Max Fritze In the sequel to this she will dismiss all criticism here by claiming the comments prove we need feminism. It's a common Feminist deflection tactic.
Around minute 4, she shows a bunch of data about how various movies don't have certain races and genders represented in the movies. She says that 48 of the 100 didn't have black female characters. Hm, 52% with black female characters. Sounds absolutely terrible, right? Now lets consider the fact that only 12.6% of the United States population is of African decent, according to the 2010 US Census, and this includes males. Lets cut that in half to remove the males, and we get 6.3% of the population are black females. Wow! Over 8 times the ratio of people is the ratio of representation in movies. We then get the statistic that 93% of films didn't feature a woman in the LGBT scene, the numbers are similarly hilarious. 7% with LGBT women when only 3.8% of the US population identifies as part of the LGBT community according to both a report by the Williams Institute in 2011 and an ongoing Gallup poll. Lets cut this in half again for simple math, giving us 1.9% of the US population being females in the LGBT community. Hm. Their movie representation is nearly 4 times that of their percent population. I hardly see a problem. Now, there are still problems with certain programs and institutions of course, but representation in the media, at least in this talk, is hilariously drawn out of context and shown to be horrific when in fact it is far the other direction.
Thinking about it a little later, I realized my math is not entirely sound, as it was under the assumption of one "character" as her statistics put it. As a movie may have quite a few main characters, these odds would be lower, though still the opposite of what she argues.
First, I would like to apologize for this absurdly gigantic comment I am leaving as a response to yours. I have never commented on TH-cam before, but here I just really felt compelled to do so. I think you didn't really get her explanation. The bar they set to dig into the data was whether the character spoke at least once throughout the entire film, from which they derive the finding that the number of male speaking characters in movies is twice as big as the one of females, which i think is in many levels quite absurd and very wrong, especially since it is not getting better throughout the years, as she points out. Now the next section is considering characters in the same way, but now seeing in how many films those specific minorities appear. And that is not a question of whether that story represents something that is directly related to a specific demographic, but whether if there are minorities speaking in big budget films. An interesting question would be: how many of the big budget films have no minorities on screen? Is there a difference between both numbers? I would argue that there probably is, and that is the thing that gets me in this presentation. That minorities are not necessarily not present, but that they still, to this day and age, don't even get to say "hey" to someone on the street, or "can i help you" as a cashier in the coffee place the main characters go to, or have this demonstration of love in the a big romcom that triggers the main couple to admit their feelings for one another or something of that nature, you get the point. She says that there is an average of 40 to 45 speaking characters in every film. Le'ts use 40 on our calculations. That means that in only seven films there was at least one female LGBT character from the one hundred biggest box office films of 2015. The worst case scenario here is that from this vast universe of 4000 characters depicted throughout the year with a voice there were only 7 that were female and LGBT, or 0,175 percent. Using the data you have presented here, that means under ten times less than the actual percentage of the US population that defines themselves in that way. You were considering in your calculations that the entire cast of speaking characters in that film was LGBT and female, and going through the list of 100 biggest box office films from 2015, that wasn't the case for any of these films. The majority most definitely did not have a substantial amount of LGBT female characters, or that would have called my attention, so i would argue, although without hard data, that my calculation is probably closer to the real situation than yours. I didn't even get into the matter of how many directors are female and how gender discrimination for this role in film productions is so blatantly apparent, or whether there should be more main characters that are representative of different minorities. You are trying to undermine the argument of someone who has devoted 10 years of her life as a researcher to this matter, that is simply calling out the studios to be representative of reality in their films, to equate into the characters they depict in films the percentage that exists in the real world and to allow, in that sense, that a more inclusive image of society be perpetuated. She goes on to wonder what that could entail, what could come of a society that sees itself in films and other media as truly more diverse, with gender equality and so forth. I tend to agree with her that that is definitely something worth fighting for.
I just went through TED video archive and the top Ted talk topic with female presenter are: 1. Gender equality 2. sexism 3. Love/romance 4. 5. Science related. Top Ted talk topic with a male presenter. 1. Engineering 2. Science 3. Math 4. Social "science" See the difference? The last videos topic with a female presenter was "How to practice safe sexting". JEEEESUS
Persian Life Well, that shows that maybe women feel less represented and not equally treated. If you don't have to face problems on a regular basis you probably won't talk about it. So if nobody's talking about the inequality, the people who feel treated worse start to do it. But i don't know if what you're saying is correct. Why did you left the 4th out? What your data (if it's correct) shows is only the fact that there's still no gender equality because clearly either the women feel as if they have to talk about it or they are still not represented as much as man are in maths/science stuff.
I wonder if they will change their mind, since a lot of people are not happy with the video here.
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Honestly? Doesn't this tell Ted what kind of people should not get a talk? It's important to hear them say their thing, but their misrepresentation of facts to achieve an underlying agenda is making me feel sick. People who misrepresent information to get their agenda pushed should not be advocating equality, because lying indicates a different agenda from equality. Either that or they are stupid and can't interpret the numbers correctly in the right context.
In many cases the market solely determines what movies are, and aren't, made. "Lost in Translation" was Written and Directed by a woman, but that isn't why I love it: It's because it's a great movie that I can relate to. Make good movies. Take my money. It's that simple.
If it takes place in Asia, shouldn't all the characters be Asian though? She is saying there should be diversity in American films since America is racially diverse. It's a reflection of the area.
Classic whataboutism. But I'll bite- Asia plays a fuckload of western movies. Asia has a far higher percentage of Asians than America has Asians. Nice try, doesn't hold water in reality.
Movies 2018: Random shoots were 5 disabled,lesbian,black and asian woman older then 45 talk to each other about gender inequality while Vin Diesel saves the world in the background.
it's a hard question. The main counter point is that if 50% of the population is under served by the film industry then someone should start a new studio/production company and capture that profit. Basically there is no reason why they can't but no one does (for maybe sexist reasons, maybe not). In the end people get mad when they feel like someone says hey YOU HAVE TO HIRE more ___________ or do more _____________ because it's more inclusive and you'll still make money. Okay then if you want me to....why don't you?
I came in here with an open mind and I understand where she's coming from. I don't 100% agree with what was said, but the backlash for this kind of content is over the top.
You really can't complain that 16 out of a 100 films don't star a disabled woman. THATS A HUGE AMOUNT compared to how many people are actually disabled women
Darushan AZ There are so called invisible disabilities, so you may not be aware of this, but about 15% of population is disabled. I couldn't find stats for gender, but knowing that diseases such as muliple sclerosis, myalgic encephalomyelitis, lupus, etc predominantly affect women, percentage for them may even be higher.
ProteaAurea so then tell me, how do you want the disabilities shown in movies, where the only way to notice them is to actually see them? Or should every charakter just blurt out what kind of neural degeneration they have? And if you throw in a few people who can't walk or see or hear, you still don't represent people with diseases like MS or alzheimers. And if you want to represent ANY kind of disability, this becomes a barrel without a bottom.
Also for the LGBT group, if someone had just one line like "Hi how can I help you?" how can they be categorized by sexuality or gender? You can say 93 out of the top 100 didn't feature an explicit LGBT member, but all these extras that have one line weren't explicitly straight either. Really dumb to include such a secretive identifier.
Rachel Losacco in order to actively represent LGBT people, the film would have to establish that they are LGBT. If they only have a line of "Hi", then unless it's been established elsewhere in the film that that character is LGBT (I.e. Setting, what other characters said about them, etc.), then it's pretty clear they are not counted as representing the LGBT community.
So 2016 highest grossing filims: 1. The Force Awakens (Female lead) 2. Finding Dory (Female lead) 3. Captain America Civil War (Male lead, but black widow has a lot of screen time and she's a badass) 4. The Secret life of Pets (Haven't seen it but it has more male characters) 5. The Jungle Book (Male lead) 6. Deadpool (Male lead) 7. Zootopia (Female lead) 8. Batman v Superman (Male lead, but Wonder Woman shows up) 9. Suicide Squad (More male characters but Harley Quinn is extremely popular and Viola Davis is a badass) 10. Sing (Haven't seen it but it has 50% males, 50% females) So 3 females leads, 4 male leads and the rest is kinda split in the middle. pd. Moana was 11
She alluded to the fact that there is an inherent bias in our society. Ultimately, representation could help change and open people's minds to those who are different to them. Heck, entertainment did that for me.
I doubt that this an issue of representation and I disagree with the notion that there is an inherent bias in society. I mean, she uses as her sample data the films that are successful at the box office, well those are predominantly action films, and well when I look at reality, I see mostly men doing the crazy risky stuff, while women are the exception in doing that. So, I think Hollywood actually repesents reality rather well, giving male audiences the power fantasy that they want to be the hero, and female audiences a men to dream of and that is what people then spend their money on. Since at the end of the day, most women prefer to avoid taking too much risks, and so if there is an inherent bias in our society, then it is that men are still expected to sacrifice themselves for us women, that they have to take the risky jobs (which is why the mortality rate of men on their jobs is much higher than those of women, but nobody talks about that, instead the topic when it comes to gender and work is always about money) or to protect the women (which is also why male victims of domestic violence are usually ignoered and barely have any places to find help). And then people wonder why men might be reluctant when women want to take even their escapist fantasies of films and video games? And yet there are so many men who nevertheless basically castrate themselves to be the white knights.
