PARK CITY, Utah (AP) – Film and television producer Effie Brown believes that women and people of color have been complicit, at some level, in taking a backseat in Hollywood.
“Somehow, we co-signed this. Somehow, we participated,” she said Monday at the annual Women at Sundance brunch.
Brown, who became a public voice for diversity and inclusion in entertainment after butting heads with Matt Damon last year in an episode of HBO’s “Project Greenlight,” encouraged the women in attendance to explore their own unconscious bias and “blind spots” – and then to go further.
If those who want to change the equation in Hollywood aren’t taking action against the status-quo, they’re supporting it, she said. Brown urged everyone in the room to “hire, mentor and invest” in women and people of color. That perspective was echoed by every speaker at the invitation-only event, including Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley and actor/director/producer Elizabeth Banks, who discussed their rise in Hollywood and the challenges they’ve faced along the way.
“We are up against something,” Banks said, “which is the entirety of human history.”