Amy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
such_heights) wrote2009-04-07 11:58 pm
such_heights) wrote2009-04-07 11:58 pm
Entry tags:
Merlin Meta: Race and Gender Statistics
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
beccaelizabeth started this current meta trend off with statistics on Torchwood - out of the speaking characters, how many are female, how many non-white characters are there, and does it pass the Bechdel test (women talking to each other about something other than a man)? dsudis crunched numbers for the first season of Stargate SG-1. lefaym also did a post last year on Doctor Who and the Bechdel Test. (If anyone knows of other, similar sets of stats out there, I'd love to see them!)
So, I decided to run the numbers for Merlin.
A couple of notes - this is looking at speaking characters only, and though I've tried to be objective as possible it's possible I've overlooked things, misjudged things, or that there are simply two valid cases to be made. (Especially with regard to the Bechdel Test, because I really wanted 'The Moment of Truth' to pass, for instance, but I don't think it does.)
| Episode Title | No. of Speaking Characters | No. of Women | % of Women | Bechdel Test? | No. of Non-White Characters | % of Non-White Characters | Death Tally |
| The Dragon's Call | 12 | 6 | 50% | Pass | 2 | 17% | 1 WM 3 WF |
| Valiant | 10 | 2 | 20% | Fail | 2 | 20% | 2 WM 1 NWM |
| The Mark of Nimueh | 8 | 3 | 38% | Pass | 2 | 25% | (none speaking, misc. plague victims) |
| The Poisoned Chalice | 11 | 3 | 27% | Fail | 2 | 18% | (none) |
| Lancelot | 8 | 2 | 25% | Fail | 2 | 25% | (none) |
| A Remedy To Cure All Ills | 8 | 2 | 25% | Fail | 1 | 12.5% | 1 WM |
| The Gates of Avalon | 10 | 3 | 30% | Fail | 1 | 10% | 1 WM 1 WF |
| The Beginning of the End | 12 | 2 | 17% | Pass | 1 | 8% | 1 WM |
| Excalibur | 11 | 3 | 27% | Fail | 2 | 18% | 2 WM 1 NWM |
| The Moment of Truth | 10 | 3 | 30% | Fail | 2 | 20% | 2 WM 1 NWM |
| The Labyrinth of Gedref | 8 | 2 | 25% | Pass | 1 | 12.5% | (none) |
| To Kill the King | 8 | 2 | 25% | Pass | 2 | 25% | 1 WM 1 NWM |
| Le Morte d'Arthur | 8 | 4 | 50% | Pass | 1 | 12.5% | 1 WF |
[code - WM = white male, WF = white female, NWM = non-white male, NWF = non-white female]
[All corrections on both my counting and my maths welcome!]
Overall Stats
Out of 42 speaking parts over the 13 episodes, 27 were white men, 8 were white women, 6 were non-white men, and 1 was a non-white woman, giving us a 76/24 male/female ratio and a 83/17 white/non-white ratio.
In posts in other fandoms, people have made reference to the way these reflect the society in which the show is set. Though I would expect (well, hope for), a roughly 50/50 gender balance, the show's too anachronistic to make it worth my while pulling up figures on the different populations in Britain in the Middle Ages - which means, of course, that the set-up of the show allows them to cast as diversely as they'd like.
I'm not going to make a lot of commentary of the above figures, I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. All this really tells us is a baseline about who gets to speak, not anything else about representation or positive presentation. One last set of stats, however:
Congratulations! You've just ended up in Ye Olde Camelot. Here's how your survival chances are looking based on your gender and skin colour once you get there, assuming you get a speaking part.
- If you are both white and male, you've got a 40% chance of dying.
- If you're male but not white, you have a mortality rate of 67%.
- If you're white and female it's 62.5%.
