I’m not sure if I’m the only person who’s noticed this trend recently. This really isn’t a recent trend—it’s been going on for decades. If you read the headline, you know what I’m talking about: the use of women deaths in movies and television shows. It seems that every show with high ratings involves either attacks on women, the death of women, or the objectification of women. Some actually refused to cast women in lead character roles. Even with the advancements women have made in the film industry, it is still not enough and definitely not equal.
In 2015, a study found that out of the top 100 domestic grossing films, only 34% of characters with major roles were women, and that only about one-third of all speaking characters were women as well. When examining protagonists in these films, the study also found that only 22 percent of those were women. Let's also not forget that the roles for women of color are even smaller, with only 13% being black women, 4% being Latina women, only 3% being Asian women, and only 4% being "otherworldly" and "other" in 2015.
We can’t simply say that the reason for this inequality in roles for women is just because “women don’t work hard enough” or “they aren’t qualified” or “the role is for a man.” Many films originally had men playing major or lead roles but switched to women instead, such as "Salt" (2010), "Alien" (1979), "Ender’s Game" (2013), "Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever" (2002) and more. Some of the most talented, accomplished and incredible performers are women, such as Sofía Vergara, Julie Andrews, Danielle Brooks, Samira Wiley, Lucy Liu, Jamie Clayton, Laverne Cox and so many others. Clearly, women are capable of doing their jobs as well as men.
When looking at television roles for women, it doesn’t get much better. As of 2014, women only accounted for 39% of all characters with no women creators, and only 47% of all characters when at least one creator was a woman.
It's now common for a woman to not get the lead role or to even have a speaking role. However, it seems that for roles for queer women this discrepancy is worse, such as in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Seeing Red," and "The 100." This incidence is actually called the "Dead Lesbian Syndrome.” An article from National Post states that “Since 1976, 11 percent of television shows have featured a lesbian or bisexual character, and of those, 65 percent feature a dead lesbian. Thirty-one percent of all lesbian characters to make an appearance on a show have been killed off, with a mere 11 percent leaving a show the way most might, with a happy ending.”
Autostraddle also posted a semi-complete list of dead lesbian and bisexual character on TV, along with how they died. You can read it here.
Another study found that on television shows, women are more likely to be killed in more violent ways, such as strangling or stabbing, than by a firearm. Which is disproportionate to actual statistics, that show that women and men had nearly the same chance of being killed by firearm, but men were actually more likely to be victims of non-firearm related assaults. So men are more likely to be stabbed or strangled, unlike television shows would have us believe.
Until writers, producers, and directors start taking note of violent deaths for women (deaths that specifically don’t contribute to the storyline in a productive or meaningful way), start noticing the number of women in the show and in the production crew, start thinking about why character die, and much more. Variety put it perfectly: “Anyone can die" won’t be a truthful sentence until "any kind of character can be at the very heart of the story" and "anyone can run a TV show are factual statements." Including women and LGBTQ characters only make television shows and films more complex, interesting and relatable to a larger audience. If you haven’t noticed, shows with mainly women casts can be pretty incredible.
