--- description: After stars like Natalie Portman and Eva Longoria highlighted Hollywood sexism at the Golden Globes, a study finds disparities behind the scenes. title: Natalie Portman Called Out the Hollywood Boys' Club at the Golden Globes. A New Study Backs Her Up image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt62dc3d4399e68547/6988f7c94ee2620409310716/902405276.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Natalie Portman Called Out the Hollywood Boys' Club at the Golden Globes. A New Study Backs Her Up  by [Eliana Dockterman](/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Correspondent Jan 10, 2018 5:26 PM CUT  TOPSHOT - (Top L-R) Activist Rosa Clemente, actors Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams, America Ferrera, Jessica Chastain, Amy Poehler, Meryl Streep, (bottom L-R) activists Ai-jen Poo and Saru Jayaraman attend the 19th Annual InStyle And Warner Bros. Pictures Golden Globe After-Party on January 7, 2018, in Beverly Hills, California. / AFP PHOTO / TARA ZIEMBA (Photo credit should read TARA ZIEMBA/AFP/Getty Images) TOPSHOT - (Top L-R) Activist Rosa Clemente, actors Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams, America Ferrera, Jessica Chastain, Amy Poehler, Meryl Streep, (bottom L-R) activists Ai-jen Poo and Saru Jayaraman attend the 19th Annual InStyle And Warner Bros. Pictures Golden Globe After-Party on January 7, 2018, in Beverly Hills, California. / AFP PHOTO / TARA ZIEMBA (Photo credit should read TARA ZIEMBA/AFP/Getty Images)AFP Contributor—AFP/Getty Images  by [Eliana Dockterman](/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Correspondent Jan 10, 2018 5:26 PM CUT During Sunday night’s [Golden Globes](http://time.com/5092249/golden-globes-oprah-speech-transcript/ "undefined"), the most powerful women in Hollywood [donned black](http://time.com/5092030/hollywood-all-black-protest-golden-globes/ "undefined") in support of [Time’s Up](http://time.com/5083566/reese-witherspoon-shonda-rhimes-anti-harassment-group/ "undefined"), a new initiative designed to address pay disparity, discrimination and harassment in the industry in the wake of the [#MeToo movement](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers/ "undefined"). The issue of behind-the-scenes representation came into sharp relief during the Golden Globes when Natalie Portman, one of the founders of Time’s Up, and director Ron Howard presented the award for Best Director. “And here are the _all-male_ nominees for Best Director,” Portman said pointedly. The actor was nodding at the Globes’ snub of Greta Gerwig, whose film _Lady Bird_ went on to win Best Comedy and Best Actress that night. But Portman’s words also illuminated a deeper truth: Male directors get more opportunities than their female counterparts. New data shows the extent of that disparity. Women made up just 18% of directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers working on the top 250 grossing films in 2017, according to the annual Celluloid Ceiling Study released by San Diego State University. That’s just one percentage point higher than the 17% of women who held those positions in 1998. Studios often argue that women are too inexperienced to handle big-budget films and yet hand massive franchises to male filmmakers with only one movie under their belt, like Gareth Edwards (_Monsters_ to _Godzilla_), Josh Trank (_Chronicle_ to _Fantastic Four_) and Colin Trevorrow (_Safety Not Guaranteed_ to _Jurassic World_). Again, the new stats speak volumes: Women comprised just 11% of directors working on the top 250 films in 2017\. Things are beginning to change: [Patty Jenkins](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-patty-jenkins-runner-up/ "undefined"), who directed [_Wonder Woman_](http://time.com/4606107/wonder-woman-breaks-through/ "undefined") to the third place at the box office last year, was heralded as the visionary who upended studios’ retrograde thinking about women and big-budget films and has cleared a path for future female filmmakers. The Celluloid Ceiling Study suggests that getting more women in the director’s chair is key to helping other women in the industry. An analysis of last year’s top 500 films found movies with at least one woman director employed higher percentages of women as writers, editors, cinematographers and composers than films with exclusively male directors. For instance, women made up 68% of the writers on films directed or co-directed by women, whereas women made up just 8% of writers on films directed exclusively by men. The change will take time. Though Time’s Up founder Ava DuVernay’s much-anticipated [_Wrinkle in Time_](http://time.com/wrinkle-in-time/ "undefined") premieres this spring, the slate of female-directed studio films remains spare. The initiative hopes to achieve a 50-50 male-female split in the industry by 2020. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5096809/natalie-portman-golden-globes-hollywood-sexism/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5096809/natalie-portman-golden-globes-hollywood-sexism/"},"headline":"Natalie Portman Called Out the Hollywood Boys' Club at the Golden Globes. 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