‘Hollywood wake-up call’: Despite Barbie’s success, women still aren’t getting major movie roles

Margot Robbie. (Michael Tran/AFP)

• The share of Hollywood films in which women play the lead role fell last year despite high-profile successes such as Barbie, new research shows.
• In a year in which the feminist blockbuster starring Margot Robbie demolished its competitors at the box office, only a third of the films had a woman at the top, according to the Hollywood Diversity Report.
• The share of films with a woman in the lead role increased steadily over the decade to 2019, the researchers said.

New research showed Thursday that the share of Hollywood films with women in lead roles declined last year, despite notable successes like Barbie.

In a year in which the all-female blockbuster starring Margot Robbie demolished its competitors at the box office, only a third of films featured a woman at the top of the bill, according to Hollywood Diversity Report.

Greta Gerwig’s fun-filled feminist satire, which has grossed more than $1.4 billion at the global box office, received eight Oscar nominations this weekend, including best picture.

“Even as Barbie “The industry has broken box office records and demonstrated that it continues to undervalue female-focused and female-led films, with women losing ground when it comes to the representation of theater actors, writers and actors,” the UCLA report said. California, Los Angeles.

The share of films with a woman in the lead role increased steadily over the decade to 2019, the researchers said.

That year, 44% of films produced in Hollywood starred women.

But in the years since, this percentage has declined, with only 32% of films in 2023 featuring a woman as the main character.

“This is a wake-up call for Hollywood,” said Ana Cristina Ramon, co-founder of the report and director of the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative at the University of California, California.

Ramon said:

The report, now in its 12th year, found that films with a more diverse cast, including a greater percentage of non-white actors, tend to perform better at the box office.

Films with a cast in which at least half are people of color outperformed previous iterations, the report said, citing the better successes the series has enjoyed. The third doctrine, Sixth scream And John Wick: Chapter 4.

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Consistent with previous years, the report found that audiences of color ensured box office returns, with at least six out of 10 tickets for those films’ opening weekends being purchased by non-white customers.

“When the film industry gives them what they want, people of color have success at the box office year after year,” Ramone said.

This year’s Oscars ceremony will be held in Hollywood on Sunday.