TV’s Most Influential Creator Shonda Rhimes Covers Time Magazine

The new issue of TIME features a cover story by TIME’s Judy Berman on how TV’s most influential creator Shonda Rhimes is reshaping the streaming landscape – just like she did with network TV.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM TIME’S COVER PROFILE OF SHONDA RHIMES:

TIME’s Judy Bermon writes: “Shonda Rhimes  and I are deep into a conversation about what makes a healthy work environment…I’ve been  waxing indignant about  the professional world’s  unfair assumption t that employees with  kids are not fully present at work. ’But I’m not fully present at work,’ Rhimes, who is TV’s highest-paid and, arguably, most successful showrunner, as well as a single mother of three daughters, interjects….’I don’t think anybody who has kids is fully present at work,’ she tells me…speaking as quickly as one of her hypercommunicative characters, but with a deliberateness that suggests she’s already processed these thoughts. ‘The idea of pretending that we have no other life is some sort of fantasy out of the 1950s, where the little lady stayed at home. I don’t have a little lady at home. So if I am excelling at one thing, something else is falling off. And that is completely O.K.’”

On how she has little patience for a backlash to pop feminism that she views as just more misogyny, Rhimes tells TIME: “I think the girlboss archetype is bullsh-t that men have created to find another way to make women sound bad.”

On how she sees the word girlboss, Rhimes tells TIME: “A nice catchphrase to grab a bunch of women into one group and say, ‘This is what women are doing right now.’ Nobody ever says, ‘This is what men are doing right now.’”

On how she has put quite a bit of effort into creating a workplace that reflects her own feminist ideals, Rhimes tells TIME: “In the span of a year we went from nine employees to 50. There are a lot of things that go into running a company, in terms of culture….I don’t want to sound sexist, but I never tried to lead like a man…I was a single mom with kids. The idea that I would lead any differently than my needs required never occurred to me.”

On how upon reading Pressler’s story, Rhimes was immediately intrigued by Delvey’s chameleonic nature, she tells TIME: “She was such a complex, interesting, unknowable person…If she had been a man, would she have gotten in so much trouble? Would people have even been as fascinated by her? If Anna Delvey had been what is typically called a hot chick, would people have been so outraged?”

On how Bridgerton is the kind of show that seems like it should’ve been a no-brainer in a post–Downton Abbey world but that no one thought to make before Rhimes read [Julia] Quinn, Rhimes tells TIME: “It’s very obvious to me…Then again, a show with a woman of color as leading lady is obvious to me as well. That Grey’s had a cast that looked like the world is very obvious to me. I don’t know why anybody else wasn’t making them.”

On how her shows are not intended as political statements, Rhimes tells TIME: “I don’t like to be preached at, and I’m not interested in preaching.”

The January 17 / January 31, 2022 double issue of TIME went on sale today Friday, January 7.

Content and image courtesy of Time

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About the Author

Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.