With her fictional podcast Diversity Work, Pearl Tan wanted to tell a true-to-life story about the experiences of a group of diverse creatives making their way in an industry which wasn't built for them. She speaks with Newsworthy about the process behind her award-winning podcast and what surprised her most.

'I had no idea what some of the decisions each of those characters were going to be until I experienced it in the moment.'

Listen to Diversity Work on Spotify, Apple Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

TRANSCRIPT

Pearl Tan (As Toni Lee in Diversity Work): This is diversity work. Diversity work is being torn between the institutions we operate in and our own values and relationships. Diversity work is being asked to do extra labour because of your identity. Diversity work is putting our struggles with discrimination in our personal lives aside in our professional lives. Diversity work is waiting for an apology that never comes.

Jack Nivison: Hello, and welcome to the Newsworthy podcast. My name is Jack Nivison.

Nupur Parakh:And I'm Nupur Parakh.

Jack Nivison: Today on the podcast, we'll be chatting with Pearl Tan, creator of the award-winning podcast, Diversity Work. Pearl is the current discipline lead in directing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. She was listed in the 40 under 40 most influential Asian Australians and she's currently completing her PhD at the University of New South Wales. Pearl Tan, thank you very much for joining us.

Pearl Tan:Hi, thanks for having me.

Nupur Parakh: So, um, Pearl, can you tell us a little bit about Diversity Work?

Pearl Tan: Sure. So, Diversity Work is a fictional podcast. It's five by 30 minutes and it's half of my PhD in creative practice at UNSW here. The premise of it is as though, because it's all fiction, it's as though Channel 8, in inverted commas there, has been accused of racism and one of their execs accidentally blurts out, “we've got a show in development that ticks all the diversity boxes at once” and he's lying and then what happens is this group of intersectional writers are quickly brought together to kind of cover up that lie.

And it's their task, We have one week with them as sort of like a fly on the wall in the writer's room as we listen to them try and tick all the diversity boxes at once in a pitch. And of course, it's very challenging to do. There's a whole social media storm that happens and a lot goes down. So it's created by myself and nine co-creators, and we used long-form improvisation to record the work as well, which is why it sounds almost like a documentary, even though it's all fiction.

Jack Nivison: Here is a brief snippet from the first episode.

Sanvi (in Diversity Work): Thank you guys for the photo. As you know, I've met most of you already, but just to sort of be more official about it, my name is Sanvi Mukherjee. I'm the executive producer for Channel 8. I've worked with Tony several times before and I'm excited for this room that she's pulled together, so thank you all for being here. Before we start, let me begin with a welcome to country.

Toni Lee (in Diversity Work): Ah, acknowledgement.

Sanvi (in Diversity Work): Sorry, acknowledgement to country.

Jack Nivison:Yeah, actually, on the topic of the improvisation, I thought that was such an interesting way to format the podcast, and I'm not sure how many fictional podcasts kind of take that lilt, but when I was listening to it, and I'm not sure if you felt the same way, Nupur-

Nupur Parakh: Yeah, it felt really organic. I mean, I wonder, like, were there any moments of improvisation that were very insightful for you or you found surprising that like, “oh my god, I haven't thought about it that way?”

Pearl Tan:Yeah, absolutely. So I've got a background in working with improvised content, so usually in films. So this is my first podcast, but I've made a lot of short films using improvisation. So the process was actually with the nine co-creators. We did a two-day workshop and we pretty much, everyone came up with their own character, their own character name. They had a lot of control over what identity they wanted their character to have and how similar or different that was to themselves.

And we came up with common themes and we built the general plot together. So, I came in with the sort of story world and a general idea of where I wanted it to head and the research principles that I wanted to address. But in that two-day workshop, it was a really safe space where we all just shared things that we had experienced and things we'd witnessed in the industry or heard had happened.

So once those things were in place, then I went away and created this, what I call a “script blueprint.” And that pretty much is scene by scene what happens in terms of the key plot and there was sort of homework for each of the co-creators so sometimes they would address a certain thing and we'd have that planned but other times it “was what is your response to this thing that happens?” and they would decide for themselves.

