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Tuesday Morning: Speed of Love

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This video fascinates me. I’ve watched it a number of times since Nerdist shared it last month; it’s the 24-minute long set by Freddie Mercury and Queen at the 1985 Live Aid concert held in Wembley Stadium.

Nerdist noted the audience’s response reflects the speed of sound — the visible ripple of fans’ hands speeds across the crowd in response to the sound as it leaves the stage area and travels across the venue. The gif they shared was taken about 16:37 into this set, just as the band begins We Will Rock You.

I think there was more at work here because earlier snaps of the audience reaction during Radio Gaga (roughly 4:25 onward) don’t show the same marked wave across the crowd. But several points in the set Mercury interacts with the audience, coaxing them to sing and shout along with him.

And then at 16:35 when he begins We Will Rock You, the crowd is completely in sync with him. They adore him and are utterly engaged. The wave is not just sound but their feeling for Mercury and his performance.

Can you imagine a politician who could induce such a response?

Cybersecurity
Adobe Flash must die, and Google’s slowly exterminating it in Chrome (Ars Technica) — By year’s end, Flash will be disabled by default in Google’s Chrome browser. It will only play when manually enabled. All part of the slow migration to HTML5 away from risky Flash.

Antivirus app halts heart surgery (Ars Technica-UK) — Holy crap. Why does medical equipment need antivirus software to begin with, let alone how does an A/V app launch and run during surgery?

Artificial Intelligence
Dude, that female TA you hit on? An AI bot (Sydney Melbourne Herald) — Wow. Future’s already here and you can’t tell you’ve been dissed by both your prof and the chick-bot-TA.

A series of tubes
Remote healthcare not ready for prime time (ScienceDaily) — Study using fake patients to test direct-to-consumer teledermatology remote health care systems found security problems with IDs, poor-to-bad assignment of clinicians, many errors made in major diagnoses, insufficient warning to pregnant patients when meds prescribed, just for starters. Think of this as Healthcare Internet of Things Fail.

Super. Fast. Wireless. Internet. Coming. To. YOU! Really? (MIT Technology Review) — Ugh, so breathless with excitement they are about this startup called Starry. I was, too, initially, but we’ve been told this crap for more than a decade. Since this requires the cooperation of Verizon, AT&T, Facebook, and Google to standardize on this platform AND reception relies on line-of-sight, I’m not holding my breath.

The Business
New business for Amazon to tackle: its own private label groceries (Techcrunch) — Amazon doesn’t want to leave a penny on the table. If customers are too price sensitive to click their Dash button for a big name brand consumer good, they’ll offer their own instead. Prime accounts only, though; first goods will be heavy on baby needs, which makes sense given parents are often a captive audience.

Norway’s sovereign (oil) wealth fund to sue Volkswagen (AP) — Fossil fuel-created fund owns 1.64% stake in Volkswagen. It’s suing to protect its assets exposed by VW’s emissions controls cheat. Imagine me laughing at oil suing a car company for the manner in which it promulgated oil consumption.

Norway’s Statoil to launch first floating wind farm (Bloomberg) — This company is well ahead of Shell when it comes to diversifying energy production.

Flint Water Crisis
Michigan’s top law enforcement agent unaware of Michigan State Police “quiet investigation” (WZZM) — Still scratching my head over this one. Why did the governor ask MSP to conduct an administrative — not criminal — investigation, omitting the state attorney general? And who’s conducting a genuine criminal investigation, including the governor’s role?

Gender Equity
Toy maker(s) insisted Iron Man 3 movie must have male, not female villain (The Mary Sue) — In other words, Marvel’s big sweeping superhero movies are really just very long trailers to sell boys’ toys. Girls and women need not apply. I have no idea how they can make a decision based on any realistic data given the dearth of female villains on screen and in toys. Is this just some lame argument for inequity in front and behind the camera?

Running behind, probably read too much today and swamped my processing circuits. Hope mid-week becomes a little more focused — catch you tomorrow!

 

Illiberal Hollywood: Unchanged or Worse One Year Later

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On May 12, 2015, the ACLU sent a letter to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission asking the EEOC to look into the disparity of women directors hired to produce big-budget film and episodic television.

