ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the contemporary socio-economy of the screenwriting labor force in which the spectres of inequality and lack of diversity haunt the profession and have done so since its earliest days. It analyzes the homogeneous and exclusionary nature of screenwriting work and maps the socio-economy, the 'ins' and 'outs' of screenwriting work, using recent figures from a range of industries and places. The chapter links up structural features of inequality in screenwriting work to subjective, discursive accounts of screenwriting. Discourses of egalitarianism are a key feature of the postfeminist and neoliberal climate in which Anglophone media is produced, or are implied in statements from screenwriting gurus and manuals such as ‘everyone is a writer’. A disturbing feature of this mapping process is the statistical evidence that indicates the lack of change in terms of diversity and, in fact, the possible worsening of some of these inequalities in contemporary screenwriting and production industries.
