Wednesday, February 24, 2016
What It’s Really Like to Work in Hollywood (*If you’re not a straight white man.)
The New York Times: The statistics are unequivocal: Women and minorities are vastly underrepresented in front of and behind the camera. Here, 27 industry players reveal the stories behind the numbers — their personal experiences of not feeling seen, heard or accepted, and how they pushed forward. In Hollywood, exclusion goes far beyond #OscarsSoWhite.
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3 comments:
#Oscarssowhite as a movement is something that is hard to discuss. Diversity in movies goes up every day, and yet one awards ceremony doesn't think that any of those actors qualified as having given one of the best performances of the year. Now, I don't particularly think that people watch movies and think that a performance is good based on their race, but it does raise a question of why this continues to happen if there are so many movies out there. To me, the real problem is #Oscarssomainstream. If the Academy were to pay more attention to the hundreds of diverse indie films coming out each year spearheaded by a bunch of people trying to create something raw, then we wouldn't feel as betrayed by the lack of diverse nominees. Sam Esmail's quote about not being certain anyone but a white man could be the lead is interesting, since growing up in the 80s and 90s didn't particularly encourage that breed of prejudice anymore, unless your parents were old fashioned conservatives. Another big point the article brings up is not getting a part based on your skin color, but where is the line between integrity to the role and adhering to cries for diversity?
I won't say I'm proud of the at least increased attention to diversity issues in our entertainment, because I really feel likes it's not my place. However, I don't know how long Hollywood can go on ignoring the diversity issue. Even if there is not a change of heart in the old white hearts of the Academy, they're all going to die out, hopefully taking their archaic ideals with them. I definitely feel like our generation is growing up in an age where diversity is the norm (for most of us, disregarding the states and cultural settings that are upwards of 90% white). Thus, I feel like, and I hope, that when our generation grows up, we will not have any reservations about who is "fit" for a role and taking race so deeply into consideration from a negative perspective. It'll just be about who is BEST for the role. It's definitely easy for writers and producers to fall into the trap of assigning a race to a character, so I wonder what would happen if shows and movies were written more often with characters who didn't have an assigned race or ethnicity that the actor had to be, or in Hollywood's case, what race a white person would have to portray.
this article really touched me. Especially the fact that its an article about diversity in hollywood coming from on the most influential publications in the world, The New York Times. Here is a newspaper that has real influence speaking out. Not only that but these are some of the most present and talented people of color in the industry speaking out about the hardships they have had.
I respect people like Justin Lin so much, because here is this man, who after seeing this, overcame so much diversity to create some of the most top selling movies in hollywood, The Fast and the Furious movies (which have some of the best diversity casting in the business, with a Polynesian man, a Hispanic woman, two black man, and an Asian man as the leads). And Ken Jeong, a man who had to play racist roles with terrible accents he doesn't have to rise to the top. I'm proud of him for the ability now to say no.
It is hard, as a person of color in this industry to "just do your art". If a white man wants to act, by god he can act. Brad Pitt may have had people telling him he wasn't good, but he sure as hell never had anyone telling him he wasn't the right color for a role. He could just do his job. And when you're a person of color in this industry, it atomatically is a fight, and like Mindy said, you sort of have to become an activist to be able to tell your own story. The Mindy Project and Aziz Ansari's shows are both them trying to tell their own stories on television, that by just being their skin color, become about activism. And that sucks as people who love their trade and jsut want to do that. But I'm glad they're doing what they're doing.
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