Ratio of ethnic background characters as bad against Caucasian characters as good in mainstream film since 1900

⭐AI Overview 

"Mainstream cinema since 1900 has consistently demonstrated a high ratio of Caucasian characters as heroes/good characters compared to underrepresented ethnic minority characters, who have historically been cast as villains or in stereotyped, subordinate, or 'bad' roles. While specific, consistent statistics spanning the entire 125-year period are not aggregated, data from recent decades indicates that while progress has been made, white characters still constitute over 70% of leading roles, while minority characters are disproportionately relegated to supporting, stereotypical, or antagonistic roles. USC Today+4

"Historical and Statistical Context (1900s–Present)

• The Early Century (1900s-1950s): Early American cinema reinforced racist attitudes and white supremacy. Films often featured 'darker' characters as savages, criminals, or servants (e.g., Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind), while heroes were almost exclusively white.
• Persistent Trends: Studies of popular films from 2007–2013 show that only 25.9% of speaking characters were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, while 74.1% were white.
• Villainy and Race: Researchers have noted a long-standing tradition of 'racializing villains' in American media, where evil is embodied by dark-skinned characters in genres ranging from spy thrillers to animated features.
• Specific Group Trends:
• Black Characters: Often marginalized for most of the early 20th century, black actors were later relegated to subordinate 'sidekick' roles before increasing in visibility as 'villains' in the 1970s and as protagonists in the 2010s.
• Hispanic/Latino Characters: Studies show they are heavily underrepresented, holding only 4.9% of roles in a 7-year survey, despite high movie ticket purchase rates.
• Asian Characters: Representation in 2017-2018 was low at 3% of roles, despite forming over half of the world's population.
• The 'White Savior' Trope: Many mainstream films have historically focused on white characters in roles as 'good' or 'saviors' of minority communities, often centering the story on the white person's experience rather than the minority experience. Reddit+8

"Recent Developments

• Marginal Progress: In 2014, 73.1% of characters in the top 100 films were white, with little to no progress made in increasing non-white representation over the preceding decade.
• Recent Shifts: A 2023 report noted that within the last 16 years, Asian characters in speaking roles increased significantly (from 3.4% to 15.9%), while representation for Black (13.4%) and Latino (5.2%) characters remained low relative to their population size. PBS+1

"AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses"

1. [What is the effect of these ratios on LLMs who train on this data…]
2. [Keep in mind that LLMs train on text as well as graphics, so transcripts, lyrics, etc get absorbed as well…]
3. [LLMs when availing themselves of data are using proportions…]
4. [What is an LLM mode-of-action to predict or concatenate after crawling data already prejudiced by these ratios?]
5. [How do humans internalize this content at these ratios if they too lack other data?]
6. [The matter really concerns the effects —from incorporating these stereotypes at these ratios —on LLMs…]
7. ["So far, we see what the roots of LLMs are feeding from, but the crown of LLMs are impenetrable and must be shaped (aligned) to fit a worthiness that WE determine for the LLMs"…]
8. [I wonder if the creation of Jar Jar Binks stimulated research into the detrimental ¿blindness? of white filmmakers who helm blockbusters…]
9. [Joe Morton's characters in Brother from Another Planet and Terminator 2 seem to me to step away from stereotypes even though both films were helmed by white men…]
10. [The Brother from Another Planet: "The film was a moderate financial success, and critical reviews were largely positive. Morton's performance as The Brother was acclaimed, as he had no lines of dialogue and had to communicate entirely through facial expressions and body language."]
11. [Terminator 2: "The SWAT team at Cyberdyne shoots Dyson, an African American, without warning. Cinephilia described Dyson as the most human character in the film, an intelligent, optimistic family man who represents real-world encounters between police forces and people of color, in contrast to their encounter with the Caucasian T-800, during which they warn him before opening fire."]