The New Yorker Radio Hour - Quinta Brunson, a “Child of the Internet,” Revives the Sitcom

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

Quinta Brunson made a name for herself as a master of meme comedy and is a self-described “child of the Internet,” yet her ABC mockumentary series “Abbott Elementary” is an unabashed throwback to the sitcoms of her youth. Doreen St. Félix talked with Brunson at the 2022 New Yorker Festival about her influences and the everyday comedy of the workplace. St. Félix believes that Brunson has found “freedom in formula” when it comes to “Abbott,” which documents the lives of the beleaguered staff at a Philadelphia public school. “There is nothing that I could do,” Brunson says, “or [that] anyone can do that is more triumphant than someone going to their shitty job.” Writing in the wake of shows like “Black-ish,” Brunson relishes being able to center her story on Black people without addressing topical issues about race; the school is its own self-enclosed world. Just surviving, she thinks, provides its own form of liberation. “So much has happened to Black people,” she says. “Why are we still here? . . . We really could have called it quits a long time ago, and somehow we just keep going. It’s crazy to me.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The program Abbott Elementary on ABC is giving audiences a lot to be thankful for. It takes the form of a mockumentary, but it's really a warm-hearted ode to beleaguered public school teachers in Philadelphia. The character's earnest determination under difficult circumstances is very much the point. Abbott finds its comedy in the every day. Teachers at a school like Abbott, we have to be able to do it all. We are admin, we are social workers, we are therapists, we are second parents.

Hell, sometimes we're even first. Why? His show ain't the money. I can make more work in the street. Easy. Now in its second season, Abbott Elementary is already being pegged as a modern classic. The show stars Quinterested. Brunson, who writes and produces the show as well, and Brunson has emerged as one of the

sharpest and most sought-after voices in television. At 32 years of age, she recently signed a multi-year development deal with Warner Brothers, and she joined us at the New Yorker Festival last month. I'm Doreen Sefelix, and I am a staff writer at The New Yorker. I'm joined on on stage by the inimitable Emmy Award-winning writer, actor. The writer-actor. The writer-actor. and producer Quinta Brunson. Thank you so much for being here. I'm so happy to be here. Good morning, everybody.

Good morning. We were backstage just a few minutes ago and we were talking about the notion of crossover, which is to say I think of Quinta as the comedy mokker that I saw on the internet, the videos that you made for BuzzFeed in particular and other skits. Whereas when the Emmys aired last month, my mother was like,

that's the Abbott girl. And so I was wondering if you could talk about the culture of comedy on the internet versus comedy in network television. And what are the things that you have to do when you're thinking about the audience that's younger, the millennial generation Z audience online, and the more like intergenerational audience that you feed on a network television show? Yeah. So I do consider myself a child of the internet.

I was born in that special period where during my adolescence and my puberty, the internet was being born. Like, we, you know, Facebook was a part of my social reckoning, you know. When I was turning 15, MySpace was the biggest thing. And then once I got to college, that was the birth of Facebook. And memes and meme culture was a, a big part of my communication as a teenager. And so my sense of humor was right in that midpoint as well. I have so many older siblings and older parents. So the shows I watch with them

ranged from the Jeffersons to living in living color to living single from the Andy Griffith show because they would show me shows that they watched when they were kids, my parents, to even Stevens, which I talk about a lot. I really felt like that was the Seinfeld of my time. And then also when I was a kid, you know, all that was really important to me, this sketch show that it was just as important to me as SNL. I was like, these two are on the same level.

So here I have all this comedy inspiration. The internet comes into play, and then, you know, things like Funnier Die happen, and sketches like Pearl the landlord were very, Anyone know that, the little baby and Will Ferrell? Very defining for me. I think being able to put all those things together, the internet's like niche humor,

and then as you know, Twitter, which is a bunch of crackheads coming together, no sense whatsoever. So going to the network space with Abbott to me was a culmination of all that I had been built by. and I got to put everything I love about comedy from the Andy Griffith show to Tim and Eric to Martin

back into the network space and that was super exciting to me I do think technology widen the gap between like boomers and millennials and Gen Z because we just were accelerating at a rapid pace because of the internet and I wanted to bring everyone together and I felt like Abbott was my opportunity to do that and I think I pulled it off

and everyone's watching together as a family. I think Abbott Elementary premiered at this really interesting time in the culture of television which is to say modern family has its series finale and modern family in my eyes

as a television critic was probably one of the last network television shows that people the critical space, the kind of snobs, were like, okay, this is like a show that we need to pay attention to And then in the 2010s, you have this notion that good television is not on network anymore. It's on streaming. Network is like 10 years behind the culture.

