GLAAD released its 2024 Studio Responsibility Index, finding an alarmingly low amount of queer and trans characters in 2023 films and TV series, oftentimes still being blatantly offensive.
“It’s our job to provide you with the tools and support to tell fair and inclusive stories,” said GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis. “This is so important because we are seeing a direct correlation between a very sharp rise in LGBTQ+ violence and over [600] anti-LGBTQ+ laws [being introduced] this year.”
Over 600 anti-transgender laws were introduced this year alone, whereas in 2023 there were a record-breaking 400 anti-trans laws introduced.
The SRI found that in 2023, only two films featured a trans character.
The report further found that not only is representation “alarmingly low,” but it is “also at times, blatantly offensive.”
Yesterday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a report highlighting hate crimes against LGBTQ people, showing an increase from the previous years.
Megan Townsend, the GLAAD Media Institute’s senior director of entertainment research and analysis, stated that the need for more LGBTQ representation is more crucial than ever because more Americans than ever now identify as part of the LGBTQ community.
“One in five Americans identify as LGBTQ+ and this is a figure that has gone up,” said Townsend. “Super majorities of both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ 18-24 year olds actively seek out queer inclusive media.”
The purpose of this Studio Responsibility Index is not only to highlight the lack of representation on Hollywood screens, but also to protect the progress that has already been made.
GLAAD uses research and analysis of ten major studios that include A24, Amazon, Apple TV+, Lionsgate, NBC Universal, Netflix, Paramount Global, Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery.
The studio responsibility index explores films across five genres, comedy, drama, family, fantasy/sci-fi/action and horror.
Each studio receives a rating on the scale of excellent, good, fair, insufficient, poor and failing to provide with enough valid representation.
The SRI also uses The Vito Russo Test, which was inspired by The Bechdel-Wallace Test. The Bechdel-Wallace Test was named after Alison Bechdel and Liz Wallace, who developed it to measure women’s representation on screen. To pass, the film must feature a conversation between two female characters, where they don’t mention a man.
The Vito Russo Test, therefore, was inspired to measure LGBTQ representation on screen. GLAAD developed its own set of criteria to analyze how characters are represented within a narrative. In 2023, 71 percent of the 256 films analyzed passed the Vito Russo Test. This marks a consistent rise in this specific part of the report.
The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaAssociation.com.
