Rick Najera and Fern Orenstein, the producer and casting director of the CBS Diversity Showcase, are what might be called backwards thinkers that have held this particular opportunity for so many actors hostage to negative and unhelpful practices for far too long. It has become very easy to apply the racist label to anything these days but there are still times when it’s necessary and very deserved. The CBS Diversity Showcase is supposed to be a forum where actors and writers can come together to show their works and display what they can do so that they might get noticed and possibly get an agent that will begin to help them by opening up new opportunities for their career. The problem is that for many years now the Showcase has been seen to be incredibly racist and sexist to its continually-changing cast.
That’s a big problem since getting into show business isn’t easy to begin with, but having to walk through a dumpster fire shouldn’t be a requirement for anyone. There have been some big names that have come through the Showcase and survived, but they still remember the torture they had to go through to get there. Nejara and Orenstein were particularly hard on the people, slinging racially-charged language at them and shaming many people for their body image. The manner in which they treated their people was largely unreported since the majority of the individuals wanted a job and couldn’t take the chance that this might be their big break.
It’s amazing how much abuse a person can allow themselves to take for that one chance to shine in the spotlight. The trouble is that Nejara and Orenstein didn’t always seem intent on making that dream come true. They didn’t treat their people with much respect as the reports go, nor did they seem able to refrain from actively trying to upset their cast in more than one way. It’s said that Orenstein would even go so far as to tell some of the actors that she’d been the cause of eating disorders in the past. Now call me crazy, lot’s of people have, but even in jest, telling others you’ve caused eating disorders is a little nutty, and not at all okay.
Plus, the diversity aspect of the Showcase was almost non-existent and both Nejara and Orenstein didn’t seem to think twice about it. People were actually told to dress and act differently according to their appearance, the color of their skin, and the nationality they appeared to be. It was a severely mishandled program that has since seen the removal of Nejara and quite possibly Orenstein, eventually. Keeping those that fail to see the value of diversity in a program that features the same word in their title is a bit insane, but at this point CBS has finally done something about it and has taken note after someone decided to speak up about the ill treatment they’d received.
A program that has “diversity” in it’s title is after all supposed to be DIVERSE.
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