The Hollywood Commission announced the launch of its second Entertainment Survey, which seeks to give voice to entertainment industry workers while providing the community with crucial insight surrounding the progress made in the past five years towards meaningful systemic change. The survey is now live at hollywoodentertainmentsurvey.org, and the Hollywood Commission encourages all members of the community to participate in the anonymous questionnaire.
Chaired by Anita Hill and founded by board members Kathleen Kennedy and Nina Shaw, the Hollywood Commission was formed in 2017 to bring together entertainment executives, independent experts, and advisors to take the necessary collective steps towards tackling the culture of abuse and power disparity in the industry.
The second survey, which launches today and is seeking responses from members of the community through November 27, 2022, builds on the results of that groundbreaking work. With a goal of 20,000 responses (more than double the participation of the first survey) the new survey will include expanded demographics to ensure representation across all communities; an added focus on employees working in the gaming sector; new questions that measure and assess whether and in what ways people experience colorism; and questions focusing on survivor support and the resources needed for victims of retaliation to get back into the industry. The results of the new Hollywood Commission survey are expected to be completed and released in early 2023.
The survey is open to entertainment workers in television and film, commercials, live theater, music, broadcast news, talent representation, public relations, corporate settings, and the gaming sector, from countries including the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, and countries throughout Asia, Oceania, and the South Pacific.
“As we seek to determine what systemic progress we have made over the past several years, the second Hollywood Commission Entertainment Survey is more important and in many ways consequential than our first,” said Hill. “With this new edition, we hope to double the participation of the first survey, which will help provide us with the insight we need as we continue to focus our efforts on our next phase of work. The key to that will be participation – we need to hear directly from all workers about their experiences. We look forward to working with our partners to encourage everyone in the industry to respond and participate, safely and anonymously.”
The first-of-its-kind survey, published in 2020, received responses from 9,630 entertainment workers, resulting in eye-opening responses, including:
- 65% of respondents didn’t believe that a powerful individual, such as a producer or director, would be held accountable for harassing someone with less power
- Only 28% of respondents who had experienced an incident of gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, or sexual coercion reported it to employers – because they think they won’t be believed, nothing will happen, or they’ll be retaliated against.
- While men and women reported gender harassment (demeaning jokes or comments based on gender; sexually crude terms and insults) at similar rates (62% of men, 67% of women), females experience unwanted sexual attention (42%), sexual coercion (20%) and sexual assault (5%) approximately twice as often as males (22%, 9% and 2%, respectively).
Full reports of the 2019-20 survey is available at https://www.hollywoodcommission.org/hollywood-survey.
