Marlon James & Tamara Lawrance On Portraying The “Richness” Of Queer Caribbean Communities In ‘Get Millie Black’
Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James wanted to showcase the “richness” of queer Caribbean communities when compiling his debut TV project Get Millie Black, which launches on HBO in a few days’ time.
The decorated scribe, who has previously said he underwent gruelling religious rituals in his native Jamaica in order to “drive out the gay,” saw an opportunity to paint rich, three-dimensional queer characters and set them amid a traditional crime noir narrative in the Tamara Lawrance-starring drama series. “While we are not shying away from the cruelty that our queer people experience, we also wanted to show the richness of their lives,” James told Deadline. “Some of their most important scenes are some of the lightest.” James was inspired to write the show’s lead transgender character, Millie Black’s sister Hibiscus, after watching a Channel 4 documentary a decade ago about Jamaica’s ‘gully queens’, a small group of transgender and gay people who live in Kingston.
He has previously spoken about his experience of gay conversion therapy in Jamaica and how he was only able to truly express himself and write more freely as a queer person once he moved to the U.S.
Previously, James said there had been little depiction of Jamaican queer communities that didn’t break free of stereotype. “There were not lots of LGBTQ+ characters and usually they were walk-on parts or caricatures that do more harm than good,” he added. Falling in love with queer stories Lawrance, whose past roles include the BBC’s Time and indie movie The Silent Twins, said she “fell in love with” the queer stories penned by “literary icon” James after reading the scripts, and was impressed by the “allyship” that the protagonist displayed towards her sister. “I just thought for Jamaica this is going to be huge,” she added. “Millie’s allyship was very powerful and important as an adjunct to the storylines.
