Hi friends,

You’re listening to the other 50% a herstory of hollywood. I’m Julie Harris Oliver.

It has been awhile since I dug into this podcast. I did a couple of interviews in 2022, one in 2021, but for the most part I’ve been pretty quiet here. A lot has happened that I want to share with you.

First of all, I don’t know that I’ve ever talked much about my day jobs while doing this podcast. There were a couple glorious years where this was my day job, but for the rest of the last 20 something years that I’ve been working in and around hollywood, I worked first as an auditor at Disney, then as a production finance executive at HBO for several years and briefly The Weinstein Company, then at entertainment payroll companies for a good 13 years. Toward the end of those payroll years, I started this podcast.

If you were a listener in those early days (I started in 2016) you heard me exploring what it was to be a woman in this business. Figuring out that there is systemic gender oppression, that it wasn’t about us needing to try harder and take more leadership classes. It is baked into the system. And I met and talked to you and you heard so many incredible women doing amazing work. Like, seriously, if you are still underestimating women, I don’t even know what to tell you.

And then it quickly became obvious that you can’t uncouple sexism from all the other isms. Racism, sexism, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, disability discrimination…all the things. If we just focus on women, most likely that's mostly going to benefit white women, and still leave women of color behind. As LIlla Watson said, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

If you’ve been listening for a while, you’ve heard me learning out loud. Awkwardly, embarrassingly, cringingly. I mean, I have several podcasts out in the world where I say that Louis CK will be my next husband. Gaaahhhhh. We don’t always know what we don’t know.

You’ve heard me asking the questions. I always figured, if I have the question, or if I’ve ever had the question, then someone else does too and I might as well ask it. Even though I cringe now to listen back and am embarrassed by how little I knew. And it is thanks to the endless generosity of my guests who explained things, taught me, allowed me space to learn.

So as I went through this journey, my passion became clear and I figured since I spend all of my waking hours doing this work to advance equity, and basically doing it for free, wouldn’t it be a miracle if I was able to do it as my day job as well. So in late 2020 I got an extraordinary opportunity to work in Equity and Inclusion at a studio and work specifically on productions. Dream job.

Well, I thought this podcast had prepared me extremely well to go into this work. I had endless passion, I had read some things, I had dug into some data, I had my finger on the pulse, I knew some stuff. Um. Again, we don’t always know what we don’t know.

I walked into this new job and quickly realized I needed to sit down and listen for a while. DEI work is rigorous, academic (people have PhDs in this stuff), and also really hard. There is a whole language to learn. There is as much unlearning to do as there is learning. It takes a long time to move giant organizations, institutions and cultures. Not everyone is as into it as we are, or believes change needs to happen or that it even can.

So, I shut up and listened. It was as thrilling as it was uncomfortable. I sat in my discomfort for a really long time. I did a lot of self talk - about how in a year I would feel so much smarter. How at some point I would be able to talk about this stuff without feeling totally awkard and inept and self-conscious. Without cringing at myself and my learning journey. WIthout saying such dumb things. Hoping at some point I would feel competent at my job. I used to lead people and teams and felt totally confident and like I knew what I was talking about! I wish I could tell you that all of that came to pass, but I am still sitting in the discomfort.

I will say, I did start to feel competent in the job. But what really happened is that I became more comfortable in the discomfort. I gave myself grace to continue learning. That you can’t just suddenly know all the things you need to know the way you might be able to in other fields. There’s no mastering the subject. Come to think of it, is that a phrase we should still use? Mastering anything? How about becoming an expert? It’s continuous inner work along with the outer work.

So, one of things I want to do here is take you along some of that learning journey. In the last couple of years I have met some incredible people, mostly women, who are doing the work - who are those academic and professional experts. The ones who are able to put words to so many things you might have noticed but don’t know how to talk about. The ones who can take really complex ideas and structures and make them accessible. I can’t wait to share them with you.

