“Sit down white people and let us lead!”, panelist says
By Bill Roberts
BANFF – Diversity and representation were core themes at the 2022 Banff World Media Festival (BWMF).
So, when it comes to crucial data, the session Being Counted: Canada’s First Race-based Audience Survey Signals Market Opportunities & Data Collection Gaps, was pivotal.
Sure, it’s a lot of words for the title of a panel but perhaps it comes down to one delegate’s frank remark: “Sit down white people and let us lead!”
Speakers included Adam Garnet Jones (above, top left), director of TV content and special events at APTN, Lea Marin (top right), director of development, drama, at the CBC and Lindsay Valve (bottom left), lead consultant at Quilin.
Our moderator was Joan Jenkinson (bottom right), executive director of the Black Screen Office.
As Valve explained, “race-based data is very new… BIPOC were previously absorbed into general audiences… with our study (Being Seen: Directives for Authentic and Inclusive Content) this disaggregates and allows targeted viewer content and discloses who is telling and making that content.
“And diversity and representation are different,” she said. “‘Diversity’ is about proportions of people and ‘representation’ is about authenticity of content… ‘who’s perspective’ is important and producers can benefit from the needed systemic and operational changes that need to be made… and that’s in the report.”
Jen Holness, chair of the Black Screen Office board of directors, describes the Being Seen study as, “a consultation on the representation of Black, People of Colour, 2SLGBTQIA+ and People with Disabilities in the screen-based sectors. But what makes it so important is that the input of over 400 participants from diverse communities is distilled down into a report that offers up targeted directives! Directives that recognize that we are in this industry together and it’s only by working in collaboration that we will make real and necessary change.”
Marin suggested the study “signals the need to work together, with ReelWorld for example… avoiding stereotypes and bringing about urgent change… growing up we didn’t see ourselves on TV other than Soul Train and Tonya Williams (on The Young and the Restless) and if you can’t see it, you can’t be it.”
She went on to say: “The report is foundational and calls us to think deeply… and the way we collaborate… we haven’t figured it all out yet, we need more research… (we need) collective tissue through all of this that helps us to learn how to live together as a collective whole… that’s part of the longer continuum… and the CBC is working with consultants to fill in the blind spots of understanding and representation.”
At one point, being in the audience, Tonya (Lee) Williams interjected to say, “let’s not pigeonhole BIPOC folks, we might not want to do just BIPOC content, maybe do content about white people too.”
Jones added that “representation is the baseline for everything we do, it’s the reason we exist… visual representation is important, but language acquisition and retention are priorities… so much comes from the writers and lived experience of writers… and good characters are deeply researched and connected to community.
“Less than 14% of Indigenous People live in areas where Numeris can even be accessed, so we do our own data research… areas like language, age, gender, we need to honour the communities we work with to make meaningful content,” he said.
Jenkinson made clear “this pioneering study was necessary to understand 1/4 of our country… (and) children’s programming in the Black community is really important… (plus) Black Canadians are not the same as Black Americans… producers should be aware, see this as an opportunity. We have a different culture and lived experience.”
Being Seen deals with and has directives for authentic storytelling, telling a story from outside your community, authentic casting, audience impact, structural change and regional differences.
And as my Metis godmother would say, “if you know better, you can do better.”
Amen to that.
Bill Roberts is a contributing editor at Cartt.ca.
Photos borrowed from the Banff World Media Festival’s website.
