Artnewspress : BBC America’s “Killing Eve” is facing backlash for what appears to be a stark lack of diversity in its writers room for season four.
Eyebrows were raised on Friday night after one of the series’ writers, Kayleigh Llewellyn, tweeted a now-deleted post showing a screenshot of a Zoom call between the show’s writers.
“15 weeks later, it’s the final day of the Killing Eve writers room,” wrote Llewellyn. The image showed nine individuals — a group that is predominantly female, but all white — raising a glass to the camera.
An examination of “Killing Eve’s” IMDb writing credits across all seasons, which spans 16 writers including executive producer Phoebe Waller-Bridge and author Luke Jennings, does not appear to include any writers of color.
Director-producer Matthew A. Cherry, whose short film “Hair Love” won this year’s Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, retweeted Llewellyn’s post, writing, “Y’all really be proudly sharing these non diverse writers room screenshots freely on the TL like it’s something to celebrate.”
Meanwhile, U.K. writer Rachel De-lahay, whose credits include BBC One’s “Noughts + Crosses” and Netflix’s “The Eddy,” slammed the show’s lack of diversity, billing the writers as “the next cool generation + they don’t seem to give one f—.” De-lahay recently spoke to Variety about the problematic lack of opportunities for Black creatives in British TV.
