USC Gave Hollywood A Failing Grade In Diversity

USC recently released The Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity, which Hollywood failed spectacularly. Here are some of the abysmal stats, as reprinted from Entertainment Weekly:

"Just 28.3 percent of all speaking characters across 414 films, television, and digital episodes in 2014-2015 were from 'underrepresented racial/ethnic groups,' the study reported — almost 10 percentage points less than the makeup of the U.S. population — and 33.5 percent of speaking characters were female. Two percent of all speaking characters identified as LGBT, and only seven transgender characters appeared in the films and shows evaluated for the study."

"Behind the camera, women made up just 15.2 percent of all directors and 28.9 percent of writers. The study also found that less than one-quarter (22.6 percent) of series creators across broadcast, cable, and streaming content were women."

"The CARD study also an 'inclusion index' that graded 10 media companies based on their representation of women and people of color both in front of and behind the camera. None of the six film distributors studied received a passing grade on the index. Television and digital content outlets scored higher, with the Walt Disney Company and the CW Network recognized as the strongest performers in television, while Hulu and Amazon tied for streaming content."

Stacy Smith, the author of the study, is quoted as follows: “This is no mere diversity problem. This is an inclusion crisis. Over half of the content we examined features no Asian or Asian-American characters, and over 20 percent featured no African-American characters. It is clear that the ecosystem of entertainment is exclusionary.”