February 26, 2019 • 53 mins
Hello again, nerds, and welcome to another Horror filled episode of Nerdificent! This week Dani and Ify are joined by Writer and Director, Xavier Burgin, to talk about his film ‘Horror Noire’, a documentary about the representation of Black people in Horror films (the first of its kind). Starting way back with ‘Birth of a Nation’ up to where we are today with ‘Horror Noire’. Curl up and get ready for a history lesson on this weeks episode of Nerdificent!
FOOTNOTES:
For the Filmmakers Behind This Timely Documentary, Black History Is Black Horror
NBC: 'Horror Noire' shines a much-needed light on the history of African-Americans in horror films
VERGE: The Enlightening Doc 'Horror Noire' lays out Black History through Black Horror Films
VULTURE: 'Horror Noire' is a Lively, Essential History Lesson
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You know what, how are y'all doing, Nerd fan? This
is nerdifficent. I'm iff you way way and sitting cross
from me as always, Danny Fernandez, I'm doing good, Iffy.
It is the Oscars just happened. Yeah, oh oh by
this time, right, yeah, the Oscar has just happened. I'm
either very excited about the Black clansman when or just
(00:35):
pretending like I don't care. I'm very excited that into
the Spider verse one arety calling that? Or I will
have someone edit this on Monday. I'm very excited at
that beep uh today. You know, man, we have a
powerhouse of a guest, a good friend of mine. We
(00:58):
worked on a thing together way back when it was
it was like a you would have liked it, Danny.
It was like if Peter Pan went to college, and
you know, I was me. It was our mutual friend
Christopher in Cell, right, Okay. I was afraid that I
was describing something we did not work on together, because
(01:18):
that's how bad my memory is. But I totally remember,
because I remember when we first met at that table
read and I was like, oh, because you know, I
just saw your name, Xavier Bergen. But when I saw
that it was a black person. I was like, yes,
thank you. Also, good on Christopher in self for you know,
getting I mean, but it's not like he was doing
you a favorite. This is a you went to USC, right, Yeah, yeah,
(01:42):
I did the whole oh man. Yeah, and you're the
second person I know who went to uh the USC
Film School, and y'all all are doing great things. The
other person was my friend Aaron Covington. Who wait, we
knew another one? Who else? RB three? He goes by
(02:03):
as us. Yeah, I know all of you made a Yeah,
he made a he made a horror film. Ever, his
h got a lot of coming up. Yeah, I know,
it's exciting taking over RB three Xavier L. Bergen and
Lett's introduce you first and say your whole name because
(02:23):
you know, I know you, so I will just start
talking to you. But yeah, Xavier, you recently had a
documentary come out called Horror Newir that is a study
of the history of black filmmakers in the horror genre.
What kind of got you started on this? Like why
(02:45):
did you want to make this documentary? So he's an
interesting thing I always bring up. So just station of
the actual documentary start with a homegirl Ashley Blackwell, who's
the writer and producer, wanted them on The Bad Boy,
and essentially it was based on the book It's also
called a har noir by Dr Robin Our means Coleman
shout out to her. So essentially she got up with
(03:07):
Stage three Productions and they were like, you know, we
want to make something that's like talking about this thing
that we barely ever see on a regular basis. So
I remember them telling me how, like you know, Shuttle
was interested and they were thinking about it and stuff
like that. And then when Jordan's one was like, oh,
let's let's pick this bad Boy up forget Out exactly,
(03:29):
and then that's how everything really started to like push
forward with it. And once they started getting together, that's
when Shutter and Stage we said like, Yo, we want
to get a director behind this, but we want someone
who's young black who you know, knows some stuff about
this and it's actually like within the culture of it.
And that's when they reached out to me about it. Yeah. Well,
(03:50):
I had been following you, i think this past year,
and so you were known for doing your threads. You're
like you would keep people on the edge of their seats,
but they're there. Yeah, No, I loved it, you like,
it was so funny that you gave people even on this,
like even on Twitter, like which, um, you can use
(04:13):
though as a storytelling platform if you wanted to, you know.
So that's how I got to know you from that.
And then further, um, you are working on a project
with one of our good friends which I can't name
right now, but y'all will be seen that in a
year or two. So but um, I guess what what
got you into horror? Like what was the first movie
(04:35):
or or franchise or something that you remember vividly where
you're like, yes, this is it got you. I guess ignited,
I want to do this. It's so funny. So you know,
he um some a man Tony Todd, so you know,
loving to death. And when we're at the premiere for
Horror Noir, one of the things you brought ups like
everybody always brings up Oh man, we watched candy Man.
