You're confusing the workers with the owners. It's like insisting that it's impossible to believe that slave plantations are racist against black people because the majority of people there happen to be black. The politics of the people looking for work do not necessarily align with the politics of the people controlling the purse strings.
I'm saying the people who control the money are overwhelmingly liberal progressives as well as the "workers".
Your demands for proof of malice would only matter if we presume that the status quo is already fair and just, and you have to go out of your way to make unfair. But if the status quo is already unfair to begin with, then no malice is required -- only apathy and indifference to the people being screwed.
The idea that Hollywood is a bastion of conservative hate groups is laughable. The only way malice is intended is in favoring money over political progressivism.
I specifically said that malice isn't required and doesn't need to be intended to perpetuate racism. It's funny how you accuse me of deliberately misrepresenting someone's statements, and then you do that exact same thing.
It would be like if I said, "Tesla vehicles do not require gasoline in order to run," and you reply with with "The idea that Tesla vehicles are gas guzzlers is laughable."
Good job attacking the complete opposite of what I said, dude.
I definitely didn't make it clear. Racism and malice go hand in hand. You said:
What matters is that Hollywood has decided that Asian people as a general population are inferior to white people in terms of quality X.
You can try and split hairs, and play semantics about how treating someone as inferior and denying them jobs can be done without malice if you want but it's a bit ridiculous.
Hippofant, as you probably know, I do not have time to go over the LONG list of ethnic studies academic papers that are churned out by the products of "racists academia" that explain how said academia is racist. Those racists sure are bad at getting their racism done.
Hippofant, as you probably know, I do not have time to go over the LONG list of ethnic studies academic papers that are churned out by the products of "racists academia" that explain how said academia is racist. Those racists sure are bad at getting their racism done.
So your opinion is that systemic racism doesn't exist in academia because there are ethnic minorities in academia talking about systemic racism in academia.
So the only evidence you'll accept of systemic racism in academia will be if 1) nobody is talking about systemic racism in academia, or 2) only white people are talking systemic racism in academia.
Right. Again, good to get that out of the way so I don't have to spend my time trying to scale a wall of infinite height.
You're confusing the workers with the owners. It's like insisting that it's impossible to believe that slave plantations are racist against black people because the majority of people there happen to be black. The politics of the people looking for work do not necessarily align with the politics of the people controlling the purse strings.
I'm saying the people who control the money are overwhelmingly liberal progressives as well as the "workers".
And where's your citation on this?
I definitely didn't make it clear. Racism and malice go hand in hand.
There's certainly a degree of overlap on a Venn diagram, but its by no means a requirement. Aversive racism is a form that takes place at a subconscious level, but can be measured with statistics.
What matters is that Hollywood has decided that Asian people as a general population are inferior to white people in terms of quality X.
You can try and split hairs, and play semantics about how treating someone as inferior and denying them jobs can be done without malice if you want but it's a bit ridiculous.
You're defending the practice of excluding Asian people from cinema because you don't see Asian people as profitable.
If the board of Pepsi said "we refused to consider an Asian CEO because we like money and we don't see Asian people as profitable," how are people supposed to read that as not implying Asian people as inferior?
If the board said, "we personally aren't racist, we simply think our shareholders would react badly to an Asian CEO and our shares would drop in value," would that make things more palatable?
The fact you don't see yourself as malicious doesn't change the fact you're defending this behavior.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I don't even understand the insistence that it was - it doesn't matter to anyone on the anti-whitewashing side what their reasons were. If they didn't consider race at all and just cast a nephew of a producer it would still be just as bad as per the anti-whitewashing arguments because the effect is bad, because it takes place within the context of historical consistent whitewashing.
So Asian people aren't being denied roles based on their ethnicity, they're being denied roles based on their family members (who happen to be Asian). Got it. Again, it's a distinction without a difference.
When people talk about institutional racism, this is what they're referring to. Where the racism is so deeply ingrained in society that it perpetuates itself. Look at the grandfather clauses in the Jim Crow era. They didn't explicitly say, "Only white people are allowed to avoid the poll tax/literacy test." Instead, they said, "The poll tax/literacy test doesn't apply if your father/grandfathers were legal voters."
There's also the concept of inherited wealth and inherited burden. i.e., minorities weren't allowed to benefit from FHA loans in the 1940s or the Homestead Act in the 1860s, and the effects of that still carry over today.
Your demands for proof of malice would only matter if we presume that the status quo is already fair and just, and you have to go out of your way to make unfair. But if the status quo is already unfair to begin with, then no malice is required -- only apathy and indifference to the people being screwed.
No, please stop assuming you know what I am arguing and read my assurances that the only claim I am making is that with regard to the movie 21 you cannot know if that was the reason the leads were cast white. This doesn't mean I contend that the status quo is fair and balanced, it doesn't require that I deny that systematically Asians are unlikely to be represented, it doesn't even mean that I think that your putative motivation is wrong or impossible*. Simply that in the specific case of 21 your conclusion as to what was decided is unwarranted unless you were involved with the production.
*But it is important to note that one of the features of a systematic racism is that it needs not involve any decision by anyone about minorities, that it is a simple matter of history interacting with circumstance. For example, even if we were able to remove personal racial bias against minorities, the court systems would still exhibit systematic racism under the academic definition because white people are more likely to be able to afford expensive lawyers, commit a broader range of crimes corresponding to economic status, have greater educational and economic opportunity and so forth. As long as a system provides better results for better economic status it will exhibit systematic racism until the economic status of minorities reflects the same proportion of the majority population.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Systemic racism =/ bastion of conservative hate groups.
However, my point has nothing to do with the presence or lack of systematic racism, it stands whether 21's casting was an isolated incident or part of a pattern.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
This current tangent only fuels my conviction that systematic racism is a bastard of a term that trades on all the ugly connotation of non-systematic, commonly understood definitions of racism while denoting something entirely different. It is difficult to see its impersonal nature and bear in mind that it is an entirely different kind of injustice than the personal, non-systematic racism we all reflexively reject - even as we recognise that the systematic racism is often a consequence of the historical, explicit personal and systematic racism we recognise in the past.
Regardless of the personal opinions of those in power, Hollywood is hella conservative. Especially when it comes to casting, but also behind the scenes. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc all over the place.
Systemic racism =/ bastion of conservative hate groups.
Lead being white =/ racism. If one of the most liberal industries is accused of systematic racism, as a whole, then maybe you might be wearing racism goggles.
Hollywood is a business that employs artists.
The vast majority of artists are liberal. The vast majority of artists are also poor with zero influence on anything. In fact, the main reason artists tend to be liberal is because they're used to having zero power and influence. And when you're already used to being at the bottom, liberalism looks a lot more attractive.
An aspiring actor who has to work as a waiter to pay the rent doesn't have much power to change racism in Hollywood. And even if he did -- it might be a conflict of interest. Again, this was a topic explored in "Master of None." The main character (who is male) realizes that the Hardware commercials he's been cast in in hugely sexist against women, so the director takes the criticism to heart and re-writes the commercial. But now the new commercial doesn't have any space for the actor who complained. Whoops!
Even in the rare case where an actor does achieve influence, there still isn't much he or she can do. Even if Scarlett turned down GITS, Hollywood would have simply cast some other white lady.
