The State of Women’s Representation in Media with Madeline Di Nonno

Published Aug 19, 2024, 7:01 AM

Do you remember the first time you saw yourself truly represented on the screen? Today on the Bright Side, we’re talking with Madeline Di Nonno – the president and CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media – to unpack some of the mind-blowing studies the institute has done about women’s representation in TV and film and the possibility that we discover when we challenge long-held stereotypes.

Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today, on the Bride Side, we're asking the question when was the first time you saw yourself truly represented on the screen. The President and the CEO of the Geena Davis Institute, Madeline Dunono, is here and we're unpacking some of the mind blowing studies the Institute has done, like have you ever noticed how one dimensional TV moms are. We'll also talk about how just seeing a female president on TV actually shifts voter attitudes off screen. It's Monday, August nineteenth.

I'm Simone Boyce, I'm Danielle Robe and this is the Bride Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, to laugh, learn and brighten your day. Simon, Happy Monday, Happy Monday. Let's kick things off with on My Mind Monday. It's our opportunity to share stories that motivate us, inspire curiosity, provide a fresh perspective for the week ahead.

You know, oh yeah, I'm so here this what's on your mind today?

Well, it's a bit of a source object. Why. I'm going to start with a tough question.

Okay, okay, you know I love a question.

Give it to me. How many times do you think you've let your emotions run wild at work?

At work.

Over the course of the last eleven years, I'd say probably like four that I regret.

Yeah, I think that's accurate for me too. I ask because I recently came across this article on Business Insider that's all about the benefits of learning how to control your emotions at work. It's this side of personal development that's not often talked about. Yea, and it's causing me to ask myself, Okay, what would my career look like if I managed my emotions better? So this piece is written by a former sales director, a turned life coach and advice columnist named Susie Moore, and in the piece, more lays out the ways that we can manage our emotions when we're faced with disappointment in our careers. And one of the things that points out is that quote business is simply a blend of math and emotions. She says, money is easier to understand than our emotions. And emotions are the messy part.

Ooh, emotions are the messy part, but they're also the evidence. They're the signals that we need to read into.

I think, yeah, they're there. For a reason. I think we need to listen to them. I think it's also about learning to manage them and learning to control them and channel them in the proper way in a business setting. Yeah, so hear me out. So in this article, she explained how she manages the most common business frustrations, like the sting of rejection. For example, she says that her bounce back rate after a rejection has gone up from two days to just one to two minutes, which is pretty impressive. Interesting, and she says she's able to do that by understanding that rejection is inevitable and we should embrace it, we should learn from it and use it to our advantage. This kind of reminds me of the conversation that we had with Jamie kern Lima, Like she talks about how she received so many no's in the course of trying to pitch her business right, and she learned to just like let it bounce off of her.

Yeah, the bounce back rate is important. I agree with that.

And there's like a whole category of therapy called somatics where people kind of teach you to breathe through things, and they say you can breathe through emotions in like ninety seconds.

That's really impressive. My bounce back rate, I think is twenty four hours. I usually add, I give myself twenty four hours to sit with the sting of rejection and then I'm like, you got to move on. How about you? What do you think your bounce back rate is?

It depends what the rejection is. If it hits a childhood wound, it probably takes a little longer. Like the last time I had a guy break up with me, it didn't take twenty four hours. It took me like two years. But in terms of work stuff, I totally agree. I think twenty four hours is a great rule.

Okay, So the next one that Susie mentions is super important, and this is something that I think a lot of women facing their careers is pretty universal, which is how to manage internetroal and negativity on the Internet. This is particularly relevant for people who are in public facing careers, influencers, creators online and She said that she used to feel like an insensitive remark online would leave her crushed, but she learned to not ticket personally. She says, when you can understand that the only thing a mean remark can do is make you sad for a few minutes, it loses its power and its luster, and kind of in the same way that she advises us to anticipate rejection that it's inevitable, she also advises here that we start to expect these kinds of negative comments instead of fearing them. Do you think that'll work? Yeah?

I do like this.

I mean Hillary Clinton always says you take criticism seriously and not personally, and I really like that quote.

I also think you have to consider the source. Where is it coming from.

Yes, yes, Is it coming from the inner circle or is it coming from people who don't actually know me or what I want.

I've heard people talk about how no one that is.