(04:57):
Watched Candy Man's Scared as the Scaredest and it would
like he tony types, how old union like eight or nine?
You know, like why why why y'all watching candy Man
eight or nine? What type of parents do you have.
But the whole thing about it is like I specifically
remember Cannyman and Horizon, those two specifically like scaring the
(05:19):
crap out of me as a kid. I still know
why my parents even let me. Maybe I just didn't
let him know I ended up seeing them, and that
always just kind of stuck in my head for a
long time, even before I was, you know, figuring out
I want to go on the film and stuff like that,
because you know, I'm a cat from like down south,
like you know, Alabama, Mississippi. So growing up as a kid, like,
(05:40):
you know, I'm watching all this type of stuff, But
wasn't nobody telling me that, oh, you know what your
career could be, you could be a filmmaker. Wasn't nobody
saying that for real? For real? So you know, I
didn't really like get to understand the gestation of all
the stuff that I liked until I got a lot
older and realized this was the route that I wanted
to go. Yeah, No, it's it is funny because you know, I,
(06:03):
like I said, since I follow you, I already knew
all about this, and it's such a great concept because
I do think just especially because right now I think
it's safe to say we're in a renaissance of black film.
Like I just said it to myself when I saw, like, uh,
that new film, uh Lina wayit is I think either
producing or directing, and they just showed a teaser but
(06:24):
it's like the two kids and then it has like
the I'm gonna find the name so I can actually
like shout it out properly. But I was like, man,
we're in a renaissance, and it's weird because like it
almost feels like where did it go? Because if you
go back to the nineties, you know, we had t
G I F. You had shows like uh, Family Matters
on the air, Fresh Prints and all that stuff. And
(06:45):
in the horror too you you mentioned a candy Man,
but also uh one of one movie I mentioned recently
that I was so surprised. I mentioned it in the
room I'm in right now and no one else saw it.
But it was so big when I was a kid,
Tales from the Hood, like my anthology. I mean, you know,
some of it, you know, don't hold up as well,
but man if I was just so blown away that, yeah,
(07:08):
it was such a good like we just always have
been making it it's just the spotlight and how much
people are you know, really showing it. And you know,
I feel like the nineties were a time where like
we were making movies, but they always put it in
a box where it's like, oh, that's a black movie,
that's a and I feel like we're finally hopefully starting
(07:29):
to move away from that. You know, you didn't hear
like Moonlight being called the black movie. It was like
the art movie to see full stop and uh and
I and you know, same thing with Black Klansmen, like
you can now you know, have these movies, especially like
Black Panther, you know, like you know, we just talked
about that last week, but a movie like that, you know,
(07:51):
like everyone said, like, you know, it was supposed to
be done in the nineties, and I could very easily
see people just kind of pushing that off to the the
side and be like, that's the black superhero movie for
black people. And now you got you know, people trying
to claim it for themselves, you know, like like where's
my space in what kinda And it's like, well, you
(08:11):
don't need that space, yeah, So you know, all right,
so they reach out to you, you hop on and
I'm assuming one of the first thing, did you read
the book before you did the documentary or like when
you got it your like, let's let me check this out.
So yeah, that's the thing that you know. Of course,
they reached down there like yo, you're interested, Um, you know,
we want you to come in and we're gonna have
(08:31):
you pitched, because you know, they were looking at a
couple of folks. Yeah, and I was like, okay, well
I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do it right, So
sat down, you know, read the book, then literally beast
it out like this, you know, twelve to fifteen page
like you know, a type a little book of how
I wanted to see it, how I wanted the different
errors to come in and go through based on the
book and things to that degree. And of course, like
(08:51):
the nice thing, it's like literally ride and shout out
to you know, actually black one Daniel Burrows had already
like build out something like a huge outline that already
that's up some of the stuff that I was just
now reading, you know, within it. Because they have been
in this word, especially Ashley, for such a long time.
So put it together, send it over to them, they
send it back, Send over. I sent it a couple
of times, like going back and forth to see what
(09:13):
they want any things like that, and then you stop
hitting me up and I was like, oh man, maybe
maybe maybe I didn't get this. And then they finally
got back to me like, Yo, we love this. We
want you to come onto this and you know, start shooting.
