Dylan Marron’s video series showcases the industry’s well-documented diversity problem by reducing films to every single word spoken by a person of colour

If you reduce Moonrise Kingdom to every single word spoken by a person of colour, the film is 10 seconds long.



Her and (500) Days of Summer fare slightly better when edited the same way, with the former at about 40 seconds and the latter at about 30.



These are three of 10 films edited by writer and performer Dylan Marron in a new video series that showcases Hollywood’s well-documented diversity problem by looking at the films themselves. Other distilled movies include Noah and Into the Woods, which cut to black almost as soon as they start, indicating there are no lines spoken by people of colour.



“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?” Marron, 27, asked, referring to Into the Woods.



Marron, a biracial native of Venezuela who grew up in New York, started the video series to figure out why so few people of colour are featured in popular films. He started making the videos in June, and the project quickly gained traction.



“It’s taken off as such a cool thing, but bittersweet, too,” Marron says. “You wish it never had to become a talked-about thing.”



Marron says he wasn’t surprised by any of the results from the films, but just felt “incredibly disappointed”.

So why don’t films contain more diverse casts? The fear that they won’t be profitable, Marron suggests.



“People who finance the movies are not going to want to throw millions behind a movie of a non-famous person of colour,” he says. “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.”



So far, Marron has studied popular films – many of which he likes – which don’t present any reason for casting white actors in major roles, and as he said, “aren’t about the experience of being white”.



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



Marron cites The Fault in Our Stars, a movie based on John Green’s young adult novel of the same name, as an example for a film that could have branched out more in its casting choices.



“It’s an amazing book that has touched so many people internationally,” Marron said. “Nowhere in the book is race mentioned, so why do you have an entirely white cast?”



Marron became interested in exploring the lack of diversity in mainstream films after finding success in the entertainment industry – and still encountering hesitation from casting agents who told him he didn’t fit a “specific type”. Currently, he is the voice of Carlos on the podcast Welcome to Night Vale and was nominated for a Drama Desk award for his play The Human Symphony.



Despite these accolades, agents continued to approach his career options with scepticism.



“No matter how successful I am, and no matter how many things I have under my belt, it just feels like nothing is enough,” Marron says.



He says that he is not intending to call out specific writers or directors, but rather to talk about the system in which so few people of colour are allowed on film.