Last Wednesday, Hulu made the puzzling choice to cancel High Fidelity, the well-received dramedy starring and produced by Zoë Kravitz. At first Kravitz played it cool, posting an amicable Instagram goodbye message and thanking fans for supporting the show. Later, though, she left a comment revealing her true feelings about the cancellation, taking a dig at Hulu’s dearth of shows about women of color.
Under the Instagram post, actor Tessa Thompson commented, “I will miss you alllllllllllll so much,” to which Kravitz replied: “it’s cool. at least hulu has a ton of other shows starring women of color we can watch. oh wait.”
Kravitz’s remark isn’t without merit. High Fidelity was one of few Hulu series to star Black women, with the exception of miniseries like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Little Fires Everywhere. While other Hulu series feature women of color in prominent supporting roles (Ramy, The Handmaid’s Tale), High Fidelity was a much-needed step forward for the streamer.
The series was an episodic remake of the 2000 film of the same name, which originally starred John Cusack. Kravitz played Rob, a surly Brooklyn record store owner going through a bitter breakup. The series also starred Dolemite Is My Name breakout Da’Vine Joy Randolph and David H. Holmes.
In an interview with the Irish Times, Kravitz spoke candidly about her approach to casting, saying she was “trying to re-create a world that I know, and that’s what it looks like.”
“It doesn’t look like a bunch of white girls, like the show Girls,” she said, noting the New York-set HBO series that was criticized early on for starring a largely white cast. “If that show was in Iowa or something, fine, but you’re living in Brooklyn. There’s people of color everywhere.”
High Fidelity was warmly received by critics upon its release in February, with Kravitz earning strong reviews for carrying the series after turning in memorable, if underwritten supporting performances in shows like Big Little Lies. The series’s cancellation was a surprise to fans, considering the show’s talented ensemble and instantly high profile. Hulu has been quick to drop the axe on high-profile shows in the past, like Beau Willimon’s Sean Penn vehicle The First—but High Fidelity ginned up a lot more buzz and earned much stronger reviews than the astronaut drama. What can we say? Breakups can be so unpredictable.
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