America Behind the Color Line

by Henry Louis Gates

  We had a similar situation with Dancing in September. We raised a million dollars and made an independent film. Then we sold it to HBO and made more than twice the money we spent. Everybody made better money than they would have made on Wall Street. What I learned was that an independent film is great because essentially you are making the film you want to make. The problem is that at the end of the day you’re shopping it around. You’re back to Hollywood, saying, okay, I didn’t ask you for the money to hire my cast and write the film and direct the film, but now I have to ask you to distribute the film. I was glad I had gone through trying to make sure everybody got their money back and made money, but it was challenging, man, it was a very hard process to go door-to-door-to-door-to-door seeing who would give me distribution. That was the process that really made me say, oh, now I get it! It’s about being the studio.

  There is a point of view in the Hollywood system that you have to tell stories that black people can relate to, but the people who are making the decisions on what stories black people relate to are not black. So, for example, in many ways it’s a lot easier to sell a derogatory or stereotypical gangster story and have a bunch of brothers with forty-ounce bottles of beer in their hands and carrying guns. It’s a lot easier to get that pushed through. It’s easier to get a political or civil rights story told on the air or in the movie theaters than to say, there’s something else; there are different experiences. That’s the real challenge.

  As challenging as it’s been, and as frustrating as it’s been, I think one of the blessings of the situation is that it motivates me to try to just push through and make these things happen. A recent experience provides a good example. 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. 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. This is a predominant point of view in Hollywood, and it’s interesting that there’s a perception of Hollywood that it’s one of the more liberal places in the country, that they’re progressive and wide open and all these sorts of myths. Hollywood has really become more and more co-optive.

  So the executive goes through my script and says, black face, black face, black face, and he wants me to rewrite the script and put more white faces in. Initially, I had presented the script and people really felt strongly about it, and we attracted a lot of talent. It was very high-budget for what you would call a black film, but not high-budget for an action film. It got to be $25 million, then $30 million, because they wanted it bigger. And I’m telling my wife, man, they’re really digging this script; they want to put more money in it. Then it gets to be around $35 million and I’m saying, okay, cool. I’ll make a big-ass action film.

  So then you get in the room and 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. My career could really use that sort of boost—to do a big action film like that. It would have been only the second film that I directed, and one of the few times a black director had directed two white leads. From some people’s point of view, I would have made history if I had directed a film with two white leads. To some people, it even would have been a great civil rights victory for African Americans. But not from my point of view.

  I have a need that stands outside of my career, and that need is to have a cause bigger than myself. What would be a victory, for me, is for this to be an action film with two African-American leads. Don’t make it black; don’t make it anything. Make it what it is. Make it an action film. And let’s make this film hot. Let’s make it all the things we want an action film to be. The film I’m talking about has a lot a substance as well. But the film they were talking about felt wrong. It felt like I would be saying, I agree with you; this is the way it has to work. And I don’t think that’s the way it has to work.

  So I’m sitting there and they go, essentially, Reggie, we’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that we’re gonna give you $30 million. The bad news is that your black film is now a white film! And I said no. That wasn’t the film I was going to make. I said to the studio heads, you already took away my motivation for why I wanted to do this specific project. 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 film. But make it white? Well, go ahead, then. But that’s not why I’m here.

  People who know me well are aware it’s not a big deal for me to say no. Many times I’ve said, I’m not going to do this or I’m not going to do that. Some people who don’t know me say, wow, you said that to the studio! But really what I’m trying to get to is a place where I can say, hey, man, I’ve got to maintain my integrity in this situation and still get the film made.

  It’s important to understand that from their point of view, the studio heads are not being racist. From their point of view, they are operating within a Hollywood formula, and a script either works or doesn’t work within that formula. I’m operating from the point of view that I want to change the formula. Five, six years ago, there would have been a shouting match. I’ve had my share of those in these rooms. But basically what I said was, that’s not what I want to do. I was very up-front and told them, while we were all in the room, what motivated me to do this film. So what we did is we just sat there for a while and nothing was going to happen, and it was like they sort of passed on the project. I think the way it went was, it was a Friday that I had the meeting; the Academy Awards came on the following Monday, and Denzel won and Halle won, and the next day they passed on the project. They said no.

  So it wasn’t happening, but what they did allow was for me to take the project and shop it elsewhere. We went throughout Hollywood, and everybody had the same point of view. Everybody wanted us to make it white. And we said, you know what, the Hollywood formula is that this is not a safe investment to make, a film starring African Americans for this amount of money. So instead of saying let’s make it white, we said, okay, let’s take it upon ourselves to make it for half the money. We started telling people we could make this movie for $15 million. Then people were interested, and we were like, how are we going to make it for fifteen?

