5/29/2006



The last bastion

Infiltrating the ranks of executives and creatives is the current challenge for African-Americans in the entertainment industry

By Stephen Galloway


The news seemed terrific: When Charles Holland was named president of the Writers Guild of America West following Victoria Riskin's resignation in January, it seemed an indication of how much distance blacks had traversed in Hollywood. Decades after the guild's creation, it had selected a black person as its leader for the first time, and he would spearhead the group's imminent negotiations with the studios.

Within days, though, any cause for celebration was tossed on its ear amid questions about Holland's resume. Skeptics raised eyebrows about the scribe's claims to have served in a Special Services unit of the U.S. Army and to have played football for the University of Illinois, leading to a vote of confidence by the WGA board that resulted in a tepid 10-6 victory for Holland.

Holland's fate seems emblematic of the situation in which black artists find themselves throughout the business: Each bit of good news is accompanied by a bit of bad.

"Like (Charles) Dickens, it's the best of times, (and it's) the worst of times," says actor-director Tim Reid (the "American Legacy Television" specials). "On one hand, you have several people of color making $15 million or $20 million a picture, and there are more blacks working in the industry than ever before. Things are better -- we need to say that and accept the sky is not falling. However, it's not in Hollywood's nature to change. Why would they define my culture as being as important to them as to me?"

It would be foolish to say that blacks have not made vast strides in Hollywood. Actors such as Will Smith, Halle Berry and Denzel Washington have demonstrated consistent boxoffice appeal and are thought of for roles whether they are written for blacks or whites; directors such as Antoine Fuqua (2001's "Training Day," the upcoming "King Arthur") and John Singleton (2003's "2 Fast 2 Furious") are pursued avidly by the studios, and writers such as John Ridley (1999's "Three Kings") and Antwone Fisher (2002's "Antwone Fisher") are well-paid insiders toiling within the studio system.

Nor is that the only good news from the recent past. MGM's low-budget 2002 release "Barbershop" proved that black films can reach a large popular audience beyond the niche exploited by movies such as the Fox releases "Waiting to Exhale" (1995) and "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" (1998). The proof: MGM's "Barbershop 2: Back in Business" opened to an impressive $24.2 million last month, bouncing another black movie -- Screen Gems' hip-hop comedy "You Got Served" -- into third place after its own stellar $16.1 million opening.

On an equally positive note, this year's Sundance Film Festival showed that a host of talented black directors are waiting in the wings, ready to answer Hollywood's call. Four of the 16 documentaries in competition were black-themed, from PBS' "Citizen King" (about Martin Luther King Jr.) to "The Fight" (about Joe Louis' 1938 heavyweight championship bout with Germany's Max Schmeling). Other black films at Sundance included Vondie Curtis-Hall's "Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story," a true-life tale about a gang leader's prison transformation; and Mario Van Peebles' "Baadasssss!" which, ironically, charts the difficulties encountered by his father Melvin in making his seminal 1971 black film "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song."

But scratch the surface of this positive news, and the picture becomes more clouded. Van Peebles was unable to raise studio financing for "Baadasssss!" even with Michael Mann attached to produce. "It didn't fit into the films they are expecting from African-American filmmakers -- it wasn't a broad ha-ha comedy or a shoot-'em-up-in-the-hood (drama)," he says. "The notes I got back were, 'Is this movie for black people or white people?' I said, 'It's for human beings.'"

Ultimately, Van Peebles made his film for a mere $1 million on an 18-day shoot, with funding from Showtime. It will open in two theaters -- as did his father's picture three decades before -- and no foreign distribution is yet in place.

Even the first "Barbershop" movie, which earned $75.1 million domestically, failed to earn anything close to that overseas, confirming industry prejudice that black-themed material is a tough sell abroad.

That is a notion which might be difficult to reverse, though black filmmakers like Reid scoff at such an idea. "There are 350 million black folks in just six locations: South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, Europe, America and the Caribbean," he says. "That's 350 million black folks who want to see what I am making. I've just got to get it to them." Adds actress-director Kasi Lemmons (1997's "Eve's Bayou"): "There is more to the world than Europe. There is Africa; there is Brazil. There are different places where these films can find an audience. For some reason, the thinking seems to be (that) if it doesn't sell in England, it doesn't have a foreign market -- but the foreign market is huge."

Problems of distribution have haunted many of the black films that screened this year at Sundance, which by and large have failed to find distributors or likely will be limited to small-scale niche releases. Curtis-Hall says his $5 million "Redemption," despite being widely praised, is unlikely to be seen in movie theaters in North America -- though it will be shown on FX and, unusually, in theaters abroad.

Many of the most talented blacks working in Hollywood continue to lament the limitations imposed by an industry that seemingly refuses to budge from its belief that the 36 million-strong U.S. black population is too small to justify investment in a picture -- even though blacks make up a disproportionately large part of the moviegoing audience. When these filmmakers are embraced, it usually is with one caveat: comedy, comedy, comedy.

