Of the 20 nominations for Oscar's major acting awards this year, not a single one is an AANHPI actor. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
As America eagerly views the Academy Awards tonight (March 27), Hollywood appears to find it hard to swallow that the today's audience is not the same audience of the last century. Two new studies found that people of color helped keep the movie industry afloat during the pandemic even as the Oscar's acting categories showed a lack of diversity in casting their products, according to studies from two L.A.-based universities, UCLA and USC.
A large percentage of the movie business’s box office revenue and home viewership was driven by consumers of color in 2021, according to UCLA’s latest Hollywood Diversity Report. The report examines the 252 top-performing English-language films — based on box office receipts and streaming data — during the second year that the COVID-19 pandemic forced movie studios to adopt unconventional release strategies.
The coronavirus pandemic upended the theatrical film market in 2020 and 2021, but despite the industry upheaval, a new report shows that at least a few things haven’t changed in popular films: It's still a White man's world.
At the same time, the movie-making capitol of the world is stuck in the mud in producing films with characters that look like the majority of moviegoers.
“We cannot underestimate the positive impact the 32 movies with leads and co-leads of color released in 2021 can have on young audiences of color,” said Katherine L. Neff, lead author of a research brief entitled "Inequality in 1,500 Popular Films" out of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
“To be able to see yourself on screen, and to see yourself and people that look like you as the hero or leader in a variety of different films was not an option when I was younger. People of color deserve to be at the heart of storytelling.”
Of the 100 top films in 2021, according to the USC report, only 32% featured an underrepresented lead/co lead. This figure is slightly higher than 2020 when only 28% of movies had a lead/co lead of color.
- 32.3% (or 11) of the leads/co leads were Asian,
- 32.3% (11) were Black,
- 8.8% (3) were Hispanic/Latino,
- 2.9% (1) were Middle Eastern/North African, and
- 23.5% (8) were Multiracial/Multiethnic
The UCLA report’s authors noted that 2021 was the first year since they began tracking such statistics that the majority of Academy Awards went to films that were directed by people of color and featured minority actors in lead roles. And the year’s third highest-grossing film at the box office was F9: The Fast Saga, which featured a cast that was more than 50% minority and was directed by Taiwanese American filmmaker Justin Lin. Sixty-five percent of opening weekend ticket sales for “F9” were to minority audiences, the highest figure among all films in the top 10.
“Last year, every time a big movie exceeded expectations or broke a box office record, the majority of opening weekend audiences were people of color,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, a co-author of the report and the director of research and civic engagement for the UCLA College division of social sciences. “For people of color, and especially Latino families, theaters provided an excursion when almost everything else was shut down. In a sense, people of color kept studios afloat the past couple of years.
“Studios should consider them to be investors, and as investors, they should get a return in the form of representation,” continues the UCLA study.
Overall, 43.1% of actors in the movies analyzed by the report were minorities. That’s more than double the percentage from 2011, the first year of data collected by the authors, when 20.7% of actors were minorities. And 31.0% of the top-performing films in 2021 had casts in which the majority of the actors were minorities.
“Minorities reached proportionate representation in 2020 for the first time when it comes to overall cast diversity in films, and that held true again in 2021,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of the social sciences at UCLA and co-author of the report.
Hunt said the phenomenon is probably due in part to the greater number of movies that are initially released on streaming services: Of the films analyzed in the report, 45.6% were released on streaming services only.
“We do think this dual-release strategy is here to stay,” Hunt said. “And it could have a lasting impact on diversity metrics in front of and behind the camera as studios think about how to finance content for different platforms.”
For example, the report found that women and people of color were far more likely than white men to direct films with budgets less than $20 million.
“A small production budget usually means that there is also little to no marketing and studio support, unless it’s from a production company known for making art house films,” Ramón said. “And that makes it more difficult for filmmakers to get the next opportunity if their films have to fight for attention.”
Hunt said studios are likely to bank on big-budget tentpole movies and sequels as traditional box office drivers, even as they continue to experiment with release platforms and adjust the amount of time between films’ theatrical releases and their arrival on streaming services or on DVD or Blu-ray.
Among the 2021 films released to streaming services, those with casts in which a majority of actors were non-white enjoyed the highest ratings among viewers aged 18 to 49 and in Black households. Seventy-two films with majority-minority casts were released on streaming in 2021, including Raya and the Last Dragon, Coming 2 America, Vivo and Mortal Kombat.
“In 2021, diversity in front of the camera did not equate to more opportunities behind the camera for filmmakers who are women and people of color,” Ramón said. “They continue to receive less financing, even when they make films with white lead actors. Most of these filmmakers are relegated to low-budget films. For women of color, directing and writing opportunities are really the final frontier.”
Of the filmmakers who directed the movies analyzed in the report, 21.8% were women and 30.2% were people of color. Among the screenwriters for those films, 33.5% were women and 32.3% were people of color. Diversity in both jobs increased incrementally from 2020.
Out of the 76 minority directors of 2021’s top films, just 23 were women. And among Black, Latino and multiracial directors, at least twice as many were men as women in each racial or ethnic classification.
Although there was gender parity among Asian American and Native American directors, the overall numbers of directors from those groups were very small: just 17 Asian American directors and and just two Native American directors were represented in 2021. Among white directors, 32 were women and 143 were men, says the UCLA study.
Gender bias clearly evident
"To encourage continued change, one important factor that must be countered is the notion that economic 'risk' is tied to identity," says the USC study.
As USC's previous studies indicate, the presence of a girl/woman in a lead/co lead role does not significantly impact domestic or international revenue.
