Alisa's Hollywood Flameout

La Queen Sucia ^ | Oct. 13, 2005 | Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

[Kitten Festival]

I pick up a copy of the NY Times yesterday, and read an arts brief with the headline "Diversity Still a Problem For Hollywood Writers." ...

A few minutes after reading this story, I get a call from my TV agent at ICM, telling me that the new management of Lifetime is not very interested in The Dirty Girls Social Club TV show. That, in fact, they wanted to "kill" it immediately, but that they are willing to listen to a re-pitch. That means that even though Lifetime owns the option for now (meaning I can't do anything with it) they are unlikely to follow through on the show.

"Unless," says my agent, "we bring in another writer who is better-known than you, someone they're comfortable with."

Such as? Darren Starr. White male. Nothing against Darren, okay? He's great. A great talent. And I understand that I have never written for TV before. But that's not the only reason they want to bring him on. Darren is the writer/creator of Sex in the City, Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210. The new management at Lifetime apparently thinks MY take on MY OWN BOOK is too complicated, not fun enough, and, well, too Hispanic. ...

One of the stipulations I had when I sold the deal to Lifetime was that I would be the producer, writer and creator. Now, my agent tells me, the Lifetime executives would prefer that when the re-pitch meeting is held, I am not in the room. WTF?!? They are happy to have my AGENT there, but not...me. Right.

I am not wanted in the room?

That's right. They not only want to replace me with a white male writer who makes the network comfortable and would likely make Dirty Girls whiter and therefore "more fun," but

[Kitten Festival]

Lifetime TV didn't like Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's television screenplay any more than Jennifer Lopez did. But unike Lopez, Lifetime decided to give Alisa a second shot at the project with a better writer. For their efforts to salvage the project, she screamed bloody murder, yelled racism, impugned their motives and demanded the right to run everything herself. THEN she went and wrote all about it on her public blog.

Forecast: She'll Never Eat Lunch In That Town Again.