The people with the power to change things are the people at the top. And the people at the top tend to be conservatives, because that's the nature of business.
In their case, they can fight racism without the direct conflict of interest. They simply choose not to.
And you can try to claim that Hollywood shouldn't have to be responsible for fixing the problem. Except for the fact that Hollywood has already played a huge role in shaping how Asian people are perceived in the country. So basically, we're just asking them to clean up their own mess.
Not to mention most actors in Hollywood aren't pulling the purse strings, it's the execs and upper management in companies (and even the smaller companies are enveloped into the culture of what the Hollywood big wigs in the big companies do and they're not all uber-liberals. See what was revealed with the exec elite at Sony via the NK hack, hardly the Matt Damon's of the world. The lucky actors who do get to this level are very few, and do it as execs not actors and directors.
Hollywood isn't a liberal utopia where everything liberal is in great abundance and everyone is happy with each other. It's a seriously fucked up place with people of all political stripes that has a not so secret underbelly of terrible behaviors - like any industry is with access to excessive wealth. It's got massive problems with abusing power, sexism, nepotism and pedophila.
Hollywood is in the grip a child sexual abuse scandal similar to that of Jimmy Savile in Britain, Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has claimed.
The 35-year-old former child actor said paedophiles had been protected by powerful figures in the movie business and that abuse was probably still taking place.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wood said he had been protected from abuse as he was growing up, but that other child actors had been regularly “preyed upon” at parties by industry figures.
“You all grew up with Savile – Jesus, it must have been devastating,” he said.
“Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood.
“It was all organised."
“There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.
“There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.”
***
Anne Henry, co-founder of Bizparents, a group set up to help child actors, said Hollywood is currently sheltering around 100 active abusers and said a “tsunami” of claims was beginning.
Remember, these are the people who defiantly protect guys like Roman Polanski and give no fucks. Whether they do it because they agree with it or for professional security - there's no getting over the fact it's a horrid thing to do.
Sure I'll buy that the art side has a large liberal population, but they're as sliver of the people who work in the industry and I guarantee most CEO's and upper management aren't all friendly liberals. Not that liberals can't be terrible people, mind you.
Clearly I have miscommunicated because you clearly think I am arguing something I am not. It could have been Schroedinger's reasoning, we just can't know that it was that reasoning. It could be a different reason that is equally objectionable to you, or one that is not.
We can't know? This isn't impossible to figure out. Am I reading it right that you don't think systemic racism is in Hollywood?
I don't even understand the insistence that it was - it doesn't matter to anyone on the anti-whitewashing side what their reasons were.
It matters in understanding what your opinion on what Hollywood is like, and you dodged answering it again. I'll take it as a no then. Still want to know if you think white people have good representation, though - and this time I'll add behind the scenes too.
If they didn't consider race at all and just cast a nephew of a producer it would still be just as bad as per the anti-whitewashing arguments because the effect is bad, because it takes place within the context of historical consistent whitewashing.
Nepotism is bad, sure, which gets us back to the same result. What are you basing this theory on? Do you find it coincidental that things like this just happen? That it was a one off incident? I don't. Why do you immediately fall on nepotism rather than an institutional racism reason? This isn't exactly historical either, as the things talking about white washing in this thread aren't taking place decades in the past, but not to long ago and a decade or two out. White washing continues to this day, and so does Hollywood's racist policies which have improved but have a long way to go before equality is reached in front and behind the camera.
I definitely didn't make it clear. Racism and malice go hand in hand.
Actually, they don't. People don't have to be racists to continue racist policies, especially if the people in charge want them to do it and it is ingrained in the culture. It is a business, and business cultures aren't exactly known for being liberal bastions of thought.
This current tangent only fuels my conviction that systematic racism is a bastard of a term that trades on all the ugly connotation of non-systematic, commonly understood definitions of racism while denoting something entirely different. It is difficult to see its impersonal nature and bear in mind that it is an entirely different kind of injustice than the personal, non-systematic racism we all reflexively reject - even as we recognise that the systematic racism is often a consequence of the historical, explicit personal and systematic racism we recognise in the past.
[MASS NOUN]
Racial discrimination that has become established as normal behaviour within a society or organization:
the report found the police guilty of institutional racism
Looks like the right description to me.
Racism being impersonal doesn't mean it isn't racism, or does this mean Hollywood is racist free/not controlled by racists. It'd be weird if it wouldn't be, actually, with an industry that size, connected to other industries via mega corporations and the money involved.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Clearly I have miscommunicated because you clearly think I am arguing something I am not. It could have been Schroedinger's reasoning, we just can't know that it was that reasoning. It could be a different reason that is equally objectionable to you, or one that is not.
We can't know? This isn't impossible to figure out. Am I reading it right that you don't think systemic racism is in Hollywood?
I don't even understand the insistence that it was - it doesn't matter to anyone on the anti-whitewashing side what their reasons were.
It matters in understanding what your opinion on what Hollywood is like, and you dodged answering it again. I'll take it as a no then. Still want to know if you think white people have good representation, though - and this time I'll add behind the scenes too.
If they didn't consider race at all and just cast a nephew of a producer it would still be just as bad as per the anti-whitewashing arguments because the effect is bad, because it takes place within the context of historical consistent whitewashing.
Nepotism is bad, sure, which gets us back to the same result. What are you basing this theory on? Do you find it coincidental that things like this just happen? That it was a one off incident? I don't. Why do you immediately fall on nepotism rather than an institutional racism reason? This isn't exactly historical either, as the things talking about white washing in this thread aren't taking place decades in the past, but not to long ago and a decade or two out. White washing continues to this day, and so does Hollywood's racist policies which have improved but have a long way to go before equality is reached in front and behind the camera.
What. I will repeat my above request - please stop assuming you know my position and read my assurances that my position has nothing to do with what it seems you believe it is. I'm not dodging questions, my point is that this specific characterisation 'But since he's good at math in a "cool" way, Hollywood had to make him white' is but one possibility amongst many that cause the effect - some of which are explicitly related to ascribing different factors to race, some are not. It has nothing to do with what I think Hollywood is like, it has nothing to do with whether I think there is systematic racism in Hollywood. I'm not proposing any theory, I am not arguing that there is a specific better explanation - the observation that things are underdetermined by the evidence doesn't require that anything else be true, it is agnostic toward the existence of systematic racism - whether it exists or doesn't my point remains true.
To put it another way, even if we stipulate that there is systematic racism it doesn't require that any specific kind of systematic racism is the correct explanation for any event.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I definitely didn't make it clear. Racism and malice go hand in hand.
Actually, they don't. People don't have to be racists to continue racist policies, especially if the people in charge want them to do it and it is ingrained in the culture. It is a business, and business cultures aren't exactly known for being liberal bastions of thought.
This current tangent only fuels my conviction that systematic racism is a bastard of a term that trades on all the ugly connotation of non-systematic, commonly understood definitions of racism while denoting something entirely different. It is difficult to see its impersonal nature and bear in mind that it is an entirely different kind of injustice than the personal, non-systematic racism we all reflexively reject - even as we recognise that the systematic racism is often a consequence of the historical, explicit personal and systematic racism we recognise in the past.
[MASS NOUN]
Racial discrimination that has become established as normal behaviour within a society or organization:
the report found the police guilty of institutional racism
Looks like the right description to me.
