October 20, 2022 • 29 mins
In the season finale of ‘Connections’, Eva reflects on her year of analyzing and strengthening every connection in her life. What does it mean to feel connected? For so many, it comes back to community and inclusion. This week, Eva is joined by Dr. Stacy Smith, who founded USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and has been working alongside Eva for years to disrupt inequality in the entertainment industry. In this thought-provoking conversation, the two break down the tangible ways we can improve inclusion, strengthen community, and the pursuit to never go back to “normal” – but to move forward and connect better.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, everyone, Welcome back to Connections. I'm Evil Longoria and
we have a very special episode for you today to
close out our season. I first started this show in
the fall of one as things were starting to go
back to normal from COVID and I realized things will
never be normal again, and there was a lot of
things I didn't want to go back to normal, and
(00:23):
I felt like I wanted to re analyze my connection
to a lot of things, spirituality, my connection to my child,
my connection to my partner, my connection to my career.
And so now one year later, through these incredible conversations,
I have learned so much on how we can connect
better and most importantly to yourself. And we've done a
lot of great episodes about connecting to your inner self.
(00:46):
When I started this podcast, there were so many ideas.
I was like, what about connection to this, to that,
to this, to them? I mean, it was endless because
we are so interconnected. There's so much about feeling connected, right, Like,
it's not only about being connected, but like do we
feel connected? Do I feel connected to my community? Do
I feel connected to my family? Do I feel connected
(01:08):
to my culture? And so I wanted to kind of
explore this connection to community or society or culture or history,
or even to each other, and why the feeling of
that connection is important. And I was thinking about who
I should talk to about this, and so I want
to welcome a very special guest. I've been working with
Dr Stacy Smith for about four years on her research
(01:29):
on inclusion, specifically around the representation of the Latin X
community and female representation behind the camera in front of
the camera. She's a professor at USC Annenberg and founder
of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. So her work has not
only revealed how much inclusion is lacking in our society,
(01:51):
but more importantly, she also gives us a path forward, right,
and so she's the perfect person to talk to about
how can we create a more inclusive world and one
where we all feel more connected to each other and
to ourselves. So please welcome to the show. Dr Stacy Smith.
It's great to be here, Eva, Thanks for having me.
Usually we're being interviewed, and now I'm interviewing you. Indeed, indeed,
(02:16):
I can't wait. I'm so happy to talk to you
for our First of all, I was telling you off
show that I mean I could talk to you about
anything because you are issue adjacent to everything, like not
just media, but just everything, every everything. I feel like
you are interconnected with everything, and and I want you
to maybe share with us how you got into this work.
(02:37):
Was there like an aha moment for you when you
realize you know what? I want to dig a little
deeper on inclusion because I don't feel included, Like how
did this even start? Where did this begin? Well, gosh,
that's a great question and not one that I get
very often. So I actually really nobody ask you this
because I find out I'll find your job fascinating and
(02:57):
I always want to know, like, why why did you
choose this? Well, I I absolutely love the question. I
think resonates with what you're getting at in terms of
how are we connected. When I was a PhD student,
I was studying violence in the media, and that really
was my area of expertise, and you'd find this interesting.
Much of my work was focusing on children's fear reactions
(03:20):
and safety concerns as a function of watching the news,
and so it was really thinking about how are young
people processing real world images that they're seeing on TV
and how does it relate to their safety concerns? And
there were two things that I said I would never do. One,
as I said I would never move to East Lancy
(03:41):
in Michigan for my first job. The second thing I
said I'd never do was study gender lo and behold,
my first job was in East Lancey, Michigan at Michigan
State University, and the work that I did initially on
inclusion was really through the lens of gender and race
ethnicity and set me on this course of a wild
(04:02):
adventure that is beyond my dreams in a management Why
why were you against studying gender? I wasn't against it.
I just didn't see a lot of compelling work being done,
and because of that, I wasn't drawn to the literature
until something really interesting happened. Back in around two thousand three,
two thousand four, I left Michigan State. I moved to
(04:23):
USC and I got a call from an organization called
Dads and Daughters, and Dads and Daughters wanted to do
and this is so perfect for connections. Dads and Daughters
wanted to do a study on gender representation in children's media.
But gender, haven't we solved this problem? Like? Why why
are you asking me this question? Right? It's two thousand
(04:44):
three two thousand and four, and then they said, well,
the person that's you know behind the research is the
actor Gina Davis. And then what happened was amazing. So
even though I was an identity scholar, we recruited this
group of students and I identity was their central focus
of thinking through the world through a different prism than
(05:06):
how I was raised. And they were so fired up
about this project that we were doing. And we started
with movies. At the suggestion of my dean at the
time at Annaberg, Jeffrey Collen, said you should really look
at g rated films. I'm like, that's a great idea.
So one of our first studies was on g rated films.
But the students were so fired up about it. I said,
(05:26):
I need to lean into this because this is really
interesting how much people care about inclusion. And I used
to do work on media violence in the industry really
didn't care about media violence because the First Amendment and
all of those issues in terms of storytelling, and everybody
seemed to be caring about identity when we started working
on this, and so because of the students, I made
(05:47):
a list of all the studies I wanted to accomplish
about fift two thousand students later and dozens of publications,
we've made it through every study on the list. And
so I got involved because of the enthusiasm and excitement
as students in my lab wanting to know the answers
about why they're not seen and heard on screen, whether
(06:10):
it's in movies or on television and now in streaming.
So that's the story, and and I've been intrigued, and
you know, it's it's exhilarating to do this type of work.
You never know who you're going to get called by,
but to see the students come alive and they're now
executives at the top across industries and they care about inclusion,
and they call us, can you work with this company?
