All American’s Patience is making some uncharacteristic choices in season 5. She’s going down a dark path that sends a negative message to women.
Patience (Chelsea Tavares) was introduced in All American as a woman who knew who she was, but the writers have been slowly changing her. Patience started as Coop’s (Bre-z) girlfriend, but she quickly got her storyline chasing her dreams of becoming a musician. She was first working with Layla Keating’s (Greta Onieogou) dad, JP Keating (Ray Campbell), but he was changing her music which didn’t feel right for her. She fought back and eventually ended up at Layla’s record label.
Patience’s first album had a great reception. Now, she’s working on her second album. Her profile is growing, which comes with a lot of growing pains for Patience. Layla is trying to guide her into the next phase of her career. Layla has also brought on the assistant to the publicist, Gia (Ashley Argota Torres), from her dad’s company. In All American season 5, Patience and Layla got to walk a red carpet, though they didn’t get to go to the event. It was part of promoting Patience and her brand. That was a great part of bringing in a publicist, but Gia is playing by JP’s playbook, as Clay (Deric Augustine) pointed out.
Patience Editing Her Images Is The Wrong Message For Women
Now that Patience has a bigger profile, more people are taking their own pictures of her and posting them on social media. This would bring out insecurities in anyone. People are also posting hurtful comments. So, Coop’s new girlfriend, Skye (Madison Shamoun), decided to help her. She gave her some rules for social media and showed her how to edit her photos, which changed her appearance. This feeds into women’s insecurities that they aren’t enough.
Women have difficulty being comfortable with who they are because of how the media depicts what women should look like. This has gotten worse with social media. Patience is feeding into that by editing out the things that people have been negatively saying about her. The more women do that, the more they show other women that it’s okay to put out a false deception of themselves. In turn, they become a fake version of themselves and lose who they are. It can also make women feel like they will never be enough, which can affect their mental health.
Patience Needs To Go Back To The Character Who Fought To Be Authentic
Patience is going along with this plan because she trusts Layla and Gia. Also, she wants to have a bigger audience for her music. She may not even realize what’s happening. She’s getting lost in what stardom she has experienced. She wants to get to that next level. And she’s sacrificing her beliefs to do it.
What was so great about Patience’s character was how unapologetically herself she was. This was a great model for what women should strive to be. It was great energy on the show, too. This is what the All American writers need to get Patience back to. She needs to wake up and see that she’s changed, or someone needs to call her out on what she’s doing. It’s one thing to have a storyline of her working through her insecurities, but it’s not good to have her feed into them.
