Entertainment Weekly’s 2018 Entertainers of the Year is finally more diverse than years past

Entertainment Weekly announced its 2018 Entertainers of the Year, and it’s (thankfully) dominated by women of color and the LGBTQ+ community.

If the midterm elections weren’t an indication that women of color and people in the LGBTQ+ community are finally getting the recognition (and professional titles) they deserve, Entertainment Weekly reminded us of this fact when the publication announced its 2018 Entertainers of the Year. The list includes some of the year’s most influential people in pop culture, and this year’s lineup is especially significant.

In years past, EW’s annual Entertainers of the Year catalog has been predominately slanted to commemorate white men and women. Save for Viola Davis, Kevin Hart, Beyoncé, Sterling K. Brown, and  Caleb McLaughlin, the other 15 listees (including the kids of Stranger Things) in the 2016 Entertainers of the Year were overwhelmingly white.

Given one of the selected 2016 entertainers, Benedict Cumberbatch, had used offensive terminology to refer to black actors in the previous year (though he’s since apologized), it’s implicit that the 2016 list overlooked the achievements of entertainers of color.

Although the EW’s 2017 list of Entertainers of the Year included more people of color and entertainers in the LGBTQ+ community, it still favored white and straight musicians and actors. The 2018 list of Entertainers of the Year finally celebrates more people of color, especially women of color, along with entertainers in the LGBTQ+ community, and that’s crucial in this year specifically.

2018 gave us diverse representation that wasn’t riddled with stereotypes and caricatures. Sure, there were a lot of films that fetishized relationships in the LGBTQ+ community and a lot of offensive characters. Overall, the big-hitters in the film, TV and music industry gave us a lot of healthy representation.

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before production still. Photo Credit: Netflix.

This year gave us Black Panther, Sorry to Bother You, Roma, Crazy Rich Asians, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Despite these healthy productions that highlight diverse casts, on-screen diversity didn’t improve this year, as The Guardian reports.

These films championed the box offices, reviews, and ratings throughout this year. Yet overall, the film industry hasn’t followed their example. Even on their accolades alone, more diverse productions are more well-reviewed, with 2018’s film lineup being the perfect example. According to Variety, there’s even very capitalistic reason that inclusive films churn out more of a profit, but by statistics alone, the entertainment industry is still the biggest adversary to diversity.

From the continued antagonist approach to inclusion in films, EW’s 2018 Entertainers of the Year can indirectly propagate more respectful inclusion in front of the screen, behind the screen, and behind the microphone. Because the list represents the accomplishments of these creators, it shows that although unfortunately, the entertainment industry isn’t progressively becoming more diverse, people of color and people in the LGBTQ+ community are some of the most influential entertainers in the industry.

Highlighting a more diverse list of actors and musicians will hopefully push the industry to hire more actors, musicians, and creators of color. Because the list overtly shows each listee’s well-deserved impact, it can nudge more productions to include reverent representation.

It’s difficult to summarize all the inherent and explicit each of the 2018 Entertainers of Year’s accomplishments, but we’ve created a recap of some of the more-than-worthy entertainers from the EW’s picks.