Make New Mexico a shining example
The stories and images that emerge from our nation’s entertainment industry both help define our national ethos and contribute to the voice of our civilization. Statistics show, however, that women are nearly shut out from participating equally in our nation’s most influential global export — our media.
In the United States today, nearly 100 percent of the media content created in Hollywood and distributed around the world represents the voices and perspectives of men almost exclusively — especially our studio films, TV shows, and commercials.
Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 instated Title VII, federal law has prohibited employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion. The argument has been put forth that the best way to remediate this staggering problem of gender disparity in hiring is for Title VII to undergo reform, making it enforceable in Hollywood.
Currently, Title VII is primarily useful for individual complaints of employment discrimination but fails to provide a solution to the industry-wide, systemic exclusion women face in the directing profession. The New Mexico film industry is in a unique position to put teeth into enforcement of these laws by making the tax incentives available to film production companies contingent upon their adherence to these hiring requirements.
Besides Title VII, Women in Film, Los Angeles and the Sundance Institute have instigated ReFrame, a new certification process for diversity in film hiring. ReFrame is creating alliances between committed “ambassadors” in the industry with studios, agencies, guilds, networks (including Netflix) etc., about what steps they can take to help ensure that not only are women being given the chance to helm the storytelling process but that our society is able to benefit from the rich perspective that women provide. Entertainment media is our nation’s most culturally influential global export. It impacts the way people think and treat each other around the world. Without equal participation of women’s voices in our storytelling, the world is getting a skewed perspective of reality, leaving a twoclass society cleaved by gender.
As new Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in her inaugural address, “Our film industry can be the greatest and most lucrative state media business in the entire country.” All of us filmmakers here know that this is possible and are deeply heartened by the governor’s belief in that potential. We call on Lujan Grisham to recognize the detrimental disparity in hiring that lessens all of us and to make New Mexico a shining example of how rewarding those who put the diversity of our storytelling voices first creates a world where everyone wins.
Christine McHugh is the president of New Mexico Women In Film. Maria Geise is a filmmaker and activist featured in the documentary film, This Changes Everything.