“If you want an accurate picture of ethnic and gender diversity in the United States, don’t look to Hollywood,” says NPR.
That’s the conclusion of the “2015 Hollywood Diversity Report” conducted by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA.
The report quantifies the striking — if not surprising — racial and gender imbalances in film and television, both behind and in front of the camera, by comparing the representation of minorities to their actual proportions of the population.
“At every level, in every arena, women and minorities are under-represented in the industry,” says Darnell Hunt, the study’s co-author and director of the Bunche Center. “And the only question really is how serious, how egregious that level of under-representation is.”
The report, the second such study conducted by UCLA, found that under-representation was often very egregious — even though diverse shows and films make more money.