NOT EVERY SINGLE RACE, GENDER, etc HAS TO BE REPRESENTED im a mexican female and my favorite characters in movies/ tv shows most of the time look nothing like me! i don't care because i can relate to their skills, mindset, and passion not their skin color...
can we just all thank Ted for letting the comments share their ideas on this topic, instead of going against their core principles and disabling the comments.
We honestly live In a great open minded accepting nation if our biggest social concern is how many gay Asian woman in wheelchairs are staring in our action movies
WTF that´s not what she said. There is no fair representation of everything that is not white and male in movies. That is a problem. It´s not that hard to understand.
I don't get the hate on the comments section. Ted shows video from a lot of different point of views. I may not agree with this person, but it is interesting to understand every point of view!
93 movies w/o LGBT characters? How can you tell? You would have to assume every character is heterosexual unless he shouts "I gay everybody, just so you know!" in one of his appearances? Also arent less then 10% of the population lgbt so 7 out of 100 roughly pictures the reality of the society we live in?
You do realize we live in a heteronormative society where everyone assumes that everyone is straight unless proven or stated otherwise, right? Right? Also, there's no accurate percentage of the LGBT population, and just because they're a minority group doesn't mean they deserve less representation. 7 out of 100 is abysmal. Period.
Love her topic "the portrayal", because in reality many problems has happened due to young women viewing this portrayal and sexualization. All mainly to women and girls. Men love it, they will smile at the portrayal until they see it affect someone they love. Young girls before even reaching middle school have body dysmorphia, low self esteem, and develop eating disorders. Looking at myself, the older, and younger women I am surrounded with who have been impacted by this, it devastates me.
Okay, women are underrepresented, I totaly agree that they should be put under the light more often. But those stats are kinda saying "every movies have to have equal number of male and female characters" why not? But beyond that "every movies have to have at least one: african, asian, [insert more races here], disapled person, lesbian, gey, transexual, don't forget transgender, why not a mute/deaf/blind all three in different characters... so more can be added... We do need diversity, but if this rule was followed, there wouldn't be any creative liberties anymore. Balance would be the key word. Edit do add: directors also do with what they have. That's why the opposite thing can be seen in asian movie or whatever. Their own race is more represented because that's what they have.
Shoehorning social justice/feminist agenda to movie that got nothing to do with social justice or feminism for the sake of pushing the mentioned agenda is a sure mark of a genius. And a great way to attract more excited and enthusiastic audience too! /s On a serious note, there is already too much movies that speak about the same. Damn. Thing. And this damn thing isn't just a 1st world problem, it's a single country problem, exported to countries that already solved this problem or could care less about it. What's really aggravating is that there is not enough movies speaking about the REAL GLOBAL PROBLEMS: deforestation, child labor and overall abuse, CONSTANT WARS, a big drops in intelligence and a rise of the populism and nationalism. List goes on. But no, Hollywood fixed on one problem and managed to represent it as an annoyance rather. Good job! Carry on in the same manner!
I personally really enjoyed this TED talk, but am very surprised at the overall reaction in the comments section and the dislike to like ratio! I think that we not only need to spread the word about this issue, but create healthy discussion with our friends and community about gender parity in Hollywood in general.
So she is basically telling us that the movie industry in Hollywood should be other way around, where there are little to no men? If only 7% movies has female lesbians in the movie, that is ok! Because only ~5% of the world population is Lesbian/Gay. (at least here in Norway it's ~5.)
I have a question to all those people who decided to dislike this video. Do you genuinely dislike the content of this talk because you disagree with her statistically-backed findings, or are you simply insecure that this woman wants to rectify Hollywood's demonstrated sexism? Think twice before answering that to make sure it's not the latter. Because if your refutation to this talk is, "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN BLAH BLAH", I think you suffer from a very deep-rooted insecurity. Do you know how I know? Because I used to think like like all you when I was a teenager and just ignorant. Want to know how I changed my perspective? I listened. LISTEN to what she's saying. This woman is obviously educated and knows what she's talking about. The fact of the matter is that you are not a woman. Women face a much different reality than what we men do. If you fail to acknowledge that, then YOU are part of the damn problem. And to be honest, IT IS OKAY if you don't know what it feels like to live as a woman on this earth. I don't. I don't know what it feels like to have my entire gender portrayed as sexualized objects since literally the inception of Hollywood, and I will never know what that feels like. But here is what I do know. Women, the other bloody half of OUR shared society, are hurting, upset, and want change. Listen to their grievances and hear their voices. Do you sincerely think that the women making such claims are irrational and foolish? NO. Just start listening before opening your damn mouths. It's not that difficult. And I have never commented on a TH-cam video before. The only reason I am doing so is because this is a TedTalk, and my understanding was that the people who would watch such videos are proponents of science, innovation, and progress. I am appalled and disappointed that the same people who praise other TedTalks would talk about this one in such a disparaging manner. I would never have expected this sort of reaction from TedTalk viewers. This is 2017, people. Just listen. That's all it takes. "The first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one" - Many of the greatest leaders and freedom fighters of the 21st century.
There are some issues with her arguments: 1. She limits her research to top 100 films, meaning that there is a confounding selection bias. These movies are top 100 because they made the most revenue in the box office, which means that people were interested in seeing them. Simple supply and demand here. If movies outside the top 100 are closer to 40:60 per se, then the money speaks for itself. If not, I'm sure hollywood producers would catch on to the trend. 2. She introduces intersectionality to bring up the more extreme statistics (e.g., 93 top 100 movies didn't feature LGBT females), but then completely disregards an intersectional approach in her "solution". Not once did she mention race or ability. 3. Her "solutions" put Content creators, Executives, and Consumers under pressure to change. But, I think the issue is that there are no female directors period. I don't agree that this lack of female behind-the-scenes workers is because Men who currently operate film productions are choosing to inhibit female opportunity. Talent and skill will always be successful, especially in a market driven field. Stop begging men to give women a chance. If women want to see more women in respectable roles in hollywood, more women should take an interest in filmography and production. You shouldn't expect things, you should earn them.
Josh C sorry- apple before the cart argument here. You can’t create a demand if it’s not offered. Simple math- create more content with leading men, consumers will have no choice but to see more films with leading men. The top grossing film when Hunger Games came out was... Hunger Games. If you build it- SHE and HE will come.
At first, this seemed like just a rehashing of the Bechtel test we're probably all already familiar with, but I do give her points for at least offering solutions. That being said, there were a few points that she missed. One of the major problems is that Hollywood (and we're clearly talking about major studios, not indie films) isn't putting out or at least promoting original ideas. Everything is an adaptation, a sequel, a remake or a reboot. This is a problem by itself, because we're not getting as much in the way of new material, but with regards to the representation of women and minorities, it means that the movies we're putting out are limited by the source material. If the stories we're drawing from underrepresented women, then the adaptations of those stories will naturally underrepresent women as well. The main flaw, though, with her solutions is that audiences don't really have any real power. The studios KNOW that we're going to see the movies no matter who they cast. So if we demand more female directors, and the studios just say no, what are we going to do? Stop watching them? Of course not. People actually buy tickets to see movies they know are going to be bad, just so they can participate with their friends in conversations about how bad the movie was. Nobody wants to feel out of the loop. So the movie studios can do whatever they want.
Thing is, if you go by the assumption that we (males and females) are born absolutely the same then this data is of course going to spark outrage. The reality is that on average men are more prone to take big risks, get in to fist fights, get into high speed car chases, rob banks, commit crimes, get sent to jail, so on and so forth. These are the kinds of stories it seems people quite often want to see on-screen. If men do these things more in reality then why should they not be hired to portray these roles in film? It is also the case that Hollywood is a place in the USA and the USA is mostly white. You're gonna get more white people. You're gonna get more white stories to tell and more white actors to act in them. Of course, I'm sure there's under-representation that needs to be addressed but I don't think it's the whole story or as dramatic as the inter-sectional feminist crowd wants to tell us.
Additionally, if women do things that people want to see portrayed in film to a significantly higher degree or at a greater rate then please, hire female actors to play that role. Fantastic!
Wow, women directors cast more women in their movies than men. Its almost like men do the EXACT same thing with men in their movies. And its not like there are more male directors or anything...
Why should a ratio be more even, if a woman wanted to make a film with a whole women's crew it'd be fine and dandy for me, the same the other way round. And yes, Hollywood has been a men's world for a long time, but not anymore. I'm getting sick of all these new reboots with women.Why don't you just make up a new story. The point is, is that there shouldn't be an even distribution (not saying there shouldn't be any women in films btw). The cast should be put together by story, not just because it's a minority. Edit: it would also be weird to hire a man because it's a man, so also don't do it the other way. I'm all for equality and women haven't been getting it for a long time, but don't force it that way. Go and fight a real problem, like in muslim countries!
+Jacob Cromer These people don't want equal opportunity they want equal outcome. They think in real life, things should be as close to 50/50 as possible, or an exact representation of the population. It's asinine, if they want more women or minorities in films, why aren't they becoming an actor? Why aren't they supporting organizations that support these same ideas? It's because they like to complain about everything, they have every luxury of a first world nation, but it's not good enough.
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane - 1960s film, 2 lead women in their 50s, a black woman, and two neighbours played by women. The two leads are not "hot", they are beautiful and are portraying brilliant characters. One is a psycho and the other is a DISABLED captive. Just missing an asian.
This IS so important--the portrayal of women and girls in films/TV. Films/TV don't just "reflect" the culture--it generates it. Really destructive. People--particularly girls and boys (and adults) get influenced by movies, tv, video games, etc. The same applies for non-caucasians,, older people, etc.
