The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has faced significant criticism in recent years for its lack of diversity. The 2015 Oscars were ravaged on Twitter by the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, which referred to the absence of racial/ethnic minorities in both the Academy itself and the people it nominated, all of whom were white in all four acting categories.
In an effort to combat this problem, the Academy invited a record 683 people to join its ranks, 46% of them women and 41% of them people of color. Though this is an improvement, it should be noted that this alone does not qualify as systemic change. Currently, the membership of the Academy is 75% male and 92% white, but even if every single one of the invitees accepted, the numbers would only go down to 73% and 89% respectively. Cheryl Boone Isaacs, President of the Academy, stated that their goal is to double the Academy’s diversity by 2020. In order to achieve this, the Academy has done two things. First, they instituted a new rule:
“Each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade. In addition, members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award. We will apply these same standards retroactively to current members.”
Second, they have removed the limit on the number of new people they can invite to the Academy, a big move given that in previous years they sent as few as fifteen invites. Though these moves are important, the Academy still has a long way to go before it achieves its goal. But the problem extends far beyond just one organization.
Ultimately, #OscarsSoWhite is only a symptom of the systemic racism that exists in the entertainment industry. Many decried the hashtag and the recent push for diversity, arguing that it is unmeritocratic and will dilute the esteemed voting pool. These people fail to understand that the system is already unmeritocratic, skewed heavily in the favor of white men. It is absolutely ridiculous to say that the film industry has not been fundamentally shaped by the systemic discrimination against women and minorities that has fundamentally affected every other institution in the country for centuries. Hollywood has not magically banished sexism or racism from an industry that existed before women and black people even had the right to vote.
There is also the absurd claims that white people dominate in awards shows because they earned it and that the vast majority of roles go to white people because there are simply more white people in the United States, so it makes sense demographically. Beyond sounding vaguely white supremacist, these arguments not only deny the existence of racism in the film industry but are factually incorrect.
According to a study by the Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, only 28% of speaking characters in major “films, television and digital episodes in 2014-15 were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. This is 9.6% below the U.S. population norm of 37.9%.”
Representation both in front of and behind the camera is terrible for racial/ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people, and women. The vast majority of people working in and portrayed by the film industry were found to be straight, white, cisgender men.
Out of over 11,000 speaking characters, only a third were female and only 2% were LGBT. Almost three-quarters of LGBT characters were male, and 80% of them were white. Only seven transgender characters were found, while zero characters identified as non-binary. Many minority and female characters were also reduced to stereotypes, and they rarely served as main characters, instead being relegated to the sides.
The numbers get even worse behind the camera. Out of 4,284 directors, only 15% were women, which translates to a gender ratio of nearly six to one. It was particularly bad in film, with only 3.4% of directors being women. Out of 6,421 writers, only 28.9% were women, with only 10.8% in film. Out of 487 show creators, only 22.6% were women.
However, the numbers do get better when women and minorities are behind the camera. Movies directed by women featured 5.4% more women on screen than movies with female directors, though even with 5.4% added the percentage only reaches 38.5. “For writers and creators, the relationship was more pronounced (10.7% and 12.6% increase, respectively).”
In terms of race, only 13% of directors were racial/ethnic minorities, though works helmed by directors of color were 17.5% more likely to portray people of color. The LGBT community is so underrepresented that the study did not even include behind the camera statistics in its summary.
“This is no mere diversity problem. This is an inclusion crisis,” said professor Stacy L. Smith, author of the study and Founding Director of the MDSC Initiative. “It is clear that the ecosystem of entertainment is exclusionary.” She said that the study was a landmark in diversity research. “No one has looked from CEO to every speaking character across film, television, and digital content. The results speak to the landscape of media and the erasure of different groups on screen and behind the camera.”
Though shedding light on the entertainment industry’s diversity problem is important, there need to be systemic changes, and outright cultural shifts, in order to fix the problem. The Academy’s roster of new invitees is certainly a step in the right direction, but the entertainment industry has a long, long way to go before women and minorities get the equality they deserve.
