Sunny Hostin has found an interesting solution to what she claims is Hollywood’s refusal to embrace Black and Brown creative content: artificial intelligence (AI).
The View co-host defended the new technology during Friday’s episode of the ABC talk show, arguing that generative AI can circumvent Hollywood’s supposed racial “gatekeeping” and even describing it as a “new art form.”
There’s one rather important detail complicating Hostin’s argument.
She isn’t simply an enthusiastic observer of the AI revolution. She has entered into a commercial partnership with Fountain 0 involving her books, name, image, and likeness, positioning Hostin to benefit from the very AI entertainment model she was defending on national television.
And when her co-hosts raised concerns about AI eliminating jobs for human performers — including the Black and Brown performers Hostin supposedly wants to help — her argument became considerably harder to defend.
Hostin Blames Hollywood ‘Gatekeeping’
As Deadline reported, Hostin told her co-hosts that she partnered with Fountain 0 after spending years unsuccessfully attempting to get her books adapted.
“I partnered with this company because I’ve written a trilogy, and for six years I’ve tried to get my films or my stories made into series and films,” Hostin said.
Then came the racial explanation.
“The gatekeeping in Hollywood around Black and Brown creative content is insane,” she declared.
Hostin argued that despite writing New York Times bestselling books, she has been unable to get them adapted “to tell diverse stories to diverse communities.”
“With AI, that cuts out the gatekeeping,” Hostin said.
Sunny Hostin issuing a legal notice on The View – YouTube, Page Six
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There’s an enormous leap being made here.
Hostin has been unable to convince Hollywood to adapt her particular books. That is unquestionably frustrating for any author, but Hostin immediately transformed that personal difficulty into an indictment of Hollywood’s willingness to produce “Black and Brown creative content.”
Those are two very different things.
Hollywood has spent much of the past decade making diversity and representation one of its most public priorities.
Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther became a global phenomenon for Disney and Marvel. Its sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, received another massive theatrical push. Coogler’s original film Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan, became one of Warner Bros.’ biggest success stories.
Killmonger sits in the throne of Wakanda in Black Panther – YouTube, TNT
Then there are films including Creed, Creed III, Hidden Figures, The Woman King, Get Out, Us, Nope, King Richard, Judas and the Black Messiah, Till, Harriet, The Color Purple, One Night in Miami, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Harder They Fall, They Cloned Tyrone, and countless television productions centered around Black characters and creators.
UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report continues to track numerous theatrical productions centered on Black stories, while USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has documented substantial increases in underrepresented leads and co-leads compared with Hollywood nearly two decades ago.
Hostin’s inability to secure an adaptation of her novels does not, by itself, prove racial gatekeeping.
Sometimes Hollywood simply doesn’t buy a project.
There’s Another Problem With Hostin’s Argument
Hostin’s proposed solution to Hollywood supposedly denying opportunities to Black and Brown creatives is especially bizarre.
Use AI.
In other words, bypass the human actors, artists, designers, and potentially other production workers who could have been employed making those Black and Brown stories in the first place.
That contradiction wasn’t lost on Hostin’s own co-hosts.
Joy Behar raised concerns about actors losing their livelihoods as AI-generated performers become more sophisticated.
Sunny Hostin speaking to JD Vance on The View – YouTube, The View
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Alyssa Farah Griffin went directly after the racial contradiction in Hostin’s position.
If Hostin wants greater representation for Black and Brown people in entertainment, what happens when studios can simply generate those people instead of employing them?
That should be the obvious problem.
Representation isn’t merely putting a computer-generated Black character on a screen.
Real representation means Black actors getting jobs. It means Black writers getting hired. It means Black directors, editors, production designers, costume designers, makeup artists, visual effects artists, and countless other human beings participating in the production.
A studio could theoretically generate the most “diverse” movie ever created without employing a single diverse person.
Hostin somehow presents this as a victory against gatekeeping.
Hostin Has Skin in the Game
Then there’s the financial elephant sitting at The View table. Hostin has a business relationship with Fountain 0.
As People reported, Hostin licensed her books, name, and likeness to the AI startup as part of a deal intended to develop her work into AI-generated productions.
That means Hostin isn’t merely defending a hypothetical technology. She’s positioned her intellectual property and likeness to participate in this emerging business model.
JD Vance on The View – YouTube, The View
The exact financial terms of Hostin’s agreement haven’t been publicly disclosed, so it would be irresponsible to claim we know precisely how much money she has received or could receive. But this is unquestionably a commercial arrangement involving valuable intellectual property.
That context matters enormously when Hostin appears on one of America’s most-famous daytime television programs and argues that AI represents liberation from Hollywood’s oppressive gatekeepers.
AI just happens to be the technology that may finally get Sunny Hostin’s books turned into movies. Hostin gets to retain one particularly valuable human element in those productions: Sunny Hostin.
Apparently Hollywood’s Diversity Push Wasn’t Enough
There’s another layer of absurdity here.
For years, Hollywood studios have publicly obsessed over diversity, equity, inclusion, representation, and elevating “underrepresented voices.”
Disney, Warner Bros., Netflix, Amazon, and practically every other major entertainment company have invested enormous amounts of money into initiatives and productions designed around precisely those goals.
Audiences have repeatedly been told that representation is essential.
Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Marvel Studios
Now Hostin claims the “gatekeeping” around Black and Brown content is “insane” because Hollywood hasn’t adapted her books.
If Hollywood’s decade-long diversity campaign somehow still qualifies as refusing Black and Brown stories, one has to wonder what exactly would satisfy Hostin.
Apparently, greenlighting Sunny Hostin’s novels would be a good start. And if Hollywood won’t do it, artificial intelligence will.
Who Exactly Is Being Helped Here?
That’s ultimately the question Hostin never satisfactorily answers.
Who benefits?
Hostin potentially gets adaptations of her books. Fountain 0 gets intellectual property and the licensed likeness of a nationally recognized television personality. Audiences potentially get new content.
But what about the aspiring Black actor or actress who could have played one of Hostin’s characters?
What about the young Latino production designer looking for a first major credit?
What about the Black screenwriter hoping to break into Hollywood?
What about the costume designer, background performer, concept artist, editor, or any of the other human creatives whose labor becomes less necessary as AI filmmaking becomes more sophisticated?
Those people don’t get liberated from Hollywood’s gatekeepers. They risk getting removed from the equation entirely.
Arnold Schwarzenegger on The View with Sunny Hostin – YouTube, The View
That makes Hostin’s racial defense of AI particularly difficult to take seriously.
Sunny Hostin is perfectly entitled to embrace artificial intelligence. She’s also entitled to license her likeness and pursue AI adaptations of her books after failing to get them made through traditional Hollywood.
But blaming that failure on “gatekeeping” against Black and Brown creative content while promoting technology that could eliminate opportunities for actual Black and Brown creatives is quite another matter.
Hollywood didn’t refuse to make Black stories. It refused to make Sunny Hostin stories.
Those aren’t the same thing.
And turning one into the other makes for a convenient argument when the proposed solution is an AI business arrangement that could finally get Hostin exactly what she wants.
How do you feel about Sunny Hostin and her comments on AI filmmaking? Sound off and let us know!
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