And when Abbott premiered, I think there was a shock amongst viewers and amongst people who pay attention and care about this stuff, which is to say, this feels nearly avant-garde. It's not only competing with the comedies on streaming, it's kind of outstripping them. And so I was wondering if you could sort of maybe take us into your process of how you take form, which in the sitcom space is so strict and use that as an opportunity to make something that feels free and new and fresh. Yeah.

So when Abbott first premiered, it was kind of shocking for me to hear that people felt that way about network. I have never stopped watching network TV. I know people in this room probably don't like it, but I was like tuning in a young Sheldon every week. I... Which is the most watched television show in America?

The most watched television. And it's funny because I'll see people be like, who is watching this? Girl, everybody. Everybody is tuning in the young Sheldon. One day I will pitch my spinoff baby Sheldon.

The youngest Sheldon. It'll never end. I really appreciate the 22-minute format because I think it forces me to be more creative and make distinct decisions. I love the idea of an act break,

you know, when you're breaking a show for 22 minutes. You can't, you don't have that much time for the characters to talky, talky talk, you know? You don't have time for these long, drawn-out scenes where the characters talking about their feelings and nothing happens. With 22 minutes, you need a fun act break that's going to make people come back after the commercial break.

And I think that's so fun. I don't really want to... I enjoy trying to make a comedy that adheres to that standard. I think about black and white movies a lot and how we still are trying to make something as good as the old black and white movies. And I don't think that network ever has to... you know, the 22-minute comedic format ever has to go away. I think it's etched in stone,

and I think that we're always trying to be as good as it, even in the... It's why I think Netflix can't quite get it right. I'm like, because you don't have act breaks. You don't have any restrictions. And when it comes to comedy, timing is everything. And I don't really want to watch somebody be foolish for longer than... I don't.

Three minutes is the maximum for somebody just being foolish. If it's going longer than that, then it's a little exhausting for the audience with comedy. And that goes way back to the Three Stooges. You needed to get out of there and come back, but I'm not trying to see that for too long. Am I making sense? You're making so much sense. This is intimidating. I feel like I'm just, yeah.

I'm curious to know how you do something that a lot of shows don't do, which is that you resist making television that feels like it was made, you know, with the internet in mind. There are very few jokes that feel like, oh, somebody in the writer's room was like scrolling Twitter and made something to like satisfy, you know, the loudest audience that we can think of.

So to me, the internet is where people go to share their thoughts on media and on things, on Twitter in particular. It's like, this event happened. Now I will be tweeting about it. I don't look at Twitter at all as anywhere for inspiration. It's not inspiration. It's just people talking.

And Abbott is really great because the stories of this school are unique to those walls. It doesn't concern itself with world events. That was another cheat code of Abbott. I don't have to bring in world events to the show. When we go into the Abbott writers' room, the news doesn't even matter. It just, we are talking about what is going on with these people in this school. It's really nice.

And so I don't consider the Internet at all. It's not a part of our process, and I think that it makes for better art. Abbott Elementary is about a quote unquote serious issue, which is that in America, the public school education system is shit. Yeah. And in many ways, that's the main antagonist of the show, and yet there's no strain of didactism in it. And so I'd love to hear how you sort of like do that balance, you know, like very serious subject, but have it be a comedy that goes down easily. So Abbott is so much inspired by the everyday people. I find people who just wake up in the morning and go to their job.

I find that to be the most triumphant. And I watch my mom go to work every day. She never complained, which was so fascinating to me. And your mother is a teacher. My mother's a teacher. She retired. But her job is hard. I'm sure people in this room have hard jobs way harder than mine.

