hi everybody and welcome to visible and
visuals an onliushingne platform
pushing to make animation vfx industries
more diverse and inclusive
through open honest conversation we are
committed to making the people behind
the visuals more visible
my name is Tanya J Scott and i'm Hodan
Abdi
and we are the people behind the
platform i'll be hosting your first
panel
on diversity and inclusion in the
workplace a
people of color perspective anyways this
is the first
panel  on the ViV platform uh my name
is Hodan
I'll be your host so enough about me
and let me introduce the first person so
i'll take it off to bring me hi hello
i am Bimpe i'm a concept artist
currently working at industrial light
and magic in london
i've been in the visual effects industry
for about four years now
yeah that's me and thank you Bimpe,
And Riz- hey i'm riz i'm an animator
uh i've worked in the industry for two
years
uh i previously worked on mr bean the
animated series and i'm currently
working on the show
daisy and ollie
hello i'm Mohammed uh i've been working
in the industry about
six years now and i'm up in bristol in
a productions working on jojo and
grengren
hey
my name is tanya j scott i'm a animation
art director
and illustrator who specializes in
children's television
so these are your panelists today and
let's begin the discussion with the
first question um
do you think the animation industry is
highly or
mostly inclusive and why
does anyone want to go first
i'll go first um so some people might
know that i actually wrote
a Skwigly article on this um
because a lot of people seem to think
that animation is
highly or mostly inclusive according to
the animation uk survey that came out in
september
and unfortunately in my experience i
don't feel that's the case
it is incredibly rare for me to meet a
woman in a senior creative role and
very very rare for me to meet anybody
who is non-white in a senior creative
role i have
i think only work with maybe
one person of colour as a director
which was my second job in animation and
it was his own studio
i have not seen it happen in a 2d studio
you know like a big studio that does
children's
tv or anything like that. i've worked
with
two or three female directors
and that's it in my 10 years working in
the industry so
i think like the numbers uh you know are
proof enough that
actually we're not as inclusive as we
think we are
yeah just to echo what tanya said um
seeing those screen skills numbers i
think they
had about 40 of people something like
that
thought that um the vfx of animation
industry
was mostly um diverse and inclusive and
i was really shocked at the number
and having kind of walked in to visual
effects
and not really seen anybody else that
looked like me
so i did i was wondering where a lot of
those numbers were coming from
but yeah there is that overall idea and
view that because it's
a creative industry that therefore it's
filled with
all different kinds of people in various
forms and um so far that from what i
kind of have seen that
hasn't necessarily been the case and i
think there are a multitude of reasons
for that which i know that we'll get
into
a bit later on down the line but i think
having these discussions
especially in the last few months has
been really really really important to
highlight well especially to a lot of
people that are
and that do that have seen or felt that
the vfx and animation industry was
diverse and inclusive because i think
as a lot of us are now really speaking
out about that it is the complete
opposite and that's something that we
really want to change like really really
want to change
um yeah um
it just to me when i saw that it just it
made me sad because it made me realize
just how many people didn't even
think about you know how
how isolated we are in this industry
like
every place i've worked i've only ever
seen even one other black person or one
other person of color
apart from myself um i've never
i've never seen uh
more than like a handful of people who
who
are minorities at any place that i've
worked and it
was it was weird that it was just so
accepted as
like oh yeah this is this is fine like
one or two people
that's that's that's equality you know
yeah and same with my experience i've
never
uh and all the places i've worked i've
never worked
uh with i i've seen another brown person
in the same studio and it always is
only about like three or four non-white
people
in the entire studio um and i'll never
forget
there was this one like animation
uh like meet and greet event
and out of everybody there i remember
seeing one
other brown person and it was like the
most amazing moment
like whoa we i this has never happened
before
so yeah it's such a rare thing to
see people of the same culture as you
in animation studios
well thank you rin um
moving on from that question kind of
leads us to the next um
so can any of you guys give me any
examples of
uh times that you may have encountered
any bias um
or any differential treatment based on
your race or your nationality at the
workplace
um
anyone
so if people aren't watching this and
they're listening to
the audio they're probably not going to
know this but i'm mixed and i
look i think a lot of people will just
presume i'm
white so i think a lot of people will be
quite surprised to hear that
even i have experienced things in the
workplace which have been
you know quite questionable behavior
and if people listen to the access vfx
podcast i did with
ash wu then you'll hear some of the
examples he's had
um which have been very similar and
generally i have found that
i think in the way that i'm treated at
work my gender plays a bigger part than
my ethnicity
maybe because i sort of look like a
white person i don't know
but i think there have definitely been
occasions
i can think of where there has been like
just sort of casual racism being thrown
out
um just generally into the room and
nobody has flagged it
and when i have flagged it um people
sort of
tell me that i'm being uh sensitive
or you know it's just a joke and like
she's just not taken too seriously but
you know if you're somebody who has
grown up watching people racially abuse
your mother as a when you're a child
or racially abused you or your sister or
you know say these things
it you you you need to flag it because
you understand the repercussions of that
and how important it is especially in
children's tv
not to have those kind of attitudes
you know just taken so casually and
you know that for me you know just one
example i shared in my article was
there was a character design which i
felt was very reminiscent of sort of
historical racial stereotypes of chinese
people
it looked very much like a sort of like
anti-japanese propaganda from like the
40s like the
yellow peril kind of stuff and when i
flagged it to my see
somebody seen you on the team they were
just like oh well it's just
tongue-in-cheek
you know and they just fogged me off and
i was quite junior so i just sort of
felt like i was making a son in a dance
i have nothing like i sort of step back
and i i didn't make any more of a fuss
over it but i really regret doing that
because i think
that's now being broadcast on national
kids tv
and if you're you know if you're a kid
now chinese kid or a japanese kid or
korean good you know british living in
this country you should
not be watching that in 2020
you shouldn't
i've i've had i've had times where i
felt
like my religion has played a big
part in how i've been treated at work
especially because my name is mohammad
so
as soon as i introduce myself people you
usually already have
uh an idea of how i am in their head
like i'm
quite a big black guy and some people
have been like oh
i don't know if i can say these things
about him he's muslim i don't know
if he's like how he acts at work or
what what how he practices his religion
and stuff
and that's come up a few times um in
places where people
have just asked you know inappropriate
questions to me or things like that
and then it comes to the bit where it's
like
okay well i don't know how i want to
respond to that because it's like
do i respond and say no don't talk to me
like that don't say these kind of things
or what you're saying is
quite ignorant knowing that i could
potentially
put this person who's you've given me
the job or you know
helped me in this position um
and not want me to be there anymore and
then it
it it kind of makes you feel like i
shouldn't say anything you know or i
should just
accept it or something and it never it
never feels good it really frustrates
you especially when you're the only one
there like
apart from when i've i've i worked in
one place i've always only been the only
muslim
in in the office and um it's always been
oh there's a muslim here let's talk
about that every day let's let's let's
ask like how he does things or something
like that
and it's never a place of like
oh i want to learn or something it's it
always comes in a place like wow that's
so different from me like why would you
do that or something it never makes you
feel
like oh these people actually care and
they want to know it just makes you feel
like
okay um am i just a gimmick here you
know it's just
it's it's just never an accident no
can i ask you a follow-up um
have you ever felt like you couldn't say
anything because
it could uh jeopardize your job
yes i felt like
it it feels it feels like if i bring it
up i could almost be the one seen as
intimidating
because like i said big black guy muslim
telling someone off or saying something
like don't don't say that to me or
something it's like
don't talk to him don't say anything to
him no don't he's not
a very nice person to work with and it's
like you have all those
things up front that already
that already make up someone else's
opinion of you and it's like
how do i stick up for myself how do i
defend myself without you
already making opinion and not even
listening to whatever i have to say
you know yeah just to kind of follow up
from what mo was saying that is a very
real worry that i think most of us do
have about okay but what are they going
to be the repercussions of now
speaking out about this like who are we
going to rub the wrong way what are they
now going to do are we going to lose our
jobs because of this because
if somebody what i've kind of made one
of the couple of main things i've had is
like
people coming and touching your hair and
stuff like that like this
with little curiosity that goes on and
you kind of like okay well who do i
firstly like who do i even tell about
this like what do i even kind of say
don't touch my hair well why are you
being so sensitive about it like no
because you don't understand
the implications of what that is and
what that means also i'm not i'm not
your pet like if there's
that level of curiosity that you have
has come from somewhere
that level of curiosity has come from
the media
not because the media plays a big role
in how we learn about the world
and we're constantly learning about only
one kind of person that
it means that learning about other
cultures at least on a broader level
that isn't stereotype stereotypical or
stereotyped is completely cut off so
loads of people don't know anything
about black hair and so
that curiosity feeds into people feeling
like they have the right
or the justification to just kind of go
up and touch you in a place of work or
even just out on the street where i've
had it before and it's just like no
there's no there's no justification for
that
ever and another things i've found is
people just also haven't have always
kind of wanted to avoid having the
conversation so if i've
brought up a topic in regards to race in
