Inside Black Hollywood

Just over a year after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Henry Louis Gates Jr. enrolled at Yale University, one of the unprecedented 96 black freshmen entering the Ivy League school in 1969. The civil rights movement had made possible this vanguard that would help usher in a new era for African Americans. But Gates and his fellow students would struggle between the two forces that tugged at them--the “black power” radicals on one side, the assimilationists on the other.

Gates would go on to a stellar academic career. He went from Yale to Cambridge, where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees. He taught at Yale, Cornell and Duke universities before joining the Harvard University faculty in 1991, where he is the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities. His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship (1981), Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans” list (1997) and a National Humanities Medal (1998).

Widely acknowledged as one of the leading thinkers and writers on African American culture, Gates’ latest project is a PBS documentary and accompanying book that explores the state of Black America at the start of the 21st century--in short an attempt to assess what the divergent forces of the ‘60s have fostered. In “America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues With African Americans” (Warner Books), Gates seeks out the famous, as well as everyday people, for their thoughts.

In the introduction to his book, Gates writes: “It has long struck me as curious that African Americans often speak differently--more colorfully and openly--when talking with each other behind closed doors, as it were, than they do in interracial settings. . . . I wanted to capture that more spontaneous and less inhibited voice.”

The charismatic Gates, commonly known by his nickname, “Skip,” succeeds in his talks with figures ranging from Colin Powell to Maya Angelou to Jesse Jackson. In this excerpt from the section titled “Black Hollywood,” Gates explores a society “where the fantasy world stands in stark contrast to the painful realities lived each day by the residents of Los Angeles’ South-Central neighborhood,” where “the two black worlds of class and consciousness collide, sometimes bizarrely, but always in splendid living color.”

Until recently Hollywood screen icons were mostly white. Today, they come in Technicolor. In 2002, for the first time, three African Americans even received the top Oscar awards, forcing many of us to wonder if racism in Hollywood is a relic of the past. Halle Berry’s widely quoted acceptance speech declared that Hollywood, one of the most contentious battlefields in the civil rights movement, had at long last opened its doors to people of color.

Hollywood is famously surreal, a million miles away from Harvard, where I teach. I’m here to discover what it’s like on the inside, for black people: whether or not Halle and Denzel Washington’s recent Oscars do spell equal opportunity for black people in Hollywood. Where does fantasy end and reality begin?

I have to confess that Los Angeles has grown on me. It’s like a sprawling F.A.O. Schwarz for adults: The sun always seems to shine, it never rains, and everyone is dressed to kill. The people here wear the faces of America’s future: black, caramel, sepia, beige, white--multicultural eye candy.

It’s so easy to fool yourself into thinking that you’ve left the East Coast’s hierarchy of race and class behind, that it’s different here. In Los Angeles people tell you over and over: the only color that matters is green. . . . It’s money, not race, that powers the machine.

Hollywood is not long on history, so I wanted to get the perspective of a veteran of the business, someone who has witnessed and participated in change over the past three decades. One of the most talented actors in Hollywood today, and one of my cinematic heroes, is Samuel L. Jackson. He fitted me into a busy day in a voice-over studio in Santa Monica.

“In Hollywood many individuals are very liberal without a doubt

“There are many ways to answer the question,” said Jackson. “The direct and honest answer, I guess, is yes, only because Hollywood is anti-anything that’s not green. . . . Hollywood can be perceived as racist and sexist, because that’s what audiences have said to them they will pay their money to come see.”

“There’s now a critical mass of black actors. That’s unprecedented, isn’t it?” I said.

“For a very long time the people that were in power were white men,” he said. “As we get younger producers and younger people in the studios, we have a generation of people who have lived in a society where they have black friends. They have Asian friends. They have Hispanic friends. . . . So all of a sudden you see a different look in the movies, as they reflect the way this younger generation of producers and studio executives live their lives.”

