In 2017 Hollywood, Moonlight, a movie featuring a gay, black protagonist, won Best Picture. Patty Jenkins broke records for female-directed movies when she made Wonder Woman. Celebrities from Priyanka Chopra to Emma Stone to Oprah spoke up about equal pay for women.
But despite this apparent progress, statistically, Hollywood in 2017 wasn't much different in terms of diversity and representation than it was a decade ago. As The Hollywood Reporterreported on July 31, a new study from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at USC says actual numerical change in these areas has not been statistically significant.
Dr. Stacy Smith and her colleagues' recent report, titled “Inequality in 1,100 Popular Films,” found that "there are still few films where equity is a hallmark of the production or the content." Numerically, their findings show just 31.8% of speaking characters were female in 2017. In 2011, that number was 31.2%. In 2007, that number was 29.9%. Growth has been almost nonexistent over the past decade.
In 2017, representation in movies for people of color, the disabled, and LGBTQ people was also limited. While 70.7% of the characters were white, only 12.1% were black, 6.2% were Hispanic, 4.8% were Asian, 3.9% were mixed-race, 1.7% were of Middle Eastern descent, and less than 1% each were Native American and Native Hawaiian. Since 2007, the percentage of black, Hispanic, Asian, and other actors hasn't changed.