Academy Awards Best Picture - Know These New Rules Before You Start Production

Doug Bee said:
If you think 5% female participation rate of DP's is not a problem, then you're part of the problem.
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Don't be an ass. Not agreeing with you about whether a problem exists or not does not make me part of whatever problem you imagine there to be.

Some professions simply don't attract a lot of people from certain demographics. That is a fact. And if you think the demographics of every profession should match the demographics of society as a whole, you are crazy. Personally, I don't think there needs to be a 50/50 split of men and women in every job unless there are an equal number of fully-qualified candidates who actually want to be hired. Show me THAT situation, and then we can talk about whether the numbers should be equal or not.

There are really two factors at play;

1) How many people WANT to be hired to perform a certain job?
2) How many of those people are actually qualified to do the job?

After those qualifiers have been applied,the group of potential candidates will be narrowed-down substantially. And if the demographics of that group don't match society as a whole, or however you think they should be, that is your problem.

Has it ever occured to you that maybe there are more men who have an interest in cameras, photography, video, etc. than women? I challenge you to go to Yellowstone or anywhere else where there are abundant amatuer photographers shooting wildlife. From my casual observations, I'll bet the ratio of men to women is 8 to 2, And that is being generous. These are amateur photographers doing it for fun. Nobody hired them. Nobody turned away women because they were women. Nobody told women not to invest in camera gear and go out and shoot. Why do you think there are fewer women? There must be bigotry involved somewhere, right?

When I'm teaching workshops in Maine I observe the demographics of my students, and the students in other workshops. By far, the overall majority are men. Why is that? Nobody is preventing women from signing up. The school would be just as glad to take their money, and they will be welcomed with open arms by their fellow students. So why aren't they there? I beleive it is because there are far fewer women that have any interest whatsoever in that type of work. That's just the way it is. You can't force someone who's not interested to get interested. And you can't tell a certain number of men to stay home because it will skew the demographics if they attend the class.

Maybe the Academy would be better served by recruiting, training, mentoring, and fostering people in the demographics they want to see represented more. That is how you build a stronger, better, more creative industry.
 
Doug Jensen said:
Some professions simply don't attract a lot of people from certain demographics. That is a fact. And if you think the demographics of every profession should match the demographics of society as a whole, you are crazy. Personally, I don't think there needs to be a 50/50 split of men and women in every job unless there are an equal number of fully-qualified candidates who actually want to be hired. Show me THAT situation, and then we can talk about whether the numbers should be equal or not.
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AFI student body is 52% women

https://www.univstats.com/colleges/a...223%20students).

I can't find average numbers for its cinematography program specifically. But the cinematography graduates of 2022 were 8 women out of 22 total.

https://conservatory.afi.com/cinemat...graphers-2022/
 
ahalpert said:
What I'm asking is that in your heart of hearts, did you really doubt what I'm presenting evidence to prove?
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Quotas and mandates are not the way. Discrimination is illegal under laws enforced by EEOC. The presumption of innocence is considered fundamental in modern democracies. Conviction and punishment of the offenders is the appropriate process.

David Hume argued, in A Treatise of Human Nature,[SUP][29][/SUP] that people invariably slip from describing what the world is to asserting that we therefore ought to follow a particular course of action. But as a matter of pure logic, one cannot conclude that we ought to do something merely because something is the case. So analysing and clarifying the way the world is must be treated as a strictly separate question from normative and evaluative questions of what ought to be done.

The most important questions of analytic jurisprudence are: "What are laws?"; "What is the law?"; "What is the relationship between law and power/sociology?"; and "What is the relationship between law and morality?"
 
Quotas and pushing for equal representation is absolutely the way to go. Nothing saddens me more when I see roofers, septic tank pumpers, teachers, truck drivers, nurses, brick layers, social workers, welders, knackers, tax examiners, produce harvesters, flight attendants, health care managers,.... well this list goes on. But to see so many occupations owned by one sex or the other; It's madness. Something has to be done. If we could get all the girls in our grade schools to .... well, for example, go on a field trip to the 30th floor with iron-workers or get the boys to go make the visitation rounds with a social worker, .......stuff like that, I'll bet we could equalize the sex disparity in no time.
 
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Tom Roper said:
Quotas and mandates are not the way. Discrimination is illegal under laws enforced by EEOC. The presumption of innocence is considered fundamental in modern democracies. Conviction and punishment of the offenders is the appropriate process.

David Hume argued, in A Treatise of Human Nature,[SUP][29][/SUP] that people invariably slip from describing what the world is to asserting that we therefore ought to follow a particular course of action. But as a matter of pure logic, one cannot conclude that we ought to do something merely because something is the case. So analysing and clarifying the way the world is must be treated as a strictly separate question from normative and evaluative questions of what ought to be done.

The most important questions of analytic jurisprudence are: "What are laws?"; "What is the law?"; "What is the relationship between law and power/sociology?"; and "What is the relationship between law and morality?"
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Sounds lovely. But it doesn't work out that way. Case in point, coming from the opposite direction: now that the Supreme Court is making affirmative action illegal, many universities are dropping the SATs as a consideration for admission. Observers believe that they're doing this to make it harder to prove that they're continuing to do affirmative action. I don't have a problem with that, but the point is that if people want to swing their hiring one way or the other, it will be difficult or impossible to prove that they are purposefully doing so.

And just in general, the legal system is very slow and expensive. Suing your potential employer for a job is not going to be a practicable solution for many people nor would it yield a desirable result.

Furthermore, bias is largely subconscious. People don't even necessarily realize why they arrive at certain decisions.

