Daniel Guerrero

On March 4, 2018, Frances McDormand won “Best Actress” at the Oscars and ended her acceptance speech by only stating two words, “Inclusion Rider”.  

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An “Inclusion Rider” allows an actor or any sort of filmmaker to demand a certain level of diversity in production. Therefore, when a filmmaker, such as actors, directors, producers, etc, gets hired on producing a film and has the words, “Inclusion Rider”, on their contracts, therefore, the studio will need to hire at least 50 percent of women, 40 percent people of color, 5 percent of LGBTQ, and 20 percent of people who are disable in order to make the production team balanced in diversity. To further explain this, let’s say an actress got hired to be in a lead role of a film, but desire to have the production team to be at least 50 percent of a woman. Therefore, she would need to have “Inclusion rider” on her contract while having the company to hire at least 50 percent of a woman to either work on or off camera.

Anyone who is working in the film industry is able to adopt this in their contracts. Many celebrities like Michael B Jordan and Ben Affleck adopting the “Inclusion Rider” to their production company's contract due to feeling it’s a great idea to help solve the diversity problem in Hollywood.

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“I’ve been privileged to work with powerful woman & persons of color throughout my career, and it’s Outlier’s mission to continue to create for talented individuals going forward,” said Michael B. Jordan on Instagram.

Although many filmmakers and studio companies believe this is a great idea on increasing diversity in Hollywood, it can cause major problems along the way that would affect the film industry where these people should rethink their decision.

   Warner Bros Studios adopted the “Inclusion Rider” as well while becoming the first major Hollywood studio to ever do so alongside with their networking companies such as HBO and Cartoon Network.

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“I’m proud that Warner Bros., and our sister companies HBO and Turner, are willing to state unequivocally that this is where we stand on diversity and inclusion,” said Warner Bros.’ chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara to IndieWire.

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Based off the popularity that “Inclusion Rider” has received so far, this encourages many people in the film industry to adopting it where there is approximately over 14 celebrities/companies while including the one that was previously mentioned in the article.

When people in any sort of gender or race gets hired, they are putting themselves at risk of losing their lives. To further explain this, that person would have a lack of experience in directing, acting, producing, etc. They could even ruin the whole entire film in general.

Back in August 2017, professional motorcyclists named Joi “Si” Harris died when performing a stunt on the set of “Deadpool 2". According to the Hollywood Reporter,  many stunt performers stated that her death was lead by her not performing the stunt correctly while having a lack of experience in stunt performance in general.

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“Joi had never been in a film or done any sort of stunt. She was just a girl from Brooklyn who liked to road race — which was not remotely similar to what was required for the shots. She didn't have the experience or skills for the job they brought her in for", said a stunt veteran to the Hollywood Reporter.

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To further support this idea, the film was required to “inclusionism” the performer due to filling in Zazie Beetz’s character in the story, Domino. This situation has to do with the “Inclusion Rider” where people are required to cast a certain person for a role in order to not receive backlash from the media. Also, people should never die on making the film where Hollywood needs to be careful to not lose anybody over time The producers should have never done that scene in the first place or even hired her where it is difficult to assemble a diverse cast and crew in general.

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According to Inc, Shama Hyder, Founder, and CEO of Zen Media claimed that on the reason why it is very difficult on forming a diversity is that we tend to prefer to work with people that who are around us and able to think, look, and act similarly to us over time. For example, a Caucasian American citizen would want to collaborate with another Caucasian person due to them containing the same characteristics. However, it could be another person who is a different race that is in the film industry, but Hollywood is usually made up 78.1 percent of white who shared their roles with different kinds of minorities from the UCLA social studies document. Therefore, forming a diverse cast can be difficult where some films in the making were struggling with this kind of problem recently.

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On July 2017, the Hollywood Reporter stated that Guy Ritchie, one of the Disney creators, was struggling to find people to play the main roles in the live-action film adaptation of Aladdin that is scheduled to be released this year. As many people would know, the main roles were Aladdin and Jasmine. Also, early last year, International Business Times reported that Disney was caught spray tanning caucasian actors in the film in order to look Middle Eastern. According to Disney, they only spray tan stunt performers, special effects rigs, and handling of animals.

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If the “Inclusion Rider” were to be an effect in this situation, the creators would have an even harder time for the role of Aladdin and Jasmine due to the type of talent that most actors would contain.

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Also, this shows that it is extremely difficult to establish a diverse cast with or without having the “Inclusion Rider” effect in general. According to Disney, they mention that 400 out of 500 extras were Indian, Middle Eastern, African, Mediterranean, and Asian. This is considered to be the most diverse cast that Disney ever assembled for a live action film in general.

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Therefore, the “Inclusion Rider” would make the film production team work even harder to find a diverse cast while having to spend even more money as well as delay the film’s release day back even further. Also, not having the filmmakers to expresses their sense of creativity which is key in making a film. According to US Today, Netflix is attempting to skip on the “Inclusion Rider” because of this reason.

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“We’re not so big on doing agreements. We’re trying to do things creatively. That’s how we look at it”, said Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, to US Today.

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This is very true because Netflix has content that most people enjoy all over the world while having nearly 118 million subscriptions in general. Also, they have films and shows that contain a diverse production while having the level of creativity as other films they have on streaming such as “On My Block” and “Orange is the New Black”.

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However, many people would argue that the “Inclusion Rider” will lead to increasing diversity in Hollywood while spreading a wide range of creativity. According to Innovation Management.se, this is, in fact, true if people are willing to cooperate with each other. Like mention earlier, creativity cannot be forced at all. Without having creativity in films, these filmmakers are unable to receive the proper criticism due to it not clearly showing their hard work and dedication as well as their talent which can lack over time.

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“Inclusion Rider” can lead to people not improving their skills in filmmaking. Meaning, people who constantly get hired by Hollywood would not want to pay for extra filming classes due to already receiving popularity from the studio as well as audiences. Improving talent in the film industry is important as creativity where many people all around the world would look up to which further motivates them to follow their dreams.

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Many legendary filmmakers in the past were rejected by companies which further lead to them improving their talent. According to thoughts catalog, they listed that Walt Disney was included where he was rejected, but did not stop him from proceeding his dream. Also, along the way, he would improve his creativity in films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty. This further lead to many people, who came out to be well-known celebrities in the film industry,  to be inspired to proceed a career in animation which had not existed until the 1920s-30s such as John Lasseter.

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“I have studied it from every aspect, from a story, to story structure, to art direction, "It's very funny. It's emotional. It's the most cartoony [of Disney's animated features]. It's very short. It's like 64 minutes, and it's so concise in its storytelling. I learned a lot from it, as a student at CalArts and a young animator at Disney”, said John Lasseter to the Guardian.

The “Inclusion Rider” would not have people to lean towards this improvement where they constantly get hired for the role in a production team over time. This type of talent can spread throughout Hollywood leading to some film studios to have a hard time finding a great filmmaker.

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Besides this, people had pointed out that diversity can lead to blockbuster hits over time. According to the Guardian, the study shows that 49 percent of people of color were bought tickets for openings weekends of a film in 2016. However, this study can be outdated soon because the all Asian cast film, Crazy Rich Asians, did not perform well at China’s box office where it only made one million dollars during its opening weekend over there. Also, the film is mostly targeted at Asians audiences.

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Not only that, the “Inclusion Rider” in general is unnecessary to have around Hollywood. If Hollywood proceeds to accept this, they are putting themselves receiving more problems than solutions. We are living in the “Inclusion Rider” era where many films that adopt this are slated to be released later this year. However, Hollywood should find another solution for increasing diversity while showcasing great talent and creativity or wait if this plan would turn out to be a success or a disaster.

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