More THEY'VE GOTTA HAVE US

About five posts down from this one is my "See THEY'VE GOTTA HAVE US" review. It's a documentary series from Great Britain that focuses on Black actors and filmmakers, here and in the U.K., as they tell us about how they've persevered tell their stories and to get work not weighed down by stereotypical images. The first hour was very interesting and revealing. I just finished the second hour. That one is even more so. In honest and insightful interviews, we see Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr., the late John Singleton, Robert Townsend, director Kasi Lemmons and Debbie Allen and Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi opens up about making THE COLOR PURPLE with director Steven Spielberg.

The second hour opens with talents telling how the work of Spike Lee has had a great impact on their lives and the way American viewed Black people. I've written before that, after decades of watching classic film presentations and network classic film channels, it irritated me that we never saw Black people hired as regular hosts. It was as if we didn't know anything about classic Hollywood and foreign films. Spike Lee is a fan of classic MGM musicals such as SINGIN' IN THE RAIN and AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. The first hour of THEY'VE GOTTA HAVE US showed how they influenced one of his films. The second episode of THEY'VE GOTTA HAVE US opens with the opening credits of DO THE RIGHT THING. Rosie Perez does that fierce dance to Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." Spike's inspiration for that opening came from Ann-Margret solo onscreen singing the open to BYE BYE BIRDIE. He said so in a radio interview.

Because of Hollywood notions from white executives of the kind of roles Black actors should play, we learn that the Cuba Gooding Jr didn't work for about six years after starring in the excellent and substantial BOYZ N THE HOOD. Laurence Fishburne had a major role in the critically acclaimed APOCALYPSE NOW and then couldn't get any auditions. Fishburne, who then booked a comedy role as Cowboy Curtis on the weekend TV kiddie show, PEE WEE'S PLAYHOUSE, tells his touching account of meeting a talented teen named John Singleton.

Director Kasi Lemmons and Debbie Allen give us deeper insights on the hard work of trying to get stories made about Black people and to tell them through the Black gaze -- not a Caucasian Hollywood exec gaze. Director Taylor Hackford -- who is white -- tells a story about pitching the Ray Charles biopic he directed. RAY brought Jamie Foxx the Oscar for Best Actor of 2004. You've got to hear Taylor Hackford's story.

Keep in mind that Norman Jewison, whose IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1967, wanted to direct a film version of the Pulitzer Prize winning play, A SOLDIER'S PLAY. He was stunned at the Hollywood studio resistance that greeted him. Executives told him "Black stories don't sell." He worked for way less than his usual fee so he could raise money to make it. Make it, he did. Retitled A SOLDIER'S STORY for the big screen, it got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture of 1984. Jewison 's credits include FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR starring Steve McQueen, THE CINCINNATI KID, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR and MOONSTRUCK.

Robert Townsend was in A SOLDIER'S STORY. He talks about that and making the brilliant satire, HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE. His account of the real-life drama he and Eddie Murphy had dealing Caucasian Hollywood execs and lawyers over the X-rated language in Murphy's comedy concert, RAW, filmed and directed by Townsend, is like a Murphy comedy monologue in itself.

You know that I had a talk show on VH1 in the late 80s. Some of my guests were Norman Mailer, Dominick Dunne, Anne Rice, Shirley MacLaine, Sally Field, Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, Meryl Streep, Joan Baez, Carlos Santana, Raul Julia, Phil Collins, Alan Rickman, John Cleese, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, Paul McCartney, Whoopi Goldberg and Spike Lee. After my three great years on VH1 concluded, I signed with my first agent. I wanted another national talk show opportunity and I wanted to audition for good supporting roles in comedies -- like what my VH1 co-worker, Rosie O'Donnell, did in A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN and SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE. My white agent submitted me to audition for the role of Thug #1 in WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S II. In the script pages I got, the sequel called for two black thugs to perform voodoo with a boombox, some dice and a bucket of fried chicken on a corpse in the men's room of Times Square porno movie theater. At the audition were the white screenwriter, the white director and the white producer. The character in the red jacket is the one I was submitted to play. Here's a clip from the 1993 movie:

Stereotypical Casting. The struggle is real, folks. The struggle is real. I cordially left that agent within a year. I highly recommend episode 2 of THEY'VE GOTTA HAVE US now available on Netfflix.