Every year, The Hollywood Reporter gathers several Oscar frontrunners to take part in an actress roundtable discussion. This year, however, no women of color were mentioned in the pre-nomination conversation. The roundtable participants included: Cate Blanchett, Jane Fonda, Brie Larson, Jennifer Lawrence, Helen Mirren, Carey Mulligan, Charlotte Ramping and Kate Winslet. All white women.
“The awful truth is that there are no minority actresses in genuine contention for an Oscar this year,” Hollywood Reporter editor Stephen Galloway wrote.
A March release from the U.S. Census Bureau stated that people of color make up almost 38 percent of the country’s population. African Americans also spend more on movie tickets than those who are white, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
With this in mind, people of color deserve to have a larger presence in the industry.
At the Governors Awards on Saturday, director Spike Lee said that it was easier for a person of color to become a president than a studio chief. And when Viola Davis became the first African-American woman to win an Emmy for best lead actress in a drama earlier this year, she said, “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
Many actors and actresses work all of their lives for an Academy Award and the accompanying credibility, but winning an Oscar often seems like an impossible dream for actresses of color.
Though Galloway was adamant in acknowledging the problem and denying responsibility for The Hollywood Reporter’s colorless cover, the media company does have a part in perpetuating the very idea it criticizes. The publication was right when it said that the problem is on the entertainment industry, but it’s also a problem for those who thrive off of the industry as well. Widely read publications like The Hollywood Reporter should showcase women of color and set a precedent for other media outlets.
The Hollywood Reporter’s excessively pasty roundtable is also a symptom of a much deeper problem. Are directors shutting out women of color, or are women of color just discouraged and not trying out for certain roles? Roles often seem to be habitually written with a white actor in mind — more often than not, a white male actor, even when gender and race have nothing to do with a character. There are plenty of non-white directors, producers and actors who can’t seem to get their work out because of the white precedent looming over Hollywood.
Many minority roles are typecast, as Aziz Ansari wrote in a story for The New York Times. People of color are commonly limited to auditioning for stereotypical roles such as the Indian store clerk, the Asian scientist or the black thug. People of color shouldn’t be cast as token minorities. One character — and one type of character — is not enough.
Hollywood higher-ups tend to come from an older, whiter generation. These white men have primarily been the creators of films for a long time, and it’s difficult to change that. As America’s prejudices toward race change, so too will the entertainment industry’s. The current higher-ups’ conservative ideas and traditions will be phased out as they retire, and things will hopefully change when the younger generation starts taking things up.
This change is becoming more apparent in television, where women of color seem to be featured more prominently. Think: “Scandal,” “How to Get Away with Murder” and “Fresh Off the Boat.” Shonda Rhimes leads the way for female producers of color on television. But few women of color are present in big budget blockbuster films, where the stakes are arguably higher.
If a TV pilot tanks, networks have other shows to fall back on and will commission another. But when a movie studio spends hundreds of millions of dollars on a movie, taking a risk isn’t something they’re likely to do. At the end of the day, movie studios run businesses influenced by what consumers want to see.
Nothing will change until audiences demand representation. But that shouldn’t be the case. The success of current racially diverse TV programs show that people will watch when they are given strong women of color in lead roles. People might now know that they want to see people of color in lead roles until they see that it’s possible.
We can’t wait for people to speak out against this problem, and we are moving in the right direction, albeit very slowly. In the end, however, we simply need to be shown women of color doing great things. Where the entertainment industry leads, audiences will follow.
