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| Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri |
It's all very well to say "Time's up!", but will Hollywood's assurances that it intends to do better by its female stars translate into anything meaningful? Frances McDormand called for this when she went on stage at Sunday's Oscars and called for all the female nominees in the audience to stand up, asking the men present to meet with them and fund their projects, and calling for an inclusion rider to apply to all industry productions.
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| Michael B Jordan Photo: Gage Skidmore |
The idea of the inclusion rider is that production companies will add a clause to their contracts requiring projects to have diverse casts and crews. It was initially proposed in 2014 by industry think tank the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, which suggested that it could help women, people of colour, LGBTI people and disabled people to achieve proportionate representation both behind and in front of the camera.
"In support of the women and men who are leading this fight, I will be adopting the Inclusion Rider for all projects produced by my company Outlier Society," said Michael B Jordan on Wednesday." I’ve been privileged to work with powerful woman and persons of colour throughout my career and it’s Outlier’s mission to continue to create for talented individuals going forward." Riding high on the success of Black Panther, he's one of the biggest names to support the initiative so far. His company is currently working on a remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.
Brie Larson, Elizabeth Banks and Whitney Cummings are among the other industry figures who have so far expressed their support for the idea.
