‘Bunheads’ Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino Sounds Off on Shonda Rhimes Comments

It’s Amy Sherman-Palladino vs. Shonda Rhimes.

After Rhimes took to Twitter to criticize the lack of diversity on Sherman-Palladino’s new ABC Family show Bunheads (“Hey @abcfunheads: Really? You couldn’t cast even ONE young dancer of color so I could feel good about my kid watching this show? NOT ONE?“), the former Gilmore Girls creator addressed Rhimes’ comments and the lack of female showrunners in TV on Internet talker Media Mayhem.

“I’m not going to get into a pissing match with Shonda Rhimes because she’s got like 15,000 shows. She’s doing just fine for herself,” she says. “As far as the women thing goes, I’ve always felt like women have never supported — in a general sense — women to the level that they should. It’s been my experience through my entire career that the biggest boost I’ve gotten and the biggest accolade have always been from men.”

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“I think it’s a shame but to me, it is what it is. Maybe they feel it’s too competitive, I don’t know,” Sherman-Palladino adds.

The Bunheads creator says that if she was in a similar position, she “wouldn’t do go after another woman” and “frankly I wouldn’t go after another showrunner.”

Sherman-Palladino noted that the budget for the series was small and when casting came around, she “had to find four girls who could dance on point and who could also act and they give you a week and a half to do it. That’s how pilots go.”

Though the producer never answered the question as to why there was no diversity on the show, she did say this: “I don’t do message shows. I don’t give a shit who you learn your life from. Someone said, ‘Oh god, I hope we don’t see the eating disorder show. You won’t because I don’t give a flying f— about that.”

Watch the segment below: