January 28, 2016
Sunset Blvd
Source: Shutterstock
After an entire night of poring over the faces of 1,400 pathetic souls, here are the stats:
67% of the submissions were white non-Hispanic
18% were Hispanic
11% were black
4% were Asian
Backstage also allows actors to check “transgender,” which not one SOB among the 1,400 did.
A recent Annenberg School study of the top 600 films in the U.S. found that whites make up 74.1% of the speaking roles, blacks 14.1%, Hispanics 4.9%, and Asians 4.1%. So right off the bat, we can say that blacks and Asians are represented just fine. In fact, blacks are overrepresented, an open secret that even diversity mavens like UCLA’s Darnell Hunt have been forced to admit (in this 2015 L.A. Times interview, Hunt conceded that black overrepresentation has been a fact since at least 1999).
It’s when we get to whites and Hispanics that things get murky. 98% of the Hispanic actors who responded to my casting notice self-identify as Hispanic plus something else. 93% self-identify as Hispanic and Caucasian. In other words, the overwhelming majority of Hispanic applicants (many of whom have non-Spanish surnames) describe themselves as ethnically Hispanic and racially white. This fluidity, this ability to count as Hispanic or white, makes it pretty much impossible to determine Hispanic representation.
The authors of the aforementioned Annenberg study make no attempt to explain how they define Hispanic (i.e., how would Lynda Carter, Louis C.K., Vanna White, or Charlie Sheen be classified?). They also use Hispanic and Latino interchangeably, even though the two words have different meanings and refer to different (though overlapping) groups.
Any supposed studies of Hispanic “proportionality” in Hollywood are inherently worthless without a strict definition of what constitutes Hispanic. And even then, those studies are of limited value, because so many actors can be either Hispanic or Caucasian, depending on what will get them hired.
But regarding blacks, the lead trumpeters in the shrill parade of whiners (as my colleague Jim Goad recently pointed out), there is no crisis of proportional representation. Black A-listers have simply had a bad two-year run with the Oscars. It happens. Joseph Cotten, John Barrymore, Peter Lorre, Edward G. Robinson, Marilyn Monroe, John Cazale, and Alan Rickman died without ever having been nominated. You”ve already been nominated twice, Will Smith. Quit yer bitchin”, and stop being in movies with your wacky untalented son. You”ll get your statue eventually.
It’s a sad commentary on how these types of controversies get recycled every few years that I can end this piece with the exact same words I used to conclude my Times op-ed in “02: “The issue of diversity is more complex than many of the activists and pressure groups make it out to be. We must not allow that complexity to become submerged in a sea of angry rhetoric and boycott threats.”
