ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

10 years ago - Daniel Cormack

I'm glad you've given Damian Jones' talk such extensive coverage in your blog as he's been at the forefront of tackling inequality in the industry - particularly for black and minority ethnic women. These are important issues which should be aired.

I guess he's the UK equivalent of Oprah Winfrey or Bill Cosby.

10 years ago - Ben Blaine

Oh what deliciously complacent bullshit.

First up it is supremely glib to compare the inequalities of race and gender. Lumping together the problems of "not white men" is an unhelpful over simplification that does not compare like with like.

To follow your sidetrack for a moment though, whilst you are right that for women in their 20s there is now pay equality, your suggestion that it is not "gender" but "the career break" that causes the disparity is a linguistic sleight of hand that betrays the real problem. When women behave like men they get paid like men, but anyone who behaves like a woman suffers a 17.5% pay penalty.

Crucially you are too quick to give credit to the market for the positive changes that are occurring. Not least because a gender pay gap has no place in a pure market. Gender inequality is an historical problem in society that has been happily exploited by the market ever since low paid women workers entered it. Capitalism is now simply responding to a social change, not driving one.

In 2014 the UK was 87% white. So why has the market not already ensured 13% of films in the cinema starred non-white actors? It's 36 years since Thatcher gave us a free market, so why the imbalance? Perhaps that 13% is overwhelmingly underpaid so lacking the ability to demand better market representation in entertainment. Perhaps she was wrong to declare "there's no such thing as society", perhaps there is a society and it's very narrow minded.

This is why I find something odious and lazy in your comparison of the two inequalities. It is astonishing that the pay gap exists at all because women are half the population, not a minority group. But in terms of race and cinema, a "fair" 13% market share isn't really the issue. Equality is when it doesn't matter what colour your cast are. To suggest we can achieve that by waiting for the market is to ignore the problem. The market can only reflect society, when society is 87% not white your message to Nadin is little more than "stop complaining". This is not good enough.

10 years ago - Ben Blaine

@Alève Mine taking a career break to care for children. I just wanted to phrase it in a way that didn't discount the small but growing number of men who do this too.

10 years ago - Ben Blaine

"I couched the article in terms of distributors and institutional racism mainly because that's easier to demonstrate rather than audience bias, even if that's what's ultimately reflected in distributor behaviour."

Do the choices made by distributors reflect the natural prejudice of the audience? Despite all the positive examples listed in this debate there remains a reticence to cast diversely for a mainstream western audience. Is this because the audience doesn't want to see black faces or because the industry thinks they don't? Why would the industry think wrongly where money is concerned?

There have been a lot of contributions quick to close this discussion down with the soothing thought that "the market" is going to gently solve this problem without any of us having to do anything except trying not to mind too much that Tyler Perry exists. The idea is that everyone is just trying to make money so if there is demand so shall there be supply. But demand-led economics is innately conservative, seeking only to supply pre-existing demand. This may be the safest bet but no matter how much you might wish otherwise, it changes nothing. It's not even the best way of making money.

Audiences for film are not racist but they are prejudiced against novelty and in favour of enjoyment. If they (and by "they" I mean me) don't already know that they enjoy something they will be reluctant to engage with it. Crucially though if you trick, cajole or force them (by "them" I definitely mean me) into doing something new that they find they enjoy then they will love it more than anything.

You have two options, high risk or low. Low risk is to serve the market, avoid novelty (Idris Elba as James Bond, terrifying idea - how could a black man drive a car, hit people and kiss a lady) and make millionaires out of mediocrities. The higher risk is to lead the market, disrupt it, create a new demand, to serve the audience by giving them what they didn't know they wanted (Idris Elba as James Bond being about the most conservative radical thought I could come up with).

If we (by "we", weirdly, I mean mean me again, but also you) take risks and serve the audience we help confront their lazy assumptions. If we shirk this responsibility then those assumptions become entrenched. At the end of the day I don't want to serve a market, I want to serve an audience.

10 years ago - Ben Blaine

No, the good news is we don't have to sit on our hands and wait for the market to solve social problems.

Audiences are prejudiced against very long and very short films. Unlike a prejudice against race, a prejudice against duration is a problem that only discomforts artists who choose to make very long or very short films. You can choose not to make a short film, you can't choose not to be David Oyelowo.

