Los Angeles (USA) (EFE)
According to the study, presented every two years by Netflix, 55% of all movies and series on the entertainment platform that were made between 2018 and 2021 had a girl or woman as the lead or co-star.
26% of the directors who led the platform’s films in 2021 were women, in contrast to 12.7% of the highest-grossing films from other studios that same year.
Furthermore, that year 38% of TV show creators were women, a higher number compared to the 26.9% in 2018 and even higher than the industry norm of 33%.
“It is clear that the goals of inclusion can be achieved when everyone, men and women, works to change, and that is exactly what we are seeing in the leading roles and in the supporting roles,” the activist said in a panel conducted by Netflix, USC academic and Dr. Stacy L. Smith, in charge of the analysis.
Ethnic diversity, key to equity
The study also found that there is an increase in the productions of women of color as directors, going from 5.6% in 2018 to 11.8% in 2021, while 27.7% of the films and 54, 75% of the 2021 series featured their participation as leaders or co-leaders.
In general matters, 40% of all the projects of the platform have protagonists and secondary actors belonging to a racial ethnicity with little representation on the screen.
However, the document showed that the Latino community continues to be underrepresented and below the metrics of the US population, but that there was an increase in the inclusion of black and Asian protagonists.
LGBTI community and disability on Netflix
According to Smith, the representation of people from the LGBTI community “must improve”, since although there is a significant increase in their participation in television productions, the number of protagonists in the cinema is still very low.
Likewise, only 7% of movie plots were focused on a character with a disability in 2021 and most of them were white men.
“Having data is what really begins to break down the myth about the success and failure (of productions) (…). Decisions are better when you look at an aggregated set of data to make decisions and avoid making decisions based on a singular experience,” Smith said.
The researcher also said that the success or failure of a production has more to do with the distribution and support that large entertainment companies give to the content, rather than with the talent and origin of the person or their sexual identity. and physical conditions.
“It is not a problem of the public or of the artists. It is a problem of the executives and the industry, which are not inclusive, ”she pointed out.
In 2021, the content platform created the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity, with the intention of providing job opportunities in the entertainment industry to talents from all over the world.