LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD found that of the 44 films released from major studios in 2020, 22.7% of them contained lesbian, gay or bisexual characters.
The first few minutes of the superhero action comedy “Birds of Prey” reveal that DC Comics’ Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie, is bisexual. It also revealed a film industry trend. There was an increase in screen time for LGBTQ characters in wide release films in 2020, GLAAD’s annual report on LGBTQ representation found — even as others relied on the cultural stereotype of a villain as a gay predator, like Hugh Grant’s Fletcher in Guy Ritchie’s “The Gentlemen.” The report also showed that for the first time in GLAAD’s documentation, there were more queer women than gay and bisexual men portrayed in wide-release movies over the last year, though the number of transgender and nonbinary characters remained at zero for the fourth year in a row. Released Thursday by GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, the ninth edition of the organization’s Studio Responsibility Index also recorded the “unacceptable and complete absence” of LGBTQ characters with disabilities, according to GLAAD’s president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. More disappointing was the “complete absence of stories of LGBTQ characters living with HIV, a group which still faces incredibly high levels of stigma and discrimination,” Ellis wrote in the report. For nearly a decade, GLAAD has released an annual study mapping the quantity, quality and diversity of LGBTQ characters in films released by major U.S. film studios in hope it’ll serve as a road map toward accurate and inclusive LGBTQ representation in films. GLAAD focused its latest analysis on the studios with the highest theatrical grosses from films released in 2019 as reported by the box office database Box Office Mojo: Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, STX Films, United Artists Releasing, Universal Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros.
