Audiences Are Heard: More Diversity Finds Its Way in Mainstream Media

The mainstream American entertainment industry has caught up with reality, as the diversity seen in media finally reflects the world in which we live, and such an inclusive shift is socially and economically positive.

“This is about minorities founding different companies and trying to reshape what media looks like,” Bing Chen, president of Gold House, a nonprofit collective that promotes Asian Pacific Islander voices. “It’s about incumbents who’ve always been doing twice as much to get half as far. It’s just good that we’ve finally arrived.”

The prolific Marvel Cinematic Universe recently featured a series of firsts: an Asian superhero, a deaf superhero, and a first gay kiss. Women and other minorities are no longer devalued in Hollywood because “audiences are craving things they’ve never seen, never heard of.” To help minorities make their way even behind the scenes, filmmaker Ava DuVernay founded ARRAY Crew, a personnel database of women, people of color, and other under-represented groups for Hollywood’s below-the-line crew members.