12 minute read
Interview with Dr. Darnell Hunt
by Musu Bangura for the Urban Sentinel
It’s no secret that diversity in Hollywood continues to thrive, despite the increasing presence of black talent among writers, actors and directors. Dr. Darnell Hunt, author of the annual Diversity in Hollywood Report, has been studying this issue for the past six years. Grabbing the attention of some of Hollywood’s biggest industry giants, Dr. Hunt hails from Prince George’s County Maryland, where he studied Journalism at Georgetown University and soon became familiar with the world of script writing. He quickly noticed the lack of diverse representation when it came to directing and producing in television. Now as the head of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, Dr. Hunt is determined to raise awareness of the diversity issue on and off the big screen.
In a recent discussion, Dr. Hunt provides a sneak peek into his annual report that is annually released before the Oscars and gives us his take on recent successes such as the 2018 box office smash film, The Black Panther. Dr. Hunt also offers advice for black writers who are looking to leave their mark in the entertainment industry in the new technological wave that has taken place through powerful platforms such as Netflix.
MB: How many years have you been conducting this study on diversity in Hollywood?
DH: It’s an annual study that’s been going on for six years now and comes out right before the Oscars. Last year, you know they were talking “Oscars So White,” so it allows us a platform to talk about diversity, or the lack thereof. So we have the numbers right here that shows definitively what’s happening or what’s not happening. This year’s report (2019) is coming out on February 21st.
MB: Can you give us a bit of insight on this year’s report? Any surprising findings or disappointments?
DH: Well, I don’t want to give away all the headlines, but I will say we’ve seen some progress over the past six years; we’ve seen some change. The thing to keep in mind is that people of color make up more than forty percent of the population right now. And as most people know, in a couple of decades, we’re heading towards being the majority vs. the minority. That’s why we’re having all these crazy occurrences with the current administration right now. The demographics are shifting, and people are trying to hold onto their privilege in the face of that change - that’s what this is really all about. So, people shouldn’t be surprised because at the end of the day, it’s about advertising and selling products. Advertisers know that if they’re going to appeal to a potential consumer, they will have to give them images they can relate to. That’s why advertising itself has been more diverse than actual TV programming, but now TV is catching up because of platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon…there are thirteen hundred samples in our research this year and they know they can’t keep going back to the same people over and over to produce new shows. They have to create an opportunity for diverse folks to be involved that’s never been involved before.
Film on the other hand, not so much progress. It’s still pretty stagnant in that area as far as diversity is concerned. We’ve seen a little progress with women directors but people of color – despite the success of Black Panther, the film industry overall, hasn’t done what it should be doing on the diversity front.
MB: Actress Regina King has made it her personal mission to hire more women on her future projects. Do you see other big names in Hollywood following suit? Black or White?
DH: There are a few, like Ava Duvernay - she insists on having a cast and crew that’s diverse. All of her directors are women and she’s very deliberate about that. People who have the power and credentials should be able to take that stand. Unfortunately, most of us who are able to break into the industry don’t have that when first coming into the industry. You’re trying to land a job and then trying to hold on to that job. The bottom line is the decision makers are still mostly white men. There aren’t many people of color running networks or studios.
MB: You mentioned the Black Panther and the significant response it had. What are your thoughts on the success of the movie? Do you think it caused a significant ripple effect?
DH: It’s too early to say what the legacy of the film will be, but we can speculate based on the few other examples we’ve had in the past. It’s important to keep in mind a couple of things; it’s the highest grossing super-here movie ever which is quite amazing, considering it had an all-black cast and director. There were black writers and costume designers as well. There were a lot of creative decisions by people of color behind the scenes. That is rarely seen given the type of budget this film had. The film grossed over a billion dollars and it’s still making money. It’s been nominated for Academy Awards, so it’s significant in that respect. What that will mean five to ten years from now remains to be seen.
MB: Let’s consider quantity vs. quality. If we do see an increase in more black-owned films, do you think we should be concerned about the quality of those films?
DH: Quality can be a difficult thing to determine. Obviously, some films are just not that great. There’s a lack in production value and things like that. What we should be striving for in the black community is a range of representation. A range of images that captures the diversity of black life. You don’t want exclusively just show positive images or just negative ones. In the real world there are range of different experiences, types of people and situations that can be depicted. We don’t want to give an unrealistic view of black life and what black people are up against, nor do we want to celebrate certain types of cultural forms that aren’t reflective of what most black people aren’t dealing with. The problem has been historically, we haven’t controlled the process by which TV shows and films are made. We’ve only been given opportunities at rare intervals to make something and every once in a while, that project will turn into a big blockbuster that gets copied, sometimes by the powers that be, and those copied efforts aren’t as good as the original. At the end of the day, my hope is that we get more opportunities and are able to portray a broader range of the black experience.
MB: Your published research from the 2017-2018 television season shows that twenty-four percent of new scripted shows had mostly minority cast members, a much higher number from the previous season. Is there any particular reason for this type of change in television?
