Hollywood Showrunner Uses Storytelling As A Way To Bring Marginalized Voices To The Screen

Storytelling is more than a way to escape reality. It’s a form of communication, a way to express emotions, memories and ideas. Great stories connect with audiences and allow the viewer to enter the storyline where they’re at and imagine themselves within the concept. Hollywood is built on the ability to tell a compelling story. As the industry becomes more diverse and inclusive, more underrepresented voices are heard and portrayed. 

Bisha K. Ali, Hollywood writer, producer and showrunner, is taking action to make certain opportunities are more readily available to those, who in the past, have been historically marginalized in the field. She partnered with Netflix, in association with Sky, to launch the Screenwriters’ Fellowship, a year-long paid program to support six U.K. outstanding screenwriters from racial and ethnic backgrounds underrepresented in the high-end television and film industry. The participants will be placed in a writers room of a Netflix or Sky series. 

“The Fellowship is a small step towards creating a more inclusive industry and is my effort to help contribute to change,” she states. “The Fellowship came to be over a series of conversations between Anne Mensah, Sophie Klein and myself, in which I brought to them the issues I had faced trying to establish myself in the U.K. industry.”

Before working in Hollywood, Ali’s first job was at The Economist, working as a data analyst. She then transitioned to a domestic violence frontline worker. However, her passion lay in storytelling. Having moved between three different countries as a child, she absorbed the various forms of storytelling from each culture. Stories weren’t just a form of entertainment; they were a chance to learn about communities and the past. 

As she contemplated her next career move, Ali kept focusing on the storytelling aspect of a role. So she decided to give stand-up comedy a chance. “When I think about stand-up,” Ali explains, “is that it’s underpinned by storytelling. Stand-up is really a pure version of it because it’s a raw connection with your audience. You’re getting notes in real-time if something’s not landing or not making them laugh.”

While performing stand-up comedy, Ali wrote scripts on the side until she landed an agent. Securing a writing role on Mindy Kaling’s Four Weddings And A Funeral catapulted her career. Once production wrapped, Ali created Disney-Marvel’s forthcoming Ms. Marvel, where she also serves as lead writer. The miniseries is based on the Marvel Comics character Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) with a Muslim teen lead character and a significant Asian cast.

“I’m a world builder,” Ali states. “I love building big worlds. So because of the animation, now I get to do that, and it will come to life. I can come up with the wildest thing that I can imagine, and we can find a way to make it work. That transition is seeing it in a different way and different types of storytelling, all of it. … Everything comes back to that central idea. These are all just different ways of telling stories and making beautiful worlds come to light.”

With her partnership with Netflix, Ali can produce worlds where multicultural voices are heard and manifested onto screens. With the addition of Sky joining the program, the Fellows will have access to an even wider range of executives and mentors. Ali also brought in Pelumi Akindude to assist with the structure of the program. 

Ali credits her success to mentorship. She makes it a point to pay it forward, ensuring that she’s not the only woman in the room. “I’ve been very intentional and mindful about trying to make those changes,” she explains. “If we don’t overtly step out of our way to do it, nothing’s going to systemically change. It’s hard. I don’t know that I have all the answers, or I don’t have all the tools at my disposal. But I do know that I have a modicum of power now that I didn’t have before.”

As Ali continues to pivot within her career, she focuses on the following essential steps:

• Understand what’s driving this change and then focus on that. What will fuel your passion for making this pivot?
• Do the research. There’s power in knowledge. Having that data helps make the transition seamless. 
• Be bold. There will be obstacles along the way and plans that don’t work out, but it’s important to have the confidence to make the first move.

“Telling stories is such a pure and simple and human act,” Ali concludes. “I do think it’s an act of love. It’s an act of sharing. And it’s an act of love to tell stories. I felt like I was raised by a story. I was very much raised by television, video games and movies. … I’m putting characters on screen that are very centered and rarely the protagonists and are often treated as side characters. I’m really proud, even if people don’t like it. It’s worth it for people to see themselves on screen.”