In 2019, I asked a simple question: Why Is Canadian Television So White? It was after the purported “golden age” of Canadian TV, where white-run shows were garnering international acclaim and unprecedented U.S. mainstream attention, and right before the “racial reckoning” of 2020, when suddenly the world seemed to be waking up to the fact that creators of color exist and that they should be afforded to same opportunities as their white counterparts to thrive in this industry. At the time, I suggested we may be years away from a Black TV renaissance in Canada — one similar to the progress made stateside. Aside from a couple of token exceptions, there was still a severe lack of Black representation in front of, and especially behind, the camera. The future looked bleak. 

Enter: The Porter. When news first broke in December 2020 that the CBC/ BET co-production would be Canada’s biggest Black-led TV series with majority Black talent onscreen and in the writers’ room, it felt like a long overdue course correction for the decades of drought we’d seen when it came to Black talent on Canadian TV. Not only that, the premise of the show (Episode 2 drops today on CBC Gem) was refreshing — set in 1920s Montreal and Chicago, the eight-episode series tells the story of the Black train porters and the community surrounding them as they live, hustle, love, dream, work, and form North America’s first Black workers’ union. We’re used to a sanitized version of Black Canadian history, with us positioned as the heroes of the Underground Railroad in opposition to America’s race problem (an ‘at least we’re not as bad as them!’ mentality), without the nuance and depth of the real stories of how Black workers shaped Canada and the U.S., and the relentless racism they faced along the way. We’re not used to a show that prioritizes the interior lives — the joy, pain and everything in between — of Black people in Canada, let alone one actually made by Black Canadian people (what a concept!). In the midst of cries for Black representation in a persistently lily white Canadian TV landscape, The Porter, even just in theory, felt like it was simultaneously right on time and ahead of its time. 

Meet the A-Team

In reality, the series was 12 years in the making. “It has been a long journey,” Arnold Pinnock, The Porter co-creator and executive producer who also plays train porter Glenford on the show, tells Unbothered over Zoom. “[The idea] originated for me from the desire of wanting to know about Black Canadian history. I’m an immigrant — my parents are from Jamaica via England to [Canada], and we just wanted to know about it, because we sure as heck didn’t see it in the school system. Didn’t see it in the news. Didn’t see it in books. Didn’t see it in TV shows.” At a time when the importance of teaching accurate Black history is under constant attack, a story like The Porter, which fictionalizes very real events, is urgent and necessary. The experiences of Junior (Aml Ameen of Sense8 and Boxing Day), an unapologetic disruptor who fights fiercely for his family in legal and not-so-legal ways, and Zeke (Star Trek: Discovery star Ronnie Rowe Jr.), a more by-the-book revolutionary who is fighting the system through forming a union, are equally important. Both porters have the same goal — liberation — which they approach in different ways. The nuance of the non-monolithic paths to freedom Black people took could only be articulated by people who truly get it. This is the history that is seldom taught and hardly seen onscreen.  

We’re not used to a show that prioritizes the interior lives — the joy, pain and everything in between — of Black people in Canadian history, let alone one actually made by Black Canadian people (what a concept!).

kathleen newman-bremang

As Pinnock is listing off the things we don’t see on Canadian TV shows, he’s flanked in our Zoom meeting by the other producers, writers and creators who brought The Porter to life. Charles Officer and R.T. Thorne are co-executive producers and directors on the series, bringing their decades of experience in Canadian film and TV to the production which pours out of every vibrant frame. And there’s co-executive producers and writers Marsha Greene (known best for Mary Kills People) and Annmarie Morais (writer of How She Move and producer of Killjoys), two of the women on the creative team who are responsible for the show’s stellar writing, and its ambitious, complex portrayals of Marlene (Mouna Traoré) and Lucy (Loren Lott), the female lead characters, who have their own interior lives and lofty ambitions aside from the men of the series. In other hands, Marlene and Lucy may have faded into the background to make way for Zeke and Junior to shine. In this story, all four leads get their moments in the spotlight — and so do supporting powerhouses Alfre Woodard as Fay and Olunike Adeliyi as Queenie. “When history has a heartbeat, it matters,” Morais says. “As a female show writer you can’t write yourself out of the picture and we know that we are such a big part of that story. These men were gone for days and weeks at a time. And so, who was there? The world didn’t just stop when they left.”

It’s not lost on me that the scene unfolding in front of me — five Black creators being interviewed by a Black writer for their Black-ass TV show — is not only a rare sight in any entertainment industry, but it would’ve seemed impossible a couple of years ago in Canada specifically. And not because the talent hasn’t always been there. But because that talent has faced barriers beyond their control that halted productions before they began, stalled careers before they took off, and stunted ideas before they were dared to be dreamed. Those barriers, Officer (Akilla’s Escape) says, are due in large part to the gatekeepers of TV. “The [reason] there has been such little advancement over many years is because individuals have to be approved by a network executive to work on a show, whether it’s to write, produce, direct, whatever. And that approval process has not [looked] at how Black folks, Asian folks, brown people, etc, are actually advancing in this industry. The conversation has only shifted in the last couple of years, but the problem has been here for a long time,” he says. “So hopefully, the ground this show can break, is [to prove] there is a series of us that are approvable, and that are chomping, ready to go, and capable of doing this work.” 

The competence of these creators in particular shouldn’t be up for debate. The confirmation is in each of their illustrious resumes but also onscreen. We’re only two episodes in but so far, The Porter is really, really good — on every level, from the passionate performances, flawless 1920s costume design, to the meticulous direction and inspired writing. “I’m going to say it, [because] they won’t, but we brought together the A-team,” Pinnock says. I joke that he’s assembled the Avengers of Black Canadian TV. With that in mind, the impressive result shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is a relief. 

We’re not making [the series] for a bunch of executives who hopefully will fund our next project. We know they’ll fund our project if we impress ourselves and if we impress our community.”

r.t. thorne, director and producer

The Pressure of Being ‘The First’

With any new series, pressure is inevitable. With Canada’s largest Black-led series, the first of its kind, the expectations are high — unfairly so. When you’re the first, the antiquated notion is that if you fail, there won’t be a second. The future of Black Canadian television is in your hands. No big deal. Of course, that thinking just props up the inequities ingrained in an already unjust system and negates the other Black Canadian shows already on the go or on the way (digital series like Next Stop, Revenge Of The Black Best Friend), but we know that a show of this magnitude comes with a specific set of responsibilities. And while each of the creators feels that weight, they refuse to buckle under it. “Pressure makes diamonds!” Thorne, prolific music video director and creator of Utopia Falls, smiles defiantly. He repeats the mantra over and over. “We are our own competition. We’re not trying to make this story for anybody else. We’re trying to make it for us, for our people, for a young me,” Thorne says. “We’re not making it for a bunch of executives who hopefully will fund our next project. We know they’ll fund our project if we impress ourselves and if we impress our community.” 

Officer agrees, and balks at the designation of being the ‘first.’ “I really don’t like to play upon [the fact that] we’re the ‘first Black…’ We get it. I know. And it’s not something that I like to celebrate, because why am I the first? I wish someone else had been so I can enjoy [their work] and it would’ve inspired me to do something else,” he says. Pinnock chimes in. “Also, think of the Sudz Sutherlands of the world, the Jennifer Holnesses, the Clement Virgos, we are standing on their shoulders. No matter how long it’s taken to get this done, they were people who were before us. And there’s so many other names that I’m not even mentioning that have paved the way for us. It’s not a matter of us being the first, it’s more like we are the continuation of them, and we really hope someone else is the continuation of us.” 