(06:31):
Can we form a partnership? It's literally every day really exciting. Right.
Are you still surprised at your results every now and again?
Like what's what surprises you? In a good or bad way?
In a good way, in a great way. So so
most of the time it's like Okay, rinse and repeat.
(06:53):
Nothing's changing and you have to look for the bright spots.
And so we did this, you know, investigation across roughly movies,
and we looked at the average critics score. How are
critics scoring movies when it comes to the director's identity.
So we siphoned all the movies into four categories. Directed
by white males, directed by white females, directed by underrepresented males,
(07:17):
directed by underrepresented females. Guests who had the highest critical
review when a color behind the camera, which was just
an amazing finding a white male. No. So this then
sent us on a series of of We've done a
lot of economic work because I asked the question, why
(07:39):
don't we see google them about the raw and more
epic stories like where is she? I saw a bell
and I'm like, this person is amazing. She should be
in everything, and she wasn't. So we wanted to start
doing the economic UH analyzes to find out what sells
in Hollywood for the very reason of if women of
color behind the camera as directors are are killing it
(08:00):
when it comes to critical review, why aren't they getting
their supports that they deserve in terms of production costs,
marketing dollars right or or more bites at the apple,
even absolutely more at bats. And so while we see
them working the fewest, they're making the greatest impact when
it comes to storytelling of the four groups that we evaluated,
(08:22):
that to me is really exciting a lot of the
rinse and repeat data. No, not exciting. It's actually very disheartening.
It's very hard to process why there's not greater change
on these issues. And you and I have talked about
that quite a bit. Yeah, but why do you think
that is? I still don't have the answer to that.
I'm on the receiving end of these cancelations. Not enough
(08:46):
at BATS. Can't hire who I want to hire because
they don't have the body of work to get the job.
But I can't get them the job until they get
the body of work. It's like this endless cycle. Whether
it's there's no pipeline of talent, which there is, or
you know she's never done this before, or like, what
do you think prevents? Well, let's back up first, why
(09:08):
is inclusion even important? Who cares? Well? I think two
issues And people like to say folks want to be
seen and heard, and that's absolutely on point. But we
know that we evaluate our self esteem, our self worse,
how we feel about our mind, how we feel about
our bodies, about where we see ourselves represented, and there's
(09:31):
enough decades of scientific evidence to suggest that the portrayals
we see on screen can affect all of those outcomes.
I mean, think about aging. Think about people that are
over sixty, over sixty five. If they see negative depictions
on aging, it can lead them to stereotype their group.
Stereotyping of their group in a negative way can lead
to cognitive decline. It can cause changes in gait, It
(09:55):
can affect handwriting. There's a direct path from how all
older people see themselves on screen and how they physically
manifest behaviors and thoughts. The same is true with young children.
The same is true across the lifespan. It affects ourselves
worth and affects our self identity, and so seeing ourselves
it's actually really important in a variety of roles, in
(10:17):
a variety of perspectives. Not seeing ourselves being excluded. There's
some interesting and compelling research that that can be processed
as painful. Social exclusion can lead to pain, and so
think about the psychological and physical consequences of being in pain,
and the stress and and and the mental health consequences
(10:38):
along with physical. So there's lots of reasons why this matters,
and they're very self evident I think to all of us,
we all have different identities. You know, I might think
professor is really important. Someone else might focus on other
aspects of their identity. But what we're seeing is a
real returning of business as usual right now. And that
(10:58):
makes me nervous out where we're going, right, not only
business as usual regressing, because didn't female directors go down,
not up? So if a lot of people are like
Hollywood's turning the ship around, we're not. We're actually not. Yeah.
We So we saw an uptick and I was really
excited with the four percent challenge, which you know, so
many of us worked on, you know, with Time's up
(11:20):
rolling out, asking people to commit to working with the
female director in the next eighteen months to change that
four percent, and it bounced up to ten. Even took
a hit. Most of was re releases, right if you
look at top Box Office, right, they saved all the
films with female directors. So we saw rebounding to kind
(11:43):
of that that uptick. And so now looking at the
slate of what's will be in the top one, I'm
nervous we're going to see a downward trend again. And
so I think you're right. If we talk about why
this is happening. I think there's a lack of intention
reality with the folks that are producing the most content,
(12:03):
not across the board, but in a lot of spaces
were now two years past George Floyd. People are easy
up right, They're not honoring those commitments, right, and we
really need to think how do we help people get
the tools they need to make this top of mind
in all of their decisions. And yeah, that's not happening,
but not only not happening, worse like, yeah, they're actually
(12:28):
doing have things that are harming the diversity pipeline, is
mantling these you know, diversity programs and things. I mean,
it's really scary, I agree to. But that's the big reason.
Also why I got behind the camera and why I
producing directors because I wanted to be in a position
of power to higher And I don't think there are
these executives in these towers that are going it's not
(12:52):
higher women like I don't think there's an evil plan
to keep women out of the industry or people of color.
I think they are used to Tom and Dick and
Harry doing the jobs, so they're going to hire Tom
and Dick and Harry and I remember when I was
producing and directing Grand Hotel TV show, I was looking
for a DP and they sent me Tom, Dick and
(13:12):
Harry resumes and I said, are there any female dps?
And they go, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah, and
they sent them. They didn't say no, they didn't say
absolutely not, and they weren't hiding the resumes for me.
