Representation and artists film
A lot of our work is aimed at supporting artists from “under-represented backgrounds” - artists who are often under-served by our industry. The choice of words is deliberate: it places the focus on where failure lies. It’s the industry’s fault you’re under-represented, because it’s the industry that’s doing it.
An important part of identity is that it’s intersectional, meaning that different issues overlap and affect each other. If women are under-represented, for example, and Black people are under-represented too, then it’s likely that there’ll be an even stronger lack of art by Black women, or art depicting their experiences.
Why does this matter to the arts? Because we systematically don’t give opportunities to people to make art, or to see themselves represented in art, whilst often claiming to be progressive. There’s overt (visible) racism, sexism, able-ism, class prejudice, but much harder to fight is the institutional racism, sexism, able-ism, class prejudice. Organisations can be staffed full of people who can tell you about how racism is bad, but they’re all white. As arts organisations we claim to be on the cutting edge of social change, but can embody some of its most regressive tendencies.
Representation is a civil rights issue. You’re a member of this society and deserve to see yourself on screen, on the walls of a gallery or pages of a book, just like everyone else. And if the art world is to live up to its claims, then your unique and under-represented perspective is an asset. It’s valuable. And if you can articulate it clearly, you can use it.
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We sometimes ask you to tell us how you’re under-represented by our industry. Some artists will have experience doing this, whilst for others, it’ll be a new experience. We hope it’s an empowering one - make your claim, and be upfront about what the art world owes you. Below we’ve listed some groups who are failed particularly badly by our industry, with the sources to back it up. Use them in your application, and use them elsewhere too, wherever you need to make your case.
You don’t have to read this whole page! Just skip to the bits that look like they affect you.
If there’s anything you think we’re missing, or any valuable info you know of, let us know so we can add it.
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Social class and socio-economic status
One of the trickiest issues when discussing class and status, is working out which one you’re even in! Unlike protected characteristics, it’s hard to prove, and sometimes wilfully misrepresented. There are ‘markers’ social scientists use, so here are a few that are believed to be reliable in the UK:
Did you receive free school meals whilst at school?
If you went to university, were you the first in your family to go (ie. your parents, grandparents etc hadn’t been)?
What job did the highest wage-earner in your house have when you were in school?
What’s your employment status (unemployed/casual contract/part-time/full-time salaried) and what income bracket are you in?
Do you receive any state benefits (Universal Credit/Housing Benefit etc)? (Note that a lot of people are suddenly receiving state benefits at the moment, so this question is less reliable than usual).
None of these things individually determines your class status, but a combination of them can show what category you fall into. If you want to make your case that you’ve been under-represented on class grounds, then being able to evidence the above markers will help.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Taking Part Survey (2018-19) reported that 85.4% of people from the upper socio-economic group had attended an arts event in the past year, whilst only 67% of people from the lower socio-economic group had. That’s a massive failing. A landmark 2014 report by the Arts Council showed a huge gap in participation between upper and lower groups for every kind of engagement measured, and that this failure was persistent over time. One of the starkest differences was digital culture, where 51.4% of the more privileged group (essentially middle-class) had participated in the year 2012-13, whilst only 29.6% of the lower group (essentially working-class) had. Museums and galleries have failed this group badly, with 61.6% of the middle class visiting in 2012-13, vs 39.5% of the working class. DCMS’ Taking Part Survey shows specific and sizeable failings to cater for people who’d left school before A-levels; were unemployed; had incomes below £20,000; and council house tenants. This is all the more shocking when we consider how much of the UK’s arts is funded through the National Lottery, where tickets are overwhelmingly bought by working class people. Theos (a Christian thinktank) concluded in 2009 that “The good cause funding created by Lottery play is disproportionately drawn from the less affluent, yet it is not spent for their benefit.”
Disability
The Arts Council’s landmark 2014 report showed that whilst people with disabilities had good overall levels of participation in the arts as a whole, they were noticeably failed by digital arts, with only 38.4% participating in 2012-13.
