One of our favourite actors from True Blood, Rutina Wesley has been cast to play one of the four leads in ABC’s cop drama pilot Broad Squad, which will be her first lead role since her seven-season as Tara on HBO’s vampire drama.
The drama, inspired by true stories, follows the first four women to graduate from Boston’s Police Academy in 1978.
So what do we know about Wesley’s new queer role. She is poised to play Joanne, who is guarded and private about her personal life (largely because she’s gay), the character has high standards and ever the professional — mostly because she feels that it’s necessary. As a black woman, she knows she has to work harder and be better than everyone in the department.
Diverse casting is a major trend right now in hollywood, and queer African-American characters are on an up. Television is tipped to be the next frontier of diversity.
This television season alone we have seen plenty of queer and ethnically rich shows. The mostly-Hispanic TV show Jane The Virgin , the debut Empire focuses on a massively wealthy black family in the music business, How To Get Away With Murder features a no-nonsense black, female lawyer surrounded by several fearless people of colour.