Is Hollywood Actually Woke?

[Shadowy Man]

Do we know for sure that white heterosexual men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else? And if they are do we wonder what system would have allowed that to become the case? Should that system be left in place or perhaps something else tried?

 

[Politesse]

More proof that those people most alarmed by the word "woke" have no idea what the word actually means.

 

[thebeave]

Do we know for sure that white heterosexual men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else? And if they are do we wonder what system would have allowed that to become the case? Should that system be left in place or perhaps something else tried?

I don't know, but that's not what I claimed. Go back and reread. I used "and/or". Doesn't have to be all three. Hollywood will likely be giving employment preference to people who are not in the above three categories.

I do wonder what the hiring process is though. If you are a man, can you say you identify as a woman to get the job? And if they question your sincerity about that, doesn't that make them transphobic for asking? Kind of a conundrum. Also, what if you are mixed race? Is a half Asian-half white person considered Asian enough? Maybe DNA tests with ethnic percentage limits should be imposed to sort this out.

And will they require proof of your gayness? How does that happen? Will there be official "gay ID cards" issued, with yearly followups to make sure you didn't switch teams? I always thought your sexual preferences should be a private matter, but maybe this is a different era now? Or maybe there will private investigators following you to make sure you're truthful about being gay. They might have to peek in your window at night to make sure that you're not *gulp* doing it with the opposite sex.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Do we know for sure that white heterosexual men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else? And if they are do we wonder what system would have allowed that to become the case? Should that system be left in place or perhaps something else tried?

I don't know, but that's not what I claimed. Go back and reread. I used "and/or". Doesn't have to be all three. Hollywood will likely be giving employment preference to people who are not in the above three categories.

Sorry. Then I should have said “do we know for sure that whites or heterosexuals or men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else?”

The implication is still that majority types are more qualified than minority types. And that opting for a minority type will result is lesser quality.

 

[Politesse]

I don't see how you could say its not woke:

ACADEMY ESTABLISHES REPRESENTATION AND INCLUSION STANDARDS FOR OSCARS® ELIGIBILITY

Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced new representation and inclusion standards for Oscars® eligibility in the Best Picture category, as part of its Academy Aperture 2025 initiative. The standards are designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience. Academy governors DeVon Franklin and Jim Gianopulos headed a task force to develop the standards that were created from a template inspired by the British Film Institute (BFI) Diversity Standards used for certain funding eligibility in the UK and eligibility in some categories of the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA) Awards, but were adapted to serve the specific needs of the Academy. The Academy also consulted with the Producers Guild of America (PGA), as it presently does for Oscars eligibility.

I think this is going to be disaster. Qualified and experienced white, heterosexual and/or males are going to be passed over for jobs in the industry in favor of less qualified people, but who check the right boxes. There's just not going to be enough qualified non-whites available when every movie studio and production company is scrambling to hire people to make a movie that's going to be considered for Best Picture. Not to mention why would any white, hetero and/or male now choose a career in film production when their job prospects are so diminished and they are considered a pariah? And what do you do about movies that are based on historical events that featured mostly white people? Like, say another film about Titanic? Is Molly Brown going to be Chinese now? Maybe the Captain will be a deaf, Lesbian Eskimo. Yay, progress.

Richard Dreyfuss is not having it:

I would like to offer some kudos for actually citing the Acadrmy themselves rather than some second hand "summary".

 

[thebeave]

Do we know for sure that white heterosexual men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else? And if they are do we wonder what system would have allowed that to become the case? Should that system be left in place or perhaps something else tried?

I don't know, but that's not what I claimed. Go back and reread. I used "and/or". Doesn't have to be all three. Hollywood will likely be giving employment preference to people who are not in the above three categories.

Sorry. Then I should have said “do we know for sure that whites or heterosexuals or men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else?”

The implication is still that majority types are more qualified than minority types. And that opting for a minority type will result is lesser quality.

