Women Directed Measly 6.4 Percent of Movies From 2013-2014

Minorities only accounted for 12.5 percent of directors hired over the period, says depressing new DGA report

Women and minorities accounted for only 6.4 and 12.5 percent, respectively, of directors hired to make Hollywood movies from 2013-2014, a report from the Directors Guild of America said Wednesday.

Caucasian males took 82.4% percent of jobs at major and mini studios during the time period, compared to 5.1% of caucasian females to helm movies. Minority males accounted for 11.2%, with minority females barely ranking at 1.3%.

Films surveyed over the two-year period did not include foreign films, documentaries or animated movies. The 347 films included in the study work in concert with the DGA, though the guild reviewed films outside their purview and found the “hiring of women directors followed a similar pattern in both groups.”

DGA-directors-gender_ethnicity

“What this report does not reflect is what people who love film — even our culture as a whole — are missing when such a disproportionate percentage of films are directed by one gender or one ethnicity. Unfortunately, we don’t have a metric for that,” said DGA president Paris Barclay.

“What you will see is what happens when industry employers — studios and production companies — do little to address this issue head on. The DGA, by detailing the state of director hiring with the precision of our data, hopes to draw further attention to this serious matter so that industry employers can develop concrete director diversity plans,” he added.

The study also found that women face “significant barriers to employment as directors of high-budget, wide-release projects,” a sentiment that tracks with previous data around this disparity.

Studios accounted for include Disney, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Sony and Warner Bros. Mini-majors at the table were Lionsgate, Open Road, Relativity, Summit and The Weinstein Company.

See the graphic breakdown by box office returns for both women and minorities:

DGA Women Directors

DGA-box_office-director_ethnicity

The report concluded with a summary of the DGA’s internal diversity efforts, one that seeks to “wield our influence and utilize our collective bargaining power, relationships and resources to try to change industry practices.”

Comments