After Failing GLAAD’s 2023 Studio Responsibility Index, Lionsgate Develops New ‘Story Spark’ Tool To Improve Diversity And Inclusion Efforts
Last year, Lionsgate was the only film studio who received a ‘failing grade’ during GLAAD’s annual of Hollywood’s LGBTQ representation efforts.
In response, the studio has now announces plans to use a new analytical tool to increase the diversity and inclusion levels of their various film and TV projects.
The most powerful LGBTQ lobby in Hollywood, GLAAD has spent the last several years demanding an increase in the amount of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters across the entire industry.
As part of this campaign, the last ten years have seen the organization produce an annual Studio Responsibility Index which grades and “maps the quantity, quality and diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) characters in films released by ten major motion picture studios during the [given] calendar year”.
According to the group’s 2023 report, the only major studio to receive a ‘Poor’ rating was Lionsgate due to them having produced only one “LGBTQ-inclusive” film out of the six total they made the previous year – Clerks 3.
However, GLAAD was not happy with how the topic was handled in the film, criticizing how the bisexuality of Becky (as played by Rosario Dawson) was played for laughs.
“[At one point], she lists all the famous dead people in Heaven that she is having sex with, including Cleopatra,” recalled the organization. “Becky’s bisexuality is played more as a joke than real development, feeding into the notion that being bisexual means a person is inherently promiscuous.”
“It reads as more a throwaway joke than real representation,” they added. “GLAAD urges Lionsgate to make efforts for solid and meaningful LGBTQ representation in future projects.”
As a result of this condemnation from GLAAD, Lionsgate is taking a big step in increasing just how diverse their projects will be in the future.
During the June 2024 CAA Amplify industry summit, Lionsgate revealed their new creation Story Spark, described by Variety‘s Angelique Jackson as “a free online tool that helps creatives and development executives measure diversity and intersectionality in storytelling.”
“The studio describes Story Spark as a “filmmaker-first and creative-driven, collaborative and open-ended development tool,” which provides guidance toward telling more inclusive stories,” the reporter further detailed. “There’s no pass or fail grade for each script and, to note, this tool is not artificial intelligence, but instead guided by the creatives and executives who bring these stories to life.”
According to Jackson, “The free online tool considers six key dimensions of inclusivity — character diversity, character intersectionality, character dimensionality, narrative portrayal, creative team diversity and groundbreaking inclusion — and provides actionable recommendations to the storytellers.”
Speaking to the tool’s existence, Lionsgate SVP and Head of Inclusive Content Kamala Avila-Salmon told audiences that Story Spark is ” asimple, friendly, easy-to-use partner in content development that feels more like a Buzzfeed quiz than a checklist.”
Further attempting to sell the public on just how much this tool was set to improve the studio’s content, the studio’s President of Production Erin Westerman declared, “Story Spark is a prompt for important conversations as we intentionally work to make our projects more inclusive. It is up to our storytellers to make our films as ambitious as our goals, and Story Spark is one way we help them do that.”
According to GLAAD’s numbers, of the 350 films released theatrically and to streaming services by the ten distributors counted in 2022, only 100 (28.5 percent) were LGBTQ-inclusive – an 8 percent increase in LGBTQ representation from last year’s report.
Commenting on this report, GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellise asserted, “We know that the stories told in those films have been an inextricable part of a culture shift seen and experienced by the LGBTQ community with support for LGBTQ people and acceptance at an all-time high.”
In 2024, Lionsgate’s slate of releases currently includes such films as Borderlands and The Crow.
Meanwhile, upcoming years will see them drop John Wick Presents: Ballerina, Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, and Saw XI.
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