Geena Davis on gender in film and television.

Film Geena Davis is the founder of an Institute on Gender in Media and last December wrote a short but pointedly accurate piece for Hollywood Reporter about gender inequality in films and television which certainly nails one of the problems I have with screen items in general, of females being pushed to the edges even in roles which could easily be played by both genders and the result that has on similar roles in society:

"Go through the projects you're already working on and change a bunch of the characters' first names to women's names. With one stroke you've created some colorful unstereotypical female characters that might turn out to be even more interesting now that they've had a gender switch. What if the plumber or pilot or construction foreman is a woman? What if the taxi driver or the scheming politician is a woman? What if both police officers that arrive on the scene are women — and it's not a big deal?"

Some programmes are conspicuous in their balance of roles. House of Cards US would seem to be an example of the sort of thing Davis is hoping for. But mainstream films and television do still have a problem - I've seen episodes of Law & Order where all the police and lawyers are blokes and the only women who appear are victims. Sigh and sigh again [via].