Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

Overview

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is a research-based nonprofit organization founded in 2004 by Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis. The Institute grounds its advocacy in quantitative content analysis of film and television, measuring representation across gender, race, LGBTQIA+ identity, disability, age, and body size. The organization's motto is "If they can see it, they can be it," reflecting its foundational premise that media representation shapes cultural attitudes, professional possibilities, and social norms, particularly for children during formative developmental periods.

The Institute provides studios, networks, streaming platforms, and independent producers with data-driven tools for understanding and addressing representation disparities in their content. Unlike advocacy organizations that rely on anecdotal evidence, the Institute has developed its research methodology over two decades of content analysis, making it one of the most methodologically robust sources of representation data available to the industry. Dr. Meredith Conroy serves as Vice President of Research and Insights.

Research Programs

The Institute conducts multiple ongoing research programs across film and television:

Family Film Studies: The GDI Film Study 2024 analyzed representation in 82 films released in 2023, rated G, PG, and PG-13, with budgets over $10 million USD. The study found that women take the lead in films with budgets between $20 million and $50 million, but representation of female, nonwhite, disabled, LGBTQIA+, and 50-plus characters still falls short of U.S. population demographics across most categories.

Children's Television Studies: The State of Representation in Children's TV Report: 2025, launched at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation in New York in September 2025, examined trends in children's television from 2018 to 2024. The study analyzed the 10 most popular broadcast, cable, and streaming shows for children ages 2 to 11, plus new children's programming from the same period. Key findings: male characters outnumber female characters by over 13 percentage points in popular children's programming, female leads reached a record high in new shows made for children, and significant underrepresentation persists for LGBTQIA+ and disabled characters. Characters of color comprised 52% of all characters, a decrease from 2022.

Midlife and Aging Studies: The 2025 report "Missing in Action: Writing a new narrative for women in midlife on the big screen," sponsored by Procter and Gamble, evaluated portrayals of menopause in top-grossing domestic films from 2009 to 2024. The study analyzed all characters aged 40-plus across 16 years of films and included a nationally representative U.S. survey on perceptions of menopause on screen, revealing persistent age gaps in storytelling for men and women.

The Institute's research is funded by organizations including The Nielsen Foundation and is conducted using systematic content analysis by trained researchers, with chi-square tests applied for statistical significance at p-values of 0.05 or less.

See Jane Program

The See Jane program focuses on gender representation in children's media, targeting programming consumed by children ages 11 and under. See Jane research has documented that children's entertainment is among the most severely imbalanced categories in terms of gender representation. The program provides both research data that quantifies imbalance and practical tools, including content analysis resources and creative guidelines, to help creators develop more balanced content.

The Institute offers consultancy to productions seeking to improve their gender representation without compromising narrative quality. These partnerships provide direct industry access that allows the Institute's advocacy to produce measurable change in hiring decisions, script development, and casting practices.

Bentonville Film Festival

The Bentonville Film Festival (BFF), co-founded by Geena Davis and produced by BFFoundation, is held annually in Bentonville, Arkansas. The 2025 edition, the 11th, ran June 16 to 22 and showcased 28 feature competition films including 9 World Premieres, with a newly launched Homegrown Competition highlighting stories from filmmakers based in or filming in Arkansas. Founding partner is Walmart and presenting partner is Coca-Cola. The 2025 festival also introduced the BFF Creator Convergence: Amplifying Voices and Ventures, a multi-day summit presented in partnership with United Talent Agency and XTracks Licensing Forums.

BFF champions films that center women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, people with disabilities, and people with larger bodies, aligning with the Institute's research categories. The festival honored Lucy Liu at its 2025 edition.

Industry Partnerships

The Institute works directly with major studios, streaming platforms, production companies, and advertising agencies to translate research into practical creative and hiring changes. The Institute's annual research provides the measurement frameworks that studios and streaming platforms need to assess whether stated diversity commitments are being achieved in practice.

For producers, directors, and writers developing content, particularly for younger audiences, the Institute's research provides a factual baseline for understanding how representation in their content compares to both societal norms and industry averages. The Institute's tools help creative teams build representative content from the development stage rather than retrofitting diversity considerations onto completed projects.

What Filmmakers Should Know

For content creators, the Institute's research reports are publicly available and provide specific, quantified benchmarks across six identity categories: gender, race, LGBTQIA+ identity, disability, age, and body size. The 2024 family film study and 2025 children's TV report both include actionable recommendations for improving on-screen diversity.

For studios and streaming platforms making public diversity commitments, the Institute's data provides independent, peer-reviewed measurement frameworks. The Institute's consultancy services are available to productions at any budget level seeking to improve representation during development rather than in post-production.

The Institute's research is cited in industry diversity discussions, journalism, and academic research on media and gender. Reports are available for download at geenadavisinstitute.org.

Notable Activities and Research

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is the leading research-based organization advocating for gender equality and diverse representation in media. Founded in 2004 by Academy Award-winning actor Geena Davis, the Institute conducts original research on representation across six identity categories: gender, race, LGBTQIA+ identity, disability, age, and body size. The Institute's research reports are publicly available and provide specific, quantified benchmarks. The 2024 family film study and 2025 children's TV report both include actionable recommendations for improving on-screen diversity. The Institute's "If She Can See It, She Can Be It" campaign has become a widely recognized slogan in the gender equality in media movement. The Institute provides consultancy services to productions at any budget level seeking to improve representation during development rather than in post-production. The Institute's research is cited in industry diversity discussions, journalism, and academic research on media and gender. The Institute partners with major studios, streaming platforms, and content creators to implement its research findings in production practices.

What Filmmakers Should Know

For content creators, the Institute's research reports provide specific, quantified benchmarks across six identity categories. The Institute's consultancy services are available to productions at any budget level seeking to improve representation during development rather than in post-production. For studios and streaming platforms making public diversity commitments, the Institute's data provides independent, peer-reviewed measurement frameworks. The Institute's research has demonstrated that films with diverse representation perform better commercially as well as critically, making the case that inclusion is both a creative and commercial imperative. Reports are available for download at geenadavisinstitute.org. Filmmakers can use the Institute's research to inform casting decisions, character development, and narrative choices that reflect diverse perspectives. The Institute also offers the GDIQ (Geena Davis Inclusion Quotient) tool, which uses AI to analyze gender and representation in media content, providing data-driven insights for content creators.

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See Also

For gender equity advocacy in industry employment, see Women in Film (WIF) in this directory. For diversity-focused film awards, see NAACP Image Awards and Imagen Awards in this directory. Use the Ad Spend Break-Even Calculator to model marketing budgets for films targeting underrepresented audience segments identified in GDI research.