Women’s Stories Outnumbered Men’s In Streaming Films, Report Says

According to a new report, streaming services were more likely to feature women’s stories than men’s in their original films in 2022. Despite efforts to include women in storylines, women still faced underrepresentation in behind-the-scenes roles, and older women had fewer appearances on screen.

The Streaming Women report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University analyzed over 1,100 behind-the-scenes credits and over 1,800 on-screen characters in 82 original U.S. films released by Amazon Prime, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max and Netflix.

While the report highlights encouraging and concerning trends, one positive aspect stands out: more of these films were told from a woman’s perspective rather than a man’s. A surprising 49% of these films featured female protagonists, while only 38% featured male protagonists, and the remaining 12% had ensembles. “Original U.S. films from the major streaming services feature female protagonists in proportions that approximate the representation of girls and women in the U.S. population,” writes the report’s author Martha Lauzen in a press release. “These films foreground female characters and are more likely to tell stories from a female point of view,” she adds.

A prime example is Hulu’s Rosaline, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet that offers a woman’s perspective as the central focus. Likewise, HBO Max’s Kimi revolves around Angela Childs, who works from home, overseeing recordings from an Alexa-like computer assistant.

This representation of the female perspective in streaming films is not replicated in the high-budget world of top-grossing films. According to an earlier report by Lauzen, on the 100 top-grossing movies of 2022, only a third told stories from the woman’s perspective. And even among the streaming films, the majority of the characters are still male (70% of the streaming films studied had more female than male characters).

Although streaming companies offer more women-centered stories, women still fall short behind the scenes. Women accounted for a mere 22% of directors for these films, and more than three-quarters had no female directors. As for cinematographers, those handling the technical aspects of bringing the director’s vision to the screen, only 8% were women.

Fewer women in top-level behind-the-scenes roles also result in fewer women in other roles. For example, women constituted 54% of the writers on films featuring at least one woman director but dwindled to 13% of the writers in movies helmed exclusively by male directors. Moreover, films directed by women tend to showcase a greater proportion of major female characters.

Not only are women underrepresented behind the scenes, but older women also faced limited opportunities in 2022. For characters in their 30s, women outnumbered men. This ratio changes dramatically as the age increases. By the time the characters hit their 50s, there are slightly more than twice as many male characters as female characters. “This age difference reinforces the stereotypes that females are valued for their youth and beauty, and males are valued for their accomplishments,” Lauzen wrote in the report.

These films reinforce other stereotypes as well. Male characters are more frequently depicted with clearly defined occupations, while female characters are more likely to be characterized by an identifiable marital status. Additionally, male characters are more likely to be portrayed in work-related settings and exhibit work-related goals. Women were more likely to have personal-life goals and to be seen in personal life-related situations.

Women weren’t the only ones underrepresented in streaming films. Latinos were the least represented ethnic group compared to their representation in the U.S. population. Only 6.0% of all speaking characters were Latina, and 5.6% were Latino.