Study Finds Latinos Are Still Poorly Represented in Hollywood

Beginning in the 20^th century, Hollywood has dominated the world's entertainment scene by capturing their imagination and providing an escape from reality. Whether a film travels back in time or speeds to the future, the characters possess human qualities and relatable problems, which keeps us coming back for more.

As the film medium has exploded to a multi-billion dollar industry that spans continents, researchers have been busy at work studying the effects that film has on us as a whole.

A recent study carried out by the USC Annenberg School for Communications & Journalism found that only one in four speaking roles of the 'Top 100' grossing films of 2013 was portrayed by a minority group. A 25-percent minority rate doesn't seem terrible at first glance, but when the minority category is broken down further, researchers found that Latinos hold only 4.9 percent of speaking roles.

Los Angeles County's Latino demographic makes up 48.3 percent of the total population (that's more than Caucasians). While Latinos are now the largest population in California, they are still only being represented in a small slice of Hollywood roles, which is an inaccurate depiction of reality to say the least. 

Alex Nogales is the president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition and has battled for years to force Hollywood to paint a realistic picture of the world that most Americans live in.

"There's a big disconnect between the movie makers and the community that surrounds them," Nogales told LA Weekly. "You would think they would have married into our culture already."

While there are some instances where casting Latinos in roles would be historically inaccurate, the overall sentiment is that most Hollywood movies take place in modern times. Modern day movies should reflect the times and the present populations of minorities. 

"We're going to have to go visit with the studios and remind them again who is making their films successful," Nogales told LA Weekly. "Who is going to continue to be a bigger and bigger audience? We not only expect, but we demand, to be included."

Hollywood's lack of inclusion for minorities is nothing new. Throughout the 20^th century African American's were only allowed a small segment of roles, most of the time condemned to play 'service giving' characters or stereotypical roles. Eventually the film industry will come to see that when a minority group is buying one out of four tickets, they expect to be represented onscreen.