The next generation is referred to a lot by the creative team behind The Porter. Paving a clearer path for those coming up behind them, and doing right by their community were the priorities. “At the end of the day, you have to kill the noise. I’m making this for my nieces, my nephews, my mom, the narrowest of audiences. [The pressure] can’t be at the forefront of this process or else I’ll just collapse,” Officer says. “At the same time, call it my defense mechanisms or my lack of trust in an industry that hasn’t been so welcoming to us, but [I know] that there are individuals who may not want us to succeed. They’ll say ‘Look at that Black project’… which prevents me from ever thinking about failing.” 

The definition of that success is more internal than external, according to Greene. “While we were in the writers’ room [for The Porter],I May Destroy Youwas out. And it wasn’t necessarily about [Michaela Coel] being the first Black woman to do whatever it may have been, it was that the show was so excellent. It was amazing that this excellent, excellent work came from a Black woman and came in part from her own experience. You see her culture. So I think what was really in my mind was really just to make excellent, excellent work, and then for us be like, ‘Yes, and we did that!’“

[I know] that there are individuals who may not want us to succeed. They’ll say ‘Look at that Black project’… which prevents me from ever thinking about failing.” 

charles officer, director and producer

Finding Joy Amidst The Struggle

It makes sense that the writers were finding inspiration in Coel’s I May Destroy You because one of the things the HBO show did best was juggle devastation with delight, grief alongside glee. The goal for The Porter was also to tow the line between conflicting emotions. “The Black experience is one of discrimination and oppression in general, across the board, in our lives, our parents’ lives, and our ancestors’ lives,” Thorne says. “But, we don’t feel that as heavily, because we find our own joy. Marsha and Annmarie gave us an incredible foundation to make sure that our stories are not all about just what happens to Black people or what they’re subjected to, but their inner lives in and around all that stuff.”

In the first episodes of The Porter, we’re faced with the reality of the oppression of Black people during that era, specifically the treatment of train porters, but we also get a glimpse into the sexy, stylized world Lucy takes us into — the ambitious, joyful, cutthroat society of a nightclub dancer. Her life is not without its perils (one of the most poignant scenes tackles colorism) but what The Porter does so well is balance all the contours of a full, vibrant Black life. And that was absolutely on purpose. “We were trying to find a way to not tell a story about just servitude or beaten down Black people,” Officer says. “We kept going back to the words ‘resilience’ and ‘resistance’ and ‘inspirational,’ so not to shy away and be polite about [racism], but to remember that this is part of the whole three dimensionality of life. We were channeling our ancestors because we are them and they are us. [Telling their stories] comes with all the joy and the pain, laughter and rain.” Greene adds: “We always tried to stay true to the spirit of the time and the spirit of the people. And so I just hope when people watch that that’s what they get. They feel the spirit of those people.”

Yes, the fact that The Porter is actually very good is a relief for anyone rooting for everybody Black in Canadian TV, but its success shouldn’t lie in what comes next. After years of Black artists struggling to gain solid footing in this industry, and months of supposed allies promising to actually uplift Black talent with little follow-through, The Porter is a win, period, because its creators put community, and authenticity, first. And they did that in an industry that never prioritizes us. That is the diamond this team created out of pressure. 

Morais sums it up like this: “What I want people to feel when they watch [The Porter] is that if they can look at the porters and look at this community and realize the giants that they took on and won, that they can look at whatever the giant is in their own life, in their own community, in their own struggle and even though a win is not going to be easy, it might not be quick, but it’s worth the fight.”

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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,

Welcome to Love Like This?, a romance column where we, Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Ineye Komonibo, revisit some of the most romantic — or not, in hindsight  — scenes in Black film and TV history. 

If you look up any “Best Black Romances of All Time” lists, Poetic Justice will undoubtedly be there, perched somewhere between Brown Sugar and Love Jones. It’s been immortalized as part of the Black love canon, with the romance between charismatic postal worker Lucky (the late Tupac Shakur) and melancholic poet Justice (Janet Jackson in her first major film role) sitting at the film’s center, acting as its beating heart and its sole bright spot in otherwise rather dark material. 

“Poetic Justice is a mess, but it’s an adventurous one,” the New York Times declared in 1993 when the film was released. The adventure seemingly lies in the road-trip aspect of the film — Justice and her friend Iesha (played by Regina King, long may she reign) hitch a ride with Lucky and his friend Chicago to Oakland for a hair show — while the mess is more comprehensive. So much of this movie is messy and traumatic (Justice’s boyfriend, played by a young Q-Tip, is literally murdered in front of her in the first scene), but within the dichotomy between love and hardship lies its charm. Director John Singleton set out to tell a very specific story about South Central, L.A., and his legacy is the authenticity he brought to portrayals of that neighborhood on screen. “Poetic Justice turns hood love into a universal text, insisting hope and love can bloom anywhere, even from the cruelest violence. Even in South Central,” wrote Stephen Kearse for Pitchfork last year. 

Looking back on Poetic Justice almost 30 years later with fresh eyes, one thing is absolutely certain: this movie falls apart real quick without its superstar leads, Jackson and Shakur. “Having Janet and Tupac was huge, because he was one of the biggest hip-hop stars and she was definitely the biggest pop star,” Regina King said in Jackson’s recent self-produced documentary series. “I think they were both impressed with each other, but I don’t feel like either one of them wanted to let the other know.” That sounds like the exact dynamic Justice and Lucky have in the film. It’s no wonder their chemistry is so good that we’re still talking about it decades later. It’s also why we even still hold up Poetic Justice as a romance. Most of the film isn’t romantic at all; Jackson and Shakur are yelling at each other for three quarters of the story, but the sheer power of their connection and their performances make it so that you can’t look away. And against all odds, you’re rooting for them to fall in love. 

It’s Valentine’s Day, Black History Month, and the day after Janet Jackson Appreciation Day, so there’s no better time to revisit the classic film and find out once and for all: would we really want a love like Lucky and Justice have? And more importantly: is Poetic Justice even a romance? 

“I really don’t know exactly how this got into the canon of Black love stories. This movie is very chaotic, and the stakes for the relationship are extremely low.”

ineye komonibo

The Scene: By the last scene in the film when our leads finally make it official, Lucky and Justice have spent days together in the cramped USPS truck traveling to Oakland with their friends. Though much of their time on the road is spent arguing, there’s an obvious romantic vibe between them. In typical enemies-to-lovers fashion, each frown and petty rebuttal slowly gives way to flirtatious grins and even a steamy kiss. But after tragedy strikes and separates the fledgling couple before they can even really begin, they resume living their separate lives, burdened by the respective grief — Lucky, burdened by the tragic loss of his cousin, and Justice adding their sudden split to the long list of heartbreaks she’s lived through. The last time Lucky and Justice spoke, he was blaming her for the fact he didn’t arrive in Oakland in time to save his cousin. He shows up at the salon where she works with his daughter in tow and asks for forgiveness. Lucky quickly takes him back — too quickly? — and the two share a kiss. “They live in a fairytale,” one of the loud-mouthed salon patrons says right after their reconciliation. “I wouldn’t have forgiven you!” she tells Lucky. But Justice does. And after all the trauma they’ve both endured throughout the film, Lucky and Justice finally get their happily ever after. 

Does The Grand Gesture Hold Up? 

Ineye Komonibo: I think that Lucky took too much time to spin the block, to be honest, but given he was grieving his cousin so recently, I do think it was a good gesture. I like the fact that he wanted to introduce his daughter to Justice. I saw it as, “I want you to meet this important person in my life because I think you’re that important.” And he came very earnestly. No nonsense, no making excuses. “I made a mistake. I was wrong.” I really liked that.

Kathleen Newman-Bremang: I actually disagree with Lucky bringing his daughter. Justice hadn’t even met her yet, and he just rolls up with this little girl. And then, this little girl has to watch her daddy and a random woman make out!

IK: Not to be rude, but the girl has seen worse.

