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“Diversity is not an effort or an initiative. Don’t have summits or meetings. Just hire people.” –Shonda Rhimes
“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal” and “How to Get Away With Murder” are all trending shows we anticipate weekly. Don’t lie, we are all powerless to our fearless Queen Shonda Rhimes. We don’t say, “It’s a beautiful day to ruin lives” for no reason.
Rhimes has given us Olivia Pope, Annalise Keating and an ultimate fan-favorite, Cristina Yang. These female actresses are some of the most recognizable faces on television right now, and they are all women of color. For years now, Rhimes has been receiving awards for casting diverse characters on her shows, and, quite frankly, she is honored but exasperated. She says, “Betsy [Beers] and I are being applauded and given an award for something that we should all be doing. There shouldn’t need to be an award!”
It’s 2016. Why do we still need to give awards for portraying the world as it is? In January at the Producer’s Guild Awards, Rhimes was honored with the Norman Lear Award for Achievement in Television. In her speech, the inspirational woman once again called out the need for this honor, saying, “I have, against the odds, courageously pioneered the art of writing for people of color as if they were human beings … It’s not trailblazing to write the world as it actually is.”
And Rhimes is right. Norman Lear was casting diverse characters 40 years ago. Why does it seem like we have reverted back to a time where there is only one depiction of reality: white? The entertainment industry needs to take a page out of Rhimes’ book and cast as the world is because, “Different voices make for different visions. Different visions make for something original. Original is what the public is starving for.”
