New Report: Same Disappointing Results on Diversity on Film and in the Film Industry

A new study from USC’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism documents the vastly over-proportionate portrayals of white males on film and in filmmaking. Their review of 700 top-grossing films from 2007-2014 found:

Gender. Only 30.2% of the 30,835 speaking characters evaluated were female across the 700 top‐grossing films
from 2007 to 2014. This calculates to a gender ratio of 2.3 to 1. Only 11% of 700 films had gender‐balanced casts
or featured girls/women in roughly half (45‐54.9%) of the speaking roles.

Race/Ethnicity. Of those characters coded for race/ethnicity across 100 top films of 2014, 73.1% were White, 4.9% were Hispanic/Latino, 12.5% were Black, 5.3% were Asian, 2.9% were Middle Eastern, <1% were American Indian/Alaskan Native or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and 1.2% were from “other” racial and/or ethnic groupings. This represents no change in the portrayal of apparent race/ethnicity from 2007‐2014.

LGBT. Across 4,610 speaking characters in the 100 top films of 2014, only 19 were Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual. Not one Transgender character was portrayed. Ten characters were coded as Gay, 4 were Lesbian, and 5 were Bisexual. Only 14 movies sample wide featured an LGB depiction and none of those films were animated. Of the LGB characters coded, nearly two‐thirds were male (63.2%) and only 36.8% were female. LGB characters were also predominantly White (84.2%). Only 15.8% were from underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds.

Behind the scenes is even worse.

The landscape of popular cinema in 2014 remains skewed and stereotypical. Across 700 films and over 30,000 speaking characters from 2007 to present, movies continue to distort the demographic reality of their audience. Film characters are overwhelmingly White and male, despite both population statistics and viewing patterns.

Employment trends behind the camera evidence a similar dearth of diversity. Only five Black directors helmed top movies in 2014, and women were underrepresented by a factor of 5.3 to 1 as directors, writers, and producers in 2014. Further, the 100 top films of 2014 featured no Asian directors. Despite activism, attention, and statements about addressing the issue, Hollywood’s default setting for characters and content creators remains fixed on “status quo.”