Like doing less or trying less than you are is ever criticizing, because if you're trying, you know how hard it is to freaking try.

Here's how she wraps up the article. I think this is really powerful, she says, quote, when we realize our emotions are most often in the way of sound decision making and forward strides, we see how in control we actually are.

I really like this, and I feel like it's important not to discard our emotions, but to recognize them, synthesize them, and then act accordingly beautifully said.

You know, this article brought up some interesting points about how we face disappointment in our careers. And today we have a special guest who is at the helm of an organization dedicated to inclusive representation in film, TV, advertising, who I had the pleasure of interviewing recently.

I'm so excited to hear this one.

I wasn't here because I was out of town for work. I stayed in this little airbnb and and I got my butt back to the bright side.

And I'm really excited to learn more about this one.

I think you're gonna like this one. My colleague and friend, Madeline Ganono is the president and CEO of the Gena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. If you haven't heard of it, it is a research based organization that champions equitable representation in media. It was founded by actor and activists Gena Davis of League of their Own Beetlejuice, Thelma and Louise Fame, and she founded it in two thousand and four because she was stunned by the lack of female characters and diversity on screen. And we've made so many strides, but it was really interesting to talk to Madeline about where we still have room for improvement. The mission of the Institute is to change the world, one story at a time, and they do that via data driven research and providing insights and tools to help leading content creators and movie studios do better in terms of inclusive content. Madeline is going to drop some truly eye opening facts about representation and TV and film, how we can be the change as consumers, Like what is our role in all of this, and the possibility that we discover when we challenge these long held stereotypes. It's all really fascinating and I can't wait for y' all to hear it.

I can't wait to hear it along with you.

So after the break, I'm getting into it all with Madeline Dino. Stay with us, Madeline, Welcome to the bright Side. I'm so thrilled to be here. I am so thrilled to see you. I'm so thrilled to be sitting across this table from you. I can remember the first time that I really understood the importance of representation. It was nineteen ninety seven and the Cinderella movie with Brandy and Whitney Houston had just come out, and I was probably about nine years old at the time, and my mom, who's a black actor. She doesn't act anymore, but she did for many years. She made the premiere of this movie sound like such a big deal, and to be honest, I didn't really understand why. I was like, cool, Okay, it's a Disney princess, It's Cinderella, Whitney Houston, love Whitney Houston. This is really exciting. So I finally asked her, like, why is this such a big deal to you? And I realized that she was in tears at that point, and she said that she had never seen a black Disney princess before, and for her as an actor to see that representation, I think it just brought up like this well of emotions, you know, a lot of complex emotions. And that's what I want to talk to you about today is the why behind all of this, the impact. So how does fictional media shape reality when it comes to how women are perceived in society.

What happens in the world to make believe has real world impact. And we've actually seen that with some of our studies that we've done in surveys. So for example, going all the way back to when Gina played one of the first female presidents on TV in Commander in Chief. The Taylor Kaplin Group did a poll and basically a seventy six percent of the population at that time was familiar with the show, and fifty eight percent surveyed said they would take a female candidate more seriously because they saw Gina in that role nineteen times. And that number went up to sixty nine percent when it came to adults thirty five to forty four. And it was completely bipartisan in terms of the survey. So that's just one tiny example of the power of media to influence our culture.

Wow, that can't be underestimated, especially right now in a year like this. So I want to get into how the Gena Davis Institute really came to be. Obviously, we all know Geena Davis for her work and TV and film dozens of credits, Thelman, Louise I mean, so many beloved projects. She said that she was actually inspired to start the institute after and experience watching a movie with her daughter. Would you share that story and how it underscores the work that you do today? Absolutely.

First of all, Gina had a heightened awareness of how women and girls would feel based on the roles, the iconic roles. Even today, people still walk up to her and say, I played baseball because of you from Alegi their own. So imagine now you're a new mom, and of course you're going to start watching content with your kid. And her daughter was two at the time, and it immediately struck Gina the disparity in not seeing female characters in anything she was showing her daughter, and it was so surprising to her that she started asking her friends, hey, did you notice that there just wasn't a lot of female characters, And her friends were like, Nope, didn't notice. And then when she'd go on meetings for potential acting jobs and projects, she would bring up the same thing and they'd be like no, they said, no, that we have that fix that's so important to us. And they named one female character in the entirety of a movie to think that they had gender equality fix because they had one female character. So it was really about unconscious bias and people not realizing it until Gena pointed it out and obviously use the data to prove her point.

