The Gender Bias and Representation in Movie Posters: A Study of 60 Years of Film

Movie posters, as the frontline marketing tools, significantly shape audience expectations and perceptions, making their analysis crucial for understanding broader industry trends. This study quantifies "gender bias" in movie posters, defined through the disproportionate representation and prominence of male versus female characters, considering their visibility, spatial positioning, and size. Employing novel analytical techniques, we examined a dataset of 167,322 movie posters and observed a prevalent male bias. This bias is consistent across genres, geographical regions, and decades, though variations exist: action and adventure genres display pronounced male bias, while romance genres show more balanced representations. Additionally, movies exhibiting male bias tend to achieve higher box office revenues and ratings. Despite the study’s constraints, such as its binary gender approach and focus on a single poster version, our findings underscore the need for addressing gender representations in movie marketing materials and suggest avenues for future research in this domain.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Information Technology (M.I.T.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Digital Media

Grantor dc:publisher

Carleton University

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Song, Yusen

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © 2023 the author(s). Theses may be used for non-commercial research, educational, or related academic purposes only. Such uses include personal study, distribution to students, research and scholarship. Theses may only be shared by linking to the Carleton University Institutional Repository and no part may be copied without proper attribution to the author; no part may be used for commercial purposes directly or indirectly via a for-profit platform; no adaptation or derivative works are permitted without consent from the copyright owner.

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

10.22215/etd/2023-15709

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:carleton.scholaris.ca:20.500.14718/40885