Number Crunch: Gender Gaps in NetFlix Stand Up Comedy Specials
- Onicia Muller
- Apr 11, 2016
- 3 min read
What do Netflix users think of male and female comics? In this Women in Comedy Number Crunch we’re reviewing how women are represented and perceived by Netflix and its users.
In Plight of the Funny Female: a response and challenge we asked readers to watch and rate stand-up comedy specials on Netflix.
Between January and March 2016 there were 157 stand-up comedy specials available for streaming on Netflix US. 4% featured both male and female comics. 14% were female-only specials. 82% showcased males exclusively.
The majority of specials available for streaming were released in 2014. Of those 34 films, none featured both men and women together, 12% were female-only, and the other 88% were male-only specials.
Of the 157 titles available, 14*1 were group showcases. 36% of these featured both men and women. 57% featured men only, and 7% featured women only.
*1: comedy specials not counted: Comics without Borders and Katt Williams: American Hustle. One is a TV series. The other is a narrative film wrapped around previously released stand-up material.
Reviewed 904 times, Jeff Dunham: Arguing with Myself (2006) had the most reviews in March 2016*2.
In January 2016, Netflix users provided 3,991 reviews on the 22 female-only specials and gave an average rating of 43%.
In March 2016, the number of reviews on these films increased to 4,041. This brought the average rating to 37%.
*2: Super High Me (2007) not counted as it’s a documentary with stand-up comedy footage.
As Netflix has only been streaming since 2007, we collected ratings from International Movie Database (IMDB.com) to better contextualize our Netflix data. In March 2016, Netflix and IMDB.com had a total of 146,504 reviews for stand-up comedy specials available for streaming on Netflix US. These films had a combined average rating of 55% funny.
Between both databases, women-only specials made up 7.7% of the reviews submitted.
With 4 films available for streaming, Ralphie May and Kevin Hart were the most listed comedians.
Between IMDB and Netflix users there had an average funny rating of 25% and 65% respectively.
Anjelah Johnson was the most listed female comic with 2 specials and an average funny rating of 42%.
-----------------------------------------------
About the Data
Netflix user ratings were collected on 02/04/2016 and 03/06/2016 from Netflix.com.
Netflix’s listed ratings may vary from user to user. “From what we can gather, this new rating is a combination of the previously promoted user ratings plus what Netflix thinks you’ll like. This is demonstrated by the continuing differences in landing pages between members. For example, my rating for The Interview is still 2 stars, but my colleague Terri sees an average of 1.5 stars when she searches for the exact same title, as seen below.” – Olivia Armstrong (Decider.com)
International Movie Database user ratings were collected on 03/06/2016 from IMDB.com.
For both Netflix and IMDB, users can rate without reviewing and vice versa. There is no (known) method to confirm whether a user has watched all or part of a film. Having multiple emails or subscriptions can enable a person to rate or review multiple times.
Thanks to Shatoria Lunsford, Gabriel Torres, and Jill Chin for offering insight on how to analyze and collect this data.
Should Women In Comedy also do a Number Crunch on HBO and Comedy Central stand-up comedy specials? What do you think about these numbers? Let us know via Facebook and twitter.
Onicia (@OniciaMuller) was created in Sint Maarten and is based in Chicago. Onicia writes, says funny things, and loves hanging with creative minds. Send her links to all your funny things. She wants to like, comment, and support as many women in comedy.
Comments