regards to something else that we've
been speaking about it'll be very
quickly like brushed off oh no no that's
not a thing
and then you're kind of left alone being
the only
black person in this space or the only
whoever in this space
having to kind of feeling dejected and
feeling
like okay well i've tried to voice this
and
nobody wants to hear it and nobody on
this level wants to hear it nobody on
that level wants to hear it
and if you're in if you're kind of like
starting off in the industry like that's
a
quite a nerve-wracking thing like do you
keep pushing it or
do you pull back but i think we're
definitely at
a stage now where i think a lot of us
are just exhausted
and we're perpetually exhausted but
we're definitely a point where
we don't want to feel that exhaustion
anymore and
i think having these conversations has
been specifically important because
we are now kind of finding other people
that are wanting to have these
conversations
we're building a community as such that
we're able to support each other in
having these conversations which
i really feel like is gonna sustain us
in having
these conversations chris
going off from what bo was saying
earlier uh
i feel like every non-white person when
they're
in a new job knows the feeling of like
i'm going to be interviewed about my
culture
when i when i meet these people i feel
like it's always a thing you kind of
dread
like just from them noticing that your
name is different or your skin color is
different like you're going to get
questions like
oh where are you from oh how's it like
there and
it's just the
being treated like you're someone
completely different
like an alien or something when uh at
the end of the day you're just
both people and it's so shocking that
people just don't
understand that
no um tanya go for it
um i was just gonna say it's like
following on from what mo is saying as
well i think like this is something i've
i've i've never learned sort of in my
late 20s early 30s was like
understanding that
especially for black men well like black
people generally but for black men i
think like it's it's
it is very difficult to raise these
issues because
of these sort of like the stereotypes we
have of black men
we just assume they're going to be
aggressive or whatever so i think they
have to always really pick and choose
their arguments and
when i found out i could really relate
because i was like as a woman like
i understand that when i go to work and
i have a concern or if i need help
with something there is a way that i
have to phrase my question
there is a way i have to navigate like
ego
and i know this is probably going to
hurt quite a few friends feeling sick
um i have to be very careful
about how i phrase my question how i
present myself
what i look like when i come to work and
i had never thought that that was
applicable to
men i had never thought that but you
know like
talking like especially conversations mo
and i have had and me doing a lot of
research on my identity
you know politics all this kind of stuff
and as well like
listening to the conversation that the
lion had and wes was talking about
how he presents himself as well like i
think a lot of people
in senior roles don't actually
understand that this is the thinking
process like every time
somebody has an issue it's not just the
issue that is stressful
it is then trying to work out how you're
going to approach it
who you're going to talk to how is that
conversation going to happen
who can i make sure he's going to be on
my side so i can make sure that this
issue is actually tackled the way it
should be
and i think this for me is like this is
one of the reasons why i i felt like i
had to write this article because
like bimpy was saying like you know
you're you're really scared about your
career and
like how it will impact you i'm lucky
that i am now at this stage in my career
where
i can say these things and i can feel
like i have enough of a good support
network
and i know enough good people that this
won't come back on me but i can remember
being like a younger person and being in
situations where
i did feel like my race or the fact that
i didn't
look like other people around me was an
issue
and i couldn't tell anyone that and when
i did sort of express
those concerns i was told i was probably
making it up
and it is really difficult and i think
that is like kind of like the one thing
i kind of want to just
sort of say there because i think that
is something people who own studios
and run hr departments and whatever need
to really seriously think about is
what kind of environment they're
creating so people can actually raise
these issues and have proper
conversations not just feel like they're
going to be
judged immediately
just following up from what tanya said
about
having to watch your like
your approach your words because
especially as a black woman
um the idea of angry black women is a
very very real
stereotype dangerous concept that exists
and still exists and is still
very much in play with society so i know
that yeah i'm constantly watching
what i say and how i say it because i'm
very aware
of how that can quickly go from having a
discussion to
well you're being aggressive and being
labeled as aggressive
despite speaking with maybe passion or
vigor
and i don't think men and women are i
think
women are chastised for speaking up and
speaking confidently
and whereas men are tend to be more or
less championed and it won't be viewed
as coming across as aggressive
but if you especially as a black woman
who's kind of trying to speak in that
manner that will very quickly be labeled
as something a lot more negative so i
yeah i tend to definitely be a lot more
careful and it isn't right that
but um that i feel like i have to almost
code switch or police my own language
but that's the environment that's been
created due to a lot of those
stereotypes and
that is exhausting on so many levels and
as i said as well
people aren't necessarily um people
aren't necessarily aware
of people of color that have like what
we kind of
carry as we come into the workplace just
even walking around on a daily basis
in ways we have to navigate certain
things certain situations certain
things that we're going to say how we
have to prepare for certain things
potentially
happening or potentially not happening
and there's a lot of exhaustion
that comes from that on a daily basis so
not only are you trying to figure out
your daily life and your work life and
trying to make sure you're getting stuff
done for work you're also
navigating and carrying a lot of that a
lot of those other
issues that come with being a person of
color
no it's it's just like
just to carry on it's almost like um
now i don't know i'm getting judged on
how black i am as well so
if i say something and i've had people
say
to me oh you know you're black well
you're not that
like i thought you'd be like this or
something like that you know
like um i've had people be like oh
i've actually i've actually forgotten
that you were from these places
and stuff because of how you've talked
and stuff and it's like now i have to
act a certain way
just to make you feel like i am still
the person i am you know just to make
you feel comfortable on top of that
and it's so exhausting it's so
exhausting that
i can't just come into a place and do my
work without
also oh if i go if i go to get tea
or if i don't go to get tea because i i
don't drink it or something like that
then i have time with conversation about
that and i'm told i'm weird for it
or something and then how i'll react to
that
would then be like oh that's so weird i
i've heard people from so and so usually
blah blah blah and it's like well can i
just be me
at work you know like do i always have
to
fight these stereotypes before you let
me just do my job
you know and it's like it it's exactly
like what
bin pay and antonio was saying it's like
how much how much
do i do before then they you know
stop wanting to hire me or stop feeling
like
um i'm i'm a person they want to hire
because i'm too aggressive
or something and yeah it's it's
exhausting
but taking the next step
um what are your thoughts on these
incentive programs and these policies
that
um are now catering to try to attract
more people of color
into workplaces um what are your
thoughts
um are you for it against it
i think a lot of these it has to be it
has to do with
what the intention is if it's just to
pave over
like the cracks then they're not going
to work it doesn't it's
not what we're looking for it's not
what's needed
firstly we need to be having real
dialogue and real conversation
about what the real issues are and why
the real issues are and we need to be
working to create
sustainable structures as opposed to
well let's just throw money at this
let's just throw money at that
but also we can very quickly see when
something is in sincere
and it's and it can't it can't be about
that it's got to be about a whole
restructure and that kind of thing takes
time but it also takes dedication but it
also takes
honesty it takes real honesty it takes
having these conversations no matter how
uncomfortable people are about having
those
conversations so if you're a company and
you're just saying well i'm just going
to throw money at this but i'm not
actually going to have
any conversations about what the
structure of my company looks like
what the structure of my company looks
like in terms of who the juniors are the
mid
seniors then it it doesn't come across
as sincere it doesn't really
come across as okay you're actually
wanting any real change because it needs
to be about that real change and it
needs to be about
having those real conversations
are the individuals supported or is it
just to make the company look better
for themselves you know like it sounds
great if you can post on twitter about
how
you've got x amount of people working in
the industry now and you were the one
who championed it
but how do those people feel in those
jobs you know
like in some some in when i first
started in the industry
i remember feeling you know
people will never see me more than this
you know as like
oh he couldn't get a job in animation
normally he had to go through this
special route or something so
you know let's let's he's always going
to be in that specific
that specific um area he's never going
to be able to push out
that and having that as a weight on your
shoulder never feels good it always
feels like you've started further back
than other people and if you don't get
support from
the companies that have put you there or
the the
the people you're working with then it
just feels like why
am i here like why am i really here do
you do you actually
do you actually think i'm good enough
for this job or am i only here to make
you guys
look better you know like away from all
the photos and the pictures and
the tweets you can say like what do you
actually care about me
and my future in this in this career
i feel like something important that
needs to be done is
to for uh studios to hire
uh non-white people in more senior
higher up roles
um personally like the places i've
worked
i've always had someone in a higher
position than me who is a
non-white person so i feel like
i'm able to talk about uh these sort of
topics or if i'm
feeling some sort of way i i know that
they can relate
i feel like if if that's not the case
and
and the higher ups are just white people
then
you're gonna feel intimidated to be able
to raise these issues
i feel like the people who you relate to
definitely should be in the higher
opposition so they can understand
what things are going through and also
