Black History Month is in full swing as we celebrate and share the voices of black heroes who have changed the state of the U.S. in all spheres and helped create the world we live in now. So far, we've seen powerful showings of black empowerment and black girl magic by powerhouse entertainers like Rihanna with her new #1 album, Anti, and Beyoncé's surprise single, "Formation." But a wave of black activism erupted in the entertainment industry much earlier. On Jan. 15, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed its nominees for the 2016 Academy Awards, known colloquially as "the Oscars." Immediately, and for the second year in a row, the Academy received immense backlash for the lack of diversity among its nominees. Since then, social media has been lighting up with various voices and opinions being made on the issue.
One of the most recent controversial outbursts was made on FOX's "Outnumbered" earlier this week by former "Clueless" star Stacey Dash. Dash feels as though "there is no need" for BET, the NAACP or even Black History Month. "Either you want to be segregated or you want to be integrated," she said, with her defense being that these institutions perpetuate a sense of segregation while at the same time vying for inclusion in predominantly white organizations such as the Oscars.
Most of Dash's critics focused on the ignorance of her statements (one which I also find profoundly repulsive), but I would rather discuss the erasure of diversity that she seems to advocate for. At the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, just as in Hollywood, a similar lack of diversity exists. The issue is much bigger than just the Oscars. It is rooted within the academic institutions that create Oscar-winning filmmakers. To date, there exists an ingrained systemic racism that underlies how these institutions not only teach history, but also how they engage with the effects of their teaching practices on the current status quo. Narratives about people of color are pushed to the back burner and are rendered invisible as the current structures are based on Eurocentric ideals and history at the expense of racially marginalized communities and their histories. Specifically, I will address the whitewashing and institutional racism that is embedded in the School of Cinematic Arts' (SCA) undergraduate program at USC. This whitewashing creates a domino effect that both reflects and causes the current problematic relationship that the film industry has with race.
As Viola Davis put it perfectly, "the problem is not with the Oscars, the problem is with the Hollywood movie-making system," which includes the institutions that continually manufacture that same system. To combat the lack of diversity in the industry, our focus must be on education and a commitment to integrating diverse discourses of knowledge as a mandatory part of our academic practice, be it at USC or elsewhere.
SCA is regarded as the top-ranked film school in the country. However, the school fails to both consistently incorporate diversity in filmmaking and create an environment in which films with non-white (and male) leading characters and topics can flourish at the undergraduate level.
READ MORE: Token Diversity Perpetuates Racist Casting at USC's School of Dramatic Arts
I would like to emphasize that this criticism does not extend to the graduate program, which does a far better job with keeping step with modernizing film curricula, specifically in tackling the changing methods of the film and television markets. Their constant engagement with contemporary social issues and unapologetic embracing of diversity and noncommercial tactics in their works set them apart from most film schools in the U.S. The graduate curriculum has translated into real gains for inclusivity — alumni such as Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Coogler are currently making waves in the industry for underrepresented groups.
The issue that I am addressing is centered around the fact that the SCA undergraduate program does not not make an effort to discuss, teach or promote the inclusion of diverse narratives as a standard for modern filmmaking, making it impossible for those narratives to thrive. Instead, the program utilizes a white-centric formula that has been normalized in both the film industry and cinematic academia. SCA is part of the #OscarsSoWhite problem because it passively promotes ignorance of these issues and has neither appropriately qualified faculty and staff, nor an action plan to improve its curriculum.
#FacultySoWhite
I had the opportunity to interview two notable faculty members at SCA: Professor Brenda Goodman, head of the producing track, and Dean Elizabeth M. Daley. The discussion with Goodman began with her addressing a claim that content of the short films selected for the senior thesis film class (CTPR 480) are poor in their inclusivity. Various female students and students of color have disclosed their discontent with the program's selection process that appears to exclude activist films and shy away from ones that portray leading characters of color, LBGT characters and women characters in non-stereotypical ways. Instead, films with archetypal representations of these groups, or ones that do not declare character descriptions are selected, resulting in the standard all-white, able-bodied cast, which ultimately feeds back into the industry's systemic oppression of alternative identities.
Goodman said that this characterization was "just simply untrue."
"There are a lot of factors that go into the selection of these films, and we try to be as thorough as possible. They can have their perceptions, but they don't know the politics that go into our choices, and I believe we have a very diverse group of people on the board making those choices."
Although her statement is certainly valid, as our conversation progressed, it became more apparent that the students' perception isn't as far from the truth as Goodman would like to believe. Furthermore, whether she believes the perception is true or not, it exists and has a profound impact on the choices of film students — a point she never acknowledged. Students become discouraged from presenting diverse and complex films, as they become convinced that fitting an orthodox mold is the only way for their work to be selected.
