Variety: The television industry has made some improvements in the hiring of women and minority directors, a new report from the Directors Guild of America shows.
The report, released Tuesday, shows the percentage of episodes directed by ethnic minorities rising by 3 percentage points to a record 22% of all episodes, while the percentage directed by women went up 4 points to 21% of all episodes, another all-time high.
3 comments:
This article was very short and had very little information, and therefore I am unimpressed by the numbers that filled the data sheet at the end of the article. And the statistics that the article presented, are very small, which is why in the title of the piece it says, " Some Progress." Clearly, there has been very little opportunity for women and minorities to break into a widely male and majority white industry. This article didn't propose very many accomplishments for this breakthrough, or how more female directors can find opportunities. It is simply published to say that there have been a couple more female directors and a couple more minority directors, but very little has changed. Clearly, something needs to change, and something needs to change now.
I'm really grateful for all the work that is being done in an attempt to raise awareness about representation and hiring in the entertainment industry. At the same time, I can't help but wonder how much of this issue can be attributed to generational issues and the reality of how ingrained non-diverse hiring practices are in the minds of producers. It leads me to wonder whether or not the generation of people who grew up on talk of the important of representation in these industries will cause a massive spike in the industry once they are of the age and experience that they can be one the ones responsible for hiring more diverse performers and creators for important roles. This may be wishful thinking, however, I have faith that the mindsets that cause whitewashing across all entertainment industries and platforms will literally begin to start dying off, and will hopefully be replaced with more forward thinking individuals.
When it is disheartening and infuriating to discover more and more people we adored are not worth our affection, (not only in the world of entertainment but in every single industry,) the answer could be HIRE MORE WOMEN! And from the same perspective, it was great to read about a little bit of meaningful changes in TV directing. The numbers are of course still skewed. 62% of episodes were directed by Caucasian males, 17% minority males, 16% Caucasian females and 5% minority females. But, is it really meaningful change in numbers? No. "The percentage of episodes directed by Caucasian males decreased to 62% from 67% but the actual number of episodes went up by 32 to 2,749." So, the percentage for female directors and minority directors went up not because there was significant improvement in hiring non-white male directors, but because the number of directed episodes went up in general. So, I think it is safe to reiterate what I said before: Let's hire more women. And minority.
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