Barriers to Diversity in Film – A Research Review – Aug 07

minority ethnic women writers or producers, and whether their career
pathways have subjected them to double jeopardy. Monitoring needs
to take account of such intersectionality.
7.5.5 Agents
There is a lack of information about who has agents in the film sector
and whether certain groups are under represented in agents’ books.
7.5.6 Monitoring
Groups in the film sector are not consistently monitored across the
country and within regions. Equality legislation stresses that
organisations should positively promote racial and gender equality.
Thus ethnic monitoring as part of benchmarking and impact
assessments has become integral to delivery of equality in public
sector organisations. However ‘monitoring’ is not new. For example, it
has been suggested as a basis for tackling ‘race’ and gender inequality
for at least the last 20 years yet many organisations have failed to take
monitoring on board. It may be because it stresses measuring
outcomes and fails to aid thinking about the means.
An Audit Commission report found black and ethnic minority staff in the
public sector felt ‘ethnic monitoring’ was a tick-box exercise and were
suspicious of it (Audit Commission, 2003). This is singularly depressing
when the very people whom policies are designed to help do not wholly
accept this idea as a key tactic in change. Given many decision makers’
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