So when we were recording it was sometimes completely fresh to us. We had no idea what how anyone would respond. I had no idea, for example, what some of the decisions of each of those characters were going to be until I experienced it in the moment and then the Artifice of it is that even though it's fully improvised It's heavily edited.

Yeah, it was a long editing process, and all the narration was written in the editing process.

It was almost like recording something and then writing with the material you already have, and the narration was there to put things in context.

So I knew the structure would work because I could fill gaps in with the narration. But yeah, absolutely, that element of surprise and of us, you can feel in the podcast us listening to each other, and you can feel the performances are very naturalistic and that was because I'd done a lot of research listening to other fictional podcasts and I really didn't enjoy how fake they sounded, like the performances were, yeah, a little bit on the nose and took me out of the reality so that's why I've wanted to work with improvisation.

Nupur Parakh:You also said that it was also based on like real-life experiences, so what made you choose the fictitious medium?

Pearl Tan:Great question. So that is heavily based in research. So one of the key research tenets is from the work of Sarah Ahmed. And one of her key things is, if you're a person from a diverse background and you notice that there's a problem and you raise the problem, you are often seen as then the problem itself. So you get labelled as a troublemaker and it can affect your career.

And so then later on in her book “Complaint”, she also provides somewhat of an antidote for this, which is what she calls collective complaint and creative complaint. So for me, this podcast is a form of collective and creative complaint where we're like, “hey, listen to our experience, see our experience for what it is”, it's extremely truthful, but we are collectively doing it and we are creatively doing it.

So, you can't label us as individual troublemakers or have a go at us individually because this is representative of all of us and beyond all of us as well.

Jack Nivison:The impression that we get from the podcast is that this is coming from a place where you do have to express a lot of frustration with the current system that exists, particularly within the realm of creativity and creative industries. I was wondering if there are any examples of creative media that actually have sort of reflected a more, I guess, positive outlook when it comes to the treatment of intersectional people.

Pearl Tan: Yeah, I would say there are very few and that even when they're made, there is often criticism of them. And I think it's really tricky to get, that's kind of what the podcast speaks to as well is that to tick all of the boxes is kind of impossible and that often when something's made someone who is represented or misrepresented will say, but what about us? Or that doesn't represent me.

And there's a real pressure on material, on shows, on screen content, on media to represent sort of everything at once. And it's impossible, really. So there are some examples that I think have been recently lauded and have gone through that process of having some …that sometimes people go, ah, this is great, but there are others who kinda disagree. Like the one that springs to mind is Heartbreak High at the moment. And then in terms of, you raise a great point in terms of structures, the work that we made could never have been funded because it was improvisation and because it was co-created.

Maybe now that I've done this podcast, I would be considered a safe pair of hands and maybe could get some funding to do similar work but it would be really difficult to. So, the example that springs to mind about that is a film called Here Out West, which is an anthology film that was written by a number of Western Sydney writers and was directed by a number of directors and sort of came together in a feature film.

And again, that is a really interesting model because of the way it was created, the way they, it wasn't typically one author or a couple of authors writing or directing the work.

Nupur Parakh: Also, when you mentioned collective complaint, it reminded me of the episode where a collective of well-renowned, diverse writers, they write a letter. Here is a snippet of Tony talking about that incident

Toni Lee (in Diversity Work) In a nutshell, they basically say that we're making a mountain out of a molehill in the ruckus we've caused around this publicity photo. They say that we shouldn't speak on behalf of everyone and that social media and cancel culture are distracting us from the work we should be doing. And then they list off the work they say we should be doing. Things like “fighting funding cuts” and “keeping things Australian.”

Nupur Parakh: And I mean, that got me thinking, like, why? I mean, you are from a similar background, like, why did you decide to choose that particular plot? Like, what was the whole gist of it?

