Dear Hollywood:
There’s a lot to absorb in the WGA West’s most recent Hollywood Writers Report, and Variety underlines your failure to locate and reward female and minority writing talent. The data is abysmal: Women make up only 28 percent of TV writers (and only 18 percent of movie writers) and minorities are stuck at 6 percent. Indefensible. I say that not out of political correctness, but pure capitalistic pragmatism: I can assure you that women and minorities make up a much larger percentage of today’s television and movie audiences than that. With all the pressures you’re facing these days, wouldn’t it stand to reason that expanding the tent of talent might attract larger, more attractive demographics? The network that successfully does so could win a humanitarian award (yawn), but more importantly, its ratings might actually go up.
Sincerely,
Tina Fey’s Boy-toy
(PS: Do I have to mention that female movie writers will actually save you money, considering you pay them, on the average, $40,000 less than their male counterparts?)
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If they hired female writers, all they’ll write is anti-male crap
As opposed to the misogynistic (read: anti-female) crap put out by many male writers? Yeah, that would suck.
Wait, I thought Hollywood was all inclusive and liberal? I mean, they can rally behind Polanski, but can’t muster up the gull to hire (gasp) a female or an Asian/Hispanic/African-American/etc…? Frankly, it might be better for the women and minorities to not be associated with the muck that Hollywood’s been putting out for years now (more film than TV, though, cause Lost is on point).
It’s even worse when it comes to directors or studio heads. The dirty secret is that Hollywood preaches inclusiveness but rarely practices it.
I appreciate what Jeff (article’s author) is saying, but I think we need to stop perpetuating the idea that white guys can only successfully write white guys, and that women can only successfully write women. True, there is the potential pitfall in not ‘knowing’ your character firsthand (e.g., some of the ‘male banter’ on Grey’s Anatomy, often written by women, is painful, while some ‘girls hanging out stuff’ is awful on other shows written by men). And there are classic cases of sitcoms headed by an African American actor/actress with no minorities on the writing staff. But there are also many cases in reverse — minorities writing about minorities or women writing about women that SUCKS. Talent is rarely race or gender specific. Let’s not discriminate based on either, but let’s not endorse hiring for the sake of hiring.
No one said men can only write for men and vice versa. I think the point of the article is that there isn’t enough diversity (for writers) in Hollywood. How do we know what works if it stays status quo? I don’t think anyone’s proposing getting rid of straight, white, males but how about when a position becomes available they look outside of that demographic once in a while.
Part of the problem is so many of the people who make hiring decisions are white men. So it doesn’t even occur to them to hire women or people of color – they just look for people who look like them. It’s more insidious than blatant discrimination (which I’m sure does happen) because they don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Sure, white men can write people of color and women, and POCs and women can write characters “like them” that sucks, but that’s a crummy justification for just keeping the status quo. More diversity can only be a good thing.
I’m down with your view and all for female/other-than-white-people writers, but there is a tiny flaw. Aren’t there just more white males in field? And, not to mention, in America? There will always be more white males in Hollywood because there are more white males in the entertainment business! Now if you took each individual writer and divided that over the total number or writers in his/her respective race or gender, that would give you an estimate to the equality in Hollywood, and definitely a number worth arguing over.
I was wondering the same thing. I mean do the numbers above only include working writers or do they include every unemployed writer out there. If it is the first then it could be hollywood’s failure. If it is the second than maybe it just means that the majority of aspiring writers are white men.
I know a ton of female would-be writers in this town. They’re not not being hired because they’re not good enough. People in this town hire their friends, and that’s all there is to it.
Amen, Jeff Labrecque, amen. This is completely inexcusable. White-male dominated Hollywood is always screaming about the importance of tolerance and diversity, and yet in reality, they are some of the most bigoted and close-minded people that you will meet. They only trust white male writers and executives (like them) to make good stories and decisions – they constantly belittle the value of “women” or “ethnic” stories and talent. And the white-male dominated critic field is not helping either, because their reviews often echo this sentiment.
As always numbers mean so little and yet they are carted out to prove points. Instead of giving me just these numbers how bout doing some reporting and report on what the ratings are based on sex and race of writer vs. viewer. If the numbers show that women are far more apt to watch female writers projects then maybe you have a point. Same with minorities. But with only a flat “there are only this many…” then it means nothing. The next question is how many people that submit scripts are women or minority vs. the much hated white male. I’d take a guess that more white males submit scrpits and thus are more often used.
Why is this even an issue? really?
Another transparent attempt to apply affirmative action to every aspect of society. The writer makes the lame attempt to convince Hollywood that “diversity” translates into profits. But the real reason is everyday liberal cowardice. They’re scared to death certain minority groups can’t adequately compete, so create every excuse in the book for racial preferences and set-asides. Must have been polishing Jesse Jackson’s knob a bit too often.