Yes, it’s true. Some people are afraid that too much “diversity” on our TV programming over the last year is hurting the chances of white actors to find work. No, really, they are.
This has been a breakthrough year for diversity in television. Fox’s Empire became a ratings marvel. ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder vaulted into the same stratosphere of success as its Shondaland sibling Scandal. Comedies like Black-ish, Jane the Virgin, and Fresh off the Boat found their footing and solid ratings. […]
But not everyone sees this as progress. On Tuesday night, Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva made it abundantly clear with a strange piece titled “Pilots 2015: The Year Of Ethnic Castings — About Time Or Too Much Of Good Thing?”
Yes, those awful blacks and browns are ruining the beautiful job opportunities of white people, once again.
Instead of opening the field for actors of any race to compete for any role in a color-blind manner, there has been a significant number of parts designated as ethnic this year, making them off-limits for Caucasian actors, some agents signal. Many pilot characters this year were listed as open to all ethnicities, but when reps would call to inquire about an actor submission, they frequently have been told that only non-Caucasian actors would be considered. “Basically 50% of the roles in a pilot have to be ethnic, and the mandate goes all the way down to guest parts,” one talent representative said.
I feel awful. Hollywood’s oppression of the white race is simply too much to bear – or is it? I mean, c’mon, people, white men dominate the big and small screen and the statistics prove it:
Why Hollywood is frozen in the 1950s: White men are still king of the silver screen with lead roles going to just 26% of women and 11% of minorities
Hollywood Diversity Report paints picture of industry ‘woefully out of touch’
Minorities 36 percent of U.S. population, but feature much less in film and TV
Films and TV with diverse casts and crew do better commerciallyThe 2014 Hollywood Diversity Report released this week examines the gender and race of actors, directors and writers of film and television.
It reveals an industry that is still dominated by white men, with women and minorities dramatically underrepresented both on and off screen. […]
The study found that minorities and women were leads, directors, writers and creators in films and television programs far less often than would be expected given they make up more than 36 percent and slightly more than 50 percent of the overall U.S. population respectively.
That study of the 172 largest grossing US produced films of 2011 and “1061 television shows from the 2011-2012 season from broadcast and cable networks, including dramas, comedies, and reality television: is supported by this year’s diversity study which looked at the 2013 season. Guess what? Things stayed pretty much the same – whites, especially white men, ruled. Just look at these charts:
Here’s the chart of broadcast scripted shows on Cable for 2013 (Figure 33, on page 23 of 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report).
Seventy-seven percent of all roles went to white actors on cable that year, but the percentage was even higher on network shows – 81% of all roles went to whites in 2013:
So why are a few anonymous agents claiming that a their clients are being discriminated against merely because there were a small number of racially diverse hit shows in 2014? Apparently they feel deeply threatened by the “blackening” of Hollywood if you believe this tripe from Deadline’s Ms. Andreeva.
But there were more broadcast drama pilots than ever whose leads had been designated as black this year. That includes Fox medical drama Rosewood, toplined by Morris Chestnut, and CBS civil rights crime drama For Justice, starring Anika Noni Rose. Uncle Buck was rebooted by ABC specifically as a black family sitcom, with Mike Epps in the title role originated by John Candy. NBC opted to make the lead couple in its drama about diverse couples Love Is A Four Letter Word black in picking up the pilot. (It had been originally conceived as Caucasian.) After a post-table read recasting of the female role, the two leads went to Cynthia McWilliams and Rockmond Dunbar.
Oh the horror, the horror.
Do these people really believe the bullpuckey they are putting out that, in effect, white actors are now magically – in one year’s time – the victims of ‘reverse racism?’ That the dominance of white actors on America’s airwaves has suddenly disappeared? I highly doubt it. This smacks of institutional racism at it’s worst, only this time the institution is the American Entertainment Industry, supposedly a bastion of liberalism. Well to Nellie Andreeva, and her sources, i.e., those agents and any white actors whining (anonymously) about discrimination caused by the casting of a few more non-whites on cable and network shows, let me just say this: “Go break a leg!”
White Right’s Advocates POV:
Why, oh why, couldn’t “Blackish” cast a white man or woman in lead roles, wearing blackface?
After all, on radio back in the day, the actors who played “Amos and Andy,” were white!!!
Oy…
shorter andreeva: some of my friends have been whining lately about not getting work. thanks obama!
I had to read that a few times, but then I realized that reading it was actually killing my brain cells and I had to stop.
At least they’re not complaining about the Jews.
Yeah, why did they have to have Raj in Big Bang Theory? There would’ve been room for a white person. What were they thinking?