Well.

In addition to your mission of ending unconscious bias and fostering inclusion in global media. There's one other thing that you say a lot at the GENA. Davis Institute and Foundation, and that is if you can see it, you can be it. This idea that there is power and representation. As the President and CEO of the GENA. Davis Foundation, you know the film and TV landscape better than just about anyone. So broad strokes tell us where are we today when it comes to positive representation and media.

When it comes to there's different verticals that we look at, global advertising, global TV, global film, global gaming, and our Refrierer Children's Television report first, so there's kind of good news and bad news. When it comes to programming that children are watching. We're pretty much so at parody. When it comes to new programming, the default is still a little bit more male. What's very interesting is when you look at animation, when you have a more human like animated character, we're at gender parody. But when it's a talking trade or a mushroom, the default is male. Yeah, so there's just some disparity there. But I will say positively, the best progress that we have seen when it is when it comes to people of color. In terms of leads, we saw it was like fifty three percent of the leads on TV that kids are watching or people of color. We've seen that in advertising. We've seen that in the portrayal of women in STEM where a number of years ago it was only.

Twenty nine percent.

Now it went up to forty two percent in our latest studies. So we're really really happy when you think about people of color being forty one percent of the population in the US, that that is starting to show up on screen.

The name GENA. Davis Institute is so well respected in this industry, but I imagine it must have been hard to gain credibility or to go out and really pursue this mission and get people on board. What was the experience like getting it from the concept to becoming this leader in research?

It really goes back to Gina's vision and her approach and operating dynamics. So first of all, it was about the data, and data has been the key to her access. It's not our opinion, it's the data. And when you approach people who are running billion dollar entities and you approach them with the facts, they look at data all day long. So number one, Number two, we're in the industry, and it was really about being presented in a colleisial way. We see the industry as partners and we know they want to do good things. We're providing with the tools and resources, so we never had a carrot and stick approach. We never shame and blame, and we've always been more of a B to B so a business to business versus targeting consumers, and all of that together has been the key to our success.

I want to drill down into the data with you because the data are truly remarkable. One study looked at the representation of families, specifically how scripted TV moms are represented. So here are some of the highlights from that research. Eight out of ten moms were slender, seventy percent of moms take on the domestic tasks. If there is a clear breadwinner, nine out of ten times it's a dad. And this last one threw me for a loop. Less than one in ten TV parents had a messy house. How unrealistic is that? Will you talk about the impact of these unrealistic standards on women.

It's shocking because it is the twenty first century, But we found out that for the most part, TV moms today are still mostly white, they're young, they're thin, they're not disabled, they're not career et cetera, et cetera, and that was really surprising. We've always looked at the intersection of gender and race and lgbtqia and disability, et cetera. The body diversity came up a number of years ago because in looking at the population, over forty percent of our population is of a larger body type, and so body diversity became very, very important for us, and it's something that we've been including in our data for a number of years across global advertising, global TV, like all of our studies, because not everybody's a size zero and there's a lot of discriminate. So, for example, we have found that characters that are of a larger body type are the brunt of the joke. They're always seen as you know, eating or out of breath, and just terrible, terrible stereotypes.

I want to talk about female directors. We had Stephanie Allen and Tick Nataro on our show recently to talk about a film they co directed called am I Okay. In just a few weeks, we have Zoe Kravitz making her directorial debut with Blink Twice, Scarlett Johansson getting behind the Helm with Eleanor the Great. But I was shocked to see that in the ninety six year history of the Academy Awards, just nine women have ever been nominated for Best Directors since nineteen twenty eight, and a woman has only won three times. I mean, this makes me think of the whole controversy around Greta Gerwig not being nominated for Barbie last year. Why is this number still so low?

One thing is the pipeline, and there are many other wonderful organizations that study what's happening behind the camera. We don't really focus behind the camera. But first of all, it's a pipeline problem. So if, for example, it's a three to one five to one ratio of male directors to female directors, it's about the opportunity. And we know that female directors don't have the same opportunities and access to capital and that pathway to getting their films made. Most female directors can get say one film made, even if they max out their credit cards, but to get that second and that third film made is very, very challenging. So it's really important that female directors can find their way into the pipeline in order for us to have more female directed movies, and when you look at independent film, you have gender parity or even more for female directors. But we need it with these bigger budget films. So historically female directors are relegated more to the indie that lower production budget and that's where the pipeline needs to be filled. And hopefully with a lot of the programs that the studios have, that'll start to change. But it's been glacial. I mean, the film industry is over one hundred years old.