No, think of it this way (with this admittedly extreme example for illustrative purposes). Men are 99% of bricklayers out there, women 1%. Assume there is no difference in compentency between men and women bricklayers. If construction companies set a goal of 30% of their bricklayers to be women, then they are going to have to hire some substandard female bricklayers to achieve that (if they could get there at all). The end result is almost certainly going to be crappier and more expensive brick buildings. And good, male bricklayers will be without jobs.

 

[Rhea]

Men are 99% of bricklayers out there, women 1%. Assume there is no difference in compentency between men and women bricklayers. If construction companies set a goal of 30% of their bricklayers to be women,

The good people in HR know better than you about this, and they do not set their metrics and goals that way.

They tend to set them to match applicant pools with longer term goals toward the overall workforce. They start with, “you must have at least one minority in the applicant pool or it’s clear you’re looking in the wrong places. You must have at least one minority in the interview pool. ANd then you choose the best applicant.


All of HR knows that it starts with noticing that there are women bricklayers, then making sure you advertise your job in front of them, and that when you interview them, you make sure you don’t convey the company as a sausage fest so they don’t walk away from you. The metrics are set knowing that that is the first hurdle and many companies don’t yet clear it.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Do we know for sure that white heterosexual men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else? And if they are do we wonder what system would have allowed that to become the case? Should that system be left in place or perhaps something else tried?

I don't know, but that's not what I claimed. Go back and reread. I used "and/or". Doesn't have to be all three. Hollywood will likely be giving employment preference to people who are not in the above three categories.

Sorry. Then I should have said “do we know for sure that whites or heterosexuals or men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else?”

The implication is still that majority types are more qualified than minority types. And that opting for a minority type will result is lesser quality.

No, think of it this way (with this admittedly extreme example for illustrative purposes). Men are 99% of bricklayers out there, women 1%.

Why are men 99% of bricklayers? How would continuing to only hire men bricklayers help this situation?

My understanding is that Hollywood has a much higher supply than demand. All I ever hear is that there are tons of people wanting to get into the business so there appears to be no shortage of folks to choose from. So it is unlikely that Hollywood has the same problem.

I think historically, the industry has favored the white, male and heterosexual (or multiple combinations of the three) and as such we don’t know how qualified the others may be.

Unless there’s some hard data to refer to it appears to me to be an unsupported assertion that lower quality would necessarily result from the expansion of the hiring pool. But I could be wrong.

Assume there is no difference in compentency between men and women bricklayers. If construction companies set a goal of 30% of their bricklayers to be women, then they are going to have to hire some substandard female bricklayers to achieve that (if they could get there at all). The end result is almost certainly going to be crappier and more expensive brick buildings. And good, male bricklayers will be without jobs.

Let’s say there are 10000 bricklayers available. You only need 100. So there are 9900 male bricklayers and 100 female Bricklayers. If your goal is 30% female bricklayers then you take 30 female
Bricklayers and 70 male bricklayers. Assuming no competency difference between the sexes then there’s no loss in quality.

And now that female bricklayers get more jobs, that might instill interest in women to become bricklayers and help balance the whole 99:1 ratio problem. Eventually there’s less need to worry about hiring equality.

 

[thebeave]

Men are 99% of bricklayers out there, women 1%. Assume there is no difference in compentency between men and women bricklayers. If construction companies set a goal of 30% of their bricklayers to be women,

The good people in HR know better than you about this, and they do not set their metrics and goals that way.

They tend to set them to match applicant pools with longer term goals toward the overall workforce. They start with, “you must have at least one minority in the applicant pool or it’s clear you’re looking in the wrong places. You must have at least one minority in the interview pool. ANd then you choose the best applicant.


All of HR knows that it starts with noticing that there are women bricklayers, then making sure you advertise your job in front of them, and that when you interview them, you make sure you don’t convey the company as a sausage fest so they don’t walk away from you. The metrics are set knowing that that is the first hurdle and many companies don’t yet clear it.

I agree with you in general about the HR process you described in this. If you read my link about the Oscars, though, they are setting quotas of at least 30%. They don't seem to be doing it the HR way. I wish them luck though. Hollywood seems to be crashing at the moment, and they need all the luck they can get.

