In The Room And At The Table; An Entertainment Industry Directive In Light Of #Charlottesville
You know what I see when I look at the Tiki Torchers? The current face of the Entertainment Industry: a sea of cisgender (I am, admittedly, assuming), able-bodied, straight (at least theyâll claim as much), white males, just like our cultureâs movies, TV shows, and theater productions.
In the recently published USC Annenberg study, white characters make up 70.8% of the 900 movies surveyed from 2007-2016, and in 2016 only 31.4% of all speaking characters were female. What you see, is what you will understand; what you understand, is what you will have empathy for. If we donât consciously change the faces and bodies that we are allowed to see, as a nation, then we will continue to repeat what is happening in Charlottesville and Seattle and all over the United States.Â
We, the entertainment industry, are the problem: we determine what people see, we determine what people understand. If we donât challenge who is in the room, who is at the table, and who is on the screen at every moment of our careers, then we have blood on our hands.Â
And I mean this for ANY room, table, or screen, no matter how big or small. I have recently been invited to a number of private table readings of projects friends are working on. Iâm honored to be invited to these events, as new work of any kind is where my passions lie. But when I walk into any space, I do a headcount; I count how many women, and I count how many people of color [1]. My experience lately has been strong gender parity, which is not surprising given the number of self-identified feminists with which I associate. But much to my disappointment, when the rooms have been curated by white writers or directors, then they have been predominantly, if not exclusively, white.Â
Your choices matter at every step of the game, even the early, tiny, private steps. Make inclusivity and racial diversity a priority even when you think âI just need to hear it,â or âweâll worry about this when the piece gets produced.â Youâre lying to yourself. You must start right now. It will take work and youâll have to reach outside your circles, perhaps, but do it anyway. Decide youâre going to do it. Keep deciding youâre doing it as the project grows. Your life and your piece will benefit from the decision.
Because hereâs the thing: weâve got a chicken and egg problem. Our content is white because white has been established as a default, and white has been established as a default because our content is white. Here at CastAndLoose, all day long I slog through casting breakdowns, many of which are from film students rehashing every film theyâve ever seen, thinking theyâre coming up with new ideas, but all they know how to write is what theyâve already seen, and that is white, male, cis, hetero, young, and able-bodied. By choosing to surround yourself by solely other white people, even for a private reading, you are more deeply inscribing a cycle that is already challenging to break out of.Â
When I say diversity, I mean broad diversity. One person of color in your room full of white people is not enough. A brilliant friend of mine, who is a writer, actor, producer, and black woman in the industry put it to me this way: when you are the only person of color in a room, you are Other. When you are in a room that is diverse and inclusive, then you get to just be a human. The more diverse every room is, the more every person in that space can be a human. Choose to make everyone human.Â
I focus this directive at white content-makers because we have a responsibility that we cannot ignore. When my friends of color, or trans friends, or disabled friends wake up in the morning, they canât decide to be privileged that day. They canât decide to take a day off from being faced with subjugation or assumptions or micro (or not at all micro) aggressions. But if youâre white, cis, and able-bodied, like I am, then we have a responsibility to wake up and actively decide to look our privilege, our prejudices, and the systemic oppression in which we engage in the face. If we decide today weâre not going to deal with it, and weâll take the easy route, then we have paid into the system [2].
I am often accused of being an idealist, of not accepting the realities of my chosen career. This is not idealism, this is the only choice I can make and be able to look at myself in the mirror. Our nation teems with racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, and ageism, and the flame is fueled by an orange beast who rose to power on the back of the Entertainment Industry. We have to take responsibility, investigate our personal bigotries, and choose to be a force for change. No matter how hard. No matter how exhausting. No matter how small your room or your table. We are out of time.
[1] I would include here that I head count trans and gender nonconforming individuals and/or people with disabilities, but I recognize that in doing so I am making assumptions about gender presentation (if I donât know the individual personally), and the visibility of disability, so I choose not to include these items in this particular list. However, in constructing a room, this sort of inclusivity must also be addressed.
[2] I owe much of this paragraph to the words and ideas of that same brilliant friend, Penny Middleton.
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