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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to Deadline Discourse.
00:17 I'm your host Valerie Complex,
00:19 associate editor and film writer at Deadline.com.
00:23 And we are gonna be talking with some Hollywood insiders
00:26 and no topic is off limits.
00:28 So this panel today dives deep into the nuances
00:32 of diversity, inclusion and equity in Hollywood
00:35 and reflecting on the journey
00:36 since the pivotal year of 2020.
00:38 We'll examine whether the industry's DEI efforts
00:41 post George Floyd's death have sparked systemic change
00:45 or if it's simply performative.
00:47 You know, recently Issa Rae shared her thoughts
00:49 on the industry in Time Magazine
00:50 and how Hollywood is sort of falling behind
00:52 in regards to black content.
00:54 Do you share her, I wouldn't call it pessimism,
00:59 I would say, do you share her ideals
01:01 regarding accountability within the industry?
01:03 - Yeah.
01:06 (laughing)
01:07 - Next question.
01:08 I mean, you know, there's so much more
01:10 that needs to be done.
01:11 I mean, you know, look, it's been nine years
01:14 since Oscar's so white
01:15 and it's incredibly hard to see sustained progress, right?
01:20 You know, as you say, you know,
01:22 sometimes it is one step forward and two steps back, right?
01:25 As opposed to what we want, which is the other way around.
01:27 But what I love to see is actors, filmmakers
01:32 taking the reins in their own hands and saying,
01:36 you know, we are no longer waiting for a seat at the table.
01:38 We are creating our own mansion
01:40 and we are putting our own table and chairs in it.
01:42 And we are creating our own production companies, right?
01:45 Because the powers that be are still the ones
01:49 that are going to green light the films.
01:50 And there's a reason why, you know,
01:53 and those are still older white men,
01:54 let's just be honest about it.
01:55 And so there's a reason why we get a huge movie about war
02:00 every December at the start of war season.
02:02 (laughing)
02:03 And so there isn't as much space and interest in,
02:07 at least from that standpoint, to softer movies,
02:12 you know, and TV shows.
02:14 You know, I think about "Queen Sugar"
02:16 and, you know, talking about gentrification
02:19 and the importance of black families owning land.
02:21 Like, you know, and so that stuff comes from court cases,
02:25 but it's also things that are being dealt with
02:27 every single day.
02:28 And there's a reason why we're not getting that,
02:31 we're not getting that type of content.
02:33 And so it's incredibly important that we have the ability.
02:36 And when I say we, I mean,
02:37 people who are very often pushed to the margins,
02:40 you know, regardless of how they identify race, gender,
02:44 sexual orientation, disability, geography,
02:47 all of those stories need to be told.
02:49 And so this is the best way to do it,
02:51 for us to tell them ourselves.
02:53 - Absolutely, yeah.
02:56 And you were right to try to correct yourself
02:58 in saying that it's pessimism,
02:59 because we all have eyes, we all have ears.
03:02 - It's reality.
03:03 - Like, we see what's taking place, and it's just fact.
03:07 - Inside of Hollywood,
03:10 I'm hearing more and more of us talk about
03:12 getting some piece of ownership in the deals that we make.
03:16 We have to start taking a stand on that.
03:18 I think the more that we do that,
03:20 if we could really lock, you know,
03:22 lock hands and do that across the board,
03:25 it'd be very disruptive to our industry,
03:27 but that's what needs to happen.
03:29 - Even if we go back to 2020,
03:31 all these diversity jobs were hired
03:33 because the voices demanding this were so loud.
03:37 There was no way anyone in any position of power
03:40 could not move forward and say,
03:42 "Come into my house and help me rebuild," right?
03:45 Similarly, all this incredible creative work
03:47 that's going out there,
03:49 how is the collective community
03:51 showing up for those projects?
03:52 Where are we spending our dollars?
03:54 What shows are we talking about on our socials?
03:57 How are we also making sure that these creative projects
04:00 that are being put out into the world
04:03 are incredibly successful?
04:05 And, you know, all the metrics are there to back that up.
04:08 The spend is there, the tweets are there,
04:11 or we don't say tweet anymore, right?
04:12 - We sure do.
04:13 - Yeah, we do.
