Are Hollywood movies backsliding on diversity?

Report says 78% of lead roles in theatre films went to white actors in 2022, up from 72.4% in 2019

Despite efforts made by Hollywood movie studios to diversify talent following George Floyd’s murder three years ago, people of colour remain under-represented in films, going by the latest numbers.

In fact, in some aspects, the diversity stats last year fell behind 2019 levels.

White people represented 78 per cent of the lead actors in the top movies released in theatres in 2022, up from 72.4 per cent in 2019, according to the newest UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, which was released Thursday.

Screenwriter diversity also stagnated. Among the top theatrical releases, the share of films with a writer of colour decreased to 12.4 per cent last year, down from 13.9 per cent in 2019.

As studios grappled with the pandemic, fewer films were released in theatres as many people sheltered at home sought streaming services to entertain themselves. The smaller number of movies limited the opportunities for people of colour to lead those films, according to the experts behind the study.

Now, as studios and streamers look to trim expenses to make their businesses more profitable, diverse programming and content have been hit through cancellations and layoffs. That trend has sparked concerns that some of the gains made by people of colour will be lost.

Studios are “going to take the safe route and go with quote, unquote ‘surefire’ hits, and that’s just code for less diversity, more nostalgia, more white-led films and content,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, director of the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative at UCLA and one of the report’s authors.

The report examined 89 of the top English-language theatrical films based on box office data and 100 of the English-language films primarily for streaming based on Nielsen household ratings in 2022.

The slowness to change stems from a lack of diversity at the top of the studios, the researchers said.

Movies made for streaming services — such as Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video — tended to do better on diversity. For example, the percentage of female lead actors in streaming was 48.5 per cent. Female lead actors in theatrical films, however, took a step backward. In 2022, women represented 38.6 per cent of lead actors in movies released in theatres, down from 44.1 per cent in 2019.

Streaming services also had a higher number of directors of colour, with whites representing 77 per cent, according to the report, compared to the 83 per cent in theatrical. For female directors, the numbers were even more dire, with just 14.6 per cent representation in theatrical films and 25 per cent in streaming movies.

While non-white actors represented a growing percentage of total roles (both lead and supporting) in theatrical films at 36.1 per cent last year, the percentage of Latin American and Indigenous peoples remained below their share of the U.S. population. Fewer than 6 per cent of actors in theatrical movies last year were Latin American — despite them representing about 19 per cent of the U.S. population — while 0.4 per cent were Indigenous, the report said.

In streaming movies, non-white actors represented 42.5 per cent of all roles, with 6.6 per cent of parts going to Latin American actors.

There is also still work to be done to raise the profile of actors with disabilities. About 26 per cent of the U.S. population has a disability, but actors with a disability represented 5 per cent of roles in theatrical films and 4 per cent in streaming movies, the report said.

The report was financed by UCLA, Netflix, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Walt Disney Co. and Hulu.