KNB: [laughs] You’re right. She has seen worse. I like that he’s being a hands-on dad and that he’s spending time with his daughter, because I was worried about her the whole movie. But it seemed like he was supposed to be hanging out with his daughter, and then he was like, “Oh, on my list of things I got to do today, I’m going to go by and see if Justice will take me back.” It felt like he was just running an errand. It was rushed. When they kissed, it took me out of the moment knowing that the daughter was right there. Of course Justice is going to have a big role in this girl’s life if they stay together, but he doesn’t beg enough for me. Anytime a man admits he’s wrong, I’m in. And I like the simplicity of the moment, but the daughter being there doesn’t hold up for me. 

IK: It felt like he’s bridging the gaps between his two worlds. He’s a man, but he’s also a dad. 

The thing that doesn’t really work for me is that I’m not sure if Justice’s forgiveness is earned. Lucky says, “Listen, I want you to know I’m sorry. I made a mistake.” What about, I love you, I know I made a mistake, I don’t want to live without you, I need you? It’s not giving enough desperation. He’s not begging. Like you said, we love a man who begs, but realistically speaking, these men don’t be begging!

“In South Central at the time, there was a lot of trauma, and these are two very beautiful Black people who found love in the midst of it all — I think that was [director] John Singleton’s point but I remember the movie being more romantic, less traumatic.”

kathleen newman-bremang

Could It Be Me? 

KNB: All that said, as usual, in this specific scene it could absolutely be me. Because again, a man admitting he’s wrong works on me. A man with a little kid also sparks something in me where I’m like, “Yes, I would also like to procreate with that man.” However, I don’t think I would have let Lucky talk to me the way he speaks to Justice. I know that this was 1993, the John Singleton/ 90s hip-hop era, and everybody was calling everybody “bitches and hoes.” But if a man ever referred to me as a “bitch” or a “hoe,” I’m not getting past that and dating this man. Lucky calls Justice a bitch multiple times throughout the movie. But he’s so fine. SO FINE. I probably would’ve forgiven him at the end if I looked into his eyes, but I don’t know if I would’ve let it get that far because of the vitriolic language. 

IK:  It’s a no for me all around. They were so mean to each other, and I really don’t like that. I’m in my baby girl era. I want people to talk to me nicely. “I love you. You are a queen. You’re stunning.” I don’t want any man to approach me like, “Oh, you’re a problem.” Sir, where is the adoration? Even if I have an attitude, I want a man to be obsessed with me and treat me well. Also, I don’t date guys with kids, so the kid thing would’ve been a deal breaker for me.

KNB: Wait — you were just defending the kid.

IK: I like it for the gworls, not for me. I don’t like things to be complicated. In my love life and my personal life, I like things to be very neat and simple. Lucky’s baby mama is still alive, and she’s dealing with addiction. I don’t like messy situations like that, and I think Justice feels the same. Lucky’s circumstances aren’t the best, so if I was Justice and didn’t have my life together, how could I get with a person who doesn’t have their stuff together either so we could just be existing in perpetual chaos?

Rate The Kiss: 

IK: It didn’t make me swoon, so I’m going to give it a six out of 10. They kissed, and it was appropriate given the circumstances. What I really loved is Janet Jackson’s shy, coy flirting. “Come here, come here.” “No, you come here.” I think that’s so cute! Plus, Janet Jackson is so beautiful that I was like, “Oh my gosh, she is so pretty, kiss her!” But the kiss itself, it just wasn’t giving. And I think if it had given what we wanted, it wouldn’t be inappropriate because the baby is right there.

KNB: Agreed on all of it, except I would give it even lower. A good kiss needs to be high on the horny scale, and this was not horny at all, but of course it wasn’t — there was a child in the room. I’ll give a five out of 10, and it gets a five because of their chemistry. I agree that so much of that is Janet being so just cute and adorable and playful. Tupac is just clearly so into her, and his laugh and his smile is so beautiful, so them smiling back and forth at each other, is adorable. The chemistry is there, but when they’re actually kissing, again, there’s no passion. There’s no heat. It’s so interesting to me that their chemistry is so electric, and their final kiss isn’t that great. They do have some better kisses earlier in the movie, but no love scenes. 

The original story about the film was Janet demanded that Tupac get an AIDS test before they do a love scene and then Tupac was like, “Well, if we’re actually having sex, yeah, sure I’ll take one.” But he’s like, “If you’re asking me to take it and other leading men don’t have to, then f*ck y’all.” It came out later that John Singleton made up the story to drum up publicity for the film. 

IK: That’s so weird. The movie would’ve been better with some more sex in it, and we all know it! I would’ve loved to see Janet on top of Mr. Pac or vice versa. John Singleton, rest your soul, but you really played us with that publicity stunt, sir! 

I want a love scene in every romance movie. I just think it should be a prerequisite. We’re all grown here. This is a grown folks movie.

KNB: It’s a grown folks movie, but is it romantic? The movie isn’t that romantic, if we’re being honest. I get that the overarching story is the romance between Lucky and Justice but everything else is pretty traumatic. And I think that was John Singleton’s point. In South Central at the time, there was a lot of trauma, and these are two very beautiful Black people who found love in the midst of it all — I think that’s the point but I remember it being more romantic, less traumatic.  

“This story is so realistic though — we all know those couples who fight and make up so frequently even when the best option is for them to just…not be together anymore.” 

ineye komonibo

IK: But was it love that they found? I really don’t know exactly how this got into the canon of Black love stories. This movie is very chaotic, and the stakes for the relationship are extremely low, so that’s why I can’t justify putting it up there with some of the other films and TV shows that we’ve talked about in this column. 

KNB: I would put Lucky and Justice in the canon of Black couples in movie history, but not their romance. I love them and their chemistry, but the love story itself is lacking.

Would You Want A Love Like This?

KNB: I like that they’re both artistic. He wants to get into music and be a rapper, she’s a poet. They clearly connect on that level. I love that they’re similar souls with similar creative visions and artistic inclination. They’re obviously bonded by grief as well, which I think is important. But I think when shit gets hard for both of them, their instinct is to run. Especially for Lucky, when he found out about his cousin’s death, he immediately blamed Justice for “distracting” him and bounced. To me, that’s not a stable love. You can’t have a good foundation of love and respect if shit gets hard, and you immediately leave. And then I think that Justice needs a lot of therapy before she’s ready to love somebody else after her boyfriend’s murder and her grandmother’s death. I don’t think she has a lot of love for herself because of the grief. She doesn’t really know what she wants to do with her life, and she’s ashamed she didn’t go to college. She says, at one point, “My grandma would be rolling in her grave if she saw me now.” 

IK: The timing of it is just bad. It’s so messy and complicated. They both need to go to therapy or at least figure out how to get past the loss in their lives because there’s too much going on, and they’re not the type of people who are able to handle that properly. Again, I also don’t like men talking spicy to women that they’re interested in; there was too much negging, insults and arguing for me. If you’re a man and you’re interested in a woman, the way that you approach her should be on some, “Baby, please, baby, please” energy. That’s how I feel. You’ve gotta approach me with that soft energy from the beginning. So I personally would’ve liked a more flirtatious vibe between them. Plus, Lucky was giving strong misogynistic vibes throughout the film.

KNB: I mean, other than being extremely attractive… what does Lucky have going for him? 

IK: Not a lot! Also, this movie is an example of one of my least favorite tropes: enemies to lovers. I hate that. If you were ever mean to me, you’re basically dead to me, and you would never be able to lay up with me or kiss me. You were disrespecting me for what? No. Now I have all of this antagonism and animosity towards you. Get out of my face.

“I think that hate and love are two sides of the same coin — the common denominator between them is passion. You can passionately hate someone. You can passionately love someone. It’s a thin line, and when that trope is done well, it’s really entertaining.”

kathleen newman-bremang

KNB: I love an enemies to lovers trope! I think that hate and love are two sides of the same coin — the common denominator between them is passion. You can passionately hate someone. You can passionately love someone. It’s a thin line, and when that trope is done well, it’s really entertaining. I actually think it’s done really well in this movie because you can feel the passionate hate for each other in the beginning. You’re like, “Wow, these people hate each other. They do not want to be in the same room, let alone in the same f*cking car, let alone on a road trip together.” Their love is a slow burn — I love a slow burn. But I also think a hate-to-love romance doesn’t last because that passion fades in any romance. Eventually, those super strong feelings just fizzle, and what you have left is just respect, love, and admiration for your partner. I don’t know if these two have that. 

IK: Just as quickly or as slowly as the pendulum swings from hating someone to loving them, it can swing back to hating them again. Pick a side and stay there.

Is This Couple Still Together? 

IK: They might be the type to break up and get back together, but ultimately, these people will not be in each other’s lives long term. And I think the split would be a very bad one.

KNB: Oh, absolutely they break up a lot. Their personalities are too fiery, and they yell at each other too much. But I do think that if Justice becomes a stepmom to Keisha, Lucky’s little baby girl, I can see that keeping them together. But they definitely break up all the time. And one of the reasons is that Justice thinks she’s too good for Lucky. Everyone around her is like, “You are too good for this man.” I don’t think Lucky’s ego is going to withstand everyone in their lives saying Justice is too good for him. Justice believes she’s too good for him, too. 

IK: This story is so realistic though — we all know those couples who fight and make up so frequently even when the best option is for them to just…not be together anymore. 
KNB: I definitely know those couples. You watch them interact and you’re like, “Oh yeah, they hate each other.” But they take each other back every time. So, is this couple still together? No, but they’re going to get back together next week.

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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,

Welcome to “What’s Good,” where we break down what’s soothing, distracting, or just plain good in the streaming world with a “rooting for everybody Black” energy.

What’s Good? It doesn’t feel right to call Showtime’s four-part documentary series We Need To Talk About Cosby “good” considering it is a horrifying, unrelenting, frank reminder that the man we grew up idolizing is in fact a monster who used his power and status to rape multiple women (allegedly — Cosby has denied all allegations; he was convicted of sexual assault but the ruling was overturned in 2021).  But that’s exactly why it’s so good. Director W. Kamau Bell declares himself a “child of Bill Cosby” early in the first episode and if you grew up in a Black house where The Cosby Show was as ubiquitous as that one comforter every Black family inexplicably had, that descriptor hits. Cosby was “America’s Dad” and the parasocial paternal relationship he had with his audience is exactly how he was able to hide in plain sight. There’s no separating the art from the artist because Cosby’s art was the bait he used to gain the trust of his alleged victims and the anchor on which he bet on their silence. 

As Bell said  in an interview with The Daily Beast, “It’s not an accident that Cliff Huxtable and Bill Cosby wore the same sweaters. He is trying to blur that line.” The line was always blurred between Cliff Huxtable and Bill Cosby, but the truth is that every artist is intrinsically linked to their art. There is no separation. Not for R.Kelly, or Michael Jackson, or Russell Simmons, or Kevin Spacey, or JK Rowling, or… I could go on. And what’s so good about We Need To Talk About Cosby is that it articulates the harm of trying to compartmentalize good pop culture from the bad person who created it.

What’s so good about We Need To Talk About Cosby is that it articulates the harm of trying to compartmentalize good pop culture from the bad person who created it.

kathleen newman-bremang

This documentary series gives a nuanced understanding of what happens when we build heroes out of heinous humans and even though it’s uncomfortable to reckon with, Bell charts the complicity we all share when we declare someone unimpeachable just because they are good at their jobs. Or because they were Black and exceptional. Talking about the wrongdoings of famous people (yes, even beloved Black celebrities), no matter how much their work meant to our childhoods, isn’t just good, it’s essential.  

Who It’s Good For: We Need To Talk About Cosby is for anyone, like me, who had an emotional attachment to the myth that was Cliff Huxtable, and (by proxy and on purpose) Bill Cosby. The Cosby Show was technically before my time. The show premiered before I was born and I missed its original eight-season run from 1984 to 1992 because the only things I watched then involved a purple dinosaur or a terrifying kangaroo wearing polka dots (real ones know). But the Huxtables didn’t go away in 1992.

I was born into a world where the Huxtables were already family — especially if you were Black, middle class, and raised in the suburbs. They weren’t just a group of fictional characters on TV. They were a reflection of our existence. They were a validation and a reclamation of our humanity. My dad was a doctor like Cliff, my mom a professional like Clair. The racist white people who lived on our street actually called us “The Cosbys,” not “The Huxtables.” My parents didn’t love the nickname, but I didn’t mind it. Being compared to Bill Cosby and his family was a compliment, right? It meant we were good, upstanding Black folk.

Watching re-runs of The Cosby Show only deepened the pride I felt in the association. The TV show was this shiny beacon of progress and the script from which my family’s value seem to be based. As long as it  existed, we were seen and understood. Our neighbors may have been ignorant, but as long as we were “The Cosbys,” they wouldn’t hurt us, right? Now I know how misguided and reliant on white validation this all was, but when you’re raised by Bill Cosby, it’s easy to get caught up in keeping up appearances. 

Watching Bell contextualize Cosby’s popularity and importance as a Black cultural figure while also describing in detail (told by Cosby’s accusers) the way he leveraged his wholesome image to drug and allegedly assault women is hard to digest. I watched most of it through tears. It’s uncomfortable and uncompromising. Even though we’ve known about the allegations for years, seen the headlines, and heard all the jokes, watching Cosby’s triumphs beside his transgressions is brutal — especially because there is no way to let ourselves off the hook. There is a system in place that allowed Cosby to do what he did and for as long as he did. If you believe his accusers, and I do, it’s clear that he thought he was invincible and on many levels, he was. He was Cliff Huxtable, the most respected, loveable, trusted dad in America. And he was Black. At every turn, he tricked us into thinking Bill Cosby was the same, and deserved the same respect, love, and trust. And we bought it. What Bell and his various cultural commentators and interview subjects do so well is force us to reckon with the juxtaposition of Bill Cosby the performer, and Bill Cosby the predator. But as the New York Times notes, they are one and the same. “There isn’t a good Cosby and a bad Cosby, whom we can store in different mental compartments,” James Poniewozik writes. “There is just Bill Cosby, about whom we didn’t know enough and now know dreadfully more. In the end, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are always the same guy.”

We Need To Talk About Cosby is for the children of Cosby, but it’s also a case study in celebrity and, as Buzzfeed’s Elamin Abdelmahmoud notes “the blueprint for how we reflect on horrible people who once gave us joy before we discovered their evil.” It’s for anyone who has ever held a celebrity on a pedestal. We all need the reminder that no one — absolutely no one — should be above reproach. 

The line was always blurred between Cliff Huxtable and Bill Cosby, but the truth is that every artist is intrinsically linked to their art. There is no separation.