Statistics - the primary weapon of choice for gender-studies, man-haters. She says we need to post our feelings on social media about this issue....um, doesn't the like/dislike ratio and the comments below speak volumes to her.
It's kinda of pointless to present data like this. Filmmakers, as well as writers, are mostly white straight men so what's so strange to see stories from their point of view? People write about what they know (as S. King says, not a coincidence that most of his characters are men). You can't expect for a 5% minority to be in 50% of the movies. They should push more their stories because they are important and meaningful for everybody, but you are delusional if you expect equity when the majority of the creators and publisher belong to a certain group. Minorities should produce their contents by themselves otherwise, they will and up in the lgbt section of Netflix like in the UK.
That's why she wanted more female producers as she said they are a little better at presenting women. I would think the same applies for racial minorities and LGBT producers. And she did mention briefly about inherent biases in our culture. I can't blame people for writing what they know, but as a writer who does the complete opposite (I know, I'm weird), I think it's important to branch out and tell stories meant for people other than yourself and things that you don't agree with.
Queen Katara true, the basic reason boils down to the lack of women generally in filmmaking, especially directing and producing. I really doubt there's people in Hollywood deliberately sending women away because they're women- I just think there's a lack of encouragement to get them there in the first place. I feel like if there's more effort into showing this as an options (like women in STEM) we will slowly see a change, just give them time y'know
But do you need LGBT producers? Can you ALWAYS tell a humans sexuality or gender? Does this have to be a important characterization for a character in a story? Well I don't think so. If my neighbour Sally is a lesbian or a trans doesn't change her character nore would it be important for most figures in a film
I don't think its pointless; there's power in information and its time everyone uses the power of the the dollar wisely, not only movie goers in supporting but studios. Does the world really need another crass hyper male full of cgi and no content movie that tanks at the theaters as a tax right off? or would they prefer to actually make money?
Arianna You don't want equality with men, because then you would have equal deaths in war, equal suicides, equal treatment in court (instead of getting let off easy), much less preferential treatment in divorce, and many other things.
Gasp, what if movies are about telling stories of adventures or mysteries or horrors or romance, instead of displaying every label/race/sexuality/gender in 2 hours???? Idk
That's not the point. I haven't watched this whole video so I'll just make my own points. Women or not very often the main character in breathtaking action and adventure movies. Women are usually the damsel in distress or just seen as someone to be won (not literally). So usually in movies, ESPECIALLY action movies, the main character is a white, straight male, and most of the cast is white, except for one or two token black people. Don't you see the problem in that? So nobody is asking to base the entire film off of race, gender, and sexuality, we are just asking that women aren't only seen as objects and that there is some diversity. Now let me clarify something: I do know that there are also films that aren't like this, I just find that the vast majority is. (P.s. not to mention how men are super masculine and just reinforces the stereotype that men need to be straight, buff, etc. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but that's where the diversity aspect comes in again. If all action movies are made up of unrealistic, super hot, extremely masculine men, then it does form stereotypes.)
I'd consider myself a feminist but I think it's important to recognise entertainment doesn't need to meet every demographic equally. In the UK we have this stupid thing where every image will have one of every race. This is not how things work... If you have a builder then yes, they can be a woman but a vast majority are male. It is not sexist to show two builders and have them both male.
*0% of Women take part in heavy weight boxing for Men!* /satire 04:00 Lets deconstruct those simplistic numbers: ------------------------------------------------------------- 52% of movies have Black females. Despite Black Men and Women only being ca 13% of the population in USA. 30% of movies have Female Asians. Despite Asians Men and Women only being ca 6% of the population in USA. 16% of movies have *Females* that are disabled. Despite disabled people, *both Men and Women,* only being ca 19% of the population of USA. 7% of movies up to now have *Females* that are lesbian etc. Despite lesbian etc people only recently becoming mainstream accepted socially and *both Men and Women* only being ca 7.6% of the population of USA. *Bottom line is:* Despite many movies having themes or stories that would exclude some groups regardless. Most groups are better represented than their market share would warrant. Which is also why you would see similar trends in other nations. White people are not the most common actor in Asian movies...
@@debbyw90 It's actually not. Teachers are majority women, does that mean it's logical to call teaching/the teaching industry sexist against women? If your answer is no, then you should agree with me that this person isn't experiencing sexism, they are just victimizing themselves.
good grief... unless it is a documentary, almost every other film is a fictional story and acting is people pretending to be someone they are not... So long as you can act nothing else about you is important to me in the context of this film. This is so not an important issue. If you want to see certain 'types' of people in the film go and make some yourself instead of blaming others and demanding that they fix it.
The data would be actually much more interesting if one would account for base rates. Also it is hard to assume from pure frequency data, that the reason for underrepresentation is active discrimination. I really think that blockbuster films are underrepresentative of many things, including women, minorities, and intellect, but I am somehow sad that the way this is presented here is detrimental towards solving these issues.
Nils Petras Indeed, most moives are not made unless it's projected to get great ratings at the box office, so I too wounder what the ratings of these moives were in her studies... Society molds moives, not the other way around. If these movies were not doing well on return, they would not be continuously created and formed by the same moive format...
yes society does form movies, BUT the film industry has been excluding women since the start. There was barely a chance to get into movies for women because men are sometimes gatekeeping these positions.
I just want to thank TED for not disabling the comments on this video. If your ideas are worth spreading, it's worth allowing other people to have a reaction to them.
I am the Lseul. I speak for the non-PC. I speak for the masses, for the non-PC masses have no tongues. And I'm asking you TED, at the top of my lungs - that thing! That horrible thing that I see! What's that thing you've made out of my dear TED Talks, why can't you see! Yes, I am the Lseul who speaks for the non-PC masses, which you seem to be opposed as fast as you please. But I'm also in charge of the non-PC masses, who played in the shade with there keyboards at side, who lived happily in the great non-PC world. Now, thanks to your claims of being oppressed, and triggered by my non-PC people, there's not enough great TED talks ideas being shared all around!
TED Talks you used to host people to spread ideas worth spreading. Now half your talks force false ideas of oppression and spread them to millions! Why can't we have talks that are intelligent be it art or be it science. Remember the talks about CRISPR innovation, and human physiology! Remember the talks on new cancer treatments and designer babies! Remember the talks on economics relation to politics, and new space drives! Yes dear TED I do too! Those ideas should be the ones being spread! For every BS talk on gender studies is one less real issue or idea being spread!
7:59 "50% of the people that go to the boxoffice and buy tickets are girls or women", so realistically speaking the 100 most succesful movies that she is analyzing saw an equal number of men and women in the theatre. That means that most women don't really care about what she's talkinga bout right? I mean, i'm pretty sure that if 50% of the viewers didn't watch most of the 100 most suyccesfull movies because they weren't "inclusive" they wouldn't have become the most succesfull ones right?
Movies are a creative product, you can't dictate to someone how their core creativity should work. Hollywood execs do it all the time to maximise profits, if they started doing in the name of equality, they'd likely green light less films as they don't want to run the risk of pushing people away from their films because some political message has been forced down their throat or the quality of the film has been sacrificed for that sake. Also, so what if men are more interested in the film industry as career than women? People can study and prepare their careers how they want to. Though I do agree on one thing and that's actresses should be paid similar to what their male counterparts are. Also, personally meself, a person who identifies as a straight white male, I don't mind the lead character being female if the film itself is good. Look at Force Awakens, the main character in my eyes was Rey and the 2 main males, Finn and Poe, a lot of people have speculated a relationship between them two. The main white, young, "straight" (cause you never know) male is Kylo Ren and he's the villain and I don't mind that, yeah it doesn't represent me, but at least the film was pretty good. At the end of the day if somethings going to make money, be it a cheap, quickly made, plot-less action film or a well thought-out, emotional, thought-provoking drama, Hollywood execs will jump on it regardless of identity of the main character. I do agree with the Rooney rule part, it does give fair opportunity to other people who do have disadvantageous characteristics, however what I don't like is when people are forced out of a job or lose out to someone less qualified simply because they are considered to have "advantageous" characteristics.
El Lobo That's what she said as well, though. She clearly said to leave characters important to plot alone, and only try to make background unimportant characters more representative.
In regards to selecting characteristics for characters such as those, why not draw lots on what ethnicity, sexuality, etc based on the geographical location the setting is. For example for the ethnicity slot, if the population of that specific region is 12% black, the 12 out of those 100 lots will be black. Apparently 1 in 20 people are gay (1 in 10 are LGBT), so have 5 out of the 100 of the sexuality lots will be gay. Obviously the gender one will be split down the middle.
You clearly have not worked as an actor. More women than men typically pursue acting as a career. You are called to casting based on "advantageous" characteristics, it's the only industry where an ad to hire a woman can look like "Blonde, blue eyes, athletic body, must be well-endowed (it's important to drive action in script), girl-next door type." The entire selection process is based on advantageous characteristics, long before they ever see you act. And you're forgetting that if only 30% of the roles being written are for women and 70% are for men then women are losing out on jobs for not having the more advantageous characteristic of being male. If that is something you care about, then shouldn't this speech speak to you for exactly that reason?
5:50 TvTropes Men Are Generic, Women Are Special Generic characters are portrayed as male, they are 'the default'. I dont know how about you but I feel it more insulting rather than "it is 30% woman and 70% man in movies!". It is the same way in books too, so no suprise it has not changed in movies in the 80/100/whatever years. E: Same when you tell "director". It is not that people think male when you say director. People think male when you say almost whatever, unless stats/tropes are heavily biased towards women. Exactly the same reason.
