The Concrete Ceiling: The Intersection of Race and Gender in Contemporary Hollywood

Women of color in contemporary Hollywood are deliberately excluded from the roles of director, screenwriter, producer, and other behind-the-scenes jobs; this is due to the prioritization of the voices of white women - ultimately a product of white supremacy. Women of color often struggle to find adequate funding for their projects, which leads to a lack of diverse and unique voices in the industry. When there is a lack of women of color behind the camera, unsurprisingly we also find a lack of women of color in front of the camera. Non-white female actresses often find themselves participating in inauthentic, disingenuous stories told from the perspective of ill-informed white creatives.

The inclusion of women of color in behind-the-scenes roles in Hollywood is relatively new. As recently as 2018, Janet Mock became the first transgender woman of color to both write and direct an episode of a network television show, as reported by Tim Stack. Dr. Stacy L. Smith, when looking at 1,100 films from 2007 to 2017, found that out of 64 Black directors, only four were women and out of 39 Asian directors, only three were women. Women of color behind the camera are practically invisible. Smith also found that this strict racial hierarchy resulted in only 8 out of 1,223 female directors being non-white. In a phone interview, Smith even stated; “when Hollywood thinks about its female directors, they’re really thinking about a Caucasian woman.” This is due to the prevailing idea that white womanhood is universal and more accessible to audiences, a rhetoric so deeply entrenched in the industry, and a product of America’s white supremacist history as well as the belief that non-white people are inferior.

Chauncey Alcorn reported that director Ava DuVernay was the first, and only, Black woman to be nominated at the Golden Globes, for her work on Selma in 2015. In a report published by Lily Bedrossian for the Director’s Guild of America, she found that during the 2016 through 2017 television season, sixteen percent of episodes were directed by white women, while only five percent were directed by women of color. The numbers have been slowly rising thanks to shows like Queen Sugar and Insecure, but job opportunities are still sparse. Mynette Louie explained that creatives of color do not have the same career trajectory as their white counterparts. Due to Hollywood being such an insular industry, they often rely heavily on nepotism, which generally favors dynastic white families who have always had their foot in the door; like the Barrymores, the Coppolas, and the Fondas.

Moreover, the deliberate exclusion of women of color as directors and writers also negatively impacts women of color who act. Actresses of color struggle to be cast as leading ladies, due to being seen as less desirable than white women, and often have to squeeze into stereotypical boxes just to find employment. Eva Longoria once confessed that she was told she wasn’t, “Latin enough”, to be hired for certain roles by misinformed white casting directors. White creatives have this fixed idea about women of color that limits their choices and doesn’t consider the complexities of non-white women. One example of this gross ignorance was during the Golden Age of Hollywood, when the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America put in place The Motion Picture Production Code which explicitly stated; “miscegenation is forbidden”. This outright ban on interracial romance in film led to women like Anna May Wong being relegated to roles that played on Orientalist stereotypes, instead of being the romantic lead like Marlene Dietrich and other well-known white actresses. This was the career of most women of color in Golden Age Hollywood. Now, in contemporary Hollywood, despite the end of what was then known as the Hays Code, actresses of color still find themselves relegated to stereotypical roles in works such as The Help, which preys on the mammy stereotype, and Modern Family, which preys on the Latina sexpot stereotype.

The exclusion of women of color behind the camera inextricably leads to a lack of roles for actresses of color in general, which, in turn, leads to an even smaller amount of jobs for dark skin actresses of color. Dark skin women of color are hired less, due to being seen as less desirable; light skin women of color have a closer proximity to whiteness, in the eyes of white people, which keeps white audiences comfortable, according to Tiffany Onywjiaka. Colorism, or skin color discrimination, has its roots in America’s slavery era, which created the idea that light skin Black people were better, smarter, and prettier than their darker skinned counterparts. This ideology has found its way into all communities of color and created a negative impact within them. Actress Viola Davis has spoken publicly about colorism, and remarked; “I hear… from friends… who are dark-skin actresses who are always... seen as crack addicts and prostitutes.” This is often the only work given to dark skin women of color, if given work at all. When women of color do not receive backing and funding to tell their stories, actresses of color, especially dark skin actresses, are rid of a chance to have their voices heard and amplified. It is crucial that non-white women have their voices heard because white women, and even men of colour, lack the range and desire as seen with movies like Dope and Lady Bird that exclusively employed light skin women of color and white women.

The solution to the severe lack of women of color in leadership roles is to actually give them a chance and value their voices. Companies like Warner Bros. are taking strides towards greater inclusivity, with their projects like Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, which has Asian-American director Cathy Yan and Asian-American screenwriter Christina Hodson. Women of color who write, direct, act, and work in other areas must forge their own path in the industry. Production companies like A24 and Neon have been taking steps to support smaller budget projects helmed by woman of color, like The Farewell and Little Woods. Films like Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians broke box office records, showing that audiences have a thirst for stories about non-white people, especially non-white women. It is also down to Hollywood executives to help get stories like those off the ground. Hollywood needs to do more than just talk; they need to make real, genuine advances toward inclusivity, not merely shallow tokenism.

Women of color in contemporary Hollywood struggle to get a solid foot in the door. This is due to white supremacy. Women of color not being allowed to direct, write, and produce leads to women of color not being able to act. Film and television is supposed to be a reflection of society. What can they be reflecting if a huge swath of our society is being silenced?