Without what Hollywood thinks of as a universal sort of light-skin beauty--”light and bright and damn near white,” as they used to say--it can be a rocky road in the film industry for black women. How does Hollywood decide who’s got this look and who hasn’t? I was invited to lunch with a group of struggling young actors and actresses to discuss one of Hollywood’s darkest secrets: the color line within the race, where complexion matters even among blacks.

“In Hollywood, when you’re talking about playing opposite your leading males, I call it color coding,” said one of the actresses.

“Is it white people who are making these decisions?” I asked.

“It’s both. It’s the industry. I’ve experienced it more with black people.”

“I was 18 years old in 1968, the year of ‘Black Is Beautiful,’ ” I said, “and I never dreamed that in the year 2002 we would be sitting around in somebody’s living room, in a place like Hollywood, talking about the whole industry being color-struck.”

“But who said black is beautiful?” said one of the actresses. “Black people say that. Who’s running Hollywood? Not black people!”

“Do you think that black people are as color-conscious in Hollywood as white people?” I asked.

“Yes,” said another, “because they have to follow the rules; they’re not the ones who make the ultimate decision.”

“How do you know when it’s a matter of race, and when it’s a matter of your own lack of talent?” I asked.

“When you see a TV show, or when you see a commercial that you went out and read for, and you see that on TV and you look at the person they chose, and you look at yourself and you know what you did in that audition--that’s when you know.”

“You’re not kidding yourself?”

“Are all of us kidding ourselves? Can you see this woman who’s sitting here--black men looking at her would say she is beautiful. Can you see her playing opposite Sean Connery? A white woman the same age, not as attractive as her, would get that part, purely because of the color of her skin and for no other reason.”

So black is not beautiful in Hollywood. I can’t believe that in the 21st century, such small variations in skin tone can make or break a black woman’s career. Despite all the progress we’ve made, it’s as if dark complexions are not universal, or not beautiful. That light-complexioned ideal goes all the way back to the 1920s and ‘30s, starting with Fredi Washington, Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge, and extending all the way to Halle Berry and even Alicia Keys. Their great talent notwithstanding, their beige color certainly helped their careers. “If you’re black, get back; if you’re brown, stick around; if you’re light, you’re all right.” I guess that old black saying still holds true.

I met Nia Long, a star of the hit black movies “Boyz N the Hood” and “Love Jones.” I wanted to find out if the superstar roles--and salaries--remain elusive for black women even when they have enjoyed box-office success.

“Whether you’re black, white, purple or yellow, it’s harder for women,” she said. “Men can be gray and balding and they’re seen as being just sexier. . . . There are very few movies where you see an older woman with a younger man. The minute a woman goes into menopause it’s like, ‘Oh well, you can only play a grandma now.’ Women have a shorter time span in their career to get in there and hit it good.”

“Do you think you have suffered more because of race or because of your sex?” I asked.

“Black women are discriminated against more because of race than because of gender, in my opinion. . . . When Matt Damon has a love interest, they don’t go, ‘Oh, let’s bring in Nia Long--we really like her work.’ They might say, ‘Well, sure, we’ll see her.’ They don’t want to say no, because they don’t want to feel like, ‘Oh, my God, we said no to the black girl.’

“I think their racism is totally unconscious,” she continued. “I understand the machine. I understand that it might make more sense to put Cameron Diaz in ‘Charlie’s Angels.’ All I ask as an artist is that we be given a chance, not as a favor or a mercy meeting or on account of a guilty conscience, but just so the game is fair.”

Who can disagree with Nia Long that actors should be judged only on talent and that factors such as race or color should be irrelevant? But will that ever be the case? I went to Venice Beach to meet Don Cheadle, whose credits include “Devil in a Blue Dress,” “Traffic” and “Ocean’s Eleven.” Many say he is the most talented and versatile black actor to emerge since Samuel Jackson.