4:05 O really? Erasure is intentional. No evidence was provided for this 'intent'. "What can be asserted with out evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
3:17 But why would you do that? Why not look at how things have been going, overall, for as long a period of time as possible? 4:01 So half the top 100 films have black female characters despite them being ~7% of the US population, sounds pretty good to me?
No. NO. NOO. That's just not how storytelling works. You need archetypes to tell a story. And guess what? Archetypes don't care about minorities. Archetypes come to life from the majority of something. When most country leaders are men. You take a man as the king in a movie. And this goes for everything. And men are just better at most things. So yes, then you get a lot of men in movies. And this is not a problem because that's just how you tell a good story.
I was under the impression that TED stood for Technology, Entertainment and Design. I think I've been waiting long enough for them to get back on track, but it's been going downhill for too long and little change in sight. Can anyone recommend a source for some interesting factual content?
@TED why don't you guys make a different channel for social "sciences"? That way people who care about that kind of thing can subscribe to it, and my fellow nerds can get out real science fix from this channel.
These numbers she gives at 4:00. I think it's problematic for the discussion that these are not compared to male numbers. The way she presents them makes it look like 84% of films include a male with a disability. These numbers are also taken for top 100 films, which introduce other factors other than just hollywood casting. And is 16% representation of female with disability really that bad? A quick search on google lead to 53 million americans with disabliliy, assuming half of that is female and with an american population of 326 million, this results in 8% female americans with disability. I know this quick calculation isn't hard facts, but that is half of what is representen in the top 100 films. I'm have a hard time to see the "crisis" here. (note: english is not my first language)
I'm actually okay with an increased diversity BUT one thing I don't like is when you increase diversity through changing the gender race sexuality of well-established characters ie (superheroes). Make an original story with whatever under-represented group you want that make. However don't forget a good story with well-developed characters is key NOT just diversity alone.
I personally was outraged by the very little women roles in Braveheart.. Saving Private Ryan, Unbroken, Hacksaw Ridge. Where are all the female soldiers!?
Most of the discrimination is not by race or color, but by class. Most filmmakers, writer and actors belongs to the upper middle-class. They don’t represent us, the audience, whatever gender or skin color they have. Stacy L. Smith is a professor, so she is blind to the class discrimination of the movie industry that consist of people like her. Projecting their values on to us. To her own over-representation she is blind. As blind as only an ”intellectual” can be.
1:50 we witness the oldest trick of salesmanship at work. Step 1: Create an artificial problem. Step 2: Offer your solution. This woman does not want the truth, she wants to be listened to.
because realistic still doesn't mean it has to be exactly like the world we live in. you can make a realistic middle-ages themed movie. furthermore if I was a movie director, I wouldn't want some expected quota ruin my vision of what I want to make.
Well, I think art imitates life, and I actually think it does so rather acurate already. Since she bases her talk on the blockbusters, which are usually action films and well in reality there are far more men who are willing to take such risks which would be involved. So, by selecting her sample size she basically negated her own premise. She should have gone with Oscar nominated films, but I guess her numbers would then not look as extrem. And that is why you never trust a statistic you have not forged yourself!
because it forms peoples world-view. Men being superheroes who save weak screaming women has been a theme for too long. And even "strong, independent women" have to show sideboob and thighs. why? please why? it only feeds weird boy fantasies.
"Hollywood" will put out what they think people will want to see. They are a business. Like all "successful" business operations they will do what they think brings in the most cash. This is true for film production in all countries who have the freedom to do so. Like all entertainment, it is based on demographics, culture, and what people (women-men, adults-children) most desire for their personal escapism. Examples of this are; wealthy, good looking men in romance oriented films and oversexed females in action films. This changes from time to time but only if the script and director is good enough to break away from this and unfortunately that doesn't alway mean financial success. Also, if tomorrow the largest demographic in the U.S. was changed to gay, black, asian, transgender, etc, than guess what? Tomorrow straight caucasians would be complaining about no representation too. Want to blame someone? Well dividing people up by singling out certain groups is not the answer. Blame Human kind. Its impossible for us to see past ourselves. Want to change that. People react more openly to kindness and openness, and less toward pointing fingers and accusing others. The energy you give is the energy you get back. Telling studios they are wrong is a waste of time, they don't care. And boycotting films won't work because most people wont give that up. Support or campaign for a company that will if you think its worth it. Dont expect someone else to gamble with their money or how they should entertain themselves.
Problem: Women are under represented in various fields and occupations, be they technical sciences, management positions or movie roles. Male Solution: study math/physics/engineering, work as a manager / director Female Solution: study social w/e and gender studies, work as a social something and complain about the problem I think by now every living being on the planet heard about the problem that women are under represented in many fields. But as I see it, where I live, girls are just not interested in enrolling in technical courses or pursuing careers as engineers or the like. So perhaps it's time we stop complaining about men and start convincing women to actually study/work in these areas instead? I know, I know, women have to face all so many difficulties in their daily lives while we men enjoy the roller coaster ride of an easy and worry-free existence and plot the oppression of women in our free time, but consider this: women in Saudi Arabia and similar countries get beaten and raped for driving a car as they're not allowed to do so, so maybe, just maybe, you're not as terribly bad off and white men aren't the worst beings in existence and perhaps you already have plenty of opportunities and just need to seize them?
Dame Judy Dench (M in Bond), Wonder Woman, Queen of Katwe (directed by Mira Nair about life of Phiona Mutesi, a Ugandan girl candidate victories at World Chess Olympiads), Dora (the explorer)...which other female roles in media can you think of that offer a positive female image? YES, let's see more!
She wants quotas in movies. Take it from Indians and we say this with experience, when you have roles/jobs/opportunities reserved for a certain section of society in the hope of being more inclusive you do the exact opposite in reality.
I appreciate y'all not disabling the comment section. I'm sure you knew what the reaction would be on the Internet.
Max Fritze eh, I would wait 24 hours at least till you make that claim
The truth hurts
Max Fritze
In the sequel to this she will dismiss all criticism here by claiming the comments prove we need feminism. It's a common Feminist deflection tactic.
Max Fritze Disabling the comments just does them more harm than good. The more popular view will always shine through despite attempts at censorship.
Max Fritze Was going to comment this.
Around minute 4, she shows a bunch of data about how various movies don't have certain races and genders represented in the movies. She says that 48 of the 100 didn't have black female characters. Hm, 52% with black female characters. Sounds absolutely terrible, right? Now lets consider the fact that only 12.6% of the United States population is of African decent, according to the 2010 US Census, and this includes males. Lets cut that in half to remove the males, and we get 6.3% of the population are black females. Wow! Over 8 times the ratio of people is the ratio of representation in movies. We then get the statistic that 93% of films didn't feature a woman in the LGBT scene, the numbers are similarly hilarious. 7% with LGBT women when only 3.8% of the US population identifies as part of the LGBT community according to both a report by the Williams Institute in 2011 and an ongoing Gallup poll. Lets cut this in half again for simple math, giving us 1.9% of the US population being females in the LGBT community. Hm. Their movie representation is nearly 4 times that of their percent population. I hardly see a problem. Now, there are still problems with certain programs and institutions of course, but representation in the media, at least in this talk, is hilariously drawn out of context and shown to be horrific when in fact it is far the other direction.
Thinking about it a little later, I realized my math is not entirely sound, as it was under the assumption of one "character" as her statistics put it. As a movie may have quite a few main characters, these odds would be lower, though still the opposite of what she argues.
First, I would like to apologize for this absurdly gigantic comment I am leaving as a response to yours. I have never commented on TH-cam before, but here I just really felt compelled to do so. I think you didn't really get her explanation. The bar they set to dig into the data was whether the character spoke at least once throughout the entire film, from which they derive the finding that the number of male speaking characters in movies is twice as big as the one of females, which i think is in many levels quite absurd and very wrong, especially since it is not getting better throughout the years, as she points out. Now the next section is considering characters in the same way, but now seeing in how many films those specific minorities appear. And that is not a question of whether that story represents something that is directly related to a specific demographic, but whether if there are minorities speaking in big budget films. An interesting question would be: how many of the big budget films have no minorities on screen? Is there a difference between both numbers? I would argue that there probably is, and that is the thing that gets me in this presentation. That minorities are not necessarily not present, but that they still, to this day and age, don't even get to say "hey" to someone on the street, or "can i help you" as a cashier in the coffee place the main characters go to, or have this demonstration of love in the a big romcom that triggers the main couple to admit their feelings for one another or something of that nature, you get the point. She says that there is an average of 40 to 45 speaking characters in every film. Le'ts use 40 on our calculations. That means that in only seven films there was at least one female LGBT character from the one hundred biggest box office films of 2015. The worst case scenario here is that from this vast universe of 4000 characters depicted throughout the year with a voice there were only 7 that were female and LGBT, or 0,175 percent. Using the data you have presented here, that means under ten times less than the actual percentage of the US population that defines themselves in that way. You were considering in your calculations that the entire cast of speaking characters in that film was LGBT and female, and going through the list of 100 biggest box office films from 2015, that wasn't the case for any of these films. The majority most definitely did not have a substantial amount of LGBT female characters, or that would have called my attention, so i would argue, although without hard data, that my calculation is probably closer to the real situation than yours. I didn't even get into the matter of how many directors are female and how gender discrimination for this role in film productions is so blatantly apparent, or whether there should be more main characters that are representative of different minorities. You are trying to undermine the argument of someone who has devoted 10 years of her life as a researcher to this matter, that is simply calling out the studios to be representative of reality in their films, to equate into the characters they depict in films the percentage that exists in the real world and to allow, in that sense, that a more inclusive image of society be perpetuated. She goes on to wonder what that could entail, what could come of a society that sees itself in films and other media as truly more diverse, with gender equality and so forth. I tend to agree with her that that is definitely something worth fighting for.