just make you feel a bit
more comfortable talking about that
stuff
tanya yeah i think just
um again like this this isn't
necessarily something i can relate to
because like i can camouflage quite well
sometimes
um but um just watching things that have
happened to friends who
are not white you know i think
a lot of this sometimes these sort of
quotas
or these responses like for example
black lives matter
or you know now the sort of what's
followed on from black lives matter it's
like this
it is like tokenism it's it's like like
when people are saying
trying to fill the gap and it's so
blatant it is like when
you know i've worked with people and
they're like
oh we need to show we're a diverse
company um
we're on my back south let me find them
quick and like bring them out
and suddenly they're they're putting
these people like on a podium basically
just like look what we've done like that
kind of attitude
um and i i understand like it's a really
difficult sort of
balance i think i think a lot of
companies really struggle especially if
they're white
well most companies are white if not all
of them but
white people i think they really
struggle to approach this and look
genuine um but i have seen in recent
weeks like
people calling out for dame um
creative people uh
for me it's kind of like i'm watching
i'm looking at that advert and i'm
thinking
but why is it why is it taking this long
for you to notice
and why weren't you hiring these people
before what was it about
what is it about this time and place
where suddenly you want to pay attention
to people who i'm sure who have been
applying to your studio
but you just didn't give them a job so
what has changed
in this this time frame and i think
that's when you started to get a bit
suspicious
and i think also then another
repercussion of that is
if you do then hire let's say a black
person into that studio how is that that
person gonna feel once they're there
are they gonna feel like you genuinely
believe in their talent and you really
genuinely want to help them
or are they going to feel like a charity
project and i think
that's something that a lot of companies
need to sort of
like like people saying like have these
conversations and have real
conversations about it and actually
learn from it
don't just assume you've found an answer
by just putting out an instagram post
simply tony's pretty much just said what
i was going to say actually but yeah
once you've brought in all these people
of color into the company what are you
then actually
doing to not only support them but also
sustain
in number because i think that's also an
issue because we're kind of stepping
into these places in these companies and
some of us getting very exhausted about
um
some what other treatments happening or
because of the lack of diversity and
then leaving these spaces
so it's all good and well to kind of
then suddenly have a month or two months
where you suddenly see
um the number of people of color spike
but then that will then drop
off quite quickly that's not actually
then leveling out so how are you
supporting people once they come in
especially if they are feeling as most
mentioned like
we're just the diversity higher or the
token higher what's actually being
done to support us in these roles in
these spaces to also help us develop
in these roles and in these spaces and
that's something that companies need to
be thinking of
like it needs to be a long-term thing it
can't just be okay
let's just react to this let's just
react to this and have no sustainability
plan or no idea of actually what the
real issues
are um a question to
um everybody else um mo was saying that
he did enter the industry through
one of these programs however did any of
you feel like
um you were hired
based on your race or your ethnicity and
you kind of felt like you were feeling
the quota
tanya i haven't so i entered
through uh internships through my
university so for me it was
because i i knew it was because the
person who hired me had seen my work
at my graduation show so that was quite
nice
um but i have been at companies where
like for example there was one job where
i was basically doing cover until
somebody else could start
um i didn't i didn't want the job and
i just i just needed a little bit of
time so i was only there for a total of
eight days and they asked me to fill out
a diversity form
and obviously as a woman and technically
a person of color like
you know i filled out the diversity form
but i was getting replaced
for the duration of the rest of the
duration i've read it by a white
middle-aged man
um who i don't know if he filled in the
diversity form but
you know the same company like a couple
of weeks later was like sort of saying
how
how inclusive and diverse they were and
i was thinking oh like
i know the production you have on now
has maybe like
one other half chinese person on it and
they're leaving like next week so
everyone else on that is white and male
like
is that diverse so i think um well i
definitely haven't felt like it's
it's it's been the reason i've been
hired it definitely has been used as a
sort of like
uh i don't know it's something for the
company
that's generally the purpose of you
filling out those forms i feel like
i don't think i was but um because i
started my career as a runner
but i was hyper aware of being one of
only two black people in the company at
the time
so what that meant was that i was
thinking about that
constantly and i was very much more
focused and worried about
what this would look like if i wasn't
able to succeed in the role that i was
in
and if i wasn't able to basically
um make this work because i felt
like okay being one of only two black
people and then at one point the only
black person in the company
if i i'm not able to succeed in this
space
what effect will that have for any other
black person
who wants to get into that space so
that's where my mind is out so not
knowing yes and not knowing whether or
not i don't think i was
but it was i was hyper aware of it
anyway because i was worried about
what that could mean for anybody else
who wanted
to be um who wanted to kind of join or
be in this space
and feeling like okay i can't be the one
person that lets this down or screws
up for everyone
um then there's another question uh from
um what you've just said binky um
have you felt like you were carrying
your race on your shoulders
almost um having to
i know everybody's put on a voice or um
have acted a certain way
like we have said um to previous
questions but do you feel like
the weight of everybody who looks like
you is on you
and you are a representation has that
affected your work i know for me
it did for quite some time i kind of fed
into a lot of anxiety
i was having an amount of pressure i was
putting on myself
to succeed or to make sure that i could
do
the job that i needed to do and i still
feel it sometimes a little bit now
because
like being a black female concept artist
like we're like unicorns i've only ever
met one other black female concept
artist
and i haven't i know of a couple of
handful of
more black concept types but i actually
haven't met another black concept artist
from this one person so again i was
feeling a lot of kind of like
okay i feel like i'm representing in
some shape or form because like yeah as
i said if
i screw this up and i don't get this
right are they going to think okay
well this person and inadvertently
these people aren't able to do this job
or they're not up for this they're not
up for doing that so
it was something that i carried for
quite some time and i did feel quite
anxious about it was
and it did it did underlie a lot of the
pressure that i was putting on myself
when i first got into the industry
okay uh let's uh move on
to their next question um
do you feel like you've had a fair and
equal opportunity
to move forward in your career and
push past the glass ceiling
tanya uh i'm feeling quite old now
because i've just realized i'm the most
experienced person on the school
i've been on the internet for the
longest and i've
found it really difficult um i've had to
like
again like i don't know about this is
specifically to do my ethnicity
i haven't spoken to spoken to other
women earlier this year
who we were having a very like blunt
conversation about this i think a lot of
women
do feel like there is only so high they
can get
before they just they're not allowed to
progress any further and definitely i
have felt like
i have had to really battle my way
into more senior positions like i have
had to turn down work
and tell people i do not want that job
anymore i can do better
you know and i've had to risk it i've
had to risk not having work
in order to be given a more senior
position
and you know i wouldn't i'm not saying
like you know i'm more deserving than
anyone else but
i do feel like i work very hard whenever
i go to work people are always telling
me how hard and how fast i work and how
good my work is
yet i somehow cannot get that promotion
for whatever reason and then somebody
with way less experience
generally so happens to be white male
sort of saunters in it's just like yeah
i'm your director now and you're like
how did that happen like you're just
sitting there going i can't i can't keep
up with this
i don't know you know and then again
like if you say anything
you're told you're complaining you're
moaning you know as a woman
you know i know this isn't since taking
conversations about but
as a woman you know you you are very
conscious of time
and your age and the life choices you
make whether or not you're going to have
children you know we don't have the
luxury of time that men have
so definitely i feel like my gender has
definitely
played a role whether or not my
ethnicity has again
i think is much harder to tell because
um one like i don't i don't have a
community of other chinese people around
me i couldn't
tell you that and but say that i mean
like it must
it must be playing a role in it if i
have not worked
under anyone who isn't white apart from
one person
you know i i can't think of a
chinese director that i've ever met
you know maybe in commercials but
definitely not children's animation
um you know black characters like i mean
i've had this conversation with hodden
a couple of times and she's always like
oh there must be some flight directors
you know it's like i can think of two
and one owns his own look they both own
their own studios it's not like they've
been promoted by somebody else
so i think definitely there is obviously
some kind of bias at play
yeah risk i feel like when you're
like applying for a job it is it's quite
hard to tell
are they employing me for my work or
are they employing me to to to fill a
percentage
um and like i think
well i mean because of behind the scenes
it's hard to really
uh engage their thinking behind it but i
think
i think that a lot of people who aren't
in the
industry don't realize is
a lot of animation projects uh
get started from the director or the
creator
just bringing in like their friends um
to work and the majority
of creators and directors on animation
projects are
white men so it's very likely that all
their friends that they bring in
are other white men so i feel like if
that doesn't change
then then the amount of non-white
people are always going to be in the
minority
that's true no uh
it's something that has definitely
played on my um
insecurities and anxieties quite a bit
there was
uh one guy i worked with a couple years
ago he must have been about
10 years older than me he was a black
guy as well he said to me
how you enter the industry is how they
will always see you
