PGA Fetes Visionary Creator

‘Black-ish’ guy Kenya Barris to be honored

Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris became the latest TV heavyweight to defect from network TV to Netflix in August, when he signed a three-year overall deal with the streaming service. He joins other high-paid small-screen producers such as Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy at the streamer.

The Emmy nominated showrunner, who is being honored with the guild’s Visionary Award, has been a hot commodity since 2014, when “Black-ish” debuted. The ABC series instantly drew solid ratings and robust critical praise, particularly for episodes addressing complex social issues. The series was a breath of fresh air — unafraid of potentially volatile topics like gender, class, sexuality and especially race.

Case in point: a February 2016 episode that took on police brutality. At the time, Barris said the desire to address the issue came from his own attempts to talk to his kids about various incidents of police brutality that made headlines.

“I’m a huge fan of Norman Lear, and I really wanted to just do a conversation [episode],” Barris told Variety at the time. “We decided to just see what happens when you turn on that television, and you have to have that conversation that you’re not ready to have, and there’s a lot of different opinions in the room and no one’s quite sure of how to talk to the kids. We just went from there.”

Barris still serves as an exec producer on “Black-ish,” that skein’s spin-off “Grown-ish,” and forthcoming series “Besties.” Also on deck is a feature reboot of “Shaft,” penned by Barris, and an animated Bob Marley project.