The Debutantes: Exclusive Interview With Contessa Gayles
‘The Debutantes’ Director Contessa Gayles On Why Black Girls ‘Don’t Need To Be Perfect Or Broken To Be Seen’ [Exclusive]
The Debutantes, a co-production from NBC News Studios, Westbrook Studios, and BET Studios, takes viewers to Canton, Ohio, where a group of determined Black women revive a long-dormant cotillion tradition. At its heart is a story not just about debutante balls, but about the quiet revolution of Black girlhood in all its complexity.
Directed by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Contessa Gayles and executive produced by the legendary Sheryl Lee Ralph, The Debutantes premiered last month on Comcast’s Black Experience on Xfinity and is also available on Xumo Play. The film follows three high school girls—Amelia, Dedra, and Taylor—as they prepare to participate in the first Black cotillion held in Canton in more than a decade. Along the way, they navigate not just etiquette classes and formal gowns, but the weightier expectations of family, community, and tradition.
“I actually didn’t set out to make a film about debutant culture or cotillions necessarily,” Gayles told MadameNoire. “What drew me to this storytelling was the opportunity to tell a story about Black girlhood.”
That choice matters. In mainstream media, coming-of-age narratives for Black girls are few and far between. It’s the deficit that made Netflix’s Forever a breath of fresh air for many. When they do appear, they are often steeped in pain or placed on a pedestal of Black excellence that leaves little room for softness, vulnerability, or exploration. Gayles is intentional about resisting that binary.
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“I think oftentimes what we get are these two extremes. Either they’re stories about Black excellence and like extreme achievement… Or on the other end of the spectrum, it’s like the very stereotypical trauma, struggle, like all of that stuff that’s kind of exploiting our pain. What was interesting to me about this story and how I wanted to tell it—and how I tell all my stories—is being able to explore what is in between. There’s a lot in between, and we often don’t see that.”
Set against the backdrop of a post-industrial Midwest town, The Debutantes makes space for that middle ground. It explores the internal tug-of-war faced by many Black girls: how to honor the traditions that shaped their communities without being confined by them. In doing so, the film becomes a generational conversation between the Black women reviving the cotillion and the Gen Z girls stepping into it—and themselves.
Originally inspired by an article in the Repository about the return of the local debutante ball, the film takes a seemingly niche event and renders it universal. The story speaks not just to Canton, but to any place where Black girlhood is shaped by community, legacy, and the pressure to both preserve and evolve.
Nicole Bush, Jennifer Ross, and Janine McDaniels, the women behind the cotillion’s revival, envisioned it as more than a ball. It became a space for enrichment, community engagement, and personal growth and self-discovery. Scholarships and sponsorships ensured economic inclusivity, creating opportunities for girls across class lines to participate.
“There was a real lack of any kind of like programming for young Black girls… self-development kind of things, and that was really their focus in reviving this catillion,” Gayles noted. “These women stepped in to change that.”
Though The Debutantes stands on its own, it enters a cultural conversation that has long surrounded debutante balls and cotillions in Black communities. Media portrayals have shown two sides: on one hand, reverence for the tradition as a rite of passage and communal celebration of Black girlhood; on the other, valid critiques of the practice as being steeped in patriarchal roots and classism. From Moesha’s memorable cotillion episode to the more recent depictions in Our Kind of People, Greenleaf, and ABC’s Will Trent, cotillions are often shown as both empowering and problematic. These portrayals reflect the tensions many Black girls experience: a desire to honor their legacy while pushing back on outdated structures.
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The film’s debutantes didn’t accept every tradition without question. Dedra and Taylor, in particular, challenged some of the patriarchal structures baked into the cotillion process. One of the film’s most touching strengths is how it captures these moments of quiet rebellion, not as acts of defiance, but of clarity and self-awareness.
“You see how they manage that and find out how to speak up when they know that these Black women have their best interest at heart and are trying to create opportunities for them,” Gayles said. “But they might know better what works for them. It’s cool to see them find their voice and find their way of speaking out and speaking up for themselves.”
That process of becoming—with all its uncertainty, beauty, and contradiction-is what The Debutantes so elegantly explores. Each girl carries her dreams and doubts, her relationship to tradition, and her own pace of stepping into her voice.
The setting may feel specific, but the themes are universal. The cotillion becomes a metaphor: a place where Black girls are asked to perform readiness for the world while still figuring out who they are. What happens when they rewrite the rules of that performance?
“The girls are coming into this tradition, but they’re also reshaping it in real time,” Gayles said. “They’re deciding what to keep and what to leave behind.”
The film is equally invested in the women doing the work behind the scenes. In a media moment that often positions Black women as either martyrs or miracle workers, The Debutantes allows space for their labor to be seen, appreciated, and understood.
Sheryl Lee Ralph, who executive produced the film, echoed that sentiment in a statement: “As a former debutante, I am beyond thrilled to be part of The Debutantes, a film that beautifully captures the grace, tradition, strength, and resilience of young Black women stepping into their power.”
That power is quiet in The Debutantes. There are no viral meltdowns or over-produced transformation arcs. Instead, there is sincerity, reflection, and connection. We watch Black girls support each other. We watch Black women guide them. We watch legacy being formed not through spectacle, but through love.
“What comes through really strongly is this focus on community,” Gayles said. “What’s interesting to me about what we did as Black people when we took on this white European old tradition was that we made it about community. The girls are trained up under this legacy of community service and giving back to the community. And sisterhood. Like really being there for each other and uplifting each other as women and girls in the community.”
In many ways, The Debutantes fills a critical void in visual storytelling. Its brilliance lies in its commitment to authenticity. It treats Black girlhood with reverence, not as a trend to commodify, but as a journey to honor.
As more filmmakers, editors, and producers look to center Black girlhood stories, Gayles hopes they remember the value of the in-between.
“Let’s show Black girls growing, changing, figuring it out,” she said. “They don’t need to be perfect or broken to be worthy of being seen.”
For viewers craving nuanced depictions of coming-of-age for Black girls, The Debutantes offers a deeply moving answer. The Debutantes is now streaming on Comcast’s Black Experience on Xfinity and on the free Xumo Play app.
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