Merlin Meta: Race and Gender Statistics

[such_heights]

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.)

Comments

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

I think that, if the writers decided to, they could pretty easily have every episode pass the Bechdel Test. The series is not from Merlin's point of view - there are a lot of scenes that don't have him in them. And therefore it would be possible to have a scene with Morgana and Gwen where they talked, even if they weren't involved in the main plot. And, okay, the temptation would be for it to be about Uther or Arthur or Tom, but it could be about Morgana's headaches or dresses or flowers or food or the kitchens or the court in general or annoying female courtiers. It could be a real way into developing the life of the court outside of Merlin's obliviousness.

They kill off women and non white men much more often than white men. This is, I think, an unconsidered side effect of a white main cast and a determination to include non white characters. They have got to be paying more attention to the way they do things, because it's not enough to write non white characters if you're going to be killing them off. They should a) have had Pellinore in more background scenes before he died b) get another recurring non white character now they've killed Tom. Or have Lance come back.

Are all the bad guys white? This would involve counting non speaking characters. Are there any non white guys in the plot to kill Uther?

[such_heights]

Usually, when Gwen and Morgana talk, it is plot-related in some way, and often the plot of the episode is a man - whether it's knights in a tournament or Lancelot or Mordred. It's very rare that there are subplots of side-conversations, most of the Bechdel passes are as a result of the two of them discussing Morgana's dreams, or coming up with ideas for things they can do to help whatever the crisis of the week is.

This is, I think, an unconsidered side effect of a white main cast and a determination to include non white characters.

Yup - and the 'unconsidered' thing is so typical of British TV, especially fantasy and sci-fi etc. They cast people and then don't consider how their race affects the way the character comes across (a case in point being Freema Agyeman, I think).

They should a) have had Pellinore in more background scenes before he died b) get another recurring non white character now they've killed Tom. Or have Lance come back.

This, basically. And I seriously want moar Lancelot anyway!

Are there any non white guys in the plot to kill Uther?

Have just checked - yes! One of Tauren's men. Other than that, the only non-white bad guy is Kanen in The Moment of Truth.

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

Okay, so non white characters are neither over represented as bad guys, nor denied being bad guys.

Lance!

I think the unconsidered comes a little from the perception that the UK doesn't have a race problem, which is just a misreading of the fact that the UK does have the same race problems as the US (and most of the first level writing is US centric). And also from the idea that so long as you have strong/interesting/fully written characters it doesn't matter what you do with them. (I'm still smarting over Greeks Bearing Gifts and Midnight (all Midnight would need to pass the Bechdel test is the flight attendant to ask the mad woman if she was okay, if there was anything she needed.)