So you have a number of tools that you use whenever you gather this data and then you take it out to meet with the studios to share it with them, to share it with these decision makers who have the potential to create real progress. Walk us through some of those tools that you've created.

So we have always provided kind of a benchmark for how are we doing. And we have had the privilege of working with Google and usc of a Tribe School of Engineering to incorporate some machine learning, some AI along with a lot of human expert coding, which is led by doctor Meredith Conroy who leads are research and insights team. We have wonderful PhDs in house on our team who conduct the research. And so one of those tools is GDIQ Gena Davis Inclusion quot and that is really a benchmarking tool that gives us a sense of where are we in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, LGBTQAA, age, fifty plus, disability, body type, which are the six core dimensions.

But that's after the fact.

So one of the tools that we developed with our partners at usc Viterbi is called spell Check for Bias, and it's actually looking at scripts and we're breaking down a script with a different lens. We're looking at all the characters that are speaking and we pull them off into a data set and then we walk it through. You know, are those characters that are contributing dialogue? Are they female, are they LGBTQA, what are they? Is there an opportunity? And it's really about not attacking a story, not telling the storytellers what to do, not invading their authentic t but it's pointing out opportunities. And then we'll also look at things like sexism, racism, and essentially we provide all the backup in the data for our partners so that if they are evaluating a script, whether it's for green light, before it goes to casting, they have a different lens on looking at it because most leaders are looking at the top of the call sheet.

They're not looking at.

Every single person in the cast that could be contributing dialogue. And that's a great way to organically infuse more inclusion and diversity in a script before it gets made.

So when you uncover that research, what happens next? How do we implement these findings into actual change.

So there's a cycle of change for us. So the first thing we do is we usually socialize the data very publicly through an event, all the social media, all the emails, etc. The real work starts when we start taking it out studio by studio, network by network, streamer by streamer. We do hundreds and hundreds of meetings and presentations. It could be a year or so, is a full circle, and then we'll measure the industry again. And that's how we're able to make change. We're able to collect whether it's anecdotal or we'll receive direct testimonials from changes that people have made. That's how the real work gets done.

We need to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more from the president and CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Madeline Gnoo, stay with us and we're back with Madeline Danoo. You actually have some interesting recommendations for the creatives that you meet with, and I want to discuss that more now. One of the suggestions is to make diversity explicit on the page. Can you give me an exam of what that would look like? Absolutely?

For example, if there is going to be a person of color, what culture are they from? Do they have a sense of agency? Do they have a job. So, for example, we have seen a lot of stereotypes when there is a person of color, they're relegated to, say a service role. They're not shown as being a leader, an entrepreneur. And it's those kinds of nuances that we can provide a lot of opportunities for people to just rethink that. And it has to be in the script because if it's not in the script, then you're leaving a lot up for question. And particularly when it comes to say secondary characters, a lot of those decisions are being made by say a second ad on set. They're not being made by the in house casting people or even a casting agency. So there's so many different touch points on how actors wind up being in a scene and being cast for that. So it's a matter of looking at all of those opportunities.

Madeline, I know you personally, and I know that you're always out there giving talks and promoting the work that you're doing at the Geena Davis Institute. You must meet so many creatives at these events. I'm curious if any of them have shared any success stories with you, or stories of how your work has impacted their storytelling.

So one of our Border directors, Wendy Calhoun, who's a fabulous showrunner writer. Many years ago, she was working on season two of Empire, and there was a discussion in the writer's room about a venture capitalist and the character was going to be male, and Wendy was very versed in the work of the Institute. This is before she joined her Border Directors, and she researched and found binders full of female venture capitalists and went back into the writer's room and pitched it. And that character was played by Marissa Tomey for season two. So it was that simple. I mean, it's a key stroke. I mean that's just one example, but we have a lot of examples like that.

I'm sure you do. Because the GENA. Davis Institute is celebrating twenty years this year. Huge congratulations on that and just all the impact that you've been a part of. You were there, You joined the company five years after its creation.

