According to the latest USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative Report, this is a substantial downturn from 2022 when 44 films had a girl and/or woman lead. The number was identical to report released in 2010. USC Associate Professor of Communication Stacy L. Smith said, “This is a catastrophic step back … in the last 14 years we have charted progress in the industry, so to see the reversal is both startling and in direct contrast to all of the talk of 2023 as the ‘year of the woman.’”
“The film industry continues to not show up for girls and women and the backpedaling on progress for women of color in leading roles is disappointing,” said Katherine Neff, the study’s lead author. “This is true not only for young women of color but for underrepresented women in middle age and older, whose stories are often completely erased.”
The difficulty for films by and about women was evident in the release of Ava DuVernay’s film “Origin,” starring Academy Award®–nominated actress Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Based on Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 award winning Caste, which explores racism in Germany, India, and America through the ideology of the caste system, the film was blatantly ignored and dismissed during the current awards season and at the box office.
The awards-giving front seemed to promise more progress than the box office, but the lack of representation and growth there has been equally frustrating.
Cinephiles witnessed back-to-back Best Director Oscar victories: Chloé Zhao for “Nomadland” (2020) making her the first woman of color to win and Jane Campion for “The Power of the Dog” (2021), making her the first woman to be nominated twice.
Up until 2023, when Michelle Yeoh won, there had still only been one woman of color to win an Oscar for Best Actress. Halle Berry is still the only Black woman with that honor and America Ferrera is one of the few Latinas ever to be nominated along with Rita Moreno and Ariana Debose (who both won for the same role 60 years apart).