And I was just excited for it, because you know,
the thing for me is like, you know, I love films,
you know, I love what I do, but I also
(09:33):
love it when I see black folks and the black
and brown folks and that bad Boy. So to have
something that specifically spoke to us that with us was
huge for me. That's the type of stuff that I
want to see in the first place. So for the
me to be a director of it, to be a
part of it, that's crazy. And honestly, when I was
first making I was like, Okay, I'm coming here to
make this Bad Boy. Maybe it blows up and not,
(09:55):
who cares, Like, I'm just happy to be making this,
And I would have never expected the type of viral
success that's like been happening with it, Like that was
not something I was thinking about whatsoever, but it came
with it. Yeah, yeah, and is have you done a
documentary before this? So on suit very very small, like
you know, small short dots. So I did a documentary
(10:17):
back in two thousand and eleven about the tornado that
hit um Alabama, tech Loose Alabama. Back in the day.
I did a documentary that specifically dealt with what it
meant to be like a black woman in the mental
health system. So like that was way way back before
See and all that type of stuff. But you know,
coming into SC and all that stuff, I focused so
much on narrative. So when they finally hit me back
(10:38):
and I'm like, okay, I'm doing the doc well, you
know it's been a second, but you know I'm down
for this. Yeah. Yeah, No, that's because that's what I
was saying. A lot of your work is narrative. So
I was wondering what did that shift feel like? Because
I feel like that almost just from a personal you know,
I guess film fan perspective would give you an edge
because I find the best document documentary are one that
(11:01):
tell a story. And you know, the argument is that
all documents do. But I find that when you have
a narrative director behind it, their brain is already in
that mode that you're kind of pushing the story more
than I feel like a lot of docs can get
heavy on the information and kind of feel disjointed and
not flow as well because of that. Uh is did
(11:22):
you feel like you had that advantage or where you like, look,
I'm I'm just trying to make their vision come true.
What an interesting thing when you look at her and
are like, you know, for the most part, it really
it literally is clips from a whole bunch of movies
and talking heads, like you know, it's usually what folks
will be like, Oh man, that's what it's gonna be. This,
I don't want to watch the documentary. But what we
(11:47):
make sure we wanted to do because we literally dealing
with like going for the nineteen hundreds to like the
present day, And what we realized is we needed to
not only make it informative, but it needed to be fun.
It needed to be interesting. It needed to be the
type of thing where like you're enjoying yourself as you're
as you're listening to all this type of stuff. And
that's something that I think we did a great job with.
(12:09):
And but I think even before I came in with
with the entire production team with the producers, with Ashley,
with Danielle, they all understood that if we're gonna get
folks to watch this, it needs to be fun while
also being informative in giving you the type of lessons
that like you're not gonna get anywhere else, um, because
you know, to be one held you like, I love
(12:30):
USC to death, amazing school, so happy I went there,
but you know, quite literally going to the school, there
are no classes like this. There's there's nothing like this,
like whatsoever. Like the only place I can think of
right now is Dr Coleman's classes that she teaches at
her university. And then also Tonna Reeve Do who does
the Sunken Place courses at u c l A. Um.
(12:54):
I remember when I remember when you sent me the
screening and I watched it and I ediately messaged you
because this quote from it just stuck out so much
to me, and it was it said, black history is
black horror. Can you like talk about that quote and
how and how y'all tackled that in the documentary. Well,
I mean, the big thing to understand about that quote is,
(13:16):
you know, for a lot of white folks, they have
to find the other to be scared of, whether that
is black people where that it is like you know,
a monster from a lagoon, whether it's um, you know, robots,
there's it's always a standing for something because in a
lot of ways, America is set up to be a
nation where white folks tend not to have the type
of things that truly like you know, um oppressed or
(13:39):
scare them in the same way, whereas black folks, so
much of the system is set up to oppress us
that you know, for us, a horror is dealing with
the police, a horror is dealing with the judicial system.
Like all those type of things are scared to us
because it's a real life thing in what we deal
with as black folks can be and usually is very horrific.
(14:01):
So it's it's what we wanted folks to understand. What's that,
you know, you take it all the way back to
like you know that film Birth of the Nation one,
like you know d W. Griff and it's you know,
white folks, but I mean they they showed it in
the White House, like Woodrow Wishon was like, man, I
love this, I like that. Probably it's still playing there
(14:27):
to day, like literally back back during that time, they
were like, this is the most accurate representation there is
what and you got to think about, like this quote
unquote revolutionary film to white folks during that time, is
pushing the Ku Klux Klan as the saviors of America.
(14:53):
I don't think it needs to It can't be understated
how horrifying that had to be for black folks to
not only see our lives portrayed in this way, to
again have black face at this time and want to
bring up the fact that black uh Frederick Douglas was
talking about how bad black face was back in the day,
so you know, this ain't just no new thing. And
(15:14):
then you have this showing their lives and showing the
folks that are lynching and killing us being held as
the heroes. There is no words harder than that. And
what we needed to show with horror her from you
know d. W. Griffith to um, you know King Kong
two Engagi that a lot of times what you were noticing,
(15:36):
especially back then, was that white folks were either using
us black people or taking our features and pushing them
into standings for us for that fear, and that's something
we needed folks to understand about, like how because the
biggest thing we have to understand, like Hollywood from then
to now is the biggest exporter of culture worldwide, Hollywood
(16:00):
shows on the screens is what more often than not,
the world thinks of certain people. And it's a horrifying
thing to think about that for such a long time
and even to this day, that we still have these stereotypical,
horrific and unfair characterizations of black and brown people as
(16:22):
the other, as something to be scared of. And that
was a very big point we had to make clear
upfront when it came to the documentary. So I never
heard of, seen or known about this in gagy movie.
And then I just did a quick search and I
(16:43):
was like, damn, we only seventeen minutes in it. I'm
already mad. So just just a quick brief for anyone.
In God is a nineteen thirties pre code exploitation film.
It purports to be a documentary about Sir Hubert Warrens
Wednesday of London on an expedition to the Belgian Congo,
(17:03):
and depicts a tribe of guerilla worshiping woman encountered by
an explorer. The film claims to show a ritual in
which African women are given over to guerrillas as sex slaves,
but in actuality was mostly filmed in Los Angeles, using
white actresses in black face in place of natives. It
was produced and distributed by Nat Spitzer's Congo Pictures, which
(17:24):
had been formed expressly to make the film. Although marketed
under the pretense of being an ethnographic film, the premise
was a fabrication, leading to the Motion Pictures UH Motion
Picture Producers and Distribution Association to retract any involvement with
the film. So, yeah, that's that's what that is for
those who might be wandering. That's such a good point.
(17:45):
And that's and to really get into that. We talked
about this a little bit in The Horror and even
furthermore in Twilight Zone, and that fact that true horror
UH kind of borrows from real human nature, and and
then that kind of using that same psychology, This all
makes sense. And that's why I like get Out is
such a simplistic idea and why it's so powerful. And
(18:09):
it's so powerful when you really have to understand that
you really don't have to be black to get get
out and get why it's scary, But it goes that
much further when you are black and that and it
is crazy to think that you know, yeah, they really
were just afraid of us, you know, back then for
them to just do this in And this also shows
(18:32):
the power of media and how like films like this
can perpetuate so many stereotypes and so many unearned fears
that you know, someone can see a child and think
they have these superpowers because you know, this type of
stuff is just threatened in the DNA. Uh. And it's like,
you know, I think I made this kind of correlation before,
(18:54):
but as creators, that's something I don't take lightly. And
just like Uncle Ben said, as with great power comes
great responsibility. There's power to your words. There's power to
the things you create, and they can have good consequences
and they can very much so have bad consequences, like
these movies like Birth of a Nation and Engagi and
it's and it seems like it's a great mind in
(19:16):
the zitgeis brain thing too, because um, I don't know
if all of y'all saw Black Klansmen, but they also
splicing clips from Birth of a Nation and you can
see and it and it is jarring to see, like
if you did not know that was the movie. You
would think that it's something fabricated by Spike Lee to
know that that is a thing that people went and
(19:36):
and in the same way they were doing in the movie,
like watching it like a popcorn flick. That's what people
were doing. I mean, like you said, it was played
in the White House. Um. But you know, that's why
I think things like like Core Noir is so important
because we still are talking about birth of a Nation,
(19:58):
like we might have gotten Gaggy. I'm sure they are
praying we forget those movies, but like, yeah, no one
is out here like highlighting the other stuff that we
that you cover in the film. And I actually want
to get into it and really start talking about like
those black films. And we'll do that right after these
messages and we're back. And I did want to say
(20:24):
before we hop in if he I saw you on
Twitter today batting for Rod Sterling with all the John
Wayne stuff, because it's so frustrating that this excuse that like,
oh everyone was racist back then, and it was like Noah,
and I went back and I watched that interview and
what it was because remember we were saying that Rod
Sterling was really which is great because you know, Jordan
(20:45):
is now taking over that mantel I'm doing twilight Zone.
Um Is. I watched that interview that I was talking about,
and he and the story he wanted to tell was
on Emmett Till and the studio kept essentially bastardizing it
and changing it to the point that it was unrecognizable,
where he was like, I no longer am going to
be a part of this, but he did try. Like
(21:06):
That's the thing though, is that he was saying, no,
they kept trying to censor us um to the point
that they got into this discussion about pre censorship, and
it was essentially that writers would um not even try.
