Black Hollywood (1984)

[Music] [ __ ] like I just 24-hour toll-free why mean we can call it any time [ __ ] check thank god you're home we heard you were in jail my husband's beating me what can I do [ __ ] my gun click [ __ ] [ __ ] say hi I'm a secretary my boss wants to sleep with me what can I do give up the [ __ ] make the money click [Laughter] [ __ ] I just wanted to say [ __ ] click [Laughter] hello there was a he's obsessed with that word he's obsessed god stop him [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] it's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how are children going it's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how are you from going linger [Applause] everywhere an executive told me one time he said Oscar the reason that the black filmmakers are having so much trouble is because we White's got to protect our jobs and our families etc he said look what you guys did to baseball look at the salaries that make it look what you guys at the basketball look what you did the boxing if you guys did that to filmmaking we'd be out I said that's not true we'd all be making more films we may even be making better films and the investor investors would make more money the theaters would be full he said no no we're worried about our job so therefore we're gonna keep you guys out it's long and short of it it's the long and the short of it we're talking about economics you know there you take an actor like that's a Sidney Poitier this guy was a box-office draw for so many years then all of a sudden blacks can't make it in film forget about it Black's don't make films that make money now Richard Pryor he is so it's much in demand he's booked up for the next five years everyone says ah that was lucky it was a phenomenon here comes Eddie Murphy now he is booked up so the phenomena that we talk about in Hollywood that's all in our heads that's to keep us holding on to what we've got so that you can't get in unfortunately the blacks are visible so when you say you can't get in and you speak about blacks you can point to a color the same thing applies to young white filmmakers they don't let them in either unless they're family or relative they gotta fight to women they gotta fight it's Hollywood holding on to it's an established order so that no one else can get in and get a piece of that money it's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep them going [Applause] [Music] [Music] well you can't really hurt the images of blacks from the standpoint of I mean blacks image we have no image our image is everything that's bad you know I mean the term white and black the white hat in the black hat I mean black symbolizes the bad guy now what did happen in those days the so-called black exploitation films is that white producers put together cheap films took advantage of a hungry black movie-going audience took advantage of hungry actors and actresses paid them very little money and stole all the profits which basically came from that hungry black movie-going audience after that they then criticized the films that they had put out there to their media basically dried those films up then went on and used that money to get right back to their lily-white films very simple so they left those of us out there with nothing to do ostracize and criticized for being in films that we really had no choice and that's the way it ended there was no difference between blaxploitation and white boy tation you see it is he quickly there was a writer named John killings he told me a story one time about a young man and his father boy and his father and a young boy said dad every time I read a book about demand and the line the man always wins but Dad I always thought that the lion was the bad as bad as cat in the jungle and the father and the father said son when the lion learns to write he'll win if you looked at the genre of film that this came from I would refute it from the chain gang Little Caesar they were just as violent as these films but understand why these films are called violent or more violent you take Little Caesar and you make it with a black cast it becomes a violent film it's because of what we bring to it sociologically I saw a film the other day where Al Pacino who I went to school with in the Bronx New York this kur singer there's a lot of blood and violence but no one caused that a bloody black exploitation film I saw other films in Deerhunter if you had a black cast in The Deer Hunter it would have been called black exploitation so you have to understand that we the audience and I'm saying we and look at me we'd a wide audience we are bringing something to this film and when we look at it these blacks fighting with guns we say this is dangerous and this is violent understanding that you either forget it and proceed or you stake it for what it is you can go ahead and make your film Hey look I don't mean to be dipping into y'all's business but you've been convert eyes Blacula rise and superflat you've been MACT hammered slaughtered and shafted now we want to turn you on to some brand-new jive you're gonna be glorified unified and filled with pride when you see five on the black hand side everyone said no one is interested in seeing a black comedy you know Oscar blacks want to see violence and these are white producers the studio executives telling me you know Oscar blacks want to see violent and action and get whitey I said look that I want to say that stuff is dead you know this stuff is dead nobody wants to see that [ __ ] anymore excuse the expression who cares about get whitey even Wyatt he doesn't care about get whitey so what we got to do is do some other things everyone says oscar comedy no blacks don't want to see comedy i said let's do it the budget was small we got together and we did it and it made a lot of money from that film came a lot of the television stuff that you see now on television that's my mama The Jeffersons etc etc etc from that film and it was a it was a fight getting it made it's a real crazy scene without a laughter in between [Music] they made quite a bit of money which was that which which was why we felt so betrayed because you would think if something made money then they would want to put some more money in it and see it go on but it didn't work out that way it was at a point in Hollywood's history when the movie going public