About

Our mission at Mediaversity is to diversify onscreen representation. While no story will ever be an exact microcosm of the United States—nor should it be—our reviews strive to be a tool for people who want to think proactively about the media they're watching instead of passively consuming it.

So when we say “diversify,” what does that mean? Let’s look to the real world for pointers:

  • 51% of U.S. residents are women

  • 41% of U.S. residents are people of color

  • 27% of U.S. adults (18+) live with a visible or invisible disability

  • 20% of Gen Z U.S. adults (born between 1997-2004) identify as LGBTQ

  • 7% of U.S. adults (18+) identify as LGBTQ

Until the TV and film industries reflect the true face of our country, Mediaversity will be here calling them out and applauding good work.

 

Li Lai, Founder and Editor-in-chief of Mediaversity Reviews

Mediaversity is the passion project of Li Lai, the Sr. Director of Content at Common Sense Media (all views are her own) where she helped create a new "Diverse Representations" rubric and applies it across a back catalog of over 45,000 media reviews. Based in Seattle, she is also a Rotten Tomatoes critic and has been featured in Variety, The Verge, CBC Radio, Chicago Tribune, and other outlets. 

Li is on the advisory board of The Offing magazine and has spoken at venues such as Adweek Europe and with internal teams at Lionsgate, Think with Google, and the Producers Guild of America. Passionate about making entertainment media more inclusive across all channels, her work has won industry recognition by Makers & Shakers Awards, Fast Company's Innovation by Design Awards, WebAwards, London's Design Museum, and more. 

Current Contributors

👨🏽🇺🇸🇨🇷🌈♿ John Manuel Arias is a Costa Rican American poet and fiction writer living in Brooklyn. His debut novel Where There Was Fire is forthcoming from Flatiron Books.

👩🏻🇺🇸 Symphony Barnes is an entertainment, culture, and lifestyle writer, journalist, and critic based in Southern California. Her writing portfolio can be found here.

👩🏻🇺🇸 Elaine Cho is a musician and former bookseller. She's worked for various arts non-profits and loves to travel and shoot film. Her debut adult sci-fi novel Ocean's Godori will be published with Hillman Grad, an imprint of Zando Books.

👨🏾🇺🇸 Robert Daniels is a film critic and founder of 812filmreviews. His writing has been featured in The New York Times, RogerEbert.com, and Polygon, and he is especially drawn to divisive movies (because he craves conflict).

👨🏽🇸🇩🇺🇸🌈 Murtada Elfadl is a culture writer, critic, and podcaster. Originally from Khartoum, Sudan he decided to move to New York City when he got a New Yorker subscription at the age of 15. Many years later, the city remains his favorite place; he just wishes more movies in Arabic played here. He has served on the Narrative Film Jury at NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ Film Festival.

👩🏼🇺🇸🌈 Anni Glissman is an American essayist and freelance writer. She's been published in The Cut, Atlas Obscura, and Take Action and is currently the author of a monthly newsletter on Substack.

👨🏽🇺🇸 Joseph Hillyard is an aspiring writer and amateur film reviewer based out of New York City. He loves period pieces, thrillers, antihero stories and hopes for more films that explore multiracial identity.

👩🏼🇬🇧🌈 Laura Hindley blogs about women in the entertainment industry. She loves cats, books, travel, and films starring Cate Blanchett.

👩🏾🇧🇧🇨🇦♿️ Carolyn Hinds is Barbadian and Canadian Tomatometer-approved film critic, podcaster, and YouTuber. Her work has been published in places like Observer, Shondaland, and Salon, and her podcasts So Here's What Happened!, Carolyn Talks..., and Beyond The Romance can be found on ButWhyThoPodcast.com and other streaming platforms. 

👩🏼🇺🇸 Alicja Johnson is a communications professional and film writer with a penchant for bad jokes. She plays violin in the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic Orchestra and enjoys getting lost in the woods with her dog. Her deepest wish is to see red-haired characters that actually have freckles on screen.

👩🏾🇺🇸 Monique Jones is an entertainment journalist, blogger, and founder of JUST ADD COLOR, a multicultural pop culture site. Her writing has been featured on Common Sense Media, Ebony.com, Comic Book Resources, Entertainment Weekly's Community Blog, The Miami New Times, and more.

👨🏽🇺🇸🌈♿ Dara Khan is a Seattle-based writer, editor, film critic, and musician. His film writing can be found on Letterboxd.

👨🏻🇺🇸🌈 Andrew Lim is a researcher and a New Yorker, born and raised. When he's not neck-deep in statistics, he enjoys tinkering around with cake recipes, long history books, and languid period pieces.

👩🏻🇨🇳🇺🇸 Weiting Liu is a film critic and film festival programmer dedicated to promoting Asian films and advocating for onscreen diversity. Her writing portfolio can be found here.

👩🏾🇺🇸 Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is a poet, playwright, and critic who served as the First Black Poet Laureate of Houston, Texas. This cinephile loves dissecting films that make big statements. Her memoir, Black Chameleon, is forthcoming with Henry Holt & Co.

👩🏽🇮🇳🌈♿ Ishmeet Nagpal is an editor, publishing consultant, and poet. She critiques media through a feminist lens and is passionate about old Bollywood movies. She exists on the intersection of multiple marginalized identities and advocates for an inclusive, peaceful, and kind world.

👩🏼🇺🇸♿ Dana Sloane is an activist and writer who has been fascinated by representation on television for nearly a decade and has spent almost as long telling people she’s going to write a book about it.

👩🏻🇺🇸 Mimi Wong has worked in film and television. She also writes fiction, and is especially passionate about reading and supporting diverse authors.

Want to be on this list? Anyone with at least three published reviews in the last three years gets a blurb! Start now and email your writing portfolio to Li (li@mediaversityreviews.com) to see if we are currently taking on new writers.