Summary

“Leading Lady” begins with an anecdote about a hostile Twitter exchange that the author has with a white, disabled, sex worker. The sex worker took offense to an offhand, jesting comment that Issa tweeted after having watched the Grammys. The exchange is shocking to Issa because the vitriol she receives feels disproportionate to the offense she may have caused. This leads Issa towards deeper reflection on the nature of representation and why lack of fair representation can cause people to be irritable.

She casts back into her high school past and recounts her own initial forays in screenwriting. Issa wrote a script she called Judged Cover “about a chubby, unattractive, black high school girl who gets her first breakout role in a movie.” (46) She is incredibly proud of it and recognized she was filling a representational void...