Lee Daniels is working on a series about the Me Too movement, but the campaign's founder Tarana Burke doesn't think the upcoming project reflects the message of the organization.
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During a recent interview with the New York Times, the activist described the instant she heard about the filmmaker's new show.
“The hair stood up on my arm,” she told the publication. “To put Me Too and comedy in the same sentence is so deeply offensive and not because I’m uptight and I don’t see comedy in things. We’re not ready for a comedy and it’s just so offensive that you think in this moment when we’re still unpacking the issue that you can write a comedy about it. And that’s the type of thing I’m talking about. We have to get out in front of that.”
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She also discussed the significance of making Hollywood’s writers’ rooms diverse.
“That’s exactly why it’s important to get in the writers’ rooms now and to connect with Hollywood now,” she explained. “Before it gets to be such a catchall phrase that they dilute its meaning, that we help people understand the gravity behind the words and that it’s not just used as, ‘Oh, look who got Me Too’d, ha-ha,’ like a punch line.”
The news about Daniels' series was announced earlier this month. According to Variety, the comedy centers on a staff of the ombudsman's office at a college, where the employees must "reconcile the dissonance between different generations of feminism."
No word yet on when it will be released.
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