 

[thebeave]

Do we know for sure that white heterosexual men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else? And if they are do we wonder what system would have allowed that to become the case? Should that system be left in place or perhaps something else tried?

I don't know, but that's not what I claimed. Go back and reread. I used "and/or". Doesn't have to be all three. Hollywood will likely be giving employment preference to people who are not in the above three categories.

Sorry. Then I should have said “do we know for sure that whites or heterosexuals or men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else?”

The implication is still that majority types are more qualified than minority types. And that opting for a minority type will result is lesser quality.

No, think of it this way (with this admittedly extreme example for illustrative purposes). Men are 99% of bricklayers out there, women 1%.

Why are men 99% of bricklayers? How would continuing to only hire men bricklayers help this situation?

My understanding is that Hollywood has a much higher supply than demand. All I ever hear is that there are tons of people wanting to get into the business so there appears to be no shortage of folks to choose from. So it is unlikely that Hollywood has the same problem.

I think historically, the industry has favored the white, male and heterosexual (or multiple combinations of the three) and as such we don’t know how qualified the others may be.

Unless there’s some hard data to refer to it appears to me to be an unsupported assertion that lower quality would necessarily result from the expansion of the hiring pool. But I could be wrong.

Assume there is no difference in compentency between men and women bricklayers. If construction companies set a goal of 30% of their bricklayers to be women, then they are going to have to hire some substandard female bricklayers to achieve that (if they could get there at all). The end result is almost certainly going to be crappier and more expensive brick buildings. And good, male bricklayers will be without jobs.

Let’s say there are 10000 bricklayers available. You only need 100. So there are 9900 male bricklayers and 100 female Bricklayers. If your goal is 30% female bricklayers then you take 30 female
Bricklayers and 70 male bricklayers. Assuming no competency difference between the sexes then there’s no loss in quality.

And now that female bricklayers get more jobs, that might instill interest in women to become bricklayers and help balance the whole 99:1 ratio problem. Eventually there’s less need to worry about hiring equality.

Well, not exactly. If you need to hire 100 bricklayers out of 10,000 available in theory you could get the top 1% by hiring 99 men and one woman. If you had to hire 30 women because of a quota requirement, you are guaranteed to have to hire some bricklayers who are down in the top 30%, not 1%. Which might be good enough for the job, but for sure the building won't get built quite as fast, and the craftsmanship and/or structural stability might suffer.

As to why 99% of bricklayers are men, you'd have to ask the women why it doesn't appeal to them (IIRC, Whoopi Goldberg did it for a while, so why not ask her?). Its hard, physically demanding work, and can be tedious. I'm in the construction business, and I have to say it doesn't hold much appeal for me as a full time job, so its not hard to see why women don't gravitate to it.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Do we know for sure that white heterosexual men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else? And if they are do we wonder what system would have allowed that to become the case? Should that system be left in place or perhaps something else tried?

I don't know, but that's not what I claimed. Go back and reread. I used "and/or". Doesn't have to be all three. Hollywood will likely be giving employment preference to people who are not in the above three categories.

Sorry. Then I should have said “do we know for sure that whites or heterosexuals or men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else?”

The implication is still that majority types are more qualified than minority types. And that opting for a minority type will result is lesser quality.

No, think of it this way (with this admittedly extreme example for illustrative purposes). Men are 99% of bricklayers out there, women 1%.

Why are men 99% of bricklayers? How would continuing to only hire men bricklayers help this situation?

My understanding is that Hollywood has a much higher supply than demand. All I ever hear is that there are tons of people wanting to get into the business so there appears to be no shortage of folks to choose from. So it is unlikely that Hollywood has the same problem.

I think historically, the industry has favored the white, male and heterosexual (or multiple combinations of the three) and as such we don’t know how qualified the others may be.

Unless there’s some hard data to refer to it appears to me to be an unsupported assertion that lower quality would necessarily result from the expansion of the hiring pool. But I could be wrong.

