Women represent 3% of directors behind major box-office titles
A new study shows that of the 376 feature filmmakers who released movies in the last two years, less than seven percent were women.
The Directors Guild of America released the dismal statistics as part of its inaugural feature film diversity report Wednesday. White men comprise more than 82 percent of the filmmakers; non-white men make up just over 11 percent.
The same study shows that women represent just three percent of directors of big box-office titles. Directors of films distributed by major studios are 96 percent male.
DGA president Paris Barclay said the guild hopes its report will "draw further attention to this serious matter so that industry employers can develop concrete director diversity plans."
Earlier this year, the American Civil Liberties Union asked state and federal agencies to investigate whether discrimination is to blame for the dearth of women behind the camera in Hollywood. Some female directors have since reported receiving letters from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission seeking to learn more about their experiences on the job.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads โ essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More