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

@Ben Blaine Odious, lazy, complacent, bullshit, glib - good ad-hom.

As for the example of the market levelling things out over time and an example regarding womens pay, the clear point is that women are not paid less for being women. On equal footing, like for like, the market found balance. How you would have men and women behave is not the issue - or maybe it is for you, but it's not the example I was using. The example I must have not been spelling out clearly enough is that the number of X or Y chromosomes you're born with is no longer a factor in deciding how much money you're given on a like-for-like basis to do a job. Competitive advantage levels inequality over time. It wasn't because we had quotas to fill.

If it makes you more comfortable - China is now offshoring more work to Bangladesh and India. The competitive advantage of a cheap domestic labour market has been eroding as those cheap labour are in higher demand, pushing up wages to create the biggest middle-class explosion ever. Same thing - a competitive advantage attracts more interest which brings more equality.

It's not just the film industry - the biscuit industry makes more digestives than garibaldi because of demand. Increase demand for garibaldi and you betcha they'll scale production next week. If they just produce more garibaldi without extra demand, they lose money. If they limit the supply of digestives there's no guarantee that garibaldi biscuit sales rise, people might give up biscuits altogether damaging all sales. A big promotional campaign, however, would work wonders - make the public demand garibaldi and then you change the market.

Back on topic - I certainly do not say 'stop complaining', maybe I've not been clear enough again, but what I say is it's an OPPORTUNITY so you can SOLVE it and have the competitive advantage for a while if there is a bigger market there than is represented. That's the opposite of a parental 'stop complaining', it's an encouragement to 'make it better'. Worlds apart. It's not about powerlessly blaming others, it's about empowerment to make the world you want to live in. Change the market.

Right, now I've hopefully clarified a little, there's another factor to consider. Who are the biggest film producers in the world? India. They produce 4-5 completed feature films a DAY including weekends (and if you look at running length, it's the equivalent of at least 10 Hollywood movies every single day). Nigeria and Egypt serve West and North African markets. Very few of these films star white actors, they cater to the local majority audience. Do we show those films in cinemas in the UK? Yes, occasionally. Do they find audiences? Yes, occasionally. There is a market, maybe someone can grow it if it's bigger than the distributors think.

If the point is to be colourblind to the actors on screen, isn't that what the kids are doing when a black teenager watches Brad Pitt? Or his white mate watches Jackie Chan? Or his Asian friend watches Will Smith? Do we need quotas? Do we need to tell kids who to like based on similarity of skin tone? Of course not, that would be so far wrong for so many reasons it's not even worth discussing. We can't as adults just say 'it's wrong and it's everybody else's fault', we need to either recognise that things are shifting (and that someone can take advantage of that), or make things shift (and someone else can take advantage of that).

As the owner of a white penis (to paraphrase John Oliver), I'm extremely poorly placed to solve the perceived problems of other groups. I can empathise, I can encourage them to seize the chances it offers, but I can't solve everything in a way to satisfy everybody because I am not everybody. The playing field is money, money doesn't care who you are, it is level. So back to my original point, if there is a market and you feel it is underserved, SERVE IT and clean up! Make the audience, grow the audience.

10 years ago - Alève Mine

In that case the difference in career break rate doesn't count?

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Gender and race issues are typically discussed as one issue overall, but should - if that's of any use at all - be discussed separately, because they are structurally obviously very different and thus any - if any - solutions to the one cannot thoroughly be the solutions to the other.

10 years ago - Alève Mine

@Ben Blaine How does one behave when behaving "like a woman" and "like a man"?

10 years ago - Alève Mine

@Ben Blaine

("Career break" has now been used here with 2 different meanings: the first was: breaking through, as in: taking it to a higher level.)

Ben, I'm afraid things are a lot more complicated than that.

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Ong Bak. Must see.

10 years ago - Alève Mine

@Dan Selakovich Either way one must have seen it. It's like: you can't never have seen a Batman movie.

There is a Luc Besson version??

10 years ago - Alève Mine

@Dan Selakovich So there are 2 versions around? Following your comment I looked up besson vs ong bak and apparently they wrote something in the set of a scene with his name to attract him. It seems to have worked.

