On Cultural Appropriation, Gentrification And Horror With The Director Of Brooklyn Beauty Shop-Set 'Hair Wolf'

Cultural appropriation and gentrification have dwindled down to buzzwords – quick utterances and headline grabs instead of raw in-depth conversations about the havoc and devastation that occur when these processes are implemented. Filmmaker Mariama Diallo and producer Valerie Steinberg wanted to examine how destructive cultural appropriation is to black culture specifically in an age where mega-popular white social influencers are desperately trying to claim black art and history for themselves. With her film Hair Wolf, Diallo moves beyond a straightforward conversation about the commodification of the black identity – choosing instead to subvert the norm and present her perspective in a horror comedy. Set in modern-day Brooklyn, Hair Wolf centers around a black beauty shop whose staff must fend off a terrifying monster – a white woman determined to suck the life out of black culture.

The film won the Sundance Jury Award in the U.S. short film competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Recently, I sat down to chat with Diallo about Hair Wolf and why it was so necessary for her to make. "There are several layers to the whole origin story of the film," Diallo chuckled. "On the most immediate level, I was outside my apartment building with my dog and my boyfriend, and I saw a box braid lying on the ground. On any given Brooklyn early morning, you might find a bit of weave or like whatever else it may be. When I saw the box braid, I pointed to it and said to him, ‘Braid?’ (My boyfriend) misheard me, he thought I’d said, “Brain." So we had a very amusing conversation about zombies and hair salons and zombies in hair salons. That just seemed like a really fun idea to me."

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How Black Dollars Made Warner Bros’ 'Rampage' No. 1 At The Box Office

The summer box office season has vanished. With an ever-changing industry and the erasure of mid-budget films, Hollywood has started rolling out what would have been their massive summer blockbusters at various times throughout the year. With the rise of the superhero genre, the return or some massive franchises like Star Wars and J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World, studios are pulling audiences into theaters whenever they can, and more often than not, a large percentage of that audience are Black and brown faces. In 2016, a year that saw Moonlight, Hidden Figures, and Fences all released to critical acclaim, Black people made up 15 percent of frequent moviegoers, while comprising of just 12 percent of the U.S. population. As films have slowly become more diverse, we continue to head to the theaters in droves. In fact, when the Dwayne Johnson action adventure Rampage was released last weekend, sliding into the number one spot with $34.5 million earned domestically, it was Black dollars that really contributed to the film’s success.

Johnson is obviously a massive star who has a unique way of engaging with his audience, but Warner Bros. marketing strategy in a post-Black Panther world was also vital. After Rampage’s opening weekend, Shadow and Act sat down to chat with Warner Bros.’ VP of Multicultural Marketing, Terra Potts, about why Black people came out in droves for the film. “I think it happened for multiple reasons," Potts explained. “In Rampage, specifically, I think it's because when you have a star as big as Dwayne Johnson, and Dwayne has this special quality that I think not a lot of movie stars have where he's so accessible, and he's able to transcend any boundaries that exist. He just brings in audiences in a very unique way, and his films always perform well with a multicultural audience. I think he just did it again here."

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Lakeith Stanfield On 'Atlanta' And Playing Characters With Sh*t To Say

Lakeith Stanfield is intensely captivating. It’s fairly early in the morning, and he’s huddled over a plate of fruit, tucked away in a crisply lit condo in Park City, Utah. Stanfield flew in from Germany – a short hiatus from the project that he’s currently working on -- to attend Sundance Film Festival. He has to be exhausted. With starring roles in Sorry to Bother You, Come Sunday and a spoken word show in the festival, this is one of the first times the 26-year-old has been able to just sit and chill. Stanfield lets his long limbs rest on his chair as he hovers over the table, his booming voice almost a surprise as it rings out in our quiet surroundings. It’s been quite a year for the San Bernardino native, who made his feature film debut back in 2013. Get Out is Academy Award-nominated and Boots Riley's wonderous Sorry to Bother You is the most talked about film of the festival. Stanfield is also set to return to our TV screens in March in the much-awaited second season of FX's Atlanta. “I'd like to take credit and say it's all my doing but, I'm just really fortunate to be surrounded by these creators who are doing daring things at this time,” he said, reflecting on his bustling filmography. “I have the disposition that I want to be a part of things that say something and move the needle. We try to weed out things. We can do that now by the way. When I first started out, I didn't have that luxury. I was just trying to work."

In Sorry to Bother You, Stanfield stars as Cassius, a telemarketer desperate to make his mark in the world, but that’s only the beginning of this mind-bending story. It spirals into something more imaginative than anything you’ve seen on screen before. For Stanfield, roles like these are a dream come true. “I'm trying to be aware of what I'm doing," he explained. “I love my people. I love our story and where we come from and our journey in this country. I'm interested in being one of many faces in it that can speak to it if I can. It feels good to show people that we can be human. We can be anything. We can be silly. We can be crazy. I grew up feeling like I was strange and things of that nature. It feels good to reiterate the idea that that's okay.”

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Interview: Director Sam Pollard On His New PBS Documentary 'The Talk- Race In America' & Speaking Out Against Injustices

Since our journey began in this country, parents of Black and brown children have had very frank and often chilling conversations with their offspring about encounters and interactions with law enforcement. While many police officers honor their code; others wield their power by brutalizing, terrorizing, murdering and wreaking havoc throughout communities of color.

In his two-hour PBS documentary, “The Talk- Race In America” veteran filmmaker Sam Pollard tackles police and race relations across the United States of America. Through six different segments, Pollard looks at a diverse number of perspectives from various communities as well as the police themselves, showcasing what has so deeply divided us while trying to determine how we can begin to change the narrative.

Pollard also speaks with well-known figures in our society including, rapper Nas, actress Rosie Perez, and director John Singleton, each whom have had their own personal and unforgettable encounters with law enforcement. Ahead of the film’s premiere, I sat down to chat with Sam Pollard about constructing this story and what we can tell our children as we move forward.

Aramide Tinubu: Hi Sam, how are you?

Sam Pollard: Doing good Aramide, how are you?

AT: Fine, thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me about “The Talk.”

SP: My pleasure.

AT: You’ve worked on everything from “Eyes on the Prize,” to “American Masters” for Zora Neale Hurston and August Wilson, so you’re a master storyteller, especially when it comes to capturing the African American experience. So, how did you get the idea to do “The Talk?”

