USC expecting big crowd to see Issa Rae, creator and star of HBO’s ‘Insecure’
There is no doubt Issa Rae can draw a crowd. Next week several hundred fans will pack tightly onto the first floor of a USC building to watch a live interview with the creator and star of HBO’s “Insecure”.
By early last week all 600 RSVPs to attend the free campus event on Monday, Nov. 13, were already snatched up. There are no more tickets.
USC sophomore Lauren Giella is excited she secured one of the coveted spots in Wallis Annenberg Hall. She’s been a huge fan of Rae’s since the first season of “Insecure” on HBO.
“She’s basically my best friend in my head,” Giella said.
It makes sense that people would turn up to see the star of a popular HBO show, but for many, Rae and her work mean much more. As fan Giella put it, “I think she is a perfect example of a diverse, unique voice in media.”
Miki Turner, assistant professor of professional practice in USC’s journalism department and a member of the university committee putting on the event, echoed that sentiment.
“She’s broken down a lot of barriers,” she said. “We’ve not seen anything ever like this on television involving women of color.”
Rae’s rise in popularity kicked off in 2011 with her YouTube series “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl”. Just a year after she started the channel Rae was featured in Forbes’ “30 under 30” entertainment list. The concept for her hit HBO show was based partially on the successful “Awkward Black Girl” web series.
Monday’s event will focus on the Rae’s comedy-drama “Insecure,” recently renewed for a third season with HBO. In it Rae plays Issa Dee, a UCLA graduate in her late 20s, working at a nonprofit and negotiating the challenges of adulthood along with her best friend, and fellow Bruin alumnus, Molly.
“Insecure” fan Giella described the TV show as a “real, authentic look at the life of a hilarious, flawed and totally relatable woman and her friends as they try to navigate life, work and relationships.”
USC Assistant Professor Turner also credits the show for it’s three dimensional female characters.
“Before ‘Insecure,’ the only show that tackled the issues that she tackles on that show was ‘Sex in the City,’” she said. “But she goes a little further than they ever went.”
At an HBO event in 2016, Rae said her show examines “the complexities of ‘blackness’ and the reality that you can’t escape being black.”
The series is set in Inglewood, less than three miles from where Rae moved to in sixth grade, South LA’s affluent View Park-Windsor Hills neighborhood.
Jocelyn Woods, a USC journalism student, likes that in “‘Insecure’ they show the cool, grittier and more authentic versions of LA,” rather than “that picturesque ‘La La Land’ version” of the city.
Woods has a previous engagement or she would’ve loved to see Rae on Monday. She said other than ‘Insecure,’ “there’s nothing authentic about the black experience on television right now.”
That’s high praise from a young fan, and close to what Rae conveyed to the LA Times are the goals of the show. “We’re just trying to convey that people of color are relatable,” Rae told the paper. “This is not a hood story. This is about regular people living life.”
Authenticity and relatability come up a lot when talking about Rae’s success.
“I don’t think she’s really acting. I think she’s just being who she is,” Turner said of Rae.
Turner was introduced to Rae at a Television Critics Association event, where they had a “really cool” conversation about the show and Rae’s sources of inspiration: her friends.
“[The show’s characters] are people she knows,” says Turner. “That’s why what comes through on the show is so authentic, because she’s really playing elements of herself as opposed to some scripted character.”
On Monday, Nov. 13, at 6:30 p.m. an unscripted Rae will be interviewed in Wallis Annenberg Hall by Taj Frazier, USC associate professor of communication and director of the Institute for Diversity and Empowerment at Annenberg. This event is part of USC Annenberg’s HBO Diverse Voices Forum series. While it has been suggested, Turner said there are currently no plans to move the live interview to a larger venue.
Those without tickets can follow @southlareport on Twitter. Intersections South LA reporters will be posting live updates from the event.
