Monday, February 24, 2020
50/50 Panel Explores Paths to Equality in the Entertainment Industry
Variety: Rabbatts spoke at an EFM Horizon event co-hosted by the Swedish Film Institute called “50/50 by 2020 – A Roadmap for the Future.” She went on to expound on how to keep up the momentum towards gender equality that has gathered in wake of the #MeToo movement, which itself unfurled out of the Weinstein revelations
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This topic is always interesting to read about because it is a constantly evolving discussion, and it is important to communicate as often as possible that looking for equality in the entertainment industry (or really any other industry) is not an attempt to level the playing field by giving preferential treatment to undervalued groups; the goal is to remove the preferential treatment that already exists and begin to dissolve the concentration of power that enforces those ideals. The point that Rabbatts makes about power is really important to this conversation as well. Because people are not likely to willingly give up power, the same type of people are staying on top and then passing their power onto similar people who sometimes succeed because of the existing preferential treatment. It is a cyclical process, which is evident in how long it has been able to persist and the fact that it still persists even though it is being called out on a larger scale.
Heather Rabbatts' words were so empowering. I love the way she said, "People ask me, should we have a women’s award? Should we have a people of color award? No! Should we have a white men award? We have to look at who’s defining what’s other. We are not the other; We’re here." This really stuck with me because similar to what Mitchell said above, we shouldn't be going about reaching equality by giving special treatment to minorities and people who are often overlooked. We should be giving equal opportunity to all people whether they are man, woman, black, white, Latinx, Asian, etc. The difficulty of achieving that comes from the people that are in power as well as the people who look up to those people. If people in higher positions don't strive to create change, the change will not happen. The best way I can explain it is this example: currently, cis-gendered, straight, white men are standing on a taller pedestal than anyone who is not one of them, and in order to fix that imbalance people think giving women and people of color an extra step stool to stand on will solve the problem. It won't because men are still on that taller pedestal. What needs to happen is for everyone to have the same height of pedestal. No one should need a step stool in order to be treated equally.
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