KATHLEEN NEWMAN-BREMANG

How Good Is It? It’s important that a Black man is the one at the helm of this series. Bell knows the risk he took in taking on this topic. It’s so risky, multiple people he asked to be subjects turned him down. “I think they don’t want to engage in this for the same reason that a lot of people don’t want to engage with this,” Bell explained of the rejections. “It’s divisive, no matter how nuanced you try to be.” So much of that nuance lies in Cosby’s stature as a Black elder in Hollywood. And it’s why there are still many Black Cosby supporters. Just look at the comment sections of every article written about this series. There are still people who think 60 women (SIXTY) are lying and who equate Cosby’s public fall from grace to a “lynching.” What about the white abusers? They’ll say. Where’s the documentary on Jeffrey Epstein? First of all, there are several. And defending Cosby by pointing out that white men have also done reprehensible shit is actually not a defense at all. It’s just asking us to ignore his actions because he’s Black, but if we do that, we are subscribing to the same monolithic thinking that Cosby actually railed against his whole career. Not all Black people are the stereotypes The Cosby Show worked to render obsolete. Not all Black men are rapists because Cosby allegedly is one. I’m more concerned about the survivors, many of whom are Black (despite Cosby defenders falsely claiming that his accusers are only white women). We should be afraid for them, and R.Kelly’s victims, and Russell Simmons’ accusers, and so many other Black women who are consistently abused by men and failed by a system designed to protect their perpetrators. I care more about them than a man who built a fortune by swindling people into thinking he was something he wasn’t. No one is “tearing down a Black man” by telling the truth about Bill Cosby.

We Need To Talk About Cosby is so good because it grapples with all of this and it has Black folks speaking to the complexity of Cosby’s legacy. The best thing it does though is prove that it’s not that complicated at all. It’s actually very simple to believe women and not to afford bad men the power and opportunity to hurt people without consequences. It’s not hard to stop allowing Black Excellence to act as an excuse to stop holding people accountable. I don’t want to live in a world where “excellence” can overrule the safety and existence of survivors. Celebrity shouldn’t be a shield from real world repercussions. And we shouldn’t be looking to Black celebrities to solve any systemic injustices because the truth is, they can easily be the ones upholding them. 

If we don’t allow artists’ behavior to taint their work, we are saying that the work matters more than their actions. And that just can’t be true. Art isn’t made in a vacuum. And if art affords you power, how you use that power should be a direct reflection of your art. We Need To Talk About Cosby lays this all out so clearly and allows us the chance to admit that we were wrong. We were wrong about Bill Cosby. It’s okay to say that out loud. 

When Cosby’s allegations first resurfaced, I was still holding on to my childhood memories of The Cosby Show. I even wrote a blog post (that I can’t find thankfully because the thought of it makes me cringe) about how we should still be able to watch the series and not negate its importance in the wake of these horrible revelations. I didn’t defend Cosby, but I defended his work. We Need To Talk About Cosby explains why you can’t do one without the other. And why it’s always been time to let go of both.

I’ll leave you with one of the lines in the doc that should sum up Cosby’s legacy .Bell asks his interview subjects a simple question: Who Is Bill Cosby? The best answer: “He’s a rapist who had a really big TV show once.”

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Welcome to Love Like This?, a romance column where we, Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Ineye Komonibo, revisit some of the most romantic — or not, in hindsight  — scenes in Black film and TV history. 

For five seasons, we’ve watched Issa Dee (Issa Rae), our homegirl in our head who has always been a bit too insecure to figure her shit out, and Lawrence Walker (Jay Ellis), an aloof former wasteman who seems to be trying his best to be a good man, break up, get back together, and break up again. If you’re a fan of Insecure — whether you’re Lawrence Hive or not — you know that these two have always been the central will-they-or-won’t-they romance of the show. So one of the biggest questions leading into Sunday’s series finale was who Issa would end up with, if anyone, and how her relationship with Lawrence would play out. Well, we finally have our answer. 

Major spoilers for the season 5 finale of Insecure ahead. 

There was a Daniel (Y’lan Noel), a Nathan (Kendrick Sampson), a Condola (Christina Elmore), a whole baby, and some insignificant hookups along the way, but Issa and Lawrence found their way back to each other — for good. For good? We usually reserve this column to look back at some of the most memorable scenes in the best onscreen Black love stories to see if all these years later, they hold up. Here, we’re making an exception to dive deep into a scene that just happened, and to take stock of a couple who may not officially count as Black love canon yet (an honor that comes with time), but this finale is an instant classic, so we’ve decided to treat it as such. 

The thing about Insecure that makes it so great is not just its exceptional storytelling, its characters who feel like friends, or its groundbreaking portrayal of Black ordinary-ness, it’s that every choice the show makes turns into a cultural moment aka Twitter discourse. The debate over whether Issa should have moved on from Nathan and chose Lawrence (or anyone) is raging, wreaking havoc on our timelines and leaving us wondering: would we really want a love like Issa ends up with? Does Lawrence even deserve our girl? And did the final moments of this love story, and the entire series, live up to the expectations we’ve had for the past five years of loving this show? We sort through our FEELINGS (we’re still hella emotional, okay!?) to answer all that and more. One thing is for sure, we’re going to miss Insecure like Tiffany in Denver misses Los Angeles. 

The Scene:

More than halfway through Insecure’s series finale, Issa and Lawrence’s fate is still unclear. After Lawrence’s well-meaning but fully-embarrassing public declaration at Tiffany and Derek’s goodbye party goes left, Issa’s relationship with Nathan becomes a casualty of Lawrence’s outburst, leaving her heartbroken and confused about her next steps. But time (and the support of her besties) heals all wounds — for the most part. Pushing past the split from Nathan, Issa throws herself into her work, devoting her time and energy to making sure that at least the professional part of her life is less… insecure. However, it doesn’t take long before Issa decides she wants that old thing (read: Lawrence) back.

The former lovers meet up at Issa’s new unfurnished office, and the romantic tension between them is thick, as usual. Issa tells Lawrence about her journey to building her dream, and her new digs, but they both know that Issa’s not just talking about work. 

“I keep thinking about all it took to get here,” Issa begins her speech, which is the Insecure equivalent of the epic monologue/declaration of love at the end of every rom-com. “Doubting myself, going back and forth on what I wanted, being scared to waste my time and look stupid in case none of it worked out. And then I realized it was all in my head.” Everything Issa is describing is about them and her fear surrounding their ability to have a healthy, happy relationship. “I had to believe that it would work out for it to work,” she says. When Lawrence asks whether she now believes things will work out, Issa gives the simplest, most honest answer she can: “I’m OK with finding out.” Visibly moved, Lawrence closes the gap between them and takes her into a passionate kiss.

Does The Grand Gesture Hold Up? 

Kathleen Newman-Bremang: The grand gesture here is Issa’s speech, and I guess Lawrence’s declaration at the party. You know I am not Lawrence Hive — for many seasons I have not been able to stand this man — but I love a good romantic speech, and I thought Issa gave a really good speech. I don’t love that it wasn’t Lawrence putting his heart on the line and throwing the hail mary at Issa, instead of the other way around. Think about the penultimate episode when Lawrence’s friend Chad was like, “Yo, you never fight for anything in your f*cking life. Fight for this.” (I’m paraphrasing). Aside from declaring his love in the middle of a f*cking party while her boyfriend (Nathan) was there, he didn’t fight. And now, in this grand moment, it’s Issa who is the one that’s being like, “OK, let’s do this,” and Lawrence just gets to be there and accept it. I like it as a gesture for Issa, but I don’t like that Issa’s the one making the gesture, especially in this relationship, because Lawrence has done nothing, and continues to do nothing, to make this relationship work. Like Chad said, Lawrence just lets life happen to him “like he’s on the dock of the bay.” Not to agree with the goofiest character on the show, but Chad’s right. And Lawrence is doing the exact same thing here.

I don’t like that Issa’s the one making the grand gesture, especially in this relationship, because Lawrence has done nothing, and continues to do nothing, to make this relationship work.

