PERSPECTIVE ON HOLLYWOOD : A New, More Sensitive Movieland? : The profit motive was used to justify racial stereotypes. Minority filmmakers and fans may be changing that.

Flushed with the Oscar night successes of Whoopi Goldberg, “Dances With Wolves” and its black sound technician, Russell Williams II, some Hollywood observers are daring to ask whether the industry has finally become more racially and culturally inclusive.

And the answer is . . . maybe.

The question has been asked on more than one occasion and those who had hoped for more enlightened scripts, less stereotypical images and equal access to trade-industry jobs were met with disappointment each time. Hollywood’s treatment of blacks, American Indians and other nonwhite cultural groups has a long and shameful history.

That history is grounded in the fact that racist portrayals of nonwhites has been profitable. And if we are now on the threshold of significant progress, it, too, is likely to be rooted in the profit motive.

The infancy of the movie industry coincided with the growth of industrialization just before and after the turn of the 20th Century. It was a time when a lower economic class of European immigrants eked out a living in factories.

The advent of motion-picture entertainment provided escapism and a sense of heightened self-esteem, particularly when white heroes could be seen besting members of other racial groups that were even lower on the socioeconomic scale.

As early as 1898, Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show could be viewed on Thomas Edison’s kinescope, complete with portrayals of American Indians collapsing before white civilization. By 1915, D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” had drawn the ire of black Americans and fair-minded citizens across the nation. Meanwhile, white actors were being cast as American Indians in countless “cowboy and Indian” films. When authentic American Indians did land minor roles, problems often developed because directors found it difficult to teach them how to act “Indian.”

Little more than a decade after the beginning of the Academy Awards, Hollywood bestowed the first Oscar on a black actor. Given the nature of roles for blacks up to that time, Hattie McDaniel’s 1939 best supporting actress award for portraying a mammy in “Gone With the Wind” was inevitably stereotypical. Despite that role, many black Americans hoped that the academy’s acknowledgement of her talent would be the catalyst for a more racially sensitive Hollywood. But America emerged from World War II and entered the television age with racial stereotypes intact.

Although there have been occasional departures from traditional Hollywood images of people of color, the industry has generally turned a deaf ear to protests from minority groups and pointed to box-office profits as justification. Thus, setbacks followed every sensitive, multidimensional approach to ethnicity brought to the screen.

In 1963, Sidney Poitier captured the best actor award for his work in “Lilies of the Field,” and black Americans everywhere took heart once more. Unfortunately what followed was a rash of poorly made “black exploitation” films in the 1970s. Likewise, American Indians perceived a reversal of fortune with movies like “Little Big Man” (1970), which seemed to soften their image from savage but futile warriors to people with human values. But by the mid-1970s the American Indian had all but disappeared from the silver screen.

Behind the camera, ethnic minority groups found themselves virtually locked out of the industry. In 1969, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held hearings on hiring practices in Hollywood. The commission found the industry’s employment rates of blacks, Latinos, American Indians and Asian-Americans to be half that of the dismal record of other comparable industries in Southern California.

Although nonwhites constituted about 40% of the population of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, they made up only 3% of the movie-industry labor force in 1969. Other major industries in the area averaged 6% nonwhite employees.

Now comes the 1991 Academy Awards night, and “Dances With Wolves” wins seven Oscars for bringing Indians back into the American consciousness. Moreover, a black man, Williams, shares in the glory of one of its technical awards. Whoopi Goldberg’s performance in the box-office smash “Ghost” made her the first black woman to win best supporting actress since McDaniel. The question is whether we are seeing another spate of tokenism or a major shift in Hollywood philosophy.

There are factors that suggest, at long last, the latter may be the case. Sweeping changes in U.S. demographics now find the peoples once called “minorities” emerging as majorities in key cities across America. Not only are these racial groups growing at a much faster rate than whites, but they are generally younger and are in the age groups that spend considerable dollars on entertainment and leisure activities.

In other words, racism is becoming less profitable. It now makes good business sense for Hollywood not to offend these groups but, rather, to portray them in a broader and more respectable array of images.

Second, at least insofar as blacks are concerned, the doors of discrimination have been forced open enough to allow a small cadre of African-American film-makers to produce their own movies. Spike Lee, Robert Townsend, Eddie Murphy and others have made a financial and philosophical impact on the industry. Just as important, they have used their influence to ensure multicultural representation in their crews behind the camera.

Thus, the results of last week’s Oscar ceremonies should not be viewed as an isolated occurrence. In the past few years, several films and actors have achieved widespread acclaim and box-office success, thereby creating today’s environment. Remember “Lean On Me,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Glory”? Or Louis Gossett Jr., Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover and Denzel Washington?

Still, one gets the feeling we’ve been here before.