Backstage at the Oscars this year, Frances McDormand mocked the idea that the current push for gender and racial diversity in Hollywood is a passing fad.
“The whole idea of women ‘trending’? No. African-Americans ‘trending’? No,” she said after winning best actress for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. “It changes now.”
And with the last two words of her Oscar acceptance speech, McDormand set that change in motion. After she mentioned “inclusion rider” on the Academy Awards’ stage, popular interest in the previously little-known legal concept spiked. The world learned that cast and crew members could insist on a clause in their contracts that would require productions to adopt diversity quotas.
Now, producers are starting to pledge to include such provisions in future movies.
Read More: This Is What Frances McDormand Meant When She Said: 'Inclusion Rider'
Michael B. Jordan was among the first to publicly commit to the concept. In an Instagram post last week, which he later tweeted, the Black Panther star announced that his production company, Outlier Society Productions, would adopt inclusion riders for all of its projects.
Jordan wrote that he was “privileged” to work with powerful women and people of color during his career, and that it is “Outlier’s mission to continue to create for talented individuals going forward.”
This week, following suit, Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, the head of strategic outreach at Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Pearl Street Films, retweeted Jordan’s announcement with her own revelation that their company would be adopting inclusion riders for all future projects.
Although inclusion riders can help advance gender equality in Hollywood, they do not directly address the rampant sexual harassment and assault problem in the industry that has recently come to light. Both Damon and Affleck are still facing backlash over scandals in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Affleck was accused of groping two different co-workers, while Damon has been criticized for multiple insensitive comments, including telling a reporter that not enough people are talking about the Hollywood men who aren’t sexual predators.
.@michaelb4jordan Thank you for always supporting broader representation in the industry. On behalf of Pearl Street Films, Matt Damon, @BenAffleck, Jennifer Todd, Drew Vinton & I will be adopting the #InclusionRider for all of our projects moving forward. https://t.co/ODit24D2Rb
— Fanshen (@fanshen) March 13, 2018
Paul Feig of Feigco Entertainment — which has produced such movies as “Spy,” “Ghostbusters” (2016), and “Snatched” — also tweeted yesterday that his company would adopt inclusion riders for all of its future movie and television projects.
Thrilled to announce that Feigco Entertainment is officially adopting an #inclusionrider for all our film and TV productions moving forward. Thank you to @Inclusionists and Stacy L. Smith for their guidance and inspiration. We challenge other companies and studios to do the same.
— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) March 13, 2018
Hollywood’s lack of diversity is a serious problem, according to the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University Southern California, the director of which, Stacy Smith, introduced the idea of an inclusion rider.
After analyzing over 900 films over a 10-year span, Annenberg reported last year that only 31% of speaking roles, 4.2% of directors, and 1.4% of composers in Hollywood were women, while only 29% of speaking characters were non-white, even though people of color make up about 40% of the US population.
"The goal really is to figure out: How do we move from all the lip service in Hollywood to actually see the numbers that we study every year move?" Smith told NPR.
In inclusion riders, Hollywood may have found a way.
Take Action: Sign this petition to #LeveltheLaw and empower girls and women around the world!
Global Citizen campaigns in support of women’s rights and gender equality. You can take action here to help empower women and girls everywhere.