There were also no LGBT leads or co-leads.
Advertisement
The study, released Wednesday by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, indicts the film industry, saying it has made little or nearly no progress in eliminating a “pervasive and systematic” lack of diversity, reports the Los Angeles Times.
– Out of 4,370 speaking or named characters in 2015’s top films, 68.6 per cent were male, 31.4 per cent were female, roughly the same as in 2007.
Not one lead or co-lead was LGBT identified across the entire sample of 100 top films and 82 of the movies did not depict a single LGBT speaking or named character.
What’s more, women on screen were far more likely to be naked or wearing revealing clothing, with 30.2 percent described as “scantily clad” compared to just 7.7 percent of male characters. The study examined the presence and portrayal of female, nonwhite, LGBT, and disabled characters in the 100 highest-grossing films of 2015. “The study examines the gender and race of 886 film directors and the gender of 877 film composers in top films from 2007 to 2015”.
Lesbian, gay or transgender characters accounted for less than 1% of speaking parts – or 32 out of 35,205 characters. The numbers were estimated to be about the same back in 2007.
Hollywood, the study concludes, is “an epicenter of cultural inequality”.
“This calculates into a gender ratio of 2.2 male characters to every one female character”, the report states.
“We’ve seen a lot of talk and little action”, Smith added.
“We’re seeing entrenched inequality”, Stacy L. Smith, a USC professor and the study’s lead author, told the Associated Press.
Females also continue to be overwhelmingly more likely to be sexualized. Seventeen percent of the films did not feature one black or African-American.
– Four of the 107 directors in the 2015 films studied were black or African American. Characters with disabilities, a new metric being tracked by USC this year, made up just 2.4 percent of all speaking roles, even though almost one-fifth of the US population reported having a disability in the 2010 census.
For the first time, the researchers present data on characters with disabilities. A-list talent might also consider including an equity rider in their contract which would make inclusive hiring a priority, and movie studios should announce similar inclusion goals so that they can be held accountable by the public. “The momentum created by activism needs to be matched with realistic tactics for creating change”.
“Raised voices and calls for change are important, but so are practical and strategic solutions based on research”, said Dr. Katherine Pieper, one of the study’s co-authors.
Advertisement
Despite the headlines and decades of criticism (“Academy Award Winners Haven’t Included Latino Actors, Nonwhite Actresses in 10 Years” read one of our headlines, from 2012), the film and television industry doesn’t seem to be budging on diversity and women.
