Readers React: The Reagan Revolution and Hollywood’s profit-seeking at the expense of diversity

To the editor: As far as I’m concerned, we’re all in the morality business. That’s not to say that the federal government ought to enforce race and sex quotas on the film industry, but the premise of Stanley Fish’s article is noxious. (“Hollywood isn’t in the morality business,” Opinion, Feb. 26)

As applied to the broader economy, the notion that the responsibility of a business begins and ends with maximizing shareholder value provides an all-purpose excuse for predatory behavior. The financial crisis of the last decade proved this approach invites chaos and destruction that harms the most vulnerable.

When it comes to the film industry, well, this is how we define American culture. It’s exported to the rest of the world. I don’t begrudge film companies their right to reap huge profits, but there’s a big problem when other voices are shut out. Fish’s response is to say, “Business is business.”

The American story between World War II and the Reagan Revolution was one of devolving power from a narrow band of elites to the broad middle. The story since the 1980s has been the reversal of that trend. Hollywood isn’t immune from that phenomenon.

Branden Frankel, Encino

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To the editor: Fish takes issue with the proposition that Hollywood has an “inclusion crisis” and argues that the studios are responsible only to the bottom line.

While some may debate whether Hollywood has a moral obligation to fix the systemic exclusion of women and people of color in jobs both in front of and behind the camera, film and television companies do have a legal obligation to refrain from systemic gender and race discrimination, be it conscious or unconscious.

That the lucrative product Hollywood makes is creative in nature does not free the industry from basic compliance with anti-discrimination laws when making hiring decisions.

Melissa Goodman, Los Angeles

The writer is director of the LGBTQ, Gender and Reproductive Justice Project at the ACLU of Southern California.

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