Diversity and Inclusion in Film and Television: Representation and Cultural Shifts

Diversity and Inclusion still needs to make a lot of progress in Hollywood even though some steps are being taken in the right direction.

Luminate, a global organisation working to ensure uniform rights for everyone, first came out with a report in 2018 highlighting the Diversity Progress in the Entertainment Industry, with Hollywood being the prime focus of this study. The updated version of this report, that included the progress till 2021, was released recently.

The study highlights that Hollywood is increasingly considering intersectionality when developing storylines for film and television, despite little overall gain in representation for underrepresented groups over the previous two years. It shows that Hollywood is accepting the fact that every individual is characterised differently based on their persona, gender, ethnicity, race and more. Therefore, content creators in Hollywood are making that special effort to ensure that the films and web series being created now are better representative of these aspects to properly reflect the nuances that individual humans experience.

Breaking down the study in a community-specific perspective:

When broken down further, Luminate's analysis identifies various disparities in screen diversity. While the number of movies with Black artists having the central roles climbed by more than 20% in 2022, there was a decline of almost 17% in storylines centred around the Black population.

Similarly, despite being one of the fastest increasing groups of the US population, Hispanic participation in cinema and television has decreased both in front of and behind the camera. Over the last two years, Hispanic talent in principal title parts has declined by almost 10%. Furthermore, Hispanic talent in directorial roles has decreased by a whooping 20%. The amount of films centred on Latino storylines is significantly smaller, with 6 films released in 2022, accounting for less than 1% of all films made that year.

Luminate believes that Indigenous representation is still "remarkably low," with less than 2% of truly indigenous people featuring in significant roles. Less than 2% of all principal title cast parts in films released in 2022 were held by Middle Eastern or North African actors, while just a shade over 1.5% of all film directors that year were of such ethnicity.

According to the survey, Asian presence in cinema and television programs is exhibiting a growing trend. The overall number of Asian main title cast and directors in cinema in 2022 has experienced a growth of close to 25% over the previous year’s numbers but movies with stories principally about Asian people are still negligible.

According to the survey, Netflix distributes film and television, accounting for 17% to 28% of all series regular parts in the United States for Latin/Hispanic, Asian, and Middle Eastern/North African talent. Amazon and Disney+ have also increased their foreign-language entertainment offerings in the last two years.

Though this might be considered to be a step in the right direction for content created in foreign languages, the challenges still exist as far as domestic casting is concerned.

The research also predicts an increase in female film directors and series creators in 2022. However, female diversity on television has been a mixed bag. From 2021 to 2022, the proportion of women in major title feature parts climbed from 41% to close to 43% of all roles, while the percentage of women in series regular roles declined by a shade.

Although LGBTQ+ presence in movies is increasing, it remains very low. The percentage of films with principal title roles climbed up a touch but the proportion of movies with a major LGBTQ+ actor in the title role has experienced a decline.

According to Luminate, the handicapped community featured the worst for all segments this study covered. However, it needs to be added that because impairments might be difficult to detect, the data collection can only depend on people who have publicly acknowledged that they are a member of a disability group. Only 0.5% of films in the last two years have a primary title cast member with a handicap, according to the survey.

The aim of the study conducted by Luminate was to provide accurate, objective and reliable information on how much of a path Hollywood still has to traverse in the journey of including Diversity and Inclusive practices within the industry.

Moris Media, the leading celebrity management agency in India, also proactively observes the shifting trends in the industry and is committed to supporting Diversity and Inclusion in Film and Television.