  We started figuring it out and 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. We got an amazing crew and put together an amazing cast, and then presented everything we had put together in the four weeks.

  A lot of people knew the history of the project. And when you’re going into a meeting and you have a crew that you’ve hired, you start feeling obligated. You want to make sure everybody here has a job. One of the people I had hired pulled me aside and said, Reggie, do me a favor. You know I’m here to protect your vision, and I appreciate what you’ve done and what you can do in this project. That’s why I’m here. Don’t walk into that room if you can’t walk out and say no. Now, this is from a sister that needed a job.

  We’re heading out—myself and the other producers—to do our presentation for the studio, and everybody in the production office just stops and claps for us. The night before, everyone stayed up till two a.m. helping us pull some things together, and nobody was getting overtime. It wasn’t just about keeping a job. They wouldn’t have done it—they told me this—if they didn’t believe in what we were doing.

  I think the presentation we gave exceeded everyone’s expectations. We did more than was required because we didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to say no. So if they do say
no, it’s not based on our merit. Creatively, the film was tight, and it has a clear and specific vision. We have the top crew people assembled and we’re paying them hardly any money. This is low-budget, and these are people that do big, big films.

  Everyone sent us off with a round of applause and we went out there and did the presentation. I think we did a great job. When we came back to the office, everyone clapped again. All along, they validated our commitment to maintaining our integrity.

  It would be attractive to be hot, to be the man, the guy. And really, if that was my agenda, I would have gone an easier route; this is not the only film that was offered to me. What I need to be able to do is make a successful film the way I want to make it, let the studio make a profit, then go to the business community and say, here it is.

  I don’t know how much a $15-million film is going to have to make for me to have a command of the marketplace, or how compelling it needs to be so people will say, Reggie, we trust your vision; here’s the money to make more films. I don’t know if it’s $100 million, which would be great, or really what that number has to be. At the end of the day, the money is not going in my pocket. First off I have to make a good film, one that I can be proud of; and second, the film has to be marketable. I have to be clear on this. I want to be able to say, hey, I did it—not just that I made a film that was marketable, but that I held on to my vision. I want to be able to say I made a film with African-American leads and it’s marketable.

  If I am successful, it won’t just be that the film made $100 million, $200 million. If I’m successful, some other filmmakers are going to be like, man, Reggie did it, so I’m holding on to my vision too. They did it, so why can’t I do the same thing? That’ll make me the man!

  It hasn’t happened yet. People sort of know who I am. Some people think I’m crazy, and some people are cool. It’s not like I go up in a room and I’m jumping on people’s desks and cursing them out. I’m a professional; I know what it’s about. I don’t think I’m known as a troublemaker—maybe not till this documentary comes out anyway. And if I am, so be it. I’ve certainly had my share of arguments with people, but I think, if anything, people know that nine times out of ten I work harder than the next guy. It would be a lot easier in many ways to chase the money, because the money’s out there and it’s attainable, and all you have to do is follow the formula they set up and there it is. But everything has sort of been frustrating. Everything that’s made me ask myself why I bother is the same thing that makes me get up the next day twice as motivated.

  We have more black A-list actors right now than we’ve had in the hundred years of Hollywood history put together. And I’ve got many of them for this film—people that have been nominated for Academy Awards. So I’m saying to the studio, what’s up? I got ’em! And for like no money, but just because they get it; they know what it’s about. These are people that don’t need to do this film; they don’t need to help me out. But they want to do it.

  If I was the person green-lighting this film, I would tell everybody working on it, roll up your sleeves and market this as an action film. If I hear anybody in the room saying it’s a black film, you’re off the project. It’s an action film. If it’s a weak script, then we have problems. But nobody’s going to say it’s a weak script. If it was weak, we wouldn’t be attracting the people we’re attracting. So you have a good story; you have a clear vision. Don’t be limited by the fact that they are African Americans in these roles.

  If a white film doesn’t work, you don’t look at it and say, white films don’t work. You say, this film didn’t work. I think the perception, when a black film doesn’t work or when a black TV show doesn’t work, is that black films and black TV shows don’t work. This is a real dilemma. If there’s a belief that black dramas don’t work, then it seems to follow that blacks have to all be in comedic situations.

  I don’t buy that. I think that people respond to good work. At the time when The Cosby Show came on the air, the sitcom industry was kind of dead; it was really all about dramas at that time. The Cosby Show helped revitalize NBC. But if you put another sitcom on the air right now, on NBC, and it failed, they might take the view that black sitcoms don’t work. So they’d be judging the whole from one part. For every black film that they say was not successful, you could find three times as many white films that weren’t successful. White films flop all the time, but we’re not real about that.

