Ava DuVernay On Hollywood’s Diversity Failures: She’s “Tapping Out” & Will Go “Make My Movies”

Ava DuVernay is frustrated, and perhaps the odd way her acclaimed drama, “Origin” has largely been ignored by the awards circuit hasn’t helped (“I wish she was at the Globes or SAG Awards or Critics Choice or the other nominations that didn’t come,” the filmmaker recently lamented about her “Origin” star Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor).

It’s no secret that the ideas of diversity, equity, and inclusion are under attack in the United States at the moment (just look at what happened to former Harvard President Claudine Gay and the coordinated attack on her from the far right that led her to step down from her post). There’s been a concerted effort and campaign among the conservative forces in this country to disassemble DEI initiatives and it’s clear as day (you can cite dozens of articles on this topic, but feel free to read “Republicans are at war with corporate America over diversity” at The Hill or “Conservatives See Claudine Gay’s Resignation As A Victory” in the New York Times or just yesterday, “DEI Goes Quiet” from the Times).

READ MORE: Ava DuVernay Suggests She Won’t Go Back To Studio “Team” Films After ‘Wrinkle In Time’

And all you need to do is look around at the way the diversity movement is receding in Hollywood, much like the way #MeToo did after it had its moment. Many conservatives see all these movements as “overcorrections” to roll back.

DuVernay was on the Talk Easy podcast recently and vented her frustrations about it all when asked about the attack on DEI in this country and the growing voices in the conservative right that are trying to systematically dismantle these practices (“After #MeToo Reckoning, a Fear Hollywood Is Regressing,” is also another key NYTimes article to read).

In her long response, DuVernay said she would be “tapping out” of the “Hollywood industrial complex” and would “pass the baton” to others over the industry’s ongoing failures in diversity and inclusion. “This town does not want it,” she said.

Talk Easy noted how diversity initiatives are quietly going away and contracting, giving her dismal diversity stats, studio execs talking about an “overcorrection” with diversity and how it seems like this moment is about to pass. She gave a long response that sounded full of disappointment. “How do you make sense of this moment?” they asked?

“I’m probably not doing it in the most—I’m not sure about how to define how I’m doing it now, but all I know is I feel like I’m tapping out,” she explained. ”I’ve tried to work within the system for the last 10 years. I’ve sat on the boards of Sundance; I am on the DGA board, I am a governor of the Academy in my second term, and I really wanted to learn. I wanted to understand how these institutions work.”

“And there’s some great people there and beautiful legacy,” she continued. “But ultimately, the shifts in the cumulative effect of this? How the overall industry works are so insignificant in their velocity, in their scope, in their real impact that I feel like, ‘you know what? I’ve done what I could,’ cause it was a lot of extra time, a lot of extra effort, a lot of calls, a lot of meetings, a lot of thinking and a lot of trying, and it’s time to pass the baton to has a fresh energy.”

”And I’ve achieved some things within those organizations,” she noted. “But for me, it’s just not moving at a pace that feels like it’s worth my time and effort in and I’m goint p put my time and effort into to what I’ve continued to do, but it needs to have all my time and effort is,  building [her company] Array, building independent systems, building disruptive systems and to put my time into a garden that will actually grow and blossom.”

It should be noted some headlines have made it sound like DuVernay is qutting filmmaking or quitting Hollywood filmmaking and that doesn’t not all seem to be the case. The full context of her quotes seem to be built around all the industry-wide efforts she has put into DEI, and how she is a bit exhausted in that effort and wants to keep working on her home grown garden of projects.

“I’m going to build another house; I’m going to go over to the house that I’ve built on my own and focus on that,” she explained. “That’s where I am today, like I did it all, and I’m good. I’m just gonna over here and make my movies.”

Asked to clarify a little bit or define “tapping out,” she said, “Tapping out of the Hollywood Industrial Complex; that’s more specific. Not totally [tapping out].”

DuVernay explained she is tapping out “of the way I have been working, which has really been trying to be to push forward a certain new framework for the way certain institutions that embody our industry work.”

What did her efforts achieve? According to DuVernay, she couldn’t move the DEI needle in the way she wanted, and that’s the source of her frustrations with the Hollywood industry at large, “I think I’ve done things to help but that those are isolated incidents that are [anomalies]. [The system can be fixed], sure it can, but it needs cooperation, it needs people to want to do it and this town does not want to do it.”

Anyhow, it’s a fascinating conversation, and honestly her frustration is understandable. You should listen to the entire thing below, but if you read headlines about Ava DuVernay quitting or tapping out of Hollywood and making movies, those would be in deep contradiction to the filmmaker’s overall statements. Take a listen below.