America is a racially heterogeneous country, and I think that can be a cultural advantage (as long as we have some shared values across races). Different races are associated with different cultural traditions, whose inclusion adds a richness. Spike Lee, for example, has made great movies that only a black director could have made. There’s also cross-pollenation between traditions, so you get Tarantino inspired by blaxploitation, and Donald Glover inspired by nerd culture.
Where diversity really goes wrong is when it’s reduced to a move in elite status games. It becomes forced and unnatural.
It’s true that elites don’t want their status games to be exposed, but people are successfully questioning it, including Musa al-Gharbi, who’s cited in this piece.
I think he said very thoroughly and precisely what a lot of people have known for a long time. It also helps that he’s a black guy (I think he’s mixed-race) with an Arabic name. The goal, of course, is to get to a place where someone’s race is irrelevant to their intellectual contribution, but it may be temporarily helpful in breaking out of the identitarian mindset to have “people of color” criticize it. I’ve noticed many of the best critics of identitarianism are mixed-race, maybe because the identitarian mindset is very hostile to actual, unforced cross-race hybridity.
Your entire comment is a platitude. If you want to know more about how diversity functions as part of elite status games, read al-Gharbi. His Substack is here: https://musaalgharbi.substack.com/
The fact that elites use the idea of diversity as part of their status games does not mean diversity itself is harmful. Diversity is simply the reality of American life. It is not going anywhere.
Making music is more accessible. Pinkpantheress and Steve Lacy are gen z breakout Black artists who could make music on cheap programs on their computers and phones. While the former has a professor parent, she does not belong to the African nations mentioned above and Lacy grew up in Compton. You cannot make a film in your bedroom. It’s disgusting how much talent we’re wasting by just allowing elite poc kids to make films.
Ok. I have to push back here against the claim that the people most harmed by the U.S are Native Americans and descendants of slaves.
We are ignoring the American colonialist project of the 20th century that bankrupted countries like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, etc…
What the Americans did to the Haitians through the Corvee system was a gross crime against humanity and it is through the Annexation of Haiti and its stolen resources that Citibank partly became the financial behemoth that it was throughout the 20th century.
We are ignoring what the Chicago School of Economics and the Berkeley Boys did to Latin America in the 60’s and 70’s which is what continues to fuel this mass immigration problem that we have.
Fair points. It is why the BI is in BIPOC though. Obviously these conversations can get a bit vulgar quickly, but, while horrible, I don’t think economic depredation rivals that of physical enslavement and genocide.
But beyond all of this, these moral math conversations are unresolvable, and lead to absurdities. Does the Argentine descendent of Germans deserve a fellowship for being Hispanic more than a poor white kid from Minnesota?
A more just approach would simply look at people’s class resources now, and give up on the endless litigation of the past. These kinds of conversations are part of how so many elites are able to slip into these categories.
There were also black people who behaved horribly in the Haitian revolution, which bifurcated race in bizarre and unique ways. The child of Haitian elites is far more likely to try and enter the film industry than a poor person of another background.
Even more strangely, perhaps, many of the people in the film industry are the children of the elites of these countries, who often won brutal battles within their own political structures, often by allying with the same Americans you’re condemning.
Look at the economies and histories of many African countries, which are controlled by tiny elites and center so much on natural resources, and there is blood to be found everywhere.
Latin America is no different; in Overthrow Steven Kinzer describes the history of all of the democratically elected leaders the US overthrew in the 20th century. Many of the people attending American elite institutions are the descendants of the people placed in power by the Americans, not the revolutionaries.
Also, because I’m fascinated by Haitian history, particularly the revolution, I was always moved by CLR James’s line in The Black Jacobins, where he discusses how the mulattoes (his term) abandoned the actual slaves early on:
“But except for a few half-hearted attempts by the Friends of the Negro, everybody conspired to forget the slaves.” (Page 70)
We’re on the same side of the equation my friend. I do not disagree with you at all and you are correct on all the points you mentioned.
Hell, the Haitian Mulattoes didn’t even want to end slavery but simply wanted that institution to be transferred over to them. I’m well aware that my mulatto side of the family has bequeathed me with crazy privileges that the majority of Haitians will never come close to enjoying even though I’m by no means rich.
But, so far from what I gather from your excellent pieces of writings is that the elites of BIPOC hold the same values as the white elites and are not interested in equity or diversity as they are in preserving the status quo, a status quo which allows them to use their race to gain access to the levers of power.
So if the elites of Haiti can be allies of the white elites of America, I don’t see why the poor masses of Haiti can’t be allies of the exploited Native Americans.