and i can't lie that's something as
i've always fought myself there's been
times where there's been
you know opportunities or something
and i felt like i've not
i've not been given that opportunity
because
of how i've been viewed or how i came
into the industry
um and it's it
it messes with you because it makes you
feel like oh no
no one wants to jump to race that's the
first reason you know
like it's not like you want to hold that
chip on your shoulder
like so you think of like oh so many so
many different things like oh
maybe you're not good enough maybe use
your skills or something but then
when you're offered opportunities up
like other places or other things and
then it's like
hold on a second there like and you
start putting things together and it
just it
it's something that you always think
about i wish it wasn't there
i really wish it wasn't something that
you have to constantly think about when
applying for work or when
trying to get a promotion or something
that is like
i just it's it's something else that i
feel a lot of people in this
industry don't ever have to think about
like what risk said
a lot of people like our our industry is
very connected
like the network is quite big and a lot
of people do get jobs through
like knowing someone working with
someone before and
it's it sometimes feels like you have to
fight through
all that and also know that
you know you're starting at a lower
level
than everyone else's because of your
skin color and everything
and it it just it always feels like
you know it always feels to me
like you know that person hiring you
they're gonna be like oh
should i hire someone called muhammad or
should i hire someone i know
who it's just like oh he's just you know
another
white person that i've met that it's
gonna be it's gonna be easy to get on
with everything's gonna be fine
or do i have muhammad and have to learn
what ramadan means
or what it's like to be you know just
things like this that have always just
been there when you're applying for a
place or
working our place and been pushed down
from a position that
you know you're good enough for
tanya
i'm just gonna say like i think it's
really interesting hearing me say that
because
i have not necessarily heard firsthand
but you know like
i like to eavesdrop a little bit and
listen to what a senior
just saying and i think it's really
interesting because all the things that
he's saying like
you know how this impacts your
confidence or this kind of stuff then
in hand that would be used against you
later on so they'll say oh but you can't
have that permission because you're not
confident enough
and why are you more confident it's this
constant battle you're trying to like
make sure you're seen in just the right
way and it seems to be like this very
like
narrow sort of bracket that you have to
fit into i think
you know again not necessarily me but i
think i've definitely noticed this
with friends but they feel like they
have to we have to fit into this very
sort of
singular sort of idea that people have
of what they should
be and how they should behave in
animation and what they should be
interested in
and like i was saying like you know as a
muslim man like
oh but you should come to the pub you
should be part of this culture we have
at work
because if you want to succeed you have
to show us that you are one of us
and i think you know that in hand then
you know
people don't think about how that plays
on people's mental health or anything
like that
and how it can affect confidence so
drastically
and again yeah just following on from
something that mo had said which kind of
just
reminds me of something um about like
how you come in and
um will people hire you based off of
this basically that
like when i so this is before i was
actually in vfx but when one of my first
jobs out of
uni and one of the
well it was recommended to me by one of
the people that i
worked with who was relatively it was
very senior
um they recommended that i should
potentially look into changing my name
um my name being bimpy like they were
worried
that my name was going to have an impact
on
my career going forward because it was
something that they'd experienced
themselves so they themselves had um
had made some changes to that they'd
anglicize their own name basically so
it's something that they recommend
that i do because they kind of knew for
a fact that
people would look at my name on and
like for anything i was applying to and
make assumptions
based off of that so obviously like i
will never know
um if i was turned down from certain
jobs
that i was applying to at the time
because of that but we all know that
it's a real thing we all know that it is
something
that does happen and again that's
something that um
i do kind of hold on to because again
like when you start a new place you
start a new role you're introduced to
new people
in whatever workspace that's something
that you're then also considering okay
how are they gonna butcher my name this
time or how they're gonna
what joke are they gonna make about my
name are they then going to ask me well
where are you really from like again
there's
like where for some people like they
don't even have to consider that kind of
thing but for many of us
that sometimes can bring a source of um
annoyance or anxiety knowing that people
are going to ask you
about your name or people are just not
even going to want to bother to
attempt to say your name correctly like
i've had times where
people just go oh that's really odd can
i call you something else no
you can't call me something else i've
taken the time to learn your name so
please take the time to
learn my name it's it's not difficult so
yeah yeah
i was just gonna say because this is
them so that really said earlier is what
i like about when you're going to work
and you're anticipating what
questions will come so again like even
though i'm not i don't know particularly
when people find out like i'm half
chinese like you you can't always
know the order of questions that will
follow like if there will always be like
a
so you know do you speak chinese
and then you'll say like no i don't and
then you have to explain to them why you
don't speak chinese
and then they'll be like okay so your
mom's from china and you'll be like
no you know chinese people don't only
come from china like they can come from
other parts of the world but then
they'll tell you that
we're because of my voice from singapore
then they'll say something like oh but
singapore is china right and then you'll
be like
i can't educate you on geography while
i'm at work like
go look at a map go sort this out with
yourself but
it is this thing where it's like you can
sort of sense these questions coming
like
people sort of look at you a bit like
you know and then suddenly you'll be
like oh here he comes
where are you from that's that's the one
that sort of triggers it
and it is it's just it's funny to listen
to like
you know because none of us come you
know from a similar background
particularly and
i've been being more both british
nigerian but
like the fact that all of us have had
this experience
i don't know i find it quite amusing
sorry
i think um it's i've received that
just walking down the road during school
now at work in multiple workplaces it's
um
a question that i'm just used to getting
but um i want to pick back up on
something most said um
about feeling like starting further
behind
than your counterparts um
and do you guys feel like you've had to
work a lot harder
as well i think that's the age-old thing
i think especially as a black person
like
i know that that's something that i was
constantly told growing up and i know
um other black people have had the same
experiences that like because
you are black because the world will
view you like this you have to do this
you have to work twice as hard three
four times as hard
as this other person because you
will be starting on a lesser footing so
to speak so
definitely and also knowing that i came
into the industry kind of like later on
it's like my second career
because growing up my parents had
dissuaded me
from the creative industry because i
didn't think it was a safe space for me
they didn't they wanted me to be like a
doctor a lawyer again like i know a lot
of people of color half of those
who've had those experiences because our
parents want us to
they want us to succeed in ways that
they may not have done and they also
want us to be in roles
that they think that society will
finally respect us for
so i felt already that like okay well i
have to work hard but now i definitely
have to work even harder because i'm
starting this
a lot later because i
i didn't have i didn't necessarily have
the same levels of support in wanting to
kind of be
in the creative industries as say a
white person may do um i
i wasn't kind of supported in the same
way from like family or friends just
because as i said they didn't think that
it would be a safe space for me to be in
because they didn't see
anybody else that looked like me that
was as far as i knew they didn't know or
see anybody else that looked like me
that was working in these spaces
and then when it came to tv shows and
films especially in the 90s
there still weren't that many of people
that looked like me
that were then on tv that weren't in
stereotypical roles that weren't playing
just the kind of typical like just the
kind of yeah the typical dangerous
stereotypes that you still kind of see
so as far as they kind of knew that
wasn't a space that was open for me so
they thought it would be better
that i didn't put myself through that
and be the doctor or lawyer that they
are sadly disappointed that i'm not but
now they think i'm successful i guess
but you know
from a social from from a social aspect
um i think you are starting like
backwards as well especially if you
like um tonya mentioned going to the pub
and stuff and like if you don't go to
the pub or if you don't drink
then that's a whole lot of socializing
that
you're unfortunately missing out on
which isn't fair because you know
a lot of that happens outside of work or
if you go and then you know
you're not buying rounds because you
don't drink alcohol or
you're constantly saying an orange juice
freeze or coke or something and people
just like oh okay i don't
i really don't feel like talking or
something it just it's like you have to
try
so much harder just to like get the
conversation to a casual place with you
rather than you know it always being
about
you don't drink rich so you've never had
a dream you don't know what it's like to
be drunk or something you know and it's
like
just trying to get the conversation on
like one-on-one can we just have a chat
you know
like instead of like it be about how
different i am or what i don't do or
something like that
and i uh there's been places where
that has been frustrating not every
place i've worked
as has to the pub been such a like
main thing of the job but there have
been places where it's like
every friday or something we're going to
the pub and
you know a lot of the networking talk
will happen naturally there
outside of work and it's just something
you're missing out on you might not know
about you know the next the next project
that's going on especially with a lot of
our work being contract based which
means like you know
next year we might need to be looking
for another job again and it's like
something
casual might just easily come up like oh
so-and-so's hiring
or something like that and you'll just
miss out more of that because
there's nothing else to do outside of
work you can go to a park and if you
don't feel like it or if you feel like
