Part of being a good storyteller is knowing which stories should be told and which might be better kept in the drafts. KeyTV’s Southern Fried Rice sadly falls into the latter category.
The limited web series, which lives on Keke Palmer’s YouTube network, was met with swift backlash after its debut for its premise, characters, and writing. The story follows Koko, a South Korean American woman adopted and raised by Black American parents, who is—as KeyTV describes it—on a journey to “figure out who [she is] beyond the comfort of what’s familiar.” The perfect place to do that, apparently? Wright University, a fictional HBCU located in her home state of Georgia.
After watching the series myself, I can’t fault anyone for having a negative reaction. There are so many things I have to question about it. Most glaring is the choice to center a non-Black woman in an all-Black environment and, as an added bonus, to outfit her in some of the same aesthetics for which Black women are all too often vilified (you know, like how cornrows were deemed “ghetto” until Kim Kardashian wore them). The premise itself is tone-deaf to begin with, and it’s not helped by the way this show leans into the appropriation of Black beauty rather than questioning and challenging it.
This misstep is something one might expect from a team of non-Black writers, but the show was, in fact, written by a Black woman, Nakia Stephens (who has a multi-project development deal with KeyTV). In an Instagram post defending her work, she wrote, “Southern Fried Rice is meant to create dialogue because representation isn’t one-dimensional.” Stephens, an HBCU graduate herself, said the show was inspired by the experiences of her non-Black college friends. Executive producer Keke Palmer also hopped onto social media to address the controversy, invoking KeyTV’s Black creatives in the show’s defense. “It’s imperative people of color have jobs outside of just being the talent or the player on the team,” she captioned a video posted on October 23. “It’s my mission…to help fund and support the creators of color behind the scenes, giving them a chance to tell their own story.”
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