04:14 - We sure do.
04:15 - Amen.
04:16 - The tweets are there, right?
04:17 It's Black Twitter.
04:18 - It's Black Twitter.
04:19 - Yes.
04:20 - You didn't buy Black Twitter,
04:20 you might have bought that other thing.
04:22 - Right.
04:23 - But Black Twitter is still there, right?
04:24 But you're gonna go, you know?
04:25 Like, we need to still also put pressure
04:29 on these decision makers, on these systems,
04:31 by showing up and showing out.
04:33 It's, I mean, the consumer spend alone
04:35 amongst the Black community,
04:37 I think it's like $1.4 trillion right now.
04:39 That is a lot of money.
04:42 Then you layer on other communities.
04:44 You bring in the Latino community,
04:46 you bring in the Asian community.
04:48 There is a lot of spending power.
04:51 And for anyone who's running a business,
04:53 you know, they cannot deny those voices of those communities.
04:57 So I think there's also a real need for us to show up.
05:01 You may not love everything you're watching,
05:02 but you are there spending that dollar,
05:04 because you know that dollar will create access
05:06 for the next show that you may love.
05:08 - Do you feel like what has been happening
05:12 has been sort of sped up or exacerbated
05:15 by the fact that the strike took place
05:18 and lasted as long as it did?
05:20 - These companies, you know, look to trim the fat
05:22 and we're the fat.
05:24 - Yeah. - You know, we're the lard.
05:26 You know, and they start trimming
05:28 and they start trying to make things fit
05:30 because, you know, the double strikes,
05:33 which really almost felt like a triple strike
05:36 because there was nothing I could do as a director
05:38 without my script, obviously,
05:41 and definitely not without my actors.
05:43 - Right, I was gonna say. - So it was really, you know,
05:45 a pause across all three guilds.
05:47 And yeah, it, you know, it was devastating on every level.
05:52 And so the companies are trying to figure out, you know,
05:58 how to make themselves solvent going forward.
06:02 And I think, you know, we represent kind of the fat
06:05 on that spreadsheet and yeah, we fall to the wayside.
06:10 - Something I think about though too with that,
06:13 and this goes back to exploring that,
06:15 that space of independence, right?
06:19 I've always been so in awe of black people
06:24 and the black community and our ability to reinvent,
06:27 to create, to make our own.
06:30 I sit here and I also wonder,
06:32 is this going to be the impetus for us
06:34 to really start to explore these independent avenues
06:38 in a very different way?
06:40 And I think time will tell.
06:42 I don't think there's an immediate solution,
06:45 but if anything, the strikes have impacted
06:47 the entirety of an industry.
06:49 They're shaking up an entire system.
06:51 And back to our conversation on the soil earlier, right?
06:55 Was the soil even that good?
06:57 Is this also an invitation for us
07:00 to really think differently about how to build?
07:02 And I hope that that sort of innovation comes from this
07:06 as opposed to just sitting in a moment of despair
07:09 and hoping that the industry rebuilds itself
07:12 because the way it was built
07:13 wasn't working for us before anyway.
07:15 So I think a lot about that.
07:17 Like, is there an opportunity to come from this?
07:21 - No, I think so, absolutely.
07:22 I mean, I liken the strike to like a brain hemorrhage, right?
07:25 Like when you have like a massive hemorrhage like that,
07:27 the brain in its healing has to relearn a lot of things,
07:31 but in relearning it,
07:32 it just completely has to restructure
07:34 the way that it processes information.
07:36 So I feel like that's where we find ourselves
07:39 in a situation where, okay, this is a new normal
07:43 and we're having to kind of figure out how to work together.
07:46 And that's ultimately what it's going to need to be
07:49 is us working together.
07:50 Like we were feuding, we were feuding family.
07:53 We're at opposite ends.
07:55 And now we've had to come back together
07:57 to kind of pick up the pieces and figure out what to do.
08:01 And that's where we kind of find ourselves.
08:04 And in the meantime, as you're saying,
08:06 like folks are just waiting in the wings for opportunities
08:09 to be able to make something, do something, build something,
08:14 while this family tries to figure out a way
08:16 to put itself back together.
08:18 (upbeat music)
08:21 (upbeat music)