Behind the statistics of diversity
How will we know when genuine, sustained representation has been achieved in the film industry, asks Ann Hornaday.
This year’s record-setting crop of Oscar nominees – the most diverse slate of actors in the history of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as the first time two women have competed for best director– was understandably greeted as good news.
For many observers, the watershedmoment indicated that Hollywood might finally be on its way to reforming the white-male-dominated culture that has held sway in mainstream American cinema for more than a century.
And it seemed to cap an extraordinary period in the entertainment industry that started in 2014 and 2015, when the American Civil Liberties Union and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began investigating studios, networks and agencies for systemic (and illegal) gender discrimination.
What ensued was a cascade of events – including the #Oscarssowhite campaign, revelations of pervasive sexual harassment and abuse by Harvey Weinstein and other industry leaders, the establishment of Time’s Up and the #Metoo movement, and the academy’s commitment to recruit more women, people of colour and international members – that put diversity, inclusion and equity firmly on the industry’s radar.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic and antiracism protests have raised the stakes even higher: In September, the academy announced that it would institute new criteria to qualify for its best picture Oscar next year, designed as a carrot for film-makers interested in making their productions more balanced and a stick for those who insist on hewing to old, discriminatory habits.
The new criteria include benchmarks for casting (at least one lead character should be played by an actor from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group; for ensemble casts, at least 30 per cent should comprise at least two of the following groups: women, people of colour, LGBTQI+ individuals and people with different cognitive or physical abilities).
They also include guidelines for the composition of crews (at least two department heads should be from underrepresented groups, and at least one should be a person of colour); opening up employment and internship opportunities; and developing diverse audiences.
When the guidelines were introduced, I wrote a column applauding the academy for making concrete the kind of checklist that has been shaped by implicit biases and old boys’ clubs for decades.
But, I noted that women still accounted for only one-third of speaking roles in the top 1300 films released from 2007 to 2019. ‘‘They’re even scarcer behind the camera, where they constitute 4.8 per cent of directors,’’ I wrote. ‘‘A high-water mark for black film-makers came in 2018, but even then they were only 13 per cent of directors, and their numbers reverted to 2017 levels last year.’’
A reader observed that, if African Americans account for around 13 per cent of the US population, why did I put ‘‘only’’ in front of the 2018 statistic? Isn’t that kind of proportionality the goal?
The question stoppedme inmy tracks. Is exact demographic parity what we’re looking for when we talk about diversity and inclusion? How will we know when genuine, sustained representation has been achieved?
For thosewho have been advocating for inclusion on screen and behind the scenes, how will success be recognised and measured? And will hitting any numerical goal be enough?
Madeline Di Nonno, president and chief executive of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, believes that numbers have their place. When the institute does its research, she says, ‘‘we measure against the population as a baseline’’, using demographic statistics regarding the LGBTQI+ population and people with disabilities, for example.
But ‘‘fiction should at least meet the baseline,’’ she notes, ‘‘and then go way beyond. People of colour in the United States are 38 per cent of the population. [But] we’re looking at talent. We’re looking at opportunities. And opportunities should be given to talented people and not, ‘Well, we now have 38 per cent directors who are people of colour, we can stop.’ Absolutely not.’’
For Catherine Hardwicke ( Thirteen, Twilight), hard numbers help avoid the tendency for people to confuse encouraging optics with authentic change.
‘‘You can say, ‘Hey, I feel like there’s a good vibe, I saw a female directed that movie,’ but when you see the numbers, that’s when the truth hits you,’’ she said during a women in Film and Video event last year.
‘‘When 50 per cent of the movies are directed by women, when there are 40 per cent by persons of colour, then we’re going to feel like, ‘Yes, it’s really true,’ instead of just the vibe. So I believe in the numbers.’’
Producer Devon Franklin, an academy governor who helped formulate the new bestpicture guidelines, says that ‘‘in a perfect world, these standards will phase themselves out, because we’ll get to a place where it’s just what we do.’’
Until then, he says, the numbers will serve less as concrete goals than as a barometer of progress. ‘‘This business, when it comes to representation and inclusion, is fantastic on intent. But they are terrible on execution,’’ Franklin says. Director Maria Giese ( Hunger, When Saturday
Comes), whowrote an explosive article for Ms magazine in which she observed that entertainment is the worst offender of Title VII employment anti-discrimination laws of any US industry, casts a somewhat jaundiced eye on enterprises like Time’s Up. She says it’s one of several collegial, inside-industry efforts undertaken to avoid legal action and government oversight.
Giese says: ‘‘If you want to create 50-50 female hires on screen and behind the scenes, you’re talking about a redistribution of jobs and money from men to women, and that is a very challenging thing to do. The only way to do that is by force.’’
Still, if and when our movies finally reach a proportional level of representation, it’s another question entirely as to whether they will reflect our myriad realities.
Film-maker and California Institute of the Arts film professor Nina Menkes is directing a documentary called Brainwashed, inwhich she explores how sexism has infiltrated film grammar itself, from the way women are lit and photographed differently to how editing fragments them into so many eroticised body parts.
That approach to shot design is bound up with sexual harassment, abuse and employment discrimination within the film industry in a ‘‘devil’s knot,’’ Menkes says.
Reducing women to objects of glamour and sexual gratification, Menkes adds, has become ‘‘so normalised, we don’t even notice it’’.
Menkes sees signs of hope in the work of Oscarnominated directors Emerald Fennell and Chloe Zhao. She calls the nomination of Fennell’s
Promising Young Woman ‘‘astonishing’’, adding that ‘‘in general that kind of depiction of awoman’s unadulterated rage would not be mainstream fare’’.
As for Zhao’s Nomadland, Menkes gives the film-maker credit for resisting the hypersexualisation and ageism that have plagued even movies that have been applauded for their empowered women characters.
‘‘On that level, I find Nomadland groundbreaking. Frances Mcdormand is not a sexy babe, she’s awoman in her 60s, she’s not wearing tons of makeup – for that film to become a mainstream awards contender is incredible.’’
Put another way: That’s what progress looks like.
‘‘I find Nomadland groundbreaking. Frances Mcdormand (above) is not a sexy babe, she’s a woman in her 60s, she’s not wearing tons of makeup – for that film to become a mainstream awards contender is incredible.’’
Nina Menkes