Diversity sells, but Hollywood is overwhelmingly white, male (audio)

hollywoodpromo300b“If you want an accurate picture of ethnic and gender diversity in the United States, don’t look to Hollywood,” says NPR.

That’s the conclusion of the “2015 Hollywood Diversity Report” conducted by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA.

The report quantifies the striking — if not surprising — racial and gender imbalances in film and television, both behind and in front of the camera, by comparing the representation of minorities to their actual proportions of the population.

“At every level, in every arena, women and minorities are under-represented in the industry,” says Darnell Hunt, the study’s co-author and director of the Bunche Center. “And the only question really is how serious, how egregious that level of under-representation is.”

Mas…Diversity sells, but Hollywood is overwhelmingly white, male (audio)

HBO to launch Latina version of ‘Girls’ called ‘Chicas’

(PNS reporting from NEW YORK CITY) HBO’s mega hit Girls is getting a spin-off — a Latina version called Chicas.

“We woke up and smelled the cafecito,” producer Elizabeth Ferris told a press conference here this morning, “and the pan dulce.”

“The success of Girls is indisputable and we want to be able to bring that success to the Latino community,”  Ferris said. “I don’t know if any Latinos actually watch Girls, but everyone is into the ‘Latino thing’ these days, so why not Chicas?”

Mas…HBO to launch Latina version of ‘Girls’ called ‘Chicas’

The Talking Dead: No Habla Zombie

The Walking Dead is a great television series. It has captured that attention of the nation with a human drama centered around less-than-human storylines. But it is not without its own flaws, one of which is the lack of racial diversity on the show.

One of the people I follow on Twitter is Glen Mazzara, the executive producer and one of the writers for The Walking Dead. His Twitter feed usually consists of promos for the show but the other day he posted a link to an article in Slate that criticized the show for only allowing one black guy at a time among the living. The Tweet ? “One Black Guy at a Time.”

The article noted that the show’s only black female character, Michonne, was not allowed to use words to settle conflicts – she always resorts to the sword. Rick, the show’s main character, has used reason to get out of a bad situation on more than one occasion. Why does the black chick always have to be pissed off, silent and bloodthirsty?

Mas…The Talking Dead: No Habla Zombie

Organizations just about as diverse as the Oscars Academy of 2012

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), commonly known as “the Academy,” has been recently profiled in the Los Angeles Times and, not surprisingly, exposed as one of the most exclusionary organizations in the United States.

The Academy is 94% white, 77% male and the average age of its voters is 62.

Basically the Academy is full of rich old white guys, and has a hard time explaining why it is not a modern day example of Apartheid.

POCHO researchers, however,  have discovered that it’s not as bad as it looks, because there are other organizations that are only slightly less diverse than the Oscars Academy of 2012:

National Public Radio

Mas…Organizations just about as diverse as the Oscars Academy of 2012