Talk about a slippery slope. So white women, people of color, and LGBTQs are all separate categories to be checked off. None of them overlap like a Venn diagram, say a female biracial lesbian.
Do folks in Hollywood have to declare their sexual identity on the job application, or isn't that private information up to the individual to disclose, albeit with protections for those facing discrimination once they reveal the personal details of their sexual lives?
Does this mean Hollywood needs to hire more heterosexual makeup and hairstyle artists, along with the set designers? If a Broadway cast for a musical contains to many gay men, can the straight guys demand an "inclusion rider?"
One wonders what the law office where Ms. Chapman works looks like. Do they hire based on experience and references, or is it a PC checklist to ensure the appropriate boxes are crossed?
One thing's certain. Ms. Chapman won't be in charge of a Hollywood studio making movies with 9 figure budgets that can make or break the year.
Also, there are plenty of billionaires who fit into one of her categories. Nothing to stop them from financing a movie with them making all the PC hiring decisions. Just be careful what you wish for. "Wonder Woman" and "The Black Panther" were box office smashes. But there have been plenty of movies based on white male comic book figures that flopped. Sooner or later a movie meeting all the desired inclusion riders will suffer the same fate. Whose money will be on the line?
8
"At worst, they become a cosmetic fix that inoculates people in power from critique and meaningful change." Ha, if only. In fact, at worst, they discriminate against qualified candidates because of their race and gender, while favoring less qualified candidates. They inject racial considerations into the nuts and bolts of moviemaking where they don't belong, reminiscent of apartheid South Africa. And they will obviously foster resentment among cameramen and boom operators unable to find work in Hollywood because of their white skin. Let's get something straight - Hollywood is a business, not a social program. Private studios should be as free as anyone else to hire whom they wish. There are millions of dollars at stake, and a real need to find the most qualified people. Decisions should be based on merit alone, not on race or gender. The way to have more women and minorities represented on film crews is simply for more women and minorities to study film and become good at those jobs.
6
Here is what else should be part of the "inclusion rider:"
Unattractive actresses.
There are thousands upon thousands of women who can act as well as Hollywood actresses, but who never get the chance because the beautiful Hollywood actresses squeeze them out of roles.
Why do they squeeze them? Because the buying public wants to see them.
But this is an OUTRAGE! All current actresses should agree to not work in a lead or supporting role until Doris, from Columbus, Ohio, who is slightly overweight and not a stunner, gets a leading role.
Then let's see how much all of these #metoo actresses really feel about equality and discrimination.
11
Inclusion riders are only feasible for the well celebrated actors. Those who are relatively unknown or beginners have too little power to demand them. That's how Weinstein and many others were able to get away from everything from sexual suggestion to downright rape for so long.
2
Hey there creative would be film people- you don't need to be hired to get noticed. Shoot your own clever /funny/ terrifying/ totally riveting film on your phone and put it on line. Hollywood will fly you down for a meeting before you know it. Look at all the talent in so many fields that can now show case itself into fame. The world's your oyster. Rival in your time.
2
What I don't understand about Hollywood is that Diversity is in the numbers. Wonder Woman, Black Panther- INSANE blockbusters. What more proof to they need in order to make more diverse films? I'm so sick of the stereotypical male lead stuff. So unbelievably bored. Why aren't sales driving future productions? I am starved for more female leads as well as male leads who aren't hyper-masculine. So over it.
2
Hollywood should become more equal, have more representation by women, minorities, etc., essentially become even more of a committee left wing overseen project in the realm of art than it already is today?
Art in America, from literature to film, and the entire education system is a disaster for the more gifted minds in society. The more gifted the mind the more rapid and comprehensive the assemblage of ideas, but this threatens the more average minds who do everything to bog down the more gifted.
The way the system works, starting in the educational system, is that you are bogged down having to cite every little source, mention influences, defend every teensy point of every little idea and there is rarely any goodwill shown toward a person just making a magnificent leap of synthesis, actually making a decent artistic or intellectual whole out of parts.
Rather the trend is the more powerful the mind, the greater its powers of synthesis, the more it must be ripped apart by others, shown to be derived if not outright plagiarized from others in every little point, or shown to be harmful or offensive in this or that manner. I place little hope in success of any worthwhile project in the U.S. anymore. The cowards, the envious, the jealous, the petty just tear everything apart before it can begin.
The idea of Hollywood becoming a bickering left wing committee on every little point repels me to the core. I would be paralyzed in my creativity. Scared to utter a word.
3
So I paused at this:
"even if those candidates are viewed as somehow “less qualified,” with the understanding that those perceptions are culturally fixed in racist notions and structures."
I can't agree with this. This is the stuff of a racists' dreams, because it codifies unqualified people are bumping out qualified whites and also no people of color are really qualified. It says there are no job standards, as any standards are racist because they limit access. That is a stupid approach. It feeds resentment and discounts the people of color and all women that ARE qualified, but haven't had a chance to fairly compete. This is a non-decision by fiat that will make the situation worse.
A better alternative would be to figure something equivalent to what orchestras do when they are hiring. They have applicants audition behind screen so that their ability is judged, not their physical appearance.
4
Let us all just take a moment to recognize where we now stand in our obsessive pursuit of Divine Diversity:
An attorney is now openly advocating, in the New York Times, that we should no longer even care if the individuals we hire are "less qualified," as long as they are not straight, white males. "Qualified" itself is just another oppressive social construct to throw over, an idea "culturally fixed in racist notions and structures."
Well, that's at least getting it all above board. Can we now just admit the obvious then, that these quotas are just a crude practice of counting by color (and gender/sexual orientation)?
Hey, as long as this nonsense will only apply to movies, and not the hiring of brain surgeons, policemen, trauma nurses, bus drivers, operators of heavy equipment, members of bomb squads and so on. Deal?
9
I'm sure "Singing in the Rain" would be a much, much better film if it was diverse.
2
Wow....that which you are suggesting goes against human nature and evolution so much that it seems that you are living in a different universe.....getting rid of greed, avarice, nepotism, pandering and the full range of negative human traits used to be the purview of religion....now we a going to perfect this imperfect species how?
2
Wow what a bunch of nonsense. Is Ms. Chapman also going to demand that Spike Lee hire crews that proportionately represent the percentage of the population of their constituents?
6
I've heard this narrative before. White people should step back. They should listen rather than talk or only talk as a mouth piece for certain points of view. They should either offer up their own roles to others who are marginalized or hire only marginalized groups. We should use public shaming and whatever other tools at our disposal to wrest power from those who benefit from their whiteness and maleness. I think that pretty much sums up the author's point of view and that of many others on the far left side of the cultural progressive movement.
Based on the comments I've read so far, it seems like there are a lot of mainstream liberals like myself who are, lets say, deeply uncomfortable with this narrative. It is a narrative that casts us all as competing armies waging an identity war, not unlike a class war. It turns neighbor against neighbor and yes it is itself racist and sexist. It trots out the bogeyman of the white male patriarchy. It denies its own racism by redefining the word racism to mean a system of power instead of the dictionary definition of racism.
I want more inclusion. I want more women and underrepresented people to get jobs and have a voice and have power. We can play with the system to help raise up and empower the powerless. All of that is fine. Don't be fooled by people who claim to have good intentions. These arguments are based on collective guilt, fuzzy theories about power structures, racism, bigotry, and sexism.
8
Inclusion contracts are private discriminatory quotas. Sorry I already have two many of your kind.
9
Army counter example:
A basic principle of psychology is that people pay more attention to information that predicts important outcomes in their lives. A key social factor that we human beings track is who is “us” and who is “them.” Even with trivial distinctions, people discriminate in favor of their in-group members.
A second principle is the power of cooperation. When groups face a common threat or challenge, it tends to dissolve enmity and create a mind-set of “one for all, all for one.” Conversely, when groups are put into competition with each other, people readily shift into zero-sum thinking and hostility.
With these principles in mind, it is hard to see how the programs advocated by Chapman will serve to create a Hollywood where women and people of color will feel more welcome and less marginalized.
In their book “All That We Can Be” (1996), the sociologists Charles Moskos and John Sibley Butler describe how the U.S. Army escaped from the racial dysfunction of the 1970s to become a model of integration and near-equality by the time of the 1991 Gulf War. The Army invested more resources in training and mentoring black soldiers so that they could meet rigorous promotion standards.
But, crucially, standards were lowered for no one, so that the race of officers conveyed no information about their abilities. The Army also promoted cooperation and positive-sum thinking by emphasizing pride in the Army and in America.
Hollywood should consider a similar approach.
5
It's just crazy, really, to require that any great artist or director (Spielberg, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Scorsese, etc.) use a particular color or texture when making his art.
Would it have been fair to ask Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Picasso, etc., to use more red, more black, or more yellow? Of course not. Because an artist cannot be dictated to. Once he is dictated to, he is no longer free to express his art.
If you are going to dictate to a director whom she must include in her films, then you may as well tell a writer that he must use more minorities in his works of fiction; football teams must hire more athletes who are disabled or over the age of 40, and etc.
It just makes no sense in the artistic world. This is because people are not fungible, like bushels of wheat. I hope we can never force artists to use the tools that we feel would be "best" for them to use.
23
So I suppose that you also oppose the law that guarantees that people of all color have the right to vote, because as Van Gogh could choose his own colors, governments and politicians should be able to do so too when it comes to passing laws that guarantee certain rights to certain citizens ... ?
Here's what you seem to forget.
Making movies is about telling compelling stories in new and creative ways.
By systematically working (not only when it comes to actors but also the hundreds of people behind the scenes) with white males, as most artistic AND non artistic industries have been doing for centuries now, you artificially limit the scope of the stories told in moves to one part of humanity.
Limiting the number of experiences that artists work with is like LIMITING the number of colors Van Gogh is allowed to used - if you want to continue your metaphor for a moment.
It doesn't make any sense. Take away the yellow from Van Gogh's palet, and his famous sunflower painting would never have existed ...
So yes, first of all including more people means increasing creativity.
Secondly, unless you're adopting a racist stance, it's obvious that people of color (and women) are as talented as white men, so why would you allow contracts that actively discriminate against talented people as soon as they aren't white men to exist ... ? You really believe that by definition, a white male make-up assistent is less competent than a female or African-American assistent?
The "artistic world" has changed. White men aren't the only consumers. Neither are they the only contenders. Neither do they have a lock on experience and talent. What they have a lock on is the fear of competition.
Well, Ms. Chapman, you're a lawyer and have a lot of experience in court and making solid arguments, I am sure, with and for people who have little patience or willingness to lose material gains. I was in my SEIU Local 668 for 35 years and I'm a retired member now. It seems like we struck 4 or 5 times, sometimes for a month, it was July and there was a blue Moon
that month and we saw both of the moons on the picket line.
We were rank-and-file and we had to depend on those Contracts to rectify injuries in terms of wages, hours and working conditions primarily. In fact our Contracts doubled or more in pages by the time I retired in 2006.
Every word and sentence became the reification , realization to us that our principles and worth were as real as the brick and mortar buildings where we struggled to provide social welfare resources to our clients who
were needy and eligible and were determined to be independent soon or sooner.
So your grey language and lack of understanding are hardly effective for change, with due respect. This attempt to put something in writing is not exclusionary as you imply. It has the same power as anyone willing to stand up for their principles and those of others can compel.
You say, let's wait and see if we're going to get something first. 'Til then, don't even get up and get out the door like people should. Everyone is not necessarily able to follow the same path and one resolve is not what we all need. If it's acceptable, I say we.
3
I found myself in sync with the entire essay until the last sentence. No, an inclusion rider need not be an "empty promise". Having produced network television for a quarter-century I can tell you that many important decisions about casting are made by groups with divergent opinions. Very often there may be a producer or a director who wants to hire women or minorities but are overruled by the network or some other entity. If they can say "well, we do have that inclusion rider that we should honor", it may be enough to tip the scales, even though everyone knows it might be unenforceable.
So it's not a foolproof promise nor a guarantee, but it's a step in the right direction so it's not an empty promise either. The progress we seek may well be achieved by many such small steps.
7
Ms. Chapman may understand contracts, but she understands less than nothing about Hollywood.
