Issa Rae Says You ‘Need to Be Smarter’ About Pitching Shows With a Diverse Cast Now That DEI ‘Has Become a Bad Word’: ‘Hollywood Is in an Identity Crisis’
by MoneyLibrarian9032
Issa Rae Says You ‘Need to Be Smarter’ About Pitching Shows With a Diverse Cast Now That DEI ‘Has Become a Bad Word’: ‘Hollywood Is in an Identity Crisis’
by MoneyLibrarian9032
17 Comments
Almost like you’re better off pitching good ideas all the time regardless of other factors.
Just tell good stories and stop with the unnecessary and unwanted race swaps. It’s just all so tiresome
What about you just create a story and cast the most suitable actors without selecting on race?
Edit: lol racists downvoting me already
So she’s learned nothing, for her it’s still about black representation when the audience has made it clear they’re sick of racial or other agendas being foisted on them by TV/film.
Just write good shows and people will like it, stop putting politics and representation ahead of actually producing a good product. It’s not rocket science.
3 comments saying the same (stop swap races). I always thought it was bots, but sadly are really people.
I am just here for the hundreds of bot comments (and a few people who didn’t read the article) coming to stroke the “fight” between different people, so we don’t fight the people actually causing issues.
People are generally not opposed to diverse casts, but diversity for diversity’s sake rarely is conducive to good entertainment.
We live in an era of excellent, diverse fiction. Instead of adapting *those*, Hollywood is more interested in choosing which iconic redhead character gets to be Black this time. DEI should have been an incentive to explore new, more diverse IPs. But that’s too much effort.
I do not get why red head race swaps are being brought up here when Issa Rae works in comedy and does original work. There’s no race swaps happening in the work she’s talking about. It’s literally the “make original stories” people always talk about.
She’s saying that if her main lead is a black woman she has to talk around the lead character in her pitches to make it work.
Diverse cast was never the problem
Making it the focus of your product, having the product fail, then crashing out on twitter and blaming customers (even potential ones) is the problem
You pitch a tekken tv show about fighters having fights and drama each week leading up to kicking heiachi’s ass after he summons an alien god or something, then it’s not a problem
People just wanna be entertained
AKA you can’t get by just based on your identity anymore.
Issa’s greatest talent is her talent, as obvious as that sounds. She knows how to make good TV first and foremost, which is only made better by her unique perspective and worldview. It sucks that she has to navigate additional obstacles in an “anti-woke” world. The silver lining is that her talent can still succeed while lazy ideas like a new Charlie’s Angels for the sake of it or Ghostbusters-but-women no longer get greenlit automatically. The woman behind “Insecure” shouldn’t have to fight to be seen amongst the shlock.
Maybe just don’t make it look forced? Most groups don’t have one of each crayon in the box and it’s real obvious when you force it.
Imagine having to earn something based on merit instead of skin color, fuckin’ wild idea I know right?
I mean.
Yeah, I want shows with a diverse cast to be fairly smart. I don’t just want “AND THIS ONE IS A BLACK.”
Make it matter. Make it make sense.
Is the dwarven wife black because she is a type of dwarf from the east who works closely with a glass type mineral which reflects the sun and so they’ve evolved differently?
What? No? She’s just…a random black dwarf who still lives underground like usual but is…black.
Eh.
OK.
You can have a diverse cast. Just don’t have a diverse cast because you’re trying to check off every box under the guise of being inclusive because you have shitty writing. Meaningful representation matters more than anything.
I loved the first seasons of Insecure. I tried with Rap Shi*t but found it a slog. The film she produced (one of them days) was pretty funny
I am reminded of Jada Pinkett Smith’s African Queens series that was lambasted – NOT for its subject but for it’s hollywoodish way of twisting facts in order to “make the story better.”
I remember i thought it would be extremely interesting, but i had to turn it off after 20 minutes.