There have been several diaries here about the really awful New York Times piece on TV writer and producer Shondra Rhimes. Two of them were by me here and here and two by Denise Oliver Velez here and here.
The Guardian which is ever willing to show its upstart cousins across the pond how it should be done has published a piece about Rhimes and her work that takes a different approach.
'Shondaland is the most integrated and interesting geography in America'
It is written by women of color who are in a position to appreciate the multifaceted impact of Rhimes work.
Shondaland is the most integrated and interesting geography in America: it’s a field inhabited by blacks, whites, women with power and vulnerable men, veterans with PTSD, queer folk, Asians without accents, Republicans, autistic savants, southerners, assassins, Hispanics, and interracial siblings. They all stab each other in the back; then they all have make-up sex.
If her plots are often thinly disguised reworkings of old scripts, it is the mashing-up of familiar characters that is often the most fun, what with black James Bonds and male Monica Lewinskis. She has cast Viola Davis in the role of the Paper Chase’s patrician Professor Kingsfield. She has cast Portia de Rossi as a gimlet-eyed version of Condoleezza Rice. She has cast Kerry Washington in a softer manifestation of the Machiavellian role Glenn Close played in Damages. This makes for wonderfully thought-provoking confusions of category as well as great throwaway lines.
The fact that Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope could be a driven heroine who goes after bad guys one minute and a flawed individual who fixes elections and sleeps with a married guy the next, is what made her fascinating and infuriating. She was a character with gray areas – a rare role for women of color in Hollywood, so often relegated to filling stereotypes. I love that she sometimes wears her hair in its naturally curly state, that she walks with purpose – and that her clothes are fierce.
That’s what makes New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley’s characterization of Olivia and How To Get Away with Murder’s Annalise (Viola Davis) as “angry black women,” so myopic and offensive – in supposedly giving Rhimes credit for bringing us black women in the round, she reinforced the biggest stereotype about them.
These are two short quotes. The article consist of fairly short but pithy reflections from four different women. It shows what you get on the subject of diversity when you hear from people who struggle with it everyday and not to some white yuppie princess who lives in a bubble with Maureen Dowd.