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‘Looking For LaToya,’ Issa Rae’s Fictional True-Crime Podcast, Expands On ‘Insecure’ Plot Point And Carries A Message
The latest season of Issa Rae's hit HBO series features a show on the fictional disappearance of 26-year-old LaToya Thompson. Now the case is getting a real-life treatment in podcast form.
Fans of HBO's "Insecure" may soon have a new favorite podcast.
Show creator Issa Rae's label Raedio has teamed up with HBO and Tenderfoot TV to produce "Looking for LaToya," a one-episode podcast delving deeper into the show-within-a-show featured on the current season of "Insecure," according to a press release.
The one-episode scripted series features singer-songwriter SZA, who portrays LaToya Thompson, a 26-year-old woman whose disappearance and possible murder are incorporated in the series' latest season. Also featured are such recognizable names as Terri J. Vaughn, Porsha Williams, Kandi Burruss-Tucker, Ray J, and Carl Anthony Payne II.
As fans of "Insecure" know, numerous seasons of the show have featured a show-with-a-show that the characters routinely tune into and obsess over. The show's writers were inspired to make "Looking for LaToya" the mini-show of the fourth season due to their own interest in true-crime shows and podcasts like "To Live and Die in L.A.," Rae told Entertainment Tonight earlier this year.
But while listeners can expect the same sharp humor that "Insecure" is known for, Rae shared in recent interviews that there's a deeper message to be found at the center of "Looking for LaToya": the lack of mainstream attention given to missing Black women.
"One of the things a lot of these true crime podcasts and true crime shows in general have in common is that they're always looking for missing white girls," Rae said. "[This exposes] the idea that none of these are centered around Black girls, and what it would look like if it were. And finding the dark humor in that."
"Looking for Latoya" premiered on podcast streaming services on June 12. Accompanying information on the fictional case, including trailers, can be found on the podcast website, LookingforLaToya.com.
