While “Moonlight” won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, “Beauty and the Beast” included Disney’s first gay character and “Power Rangers” featured a lesbian superhero in the yellow ranger, Hollywood is far from being completely LGBT-inclusive.
GLAAD released its fifth annual Studio Responsibility Index (SRI) and reported that from 125 film releases from major studios, only 23 (18.4 %) films included LGBTQ-identifying characters. 83% of those films had a gay male character. Lesbian characters went from 23% in 2015 to 35% in 2016. Bisexual representation came in at 13%. Transgender representation was merely one character in “Zoolander 2.” The character, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, was used as the punchline to a joke.
Racial diversity saw a dip in representation. From the LGBT characters of the last year, 48 were White (69%), nine were Black/African American (13%), four were Asian/Pacific Islander (6%) and one was Latinx (1%). Eight characters (11%) were identified as non-human. Overall only 20% of characters were people of color, a decrease from 25.5% in 2015 and 32.1% in 2014.
Studios were judged based on a rating system of “Excellent,” “Good,” “Insufficient,” “Poor” or “Failing.” Universal Pictures received a grade of “Insufficient.” 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers were given a “Poor’” rating. Lionsgate Entertainment, Sony Pictures and Walt Disney Studios received a “Failing” rating. No studios were “Excellent” or “Good.”
The study also notes that some known LGBT characters’ identities have been erased or downplayed in their film roles. Harley Quinn’s bisexuality, a characteristic in the comics, is excluded from her film portrayal in “Suicide Squad.” “Deadpool” is pansexual but was never described as such in the film.
“With many of the most popular TV shows proudly including LGBTQ characters and stories, the time has come for the film industry to step up and show the full diversity of the world that movie audiences are living in today instead and end the outdated humor seen in many films,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “Films like ‘Moonlight’ prove there is a huge opportunity to not only tell LGBTQ stories worthy of Oscar gold, but to open the hearts and minds of audiences here and around the world in places where these stories can be a lifeline to the people who need it most.”
View the complete study here.
