Madeline Di Nonno, CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, will be in Atlanta Saturday to discuss women in the media, film and television as part of a Women’s History Month program.
The free program is sponsored by the African American Film Critics Association and will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave. N.E.
Di Nonno oversees the institute’s strategic direction, research and advocacy work. The institute, founded by actress Geena Davis in 2004, is based at Mount St. Mary’s University.
“Women have historically been underrepresented in film and media and had fewer employment opportunities in the executive ranks in the industry,” said Gil Robertson, co-founder and president of AAFCA, the leading organization of black film critics. “We want women to have healthy identities about themselves and, therefore, improving the representation both in front of and behind the camera is important.”
According to the Geena Benchmark Report, the top- grossing family films in the United States still feature more male leads, despite global box office earnings being higher for female-led films.
For the study, more than 1,100 characters were analyzed from Variety’s top 100 grossing animated and live-action family films between 2007 and 2017. The study examines the family films’ leading characters based on gender, race, sexual orientation and disability.
Although women make up the majority of moviegoers, male leading characters still outnumber female main characters two-to-one. Previous research from the Institute also revealed that male characters spoke twice as often as female characters in the top grossing family films of 2017.
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