Phase 1: Research Document Cultural Representation in Hollywood Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 Table of Contents Topic Description and Position Statement 3-5 Appendix Minority Population Statistics 6-8 Lead Roles and POC 9 Overall Casting Diversity 10-11 Film vs. Television 12 Oscar Awards and POC 13 Every Single Word Spoken by a POC 14 Why Casting Directors Continue to Whitewash… 15 Annotated Bibliography 16-17 2 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 Topic Description and Position Statement Throughout the recent decade of film, there has been no significant statistical improvement of the representation of people of colour. Although groundbreaking films such as Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians gave viewers hopes of fair representation, the film industry is still significantly behind. In a recent study from July 2018, the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative examines inequality in 1,100 popular films from the past 11 years. From this, these recent findings suggest that although there has been public outcry for this social issue, no significant impact has been seen. A key issue revolving around cultural misrepresentation is the term “whitewashing”, which is when Hollywood casts a white character to play a coloured role. Controversial films such as Avatar: The Last Airbender, Doctor Strange, and Ghost in the Shell do exactly this. Another form of this is when a white actor uses make- up, accents, or other features to imitate a character of another race, seen from Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Headline : Hollywood consistently lacks diversity and undermines having an accurate representation of minorities in film. Summary Statement The Hollywood film industry needs to start acknowledging and putting more effort into respectfully representing minorities within the industry. The Issue There has been no major statistical improvement of Hollywood’s inclusion problem from the past 11 years. A study from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative examines inequality in 1,100 popular films from the past 11 years, and finds that although there have been years of activism for this social problem, there has not been meaningful change. 3 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 Race/Ethnicity • “Overall, 29.3% of all speaking characters were from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group. In comparison to the U.S. population (38.7% underrepresented) and underrepresented movie ticket buyers (45%), film still lags behind.” (Smith, et. al, 2018, p. 2) See Table 13 • Overall, the findings reveal that no meaningful change has occurred in the percentage of Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, or Mixed Race/ Other characters during the years studied. (Smith, et al., 2018, p. 15) • “The second set of analyses focus on how many films are missing any speaking or named character from a specific racial/ethnic group. Twenty films did not depict a single Black speaking character, 43 movies were missing Latino characters, and 37 films were devoid of Asian characters. See Table 14. These figures represent a decline from 2016 for Black (-5 films) and Latino (-11 films) characters, and a two-year decrease for Asian characters (-7 movies from 2016; -12 movies from 2015 (Table 14)” (Smith, et. al, 2018, p. 16) Action Needed We need representations to be authentic, fair, and have humanity. 4 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 In order to do so, we suggest that: (1) Casting directors need to diversify their thinking (2) Directors need to demand to see different types of actors (3) Writers should make more of an effort to write interesting parts for minority actors that defy stereotypes (4) More minority representation within film companies, CEO’s, etc. This list was taken from The Guardian (Latif, 2018) The Advocate The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television, and Radio Artists (ACTRA) would be a likely advocate as it is a labour union for English-language media performers. The American equivalence of this would be the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). These organizations are responsible for the professional rights of the members, and also help increase the work opportunities for its employers. Therefore, the promotion of diversity and representation will enable their minority members to have better job opportunities with safe and reasonable working conditions. 