13.2: Minority Employment – Dismal Data and Industrial Pushback

The lack of a diverse labor force in both above- and below-the-line talent is not simply anecdotal. In April 2014, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) released their latest “Hollywood Writers Report,” the organization’s study on the state of diversity in the film and television industries.³ The report’s findings prompted much debate, and rightfully so, as the data indicated a dismal state of affairs for film and television writers: for instance, minority television writers had increased their share of employment by only 1 percent, and women remained underrepresented by a factor of two to one among television writers.⁴ Hollywood’s lack of diversity also extended to directing. In 2014, the Directors Guild of America (DGA) diversity report indicated that of the 3,500 episodes analyzed from more than 200 scripted television programs produced in the 2013–2014 season, 69 percent were directed by white males,⁵ 12 percent by white females, 17 percent by minority males, and 2 percent by minority females—a statistic unchanged from the previous year’s study.⁶ The numbers are no better in acting, where the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) reported that in 2008, white actors dominated television and film roles (70.7 percent). Rounding out the casting data, African Americans represented 14.8 percent of television and film roles, Latinos 6.7 percent, Native Americans 0.30 percent, and unknown/other 4.1 percent.⁷ Lastly, official statistics for casting directors are more difficult to secure because they are not represented by organized labor to the same degree as other creative professions. They do have a professional society—the Casting Society of America—whose leadership profile follows a pattern similar to employment data collected and distributed by the guilds. Its twenty-six-member leadership team is all white with the exception of one Latino; its gender split is roughly equal.

Such are the data that characterize the premier occupations within Hollywood’s labor force, capturing the degree to which the great majority of feature films and television productions resist multiculturalism. Indeed, despite some small signs of progress (often disproportionately celebrated with self-congratulatory discourses), the film and television industries have yet to initiate any meaningful measures that might correct the staggering lack of diversity in their labor force. In fact, the last time the industry’s exclusionary hiring practices received serious and sustained public criticism was the fall 1999 television season—more than fifteen years ago—when none of the season’s twenty-three new prime-time series featured a single person of color in a leading role. Civil rights organizations and media advocacy groups threatened boycotts and litigation, publicly demanding immediate action from the networks to rectify the troubling lack of minority characters.⁸ The public shaming and negative news coverage generated some momentum in favor of minority employment both in front of and behind the camera. Networks immediately began casting people of color in supporting roles across a number of series—a liberal “sprinkling” of multiculturalism to quell the controversy. In a structural attempt at change, many networks created in-house diversity positions—executives charged with the futile task of encouraging television showrunners to increase the number of people of color employed on their productions.

Despite such responses, the momentum produced limited success and short-lived interest. Diversity executives are considered all bark and no bite; without the authority to hire or fire, they lack the power to intervene effectively. They furthermore claim that efforts to diversify personnel require fundamental change at every employment rank within a network, and that change remains a far-off reality.⁹ Furthermore, in the NAACP Hollywood Bureau’s 2008 report, the organization stresses that, despite some gains, the primary objectives it negotiated during the 1999 talks have been largely abandoned by the networks.¹⁰ As Vicangelo Bulluck, former executive director of the NAACP’s Hollywood bureau, posited, “The trend definitely seems to be going in the wrong direction.”¹¹ Indeed, nine years after one of the most public industrial shakedowns, employment data retells the same story each year, which further suggests that even if advocacy groups are still pursuing their diversity agendas, the networks have generated strategies to allow them to opt out.

With less than substantial improvement to its exclusionary hiring practices, the television and film industries have nevertheless become emboldened in their apathy about the lack of diversity both in front of and behind the camera. Report after report citing the dearth of employment for creative labor of color has had little effect on how the major Hollywood players choose to conduct their business. Certainly, it is not in their best interest to admit that racial and ethnic diversity is simply a low priority or an unnecessary distraction. In short, no matter how dismal the employment data, diversity just isn’t a problem for many of those individuals in positions with enough power to do something about it. Instead of direct acknowledgment, they employ discursive stopgaps that redirect conversations about employment into discussions of competence and skill—ironically, as I will outline below, concepts that perpetuate familiar ideological beliefs about racial identity.

For example, in response to coverage of the 2013 WGA “Writers Report,” the anonymous commenter “Heartsick” at Deadline Hollywood expressed frustration at the pressure coming from diversity executives as well as talent agents to racially integrate his writing staff. Describing literary agents calling him to suggest writers of color for his staff, Heartsick recalls asking: “What piece of writing have you read that indicates this person would be right for my show, and the answer INVARIABLY is: they haven’t read the person, they’re just calling to con me into hiring someone based on irrelevant, invidious categories that should have no place in the employment of writers.”¹² Heartsick is frustrated with agents who allegedly send him ill-prepared writers of color—a phenomenon he doesn’t attribute to white writers also seeking employment—because they interfere with his ability to identify talent based on how well they “fit” with the creative sensibility among his writing staff, a criterion that in his mind transcends racial difference. One can only imagine how many Heartsicks exist in the Hollywood hierarchy. But here’s the critical point: if diversity was an organic industrial practice implemented in staffing hires based simply on postracial notions of fit, talent, and worth, then by extension Hollywood would be a much more hospitable place for ethnic and racial minorities.

Commentators on Deadline are not the only industry-minded folks maintaining that anonymity is the only way to honestly respond to these shameful data-filled reports. One of the more recent trends on Twitter is the emergence of Mystery Hollywood. The “Mysterys,” as they label themselves, are anonymous industry workers/insiders who claim they hold enough clout in the industry that revealing their personal identities would wreak havoc on their professional lives. Mysterys’ racial, ethnic, and gender identities remain unclear unless their Twitter handles or avatars make explicit such differences. The juxtaposition between how Mysterys occupy the socially mediated space as exnominated white and/or male identities and the manner by which they self-fashion personas as successful entertainment industry laborers using the Twitter platform to “tell the truth” anonymously creates some complicated spaces of navigation for a person of color follower. Consider a small section of a Twitter screed by a Mystery account called “DevelopmentHell Exec (DHE)”: “Am I the only one sick of hearing about the plight of women in the film and TV industry? It’s 2014. Just do something awesome, you’re in. Or how bout just making GOOD FILMS? Women-centric, men-centric, alien-centric, muppet-centric, Wall-E-centric. Whatever. Quality > politics.”¹³ Similar to Heartsick, DHE’s Mystery account allows him to speak his truth about the manner by which diverse employment is discussed in Hollywood. It also allows him ¹⁴ to free himself from the focus on employing different kinds of gendered and racial bodies to instead focus on the abstract and apolitical notion of “good work” that cares not about the body from which that work is produced. For DHE, the data suggesting how far white women and men and women of color lag behind white men in all facets of the industry is representative not of a racist structure but of natural selection, sifting out those who create “quality” work from those who are unqualified for the business.

Regardless of how many popular press articles, pie charts, and data graphs consistently demonstrate that marginalized bodies are not allowed opportunities to prove they can produce quality work, the ideological frames perpetuated by the likes of Heartsick and DHE dissociate the structural racism from common industry practices. Creative talents are rewarded with access and opportunity, regardless of the racial or ethnic identity of the worker. The few minority workers who do enjoy some success function as evidence that the best talent does indeed rise to the top. Yet such discursive logic obscures that Hollywood is an industry built around relationships, networking, internships, and apprenticeships—a classed set of practices from which people of color are systemically excluded.