Are the children of celebrities over-represented in French cinema?
In December 2022, New York magazine did its cover story about the "nepo babies" of Hollywood.[1] The French cinema industry is also known to be biased in favor of children of celebrities. French journalist Maxime Vaudano published a paper in Le Monde on the topic 10 years ago.[2] More recently, Belgian humorist Alex Vizorek has suggested that there is now lots of children of celebrities in sport but "not as much as in French cinema".[3] It's not difficult to find examples. Louis Garrel and Esther Garrel are the children of Philippe Garrel and Brigitte Sy. Chiara Mastroianni is the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni. Julie Depardieu is the daughter of Gérard Depardieu. Charlotte Gainsbourg is the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. Mathieu Amalric is the son of Jacques Amalric, etc.[4]
Wikidata provides a fantastic database to test the assumption that the number of children of celebrities is higher in the cinema than in other fields. Using it, I found that a) French actors and French filmmakers have a higher probability to have parents with a Wikipedia article than people with another occupation, b) this pattern holds true for males and females but is more important for women than for men, and c) this pattern is specific to French actors and actresses.[5]
- ^ Mantha, Priyanka (December 19, 2022). "On the Cover of New York Magazine: Extremely Overanalyzing Hollywood's Nepo-Baby Boom". New York.
- ^ Vaudano, Maxime (February 22, 2013). "Césars : les "fils et filles de" bien représentés dans la "grande famille" du cinéma". Le Monde.
- ^ Vizorek, Alex (January 2023). Les "fils de" dans le sport - Vizo sport. France Inter – via YouTube.
- ^ See the full list here: https://observablehq.com/@pac02/explore-people-having-notable-parents
- ^ Early results have already been shared in the French Wikipedia newsletter RAW. See the March 1st, 2023 and May 1st, 2023 editions.