Counting Torchwood Children of Earth

[beccaelizabeth]

I've only got the first 3 eps transcribed so I can't count 4 or 5. Also even when I've got an accurate list of speaking characters I won't be able to count 5. I'm not watching that again.

But I'm going to count people in the first 3 days. I go through the transcript, copy all the names of speaking people, label them best as I can see (currently from memory), and then add people up. I can't count the children, they are Many and Varied.


TORCHWOOD
Children of Earth

Day One

GIRL: white female
MOTHER: white female
FATHER: white male
RHIANNON: white female
FROBISHER: white male
ALICE: white female
RHYS: white male
STEVEN: white male
DAVID: white male
MICA: white female
ANNA: white female
HOLLY: white female
LILLY: white female
TYLER: white male
GWEN: white female
GLEN: white male
RUPESH: south asian male
MALE VOICE: white? male
JACK: white male
IANTO: white male
DRIVER: black male
BRIDGET: white female
ODUYA: black male
LOIS: black female
MOTHER2: white female
NURSE: white female
CLEM: white male
SASHA: white female
BOY: white male
WOMAN: white? female
DEKKER: white male
TAIWANESE CHILD: taiwanese female?
PM: white male
JOHNNY: white male
OPERATIVE: white male
MALE VOICE: ? male
JOHNSON: white female
HOSPITAL UNIFORM: black male
RAILING MAN: ? male

39 people say any words at all
17? are female 44%
6? are people of color 15%

I had the impression there were more women than men, but there's still not quite half.



Day Two

AMBULANCE GUY: black male
GWEN: white female
FROBISHER: white male
ANNA: white female
JOHNSON: white female
DEKKER: white male
RADIO: ??
PC ANDY: white male
RHYS: white male
IANTO: white male
SOLDIERS: ??
JOHNNY: white male
LILLY: white female
HOLLY: white female
TV: white female
STEVEN: white male
ALICE: white female
LOIS: black female
PM: white male
EMERGENCY WORKER: ??
BRIDGET: white female
PAPERBOY: white? male
DAVID: white male
MICA: white female
RHIANNON: white female
BERET: SA? male
SURVEILLANCE DUDE: white male & black male ?
MALE VOICE: ? male
FEMALE VOICE: ? female
DRIVER: ??
CLEM: white male
BARLADY: white female
MOTHER3: B? female
WAITRESS: ? female
SENTRY: white male
KODAK: black male
LAB TECH: ??

36? people
15? female 41%
6? people of color 16%

I need to rewatch this to get the ? sorted out. They're from memory.



DAY THREE

IANTO: white male
TV: white female
FRENCH NEWS: white male
USA NEWS: black female
RHYS: white male
GWEN: white female
JACK: white male
PM: white male
JOHNNY: white male
RHIANNON: white female
CUSTOMER: white male
NO LONGER A DRIVER: ? male
ALICE: white female
GIRL: white female
POLICE LADY: ? female
MALE VOICE: ? male
OPERATIVE: white male
JOHNSON: white female
CLEM: white male
BARLADY: white female
POLICE: ??
COFFEE BLOKE: B? male
LOIS: black female
FROBISHER: white male
BRIDGET: white female
PC ANDY: white male
STEVEN: white male
ALICE: white female
SOLDIERS: ??
ANNA: white female
BLOKE: white male
PIERCE: black male
ODUYA: black male
LADY IN SUIT: white female

32? people
14? female 44%
5? people of color 15%


And again I should check, specially since I don't remember numbers on some of the plurals, let alone category.



So... just under half women, somewhere around 15% people of color.


If I leave out random people and just count people with names...


Ianto
Jack
Rhys
PC Andy
PM
Frobisher
Dekker
Steven
David
Johnny
Clem
Rupesh
Oduya
Pierce

14 males
11 white males
3 males of color

Gwen
Rhiannon
Mica
Alice
Anna
Lilly
Holly
Bridget
Johnson
Lois

10 females
9 white females
1 female of color

24 people
41% female
16% people of color


Proportions don't change much.

Counting just the names:

3 of the women are neither mothers nor children
4 are mothers
3 are children

7 of the males are neither fathers nor children
5 of the males are fathers (though we don't see the PM's family)
2 are children

Are there any more I should count as Names? Did I plain miss anyone from these three episodes?



So it works out at about 41-44% women and 15% people of color for these three episodes.
Which is... actually vaguely embarassing since I vaguely felt there were A Lot Of Women, and we're still not up to half.
But for the show is doing better.

Very roughly. Still need to check.
Need the names and categories for people in day 4 and 5.

This is a first draft and I shouldn't draw conclusions from it.


I haven't figured out Bechdel pass/fail yet. Two named women, yes. Who talk to each other, yes, but is it about a man or in a group including men? Have to check. Think y and y.

That requires brain and reading or watching tho. And I've done a bunch of that for right now.

also I should be asleep by now.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

I plan to re-watch the whole thing soonish, so I'm happy to count Day 5 for you.

[beccaelizabeth]

thankyou :-)

[(Anonymous)]

"Which is... actually vaguely embarassing since I vaguely felt there were A Lot Of Women, and we're still not up to half."

Maybe because the exact percentage of women had nothing to do with how they were treated by the show. Random dudes with a name would skew your numbers and not take away from the emphasis on Lois, Bridget, Gwen, Alice, etc. Six of Johnson's men could have spoken and they wouldn't have had the same impact as she did. Quantity isn't quality. :) I'm curious about what you think these numbers are supposed to mean.

[beccaelizabeth]

The numbers mean that there are more men than women. No more nor less than that.
To figure out the weighting requires a full transcript and a word count that works and a lot of time. And is an entirely different question. Even if one woman is always on screen it has an impact if everyone else in the story is a man, which isn't what happens on Torchwood but does happen in some texts. Counting shows that up.

[crimson-bride.livejournal.com]

Gwen's conversation with Lois in which she demonstrates the contact lenses is a Bechdel pass, I think.

[beccaelizabeth]

reckon it is, thanks :)

the only thing is it happens in a context with men around, which I also keep track of because it makes a difference if women only exist when men are looking at them

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Very interesting, I would have thought there were more women too. I wonder how it would look if you counted the number of lines given to male and female characters respectively? (Er, not saying you should do that, just wondering how that might change things.)

[beccaelizabeth]

number of lines is uncountable before you define 'line'
number of words is countable... if you can get a word count program to be consistent. I started trying that but tried a couple different count softwares and got different numbers, so experimented further and found they *all* gave different numbers. However if we're looking at proportions my teacher reckoned any given software was likely to be consistent, even if consistently wrong, so still of some value.
The fiddly time consuming bit is chopping it up according to speaker.

... I only counted Gwen in one episode. So far. I don't have... okay I was going to say I don't have that much time on my hands but technically I do...

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're quite right. And statistics are quite messy like that.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting that you do any more than you want to do. It's great that you're doing this at all. :)

Mothers, fathers, children

[(Anonymous)]

Just out of curiosity did you count Gwen among the mothers? And Jack among fathers?

Re: Mothers, fathers, children

[beccaelizabeth]

yes and yes