Gender reassignment
There’s no available data on specific discrimination in our industry, but some shocking statistics on wider discrimination in society. The severity of harm makes a strong case that trans and non-binary people face such discrimination in daily life that it must have an impact on any aspect of life. Stonewall/YouGov’s LGBT In Britain: Trans Report found that 41% of trans people had been the victim of a hate crime or incident in the past 12 months; 28% had faced domestic abuse from a partner; one in four have been homeless at some point in their lives. Their LGBT In Britain: Work Report found that 12% of trans workers had been physically assaulted at work in the past year, and the European Commission’s 2018 report comparing rights in different countries found that 18 of the 31 member countries have no legal protection for trans people at all, meaning that those who have moved to the UK from another country may have faced significantly more discrimination.
Race and ethnicity
The DCMS 2018-19 Taking Part Survey showed that 60.3% of those with mixed ethnicity have visited a gallery or museum in the past year, versus 51.1% for white people, 43.7% of those of Asian ethnicity and only 33.5% of Black people. Whilst DCMS research shows that the most common reason given by all adults in England for not visiting is “I’m not interested”, the Arts Council’s landmark 2014 report showed that for non-white people the most common reason was lack of time, lack of money, and concerns about feeling uncomfortable or out of place (in other words: a more difficult life, and not being made to feel welcome).
This is a significant failing, but also ties into wider social discrimination and its psychological effects. Between 2018-19, 0.4% of white people were a victim of police stop-and-search, whilst 10% of Black people were – a shocking figure seen in no other demographic. Actual conviction rates show that this disparity has no connection at all to criminality – it’s just police discrimination. Meanwhile Black people are twice as likely as white British people to exhibit signs of PTSD, but less than half as likely to be receiving treatment for emotional difficulties.
Directors UK’s 2018 report Adjusting the Colour Balance showed that whilst those of Black and Minority Ethnic heritage make up 14% of the UK’s population, they directed only 2.61% of TV episodes in 2016, 2.8% or single documentaries, 5.9% of single dramas and 1.7% of drama series and scripted comedy. One of their recommendations was to actually make data collection mandatory – the survey had to use software which derived ethnicity from name prevalence data, as used in advertising and insurance industries, because real data isn’t even collected.
Sex and gender
Gender discrimination in the arts is mixed, with some areas showing significant support for female artists (and the arts workforce in general), and others significant discrimination. Overall this perhaps points to a form of institutional sexism where women are allowed to excel in some roles and not in others. In our area, publicly funded visual art, according to Arts Council research women are significantly more likely to be hired as artists, to run arts organisations and to participate in art than men. But rather that being a reversal of the typical gender discrimination, this is possibly because of two factors:
That women gravitate towards arts because they’re not given a fair chance in other industries, so success here is a result of discrimination elsewhere
Public funding has prioritised gender equality for some time, but when we leave the publicly-funded sector we see anti-female gender discrimination once more (and indeed, the Arts Council research bears this out).
Directors UK’s Who’s Calling The Shots? 2018 report showed that women directed just 26% of standalone documentaries, 16.4% of single dramas and 13.7% of drama series and scripted comedy, whilst Stephen Follows showed that from 2000-2018, just 21.3% of short films with at least one festival screening were directed by women.
Sexual orientation
Research from DCMS and the Arts Council shows that LGBT people have higher engagement with the arts than their heterosexual counterparts. Here, discrimination is less about being shut out of arts opportunities, and more about the background discrimination faced by LGBT people in everyday life. From bullying at school, to harassment in the street, discrimination affecting the lives of LGBT people clearly also affects the lives of LGBT artists. In 2018, Stonewall reported that 35% of LGBT people have hidden or disguised their sexuality at work, with 11% saying they wouldn’t feel confident reporting this to their employer.
Regional inequality
Regional inequalities in the UK are so extreme that no-one needs to be told which area holds the opportunities: London and the South East. BFI-funded researcher Stephen Follows shows that whilst London had 13% of the UK’s population in 2013, it had 55% of the UK’s film companies, with an obvious effect both on the stories they tell and employment opportunities. London and the South East, accounting for around 27% of the population, had 67% of the jobs. Likewise, 40% of the Arts Council’s NPO funding (public money) is currently spent in London, despite it having 13% of the population.