Issa (Issa Rae) and Molly (Yvonne Orji) on “Insecure” in 2017. (HBO)
“Insecure” (2016- ) is a US television show on HBO that was created by and stars Issa Rae, she of “Awkward Black Girl” (2011) on YouTube. It has been renewed for a third season. It tells the tale of two best friends, Issa Dee (Issa Rae) and Molly Carter (Yvonne Orji), and their search for success and love in Los Angeles. In 2018 it won an NAACP Image Award.
Overall: One of the best shows I have seen on television, but the bad language and nudity seem overdone. “It’s HBO!” I have been informed.
Broadcast Standards: HBO, unlike most television in the US, is allowed to use four-letter words and show people naked and having sex. Not only does “Insecure” seem to take it to an unnecessary degree, it confirms stereotypes about Black people as being oversexed and foul-mouthed. In real life White people are no better, of course, but you do not see much of that on television.
But otherwise it is something I have long wanted to see. In 2010 in my post “Black people according to American television” I said:
“There are not many middle-class blacks. Most of them are noble but boring – and have little or no love life.”
It is not just me: Zora Neale Hurston noticed the same thing in books and film back in the 1940s: people of colour (which back then included Jews) were “made of bent wires without insides at all.”
“Insecure” runs counter to all of that:
- Issa and Molly’s love lives are shown in full.
- Unlike “The Cosby Show”, the characters and circumstances are not idealized.
- Unlike “The Wire”, the Black middle-class does not wink out of existence once they leave work and can no longer be observed by White people.
Bechdel Test for Race: It passes this easily: Black characters talk to each other all the time about something other than White people. But it does deal with issues of race too, like gentrification, Black-on-Brown racism, and the (White) old boys club.
Compared to “Awkward Black Girl” (I rewatched the first five episodes):
- Longer episodes (30 minutes, not 13 or so).
- Better make-up, cinematography and musical direction.
- More cursing and nudity.
- Deeper characters and storylines.
- Not as funny.
- Less multiracial.
- More about love, less about work.
Issa Rae is still the star and still her awkward self.
Amanda Seales, who I also know from YouTube, is a regular character.
From YouTube to Hollywood: On YouTube people of colour can have complete control. Hollywood, on the other hand, is still a White man’s world. If Issa Rae had not stood her ground, most likely her character would have been made a light-skinned woman with long, straight hair. And the storylines would have been made “universal” – meaning “for White people”.
Behind the scenes:
- Larry Wilmore acts as the bridge between her and (White) Hollywood.
- Melina Matsoukas is an executive producer and directs most of the episodes. She is best known for her music videos, especially Beyonce’s “Formation”.
- Raphael Saadiq is the music director.
All three are Black.
– Abagond, 2018.
See also:
- Issa Rae
- Black people according to US television
- Noble But Boring Middle-Class Blacks
- Zora Neale Hurston: What White Publishers Won’t Print – applies to Hollywood too
- Toni Morrison on the White gaze
- Bechdel Test for Race
- Raphael Saadiq:
- Melina Matsoukas directed (among many others):
587
Abagond 
Enjoy the show, I’ve been watching since Season 1, episode 1. And yes, the nudity can be a bit much at times.
LikeLike
“One of the best shows I have seen on television, but the bad language and nudity seem overdone.”
How so?
LikeLike
Insecure is one of my favorite shows.
LikeLike
It’s a great show, issa is an awesome writer
LikeLike
I do love the music on the show and the sex scenes are good too.
LikeLike
Mary, you little hussy, you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Herneith
😉
LikeLike
Yeah, I’m not watching anything from that snake.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi! I’ve read your blog on and off for years, and this is probably the first time I’ve felt compelled to comment! 😀
First off, I still love and appreciate this blog. It’s awesome. Second, I love and appreciate Insecure. It’s awesome.
Reading this entry has made me wonder about the Black Millennial culture of NYC. Mostly because several people, yourself included, feel the sex and nudity in Insecure is excessive.
Anyway, a point: the points concerning excessive nudity, sex, and swearing missed me completely. Insecure, to me, is a gritty and extremely truthful account of what it’s like to be young, Black, single, educated, and a woman living in Los Angeles. This is why I’m slightly baffled as to why someone would see anything in excess in this show. This is how my friends and I communicate, as is the case with the other Black women with whom I attended college here in Los Angeles, and the Black women I befriended thereafter here in Los Angeles.
If anything, I think it’s horrendously misleading that Molly seems to have great men lining up around the block for her: as usual, we’re still at the bottom of anyone’s list of who is worthy of a romantic relationship.
I also live in Crenshaw, which is not South Central, but about twenty minutes north and west, and I am constantly walking by the building in which she worked through the second season.
I don’t mean to say that no one is allowed to find the sexual and language elements to be excessive. I just want it to be understood that this is typical, and cultural. When I lived in Houston, things were different with the Black women that are from Houston.
Another point: it makes sense to me that Issa would choose to hone in on the love lives, and spend less time talking about work. We all (young Black women in LA) seem to understand and accept that the White people we work with are their own brand of annoying and clueless.
While spending more time on love and sex might seem like a step backwards, I argue its necessity in the way that it shows how fcking frustrating it is to be a single Black woman who is educated, knows her worth, and is minimally Christian, which also helps so many young Black women in Los Angeles and beyond Los Angeles relate to her character.
I appreciate this entry, though, and I appreciate having a space to comment. Thank you, Abagond, and I hope you keep writing and writing and writing.
LikeLike