OTT Projects Have Better Female Representation Than Theatrical Releases, Says Study. We Have A Long Way To Go!
Female representation in Indian cinema has always been poor when compared to males. We are to just talking on screen but off-screen as well. And the latest study by Ormax Media, a media consulting firm, has just confirmed the same in their latest report. They release this highly informative report in collaboration with Film Companion and Amazon Prime Video. For this report, they analysed films that were released both theatrically and on OTT along with the web series which were released in 2021.
The study titled O Womaniya! found out that only 10 per cent of women held leadership roles and positions in the industry across direction, cinematography, editing and writing. As per reports, of the 56 films which are a part of the analysis, not one of them was edited or helmed by a woman. This misrepresentation implies that the production houses who made this content have failed the representation test.
Regarding the talk time given to women, women only had 25 per cent of talk time, and of the 48 films analysed, women were given 10 seconds or even lesser time. At the same time, if a project was commissioned by a woman, then women had a higher talk time, which is 35 per cent.
Passing the Bechdel test was one of the parameters for this analysis. Films and series pass this test only if they gave a scene where two men are talking to each other and about something else than a man. Another important thing that was a result of this analysis was that films that were theatrically released were far behind in terms of female representation as compared to OTT releases. Representation of female HODs was five times higher in OTT projects as compared to theatrical films.
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Another interesting thing to be noted is that 55 per cent of streaming films and 64 per cent of series passed the Bechdel test.
Hautetalk: As Indian Cinema Goes Global, Can It Please Work On Its Female Representation?