You know who is overrepresented in movies? Aliens, dinosaurs and socrerers. Those numbers do not match the real world!!!!
Azureim Lol!!!! Also killer robots from the future and dragons!
I identify as an attack helicopter and I demand equal representation!
Azureim I would have to agree the zombie to people ratio in any zombie movie is completely unfair!!!! Equality for all!!!
Azureim don't forget sharks.
I just went through TED video archive and the top Ted talk topic with female presenter are:
1. Gender equality
2. sexism
3. Love/romance
4.
5. Science related.
Top Ted talk topic with a male presenter.
1. Engineering
2. Science
3. Math
4. Social "science"
See the difference?
The last videos topic with a female presenter was "How to practice safe sexting". JEEEESUS
Male presenters talk about things that are actually interesting !? lel
Persian Life why is 4 blank?
Why did you put quotations around "science."?
Persian Life Well, that shows that maybe women feel less represented and not equally treated. If you don't have to face problems on a regular basis you probably won't talk about it. So if nobody's talking about the inequality, the people who feel treated worse start to do it.
But i don't know if what you're saying is correct. Why did you left the 4th out?
What your data (if it's correct) shows is only the fact that there's still no gender equality because clearly either the women feel as if they have to talk about it or they are still not represented as much as man are in maths/science stuff.
Vincent Vendetta
Hm, do you mean this specifically is fake science or social sciences generally are fake science?
I notice you have comments enabled this time. Good. Your previous policy of disabling comments on these types of topics was terrible.
I wonder if they will change their mind, since a lot of people are not happy with the video here.
Honestly? Doesn't this tell Ted what kind of people should not get a talk? It's important to hear them say their thing, but their misrepresentation of facts to achieve an underlying agenda is making me feel sick. People who misrepresent information to get their agenda pushed should not be advocating equality, because lying indicates a different agenda from equality. Either that or they are stupid and can't interpret the numbers correctly in the right context.
In many cases the market solely determines what movies are, and aren't, made. "Lost in Translation" was Written and Directed by a woman, but that isn't why I love it: It's because it's a great movie that I can relate to. Make good movies. Take my money. It's that simple.
But..how many of the asian movies released in 2015 had europeans in them?
Fly to the top, sensible person.
KeKKi up you go
Why would people living in Europe and the US criticize Asian movies for not having minorities? It is their problem.
If it takes place in Asia, shouldn't all the characters be Asian though? She is saying there should be diversity in American films since America is racially diverse. It's a reflection of the area.
Classic whataboutism. But I'll bite- Asia plays a fuckload of western movies. Asia has a far higher percentage of Asians than America has Asians. Nice try, doesn't hold water in reality.
Movies 2018: Random shoots were 5 disabled,lesbian,black and asian woman older then 45 talk to each other about gender inequality while Vin Diesel saves the world in the background.
pause at 1:30 theres not a single man in the audience
mattias blomberg If there'd be men, it'd be less diverse.
and second-
this has nothing to do with what she says
Soo, man don't want even to listen to the thing and after start complaining about it. yep. very accurate.
Evidence of discrimination at TED. Sound the alarm, Call the twitter outrage machine and hashtactivists!
For the 10000th fucking time! statistical disparities are not evidence of discrimination.
amen
Then what would you consider evidence? I'm genuinely curious.
it's a hard question. The main counter point is that if 50% of the population is under served by the film industry then someone should start a new studio/production company and capture that profit. Basically there is no reason why they can't but no one does (for maybe sexist reasons, maybe not).
In the end people get mad when they feel like someone says hey YOU HAVE TO HIRE more ___________ or do more _____________ because it's more inclusive and you'll still make money. Okay then if you want me to....why don't you?
i'd say it counts as evidence, but its not conclusive.
You're right! And Professor Jonathan Haidt has a marvelous presentation on that (how disparities are NOT evidence of discrimination).
spitting straight facts, love it
I came in here with an open mind and I understand where she's coming from. I don't 100% agree with what was said, but the backlash for this kind of content is over the top.
You really can't complain that 16 out of a 100 films don't star a disabled woman. THATS A HUGE AMOUNT compared to how many people are actually disabled women
Darushan AZ There are so called invisible disabilities, so you may not be aware of this, but about 15% of population is disabled. I couldn't find stats for gender, but knowing that diseases such as muliple sclerosis, myalgic encephalomyelitis, lupus, etc predominantly affect women, percentage for them may even be higher.
ProteaAurea so then tell me, how do you want the disabilities shown in movies, where the only way to notice them is to actually see them? Or should every charakter just blurt out what kind of neural degeneration they have? And if you throw in a few people who can't walk or see or hear, you still don't represent people with diseases like MS or alzheimers. And if you want to represent ANY kind of disability, this becomes a barrel without a bottom.
Also for the LGBT group, if someone had just one line like "Hi how can I help you?" how can they be categorized by sexuality or gender? You can say 93 out of the top 100 didn't feature an explicit LGBT member, but all these extras that have one line weren't explicitly straight either. Really dumb to include such a secretive identifier.
Rachel Losacco in order to actively represent LGBT people, the film would have to establish that they are LGBT. If they only have a line of "Hi", then unless it's been established elsewhere in the film that that character is LGBT (I.e. Setting, what other characters said about them, etc.), then it's pretty clear they are not counted as representing the LGBT community.
It's also worth pointing out that the LGBT community is about 4.4% of the population (I think). So this would mean they're over-represented anyway.
So 2016 highest grossing filims:
1. The Force Awakens (Female lead)
2. Finding Dory (Female lead)
3. Captain America Civil War (Male lead, but black widow has a lot of screen time and she's a badass)
4. The Secret life of Pets (Haven't seen it but it has more male characters)
5. The Jungle Book (Male lead)
6. Deadpool (Male lead)
7. Zootopia (Female lead)
8. Batman v Superman (Male lead, but Wonder Woman shows up)
9. Suicide Squad (More male characters but Harley Quinn is extremely popular and Viola Davis is a badass)
10. Sing (Haven't seen it but it has 50% males, 50% females)
So 3 females leads, 4 male leads and the rest is kinda split in the middle.
pd. Moana was 11
Just because there is one female actor in it that shows up for 2 minutes doesn't make it "split in the middle"
But Stacy Smith.... Maybe you should question *why* this is instead of *if* this is.
She alluded to the fact that there is an inherent bias in our society. Ultimately, representation could help change and open people's minds to those who are different to them. Heck, entertainment did that for me.
Queen Katara What is inherent bias even? Why are we chasing a ghost?
I doubt that this an issue of representation and I disagree with the notion that there is an inherent bias in society. I mean, she uses as her sample data the films that are successful at the box office, well those are predominantly action films, and well when I look at reality, I see mostly men doing the crazy risky stuff, while women are the exception in doing that. So, I think Hollywood actually repesents reality rather well, giving male audiences the power fantasy that they want to be the hero, and female audiences a men to dream of and that is what people then spend their money on. Since at the end of the day, most women prefer to avoid taking too much risks, and so if there is an inherent bias in our society, then it is that men are still expected to sacrifice themselves for us women, that they have to take the risky jobs (which is why the mortality rate of men on their jobs is much higher than those of women, but nobody talks about that, instead the topic when it comes to gender and work is always about money) or to protect the women (which is also why male victims of domestic violence are usually ignoered and barely have any places to find help). And then people wonder why men might be reluctant when women want to take even their escapist fantasies of films and video games? And yet there are so many men who nevertheless basically castrate themselves to be the white knights.
There is an inherent bias in our society, we call that gynocentrism, a bias that benefit women.
NOT EVERY SINGLE RACE, GENDER, etc HAS TO BE REPRESENTED
im a mexican female and my favorite characters in movies/ tv shows most of the time look nothing like me! i don't care because i can relate to their skills, mindset, and passion not their skin color...
You’re an anecdote though
can we just all thank Ted for letting the comments share their ideas on this topic, instead of going against their core principles and disabling the comments.
We honestly live In a great open minded accepting nation if our biggest social concern is how many gay Asian woman in wheelchairs are staring in our action movies
This is gold.
Bonker Bincklton love it.
WTF that´s not what she said. There is no fair representation of everything that is not white and male in movies. That is a problem. It´s not that hard to understand.
She wasn´t talking about excess of white males in movies, she was talking about lack of women
One implies the other and she also mentioned other minorities in Hollywood.
I don't get the hate on the comments section. Ted shows video from a lot of different point of views. I may not agree with this person, but it is interesting to understand every point of view!
Speakers on TED in 2017: 55
Share of women speaking: 60%
I scream sexism.
93 movies w/o LGBT characters? How can you tell? You would have to assume every character is heterosexual unless he shouts "I gay everybody, just so you know!" in one of his appearances?
Also arent less then 10% of the population lgbt so 7 out of 100 roughly pictures the reality of the society we live in?
