“You can change the way you’ve always done business. And it works.”

—@ADuralde

Times have surely changed since Duralde took his first job out of college at a newspaper in 1989. Then, only a handful of noted female and queer film critics came to mind — Pauline Kael, Judith Crist, Molly Haskell and Vito Russo, to name a few. Fast-forward to 2018 and “now we're seeing a lot more women, way more people of color — not that we have enough yet,” he said.

The internet can be credited for what progress has been made, allowing traditionally marginalized folks to circumvent the age-old barrier to entry of getting hired by a newspaper or magazine. Duralde highlighted Black Girl Nerds as an example of a digital outlet that has created a platform for black women and LGBTQ people to report and critique film. But “the internet, it's a double-edged sword, obviously.

“As much as we've gotten to hear more voices from marginalized communities, racists have a much bigger megaphone than they had before,” he said. “And I think when it comes to film criticism, you do have a lot of people who don't have — and it's not even that you had to go to school for this — but they don't have an interest in the wider scope of cinema.

When was the first time you saw yourself on the big screen? Stephen Frears’ “My Beautiful Laundrette” (1985) What is one thing the industry could do to increase access for diverse voices? If you’re an editor whose only pool of writers are straight, white, cis men, then it’s on you to expand your horizons and actively seek out other writers who go beyond those categories. What rating would you give the entertainment industry on inclusion?

“So they want to talk about the Marvel movies and the ‘Star Wars’ movies in the context of the Marvel movies and the ‘Star Wars’ movies and not in the larger field of it. And I don't think this has to do with race or any of the other stuff. You can love movies or love a specific kind of movie and want to write about it, but I think it's not the same as somebody who has spent their life trying to absorb as much of it as they can and have a sense of the history of things.”

But that doesn’t mean those people shouldn’t be heard, he said, or that an increase of perspectives from different communities and traditional experience levels isn’t necessary.

“There's this idea that more voices or more power or more whatever from people of color means the white people are somehow losing something,” he continued. “That's so much of what's driving the politics right now that's so terrifying. But there is room for everyone.

“People have to go outside of what they are locked into as the status quo. … I think there can be a lot of looking at what the current structure is and realizing that you can change the way you've always done business. And it works.”

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As someone who helps assign freelance pieces for The Wrap, Duralde knows there is more he can do to increase industry access for diverse voices in film criticism. But because he has so many responsibilities — in addition to being a critic for The Wrap, he co-hosts two podcasts and an online show — he admits to leaning “towards writers that I don't have to edit as much, people who can give me copy that, for the most part, is ready to go.”

“But then of course, that's where we get into the whole ouroboros” of people needing experience but not being able to get experience, he said. “So I think my trajectory for the next few months is going to be reaching out to people, reading a lot of websites, trying to find new people. … I know there are more voices out there and so that's on me to make that happen.”