They wouldn't even because because what we were saying with
Twilight Zone, which I'm so excited to see what Jordan
is going to deal with it, is that a lot
of those stories were about people of color and what
(21:27):
they went through but this but studios wouldn't let them
essentially show it. So instead it had to be an
alien or it had to be you know, something like that,
because it was easier for white audiences to feel sorry
for an alien than for a person of color. I know,
I mean, I I always call that even though this
comes much later, the The X Men Effect where made
a hole like that whole series is about racism, but
(21:50):
they had to use mutants to get it, and and
it still didn't work if you look at some of
these comments from comic Comic book, still work. He tried,
he did everything. He gave you all the clues, Mr Policeman. Uh,
let's yeah, so let's talk about some of these films.
So not a Living Dead, that is super cool. It's
actually if you haven't I mean, I don't know how
(22:11):
you haven't seen it, but if you haven't seen it,
you can watch it. I believe it's fair use. You
can watch on YouTube. It's only a bunch of different
cinema platforms that you can check out. But that was
really important. I remember that. And even though spoiler, I
guess it's not a spoiler because it's like what fifty
or sixty years old that he dies, but I do
know that that was It was such a stark contrast.
(22:31):
Then when get Out happened that it was like having
not having to go through that again, like getting to
actually have a having your protagonists live. Yeah. Yeah, it's
a huge thing because you know, you know, so not
a living dead like was truly made it amazing? Is
you know You've got Dwayne Drums as a as the
inneritative character in there, and it's this black man who's
(22:55):
taken over everything, who's beating up white people, taking out
white zombies. And you know, Tanana Reeve brings it up
in in the documentary where I'm she said, like this
has to be horrifying. Is he something like this to racists,
like you know, for them to see stuff like this,
especially with everything that was going on in the late
(23:15):
you know sixties, you know, around that time, and the
juxtaposition with it is like, you know, as powerful as
it was what happened to him, he still got killed
at the end. And while that might be realistic or
feel right, I think what made Get Out so strong
is that, like, you know, we've seen the realistic stuff
we've seen you know, black men in like you know,
(23:36):
prison suits. We've seen us get constantly killed and maimed
and lynched and destroyed not only in real life but
also in film and then also in horror films. So
you know, one thing that Uh Jordan brings up in
the documentary is the fact that, like, you know, the
reason why he went to right, he did where he lives,
and he succeeds and he gets out of it. Is
(23:57):
because you know, as black folks, we needed something to applaud,
we needed something to lift up. And like essentially and
sometimes happening to the nineties two with Tells from the Hood,
where we're not getting the justices that we need in
real life. So at least in some things in entertainment,
in the films that we're making, can we see some
(24:20):
of this restorative justice that we're not getting, you know,
right now in America? And that's something that was true
back then and in the sixties, during the nineties who
tell Us from the Hood, and then even more so,
like you know, with get Out, Coming Out, and that
was just it was huge, Like literally I still remember,
you know, being to get out and seeing them you know,
cock the cock car come up and I still remember,
(24:43):
like you know, some of the white was like, yes,
he's okay, and you know, I'm just likely I mean, yeah, exactly,
that's that's all I see some cock cars. I see
them size. That's not a good thing. So to to
to see my man come and it's not a con
and it's his homeboy and He's like, Yo, let's go,
(25:04):
we getting out of here. That was that was huge.
That was huge because that's not something we get to
see on a regular basis for you know, black people,
for black characters in in films in general. Like a
great example is, have y'all got the chance to watch
bird Box? Yeah? Saw it? Yea, yeah, yeah, So you
know I enjoyed bird Box. I enjoyed it. But you know,
(25:26):
folks act well, you know, we're doing so much better
and things are like, you know, changing, and you're not
seeing the same stereotypes that you saw back then. No, no, no,
no, no no, no, let's talk about a little rail. In
bird Box, he meets them maybe like twenty minutes into
the film, maybe five to ten minutes later, he's like,
(25:47):
you know what I'm gonna do with this, you know,
crazy zombie man like trying to get inside. I'm just
gonna run straight in there, and I'm gonna sacrifice myself
for all these white folks. And that's literally the sacrificial Negro.
That is one of the stereotypes we see on a
regular basis all the way back to the nine hundreds
too now and we're still dealing with those type of
(26:11):
stereotypes that we need to push back against. In the
film that came out that came out this year last
yea literally this year, like right now this year, the
two of them like little and intrevante, you know, And
I guess maybe you can kind of say like O
came around with the people, he came to love a
little bit. Mo. I never liked the fact of that
one that you know, it's like what two, three, five
(26:31):
years later and he still got an immaculate haircuts that
like did you save your Barbara? And then he died
five days before they found you. Also, he was just jacked,
like right, because you have a different body Like even
(26:53):
I was like, even if you're lifting like logs and stuff,
your body type is a little bit different than like
straight up just doing squats to eat so much to
keep that that that huge pack them biceps. I was like,
not not realistic, y'all. But what we pay attention to
those two specifically, like again like who lives in the
(27:15):
uh in the Sandral book, in the Little Kids and
our two black characters. You know, we don't see any
black woman in it. I don't think we saw any
black woman in it, but the two black carreters. We
had the two men, both of them. We're justified or not,
We're still the sacrificial negroes, which is a trot we
see on a regular basis even now in h Well,
(27:36):
it's it's funny because you you see these things, unless
you're like actively trying to combat it, you do see
these things pop up because it's just so as creatives,
we put out what we ingest, and unless you're actively
trying to go against the grain, actively looking at the work,
because sometimes you know, right now I'm writing, you know,
(27:57):
going through like doing rewrites on once it right now,
and going through I see myself do certain things and like,
you know, so like the lead of this show is
supposed to be an Indian female. That that's that's what
what the current plan is. But the name isn't you know,
particularly Indian. It's just a typical what what would be
(28:19):
perceived as a quote unquote white name. And because of that,
I find myself, you know, just falling into the trope
of like in my head, are automatically making her white?
And then you know, and then you know, obviously we'll
be like, no, well, what what speaks to her? Because
obviously the one of the showrunner is Indian, so he's like,
this is this is this would be like this, that
(28:40):
would be like that type of stuff. And it's so
crazy how quickly like if you don't explicitly make in
your mind that this person is this race, your mind
defaults to white because that's all the media we've been
taken in. And that's and when we're like, Okay, I'm
just trying to create some of what I've been watching
you do that. I had to do that when I
(29:01):
started writing sketch, because you know, right around the time
I started writing sketch was pointed out that you know,
I think we had the issue with U. S and L,
you know, where they had no black women, and then
in general most comedy things were heavily men based. So
when I wrote sketches, I just would make it half
and half, no matter what. Fift me women and and
(29:23):
like the question be like why are you doing it?
Why not like, oh, you're just trying to, You're just
trying to, And I was like, yeah, I am, because
the only way to change it is to change it,
and there's no reason when you look at like I.
And that's what I found is when I would go
back and look at the rooms, like there's no reason
that this person has to specifically be you know, uh,
a man. There's no reason there whereas like, you know,
(29:47):
we when you make like a person of color or
a woman and thing you like the just the description
of which, by the way, I actually haven't seen uh
night have Living Dead uh most because like I was like, oh,
I typically don't care for black and white movies, mostly
because I'm like funny enough, like, oh, well, that's just
(30:08):
like old movies made for white people. I didn't know
the lead was black. I would have saw this yesterday,
you know, like like but the thing of them at
the way, like him being in this role in eight
it was the It was the first time an African
American actor was cast to star in a horror film
and one of the first times in American cinema where
(30:28):
a person of color was given an important role when
the script does not explicitly call for one. And that
and that's how it was. So it's funny how like
like we had to work past you know, them doing
black face, and then after that, like it was only
if you were playing like a slave, you know, or
if you watch a lot of old Western since that's
(30:48):
in the zeitgeis right. Now, you know, you had uh,
Mexicans playing Mexicans and you had Native Americans sometimes playing
natives like you had to be your person, and that
seems to be the weird like new de facto argument
against diversity in film wars, like well, we should just
have people playing the roles they do, like you know, like, oh,
(31:11):
this is actually great. It's what uh Vigo Mortenson when
they kind of brought up like the writer of this
and why you know it's a white writer and black
and he was like, well, he was like look if
if if This was a very hilarious clip because when
you watch the faces, they are all types of shade.
But he's like, but if you know me, Herschela wants
(31:32):
to write a story about a white or an Italian
guy from YadA, YadA, YadA, he can do that, so
we shouldn't be saying X should be X. And I
was like, well, there's a difference because there's like you're
thinking about it in a totally different way, like like
for example, if we go back to the room example,
like I said, my showrunners Indian, so he is making
(31:55):
sure there's authenticity there when you have, like you know,
and I'm saying, I don't think any white person could
ever write black stories or black roles. But there there's
a level of authenticity that isn't gonna set off their alarms.
