- 8 minutes ago
When The Hollywood Reporter threw its TV’s 50 Most Powerful Producers Dinner, sponsored by Lilly, Annenberg Inclusion Initiative founder Dr. Stacy Smith joined Lilly senior vp and chief marketing officer, consumer, Lina Polimeni for a conversation about accurate disease representation in entertainment.
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00:13all right it's great to be here um thanks uh you know for having us and lena it's amazing to
00:20share
00:20stage with you once again once again we've done this many times and like the first time i heard
00:25about this i'm sure you're all wondering why in the world did eli lily and company also known as lily
00:32why are you sponsoring this event so so tell us lena a little bit about why you're here and what
00:40you're up to in bringing health to entertainment should i introduce the is it now the company
00:46formerly known as but well lily has been around for 150 years um and out of the 150 years with
00:54you
00:54the mission has always been to put health above all the short answer of why we got into this
00:59conversation is because when you look at the pharmaceutical industry the medicine industry
01:04in my observation it tends to show up when things go wrong and i don't believe that is reflective to
01:11the work that actually the industry does and and the work that is behind making people healthy and so
01:16when you look at pharmaceutical advertising or the pharmaceutical industry as a whole
01:20is you have a symptom and then there's a solution which is a medicine and really is not what this
01:25company is about but also in general health you know i always say health in life should go into the
01:30same sentence and so we wanted to start the conversation first and foremost where health
01:35happens and so before things go wrong and bringing health at the center of culture and part of that
01:41premise is was you know film and television is really what shapes a lot of the common consciousness and
01:46culture and so wanting to really make sure that that reflected real life and that's why we started
01:50this conversation we found out it didn't spoiler alert a few years ago uta reached out to me saying that
01:58um lily was interested in doing a study on health portrayals in film and television and i thought oh my
02:04gosh what a great opportunity many of you might know me from my work that i've done on gender and
02:09race
02:09ethnicity and lgbtq and people with disabilities but we were really waiting for the right partner to do a
02:15study on how is health represented in storytelling and so i think the first major headline is it
02:21isn't um you might think the pit which is great but when we pull back and really look so we
02:27looked at
02:28100 films and 100 tv shows and across more than 8 500 speaking characters right there were only a handful
02:34of portrayals of cancer and guess what 50 of those people died right we see very few obese characters
02:41in uh storytelling based on our research though 37 of the u.s population right yeah is obese when it
02:48comes to dementia um one of my most interesting findings uh only a handful six in television uh
02:56programming and we're talking across 3 500 series regulars guest stars and speaking characters right
03:03just a half a dozen interestingly of those six characters uh they were all cared for their
03:12caregivers were men and i'm like this does not reflect what i think when i think about caregiving
03:20in the united states and who's doing the work so so can you tell us a little bit about why
03:26lily
03:26funded a study and funded the annaberg inclusion initiative to look at health and storytelling
03:31what were some of the things that surprised you or didn't surprise you about the study
03:37and how have you used it in research and advocacy we funded this first of all dr as stacy smith
03:44is a
03:44woman of action and that's why we chose to partner with her because it's not just about making the study
03:49but it's actually using the data to then drive action so after the study we've been having conversation
03:54like this in rooms like this where there are people that can actually influence um storytelling
03:59and storytelling that everyone consumes in the us and beyond um to really drive some of this change
04:05so we did this study because we wanted to create action the reason why is because you know as a
04:10as a
04:10company as an advertiser i can make a thousand psas on the importance of cognitive health on the
04:16importance of recognizing early symptoms of alzheimer's or the importance of maintaining a healthy way to
04:21improve your chances of health and really none of that is going to help as much as you seeing yourself
04:27portrayed into a story that entertains you and that engages you and so the the reason was to really
04:34change and bring in health into the conversation what surprises me the most what surprised me wasn't
04:39the absence because we knew that likely that was going to happen um the inaccuracies really worry me and
04:46i know you you can cover those um more accurately than i would do but it's it's not just about
04:51how
04:51inaccurate things are it's also the consequences that it causes for people so when you don't know
04:57things or in the absence of knowledge your brain all of our brains tend to feel to fill the gaps
05:02with
05:02fear and so one example is uh the example around cancer that you mentioned is not just you know 50
05:08percent of the characters die but typically they get diagnosed and they die in the same episode
05:13when you talk to oncologists today while cancer continues to be a very difficult journey
05:19oncologists refer to it as you know a chronic treatment so there's there's hope and the hope
05:25usually comes from early treatment so it's not just about it's inaccurate it has real consequences
05:30because when you see somebody getting diagnosed and dying in the same episode it's not just that it's
05:37inaccurate it creates a fear for you to go find out whether you have you do have cancer and we
05:42know
05:42that early screening is the very best thing that we can do to actually you know have a chance against
05:47the disease and so as a as a result of that less people are getting screened and so it's not
05:52just
05:52about um depiction it's also about action that is tied to that and the same goes for alzheimer's and