“Do you think that black actors and directors sometimes use race as a cover, as an excuse? Or are they right when they say the place is racist?” I asked him.

“If we were talking about the way America really looks, rather than the way movies look, then there would be more work for black actors, directors and producers in Hollywood, and for others of color as well,” said Cheadle. “Of course, there are myriad reasons why one actor doesn’t get a certain part. If I get turned down for a part, I can’t attribute it solely to the fact that I’m black. But it’s obvious that I am, so I’m sure that’s always a factor in any thought process about whether I get hired.”

“But does it help when politics enter? When the NAACP comes in?” I asked.

“Acting isn’t bricklaying,” he replied. “If you have a skill for laying bricks, you can do it no matter what you look like--if they hire you. . . . When it comes to casting, you can’t just say, ‘You have to hire these five black people or these four Asian women,’ because not everybody can do it. . . . Yes, we do need more numbers, but if the stories aren’t intriguing, engaging and entertaining, and if it doesn’t hold together as a whole, then just sticking a bunch of people in a product that’s ultimately not going to be that good doesn’t help either. In fact it does just the opposite. . . . Most movies are not very good; most pieces of art are not very good; most CEOs of companies are not very good. That’s why, when they are very good, they’re exemplary, and we go, ‘Oh, my God!’ They’re lauded, because mediocrity is what’s rampant. Excellence is rare.”

For all of the appeal of the camera and the glamorous life of successful actors, the power to effect long-term change in Hollywood lies behind the camera. If we can’t green light films yet, when will we be able to? How much influence do black people have behind the scenes?

Reginald Hudlin is the director of two of the most profitable black films in the history of Hollywood--”House Party” and “Boomerang.” He is also a keen analyst of Hollywood’s racial politics today.

“There are no black people who can green light,” I began. “When’s that going to change?”

“The studio system--the permanent government of Hollywood, the agents, the managers, the studio executives--is a hard business for black folk to break into, because the skill set that is required to do that is very complicated,” said Hudlin. “On the one hand, you have to hang out with these agents and drink and go whitewater rafting and do all this kind of assimilationist activity, where you have to feel sincerely comfortable in that mix. At the same time, you have to have a level of aggressiveness that is required to make it in the business, period. Black or white, you have to be a driving personality. And that kind of aggressive personality, when executed by a black person, can be very scary and intimidating to white people. But without that, you’re not going to make it.

“As if balancing those two weren’t enough,” he continued, “you’d better be on top of the current trends and personalities in black culture, because your white bosses expect you to have all that down cold. But if you have all this assimilationist skill with whites, then you aren’t necessarily listening to the new Wu-Tang record. And the black cultural landscape is so vast! You’ve got to have the kind of bohemian black thing covered; you’ve got to have the ghetto black thing covered; and stay up on all the white stuff that all your white colleagues know. So balancing those three things is really, really hard.”

“Hollywood wisdom says that black films don’t have crossover appeal,” I said. “What does that mean?”

“Let’s take a step back from the phrase ‘black movies,’ ” said Hudlin. “What does it mean? In Hollywood, ‘black’ is only used in the negative. Eddie Murphy isn’t considered a black star. He’s just a movie star, the same way Egypt isn’t part of Africa. So black only counts in the negative. Look at ‘Training Day’--black director, black star. Is that a black film? I would argue it is.”

What about the idea, entrenched in Hollywood, that black movies don’t sell overseas? I asked.

“Today, hip-hop rules in Japan, Germany and Sweden. So the idea that they’re buying all this black culture in every other medium overseas, but somehow in films it won’t work, is absurd,” Hudlin told me. “The cultural gatekeepers are the problem. The distributors, the marketers on the international level, do not know how to take this product and sell it to these particular markets.

