How Activist Audiences Are Changing the TV Industry
This article originally appeared on Shondaland.com
Television, like all other art forms, has gone through various eras over the years. Often the era corresponds with what is happening within the culture, particularly the generations coming of age during that time. We are now in the streaming era of television, the a la carte programming boom that allows users to watch whatever they please, whenever they please. Gen Z, the politically active and outspoken adolescents of today, have different TV habits than previous generations. Even when binge-watching Friends, this group is unafraid to poke holes in the television industry’s framework and call for content that respects their values.
I work with UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS), where we harness the power of storytelling to help the next generation thrive and grow. In the lab, we study adolescents to understand their media habits and the effects that media have on young minds. Social media is a fixture of daily life, particularly during the pandemic, and it has become a place for activism and political engagement that allows young people to become informed on causes happening around them.
Gen Z is more racially diverse, educated, and queer than any of our previous generations. This group uses social media to develop their identities and engage with heterogeneous peers that might not be living in their hometowns. As a result, this progressive group has become interested in representation in media and social impact entertainment, seeking diverse and authentic casting and storytelling on- and off-screen. They are vocal about wanting to see themselves and their peers reflected back to them on-screen, carrying the torch from Millennials and Gen X’ers — notably Black women — who spearheaded movements like #TimesUp and #OscarsSoWhite.
“Storytelling thrives when audiences sense the truth and lived experience driving what occurs on-screen.”
In recent years, content has been shifting to be more diverse and inclusive, particularly when looking at adolescent-focused shows. Diverse programming in this space is not new — I grew up with That’s So Raven and True Jackson VP — but these series did not capture the attention of adults. Now, spaces that have been vehicles for complex adult programming such as Netflix and HBO are producing shows that feature adolescent characters that appeal to wider-ranging audiences — and might even prompt parent-child conversations.
Some recent examples are Sex Education, Never Have I Ever, Euphoria, and We Are Who We Are. All of these shows feature people of color prominently in the principal cast and deal with mental health and racial, sexual, and gender identity. HBO Max’s most recent debut Genera+ion, is an intriguing addition, as it was created with significant contributions from a 19-year-old. As a new socially conscious generation comes of age, more change must be on the horizon for the industry, even outside of adolescent-focused programming.
In order for this to happen, entertainment companies have to take a hard look at their hiring practices and slates of content. One company that has been doing this is STARZ. While the global media company serves an adult demographic (with a majority coming from the 18-54 range), their programming captures the attention of some Gen Z viewers in the stage of late adolescence. Through my work with STARZ, I have come to see that their leadership team understands the necessity to make changes within their organization to be more inclusive of underrepresented groups, both in front of and behind the camera. STARZ recently launched the #TakeTheLead initiative, which kicked off in February with a research report that I co-authored, and will continue with a series of monthly “Transparency Talks” throughout the year leading up to an industry-wide summit in the fall focused on representation that STARZ will host.
In late 2020, STARZ asked CSS to assess the diversity within their shows — both in front of and behind the camera — and their leadership team, relative to the rest of the television industry. Our team began by reviewing all of the recently released industry reports analyzing representation in front of and behind the camera to get a sense of the landscape. We chose three reports to illustrate the comparative numbers for the industry: UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report 2020, Part 2: Television, the Writer’s Guild of America West (WGAW) Inclusion Report 2020, and Boxed In 2019-20: Women On Screen and Behind the Scenes in Television from San Diego State University (SDSU). We then dove into the numbers for STARZ, focusing on race and gender for their senior leadership, showrunners, executive producers, directors, writers, series leads, and series regulars. In order to provide more accurate comparisons to the industry, we used the criteria from the industry reports to better define the data analyzed for each category. We were encouraged by our findings.
The numbers showed that STARZ exceeded industry hiring practices for people of color by more than 123 percent at the showrunner level and more than 85 percent at the executive producer level. People of color also make up over 53 percent of the writers’ rooms on STARZ’s series and nearly half of all episodic directors. As a result, many of the stories that STARZ is telling — the Power Universe franchise and the upcoming series Run the World and Blindspotting — are refreshingly diverse and representative of communities often ignored by Hollywood.
A standout is the STARZ original P-Valley, which showrunner Katori Hall adapted from her play with an uncensored name, about the inner workings of a strip club in Mississippi, The Pynk. The show received critical and audience acclaim when it launched last summer for its nuanced depictions of the dancers and the southern strip club scene. The secret to the success of P-Valley is how the series puts the spotlight on women of color on-screen and behind the scenes, including in the director’s chair and writers’ room. The show demonstrates that when the people who are telling stories behind the camera truly represent the actors who bring those stories to life, what we gain is a richness often only seen in stories about white men.
Recent research reports from SDSU and UCLA have demonstrated that more diverse representation in leadership roles translates to more diverse representation at every level of production.
In our work at CSS, we analyze Authentically Inclusive Representation (AIR), taking a deeper look into the substance of the storytelling and noting intersectionality, tropes, and stereotypes. We used Mediaversity’s extensive grading system to create a sliding scale to rate where a work ranks relative to the norm of having some — often stereotypical — representation across gender, race, and LGBTQ+ or disability. Films and TV shows score above the norm for AIR much more often when members of underrepresented groups are heavily involved in the storytelling process, as with P-Valley.
What is most important is that executives and content creators work together to make AIR a priority within their shows or risk negatively affecting perceptions of self within audiences of color.
Viewer habits and appetites are changing. Content creators looking to capture the short attention span — about 8 seconds — of Gen Z need to focus on making their stories authentic reflections of the world as this young audience experiences it — diverse, inclusive, and honest.
Demand for this kind of content is also increasing rapidly amongst Millennial and Gen X audiences.
An important first step toward change is to invite underrepresented groups into the rooms where decisions are being made and to give these individuals real decision-making power.
Storytelling thrives when audiences sense the truth and lived experience driving what occurs on-screen. Actors, writers, directors, producers, showrunners, and executives all have a part to play here, and when their voices come together in a positive way, it can shift audience attitudes and promote tolerance. Organizations like CSS can offer guidance on how to make changes to promote more responsible storytelling, but ultimately it is up to the leaders in the entertainment industry to make the decision to start the process.
Program Director, Center for Scholars & Storytellers
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers.