Regina King’s Vow To Include 50% Women In Her Films Changed When Her View On Gender Changed

In 2019, when Regina King accepted her Golden Globe, she promised that her future projects would be half women. 

“In the next two years, everything that I produce — I am making a vow, and it’s going to be tough — to make sure that everything I produce is 50% women,” she promised.

“One Night in Miami,” about a fictitious meeting between civil rights leaders Malcolm X, Muhammad Alim Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke, is King’s first project since making that promise. She tells Insider that it ended up being a lofty goal, one that didn’t come to fruition on this project. She admits that since that speech, her views on gender have changed.

“From the moment of me making that proclamation, if you will, to us actually shooting [‘One Night in Miami’] it’s not respectful to regard everything as male or female,” she told the outlet. “So moving forward, as I do still feel having more women in positions behind the camera is important, I have to go beyond that.”

Recent studies show women directing top films is on the rise, but there is still much work to be done in Hollywood. According to one study, of the top 100 films of 2019, 10.6% were directed by females. That percentage is up from the year before in which females helmed only 4.5%. Of that figure, women of color made up even less of that figure. Between 2007 and 2019, only 1% of directors across 1,300 of the top films were women of color.