was low Isle of Wight weren't gonna film to get tired of seeing that they'd rather look at television there was more invention on television so the film industry the film market began to drop because people weren't going so they resorted to that secondary market and once the secondary market got Hollywood some money got its win back so to speak they then began to establish the the about the status quo their whatever they then began to go back to the position of oK we've got some money now we don't need the blacks we don't need the minorities we don't need the women we don't need none of that we're gonna do our thing well the emphasis was in the wrong place you know it was pan-africanism people wanted to speak Swahili they just hold concept of Africa they didn't say a tribe they just thought Africa was one place and we could take one language it would bring us together if we wore dashikis and Naturals but really we are we had dentist there and was our buying power the dollars that we spent and what those dollars meant and we spent those dollars in the right direction we would have created an economic base here which would have given us power so we could have operated from an economic base develop a political base which we are developing now and we would have gained our freedom much quicker but our leaders a lot of them are very immature and I say that not that I'm brought that bright but they're immature because the targets that they pick with targets that really would mean nothing in the future we have the great historical march on Washington as a person who believed in economics with the watch and why shouldn't meant to me was symbolism I didn't need it because I knew black was all right anyway I didn't even want to tell me that I got to go to Washington saying it showed it on black but what happened is that black spent a lot of money going to Washington and most of that money went into the hands of white people who owned those hotels and the transportation means and so forth so ultimately in America it's going to be economic power and political power I think we were treated as a fad instead of an art form and I feel that once the studio's got on their feet they decided they wanted to do big-budget films and they would rather put them in films that appealed to a mass audience instead of you know an ethnic segment they went into disaster films from disaster films they went into monster films now they're into high-technology films and I think it's monkey see monkey do white fantasy films I love the fantasy I do I like loved Chariots of Fire I love that film why people running track I laugh for two weeks I love that fantasy oh come on I love a fantasy I so body heat why he was screwing all night I love the fantasy no I saw Annie the little white orphan I loved it I said look somebody killed this little [ __ ] before I do tomorrow no Annie I'm killing you tonight there'll be no tomorrow I loved what was that it was the fence I loved what was it the boxer rocky I loved that one two and three I love it the fantasy why do who do not beat up great big black wild [ __ ] I don't do that hoping to do Rocky Ford serious he's a swimmer he swims I'm here to England and the black man in the canoe then I solve the fantasy et it can only ET it could only happen to white people you'd fall in love with a longneck big-eyed green ugly green little bastard from space drag him home let him sleep with your kids let him eat up the food let him try on all the clothes a little freak let him drink up everything let him phone home beg him to live with it and you can't live next door to [ __ ] for five minutes that [ __ ] is sick and you know it all come on give it up is some sick stuff when I first went to work at Warner Brothers in in 1958 the only black person that you saw walking around in a Colin tie on the lot was either Sidney Poitier or Vincent Tubbs all the other black people were coming on at five o'clock as janitors or to clean up of that sort of thing there had been an occasional person who came in and worked in the pictures the Bojangles the Lena Horne's and that sort of thing but steady work there were none at about that period corporations were encouraged to involve themselves in what was called corporate social responsibility the week corn that sort of thing in this country we can find words for anything we wanted to it was a sort of ostensibly it was a reaching out to to hardcore unemployable or reaching out to Minardi community to say yes we interested in you and things are going to improve the motion picture industry for all of this sort of posturing and carrying on has no serious intent to to integrate itself but occasionally they make these these these grandiose gestures and this community relations thing was one of those grandiose gestures of showing corporate interest in the minority group now what what it involved was going around to various conventions and various groups and organizations and saying look their jobs in the industry come and get them all their training programs here come and be trained let us show you this picture which is very good and saying a very good thing about your race and you notice how many people are working now that haven't been working before well that all went very well for a period of two three maybe four years I was actually involved in the work for eight years as a PI in the year I got in at first and and I'm I went with it to its death we have in Hollywood more trained black technicians actors than then you can shake a stick it because we've had at least ten or fifteen training programs of course once trained where do they get work well we have a union situation here that that interdict that although there have been some some changes of it it still makes it virtually impossible you got to be in the Union to get the job you got to have the job to get into the Union it's a catch-22 very difficult situation we've got many many well trained people they've gone through all the training courses but they can't find jobs an industry let's talk about Hollywood Hollywood may not be interested in new talents coming up they say they are but with every new talent you got a potential new Redford that you've got to deal with new De Niro that you've got to deal with you don't be pushing them around you don't push them around when they get to that level so you don't really want