The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (6 page)

She has to be teenage and pregnant.

She has to be HIV positive.

She has to have a baby with Down syndrome!

Now
we care about this lead character.
Oh my God, she’
s so tragic
.
Oh my God, the ghetto
.
Oh heavens, what a cautionary tale! Oh to be black and poor in the ghetto
.
No wonder they’re so mad and defensive all the time
.

Precious
was the anti–Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry–co-produced black film of the year and one of the many straws that broke the camel’s back (my camel is a masochist). While I was grateful for our introduction to the amazing Gabourey Sidibe (Senegal, stand up!), I needed to see more from my movies than the extremely tragic black woman, or the magic helpless Negro, or the many black men in dresses.

You could say I have an entertainment complex. It stems from growing up during the golden age of nineties television. I look back and realize what a huge and amazing influence it was to have an array of diverse options to watch almost every night of the week.
The Cosby Show
was a variation of my own family—my doctor dad, my teacher mom, and my four siblings.
A Different World
made me want to go to college, talk about smart-black-people stuff, and find my own Dwayne Wayne. (As an aside, I looked for Dwayne’s double shades forever, and when I finally found them in the late nineties, nobody was checking for me. Their loss.) The nineties produced
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
,
All That
,
Living Single
,
Kenan & Kel
,
New York Undercover
,
Martin
,
All-American Girl
,
Moesha
, and
Family Matters
(Does anybody know what the hell happened to Judy? She went upstairs and literally got grounded for life.). Nineties television produced a plethora of images of people of color, and don’t even get me started on all the different film options we had. It was encouraging. Back in the nineties, we were relatable. Audiences cared about what we had to say and studios recognized our value, at least as far as ad revenue was concerned.

Then as the decade made way for the new millennium, cable exploded with its own original content and film studios began to obsess over international box office sales. Somewhere along the line, we became unrelatable and invisible to the Hollywood system. Our images and diverse portrayals just weren’t worth the dollars and effort anymore. The images I had grown up with and grown so accustomed to seeing slowly disappeared, and it seemed to happen all at once. When I was in Potomac as the sole black girl, these shows were my access to black culture in some ways. When I moved to Los Angeles and the kids said I talked white but had nappy hair, I found a sort of solace in knowing that Freddie from
A Different World
and Synclaire from
Living Single
were napped out, too. I could be worse things.

Right around the time I moved to Los Angeles, my passion for writing increased. I was in the hub of film and television and felt a need to take advantage of this, as quickly as possible. Also around that time, the new Cosby show came out on CBS. Since I related to the first show so much, I decided to write a spec script and send it to CBS. The episode, called “The Tongue Ring,” centered around Cosby’s character coming to terms with his daughter’s suggestive new piercing. (It was 1996 and I was eleven, so tongue rings were still very controversial.) I showed the script to my grandmother, who happens to be very computer savvy, and she encouraged me to submit it, so I did. It took nothing but a general internet search to find the address and BOOM, my talent was out there. Not wanting to put all my eggs in one basket, I wrote another television pilot, called
Ronnie
, a high school dramedy about gang violence, kind of like the short-lived television show
South Central
. I looked up NBC’s address, wrote a cover letter about how much I enjoyed their programming (
Saved by the Bell
,
California Dreams
,
and
City Guys
), and sent it off. Though I got no response, I continued middle
school content that I’d tried and optimistic that I’d have plenty of other shots in the future.

In high school, I developed a new love: acting. I went to a predominantly black and Latino school in Compton and, outside of television, this was my first true immersion in black culture. I had an inspiring drama teacher, a Jewish man who found the most amazing, hidden plays of color. There was
On Striver’s Row
, a play about an upper-middle-class black family in Harlem.
Maricela de la Luz Lights the World
, a fanciful and mystical Latino drama by José Rivera. And so much more. Every year for four years I was introduced to new diverse works, all while working with a multicultural cast. I only wish Hollywood could take a lesson from Compton.

The last great black film made in the nineties (released in April 2000) was
Love & Basketball
, a beautiful love story shot in my neighborhood. Even as I watched that movie at my friend’s sleepover, I was completely aware that it was shaping my mind and changing my life. It was the very first time I had seen a woman who was just “normal black” on-screen
.
Though Sanaa Lathan was absolutely beautiful, she played an around-the-way girl, a tomboy like me
.
I felt as if I could be her.

So began my fixation. I watched the film again before I left my friend’s house, then set out to buy it on DVD. The ultimate game-changer for me was when I discovered that it was written and directed by a black woman, Gina Prince-Bythewood. I had never cared to listen to a DVD commentary for any other film prior, but I listened as she discussed the behind-the-scenes trials of making her film. I listened as she discussed Spike Lee’s involvement and was inspired and grateful that he had played a role in making this film happen. Most important, I set out to write my own movie,
Judged Cover.

While I was writing the screenplay, I realized it was five years since I had written anything original. I found the letters I wrote
to CBS and NBC and decided to write to Gina Prince-Bythewood. Maybe she would have interest in my screenplay? How amazing would it be if she directed it? I grew excited. I typed her a letter and to this day I don’t remember how or where I got her address. I wrote her about how much I loved the film, how much it inspired me, how I watched it every day for inspiration (I really did), and then I told her about
Judged Cover
and asked her if she would consider directing it. I didn’t send her the script, because I hadn’t finished it, and knew that was inappropriate to do so without solicitation. I waited.

