Hollywood Progress Has Plateaued for Directors Who Are Women or People of Color
As we wrap up 2024 and head into 2025, we’ve already identified a few areas in which Hollywood might like to set some resolutions, and fast. The latest Inclusion in the Director’s Chair report, which comes from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and serves as an annual assessment of the gender and race/ethnicity of top-grossing directors, finds that for Hollywood directors who are not white men, progress has plateaued.
Each year (and now dating from 2007 to 2024), Dr. Smith and the Initiative analyze each of the 100 top-grossing fictional films for various metrics. This year’s study, released on Wednesday, finds that, per an official press release, “2024 brought no major change for women directors of top-grossing movies,” while directors from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group faced a similar slowdown.
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Of 112 directors analyzed as part of the pool, 13.4 percent or 15 were women, nearly equivalent to 2023’s 12.1 percent. Though there has been progress since 2007, when 2.7 percent of directors were women, in 18 years, only 6.5 percent of directors were women. “The film industry has demonstrated that it can increase the percentage of women directors and hold that progress,” said Dr. Smith in a statement. “Yet, there is much more room to improve. Women directors are still significantly outnumbered and rarely get multiple opportunities behind the camera. Hollywood cannot be satisfied with the change that has occurred when there is still work to be done.”
When it comes to directors from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups, 24.1 percent of directors in 2024 were from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group, a figure is on par with 2023 (22.4 percent) but significantly higher than 2007 (12.5 percent). Today’s study notes that “the high point for underrepresented directors remains in 2021, when 28.6 percent of directors were people of color.” Still, both the most recent numbers and that 2021 high-point are in stark contrast to the percentage of underrepresented individuals in the U.S. population: 41.6 percent.
And, unsurprisingly, these figures also note that “there was no evidence of progress for women of color in 2024. Last year, 5.3 percent or 6 directors were women of color. Only 32 women of color — 1.7 percent of all top-grossing film directors in 18 years—were underrepresented women. This represents only 26 individual women of color who have worked at least one time as a director of a top-grossing film.”
The study also includes an examination of critical review scores across 18 years, and “while films with men directors had higher critics’ scores than films by women directors in 2024, across all 18 years there was no difference.” No difference. Also of note: “Women of color actually received the highest median and average critics scores across the 18 years evaluated, compared to white women, underrepresented men, and white men.”
“These findings indicate clearly that women of color bring skills and talents to the craft of moviemaking that result in quality output,” said Dr. Smith. “Yet, they still receive the fewest opportunities to work behind the camera in top movies. It is only fair to conclude that talent and qualifications are not the primary basis for hiring decisions.”
“While the industry mantra may be ‘survive until ‘25,’ that simply isn’t viable for women and people of color working as directors,” added Dr. Smith. “Even with the progress made, there are too few opportunities and too few repeat chances for skilled, talented, and qualified directors to work on some of the most globally recognizable entertainment content today. If we are to say that real change has occurred, we must see continued increases across the board on these metrics.”
You can read the full report right here.
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