Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today, on the Bride Side, we're
Speaker 1: asking the question when was the first time you saw
Speaker 1: yourself truly represented on the screen. The President and the
Speaker 1: CEO of the Geena Davis Institute, Madeline Dunono, is here
Speaker 1: and we're unpacking some of the mind blowing studies the
Speaker 1: Institute has done, like have you ever noticed how one
Speaker 1: dimensional TV moms are. We'll also talk about how just
Speaker 1: seeing a female president on TV actually shifts voter attitudes
Speaker 1: off screen. It's Monday, August nineteenth.
Speaker 2: I'm Simone Boyce, I'm Danielle Robe and this is the
Speaker 2: Bride Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we
Speaker 2: come together to share women's stories, to laugh, learn and
Speaker 2: brighten your day. Simon, Happy Monday, Happy Monday. Let's kick
Speaker 2: things off with on My Mind Monday. It's our opportunity
Speaker 2: to share stories that motivate us, inspire curiosity, provide a
Speaker 2: fresh perspective for the week ahead.
Speaker 3: You know, oh yeah, I'm so here this what's on
Speaker 3: your mind today?
Speaker 1: Well, it's a bit of a source object. Why. I'm
Speaker 1: going to start with a tough question.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, you know I love a question.
Speaker 1: Give it to me. How many times do you think
Speaker 1: you've let your emotions run wild at work?
Speaker 3: At work.
Speaker 2: Over the course of the last eleven years, I'd say
Speaker 2: probably like four that I regret.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's accurate for me too. I ask
Speaker 1: because I recently came across this article on Business Insider
Speaker 1: that's all about the benefits of learning how to control
Speaker 1: your emotions at work. It's this side of personal development
Speaker 1: that's not often talked about. Yea, and it's causing me
Speaker 1: to ask myself, Okay, what would my career look like
Speaker 1: if I managed my emotions better? So this piece is
Speaker 1: written by a former sales director, a turned life coach
Speaker 1: and advice columnist named Susie Moore, and in the piece,
Speaker 1: more lays out the ways that we can manage our
Speaker 1: emotions when we're faced with disappointment in our careers. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that points out is that quote
Speaker 1: business is simply a blend of math and emotions. She says,
Speaker 1: money is easier to understand than our emotions. And emotions
Speaker 1: are the messy part.
Speaker 2: Ooh, emotions are the messy part, but they're also the evidence.
Speaker 2: They're the signals that we need to read into.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, they're there. For a reason. I think
Speaker 1: we need to listen to them. I think it's also
Speaker 1: about learning to manage them and learning to control them
Speaker 1: and channel them in the proper way in a business setting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so hear me out. So in this article, she explained
Speaker 1: how she manages the most common business frustrations, like the
Speaker 1: sting of rejection. For example, she says that her bounce
Speaker 1: back rate after a rejection has gone up from two
Speaker 1: days to just one to two minutes, which is pretty impressive. Interesting,
Speaker 1: and she says she's able to do that by understanding
Speaker 1: that rejection is inevitable and we should embrace it, we
Speaker 1: should learn from it and use it to our advantage.
Speaker 1: This kind of reminds me of the conversation that we
Speaker 1: had with Jamie kern Lima, Like she talks about how
Speaker 1: she received so many no's in the course of trying
Speaker 1: to pitch her business right, and she learned to just
Speaker 1: like let it bounce off of her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the bounce back rate is important. I agree with that.
Speaker 2: And there's like a whole category of therapy called somatics
Speaker 2: where people kind of teach you to breathe through things,
Speaker 2: and they say you can breathe through emotions in like
Speaker 2: ninety seconds.
Speaker 1: That's really impressive. My bounce back rate, I think is
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. I usually add, I give myself twenty
Speaker 1: four hours to sit with the sting of rejection and
Speaker 1: then I'm like, you got to move on. How about you?
Speaker 1: What do you think your bounce back rate is?
Speaker 2: It depends what the rejection is. If it hits a
Speaker 2: childhood wound, it probably takes a little longer. Like the
Speaker 2: last time I had a guy break up with me,
Speaker 2: it didn't take twenty four hours. It took me like
Speaker 2: two years. But in terms of work stuff, I totally agree.