DH: Slowly but surely in television, people are beginning to get the memo. Diversity sells. We’ve documented this during the six years of our study. On average, films, tv shows that look more America make more money and have higher ratings. Even though you have mostly white men at the top of the industry, they still have to produce things to resonate to their audience. People of color are driving the economy of Hollywood right now. Latinos make up the majority of film and TV watchers, with black people following closely behind That’s why we’re seeing all the changes in TV that we haven’t quite seen yet in film. Netflix for example is making more new TV shows than any other platform right now.
MB: That’s very surprising that Latinos are the biggest movie-going group with blacks following right behind them. With all of this information that your study has, have white industry officials reached out to you for insight? Are they interested in making changes in accordance with your report?
DH: Absolutely. When we designed the study eight years ago (before we initiated the actual study), we spent a year or two literally reaching out to major studios, networks, employment guilds, advocacy and access networks to get a sense of what people thought about what type of information would be impactful in doing this type of study. Based on the responses, we were told to make diversity the bottom line. Show a relationship between diversity and ratings. We found that relationship in our study and it continues to grow every year in our study and the industry had to take notice. Some of them have chosen to sponsorour research which includes Disney, Oprah Winfrey Network, HBO, The Will and Jada Smith Foundation, BET, TBS and a couple of talent agencies sponsor as well. When we produce the report in February, right before the Oscars,
we usually spend the month of March, April and sometimes May making the rounds in Hollywood to discuss the report with executives and explain to them our findings. They’ve been using that information over the years to see how they can do business. This has made a difference, but it hasn’t made enough difference. I think we still have a long way to go and the biggest improvement we have to make is at the very top. People in power don’t want to give it up easily. The real challenge will be making sure we have more women and people of color in the executive suites.
MB: Since you started doing this type of research, have you come across any other surprises that maybe jumped at you that weren’t expecting to encounter?
DH: That’s a great question. We’ve been doing this for a long time now and I can almost predict what trend we’re going to see once the study is underway. But every once in a while, something kind of catches us by surprise that we didn’t think about or just didn’t anticipate. The biggest shift that was surprising at the time was the incredible increase in digital programing. Netflix now has forty-nine TV shows in our database, compared to CBS which had maybe twenty-five. When we first started the study, Netflix only had maybe six shows in their line-up. Now they make more than anybody else. Because of their subscriptions, a space has been created for them that was slower or harder for traditional networks to do. Television as an industry has completely changed. If you and I were to have this same conversation five years from now, we would be talking differently about the TV industry.
MB: Is there a specific portion of the industry where you see more black writers than anything, such as specific genre? It can be assumed that a lot of black writers fall under the comedy genre.
DH: Well, that was the case in the past, but there are fewer comedies on TV now and more dramas. Shows like Atlanta, Greenleaf, Queen Sugar and the Tyler Perry dramas, it shows that there are more writers doing drama. But here’s the thing; black writers are more likely to be writing for black-themed shows and less likely to be on other types of shows. Take UPN and WB for example. As soon as those black sitcoms went off the air, there was a huge unemployment rate amongst black writers according to the reports for the Writer’s Guild. At that point, most black writers were concentrated in sitcoms, but that’s not the case anymore. There’s been a sizeable increase in black creativity and black-run shows in recent years. Insecure, for example, can be seen as a “dramedy”, combining both comedy and drama, but run by black talent. You also have Black Lightning, which is another black-run dramabased show. So, there are quite a bit of black tv shows that fall under the drama genre, created and run by blacks, giving strong representation in the writer’s room.
I conducted a study two years ago for Color of Change that focused on race in the writer’s room and it talked about what different types of writer’s rooms are likely to produce by way of storytelling. What happens when there are mostly white writers in the room vs. writers of color? We interviewed writers, gaining insight on what their experience is like and they see some diversity in the storytelling, but there still needs to be more representation behind the scenes.
MB: What advice would you give to a young black writer who’s looking to thrive in Hollywood?
and try to do what you can to gain membership in the Writer’s Guild and get your material out there. The internet has also lowered the barrier to enter into the industry.
DH: Keep writing. We’re in the midst of all of this technological change that’s creating opportunities we didn’t see five or ten years ago. We also have all of this young talent producing web series, which also provides new opportunities through monetization. Make contacts, network with people
MB: The thing with the internet is that it can work both ways. A lot of times someone’s work is noticed through their Tweets or posts on Instagram. This causes them to either get picked up or have their work stolen from them and they never get credit for it.
DH: It’s a two-way street. There are things you can do to put yourself in a certain position. Recruiting true talent means picking up diverse writers. Companies do have an interest in hiring those writers, as opposed to five years ago. Now they cannot deny the fact that diverse writers are needed in the shows.
MB: What does the future hold for diversity in Hollywood?
DH: The very first chart in our report looks at the U.S. population from 1980 to 2053 and you see a point where the black and white populations become the same around the year 2040. That’s two decades from now and people of color are already at forty percent of the population. It’s impossible to not hear the mandate for diversity in Hollywood at this point. If you look at the top ten shows in Latino, Black and Asian households, the common denominator is all of them are different. They are looking for shows with people that look like them. Not just in the background, but in the lead roles of these shows; people whose stories are being told. Hollywood now knows that if they ignore this data, they will lose billions of dollars. So, if I look into my crystal ball, the industry can only remain viable through diversity and that doesn’t just mean on camera, it means off the camera as well.
