Tagged: Los Angeles Times

“To conduct the study, Times reporters spoke with thousands of academy members and their representatives — and reviewed academy publications, resumes and biographies — to confirm the identities of more than 5,100 voters — more than 89% of the voting members. Those interviews revealed varying opinions about the academy’s race, sex and age breakdown: Some members see it simply as a mirror of hiring patterns in Hollywood, while others say it reflects the group’s mission to recognize achievement rather than promote diversity. Many said the academy should be much more representative. The Times found that some of the academy’s 15 branches are almost exclusively white and male. Caucasians currently make up 90% or more of every academy branch except actors, whose roster is 88% white. The academy’s executive branch is 98% white, as is its writers branch. Men compose more than 90% of five branches, including cinematography and visual effects. Of the academy’s 43-member board of governors, six are women; public relations executive Cheryl Boone Isaacs is the sole person of color.”

Source: John Horn, Nicole Sperling and Doug Smith. “Unmasking the Academy Oscar Voters Overwhelmingly White, Male.”  Los Angeles Times. February 19, 2012. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/oscars/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-20120219-story.html.

“About 37 million people tuned in to the Academy Awards last year, and a great deal rides on the show’s outcome. Winning a golden statuette can vault an actor to stardom, add millions to a movie’s box office and boost a studio’s prestige. Yet the roster of all 5,765 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a closely guarded secret….A Los Angeles Times study found that academy voters are markedly less diverse than the moviegoing public, and even more monolithic than many in the film industry may suspect. Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%. Oscar voters have a median age of 62, the study showed. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.”

Should this surprise anyone?

Source: John Horn, Nicole Sperling and Doug Smith. “Unmasking the Academy Oscar Voters Overwhelmingly White, Male.”  Los Angeles Times. February 19, 2012. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/oscars/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-20120219-story.html.

“Issues of race have long bedeviled Hollywood, which has been criticized for not giving minorities enough opportunities for work, and for not doing enough to represent African Americans, Latinos and others in films and television shows. Darnell Hunt, a sociology professor at UCLA, said he was not surprised by the nature of the emails. ‘This is where we are in Hollywood,’ said Hunt, who is director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, which produces the annual Hollywood Diversity Report. ‘We have a diversity problem … the fact that you can have these perceptions that are made jokingly give us a peek into the underlying culture of the industry.'”

Everyone wants to write about Sony’s hacked e-mails, but the media doesn’t want to discuss the fact that William Morris, Creative Artists Agency, their attorneys and counsel for the plaintiffs in Rowe Entertainment v. William Morris Agency et al. (98-8287) concealed smoking gun evidence showing Agents and other employees from two of Hollywood’s biggest talent agencies referring to African Americans as “nigger,” “nigga,” “coon,” “Uncle Tom” and “monkey” hundreds of times in incoming and outgoing e-mails.

Above is the document Leonard Rowe found on his attorney’s desk, now known as “Exhibit 31.” What makes the actions of Rowe’s attorneys so unethical, is that the class of black concert promoters paid $200,000.00 for this search and were told by their own white attorneys that “no derogatory terms” were found. Clearly the plaintiffs in Rowe were defrauded because this document is authentic. If not, Arbitrator David L. Gregory would have never admitted this document into the evidence of record in my case when the federal judge in Rowe — Robert P. Patterson — refused to do so eight years earlier. Twelve years after the search was conducted, the underlying e-mails have never been produced.

Source: Daniel Miller. Future of Sony’s Amy Pascal Questioned After Hacked Email Revelations.” Los Angeles Times. December 11, 2014. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-sony-amy-pascal-apologizes-20141212-story.html.

LA Times: “Even if Hollywood likes to present itself as magnanimous and liberal, its hiring decisions — including jobs handed to women — continue to be demographically constricted, with most work still going to white men.”

Source: John Horn. “Hollywood Is Losing the Race For Ethnic and Gender Inclusion.” LA Times. December 26, 2013. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-backstage-black-filmmakers-20131226-story.html#axzz2obL44haU.