when you go to a pub
the conversation is always going to be
about why aren't you drinking or
something like that
then like you are a bit behind like how
else are you going to find out like
it's a it's a bit it just always feels a
little bit unfair
you know um
so thinking back to uh something bimpy
said
um about being discouraged
to go into the creative industries what
do you think
can be done to encourage people of being
backgrounds like
us um to come into the industry um
how should we approach it how do we get
these people involved how do we
help people get in and how do we help
companies
to just show them where they're going
wrong um
and where to find us because even we
can't find us
it wouldn't care but
i think uh i think a big thing is to
just
make content about them like for the
most part
when it comes to animated series or
films the main character
is uh usually always
a white person and that's
like that's a lot of non-white people
can't identify with that very much so
they're not seeing themselves
in these productions so they might not
think that i can be a part of
this like like a white person can i
think
uh also just white people seeing
themselves that
they're being portrayed as the main
character they're being portrayed as
the most important person
in the in the film or in the show i
think
uh making films or series about
non-white people will inspire them to go
into this field and also
just having those shows made by
non-white people shows that this
can be done by someone who's not white
tanya i think um a lot of these studios
and
also funding bodies need to start to
understand that this is
also a class issue and what we're
talking about is obviously
the british workplace and british
animation predominantly
and i think like we do just have to
acknowledge that
you know it's people of color are more
likely to come from a working-class
background or a poor background
and actually animation is a really
expensive
time-consuming pursuit
like you cannot do it on the cheap it
takes a lot of time
it takes a lot of dedication and i have
seen
so many schools and like like art
schools
and even like i said like government
funding
funding bodies like the bfi um
you know try and encourage people into
the industry
well simultaneously sort of like
withholding money
or telling people they have to volunteer
their time and they have to work for
free
and you know if you're going to come and
do this internship you have to do it for
free
it's not that you have to understand
that you know and this isn't even my
experience but
for me i think this is kind of common
sense if you if you
your parents don't earn a lot of money
and
you have struggled as a child like your
parents have struggled
to you know keep you guys like
financially stable
then coming into a job like this where
people are saying to you if you want to
succeed you have to give your time for
free
it's not something you can afford to do
even if you really desperately want to
do it
i think people have to be really
really honest about how they're trying
to help people who
don't have financial means to come into
the industry
you know like i mean bimpy and i've had
this conversation before about mma i'm
considering doing anime this year
it's very expensive and even now when i
told my parents
what i wanted to do mma it was my mum's
you know my mum didn't get to go to art
school like she wanted so
she's very supportive of me my dad's
from a very
working class english background and
when i told them both like how much it
would cost like their jaws just like hit
the ground and they were just like
what like how much you're gonna take
time off work you know like even now
at my level if i'm trying to convince my
parents that something is worth me
taking time
off unpaid and then to pay
to do something in order to push myself
forward
i have to do a lot of convincing and i
can't imagine what it must be like for
somebody who's much younger than me
who hasn't even gone to university who
has
maybe struggled even late through
college
to then think about doing something like
this where they then have to pay for
photoshop
and the adobe suite and they can't get
the student rate because they're not
going to university straight away and
they have to buy a good enough computer
and then if they want to make a film
they can't make it for free so
who are they going to find to help them
like there are a lot of logistics into
making animation and i think that is
often
completely ignored when people are
talking about trying to encourage people
into the industry
no uh just to go off what tanya said i
went to
uni with quite a few other black people
um in my course it was it was like
honestly i was 50 50 like there was
quite a few black people and
i've not seen any of them unfortunately
in the industry a lot of them had to
drop out in the second
year you know um finance issues one of
them actually had to go back to nigeria
just things like that that you know are
hurdles
that stop you from being able to can you
continue
plus all the finances like uni costs so
much
and then you come out of it and like
tanya said
you need programs like you need to get
your hands on certain programs you need
to
pay for them you need to have a
workstation at home to be able to learn
before you can even get your foot in the
door and then
on the studio and i feel like they need
to listen more
before acting like i feel a lot of
places
don't want to
i don't want to accept that they might
be going about this the wrong way
because then it makes them feel like oh
we're part of the problem
you know and vince said this before like
it's uncomfortable it's an uncomfortable
conversation
but you're never gonna help it's never
gonna get any better like
you're getting so um i've had this
conversation with tanya as well
but there's a lot of universities who as
soon as they finish
university they can easily get a job
because they've got their connections or
their uni is so easily connected and
stuff
but how about those people who had to
either drop
out or after uni because of how much
money they've spent they've had
to go back home for a bit they haven't
been able to
to go straight into university they
haven't been able to go straight into
studio work
like studios need to be reaching out for
those people they need to be going
you know trying to diversify which
places they look for people
and understand that not everyone who can
come into the industry
um has the finances or the support to be
able to do it straight away you know
like it needs to stop feeling like oh
i've already got i've already given you
you an internship what else do you want
from me and more along the lines of like
okay this is diffic this is more
difficult for you
to get in than it is for this person so
you know
you're willing to learn you're good at
what you do we're going to help you out
a lot more you know
and it just it feels fake when you see
a lot of these things online and it's
like you know statistics or like oh
we're such a diverse place or
we're really caring and it's like yes
because those are the lucky people who
have been able to jump through all those
hurdles and get to that point
where they're now part of the crew you
know but how about
the so many other people who
unfortunately couldn't do that
you know and most of the time they are
people of color or minorities who
unfortunately have so many other issues
apart from just finding an animation job
that stopped them from getting to that
point and studios and companies could
really really help if they just
you know listened a bit more and saw
like the issues that were affecting
these people to stop them but
i knew some people in uni who were so
talented you know like
just the things they could do they don't
have jobs they don't have jobs in the
industry because it's just
impossible for them to do it because of
their family life or because they've had
to go back home or
they've had to help their mum back at
home because she's
she's not well or something it's like
you know all these things just stop
people people of color minorities just
from getting their foot in the door you
know
tanya i just wanted to just add in from
what i was saying
just saying like as well like some of
the things that i've seen like it's been
so obvious to me that
a white probably upper middle class
person has
has made this call or decision on how
they're going to approach
either um talking about students or
talking about people entering industry
like
there is i could i can see there is no
groundwork that has been done like they
have not actually spoken to anybody
about it they've just made assumptions
on
what they think the issue is and i think
definitely like
studios need to be more present and more
aware
of what these issues are for people from
different backgrounds
and that's the only way they're going to
resolve it
yeah just a forum from what's been said
already as well like um
yeah a lot of these a lot of these like
pieces of software like
um that do kind of exist as having
student lines licenses even now you need
to prove
that you are at university you need to
jump through all these hoops just to
show that you are at university even if
you are
of a student age but as you said if you
can't afford to go to university or
there are other commitments that you
have
there you are then cut off from what
used to be kind of
freer avenues and so i think if
companies really want to be
throwing their money at things or
organizations really want to be throwing
their money at things
throw your money in the places that are
that are actually needed actually to
if you want us if you say that you want
to support us then actually kind of
support us in terms of giving us access
to a lot of these
tools that allow us to do these things
whether that's through sponsorship
whether that's through
mentoring on a wider level instead of
kind of like okay we're putting money
towards this one thing that's all going
to be sucked up in this
certain shape or form that actually
isn't going to be getting to the people
that
actually need it it needs to be
long-term it needs to be long-term
investment and as most said like
actually listen to
people listen to what the real issues
are listen to what it is that's actually
needed
and again you can't just keep going to
the same schools or the same
universities because you kind of claim
that you're looking for
more diversity you can't find it
anywhere but that's because you're going
to the same schools and universities
which have the same population of people
and tend to have the same large majority
of a certain race which is usually
white so of course you're not finding
any diversity or any diverse talent
there because you're not going outside
of
the pipeline on the avenues that you're
used to going to so
do a little bit of it requires just a
little bit of extra work a little bit of
extra time
and listening and again if you're going
to use if you want to throw money at
something
do the research into what is where the
money actually needs to be going and
companies need to be
willing to make these assets or these
programs more widely
available to people
i'm just going back to something you
bimpy and
tanya mentioned the parent element um
do you think that there is uh
any a required education or
encouragement for individuals of
like sort of
how do i say refugee backgrounds i'm
first
generation uh born here somali so
i know my mum was completely against
me coming into the industry even working
on
the production side which is a little
bit more stable
than the contract work of being on the
more creative side
so is did you guys face any
barriers from your own parents was that
