Diversity a hit with viewers
Netflix figures show appetite for programmes with people of colour
To entice a European TV executive shopping for programmes, ABC Studios offered up glossy fare including Scandal starring Kerry Washington and How to Get Away with Murder with Oscar-winner Viola Davis.
“This is great, but when are you going to start bringing us shows that don’t have black leads?” the buyer asked in the 2015 meeting, as ABC executive Channing Dungey recounts. “I was sitting in a room in the 21st century, and I thought I was being slapped across the face.”
The buyer’s remark was unusually blunt, but the attitude is a familiar one within Hollywood’s own ranks: African American actors and stories make for poor exports, a stubborn assertion that’s burdened black artists and limited their opportunity and influence.
Until now. As box-office hits including Black Panther and the ethnically inclusive Fast & Furious franchise undercut what filmmaker Ava DuVernay calls a “longstanding myth”, they’ve been joined by a new generation of small-screen fare also finding international success.
It’s an issue with marked resonance, as American torment over the videotaped death of a George
Floyd is reflected in demonstrations held far outside US borders. Dungey, the first African American to head a major broadcast network and now Netflix’s vicepresident for original series, says diversity’s appeal is proven by the streaming service’s globally distributed programmes and closely held viewership figures.
Racial discrimination and injustice are themes of some, but not all, of the Netflix projects. The characters tend to be African American, created by the black writers, directors and stars whose progress in the US entertainment industry has outpaced that of Latinos, Asian Americans and other people of colour.
When They See Us, DuVernay’s Emmy-winning miniseries about the Central Park Five case, was watched by 31 million households worldwide in its first four weeks of release, according to Netflix, with 51 per cent of the audience outside the United States. American Son , about a missing black teenager, produced by and starring Washington, was watched in 17 million homes worldwide in its first month. Raising Dion, about a black youngster with superpowers, drew attention from 32 million households, with 60 per cent outside the US.
Multinational consumption is critical to the streaming service, with about 65 per cent of its subscribers outside the U.S.
“I thought we might be in trouble when it’s called American Son ” Washington said of her film’s global prospects. “But the (African) diaspora was vast and large, and the struggles that people of colour have in facing prejudice when dealing with people in authority, that is not an American phenomenon. Racism and the prejudice expressed particularly toward young men of colour happens all over the world.” Netflix has begun sharing viewership results with its creators, and DuVernay said the “astounding numbers” she’s seen stand in dismaying contrast to how her major studio films, A Wrinkle in Time and Selma, fared with limited international releases. Where viewers of black-led projects are found varies widely. When They See Us was most popular in Britain, Ireland, the Benelux countries and in Africa. American Son did well in France, Africa, Mexico and Latin America. “When people say that diverse content doesn’t travel, I say that they’re wrong,” Dungey said.
But the industry’s bias is entrenched, said Darnell Hunt, a University of California professor and lead author of annual studies on diversity and profitability in movies and TV that began, in part, because of the poor-traveller argument. “What we found consistently over the years is that films that look more like America’s diversity — and America’s about 40 per cent people of colour now — those films on average tend to do the best,” Hunt said. “We found that now for seven years in a row, so it’s not a fluke.”