Kriti Mehrotra
Directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, Hulu’s ‘Swiped’ can only be described as a perfectly gripping biographical drama revolving around acclaimed tech entrepreneur Whitney Wolfe Herd. It actually chronicles her journey as she navigates this male-dominated industry, her early days at Tinder, her complex departure from the business, and her launch of Bumble, along with much more. However, if we’re being honest, apart from her, the one individual to capture our attention the most throughout the original is Tisha Washington, a co-worker turned friend turned confidant.
Tisha Washington is a Fictional Character Who Emerges as Whitney’s Voice of Reason
It is on Whitney Wolfe’s very first day at Hatch Labs when she comes across Tisha Washington, a young development designer who already has significant experience with tech start-ups. After all, this is her third job, enabling her to give the incoming 22-year-old marketing professional some tips about not only the kind of work they do at their incubator but also the industry in general. Yet, it is a short while later when their working relationship suddenly transforms into a close friendship as she decides to give the Utah native a tour of Los Angeles on a murder-themed bus tour.
Tisha realizes on the tour that maybe such an endeavor is too weird for a first hang before admitting she has a “casual obsession” with true crime, but Whitney matches her energy at every step. That’s when they really start to open up to one another, with the former asserting she likes her job despite the gender gap because it pays well and allows her to play with her band on weekends. As for Whitney, she indicates her goal is to find herself a seat at the highest table so as to make a change by helping her fellow women rise up – she knows she is ambitious, but she also knows she can do it. Whitney indeed manages to climb up the industry ladder with Hatch Labs’ Tinder, yet she fails to give others the stage she had promised due to worries over the stability of her own position.
This becomes evident when Tisha asks her to talk to the co-founders about making app policy changes to better protect women, and then again after Whitney’s departure from the brand. Thankfully, the latter soon sees the error in her ways, so when she comes up with the idea of Bumble, the first person she decides to hire, after making an apology, is her former co-worker, who immediately agrees. In reality, the entrepreneur didn’t have anyone like her by her side, but she did likely have a few people who were her confidants as well as voices of reason, and Tisha seems to represent them. In other words, she is a fictional character concocted from the ground up so as to provide a sharp commentary, call out bad behavior, and give the film Whitney a push to be more intersectional.
Actress Myha’la Has Been Candid About the Significance of Tisha Washington
Tisha Washington is portrayed by renowned actress Myha’la Herrold (or simply Myha’la) in ‘Swiped,’ and she has not shied away from sharing why she believes her character is important to the story. “Tisha feels very much like the grounding character, because she is coming from the lens of intersectionality already,” she told Dazed Digital, adding the character is a part of the minority in two areas for a reason. She continues to state that she thinks the director’s decision “to include a Black woman’s perspective in this was the thing that we can relate to today, because I feel like in the 2010s nobody was talking about intersectionality in those offices… think it was cool that she [Tisha] was the only character thinking about it in that way.” She even indicated she truly believes Tisha brought a much-needed balance to the film that might have otherwise come across as too optimistic or sympathetic.
In another interview, Myha’la said that the intersectionality Tisha brings is what makes the movie “feel timely. To say, ‘Two things can be true at once. You can have all these struggles, I have them too, and they’re different to yours,’ you just hope that your friend or whoever cares about you can acknowledge the mutual struggle.” She also admits her character is “totally fictional” and that the director just wanted her to play Tisha as a cool, goth, punk rocker who also has a conscience and would not stand for toxic behavior or injustice. The latter is something the actress herself feels strongly about, so it wasn’t hard for her to portray that.
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