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Gender Disparity Holding Back India's Entertainment Industry: Report

The 'O Womaniya! 2024' report by Amazon Prime has cast a spotlight on the lack of gender representation in India's bustling entertainment industry.

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Tanya Savkoor
New Update
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Photograph: (Business Today)

From the heroic antics in action films to stirring narratives in raw and realistic dramas, India's entertainment industry enjoyed a vibrant diversity in storytelling in 2024. The cinema fraternity also savoured historic milestones that resonated with global audiences at prestigious events like Cannes and Sundance, and soon, the Oscars and Golden Globes. Notably, most of these acclaimed films were directed or produced by women; yet, gender disparity continues to be a haunting issue in the entertainment industry.

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The 'O Womaniya! 2024' report has cast a spotlight on the missing women behind India's bustling entertainment industry, particularly in senior leadership roles. The annual report by Amazon Prime, Film Companion, and Ormax Media underscores the underrepresentation on screen as well as in key decision-making positions.

The report presents data from 169 favourably-received films and series released in 2023 across genres and nine Indian languages. The researchers scrutinised the role of women in Head of Department (HOD) positions including direction, cinematography, editing, writing, and production design, in the making of these films and shows.

What The Report Reveals

The O Womaniya! report shows just a 15% representation of women in senior leadership positions in 2023; only 3% more than the previous year. In 2023, women took up 24% of the senior roles in production design, 15% in writing, 18% in editing, 8% in direction, and 7% in cinematography. This data shows minimal growth from the previous year.

In 2022, women took up 23% of senior positions in production design, 12% in writing, 10% in editing, 7% in direction, and 5% in cinematography. Notably, the representation of women in editing positions has seen significant progress in 2023. The report credits this surge to female editors helming streaming content in 2023.

The representation of women HODs in streaming content is more encouraging than in theatrical films-- Women make up 22% of senior roles in streaming films and 20% in streaming shows; while just 6% in theatrical films. 

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The report also studies female HOD representation by gender of commissioning in-charge. While female HOD representation with male commissioning in charge is still in the single digits, at 8%, those with women in charge are 24%. The percentage of female commissioning in charge (42% in 2023) has gone up by 11% from 2022.

In corporate senior leadership roles in the industry, women made up only 12% of the commissioning in-charge in 2023, which has come down from 13% in 2022. However, on the bright side, significant steps are being taken to establish policies for diversity, equality, and inclusion within corporate positions in India. 

Data vis: O Womaniya!
Access of gender-positive corporate policies | Data vis: O Womaniya!

Lost In Translation? South Indian Industries Still Have A Long, Long Way To Go

Content in South Indian languages is having its moment in the Indian entertainment industry, with thrilling franchises like Pushpa, Baahubali, and KGF setting cultural trends. However, not only are these films male-led, but the O Womaniya! report shows a devastating tale of gender representation behind the scenes too.

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Data Vis: O Womaniya!
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While content in languages like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, and Bengali fare well in gender representation of HODs, the Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam industries show a disparity. The percentage of women HODs in Mollywood and Kollywood has not changed, but Sandalwood and Tollywood shockingly regressed in 2023.

Women On Screen Not Far Along

The report also evaluated the films on the Bechdel Test, a universally accepted measure of female representation on screen. To pass, the film or show must have at least three scenes with two women characters conversing about something other than men. In 2023, 52% of films passed the Bechdel Test, 5% more than the previous year.

How many films passed the Bechdel Test from 2022 to 2023? | Data vis: O Womaniya!
How many films passed the Bechdel Test from 2022 to 2023? | Data vis: O Womaniya!

The test showed an improvement in the Bechdel Test among theatrical releases and streaming films while streaming series unfortunately faltered. Notably, 62% of content with females in charge of commissioning passed the test in 2023, outperforming those with males in charge of commissioning (45%).

Apart from the Bechdel Test, the O Womaniya! survey established a toolkit of its own to analyse female representation in the Indian entertainment industry. To pass the toolkit, all content must reflect a 'positive' response on four criteria; The 'positive' response for the first three following questions must be 'Yes', while the fourth one must be 'No':

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  1. Is there at least one named female character with at least one line of dialogue, who plays a role that's not romantically or familially connected to the male protagonist?
  2. Does at least one female character play an active role in making economic, domestic and/or community decisions that are pivotal to the show's/film's story?
  3. Is there any point in the story where a female protagonist expresses a conflicting viewpoint to that of a male character, on an issue central to the plot?
  4. Does the show/film portray sexualization of women, and/or violence against women, as normal/acceptable?

Out of the 169 surveyed films and shows, only 52 of them-- one out of three-- passed the O Womaniya! toolkit. The report shows that 18 theatrical films, 31 streaming films, and 45 streaming series passed the toolkit. Once again, non-South Indian languages performed well on the test compared to Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada content.

Stuti Ramachandra, Director & Head of production, International Originals, Prime Video, India said in the report, "Despite the growing presence of female-led narratives and the positive work of streaming services in championing stories led by women in front of and behind the camera, the gender divide persists in key creative roles."

Ramachandra added that women remain underrepresented as directors, screenwriters, and producers, "limiting the richness of storytelling by narrowing balanced perspectives." She asserted that addressing this disparity is not only about achieving gender parity but unlocking the full potential of Indian entertainment by creating diverse stories.

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