Tech companies are media companies now and I have a question 🙋♀️
In an effort to create exclusive content for their streaming services, tech companies are now cozying up to Hollywood 🎬…
Just like that, the line between media and tech disappeared and we find ourselves consuming content from the largest tech companies: Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video or YouTube TV.
The transition to streaming services from these tech companies has been $mooth and exciting. And I have to give them props for some of their original productions, which I’ve noticed have put the effort on more diversity and inclusion on screen. However, since the competition is harsh and each is striving to build a more attractive catalogue to better stack up against competitors, they are recurring to the same ol’ same ol’ Hollywood people to license movies and shows for their catalogues and to produce brand new and EXCLUSIVE content for their streaming platforms. Based on all this, there’s one question I’d like put forward:
As big and influential companies who claim to put diversity and inclusion/gender equality front and center, how will they address the problem Hollywood has long had when it comes to female representation?
According to statistics on top grossing films, as of 2019📊
🍿 90% of Hollywood films were directed by men.
🍿 66% of speaking or named characters were male and 34% were female.
🍿 Only 28% of all speaking characters in action films were girls and women.
🍿 Only 14 of the 100 top movies in 2019 featured a gender-balanced cast.
🍿Women only filled 38.8% of speaking roles among 21–39 year olds. The findings were even more dire for women 40 years of age or older.
🍿Women (41.6%) were more likely than men (31.3%) to be shown as parents.
🍿 94 films rendered girls and women from the LGBTQ community completely invisible.
🍿 68% of all female characters were white in the top 100 films of 2019. 20% were Black, 7% were Asian, and 5% were Latina.
And the list goes on.
This is an important issue to address. As Naomi McDougall Jones, a filmmaker, actress and activist says:
“What we see in movies matters: it affects our hobbies, our career choices, our emotions and even our identities. Right now, we don’t see enough women on screen or behind the camera.”
“Stories in movies and short films are the mechanism through which we process our experience of being alive. They’re the way that we understand the world and our place in it, the way that we develop empathy for people who have experiences different than our own, and right now all of that is being funneled at us through the prism of this one perspective (the male perspective), it’s not that it’s a bad perspective, but don’t we deserve to hear them all?.”
…
Big tech companies are becoming even more powerful and influential (if you can believe that), this in turn calls for more responsibility on their part. It’s only fair we challenge them as they continue to take control over more aspects of our lives, especially when it comes to the media we consume. I’m curious to know if their views on diversity, inclusion and gender equality will still be upheld.
And by all means, if you have the time I highly recommend watching this TED talk I was making reference to. 🤯
Sources:
https://www.fastcompany.com/3058507/apple-facebook-google-and-alibaba-take-hollywood
https://womenandhollywood.com/resources/statistics/2019-statistics/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BVSEnJte84
