Monday News: Academy Award changes, victim-blaming redux, Ursula Le Guin’s free writing workshop, and the “Human Library”
Publishing NewsAcademy Awards / criminal sexual conduct / diversity / gender / human library / Karen Marie Moning / Libraries / Phil Gigante / Race / Ursula Le Guin / victim blaming / writing workshops45 Comments
Academy Board Endorses Changes to Increase Diversity in Oscar Nominees and Itself – Hoping to double the number of women and underrepresented minorities in the membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the governing board has voted unanimously to implement a number of changes, focused on both short and long-term change. Not everyone is confident that the new steps will effect the hoped-for change, but there appears to be optimism about the fact that the Academy was willing to make changes so that its membership will better represent societal and industry diversity. If only the publishing industry felt similar urgency to foster and promote greater diversity.
The most striking of the changes is a requirement that the voting status of both new and current members be reviewed every 10 years.
Voting status may be revoked for those who have not been active in the film business in a decade. But members who have had three 10-year terms will have lifetime voting rights, as will those who have won or been nominated for an Academy Award. . . .
The academy will also expand its governing board by adding three new seats. Those are to be filled by the group’s president with an eye toward increasing the number of women and minorities on the board. Currently, about a third of the board members are women and Ms. Isaacs is its only African-American. . . .
Without providing details, the academy’s statement also said it would “supplement the traditional process” by which members are recruited — an invitation process meant to focus on achievement — with “an ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity.” – New York Times
KMM, Phil Gigante, & I Guess It’s Okay When It’s Not YOUR Daughter – Over the weekend, Karen Marie Moning’s terse “apology” Facebook post gave birth to some of the ugliest victim blaming, unquestioning author idolization, and denial/minimizing of facts that we’ve seen in a while. And while some curious pockets of silence still exist in the online community, especially among authors, more are speaking out. I have chosen to lead with this piece from 38 Caliber Reviews because it provides a good chronicle of the situation and links to a number of other posts, including those by/at Bibliodaze, Jenny Trout, Jeanine Frost, and The Gilded Earlobe. There’s also this post from Red Hot Books and one from Melanie Simmons. Also Has from Bookpushers and Tori from Smexybooks. Authors who have spoken out are being one-starred on Goodreads, and apparently the site is now removing reviews that address the KMM/Gigante incident (let’s face it, they have a history of that crap). I know there are more links that I am missing, and I will update the post as I find them. Feel free to post links below, as well.
In a genre that claims to be pro-women and sex positive, the victim blaming and minimizing we’ve seen over the past days undermines and contradicts nearly every positive claim readers and authors like to make about Romance. And the message that’s being sent to girls and young women — girls and young women who may even be reading Romance — is that their safety and integrity doesn’t matter, and that we aren’t going to defend and protect them if it means we can’t have our favorite audio narrator work on a book. Which is so important in comparison with the safety of children. Or if a favorite author assures us that she knows “the facts” that “he did not do what he was charged with,” allowing her fans to almost giddily trash, unimpeded, the reputation of a 14-year old child, on the basis of absolutely nothing. To say that it (and the attendant silence) reflects poorly on the Romance community is an understatement of epic proportion.
Also, this situation with Gigante was kept quiet for at least six months (he was arrested in July after a seven-month investigation), and some people in the publishing and audiobook industry had to know what was going on. Given the fact that Gigante was narrating everything from Romance novels to Christian non-fiction, the silence was and continues to be extremely troubling. If you’re still catching up, here are the details on the felony charges and the plea deal. Note that his attorney is an expert in criminal sexual conduct cases. Note also that more than 9o% of federal and state criminal cases end in a plea bargain.
Ursula Le Guin Gives Insightful Writing Advice in Her Free Online Workshop – Regardless of her involvement with Authors United, no one can deny Ursula Le Guin’s influence on Science Fiction and Fantasy. And now you can see her online workshop, during which she responds to reader questions on everything from dialogue and description to getting a story off the ground.
Le Guin stated last year that she no longer has the “vigor and stamina” for writing novels, and having given up teaching as well, said she missed “being in touch with serious prentice writers.” Thus, she decided to start an online writing workshop at the site Book View Café, describing it as “a kind of open consultation or informal ongoing workshop in Fictional Navigation.” In keeping with the metaphor of sea voyaging, she called her workshop “Navigating the Ocean of Story” and declared that she would not take reader questions about publishing or finding an agent: “We won’t be talking about how to sell a ship, but how to sail one.” Reader questions poured in, and Le Guin did her best to answer as many as she could, posting advice every other Monday for all of the summer and much of the fall of 2015. – Open Culture
Human book project opens new chapter in Vancouver – Has anyone participated in a Human Library and checked out a “human book”? The idea of a 20-minute exchange is such a great idea, given how much people learn from traditional books.
