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Gender in Entertainment INdustry
History, What is this movement about and who is it for?
Time's Up is a non-profit organization founded by a group of Hollywood celebrities to bring attention to specific issues related to sexual harassment and inequality within the entertainment industry, as well as across others. The movement is meant to push for changes for women’s rights in the wake of numerous women coming forward to report sexual misconduct by powerful men in Hollywood and beyond. Its goal is to bring awareness towards sexual harassment for women who need a voice, ensure workers safety, and create an equal environment in the workplace. This organization is not a traditional advocacy organization where it does not have one specific leader. Time's Up is run by groups of volunteers and conduct their own kinds of campaigns. Time's Up has had many Hollywood celebrities donate and support their mission. They have their own website, https://timesupnow.org/, that give more information on what they do, what they have done, and how to get involved.
Photo of actresses and activists, including Tarana Burke, Ai-jen Poo, and Saru Jayaraman as their plus-ones to the Golden Globes.
Time's Up Entertainment encourages women to be more involved in film production behind the camera!
When and where is this movement taking place?
This movement started to form at the beginning of 2018 in California and is currently still active. This movement mainly takes place in the United States. Although, over the years it has spread globally to bring awareness to the types of discrimination and challenges women face in male dominated industries. With the help of some supporting advocates, Time's Up UK was created to help spread attention and promote change across all industries in Europe.
Why does it exist in this particular place and time?
This organization exists in response to the #MeToo movement and the sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein. With the Harvey Weinstein allegations in 2017, trials, and conviction in 2020, after forming in 2018 Time's Up focused on trying to change sexual harassment and violence by starting with changing inequality within the workplace. Christy Haubegger, a Creative Artists Agency executive who helped start Time’s Up, says "if you want to eradicate sexual harassment, first you have to solve inequality, because power imbalances are at the root of harassment behavior." (Langone 2018)
To help, here is a link to an online Time article that helps explain what the #MeToo movement and the Time's Up movement are, and the differences and similarities between them.
https://time.com/5189945/whats-the-difference-between-the-metoo-and-times-up-movements/
Supporting Advocates
Tracee Ellis Ross at the 2018 Golden Globes wearing black to stand for the Time's Up Movement and celebrate the power of women.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS
Tracee Ellis Ross is an American actress and TV host. Tracee and her aunt, Dr. Barbara Ross-Lee teamed up for the Time's Up Movement. She also signed her name to an open letter announcing the anti-harassment coalition among other Hollywood women, including Reese Witherspoon, Shonda Rhimes, and Meryl Streep. Tracee says the real purpose of Time's Up is, "channeling the right kind of energy into actual change." She feels women are used to being uncomfortable with anger which can instead be used as energy to move forward and create change. Below is a link of Tracee and the rest of the women who stood for the Time's Up Movement at the Golden Globes thanking everyone who donated to the movement and explaining what exactly the movement is.
https://people.com/style/golden-globes-2018-tracee-ellis-ross/
https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/tracee-ellis-ross-times-up-female-anger
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/14/703536457/tracee-ellis-ross-teams-up-for-times-up-with-her-aunt-dr-barbara-ross-lee
Natalie Portman wearing a Time's Up t-shirt at Kingdom Day Parade in Los Angeles
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman is an actress and filmmaker. Natalie Portman has been criticized for never working with female directors throughout her career. She justified that working with female directors is difficult because there are not as many female directors as there are male directors. Along with producing projects that are directed by women are harder to prevent from falling under. Natalie Portman wore a cape with the names of female film directors who she believed were not being recognized for their work at the 2018 Golden Globes. She is aware of the issues within the film industry such as abuse of power and inequality.
Below is a video of a speech she gave at the Women's March two years ago, discussing some of the issues she faced personally and what women may face in the film industry and in everyday culture. The second link is a brief interview with Natalie Portman where she discusses Time's Up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXWHO14c88c
Emma Watson
Emma Watson is a strong woman in Hollywood who is not afraid to speak her mind. She is a 29-year-old, white actress from the United Kingdom. She studied at Brown University while still acting as her education was very important to her. Watson, while an actor, is also a well-known activist as she is a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and advocated for the HeForShe campaign promoting Gender equality. On the Time’s Up movement Watson is quoted saying how inspired she is by the founders and the community the movement has gained, the shared experiences and advice, and all the support from around the world. Emma Watson was one of the many actors, actresses, writers, and directors who showed their support of the campaign by wearing black to the Oscars in 2018, along with a tattoo which read "Time's Up". Below is a short video interview of Emma Watson discussing what the Time's Up movement is and what she wants to accomplish.
Emma Watson at wearing black at the 2018 Oscars to support Time's Up Movement
A photo Emma Watson shared via Instagram to thank everyone for being supportive and following the Times Up Movement.
