Stephen King is an author I truly admire. Though most book-lovers know King for his horror stories, my favorite work of his is “Elevation,” a short book following an average guy who develops a mysterious condition where he loses weight without his body mass changing. Reading his memoir and how-to “On Writing” was both inspirational and informative, and I often recommend it to students.
But I was dismayed to see King wading into troublesome waters when he tweeted out his thoughts on the award nomination process:
“As a writer, I am allowed to nominate in just 3 categories: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Screenplay. For me, the diversity issue — as it applies to individual actors and directors, anyway — did not come up. That said…I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.”
Though King likely didn’t choose his words carefully, he should consider how they come across as conflating diversity and quality — a pervasive idea that makes it harder for filmmakers, actors and producers from diverse backgrounds.
Taken in good faith, King is trying to say that art should be a matter of the beauty of the art and the skill of the artist, not based on their demographic background; and that diversity should not be considered in the award nomination process. King went on to tweet that “The most important thing we can do as artists and creative people is to make sure everyone has the same fair shot, regardless of sex, color, or orientation. Right now such people are badly under-represented, and not only in the arts.”
Reading his thoughts in context reveals King’s true intentions. But in terms of how it plays out in the real world, his myopic attempt at artistic colorblindness can actually have the effect opposite of what he intended.
The predisposition to see POC, women, and queer folk (not only but particularly if they are black) as a “diversity hire” or “affirmative action handout” is a hard stigma to combat. Without needing to list someone’s accomplishments or qualifications, or dispel the problematic ideas these assumptions are based on, think about the dynamic that this creates. The only way they can prove to critics that they “deserve” to the positions they work for is to exceed expectations. To use numbers as an analogy, if I’m actually a 90 but my blackness causes people to perceive me as an 80, I have to be a perfect 100 just for them to perceive where I actually am.
Treating diversity as a looming enemy of quality places an extra obstacle in front of artists from diverse backgrounds that their white counterparts do not have. The flipside of conflating diversity with quality is conjoining whiteness to merit. And it confirms a longstanding maxim in the communities of color — especially the black community — that we actually have to be exceptional just to be considered competent.
King should also consider how an industry that lacks diversity is likely to racialize quality. When we give out awards for any art, we base our assessment on things like skill and craft — the framing of a shot, the beauty of a sentence, the colors and texture behind a portrait, the emotional depth within a plot. But quality is also qualitative, subjected to our worldviews, biases, and experiences. All humans have the flaw of considering something “good” if it reflects our own experiences, preconceptions, desires, nostalgias, tastes, beliefs and blind-spots, and downplaying the quality of things we don’t understand or have meager frames of reference to.
How can an industry craft a more universal rubric of quality if the large majority of people in it come from the same backgrounds? How good a film is is objective, but only to a certain point. The irony is an industry that does not consider diversity actually isn’t as concerned with a more objective understanding of quality as it likes to think it does. And to echo part of King’s words, if Hollywood would consider diversity on the front end (who makes and who is in the films), we wouldn’t have to worry about it on the back end (the award shows). This is what proponents of diversity and inclusivity advocate for, not tokens — they want decision-makers’ to see how they may be equating merit with those who look like them.
Diverse communities want Hollywood to consider that more diversity could actually increase the quality, as opposed to conventional critics who see this as “asking for a handout” or “giving out participation trophies.” I’m not implying that King is among them, but he did evoke their rhetoric with his statement.
I think King was trying to take a principled stance in favor of evaluating art regardless of what background someone comes from. I admire his work and wouldn’t take seriously anyone who would dispute his contribution to literature. But I hope King chooses his words more carefully, and understand the harm caused by knowingly or unknowingly promoting the idea that “diversity” and “quality” are antithetical.
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Previously published on Medium.com.
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