difficult
oh yeah the conversation parents
definitely i think needs to be had
from an early level like if we're going
to be going into schools
universities like we need to also be
engaging parents like as i said my
parents
didn't think that this was a necessarily
a safe space for me but they didn't even
first and foremost i didn't even know
that it existed as a career like being a
concept artist
i didn't know existed as a career all
these films that were being made i had
no idea that there were actually people
that actually
made these things so there's a lot of
there's a massive gap in terms of
information how that information is
being filtered through especially within
our communities so sometimes it may take
a few of us a little bit longer to
find to find it basically so i think
again
and it helps if our families and our
parents are kind of made more
comfortable in knowing that these are
career avenues that exist and also
that we can make money um in these
spaces because at the end of the day our
parents just want us to be
looked after supported be able to
support ourselves they want us to thrive
and also allow them to see that there
are various avenues and rooms hopefully
room for progression
within these spaces so i think it is
really important to be engaging
parents quite early on if we're going
into schools having those discussions
with them if we're running
events like make it an event that's for
the parent and the student as well so
they can see
what actually happened so if they can be
because they're probably going to be
inspired as well by seeing like what
gets made how get
how it gets made and seeing what the
kids are going to be learning about i
think it's important
because then that will also probably
help them in supporting
in whatever way they can at least be
able to support your child down that
avenue but again those are
longer and wider conversations where it
comes to what we're just talking about
in terms of resources
and availability of resources but yeah
tanya um yeah it's just it's basically
echoing what computers saying but just
i think even for
for younger people like who want to
explain to their parents that
this is something they can do i think
there definitely needs to be
more help regarding understanding what
the jobs are in this industry and like
you know the types of contracts you get
will kind of you know like i'm freelance
but i'm contracted like
when i went to university nobody told me
that i had to work it all out
once i started work and it just happened
on my first job was poe
and i was very lucky about that but then
you know over time like
you have to understand like what is the
norm what's not and i think
definitely more resources need to be
available
for that for kids to watch and for their
parents
um i i think as well like what rhys was
saying earlier about like
seeing yourself on tv like so rarely i
mean it's part of the reason why i
wanted to do these kind of discussions
and panels because i think like
parents don't see successful
you know people of color working behind
the scenes on tv
they don't see it like in front of the
screen they don't see it off the screen
when you do like making of
so why would they think that this is a
place where you can make money and
earn a decent living like they're not
gonna believe it because they've never
seen it it's just to them it's this is
an industry
for white people so i think it is just
about making sure like
there's more visibility and a better
understanding that
you know you can make good money out of
this and you can
live very comfortably but there are just
some
extra steps let's say like rather than
just being poi
um like any other job really
i i personally wasn't discouraged by my
parents on going to animation industry
but i have had
other family members kind of say to me
like
you shouldn't go into art there's no
career in
art you won't make money um i think
because of that there was like a
stubbornness
to kind of prove them wrong like but i'm
going to get into it
even though none of the no other family
member of mine has a lot of them
actually
like it's a shame because a lot of them
actually are really talented and really
artistic
but it it was just a hobby for them and
they
dropped it because that was the belief
that they had
um and i think like tanya said it is
it is a because we don't see ourselves
being successful uh in this industry and
we don't see ourselves on tv
um that that we don't
we we're kind of against pursuing
uh these careers but i think even now i
still have that kind of
stubbornness to make something that is
authentic to my culture that kind of
shows them that this is an industry that
we belong in
and um just
to happily encapsulate this entire
conversation
uh why do we think this conversation on
diversity
and inclusion is important in the
animation industry
riz uh i think uh
i mean not to say that animation
is this but uh the majority of
uh animated shows and films
are geared towards children and
i feel like the
these shows and stuff that we're making
are educating kids and are
inspiring them that they they're
applying ideas into their into their
minds
and when when those shows
are all centered around white characters
i feel like kids are gonna feel as
though
where the most important are stories of
the ones that
deserve to be told and
everyone else is kind of on the side um
i feel like uh it's important for
us to show that non-white people are as
important and their stories deserve to
be told as well
so that kids don't grow up thinking that
white people are on some
sort of pedestal compared to everybody
else
bimpy yeah just following on from what
we've said is to be quite honest
um media apart from conversations with
our family quite early on and then
friends at school
media we use media to inform about us
about the world
and we do it even well into adulthood
we learn about the world and how we are
viewed in the world and how other people
are also how they are viewed in the
world through television
film music all those aspects so
especially with kids
you're learning a lot so it's important
about
it's important in terms of the
portrayals that are put out about the
world and about other people
so if you're portraying a certain race
in a stereotype consistently
that is what people will go on to
believe that these people are
so we it's a responsibility
of everyone involved within these spaces
to be making sure that these spaces are
as diverse as possible so
different narratives are being told and
they're being told right they're being
told
truthfully they're not being conflated
they're not being stereotyped but also
they are just being told in general so
they're not being
forgotten or glossed over because there
are so many stories that are still yet
to be told
on so many different shapes or forms and
so for a lot of people in the world
um a lot of things look a very
particular way because
films have constantly shown certain
things in a certain way like
war narratives are told in a in a very
specific way that
eliminates the presence of black people
for example
and their role that they played in um
that were played in certain aspects
um and that leads to people
just erasing or erasing our narratives
and not believing that we held any
particular role or space within these
spaces so i think it's
really really it's vital it's important
if we
want to the world to truly if we want
people's understanding to truly reflect
what the world actually
looks like then we need to make sure
that
um animation visual effects all these
stories
are diverse not just on screen but also
behind the camera as well because those
are the people that are
going to help these stories be told
these are the people that are going to
be able to
share like our own experiences to make
sure that it's being told
on camera tanya
um yeah it's sort of following on for
these guys i think like
i mean one of my first thoughts is like
um it sounds extreme i think if people
don't come from like a similar
background i still think this is an
extreme thing to say
but often i feel like when
people of color are portrayed in
mainstream media
there is no humanity to how we are
presented like
we are completely robbed of it like i
know we're going to have another
conversation about
uh representation in animation but you
know i can think of
so many examples where like east asian
characters or black characters or
south asian characters are just like
completely robbed of
a personality they're just they are just
there in the background or they haven't
got any lines
or what they say is never translated
because it's just not important
and i think you know that that
definitely needs to stop but i think
if we're talking about like why this is
important now and why we should
diversify animation i think you know for
you
british animation in my opinion british
animation could be something really
exciting
really interesting because especially in
london with such a
sort of multicultural society
that we should really be cashing in on
that like i know that sounds really
crude and really blunt but i think like
there's so many
like how many times have we all watched
something and we've been like i know
exactly where this story is going
because i have seen it a million times
before i know who will be the bad guy i
know who will be the good guy
i know who will save us all uh you know
i know
it will be a if there's a you know a
south
asian or a person on there he'll
probably be a terrorist or something
like that you know
it's it's boring it's really boring and
i think everybody is just craving like
new original interesting content
and for you know the way we consume
media now is so
global and a lot of the money that
people will be getting to make these
things will be coming from africa and
they will be coming from asia
like i think it's about time the uk sort
of caught up to that and started
reflecting that in the content it makes
because it's really
probably very beneficial financially
risk i think also like
when you're depicting
non-white people as these uh
wrong stereotypes or whatever like it
also
circles back to what we were talking
about before like how
it how we're treated in the workplace
like
like mo was saying earlier like uh
like someone might uh
get this idea of a black person and
think well oh
they don't act like what i've seen on tv
and
even if they don't say that you kind of
think like
they're probably thinking that about me
or
like that i don't align with what
they've been
shown on tv where they're not being an
authentic
representation of us um it
affects how we're treated in
the real world as well
when you see people of color in
animation
they usually have they're usually the
ones with the accent you know
or the one-liners or something and
unfortunately
you go to school the next day and
everyone is saying that line
and it becomes an insult like you become
you become that you become just that
like like oh you're nigerian so your mom
always says that to you and that becomes
so degrading and as a kid
that's the last thing anyone would ever
want to see you know and
it's in so many different shows they're
always
the comical ones you just oh yeah
we can always count on him to say
something stupid or they're always the
one with the crazy parents the wacky
ones who's like oh wow
their their their house must be mad or
something you know
and it just always feeds back into how
kids look at other kids when they're in
school and now you've grown up with that
why would you ever feel comfortable
in going to work in that industry
feeling you're gonna be represented
if that's all you've ever seen when you
were growing up