them to come through you got enough for them to deal with how would you like to have five Burt Reynolds to deal with five signatory has to deal with five Danna Roset to deal with five Barbra Streisand to deal with you got one that's enough so you don't really want those directors coming up and through those actors coming up and through and then you back once - how many Richard prize do you wanna have to deal with it's hard enough to do it with the one but you got to deal with him because every time you deal with him he makes you a lot of money you got a deal with him you have to deal with him because he is the essence of why you are at work so you've got a deal with them you don't want any more now with a Robert Redford you can sit across the table and look at him he looks like you so you can say well let's make a deal let's talk and I'll give you ten million dollars five million dollars to go make a movie Stallone okay you don't like mr. loan I don't like you I'll give you ten million dollars but when that actor is black and you gotta give him five million dollars not only doesn't he like you you know like him it hits you in the prettiest stomach because it's a big money business and in order to keep people out you simply put up barriers the barriers for blacks are easy because you can see black because they are black and with blacks you don't have to be nice polite you can just kick them out the way who's gonna complain who's gonna say anything until the black start to do their own thing and make money at it so that it becomes part of the social and economic and political system whether we're talking film or any other business nothing's gonna happen no one gives any person in any society anything they've got to take it every single person out there who has a family a house no one gave it and had to go work for it the difference is if they're being cut off by exclusion if they're being discriminated against so that they cannot own their house have their families feed their families then that's criminal that's criminal that's not part of any system whether it's a democratic system or socialist it's criminal and maybe we are dealing with the society Ronde formed operated by criminals I don't know but it is criminal and not only do I know and other black snow white snow it's criminal so it's I know that he knows that I know it's criminal and that's where we're at I think most of the pictures that are made in this industry is based on what DW Griffith's said during that era during that period I always think think of a the industries have a a big encyclopedia and which they go back and say you know what would a DW Griffith would have done since we are going to make a picture which has something to do with the life of black people they don't understand it and they do not want you to tell them that's the horrible thing about it when you try to tell them how incorrect they are that you'll find a writer who will say these are my words I don't want my words change I said but you put your words are wonderful yes but you didn't originate those laws you just assemble them for this thing and your construction about how black people who live how bright people survive and how we are is incorrect because we are as human being we face the same problem that you face we live the same way you live [Music] Hollywood I think it's racist I've always felt that I mean all that I'm a part of it I just think it is right from the beginning with Birth of a Nation which they say is an art and the best film ever made and I find it insulting in races and they gave lillian gish and I know America loves it an award Oh stringing a white lady in the ward and I think she should be apologizing for being that movie because I love you seen it but it's a very racist movie and it should be Burnley they lost part of it but they should find the other part and burn all of it they said when the greatest moves of all time laid because when I looked at the screen I couldn't really identify the red but I was looking at Big Jim you know running behind the runaway carrots saying I'm a kind eyes are coming the skies are coming and you know why people they always had to have their own identities and you know as they were talking I was oh my god don't they realize that this film has the greatest stereotypes of any film and you know it's just very very bad it just seems like it should not have to be that way you know people seem to have to make other people look unintelligent of foolish it just seems like it's a something's wrong well basically I was born in the south and my first experience with black movies were the cab calloway westerns when we used to go to a little place in on Wednesday nights you know it was for blacks Amin basically and then after that of course there were no black movies but there were the stereo black people in movies step and Fletcher din man tan Moreland and it always was a convict or someone rolling their eyes of someone that was very fearful a trifling or foolish very bad images he will howl with glee at the screens laziest comedian step-in Fetchit can you keep a secret without running all over the neighborhood and telling me my team is like a baby well at that stage of my life I didn't know I hated the images because I always hated discrimination and racism and ignorance but at the time I didn't think of going to the movies because I was based on athlete and a student so I know that it's stuck in my mind that they did not represent a real life and most of all it did not represent me the pressure was exerted as strong as it could be at that time by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People we didn't have any activist group that was constantly on the case of Hollywood about these things but we will where the fact that the only woman to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniels for the role as a maid and Gone with the Wind this year the only nominee for an Oscar is Alfie Woodard who is who his housekeeper - a writer in the picture Cross Creek so the industry pays attention to black actors or actresses only when they are in sort of demeaning role I got something to ask you certainly you satisfied with my walk around here of course I am then how come you let me go just like that I assume do you want it to go so what if I did want it to what kind of person let another person do something they