The Impact of Social Movement on Racial Diversification Initiatives: Evidence From the Movie Industry

The movie industry is facing rising advocacy for racially inclusive casting. However, it remains an open question whether the promised benefits of racial diversification will materialize. Using data from 434 movies nested in 178 series released from 1998 to 2021, we find that, on average, increasing the number of racial minority actors in the main cast depresses movie evaluations. More importantly, the negative effect of racial diversification attenuates after Black Lives Matter (#BLM), a new media enabled social movement. Further, incorporating insights from tokenism and discrimination theories, we probe the heterogeneity in the bias mitigation effects of #BLM and find movie type and the core production team's credentials as important boundary conditions. The present research shows that a social movement that seeks to address racial inequality can, indeed, lead to meaningful changes in public opinions toward racial inclusive initiatives. It also provides perspectives for thinking about the mechanisms underlying such changes.