05:59diabetes what was really uh i think fascinating when we started working together i'm like so you're not
06:05pushing medication and the answer was no and i'm like this is really fascinating so you don't want
06:11product placement no you're interested in how does how does storytelling not stories about health
06:18that's not what you're interested in how does storytelling um include the reality of health within
06:25it so i was watching tv the other night i'm watching this australian show i won't tell you the name
06:29but a a a said person was his name was joey he was a series regular in season one he
06:37had lung cancer
06:38and it was metastatic to his brain so his his his uh doctor paid 50 000 to get him in
06:46a clinical trial
06:47because we know that's ethical and then he um he uh then when joey's uh cancer metastasized he wanted
06:56to be euthanized so what the doctor did is he got 11 doses of snake venom injected him with snake
07:05venom
07:05and stapled him with a stapler so it made it look like a snake bite oh and that's how he
07:11died
07:12of cancer in his small narrative arc and so so eli lily in company and lena yes we kind of
07:23want to
07:23change that right yeah yeah right so so talk to me like in an ideal world what is the reality
07:31of
07:32treating cancer now and and how much hope should we have and how do we think about then and telling
07:37stories that might reflect what we don't typically see present day yeah in storytelling yeah you know
07:44and it is very much about it's not about the product and it's not about even sometimes it's not even
07:48about
07:48the treatment sometimes it's about just what we always say is this is not about controlling the
07:53narrative this is about changing who can create good narrative and changing the perception of this and
07:58changing it for good so it's you know after three years of having this type of conversations thankfully
08:04we start getting some good projects and some of the conversations are you know people reaching out
08:08and say hey i'm i'm writing a sitcom there's you know five people should the mom have alzheimer's or
08:13should the mom you know start thinking or should i even consider this so even the fact that we're
08:17asking the question when stories are being written is important and the way we want to change it is
08:22look there is a place for people to be informed about product this is not what we're trying to do
08:27that's you
08:28know we have whole teams that can advertise products this is really about empowering
08:32hollywood and empowering um the community of storytellers and and showrunners and writers and
08:38everyone that has a say in the content that people consume to actually consider health as part of the
08:44conversation so sometimes it can look like treating a disease with snake venom no uh just for the record now
08:51and
08:52some of the times it also may look at you know maybe remission maybe you know cancer having been
08:58part of the conversation another big uh area that we don't touch as much in in our uh row show
09:04that we do
09:05is um is is the fact that also we were just talking about multi-generational watching for example
09:11is not just about watching together but sometimes you know as myself as an advertiser for example we focus
09:18so much around thanksgiving and the holidays not just because of viewership but also because
09:22that is the time when families come back together and when families come back together sometimes that's the
09:28time where you notice an empty chair or where sometimes you notice that your aunt your grandmother
09:34is not quite there as much as she was the year prior so you start seeing you know symptoms changes
09:39if those narratives are absent from storytelling then it becomes just a you problem instead of
09:46129 million people in the united states suffering from some type of chronic disease so
09:51it's really you know i think for for us as a company and certainly the mission of this
09:56we want to put health before anything else and that's always been the mission and so it's about
10:01empowering and sustaining the community of people that writes the story and creates the best
10:05entertainment in the world just to be able to at least have the tools and ask the question of
10:11how do i depict a beautiful nuanced you know difficult character that has gone through life experiences
10:19and some of these life experiences likely might include health issues now you've worked with an
10:25amazing roster of people and i get to say that i work with them too which is really a nice
10:30unintended
10:30effect here but but you've worked with wild state and chris helmsworth's company right you've worked
10:36with regina king you've worked with uh charles and stacy uh at macro um you've worked with imagine
10:43entertainment cbs paramount i mean lily's open for business and so just to make this really concrete
10:50in terms of what we're talking about could you walk us through one of those partnerships and what you
10:57were able to accomplish in storytelling with your your fleet of experts your team of um uh strategists
11:06to actually start changing this narrative in a really succinct and practical way yes there's a
11:12couple of things in and you know we are very proud of those partnerships a couple of things you know
11:16it
11:17starts even at the beginning with your help and the partnership we struck with rebecca studios as well
11:22in terms of creating um dr's myth um office has created also in collaboration with lily a uh toolkit
11:28for story writers and and that basically explains not only how to talk about diseases like alzheimer's and
11:34eczema and obesity and diabetes but also uh what tropes to avoid in depicting characters so that's you know
11:41a tool that's practical and that people use but then also in those collaborations i think you know all of
11:46them have been incredible
11:47incredible and the reason why they've been incredible by the way it's not just for the names and the
11:51caliber is because there's a shared mission so none of those partnership has been brought on
11:56just because there was a desire to put a project you know through the finish line the first question we
12:02always ask is like will we change health together and is that a real shared desire in those those cases
12:07it was so for example um the chris hamsworth uh conversation chris hamsworth's father does