Speaker 2: I think twenty four hours is a great rule.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the next one that Susie mentions is super important,
Speaker 1: and this is something that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: women facing their careers is pretty universal, which is how
Speaker 1: to manage internetroal and negativity on the Internet. This is
Speaker 1: particularly relevant for people who are in public facing careers, influencers,
Speaker 1: creators online and She said that she used to feel
Speaker 1: like an insensitive remark online would leave her crushed, but
Speaker 1: she learned to not ticket personally. She says, when you
Speaker 1: can understand that the only thing a mean remark can
Speaker 1: do is make you sad for a few minutes, it
Speaker 1: loses its power and its luster, and kind of in
Speaker 1: the same way that she advises us to anticipate rejection
Speaker 1: that it's inevitable, she also advises here that we start
Speaker 1: to expect these kinds of negative comments instead of fearing them.
Speaker 1: Do you think that'll work? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I do like this.
Speaker 2: I mean Hillary Clinton always says you take criticism seriously
Speaker 2: and not personally, and I really like that quote.
Speaker 3: I also think you have to consider the source. Where
Speaker 3: is it coming from.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Is it coming from the inner circle or
Speaker 1: is it coming from people who don't actually know me
Speaker 1: or what I want.
Speaker 3: I've heard people talk about how no one that is.
Speaker 2: Like doing less or trying less than you are is
Speaker 2: ever criticizing, because if you're trying, you know how hard
Speaker 2: it is to freaking try.
Speaker 1: Here's how she wraps up the article. I think this
Speaker 1: is really powerful, she says, quote, when we realize our
Speaker 1: emotions are most often in the way of sound decision
Speaker 1: making and forward strides, we see how in control we
Speaker 1: actually are.
Speaker 2: I really like this, and I feel like it's important
Speaker 2: not to discard our emotions, but to recognize them, synthesize them,
Speaker 2: and then act accordingly beautifully said.
Speaker 1: You know, this article brought up some interesting points about
Speaker 1: how we face disappointment in our careers. And today we
Speaker 1: have a special guest who is at the helm of
Speaker 1: an organization dedicated to inclusive representation in film, TV, advertising,
Speaker 1: who I had the pleasure of interviewing recently.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to hear this one.
Speaker 2: I wasn't here because I was out of town for work.
Speaker 2: I stayed in this little airbnb and and I got
Speaker 2: my butt back to the bright side.
Speaker 3: And I'm really excited to learn more about this one.
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna like this one. My colleague and friend,
Speaker 1: Madeline Ganono is the president and CEO of the Gena
Speaker 1: Davis Institute on Gender in Media. If you haven't heard
Speaker 1: of it, it is a research based organization that champions
Speaker 1: equitable representation in media. It was founded by actor and
Speaker 1: activists Gena Davis of League of their Own Beetlejuice, Thelma
Speaker 1: and Louise Fame, and she founded it in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four because she was stunned by the lack of
Speaker 1: female characters and diversity on screen. And we've made so
Speaker 1: many strides, but it was really interesting to talk to
Speaker 1: Madeline about where we still have room for improvement. The
Speaker 1: mission of the Institute is to change the world, one
Speaker 1: story at a time, and they do that via data
Speaker 1: driven research and providing insights and tools to help leading
Speaker 1: content creators and movie studios do better in terms of
Speaker 1: inclusive content. Madeline is going to drop some truly eye
Speaker 1: opening facts about representation and TV and film, how we
Speaker 1: can be the change as consumers, Like what is our
Speaker 1: role in all of this, and the possibility that we
Speaker 1: discover when we challenge these long held stereotypes. It's all
Speaker 1: really fascinating and I can't wait for y' all to
Speaker 1: hear it.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to hear it along with you.
Speaker 1: So after the break, I'm getting into it all with
Speaker 1: Madeline Dino. Stay with us, Madeline, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 1: I'm so thrilled to be here. I am so thrilled
Speaker 1: to see you. I'm so thrilled to be sitting across
Speaker 1: this table from you. I can remember the first time
Speaker 1: that I really understood the importance of representation. It was
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven and the Cinderella movie with Brandy and
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston had just come out, and I was probably
Speaker 1: about nine years old at the time, and my mom,
Speaker 1: who's a black actor. She doesn't act anymore, but she
Speaker 1: did for many years. She made the premiere of this
Speaker 1: movie sound like such a big deal, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand why. I was like, cool, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's a Disney princess, It's Cinderella, Whitney Houston, love Whitney Houston.
