Why do Black female artists still have to fight for respect in Hollywood?

Between history-making wins and thoroughly lifeaffirming speeches, Black women definitely took center stage at this year’s Emmys. And after a night like that, it’s whiplash-inducing for me to recall just how shabbily veteran actress Taraji P Henson and her co-stars were allegedly treated while filming the $100m Steven Spielberg-produced remake of The Color Purple.

Henson, a Golden Globe winner, spoke candidly to the New York Times about how much she had to fight for on the set of the Warner Bros film – not just for herself, but for all of the members of the hugely talented ensemble cast, which included Tony-nominated actress Danielle Brooks and Grammywinning Fantasia Barrino.

“They gave us rental cars, and I was like: ‘I can’t drive myself to set in Atlanta.’ This is insurance liability, it’s dangerous,” Henson told the Times. “So I was like: ‘Can I get a driver or security to take me?’ I’m not asking for the moon.”

“They’re like: ‘Well, if we do it for you, we got to do it for everybody,’” she recalls. “Well, do it for everybody! It’s stuff like that, stuff I shouldn’t have to fight for.”

Henson’s outcry comes alongside a new report by USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative that found that the entertainment industry’s recent pledges to support women of color have amounted to little to no change.

The fact of the matter is that Hollywood simply doesn’t care about Black women. The industry still systemically disenfranchises Black female creatives, regardless of where they’re at in their careers – and they’re making no real effort to fix it.

This week, I was excited to see talented, dedicated Black women finally be rewarded for their contributions to television. (Quinta Brunson’s win for lead actress in a comedy is, embarrassingly, only the second time a Black actress has ever won in the category.) And while it’s easy to look at these individual success stories as signs of progress, experiences like Henson’s and the actual industry numbers paint a very different picture. According to the USC Annenberg report, only four women of color (3.4%) helmed one of the 100 top-grossing films of 2023. Three of those women were Asian, and one was Black.

And what’s the reward, you ask, when the “exceptions” find a way to accomplish these huge milestones? Just ask The Marvels director Nia DaCosta, who was the only Black woman to direct one of the 100 top-grossing films of 2023. DaCosta was subjected to a campaign of hate and online harass