Sisterhood televised: Yvette Lee Bowser and the voices she listens to

American Visions, April-May, 1995 by Malaika Brown

Don't raise an eyebrow when Yvette Lee Bowser, the creator and executive producer of the hit sitcom Living Single (Fox), says, "Not everyone heard the voices I was hearing." She's not losing her marbles, though her unfettered laughter and melodramatic gestures could confuse you. To the contrary, Bowser leverages her marbles.

At 29, she is the creative mind behind one of the hottest African-American sitcoms since The Cosby Show and the first to give voice to the professional black female. Bowser is involved in every step of the production process. She hand-picked her team of 11 writers--among the most diverse creative staffs behind network shows, with five African Americans and four women. As a member of the writing team, she selects ideas for scripts from her writers or comes up with them herself. She oversees taping and then edits the finished product into a 22-minute show. Network executives must give their approval, and Bowser says she has yet to run into difficulty with an episode.

"My vision is to depict African Americans in television in a realistic, humorous way," she explains. "I think the key to the show is that it is honest. The beauty of the Living Single characters is that they are honest with each other, as my friends and I are. Maybe not all people interact the same way, but [the show] is about my life. It's about my friends. It's about people I know."

True enough, if you know anything about the four women of Living Single, then you know something about Yvette Lee Bowser. "As I created the show," says the Philadelphia native, "I basically divided myself into four. I can certainly be kind of innocent and naive as Synclaire. I've been as bitter as Max--I think most women who have dated have been there. I've been as ambitious and maybe as myopic as Khadijah, when it comes to my career. And I've been as superficial as Regine! So, having felt all those things in myself, I know there are other women living that same experience."

All of which gives Living Single the edge: It's an open window to a population that television has blatantly ignored. The first voice of the self-sufficient black woman.

Still, Bowser, an only child from an interracial marriage, treads lightly around her success. Among the hundreds of letters viewers send to the show, it is the handful that criticize Living Single that stick with her. She is quick to defend the show's characters; referring to viewers' early criticism of the character played by John Henton, she says, "Overton is not a shuffling buffoon. ... I see him as more of a simple, lovable guy." Bowser also stresses that the show is a sitcom, which is supposed to be light and funny, and not a drama that regularly deals with tough social issues.

She muses that her sensitivity to criticism is likely a throwback to negative reinforcements during her formative years: "I was told I could not do certain things. There's still that part of me that hears those voices--people telling me I'm not good enough."

The next moment, she's shrugging it all off with a dramatic sweep of her hand across her forehead, saying with, a sigh, "It's kind of sad." Infectious laughter follows. Bowser has confirmed her own abilities. She got good grades; was accepted at Stanford University, where she majored in political science and psychology; pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority; and then stepped from academia into Hollywood.

Bowser joined A Different World as an apprentice in 1987, and by the show's fifth season, in 1992, she had worked her way up to producer. Her crisp, witty writing style and production savvy kept her in demand, and Bowser went on to produce two other shows, including a pilot, Sweet Home Chicago, and a season of Hangin' With Mr. Cooper before Living Single was picked up.

"When I think about myself, when I think about what I have accomplished, and I look back and I say, `What is it that sparked me to be so determined?' I realize what had a lot to do with it: people telling me that I wouldn't amount to anything," Bowser says again.

"It took me a year and a half to really decide whether I wanted to be in this business, because there is a lot of negative energy, a lot of people who want to keep you down. ... Those people putting their thumb down on me made me say, `Uh-uh, I don't think so. I'm not having it."' Bowser breaks into more laughter.

During the 1993 pilot season, she says, the network supported her more because of a gut feeling than any real conviction that there was an audience for Living Single. "We all knew she had it," says veteran director Ellen Gittelsohn, who first worked with Bowser on the set of A Different World and is now working for her on Living Single. Two seasons later, that feeling has paid off for Bowser, Fox and the roughly 10 million people who watch the show weekly.

Bowser, however, hasn't forsaken a personal life for the fast track. Last summer, she married Kyle Bowser, an independent television producer who happens to have a best friend named Overton. In the "not too distant future," Bowser sees a joint venture between her and Kyle.