Racism being impersonal doesn't mean it isn't racism, or does this mean Hollywood is racist free/not controlled by racists. It'd be weird if it wouldn't be, actually, with an industry that size, connected to other industries via mega corporations and the money involved.
What are you talking about, this has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wrote
I'm saying the people who control the money are overwhelmingly liberal progressives as well as the "workers".
Kevin Tsujihara (born October 25, 1964) is an American businessman serving as chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment. He succeeded Barry Meyer as CEO on March 1, 2013, having previously served as President of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Upon assuming the role of CEO, Tsujihara became the first person of Asian descent to run a major Hollywood studio.[2]
If the Hollywood big wigs are as liberal as you say they are, how come he's the first person to do this? And why did it take to 2013 for it to happen?
Not to mention Hollywood isn't cordoned off business wise from the American business culture, it's a large part of it. Companies like Warner Brothers, Marvel, Sony, Fox and Disney make more than movies and tv shows. And what they do effects the smaller companies who they partner up with to make movies with.
Regardless of the personal opinions of those in power, Hollywood is hella conservative. Especially when it comes to casting, but also behind the scenes. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc all over the place.
The surprise over this, I think, goes back to the preconceived vision of the country as a whole that a lot of genuinely open-minded liberals (both small and big 'l', depending on the circumstances) have because they're, you know, fallible human beings with a finite lifespan.
Hollywood's business and hiring practices are often conservative, and yet Hollywood as an entity is seen but a not-insubstantial portion of the country as the standard for crazy, irreligious unholy anything-goes loose sexuality and morals radical anarchism. It has been for years. And strawman liberals aside, there's some truth behind that: conservative Hollywood (the business leadership), the kind that gets migraines from the thought of casting Asian leads that it'll happily take the controversy of casting a white actor instead, is still more socially radical, more politically flexible if not left-leaning, more accepting of something besides the heteorsexual norm, than large parts of the country.
We've told ourselves for decades that the country is on an inexorable march following us, that history is on our side. That the exceptions are increasingly rare flukes that are just a few years from dying out--the same way they were a few years from dying out in 2000, and in 1980, and in 1960. And no one can deny that the country is different in many radical, substantial ways. But the reality is that the whole country isn't necessarily with us--not yet anyway. 320 million is a lot of people, spread out over a lot of space.
Next to that nebulous "us" Hollywood is hella conservative. And yet next to a not insubstantial portion of another part of the country, one that continues to exist, it's a den of godless heathen brown communists. Sure, it's probably a small portion of the country, but it's there, and it votes.
That's my purely unscientific theory on it anyway.
Clearly I have miscommunicated because you clearly think I am arguing something I am not. It could have been Schroedinger's reasoning, we just can't know that it was that reasoning. It could be a different reason that is equally objectionable to you, or one that is not.
We can't know? This isn't impossible to figure out. Am I reading it right that you don't think systemic racism is in Hollywood?
I don't even understand the insistence that it was - it doesn't matter to anyone on the anti-whitewashing side what their reasons were.
It matters in understanding what your opinion on what Hollywood is like, and you dodged answering it again. I'll take it as a no then. Still want to know if you think white people have good representation, though - and this time I'll add behind the scenes too.
If they didn't consider race at all and just cast a nephew of a producer it would still be just as bad as per the anti-whitewashing arguments because the effect is bad, because it takes place within the context of historical consistent whitewashing.
Nepotism is bad, sure, which gets us back to the same result. What are you basing this theory on? Do you find it coincidental that things like this just happen? That it was a one off incident? I don't. Why do you immediately fall on nepotism rather than an institutional racism reason? This isn't exactly historical either, as the things talking about white washing in this thread aren't taking place decades in the past, but not to long ago and a decade or two out. White washing continues to this day, and so does Hollywood's racist policies which have improved but have a long way to go before equality is reached in front and behind the camera.
What. I will repeat my above request - please stop assuming you know my position and read my assurances that my position has nothing to do with what it seems you believe it is.
Then, please, be clearer with your answers.
I'm not dodging questions, my point is that this specific characterisation 'But since he's good at math in a "cool" way, Hollywood had to make him white' is but one possibility amongst many that cause the effect - some of which are explicitly related to ascribing different factors to race, some are not.
This is the third time you've refused to answer direct questions, which have clear yes or no answers.
It has nothing to do with what I think Hollywood is like, it has nothing to do with whether I think there is systematic racism in Hollywood. I'm not proposing any theory, I am not arguing that there is a specific better explanation - the observation that things are underdetermined by the evidence doesn't require that anything else be true, it is agnostic toward the existence of systematic racism - whether it exists or doesn't my point remains true.
Ok. That dealt with one question about casting one movie, which yes overlapped with the system racism argument. Now onto the next, which is a separate subject in itself. This is about the other subject which I have yet to hear any concrete answers or explanations on your opinion on - do you think systemic racism exist in Hollywood? Do you think white people are properly (behind and in front of the camera) represented in it? I'd really like to clarify what your opinion is on this, since I have no clue what your stance is on it right now. And I don't know why you seem so afraid to answer it.
To put it another way, even if we stipulate that there is systematic racism it doesn't require that any specific kind of systematic racism is the correct explanation for any event.
Maybe it didn't happen, maybe it did - and this again tells me nothing about your position. Why do you believe that was the only satisfying answer? How do you from A to B? Why did you rule out systemic racism as a possible cause? This is one incident in an industry with hundreds in it, too - the movie didn't happen in a vacuum. Why do you assume this particular one was completely free of racial bias? Are there any other ones you think that applies to?
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited May 2016
I have answered the question, directly: it is irrelevant to the point of this tangent and the original comment that kicked it off.
The same goes for the movie "21," where you originally had an Asian person good at math. But since he's good at math in a "cool" way, Hollywood had to make him white.
This is offered with far more certainty than is warranted as to the logic of the decision.
I am specifically not arguing for any position. When you ask me "why I believe that was the only satisfying answer" you have completely misconstrued what I am saying to such a degree I cannot begin to unravel where the miscommunication happened.
I am not arguing that there is any more or less likely scenario, I am arguing that we don't know what specific reason that 21 was cast white, so the confidence with which one particular example of race based reasoning was offered is unfounded.
I repeat WE DO NOT KNOW <- my position
My point is purely an epistemological one in this regard - we know the effect, we don't know the cause. If "A then B, B therefore A" is affirming the consequent - "21 was cast white, therefore he was cast white because people who are good at maths in a cool way must be white" is of that form. There are other reasons that would cause the same effect - some of which are explicitly racial (like a higher up explicitly saying "don't cast Asians, I hate them, they killed my grandfathering the war") or non-racial (like a higher up saying "Cast my nephew or I'll never hear the end of it") or non-conscious (like simply never thinking that anyone involved wasn't white, on,y having seen the screen play) neither of which are equivalent in form or content to a logic of coolness as expressed by in the original post.
Now, once again and in big letters
I AM NOT ARGUING THAT ANY OF THOSE OPTIONS ARE THE CASE. THEIR PURPOSE IS ONLY TO EXPRESS THE EPISTEMOLOGIAL POINT THAT AFFIRMING THE CONSEQUENT IS NOT A VALID FORM OF INFERENCES.