You do realize we live in a heteronormative society where everyone assumes that everyone is straight unless proven or stated otherwise, right? Right? Also, there's no accurate percentage of the LGBT population, and just because they're a minority group doesn't mean they deserve less representation. 7 out of 100 is abysmal. Period.
I personally believe that this is not an idea worth sharing
Love her topic "the portrayal", because in reality many problems has happened due to young women viewing this portrayal and sexualization. All mainly to women and girls. Men love it, they will smile at the portrayal until they see it affect someone they love. Young girls before even reaching middle school have body dysmorphia, low self esteem, and develop eating disorders. Looking at myself, the older, and younger women I am surrounded with who have been impacted by this, it devastates me.
Okay, women are underrepresented, I totaly agree that they should be put under the light more often.
But those stats are kinda saying "every movies have to have equal number of male and female characters" why not?
But beyond that "every movies have to have at least one: african, asian, [insert more races here], disapled person, lesbian, gey, transexual, don't forget transgender, why not a mute/deaf/blind all three in different characters... so more can be added...
We do need diversity, but if this rule was followed, there wouldn't be any creative liberties anymore.
Balance would be the key word.
Edit do add: directors also do with what they have. That's why the opposite thing can be seen in asian movie or whatever. Their own race is more represented because that's what they have.
the amount of men who don't see problems cause it doesn't affect them....
is too damn high!
Shoehorning social justice/feminist agenda to movie that got nothing to do with social justice or feminism for the sake of pushing the mentioned agenda is a sure mark of a genius. And a great way to attract more excited and enthusiastic audience too!
/s
On a serious note, there is already too much movies that speak about the same. Damn. Thing. And this damn thing isn't just a 1st world problem, it's a single country problem, exported to countries that already solved this problem or could care less about it. What's really aggravating is that there is not enough movies speaking about the REAL GLOBAL PROBLEMS: deforestation, child labor and overall abuse, CONSTANT WARS, a big drops in intelligence and a rise of the populism and nationalism. List goes on. But no, Hollywood fixed on one problem and managed to represent it as an annoyance rather. Good job! Carry on in the same manner!
I personally really enjoyed this TED talk, but am very surprised at the overall reaction in the comments section and the dislike to like ratio! I think that we not only need to spread the word about this issue, but create healthy discussion with our friends and community about gender parity in Hollywood in general.
bchung SAME
I'm glad that TED hasn't disabled ratings and comments
So she is basically telling us that the movie industry in Hollywood should be other way around, where there are little to no men?
If only 7% movies has female lesbians in the movie, that is ok! Because only ~5% of the world population is Lesbian/Gay. (at least here in Norway it's ~5.)
I have a question to all those people who decided to dislike this video. Do you genuinely dislike the content of this talk because you disagree with her statistically-backed findings, or are you simply insecure that this woman wants to rectify Hollywood's demonstrated sexism? Think twice before answering that to make sure it's not the latter.
Because if your refutation to this talk is, "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN BLAH BLAH", I think you suffer from a very deep-rooted insecurity. Do you know how I know? Because I used to think like like all you when I was a teenager and just ignorant. Want to know how I changed my perspective? I listened. LISTEN to what she's saying. This woman is obviously educated and knows what she's talking about.
The fact of the matter is that you are not a woman. Women face a much different reality than what we men do. If you fail to acknowledge that, then YOU are part of the damn problem. And to be honest, IT IS OKAY if you don't know what it feels like to live as a woman on this earth. I don't. I don't know what it feels like to have my entire gender portrayed as sexualized objects since literally the inception of Hollywood, and I will never know what that feels like. But here is what I do know. Women, the other bloody half of OUR shared society, are hurting, upset, and want change. Listen to their grievances and hear their voices. Do you sincerely think that the women making such claims are irrational and foolish? NO. Just start listening before opening your damn mouths. It's not that difficult.
And I have never commented on a TH-cam video before. The only reason I am doing so is because this is a TedTalk, and my understanding was that the people who would watch such videos are proponents of science, innovation, and progress. I am appalled and disappointed that the same people who praise other TedTalks would talk about this one in such a disparaging manner. I would never have expected this sort of reaction from TedTalk viewers. This is 2017, people. Just listen. That's all it takes.
"The first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one" - Many of the greatest leaders and freedom fighters of the 21st century.
best commentary!!
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
There are some issues with her arguments:
1. She limits her research to top 100 films, meaning that there is a confounding selection bias. These movies are top 100 because they made the most revenue in the box office, which means that people were interested in seeing them. Simple supply and demand here. If movies outside the top 100 are closer to 40:60 per se, then the money speaks for itself. If not, I'm sure hollywood producers would catch on to the trend.
2. She introduces intersectionality to bring up the more extreme statistics (e.g., 93 top 100 movies didn't feature LGBT females), but then completely disregards an intersectional approach in her "solution". Not once did she mention race or ability.
3. Her "solutions" put Content creators, Executives, and Consumers under pressure to change. But, I think the issue is that there are no female directors period. I don't agree that this lack of female behind-the-scenes workers is because Men who currently operate film productions are choosing to inhibit female opportunity. Talent and skill will always be successful, especially in a market driven field.
Stop begging men to give women a chance. If women want to see more women in respectable roles in hollywood, more women should take an interest in filmography and production. You shouldn't expect things, you should earn them.
Josh C sorry- apple before the cart argument here. You can’t create a demand if it’s not offered. Simple math- create more content with leading men, consumers will have no choice but to see more films with leading men. The top grossing film when Hunger Games came out was... Hunger Games. If you build it- SHE and HE will come.
At first, this seemed like just a rehashing of the Bechtel test we're probably all already familiar with, but I do give her points for at least offering solutions. That being said, there were a few points that she missed. One of the major problems is that Hollywood (and we're clearly talking about major studios, not indie films) isn't putting out or at least promoting original ideas. Everything is an adaptation, a sequel, a remake or a reboot. This is a problem by itself, because we're not getting as much in the way of new material, but with regards to the representation of women and minorities, it means that the movies we're putting out are limited by the source material. If the stories we're drawing from underrepresented women, then the adaptations of those stories will naturally underrepresent women as well.
The main flaw, though, with her solutions is that audiences don't really have any real power. The studios KNOW that we're going to see the movies no matter who they cast. So if we demand more female directors, and the studios just say no, what are we going to do? Stop watching them? Of course not. People actually buy tickets to see movies they know are going to be bad, just so they can participate with their friends in conversations about how bad the movie was. Nobody wants to feel out of the loop. So the movie studios can do whatever they want.
Thing is, if you go by the assumption that we (males and females) are born absolutely the same then this data is of course going to spark outrage. The reality is that on average men are more prone to take big risks, get in to fist fights, get into high speed car chases, rob banks, commit crimes, get sent to jail, so on and so forth. These are the kinds of stories it seems people quite often want to see on-screen. If men do these things more in reality then why should they not be hired to portray these roles in film?
It is also the case that Hollywood is a place in the USA and the USA is mostly white. You're gonna get more white people. You're gonna get more white stories to tell and more white actors to act in them. Of course, I'm sure there's under-representation that needs to be addressed but I don't think it's the whole story or as dramatic as the inter-sectional feminist crowd wants to tell us.
Additionally, if women do things that people want to see portrayed in film to a significantly higher degree or at a greater rate then please, hire female actors to play that role. Fantastic!
Wow, women directors cast more women in their movies than men. Its almost like men do the EXACT same thing with men in their movies. And its not like there are more male directors or anything...
Why should a ratio be more even, if a woman wanted to make a film with a whole women's crew it'd be fine and dandy for me, the same the other way round. And yes, Hollywood has been a men's world for a long time, but not anymore. I'm getting sick of all these new reboots with women.Why don't you just make up a new story. The point is, is that there shouldn't be an even distribution (not saying there shouldn't be any women in films btw). The cast should be put together by story, not just because it's a minority.
Edit: it would also be weird to hire a man because it's a man, so also don't do it the other way. I'm all for equality and women haven't been getting it for a long time, but don't force it that way. Go and fight a real problem, like in muslim countries!
+Jacob Cromer These people don't want equal opportunity they want equal outcome. They think in real life, things should be as close to 50/50 as possible, or an exact representation of the population. It's asinine, if they want more women or minorities in films, why aren't they becoming an actor? Why aren't they supporting organizations that support these same ideas? It's because they like to complain about everything, they have every luxury of a first world nation, but it's not good enough.
wait, you mean women start thinking like men?
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane - 1960s film, 2 lead women in their 50s, a black woman, and two neighbours played by women. The two leads are not "hot", they are beautiful and are portraying brilliant characters. One is a psycho and the other is a DISABLED captive. Just missing an asian.
This IS so important--the portrayal of women and girls in films/TV. Films/TV don't just "reflect" the culture--it generates it. Really destructive. People--particularly girls and boys (and adults) get influenced by movies, tv, video games, etc. The same applies for non-caucasians,, older people, etc.
Statistics - the primary weapon of choice for gender-studies, man-haters. She says we need to post our feelings on social media about this issue....um, doesn't the like/dislike ratio and the comments below speak volumes to her.
It's kinda of pointless to present data like this. Filmmakers, as well as writers, are mostly white straight men so what's so strange to see stories from their point of view? People write about what they know (as S. King says, not a coincidence that most of his characters are men). You can't expect for a 5% minority to be in 50% of the movies. They should push more their stories because they are important and meaningful for everybody, but you are delusional if you expect equity when the majority of the creators and publisher belong to a certain group. Minorities should produce their contents by themselves otherwise, they will and up in the lgbt section of Netflix like in the UK.