The lack of diversity among the thesis film selection board members themselves also contributes to the exclusivity of the narratives they choose. When I, and a team of students of color, pitched a short film before the board this past semester, I was surprised to see that there was only one Asian male out of twelve members, making him the token "diverse" member of the otherwise all-white group. This was especially notable because three out of the nine films pitched included black narratives as a key component, but no black faculty was present.
Jenna Cavelle, an SCA graduate student who lived among and produced an award-winning documentary about a Native American community, explained how important it was to include members of a minority group to participate in the making of films that portray that group:
"It's difficult to subvert stereotypes and promulgate narratives of inclusion if you're not spending time with those experiencing exclusion, and often white filmmakers are ignorant about this and have a hard time getting outside of themselves. Not because they're necessarily bad people, but because they are products of a system that is biased toward the white man and because…they're not aware of their privilege."
Nuances that are evident to one group can be invisible to another based on how they have experienced life in relation to their identity. No matter how much one claims that he/she understands, empathizes, or is an ally, it does not mean they can supercede the voices of that community and be their spokesperson or have a "colorblind" lens.
The board's lack of non-white faculty members is also reflective of a similar lack of diversity within the entire SCA faculty. When I examined the faculty roster on the SCA website, I saw that about 8 out of 10 faculty members are Caucasian (a statistic that fluctuates up and down due to part-time faculty who only teach for one semester), and that the majority of POC faculty were not professors (but rather human resources, tech services, teaching assistants, etc.).
Goodman responded that "students oftentimes have complaints after selections because they weren't picked. But they need to see beyond that and understand that the group making these choices is extremely diverse with a lot of varying background experiences."
Although the majority of the board is white and male, she claims that it is all open to seeing all issues concerning underprivileged groups portrayed. She did not go into further detail as to what the board members' backgrounds or experiences consist of, and how exactly the board is diverse because of them. Just because someone has a diverse filmography does not mean that he/she understands how race, gender and other identity-based factors shape the underlying narratives of films. For example, producing a film where the lead character is a mentally ill woman does not mean that the producer understands the cultural significance of how casting a Latina or a black woman alters the narrative in that this act can either challenge, prove or re-conceptualize archetypes such as "la loca" or "the angry Black woman."
The makeup of thesis film's selection board parallels that of the Oscars voting board, which is 94 percent Caucasian and 77 percent male. As a result, underprivileged groups' narratives and opinions are shut out and only valued if they are pleasing to the white gaze. This is exemplified when one looks at the list of black female Oscar winners and the roles they won their awards for. Whoopi Goldberg played a phony psychic, Halle Berry, an abusive mother, Hattie McDaniel, a maid, Mo'Nique, another abusive mother, Octavia Spencer, another maid, and Lupita Nyong'o, a slave. The thesis film board follows the same pattern with films that feature Black leads; one lead role was for a servant and the other was a street thug. Of course, the board didn't have much in the way of non-white leads to choose from — students' perception of what narratives are valued by the board impact the variety of content that they present for consideration.
I cannot say that white filmmakers' story preferences are automatically not inclusive because of their whiteness. But having an all-white decision-making board becomes problematic, as this concentration of common experiences and mindsets can create one-dimensional group thinking that does not produce the kind of holistic perspective that can be brought about by people of different backgrounds.
Also, claiming that white filmmakers with diverse filmographies are sufficient to advance the diversity of the entire industry is counterproductive to any attempts at inclusivity and further entrenches the trend of objectifying narratives of disenfranchised groups for personal gain and entertainment. Take Cavelle and her production PAYA: The Movie, which focuses on the history of Paiute Native Americans who constructed and managed 60 miles of intricate irrigation systems in Owens Valley for a millennium, long before Los Angeles secured its largest source of water through modern engineering. Ms. Cavelle extensively worked alongside the Native American community to tell this powerful, necessary story for a community that is often ignored by mainstream media.
Yes, having Ms. Cavelle on the selection board is a form of diversity because of the knowledge she gained during her time with the Paiute. However, assembling a team of all-white filmmakers whose only claim to diversity is in their resume becomes a form of exclusion. This type of board glorifies white filmmakers by placing them in charge of these alternative narratives and in doing so, rejects the voices and identities that made them possible in the first place. This renders their attempts at diversity exploitative and ingrains the objectification of disenfranchised narratives for majority white audiences (something Jada Pinkett-Smith hinted at in her call to boycott the Oscars).
Goodman, then, stated that her position and objective is not to censor student voices or films that show marginalized groups in non-politically correct ways, but to "ask questions" and "challenge." On that point, we agree. The prerogative is not to insist on political correctness in our storytelling, as stereotypical characters do reflect parts of our history. The problem arises when films that are sexist, homophobic, transphobic or stereotype people of color as uneducated, thugs, servants/slaves, drug dealers, etc. are continually the only portrayals of POC that are affirmed. This begs the question: Are the more complex, well-rounded stories of underrepresented groups not being given equal consideration, and thus effectively censored?
