by Marcus Ryder MBE
These are personal views, and do not reflect the view of 探花直播 or the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity.
The Lack Of Racial Diversity At The Baftas Was Terrible - Here Is Why It Doesn鈥檛 Matter
Two days before the Baftas the New York Times ran the headline: 鈥溾��
The article noted how 鈥溾��
In the four performance categories: Leading Actress, Leading Actor, Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor, ten out of the 24 nominees were people of colour. And the Asian American film, my personal favourite of 2022,听 鈥�,鈥� received ten nominations.
Following considerable criticism of the lack of racial diversity in 2020 Bafta committed to a major root and branch overhaul of its entire awards and nomination process.听
Along with numerous other industry figures I was consulted in the overhaul. I attended numerous international Zoom meetings, and being the only participant in Asia at the time (Malaysia) - the vast majority being either in the UK or US - it wasn鈥檛 uncommon for me to go to bed in an evening, only to wake up, log in at 2am, and then go back to bed at 3.30am.
But just a few years later after reading the New York Times headline, and similar ones in Variety () and other publications, the sleepless nights all seemed worth it.
However even as The New York Times鈥� headline celebrated the diversity of the nominations, if one read further down there was a note of caution by one of the academics consulted in the review of the nomination process. Dr Clive Nwonka, an associate professor of film, culture and society at University College London, told the New York Times that 鈥榠t would take five or six years to get a full sense of the review鈥檚 impact, and that in the meantime, discriminatory attitudes and practices remained just as ingrained as they were everywhere else.鈥�
Paraphrasing him further the article noted; 鈥楾he entertainment world 鈥減arades the idea that what happens in the industry is separate and distinct from the rest of the society,鈥� Mr. Nwonka said. Yet the same systemic racism prevails in the film world as it does when a person of color is 鈥渨alking down the street.鈥濃��
Dr Nwonka was right to be cautious.
Cue the second headline two days later in the HuffPost - after the winners were announced: 鈥溾��.
As always Twitter helpfully crunched the numbers..
Although to be honest, for me it was the pictures that spoke the loudest. In the word鈥檚 of Lenny Henry, when he was asked what he thought of the TV Baftas exactly ten years ago in 2013 鈥溾��.
When Lenny and I wrote the book 鈥溾�� we wrote about the Baftas and award ceremonies. And we came to a conclusion that shocked many.
The people who pick up the awards, the people who we see on the red carpet and the stage听 almost do not matter.
They are just the small visible tip of a far larger film industry iceberg.
There will be years when the visible tip of the iceberg will be very white, as in the Baftas 2023 and there might be subsequent years when the tip of the iceberg is far more racially diverse. But just looking at the tip, just focusing on the winners is almost a distraction.
What we should be aiming to do is change the entire industry.
And for all intents and purposes that remains overwhelmingly white, and no amount of reviewing and overhauling the Bafta nominations process will change that.
Here are some statistics:
women of colour make up less than 2% of British film directors and over 80% of the films they direct are less than 60 minutes long.
And , by the earlier mentioned听 Dr Clive Nwonka, showed that 鈥淏AME individuals were twice less likely to get department head and key off-screen roles鈥� and 鈥淏AME individuals were over three times less likely to gain crucial first job, early career and career progression roles than non-BAME individuals.鈥�
Similar statistics can be found showing the massive under-representation of people of colour in the US film industry as well. Earlier this year Variety wrote 鈥�鈥�
My fear is that due to the high visibility of the Baftas, they will become more diverse in the coming years. As there will always be some high profile exceptions that will break through. And we will think things are improving
But we should not judge an industry by its exceptions.
By any standard the UK and US film industry suffers from systemic racial disparities which many, including myself, would call racism.
This racism needs to be tackled through regulatory, government and industry interventions. From campaigned for by Lenny Henry and currently being worked on by the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, to - implemented in countries across Europe to financially incentivise better gender equality.
To mix my metaphors; the entire iceberg is rotten - we can鈥檛 fix it just by making tweaks to the bit we can see.
It is possible to change the film industry. We must change the film industry. Let鈥檚 not get too hung up on the awards though.