They just sent me who they always work with. Right,
And so I said, once I'm in a position of power,
I am going to consciously hire women, right, I'm gonna
(13:32):
consciously hire people. So when I was staffing the directors,
we had twelve slots and I said, I want I
want women. Let's go to the women first, and then
once we've filled that, then I said, okay, I want
people of color, any any gender. And then after that
I said, okay, you know, the last slots left were
white male, just because I wanted to consciously hire with
the lens of women and people of color. And I
(13:53):
was able to do that. But that's me berating people
for these resumes and going where is the database of
all this talent? And I agree with you, like we
have to keep our foot on the gas when it
comes to accountability right of these studios because your data person. Right,
So if they hired one female director last year and
(14:14):
now they have to they get the press release to
say we doubled the amount of female directors. Yeah, you're like,
you know, you went you went from one to two,
Like that doesn't count right, right, And so you know,
you bring up a really good point. It's keeping things
not only top of mind, but also not allowing what
(14:39):
really ends up being oppression and hegemony, not allowing that
to continue by saying two folks, no, we need to
consider the best person for the job. And the best
person for the job isn't the ideal that you have
in your mind. Let's broaden the pool. There's lots of
folks that have the talent, they don't get the opportunity
(15:00):
d And so it's going back and saying, like what
you did with DPS again, when people are crewing up
a writer's room, crewing up who's going to direct, you know,
the episodes across you know, however many episodes are ordered
in the series. Who's going to be attached to a film?
And what we often see with film is really problematic
in a way that doesn't really make sense. So if
(15:21):
you have let's say Flaming Hot, they want Latin X
director behind the camera because the lead and the director
match in terms of their background, and so then you
get this great opportunity. You've been doing this for years,
you're very much skilled and have the ability to do it.
But all the stories that don't involve Latin X leads,
(15:45):
you should also be getting access to those stories too,
And that's what doesn't happen. They're pigeonholing people into lanes
that are consistent with their identities. But for white male directors,
they get to tell any story they want to. And
so we really have to help. I think executives who
hear pitches and are are thinking about assembling a crew,
(16:10):
you have to disentangle identity from the director with a
lot of stories that are about the human experience, so
that people of color aren't only telling stories about people
of color, they're also telling stories from a wide range
of backgrounds. Because that's what white men get to do.
And that's why we have to even the playing field,
really being conscious about making sure you know who's getting
(16:33):
access and opportunity is across identities, not just siloed to
who I always go to or who I think is
the best, because when we do the work on critics reviews,
most films in Hollywood receive a failing score. So we're
not talking about this high art and this high you
know bar that people have to cross over. There's a
(16:55):
lot of working directors that aren't producing stuff that are
very good, and yet women of color punching at the
highest across identity groups. So if it's really about talent,
they should be at the first of the list of
who am I going to go out to? And that's
where we have to start getting people to think more
broadly than just people telling only stories based on their identity.
They should be offered those stories and others. Yeah, don't
(17:19):
you feel like just for the sake of humanity, it
helps to see diversity on screen because that's the world
we live in, right, Like absolutely, If I only see
a show with white male actors and then there's in
my community a black doctor and a Hispanic lawyer, like
(17:41):
I don't compute, right, Like, Like, wait, don't you feel
like this? Inclusion matters? And we've said it a million
times inclusion matters. Inclusion matters, but because media should reflect
the world that we live in, because it would actually
lead to treating each other better. Absolutely, And you know
(18:01):
the perfect example of this in our lab. We started
working on Muslim representation with zam ed Um with the
with the project funded by the Ford Foundation and Pillars.
And you know, I'm a faith based person. My spirituality
is the most important thing to me, and here we're
doing this project on Muslims and I have to admit
(18:23):
I really didn't know much. You know, we hired someone
to run the project who was Muslim, and we had
a whole team of Muslim research assistance working on the projects.
We all learned so much and how we're connected in
so many similar ways and have so many similar experiences.
We're all very unique as well. But when we think
(18:47):
about cognitive diversity, all these different backgrounds and identity groups
bring something to the table that make us more interesting
and compelling and well rounded. We just have to allow
a space for that, and we often don't. It just
opens up connectivity in so many powerful ways and makes
life so much more interesting when we when we do that.
(19:10):
M Yeah, I think I think it's important to society
for us to um have that inclusion. Like it's not
just like check a box. Studios come on, check a box.
It's like, no, it's actually for the benefit of humankind.
And I'm not just talking about United States. I'm talking
about globally. To see a Hindu person on TV, to
(19:30):
see all ethnicities, all cultures, and like, wow, I didn't
I didn't know that inclusions so important, and especially in
a time where how people are consuming content is different.
I can watch it when they want, how they want,
where they want, iPhone, TV, iPad, computer, ten o'clock at night,
eight of the morning. The content consumers are in control.
(19:54):
So because of that, there's just like this in inndation
of so many shows. So in order to break through
the noise, you have to be innovative, right, you have
to have a different perspective, of different point of view,
And I think the only way to be innovative is
through diversity. That's the only way. Is like to have
a different storyteller tell that story, and so it will
(20:15):
make content better. It will expose audiences to a variety
of people on screen, which will hopefully translate to them
being more accepting of people of different cultures. I think
you and I worked on the Latin X Representation study
and you titled it the erasure of Latinos like it
(20:37):
wasn't oh underrepresented, misrepresented like it was like, no, no,
the irasure. Why did you decide to call it that
and what do you think the consequences are when we
are erased out of the media. Well, I wanted to
call it that because not only was it accurate and provocative,
but it really I think illuminated what we saw in
(21:00):
the data. So you know, we've been studying the Sundance
Institute for quite a few years and um, we did
a big project on submissions and submissions by Latino directors.
