Malala Yousafzai weighs in on Muslim’s lack representation in Hollywood: ‘less than 1%’

Malala Yousafzai has recently addressed the lack of Muslim representation in Hollywood at Variety’s Power of Women event.

During her acceptance speech, the Nobel Peace Price laureate said that the Muslim and Asian actors only make up one per cent of popular television series leads.

“I learned that Asian people like me make up less than four per cent of leads in Hollywood films,” remarked the 25-year-old.

She continued, “Muslims are 25 per cent of the population, but only one per cent of characters in popular TV series.”

“I know that the executives have passed on dozens of qualities, equally amazing projects because they thought that the characters or their creators were too young, too Brown, too foreign, too poor,” noted Malala.

However, she added, “Sometimes it feels like they’re saying we just don’t belong here.”

Reportedly, Malala launched her movie production company with three projects for Apple.

Talking about these projects to Variety, Malala asserted, “I hope we can have a wide range of perspectives and we challenge some of the stereotypes we hold in our societies.”