12 May Genders Vs Genres
How are the two genders represented in the genres of Oscar winning films?
Films are something that everyone can enjoy. Whether your old or young, on your own or in a group, male or female. But have you ever noticed that there seem to be more males leading Oscar winning films than there are females? The Oscars is about celebrating a well put together piece of art, and the people who took part in creating it. However, it seems like male led films are more popular with the public vote.
As the diagram below points out, only 23% of films that have claimed the title of being Oscar winning, have been led by females. That’s less than ¼ of 87 films. Whereas male led films, have won 77% of the Oscars for best picture. The fact that the nominations for the best picture award are predominantly male, could either mean that their are a higher amount of male led films being produced, or that male lead films are more popular with the viewers and voters.
There are also some genres that include no female leads at all. Action, adventure and western films that have been nominated for oscar awards, involve a completely male led cast. These three genres also gained the highest average amount of nominations. Presenting the idea again that films with the highest amount of nominations are male led, as apposed to involving female leads. Films nominated that are from the genres of drama, biography and crime, have been a little more welcoming to female leads. However their contribution is still a lot less than their male counterparts.
In the remaining two genres of oscar nominated films, comedy and musical, male and female leads are almost equal. These genres are also the two with the most and least best film nominations, which would give the impression that male and female leads are equal across most oscar nominated films. However the statistics stated previously show otherwise. Even though musicals show that there is an equal amount of male and female leads, there has only been 2 musicals nominated for oscar awards since 1927. So although this might look like some genres have a lot of male and female leads, theres only in fact one of each, which doesn’t equate to a great deal when its 2 out of 87 nominated films.
What conclusions can we draw from this? Well, their is definitely a lack of females leading the oscar nominated films for best picture. Even though some genres are showing that they do have some female lead, many of them are overly dominated by the male gender. Some genres don’t even include female leads in their nominated films. However, this could be because the directors are deliberately mainly casting males as leads in their movies, or it could simply be that the public prefer male led films.