Assume there is no difference in compentency between men and women bricklayers. If construction companies set a goal of 30% of their bricklayers to be women, then they are going to have to hire some substandard female bricklayers to achieve that (if they could get there at all). The end result is almost certainly going to be crappier and more expensive brick buildings. And good, male bricklayers will be without jobs.

Let’s say there are 10000 bricklayers available. You only need 100. So there are 9900 male bricklayers and 100 female Bricklayers. If your goal is 30% female bricklayers then you take 30 female
Bricklayers and 70 male bricklayers. Assuming no competency difference between the sexes then there’s no loss in quality.

And now that female bricklayers get more jobs, that might instill interest in women to become bricklayers and help balance the whole 99:1 ratio problem. Eventually there’s less need to worry about hiring equality.

Well, not exactly. If you need to hire 100 bricklayers out of 10,000 available in theory you could get the top 1% by hiring 99 men and one woman. If you had to hire 30 women because of a quota requirement, you are guaranteed to have to hire some bricklayers who are down in the top 30%, not 1%. Which might be good enough for the job, but for sure the building won't get built quite as fast, and the craftsmanship and/or structural stability might suffer.

I thought you said the men and woman are equally good bricklayers.

As to why 99% of bricklayers are men, you'd have to ask the women why it doesn't appeal to them (IIRC, Whoopi Goldberg did it for a while, so why not ask her?). It’s hard, physically demanding work, and can be tedious. I'm in the construction business, and I have to say it doesn't hold much appeal for me as a full time job, so it’s not hard to see why women don't gravitate to it.

But we’re not actually talking about bricklayers we’re talking about the entertainment industry.

 

[Politesse]

The idea that anyone is hiring only the top 1% of bricklayers is batshit insane. Even the idea that a group of bricklayers could be meaningfully ranked in such a fashion is insane. Acting and screenwriting, likewise.

But if it were true, it wouldn't matter how efficiently anything was getting built, because if 99% of bricklayers are unemployed, whose going to buy the buildings anyway?

 

[Rhea]

As to why 99% of bricklayers are men, you'd have to ask the women why it doesn't appeal to them (IIRC, Whoopi Goldberg did it for a while, so why not ask her?). Its hard, physically demanding work, and can be tedious. I'm in the construction business, and I have to say it doesn't hold much appeal for me as a full time job, so its not hard to see why women don't gravitate to it.

In Very Large Part it is due to the atmosphere of 99% male workplaces being bastions of harassment. No matter how much you like your work, no matter how good you are at it, it sucks to work with people who treat you like shit Every Single Day. And that’s why management has to make it clear that they expect a change.

Also, your assumption that men and women are equally good at bricklaying needs some work. Take engineering as an example. Make it engineering in the 1980s. Make it Chemical or Mechanical which were 99% male (as opposed to environmental). Now think about how of the 99% who are male, there is a very large chunk who “fell into” engineering because they didn’t know what else to do and engineering is a manly job and that’s all they really know about it. The 1% of women, tghough, not a single one got there except by being intensely interested in the exact curriculum and deliberately working past difficult barriers to get there.

Odds are, that EVERY ONE of those 1% of engineers who are women are in the top 5% overall in skill, interest, knowledge and fortitude.

They don’t drop out for partying, they don’t skate by with Cs and Ds and get whatever job. They are On A Mission, and they have already passed fifteen side-quests.


You can assume the same for all of these diversity battles. The lazy and mediocre minorities don’t shoot for the challenging roles; there’s too much extra that they’d have to fight. By contrast, the lazy and mediocre majority don’t realize these are challenging roles, they just feel entitled to participate.

Think about that…. “All things being equal” has never yet been true.

 

[thebeave]

Do we know for sure that white heterosexual men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else? And if they are do we wonder what system would have allowed that to become the case? Should that system be left in place or perhaps something else tried?

I don't know, but that's not what I claimed. Go back and reread. I used "and/or". Doesn't have to be all three. Hollywood will likely be giving employment preference to people who are not in the above three categories.

Sorry. Then I should have said “do we know for sure that whites or heterosexuals or men are more qualified for all these jobs than anyone else?”

