editor
Photo taken on March 20, 2020 shows the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, California, the United States. (Photo by Qian Weizhong/Xinhua)
People of color made up just 21.6 percent of lead actors in the top theatrical films for 2022, down from the 27.6 percent share posted in 2019, according to a report.
LOS ANGELES, March 30 (Xinhua) — People of color and women remained underrepresented on most industry employment fronts in Hollywood in 2022, according to the latest Hollywood Diversity Report released by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on Thursday.
The 10th annual UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, produced by UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, found that people of color made up just 21.6 percent of lead actors in the top theatrical films for 2022, down from the 27.6 percent share posted in 2019.
Like people of color, women’s share of top theatrical film leads has taken a step backward despite enormous gains over the course of the report series. Women accounted for 38.6 percent of film leads in 2022, a more than five-percentage-point decrease from the 44.1 percent figure evident in 2019, said the study.
In addition, people of color composed only 16.8 percent of directors and 12.4 percent of writers of the top theatrical films, while women accounted for 14.6 percent of directors and 27 percent of writers, according to the study.
The study found that streaming releases did better than theatrical releases on diversity. People of color accounted for a third of leads in top streaming films for 2022 and the percentage of female lead actors in streaming was 48.5 percent.
The study examined 89 of the top English-language, theatrical film releases, and 100 of the top English-language, streaming releases in 2022.
“While the last two reports offered hope that Hollywood had moved in a new direction toward a more diverse film industry in front of and behind the camera, this report suggests that things were considerably more complicated,” said researchers in the report, adding that “the idea that diversity on the big screen is somehow an inherently ‘riskier’ business proposition — which this report series debunked years ago — seemed to rear its ugly head again in 2022.” ■