SP: Well, you know the idea really came from CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They felt they wanted to do something that looked at this conversation that parents of color have with their children about what happens when they interact with the police, and they wanted to look at it from all perspectives. They approached WNET about wanting to do a two-hour film and Academy Award nominee, Julie Anderson put me on this as the supervising producer. So that’s how I got involved. However, I’d like to say this, as a person of color who has been making documentaries for over thirty years, it’s been one of my main responsibilities that all of the films I do, be it “Eyes on the Prize,” or “August Wilson,” or “Rise and Fall of Jim Crow;” that we present the African American experience, because a lot of people don’t understand that’s American history also.

AT: That’s very true. For me, “The Talk” felt like a very different type of documentary for PBS. It had a very different tone, and what I really loved about it was the overarching, all-encompassing view across the country on police violence from different perspectives. We heard from the Latino community, the Black community, and you even looked at the police. So how did you tackle the different segments? How did you decide which stories you needed to tell?

SP: Well, Julie [Anderson] and I, both felt it was important to do a broad spectrum of looking at this story and looking at the complications of the story. We not only wanted to do it from the perspective of the people in the community, but we wanted to get the perspectives of law enforcement too. We felt it was important that we had stories that sort of touched on different areas. So, we had our associate producers, and our researchers do extensive amounts of research. In searching for those stories, part of this process is just getting down to a story that we think would be the most appropriate and then start making the film. And that’s where we came up with the different types of stories. We had the story of the police academy in South Carolina, that’s trying to make sure that their police officers understand how they need to be able to interact with the people in the community. That was one important story that we felt that we needed to do. We wanted to do a story about this organization called the Ethics Project that was developed by this woman named Christi Griffin. We wanted to look at how people of color felt it was important to get out and talk to white people, people who aren’t from our communities, to understand what we have to deal with every day when we become involved with the police. We wanted to do a story that looked at the Latino perspective. That’s why we found the story of Oscar Ramirez who was killed out in California. So, we were trying to make sure that we didn’t just become very narrow-minded in how we wanted to approach and be approached in telling this story.

AT: You talked about the extensive research that went into making the film. What was that process like, and how long did that take before you actually began filming?

SP: Well, we started the process in October of 2015. Then, as we did the research we started to reach out to different producers who we thought might be a good fit for the stories we wanted to do, and we brought them on in January 2016. We didn’t really start any actual production until March of 2016. So it was five months of pre-production before we actually went out into the field.

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Interview: Filmmaker Raoul Peck On His Oscar-Nominated 'I Am Not Your Negro,' Encountering James Baldwin & Confronting America

In his spellbinding and heartbreaking Academy Award nominated film, “I Am Not Your Negro,” Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck examines the story that James Baldwin never finished writing. “Remember This House” was to be a sweeping narrative exploring the lives, journeys, and deaths of three pivotal men in our history; Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. An intricate and fascinating narrative, “I Am Not Your Negro,” gives us a view of both Baldwin and Peck’s journeys as Black men in America, encountering racism and violence.

Recently, Mr. Peck and I sat down to chat about the highly acclaimed film, the thirty pages from Baldwin’s unfinished text that sparked the idea and Peck’s own confrontation with America and Hollywood in our current political climate which as Baldwin stated, is one full of “apathy and ignorance.”

Raoul Peck: Hi Aramide

Aramide Tinubu: Hello, Mr. Peck how are you?

RP: I’m fine, thank you.

AT: Wonderful. I wanted to say first and foremost that I thought, “I Am Not Your Negro” was stunning. I saw it at the New York Film Festival last fall, and I watched it again last night. It is so riveting, especially considering the political climate that we find ourselves in.

RP: Thank you.

AT: I wanted to ask you first about how you got a hold of the notes from James Baldwin’s “Remember This House.” How were you able to get his estate to agree to hand them over, and what prompted you to do this film after receiving them?

RP: First of all, I decided a little more than ten years ago to tackle Baldwin; to go back to Baldwin. I’ve lived with Baldwin all of my life. I read him very early on as a young man, and he never left me. Baldwin is not somebody who if you read a book or two you cast him aside. He’s not that kind of writer. He’s a philosopher; he’s a poet, he’s a visionary. He has almost a scientific approach to this country, to the world and to human beings. So, he’s almost like a private philosopher that you can come back to and help understand whatever issue that you have or political question that you have. It’s all in Baldwin already. So you can read different books at different stages and come back to that thinking. So it’s very coherent. When I decided to go back, it was more or less to share that thinking with other people because I felt the time was right, and I felt that we really needed a voice like this. Because there were some victories with the Civil Right’s Movement; we have Martin Luther King Day, we have Black History Month, most people think everything is good now, we’ve solved all of the problems. We have monuments; we have museums. But, that’s not the case.

AT: Not at all.

RP: It was necessary politically to bring that back to the forefront and to bring these words in the forefront. When I went to inquire about the rights, everybody told me, “The estate will never even answer your letter, they are known to be very reluctant.” But, I just wrote a letter, and they responded within three days.

AT: Wow!

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Image: Raoul Peck

Director Chris Robinson & The Cast Of BET's 'New Edition Story' Talk Becoming NE, Authenticity & All Of That Dancing

The iconic musical group that shattered records and broke down doors is finally getting a biopic that has been nearly thirty years in the making. BET‘s “The New Edition Story” follows the legendary R&B group from their 1978 humble beginnings in the Orchard Park Boston Projects through breakups, reunions and everything in between. With director Chris Robinson (ATL) and executive producer, Jesse Collins at the helm and with the rare blessing and backing of real-life New Edition members who served as consultants and co-producers on the film, “The New Edition Story” just might hit the nail right on the head. The multi-talented cast includes Bryshere Y. Gray as Michael Bivins, Elijah Kelley as Ricky Bell, singer-songwriter Luke James as Johnny Gill, Algee Smith as Ralph Tresvant, Keith Powers as Ronnie Devoe, and Woody McClain as Bobby Brown.

At a recent screening of night one of the three-night event, I got the opportunity to chat with director Chris Robinson, Jesse Collins, Elijah Kelley, Luke James, Algee Smith, Keith Powers and Woody McClain. I also spoke with Dante Hoagland who plays a young Mike Bivins and Caleb McLaughlin who plays a young Ricky Bell. From the real-life vocals to those exquisite dance moves here is everything you need to know about, “The New Edition Story” ahead of its premiere.

Aramide Tinubu: Chris, I know you’ve stated previously that your very first concert was New Edition, so what was it like sitting in the director’s chair in a film about this iconic group?

