As every year, the Oscar awards ceremony takes the attention of much of the media discussion. The test arose in 1985, within the framework of a comic that as a joke, raised if the movies can pass the following questions: Are there two female characters with name? Do they talk to each other? Of something other than a man? Of course, answering these questions is not enough to analyze a film from a gender perspective, but serves as the thermometer to observe the level of representation of women.
From Grow-gender and workTo complex this analysis, we add two questions: If that conversation lasts more than a minute, and if in the movie there are characters LGBTIQ+. And we do it with the nominees for best film in the Oscars because we know of the impact of the prize and the films that compete there.
What happens this year
The 10 best film nominations this year are: Anora, The Brutalist, the substance, Nickel Boys, I`m Still Here, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, Wicked. They all pass the first question: they have two female characters with name. But in 8 of the 10, those characters talk to each other, and nothing more than in 5 those conversations are about some subject other than a man.
Regarding the questions we add from Grow-gender and workin 4 the conversations between women on a subject that is not a man last more than a minute, and there are only 2 LGBTIQ+characters.
Our historical analysis
We do this survey since 2017 (with a total of 84 films analyzed). According to what we could observe in these years, there is no clear trend of change (the values vary in the different years), but what is evident is that as the test is progressing, the results fall in a sustained way: in the 90% of the films appear two female characters with name, in 77% they talk to each other, in 58% of something that is not a man, in 40% for more than a minute, and only in 21% there are LGBTIQ+characters. What we can see is that the numbers of the 2025 edition go in line with our historic, without showing great advances.
Who tells the stories
In short, what this data demonstrates is that the test is not as simple to overcome as in principle – for the simplicity of their questions – it seems. And the reflection that occurs in a mandatory way is what would happen if we invested the roles: how difficult it would be to find movies where male characters appear with name and talk about issues that are not women? Obviously not, in the course of what lasts a film, while women use 1 ‘To talk to each other, men do it the rest of the time.
As stated Georgina Sticco, director and co-founder of Grow-gender and work, “Women, in mass cinema, take a second place, relegated to being the one who accompanies man, to be functional to his own history. In recent years we have seen other stories that have encouraged themselves to narrate women from another place, being the protagonists ”.
We could consider that this lack of other stories is reflected in those who write and direct these films: among the 10 nominees for best film this year, only one is directed by a woman: Coralie Fargeat directs The substancea film that proposes a strong criticism of gender stereotypes, beauty and youth mandates, and how they live in the audiovisual industry.
Some advances
The 2024 edition of the Oscars was the first where nominated films had to meet certain standards that have the objective of promoting a greater representation of diversity (gender, ethnic groups, people with disabilities). Obviously you have to continue betting on that, and the time context shows that at any time you can go back in which conquered spaces were believed.
“The interesting thing in recent years is that they began to reach this level of exhibition stories that have to do with stereotypes and mandates about women (the substance, poor creatures), patriarchy (Barbie), as well as the approach to discrimination (Wicked, Nickel Boys, American fiction), among others. This exposure level allows a set of diverse stories to reach a massive audience, enabling conversations that were completely invisible ”he raises Georgina Sticco.
Source: Ambito
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