Friday, February 26, 2016
UCLA's Hollywood Diversity Report Demonstrates the Benefits of Inclusive Casting
Women and Hollywood: #OscarsSoWhite is an ugly symptom of an ugly problem that goes deeper than one particular awards show. The third annual Hollywood Diversity Report from the UCLA Bunche Center details just how entrenched racism is in Hollywood. The comprehensive research also reveals that the entertainment industry suffers financially as a result of its misguided attempts to cater to white (and perceived to be racist?) consumers.
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I thought that this article brought up a very good point in saying that the media uses the idea of “catering to their audiences” as their excuse for a lack of racial/ gender diversity. In reality, as the statistics in this article reveal, shows and productions which include a diverse cast of characters (“what America really looks like”) do far more successfully. I’ve always thought that people who reply to protests against the lack of diversity in entertainment with “they’re just giving people what they want” assumed far too little of the population at large, and were too lazy to look into the matter any further. America is a melting pot, and the idea that moviegoers and theater- goers only want to experience the stories of straight white men is just ridiculous. I’m also so glad that this article acknowledged how important it is that the media we are consuming shows the broad range of human experience that is available. Too often people think that “it’s just TV, it isn’t important”, when that couldn’t be farther from the truth in a world where so much of what we learn and digest is from digital media.
I have used UCLA's diversity studies from previous years for speech and debate arguments, and i am continually fascinated and appreciative of their research, because not really anyone else is doing this sort of investigation. In that way its incredibly helpful in forwarding this cause and, with the backup of appalling statistics, showing what is really happening in Hollywood.
So, I was definitely curious to see if anything had changed, since I essentially had to memorize the one from 2011. And, lo and behold, the percentage of lead actors who are people of color has gone up from a wopping 11%- to 12%. That, my friends, is not progress, but one percentage happening to be more. This confuses me so much. The evidence is here that diversity casting is lucrative, especially with the fact that people of color purchased 46% of all movie tickets. I'm sure Star Wars benefitted from diversity casting. If 46% of all ticket goers are minorities, I'm sure they won't be opposed to seeing diversity casting in these movies.
The times are certainly a'changin', because 37% of the U.S. are minorities. Soon it will be half, and to still have over 80% of the casting in Hollywood in the hands of white actors and white writers and directors is just gross misrepresentation of our country as a whole.
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