Chris Robinson: You know what, it was a lot of pressure. These gentlemen are alive and well and they are professionals who still tour and still make magic with their music. Of course, being a big fan when you do a movie that is an act of non-fiction there is a lot of responsibility to tell a great story. You also have a responsibility to tell the story in an accurate way that respects the actual people that you are portraying. Sometimes you have to have reverence for them, and sometimes you have to tell the very difficult truth, and many times people who are involved with projects like this don’t like to see themselves in a certain light. There is absolutely a process that goes along with that. So when you’re tackling a biopic, especially when the people are here and alive and have an opinion, it’s a big deal. So for me being a fan and having such great relationship with our producer and BET, I wanted to take in on, and I’m glad I did.

AT: Jesse, what made you decide to do “The New Edition Story?” How did you get Chris Robinson on board?

Jesse Collins: So this story came from working with the guys, and I just saw how the dynamics of the group are just so fascinating. It’s not anything that anyone thinks it is and they kept this story away from us for so long and now getting the opportunity for them to pull back the curtain and show us how the group works is unbelievable. I got Chris Robinson involved because I’ve worked with Chris on a lot of awards shows and, “Real Husbands of Hollywood” and I knew that he could bring a vision to this movie that it needed so, we got him to get on board.

AT: Chris, what was your vision for the miniseries going into it when it was time to bring New Edition’s story to life?

CR: Since New Edition was my first concert as a teenager, I kind of feel like I prepped for 35-years in order to make this film. It was all about being authentic. Jessie Collins has spent 10-years creating this project. He told me about it years ago, and since then, the script turned into three scripts. We just knew that we needed to make sure that all of these NE Lifers were happy. When you make a biopic, and the people are here, you have a responsibility not only to tell an amazing story but to make sure that it’s right. Listen, every video, every commercial, every movie, it feels like this is a culmination of all of those skills. We shot three feature films in thirty-seven days, which mean that everything had to be right. Every perfect little point, everything. Some soldiers fell along the way. (Laughing) But, the beautiful thing about it was that the work shows. We were dedicated to the story, we were dedicated to the group, and these guys were dedicated to the craft.

AT: Let’s talk about how you all came on to the project.

Algee Smith: It’s funny because I actually auditioned to play Mike Bivins first. Then, they had me go back and audition for Ralph, so that was a funny moment.

AT: Keith what was it like to become Ronnie Devoe?

Keith Powers: It was amazing; I think it was such a blessing. It was a great deal of responsibility. However, it was a dream come true, because we got to really play these legends.

AT: This is the second time you played a real-life character, you played Tyree, Dr. Dre’s little brother in “Straight Outta Compton,” how was this experience different?

KP: In “Straight Outta Compton,” I was introducing people to Tyree, people didn’t know who he was unless you really know Dr. Dre, so I kind of got to introduce him the way that I really wanted to. Whereas with this project, people know Ronnie, so I have to really show them Ronnie on the screen. I couldn’t just do what I wanted and call it Ronnie because people can go online and pull up pictures of him and all of that, so it was really just introducing the character versus taking somebody that everyone is familiar with and putting him on the screen.

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Image: BET

Interview: 'Hidden Figures' Author Margot Lee Shetterly Talks Uncovering A Rich & Powerful Story

Though her father was a research scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center, writer, researcher, and entrepreneur Margot Lee Shetterly knew very little of the Black female engineers, scientists, and mathematicians that helped catapult the United States into the space race during the 20th century. As a result of her compelling 55-page book proposal, Shetterly’s book “Hidden Figures” was optioned for film. “Hidden Figures,” which debuts in theaters on Christmas Day tells the astounding story of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), three of NASA’s ingenious “human computers” who were instrumental in helping the USA reach new heights in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. Recently, I sat down with Margot Lee Shetterly to discuss her fascinating, best-selling narrative, and the film that has moved audiences across the country. We chatted about how she uncovered this untold story, handing the history over to Hollywood, and what she hopes we can all learn from these incredible women.Aramide Tinubu: I know that this was a deeply personal narrative for you because your father worked for NASA. What brought you to this project? Did you know about Katherine Johnson and the other Black female scientists in this story? Did your father ever talk about them while you were growing up?

Margot Lee Shetterly: I did know them growing up. My dad worked with Mary Jackson very closely at one point. I knew Katherine Johnson as well. They were all part of this group of Black engineers and scientists within this larger NASA community. So these people on one weekend would go to the HBCU Alumni Association Dance, and then the next weekend they would go off to the National Tech Association where they would put on their science hats and be together and talk about that.

AT: Wow.

MLS: Yeah, so I got to see them in this really fluid way. There was no disconnect between those parts of their identities; it was very normal. But you know, while I knew the women; I didn’t know their story and how they got there. It was really my husband who helped spark the idea. We were visiting my parents almost exactly six years ago and had run into one lady who is a Sunday School teacher, and my dad was talking about the work that she’d done, and it just turned into this larger conversation about these different women. My husband was like, “This is amazing! Wait a minute nobody knows about this!” And I was like, “Wow, I don’t know this story.” That was really the beginning of me saying, “OK, I need to know this story.” Six years later here we are.

AT: That’s so amazing. I know that your process was very different. A lot of times people write books and then they are optioned for film. However, you were writing the book while the film being shot, it happened pretty much simultaneously. What was that process like?

MLS: I would say it took three years of just research to really come to the point where I had the form of the book and was working to pull the book in its current structure together. So when they called me up, Donna Gigliotti the producer, who is really truly a brilliant visionary woman, she called me up just based on the book proposal. I was an unpublished author, and it was my first book, which is a big risk.

AT: A huge risk!

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A Shadow and Act Sit Down With The Cast & Crew Of 'Hidden Figures'

It is no secret that American history is often white-washed and male -centered, erasing the dedicated work of women and people of color; especially Black women who have worked tirelessly throughout time to make this country what it is today. The story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, Black female scientists and mathematicians who played an integral role in getting the United States into the race for human space flight is just one of those stories. Based on the compelling book by Margot Lee Shetterly, “Hidden Figures” tells the story of this visionary trio of women who crossed every barrier in order to make space travel possible.

Recently at a press conference in New York City, I got the opportunity to sit down with Taraji P. Henson (Katherine Johnson), Octavia Spencer (Dorothy Vaughan), “Hidden Figures” author Margot Lee Shetterly, producer Pharrell Williams, Director Ted Melfi, NASA Astronaut Stephanie Wilson and NASA Historian Bill Barry. The cast and crew discussed why they were inspired to come on to the project, what they learned from the real-life figures, and why this history is so important today.

“Hidden Figures” is a film about bringing everyone together. Can you discuss how you brought the cast together?

Theodore Melfi: Octavia Spencer was the first actor to read the screenplay, and she said she wanted to be involved right away. She couldn’t even decide which role, but she decided she wanted to be involved. When I got the script and the book proposal…it all started with a fifty-five-page book proposal that Margot Lee Shetterly wrote. Margot grew up around these amazing women. I’ve also wanted to work with Taraji [P. Henson] since I saw “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I thought she was just brilliant in it, so watching her grow to Cookie on “Empire,” I knew she could pretty much do anything. She’s a consummate actor first and foremost. Then, Janelle Monáe, I wanted someone new and fresh, and Janelle came in and auditioned and strangely enough fought for the part just like her character fights for her rights in the film.

Taraji and Octavia, since you are playing women who actually existed and did all of these things, how important was it for you to know about them personally, versus just the film version of these women?

Taraji P. Henson: When you are portraying a person that is very real, in my case, Katherine [Johnson] is still alive, she is 98-years old; there is a responsibility to get it right. So, as soon as I signed on to the project, I asked Ted immediately if she was still alive. When he said yes I said, “I have to meet her immediately.” At the time she was 97, so I flew down with Ted, and when we got there, her daughters came out and met me and they were so happy. They said, “We’re so glad they got you to play our mother.” I was like, “No, pressure.” (Laughing) I went in to sit with Katherine, and it was like waiting for the queen. That’s how it felt. She came in, and I was just like, “Wow, I’m in the presence of a real life superhero.” I guess the biggest thing that I took away from Katherine was her humility. When you talk about superheroes there are selfless, they don’t think about themselves, they put humanity first. I talked to her, and I tried to make it weighty by asking things like, “How as a Black woman did you do it? They were misogynistic, and I’m sure you got called the n-word.” She was just like, “Well, that was the way it was. I just did my job. I wanted to do my job.” She was just so humble. She would always say, “we.” In my mind I’m like, “No, Katherine it was you. It was your mind alone that got [John] Glenn to orbit the earth.” He didn’t say, “Go get so in so.” He said, “Go get that smart girl.” But that fact that that she sees the “we” in “I,” blew me away. Also her passion for math, the way I light up when I get asked questions about acting is the way her eyes danced when she talked about math and how she wanted people to fall in love with numbers the way that she did. If I had a teacher like that, I could have been a rocket scientist. When I was growing up, no one ever said to me, “You cannot do math because you’re a girl.” But, there was an understanding growing up that math and science were for boys. Somebody lied to me because this woman exists, all of these women existed. I made it my mission to do this film right because I didn’t want another girl to grow up believing the myth and the lie. I’m gonna give it to Octavia because I can go on and on.

Octavia Spencer: (Laughing) Thank you, Taraji. For me, it was a very different process because [Dorothy Vaughn] is no longer with us, but her family is and her legacy remains. Even though I knew I wanted to be a part of the film early on, when I finally knew that it was going and that I was going to be in the movie, it was a three and a half week period; so very little time. I started panicking, and I then thought I should Google and find out as much information about Dorothy as possible. But there was very little. Now if you Google her, you will see a lot of things referring to Margot’s book and you’ll get to see NASA archives, which I got a lot of that and you’ll see a lot of things referring to the film. But, it was important to get it right. It is important to learn as much as you can about the person and then throw it all away so that you’re not in any way doing some sort of mimicry. What was wonderful was that Ted gave us a lot of the archival footage from NASA and then the opening chapters that corresponded to our characters. He didn’t betray Margot by giving us a lot of the main text, he was like, “I’m only giving you the background.”

TPH: The book was being written while the film was being shot, so it happened simultaneously.

OS: Yes. There were lots of moving parts. So for me the research part was integral but, if this is the first time these women are being introduced to the world in this way, there are enough negative images of Black women out there and I did not want to portray [Dorothy] in any stereotype. I wanted to make sure that her integrity was preserved.

The opening scene of the film where the women have a car issue and the cop comes up, it just resonates so well with what’s happening today. Do you think that’s one of the reasons the film is so compelling because it speaks to the world that we are living in now?

OS: The opening scene for me is like this beautiful metaphor of what was to come in their lives; the love and comradery and fidelity that they had with each other as friends. But it was a twisty winding road that they had to navigate and negotiate in a very interesting way and I think Ted did a brilliant job in displaying that.

TPH: He really did! I think that scene is just so powerful because you can feel the whole audience brace themselves when the cop arrives. But what’s beautiful about that scene is that you see this man unlearn racism right before your very eyes, and it proves to you that your perception can change in a manner of minutes. And that’s when you know that racism is learned. He literally sees that these women mattered, these women’s lives mattered to the great space race so that negativity that he was about to spew on to them shifted in a blink of an eye. If we as a human race can all get back to one goal that we can focus on, I think that the world would be more balanced.

TM: I think that opening scene is also a classic example of art imitating life. We wrote that scene and shot that scene long before the string of police shootings against Black motorists. Who could have predicted that? Who could have predicted the passing of John Glenn? These things make the movie even more important to us.

Let’s talk about the juxtaposition between the NASA world and what was happening in real life. Did anyone have a chance to speak with Katherine about what it was like to be in that world and then to step outside and have to battle for human rights?

TPH: I did touch on that when I spoke with her, but what I notice even when I talk to my grandmother or anybody who is from that era is that they didn’t wallow in the muck, they didn’t do that; they just didn’t. Yes, they marched when there was an injustice, but every day was not a march. At some point, they said, “OK, this is what it is. Put your head to the ground, grind and get through it, because your hard work is going to open up doors for those coming behind.” So Katherine never complained, it just was what it was. She just said, “I just wanted to go to work and do my numbers.” And she stopped right there. I think about that as a Black woman in Hollywood when I’m asked about diversity. I hate when people say diversity because the first thing you jump to is Black and white. When you talk about diversity, you’re talking about women being hired in front of and behind the camera. You are talking about people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community…so I hate when people think about diversity, and they look at the Black actor, and they’re like “Go!” It’s like; we’re just scratching the surface. It just doesn’t start with me. We think so small. When I get that question I don’t go, “Yeah, well you know they don’t pay me.” That’s not my story. I own six properties; Hollywood has been damn good to me. Now you can ask me, “Have they paid you what you deserve?” That’s the question, but you’d have to go to the studios, I don’t know. I do the work! But to go back to your point, it gave me this new perspective to stop complaining. There is always going to be love versus hate; we struggle with that as humans within ourselves every day; as a society, we have to struggle. So when you wake up, you have to decide which side you’re going to be on. Hopefully, that side is positive, so you do the work and hope that your legacy will help change things.