The project is a part of the 2016 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, and allows library patrons to “check out” a human book for a 20-minute face-to-face chat.
“This is the fourth year we’ve done this project, so it’s amazing how much of a continued response we get,” said project co-ordinator Dave Deveau. “Anyone who’s been to the project in the past — they keep coming back.”
The first-ever Human Library is believed to have been started in 2000 in Copenhagen, Denmark, as a way to combat stereotypes. To date, human libraries have been hosted in 70 countries. – The Province
Thanks for writing about KMM and The Pedophile, the more light the better to disinfect the infection. I have been watching her protection of him for months, disgusted. And the “apology”? Please. That was her publicist finally talking her off the ledge when there was nowhere to go, but down with him. If I knew the allegations and the the outcome, certainly she did. Long story short, I haven’t bought her new book, not that the last was worth the cover price. But the point is I would have because I loved the world she built. Not ever again though for a woman who would protect a man who hurts a child.
*sigh* When I saw the cover of The Dispossessed, there was a moment when I thought 2016 had struck again.
I guess I’m going to come across as naive here, but aren’t the academy awards based on who gave the best? Performance, set design, music, whatever? Perhaps the film industry would be better served to complain about the overabundance of white actors? That’s just as senseless to me as this whole thing is.
Interesting article on the NYT: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/25/chris-rock-oscar-host-really-seems-to-hate-the-oscars/
And a recent list of black winners:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees
Also, Whoopie Goldberg (who I will state now, I can’t stand) has hosted the awards four times and was also the first woman to host. Odd how that hasn’t come up anywhere.
I realize I’m going to take a lot of flack for this, but I think there are more important things to concentrate on than whether or not a performance deserves an award because of color rather than the performance itself.
@theo: Check out the article from TIME I linked to in last week’s news about the Oscar’s lack of diversity: https://dearauthor.com/features/industry-news/wednesday-news-edgar-nominees-phil-gigante-oxford-literary-festival-resignation-and-oscars-lack-of-diversity/. Having a single black comedian host the awards more than once doesn’t undo decades upon decades of white male domination. That we can point to one or two non-white hosts is actually quite troubling, because they are exceptions to an unspoken rule.
As I said in the comments to the other post, the fact that the Awards are so overwhelmingly white is itself evidence of a racial bias. So the argument is actually that if the focus were simply on performance, you’d see more diversity in the nominations. Because it’s just not possible to legitimately argue that white people (especially men) are the most talented and give the best performances.
@Sara: Last week was the first I saw of this – where was the news circulating before that?
While I do not in any way condone KMM’s actions, I love her Fever series enough that I will continue to read them. I may check out the next books from the library instead of paying money for them, but as she herself did not commit the crimes, I still feel comfortable reading her series, which I love.
That being said, I also do not blame anyone who chooses to do otherwise. We all have our own limits, and make our own decisions on when we can no longer separate the artist from their work.
@Janet: I did look at that. I’m not discounting the fact that the majority of wins go to whites. However, as I said, the lack of diversity in the acting community plays a part in the nominations. When the majority of your community is white, your nominations will show that. That’s not racial bias. That’s a fact that cannot be ignored. Perhaps a better sampling of released movies with actors in a lead role who are white and who are black might be a better indicator. I don’t know. I do know that once an affirmative action plan is instituted, that will eventually end any credibility the awards might have had which is tenuous at best to begin with.
@Janet:
Yes, for months. He was arrested in July, agreed to a guilty plea in October, and was sentenced in December. It was in the news at each stage, and talked about on various blogs all along.
@theo: This has been a long time brewing and ties into a great deal more than just the nominations for this year. Allegations of Academy members not bothering to actually watch the potential nominees, a chunk of the roster in the branches of the Academy (voting on nominations is done by branches) don’t bother to vote, certain topics are almost always guaranteed to be “Oscar Bait.”
And that Sylvester Stalone would get a supporting nod for Creed but Michael B. Jordan not get a Best Actor nomination? That’s a head shaker.
