Four Years Running: What the 2026 UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report Tells Us About Who Really Drives the Culture
Four years running, the most-watched films on streaming have been led by Women of Color. Encanto. Turning Red. Moana. This year, K-Pop Demon Hunters — three young women, a secret demon-hunting girl group, the number one streaming film of the year.
So you would think Hollywood would be racing to make more of these. You would think the money alone would settle the argument.
It hasn't. And that gap — between what audiences show up for and what the industry keeps betting on — is exactly what this week's bonus episode of Sista Brunch is about.
We sat down with Dr. Ana-Christina Ramón and Jade Abston, two of the researchers behind UCLA's Hollywood Diversity Report, to break down what the 2026 data actually says about who gets to lead, who gets to direct, who gets to write, and — the part the industry keeps overlooking — who is actually watching.
A report built to be undeniable
Dr. Ramón runs UCLA's Entertainment and Media Research Initiative and has spent more than two decades studying equity in Hollywood. In the episode, she walks us through how the report began: back in 2010, she and Dr. Darnell Hunt were meeting with Black writers and hearing the same stories about who kept getting shut out. When they set out to measure it, an executive told them the numbers would mean nothing to the industry unless they were tied to the bottom line.
So they built the report to do exactly that. Independently of the studios. Standardized, so the data couldn't be spun. More than a decade later, it is the report the whole industry waits for.
The trend that won't budge
Here is the pattern Dr. Ramón keeps seeing: movement without progress. A little diversity gets added at the supporting-role level, rarely in the leads. A strong year gets wiped out by a weak one. She calls it a rocking horse — a lot of motion, going nowhere.
The 2025 streaming numbers bear it out. Black leads, Black directors, and Black writers all remain far below parity. There was one bright spot — Black women writers slightly outpaced Black men last year — but as both guests are quick to say, the overall numbers are still low enough that a single data point doesn't change the story.
The part Hollywood keeps missing
Here is what the data proves, year after year: households of color and Women of Color are driving the ratings and the box office. When Women of Color find something that speaks to them, they show up, they bring people with them, and they turn it into a cultural moment. In the episode, Dr. Ramón points to K-Pop Demon Hunters — the deep dive shows Latinx, Black, and Asian women were the engine behind its record numbers before it ever became a universal hit.
And yet, as Abston lays out, streaming actually got less diverse in 2025. She describes the formula the industry keeps falling back on — a couple of actors of color in a cast, and everyone calls it covered — and how the algorithm then buries the films that could break through. Visibility and sustainability, she reminds us, are two different problems.
Dr. Ramón leaves us with the reframe that sticks: you are the investor. As the audience, you fund this industry. You are owed a return. And Hollywood has to answer to what you actually show up for.
Watch or listen to the full conversation
This one is essential listening for anyone who works in the industry, builds community around it, or simply refuses to accept "it won't sell" as an answer anymore.
And if you want to go straight to the source, read the full UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report at socialsciences.ucla.edu.
The Sista Brunch Reading List
Throughout the conversation, Jade Abston points to a lineage of Black women filmmakers and thinkers whose work shaped her own research. We pulled together a few titles — some connected directly to the artists she names, some that deepen the themes this episode raises about representation, the Black feminist tradition, and who gets to tell the story.
Sista Brunch is a Bookshop.org affiliate. If you purchase through the links below, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you — and every order supports independent bookstores. You can also browse our full shop at bookshop.org/shop/sistabrunch.
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? — Kathleen Collins Jade names Kathleen Collins and her 1982 film Losing Ground as part of the lineage she looks to. This luminous short-story collection, published decades after Collins's death, reveals her as a writer as gifted as she was a filmmaker — sharp, tender, and unflinching about race, gender, and love. Buy on Bookshop.org →
The Fae Richards Photo Archive — Zoe Leonard & Cheryl Dunye Made as part of Cheryl Dunye's landmark 1996 film The Watermelon Woman — another touchstone Jade cites — this book invents a photographic archive for a fictional Black actress erased by Hollywood history. A brilliant meditation on the images we were never given, and the ones we make for ourselves. (Note: this is an out-of-print art book and may only be available used — worth confirming availability before linking.)Buy on Bookshop.org →
Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies — bell hooks The foundational text on the Black feminist gaze at the movies. hooks talks back to film as a cultural critic, with essays on independent cinema and conversations with filmmakers like Julie Dash. Essential context for everything the UCLA report measures. Buy on Bookshop.org →
Black Feminist Thought — Patricia Hill Collins Jade describes her own work as rooted in Black feminism, and this is the canon it draws from. Collins's landmark book examines, among much else, how "controlling images" of Black women circulate through popular culture — the very stereotypes both this episode and the Diversity Report work to dismantle. Buy on Bookshop.org →
Thank you for being part of this community. We do this work because the stories matter — and because the people telling them deserve the industry to catch up to the audience.