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Director Ruben Santiago-Hudson & The Cast Of August Wilson’s ‘Jitney’ Talk Its Long Awaited Broadway Debut

Set in the late 1970’s in the robust and colorfully textured world that is August Wilson’s Pittsburg, “Jitney” is a profound and compelling story about a group of Black men trying to scratch out a living as unlicensed jitney drivers. Threatened by impending gentrification, personal hardships and fractured relationships, Wilson’s first play is a stunning drama about the depths and complexities of Black masculinity.

Though it was the first play he ever wrote, “Jitney” is the last of Wilson’s plays to make it to Broadway. Ahead of its debut, I got the opportunity to chat with one of Wilson’s finest interpreters, Tony Award winner and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson as well as the majority of the cast. Anthony Chisholm (Fielding), Brandon Dirden (Booster), André Holland (Youngblood), Carra Patterson (Rena), Michael Potts (Turnbo), Ray Anthony Thomas (Philmore) and John Douglas Thompson (Becker) were all in attendance.

The cast and I spoke about August Wilson’s astounding legacy, the myths of Black masculinity, the late ‘70s as a particular time and space for Black people and Black women’s roles in Wilson’s plays.

Aramide Tinubu: Ruben, you’ve done so much with August Wilson’s cannon of work. How does “Jitney” fit in with your personal story?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: That’s my life, that’s my history, that’s my culture, that’s who I am. We came from the same place. We’re from steel towns with Northern colored people talking about what they were running from and what they were running to. So we found the celebration in who we are as Black people. As Ossie Davis would call it, “The secret gladness of being Black.” This is who I am. I don’t have to do anything but just do my work and be honest, enjoy it and just say [August’s] words, but it’s my life, we had the same life.

AT: So what has this journey been like for you to finally get “Jitney” to Broadway?

RSH: It’s the reason I worked so hard; I promised him that if I had any strength in my body, I would do everything that I could. I never promised him that I could personally do it, but in my hubris, I did say, “I’ll get it done.” Ten years into the battle I thought it would never happen because all I got was rejected. I tried everything I could. I wrote letters; I directed every play. He wrote three roles for me. I did everything in my power to get to the place as a director that was worthy of this opportunity and as a producer and as a stalwart of his work, and all I did was get rejected. Then, Manhattan Theatre Club said, “Come on, let’s dance.” So, I’m humbled proud and appreciative.

AT: What do you think it was about “Jitney” that got August to the place where he found his voice?

RSH: This play was written like in ’79, and it didn’t really get completed until after “Seven Guitars” for a big reason. He cut an hour plus out of “Seven Guitars,” and ninety percent of that is in “Jitney.”

AT: Why do you think this is the only August Wilson play that has never made it to the Broadway stage until now despite the fact that it was his first play?

Ray Anthony Thomas: You know what, I think it’s just fate more than anything. I think it just happened. I don’t think there was any conspiracy or ill will against it.

André Holland: I think it’s about damn time. I first saw the play fifteen years ago in London, and after I saw it I said, “Why has this not been seen?!” Every six months or so I write my agent and say, “Hey, what about “Jitney?” I’d write letters to the National Theatre and say, “Hey! Why don’t ya’ll bring it over here?” So, I’m just grateful especially when I see people like Anthony Chisholm and Ruben. These are legends, so I’m grateful to be a part of it.

Michael Potts: I will say I don’t know why it has taken so long. I think people might have gotten caught up in the characters or the themes in some of the other plays. Like “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” for example, lots of people have heard of her; she’s a historical figure. The character in the “The Piano Lesson” is a huge thing in ”Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” Those are bigger much larger ideas, and this is basically a story about the fraternity of Black men together and this particular jitney station.

Brandon Dirden: It’s kind of biblical isn’t it? The first shall be last. I happened to believe that there are no accidents. I’m not smart enough to understand all of the intricacies of why it took this long to get here, but I’m just grateful to be in the room. I’m grateful to be charged with the responsibility to help tell this story. We’re not the first company to tell this story, and we won’t be the last. We’re just the first on Broadway. Maybe 2016-2017 is the optimum time for the world to receive this play and this message about reconciliation, about love, about hope and about being concerned about what is happening in our communities. I can’t think of a more right time to do this play.

AT: I concur.

BD: I don’t know why it’s taken this long, but I’m glad that we’re here.

Anthony Chisholm: You can’t write stuff better than that. “Jitney” was submitted to Lloyd Richards who was the longest running dean at Yale University. Lloyd kind of discovered August, not to say that he wasn’t going to get discovered anyway. Lloyd rejected “Jitney, ” and it was only ninety minutes long, it was only a skeleton of what was to come. But August vowed when he got the rejection that he was going to write the greatest play that was ever written and that was “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

John Douglas Thompson: He wrote [“Jitney”] in the late ’70s, so the time frame of the play is when he was writing it. And, somehow the other plays took root if you will as far as being produced and worked on and being brought to Broadway. They were in that kind of a pipeline where somehow “Jitney” got forgotten. But, I think if you look at what the play has done in the regions, why people have such high expectations and why it has such high anticipation, it’s that they have been rooting for it all this time. It’s this play’s time and this play’s chance to complete the cycle, but also to start the cycle all over again.

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

Image: Manhattan Theatre Club

Interview: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis and Stephen Henderson On Returning To 'Fences'

Returning to their roles six years after the Tony Award-winning revival of August Wilson’s “Fences” stunned Broadway; Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, and Stephen Henderson are at long last presenting the sixth play in Wilson “Pittsburg Cycle” to film audiences.

The play, which was written in 1983 and first debuted on Broadway in 1987 is one of Wilson’s most beloved and well-known from his Twentieth Century Pittsburg Cycle. Set in the 1950’s, “Fences” follows 53-year old sanitation worker Troy Maxson and his family, who are struggling to thrive in the racially tense era. Recently, at a screening for the film in New York City that I attended, Academy Award Winner Denzel Washington who is directing and starring in the film, Academy Award Nominee Viola Davis, and Tony Award Nominee Stephen Henderson, sat down for a post-screening Q&A. They discussed their return to “Fences,” adapting it for film, and what August Wilson’s work means for us today.

