Selah and The Spades will be our new fav (and probably yours too). We can already tell. If you’re the type that secretly binged Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and every other teenage drama that didn’t center black characters–you’re bout to get all of your life. Here’s Why!
The Creator Is a Black Woman
Tayarisha Poe the director of Selah and the Spades is a black Philadelphia based director, writer and photographer. Need I say more ?! In 2015 Poe was chosen as one of twenty five new faces by Filmmaker Magazine, and received the Sundance Institute’s Knight Foundation Fellowship in 2016.
In a brief interview Poe speaks on the lack of black life told in storytelling and how she is simply not here for it! Needless to say Tayarisha Poe is here to stay and will definitely have Western storytellers shaking in their boots.
The Casting Is Lit
SATS stars Greenleaf’s beautiful, talented Lovie Simone as Selah, When They See Us and Moonlight’s Jharrel Jerome, Celeste O’ Connor, Jesse Williams, Henry Hunter Hall and Gina Torres. This is huge!
Selah and the Spades is giving us a familiar story that focuses on people who look JUST LIKE US, and the main character is a black women who’s in control, knows exactly what she wants and goes for it by any means necessary. Once again Tayarisha is packing up all the sexist stereotypical norms and putting them to rest.
The Plot…. *Whew*
It’s definitely deeper than what it seems, there is an underlying message instilled in this film for black girls worldwide & LOOK AT SELAH.
A black women in a prestigious predominantly white boarding school, Selah is intelligent, confident, in charge and charming. She has a voice and she uses it. If you haven’t seen the trailer Selah gives you a quick run down on the five factions and how being in control gives you a sense of power and authority “because when you’re 17 there aren’t many things you actually have control over.”
The series follows 17 year old high school senior Selah as she struggles with relationships, pressure, power, the desire to be “perfect” and fear, all while giving viewers a deeper look into teenage politics that usually go unseen through the eyes of brown students. How intoxicating can having too much power be? Poe answers all the question I know you have (because GIRLL I do too!) in this visually striking, jazzy film. So will you be joining Selah?
Selah and the Spades will be released on Amazon Prime April 17th!
