HBO's 'Insecure' will make you remember Issa Rae's name
BEVERLY HILLS — Issa Rae. Remember that name.
OK, those who keep track of web series and web stars may already know Rae, who became a YouTube star with her series Awkward Black Girl. But on Oct. 9, she’ll hit a bigger stage with her own HBO comedy, Insecure. And it should not require a spoiler alert to say the show is very funny, and she’s very funny in it.
Rae, who created the show with Larry Wilmore, stars as a woman in South L.A. who works for a non-profit that helps underprivileged kids. But the show is not about that job, Rae said at the Television Critics Association press tour. “It’s just about black people living life.”
What sets the show apart is Rae’s singular voice, and her rebellion against the idea that “there's a universal way to be black.” Insecure opens with a class full of African-American kids making fun of her for not being “black” enough, an attack Rae says she’s heard all her life. And that’s the central issue of the show, she says: “What does it mean when you don’t fit into this definition of being black?”
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Insecure is set in and shot in South Los Angeles, an area Rae feels is often misrepresented on TV as violent and gang-ridden. "There's so rich a culture and it's extremely diverse. It's something (Rae and executive producer Prentice Penny) know well and I want to project in the best light possible."
Rae’s not alone on screen: Her character has a best friend played by Yvonne Orji. That central relationship, says Rae, was very important to her, because she was tired of seeing reality shows with black women pulling each other’s hair and throwing chairs at each other.
“I’ve never thrown a chair at a friend in my life, and I wanted to represent that … We speak to each other in a specific way, but we love each other and we’re there for each other.”