Despite the many ways cinema was upended in 2020 by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there was a record-setting number of female directors working on major projects last year.
According to Variety, this observation was the result of a study conducted by San Diego State University's Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, overseen by Dr. Martha Lauzen. In it, Lauzen discovered that women made for "16% of directors working on the 100 highest-grossing films in 2020," an increase compared to 12% of women directors in 2019 and 4% in 2018. Furthermore, the study also used Digital Entertainment Group's "Watched at Home Top 20 Chart" to learn that, between March and December, women represented 19% of top filmmaking positions (i.e. writers, executive producers and editors) for movies released to the home market, including 10% of directors.
However, as the article points out, these numbers still don't come close to providing true gender equality in Hollywood filmmaking. Despite the number of movies headed by women, only 28% held producer roles and 21% were executive producers compared to their male counterparts, while editors, writers and cinematographers made up a meager 18%, 12% and 3% respectively.
Likewise, a clear gender gap was observed in how many women were hired for top roles on projects depending on whether the person in the director's chair was a man or a woman. For screenwriting, women only made up 8% of the writing teams of male-led films compared to 53% on women-led entries, whereas editors contrasted between 39% female directors and 18% male directors.
Female directors dominated the superhero genre in 2020. Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman 1984 released in both theaters and HBO Max on Christmas Day which beat Hamilton in becoming the most-watched streaming movie of 2020. There was also Birds of Prey (Cathy Yan), which saw a theatrical release in February pre-COVID and made 201.8 million at the Box Office, and Netflix's The Old Guard (Gina Prince-Bythewood), which ranked amongst the year's most-watched SVOD films. This critical and commercial success also applied to genres like horror (i.e. Relic by Natalie Erika) romantic comedy (Happiest Season by Clea DuVall) and drama entries like Kitty Green's The Assistant and Kelly Reichardt's First Cow.
2021's most anticipated movie list will also include a number of female-led movies, including Black Widow and The Eternals, which were both pushed back a year due to COVID-19. The latter will be directed by Chloé Zhao, whose recent drama Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand, was amongst the most critically acclaimed movies of 2020.
Source: Variety