Shonda Rhimes will not take things, especially comments that refer to her as an "angry black woman," lying down, entertainment site Popsugar reported.
The executive producer, who created popular shows "Scandal" and "Grey's Anatomy," recently took to social media to call out to The New York Times after Alessandra Stanley, the publication's chief TV critic, said Rhimes' memoir should instead be called "How to Get Away with Being an Angry Black Woman."
On Friday, Rhimes posted five tweets directed at the publication, in which she pointed out, among other things, that Stanley mistakenly claimed that it was Rhimes who created ABC's latest show, "How to Get Away with Murder," starring Violet Davis. The show, Rhimes said, is the brainchild of writer Pete Nowalk.
"Confused why @nytimes critic doesn't know identity of creator of show she's reviewing. @petenowa did you know you were "an angry black woman"?" Rhimes posted on her Twitter account.
Several hours later, the executive producer tweeted a Slate report, which said Rhimes "has blown open what black female characters are allowed to do on television, including, most importantly, fronting a TV show."
Stanley, in her report, also compared "How to Get Away with Murder" lead Viola Davis with "Scandal's" heroine Kerry Washington. She wrote that Davis is an "older, darker-skinned and less classically beautiful than Ms. Washington."
For her part, Washington tweeted at the New York Times with the links to the reports from Slate and Vox. Nearly two hours later, the actress also re-tweeted a message from her show co-star Joshua Malina, who said, "Wow. Did I just read a @nytimes piece that reduced my brilliant, creative, compassionate, thoughtful, badass boss to an "angry black woman?"
Stanley responded to the issue, saying that her words were taken out of context because of the limited messaging nature of Twitter.
"The whole point of the piece - once you read past the first 140 characters - is to praise Shonda Rhimes for pushing back so successfully on a tiresome but insidious stereotype," Stanley wrote in a statement sent to Variety.
Stanley's story was published on the newspaper's website on Thursday and was also scheduled to run in print in the Sunday edition of The New York Times.