Despite the success of women-led films such as musical juggernaut “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” a new study has found that representation for women and people of color fell significantly on streaming services last year.
According to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, 2025 heralded notable regressions in representation, both on-camera and behind the scenes. Actors of color dropped from performing 51% of leading roles on streaming-service original shows and films in 2024, to 36% just one year later. Women directors led on just shy of 24% of last year’s streamed offerings, an all-time low since the team at UCLA began tracking this subset of Hollywood in 2022.
“This is an industry in flux — and in reverse, especially when it comes to diversification,” Darnell Hunt, a co-founder of the report, said in a statement. “As budgets tighten, opportunities for filmmakers of underrepresented backgrounds are always the first to be squeezed out.”
Another co-author, Michael Tran, added as context: “It wasn’t too long ago that streaming was the place where people of color and women found their footing.”
Researchers like third co-author Nico Garcia pointed to “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” specifically, as proof of “how culture circulates and how diverse representation doesn’t alienate audiences.” In fact, he added, “it can bring them in.”
But streaming services are increasingly hiring white, male performers and film staffers to tell stories – a trend researchers attributed to the broader cultural and governmental pushbacks against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, as well as increasing budget constraints. “Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with theatrical films, we’re now seeing the impact of this current political climate in very meaningful and concrete ways,” noted Hunt.
He continued that the decline in diversity “should raise alarm … and push the industry to action.”
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