I've worked in the industry for 20 years, and one bad movie can end your career. Hiring people to make a point whether or not they're qualified is a great way to insure you will be standing next to them in the unemployment line.
There has been a seismic, and largely genuine, change in the industry. Never before has there been more opportunity for "diverse" hires. But rather than sabotage this progress with de facto quotas and justifying unqualified people, it's better to let things happen organically.
And perhaps people should have some genuine knowledge of a business before they opine on it.
18
I had the same thoughts the moment Ms. McDormand uttered the words. Agree with this article except for the part that says an inclusion rider should be acceptable of "lesser qualified". We already have very few actual good movies anymore. Qualified is important.
8
Chapman has definitely shown that she is "less qualified" than most journalists or even most high school graduates by her denial of the reality that individual persons are in fact more or less qualified no matter what their race or gender or sexual identity! It can be objectively determined whether someone can add 2 and 2 and get the correct sum of 4, and "racist notions and structures" are totally irrelevant to the fact that some job applicants are more qualified than others. Over a decade ago I was told by a higher up in the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Wildlife to not bother to apply for jobs, because they would only be hiring women for many years. The US Fish and Wildlife and Park Services began essentially the same reverse discrimination hiring of mediocre almost always white women, as opposed to the best applicants, in the 1990's. So this has been done and with disastrous consequences! The often described "death of environmentalism" that will insure the collapse of the earth's biosphere in a few decades is the price of this denial of logic and science - used by our 1% to patronage gift jobs in order to buy the slave-like loyalty of groups rigged through low expectations and low standards to be desperately dependent in perpetuity on our mendacious elites for identity group based preference crumbs.
18
Hmm - Rebecca Chapman wants studios to know the sexual orientation and anatomy of every employee? Does anyone else sees whats wrong with this picture? Why does an employer need to know if an employee is gay, straight, cis or transgender? Unless you collect data on everyone there is no way to know. I at least prefer to work for an employer that doesn't want to look down my pants or up my skirt.
12
Chapman: "boom operator"
Chapman: "editing, cinematography, sound and costuming"
Chapman overlooks the fact that separate companies are hired for certain functions, such as catering, security, and special effects. Chapman should read the end-credits of some big-budget movies, so she doesn't seem so ignorant about movie production.
8
People in power should simply hire as many white women, people of color and L.G.B.T. people as possible. They should do so even at the perceived expense of white people, and even if those candidates are viewed as somehow “less qualified,” with the understanding that those perceptions are culturally fixed in racist notions and structures.
So every minority that has not been hired was not hired because of racist notions and notions?
13
I decided not to go see Isle of Dogs precisely because the animated feature has a virtually all male voice. I don't care what the film is all about. It reflects a calculus I'm tired of. Same as Trump's cabinet. Same as the film industry.
I don't have anything against white men. I do, however, get tired of it all day, every day.
4
I was offended that Isle of Dogs was so dog-centric and didn't have enough human representation. I don't have anything against dogs. But humans are people too!
2
"... Isle of Dogs ... has a virtually all male voice."
The voice cast includes numerous female actors, so where did you get that idea?
1
"... Isle of Dogs ... has a virtually all male voice."
The voice cast includes numerous female actors, so where did you get that idea?
See the "Isle of Dogs (film)" Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Dogs_(film)
Most Americans understand and would like to have more diversity in all industries. The NFL has the best rule I'm aware of at the moment, which is the Rooney Rule. This rule stipulates that any search to fill a vacant head coaching position include at least one person of color. In my experience, once someone is given entry to the system, more often than not success follows. Most industries, including entertainment, could benefit by adopting a similar rule.
1
It is virtually inconceivable that this op-ed could have been written by a lawyer with any experience in contract negotiation.
First, non-parties to a contract cannot generally enforce the contract. (There is a broad exception for "intended third party beneficiaries," but these have to be readily identifiable; if Anne contracts with Betty to pay Carla $500, Carla might be an intended third party beneficiary, but "unnamed film crew members of a certain racial background" is unlikely to qualify.)
Thus, the point of inclusion clauses was never about providing a remedy to victims of racial discrimination,, despite what the author seems to think. It is about allowing a marquee star to opt-out of a production if the supporting cast/production crew is insufficiently diverse. And presumably if the marquee star opts out, the film becomes less marketable. So it is about the A-listers using economic leverage over the studios, not providing a basis for litigation by marginalized groups.
Second, I have never heard of any serious contract law scholar or negotiator who claims that "all parties at the negotiating table are equals." Plainly, they are not; there are differences in bargaining power involved, and negotiators are acutely aware of them.
Third, contract law does not override statutes. A studio that refuses inclusion riders risks losing stars that insist on them. Perhaps the studio deems that an acceptable cost, but it must still comply with antidiscrimination law.
16
One additional argument for inclusion riders (apart from the public shaming that will inevitably happen when producers blatantly ignore them and celebrities use their star power to denounce them) has been given by one of its fiercest advocates, Oscar winner Cate Blanchett.
Hollywood is essential an art industry, and in order to make great movies, you need creativity.
And nothing stimulates creativity as much as having many different perspectives interacting, debating and working together.
So the lack of diversity is ALREADY costing the movie industry a lot of money, as it dramatically lowers its potential for making groundbreaking films ...
3
Spurious argument, difficult to take seriously. The writer appears to advocate using racism and discrimination as a means to fight racism and discrimination. Even more misguided is the idea that people should be hired even if they aren’t qualified for the position just to meet a quota.
I feel sorry for the defendants that Chapman “represents”. Maybe she could follow her own line of reasoning and negotiate her own position as a so-called civil rights lawyer away in favor of someone like Clarence Darrow, William Kuntsler or even Ronald Kuby.
Yeesh.
22
The day that this great country forces employers to hire less qualified people in the interest of balance is the day that this country ceases to be great.
32
If a Hollywood celeb uses their leverage to help chip away at systematic inequality, instead of focusing solely on their fortifying their industry status, that sounds pretty good to me.
3
Am I reading this right? Chapman writes that the people in power are largely white males. Okay. She writes that these people cannot and must not be responsible for creating diversity or equality using that power. Alright. Instead, she writes, they simply must use their power to hire minorities, in order to create diversity and equality.
Isn't that exactly what this piece set out to dispute?
It's one thing to read a piece that I disagree with, but it's entirely another to read a piece that doesn't even agree with itself.
13
Okay. Hollywood needs to change in fundamental ways. I get it, but, unfortunately, this is a bit of a whine. Worse, it equates diversity with equality using unchangeable characteristics. There's something to that, unfortunately, but a little more sophistication would help. Next, she'll be arguing that Margaret Thatcher didn't take Great Britain to war and that Riefenstahl wasn't a Nazi. The editors of the NYT really need to step forward, but, as we know, they aren't all that good anymore. The reporters remain excellent.
5
Ms. Chapman's argument invites the response that the studios are just giving audiences what they want.
But the rejoinder to this is that those preferences are themselves illegitimate, "fixed in racist notions and structures."
If a hospital refused to hire black doctors because the patients were demanding white ones, wouldn't we think that the hospital was wrong, and that their appeal to the patients' preference, whether or not it was true, was no excuse? Wouldn't we think that the onus was on the hospital to serve as an agent of social change, irrespective of the paying patients' racist attitudes? And wouldn't we think that this would be true for law firms, or accounting firms, and most businesses?
But it is not clear that the analogy holds. The entertainment industry is in the business of putting faces before the audience that they find beautiful or attractive. And, though it is racist to refuse to enter into a business relationship with someone on the basis of race, arguably, it is not racist to feel more attracted to or pleased by one face rather than another. Racism is wrong; but it is actions that are morally evaluable, not feelings.
Perhaps what I've just said is incorrect, but, at any rate, that's what it seems to me all to revolve around.
1
Really great analysis!!!!
How is one to take ANY of the writer's arguments seriously when she states that being "less qualified" is merely a racist perception?
27
I'm curious as to why Mr. Damon and Mr. Affleck should stop getting our support when Mr. Jordan also supports inclusion-riders. If the idea is bad and we need to stop supporting people who advocate for it then Mr. Jordan is in that same group.
Also, doing things at "the perceived expense of white people" when talking about programs that include white women as one of the protected classes would probably be doing things "at the expense of white men". Perceived discrimination usually seems to include some element of actual discrimination, so maybe we can leave out the "perceived". I'm a white man, so maybe I'm just a little sensitive to that idea, however I'm simply incredulous that the author couldn't even be bothered to be honest about it. If you think white men need to be discriminated against to bring about an equal society, that's a position you're free to have in this country. However, if you can't bring yourself to say that (1) maybe your idea isn't that great and is in fact a shameful tit-for-tat reversal of the evils you're ostensibly fighting and (2) you'll never see a policy implemented that you can't even muster the courage to say out loud.
6
Ms. Chapman's editorial about the inclusion rider as a mechanism for helping achieve diversity in Hollywood is filled with so many inaccuracies that it would take a longer column just to address them all. Let us only consider her suggestion as to how the problems of bigotry, prejudice and entitlement might be better solved, which seems to be having white, straight men acknowledge they have been the beneficiaries of privilege, and to voluntarily abdicate their positions. Frankly, I feel like this particular solution has flaws. Maybe I'm wrong, and we will see a swarm of resignations from white studio executives, and white cinematographers will refuse job offers, and actors will turn away parts because they have already had too many opportunities, but just in case this doesn't happen, could we be allowed - without reproach - to push diversity by any and every means at our disposal?
No one has suggested inclusion riders are the be all and end all, but they are valid points of pressure in the struggle to achieve change. And, whatever their drawbacks, contracts remain better instruments of assuring proper outcomes than depending on a studio's corporate conscience.
Also, as almost any middle-aged American stepping on a bathroom scale can attest, awareness of the problem does not always lead to change for the better.
6
Sorry, but the Riders are a great starting point. How else do we hold the powerful in check? It's legally binding... it's something over nothing.
Actors (not just minorities) actually need to go one step further. It's called an MFN (most favored nations) clause & it demands that parties provide equal compensation for equal work. It can be crafted to carve out legitimate exceptions (eg: an experienced person might command higher comp as she brings useful skills that a novice may not) & is useful in many ways. It's greatest power, IMO, is to make the parties stop & think. "Am I being fair?" "Am I living up to my promises?" "Am I doing something that would be judged unfavorably in a court or in the public's eye?" It's another way to say "do the right thing".
5
I'm stumped on how the author, "a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer," has seems unaware of compliance reports. If someone is in a position to get (say) $5-20 million for a role and include an inclusion rider in their contract, their contract can require a report on hiring for the film delivered to their attorney or agent showing that the conditions have been met. A compliance organization could be formed so that each inclusion rider isn't written from scratch and enforced separately. The star isn't going to be doing the legwork.
Inclusion riders may or may not be a good and practical idea. This op-ed wastes too many paragraphs on an unrealistic straw-person argument about how they would be unenforceable.
"Say a major Hollywood celebrity is working on a movie and he has negotiated an inclusion rider. There are two ways he might discover that the rider has been violated. One is by doing his own investigation, somehow finding out the details of every level of every hiring decision on every element of the production, like editing, cinematography, sound and costuming. The other is being informed by people covered by the rider who had managed to get hired despite the non-inclusionary methods of the production, or who were passed over for a job."
3
I see that the PC police has trained its sights on the term "straw-man argument." Is the law of the excluded middle still allowed, or is it not inclusive enough?
I'm delighted to see discussion about the technicalities of inclusion riders, especially the references specifically to contracts professors--it just so happens that mine was excited to hear contracts mentioned at the Oscars, and was interested enough by the idea that he had his students make up some of our own!
I naturally had to share this article with him, and told me in response that he felt that this is a useful method that's still worth taking advantage of to try to tackle an important issue (even if it's not a perfect one) and that there are ways of writing a contract in such a way to address the issues mentioned here (I would note at this point that the author doesn't practice contracts, but criminal defense and civil rights, so it's certainly possible she might miss certain nuances in contract law).
1
Chapman: "Who will enforce the agreement [with an inclusion rider]?"
Chapman must be one of those people who walk out of a movie without reading the end-credits.
