Deadline: It’s been said before, but it is worth saying again: diversity pays — but not in terms of checking boxes and tokenism. In a new report from the UCLA-based Center for Scholars and Storytellers titled “Beyond Checking A Box: A Lack of Authentically Inclusive Representation Has Costs at the Box Office”, researchers found that bringing authentic diversity to film improves financial performance at the box office while a lack of diversity can result in losses for studios.
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Something that Hollywood has to understand is that people are not going to engage in media that they cannot relate to or get excited about. You are cutting out a massive portion of your audience by creating media that only caters to white/male entertainment. Franchises even so large as Marvel exclude Black people from their narratives. Do you remember how monumental it was when Black Panther finally premiered following years of white superhero after white superhero??? If we are using Avengers as an example, this was the first time there had ever been a Marvel Avengers movie focused on a Black lead. Every other Black person in the Avengers film franchise before this was a supporting character; this was tokenism. But with Black Panther, Black culture was celebrated, elevated, and focused on throughout the film. They had multiple Black people (particularly women!!!) on the creative team. And the movie was a huge success, because when people can see themselves in the media they consume, they get excited. A whole group of people were finally included in that excitement, so it is no wonder that films that exhibit genuine diversity throughout the production (narrative and creative team) are more successful financially.
It totally makes sense that entertainment does better by appealing to its audience. If you want to have a larger audience, they need to appeal different people. By actively making media that isn’t just from the “traditional” (white make-centric) point of view, you can attract new people.
And it totally makes sense that smaller projects are better at reaching a more diverse demographic. The smaller projects are often less traditional and nimble enough to take chances on things.
By showing people characters that look like them, in situations that they can relate to, will make them connect easier and tell their friends who fit that same profile that they should too.
It makes sense that movies with more diversity make money. The population of the United States and the world is huge and diverse. People like seeing people who look like themselves and have similar experiences to themselves in movies and television and plays. By drawing these audiences in companies can profit because they are reaching a whole new demographic. I also think that right now movies with diversity are still a bit of a novelty therefore drawing in people because of that too. I am looking forward to an increase in diverse movies and television and theater. I have never seen a form of media where people look like me or have similar experiences to me and so I am anxiously awaiting until one day I will. I hope that large movie companies will realize they have a whole huge untapped target audience and work to create products for them.
The first thing I thought when I saw this headline was "good". Blockbuster movie studios shouldn't be paid extra for poor representation. It does make sense, though. I know whenever my friends and I would hear about a gay character in a movie coming out, we'd all flock to see it, sometimes multiple times. It's the high of seeing yourself that we don't get very often. This applies to everyone, I'm sure. Representation would likely bring in an audience of the people being represented that might not have seen the film otherwise. Also, while this may just be due to the group of people I surround myself with, I think people are growing bored of the same white-centric masculine stories we've been seeing forever. The success of movies like Ladybird and Black Panther prove this. It can be seen in TV too, like with the show Fleabag, which anyone can relate to aside from the fact that it centers around a hypersexual queer woman. If studios really care about making money, let's hope they pick up on this study.
It’s frustrating that the seemingly only way to get Hollywood studios to make a change is to wave a dollar sign in their face. It is too naïve to think they would want to tell authentically diverse stories simply because that is a noble cause and that they would feel proud to share these stories. Well there is a saying that people vote with their wallets, and now this study shows that that’s what movie audiences have been doing. I’m glad that there’s a study that proves it, but I could have told Disney that I watched Coco because it had authentic Mexican representation and that seeing myself on screen was just so amazing. Additionally, I will support movies where I don’t see myself personally but feature that same representation for others like Black Panther or Crazy Rich Asians because I want everyone to experience that feeling. Hopefully, the studios will listen and make more movies that have authentic representation both in front of the camera, but also in the director’s chair and the writers’ room.
Like Victor said, it’s very very frustrating to see that in order for diverse casting to happen, you have to show dollar signs worth of proof. BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and non-cis gendered people are not solely there for making a studio money. We are at a moment where people will tell movie producers to fuck off for having all-white casts and the film flops. Movies like Moonlight and Black Panther were smash hits because for the first time a major movie about black people didn’t involve slavery. It was about being proud of your blackness and having conversations about difficult topics within black masculinity. Like Coco and Crazy Rich Asians, people got to see themselves, their family, friends, etc., on the big screen in a proud way for the first time. I’m glad studios are losing money over non-diverse casting, but then it turns into exploiting a diverse cast to gain more dollar signs.
People of color have been fighting for years to be seen on screen and accurately represented, as well as be a part of the other side of production. We have made strides recently with diverse movies, although there is still a long way to go which has been made clear by many of the demands made to production companies this summer. I’m glad that there is a concrete benefit to representing different communities, but there’s a small part of me that is disappointed because I know many companies will only make changes because it will affect them financially not because it’s the right thing today. Either way, it’s good that movies with racially diverse casts, especially ones written by people of color, will be encouraged in the industry. Also it’s nice to know that audiences care about whose stories are being told and will use their money to support.
This makes a lot of sense since the United States is as diverse as it is, and a lot of the people of color are tired of only seeing white faces on the screen. I know I’ve gotten really fed up with the fact that I almost never saw an Asian person onscreen aside from maybe one thrown in here and there to be a stereotype or a joke. Honestly good that Hollywood would probably lose money from continuing to not have diversity in films because only their wallets seem to be able to direct them. While it would be nice for them to just have diverse casts and crew on their own, we all know they’re too greedy for that. Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians were some of the first big western movies to feature authentic POC stories and played by almost entirely POC casts, it’s no wonder that the new demographics of people they reached were so excited about it. Then you have the 2020 live action Mulan movie, which may have used Asian faces but everyone in the background was white. It was obvious that it wasn’t true representation and that the story being told was not truly an Asian one, and as a result it did poorly in the box office - currently still making up less than half of the production cost.
I think these findings will be a great start to the long road ahead of the film and TV industries in finally achieving diversity and inclusion for people of color. However, let me first say this: we shouldn't have to be looking at raw dollars and cents in trying to force or encourage Hollywood into ensuring that the global majority is heard and seen, both on the screen and off. The issue is not a monetary issue, the issue is a question of morality. I'm a realist, so I know that these companies will never truly listen without the risk of extensive financial loss that this study has proven will happen, but I still hate the fact that systemic racism is so ingrained that these are the methods we have to use to right the ship. Regardless, these are changes that need to happen, so if this is the way we can make them become a reality, then that is exactly what we must do.
I am not surprised by these findings at all. I am also rather encouraged by them as it means that Hollywood may have to start incorporating more diversity in their movies in order to keep creating the same revenue that they have been. I hope that this leads to more movies with leading roles portrayed by people of color. I am a little bit disappointed that it is taking the threat of loss of money for Hollywood to consider the fact that they have not been diversifying their movies enough. I wish that they would have realized this issue prior to the threat of financial loss, but I will take that with a grain of salt. I am glad that they will be diversifying in the future even if they are doing it out of more or less force.
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