American Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain has criticized the entertainment business for the lack of diversity in leading female roles. The two-time Oscar nominee stated her advocacies on her Twitter page after a shoot for the cover of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, which featured other Caucasian Hollywood actresses such as Margot Robbie, Diane Kruger, Kate Winslet, Annette Benning, Saoirse Ronan, and of course, Chastain.
In a tweet posted by Chastain, she showed a picture of the cover for the publication, pointing out the fact that there are no women of color in it. This leads to the lack of promotion for women of color to have better roles in the entertainment business, which led Chastain to state, "The industry needs to become more inclusive in its storytelling." She then urged her followers to come up with films that have women of color in lead roles.
After doing the exercise, Chastain admitted that she herself could not come up with five films with women of color starring in them, and this upset her even more. Chastain stated that in the last 12 months, there has not been at least five films that featured women of color as the leading stars. Most of the racially diverse actresses just end up winning awards for their supporting roles in films.
However, she still applauded Salma Hayek's performance in the Sundance entry film "BeatriceAtDinner." Author and editor Rebecca Carroll reacted to Chastain's tweet, beseeching the actress' known propensity for advocating equality in Hollywood, if she feels terrible about the fact that women of color do not get enough leading roles in films.
In effect, Chastain received some flak for her posts, with some calling her out since she is part of the publication's cover as well. Despite the strides that the entertainment industry is making when it comes to female racial diversity in films, it seems that there is more that can be done in order to break the dominance of Caucasians in Hollywood.
