Katherine Pieper: Last News

Barbie may have rescued the box office in 2023, but she could not tip the balance for representation of women in films.

Angelique Jackson In a year where the box office was dominated by the $1.4 billion-grossing “Barbie” — produced by its star Margot Robbie and directed by Greta Gerwig — one might expect to find a plethora of other hit films led by women and girls among Hollywood’s top earners. However, 2023 marked a historic low for women in leading roles among the year’s 100 top-grossing films, according to the latest USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report. Researchers led by Dr.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter The 2023 Variety Gotham Week Expo kicked off in New York City on Thursday with a series of panels focused on diversity and inclusion. The first panel of the day was “Deep Dive: The Inclusion List” with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative in collaboration with the Adobe Foundation. Panelists included Dr.

A new study by USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has found little improvement in casting among marginalized groups in Hollywood’s most popular films, this despite years of advocacy for more representative characters on the big screen.

Angelique Jackson The annual report from USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that Universal’s “Bros” accounted for 80% of the transgender characters in the 100 top-grossing movies of 2022. According to the study, just 87 of 4,169 speaking or named characters (2.1%) in 2022 movies were LGBTQ+. Of that number, five characters identified as transgender and four of them appeared in “Bros.” Written by and starring Billy Eichner, the film made history as the first gay rom-com to be given a wide theatrical release by a major studio and featured a cast almost exclusively made up of LGBTQ actors.

Female actors of color had a banner year in 2022, according to the latest report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, which found a “significant increase” in the number of top-grossing films with girls and women of color in leading and co-leading roles last year.

A new report released by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative investigates the portrayal of Muslim characters in TV, revealing that not only are Muslims nearly absent from episodic content, but they are still stereotyped in negative ways. The report, titled “Erased or Extremists: The Stereotypical View of Muslims in Popular Episodic Series” comes from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, with support from Academy Award winner Riz Ahmed and his production company Left Handed Films, the Ford Foundation and Pillars Fund. The 2022 study explores quantitative and qualitative aspects of Muslim representation in 200 top-rated television shows from 2018 and 2019 aired in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, ultimately highlighting a disheartening reality. The full report is available here.

Wilson Chapman editorPrime Video has announced “Voices: Women Innovating Hollywood,” a special virtual event celebrating Women’s History Month.The conference will feature panels and programming centering women in the entertainment industry, from prominent actors to behind-the-scenes talent. The event will open with a special introduction from Jerrie Johnson and Shoniqua Shandai, who star in the Prime Video comedy series “Harlem.”Events that take place throughout the day will include a discussion with “One Day at a Time” and “With Love” showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett, a panel with prominent casting directors Angelique Midthunder and Carla Hool and a talk from Dr.