10 years ago - Alève Mine

The same group of people in an audience may have various needs, of which the people may or may not be aware, each of which can be viewed as a different market. For instance they may need classical scifi, shoes, dental hygiene services and a training sword.

Movie treat at the dentist may be something to tap into for sales actually. Anyone?:)

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

I'd turn this around - wherever there's imbalance, there's opportunity. That's capitalism - it doesn't give two hoots about anything beyond money as you note in your opening paragraphs.

Another oft-cited imbalance is the pay gap between men and women, yet actual real cold hard statistics, measuring like for like, show that on 2015 UK, it's the career break that affects pay, not the gender. In fact, normalised for that, women are actually paid ever so slightly higher than men. It certainly wasn't always thus, and that imbalance created opportunity for employers to use a cheaper labour pool for a job, with competitive advantage. Everyone saw that competitive advantage and wanted a part of the action, driving up women's pay so it's now at parity (like for like).

Capitalism levels out imbalances, so if the imbalance is a genuine institutional bias, there's an opportunity to buck the bias, buy a library of great films cheap, and create an audience with your greater margin. If you can't create an audience, that's another question - one about audiences, not distributors.

10 years ago - Nadin Hadi

Lots of lively discussion. I couched the article in terms of distributors and institutional racism mainly because that's easier to demonstrate rather than audience bias, even if that's what's ultimately reflected in distributor behaviour. That and calling audiences racist is more likely to get people wielding pitchforks my way.

Paddy makes a good point about India and Africa which I'm going to be looking into more in another article. According to the MPAA theatrical report for 2014, growth in the US and Europe is stagnating. The growing markets for film are Asia Pacific, Latin America and to a lesser degree, Africa. As these territories grow in power, they're going to affect the kind of films we see. That might internationally, or we might see move towards more regionally successful films.

Marlom's point about TV is another good one which I'm looking at for the next article. There has been a noticeable increase in diversity in US television - Empire, Orange Is The New Black, Jane The Virgin, Blackish, Fresh Off The Boat, Sleepy Hollow, all the Shonda Rhimes shows, the now cancelled Mindy Project etc

US television is dominant force and my hope is for a trickle down normalisation of greater representation on screen. If these shows are picked up and syndicated worldwide, they also can provide valuable data on audience and viewing numbers. Personally, I find it VERY interesting Netflix picked up Cary Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation with Idris Elba. I think it's partly because they want a film with an awards run, but I'm intrigued to see how the worldwide release goes on October 16th.

10 years ago - Marlom Tander

@Ben Blaine

You can't choose not to be David. Nor do you get to choose your native language, and I noticed you dodged that issue :-) Anyway, I'm not talking about sitting on hands, I'm talking about spotting where the opportunity exists to do something. It's not a fast process, but then people change slowly.

I've raised the fact that exports of domestic product will slowly help educate people and in due course the world will get nicer. (When I was a kid there were Golliwogs, Little Black Sambo dolls and the Agatha Christie novel now known as "And then there were none" still had it's original title).

Hollywood will go with it at very slightly ahead of the curve (which is what they laughably call "edgy"), so what is your solution for pushing the curve faster than it's natural pace?

Cheers

10 years ago - Dan Selakovich

@Alève Mine I've seen the re-cut, shortened Luc Besson version and found it lacking.

10 years ago - Dan Selakovich

@Alève Mine Yes and no. His studio cut down and distributed Ong Bak.

10 years ago - Dan Selakovich

Having worked with a number of distributors over the years, though not recently, this is how they think. But not for nothing. It's kinda true. But I wouldn't be so quick to call it "institutional racism" within international distribution. It's the audience. Let's turn it around: what's the last Thai movie you saw with an all Thai cast? I'm guessing not many of you have ever seen a Thai film at all.

My problems with casting is when typical "generics" fill minority rolls. "Memoirs of a Geisha" had a Chinese lead. Really? You couldn't find a Japanese actress to play that part? The generic Asian, generic Mexican (yeah, anybody from South America will do), etc. This kind of thing drives me nuts. Japan and Korea, for example, are vastly different cultures. Japanese people don't have the same body language as Koreans, or Chinese people or Pacific Islanders. The body language of each culture represents that culture on such a deep level, that actors not from that culture have a really difficult time playing someone from a different culture, all because an Asian is an Asian, right? They become stereotypes of character. At least when Tarantino cast Lucy Liu for a Yakuza boss, he had the good sense to maker her mixed so the audience would by it. Grrrrr... it makes me so angry. End of rant.