Pearl Tan: Yeah, that episode was the most challenging episode to get right. I had a listening day where an early iteration of the five episodes were listened to and got feedback, and that was an episode that just didn't work at all. I had to pretty much re-edit it from the ground up and re-write it, really. And it's because my initial edit was quite… the episode was quite combative, and it kind of… people who listened to it said it felt like the writer's room was unempathetic or felt like they were doing the things that they were criticizing from the group of people who wrote the open letter.

So yeah, I had to really think deeply about that episode. And one of the key things, again, going back to the research that Sarah Ahmed talks about, is about a number of things, sort of that ‘model minority’ thing where she talks about it as positive duties where when you're working for an institution or organisation you have to speak well of them and she also talks about those who are sort of in positions of power that, when they get there, have they done it in a way where they've conducted those positive duties so much, they've become model minorities.

They've sort of had to swallow the system to survive and then other things come into play and the new generation comes up and they sort of go, “hey, pipe down,” and she's got a whole pile of research on what she calls warnings, warnings from people who've been in the industry who sort of speak to “be careful because you don't want to be labeled the problem.”

So that was an episode that was really important to me because it sort of shows the complexity and I think often we think, “oh it's people advocating for diversity and it's people who are against it” and nowadays less people against it but you know like maybe not as radical perhaps.

But this to me really showed the nuance in the diversity within the diversity.

Nupur Parakh:Have you experienced something like this?

Pearl Tan: Oh, we're approaching treacherous territory. Let's just say all the co-creators and I have experienced many things in line with the plot and themes of the podcast.

Nupur Parakh:Well…can you tell us some of them?

Pearl Tan:I think if you dig a little deeper into the history of what has happened in Australia, and so once my PhD is written you'll be able to read about it, which I'm hoping to submit later this year. Two reports to me kind of stand out. It's the two reports from Screen Australia, the "Seeing Ourselves" report from 2016 and then "Seeing Ourselves 2" from 2023. And they sort of bookend my research.

And in "Seeing Ourselves 2", there actually is quite a few qualitative interviews with practitioners who speak to some of these difficulties. And it's sort of my hope that the podcast takes those a step further so that, so yes, it’s grounded in truth. Yes, things have happened even though it's all fictional, but it does heavily relate to our experiences in the screen industry.

Jack Nivison:Yeah, the impression that we get is that so many of those experiences probably feel as though you're walking on such a tightrope in terms of balancing the interests of whatever organisation that you're working for and obviously your own interests. The character Sanvi is so representative of that. And I was wondering what the thought behind including her character was, because she exists, I suppose, in a space not necessarily different, but very unique between the characters and the network.

Pearl Tan: Yeah, she is such an interesting character. I had people at that listening session sort of say, “oh, she's like the board members I've been dealing with, and she's in my head,” they're like the board papers, and she does go through arguably the biggest journey. And she was a really important character to me because of a big conversation that I'm frequently having about whether you make change more effectively by being in an institution and affecting change within it, or whether you need to build your own systems outside and create your own models of working.

So she needed to be somewhat of a counterpoint so that we could show what it was like to be struggling within an institution but still being an advocate. And so yeah, the journey she goes on is really important and yeah, a really incredible character I think.

Jack Nivison: The quote mentioned that sort of comes to mind when you talk about operating within institutions as opposed to rejecting them and maybe establishing your own, is this little monologue from Grace which we'll play here now. monologue from Grace which we'll play here now.

Grace (in Diversity Work): But we're still contained in what Audre Lorde would call the master's house, which is the system. And it's so hard to work within that system.

Jack Nivison:I was wondering how much of that quote is, uh, reflected within not just the podcast itself, but, but your research.

Pearl Tan:Yes, absolutely. That is, I think a piece of research that I'm constantly talking about with people and constantly saying, you know, people will get angry and will have that snapping point that Kiara sort of has in the final episode and their response is, burn it down, burn it down, we can't operate within these systems.

But then the question is always, but then how do we resource the things that we want to do? And if you get resourced, then suddenly you are maybe, you become one of those systems or you become beholden to the stakeholders who fund you. So it's this conversation that goes round and round in circles that I've had like year after year ever since I started thinking about these sorts of issues.

