USA Today recently published an article outlining a rise in female roles in movies in 2019; however, there is a lack of representation when it comes to race. A historic 40% of protagonists were female in 2019, but the amount of women of color in films actually decreased.

It’s misleading to exclude such diversity, especially in America. America is commonly referred to as a cultural melting pot; people of all different religions, races and identities are uniting in one place. It’s simply wrong to portray America as a country that contains only white men and a few white women, especially when the story is supposed to take in cultural hotspots, like New York City or Los Angeles.

In 2020, directors should prioritize creating realistic storylines and casts, because that’s what grabs an audience’s attention. Movies that give minorities representation, such as Jordan Peele’s Us, end up attracting larger audiences due to their attentiveness to the people who are not commonly represented in stories.