21 Pieces Of Trivia About FX’s “Atlanta” That Explain A Lot About The Show
William Barrios
6 min read
21 Pieces Of Trivia About FX’s “Atlanta” That Explain A Lot About The Show
Coming in at #14 on the BBC’s “100 Greatest TV Series of the 21st Century,” Atlanta was immediately recognized as a cut above the rest.
Equal parts surrealism, comedy, horror, drama, and more, the show does not easily fit into one category. As Donald Glover puts it, “I’m not making a TV show, I am making an experience.” To better understand and appreciate Atlanta, I’m taking a closer look at the brilliant people behind it.
1. Paper Boi’s song of the same name was performed by Stephen Glover, Donald’s brother.
Nbc / NBCU Photo Bank / NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesHe told Stephen Colbert, “That would have been wack to me. […] I don’t think anybody wants to see a show of someone actually making it.”
Naturally, Glover’s experiences as Childish Gambino have impacted Atlanta. Glover goes on to tell Colbert:
“Being a rapper is super awkward. You’re in a video and you’ve got, like, champagne and butts close to your face, and then you have go to Whole Foods and the person is like, ‘Hey, you’re that dude!’ and you’re like, ‘Please I really want to buy this ice cream.'”
5. Donald and Stephen Glover have compared the differences in each season’s tone to the differences in Ye’s albums.
Stephen Glover told Rolling Stone that he and his brother Donald often use Ye’s albums as comparisons for the show’s growth:
“We’ve kind of been comparing the season to a sophomore record from a new artist. Internally, we’ve drawn Kanye parallels: if the first season is College Dropout, this one is Late Registration.”
Speaking about what exactly made the second season of the show similar to Late Registration, Donald Glover said at an Emmys panel: “This is probably our most accessible but also the realest — an honest version of it — and I feel like the most enjoyable.”
6. Brian Tyree Henry didn’t study other rappers when creating the persona of Paper Boi because he wanted to start with Alfred.
Jc Olivera / Getty Images“I wanted to be so far removed from [studying other rappers] because I think that every rapper, even their names are ways that they want you to know them. Rappers make personas or names. I felt like it was a way of protection, you know what I mean? So, I didn’t really want to study any rappers per se because I wanted to get to know who [Alfred] really was and where he came from before I could even go to where he was going. Like, Paper Boi is where he’s going.” —Brian Tyree Henry, NPR
7. Donald Glover had to bring in what Black creators call a “white translator” to argue the case that Atlanta should be able to use the N-word freely.
FX / youtube.comInitially, FX was only going to allow Atlanta to say the word if another character immediately commented on how it should not be said. But Glover didn’t agree, so he brought in Paul Simms, a white executive known to some as the “white translator.”
Kenya Barris, creator of the show Black-ish, describes what people like Simms do:
“You need the translator for the three-minute call after the meeting. It’s for when the execs call the white guy to say, ‘What exactly did Kenya mean there?’ and to be reassured.”
“I’m Black, making a very Black show,” Glover told The New Yorker, “and they’re telling me I can’t use the N-word. Only in a world run by white people would that happen.”
8. While Zazie Beetz is proud of her character Van, she does not want her to viewed as a generalization of every single Black woman.
Beetz told GQ, “I think it is important to see intelligent Black women who are also struggling with their partners. You know what I mean? That’s all part of this larger narrative of what’s going on in the media and in film and television in general. But her story isn’t everybody’s story. I don’t want executives in studios to be like, ‘Oh, we have to do more exactly like Van.'”
9. The cover art for Childish Gambino’s Awaken, My Love! was shown in the Season One episode, “Juneteenth,” two months before the album was released.
FX / youtube.com10. If the show’s disorientation ever makes you feel high, that’s intentional.
FX / youtube.com“We do everything high. The effortless chaos of Atlanta — the moments of enlightenment followed by an abrupt return to reality — is definitely shaped by weed. When shit is actually going on, no one knows what the fuck is happening.” — Donald Glover to The New York Times
11. Donald and Stephen Glover write all of Paper Boi’s raps.
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blockquote> FX / youtube.com
Stanfield was the only person who didn’t know Glover was playing Perkins. When he tried talking to “Teddy Perkins” off-camera, Glover was ready with a prepared life story for Stanfield.
14. Studio executives did not understand the casual, baby-parents relationship between Van and Earn.
Axelle / FilmMagicGlover says, “At FX, they didn’t get Earn and Van at all. I said, ‘This is every one of my aunts — you have a kid with a guy, he’s around, you’re still attracted to him.’ Poor people can’t afford to go to therapy.”
15. The opening episode of Season Three, “Three Slaps,” is based on the true story of the Hart family.
KATU News / youtube.comIt’s a heartbreaking event that shows what can happen when foster children fall through the cracks, people assume a smiling family is a happy one, and children aren’t listened to soon enough.
At the end of “Three Slaps,” though, the Atlanta team doesn’t write what really happened to the Hart family. They instead give Loquareeous—the young boy who represents Devonte Hart (holding the “Free Hugs” sign in the picture above) — and the other foster kids a way out.
16. Seasons Three and Four were written and filmed at the same time.
<
blockquote> Amy Sussman / Getty Images
“Season Three is about curses and the curse of whiteness. I can’t remember the guy’s name on CNN, but he had that speech where he talks about white people freeing themselves from the curse of racism, and we talked about that in the writers’ room a lot. And I think you’ll see that in a lot of the episodes, this idea. When you are from the South and you are American especially, you can see things differently. And I think white people have blind spots, obviously, to race and things that are going on, and they are affected by this, too. It’s not just Black people who are going through it and having a hard time. It’s, like, you are actually affected by it, too.” —Stephen Glover to Laughing Place
20. The show might not have filmed in Paris if not for a nifty little tax rebate.
FX / youtube.comThe tax rebate on international production (TRIP) has brought a lot of non-French filmmakers to France. It is a 30–40% tax rebate, depending on things like how much the production spends and even how many visual effects shots they have.
Xavier Roy, line producer for the Paris episode, stated that, “Without this measure, Atlanta probably would not have come to Paris. Or maybe just for two days for the outdoor shoots. They would have filmed the indoor scenes at their own studio, at their production base in London.”
21. Season Four will be the last.
Axelle / FilmMagicSorry to end it on a downer, but at least they’re going out as one of the best shows in history!
What’s your favorite BTS fact, and how do you feel about the show’s anthology structure this season? Let me know in the comments!
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