ThinkProgress: The report examined top 100 grossing movies of last year, and it shed a depressing light on the state of film and television today. Women of color fared just as badly as women overall in the Center For The Study of Women In Television And Film report. Of all female characters in those 100 movies, African American women made up just 14 percent, while Latinas held just 5 percent of roles and Asian actresses held 2 percent.
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I do not normally think of whether the lead in the movie I am seeing is male or female after reading this though I am surprised I haven't noticed. There seems to be less prominent female characters in movies then one would believe, is it just that the male roles are more believable? To me that does not make sense there are plenty of movies that could be made with a strong female lead. The article made it seem as though the film makers are afraid to make a movie focuses on a female because it would not be received as well, but there are plenty of woman who would go see a movie that features a strong female. Hopefully, in the next year the main characters of movies will be females over male.
It is ridiculous that in 2013 (and now 2014) that we still have a surplus of movies that do not pass the Bechdel test. Sure, some of the movies that don't were really fantastic in plot and design alike, but it is a huge problem that roughly a third of movies made are not passing. On top of that, there are very few people of color in the films. Some companies have tried to explain this by saying that the setting in which their movie takes place would not have any people of color. However, in fictional worlds such as Middle Earth, there appear to be only white character, even though there is no reasoning behind that. Another issue is that of casting white actors as characters of color, such as casting Johnny Depp as Tonto. Another example of this was mentioned in another article, Rooney Mara has been cast as Tiger Lily in the new Peter Pan prequel, "Pan". In the case of "Star Trek Into Darkness", the character of Khan, a person of color, was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, a white actor. It's not that he did a poor job (in fact he did a fantastic one), it's that even after having auditioned a few people of color for the role, they chose to go with the white actor.
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