In October last year, the EEOC conducted interviews with women directors in film and television in response to the ACLU’s letter.

TIME reported yesterday that both the EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs launched investigations into

Today, one year after the ACLU’s letter, things have not only not improved in spite of an increasing amount of press coverage focusing on gender inequity in the entertainment industry.

It’s actually gotten worse:

A tally by TheWrap found 22 consecutive films from Fox — not counting Fox Searchlight, the studio’s art-house division — and 25 consecutive releases from Paramount had only male directors attached. So far, that covers all movies scheduled to hit theaters this year, next year and 2018 too.

The problem is systemic, from agents to studios — even union representation has been less than supportive:

Some women directors said they have noticed a backlash for their activism as well, and from a source that might be expected to be an ally. Over the summer, DGA leadership attempted to take over administration of a Facebook group of women directors who were discussing problems in the industry, according to Giese. …

Maria Giese was the first woman the EEOC interviewed; she kicked off the chain of events leading up to the EEOC’s investigation when she talked with the ACLU about the entertainment industry’s gender inequity.

The number of women directors in 2015 improved over 2014, the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University reported — but only matching a percentage last reached in 1998. This is NOT an improvement.

Nor is the continuing Ishtar effect, where male directors can fail upwards after releasing a dog at the box office, but women cannot fail and recover. Definitely not an improvement.

What has improved? The increasing level of organization across women and minorities in entertainment. They are far more outspoken and demanding about equitable representation; they are taking effective measures to promote their case and themselves. In the not-too-recent past it would have been difficult for non-industry folks to identify more than a dozen female directors. Now they can find them at The Director List’s searchable database featuring more than a thousand women who have directed a feature film, an episode of television, a national commercial, or has extensive music video experience.

Awareness has also led to changes in film festival-related events. Sundance Institute’s annual Directors Lab chose five women of a total eight first-time filmmakers to participate this year. 36% of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival’s competition films were women-directed. Four of nine judges at Cannes Film Fest are women this year, with more focus on women-directed films (though the number of women-directed films featured still lags badly).

Women empowered themselves to create new solutions, too, rather than wait for the male-dominated industry to catch up. Director Ava DuVernay and network owner Oprah Winfrey are executive producers for a new female-led/female-helmed TV series, Queen Sugar, for OWN network. DuVernay has also launched an indie film distribution outlet, ARRAY Now, to promote films produced by persons of color and women. Amy Hobby and Anne Hubbell launched Tangerine Entertainment, a film production company emphasizing works by female filmmakers and films with strong roles for women.

But the major studios lack of female-directed films (and too few female-run/-directed TV shows) for the next two to three years means women will still be cut out of big budget production and distribution, even though they are not sitting on their hands. This will not change without pressure from both the audience, shareholders, and government. Audience withdrawal is not enough, as we’ve seen with poorly performing male-directed films; their directors still get another crack. The EEOC’s work is slow; it’s already seven months now since the first interviews with female directors. Let’s hope shareholders catch a clue soon.

Like Disney — two of its seven biggest films over the last decade were directed/written/led by women (Frozen, 2013), or led by a woman (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 2015). Yet its stock is languishing, and its lineup thin of women-directed/-written/-led content. Maybe its board needs a shakeup and its stock needs to tank a little further before they wake up and realize an audience composed of +51% of the population shouldn’t be slighted by its hiring practices. Same goes for the rest of the entertainment industry: we expect better, and soon.

We know gender equity can happen; Sweden proved equality is attainable, and Norway’s nearly there. It’s past time for Hollywood to live up to its liberal image and hire women.

Illiberal Hollywood: What’s the Point of a Union if It Doesn’t Represent Members?

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BrokenHollywoodThis year continues to be a big one for women in film. Films featuring women as leads and/or directed by women made beaucoup at the box office. Mad Max: Fury Road, Pitch Perfect 2, Insurgent, and Fifty Shades of Grey are among the top ten films out of more than 284 released so far this year. Two of these films were directed by women; all four featured female leads. And two of these films put to lie once again the bullshit claim that ‘women can’t lead action films.’

