‘Black-ish’ creator left ABC after it shelved an anti-Trump episode: Report

“Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris.
Getty

• “Black-ish” creator
  Kenya 
  
  Barris left ABC in August for
  a reported $100 million deal with Netflix.
  
• A big reason for his departure was that ABC shelved a
  “Black-ish” episode that its execs deemed too critical of
  President Trump, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
• Barris reportedly had “a flurry of
  back-and-forths with executives as high up as CEO Bob Iger”
  over the “political sensitives” of the episode (which he
  wrote), before ABC decided to shelve it. 

 

Kenya Barris, the creator of the ABC sitcom “Black-ish,” left ABC
in August for a reported
$100 million deal with Netflix.

A big reason for his leaving ABC, according to
a new profile of Barris in The Hollywood Reporter, was that
the network “mysteriously and indefinitely
shelved” an episode of “Black-ish” that ABC executives
deemed too critical of President Trump.

Barris wrote the episode in question, titled “Please, Baby,
Please,” and ABC shelved it days before its planned premiere on
February 27. The episode reportedly included
news footage of Donald Trump, the Charlottesville
attacks, and NFL national anthem protests, and also featured
animation and a voiceover segment from filmmaker Spike
Lee.

The “Black-ish” creator reportedly had “a flurry of
back-and-forths with executives as high up as CEO Bob Iger” over
the “political sensitives” of the episode, which ABC and Disney
executives feared would alienate viewers, two sources told
THR:

“Executives at ABC, more than any other network, have been
forthright about their desire for more red-state programming
since Trump’s win — and with Barris’ latest episode, they feared
they’d be alienating the very population they’d tried so hard to
court. That Disney brass wouldn’t want to poke Trump himself just
as the company was seeking Justice Department approval of its
acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox is widely believed to
have been a factor as well.”

Barris said that ABC had him rework and cut some of the
episode’s “anti-Trump material,” but the result wasn’t fit to
air. 
“What it ended up being, and I think the
network would agree, was not a true representation of what we
intended to do. Because if it was, we would’ve shown it,” Barris
told THR.  

Barris left ABC in August to sign
a multi-year production deal with Netflix that was reportedly
worth around $100 million. The deal puts him in the same salary
realm as producers Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy, two showrunners
who previously signed eight-figure deals with the streaming
service.

Read THR’s feature here.