The Los Angeles Times featured a study by Faculty Fellow Stacy L. Smith. The LAT reported: “The population might be more than 50% female, but actresses nabbed only 29.9% of the 4,379 speaking parts in the 100 top-grossing films of 2007, according to a recently released study by Stacy L. Smith, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communications & Journalism at USC. Only 2.7% of the directors on those films were women, but when they did step behind the camera, the percentage of female characters jumped dramatically, to as high as 44.6%, compared with 29.3% when the director was a man. Moreover, Smith said, the proportion of women on screen literally ‘hasn’t changed since the 1940s. It’s disheartening at best.'”