{"id":7863,"date":"2021-12-09T16:56:37","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T16:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/?p=7863"},"modified":"2021-12-09T16:56:37","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T16:56:37","slug":"grace-edwards-on-writing-for-insecure-and-the-importance-of-telling-realistic-complex-stories-about-black-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/grace-edwards-on-writing-for-insecure-and-the-importance-of-telling-realistic-complex-stories-about-black-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace Edwards On Writing For \u2018Insecure\u2019 And The Importance Of Telling Realistic, Complex Stories About Black Women"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Writer, producer, and actress Grace Nkenge Edwards is known for her work on <\/strong>Loosely Exactly Nicole<\/em><\/strong> and <\/strong>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt<\/em><\/strong>. During season four, she joined the writer\u2019s team for <\/strong>Insecure<\/em><\/strong>, and it\u2019s the first show that she\u2019s worked on that is predominately Black. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years before the opportunity to work alongside Issa Rae manifested, Edwards remembers being inspired by Rae during the beginning of her career with her comedy web series <\/strong>The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl<\/em><\/strong>. In conversation with Ruth Etiesit Samuel from <\/strong>HuffPost Black Voices<\/strong><\/a>, Edwards recalled how people inaccurately told her that her skin was too dark to make it as an actor. \u201cIt was cathartic and beautiful to watch this gorgeous dark-skinned woman, who not only was starring in this, who was a romantic lead, but who was also the creator of it,\u201d she said.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Edwards treasures most about<\/strong> Insecure<\/em><\/strong> is how the show depicts Black women in ways that have rarely been done before. <\/strong>\u201cHow rare and beautiful it was to see us on screen depicted so realistically and allowing these characters to be messy,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cI was a fan of \u2018A Different World,\u2019 \u2018Girlfriends,\u2019 and all those Black sitcoms from the \u201990s, but this was different in the sense that it was getting deeper into these characters and allowing them to be messy and make mistakes. It meant a lot to me to know that it was possible, that\u2019s the type of television that I wanted to see out there.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edwards\u2019 writing on Insecure<\/em> mostly deals with Molly and Issa\u2019s friendship, particularly the highs and lows that we witnessed in the fourth season. She wrote Season 4, Episode 9, \u201cLowkey Trying,\u201d where Molly and Issa try to mend their broken friendship, but it backfires. \u201cSometimes you do sort of get back together with a friend momentarily \u2014 not really having addressed the things \u2014 so you hope that you can sweep that under the rug. Even at the beginning of this season, it\u2019s still tenuous. When there has been that level of hurt, it does take a minute, and it does take honesty and transparency to actually get through to the other side.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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She adds that it\u2019s okay to sometimes allow characters to make choices that wouldn\u2019t be the most popular, because that makes them real, flawed human beings. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes something more compelling in a way because you can see yourself in the mistakes that you\u2019ve made in them. Sometimes when you\u2019re getting mad at a character, you\u2019re getting mad because you\u2019ve done that yourself.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As<\/strong> Insecure<\/em><\/strong> sadly comes to an end this season, this is only the beginning for Edwards. She\u2019s the creator of <\/strong>Jodie<\/em><\/strong>, the animated series that is a follow up to <\/strong>Daria<\/em><\/strong>. It centers on Daria\u2019s friend Jodie Landon (voiced by Tracee Ellis Ross), who is definitely a multifaceted Black character. Edwards grew up watching<\/strong> Daria<\/em><\/strong> and feeling seen by both Daria and Jodie. <\/strong> \u201cLike Jodie, I went to primarily white schools growing up, so I related so much to having to feel like you really can\u2019t fully be yourself. Every time I would see Jodie, I would sit up straighter and I\u2019d always want more. I felt like there wasn\u2019t enough of her.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, she\u2019s allowing the world to see more of Jodie, but in a different light. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna see Jodie Landon, who used to be the perfect Black teen, come to a whole other environment and realize that she was the big fish in the small pond,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd now she\u2019s a small fish in the ocean. It\u2019s about her just growing into being an adult in a different environment than Lawndale where we get to see the 360 degree, full, three-dimensional character.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writer, producer, and actress Grace Nkenge Edwards is known for her work on Loosely Exactly Nicole and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. During season four, she joined the writer\u2019s team for Insecure, and it\u2019s the first show that she\u2019s worked on that is predominately Black.  Years before the opportunity to work alongside Issa Rae manifested, Edwards remembers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[600,31,1253,985,341],"class_list":["post-7863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film-tv","tag-black-women-in-hollywood","tag-featured","tag-grace-edwards","tag-insecure-hbo","tag-issa-rae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}