In fact, movie credits often have a statement that no animals were harmed in the making of the movie. That statement is certified by the American Humane Association, which has a web site about their certifications: humanehollywood.org.
A similar organization could be formed to provide "diversity certifications" for movies.
7
"People in power should simply hire as many white women, people of color and L.G.B.T. people as possible. They should do so even at the perceived expense of white people, and even if those candidates are viewed as somehow “less qualified,” with the understanding that those perceptions are culturally fixed in racist notions and structures."
Are 'white people' men by default?
9
So much for meritocracy.
8
Use “public shaming” (of powerful white men) to create change? A brilliant recipe for misery served equally to both sides of the negotiating table.
6
Spurious argument, difficult to take seriously. The writer appears to advocate using racism and discrimination as a means to fight racism and discrimination.
Even more misguided is the idea that people should be hired even if they aren't qualified for the position just to meet a quota.
I feel sorry for the defendants Chapman "represents". Maybe she could follow her own line of reasoning and negotiate her own position as a so-called civil rights lawyer away in favor of someone like Clarence Darrow and William Kunstler or even Ronald Kuby.
Yeesh.
10
Actually, your statement suggesting that a diversity inclusion would force people to hire unqualified people because of a quota is racist in itself. The entertainment industry does not require a ton of brainpower (and i'd contrast it with affirmative action in the academic sphere), and you don't really need a degree in film or TV or anything in particular to work in a lot of these positions. However, what is valued is experience and connections, which many minorities are shut out of because a lot of positions are given to white people, especially white men, and the trend keeps continuing as a result. There are a ton of people trying to get into the entertainment business from all backgrounds, who are eager to learn and work hard to rise up in the business, and if you can't find one to be your development coordinator, gaffer or assistant director or whatever the position is, you're not looking that hard.
1
Anyone who uses the word "ton" this way is difficult to take seriously. Do you work in the film industry? Many positions do require considerable brain power, I'd argue considerably more than many in academia, another sector completely compromised by affirmative action policy.
Many if not all professions in film require formal training.
I have applied for positions and not gotten them. I never felt silenced.
I probably was not the most qualified. Or perhaps a different candidate was determined to be a better money-maker.
Articles like this one confuse me. Are we not supposed to be a meritorious society? Are we not supposed to judge people as individuals?
When I hear someone suggest that minorities should be hired simply because they are minorities and that white men are privileged simply for being male and white it comes off as extremely racist.
I will never accept the idea that every single white man, no matter what his circumstance are, is responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened in the world.
There is no difference between giving a minority an unfair advantage and giving a white man an unfair advantage.
43
But what if one party has been seriously disadvantaged to this point? Do you still treat both parties as if they were given the same tools, the same opportunities? Do you just ignore the fact that one party was seriously disadvantaged? Guess if you're born into the lucky crowd you do.
1
Here's why this kind of (frequently heard and at first sight sounding logical/reasonable) argument isn't valid.
People defending affirmative action or an inclusion rider aren't rejecting a merit-based society at all - on the contrary.
Those legal actions exist precisely BECAUSE people belonging to minorities and women suffer from "systemic discrimination".
"Systemic" means that it's not a matter of "evil white men" hating all the others, but that the system itself has become such that white men tend to pick white men, as in general white men had more opportunity to acquire the experience needed than the other candidates.
So it's because the game is rigged that there are proportionally LESS non white males at the top of most industries, not because somehow white males would systematically be more talented.
And again, you don't have to be an "evil racist", as a white male, to systematically pick more white males. It's because minorities are underrepresented that as a white male, you'll meet much more white males in your social network than minorities, so the chance for a white male to get the job is much higher, from a purely statistical perspective and when talents are equal.
Conclusion: either you accept that there's systemic discrimination (reducing opportunities for women/minorities), OR you explain away the disproportion through the idea that somehow non white males must be "less talented", but THAT is a racist idea, refuted by all studies that examined this issue.
3
Are you the sole judge of disadvantages? I would argue a white male born to drug addicted parents on welfare is more disadvantaged than a black female born to parents who college educated and working as professionals? But maybe BeTheChange has never met a black doctor or lawyer? Yes, racism exists -but it is not the sole factor affecting people.
1
Ms. Chapman's essay confirms the adage that it is easier to diagnose a problem than to solve it. She destroys the illusion that actors, through an inclusion rider in their contracts, can dismantle a system whose masters tend to eschew risk and originality in favor of tired formulas that seem to offer a guarantee of box office success.
The movie industry is a business, and, in common with other businesses, its bottom line tends to dictate all the lines above, including hiring decisions and plot choices. An emphasis on diversity will influence personnel choices when studio executives perceive a financial advantage to such an approach, or when audiences punish them for their failure to adopt it.
In major league baseball, another branch of the entertainment industry, Jackie Robinson successfully integrated the on-field talent because his addition to the Dodgers improved the team's play and added a new dimension of excitement to the game, while attracting to the stadium a demographic contingent previously ignored by executives. The Negro Leagues, moreover, provided a training ground where black athletes could hone their skills, making them attractive additions to previously all-white squads.
Despite initial racist resistance, fans quickly embraced the incorporation of players who helped their teams win more games. The bottom line required integration.
In the movie industry, black audiences have a similar capacity to stimulate change, at least in the hiring of actors.
2
Why do Hollywood faces garner so much importance? People who literally make names for themselves by pretending they are someone else should not be expected to put on any other kind of face in the interest of social change. In their actions they show that they are as discriminatory and racist as their fake face worst enemies. They are generally inexperienced and uneducated about the world politic- the liberal definition of not having the right to even express an opinion- but are foisted on the Democrats pedestal as the voices for fairness. Actors, always.
4
Actors are artists. You may dislike their work and/or disagree with their politics, but you are showing your ignorance when you characterize their work as "pretending" and claim they are inexperienced and uneducated, not to mention racist.
1
Interesting that we have moved from the many weasel words of affirmative action to outright quotas. In an age when absolutely anyone can make a movie and when the studios are public companies chasing a profit [which has no color], I guess a level playing field is no longer sufficient.
9
Study after study examining this question in an objective way, shows that there's still a LOT of systemic discrimination against women and minorities.
So no, there's no level playing field AT ALL.
That's why inclusion riders are a good and necessary step in the right direction (precisely because they allow white male celebrities to publicly shame their bosses when they overtly disrespect the contract).
Yet another "perfect is the enemy of the good" argument.
3
Instead of diversity being the sine qua non of fairness on a movie set, how about we use opportunity like the constitution said, instead? The best person for the job may not be a white person or a person of color but it is still the criteria we organized this country around; if you want more people of color hired how about ensuring that a person of color will do that job better than anybody else? Earn it. Earn it. Earn it.
18
Too easy.
HOW do you earn the best paid jobs - in any industry?
Through building up experience.
The fact that for centuries we had a society where white males had all the power, has severely reduced the number of opportunities for women and minorities, compared to opportunities offered to young white males.
So by the time they're 40, statistically white males will have had the occasion to build much more experience than the others. So they tend to get certain jobs much easier than the others, even though the others worked (at least) as hard as they did.
And systemic discrimination often means that no single white male is an "evil racist" himself. It's enough to find mainly white males in your social and professional networks for you to pick one of them when you have to hire someone.
So it's to break this vicious cycle of automatic discrimination that people will have to DECIDE to change the SYSTEM, if not, there will never be equal opportunity for all, and only for white males.
3
Although the intention is obviously good, inclusion riders would not survive litigation. In the case of our hypothetical mike boom operator, if the production, nearly done with hiring, "needs" one more, say, ethnically Asian technical employee to meet the terms of the rider, then some qualified black boom operator will be denied the job simply for being the wrong race for the position. This is obviously a violation of the very heart of the American civil rights law tradition of the past 50ish years. Frances McDormand must convince Congress (and most of the 50 states) to totally rewrite civil rights laws if she wants this to come to pass. She is a smart lady and probably already knows this, so I suspect she was really just getting her progressive card punched on national TV.
3
According to the Census Bureau, America is 76.9 percent white, but this doesn’t mean the cast of all movies should be 76.9 percent white. The storyline, geographic location and time period in which the story is set are also inclusion rider factors. Take World War II movies for example. The cast of “Saving Private Ryan” was all white because the U.S. units that led the D-Day invasion were all-white units. “Go For Broke!” had a mostly Asian cast because it was about the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an Japanese-American unit led by white officers. “Miracle at St. Anna” had a mostly black cast because it was about soldiers of the 97thInfantry Division, an all-black unit.
8
You are sorely mistaken about D-Day and all-white units. The black soldiers of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion were among the first to land at Omaha and performed infantry duties under heavy fire until they cleared the way to man their balloon air defense.
"By the time the sun set on June 6, 1944, some 2,000 African Americans had landed in Normandy. They were engineers, stevedores, and gunners. They carried the wounded to safety and buried the dead. They drove ambulances, earth-movers and the trucks that would supply the front lines. Black quartermasters won praise from Gen. Dwight Eisenhower for salvaging their trucks sunk in deep water — and saving significant quantities of blood plasma and medical supplies that would save lives on Omaha Beach. Eisenhower praised the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion for carrying out its mission “with courage and determination” and said the men exposed like sitting ducks on the sand “proved an important element of the air defense team"
Some of these men were recommended by their white commanding officers for the Distinguished Service Award and the Medal of Honor, but not one was granted.
"After an Army study found pervasive racism was to blame for the slight, President Bill Clinton awarded seven Medals of Honor to African-Americans in 1997. Only one man was alive to shake the president’s hand."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/remembering-d-day-s-african-american...
It seems to be that the goal isn't equal opportunities. It seems to be some form of reparations. Like, instead of giving you an equal opportunity to get this part we are just going to give it to you since you are a POC. Every white person who doesn't get a gig is somehow a small reparation to ALL POC.
I mean this may sound great but all it's doing is turning black people into white people. If the solution is just to get black people in power and take white people out of power I think that's not really a solution. We need to create equal opportunities, no create unequal opportunities in an attempt to force equal outcomes.
6
Unfortunately the persistent, explicit and rampant racism against casting East and South Asian men in Hollywood roles is beyond shameful. These people asking for inclusion are only in it for themselves, and have forsaken the real under represented minorities in Hollywood.
6
It is inevitable but always irksome when someone, such as McDormand, puts it all on the line with a call for change only to have some naysayer in the cheap seats say “not enough”.
2
Perhaps we should hire more "less qualified" criminal defense lawyers with the understanding that those perceptions are culturally fixed in racist notions and structures.
8
Also "less qualified" Brain Surgeons, Airline Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers, Ship's Captains, Military Battle Leaders, Nuclear Scientists, NASA Engineers, Subway Systems Planners, Rail Road Maintenance Engineers, Private Jet designers,
and Explosives Manufacturers.
Let's just let *anybody do *anything - whether they are *remotely qualified or *not, (ala the Trump Administration) just to boost their self-esteem in service to a childish concept of "what's fair" originating right out of two Second Graders in a sandbox. It sounds a *lot like both this article, and other *severely "rationally challenged" but "fair" efforts at argument out there in the blathosphere these days.
The only thing that makes sense is hiring the most *QUALIFIED person for the job. Period. *And the persons who make the most sense to a *script in the case of movie casting. Are we going to do a movie about Southern Reconstruction after the Civil War and cast the entire KKK using black females "just to be fair" ? A WWII Movie casting German Nazis as Southeast Asian females ? Not while movies are a *profit based Industry, we are not. Not "fair"? Not rational.
*Irrational demands simply set a cause *Back by making the entire cause look ridiculous. And this cause is *not ridiculous. Therefore it must avoid shooting itself in the foot with irrational demands.
"Quota" Systems in Hiring do *not work. Never have. Unless we adopt Communism, which likewise does not seem to have "caught on" here.
This article seems desperate to break the rule of "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good."
1
Any time you advocate for "diversity" or "multiculturalism," you are advocating for a very gross/obvious form of racism, because you are advocating for quotas based on race, rather than hiring practices that base themselves off of merit, skill, ability, or even type casting. The best person to pick who does what job is always the person doing the hiring. It follows virtue signalers who want to force employers hands with hiring, don't know what would help the employer, but those signalers don't care, rather they want all decisions based on race or gender. If an owner pick unwisely, their business or file or whatever suffers, so what benefit to forcing their hand?