They're in the hundreds at Sundance, So you can't say
that the directors aren't there. And in Los Angeles and
many other large cities around the country, the percentage of
(21:22):
Latinos I mean in l A that number is astronomically large, right,
And so we can't say that the actors aren't there
because they're everywhere, right. So we took it to most
studios and we didn't get to all of them, And
it was really disheartening because we heard all the excuses
EVA it was so it was so disheartening. There's not enough,
(21:44):
there's not a pipeline, and I'm like, you gotta be
kidding me. If only five of on screen characters are Latino,
and most of those are characters that just say a
few words, they say he went that way or there
she goes right. I can do that. I know I
can do that. Just give me a sag card. I
can do it. But there's people that are trained actors
that because of their identity, they're only getting access to
(22:08):
if they get access to play the criminal, to play
the drug dealer, to play the maid. This is inexcusable
and we heard it at the top of these companies.
They don't believe that talent is there. My firm belief
is talent is there. You're erasing their opportunities that they
should have to play a variety of rules, across a
(22:29):
variety of backgrounds, and to play on screen characters that
are Latin X. And so it's really important to me
to let the industry know exactly what they're doing, because
if somebody were to tell me you're erasing me, oh
my gosh, I'd be traumatized. I'd have to stop, right,
(22:50):
And that's what we see going on. So what do
you think people outside of the media is I mean,
I know, like your work is specific to the industry,
But what do you think some of the biggest challenges
are for creating a more inclusive world, Like whether it's
(23:11):
in our industry or not. You know, it feels like
we're in a very divisive country. We just talked about
the United States, Like we're all in our echo chambers.
We're all in our bubbles of of consuming content that
only you know our algorithm tells us like you're gonna
you want to hear more of this, okay, And so
what do you think are the biggest challenges ahead for
creating a more inclusive world? And like breaking out of
(23:35):
those borders and lines and just going God, we are
so much more similar than different. It's a couple of things. One,
it's it's looking to other places that unexpectedly and we
see inclusion thriving that people aren't paying attention to. Where's
that some aspects of music, right, So when I heard
the myth that you can't have an underrepresented lead or
(23:58):
a black lead, open a film and try, I'm like,
have you ever heard of Beyonce? Because Beyonce is a
global phenomena. Like all of a sudden, I started thinking
about music and then people would say, oh, well, it's
not an audio visual mechanism. I'm like, you gotta be
kidding me. It's as much visual as it is audio, right, Like,
because this is really about the top, how can consumers
(24:22):
help with this problem? Because you know, like we said,
the problems the gatekeepers, the problems with people at the top.
I feel like this is not a moral imperative. I'm
not coming to these studios going please hire me. I'm
a woman, Please hire me. I'm I'm a person of color.
I feel like it makes financial sense to cater to
the fastest growing demographic in the United States. Calling me crazy,
(24:44):
but I don't know. Maybe we should program to some latinos.
And I feel like if they don't listen to the
moral imperative, like, what about the business imperative? What about
like no, this is just good for business and that
being consumers? Right, So, how do we empower consumers to
really take a stand in like saying this is what
we want to we want to see more of this.
(25:04):
How can we have more power in this conversation? Absolutely,
And that's a great question. Well, so one, not only
do they need to show up, they need to watch,
they need to purchase, they need to engage on social media.
But additionally, they need to do whatever they can to
get resources to content creators to tell these stories. So
(25:25):
philanthropists need to write specific checks, underwriting specific groups at
some of the most important festivals to get people into labs,
to get people to training and access to other individuals
that they need. Secondly, we need states and a federal
bill for tax incentives on storytelling. We need federal legislation
(25:47):
that has inclusion requirements associated with it along with what
we see in states. Third, we need shareholder activism. We
need people who have shares in these big companies to
stand up and say what do you doing, to take
a stand at the meetings and to ask these companies
for more. And we need people like college students all
(26:07):
around the country to come together, arm in arm across
groups and to take a stand and say we're going
to do things different. This generation of young people that's
why I love being a college professor. This is their topic.
They don't even think about inclusion the way we think
about it because it's in everything that they do. We're
going to have a workforce crisis pretty soon because the
(26:30):
young people coming out of college who are inclusive, they
don't want to work at the studios because it doesn't
match their values. So I'm excited with the young people
where we're going. We just got to close the gap
faster and get some of these people out of positions
of power and get new people in. You know, scoot over,
let let more people come to the table. Move over. Well,
(26:52):
thank you so much for talking about this. I know
you can talk about inclusion forever. I can, Indeed I can.
I love it. I love it so um. Just one
last question I asked every guest is what's a book
you recommend to everybody? You're like, oh my god, this
book changed my life. It could be a novel, it
could be anything. Yeah, well, it's funny. I have a
couple of books right behind me. But Christa Tippa wrote
(27:14):
this book called Becoming Wise. She has an on Being podcast.
She's a journalist that interviews the whole variety of different people.
I'd recommend that, and then I'd recommend anything written by Heschel,
who was a Jewish theologian. You know, the title of
one of his books was I asked for wonder Reading.
For me, spiritual text put me in the mindset of
(27:37):
how can I serve and do what I can for
humanity and and both. Whether it's Tippet's more recent writings
or Heschel's writings from decades ago, they transport me and
help me connect not only spiritually, but to other people
and how to serve them with the totality of my beings.
So I think I would recommend those authors in that capacity.
(28:01):
So funny that you say that because I read so
many scripts that I don't read fiction, like when i'm reading,
I read nonfiction. And so for you, you're like, you
read so much data. You're like, I need something spiritual.
And indeed, indeed, I want to be open to all
influences right and make sure that my heart and my
(28:22):
mind and my soul and my spirit are in the
right place. Louis Pasteur would always say chance favors the
prepared mind. I want to be prepared in always, and
so spiritually is probably one of the most important to me.
So it's nice to be able to even mention it
because I'm a scientist who believes, and and tonight that
it's exciting. I love that. I love that oxymoron exactly exactly.