Plus, the Oscars have never been primarily about honoring the best in film. The Academy was started in 1927 by Louis B. Mayer as a way to help diffuse the rumblings of organization among actors, directors and writers. That worked for less than a decade. By then, though, Hollywood, in the middle of its Dream Factory phase, had discovered that the Oscars bestowed extra glamor on their industry. And it was a show — voting done in blocks along studio lines, the winners handed out to the papers, who were supposed to hold it until after the ceremony had begun here in LA. The last stopped after 1940, when attendees walking into the ceremony at the Ambassador Hotel knew Gone With the Wind was the winner. (Bob Hope quipped it was nice of the Academy to give this benefit in David Selznik’s honor.) Oscar nominations can add dollars to a film’s box office because folks want to see what’s been nominated. Used to be that films were re-released if they were nominated or won. That happens less because of DVD releases, but it’s used in that marketing.
Are there films and performances that genuinely rise above and awards given to folks who genuinely deserve it? Yes. But it’s also about promoting the industry and there’s a lot of baggage there as well. I think the rule of reviewing membership status at ten-year intervals will help a number of issues with the awards overall by reducing the number of folks on the roles who aren’t active in the industry or with the Academy. It won’t solve them on its own, but it is an important step forward.
The whole KMM situation just makes me shake my head in disgust. I didn’t read her books before and I won’t read them now.
I understand she’s going to lose money on her audio backlist now because come on, do you really want to listen to a book that’s being narrated by a pedo? And I’m sorry her income will take a hit but at the same time this was a 14 year old child. Sure she’s a stranger to KMM but she’s a child. Only someone with a monstrous ego thinks their financial gain is more important than a child’s welfare.
And publicly victim blaming that child? Ugh.
Not to mention the fact that she’s got so much ego that she thinks that her word typed down from on high into facebook is somehow golden? Methinks someone’s been sniffing the bs coming out of her publicists mouth for too long. She’s confused her own hype with reality.
@Caro: I agree, but the problem is bigger than racism and the entire system is very broken. Pulling black actor nominations out of a myriad of things that need to be fixed is the wrong way to do it. Solidarity toward the non-voting, non-viewing-voters and the probably bribery is the way to change the system. This? This is a drop in the bucket and frankly, neither Spike Lee nor Jada Pinkett-Smith will be missed. That kind of boycott in a much larger problem won’t really solve anything. If you read through where the academy has discussed changes, there isn’t one right now that directly addresses the diversity issue and how they plan to solve it. And really, if they pulled out a category and highlighted it such as, oh, best black actor in a movie, how does that solve anything either? It doesn’t. It’s just another category to be messed with in a much bigger problem.
I don’t think, and this is just me, that overall this will solve anything. A month after the awards is over, nothing will be mentioned and it might get a two paragraph blurb next year on the changes they made and that’s it. Too many are still willing to go with the status quo to make the necessary changes.
@Patricia Eimer:
I couldn’t agree more – the ego she displayed is astounding. Who in their right mind backs that horse, omg…especially after he *admitted* doing it?
@theo I agree with you that lack of diversity in the acting community plays a part in the nominations. It certainly plays its part in the underlying problem. I don’t think that it explains all of it though. Let’s look at the numbers: According to this http://annenberg.usc.edu/sitecore/shell/Applications/~/media/PDFs/RaceEthnicity.ashx about three quarters of all speaking characters are white. That means the probability of randomly picking only white actors/actresses for the ten best actor/actress awards is equal to about 5.6 %. The chance of it happening two years in a row is then 0.32 %. If you increase this to include the ten supporting actor/actress nominations the chance of this happening is roughly 1 in 100 000.
Anyway, something is clearly rotten in the state of Hollywood. I, for one, don’t have any idea how to fix this.
Also, I have seen a lot of “well, there aren’t a lot of Oscar nods for non-white actors because there just aren’t roles for them!”, but that is clearly not true when you look at the fact that:
Concussion, Beasts of No Nation, Straight Outta Compton, and Creed all generated Oscar buzz and were critically acclaimed movies.
Concussion/Beasts of No Nation not nominated for anything. Admittedly, Beasts of No Nation could be more of the Oscars being snobby and not acknowledging Netflix movies.
Straight Outta Compton only nominated for best screenwriter-who was white.
Creed only nominated for Sylvester Stallone’s role.
And the only black person nominated for anything (I am fairly certain) was The Weeknd, for best song (the song he wrote for 50 Shades of Grey).
Additionally, last year Selma and Fruitvale Station (possibly other movies that I can’t remember) not receiving the Oscar love that people expected them to.
Saw a great piece on the Daily Show about how movies with black actors will only be nominated if it’s a slave narrative.
So while yes, there are not *nearly* enough roles for non-white people in Hollywood, the fact that movies that garnered Oscar buzz, were well-received by both critics and the public, were completely left out of the Oscars or were only nominated in categories that allowed them to nominate white men…seems suspicious.