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." I have no idea why the left insists on ignoring his message in the name of "anti-racism." Hollywood, like colleges, jobs, and everywhere else, should judge people based on the "content of their character," not their gender, or race. It is a sincere shame how Hollywood and all the other leftists insist that hiring should be based on race and gender, and not how well people can do the job. No wonder the parties on the left have never been much for growing economies. They want to put people in positions not because they are the best to do the job, but because they see their racism as a moral good. lol
9
Guess what? This liberal supports hiring people according to their skill set, rather than the color of their skin, nationality, ethnicity, or gender when gender isn't implied (otherwise we're living in a Shakespearean world where all the parts are played by men). I know many liberals who feel the same. By painting all liberals with the same brush, you are demonstrating your ignorance about what "liberal" means. That's the very kind of bigotry the inclusion rider seeks to remedy, and what Dr. King advocated. Maybe it's doomed to be ineffective, but you have to start somewhere! It's very interesting to me that the bulk of negative comments here have been made by men. For the record, I'm a woman.
So you admit to agreeing that companies should hire on the basis of skill sets, and you also advocate for inclusion riders that ask that they higher equal numbers of whatever demographic seems important to liberals at the time. All for the purpose of "hiring according to skill set." That's a contradiction. You can't say that you are for NOT judging based on the color of skin or gender, and then say you're in favor of judging on the basis of color of skin and gender. That is a Direct contradiction. I don't need to use much logic to prove this to most reasonable people. I think the old idea that women were the more compassionate group is failing fast with more women advocating hiring based on gender and race in the name of anti-sexism and anti-racism. Feminists and Civil rights Activists used to agree with me that discrimination in general was bad. Now feminists and civil rights activists are at the forefront of the fight TO discriminate for their chosen groups, due to a historic imbalance, for which most working age people are not responsible. And the number of times liberals call me "ignorant" when I use correct logic to prove that their point is a contradiction is innumerable now. Thank you for commenting and trying to debate with me.
The safe rant space of the day is blame the white male. But at the risk of making the barrier to entry to paying and gratifying work seem even more aggravating consider that blacks and LGBT have their clubs too. And you may just not fit in with that either. Being a person of color or any intersection you care to name, does not make you inclusive. It also does nor make you good people just because. The rat race includes all rats. And the foot blocking the door can be any race, color or creed.
20
“They should do so even at the perceived expense of white people, and even if those candidates are viewed as somehow “less qualified,” with the understanding that those perceptions are culturally fixed in racist notions and structures”
So different types of people cannot possibly be more qualified to do some job than others? That means the NBA is a racist organization since it employs mostly African-Americans. Your thesis means that it is impossible for white men to be better at filming than minorities. But blacks can be better than whites at sports? That argument is incoherent. Maybe white people can be better than minorities at film jobs
8
TALENT should level the playing field, NOT skin color, gender etc. I am appalled.
5
PETA will demand pet listing in inclusion riders. Peter Wohlleben (see March Smithsonian Magazine) will demand trees be included.
1
Let's see!
I am white, male, upper-middle class, a retired banker in his early sixties who still consults from time to time, and...
...gay!
So, am I hired or not?
Why don't we just hire people on the basis of their ability to do the job at hand, as best we can determine so beforehand, and leave "identity " out of it! And why don't we make sure that ALL of our citizens are offered a good education to make the most of their innate abilities so that their "identity" doesn't matter when they look for a job!
Generally, you can tell if something is fair if you turn it around. If discrimination against women of color, sexual minorities, or other such group, then discrimination against white males is just as wrong and leads to the same dark ending.
Discrimination on irrelevant criteria is just that, and a whole generation of civil rights activists fought to overcome that. If the words mean anything at all, this writer is both racist AND sexist.
Do we ever learn?
8
Assuming anyone wants to save Hollywood. Ugh.
3
Putting her reputation as a legal anarchist aside, the author joins the crowd that seems to look forward to at best, speed bumping the careers of decent white men because you know progress or something. You know who has more money than Harvey Weinstein? Oprah. Tell her to sell some weight watchers stock and get her check book out. Hit movies with a diverse cast and crew are the only solution (other than revolution).
2
Inclusion riders are ridiculous. If there were inclusion riders for the Manhattan Project we might be speaking Russian now. Inclusion riders for the Apollo program? Social engineering doesn't work; not if you actually want to accomplish anything.
This is just discrimination by another name?
5
Why. Why. Why.
Are writers supposed to change what they write? A company wants to make a movie based on a book and that author needs to consent to having their characters actualized in a way they didn’t intend them to be?
As liberal thought-culture is losing legitimacy, if not power, it is grasping at straws and those most radical are becoming more and more iron-fisted, typical of fascist thinking.
3
What a horror, this constricted understanding of the world, identity politics forever and everywhere.
"We" must support the likes of Ava DuVernay -- this is author's own demand -- because why? She's "diverse"? "Inclusive"? If the viewer can't endure her product, then what?
Set the lawyers loose on culture, and this is what you get.
So enough of "empowerment" and proscriptive virtue. Keep this nonsense up, and Trump will win a second term.
6
Collective bargaining, with the accent on collective, gives employees more power in contract negotiations. Actors and workers from directors to stage hands could organize to invest SAG, Actor's Equity, and other unions with the power to strike. The NFL Players Association has real power and has improved pay and working conditions for players. Women and minorities especially should move up from Twitter to united action.
3
As a person of color and a filmmaker, I loved Frances McDormand's appeal for inclusion riders. However, as this piece suggests, movie producers have to WANT to hire POC as actors and crew. Our society must grow to be inclusive in all facets of society. Who does it serve and what does it accomplish to continually deny someone the same rights and benefits you (white person) enjoy? In 2018 racism, exclusivity and privilege for some but not for others ruins society for everyone.
Once again we see the folly of trying to legislate fairness and goodwill. An economics professor of mine stressed that the goal should be equality of opportunity, not equality of results. If efforts were made to create training and skill development pipelines for members of various disciplines and appropriate considerations given to evening the playing field at that level, the disparities might level themselves out over time without compromising producers' ability to select the best and most accomplished people for their productions.
6
But that's precisely the point here.
How do you allow people belonging to minorities to acquire the experience needed for more important jobs in one or the other industry, when white males systematically pick white males?
They can't.
So in order to give the opportunity to all women and minorities with talent to develop their talent in a way that is equal to the opportunities that the current system offers to white males, you HAVE to force those in power to start working with more non white males too.
By the way, if you don't believe in building a fair society through a fair law system, I suppose you'd prefer to live in a country without Founding Fathers who wrote a Constitution as we have, as the Constitution is precisely what forces those in power to treat all citizens in a fair way, rather than doing as they please ... ?
The reason why the West adopted Constitutions like this, for more than two centuries now, is indeed because as a society, we decided that "civilization" means no longer letting the fate of the 99% depend on the mere "goodwill" of a handful of wealthy rulers.
That's why today, you have the right to vote, for instance. It's also why we have a military that is forced to obey an elected government rather than doing what it wants.
So you already accept "legislating fairness", if you accept the Constitution. Why wouldn't we extend this principle to minorities and women too ... ?
Any idea?
7
Legislating fairness of opportunity, not equality of results.
There is a lie that has taken strong hold in the media that if the demographic split does not mirror that or society, it must me racist/sexist. Men and women have generally different interests, they value things differently. Women are 'over represented' in nursing and teaching jobs, are we legislation that?
NBA is 98% black. Is that bias? Why is it that we assume that if white men are 'over-represented' in a field it strictly because they hold everyone else down, but when it anyone else dominating it is because of natural forces of competition?
White male “migrant film worker” for 35 years. Started in NYC as a PA for $25 for a 14-18 hr day I now produce and direct TV shows in LA. I have long been a champion of hiring those who historically have had a harder time breaking into this business. Creating opportunities for qualified, passionate people today also builds a foundation for others who may not see a career in this industry as a possibility. Seeing someone who ‘looks like you’ working on a film set allows you to imagine yourself in that position. I find it sad that here in LA our film sets do not reflect the diversity of our city, and I encourage my department heads to try and be inclusive when they are crewing up. This is important for less obvious reasons too...A five year study by the DGA determined that first time episodic TV directors largely come from within the cast and crew already working on that show, with DPs, ADs, actors, script supervisors and writers filling the most directing positions. If we want to diversify the voices in the room that are saying “Action!”, then we must work to level the playing field in the entry level positions on set. While inclusivity riders are well intentioned, and help raise awareness, I don’t believe this alone is the answer. Hiring people based on contract quotas tied to demographics will eventually hurt the cause if the skill level isn’t there, and risks reinforcing negative stereotypes if a ‘rider hire’ is not up to the demands of the job, whatever the position.
4
I understand the anger that leads Chapman to categorically attack the notion of employment "qualifications," but that's politics all over in the era of Trump. Rather than engage with complexity, create new dogma and demand loyalty through intimidation. Answer all criticism with excommunication.
One of the great disappointments of living in America under Trump is that many self-identified progressives no longer believe that methods, tactics, etc are themselves an expression of political values. "Due Process," for example, would now be discarded by Chapman and others as a conservative code-word, a tool of institutional white supremacy. Tell that to Miranda.
Poisoning the political water supply may feel good and be expedient. What then?
6
I learned a long time ago that studio and network negotiations are governed by The Golden Rule - the one with the gold, rules.
7
The problem is not going one way or the other. The problem is getting the balance right. Once you have the balance right then the only problem left is if you have the right talent. Bit of a conundrum really.
1
Following the writer's logic, Broadway musical show producers should hire their singers based on what powerless group they "belong" to, and not on their singing ability. After all, they are all "singers", right?
Doesn't that opens the door to more discrimination? Selection based not on talent, but on ethnic, gender, and social characteristics; talent be damned?
Her opinion is based, and expressed, strictly along racial and gender lines. I wonder how many hiring (or firing) decisions she has had to make in her life.
Since when have an employer and an employee being considered as "equals" in a work environment? The prospect employee wants (or needs) the job the employer has to offer. There's a difference in power, right off the bat. No one is twisting their arms to either apply or accept. The candidate always has the option to say NO.
The outright distinction that has to be made is the ABUSE of that power, not its existence. That power will NEVER go away.
Since "equality" is the writers main goal, It would be interesting to find out WHEN is Beyonce, or Jay Z, are going to let a backup singer take their place in one of their shows; just for the sake of eliminating the power imbalance. Don't hold your breath.
19
With all respect, you don't get it.
There already ARE a lot of talented people belonging to minorities, it's just that white males tend to hire white males, and in that way, women and people belonging to minorities cannot build the same professional networks and experience - and THAT's how they're systematically discriminated against, you see?
And it's precisely because white males tend to imagine that minority back-up singers (= less important roles, SO roles where you find more minorities than in leading roles, in an industry that systematically discriminates against them) MUST be less talented, as you see more of them in less important roles, that systemic discrimination exists.
"Systemic" means that it's not the fault of one single person, but created by how professional environments tend to operate, combined with the fact that - as you do here - human beings tend to spontaneously generalize what they see rather than accepting that we ALL can behave, sooner or later, in a racist way, and as a consequence have to actively monitor our thoughts and actions on a regular basis, IF we want to contribute to building a fair and merit-based society.
In other words: it's to break vicious cycles based on racists ideas about the talent of minorities, that something like an inclusion rider is necessary.
So force, as a white male, your boss to put more talented minorities in leading roles, and people like you will stop imagining that they're less talented ... ;-)
2
Sorry to rain on your parade, but there are people that call themselves "singers" and can't carry a tune in a bucket, and rely entirely on solutions like Autotune to make themselves believe they can. Real talent has got nothing to do with race, even if you don't like it.
Wow. I guess we should give up on this diversity thing. It sounds reeeeeaaaaallllly difficult.
