White men continue to dominate the ranks of feature film directors, with women directing just 6.4 percent of films in 2013-14, and minorities directing 12.5 percent, according to a report released Wednesday by the Directors Guild of America.
The report noted that films that earn more than $10 million at the box office have an even smaller percentage of female directors — just 3.1 percent.
“What this report does not reflect is what people who love film — even our culture as a whole — are missing when such a disproportionate percentage of films are directed by one gender or one ethnicity,” DGA President Paris Barclay said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a metric for that. What you will see is what happens when industry employers — studios and production companies — do little to address this issue head on.”
According to the report, white men directed 82.4 percent of the 347 feature films released in 2013 and 2014. Non-white men directed 11.2 percent, white women directed 5.1 percent and non-white women directed 1.3 percent.
The study did not include foreign films, documentaries, animated films or re-releases.
According to the report, of the 86 directors of 69 films that earned between $250,000 and $10 million at the box office, 11.6 percent were women. Of the 222 directors of 212 films that earned more than $10 million, only 3.1 percent were women. Minority directors helmed 11.6 percent of the films with smaller earnings, while 14.4 percent of the higher-earning films were directed by minorities.
“The numbers paint a grim outlook for diverse film directors — women in particular,” said Bethany Rooney, co-chair of the DGA’s Diversity Task Force. “Much like our recent reports on television director diversity, we hope this report will put a magnifying glass on a system that makes it disproportionately challenging for talented women and minority film directors to get hired.”
— City News Service