By Gabrielle P.
Hollywood. A place where fantasy becomes reality through the works of film. When thinking of Hollywood and film I think of the Grammys, movies, directors, actors and many more talented people that bring together film productions. However, for many years Hollywood has been a sinkhole for women with fearless voices and platforms. Meaning that Hollywood has had an ongoing problem with constantly hiring white heterosexual male directors along with actors and a production team that is all white as well. For a while, there wasn’t much representation of different races and genders on the screen. In the late 1900s, Hollywood was still producing movies that predominantly had white heterosexual men as lead roles and white heterosexual women as the leading lady or the “damsel in distress” as some would refer to women in films in the 1900s.
In the early 2000s, one would think the stereotypical leading white actors would change as we evolve and start to become more comfortable with gender fluidity and have members of our communities use their platforms for speaking out to see more people of color on the screen. There was some representation on the screen of seeing different races and sexualities, but behind the scene is where there was no difference. There were still films being directed by only white older men who have been in the business since maybe their early 20s, for example, James Cameron, Stephen Spielberg, and Quentin Tarantino. Hollywood sticks to tradition, they found what worked and stuck to it. But, that does not mean that their traditions work for them now. By constantly giving this platform to white heterosexual men, the perspective of the audience will only be known by the white man’s view. Giving different races the opportunity to direct and be in
a place to have an influence on the view of the audience, I think that our look at film and how we view the world could be different. Eye-opening for different perspectives and view others’ experiences and show sympathy and gain knowledge from these experiences.
An article was published by The New York Times in 2018 titled, “Hollywood is as White, Straight, and Male as Ever”. This article dissected what the film industry looked like from 2007 to 2017. Looking at how many women got speaking roles, how many people of color were represented, how many women were seen as partly nude and how that affected the views, how many women directors were there in these films and many more statistics representing the injustice of how women are perceived and shown in the film industry. A category that had zero representation within the top 100 films in 2017 was the amount of transgender, gay, bisexual, or lesbian representation within films.
Another article that was published on reflecting on the UCLA Diversity Report. Breaking down the different roles being fulfilled by different races. For example, African Americans statistics are showing higher but Asian Americans and Latinos are still underrepresented. They also discuss the male presence on sets and how much men outnumber women on the screen. Honestly, as we evolve as a country and learn from each other from day to day. I think that having equal opportunity should already be no question of why isn’t there enough diversity and representation of powerful women on the screen along with members of the LGBTQ+ community. Coming to terms with what our country has already accomplished with protecting LGBTQ+ member rights and other laws that have been passed to equally represent our communities. The film industry should follow swiftly, but why is there a constant gender pay gap or why is there not an equal representation for all genders on the screen? As previously mentioned, Hollywood is old money and old tradition. However, needing to come to terms with the times and follow what is appropriate for the now, not the tradition of the past.