Presenting the Videos of Transforming Hollywood 7: Diversifying Entertainment Conference

Today, I am happy to share with you the videos capturing our Oct. 21 event, Transforming Hollywood 7: Diversifying Entertainment, hosted by the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, in partnership with our colleagues in UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s Producers Program. The event was organized by Denise Mann, Henry Jenkins, and Stacy Smith and sponsored by JK Foundation, Fusion/Univision, George Foster Peabody Foundation, and the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. The day was incredibly rich, full, and generative, so we are hoping that the discussions captured here can provide resources for others who are exploring issues of diversity and inclusion in the entertainment industry. Final conversation with Melissa Rosenberg, Series Creator/Showrunner, Marvel’s Jessica Jones, was not recorded at the request of the speaker, but everything else is here. WELCOME Ernest J. Wilson III, Dean, Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism Denise Mann, Head of the Producers Program, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education, University of Southern California

STATE OF THE FIELD

Stacy L. Smith, Director, Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative, Associate Professor of Communication, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

In February 2016, the Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative at USC Annenberg released the Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity (CARD). The CARD report examined films, television and digital offerings of 10 major media companies from 2014-2015. Looking across gender, race/ethnicity and LGBT status, the study provides a look at what its author, Dr. Stacy L. Smith, calls an “epidemic of invisibility” in media. Dr. Smith will present findings from the CARD report and her most recent studies to give attendees a glimpse of the current state of entertainment media and the progress still needed.

PANEL 1: WHY DOES INCLUSION MATTER?

Moderator: Robeson Taj Frazier, Director of the Institute for Diversity and Empowerment at Annenberg (IDEA); Associate Professor, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

After hearing about the dismal representation of marginalized groups in entertainment, one question remains: What can be done? As the conversation on diversity and inclusion continues to escalate, several voices stand out from the crowd with solutions, strategies and attempts to address disparities. This session brings together industry members and experts to discuss four essential topics. First, the panel will address why inclusive entertainment matters. Second, individuals will discuss the underlying causes at the heart of why under- or skewed-representation persists. Third, the group will overview what efforts are underway in Hollywood to effect change. Fourth, panelists will cover the challenges that remain and the work still needed to increase representation on screen and behind the camera.

PANELISTS:

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Head of Equity and Inclusion, Pearl Street Productions Bertila Damas, Actor and National Chair of the Ethnic Employment Opportunities Committee, SAG-AFTRA Melissa Goodman, Director of the LGBTQ, Gender and Reproductive Justice Project, ACLU of Southern California Danny Woodburn, Actor, Vice Chair SAG AFTRA Performers with Disability Committee, Member International Council on Disability, Ruderman Family Foundation

PANEL 2: WHAT ALTERNATIVES DOES SOCIAL MEDIA OFFER?

Moderator: Denise Mann, Co-director, Transforming Hollywood; Professor and Head of the Producers Program, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television

This panel explores social media as a powerful tool for artists, activists and influencers to express their voices of diversity and dissent outside the Hollywood mainstream. Social influencers are a new breed of online creator whose ability to thrive in the platform economy depends on their facility with social media connectivity to amass a dedicated following of online users. Fans who become invested in a favorite artist or musician can help spread their messages of change across an exponentially wider circle of social media communities. While guaranteed a paycheck via “work-for-hire” contracts, Hollywood talent lack essential power and agency because they don’t control the copyright for their artistic work. In contrast, actor-creator-entrepreneurs such as Freddie Wong and Issa Rae are running mini-studios of their own making and retaining part or full ownership of their creations; at the same time, they must use a variety of social media tools to keep their voices heard above the din of clickbait and app fatigue. This new breed of online creator also needs powerful advocates: TV showrunners who understand how to navigate the Hollywood system; talent managers who know how to connect creators with alternative voices to their fans; and tech experts who can tweak algorithms so that streaming content aggregators serve artists as well as platform founders. Welcome to the platform economy.

PANELISTS:

Troy Carter, Founder, Atom Factory; Global Head, Creative Services, Spotify Bambi Haggins, Associate Professor, Arizona State University; author Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post-Soul America Prentice Penny, Executive Producer/Showrunner, HBO’s Insecure (based on Issa Rae’s web series, The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl) Freddie Wong, Director, Co-Founder and CEO, RocketJump; online video pioneer and VFX artist

PANEL 3: HOW DO WE CHANGE THE SCRIPT?

Moderator: Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education, University of Southern California

Within the entertainment industry, genre conventions help to shape what stories get told and how productions get promoted and marketed. Many of today’s creators find themselves pushing against taken-for-granted assumptions and long-standing formulas, and as a consequence, often fall back on old tropes and stereotypes. Both realist and fantastical genres offer opportunities for “changing the script” but they also bring historical baggage — old ideas about race, gender, sexuality and disability. The news media like to focus on the white male backlash in fandom but many active fans are embracing these changes and, indeed, modeling through their creative responses what more diverse genre entertainment might look like. Activists are asking critical questions about the ways even more diverse and inclusive productions fall short of our hopes. So, how do we change the script? How do we embrace new stories? How do we tell the old stories differently? And what role can the fantastical or speculative genres perform in imagining alternatives to current racial realities?

PANELISTS:

Grace L. Dillon, Professor, Indigenous Nations Studies Program, Portland State University; Editor, Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Writer/Producer, Lost, The Middle Man, The 100, Xena: Warrior Princess Nakul Dev Mahajan, Dancer/Choreographer, So You Think You Can Dance Dodai Stewart, Executive Editor and Director of Culture Coverage, Fusion Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Young Adult Writer; Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania Phil Yu, Founder/Editor: Angry Asian Man

A gliche cut off the very beginning of this program, but the core is here.

PANEL 4: HOW DO WE MOVE FROM STEREOTYPES TO MORE COMPLEX CHARACTERS?

Moderator: Maureen Ryan, Chief Television Critic, Variety; Juror, Peabody Awards

The challenge of creating more diverse representations often centers on the construction of characters. It is not enough to put diverse faces in front of the camera: We need to depict those characters with nuance and complexity, in ways that audiences will recognize from their own lives, in ways that inspire their imaginations. Where does the responsibility rest for generating compelling characters in contemporary popular entertainment? What roles do producers, writers and actors play in defining who these people are, what they desire, how they react, what goals they pursue and what relationships they form? And how should we respond when bad things happen to good characters, when subsequent production decisions undercut or marginalize characters whose presence is particularly significant for underrepresented segments of the population?

PANELISTS:

Evelyn Alsultany, Associate Professor; Director of Arab and Muslim American Studies Program, University of Michigan; author of Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 Desmin Borges, Actor, You’re the Worst Effie Brown, Producer, Dear White People Kathy Le Backes, Vice President of Research and Development, Wise Entertainment Melissa Silverstein, Founder and Publisher, Women and Hollywood Jeff Yang, VP of Cultural Strategy, Sparks & Honey