Viral videos highlight Hollywood's race problem

A series of viral videos has revealed that in many Hollywood hits people of colour have minor speaking roles, or non-speaking roles.

A rising actor has re-edited some of Hollywood's biggest hits so that only the people of colour speak, and the results have been shocking.

Dylan Marron, a Venezuelan born actor, became interested in exploring the lack of racial diversity in movies after facing difficulty with casting directors over his ethnicity.

As a result, he launched Every Single Word Spoken on Tumblr, and began editing movies so only the non-white cast members spoke. So far, not a single one of his choices, which includes hits like Her, American Hustle, and The Fault in our Stars, has been longer than a minute.

Two of them, biblical epic Noah and Disney musical Into the Woods, are shown to have no speaking characters of colour in them at all.

Speaking to The Guardian about his motivation, he said it comes down to there being no reason for many of the characters to be white.

"When you have people of colour as protagonists, the story is about their colour. With white people, it's never about their whiteness.

"People who finance the movies are not going to want to throw millions behind a movie of a non-famous person of colour. There needs to be much more of a mix. Executives are so worried about losing money. [They] should rest more on amazing stories, and take a little more risk."

The 27-year-old finds the lack of anyone of colour in Into the Woods particularly ironic.

"You're asking me to believe that a giant is chasing you through the woods, but I can't believe a person of colour is in the woods?"

He says his goal is not to call out anyone in particular, but simply highlight a series problem within the film industry.

- nzherald.co.nz