Denzel Washington on Race in the US and in Hollywood

i go out when you watch fences and look at troy's and his choices uh initially you get a negative reaction but then when you try to understand him go beyond what we see we find that this is a good man who has been unjustly treated and this is a man who had big dreams and he ended up collecting garbage um is this a fair assessment of of him and his behavior you know the thing about great writing august wilson eugene o'neill you name it arthur miller tennessee williams there's there's so many layers it's not just one thing it's open to interpretation you know i've heard people say things well i felt he was this and that i was like oh i never thought about that but okay you know people ask me what do i want them to get from the film i say well it depends upon what they bring to it so you what you see in troy or feel about troy has to do with your own life and you know standards and all of you well it's not only about anybody's life it's a in a way he personifies the uh black american experience he's somebody who had he not faced the racial discrimination he could have been a great athlete a star but because of that he ended up a garbage collector and perhaps this self-destructiveness is it the do you think is it the was caused was it caused by racial discrimination and is that the effect of racial discrimination here's here's the thing you got to remember when you talk about racial and you talk about discrimination maybe what if he just wasn't good enough see it's so easy to just say oh it's because of this it's because of racism or i didn't get the job because of that maybe you weren't good enough maybe like his wife says you were just too old why don't you she says why don't you just admit it you were too old he's the one that's hung up on i would you know but we know for a fact that so many talented african-americans who don't achieve their goals or their prevented or deprived from achieving their big dreams because of their skin color i'll give you an example log trotters they were much better basket players than the white guys but they were not allowed to play in the big league don't you think it is the sword the problem is the racial discrimination the the right word is not is was was and that's not the only problem that's one of the problems now you can make it the only one if you'd like but it's it's not the only one but that's a fact that's a fact they couldn't play basketball in the nba well their grandfathers couldn't walk on the sidewalk or they were slaves so each generation is trying to do better for the next generation that's what rose could see by wanting her son to get an education but troy couldn't see for him his son doing better was him getting his son a job at the sanitation department for his wife the son doing better was getting a good education and going to college so each generation regardless of race each generation polish african-american whatever is usually trying to help the next generation do better you said was you mean is it better now an african-american doesn't face these obstacles we're sitting in the four seasons talking about a movie we wouldn't be doing this in 1957 unless my name was partier there's only one there was only one person then but yeah so things are better no question because when you read for instance obama's audacity of hope uh he highlighted this issue he said i understand uh the black american anger that he's not giving the same opportunities because if they were giving the opportunities they will achieve much more do you agree with him i agree he has the right to say that one might use the word anger someone might use the word opportunity you know what are you going to do what is the point we all have reasons or we might feel righteous reasons to be angry but the point is what are you going to do about it what do you think what are you going to do with that go watch the movie that's one of the things i've done about it it's true you have done a lot to explain and tell us and enlighten us about the amer the african-american experience in many of your movies um and that's what august uh wilson was doing but when you look back at the movies we've we've been seeing in hollywood i don't recall seeing a fences movie or something a movie that brought me into an intimate uh closeness to francis in america august wilson is one of the greatest writers in american history uh in the theater there's arthur miller tennessee williams august wilson edward albee eugene o'neill uh neil simon he's one of the all-time great masters in the history of american theater so he touches on areas and and he he touches on things that are that are universal i i we were doing a q a the other day uh we had a screening and someone's they asked they said i didn't i didn't know uh troy was polish or whatever however he said it uh you know so the themes are universal the universal stems from the specific this is specifically an african-american family but betrayal and frustration and and going outside the adultery and all those themes are universal things they are indeed universal but he universalizes them because i mean he is someone who was inspired by malcolm x who i think you know now august wilson yeah yeah yeah yeah okay you know you mean troy maybe you know something i don't know no i don't got a lot of malcolm x in him but he's an equal opportunity hater he doesn't like anybody you're black white jackie robinson ain't nobody hank aaron nothing he doesn't like anybody yeah and that's interesting that you reach that point i mean maybe this is the self-destructiveness that when you're not giving the opportunity you become bitter yeah absolutely um now again when i want to talk about hollywood do you think those stereotypes and this is actually obama pointed out the stereotypes that had been uh presented about african americans in the movies has have affected uh the society's treatment of african americans i'm sure yeah yeah yeah and do you feel now things have changed and things have been changing it didn't start this week i've been in this business 40 years in the 40 years things have changed a lot things are continually changing for the better but when you look now at what's going on outside in the political sphere and you see the emergence of white supremacists and racists see the emergence it didn't emerge this year yeah but i mean what i'm saying is we are regressing in some way right those guys we thought we eliminated them but you can't suddenly understand this you can't legislate love remember what i just said you can't legislate love you can change laws but you can't legislate people into loving you it takes time and it depends upon what's going on in their home you can change the law but if you go home and teach your son how to hate every day doesn't matter what law it's been changed until you teach your son how to love then the law is not going to change the way your son feels that's exactly what happens in our film troy is miseducating corey he's telling him what he's not going to be able to do and what how the white man is going to hold his son now all those things which aren't even necessarily true maybe they were more true or maybe that's the way he felt about it in his time but uh you know it's up to it's up to the adult it's up to the troy it's up to you it's up to me to to to change the message so can i have something like this no i no i don't have any money one more go ahead yeah so what is hollywood role in changing that in imaginary you know you say hollywood there's no place called hollywood you are part of hollywood i'm a part of this human race i'm not a part of any system i'm a human being

Channel: Husam Sam Asi

Views: 586,790

Keywords: Denzel Washington, Fences, African-Americans, Hollywood, دنزل واشنطن, فينسيز, هوليوود

Id: 2tXLCkDOaD4

Length: 8min 46sec (526 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 08 2017