If they can see it, they can be it.
Geena Davis World Maker Faire, September 2013itupictures via Wikimedia Commons
Virginia ‘Geena’ Davis is an American Academy Award winning actor and activist fighting for equal representation in media. For the past twenty years, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media has worked closely with various organizations in the entertainment industry to try and improve female representation.
Early Life
Davis was born in Wareham, Massachusetts, on January 21st, 1956. She became interested in music at a young age and began playing the piano, organ, and flute. After graduating from Wareham High School, Davis attended New England College before transferring to Boston University to study acting.[1]
Acting Career
In 1982, Davis was cast in her debut role in which she portrayed April Page, an actor in a soap opera, in Sydney Pollack’s 1982 film Tootsie. Since then, she has starred in numerous notable films and shows. In 1988, she starred in The Accidental Tourist (1988), a romantic drama directed by Lawrence Kasdan. Her performance earned Davis her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 61st Academy Awards.[2]
Photo by Alan Light, via Wikimedia CommonsGeena Davis at the Governor's Ball following the telecast of the 61st Annual Academy Awards, 1989.
Davis’ most critically acclaimed performance was her portrayal of Thelma in Ridley Scott’s iconic crime drama, Thelma & Louise (1991). For this, she was nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, and the British Academy Film Awards, amongst others. The following year Davis was nominated for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for her role in A League of Their Own (1992). The comedy, directed by Penny Marshall, details the journey of an all-women professional baseball team.[3]
The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
Twenty years ago, whilst watching television with her two-year-old daughter, Davis noticed a distinct lack of gender diversity in many films and TV shows created for children. At the time, only eleven percent of family films had a female lead.[4] Soon after making this discovery, Davis sponsored a large study on representation in media at the University of Southern California led by Dr. Stacy Smith.[5] Both inspired by the study and frustrated with the team’s findings, Davis set about founding The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media (GDI) in order to facilitate further research into the subject and work closely with those in the industry in order to bring about change.
The GDI has several different facets including research, workshops, resources, and consulting, meaning that whilst the organization is implementing solutions, their methods and areas of focus are informed by extensive research. Watch Geena Davis herself give a talk at Google about the Institute and their work, below:
The institute has had a significant impact on representation in the twenty years since its founding. The equal representation of women, for instance, has significantly improved since 2004; forty-eight percent of family films had a female lead in 2019 as opposed to only eleven back then.[6] However, there are still numerous groups that are disproportionally represented in media. The GDI is now working to improve representation across the board including race and ethnicity, the LGBTQIA+ community, older persons (women in particular) and disability. On their work, Davis writes:
My institute works with creatives all over the world to enhance on-screen diversity and ensure nuanced portrayals. There’s a lot of inequity in the world, but we have the power to fix representation in media overnight. Tomorrow, take a look at your projects and make sure they reflect the real world. No more missed opportunities! And give us a shout – we’re here to help![7]
In 2019, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored Geena Davis with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her ongoing activism. The award is given “to an individual in the motion picture arts and sciences whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry.”[8] On why Davis was chosen to receive the award, the Academy explained that:
[She] has been a passionate advocate for gender equality in media. She is the founder and chair of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a nonprofit dedicated to educating and influencing film and television content creators to eliminate gender bias and stereotypes and create a wide variety of female characters in entertainment and media aimed at children.[9]
Conclusion
For the past twenty years, Geena Davis has dedicated her time to creating change within the industry in which she has been a part for much of her life. Media has a vast amount of influence and Davis is working to ensure that everyone in our society is represented in a positive and empowering way. For, as Davis herself puts it best: “If they can see it, they can be it.”[10] She has used her industry knowledge, contacts, and years of experience as an actor to facilitate not only the research necessary to uncover the issue, but the solutions that can be implemented to tackle it.
[1] Davis, Geena (2022). Dying of Politeness. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 58–61.
[2] Hoffman, Jordan. Every Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress: A Complete History of the Winners [Online] Available https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/academy-award-best-supporting-actress. 2024.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geena_Davis#Awards_and_nominations
[4] https://geenadavisinstitute.org/
[5] Smith, Stacy L., Choueiti, Marc, Pieper, Katherine, Gillig, Traci, Lee, Carmen, & DeLuca, Dylan. Inequality in 700 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race, & LGBT Status from 2007 to 2014 [Online] Available https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/inequality_in_700_popular_films_8215_final_for_posting.pdf. 2015.
[6] Geena Davis Institute. 2020 See Jane Film Report: Historic Gender Parity in Family Films [Online] Available https://geenadavisinstitute.org/research/2020-film-historic-gender-parity-in-family-films/. 2020.
[7] https://geenadavisinstitute.org/
[8] Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. THE ACADEMY TO HONOR GEENA DAVIS, DAVID LYNCH, WES STUDI AND LINA WERTMÜLLER AT 2019 GOVERNORS AWARDS [Online] Available https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-honor-geena-davis-david-lynch-wes-studi-and-lina-wertmuller-2019-governors-awards. 2019.
[9] Ibid.
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Last edited 1/3/2025 12:54:00 AM