And sometimes you run into the mistake of just just
re skinning a white roll. But there's like levels to
(32:16):
people of color. Their experiences are different. There's gonna they're
gonna react to things differently. One of our good friends,
I won't say his name because you know, not trying
to blest this out, but he was doing a short
and and in the short he was saying like it
was him and his buddy, they're both black, and they
like they were too high in the short, and so
(32:39):
they were like, let's call the cops. And he was like,
we black people would never do that. Black people, you
would never call the cops if you were too high.
And and you know, obviously the wider you know, I
got a little we got a little like defensive, and
he was like, oh, well you know this, and it's like, no,
that's someone telling you of the experience. And I could
have told you right there, like no, they that wouldn't
(33:01):
be their first instinct to call the cops. That's never
their instinct. Ever, we were if you and I were
on a panel. I think it was at Wonder Con
or something, but it was with Steven L. Sears, who
remember he was the writer for zena Warrior Princess, And
even on the panel he was like, um that excuse,
Like he was like, it's actually the easiest is to
write for straight white guys because that's the world that
(33:23):
we live in. That's the world that's been set up
for them. It's actually the easiest to rite for them
because that's how that's the world that cinema has been
reflective of and everything is you know in this world
is reflective of them, and it's much harder to write
a different perspective. Yeah, and it's and it's all mostly
because you've shared that experience. I'm hoping ten years down
(33:44):
the line, after Xavier's fifth Academy Award, you know, a
young white kid can write a black story because he's
just obsessed with Xaviers movies. And even then there still
won't be that full authenticity, but at least he'll have
a little more information than he does. Now, what would
you watch? Now, here's something I want to bring up
to that I think is interesting. So we're having all
(34:04):
of these discussions about diversity and inclusion and um, you
know how we want to get more you know, black
folks and brown folks women into these roles. And you
know a lot of folks think that, oh well, this
is a new discussion, this is only happening recently. That's
not true, like literally, okay, So taking it back to horror,
you take it all the way back to you know,
(34:25):
the the nineties nineties and you have you know, Oscar
me Show and you have Spencer Williams. So you know
these guys, did you know films like Son of Ingagi
or The Blood of Jesus or you know, Marching On.
This was literally in the you know twenties, thirties and
(34:46):
forties too black men. Now most folks know Spencer Williams
um from Andy and Amos, which is gonna Old Susco
and then Oscar michhow was quite literally this black man
who was sick and in the in the in the
early nineteen hundreds was sick of the betrayals of how
black folks were being done and said, I'm gonna self
(35:08):
finance my own films so we can see the actual
black experience from our own eyes. So again, like you know,
anybody who's listening to this, go look them up. Spencer Williams,
Arsking Me Show. These were Caster was doing this type
of stuff from the nineteen hundreds to like the nineteen
forties and fifties before things, you know, things started to
(35:30):
get more centralized and they got you know, boxed out,
especially Arsking Me Show. But it speaks to the fact
that the problems that we're facing right now in the industry,
there's two cats, two black men that were trying to
combat this almost like you know, fifties, sixty years ago,
like you know, even further back than that, And that
(35:50):
speaks to how just ingrained this is in the idea
that this is now just a new issue. It's just
not it's not true. It's not true. We've been dealing
with this for a long time to where I can
literally give you examples of folks trying to combat this,
specifically in a genre of film from the nineteen twenties
(36:11):
and thirties. Like you know, it's just it's crazy to
even understand that that's like something that we have in
the first place. But it speaks to the fact that
these type of pushes that we're trying to do. It's
not new. It didn't just starting twenty This is something
that's been, you know, happening all the way back over
(36:31):
a century ago. And really it's just the fact that
for a lot of folks, they're just now hearing about
it or caring about it. Yeah. I did want to
say before we wrap up on that A Living Dead
that George A. Romero you touched on this on the
documentary that he was saying if you kind of what
you were saying, that they didn't specify that they wanted
(36:52):
a black actor. It just so happened that Duane Jones
was the best actor that they saw, so it was like,
he has to have it. I think that is amazing.
And I know for you and I like, like you
were saying, I realized, in working on these rooms and
now seeing casting and what they bring in, if you
don't specify of all ethnicities, if you don't write that
(37:14):
on there, they will default to white. And I started
to realize that working in these writers rooms where I
was like I had to specifically put it on there. Um,
it's just so frustrating. It's frustrating. Um. But we will
get into more of these films. We just have to
take a quick break. We're going to continue the conversation
right after this can welcome back. I hope you enjoyed
(37:43):
those messages. We are back still here with my man's
Xavier Bergen uh Danny also sitting across from me. Now
that we've checked everyone in, let me posit another question.
