The Hollywood Commission, the research and advocacy organization chaired by Anita Hill and founded by board members Kathleen Kennedy and Nina Shaw, launched its second entertainment industry survey on Thursday. The survey is designed to probe and address the culture of abuse and power disparity throughout the film and TV industry.
The survey is now live at hollywoodentertainmentsurvey.org, and the Hollywood Commission encourages all members of the community to participate in its anonymous questionnaire. The commission has also expanded its survey’s demographics and will additionally have a focus on people working in the gaming sector.
The Hollywood Commission launched in 2017 at the height of the #MeToo movement and released its first industry-wide survey in 2020. It polled 9,650 entertainment workers in Hollywood who, at 65%, overwhelmingly felt that even in light of calls for reform, powerful individuals across Hollywood like producers and directors would not be held accountable for harassing someone with less power. What’s more, just a fraction of those who experienced harassment (28%) actually reported it to their employers, believing that nothing would be done or that they wouldn’t be believed.
The new survey is described as a “temperature check” to specifically identify what progress has been made and where work still needs to be done. It also seeks to double its number of respondents to 20,000. Some of the survey’s new questions will assess the ways in which people experience colorism or what resources and support are needed for survivors and victims of retaliation such that they can get back into the industry.
“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,” Hill said in a statement. “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.”
Since launching its first survey, the Hollywood Commission has put in place anti-bullying training sessions and programs specifically targeted to small, independent production companies to prevent and root out misconduct, environments that may not have a proper infrastructure to report misconduct.
The 2022 questionnaire 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 United States, Canada, Mexico, the U.K., countries throughout Asia, Oceania and the South Pacific.
It will be open for submissions until Nov. 27, 2022, and results will be released in early 2023. Survey responses will focus the Commission’s efforts over the next several years – informing the issues that it will elevate for the community and pinpointing where the organization will prioritize its resources.
You can check out TheWrap’s 2020 conversation with Anita Hill and Nina Shaw about some of the results of the survey here. View the full results of the 2019-20 survey here.
