Actress Salma Hayek Pinault played the role of Maxandra Mendoza in “Magic Mike: Last Dance” in 2023. Image: AFP Photo / Anne-Christine Poujoulat©

IIn cinema, the leading role is increasingly going to a man. A new study by the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California, USC Annenberg, shows that women and girls will play only 30% of the leading roles in major films in 2023, a decrease of 14 percentage points from the previous year.

Inequalities between men and women persist on screen, too. According to the annual USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study by the University of Southern California School of Journalism, which analyzed 1,700 films, only 31.7% of the 5,084 speaking characters in the top-grossing films from 2007 to 2023 were women or girls. The vast majority were cisgender men (68.2%), compared to less than 1% nonbinary people.

And as if that result wasn’t depressing enough, the 2023 results are even more worrying, with the percentage of women being the lowest since 2007, the year the USC study was published. The survey shows a significant decline in female lead roles, down 14 percentage points from 44% in 2022.

Worldwide, the proportion of women in leading roles on screen has not changed significantly in recent years. While women held 31.7% of speaking roles in 2023, this figure was 34.6% in 2022 and 29.9% in 2007.

Only 11% of the 100 most popular films of 2023 were gender balanced, with the proportion of women ranging from at least 45% to as much as 54.9%. This percentage is similar to 2022 (15%) and 2007 (12%).

Gender, age, ethnicity

In addition to their gender, actresses of color suffer even more from this discrimination on screen. According to the report, only 14% of the 100 most popular films of 2023 had women from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups as protagonists or co-protagonists. This is 4 percentage points lower than the 2022 figure (18%), but still more than the figure of just 1% in 2007.

Then there is the weight of age. Unlike men, actresses are victims of ageism. Only 3% of films in 2023 featured women aged 45 or older in leading roles, a significant drop from 2022 (10%) but similar to the proportion in 2007 (1%). “In the top 100 films of 2023, women (46.4%) were more likely to be shown as parents than men (40.8%). In terms of female caregivers, 2023 was no different from 2022 (43.8%) or 2007 (50%),” the researchers explained.

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Actresses who are both over 45 and from an ethnic minority are even less represented. In 2023, only one of the 100 most popular films featured a woman over 45 from an underrepresented ethnic group: Salma Hayek in the lead role. In 2022, the percentage was 5%, compared to 0% in 2007. “In terms of age, women represent less than a quarter (24.8%) of all speaking characters aged 40 or over in the top 100 films of 2023. The prevalence of women aged 40 and over on screen in 2023 was no different from 2022 (25.8%) or 2007 (25.8%),” the study said.

The only consolation is that the number of female directors, composers, screenwriters and producers remained stable compared to last year. Female screenwriters accounted for 15.2% of the screenwriters of the top 100 films in 2023, compared to 16.3% in 2022; female producers 24.4% in 2023, compared to 26.8% in 2022; and female composers 9.4%, compared to 8.2% in 2022. Female directors accounted for 12.1% in 2023, compared to 8.8% in 2022.

Actresses also made a breakthrough in the action and animation film sectors: their share rose from 20% and 20.8% respectively in 2007 to 26.7% and 36.5% respectively in 2023.