Issa Rae on creating compelling stories from being introverted and awkward

Writer, actor and producer Issa Rae commented to Terry Gross, host of the NPR show Fresh Air, that she was socially uncomfortable and introverted growing up, and one day wrote the phrase "I'm awkward. And black." in her journal. Rae says it was a revelation.

"I knew I was black, obviously, but the 'awkward' part really just defined me in a sense," Rae noted. "That felt like an identity that I had not seen reflected in television or film before, or at least in a very long time."

Terry Gross: "So what made you think that the parts of your life that made you feel awkward and insecure you could claim as an identity and then use that to your advantage and create a character who would be kind of like funny and relatable and everything.

"And that so you could turn what you perceived as like your weakness into a strength."

Issa Rae: "Well, for me, it came from watching shows like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and even 30 Rock, and just identifying with the very specific sense of humor that those shows had, but also being like, wow, there are no people of color in these shows that have the same sense of humor, you know?

"Wondering like why is there this segregated humor? There seems to be like black humor and there seems to be white humor and you know a lot of my friends...we like both, but we don't get to see ourselves reflected on the quote-unquote white humor side.

"And so I wanted to take these traits in the same way that, you know, a lot of my favorite comedians have done it, and Ellen included. Ellen takes so many relatable, embarrassing moments and amplifies them and makes it like, Oh my god, I've been through that too, and that's so funny.

"And have a black character go through those things and make it very racially specific but universal at the same time."

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Show notes for the Fresh Air podcast interview summarizes: "Her Web comedy series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl [based on her memoir] ran for two seasons, and Rae continued to explore themes of race, identity and belonging as the creator and star of the HBO series Insecure."

This audio in an excerpt from the interview: Fresh Air episode with Terry Gross (on NPR): 'Awkward' And 'Insecure' Get To The Root Of Writer Issa Rae's Humor.

Learn about MasterClass Issa Rae Teaches Creating Outside the Lines.

Related Substack/Creative Mind posts/podcast episodes:

Our Inner Stuff is the Raw Material of Our Creative Work

Redeeming Our Inner Demons - an Interview with Psychologist Stephen Diamond

Creating to channel emotional intensity - an interview with psychologist Cheryl Arutt

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Transcript

Issa Rae podcast episode transcript

I'm Terry Gross.
We start today's show with Issa Rae, the creator and star of the HBO series Insecure.
Insecure echoes the title of her memoir and web series, which were both called The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.

In all of those works, she's dealt with issues of identity and feelings of not fitting in, things she dealt with all the time when she was growing up.

She was one of the few black kids in her high school in Maryland, but when her family moved to South LA, she wasn't considered black enough.
She's also lived in Senegal, where her father is from, where she was the only American in her school.
Issa Rae, I love this series.
Welcome to Fresh Air.

Thank you so much, Terry.

You really set the tone in that scene.
I mean, you work for this nonprofit that you're the only African American at that organization.
but when you get in front of like the African American students, and I forget if it's junior high or high school.
Junior high.
Yeah, so they just start like mocking you, you know, like your hair, the way you speak, that your clothes, they don't like your clothes.
You're not married.
So I just think it's so interesting that you start the series off with discomfort coming at you from both the white people that you work with and the black kids that you're trying to help.

Yeah, we wanted to kind of paint that this character is in between two worlds and is just in a constant state of discomfort.
And, you know, that is kind of reflected in the title of this series, but just in terms of her own experiences, you know, not black enough for the black people and not, you know, white enough for the white people.

So the things that your character is mocked for by the junior high school kids, where did those lines come from?
Did kids in junior high say that to you?

Yes, pretty much everything aside from the why aren't you married part I've been asked actually in my adult life I've been asked why are you married what am I talking about but all of those questions those kids ask I've been asked at some point in time so that was all truth and you just wanted to have her face all of those questions at once in a very irritating way

So part of this series is about you know being Being the person who you think is like the token black person at work and Your best friend is the only african-american in the law firm where she works.
She's a lawyer.
So did you?
Being an artist like you're working on TV shows and this is like your own show.
It's like your creation Did you work in a nonprofit where you felt similar to how your character does?

Absolutely.
I've worked in a couple of non-profit settings.
I've worked briefly in the corporate world and have definitely been the sole person of color, the sole black person.
And for me, with this organization and the series we got y'all, I really wanted to just depict my nightmare non-profit organization.
I found the world of nonprofits funny to begin with just because having worked there you see that people are so altruistic and they're so benevolent and they're pretty selfless and you're working generally for a great cause but the atmosphere within the work environment can be oddly competitive, people want the credit
sometimes they don't listen to the people they're trying to help and for me this white guilt is so prevalent at this nonprofit and they're so they treat the kids as this pity party and and for me I would hate to work in an environment like this but it's ripe for comedy

So let me ask you about the web title, Awkward Black Girl.
That's how you saw yourself for a long time.
Where did the awkward part come in, which I imagine is the same kind of part that your series takes its name from, Insecure?

