Here is every single word spoken by a person of color in (500) Days of Summer

(Image credit: Youtube/DylanMarron)

published 19 June 2015

As if it weren't cringeworthy enough that Zooey Deschanel's character in (500) Days of Summer character basically epitomized the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope that became popular in a certain genre of adorably twee indie comedies often bogged down in their (white) male protagonists' soul-searching plots, this video from Dylan Marron may be the final nail in the coffin:

All the lines spoken by people of color only took 30 seconds to complete, and the actors' roles — Yvette Nicole Brown as "New Secretary," Patricia Belcher as "Millie," Darryl Alan Reed as "Bus Driver," and Gregory A. Thompson as "Minister — are anything but substantial. And it's not just (500) Days of Summer that has this diversity problem. Though Marron has only given the same treatment to two other films so far (see them here), it's safe to say that many current films wouldn't fare much better once their white characters are taken out of the picture.

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Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

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