3
I read the NYT everyday. This is the 1st opinion piece that I find embarrassing. On the day of MLK's birth... from the man who gave this country his dream that our children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character....you decide to publish this bigoted tripe...why? If Ms Chapman was talking about Asians, Hispanics, or African Americans would this column ever seen the light of day? No way. But because she is pummeling the left's favorite pinata -white males- her vile racialism is OK. It isn't & we shouldn't hesitate to condemn her. This column raises a serious issue which I have seen in other editorials. When did misandry... a person who dislikes white men become acceptable? When did the various white man-hating stabs, jibes, insults & expectations become part of our culture? Why do our cultural norms protect & celebrate this sick behavior as “hip” or “sassy”? Misogynists are decried as evil while misandrists are celebrated. We as readers shouldn't tolerate misandry under any conditions. It's another form of racism. We have enough divisiveness in our country. If you seriously want to tear down the web of institutions that systemically oppress women & minorities you will need as many allies as you can get. Telling half the population that you have contempt for them is not the way to do that. If you endorse this behavior you are guilty of the very things you purport to be fighting against.
30
Chapman's incessant man-hating pieces are growing tiresome. In her perfect world every straight white male would be locked out of the entertainment industry, reduced to coat-checkers at best. I hate to use the word 'fascism' when it's so much more appropriate to the current administration, but I won't sit and gently nod while my race and gender is endlessly demonized out of public life.
20
"People in power should simply hire as many white women, people of color and L.G.B.T. people as possible...even at the perceived expense of white people... even if those candidates are viewed as somehow “less qualified,”...what??? Is this a sick joke? This is blatant bigotry & racism masquerading as progressivism. What Ms. Chapman is advocating is a clear violation of anti-discrimination laws. If an actor said he will only work on films where no African Americans are hired then the studio agreeing to such condition would clearly be in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The law bans employment discrimination by private employers...period. The Act protects any and all races, religion, national origin, and both genders. Therefore it's equally wrong if an actor says he’ll only do a movie if the studio making it agrees to hire according to racial, ethnic, & gender quotas. If quotas are illegal — & they are — then such an inclusion rider would be illegal, too. On the other hand, if the inclusion rider demanded that the employer hire only those individuals best qualified, without regard to race, ethnicity, or sex, then there would be no legal problem. And that’s all anyone really wants, right? No? The left's lunatic fringe is demanding that we be more racist! Brilliant. I know shoehorning an Asian actor into, say, the Godfather would have made it a better movie. Right! This is the worst kind of bigotry imaginable, and degrades the very cinema it's supposed to help.
41
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't white men largely create and develop Hollywood from scratch?
8
What has our society become when a writer feels free to use the words “whiteness” and “male” as pejoratives, and utter those words through clenched teeth, dripping with anger, in perhaps the world’s leading newspaper? And do neither the writer nor the newspaper have a clue how such writing is seen by white males who live quotidian lives with power over no one else?
17
I think we can all agree that bisexual black women are under-represented in movies. One role should be set aside for them.
Native American women who are non-binary need to not be silenced either. One role for them.
Lesbian Latinas can not be overlooked. One role for them.
White women, older than 50, do not get enough roles. One role for them.
Gay black men need to have their voices heard. One role for them.
Gay Latino men have been sidelined for too long. One role for them.
There are not enough extremely obese people in the movies. One role for extremely obese women and one role for extremely obese men.
Obese homosexuals need more air time. At least one role, for each race but white, needs to be reserved. At least one role, for each gender of each race except white male, needs a reserved role.
People with disabilities need more roles. We should set aside positions for blind people, hearing impaired people, paraplegics and quadriplegics. We will need variations of each- race, gender, age, body type and sexual orientation.
Then these is lazy racism. People with minor differences- say a limp or a lazy eye.
The more I think about it we can slice and dice populations until we reach the logical baseline- the individual. Maybe we should just hire the best people?
20
Consider the irony of a white woman describing herself as a “civil rights lawyer” while unabashedly calling for naked discrimination based upon race, sex, etc.
In the hierarchy of victimization, Blacks outrank women; in her present position, she occupies a slot which could go to a person of color. She should resign immediately and take a job not traditionally done by white women – perhaps garbage collector or sewer worker – to ensure adequate representation there. Too, she has the chutzpah to take up scarce space in the NYT, which might have been devoted to an authentic voice of the oppressed, rather than allowing a privileged, Ivy Leaguer to hold forth?
How far we’ve fallen! “Inclusion”: not merit – a racist concept, apparently – but outright quotas, based upon the wholly arbitrary groups to which the identity obsessed imperiously assign everyone.
In no just world will there EVER be “equality” as the author describes it, because not everyone goes to Cornell, Columbia, and Harvard. Because some people are smarter (note: NOT “wiser”) than others, some people are more talented, other people more driven.
One wonders about the author’s reaction when one of the alphabet people – vastly over-represented in the entertainment/creative industries – gets the can: "your quota has been filled". But we all know what her reaction would be; there are NEVER “too many” of the “oppressed” or “marginalized”. Victimhood is assigned at birth, and no one may transition, in either direction.
16
How is this different from affirmative action quotas?
9
How about you just make movies and get out of our faces? So very few Americans are employed in the higher echelons of acting it's really a waste of mental space to give a damn if some one male millionaire is making more than some other female version.
The entertainment industry's stock & trade is putting themselves in the public eye 24/7/365 far beyond what they merit as a business. It's trickery, propaganda, and back-handed marketing. Go away, make movies, get out of our faces.
3
How.
Ridiculous......
Do what you want Hollywood, most of us don't care.
8
"Instead, the burden should be on white and male celebrities to realize that much of their power stems from their whiteness and maleness and to step back and empower marginalized people to have more roles on their sets, on and off camera."
You mean people should deliberately give up their jobs, "quietly"?
That's not very realistic. Without any contract, how will they force their boss to take a more diverse replacement rather than himself ... ? If they give up their job, they simply loose all power over their boss, and that's it.
I understand that enforcing the law in case of such a contract may not be that easy/effective, but it's precisely because of the "public shaming" factor that an inclusion rider may have at least SOME effect and as a consequence give actors SOME power over how their industry (like all other industries today) operates.
It's true that an actor cannot personally count ALL people working on a project, but he does meet a lot of them, so he can certainly evaluate whether there's any difference compared to the crews and cast he normally works with or not.
And of course, if he has doubts AND his boss refuses to prove that he's respecting the contract, it's precisely his celebrity status and white male identity that will allow him to start some serious "public shaming".
So if enough white male (and female) celebrities sign up for this, movie makers will be forced to start accepting much more diversity.
That's why it's an idea that we should support.
3
Ms. Chapman says the only way to enforce an inclusion rider is through the star noticing an issue or workers reporting something. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but isn't the whole point of a contract that you can actually build in some sort of enforcement rules? Couldn't the rider set up the sort of diversity checks Universities have used, or simply stipulate that someone must be hired to determine that the rider is kept to?
Meanwhile, the author says we need to use laws and public shaming to increase diversity. But laws would, once again, require some sort of enforcement mechanism, so one has to be created no matter what system is used. As for public shaming, that's been going on for years and progress has been painfully incremental.
Chapman seems to believe a contractual system enforced by some of the most powerful stars in Hollywood is less effective than governmental oversight (at a time when we have an administration that is rolling back all oversight on everything) and tsk-tsking at Hollywood.
Before we try the tsk-tsk approach, why not give stars a chance to use their power to right some wrongs *now* rather than futilely petition the government and try to put together some boycotts?
1
This article is written by Rebecca Chapman, a 'criminal defense and civil rights attorney in Boston.' What it doesn't say is Ms. Chapman is black. Or maybe a touchy-feely, mousy, white liberal woman. It is obvious from the way the article is written.
"But they will never demand that their own roles be replaced by someone of a different gender or race," Ms. Chapman says.
Why should they? If a touchy-feely, mousy, white liberal woman or black woman or even an anti-white, sexist black male (like Spike Lee) were in power, do you think that person would want to give their power away? Of course not. They would be worse than what we have now which is pretty good from my white viewpoint. Would Frances McDormand? Give me a break, Oily Weak Measly Hollywood.
12
I agree that asking people to step down won't solve the problem, but you don't need any "ad hominem" arguments, as you're using here, to understand why.
If you step down, you don't have any contract anymore, so you cannot possibly force your boss to replace you with someone belonging to one or the other minority. So Rebecca Chapman's argument doesn't hold any water.
What I regret, though, is that today people who adopt an anti-liberal (or even anti-diversity, as you seem to be?) political position, somehow seem to have lost their capacity to engage in real, respectful debates on substance. All that you have left are attacks on the messenger.
Why?
You're now controlling all levels of the government, and in most industries, white males continue to be those in power. So what are you afraid of, so afraid that you still can't calm down and try to come up with some rational arguments ... ?
Any idea (no irony, serious question)?
3
The rational argument is that I, white male, do not control anything. No levels of government, no industry. I'm a hard working father paying off student loans and budgeting every dollar. As one of 99.99% of white guys who don't run studios, aren't in congress, and don't 'run' industries you're telling me I'm privileged. Life is all great for me, I have no problems. You want to take economic opportunity away, not because someone is more qualified, but because they get to check a box I don't.
I have zero issue losing work (read: money) to someone more qualified, regardless of race, gender, secuality, whatever. I have a problem being told that I didn't earn what I have, that I don't work hard everyday for what I have and that I should get less because of the grave sin of being born a man whose skin color is the same as some captain of industry types
1
Glad you saw the fallacies in Rebecca Chatman’s article. I as a white male fear nothing; might is right, right? I was only pointing out that in this dog eat dog world, where people are animals and always have been, why should any group give up it’s right or privilege to another? Even the accursed white people. As for diversity, this doesn’t enter in to any argument. Why push diversity? The people with merit will always rise to the top.
Yet, employment itself is power, and a means to achieve more voice.
When an individual is employed she has the opportunity to network and has the ability to demonstrate her talents and abilities.
If you can't get your foot in the door you will always be on the outside looking in.
A very long editorial to say "it's not going to help much." But expecting the older, white, male beneficiaries of our culture to WAKE UP and start encouraging/insisting on diversity is laughable. Change rarely starts with the fossilized top of the food chain, in any business, particularly if that's how they got there and stay there. If insisting on an inclusion rider could HELP, what's the harm? I suspect Frances McDormand wasn't suggesting it was the sole answer to all of Hollywood's problems, I think it's likely she knows that not a lot of her peers know what it is, and was making a suggestion, 'here's something you can do with the power you have.' Who am I, who are you, to poo-poo that idea? Cheers to her for a practical, accessible suggestion.
15
An inclusion rider is Hollywood's version of Affirmative Action. Which is no longer used in the state of CA.
At heart it is a good feeling ideal. In action it is also excluding real talent, training and experience.
8
Oh, I have a novel idea. Rather than creating ridiculous fixes like unenforceable Riders or complaining about it in wordy Op Eds without another solution (other than the incomprehensible thought of having white males give up lucrative roles), how about doing the hard work of fixing Hollywood from the inside? That is, let those who are marginalized take an interest about and get educated in the “business of Hollywood.”
Women and minorities should attend colleges, which are already bastions of Political Correctness waiting to accept them, and major in entertainment, business, entertainment law, etc. Then, when they graduate they can take management jobs in Hollywood and make real changes. It will take some time, but not that much. But when it does, the changes will be systematic and long-standing. However, in our “micro second” attention span nobody wants to do real work to effectuate real change. They just want to make speeches, have rallies and write useless prose that will make them feel good. Unfortunately, none of this verbal warfare or static one time rallies will do much other than make those involved feel good.
6
Simply put, I luv the spirit and hought behind this opinion piece by Rebecca Chapman. It provokes more thought by me, concerned about those spheres and worlds outside of Hollywood where I and millions of others dwell.
4
Making movies is a business , not a college course, or even a social program. Maybe the "stars" have power , not because they are white and male, but because many people will pay money to go see them.
7
John--The problem is that there is gifted talent out there that we will never see, hear, or read, because someone is guarding the door. That someone is usually a self-serving man.
2
I'm sorry, but if inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity so great and true, we'd have more white men playing in the NBA. If, according to Chapman's argument, a true hiring model shouldn't be based on the "perception" of talent, then what model should be employed? The lack of perception? Second, why place the onus on Hollywood at all? There are literally thousands of wealthy African Americans and LGBT people who could very easily create there own "Hollywood" thereby circumventing the very concept of Hollywood as we know it. Change happens when people with means fund the changes they wish to see happen.
