Awards Season: Who Really Won This Year?

In our team’s recent focus on information ecosystems, we shared the need for critical engagement with the media we consume. Where do we get our news? What kind of newspapers (physical or online) do we read? Who is curating and writing the pieces we enjoy? How do we decide what is factual and objective? At Equity Labs, we are conscious of the information we consume and share with our community. We know a big part of media consumption falls into films, television, and music. As the global entertainment industry nears the end of Awards Season, equity and justice conversations come into focus.  

On a lot of platforms, Awards Season is a stream of pictures of people in expensive clothing, “get ready with me” TikToks or Instagram reels, and soundbites from interviews on the various carpets of note. The attention in social media spaces expanded in recent years to include moments when award winners spoke directly to social justice issues or brought the movement to the awards shows like the #MeToo movement. Assertions on social justice issues are not new in entertainment – Nina Simone’s performance of “Young, Gifted and Black” from 1969 centered Blackness and was nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance at the 13th Grammy Awards ceremony. Hamilton: An American Musical was praised for widely representative casting, In this year’s awards season we saw Michelle Yeoh asserted herself onstage at the Golden Globes, taking up the time and space she wanted to speak on her experiences and we saw the movie and cast of “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” have some astounding wins.  

• Michelle Yeoh was the first Asian woman to win best actress at the Oscar’s 

• Ke Huy Quan became the only the second Asian male winner at the SAG awards 

• Ruth E. Carter became the first black woman to win Oscar’s for her costume design work 

Each of these awards are major milestones to celebrate but showcase just how far we need to go: the entertainment industry is no more post racial or just than the world around us.  Representation and tokenism are common placeholders for systemic change in the entertainment industry. Is representation enough to demonstrate a commitment to an equitable and just entertainment industry? For me, the answer is usually no, representation captures only a portion of the commitment needed. Does tokenism demonstrate investment in historically marginalized communities? Also no…tokenism emerges by asking one person to homogenously represent a complex and nuanced experience. It is not enough to have one Hispanic woman in a television series or film and to expect her to speak on behalf of all Hispanic people around the globe.  I am not an expert in this industry, I think we are presented with language directing us, as media consumers, to celebrate representation and tokenism while continuing to dismiss what is needed to truly support historically marginalized people.  

I grew up on Barney, Magic School Bus, and Recess where representation was lauded. I learned that because there was representation across skin color that it was okay to be colorblind, that in the case of shows I liked, education brought students together and it did not matter what color they were. Today I think we can collectively acknowledge this is not enough. There is a difference between hiring a nominally diverse cast and integrating a deep understanding, honoring of different life experiences, and presenting various ways of knowing. We witness progress with films like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once with a representative cast and a dynamic story about immigrants and their experiences. Television shows like Abbott Elementary address the system of education head on with a diverse cast and a keen criticism of teaching. Finally – I think it is worth noting how representation might feel outside a critical lens. These students talk about what representation means to them and it demonstrates another take on what entertainment means to young people. 

I call on us as consumers to think deeply about what we consume, what stories we like and which ones make us uncomfortable, to determine what a radically different entertainment industry could be like in front of and behind the camera, microphone, or pen.

As you move forward with this idea, we offer some ideas on how to expand the world of entertainment with which you currently engage:

• Try out a new streaming service (if that is possible for you). The various services may align their content with specific company values. Consider network television, are there any local programs you engage with?  

• Make a list of actors, directors, musicians, crew members, writers, producers, etc. to see what each person has worked on, allow yourself to “go down the rabbit hole” and see what you find.  

• Leverage IMDB to look up what is coming out, what is in production, and big ideas in entertainment to see how the industry is evolving in response to what is happening in the world. 

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