I contend that given the very premise of systematic racism is that it comes from many factors, both explicitly and not-directly race related and and as a result of both conscious and unconscious processes we cannot even discuss it accurately if we simply declare that it is caused by particular attitudes based on nothing more than the fact that they are consistent with the results we see. One of the very premises is that the systematic racism can occur even when people are acting rationally and in an unbiased fashion due to other historical and social factors. As such, it is important our descriptions of some particular event are accurate and if we don't know the details we should simply say "we don't know".
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
The irony is not lost on me that you're basically making my point wrt the original quote (which describes a particular scenario) only you have aimed at a mistaken apprehension that I am arguing for some particular scenario as opposed to no particular scenario.
I'm saying the people who control the money are overwhelmingly liberal progressives as well as the "workers".
Kevin Tsujihara (born October 25, 1964) is an American businessman serving as chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment. He succeeded Barry Meyer as CEO on March 1, 2013, having previously served as President of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Upon assuming the role of CEO, Tsujihara became the first person of Asian descent to run a major Hollywood studio.[2]
If the Hollywood big wigs are as liberal as you say they are, how come he's the first person to do this? And why did it take to 2013 for it to happen?
Not to mention Hollywood isn't cordoned off business wise from the American business culture, it's a large part of it. Companies like Warner Brothers, Marvel, Sony, Fox and Disney make more than movies and tv shows. And what they do effects the smaller companies who they partner up with to make movies with.
Why did it take so long for an Asian-American to become CEO of one of the big four studios? Simple math answers the question: they're less than 6% of the United States' population. The fact that an Asian-American heads one of the studios at all means they're over-represented in the industry. (Incidentally, this is the danger with representational thinking; it would actually mean, for many groups, fewer opportunities.)
Hollywood is American-liberal, which is still fiscally conservative. It's a risky business, after all, with huge investments and powerful investors.
I'm saying the people who control the money are overwhelmingly liberal progressives as well as the "workers".
Kevin Tsujihara (born October 25, 1964) is an American businessman serving as chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment. He succeeded Barry Meyer as CEO on March 1, 2013, having previously served as President of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Upon assuming the role of CEO, Tsujihara became the first person of Asian descent to run a major Hollywood studio.[2]
If the Hollywood big wigs are as liberal as you say they are, how come he's the first person to do this? And why did it take to 2013 for it to happen?
Not to mention Hollywood isn't cordoned off business wise from the American business culture, it's a large part of it. Companies like Warner Brothers, Marvel, Sony, Fox and Disney make more than movies and tv shows. And what they do effects the smaller companies who they partner up with to make movies with.
Why did it take so long for an Asian-American to become CEO of one of the big four studios? Simple math answers the question: they're less than 6% of the United States' population. The fact that an Asian-American heads one of the studios at all means they're over-represented in the industry. (Incidentally, this is the danger with representational thinking; it would actually mean, for many groups, fewer opportunities.)
Hollywood is American-liberal, which is still fiscally conservative. It's a risky business, after all, with huge investments and powerful investors.
Or you could look at who has held the job over time and whether that's representative, which makes much more sense than saying "Because there's only 6 positions all whites forever is the most representative."
I'm saying the people who control the money are overwhelmingly liberal progressives as well as the "workers".
Kevin Tsujihara (born October 25, 1964) is an American businessman serving as chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment. He succeeded Barry Meyer as CEO on March 1, 2013, having previously served as President of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Upon assuming the role of CEO, Tsujihara became the first person of Asian descent to run a major Hollywood studio.[2]
If the Hollywood big wigs are as liberal as you say they are, how come he's the first person to do this? And why did it take to 2013 for it to happen?
Not to mention Hollywood isn't cordoned off business wise from the American business culture, it's a large part of it. Companies like Warner Brothers, Marvel, Sony, Fox and Disney make more than movies and tv shows. And what they do effects the smaller companies who they partner up with to make movies with.
Why did it take so long for an Asian-American to become CEO of one of the big four studios? Simple math answers the question: they're less than 6% of the United States' population. The fact that an Asian-American heads one of the studios at all means they're over-represented in the industry. (Incidentally, this is the danger with representational thinking; it would actually mean, for many groups, fewer opportunities.)
Hollywood is American-liberal, which is still fiscally conservative. It's a risky business, after all, with huge investments and powerful investors.
Or you could look at who has held the job over time and whether that's representative, which makes much more sense than saying "Because there's only 6 positions all whites forever is the most representative."
The problem with that approach is longevity bias: CEO turnover rates are infrequent and unequal.
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Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Why did it take so long for an Asian-American to become CEO of one of the big four studios? Simple math answers the question: they're less than 6% of the United States' population. The fact that an Asian-American heads one of the studios at all means they're over-represented in the industry. (Incidentally, this is the danger with representational thinking; it would actually mean, for many groups, fewer opportunities.)
Why are you considering the population of the US as a whole, and not, say... the state where Hollywood is actually located? Let's look at how the numbers break down then...
Not to mention that a lot of Hollywood films are released globally, it's probably weird to people in China or Japan that the only Asians in all of Star Wars get killed off in mere moments.
Why did it take so long for an Asian-American to become CEO of one of the big four studios? Simple math answers the question: they're less than 6% of the United States' population. The fact that an Asian-American heads one of the studios at all means they're over-represented in the industry. (Incidentally, this is the danger with representational thinking; it would actually mean, for many groups, fewer opportunities.)
Why are you considering the population of the US as a whole, and not, say... the state where Hollywood is actually located? Let's look at how the numbers break down then...
White, not Hispanic or Latino: 42.3%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 37.6%
Asian: 14.9%
Black or African American: 7.2%
And that's not factoring in the time component. It's not like the Asian guy was the CEO of that studio since the studio was first founded.
It's also laughable to think that Hollywood simply reflects the general population when you also take gender into account.
Well, this is exactly the problem I highlighted a million pages ago.
What it means to be representative is something which needs to be defined as it is not obvious on its face. For example, even if we select "matching demographics" there are many options there - matching them how, in terms of allocation of resources, total screen time, across all positions in the industry as a whole, as a proportion of top tier roles, all of the above, none of the above, some of the above - and how you measure the demographics - against which population, over which timeframe, against the setting of the movie etc - and what sort of match you are after - point in time correspondence or average correspondence etc.
They all have potentially different satisfaction conditions and not all of them are compatible. Until "how do we know when representation is achieved" is comprehensively defined I can't see how we can conclude anything about representation within Hollywood beyond mere description - there were X Asian actors, the proportional population on screen does not match the across the country but does/does not fall close to the demographics of the areas represented within the movies, etc.
Well, let's look at something specific to movie makers: ticket sales.
A study released last week by USC’s Annenberg School For Communication & Journalism provides some stats to put these high-profile titles in perspective. Examining 500 top-grossing films released in the U.S. from 2007 to 2012, the study considers some 20,000 characters and finds diversity is sorely lacking. “Across 100 top-grossing films of 2012, only 10.8 percent of speaking characters are Black, 4.2 percent are Hispanic, 5 percent are Asian, and 3.6 percent are from other (or mixed race) ethnicities,” the paper notes at the outset. “Just over three-quarters of all speaking characters are White (76.3 percent). These trends are relatively stable, as little deviation is observed across the five-year sample.”
