‘Men in wigs and brown make-up taking stunt jobs from black women’ – Bournemouth study

“Men wearing wigs and using brown make-up” are depriving black women and members of other ethnic groups of top stunt roles in movies, according to a new study.

Dr Laura Crossley, a researcher at Bournemouth University, has found that despite an increase in female action roles in the movies, women still struggle to get into core stunt teams

She said: “It is very difficult for stunt women to become part of regular crews.

“Because the industry has been male dominated so long, most stunt co-ordinators on film sets are men.

“As a result, you can end up with male co-ordinators hiring other men and putting them in drag to perform stunts, or even using men wearing brown make-up and wigs to double for women of colour.”

The study, published in the Journal of British Cinema and Television, highlights that an increase in action heroines from different ethnic groups on screen has led to greater demand for female stunt doubles from those backgrounds.

Dr Crossley said that performers like Marie Mouroum and Belle Williams, who have carried out stunts in the Bond franchise as MI6 agent Nomi and Eve Moneypenny respectively, “represent positive steps but they are exceptions rather than the rule”.

Dr Crossley also said that because the work of stunt people is “invisible” to the public, there is limited scrutiny of representation compared with acting and directing roles.

She said this is worsened by the industry pushing the idea that actors perform their own stunts.

She said the lack of female roles dates back to when Hollywood moved to the studio system, and women were “frozen out”.

For the study, Dr Crossley spoke to stunt directors Annie Lees-Jones and Tiger Lilli Rudge.

She said: “One of the things Tiger suggested was that when a male stunt co-ordinator is appointed, the producers should hire a woman alongside him, training her so that she gets more experience.

“At the moment the co-ordinators tend to hire performers who they have worked with in the past, and they are usually men.

“Change will only come about if women are given more opportunities. For an industry that makes a lot of noise about representation and diversity, the reality is that a lot more needs to be done.”