Robin Thede Says Black Stories Need To Become the “Regular” on TV

During a virtual session of the ATX TV Festival, Robin Thede, the creator and showrunner of HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show, discussed how Hollywood can work on better-representing people of color, on and off the screen.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Thede said that in order to do this, there is a need to not only hire more Black actors, but also writers, directors, and crew members so “everyone feels equal on set.” Thede added that networks, studios and streaming services need to “greenlight ‘more modern Black stories.'” “Go watch black people just living regular-a** lives and being flawed and not being ‘strong Black women’ every time. Part of the normalization process is to watch us as you watch anything else,” she said.

Thede participated in ATX TV Festival’s “Showrunners State of the Union” panel along-side Marta Kauffman of ‘Grace and Frankie’ & ‘Friends,’ Julie Plec of ‘Legacies’ and Liz Feldman of ‘Dead to Me.’ During the panel, Thede also voiced her support of the protests across the country, saying, “I’ve been black my whole my life, and I’m glad the world is recognizing, hopefully for the long term that black people are not treated equally in this country and abroad. It’s about opening people’s eyes, the women’s lib movement did, and the gay rights movement did. Change only happens through revolution. I’m invigorated.”⠀

The four women also touched on the fact that part of the problem is that the only people who can afford to move to LA, and therefore the people who get jobs, are those with money. Plec says she is currently working with Warner Brothers to employ writers across the country via Zoom. “I could very easily hire writers from Atlanta, where we shoot, and everywhere else, to get a job writing for a show via Zoom if they don’t have the means to live in LA. That is a game-changing idea. Now we have to figure out how to make that happen.”