The summer came upon us and I prepared to go to Dakar, Senegal, for the first time in five years. I checked my email the week before we left and gasped, ecstatically. She had written back! I still have the email from 2001:

Jo-Issa,

Thank you so much for your letter. It means a lot that
Love and Basketball
is your favorite movie! Much props to you for having a completed screenplay at sixteen. I didn’t start writing scripts until I was in college. You definitely seem focused and know where you’re going. I am flattered that you thought of me to direct your script, unfortunately, I am pretty much tied up for the next couple years with my own scripts. After directing “Disappearing Acts,” which I didn’t write, I realized I feel much more fulfilled as an artist when I direct scripts I have written myself, like “Love and Basketball.” This does not mean I will never direct another script I or my husband has written, however, for now that is what I am focused on. That, and my new son. :) But again, thank you so much for thinking of me and good luck in all your endeavors.

Sincerely,

Gina Prince-Bythewood

It was the perfect encouragement I needed to take my script with me on my trip abroad. I impressed my Senegalese cousins with my index note cards and my printed pages, which I wrote during our many moments of humid boredom. I was going to be the screenwriter and star of my very own movie!

Except I never finished the script. I kept writing and rewriting to the point of frustration, and let the project fall by the wayside until eventually I just pushed it to the back of my mind.

By the time I got to college, reality television had taken over. Shows like
Flavor of Love
and
I Love New York
paved the way for the trashy, raunchy depictions of women of color we see in shows today, like
Basketball Wives
and
Love & Hip Hop
. By the time college hit, I had already gotten used to seeing us only in rare glimpses. My sensibilities started to gear more toward shows like
Curb Your Enthusiasm
,
The Office
,
Seinfeld
, and
30 Rock—
all of which were generally devoid of leading characters of color. With the expansion of Netflix, my movie tastes began to broaden and I noticed that the more I explored genres outside of comedy and drama, the less and less I saw people of color. So I started to search for more stories of color, which was where I rediscovered Spike Lee’s
School Daze
. I had heard about the film through my mother and my aunt, who frequently referenced the “Good and Bad Hair” scene. Watching the film alone, in my college dorm room my freshman year, was a pivotal and wholly new experience for me, coming as it did when I was losing interest in the limited kinds of productions my school’s drama department was mounting.

Having been an active member of my high school’s drama department, I figured my transition to college productions would be just as seamless. It wasn’t. In fact, I didn’t really fit into Stanford’s drama department. The plays they put on were super white and so
were their leads. If it weren’t for Debi, an ambitious junior I met who decided to put up a self-penned Hip-Hopera, I don’t know that I would have pursued theater at Stanford. She cast me as one of her leads, raised money through Stanford’s many opportunities for student funding, and marketed it via our various email lists (and posted flyers the old-fashioned way); in other words, she produced it herself. I was so impressed and inspired; part of me felt like if she could do it, why couldn’t I?

With Spike Lee’s
School Daze
, I tried my hand at directing and producing a stage version. Looking back, I had
no
idea what I was doing, but directing and producing gave me a sense of control that I didn’t have as an actress. I was literally waiting to act, waiting for the roles, waiting for the call. Furthermore, I was coming to the conclusion that I could never and would never be a leading lady. Not in this industry. So I took my place comfortably and happily behind the scenes, content to create the content that was otherwise absent during my college experience. Not to mention being behind the scenes and directing
other
actors made me realize how much I was lacking as an actress myself. I had a new appreciation for my high school director. Working with and organizing a group of thirty people was hard enough when people took our project seriously; I can’t imagine having to direct a group of half-hearted teenagers. In any case, Stanford gave me the opportunity to put my own spin on theater, and to learn by doing. My plays were met with ongoing enthusiasm and encouragement, with the three shows we’d put on for one weekend consistently packed every year.

By the time I was a senior, I was known for my plays. It felt good to have a sense of identity and to have established myself as a director and producer. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. During my senior year, while others were taking it easy, I found that I had
to take twenty-two units during my last two quarters to graduate on time. As much as I loved and appreciated Stanford for exposing me to the most amazing community I had ever experienced, it was time to get out of there and move on. I refused to stay an additional year to finish the last two units I needed to graduate (an online class at Santa Monica College would eventually earn me my diploma).

It was during this extremely stressful course load that I came up with the idea to do a web series about what it’s like to be black at Stanford University. Stanford really opened my eyes to how diverse we are as a people,
3
and it was so refreshing to witness. I rounded my friends together, borrowed a camera from the library, and wrote a script. The next week, I edited it and posted it to Facebook and watched as it spread not only throughout my school, but at other top schools like Duke, Harvard, and Georgetown. People exclaimed that it reflected their college experience and marveled at how relatable it was. I couldn’t believe the series had spread and that people who didn’t attend my school were watching and enjoying. Having direct access to an audience that appreciated my work was an epiphany for me.

In the meantime, I felt surrounded by the mainstream media’s negative images of black women. This was all prior to the promising Shonda Rhimes takeover of Thursday nights, so as the negative portrayal of women in reality television broadened its boundaries, I grew angry, resentful, and impatient. How hard is it to portray a three-dimensional woman of color on television or in film? I’m surrounded by them. They’re my friends. I talk to them every day. How come Hollywood won’t acknowledge us? Are we a joke to them?

Now, having been in the industry for a couple of years, I’m not entirely sure it’s blatant racism, as I had once assumed. It’s more complicated than that. As Ralph Ellison once posited, we’re invisible to them. We’re simply not on their radar. As long as the people who are in charge aren’t us, things will never change.

Girls
,
New Girl
,
2 Broke Girls
. What do they all have in common? The universal gender classification, “girl,” is white. In all three of these successful series, a default girl (or two) is implied and she is white. That is the norm and that is what is acceptable. Anything else is niche.