As depressing as this is: White men are still king of the silver screen with lead roles going to just 26% of women and 11% of minorities, it does reflect the US and world audience preference. Certain genres – westerns, war, action/adventure, and sci-fi – don’t easily lend themselves to gender equality because the actual and fictional stories and myths they’re based on are male dominated. Plus, boys and men aren’t all that interested in women or stories where a woman is the central character unless she’s a “hot tomato.” As was once pointed out to me, men like movies with “blood, guts, and gratuitous sex.”
We could blame Shakespeare for gender inequality in western staged story telling. More men than women and no woman as the sole protagonist. (Given that women weren’t allowed to be actors, perhaps ole Will was just being practical.)
It is interesting that when a story revolves around a strong woman character (as in ‘The Hunger Games’) men still predominate in the secondary and supporting characters just as they do when the story revolves around a central male character.
WRT white male actors now claiming reverse discrimination — it does challenge their personal identification as liberals. However, economically and professionally male actors aren’t as privileged as white males in other professions. While far more of them get work than do women and minorities, few of them are ever professionally secure. The supply, alas, exceeds the demand.
it does reflect the US and world audience preference
Does it? Or is it that this is what you can get and therefore that’s what you buy?
Because this is exactly the answer I got from everybody for 20 years when I (and others) were asking why motorcycles sold in the USA weren’t available in cafe racer configuration (what we now call sportbikes). No one wanted them was the answer, and the proof was that no one bought them. Come on now, think about how lame that is, but that was the answer… until BMW, Kawasaki, and Honda started making some. All of a sudden they were very popular. But still, people said, no one in the middle of the USA, with those flat roads without many corners, wanted them. So they didn’t try to sell them there. Because people weren’t buying what wasn’t being made available to them. Then the started becoming available, and it turns out that’s something people did want, a lot.
The “people don’t want it and the proof is people aren’t buying what isn’t being made available to them” is not a good argument.
Not as if Hollywood doesn’t make movies with female leads and/or predominately female supporting cast. If the box office, domestic and foreign, and rentals/sales receipts were even close to that of the male dominated movies, they would make more of them.
Check it out —
#376 – “Bridget Jones’ Diary” — a fun movie
#374 – “John Carter” – a Disney bomb and total POS IMHO.
If we’re cherry-picking movies (not a good argument either), let’s do Nos. 5 and 6: Frozen at #5 and Iron Man 3 at #6. Or #65 Gravity vs. #66 Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Or ask yourself which of the cherry-picked movies you mentioned you’d rather have invested in: the one that made about 10 times its budget or the one that fell $60 million short.
But it still doesn’t make for a good argument. And your comment is a classic logical fallacy, the Argument by Repetition. You simply stated your claim again. My comment was a question, OTOH, an unanswered question that can’t be answered unless the options are made available (as they eventually were in my example of sportbikes, which showed that the contention made then was untrue).
If I had cherry picked, I wouldn’t have cited those two specific movies. Comparable in box office receipts. One a well made “chick flick” with a popular female actor in the lead and two attractive male actors in supporting roles. The other a sci-fi/fantasy film based on a book and not a comic strip that easily made my list of worst movies.
Disney has been doing animated features with a female lead character for close to eighty years. Apparently not an effective means to improving overall gender inequality. They make money and generally reinforce sexual stereotypes. Was it popular with little boys? (I actually saw “Frozen” even though I don’t care for animated movies. The music was nice, but I loathed everything else about it.) So, using this as an example supports my contention that Hollywood does make movies that they think will make money. And doubt actors are decrying that there aren’t more animated features with female and minority leads, although they do get work from them.
Ignoring all the mostly made for kids and teens among those box office winners, why is Skyfall at #9 and Gravity at #65? Skyfall does have the lovely Judi Dench in a strong supporting role, but it’s another silly Bond movie. Why would that rake in far more than the visually stunning Gravity? Had the Clooney and Bullock roles in Gravity been reversed (with appropriate storyline adjustments) would the box office receipts have been better? Probably not. It didn’t have whatever #3 Marvel’s The Avengers has — lots of action, weapons, and stupid shit.
http://youtu.be/kwbHywyHyOU
The concept of “reverse discrimination” has always been a fascinating and blatantly hypocritical notion.
There’s never been any equity on the North American continent for people of color from day one.
How can there any truth to “reverse” when diverse ethnicity has never been in “drive” as a way of life?
Basic Employee Rights
Yeah, racism always happening everywhere, no matter what they say that it isn’t we can always felt that some selection of whatever it maybe for it is somehow tinted with a level of favoritism. And it always depend on the mentality of the person’s in charge. I always experience it myself in a daily basis, although it’s a little things we can always felt it as a human being. All men are created equal but we are still living in this imperfect world. I hope it will change for the better and let’s always hope for the best
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