And members of the Academy have admitted to not watching all the possible candidates for best picture, and when you consider that many of the members are white males over 60, it just seems like the movies they didn’t watch were going to be movies like Straight Outta Compton, which just isn’t fair.
/rant over
@Eve: Thus my comment which could have been phrased better on the overabundance of white actors. Or the overabundance of white parts if you will.
@theo:
The Oscarsowhite hashtag was started last year as a quick quippy thing on twitter when the 2014 oscar noms last year were overwhelming white too despite strong contenders by POC. It was resurrected again this year. National and Industry publications are writing articles and think pieces about it. Something that had been largely relegated to shrugs and rumbles on message boards and twitter has spread outward and has started a national conversation. And forced the Academy to change membership rules.
Sure, boycotting the Oscars won’t cause immediate change, but this isn’t happening in isolation. People are agitating about diversity across the Hollywood landscape. Matt Damon and Effie Brown’s eye-opening conversation about it on Project Greenlight happened, Viola Davis Emmy speech where she talks about “opportunities must be there” happened, John Boyega, Oscar Isaacs and Daisy Ridley happened. CBS announcing their new Nancy Drew will “not be white” happened.
Also, like you, a lot of people are aware that the Oscars are just the end of a long road. The real change needs to happen much earlier, like at what sorts of films get greenlit in the first place and which actors are given the opportunity to even audition for them. But those things have always been invisible to the public. The Oscars a a public, high profile representation of the problems with diversity in Hollywood and it is where the conversation starts. But if you look at statements by many others you’ll see the acknowledgement that they know this isn’t where the real work is.
Ditto to everything Patricia Eimer said.
@Sara: Do you remember which blogs? I’m sort of stunned that this didn’t break out in a bigger way until last week — at least, that was when Moning’s defense of Gigante was all over Twitter.
I couldn’t agree more with you and with Patricia Eimer. The victim blaming has gotten really ugly and I’ve even seen some KMM fans light into an author who publicly supported the victim for daring to criticize a known pedophile. I’m frankly stunned that KMM would support Gigante, even for a minute. Were I in her shoes, I would have begged my publisher to reissue my audiobooks with a new narrator. I have never read or listened to one of her books, but I don’t think I could listen to any book Gigante narrated now (regardless of who wrote it) without getting queasy.
@theo: I have to admit that it always frustrates me when the term “affirmative action” is used dismissively, because, as I’m sure you know, whites had a HUGE affirmative action program in the GI Bill, which not only contributed immensely to the rise of the white middle class in the US (and the unprecedented economic success and social mobility of the boomer generation), but which also didn’t happen “naturally.” There isn’t really a “naturally” where social constructions are concerned, because society is not a natural state.
The status quo is called that for a reason, and rarely, if ever, does it change without an outside catalyst. It’s not like women were given the vote just because everyone thought we deserved it. Ditto with pretty much every piece of civil rights legislation (a tremendous amount of work went into ensuring that Brown v. Board of Education was a unanimous decision, too). Systemic change is often a long process, as anyone in, say, educational reform, knows well, but if you look back at social history, you can see periodic interventions, affirmative actions, if you will, that challenged the status quo and incited change. What’s bad about that?
@Janet: The bad in this instance is: you tell me how affirmative action in the movie industry, one driven by box office receipts as much as anything else, is going to be implemented. Because it cannot be done in a way that doesn’t penalize someone else. Just like anything else it’s been implemented in. So no, I’m not using the term dismissively. I’m dismissing the term as a viable option. There’s a difference.
You can force screenwriters to write for blacks, you can force TPTB to back movies written for blacks, you cannot make the movie going public spend money to watch any movie. Period. So how will that affirmative action work? Because if you have a nominally grossing (at best) movie, or one that loses money, that was done under some kind of affirmative action plan, how then can anyone justify nominating that same movie in a variety of categories.
I’m not saying low grossing movies haven’t had brilliant performances. I’m asking what the criteria will be and where will it start and stop.
As to affirmative action in society, that’s a broken program for another time.
Navessa Allen reports her books are being bombed with 1 stars on Goodreads for speaking out on the Moning/Gigante mess
https://twitter.com/NavessaAllen/status/690985727396581378
How shameful and childish. Moning’s supporters are more than enough reason to shun her books, if they attract this kind of crowd.
@Ann Somerville: And this would be why I never go on Goodreads anymore. I couldn’t take the drama anymore. I also rarely scroll down far enough on Amazon or B&N to read any of the reviews.
@theo:
Way to miss the point, Theo.