Those representation rates don’t correlate with who’s buying tickets. “As a point of comparison, a full 44 percent of movie tickets sold domestically were purchased in 2012 by non-Caucasians,” the study notes. “26 percent of tickets were sold to Hispanics, 11 percent to African Americans and 7 percent to people from other ethnicities. Using these MPAA percentages, Hispanics are the most underrepresented group on screen.”
Among the other conclusions reached: “Hispanic females are more likely to be depicted in sexy attire and partially naked than Black or White females. Asian females are far less likely to be sexualized.” While women got assigned the same kind of domestic status regardless of their race or ethnicity, “Hispanic males are more likely to be depicted as fathers and relational partners than males in all other racial/ethnic groups. Black males, on the other hand, are the least likely to be depicted in these roles.”
Behind the camera, diversity is even more lacking, with “a ratio of over 16 non-Black directors working to every 1 Black director,” and only two black women directors among the 500 films considered. That doesn’t surprise Ava DuVernay, the first black female director to win best director at Sundance last year for her feature Middle Of Nowhere. “I pretty much know us all personally,” she told The Los Angeles Times.
What it means to be representative is something which needs to be defined as it is not obvious on its face. For example, even if we select "matching demographics" there are many options there - matching them how, in terms of allocation of resources, total screen time, across all positions in the industry as a whole, as a proportion of top tier roles, all of the above, none of the above, some of the above - and how you measure the demographics - against which population, over which timeframe, against the setting of the movie etc - and what sort of match you are after - point in time correspondence or average correspondence etc.
They all have potentially different satisfaction conditions and not all of them are compatible. Until "how do we know when representation is achieved" is comprehensively defined I can't see how we can conclude anything about representation within Hollywood beyond mere description - there were X Asian actors, the proportional population on screen does not match the across the country but does/does not fall close to the demographics of the areas represented within the movies, etc.
Again, the easiest way to note Hollywood's diversity gap is by looking at how they deal with gender, since gender has the fewest possible excuses for disparity. The odds of being born male vs. female is simply a matter of random chance, and yet, there seems to be a huge matter of inequality that results from that.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
What it means to be representative is something which needs to be defined as it is not obvious on its face. For example, even if we select "matching demographics" there are many options there - matching them how, in terms of allocation of resources, total screen time, across all positions in the industry as a whole, as a proportion of top tier roles, all of the above, none of the above, some of the above - and how you measure the demographics - against which population, over which timeframe, against the setting of the movie etc - and what sort of match you are after - point in time correspondence or average correspondence etc.
They all have potentially different satisfaction conditions and not all of them are compatible. Until "how do we know when representation is achieved" is comprehensively defined I can't see how we can conclude anything about representation within Hollywood beyond mere description - there were X Asian actors, the proportional population on screen does not match the across the country but does/does not fall close to the demographics of the areas represented within the movies, etc.
Again, the easiest way to note Hollywood's diversity gap is by looking at how they deal with gender, since gender has the fewest possible excuses for disparity. The odds of being born male vs. female is simply a matter of random chance, and yet, there seems to be a huge matter of inequality that results from that.
Sure, but that doesn't answer the question of how we conceive of the more complicated issue of representation of race.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Well, let's look at something specific to movie makers: ticket sales.
A study released last week by USC’s Annenberg School For Communication & Journalism provides some stats to put these high-profile titles in perspective. Examining 500 top-grossing films released in the U.S. from 2007 to 2012, the study considers some 20,000 characters and finds diversity is sorely lacking. “Across 100 top-grossing films of 2012, only 10.8 percent of speaking characters are Black, 4.2 percent are Hispanic, 5 percent are Asian, and 3.6 percent are from other (or mixed race) ethnicities,” the paper notes at the outset. “Just over three-quarters of all speaking characters are White (76.3 percent). These trends are relatively stable, as little deviation is observed across the five-year sample.”
Those representation rates don’t correlate with who’s buying tickets. “As a point of comparison, a full 44 percent of movie tickets sold domestically were purchased in 2012 by non-Caucasians,” the study notes. “26 percent of tickets were sold to Hispanics, 11 percent to African Americans and 7 percent to people from other ethnicities. Using these MPAA percentages, Hispanics are the most underrepresented group on screen.”
Among the other conclusions reached: “Hispanic females are more likely to be depicted in sexy attire and partially naked than Black or White females. Asian females are far less likely to be sexualized.” While women got assigned the same kind of domestic status regardless of their race or ethnicity, “Hispanic males are more likely to be depicted as fathers and relational partners than males in all other racial/ethnic groups. Black males, on the other hand, are the least likely to be depicted in these roles.”
Behind the camera, diversity is even more lacking, with “a ratio of over 16 non-Black directors working to every 1 Black director,” and only two black women directors among the 500 films considered. That doesn’t surprise Ava DuVernay, the first black female director to win best director at Sundance last year for her feature Middle Of Nowhere. “I pretty much know us all personally,” she told The Los Angeles Times.
Ok, but that is just another way of conceiving representation - it doesn't stand on its own. Is the argument then that on-screen demographics ought match ticket sales?
I don't see that bring a particularly stable foundation upon which to reshape a society and industry. I can think of more than a few scenarios in which that would present results I cannot imagine would be satisfying from a social justice perspective. And it seems an oddly economic metric upon which to base a rather more ideological position of fairness.
Edit: I think that album sales of hip hop is majority white, from memory. It seems like if we apply a similar principle to that then that seems like a very unsatisfying result.
I think it should be remembered that the goal of anti-racist social justice isn't really to achieve proportional representation for all races in all areas. Disproportionate representation is just used as a proxy for identifying inequity. If a minority group represents 40% of the general population but only 35% of the CEOs, ain't nobody gonna be marching on Washington.
That is to say, we should not be putting the cart before the horse. If the question is, "What do we do when we get close to 40%?" the answer is, "Maybe we can figure it out when we get there."
Well, maybe start by not changing races of real world people to another in film for arbitrary reasons, and we will have a good start.
Going out of the way to cast white actors is an issue. If you actively cherry pick actors based on their whiteness it obviously is detrimental to actors that happen to be minorities. Start by having more minorities as writers, directors, producers and executives. Start by writing more minority characters and casting more minorities in anything other than bit parts and non-speaking roles. We have demonstrated that predominantly Hollywood is casting whites, even in cases where the it contradicts the source material. So, instead of bending over backwards to make Hollywood whiter, cast more appropriately given the subject matter.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited May 2016
This is for hippofant. Well, that doesn't answer the question either, it still doesn't say what proportional representation is.
But it is interesting - certainly it appears that at least part of the anti-whitewashing argument is that representation in film IS an inequality and remedying that is an end in and of itself. What inequality do you suggest is it a proxy for?
So this communist party member, with 33 billion dollars in assets, was trash talking Disney's one little western themed ammusmen park. He's opening 6 amusement parks that will cater to local tastes(Forbes is reporting one of them might be Jurassic Park themed, which would by hype as shit...local tastes?)
It ends with,
His ambitions dovetail with China's policies to build up its media and entertainment companies in order to portray China in a favorable light. He plans to do this with blockbusters such as Great Wall, a 3D action flick starring Matt Damon and Hong Kong actor Any Lau. With a budget of $135 million, it'll be the most expensive movie ever shot entirely in China. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.