8
If one "signs" anything, one is now a slave to that authority. Credit cards, leases, passwords, tickets, etc. If one wants to enjoy the game (movies, acting, flying), one submits to the rules. If the game is fair everyone has a chance to win. Hollywood is clearly not fair.
1
An intellectual dissertation ignoring the facts history has taught us.
1-Discrimination and harassment is illegal in this country. Women finally got the protection circa 1980.
2-Since then countless people including women have sued, filed complaints and won.
3-Setting up help groups to aid a particular faction is fine and desirable but don't start demanding special treatment, quotas and "the other guy wronged me" laws.
4-Last but not least, don't co depend and enable the bad guy, most noticeable with harassment. Many people yes included many women co depend and enable the violator by waiting 10 yrs. to make a complaint, only complain when the promotions or bonuses stop, stay silent if the predator is contributing to your cause (M Streep, Hillary, NOW etc) and worst of all having the women start the sexual activity.
With regard to harassment, 95% of men who are not harassers are not gonna ride down like shinning knights to rescue the damsel in distress. That era is over. It is called equality. The man can support the woman but she has to fight her own battles.
Learn from history or forever be condemned to repeat its worst mistakes.
6
I'd like to think that those who pursue acting, or any profession, have enough self-esteem to refuse to sign contracts that don't serve them properly. Let's have an end to this kind of thing. Find a better job, and try to do it YOUR way, without these belittling measures.
4
So maybe what we really need is different people in power? When you ask politely, the answer to that question tends to be no. Good luck.
Hiring in Hollywood today isn't a matter of "who you know" but rather "what you know about who you know." Having an Inclusion Clause in a contract is a quaint and noble idea, but it is impossible to enforce. Merit based employment would go a long way toward including a cross section of the population and would already include all colors, genders, ages. Unfortunately, prejudicial employment is what we have and that doesn't look like it is about to change any time soon, I'm sorry to say.
2
Inclusion riders may not be perfect, but it's a start. There's no magic bullet to changing a culture or an industry; it has to be the result of vigilance and good faith by all parties over a long period of time. We know that background checks and banning AR-15s won't stop every misuse of a gun, but it will certainly help stop some of the carnage. Similarly, an inclusion rider has its loopholes, but it's better than the non-diverse status quo, no? Progress is incremental. I'd rather see steps in the right direction than no action at all.
3
This is remarkable, and quite telling. All of the most popular comments on this essay - from the left leaning readers of the NY Times - are critical of the writer's views. So let me add the following.
I've been in academia for decades, and when I hear faculty colleagues toss around vague, loaded terms like social justice, diversity, and inclusion, I ask whether they think we should simply abolish the civil rights laws. After all, if we think that centers of power, including the movie industry and public universities, like the one where I teach, should be able to favor members of select races, ethnicities and one gender in hiring, then the civil rights laws, which expressly command race and gender nondiscrimination against any person, are an obstacle that should be eliminated. Somehow, they never agree to this, and this seems to be because they want those laws there to protect members of the tribes they favor, but want to be able to toss them aside when the interests of members of the tribes they don't favor are at stake.
I despise Trump, but I've come to see over time how millions of college educated people could have been so put off by the smug, rigid, hypocritical, intolerant left that they voted for him.
33
Amen.
7
It is good to know at least one liberal is beginning to wake from the destructive "dream" of lefty liberalism and political correctness.
A white actor insisting on INCLUSION of non-white or other minority crew and actors is simply condescending, as if the problems besetting Hollywood - its Casting Couch way of doing business - will simply go away if an "Appu" character is included in a Seinfeld movie.
Also, as we have seen with Stormy Daniels, contracts are costly, if not difficult, to enforce, and the last thing a studio needs is a lawsuit alleging inclusion rider infringement.
It is all for show from actors clamoring for their 15 minutes of fame.
12
It seems that the typical hit movie now involves some superhero in crisis who resolves it by blowing stuff up. Often the plot is recycled, especially from comic books. Boring! How about some memorable, interesting, character movies? Some of those do slip by. (I recommend The Leisure Seeker, although it will probably break your heart in the process of charming you. I care less about the color and gender of people involved on and off screen then I do about the fact that the film was engrossing from the first scene on.)
Switching to TV for a moment, how many people even notice on a hit show like Grey's Anatomy that a large number if not the majority of scenes are completely filled by non-white characters? Their skin color and other biological or sociological characteristics are irrelevant unless directly influencing the plot. It's the world I get up and go out into every day.
Of course, living in a blue state, maybe we understand this stuff better, but I'm not sure whether this sentence is a statement of fact or just being snarky in the current political environment. To be honest, which I try to be all the time, it's painful that I even thought to write this and equally as painful to let it be published.
2
In advocating for hiring those other than white men, Ms Chapman puts the phrase "less qualified" in qoutes, as if there were no such thing.
I would like to know what qualifications Ms Chapman, a lawyer, has for judging-- let alone declaring meaningless--the qualifications of lighting people, sound people, costume, scenery, camera, makeup people--in the film industry.
35
To follow her own example, one might describe Ms Chapman as a "lawyer."
11
How about letting the audience decide what movies and which actors they want?
And isn't discriminating on the basis of race or gender illegal?
17
It is- except when the discrimination is being practiced against white men.
3
This is truly Orwellian. It is only a matter of time before we see Inclusion Rider enforcement officials. I'm sure some of the author's colleagues are already developing boutique law practices centered on Inclusion Rider class action suits. It is nice to see though, Hollywood involved in this self flagellation, rather than hectoring the rest of us.
24
"Equality is not something that comes down from on high at the whim of the people in power." That is historically inaccurate. Civil rights legislation of the 1960's would never have passed a public vote. "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
Of course, inclusion riders will not solve all issues of inequality, but it's a start. Just because you can't imagine methods of effective enforcement and execution, does not mean it is not possible.
10
There's no remotely practical solution offered by Ms. Chapman. In theory, government could impose formal affirmative action (with sanctions for non-compliance) on the film industry. But as this industry isn't government-funded (as opposed, say, to defense-contract enriched private industries) I don't see it. Maybe Ms. Chapman is thinking Socialist revolution lines. Practically speaking, inclusion riders along with ticket buyers preferring diversity can help.
9
All these comments and yet only one from someone actually in the business...A-List talent, the ones that can demand inclusion riders, have A-List management. A-List management often has more power than the clients because clients/marquee names come and go when management stays forever. It is in management's best interest to enforce like clauses on the client's behalf for many reasons, and have the power to enforce them. And they will or be fired by the clients.
7
Chapman wants to know how such riders would be enforced -- that's why we have unions. Union reps show up on set during shoots to see how a production is going. If SAG-AFTRA, WGA or DGA know there is an inclusion rider it is incumbent upon them to report to the studio and producers whether or not that rider is being honored. The actors have nothing to do with enforcement. I understand Chapman's desire to change the nature of these wearying debates but she reveals she doesn't really understand how movies work. Public conversations make a huge difference so we need to keep going but in the meantime, contracts can be a useful weapon in the war for equality.
14
And your solution is?
It is easy to try to take down something like inclusion riders. It is much more difficult to find a better solution.
6
The old American faith that every problem has a "technological fix" never made sense. Even more nonsensical is the new faith that every roblem has a "verbal fix" -- at best mindless belief in magic and, more likely, the elevation of fraud as a core "moral" principle .
1
I have a better idea: Audiences, who are the people who wield the most power, could stop seeing boring "hero" movies featuring a white male celebrity actor saving the world or conquering a personal affliction. I have already done this, not out of charity, but because as a woman these stories are dull and often border on offensive, as they typically feature self-sacrificing or subservient female supporting roles cheering the man on. I've also stopped going to see movies with female leads that are promoted through exploitive trailers targeted to men (Red Sparrow). Enough.
8
Full of bias and boiler plate condemnations about "white power", this piece illustrates why Hollywood is regarded so poorly by so many.
For all of its pretensions about being all about art, nevertheless film making is still, in many ways, a creative process. When investors are sinking millions of dollars in a film project they, naturally, want to have the most talented and creative people involved. This means not just the star but the cinematographers, editors, costumers, musicians, lighting people, etc., people, at least on major projects, who have spent years honing their craft and talents behind the camera. Now that should count for less than the color of their skin, their sex and their orientation. What a wonderful message.
On the 50th anniversary of the death of Dr. King his dream of a world where we judge others by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin (or with whom they have sex) is trampled yet again by activists hellbent on forcing choices based on non-skill/talent related characteristics. It is also incredibly hurtful to anyone discriminated against in the name of this mock diversity.
And how to you force the public to pay for viewing films based on such issues? Box office is already in decline, through the fault of poor acting, writing, etc., so let's make it worse by not even trying to recruit the most skilled. How modern of us.
19
I think Ms. Chapman is confusing LGBT characters with LGBT actors. With the exception of transgender people, there is no reason why an actor's personal sexuality need be congruent with the role in which s/he is cast.
9
Hollywood is an oddly corrupt group of people who conflate faux dialogue on the social issue dejour while underneath is a seething cauldron of insecurity, self interest, massive egos, and horrific behavior. Unlike a corporate environment, the point of power and authority moves project to project based on the composition of any specific project. Who exercises the most influence on a given project? Money? Star power? distribution? content owner? It all depends. Nothing is more corrupt, self-serving and ultimately better at story telling and misdirection than hollywood. There is no better example than the literal conspiracy of willing participants from the biggest stars (men and women), agents, producers, & studios and Harvey Weinstein. Decades, dozens of movies, thousands of participants are now like the Vichy government all claiming to part of the Resistance.
11
This op-ed piece proves the well-known fact that making concessions to extremism begets more extremism. Once you politicize, racialize, and sexualize the film-making process, there is no end to it.
24
How about just hiring talented people?
38
I would just like to see a good movie every now and then.
20
Only when white people and men actively negate their own privilege can minorities and women obtain equality. We have to shame and even harass them into giving it up. We have to force them to recognize that they have not accomplished anything, that their endeavors are always only the result of racism and sexism. It is only that realization that will make them focus not on using their position (as a celebrity, entrepreneur, leader) but giving up their position to a person of color and non-binary gender.
Are you kidding ?!
4
This ones sarcasm right?
5
Thank you for being honest about what this kind of thinking really means at the limit. It's good to know that for the people who think like this, Darwin and Plato and Kant and Gauss and Shakespeare all did nothing. Neil Armstrong just sat around and exploited his privilege into the moon landing.
3
Chapman is a socialist who refuses to acknowledge that she benefits from the same privileges the so much hated "white and male celebrities" benefit. She claims that she wants equality, but provides solutions that would enforce inequality among people. What irrationality!
Would she advocate that all lawyers should be paid on the same scale? Should Incompetent and unskilled lawyers be paid as much as the top lawyers? Let's see if she can make it happen - if she can "enforce" equality in her own profession.
22
Eduard: I disagree with Ms. Chapman also, but she is no "socialist." She said not one word about changing salaries and economic inequities. She is only interested in racial & gender diversity. She wil be happy when the exploiters are as diverse as the exploited. Don't get me wrong, diversity would be a good thing. But the fact that neither the "left" nor the "right" understands the difference between diversity and equality simply tells me that we're having the debates the powerful want us to have.
5
Of course it's phony. It's designed to paper over a non-issue that is distracting attention from what's going on in the real world.
15
The sleaze we have seen recently from Hollywood comes as no surprise to me from an industry that thrives on facetiousness, image, fake beauty and political rancor. I have great difficulty understanding how any part of society can be so absolutely certain about its monopoly on knowledge, goodness, right and wrong. Perhaps we should send in Trump to drain the swamp!
3
I’ve been a practicing civil rights and employment law attorney with more than 35 years of experience. I’ve seen law schools force diversity in law school enrollment. In my experience, doing that is a mistake.
I’ve hired attorneys who were able to get into law school only because of their demographic characteristics. While I don’t regret doing that, it has been my experience that such attorneys have been told throughout their law school education that they were succeeding, when they actually lacked the basic skills necessary to be effective attorneys. I am sure there are exceptions but I have not met those folks yet.
