Since the beginning of the pandemic, the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has released its comprehensive report on the diversity of movies in front of and behind the camera. This report analyzes the 100 highest-grossing movies at the box office each year since 2007, providing a sample size of 1,600 titles and 69,858 speaking characters.
Over the course of 16 years, the researchers found little change in the percentage of characters from non-white racial and ethnic groups, with the exception of Asians. In 2022, Asians represented 15.9% of characters in the top movies, compared to just 3.4% in 2007. This increase can be attributed to the groundbreaking film “Crazy Rich Asians,” which brought unprecedented visibility to the Asian community. However, overall, nonwhite characters remained slightly underrepresented onscreen, accounting for 38.3% of characters compared to 41.1% of the U.S. population in real life. In 2007, 13 of the top 100 movies featured a lead or co-lead of color, while last year, the tally was 31, slightly down from the previous year’s high of 37 films.
Despite these numbers, 2022 saw an increase in lead or co-lead roles for girls and women of color, with 19 of the 200 movies featuring such roles compared to only one in 2007. Female leads/co-leads overall also saw a peak at 44% of characters. However, women still comprised just 34.6% of speaking roles across the top 100 films of 2022. This finding aligns with a previous report from San Diego State’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, which revealed a significant gender disparity in speaking roles, with men out-talking women by a ratio of 3 to 1 on the big screen. Only 15 of the movies in 2022 featured gender-balanced speaking roles.
The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative also conducted an “invisibility analysis” to determine how many types of people were entirely absent from movies. Shockingly, none of the top 100 films of 2022 included an American Indian or Alaska Native female character. Additionally, only a small number of movies included a girl or woman of Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, or MENA descent. Seventy movies portrayed no multiracial or multiethnic girls and women, 61 had no Latinas, 44 had no Asian women, and 32 had no Black women. In contrast, white female characters were absent from just seven movies.
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“These trends suggest that any improvement for people from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups is limited,” said Stacy L. Smith, founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. “While it is encouraging to see changes for leading characters and for the Asian community, our data on invisibility suggests that there is still much more to be done to ensure that the diversity that exists in reality is portrayed on screen.”
In terms of LGBTQ+ representation, there has been a slight increase in the number of transgender characters in movies, reaching a high of five since 2014. However, four of those characters were all from the film “Bros.” The overall percentage of LGBTQ+ speaking characters in 2022 (2.1%) has remained relatively unchanged over the past nine years. Out of the 87 LGBTQ+ characters in movies last year, more than half were male and white.
Disability representation has also seen no meaningful change since 2015 when the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative began tracking disability status onscreen. Of the speaking characters depicted with a disability, 1.9% were shown as having a disability, with the majority being male and white.
“The lack of progress in these areas suggests that executives and content creators are relying on practices that continue to marginalize and exclude talented voices from all backgrounds,” stated Smith.
Behind the scenes, the film industry has struggled to make lasting gains in the hiring of female directors. The percentage of movies directed by women has fluctuated between 2.7% in 2007 and 13.5% in 2020. Out of the 1,600 movies analyzed in the 16-year sample, only 88 were directed by women, compared to 833 directed by men. While there has been an increase in representation for Black, Asian, and Latino male directors since 2007 (5.2%, 4.3%, and 3.7% respectively), their female counterparts remain significantly underrepresented, with just five Latina directors helming one of the 1,600 movies. In 2022, only 19.5% of directors were people of color, with 12 of them being Asian men.
The report also examined the gender and race/ethnicity of screenwriters, producers, composers, and casting directors, revealing that women remain a minority in all categories except for casting directors.
As with previous reports, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative concludes with recommendations for improvement. They advise executives and filmmakers to reevaluate their casting, hiring, greenlighting, and marketing processes. However, the authors express skepticism as to whether these suggestions are being considered by industry leaders, stating, “Given the lack of progress across many data points in this investigation, it is unclear if the same leaders have read or listened to these suggestions. We suspect they do not read this far into the report.”
In conclusion, while there have been some positive shifts in representation in the film industry, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s report highlights the ongoing need for greater diversity and inclusion in front of and behind the camera. The lack of progress in certain areas, such as LGBTQ+ and disability representation, calls for a reevaluation of industry practices to ensure that talented voices from all backgrounds are given the opportunity to be heard and seen on screen.
