Middle Earth Has Fewer Women Than Space
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
This research is from April 2016. The folks at The Pudding analysed thousands of screenplays and did a word count of male and female dialogue.
Unsurprisingly: Hollywood skews heavily in favour of dudes talking.
| Film | % Female |
| Exodus: Gods & Kings | 2% |
| Predator | 4% |
| The Two Towers | 4% |
| Return of the King | 4% |
| 2001: A Space Odyssey | 4% |
| The Fifth Element | 5% |
| Star Wars | 6% |
| Return of the Jedi | 7% |
| Army of Darkness | 7% |
| Rocky | 7% |
| Tron | 8% |
| The Dark Knight | 10% |
| The 300 | 10% |
| Captain America | 11% |
| Empire Strikes Back | 11% |
| The Princess Bride | 11% |
| Batman Begins | 12% |
| Avengers | 13% |
| Fellowship of the Ring | 14% |
| The Dark Knight Rises | 15% |
| Batman Returns | 16% |
| The Legos Movie | 16% |
| Batman Forever | 17% |
| Green Lantern | 17% |
| Inception | 18% |
| The Matrix | 19% |
| Pulp Fiction | 24% |
| Blade | 25% |
| Spider-Man 2 | 25% |
| Watchmen | 26% |
| The Mummy | 26% |
| The Force Awakens | 28% |
| 28 Days Later | 28% |
| Serenity | 28% |
| Batman | 30% |
| Constantine | 30% |
| Batman and Robin | 31% |
| Alien | 33% |
| Pitch Black | 33% |
| The Cabin in the Woods | 38% |
| V For Vendetta | 42% |
| Aliens | 47% |
| Kill Bill | 50% |
| Nightmare on Elm Street | 59% |
| Catwoman | 68% (the highest % of any action movie they found) |
| Jennifer's Body | 75% |
| Ginger Snaps | 82% |
HOT TAKES
I guess it is lingering fan-loyalty, but I expected better from the films of Joss Whedon: Serenity (28%), Cabin in the Woods (38%) and Avengers (13%). Serenity and Cabin have major female characters - they just don't have the lines. Cabin is particularly disappointing as the horror genre is, surprisingly, less skewed (relatively) than many others, and given this was a knowing deconstruction... And of course, Avengers, which at 13% is only marginally more gender balanced than Zack Snyder's sweaty historical locker room drama, 300 (10%).
Alien (33%) and Aliens (47%). To me, this was proof of the whole "if women speak as much, people think they're talking more" theory. Ripley doesn't even have the most lines in Alien. Who knew?! Ripley does, however, have the most dialogue in Aliens. She's joined by Evie (The Mummy) as one of the few female characters that captures the 'lead dialogue' role in an action movie.
For a movie that triggered a generation of MRA fanboys, The Force Awakens (28%) still has less female dialogue than, say, Pitch Black. Or Batman.
2001 is literally a film about two dudes floating in space, and it has a higher percentage of female dialogue than two of the Lord of the Rings films.
I've included Jennifer's Body and Ginger Snaps because a) I quite like them and b) they are movies explicitly about women and female relationships. Yet the dude% in those (25% and 18%) is infinitely higher than the female % in movies in movies explicitly about man stuff. (See, I dunno, Predator. Rocky. The Legos Movie.) Even when deliberately relegated to background and context, Hollywood still gives men more space than their female equivalent.
You can search for more films here, as well as review the research and source code.