Progression 3

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

27 October 2015

Summary: Single Mothers And The Cycle of Poverty

In the podcast, “Single Mothers And The Cycle of Poverty,” the interviewee, Olivia Golden, who is the executive director of CLASP (Center for Law and Social Policy) refers to the story of Jennifer Stepp, a single mother of three children, all from separate fathers. Golden claims that Stepp is luckier than most single mothers because she has a steady, full-time job, and she is provided with benefits like medical support, food support, and childcare that many women in her situation unfortunately do not have. Golden argues that the most important goal of any single mother is to “make sure that [her] kids have a secure life,” and that we as a nation have to make sure they achieve that goal by giving them more opportunities to better paying jobs and government funded entitlements and benefits.

Golden, Olivia. "Single Mothers And The Cycle Of Poverty." Interview by Robert Siegel. NPR. NPR, 11 July 2012. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.

Here I changed my topic to racial discrimination in the movie and TV industries.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

3 November 2015

Article Summary: Race and the Safe Hollywood Bet

In the article, “Race and the Safe Hollywood Bet,” Brooks Barnes, a media journalist for the New York Times, reports that many all-black cast movies tend to fail at the box office, and he claims that the two most successful African American actors, Will Smith and Denzel Washington, made that list because they acted in roles that could have been played by white men. To give credibility to his argument, Brooks used statistics such as the box office revenue numbers from specific movies and quotes from an interview with the executive director of the NAACP’s Hollywood Bureau. I find this article to closely resemble my opinion of African American representation and reception in movies.

Barnes, Brooks. "Race and the Safe Hollywood Bet." The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 Oct. 2008. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

3 November 2015

Article Summary: Can a White Director Make a Great Black Movie?

In the article, “Can a White Director Make a Great Black Movie?,” John Singleton, director of Boyz n the Hood and 2 Fast 2 Furious, argues that movies about African Americans that do not involve black filmmakers differ significantly with those that do. Singleton believes that non-black directors are capable of making excellent movies in this genre, but they need to hire black people behind the scenes to ensure its accuracy. Singleton effectively delivers his argument with examples of African American movies with white and black directors, and among those directed by white people he listed ones that did and did not involve black writers or filmmakers. I found this article interesting because of the claim Singleton made that “the rhythm and cadence in which we [African Americans] carry ourselves among one another is totally alien to most non-blacks,” and because of this I can neither agree nor disagree with the article.

Singleton, John. "John Singleton: Can a White Director Make a Great Black Movie? (Guest Column)." The Hollywood Reporter. The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Sept. 2013. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

3 November 2015

Article Summary: Hollywood’s Whiteout

In the article, “Hollywood’s Whiteout,” Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, two film critics for the New York Times, believe that the subsiding of America’s racial barriers—particularly the election of Barack Obama as president—has actually made African Americans less prevalent in movies. Dargis and Scott claim that since there is a black man in the Oval Office, Hollywood filmmakers generally do not feel the need to cast as many blacks in their movies as before. Dargis and Scott deliver their argument by showing that 2010’s movies were predominantly white cast, and they referred to movies in the 1960s that were more progressive than today’s films. I believe that, for the most part, this feeling that there is enough representation of black people in movies has subsided, and directors are casting more and more African Americans in non-race specific roles each year.

Dargis, Manohla, and A. O. Scott. "Hollywood’s Whiteout." The New York Times. The New York Times, 12 Feb. 2011. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

5 November 2015

Argument and Analysis

In the article titled “TV Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings—About Time or Too Much of a Good Thing?”, Nellie Andreeva, Co-Editor-in-Chief at Deadline Hollywood, claims that nowadays TV shows are casting more and more African American actors, so much so that Caucasian actors are being left out of many casting decisions of non-race specific roles. Andreeva argues that TV shows are trying to fulfill “ethnic quotas” by casting non-white lead actors, even if their top choice is white. Andreeva recognizes that since there are significantly fewer black actors that are regularly cast than white actors, that there is a much smaller pool of talented and experienced black actors to choose from, and she uses that fact to support her claim that many of these actors and actresses that are being cast would not perform as well as their white counterparts.

The majority of Andreeva’s article consists of her listing off several TV in recent years that have cast non-white actors as their leading roles. She identifies a handful of African American led hit shows such as Empire, How to Get Away With Murder, and Black-ish, a few with a Hispanic lead role like Shades of Blue and Jane the Virgin, and one show about an Asian family titled Fresh Off the Boat. Then, she begins to make her argument that “the pendulum might have swung a bit too far in the opposite direction,” because “there has been a significant number of parts designated as ethnic this year, making them off-limits for Caucasian actors.”

I do not agree with Andreeva’s point of view on this topic at all. Myself being a Caucasian male, I will admit that while reading this article, some parts started to persuade me to empathize with her thinking, but after some thought of my own I realized that Andreeva was using pathos in lieu of any real logic. The first several paragraphs of her article were spread out to make the reader think that there are a lot of shows with non-white lead actors, when in reality it is only a handful compared to the amount of shows out right now. The fact is that white lead roles still take up a large majority of American TV shows. Another flaw is when Andreeva mentions that the amount of experienced minority actors is very limited compared to white actors, she is subtly admitting that she believes non-white actors are less talented than white actors. This is an incredibly racist and completely untrue claim, to say the least. Andreeva also insists that Hollywood is requiring ethnic quotas in casting instead of looking for the most talented actors. She packs this claim with emotionally loaded words to make it sound worse than it is, but all these shows are doing are trying to do is accurately represent the population of different ethnicities in the setting in which the show takes place. Even still, minorities take up a very small percentage of lead roles in TV shows.

Nellie Andreeva’s article makes very problematic and false claims about the diversity of actors in TV shows. She received a significant amount of backlash from people on Twitter and many other social mediums, and has since apologized and removed the question in the article’s headline. She remains in her position as Co-Editor-in-Chief at Deadline Hollywood, and continues to write articles relating to television.

Andreeva, Nellie. “TV Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings—About Time or Too Much of a Good Thing?.” Deadline Hollywood. Deadline Hollywood, 24 March 2015. Web. 05 November 2015.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

10 November 2015

An Annotated Bibliography

Andreeva, Nellie. “TV Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings—About Time or Too Much of a Good Thing?.” Deadline Hollywood. Deadline Hollywood, 24 March 2015. Web. 05 November 2015. Nellie Andreeva, Co-Editor-in-Chief at Deadline Hollywood, claims that nowadays TV shows are casting more and more African American actors, so much so that Caucasian actors are being left out of many casting decisions of non-race specific roles. Andreeva argues that TV shows are trying to fulfill “ethnic quotas” by casting non-white lead actors, even if their top choice is white. Andreeva argues her position using a handful of examples of TV shows with black, hispanic, and asian lead roles. I disagree with this article because it does not provide any statistics showing just how many of today’s shows’ lead roles are cast as non-white actors.

Barnes, Brooks. "Race and the Safe Hollywood Bet." The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 Oct. 2008. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. Brooks Barnes, a media journalist for the New York Times, reports that many all-black cast movies tend to fail at the box office, and he claims that the two most successful African American actors, Will Smith and Denzel Washington, made that list because they acted in roles that could have been played by white men. To give credibility to his argument, Brooks used statistics such as the box office revenue numbers from specific movies and quotes from an interview with the executive director of the NAACP’s Hollywood Bureau. I find this article to closely resemble my opinion of African American representation and reception in movies.

Dargis, Manohla, and A. O. Scott. "Hollywood’s Whiteout." The New York Times. The New York Times, 12 Feb. 2011. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, two film critics for the New York Times, believe that the subsiding of America’s racial barriers—particularly the election of Barack Obama as president—has actually made African Americans less prevalent in movies. Dargis and Scott claim that since there is a black man in the Oval Office, Hollywood filmmakers generally do not feel the need to cast as many blacks in their movies as before. Dargis and Scott deliver their argument by showing that 2010’s movies were predominantly white cast, and they referred to movies in the 1960s that were more progressive than today’s films. I believe that, for the most part, this feeling that there is enough representation of black people in movies has subsided, and directors are casting more and more African Americans in non-race specific roles each year.

Singleton, John. "John Singleton: Can a White Director Make a Great Black Movie? (Guest Column)." The Hollywood Reporter. The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Sept. 2013. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. John Singleton, director of Boyz n the Hood and 2 Fast 2 Furious, argues that movies about African Americans that do not involve black filmmakers differ significantly with those that do. Singleton believes that non-black directors are capable of making excellent movies in this genre, but they need to hire black people behind the scenes to ensure its accuracy. Singleton effectively delivers his argument with examples of African American movies with white and black directors, and among those directed by white people he listed ones that did and did not involve black writers or filmmakers. I found this article interesting because of the claim Singleton made that “the rhythm and cadence in which we [African Americans] carry ourselves among one another is totally alien to most non-blacks,” and because of this I can neither agree nor disagree with the article.

Wilkinson, A. B. "Oscars 2015: So Hollywood Is Still Racist (and Sexist), Now What?" The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, 29 Mar. 2015. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. A. B. Wilkinson, an assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, addresses the issue that there are very few non-white and female Oscar-winners because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences predominantly consists of white men, and because people of color are not fairly represented in films. Wilkinson argues that the imbalance of ethnicities in movies impairs people’s idea of how much of the population is made up of minorities, especially for children. Wilkinson conveys his argument with statistics and he states the amount of actors of black, hispanic, and asian actors that have won Oscars. I agree with the stance this article poses because I personally believe there needs to be more people of color in movies and more of them that win Oscars as well.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

12 November 2015

Essay 3 Outline

Specific Purpose Statement: To inform readers about the unequal representation and opportunity of people of different ethnicities in Hollywood.

Audience: Educated people; not racists

Working Thesis Statement: The inaccurate representation of non-white actors in movies and television is problematic because those actors have less opportunity and recognition, and it gives viewers a misconception of how many people of color there are in the real world.

Introduction:

1. When you go to the movies, have you ever noticed the amount of white people compared to everyone else?
2. A vast majority of characters in movies and television are white, while there are very few African American, Hispanic, or Asian actors characters.
3. This inaccurate representation of non-white actors is problematic because those actors have less opportunity and recognition, and it gives viewers a misconception of how many people of color there are in the real world.

Transition:

Body 1:

1. Actors that are not white are often cast when their ethnicity is specific to their character, whereas Caucasian actors take up roles that could have any race.
1. Examples of movies with typecast roles (historical periods, biopics, Tyler Perry movies, etc.)
2. This puts many actors out of work just because of their ethnicity.
3. People of color should be cast in more non-race specific roles.

Transition: As a result, minority actors receive much less recognition than white actors.

2. Ethnic actors have far fewer awards for their work than their white counterparts.
1. List the few African American men and women that have won Oscars
2. The vast majority of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is white
1. They are trying to be more diverse, but the academy is so large that adding hundreds of non-white members would not do much.

Transition: However, actors are not the only ones facing discrimination in Hollywood.

3. Minorities who work behind the scenes, such as directors and writers, are also often left out of work in many film and TV projects.
1. There are several movies about black people that have a white director and do not have a single African American on the writing team.
1. Doing this makes the movie lose a sense of character, because there are certain aspects about African American life that black people would understand better than others.

Transition: It may be the case that these white directors do not think casting minorities is necessary because they feel that racism in the U.S. has declined enough.

4. Sometimes, Hollywood directors see the world as “less racist” than before, so they do not make as much of an effort to cast non-white actors.
1. After Barack Obama was elected, movies in 2010 had barely any African American actors.
1. People need to understand that racism is not going to go away any time soon.
2. More and more TV shows with non-white lead roles are emerging, but they still do not reflect the proportion of minorities in the U.S.

Transition: These problems do not only exist within the industry, but they directly affect viewers as well.

5. Since the amount of white people in film and television is disproportionate to the real population, people will believe that the world is substantially more white than it actually is.
1. This blindside encourages a bias toward white people, A.K.A. racism.
1. People want to boycott the new Star Wars movie because the lead characters are a woman and a black man.
2. Children of minority groups do not have many role models in movies and TV shows, white white children have just about every superhero, secret agent, and soldier to look up to.

Transition:

Conclusion:

1. The film and television industries have a long way to go before all these problems can be solved, but that does not mean they should not try their hardest to fix them.
2. As it currently stands, the world of cinema and TV is controlled by the white man, and it is harming the opportunity of minority actors, and the minds of viewers.
3. The next time you see a trailer for a movie that intentionally has little to no minorities working in front and behind the camera, maybe you should consider whether you want to spend your money to see it.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

19 November 2015

Minority Report: Hollywood’s Catch-22

When you go to the movies, have you ever noticed the amount of white people on screen compared to everyone else? According to a study conducted by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, across 100 top-grossing movies in 2012, 76.3% of speaking characters were white, while 10.8% were black, 4.2% Hispanic, 5% Asian, and 3.6% from other ethnicities (Smith et al., 1). People of different ethnicities are extremely underrepresented in American movies and TV shows. This is problematic because many non-white actors have less opportunity and recognition than Caucasian actors, which can give TV and movie viewers a misconception of how many people of color actually exist in the real world.

In many movies and TV shows, actors that are not white are cast for racially specific characters, whereas Caucasian actors are often given roles that could be of any ethnicity. For example, historical movies like 12 Years a Slave and biographical movies like Ray are typecast, and would require actors of a certain race—in these cases, African American—to fill the role. Others are not as fortunate; several non-white actors are cast as racial stereotypes like “Thug #2” and cannot get their acting career off the ground as well as a white actor can. While movies like these certainly do help minority actors and actresses get work, the overwhelming majority of film and TV characters are still white. Believe it or not, Tyler Perry isn’t necessarily fixing the issue. In order to work toward solving this imbalance, casting directors need to pay attention to characters whose race is not given or implied, audition actors of several different ethnicities, and make an attempt to closely reflect the diversity of the population of the area in which the movie or show takes place.

In addition to this unfair representation in casting, ethnic actors have received far less recognition for their work than their white counterparts. So far there have been fourteen African American actors (seven men and seven women), five Latino (three men and two women), and four Asian (three men and one woman) that have won an Academy Award. Out of all of them, only two have received more than one (Denzel Washington and Anthony Quinn). This accounts for 14.8% of the 155 Oscar-winners in the Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/Actress categories. This shows almost a nine percent difference from the proportion of non-white characters in movies from the USC study, so this inequity cannot be just from the amount of actors of color in films. In the article "Oscars 2015: So Hollywood Is Still Racist (and Sexist), Now What?," A. B. Wilkinson, an assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, states that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the organization that votes for the Oscars, is 94% white, with African American members at 2% and less than 2% Hispanic. This astounding disparity may be why the Oscar ceremony is so biased toward Caucasian actors. Wilkinson also mentions that the president of AMPAS, Cheryl Boone Isaac, has said that the Academy is making efforts to become more diverse, but with a membership pool of over 6,000 and growing, a realistic proportion of ethnicities is not going to happen any time soon.

However, Actors and Academy members are not the only ones facing inequality in Hollywood. Minorities who work behind the scenes, such as directors and writers, are also often left out of work in many film and TV projects. In fact, there are many movies and shows that are centered around people of a certain ethnic group that do not have a single person of that ethnicity directing or writing for it. John Singleton, an African American director who directed Boyz n the Hood and 2 Fast 2 Furious, argues in his article “Can a White Director Make a Great Black Movie?” that white directors can make and have made excellent movies about black people (e.g. 42 and The Help); however, he believes that in order to make a successful and accurate film of that kind, there has to be some creative input from a black person. Singleton insists that this is absolutely necessary because “the rhythm and cadence in which we [African Americans] carry ourselves among one another is totally alien to most non-blacks.” In spite of this, some would argue that with the proper amount of research, anyone could understand the lifestyle of any ethnic group. I feel, however, that even if one studied all the history and culture there is to learn about a specific group, he or she would not fully comprehend what goes on in those people’s minds unless he or she were in their shoes experiencing what they go through firsthand. When a movie is written in the absence of someone in those shoes, the story and characters become less realistic and wholehearted, and more of an educated, yet stereotypical guess.

It may be the case that some of these white directors to not feel the need to hire or cast people of color for their movies because they believe racism in U.S. has declined enough. In the article “Hollywood’s Whiteout,”  Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, two film critics for the New York Times, claim that recent racial breakthroughs, particularly the election of the first black president, has made many directors revert back to casting mainly all white actors for their movies and TV shows. Dargis and Scott call 2010 “the whitest year for Hollywood since the post-Richard Pryor, pre-Spike Lee 1980s,” and rightfully so. The three most popular films of that year—Inception, The Social Network, and Alice in Wonderland—were nearly all white-cast. John Singleton also claims in his article that Obama’s presidency is one of the reasons why some directors are not hiring minorities for their writers team. Why should anyone think that they should stop trying as hard to be progressive when someone else steps up to the plate? The first black President of the United States is certainly a big step in the right direction, but that does not mean that racism is going to go away any time soon. Going back to the way things use to be is exactly the wrong thing to do when a significant societal improvement like this is made. We cannot just pack our bags and relieve our duties as human beings to look out for one another.

The imbalance of ethnic characters in movies and TV is not just a problem within the industry; it directly affects viewers as well. When people go to the cinema or turn on the TV, and they see Caucasian after Caucasian on screen, they might start to believe that the real world is just as white, when in fact it is definitely not. White people take up about 65% of the U.S. population, a good majority, but not a 76.3% majority. This oversaturation helps to cause white people to feel superior to other ethnicities without even knowing it. In some instances, movies that do not have a white male lead role can make people angry. Take the new Star Wars movie for example: since the two lead characters in Star Wars: The Force Awakens are a woman and a black man, people are boycotting the film for being “anti-white propaganda promoting #whitegenocide”(End Cultural Marxism). This is indeed a very extreme instance, and fortunately most people in the comments told this person off, but that did not stop the movement #BoycottStarWarsVII from gaining a following. Even if this was a case of internet trolling, it just goes to show how messed up a world we live in: one where people who have one skin color think they have the right to get mad when they are reminded that people of other skin colors exist. In A. B. Wilkinson’s article, he discusses the impact Hollywood underrepresentation has on children. He states that kids of minority groups have very few role models to look up to because they do not see many actors of their ethnicity on the big or small screen, and a lot of the ones they do see are portraying harmful stereotypes that only bring them shame. (Wilkinson). Meanwhile, little Caucasian boys and girls have almost every superhero and princess to look up to, and they see so many white actors winning awards that many of them want to become actors as well. Thus, Wilkinson claims, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs and white people are encouraged to join the industry, while people of color are shown to believe they have virtually no chance in making it big in Hollywood.

The film and television industries have a long way to go before all of these problems can be solved, but that does not mean they should not try their hardest to fix them. As it currently stands, the world of cinema and TV is controlled by the white man, and it is harming the opportunity of minority actors, and the minds of viewers. This essay is in no way meant to disparage any actors of European descent, but rather to inform readers that the amount of people of color that get as much screen time as the average white actor is far too low to be considered fair representation. Moreover, aspiring actors of different ethnicities should not be discouraged by their lack of role models on camera, because they will be the ones that can really make a difference in this ongoing issue if they succeed in their careers. And lastly, if any frequent moviegoer or bingewatcher finds a film or show that is all-white cast and written, perhaps they should consider whether they want to devote their time and money to watch it.

Works Cited

Dargis, Manohla, and A. O. Scott. "Hollywood’s Whiteout." The New York Times. The New York Times, 12 Feb. 2011. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.

End Cultural Marxism (genophilia). #BoycottStarWarsVII because it is anti-white propaganda promoting #whitegenocide.” 19 October 2015, 4:35 a.m. Tweet.

Singleton, John. "John Singleton: Can a White Director Make a Great Black Movie? (Guest Column)." The Hollywood Reporter. The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Sept. 2013. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.

Smith, Stacy L., Mark Choueiti, and Katherine Pieper. "Race/Ethnicity in 500 Popular Films: Is the Key to Diversifying Cinematic Content Held in the Hand of the Black Director?" USC Annenberg. Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Wilkinson, A. B. "Oscars 2015: So Hollywood Is Still Racist (and Sexist), Now What?" The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, 29 Mar. 2015. Web. 08 Nov. 2015.