LOS GATOS, Calif. and TORONTO — Last week, in a blog post attributed to its co-CEO and chief content officer Ted Sarandos, Netflix announced it has created the US$100-million Netflix Fund for Creative Equity, which will invest in organizations and programs providing training and job placement opportunities for emerging talent from underrepresented communities.
“We will invest US$100 million dollars over the next five years in a combination of external organizations with a strong track record of setting underrepresented communities up for success in the TV and film industries, as well as bespoke Netflix programs that will help us to identify, train and provide job placement for up-and-coming talent globally,” wrote Sarandos.
In addition, Netflix also announced the release of a new study from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, which studied Netflix’s US-commissioned films and series over a two-year period from 2018 to 2019 to analyze the diversity of the streamer’s on-screen talent as well as its content creators, producers, writers and directors. An executive summary of the report is available here, and the full report is available here.
In a press release issued last week, the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative identified six major trends which emerged from the study:
- Netflix achieved gender equality in the most prominent roles: Overall, 52% of all leads and co-leads across film and series were girls and women. 48.4% of all the films evaluated and 54.5% of series were driven by female-identified leads/co-leads. In film, Netflix outpaced the broader industry as 23% of all directors were women (vs. 7.6% of top-grossing films), 25.2% of writers (vs. 16.7%), and 29% of producers (vs. 19%). In series, women were more likely to be Netflix series creators and writers in comparison to broader industry statistics.
- Netflix’s commitment to racial/ethnic inclusion is increasing over time: Overall, 31.9% of all leads/co-leads were from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group across both series and film content. There was a notable uptick from 2018 to 2019 for both film and series, with a full 40% of the leads/co-leads in 2019 films being from underrepresented groups. Gains were also observed in the percentage of main cast roles held by underrepresented actors, with a 6.6 percentage point increase found in film (32.3% to 38.9%) and an 11.4 percentage point increase in series (27% to 38.4%) from 2018 to 2019.
- Women of colour are prominent in some areas in Netflix content, but at risk of exclusion in others: Netflix films featured girls and women of colour in 19% of all leading/co-leading roles, putting the company’s content above the percentage of underrepresented female-identified leads across the 200 top-grossing films from 2018 to 2019. However, series lagged behind for men and women of colour, with only 10% or less of leads/co-leads from underrepresented racial/ethnic communities.
- “Strong Black lead” is more than a marketing slogan:2% of stories overall on Netflix featured Black leads/co-leads, with 21.4% in film and 10.8% in series. Black-led/co-led series more than doubled from 2018 to 2019, from 6.3% to 14.4%. The percentage of Black main cast was 19.5% overall, but increased from 16.2% to 22.7% in 2019. In addition, the percentage of Black directors and writers both increased from 2018 to 2019 in Netflix films. In series, Netflix worked with a higher percentage of Black series creators in 2019 than 2018.
- Netflix needs to cultivate storytelling opportunities for specific racial/ethnic groups: Beginning with Latinx characters, only 2.6% of leads/co-leads and 4.5% of main cast were from this group. Behind the camera, only 7 Latinx creatives worked as directors, writers or producers on Netflix films, and fewer than 3% of series creators, producers, writers or directors were Latinx. In addition, looking at Asian cast and crew, 4% of leads/co-leads and 7% of main cast were Asian. No more than 5% of directors, writers, producers or creators across films and series were Asian. Very few cast members or creatives were Middle Eastern/North African, American Indian/Alaskan Native, or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander in Netflix films and series.
- The LGBTQ+ community and people with disabilities rarely see themselves reflected on screen: Only 2.3% of all leads/co-leads, 5.3% of main cast and 2.8% of speaking characters in Netflix films and series combined were LGBTQ. Of all LGBTQ characters, 40.2% were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. Looking at the depiction of characters with disabilities, only 5.3% of stories featured leads/co-leads with a disability (which included 11.9% of leads/co-leads in film), and 4.7% of the main cast and 2.1% of all speaking characters were shown with a disability across Netflix films and series.
Corus releases diversity and inclusion progress report
As part of its commitment to increase equity, diversity and inclusion within its organization, Corus Entertainment released today a quarterly update on its progress, as of the end of February 2021. In June 2020, it hired DiversiPro, who are third-party diversity and inclusion professionals with expertise in anti-Black racism, to help bring about systemic change at Corus.
“During the past three months we have been focused on the core foundational initiatives within our multi-year action plan. This has included work to engage partners and Corus people as well as taking steps to ensure we have more robust data on representation. These, and other priority actions, will build the essential infrastructure needed to enable future initiatives in our plan,” reads the Corus update.
The following are the key takeaways and highlights from Corus’ quarterly update:
- Leadership & Culture: Corus is in the final stages of selecting an external partner to develop and deliver inclusion training, first to the company’s leaders then to be rolled out to all Corus employees. The company says it will approach training as a journey, and not a one-time event, and will design solutions that integrate into its ongoing learning, development and culture.
- Representation: Expanded self-identification data will be central to many of the items in Corus’ plan, so the company says it is focused on this as priority. Corus will collect more specific data about race and disability, and add new categories for sexual orientation and gender identity. The company says this will allow it to gain new insights on priorities and progress.
- Culture: Two employee resource groups have been formed — each with highly engaged founding members, and an executive leadership team sponsor, Corus says. The first group is for Black team members, and the second is for 2SLGBTQ+ team members. These groups will give Corus an important sounding board, resource and partner to develop its anti-racism, diversity and inclusion initiatives, says the company.
For more about Corus’ progress update, please click here.
