The Diversity Clusterf**k

Hoo boy.

Alex started it. I took a kick at the can. The Artful Writer chimed in, but in the end, John August came up with the best reason to do a diversity pass: It makes your script more readable, and therefore, better. (Whether you do it as you're writing or after, I don't think it matters...though I'm sure there's a contingent who would say it does.)

For the record, I think what John August articulates is probably another way of saying what Alex was talking about in the first place.

Anyway, sayeth Mr. August:

Screenplays are read quickly. Unlike a novel, you don’t linger for a few paragraphs getting to know minor characters, setting up their memorable quirks. Rather, you meet them on page 20, then see them again on page 64. As a screenwriter, you want the reader to instantly recall that they’ve encountered a certain character before.

A reader is much more likely to remember an international banker named Abebayehu Tegene than Abe Thompson.

You can debate why this is. Maybe it’s just that the name is more interesting. But in most cases, I think it’s because we’re hard-wired to match race to surnames. We see Abebayehu Tegene and we think, “This character is black. Not only that, he’s probably African.” We form a mental picture of “African banker,” then move on.

With Abe Thompson, the reader has nothing to latch onto. Abe Thompson is just a name.

John goes on to make the point that coming up with a cool ethnic name does not abrogate your responsibility to make the character interesting.

Most of the time, when I'm reading scripts from new writers trying to figure out if they have any talent, the thing that convinces me is how well drawn the three-and-four line parts are. You get sensitive to that in Canada, especially if you have a lot of actor friends, because when American movies come to shoot here, those parts are the ones they give to all the Canadians. I've helped a lot of friends run lines in my time, which means more often than not going over a lot of sides with cliched, dull, four-line parts. You learn a lot about a writer when he or she can communicate a full and rich life for a character we only see once for a moment.

(All this assumes, of course, that you already have compelling leads, and a story that isn't too FUBAR.)

None of this deals with the problems of race in America (or Canada) but then again, we're screenwriters. Not like we're going to fix that one anyway.

(And if we did, a director or actor would probably take the credit.)