13.5: Conclusion

Throughout this essay I tried to illustrate different ways that various creative laborers at various levels of access navigate precarity—from the anonymous (white) gatekeepers who stress that precarity is not a diversity issue but only an issue for those who lack the necessary skills; to the casting directors who find themselves stuck in a precarious limbo with insufficient power to break the status quo despite unparalleled access to diverse pools of talent; to actors of color whose precarious existence means they must strategically plan to circumvent the system even if those strategies benefit individuals at the expense of collective forms of resistance. Ultimately, the uncertainty of employment forces all these groups into their own strategies and tactics of negotiation. And while employment and maintaining one’s livelihood is the point, the danger of such precarious livelihoods is that oftentimes survival takes precedence over all other factors—including the need for cultural resonance and specificity. That precarity results in the maintenance of a white heteronormative status quo is not shocking, but demands that future research consider the historical and discursive ways creative men and women laborers of color have survived in spite of the uncertainty as a guidepost for understanding issues of labor at all levels.