Analysis Of Charlie Chaplin´s 1940 Film: The Great Dictator

Not Just Black and White From Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 film The Great Dictator satirizing World War II to Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Jurassic Park addressing the unchecked progression of science, film showcases topics being discussed in America. These topics range, but one trait is similar between them all. The characters are played by white actors and actresses. In 2016 minorities were outnumbered 3 to 1 for film leads (Citation). This statistic contrasts with the current diversity of America, which finds that 40 percent of Americans are in a minority. Should films be expressive of America and have more diverse casts is a major issue currently facing Hollywood. Like other debates there are multiple perspectives on this issue of diversity
Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Marc Choueiti, and Dr. Katherine Pieper with assistance from Ariana Case and Justin Marsden studied the top 800 films from 2007-2015 and investigated to find what number of minorities worked on these films. The authors found that minorities are highly underrepresented in these films. The main cohorts being studied in the article were Gender, Race/Ethnicity, LGBT, and Disability groups. One such underrepresentation was gender, which the study found that “Out of 4,370 speaking or named characters evaluated, 68.6% were male and 31.4% were female across the 100 top‐grossing films of 2015.” (Smith) Now compare this statistic to America where the male and female ratio is 49% to 51%. If film is to be a representation of America, the number of speaking roles should be representative of what America is
Their position on diversity depends on how the individual views the importance of film. The executives were against diversity because they viewed film as a money maker, thus if diversity doesn’t create a profit, more diverse casts are not worth the loss of money. The director was against diversity because he is just used to using white casts and doesn’t believe the need for a diverse cast. Darnell Hunt from UCLA viewed film as a reflection of American society, thus film should showcase what is going on in America. The industry workers view film as any other occupation and a move towards inclusivity in one field is a movie forward on any field. If an individual looks at film as just a film or dollar signs, their view of increased diversity is negative. If an individual looks at films as a screenshot of American culture and a source for progressivism, their view of increased diversity is positive. A person judges’ diversity depending on how they view the importance of