How many Black films or shows have you seen that involve drug abuse, abandonment, police brutality, slavery, and many more struggles? Now, how many have you seen that display themes of self-discovery? If the answers to these questions are drastically different, it shows there is an obvious problem within cinema and television.
And this problem isn’t accidental.
From as early as we can recall, Black show business has trademarked itself and broken barriers. But what happens when those barriers remain in place and limitations are silently created over time? What happens when the industry claims diversity yet continues to confine Black characters to the same recycled narratives?
Only once in a while are we gifted with a niche film or show that carries a complex theme and deeply carefree characters, such as Synclaire James-Jones from Living Single or the film Rye Lane (2023). These stories feel refreshing because they allow Black characters to exist beyond survival mode. However, writers’ rooms now often feel like playgrounds to see how many storylines can be created out of Black trauma. And the answer to that is: too many.
The overuse of hardship and the placement of Black stories into one confined box is, altogether, lazy. If you had to sum up mainstream Black entertainment with one word, it would often be adversity. The suffering of Black people has become a shortcut—an easy way to avoid building well-thought-out ideas and multidimensional characters with depth. And while it is good to see representation overall, seeing the same concepts repeatedly creates stereotypes that harm us rather than help us. If the media constantly portrays us as one thing, they will only expect that one thing. And that expectation limits our personalities, dreams, and aspirations.
The unfortunate truth is that not every Black person can find a piece of themselves in screenplay characters, unlike their white counterparts. For Black women especially, we are often limited to roles such as the sassy side character, the struggling single Black mom, the “strong” Black woman, or the infamous angry Black woman. But we are so much more than those narrow depictions. While life is full of struggles—and statistically, those struggles may disproportionately affect Black communities—our pain should not be the only storyline portrayed in the media.
My all-time favorite show, Insecure, does a perfect job of maintaining variety when it comes to each of its Black characters’ storylines without making them one-dimensional. The show does not limit its characters to the many misguided ideas of what a Black person “should” be. You can tell these characters are their authentic selves, not defined by stereotypes but by individuality, flaws, humor, love, ambition, and growth.
Most stories are not our own. Not all Black people’s lives are currently defined by hardship. While the historic terror of Black history was undeniably painful, the vast number of descendants has gone above and beyond to create space for us—to freely pursue self-expression, opportunity, and livelihood. Progress has been made so that those of darker skin complexions do not have to endure repeated portrayals of trauma as their only narrative.
Whether these stories are told by us or not often does not matter either. Because even when they are told by us, they are not always created for us. They are created for what gets approved, what receives a large budget, what wins awards, and what dominates the box office. Marketability often outweighs authenticity.
Overall, many Black viewers are tired of seeing the same misery and sadness in our stories. We want to see lighthearted, quirky, career-driven characters. We want romance without tragedy as a requirement. We want freedom in our storytelling. We want the statement “the possibilities are endless” to apply to our narratives as well. And we hope that the wait for that shift does not last much longer.
