“And it all rolls back down to money,” said a third actress, “to who’s got the money and the power.”
“How do you know when it’s a matter of race, and when it’s a matter of your own lack of talent?”
“When you see a TV show, or when you see a commercial that you went out and read for, and you see that on TV and you look at the person they chose, and you look at yourself and you know what you did in that audition— that’s when you know.”
“You’re not kidding yourself?”
“Are all of us kidding ourselves? Can you see this woman who’s sitting here—black men looking at her would say she is beautiful—can you see her playing opposite Sean Connery? A white woman the same age, not as attractive as her, would get that part, purely because of the color of her skin and for no other reason.”
So black is not beautiful in Hollywood. I can’t believe that in the twenty-first century, such small variations in skin tone can make or break a black woman’s career. Despite all the progress we’ve made, it’s as if dark complexions are not universal, or not beautiful. That light-complexioned ideal goes all the way back to the twenties and thirties, starting with Fredi Washington, Lena Horne, and Dorothy Dandridge, and extending all the way to Halle Berry and even Alicia Keys. Their great talent notwithstanding, their beige color certainly helped their careers. “If you’re black, get back; if you’re brown, stick around; if you’re light, you’re all right.” I guess that old black saying still holds true.
I met Nia Long, star of the hit black movies Boyz N the Hood and Love Jones. I wanted to find out if the superstar roles—and salaries—remain elusive for black women even when they have enjoyed box office success.
“The A-list, the mythical A-list,” I said, “seems to have more black men on it than black women.”
“Whether you’re black, white, purple, or yellow, it’s harder for women,” said Nia. “Men can be gray and balding and they’re seen as being just sexier
. . . There are very few movies where you see an older woman with a younger man. The minute a woman goes into menopause it’s like, oh well, you can only play a grandma now. Women have a shorter time span in their career to get in there and hit it good.”
“So with the same career that you’ve had, had you been white, how much more would you be making?” I asked.
“If I were a white woman with the amount of blockbuster success films I’ve starred in, I’d probably be making at least $4 million more per film. And I don’t get paid $1 million a movie, so let’s be real about that too.”
“Do you think that you have to be light-complexioned?”
“Black women are probably the most intimidating species that God has ever created . . . We are beautiful, we are smart, we are strong, and we can appear threatening when we speak our minds. We are also vulnerable, compassionate, and sensitive. Maybe this is why dark-complexioned black women have a harder time making it in Hollywood than light-complexioned black women do. Most white people can identify across the color line with that light-complexioned black woman.”
“Do you think you have suffered more because of race or because of sex?” I asked.
“Black women are discriminated against more because of race than because of gender, in my opinion . . . When Matt Damon has a love interest, they don’t go, oh, let’s bring in Nia Long—we really like her work. They might say, well, sure, we’ll see her. They don’t want to say no, because they don’t want to feel like, oh my God, we said no to the black girl.
“I think their racism is totally unconscious,” Nia continued. “I understand the machine. I understand that it might make more sense to put Cameron Diaz in a part for Charlie’s Angels. I think with the mind of a producer. All I ask as an artist is that we be given a chance, not as a favor or a mercy meeting or on account of a guilty conscience, but just so the game is fair.”
Who can disagree with Nia Long that actors should be judged only on talent and that factors such as race or color should be irrelevant? But will that ever be the case? I went to Venice Beach to meet Don Cheadle. Many say he is the most talented and versatile black actor to emerge since Samuel Jackson.
“Do you think that black actors and directors sometimes use race as a cover, as an excuse? Or are they right when they say the place is racist?” I asked him.
“If we were talking about equality of opportunity, or even reciprocity—if we were talking about the way America really looks, rather than the way movies look—then there would be more work for black actors, directors, and producers in Hollywood, and for others of color as well,” said Cheadle. “Of course, there are myriad reasons why one actor doesn’t get a certain part. If we believe union numbers, there are many more white actors who don’t get parts than black actors. If I get turned down for a part, I can’t attribute it solely to the fact that I’m black. But it’s obvious that I am, so I’m sure that’s always a factor in any thought process about whether I get hired.”
“But does it help when politics enter? When the NAACP comes in?” I asked.
“Acting isn’t bricklaying,” he replied. “If you have a skill for laying bricks, you can do it no matter what you look like—if they hire you . . . When it comes to casting, you can’t just say, you have to hire these five black people or these four Asian women, because not everybody can do it . . . Yes, we do need more numbers, but if the stories aren’t intriguing, engaging, and entertaining, and if it doesn’t hold together as a whole, then just sticking a bunch of people in a product that’s ultimately not going to be that good doesn’t help either. In fact, it does just the opposite . . . Most movies are not very good; most pieces of art are not very good; most CEOs of companies are not very good. That’s why, when they are very good, they’re exemplary, and we go, oh my God. They’re lauded because mediocrity is what’s rampant. Excellence is rare.”
Behind the energy and sunny optimism of Los Angeles is a hard-bitten, take-no-prisoners ruthlessness. Compared to the perils of being an actor, the life of a professor is a piece of cake. Actors can be picked up or dropped on a whim, and their success is continually dependent on fickle audiences. Talk about constant heartburn! For all of the appeal of the camera and the glamorous life of successful actors, the power to effect long-term change in Hollywood lies behind the camera. If we can’t green-light films yet, when will we be able to? How much influence do black people have behind the scenes?
One person who has blazed so many trails for African Americans in the music and film industries is my dear friend Quincy Jones. Quincy arrived in Hollywood as a well-respected musician, composer, and arranger. He was the first black person to compose scores for films. Since then, he’s built a powerful empire embracing film, TV, and music. No black person has more power than Quincy Jones. He’s building a marvelous home in Bel Air. Although he’s recovering from a shoulder surgery, he’s as animated and as sharp as ever. Despite his success, Quincy vividly recalls a time when black people in Hollywood were as rare as rain in Southern California.
“Quincy, what was Hollywood like in the sixties when you started making films?”
“Well, you know it’s usually precedent. If you don’t see too many black composers, people assume there are no black composers. At the time, the spawning ground for composers was Universal Pictures. They didn’t even have blacks in the kitchen. I’m serious! We’re talking about the early 1960s.”
“If we came back in a time machine, fifty years from now, how will Hollywood have changed? Will we be green-lighting? Will we be studio executives?”
“I think all that’s going to happen. The young kids always ask me what I recommend, and I say, want more! Dream more! Don’t get hung up on this little jive lame dream down here. Get a big one! And if you get halfway there, you’re still okay! But make the dream big.”
Quincy has been smart enough to analyze the system and talented enough to master it. He’s a role model for a whole new generation of black artists. But is it still harder to realize your ambitions—all thi
ngs being equal—if you are black? Does race still matter the way it did when Quincy arrived in Hollywood in the early sixties?
Reginald Hudlin is the director of two of the most profitable black films in the history of Hollywood—House Party and Boomerang. He is also a keen analyst of Hollywood’s racial politics today.
“There are no black people who can green-light,” I began. “When’s that going to change?”
“The studio system—the permanent government of Hollywood, the agents, the managers, the studio executives—is a hard business for black folk to break into, because the skill set that is required to do that is very complicated,” said Reggie. “On the one hand, you have to hang out with these agents and drink and go white-water rafting and do all this kind of assimilationist activity, where you have to feel sincerely comfortable in that mix. At the same time, you have to have a level of aggressiveness that is required to make it in the business, period. Black or white, you have to be a shit starter, a driving personality. And that kind of aggressive personality, when executed by a black person, can be very scary and intimidating to white people. But without that, you’re not going to make it.
“As if balancing those two weren’t enough,” he continued, “you’d better be on top of the current trends and personalities in black culture, because your white bosses expect you to have all that down cold. But if you have all this assimilationist skill with whites, then you aren’t necessarily listening to the new Wu-Tang record. And the black cultural landscape is so vast! You’ve got to have the kind of bohemian black thing covered; you’ve got to have the ghetto black thing covered; and stay up on all the white stuff that all your white colleagues know. So balancing those three things is really, really hard.”
“If it’s about color, is it green?” I asked.
“Usually a film’s profitability is decided when the movie is green-lit, meaning, we’re only going to spend money on these kinds of stars, we’re only going to spend this much on production value—which means that they’re only going to spend so much on marketing . . . If you look at the top ten most successful films of all time, they tend to be science fiction films like Star Wars or Titanic, where they had a big production budget. It bears repeating: scared money don’t make money. So until black filmmakers have access to that kind of production budget, it’s gonna be tough to rack up those kinds of numbers.”
“Hollywood is quoted as saying that black films don’t have crossover appeal,” I said. “What does that mean?”
“Let’s take a step back from the phrase ‘black movies,’” Reggie answered. “What does it mean? In Hollywood, ‘black’ is only used in the negative. Eddie Murphy isn’t considered a black star. He’s just a movie star, the same way Egypt isn’t part of Africa. So black only counts in the negative. Look at Training Day—black director, black star. Is that a black film? I would argue it is.”
“What about the idea, entrenched in Hollywood, that black movies don’t sell overseas?” I asked.
“Today hip-hop rules in Japan, Germany, and Sweden. So the idea that they’re buying all this black culture in every other medium overseas, but somehow in films it won’t work, is absurd. The cultural gatekeepers are the problem. The distributors, the marketers on the international level, do not know how to take this product and sell it to these particular markets.
“A lot of times it’s not about racism at all,” Reggie continued. “It’s laziness, because when you have a new product and a new idea, someone’s got to come up with a new marketing plan. Now, they’ve got four marketing plans. So when you come up with something else, they’ve got to come up with a new plan. That means they’ve got to work late. They may have to skip lunch. Nobody wants to work late and skip lunch. I’m not saying everything’s some evil racial plot with people rubbing their hands together. Sometimes it’s just people who are lazy, who don’t want to do anything they’re not accustomed to doing.”