Yeah, well, I was sitting on my bed in New York one day and just thinking about just being having a reflective moment and trying to figure out what I wanted to do and
what my issues were and just was writing in my notebook and wrote down the phrase I'm awkward period and black and that was just a revelatory moment for me in so many ways like I knew I was black obviously but the awkward part really just
define me in a sense.
Like it defined why I was always like socially uncomfortable.
It defined my introvert status.
It defined like why I didn't fit into mainstream media's definition of blackness.
And I just thought that that felt like an identity that I had not seen reflected in television or film.
before or at least in a very long time not since the 90s with with side characters but I'd never seen like a lead black girl just be awkward

So what made you think that the parts of your life that made you feel awkward and insecure you could claim as an identity and then use that to your advantage and create a character who would be kind of like funny and relatable and everything.
And that so you could turn what you perceived as like your weakness into a strength.

Well, for me, it came from watching shows like Seinfeld and Curb, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and even 30 Rock, and just identifying with the very specific sense of humor that those shows had, but also being like, wow, there are no people of color in these shows that have the same sense of humor, you know?
wondering like why is there this segregated humor there seems to be like black humor and there seems to be white humor and you know a lot of my friends taste um you know we like both but we don't get to see ourselves reflected on the quote-unquote white humor side and so
I wanted to take these traits in the same way that, you know, a lot of my favorite comedians have done it, and Ellen included.
Ellen takes so many relatable, embarrassing moments and amplifies them and makes it like, oh my god, I've been through that too, and that's so funny.
And have a black character go through those things and make it very racially specific but universal at the same time.
This is Fresh Air.
Let's get back to my interview with Issa Rae, creator and star of the HBO series Insecure.
She spent part of her childhood in Maryland, where she was one of the few black students in her elementary school.
When she moved to L.A., she went to a predominantly black junior high school.
She told me it was a bit of a culture shock.
It was just because I was watching a lot of television.
So I watched shows like Saved by the Bell.
Even though that wasn't set in L.A., I just thought that would be my L.A.
experience.
to being introverted
for being natural like it did when I was in Maryland and I was just like out of place and you know I think part of that was also that I was a nerd too but I just remember thinking like whoa I do not fit in and I wonder why that is and it's a period of time that I always reference in my work I find
What was your father's attitude to the whole American thing about what it means to be black and are you black enough and are you authentic and all that because coming from Africa, I'm not sure whether all of that would have made any sense to him.
It didn't, and he didn't really subscribe to those notions.
I mean, he understood that there were obstacles that black people faced, but in his mind, those are, those are obstacles that you can overcome just by working hard and by doing the right thing.
And we've never really had conversations about race just because, you know, while he acknowledges
A lot of the burdens, he's also like his own success story.
He came from a family of seven kids, the oldest, and came from Dakar, Senegal, and is a successful doctor here.
And so he's just like very much about working hard.
And in some ways I realize that
and not having those discussions with him and just seeing what he's done I've been able to kind of do that on my end too like I do refuse to see obstacles to a degree and you know I acknowledge that they exist but I refuse to kind of let them affect me and I guess I'm just realizing that about him
You write that the first time in your life you ever felt beautiful was when you went back to Senegal when you were in your sophomore year of high school.
That was the first time you had boys and men pining after you.
Were you considered more beautiful in Senegal than you were in L.A.? ?
Yeah, I think when you're in a country of people who look like you and have your features and who are married to people with your features and attracted to it, it makes it a lot easier.
But I mean, I just grew to appreciate where I came from more and felt also appreciated in a way that I did not in Los Angeles, California.
So when you were a kid and watching TV and not exactly seeing yourself represented, you were sending in scripts at a really young age, like spec scripts, like what kind of kid were you?
Yeah, I mean, I will say that
Well, when I was a kid, I did have, like, the 90s gave me everything.
You know, we had Fresh Prince, we had Living Single, we had, you know, all these shows.
And it was when I got to, I think, high school and college that I didn't see myself represented.
And when I was younger, like, it felt like I wanted to be a part of the writers' rooms.
I wanted to write my own show.
And so, like, I remember the show Cosby came out, which was
different iteration of the Cosby show and I sent in a script for that and I remember going to my first live taping of a show in LA when we when we moved back when I was 11 was Moesha and I got to be in a live studio audience and watch what I say was the last like regular black girl we had on TV Moesha and
regular lead black girl we had and I remember just sitting in that audience taking it all in and loving it and then I want to say that I won a copy of the script for that episode and it was pink and I still have it in a box somewhere but that script is tattered because I would always use that as like the template to write scripts and so when I wrote my Cosby spec script when I wrote my original spec script like it was always based on that format and
What did you learn by studying that script so carefully?
I mean three act structure just how obviously it was a shooting script so I didn't understand that at the time so there were so much there there's a lot of lingo that I just didn't get but for me it just felt like doable it was like oh my gosh I have the key I have the secret of how it's done and the formula is at my fingertips and I just remember rereading to see like oh okay this was
there was sort of a cliffhanger before this commercial break so I need to have that in my own script or there was a significant plot device for character A but not on the B story so just like really trying to break it down in a way that was familiar to me in watching so much TV and of course I have no doubt that my own scripts were terrible but it just felt like I could do this
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