Fox Exec Says She Won't Make Excuses for Lack of Diversity, Proceeds to Make Tons of Excuses

Another day, another Television Critics Association panel where network executives attempt to apologetically explain why their shows are created, written, and produced by and feature white men without actually revealing that they probably just don’t care about diversity. Today, it’s Fox’s turn!

This morning, Dana Walden, the co-chairman and CEO at Fox Television Group, had the displeasure of addressing a recent controversy surrounding the upcoming season of X-Files, which was revived for…reasons, and which initially boasted an entirely male writers room. She announced that creator Chris Carter had added a grand total of two female writers to the staff. Congrats? Maybe it had to do with the public backlash to this from the STAR OF THE SHOW?

As usual, Walden said that the heart of the problem lies in tradition. Via Hollywood Reporter:

“I don’t want to make any excuses for anyone,” she said, before getting into the very specific history of the franchise [Ed. note: this is what is also known as “making an excuse”]— one that was populated, almost exclusively, by male writers and directors in the 1990s. The revived version of the show just happens to be populating from the same pool.

Of course, having the same writers on the same show is good, but “it was sexist before so it has to be sexist now” is literally the kind of nonsense that is still is still keeping women out of jobs.

“Chris has assigned two women to two of the ten episodes, and we do have two female directors,” Walden explained, adding that half of of the directors this time around aren’t white men. “I think Chris is making moves in the right direction.”

Sure, good for them for including people of color and of course adding two women. It’s nice knowing that even the most beloved shows can’t entirely get away with the attitudes of two decades ago. But “making moves in the right direction” just isn’t enough at all.