Here’s not something you see every day: a show centered on the friendship between two women of color. It’s a premise as simple as it is radical. Created by Fatimah Asghar and loosely based on her own life, Brown Girls, follows the friendship between Leilah (Nabila Hossain), a South Asian writer and Patricia (Sonia Denis), a sex-positive black musician. The Chicago-set web series, which dropped its first trailer this past week, is giving us Insecure and Broad City vibes though you can already tell this is going to be something just as unique.
I mean, the trailer does open with a scene about how their gay friend should stop eating dirty butt. With images of this group of brown girls singing, dancing, talking about feminism, and drunkenly toasting to being single, it looks like Asghar and her team have come up with a show that while being a portrait of young women of color in Chicago is set to speak to many of us.
Oh, and did we mention the lack of white people? Because we really should. When pitching the project in her GoFundMe page, the series’ director, Sam Bailey, made a point of calling out the diverse cast and crew that would make Brown Girls a reality. “I believe that the production team should reflect, as much as possible, the story they’re telling,” she noted, “and I’m lucky to have put together a crew that does just that.” In addition to its colorful ensemble (which includes Chicago-born Boricua comedian Melissa Rae DuPrey who you can see sassing her friend in the trailer), the show’s music is being overseen by Jamila Woods, while over 95% of the crew is entire female. Count us in among the many looking forward to catching this when it arrives next year.
Brown Girls is planned for release sometime in March 2017.