80% of all trans characters in 2022’s top movies were in this one film

Out of the 100 top-grossing movies of 2022, just one accounted for 80 percent of all transgender characters, a dismaying indication of Hollywood’s failure at trans representation.

Universal Pictures’ gay romcom Bros featured just four characters who identified as trans. But according to a new report from USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, those four characters alone accounted for 80 percent of transgender portrayals in last year’s 100 top-grossing films. Notably, the trans characters in Bros were all in supporting roles.

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According to Variety, the annual study was developed in 2007, but researchers only began looking at LGBTQ+ representation in 2014. This year’s report studied portrayals of gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+ identities, and disability in 1,600 narrative films released between 2007 and 2022, with a focus on last year’s top-grossing films.

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According to the report, only five out of the 4,169 speaking or named characters in last year’s 100 highest-grossing films were transgender. Despite that underwhelming stat, the report suggests that 2022 was nonetheless a high water mark for trans representation. It found that in the 900 films sampled from 2014 to 2022, last year’s films featured more trans characters than any other year. Additionally, only one of those five characters was “inconsequential” to the film’s plot, “an improvement from previous years when all transgender characters were incidental,” according to the report.

The report also found that only 2.1% of speaking or named characters in last year’s top films were LGBTQ+, while more than 40 percent of those characters were “inconsequential” to the films’ stories. Only one character who was “coded as gender non-binary” appeared in a top-grossing film in 2022. Variety reports that that character was featured in Tár.

The report concluded that LGBTQ+ representation is being “left behind.”

“For the LGBTQ+ community, 2022 was a year in which little changed on screen. Although there was a numerical increase in LGBTQ+ leads/co leads, the percentage of LGBTQ speaking characters remained stagnant. Nearly three-quarters of 2022’s top movies were missing LGBTQ+ characters altogether, and this rose to 84 movies when examining how many films lacked LGBTQ+ women. Film continues to minimize and marginalize the stories of the LGBTQ+ community—and change is needed.”

“While some indicators may seem to suggest that LGBTQ representation is on the rise, others reflect that little has changed,” it continued. “More than half of LGBTQ characters were male-identified, and nearly two-thirds were White. Few teens or elderly characters were shown as LGBTQ, and the majority of LGBTQ characters were not parents or caregivers. Thus, the image of the LGBTQ community in popular film is one that— when not defaulting to invisibility—continues to advance a portrait of White, male, adult characters. The spectrum of voices affiliated with the LGBTQ community continues to be left out of top films.”