The Impact of a Lack of African Americans in the Hollywood Executive Suite

A new study from the Hollywood Bureaus of the NAACP and Motivational Educational Entertainment Productions written by Darnell Hunt examines the status of Black executives in the movie industry.

In the introduction, the author writes that “stereotypic and one-dimensional images generated by Hollywood have an injurious effect on our community. The ingestion of daily distortions about African American life on television and in movies shape perceptions, identities, and behavior. Media content informs and misinforms opinions about Black people, ultimately influencing laws and policies that govern and define our social circumstance with steep psycho-emotional consequences.”

There were no Black CEOs or members of the senior management team at the major Hollywood studios in early 2020, and only 3.9 percent of major studio unit heads were Black. Perhaps greater diversity at the top would change the image of Black America shown in many major films.

One Black executive interviewed for the study noted that “the closer a project gets to being programmed, the higher up the ladder it needs to get approved. And the higher up the ladder you go, the less diverse the industry is overall.”

Another Black executive said: “We should really think about how we need to construct the leadership team in order to ensure that the people greenlighting the film look more like, look representative of the people who attend the film.”

 

 

 

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

Higher Education Grants or Gifts of Interest to African Americans

Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.

American Students Studying Abroad in Sub-Saharan Africa

In the 2021-22 academic year, there were 4,614 American students who studied at universities in sub-Saharan Africa. This is about one tenth of the number of students from sub-Saharan Africa studying at U.S. universities.

Marcus L. Thompson Named the Thirteenth President of Jackson State University

Dr. Thompson has more than 20 years of leadership experience in early childhood, K-12 education, and higher education. He has been serving as the deputy commissioner and chief administrative officer of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, where for over a decade he has been responsible for overseeing IHL staff.

U.S. Public Schools Remain Separate and Unequal

Approximately 522,400 students, or 1 percent of overall student enrollment, attended public schools where fewer than half of the teachers met all state certification requirements. Of the students attending those schools, 66 percent were Black and Latino students.

Featured Jobs