know what hurt her chichi I don't understand you I don't have any right to stop you you do if you care about me you know and leave what I don't do to me use me up and spend all his time in juke joints drinking up my paycheck just like before I got a good life here I got a better life at the creeks I don't want you to go I thought that you knew that how nice bother no there it's easy to get somebody for cooking and sweeping I think of you as a friend you care about me who's gonna let me go away there aren't any jobs there's plenty of parts but people do not have the courage by and large to cast across the board as long as it's films being made there's parts of black people in them but but most by and large most casting directors producers and and networks they do things like this it'll on a break down the the agents get a break down right for each you know production it'll say sue a lightheaded vegetarian blonde who sometimes reads Hesse when she's you know sweeping the floor you know Bob he's uh you know he's a lowlife he has the mouth of a sailor and he you know he can't quite come to grips with the fact that that he only has one leg and then it'll say Janet a black woman that you know so that's that's when they know to call but and then if they call they might call everybody from A to Z I know that all the white actors that we as blacks know love and admire are strong actors who work on their roles along with the director but in my experience in this industry we are so grateful to have a part that often we do roles that aren't us that are stereotyped upon stereotyped old tired stereotypes that we don't even believe in that are written for us and then we sit and we watch our films and we're embarrassed to see ourselves Paris model Jess and I met each did 22:5 show me a whereas [ __ ] see what she could get it you're good that's Turnpike she did 26 5 she's called Turnpike cuz she got Appetit to get on and pay to get off shine I come here baby China did 29 this is Frenchie EDA used to call her Boeing 747 show my [ __ ] she did 27 5 and that's sweet and they're showing that smile you put sweet thing she did 35 last year and where's my baby thank you that's tastic this [ __ ] grows $37,500 work and plot time they call him a Colonel Sanders because she's I played a lot of prostitutes very early in my career in New York it was very young I mean I was in my teens and I played prostitutes tan and as I grew as I matured I lost interest in playing prostitutes especially the kind that a gang banged and beat up and I just didn't want to be seen being abused so I didn't want to do those kinds of parts you know gangbang you know nasty parts then I thought if I was offered a very complex high-class prostitute Jane Fonda see they don't offer black women those kinds of roles where they have the heart of gold usually they photograph you very exotic very sleazy on the corner cursing somebody out scratching yes you know that very very uh uncomely degrading and they'll tell you in a minute is the juicy part you know but I don't want to project that image you know that I've had white people in this industry argue with me well if it's a great part give me a part like Jane Fonda I would consider it sometimes I I say why me you know like I got a script once and the director actually written a note on it I didn't know him but he had written the note on the front of the script dear Diane I would really love you to do this part sign and I'm not gonna say his name okay so I got the script I thought wow hey scripted I looked at the part and it was like so awful this woman was this she was a junkie she murdered guys cut their throats she was a [ __ ] but like the lowest of the low like crazy on PCP I mean just terrible and all I could say was why me you know why me usually just says no I don't want to do that you know I pass there's enough parts like that everybody knows that black women can be prostitutes and drug addicts I don't think that we need to emphasize that point anymore you know and it's only the reality for a very tiny percentage of the population you know so I pass and I look for something else it was segregated when I was coming up and I went to segregated schools up into junior high school and we would integrate it but the town was divided between black and white like you stayed in your neighborhood and you didn't go in the other neighborhood I was fortunate to live in a black community where these old black movies were shown made by blacks and then we'd see these musical all-black musicals with Sarah Vaughn and there's one singer named Savannah Churchill who I liked and Billy Eckstine Billie Holiday and these weren't shown in white communities were made for us shown in these little back theaters [Music] I shouldn't be so but love cannot do [Music] [Applause] you you [Applause] you [Applause] listen tiga you don't want to do what on your my Marion Egret you don't want to marry an Egret very no Peter no I never saw Oscar Micheaux with any books on filmmaking anything like that he just grabbed it somehow and he was he was a genius he was gifted to that type of thing Misha would go to work and take everything that he had to do and do it herself and sometime if he was short of an actor he'd get off behind the scene and do that as the voice and I used to tell him I said you certainly ham that up and he said you hamd up my picture too I tell you I never met a person that I liked any more than him that's how I happen to make 14 pictures with him and became the first Negro leading man in motion pictures taken at face value and my judgement in the matter right now I don't want you gentlemen to misunderstand the attitude which I am forced to assume in these relations the situation has a phenomenal one families so a lot of the finances was raised on me and he wanted to create a black Valentino or a black leading man that would appeal to the public and he thought well I think I did in those days that I would fill that order because around the country say Frances now we're based in New York this Southern places you didn't have theaters I mean you didn't have Broadway shows these people didn't have a chance to see well-dressed people and I was class at that time as one of the well-dressed straight men of the American stage and not seeing all of that to bring this to their neighborhood fear was a great thing and those people