I found this quote today from a Variety Article that was in response to Jessica Chastain's new production Company Freckled Films.
"Ernesto Le Roux says:
February 19, 2016 at 1:22 am
I notice that the vast majority of this companies execs are female. Will men complain about that? Of course not. It's a company founded BY females. Men accept that.
Why then can't females, or blacks for that matter, accept that when a company is FOUNDED AND OWNED BY WHITE MALES it should be CONTROLLED BY white males?
Why whine about white men controlling their lives the way they see fit to do so?"
Can I please say that you REALLY DON'T GET IT.
The question is not if woman complain about this matter. It's the DISPARITY within the industry when it comes to the RATIO of women and ethnicities in film.
Get it through your head THE PROBLEM IS NOT WITH WHITE MEN ITSELF!
The problem is in the numbers.
This is not a male vs. female fight on who's better and who's worse, or who's right or who's wrong. It's that WE ARE EQUAL. And that is not reflected in our industry. I'm going to say it again.
WE ARE ALL EQUAL.
I have heard this argument a thousand times and it makes no sense. What most of us would really love to see is that every production company has a an equal number of males and females and that each company is heavily diverse. Film is about the perspectives of this world and when the majority of the perspectives of film and tv are being dictated by white men over 50, there is a problem. Why? Because now you have white men over 50 thinking they know everything. Or worse, no variety in our industry and all the artist left wondering where the art went.... Hence why after The Hunger Games was a success there were five series after it that had similar themes and young hot ladies...and they were shit.
The Hunger Games proved that, not only, could a female be a lead and could sell tickets at the box office, but also that great acting was important and that Jennifer Lawrence, being the powerhouse she is, is what actually sold tickets. The content still has to be good. That doesn't mean that if you have a hot young female lead that it's going to sell tickets. Where is creativity?
And the content is lacking in creativity and diversity, not because there is no creative and diverse content out there, there is MASSIVE amounts of great content, it's just that there are no avenues for a wonderful young woman who happens to be black to portray their stories. And people don't pick it up unless it's a "black story." What about picking it up because it's a great story and we put someone of ethnicity in the lead? What a revolution!! Right?
I digress.
The problem is not white old men, it's that there is virtually ONLY white old men running the show. All the shows. And it creates shitty contrived content because they are stuck in their time and era where they still are marketing to 18 year old white boys (themselves in the 50's) and not to the population that is at hand. The 51% female world, who also happens to be the majority of the audience and the people that bring in all the money to the industry ie. the consumer. And the beautiful diverse world that we live in is only seen in black and white, and guess what! It's not. So take your blinders off and look at the world. And I have to tell you, it would be easier to be able to see this perspective if we could have more content made by different perspectives.
Film is about compassion. How can we understand and have compassion for each other when all we ever see is powerful white men and cliche everything else. Stop being ignorant to the issue at hand and look at all the facts. We love white men. But we don't ONLY love white men.
Kat Karpoff