Thursday, March 28, 2024

Everybody Can Relate to the ‘Queen Sugar’ Family Declared Star Dawn-Lyen Gardner

dawn-lyen gardner (queen-sugar)

*“The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society,” the late beloved author Maya Angelou wrote.

It is a fitting quote for the tattered Bordelon family – three siblings clinging to their love sometimes on a tenuous thread.

Their story is the foundation of the highly rated Wednesday night OWN drama “Queen Sugar.” The two sisters and brother, facing different struggles inherited their late father’s failing sugarcane farm that spreads across 800 acres in the fictional town of Saint Josephine, Louisiana.

This is a show for everybody, no matter their race, because everyone can relate to the family, Dawn-Lyen Gardner told EURweb.com.

“These three siblings have been estranged and coming back together. Everybody can relate to being in new places in their lives and having to get to know each other even though they are siblings, “Gardner, who plays Charlotte “Charley” Bordelon West, the middle child said.

Queen Sugar is the brainchild of award winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay who is the director of the acclaimed drama and executive producer along with her friend, Oprah Winfrey, the founder of the Oprah Winfrey Network – OWN.

Gardner believes the show is so highly rated – recent Nielsen research put it at number one in its slot for women spanning ages 18 to 54 in various categories – because people relate to the characters. There is sibling rivalry, drug addiction, and unemployment.

dawn-lyen gardner & rutina wesley
‘Queen Sugar’ stars Dawn-Lyen Gardner & Rutina Wesley

Charley and her teenage son left an affluent neighborhood in Los Angeles to return to Louisiana, her sister had a career as a journalist in New Orleans and her brother was trying to keep it together as an unemployed single father.

“I think there’s something beautiful watching these people from such different worlds having to find their way back to each other. Really that’s what love does. People recognize that at the base of the show – there’s something meaningful and purposeful and valuable. I think it’s that journey back to each other,” Gardner said.

OWN can lay claim to other highly rated shows these from renowned director Tyler Perry “If Loving You Is Wrong” and “The Haves and the Have Nots” – two series that 88% of African Americans watch according to a USA Today piece “Who’s watching what.”

African Americans are playing pivotal roles on network shows and “True Blood” actress Rutina Wesley attributed it to actors speaking out more.

“People woke up and people as artists in our industry woke up and audiences woke up in the sense that they were demanding better material. Whether they were conscious of it or not – people stopped watching certain types of shows,” Wesley, who portrays Bordelon sister Nova, said.

Their brother Ralph Angel is the youngest child portrayed by Nana-Kofi Siriboe. Other stars of the show include Dondre Whitfield and Tina Lifford.

Renewed for a third season, “Queen Sugar” airs Wednesdays at 10pm Eastern/Pacific.

Listen to Tené Croom’s exclusive interview with Dawn-Lyen Gardner actress Rutina Wesley:

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On Twitter: @TcTene

 

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