especially black people couldn't go in to the white theaters only on days that the white theatre owners would allow them so you see this was quite a thing in those days and he would as many times as he could arrange personal appearances for me and to make an appearance in those days well they were lined up around any corner in the winter he took care of writing and things like that now early spring he would go on the road he would rent a car and a chauffeur and go on the road and he would sell his novels to these various theaters and this is how he would book and he'd take a photograph of me and he said look at that look at this boy here I'm using him that's the new Valentino and look he'll do all right for you and these guys would buy this sort of thing and he'd raise money you know sometime he didn't even have a script and he'd sell it on to pictures myself and a girl and she was Elfa Moses and he'd come back and he'd call me as we're going into production [Music] when he used to use these choruses I say to him I said I have the master script I don't see anything in there that calls for this chorus and everything he says look we're playing down south hampi I said yes and he said these pictures are going to South America - Harvey I said yes he said well let's show our beautiful girls with beautiful legs well he hired the choruses from the nightclub because I'd like to use the chorus I'm making a motion picture you had no problems you had a bus waiting there picked them up and of course we have a cabaret singing we had a lot of fun in those days we enjoyed our work and I think we accomplished a purpose [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] what about the matter returned - yeah I'd like that because she's stuck up and don't be colored I never [Music] my mama sent me to school I've never been and don't know the way if you're done it I'll give you this big red apple oh sure we'll take you there with that thank you [Music] Lena Horne Dorothy Dandridge Eartha Kitt some actors like Frank Silveira Frank Silveira was unusual because he played all sorts of roles he he crossed over he played the spanish italians and and because he he was not discernibly black but for for the women like Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge they had difficulty because they also were not discernibly black they were neither black nor white and that and they had difficulty rather tragic results as a matter of fact I'm sure if do you know this go to jail well I met Dorothy Dandridge when she was in her late teens early twenties and she was very vibrant she was she always reminds me of a ballet dancer she's always moving about she would love to have been a ballerina or as much if not more than in becoming an actress she was Demeter she was petite she was and her mannerism if you didn't know how you'd say Oh God why doesn't she stop pretending but she wasn't she was not pretending at all that's what that's why Dorothy lives [Music] what you say brother what you say anytime then we got away see that you're not in the picture cuz I'm that kind of a metal stand without hitches [Music] [Applause] she used to entertain lavishly Gary Cooper would come with his wife Rocky Peter Lawford all these people would in out of hot place Dorothy had a vision that so many people didn't have that as far as casting into ratio casting she used to say to me listen Joe she said why does a white man feel that he can sneak into my house under some other black woman's house and spend the night with him a half the night in bed with and then you can't see the same kind of thing on screen why can't you know what is wrong so she fought for integration not for just to integrate the bedroom but in every aspect this is how she felt and she would make these requests and wanted it second script changes then of course she thought also that if she would become associated with certain well-known actors like for instance Curt Jurgens Otto Preminger the director that that out of that would develop a marriage or something when she started telling me about all I don't have no intention of marrying your daughter he's not gonna leave his wife for you I said sort of just you know well but they want to send her the best champagne caviar and goes to some remote place at the other house you know well then there but then there were later it would end up telling her well look I'll buy you Chateau I'll buy your flat but I will not buy a license to marry you but she thought that she could change the whole imagery here in the motion picture industry that a top director a top actor with miry a black I said no no where are their friends you know well you know it just doesn't work that way Dorothy used to call me like 7 o'clock in the evening and she would hang up the phone the next morning at 6:00 talking talking about middle of the night I'd sit that drink wash my sock cook I wouldn't turn it off the phone I just father she said what are you doing on Joyce I'm shaving it's the next morning I'd listen to her I listen to her because she wanted to talk the nine of Spades [Music] [Music] if you want to work you better work because you're not black and this is a sort of a thing that has happened to me many times I'm called on and they asked me would I step in the other room and I said well you called for black actors I'm here I wish they hadn't said Negro actors but that's the way they have it is blunt as they want and I step in there and I step in there they says well we have a white role so I said so so I take it what happens is that I don't get them I don't get the parts they said yes we wanted to see somebody black but gee I don't know not your kind of black person there's a wonderful euphemism now you say you're too attractive she's too attractive for that part he's too handsome and we're supposed to take go home and take that as a compliment meanwhile we don't get the job they believe that big black boy you're supposed to be running this place for the white Christian American do you know what I wanted most despite what you are and despite what you were I wanted to help you I wanted to kill you and I would enjoy to kill you right now with my bare hands but more than I wanted to kill you I want to help you do you know what that makes me that makes me more than just a good man that makes me I gotta okay that stuff about white Christian America let me tell you something this is my country this is where I've done what I've done and if there were a million cuts like you all like us dick all shouting down destroyed the grade and if there were 20 million more second after listen to them you are still gotta lose you're gonna lose mister because there is something in this country something so big so strong that you don't even know something big enough to take it from people like you and come back and nail you went to the ground you're walking out of here do you are going nowhere now Syd Sydney's not an unusual person and that he's he's what we would call a bootstrap person he he virtually made himself he came into this country he could hardly speak the language and he spoke it with what we call it Jamaican accent and he had to learn to speak the language by listening to radio and he went into the theater to clean up in order to get opportunity to to look at other actors work and learn how to act so there's a whole racial algae story there that it was easy to to pluck out of the miasma of information that was around so you built a deport a story on that but he had a particular electricity about himself a particular bearing a particular presence that was electric on the screen but there's something in it that distinguishes him you pointed that out to the public and then they picked up on it very quickly the types of roles that he dished and it initially did the band of angels the pictures that he did with Clark Gable he was a rebel with limited ability to revolt but because he posted himself as a rebel as anti-establishment he became a very popular figure among blacks so it was easy to to carry that sort of Matt Turner attitude of his into his into developing his whole personality and he was this standard-bearer for blacks in America as our motion picture perform and you just sort of positioned him there and kept in there I had a speech but I'm not going to make it when I started in his business on my first job I was in concert with one other black man and he was the she sign boy on that lock I stand before you today the product nozzle of Sidney Poitier but of all the black artists whose lives and creativity were frustrated by those studios [Applause] it takes a group of awfully strong men to persevere and I'm here today in the company of many of my compatriots who did just that the door has only recently opened you know but I'm glad to say that stepping through it are some awfully strong men and women [Music] I just pray that we build this institution into one of enormous dimensions because we have an awful lot of names to put there in the future I [Applause] got an award once it was called the Academy Award this is the Academy Award [Applause] Raymond in the hip-hop world is known as pop and break but the davidson audio also multi talented dancer hailing from Long Beach style that's the mark of an LA breaker we don't encourage any fears to try to hit it these are professional break dancers they know what they're doing what the way [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] right yesterday yes that's the one thing that frightens wives unity between blacks they don't want to have anything in common because we like what the favorite dance step is we can spread that quickly we all dance the same it has variations throughout the states with it's all the same and if we ever communicate the way we do when we dance will be a problem in America we don't get stuff done like good films because we don't have the people behind the camera we don't have the producers the black community that has a lot of money is very very conservative you know they're not about to invest it in a film you know and there are a lot of very rich black people in America but we don't see them we don't hear about them you know until these people get up offer some of their bread and put it into films we're not gonna have any any good films we're not the system wasn't built to do me any favors unless I earn it do more than anybody else would have to do in order to get a piece of it so that I've always known what I didn't know was the detriment of what we suffer in our efforts to do things together the fight that our biggest fight that we have among ourselves to see in the ghetto I had unity because I was a nice guy and I got over whenever somebody got caught they never squealed on me because I was a nice guy here I'm a nice guy and my brothers and sisters take advantage of me they put arrows in my bag and it's knives it's tough but I always protect myself there where I only give it so much I'm giving what I can afford the gift they don't know that but I give what I can afford to get without being hurt as a general statement I would say that among black people in Hollywood I don't think there really is any real kind of fraternity I think there's a lot of competition for jobs and for attention because there's so few jobs and when the industry throws out a few crumbs you have so many people running to grab those crumbs so it seems to me that it's hard for blacks to be supportive of each other really the reason of black people in America together is because the discrimination wasn't a discrimination with no need for a black to deal with the black other than if you're on the same economic level a a social level or so forth because black isn't positive and negative it's just a color if you deal with the history of how blacks got here the splitting up the families purposely the different tribes different languages different customs Africa is not like one country in one people Africa's many people many customs many traditions it starts with not having any true culture no grandfather to tell you what you are I am ebo ebo is this you know in the Jewish culture you are Jewish we do this we have been merchants for many years we must protect each other the world of ostracizes you have this responsibility to deal with we don't get that okay so we start with that then we start with the technique of brainwashing that's perpetuated on us I mean the brainwashing technique was so bad until we had coaches within cultures we had light-skinned black people that didn't want to associate with black black people we had colleges in the South that were black college that you had to send a picture to and if you didn't have what they call good hair and light-skinned you couldn't be enrolling at