If there has been one, consistent bright spot on the diversity landscape, it’s been television.
There’s been an embarrassment of riches lately. From Aziz Ansari’s Master of None, to Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar, to Donald Glover’s Atlanta, to Jill Soloway’s Transparent, audiences are finding sophisticated, fully human characters who present specific identities without apology or outside interpretation.
Consider HBO’s Insecure, the remarkable comedy series created by Issa Rae. The show follows Rae as she navigates love, life and, most cringingly, her job at a mostly-white nonprofit benefiting “underserved” youth. The show springs directly from Rae’s revolutionary web series, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, which had a two-season run from 2011-2013. Fans of Awkward were worried about the jump to HBO, yet Rae has successfully expanded her vision into mainstream television without losing her unique voice. Insecure’s second season is currently underway.
Culture writer Rebecca Carroll has a wonderful review in Esquire, explaining why Insecure—and so many shows like it—are so valuable now:
I found myself from one episode to the next thinking, “Please let her keep making this show, please let her keep making this show.” Because we need it, so much, every bit of it. As we face four years with a President-elect who lacks a clear moral compass and openly advocates for white supremacist values, and after eight years with the country’s first black president, it has never been more urgent for black media makers to create content on mainstream platforms that complicates notions of race and the racism upon which those notions thrive.
I found myself from one episode to the next thinking, “Please let her keep making this show, please let her keep making this show.” Because we need it, so much, every bit of it. As we face four years with a President-elect who lacks a clear moral compass and openly advocates for white supremacist values, and after eight years with the country’s first black president, it has never been more urgent for black media makers to create content on mainstream platforms that complicates notions of race and the racism upon which those notions thrive.
This kind of courage is showing up all sorts of places. I’ve fallen in love with Amazon Studio’s Mozart in the Jungle, a ridiculously stylized romp into the competitive world of classical music in New York. It would be a stretch to call it a diversity play; even if you squint and look at it sideways, there’s not much there beyond the flamboyant delights of the emotional centerpiece of the show, a Mexican conductor played by Gael Garcia Bernal.
But there is one episode, however, that does something remarkable and deserves special mention, specifically for its ability to “complicate notions of race.” Without giving too much away: It involves taking a formerly warring symphony (there’s been some drama) to perform a concert on Riker’s Island. It’s styled as a faux documentary about the trip, so it’s easy to dip into this one episode. Everything in it is transcendent, from the music to the setting—including the responses of the real incarcerated men who were temporarily “set free,” as we were temporarily imprisoned.
It’s a master class for storytellers on authenticity and risk-taking. For the rest of us, it’s a surprising look into worlds not our own.
We often ask artists to do the impossible, to offer us painless, fast-food diversions in exchange for a quick escape. Yet, art should also make us do a little work.
So when we give “diverse” creators real access to an audience—which, in television’s case, involves serious money and institutional support—we shouldn’t be surprised by the different worlds they create. But we should be delighted that we can, in theory, safely explore those worlds and the complexity they render and return home more open-hearted than we were before.
Only time will tell if the return on those investments of our attention will yield more than entertainment value. But I’m going to keep watching anyway.
Have a transcendent weekend, everyone.
Programming note: This week, Fortune says good-bye to Pamela Kruger, who, in addition to her other duties, began editing raceAhead when the newsletter was still on shaky foal legs. Her keen judgment always made everything better; in several cases, she saved me from myself. But best of all, she always believed. Pamela is off to be the Digital Director at Columbia Law School, managing video, podcasts, social media, websites and other digital goodies. Follow her at @pamkrugerwriter. Good luck, Pam! And thanks for everything.