“Running the Show with Lena Waithe” Recap
Lena Waithe is busy busy.
On Monday, February 10, the Paley Center hosted a panel and preview screening of Boomerang and Twenties with creator/writer/executive producer/actress Lena Waithe and her fellow executive producers Dime Davis (Boomerang), Angeli Millan (Boomerang), and Susan Fales-Hill (Twenties). From giving insight into what it means to be a showrunner to sharing stories about the reality of being queer and/or women of color in the entertainment industry, these women spilled some piping hot tea with a side of class. Just in time for Women’s History Month!
Lena Waithe, along with Dime Davis and Angeli Millan, executive produce BET’s Boomerang, which is an updated television comedy adaptation of the 1992 cult-classic film of the same name. The hit show follows a group of millennials as they navigate love and friendship while trying to break into their respective professional careers. Season two premieres on Wednesday, March 11.
Waithe’s newest project also on BET, Twenties, is a loosely autobiographical comedy series that follows Hattie (Jojo T. Gibbs), a queer, “hot-mess” twenty-something woman living out in LA that is aspiring to become a television writer. Her two straight best friends, Marie (Christina Elmore) and Nia (Gabrielle Graham), help keep her afloat while dealing with their own professional and personal drama. It premiered on March 4.
What is a Showrunner?
So, what exactly is a showrunner? Lena Waithe started off the panel by shutting down common misconceptions and giving a great description of the various responsibilities that lay within the role.
“It’s interesting. A showrunner is multiple things. You’re a parent, you’re a leader, therapist, manager, a CEO. You’re all things.”
And not only do they work with the actors, but they’re an integral part of developing the series in the writer’s room as well.
When talking about the co-showrunning experience on Boomerang, Dime Davis shared, “I was on the show last season as a director…. [This season] we got to attack it from two… points of view…. Angeli [Millan] is very story-based. I’m story-based, too, just from a director’s [standpoint]. Even in the writing phase, we were thinking about visuals and how we were going to convey some of these [themes].” These women mean business!
Let’s Start from the Top
How did such a talented and balanced team of Black, brown, queer, and straight women come together? “Alright, let me try to map it out,” Waithe chuckled. Starting with Dime Davis, she explained how they were connected through their mutual friend, Justin Simien (Dear White People). Given her own projects and writing credits, Waithe brought Davis on as a writer for the first two seasons of her first show, The CHI. Eventually, development for Boomerang came around and after seeing the beauty and visual precision in Davis’ short film, Wild Wild West: A Beautiful Rant by Mark Bradford, Waithe half-jokingly asked, “‘You directing the pilot of Boomerang?’ [Davis] said, ‘I don’t know.’ But because she’s a Libra, she said, ‘Maybe? I am.’” Throughout season one, Davis worked on Boomerang as a recurring director. Now in season two, she stepped into the role of co-showrunner and, in that endeavor, ended up finding the perfect match in Angeli Millan.
Now Angeli Millan has an extensive résumé of her own. Prior to joining Boomerang, she has been a staff writer on such series as The Cleveland Show, The Muppets, and Us & Them. That said, she definitely has an understanding of what good television is supposed to look like on and off screen. But that hasn’t come without its struggles, particularly as a woman of color. “This is my first showrunning job. I’ve been writing for, like, twelve years in so many rooms. But this was the first time I really got the opportunity [I needed].” “And I bet your rooms probably didn’t look like this,” chimed in Susan Fales-Hill as she pointed to Waithe, Davis, and herself.
And they’re one of the handful, even in 2020….
Out of the group, Susan Fales-Hill would know this the best. Though her name may not be too familiar, people would most definitely recognize her work (Can’t Hurry Love, Linc’s, A Different World). As a showrunner on A Different World in her own twenties, Fales-Hill is definitely part of the generation that pushed to make it easier for individuals like Waithe to “not have to ask permission” to get into writer’s rooms, or any room for that matter. As a big fan of the show, Waithe has been looking up to Fales-Hill and her legacy for a long time. “She’s been inspiring me before she met me. I’m a television writer because of A Different World.” After ultimately coming together through Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball, The Secret Life of Bees, Beyond the Lights), Waithe told Fales-Hill it would be an honor to have Twenties in her hands. Fast-forward a few years later and here we are. Manifesting what you want is real!
What does good television look like?
Funny, thoughtful, and overall good television is hard to come by amidst the now constant push for checking the boxes in political correctness and diversity. But thriving in the early peak of her career, it is obvious Lena Waithe and her team tend to such topics organically. By maintaining her professional commitment to opening doors for newcomers, Waithe has been able to carry out her goal of giving on- and off-screen jobs to young Black/non-Black POC queer and straight individuals. One of her biggest accomplishments has been using her brand to help normalize queerness in the Black community. “As a queer person of color, there really wasn’t a ton of representation in the film [Boomerang (1992)] in that way. There were some gay jokes in there, which was very prevalent in the nineties. So what we get to do is right that wrong…. And it’s so beautiful to watch Dime and Angeli and the cast take what the movie started and… go even further than I thought we could ever go.”
It’s taken awhile to get there, though.
While sharing her journey of becoming the modern renaissance leader she is today, Waithe spoke on her experience of developing her first series, Showtime’s The CHI. “At the time they were like, ‘We want the show, but don’t really need you.’ I learned quickly when the show came out they went, ‘Well, we need you to promote it.’” The grave reality is that Black talent requires White access. In order to get certain opportunities like one’s own television show, so many Black and brown women like Waithe are forcibly stripped of their agency and control by the gatekeepers (White executives, producers, etc.) but are given just enough of a platform to remain compliant.
There has also been some difficulty in getting the show to articulate her own original vision. “I had a White guy who was running [The CHI that first season]…. [He] was put down at the table to run a show about a world he really knew nothing about.” She went on to talk about understanding what she did and didn’t want in a showrunner, and the lengths she went to prepare for the second season. When it was decided to hire a seasoned Black woman as the new showrunner, she quickly realized the old saying “not all skin folk is kinfolk.” “There’s [a] resentment that comes with not being a showrunner for a long time, and resenting the youthfulness … in the room. Rather than being like Susan saying, ‘I embrace this,’ sometimes they can reject it.” Starting from scratch again, Waithe decided to take a chance on someone she had a connection with from the start — Justin Hillien. “This was his first time showrunning and he did a phenomenal job…. What he realized was, ‘It’s my job to execute your vision.’ And [now] I think season three of The CHI is where I’ve always wanted it to be, because I am now empowered to have a voice on the show.” Developing The CHI through its three seasons has definitely been a learning experience that has helped Waithe find her footing as a creative and given her the ability to start building her empire at BET.
That said, Lena Waithe has definitely done something special in her creation of both Twenties and Boomerang. Both effortlessly tackling identity, relationships, and a multitude of so many more topics wrapped in funny. She is definitely running the show and it’ll be a long time before she slows down in the slightest.
Check out a clip from the Running the Show with Lena Waithe panel:
Paley Matters is a publication of The Paley Center for Media.
