What It’s Really Like to Work in Hollywood* (*If you’re not a straight white man.)

[KamaAina]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/24/arts/hollywood-diversity-inclusion.html

AMERICA FERRERA
Star, producer
“Superstore”
I was 18 and putting myself on tape for a movie I really wanted. I got that phone call: They cast a Latino male in another role in the film; they’re not looking to cast [a Latina]. So I defiantly bleached my hair blond, painted my face white and made the audition tape. I never heard back. I just remember feeling so powerless. What do you do when someone says, “Your color skin is not what we’re looking for”? Let me tell you: Blond does not suit me. I try not to prove my point on audition tapes anymore.
I was 18 and putting myself on tape for a movie I really wanted. I got that phone call: They cast a Latino male in another role in the film; they’re not looking to cast (a Latina). So I defiantly bleached my hair blond, painted my face white and made the audition tape. I never heard back. I just remember feeling so powerless. What do you do when someone says, “Your color skin is not what we’re looking for”? Let me tell you: Blond does not suit me. I try not to prove my point on audition tapes anymore.

WENDELL PIERCE
In 1985, I’m sitting in the casting office of a major studio. The head of casting said, “I couldn’t put you in a Shakespeare movie, because they didn’t have black people then.” He literally said that. I told that casting director: “You ever heard of Othello? Shakespeare couldn’t just make up black people. He saw them.” I started carrying around a postcard of Rubens’s “Studies of the Head of a Negro.” The casting director actually was very kind to me. He referred me to my first agent....

EVA LONGORIA
I was developing a medical show, and the lead was a Latina heart surgeon. It didn’t go forward (for various reasons). Networks say, “We’re on board with diversity,” and they’ll develop it, but they seldom program it. We don’t have enough people in the decision-making process. We have decision influencers, which is a new thing. There’s one brown person in the room that goes, “I like that idea.”

TEYONAH PARRIS
I went to this arts high school in Greenville, S.C. In speech class, the teacher, a white man, would say you’re talking ghetto, don’t talk ghetto. I’m not only offended, but I’m confused because while there’s nothing wrong with people who come from the projects or the ghetto, that’s actually not my experience. It was extremely frustrating because I didn’t feel he saw me. That’s when I started to realize, O.K., you’re going to have to fight to be seen.

[closeupready]

1. These stories are interesting, if anecdotal and self-selected.

My question is, why should readers believe that Hollywood is any more or less or racist or homophobic than any other industry? Because in order to read the anecdotes and come to believe the implied headline, you'd have to be already subscribing to the idea that Hollywood is fundamentally bigoted.

I'm not sure I agree with that. I DO think it's very Republican and conservative, but that's my singular opinion.

[zalinda]

2. When casting a visual medium

a huge part of the story will be with the casting choices. It is this way with every visual medium from print ads to movies, it sets a tone for the visual. When you add sound to the visual then the voice becomes part of the story too. If an actor has a Brooklyn accent, but the role calls for someone from Texas, the actor will not be cast. This is why the vast majority of actors have a "white, mid western" type of accent, so they can be up for more roles. The prevailing view is that you have to be middle of the road, and then add the splashes of color that the role may require, or you become type cast.

While these anecdotes have truth in them, they don't seem to understand that visual and audio mediums are for the masses, so that the businesses that produce them will make the most profit that they can. When money is on the line, creativity and diversity can take a back seat.

Z