New USC/Annenberg Study Finds Hollywood Studios "Whitewashed," Given Failing Diversity Grades

In one of the most exhaustive and damning reports on diversity in Hollywood, a new study finds that the films and television produced by major media companies are "whitewashed," and that an "epidemic of invisibility" runs top to bottom through the industry for women, minorities and LGBT people.

A study to be released Monday, February 22, 2016 by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism offers one of the most wide-ranging examinations of the film and television industries, including a pointed "inclusivity index" of 10 major media companies — from Disney to Netflix — that gives a failing grade to every movie studio and most TV makers.

Coming just days before an Academy Awards where a second straight year of all-white acting nominees has enflamed an industry-wide crisis, the report offers a new barrage of sobering statistics that further evidence a deep discrepancy between Hollywood and the American population it entertains, in gender, race and ethnicity.

The Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity (CARD) is the first of its kind — an exhaustive analysis and ranking of film, television and digital streaming services that catalogues speaking characters, people behind the camera, CEOs and executives.

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Authored by professor Stacy L. Smith and released by the Media, Diversity & Social Change (MDSC) Initiative at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the analysis found that only 28.3% of all speaking characters across 414 films, television and digital episodes in 2014-15 were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. This is 9.6% below the U.S. population norm of 37.9%. One-third (33.5%) of speaking characters were female. Behind the camera, a mere 15.2% of all directors and 28.9% of writers across film and every episode of television and digital series were female. Less than one-quarter (22.6%) of series creators were women across broadcast, cable and streaming content.

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“This is no mere diversity problem. This is an inclusion crisis,” said Smith, Founding Director of the MDSC Initiative. “Over half of the content we examined features no Asian or Asian-American characters, and over 20% featured no African-American characters. It is clear that the ecosystem of entertainment is exclusionary.”

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The report examined 109 films released by major studios and their art-house divisions in 2014. Additionally, 305 television and digital series across 31 networks and streaming services were analyzed. Smith and her team evaluated over 11,000 speaking characters for gender, racial and ethnic representation, and LGBT status. Additionally, in excess of 10,000 directors, writers, and show creators, along with more than 1,500 executives at the different media companies studied were evaluated based on gender.

For more information, click here and here. To read the Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity (CARD), click here.