“A lot of times it’s not about racism at all,” he said. “It’s laziness, because when you have a new product and a new idea, someone’s got to come up with a new marketing plan. That means they’ve got to work late. They may have to skip lunch. Nobody wants to work late and skip lunch. I’m not saying everything’s some evil racial plot with people rubbing their hands together. Sometimes it’s just people who are lazy, who don’t want to do anything they’re not accustomed to doing.”

I love the color and rhythms of Crenshaw; for me, this is the soul of Los Angeles. It’s a haven for black musicians, artists and filmmakers who want to remain in touch with their roots. Crenshaw is also the neighborhood that director John Singleton depicted in “Boyz N the Hood,” one of Hollywood’s most profitable black-themed films. Despite his phenomenal success, he still lives in nearby Baldwin Hills, and keeps his office there. Singleton shot “Boyz N the Hood” for $6 million. Twelve years later, he makes films with budgets 10 times that.

I wanted to ask Singleton how he manages to strike a balance between a desire for commercial success and maintaining his integrity--in other words, making a profit while keeping it real?

“You’ve broken through the glass ceiling,” I said to him. “You can make any film you want. How does it work?”

“I always say that if you make a film that is even moderately successful, it allows you to make another film, and if you make a film that is wildly successful, that means you’ll be able to make three other movies.”

“Where are you in that food chain?” I asked.

“I’ve been directing just 12 years and I’m going into my seventh film,” he said. “I started directing when I was 22 years old, and I’m 34, so I’m a veteran at a young age still. I’m cool now. . . . For me, it’s been a level playing field. And I haven’t had to kiss nobody’s pale ass to do it.

“This business is not about just expressing yourself and your culture,” he said. “You have to sneak that into your movie. I don’t go into somebody’s office and say, ‘I want to make this movie ‘cause I really want black folks to know this.’ I say, ‘People will want to go see this movie because of this and this, and this is what they’re feeling, and this is what’s going on on the street. Believe me, this is going to sell 700,000 copies on DVD and video, and it’ll only be made for this amount, and I think it’ll turn a profit of about $50 million.’ It’s not about all that other stuff. It is about all that other stuff, but you can’t come on like that.”

Before I leave Hollywood, there is another director I want to meet. Neither a megastar nor a power broker, he’s one of many talented young filmmakers working for their big break. His name is Reggie Rock Bythewood, and he is in the midst of a struggle with the studios that speaks volumes about race.

“I was sitting in a room with the head of a studio, on a project that I had assembled a superlative cast for--amazing African American actors whom a lot of people know,” he explained. “These are people who are willing to be in a film that I put together, and an executive went through it and said, ‘But here’s a black face, here’s a black face, here’s a black face, here’s a black face.’ The frustration on his part was that there were not more white faces in the film.”

“Does he want you to rewrite it and put more white faces in it?” I asked.

“It’s basically, ‘Reggie, don’t take this personally, but to make this film, we have to make the lead white.’ And I didn’t take it personally, because I’ve been prepped. My entire career has prepared me to understand that that’s how it works a lot.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no. That wasn’t the film I was going to make. . . . My motivation was I’m gonna do a movie where you’re not going to hear the word nigger; you’re not going to have people running around with guns; you’re not going to see brothers with bottles of [beer] in their hand. This is going to be a hot film. But make it white? Well, go ahead then. But that’s not why I’m here.”

Can commercial success still be equated with the number of black faces onscreen? When will a film be just a film--not pigeonholed as “black” or “Hispanic” or even “white”? When will scripts be peopled with the best actors, their color or complexion incidental or irrelevant?

The growing number of smart, sophisticated black actors and directors is bringing this day much closer. Scene by scene, film by film, they are changing the industry from the inside, using the only language Hollywood seems to understand--box-office success. But even they would admit that we still have a long way to go.

Because of these pioneers, I have no doubt that there will one day soon be a black studio executive with the power to green light a film. I am confident of that. But will he or she force Hollywood’s old habits about race to change? Or be seduced by the lure of all the glitter and keep things essentially the way they are? I wonder.