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Courtesy: The Hollywood Reporter
Every year, The Hollywood Reporter picks out actors and actresses that get to be featured on their roundtables to promote the upcoming award season. The roundtables are a way to campaign the Academy Awards and help show what the awards race will look like in the upcoming months. This year, the actresses chosen for the cover were Cate Blanchett, Jane Fonda, Brie Larson, Jennifer Lawrence, Helen Mirren, Carey Mulligan, Charlotte Rampling and Kate Winslet. If there’s one thing this cover will indicate about awards season for actresses this year it’s that it will be all white.
Remember when Viola Davis gave that amazing Emmy acceptance speech a few months ago? 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.” Now scratch out “Emmy” and replace it with “Oscar.” The lack of representation of women in the cover isn’t simply because THR decided to ignore them, the real problem comes from the lack of diversity in Hollywood.
The lack of women of color getting major roles on the big screen has always been an issue. Stephen Galloway, the executive editor of THR, wrote an essay as a response for the backlash of the cover. In his essay he wrote, “The awful truth is there are no minority actresses in genuine contention for an Oscar this year.” And why is that? Galloway blames Hollywood execs that fail to hire non-white directors, producers, and fellow executives. He includes in his essay, “Speak to the executives that run the industry, and they say they want change. But they are hardly any black executives, and too few producers. Black directors? Not enough — and certainly not black women directors.” This comes as to no surprise since 94% of white males are CEOs of all film studios. These executives are often the people who greenlight Hollywood projects— the ones who decide what movies get made and who gets to be in them. Although Galloway does make a good point, he fails to mention the rest of the non-white population. What about all of the Latinxs? Asians? And so on? People of color (PoC) and women of color (WoC) means more than just black and white.
Courtesy: Bitch Media
In the world of television, there seems to be a bit more diversity, but there is still a lot that has to be done. If you compare The Hollywood Reporter’s issue featuring the television actresses who were possible future Emmy contenders, there are women of color included in the cover. In the leading actress for a drama series, the issue featured Viola Davis, who stars in How to Get Away with Murder, (who ended up winning the Emmy) and Taraji P. Henson, who stars in Empire. Even the leading actress for a comedy series issue included Golden Globe winner Gina Rodriguez, the star of Jane The Virgin, and Black-ish’s Tracee Ellis Rose. Approximately 23% of television showrunners are female and 11% of showrunners are non-white. Not a whole lot of diversity, but it is still way better than the 6% of non-white males who own film studios.
Courtesy: The Hollywood Reporter
Back to the controversy surrounding the latest THR issue, Galloway mentioned that “a white man” like himself, “couldn’t ignore the fact that every one of these women was white – whether old or young, English, Australian or American.” He then wrote, “That was appalling.” At least he seemed to be aware of the problem surrounding his magazine cover, which is the first step of progress, but what is he doing to help the problem? He at least recognizes that his cover may be contributing to the industry’s preference for white stories and actors over non-white ones. But instead blames the industry for the result of the cover. He isn’t wrong from blaming the industry, but he then helps them by representing them as the “greatest” and celebrating them.
Not to put down the “Great Eight” actresses in the current issue of The Hollywood Reporter, as they are all very talented and very deserving of their success, but there are other great actresses out there who have just as much talent, but are not given the opportunity to be seen in the big screen. The fact of the matter is that the Academy recognizes the work that the industry creates, and building inclusivity to Hollywood takes a lot more than just recognizing it. There is still a long way to go, change will come only with consistent and continued action to include women of color.