@Ann Somerville: I agree with you! It’s childish and immature and ridiculous behavior. It does nothing for Moning except to expose her rabid fans and unless there’s some kind of explanation by the author they’re bombing, makes for confusing drama where none should exist. I’m sorry I didn’t spell that out. I just got sick of the drama on Goodreads and so didn’t see any of it. I don’t do twitter anymore for the same reason. I can get my fill of kids at work. I don’t need it after hours.
What did I do to you?
@theo:
Nothing, Theo. Just saying my post was not about Goodreads drama, but you made it all about that. There’s been enough deflection and distraction and misinformation about the Gigante thing, without adding more.
@Ann Somerville: Frankly, there isn’t anything else I could possibly add to the whole thing so my going on about it, or reading the drama on Goodreads is moot. Sorry I commented. And none of my comments are showing up so…
@theo: The steps the Academy Board has voted on are listed above, in the news post. How does adding three new seats to the Board penalize anyone? Actually, I thought that the proposed changes were pretty conservative, given the scope of the problems. But the possibility of bringing the Academy voting membership into the 21st century through broadening its scope may end up fostering change in other areas of the industry. Just look at how television has diversified over the past five to ten years. Not too many years ago, a good portion of the actors working in TV today would likely have turned their nose up at a series. Now you’ve got A-list film actors starring in prime time series, some even on network television, and more than a handful of amazing, popular shows that feature meaningfully diverse casts, including non-white leads (Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Empire, Jane the Virgin, etc.).
The current Academy voting system is most definitely penalizing writers, directors, actors, screenwriters, editors, audience members, etc. Currently, non-whites make up almost half of the US population, but they represent a disproportionately small percentage of nominees and awardees. The goal is not 1:1 parity, of course, but the current disparity is just embarrassing and, in its own way, a completely artificial result. It’s easy for those of us who have benefited from racial privilege, often without knowing it, to tell those who haven’t that they just need to be patient. But the fact that it’s primarily white members of the Academy feeling discriminated against is pretty ironic, since they’re more than comfortable telling the non-privileged folks that they just need to wait their turn.
@theo: I see all of your exchange with Ann, plus your comment about GR, and there’s nothing from you in the spam folder. Can you refresh your browser and check again? Let me know if you still see something missing.
@Janet: What does adding three seats have to do, in the long run, with making for voting equity? How does it change the overall face of the academy? It’s not the board. If anything is broken, it’s the voting, the nominations, the lack of parts for minorities of any kind whether in leads or supporting roles.
You mentioned that whites had a huge affirmative action in the GI bill which I want to address because of the reason they had the advantage. It was not made with whites in mind. Saying it was a white affirmative action diminishes it and its intended purpose. It was made with the idea that it would re-assimilate ALL GIs into civilian life. The problem with it was, the atmosphere in the country was not conducive to returning black service men and women. Segregation was alive and well and those few black colleges that were around didn’t have the accommodations accept everyone who applied.
Am I excusing any of this? Absolutely not. But the GI bill was not written for whites. It was written with good intentions that never transpired because it was far ahead of society’s acceptance. It took another 20 years to even see an inkling of the possibilities.
And the posts are finally showing up.
@theo:
In a prior life, I was a performer, and let me give you a scenario. My agent sent me on an audition for a voice over. The copy called for an African American professional women 30-35 and it was for a clothing store. I’m Black, I’m a woman–no problem right?
Wrong.
I read the copy and the director said that was great, let’s try that again, and make it a little more ‘urban’. Code words for I’m not Black enough or ghetto enough. But see, none of the Black women I know that work in professional settings speak Ebonics.
Those are the kinds of things actors speak of. Just because you’re a person of color doesn’t mean you can only be cast in an ethnic role. Many directors and those in charge of hiring and casting won’t even look at a person of color unless the role specifically calls for it.
And as difficult as it is for a Black actor, try being another ethnicity. It’s as if they don’t exist. No one is asking for anything ‘special’ or separate, just the opportunity.
And while authors are looking at Hollywood, how diverse are our books?
(stepping down from my soap box now)
@theo: Actually, the GI Bill *was* written for whites: http://www.demos.org/blog/11/11/13/how-gi-bill-left-out-african-americans. The issue that is so often forgotten in these discussions is that a lot of privilege is unconscious, or just so taken for granted as to not consider how those who don’t have access to the same social capital are being discriminated against. I think the same flaw in logic can be found in arguments that the Academy is just doing this for racial and ethnic minorities, when actually the goal is to level the playing field for everyone. Re. expanding the Academy Board, my question is who does it penalize? And I asked that because I think it’s indicative of most of the Academy’s proposed changes, which primarily seem focused on expanding and broadening membership and voting opportunities. In its own way, the Academy has been de facto segregated, and as so many whites who benefited from the GI Bill didn’t consider the African American vets who could not fully do so, many white Academy members just aren’t thinking about their own position of privilege and the ways in which that more easily replicates itself in ways that perpetuate discrimination, even if it’s not intentional or conscious. Even the law recognizes that discrimination can occur through intent or effect. In this case I think it’s largely effect, which also makes it easier for folks to dismiss or ignore (e.g. “but I didn’t mean it”).