"In terms of the stereotype, there is no question that comedy is king," says Tina Andrews, an Image Award recipient for her 2000 telefilm "Sally Hemings: An American Scandal." "If you have the ability to write a joke as a black writer in Hollywood, you will get work. What is unfortunate for us is that it is very difficult to sell anything else. We are firmly entrenched with the desire to sell product to a group of younger people who want that quick-in-a-hurry fun stuff; it is difficult to sell the dramas."

It is even more difficult for the actors who wish to perform in them.

Djimon Hounsou, after making an enormous splash in 1997's "Amistad," had to wait years before receiving his first Oscar nomination, for the 2003 Fox Searchlight release "In America."

"It is obviously a little bit of a challenge," he says. "You don't have the opportunity (some others have) because there are not so many projects geared toward African-Americans."

Black writers find that they are restricted in other ways: to writing black-themed material.

"It's probably natural that someone would assume that I might be able to write a story that has black characters because I'm black -- it's a cultural understanding you have to have," Fisher says. "So I don't feel offended when people approach me to write stories that have black interest -- but I am also interested in doing other stories, where black people are not the main characters."

All too often, blacks' successes are perceived as one-hit wonders -- as was the case with "Bayou." Despite that film becoming a blockbuster success in indie terms, Lemmons still struggles to get serious-themed black movies made.

"I am going through a similar battle now," she says of a new movie she is trying to make: "The Battle of Cloverfield," about a small Southern town that becomes haunted by its ghosts. "Any time you as an artist are thinking outside the box, it gets a little bit harder. It would be much easier for me if I were trying to do more standard fare, something more like 'Barbershop.'"

Hollywood has not been lacking in black stars. In addition to Washington, Smith and Berry, Eddie Murphy has been a bankable star for two decades, and others -- from Cedric the Entertainer to Ice Cube -- have begun to demonstrate boxoffice clout. Given their prominence, how does one explain the continuing dearth of blackthemed and black-targeted movies?

The answer, most insiders believe, lies within the studios, among the executives who greenlight feature films and the human resources departments that have been unable to stimulate significant affirmative action within the studios' production ranks.

While women have risen to the top ranks at the studios, the only black executive to have done so is Richard Parsons, chairman and CEO of Time Warner, a position that gives him enormous clout but keeps him removed from day-to-day decision-making at the company's filmmaking units, Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line.

Beyond that, there has not yet been a single black person named to head a studio, nor a single black production chief. Furthermore, at the studios, there are nearly no production executives from the black community.

Each of the major studios has a diversity program, but how much difference they make within the film arena is questionable. A Fox spokesman says three midlevel executives are being mentored within that studio's movie divisions, but a Time Warner spokesman was unable to reveal details about how many blacks hold production posts at that company.

"This is hugely important in that, oftentimes, the nuances and the cultural thing that black people just get on a DNA level, a studio executive who is not of that same experience may not understand," Curtis-Hall says. "He is making a decision about who is going to see that movie without knowing the answer."

Still, veteran filmmaker Bill Duke (1992's "Deep Cover") cautions against viewing that as a panacea, noting that black executives would be under as much pressure to boost the bottom line as are other executives, making them afraid to take risks on unproven fare.

"They would also have to address in no uncertain terms the demands of the quarterly report," Duke says. "It is nice to have a black face there, but if that black face does not meet the demands of the quarterly report, that black face will not be there for very long."

But the absence of such "black faces" from studio decision-making nonetheless limits the receptivity felt by black writers -- the very people who are initiating projects -- and, many observers say, creates a form of self-censorship that leads scribes to think twice before initiating black-specific material.

"I have to think carefully if I want to do something that's going to be shown anywhere but on my computer," Andrews quips.

Will that situation ever change? Many point to employment statistics indicating a slow but steady rise within the writing and acting arenas.

WGA statistics show that the number of minority writers employed in primetime TV rose from 135 in 2001 to 205 in 2002, and that 13% of total primetime writing jobs went to minorities in 2002, compared with 10% the previous year. Most of those jobs were on sitcoms, and statistics for film work were unavailable.

In addition, a report issued by the Screen Actors Guild in August notes: "Latino performers realized a net increase of 379 roles (in 2002), driven primarily by episodic television. Their share of total TV and theatrical roles rose to 6.0%, an increase from 4.8% in 2001.

"African-Americans realized a small increase of 39 roles and also gained their highest share of roles ever: 15.5% of all roles cast, an increase from 14.4% in 2001."

Optimists note studios' increasing willingness to cross ethnic lines in their casting: Queen Latifah's Oscar-nominated turn in 2002's "Chicago" and Morgan Freeman's roles in a slew of movies including 1997's "Kiss the Girls" and 2002's "The Sum of All Fears" are cases in point. More promising still, black artists see hope in a DVD and video market that has created an audience for lower-budget black pictures.

But most of all, they see optimism in their willingness to fight.

"We can sit back and keep berating the system, or we can create our own empire," Reid says. "If enough of us do this, there is room for everybody. We keep going to the same colored (drinking) fountain saying, 'Ain't enough water!' Well, build another fountain!"

Adds Fisher: "I don't think our situation is so dismal. I just think everything is a fight, and it is a fight for everybody."