Who <i> Isn’t </i> Writing Hollywood’s Stories : Writers Guild Study Claims Hiring Picture Still Poor for Women, Minorities, Older Writers

The Writers Guild of America, West on Wednesday released a sweeping study of employment practices in Hollywood, showing that job opportunities and pay scales for women, minority and older writers have remained stagnant or worsened in the 1980s.

The union’s report, based on members’ employment records and data from producers between 1982 and 1987, claimed that the wage gap between male and female writers is widening, that minorities continue to constitute only 2% of employed writers, and that employment opportunities for writers over age 40 are dwindling.

“The biggest surprise is that the situation is not improving, and in some cases it’s getting worse,” William Bielby, who conducted the study with his wife, Denise, said in an interview. “I can’t think of another industry where there’s been such a trend.”

The Bielbys, both sociologists at UC Santa Barbara, conducted a similar study for the Writers Guild in 1987, covering the period 1982 to 1985.

In response to Wednesday’s report, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers questioned the validity of some of the findings--but declined to cite specifics--and shifted the blame for the problem to the guild.

Herb Steinberg, spokesman for the alliance, said that in the TV industry, it is primarily writers--who also have responsibilities as producers--who hire other writers. “It’s in their power to change things,” he said.

The alliance also charged that in the past, the guild has rejected its proposals to expand opportunities for women, minority and older writers.

At a news conference Wednesday, Brian Walton, the Writers Guild’s executive director, called the results of the study “somewhat puzzling. . . . Ours is not an industry shackled by declining profits.”

Asked if the poor showing by minority writers was the result of racism, Walton said, “It’s difficult to come to a contrary conclusion.”

But when asked about remedies, guild officials had little to offer beyond seeking the voluntary cooperation of producers. Under contract language won during last year’s strike, the guild has the right to “explore new affirmative action programs” with the companies. Already two Warner Bros.-produced TV shows, “Growing Pains” and “Just the Ten of Us,” have agreed to examine scripts the guild submits from women, minority and older writers. So far, that effort has yielded free-lance assignments for two minority writers, according to Rich Reinhart, co-producer of “Just the Ten of Us.”

Walton did not rule out the possibility of more adversarial avenues, such as class action suits. But, he said, such lawsuits are expensive, their effectiveness is questionable and they would polarize the industry.

The gap in pay between male and female writers widened during the five years covered in the report. Whereas in 1982 women writers earned 73 cents for each dollar their male colleagues earned, by 1987 that figure had dropped to 63 cents, it said. (During the same period, overall median income of the guild’s membership increased.)

Women have the most success landing jobs as in-house writers at TV networks, where pay is the lowest in the TV industry, the report said. They are least likely to land jobs writing scripts for feature films: At the major studios, the percentage of writing jobs going to women declined from more than 17% in 1982 to 15.5% in 1987. Overall, women as a percent of total employment in the entertainment industry increased slightly during the five years from 19% to 21%.

The status of minority writers remained static during that same period. They composed 2.1% of employed writers in 1982, and again in 1987, during a period when total employment of Hollywood writers increased.

The guild, where writers are eligible for membership only if they have actually sold scripts, has only 185 minority members out of a total of about 6,400 writers. On average, fewer than 75 of those minorities were employed each year throughout the entertainment industry.

Bielby argued that a window of opportunity opened for minority writers in the 1970s, but has since closed. Those minorities who do find work in Hollywood, he said, tend to be clustered at TV shows with minority casts.

The report also documented the worsening opportunities for men over 40. As recently as 1982, these more experienced writers made more money than their younger counterparts. By 1987, though, they were making only 84 cents for every dollar earned by the average white male. The study also showed a dramatic drop in employment for these writers from age 41 on.

“TV and films are the domain of young white men,” Allan Manings, a 65-year-old writer whose credits include “Laugh-In” and “One Day at a Time,” said in an interview.

At the press conference Wednesday, guild president George Kirgo said he was recently told by a producer that he was too old to be hired as the writer on a TV movie. “It is now felt that older writers can’t write love scenes,” he said, and then added jokingly, “Some of us have kept diaries.”

As it did in its last report, the Writers Guild study cited specific studios with poor records in hiring women, minorities and older writers. Both Disney and MTM, which has produced such shows as “St. Elsewhere” and “Hill Street Blues,” were repeatedly faulted in the latest study for low numbers in these areas. Those same companies also were cited in the 1987 study.

Rich Frank, president of Walt Disney Studios, disputed some of the report’s data. But he acknowledged that “there is a problem,” particularly in the TV industry. “We do have to address those numbers,” he said, “but it has to be the guild, the networks and the producers. . . . We’re happy to try to do something about it.”

In the area of feature film production, Frank said, “We just pick the best material.” The race and age of the author, he noted, is not identified on the scripts the studio reads.

MTM declined comment on the study.

The report also faulted the hiring practices of the feature film operations at Fox, Paramount, MGM, Warner and Universal (though Universal was commended for its women and minority hires on the TV side.) The percentage of white males hired at these studios ranged from 79% (Fox TV) to 86.3% (Disney film studios).

Officials at these studios either declined comment or their officials did not return calls. But Steinberg of the producers alliance insisted that decision-makers at the film studios do not discriminate against women, minority or older writers.

“If it’s a good story, it’s a good story,” he said. “There’s nothing on the cover (of a script) saying it was written by a black, a white, a male, a female or someone in polka dots.”

Among the companies with the best records in hiring minorities, the study said, were Carson Productions, Carsey-Werner, Columbia (both film and TV), Embassy, HBO, Landsburg and Universal Television.

William Bielby attributed the low numbers of women and minority hires partly to the fact that hiring practices haven’t been “monitored closely in Hollywood.” In the 1970s, he said, major companies in other industries began to change their hiring practices because they “faced losing government contracts or (becoming the targets of) class action suits.”

Film and TV production companies don’t rely on government contracts, and their artists are reluctant to sue them for fear of being “blacklisted or labeled as difficult,” Bielby said.

He also cited the informal nature of doing business in Hollywood as an obstacle to women and minorities gaining access. “You have to put together teams on short notice, so you rely on the people you know,” he said. “It’s not a system that lends itself to complete access and equality.”

Finally, Bielby cited a reluctance by film and TV producers to try anything new or risky as an obstacle.

Daryl G. Nickens, a black writer whose credits include “A Different World,” said minority writers lose opportunities because they aren’t often invited to socialize with white colleagues. “This is such a social industry,” Nickens said. “There’s not a lot of interaction between black and white Hollywood.”

Minority writers such as Nickens and Delle Chatman say the most difficult aspect of working in Hollywood is gaining the initial access. Chatman recounted an episode in which a white TV producer read her script for a dramatic series and later confessed to being appalled: How could this young white guy have the arrogance to write about the sensitive racial issues that were central to the story?

To Chatman, a black woman, that producer’s assumption--which he subsequently recounted to her--says much about the attitudes of Hollywood’s decision-makers. “That’s how far out of their minds minority and women writers are,” Chatman said.

The impact of discrimination, many Writers Guild members contend, goes beyond employment opportunities. It also affects the content of the shows on TV and the movies that make it to theaters.

“Hollywood is a dream doctor,” said Chatman. “When you have control of TV, you have control of the dreams of the country.

“If there was more of a mix of different people, then different perspectives would be examined. It’s hard for a homogenous society to live off its own imagination indefinitely,” she added.