Number of the Day

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

90%: The percentage of showings of films today in a 10-mile radius in the DC metro area that "are stories about men or groups of men, where women play supporting roles or fill out ensembles primarily focused on men." Linda Holmes:

I live in the D.C. metro area. which is very good place to find films. If you don't live in New York or Los Angeles, it's about the best you can do. I'm within 10 miles of a multiplicity of multiplexes, not to mention four theaters I would consider "art house" theaters or at least mixes of wider-appeal fare and smaller stuff.

According to Fandango and some back-of-the-envelope math, excluding documentaries and animation, there are 617 movie showings today — that's just today, Friday — within 10 miles of my house.

Of those 617 showings, 561 of them — 90 percent — are stories about men or groups of men, where women play supporting roles or fill out ensembles primarily focused on men. The movies making up those 561 showings: Man Of Steel (143), This Is The End (77), The Internship (52), The Purge (49), After Earth (29), Now You See Me (56), Fast & Furious 6 (44), The Hangover Part III (16), Star Trek Into Darkness (34), The Great Gatsby (16), Iron Man 3 (18), Mud (9), The Company You Keep (4), Kings Of Summer (9), and 42 (5).

Thirty-one are showings of movies about balanced pairings or ensembles of men and women: Before Midnight (26), Shadow Dancer (4), and Wish You Were Here (1).

Twenty-five are showings of movies about women or girls: The East (8), Fill The Void (4), Frances Ha (9), and What Maisie Knew (4).

Of the seven movies about women or balanced groups, only one — the Israeli film Fill The Void — is directed by a woman, Rama Burshtein. That's also the only one that isn't about a well-off white American. (Well, Celine in Before Midnight is well-off, white and French, but she's been living in the U.S.)

There are nearly six times as many showings of Man Of Steel alone as there are of all the films about women put together.

If I were limited to multiplexes, as people are in many parts of the country, the numbers would be worse. In many places, the number would be zero. Frances Ha is by far the most widely available of the four women-centered movies, and it's on 213 screens this weekend in the entire country. The East is on 115. What Maisie Knew is on 51. Fill The Void looks like it's in about 20 locations, judging by its site.

The Internship is on 3,399.

I want to stress this again: In many, many parts of the country right now, if you want to go to see a movie in the theater and see a current movie about a woman — any story about any woman that isn't a documentary or a cartoon — you can't. You cannot. There are not any. You cannot take yourself to one, take your friend to one, take your daughter to one.

There are not any.

Literally just last weekend, Iain was reading out the local movie listings to me, and, at the end, I said, "You realize not a single one of those movies features a primary female protagonist?" And he was all, "Fuuuuuuuuck."

And naturally, the vast majority of the films that featured male protagonists featured straight, white, male protagonists.

Is it any wonder that people who aren't straight, white men have "White Dude Saves the World" fatigue?

[H/T to Jess.]