When It Comes to On-Screen Inclusion, Hollywood Is Just Not Changing
While it’s been damningly clear for months now, despite the massive success of female-fronted and -backed films in 2023 (the year of “Barbie,” for chrissakes!), Hollywood is simply not changing when it comes to its inclusion efforts. And that goes beyond just movies made by or for women, but also when it comes to how movies and their makers approach everything from race and ethnicity to gender or sexual identity and even disability.
In a new report by Professor Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, that knowledge is laid bare by way of series of damning numbers and statistics. “No matter how you examine the data, 2023 was not the ‘Year of the Woman,’” said Dr. Smith in an official statement. “It is clear that there is either a dismissal of women as an audience for more than one or two films per year, a refusal to find ways to create meaningful change, or both. If the industry wants to survive its current moment, it must examine its failure to employ half the population on screen.”
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The annual study updates the organization’s longitudinal analysis of top-grossing movies, and now covers the 1,700 top films from 2007 to 2023, and provides a specific look at the 100 top movies of 2023. A total of 75,328 speaking characters were evaluated across all 17 years of the study, which explores gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+ identity, and characters with disabilities.
Some of the study’s major findings when it comes to on-screen representation include:
Fewer girls and women filled leading roles in 2023 compared to 2022, as the figure plummeted to 30 percent, on par with 2010 and reflecting a 14 percentage point decline from the year prior.
32 percent of speaking characters in 2023 were girls/women, compared to 30 percent in 2007.
11 percent of stories were gender-balanced, or featured girls and women in 45-54.9 percent of all speaking roles.
Less than one percent of all characters were gender non-binary in 2023.
There was a significant increase among the race and ethnicity of protagonists: 37 movies, compared to 31 in 2022, featured an individual from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group in a lead/co-lead role. It is barely higher than the previous benchmark reached in 2021 (35 films).
The percentage of White (56 percent) speaking characters decreased significantly from 2022 (62 percent) and 2007 (78 percent).
The percentage of Asian characters in 2023 (18 percent) was significantly higher than in 2007 (3 percent), though on par with 2022 (16 percent).
Overall, the percentage of underrepresented characters (44 percent) was similar to the percentage of the U.S. population that identifies with an underrepresented racial/ethnic group (41.1 percent).
Girls/women of color filled leading/co-leading roles in only 14 movies in 2023 — a decrease from the 18 they led in 2022, but higher than the one movie in 2007 that featured a woman of color protagonist.
Only one movie in 2023 starred a woman of color age 45 or older in a leading role.
In 2023, there were 99 films missing both American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander girls/women. 81 failed to include even one Middle Eastern/North African female-identified character. Almost two-thirds (62) were missing Hispanic/Latinas and 56 failed to depict a Multiracial/Multiethnic girl or woman. 49 films did not feature an Asian girl/woman and 39 were missing girls and women who were Black/African American.
1.2 percent of speaking characters in the top films of 2023 were identified as members of the LGBTQ+ community. There has been no meaningful change in this figure since 2014.
No transgender characters appeared across the 100 top films of 2023. Of the 60 LGBTQ+ characters included in 2023’s top movies, 20 were lesbian, 31 were gay, 8 were bisexual, and 1 was identified with another sexuality.
There were 76 films in 2023 that did not feature even one LGBTQ+ character, similar to the 72 in 2022 without any LGBTQ+ representation.
There has also been no change in the prevalence of characters with disabilities. In 2023, 2.2 percent of all speaking characters were shown with a disability — virtually identical to 2015 (2.4 percent).
Characters were most likely to have a physical disability (73 percent), compared to communicative (26 percent) and cognitive (23 percent) disabilities.
There were 42 films in 2023 that did not feature even one character with a disability, lower than 2022 (54) but similar to 2015 (45).
The study also focuses on behind the camera inclusion among key film personnel. Some of the study’s major findings when it comes to behind-the-camera representation include:
For women directors, 2023 (12 percent) was not different than 2022 (9 percent) but does reflect change from 2007 (3 percent). Across 17 years, 6.5 percent of directors of the 1,700 most popular films were women (this reflects 98 individual women directors, compared to 878 individual men).
Of credited writers in 2023, women filled 15 percent of the positions, which was similar to the 16 percent of jobs they held in 2022 and not different than the 11 percent of writers who were women in 2007.
24 percent of producers were women in 2023, nearly the same as the 27 percent in 2022 and not different than 2007 (20 percent).
Women composers reached a 17-year high point in 2023 at 9 percent, which was no different than 2022’s 8 percent, but significantly higher than the 0 women working as composers in 2007.
Women held 74 percent of casting jobs across the 100 top films of 2023, which is a decline from the 81 percent they held in 2022 and the 86 percent of jobs filled by women in 2007.
Overall, 16 percent of all directors were from underrepresented backgrounds from 2007 to 2023.
Only 4 directors in 2023 were women of color, and filled a mere 2 percent of all directing positions across the 17-year sample.
“The recipe for creating inclusion does not change from year to year,” said Dr. Smith. “We have advocated for the solutions in the report for several years, but unless executives and other decision-makers listen and make different choices, we will not see different results. U.S. state legislatures have taken aim against DEI, and the entertainment industry seems either too apathetic or too fearful to use the tools in their arsenal to reflect back to its consumers the world that exists rather than a skewed representation of the population.”
Launched more than 15 years ago by Founder Dr. Stacy L. Smith, the Initiative “is globally recognized for its valuable and sought-after research solutions to advance equality in entertainment. Dr. Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative examine gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+ status, disability, age, and mental health on screen and gender and race/ethnicity behind the camera in cinematic and television content as well as barriers and opportunities facing women and people of color in the entertainment industry. The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative also conducts economic analyses related to diversity and the financial performance of films.”
This study is the latest from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, and the full report, along with other valuables analyses and studies, can be found right here.
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