Every time I watch a movie and a cast is predominantly white, I die a little inside. In this day and age, there is absolutely no reason for every role on television or in films to be played by only white actors.
Some may argue that it's not hurting anyone, but from personal experience, I can say that this is far from the truth.
From the time we are born to when we die, we are surrounded by media.
A lot of the media we consume as children or adults attempts to portray a realistic version of our own reality. Because of this, a lot of what we compare our own lives to is what we see on television and in movies.
Well, pretty much all I ever see in movies are white people. This had a huge effect on me growing up, when all I ever did was watch movies. All the heroes in these movies were always white. I wanted to be just like my favorite heroes in movies. This included being the same color as them.
I found myself resenting my African American heritage because every black person I saw onscreen was evil or useless.
I never saw anyone onscreen that looked like me. Because of this, I came to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with my skin tone.
I did everything I could to not be seen as black. I begged my mom to straighten my hair, and I never went outside to avoid tanning and making my skin tone even darker.
I never knew that seeing only white people onscreen is why I did these things until quite recently. If you asked me back then why I did it, I would probably say, "It's just my style." Being white is in style, especially in Hollywood.
There is little to no explanation as to why Hollywood continues to support casting white actors over actors of literally any other color.
Sometimes the argument is that they are just trying to be "historically accurate." But saying that minorities can't be in historical films or shows is nonsensical and exhausting. Black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, and all other minorities were not invented in the 20th century.
Stop being lazy and write minorities into historical pieces.
It may take some extra work, but it's worth it.
The other excuse is that movies and shows depict the "reality" that white people make up the majority of the population. While it is true that white people are a majority of the U.S. population at 60-70%, there is still about 30-40% of minorities in the U.S. that are lacking representation.
Minorities make up about 30-40% of the population. But only around 14% of movies from 2011-2016 had a minority as the lead actor. That's over a span of six years. That's not exactly what I would call "depicting reality."
The last excuse I want to discuss pertains mostly to genres like fantasy or sci-fi.
People will argue that these genres are pure fiction so race doesn't matter. To this day, it baffles me when I see a movie with aliens and somehow all the aliens are white. It's fiction! You can make people fly or have super powers, but you can't make them a different skin color? Ridiculous.
There are about a thousand reasons why it is important to be conscious of assembling a diverse cast when making a movie or television show, but Hollywood seems to ignore all of them.
There is an abundance of talented actors who represent minorities that are primed and ready to take on leading roles. Casting more diversely can only benefit those who watch movies and those who make them, as well.
It's about time for the skin colors we see onscreen to be something other than white.
