A new study has recently revealed that there are now fewer lead roles for women in top Hollywood movies.
According to the findings, females accounted for only 12 percent of all the protagonists depicted in the top 100 domestic box office hits released last year. They also made up just 29 percent of the major characters and 30 percent of all speaking roles, Deadline.com reported.
In her latest annual report, Dr. Martha Lauzen, Executive Director of San Diego State's Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, found that the number of female protagonists depicted in the top-grossing American films last year dropped 3 percent from 2013 and 4 percent from 2002.
The report, titled "It's a Man's (Celluloid) World," also found that last year's top 100 films with female directors and/or writers had more than three times as many female protagonists as those written and directed exclusively by men.
Lauzen said that 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1' topping the domestic box office last year was proof that there's a big audience for films with female heroes.
Overall, however, the top-grossing films of 2014 continued to cast females in stereotypically supporting roles and gender stereotypes remained abundant in 2014 films.
The report also found that the percentage of black females and Latina characters declined slightly last year from 2013, while the percentage of Asian females increased slightly.
According to the report, 11 percentage of female characters cast in the top-grossing films were black, 4 percentage were Latina and 4 percentage Asian.