(28:47):
But this has been amazing. Thank you even for having
me on. Thank you so much for listening. I'm happy
to be can acted with you. Connections with Evil Lagoria
is a production of unbelievable entertainment in partnership with I
Hearts Michael Plura podcast Network. For more podcasts from my Heart,
(29:10):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hello, everyone, Welcome back to Connections. I'm Evil Longoria and
we have a very special episode for you today to
close out our season. I first started this show in
the fall of one as things were starting to go
back to normal from COVID and I realized things will
never be normal again, and there was a lot of
things I didn't want to go back to normal, and
(00:23):
I felt like I wanted to re analyze my connection
to a lot of things, spirituality, my connection to my child,
my connection to my partner, my connection to my career.
And so now one year later, through these incredible conversations,
I have learned so much on how we can connect
better and most importantly to yourself. And we've done a
lot of great episodes about connecting to your inner self.
(00:46):
When I started this podcast, there were so many ideas.
I was like, what about connection to this, to that,
to this, to them? I mean, it was endless because
we are so interconnected. There's so much about feeling connected, right, Like,
it's not only about being connected, but like do we
feel connected? Do I feel connected to my community? Do
I feel connected to my family? Do I feel connected
(01:08):
to my culture? And so I wanted to kind of
explore this connection to community or society or culture or history,
or even to each other, and why the feeling of
that connection is important. And I was thinking about who
I should talk to about this, and so I want
to welcome a very special guest. I've been working with
Dr Stacy Smith for about four years on her research
(01:29):
on inclusion, specifically around the representation of the Latin X
community and female representation behind the camera in front of
the camera. She's a professor at USC Annenberg and founder
of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. So her work has not
only revealed how much inclusion is lacking in our society,
(01:51):
but more importantly, she also gives us a path forward, right,
and so she's the perfect person to talk to about
how can we create a more inclusive world and one
where we all feel more connected to each other and
to ourselves. So please welcome to the show. Dr Stacy Smith.
It's great to be here, Eva, Thanks for having me.
Usually we're being interviewed, and now I'm interviewing you. Indeed, indeed,
(02:16):
I can't wait. I'm so happy to talk to you
for our First of all, I was telling you off
show that I mean I could talk to you about
anything because you are issue adjacent to everything, like not
just media, but just everything, every everything. I feel like
you are interconnected with everything, and and I want you
to maybe share with us how you got into this work.
(02:37):
Was there like an aha moment for you when you
realize you know what? I want to dig a little
deeper on inclusion because I don't feel included, Like how
did this even start? Where did this begin? Well, gosh,
that's a great question and not one that I get
very often. So I actually really nobody ask you this
because I find out I'll find your job fascinating and
(02:57):
I always want to know, like, why why did you
choose this? Well, I I absolutely love the question. I
think resonates with what you're getting at in terms of
how are we connected. When I was a PhD student,
I was studying violence in the media, and that really
was my area of expertise, and you'd find this interesting.
Much of my work was focusing on children's fear reactions
(03:20):
and safety concerns as a function of watching the news,
and so it was really thinking about how are young
people processing real world images that they're seeing on TV
and how does it relate to their safety concerns? And
there were two things that I said I would never do. One,
as I said I would never move to East Lancy
(03:41):
in Michigan for my first job. The second thing I
said I'd never do was study gender lo and behold,
my first job was in East Lancey, Michigan at Michigan
State University, and the work that I did initially on
inclusion was really through the lens of gender and race
ethnicity and set me on this course of a wild
(04:02):
adventure that is beyond my dreams in a management Why
why were you against studying gender? I wasn't against it.
I just didn't see a lot of compelling work being done,
and because of that, I wasn't drawn to the literature
until something really interesting happened. Back in around two thousand three,
two thousand four, I left Michigan State. I moved to
(04:23):
USC and I got a call from an organization called
Dads and Daughters, and Dads and Daughters wanted to do
and this is so perfect for connections. Dads and Daughters
wanted to do a study on gender representation in children's media.
But gender, haven't we solved this problem? Like? Why why
are you asking me this question? Right? It's two thousand
(04:44):
three two thousand and four, and then they said, well,
the person that's you know behind the research is the
actor Gina Davis. And then what happened was amazing. So
even though I was an identity scholar, we recruited this
group of students and I identity was their central focus
of thinking through the world through a different prism than
(05:06):
how I was raised. And they were so fired up
about this project that we were doing. And we started
with movies. At the suggestion of my dean at the
time at Annaberg, Jeffrey Collen, said you should really look
at g rated films. I'm like, that's a great idea.
So one of our first studies was on g rated films.
But the students were so fired up about it. I said,
(05:26):
I need to lean into this because this is really
interesting how much people care about inclusion. And I used
to do work on media violence in the industry really
didn't care about media violence because the First Amendment and
all of those issues in terms of storytelling, and everybody
seemed to be caring about identity when we started working
on this, and so because of the students, I made
(05:47):
a list of all the studies I wanted to accomplish
about fift two thousand students later and dozens of publications,
we've made it through every study on the list. And
so I got involved because of the enthusiasm and excitement
as students in my lab wanting to know the answers
about why they're not seen and heard on screen, whether
(06:10):
it's in movies or on television and now in streaming.
So that's the story, and and I've been intrigued, and
you know, it's it's exhilarating to do this type of work.
You never know who you're going to get called by,
but to see the students come alive and they're now
executives at the top across industries and they care about inclusion,
and they call us, can you work with this company?
(06:31):
Can we form a partnership? It's literally every day really exciting. Right.
Are you still surprised at your results every now and again?
Like what's what surprises you? In a good or bad way?
In a good way, in a great way. So so
most of the time it's like Okay, rinse and repeat.
