Stop Wigging Out!

We pull out the glasses, pour the wine, turn our phones on Do Not Disturb mode, and put the kiddies to bed early... tonight is Shondaland Night on ABC.  For three hours we get to bask in intriguing, electric paced television that causes our jaws to drop and our eyes to widen while we gasp for breath.   Gynormous--although a made up word--is not big enough to describe the feat that a writer, Shonda Rhimes marquee's three national network television shows. 

The eldest, Grey's Anatomy is in its eleventh season.  I repeat 11th season. 

Scandal garners record market shares so ferociously that national and cable networks shuffle shows opposing Thursday's #1 hit show for four seasons-- I repeat 4th season-- like a game of shell swap. 

Now we have, How To Get Away With Murder.  As Executive Producer, Rhimes' did not create nor does she write on the show.  However, the show bears the stamp of Shondaland's predecessors.

How To Get Away With Murder
Airs Thursdays 10pm EST, ABC

Viola Davis is a proven twenty year-plus veteran of stage, film and television.  We've seen Davis opposite some of the best:  Phylicia Rashad ( Everybody's Ruby, The Public Theater NYC);  Meryl Streep (Doubt) for which Davis was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress;  Sissy Spacek (The Help) for which Davis won Best Actress AAFC and received the Golden Globe Nomination.  Now we see her standing strong in her own prime time television series.  How magnanimous!  Yet, as a community of viewers, many have decided to focus public debate on--drumroll please-- her wig. 

Qualified Black actresses abound in Hollywood yet viable mediums for displaying such talent are minimal.

My question is do we want to see the likes of highly skilled actors like Viola Davis and scores of others, or not?  If we do, why reduce the credibility of these actors and give firewood to simplemindedness for a surface, low level complaint that should yield no merit or momentum. Did it ever dawn on complainers that Annalise Keating, a high profile Defense Attorney and Law Professor (Davis' character) wears a bad wig?  You don't think this issue is dangerous?  Two words.  Pam Oliver.