THE PROUD FAMILY: LOUDER AND PROUDER - Jasmin Pittman Morrell

Be yourself. 

That’s the message executive producer, Ralph Farquhar (Moesha), hopes kids and adults take away from Disney+’s animated series, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. The Proud Family first appeared on The Disney Channel in 2001, centering the story of Penny Proud, her family, and crew of friends. Louder and Prouder picks up where the first installment left off—Penny and her squad are bourgeoning teenagers, dealing with all the challenges and rewards that come along with entering young adulthood.

I adore coming-of-age narratives of all kinds. The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder is no exception. Exploring interwoven themes of identity formation, peer pressure, family dynamics, and friendship, Louder and Prouder is, for my kids, what ABC’s “TGIF” programming was for me as a kid (if you missed characters like Steve Urkel, Tia and Tamara, Cory and Topanga, and Mr. Cooper, I’m not sure how you made it through Friday nights of the late 80s and early 90s…?). 

There is of course, the blackness of Louder and Prouder, more specifically, the celebration of black family that I want my children to witness. I grew up with more opportunity to see this celebration reflected in the larger culture than my parents did, or their parents before them. Even so, the more opportunity to celebrate, the better.

When I had the chance to chat with Ralph Farquhar, Paula Jai Parker (Trudy Proud), and Alisa Reyes (LaCienega Boulevardez) about their experience working on the show, they reminded me just how much this message of celebration is also one of inclusion, and the kind of rootedness that comes with belonging.

Jasmin Pittman Morrell: Could you speak to me about the ways The Proud Family reflects life in the U.S. today?

Ralph Farquhar: We draw from the past and the present, but in terms of today, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, reflects today’s dynamics in social media, gender identification, music—we try to pick up topics young people and their parents are dealing with. In the first episode, [it] deals with Penny being comfortable with her sense of self. In “Makeup Boy,” we’re dealing with the whole notion of social media and being “canceled,” which 20 years ago didn’t exist to the extent it does now. 

Paula Jai Parker: I remember back in the day, we spoke of things that manifested today…we talked about things I see now that are current. Ralph and Bruce (executive producer) did that as well with their writing. And now we’re picking up on that with a lot of activism. We’ve got Keke Palmer on this season, who, in real life as well as well as on our show, is like Rosa Parks, jr. We love her and we love what she brings to the world as an activist, and we love what she brings to our show. We’ve got Billy Porter, who is a huge activist in the LGBTQ community. 

Alisa Reyes: Now interweaving the LGBTQ community—which I’m so excited about because I love EJ Johnson’s character [Michael]. It’s honestly been so enlightening and a really great frequency to share with the masses. 

Now every family that sits down—it doesn’t what ethnicity you are, what demographic you’re in, or category you fit into, there’s something for everybody. 

We did have an intertwining of a lot of these ideas previously…and now people are magnifying in, going “Oh, okay, this was there, but now I notice it even more.” At The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder we’ve always been our true, authentic selves, but now I think (because of everything that’s transpiring in the world), now people are really aligning and noticing it. But we’ve always just been who we are.

PJP: We are now parents ourselves—Alisa and I—I wasn’t a Mommy when I did this the first time around. And now that I am, I’m realizing, we bring up conversations and topics that will help make parents more comfortable talking with their kids. We do open opportunities for dialogue…We used to call it “water cooler” conversations, now we can call it dinner conversation.

RF: I call it Twitter conversations.

JPM: I love the idea of using the show as opportunity to spark family conversation—what are one or two things you hope kids take away from the show? 

RF: Be yourself. Fearlessly. 

PJP: Unapologetically.

RF: That’s the universal message for the kids and for the adults. 

Jasmin Pittman Morrell is a writer and co-editor for The Porch Magazine. She teaches creative nonfiction at Lenoir-Rhyne University. Alongside her family, Jasmin loves calling the mountains of western North Carolina home.