Study finds female-led films outperform male ones

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Study finds female-led films outperform male ones

2018-12-12 03:09 Last Updated At：03:10

A study organized by Time's Up, the organization formed to promote gender equality, has found that female-led films consistently outperform male-led movies at the box office.

The study analyzed the 350 top-grossing films worldwide released between January 2014 and December 2017. Researchers found that in films with small, medium and large budgets, all averaged better global grosses when a woman was listed as the lead star.

The study, conducted by the talent agency Creative Artists Agency and the tech company shift7, found that films that passed the Bechdel test do better, too. The Bechdel test, an invention of the cartoonist Alison Bechdel, rates whether a movie featuring two female characters having a conversation about something other than a man.

Researchers found every $1 billion film at the box office — including films like "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," ''Jurassic World" and "Beauty and the Beast" — passed the Bechdel test. Among films that cost more than $100 million to make, the ones that passed the Bechdel test grossed on average $618 million worldwide, while those that didn't averaged $413 million.

"Women comprise half the box office, yet there has been an assumption in the industry that female-led films led were generally less successful," CAA agent Christy Haubegger, who participated in the research, said in a statement. "We found that the data does not support that assumption."

Depending on budget data from Nielsen's Gracenote, researchers determined lead actors by the cast order listed in a movie's billing block (the text at the bottom of a movie poster), press notes or final credits. Of the 350 films studied, 105 qualified as female-led and 245 registered as male-led. The greatest gap was in larger budgeted films. In movies with a budget greater than $100 million, there were 75 male-led films and 19 female-led films.

The study was headed by a Time's Up working group led in part by Amy Pascal, former chairman of Sony Pictures. Earlier research by academics has chronicled similar rates of inequality in top-grossing Hollywood releases, and the financial benefits of inclusion .

"This is powerful proof that audiences want to see everyone represented on screen," said Pascal. "Decision-makers in Hollywood need to pay attention to this."

Blinken in Kyiv says US arms will make a difference as Ukraine reels from a new Russian offensive

2024-05-14 19:23 Last Updated At：19:30

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that American military aid on its way to Ukraine will make a “real difference” on the battlefield, as the top diplomat made an unannounced visit to reassure an ally facing a fierce new Russian offensive.

In increasingly intense attacks along the northeastern border in recent days, Moscow’s troops have captured around 100 to 125 square kilometers (about 40 to 50 square miles) of territory that includes at least seven villages, according to open source monitoring analysts. Though most of those villages were already depopulated, thousands of civilians in the area have fled the fighting.

Analysts have called this moment one of the most dangerous for Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 — and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked Tuesday for more air defense systems to protect civilians under Russian fire in the northeast.

“We know this is a challenging time,” Blinken said in the Ukrainian capital where he met with Zelenskyy. But he added that American military aid is “going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield.”

The visit comes less than a month after Congress approved a long-delayed foreign assistance package that sets aside $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, much of which will go toward replenishing badly depleted artillery and air defense systems.

Some of that “is now on the way,” Blinken said, and some has already arrived in Ukraine.

Moscow’s renewed offensive in the northeastern region of Kharkiv is the most significant border incursion since the early days of the war — and comes after months when the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line barely budged.

More than 7,500 civilians have been evacuated from the area, according to authorities. The Kremlin’s forces are also expanding their push to the northern border regions of Sumy and Chernihiv, Ukrainian officials say, and Kyiv's outgunned and outnumbered soldiers are struggling to hold them back.

Troops fought street to street on the outskirts of Vovchansk, which is among the largest towns in the Kharkiv area, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said on national television. Two civilians were killed in Russian shelling Tuesday, he said.

The U.N. human rights office said the battles are taking a heavy toll.

“We are deeply concerned at the plight of civilians in Ukraine,” Liz Throssell, spokeswoman for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in Geneva. “In the Kharkiv region, the situation is dire.”

Zelenskyy thanked Blinken for the U.S. aid — but added that more is necessary, including two Patriot air defense systems that are urgently needed to protect Kharkiv.

“The people are under attack: civilians, warriors, everybody. They’re under Russian missiles,” he said.

Artillery, air defense interceptors and long-range ballistic missiles have already been delivered, some of them already to the front lines, said a senior U.S. official traveling with the secretary on an overnight train from Poland who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of Blinken’s meetings.

Ahead of the trip, U.S. officials noted that since President Joe Biden signed the aid package late last month, the administration has already announced $1.4 billion in short-term military assistance and $6 billion in longer-term support.

The administration is “trying to really accelerate the tempo” of U.S. weapon shipments, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

But delays in U.S. assistance, particularly since the Israel-Hamas war began and has preoccupied top administration officials, have triggered deep concerns in Kyiv and Europe. Blinken, for example, has visited the Middle East seven times since the Gaza conflict began in October. His last trip to Kyiv was in September.

On his fourth trip to Kyiv since Russian troops rolled over the border, Blinken emphasized the United States' support for Ukraine's independence and eventual recovery, according to spokesperson Matthew Miller. The U.S. diplomat and the Ukrainian president also discussed long-term security arrangements and Ukraine's economic welfare.

Blinken was due to give a speech later Tuesday extolling Ukraine’s “strategic successes” in the war. It is intended to complement a Blinken address last year in Helsinki, Finland, deriding Putin for Moscow’s strategic failures in launching the war.

Since the Helsinki speech, however, Russia has intensified its attacks, most noticeably as the U.S. House of Representatives sat on the aid package for months without action, forcing a suspension in the provision of most U.S. assistance. Those attacks have increased in recent weeks as Russia has sought to take advantage of Ukrainian shortages in manpower and weapons while the new assistance is in transit.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to make a two-day state visit to China this week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. Beijing has backed Moscow politically in the war and has sent machine tools, electronics and other items seen as contributing to the Russian war effort, without actually exporting weaponry.

“A strong, successful, thriving, free Ukraine is the best possible rebuke to Putin and the best possible guarantor for your future,” Blinken told Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

The senior U.S. official said despite some recent setbacks, Ukraine could still claim significant victories. Those include reclaiming some 50% of the territory Russian forces took in the early months of the war, boosting its economic standing and improving transportation and trade links, not least through military successes in the Black Sea.

The official acknowledged that Ukraine faces “a tough fight” and is “under tremendous pressure” but argued that Ukrainians “will become increasingly more confident” as the new U.S. and other Western assistance begins to arrive.

Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Washington, Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Study finds female-led films outperform male ones

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Study finds female-led films outperform male ones

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