How Covid-19 and the Strikes Kneecapped Hollywood's Attempts at Diversity

From 'Soul' to 'The Marvels,' the last four years saw a generation's worth of inclusive tentpoles undercut amid a pandemic, labor stoppages and a streaming war

After waiting for nearly four years, I spent part of yesterday afternoon seeing Pixar’s Soul in a movie theater. It was a masterpiece on Disney+, but the Peter Docter and Kemp Powers-directed fantastical dramedy was intended for theaters. Its initial afterlife antics registered clearer and funnier on the big screen, while the melancholy third act played even more pinpoint-poignant in a dark auditorium. The (re)release of Soul is a reminder that an entire generation’s worth of inclusive milestones and diverse tentpoles, some of them otherwise surefire hits, were kneecapped by a global pandemic and then by a dual labor stoppage.

Yes, there was zero excuse for Hollywood not going all-in on diverse films, big and small, at least since the likes of Rush Hour, The Bird Cage and Independence Day proved the commercial value of more inclusive theatrical cinema. And it is beyond tragic that Hollywood waited until the mid-2010s to even start trying to find the next Will Smith (instead of exclusively hunting for the next Tom Cruise), by which time audiences no longer showed up for non-IP originals or mere star+concept vehicles.  

That said, however delinquent the industry was in this respect, the pandemic and then the strike undercut these efforts, perhaps permanently. This reissue comes amid what many fear has been an industry-wide walk-back regarding onscreen/offscreen inclusivity.  Four years after the release of Bad Boys for Life, which kicked off what should have been a banner year for “not a white guy” tentpoles, I mourn the history that wasn’t made, the conventional wisdom that wasn’t upended and the lessons that weren’t learned.