And you get up and you put your clothes on and you get out of bed and you go to fucking work. And people probably aren't that nice to you. And you're not getting paid as much as you should. I don't care what you do. You're not getting paid as much as you should be paid. And that is the most triumphant act. There is nothing, you know, that I could do or the president could do or anyone can do that is more triumphant than someone going to their shitty job.

It's not easy. And what was the second part of your question? I'm just so enamored by you. I kind of forgot what I asked. Same. No, I remember. I feel the same about it. Doreen is...

We're not doing it? This is about you. The second part of my question was how you, avoid the show feeling didact. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So going back to my mom and all the people I know who work, hard jobs, there's this sense of joy that people maintain in the face of horrible situations. I was at the airport and just, I love TSA workers because they just joke amongst themselves while dealing with, you're literally,

they're being asked to check for terrorism. That's crazy when you think about it that, you know, just some girl from Brooklyn is just trying to get a job and they're like, hey, make sure it's no terrorist. What? And she doesn't want to do that? She doesn't want to, and then it's on her?

It's so crazy to me. Think about it a lot. It's wild, wild-ass job. And still, they find, I love watching people just enjoy their lives regardless of what they've been asked to do. And that's what I always saw with my mom. She would still have a friend like Melissa. She would still find this peace and laugh and the school district was getting on her nerves. But she loved the kids so much and she loved her coworkers so much that there was such joy in what she did.

And that's what Abbott is based in. Janine should be sadder than she is. But she's not, because she gets up, puts her little outfits on, and comes into school, and in the face of so much disenchantment still manages to be there, show up, and have a good time. And I think that's so special. And I think that deserves to be revered. And reminded of it every day, I think it's crazy. that we keep going.

So much has happened to the human race. So much has happened to black people. Like, why are we still here? But I don't know. Something keeps us going. Do you know what I mean? We really could have called it quits a long time ago. And somehow we just keep going.

It's crazy to me. It's really wild. I don't get it. Slavery? I would have been... I really don't know how to follow up. Literally the word slavery. You're listening to the New Yorker's Doreen San Felix,

talking to Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson. We'll continue in a moment with some profound thoughts on the politics of the Philly Cheese Steak. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We've been listening to writer Doreen Sanfileaks

in conversation with Quinta Brunson, the creator and star of ABC's hit series Abbott Elementary. Doreen has written that with Abbott, Brunson has managed to find freedom and formula making a mass-appealed treat that feels fresher than a lot of buzzy streaming comedies. She's become the first black woman to score three Emmy nominations for a comedy in a single year.

They spoke in October at the New Yorker Festival. You talking about race made me think about, the more recent history of sitcom network television and some of the shows that came out that were created by people of color, by black people, by Asian Americans, and the drama, the problem

in a lot of these shows was race. So if that was blackish, I mean, even modern family, it was about race or just about white people. Still counts. Fresh off the boat. Yes. And so, this is maybe

kind of like an inside baseball question, but were you at all, you know, cajoled or coaxed by network executives to make that more of the topic of the show? I think why so many of my friends love Abbott as were like, this is amazing.

This is a show in which most of the cast is black people in Philadelphia, but it's not about race in the way that shows have been in the Obama era. I had such a good relationship with Warner Brothers in my studio, and by the time Abbott was made, I had already made two other projects with them.

They knew that wasn't how I wanted to approach making something. Like a show like Blackish, I feel made Abbott possible because they did it so I don't have to do it. You know, everyone gets it that black people exist. Great. Now I get to make a show about just things that aren't about being black, but are about, just stories, you know what I mean? I don't want to do

a Black History Month episode and there was a little bit of a push to do that and I don't want to. I want to make whatever Abbott's version of that is but our show is not a show that is like here's the topic of the month

or here's what's going on in the world like I said so they have their own world these characters in this show Randall Einhorn, who is our director in NEP on the show, he also got me, whereas with other directors, I don't know. They were approaching it in a way that I didn't quite enjoy. But Randall saw the beauty in the school,

and Randall was like, this needs to be lit a certain way. This needs to have a more. Randall did like a million episodes of the office. He helped set the tone of what the office looked like, and he knew that this show wasn't about paper. It was about children, so it had to be warmer, and it had to. He knew what lighting black people looked like,

which it's different. HBO and stuff, man, Issa gets to do stuff that is really hard to do a network TV still. It was hard for me to even have a conversation about a black director. I kind of gave up. Thank God, Randall came into play. Randall's not black,

but he... He's an ally. Native ally. I just needed someone to... And my life is full of meetings. And to have a director who got it was really valuable to me. And he just understood.

