Hey Hollywood-Where Are The People Who Look Like Me?

When I was a kid, I remember I could never dress up as my favorite characters because I didn’t have Sleeping Beauty’s beautiful curly blond hair, or Cinderella’s dreamy sparkling blue eyes, or Snow White’s delicate light skin. I could only play Belle because of our similar (ish) brown hair.
Today, as a Latina filmmaker and actress, it is the first time I am asking out loud: “Yo, Hollywood, where are the people who look like me?”

This is of course a question that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) people in the film industry have been asking for over a century. It’s also a question that tends to rattle Hollywood executives, which means that having a real conversation about representation in media, particularly in film & TV can be difficult.

On the one hand, many top executives are terrified of being accused of bias or inequitable representation of various cultures, which they know can lead to a bad reception, bad ratings, and loss of profits. But then, because this seems risky, they don’t take that extra step to find a solution. Instead, this fear tends to mean that they often opt not to represent various cultures
at all. Which isn’t the point.

REPRESENTATION OF PEOPLE OF COLOR IN FILM & TV: HAVE WE SEEN PROGRESS?

Hollywood proudly cites its increase in representation over the last two years in articles like Hollywood Diversity has improved, study shows published in The Guardian, or Hollywood diversity study: Progress is glacial, but it’s happening published in USA Today, but let’s look at some numbers.

A tool well known to measure diversity in Hollywood is the UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report. The most recent one published in 2020 shows that minorities have earned a higher position in Hollywood, based on the diversity of all top film roles in 2018 and 2019. From all top film roles
in 2018, 42.33% of all film roles were white males, 26.54% were white females, 14.9% were Black, 5.4% Multiracial, 4.9% Latinx, 4.8% Asian, 0.7% MENA (Middle East and North Africa), and 0.3% Native Americans.

The same report also shows a tiny bump in representation among all top film roles of 2019, mostly with regards to Black and Multiracial actors. How this breaks down: 40.83% of the speaking roles were white male, 26.37% were white female, 15.7% were Black, 6.2% Multiracial, 5% Asian, 4.6% Latinx, 0.7% MENA, and 0.5% Native Americans.

Alright, the numbers are there, and yes, there is a small increase in the representation of BIPOC communities on screen. Meanwhile, white males saw the most significant decrease with -1.3%, followed by Hispanics with -0.3% (wait, I found myself thinking, WHAT?! HOW?!), then white females decreased -0.17%. So… where did all of those points go? Well, the highest increases went for the Black and the Multiracial communities with +0.8%, followed by the Asian American and Native American populations with +0.2, whereas the MENA group stayed the same.

So, ok, we have established a tiny amount of progress. That tiny little increase is there. Now, how does this look in practice?

HOW DO WE FEEL BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Kevon Pryce, a Black director and writer who is also the marketing lead at the Atlanta Film Society, mentioned that, for the Black community, diversity in Film & TV “has definitely picked up over the years.” He cited examples of shows like Being Mary Jane (2013-2019), Scandal (2012-2018), How To Get Away With Murder (2014-Present), BlackAF (2020), and She’s Gotta Have It (2017-2019).

Mahalia Latortue, a Haitian director, producer, and writer, and co-founder of Anacaona Pictures, pointed out that she has seen more People of Color (POC) and women in TV than film. She explained that TV is more progressive “because we move faster and have the ability to tell stories in a longer form.” Thus, “we have the ability to develop more in-depth characters that feel authentic and allow room for more diversity.” Further, even though she believes there is “finally” some representation, she still feels that many artists of color have not received the recognition they deserve.

Nibha Shetty, an Indian cinematographer from Atlanta, said: “I low-key don’t think there’s been much representation of Indian people in media. It’s better, but not enough to count. No one casts Indian people as much.” She continued: “There’s usually only one show with any Indian characters at a given time. Before Never Have I Ever (2020), there was Master Of None
(2015-1017) and before that was The Mindy Project (2012-2017), and before this was just Apu from The Simpsons (1989-Present), who was played by a white guy, but I guess it’s better than two decades ago.”

Indeed, there has been a recent trend of white actors who have been voicing BIPOC characters for a while now stepping down from their roles in order to let them open for their particular cultures.

WHAT ABOUT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA?

DJ Mccall (Prophet), a Black actor, shared that the only show he could think of featuring a mostly Black cast is a show that he worked on for The CW, Black Lightning (2018). “Being able to be on a set full of people that look just like you with the same cultural values as you, the way you can connect with them is something we need more of,” he said.

Gabriella Ortiz, a Puerto Rican actress and one of the women behind the organization Latinas in Media Atlanta, mentioned that on one side she has seen a lot more People of Color on TV, and on the other side that we’ve seen Hispanic lead actors before, like on The George Lopez Show (2002-2007), but “it aired at around 3 a.m. and it just [wasn’t] being presented as a popular show,” she said.

Even though we’ve seen a tremendous change in allowing People of Color to be our leads and our heroes, Ortiz said, we have not seen that for Latinx artists as much as for other demographic groups. “It is changing,” she added, on a positive note. “For the Asian community, [the movie] Crazy Rich Asians (2018) opened that door. Now, let’s go ahead and include the Latinos.”

AND WE CAN SEE THIS REPRESENTATION… WHERE?

Now, let’s talk about the kinds of roles that are on offer for BIPOC actors. Some examples of the most recent and successful non-white representation in mainstream media are shows like Dear White People (2017-2020), One Day at a Time (2017-present), Never Have I Ever (2020), Jane the Virgin (2014-2019) and The Baker and The Beauty (2020).

These shows not only cast people of color and sought to build diversity behind the cameras as well. The question remains, however: Do they accurately represent us?