Amid today's heated streaming wars, it seems that diversity is the secret weapon.
Women and people of color played a critical role in boosting streaming movie ratings in 2023, even as they continued to face relatively limited opportunities and resources behind the camera, according to the second part of a Hollywood Diversity Report from UCLA posted Thursday.
The report, which examined the 100 highest-rated English-language scripted films released last year on major streaming services, found that women represented the majority of viewers in nine of the 10 most-watched streaming releases and in 17 of the Top 20. People of color were overrepresented as viewers of nine of the top 10 and 18 of the top 20 streaming movies, including Netflix hits like the Jennifer Lopez revenge thriller “The Mother” and the Kenya Barris-directed romantic comedy “You People.” .
The findings echo the first part of UCLA's diversity report, released in March, which found that women and people of color also drove the biggest box office winners of 2023, even as they remained underrepresented in the film industry.
“2023 clearly shows that diversity in film makes business sense at home and in theaters,” Darnell Hunt, executive vice chancellor and provost at UCLA, said in a statement accompanying its release. “Diversity is not an impediment. It's a tie.”
The UCLA study found that the streaming landscape as a whole experienced a contraction last year, with the number of English-language films falling 28.6%, from 161 in 2022 to 115 in 2023, as studios scaled back projects. and budgets in the postwar period. pandemic era amid impending strikes.
Despite these cuts, the findings underscore the importance of diversity in attracting audiences, with films that feature diverse casts and crews, such as Netflix's Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler comedy “Murder Mystery 2,” attracting greater participation and ratings.
Ana-Christina Ramón, director of the UCLA Media and Entertainment Research Initiative and co-founder of the report with Hunt, noted that diverse content has a particularly strong appeal for younger audiences, who have become more accustomed to seeing themselves represented in movies. animated and on social networks. media. “That's how you keep subscribers: give them what they respond to and clearly want to see,” Ramón said.
The romantic comedy “You People,” starring Lauren London and Jonah Hill, was among the best Netflix movies of 2023.
(Lewis Parish/Netflix)
For the first time in the report's 11-year history, actors of color achieved proportional representation in leading roles for streaming movies, accounting for 45% of lead roles, a significant increase from 33.3% in 2022. Women also achieved proportional representation as protagonists. although its general presence in the distributions was left behind. Movies with a mostly diverse cast accounted for more than a third of the top movies streaming in 2023 (35%), up 10% from the previous year.
Behind the camera, streaming offers more opportunities for women and people of color compared to the theatrical realm. For directors of color, their share of streaming films reached 31%, compared to 22.9% for theatrical releases. Female directors also directed a higher proportion of streaming films, at 31%, almost double their proportion in theatrical films.
Still, financial constraints remain a major obstacle. Female directors were more likely to work on lower-budget films, with the vast majority of their projects costing less than $20 million. By contrast, big-budget films remained predominantly the domain of white directors.
“Creators representing diverse backgrounds face a mixed situation,” said co-author and UCLA doctoral candidate Michael Tran. “On the one hand, they have the opportunity to lead or participate in these streaming projects, but then the studios are holding back financially and there is less room to show success.”
As the entertainment landscape continues to undergo seismic shifts in the streaming era and studios face increasing pressure from Wall Street to show profits, the report's authors conclude that investing in diverse content is not a gamble but a proven strategy for the success.
“We know that investing in diversity is not a risk,” said Hunt, who is also a professor of sociology and African American studies. “It should be considered a strategic business imperative if Hollywood is to survive.”
You can read the full report here.