@Janet: You need to read that again. It was NOT written for whites. It was written for ALL GIs. The problem was with how the atmosphere in this country carried out the intention of the bill. White colleges didn’t want to accept blacks. That wasn’t the bill’s fault! It was white America’s fault. Banks didn’t want to lend money to blacks. Schools didn’t want to educate the young in a white school so blacks were forced to live together in ‘black areas’ rather than integrate which was the original intention of the bill. To help all GIs.
Scenario: Your white, anglo-saxon daughter graduates at the top of her high school class. She aces her SATs, applies to the college of her dreams and is not accepted. But the girl who graduated with her, middle road student who scored mid-range on her SATs is accepted because she is a minority.
Who gets penalized by the affirmative action there? Are they accepting the ‘best and brightest?’ Or are they filling a quota.
Three seats on a board does not ‘level the playing field.’ especially when one has no way of knowing how those three seats would vote. Would they vote minority? Or best performance? Is the academy hoping those three seats will insure that whoever sits in them will vote ‘PC’ rather than honestly? If they’re filling a quota, they’re penalizing the remaining members.
Until you fix human nature, you’ll continue to have the same problems we’ve had for thousands of years. And no one has come up with a fix for human nature yet. And that’s the crux of the problem. No one will ever agree, there will always be those who refuse to accept, who sheep along, who don’t care if anything ever changes unless it benefits them. Three seats isn’t going to make a difference here. It’s a much bigger problem.
@theo: No, I don’t need to read it again. I’m perfectly aware that it wasn’t *intentionally* written to exclude African American GI’s. That’s my entire point, actually. That privilege often works so insidiously that these disparities are not being paid attention to until there’s an incident or a protest or a crisis that reveals all the ways in which something like the GI Bill didn’t serve all vets, because it wasn’t written with appropriate consideration of existing segregation and economic disparities.
Don’t even get me started on the “quota” issue, but suffice it to say that I could literally write a dissertation on that, and could furnish you more than 100 sources at this very moment examining all the reasons why the quota argument in higher education is speciously incorrect. Read Bowen and Bok’s The Shape of the River if you want to see merely one example. Or Patricia Gurin’s expert testimony for the Michigan cases, detailing the enhanced learning outcomes that accrue to all students when the student body is more diverse (white students, especially, benefit, which makes the resistance so ironic): http://diversity.umich.edu/admissions/legal/expert/gurintoc.html. Or Lani Gainer’s excellent book, The Tyranny of the Meritocracy: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/03/qa-lani-guinier-about-her-new-book-college-admissions. Merit, the word adored by the folks who are worried about quotas, has changed definition so many times it’s not funny. In fact, its original meaning is related to the ability to serve society, not to some kind of inborn intelligence or aptitude. I happen to relish that irony.
I haven’t delved deeply in the KMM and Gigante situation, but I thought her support of him was due to the fact she considered him a friend and didn’t want to believe it rather than a concern of finances. Not excusing any victim blaming but it is a distinction.
@Janet: “As I said in the comments to the other post, the fact that the Awards are so overwhelmingly white is itself evidence of a racial bias. So the argument is actually that if the focus were simply on performance, you’d see more diversity in the nominations.”
The movie industry as long been stigmatized by a lack of diversity, including along gender and racial lines, and so I’m satisfied to see criticism take place on such a public scale, if for no other reason than it gets people thinking and talking. Diversity benefits everyone and we are long overdue for significant changes.
@Janet: I’ll pass on reading that. The scenario I mentioned? We lived it. With the University of Michigan. Our home state college. I’ve seen the arguments as well.
White privilege wasn’t insidious. I watched the Alabama integration. I saw George Wallace standing on the steps. That wasn’t insidious. That was blatant. It came to a head then, but it had been brewing for over 100 years. The problem is that the bill was written in such a way that it was unenforceable for those who really needed it. I agree with that. Men (and women) returned from the war thinking things had changed in this country with regard to race. They’d been promised many things. That’s where the real problem with the GI bill started. Fairness for all! Return and we’ll give you this and that! Unfortunately, you can change a law, but you can’t force a person to change. Nothing changed. And it was all still ‘in your face.’ Which is my whole point about the academy. They can do all the window dressing they want, but it won’t change a person’s inside. So who benefits from that?
