Inclusion Riders

[peter]

The term, not familiar to me until a few moments ago, refers to a clause that actors can have added to the end of their contracts demanding fifty percent inclusion of minority groupings, racial, disabled, female, gay etc, in the production teams and casts of the films they are signing up for.

Frances McDormand apparently referred to such at the end of her Oscar acceptance speech, I'm guessing given the current demands to wear your pc credentials high on your sleeve, in a positive fashion - but I confess that such a crude tool for use in the delicate art of film making causes me to shudder. Of course there should be diversity in the industry - but it should be of a natural and spontaneous kind, not a rote demand of box ticking. You cannot keep hammer, hammer, hammering these practices into areas that by there very nature demand freedom of expression and choice to maximize the quality of their output, and not expect the results to be a disastrous decline in the same.

[I'm Murrin]

I don't believe it's about 50%, peter. What I've seen is that it asks for representation matching the demographics of the place, and when it comes to cast concerns things like extras and bit parts rather than demanding changes to main cast.

[Cail]

BS virtue signaling from an industry with profound misogyny and pedophilia problems,

[Hashi Lebwohl]

If I were an actor, I would want to be cast for a part because I am the right fit for the character concept and my audition was the best, not because a big-name, A-list actor said "I won't work on this project unless you hire x number of underrepresented demographic actors".

That same logic applies to all careers. I would want to be hired because I am the best candidate, not because the business needs to check of a demographic box to show how "inclusive" they are.

[I'm Murrin]

And yet if you don't force the issue it'll never change. People making the decision to be deliberately inclusive is what gets these things to start shifting.

[Cail]

I don't want movies to be "deliberately inclusive", I want them to be expressions of the writers and the directors.

Inclusion for the sake of inclusion is just silly....Like trying to explain what Morgan Freeman was doing in Robin Hood.

[peter]

At its best Cinema is an Art to rival any other; slightly more collaborative than others perhaps - but still fragile and easily disrupted by extraneous pressures. I don't know much about the whole process (is the director involved in the hiring of the crew and makeup artists etc?) but it seems that his is the 'vision' of what the final picture should be (or is even this a collaborative act.......or indeed is he hired to instantiate the vision of another), but actors can be notoriously difficult at the best of times and one can't help but feel that having this extra stick to stir the pot with can only make that process all the more difficult to raise to its highest level.

[Avatar]

Don't think it really affects the film per se. As Murrin said, it's generally about extras and bit parts.

Which addresses Hashi's point as well I think, in that extra's at least are not really "cast" in a meaningful sense.

"We need 500 people to run screaming over that hill in the rain waving swords."

Generally, the first 500 people that turn up are fine.

Seem to recall the US used to have rules (laws?) about having to have x number of black actors for every x white ones in a show or whatever.

Yes, it's BS, but again sorta agree with Murrin...it's a process of "normalisation" just like the race thing was. Eventually it won't matter.

--A

[Skyweir]

And yet if you don't force the issue it'll never change. People making the decision to be deliberately inclusive is what gets these things to start shifting.

I agree

Its encouraging representation .. but yeah more reasonable approach is to mirror the demographic. Not sure that it is really a rule that MUST be adhered to .. look at Black Panther ..

Interestingly my son told me that Hollywood now endure there is an Asian in every film to appeal to the Chinese market. Either that or a scene on an Asian location. Not sure if that is accurate ..