Hollywood’s attempts to encourage diversity ‘performative’, study finds

Two new studies show female film-makers still under-represented despite recent successes such as Barbie

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie may have been the top-grossing film of 2023, but women are still dramatically under-represented behind the camera in Hollywood, according to two major studies of the industry.

At the same time, major studios that pledged to re-examine their diversity and inclusion practices in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 still fail to produce many films from people of color, according to USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. The center’s latest report, titled Inclusion in the Director’s Chair, called the entertainment industry’s pledges to promote inclusion “performative acts” and “not real steps towards fostering change”.