Issa Rae Bought Back the Block

There is a version of the Hollywood story we all know by heart. Talented kid makes it, moves to the hills, and the old neighborhood becomes a line in interviews. Issa Rae looked at that script and rewrote it, which is fitting, because rewriting scripts is literally her job.

She grew up in South LA, in View Park, and her origin story should be taught in every media class. No network would cast the character she knew was real: a regular, brilliant, awkward Black girl. So in 2011 she cast herself. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl went up on YouTube with no gatekeeper's permission, found its audience directly, and proved the demand that executives swore did not exist.

HBO eventually agreed, and Insecure ran for five seasons as one of the defining shows of the decade. Emmy nominations, a Peabody Award for her work, and a generation of Black women who finally saw their actual interior lives on premium cable.

Watch Insecure with a map open sometime. That is not a backlot. She shot across real South LA, Inglewood, Leimert Park, Baldwin Hills, and she framed those neighborhoods the way they deserve: in golden light, full of life, worth looking at. For people who only knew South LA from the evening news, that was a re education, delivered weekly.

“First she put the neighborhood on screen. Then she put her money in it.”