Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Podbit · Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Geena Davis

Explore episode Jul 20, 2026
Society & Culture
The Data That Shocked Hollywood: 11-to-1 Male Lead Ratio

Geena Davis · Jul 20, 2026 Society & Culture

When Geena Davis watched children's TV with her two-year-old daughter and noticed far more male characters, she was told by every executive she met that the problem had already been fixed. She funded the largest-ever research study on gender in children's media. The result: lead characters were 11-to-1 male. Studios were stunned. By 2020, new kids' shows were at 50-50 parity.

Where this was said

Motherhood at 46 and Noticing the Gender Gap in Children's TV

At 1:42:50 · chapter starts 1:04:00

Geena describes the precise moment she became a gender-equity advocate: she had her daughter on her lap watching a preschool show and noticed the cast was overwhelmingly male. She started looking into it, renting video after video, finding the same pattern everywhere. When she raised it in industry meetings, every executive — from studio heads to showrunners — assured her the problem was ancient history, often citing a single movie with one female character as evidence of full equality. The comparison Dax makes is apt: 'It's like saying, we have Obama as president, so racism is over.' The problem was unconscious. Geena saw that clearly. And she also understood that the only lever that would work on unconscious bias was data — undeniable, externally validated, peer-reviewed numbers that removed the possibility of continued self-deception.

Society & Culture
Geena's daughter born at 46

Geena Davis · Jul 20, 2026

Geena Davis had her daughter at age 46 and expressed gratitude for waiting, saying a stronger sense of self made her a better parent.

Society & Culture
Watching The Borrows With Kids: The Age-Gap Double Standard

Geena Davis · Jul 20, 2026 Society & Culture

Dax Shepard watched The Borrows with his 11- and 13-year-old daughters and paused on a scene where Geena Davis's character has a lover 30 years her junior. He pointed out they'd both seen a thousand movies where the man was decades older than the woman and never noticed. This scene was highly noticeable. The room had a discussion.

Kids & Family
Groot Goes to Monster Jam: A Lost-and-Found Epic

Geena Davis · Jul 20, 2026 Kids & Family

Dax Shepard's daughter Delta brought her beloved stuffed Groot — a toy so cherished he has a wardrobe, a disability, and his own complex physiology — to Monster Jam. The bag went missing. Dax spent 40 minutes searching the arena, missed half the show, and was genuinely devastated. Then Groot was found in a random golf cart by a family friend.

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