Reese Witherspoon Gets $900 Million to Let Two White Dudes Help Her Tell Stories About Women

Reese Witherspoon has sold her media company, Hello Sunshine, for $900 million in order to, as she puts it in a statement, “tell even more entertaining, impactful and illuminating stories about women’s lives globally.”

The first order of business, obviously, is to get two rich white dudes on board, namely Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer, former Disney executives, one of whom was famously the CEO of TikTok for a few minutes before stepping down after a fight with Donald Trump. The pair is empowering people all over town, including Scooter Braun, also famous for empowering himself with Taylor Swift’s entire catalog. In a joint statement, they didn’t seem as jazzed about broads as Witherspoon does, hoping instead to focus on “creators” whatever the fuck that means:

“We seek to empower creators with innovation, capital, and scale to inspire, entertain, and delight global audiences with engaging content, experiences, and products,” they added. “Our platform will foster a uniquely creator-friendly culture that gives elite talent the resources they need to create and capitalize on their best, most inventive work. We look forward to backing Reese, Sarah, and their world-class team as they continue to produce and identify dynamic, engaging content for years to come.”

Witherspoon’s statement reads a little more like someone who has googled feminism wrote it, since, after all, Hello Sunshine’s ostensible mission is entertainment with women in it, through projects like Gone Girl, Big Little Lies, The Morning Show, and Little Fires Everywhere:

“Over the past few years, we have watched our mission thrive through books, TV, film and social platforms. Today, we’re taking a huge step forward by partnering with @blackstone, which will enable us to tell even more entertaining, impactful and illuminating stories about women’s lives globally. I couldn’t be more excited about what this means for our future.”

And while it’s true that Witherspoon’s company has produced a great deal of content focusing on women, those women have usually included Witherspoon and have mostly been white, as have the authors of the books they’re based on. There’s nothing any more wrong with Witherspoon making huge Hollywood money than George Clooney peddling tequila or whatever, but the fact that a very wealthy woman’s attempt to Goopify a business deal as if it’s a huge leap for her women’s charity is an awful lot to digest. However, a headline reading “Rich Becomes Richer” doesn’t really have the same pinkwashed appeal.