Inequality in the Film Industry in the UK

Inequality in the Film Industry in the UK
Name
Institution
Inequality in the Film Industry in the UK
Part 1
Research Question, Context, and Justification
The research by Natalie Wreyford is about “informal recruitment practices and gendered outcomes for screenwriting work” with the focus on the UK film industry. At the start of the article, Wreyford notes there is enough evidence that few films have women in important creative positions and the situation is not changing very little. The author notes that the discrimination in the film industry affects women and other minority groups and it has become so common that even the people affected most are learning to live with it as a norm (2015, p93). Wreyford chooses to focus on gender inequality that is prevalent in creative professions by examining the dynamics of “informal, networked recruitment processes” (2015, p84-85). Therefore, the research question is: what are the informal, networked recruitment processes that contribute to inequality in creative professions? The work focuses on the issue of inequality in the recruitment process where networks and referrals are the major means of recruitments. Wreyford stresses on the issue of inequality in the film industry not only among women but also among other marginalized groups. She notes that the industry is dominated by white middle-class to high-class men and other players in the industry have accepted that as the norm. The industry has sustained the idea that it is not possible to get a good screenwriter if it is not someone you already know or someone that has been referred by a person one trusts.
Throughout the article, Wreyford justices her study by making a reference to research that has been done on the issue of inequality in the creative professions. According to the argument of Wreyford (2015, p93), there is discrimination along physical ability, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, and class because there is lack of trust in the ability to deliver quality. These views are supported by Bhavnani (2007, p21) who argues that the minority ethnic people find it difficult to break into the film industry that is dominated by white middle-aged men.
The Research Approach
Wreyford takes a qualitative approach to the research. Her concern was not on the ratio of men to women in the screenwriting job but on why there is discrimination in the recruitment process. She decided to interview some of the employers in the industry with a large number of her interviewees being women so that she could get their input on why they believe the industry functions as it does. She also performed a literature review of past articles on the issue and compared the works of those authors so that she could have multiple viewpoints.
Wreyford starts her work by reviewing past articles. She then uses 40 semi-structured interviews to have interviews with the screenwriters and their employers. In semi-structured interviews, pre-determined questions are used but the order in which they are asked is determined by the interviewer so that they can ask what they feel is most appropriate at a time (Van Teijlingen, 2014, n.p). Through these interviews, Wreyford wanted to determine why there were few female screenwrite...