Ok, in other news, as you may have gathered from listening to this show over the years, I was divorced in 2010 after being married for 10 years and having 3 children. I spent the next ten years raising my kids and working and not particularly concerned with whether or not I would stay single forever. Then the most amazing thing happened. The man I fell in love with when I was 20. That big first love and first heartbreak. The big love that happened before the internet. The biggest mystery to me - whatever happened to him? He reappeared. He was also divorced. We still loved each other. And we had somehow grown in the same direction. Although not the same location. He lives in a different state with his children. As crazy as it might sound, we got married. We still live in different states while our children finish high school, but those years are passing quickly and eventually we will live together. In the meantime, we see each other often and are having a great time traveling. It’s actually a wild story in the sliding doors, missed connections, passed each other on the street sort of way. Everyone we have told it to has told us to write the script, so we’re working on telling it in some kind of way. Stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, I changed my name and added his to the end. Which these days feels very patriarchal to me. But hear me out. I never wanted to change my name in the first place, but for some reason, it was very important to my first husband, so I did - dropping my middle name and moving my last name to be my middle name (Harris.) Then I had this platform and felt weird about dropping Walker professionally, not to mention it’s a logistical nightmare. But, I’m certainly not going to hang on to that name when I’m married to my current husband, and of the three last names on the table, I like his the best. So, I’m doing a mid to late career name change and I hope people can still figure out who I am and it doesn’t erase my work of the last 20 years. And since this falls into the category of problems men don’t have, I’m going to stamp it Patriarchy and just move on. Please call me Julie Harris Oliver going forward. And if you happily took your husband's name or didn’t, no judgment here, (even though I am clearly still wrestling with it) the overriding value here is the freedom of choice. In all things. ( Brett )

Ok, now speaking of names and branding - do I need to rename this show? When I started this in 2016 it was for the purpose of focusing on women, who make up roughly 50% of the population, if not a little more. And the name was in reaction to women being referred to as a minority, which is not accurate, but is used to justify or explain or describe a real power deficit when compared to men. But it feels like we’ve moved a bit beyond all that now. For one, around 1-2% of adults are non-binary that number grows to 5% for people under 30. And then when you look at the global majority of people of color, that’s like 85%. And I’m not looking for the title that includes everyone except straight white cis men, because we need them to be part of the journey forward. I still think it’s true that it’s on men to fix sexism and on white people to fix racism, so sorry white men, but there’s a lot of work you need to do! Get in here!

So, although I don’t relish a rebrand, I’m pondering it. Let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas about that.

In the meantime, here’s what’s coming in the near future…

First, I’m going to do a series with some of those experts I was telling you about - experts in DEI work, in racial equity, in anti-racism, maybe in gender and disability…we’ll see. Let’s all get on the same page and then see where we go from there. This show has always been a mix of mission and entertainment and I hope you’ll come along as we dig into mission for a bit.

Also, I’m still hosting the Catch a Break podcast where we talk to all kinds of film professionals about breaking into and navigating this business. We are producing a very cool season this year, and I’ll tell you more as I can. But if you haven’t heard that one, go catch up on the last 3 seasons and share it with all the insiders you know and especially the people trying to get in and establish themselves.

As for me and my day job - I was part of the recent mass layoffs that swept entertainment recently, especially DEI departments - so I’ve put together a consulting package to help bring equity and inclusion to film and television productions. If you want to do this work, and you’re not sure how, I can help. It’s not as hard as you imagine and there are some very simple and impactful steps you can take. The built landscape that advantages some and disadvantages others is not always easy to even see, let alone fix. But let’s commit to doing this work together.

So, I’m back. I’ve missed you, I’ve missed this. This is my favorite thing to do. I’m looking forward to how it all unfolds.

For now, this is The Other 50% - a herstory of Hollywood and I’m Julie Harris Oliver.

You can find me at theotherfiftypercent.com all spelled out or at julieharrisoliver.com or email me at theotherfiftypercent@gmail.com.

Oh, and the other thing that happened over the last couple years is now you gotta be on TikTok. It’s not enough to advertise on Facebook. So if you would be so kind, if you are on TikTok, please go and follow me so that I can build audience over there.

Special thanks to Jay Roewe, Dani Rosner and Alison McQuaid for the music. Find us on all the podcast places and all the social media.

Thanks for listening. See you next time.