{"id":15455,"date":"2019-02-21T02:04:44","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T02:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=15455"},"modified":"2019-02-23T00:56:03","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T00:56:03","slug":"oscars-2019-beyond-the-stats-why-diversity-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/oscars-2019-beyond-the-stats-why-diversity-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscars 2019: Beyond the stats, why diversity matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dorinne Kondo<\/a>, University of Southern California \u2013 Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

With the Academy Awards approaching, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released its most recent report on diversity in Hollywood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It documented an upward trend toward equality: The number of women and people of color in the role of lead or co-lead has risen over the last two years. Still, the film industry has yet to achieve parity, especially for people of color, whose representation is 11 percent lower than their share of the general population.<\/p>\n

Statistics provide an indispensable metric to understand the big picture, what I call \u201ccreative labor\u201d of who\u2019s hired for particular jobs. But numbers alone can\u2019t account for the types of characters being played \u2013 if they\u2019re stereotypical roles or groundbreaking portrayals. Nor do numbers tell us why representations in popular culture can have such profound impact on people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

In my book \u201cWorldmaking: Race, Performance and the Work of Creativity<\/a>,\u201d I approach the issue of diversity as a cultural anthropologist, playwright and performance studies scholar. In it, I argue that cultural representation is about something deeper than parity for the sake of parity \u2013 that everyone needs to be mirrored in the public sphere in order to exist and to count as a fully dimensional human being.<\/p>\n

Visions of possibility<\/h2>\n

Classic psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan proposed the concept of the mirror stage of development<\/a>, which he argued was necessary for the formation of an identity.<\/p>\n

He used the metaphor of infants recognizing themselves in a mirror as the first step towards seeing themselves as integrated, whole beings. While Lacan thought it was impossible to achieve \u201cwholeness\u201d \u2013 no one can be completely whole and integrated \u2013 he argued that identities are imagined and reinforced through this mirroring.<\/p>\n

For this reason, it\u2019s critical that people see themselves mirrored in popular culture. Identities can be formed by watching film, television, theater or sports. They\u2019re shaped by playing video games, dancing and listening to music. The characters who appear and the roles they assume indicate whose lives matter in the public sphere, and who is erased.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mexican actress Yalitza Aparicio was nominated for best actress for her role in \u2018Roma.\u2019<\/span>
\nChris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The arts and popular culture stage what I call \u201cvisions of possibility\u201d for what viewers and readers can become. For generations, members of the dominant culture were primarily able to see themselves on screen as leaders \u2013 the heroes of stories that are publicly recognized and celebrated. Marginalized people were relegated to more limited possibilities, and these limitations can carry over into diminished dreams and life choices.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s starting to change. A black child can now see Chadwick Boseman star as the hero of \u201cBlack Panther<\/a>,\u201d and Storm Reid play 13-year-old protagonist Meg Murry in \u201cA Wrinkle in Time<\/a>.\u201d An Asian-American child can see Constance Wu command the screen in \u201cCrazy Rich Asians<\/a>,\u201d while an indigenous person can see Yalitza Aparicio appear as the lead in \u201cRoma<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culture can combat the \u2018slow death\u2019 of inequality<\/h2>\n

The ability of viewers to see themselves mirrored becomes especially crucial when we rethink how inequality operates. Racism, for example, is not simply a matter of spectacular violence or membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Nor is racism simply a matter of attitude or prejudice.<\/p>\n

Critical geographer and social justice activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls racism \u201cgroup differentiated vulnerability to premature death<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, some groups are more likely to experience lower life expectancies, whether it\u2019s from violence, imprisonment, exposure to environmental toxins or even the greater amount of energy it takes to get through a day. Inequalities of race, class and gender can gradually erode psychological and physical health, in what English professor Lauren Berlant calls \u201cslow death<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

To counter the slow death of inequality, I argue that the sort of mirroring in popular culture that affirms viewers from marginalized groups is life-giving.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Documentary filmmaker Bing Liu\u2019s \u2018Minding the Gap\u2019 was nominated for best documentary feature.<\/span>
\nChris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This requires attention to creative vision. It\u2019s not simply a matter of numbers; it\u2019s a matter of whose stories are being told, and who is controlling the narrative. The growing number of women and people of color on screen may not signal a new, exciting creative vision if they\u2019re cast in the conventional roles of damsel in distress, \u201cthe black best friend<\/a>,\u201d the increasingly popular gay, \u201cfabulous\u201d black best friend<\/a> or \u201cthe Asian nerd.\u201d<\/p>\n

New voices, new stories, new understanding<\/h2>\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to shine a spotlight on all kinds of new stories, whether it\u2019s making a superhero a star or simply highlighting everyday lives of people of different cultures, classes, races or sexualities.<\/p>\n

Tales of dysfunctional white families<\/a> and the mid-life crises of straight white men<\/a> remain too numerous to count.<\/p>\n

What can be gained by subjects and premises that are so repetitive? What about the invisible everyday lives and experiences of indigenous or Middle Eastern women? What could be learned from an Asian-American female protagonist\u2019s midlife crisis? Or would \u201cmidlife crisis\u201d even be an apt term for her unique experiences? Would there be a new way to imagine her story?<\/p>\n

How many other stories go unseen and untold?<\/p>\n

Postcolonial scholar Gayatri Spivak wrote that racism and colonialism aren\u2019t simply a matter of overt, conscious domination. Instead, they involve what she calls \u201czones of sanctioned ignorance<\/a>.\u201d In other words, what do people not know about the lives of those who are different from themselves?<\/p>\n

Lack of diversity creates zones of sanctioned ignorance. Denying playwrights, screenwriters and directors from marginalized communities a platform for their work deprives everyone the opportunity to engage with the world in new ways.<\/p>\n

What intriguing tales might await when richly specific, expansive creative visions from previously overlooked writers and directors are given the space to blossom? What fresh, fascinating stories will emerge?<\/p>\n

Without a continued push for diversity, audiences will never know.\"The<\/p>\n

Dorinne Kondo<\/a>, Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity and Anthropology, University of Southern California \u2013 Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dorinne Kondo, University of Southern California \u2013 Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences With the Academy Awards approaching, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released its most recent report on diversity in Hollywood. It documented an upward trend toward equality: The number of women and people of color in the role of lead or co-lead has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":15453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[3439,453,1409,412,5915,13,498,390,1715],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15455"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15464,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15455\/revisions\/15464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}