college so within our own group there was this whole thing about being light and black and all of these different things so to get rid of all of that and and have television show you these blue blue-eyed blondes and and wonderful-looking curly-headed men and then you don't look that way and then you get a chance to play some football and they give you a little shot and give you a little money and maybe give you one of those girls and you were to think you're living you know and I mean you don't won't care about anybody else you just want to be able to enjoy that stuff because you've been given an entree level it's not on the top but Alicia County in the ball game so there's a lot of things to fight to bring about the kind of unity that I'm talking about and the economic support that blacks need you know to give each other in order to emerge as a viable part of the society [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Robert where's never to be simile ladies and gentlemen mr. Robert [Music] comes to you in the pan you type form and a CodeRed lady down then my second [Laughter] [Music] when you begin to look at the new technologies that give Hollywood a run for its money like the music tapes MTV tapes you know you then have to start to understand what's happening the kids that buy those tapes are black and white yellow green red I mean they're just there by the tapes Michael Jackson didn't happen because he was just an alien from another country you have talent sure he's black and all those other things that come into play Michael Jackson is selling in South Africa I mean you know who buys records in South Africa sure and the blacks don't have that kind of money to make him a big seller so something is it's gonna come around as I said Richard Pryor is one of the biggest box office draw guaranteed if you get Richard in a picture you guarantee you're guaranteed to make money it's gonna happen it's going to happen Eddie Murphy's first film didn't become an Eddie Murphy film from the outset he was an adjunct they didn't use him to raise the money to get the food to make the movie they're doing that now the other coaches will use the principles they understand the principles they set their goals and they pursue those goals they achieve the first one they set out on the second and in blacks we do great things you know and flashy things and great athletes and great musicians but then we're basically controlled by other cultures and the for example the black superstar today to me is the 1984 Uncle Tom because while he's trying to get another contract for an additional million dollars he's represented totally by white people so he's not reaching back and bringing in any black lawyers or black accountants or black managers he's just so happy to be considered an idol within this society he doesn't understand that in 10 years all that will all that will happens that will be broken and he wouldn't have created anything that would be lasting for his kids or his grandchildren so until we understand the principle that every other culture seem to understand we're always gonna have to ask someone to do something for us don't forget to register to vote you know it's a man's world unless woman involved are you registered to vote Jesse Jackson running for president just think of that Jesse Jackson do you know what happened if he runs for president but what actually happened dead-white who will get out of their graves to go vote none of the voters they don't know why they just have to go America is not ready for a black president they're not ready come on they're not even ready for a [ __ ] vice president let's be realistic what doesn't work it would be wonderful [ __ ] vice president think about it be perfect that would assure the president wouldn't be assassinated Oh ain't nobody gonna shoot with a [ __ ] vice-president me no shooting president can ride in a convertible all day or night they'll be no shoot where's the president he's asleep in the convertible he's safe well the change has to come almost as a political one our political leaders has to understand economics better let's say that if Jack Jesse Jackson had joined forces with the blacks in Hollywood ten years ago and raised a hundred million dollars then we would be in the film business right now in other words you can't do it the same way it has to be almost a political movement it has to catch the conscience of the people it has to be pointed out by our black leaders it has to be backed by our black leaders and we could make that entree because then the studio's could not afford to keep us out so if we're gonna go about it that way then we need the support of the jesse jackson's and the various mayors of the major cities and we can raise enough money to lose ten times and win three times to stay in business you see the home run concept is that as a black you must come in with roots the first time second time he was come in with something like roots which means every time you come to bat you hit a home run that's not realistic business what you've got to do is start out develop the funds enough funds so that you can make five six ten fifteen movies and take your shot because anybody in the movie business know that every movie's not gonna be a hit but yet as black people they tell us that well it's not gonna make money and you got one shot and if that fails and it's gonna put black people back for 30 years well that doesn't happen in business we're just being fooled you know that's ridiculous I think we have to stop holding our hands out expecting someone to do something for us so if I think the black film period would come back again I don't think it will like that but there's a whole group of young black producers coming up now there's Jamal Anaka there's there's Leon Isaac there's max Julie and he's getting ready to do something there's Leroy Robinson who shoot in Africa now I'm hoping to get funding for my film and there are a lot of us that rested for a while and now we're back on it and we realized that for a million dollars we can do a very good film and make quite a bit of money and we don't have to go through the majors you've got Sidney Poitier Charles Floyd Johnson who produces magnum p.i you've got Ivan Dixon you've got producers working on various television shows Stan Robertson who's recently been promoted to vice president of Columbia