesn’t work for bathing suits and it certainly doesn’t work when it comes to defining women in the media,” she added empathically.

Harrison was one of three keynote speakers at the 2nd Global Symposium on Gender in Media held at The US Institute of Peace.  Geena Davis, Founder and Chair, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and Stacy L. Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor, USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism joined Harrison at the podium.     

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Geena Davis

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media at Mount St. Mary’s College is the “only research-based organization industry to engage, educate, and influence the need for gender balance, reducing stereotyping and creating a wide variety of female characters for entertainment targeting children 11 and under.  We have amassed the largest body of research on gender prevalence in entertainment, which spans more than 20 years,” according to the mission statement.

While the lack of strong female characters in film is not totally obvious to the average movie-goer, the data released by Davis and her team proves that the disparity is much larger than most people would imagine. The study took into account films from around the world and while the US isn’t the worst when it comes to representing women on screen, it’s not near the top of the list either. For instance, only 31% of speaking roles in the US films studied were occupied by women and only 23% of films featured a female protagonist.

The data from the Institute further broke down the occupations of female characters, the objectification of women of different ages and looked at how they interact with the male characters they encounter.  For the fact that the world seemingly is half women, you’d think that in the movies they would hold a stronger position. At the very core, only 10% of films seem to have a gender balanced cast and that is a far cry from a balanced representation of real life.

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Geena Davis

“Geena’s research really affirms how women are portrayed in the media,” concluded Pat Harrison. “how it impacts each generation of women and girls in a very different way, creating either positive or stereotypical images that have a lasting impact, and this impact really does ripple through our society for better, and unfortunately more often for worse.  This is just one of the reasons why I am so proud to be leading the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and working with PBS and NPR and ITVS and Public Media stations throughout the country because our mission is truly to create high-quality content that really does inform, that does entertain, that does educate.”

Hollywood on the Potomac:  One on One with Geena Davis:

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