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Shonda Rhimes, Internet Explode with Rage over Deadline Piece Saying Ethnic Casting Is Getting Out of Hand

Ethnic programming, “about time or too much of good thing?”

Mar 25, 2015 14:44 GMT  ·  By
"Empire" is a huge hit right now, and its cast is mostly black
   "Empire" is a huge hit right now, and its cast is mostly black

Trade publication Deadline Hollywood is under serious fire after running an op-ed called “Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings - About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?,” which suggests that the mandated quota for casting ethnic actors is harming Caucasian actors, and only making the problem of diversity in showbiz all the worse.

Shonda Rhimes, one of the biggest names in TV right now, mostly thanks to hit shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal,” and “How to Get Away with Murder,” was one of the first heavyweights to react to the “ignorant” piece. The outrage on social media hasn’t stopped since.

“The pendulum might have swung a bit too far”

The Deadline piece is available at the link above, but if we were to sum it up, it would be something like this: there’s an increase in demand for ethnic actors on TV, and the situation is getting out of hand.

About 50 percent of the pilots made in recent months feature ethnic actors, even though blacks only make up about 13 percent of the population. The problem with this situation, Deadline argues, isn’t that blacks and other minorities are getting a shot in an industry that has been often criticized for being “too white,” but rather that studio bosses are mandating that a certain quota of ethnic casting be maintained.

In other words, the change isn’t natural, it’s imposed (and forced). The solution would be to have actors compete for the same part regardless of the color of their skin, not to have studio executives demand that more ethnic parts be created.

In support of this argument, Deadline offers examples of shows that were supposed to be mostly white (in the sense that they were written this way), but ended up being mostly black because of this new “trend” of ethnic programming.

“A lot of what is happening right now is long overdue. The TV and film superhero ranks have been overly white for too long, workplace shows should be diverse to reflect workplace in real America, and ethnic actors should get a chance to play more than the proverbial best friend or boss,” the piece says.

“But replacing one set of rigid rules with another by imposing a quota of ethnic talent on each show might not be the answer,” Deadline adds.

Backlash is instant, furious

As noted above, Shonda Rhimes was among the first to react to the horribly “ignorant” piece, but she wasn’t by far the only one. As you can see from the samples of tweets available below, both industry people and regular folks at home, i.e. the very people who watch the shows Deadline writes about, were upset by the implications in the piece.

Thinking this way, that ethnic actors were “shutting out” Caucasian talent, was part of the problem, they say. Moreover, you can’t say there’s a “trend” of ethnic casting when the overwhelming majority of shows on TV are still mostly white; you can’t take a good thing like industry’s attempt at racial diversity and claim it’s a trend and that it’s bad.

As of the time of writing, Deadline is yet to pull or otherwise edit the article in question. Many commenters on social media vouch they’re done showing their support for the publication and that they will never read it again, so that alone should have convinced them that a statement of some sort was needed.