Since the controversy surrounding the creation of the shows SLĀV And Kanata, five years ago, artists from visible minorities are more than ever treading the boards of Quebec theatres. In the cinema, however, their presence evolves in sawtooth, show unpublished data compiled by The duty.
“We feel that the theaters have taken up this issue more radically. Unfortunately, it moves less quickly in the cinema, where only a few projects pull the average upwards, ”notes the president of the Union of artists, Tania Kontoyanni, at the sight of our figures. According to her, we can still speak of “a before and an after” SLĀV And Kanata in the cultural environment.
Five years ago, these two plays by director Robert Lepage sparked a fiery debate on cultural appropriation and the place of visible minorities in local cultural productions. The first one, SLĀV, was inspired by the songs of African-American slaves, but had only two black actresses out of six. The second, Kanatawas intended to be a reinterpretation of “the history of Canada through the prism of relations between Whites and Aboriginals”, but did not include a single Aboriginal actor.
In 2020, The duty had measured the impact of the controversy and found that the proportion of actors, directors, directors and authors from visible minorities in cinema and theater had almost doubled between 2017 and 2019. But what about he today? Are the efforts in these circles continuing?
Our team repeated the exercise for the year 2022, using the same methodology, that is to examine the programming of seven theaters and the credits of the 10 most popular films in theaters during the year. Despite the limitations of this type of exercise, the compiled figures are nonetheless revealing.
In theatre, 21% of the directors, authors and performers of the companies surveyed were from visible minorities for the 2022-2023 season. This proportion was 14% in 2018-2019 and 9% in 2017-2018.
In cinema, according to the analysis of the 10 most viewed films in 2022, 11.5% of screenwriters, directors and actors were from visible minorities. A proportion that has more than doubled compared to the period before SLĀV And Kanata, where there were only 4% visible minority artists. But this is much less than 2019, where we ended up with a proportion of 18.7%.
Interesting fact: the Canadian government defines as a “visible minority” all “persons, other than Aboriginal people, who are not of white race or who are not of white skin”. For our exercise, we have included Aboriginal people in this definition.
According to Statistics Canada’s 2021 census, 16.1% of Quebec’s population identifies with one of the visible minorities, and there are 2.5% of Indigenous people in the province.
We feel that the theaters have seized on this issue more radically. Unfortunately, things move less quickly in the cinema.
Theater on the right track
“We have really gone elsewhere, I find that very encouraging,” comments Charles Bender, actor of Aboriginal origin.
According to him, since the congress of the Quebec Theater Council (CQT) in 2015, there was already a movement for more diversity in the theater. The case SLĀV And Kanata made it possible to make these issues known to the entire population and to accelerate change.
“Members of the community are more sensitive to the realities of everyone, we ask ourselves questions at each stage of creation about our ways of doing things. We are going in the right direction,” adds CQT co-president Rachel Morse. But much remains to be done, according to her, to make the environment even more inclusive.
She points to the imbalance between one theatrical institution and another. “Some people need time. We launched a toolkit on cultural appropriation [la semaine dernière]it’s something that can help them start this change,” she hopes.
If the proportion of visible minorities among authors or directors has been increasing steadily since 2017 in theatre, it is going much more slowly than for performers. However, in the opinion of Charles Bender, we must nevertheless continue to look beyond the distribution on stage. “There is still a lot of work to do to make more room for the creations of visible minorities,” he pleads.
“The spaces to accommodate them exist, the broadcasters are there, the spectators too. Now, we have to give them the time and the means to create. We must encourage the next generation and increase the pool of indigenous or diverse creators,” he insists, recalling that the pandemic has discouraged more than one from continuing in this field.
The cinema behind
On the cinema side, the portrait is a little less brilliant, considering the drop recorded in 2022 in the percentage of visible minorities on screen according to our exercise. “It shows that it really depends on the projects and that this desire to make room for diversity is not generalized”, comments Tania Kontoyanni. Among the films analyzed, white dog And December 23 indeed pull the average upwards.
The president of the UDA still retains an improvement since the case SLĀV And Kanata. “Today there is greater concern for this issue. We see it for the roles, and we should now also perceive it on the writing and directing side, ”she adds, reacting to our figures which show that in 2022 – in the list of films analyzed – no production had a screenwriter or director from visible minorities.
The singer-songwriter Ricardo Lamour invites us to look beyond the figures: “Yes, there is greater representation [des minorités] on stage and on screen, but what is the quality of their experience? Black people — and that goes for other visible minorities too — rarely land leading roles, he notes. They still find themselves in a lot of stereotypical roles or being offered small roles for the sole purpose of showing that a production is inclusive, according to him.
“The place of black people in the cultural industry remains very fragile. […] Even when they’ve found a spot, many tiptoe into what they can really say about a production. […] I expect more from our midfield, we can really do better. »
With Sandrine Vieira, Alex Fontaine, Janie Dussault and Charles-Olivier L’Homme