The 2015 Academy Awards once again
exposed Hollywood's hypocrisy on diversity. The film industry has a
long history of promoting diversity on screen -- but only as a
message, not as an actual practice. As a random example, consider the
1980 TV-movie, The $5.20 an Hour Dream. In it, Linda Lavin
(TV's Alice) fights sexist bosses and co-workers for her right to do "a man's job" on a factory assembly line.
The makers of that film likely felt a
smug pride in berating manufacturers for their unequal hiring
practices. And a sense of moral superiority in belonging to the more
enlightened entertainment industry. Indeed, Hollywood has been so
prolific in fighting prejudice (on screen) that it's hard to list
every film and TV episode with an equal opportunity message. Norman Lear made a career of producing "liberal message" sitcoms
in the 1970s-1980s.
But that's okay. The message
-- that one should provide equal opportunity to all job-seekers,
irrespective of race, religion, ethnicity, sex, or age -- is right and
proper. The problem is that while Hollywood loves to wag its finger
at all those other "bigoted" businesses -- which are nearly
always depicted as being run by snotty, blue-blooded WASPs --
Hollywood has yet to practice what it preaches.
According to the AP's Jake
Coyle, "[T]he academy is a reflection of the film industry;
it can only reward the films that get made. What this year's
all-white acting nominees did was lay bare the enormous, hulking
iceberg of the movie business' diversity problems." And
NPR's All
Things Considered adds, "If you want an accurate picture of
ethnic and gender diversity in the United States, don't look to
Hollywood."
Both articles cite the 2015
Hollywood Diversity Report prepared by the Ralph
J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. But this
is only the latest in a long line of dismal Hollywood diversity reports. In
2000, the Tomás Rivera Policy
Institute released a report with the self-explanatory title: Still
Missing: Latinos In and Out of Hollywood.
I know about that report because I
cite its statistics in Hollywood Witches, my satirical novel
about Tinseltown's hypocritical hiring practices. In Hollywood Witches, a New Age coven infiltrates the studios, seeking control
of the industry by hook or by crook -- or more specifically, through
sex and black magic. Once in power, they will impose hiring quotas
so that the industry "looks like America" on both sides of
the camera. Coven leader Diana
Däagen even has some programs on her Mac custom-designed for just that purpose: Glass Ceiling 4.0 and Bean
Counter 2.1.
Diana Däagen
is a villain. Her plans require widespread blood sacrifice to
succeed. But like all great Hollywood villains, she has a point. There is
method to her madness. When she states her case (as all great
villains do before launching the final stage of their Master Plan),
she cites hard facts and makes valid arguments. Hollywood does
discriminate. Despite the usual boilerplate about "equal
opportunity" on studio stationery, nepotism and cronyism rule
the day.
And it's even worse behind the camera than on screen. Audiences will notice if there's no color on screen, but they never see who's
writing and producing (or not) off camera.
The
current controversy regarding the 2015 Oscars has focused mostly
(albeit not exclusively) on the lack of diversity on screen. But
Diana correctly understood that Hollywood will never achieve real
diversity until there is diversity among the gatekeepers doing the
hiring -- the agents, managers, producers, TV show runners, and
studio bosses. Give the devil her due.
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