{"id":580399,"date":"2026-04-12T20:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T20:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/580399\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T20:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T20:54:08","slug":"issa-rae-says-dei-has-become-a-bad-word-in-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/580399\/","title":{"rendered":"Issa Rae Says DEI Has Become “A Bad Word” In Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA decade after her groundbreaking HBO series Insecure premiered, Issa Rae<\/a> sees the industry backsliding into a lack of diversity.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 3x Golden Globe nominee explained that \u201cHollywood is in an identity crisis right now,\u201d citing a pivot to social media creators and away from meaningful storytellers as she detailed how hard it is to get something made as a woman of color. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI started Awkward Black Girl because there was a dearth of representation in the industry, and it felt like this was my opportunity to put an archetype into the space that didn\u2019t exist at the time,\u201d she explained to The Wrap<\/a> during a recent panel.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd now, even after so much progress, we\u2019re kind of back to limited representation and having to stake claim of our stories,\u201d added Rae. \u201cWe\u2019re back where we started, in a way, but wiser.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRae revealed that execs of color have told her they \u201ccan\u2019t cosign you\u201d out of fear of losing their jobs, \u201ctiptoeing\u201d around the rollback of DEI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tIssa Rae in \u2018Insecure\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJustina Mintz\/HBO<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m seeing it. Just blatantly,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t investing like they were before. [DEI] has changed meanings and has become a bad word.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRae noted, \u201cYou have to be smarter about how you package and market [projects]. You tell them, \u2018It\u2019s not a show about a Black woman, it\u2019s a show about class.\u2019 As icky as that might feel, it gets the show sold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBased on her YouTube series Awkward Black Girl, HBO\u2019s Insecure ran for five seasons from 2016 to 2021.<\/p>\n

\n\tRae nominee most recently signed a three-year first-look deal<\/a> with Paramount, which was one of several media companies to follow Trump\u2019s directives on rolling back DEI<\/a> since its Skydance merger last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decade after her groundbreaking HBO series Insecure premiered, Issa Rae sees the industry backsliding into a lack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,8854,12007,88,55935],"class_list":["post-580399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-dei","tag-diversity-equity-inclusion","tag-entertainment","tag-issa-rae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}