Data Analysis on Female Representation in Cinema through Bechdel Test scores

Introduction

The Bechdel Test is a subjective test that can be used as an indicator of the active presence of women in fiction, popularized by the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel in the form of a joke. In order to pass the test the following requirements should be satisfied:
(1) There has to be at least two women
(2) who talk to each other, about
(3) something besides a man.

By scrutinizing and analyzing Bechdel Test scores across a diverse range of movies, this project aims to unravel patterns, trends, and insights into the portrayal of women in cinema.

Libraries and Datasets used

The Kaggles dataset Female representation in cinema was used for this project. This was obtained starting from another Kaggle dataset, Movie Bechdel Test Scores, and enriching it with more information about the movies.

The dataset contains the following information for each movie:

• bt_score : The bechdel test score.
• dubious: Whether the submitter considered the rating dubious.
• imdbid: id on IMDb
• tmdbId: id on TMDB
• popularity: TMDB popularity.
• revenue: revenue in American Dollar (USD). Not adjusted for inflation.
• vote_average: average rating
• vote_count: number of ratings
• cast and crew: a json with cast and crew information. Check the response body in the TMDB api docs.
• cast_gender and crew_gender: gender of cast and crew: Not specified (0),Female (1), Male (2), Non-binary (3)
• cast_female_representation and crew_female_representation: percentage of women in the cast or crew.

The dataset was updated with most recent movies added on bechdeltest.com.

Libraries used:

• Pandas, numpy
• pymysql, sqlalchemy
• requests

Workflow

1. Getting the updated list of movies from bechdeltest.com
2. Getting details and credits of these new movies, fetching TMDB( The Movie DataBase) API
3. Joining the new datas acquired with those already available
4. Creating three new datasets, specific for production companies, movie cast and movie crew
5. Loading the datasets on SQL and made some queries to explore the datasets
6. Present information obtained through Tableau

Analysis & Results

1. Percentage of movies for each Bechdel-Test score

The percentage of movies for each Bechdel Score is the following:

Throughout the years there has been a progressive improvement of female representation in movies.

2. Comparing production companies

The production company exhibiting the highest percentage of movies with a Bechdel Score of 3 is 'BBC,' which also features the lowest percentage of movies with a score of 0.

Following 'BBC,' other inclusive production companies include 'Walt Disney', 'Tristar', 'Lionsgate' and 'Universal Pictures'.

Additional data considered in the analysis includes the average budget allocated by each production company for overall film creation, as well as the average budgets specifically for films with a Bechdel Score of 3

The average budget for movies with a Bechdel Score of 3 surpasses that of generic films only in the cases of 'Walt Disney,' 'Dreamworks,' and '20th Century'.

3. Bechdel-Test score for most successful movies

Lastly, an examination was conducted to compare the success of movies across different Bechdel Test scores. The assessment of movie success was based on both Revenues and Popularity on TMDB.

It appears that films with a Bechdel Score of 1 tend to be the most popular, followed by those with scores of 2 and 3, while those with a Bechdel score of 0 are less popular.
However, it's important to note that this trend may be influenced by the fact that the movies with a Bechdel Score of 1 in the dataset also had the highest budgets. This suggests that the success of these movies may be more attributable to their budget rather than the representation of female characters.

Tableu Presentation link:

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/lucia.aguzzoni/viz/Bechdel_Test/Story1