(Let’s not forget that Black Americans in the 1920’s made ending the occupation of Haiti a personal cause)
Not sure where you personally fall on the matter but I know there is this growing movement now trying to make a distinction, say, between the suffering of black immigrants and black Americans when that suffering is the result of the same elite which owns all of the world’s resources.
No worries! It’s a funny/sad story how we got classified as white in the US in the early 20th century because it would be laughable today: so in California Armenians were really badly discriminated against and couldn’t buy land. An Armenian farmer challenged it in court and the court said basically “well even though Armenians are dark and from the Middle East they ARE Christian so I guess that outweighs the coloring.”
That makes total sense. I found it strange as well. Of course I also forgot about the Turkish genocide. These categories are so strange, I wrote a funny anecdote in another piece about how Antonio Banderas was forced to be Hispanic when he identified as white.
It’s funny how Giancarlo Esposito gets cast as Latino like in breaking bad. His last name Is Italian lol. And as a Spanish speaker as much as I love him in breaking bad, it was unintentionally hilarious how he’d speak English with a Spanish accent but then spoke Spanish with an American accent lol
I’m kind of happy the worst of the cancel mobs are behind us because it’s fun to write about the strange era we just lived through. Working on a longer piece about one of my favorite mid 2010s stories.
Great piece as always but unfortunately, I think none of your action points 1-6 are implementable at all. The market simply does not care about these metrics. Maybe more grants screening for household income, but why? Why would anyone do that? What is the incentive? Legitimacy? Evidently, legitimacy regarding actually helping the subgroups within marginalized groups doesn't matter.
Making this conversation more mainstream, and having a more granular discussion about marginalized groups and subgroups within BIPOC would make a difference.
But the left/Hollywood establishment/whatever you want to call it has made it clear it has no interest in mainstreaming that conversation. Nor BIPOC people do, for obvious reasons, and probably even less the whites.
I actually think AI might solve this issue. It will allow creative people from any socioeconomic backgrounds to make testaments to their visions, in the form of treatments and sizzles at worst, and full-on short films and features at best. This is the next step to democratizing filmmaking, the same way music creation has been democratized pre-AI.
I doubt it will produce real change but I think informing people of the realities will at least help them make better, more clear-eyed choices about the industry. I also hope that calling this stuff out will make the elites who pontificate about it less willing to so so, which would be a net win for me personally. I don’t think they really care about social justice, but hopefully they will find less annoying ways to try and advance their careers and interests.
Yes. I hope posts like your will shift how some execs think. It’s just so… Orwellian. Not to sound too political here. I also don’t think someone like Zhao’s fanbase truly care. And nobody in the industry will realistically ever push down a BIPOC person having been, as you have concluded, to some degree, unfairly boosted by the system.
They care about social justice but that care just blinds a bunch of other reasonable thought processes
This is the entirety of the criticism of the Left: the Left NEVER actually wants egalitarianism, justice, utopia, etc....Leftists are only concerned with hoarding Power. And, once hoarded, that power IMMEDIATELY becomes way more right-wing as any boogeyman the Left could ever conjure.
Clas data yes but also historical structural racism. Ther is no denying we are experiencing the impacts of land and resources and labor being stolen and laws upon laws preventing full
Economic participation. That goes for immigrants of color as well whose countries experienced colonialism unless you can
prove their families were collaborators with the whites. We’re not gonna just look at class an allow people with a history of structural privilege to continue to have unequal opportunity and access. We need much broader filters
Most, if not all, Hollywood internships are paid and often you are required to be a student or recent college grad. (See below landmark case). While on the surface this seems great, employers are not as incentivized to train temporary workers, thereby hiring fewer interns if any. Elite university students are usually chosen for these few entry level positions. I wish we could have an apprentice system and no college degrees required and people could be trained on the job.
Paid internships became more common around 2015. At that time, I believe min wage was around $14/hr (maybe less) and tech co like Apple were paying interns around 21/hr. I could be wrong, as this is all from memory. I was an adjunct at usc film school teaching a class about how to get your first job in entertainment then later started a business to help all 20somethings get hired in Hollywood.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and how to integrate it. I do know there are still plenty of under the table internships at universities and places like that. I do wish we could get an apprenticeship system again too, it’s just so blue blooded these days. Requiring a degree of course already limits the pool quite a bit.
In your experience are these internships enough to live on, in a meager fashion in LA?
Really illuminating article. While I don’t share verbatim your political vision on how to solve the issue of media representation, you raise some really interesting points and explanations on how we got here. My one true quibble with the article is this paragraph at the beginning:
“Before going further, let me concede what's true in the view I'm about to argue against. Representation has real intrinsic value: who sits in the chair shapes which stories get told, and seeing someone like you direct matters in ways no spreadsheet captures.”
