Not being a big fan of pop culture I had never heard of Shonda Rhimes until I happened on a story this morning about a media controversy of which she is the focus. Having just read the linked Wiki article about her, I find that she sounds like a very interesting person who I would like to know more about. For those of you who are as out of it as I am, she has established a very successful career as a television writer and producer.
The cause of a major Twitter storm and a bunch of online articles is a New York Times article by Alessandra Stanley, a white woman writer. The controversy arises from Stanley's opening lede to the article.
When Shonda Rhimes writes her autobiography, it should be called “How to Get Away With Being an Angry Black Woman.”
The rest of the article does not appear to be intended as an attack on Rhimes. It is attempting to discuss her contributions in creating black women characters that break out of conventional stereotypes. Slate has published an analysis that suggest that there is more wrong with the article than just its salacious opening line.
Shonda Rhimes Is Not an “Angry Black Woman,” New York Times
With compliments like these, who needs insults? Rhimes is no more the “angry black woman” than her characters, who are angry the way that a bird is bipedal: It’s not false, but it’s not to the point.
To understand Rhimes’ work as a reclamation and redefinition of the phrase “angry black woman” is to take an extremely narrow, arguably undermining view of what she has accomplished. It would be far more accurate to say that, in her work, Rhimes has embraced and subverted the stereotype of the career-first woman and the mistress rather than that of the “angry black woman,” but even these reclamation projects are selling Rhimes’ achievements short. Rhimes has not just re-framed the stereotype of the “angry black woman,” she has blown open what black female characters are allowed to do on television, including, most importantly, fronting a TV show. (Before Scandal, a network show had not been headlined by a black actress since the 1970s.) Rhimes’ black characters are allowed the entire range of human emotion—anger being just one. This, of course, goes for Rhimes’ non-black characters as well. It is not just Grey’s Anatomy's Dr. Bailey or Scandal’s Olivia Pope who have been cast “in Rhimes’ image.” According to Rhimes herself, that’s just as true of Cristina Yang and Meredith Grey and Scandal’s own Mellie, all of whom get angry from time to time but are not likely to be indentified as “angry non-black women” anytime soon.
I've never been able to see why the idea that black women might have things to be angry is such an earth shaking notion, but I certainly see the problems when the complexities of a person's humanity get completely reduced to an off the shelf stereotype. The article was published online on Thursday and will appear in tomorrow's hardcopy edition.
TPM chimes with a follow up from Stanley.
Not only did Rhimes take umbrage to the title of the faux autobiography, she pointed out that Stanley, a journalist with a long history of factual errors, failed to credit Pete Nowalk as the creator of the new series, "How to Get Away With Murder."
Stanley, however, told TPM in an email that she doesn't think the opening sentence — or the ensuing Twitter criticism — does her profile justice.
"The whole point of the piece -- once you read past the first 140 characters -- is to praise Shonda Rhimes for pushing back so successfully on a tiresome but insidious stereotype," she told TPM
I'd say that Ms. Stanley would appear to be seriously tone deaf on a range of really important issues.