5 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 • Nearly 2 to 1 among broadcast reality Minority Population and other leads (26.6 percent) Statistics • Nearly 2 to 1 among leads for cable reality and other leads (20.9 percent) This study deals with the top 200 • 3 to 1 among digital scripted leads theatrical films that were released in (12.9 percent) 2016, as well as 1251 cable, broadcast, • Greater than 5 to 1 among the and television shows from 2015-2016. creators of broadcast scripted shows (7.1 percent) To begin, one can see that about 40% • Greater than 5 to 1 among the of the United States population is a creators of cable scripted shows (7.3 member of a minority in 2016. It is percent) predicted that within a few decades, • Greater than 2 to 1 among the they will become the majority. (Hunt, creators of digital scripted shows (15.7 et al., 2018, p. 2) percent) Although diverse films have not been showcased in many awards shows, recent findings believe that America’s audience actually prefers diverse films: • Films with casts that were from 21 percent to 30 percent minority enjoyed the highest median global box office receipts and the highest median return on investment, while films with the Basic Minority Statistics (Hunt, et al., most racially and ethnically 2018, p. 3) homogenous casts were the poorest • Nearly 3 to 1 among film leads (13.9 performers percent) • Minorities accounted for the majority • 3 to 1 among film directors (12.6 of ticket sales for five of the top 10 films percent) in 2016 (ranked by global box office) • Nearly 5 to 1 among film writers (8.1 • Films with casts that were from 21 percent) percent to 30 percent minority were • 2 to 1 among broadcast scripted released, on average, in the most leads (18.7 percent) international markets in 2016 • Nearly 2 to 1 among cable scripted leads (20.2 percent) 6 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 • Films with Black and Latino leads and the top 10 shows among White majority- minority casts were released, households, featured casts that were on average, in the fewest international at least 21 percent minority in 2015-16 markets in 2016 • The lion’s share of the top 10 cable • Median 18-49 viewer ratings (as well scripted shows among Asian, Black, as median household ratings among and Latino households, as well as half Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans) of the top 10 shows among White peaked during the 2015-16 season for households and viewers 18-49, broadcast scripted shows featuring featured casts that were at least 21 casts that were greater than 20 percent minority in 2015-16 percent minority • For White households, ratings peaked during the 2015-16 season for broadcast scripted shows with casts greater than 40 percent minority • Social media engagement during the 2015-16 season peaked for broadcast scripted shows with casts that reflected the diversity of America • Median Black household ratings peaked for cable scripted shows with casts that were majority minority in 2015-16 • For viewers 18-49, White, Latino, and Asian households, median ratings peaked in the cable scripted arena for shows with casts that were from 31 to 40 percent minority in 2015-16 • Social media engagement peaked for cable scripted shows with casts that were at least 31 percent minority in 2015-16 • The majority of the top 10 broadcast scripted shows among viewers 18-49 and Asian, Black, and Latino households, as well as half of 7 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 8 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 Lead Roles and POC Although there are slight increases in minority representation, Hollywood would need to triple its number to 38.7% in order to reach a proportionate representation (Hunt, et al., 2018, p. 14) • “Only 1.4 out of 10 lead actors in films are people of colour” 9 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 Overall Casting Diversity Overall Casting Diversity: Although there has been increases in representation of the overall cast in films, in 2016 78.1% of roles were to represented by whites, but the American population is just 61.3% white (Hunt, et al., 2018, p. 21). Blacks represented a proportionate result, but all other minorities were underrepresented. 10 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 “Overall, the findings reveal that no meaningful change has occurred in the percentage of Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, or Mixed Race/ Other characters during the years (Smith, S., 2018, p. 15) 11 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 Film vs. Television 12 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 Oscars Awards and Casting by race and year POC Buzzfeed’s Lam Vo analyzed the Oscar’s Best Picture award nominees to see if there has been any change in diversity throughout the years. This following data, taken from their Github, looks at nominees from 1989, 2015, and 2018. Number of words by race by year Number of sentences by race by year Films by Year: 1989: Driving Miss Daisy, Field of Dreams, Born on the Fourth of July, Dead Poets Society, My Left Foot 2015: The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road, Room, The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Spotlight, The Revenant, Brooklyn Number of words by race and film 2017: Get Out, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards, Lady Bird, Darkest Hour, The Post, Dunkirk, Phantom Thread, Call Me By Your Name 13 Jasmine Acebes FA/YSDN 3008 Every Single Word Spoken by a POC Every Single Word (Spoken by a Person of Colour) is a tumblr blog and Youtube channel that aims to bring awareness to ethnic diversity in contemporary and classic films.