Even as “Everything Everywhere All at Once” earned seven Academy Awards — including an acting Oscar for its lead, Michelle Yeoh — women and people of color continue to be underrepresented in most job categories in the film industry, according to the latest UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report.
The representation of women and people of color in the film industry had improved for each of the past three years. But in 2022, diversity in several key roles generally returned to 2019 levels. The about-face comes even as the UCLA research reaffirms a finding revealed throughout the Hollywood Diversity Report’s decade-long history: that diverse movies are more successful at the box office, attracting more diverse — and larger — audiences.
“Our research shows that diversity in the movies is just good business,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, director of UCLA’s Entertainment and Media Research Initiative, which produces the report.
In general, films released on streaming services were more diverse than those in theaters: 64% of streamers had casts that were at least 30% minority actors, while just 57% of theatrical films had casts with that percentage of minority actors.
Indeed, the report notes that the apparent improvements in top films’ diversity over the past few years are partly attributable to the fact that the UCLA research counted streaming and theatrical films together during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many major releases took place on streaming services. The new study is the first Hollywood Diversity Report to present employment data separately for movies produced for the big screen and those destined for streaming.
The 2023 report comes as the industry grapples with the post-pandemic challenge of re-engaging audiences.
“People of color saved the theatrical industry during the pandemic, and they are key to bringing the theatrical business back to its pre-pandemic levels,” Ramón said.
As evidence: Six of the top 10 films released in the theater had audiences that were at least 50% minority moviegoers, and the success of all of the top 10 streaming films were fueled by an overrepresentation of audiences of color.
In theatrical movies, people of color composed only 22% of lead actors, 17% of directors and 12% of writers. Women made up just 39% of lead actors and 15% of directors.
“Hollywood has to look itself in the mirror and identify the concrete practices that actually work to move the needle on the industry’s diversity problem,” said Darnell Hunt, UCLA’s executive vice chancellor and provost, and co-founder of the report.
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