I think if we were to talk about how change initially happens I would probably agree with you more than disagree, but we are way past hiring minority gaffers as being an agent of change in this country. I have live in a very red state for twenty years now and have never had a job where I haven’t worked around all of the diversity that we talk about every day. Pretty hard for me to swallow that Hollywood is white washing their sets in 2024.
Reading the article points out it isn’t just about people of color or ethnicity but makes a detailed defense of it for women and disabled people as well.
This specifically:
Women are criminally underrepresented in the industry. There have been 278 films nominated for best picture since the first woman was nominated, and won in 1973 (Julia Phillips for “The Sting”). There have been 116 up until the 2020 ceremony. Eleven women have won best picture over 10 separate films.
An uninformed follower looks at those numbers and might say, “a 41% women representation is great, so there’s no problem.” As the tagline of the 1999 best picture winner “American Beauty” reads on its poster, “look closer…”
When a film is nominated for Oscars’ top prize, all the producers deemed eligible by the studio and Academy are nominated. Since 1973, there have been 638 total credited female*producers that been nominated alongside their male counterparts. That once impressive 41% percent for woman representation has plummeted to a dismal 18%.
But “look closer…”
Of that 116 women, two are Black women (Oprah Winfrey for “Selma” and Kimberly Steward for “Manchester by the Sea”), one is Latina (Gabriela Rodríguez for “Roma”), and zero were Asian. Ninety-two years of rich, wonderful films but the industry’s inclusion of women has been grossly exclusionary and abundantly apparent.
We have to believe and hope this makes a difference. The Academy sees it and wants to do it. Writer Mark Harris said it best when he tweeted, “It’s good they have 2 yrs to work out the kinks, because…there are issues.”
On the LGBTQ front, it’s no better. The first known LGBTQ+ producer nominated was Tony Richardson for 1963’s “Tom Jones,” where it won best picture. Another nominee wouldn’t represent until “Airport” in 1970 and a winner wouldn’t emerge until Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks for “American Beauty” in 1999. Only two other winners round out the list including Scott Rudin for “No Country for Old Men” and Iain Canning for “The King’s Speech.” As noticed, that list only included men. Megan Ellison is the only woman to be nominated as a producer and she’s done it on four films (“Zero Dark Thirty,” “American Hustle,” “Her,” and “Phantom Thread”). No identifying bisexual, transgender, queer, or gender-neutral producers have found recognition.
For the disabled community, their voice has been mostly unheard until the Academy’s announcement. Just two disabled actors have been recognized by the Academy. Harold Russell won best supporting actor when he portrayed a veteran who loses both hands in war in the best picture winner “The Best Years of Our Lives” in 1947. It would be exactly 40 years later when deaf actress Marlee Matlin took home her Oscar for best actress for “Children of a Lesser God.” This is disheartening when you consider there have been over 50 actors and actresses who have been nominated for Oscars for playing characters with disabilities (i.e. Daniel Day-Lewis for “My Left Foot” or Patty Duke for “The Miracle Worker”). This initiative only asks that we open the door to include more.