Films with underrepresented leads/co leads may actually earn more money domestically than films with only white leads.7 Yet as the data reveal, even if companies are aware that they may not lose money by being inclusive, they have not fully embraced inclusion either.
In the same study, there were differences in the size of production budgets, amount of marketing spend, and distribution density, such that movies with female and underrepresented leads/co leads were given less support in these critical areas than movies with white or male leads. In other words, the perception of economic “risk” tied to identity guides decision-making about who can lead a film.
To solve this problem, companies and producers must critically examine the resources given to films with women and underrepresented leads– and women of color in leading roles in particular. Then, companies must level the field by ensuring that the movies starring women and people of color are not systematically disadvantaged through the allotment of budgets, marketing, or in the distribution process.
At each stage of the green light and budget trajectory, executives must seek to decouple “risk” from identity and assess whether the questions they ask themselves to gauge “risk” for films with women and underrepresented leads are the same they pose about white male-driven movies.
The UCLA and the USC studies, released days apart, reinforced their separate findings.
The authors of the UCLA study noted that 2021 was the first year since they began tracking such statistics that the majority of Academy Awards went to films that were directed by people of color and featured minority actors in lead roles. And the year’s third highest-grossing film at the box office was “F9: The Fast Saga,” which featured a cast that was more than 50% minority and was directed by Taiwanese American filmmaker Justin Lin. Sixty-five percent of opening weekend ticket sales for “F9” were to minority audiences, the highest figure among all films in the top 10.
The report tracks the numbers of writers, directors and actors who identify as Asian American, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern/North African, multiracial and Native American. People in those groups make up 42.7% of the U.S. population, and they form an important consumer bloc for entertainment, including movies.
Diversity in casting results in box office success
For six of the 10 top-grossing films that opened in theaters in 2021, people of color accounted for the majority of opening-weekend U.S. ticket sales.
The UCLA report also analyzed box office performance based on the diversity of the movies’ casts — whether minority actors made up less than 11% of the cast, 11% to 20%, and so on, up to 51% or more. The study revealed that films with 21% to 30% minority actors had higher median global box office receipts than films in any other tier. That echoed a pattern since the report began tracking box office performance in 2011.
The UCLA report also found that, as in previous years, films with the least diverse casts (11% or less minority) were the poorest performers at the box office.
“Last year, every time a big movie exceeded expectations or broke a box office record, the majority of opening weekend audiences were people of color,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, a co-author of the report and the director of research and civic engagement for the UCLA College division of social sciences. “For people of color, and especially Latino families, theaters provided an excursion when almost everything else was shut down. In a sense, people of color kept studios afloat the past couple of years.
“Studios should consider them to be investors, and as investors, they should get a return in the form of representation.”
Overall, 43.1% of actors in the movies analyzed by the report were minorities. That’s more than double the percentage from 2011, the first year of data collected by the authors, when 20.7% of actors were minorities. And 31.0% of the top-performing films in 2021 had casts in which the majority of the actors were minorities.
“Minorities reached proportionate representation in 2020 for the first time when it comes to overall cast diversity in films, and that held true again in 2021,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of the social sciences at UCLA and co-author of the report.
Hunt said the phenomenon is probably due in part to the greater number of movies that are initially released on streaming services: Of the films analyzed in the UCLA report, 45.6% were released on streaming services only.
“We do think this dual-release strategy is here to stay,” Hunt said. “And it could have a lasting impact on diversity metrics in front of and behind the camera as studios think about how to finance content for different platforms.”
For example, the report found that women and people of color were far more likely than white men to direct films with budgets less than $20 million.
“A small production budget usually means that there is also little to no marketing and studio support, unless it’s from a production company known for making art house films,” Ramón said. “And that makes it more difficult for filmmakers to get the next opportunity if their films have to fight for attention.”
Hunt said studios are likely to bank on big-budget tentpole movies and sequels as traditional box office drivers, even as they continue to experiment with release platforms and adjust the amount of time between films’ theatrical releases and their arrival on streaming services or on DVD or Blu-ray.
Among the 2021 films released to streaming services, those with casts in which a majority of actors were non-white enjoyed the highest ratings among viewers aged 18 to 49 and in Black households. Seventy-two films with majority-minority casts were released on streaming in 2021, including “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Coming 2 America,” “Vivo” and “Mortal Kombat.”
“In 2021, diversity in front of the camera did not equate to more opportunities behind the camera for filmmakers who are women and people of color,” Ramón said. “They continue to receive less financing, even when they make films with white lead actors. Most of these filmmakers are relegated to low-budget films,” reports the UCLA study.
By the numbers
- Films written or directed by people of color in 2021 had significantly more diverse casts than those written or directed by white men.
- Asian American people made up 5.6% of lead actors, 6.4% of overall cast, 6.7% of directors and 4.0% of writers.
- Black actors held 15.5% of lead actor roles and 18% of overall acting roles, as well as 9.5% of directors and 10.4% of writers. For comparison, Black people make up about 13% of the U.S. population.
- Latinos held just 7.1% of lead acting roles, 7.7% of overall acting roles, 5.6% of writers and 7.1% of directors. Latinos represent 18.7% of the U.S. population.
- There were no lead actors of Middle Eastern and North African descent in the films analyzed.
- Native Americans remain virtually invisible in Hollywood, making up less than 1% of each job category in the study.
- Women made up 47.2% of lead acting roles, nearly double the 2011 percentage, which was 25.6%.
Hollywood, like the rest of the nation, is still stumbling around trying to wrestle its way out of the quagmire of race and representation. It is a struggle that is evolving and necessary in order for the "soft power" Hollywood spreads across the world -- albeit in pursuit of profits -- to reflect the emerging America.
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