Diversity Reports Lack Latino Numbers in Hollywood

The effort to include diversity in front and behind the cameras is there. The success on achieving it, not so much. Last week, the Latino Donor Collaborative (LDC) released the 2022 Full-Year LDC Latinos in Media Report, a five-year benchmark that measures U.S. Latino representation in shows and films. The LDC is the leading nonprofit dedicated to creating original economic research about the Latino community in the U.S.

The report found that U.S. Latino representation for the last quarter of 2022 went down to 2019 levels. Only 2.6% of lead actors in shows, 1.4% of showrunners, and 1.5% of directors were Latino in 2022—despite Latinos representing 19% of the U.S. population and more than 25% of all American youth.

Latino actors were cast in lead roles in only 38 out of 1462 shows (2.6%). Latino directors only directed 1.5% of the almost 14,620 episodes that aired during our measured season.
Only 38 out of the 1,462 (2.6%) shows that aired during primetime television and streaming in 2022 had a Latino actor in the lead role. Additionally, of those 38 shows, 18 shows portrayed Latinos negatively or perpetuated false stereotypes about the U.S. Latino community.
The most glaring platforms where U.S. Latinos are underrepresented are Cable and Premium Cable, with premium cable having zero Latino leads and only nine out of 800 episodes directed by a U.S. Latino. Traditional cable didn’t fare much better. Only five shows had a Latino lead actor and zero shows had Latino showrunners out of 458 shows.
Latino representation in films is 5.1% (16 of the 313), significantly under-indexing the 25% U.S. Latino moviegoing demographic. There are only 3% of leads and 5.8% of co-leads in films aired in theaters with U.S. Latino actors.

Simultaneously, Netflix and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released abother study that examines several inclusion metrics (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+, disability) in their US-commissioned films and series. Netflix has committed to releasing their progress every two years through 2026 to keep them accountable and effect lasting change in this industry.

From their work with USC, we know that more inclusion behind the camera leads to better representation on screen. So in 2021, Netflix also established the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity to invest $100 million over five years into creating more pathways for talent from underrepresented communities across the world. Today, we’re sharing our progress and the next round of results.

The Latest Study with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative

The new findings, looking at Netflix US films and series from 2020-2021, show notable improvements year-over-year for women and people from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups:

Netflix achieves gender equality in leading roles: More than half (55%) of all Netflix films and series from 2018-2021 featured a girl or woman as the lead or co-lead.
Increased representation for people of color in leading roles: In 2020-2021, nearly half (47%) of Netflix films and series featured a lead or co-lead from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group.
More women behind the camera: In 2021, 26.9% of directors on Netflix films were women, compared to 12.7% across top-grossing films that same year. And 38% of show creators in 2021 were women, substantially higher than 26.9% in 2018.
Significant strides for women of color in front of and behind the camera: Women of color increased significantly as series directors from 5.6% in 2018 to 11.8% in 2021 — with similar growth for writer and creator roles. Nearly a third of films (27.7%) and more than half of series (54.75%) in 2021 had women of color as leads/co-leads.

However, the results also reveal that gaps persist for some specific racial/ethnic groups, including Hispanic and Latino, Middle Eastern/North African, Indigenous and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander communities. And there is still significant room to improve the representation of characters with disabilities.

UCLA also released a diversity report; that one has a part that can be confusing because even though the report states that Latinx is not a race (Endnote #7 on page 60 of the report), in the chart (figure 8, image below) it does say “by Race” so it can be misleading. But aside from that, in this study you can see that both the numbers for Latinos (which includes Afro-latinos, Indigenous-Latinos and White-Latinos) and Asians are very low in comparison with the rest.

One issue I find with both the UCLA report and the Netflix one is that diversity programs were aimed to help groups of people who might have a legit disadvantage in finding a job in the industry and to bring a different perspective to the table, compared to the mainstream group in the US, the Caucasian USA born. However, these studies, don’t differentiate USA Caucasians from non-US Caucasians, it all goes under the same roof “White.” It doesn’t contemplate more than the skin colour, and that’s a problem because you can’t compare, for instance, a Polish Caucasian whose first language is not English (and most likely will have an accent and not perfect grammar), whose cultural know-how is very different from the US one, and who will have to battle to get a work permit and visa, with a USA born and raised one. Not all “Whites” are equal, and certainly, not all are privileged. I really do hope for next year these nuances are taking into account.

If you are interested on this subject, there is a very interesting read you should check, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author, Isabel Wilkerson, gives a pretty good picture of how America today (and throughout its history) has been shaped by a hidden caste system that goes beyond race, class, and ethinicity.