I find this take to be a bit reductive, as the exact effects media has on us in terms of representation (and beyond) are more complicated and dependent on a large number of factors. I’ll link this post which lists a large number of sources and studies on the myriad of effects media can have on the human brain, if you are interested: https://substack.com/@thehilarylayne/p-188947892
Wowzer! Another blockbuster enlightening report. Thank you for all the hard work you’re doing here, HG! Onward.
Thanks so much! I wanted to publish yesterday and then so much just kept pouring out of me.
“funding the comfortable posing as the afflicted” is ALL OVER higher education and I’m so fed up with it.
Race is far less important than class. That's why it's so hard to talk about class
I thought the term BIPOC was specifically invented to mean “POC but also not Asian”
The BI were supposed to center Black and Indigenous experiences but I do believe the POC includes all other nonwhite people.
So, in spite of Hollywood’s desperate DEI straining, the most intelligent and talented still tend to float to the top.
Only if they are not white apparently (and probably not Jewish either).
The people who constantly harp about how diversity makes us stronger never say how.
Why is it that our masters won't let us question the concept of diversity?
Because that would raise the if class and they can't allow that.
Always remember the things you can't question. That's how you know who's really in charge.
America is a racially heterogeneous country, and I think that can be a cultural advantage (as long as we have some shared values across races). Different races are associated with different cultural traditions, whose inclusion adds a richness. Spike Lee, for example, has made great movies that only a black director could have made. There’s also cross-pollenation between traditions, so you get Tarantino inspired by blaxploitation, and Donald Glover inspired by nerd culture.
Where diversity really goes wrong is when it’s reduced to a move in elite status games. It becomes forced and unnatural.
It’s true that elites don’t want their status games to be exposed, but people are successfully questioning it, including Musa al-Gharbi, who’s cited in this piece.
Gharbi was paradigm shifting.
What paradigm was shifted?
I think he said very thoroughly and precisely what a lot of people have known for a long time. It also helps that he’s a black guy (I think he’s mixed-race) with an Arabic name. The goal, of course, is to get to a place where someone’s race is irrelevant to their intellectual contribution, but it may be temporarily helpful in breaking out of the identitarian mindset to have “people of color” criticize it. I’ve noticed many of the best critics of identitarianism are mixed-race, maybe because the identitarian mindset is very hostile to actual, unforced cross-race hybridity.
And ppl have just shut out white voices as somehow 'inherently racist' and all the rest of it.
Diversity is a weapon our masters use to divide us and it's working.
now you’re just sharing platitudes — go read al-Gharbi, educate yourself
Identify the platitude or platitudes in my comment.
Your entire comment is a platitude. If you want to know more about how diversity functions as part of elite status games, read al-Gharbi. His Substack is here: https://musaalgharbi.substack.com/
The fact that elites use the idea of diversity as part of their status games does not mean diversity itself is harmful. Diversity is simply the reality of American life. It is not going anywhere.
You didn't answer my question.
Music is more accessible and Black/Latino artists dominate that industry. Diversity makes us better.
What's more accessible than buying an LP at the neighborhood record store, taking it home and putting it on a turntable? Or turning on the radio?
Making music is more accessible. Pinkpantheress and Steve Lacy are gen z breakout Black artists who could make music on cheap programs on their computers and phones. While the former has a professor parent, she does not belong to the African nations mentioned above and Lacy grew up in Compton. You cannot make a film in your bedroom. It’s disgusting how much talent we’re wasting by just allowing elite poc kids to make films.
How?
Did you miss the part of the article saying this: "John Ford — four Best Director Oscars, no college — would not survive today's pipeline."
Dems really trying hard to annoy normal people into voting for Trump again.
Ok. I have to push back here against the claim that the people most harmed by the U.S are Native Americans and descendants of slaves.
We are ignoring the American colonialist project of the 20th century that bankrupted countries like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, etc…
What the Americans did to the Haitians through the Corvee system was a gross crime against humanity and it is through the Annexation of Haiti and its stolen resources that Citibank partly became the financial behemoth that it was throughout the 20th century.
We are ignoring what the Chicago School of Economics and the Berkeley Boys did to Latin America in the 60’s and 70’s which is what continues to fuel this mass immigration problem that we have.
Fair points. It is why the BI is in BIPOC though. Obviously these conversations can get a bit vulgar quickly, but, while horrible, I don’t think economic depredation rivals that of physical enslavement and genocide.
