film Q&As
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MaryannErigha.pptxMaryann Erigha
“Black, Asian, and Latino Directors in Hollywood”
Maryann Erigha
Maryann Erigha utilizes Chris Rock’s 2014 essay in The Hollywood Reporter to discuss the dearth of Black, Asian, and Latino directors in Hollywood. One of Rock’s main points is that “you’ve got to try” to maintain a “racially homogeneous workforce in an area that boasts residents from an array of racial and ethnic backgrounds.” (59)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/top-five-filmmaker-chris-rock-753223
Maryann Erigha
She then lists the U.S. Census figures for Los Angeles County in 2013:
Black – 9.2%
Asian – 14.6%
White – 27.2%
Latino - 48.3%
When 72% of the population in Los Angeles are racial minority groups, this does indeed suggest “the film industry does, in fact, try exceedingly hard to be racially exclusive.” (59)
Maryann Erigha
Hollywood remains racially homogeneous in “upper-management positions” and “in all areas behind-the-scenes and on-screen employment, with Whites monopolizing the production of popular culture, while groups constituting the racial majority in Los Angeles remain on the fringes.” (59)
Erigha’s study considers “over 1700 Hollywood films distributed by Hollywood studios and theatrically released to U.S. cinemas between 2000 and 2011.” (60)
Maryann Erigha
With the set of films (over 1700), Black, Asian, and Latino directors helmed 13% of those films with the breakdown as follows:
Black directors – 7.5%
Asian directors – 3%
Latino directors - <2%
“There are marked differences in whether directors of different races are American-born or foreign-born.” (61)
Maryann Erigha
“In general, Hollywood far more often draws on narratives from foreign-born Latino and Asian directors than from Latinos and Asians born the U.S. Meanwhile, the industry disseminates more stories told by African Americans born in the U.S. and fewer stories of Africans abroad in the diaspora.” (61)
What types of ideologies are operating to make this so?
Notice that directors of African descent born outside of the U.S. direct stories that specific to the U.S. and NOT the diaspora. Erigha considers the following titles Pride (2007) a Black swim team in Philadelphia, PA; Just Wright (2010), an African American romantic comedy; The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008) friendships among young women; and My Baby’s Daddy (2004) a groups of slackers must change because their girlfriends are pregnant.
Maryann Erigha
“Numerous popular Latino directors who have films distributed by Hollywood studios were born outside of the U.S.”: (61)
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2005), The Others (2001)
Guillermo del Toro – Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). He wins Best Director and Best Film Oscars for The Shape of Water (2017)
“The majority of Asian directors had birthplaces outside of the U.S. – in China, Japan, and Hong Kong, while a smaller contingent of directors were from Thailand, Taiwan, India, or various other countries.” (61)
Maryann Erigha
With the majority of Asian and Latino directors being foreign-born, one may think African American directors would have an opportunity for greater impact on “contributing to the Hollywood cinematic narrative.” But the participation and access of African Americans in “all aspects of production remains…limited.” (61)
In addition to these unfortunately statistics, Erigha finds “there was a declining inclusion of Black, Asian, and Latino directors over the 12-year period between 2000 and 2011, as their share of directing opportunities decreased during the latter years, especially between 2009 and 2011.” (61)
Maryann Erigha
Unfortunately based on the limited number of Black, Asian, and Latino directors, other challenges arise such as “fewer [directors from these groups] direct movies distributed by core studios [major studios – Sony, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Warner Brothers, and Disney] compared to noncore studios.” (62)
On a positive note, Erigha found that “other studios are generally more inclusive [of], although they, too, fall short of employing a percentage of Black, Asian, and Latino directors that would match or exceed the level at which they are represented in the general population.” (62)
Maryann Erigha
In addition to these institutional barriers, Erigha finds that “major studios are unwilling to spend large amounts of marketing and promotion or widely exhibit [the films of directors of color] across theaters nationwide.” (63)
Production budgets are “stratified by the director’s race” (average budgets): (63)
Asian directors – $41 million
Latino directors – 34.5 million
Black directors – $28 million
White directors – $46 million
Maryann Erigha
Erigha posits that “racial groups are segregated into specific film genres and virtually excluded from others.” (64)
“Black directors’ overrepresentation in the music genre is likely a consequence of their tendency to be excluded from presumed intellectually minded SF genres and typecast within the entertainment and performance fields where they are assumed, stereotypically so, to have innate talents and abilities.” (65)
Asian directors are “most represented in the horror/thriller genre” with Hollywood seemingly having a “propensity to concentrate the inclusion of Asian directors into a niche market.” (65)
Maryann Erigha
Erigha includes intersectionality in her study and the numbers here are even worse.
White men – 82%; White women – 6%
Black men – 6%; Black women – <1%
Asian men – 2%; Asian women – <1%
Latino men – 1%; Latina women – <1%
Few women of color are “able to sustain careers directing multiple films.” (65)
Maryann Erigha
Gina Prince-Bythewood and Kasi Lemmons are exceptions to this rule.
Prince-Bythewood: Love & Basketball (2000); The Secret Life of Bees (2008); Beyond the Lights (2014)
Kasi Lemmons: The Caveman’s Valentine (2001); Talk to Me (2007); Harriet (2019)
Female-directed films are more likely to be distributed by noncore Hollywood studios.
Maryann Erigha
Erigha concludes that the lack of Black, Asian, and Latino directors means they have limited ability to “construct images and characters that appear in mainstream media… . Furthermore, their placement in restricted genres raises the issue of which roles they are able to penetrate behind the scenes and which roles still remain elusive for them to occupy.” (67)
The near exclusion of these groups from the more lucrative genres translates to “contemporary racial ideologies” remaining in place and reaffirming the “status quo of a White power structure, rather than offer nuanced characters derived from a diverse set of cultural creators.” (67)
Maryann Erigha
Erigha observes that having “more filmmakers from diverse racial/ethnic groups working on cultural products in a variety of genres will move use closer to ensuring that on-screen images more appropriately reflect the desires and worldview of diverse audiences.” Yet it is discouraging that despite the growing diversity in Los Angeles that Hollywood studios appear to be impervious to incorporating it into their organizations. (67)
She suggests that these groups not having a substantial voice in “the construction and manufacturing of mainstream culture prevents underrepresented groups from exerting their influence on what is at present a monolithic representation in America.” (67)
Maryann Erigha
Erigha names this inability as a “denial of citizenship rights, including the right to produce and be recognized in the nation’s dominant cultural myths, narratives, and images.” (67)
She also notes that “Black, Latino, and Asian audiences are being shortchanged – paying more proportionally for movies, but not receiving their comparable piece of the pie in exchange in the back end.” (68)
