Since its inception, the Hollywood industry has played an instrumental role in the mass dissemination of popular culture, both within the United States and globally. Yet, White men have almost exclusively created the narratives and myths that comprise Hollywood cultural production, while narratives by women and racial/ethnic minorities are fewer and less prominent. This article gives an overview of current research on racial and gender inequality in representation in the production of Hollywood film and television in the United States, with a focus on the contemporary era. Research on Hollywood cultural production points to a problematic trend of disadvantages in opportunities and outcomes facing women and racial/ethnic minorities, leading to the prevalence of stereotypes and a lack of diversity on‐screen. However, transformations in technology that alter the production and dissemination of media present the possibility of decreasing inequality for women and racial/ethnic minorities.

Racial inequality persists in culture industries, despite increases in representation. Focusing on the Hollywood film industry, this research analyzes written correspondence to understand how, in their discourses, cultural workers as intermediaries or gatekeepers construct ideas about race to make predictions about economic value, success, and failure of cultural products. Findings demonstrate that cultural workers make racial valuations, or race-based judgments about the economic worth of cultural products—in this case by associating white actors with low economic risk, increased chances of profitability, and the expectation of success and linking black actors to high economic risk, decreased chances of profitability, and the expectation of failure. This practice of racial valuation disrupts conventional logics that emphasize the financial ambiguity of cultural markets to advance white institutional logics that invoke raced-based projections about a cultural product’s expected performance. Ultimately, these racially biased assessments affect people, products, and processes along the film production, distribution, and consumption spectrum, especially privileging white workers and limiting Black workers in foreign markets, thereby creating and reinforcing unequal racial outcomes within culture industries.

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The Hollywood Jim Crow creates a resurgence of the Negro Problem previously articulated by W.E.B. Du Bois in which Blackness becomes a race stigma in need of remedy. Black directors’ perspectives and career trajectories are steered in a direction to overcome Hollywood insiders’ presumption of the unbankable label—that movies with Black casts or lead actors do not make enough money and are risky investments. Directors brand their movies as human and universal, stating they are relatable to all moviegoers and not just a subsection of Black audiences. Some directors are pressured to work with mostly white or multiracial casts if they are to have increasing production budgets. This retreat from Blackness undermines the notion that Black directors in Hollywood would necessarily bring more Black movies to the screen.