New tool quantifies power imbalance between female and male characters in Hollywood movie scripts

[FarCenter]

The team used machine-learning-based tools to analyze the language in nearly 800 movie scripts, quantifying how much power and agency those scripts give to individual characters. In their study, recently presented in Denmark at the 2017 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, the researchers found subtle but widespread gender bias in the way male and female characters are portrayed.

“’Frozen’ is an interesting example because Elsa really does make her own decisions and is able to drive her own destiny forward, while Anna consistently fails in trying to rescue her sister and often needs the help of a man,” said lead author and Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering doctoral student Maarten Sap, whose team also applied the tool to Wikipedia plot summaries of several classic Disney princess movies.

“Anna is actually portrayed with the same low levels of power as Cinderella, which is a movie that came out more than 60 years ago. That’s a pretty sad finding,” Sap said.

The team also created a searchable online database showing the subtle gender biases in hundreds of Hollywood movie scripts, which range from late 80s cult classics like “Heathers” to romantic comedies like “500 Days of Summer” to war films like “Apocalypse Now.”

In their analysis, the researchers found that women were consistently portrayed in ways that reinforce gender stereotypes, such as in more submissive positions and with less agency than men. For example, male characters spoke more in imperative sentences (“Bring me my horse”) while female characters tended to hedge their statements (“Maybe I am wrong”). However, the bias is not just in the words these characters speak, but also in the way they are portrayed through narratives.

http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/11/13/new-tool-quantifies-power-imbalance-between-female-and-male-characters-in-hollywood-movie-scripts/

[msongs]

1. gee one would think women would make their own movies in the narratives they prefer.

as in band together, pool resources, get funding, write scripts and be directors, shoot the films, promote them. all that business thing like the warner brothers did when they wanted to control their own destinies

[TexasBushwhacker]

4. The "get funding" part is the hitch n/t

[Beartracks]

7. There's also "getting out of the dominant paradigm."

Women aren't immune to gender bias just because they're women.

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[Madam45for2923]

2. I think the creators think this is the way to make their characters likeable.

[Doreen]

3. I notice they still make women screech and scream when they find a dead body.

I mean, come on how many of the women here would be doing that if we found a dead body? Yeah, the men still huff and puff and take over the situation why the women are going into hysterics. I even notice that on Criminal Minds. On the other hand it is still portrayed that the men have no clue how to deal with children. I think it is worse for the women but they still hold on to the stereotype for the men. It might seem like small little things but in the end they speak very loud about the imbalance.

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. 70% of all speaking parts go to men

so actresses are happy to get anything. Far too often an actress's first role is "dead hooker in dumpster".

I will say that the Law and Order shows have/had strong female characters, including 2 female medical examiners. But then, that's TV.

[Doreen]

6. It is like a full circle of everything against women.

Criminal Minds does well with their strong female FBI characters but usually they have the women who happen to find the dead bodies or see a crime happen screech and scream.