How Black Creators Are Changing Hollywood

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the past few years, it seems a floodgate has opened, releasing a deluge of tremendously successful media that centers the Black experience. “Get Out,” “Black Panther,” and HBO’s “Watchmen” are just some of the big-budget prestige projects that have drawn huge audiences and dominated the cultural conversation. The New Yorker Radio Hour looks at this moment in Black entertainment and investigates the industry forces behind it in a special episode, produced by Ngofeen Mputubwele. A film scholar explains the complicated history between studios and Black audiences. And Barry Jenkins, the director of “Moonlight,” tells David Remnick about the doors the Obama Presidency opened for Black creators in Hollywood.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.
0:09.3	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And I'm Gophen, Mfutubuelle.
0:15.0	Gauphin is one of the producers on our show, and he's here to introduce things. So Gophane, what's on deck here? What are we up to?
0:22.3	So today we're talking about black film. I noticed a few years ago around 2016 that it felt
0:30.1	like every single year there was a big black movie coming out that I was looking forward to.
0:36.4	Just the one? Yeah, just one, just one, just one.
0:40.5	2016 was moonlight, 2017 was get out, 2018 was Black Panther, then TV 2, like 2019 was Watchman.
0:51.8	And I was very curious at a certain point, like, oh, I wonder if something, like, is something
0:58.3	actually happening?
0:59.7	Like, is there, like, a renaissance or something happening?
1:02.5	Or did I just, like, not pay attention to movies before now?
1:05.6	So how are we going to go about examining this and answering the questions that are
1:09.5	central to this?
1:11.2	We're talking to the Oscar Award winning director, Barry Jenkins, who directed a little film
1:16.8	called Moonlight. We're talking to Cheryl Lee Ralph, who is on the new show, Abbott Elementary.
1:23.0	Over the course of her career, she's worked with Sidney Poitier, Lauren Hill, and just been part of these
1:29.1	iconic moments of black entertainment. But to start, I figured I should go to someone who actually
1:35.6	knows film well. I talked to a film scholar, a professor at Northwestern named Amar Jean Christian.
1:42.2	He specializes in the ways that black stories, brown stories,
1:47.7	queer stories break into the culture through new media. So I asked Amar if something unique
1:56.7	is happening in black film. Yeah, it's a really great question. And Amar said yes, and I quickly learned that there's a lot that goes into why the answer is yes.
2:07.7	Historically, black film rises and falls based on broader industry trends, regulation, and culture.
	...

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