That's why she wanted more female producers as she said they are a little better at presenting women. I would think the same applies for racial minorities and LGBT producers. And she did mention briefly about inherent biases in our culture. I can't blame people for writing what they know, but as a writer who does the complete opposite (I know, I'm weird), I think it's important to branch out and tell stories meant for people other than yourself and things that you don't agree with.
Queen Katara true, the basic reason boils down to the lack of women generally in filmmaking, especially directing and producing. I really doubt there's people in Hollywood deliberately sending women away because they're women- I just think there's a lack of encouragement to get them there in the first place. I feel like if there's more effort into showing this as an options (like women in STEM) we will slowly see a change, just give them time y'know
or, or , maybe women just don't want to work as producers and directors ? who would've thunk
But do you need LGBT producers? Can you ALWAYS tell a humans sexuality or gender? Does this have to be a important characterization for a character in a story? Well I don't think so. If my neighbour Sally is a lesbian or a trans doesn't change her character nore would it be important for most figures in a film
I don't think its pointless; there's power in information and its time everyone uses the power of the the dollar wisely, not only movie goers in supporting but studios. Does the world really need another crass hyper male full of cgi and no content movie that tanks at the theaters as a tax right off? or would they prefer to actually make money?
Is equality still equality if it's forced? Seems a bit rapey to me.
+Arianna That's not a word, sorry.
Arianna
You don't want equality with men, because then you would have equal deaths in war, equal suicides, equal treatment in court (instead of getting let off easy), much less preferential treatment in divorce, and many other things.
+Ariannaaaa97
I like how you used the word "his".
No, it becomes equity
You lost me at the "that movie made me hate my body" argument.
The same is true for TV. When I get bored I channel surf and count the # of men vs women that are on the screen. It's almost always 2:1 men over women
The public should be 50% women and 50% men
DISCRIMINATION!!!!!
Arroz Inflado AGREED! Men should realize this is important and start attending these talks
It's not important though
Is there a version of this video with subtitles? I don't speak stupid.
Gasp, what if movies are about telling stories of adventures or mysteries or horrors or romance, instead of displaying every label/race/sexuality/gender in 2 hours???? Idk
That's not the point. I haven't watched this whole video so I'll just make my own points. Women or not very often the main character in breathtaking action and adventure movies. Women are usually the damsel in distress or just seen as someone to be won (not literally). So usually in movies, ESPECIALLY action movies, the main character is a white, straight male, and most of the cast is white, except for one or two token black people. Don't you see the problem in that? So nobody is asking to base the entire film off of race, gender, and sexuality, we are just asking that women aren't only seen as objects and that there is some diversity. Now let me clarify something: I do know that there are also films that aren't like this, I just find that the vast majority is. (P.s. not to mention how men are super masculine and just reinforces the stereotype that men need to be straight, buff, etc. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but that's where the diversity aspect comes in again. If all action movies are made up of unrealistic, super hot, extremely masculine men, then it does form stereotypes.)
Correlation does not imply causation.
Do you know what sexism is? Having something called TEDWomen without having TEDMen and an all female audience.
Agree with the TEDwomen, part but you can't choose who attends the TED talk.
I think that is what they did. They made TEDWomen from women for women.
I'd consider myself a feminist but I think it's important to recognise entertainment doesn't need to meet every demographic equally. In the UK we have this stupid thing where every image will have one of every race. This is not how things work...
If you have a builder then yes, they can be a woman but a vast majority are male. It is not sexist to show two builders and have them both male.
*0% of Women take part in heavy weight boxing for Men!* /satire
04:00 Lets deconstruct those simplistic numbers:
-------------------------------------------------------------
52% of movies have Black females. Despite Black Men and Women only being ca 13% of the population in USA.
30% of movies have Female Asians. Despite Asians Men and Women only being ca 6% of the population in USA.
16% of movies have *Females* that are disabled. Despite disabled people, *both Men and Women,* only being ca 19% of the population of USA.
7% of movies up to now have *Females* that are lesbian etc. Despite lesbian etc people only recently becoming mainstream accepted socially and *both Men and Women* only being ca 7.6% of the population of USA.
*Bottom line is:*
Despite many movies having themes or stories that would exclude some groups regardless. Most groups are better represented than their market share would warrant. Which is also why you would see similar trends in other nations. White people are not the most common actor in Asian movies...
Would be nice to see a study on how the inclusion of women characters affect movie revenue
Also: see how many movie writers are female.
there is so much sexism in street worker and sewer cleaners, they have over 98% men
more women as sewer cleaners!
"sexism?" Boo hoo you aren't a victim of any sort of sexism
@@cearad4996 i hope this is sarcasm
@@clarkalarcon4057 what would make you think that
because what you’re saying is over the top stupid…that’s why they thought it’s sarcasm
@@debbyw90 It's actually not. Teachers are majority women, does that mean it's logical to call teaching/the teaching industry sexist against women? If your answer is no, then you should agree with me that this person isn't experiencing sexism, they are just victimizing themselves.
good grief... unless it is a documentary, almost every other film is a fictional story and acting is people pretending to be someone they are not... So long as you can act nothing else about you is important to me in the context of this film. This is so not an important issue. If you want to see certain 'types' of people in the film go and make some yourself instead of blaming others and demanding that they fix it.
The data would be actually much more interesting if one would account for base rates. Also it is hard to assume from pure frequency data, that the reason for underrepresentation is active discrimination. I really think that blockbuster films are underrepresentative of many things, including women, minorities, and intellect, but I am somehow sad that the way this is presented here is detrimental towards solving these issues.
Nils Petras
Indeed, most moives are not made unless it's projected to get great ratings at the box office, so I too wounder what the ratings of these moives were in her studies...
Society molds moives, not the other way around. If these movies were not doing well on return, they would not be continuously created and formed by the same moive format...
yes society does form movies, BUT the film industry has been excluding women since the start. There was barely a chance to get into movies for women because men are sometimes gatekeeping these positions.
I just want to thank TED for not disabling the comments on this video. If your ideas are worth spreading, it's worth allowing other people to have a reaction to them.
INB4 COMMENTS CLOSED.
Why, for years now, are TV couples: Beautiful wife, ugly , schleppy husband.....?????
No black, no women, oh my! The world is going to end!!!!!
Blockbuster movies are not an efficient method to effect change. To make them so would be really dificult. Likely infeasable.
I can't believe how many stupid people get a platform on Tedtalks. A lot of these speeches are so ridiculous they almost seem like satire.
I'll get the popcorn, this is gonna be a very interesting comment section
oh god, they left the comment section open.
You can't tell people how to create movies, it's their option to make them and how. And then it's your option to like them or not.
I am the Lseul. I speak for the non-PC. I speak for the masses, for the non-PC masses have no tongues. And I'm asking you TED, at the top of my lungs - that thing! That horrible thing that I see! What's that thing you've made out of my dear TED Talks, why can't you see!
Yes, I am the Lseul who speaks for the non-PC masses, which you seem to be opposed as fast as you please. But I'm also in charge of the non-PC masses, who played in the shade with there keyboards at side, who lived happily in the great non-PC world. Now, thanks to your claims of being oppressed, and triggered by my non-PC people, there's not enough great TED talks ideas being shared all around!
TED Talks you used to host people to spread ideas worth spreading. Now half your talks force false ideas of oppression and spread them to millions! Why can't we have talks that are intelligent be it art or be it science. Remember the talks about CRISPR innovation, and human physiology! Remember the talks on new cancer treatments and designer babies! Remember the talks on economics relation to politics, and new space drives! Yes dear TED I do too! Those ideas should be the ones being spread! For every BS talk on gender studies is one less real issue or idea being spread!
Nicely spoken! 👌
7:59 "50% of the people that go to the boxoffice and buy tickets are girls or women", so realistically speaking the 100 most succesful movies that she is analyzing saw an equal number of men and women in the theatre. That means that most women don't really care about what she's talkinga bout right? I mean, i'm pretty sure that if 50% of the viewers didn't watch most of the 100 most suyccesfull movies because they weren't "inclusive" they wouldn't have become the most succesfull ones right?
Movies are a creative product, you can't dictate to someone how their core creativity should work.
Hollywood execs do it all the time to maximise profits, if they started doing in the name of equality, they'd likely green light less films as they don't want to run the risk of pushing people away from their films because some political message has been forced down their throat or the quality of the film has been sacrificed for that sake.
Also, so what if men are more interested in the film industry as career than women? People can study and prepare their careers how they want to.
Though I do agree on one thing and that's actresses should be paid similar to what their male counterparts are.
Also, personally meself, a person who identifies as a straight white male, I don't mind the lead character being female if the film itself is good. Look at Force Awakens, the main character in my eyes was Rey and the 2 main males, Finn and Poe, a lot of people have speculated a relationship between them two. The main white, young, "straight" (cause you never know) male is Kylo Ren and he's the villain and I don't mind that, yeah it doesn't represent me, but at least the film was pretty good.
At the end of the day if somethings going to make money, be it a cheap, quickly made, plot-less action film or a well thought-out, emotional, thought-provoking drama, Hollywood execs will jump on it regardless of identity of the main character.
I do agree with the Rooney rule part, it does give fair opportunity to other people who do have disadvantageous characteristics, however what I don't like is when people are forced out of a job or lose out to someone less qualified simply because they are considered to have "advantageous" characteristics.
El Lobo That's what she said as well, though. She clearly said to leave characters important to plot alone, and only try to make background unimportant characters more representative.