um it needs to change because like
you know at a young age you're just
you're just completely
you're it's just forced on you that
black people are so different from
white people you know tanya mentions as
well like the protagonists are always
usually white
like they're always the good guys
they're the ones who are gonna save the
day
if they go to a tropical place and see
people of all colors
they have never seen technology you know
they they're always there to educate
them to teach them to make them better
you know we always look up to the white
people we're so lucky to have them
there and that never makes you feel good
i remember as a kid watching so many
different shows and just
being like that's not nice that's just
it's just like
why why am i always seen as a savage you
know um
and then you go on work and you go and
work in animation
and you know
half or like 90 percent of the
characters you're animating are still
white
and that is not a nice thing to have to
do every day you know
like like there's no diversity there's
no other stories
and the stories that are told about
people of color
you can tell they're not written by
people of color like
yeah they're very one-dimensional or
it's like oh that's a really nice
dish that you have where's that from
it's from so and so
done that's it nothing else you know
it's like
they have no personality whatsoever
their personality is their country
you know and then you work and people do
the same thing
they look at you and they're gonna be
like oh you're definitely gonna be a
sassy person aren't you
like you're definitely gonna you're
definitely gonna
make me laugh like come on say something
like i
like slightly unrelated but like i
remember
one woman said to me at work one time
she was more african than me
because she was born in africa and i was
born here
and i felt she wanted me to have some
sassy reply to her to make her laugh and
it was like
what do you expect of me like how many
black people have you actually met
that you like is your like
it just it just fuels this stereotype
constantly
and because these shows do well because
this show becomes so popular
and no one says anything then they feel
like
yeah we're doing great like that black
character is so good people love him so
much and it's like no people are
laughing at him they're not laughing
with him you know like you'll never
you're never going to be a black kid
going to secondary school and having the
umpteenth person
insult you because they saw so sorry
so-and-so
on tv make that same joke about oh
nigerian's parents aren't you're always
like this you know
it's it's just degrading man
tanya yeah just um
a couple of things that like um the
other thing i was thinking when marius
saying that was um how
like if if the
um person of color has like a joke
or is supposed to be there for
for the humor they don't actually have
like witty one-liners that they can say
like they're not actually like a funny
character
it's like oh they've got an accent isn't
that hilarious like you know like
with chinese people's like well they
can't say they're ours or whatever
oh fight lies so funny like like i don't
know how many times
i need to hear that and it is never
funny it was a really
rubbish joke and people need to stop
using it but then
also just quickly like um like mo was
saying as well like how
when you have a person personal color
like in in an
animated series generally they are like
in the background somewhere and i know
the reason i touched on this on the
screen skills
conversation but like um like coming
from the production side of animation
and seeing how much of an afterthought
it is
to put in a person of color into an
animated
series it is hilarious because it is
literally like
i've been on series where they've been
saying oh we've not got any
black people in this episode just take
that take that character there and
recall his
skin color brown yeah that guy in the
background there i mean you're going
through and you're actually like the one
doing it like you're actually going
through and like
picking the skin tone color and changing
it
just so they can look a little bit more
diverse when they put it on tv
it's just it's such a big problem
um and it does again like they were
talking about humanity i think it's like
this thing where it's like
you can never be more than sort of like
uh
whatever that is going on in the
background like you're irrelevant
whatever you have to say isn't important
um
and i think that's so often the case in
kids animation
unfortunately
yeah i just was gonna say just feed into
what tanya moe was saying to be quite
honest like um
humor is um humor starts to be used very
much as a weapon
i i feel like in many many cases so
whether or not
you are typecast as the only person of
color once you're tokenized
you then have to be the sassy character
especially if you're the black female
you have to fulfill the comedy role or
if it's a horror film you are the person
that dies and
usually dies first and which is the
age-old
boring trope consistently still even now
um but then also that the person of
color then has to fulfill
every role i find which is that they
have to be
um the person that represents the person
of color they also then have to be the
person that present
represents the lgbtqi community they
have to be the person that then
represents well never normally the newer
diverse community but i feel like they
then have to
encompass everything to just suddenly
tick all those boxes like okay we've
done something new we've got
a black character and they also this
they also that therefore we filled
that quota and this and it's just like
is this like is this what we're still
doing it becomes
that in itself is very exhausting to
watch and also very insulting to watch
because again it's
perpetuating that idea that we cannot be
anything more
than our skin colour or our sexuality
like it those have to be those become
the things that are more important
than the actual like esmo said
humanizing us
or giving us actually any character that
is more than just one line
or more than just one trope and
also it's which feeds into what tony was
saying like
you can also really tell when a
character like you've had a character
that suddenly pops up that's character
of color
that is somebody's gone okay yeah we
haven't got anybody else for color
let's just replace let's just cut change
this this person's color
color and they are now going to be a
black character
or an asian character you can because
you can tell by the writing you can tell
when a character i'm not saying that we
all have to be like in a particular way
because that defeats the purpose
but there are there are specific nuances
that you you just
know like for example one of the shows
that i love um is how to get away with
murder
and for me like it it was solidified as
a show that i loved the moment they had
viola davis at the end of the day she
took off her wig
and i was like oh my god yes and then
she put on a silk head scarf
so any black women like listening to
this or just anyone in general will kind
of like most black people kind of know
that like
it's what we will be doing at the end of
the night sorry for just outed a lot of
us
but we will put on a little scarf but
like just to protect our hair and all
that kind of stuff so
when she did that like i automatically
was just like yes you know
that this is a black writer or a black
director or a black producer or there
was just some kind of consultation that
was going on
that was something that doesn't define
the character but it's those nuances
that you know only another black person
specifically a black woman would know
about
and so what i'm saying that you can tell
when
color drop has just been used on a
specific character because it's missing
specific things whether it's in the
dialogue whether it's in the
characterization just
certain nuances and that's just even
more insulting to be quite honest like i
don't think we're not looking
to just suddenly be thrown into like all
these roles just to fulfill
what would have been a white role that's
not what's being asked for and that's
not what should be happening either
no just just to carry on from what
the empty said it's like i've seen so
many black women in tv shows that have
white people hair
like it's just like they've never
they've never fought further than
changed the skin tone and it's fine you
know
and hair like it's such an important
it's such an important routine like i
like i'm not a black woman but like
exactly what bin people are saying
like such an important routine and it's
just changed to
like color drop black with that's that's
good or not
and then you get people grow up and it's
like my hair doesn't look like that
this happened to my sister when we were
growing up together
never saw someone on tv repair like
clouds you know
and then you go to school and it's like
your hair is ugly
it doesn't look it doesn't look like as
beautiful as the
black people on tv you know or like um
yeah i don't want to go into specific um
characters and
stuff um because they might be americans
of english but it's just
you you see that and then it just makes
you feel like you're ugly
and it's like no you're not these people
are ignorant they've not
taken more than five seconds to think we
need a black girl on this tv program
um she'll do and her name as well
it's like yeah it's just it it
yeah it's just a huge thing and it's
frustrating
because you know it instantly and then
you can get people just be like
what's wrong with her she's black she's
pretty and it's like
that's that's your problem isn't it it's
like she's pretty because she's got your
hair
that's what you that's why she's praying
to you if she had our hair
to you you'd be like oh that's really
traditional
oh wow that's so diverse i love it you
know it's it's like
you can never win it's frustrating
tanya and just to follow on from what
mary said i think all of us probably
have experienced
well i'm sure we have experienced the
fact that we haven't
we've grown up not seeing ourselves on
tv
whether it's because of the color of our
skin or like as women
like especially like you know it's only
recently that we've been seeing like
curvier women on tv
different body shapes everyone's talking
about like periods and things more
openly
and i think we have to be really honest
and blunt about this and
you have we have to acknowledge that
what we create
impacts children massively
and if we don't try and get this right
we are impacting their mental health and
i think that is like the really big
issue is the fact that
a lot of people like our age grew up
thinking
kind of the worst of ourselves whether
it was because of the way we looked or
what we thought we could achieve or
couldn't achieve
and probably a lot of that was down to
the content we were watching
and i think now we're all the people
making it
we have to be take some responsibility
and want to do better for children today
and again like this is me coming from
specifically like a kids tv background
but
i don't want to think that children are
watching tv now
feeling the way i felt about myself
where actually i really
hated the way i looked because i thought
my nose was too wide and
my hair was too dark and too thick and
you know i'd never you know be accepted
for what i look like and i'm sure it's
been much worse for like you know i'm
not saying about his sister
having to have look in the mirror and
think like
you're abnormal because you don't see
yourself anywhere else i mean
we've got to do better than that
i think it also discourages non-white
people to
get in the industry get into the
