“What gets me i…

“What gets me is that so often the expression of the African-American experience that is acceptable and applauded by the industry is not coming from us. They are stories being told from the outside in. Interpretations of the black female experience, as opposed to reflection, are valid. All we are saying is our reflections are also valid. What our films have in common is they are showing reflections of who we are. They need to be just as valued, just as heard, just as critiqued and distributed as our white male counterparts’ interpretation of us.” – Ava DuVernay

African American female filmmakers are speaking out about the homogeneous representations of the Black female experience in Hollywood. 

Raging Against the Machine

Advice from an industry heavy hitter.

I have a few industry colleagues who feel similar sentiments when it comes to producing and promoting positive media. Having conversations with them lets me know I’m not alone in the struggle. It’s like we’re raging against the machine, storming the fort, taking the Alamo. I mean, I don’t want to paint us as some heroic figures in media coming in on white horses to save the day. Certainly we’re not that self righteous. But we all have a common belief that its time for the landscape of media to change and we’re the ones to do it. Each day we all get up and work toward our goal of changing the piece of the world that is under our influence. Some of us have regular 9 to 5 gigs, others of us would be included in the “freelance” aka “starving artist” category; it’s feast or famine for us. Since launching the campaign to raise money for the online TV network, I’ve been called everything from brave and brilliant to foolish. And sometimes I, like my cohorts, second guess why I’m even doing this. I wonder is it going to work, do people really understand what I’m saying, why don’t I just get what everyone else calls a “real job” and sit down at my desk every day and cash a check on Friday. But that’s not what I’m created to do. And that’s not what my other creative deviants are built for either.

One thing that I must say has bothered me about this entire process is that industry people, the people you expect to get it, really don’t get it. They understand the concept. They think its “noble.” But then they revert to saying how it just won’t work in this dog-eat-dog field. And I respect them for their opines and warnings. I know it comes from a good place because they’re trying to warn me not to set myself up to fail. You see, Hollywood is all smoke and mirrors built on formulaic models that are time tested and proven to turn profits. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be compelling, doesn’t have to inform, barely has to entertain. We’re desensitized to media so much at this point that we passively watch TV and movies because we’re so busy on social media. Our attention spans are divided so much that they can feed us fluff while they eat off the ratings before we can post a status about it on Facebook. A colleague of mine, Kyra Kyles (who by the way has an awesome webseries you should check out) posted a status on Facebook today that just about summed it up:

Y’all playing with me now, right? Joseline, Steebie J, Honey Boo Boo, NeNe and ‘nem can stay on the air, but there is a real-life petition begging people to renew the fantastic, insightful “Save My Son” with Steve Perry? It’s not a no-brainer to keep a show that is saving young Black men from the streets? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the Mayans were right…

The great thing about the digital shift though is that it doesn’t take us to be blockbuster hits or prime-time prizes to turn a profit and create compelling, entertaining and informative content. Not to mention our hearts are in it. This is what we would do for free, most of us are doing it for free until we can turn a profit.  Check out the following TV and film producers on the rise. They’re doing it. I’m doing it. And it will be done.

Chanelle Yarber (yours truly) – BrightGirl Media Online TV Network

Araia Tesfamariam – Big Araia the Film

Sherhara Downing- The Sherhara Show

Colen Wiley – Heygood Images

Charell Star – Startup NYC

Tiara Williams – Reel Righteous Entertainment

Are Black People Losing Their Voice?

The issue of race and responsibility is everywhere in the media. Whether you see it or choose to ignore it, there has been a slow trickle to what seems to now be a quick shift back toward negative and stereotypical images of African Americans in media. I grew up on shows like A Different World, Living Single, Teen Summit and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. These shows displayed positive images of young blacks who were in college, career driven, socially conscious and being exposed to a different lifestyle than living in the ghetto. But it seems that slowly but surely through the onset of the millenia, these shows went off the air and were replaced with displays of golddigging, bickering black women, black men whose only hopes are at playing ball and rocking a mic, overly sexed women and blatantly disrespectful, womanizing men. In 2000, BET was purchased by Viacom from its black owner and founder Bob Johnson. Since, the network has been on a slippery slope to stereotypical buffoonery in mine and many other educated black people’s opinions. What started off as the one and only platform for African Americans has turned into something else. This leads me to question: Are Black people losing their voice?

BET’s original co-founder, Sheila Johnson has voiced her negative opinion of the network she and her now ex-husband created in 1980 to be an outlet for African Americans. When asked about the current state of the network after being sold to a multimedia conglomerate, she said:

I think we squandered a really important cable network, when it really cold have been the voice of Black America, We’re losing our voice as a race as a result. I’m really worried about what our young people are watching. There are so many young people who are using the television as a babysitter. We have parents who are not being parents and not monitoring what their children are watching.

She went on to say that she doesn’t watch BET and suggests to her kids that they don’t either.

I’m ashamed of it, if you want to know the truth.

Johnson isn’t the only one with similar thoughts, but it makes the point more poignant that one of the people who set out to create something positive is disgusted by what it has become over the years. Current CEO Debra Lee has a different opinion of the network’s lack of social conscience. She’s been cited as saying the reason the network has failed to produce and air more positive programming is that its audience doesn’t have an appetite for it.

Over the 28 years I’ve been at BET, we’ve tried different shows, series and nightly news, and it’s always a matter of what are people going to show up to watch. We started a new show called Don’t Sleep! With T.J. Holmes, which is supposed to address these kinds of issues. It’s designed to be a mix of entertainment and news and commentary. We hoped it would have been a Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert-type show.

This dialogue leads me to a series of other questions to add to the first: 1) Who determines the programming, the audience or the network? 2) Should BET be criticized for its aversion to being the poster child for black awareness? 3) When does responsibility end and exploitation begin? Share your thoughts here.