Meet Madame.
Sitting at her table, she is
holding her very first movie
script, a huge
opportunity she’s dreamed about for years. Suddenly,
as she flips through the pages,
one line catches her eye:
“WHAT DO WE DO NOW?” …. Why would this easy as pie
question disturb her so much? Because she delivers it to a man
in a moment of
high tension, waiting for him to decide the
next move. Madame wonders: Is this
really how it
starts? A character with little to say, caught
in a moment of
indecision, as usual,
relying on a man to take
charge?
This line, so
popular in movies, is more than
just dialogue. It’s a symbol of
a deeper issue:
women in films are often underrepresented and
stereotyped,
their roles shaped by limited perspectives.
“What Do We Do Now?”
is not just
the title of our project: it’s a question we’re
asking to explore how the gender of
a movie
director influences how women are
portrayed on screen.
Through this project,
we use data to uncover patterns in
representation,
challenge stereotypes, and
highlight the stories that directors choose to tell about
women. Because some questions raised in cinema do
not always stay on screen : they
reflect real-world
dynamics, mirroring how groups of people
and behaviors are
portrayed
in our society.
How does the gender of a movie director influence the portrayal of women in cinema?
What are the key female stereotypes in movies?
Are female directors better than men at depicting women in movies?
DATASTORY
Madame is speechless, stunned. She never expected that her first major role would be reduced to the weak line, "What do we do now?" It feels like a blow to the gut. She can’t help but wonder if this cliché is the result of a male director’s influence. If only the director had been a woman, maybe her character would have been more complex and meaningful. This sparks a realization: are women stereotypes tied to the gender of the director?
With these questions in mind, Madame sets off on a quest for answers. Fortunately, the Applied Data Analysis (ADA) course she took during her Masters didn't just leave her with good memories; it gave her tools. Dusting off her coding skills, She immersed herself in the cinema data world.
Movie Directors
Characters
It doesn't take long for the first revelation to appear, stark and undeniable: the gender distribution among film directors is far from balanced. What's more, the gender distribution of the movie directors - 90% male, 10% female - is far more contrasted than that of the actors: 67% of the actors are male, while the remaining 33% are female.
Madame suddenly remembers the "Celluloid Ceiling" concept she read about two weeks ago: an invisible but powerful barrier that has kept women from reaching key creative roles in filmmaking for decades
(Lauzen, M. 2022)Madame’s curiosity grows as she wonders if the gender imbalance among directors has always influenced the portrayal of women in films. Her thoughts expand: Does the director’s gender affect the age of actresses, with female directors offering more opportunities for older women?
Regardless of the movie director’s gender, the peak age, where the highest number of actors.tresses is concentrated, is consistently lower for actresses compared to actors. Additionally, the age range for actresses appears more concentrated, or narrower, while the distribution for actors is broader, spanning a wider range of ages.
To Madame, this trend suggests that female actresses face younger and stricter age-related preferences in casting decisions, regardless of whether the director is male or female. These results correspond to what she read in an article earlier this week, stating that "Women over 50, despite being a demographic majority, are rendered invisible in film and television". The results of her plot indeed show that actresses of a specific age over 50 are represent less than 1% of actresses in the dataset. This can be related to their physical appearance or their secondary role as wives, mothers and lovers.
She begins to explore historical trends, asking herself whether this disparity is a long-standing issue or a more recent development.
At first sight, Madame notices that the average female character proportion constantly stands at around 30 to 40%, all director gender combined. She now has evidence that gender distribution is a long-standing problem. However, she observes that female directors portray more women than male directors in their movies. As well, you can notice an interesting trend around the year 1938, where women were more represented in movies directed by men. “Would this be correlated in any way to war?” Madame wonders….
Then, she wonders which countries do the best job at representing women on screen. Perhaps, she thinks with a smile, she was born in the wrong time or place.
The analysis of female character representation, particularly of average female character proportion per movie, shows clear differences across countries and depending on the gender of the director. For male-directed films, the Philippines (42.4%), Mexico (40.9%), and Japan (40.5%) rank highest, while Russia (28.8%) and Denmark (29.6%) show the lowest proportions. Female-directed films fare best in Sweden, where nearly half of the characters are women, but countries like Denmark (34.8%), Japan, China, and India lag behind.
Interestingly, Denmark consistently ranks among the worst for female representation, regardless of the director’s gender. Japan flips its position, ranking high in male-directed movies but falling behind for female-directed ones. If Madame wanted the best chances of starring in a film with strong female representation, she might have been better off in Sweden or the Philippines, far from Denmark’s dismal numbers.
Having explored the best times, places, and opportunities for actresses, Madame’s thoughts take a deeper turn. She finds herself wondering if there is a specific genre where women are most likely to be represented on screen. Could there be a particular category where her chances of landing a meaningful role are higher?
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
Drama
27.3%
World Cinema
12.5%
Comedy
9.1%
Action
9.1%
Romance
8.0%
Adventure
6.8%
Music and Dance
5.7%
Horror
3.4%
Biographical and Real-Life Inspired
2.3%
Crime and Mystery
2.3%
1980
5%
10%
15%
Drama
18.7%
Comedy
12.8%
World Cinema
8.3%
Thriller
7.3%
Horror
6.6%
Adventure
6.4%
Action
6.1%
Romance
4.5%
Science Fiction
3.3%
Crime and Mystery
3.0%
Madame’s look into the top genres in films directed by men and women shows some interesting trends.
Drama is the number one genre for both men and women directors, though it’s a broad category that might affect how women are portrayed. Comedy and World Cinema show similar patterns across both genders, with women represented fairly equally.
One possible explanation for these two observations is that cinematic genres such as Drama, Comedy, and World Cinema are broad categories that encompass a wide range of sub-genres. Hence, considering the way that these subgenres were clustered influences the genre distribution, and considering subgenres separately could lead to more varied portrayals of women within these genres.
Romance is consistently in the top six for female-directed films, showing that women directors tend to focus on relationship-driven stories. Action was a top genre for female directors in the 1980s but shifts progressively, ending as the top four for male directors by 2011.
To Madame, these results make sense: women directors seem to focus on relationship-driven stories. It’s no wonder her all-time favorite movies, like The Notebook or Notting Hill, are romantic classics. But then, something clicks: has her love for these stories been shaped by the very clichés she’s starting to question? Those love stories she’s dreamed of mostly define women by their relationships with men. And what about Action? It used to be a top genre for female directors, but over the years, it’s shifted to being more male-dominated. What does it say about the kinds of stories women are expected, or “allowed” by the film industry to tell?
At the same time, Madame looks at more “niche” genres, as well as the genres where there is the greatest gaps in female character representation between male and female-directed movies.
Western and War/Military genres show lower female representation, with female directors producing fewer films in these areas. Documentary films reveal a contrast, with female-directed documentaries increasing female representation by 37%, while male-directed films portray 25% fewer women.
Then, after digging into the data about genres where women are portrayed the most, for both men and women-directed movies, she finds herself almost laughing at the answer. It’s not what she expected at all. Amused by the irony, she decides to send this little game to Miss, her childhood friend, also an actress, eager to see her reaction. She needs to classify the 3 genres below by the proportion of female characters, from the highest to the lowest.
Overall, while the majority of mainstream genres exhibit similar levels of moderate female representation in both male- and female-directed films, niche genres show more pronounced differences. Genres such as LGBT, Adult films, and Romance feature the highest representation of women—genres often associated with themes of love and sexuality.
Excited by her findings, Madame messages her friend Miss:
Want to shoot a LGBT movie together?
Now that’s an interesting idea!
But how will we be portrayed? I don’t want to be categorize into stereotypes. No more 'What do we do now?'. I'm tired "Brainless Beauty" role ...
With this realization, Madame refocuses her efforts on understanding the deeper issue of female stereotypes in films. She decides to analyze tropes, the recurring themes and character archetypes commonly used in storytelling.
A trope is a recurring theme, motif, or character type in literature, film, and media that acts as a storytelling shortcut, helping audiences quickly grasp characters or situations while often perpetuating stereotypes.
For example, Madame had a Final Girl character as role in the movie: the sole survivor at the end of a movie when everyone else has perished. The same most represented trope in our dataset.
To explore the prevalence of stereotypes in films, Madame analyzes the distribution of these tropes.
Madame is shocked! There are so few female tropes compared to the male ones! This scarcity suggests that women are often confined to narrowly defined stereotypical roles in media narratives.
Tropes gendered as female tropes often reduce women to superficial, defining them by their appearance, like blonde, beauty or even by their lack of intelligence such as dumb or brainless. Madame cannot help but thinking of an article that made her angry: « 9 Hollywood Actresses Who Were Told They Weren't 'Pretty Enough' To Make It In Hollywood » « I guess they were right, she thought ». Additionally those tropes often depict women as passive figures, defined in relation to others such as the one who survives in the end or the one whose heart is broken. In contrast, male tropes focus on action and agency emphasizing their professions or their notable achievements.
Madame now bet that those stereotypes were created by men to define women in narrow roles. She wonders whether female directors will challenge these clichés or inadvertently fall into their trap.
As expected, female directors include more women in their films, where male directors really have the space to develop many men characters. However, they also rely on the same tropes as male directors. It seems these clichés are so deeply rooted that even women struggle to envision intelligent and powerful female characters beyond these stereotypes.
Ugh, it’s so frustrating. Women in movies are way too stereotyped, even in films by women. And they’re always so passive!
I get it… Ever heard of the Bechdel Test?
It sounds familiar, but I can not remember the details. What is it?
It’s simple: 1) The film must have at least two named female characters; 2) They must talk to each other; 3) Their conversation must be about something other than a man. Not many films pass!
The Bechdel Test, created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in her 1985 comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, evaluates gender representation in films. While it doesn’t measure the quality of a film, it highlights whether women have meaningful roles beyond their relationships with men.
Intrigued, she wonders if her friend Miss’s nine favorite movies pass the test. Eager to find out, Madame checks them one by one, comparing whether they meet the criteria.
Click on the cards to reveal their Bechdel Test results!
Madame then studies the proportion of male- and female-directed films that pass the Bechdel Test, clustering them into "BEST" (those that pass: 3/3) and "WORST" (those that don’t: 0/3, 1/3, 2/3). By analyzing these patterns, she hopes to uncover which directors are more likely to break away from stereotypical portrayals of women in cinema.
As Madame sifts through the data, the results start to reveal some intriguing patterns. It becomes clear that films directed by women tend to have a higher success rate in passing the Bechdel Test, with a notable proportion achieving the maximum score of 3. Furthermore, she almost laughs after noticing that the proportion of movies which score 1 to the test is higher than the one for a score of 2 : Would this mean that directors tend to not to represent any women rather than to make them talk in the movie ?
In order to dig deeper, Madame focuses on the emotional tones of movies, comparing both ‘pass’ and ‘fail’ ones. She compares the emotional range of films with a fully successful Bechdel Test (score of 3), separated by whether the director is male or female.
Looking at emotional breadth between the two groups, we can notice that films directed by women actually seem to explore the same diverse array of emotions as films directed by men. However, the distribution highlights subtle variations: female-directed films display slightly higher intensities in emotions like joy and sadness, suggesting a heightened focus on emotionally resonant storytelling. Overall, the difference between passing and failing the bechdel is quite similar for both directors genders, especially regarding the anger and sadness emotions. The difference between the bechdel ‘pass’ and ‘fail’ movies is quite similar for both genders, especially regarding the anger and sadness emotions. The movies that pass have a tendency for sadness and on the opposite, movies that fail have a tendency for anger. Moreover, movies that fail for female directors have also tendencies to increase the fear and disgust emotions.
Overall, the difference between passing and failing the bechdel is quite similar for both directors genders, especially regarding the anger and sadness emotions. The movies that pass have a tendency for sadness and on the opposite, movies that fail have a tendency for anger. The same observation is highlighted by the study conducted in “The Gender Stereotyping of Emotions.” (Plant, E. A. 2006), which shows that emotions are gendered.
Madame’s phone vibrates. She grabs it, excited at the idea of receiving a new screenplay proposal. Ugh, the dreams of winning an Oscar vanish as she sees it’s a call from her landlord. “Shoot,” she mutters, “I’m short on rent again this month.” She wonders aloud, “Will I earn more money if I act in a movie that passes the Bechdel Test?”
Surfing the web, she stumbles upon an article written by Johann Valentowitsch entitled: "(Hollywood Caught in Two Worlds?) The Impact of the Bechdel Test on the International Box Office Performance of Cinematic Films."
“Hollywood continues to rely heavily on male stereotypes for fear of losing international revenue,” the article states. “I knew it!” Madame exclaims. Her eyes dart across the screen. « on average […] films passing the test achieve significantly higher box office takings." Madame is thrilled, but the article lacks details regarding gender representation.
Taking matters into her own hands, she grabs her computer and proceeds to further analyze her dataset.
After a closer look at director demographics, a striking tendency emerges: around 14,1% of movies passing the Bechdel test are directed by women whereas only 5% of the movies failing the Bechdel test have female directors.
« Obviously, this result is biased as the majority of director gender in my data set. But still, female directors tend to break gender stereotypes and create more meaningful interactions between female characters »."
Eager for more insights, Madame digs deeper into the dataset to explore financial success, by eliminating outliers to improve readability of the graph.
Madame did not expect such results. « Maybe Hollywood is not that different from the rest of the world after all », she thinks.
Independently of the movie director gender, movies passing the Bechdel Test exhibit a broader and higher revenue range, on average slightly even more when directed by women. The difference is even stronger when focusing solely on women directors. As a latter of fact, meaningful interaction between women approximately increases the box office revenue from 27 to 47 million dollars.
Madame’s attention then focused on a specific statement : « films with high production costs, gender balance is not a primary determinant of box office earnings ». « Mmmh, interesting » she thought. « Movie budget, that’s a parameter I had not considered yet.. »
Once again, the results of Madame’s analysis intrigue her. « Who knew there were such financial disparities amongst movie directors of different genders ? », she thought.
Focusing on female directors, the average rating of a movie does not seem to correlate with the box office revenue. Women directors tend to earn little revenue, less than 200 million, no matter the popularity of the movie. On the other hand, the range of box office revenue of movies directed by men seems to extend when better received by the critique. They are more often rewarded economically when appreciated by the critique as they can bring billions of dollars, but also have the most important financial means. In other words, movie budgets often exceed 200 million when directed by men whereas it barely reaches 80 million for the luckier movies directed by females.
She discovers through parallel analysis that interestingly, movies that fail the Bechdel test tend to be better ranked than the ones who pass the test, regardless of director gender. This statement is even stronger for female directors, for which more than 50% of the movies failing Bechdel received a grade greater than 7/10. Comparing this discovery with her results, she wonders: « Why would female directors breaking societal norms and enhancing the role of actresses be less appreciated ? ».
This question stayed in her head while she thought of Bechdel’s test limitations: none of the subject, length or meaningfulness of the conversation are taken into account. This may explain why female directors, who instinctively enhance women’s place in movies, would be less rewarded by critiques as bringing something new to the cinematic world.
Madame’s journey through cinema has been an eye-opener. Diving into how women are portrayed in films uncovered how much the director’s gender influences characters’ age, roles, and the genres they appear in. Women are underrepresented as both directors and characters, especially in niche genres. Even in female-directed films, stereotypes about age and beauty and men-dependency persist, limiting actresses to narrow roles. Male directors often sideline women entirely, casting them as secondary characters or ignoring them altogether.
While women directors sometimes challenge these norms with more nuanced portrayals, they are often constrained by industry expectations. This raises a key question: Are women directors truly breaking free from gendered expectations, or are they ‘accidentally’ reinforcing stereotypes by sticking to limited roles and genres? The evidence shows progress, but structural barriers in the industry still limit their impact. Achieving real gender equity in cinema takes more than hiring more women directors. It requires reevaluating how women’s stories are valued and told, moving beyond stereotypes. It is about amplifying diverse voices to reflect the richness and complexity of women’s lives.
Madame’s realization, that her own preferences have been shaped by cinematic stereotypes, underscores the power of film not just to entertain but to define societal norms and aspirations. To rewrite this narrative, the industry must move beyond stereotypes and commit to authentic, diverse storytelling that reflects the full spectrum of human experience. Madame KNOWS WHAT TO DO NOW: Keep challenging stereotypes, tell richer stories, and ensure every voice gets a chance to shine. The journey has begun, and rewriting the script is a job for all of us.
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