UPN 9 was the absolute best channel to consume Black TV shows on a local network in the early 2000’s. One on One, Half & Half, Everybody Hates Chris, The Parkers, Moesha were some iconic shows hosted on that beloved platform. The proliferation of seeing all types of Black folk with varying storylines from shows written, directed and/or produced by us, that amplified our humanity, not just our spiritual maturation, was golden.
With the memories of laughter from a live audience and snarky hip Ebonics laced retorts, I’m becoming emboldened to make a cogent statement without getting sidetracked. I say with my whole chest, the 90’s to the late 2000’s was the best time in mainstream television and cinematic history to consume Black content in an intransigent way because the white gaze wasn’t seated at the crux of creation or engagement.
A show that sits to emphasize that claim, is one of my personal all time faves, Girlfriends. Starring Jill Marie Scott as the beautiful and narcissistic Toni Childs, Tracee Ellis Ross as the slightly neurotic and jovial Joan Clayton. Golden Brooks as the no nonsense Maya Wilkes, Reginald Hayes as the facetious Republican Momma’s boy, William Dent. And certainly, last but most certainly not least, Persia White as the free spirited Lynn Searcy.
As a child, the cast was some of the most beautiful, riveting, eclectic and stylish women I’ve ever seen in an ensemble. They spoke multi syllable words accompanied with AAVE, they did Taebo and ate kale salads. They collected African art and haute couture pieces. They got their hair laid on Crenshaw with the finest imported hair from Asia. They also wore their hair, natural in bodacious styles with elegance and grace. They were a spectrum of Black women with discernible divergent ways of existing, yet coexisted harmoniously, undergirded by a devotion to sisterhood. It was in the presentation of said discernable divergent ways of existing, that made me feel seen; that I could be more than the general parochial stereotype promulgated through media with a grand prerogative of maintaining a monopoly on the cult of true womanhood. These women weren’t pious or pure, they were relentless badasses who clung tight to their truths and incited a generation.
As an adult, of the characters listed that deeply resonates is Toni Childs. Toni was cantankerous, obnoxious and self serving. She was ostentatiously glamorous and flabbergastingly fabulous. Toni was mouthwateringly delicious, knew she was mouthwateringly delicious and OWNED she was mouthwateringly delicious. Toni’s flagrant arrogance in many ways, made her caricature like, yet it was earned, and displayed in a way I can contemporarily liken to Kanye (an artist that doesn’t exist for me past 808’s & Heartbreaks, and who also might I add said, she was the baddest girlfriend).
Toni’s energy alone, I feel is so powerful to have on screen and for young Black girls to see. To honor your boundaries, to set your bar high and to concede them for no person, is prodigious. Her image alone magnified to Black women, “I don’t know who told y’all you were undesirable, you’re fucking HAWT. Cognitive dissonance is real”. It was even more powerful for her to be a brown skinned woman. To see a woman stand in her power and have a deep commitment to being THAT GWORL, is invigorating. Though I have a dedication to being delusional, I can’t say I am as delirious as Toni.
As a child, of the characters listed that deeply resonated, my fictive kin, my hero, Lynn Searcy.
She was a radical leftist, anti capitalist who was highly educated and dedicated to the restoration of humanity. She was the first openly queer Black female character I ever saw on television. A globe trotting woman she was, Lynn had an endless repository of vivacious sex escapades and enthralling travel tales. Lynn was vegetarian and lived a bohemian lifestyle. She was spontaneous and impetuous. She was gregarious, serious when absolutely necessary, and idiosyncratic.
She was spiritual, highly artistic and culturally versed. Like Toni, Lynn was the first time I've ever seen Black women illumined in such a dynamic way. The character of Lynn Searcy, followed much in the trajectory of Freddie Brooks on a Different World, (a character who I also loved) but more capricious and playful. Might I also add, one of the important relics of her character, she was TATTED. It was the first time I’ve ever seen on TV a Black female lead, having blatant tattoos. (Eve on Eve with the paws, a pop culture moment, was a bit later). She was soooo badass. Do you know how many Black women I’ve met and also known, with band tattoos on their forearms that cite the great Lynn Searcy as their source of inspiration? She was one of the mainstream representations, in many ways for artsy Black weirdo girls who like to read and have ravenous loads of kinky sex. Lynn was FREE.
What Black Women on a local TV network, at the turn of the millenium, did we feast our eyes on selling prime real estate and refusing to talk to men with Stacy Adams shoes on? Or a successful lawyer having a 3 month rule with a recovering sex addict? Or one who was a teen mom and preserved to put herself through college to ultimately be a best selling author? Or one who fell in love with a man in Jamaica, and brought said Jamaican, to cohabitate in a friend’s garage? Girlfriends was an illustrious show. Who was your favorite girlfriend?