@theo: But it wasn’t just social inequality that disadvantaged African American GI’s, – it was also legal and political discrimination. That very argument about political and social equality is what undergirded the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson to maintain “separate but equal” accommodations. Had the Supreme Court done the right thing in 1896 and abolished segregated accommodations, Brown may not even have been necessary. Because you often need political equality to allow for social equality to even take shape. Which is why I appreciate that a governing organization like the Academy has decided to change its policies.
Re the Michigan case, I think what a lot of people don’t know is that these top tier institutions are NOT going for students who are ineligible for admission under non-race-conscious policies. What they’re generally doing is choosing from among students who are within the eligibility range, but who may excel in different areas, all of which enhance the campus community and set the student up for academic success (which is exactly what Bowen and Bok found in their study of almost 50K students in selective institutions). All of these students are the cream of the crop of high school graduates to begin with. Not to mention that the predictive value of the SAT and ACT on college grades is ridiculously low. I get that your frame for this is that a student is accepted “because she is a minority,” but that just isn’t how it works. If an institution like U of M can accept outstanding athletes who may not have come in with stellar SAT scores and GPA’s, why aren’t people screaming about discrimination against their un-athletic 4.0, perfect SAT children? We sanction universities to value all sorts of admissions criteria beyond perfect grades and SAT scores – as long as the applicants are white. As soon as you have a non-white applicant, it become all about race.
My brother, original writer of the movie Sweet Home Alabama and scriptwriting teacher at Pasadena Center of the Arts, wrote this post on the #OscarSoWhite controversy from an insider’s perspective: http://letsschmooze.blogspot.com/
Short version: “There will be more diverse nominees when there is more diversity in casting in prestige movies. The big question is how to achieve that. “
@Theo & Janet
There’s plenty of affirmative action for whites, called legacy admissions. I got into a top 10 college because my mother went there in the ’50s. I had decent SATs and mediocre grades, I’m sure they skipped over someone with better metrics to admit me. One of the kids in the HS my son goes to had atrocious grades and pretty good SATs and got into a school that regularly rejected kids without a better GPA and said in their admissions patter that if your GPA wasn’t above a 3, you pretty much won’t get in. This kid was the son of an alum and the nephew of another — and got in.
Legacy admissions reflect who was accepted 25-30 years ago. There’s a higher priority on 3 generations, reflecting the admission decisions of 50 years ago. That is affirmative action for whites.
Next, the purpose of college admissions is not to give a prize to the HS student with the best resume, but to pick the winners of the future. If you have one student whom you believe was probably tutored to get high scores on the SAT and another who probably wasn’t, does that mean the first student is a better student?
Further, the benefits of past bias linger a long, long time. When I worked for the Department of Labor in the late 80s, most of my colleagues were white, male Vietnam vets. The vets had preference in hiring and firing, so they’d survived the Reagan axe. In the 60s, when they were hired, perhaps there was bias in hiring, perhaps there were few black vets with a college education. But the composition of the workforce reflected the hiring in the 60s. The guys with good gov’t jobs could afford to live in the suburbs and send their kids to good schools. Where did the children of the African-Americans who didn’t get hired go to school? In Boston, during the disaster the bussing of the 70s made of the school system? When the children of the white gov’t workers and the AAs who didn’t get hired apply to college, who is going to look like a better candidate? The one who took AP courses at a good public school? Or the one who survived an inner city school system convulsed with racism, desegregation, and institutional neglect?
Back to the Oscars, I think that a big part of the problem is the number and quality of roles for black actors. Unlike affirmative action for colleges, which is prospective (who would benefit most from an education at the college) Oscars are looking back at movies already made.
@Janet: Like I said, that scenario I gave earlier was us. My daughter. We did scream. At the top of our lungs. Know what we were told? Oh well, no one will do anything for you anyway because, hey! Affirmative Action! So been there, done that. And I think you’re very unrealistic if you think that’s not how it works. Especially since we lived it for four months, first hand, and heard all the reasons and excuses. When I asked flat out what would have happened had she put her ethnicity on her application rather than ‘white’, I was told things probably would have turned out differently. How’s that? They’re going to fill their quotas.
If the playing field was even as far as grades and test scores go, there wouldn’t have been any issue at all. But the problem with affirmative action is that they playing field is NOT level. So who gets penalized?
