It must be a universal experience. You’re in a room where no one looks like you, or perhaps no one shares your background. But you’re used to it. You’ve been maneuvering in spaces like this for a long time. Still, it gets lonely sometimes. You long to be understood without having to explain yourself. Then someone who knows your experience walks into the room and you suddenly recognize your place in it.
Many of us have been in those rooms, but Black women in corporate America live there. That’s one of the reasons the novel The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris resonated so loudly. We’ve been there, fighting against stereotypes we didn’t create while doing the best work possible. Meanwhile, we’re worried our colleagues will take credit for the things we did right and blame us for what they did wrong. Because if we block them, we’re “aggressive.” It sounds like a tiny violin should be playing, but the accusation of overreacting or being too sensitive is far too recognizable.
Harris knows. She wrote a book about it. Going from page to screen, she teamed up with Rashida Jones to flip her bestselling book into a 10-episode series for Hulu. Written by Harris, Jones, Angela Nissel, Kara Brown, Gus Hickey, Jordan Reddout, and Caroline Williams, The Other Black Girl (streaming Sept 13) stars Sinclair Daniel as Nella, Ashleigh Murray as Hazel—in the leading roles—with Brittany Adebumola as Malaika, Bellamy Young as Vera, and Garcelle Beauvais as Diana.
The Other Black Girl starts with Nella. She’s the assistant to a top editor at a mostly white publishing company. Nella is the best at what she does and that’s nothing new, but this is her first shot at junior editor. It’s a lonely place to be and she is often stuck in codeswitch mode; until a rival editor hires a new assistant. That’s when Nella meets Hazel. What starts as a supportive relationship between contemporaries soon devolves into something chaotic and possibly deadly. Through a domino chain of reversals and twists, the question becomes: What and who are we willing to trade for success?
This one caught me. In addition to all of the above, the transformative hair and make-up by Yolanda Dupree and Essie Cha respectively, and the costuming that tells a story by Kairo Courts, show why this series worked for me. With its kaleidoscope of genres—spinning easily from horror to comedy, to satire, to thriller—and its “I know that’s right” writing, if you’re not engaged you must be on melatonin.
The talent and creatives behind The Other Black Girl ate it up and left no crumbs. The pacing works to lasso you, pulling you into a mess that gets messier and more bizarre while it keeps you laughing to lessen the sting of its realness.
Almost as riveting as its performances, aesthetics, and storytelling is how often you question whether The Other Black Girl is haunted by something supernatural or the daily horrors of corporate America. This series combines thrills, scares, and giggles with a sense of something sinister lurking in the shadows. Watch it as fast as you can.
RIOTUS 