So I say all that to say I have a bunch of people who get it, let me work, and that's really important to me. So I was watching the Emmys last month and I felt such assert. of like the intergenerational power that I think Abbott Elementary operates on when you consider the space, creative distance, not creative distance, but distance and culture between your character

and Cheryl Lee Ralph's character. And to see this actor who, I mean, has had a career for well over four decades, the original dream girl, finally get to have her moment through the vehicle of Abbott, I'm just curious, like this is maybe kind of fan-girly, but like, what is your relationship like with Cheryl? What does she smell like, you know, those kinds of things? Cheryl is on set. She comes in humming a song, singing a song, saying hello to the whole crew. I'm very personable, and I love my crew and stuff, so I say, hey, good morning, everybody, what's up, morning, Cheryl comes, good morning. Every morning.

And sets this tone of reminding you that life is to be lived. And Cheryl is just constantly reminding me to live. Like, she is just a life is for the living person. And I told her one time, I was like, well, my plan is you get to retire after this show.

And she's like, honey, I'm never stopping living. I'm never going to stop working. I'm going to work until I can't work. And I'm like, You know what? Yeah, that's what's up. It's nice to be reminded that life doesn't stop at 60. Cheryl is on a full track to live life as much as she can for as long as she can. And I kind of need that reminder sometimes because I'm so tired sometimes. I'm like, man, I'm retiring at 45.

I am not doing anything anymore past 45, but she just reminds me that it's only over when you say it is. So she's wonderful. Did I say that part yet? I love her. Yeah, it's like having a second mom. Sometimes she texts me scriptures, and I'm like, I don't know what to do with this. I don't know.

Truly is. All right, Cheryl. If I got a good rising text message from Cheryl, you know. She's better at the Internet than me, which is wild. Like, she's on it, and I'm not anymore. I'm not really on what's happening, and she sends me voice notes. It'll be like a two-minute-long voice note.

She'll go, I just ran into someone who loves Abbott Elementary. And we had the best conversation, and I just want to tell you I love you and keep going. And I'll just be like, thanks, Cheryl. It just is incredible to have her in my life. Yeah. I have a sibling that lives in Philadelphia, Yeah, and she often sends me text messages about, you know, the specificities of how Philly the show is,

even like that bag of Utschips that Lisa's character is eating in that scene. And so I'm curious about how you negotiate, you know, obviously wanting to do some sort of like, not honor, but wanting to be realistic and wanting to be recognizable to people from Philly to even yourself as someone who's from the city and also just making sure that you like make a TV show that is good and consistently so. To me, the specificity helps tell this story. You can't tell the story of a Philadelphia school without the nature of the city. That combination of Barbara and Melissa is very specifically Philly to me. I don't know, like getting that South Philly woman with the West Philly woman together.

And there are unspoken things in Abbott. Like, you know, the South Philadelphia Italians, half of them are Trump voters. That's just the truth. One of the biggest sandwich shops in Philly cheese steaks places, pets and Ginoes are across from each other. I think it's Gino's. You go there to order a cheese steak, you're mind of your business. Bam, Trump 2024, right in your face.

You think I'm not going to order that cheesecake? And that is the relationship of Philadelphians. It's so complicated and so messy. But that's what the city is. And so without that energy, I don't think Abbott would have been what it is. And I, do I love it? No.

But it is the reality of the situation in Philadelphia. And I just think being specific really helps tell this story. At this point, we're going to take some audience questions. And you guys have sent in some really beautiful ones, actually. Ooh, I like this one. I'm going to pretend like I asked you this. What is the atmosphere like during table reads? Oh, our table reads are really fun.