So that was absolutely key. It's something that we discussed in the workshop and that I always knew would either begin or end the whole podcast because it's so important to me and to the group.

Nupur Parakh:The podcast, it felt… I mean I was able to visualise it. Have you thought about like doing it in any other medium as well?

Pearl Tan: Yeah, great question. It was, well first of all I have to shout out to Raquel Cuevas who did the sound design, the sound mixing and sound design, and she did an amazing job of just sort of moving that group around from room to room, which is part of where the humour comes from, and the world. So all of the co-creators were individually lapel-miked, and there was a centre room mic, so I had a lot of flexibility in the edit to be able to edit around and cut things in and out.

But she was the one who really kind of brought that world together so that you can visualise it, and that's so interesting to me because all I can see when I think about the podcast is just where everyone was sitting when we recorded it.

I did think deeply about what medium to tell this story or a story through, and it became a podcast because if you're creating screen content, which is the medium that I normally work in, when you're speaking to issues of diversity, you often have to show the thing that you're criticizing.

And so many times we've seen examples of films or screen content where they try and do that but they don't quite pull it off and then they end up perpetrating the thing that they were attempting to criticize. So I really didn't want to have that risk. That was one of the main reasons. And the other one was just so much cheaper. Like, and I really wanted to tell, I was like, the only way I can look into a nuanced story, robust thinking, long form storytelling, to be able to pull that off would be to do it in an audio format.

Nupur Parakh:I'm really glad you brought the change of rooms that was recurrent in all the episodes. Here's some snippets of that.

Toni Lee (in Diversity Work) We're in the boardroom of Channel 8 … We've been moved from the glass boardroom above Channel 8 Studios to a function room behind closed doors ... We've been asked to move location again. First it was the boardroom, then the function room, and today we're in a large green room area near an unused studio with much less privacy ... Unsurprisingly, they forgot to book us a space today. So we're in some strange, dusty room that smells like they forgot to seal the walls and there's a hum of electricity that seems to course through the floors.

Nupur Parakh: How did you decide, how did you like come up with it?

Pearl Tan:Massive shout out to my PhD supervisor, Jody Brooks, who is amazing here at UNSW. And it was actually her idea. She spoke about, you know, the boxes of the container that you're in and how and visibility and she actually came up with that idea.

Nupur Parakh: You played the lead in the series, Toni Lee. Is Toni the character you identify with the most?

Pearl Tan: Yeah, I mean I do identify in her character as I created that character is very close to myself in identity, but really it was very strategic in terms of keeping costs low. And if I played the character myself, it would allow me to then do the narration myself. So it went through, I think, like two years of editing, really. So I wouldn't have to sort of employ an actor or bring someone back in and there's a risk when you work on things over such a long time that someone moves overseas or moves interstate or is not available anymore for you to work with them.

So it was very strategic in terms of that and also that I would then in the improvisation be able to direct the room but in character. So giving myself the role of Tony Lee who does direct the room allowed me to direct the direction I wanted each scene to go in.

And so I'd spoken to my co-creators about how even though the world was improvised and supernaturalistic, that I would be shifting and prompting things within that world without having to take them out of character.

So some of our long-form improvisations went for like over an hour, you know, I think an hour and 15 minutes was the longest one, where we literally just sat around in character and talked, you know, about things and Tony would go, what about this? And then we move on so I wouldn't have to go, oh now we're moving on to this topic. So it was strategic for a number of reasons

Jack Nivison: Were there ever moments within those conversations where there were particular characters that were required to take a particular position on things? Or was it really just down to the actors themselves?

Pearl Tan: Yeah, there were times when I would require something of the group and I would sort of put that out there to go, which does anyone feel like their character would be this person?

Like Mina and her kind of side-eye emoji, that was sort of decided early on, you know, that whole kind of trajectory of, you know, when she created her character, it was an influencer and so it just naturally kind of… the story unfolded.

I think the inciting incident was something we sort of came up with together to say what is something that could legitimately happen today and how would we respond to that. So the skin colouring incident of the promotional photo was something we sort of all came up with together.

