Lena Waithe: The Woman Who Made History and Inspires a Community

February 21, 2018

Born in Chicago, Lena Waithe is best known for her role as Denise on the Netflix Series “Master of None,” a show for which she also made history in 2017 as the first black woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. The episode that won, “Thanksgiving” (WHICH I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE WAS OUTSTANDING), was partly based on her actual experience of coming out to her mom.

Growing up, Lena knew from a young age (7) that she wanted to be a television writer, and she received a lot of support from her mother and grandmother concerning her writing; acting was not one of her original interests. She attended Columbia College Chicago and earned a degree in Cinema and Television Arts in 2006.

Ya girl Lena has written for the Fox hit show “Bones” (I didn’t know this and I loved that show), Nickelodeon’s “How to Rock,” and she was a producer on the 2014 film “Dear White People.” Lena also wrote and appeared in “Twenties,” a YouTube series; wrote and directed a short film entitled “Save Me,” which was shown at various independent film festivals; and she wrote the web series “Hello Cupid,” as well as the viral video from 2011, “Shit Black Girls Say.” (Look at all those credits! Lena can’t be stopped!)

Variety named Lena Waithe one of the 10 comedians to watch in 2014. In 2015, Showtime gave her the green light for “The Chi,” written by Lena and produced by Common (It just began to air in January!). The show is the coming-of-age story of a young black man. She also was a producer of the Netflix movie “Step Sisters” (I watched this movie, okay? I didn’t love it, but I also didn’t hate it. Will I watch it again? Probably not, but if there’s nothing else to watch and I’m just feeling like trash, maybe, alright? Leave me alone. Don’t judge!).

Lena’s character, Denise, on “Master of None” was originally written as a straight, white woman who was meant to evolve into a love interest for the main character, but Allison Jones (the casting director) had other plans. Jones thought of Lena, a black, gay woman, for the part instead. The character was rewritten to be more like Lena and Lena was excited to give visibility to the LGBTQ community.

“The things that make us different—those are our superpowers” -Lena Waithe, 2017 Emmy’s speech.