As an attorney, I have been fighting against racial discrimination in employment for 35 years. Anti-Discrimination laws do not require that preferential treatment be given to anyone. Instead, they require that people not be treated less favorably because of their demographic makeup.
When an employer refuses to promote a qualified black man to a management position or refuses to promote a qualified Hispanic woman to upper management in order to promote less qualified white candidates, that is when the law is being broken.
It is a bad idea, in my opinion, to force any employer to hire someone simply because of their demographic makeup. That creates discrimination against those who are outside the favored demographic classes and it also create hostility towards the less qualified candidates who are being promoted for the wrong reasons.
Let’s not discriminate
80
@scott (the civil rights attorney) The same thing is happening in academia at the hiring stage. It’s been so discriminatory in the past, we are trying to correct all past wrongs immediately with short-term quick fixes. Unfortunately, many “diversity hires” can’t keep up and are not able to get tenured by universities. But departments don’t seem to care. The revolving door of brown and black assistant professors doesn’t seem to bother the tenured set; in fact, they think it makes them look good. Longer-term and deeper investment in equal education would make more sense for all.
13
I trust Frances in this. I'm guessing inclusion riders are better than doing nothing, as contracts do have some legitimacy. This topic always reminds me of a time when women had tremendous sway as artists, when women viewers chose to go to films staring women. When and how did women decide they would prefer Bruce Willis to Bette Davis as a lead, The Rock instead of Ingrid Bergman? After WWII, and then the 60s, did anxiety about men losing their edge, women becoming equals, send both genders into reactionary mode? When did men become the deciders of movie choice, and when did women viewers go along with them? Women gained increased equality in theory, got jobs outside the home, but stopped demanding strong women in Hollywood. I grew up in the age of missing moms on tv, and hyper masculine characters like James Bond. Was equality all too much for both genders to handle? And now, with 43% of women having voted for our current president, I scratched my head.
7
Um....Bruce Willis and The Rock are actually still ALIVE which helps, and the wonderful Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman are long, long dead. That's why.
This is a good example of why people hate lawyers. Ms. Chapman presents a nice ,legal argument demonstrating that inclusion riders are not sufficient to change the world. But, who said they were? Hollywood may be particularly visible, but it is still a private industry producing products to make money. We can argue that because of its visibility it should be held to a higher standard, but the notion that male stars should give up their roles is not realistic or even sensible. The inclusion riders can help--which is all Frances McDormand was suggesting--and to denigrate them without a better solution is not particularly useful.
26
The only people who hate lawyers are those who have never needed one, or those who have been on the losing side in a court case.
1
Perhaps because she is not a business lawyer the author makes the mistake of dismissing business law tools like contracts as effective. She is wrong. Most transactional agreements in this country are governed by contact law, whether those transactions are written or not. Using contract law to address particular issues between parties or within industries is in fact what happens everyday from employment matters to plumbing fixtures. Contract law would be an excellent resource to address exclusion— remember restrictive covenants? Or perhaps you don’t .... Anyway the author’s tool kit would be missing essential resource without business law and contracts.
9
"The Times needs your voice. We welcome your on-topic commentary, criticism and expertise."
The Times asks more from its commentators than its asks from its op-ed contributors. What expertise does Ms. Chapman have? She clearly has no experience in formulating public policy solutions that are meaningful and practical. She does seem to know how to use the word "power" a lot. I'm afraid this is about as insightful as when Donald Trump uses the word "elite."
55
Wow. Brilliant observation. You’ve articulated what I’ve been feeling for sometime - the NYT’s vets their readership comments far more vigorously then they select their op-Ed columnists who are often outrageous (George Yancy, Eula Biss) Is this a game to get clicks? Or has NYT’s simply lost its footing. Give us the news NYT’s and please stop trying to make it.
1
The problem is vast inequities of power, not who is powerful and who is powerless. Inequities are inherent in capitalism, but democracy can (or used to be able to) limit them and their effects. By all means we should work to change attitudes. A world that looked more diverse would be a nice thing. But if you believe that excessive power will become benign once all the historical vestiges of race and gender are removed, you are simply part of the problem.
14
Companies / investors producing a film should hire whomever is right for their product, period. All other considerations are extraneous and the concept that casting decisions are a measure of equality is simply preposterous.
73
As I read this column, it simply suggests that because inclusion riders are without meaningful enforcement power, they should be eliminated. No legally enforceable alternative is offered. Not exactly a solution.
It's true that not all contract clauses are equal, and the vast majority never see a courtroom. But they offer a statement of where the parties stand, and can move with other efforts towards shared goals. In years past, I've signed contracts with the city promising I wouldn't practice apartheid or run guns to Ireland. Despite my amusement at the contractual overreach and the obvious fact that no one would be checking compliance, the moral force joined with worldwide movements was unquestioned.
9
Inclusion riders might just build an audience demand for more of what they see included, what they did not know about.
In television they call these "spin offs" but the movies have done it too, with the movie itself, but also with the actor and theme.
At their best, inclusion riders would build and invite spin offs, to widen audience demand. That is the best way forward, because it might work.
6
You can't force feed a mass audience. They won't go to the movie. That has happened many times, every time Hollywood misreads its audience, think Heaven's Gate and Istar and Waterworld.
"But they will never demand that their own roles be replaced by someone of a different gender or race." Nor should they. If the audiences wanted to see someone else, then that elite of powerful A-list actors would not be A-list actors, it would be those other people.
Audiences do have a choice. There are indie films of all sorts, and the ones that take off get copied and co-opted. Meanwhile, a mainstream effort that misses loses hundreds of millions per miss, and they notice that too.
The problem is what people want to see. It is not what they are given, as if they have no choice.
47
I am not sure I understand what the problem is, or that it is a problem. This is the entertainment industry. The driver of this (when it comes to the stars, not the crews) is what faces people want to see. It is what they find beautiful or attractive. Yes?
Is it a social problem, one that demands a solution or "forcing change," that people are not more inclusive than they are in what they find beautiful or attractive?
3
How would we react if right-leaning actors wrote in clauses insisting on inclusion of national-pride content? Casting is as much a part of creative content as is script or cinematography. We would and should defend artistic freedom. Why not with regard to these inclusion riders?
45
While in agreement that inclusion riders appear toothless, instead of relying on a few powerful people to engage their power responsibly control of movie production should be removed from the elite few and handed to those who work on the films. Sound technicians, costume, set design, catering, janitorial staff and actors all have an equal voice and vote in how movies get made, how much everyone is paid, and they elect their own directors.
1
So the movie industry should become a socialist coop? Will the sound technicians, costume, set design, janitorial staff et all come up with capital to finance film productions as well? What a world
1
Excellent. Another initiative that will save me more time as I avoid even more Hollywood movies whose casting is not based on talent and whose purpose is to "educate" me. I am also concerned about ageism in the NFL - where are the senior linemen?
94
So "talent" explains why men have more speaking roles than women?
1
So, a few years ago I visited New Orleans and had the pleasure of seeing a performance at Preservation Hall. The band consisted of six African-American men playing trombones, trumpet, clarinet, upright bass and drums. There was a pianist who was Asian and female and I wondered if the band should've had more Asian female musicians.
48
"Instead, the burden should be on white and male celebrities" who are expected to realize that their "power stems from their whiteness and maleness" and they should "step back and empower marginalized people on and off camera...." Huh? Isn't that an inclusion rider? Or is the author suggesting that in a negotiation, Tom Cruise or Leonardo DiCaprio just say no thanks to roles, and demand that the people they are not going to work for hire minorities instead?
When I worked with boys in the school library, I noticed that they never read any book that largely featured girls - those were girl books. They drifted to sports stories, science books and action adventure. The girls could read those things too, but boys could not read the predominantly female stories.
This is the primary problem in Hollywood, and all over. In our culture, boys don't always want to be part of the girls' culture. When they grow, they veer away from "chick flicks." And some, although not all, and maybe even not most, don't really want to do things that girls do. That is reflected in work culture.
37
Shock, horror, ghastly suggestion: perhaps there are some natural differences in the areas of interest expressed by sex! The bigotry of science, right here—disquieting, I know!
Leave kids out of this malarkey debate between Hollywood 0.0001%-ers.
4
Is that a problem? The fact that men (generally) don't like chick flicks? or that woman (generally) don't like action movies?
Do we all need to like the same things? Despite the narrative of the day, men and women are different.
3
Leave it to Hollywood’s own unchained, potted liberati to insist on a union solution to a pervasive challenge at just the time when unions have become about as eviscerated in public life as they could be without actually disappearing.
Ms. Chapman offers solid LEGAL arguments; but there’s another even better.
Movies can consume budgets of tens of millions, sometimes well-over $100 million of capital to produce and distribute, all of it at risk depending on a set of often-unfathomable factors that successful producers have a demonstrated knack of fathoming better than unsuccessful ones. But none of them seem interested in just tossing away the money on a lark. If diversity of all kinds is what will draw the paying audiences, given as well a good concept, a good script, good direction, good performances and effective promotion, then you can bet that those producers will pursue it carnivorously.
But Ms. McDormand and others want to introduce a forced requirement to make the entire industry an agent of social change, rather than businesses that employ thousands of people (many of them and certainly her quite lucratively). Better to leave such decisions to the people risking the money and seeking a profit than to outraged actors with ideological axes to grind and personal priorities to flog, who may be actors proficient enough to win Oscars but may have no talent whatsoever at keeping the industry financially successful.
37
Let the REST of us, certainly including Ms. McDormand, seek to transform society into a polity that demands greater diversity in Hollywood productions, and leave the producers to react. The successful ones will react successfully.
Then, of course, there IS an option for those producers to lessen the intensity of the caterwauling. What Hollywood LEGITIMATELY should do is cast more newcomers in lead and even in supporting roles, rather than established stars. It would be harder, as they’d need to work more intensely to find younger, more inexperienced actors who possessed the requisite screen presence and natural acting ability to pull it off, but consider the immense benefits. They’d introduce the kind of competition that would drive down what they need to pay to get a Frances McDormand with a shiny Oscar on her floor.
6
Heard this before. The invisible hand of the free market will surely guide us to equality, given the econometrics of supply and demand, profit and loss; to alter this natural course is sure to invoke industry ruin. "Better to leave such decisions to those risking the money" is convenient when those are the same people imposing the lack of equality. I see, these are the only people who can run things, because those outraged actors probably have no talent to manage a business (hmm, and why might that be?). Nope, the solution is clearly to do nothing, and magically let Hollywood cast more ‘newcomers’ in lead roles, presumably reflecting more diversity over time, right?
Yet why should newcomers will be more diverse, when there is zero impetus, based on the suggested laissez faire approach? Those in charge are suddenly going to be predisposed to hire 'non-traditional' leads, and groom them for executive roles, lacking outside motivation to do so? It defies reason, when there are strong institutional forces working against any such thing. Also, why should 'newcomers' be a necessity? The implication is that none of the actors out there struggling to find roles are any good; probably just outraged, no talent, agitators.
Yes, heard all of this before. The carefully crafted argument, the façade of reasonable and fair, as to protect the status quo. Promises of change on the horizon, but only if things take their own natural course. The sophistry is disingenuous and tired. No thanks.
12
Erik:
Remarkably bad argument on your part.
I made it abundantly clear in my own argument that it was up to US to transform a society that reflected the demands to which Hollywood certainly would respond, in its own interests.
But, no. That would be HARD, and deprive Frances McDormand of the ability to play an outraged victim as she collects the millions she does from a movie role. And she (and we) could FAIL, depriving all of us of a self-righteousness that we so desperately NEED but haven't the moxey to even TRY to actually EARN.
You can't always change society in a sustainable way by the easy expediency of heaping on regulation, whose primary effect is to add cost to a commercial endeavor, that WILL be felt in other areas.
You do it with good arguments, finding the leverage of successful inducements, time and a lot of hard work.
But who the hell wants to work THAT hard? WE just want to make an Oscar speech that people will applaud because it puts the onus for change on someone ELSE, demonizes someone in the process, and sweeps the dust under the rug by making a ... rule.
