The influential television creator behind beloved series “Girlfriends” and “Being Mary Jane” is being recognized for reshaping how Black women’s lives and friendships are portrayed onscreen.
Long before the group dynamics of “Girlfriends” and career anxieties of “Being Mary Jane,” Mara Brock Akil was studying character and community. The writer-producer says the 1990s series “South Central,” along with her own Compton upbringing, helped shape the storytelling voice now being honored with the Norman Lear Achievement Award from the Producers Guild of America.
In a recent interview with Variety, Brock Akil reminisced about her days as a writer’s trainee on the Fox series from writer-producers Ralph Farquhar and Michael J. Weithorn, recalling how a low-attendance day in the writer’s room gave her the opportunity to prove her mettle.
“‘Mara, if there’s ever a time you have a thought, now would be it,’” Weithorn told her. “He saw the script — and he goes, ‘You could read any of that on there.’”
Brock Akil credits Weithorn with giving her a critical opening at a time when television writing opportunities were few and far between for Black women. “[He] gave me that one permission that was critical, just to hear my voice in that room. He provided space and made it safe for me to give my voice when the world said, ‘Don’t do that.’”
Farquhar also proved essential to Brock Akil’s growth. She ended up working for him in the writers’ room of the UPN sitcom “Moesha,” and she remembers him telling her more than once, when she pitched story ideas, to “Save it for your pilot.”
That advice proved invaluable when one of those ideas led to her first hit series, “Girlfriends.”
Now, after successes with “Girlfriends,” “The Game,” “Being Mary Jane,” and most recently, Netflix’s Judy Blume adaptation “Forever,” Brock Akil is being honored with the Norman Lear Achievement Award at the 37th annual Producers Guild Awards on Feb. 28.
With multiple projects in the works, including a second season of “Forever,” Brock Akil is also intent on offering the same kind of guidance she received from Weithorn and Farquhar to the next generation of storytellers through her Mara Brock Akil Writer’s Colony Residency, initially established in 2023.