KATHLEEN NEWMAN-BREMANG

Ineye Komonibo: You know I’m Lawrence Hive through and through, so I gotta start by saying that I am so happy! My spirit was telling me that it wasn’t going to end the way that I wanted, but God had a plan. There is a sermon somewhere in this ending, just for me. I love it! To defend Lawrence, he did try to fight for her. Very belatedly, but he did! Yes, the timing of the moment at Tiffany and Derek’s was very bad, I will give you that, but leading up to the party, they’d been playing phone tag. Lawrence didn’t know if she’s happy in her relationship, and Issa assumed that he was still with Condola. He was thinking, this is the only time where I’m going to see this person to say this thing. 

I liked the grand gesture in the office because it’s Issa taking her agency in her love life, and I don’t know that she’s been able to do that with confidence before. It’s Issa driving the boat, saying, “I’m just going to shoot my shot in the fullest way possible, and you can take it however you want to.” You have to do your part before leaving it up to the universe, so I applauded her for being vulnerable enough to do that and finally say what was in her heart. I thought it was really moving to see Issa be that honest and brave. 

Did Nathan Ever Really Have A Shot? 

IK: Absolutely not. Whether it’s because of his mental health issues, or if that’s just his character, Nathan is a flight risk, and he himself has acknowledged that. This is not the person that you put roots down with or the type to stay and fight for you. Nathan is, unfortunately, a fair-weather boyfriend; when things are getting hard, when they’re getting complicated, he dips. With Issa, there’ll always be chaos and mess because that’s kinda who she is. There’s always going to be drama around her, so she needs to be with a person who is okay with a little turbulence every now and then (or like, every day). He’s too rigid to be that person for Issa. 

KNB: First of all, Nathan is fine as hell. The Lord did well when Kendrick Sampson was made. Damn. We saw that booty last episode. Whew. Anyway, I agree that Nathan never had a shot. Aside from the fact that they have been writing Lawrence and Issa as the One True Pairing (OTP) of the show since the beginning, Nathan was just never the right fit. The way Nathan reacts in any situation when shit gets hard, or tough, or uncomfortable is horrible. He never reacts in a mature or measured way. Every single time something chaotic happens — and you’re right, it’s Issa, so something chaotic is always going to happen — he either runs, shuts down communication wise, or picks a fight. There’s never a moment where he’s understanding. He expects that empathy and grace for some of his actions because he’s bipolar, and he’s been open about that. But then, as soon as someone else does something messy or that you could attribute to what they’re going through mentally, like when Issa was crying on the man’s shoulder, he has no empathy.

The biggest moment when I realized that Nathan never had a shot was in the flash forwards, when Issa was imagining her different future life paths. She’s dreaming about her career and in each sequence, she comes home to Nathan and in each one, I was thinking, Would this man really be okay with her being this successful? Would this man really be okay with her traveling so much and then coming home to him, and still being that supportive? That means that everything they’ve told us about Nathan is that he wouldn’t be. So it was clear to me that this man does not fit into Issa’s future, because the future is her ascending, and Nathan will always stay static. I actually think that’s good for him and his mental health; he needs stability, to be in one place. He needs to do the same thing every day, but that’s not what Issa needs. Plus, it’s always felt like Nathan has really liked Issa, but I don’t know if he ever really loved Issa, because of the way that he treated her.

IK: Because of his situation, Nathan is also so used to walking away from people and coming back when he’s ready. I think men in general have that problem of thinking time is an apology, but where’s the remorse? Where’s the changed behavior? Nathan suffers from that mentality; he thinks the world runs on his time, but he doesn’t get that he also needs to reciprocate the grace he’s demanding from people. Yes, he is fine, but Nathan just isn’t the one. It was never meant to be.

KNB: He was just not Issa’s man. He’s a good time, not a long time. 

For me, Issa and Lawrence have always been a match. They’re like two puzzle pieces that just fit together.

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Rate The Kiss: 

KNB: Damn, that was a good kiss. I was actually impressed because aside from “Low Key Happy” — one of the most romantic episodes in television history — the chemistry between Issa and Lawrence hasn’t been giving what it should give. So I was surprised by this kiss because the chemistry was there. I was like, “Damn, Jay! You got all that in you?” I was not expecting to be as turned on by Jay Ellis during that kiss as I was. Listen, Issa turns me on all the time. Jay, he’s a very handsome man, but he’s usually not giving me the sexy leading man passion that I need. But in this kiss, it was there. It was there for the whole scene. As Issa is doing her speech, it was even in the way he was looking at her. As soon as he walked in the room I was like, “Oh, they’re going to make out.” I knew these motherf*ckers were getting back together. Because he’s just locked in on her the whole time and he’s licking his lips. He’s walking closer to her while she’s saying her lines and shit. I was like, “Damn! He’s on one.” I was feeling things.

IK: It’s a 10 out of 10 for me! Let me say this about Jay Ellis: I am the president of his fan club for a reason. The man has a shine about him. There’s a literal sparkle in his eyes! Their kiss felt like an “I’ve been waiting to do that for years” type of kiss. I actually think that they have good chemistry in general. For me, Issa and Lawrence have always been a match. They’re like two puzzle pieces that just fit together. When she’s doing her usual chaotic thing of going on a tangent because she’s nervous, the man is just smiling at her and thinking, That’s my girl. In that moment, he’s clearly relieved and thrilled to be there, and he is so excited for their future. You can tell that Lawrence adores Issa and is like, “I’m so happy that we’re doing this. Thank God we’re finally here.” These people are in love. It’s love, man! I don’t know what to tell y’all.

KNB: I don’t give Lawrence a lot because I think that he has done so many things, to me, that are unforgivable, but I will give him this kiss. 

Would You Want A Love Like This?

IK: I think that the right thing, the socially acceptable thing to say is no. But it’s a 50/50 split for me. In real life — and God is probably laughing at me as I say this, but please! — I cannot be with somebody who has had a kid with somebody else. I’m just not interested in being anyone’s stepmother. My heart’s not big enough to do that. However, not everybody feels or thinks that way. Like Tiffany says, “Just because it’s not right to other people, or doesn’t make sense to other people, that doesn’t mean that it’s not for you.” And that applies to so much  in Issa’s life. Her career choice may not make sense to a lot of people, and it wasn’t the path that she planned for herself, but it was what was right for her. What I really like about this love story is two people saying, “Okay, our lives are turning out in ways that we did not imagine, but we’re still choosing to come together and create a new life and a new vision for ourselves.” So while I don’t think I would fully want this love, I do love this for them. 

KNB: I would not want a love like this because there is too much water under the bridge. As much as I do believe that Issa and Lawrence love each other, and are in love with each other, I think if either one of them had that feeling with anybody else, they would be with someone else. I do believe you can have that deep love feeling with more than one person. So, if either Issa or Lawrence had that feeling with anyone else, they wouldn’t be with each other. The only reason they’re with each other, I think, is because they just are chasing this feeling that they’ve only had with each other. 

I don’t believe that Lawrence fully trusts Issa, or ever will. And I think that Issa is going to have to constantly compromise because she’s made this decision. I think she’s going to constantly be apologizing for Lawrence and his bullshit, and we know Lawrence is going to come with some bullshit, because he’s been doing it for five seasons. He’s going to drop the ball, get complacent, give up on the effort that you need to maintain a relationship. Lawrence has done it all before. I think that the only difference this time is that Issa will be like, “Okay, I’ll compromise. I’ll take it.” She’ll be giving away parts of herself in order to make this thing work just because she’s had this connection, this feeling with this guy for so long. I think that she’s come closest, probably, to having that spark with Daniel. 

IK: Listen, if Daniel was in the picture, I might have a different answer. If Daniel was still in the equation, I probably would never open my mouth to talk about Lawrence again. But that’s why the writer’s room couldn’t go that route — they knew we needed an OTP.

