The WGA recognizes five categories of underrepresented writers: minority writers; women writers; LGBTQ+ writers; writers with disabilities; and writers over 55. Our IEG has issued three annual reports about inclusion and equity. You can read the most recent report here. The bottom line is... there's a lot of work to be done, both on hiring and elevating.
To supplement the WGA's internal report, I highly recommend that you read the Think Tank for Inclusion and Equity's second annual Behind The Scenes research study.
I'm a member of one of the categories the Guild says is historically underrepresented: LGBTQ+ writers. At the start of the ATA action, I co-founded "The Rainbow Pages," an independent database of LGBTQ+ WGA members. This was an effort to make sure queer voices are part of the inclusion conversation, and to supply producers, executives, and showrunners with an easily accessible list of queer writers to meet, to read, and to hire.
Being the "only" anything is never fun, and I've been the only queer voice in the room.
In fact, out of the sixteen candidates put forward by the Nominating Committee to run in this election, I'm the only one who self-identifies as queer in their Guild profile.
But I'm also a cisgendered, able-bodied, white man. There is a tremendous amount of privilege that comes with that. If elected to the Board of Directors, I will be fierce advocate for all underrepresented writers.
You've seen me say this in other proposals on other pages, but in TV... writers hire writers.
We're failing to hire and promote inclusively. The data shows we're doing better in some categories but still have a long way to go. Agency and manager submissions and studio and network lists certainly have a role to play in this gatekeeping problem — not a pipeline problem (the difference is that a pipeline problem would mean there aren't enough talented underrepresented writers, when the reality is there are many... they just aren't being hired or promoted).
At the end of the day, we can and must do better. This is on us.
I also want to clearly separate this conversation from the concept of a "free diverse writer" paid for by a separate budget. One, I think the practice is terrible because I have too many friends who were fired the moment they were no longer free, then replaced by a new "free" writer. Two, the studios all disagree about which diversity categories this applies to. The MBA is done, this isn't about what the studios think, and it's not about financial incentives. It's about one simple thing: writers hiring writers.
So, here's my "best practices" challenge to all showrunners staffing up a room — but especially to straight, white, cisgendered male showrunners. Maybe you've guessed it based on this page's subhead.
Your first hire should be from an underrepresented group. If you're a man, hire a woman. If you're white, hire someone who isn't. Etc.
Of course, you don't have to, and you shouldn't, stop at one single hire from underrepresented groups. The point here is not to increase tokenism or to shift it to upper levels. So, maybe your second hire should be from a different underrepresented group.
What happens when your first hires are from groups different from you? You create an inclusive power structure in your room. Anyone else you hire from that underrepresented group, especially at the low level, no longer has to speak for an entire group. Believe me, there are few things more exhausting and simultaneously terrifying in a writers room than being low-level and feeling like you're constantly performing a bigotry check on a showrunner's story.
By not waiting until the final staff position to hire any underrepresented writers, we can once and for all put an end to the toxic, false narrative spewed by so many reps to low-level white male writers: "they're only reading diversity." I've been on the receiving end of this. When my reps used to tell me this, before I put a stop to it, what I actually heard is: "the showrunner didn't hire any diverse writers until the last minute, so that room is going to be overwhelmingly male, straight, and white, and you're probably not going to be a great fit anyway."
Now, there is a complicating factor. Room sizes are shrinking. The fact of the matter is... even if you had a 15 person room, you wouldn't be able to "check every box" in your one room, particularly when intersectionality is taken into account. We all recognize that. Our goal has to be to do better, room by room, so that over time and on the whole, our industry becomes more reflective of reality than it currently is.
We have to start somewhere. I'd say the best place to start is by hiring more showrunners from underrepresented groups, but that's a studio/network decision. Today's second-in-command is tomorrow's showrunner. So, for writers hiring writers, the place to start is at Number Two.
