[ad_1]
The 10th annual UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report found that streaming releases are more inclusive than theatrical films.
UCLA sociologists Darnell Hunt, Ph.D., and Ana-Christina Ramón, Ph.D., analyzed the top-grossing actors and streaming hits of 2022, finding that racial/ethnic and gender diversity regressed to 2019 in many key jobs in theaters levels before the pandemic.
More from IndieWire
Yet women and people of color are finding more job opportunities in streaming publishing. This is the first time the UCLA study has analyzed streaming and theatrical releases separately. According to the study, researchers will separate employment data for movies made for the big screen and movies made for streaming. As a result, the diversity benefits of theatrical release disappear.
“People of color saved theatrical world During the pandemic, they are key to returning the theater business to pre-pandemic levels,” Ramón, director of UCLA’s Entertainment and Media Studies Program, said in a statement. Good business. “
Yet, as the study found, it is still predominantly white men who direct the “vast majority of big-budget films.” White men make up 73 percent of the directors of big-screen movies, and 60 percent of those films have budgets of $30 million or more. In contrast, white women tended to have lower budgets in theater projects (56% of films with budgets below $20 million), while directors of color tended to have the lowest budgets in streaming projects (76% of films with low budgets at $20 million) ).
As the statistics prove, women directors or people of color hire more diverse casts, and movies with more diverse casts outperform the least diverse at the box office and in streaming ratings Movie. More streaming movies have diverse casts (64 percent have more than 30 percent of their cast members are minorities) than theatrical releases (57 percent).
Yet these projects don’t receive the same level of funding from Hollywood: Dramatic films directed by women tend to have lower budgets, and directors of color tend to have lower budgets for streaming.
“Hollywood has to look at itself and figure out what specific practices can really help address the diversity problem in the industry,” said Hunter, who is also a professor of sociology and African American studies at UCLA.
In theatrical releases, people of color made up just 22 percent of lead roles, 17 percent of directors and 12 percent of writers. Women make up 39 percent of principal actors and 15 percent of directors.
By contrast, streaming original shows have casts that are more reflective of the U.S. population. Women’s share of leads (49%) was on par with men’s, and racial diversity was evident. Yet women writers of color remain woefully underrepresented. Despite a 10-percentage-point increase in the number of theatrical releases with female writers since 2019, in 2022 there will only be one top-tier theatrical film written by a woman of color. They’re also underrepresented among top streaming film writers.
The two most-watched movies of 2022 — “Going Red” (2022) and “Vision” (2021) — are both animated films about the coming of age of young girls of color. Notably, “Going Red” was directed by a woman of color.
“These films are culturally specific but universally relevant,” Ramon said. “More than half of the current under-18 population belongs to communities of color, and these young people will grow up demanding that the protagonists of their movies look like them and live like them.”
Streaming movies with diverse casts have driven high engagement on social media and resonated with younger generations.
In addition to separating streaming from theater in its findings, the UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report also provided data on South Asian representation and disability representation for the first time in the 2023 study.
The report found that South Asians Rarely appears in top movies. Actors with disabilities have also performed poorly in dramas and streaming. Even though about a quarter of American adults have a disability, actors with disabilities account for no more than 10 percent of lead roles and no more than 5 percent of all screen roles in theater or streaming movies. The researchers determined disability using the actors’ publicly stated disabilities, information that has only recently become available in reliable third-party databases.
The 2023 UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report is funded in part by lead sponsors Netflix and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, with The Walt Disney Company and Hulu serving as annual sponsors.
“Diversity should not be viewed as a luxury, but as a necessity,” concluded Hunter, UCLA executive vice chancellor and provost and co-founder of the Hollywood Diversity Report. “Audiences of color are the bedrock of Hollywood and key to its bottom line, as research shows once again that audiences prefer a diverse cast.”
The report concluded that Diversity is key to global competition And keep Hollywood relevant at home.
“As the film industry continues to face unprecedented uncertainty, this report identifies a path forward,” said co-author Michael Tran, a doctoral candidate in the UCLA Department of Sociology. “The pandemic has normalized diversity on screen, not just in theaters but at home. Audiences tune in. If Hollywood changes course on diversity in theaters, they will lose audiences to streaming and international offerings.
Best IndieWire
sign up Indiewire Newsletter. Follow us for the latest news Facebook, Twitterand instagram.
[ad_2]
Source link