Whitney Cummings Explains Frances McDormand’s ‘Inclusion Rider’ Speech

During Frances McDormand’s Oscar speech, she said asked all the female nominees to stand up and demanded people to write their stories.

“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, whatever suits you best, and we’ll tell you all about them,” she added before concluding her speech with just two simple words: “Inclusion rider.”

Whitney Cummings recently explained what that means: “An inclusion rider is something actors put into their contracts to ensure gender and racial equality in hiring on movie sets,” she wrote on Twitter. “We should support this for a billion reasons, but if you can’t find a reason to, here’s one: it will make movies better.”

Elizabeth Banks echoed the sentiments: “I just found out about inclusion riders,” she told journalists last night. “It has always been available to everyone who does a negotiation on a film. You can ask for and/or demand 50 percent diversity in cast and crew. I just learned that after 35 years in being in the film business. The whole idea of women ‘trending?’ No. African Americans ‘trending?’ No. It ends now.”