REGINA KING IS TAKING OVER HOLLYWOOD ONE PROJECT AT A TIME

"It's good to be Regina King. 

For decades, she's worked in front of the camera as an actress. Now, she's building a career in the director's chair..."

• In 2013, after starring in SOUTHLAND as an award winning actress, she was given a chance to direct an episode during the shows last year. Then she directed a TV Movie in 2013 as well. 

• In 2014 she directed a documentary that she produced herself

• In 2015 MAYA BROCK AKIL and her husband gave her a chance to direct multiple episodes of BEING MARY JANE

• IN 2015 and 2016, SHONDA RHIMES gave her a chance to direct episodes of SCANDAL and THE CATCH

• In 2016 she directed a GREENLEAF for OPRAH'S OWN

• In 2017 she directed an episode of THIS IS US and SHAMELESS

I'm trying to figure out how she has the time since she's still winning awards for acting in various roles

"As guest director of the [then] new series ANIMAL KINGDOM, King has to match the tone of the show — and add her own touch. She admits she enjoys calling the shots: "I like control," she snickers."

read more: 

https://www.npr.org/2016/06/14/481977947/actress-regina-king-is-also-in-demand-for-her-directing-skills

Looking back over the decades at the careers of John Singleton and especially Spike Lee, I'm seeing that black men acquiring power in Hollywood has done virtually nothing for black women's images or black women in Hollywood.

And some black men, like John Ridley (writer of 12 YEARS A SLAVE) have come to see this state of affairs as so "normal" that he actually used his producing/directing opportunity to create a mini-series on the Black Power Movement in Britain and chose a non-black woman be the co-star....THEN had the actual audacity to cast an obviously black woman (not mixed race or light-skinned) as the sellout in the first episode.  

This should have been obvious. But it is black women who help black women rise. I don't know whether this reflects a flaw in black racial solidarity OR if it's just a reality that we as black women need to start seeing ourselves as worthy of putting ourselves first and putting our own concerns out front, as separate from black men, and thinking of everybody else later -- same as every other demographic. 

Maybe?

In any case, it was a black woman named "Shonda Rhimes" that brought black female faces to our television screens after a 40 year absence. There hadn't been a black woman as THE STAR on a television show since a 1960s sitcom called JULIA.  Not only that Shonda gave Debbie Allen, Regina King, and even Ava DuVernay (who was used to movies and not television) chances at directing her television shows before they went on to bigger and better things.

MAYA BROCK-AKIL who first introduced us to BLACKISH star TRACEE ELLIS ROSS by having her star in GIRLFRIENDS also gave actress Regina King a chance to expand her horizons by letting her direct multiple episodes of BEING MARY JANE before she went on to direct for SHONDA

All of this is why I'm waiting to see KING'S name on a QUEEN SUGAR episode.

And now that KERRY WASHINGTON and VIOLA DAVIS have even bigger production companies after having their visibility raised by working on Shonda Rhimes projects, I'm looking for Regina King to work with them too.