For years studios have argued that including more women in films puts off viewers. Now, new research has shown that in the international market it makes no difference at all - and in the US market, it actually gives films an advantage.
The research, by Five Thirty Eight, looked at 1, 794 films released over a 43 year period. Applying the Bechdel Test, which asks if a film contains two or more female characters, if they talk to each other, and if they talk to each other about something other than men, it found that films that passed tended to have substantially below average budgets but that they made significantly more per dollar invested. Most strikingly, films that passed the test made over 25% more in US sales than those with fewer than two female characters.
Looked at over time, the research shows a significant improvement in the inclusion of women in films, but one that has begun to level out with still only around half of films passing the test. This may be less surprising in light of the fact that, out of the top 100 most successful films of last year, only 4.1% had female directors. There is clearly still a long way to go for women in Hollywood, but the good news is the younger audiences, cutting their teeth on films like The Hunger Games, seem to have a much stronger appetite for assertive female characters who are at least as much a part of the action as their male counterparts.
