This is seriously disheartening.
This year’s Oscars ceremony rightfully had women centre stage after a year of inspiring bravery led to the rise of movements like #MeToo and Times Up.
It feels like a real step forward has been taken in the conversation around gender equality, however, there are often stark reminders about how far we have yet to go.
One of those reminders has come in the form of this diagram that has broken down the amount of dialogue given to both men and women in the movies that have won Best Picture at the Oscars for the last 27 years.
Looking at any characters who had over 100 words of dialogue, The Pudding then broke down the differences between the male and female characters – unsurprisingly, men came out on top.
And while that wasn’t necessarily a shock, the epic margins by which they were ahead left us deflated.
Journalist Soraya Chemaly shared the diagram on Twitter saying:
“Think about this when the Oscars’ men’s and women’s awards suggest parity of any sort.
“I’ve seen these numbers, about how speech is apportioned, but this chart is really striking.”
Think about this when the Oscars’ men’s and women’s awards suggest parity of any sort. I’ve seen these numbers, about how speech is apportioned in films, but this chart is really striking. ht @ellentejle pic.twitter.com/JIwgDKOPhQ
— Soraya Chemaly (@schemaly) March 4, 2018
The tweet has clearly struck a chord with her followers as it’s been liked and retweeted nearly 10,000 times.
And while many have argued that the films used as reference mostly have men in the leading roles – which, of course, is an issue in itself – others highlighted how even films with female leads saw a huge disparity.
More than half of these are very specifically about men, kings, military men. And Schindler’s List is accurate to a horrible occurrence so shouldn’t even be listed as relevant in this comparison. I agree women need more spotlight in films, but this isn’t a good chart.
— Rob W Coates (@Mysticrob) March 4, 2018
The best thing about this is all the men commenting that there are no women speakers because these films are ABOUT men. Umm, kinda the problem?Maybe? https://t.co/Y2e3krI5jZ
— betsyb (@mamasama) March 6, 2018
Regarding film dialogue in film. Even films with female leads the dialogue swings male. Screenwriters, your time is up! #womeninfilm https://t.co/AJz1dOVWKF
— Ellen Tejle (@ellentejle) March 5, 2018
Like this Disney movies, where Pocahontas and Mulan are the leading roles, and still men are having 76-77% of dialogue time. pic.twitter.com/mko6p792xk
— Ellen Tejle (@ellentejle) March 5, 2018