The immense popularity of these movies — especially with women — demonstrates how much Hollywood underserves the female audience, in spite of repeated studies revealing how much women contribute to box office results. Women want women’s stories, told by women, and they’ve gotten them too rarely.

You’d think that Hollywood would actively court the single largest demographic by catering to its desires — but no. The film production pipeline remains solidly weighted toward men, still chasing the increasingly distracted 18-25 year-old male demographic.

It’s not as if women aren’t available as actors or directors. The Directors Guild of America (DGA) — the labor organization representing directors — counts among its ranks roughly 1200 female directors, reflecting the parity of female students who’ve been through film school or learned on the job in other production roles.

Which makes one wonder why actor/director/producer George Clooney said in a recent interview, “…there’s something like 15 female directors in a town of directors …”

If a household name like Clooney doesn’t know more female directors, what exactly is it the DGA is doing for its female membership? It’s clearly not representing them within their own organization, let alone to studios and the public.

The ACLU‘s May 12th letter to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) spelled out DGA’s complicity with Hollywood’s exclusion of female directors, when it asked the EEOC to investigate discriminatory practices. DGA has denied the use of short lists, but apart from preparing regular reports on diversity in hiring, it’s not clear at all what the DGA does to further the hiring of women directors. Read more →

Hollywood Illiberal: The Entertainment Industry’s Misogyny and Society’s Broken Mirror

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BrokenHollywoodIn a recent heated discussion I was told, “Hollywood is liberal.” That’s bullshit, I said.

“But the themes they use in their stories—they’re liberal,” they rebutted. Again, bullshit.

The proof is in the numbers. Hollywood is a backward institution, the leadership and ownership of which are overwhelmingly white and male.

Entertainment looks as bad if not worse than most other industries in the U.S., when diversity measurements are compared. The entertainment industry in no way resembles the public to which it sells its wares, whether in front or behind the camera.

For women, a majority of the population at 51%, the numbers are grim:

  • Males outnumber females 3 to 1 in family films. In contrast, females comprise just over 50% of the population in the United States. Even more staggering is the fact that this ratio, as seen in family films, is the same as it was in 1946.
  • Females are almost four times as likely as males to be shown in sexy attire. Further, females are nearly twice as likely as males to be shown with a diminutive waistline. Generally unrealistic figures are more likely to be seen on females than males.
  • Females are also underrepresented behind the camera. Across 1,565 content creators, only 7% of directors, 13% of writers, and 20% of producers are female. This translates to 4.8 males working behind-the-scenes to every one female.
  • From 2006 to 2009, not one female character was depicted in G-rated family films in the field of medical science, as a business leader, in law, or politics. In these films, 80.5% of all working characters are male and 19.5% are female, which is a contrast to real world statistics, where women comprise 50% of the workforce.

[Source: Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media]

Boldface above is mine; the numbers are beyond absurd when it comes to female directors. The Directors’ Guild of America has a folder (binder, if you’d rather) with the names of 1200 female directors. The Director’s List has collected the names of 1800 female directors, even larger than the DGA’s binder full of women.

But the number of women contracted by the major studios to make films is in the single digits?

That’s far from liberal by any stretch of the imagination.

The lack of women behind the camera distorts what the public sees before it:

  • Only 15% of all clearly identifiable protagonists were female (up 4 percentage points from 2011, down one percentage point from 2002), 71% are male, and 14% are male/female ensembles (see Figure 1).
  • Females comprised 29% of major characters, down 4 percentage points from 2011, but up 2 percentage points from 2002.
  • Females accounted for 30% of all speaking characters (includes major and minor characters) in 2013, down 3 percentage points from 2011, but up 2 percentage points from 2002.

[Source: It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: On-Screen Representations of Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2013, Martha M. Lauzen, PhD, Center of the Study of women in Television and Film, San Diego State University (White paper, PDF)]

Nor does it appear to matter whether film or television, when looking at the composition of directors. White men hold nearly identical percentages of directors’ slots in either media.— roughly 70%.

What does a crowd with realistic, or even equitable representation of women look like? We can’t rely on Hollywood to show us, based on this data. Our societal mirror is broken, at the expense of our mothers, daughters, sisters, ourselves. Read more →