  The challenge that a lot of African-American filmmakers face—I’m not just speaking for myself—is how to make a film that will be perceived as something that can cross over. There is a perception that if you make a film with people of color in it, particularly with black people, it can’t sell well overseas and it can’t even cross over in this country. It’s interesting, because if you point out that there were two people of color starring in Rush Hour, it doesn’t matter, because that’s Chris Tucker, so the perception is that it’s not a black film. But what the perception should be is that if it’s a drama, if it’s an action film, if it’s a comedy, market it as an action film. It doesn’t matter if the leads are people of color; it’s still an action film. But it has to start at the studio level, because if the studio sees it as a film that will not go outside of a black market, they are not going to be able to sell it to other people and say, this is a film that can cross over.

  The answer to changing the system really lies on the other side of the table, where the guys who make the decisions sit. I have no interest in complaining anymore. I’m tired of it; I’m tired of hearing people complain. When I was younger and thought I wanted to be an actor, I would audition for stuff that didn’t feel right and I said, man, I need to be a writer; that way I can control my destiny. Then you write stuff you believe in and you say, yeah, this is where it’s at, and then it’s like, no, I’ve got to be a producer, and then I realize I’ve got to be a director, and you know what, that isn’t really where it’s at either.

  To make the significant change we need to make, we need to be on the other side of the table running the studio. Otherwise, we are going to continue to be in a position where we are complaining and saying, they won’t do this for us and they won’t do that. So certainly, my motivation now and my goal even in doing this project is to facilitate getting myself to that position. It’s the film rights movement, and it starts with us and it’s gonna end with us.

  I sort of got spoiled when I first became a writer, because my first gig was writing for A Different World. I loved it prior to getting on the show; it was my favorite series at the time. So I got hired to write in the show. Debbie Allen became producer and director in 1988, and it was a mixed writing staff. You never had to explain to anybody, hey, this is derogatory. People asked for your point of view, like your point of view mattered.

  After that, I worked on a short-lived show called South of Sunset that nobody saw and that was totally night and day colorwise compared to A Different World. Basically, I was the only black writer on the staff, and some of these guys were writing some really offensive stuff for this black character. I was cool to one of the white writers and I’d say, damn, man, every day I got to tell these other guys how offensive this is, and the white writer was sympathetic with me. I’d say to him, I feel like I’m like the black police on the show, man, and I hate that. I just want to be a writer. And he’d say, yeah, yeah. He agreed with me.

  The next day we’re all in the writing room and we’re going through the script, and then a totally other writer, like the head writer of the show, turns to me and says, so is that okay with the black police? I was really pissed off by that. But what I decided then and there was I’d rather them look at me that way than look at me as a brother who’s scared to say, hey, that’s not cool.

  So I think that with any show I’ve worked on, or any situation I’ve been part of, no one will ever say that I sat back and let things like that slide. I’d rather not have to be in the position of needing to call people on things. But I’ve learned that things are g
oing to change if we are inspired enough to make them change. I’ve learned it through situations like South of Sunset, and by waiting to see if the studio executives will green-light my film, and even through people applauding as I was walking out of the room on my way to the presentation.

  After Denzel and Halle both won an Academy Award, so many articles were written asking whether things have changed. I think things will change if we determine and demand that they change. Personally, I don’t think they’ll change by us boycotting or picketing studios. We should look to ourselves and hold ourselves accountable. If there is going to be some change, it will be because black filmmakers say, I want more, I want to do better, then go through the system and break down a formula or say, I’m going to start my own system where we can green-light our own films.

  Everybody—black and white people—saw Blade, with Wesley Snipes, and Bad Boys, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. But those actors are perceived more as stars than as black. Black audiences stayed away from Carl Franklin’s film Devil in a Blue Dress. You can say that maybe that film did not have the right marketing. People didn’t flock to see it, but they flocked to see Waiting to Exhale, for whatever reason; and What’s Love Got to Do with It was successful. Maybe people don’t want to see pieces on slavery, and maybe kids don’t want to see a film on blacks settling the Great Frontier after the Civil War, if it’s told as a drama. Maybe that’s not the way it should be, but I think action films do better than dramas across the board now. Maybe settling the Great Frontier could be told as an action-drama.

  The question is, how do we get from this side of the table to that side? Well, I’m learning. I never saw myself as a businessman before. Shame on me! We’ve been in talks with people and we’re learning. We started from the black community, and in the process met white people in the business community. I don’t have any reservations about who gives us money if they want to get behind this vision and behind a market that’s been under-served. In Hollywood, I go through a few things, like I say. I wrote Get on the Bus, I produced New York Undercover, and I wrote, directed, and produced Dancing in September, and my wife directed Love and Basketball and they say, okay, cool. But it’s interesting—we’ve been finding that the business community has been paying a lot more attention to us than the Hollywood community has been.