But beyond all of this, these moral math conversations are unresolvable, and lead to absurdities. Does the Argentine descendent of Germans deserve a fellowship for being Hispanic more than a poor white kid from Minnesota?
A more just approach would simply look at people’s class resources now, and give up on the endless litigation of the past. These kinds of conversations are part of how so many elites are able to slip into these categories.
There were also black people who behaved horribly in the Haitian revolution, which bifurcated race in bizarre and unique ways. The child of Haitian elites is far more likely to try and enter the film industry than a poor person of another background.
Even more strangely, perhaps, many of the people in the film industry are the children of the elites of these countries, who often won brutal battles within their own political structures, often by allying with the same Americans you’re condemning.
Look at the economies and histories of many African countries, which are controlled by tiny elites and center so much on natural resources, and there is blood to be found everywhere.
Latin America is no different; in Overthrow Steven Kinzer describes the history of all of the democratically elected leaders the US overthrew in the 20th century. Many of the people attending American elite institutions are the descendants of the people placed in power by the Americans, not the revolutionaries.
https://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-Change/dp/0805082409/ref=sr_1_1?crid=25GSIFQITDQYN&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.cnNMzAg1rCLfdoe3iiYKd_oBNK2pv-2vTGDhJgDmhz9V1T5Y8k4hP-583cJQ_qPVYe9NZeWWvt2CcwjhIK6hYNqBhE_yKldZJfr1mx30Gpg5d_GqxSpImnaI42LeQ-RdG8rTCJCOX1_xxfE9geqTYkDiu4rzbuETOnAseukX4fJfddNF_3OmmHcBpeLwTW3dUvgwRGF8OTvTnsGAChQOJV-9yHU_j7QnnQE_tVo3ohM.wC_gHMbGnwhSsFsDLd0Hxe59e-TDU54mfkNOPpAwcxI&dib_tag=se&keywords=overthrow&qid=1783352524&sprefix=overthro%2Caps%2C225&sr=8-1
Also, because I’m fascinated by Haitian history, particularly the revolution, I was always moved by CLR James’s line in The Black Jacobins, where he discusses how the mulattoes (his term) abandoned the actual slaves early on:
“But except for a few half-hearted attempts by the Friends of the Negro, everybody conspired to forget the slaves.” (Page 70)
Excellent response.
We’re on the same side of the equation my friend. I do not disagree with you at all and you are correct on all the points you mentioned.
Hell, the Haitian Mulattoes didn’t even want to end slavery but simply wanted that institution to be transferred over to them. I’m well aware that my mulatto side of the family has bequeathed me with crazy privileges that the majority of Haitians will never come close to enjoying even though I’m by no means rich.
But, so far from what I gather from your excellent pieces of writings is that the elites of BIPOC hold the same values as the white elites and are not interested in equity or diversity as they are in preserving the status quo, a status quo which allows them to use their race to gain access to the levers of power.
So if the elites of Haiti can be allies of the white elites of America, I don’t see why the poor masses of Haiti can’t be allies of the exploited Native Americans.
(Let’s not forget that Black Americans in the 1920’s made ending the occupation of Haiti a personal cause)
Not sure where you personally fall on the matter but I know there is this growing movement now trying to make a distinction, say, between the suffering of black immigrants and black Americans when that suffering is the result of the same elite which owns all of the world’s resources.
Fair points all around!
This is great my only small critique is that we Armenians aren’t really white.
Thanks! Yes I thought about that, but for some reason Annenberg lists them as white, so it felt odd to break with the original souce.
No worries! It’s a funny/sad story how we got classified as white in the US in the early 20th century because it would be laughable today: so in California Armenians were really badly discriminated against and couldn’t buy land. An Armenian farmer challenged it in court and the court said basically “well even though Armenians are dark and from the Middle East they ARE Christian so I guess that outweighs the coloring.”
That makes total sense. I found it strange as well. Of course I also forgot about the Turkish genocide. These categories are so strange, I wrote a funny anecdote in another piece about how Antonio Banderas was forced to be Hispanic when he identified as white.
It’s funny how Giancarlo Esposito gets cast as Latino like in breaking bad. His last name Is Italian lol. And as a Spanish speaker as much as I love him in breaking bad, it was unintentionally hilarious how he’d speak English with a Spanish accent but then spoke Spanish with an American accent lol
I’m kind of happy the worst of the cancel mobs are behind us because it’s fun to write about the strange era we just lived through. Working on a longer piece about one of my favorite mid 2010s stories.
I wonder at what point technology will finally disrupt this system. Really, why should movies still cost hundred of millions of dollars?
