Shonda Rhimes is one of the biggest names in TV right now, with a whole night of hit programming on ABC. The network depends on her old faithfuls like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder, which would have been the biggest new hit of the year if Empire hadn’t come along. But none of these shows are winning her any Emmys. Today’s announcement about her latest project, producing an adaptation of the National Book Award non-fiction winner The Warmth of Other Suns, might be Rhimes’s play for legitimacy in the prestige television world.
The Warmth of Other Suns, which follows the stories of three African Americans as they left the rural south and headed for northern and western cities in the early 20th century, is a perfect fit for Rhimes. Not only does it have the feel of a classic miniseries, telling three very personal but interrelated stories, but it has a cultural gravitas that her soapier dramas have never really cultivated. This is like Rhimes’s version of Roots, the famous 70s miniseries (that is currently being remade by Lifetime).
The project’s home also carries a bit more prestige. It is being developed for FX, a channel much better known for its boundary-pushing dramas than Rhimes’s usual home, ABC. (Though she’s not going too far out of the family: the show is being produced by ABC Signature, an arm of ABC Studios tasked with creating programming for cable networks.) The Warmth of Other Suns is going to be written and directed by Dee Rees, who is still capitalising on the wealth of festival attention her 2011 drama Pariah about a black lesbian coming of age. Rees’s most recent project Bessie, a biopic about the jazz singer Bessie Smith starring Queen Latifah, is set to debut in two weeks on HBO.
This is a perfect storm for Rhimes. The show is decidedly on-brand for her but allows her to try something a little bit more highbrow without getting too far out of her comfort zone. If The Warmth of Other Suns is successful, it will prove to the world she can do something more than over-the-top melodramas. Smartly, Rhimes is trying to expand her scope (and her base of power) beyond the usual formula, and doing it with a miniseries – which means she’ll be in a much less competitive category come Emmy time.
The Warmth of Other Suns also capitalises on another promising trend, the cultivation of stories about people of colour on television. Thanks partially to Rhimes’s work on Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder and the overwhelming success of Empire, finally it seems as though networks can’t get enough stories about people of colour on the air for the upcoming seasons. ABC, especially, has dedicated itself to diversity with Rhimes’s shows and sitcoms Blackish and Fresh off the Boat. The network has been reaping the rewards, not only with great ratings and critical acclaim, but with in positioning itself as a modern network dedicated to telling the stories of all Americans. The Warmth of Other Suns seems like it’s the perfect project to show everyone in a very good light.