I'm always excited for the cast to see the scripts because that's very often the first time they get to see them. We have a ball, especially Cheryl, because Cheryl, she just, she's so funny. She does her line, she executes. But then Cheryl just starts following along with the story, and she'll just be sitting in the middle of the table read, Oh, and she's so audible, and especially with Gregory Janine stuff. She's kind of my barometer because Cheryl will straight up be like,

ooh, like Sherry will be quiet. And it's always, I don't know, it's so fun to watch them say the lines for the first time. And what's been really cool is our camera crew comes to table reads now. because with mockumentary, the camera crew is so integral to the storytelling. So now they're coming to Table Reeds to get a jump on how they're going to film the episode because I cannot, you know, I don't know if they'll see this, but Brenda, Jeremiah, Drew, all these people who work on our camera crew, we couldn't do it without them. And they're so, so much a part of the storytelling.

So it's a big old, grand old time. They've gotten a little bit too big, actually. I'm going to start limiting the capacity of the table reads because they're jam-packed, but it's really fun. Okay, here's another great question. What is the most impactful no you've ever received, and what did it lead to? I will say it was for the show I sold to CBS, Quentin Germain with Larry. I learned so much through that experience, and by the end of it, the show wasn't something

that I'm sure I would have been proud of. But I went through the process, loved working with Larry and Germain, and I think they felt the same. It had been turned into something that we didn't intend for it to be. Can you tell us more about the premise of the show? The premise of the show was, Jermaine and I were going to be two 25-year-olds from D.C., who were friends who one night wound up sleeping together,

and my character was going to get pregnant. and they were going to stay friends and figure out how to co-parent this child. I think what was confusing about it was we believed in a world in which this could really happen and happens every day, and we believed it could happen for these two black kids from D.C. I think that was a hard concept. And we didn't want to make it nasty. We were like, this is a comedy. This is something that people go through all the time.

Like pregnancy, it's crazy how much unplanned pregnancy or single mothers are still a little taboo. And it's wild to see. It's one of those things that makes me hyper-aware to black women having children in America. It's a weirdly very taboo subject. And I know so many girls who have children and are very happy women. They're single mothers. They're not sitting somewhere in a ditch. I'm not saying it's not hard.

I'm saying that people are resilient. And in that is beauty, life, goodness, kindness, resilience. And that was hard to get past. So when we were told no, I was honestly believed. I was like, I didn't want to make the version of the story that they wanted to make. I wanted to make something that was a little bit more realistic. And I think that experience helped me to know that I wanted to make something like Abbott. It helped birth a character like Tariq in the show, who was not a bad guy.

These are just people, and people are messy. And black people get to be messy, too. It's not unique to just, you know, Chandler and Joey and Ross and Rachel. I was watching friends on the plane. I'm like, yo, Ross is really fucking crazy, honestly. Lunatic. So. As you were talking, I realized there's a through line here, if you'll allow me to

speculate on what your, like, larger thesis of your work is, is that black stories or stories in general don't always have to be told on the register of being extraordinary. These are, like, very ordinary situations. Yes. And you can imagine that when you go to a network and you say, okay, two friends, They're going to raise this child together, but they're not going to be in a romantic situation. You can imagine all the like, well, is this a negative portrayal?

Like, is this something that we actually see in society? And it's like there's a huge gap between the everydayness, the ordinariness of our lives and what is shown on television. Absolutely. You can imagine, you could totally see Abbott being told as like a kind of like doldrums kind of dark story. Yeah. And I think the intervention is in the tenor of like humor and messiness.

I agree with you. This is why I love you, Doreen. This is why I love you. Because you say stuff that I don't know how to articulate that. It's happening in my brain, but yes, that's exactly how I feel. That is exactly how I feel. So Quinta, thank you so much for being so kind. Quinta Brunson, the creator and star of Abbott Elementary.

She spoke with Doreen Sanfileaks, who's a staff writer at The New Yorker. I'm David Remnick. Hope you had a great holiday. And I hope you'll join us next time for the next time. New Yorker Radio Hour. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato. This episode was produced by Emily Boutin, Breda Green, Calaliyah, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, and Gauphin and Putabwelle.

Along with Adam Howard, Jeffrey Masters, Will Coley, Jenny Lawton, and Michael May. And we had assistance from Harrison Keithline, Mahe, Maha. Ayr Batia, Amy Pearl, and James Napoli. And special thanks to Catherine Sterling, Amanda Miller, Nico Brown, and Michael Etherington. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.