Zazie Beetz from ‘Atlanta’ talked the power of black writers creating black characters, and we’re listening
This has been an ah-mazing couple of years for television. One show that’s really stolen our hearts is Atlanta. We admit it: Zazie Beetz has become a true love of ours. Like, seriously, we couldn’t adore Atlanta‘s Zazie Beetz more! In PAPER, Beetz talked about the way that Atlanta’s success has been impacted the fact that black writers are creating black characters, and how it makes it feel *so* much more authentic. We just loved what she had to say.
When it comes to race and character development, she explained to PAPER,
“Of course, you have to acknowledge somebody’s existence in terms of their identity as a person of color. But for me, my day-to-day life is not about being black. Of course then my day-to-day interactions will be colored by who I am and how people perceive me, but my life is about getting food, and finding love, and being with my family, and being with my friends, and worrying about my anxieties.”
A photo posted by Zazie (@zaziebeetz) on Sep 18, 2016 at 8:11pm PDT
She elaborated,
“That’s what my life is about. That’s all colored by my skin color, but I’m not constantly reiterating to myself, “I am black. I am black. I am black.” and I feel like that’s what happens in a lot of media- when there’s a character of color, that’s all that their character is about.”
A photo posted by Zazie (@zaziebeetz) on Jun 5, 2016 at 12:29pm PDT
She explained that she wants the writers behind characters of color to understand that there has to be more on the table. She continued,
“I want to see more than just that. If you see a show where the cast is mainly Indian or black or Hispanic, it’s about them being that, versus if you watch Friends, it’s about them being friends, and obviously about how the characters are affected by them being white, but it’s not the main theme of the show. I crave that in television.”
A photo posted by Zazie (@zaziebeetz) on Jul 31, 2016 at 12:22pm PDT
We’re here for literally all of this. What an amazing, amazing human.
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