motion picture department all of us are prominent producers in the industry and matter of fact it comprises of most of the prominent producers in the industry not all but most so each of us individually qualified on our own but each of us were a victim of of the circumstances of not being able to get funds to do the things that we want so we thought collectively if we got together that's it that's the good part about having problems bring you together and if we get together that collectively we can utilize our resources and our influences and our connects and walk in the door and create some employment which we have been doing little by little you know there's been some and we hope to achieve even more as we go along now I do feel that there is a way that certain things can be done I think that in order for a number of black filmmakers to come on the scene that a studio like Columbia for example has a classics the vision that they deal with foreign films special theaters they cater to a special market and they invest so much money in the advertising promotion and also the production which means that the total situation might cost you six million dollars now we have 50 cities in America with black population that could support three or four theaters in a city these people are starved to see good film not necessarily expensive films but good films involving good black actors and actresses now if the studio decided to create a division which would concentrate not on black films but films that's geared for that market I'll allow the music business on radio you have rock stations you have rhythm blues stations Michael Jackson is our number one store in the world he started with a black company and he's done on black radio so let's say there is a theater that black people can go and see a well thought out entertaining film that didn't cost a lot of money and also know that there's going to be a continual flow of product this will then bring in profits you can always upgrade and if a film is good it doesn't have to just be in that theater other people can go see it and if it hits the general populace that will then create our entree into the end of this business it's what's happening in the record business if you take the record business and you look at it carefully you can do the same thing in the film business and that's the only way to really bring in a number of black filmmakers the future is for blacks to get together in this town and talk and and not talk about demand and not accept the job that so you say I'm not gonna do it and you tell me why you're not going to do it and I will read the script and I know that I have to agree with you maybe we differ a little but the all the overall premise is the same I have to say I'm not going to do it then someone else I'm not going to now if you want to do it you want to change it you want to blacken up someone and I go back to menstrual days you do that or if you want to recast it then we scream we go to the press not only this press press everywhere anybody who will listen to it and talk about it embarrass them hit people in their pocketbook you know get blacks to stop buying products that are avatars and shows where either there no blacks or where black people are you know badly represented get black people in America not to go to films where there are no black actors in the film or where the black actors you know as shown in a in a negative way they haven't called this boycott I don't know why don't know what they're afraid of but I think they should do it and they should have done it you know because what's happening in the industry is that the white people are saying that black people are not important to the film industry they're not important to television okay they say that all the time I read it you know there's not enough of you coming to movies there's not enough of you watching you know we don't care about you so they're not thinking about black people when they're making a film when they're doing programming if we could show how strong we are economically and we really are if we could really turn this industry around I really believe that things will get better if those blacks not only persevere but persevere in a conscious methodical and in some ways devious and I don't want to say terroristic but devious way when I say devious I mean you just can't go out there with a good script because you're a good black filmmaker you've got to be able to then put some other things into play you've got to call some Godfather's that you know on the inside you've got to take an entity that is an established entity align yourself with it you've got to them also come up with something that's so good and so valuable that the established order wants it excuse me and once they want it and you've got a hook you can't if you're a black filmmaker or any other minority if you're a woman filmmaker if you're an Indian if you are Asian you can't just go in there with a good property expected to get done you have to come in there with what's considered the second element of your being first element is what you're gonna do okay first element what you're gonna do second element how you're gonna get it done minorities have that and it's always present women have it women look at things in a men's world in a man's world like this I'm gonna do this second how am I gonna get it done we're white males I'm going to do this and they do it but minorities have another level of consciousness that is always present number one what am I going to do number two how am I gonna get it done I think it's going to happen because as it's economical necessity how long can I keep someone starving away from food after food is on the table and we are both in there and he has the same opportunity to get arms whoever whatever their arms whatever that means whatever it relates a physical gun a bomb my throat his throat how long can I keep him away from that table if number one he's hungry number two my market is shrinking blind to the ways of man because you want to be [Music] I'm no fool but then you wind up dropping out of high school now your Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: reelblack

Views: 44,829

Rating: 4.9085312 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: x9YrIGV_G0s

Length: 75min 5sec (4505 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 12 2019