I love the color and rhythms of Crenshaw; for me, this is the soul of Los Angeles. It’s a haven for black musicians, artists, and filmmakers who want to remain in touch with their roots. Crenshaw is also the neighborhood that director John Singleton depicted in Boyz N the Hood, one of the most profitable black-themed films in the history of Hollywood. Despite his phenomenal success, Singleton still lives in nearby Baldwin Hills and keeps his office there. He shot Boyz N the Hood for $6 million. Twelve years later, he makes films with budgets ten times that.
I wanted to ask John how he manages to strike a balance between a desire for commercial success and maintaining his integrity—in other words, how he makes a profit while keeping it real. “You’ve broken through the glass ceiling,” I said to him. “You can make any film you want. How does it work?”
“I always say that if you make a film that is even moderately successful, it allows you to make another film, and if you make a film that is wildly successful, that means you’ll be able to make three other movies.”
“Where are you in that food chain?” I queried.
“I’ve been directing just twelve years and I’m going into my seventh film. I started directing when I was twenty-two years old, and I’m thirty-four, so I’m a veteran at a young age still. I’m cool now . . . For me, it’s been a level playing field. I would say differently if I could have any type of personal dissatisfaction with opportunities that have been made for me. But I can’t say that. And I haven’t had to kiss nobody’s pale ass to do it . . .
“This business is not about just expressing yourself and your culture and everything, and then hey, you know, we’ll throw $30 million to the wind,” he said. “All that stuff about personal feelings and getting culture out and being able to say something, you have to sneak that into your movie. I don’t go into somebody’s office and say, I want to make this movie ’cause I really want black folks to know this. I don’t go in there and say all that BS. I go in there and say, hey, this is what it is—people will want to go see this movie because of this and this, and this is what they’re feeling, and this is what’s going on on the street. Believe me, this is going to sell 700,000 copies on DVD and video and it’ll only be made for this amount, and I think it’ll turn a profit of about $50 million. That’s what it’s about. It’s not about all that other stuff. It is about all that other stuff, but you can’t come on like that.”
Like all Hollywood players, John certainly stays busy. As I was departing, he had already started to plot storyboards for his next movie, 2 Fast 2 Furious. I wonder if John or Reggie Hudlin will continue to move up Hollywood’s food chain and eventually be eligible to green-light?
Before I leave Hollywood, there is another director I want to meet. Neither a megastar nor a power broker, he’s one of many talented young filmmakers working for their big break.
His name is Reggie Rock Bythewood, and he is in the midst of a struggle with the studios that speaks volumes about race.
“I was sitting in a room with the head of a studio, on a project that I had assembled a superlative cast for—amazing African-American actors whom a lot of people know,” he explained. “These are people who are willing to be in a film that I put together, and an executive went through it and said, but here’s a black face, here’s a black face, here’s a black face, here’s a black face. The frustration on his part was that there were not more white faces in the film.”
“Does he want you to rewrite it and put more white faces in it?” I asked. “It’s basically, ‘Reggie, don’t take this personally, but to make this film, we have to make the lead white.’ And I didn’t take it personally, because I’ve been prepped. My entire career has prepared me to understand that that’s how it works a lot.”
“What did you say?”
“I said no. That wasn’t the film I was going to make . . . My motivation was I’m gonna do a movie where you’re not going to hear the word ‘nigger’; you’re not going to have people running around with guns; you’re not going to see brothers with bottles of forties in their hand. This is going to be a hot fi
lm. But make it white? Well, go ahead, then. But that’s not why I’m here . . . We got set up at Fox Searchlight Pictures. Ironically, this will be one of their biggest films, if we do it. They gave us four weeks to put the film together.”
Can commercial success still be equated with the number of black faces on-screen? When will a film be just a film—not pigeonholed as “black” or “Hispanic” or even “white”? When will scripts be peopled with the best actors, their color or complexion incidental or irrelevant?
The growing number of smart, sophisticated black actors and directors is bringing this day much closer. Scene by scene, film by film, they are changing the industry from the inside, using the only language Hollywood seems to understand—box office success. But even they would admit that we still have a very long way to go.
Because of these pioneers, I have no doubt there will one day soon be a black studio executive with the power to green-light a film. I am confident of that. But will he or she force Hollywood’s old habits about race to change? Or be seduced by the lure of all the glitter and keep things essentially the way they are? I wonder . . .
CHRIS TUCKER
Different Stories
Actor and comedian Chris Tucker told me he wants to see new stories about black successes in movie theaters. “You got people like Dick Parsons, president of AOL Time Warner, the biggest media company in the world. That’s a great story . . . There are lots of billionaires you’d never know about. There are so many different stories, success stories that we should tell. And the more black entertainment there is, the more black writers, the more different stories will be told.”
I was the youngest of six children. My mother, Mary Tucker, is a missionary at a church. She’s been a missionary all her life, helping people. My father, Norris Tucker, has a cleaning business. I’ve always been a business-minded person, because I watched my father run his own business, and before coming to California, I only worked for my father. That was it; I never had another job in my life before I went out to L.A. and started doin’ comedy.
America Behind the Color Line Page 31
