Yahoo Lifestyle Issa Rae on Black TV History: ‘They Built the Success of Their Networks on Our Backs, and We Almost Don’t Have Anything to Show For It’
Issa Rae is working to spotlight the history of Black television with her upcoming HBO docuseries “Seen & Heard,” which she discussed at length in a keynote conversation at SXSW.
The moderator, Rotten Tomatoes’ Jacqueline Coley, described the first episode of “Seen & Heard” as focusing on how studios in the past “used Black audiences” and then “abandoned them as soon as it was convenient.” Rae said she wanted to dive into that history because “it sounds like a conspiracy” on the surface, but producing the documentary proved to her just how that trend had played out.
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“It’s one thing to say it. You might have heard someone say that in the history of television and the history of particular networks,” Rae said. “But to have the actual creators, showrunners and writers chronicle the history of that is undeniable. We wanted to make a comprehensive history and showcase, with evidence, that this is how they built the success of their networks on our backs, and we almost don’t have anything to show for it as a result. It’s tragic, and history repeats itself.”
Television giants like Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay, Norman Lear and more appear throughout the series, and while their careers are already well-documented, Rae said several of them revealed unknown aspects of trajectories in their interviews.
“They have these incredible stories, and they may not have been asked questions about their journey and their vision in this particular way,” she said. “To be able to get Oprah, to be able to give Mara Brock Akil her flowers, to be able to have Tyler Perry talk about his journey creating a studio that so many of us aspire to — watching it myself and hearing some of these stories for the first time inspires me. The end of that documentary inspires me to do more and get my shit together.”
Rae also revealed that watching reality television was a major factor that motivated her early in her career, but not necessarily in a positive way — she calls the genre her “villain origin story.”
She was initially inspired to work in TV by Black sitcoms like “Moesha,” “Girlfriends” and “Martin,” but by the mid-to-late aughts, there was a dearth of Black scripted shows on the air. “The disappearance of that infuriated me, but then the advent of reality television, specifically where the portrayal of Black women was concerned, made me upset. And it was just because it was all we had. As much as I enjoyed watching it and gathered all my friends to my little college apartment, it was still like, ‘Let’s watch this bullshit.’ It was hate-watching.”
Rae then recalled an infamous moment from “Flavor of Love” — the dating show starring Flavor Flav — that drove her to speak up and do something herself.
“There was this girl named Something, because he gave them all nicknames that were sometimes disrespectful, and she needed to use the restroom,” she said. “They were doing a ceremony, so the producers told her she couldn’t go to the bathroom, and she ended up shitting on the floor. On TV. And they still aired it.”
Rae continued: “I was like, ‘This is humiliating, and this is all Black women have on television right now.’ Because ‘Girlfriends’ was gone. All these other shows had just disappeared. That’s when I started film blogging and talking a bunch of shit, and someone was like, ‘You talk a lot of mess. Why don’t you make something?’ So shout out to that person.”
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