The implication is still that majority types are more qualified than minority types. And that opting for a minority type will result is lesser quality.

No, think of it this way (with this admittedly extreme example for illustrative purposes). Men are 99% of bricklayers out there, women 1%.

Why are men 99% of bricklayers? How would continuing to only hire men bricklayers help this situation?

My understanding is that Hollywood has a much higher supply than demand. All I ever hear is that there are tons of people wanting to get into the business so there appears to be no shortage of folks to choose from. So it is unlikely that Hollywood has the same problem.

I think historically, the industry has favored the white, male and heterosexual (or multiple combinations of the three) and as such we don’t know how qualified the others may be.

Unless there’s some hard data to refer to it appears to me to be an unsupported assertion that lower quality would necessarily result from the expansion of the hiring pool. But I could be wrong.

Assume there is no difference in compentency between men and women bricklayers. If construction companies set a goal of 30% of their bricklayers to be women, then they are going to have to hire some substandard female bricklayers to achieve that (if they could get there at all). The end result is almost certainly going to be crappier and more expensive brick buildings. And good, male bricklayers will be without jobs.

Let’s say there are 10000 bricklayers available. You only need 100. So there are 9900 male bricklayers and 100 female Bricklayers. If your goal is 30% female bricklayers then you take 30 female
Bricklayers and 70 male bricklayers. Assuming no competency difference between the sexes then there’s no loss in quality.

And now that female bricklayers get more jobs, that might instill interest in women to become bricklayers and help balance the whole 99:1 ratio problem. Eventually there’s less need to worry about hiring equality.

Well, not exactly. If you need to hire 100 bricklayers out of 10,000 available in theory you could get the top 1% by hiring 99 men and one woman. If you had to hire 30 women because of a quota requirement, you are guaranteed to have to hire some bricklayers who are down in the top 30%, not 1%. Which might be good enough for the job, but for sure the building won't get built quite as fast, and the craftsmanship and/or structural stability might suffer.

I thought you said the men and woman are equally good bricklayers.

As to why 99% of bricklayers are men, you'd have to ask the women why it doesn't appeal to them (IIRC, Whoopi Goldberg did it for a while, so why not ask her?). It’s hard, physically demanding work, and can be tedious. I'm in the construction business, and I have to say it doesn't hold much appeal for me as a full time job, so it’s not hard to see why women don't gravitate to it.

But we’re not actually talking about bricklayers we’re talking about the entertainment industry.

I did not mean that all bricklayers (whether men or women) are all equally good. It would be absurd to assume for any job that everyone is as equally good as the next person. With a normal distribution, for example, there are top performers (occupying the upper 3 sigma range), bottom performers (occupying the lower 3 sigma range) and the more average performers (between the top and bottom). I was just saying, for the sake of argument, that the distributions of men and women were equal and indistinguishable with regard to bricklaying competency.

I used bricklayers as a basic, simple example. The Oscars example is actually fairly complex and convoluted, as there are numerous subcategories of jobs, and numerous minorities all competing for those subcategories in different proportions. How it all pans out in the end with these new rules is going to be interesting to watch. I do wonder, for example, about disciplines that are likely currently (and historically) dominated by women. Like Costume Design and Makeup. Will it be necessary to diversify them with men or are they OK as is?

 

[Rhea]

Female dominated costume design industry STILL biases male pay above female.

Social Media Made Costume Designers Stars. They’re Still Waiting To Reap The Rewards

as costume designers’ work is celebrated in public and inspiring sales, they often don’t receive the acknowledgment they deserve behind the scenes.

www.refinery29.com

In an industry plagued by pay inequity and gender bias, it’s no surprise that costume designers are victims of the same issues. “The majority of costume designers are women, and they are ignored,” says Perez, who’s worked as a costume designer on shows like The Mindy Project. “[The industry] thinking is, ‘Well, it's just shopping, my wife can do that.’” As a man working in a role dominated by women — the Costume Designers Guild is composed of nearly 90% women — Perez says he’s been previously paid more than his female counterparts: “It’s proof that it’s a gender thing.”

