‘Queen Sugar’ season two celebrates all-female director team
Queen Sugar came back to OWN with a bang on June 12th. To prepare ourselves, we’re looking back at the amazing team of female talent who directed the last season. At a press event Tuesday night in Los Angeles, Queen Sugar creator and executive producer Ava DuVernay spoke about her decision to work with an all-female director team on the critically acclaimed show’s second season.
"I always say if Game of Thrones can have three seasons of all male directors, why can't we have three seasons of all women directors? If they can do it, why can't we do it? We're going to center women, because we can and we want to and we're at a network owned by a woman, so it makes it easier."
DuVernay discussed the show with stars Dawn-Lyen Gardner and Kofi Siriboe at LA’s Four Seasons Hotel. Gender equality in Hollywood is again a hot topic.
Full Series Directing Legacy
The initiative that began with season two ultimately shaped the entire run of Queen Sugar. Across seven seasons and roughly eighty-eight episodes, every installment was directed by a woman. Forty-two female directors received credits on the series, and many of them stepped into episodic television for the first time. The scale turned an early-season experiment into a sustained production model that lasted until the show wrapped in 2022.
Career Trajectories of Queen Sugar Directors
Thirty-nine of those forty-two directors had never helmed a U.S. episodic series before joining the production. Their subsequent credits include Westworld, The Morning Show, Lovecraft Country, and Ozark. The pattern shows how one sustained hiring policy created a pipeline that fed other prestige rooms and broadened the pool of women who could move from features or shorts into long-form television.
Industry Influence and Perception Shift
Directors who cycled through the show later noted that the absence of women on a typical slate now registers as an obvious omission rather than a neutral choice. The model made an intentional correction visible to other productions and opened slots for women of color who had previously been shut out of network episodic work. What started as a season-two statement became a reference point studios and streamers cited when asked about roster balance.
OWN and Oprah Winfrey's Role
Oprah Winfrey backed DuVernay’s proposal for an all-women directing team before cameras rolled on season two. Because OWN was already under female ownership, the network could green-light the policy without external investor pushback. That structural alignment let the practice continue across later seasons and gave DuVernay room to keep expanding the list of first-time directors season after season.
The press event at the Four Seasons captured the moment the plan moved from announcement to execution. DuVernay’s Game of Thrones comparison underscored a simple logic: if one flagship series could lock out women for years, another flagship could lock them in. The completed series record shows that decision produced measurable results rather than a one-off headline. Forty-two women moved through the production, dozens of them launching network careers that continue today. The early press coverage focused on season two, yet the outcome stretched through the full run and left a narrower path for any future production that might try to repeat an all-male slate without comment.
