Even the biggest Atlanta stickler can’t deny the authenticity of Atlanta. Sure, there will be some who expect “shawty” to be every other word. Then there are people who may feel that a strip club visit is mandatory in every other episode. Atlanta dares to show different lives moving around in the same city, not just a room with a camera rolling.
Much like how Glover says that people gravitate towards “sensational sh*t” when it comes to Atlanta, another truth is that people also seem to only gravitate to one thing at a time.
If Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and Ralph David Abernathy are out marching, people assume that ALL Black Atlantans are meeting at church and then marching and begging police not to beat them down. Never mind the ones who own successful business or simply chose to stay home because they figured going to work paying the bills in their own home were more important than voting for a public official that doesn’t even know where they live, or care how they live. If Lil Jon and Ying Yang Twins are dominating the airwaves, people assume that all Black people are running round with gold grills yelling “awww skeet skeet” and throwing stacks at Magic City. Never mind the ones who just graduated from Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse, Morris Brown College or Spelman and are about to start a new job working at Turner or Delta. If T.I. [Trap Muzik], Jeezy [Trap Or Die] and Gucci Mane [Trap House] are running the streets, people assume that everybody “riding down 285” “refused to get a 9-to-5” like T.I. said on “24s” and started slanging to make ends meet. Never mind the people to make a living slanging papers for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution or slanging boxes at the Post Office. If Future and Young Thug are sipping lean and popping “zans,” people assume that everybody is in the club high as hell. Never mind the enterprising marketing executive who just closed on a new house or the young graphic designer who’s making a killing with their new t-shirt line.
The beautiful thing about Atlanta is that it can be and has always been populated by all of the people mentioned above. It’s just that only the ones with name brands make it to television. Atlanta presents just about every side to the city, sans brand names. In the show we meet the parents who worked to at least get their kid to finish high school. We meet the “baby mama” who is also a school teacher. We see what “the world’s busiest airport” is like for people who just work there. We learn just how special one has to be to get extra sauce on their lemon pepper wings at J.R. Crickets.
In the opening and closing scene of the debut episode many of Atlanta’s worlds intersect in the parking lot of a package store. Upcoming trapper-turned-rapper Paperboy is in his white 4-door Caprice Classic soaking in a life-changing moment, his new self-titled single is getting played on the radio. Caught up in his very newfound celebrity, Paperboy hits a passerby with a classic “ay gul,” hoping that telling her “that’s me on the radio” will get him at least a phone number. Not only does the girl ignore him, her boyfriend kicks the driver’s side mirror off Paperboy’s car. At that point Paperboy reaches for one of his guns, where Glover’s character stops him from “messing up the money.” From there an argument ensues and escalates when the mirror kicker realizes that he’s talking to the Paperboy and changes his mind from being angry about him trying to holler at his girl, to being mad that he makes “garbage” music.
Atlanta is the newest show on FX, a network where currently the longest tenured show, Louie, has only been on for six years. In the past FX was home to game changing dramas like Nip/Tuck, The Shield and Sons Of Anarchy. It’s also been home to a gang of goofy comedies and terrible dramas that didn’t last through two seasons. The fresh, risk-taking nature of the channel is a perfect fit for a show looking to tell a new story about a city that when compared to Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Miami is still “new” when it comes to how it is portrayed on television.
Your parents may remember shows like Designing Women, which was about a group of upper-class White women running a boutique interior design firm. Your cousin probably watches Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta. Both of them present two extremes with the regular, native Atlantan underrepresented, if represented at all. It almost reminds you of the feeling we explored earlier where original “ATLiens” are indeed treated like visitors.
Hopefully a show like Atlanta hitting the airwaves and showing what real life is like for the people who live there, can be another moment where “sh*t changed.”
