Who wouldn’t want to star in a successful Hollywood blockbuster? Enough money to build a mountain of gold and such a whirlwind of fame it would make your head spin. It’s certainly possible; Robert Downey Jr is rumoured to be accepting 100 million dollars to star in the upcoming Avengers sequels. And that’s nothing compared to the net worth of actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp or Tom Cruise, all reaching far over 200 million. These leading men have much in common, from their charming, charismatic portrayals of many different characters, to their equally charming good looks. But ultimately, the one thing they all share is the one thing that makes Hollywood so infuriatingly out of touch with our modern, multi racial and global world: they’re all white men.
Despite acting classes being filled to the brim with dozens of hopeful young girls and just a scattered two or three boys, Hollywood is without a doubt, a man’s world. A talented white man is can often score himself the lead in a major movie, while his equally talented female counterpart is lucky to be playing ‘the girlfriend’, as long as she is willing to strip into her underwear like Star Trek’s Alice Eve or Iron Man’s Gwyneth Paltrow, or just take it all off like Titanic’s Kate Winslet. Some movies take their over-sexualizing even farther by casting female characters entirely on the basis of their looks and their ‘sexiness’. Megan Fox admitted to receiving her role in Transformers after an audition where she had to wash Michael Bay’s car as ‘sexily’ as possible.
Black men might score the occasional lead playing a role that literally could not have been played by a white actor, such as Forest Whittaker in The Butler or Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave. And let’s not even begin to mention the countless unmemorable supporting roles (What was the name of the black guy in Iron Man, again? Rhode? Rhodes? Rhodey?) Even the very biggest black names in Hollywood such as Will Smith and Morgan Freeman both hold a net worth over 150 million dollars less than the likes of Johnny Depp or Tom Hanks. As for everybody else, you might as well simply not bother to audition. When you look at the list of highest grossing films of all time, the trend is the same when it comes to the lead; white and male, without a woman or a hint of multiculturalism in sight. The Avengers? Check. Iron Man 3? Check. Skyfall? Check. Transformers? Harry Potter? Pirates of the Caribbean? Check, check and check. In fact the only non-white character on this list is in Avatar, and he’s blue. Believe it or not, but out of the top 50 highest grossing films of all time, only 3 have a female lead, and not one a minority star.
The problems only increase when you look at the amount of roles that should have been given to minority actors but instead were handed to yet another white star. This is known in Hollywood as whitewashing, and it’s disturbingly common in all kinds of films, from action-adventures to award winning dramas. Prince of Persia? Of the three leads, not one was Arabic, let alone Iranian. The Lone Ranger, which was the story of a cowboy and his Native American friend, starred Johnny Depp in white makeup with a crow on his head. Even Oscar-winning Argo could be accused of whitewashing; Ben Affleck’s character in reality should have been played by a Latino actor. The worst case however, is in The Last Airbender, a film based off the brilliant and much loved animated series. The original show is set in an Asian-inspired world complete with an ethnically diverse cast of characters. So who does the movie cast in the leads? Three random white kids who can barely act, while the villains stay as multi-racial as ever.
These problems exist even in the most popular and universally loved of entertainment. Take for example, The Hunger Games. While definitely succeeding when it comes to gender equality, The Hunger Games gave way to much controversy over questions of race. Katniss is described in the novel as having olive skin and dark eyes, suggesting many different ethnicities from Caucasian to Latino to Native American. Yet in spite of this, the casting call asked only for “Caucasian actresses between the age of 15 and 20”. You could practically hear the screams of frustrated young actresses at hearing this terribly racist news. There might have been no one as suited for the part as Jennifer Lawrence was, but it wasn't fair not to even give them a chance.
It seems easy to dismiss the previous examples, and to focus on all the positive change that seems to be happening in Hollywood when it comes to race, such as all the award-nominations and wins for actresses such as Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis. But as Davis herself said, she was nominated for playing a maid, the exact same role Hattie McDaniel was playing when she won her Oscar in 1939, the very first African American to do so. When you look at the highest profile black roles of 2013, what do you find? A butler and a slave. How is that equality? Why aren’t black actors and actresses getting non-race specific roles like doctors or parents or superheroes?
Additionally, even with Octavia Spencer’s Oscar win for The Help, black actors have only won 4% of all academy awards for acting. That might not seem like much, but it’s still better than Asian actors who have only won 4 in total.
But enough about race; let’s talk about what might arguably be an even bigger issue in Hollywood today: gender. Women hold very little power in Hollywood, be it behind the camera, or in front of it. Despite women buying more movie tickets than men, only a third of speaking roles in films go to women, a number that drops to 28% when you look at children’s movies. In fact, in children’s films, only 11% of casts are gender balanced.
Objectifying women starts out young as well. Studies have shown that in movies, partial nudity and revealing clothing was just as prevalent among 13-20 year old girls as it was for 21-29 year old women. Just look at how Tinkerbell or Ariel dress, and you’ll see that this is no joke.
Good role models for impressionable young girls are becoming rarer and rarer these days. For every Hermione or Katniss, there’s a dozen Bella Swans or random sexy Bond girl #24. And Hermione isn’t even the main character, not to mention both girls came from the minds of female authors and not male screenwriters. When asked why he writes ‘strong female characters’, Joss Whedon, creator of such masterpieces as ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Firefly’, replied: “Because you’re still asking me that question.”
Behind the camera, the problem is even worse. Only 5% of all directors working in Hollywood are women, a number that hasn’t improved in over 15 years. And considering there is only one female director for every 15 male ones, it isn’t surprising that Kathryn Bigelow was the first and only woman to ever win the Best Director Oscar back in 2009. Furthermore, if you look at the list of wide releases in 2013, only 3 are directed by women: Carrie, a remake of the beloved horror classic; Frozen, Disney’s next post-Tangled CGI fairytale; and Peeples, a Tyler Perry movie. Even romantic comedies and tear-jerker dramas, movies almost exclusively designed to appeal to women, are consistently given to men to direct. How will women’s stories ever be told and shared if there’s no one there to tell them?
So the next time you step foot into a movie theater, the next time you sniff and munch on that nauseatingly buttery popcorn or nestle into the embrace of that worn old leathery sofa in the basement, the cool, comforting grip of the remote in your hand, think about what you’re watching. Think about whom you’re watching. Question it, criticize it, discuss it. Did Princess Leia really need to be in a gold bikini in that scene? Why aren’t there any black superheroes? Why are the credits for director, writer, cinematographer, editor, producer, executive producer, sub-assistant to the assistant of the stunt coordinator, all male names? Movies today might be bigger, better and more beautiful than their 1930s counterparts, but where it counts, when it comes down to the people that inhabit these cinematic wonders, they might as well be from the dark ages.