But then there were times when I was completely surprised, you know, so one of the great moments I think is when Krista Jackson, who is played by Emily Dash, came up with this storyline which was she saw the post and liked it and then when it went viral she unliked it. And I just thought, that is just so genius. I never would have come up with that, but you know, she sort of went that's my response, because one of my prompts was, did you see the post, what was your response to it, did you share it, did you like it, or are you someone who's not on social media

and doesn't really engage with that. So they all got to come up with their own answers, and so her answer was just so great, because it just unpacked a lot of humour and again, complexity in the situation.

Jack Nivison:It's interesting. There's obviously not a reliance, but there are certainly moments of humour that are generated within the podcast. It's often a bit of an instinct for people to imagine or to categorise that as satire, but at the same time, satire is often exaggerated somewhat. It's removed from the reality of situations and people's experiences, but this doesn't feel removed at all. This feels so true to life. So I was wondering whether there are elements of the podcast that you actually consider to be satirical or whether this is like totally removed from that.

Pearl Tan: It's totally removed from satire and it's, yeah, like people have listened to it and said, oh, this is so ridiculous, you know, and they probably may categorise it as a mockumentary or a satire. And certainly when people hear the logline of a writer's room trying to tick all the diversity boxes at once, they're like, oh, that sounds hilarious. They instantly think it's a mockumentary or satire.

But yeah, when you drill down, you sort of go, “well, what is ridiculous?” Like all these things are very true to life, as you say, and so it was very real, and those moments of humour are absolutely real. They're sort of like you just get to a point where you're like, “oh my god, I can't deal anymore” and we just have to laugh about this and that is also very true to the story world and to what diverse creatives experience, but a side that you don't often get to see. So I thought it was really important and fun and none of that was really planned.

The humour in it was never…like the moments where the room erupts in laughter were never kind of planned. That was just us being genuinely surprised by what was happening.

Nupur Parakh:Like you said, again about the improvisation, were you completely surprised when one of your co-creators or yourself just brought it out and then you were like, “oh yeah, I mean that also happens, you know?”

Pearl Tan: Yeah, no, there was, I sort of came with ideas of some of the plot that might happen. I knew there'd be an inciting incident, we didn't know what it would be and that was workshopped with the co-creators. The open letter was something I always wanted in there because I wanted to deal with that sort of feeling of dealing with intergenerational ways of dealing with it and the complexity of labelling it as intergenerational.

There were – most of the plot came about through Sarah Ahmed's research and she does a lot of other work around what she calls diversity documents and following diversity like institutional performative statements and institutional mechanics. And a lot of that is her work talking about how organisations say they have a lot of diversity but the reality is that the experience of diverse creatives within the industry are something quite – it doesn't quite align so it becomes almost like PR in some ways. So a lot of the plot points actually stem from findings from Sarah Ahmed in the research.

Nupur Parakh: One of the things that I also thought was really detailed because each character also has a very different reaction to all the incidents that happened with them. Like Krista, for example, she was more like, let's focus on the work. I think that's important. That's how we will be able to portray the real problem. But other characters were much more upset about the incidents. So did that take a lot of planning?

Pearl Tan: Yeah, absolutely. That was something we talked about in the two-day workshop about how we wanted a variety of approaches and a variety of things represented. Again, it came quite easily. Emily Dash is a very positive person, the actor who plays and co-creator who plays Krista. You know, it was something we sort of knew she would be the person representing that, and she had great joy, I think, representing that in the podcast.

And in terms of the different levels of engagement and different responses, that actually wasn't that difficult to craft, because I think the diversity in the room of, you know, all the co-creators have lived experience of being diversity workers and diverse creatives in the screen industry, do have nuanced views on what happens. Like it's not, I think people assume that a bunch of diverse creatives get in a room and we all agree with each other and we're all advocates and we all want more, more, more, you know, and that's not actually the case.

