Participants

The 42 international scriptwriters, present within the scope of the CANNESERIES Writers Club.

With the participation of Aline Marrache, and Priscilla Siney of PFDM, of young talents of the association 1000 Visages and of Catherine Jean-Joseph Sentuc.

 

Coach and facilitator

Fabienne Silvestre, Head of Institutional Relations and Diversity at CANNESERIES, Coach and Co-founder of the Lab.

Sandrine Brauer, co-president of The Collectif 5050

 

 

Observatrices

Lise Perottet, assistant of the Lab Femmes de Cinéma

Shirin Rashidian, Organiser of the CANNESERIES Writers Club.

 

THE WORKSHOP PROCESS

This workshop took place in the framework of the CANNESERIES Writers Club 2022, with screenwriters from all over the world as participants. The workshop was divided into three parts. The first part provided a context for the theme: the 50/50 Collective presented its latest study Cinégalités and the Lab synthesized its note on the place of women and diversity in series. Then, the screenwriters had to find inspiring characters from a series with a different gender than their own, and inspiring non-white characters. This individual exercise led to group discussions. The discussions were focused on the main gender stereotypes present in fiction and it led to the search of categories of under-represented characters in fiction.

STATE OF PLAY

As part of the 5th season of CANNESERIES, we have written a note entitled « Parity and diversity in series: where do we stand? » This note is based on the fact that series are now part of the daily life of a growing number of people around the world. In France, for example, 66% of the French population say they watch at least one episode of a series per week and 92% say they watch them regularly.

Series have an impact on the worldview and on the collective imaginary of the viewers. We have therefore worked on bringing together as a synthesis the existing information on the subject of the place of women and of any « under-represented » group in series. Our note is a synthesis of the data, key figures and major trends that run through the world of series on a global and French scale. This note is an inventory of what exists and what is still missing in the serial universe: behind the camera, via the creative teams and in front of the camera, through the characters we see on screen.

To take a few key figures showing these disparities, in the world of series, in the United States only 35% of scriptwriters are women and they represent only 31% of the series directors. In France in 2018, according to the CNC, of all French TV shows, 2% of episodes were written and directed by women only, while 48% of episodes were written and directed by men only. These disparities behind the camera have strong consequences for the characters portrayed on screen. This note was presented at the beginning of the workshop, to contextualize the issues and the crucial and powerful role of series writers.

To take a deeper dive into the world of series, starting with the societal power they wield, going behind the scenes, and ending with the characters you see on screen, we invite you to discover our note, the English version will be soon available on our website.

GENDER STEREOTYPES IN THE WORLD OF FILMS AND SERIES

The scriptwriters participating in the workshop had to find the main gender stereotypes present in television fiction and relate them to fictional characters. Here we try to classify the main stereotypes mentioned by the participants. We would like to point out the following: on the one hand we have not seen all the series mentioned below, on the other hand this is an exercise where the proposals are very subjective. You who read this review may not agree with the stereotypes conveyed by this or that character mentioned. These are situated points of view of scriptwriters and a non-exhaustive list, as the exercise is very limited in time and this was intended to generate spontaneous responses.

Find all the answers of the writers in our report.

UNDERREPRESENTED CHARACTER CATEGORIES

The writers then listed by group examples of underrepresented characters in TV shows. The example given was that of older non-white characters: according to the Collectif 5050’s Cinégalités study of 115 French films in 2019, among characters who are between 15 and 20 years old, 39% of characters are perceived as non-white. This figure drops to 10% of non-white characters among those between 65 and 79 years old. For characters over 80, 100% are white. In most of the examples given, this is an intersection of several categories of discriminated people. Here are the examples that were cited by the different groups of writers.

Find all the answers of the writers in our report.