Yahoo Movies Gordita Chronicles producer says cancelation is part of 'diversity problem' in Hollywood
Eight months after The Gordita Chronicles was canceled by HBO Max (and subsequently removed from the streaming platform), creator Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz is speaking out about the "diversity problem" in Hollywood.
"Not only was it disappointing when we heard about the cancellation, it was a shock because we were working to start shooting [Season 2] a few weeks later," the showrunner and executive producer told Rolling Stone in a new interview. "It felt very unjust. It didn't matter that our show was beloved, it didn't matter that we had good audience numbers. It didn't matter that we were writing about content that was important for underrepresented communities. None of that mattered."
Laura Magruder/HBO Max Olivia Goncalves in HBO Max's 'Gordita Chronicles'
The coming-of-age comedy starred newcomer Olivia Goncalves as Cucu, a 12-year-old Dominican girl in 1980s Miami. After being canceled by HBO Max, which noted at the time it would be "moving away from family programming," a social media campaign to save the beloved Latinx family series was launched, with TV titans like Quinta Brunson, Eva Longoria, Mike Royce and more sharing the hashtag #SaveGorditaChronicles. Sadly, the series was not picked up by another network.
Laura Magruder/HBO Max 'The Gordita Chronicles'
"The risk of cancellation is something we all accept in this line of work, it's the nature of the business," she said before addressing the recent trend of streamers entirely removing TV shows and films from its service. "But we're in a weird sort of liminal space, a transition of technologies, where we don't have [DVDs] to fall back on. This is our history, and to make them unavailable is erasing that narrative."
She continued, "It's wild to have to fight so hard to keep your content on the air and a big part of it is the demographics of the people making choices on the business side. If we don't have executive talent who see themselves in the material, they're not going to care enough to fight for something because they don't connect to it. And again, this is a piece of a diversity problem that we have in Hollywood right now."
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