ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the racial dynamics of representation for Black, Asian, and Latino directors behind the scenes of Hollywood filmmaking. Film directors play a vital and important role on film projects, overseeing the production process from start to finish and interacting with nearly every role on the film set. In Hollywood, there are marked differences in whether directors of different races are American-born or foreign-born. In contrast, most of the Latino and Asian directors are born outside of the United States, suggesting that Hollywood rarely draws from its American-born populations of Latinos and Asians to hire directors. In addition to racialized representation at studios, average production budgets for films were stratified by the director's race. The chapter finally investigates where women of color stand in the fight to gain representation behind the scenes as film directors, in particular, how intersectionality combines racial inequality with gender inequality to forge deeper representational obstacles.
