What about the Men? Gender inequality data and the rhetoric of inclusion in the US and UK film industries

Abstract

This article argues that cis, hetero, abled, middle-class, white men – as a group and as an identity category – are the structuring absence of inequality discourse and, as a consequence, it is ‘diverse’ persons who bear both the burden of and any hope for changing the film industry. By ‘re-reading’ gender inequality data, diversity initiatives and inclusion rhetoric, this article shows the ways in which they elide men’s domination of the film industry and perversely reinforce it as the norm. Articulating how data on gender representation behind the camera can both illuminate inequality and be used to obfuscate it, the article looks closely at selected reports in order to see what they do and do not tell us about gender inequality and the unequal presence of men in the industry. As the dominating demographic of the film-making workforce, the white middle-class male is also the structuring absence of the inclusion rhetoric which maintains the status quo of inequality in the film industry by interpellating ‘diverse’ persons as outsiders who must gain the attention of the white middle-class men who may or may not choose to include them.

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