Ok, but since when did anyone care about or remember the "background, unimportant" characters? Why would that make any difference at all then?
In regards to selecting characteristics for characters such as those, why not draw lots on what ethnicity, sexuality, etc based on the geographical location the setting is. For example for the ethnicity slot, if the population of that specific region is 12% black, the 12 out of those 100 lots will be black. Apparently 1 in 20 people are gay (1 in 10 are LGBT), so have 5 out of the 100 of the sexuality lots will be gay. Obviously the gender one will be split down the middle.
You clearly have not worked as an actor. More women than men typically pursue acting as a career. You are called to casting based on "advantageous" characteristics, it's the only industry where an ad to hire a woman can look like "Blonde, blue eyes, athletic body, must be well-endowed (it's important to drive action in script), girl-next door type." The entire selection process is based on advantageous characteristics, long before they ever see you act. And you're forgetting that if only 30% of the roles being written are for women and 70% are for men then women are losing out on jobs for not having the more advantageous characteristic of being male. If that is something you care about, then shouldn't this speech speak to you for exactly that reason?
5:50
TvTropes
Men Are Generic, Women Are Special
Generic characters are portrayed as male, they are 'the default'. I dont know how about you but I feel it more insulting rather than "it is 30% woman and 70% man in movies!".
It is the same way in books too, so no suprise it has not changed in movies in the 80/100/whatever years.
E:
Same when you tell "director". It is not that people think male when you say director. People think male when you say almost whatever, unless stats/tropes are heavily biased towards women. Exactly the same reason.
4:05 O really? Erasure is intentional. No evidence was provided for this 'intent'. "What can be asserted with out evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
3:17 But why would you do that? Why not look at how things have been going, overall, for as long a period of time as possible?
4:01 So half the top 100 films have black female characters despite them being ~7% of the US population, sounds pretty good to me?
U gotta be kidding me
So all these years she watched 100 films per year and came to this bs conclusion. Well she must love watching movies. 😁
Would be interesting to see a statistic on films outside of Hollywood.
Maybe The Reverant dosen't quite work if the leading character is Gay/Transexual etc. just sayin'.
I commend the OP for not disabling the comment section. Censor, or shadow censoring is Ted's thing these days.
No. NO. NOO.
That's just not how storytelling works. You need archetypes to tell a story. And guess what? Archetypes don't care about minorities. Archetypes come to life from the majority of something. When most country leaders are men. You take a man as the king in a movie. And this goes for everything. And men are just better at most things. So yes, then you get a lot of men in movies. And this is not a problem because that's just how you tell a good story.
The data behind Military's sexism - I wonder why research/money/talks aren't done on this subject, I guess it's just not as appealing.
" man that movie was terrible, but the writer was female, so it's okay" 👴🏿🔪
I was under the impression that TED stood for Technology, Entertainment and Design.
I think I've been waiting long enough for them to get back on track, but it's been going downhill for too long and little change in sight.
Can anyone recommend a source for some interesting factual content?
This video is about the entertainment industry, so your point is…?
You just don’t like the content of the video. Well guess what, then don’t watch it.
American Hollywood sexism problem ... Why is this on TED and not a afternoon talkshow ?!
I'm very pleased you left this open again for discussion. Thank you. I didn't know what the "inclusion rider" was. And this is important!
One more blatantly far-left divisive Ted Talk and I'll unsubscribe.
Samuel Underwood I unsubbed years ago. I come back periodically to see how far the termites have feasted on a once great brand.
probably by next week lol
Y'all love overreacting lol
Many popular films are action/hero films.
Males are viewed as physically stronger, so you can see how the number for women is less
That does not make sense, not at all. Have you seen Alien by Ridley Scott? Come back afterwards
My study says that women are being soooo discriminated in coal mining.
anybody else remember when TED talks were about science? Those were the days...
@TED why don't you guys make a different channel for social "sciences"? That way people who care about that kind of thing can subscribe to it, and my fellow nerds can get out real science fix from this channel.
Ghostbusters Ghostbusters ghostbusters
These numbers she gives at 4:00. I think it's problematic for the discussion that these are not compared to male numbers. The way she presents them makes it look like 84% of films include a male with a disability. These numbers are also taken for top 100 films, which introduce other factors other than just hollywood casting. And is 16% representation of female with disability really that bad? A quick search on google lead to 53 million americans with disabliliy, assuming half of that is female and with an american population of 326 million, this results in 8% female americans with disability. I know this quick calculation isn't hard facts, but that is half of what is representen in the top 100 films. I'm have a hard time to see the "crisis" here. (note: english is not my first language)
She should start running her own movie studio and see if she makes or loses money!
Women call men treating women equally sexism.
I'm actually okay with an increased diversity BUT one thing I don't like is when you increase diversity through changing the gender race sexuality of well-established characters ie (superheroes). Make an original story with whatever under-represented group you want that make. However don't forget a good story with well-developed characters is key NOT just diversity alone.
I personally was outraged by the very little women roles in Braveheart.. Saving Private Ryan, Unbroken, Hacksaw Ridge. Where are all the female soldiers!?
Most of the discrimination is not by race or color, but by class.
Most filmmakers, writer and actors belongs to the upper middle-class.
They don’t represent us, the audience, whatever gender or skin color they have.
Stacy L. Smith is a professor, so she is blind to the class discrimination of the movie industry that consist of people like her. Projecting their values on to us. To her own over-representation she is blind. As blind as only an ”intellectual” can be.
"Equality of outcome is an abomination of justice." John Haidt
1:50 we witness the oldest trick of salesmanship at work.
Step 1: Create an artificial problem.
Step 2: Offer your solution.
This woman does not want the truth, she wants to be listened to.
I don't believe these statistics.
Why does film HAVE TO REPRESENT REALITY! What is the chick babbling about?
Well if it's a film that's supposed to be realistic, why shouldn't it represent reality?
there is not a whole lot of films supposed to be realistic
because realistic still doesn't mean it has to be exactly like the world we live in. you can make a realistic middle-ages themed movie. furthermore if I was a movie director, I wouldn't want some expected quota ruin my vision of what I want to make.
Well, I think art imitates life, and I actually think it does so rather acurate already. Since she bases her talk on the blockbusters, which are usually action films and well in reality there are far more men who are willing to take such risks which would be involved. So, by selecting her sample size she basically negated her own premise. She should have gone with Oscar nominated films, but I guess her numbers would then not look as extrem. And that is why you never trust a statistic you have not forged yourself!
because it forms peoples world-view. Men being superheroes who save weak screaming women has been a theme for too long. And even "strong, independent women" have to show sideboob and thighs. why? please why? it only feeds weird boy fantasies.
"Hollywood" will put out what they think people will want to see. They are a business. Like all "successful" business operations they will do what they think brings in the most cash. This is true for film production in all countries who have the freedom to do so. Like all entertainment, it is based on demographics, culture, and what people (women-men, adults-children) most desire for their personal escapism. Examples of this are; wealthy, good looking men in romance oriented films and oversexed females in action films. This changes from time to time but only if the script and director is good enough to break away from this and unfortunately that doesn't alway mean financial success. Also, if tomorrow the largest demographic in the U.S. was changed to gay, black, asian, transgender, etc, than guess what? Tomorrow straight caucasians would be complaining about no representation too. Want to blame someone? Well dividing people up by singling out certain groups is not the answer. Blame Human kind. Its impossible for us to see past ourselves. Want to change that. People react more openly to kindness and openness, and less toward pointing fingers and accusing others. The energy you give is the energy you get back. Telling studios they are wrong is a waste of time, they don't care. And boycotting films won't work because most people wont give that up. Support or campaign for a company that will if you think its worth it. Dont expect someone else to gamble with their money or how they should entertain themselves.
Problem: Women are under represented in various fields and occupations, be they technical sciences, management positions or movie roles.
Male Solution: study math/physics/engineering, work as a manager / director
Female Solution: study social w/e and gender studies, work as a social something and complain about the problem
I think by now every living being on the planet heard about the problem that women are under represented in many fields. But as I see it, where I live, girls are just not interested in enrolling in technical courses or pursuing careers as engineers or the like. So perhaps it's time we stop complaining about men and start convincing women to actually study/work in these areas instead?
I know, I know, women have to face all so many difficulties in their daily lives while we men enjoy the roller coaster ride of an easy and worry-free existence and plot the oppression of women in our free time, but consider this: women in Saudi Arabia and similar countries get beaten and raped for driving a car as they're not allowed to do so, so maybe, just maybe, you're not as terribly bad off and white men aren't the worst beings in existence and perhaps you already have plenty of opportunities and just need to seize them?
i love how she makes a big deal about poc, but they were the least underrepresented of the categories she showed. hmmm
Enough already. Just stop. Get a real job and do something of actual importance please.
Dame Judy Dench (M in Bond), Wonder Woman, Queen of Katwe (directed by Mira Nair about life of Phiona Mutesi, a Ugandan girl candidate victories at World Chess Olympiads), Dora (the explorer)...which other female roles in media can you think of that offer a positive female image? YES, let's see more!
Very disappointed with TED, I thought this was a channel about stories WORTH sharing....
She wants quotas in movies. Take it from Indians and we say this with experience, when you have roles/jobs/opportunities reserved for a certain section of society in the hope of being more inclusive you do the exact opposite in reality.
wow so many women hating reactionaries in the comments lmao.
This like to dislike ratio is horrifying.
i was so scared when i saw it