Academy of Television Arts & Sciences

Actress-advocate Geena Davis with Frank Desiderio, President of the Humanitas Prize at the “Busting the Myth: What ‘Tweeners are Watching and Why.” Scroll down or click for more photos.

Complete list of panelists:

Geena Davis
TV/Film Actor
Founder, See Jane, a research and advocacy arm of national non-profit Dads and Daughters

Stacy Smith, Ph.D.
Head Researcher, See Jane Associate Professor, Annenberg School For Communication at the University of Southern California

Ben Silverman
Executive Producer, Ugly Betty
The Office, The Tudors

Doreen Spicer
Producer, The Proud Family
Writer, Jump In!

Karen Gist
Writer, Jump In!
Writer-Producer, Girlfriends

Jonas Agin
Senior Vice President,
Tom Lynch Company

Eric Coleman
Vice President & Executive Producer, Animation Development and Production, Nickelodeon

Amy Friedman
Creative Director & Senior Vice President of Original Programming, The N

Moderator:
Cynthia Littleton,
Deputy Editor, News Development,
Daily Variety

From the Children's Programming Peer Group of the
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
and the HUMANITAS Prize

A Humanitas Master Writer's Workshop
Busting the Myth: What 'Tweeners
are Watching and Why
Television Academy Headquarters
North Hollywood, California

Anchored by a special presentation from See Jane—a research organization founded by award-winning actress Geena Davis, dedicated to improving gender equity in television and film, the HUMANITAS Master Writer’s Workshop “Busting the Myth: What ‘Tweeners are Watching and Why” drew a mix of academics, writers and producers with such hits as Ugly Betty, top-rated Disney Channel film Jump In! and more.

Held March 21 at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Conference Centre, Daily Variety's Cynthia Littleton moderated the discussion.

Focusing primarily on gender images in media targeted toward younger demos, the panel and members of the audience shared personal and work experiences dealing with female characters.

Plus, the group mulled over some disquieting statistics, that underscore the need to increase and further diversify female characters in media, according to panelist Stacy L. Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and head researcher for See Jane.

Key findings of content analysis study "Where the Girls Aren’t," for instance, show that within 101 top-grossing G-rated movies released from 1990-2004:

There are three male characters for every one female character.
Fewer than one out of three (28 percent) of the speaking characters (both real and animated) are female.
Fewer than one in five (17 percent) of the characters in crowd scenes are female.
More than four out of five (83 percent) of the films’ narrators are male.

Smith, who led the study resulting in "Where the Girls Aren’t," similarly analyzed television produced for children 11 and under in 2005. You may download the resulting brief, "Now You See 'Em, Now You Don't: Gender & Racial Disparity in TV for Children (PDF)" among others, from the research section of the See Jane website.

Source: "Where the Girls Aren't," See Jane, Feb. 2006

See Jane founder and actress Geena Davis put the numbers in perspective, sharing an amusing story about a revelation-of-sorts experienced by an animator during a recent meeting.

"He looked at me and said, 'You know, I drew a bar scene today,'" Davis explained, "and now that I think about it? Every character I drew within that scene is a male. Wow—I'm part of the problem! I didn't even realize.'"

Editor: Juliana J. Bolden Photos: Mathew Imaging


Moderator Cynthia Littleton of Daily Variety	Ben Silverman, executive producer of ABC hit Ugly Betty and Showtime's The Tudors

Cathleen Young of HUMANITAS Prize; Nancy Steingard, governor, Children's Programming Peer Group; Geena Davis; Frank Desiderio; and Cynthia Littleton.