Less than 1% of Hollywood movie characters in 2017 were LGBT, new report finds
A study released this week has discovered some troubling results.
A new report has revealed that less than 1% of all characters in Hollywood movies last year were LGBT.
Released earlier this week, the report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative examined inequality in the film industry between 2007 and 2017 and found some shocking results.
The study analysed 4,403 characters from the 100 most popular movies of 2017 and found that, of the 0.7% that were LGB, 51.6% were gay, 29% were lesbians and 19.4% were bisexual. The study also found that there were no transgender characters.
White gay men received the most representation out of the LGBT community. Of the 31 LGB characters that appeared in popular 2017 movies, 67.7% were white and 32.3% were people of colour.
According to the report, however, there hasn’t been much progression in the inclusion of LGBT characters in film since 2014.
Analysing 400 films that were released between 2014 and 2017, only 83 characters were gay, 29 lesbian and 22 bisexual. Meanwhile, only one transgender character was recorded from the 400 films.
The report, which you can read in full here, then made suggestions for Hollywood to improve gender equality in movies by urging writers to add five female roles to their scripts per year.
The report stated: “Adding five female characters allows for intersectional diversity as well – these women can be from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, can be from the LGBT community, and can be depicted with a disability.”