@Chris Eboch: @SAO: Chris and SAO, I agree! I said that in one of my first posts. There are few quality/great leading roles for non-whites. More so women than men, I think, but still. The problem is though, how do you correct that? Do you write to a color/ethnicity? You can, but you cannot force the public to watch them. And there lies the rub. And the awards are driven as much by the receipts as anything else. I have not looked at all, but I have to wonder how many movies that were remade with a black cast have done really well at the box office.
One very interesting thing with all of this, the diversity on Broadway is so much better than Hollywood and the awards seem to be truly given for performance, but that’s just an observation on my part. So, what’s the difference there? (rhetorical question, that)
I did not have to participate in the whole bussing fiasco because we were out of the mileage range. However, other family members who were not out of that range did. It was not…conducive to amicable relations in any way and should never have been done in the first place. Those memories and biases are still around, unfortunately. I think it will be several more generations before they’re not.
And that whole, My daddy was a graduate here, I should automatically get accepted, is in full force. We were also told that. “Well, had you or your husband graduated from here, there of course, would not have been any question.”
@theo: Okay, I’m really curious now.
What’s your point? All I hear you saying is “Well, the Academy’s proposed remedy won’t 100% fix the problem, so it’s bad.” Even if it doesn’t “fix” anything, do you think the proposed changes are “bad” in themselves? Who do they hurt?
I sympathize with you and your daughter. Guess what? The EXACT same thing happened to my daughter! Absolutely perfect scores, academic awards, not accepted to the school of her dreams, while a “less qualified” candidate got in.
You know what her reaction was? Disappointment, sure, jealousy and a little anger. But she also was wise enough (wiser than her parents, actually) to say, “Well, it’s true I had better grades and scores. But [classmate] was really active in the drama club, and put in a lot of volunteering hours that I didn’t. Meanwhile, I got a full scholarship to this other school; let’s see how I can learn everything I can there, and also make sure I put a lot of effort not only into academics, but also other activities and service.”
(Oh, and now this daughter is at an *extremely* prestigious graduate school. She’ll do just fine.)
But back to the original topic, lack of diversity at the Academy Awards. If you’re saying “Don’t trying ANYthing unless it instantly reverses all the problems in the industry, stemming from centuries of systemic racism, while at the same time making sure that everyone who has ever benefited from that system, even unwittingly, retains their unfair advantages” …
… well, I’d really love to hear YOUR proposals.
Because otherwise, you’re voting in favor of the status quo.
@Theo:
I think some of the issue with black actors is global distribution and playing to the lowest common denominator. Further, the last thing Hollywood wants is for the Chinese, Indians or Russians to decide they’d rather watch their own movies than contributing to Hollywood’s bottom line.
But do we want to reward Hollywood for making stuff that panders to prejudice in other countries, that has less dialogue and plot complexity so it is easy to dub or translate?
@hapax: I really don’t know how to respond to you other than to say I’m sorry that you’re so vehemently angry with me for what, I don’t know, but if you have ideas, I’d love to hear them. I asked what’s the better way to fix the Hollywood problem. And that’s nice for your daughter. But that wasn’t our scenario. Each one is different, thank you.
Sheesh!
@SAO: No, of course not. I don’t know the answer, like I said. I just don’t see three seats making a difference. I commented far above here that human nature being what it is, do you fill those seats with honesty? Or do you fill them simply with affirmative action? Because anyone in one of those seats can say, I am totally honest and open minded and will promote this or that, when in reality, they have their own agenda and nothing changes.
I don’t know the answer, but my opinion, which is like a nose, is that this isn’t going to make a difference.
And really, I think the ‘black actor syndrome’ if you will is only a visible picture of a much bigger problem. Someone else mentioned it above. Where’s our own diversity in what we read and write? Just like you can’t force a reader to pick up something that doesn’t interest them, you also can’t force a movie goer to watch what they don’t care for and can’t force someone voting to cast it for what the academy wants them to.
And I think I’m done responding here.
I’ve noticed a lot more people bitterly complaining about suspected affirmative action (that black kid with the not as good scores might have written a killer essay) than the people complaining about preferences for alums, which largely benefits wealthier whites. If a parent went to Harvard, a student has 4 times the chance of being admitted than if the parents didn’t go to Harvard.
That rewards privilege.
@SAO: “I’ve noticed a lot more people bitterly complaining about suspected affirmative action (that black kid with the not as good scores might have written a killer essay) than the people complaining about preferences for alums, which largely benefits wealthier whites.”
Great point! Whiteness is still the norm in terms of status in our country, and it can be difficult for people to see the ways in which racism permeates institutionally.