Is Hollywood Becoming More Inclusive?

Minorities might not be minorities for too long.. according to a new study conducted by UCLA, the minority share of the U.S. population is growing by nearly half a percent each year meaning that people of color will become the majority within a couple of decades.

So, is Hollywood catching up to this diversity? It’s getting there. The study also stated that people of color posted gains relative to their White counterparts in each of the four key Hollywood employment arenas (i.e., among film leads, film directors, film writers, and total actors). This is the first time in this report series, people of color approached or exceeded proportionate representation in two key areas — among film leads (39.7 percent) and total actors (42 percent).

Also, films written or directed by people of color in 2020 had significantly more diverse casts than those written or directed by White men.

Another big win is for women. Like people of color, women have also made meaningful progress in the film sector since the previous report— among film leads, film directors, film writers, and total actors. And like people of color, women have reached proportionate representation among leads (47.8 percent), though they had a little more ground to make up relative to their male counterparts among total actors (41.3 percent). Constituting slightly more than half of the population, women remained underrepresented among film directors and writers in 2020.

Unfortunately, the race and gender of a film’s lead is also associated with the size of a film’s budget. Films with leads who were people of color or women were more likely to have smaller budgets in 2020 than those with White male leads.

So yes, we’re making some improvements, but we still have a long way to go – Hollywood, do your part!

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