Maybe it’s my own naivety in believing that the film industry isn’t as singular as we all claim it to be, but it has become increasingly more apparent that the film industry within the United States has a serious bias for race. These execs and Hollywood producers will tell you that it isn’t true and begin to point you to movies with Asian-American and African-American actors with the lead. That’s great. But for every movie that has a racially diverse lead role, there are at least ten more that only have white leading roles. In the broadest sense possible, the problem lies with Hollywood being run by narrow-minded folks.

As much as I hate to write this, film and cinema are the expression of art and creativity, but Hollywood, just like almost everything else in this country, is purely an industry. I can’t hate that. As a form of business, you would want to maximize on profit the best way possible. The problem for Hollywood is that maximizing such profits borders on the idea of misrepresentation and almost tips into full blown racism when it comes to movies.

Hollywood has been stuck for some time in the past with the poor distribution and diversity of roles. One would think that by now the movie industry would have found the value in diversity, but their sense of value is strictly from a financial standpoint.

Just to paint a picture of how “diverse” the film industry is, in the span of nearly 89 years (1927 – 2016) only 8% of actors who won the best actor award have been people of color and only 1% of actresses who won the best actress award has been a person of color. Additionally, to further delve into this statistic, neither best actor nor actress award has seen an Asian winner. I guess this just means that white actors and actresses are the greatest of all time, right? Don’t be ridiculous. It just means the industry isn’t trying hard enough to find diverse talent.

I refuse to believe that there are only white actors, writers, and producers that can create the best content. Within the Academy branches 98% of producers are white, 98% of writers are white, and 88% of actors are white. On top of that, 93% of the academy voters are white while the rest are people of color. And this lack of diversity is so lop sided that we can’t even break down the “people of color” portion into different racial categories (African-American/Black, Asian, Latin American, etc.). People of color is just a clumped portion of everyone who isn’t white.

I have seen the increase of diverse roles within the past twenty years, but the rate of exposure just doesn’t match the truly diverse statistics of our country. So, what is making me break out my issue with Hollywood? It’s the choice of movies that Hollywood wants to promote. I heard about a movie that will depict the criminal case behind the deaths of late rappers Tupac and Biggie, and at first glance I had no problems with it. It is supposedly a movie being shot from the perspective of the detective who handled those cases. I believe there could have been many different ways this movie could go, but it is an “informative” movie about the detective and his time on the case, so there is no real problem that I have with this film. Fast forward to about a few weeks later and I see a trailer for “Birth of the Dragon,” which is an upcoming film about the legendary fight between kung fu masters Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man. Awesome, right? I thought so too until I realized that it is told in the perspective of one of Bruce Lee’s white students. The further problem is that this “student” wasn’t even a real student or even the actual person who helped set up the legendary meeting. So, we’re essentially being told the story of Bruce Lee’s rise into martial arts deity from a made up white character. Why didn’t they tell this story from the perspective of David Chin, the actual person who helped set up the fight? Do you see the problem? Hollywood execs see fit to change things as they please in order to fit their own agenda.

I find myself giving Hollywood too much leeway at times when it comes to casting. I am a firm believer in sticking to the source material, just as much as I am a firm believer in re-imagination and creativity. I stuck behind “Hollywood’s” voice when people leapt to dismiss Idris Elba as the next James Bond by giving the same argument of “source material”, even though I thought Idris Elba would have been a great James Bond. I even accepted Marvel studios’ decision to stick to their source for “Iron Fist” being a white male lead, even though I was strongly hoping for a fresh take and re-imagination of a character with Asian descent. Especially because DC Studios found it necessary to change the background of one of their most classically “white” characters, Aquaman, to fit a more Polynesian mythos for Jason Mamoa to better portray. I started seeing the problem with Hollywood after the “Ghost in the Shell” casting debacle, and the studios’ decision to hire Scarlett Johannson and keep everything else as Japanese as possible. There is no change in character name or even character background to fit the portrayal. Again, I refuse to believe that there were absolutely no talented Asian actresses who could have filled that space.

Fortunately, TV has been a solid ground for diversity within the last decade as more lead roles that aren’t white have come into play. Still a little hazy, but TV has made better progress than Hollywood in my opinion. But the problem for TV is that they are misrepresenting characters. When it comes to shows with the white roles, the supporting characters of color all seem to be a grossly stereotypical and misrepresented.

On top of that, there almost seems like there is a casting “limit” when it comes to characters of color. Aziz Ansari does a great job of depicting this issue with race in the film/tv industry on his show “Master of None” (Episode 4: Indians on TV). As I’ve said, I believe that TV has made some good strides in fixing their misrepresentation issues; better strides than Hollywood at the very least. One example of TVs change in race/character portrayal comes from TV’s “Supergirl” and its decision to make Jimmy Olsen (who has been a white and nerdy photographer in classic portrayals) black and a better looking portrayal from the classic version.

I don’t necessarily believe that Hollywood and the TV industry are both full-out racist in their casting and writing decisions, but it’s almost hard to argue. I just believe the industry has become more focused on obtaining financial prosperity rather than promoting artistic expression. It’s all about marketability in this industry and the sad truth in many Hollywood executives' minds is that white roles are marketable to them. So, where is Hollywood heading? I like to stay optimistic, and I see the [very] slow progress that has come in small instances. We are only recently seeing re-imaginations of roles that have been traditionally for white actors now being filled by African American and Black actors (Magnificent Seven, I am Legend, Suicide Squad, etc.). However, this “change” is progressing too lethargically, and seems to promote one direction at a time. In an industry where network and connection is key, it’s difficult for most people of color to find that right network to find promotion. Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll see a live action “Calvin and Hobbes” movie with an Asian child as Calvin or a re-imagination of “Gulliver’s Travels” with an actor of Native American descent or a fresh look at “The Three Musketeers” with Black actors or a live take on “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” with a Latin American actor. This is all in high hopes, but something that needs to happen. The United States is the most diverse country in the world from race to religion to sexual orientation to gender decisions, but for some reason the film industry finds value in only one specific side of things. I could be the one who is being narrow minded, but I hope there will be a rise in film diversity quicker than the rate Hollywood is changing at now.