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Tina Tchen
Tina Tchen is the president and CEO of Time’s Up and is extremely active with the progress of the Time’s Up movement. She co-founded the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund which has helped thousands of people get support across different industries. She is a former assistant to President Barack Obama, as an executive director of the White House council on Women and Girls. She also was Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama. Before getting involved with Time’s Up, Tina Tchen was a lawyer that focused on workplace culture and would advise companies on gender inequity, sexual harassment, and diversity. She has many years of work on trying to bring gender equality and has done a lot before being involved with Time’s Up. The YouTube link below introduces you to Tina Tchen and explains a lot of her accomplishments within the White House, goals for Time’s Up, and how their work is affecting people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNfV4CCNL3g
Ke$ha
In 2018, singer/songwriter Kesha performed the single from her newest album, “Praying”. This song is about being treated horribly wrong by a man and finally getting away from him and hoping he’ll learn. Kesha, in about 2015, came forward and said that her producer Dr. Luke sexually assaulted her for years and that she was forced to keep silent by her label Sony. Because she did this, she was no longer allowed to make music and was becoming worried about money. She had a long legal battle with Sony and Luke, but for still unclear reasons since all evidence was pointing to her telling the truth, she lost the case. Sony then forced her to continue working with Dr. Luke, and this caused Kesha to go through many mental health issues. When her album, also titled Praying, came out she said that this was her coming to peace with her new life and also a message to her label. She joined the #metoo movement and the #timesup movement. She has said on many occasions that women being forced to work in these conditions and to be taught to not complain about what they are given, even if it isn’t much, needs to end now. Gender is operating in this topic because it is still strong with the idea of gendered spaces and how it is still ever so present that the idea of a job being male-dominated can cause actual trauma to the woman who deserves so much better for their careers. A woman can do the same things as men, but to society, it’ll always be seen as less until we realize that we are equal and deserve equal rights.
.https://variety.com/2018/music/news/kesha-praying-metoo-movement-2018-grammys-1202677714/
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Mark Whalberg
This movement was founded by Hollywood personalities who were angry at the institution. As over 300 women signed the initial movement, many men have joined in support of an equal workplace. A notable personality being Mark Whalberg, the actor donated $1.5 million of his pay from a movie to the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund. This decision came after his co-star, Michelle Williams, was paid less than $1,000 for the same reshoot. He stated that he was for equal pay and stands by the decision to make no money from those reshoots. The talent agencies claimed little wrongdoing and tried to reason that even while being represented by the same company Whalberg deserved more money. The video below is a news report with more information about how this donation came to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpZ9soYTF80
Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon has had an overwhelmingly successful career in Hollywood over several decades. She did begin to notice though that complex female characters were not exactly common in the film industry. Reese has also become a face of the TIME’S UP movement. She has made substantial donations and has volunteered such a large amount of her time developing ways that both herself and other women involved “could really encourage change.” In an interview at the 2018 Golden Globes, Reese spoke about the vision of the movement stating, “It is a group effort of people coming together – executives, directors, and just saying time’s up on abuse, harassment, discrimination in the workplace. Not just in Hollywood, but in every industry.” Through a sit-down interview she mentions that she’s received a great deal of support from her husband who “cares deeply about equality” and always encouraged her to be outspoken.
Eva Longoria
Eva Longoria is one of the founding members of the Time’s Up movement. Among being one of the original members of the Time's Up movement she is also a part of various other initiatives in order to help women’s rights and better representation in the Latino community. She has also recently produced a documentary called “Reversing Roe” which was the overturn of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. She also has been a producer for the show “Grand Hotel.” By producing these titles she has been able to bring up more equality in the workplace. Eva Longoria being a prominent Mexican-American actress since the early 2000s most known for her role in Desperate Housewives she has been in the minority and knows what it is like to not only be a woman in Hollywood, but also a non-white actor. The movement said by Longoria is trying to be more involved in 2020 and especially the upcoming election. What strikes me the most about this article is the fact that she says that not much enough has improved she states that: “Despite the wave of public conversation around gender parity and diversity in the entertainment industry, Longoria said much work remains to be done to achieve the goal set by Time’s Up to achieve 50-50 workplace equality in Hollywood by 2020.” There has been a lot of work to improve the situations and people are more aware now more than ever, but I am glad that she is not settling with the improvements so far meaning that she is still trying to make it a better place. (Variety)
https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/eva-longoria-times-up-2020-election-kering-cannes-1203218418/
Supporting organization(s)
The National Women’s Law Center is an organization with the overall mission statement of, “Justice for Her. Justice for All.” They are a group of high-profile individuals who are working towards gender justice in the courts, public policy, and society. They focus on women facing multiple forms of discrimination but work to impact the lives of all women and girls. The Center was founded in 1972 when there were demands for better pay for women, work on women’s rights, and more women staff attorneys at a public interest law firm. The organization prides themselves on being a leader in the landmark legal and public policy advances that have improved the lives of women and their families. They conduct their work through research, analysis, advocacy, and even public education. The leaders of the Time’s Up movement and the National Women’s Law Center worked together to establish a legal defense fund to help bring legal and medical assistance to those who have experienced sexual misconduct in the workplace. Time’s Up and the NWLC want to allow women the freedom to seek the justice they deserve and connect them to further protection along with encouraging others in the same situation to come forward.
Thinking Anthropologically Statement
Through our research on the Time’s Up movement, we found a connection with the idea that gender intersects with other relations of power that produce differences. In Hollywood, there is a large underrepresentation of women, women of color, and other minorities of race and gender. Male actors are paid more than female actresses. There are also more male directors that have won more awards where female directors have been overlooked for their work. We learned in class that gender is a system of power that produces difference from a dominant norm. Due to this reasoning, there is more power given to male actors, directors, writers, etc. including even those not in the Hollywood industry. Sexual violence is an issue that is usually based on male dominance of a woman, and something that is highly prevalent in the film industry today but also present across other industries. This gives the idea that race, class, nationality, or even sexual orientation, is a direct factor playing into the power one has in Hollywood. With a lot advocates, a lot of them being celebrities, the Time's Up movement is bound to progress even further than what it currently has. Times' Up is fairly new and has raised over $22 Million since its formation to support women in their workplace, encourage women to pursue male dominated careers, and to bring a change in safety and equality to the working world.