Discrimination Of African American Women In The Film Industry

After more than 200 years of living under the United States Constitution and despite all of the progress women have made, they still to this day continue to suffer discrimination in employment, insurance, health care, education, the criminal justice system, social security and pensions, and just about any other area you can name.

Black women have never “had it easy” or “had it made” when it comes to the entertainment business. Hollywood has always been white-washed when it comes to the direction they wanted to go in terms of actors for their movies. Most roles that are casted are for white women and men, and the black actors/actresses are given whatever is left. It is truly not fair at all. When black women are given the opportunity to embody a traditionally white role, they are nothing short of phenomenal. This makes one wonder why they are still given supporting roles. African-American women have struggled to gain promising roles in Hollywood, which has hurt their acting careers and affected their lives.

The issue of female representation in Hollywood is one of the biggest issues in the film industry. Sexism, discrimination, and a lack of jobs for female filmmakers has been a problem in Hollywood since its early days, and recently this problem has been analyzed using many different genres. The Women of Hollywood Speak Out is an editorial written by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. It is about difficulty for female filmmakers to break out and direct big budget films for Hollywood. Celluloid Ceilings: Women Directors Speak Out is a video created by Bloomberg about the issues with sexism and discrimination that female filmmakers have faced. These two pieces will be compared to discover how this topic can be discussed using different genres

“Man, I counted at least 15 black people on that monitor. I’m here at the academy awards, otherwise known as the White Peoples Choice Awards.” said Chris Rock to kick off the 2016 Oscars Academy Awards. The Awards were surrounded with controversy through and through. It was the second time in a row that absolutely no African Americans had been nominated. Considering that a lot of great movies came out in which African Americans either wrote, directed, or acted in, a few in the the Black community exclaimed that the racism in Hollywood needed to end. On the other hand, others felt that the reason that no black actors were nominated was because they were not good enough this year, or the one before that…, to earn a nomination. They feel as though

Growing up in the 90s, watching movies were essential components of life. Specifically, comedies were the heart of interest until teenage years. The notion of wanting to watch a film that resonated with self and culture seemed right. Classic lines such as "I hate you Jody", "Bye, Felecia", or "Eat the cake Anna Mae" were jocular moments that had deeper meanings after years of pondering on how African American women are showcased in Hollywood films. After analyzing the depth of the roles in which African American women in classical Hollywood are depicted, there are three basic roles in which they are giving: the help, the hoodlum, and/ or the

So what do we do now? Do we just sit and allow ourselves to be paid less due to discrimination, and to be pushed back into female dominant professions because of our gender or do we fight? If we fight we will be doing good for our daughters and our daughters daughter to be able to work in any profession they want to whether it be female or male dominated, and not be paid less for doing something that they love due to their gender. Because we are women doesn’t mean that we are any less of men to which we should suffer discrimination in our wages. As mentioned before of the Equal Pay Act issued in 1963 which states that women shouldn’t be discriminated based our race, gender, age, and sexual orientation. Yes, God created man first and then created us from man, but he chooses us to continue on the lives of men by giving us the ability to create men through women’s ability to conceive. Which means, yes women we are worthy enough to stand along men, and receive the same treatment at which they receive. We are no more than men, but we aren’t any less than

Even though there is an Elimination Act of all forms of discrimination against women in 1979 the United States still continue to bridge a gap in wages. When you look at the wage gap you can clearly see the difference in gender and it is much worse for people of color. The wage gap is not just a gender issue it also affects racial minorities. Asian American women experience the smallest gender pay gap. The Hispanic and Latina women had the largest gap with 54 percent of what the white men were paid in 2013. The gender pay gap for American Indian and Alaska Native women has went down to 60 and 59 percent in 2013. As for African American women they are paid 64 percent of what white men were paid in 2013 and white women were paid 78 percent of what white men were paid ( Catherine, H). Over the years the wage gap is in fact improving but only by a small percentage. In 2012 the wage gap was 77% and in 2013 the

Discrimination in the United States, has been, and continues to be a very large problem in our country. Although, the country has continued to make outstanding strides on getting rid of discrimination in this country as a whole, it tends to stick around. One of the largest controversies in the workforce today, is that women are continuing to be discriminated against by receiving less pay than males. This problem of women receiving less pay than males in the workforce is known as the Gender Wage Gap.