Speaker 1: This is really exciting. So I finally asked her, like,
Speaker 1: why is this such a big deal to you? And
Speaker 1: I realized that she was in tears at that point,
Speaker 1: and she said that she had never seen a black
Speaker 1: Disney princess before, and for her as an actor to
Speaker 1: see that representation, I think it just brought up like
Speaker 1: this well of emotions, you know, a lot of complex emotions.
Speaker 1: And that's what I want to talk to you about
Speaker 1: today is the why behind all of this, the impact.
Speaker 1: So how does fictional media shape reality when it comes
Speaker 1: to how women are perceived in society.
Speaker 4: What happens in the world to make believe has real
Speaker 4: world impact. And we've actually seen that with some of
Speaker 4: our studies that we've done in surveys. So for example,
Speaker 4: going all the way back to when Gina played one
Speaker 4: of the first female presidents on TV in Commander in Chief.
Speaker 4: The Taylor Kaplin Group did a poll and basically a
Speaker 4: seventy six percent of the population at that time was
Speaker 4: familiar with the show, and fifty eight percent surveyed said
Speaker 4: they would take a female candidate more seriously because they
Speaker 4: saw Gina in that role nineteen times. And that number
Speaker 4: went up to sixty nine percent when it came to
Speaker 4: adults thirty five to forty four. And it was completely
Speaker 4: bipartisan in terms of the survey. So that's just one
Speaker 4: tiny example of the power of media to influence our culture.
Speaker 1: Wow, that can't be underestimated, especially right now in a
Speaker 1: year like this. So I want to get into how
Speaker 1: the Gena Davis Institute really came to be. Obviously, we
Speaker 1: all know Geena Davis for her work and TV and
Speaker 1: film dozens of credits, Thelman, Louise I mean, so many
Speaker 1: beloved projects. She said that she was actually inspired to
Speaker 1: start the institute after and experience watching a movie with
Speaker 1: her daughter. Would you share that story and how it
Speaker 1: underscores the work that you do today? Absolutely.
Speaker 4: First of all, Gina had a heightened awareness of how
Speaker 4: women and girls would feel based on the roles, the
Speaker 4: iconic roles. Even today, people still walk up to her
Speaker 4: and say, I played baseball because of you from Alegi
Speaker 4: their own. So imagine now you're a new mom, and
Speaker 4: of course you're going to start watching content with your kid.
Speaker 4: And her daughter was two at the time, and it
Speaker 4: immediately struck Gina the disparity in not seeing female characters
Speaker 4: in anything she was showing her daughter, and it was
Speaker 4: so surprising to her that she started asking her friends, hey,
Speaker 4: did you notice that there just wasn't a lot of
Speaker 4: female characters, And her friends were like, Nope, didn't notice.
Speaker 4: And then when she'd go on meetings for potential acting
Speaker 4: jobs and projects, she would bring up the same thing
Speaker 4: and they'd be like no, they said, no, that we
Speaker 4: have that fix that's so important to us. And they
Speaker 4: named one female character in the entirety of a movie
Speaker 4: to think that they had gender equality fix because they
Speaker 4: had one female character. So it was really about unconscious
Speaker 4: bias and people not realizing it until Gena pointed it
Speaker 4: out and obviously use the data to prove her point.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: In addition to your mission of ending unconscious bias and
Speaker 1: fostering inclusion in global media. There's one other thing that
Speaker 1: you say a lot at the GENA. Davis Institute and Foundation,
Speaker 1: and that is if you can see it, you can
Speaker 1: be it. This idea that there is power and representation.
Speaker 1: As the President and CEO of the GENA. Davis Foundation,
Speaker 1: you know the film and TV landscape better than just
Speaker 1: about anyone. So broad strokes tell us where are we
Speaker 1: today when it comes to positive representation and media.
Speaker 4: When it comes to there's different verticals that we look at,
Speaker 4: global advertising, global TV, global film, global gaming, and our
Speaker 4: Refrierer Children's Television report first, so there's kind of good
Speaker 4: news and bad news. When it comes to programming that
Speaker 4: children are watching. We're pretty much so at parody. When
Speaker 4: it comes to new programming, the default is still a
Speaker 4: little bit more male. What's very interesting is when you
Speaker 4: look at animation, when you have a more human like
Speaker 4: animated character, we're at gender parody. But when it's a
Speaker 4: talking trade or a mushroom, the default is male. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so there's just some disparity there. But I will say positively,
Speaker 4: the best progress that we have seen when it is
Speaker 4: when it comes to people of color. In terms of leads,
Speaker 4: we saw it was like fifty three percent of the
Speaker 4: leads on TV that kids are watching or people of color.
Speaker 4: We've seen that in advertising. We've seen that in the
Speaker 4: portrayal of women in STEM where a number of years
Speaker 4: ago it was only.
Speaker 1: Twenty nine percent.
Speaker 4: Now it went up to forty two percent in our
Speaker 4: latest studies. So we're really really happy when you think
Speaker 4: about people of color being forty one percent of the
Speaker 4: population in the US, that that is starting to show
Speaker 4: up on screen.
Speaker 1: The name GENA. Davis Institute is so well respected in
Speaker 1: this industry, but I imagine it must have been hard
Speaker 1: to gain credibility or to go out and really pursue
Speaker 1: this mission and get people on board. What was the
Speaker 1: experience like getting it from the concept to becoming this
Speaker 1: leader in research?
Speaker 4: It really goes back to Gina's vision and her approach
Speaker 4: and operating dynamics. So first of all, it was about
Speaker 4: the data, and data has been the key to her access.
Speaker 4: It's not our opinion, it's the data. And when you
Speaker 4: approach people who are running billion dollar entities and you
Speaker 4: approach them with the facts, they look at data all
Speaker 4: day long. So number one, Number two, we're in the industry,
Speaker 4: and it was really about being presented in a colleisial way.
Speaker 4: We see the industry as partners and we know they
Speaker 4: want to do good things. We're providing with the tools
Speaker 4: and resources, so we never had a carrot and stick approach.
Speaker 4: We never shame and blame, and we've always been more
Speaker 4: of a B to B so a business to business
Speaker 4: versus targeting consumers, and all of that together has been
Speaker 4: the key to our success.
Speaker 1: I want to drill down into the data with you
Speaker 1: because the data are truly remarkable. One study looked at
Speaker 1: the representation of families, specifically how scripted TV moms are represented.
Speaker 1: So here are some of the highlights from that research.
Speaker 1: Eight out of ten moms were slender, seventy percent of
Speaker 1: moms take on the domestic tasks. If there is a
Speaker 1: clear breadwinner, nine out of ten times it's a dad.
Speaker 1: And this last one threw me for a loop. Less
Speaker 1: than one in ten TV parents had a messy house.
Speaker 1: How unrealistic is that? Will you talk about the impact
Speaker 1: of these unrealistic standards on women.
Speaker 4: It's shocking because it is the twenty first century, But
Speaker 4: we found out that for the most part, TV moms
Speaker 4: today are still mostly white, they're young, they're thin, they're
Speaker 4: not disabled, they're not career et cetera, et cetera, and
Speaker 4: that was really surprising. We've always looked at the intersection
Speaker 4: of gender and race and lgbtqia and disability, et cetera.
Speaker 4: The body diversity came up a number of years ago
Speaker 4: because in looking at the population, over forty percent of
Speaker 4: our population is of a larger body type, and so
Speaker 4: body diversity became very, very important for us, and it's
Speaker 4: something that we've been including in our data for a
Speaker 4: number of years across global advertising, global TV, like all
Speaker 4: of our studies, because not everybody's a size zero and
Speaker 4: there's a lot of discriminate. So, for example, we have
Speaker 4: found that characters that are of a larger body type
Speaker 4: are the brunt of the joke. They're always seen as
Speaker 4: you know, eating or out of breath, and just terrible,
Speaker 4: terrible stereotypes.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about female directors. We had Stephanie
Speaker 1: Allen and Tick Nataro on our show recently to talk
Speaker 1: about a film they co directed called am I Okay.
Speaker 1: In just a few weeks, we have Zoe Kravitz making
Speaker 1: her directorial debut with Blink Twice, Scarlett Johansson getting behind
Speaker 1: the Helm with Eleanor the Great. But I was shocked
Speaker 1: to see that in the ninety six year history of
Speaker 1: the Academy Awards, just nine women have ever been nominated
Speaker 1: for Best Directors since nineteen twenty eight, and a woman
Speaker 1: has only won three times. I mean, this makes me
Speaker 1: think of the whole controversy around Greta Gerwig not being
Speaker 1: nominated for Barbie last year. Why is this number still
Speaker 1: so low?
