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Notes -
I was reading this article about Amazon Prime's streaming service:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/inside-amazon-studios-jen-salke-vision-shows-1235364913/
Mostly it's not particularly culture war related, talking about how the executives are blowing huge amounts of money on niche shows that don't bring in enough viewers to justify their costs, or paying big salaries to writers and directors that don't end up producing much.
But this part made me chuckle:
I've seen people argue that big companies aren't ideologically woke, they're just doing it for good publicity with the ultimate goal of making money. I think if that was true then Amazon would tell their producers and directors to make the type of content that people want to see: white men with guns (apparently). And if they didn't want to get on board they should take a hike. That's what a company that wants to make money would do. Instead they're trying to change their audience's preferences which is a much harder and less profitable job.
When it comes to representation in media I still do think it's mostly about the bottom line. Even if most people prefer seeing white men on tv that doesn't mean the profit maximizing strategy is to make all your shows feature only white men. I suspect adding a token x character/story line is almost always a profitable decision because most people that don't like it won't stop watching because of it, but the people that do like it might actually watch it when they otherwise wouldn't have.
Having said that, I've recently moved away from thinking big corporations make woke decisions only because it directly improves their profit. It's hard to explain things like really aggressive diversity hiring at tech companies.
One possibility is that the best hires care a lot about progressive ideals. Even if the ideology causes the product quality to take a hit, it's still a better product than you would get hiring someone else. That seems to be the case with Will Graham.
Another possibility is that in elite circles progressive signaling gives you more status than the extra money you would have made not signaling.
Sure but suppose you have 10 shows, and you want to add token diversity by having 10% LGTB representation.
You could make 1 of them have a central LGBT focus, you could make all of them have 10% lgbt themes or anywhere in between.
When you go with 'everything has to be a tentpole, you end up with worst of both worlds where 3 of them are LGBT focused and the other 7 have 10-20% LGBT themes, and you've lost any diversity that includes "not about LGBT"
When you decide that "Not-LGBT" doesn't have any place in your definition of positive inclusivity, fine, that's a value you can have, but you are clearly leaving profit on the table for the sake of values. There is clearly a large an audience in America that is interested in content which doesn't feature progressive values. If you go with the tolerance includes intolerance of intolerance view, fine. But stop the pretense of the 'profit-maximizer' explanation
But you haven't said why it's clear studios are leaving money on the table. Even if some people prefer shows without woke content, do they care enough to stop watching? Do the people that care enough to stop watching outnumber the new viewers that are brought in? Sure, for the people that actually refuse to watch you could say there is untapped market share, but it's not like there's literally no shows without progressive content. Maybe whatever amount that is out there now reflects the actual demand.
My prior is that in the face of cold hard cash most people don't cling to ideology, particularly people that end up in positions to make lots of money in the first place, and particularly large corporations. Really, how much market inefficiency can a business tolerate? If viewership of every woke show literally went to zero, do you think they would continue pushing them? If we look at the most successful shows and movies now, they are diverse and progressive (marvel, last of us, etc). I think that "big corporations only do things to maximize their profits" is usually a strong default assumption and you need an even stronger argument if you want to argue against that.
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More often I see it work out the other way; people who would've watched it end up skipping out (usually fans of whatever established franchise is being mutilated), and the "new fans" never appear, the agitators for change were never going to watch your show in the first place. Mostly those people only care about taking things away from their enemies, white men.
This, again, doesn't seem to track. I'm reminded of the Witcher controversy -- the actor committed to the source material who actually brought in the eyeballs, and the production staff obsessed with ideology who tried to kneecap him and the show at every single turn and ultimately ended up putting people off it.
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So leaving ESG scores aside.
There's an easy Scylla and Charybdis metaphor to be made for companies deciding their level of wokeness. If a company acquiesces to internal activists with zero hesitancy, it ends up as a "Go Woke Go Broke" anecdote. On the other hand, if it ignores the social justice zeitgeist entirely, it stands out as a tall nail to be hammered down by lawsuits or activist fury.
As for really aggressive diversity hirers? They're just sailing a little too close to Charybdis. This might happen because it's safer/more satisfying for the people in charge of hiring, though not for the organization they work for.
They missed the lesson of the tale. The lesson isn't that you try to steer a course between Scylla (the monster) and Charybdis (the whirlpool). The lesson is you steer for Scylla and take the losses, lest you lose your whole ship and company to Charybdis instead.
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Nah, it's nowhere near as dramatic. If they lose a particular fight they just start pretending nothing ever happened, and that you don't exist. They might come after you again when the stars align, but for the most part they realize that if they don't score a kill, they're just handing their opponents free publicity.
People love reaching for these structural explanations, but they fail to explain the material reality.
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