Great piece as always but unfortunately, I think none of your action points 1-6 are implementable at all. The market simply does not care about these metrics. Maybe more grants screening for household income, but why? Why would anyone do that? What is the incentive? Legitimacy? Evidently, legitimacy regarding actually helping the subgroups within marginalized groups doesn't matter.
Making this conversation more mainstream, and having a more granular discussion about marginalized groups and subgroups within BIPOC would make a difference.
But the left/Hollywood establishment/whatever you want to call it has made it clear it has no interest in mainstreaming that conversation. Nor BIPOC people do, for obvious reasons, and probably even less the whites.
I actually think AI might solve this issue. It will allow creative people from any socioeconomic backgrounds to make testaments to their visions, in the form of treatments and sizzles at worst, and full-on short films and features at best. This is the next step to democratizing filmmaking, the same way music creation has been democratized pre-AI.
I doubt it will produce real change but I think informing people of the realities will at least help them make better, more clear-eyed choices about the industry. I also hope that calling this stuff out will make the elites who pontificate about it less willing to so so, which would be a net win for me personally. I don’t think they really care about social justice, but hopefully they will find less annoying ways to try and advance their careers and interests.
Yes. I hope posts like your will shift how some execs think. It’s just so… Orwellian. Not to sound too political here. I also don’t think someone like Zhao’s fanbase truly care. And nobody in the industry will realistically ever push down a BIPOC person having been, as you have concluded, to some degree, unfairly boosted by the system.
They care about social justice but that care just blinds a bunch of other reasonable thought processes
I think AI will probably create a few brilliant things and flood us with even more slop, a bit like how digital cameras did.
Exactly. Highly likely
This is the entirety of the criticism of the Left: the Left NEVER actually wants egalitarianism, justice, utopia, etc....Leftists are only concerned with hoarding Power. And, once hoarded, that power IMMEDIATELY becomes way more right-wing as any boogeyman the Left could ever conjure.
Clas data yes but also historical structural racism. Ther is no denying we are experiencing the impacts of land and resources and labor being stolen and laws upon laws preventing full
Economic participation. That goes for immigrants of color as well whose countries experienced colonialism unless you can
prove their families were collaborators with the whites. We’re not gonna just look at class an allow people with a history of structural privilege to continue to have unequal opportunity and access. We need much broader filters
"....with the whites..." tells everyone what they need to know...
The whites were the colonizers. Yes.
Ar least try not be a complete moron.
Most, if not all, Hollywood internships are paid and often you are required to be a student or recent college grad. (See below landmark case). While on the surface this seems great, employers are not as incentivized to train temporary workers, thereby hiring fewer interns if any. Elite university students are usually chosen for these few entry level positions. I wish we could have an apprentice system and no college degrees required and people could be trained on the job.
https://www.outtengolden.com/cases/glatt-v-fox-searchlight-pictures
Interesting. They definitely weren’t paid when I was doing them! I will adjust.
Paid internships became more common around 2015. At that time, I believe min wage was around $14/hr (maybe less) and tech co like Apple were paying interns around 21/hr. I could be wrong, as this is all from memory. I was an adjunct at usc film school teaching a class about how to get your first job in entertainment then later started a business to help all 20somethings get hired in Hollywood.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and how to integrate it. I do know there are still plenty of under the table internships at universities and places like that. I do wish we could get an apprenticeship system again too, it’s just so blue blooded these days. Requiring a degree of course already limits the pool quite a bit.
In your experience are these internships enough to live on, in a meager fashion in LA?
Really illuminating article. While I don’t share verbatim your political vision on how to solve the issue of media representation, you raise some really interesting points and explanations on how we got here. My one true quibble with the article is this paragraph at the beginning:
“Before going further, let me concede what's true in the view I'm about to argue against. Representation has real intrinsic value: who sits in the chair shapes which stories get told, and seeing someone like you direct matters in ways no spreadsheet captures.”
I find this take to be a bit reductive, as the exact effects media has on us in terms of representation (and beyond) are more complicated and dependent on a large number of factors. I’ll link this post which lists a large number of sources and studies on the myriad of effects media can have on the human brain, if you are interested: https://substack.com/@thehilarylayne/p-188947892
All good, I often make tweaks after publishing, it’s always developing!
Fair! I was hedging over whether to include a brief statement of the other side, I may just pull it, as I stumble over it myself.
I don’t think there’s any need to do that; it is your article after all. I just wanted to bring a bit more nuance to that statement.
Would be more interested in reading if it wasn’t straight AI output.
“There’s an honest confound worth naming: …” haha alright dog
Thanks for the profound critique!