Alana Mayo: Is Hollywood Starting To Get It Right?

"On the one hand, you want to celebrate what feels like progress," Alana Mayo begins. She's describing the range of identities we've begun to see on and off-screen — people that have been historically underrepresented in Hollywood, or worse, completely invisible. But she warns that the work isn't over. 

"Is this a trend, or do we feel like we've actually reached a tipping point of change? I think it's a trend that will have lasting power." Alana Mayo, the Head of Production and Development for Michael B. Jordan's production company, Outlier Society, is one of the many people in the entertainment industry ushering in this new era of representation and storytelling. After working with Outlier Society, one of the first production companies to adopt inclusion riders for all current and future productions, Warner Bros. changed their company-wide policies to also focus on and actively increase the number of women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and other underrepresented groups. (An inclusion rider is a contract provision that can be used to mandate equity in casting and crew hires.) 

LGBTQ&A is hosted and produced by Jeffrey Masters. @jeffmasters1