I'm disappointed, Erik -- you used to make better arguments demonizing me. Could be advancing age.
11
I’ve voted Democrat my whole life. Obama twice, Hillary once, etc. But I break with my party here. I don’t understand how it is not illegal discrimination and a violation of Title VII to make hiring decisions based on the race or gender one appears or is judged to be. I respect the positive but misguided intentions of policies like this. However, I don’t understand how discriminating and excluding people who fit a description of white and male will fix systemic discrimination and exclusion. What’s the long-term plan? Once perfect diversity and inclusion is achieved, do we get rid of inclusion riders and affirmative action? They shouldn’t be necessary at that point, but if discrimination against white men eventually becomes entrenched, then the situation may one day invert itself. While a new culture of discrimination against white men might be poetically just, it’s not a good long-term recipe for a cohesive, tolerant society.
Let’s stop fixating on Hollywood. They represent a tiny cohort of privileged people. The correct approach is to fix structural issues which hinder women and minorities from achieving economic success. If Hollywood isn’t telling your stories and representing your communities, then we should help you start your own studio and make your own movies. Don’t tear down other people because you think they’re white and male. It might be satisfying for a moment, but it’s ineffective and destructive over time.
147
Alex:
I grew up in Tacoma and have spent MY entire life voting for Republicans; but I suspect that I'm a lot older than you, and my ideological preferences are generational for Tacoma.
You make a very solid argument, which disproves (to me, at least), the claims of Neanderthalism denizens of Seattle make of Tacomans.
You're right, but consider: affirmative action policies and practices in our colleges are precisely analogous to your argument. The courts have ruled them constitutional, largely because there appear to be no alternatives to creating a rational racial and ethnic balance in our schools.
McDormand is wrong, but there are more defensible arguments available -- check out mine not far from yours.
And, given your clarity of instinct, I encourage you to reconsider your political affiliation: at heart, you may be a rational Republican.
11
It seems you're another victim of a 30+ year war of misinformation about affirmative action.
Let me try to make it as simple as possible, because your understanding of it (as with so many people) is wrong on so many levels.
You need to hire someone to do something. You get more than one applicant. After your process for finding out more about them, you end up with more than 1 candidate that you consider equally qualified and equally suitable for the job. How to choose between these EQUALLY QUALIFIED candidates?
Affirmative actions suggests that IF the current demographics of the workplace you're hiring into do not reflect those of some wider society (city? state? nation?), then it would be good to make a choice (again, between EQUALLY QUALIFIED candidates) that nudges those demographics towards matching.
It has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with discriminating against white males. I'm a 55 year old white male, and this much is all entirely obvious to me. How do you propose an employer or university decide between the EQUALLY QUALIFIED candidates? Only 1 of them will get the job/place, so how is it to be decided?
7
Who decides 'equally qualified'? I'm all for inclusion but wary of public policy that tells people who they should hire based on who the public thinks are 'equally qualified'
Chapman: "Public law, public shaming and public action are the most effective means of forcing change."
"Force" is not a word that a lawyer should be using.
Further, that is the only place where Chapman mentions "public law" or uses the word "public", so Chapman has failed to make her case.
26
By the way, did Ms. Frances McDormand ask her husband, Mr. Joel Coen, why the Coen Brothers movies, in eight of which she has appeared, are so white?
I calculated just how white the 17 Coen Brothers movies have been here:
http://takimag.com/article/trophy_wife_steve_sailer/print#axzz5BHqRM5nD
And it would be interesting to hear Mr. Coen's views on the suddenly popular idea of the auteur's ceding power over casting to movie stars. Personally, I think the Coen Brothers have done a fine job of casting over the decades without racial interference from performers.
81
McDormand's little speech was a performance, something that she's exceptionally good at. Had about as much connection to reality as the guy using a limb chopper to cut up a corpse in Fargo.
5
I hope you're not suggesting that Ms. McDormand got those parts because she was married to the director. Surely, she was just the best actress for the part every time.
2
An 'inclusion rider' is no match for a protracted culture of discrimination and abuse. A new generation of well educated folks, aware of human graft when in power, is needed, as the subconscious bias is brought to mind and when the will to change for the better is required. A long process indeed.
2
I wonder if inclusion riders will be made to include Hispanics? As the largest minority and majority of LA and buyers of one in four movie tickets, they are virtually invisible onscreen. It’s bizarre/ironic/disturbing that those promoting diversity don’t even notice/care the largest minority doesn’t exist to them. Imagine if you flipped the roles of African-Americans with Hispanics. These people would be in the streets saying where are the African-American roles, where’s the diversity. It seems diversity has rankings and preferences and they prefer some minorities rank higher.
17
This comment only illustrates the pointlessness of this whole topic. How about a rider for Asians, Indians, and Eskimos? While we're at it, why not fire a few Jews since they seem to be over represented in this area?
5
This piece undermines constitutional rights while masquerading as legal analysis. It's pure zealotry. I have been a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer in New York for over 25 years. The author, Rebecca Chapman, identifies herself as criminal defense and civil rights lawyer in Boston. No one who seriously does this work can possibly claim to be an expert on contract law, but that doesn't stop Chapman. Chapman correctly asserts that the "enduring myth of contract law is that when two parties come to the table to negotiate, they are equals. This is not reflected in reality." Every first year law student knows this, as does every working-class individual who ever signed a contract. Chapman makes quick and messy work of contract law, pretending that rectifying imbalances is impossible, because she has no expertise. It's a ruse. Chapman, a self-avowed "Legal Anarchist," is only interested in destroying constitutional protections. It's no surprise that she's obsessed with powerful Hollywood celebrities, as opposed to the clients which practicing criminal and civil rights attorneys usually represent, who are none of these things. They'll suffer most if due process is weakened. Chapman holds herself forth as a champion of civil rights while seeking the destruction of those very rights. She wants to employ "public shaming" and, what can only be viewed as patently illegal means, to obtain what she personally believes is right. How Chapman is allowed to practice law is beyond me.
127
Here's an idea. If you are harassed, report it. No decent person wants anyone to have to endure harassment, but some of the "solutions" I'm reading are just bizarre. Also, we can't abandon due process. Why is this so different from every other kind of infraction? The discussion of harassment (which is appropriate) is morphing into some kind of societal reform involving dismantling of the "patriarchy". I predict this approach will severely cripple legitimate attempts to reduce harassment of women by men in and out of the workplace.
38
It’s humorous as the dickens to watch liberals destroy rights to free expression of their less politically correct liberal friends.
Talk about eating your own!
As usual, liberals deny any rights and freedoms to others which interfere with liberals’ determinations as to what others are allowed to say or do. They’d burn the Constitution in a New York minute if given the chance.
The Socialists speak - and the rest of us better just shut up and follow orders.
68
Was thinking the very same thing. The "rider" will go nowhere and here's a thought how about hiring the person who is actually qualified for the job. You can't fire someone based on race or religion but now you have to hire them based on those parameters.
19
Hmm, so let me get this straight. I'm a mega-successful actor, much sought after by producers and directors for my capacity to bring in huge audiences to their films.
I happen to think that the industry doesn't do enough to represent the demographic diversity of the country, and I decide to add an inclusion rider to my contracts. These contracts are freely negotiated between powerful "elites" (myself, an A-list actor and producers/studios). They are free to not hire me if they don't like my terms. I'm just speaking my mind: if you want me to work for you, you need to do this and that.
Remind me again of how my free expression as an economic agent in a free contract negotiation to make a capitalist-funded movie with the intent to secure a large profit is "socialism"?
6
Brave anonymous remarks!
2
This story and the concept of the inclusion rider are the very definition of inside baseball. I think that even a diehard feminist would be hard-pressed to consider the plight of women in Hollywood on the same level with that of the average working woman, or the average woman or minority person. The Oscars are supposed to be for the movie fan, not a place for highly paid stars to wage a battle for higher wages or job opportunities. As worthy a cause as it may be, I doubt that many people watching that telecast had ever heard of the inclusion rider, or care much about it in relation to their own struggles.
45
Instead of inclusion riders Hollywood needs "good screenplay and no CGI" riders. Diversity is easy, quality is hard.
86
I completely agree with the incompatibility of forced "diversity" and good quality- in academia, Hollywood etc.
2
Why not get these inclusion clauses in the NFL and NBA? Then players wouldn't sign on to play for a team unless there was an equal amount of gay, black, white, Asian, Latino, female, and disabled players. I think it's a good idea.
145
Gary. While we are at it let's get inclusion riders
For Brain surgeons . I am sure all of the individuals who advocate for these poorly thought out policies will line up to
Be patients. NOT
24
They are already there. White men 98%of the NFL and NBA franchises .
3
I've always wanted a WS ring with the Yankees bit have been unjustly held back by my proverbial inability to hit the side of a barn with a basketball from 20 feet.
16
Take it from a film crew member with 32 years of experience-the various crafts on a film set are demanding and take years of experience to master. I arrived in Hollywood as a white male who had a hell of a time breaking into the close knit insular and highly competitive workplace including tough union requirements, but I persisted and did it. I have seen an industry that has always welcomed anyone who was willing to work very hard 12 to 14 hour days to learn a craft. The problem is-many seem to want jobs and careers handed to them-especially directing and producing-after scant film experience or no experience at all. Ask any seasoned crew member-most directors on a film set, especially in television, aren’t very good (including the white males) and that is the industry’s little secret. Yes we have a gender and diversity problem, but the far bigger problem is the lack of any long term, comprehensive and competent training and mentoring process that insures people learn and appreciate the craft of filmmaking and can run and interact professionally on a set of very experienced and talented craftspeople.
124
Can you provide suggestions as to how a "long term, comprehensive and competent training and mentoring process" could be developed? Is there possibly one in existence now on a smaller scale?
5
How about taking a lesson from the old school studio system of bringing people up on short subjects like they did in the 30s, 40s and 50s? What about studio sponsored internet channels of shorts, test pilots, low-budget short series that bring up new writers, directors, editors, cinematographers, producers, production designers, etc. in a supervised/mentored program? And how about realizing that you probably need to insure that people spend some time in a craft working on film sets before you elevate them or groom them to directing and producing? Do other craft industries, corporations, law firms, banks, fire departments, etc. elevate news hires or inexperienced employees to top positions simply because they "want" the job? Does shadowing a director on one or two TV episodes prepare you to direct? How many directors working in Hollywood today can tell you the basic prime lens sizes that a typical camera department would carry on a film set and which ones to use in a two-camera set up for a specific wide and a medium shot taking the scene lighting and sound guys into the equation? Not many....
3
In the case of Hollywood, the way to fix discrimination does not lie solely in the hands of producers and contract lawyers. It lies in the hands of each and every one of us, the viewers. If you want to see more movies made by and featuring people of color, women, older people, LGBT people, or disabled people, go see movies that do feature these people and their viewpoints. Money talks, and if those movies make money, more will be made.
59
But we really don’t. I want to escape myself. At 57, I’m not looking for a role model or someone who looks like me. I’m sure the large audience of young people is just looking for some humor and some scares and a few disasters with heroes. They have enough struggle and drama trying to get by and grow up.
21
I agree, Name. Hollywood films range from entertainment to art - they can be funny, personally meaningful, or a simple escape, but as far as I can tell, we don't go to see them to promote political ends. Why this struggle has landed in Hollywood is unclear, other than that Frances McDormand wants to promote herself as a do-gooder.
24
As much as I respect McDormand I find it odd that it took this long to promote diversity in H'Wood. No doubt jumping on the bandwagon and to make yourself feel good.
I don't disagree with the need to have a diverse and inclusive work force. But I am not sure Hollywood is the place to wage that battle. Much of America views Hollywood as a mecca for rich, entitled liberals. Change needs to come from within real America, not celebrity America. In fact, Hollywood acting as flag bearer could spark a backlash. Go ahead and improve conditions out there. But please don't appoint yourselves as spokespeople.
30
"People in power should simply hire as many white women, people of color and L.G.B.T. people as possible."
I agree. We know about age discrimination in Hollywood, too. What about hiring actors, especially women 40+? Diversity includes all ages.
28
"Diversity includes all ages."
Even new-borns?
3
Hollywood discriminates on age more than every other demographic combined.
1