Study reveals movie interests are racially based

In Hollywood, it pays to be white.

At least that’s what assistant telecommunications professor Andrew Weaver discovered in a study he directed, which was recently published in the Journal of Communication.

Weaver’s team set up a series of web pages that resembled IMDb lists where the only varying factor was a manipulation in thumbnail pictures.

They discovered that as the percentage of minority actors in a film went up, white interest in seeing the film went down. 

“They didn’t think they were part of the intended audience of the film,” Weaver said. “When they saw minority characters, they assume that this is a film that was made for somebody else, not them.”

The root of the problem, Weaver said, is films with minority characters are not marketed in the right way.

“It’s an assumption that audiences make based on their previous experience, based on what we’ve lived with in Hollywood movies in the last decade or so,” Weaver said. “So in some way you have to break the cycle, and that’s the hard part.”

David Waterman, a fellow telecommunications professor, said he believes movie audiences go through “conditioning.”

“When people decide whether to go to a movie or not, they go on a basis of what they expect the movie to be like,” Waterman said. “So it’s a natural thing, and it’s nothing to do with prejudice ... different ethnic groups identify with actors from within their own culture readily.”

Hollywood’s extravagant budgets also factor in, Waterman said.

A large segment of movie audiences tend to base their expectations on the perceived production value of the film.

Because of how Hollywood has always cast its mainstream movies, audiences connect films with mainly white cast members with high budget, and therefore, high quality films.

Weaver explained, “Essentially, it’s discrimination going on against minority cast members in the name of economics.

“If you can get the white audiences to believe that the film is made for them regardless of the race of the cast, and they show just as much interest in seeing the film, then we have some base to convince producers that casting can become more of who’s the best actor or actress for this role, not about who’s the best white actress or actor for this role — which is what it is right now,” he said.

Waterman, however, disagreed.

“People base their decisions about movies on their expectations,” Waterman said. “And if a producer deviates from that, they jeopardize the revenue potential of their movie. And so they have no incentive.”

Weaver was more optimistic about the future for marketing films.

“It’s a vicious circle,” Weaver said. “But if we could get some more character-driven movies that succeed with diverse casts, then I think that wall could be broken down very quickly. I’m an optimistic person, so I’m hopeful that change
will occur.”