The Problems with Cultural Diversity in The Film Industry

Woman and Minorities in the Film Industry through Infographics

Stephanie Palmer made an interesting article highlighting the lack of diversity of minorities and gender in Actor/management roles through Infographics. It shows the problems in the Oscars as well as in the film industry in general and gives insights on how producers, writers, and executives take advantage of the film industry and don’t integrate diversification and innovation.

Women and minorities in Organizational Diversity

Katherine Miller talks about how minorities and gender roles are plagued by glass ceilings, stereotyping, and discrimination. She also talks about the minority networks that help out minorities, and mentorships that are both a curse and a asset. This section also includes a talk about the Discrimination Act (ENDA), the Lilly Ledbetter fair Pay Act, which allows women and minorities to get fair pay, and a small talk about Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which gives Americans with disabilities work.

Academy Awards Diversity GapThe Academy has always had a

problem with diversity which needs to be resolved by adding more diversity into the Art of film by larger role-models in writing, producing, and directing. With more leaders and minorities getting their foothold into the film and television industry, this will lead to more integration and innovation. As you can see from the graph Producers, Directors, and Writers are 98% white from film made from 1927-2015 most of then dominantly white male (GoodInARoom, Diversity In Hollywood Explained in 12 Infographics). Best Actress was 99% white with 1% person of color, and no winners of Latino, Asian, or Native American ever one a Best Acting Oscar(GoodInARoom, Diversity In Hollywood Explained in 12 Infographics). Best Actor winners were 92% white and 8% color, and for Best Directing it’s 99% male and 1% female.

Academy Awards Diversity Gap (Continued)

Katherine Miller explains in chapter 12 in her book Organizational Communication Approaches and processes that women and minorities have always had a hard time reaching top management. The glass ceiling keeps them from going forward and pursuing the top job titles, but only 3% make it (Miller,217). It even worse for people of color which looks like discrimination is completely on the rise as well (Miller,218). The only way to combat this in the Academy Awards is to get minorities and woman to take the place as leaders in top management positions, because it’s looking to be a white out in the Academy.

Diversity Problems in the Emmy Awards

In this infographic there is a big discrimination marginalization to the Emmy Awards as well. People who won Lead Actress from 1992-2015 were 96% white and 4% of color in a comedy series, for Best Actor it was 87% white and 12% colored in a comedy series (GoodInARoom, Diversity In Hollywood Explained in 12 Infographics). Now ifwe look at the drama series it’s even worse with 96% male and female white actors and 4% actors of color. While this is “business as usual” for Hollywood it will not keep up with the increasingly diversified America. It’s a great example of tokenism which is to say the Academy members, writers, executives, and producers are predominantly white male, or in this case white female and male. This leads to the academy having to watch what they say, because the minority and women that are in the academy and that do run the show don’t represent their whole culture, ethnicity, or gender, so it’s hard being of color and in a top management position, because people think they represent their entire race.

Diversity in Emmy Awards (Continued)

Lastly, the outstanding writing award for the Emmys consisted of 80% male and 20% female in the Comedy Series category and in the Drama Series category it was 84% male and 16% female. With this said there is some judgement that is left here that determines what gets made and who is going to be casted. From the looks of it mostly white males get to run the show and only pick what they are safe with producing (this usually leads to male actors and not a lot of diversity) which leads to poor innovation, and a bad taste in the communities mouth.

Population Problems in the Film Industry and in the United States

In Palmer’s proportional U.S Population Infographic there seems to show in the 100 grossing films of 2007-2013 that white has taken over the film industry in a large margin of over 60% with Latinos and blacks only leading far behind with little film roles, Oscar nominations, and Oscar wins, and Asians as well as, other minorities are at the bottom (GoodInARoom, Diversity In Hollywood Explained in 12 Infographics). Overall it’s another example of the stereotyping and discrimination taking hold of the top producer, executives, and writers in the film industry.

The Multicultural Organization in the Film IndustryMiller states that rather than simply making a commitment to valuating diversity, creating an atmosphere of inclusion requires change on many fronts, including fairness, empowerment, and openness (Miller,224). This goes for the film industry as well. As we look at palmer’s infographic we can see that in the top 500 films 75.8 of white characters had speaking roles, while 12.4 % colored has speaking roles. The bottom infographic illustrates the problems of top management and their stereotypical bias towards the black community. The films in 2012 showed 26.7% of blacks had no fatherly caregiver figure and 43.3% had no partners either. There has to be a change in integrating more diversity into the film industry.

