David Spade and Dana Carvey criticize Hollywood for focusing on race and gender
On their Fly on the Wall podcast, comedians David Spade and Dana Carvey argued that the entertainment industry emphasizes race and gender too heavily and should stop labeling people by those categories.
Comedians David Spade and Dana Carvey have criticized Hollywood for placing too much emphasis on race and gender, arguing on their Fly on the Wall podcast that the industry should stop separating performers into categories. The two hosts said the constant labeling undermines the idea that everyone in the business is simply working as an actor or filmmaker.
Spade said that at award shows he has seen presenters highlight that a winner is the first Black director to win for a documentary, or the first Black actor to win in three decades. He said he wished they would stop making those distinctions. "If you just say we're all actors," Spade said, "it just makes it more even and not, we're all just the same. We're all acting." Carvey joked that when he won his Emmy Award, the announcement described him as the 198th straight white male to win the award.
Spade also recalled his time working on the NBC sitcom Just Shoot Me, which ran from 1997 to 2003. He said the production would inform him each week when it was working with a female director. "Female director. It feels like a little, not condescending, but a little diminishing," Spade said, adding that he had been a proponent of pushing back against the practice. Carvey agreed, calling the phrase "female director" a funny thing to say.
The remarks come as the hosts have also taken aim at the state of the entertainment business in California. In a March episode, Spade said the Hollywood industry is dying and that he was "just trying to put the blame somewhere," pointing to Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass. Spade later said he had been criticized for those comments, clarifying that he was not really angry at either leader and was instead asking for more of the money flowing into the city to be prioritized for bringing production back.
Mayor Bass's office responded to the earlier criticism, saying she has championed the entertainment industry as a bedrock of the middle class. The statement said she cut filming fees at Griffith Observatory, reopened the Los Angeles Central Library to film production for the first time in more than a decade, approved more than 3 million square feet of studio and creative office space, and that more than 120 sound stages are under construction across Los Angeles.
In April, comedian Tim Dillon joined Spade and Carvey as a guest and argued that Bass and Newsom seem to think things are going well, adding that people are leaving the state and that it is hard to make leaders understand that when they believe otherwise.
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