Onscreen representation for women of color and female-identifying leads increased marginally from 2021 to 2022, according to a new study from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
The report found that girls and women of color led or co-led 16% of the top-grossing theatrical releases of 2022, a 5% increase from the year before. Women at large headlined 44% of these films, reflecting a minor 3% jump from 41% in 2021. The study pointed out that this year’s top films did not match the U.S. Census threshold, which counts about half of the population as female-identifying.
However, these numbers are significant in context of the entire survey, which looked at 100 films per year from 2007 to 2022 – or 1,600 films total.