And then "let's get down to business to fight the Huns." Kinda odd tone for npr.
But, the decision to cast Damon, one presumes to appeal to Americans to what degree is this different, when people with some sources of bias removed are making the same decisions about American audiences?
They moistly come out at night, moistly.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
So this communist party member, with 33 billion dollars in assets, was trash talking Disney's one little western themed ammusmen park. He's opening 6 amusement parks that will cater to local tastes(Forbes is reporting one of them might be Jurassic Park themed, which would by hype as shit...local tastes?)
It ends with,
His ambitions dovetail with China's policies to build up its media and entertainment companies in order to portray China in a favorable light. He plans to do this with blockbusters such as Great Wall, a 3D action flick starring Matt Damon and Hong Kong actor Any Lau. With a budget of $135 million, it'll be the most expensive movie ever shot entirely in China. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.
And then "let's get down to business to fight the Huns." Kinda odd tone for npr.
But, the decision to cast Damon, one presumes to appeal to Americans to what degree is this different, when people with some sources of bias removed are making the same decisions about American audiences?
I don't think it's different. I don't understand what sources of bias are removed.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
But neither of those statements respond to the question - what it means to achieve acceptable representation.
I don't think you need a rigid definition of this unless you're instituting laws or industry guidelines. The answer for the public right now is "more" and the social movement to change representation will end when "more" becomes "this" for a rough majority of concerned parties.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Well, maybe start by not changing races of real world people to another in film for arbitrary reasons, and we will have a good start.
Going out of the way to cast white actors is an issue. If you actively cherry pick actors based on their whiteness it obviously is detrimental to actors that happen to be minorities. Start by having more minorities as writers, directors, producers and executives. Start by writing more minority characters and casting more minorities in anything other than bit parts and non-speaking roles. We have demonstrated that predominantly Hollywood is casting whites, even in cases where the it contradicts the source material. So, instead of bending over backwards to make Hollywood whiter, cast more appropriately given the subject matter.
That's not answering the question either. You're proposing remedies, not defining the conditions under which we should be satisfied. I mean, there are other factors too - what classes of division and identification need to be considered? Is "Asian" enough, or should it be Chinese American, Japanese American, etc., what about other divisions like transgender, abledness, fat/not, ugly/not, age?
Is the race of characters based upon real world events an important concern in and of itself or merely in the context of representation as a method to address representation?
Why does it matter if Hollywood is white? What is the moral principle being violated? The answers change the remedies and the criticisms.
You're stripping away too much here. Yes, ideally all nationalities would be represented. The point isn't completely and totally equal representation. It's just gotta be beter than "75% white people" levels. I am not the arbiter of what is perfect equality. We just can do better than we currently are. If you're changing race just to pacify an investor or some imaginary racist movie goers, that isn't a very good reason.
It matters because of the extensive history of whitewashing, and to that end furthering the ideals behind blackface and yellowface. Casting a white dude as another race has a historical context as being racist as all get out, and we can't ignore those roots.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited May 2016
But why is it better to have non 75% white levels? Presumably because it is in keeping with some principle. It would be better if it were 74% or 65%, perhaps? Does it then follow that it would be better if it were 0% white? I assume not!
And yes, we can absolutely evaluate things as separate from historical instances of similar things. Affirming the consequent isn't valid.
Apothe0sis on
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
You're stripping away too much here. Yes, ideally all nationalities would be represented. The point isn't completely and totally equal representation. It's just gotta be beter than "75% white people" levels. I am not the arbiter of what is perfect equality. We just can do better than we currently are. If you're changing race just to pacify an investor or some imaginary racist movie goers, that isn't a very good reason.
It matters because of the extensive history of whitewashing, and to that end furthering the ideals behind blackface and yellowface. Casting a white dude as another race has a historical context as being racist as all get out, and we can't ignore those roots.
I think a cultural responsibility to represent all nationalities is far too grand, and would be more inclined towards representing all significant minority groups within the country. Responsibilities towards other nations vis a vis representation in art are complicated. What claim does the nation of China have to representation in the cinema of all other countries?
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
You're stripping away too much here. Yes, ideally all nationalities would be represented. The point isn't completely and totally equal representation. It's just gotta be beter than "75% white people" levels. I am not the arbiter of what is perfect equality. We just can do better than we currently are. If you're changing race just to pacify an investor or some imaginary racist movie goers, that isn't a very good reason.
It matters because of the extensive history of whitewashing, and to that end furthering the ideals behind blackface and yellowface. Casting a white dude as another race has a historical context as being racist as all get out, and we can't ignore those roots.
I think a cultural responsibility to represent all nationalities is far too grand, and would be more inclined towards representing all significant minority groups within the country. Responsibilities towards other nations vis a vis representation in art are complicated. What claim does the nation of China have to representation in the cinema of all other countries?
This is exactly the difficulty I am wanting to highlight.
But there are added wrinkles of course, like the fact that governments don't tend to be in the business of making movies, so talking about countries is already relying on a lot of assumptions, Hollywood isn't even a single entity it is a collection of private entities. And they commission creative types to create movies corresponding to some hybrid of a commercial and creative vision. Presumably to appease the desires of the audience who give them money to do so.
Who is responsible, what are they obligated to do?
Are audiences obligated to want more diverse casts regardless of their own ethnicity, for example? If market research shows that this particular movie will do 15 million dollars better with a particular white lead contra the source material, are the directors, or studios or all of the above obligated to take the potential 15 million dollar hit? Can you "make up" the representation issues by casting more diverse supporting characters, or other films with non-white leads? If a movie based on true events would do better internationally by casting a white person as Chinese would that be ok?
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I definitely didn't make it clear. Racism and malice go hand in hand. You said:
You can try and split hairs, and play semantics about how treating someone as inferior and denying them jobs can be done without malice if you want but it's a bit ridiculous.
Hippofant, as you probably know, I do not have time to go over the LONG list of ethnic studies academic papers that are churned out by the products of "racists academia" that explain how said academia is racist. Those racists sure are bad at getting their racism done.
So your opinion is that systemic racism doesn't exist in academia because there are ethnic minorities in academia talking about systemic racism in academia.
So the only evidence you'll accept of systemic racism in academia will be if 1) nobody is talking about systemic racism in academia, or 2) only white people are talking systemic racism in academia.
Right. Again, good to get that out of the way so I don't have to spend my time trying to scale a wall of infinite height.
And where's your citation on this?
There's certainly a degree of overlap on a Venn diagram, but its by no means a requirement. Aversive racism is a form that takes place at a subconscious level, but can be measured with statistics.
You're defending the practice of excluding Asian people from cinema because you don't see Asian people as profitable.
If the board of Pepsi said "we refused to consider an Asian CEO because we like money and we don't see Asian people as profitable," how are people supposed to read that as not implying Asian people as inferior?
If the board said, "we personally aren't racist, we simply think our shareholders would react badly to an Asian CEO and our shares would drop in value," would that make things more palatable?
The fact you don't see yourself as malicious doesn't change the fact you're defending this behavior.
