Rachel Watanabe-Batton is an Emmy-winning executive producer who recently helped create Disney+’s ... [+]
The past decade has seen a backlash against Hollywood for its lack of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The #OscarsSoWhite hashtag was born in 2015, putting pressure on the entertainment industry to increase representation of and opportunities for women, people of color, and artists from other marginalized communities. In 2017, the #MeToo movement took down veteran producer Harvey Weinstein.
Even so, two recent reports revealed that Hollywood backslid on DEI efforts in 2022. Only 9 of the 111 directors hired for the top-grossing films were women, and the number of BIPOC directors fell from 27 to 21 percent.
Rachel Watanabe-Batton is fighting to blast through this so-called “celluloid ceiling.” The Emmy-winning executive producer recently helped create Disney+’s Sneakerella, a movie that retells the Cinderella fairytale. Set in modern-day Queens, the story centers around sneaker culture. The movie stars people of color and was directed by a woman. The 2022 film won four Children’s and Family Emmys, and was nominated for 11. Watanabe-Batton became involved with Sneakerella because she identified with the multicultural New York City-based characters, having grown up there herself.
Watanabe-Batton is on a mission to bring more diverse stories to media.
As an African-Asian woman, Watanabe-Batton brings a unique perspective to the entertainment industry. She founded the production company Contradiction and Struggle to reframe history and conventional politics of respectability and branding. She enjoys sharing stories that cross culture, class, race, and gender lines.
Some of Watanabe-Batton’s other producing credits include the non-fiction series I Pity the Fool with Mr. T, the barbershop documentary Cutting Edge, and the sports docu-series Insider Training. She also has produced critically-acclaimed art installations for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as top-ten music videos and global ad campaigns.
As an advocate, Watanabe-Batton serves on the board of New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) and leads the advisory board of Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), the largest public media access organization in the nation. She has served on the Producers Guild of America East (PGA) Executive Committee and led PGA Diversity for ten years.
Born in New York, Watanabe-Batton spent her formative years in the multicultural Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. Her parents were New York City public school teachers who thought their children should be actively engaged in the world. They taught their kids to read philosophy and poetry, to love Hollywood films, and to respect the sports and film icons who broke color and gender barriers.
Her love for film burgeoned when Watanabe-Batton attended NYC’s High School of Music & Art as an art major. It was the same year that Alan Parker’s Fame came out, and many of her senior friends were in the film. She then attended Harvard-Radcliffe College, where she started out studying sociology. But when filmmaker Mira Nair came to speak and her film Salam Bombay came out, Watanabe-Batton felt inspired to begin taking filmmaking classes, and later produced a student film.
As a producer and storyteller, Watanabe-Batton blends her Japanese, American and Nigerian backgrounds to bridge cultural gaps and advocate for others. “As a Blasian woman from New York City, born before interracial marriage was legal in America and raised by activist educators, I have, by my very existence, been at the forefront of cultural and socio-political change,” she said in a Forbes exclusive interview. “Today, sometimes, this change comes in the simple form of an introduction or reading a script and providing notes to a writer.”
One of the greatest rewards of her career for Watanabe-Batton is connecting people. “I love bringing creative people together and working alongside them to create something that will live on in this world and influence how we see things. My greatest reward is creating stories that resonate with global and local audiences of all backgrounds and ages. Storytelling has the power to create compassion and freedom or bias and fear. I am interested in spending my time creating pathways to freedom.”
Watanabe-Batton has this advice for creative people. “Listen to your heart. Find a couple of mentors who are willing to offer you advice, advocate for you to get a job, and provide honest feedback. Whether or not you are able to attend film school, join a local film collective where you can take classes and share resources. You can also benefit from larger creative community organizations where you can learn from your peers, such as Sundance Collab. Sign up to attend networking mixers and virtual events. You don’t need to be the expert, you just need to be interesting, prepared and reliable.”
