After growing up in New York and Europe, where she attended boarding school in Switzerland, actress, Tracee Ellis Ross, graduated from Brown University with a theater degree, and worked in fashion as a model and as an editor at Mirabella and New York magazines. Her early acting auditions were humbling, Vanity Fair reports.
“Being a ‘child of’ meant that you were sort of riding on the coattails of your parent,” she says. “It would unlock the door and then people would sit on the other side . . . waiting for you like, ‘She’s no Diana Ross.’ At a very young age, even before I wanted to be an actor, I felt just the energy that was coming at me because I was a piece of somebody that people loved.”
Tracee Ellis Ross would forge her own path and begin to embody the woman we now know to be fierce, empowered and incredibly sure of herself which is why it comes as no surprise that her success today is speaking for her. But, it would be a slow, bumpy ride for the actress to get here.
After graduation, Ross began working in fashion before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She landed s0me small roles and then her big break came with the hit sitcom, Girlfriends, which ran for 8 years. Girlfriends was a unique show. It depicted the lives of single black females forging their paths in career, business and even in the creative industry while showcasing their love lifes, friendships and varied personalities. The Black-ish star was pretty sure this was her big break when she landed this role except that it wasn’t.
“When I was on Girlfriends, I thought I would be able to get on David Letterman or Jay Leno or some talk show, and I never—it never happened. After being the lead on a show for eight years that did incredibly well, I thought perhaps the seas might part and I would have my choice and my pick of the litter—no, that didn’t happen.”
Ross speaks on the change in times in the television industry as she mentions that we currently live in a time where people of colour are able to create stories that get picked up by television stations and for that she’s thankful. She duffs her hat to Issa Rae who is a classic example of a black woman who continues to own her craft and whose shows got picked up from Youtube to what we now know to be HBO’s Insecure.
Tracee, whose combined wit and confidence seeps through in her outfit choices and the issues to which she chooses to lend her voice, gives credit to her mother, iconic singer and performer, Diana Ross, for her strength, which she has come to emulate.
“My mother is a woman who completely possessed her own agency and embodied a sense of her own power, unapologetically”
In her same confident streak, Tracee who couldn’t land a talk show with David Letterman, now in her late 40s who now stars in what has been deemed one of the most impactful episodes of TV’s most popular sitcoms, Black-ish, has a directorial project in the works entitled, Mother Nature, which deals with the theme of Post-Partum depression, a subject seldom raised in TV, let alone in comedy. When she isn’t landing Ted Talks and speaking on “how a woman’s fury holds a lifetime of wisdom”, she is also lending her voice to the ‘Time’s up’ movement.
She has also been very vocal about women breaking patriachial constructs and to define for themselves what happiness means. Her non-conformist perspective on societal ideals is always evident, as Tracee is always vocal about self love and the importance of living your best life by your own definition.
Speaking on pregnancy rumours. she told Vanity Fair:
Last year, I was [fictionally] pregnant all season. That brought on a lot of comments and questions and pontifications from people with no invitation. I literally have said to people, for real, no joke, ‘Why don’t you just get out of my womb? Like, get out of my uterus? What are you doing in there? And why are you asking those questions? And what makes you think you can ask that?’ Part of what patriarchy has created for women is this siloed-off experience, with one answer for what a good life looks like.”
Among many things, Tracee is a role model for younger women who are looking to find their voice. Her confidence is inspiring and oh so refreshing in a society that doesn’t encourage individuality very often. To see a woman of colour live rather boldly in colour is a remarkable feat; one our generation should hold dear.
She is also testament to the fact that the big moment we’ve been waiting for might not come when we expect it but nonetheless, to keep fighting the good fight of authenticity.
