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UCLA: Hollywood Diversity Report 2020

UCLA: Hollywood Diversity Report 2020

Published: Jun 20, 2021

Our Editor, billy LAx, has chosen diversity in Hollywood to warrant a single page on our website to post editorials due to it being such an important subject in the careers of many professionals as well as lay working people. Fundamental change is in the Hollywood air and Espresso will be there each step of the way. The Hollywood Diversity Report is one major tool providing metrics; hence we will invest our time reporting the information. If you have any comments on this report or any other aspect of diversity in Hollywood, please leave us a comment.

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“Actor diversification is the quickest improvement and is noticeable.”

Billy LAx – Chief Editor

The Hollywood Film and Entertainment business, driven by extreme progressive politics numbering twenty to one, provides the most diverse companies and unions in the world. The fairness of employment amongst sex, race, and cultures is next to none. NOT!!! If you believe this, I have some proverbial beach land in the Everglades of Florida to sell little old you.
On the surface, Hollywood execs, stars, and filmmakers talk a good story about racial equality, gender equality, and respecting personal identities, but deep in the grass lays that big monster of inequality as bad as the average big blue corporations across America and the world. But I will say this about Hollywood, it is moving slowly in the right direction. Then follows the production staff. Last, are the executives which are still composed of mainly white men.

Okay, so where did I get this information? From the most recognized source of film industry diversity information: The UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, which has been published each year for the last seven years. This report is considered by industry and analysts as the leading source for measurement of trends and Key Performing Indexes (KPI’s) of above-the-line talent as well as Hollywood executives, racial and gender equality. The 46-page 2020 Diversity Report has been issued already this year. It was authored by Darnell Hunt, Ana-Christina Ramon, and Michael Tran.

The report has indicated a slight improvement in the diversity of casts including lead roles. Also, all other above-the-line professionals saw an improvement of varying degrees when it comes to racial equality. But the racial inequality between white and non-white professionals is still large and significant. The publication reports that census data is trending such that by the year 2050 the now white majority will no longer be the majority. Therefore, industry executives who are mostly white should be planning on a change of demographics of their customers as well as a change of the racial divide of casts, directors, and producers.

Since the first report has been written in 2008, trending has provided data that more diverse audiences are demanding casts and leading characters become more diverse.
So, there is hope for the future of the inclusion of minorities to the point of equality, sooner rather than later.Changes in demographics are only one effect on the changes in the Hollywood diversity quotas.
Attitudes can be affected by hard-fought social-economical battles including the George Floyd murder protests and can make a significant one-time improvement of data.

The George Floyd murder made more of an impact than usual due to its cross-racial agreement of the clear discrimination and the cross-racial agreement that the racial divide was not acceptable and had to change. Within the entertainment industry, most every celebrity demanded a change. The change demanded was not just of race equality but of gender equality and acceptance of sexual identity. The coincidental plague of the COVID 9 virus created a more effective message due to the masses at home with time to pay more attention to the diversity word.

Bebi BELU

Billy LAx has asked me… yes me… to give a young female perspective on diversity in the Hollywood Film Industry. CC and Maxx, my two fellow Junior Espresso editors are great guys and when it comes to diversity, progressive as hell! So is billy! Zalak is too and is just as female qualified as I am, but since she is busy with her Espresso website design and development duties, I have the honor of opening on my favorite… then again not so favorite, subject. I told them to watch out, I will not pull any punches as my career suffers from male dominance too. Zalak said “you go girl” and billy faked the scared look as it was his idea.

So, I will start out by giving my appreciation to Dr Ana-Christina Ramón and Dr Darnell Hunt, both professors and researchers at UCLA for not only a thorough and accurate conclusion of a well-researched document but also through their initiative, a benefit for many people suffering from an unjust industry. UCLA has cleared showed itself as a progressive leader for minority and women business issues in Hollywood.

Well, we have good news and bad news from the 2020 UCLA diversity report. Hollywood has made significant advances nearly across the board in diversity, both for women and people of color. The statics have a very hopeful trend to get our long waited for fair treatment to our white male counterparts. However, the downside is we are still way behind in opportunity, especially when it comes to Hollywood business executives.

The 2020 report only analyzed above-the-line employment opportunities, leaving no analysis of the ‘foot soldiers’ who do all the thankless work. It is my opinion that since they are not of great focus, or have any specialized attention paid to them, their trend in fair treatment probably is nearly non-existent. But that is not backed by any data as that is beyond the scope of this opinion’s objective. However, this opinion is not completely void of evidence, since the place of greatest positive change is… you guessed it… leading minority actor improvement, the most visible film role of all. The industry is obviously trying to put a nice face on the ugly mess. However, the nice face is only so nice, as lead roles for women slightly went down. That is a big drop from what I call satisfactory since I expect it to improve each year.

But already this year, in 2020, we have a first-time feature director, Kitty Green, who directed the documentary “Ukraine is not a Brothel,” is making a huge splash with “The Assistant” at Film Markets and Film Markets as one of the top Indies this year. “The Assistant” is about the assistant of a deviant Hollywood executive exposing his corruptness. The movie does not name the executive, but Green created it in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, perfectly implying that it is Weinstein as the Executive. Green clearly has a long and illustrious future as a filmmaker exposing social ills.