Beyond 'Representation' and 'Diversity'

Hollywood celebrities invest in stocks and bonds, accumulating capital in various ways, and have ownership in certain markets. They are not productive workers and do not actually create or generate any value. In fact, their disproportionately high wages come from the musicians who play the instruments,  those who do the sound-engineering, and those who write their songs for them -- if they are singers; in which case, it helps their brand if they place their names in the list of songwriters, even if they wrote little to none of the content. If they are Hollywood actors, it comes from those who write their scripts and work on the set production. Not only that, but the surplus value that is generated comes from consumers who buy their products. And if they have clothing lines and other merchandises attached to their names, they often rely on superexploitative sweatshop labour in Third World countries. Of course, there are some famous entertainers who don't even do anything that remotely resembles the performing arts, such as the Kardashian family. Either way, the entertainers themselves -- who are a part of the bourgeoisie regardless of sex, race, sexual orientation, and/or "gender identity" -- are brand name commercial entities, much like Coca Cola and McDonald's. In the end, the Hollywood industry is a long-time partner of CIA propagandists.

However, the unscientific thinking of liberalism will tell you otherwise as it attempts to deflect all legitimate criticism of the inherently reactionary nature of Capitalism on identitarian grounds. For example, Western feminists may as well be saying that you cannot criticize millionaires such as Lady Gaga, Beyonce, and Kim Kardashian 'because misogynists do', and/or because they are women; and in Beyonce's case, it is because she's a black woman. If you criticize them, then by god you are "sexist", "racist", "homophobic", "transphobic", and a "Russian bot", etc.

In short, we do not need "more equal representation" (within capitalism, that is), "Hollywood woke-ness", or more films that "pass the Bechdel Test". This isn't to deny that we need media criticism. But, it can be done from an materialist, anti-capitalist perspective -- rather than from the hollow, anti-Marxist narrative that often uses academia jargon, sounds vaguely "radical", and is acceptable to the liberal mainstream media. More importantly, we should be striving towards constructing healthy proletarian cultural institutions once a radical reorganization of the economic global order through a Socialist orientation happens.