Denzel, getting “Fences” to the big screen has been a very long process for you. What did you see in the play that made you realize it would make a great film? I understand that August Wilson wrote the screenplay.

Denzel Washington: In 2009, Scott Rudin sent me August’s original screenplay and asked me what I wanted to do with it. He wanted to know if I wanted to act in it, direct it or produce it. I said, “Well, let me read it first.” (Laughing) So, I read it, and I realized I hadn’t read the play, so I read the play. I had seen the play in the ‘80s, so I thought I was too young to be Troy or too old to be Cory. I was thinking about when I saw it in the ‘80s. And then, when I read the play and it said, “Troy, 53-years old” and I was 55 at the time, I said, “Oh, I better hurry up.” So, it was as simple as that. I called Scott Rudin, and I told him I wanted to do the play, so that’s how the ball got rolling. I never said, “I’ll do the play, and the next year I’ll do the film, I just wanted to do the play.”

When you talk about adapting a play into a film, there is a lot of discussion about opening up the world. For all of you, because you were all in the play, let’s talk about recontextualizing some of the scenes because we are able to move away from the yard in the film.

DW: Well, let me just say before they speak, I never thought about opening it up, I don’t even know what that means, I just thought about where else would it make sense for this scene to take place. I thought, “Why can’t Rose walk in the kitchen?” So we used the front yard, the backyard, the kitchen, we used the front room; we used the porch, we used the front street and upstairs and other places, the back of the [garbage truck], the sanitation yard, the insane asylum, the bar, and that worked well.

Stephen Henderson: It all fit, it really did. Pittsburg fit. Spiritually speaking we knew that we were on streets that August had walked and that he had mused on back when he was just writing. Because he wrote, he wrote before anybody was doing it. So to be in touch with that and to have his family there, it was really rich. The community we were in, they so welcomed us.

Viola Davis: They were so protective of the work.

DW: We had a guy, a gentlemen by the name of Mr. Greenleaf who lived behind the house we were shooting in, and he was like a part of the movie. (Laughing) He would come downstairs, and he couldn’t hear well to say, “Ya’ll want some coffee?”

How did you calibrate this world as a director?

DW: We had depth, and we wanted to take advantage of that cinematically. When you look in one direction where Troy’s chair was, you could see out through the yard across the street, there was an old cork bar advertisement for five cents. We wanted it to feel like this was real life and that it extended blocks and blocks.

Viola, can you talk about working with Denzel both as an actor and then having him as a director?

VD: Well, Denzel just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don’t often get that. Sometimes people come in as a director, and they just want the result, and they barely want that to tell you the truth. Sometimes directors barely talk to the actors; they are so focused on the cinematic elements of the movie, getting the shot and getting the lighting right or getting the CGI effects right and all of that, and they just trust that you are just going to do what you do. Obviously, [“Fences”] is not a piece you can do that with. It is a character-driven piece in every sense of the word, and Denzel knows the actor. He gave us two weeks of rehearsal. He is a truth teller, and he is a truth seer. So he knows when something is not going in the right direction, and he will call you on it. But, he knows the word to use to unlock whatever is blocking you. So I think he’s fabulous and he’s a teacher.

DW: Keep going girl!

VD: (Laughing) When Denzel first called me on the phone after we’d just done a reading of the film. He said, “Oh Viola it was so good, wasn’t it?! I’m gonna tell Russell [Hornsby] to lose a little bit of weight and…” I was just sitting there thinking, why is he calling me? And I told him, “Denzel don’t you tell me to lose weight!” He said, “I’m not telling you to lose weight! I can’t believe you would say that.” He was rustling with something and when he came back it was with a word about loving myself and the body that I’m in because I was still going on and on about the weight thing. I just liked that, because what people don’t understand is that so much of what blocks us as actors is so personal. So it just great. Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher. When a director can give you a word that allows you to feel less tense about yourself, to make you feel like you indeed are good enough before you even get to the work, you can’t ask for anything more than that.

Since all three of you worked together on the stage play, what was it like bringing in the new cast members for the film?

SH: It was very very easy to open up to them. Both of the new people were so respectful of the work and glad to be there. Nothing was taken for granted, coming into the film.

DW: Just so you know the new people are Jovan [Adepo] who played Cory and the little girl.

SH: Saniyyah [Sidney] and Jovan, they both came, and they were so respectful towards the work. Once of the things Mykelti Williamson, Russell Hornsby and I did is we took Jovan out to Greenwood where August is buried. I’d been there a few times, and we took him out to his headstone, and I remembered this tree, and that’s all I remembered. I saw a tree and it was a wrong tree, but Jovan saw this other tree and ran up, and he got there first. For me, it was really a sign. There was so much about this whole experience that proved that the people who were brought to it, were brought to it by forces. I mean they were brought to it by Denzel, but Denzel is such an instinctive kind of person. He’s an instinctive artist and instinctive in terms of his feelings about people. So, it was very easy and Saniyyah, well forget about it. She’s an old soul; she’s been here before.

Speaking about Saniyyah, what was it like finding her in the casting process because she is such a crucial character?

DW: She just had “it.” I didn’t want to audition the kids so much; I just wanted to talk to them because I like seeing how they are because their mothers usually mess them up with practice. So, I’d rather talk to them and see how they respond. I just throw things at them and see how they can hit the ball back, and she was good. I even asked her why she wanted to be an actor and she said, “I’m serious about this. These other little kids they want to play, and I don’t have time for that.” She was very serious about her work and her craft, and she wanted to be good, and she wanted to work on it. So I said, “Ok.” It was as simple as that. She was just right. She just has it.

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

Image: Fences/Paramount 

Director Barry Jenkins, Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney & The Men Of ‘Moonlight’ Talk Redefining Black Male Identity In Film Narratives

Coming of age stories are plentiful, with the inner city genre of the ‘90s, films like “Menace II Society” and “Boyz N the Hood” thrust the urban Black male narrative onto the big screen. This era of filmmaking also ushered in some Black female narratives, stories like “Just Another Girl On The I.R.T” and “Eve’s Bayou” and more recently, Dee Rees’ “Pariah” also made waves in the cinema landscape. However, Barry Jenkins' “Moonlight” is once in a lifetime. Based on Tarell Alvin McCraney’s stunning play, “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” the film is a riveting masterpiece on Black queer identity, hyper-masculinity, and compassion. It’s a film that speaks more loudly in its silences than the most overpacked and overblown action films.

