Low Representation of People of Color Among New Releases
Blockbuster Films Still Prefer White Male Directors
Despite Hollywood in the United States aiming to embrace diversity, it has been revealed that racial bias remains severe.
According to recent reports citing the 'UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report,' only 57% of theatrical releases last year featured more than 30% people of color.
Among the releases, 22% of films had people of color as lead actors, while directors and writers accounted for 17% and 12%, respectively. The proportions of female leads and directors were 39% and 15%, respectively.
Although the film Everything Everywhere All at Once, led by Asian directors and actors, swept major awards including the Oscars this year, inequality has yet to be resolved.
However, even in this situation, theatrical releases with 31-40% of the cast being people of color, including Everything Everywhere All at Once, were found to have succeeded at the box office. Conversely, films with less than 11% people of color showed poor box office performance.
The proportion of people of color in works released through streaming platforms such as Netflix was much higher than in theatrical releases. Films with more than 30% people of color accounted for 64%. However, most of these were low-budget films, and only one-third of popular titles featured people of color.
The report analyzed that "production companies mostly choose white male directors for costly blockbuster films." Among streaming films directed by people of color, 76% had budgets under $20 million, and 56% of films directed by white women also had budgets below $20 million.
Anna-Christina Raymond, who led this study, expressed concern, saying, "Diversity may be temporary or could suddenly decrease at some point." She added, "Embracing diversity is a key to creating globally competitive works, and now is the time to move forward."
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