Speaker 4: One thing is the pipeline, and there are many other
Speaker 4: wonderful organizations that study what's happening behind the camera. We
Speaker 4: don't really focus behind the camera. But first of all,
Speaker 4: it's a pipeline problem. So if, for example, it's a
Speaker 4: three to one five to one ratio of male directors
Speaker 4: to female directors, it's about the opportunity. And we know
Speaker 4: that female directors don't have the same opportunities and access
Speaker 4: to capital and that pathway to getting their films made.
Speaker 4: Most female directors can get say one film made, even
Speaker 4: if they max out their credit cards, but to get
Speaker 4: that second and that third film made is very, very challenging.
Speaker 4: So it's really important that female directors can find their
Speaker 4: way into the pipeline in order for us to have
Speaker 4: more female directed movies, and when you look at independent film,
Speaker 4: you have gender parity or even more for female directors.
Speaker 4: But we need it with these bigger budget films. So
Speaker 4: historically female directors are relegated more to the indie that
Speaker 4: lower production budget and that's where the pipeline needs to
Speaker 4: be filled. And hopefully with a lot of the programs
Speaker 4: that the studios have, that'll start to change. But it's
Speaker 4: been glacial. I mean, the film industry is over one
Speaker 4: hundred years old.
Speaker 1: So you have a number of tools that you use
Speaker 1: whenever you gather this data and then you take it
Speaker 1: out to meet with the studios to share it with them,
Speaker 1: to share it with these decision makers who have the
Speaker 1: potential to create real progress. Walk us through some of
Speaker 1: those tools that you've created.
Speaker 4: So we have always provided kind of a benchmark for
Speaker 4: how are we doing. And we have had the privilege
Speaker 4: of working with Google and usc of a Tribe School
Speaker 4: of Engineering to incorporate some machine learning, some AI along
Speaker 4: with a lot of human expert coding, which is led
Speaker 4: by doctor Meredith Conroy who leads are research and insights team.
Speaker 4: We have wonderful PhDs in house on our team who
Speaker 4: conduct the research. And so one of those tools is
Speaker 4: GDIQ Gena Davis Inclusion quot and that is really a
Speaker 4: benchmarking tool that gives us a sense of where are
Speaker 4: we in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, LGBTQAA, age, fifty plus, disability,
Speaker 4: body type, which are the six core dimensions.
Speaker 1: But that's after the fact.
Speaker 4: So one of the tools that we developed with our
Speaker 4: partners at usc Viterbi is called spell Check for Bias,
Speaker 4: and it's actually looking at scripts and we're breaking down
Speaker 4: a script with a different lens. We're looking at all
Speaker 4: the characters that are speaking and we pull them off
Speaker 4: into a data set and then we walk it through.
Speaker 4: You know, are those characters that are contributing dialogue? Are
Speaker 4: they female, are they LGBTQA, what are they? Is there
Speaker 4: an opportunity? And it's really about not attacking a story,
Speaker 4: not telling the storytellers what to do, not invading their
Speaker 4: authentic t but it's pointing out opportunities. And then we'll
Speaker 4: also look at things like sexism, racism, and essentially we
Speaker 4: provide all the backup in the data for our partners
Speaker 4: so that if they are evaluating a script, whether it's
Speaker 4: for green light, before it goes to casting, they have
Speaker 4: a different lens on looking at it because most leaders
Speaker 4: are looking at the top of the call sheet.
Speaker 1: They're not looking at.
Speaker 4: Every single person in the cast that could be contributing dialogue.
Speaker 4: And that's a great way to organically infuse more inclusion
Speaker 4: and diversity in a script before it gets made.
Speaker 1: So when you uncover that research, what happens next? How
Speaker 1: do we implement these findings into actual change.
Speaker 4: So there's a cycle of change for us. So the
Speaker 4: first thing we do is we usually socialize the data
Speaker 4: very publicly through an event, all the social media, all
Speaker 4: the emails, etc. The real work starts when we start
Speaker 4: taking it out studio by studio, network by network, streamer
Speaker 4: by streamer. We do hundreds and hundreds of meetings and presentations.
Speaker 4: It could be a year or so, is a full circle,
Speaker 4: and then we'll measure the industry again. And that's how
Speaker 4: we're able to make change. We're able to collect whether
Speaker 4: it's anecdotal or we'll receive direct testimonials from changes that
Speaker 4: people have made. That's how the real work gets done.