KNB: Exactly. Is this OTP what I would have wanted for Issa? No. I would like a third option. I would like her to have moved on from Nathan, to move on from Lawrence, even from Daniel; Daniel just wasn’t as obsessed with her as a man should be with a woman he’s dating. I wouldn’t have chosen any of them for Issa, but we don’t get to choose our friend’s partners. I don’t get to choose Issa’s partner. She’s very happy. It couldn’t be me, but I’m happy for her.

We so rarely get to see Black characters ride off into the sunset and get their happily ever after, so [even though] I wouldn’t have chosen this OTP for Issa… I’m happy for her.

kathleen newman-bremang

Does This Couple Stay Together? 

KNB: To start this off, we’ve got to note that there’s a ring. At the end of the episode, Issa is looking at herself in the mirror and we notice a ring on that finger. She says to Molly about marriage, “Oh, is that what I have to look forward to?” So, the assumption is that she and Lawrence got engaged. Do they stay together? 

IK: They have a long road ahead of them, and it will be a road paved with blood, sweat, and tears. But I do think that in Lawrence, Issa has a real partner. It’s not going to be easy…things with Condola are going to get weird at some point. Baby mama stuff is always going to be awkward, and there’s always going to be some drama. But they can approach the problems now with the mindset of, “Listen, we’ve already been through so much. If we want this to work, we need to be serious about it.” The stakes are higher because they’ve already been through the mud, so they have to put in effort to make the relationship better than it was before. So yeah, the engagement is going to last. I think they’re going to get married and maybe give Elijah some siblings. And at some point, maybe Condola gets married to somebody else, and then they’re all co-parenting. I see it.

KNB: Issa and I are the same person in my brain. I know so many of us think that, but me and Issa are the same. I need somebody who can make a motherf*cking decision and fight for things, because I’m the wishy-washy chaotic person in the relationship. When my husband and I broke up for four days a few years ago, he was the one on my doorstep, crying his face off being like, “No. Let’s work on this.” He’s that guy. I need that person. I need a grownup in the room. I think that Issa needs a grownup in the room. And the beautiful thing that happened by the end of the series is that she became her own grownup. That’s something I’m still working on. She became the decisive one who will fight for them and that’s why she and Lawrence might actually work. I’ve never liked him for her because I always thought that she needs somebody who’s sturdier and takes more initiative in the relationship. Two chaotic people make the mess that we’ve seen for five seasons. 

But I’m going to say yes they are still together for the sake of Issa Dee, because I love her that much. I want her to get her happily-ever-after. We so rarely get to see Black characters ride off into the sunset and get their happily ever after, so I’m going to give this to them. Again, as much as I dislike Lawrence, I knew this was inevitable. Lawrence has always been the endgame. As Issa Dee’s best friend (Molly, step aside), I’m always going to think that her husband is trash. But I am still rooting for them, and I think they’ll stay together, mainly because, like I said, Issa is deciding to give up parts of herself, and to compromise, to bend to the whims of this waste man. Forever. 

They have a long road ahead of them, and it will be a road paved with blood, sweat, and tears. But I do think that in Lawrence, Issa has a real partner.

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IK: I get it, man. I get the Lawrence hate. I was there hating with y’all, but I saw the vision. I understand why they’re OTP, and I’m so happy it turned out like this! Thank God she didn’t end up alone. How sad would that have been after five seasons of mess?

KNB: Being single is totally fine, and lots of people do it and love that life, so I understand the people who wanted her to end up alone and just happy in her career. But Issa has never been that person who wants to be single. Issa has always wanted a partner, and she’s always wanted it to be Lawrence, if we’re being honest. And I like that Issa ended up with somebody who’s wrong for her. I don’t think they’re right for each other. But that’s life. If you look at most marriages, or pairings, even people that will stay together until they’re dead, were they really the perfect match for each other? No. Do their jobs align? Do their personalities match perfectly? No. Life is about just being with the person that you want to be around the most. I do think that Issa and Lawrence like to be around each other a lot, which is…nice.

IK: I won! Lawrence Hive, we really won!

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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,

This story includes Succession season 3 spoilers. 

If you’ve ever been a Black employee in boardroom full of white executives — truly, my least favorite place on earth — you know that watching HBO juggernaut Succession is like getting a perverse peek into what horrible things those horrible bosses say and do when they’re not on their best (read: still horrible) behavior in your presence. On the rare occasion that there are Black characters in the room on the show, specifically Black women this season, they offer insight into the reality of how we are overlooked, ignored, exploited and dismissed — and how Black women can expose the insecurities of powerful white people. In order to succeed at depicting white privilege, Succession has to fail its Black characters. Whether it’s through a well-timed eyeroll, the purposefully measured tone of a carefully-constructed sentence, or a blistering one-liner, the Black women on Succession do a lot with very little, whether it’s on the page or not. 

They’re relegated to one-episode cameos (Ziwe Fumodoh as late-night comedian Sophie Iwobi), underwritten arcs (Sanaa Lathan as hotshot lawyer Lisa Arthur) or long-suffering sidekicks (Juliana Canfield as overworked assistant Jess Jordan), but in the world of multimedia conglomerate Waystar Royco, undercooked Black characters may just be the best-case scenario. The alternative is subjecting hypothetical characters of color — a request frequently made by people calling out the show for its lack of diverse cast — to the tyrannical whims of the Roy family at the center of Succession. Do we really want more Black characters to be on the receiving end of a Logan Roy (Brian Cox) berating, a Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) mindf*ck (remember when he baited a Latinx kid in season 1 with a million-dollar check only to rip it up in his face?), or a humiliating Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) errand, like tending to his kids’ pet rabbit? 

The latter was a task for Jess given by Kendall, the prodigal son who after three seasons is unraveling in real time after trying, and failing, to overthrow his father — again. Every major Black woman character this season has been strictly in Kendall’s orbit, but none more than Jess. Jess is a character I spend way too much time worrying about considering how inconsequential she is to the plot. She is so incidental, she has inexplicably been absent from the past two episodes. After seasons of putting up with Kendall’s bullshit tirelessly, and being by his side for every single one of his f-ckups and breakdowns, Jess disappears in the episode “Too Much Birthday” where Kendall plans an extravagant, obnoxious, extremely on-brand 40th birthday party. As he was methodically dishing out orders to his team while planning to descend from the rafters singing Billy Joel’s “Honesty,” we were left wondering where Jess was to look up from her phone long enough to say “OK” with her mouth and “Are you fucking kidding me?” with her eyes. 

Do we really want more Black characters to be on the receiving end of a Logan Roy berating, a Roman Roy mindf*ck, or a humiliating Kendall Roy errand?

Even though she’s done many things outside the scope of her executive assistant job title, Jess technically works for Waystar, so that could explain why she wasn’t running point on a party that included an inflatable rendering of Kendall’s mom’s vagina. But it was when his PR assistant Comfry took over the role of his right hand and also became the object of Cousin Greg’s affection in “Too Much Birthday” and in last night’s “Chiantishire,” set in Italy, Jess’s absence felt glaring. 

We all know Jess is even more out of Greg’s league than Comfry is, but the fact that she wasn’t even considered as a crush option feels a little anti-Black to me. I want Jess to stay as far away from the Roys and their kin as possible, but I could also watch 100 episodes of Juliana Canfield throwing silent exasperated cut-eye at Jeremy Strong. I would also love it if she was given more to do, even if that means awkward flirting with towering bag of milk Cousin Greg. Let Jess get her eat, pray, love on in Italy! But it’s Succession and every character is there in service of the Roys. “You’re always reminded who the main character is,” author and podcast host Aminatou Sow said on the official HBO Succession podcast recently. “The Roys are the main character. Why would anyone [else] benefit from anything that they’ve done?” 

