A SHOW IN THE SHOW THATS THE WAY TO GO
With heavy content driven shows it can be troublesome driving all the ideas through the limited box of storytelling. I noticed when themes that are apart of the show but not necessarily central to the plot, a satirical show is created to help dive into those story points.
INSECURE
During season 2 of HBO’s INSECURE, the satirical show in the show was called “Due North”. Due North was about a love affair during slave times in which a slavemaster was in love with one of his slaves.
One of themes in the show deals with White and Black people relationship in the work space. In the show, Issa (main character) works for a white boss and Molly (Issa’s best friend) is a lawyer in a very white firm who doesn’t get the respect she deserves.
While the show is an essentially a love comedy drama it has other themes that deal with race relations and the fake show is used to dive deeper into those themes that can’t be handled by the characters due to story restrictions.
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE
Defamation, the satirical take on ABC’s Scandal
In both seasons NETFLIX’s Dear White People had two shows that dealt with satire. More specifically it deals with how Black People are perceived in the media. The first show featured a parody of Scandal, which featured an over exaggeration of the show’s popular character, Olivia Pope. Her character is used to show how interracial relationships are perceived. This is used to vicariously highlight the feelings surrounding the relationship between two characters in the show (Gabe-white male and Sam- black female).
Breakout star/writer, Lena Waithe, stars in Trap House Tricks
The other show trap house tricks, features a parody of Love & Hip Hop. Another show used to explore the exaggeration of black portrayal in mainstream media. Being that the basis of the show stems from the results of white students holding a black face party, perception of the black community is a major theme in the show and it takes different avenues of storytelling to explore all realms of a theme with such depth.
TAKEAWAY
The inside shows are a wonderful tool of storytelling and showrunners/creators should think about including them more to explore subplots/themes that central to the story but aren’t the focal point of the story.