12:14have alzheimer's he's diagnosed with alzheimer's when you get alzheimer's um there's only so much
12:18you can do and what you can do from a medical perspective is really so far it's only to slow
12:22down the disease so finding out early is super important and so he had this uh special with the
12:28national geographic where he was kind of taking his dad back into his childhood home and and using
12:33that as an experience to show people what the early symptoms were missed and so we create some
12:37ancillary content with him and and it was incredibly impactful for people to see that because again
12:43it's different when you see somebody that is literally a hero by the way on tv actually going
12:48through that experience with their loved ones and one of the the uh disease states that we measured
12:53was diabetes yes and we looked at 100 shows and 100 films um like i said about 8 500 speaking
13:00characters
13:00and out of all of that content there was only one character with diabetes in one film and that was
13:09killers of the flower moon in 2023 a story that took place decades ago right and yet we interviewed
13:17regina king yes and she was excited to think about what it would mean if her a character that she
13:23played
13:24simply had diabetes right what would that mean with insulin right how would that be almost a
13:31uh incidental um attribute of her role without a heavy hand in the storyline can you think of any
13:40other uh shows that you've been working on contract creators you've been working with that it was that
13:46small of a detail that just makes the story a little more nuanced and authentic and resonates with the
13:53audience yes there's a couple i can think of that we can't quite yet say because they're in the making
13:58so
13:58i won't go there i think regina also had such a great point because also as a director her perspective
14:04was you know sometimes you don't have to be heavy-handed just give it to the actors because
14:07that's what actors are amazing at and just say she was like what if you had diabetes you know and
14:12so just let them go and let them figure out what that looks like um there's been i would say
14:17across
14:17the board like many i think that that's been the power of this is actually not taking the creative
14:22control and just giving the creative control of people that actually do this well and just supporting
14:26that uh with the with the right information i'm going to take your question and maybe like answer
14:32a little bit different in the sense that there is one thing that still no one has helped with
14:36um and that continues to be my call to action is when we do have these projects there's so much
14:41desire
14:41to talk about all these diseases and so people definitely gravitate towards alzheimer's towards
14:46diabetes toward cancer because it's intuitive one of the biggest barriers for people in the united
14:53states and globally is understanding that metabolic disease is a disease is understanding this is if
14:59you think about excess weight obesity this is the only disease where the patients get blamed for the
15:05disease there's a host of science that shows that this is a biological issue and that it can now be
15:11treated so there is a big challenge on the table who will help destigmatize obesity and excess weight
15:18um because only honestly only this room and people like this room can do that it's not going to be
15:23a
15:24medicine company that you know shows people what that lived experience looks like so that to me
15:29more than what has been done well to me that is still the biggest gap lena you have had a
15:36profound
15:36influence already um on the entertainment industry and documenting it has been so thrilling not only for
15:44our lab but the hundreds of students that were funded to work on this project you have the people that
15:50shift culture in this room they're here i mean i'm kind of like fangirling like i'm not going to go
15:56into detail but the shows in this room are so incredible and the conversations i've had what's one thing you
16:03want them to leave this conversation with thinking about with health knowing what kind of impact they have
16:09and their writers have in storytelling and reaching audiences that these stories might resonate with
16:15and other people who may know nothing about the things that lily does what would be the one thing
16:22you want them to know here tonight yeah i would say the first thing is always ask the question if
16:28you're
16:28looking at the project if you're looking at a script and that script that project has people in it you
16:34should ask yourself the question about does health fit this conversation in any any shape it doesn't
16:39have to be a heavy-handed shape but ask yourself a question because if you're asking your question
16:43then your writing room is asking the question and then that creates a positive conversation that then
16:47ultimately helps you write you know like i said a more nuanced environment and um you know the second
16:54piece is really you know come to us from when it comes to you know having idea and having conversations
17:01and having support whether it's you know medical information or other things but this is really
17:05about creativity this is not about uh you know medical conversations only so ultimately it's about
17:10creating great product and you guys are the ones that can create great content so just know that there is
17:15a real mission behind this this is not going to stop tonight it has you know had a long history
17:20prior to
17:20tonight there's real passion behind uh wanting to put health into cultural conversations and so um
17:26um you look at us as partners and you know whether it's from a sounding board perspective all the way
17:30through supporting a project you know uh we're here but we're here for good ideas so uh that's um
17:36that's i think my biggest call to action lena thank you so much thank you for sponsoring this event
17:42and really i think bringing to usc and the annaberg inclusion initiative a project that isn't only
17:48intellectually engaging but if we can help people understand that early detection and prevention
17:55is the cure is the way forward um you've done good you've done very good together please join me in
18:02thanking lena polomeni thank you thank you
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