10 years ago - Vasco de Sousa

Well, there's already Nollywood and Bollywood films available, which have different distribution channels. Bollywood films can be seen in most cinemas, but they tend to bypass non-Bollywood distributors.

So, you won't have anything like a monopoly if you distribute minority pictures.

As far as critically acclaimed goes, well, "Secrets and Lies" didn't get much distribution in America. Neither did the American film "Frozen River." You'll find Sundance winners that hardly go anywhere, regardless of the filmmaker's background.

Critics don't necessarily like the same films as audiences do.

That said, a better argument could be the fact that some try to re-cast films. Apparently, Full Monty had a more multicultural cast in the first script. More recently, Destiny Ekaragha was told that her film "Gone too Far" "was a risk" because it was "a black cast and it's a comedy."

But, like "Twelve Years A Slave", "Gone Too Far" didn't seem to have much problem getting distribution in the UK when it was funded. Both are more relevant to UK audiences than the American films like "Beyond the Lights."

(And, quite frankly, "Beyond The Lights" looks like a heap of rubbish, if the trailer is anything to go by. There's much better stuff coming from Nollywood and Bollywood.)

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Some interesting points Ben, a couple of thoughts...

'"the market" is going to gently solve this problem without any of us having to do anything ' - or alternatively, step up and fill the gap. If there's an opportunity and you can convince others that there is, you get to make a mini-monopoly. I don't think protesting that nobody is doing anything is a solution - a few grand will get you started buying up rights to package.

Idris Elba as Bond? Why not? Apart from Kanye West wanting it, and frankly that's not even a brilliant reason not to do it. Or better still, create a fresh franchise. There's only a 'Bond' every few years, plenty of time for an alternative. Maybe a transfer from TV if you want to play cautiously with a Luther movie, for instance.

'I don't want to serve a market, I want to serve an audience' - Not really sure what this means, aren't the audience the market? I don't think you mean a non-paying audience, so you pretty much by definition have a market?

10 years ago - Maria Ann Hylton MSc, MA.

Mmmm fascinating.

10 years ago - Marlom Tander

Movies are expensive, and if the investors need a return, they'll be cautious.

Anything that departs from the "norm" is going to be harder sell

After all, how many mainly white french/german/italian movies make it to the provincial UK multiplex? Do we hate foreigners? Maybe :-)

How many 4 hour movies? Are we prejudiced against long form? Nope, but they don't fit the cinema business model of bums, eating popcorn, on seats.

What about shorts? They don't get shown either. Are we prejudiced there too?

Reality is that the finance for film is always aware that they could drop 100% losses even if they produce a masterpeice - Citizen Kane was not a commercial success. So no one wants to take any risks over and above the unavoidable ones. And if a lot of the world is racist, and you need those sales to justify the movie, that creates issues. Do I like this? No. But it's not my money.

Solution - TV. I'd like to say "modestly budgeted movies that play domestic markets", but that model seems to have largely dropped away from cinema over the past 20 years, but STILL WORKS in TV. So long form TV tends to be much richer and more complex than studio movies, and much more grounded in the domestic market, because that's where the money is. Overseas is bunce for the shows that break out, not an assumed part of the planning.

The good news - non racist TV overseas sales might slowly make people less racist and over time the problem vanishes :-)

10 years ago - Burning Chrome

Just look at the way the Hollywood studios are struggling to deal with falling revenues and resisting new business models. It says a lot about how established industry resists change even when potentially profitable.

Online platforms tend to be more responsive to movies without instant box office appeal and movies targeted at smaller audiences. So, hopefully the traditiional industry is heading the way of the dinosaur.

Also, audiences have a major role to play in generating support for upcoming filmmakers. People who love music don’t follow the Top 20 Charts they take a lot of pleasure in seeking out and supporting new upcoming artists. Sadly, the same innovative music lovers tend to have very mainstream movie tastes. But genuine cinephiles do know where to find good movies, they don’t just sit back and wait for reviews and trailers.