How Highest-Grossing Films Fail to Tell Diverse Stories In the Twenty-First Century

The biggest movies of the twenty-first century have pushed for more inclusive storytelling and an ensemble of diverse characters. Unfortunately, they continue to remain white-centric with very few exceptions.

Franchise films like Avatar, Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Star Wars, and Fast & Furious impress their audiences with well-developed stories and high-cost CGI sequences. However, what many of these films have in common are white-centric plots and character arcs. 

That said, it is no surprise that the leadership teams are primarily white and male. For example, the second highest-grossing film of all time, Avengers: Endgame (2019), had a leadership team composed of 14% people of color (POC) and 14% female. Other notable box office successes include Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), whose leadership team had 15% POC and 38% female, and Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015), which had 11% POC and 22% female. 

Notable Examples of How Films Handle Race

Star Wars

In 2020, John Boyega, who played Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, spoke against the franchises’ handling of POC characters. He emphasized that white actors Daisy Ridley (who played Rey) and Adam Driver (who played Kylo Ren) were given the most robust character arcs. 

However, Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran (who played Rose), and Oscar Isaac (who played Poe) were sidelined. Boyega issued the following statement: “What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are, and then have them pushed to the side.” 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)

The MCU, also a Disney property, has a similar issue handling supporting POC characters. While DC films have POC main characters in films like Wonder Woman and Aquaman, it is common for the MCU to introduce a POC side-kick as the closest confidant to the white main character. Examples include War Machine in Iron Man, Falcon in Captain America, Heimdall and Valkerie in Thor, Luis in Ant-Man, and Ned and MJ in Spider-Man. 

While Disney pushed for Sam’s character arc in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), they did this on their streaming service, which attracts a smaller audience than theatrical releases. While Sam is expected to have his own Captain America film in theaters, it seems like Disney still primarily views POC characters in supporting roles, not as main characters. This normalized behavior has allowed the company to expound on diversity without committing to it fully. 

It was not until Black Panther (2018) that T’Challa became the first Black main character in an all-Black cast. Shang-Chi (2021) became the second non-white-centered film with an all-Asian cast. However, the seven films in between these two primarily focused on white and mostly male characters, with T’Challa’s character being sidelined in the last two Avenger films. 

The Black Widow, one of the six original Avengers, did not get her film until 2021, eleven years after her first appearance in Iron Man 2. She is the first female Avenger and has remained a fan favorite, with campaigns to get her solo film off the ground. 

Avatar

The highest-grossing film of all time, Avatar (2009), portrays colonizers without ill intent but with a desire to interact and become a part of the native species (the Na’vi, in Avatar). It is told from the colonizer’s perspective to attempt to rationalize the actions of even the greediest people. Avatar takes it further by treating the white main character worthy of becoming a Na’vi clan member (even leader) by the film’s end. 

The main character can be described as a White Messiah. This term describes a character who feels empowered when he encounters a native community, leading him to want to abandon his old ways. Suddenly, he is no longer seen as a colonizer but as a savior. The main character in Avatar adopts the agility and strength to survive like a Na’vi, surpassing the natives who taught him. He becomes the leading force in uplifting the community to fight against the other greedy colonists.

It paints a harmful image that the Na’vi could not survive without a group of selflessly open-minded foreigners willing to educate them and bring a newfound sense of community. 

Fast & Furious

Unlike those mentioned above, this franchise has highly diverse main and secondary characters, introducing separate cliques of individuals of all racial groups. Vin Diesel noted that when the franchise started in 2001, “It was segregated in its own way while still trying to incorporate a multicultural theme.” The racial lines blurred by the fourth installment, where characters actively worked together toward a common goal regardless of race. 

The Solution

Today’s highest-grossing films fall mainly into two categories – a) all-white cast (Titanic, Jurassic World, Top Gun: Maverick), or b) white main characters and POC secondary characters (all the Avengers films, Star Wars). 
Studios have to embrace diversity without using POC characters as a token for diversity. They can accomplish this by developing full story arcs for POC characters and not simply giving them a supporting character role. Fast & Furious has arguably evolved the most on this front with an ensemble of POC and female characters. Other studios should follow the lead by requiring more diverse hands in leadership positions and in the studio to reflect on how they have failed to tell marginalized stories in the past.