We are never far away from another Hollywood revamp, sequel or Superhero movie. What all of these films have in common, except disappointment and spandex, is their failure to present female characters as developed and three dimensional human beings. It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World, a study conducted at San Diego State University in 2015, revealed that women accounted for just 22% of protagonists in films.

 

There is even a test that measures how dismally women are represented. The Bechdel Test rates films based on these three criteria: there must be at least two named women in it, they must talk to each other and that must be about something other than a man.

 

This sounds like a relatively loose criteria, but even films where one of the main characters is female can fail to pass the test. However, failing the test rarely impacts on the commercial and popular success of the film. Deadpool, The Revenant, The Jungle Book, Ku Fu Panda 3 and Goosebumps all fail the Bechdel Test.

 

More poignantly, a healthy proportion of these films are aimed at children. This means that the majority of characters and actors girls and boys will see at the cinema will be male. This is significant because representation matters, especially to children.

 

If children only see men perform heroic, selfless or challenging actions, it informs them that this is what the world is like and anything outside of that isn’t acceptable. But the tide is slowly changing.

 

Busting the Stereotype

 

When the Ghostbusters revamp was announced with women taking the leading roles the reaction, from some sections of the public, wasn’t good. Fans of the original remarked that an all-female cast would ‘ruin’ the film.

 

 Thinly veiled misogyny aside, what these comments show is that we needed to see four, well developed, intersectional female friends taking on ghosts, doubters, technology, science, humour and having each other’s back. How often do we get to see women be brave and be each other’s heroes?

 

 If people still have a problem with the gender of a film’s protagonists, it only highlights the fact that we need to keep going and to keep removing bricks from the walls of privilege, misogyny and sexism that have been built around us. These walls need to come down.

 

The role reversal didn’t stop at an all-female Ghostbuster team. Chris Hemsworth, the ultimate straight, white leading man type takes on the dumb but pretty secretary role with a clownish element that had the kids (big and actual) in the cinema giggling.

 

 Kate McKinnon’s portrayal of eccentric engineer, professional weirdo and fashion icon Jillian Holtzmann is the kind of thing I have been waiting my whole life to see. It's such a rare gem to see a female character portrayed on screen as having absolute confidence, almost cockiness, in her ability especially as a scientist. There are no men in white coats telling her how clever she is, she knows it and flaunts it with a genuine streak of madness that is so refreshing to see in a woman on film.

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Obviously the ultimate goal would be to have a rough split of women and men on the silver screen. But until that happens, I believe that filmmakers have a duty move away from tired and repetitive portrayals of women as decorations and love interests and give female actors roles to play that are funny, developed, brooding and heroic.

 

The Ghostbusters movie does just this, and while I accept that not every woman is a genius engineer or a top physicist or able to capture supernatural entities, every woman has a voice and films need to reflect that.