A24 Has Best Queer Representation, Says Glaad’s New Study

Pride Month is kicking off with a new study from the people at GLAAD.

Every so often, organizations like GLAAD and USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism perform studies that cover diverse representation in the media landscape. The numbers vary from study to study as well as year to year. 

GLAAD’s recent Studio Responsibility Index (SRI) report examined the ten major motion picture studios during the 2024 calendar year and their “quantity, quality and diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) characters.” 

The ten studios examined were A24, Amazon, Apple TV+, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Only the movies that were released theatrically were counted.

Which Studio Did Queer Best?

A24 is the studio that did LGBTQ best. Out of 16 movies that were theatrically released under the A24 banner, a total of 9 (roughly 56%) were LGBTQ inclusive. That was enough for GLAAD to rate the studio as “good” for 2024. Previously, the 2023 rating was “insufficient.”

Two thirds of the movies A24 put out featured queer women.  

A24 released movies like “Love Lies Bleeding,” “Problemista,” and “Queer” – all of which featured LGBTQ characters leading their own stories. 

Queer We Go Again

Out of the 250 films examined from the likes of the studios, only 59 featured LGBTQ characters. That’s roughly 23%. Unfortunately, those numbers are down 3.7% from the previous year’s nearly 27%. The record high was once over 28%. 

Gay men were the most represented with 54% while lesbians made up 39%. Bisexual+, nonbinary, unlabeled and trans characters made up 25%, 5%, 5% and 3% respectively. 

Race played a huge factor with white characters making up a disproportionate 115 roles out of 181 (64%).

Screentime meanwhile – that’s how long the characters appeared on screen – was varied. Just 49 out of 181 (27%) take up more than 10 minutes. 27 get five to 10 minutes; 38 get one to five minutes. And a whopping 67 get under one minute.

As for the genres in which these queer characters resided, comedy remained on top at 45% while drama took on 25%. Horror had 11%, animated/family pictures had 8% and action/sci-fi/fantasy had 14%.