Jessica Chastain has made a strong statement against CBS Entertainment. The network has come under fire for the lack of diversity in their lineup, and for that reason, she's championing others instead.
Earlier this week, CBS Entertainment's President, Kelly Kahl, and its Senior Executive Vice President of Programming, Thom Sherman, announced their Fall 2017-2018 programming. We were less than impressed. Every single lead is a white male, except for the show S.W.A.T, where former Criminal Minds B.A.U bae, Shemar Moore, takes the lead.
Where are the women? Where are the people of color? According to Sherman, they're getting there. He told Buzzfeed, "We want it to be diverse. We want all sorts of programming — all sorts of different types of programming, and we believe that we will get that."
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I'll just @netflix and chill. Or some @HBO greatness. Or anything by #RyanMurphy
— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) August 2, 2017
There's so many incredible options that dont include @CBS https://t.co/lGGTcZhvMR
Slow and steady doesn't always win the race, however. As Chastain points out in her tweet, HBO and Netflix are already featuring women and women of color. Shows like Insecure, Dear White People, Master of None, and Ballers are already doing amazing with their people of color leads.
She also points out that "anything by Ryan Murphy" is bound to be diverse. He's the showrunner behind Glee, American Horror Story, and American Crime Story all of which feature people with different genders, sexualities, and ethnicities. Glee came out in 2009. That means CBS has had eight years to jump on the bandwagon.
The best way to fight back against a lack of diversity is to watch diverse shows instead of the other ones. For so long minority characters have been deemed too risky to feature. In reality, women and people of color have proven to be incredibly profitable. (We saw it best with the movie Girls Trip.) CBS needs to get with the program or they'll suffer the consequences.
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