#BlackGirlMagic: Issa Rae Creatively Kills Freshmen Season of ‘Insecure’
The highly acclaimed thirty minute slice-of-life comedy series written by the talented actress/director Issa Rae has fans in a delusional tizzy, but not in a negative way. Rae cleverly captures her audience and have them emotionally connect with the characters and their stories, which range from day-to-day life situations, relationships, and cheating.
Issa Rae plays herself and takes us through the awkward experiences and racial tribulations of the black woman. At the same time she conveys the black woman is relatable on television. The stingy 8-episode season shows Issa’s trials and errors in her friendship with BFF Molly, played by Yvonne Orji, her long-term relationship with boyfriend Lawrence, played by Jay Ellis and her work life.
Issa and Molly are both successful in her their work places. Issa works at a non-profit called ‘We Got Yall’ that benefits middle-school students of color. Throughout the series Rae shows how people can be unintentionally cultural insensitive in the work place, which is something people of color face often. One of my favorite scenes in episode 3 of the series, ‘Racist as F**k,’ Issa plans a beach clean up day and her co-workers make an attempt to predict it’s failure. The co-workers had their, ‘secret white meeting and secret white emails’ going and Issa heard them bickering about her ideas. All the way up until the end of beach day her co-workers complained.
Ironically, by the end of the day everyone seen how successful and smooth the day went and gave Issa high praises. Issa’s Indian co-worker who complained with everyone else throws Issa a praise and says, “they always tryna doubt us,” annoyed, the scene flashes to Issa in her bathroom mirror. The mirror symbolizes her safety zone throughout the season and she’s able to freestyle rap what she really wants to get off her chest. We all know the work place is the last place to bring up cultural insensitivity and Rae conveys this amazingly with her sacred mirror scene.
Molly is a corporate attorney, and is able to ‘play the game’ in her work place. In the same episode she notices that her law firm has a new intern, Rasheeda who is extremely expressive amongst the white workers. Being that Molly is a successful attorney, she pulls Rasheeda to the side and tells her to ‘switch it up’ a little. This conversation takes Molly by surprise when Rasheeda tells her ‘she didn’t have to switch it up in her interview’ Rasheeda goes on to basically say why would she switch it up now? This is an issue black people face in the work place, some people call it “being too black.” However, people in other cultures don’t get told to ‘switch it up’ when they speak in their native languages, and individuals of European decent don’t get told they are being too white. Ultimately, Rasheeda ends up being let go from her awesome opportunity leaving Molly literally shaking her head.
I love how Rae conveys social issues within the work place. She shows that you can be young black, creative, and educated and people will still try to insult your intelligence until you prove them wrong.
Relationships was another key element this season. Molly seems to have everything together in her work life but relationships are another story. Molly dates a number of men in this season searching for the right guy, but she finds something wrong with every last one of them. Throughout the season she leaves us thinking, “as a single woman, who clearly has her shit together in all other aspects of life, is it okay to go after exactly what you want, settle, or is she settling?” This is the question that Molly battles all season.
Lawrence and Issa have a very interesting long-term relationship. In the beginning of the season Lawrence looks like Issa’s couch potato boyfriend who has a dollar and a dream but no execution. He wants to develop a mobile application but as stated previously he struggles with the execution process. Lawrence and Issa definitely love one another but Issa is sick of hearing about Lawrence’s dreams she’s ready to see them manifest. Throughout the season we literally see Lawrence transform from couch potato to acquiring a super fancy position at a tech firm.
During Lawrence’s transition in the season Issa remains distant and comes off as not supportive. Issa’s distance from Lawrence causes her to become curious in another guy from her past. Instead of communicating her frustrations with Lawrence, she brushes everything under the rug which puts her in uncomfortable situations. She runs to Molly’s house for a few days to clear her mind about her relationship and ends up running into Daniel who’s always been her ‘what if guy.’ Daniel and Issa have an awkward chemistry causing them to lock lips after an event. Mean while Lawrence is doing all he can to keep Issa in his life, even a flirty bank teller who gives him encouraging words doesn’t stop him from fighting for his relationship.
Communication is the obvious key in all relationships and Issa and Lawrence lacked greatly in that area. Issa ends up cheating on Lawrence with Daniel and again she fails to tell him.
In episode 7, ‘Real as F**k’, Molly and Issa get into a huge argument over relationships. Lawrence finds out Issa cheated on him, and Issa is left alone with no one.
In the beginning of episode 8, ‘Broken as F**k’ Issa is alone in her apartment no boyfriend and no best friend. This is the first time in the season we see Issa all alone. Lawrence is so hurt he doesn’t care to speak to Issa and stays over at a friend’s house, and Molly has no words either.
Ultimately the season ends with a dynamic plot twist Molly and Issa make up after practically ignoring one another for an entire weekend in Malibu, and Lawrence intensively sexes out his hurt and frustrations with the flirty bank teller.
Insecure is well written, well directed and definitely challenges viewers to think about social issues, how to handle relationships, and ultimately how to balance the obstacles life throws at us. Issa Rae definitely is just getting started with this masterpiece. Although, I’m heart broken about Lawrence and Issa, I’m very excited to see what will happen in season 2.