- Good news, though! If you're female but not white, you have a guaranteed 100% survival rate. It's just that it's also 100% likely that you are in fact Guinevere.
eta: figures changed thanks to
heather11483's correction!eta2: and again thanks to
oconel! (This, this is why I shouldn't be allowed near numbers.)
no subject
But I think boiling it down to WM, WF, NWM and NWF is totally oversimplifying things. I think these statistics (an area I admittedly don't know a whole bunch about) could be skewed in favor of whatever type of result you wanted. If I were to do the same thing for the show "The Wire," you can bet the vast majority of speaking roles would go to NWM, and the majority of dead people would probably also be NWM. But then if you take "Dawson's Creek," I can't even remember ONE NWP at all on that show in the entire time it aired (of course there probably were, but I don't remember them). Of course these examples (and since it's simply about race and gender) make sense because these are the types of stories they are portraying. Inner city Baltimore is mostly a minority community, whereas suburban Massachusetts in the late 90s was most likely pretty white.
I don't really think you should expect a 50/50 gender balance on this show. There are six main characters: one of which is the title male character, one is a king and one is a prince. There's two pretty strong female supports (and those roles are supporting, regardless of their gender, just like Gaius is a supporting dude, regardless of his gender). Their roles aren't bigger because they aren't who the story is about. Okay, they could have made the dragon female. I'll give you that. Plus, the ultimate villain is a ladyvillain. PLUS. Consider the fact that (including a dragon), there are really only seven main roles on this show, and then compare that to your "speaking roles" stats. The stats are most likely skewed based on the core cast members and their genders/races. I also think that making something Pass or Fail based solely on the gender of the topic of discussion is problematic. Especially in this show, where the aforementioned topic of discussion is most often the title character of the show. If Gwen and Morgana are talking about how awesome the riding is in Kent, why would they show it and why would it be relevant to the story of Merlin?
I do think, though, that with British television shows, I'd like to see some stats on nationality (English/Welsh/Irish/Scottish), too, because I do find that interesting as well.
no subject
Well, maybe, but I didn't set out looking for any particular result - I thought it looked interesting based on other things I've read, and I've come to some conclusions myself, but mostly I'm just throwing this out there for people who are interested.
With regards to racial mix, as I said in the post, I don't have any idea about what sort of ratio they *should* be going for, and they really didn't have to do things like cast Angel Coulby, for instance, and that's cool. I was personally more interested in the likely-to-die percentages, and the extent to which this show plays into the trope that women and non-white characters are cast in the 'dispensable' roles. Could be better, could be worse, in my view.
Gender mix - yeah, I don't have particular quibbles with the set-up of the central ensemble (though a female dragon would have been neat!), and I love Gwen and Morgana and Hunith and Nimueh. Two episodes do manage to have a 50/50 split, which is great, and I think a lot of the other episodes also do well in terms of general female character importance and agency. On the other hand, they do bring in plenty of interesting guest characters most episodes, and it'd be interesting to see some women who weren't beautiful-but-evil sorceresses.
Bechdel Test - there are some episodes where it would have been total shoe-horning like you describe, I agree. On the other hand, considering that the show is obviously committed to developing the characters of all four of the main kids, I was kind of surprised on a couple of occasions where it did seem like all Morgana and Gwen did talk about was boys (rarely Merlin, incidentally).
I do think, though, that with British television shows, I'd like to see some stats on nationality (English/Welsh/Irish/Scottish), too, because I do find that interesting as well.
Mmm, definitely! I'm not sure I could give much of an intelligent response from my current rewatch except that most characters seemed to speak with south-east English accents, which... really isn't geographically accurate to Camelot, you know, at all. Heh.
no subject
I'm sorry for butting in, but this simply isn't as true as the media (and Dawson's Creek) would have you think. Yes, not even ten years ago.
Unless by "pretty white" you mean "about 80%, give or take". And it does depend on the suburb.
no subject
And I would wager that your "80%" is a majority of white people, which is what I said, so, uh, yeah. Obviously the closer you get to metropolitan areas, the percentage will differ. But how many metropolitan areas does MA have? Boston? New Bedford? Northampton? The last two are kind of pushing it, but.