The Change to Multicultural Film Industry

There are the dimensions that describe a multicultural organization and how it should be. The film industry needs Acculturation, which will allow the top producers, directors, and writers to settle cultural differences and integrate ideas from minorities and woman. Structural integration will integrate minorities and women into hiring, job placement, and job status profiles for film. This will lead to Informal Integration which will lead to a better culture to the company inside and outside of work. Hiring more minorities and women in big roles will lead to less discrimination and bias, which will then lead to the feeling of loyalty and belonging in the film industry, and power struggles will stop fro good between cultural groups (Miller,224).

The Change to Multicultural Film Industry (continued)

So how can we battle this bias and discrimination towards women and minorities? Well if the film industry becomes more multicultural top management will soon bring in minorities and women that will fit in major roles and get integrated into the culture. When minorities and women get to the same levels and percentages as the dominant white males, it will then counter out and jobs and opportunities will open up for the minorities and women in the lower sectors of the organizations. This leads to more culturally integrated actors, writers, and producers.

“An argument for diversity can e made based on the extent to Which a diverse organization will provide bottom-line benefits fro the company”- Katherine Miller

The Lack of Seeing All Diversity in the Film IndustryWhile there is a lack of diversity in film (mostly revolving around African Americans and there diversity) there is also points in which the success of integrating diversity can lead to a certain level of diversity and could be the lack of ”all” minority group contributions (Miller,225). For example, Palmer suggests there is also a Latino problem in film that not only stereotypes Latino men as lazy, savage, and lawless, but also stereotypes Latino women as sexual symbols in film (GoodInARoom, Diversity In Hollywood Explained in 12 Infographics). Amongst the stereotyping 69% of maid roles and even assistant roles are Latino and 2.2% of producers, 2.3% directors, and 6% are writers. While 25% of the moviegoers that purchase tickets are Latino there needs to be a change in the way Latinos are represented in the film industry. With hardly any real Latino voices in the film industry and with no film industrys turning to a multicultural approach for actors and workers, where is the voice? There has to be multiple voices heard and with Latino stars standing up for what's right, the multicultural processes will start to happen.

Lack of Diversity for Asians in the Film Industry

Palmer shows in her infographic the lack of diversity with Asian actors in the film industry with just 52 Actors playing major roles and over 800 actors with a different descent (GoodInARoom, Diversity In Hollywood Explained in 12 Infographics). In all networks there are less then twenty actors in all network television. According to Miller To help solve this issue there should be co-culture groups helping in the decision-making and hiring process to integrate diversity into its company (Miller,225).

Women Loosing Ground In Writing JobsOver the the years from 1991 to 2012 woman have been criticized by there gender and by their power. Palmer shows in her infographic that in 2012 12 out of 127 spec-writing scripts were sold by a woman. One out of two become NY Times bestsellers, one out of seven tv writers are woman, and 1 out of 8 have sold a spec writing script (GoodInARoom, Diversity In Hollywood Explained in 12 Infographics). Through this infographic it is shown that woman have been subjected to criticism and bias acts from the film industry. To change the workplace in this situation, a person needs to integrate more diversity and promote gender equality throughout the workplace.

Woman Directing is shortening in the film industry

Only 4.7% of resulting in films, released by (GoodInARoom, Diversity In Hollywood Explained in 12 Infographics). This shoes that woman were getting discriminated in and can be helped only by allowing diversity of woman to change the fil industry

Overtime Television actors are gaining in the road to marriage and the LGBTQ community is showing progress that the film industry/television industry. There seems to be no problems with diversity in the LGBT community, but some problems can be lead to less LGBT and a more considerations.

Conclusion

■ In the end there is still a lot of diversity problems. Woman, LGBGT, and minorities need to get the recognition they deserve in the film industry. By fixing these problems through multicourse grouping, and or integrating culture, in the end the community would feels safer and with the knowledge of acting, there has to be a change.

Work Cited

Miller, Katherine. (2015). Organizational Communication Approaches and Processes. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. Print.

Palmer, Stephanie (22 February, 2016). Diversity In Hollywood Explained in 12 Infographics.GoodInARoom. Web. Accessed (3 November,2016).