 

[thebeave]

As to why 99% of bricklayers are men, you'd have to ask the women why it doesn't appeal to them (IIRC, Whoopi Goldberg did it for a while, so why not ask her?). Its hard, physically demanding work, and can be tedious. I'm in the construction business, and I have to say it doesn't hold much appeal for me as a full time job, so its not hard to see why women don't gravitate to it.

In Very Large Part it is due to the atmosphere of 99% male workplaces being bastions of harassment. No matter how much you like your work, no matter how good you are at it, it sucks to work with people who treat you like shit Every Single Day. And that’s why management has to make it clear that they expect a change.

Also, your assumption that men and women are equally good at bricklaying needs some work. Take engineering as an example. Make it engineering in the 1980s. Make it Chemical or Mechanical which were 99% male (as opposed to environmental). Now think about how of the 99% who are male, there is a very large chunk who “fell into” engineering because they didn’t know what else to do and engineering is a manly job and that’s all they really know about it. The 1% of women, tghough, not a single one got there except by being intensely interested in the exact curriculum and deliberately working past difficult barriers to get there.

Odds are, that EVERY ONE of those 1% of engineers who are women are in the top 5% overall in skill, interest, knowledge and fortitude.

They don’t drop out for partying, they don’t skate by with Cs and Ds and get whatever job. They are On A Mission, and they have already passed fifteen side-quests.


You can assume the same for all of these diversity battles. The lazy and mediocre minorities don’t shoot for the challenging roles; there’s too much extra that they’d have to fight. By contrast, the lazy and mediocre majority don’t realize these are challenging roles, they just feel entitled to participate.

Think about that…. “All things being equal” has never yet been true.

My assumption about men and women being equally good at bricklaying was for the sake of argument, to simply the discussion. That's all. If I had to choose about who actually was better though IRL, just as an educated guess, I would assume men mostly due to the fact that an average man is typically stronger and are capable of carrying a larger quantity of bricks and mortar than an average woman. Which would mean they ultimately would do the job somewhat faster. I see no reason why women would have a disadvantage regarding laying bricks evenly and consistently, though.

I worked in engineering at a major aerospace company for many years with both men and women in the 1980's and '90's. . I can't say I agree with you that those 1% of women engineers are in the top 5% in skill, interest, knowledge and fortitude. And the 1% is not in keeping with my experience. It was certainly in the double digits. If you have some stats to back up your claims, I would like to see them. My mind can be changed.

 

[thebeave]

Female dominated costume design industry STILL biases male pay above female.

In an industry plagued by pay inequity and gender bias, it’s no surprise that costume designers are victims of the same issues. “The majority of costume designers are women, and they are ignored,” says Perez, who’s worked as a costume designer on shows like The Mindy Project. “[The industry] thinking is, ‘Well, it's just shopping, my wife can do that.’” As a man working in a role dominated by women — the Costume Designers Guild is composed of nearly 90% women — Perez says he’s been previously paid more than his female counterparts: “It’s proof that it’s a gender thing.”

?? That link doesn't show your quoted text? Or did I miss something?

 

[Rhea]

?? That link doesn't show your quoted text? Or did I miss something?

Sorry that link was embedded in the article. I edited to add the link above.

 

[Rhea]

And the 1% is not in keeping with my experience. It was certainly in the double digits. If you have some stats to back up your claims, I would like to see them. My mind can be changed.

Employment - Society of Women Engineers

Over time, the U.S. has seen an increase in the number of women entering STEM occupations. While life science occupations, such as biology, have closed the gap between the percentage of men and women working in these fields,

swe.org

Here’s some data, but my point is that the curves are not equivalent. People on the outside of any employment disparity don’t tend to fall into those careers with apathy and laziness, but members of the majority - especially overwhelming majorities - do. For the minorities, it’s deliberate and makes the curve very different. I expect you know that.



It was single digits in engineering, and some engineering fields worse than others - like Mechanical and Chemical.