(06:53):
Nothing's changing and you have to look for the bright spots.
And so we did this, you know, investigation across roughly movies,
and we looked at the average critics score. How are
critics scoring movies when it comes to the director's identity.
So we siphoned all the movies into four categories. Directed
by white males, directed by white females, directed by underrepresented males,
(07:17):
directed by underrepresented females. Guests who had the highest critical
review when a color behind the camera, which was just
an amazing finding a white male. No. So this then
sent us on a series of of We've done a
lot of economic work because I asked the question, why
(07:39):
don't we see google them about the raw and more
epic stories like where is she? I saw a bell
and I'm like, this person is amazing. She should be
in everything, and she wasn't. So we wanted to start
doing the economic UH analyzes to find out what sells
in Hollywood for the very reason of if women of
color behind the camera as directors are are killing it
(08:00):
when it comes to critical review, why aren't they getting
their supports that they deserve in terms of production costs,
marketing dollars right or or more bites at the apple,
even absolutely more at bats. And so while we see
them working the fewest, they're making the greatest impact when
it comes to storytelling of the four groups that we evaluated,
(08:22):
that to me is really exciting a lot of the
rinse and repeat data. No, not exciting. It's actually very disheartening.
It's very hard to process why there's not greater change
on these issues. And you and I have talked about
that quite a bit. Yeah, but why do you think
that is? I still don't have the answer to that.
I'm on the receiving end of these cancelations. Not enough
(08:46):
at BATS. Can't hire who I want to hire because
they don't have the body of work to get the job.
But I can't get them the job until they get
the body of work. It's like this endless cycle. Whether
it's there's no pipeline of talent, which there is, or
you know she's never done this before, or like, what
do you think prevents? Well, let's back up first, why
(09:08):
is inclusion even important? Who cares? Well? I think two
issues And people like to say folks want to be
seen and heard, and that's absolutely on point. But we
know that we evaluate our self esteem, our self worse,
how we feel about our mind, how we feel about
our bodies, about where we see ourselves represented, and there's
(09:31):
enough decades of scientific evidence to suggest that the portrayals
we see on screen can affect all of those outcomes.
I mean, think about aging. Think about people that are
over sixty, over sixty five. If they see negative depictions
on aging, it can lead them to stereotype their group.
Stereotyping of their group in a negative way can lead
to cognitive decline. It can cause changes in gait, It
(09:55):
can affect handwriting. There's a direct path from how all
older people see themselves on screen and how they physically
manifest behaviors and thoughts. The same is true with young children.
The same is true across the lifespan. It affects ourselves
worth and affects our self identity, and so seeing ourselves
it's actually really important in a variety of roles, in
(10:17):
a variety of perspectives. Not seeing ourselves being excluded. There's
some interesting and compelling research that that can be processed
as painful. Social exclusion can lead to pain, and so
think about the psychological and physical consequences of being in pain,
and the stress and and and the mental health consequences
(10:38):
along with physical. So there's lots of reasons why this matters,
and they're very self evident I think to all of us,
we all have different identities. You know, I might think
professor is really important. Someone else might focus on other
aspects of their identity. But what we're seeing is a
real returning of business as usual right now. And that
(10:58):
makes me nervous out where we're going, right, not only
business as usual regressing, because didn't female directors go down,
not up? So if a lot of people are like
Hollywood's turning the ship around, we're not. We're actually not. Yeah.
We So we saw an uptick and I was really
excited with the four percent challenge, which you know, so
many of us worked on, you know, with Time's up
(11:20):
rolling out, asking people to commit to working with the
female director in the next eighteen months to change that
four percent, and it bounced up to ten. Even took
a hit. Most of was re releases, right if you
look at top Box Office, right, they saved all the
films with female directors. So we saw rebounding to kind
(11:43):
of that that uptick. And so now looking at the
slate of what's will be in the top one, I'm
nervous we're going to see a downward trend again. And
so I think you're right. If we talk about why
this is happening. I think there's a lack of intention
reality with the folks that are producing the most content,
(12:03):
not across the board, but in a lot of spaces
were now two years past George Floyd. People are easy
up right, They're not honoring those commitments, right, and we
really need to think how do we help people get
the tools they need to make this top of mind
in all of their decisions. And yeah, that's not happening,
but not only not happening, worse like, yeah, they're actually
(12:28):
doing have things that are harming the diversity pipeline, is
mantling these you know, diversity programs and things. I mean,
it's really scary, I agree to. But that's the big reason.
Also why I got behind the camera and why I
producing directors because I wanted to be in a position
of power to higher And I don't think there are
these executives in these towers that are going it's not
(12:52):
higher women like I don't think there's an evil plan
to keep women out of the industry or people of color.
I think they are used to Tom and Dick and
Harry doing the jobs, so they're going to hire Tom
and Dick and Harry and I remember when I was
producing and directing Grand Hotel TV show, I was looking
for a DP and they sent me Tom, Dick and
(13:12):
Harry resumes and I said, are there any female dps?
And they go, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah, and
they sent them. They didn't say no, they didn't say
absolutely not, and they weren't hiding the resumes for me.