Goodman says no. However, she also answers no when I asked her if the board ever talked about race in the context of the three films with leading or supporting black characters. So not only is the board reinforcing stereotypical films, but they are also not asking the appropriate questions or challenging any of the current conventions of how students tackle diversity in film.
Sadly, my conversation with Dean Daley was even less productive than the one with Goodman. There was a complete absence of healthy dialogue and argumentation with Daley. All of my questions about diversity were either cut off, redirected, unanswered, delegated to different people or ignored.
After 30 minutes of non-answers, I persisted until I got this: "I do not handle these issues or talk about them. That's not my job. If you want, you can go talk to the diversity committee or other great SCA program leaders like the African American Cinema Society. You can also look under the diversity initiatives page on our SCA website."
Seemed like a rehearsed one-liner. But either way, let's talk about these suggestions.
A diversity committee was nowhere to be found on the SCA website or on the "diversity initiatives" page, and few of the students who the committee allegedly represents even knew it existed. The committee has held zero public discussions or events that focus on changing the scope of the industry, which makes it appear to be a tokenized smokescreen to make the program look progressive. Further, to think that a "diversity committee" is enough and excuses high-level administrators such as herself from recognizing the issues is problematic (I understand she cannot be involved in all discussions, but for her to schedule a 30-minute interview and choose not to consider any of the problems raised is unacceptable). Insular discussions about diversity that are not part of the curriculum and do not involve a broader change in climate limits awareness and obligates those who do not have the privilege to ignore these issues to combat them.
Current executive board members, and President of the African American Cinema Society rejected the Dean's co-option of their initiatives to promote complex representations of blackness and the black diaspora. In her opinion, the Dean is ignorant of the various hurdles that the AACS has had to face due to SCA's lack of funding, providing of space, or recognition of them as a necessary organization. SCA has been the antagonist to AACS' aspirations and has been scrapped multiple times because of the school's lack of support; it was only reinstated within the past 2 years. Daley's treatment of AACS as a tokenized afterthought while refusing to engage in discussion about diversity or acknowledge the organization's struggle to provide opportunities to black film students is disrespectful, ignorant, and demonstrative of some of SCA's worst institutional deficits.
#CurriculumSoWhite
Mykaila Williams, president of the Black Student Assembly and a junior majoring in film production, explains that one of the issues within the academic curriculum at SCA is that "on-screen diversity is not really discussed or talked about." Despite students of color occasionally bringing up issues with inclusion, diverse casting and alternative narratives are "hardly ever discussed." According to Williams, there isn't much of a conscious effort made by the majority-white faculty to teach their students about how race plays into the productions of films and screenplays in the production or screenwriting majors' key courses.
Professor Goodman is aware of this lack of conscious discussion, but claims that the one critical studies course that production majors are required to take is a sufficient remedy. However, students do get to choose whether that class will involve an analysis of race. More importantly, one class out of an entire four-year curriculum is not enough to change the scope and status quo of the entire cinema school or the industry.
Her statement epitomizes white privilege — the history and conventions of filmmaking that flatter white people are required learning for all students while discussions of underrepresented groups are limited to elective courses that are mostly taken on by minority students anyways.
The whitewashed curriculum shows through in casting decisions and screenplay choices. Over 90 percent of the recent film projects at all academic undergraduate levels feature all-white casts or people of color as extras, background characters, or small supporting roles. Williams attributes this glaring statistic to the fact that students "aren't really taught to have a proactive understanding of how to create a world with a racially diverse lens. Instead, they often learn and subsequently regurgitate the status quo which results in all-white casts, and the depiction of people of color as either above-and-beyond revolutionaries or stereotypical caricatures."
The screenwriting program that I am a part of teaches technique and character construction at a baseline level in which the implications of deciding whether the leading characters are women, non-white, LGBTQ, non-gender conforming or disabled is not discussed. Students are not taught how these different attributes can produce varying narratives, nor are they exposed to the amount of research and commitment required to accurately tell these stories. Instead, they are taught a filmmaking formula that is expected to fit white, straight, cis characters and perpetuate white superiority.
As a result, undergraduate students become machines of the industry and produce the same type of work that is currently being re-examined. Those students who do want to create alternative films are unable to do so because they don't have the appropriate tools and knowledge to do so. They either manufacture stereotypical, half-baked films with nontraditional characters, or they choose to not make them at all. Like Viola Davis said, the problem is not the Oscars, but with the bigger picture which includes the systems of Hollywood. I take her statement to include the academic institutions that feed into the film industry as well.
Williams most heavily stressed the need for climate change at SCA. It is not enough to talk about race once in a blue moon. It is not enough to think that you're an ally and that you are progressive. It is not enough to leave your character's race or gender open on a script and be optimistic that the casting process will truly be unbiased.
When we read books, visualize magazine covers, watch movie trailers, etc, we are conditioned to white superiority. Unless there is a clear description of race, a casting director, producer or student looking at scripts will take on a white-centric perspective most of the time.
That is how we are programmed to imagine our surroundings. The expectation that a publicly consumed character be white puts actors of color at a disadvantage because they have to work against humanity's subconscious programming. It is not enough for them to just be the character. They have to do that, represent history, signify a culture, be revolutionary, all while not "acting white." Then, students who cast their films without being aware of their biases and take this perspective into the professional world with them excuse their behaviors with trying to devalue the performance of the actors, just like the Oscars.
This mindset was most recently revealed in responses to Noma Dumezweni's casting as Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, John Boyega as the lead in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Idris Elba being considered for the next James Bond. Each casting decision was met by outcries from predominantly white audiences who demanded that these roles continue to be played by white actors, even though none of them were explicitly designated as such.
Students and faculty who are not conscious of their biases perpetuate the idea that queer bodies of color should only exist within film and television if they are otherized and juxtaposed with the normative white, straight, cis-body. However, the reality is that racialized, feminized and queer bodies not only exist within the a universal understanding of humanity, they also fit outside of it as a form of perpetual antithesis to whiteness.
That is the complexity of their condition. To insinuate that the conventional approaches to filmmaking, all-white selection boards, or race- and gender-blind screenplays are enough to remedy the conventional practice of filmmaking oversimplifies the ways in which these systems can be challenged and reconstructed. It is also very discouraging to students and actors, because they are the ones who must adapt to the racist, sexist, and homophobic representations that are deemed permissible. Underrepresented identities are limited to a stereotypical performance, while white bodies carry endless possibility.
Those opposed to actively making a space for marginalized groups would have you believing that representing them as more than their stereotype while at the same time acknowledging how identity-based biases guide our decision-making is "too complex and unrealistic." They don't want to turn everything into a "race thing," but the result — an all-White, straight, cisgender cast because that is considered "safe" has made the production process a "race thing." A conscious effort must be made to confront deficits in inclusivity in order to create a climate change at SCA's undergraduate level and in the industry at large. Putting "no racial preference" in a casting notice, the currently preferred fix, is a flawed strategy for changing the current scope of the entertainment, for "colorblind" casting is inherently anti-black and promotes the mentality that we live in a post-racial society.
What can SCA do?
Talking about these failures will not be enough. An institutional rupturing at the School of Cinematic Arts that accounts for the issues discussed here must occur to achieve true progress. A new pedagogy needs to be implemented that consists of: changing the curriculum content, shifting the campus climate, recruiting faculty members of underrepresented minority groups and offering administrative support for student diversity initiatives, to start.
Dialogue is also necessary to bridge the gap between the School of Cinematic Arts and School of Dramatic Arts. A concrete system that connects not only students, but also the faculty and dean of both schools, is necessary to enable the two institutions to complement each other and work hand in hand to develop future leaders of the entertainment industry. Various student initiatives in the past have attempted to engage both schools, but none were purposefully brainstormed and created by the two programs in unison.
The School of Dramatic Arts also faced criticism last fall for their own issues with diversity and inclusion. Fortunately, Interim Dean Bridel has done an outstanding job in attempting to take discussions about these issues to a new level. SDA has reinstated their Diversity Committee, which is now fully operational in restructuring the school's curriculum: students were added to the play selection board, a Diversity and Inclusion Festival was held where voices of various underrepresented groups from all over L.A. (including Alexandra Billings, the first trans woman to play a transgender character on television) were featured, and a non-traditional casting policy has been implemented to allow actors of various identities to play different roles.
Since SCA students mainly look to SDA for actors and crew members, progress at SDA could easily translate into similar improvements at SCA if its administrators are willing to take as active an interest. Additionally, those in charge of hiring should reach out to people of color and LGBT people who have been successful in film and television to work at SCA. This way, not only can minority students find role models and professional connections, the entire curriculum can benefit from a nuanced discussion of how choices in screenwriting, casting and production impact the telling of alternative narratives and why increasing the ubiquity of these narratives is important to accomplish broader goals of justice and inclusivity. While film schools across the country similarly struggle with these goals, for SCA to truly live up to its name of the country's best film school, it must reconcile its troubled history of marginalization and make room for all the different types of identities and stories its students will portray as professionals.
Correction: This story originally misspelled Jenna Cavelle's name and misidentified her as a faculty member; she is a student. SCA's producing track was mistakenly referred to as the production track. The story was corrected upon realization of the errors.
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