Not In Our Stars, But In Ourselves

I finally binge-watched the first season of Atlanta this past weekend for the same reason most folks do most things: to talk to a pretty person about it. I met my brother’s best friend’s sister for coffee recently. She was gorgeous and tall, and I mentioned that I was reading Donald Glover’s New Yorker interview. She told me that she loved Atlanta, and asked me if I’d seen the latest episode. No, I said, but I’ll watch it and let you know what I think. I started watching the series the next day. The Streisand Effect In the time between the premiere of Atlanta and my binge session, a lot has happened. The show won a Golden Globe for Best Comedy Series. The second season has premiered to universal acclaim again. In the broader entertainment zeitgeist, Black Panther has made over a billion dollars, Sterling K. Brown won a Golden Globe for This is Us, Ava DuVernay directed a $100 million movie, Lena Waithe won an Emmy for best comedy writing for Master of None. All good things, right? But it’s 2018. Two Thousand Fucking Eighteen. We’re talking about firsts for honors which have been awarded annually for decades. That same thread of pessimism is woven throughout Glover’s New Yorker interview. It’s an exploration of a psyche ground down by racism in spite of his apparent success. He describes the hoops that he had to jump through to get his show made, and then the compromises he had to make during its production. Even with Glover’s clear level of talent, he still has to please whit…