No, please stop assuming you know what I am arguing and read my assurances that the only claim I am making is that with regard to the movie 21 you cannot know if that was the reason the leads were cast white. This doesn't mean I contend that the status quo is fair and balanced, it doesn't require that I deny that systematically Asians are unlikely to be represented, it doesn't even mean that I think that your putative motivation is wrong or impossible*. Simply that in the specific case of 21 your conclusion as to what was decided is unwarranted unless you were involved with the production.
*But it is important to note that one of the features of a systematic racism is that it needs not involve any decision by anyone about minorities, that it is a simple matter of history interacting with circumstance. For example, even if we were able to remove personal racial bias against minorities, the court systems would still exhibit systematic racism under the academic definition because white people are more likely to be able to afford expensive lawyers, commit a broader range of crimes corresponding to economic status, have greater educational and economic opportunity and so forth. As long as a system provides better results for better economic status it will exhibit systematic racism until the economic status of minorities reflects the same proportion of the majority population.
However, my point has nothing to do with the presence or lack of systematic racism, it stands whether 21's casting was an isolated incident or part of a pattern.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Not to mention most actors in Hollywood aren't pulling the purse strings, it's the execs and upper management in companies (and even the smaller companies are enveloped into the culture of what the Hollywood big wigs in the big companies do and they're not all uber-liberals. See what was revealed with the exec elite at Sony via the NK hack, hardly the Matt Damon's of the world. The lucky actors who do get to this level are very few, and do it as execs not actors and directors.
Hollywood isn't a liberal utopia where everything liberal is in great abundance and everyone is happy with each other. It's a seriously fucked up place with people of all political stripes that has a not so secret underbelly of terrible behaviors - like any industry is with access to excessive wealth. It's got massive problems with abusing power, sexism, nepotism and pedophila.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hollywoods-evil-secret-mxsb5f3zl
Remember, these are the people who defiantly protect guys like Roman Polanski and give no fucks. Whether they do it because they agree with it or for professional security - there's no getting over the fact it's a horrid thing to do.
Sure I'll buy that the art side has a large liberal population, but they're as sliver of the people who work in the industry and I guarantee most CEO's and upper management aren't all friendly liberals. Not that liberals can't be terrible people, mind you.
We can't know? This isn't impossible to figure out. Am I reading it right that you don't think systemic racism is in Hollywood?
It matters in understanding what your opinion on what Hollywood is like, and you dodged answering it again. I'll take it as a no then. Still want to know if you think white people have good representation, though - and this time I'll add behind the scenes too.
Nepotism is bad, sure, which gets us back to the same result. What are you basing this theory on? Do you find it coincidental that things like this just happen? That it was a one off incident? I don't. Why do you immediately fall on nepotism rather than an institutional racism reason? This isn't exactly historical either, as the things talking about white washing in this thread aren't taking place decades in the past, but not to long ago and a decade or two out. White washing continues to this day, and so does Hollywood's racist policies which have improved but have a long way to go before equality is reached in front and behind the camera.
Actually, they don't. People don't have to be racists to continue racist policies, especially if the people in charge want them to do it and it is ingrained in the culture. It is a business, and business cultures aren't exactly known for being liberal bastions of thought.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/institutional-racism
Looks like the right description to me.
Racism being impersonal doesn't mean it isn't racism, or does this mean Hollywood is racist free/not controlled by racists. It'd be weird if it wouldn't be, actually, with an industry that size, connected to other industries via mega corporations and the money involved.
What. I will repeat my above request - please stop assuming you know my position and read my assurances that my position has nothing to do with what it seems you believe it is. I'm not dodging questions, my point is that this specific characterisation 'But since he's good at math in a "cool" way, Hollywood had to make him white' is but one possibility amongst many that cause the effect - some of which are explicitly related to ascribing different factors to race, some are not. It has nothing to do with what I think Hollywood is like, it has nothing to do with whether I think there is systematic racism in Hollywood. I'm not proposing any theory, I am not arguing that there is a specific better explanation - the observation that things are underdetermined by the evidence doesn't require that anything else be true, it is agnostic toward the existence of systematic racism - whether it exists or doesn't my point remains true.
To put it another way, even if we stipulate that there is systematic racism it doesn't require that any specific kind of systematic racism is the correct explanation for any event.
What are you talking about, this has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wrote
If the Hollywood big wigs are as liberal as you say they are, how come he's the first person to do this? And why did it take to 2013 for it to happen?
Not to mention Hollywood isn't cordoned off business wise from the American business culture, it's a large part of it. Companies like Warner Brothers, Marvel, Sony, Fox and Disney make more than movies and tv shows. And what they do effects the smaller companies who they partner up with to make movies with.
The surprise over this, I think, goes back to the preconceived vision of the country as a whole that a lot of genuinely open-minded liberals (both small and big 'l', depending on the circumstances) have because they're, you know, fallible human beings with a finite lifespan.
Hollywood's business and hiring practices are often conservative, and yet Hollywood as an entity is seen but a not-insubstantial portion of the country as the standard for crazy, irreligious unholy anything-goes loose sexuality and morals radical anarchism. It has been for years. And strawman liberals aside, there's some truth behind that: conservative Hollywood (the business leadership), the kind that gets migraines from the thought of casting Asian leads that it'll happily take the controversy of casting a white actor instead, is still more socially radical, more politically flexible if not left-leaning, more accepting of something besides the heteorsexual norm, than large parts of the country.
We've told ourselves for decades that the country is on an inexorable march following us, that history is on our side. That the exceptions are increasingly rare flukes that are just a few years from dying out--the same way they were a few years from dying out in 2000, and in 1980, and in 1960. And no one can deny that the country is different in many radical, substantial ways. But the reality is that the whole country isn't necessarily with us--not yet anyway. 320 million is a lot of people, spread out over a lot of space.
Next to that nebulous "us" Hollywood is hella conservative. And yet next to a not insubstantial portion of another part of the country, one that continues to exist, it's a den of godless heathen brown communists. Sure, it's probably a small portion of the country, but it's there, and it votes.
That's my purely unscientific theory on it anyway.
Then, please, be clearer with your answers.
This is the third time you've refused to answer direct questions, which have clear yes or no answers.
Ok. That dealt with one question about casting one movie, which yes overlapped with the system racism argument. Now onto the next, which is a separate subject in itself. This is about the other subject which I have yet to hear any concrete answers or explanations on your opinion on - do you think systemic racism exist in Hollywood? Do you think white people are properly (behind and in front of the camera) represented in it? I'd really like to clarify what your opinion is on this, since I have no clue what your stance is on it right now. And I don't know why you seem so afraid to answer it.
Maybe it didn't happen, maybe it did - and this again tells me nothing about your position. Why do you believe that was the only satisfying answer? How do you from A to B? Why did you rule out systemic racism as a possible cause? This is one incident in an industry with hundreds in it, too - the movie didn't happen in a vacuum. Why do you assume this particular one was completely free of racial bias? Are there any other ones you think that applies to?
I am specifically not arguing for any position. When you ask me "why I believe that was the only satisfying answer" you have completely misconstrued what I am saying to such a degree I cannot begin to unravel where the miscommunication happened.
I am not arguing that there is any more or less likely scenario, I am arguing that we don't know what specific reason that 21 was cast white, so the confidence with which one particular example of race based reasoning was offered is unfounded.
