Geena Davis announces 'Spellcheck for Bias' tool to redress gender imbalance in movies

Actor and equality campaigner Geena Davis has announced that Disney has adopted a digital tool that will analyse scripts and identify opportunities to rectify any gender and ethnic biases. Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, was speaking at the Power of Inclusion event in New Zealand, where she outlined the development of GD-IQ: Spellcheck for Bias, a machine learning tool described as "an intervention tool to infuse diversity and inclusion in entertainment and media". Developed by the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, the Spellcheck for Bias is designed to analyse a script and determine the percentages of characters' "gender, race, LGBTQIA [and] disabilities". It can also track the percentage of "non-gender-defined speaking characters". Davis said that Disney had partnered with her institute to pilot the project: "We're going to collaborate with Disney over the next year using this tool to help their decision-making [and] identify opportunities to increase diversity and inclusion in the manuscripts that they receive. We're very excited about the possibilities with this new technology and we encourage everybody to get in touch with us and give it a try."