Not only does no one else benefit except for the Roys (which Roy is dependent on the episode), the supporting characters are there solely for their benefit. Take for example Kendall’s lawyer Lisa Arthur. When Sanaa Lathan was cast in the role, it was big news. It was positioned in headlines as an answer to “social media criticism of the show’s nearly all-white cast,” as The Hollywood Reporter put it. In response to this notion, Lathan said, “Well, clearly they took the note.” If Succession was using Lathan for good optics, they were taking a note from Kendall’s playbook. Lisa is hired because she’s a celebrity lawyer whose politics align with Kendall’s agenda to play the woke white savior in opposition to his out-of-touch bigot daddy. She’s also hired because she’s Black. 

“The few Black folks who move through the Roys’ orbit are always at the family’s service, and if they are in public-facing roles, it is because their Blackness is yet another thing the Roys can exploit,” Kali Holloway writes for The Daily Beast in a piece called “Here’s What Succession Gets So Right About Toxic Whiteness.” But Kendall can’t even get out of his own way long enough to exploit Lisa and her Blackness in his favor. To Lisa’s face, Kendall is a pompous dick who couches his condescension in coded language like telling her to “try harder” when she breaks it to him that his case “isn’t a slam dunk.” The audacity of a white man who has inherited every job he’s ever had to tell a successful Black woman in America to “try harder” like hard work isn’t a necessity, a tool of survival, and a prerequisite. 

Kendall and Lisa’s relationship is the closest Succession comes to overtly depicting the nuances of race and white privilege in the corporate world. And it never really goes there. After a disastrous deposition where Lisa confronts Kendall for acting like he’s smarter than her, undermining her, and for coming off as a magniloquent ass (she used more Kendall-friendly language), he fires her unceremoniously. “Turns out she’s a toxic person,” Kendall announces to his team after an off-screen dismissal. I’m not sure if the Succession writers used the word “toxic” on purpose, to expose that Kendall is threatened by his own white fragility and toxicity, and that his silver spoon is so far up his ass, he can’t see that he just fired the one person who could help set him free of his “toxic” family. It’s not clear if they did it on purpose because so much of what we have to take away from Lisa’s underwhelming arc is in the subtext.  

Succession is a show that uses hip-hop as a punchline and has more incest jokes per episode than Black people in the whole series. But surprisingly, that fact hasn’t made me stop watching. Unlike The White Lotus or Nine Perfect Strangers, Succession has never pretended to be anything but an absurd dark comedic satire about rich white people with no morals. There isn’t supposed to be a moral to this story, or a lesson about how tourists treat Indigenous Hawaiians. Succession never takes itself too seriously and therefore if you do choose to tune in, you know exactly what you’re getting: great writing, great acting, and a story about white billionaires and their ridiculous mess — for better or for worse. 

One of the season’s best moments came from Ziwe’s Sophie Iwobi, whose purpose on the show was to tell Kendall about himself, as Black women do. As Kendall is walking around like a martyr for the progressive feminist movement yelling “f*ck the patriarchy!” unprompted, Sophie is dragging him and his “caucasian rich brain” on her talk show. When Kendall blows off an appearance on her show, Sophie gets to deliver lines like “Oedipussy has ghosted my ass!” and  “I’m heartbroken because I had so many names I was going to call him — Wokestar Royco. Benedickhead Arnold. Paranoid Kendroid.” 

Succession doesn’t have to reckon with race in any meaningful ways because the Roys haven’t — and wouldn’t — either. 

Sad Kendall was slowly emerging as the lone hero on a series stacked with villains (Shiv being the worst of them all; I said what I said). People started to feel sorry for the poor rich boy with daddy issues. Sophie brought the audience, and Kendall, back down to earth. He’s just a misogynist, ignorant, egotistical, broken man, just like his dad. He’s still a villain, even if he’s a walking tragedy. If Kendall had actually absorbed any of Sophie’s scathing critiques, or taken the legal advice of his lawyer, or started paying attention to Jess as a capable coworker instead of his minion, maybe he wouldn’t be face down in a pool in Italy when we last see him. But, again, this is Succession and the show we are watching is one of debauchery, not redemption. Kendall is the guy who tweets “listen to Black women” for clout while he’s talking over one, and always will be — even if the show never explicitly shows us this. We’ve seen more of Roman’s penis than substantive depictions of Black characters, and you know what, on this show, that’s OK with me. 

To some, Succession’s inability to confront its racial blindspots is a glaring omission. “This isn’t to suggest that Succession is a racist show, merely that its whiteness lets it avoid confronting the subject of race with any real complexity, which is of course one of the many perks that whiteness has historically conferred on actual white people,” Jack Hamilton writes in Slate. It’s only ever implied that the Roys themselves are racists, like when Roman wants to endorse a noted white supremacist as a presidential candidate, but we all know who they are. Even Shiv, who tries to girl boss her way out of any accountability for her family’s horrific actions, only half-heartedly attempts to squash the endorsement, and in the end, takes her place in the family photo with a Nazi. Like Jess and Lisa, any conversations about “the climate” or how race factors into the Roys’ rule over the country have not been referred to in weeks. Succession doesn’t have to reckon with race in any meaningful ways because the Roys haven’t — and wouldn’t — either. 

And would we  — the Black viewers  — even want them to? “This show is our cocaine,” Sow said as she talked about her group chat full of her Black friends who also love Succession. “It represents everything that we rail about in our professional lives but watching it for entertainment is just beautiful… It either confirms the things you think you know or it just plays to the base fantasy that you have.”

Reveling in the shambles of the Roy family (who are allegedly loosely based on the Murdochs) and their moralless, downright evil, yet often hilarious depravity is so much fun because within their ludicrousness lies the truth about whiteness, privilege, extreme wealth, and exploitation: even though their actions have serious consequences, their money and power are a joke and should be treated as such. They are buffoons, fumbling in the dark and subsisting on generational wealth and entitlement instead of intelligence or competency. They are emperors with no clothes, Greek gods wreaking havoc amongst the cosmos, colonizers drunk off their conquests. 

It’s less funny when you think too hard about the fact that these are fictionalized versions of real people who act as barriers to Black people getting jobs, block systemic change, and who uphold racism at the highest levels. They bar Black women from boardrooms and if we do become the exception with a seat at the table, they constantly remind us of our disposability. Sure, it’s more “realistic” to keep Succession as white as it is, considering the world it inhabits, but it’s also easier to laugh at the chaos (and the accidental dick pics) that isn’t our business, than cry like Kendall on his birthday. 

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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,

There’s something about corny Christmas movies that has me in the tightest chokehold every single year around this time, and well into January. If you need me, I’ll be on my couch bingeing every overly saccharine movie about a workaholic city woman who reluctantly goes to a small town — sometimes her hometown — during the holidays only to discover, also reluctantly, that the true meaning of the season is to fall in love with a man who works with his hands and usually wears plaid. The moral of the story is that only Scrooges care about their jobs and that Christmas is really about realizing you’re in love with someone after a few days and sharing a chaste kiss after 90 minutes of sexual tension. Not only do most of these stories go against all my beliefs and values as a workaholic woman who lives in a big city, but they also aren’t as horny as I typically prefer my movies to be. And yet, I will watch them all. For whatever reason, they hit the spot like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold, snowy, Christmas night. 

The thing is, there are so many of these movies that sifting through the really bad to get to the good-bad (let’s be honest, they all fall on the so-bad-it’s-good spectrum) can be tough, and a lot of these Best Hallmark Holiday Movies roundups are as white as the snow that falls at the most romantic moments in said films. But in the past few years, we’ve seen a new crop of corny rom-com queens emerge like Kat Graham (A Christmas Calendar) Christina Millian (Memories of Christmas), Kelly Rowland (Merry Liddle Christmas), and Tia and Tamara Mowry (too many to count!). So, here’s a breakdown of the best (read: corniest, most comforting, oddly calming) Black Christmas movies of 2021.

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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,