And the results are shocking.
Leads of color have dropped from last year's share of 51% to 36%, while streaming films lead by BIPOC fell to 23.6%.
As a POC performer, this is incredibly disheartening but honestly, not shocking given the state of the world. Is Hollywood truly done pretending they care?
Posted by GrailTalk
27 Comments
Link to article: [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hollywood-diversity-study-streaming-films-few-women-poc-1236622372/](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hollywood-diversity-study-streaming-films-few-women-poc-1236622372/)
Not shocking, Prime alone seems to be in the business of shooting anyone darker than a paper bag that walks by their offices, and the obvious absence of black women in particular from ya shows has made me not watch them at all (adults, overcompensating, not suitable for work, off campus, im looking at you)
and LGBTQ people. anybody not a cis white straight man.
edit: and able-bodied, i imagine there are less disabled people in media as well, not that hollywood has ever been particularly good at having disabled people play disabled characters.
> “Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with theatrical films, we’re now seeing the impact of this current political climate in very meaningful and concrete ways. As budgets tighten, opportunities for filmmakers of underrepresented backgrounds are always the first to be squeezed out.”
this really, *really* fucking sucks man. all these creative opportunities going away just because people can’t stand seeing someone who isn’t white on their screen.
One of my biggest regrets is believing that companies, corporations, movie stars actually cared about diversity and human rights. Seeing how fast so-called “good” companies turned to please a fascist and the worst people among us really snapped me out of it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d cast Bill Maher as The Little Mermaid now.
Considering MAGA’s war on what they consider “DEI” and conservatives in creative realms no longer wearing their masks of pretending they care about liberal values, this doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Netflix even admitted they are trying to make slop you can follow while staring at your phone.
It will get considerably worse if Paramount manage to close on the WB deal
They’re done pretending.
Absolutely wild, especially considering how well Sinners did both critically and at the box office. It shows that they are more interested in maintaining a racist status quo than in actually making money, which is honestly quite terrifying.
I was watching one prime series that had a black couple but got rid of the woman and immediately had the guy dating a white women. For no reason!
This is why I’m getting back into reading. They only want to make tv shows and movies about cis het white men. Which isn’t exactly a rich spectrum of experience. It’s oversaturated and been done for a hundred years.
What I notice is a lot of books with a woman main character are getting adapted. I think this is because Hollywood doesn’t want to make original films with a woman lead without a built in fan base.
Don’t watch where you’re not representing
Similar to don’t buy where you’re not hired
Money talks. And people only watch what appeals to them. Nobody forces me to watch a show, or go to see a certain movie. If you are not represented, and don’t like what it stands for, then don’t give it your attention. Let the industry lose viewers. Let them lose money. Only when you hurt their pockets, do they understand.
On the flip side I do feel like the representation we’ve been getting is overall better
I’d rather have representation in well written roles and projects like Sinners, Obsession and Backrooms than something like Ginny and Georgia
I heard a game dev talking about diversity in one area his team had failed (while great with diversity in others). He said it was on the list, but they ran out of time and had to shop the game. So he concluded that you need to put things like that at the top of the priority list since companies will let you ship without people of color, women, etc. but they won’t let you ship with just them.
I don’t think it helps that only like, 10 people are allowed to be famous at any given time. I see this a lot with the UK + Irish scene where it’s the same actors being cast all the time. (Usually white)
Your nailed it on the head with “companies pretending to care”. It was always about the bottom line and selling the product, they don’t actually care about diversity or POC.
Remember when OITNB was one of Netflix’s biggest shows. Good times.
pretends to be shocked.gif
in my book club, we read Project Hail Mary and I just.. was not into it. It’s not all bad, especially if you ignore Andy Weir’s god awful writing, but I was just so disappointed that out of all the great sci fi books that i’ve read recently and it’s the competency porn about a straight white, middle aged american male written by a straight white american male that’s getting all this praise?? REALLY… it’s zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ahhhh more inshitification
When are cis white guys gonna have their time to shine lol
Rise of conservative media. Go see Boosters and rent Is God Is. Support POC films and writers.
There’s a lot of non-Hollywood entertainment. If they only care about a certain subset of the population, can just take your money elsewhere that does want to cater to PoC and women. I definitely am. Wouldn’t want to watch a movie and find out the ML is a sex pest / predator anyway.
This is why I refuse to watch adults (not good anyway imo), and many other new shows. It’s so disheartening. I always look at the cast listing before I start a show and I it’s few and far between that there is a black woman in the cast.
A few recommendations that cast black women as leads that may not be as popular as the ones we already know if anyone is looking, boarders on tubi (don’t let the tubi label fool you), Shrinking, Forever, Iron Heart, Rivals.
Two movies I’ve seen recently with black female leads is God is and I love boosters, both phenomenal films!
It’s crazy that it feels like we had more diversity in the 90s and early 2000s than we do now.
Edit: I also think, and this is not everyone, but a lot of people complain on social media, but don’t go support the projects that do have people of color except for Ryan Coogler movies which are great and we should support him, but there are other directors that deserve our support too.
I remember last year when I went to watch a movie to thinking this is definitely a product of Trump’s America
This is exactly why I don’t ever shut up about how white and straight media is and I’ll never shut up about it and I will never accept the bare fucking minimum when it comes to diversity. I don’t care if your cast of 20 people has two people of color in it. That’s not diversity. That’s tokenism!