I repeat WE DO NOT KNOW <- my position
My point is purely an epistemological one in this regard - we know the effect, we don't know the cause. If "A then B, B therefore A" is affirming the consequent - "21 was cast white, therefore he was cast white because people who are good at maths in a cool way must be white" is of that form. There are other reasons that would cause the same effect - some of which are explicitly racial (like a higher up explicitly saying "don't cast Asians, I hate them, they killed my grandfathering the war") or non-racial (like a higher up saying "Cast my nephew or I'll never hear the end of it") or non-conscious (like simply never thinking that anyone involved wasn't white, on,y having seen the screen play) neither of which are equivalent in form or content to a logic of coolness as expressed by in the original post.
Now, once again and in big letters
I AM NOT ARGUING THAT ANY OF THOSE OPTIONS ARE THE CASE. THEIR PURPOSE IS ONLY TO EXPRESS THE EPISTEMOLOGIAL POINT THAT AFFIRMING THE CONSEQUENT IS NOT A VALID FORM OF INFERENCES.
I contend that given the very premise of systematic racism is that it comes from many factors, both explicitly and not-directly race related and and as a result of both conscious and unconscious processes we cannot even discuss it accurately if we simply declare that it is caused by particular attitudes based on nothing more than the fact that they are consistent with the results we see. One of the very premises is that the systematic racism can occur even when people are acting rationally and in an unbiased fashion due to other historical and social factors. As such, it is important our descriptions of some particular event are accurate and if we don't know the details we should simply say "we don't know".
Hollywood is American-liberal, which is still fiscally conservative. It's a risky business, after all, with huge investments and powerful investors.
Or you could look at who has held the job over time and whether that's representative, which makes much more sense than saying "Because there's only 6 positions all whites forever is the most representative."
The problem with that approach is longevity bias: CEO turnover rates are infrequent and unequal.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Why are you considering the population of the US as a whole, and not, say... the state where Hollywood is actually located? Let's look at how the numbers break down then...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California
White, not Hispanic or Latino: 42.3%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 37.6%
Asian: 14.9%
Black or African American: 7.2%
And that's not factoring in the time component. It's not like the Asian guy was the CEO of that studio since the studio was first founded.
It's also laughable to think that Hollywood simply reflects the general population when you also take gender into account.
Well, this is exactly the problem I highlighted a million pages ago.
What it means to be representative is something which needs to be defined as it is not obvious on its face. For example, even if we select "matching demographics" there are many options there - matching them how, in terms of allocation of resources, total screen time, across all positions in the industry as a whole, as a proportion of top tier roles, all of the above, none of the above, some of the above - and how you measure the demographics - against which population, over which timeframe, against the setting of the movie etc - and what sort of match you are after - point in time correspondence or average correspondence etc.
They all have potentially different satisfaction conditions and not all of them are compatible. Until "how do we know when representation is achieved" is comprehensively defined I can't see how we can conclude anything about representation within Hollywood beyond mere description - there were X Asian actors, the proportional population on screen does not match the across the country but does/does not fall close to the demographics of the areas represented within the movies, etc.
https://thedissolve.com/news/847-new-study-finds-minority-representation-lacking-in/
Again, the easiest way to note Hollywood's diversity gap is by looking at how they deal with gender, since gender has the fewest possible excuses for disparity. The odds of being born male vs. female is simply a matter of random chance, and yet, there seems to be a huge matter of inequality that results from that.
Ok, but that is just another way of conceiving representation - it doesn't stand on its own. Is the argument then that on-screen demographics ought match ticket sales?
I don't see that bring a particularly stable foundation upon which to reshape a society and industry. I can think of more than a few scenarios in which that would present results I cannot imagine would be satisfying from a social justice perspective. And it seems an oddly economic metric upon which to base a rather more ideological position of fairness.
Edit: I think that album sales of hip hop is majority white, from memory. It seems like if we apply a similar principle to that then that seems like a very unsatisfying result.
I don't think there's a simple answer to better representing minorities in film, but we certainly could be doing better.
That is to say, we should not be putting the cart before the horse. If the question is, "What do we do when we get close to 40%?" the answer is, "Maybe we can figure it out when we get there."
Going out of the way to cast white actors is an issue. If you actively cherry pick actors based on their whiteness it obviously is detrimental to actors that happen to be minorities. Start by having more minorities as writers, directors, producers and executives. Start by writing more minority characters and casting more minorities in anything other than bit parts and non-speaking roles. We have demonstrated that predominantly Hollywood is casting whites, even in cases where the it contradicts the source material. So, instead of bending over backwards to make Hollywood whiter, cast more appropriately given the subject matter.
But it is interesting - certainly it appears that at least part of the anti-whitewashing argument is that representation in film IS an inequality and remedying that is an end in and of itself. What inequality do you suggest is it a proxy for?
Heard this on the way to work.
So this communist party member, with 33 billion dollars in assets, was trash talking Disney's one little western themed ammusmen park. He's opening 6 amusement parks that will cater to local tastes(Forbes is reporting one of them might be Jurassic Park themed, which would by hype as shit...local tastes?)
It ends with,
And then "let's get down to business to fight the Huns." Kinda odd tone for npr.
But, the decision to cast Damon, one presumes to appeal to Americans to what degree is this different, when people with some sources of bias removed are making the same decisions about American audiences?
I don't think it's different. I don't understand what sources of bias are removed.
I don't think you need a rigid definition of this unless you're instituting laws or industry guidelines. The answer for the public right now is "more" and the social movement to change representation will end when "more" becomes "this" for a rough majority of concerned parties.
That's not answering the question either. You're proposing remedies, not defining the conditions under which we should be satisfied. I mean, there are other factors too - what classes of division and identification need to be considered? Is "Asian" enough, or should it be Chinese American, Japanese American, etc., what about other divisions like transgender, abledness, fat/not, ugly/not, age?
Is the race of characters based upon real world events an important concern in and of itself or merely in the context of representation as a method to address representation?
Why does it matter if Hollywood is white? What is the moral principle being violated? The answers change the remedies and the criticisms.
It matters because of the extensive history of whitewashing, and to that end furthering the ideals behind blackface and yellowface. Casting a white dude as another race has a historical context as being racist as all get out, and we can't ignore those roots.
And yes, we can absolutely evaluate things as separate from historical instances of similar things. Affirming the consequent isn't valid.
I think a cultural responsibility to represent all nationalities is far too grand, and would be more inclined towards representing all significant minority groups within the country. Responsibilities towards other nations vis a vis representation in art are complicated. What claim does the nation of China have to representation in the cinema of all other countries?
This is exactly the difficulty I am wanting to highlight.
But there are added wrinkles of course, like the fact that governments don't tend to be in the business of making movies, so talking about countries is already relying on a lot of assumptions, Hollywood isn't even a single entity it is a collection of private entities. And they commission creative types to create movies corresponding to some hybrid of a commercial and creative vision. Presumably to appease the desires of the audience who give them money to do so.
Who is responsible, what are they obligated to do?
Are audiences obligated to want more diverse casts regardless of their own ethnicity, for example? If market research shows that this particular movie will do 15 million dollars better with a particular white lead contra the source material, are the directors, or studios or all of the above obligated to take the potential 15 million dollar hit? Can you "make up" the representation issues by casting more diverse supporting characters, or other films with non-white leads? If a movie based on true events would do better internationally by casting a white person as Chinese would that be ok?