Issa Rae Thinks Hollywood Is “Scared and Clueless, and At the Mercy of Wall Street”

Issa Rae is certainly not afraid to speak truth to power. In a cover story for Time magazine, Rae spoke candidly about the current state of Hollywood, stating bluntly that she believes “there aren’t a lot of smart executives anymore.” 

In the story, Rae lamented the current state of Hollywood post-strike. “I’ve never seen Hollywood this scared and clueless, and at the mercy of Wall Street,” she said. Part of the problem, in her opinion, is the aging C-suite that controls a lot of what gets made in Hollywood. “I’m sorry, but there aren’t a lot of smart executives anymore,” she said. “And a lot of them have aged out and are holding on to their positions and refusing to let young blood get in.”

She goes on to highlight a recent shift in which those with the purse strings feel the need to get involved creatively in various projects, rather than just provide the financing. “Now these conglomerate leaders are also making the decisions about Hollywood. Y’all aren’t creative people. Stick to the money,” Rae said. “The people that are taking chances are on platforms like TikTok: That’s what’s getting the eyeballs of the youth. So you’re killing your own industry.”

Rae is in a unique position to comment on the state of the industry as both talent and creator. This past year, she starred in two best-picture nominees, Barbie and American Fiction, as well as a best-animated-picture nominee Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.  Fresh off the final season of Insecure, the HBO comedy she created and starred in, Rae leaned into creating and producing other work via her banner HooRae and her management company Color Creative. 

But while she seemed to be killing it both in front of and behind the camera, Rae told Time that the past year was “not fun at all.” Rap Sh!t, her latest HBO series, was cancelled after its second season, as was Sweet Life: Los Angeles, the reality television show she produced. She’s also no longer involved with the adaptation of the New York Times podcast Nice White Parents, or the highly anticipated TV adaptation of Brit Bennett’s best-selling novel The Vanishing Half. She told the magazine that she had to let go of eight employees during the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Rae told Time that while she’s grateful for the victories writers and actors won thanks to the strikes, “there was the frustration of, ‘Oh, my gosh, this project that I’ve been working on for five years just disappeared.’” She blames some of that on executives for pulling away from certain types of projects—particularly diverse ones. “There is a bitterness of just, like, who suffers from you guys pulling back? People of color always do,” Rae said. There’s data to back up her claim: A UCLA diversity report found that racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among actors, directors, and writers involved in theatrical releases had slid back to 2019 levels after increasing over three years.

For her part, Rae is attempting to pass it forward and give new creatives opportunities in the industry. “I have my little stake in this limited plot of land, and I’m gonna make sure that I bring in as many people to live on it as possible,” she says. “So until we run out of opportunities, they’ll be good.”