Whether conscious or not is up for debate but race is often used in movies around the world to show the contrast between good/attractive/wealthy (white) vs bad/ugly/poor (dark skinned) characters. Even within the same country, main characters are white and tall while servants and background characters are darker and shorter.

I know it's not even about local populations in the US because a lot of immigrants in LA specifically are light-skinned but those actors usually end up playing white characters more often.