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Damning study finds a 鈥榳hitewashed鈥 Hollywood
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In one of the most exhaustive and damning reports on diversity in Hollywood, a new study finds that the films and television produced by major media companies are 鈥渨hitewashed,鈥 and that an 鈥渆pidemic of invisibility鈥 runs top to bottom through the industry for women, minorities and LGBT people.
The study by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California鈥檚 Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism offers one of the most wide-ranging examinations of the film and television industries, including a pointed 鈥渋nclusivity index鈥 of 10 major media companies 鈥 from Disney to Netflix 鈥 that gives a failing grade to every movie studio and most TV makers.
The study, titled the Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity, examined the 109 films released by major studios (including art-house divisions) in 2014 and 305 scripted, first-run TV and digital series across 31 networks and streaming services that aired from September 2014 to August 2015. More than 11,000 speaking characters were analyzed for gender, racial and ethnic representation and LGBT status. Some 10,000 directors, writers and show creators were examined, as was the gender of more than 1,500 executives.
The portrait is one of pervasive underrepresentation, no matter the media platform, from CEOs to minor characters. 鈥淥verall, the landscape of media content is still largely whitewashed,鈥 the study concludes.
In the 414 studied films and series, only a third of speaking characters were female, and only 28.3 percent were from minority groups. Characters 40 years or older skew heavily male across film and TV: 74.3 percent male to 25.7 percent female. Just 2 percent of speaking characters were LGBT-identified. Among the 11,306 speaking characters studied, only seven were transgendered (and four were from the same series).
Behind the camera, the discrepancy is even greater. Directors overall were 87 percent white. Broadcast TV directors (90.4 percent white) were the least diverse. Just 15.2 percent of directors, 28.9 percent of writers and 22.6 percent of series creators were female. In film, the gender gap is greatest: Only 3.4 percent of the films studied were directed by women, and only two directors out of the 109 were black women: Ava DuVernay (鈥淪elma鈥) and Amma Asante (鈥淏elle鈥).
Growing scrutiny
Following a request made in May by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year began investigating gender discrimination in Hollywood.
The federal investigation is just one element of growing scrutiny for the industry. The USC鈥檚 report concludes that the film industry 鈥渟till functions as a straight, white, boy鈥檚 club.鈥
鈥淎s prestige or power of the title increases, we see fewer women at the top,鈥 said Katherine Pieper, who co-authored the study with Stacy L. Smith and Marc Choueiti. 鈥淔ilm still has a prestige to it, so we see fewer women filling those positions.鈥 But some of the study鈥檚 most troubling finds are simply absences. Roughly 50 percent of the examined content didn鈥檛 feature one Asian or Asian-American character; 20 percent didn鈥檛 include one black character.
Researchers argue for change beyond 鈥渢okenism,鈥 including making target goals public and creating a system of checks and balances in storytelling decisions. 鈥淧eople are still erased. It鈥檚 2016 and it鈥檚 time for a change,鈥 said Smith. 鈥淲e鈥檝e laid out concrete actionable steps because we don鈥檛 want to do this again in 10 years.鈥
The author is a film writer at the Associated Press. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
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