Lena Waithe is returning to the world of Dear White People with a role in the TV show’s Season 2. Lena has history with Dear White People as the producer of the surprise hit movie on which the streaming giant’s series is based. Now she is taking a place on the other side of the camera as actress playing the role of “hot mess” MC P Ninny. She’s been added to the cast list for the upcoming second season.
For those not familiar with the show Dear White People is a 2014 Netflix TV satirical drama set on a predominately white college campus. The show features a range of mostly black characters in Winchester University, an Ivy League School and examines how they deal with the various forms of social injustice that they encounter. Despite its heavy theme the show’s success is based on its lightness of touch and its excellent comedy. The show is no stranger to controversy having initially been received with calls to boycott Netflix but went on to receive massive critical acclaim including a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fans of the show will be familiar with the totally meta scenes in which all the students from Armstrong-Parker gather weekly and are transfixed by the Scandal parody TV show. In Season Two they’re getting hooked on a fake reality TV hip hop show starring Lena Waithe called Trap House Tricks. The adventures of the bragadocious P Ninny will mirror those of the trials and troubles experienced by the characters on the campus. It’s a device that allows the showrunners to make hilarious self- referencing commentary on the roles and stereotypes of black people in the entertainment industry. At the same time it demonstrates how that impacts young black college students.
Lena Waithe is a comedian, actress, writer and producer and made TV history recently with an Emmy award win. She became the first black woman to bag a coveted Emmy for comedy writing for the series Master of None. The episode honored was widely acclaimed and was based on her own experience of coming out as a lesbian as a black woman. Her acceptance speech hit a strong note and she is a vocal advocate for diversity in TV and in all walks of life. She told reporters that she hoped that her Emmy opened the door for the other funny black women out there.
It seems she’s now taking that message to the small screen. P Ninny is unlike any of her previous roles and has been described as an over the top version of her own self. The actress admitted that it was fun to indulge the far edges of herself with this character and that P Ninny has no level of self-awareness of how she’s perceived. Black Reality TV is ripe for lampooning with some savage satire as it has been subjected to sustained criticism for embracing racial stereotypes in order to boost ratings. We’re looking forward to it getting the culture shifting Dear White People treatment.
Season one ended with controversy and an anticlimax where the student’s protest bombed. Yvette Lee Bowser is returning as showrunner for Season 2 which will see the students of Armstrong Parker picking up the pieces and moving on. Logan Browning playing Samantha, Antoinette Robertson, who is cast as Coco, Brandon P. Bell, Troy and Marque Richardson the actor who plays Reggie are all expected to be back in the sophomore season. The show will feature 10 episodes and will be available for streaming in 2018 on Netflix.
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