UCLA Diversity Report: Hollywood representation improving but still have a long way to go

Despite slight gains, especially among women, Hollywood is still falling short in representing what America looks like, circa 2019, according to UCLA's annual report card on the entertainment industry's progress on inclusion.

Wonder Woman took moviegoers by storm in 2017, taking in more than $820 million in ticket sales worldwide. And Patty Jenkins’ role as director of the blockbuster was part of a positive — if possibly short-lived — trend for women directors that year.

Counting each year’s 200 top-grossing films, the number of women directors nearly doubled from 2016 to 2017, according to the newest UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, The report by the UCLA College Division of Social Science. was published the same day as the Academy Award telecast.

Even with the doubing of the representation of women directors, the annual record was still poor: There were just 21 women directors among the 167 English-language films from 2017’s top 200, or just 12.6 percent of the total. 

Surprisingly, early analysis of 2018’s top movies indicates the increase was just a one-year blip despite the box office success and social impact of hits Crazy Rich Asians and Black Panther.

The 2016-2017 report examined 12 different job titles among the creators, directors and top-billed cast of the top movies for 2017 as well as 1,316 broadcast television, cable and digital shows from the 2016–17 programming season. It found that behind the scenes and in front of the camera, advances for people of color and women remain fairly incremental, if not stubbornly static — and found that minorities and women remain mostly underrepresented compared with their share of the population overall.

“For six years the Hollywood Diversity Report has objectively taken stock of where the entertainment industry stands on racial and gender diversity, knowing that there can be no reform without a reckoning,” said Darnell Hunt, the report’s co-lead author and dean of the UCLA College Division of Social Sciences.

2018's box office results reaffirm that audiences do demand diverse content. For example, Crazy Rich Asians has earned more than $285 million globally, and Black Panther has earned more than $1.3 billion in addition to seven Academy Award nominations, including the first-ever best picture nod for a superhero film.

“Every year the data have shown that film and television content that feature diverse casts typically make more money and enjoy higher ratings and audience engagement,” Hunt said. “We feel confident our partners in Hollywood today see the value of diversity in ways that they did not before we began sharing our report.”

According to the report, women’s representation among actors in three types of TV content — scripted broadcast, cable and digital programming — is inching closer to women’s 50 percent share of the population overall.

“We’ve seen modest advances when it comes to movies and films,” said Ana-Christina Ramon, director of research and civic engagement for the Division of Social Sciences, and the report’s other lead author. “But deep-seated power systems — dominated by white male decision-makers at the highest levels — are hard to break. The kind of structural change necessary for a new order of business in the film industry has yet to happen, and pushing for it will require sustained vigilance and awareness.”

The report found, those whose casts were 31 to 40 percent minority actors earned the most at the box office. And films with at least 51 percent minority actors earned the greatest return on investment, because they generally cost less to make than other top films but still performed well at the box office.

Among the top 200 films of 2017 were blockbuster hits Wonder Woman (which was a boundary-breaking movie for women in front and behind the camera), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (which centered around Star Wars' first Asian American hero played by Kelly Marie Tran), and The Big Sick, (the romantic comedy that preceded Crazy Rich Asians and which starred Kumail Nanjiani). 

'The Big Sick' helped improve with an Indian American lead romantic interest helped boost representation in 2017.

Perhaps what opened the eyes of Hollywood's studio heads, the report also found that minority ticket buyers accounted for the majority of ticket sales for five of the top 10 grossing films.

Among white, black and Asian American TV viewers, ratings for broadcast scripted programs were highest when the shows’ casts were made up of between 31 and 40 percent minority actors. Among Latino households and viewers ages 18 to 49, the broadcast scripted shows that had the highest ratings were those with casts that had between 11 and 20 percent minority actors.

The report noted that the ever-broadening landscape for TV-related programming created by Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and other streaming services has created a tailwind for gender and racial diversity.

“It’s clear the increased number of original programs alone has helped grow the share of the pie for minorities and women,” Hunt said.

Among the report’s other findings:

Gains for women and minorities in film and television:

• The number of minority actors with lead roles in films increased from 13.9 percent in 2016 to 19.8 percent in 2017. But that’s a large difference from their share of the overall population, which is about 40 percent minority.
• Women held 32.9 percent of lead acting roles in movies, up from 31.2 percent in 2016, but still far short of their share of 50 percent of the overall population.
• Minorities held 21.3 percent of lead acting roles in scripted digital programming, a significant leap from the 12.9 percent tracked in last year’s report.
• Just 9.4 percent of show creators for scripted broadcast programs were minorities, up from 7.1 percent the prior season.
• The number of minority actors with lead roles in broadcast scripted shows increased to 21.5 percent from 18.7 percent.
• Women’s share of lead roles in broadcast scripted shows increased to 39.7 percent, from 35.7 percent in 2015–16.
• Women were 34.8 percent of the show creators for scripted digital programs, up slightly from 2015–16 at 31.5 percent

GRAPHIC BY UCLA

The status quo:

