Michaela Coel’s upcoming book aims to inspire fellow Misfits
Michaela Coel, the creator and star of popular TV shows such as Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You, has a new book coming out in September called Misfits: A Personal Manifesto. Coel is known for creating unique stories about Black women that are not often told and using her life as an inspiration to make the work as truthful as possible.
In Misfits, Coel will tell us about her life, career, and how she became confident in her creativity and strength. Coel advocates strongly for “radical honesty” and “great transparency.” If you are familiar with the actress’s work, then you know this type of messaging is similar to what she has shown us in her previous content.
The title Misfits was inspired by a lecture she gave at the 2018 Edinburgh TV Festival’s MacTaggart lecture. Her lecture was her telling the story of her life, which described how she embraced being a misfit and how that led her to become a writer and performer Coel sees herself as a misfit because, like a lot of people, she is different from the mainstream: She comes from a low-income community; she is Black; doesn’t follow Hollywood’s standard of beauty, and she lives outside of the box.
After hearing Coel’s MacTaggart lecture, you can see how her TV shows have been inspired by various elements of her life. Chewing Gum is a dark comedy about a 24-year-old virgin who lives on a social housing estate in London and wants to experience life outside of her restrictive, religious household. She wants to be desirable and cool, but she doesn’t quite land it. Coel mentions coming from an Evangelical Christian background and living in a housing estate in the lecture.
In I May Destroy You, Coel plays the lead character Arabella who is a writer that got started on Twitter and is lost on how to write her first book through a publisher. The series follows Arabella picking up the pieces of her life after being sexually assaulted. In the lecture, Coel brings up blogging as her first try at storytelling and explains how turning her play Chewing Gum Dreams into the TV show Chewing Gum was an anxiety-inducing, but ultimately rewarding experience for her. Unfortunately, Coel also shares Arabella’s experience of being sexually assaulted. Like Arabella, Coel had a difficult time creating work while having a mind and body affected by trauma.
Coel has repeatedly shown how she uses her craft to be honest about her life and make space for people, like her, to embrace all parts of themselves. Her work also reveals that it’s important to affirm the misfits in our society and try to make it a place where they are more welcomed. Coel ends the MacTaggart lecture by saying, “I’m going to try to be my best; to be transparent; and to play whatever part I can, to help fix this house. What part will you play?”
Misfits: A Personal Manifesto comes out September 7th of this year in the United Kingdom through Ebury Press and in the United States through the Macmillan Imprint, Henry Holt.
Next. . dark
Are you familiar with any of Michaela Coel’s TV shows? Do you think you will check out the book? Let us know in the comments below!