Speaker 1: We need to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: right back with more from the president and CEO of
Speaker 1: the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Madeline Gnoo,
Speaker 1: stay with us and we're back with Madeline Danoo. You
Speaker 1: actually have some interesting recommendations for the creatives that you
Speaker 1: meet with, and I want to discuss that more now.
Speaker 1: One of the suggestions is to make diversity explicit on
Speaker 1: the page. Can you give me an exam of what
Speaker 1: that would look like? Absolutely?
Speaker 4: For example, if there is going to be a person
Speaker 4: of color, what culture are they from? Do they have
Speaker 4: a sense of agency? Do they have a job. So,
Speaker 4: for example, we have seen a lot of stereotypes when
Speaker 4: there is a person of color, they're relegated to, say
Speaker 4: a service role. They're not shown as being a leader,
Speaker 4: an entrepreneur. And it's those kinds of nuances that we
Speaker 4: can provide a lot of opportunities for people to just
Speaker 4: rethink that. And it has to be in the script
Speaker 4: because if it's not in the script, then you're leaving
Speaker 4: a lot up for question. And particularly when it comes
Speaker 4: to say secondary characters, a lot of those decisions are
Speaker 4: being made by say a second ad on set. They're
Speaker 4: not being made by the in house casting people or
Speaker 4: even a casting agency. So there's so many different touch
Speaker 4: points on how actors wind up being in a scene
Speaker 4: and being cast for that. So it's a matter of
Speaker 4: looking at all of those opportunities.
Speaker 1: Madeline, I know you personally, and I know that you're
Speaker 1: always out there giving talks and promoting the work that
Speaker 1: you're doing at the Geena Davis Institute. You must meet
Speaker 1: so many creatives at these events. I'm curious if any
Speaker 1: of them have shared any success stories with you, or
Speaker 1: stories of how your work has impacted their storytelling.
Speaker 4: So one of our Border directors, Wendy Calhoun, who's a
Speaker 4: fabulous showrunner writer. Many years ago, she was working on
Speaker 4: season two of Empire, and there was a discussion in
Speaker 4: the writer's room about a venture capitalist and the character
Speaker 4: was going to be male, and Wendy was very versed
Speaker 4: in the work of the Institute. This is before she
Speaker 4: joined her Border Directors, and she researched and found binders
Speaker 4: full of female venture capitalists and went back into the
Speaker 4: writer's room and pitched it. And that character was played
Speaker 4: by Marissa Tomey for season two. So it was that simple.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a key stroke. I mean that's just
Speaker 4: one example, but we have a lot of examples like that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you do. Because the GENA. Davis Institute is
Speaker 1: celebrating twenty years this year. Huge congratulations on that and
Speaker 1: just all the impact that you've been a part of.
Speaker 1: You were there, You joined the company five years after
Speaker 1: its creation.
Speaker 4: That's true, Gina invited me, and I've had the privilege
Speaker 4: of leading the organization for the last fifteen years.
Speaker 1: So what is the accomplishment you're most proud of there?
Speaker 4: I would say the data speaks for itself, knowing that
Speaker 4: our theory of change has worked. What we saw before
Speaker 4: the pandemic for the first time ever in the data
Speaker 4: was being able to achieve gender parody for female lead
Speaker 4: characters and the most watched most popular children's television programming,
Speaker 4: followed by the following year achieving gender parity for female
Speaker 4: leads in the largest grossing films out of the US,
Speaker 4: and then also followed by achieving gender parity actually fifty
Speaker 4: two percent for secondary characters in children's television. Now, this
Speaker 4: was all pre pandemic, and you have to take into
Speaker 4: consideration the impact of the strikes and the pandemic on
Speaker 4: TV production, creatives, etc. You can't put these reports out
Speaker 4: without taking the market and the situation that we're in
Speaker 4: into account is going to take a number of years.
Speaker 1: It's a new normal.
Speaker 4: But we're just happy that even with our recent studies
Speaker 4: and TV, we've still been able to see those parody numbers.
Speaker 1: Why are you optimistic about the future of film and TV?
Speaker 4: It's really with the response and how the industry has
Speaker 4: not only embraced our data, but has embraced data. And
Speaker 4: also it requires these companies be organizationally ready, no matter
Speaker 4: how willing they are, and they have all built infrastructures
Speaker 4: with departments with very seasoned executives whose sole job it
Speaker 4: is is to look at the content through this lens.