• The number of minority actors with lead roles in films increased from 13.9 percent in 2016 to 19.8 percent in 2017. But that’s a large difference from their share of the overall population, which is about 40 percent minority.
• Women held 32.9 percent of lead acting roles in movies, up from 31.2 percent in 2016, but still far short of their share of 50 percent of the overall population.
• Minorities held 21.3 percent of lead acting roles in scripted digital programming, a significant leap from the 12.9 percent tracked in last year’s report.
• Just 9.4 percent of show creators for scripted broadcast programs were minorities, up from 7.1 percent the prior season.
• The number of minority actors with lead roles in broadcast scripted shows increased to 21.5 percent from 18.7 percent.
• Women’s share of lead roles in broadcast scripted shows increased to 39.7 percent, from 35.7 percent in 2015–16.
• Women were 34.8 percent of the show creators for scripted digital programs, up slightly from 2015–16 at 31.5 percent.

The status quo:

• Among the directors of the English-language films from the 200 films, 12.6 percent were minorities, unchanged from 2016.
• Just 7.8 percent of the top films were written by minority writers, roughly equal to the 2016 figure.
• Minorities made up 16.5 percent of the creators of digital scripted shows, essentially unchanged.

Future reports from the Hollywood Diversity team at UCLA will focus on how the entertainment industry can adopt practices that are proven to increase inclusion of diverse talent, understand where such practices have been deployed and how they have factored into the creation of diverse content that diverse audiences demand.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Views From the Edge will take a deeper dive into television's diversitiy in a future posting.

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Asian American wins and notes at the Academy Awards

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

ELIZABETH CHAI VASARTHELY & JIMMY CHIN.

Two Asian American directors won Oscars for their work for Free Solo, which won in the Best Feature Documentary category last night.

Behind every film is an army of technicians, artists and in the case of Free Solo, some daredevil cameramen for their shots of lex Honnold’s death-defying quest to perform a free solo (no harness or safety ropes) climb up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

Heading this army for Free Solo are co-directors lizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, two Asian Americans who dared to film the incredible feat. The first thing Vasarhelyi did was to thank "National Geographic" for hiring “women and people of color, they only help make the films better.”

Also nominated in the same category was Minding the Gap, the debut film from skateboarder Bing Liu.

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Ruth Carter won Best Costume Design for her work for Black Panther, but she gave a shoutout to Anthony Francisco, a Filipino American for Marvel's visual development team. Francisco got some of the inspiration for the costume of the Dora Milaje, the elite women warriors in Wakanda, from the indigenous tribes of the Philippines and samurai armor.

Francisco credits Carter as  "the only costume designer I know that mentions the Visual Development team at Marvel often. She even mentioned me by name. I don’t blame the people that assume she’s a costume designer. That’s usually how it works anyways, but in this case, it was a little different.”

INSTAGRAM

Anthony Francisco and the costume worn by Wakanda's elite warriors in 'Black Panther.'

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Bao won an Oscar for best animated short film. Director Domee Shi told The Chronicle ithat the touching 8-minute short is inspired by her own life growing up in Canada with Chinese parents."

"I'm an only child with Chinese parents, so I was very protected. I'd always been my mom's 'little dumpling,'" Shi told the Chronicle. "It was a challenge to put myself in my mom's shoes and try to understand things from her point of view, not just from the kid's perspective who's being smothered. That became the spark, to create a modern-day fairy tale with vibes of the Little Gingerbread Man (whose mother bakes him, only to have him run away), but do a Chinese version of it."

Director Domee Shi, left, and bao from the animated short of the same name.

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The Oscar for Best Documentary Short went to Period. End of Sentence, a documentary that tackles the stigma around menstruation in rural India. The film is directed by 25-year-old Iranian American filmmakers Melissa Berton and Rayka Zehtabchi, who, upon receiving her statuette, said, "I can’t believe a film about menstruation just won an Oscar!” 

“A period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education,” concluded Berton.

Producer Guneet Monga tweeted after her win: "We won! To every girl on earth, know that you are a goddess,"

The film was created by The Pad Project, an organization established by an inspired group of students at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton. The 26-minute film follows girls and women in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh and their experience with the installation of a pad machine in their village.

SCREEN CAPTURE

The filmmakers of 'Period. End of Sentence' accept their Academy Award.

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The cast of Crazy Rich Asians looked fantastic as they represented and presented awards in various categories. On stage as presenters were Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh and Constance Wu.

Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet are pretty in pink.

Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) apparently is comfortable in his masculinity because he wore a pink tuxedo, to match his wife Lisa Bonet's gown.

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Hollywood inclusion led by 'Crazy Rich Asians' and 'Black Panther'

WARNER BROS.

Constance Wu stars in 'Crazy Rich Asians'

EDITOR'S NOTE: Updated 11 a.m., Feb. 13 to include The Sun Is Also A Star and remove unrelated graphic.

After years bemoaning the lack of people of color in significant movie roles, 2018's films showed some progress being, according to a new report.

