Despite Barbie's success, 2023 was not the year of women in cinema

In the top 100, only 30% of films featured female characters in leading roles.

The live-action version of the most famous doll was the biggest international box office success of 2023, grossing no less than $1.4 billion. Barbie dominated the world throughout the summer and the months that followed, becoming the first solo film directed by a woman to cross the billion-dollar mark in box office. With this film, Greta Gerwig broke all records and exploded the counters. Nevertheless, it is clear that around this project, the excitement was concentrated not around Margot Robbie, the great forgotten of the Oscars, but around Ryan Gosling, memorable in the role of Barbie's boyfriend. However, he was not “that Ken”.

Ryan Gosling sets the Oscars stage on fire with “I'm Just Ken”

With Barbieyou might have thought that women dominated the silver screen last year, but that's actually far from the case. The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative's report suggests that the numbers are at their lowest. Among the top 100 films of 2023, and out of 75,358 roles analyzed, explains The Hollywood Reporter who shared the report's findings, only 30% of lead characters were women. By 2022, they were 44%. With such a drop, the rate of female presence on the silver screen has returned to what it was in 2010 — well before Hollywood's feminist awakening and the movement #MeToo. As for parity in films, the results are just as low. Only 11% of the films in the top 100 feature as many female characters as male.

“It's clear that there is either a rejection of women as an audience for more than one or two films a year, or a refusal to find ways to create meaningful change, or both. If the industry is to survive the current situation, it needs to understand its inability to represent half the population on screen.”

If cinema forgets women, it is not limited to a question of gender. Through the criteria of intersectionality, taking into account the age of female characters, their origin and their sexual orientation, the percentage decreases drastically.

It is well known and often repeated that a woman's age is the scourge of Hollywood. While men age and continue their careers, women gain wrinkles and find themselves relegated to the background… or even disappear. This age discrimination is reflected in the characters attributed to women. Among the list of feature films analyzed, only three main characters are over 45 years old, compared to 32 for men. We find Keri Russell In Crazy Bear, Nia Vardalos In Greek Wedding 3And Salma Hayek In Magic Mike: Last DanceIn 2022, there were ten of them.

For actresses of color, they were only present in fourteen films in the top. Among them: Halle Bailey, Dominique Fishback, Leah Lewis, Melissa Barreraetc.

These findings with similar results – either the minimized presence or the invisibility of actresses – actually reflect an industry that is predominantly led by men. Behind the scenes, in 2023, only 12% of the films with the highest box office were directed by a woman (often in co-direction). Greta Gerwig happens to be the only one in the top 10.

There are too few female directors. Sarah Gavron, behind The Suffragettes had declared at the time of its release:

“It was only when I started seeing films directed by women that I finally had the courage to try.”

And just like on screen, the more intersectionality you meet, the rarer the presence of women. Chloé Zhao, for example, became the first woman of color to win the Oscar for best director—and only the second woman in the ceremony's history to do so. Nomadland in 2020.

If 2023 was not the year of women, will 2024 be different? A quick look at the year's successes seems to indicate otherwise…

From Frances Ha to Barbie, a look back at the irresistible rise of Greta Gerwig