They just sent me who they always work with. Right,
And so I said, once I'm in a position of power,
I am going to consciously hire women, right, I'm gonna
(13:32):
consciously hire people. So when I was staffing the directors,
we had twelve slots and I said, I want I
want women. Let's go to the women first, and then
once we've filled that, then I said, okay, I want
people of color, any any gender. And then after that
I said, okay, you know, the last slots left were
white male, just because I wanted to consciously hire with
the lens of women and people of color. And I
(13:53):
was able to do that. But that's me berating people
for these resumes and going where is the database of
all this talent? And I agree with you, like we
have to keep our foot on the gas when it
comes to accountability right of these studios because your data person. Right,
So if they hired one female director last year and
(14:14):
now they have to they get the press release to
say we doubled the amount of female directors. Yeah, you're like,
you know, you went you went from one to two,
Like that doesn't count right, right, And so you know,
you bring up a really good point. It's keeping things
not only top of mind, but also not allowing what
(14:39):
really ends up being oppression and hegemony, not allowing that
to continue by saying two folks, no, we need to
consider the best person for the job. And the best
person for the job isn't the ideal that you have
in your mind. Let's broaden the pool. There's lots of
folks that have the talent, they don't get the opportunity
(15:00):
d And so it's going back and saying, like what
you did with DPS again, when people are crewing up
a writer's room, crewing up who's going to direct, you know,
the episodes across you know, however many episodes are ordered
in the series. Who's going to be attached to a film?
And what we often see with film is really problematic
in a way that doesn't really make sense. So if
(15:21):
you have let's say Flaming Hot, they want Latin X
director behind the camera because the lead and the director
match in terms of their background, and so then you
get this great opportunity. You've been doing this for years,
you're very much skilled and have the ability to do it.
But all the stories that don't involve Latin X leads,
(15:45):
you should also be getting access to those stories too,
And that's what doesn't happen. They're pigeonholing people into lanes
that are consistent with their identities. But for white male directors,
they get to tell any story they want to. And
so we really have to help. I think executives who
hear pitches and are are thinking about assembling a crew,
(16:10):
you have to disentangle identity from the director with a
lot of stories that are about the human experience, so
that people of color aren't only telling stories about people
of color, they're also telling stories from a wide range
of backgrounds. Because that's what white men get to do.
And that's why we have to even the playing field,
really being conscious about making sure you know who's getting
(16:33):
access and opportunity is across identities, not just siloed to
who I always go to or who I think is
the best, because when we do the work on critics reviews,
most films in Hollywood receive a failing score. So we're
not talking about this high art and this high you
know bar that people have to cross over. There's a
(16:55):
lot of working directors that aren't producing stuff that are
very good, and yet women of color punching at the
highest across identity groups. So if it's really about talent,
they should be at the first of the list of
who am I going to go out to? And that's
where we have to start getting people to think more
broadly than just people telling only stories based on their identity.
They should be offered those stories and others. Yeah, don't
(17:19):
you feel like just for the sake of humanity, it
helps to see diversity on screen because that's the world
we live in, right, Like absolutely, If I only see
a show with white male actors and then there's in
my community a black doctor and a Hispanic lawyer, like
(17:41):
I don't compute, right, Like, Like, wait, don't you feel
like this? Inclusion matters? And we've said it a million
times inclusion matters. Inclusion matters, but because media should reflect
the world that we live in, because it would actually
lead to treating each other better. Absolutely, And you know
(18:01):
the perfect example of this in our lab. We started
working on Muslim representation with zam ed Um with the
with the project funded by the Ford Foundation and Pillars.
And you know, I'm a faith based person. My spirituality
is the most important thing to me, and here we're
doing this project on Muslims and I have to admit
(18:23):
I really didn't know much. You know, we hired someone
to run the project who was Muslim, and we had
a whole team of Muslim research assistance working on the projects.
We all learned so much and how we're connected in
so many similar ways and have so many similar experiences.
We're all very unique as well. But when we think
(18:47):
about cognitive diversity, all these different backgrounds and identity groups
bring something to the table that make us more interesting
and compelling and well rounded. We just have to allow
a space for that, and we often don't. It just
opens up connectivity in so many powerful ways and makes
life so much more interesting when we when we do that.
(19:10):
M Yeah, I think I think it's important to society
for us to um have that inclusion. Like it's not
just like check a box. Studios come on, check a box.
It's like, no, it's actually for the benefit of humankind.
And I'm not just talking about United States. I'm talking
about globally. To see a Hindu person on TV, to
(19:30):
see all ethnicities, all cultures, and like, wow, I didn't
I didn't know that inclusions so important, and especially in
a time where how people are consuming content is different.
I can watch it when they want, how they want,
where they want, iPhone, TV, iPad, computer, ten o'clock at night,
eight of the morning. The content consumers are in control.
(19:54):
So because of that, there's just like this in inndation
of so many shows. So in order to break through
the noise, you have to be innovative, right, you have
to have a different perspective, of different point of view,
And I think the only way to be innovative is
through diversity. That's the only way. Is like to have
a different storyteller tell that story, and so it will
(20:15):
make content better. It will expose audiences to a variety
of people on screen, which will hopefully translate to them
being more accepting of people of different cultures. I think
you and I worked on the Latin X Representation study
and you titled it the erasure of Latinos like it
(20:37):
wasn't oh underrepresented, misrepresented like it was like, no, no,
the irasure. Why did you decide to call it that
and what do you think the consequences are when we
are erased out of the media. Well, I wanted to
call it that because not only was it accurate and provocative,
but it really I think illuminated what we saw in
(21:00):
the data. So you know, we've been studying the Sundance
Institute for quite a few years and um, we did
a big project on submissions and submissions by Latino directors.
They're in the hundreds at Sundance, So you can't say
that the directors aren't there. And in Los Angeles and
many other large cities around the country, the percentage of
(21:22):
Latinos I mean in l A that number is astronomically large, right,
And so we can't say that the actors aren't there
because they're everywhere, right. So we took it to most
studios and we didn't get to all of them, And
it was really disheartening because we heard all the excuses
EVA it was so it was so disheartening. There's not enough,
(21:44):
there's not a pipeline, and I'm like, you gotta be
kidding me. If only five of on screen characters are Latino,
and most of those are characters that just say a
few words, they say he went that way or there
she goes right. I can do that. I know I
can do that. Just give me a sag card. I
can do it. But there's people that are trained actors
that because of their identity, they're only getting access to
(22:08):
if they get access to play the criminal, to play
the drug dealer, to play the maid. This is inexcusable
and we heard it at the top of these companies.
