Brie Larson has called for more diversity within film criticism, following a study that found that just 20 percent of the critics who reviewed 2017’s top box-office films were women.
The Oscar-winning actress was speaking at the Women In Film + Lucy Awards event in Los Angeles, where she used Ava DuVernay’s recent Disney film ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ as an example of a film that has suffered because of the lack of diversity when it comes to critics.
She said (via Vulture): “I don’t need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work about ‘A Wrinkle in Time’. It wasn’t made for him! I want to know what it meant to women of colour, biracial women, to teen women of colour.
“Am I saying I hate white dudes? No, I am not. What I am saying is if you make a movie that is a love letter to women of colour, there is an insanely low chance a woman of colour will have a chance to see your movie, and review your movie.”
Brie was picking up the Excellence In Film prize at the Lucy Awards. She’s currently preparing for the release of ‘Captain Marvel’, in which she plays the title character, but there’s a long wait ahead as the movie doesn’t debut until March 2019.
The actress committed to an intensive nine-month training programme to prepare for the role and recently revealed that building her strength “really changed my perspective and understanding of myself”.
“I’ve learned a lot about myself and I feel super inspired by her,” she told Variety. “It’s only my hope that it’ll be that for others.”