I'm Ashley C. Ford, and this is Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice produced with Vox Creative.

Let's get into it.

It's our season finale, y'all, and we have something really special for you to close it out.

Don't worry, though.

There's more into the mix in the works.

More on that at the end of the episode. Before we get to our interview today, I want to tell you about an essay by the late great bellhooks.

If you're not familiar with her work, Bell Hooks is prolific.

She's known for writing about how race,

class, and feminism intersect. In 1992, she wrote about her experience going to the cinema

in an essay called The Oppositional Gays, Black Female Spectators. The word gaze, as in to gaze upon, is a helpful way of thinking about how we

engage with art and media. When you watch a movie, you're basically seeing the world through

someone else's eyes, and you, the viewer, you have your own gaze that's informed by your

life experiences.

Bell Hook says the gaze is powerful, especially for those who have the privilege of being behind the camera, because they're the ones who decide which stories get told.

And she was tired of the demeaning ways white filmmakers depicted black women.

From Gone with the Wind to The Help, Black women on screen have too often been in the background as nannies and servants.

Even when we are in leading roles, in movies like Harriet or 12 Years of Slave,

some critics have noted Hollywood's tendency to award films that have black women trapped in subservient roles.

My guest today uses her gifts and platforms to append that history.

Some directors are grounded by, you know, being a leader and being kind of a singular voice.

And my grounding as a director is being a strong center for a circle of people and amplifying all of their voices.

And it's really all about, as Bell Hook said, the power of looking and trying to direct

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