Don’t blink! You may miss another one of Issa Rae‘s power moves at HBO. Last month, Issa Rae announced the premiere date for the third season of her HBO series, Insecure. Currently, the series acts as Rae’s only creative work on the premium channel. However, Issa Rae will expand her work with HBO in the near future. In December of 2017, news broke that Issa Rae is currently developing two new shows for HBO. The first show that Rae is working on is called Sweet Life. Sweet Life is believed to be akin to a Black version of 90210. The second show is called Him or Her and it is described as a series that will depict the dating life of a bisexual black man. Him or Her will be led by Rae and the show’s leading writer, Travon Free. While many were excited for Rae’s announcement, few did criticize the idea of a series being centered around a bisexual black man.
In an interview with Deadline, Rae addressed the criticism about her new series, Him or Her. Issa Rae says, “I remember just being pissed all day.” Rae adds, “Sometimes you live in a bubble; you live in a liberal bubble where you think that everyone is open, and in my eyes progressive in a way where there are so many human experiences, black experiences, gender experiences. There are so many stories to tell. The fear that a story like that would be told when it’s the story of so many other people is just absolutely ridiculous. The censorship and the idea that black men can’t be all things and still be black men is just absurd, it is.”
Rae concluded by stating, “We’re just scratching the surface, and there’s plenty of voices beyond me that are going to do that anyway.”
