Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, two well-known reality TV game programs, are under fire for discriminating against their employees! According to two former workers at parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment, executives at the two programs’ workplaces discriminate against individuals of race.
Two former Sony Pictures Entertainment employees filed civil rights charges on October 25, 2024, alleging that they were denied opportunities in comparison to their white coworkers. Additionally, they described how they frequently encountered racial insensitivity, citing an incident in which staff members made fun of a Black contestant’s natural hair. The highest-ranking Black production executive on the cult-classic gaming shows was one former employee, Shelley Ballance Ellis.
She described how, in her 26 years of employment with the corporation, she was inundated with more work but was conspicuously overlooked when she was promoted. The second former employee, Monique Diaz, is Latina and spoke about how, despite working on the programs for 23 years, she was paid slightly less than a recently hired white coworker.
In April 2024, Diaz and Ballance Ellis were let go as a result of company restructuring. Ballance Ellis, however, thinks Sony singled them out because they consistently opposed workplace discrimination. In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY, she disclosed that Hollywood frequently denigrates marginalized people and highlights the pervasiveness of white supremacist ideology. She is hopeful that her suit against the business won’t go in vain in the following words:
“I hope that this will give any entertainment executive a chance to examine themselves and truly take an honest, open look.” The chief of the clearing and licensing division, Shelley Ballance Ellis, remembers having direct encounter with racial prejudice and insensitivity. The organization is generally tolerant of racially offensive comments, particularly regarding Black contestants, according to her complaint.
During a Wheel of Fortune production meeting, one employee overheard a coworker making a derogatory comment about a Black woman’s locs hairstyle, comparing it to the movie The Elephant Man. This was only one of many examples of racial insensitivity. As explained in her complaint, Ballance Ellis did not see the comedy in the show, even though the director said it was funny at the time.
The former employee also mentioned in her complaint that she had expressed issues over racism in the Jeopardy clues! and recommended that they be more considerate and inclusive. Ballance Ellis noted that many of these incidents caused trauma to the workers.
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