industry when when they're not depicted
properly on
a show or a film for example like if if
they're
if they're just uh if those nuances
aren't there or if they're just like a
joke character or a side character which
does a funny one-liner in a funny accent
then they're gonna feel as though that
oh these
the the i'm not a part of this
i can't be a part of this club like they
they
they make fun of us in the in this
content
this is not where
uh we're allowed to work this is like
the platform where
the white people make fun of the
non-white people
and i think the only way that's going to
change is if we're properly depicted
in these shows and properly included
last comments on this from bimpy
just to echo on what tanya just pointed
about about pointed out about mental
health
this that's a it's massive it's a
massive massive
issue and media again plays a massive
massive role
in um mental health for people
and again those numbers like anxiety
levels of depression are
continuously going up and i think we
heavily underestimate that we heavily
underestimate the impact that
what the content that is created that
that has on kids as well and
echoing what moe was saying about um his
sister those are
those are issues that i very much faced
as well myself that lack of
representation and what that was telling
me
about how i looked like and what my
self-worth was and what my self-worth
would have been and then that was only
being further reinforced
by people friends acquaintances that i
knew that also weren't seeing me
and what their views were of me and what
that meant and what i should be like
and that's a struggle like you're trying
especially then when you when you're
growing up and you're trying to figure
out a lot of stuff out and then
when you go into the workplace as well
there are all these
layers of layers that are constantly and
that have been built up
through a lot of this through all the
media that we've been taking in and
ingesting
as we grow up and that only really
elevates your anxiety levels to be quite
honest
like is my hair professional is it
unprofessional
um this like should i be speaking like
this or should i be speaking like that
is this professional is this
unprofessional
will people view me in this way because
i have this or because i wear that
because i say this
like constantly having to police
yourself constantly
splitting yourself into certain parts to
make yourself feel
you basically lessen yourself in order
to make other people
feel comfortable and film and tv play a
massive massive role in that play
a humongo like a humongous role in that
and so we need to be
doing better and
just thinking back to mo talking about
frustrations and hearing
just this conversation what do you think
people can proactively do to help
like um just if you could speak to a
studio who was hiring
um there's a lot that they can do but if
you could just say something that's
direct something that could
they can do quite easily um give them a
head start or
an instruction manual instruction guide
to
how to become more diverse
um maybe well firstly they've got to
keep speaking up and speaking out
because if you're not having the
conversation
then nothing's going to happen anyway
everything kind of
grinds to a halt so they need to be
having these conversations
ongoing conversations but also if you
are privy to something if you've seen
something if you're hearing something
say something about it you can't just
let it slide or let it pass
or just thought okay well maybe they
were joking and just fob it off because
all that does is add to the issue it
keeps adding to the problem and
nothing will be addressed otherwise you
need to keep
speaking up and speaking out
so yeah um yeah it's just reflecting
what bim peter was saying but i think
definitely having like a more open like
forum and having these
discussions and showing that you want to
do better and that you're willing to
learn i know most of this
earlier as well like um trying to
actually show that you are interested
and you are trying to make a difference
like genuinely trying to make a
difference not just some like
quick shout out on instagram and that's
it
um but i think also like having proper
protocol in
place i know like not all studios can
afford to have
an hr department and all that kind of
stuff but i think
letting your staff know that these
things are taken seriously and if they
have an issue they should come and talk
to somebody about it and
you will handle it in the most
professional way possible i think is
really important and i think
from my experience of something that has
happened to me
i would personally discourage them from
saying to people come and talk to me
alone i think it's better you ask that
person
if you haven't got an hr department you
ask that person to bring somebody to
support them in that meeting
don't let them stand alone and have that
conversation on their own without any
support because
they probably won't want to talk to you
in that situation i think it's really
important to understand that
people feel very vulnerable in those
situations
when they have been the victim of you
know racism or sexism in the workplace
and they want to call it out
it is very isolating and very lonely and
i think
even if they're just bringing in and
their friend just to oversee the meeting
and give them a bit of
support you know i think that's really
important
and i think there has to be a better way
of dealing with it and i don't
think saying you don't have an hr
department is a
reason not to act professionally
really i think it's important
for studios to realize
who they're employed i said this in our
previous poll but it goes back to
what mo said earlier about the park like
you need to realize what kinds of people
are in your studio and uh
i think chao like
events and social activities with them
in mind
like all studios have are like
christmas events pub events and like
halloween event maybe but
you need like if there's like a muslim
in
in your workplace like you know read up
when like ramadan is taking place and
keep that in mind or eat or like
diwali or whatever to kind of include
them as well because they're always
having to
join in with the activities of
the white people and uh
it i think it really leaves them out in
those instances they kind of have to
pretend to be a part of
what everyone else does
no i think i think
um studios need to just listen more and
understand that you know they are
ignorant to
some of these issues and some of these
problems and
except that you know these can be solved
by hiring people of color in higher
management positions you know
don't just feel like i can stop this by
myself and get
like you know maybe some people maybe
some people need to step down
for certain jobs or if this if this show
is going to start a lot of people of
color
hire people of color in those managerial
roles
you know talk to the the people you're
working with
like understand how they feel about
like the things they were working on and
stuff a lot of these things go
under the carpet like completely never
said because those people below don't
want to like
upset people and potentially lose their
jobs and the people
don't want to hear it because they don't
want to they don't want to believe
there's a problem
going on in their company you know it's
like
it it there needs to be a more
comfortable and
safe open place for people to want to
talk up
about their problems like tanya
mentioned like a lot of places don't
have hr
um people there for you to talk to like
that's not really a good thing that
should be going on in a lot of these you
know smaller companies
just one really quick point is the
feather i think as well was really
important to say
um but listening to a lot of one of my
guys friends who are saying after black
lives matter i think it's really
important that
studios don't put this on the shoulders
of
uh their dame employees like it's not
everybody else's responsibility to
educate you like i think
there's plenty of stuff online if you if
you're willing to learn like
go online watch stuff on youtube watch
ted talks
you know i i've quoted vera myers in my
article because i think she's so super
articulate about this
and she breaks it down really simply and
i think one of the points she makes
is the fact that you know we all have to
admit that we play a part in this and
that we all hold unconscious bias
whether or not we
we want to or not it's just something
unfortunately we're all kind of
been trained to believe and i think
acknowledging that and showing that you
want to learn from it and
saying if you make a mistake just saying
to somebody like i'm really sorry like i
should have know better
i will do better from this point on but
i think that's that is kind of enough
and it's not said enough
um you know i've like i was saying
earlier like there were a lot of things
that
i had never considered until i started
watching some of these videos on youtube
i
never thought about it from the
perspective of somebody you know
who was black or male you know it was
just not something i gave time to
because i had always been trained to
believe that they were
gonna do something else think want to be
something else you know like
i had that unconscious bias i didn't
even recognize it in myself
until i went away and i really thought
about it and
it is horrible to sort of learn that
about yourself in some ways but i think
it's really important that we all
acknowledge it
and try and move on from it and i think
that's
that's just i just don't want somebody
to
listen to this and think then okay i'm
gonna call my one black friend and ask
him to explain all this to me like
please don't do that
no um we can talk for forever
guys we really could um despite the lack
of inclusion within the animation
industry
what motivates you guys to keep working
in your shows and fields
i love animation like it's just
something that
has been inspiring since when i was a
kid
you love you love watching um how it's
made
drawing and like it's it's it's really
trying when
you have wooden springs stacked up
against you but
like when everything works and like
you're you're you're doing something you
love
like i feel like you'll fight for that
forever like
you know um and it makes you feel
stronger as well when you can get
through it like
no one should have to go through this
but in my experience
in my experience knowing like how i
felt in some positions and knowing how i
feel now
after those challenges it makes me feel
like oh i'll keep going and i'll keep
having to
fight if i need to because i love doing
this and nothing
nothing is going to stop me from
pursuing it
just to echo yeah pretty much the same
as mo like every like we all come up
against even white people will come up
against various barriers
within what we're doing but what keeps
us going is loving what we're doing
whether that is
animating concept talking like um
compositing it's
the love of what we're doing and
despite all of this stuff like it's not
all like doom and gloom and all that
kind of stuff like we should still want
to pursue
our passions we should still want to
pursue what it is that we love so
like to anyone i wouldn't say don't let
this be a reason as to why
you don't um try to get into animation
or visual effects if it's something that
you absolutely love doing then
do it go for it fight for it because
yeah as moe said it's
it's a sheer it's a sheer love of it why
else would we keep doing
so that ends today's
panel thank you guys for
joining and answering all those
questions especially this time of night
on a sunday is honestly thank you guys
um for the time and um great
conversation
