DEI diehards
The Hollywood Reporter
Softly, softly, catchee monkey.
Hollyweird is finally, slowly waking up to the possibility that paying audiences might prefer entertainment to having politics and forced diversity thrust at them while scoffing their popcorn. Four high-profile industry DEI executives were offered the chance to update their resumes and explore new career opportunities last year, in what Kathryn Bushby, President of Original Programming at Starz, described as a horrible 10-day stretch in 2023
. It was nothing of the sort. It was a glimmering hope, which may yet prove to have been a glorious, golden dawn.
The Hollywood Reporter canvassed fifty diversities on its Forces for Change power list
for their views on forcing their shitty, divisive sociopolitics down audiences' throats. The article's title declares 40 Hollywood Heavyweights
, but I counted fifty names. So, either Rebecca Sun is even more numerically illiterate than I, which says something none too good, or ten of those diversities are Hollywood lightweights. Who knows? Does anyone care? (shrug)
Anyhow, and this should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, the Forces for Change diversities favour DEI and are advocating for more, despite the disfavour that constantly hammering home T3h M3SsAg3 has generated among the great unwashed. This is what sticking one's head in the sand, or up one's arse, looks like. One bright spark had this to say on the question of How to stop the DEI backslide
:
Expanding the definition of ‘bankable’ actors, especially in today’s global market.
Theresa Kang, quoted by Rebecca Sun in DEI Departments May Be Closing, But These 40 Hollywood Heavyweights Are Still Agitating for Change, The Hollywood Reporter
There's only one definition of bankable
, Theresa, at least as it pertains to the entertainment industry: and that's profitable. It's immutable. The only way to increase the number of bankable stars is not to change the definition, but for them to engage the audience naturally—through the power of charisma, not by the force of checkboxes—and make films and shows that audiences want to watch. It's really not that hard to understand, is it?