A black woman makes 64% of what a white male makes and HIspanic female makes 54% of that same White male. Again these are numbers but when put into actual perspective it's a lot more horrible. In some cases just because she was a female women earned less than the very people they monitored and supervised. “Kerri Sleeman worked for five years at a company that designed, built, and installed laser welding assembly systems. When she was hired, Sleeman said company officials told her they didn’t negotiate pay. In 2003, the company was forced into bankruptcy and employees had to go through bankruptcy court for their final paychecks. When Sleeman looked at the court’s list of claims, she was heartbroken. People she had supervised had larger claims for two weeks of pay than she did.” When it's possible that your subordinates earn more than you, you know there is a problem in our society. Kerri sleeman didn't even know she was being cheated until the end. But Cheryl Hughes knew she was at a disadvantage from the beginning. Between balancing being a single mother of two and being an engineer she couldn't overcome the Wage gap. She estimates that she lost nearly a million in wages and salary just because of her gender. If Ms.Hughes had any lower paying job like most of our country the percentile difference in wages would have had an even worse effect on her and her

“I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women.” (Susan B. Anthony) Susan B. Anthony said this over a hundred years ago, when the woman’s suffrage movement was just beginning in the United States. Even after all this time, the gender wage gap is a still hot topic in the United States today. Popular stars and politicians including Kate Winslet, Jennifer Lawrence, and Hillary Clinton all have something to say about it. There is even a section of thewhitehouse.gov dedicated to discussing the gender wage gap which is the comparison of women 's wages to men’s wages in the United States (“Equal Pay”). It is pretty common knowledge in the United States that women make 78 cents to a man’s dollar. However, it is not common knowledge that this is only comparing white women to white men (“The Simple Truth”). Women of color make even less than that, Latinas making the least, only 54 cents to a white man’s dollar. The Latina wage gap is largely ignored by the media because of the complicated politics of racial and gender based discrimination.

In society we have a lot of women actresses. Some tend to play the motherly type, some play the manipulator type and some even play the victims of abusive relationships. No matter what women seem to be coming up in the industry of movies in more ways than before. The three movies I have chosen to analyze in my critique are Heartbreakers, Baby Boy and Stepmom. These three movies all have women in them that either play a major role or the main role. All their roles are very different in character and none of the women in these three movies play a similar role.

Many women who are employed and have careers that years ago would not of been possible, still get discriminated in the workplace. I think it is unfair that when the view of women has progressed and changed so much over the years in a better way, and now there is still discrimination in ways such as responsibilities, gap in pay, and advancement for promotions. “A woman who has the same job title as a man, has the same level of seniority and equal responsibilities, but is paid less, is being discriminated against. According to a 2008 study by the U.S. Department of Labor, women earn on average 80 percent of what men earn. If caught, employers can be sued under provisions of the The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and might be required to pay fines and issue back-pay.”

the main synonym neither to the discrimination in the industry nor the lack of female professionals. Discrimination is not only lack of representation of the gender, but in this case also representation of only a small pool of women specialists (Paydar 5). The same female actors, directors, producers, writers, etc. are hired repeatedly, mostly those connected to the males at the top of the hierarchical ladder or having had experience and success with the same studio before (John 432-437). Existence of female professionals and hiring of a female for a project does not indicate the overcoming of systemic barriers. The question is not only in the number or percentage of women involved in the production, but about diversity and equal opportunities. Another component of initial hiring practices in film studios is correlation with law and associations’ requirements. Diversity requirement that is standard for the industry usually poses a quota that allows the employer to hire females or male minorities. By providing a choice of hiring a male of color or a female, this provision allows studios to evade anti-discrimination laws (Paydar 8). Fighting all these exclusions based on sex and discrimination practices is possible mostly by individual court orders through several claims available to women within US laws (Bureau of National Affairs). However, there is a limited number of women in any field of the film industry who would go to court suing multimillion studios that control a

Although some of the worst employment discrimination was eliminated by the Civil Rights Act in 1964, many women continue to undergo unfair and unlawful discrimination in the workplace. Even though women have come a long way, they are still being discriminated against in certain fields of work. High-end jobs, most commonly large companies and medical fields, continue to discriminate against women even though they have the same job qualifications as men.

The presentation of women on screen is another highlighted issue in many of the gathered sources. Because men were ultimately in control of what went on the screen much of what the audience perceived were women from the male imagination or fantasy. Bernard Beck elaborates in his article Where the Boys Are: The Contender and other Movies about Women in a Man’s World that, “…women have been used to dress up a male story or motivate a male character” (Beck 15). Women were often insignificant and trivial characters. Although, Kathe Davis disagrees to a point. In her article, Davis offers a dissonant opinion to the fore-mentioned insignificance of the female character. She instead describes many female characters as “predators,” and analyzes the roles of lead women in three prominent films of the nineteenth century. In each film, she finds parallels and similarities of cases of “female emasculation” and instances where “women are turned into objects of male desire” (Davis 47-48). Davis does not perceive female characters as being insignificant, just stripped of their power and misrepresented. She discusses how females of power are often portrayed as crazy