Geena Davis: Stereotypes in movies has negative effect

There is a significant lack of females in family-friendly films — and those who are in movies are often shown in sexual and non-professional roles, according to a new report that examined 120 films from 11 countries.

Research conducted by the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, and commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, was released on Monday. Among the findings:

• Of the 5,799 speaking or named characters on screen, 31% were female and 69% were male.
• The majority of workers in the analyzed films were male, at 78%.
• Male characters disproportionately held more powerful occupations than their female counterparts. Only 14% of business executives were female and just 10% of top-level politicians were women.
• Just a quarter of the films examined had a girl or woman as a lead or co-lead driving the plot.
• Only 10% of the sample group had a "balanced cast" that featured girls or women in 45% to 54.9% of all speaking roles.

"Overall, the global picture is very bleak" when it comes to women getting equal time to men in films, as well as women being portrayed in a positive light, said Davis.

A female's function in a film is very often "to serve as eye candy or be the girlfriend of the person that's having all the adventures," said the actress, who founded the Gender in Media institute to research and help improve how women are portrayed in media.

"By seeing positive and empowering and inspiring images of female characters, that will impact girls positively to say, 'Hey, I could be that,'" she says.

"Art doesn't have to imitate life," says the star of movies such as A League of Their Own and Thelma & Louise. "We can turn it around so life will imitate art."

If movies show women in executive positions, as well as pursuing careers in science or math, "then it looks normal to people," she said. "We can start to feel like, 'Hey, that makes perfect sense that women would be good at that,'" she adds. "So it can have an enormous impact."

The just-released report examined films theatrically released between Jan. 1, 2010, and May 1, 2013, and were "roughly equivalent" to an MPAA rating of G, PG or PG-13.

It focused on films from Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Listen to the full interview with Geena Davis right here: