Gender Equality in Entertainment Culture

During today’s day and age, we are starting to see a change in the entertainment industry in regard to who’s playing a part in the leading roles. For many years it has been a male dominated industry within certain sectors of the entertainment industry such as producing, acting and directing. But in recent years this has been something we are starting to see a shift in when it comes to the concept of gender roles. From an article I recently researched over this topic, there is a quote from San Diego State University, “The numbers are staggering: Of the top 250 films of 2017, 88 percent had no female directors,”. This shows how skewed the opportunities are to direct or hold a leading role in Hollywood if you are female. This leads me into an interesting thought I had about all that is going on in our current social climate in association with the increasing number of females who have started to take the leading role or lead directing role in the past decade. Recent events such as the women’s march, the #MeToo movement, and multiple others across the country within the past couple of years. Wanting to go into the entertainment agencies of the PR industry, it is important to be aware of the changes and different social trends that are taking place within today’s social climate. Another quote from the San Diego State research team for film and television states that the report has tracked women’s employment in top-grossing films for 20 years. “In 2017, women comprised 18 percent of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 domestic grossing films, which is up from the 8% that it was in the last two decades” wrote Martha Lauzen, the author of the report and a professor of film and television at San Diego State University. This shows another key concept that although females are making progress in taking on lead roles in the industry, they still have a very small percentage of the power. With that being said, the feminist movements have created an awareness and energy in the social culture of the entertainment industry that has led for key lead roles in recent films such as Hunger Games, Oceans 8 and Bad Moms. As a young female wanting to go into this industry for public relations it’s important that I keep aware and in tune with the movements and especially as a female, promoting gender equality.