A special edition of The Frame examines Hollywood's diversity challenge with screenwriter José Rivera, producer Effie Brown and Frank Leonard, CEO of the The Black List screenplay project.
Does Hollywood have a diversity problem?
Neil Patrick Harris began last night's Academy Awards ceremony by taking a shot at the extreme whiteness at the Oscars. The whitest Oscars in 16 years garnered attention in notably negative ways — for example, none of the nominees in any of the acting categories were people of color.
However, the ceremony itself allowed actors, musicians and directors the opportunity to talk about pressing social issues. From Patricia Arquette on the gender wage gap, to Common and John Legend on racial injustice, many of the award winners spoke out against oppression.
To help Hollywood start its unofficial new year on the right track, we brought three creatives onto The Frame to discuss the multilayered issue of diversity (or the lack thereof) in Hollywood. They are: Effie Brown, producer of "Dear White People," Franklin Leonard, CEO and founder of The Black List screenplay project, and José Rivera, a screenwriter whose credits include "The Motorcycle Diaries."
Interview Highlights:
How did you feel about Neil Patrick Harris starting off the show with that joke about Hollywood's "best and whitest"?
Leonard: I think there's the danger that by making a joke out of it, it weirdly excuses it and sets the issue aside, but I think fortunately so many of the people that were on stage commented directly on it as well, whether it be diversity in terms of race or ethnicity, but also in terms of gender, which I think is another issue the industry desperately needs to address.
Rivera: I completely agree. It's odd that we would decide to talk about this because of the Oscars, because this is a problem seven days a week for writers, directors and actors of color who either cannot get their work heard or seen, or have no access to power.
I think the issue behind all this is power — who has the power to make decisions to allow certain voices to be heard and who doesn't? I don't want to be seen as a voice for Latino anything, but rather as one Latino artist. I know when I've walked into rooms where power was displayed that I didn't see anyone else of my background.
Franklin, I want to ask you about the writer community. When I was at the L.A. Times, I helped contribute to a study about the membership of the Motion Picture Academy. We found that the Academy's executive branch is 98% white, and the writers' branch was 98% white as well.
Leonard: I can't say that I'm surprised about that, and I think in many ways the writers' branch is likely a reflection of the executives' branch because the executives are the ones choosing the writers, and I think oftentimes when it comes to hiring writers, you're hiring people you know or people with whom you feel most comfortable in a room.
But again, going back to Jose's previous point about it not just being about the Academy or the Oscars, I think the membership of the Academy — what we see in the most visible night that Hollywood has each year — is more of a symptom of the problem than the problem itself.
The Academy represents a crystallization of years of historical and institutional racism. If you imagine that getting into the industry requires a number of different obstacles, there are more obstacles for people of color and more obstacles for women just to get in the door. And then there are more obstacles to climb each flight of stairs, so at the highest levels you'll see even fewer people of color, women and people of a variety of backgrounds than you would at the lower levels of the industry. That's why you're seeing such an extreme exclusion within the academy.
Effie, I want to ask you about the other awards show that was this weekend, the Independent Spirit Awards, which recognize films that were made outside the studio system. There were some independent films that were up for Oscars, but you had a film, "Dear White People," which won a Spirit Award for writer/director Justin Simien.
What does that mean to you, and what's he trying to get at?
Brown: I think he actually gets at it quite well. He made a story and a film and a script that actually represented not only him, but also a whole class of people and a whole group of people that were like, Oh my god, that's me! When I first read this script, and I've said this time and time again, it was already there. He had that voice and he was able to tap into a whole generation that was able to see themselves in that film. There are a lot of other filmmakers and storytellers who hopefully will get bolstered by that statement and will actually make their own films.
Is it unfair to lump black films and Latino films together like this? Are there separate issues for those audiences and those filmmakers?
Rivera: [We're] talking about what artists of color have to deal with, and this is where the black community and the Latin community overlap and absolutely share a problem. The problem isn't just a silence in the culture about who we are or how are stories aren't told — that silence is there, and it's terrible. There's a bigger problem, which is that the historic storytelling that deals with people of color is overwhelmingly negative. I grew up in a time where whatever I saw of a Latin on television was a drug dealer, a pimp, a whore...
Brown: Welcome to our world. [laughs]
Rivera: Yeah, exactly, exactly! Our communities share this problem, and for that reason alone I think we are one community.
Brown: I just want to echo that, and I totally agree with you. The images that we see at a very young age of how we're represented on film and television are really long-lasting. However, we are seeing different stories within our community.
Leonard: I think that's true, but I think that for the most part those stories are the ones that are being initiated and driven by people within our community.
Brown: Well, who else would do it?
Leonard: This is actually a really interesting point though — if you think about why it is that in major studio films and big studio productions you're only seeing black and Latino characters cast in negative roles, I think it's largely because the people responsible for making those casting decisions have a really hard time imagining blacks and Latinos in any other roles.
Either it's because they don't have direct experience with it in their day-to-day lives, or they're perceiving what blacks and Latinos can be from the culture that's already been created. And you end up in this vicious cycle.
If you look at "Grey's Anatomy" or "Empire" or really any of the Shonda Rhimes shows, she knows that black people can be at all of these different jobs.
So that's the question, right? Why is TV so far ahead of the movie business on this issue? Jose, any thoughts?
Rivera: I think a conscious decision had been made by the networks, before cable, to increase the presence, especially of African-American actors, on screen. When I look at the Latin community I've always felt that we're 10-to-15 years behind the black community in terms of representation on television.
Leonard: I would agree.
Brown: I'd agree too, and let's not forget about Asians [laughs]. "Fresh Off the Boat" is like the only thing I see.
Why does this conversation matter? Why is this an important issue?
Rivera: Well, let me just say that I was in this conversation 30 years ago. And I was in this conversation 20 years ago and 15 years ago. And since I'm a playwright I also have this conversation in the theater where it's just as bad.
Sometimes I think, No one's listening and no one cares. We have to empower ourselves, we have to organize, we have to become a community and bust the walls down, because nobody cares but us.
Brown: I also think we have to change how we talk about it. I don't think it's a malicious decision, and I don't even think it's a conscious decision. But let's be real about it, after a while I feel like people are so tired of hearing diversity, diversity, inclusion, inclusion, because they're like, "Uh, you're trying to take what's mine," or, "Jesus Christ, will you guys shut up already? We voted for your President! We're done with that."
Leonard: [laughs] You have a black President of the [Motion Picture] Academy and of the United States.
Brown: I think if we change [the word we use] to inclusive, because I have to be very aware when I'm walking into a room where I am the "other," and I have to think, like, How can I get you to hear me where I don't sound like a nag?
Does the industry itself think that it has a diversity problem?
Leonard: The industry is aware that it has an issue. If you got most people one-on-one and said, "Look, is this a problem," I think most people would acknowledge it. But I think that most people think that they individually aren't the solution to it, or they don't know what the solution is.