Think back to the last movie you saw: Hunger Games, Insurgent, or perhaps The Martian? How many of the lead roles were played by a white actor? Most of them, right? But how many lead roles are played by non-white actors? This question is not as easy to answer. Statistics from USC’s Annenberg School For Communication & Journalism show that only 23.6% of minorities even have a speaking role. As the evidence directly demonstrates, Hollywood is lacking diversity.
But how did Hollywood’s problem even begin? The answer can be found in Hollywood's early days of casting. Actors pretended to be races they were not, often with many portrayals being highly offensive. Some examples called to mind may be, Othello, Apache or the popular Breakfast at Tiffany's. This act of racebending or casting actors to play roles of characters whose race does not match their own, unfortunately is not a thing of the past, with blatant examples that still exist today. 
Remember Johnny Depp playing a Native American in The Lone Ranger? These types of portrayals are wrong because not only do they take roles from actors who don't have many parts written for them and steal the exposure they need, it can also help to perpetuate stereotypes that are often negative. Another key problem, as explained by the author of the 2014 Hollywood Diversity Report, is that, “There are certain major projects that you just don’t get to be part of unless you have a connection with one of these top agencies…So the tendency of top agencies to pack their talent rosters with whites really restricts access to opportunities for underrepresented groups.”
If one cannot even get a good agent to represent them, then how can they begin to hope to land a lead role? It is not likely to happen, especially if the casting directors want actors with experience. How can an actor get experience if they are continually excluded from high profile spots? It is a never ending cycle of refusing actors because of lack of a good agent, and then refusing because of lack of experience. Furthermore, with only white actors playing the top roles in popular movies, what kind of message will it send to people? Especially to minority kids, like myself, who are looking for a role model or someone to look up to that looks the same as themselves. Imagine being a child desperately looking for a hero, or a heroine, and coming up empty each time. That child feeling that they could never be the lead or the star that they see on the screen. No action figure or doll in the stores, no princess to dress up. Just a background character that does not even get a name. In addition, a well rounded cast will benefit everyone, not just minority children, illustrating that people are complex and that people do not act just one way and can’t be stereotyped with one portrayal.
It is true that America is mainly Caucasian, and that movies need to appeal to a wide audience or the majority to make money, so the cast would need to mainly be white. This logic, which at first seems sound, has been proven false. The 2014 Hollywood Diversity Report has shown that that movies with 20 to 30% minority casting actually makes 92 million more dollars at a global box office than films with less than 10%. This shows that people are willing to see a diverse cast and that, diversity in a cast is not a bad thing.
If movies actually get a boost with a diverse cast, help to tear down stereotypes, and give representation to a sorely lacking group, then why aren’t more movies giving big roles to people who are not white? How come Hollywood can still change race and talk over people? This is not something new, or recent, it is a long tradition and will continue to go on unless people are willing to help make change happen. It doesn’t have to be a big protest, even something as simple as being aware the next time you see a movie. Once your eyes are opened, it’s hard to close them again to Hollywood’s problem.