I think there are methodology problems here

Quote:

The study analyzed interracial relationships in blockbuster Hollywood films between 1967 and 2005, beginning with the landmark social commentary “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Ramoutar selected the 15 top-grossing box office hits of each year for her sample.



First off, the study goes back almost forty years, to 1967. 1967 is smack in the middle of the civil rights movement and only four years after Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech." And, yet, the author's portray their study as if it describes the state of "modern" films.

Second, the study only uses, out of hundreds of movies each year, only fifteen films per year. How can we be sure that those films are a representative sample...especially when some of the top grossing films in many of those years were science fiction films, fantasy films and even cartoons.

For example, a few years ago, the film "Mississippi Masala" was sort of popular, and portrayed an interracial (Hindu woman, black man) relationship. But it wasn't counted because, even though millions of people saw it, it wasn't one of the top grossing films that year.

Finally, in regards to the author's assertion that "No Arabic or eastern Indian appears in any film," I have to assume that the authors didn't count any of the movies in the late 70s where Egyptian born Omar Sharif played a romantic lead (Funny Girl, The Tamarind Seed, Funny Lady, for example) again, probably, because those movies, while fairly successful, weren't in the "top fifteen" for that year.

As such, I really can't be very impressed by this study. I think the professors had an agenda and chose their sampling data in order to advance that, not the truth.