Annenberg study reveals race bias in top-grossing movies

Minorities are underrepresented in popular films, according to a recent study which looked at character roles in movies from 2007 to 2012, released last Wednesday by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

The study, which examined 500 top-grossing movies released at the box office over that six-year period and 20,000 speaking characters, found biases in the way certain races were depicted. For instance, Hispanic women were likely to play sexualized roles, while black male characters were the least likely demographic to appear in committed relationships.

The report is the latest in a series of studies Annenberg is conducting on race, gender and ethnicity.

“We are interested in the portrayals of diversity in media,” said associate professor Stacy L. Smith, the study’s principal investigator.

Many students said they were bothered by the typecasting of minorities by Hollywood that the study showed.

“My dad is a [black] actor so this kind of hits home,” said Anaka Morris, a sophomore majoring in international relations. “He tends to play policemen or criminals.”

Students said this pattern of pigeonholing minority actors to stereotypical roles is frustrating.

“Asians are portrayed as socially awkward and unadjusted to American culture,” said Tiffany Kuan, a sophomore majoring in business administration.

The study found that 76.3 percent of all speaking characters in the movies examined were white. Ryan Green, a sophomore majoring in critical studies said this underrepresentation of races was not surprising sees a pattern of minor roles being given to minorities.

“There are a lot of comedy movies where they have a black side character that makes all the quips. But [the character] is always extraneous,” Green said.

The imbalanced casting might be the result of underrepresented non-white directors. Only 33 of the 565 directors of top-grossing movies were black, and only two were black women.

Researchers found a strong correlation between a director’s race and the race of his or her cast. When a non-black director casted a film, 9.9 percent of speaking characters were black. Under a black director, 52.6 percent of speaking characters were black.

“A lot of Oscar-winning films don’t have minorities unless [they] are set during slavery. Why can’t we just have an Oscar-winning film with colored actors that doesn’t have to do with race?” Morris said.

Some said that the unequal representation of minorities in film could be easily overlooked, especially if viewers aren’t aware that there is a disparity.

“It’s sad to say this, but it’s an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ problem,” said Michael Lim, a freshman majoring in biomedical engineering. “We don’t realize it until we think about it.”

Likewise, Morris said she isn’t conscious of race when watching films.

“I’m so used to watching movies with all white people acting that I don’t even question it anymore,” she said.

The USC research team behind the study hopes that their findings introduce a conversation with and about the film industry.

“One of the most rewarding aspects of this research is observing the impact it has had on our students at Annenberg,” Project Administrator Marc Choueiti said. “It is great to watch them become thoughtful and critical consumers of the media.”

Choueiti said the research is important to consider because mainstream films fail to reflect the world their audiences live in.

“All individuals deserve a chance to be seen and heard, and when some groups are underrepresented in top-grossing films we lose that opportunity,” he said.

Morris, who plans to enter the entertainment industry after graduation, said she hopes that she can help to change the status quo one day.

“I hate Madea,” she said. “The first few Tyler Perry movies I saw bothered me. … I just want to make films with more diversity in portrayals of race.”

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