“Boy Meets World” star Trina McGee said she was told to “turn down” her “Black meter” while filming the ABC sitcom.
“Coming from Black sitcoms, I always had to have a Black meter… My Black meter was probably down to a 2. I remember when I was doing ‘Angela’s Ashes’ the episode [of ‘Boy Meets World’], somehow my Black meter had slipped up and I was at about a 9,” McGee told former cast mates Rider Strong, Will Friedle and Danielle Fishel in a recent episode of “Pod Meets World” titled “Trina McGee Meets World.”
McGee went on to say that “Boy Meets World” creator Michael Jacobs approached her with an acting note: “’Hey, Trina, just turn down the Telma Hopkins about eight notches,’” she recalled him saying. “I knew exactly what he was talking about and I did.”
McGee, who has previously opened up about facing racism, told her colleagues that “there are so many things you guys are so lucky you didn’t have to think about.”
Fishel has had her own issues with Jacob, who she said humiliated her on set and threatened to fire her when she was 12 years old.
McGee reflected on an opinion piece under her byline in which she defended the show’s choice to not acknowledge the interracial relationship between Shawn and Angela, noting that her publicist and husband actually wrote the piece and that she didn’t agree to it.
“If I had to do it over and I could take my real stance, hindsight and everything, I would have wrote an opposite article,” she said, explaining that she would’ve pushed more to have jokes about the differences or acknowledge it in creative ways. “Maybe you come to my house and the food is different or this is different,” McGee said.
“I think the majority of people in comments on social media say that they’re cool with it not being mentioned,” she noted, “but I do say those are predominantly white people. Interracial couples want it to be talked about.”
The hosts drew parallels to “Schitt’s Creek,” where not outrightly discussing David’s bisexual identity is a positive step for representation, as well as “General Hospital,” where McGee claims an interracial couple is based on Angela and Shawn, noting that the character’s name is Trina.
When “Boy Meets World” shot its series finale, McGee was not involved. She explained that she was told that her cast mates told Jacobs they didn’t want her in the last episode. “That was really hurtful to me for a long time,” she lamented. Her colleagues, however, said that her claim was not true.