This article addresses the role of data in measuring diversity in the UK film industry and its mediation of underrepresented identities excluded from the sector. Through a data-led analysis of gender representation across 235 British films made from 2016, this study assesses the impact and success of the interventions made by the BFI Diversity Standards within the film industry, analysing the response data collected by the BFI for film productions that have adhered to the standards as a condition for production support. What empirical evidence do the Diversity Standards’ data offer for a link between gender representation and key roles, genres, and regional locations? The article then identifies some of the key drivers influencing the primacy of particular identities across the standards. I want to argue that gender-positive diversity, whilst representing a slender challenge to exclusion via the structural decrees of the BFI policy, can also be understood as the result of intra-race homophily, one that sustains a culture of whiteness and racial exclusion. The article concludes by considering the position of senior white men as the structuring agents upon whom rest the power to permit women entry, and the implications of both an absence of intersectional data and the rigid identity categories of the standards for the inclusion of BAME women in the film industry workforce.
BhavnaniR (2007) Barriers to Diversity in Film: A Research Review. London: UKFC Publication.
8.
BoyleK (2019) #MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
9.
BrookOO’BrienDTaylorM (2019) Inequality talk: How discourses by senior men reinforce exclusions from creative occupations. European Journal of Cultural Studies. Published online 12 December. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549419886020.
10.
CAMEo (2018) Workforce Diversity in the UK Screen Sector: Evidence Review. Leicester: CAMEo Research Institute.
CobbS (2020) What about the men? Gender inequality data and the rhetoric of inclusion in the US and UK film industries. Journal of British Cinema and Television17(1): 112–135.
CobbSWilliamsLRWreyfordN (2019a) Calling the Shots: Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority (BAME) Women Working on UK-Qualifying Films 2003–2015. Available at: https://womencallingtheshots.com/reports-and-publications/ (accessed 12 April 2020).
15.
CobbSWilliamsLRWreyfordN (2019b) Calling the Shots: Comparing the Numbers of Women Directors, Editors and Cinematographers on UK-qualifying films 2003–2015. Available at: https://womencallingtheshots.com/reports-and-publications/ (accessed 27 November 2019).
ConorB (2014) Screenwriting: Creative Labour and Professional Practice. London: Routledge.
18.
ConorBGillRTaylorS (2015) Gender and creative labour. The Sociological Review63(1): 1–22.
19.
CrenshawK (1989) Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum: Vol. 1 Article 8. 139–167.
20.
CukierKMayer-SchönbergerV (2013) Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think. London: John Murray.
21.
De BenedictisSOrgadSRottenbergC (2019) #MeToo, popular feminism and the news: A content analysis of UK newspaper coverage. European Journal of Cultural Studies22(5–6): 718–738.
22.
EikhofDNewsingerJLuchinskayaD, et al. (2018) And . . . action? Gender, knowledge and inequalities in the screen industries. Gender Work Organ26(6): 840–859.
23.
FollowsSKreagerAGomesE (2016) Cut Out of the Picture: A Study of Gender Inequality amongst Film Directors in the UK Film Industry. Available at: https://www.directors.uk.com/news/cut-out-of-the-picture (accessed 13 March 2020).
24.
FriedmanSO’BrienD (2017) Resistance and resignation: Responses to typecasting in British acting. Cultural Sociology11(3): 359–376.
25.
GillR (2014) Unspeakable inequalities: Postfeminism, entrepreneurial subjectivity, and the repudiation of sexism among cultural workers. Social Politics21(4): 509–528.
26.
GilroyP (2012) ‘My Britain is fuck all’: Zombie multiculturalism and the race politics of citizenship. Identities19(4): 380–397.
27.
GrayH (2016) Precarious diversity: Representation and demography. In: CurtinMSansonK (eds) Precarious Creativity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 241–253.
28.
HesmondhalghDBakerS (2011) Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries. Abingdon: Routledge.
29.
HesmondhalghDSahaA (2013) Race, ethnicity and cultural production. Popular Communication11(3): 179–195.
30.
HesmondhalghDOakleyKLeeD, et al. (2015) Culture, Economy and Politics – The Case of New Labour. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
31.
HockenhullS (2017) British Women Film Directors in the New Millennium. London. Palgrave Macmillan.
32.
IbarraH (1995) Race, opportunity and diversity of social circles in managerial networks. The Academy of Management Journal38(3):673–703.
33.
JanssonM (2017) Gender equality in Swedish film policy: Radical interpretations and ‘unruly’ women. European Journal of Women’s Studies24(4): 336–350.
LazarsfeldPFMertonRK (1954) Friendship as a social process: A substantive and methodological analysis. In: BergerM (ed.) Freedom and Control in Modern Society. New York: Van Nostrand, 18–66.
36.
MalikS (2013) ‘Creative diversity’: UK public service broadcasting after multiculturalism. Popular Communication11(3): 227–241.
37.
McPhersonMSmith-LovinLCookJM (2001) Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of. Sociology27: 415–444.
38.
NwonkaC (2015) Diversity pie: Rethinking social exclusion and diversity policy in the British film industry. Journal of Media Practice16(1): 73–90.
39.
NwonkaC (2020) The new Babel: The language and practice of institutionalised diversity in the UK film industry. Journal of British Cinema and Television17(1): 24–46.
40.
NwonkaCJMalikS (2018) Cultural discourses and practices of institutionalised diversity in the UK film sector: ‘Just get something black made’. The Sociological Review66(1): 111–127.
41.
NewsingerJ (2012) British film policy in an age of austerity. Journal of British Cinema and Television9(1): 133–144.
42.
NewsingerJEikhofD (2020) Explicit and implicit diversity policy in the UK film and television industries. Journal of British Cinema and Television17(1): 47–69.
43.
OakleyK (2011) In its own image: New Labour and the cultural Workforce. Cultural Trends. 20(3–4), 281–289
44.
OakleyKO’ConnorJ (2015) The cultural industries: An introduction from culture to creativity – and back again? In: OakleyKO’ConnorJ (eds) Routledge Companion to the Cultural Industries. Abingdon: Routledge, 1–32.
45.
O’BrienDAllenKFriedmanS, et al. (2017) Producing and consuming inequality: A cultural sociology of the cultural industries. Cultural Sociology11(3): 271–282.
46.
O’BrienDLaurisonDMilesA, et al. (2016) Are the creative industries meritocratic? An analysis of the 2014 British Labour Force Survey. Cultural Trends25(2): 116–131.
47.
PuwarN (2001) The racialised somatic norm and the senior civil service. Sociology35(3): 651–670.
SahaA (2015) The marketing of race in cultural production industry. In: OakleyKO’ConnorJ (eds) The Routledge Companion to the Cultural Industries. London: Routledge, 515–521.
50.
SahaA (2017) The politics of race in cultural distribution: Addressing inequalities in British Asian theatre. Cultural Sociology11(3): 302–317.
51.
SahaA (2018) Race and the Cultural Industries. Cambridge: Polity.
VerhovenDMusialKPalmerS, et al. (2020) Controlling for openness in the male-dominated collaborative networks of the global film industry. PLoS ONE15(6): e0234460.
54.
WreyfordNCobbS (2017) Data and responsibility: Towards a feminist methodology for producing historical data on women in the contemporary UK film industry. Feminist Media Histories3(3): 107–132.
