Whitey Ford
10-12-2019, 12:30 PM
BAFTA's diversity quotas want to counter hate. Instead they'll make producers & audiences hate TV
The British Film Institute has declared that TV productions must meet strict diversity requirements to be considered for its prestigious Bafta awards - but forcing "tolerance" breeds resentment and strangles artistic freedom.
The BFI has imposed a plethora of diversity quotas which signal that a show's superficial embrace of minority groups is more important than its content, staying power, or popularity with audiences. Already incorporated into the industry's film awards last year, the standards manage to insult both minority groups and the straight white masses.
https://i.imgur.com/DpNF9nE.jpg
With dozens of requirements to meet within the four categories, production crews will be forced to spend a significant amount of time tailoring their scripts to fit the BFI's diversity dictates - and many are likely to resent such stifling rules. Some mandates ("significant amount of crew/staff resident in the UK outside of London and the South East of England") seem designed to make production more difficult, while others ("the target audience of a project is an underserved audience group, with a clear strategy to reach them") directly affect the subject matter.
Certain productions (an obvious example is Downton Abbey, a profoundly white period drama from a period where Britain was profoundly white) either won't get made, or will be made with the conscious awareness that they will not merit awards consideration or wide release.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/470738-baftas-diversity-rules-uk-tolerance/
The British Film Institute has declared that TV productions must meet strict diversity requirements to be considered for its prestigious Bafta awards - but forcing "tolerance" breeds resentment and strangles artistic freedom.
The BFI has imposed a plethora of diversity quotas which signal that a show's superficial embrace of minority groups is more important than its content, staying power, or popularity with audiences. Already incorporated into the industry's film awards last year, the standards manage to insult both minority groups and the straight white masses.
https://i.imgur.com/DpNF9nE.jpg
With dozens of requirements to meet within the four categories, production crews will be forced to spend a significant amount of time tailoring their scripts to fit the BFI's diversity dictates - and many are likely to resent such stifling rules. Some mandates ("significant amount of crew/staff resident in the UK outside of London and the South East of England") seem designed to make production more difficult, while others ("the target audience of a project is an underserved audience group, with a clear strategy to reach them") directly affect the subject matter.
Certain productions (an obvious example is Downton Abbey, a profoundly white period drama from a period where Britain was profoundly white) either won't get made, or will be made with the conscious awareness that they will not merit awards consideration or wide release.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/470738-baftas-diversity-rules-uk-tolerance/