When Geena Davis sat down with Kelly Clarkson recently, the conversation moved easily between pop culture moments and deeper questions about representation in entertainment.
There were stories about appearing with Sabrina Carpenter at Coachella, memories from Thelma & Louise, and laughter about celebrity crushes and action-movie stunts. But one part of the conversation returned repeatedly to the same idea: who audiences see on screen — and who they do not.
That question has shaped more than two decades of work at the Geena Davis Institute.
“We get data of on-screen representation,” Davis explained during the interview. The Institute began by measuring gender representation in film and television before expanding its research to include race, LGBTQ+ identity, disability, and other forms of underrepresentation.
When the Institute first began studying children’s entertainment, Davis said the imbalance was hard to ignore.
She recalled watching preschool television with her daughter and realizing that most of the characters on screen were boys. “I saw it everywhere,” she said, describing how one female character was often surrounded by overwhelmingly male casts.
That moment eventually became the foundation for the Institute’s research-driven approach to Hollywood advocacy. Rather than framing representation as a moral argument alone, Davis focused on measurable evidence.
“If I got the data, I could go to them quietly and say, ‘Hey, I don’t think you knew, but what about this?’”
The strategy helped expose what Davis describes as unconscious bias in entertainment — patterns that many creators did not initially recognize in their own work.
The interview also highlighted one of the Institute’s most widely known findings: the “Scully Effect.”
After being approached to study the impact of Dana Scully from The X-Files, the Institute found that many women working in STEM fields pointed to the character as an influence on their career paths.
For Davis, the finding reinforced something audiences often feel instinctively but rarely quantify.
“If you see something on screen, it will happen in real life,” she said.
Clarkson connected the idea to her own experience watching female characters growing up — particularly women portrayed as leaders rather than side characters waiting to be rescued.
The conversation also turned toward age representation in Hollywood, especially as Davis discussed her new Netflix series The Boroughs, which features a cast largely made up of actors in their 60s and older.
“I love seeing 60 and older starring in shows and movies,” Clarkson said, noting how rarely older adults are treated as central characters rather than supporting roles.
Davis agreed, pointing out that audiences continue to respond to strong storytelling regardless of age. In The Boroughs, older characters are not background figures — they are heroes, friends, complicated people, and active participants in the story.
That visibility matters because entertainment shapes expectations long before audiences consciously notice it.
A child watching television. A teenager imagining a future career. An older viewer finally seeing someone their age at the center of a story instead of the margins.
These moments can feel small. Over time, they rarely are.