Times Colonist

Report: Claims of diversity in film fail to match reality

- LINDSEY BAHR

LOS ANGELES — Despite enthusiast­ic discourse around diversity in film, a report from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released Tuesday says when it comes to the numbers, little has changed. The most popular movies are still largely the domain of white, straight, able-bodied men, both in front of the camera and behind.

The percentage of female characters with speaking parts in the top 100 films has remained largely unchanged at or around 30 per cent over the past decade, according to the report released Tuesday. And in survey of the top 100 films of 2017, a year in which the top three were the female-led Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Beauty and the Beast and Wonder Woman, only 33 featured women in a lead or co-lead. Four of those were from an underrepre­sented group, and five were over the age of 45.

Women of colour are still among the most marginaliz­ed, which the report calls an epidemic of invisibili­ty. In 2017, 64 of the top 100 films did not include a single Latina character, 65 were missing Asian females, and 43 were devoid of any black female characters, 78 films were without a female character with a disability and 94 absent of an LGBT female. The report calls it an epidemic of invisibili­ty.

“It was an unpreceden­ted year where you had the top spots at the domestic box office driven by female leads, and yet we find ourselves in another year where almost nothing has changed.” said Dr. Stacy L. Smith, founding director of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

“In the aggregate, Hollywood isn’t embracing any solution. It’s business as usual or embracing the status quo as usual.”

The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has been tracking and examining the top 100 films every year since 2007 leading to a database of 1,100 films and 48,757 characters.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada