At the 12th annual U.S.-Asia Entertainment Summit, Variety‘s Heidi Chung sat down for an intimate conversation with Laura Kim, Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Janet Yang — three of four Asian American…
At the 12th annual U.S.-Asia Entertainment Summit, Variety‘s Heidi Chung sat down for an intimate conversation with Laura Kim, Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Janet Yang — three of four Asian American women governors of the Academy.
The event was held Nov. 1 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, where the board members spoke about recent diversity and inclusion efforts in entertainment and the progress being made in the industry over the past several years.
Yang talked about museum president Bill Kramer’s creation of the museum’s inclusion advisory committee, saying: “[He] was truly open to hearing ideas about how to look at the history of cinema through a more modern lens.”
According to a recent report, as of 2020, Academy membership was still 80% white and 68% male, with the average age of a member being 62 years old.
Nelson spoke about the strides the Academy has been taking towards that statistic. “It’s been an amazing transformation because the will was there, but perhaps the voices weren’t there before and now you have four amazing female governors of Asian descent on the governor’s board and that has never happened before,” Nelson said.
Yang added, “We all know there has been strong biases through every aspect of our lives in various industries, but specifically in cinema, which is so public and people really imbibe the sensibility behind it — often without thinking too much about it.”
Kim spoke about what she hopes for the future of representation, saying: “My takeaway is my hope that everybody takes this and applies that to their own professional lives outside of the Academy.”
Lastly, Yang gave younger Asian creatives advice for forging one’s own path in the industry. “The way the world is now, I think we always have to be clear about our intentions,” Yang said. “I always [had] a mission about why I wanted to bring Chinese cinema out — so people can see people who look like me in a more three-dimensional light.”
Watch the full video above.