A Hollywood two-fer

It isn’t often that an article in the Washington Post brings a smile to my face. This story in the Post — “After industry tumult, some fear Hollywood will backslide on diversity” — brought two.

Smile Number One: Industry tumult in Hollywood

According to the Post, studios are expected to produce far fewer scripted shows this coming season than the 600-plus produced last season. Indeed, some industry estimates project that the number of shows will drop by one half.

The decline is driven by economics. Moody’s estimates that the collective bargaining agreements that ended two Hollywood strikes will cost the industry between $450 million and $600 million annually. That means belt tightening.

Competition is also a factor. Increasingly, Americans are watching foreign programs on outlets like Netflix. That means less demand for Hollywood-produced programs.

Why does the reduction in such programs make me smile? Because I believe Hollywood is a major corrupting influence on America. It’s a bastion of wokeism, leftism and, in my opinion, anti-Americanism. The less Americans are exposed to its products, the better.

Smile Number Two: Backsliding on diversity

According to the Post,

With fewer shows getting sold, producers are more focused on landing guaranteed hits and awards show fodder. . .

“When people want hits they become more risk averse, which means that the market for original ideas is much tougher,” said Carter Covington, who is gay and has championed shows depicting the queer community. “What I keep hearing is that it’s a harder sell right now.”

Translation: With the goose no longer laying golden eggs, Hollywood is reverting to programs people actually want to watch, rather than programs Hollywood leftists want them to watch. The horror!

The Post continues:

Of the 659 series regulars to appear on scripted prime-time broadcast during the 2022-2023 season, 70 were LGBTQ characters, according to a study by the gay rights group GLAAD. This is 22 fewer than the year before. . . .

Translation: LGBTQs are overrepresented on television, but slightly less so in 2022-23 than in 2021-22.

There’s plenty of room for the number of openly LGBTQ characters to keep decreasing before that cohort will be underrepresented on TV — much less shut out. Moreover, I don’t believe that, in the vast majority of TV shows, the sexual orientation of the characters needs to be made known at all.

The counting of LGBTQ characters reflects Hollywood’s obsession with DEI. For example, Amazon Studios’ inclusion policy requires the casting of at least one Black, Hispanic (“Latinx,” to quote the policy), Indigenous, Middle Eastern, or Asian character for speaking roles in each of its projects. And starting next year, the Motion Picture Academy will impose diversity quotas that movies must meet to qualify for an Oscar as best film of the year.

These quotas will remain in place notwithstanding the developments I discuss here. However, anything that chips away at Hollywood’s DEI obsession is worth applauding.

More from the Post:

Kyra Jones, an actor and writer who is Black, expressed similar concerns. She said she was aware of a situation in which a writer working on a network show featuring gay themes was told to add more straight characters.

Jones, 29, said she thought the pushback might have more to do with political divisions in the country at large — in particular, the backlash against “wokeness” — than the situation in Hollywood.

If by “the backlash against wokeness,” Jones means disgust with DEI, she isn’t wrong. But there’s more than politics at work here. There’s also the desire to be entertained by television shows, rather than being preached at — a desire that probably cuts across our political divisions, to some extent.

In any case, if Hollywood is backsliding on its obsession with diversity, that’s good reason to smile.