Movies / en Have the Oscars encouraged more diverse hiring practices in film? A łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ researcher breaks down the data /news/have-oscars-encouraged-more-diverse-hiring-practices-film-u-t-researcher-breaks-down-data <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Have the Oscars encouraged more diverse hiring practices in film? A łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ researcher breaks down the data</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/GettyImages-1246503222-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=L0KfkTjt 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/GettyImages-1246503222-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=W4eEHuHM 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/GettyImages-1246503222-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=sI37AQhX 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/GettyImages-1246503222-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=L0KfkTjt" alt="Actors Riz Ahmed, left, and Allison Williams announce the nominations for the 2023 Academy Awards"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>siddiq22</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2023-03-10T13:38:00-05:00" title="Friday, March 10, 2023 - 13:38" class="datetime">Fri, 03/10/2023 - 13:38</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Actors Riz Ahmed, left, and Allison Williams announce the nominations for the 2023 Academy Awards, which will be presented on March 12 (photo by Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/city-culture" hreflang="en">City &amp; Culture</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/diversity-and-inclusion" hreflang="en">Diversity and Inclusion</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/awards" hreflang="en">Awards</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/film" hreflang="en">Film</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/movies" hreflang="en">Movies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/rotman-school-management" hreflang="en">Rotman School of Management</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Outrage gripped the Academy Awards in 2015 when, for the second year in a row, only white actors were nominated in the best acting categories. The #OscarsSoWhite hashtag quickly took over social media as the public and celebrities alike&nbsp;demanded change.</p> <p>In response, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – the voting body that determines the Oscar nominees and winners – committed to diversifying itself. Six years later, six actors&nbsp;–&nbsp;or roughly 30 per cent of the <a href="https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2023">acting nominees</a>&nbsp;in 2023&nbsp;– identify as part of a racial minority.</p> <p>“I think this is a very positive signal,” says <strong>Daphne Baldassari</strong>, a Ph.D candidate in strategic management in&nbsp;the University of Toronto's&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/">Rotman School of Management</a>&nbsp;and a&nbsp;research fellow at the <a href="https://www.gendereconomy.org/">Institute of Gender and the Economy</a>.</p> <p>She notes that in recent years, many industries have reckoned with racial discrimination and made efforts to diversify their workforces. But few&nbsp;have dealt with the issue as publicly as the film and television sector.</p> <p>Following the 2015 backlash, the academy added 683 new members to its 5,700-plus voting body, 46 per cent of whom were women and 41 per cent of whom were from underrepresented racial groups. (The academy was previously 94 per cent white and 77 per cent male, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-20120219-story.html">according to the&nbsp;<em>Los Angeles Times</em></a>.)</p> <p>The impact of this diversification goes beyond a&nbsp;more diverse nominee group, according to a chapter of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.daphnebaldassari.com/research">Baldassari’s dissertation</a>, “Oscars So White? Hiring Effects of an Evaluator’s Diversity Intervention.”</p> <p>Many film companies seek the reputational bump from the academy, and after its membership changed to be more inclusive, studios looking to score an Oscar were more likely adjust their hiring practices to ensure more diverse representation, Baldassari found.</p> <p><span id="cke_bm_596S" style="display: none;"><span id="cke_bm_288S" style="display: none;"><span id="cke_bm_286S" style="display: none;">&nbsp;</span>&nbsp;</span>&nbsp;</span><img class="migrated-asset" src="/sites/default/files/EEAAO-crop_0.jpg" alt><br> <em>The 2022 hit film Everything Everywhere All at Once is nominated in 11 categories at this year's Oscars, including Best Picture&nbsp;(photo courtesy of A24 Films)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Working with <a href="https://filmandtv.luminatedata.com/">Luminate Film &amp; TV</a> – the global entertainment data company formerly known as MRC Data and Nielsen Music<em>&nbsp;</em>– Baldassari analyzed the hiring data of 6,999 feature-length films released in the U.S. between 2010 and 2021. Overall, she examined more than 193,000 staffing choices in the industry.</p> <p>She approached the research with three hypotheses. First, Baldassari&nbsp;posited that following the decision to create a more diverse judging committee for the Oscars, award-seeking companies would be more likely to do the same. Second, she believed that the positive hiring effect would be most prominent in visible roles – the top-billed or above-the-line positions such as&nbsp;producers, actors and directors. (These are in comparison to “below-the-line” roles, such cinematographers and costume designers.) And third, she surmised&nbsp;that people already affiliated with an award body – such as existing members and nominees&nbsp;–&nbsp;were most likely to see the benefits than those who were not.</p> <p>Overall, her theories proved accurate. Following the academy's 2016 diversification efforts, there was an increase in racial diversity of the makeup of film crews –&nbsp;with some caveats. Across the board, women and racial minorities were about five per cent more likely to be hired to work on a film. &nbsp;</p> <p>However, those in above-the-line roles saw their chance of getting hired increase by 3.3 percentage points, while those in below-the-line positions saw no statistical change to their chances of being hired.</p> <p>“Change here is not necessarily driven by an intrinsic motivation of driving diversity,” Baldassari says. “Award-seeking films seek to appeal to the academy, so positive hiring effects stay in the most visible occupations.”</p> <p>Women and racial minorities who had previously worked on award-seeking films saw a 1.6 per cent increase in the chance that they’d be re-hired, while those who had not worked on an award-seeking film saw no change.</p> <p>Regardless of how small the changes were, they made a difference to what audiences see on screen and which movies get recognition.</p> <p>“Recently&nbsp;we’ve been seeing new depictions of lots of people on screen, such as Asian Americans&nbsp;with movies like&nbsp;<em>Minari</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Everything Everywhere All at Once</em>,” Baldassari says. “These movies are totally different&nbsp;from what we would have seen 20 years ago, and we’re moving away from the stereotypes.”</p> <p>Baldassari believes her findings can be applied to other industries that have existing third-party evaluators or awards bodies. It is especially relevant for subjective work, she says, pointing to&nbsp;the culinary and&nbsp;literary sectors, which respectively have the James Beard Award and Pulitzer Prize to recognize their efforts.</p> <p>As a first step, organizations&nbsp;should consider how their evaluation may sustain existing racial and gender inequalities,&nbsp;Baldassari suggests. Then, they should consider potential changes –&nbsp;such as diversifying evaluation bodies or adding new qualification requirements –&nbsp;and measure the&nbsp;impact.</p> <p>“By changing the committees, you are opening up to more preferences and changing the standards&nbsp;–&nbsp;&nbsp;especially for companies that are driven by earning these awards.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Fri, 10 Mar 2023 18:38:00 +0000 siddiq22 180633 at Does Hollywood hate Wall Street? łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ researcher's book challenges popular impressions of business world /news/does-hollywood-hate-wall-street-u-t-researcher-s-book-challenges-popular-impressions-business <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Does Hollywood hate Wall Street? łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ researcher's book challenges popular impressions of business world</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2018-07-06-GettyImages-gordon-gekko%28weblead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=XsRYEjPg 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2018-07-06-GettyImages-gordon-gekko%28weblead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=DNpfgwlN 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2018-07-06-GettyImages-gordon-gekko%28weblead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=muELCKSz 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2018-07-06-GettyImages-gordon-gekko%28weblead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=XsRYEjPg" alt="Photo of Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in 1987 film Wall Street"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2018-07-06T11:47:13-04:00" title="Friday, July 6, 2018 - 11:47" class="datetime">Fri, 07/06/2018 - 11:47</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Gordon Gekko, played by actor Michael Douglas, delivered his now infamous "greed is good" speech in the 1987 film Wall Street (Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/don-campbell" hreflang="en">Don Campbell</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/global-lens" hreflang="en">Global Lens</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/movies" hreflang="en">Movies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/rotman-school-management" hreflang="en">Rotman School of Management</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/startups" hreflang="en">Startups</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/university-toronto-scarborough" hreflang="en">University of Toronto Scarborough</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>In Oliver Stone’s 1987 hit movie <em>Wall Street, </em>Gordon Gekko famously delivers his “greed is good” speech to justify buying and breaking up companies before selling them for a healthy profit. Meant to be a cautionary tale about the excess and get-rich-quick financial schemes of the 1980s, it certainly isn’t unique among works of fiction and non-fiction in its critical portrayal of the financial industry.</p> <p>But in his new book <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319779225#aboutAuthors"><em>Negotiating Business Narratives</em></a>, <strong>Sandford Borins</strong>, a professor of strategic management at University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management, challenges many of the&nbsp;popular narratives about business and the business world. Using movies, novels, biographies and histories written about the IT, automotive and financial trading sectors, he shows that how we think about these industries is often shaped by what we read in books or watch on the big screen.</p> <p>Writer <strong>Don Campbell</strong> recently sat down with Borins to explore how these narratives can shape our perception of these industries and&nbsp;influence everything from career choices to key public policy decisions like regulating the financial industry.&nbsp;</p> <hr> <p>&nbsp;<img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__8799 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" height="453" src="/sites/default/files/2018-07-06-Sandi_Borins-5-%28web-embed%29.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="680" loading="lazy">&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p><em>Sandford Borins is&nbsp;a professor of strategic management at University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management (photo by Ken Jones)</em></p> <p><strong>How did you go about exploring the popular stories done about these industries?</strong></p> <p>We took 63 works done about these industries and developed a model that has eight archetypal stories. At the top you have corporate nirvana stories where everyone wins, so the interests of the protagonist, corporate entity and society are all fully aligned. At the opposite end you have&nbsp;corporate nightmare stories, where everyone loses. The remaining six include different variations of winners and losers.&nbsp;</p> <p>So examples of the corporate nirvana are the 1984 book <em>Iacocca: An Autobiography</em>, which explores auto executive Lee Iacocca’s career in the car industry, or Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Examples of the corporate nightmare include the documentary <em>Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room</em>, or the 2011 book <em>Once Upon a Car</em> that follows the decline of the big three automakers.</p> <p>What we found is that these industries populate the stories in very different ways, and they have different dominant fables and counter fables. An important question we explore is how do audiences react to these different stories? How are people’s opinions of these industries shaped by these popular narratives, and what type of reaction do the authors, filmmakers and producers want to get from their audiences?</p> <p><strong>So how do certain narratives emerge? </strong></p> <p>The dominant stories that emerge are very much the result of the phase of development the industry is in and how it's being covered in the media. Take the IT industry for example, which was in a rapid growth phase in the 1980s, 90s and into the 21<sup>st</sup> century. Many of the stories about the early days of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Silicon Valley are mostly complimentary. These stories explore rivalry between companies, the strong personalities, or an industry changing the very way we live and do business. So it’s mostly very exciting stuff.</p> <p>Compare that to financial trading, where most of the stories being told were and still are of predation and criminality. It started in the 1980s with the insider trading scandals and continued later with criminal litigations against leading people in the financial industry including Bernie Madoff, Jeffrey Skilling and Jordan Belfort. These cases provided interesting and exciting material for writers and filmmakers.</p> <p>So while there were people in this industry who were building empires and making money by playing by the rules, I think the stories about people who try to make their money by cheating are more interesting for audiences. This is the case with <em>Wall Street</em>, <em>Boiler Room</em>, <em>Enron</em>, <em>The Big Short</em>, <em>Wolf of Wall Street</em>, the list goes on.</p> <p><strong>Is there any way to tell how influential these works have been?</strong></p> <p>There’s no quantitative research I know of that looks at how many people decided to get into certain industries based on what they read or saw at the movies. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t influential. Take the character of Gordon Gekko. He was meant to be the villain in a cautionary tale, but so many young men – and it’s almost always young men – took him to be a role model. That has implications. You see the references in secondary literature, in speeches by politicians and even with Michael Douglas self-reporting on the number of times he gets accosted by people saying he was their role model in <em>Wall Street</em>. I would bet that many young men have more recently taken Jordan Belfort from the <em>Wolf of Wall Street</em> as a role model.</p> <p>There was also a popular speech made by then-Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during the financial crash in 2008 decrying the mess made by the so-called “21<sup>st&nbsp;</sup>century children of Gordon Gekko” who were responsible for ruining the economy. I think that a movie like <em>Inside Job</em> also built popular support for the Dodd Frank Act, which set regulations on the financial sector.</p> <p>When it comes to IT, there’s this popular narrative of the wildly successful start-up. As a consequence, huge numbers of technically adept people want to create their own start-ups. But what most people don’t realize is that the odds of becoming a truly successful and highly profitable company are very, very small. Many don’t realize they may have a more satisfying life if they go to work for a large company. It’s a big gamble because many moderately successful start-ups end up with the founding entrepreneurs selling their intellectual property for a reasonably small amount of money&nbsp;– let’s say one or two million dollars – after years of tremendous personal sacrifice. Is this the most socially efficient way of recruiting people to the technology sector? I don’t know if it is.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>What would you say to people who watch movies or read books about these industries? </strong></p> <p>Having a critical lens when consuming popular culture is important. You need to understand who is telling the story and what they are trying to get you to do with the story they’re telling. Take a movie like <em>Inside Job</em>. You should come out with an understanding of what the filmmaker wants you to think about the industry. It’s also important to know that distilling complicated topics into readable or watchable stories often doesn’t leave room for nuance.</p> <p>It’s also important to understand the broader cultural or social context in which the work is being produced. For the most part popular movies and books about the IT industry over the past 30 years have been laudatory. But I think the winds are beginning to change and more attention will be drawn to the dysfunctions in that industry.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>What inspired you to write this book? </strong></p> <p>There’s a strong connection to teaching. Over the past 25 years I’ve been teaching a course at łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ Scarborough called “Narrative and Management” that explores how popular narratives about public and private organizations are developed and portrayed in works of fiction and non-fiction.</p> <p>My co-author, Beth Herst, also happens to be my wife. Her background is in English literature; she did her PhD at the University of London on the writings of Charles Dickens. So the focus on management came from me, while the literary and critical film analysis came from her. It was a true intellectual collaboration.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:47:13 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 138396 at To save 30,000 lives, restrict movies with smoking to those 18 or older, public health researchers say /news/save-30000-lives-restrict-movies-smoking-those-18-or-older-public-health-researchers-say <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"> To save 30,000 lives, restrict movies with smoking to those 18 or older, public health researchers say</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-09-08T09:32:02-04:00" title="Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - 09:32" class="datetime">Tue, 09/08/2015 - 09:32</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">(photo by Jayaprakash R via Flickr)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/nicole-bodnar" hreflang="en">Nicole Bodnar</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Nicole Bodnar</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/public-health" hreflang="en">Public Health</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/movies" hreflang="en">Movies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/dalla-lana-school-public-health" hreflang="en">Dalla Lana School of Public Health</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>An Ontario 18A rating for all movies with smoking would avert more than 30,000 tobacco-related deaths and save more than half a billion dollars in healthcare costs, University of Toronto&nbsp;public health researchers say.</p> <p>“There is a solid body of research that demonstrates youth who are exposed to smoking in movies are more likely to start smoking than youth who are not exposed, regardless of personality characteristics or their friends’, siblings’, and parents’ smoking and alcohol use,” said <strong>Robert Schwartz</strong>, executive director of the <a href="http://otru.org/">Ontario Tobacco Research Unit</a> (OTRU) and associate professor at łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ's&nbsp;<a href="http://www.dlsph.utoronto.ca/">Dalla Lana School of Public Health</a>.</p> <p>OTRU collaborated with the <a href="http://smokefreemovies.ca/">Ontario Coalition for Smoke-Free Movies</a> on the report, <a href="http://otru.org/youth-exposure-to-tobacco-in-movies-in-ontario-canada-2004-2014/"><em>Youth Exposure to Tobacco in Movies</em></a>, published on September 8, 2015. The report&nbsp;examines onscreen tobacco exposure among Ontario youth, and estimates the impact of this exposure in terms of new smokers recruited, their tobacco-associated mortality and health-care costs.</p> <p>Based on United States Center for Disease Control models, which account for health effects over the lifetime, Schwartz projects that at least 185,000 children and teens in Ontario will start smoking cigarettes due to exposure to onscreen smoking. These future Ontario smokers would be responsible for at least $1.1 billion in healthcare costs attributable to their exposure to onscreen smoking. &nbsp;At least 59,000 of these smokers recruited to smoking by exposure to movies depicting tobacco imagery are projected to eventually die prematurely from smoking-related disease.&nbsp;</p> <p>OTRU has long advised that <a href="http://www.dlsph.utoronto.ca/2014/06/u-of-t-public-health-researchers-says-its-time-to-butt-out-smoking-in-movies/">it’s time to butt out smoking in movies that are youth-rated</a>, but this report provides new data about the costs — both economically and in lives lost — of youth smoking due to movie exposure.</p> <p>The <a href="http://tiff.net/festivals">Toronto International Film Festival</a> (TIFF) runs September 10-20, 2015 and will screen more than 300 films. Based on the report’s data, more than half of these movies are expected to feature tobacco. &nbsp;</p> <p>“Now more than ever we are urging policy-makers to require adult ratings for movies with any tobacco imagery. Not only will this save thousands of lives, it will also save $568 million in healthcare costs,” said Schwartz (pictured below)&nbsp;a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.</p> <p><img alt="photo of Robert Schwartz outside the Dalla Lana School of Public Health" src="/sites/default/files/2015-09-08-robert-schwartz.jpg" style="width: 625px; height: 341px; margin: 10px 25px;"></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-09-08-smoking-movies.jpg</div> </div> Tue, 08 Sep 2015 13:32:02 +0000 sgupta 7259 at