With little less than two weeks before the Academy Awards, Hollywood is starting to pat itself on its back for the progress made in diversity and inclusion because of the wild success of Crazy Rich Asians and Black Panther.


"It is clear from the findings that 2018 was a notable year for storytelling with female characters and individuals from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups," says the report.

A research brief from the University of Southern California's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative seems to indicate that there is a connection between box office success and an increase in films with casts that better reflects the U.S. population.

More important to the movie industry's bean counters, these two films are being credited to helping make 2018 a profitable year at the U.S. box office, with a 4% increase in ticket sales from 2016. Black Panther, a Marvel product with a black theme with black protagonists, broke box office records; Crazy Rich Asians, with an all-Asian and Asian American cast, grossed about $240 million worldwide, the highest grossing romantic comedy in over a decade.

Of the 100 top-grossing movies of 2018, 40 featured female leads, 8 more than in 2017, and 28 featured people of color, an increase from 21 a year ago. (A movie like Crazy Rich Asians with Constance Wu in the lead, checks both those boxes.)

ANNENBEERG INCLUSION INITIATIVE / USC

Though there is clearly an uptick in the percentage of underrepresented leads and co leads in 2018, the overall percentage is still below U.S. Census (39.3%) by 11.3 percentage points, stated the report.

Given the apparent display of inclusion in 2018, is it a coincidence that the domestic box office hit a record $11.9 billion? The study authors believe there is a connection. "2018 offers hope that industry members have taken action to create content that better reflects the world in which we live, and the box office seems to have rewarded them for it," Annenberg Inclusive Initiative founder and director Stacy L. Smith said in a statement. 

"The data shows us that it is possible for change to be achieved – companies must not grow complacent but continue the progress they have made in 2018 and in the years to come."

And that's the real test. The impact of Crazy Rich Asians in a high-stakes business will be if it can have a longer range effect in Hollywood's greenlighting decisions. Based on projects underway or under development, it appears that the movie industry's honchos are opening their minds - a little.

DISNEY

Chinese actress Liu Yifei plays the legendary Mulan in her first Hollywood movie.

Disney's live-action version of Mulan, which will feature another all-Asian cast and directed by Niki Caro, a New Zealand woman, is under production and set for a 2020 release.

Building on the momentum of CRA's success, the film's director, Jon M. Chu, is living up to his statement when the film premiered when he said, "It's not a movie, it's a movement." Already, a second and third sequel based on CRA author Kevin Kwan's trilogy are being planned. He is also teaming up with Ivanhoe Pictures on a movie about the Thai cave rescue mission in an effort to avoid whitewashing and he's planning a bio-pic of Arnel Pineda, the Filipino lead singer of the rock band Journey.

Next up is another romance based on the YA novel by Korean American Nicola Yoon with TV stars, Blackish's Yara Shahidi and Riverdale's Charles Melton, a Korean American, The interracial love story is set for general release on May 17 this year.

Crazy Rich Asians leading man Henry Golding will be the romantic lead in Last Christmas opposite Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke will be released, of course, around the holidays. 

Netflix has at least two movies planned: Always Be My Maybe a rom-com starring Randall Park and Ali Wong, due out this year and has a sequel to surprise hit To Every Boy I Ever Loved, starring Lana Condor, the third film of Asian August.

Awkwafina stars in 'The Farewell.'

Hoping to duplicate the success of Searching, the John Cho starrer which was the third leg of Asian August, are a couple of films that premiered at Sundance and hopefully will be released this year. The  two movies generating considerable buzz: The Farewell dramedy starring Awkwafina and directed by Lulu Wang  about an Asian American woman's search for family and identity and director Justin Chon's Ms. Purple, about Asian American siblings working out their relationship.

"I don't think the success of the movie should dictate whether or not there should be Asian Americans in film," Awkwafina said to CBS News before CRA's premiere. "I don't think Crazy Rich Asians will be the last, no matter how it does. It's part of a larger cultural shift in Hollywood in the last two years. People show up for these movies and express anger when movies don't accurately reflect them."

Real inclusion - in other words - will be when we no longer have to report on Asian Americans in film as a "trend."

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Powerful photo portends Hollywood's future

AT THE Screen Actor Guild awards show Sunday night, the casts of two landmark motion pictures got together for a significant photo that says a lot about the future Hollywood hopefully will embrace.

There is a lot of symbolism when the casts of Crazy Rich Asians and Black Panther joined  each other for this photo posted by CRA director Jon M. Chu on his Instagram account. Both films were breakthroughs for subject matter and casting.

Both films broke down the old Hollywood belief that films with  minority leads would not appeal to general (white) audiences. First Black Panther and in August, Crazy Rich Asians, broke box office records and opened the door to explore storylines and actors that reflect  U.S. audiences.

Dozens of projects are now underway or under development with more diverse casts because of the critical and financial success of those two films.

For the photo, they were joined by winner of SAG's Best Actor award-winner Darren Criss and Mike Meyers.

Mike Meyers?

To quote Chu, "This photo is beautiful."
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