When actress Frances McDormand accepted her Oscar for Best Actress at the Oscars last night, she used part of her time to make a couple powerful requests.
She had all female nominees stand up and then said:
“We all have stories to tell and projects we need financed. Don’t talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple days or you can come to ours, whichever suits you best, and we can tell you all about them.”
Then she left the stage after uttering the words “inclusion rider.”
Vanity Fair spoke with Stacy Smith, a communications professor at the University of Southern California. She helped coin the phrase and explained its meaning. VF reports:
“Smith said that an inclusion rider is a provision added to actors’ contracts to ensure that casting on productions is more representative. “It stipulates that in small and supporting roles, characters should reflect the world we live in,” she said. That includes 50-percent gender parity, 40-percent inclusion for people of color, five percent L.G.B.T.Q., and 20 percent disabled.”
Watch McDormand’s speech above.