One bias that I saw cited recently after a black youth was shot in the head for knocking on someone's door is that people consistently judge black men to be larger and more threatening than white men who are actually the exact same size. They just perceive them differently.

https://www.apa.org/news/press/relea...en-threatening

Anyway, I think the observation about the world is very well grounded, with more or less evidence gathered in one situation or another. I'm not leaping to a conclusion about what should be done about it. I was asking for proposals. If your answer is that there isn't a problem then we're at an impasse and I think your conclusion is probably motivated by self-interest.
 
ahalpert said:
Disney joined this fight because of activist employee pressure.
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That is correct. Which means they should better manage its employees.

And Iger wouldn't be closing the Stars Wars hotel, if "parks and recreation" was not suffering.
 
DLD said:
That is correct. Which means they should better manage its employees.

And Iger wouldn't be closing the Stars Wars hotel, if "parks and recreation" was not suffering.
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The star wars hotel was doomed. It was super expensive to stay at and super expensive to operate. Disney parks revenue is up despite the failure of the star wars hotel.

Re: managing employees, guess what -- gay people don't want to go back in the closet. That is what's at stake. Conservatives have used the controversy over Trans issues to push legislation that is a Trojan horse for turning back the clock to 1980 and it's not going to end well for them, as we've already seen in recent special elections.
 
ahalpert said:
The star wars hotel was doomed
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You have a remarkable ability to travel inside Bob Iger's brain and determine that he shouldn't have invested a whole billion into a project. Did Spock put you up to this sort of time travel? Beamed you up all the way into 2017?

Or do you have a special insight into the oppressed Floridians escape to New York? I'll have you know that beside Holly from Miami, FLA, the movement is the other way, with 64,577 registering their NY-to-FLA DMV switch in 2022. Doo do doo do doo do do doo.
 
Paul F said:
What's really funny is that this discussion is happening on a forum that is likely 90+% straight white male. Now, what are we going to do to to bring diversity to the forum?
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I am Jewish and Russian ... well, ex-Russian, i.e., ex-Soviet. I demand a Mikhail Kalatozov or an Andrei Tarkovsky discussion daily. And since neither of them was Jewish, maybe a quick discourse on Eldar Ryazanov would suffice. He was half-Jewish, at least. But did make three hour long films. So, one half would be "to run in the time allotted",

PS. Tonight I watched a couple of the original episodes of Yellowstone. F-bombs, apparently, have been allowed for a long time. Then I saw one actor who looked quite familiar (no, not Kevin Costner - I don't know him at all) but another gray haired gentleman. And then I began to sing, "She's a maniac, maniac on the floor". And I still can't recall who he is. Oh, ell.
 
DLD said:
You have a remarkable ability to travel inside Bob Iger's brain and determine that he shouldn't have invested a whole billion into a project. Did Spock put you up to this sort of time travel? Beamed you up all the way into 2017?
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This is what I have read from many places. It was expensive to run and catered to too small of an audience. From Forbes:

Guests who can afford to shell out big bucks — just over $4,800 for a couple or $6,000 for a family of four — love the all-inclusive two-night experience, giving it some of the highest guest satisfaction ratings in the 50-year history of Walt Disney World.

The problem is that, apparently, not enough guests can afford it.
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Or do you have a special insight into the oppressed Floridians escape to New York? I'll have you know that beside Holly from Miami, FLA, the movement is the other way, with 64,577 registering their NY-to-FLA DMV switch in 2022. Doo do doo do doo do do doo.
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People arent migrating to escape wokeism. It's the cost of living crisis (due to nimbyism) + remote work freeing them to move to cheaper locales + baby boomers retiring. Which is why you see a deceleration in the trend now that Florida is becoming more expensive and remote work permissions are tightening.

From New York Post in April:

A Naples broker told The Post this week that this slowdown was inevitable, highlighting soaring mortgage rates, low housing inventory and spiking Florida home prices.

“That was just unsustainable,” she said.

“I have clients who were set to move and just couldn’t make the numbers work anymore. This isn’t the same Florida as five years ago.”

She also noted that some remote workers who planned to migrate have either been called back into their New York offices or didn’t feel confident that they would be able to remain off-site indefinitely.
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ahalpert said:
From New York Post in April ...
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There's a military term called "the avenue of retreat". Meaning that, when you find it disadvantageous to keep slugging it out, you retreat to a more defensible position because it's a better move.

PS. Florida, within one year - July 2021 - July, 2022- took in a record number of migrants from other states, about 444,000 worth.
 
DLD said:
There's a military term called "the avenue of retreat". Meaning that, when you find it disadvantageous to keep slugging it out, you retreat to a more defensible position because it's a better move.

PS. Florida, within one year - July 2021 - July, 2022- took in a record number of migrants from other states, about 444,000 worth.
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Not relevant. We're discussing politics and elections. Most people who move to Florida do so for economic reasons. And reactionary conservative policies by nature target minorities. But marginal swings in public opinion are decisive for electoral outcomes, as in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in February that went Democratic by over 10 points after the state voted Biden by only half a point. Really, it was a Dobbs election.
 
ahalpert said:
Most people who move to Florida do so for economic reasons. .
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Not me. I moved for the great winter weather. Blue skies, green grass, lots of wildlife, tons of outdoor activities. Mentally I could not take the gray, gloomy, slushy, lifeless winters up north anymore. Climate change ruined winter. Not paying a state income tax anymore was just icing on the cake.
 
From Governing.com "The demographics of residents flowing in and out can affect the state’s economy and politics. For instance, the number of active voters registered as Republicans in Florida surpassed Democrats for the first time in modern history last year. Susan MacManus, a professor emerita at the University of South Florida and expert on Florida politics...

“It’s hard data to get,” MacManus said. ... ‘Were (new Florida arrivals) typical northeasterners who just want better weather,... or more affluent people who were upset with lockdowns...?’”

“If anyone tells you they know definitively,” MacManus said, “they’re lying.”
 
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