A True Heroine

Welcome Back,

I hope this blogs finds you in a non-panicked state induced by Midterm grade abiguity, but regardless we must continue.

Last week I briefly mentioned a few readings which can be found here:

Film Dialogue - http://polygraph.cool/films/

Disney Princess Movies - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/

Every Single Word - http://everysinglewordspoken.tumblr.com/

Female Lines in… - http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/9/8920221/tumblr-dylan-marron-representation-race-Hollywood-film

To quickly recap, these readings inlarge corvered the lack for speaking lines for women in films. Continuing this we conducted our own study with a networking exercise on the pilot for “Supergirl” where we noted the number of lines spoken by men and women, number of male and female characters, and total time spent speaking by each gender.

Although we have not compiled the classes data I was pleasantly surprised by my data that I had recorded on the number of male characters, time spent talking by men, and number of speaking lines for men. My data showed that in the approx. 45 min long Pilot there were 12 male characters with roughly 100 speaking lines split-up amongst them which totaled to roughly 9 min. and 12 sec. of the entire episode. I am plesantly surprised by this because, when comparing it to some of the disney princess movies form the late 90’s that were analyzed in the above readings men held over 60% of the speaking lines which by comparison of the time where men are speaking in super girl take up 20% of the entire episode which a more reasonable amount for a storyline with a female protagonist. However, this does show a fairly stark contrast between the two especially when you realize the release date of the latest 90’s Disney movie and the “Supergirl” pilot are only 15 years apart. Adding to this is that the target audience of the 90’s Disney princesss movies is likely the same generation, just older, that “Supergirl” is targeted to, which is very reassuring proof that visual entertainment producers are making a concious effort to promote inspiring female characters as they move forward. This is especially important because the women of that Disney Princess generation are entering a time where they can be more active members of their community and to see that being promoted in film is really exciting to see.

Well that about wraps it up for this blog, till next time.

Written on October 9, 2016 by Thomas Glavan