As the new administration wages its war against everything it considers to be "DEI," Smriti Mundhra’s Hulu dating series Muslim Matchmaker is not likely to earn any executive preference. But Mundhra says studios will continue to pursue diverse programming… as long as they think they can make money from it.
“If they believe that more representative storytelling is going to help their bottom lines, then they will follow through on that,” says Mundhra. “They will find a way to make the things that they want to make, whether they call it ‘DEI’ or not. And if they never believed in that, they were never going to do it anyway. They would have some token program check the boxes and call it a day.”
Mundhra speaks with NPR TV critic and media analyst Eric Deggans about her diverse body of work. She has a slew of dating series spread across streamers, and has made a couple of Oscar nominated documentary shorts — including last year’s I am Ready, Warden. She tells us about navigating these varied projects, and about her time as a production secretary for the Coen brothers on the films O Brother Where art Thou? and The Man Who Wasn’t There.
More: ‘I Am Ready, Warden’: Does the death penalty truly bring closure?