Recently, I sat down with Barry Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney and the film’s stars Trevante Rhodes and André Holland. We spoke about the filmmaking process, Black male intimacy and what they want the film to say.

You can read Shadow and Act’s review on “Moonlight” here.

Why was it so important to get this narrative out?

Barry Jenkins: When I read “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” I just fell in love with the characters and the story. What Tarell did, which was shocking to me at first, was he took this world, this neighborhood where we grew up, and he just put it up there. I had never experienced anyone who had done that for this specific place. I was just struck at how brave it was to do some of those things; especially with some of the specific characters.

Tarell, why did you write this piece in the first place?

Tarell Alvin McCraney: It’s difficult to narrow down why I wrote it in a way that feels generous to the process of it. It was really self-serving. There was no real representation of myself to see, and to purge ideas on and to look at for models of. I was trying to figure out my manhood, my childhood, and my personhood. I was the son of a crack-addict who had just died from AIDS-related complications, but at the same time, I was on the precipice of a life-changing moment. I wasn’t very intimate. I had never had an intimate relationship by then, and I couldn’t quite figure out what was happening, why these cycles were happening in my life; why I was still kind of reticent even though I was in performing arts. I was very shy. I didn’t go out to clubs, I was twenty-two years old, and I still wasn’t going to keggers. But, I really wanted to look at the circumstances that made my life and then try to figure out what I would have been like if I’d turned left instead of right. What would have happened if I decided to take that next move in that other direction, what would life look like? Again, that was the impotence for it, but I didn’t know even what I was chasing, I just wanted to put those thoughts down. So, I took the stories and actual happenings of me; being taught to ride a bike by a drug dealer, being taught to swim, being nourished and talked to and treating like a human being by this person. And then, the aspects of growing up with an increasingly addicted mother and being in a neighborhood surrounded by people who felt the need to ostracize and bully; but bully is not even a word; it should really be called terrorizing. There was sometimes imminent danger for people that were different, and I wanted to understand what it was about my interactions that made me the recalcitrant person that I could be. I never expected it to be a play. I never expected it to be anything except for memories put down in a very visual way. I didn’t know that it had a visual life and that the stage would support it, but then I actually wrote plays and I thought, “This is for the stage. “

How much is the script is autobiographical, Tarell?

TAM: I would say about two-thirds.

BJ: There are moments in this film that are autobiographical for Tarrell, and there are less, but there are also moments that are autobiographical for me. What I love is that when you watch the film, you can’t even tell. André and Trevante, the film is so intersectional in terms of race, sexuality, and socio-economics. How do you prepare for your roles?

André Holland: For me, it was making sure that I understood what the place was. So I went down to Miami a couple of weeks early and spent some time in the housing projects that the story largely takes place in. I just tried to figure out the accent, tried to figure out how these people dress. I listened to a lot of music. Also, Tarell’s plays which I’ve read and worked on, a lot of them deal with the same sort of issues of identity, community, sexuality, and masculinity. So, being really familiar with his plays helped me to prepare a lot. I also have my “actor process.” I ask myself a lot of questions, and then I try to find answers to those questions. Going into this film the big thing for me was shame and guilt. I felt like those things were really driving Kevin. That moment in the middle chapter when he hurts Chiron, I think he’s been living with the guilt of that for a long, long time. I think when he shows up again, he’s trying to get to the bottom of that. It’s “Is there a way for us to fix that? It’s “Are you OK?” It’s “Can you come out and join me in a more peaceful authentic place?”

Regarding the space that is Liberty City, Miami in the 1980s, what work did you have to do to recreate that space and feeling?

BJ: No work. I don’t like to talk about time stamps; 1987 or 1989 or things like that. But that place feels to me, largely the same as it did when I grew up. It’s part of the permanence of whatever is the spiritual and cultural gumbo that’s in the air. To be honest, when I read the script that’s what it was. I thought, “This feels like my childhood, but it also feels like now.” It felt like a very contemporary story or how stories are rooted in our past. So we didn’t have to do a lot to augment Liberty City to make it feel like the place where we grew up. It literally is the place where we grew up, and it hasn’t changed a ton. People who have watched the film talk about the imagery, but I didn’t do much. The walls are painted that color, and they have been since I was a kid. One of the things that I’m really proud of in response to the film is the idea of it being timeless despite the fact that the character is aging, so obviously time is passing. I think that what he’s going through because it represents so much of what we all go through creates a sense of timelessness.

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

I met and chatted with Andre Holland, Trevante Rhodes, Director Barry Jenkins and Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney today. Go see their film @moonlightmov tomorrow, it's breathtaking. Interview will be up on Shadow and Act tomorrow. 🎞🌑 #chocolategirlinterviews

A photo posted by Chocolate Girl In The City (@midnightrami) on Oct 20, 2016 at 2:35pm PDT

A Sit-Down With Former Lifer Bilal Chatman & Directors Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway on ‘The Return’, New Beginnings & Our Broken Criminal Justice System

Our society likes to paint a certain picture of the incarcerated. They are likened to monstrous beasts that we are forced to lock up in cages. We’re told that they’re dangerous and irredeemable, not worthy of walking the streets among us. However, as those whose lives have been cruelly interrupted by the criminal justice system know, that could not be further from the truth. These men and women are our mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. Our journeys have taken different paths, but sometimes those paths wind up merging once again.

In 2012, California altered its ruthless “Three Strikes Law” with the passing of Proposition 36. It was an amendment that suddenly freed hundreds of thousands of non-violent prisoners, who had previously been sentenced to life behind bars. Directors Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway followed this groundbreaking reform in their documentary film “The Return”. In the film, the filmmakers follow two newly released former lifers. Kenneth Anderson, a man who’d missed seeing his children grow up, and Bilal Chatman, a man determined to move forward despite the time he’d lost.  In the gut-wrenching narrative, we watch as Kenneth desperately tries to reconnect with his family and his ex-wife, Monica Grier, while Bilal steadfastly moves to reintegrate himself into society.

During the Tribeca Film Festival, I got the opportunity to sit down with Bilal Chatman, as well as Directors Duane de la Vega and Galloway to talk about this long return home.

Aramide Tinubu: For over 15 years, your projects have focused on subjects that have profoundly affected our society. Did Proposition 36 inspire you to do “The Return”, or was it the criminal justice system in general that sparked your interest?