That's true, Gina invited me, and I've had the privilege of leading the organization for the last fifteen years.

So what is the accomplishment you're most proud of there?

I would say the data speaks for itself, knowing that our theory of change has worked. What we saw before the pandemic for the first time ever in the data was being able to achieve gender parody for female lead characters and the most watched most popular children's television programming, followed by the following year achieving gender parity for female leads in the largest grossing films out of the US, and then also followed by achieving gender parity actually fifty two percent for secondary characters in children's television. Now, this was all pre pandemic, and you have to take into consideration the impact of the strikes and the pandemic on TV production, creatives, etc. You can't put these reports out without taking the market and the situation that we're in into account is going to take a number of years.

It's a new normal.

But we're just happy that even with our recent studies and TV, we've still been able to see those parody numbers.

Why are you optimistic about the future of film and TV?

It's really with the response and how the industry has not only embraced our data, but has embraced data. And also it requires these companies be organizationally ready, no matter how willing they are, and they have all built infrastructures with departments with very seasoned executives whose sole job it is is to look at the content through this lens. Whereas decades ago, years ago, when we first started, you didn't have that kind of empowerment. You didn't have those kind of executives with those roles being empowered to review content and to point out various things. So the structure has changed and that allows for the companies to move forward and also progress.

What is our role as consumers and all of this.

Well, we're all debating on what streaming services we want. We all have a voice, and the industry pays attention to what people say and what people post and their tiktoks, et cetera. They watch it, and so you have a voice, whereas decades ago you didn't. And there's also the power of the wallet as well to support movies and TV shows that you believe reflect the stories that you want to see.

You know that statistic that you shared at the beginning of our conversation about just the having the image of a female president in a TV show or a film can greatly impact the perception of female leadership in reality. And I think about the fact that we have Kamala Harris running. I think about the fact that she would be our first female president, and I'm curious how you think that would shift the paradigm when it comes to how presidents are represented on TV screens.

I'm not going to tell the story correctly, but Gina has a great story. One of the leaders of I think it was Finland, they had only had a female president, and there was a little boy who actually asked, can boys be president? Well, because in that country? And I know I'm mess this story up, so forgive me, uh.

No, but we get it, you know what I mean? Yeah, So, I mean that's the opportunity. You know. I had a similar moment when I was watching the Olympics with my son the other day. We had been watching a lot of the women's events, and I didn't even really realize that that we hadn't been watching the men's events, and so I turned on the Olympics and it happened to be men's swimming and he was like, Mommy, I want to watch the girls. Where are the girls? I was like, yes, yes, I did something right, Yes, you've tried him well exactly. Is that an area that the Geena Davis Institute might explore in the future is well.

We have had the opportunity to do a few little sports studies and one came out of a personal experience from Gina. Because some of you may or may not know that Gina uh qualified and pursued the Olympic archery team.

Wait, I did not know this. Yes she was, yes, yes.

So after seeing it was the Australian Olympics, she thought archery was just so beautiful and it was so measurable, and so she for two and a half years trained and qualified for the Olympic trials.

She didn't make the team, okay, but she did do very very well.

And what's interesting is a number of years ago her archery coach called her and said, I was looking at the statistics for National Association of American Archery and girls participation in archery went up one hundred and five percent in the year twenty twelve.

Why two movies? Two movies? Can you name them? Yes, Brave and Hunger Games.

Yes.

I remember actually covering this when I was working as a reporter and we leaned on your insights. Yes, from the Geena Davis Institute.

They watched the movie they bought a bow. It was instantaneous. So imagine after seeing all these fabulous female Team USA athletes, You'm just thrilled to see fencing and wrestling and seeing girls participation go up in those sports.

There again is the real life impact of all these initiatives. Thank you so much for coming on the bright side. Madeline, thrilled you brought the brightness. Madeline Denono is the president and CEO of the GENA. Davis Institute on Gender in Media. You can check out their research on women's representation and media on their website Genadavisinstitute dot org.

That's it for today's show.

Tomorrow, boxing World champion and actor Kaylee Reese, She's here to talk about making history as an Indigenous actor thanks to our partners at Airbnb. Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Simone Boye. You can find me at Simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.

I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.

That's r O b A.

Y See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.

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