Speaker 4: Whereas decades ago, years ago, when we first started, you
Speaker 4: didn't have that kind of empowerment. You didn't have those
Speaker 4: kind of executives with those roles being empowered to review
Speaker 4: content and to point out various things. So the structure
Speaker 4: has changed and that allows for the companies to move
Speaker 4: forward and also progress.
Speaker 1: What is our role as consumers and all of this.
Speaker 4: Well, we're all debating on what streaming services we want.
Speaker 4: We all have a voice, and the industry pays attention
Speaker 4: to what people say and what people post and their tiktoks,
Speaker 4: et cetera. They watch it, and so you have a voice,
Speaker 4: whereas decades ago you didn't. And there's also the power
Speaker 4: of the wallet as well to support movies and TV
Speaker 4: shows that you believe reflect the stories that you want
Speaker 4: to see.
Speaker 1: You know that statistic that you shared at the beginning
Speaker 1: of our conversation about just the having the image of
Speaker 1: a female president in a TV show or a film
Speaker 1: can greatly impact the perception of female leadership in reality.
Speaker 1: And I think about the fact that we have Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris running. I think about the fact that she would
Speaker 1: be our first female president, and I'm curious how you
Speaker 1: think that would shift the paradigm when it comes to
Speaker 1: how presidents are represented on TV screens.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to tell the story correctly, but Gina
Speaker 4: has a great story. One of the leaders of I
Speaker 4: think it was Finland, they had only had a female president,
Speaker 4: and there was a little boy who actually asked, can
Speaker 4: boys be president? Well, because in that country? And I
Speaker 4: know I'm mess this story up, so forgive me, uh.
Speaker 1: No, but we get it, you know what I mean? Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the opportunity. You know. I had a
Speaker 1: similar moment when I was watching the Olympics with my
Speaker 1: son the other day. We had been watching a lot
Speaker 1: of the women's events, and I didn't even really realize
Speaker 1: that that we hadn't been watching the men's events, and
Speaker 1: so I turned on the Olympics and it happened to
Speaker 1: be men's swimming and he was like, Mommy, I want
Speaker 1: to watch the girls. Where are the girls? I was like, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I did something right, Yes, you've tried him well exactly.
Speaker 1: Is that an area that the Geena Davis Institute might
Speaker 1: explore in the future is well.
Speaker 4: We have had the opportunity to do a few little
Speaker 4: sports studies and one came out of a personal experience
Speaker 4: from Gina. Because some of you may or may not
Speaker 4: know that Gina uh qualified and pursued the Olympic archery team.
Speaker 1: Wait, I did not know this. Yes she was, yes, yes.
Speaker 4: So after seeing it was the Australian Olympics, she thought
Speaker 4: archery was just so beautiful and it was so measurable,
Speaker 4: and so she for two and a half years trained
Speaker 4: and qualified for the Olympic trials.
Speaker 1: She didn't make the team, okay, but she did do
Speaker 1: very very well.
Speaker 4: And what's interesting is a number of years ago her
Speaker 4: archery coach called her and said, I was looking at
Speaker 4: the statistics for National Association of American Archery and girls
Speaker 4: participation in archery went up one hundred and five percent
Speaker 4: in the year twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Why two movies? Two movies? Can you name them? Yes,
Speaker 1: Brave and Hunger Games.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: I remember actually covering this when I was working as
Speaker 1: a reporter and we leaned on your insights. Yes, from
Speaker 1: the Geena Davis Institute.
Speaker 4: They watched the movie they bought a bow. It was instantaneous.
Speaker 4: So imagine after seeing all these fabulous female Team USA athletes,
Speaker 4: You'm just thrilled to see fencing and wrestling and seeing
Speaker 4: girls participation go up in those sports.
Speaker 1: There again is the real life impact of all these initiatives.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on the bright side. Madeline,
Speaker 1: thrilled you brought the brightness. Madeline Denono is the president
Speaker 1: and CEO of the GENA. Davis Institute on Gender in Media.
Speaker 1: You can check out their research on women's representation and
Speaker 1: media on their website Genadavisinstitute dot org.
Speaker 3: That's it for today's show.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow, boxing World champion and actor Kaylee Reese, She's here
Speaker 2: to talk about making history as an Indigenous actor thanks
Speaker 2: to our partners at Airbnb. Listen and follow the bright
Speaker 2: Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Simone Boye. You can find me at Simone Voice
Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3: That's r O b A.
Speaker 1: Y See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.