USC Study Exposes Hollywood as Overwhelmingly White, Sky Blue, Grass Green

The study was published seven days before the February 28 Oscars ceremony in Hollywood – the movie industry’s biggest night – which has been overshadowed this year by a furor over the all-white line-up in the lead and supporting acting nominees. The Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism issued an “inclusivity index” of 10 major media companies (Disney, Amazon, Netflix, etc.) in an effort to analyze diversity and representation across the board – their findings were unfortunate, but likely validating for those who have suspected as much for years.

In the 414 films and series, a third of speaking characters were female, and 28.3 percent were black, Hispanic or other minority groups – about 10 percent less than the makeup of the USA population. That’s lower than the actual ratio of the ethnic population in the US, which is 37.9%. Behind the camera too women were heavily outnumbered by men, making up about 15% of directors, 29% of writers and about 23% of series creators. Television – including series from streamed services – fared better, with women in 40 percent of speaking roles.

Still, while some may see studies like these as redundant or “telling us what we already know”, the reality of Hollywood’s diversity problem is one that obviously bears repeating.

Needless to say, the study found that, overall, the inclusion of people of color, women and the LGBT community in film and television is lacking.

Over 20% didn’t feature one Black or African-American speaking character and over 50% didn’t feature one Asian or Asian American speaking character.

Researchers collected data on characters, crew and top brass for 109 films released domestically in 2014 and 305 programs released via broadcast, cable and digital platforms that first aired September 1, 2014 through August 31, 2015.

For television and digital series, only 26.6 percent of series regulars are people of color. About 10,000 directors, writers and show creators were examined, as was the gender of more than 1,500 executives.

While a lot consideration has been targeted on the film business, with the #OscarsSoWhite marketing campaign surrounding the second consecutive Academy Awards with all-white appearing nominees, the USC study, titled “Inclusion or Invisibility?”

Last year, we reported on the bias affecting women pursuing careers in directing. However, Nowalk agreed with Smith’s final conclusion that television and digital are more inclusive than film. Roughly 78 percent of LGBT characters in productions surveyed were white, while 21 percent were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups.

According to the study, the total number of directors in the time that the study was conducted, there were 4,284 directors. The gap between where we are as a society and the industry is increasing.

The CW, Disney, Viacom, Amazon and Hulu all scored 40% or higher for inclusion of female TV characters.

The study also reported a steep gender gap behind the camera.

The study also found that female characters were four times more likely to be shown in sexy garb, three times more likely to exhibit some nudity, and almost four times as likely to be referred to as physically attractive.