They don't believe that talent is there. My firm belief
is talent is there. You're erasing their opportunities that they
should have to play a variety of rules, across a
(22:29):
variety of backgrounds, and to play on screen characters that
are Latin X. And so it's really important to me
to let the industry know exactly what they're doing, because
if somebody were to tell me you're erasing me, oh
my gosh, I'd be traumatized. I'd have to stop, right,
(22:50):
And that's what we see going on. So what do
you think people outside of the media is I mean,
I know, like your work is specific to the industry,
But what do you think some of the biggest challenges
are for creating a more inclusive world, Like whether it's
(23:11):
in our industry or not. You know, it feels like
we're in a very divisive country. We just talked about
the United States, Like we're all in our echo chambers.
We're all in our bubbles of of consuming content that
only you know our algorithm tells us like you're gonna
you want to hear more of this, okay, And so
what do you think are the biggest challenges ahead for
creating a more inclusive world? And like breaking out of
(23:35):
those borders and lines and just going God, we are
so much more similar than different. It's a couple of things. One,
it's it's looking to other places that unexpectedly and we
see inclusion thriving that people aren't paying attention to. Where's
that some aspects of music, right, So when I heard
the myth that you can't have an underrepresented lead or
(23:58):
a black lead, open a film and try, I'm like,
have you ever heard of Beyonce? Because Beyonce is a
global phenomena. Like all of a sudden, I started thinking
about music and then people would say, oh, well, it's
not an audio visual mechanism. I'm like, you gotta be
kidding me. It's as much visual as it is audio, right, Like,
because this is really about the top, how can consumers
(24:22):
help with this problem? Because you know, like we said,
the problems the gatekeepers, the problems with people at the top.
I feel like this is not a moral imperative. I'm
not coming to these studios going please hire me. I'm
a woman, Please hire me. I'm I'm a person of color.
I feel like it makes financial sense to cater to
the fastest growing demographic in the United States. Calling me crazy,
(24:44):
but I don't know. Maybe we should program to some latinos.
And I feel like if they don't listen to the
moral imperative, like, what about the business imperative? What about
like no, this is just good for business and that
being consumers? Right, So, how do we empower consumers to
really take a stand in like saying this is what
we want to we want to see more of this.
(25:04):
How can we have more power in this conversation? Absolutely,
And that's a great question. Well, so one, not only
do they need to show up, they need to watch,
they need to purchase, they need to engage on social media.
But additionally, they need to do whatever they can to
get resources to content creators to tell these stories. So
(25:25):
philanthropists need to write specific checks, underwriting specific groups at
some of the most important festivals to get people into labs,
to get people to training and access to other individuals
that they need. Secondly, we need states and a federal
bill for tax incentives on storytelling. We need federal legislation
(25:47):
that has inclusion requirements associated with it along with what
we see in states. Third, we need shareholder activism. We
need people who have shares in these big companies to
stand up and say what do you doing, to take
a stand at the meetings and to ask these companies
for more. And we need people like college students all
(26:07):
around the country to come together, arm in arm across
groups and to take a stand and say we're going
to do things different. This generation of young people that's
why I love being a college professor. This is their topic.
They don't even think about inclusion the way we think
about it because it's in everything that they do. We're
going to have a workforce crisis pretty soon because the
(26:30):
young people coming out of college who are inclusive, they
don't want to work at the studios because it doesn't
match their values. So I'm excited with the young people
where we're going. We just got to close the gap
faster and get some of these people out of positions
of power and get new people in. You know, scoot over,
let let more people come to the table. Move over. Well,
(26:52):
thank you so much for talking about this. I know
you can talk about inclusion forever. I can, Indeed I can.
I love it. I love it so um. Just one
last question I asked every guest is what's a book
you recommend to everybody? You're like, oh my god, this
book changed my life. It could be a novel, it
could be anything. Yeah, well, it's funny. I have a
couple of books right behind me. But Christa Tippa wrote
(27:14):
this book called Becoming Wise. She has an on Being podcast.
She's a journalist that interviews the whole variety of different people.
I'd recommend that, and then I'd recommend anything written by Heschel,
who was a Jewish theologian. You know, the title of
one of his books was I asked for wonder Reading.
For me, spiritual text put me in the mindset of
(27:37):
how can I serve and do what I can for
humanity and and both. Whether it's Tippet's more recent writings
or Heschel's writings from decades ago, they transport me and
help me connect not only spiritually, but to other people
and how to serve them with the totality of my beings.
So I think I would recommend those authors in that capacity.
(28:01):
So funny that you say that because I read so
many scripts that I don't read fiction, like when i'm reading,
I read nonfiction. And so for you, you're like, you
read so much data. You're like, I need something spiritual.
And indeed, indeed, I want to be open to all
influences right and make sure that my heart and my
(28:22):
mind and my soul and my spirit are in the
right place. Louis Pasteur would always say chance favors the
prepared mind. I want to be prepared in always, and
so spiritually is probably one of the most important to me.
So it's nice to be able to even mention it
because I'm a scientist who believes, and and tonight that
it's exciting. I love that. I love that oxymoron exactly exactly.
(28:47):
But this has been amazing. Thank you even for having
me on. Thank you so much for listening. I'm happy
to be can acted with you. Connections with Evil Lagoria
is a production of unbelievable entertainment in partnership with I
Hearts Michael Plura podcast Network. For more podcasts from my Heart,
(29:10):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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