And so, to have, one of the things I loved about doing it the most was in the two-day workshop how much I learned from the co-creators, particularly for me personally about disability. So we had the characters of Krista, Hope, who is deaf, and Penny, who has an invisible disability. Those three characters and the way that – this is a spoiler, if you haven't heard it, go listen to the ending –

but at the end, those three decide to come back to the room and there is a discussion, as a realization, I think that was a surprise. I didn't know who was gonna stay or who was gonna leave. That was a surprise in the inpro. But to have all three disabled characters choose to come back due to a lack of opportunity versus some of the other characters who were like, no, I'm not coming back, I'm not dealing with this, I'll go do something else, was a revelation to us, has been a revelation to the audience, and is backed up by data. The research shows that disability is the least seen diversity group on Australian screens.

Nupur Parakh: You won the Webby Award, which the New York Times called the internet's highest honour in the category of fictional podcasts, and you also won the Silver Award for Innovation at New York Festival's Radio Award. Can we expect a second season of diversity work?

Pearl Tan: I have been asked that question a lot and I am not sure yet, simply because I just need to finish my PhD first, which will be a few months' time. And then my thinking currently is that it could go in two directions. So it could go into Diversity Works Series 2, which is the same story world, the same characters and perhaps new ones, and you sort of continue the story.

I think people want that, but I am not 100% sure what else. I sort of poured everything into this one, like what else I would be saying with it. I'd have to think really carefully, and do more research about what else I would be saying. Another version of Diversity Works Season 2 would be to take the research methodologies and the way we went about doing things and put it in a new story world.

Jack Nivison:I was wondering how important is the feedback for the podcast in furthering the research?

Pearl Tan:Yeah I mean in my PhD Research, so I released the podcast at the end of the last year and it will be around about just under a year before submitting the written part of the thesis… And it was never the intention to use audience response or critical response as part of that research.

It was meant to be that that was the outcome. Here is a creative and collective complaint. We've made something that does something and through the making of it we have some findings. So the feedback for me has just been kind of interesting.

I think I haven't really analysed it or codified it and I'm not particularly going to actively use it as in the PhD, it may be an area of further research that I'll go into, but right now it's just kind of fun to get the feedback.

Jack Nivison: And I suppose on the topic of feedback and the relationship between the podcast and the audience, what is it that you think you would love the audience to get out of the podcast?

Pearl Tan: It depends on when you say audience, it's also thinking about who is the audience that we're talking about. So the primary audience for this was always, for me, other diverse creatives in the screen industry, very niche, and really in the context of Australia. That they would hear this and go, oh my gosh, I am seen and heard, and I feel so relieved that something like this exists because if I experience pushback or aggression or microaggressions in the industry, I can say, you know what, I don't want to have this fight. I'm not going to be the problem. Go listen to this podcast and that the podcast speaks for them so that they don't have to.

So that was my always my original audience and that certainly I think has been the case. I've had people in the industry say, ”oh, it's like reading my diary” listening to this podcast.

Or it's so true that I had to take breaks because it felt so true to what I've experienced. I think then my secondary audience is, and where I hope it will have impact, is people who work in the screen industry or in other industries who mean well, who want more diversity, or so they say, or so they believe in themselves, but they don't really know how to actually go about it.

And that this gives them some understanding of a really nuanced, complex understanding of what the experience is of diverse creatives and that assumptions can't be made so that they'll have conversations with them about what their experience is. So a lot of people have commented that the little coda at the end where Tony Lee says, “this is diversity work, diversity work is”, and then summarizes each episode, that, I mean, for me, those are the research findings and those are the things that, to disseminate those research findings for people to understand that this is the work that a person from a diverse background is almost forced to do, whether they want to or not, that that is the experience and that is how challenging it is.

So if they can understand that, if they can viscerally understand that and be a part of that and really go, oh, okay, I get it now, then they can be better allies, they can be more empathetic, more understanding, more curious to have conversations and make meaningful change.

Jack Nivison:Pearl, thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. You can find Diversity Work on Spotify, Apple Music or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Jack Nivison…

Nupur Parakh: With Nupur Parakh…

Jack Nivison: And this has been a Newsworthy Podcast. Thank you for listening.

— Transcribed with Cockatoo.