Kelly Duane de la Vega: What was really exciting about this story, was that for the first time in our history, voters voted to shorten the sentences of the currently incarcerated.  It really was the first time we could really look at an implementation of reform.  What does that look like? What can we learn from it? We wanted to follow the story through the institutions, the courtrooms, the prisons, but also on the outside. We wanted to look at the families, the people who have suffered and served time on the outside, while their loved ones served on the inside.  We were eager to see what would happen. We had hoped that it would be a hopeful story, and I think it ultimately is a hopeful story; the recidivism rate is at a record low for this population. But, it’s also a heartbreaking story, because so many families have been broken and services are so few and far between.

AT: Bilal how did you get connected Katie and Kelly?

Bilal Chatman: Survival. My attorney knew them, and part of the three strikes law gave the judges the option of allowing you out or not. So the District Attorney used my case as a contested case. They were saying, “We do not what to let him out.” So with that, you also have to be able to be disciplinary free while you are in prison. You had to meet the criteria. Your crime had to be non-violent first, and then you couldn’t have too many disciplinary problems like fights or violence. In my case, I had a drug case, so what would it have looked like if I had drug sales or drug problems in prison? Knowing that, I made myself look more attractive to the courts because I did a lot of things while I was in there. I did anything that was possible, anything that was positive, anything that could have made me better. I went to everything, Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous. I made myself ready, and I should have been released, but they were like, “No”.  So my attorney said, “I know these filmmakers who have been following Prop 36 and they’d love to interview you.”  My attorney said, “We’re going to try to get them into the courtroom so that the judge can tell them, and you, and the world, that they aren’t going to let you out.  He said, “The best thing that could happened is that they don’t let you out.” And at the time, I didn’t know what he was talking about. But he said, “That could be the best thing because then the world will see how terrible this system is.”

AT: Oh for sure.

BC:  But at the same time, it can also open the door for the judge and the DA and everybody to say what they want to say on camera. Needless to say, they didn’t let [Kelly and Katie] into the courtroom, but I was fortunate enough to be released.

KD: And they knew we were watching.

BC: Absolutely.

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

Image: The Return

Chatting With Illustrator Markus Prime About His New Book 'B.R.U.H.: Black Renditions of Universal Heroes/Heroines,' Representation & Loving Black Women

Growing up, I spent many Saturday mornings with my eyes glued to cartoons on the television screen. Superheroes, whether it was Batman, Superman or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, have always been a part of my life in some small way or another. Though I moved on from these iconic characters to fantasy epics like “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings”, superheroes have once again returned to the forefront of popular culture. For me, it was Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” trilogy and the revival of the Marvel and DC Comic franchises in the past few years that grabbed my attention. Unfortunately, as with most programming that comes out of Hollywood, these “new age” superheroes have failed to represent people of color. However, with Chadwick Boseman being cast as Black Panther, and with the franchise being helmed by critically acclaimed director Ryan Coogler, this has begun to change that conversation.  Big changes are also happening on a slightly smaller scale.

Markus Prime is an LA based illustrator who has been drawing since he could hold a crayon.  His new 100-page sketchbook “B.R.U.H.: Black Renditions of Universal Heroes/Heroines” is a collection of his gender and race swaps of popular superheroes and anime characters. Shadow and Act had the opportunity to chat with Prime about his work, the inspiration behind “B.R.U.H”, and his thoughts on representation in the comic world today.

Aramide Tinubu: In the preface of “B.R.U.H”, you said that superheroes were your first love. What drew you to them and why did they resonate with you so much as a child?

Markus Prime: I don’t know what initially made me fall in love with superheroes, but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were probably the first superheroes of any form that I gravitated towards; and Spiderman as well. Those were the first two. Those particular characters are very normal, if that makes sense.  It was almost like you could embody them yourself. They both come from situations that a lot of us come from. Even though they’re turtles, for example, they come from struggles, they live in sewers, they have to fight for food, and they are very aware of the world around them. Spiderman was the same. He’s just a kid going to school and trying to get by, and then a series of events changes his life. I feel like that probably is what made me fall in love with the idea of superheroes.

AT: After taking a look at the book, I was so enthralled because all of the superheroes in it are actually Black women. In the book’s preface you really talked about why you chose to pay homage to Black women and our struggles in particular. Could you talk to me about why Black women are your superheroes?

MP: It’s been a journey and it still is. I like to tell people that I’m learning more and more about the struggles of Black women historically and even currently. I have a lot of friends and family who are Black women. As a man growing up, there are so many things that you don’t have to care about. It’s just not on our radar. We have our own situations going on, and it’s easy, in a world that is dominated by men, to just not acknowledge the problems of women. It’s not even something that you’re told you should care about.

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

Image: Markus Prime by Anthony Prince

A Thrilling Look at The Underground Railroad, WGN’s “Underground” Is a Journey Unlike One You’ve Ever Seen Before

Personally, I’ve always found it puzzling when people denounce slave stories. Though black and brown faces are too often confined solely to films about slavery and enslavement, I still don’t relish the complete eraser of these tales. After all, this pivotal time in history has shaped not only our people, but our country as well. However, Black people do need to take on these stories ourselves. It should not be left up to the Hollywood establishment to present the history of our people on screen. It’s past time for us to take the reigns. With Nate Parker’s unprecedented success with his film “Birth Of A Nation” at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and now with WGN America’s striking television series “Underground”, it seems that we are finally moving in that direction.

Last fall, I got the opportunity to screen the pilot episode of “Underground” in Memphis, Tennessee at the Civil Right’s Museum. However, I could reveal little about the series at the time. However, now that “Underground” finally set to air on WGN America, and after screening the first four episodes, I’m thrilled to share just a bit more about it.

If you’ve studied slavery at all, then you know just how detailed and intricate the Plantation South was during the antebellum period. “Underground” is set in Georgia in 1857, just a few years prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, and several years after the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act were passed. These two pieces of legislation made the lives of runways and free Black people even more difficult. The series excels in not just displaying the intricacies of a vast cotton plantation, but also in presenting every character that lived within the confines of the land; each individual having their own role to play and path to follow. Helmed by creators and executive producers Misha Green (“Sons of Anarchy’) and Joe Pokaski (“Heroes”), and executive produced by John Legend and director Anthony Hemingway,  “Underground“ is so much more than a slave story, it’s a masterful thriller about the underground railroad and the heroic men and women who would do anything to gain their freedom.

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

Image: Underground/WGN America