Dr. Stacy L. Smith and her colleague, Project Manager, Marc Choueiti of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, spoke with ReelUrbanNews.com about their recently released report, Black Characters in Popular Film: Is the Key to Diversifying Cinematic Content held in the Hand of the Black Director. “We’ve been working on issues of representation with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media. We decided a few years back that we wanted to focus on multiple indicators, beside just gender to see how groups might be fairing in popular film. The geniis of this project is to look at our data more holistically to see how characters in different demographic categories are fairing in motion picture content.” Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, USC.
Prior to the close of our conversation with Dr. Smith and Mr. Choueiti, we discuss the possibility of feature films reflecting the diverse culture of the greater community. “We’ve been really surprised looking over time at the changes among certain groups and demographic information. The ups and downs from the swings from year to year and sample to sample it’s hard to tell where it might go. If there is change coming and it’s in the slow moving process as a function of society we may not see it for another two or three year.” Marc Choueiti, Project Manager, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, USC.
