'There is power in the word no': Michaela Coel's journey from Chewing Gum to I May Destroy You
Aruna Dutt | CBC Comedy | Posted: August 6, 2020 7:15 PM | Last Updated: August 6, 2020
Since her first comedy series Chewing Gum, Michaela Coel has turned the world around to work for her.
Michaela Coel's experience creating Chewing Gum at the age of 24 is very different from her latest TV mastery at age 32, taking full creative control of HBO/BBC's I May Destroy You (2020).
Coel is able to be deeply truthful with her a narrative in I May Destroy You, based on her own experience of sexual assault and its aftermath, because she had creative freedom as the showrunner, director, star, and writer. But this freedom came from her long struggle against being taken advantage of in the industry.
Behind the award-winning Chewing Gum
It started when Coel burst onto the scene in 2015 with her critically acclaimed Chewing Gum, a lighthearted comedy about a Beyoncé-obsessed 24-year-old from a very religious family navigating sex and relationships.
Coel originally wrote Chewing Gum as her own one-woman show, and like IMDY, it was also a personal story for her. Just like her character Tracey, Coel grew up in a very religious household and in a similar area of London.
The two-season series won her two BAFTAs (for best female comedian, and breakthrough talent), and it was eventually brought to an international audience on Netflix. But behind the scenes of Chewing Gum, Coel felt she hadn't been given credit for the series' massive success.
In both seasons, Coel was denied an executive producer credit, and she often fought for her right for creative ownership, Coel revealed in a 2018 keynote address in Edinburgh.
Coel describes her experience in Vulture:
The production office felt like the place I had no access to. The curtain rod behind where Jesus is dwelling. You come to my trailer whenever you need something, but I can't access you. - Michaela Coel on working on Chewing Gum
There was also an incident in which five Black cast members were made to share a single trailer, while a white actor had one to herself, which Coel said looked like "a fucking slave ship". Coel stormed into the production office to complain, and was verbally pushed away, as she describes in the Vulture interview.
Much like the characters she writes, Coel doesn't back down.
This time around with I May Destroy You, Coel chose to turn down a $1 million Netflix deal after they refused to give her a small percentage of rights to the series. She discovered that her agents, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), who pushed her to take the deal, were set to make an undisclosed amount from the series if she did.
She has described the experience of turning down the Netflix deal as "empowering".
"I was told very early on that there is power in the word no," Coel said in an interview with The AV Club, adding that there is also power in saying "yes".
"I find that sometimes there's a question in the back of your mind and you're not quite confronting it," says Coel, "and that question is, 'Hey, how is this working? What are you being paid? What's going on?' Sometimes we don't ask that because the deal is so shiny, but I think we need to start listening to ourselves a bit more perhaps, and even asking people for advice."
Both of Micheala Coel's series depict experiences with sexuality and relationships that many young women face, and are both led by a bold character who stands up for herself while on a journey of ultimately letting go.
In Chewing Gum, Coel's Fleabag-esque fourth-wall busting style makes Tracey ridiculously funny. No matter how uncomfortable or gross — in the end, the series is comfortingly optimistic, and Coel's clever writing, earnest acting and comedy flare shine through.
You can watch Season 1 of Chewing Gum for free on CBC Gem. Season 2 arrives September 4.