Lack Of Diversity In Film

Moreover, lack of diversity of racial/ethnic minorities is evident in Hollywood film and Television. The hegemony of actors in film and television are white males followed by white females. Characters played by People of Colour often lack dimension, playing only stereotypical one-dimensional roles. As quoted by Erigha (2015), “Stereotypes portray groups in controlling ways, labelling some groups and their perspectives as socially normative and others as deviant, troubled, and problematic”. As a result ideologies of race and stereotypes are sustained, as there are limited positive representations that subvert negative portrayals due to the lack of diversity in film and television. Despite multicultural demographics throughout the world, Hollywood film industries still cast white actors over People of Colour, even if the role was meant for them. For example in the 2015 film Pan, the character of Tiger Lily is described as a “Native-American daughter of a powerful chief” (Reilly 2014). However casting directors used white actress Rooney Mara for

At least in the cartoon way right? She doesn’t even speak. But really it was in the script. I was really lucky that there was such a great female character that they created in the film. I don’t know how much I brought to it. It was really in the script.

Similarly, when African American actor Michael B. Jordan was cast as the role of Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four (a character who is originally white), this caused many reactions from fans of the Fantastic Four franchise on social media such as Twitter. Jordan accused trolls on twitter of racism, and summarised his opinions to Entertainment Weekly;

It used to bother me, but it doesn’t anymore. I can see everybody’s perspectives, and I know I can’t ask the audience to forget 50 years of comic books. But the world is a little more diverse in 2015 than when the Fantastic Four comic came out in