Such a claim adds fuel to a possibility of a black James Bond played by Idris Elba – a British actor of Sierra Leonean extraction. Hollywood has, by tradition, centred on making films that exalt white supremacy, perhaps due to vanishingly few coloured film writers and directors to make a claim of the supremacy of people of colour.
The trends at Hollywood show that the film industry is nowhere on the brink of attaining gender and racial diversity. Most pictures are rooted centrally in stereotypes, which normalised inequality and reinforces prejudice.
It is incredible that Steve McQueen (a black American) made “12 Years A Slave.” Still, the film does not truly counterbalance the power that Margaret Mitchell’s (a white American) “Gone with the Wind” has won over the world’s feelings regarding the implications of racism and slavery. Yet, it has a truer sense of diverse cultural artefacts and is deferentially appreciated by the diverse global audience.
McQueen’s “12 Years A Slave,” which eventually won the Academy Award for Best Picture (the first ever awarded to a film by a black director), raked in $56.7 million at the box office. In contrast, movies that front white supremacy against anti-black bigotry tend to perform much better in the US than globally, despite failing to claim mass phenomena. Take examples of “The Help,” which raked in $169.7 million in the US alone in 2011, and Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” that made $182.2 million in 2012.
Due to rapid globalisation, TV networks will need to begin deciphering how to survive in a world where niche appeal may be their lone option. Perhaps the issue of diversity in front of the camera offers a ‘way forward.’ In fact, Hollywood Diversity Report shows that movies with 21-30 percent diversity attained a global median box-office sum of $160 million, while those with less than 10 percent diversity attained some $68.5 million. In trying to plough a dedicated diverse audience, both Fox TV and now ABC TV, which produce most TV series today, emphasize diversity in front of the camera. In more than half of the films cast in 2011, only 10 percent had minorities.
Still, there is a concern Fox and ABC’s strategy is not yet feasible. The number of blacks with any form of creative control or authority in the entertainment industry is windingly low. The 2014 Hollywood Writers’ Report established that racial minorities in the US held less than 11 percent of TV writing jobs in 2012. The people of colour write just about five percent of the movies.
The constrained diversity creates a vicious cycle that practically cements marginalization of diverse talent in the film industry. Such unbridgeable disparity does not bode well, in an age of globalisation, for the future of the Hollywood industry.
In TV, the income gap between the median salaries for all minority writers and the median figures for white male writers stood at $21,150. In movies, the gap is estimated at $30,000. In 2013, the men of colour directed 14 percent of episodes, while women of colour direct a mere 2%. In a review of 500 top-grossing movies released five years towards 2012, of the 565 people credited as movie directors, below 6 percent were blacks.