So we talked about Night of Living Dead. So what's
another you know, black horror film you talk about in
the movie that you know, what's maybe one that you
maybe didn't see before, something that kind of uh, I
(38:05):
don't know, surprise here. You went to film school, so
I doubt there's many things you haven't seen before. So
you know, interestingly enough, like you know, of course I
had had heard of it a lot, and you know,
you heard jokes and stuff about it. But it wasn't
until I jumped into doing this that I finally watched Blackula.
(38:26):
And here's the thing. You know, a lot of folks,
it's just a old, you know, black sportation film. There's
nothing good or interesting or powerful or culturally connective about it.
It's just you know, throw anything from you know, back then.
But during that time, Blackula was huge, absolutely huge, in
the Black Sportation era, and on a bigger level, it
(38:49):
was directed by William Marshall, like a black man. And
here's the thing, Like you go back to the seventies,
there was there wasn't no black folks who were actually
helm directing and writing films like it just wasn't like
the Black exportation era, you know, black exploitation. And the
whole thing about it was that like while we were
(39:10):
finally getting you know again Tonano reeved and dcor Um
robint Armans Coleman brings it up that we were getting
on the screen, you were seeing us, but the representation
of us was not good because you know, we were all,
you know, pimps, hose, you know, slapping folks, shooting stuff,
shaft type of stuff, the pimp type of stuff. And
the whole thing about it is what made Blackla really
(39:32):
stick out was that William Marshall was a twenty three
year old black man directing this type of film. Like,
first off, it'sn't heard of for a black person to
even get to direct at that time, still not easy now,
but for him to be twenty three years old doing
this is unprecedented, and he brings up I mean one
(39:52):
of the One of the biggest things that really stuck
with me is when we were doing the interviews for it,
and you know, Willen Marshall was talking about this and
he specifically brought up how even though he was the
director of the film, everyone else underneath them we're all white.
Everyone else above him, we're all white. And he literally
(40:14):
had to fight fight with them to actually get off
the vision that he was trying to make, because even
for them, it still was like this, this is a
black man direct and he doesn't need to have the
type of power that we would give to a you know,
a Ra Marro or someone else you know that was
(40:34):
you know, doing this type of stuff. And what killed
me a little bit is he talked about this and
you could tell that this was a man who did
something that was culturally important, but he didn't get to
have the career that he should have. If you go
up and look up his credits, he looked at William Marshall.
(40:55):
He did Black like he did a couple of other
things TV stuff, but it's not how much there and
you realize that he made one of the biggest films
in the seventies, the early seventies, and that still wasn't
enough for him to actually build out a career as
a filmmaker. And it's just crazy to think about the
(41:17):
marginalization that comes into that and what that means, and
how like, you know, if we didn't have someone like him,
we wouldn't be able. I wouldn't be able to do
what I'm doing right now, like we wouldn't be able
to do during now without William Marshall. But to the
regular person, they don't even know Black, they don't know
William Marshall, or they treat Black as a joke without
(41:37):
understanding how culturally significant that is, not only within horror,
but just within the larger film history. What were some
of them films that you did enjoy, I mean aside
from get out, Like, what were some of the other
films that you talked about in the documentary that you
did actually that weren't as problematic? Oh man, So all
(41:59):
of them? Okay, unfortunately, a lot of them, no matter what,
are somewhat you know, probably so I think a good
example is, like, you know, the Girl with all the Gifts.
I don't know if you guys have seen that one.
I haven't, but I saw a like it was a
side by side film comparison, I was like, oh, I
need to see this so like, for example, that one
is amazing. It's it's a really good film, like and
(42:19):
wants you check it out, and you know, it's kind
of reminiscent of not Living Dead in that, like they
weren't trying to make it for a little black girl,
but you know, she came in. She just killed it
and they decided to go with her. In the social
commentary that came out of it, being specifically a black
girl made it and again Tonana rebrought this up. It
just made it sharper and stronger and more uh concise
(42:43):
in comparison to maybe if they had just done it
with a little white girl or you know something you
know to that degree, Um, I'm trying to think of
something else that you know, Pops, because all of them
like it's only really recently now, like of course you
think of tales, talesmanhood like you know, of course, I
think that it's one that you didn't have some problematic
stuff there, um to you know, to a degree, you know,
(43:04):
one of the big things Paula I think about a
Paula Jay Parker and seeing like you know, women getting
beating things to that degree isn't great, but it's still
pushed a lot of the restorative justice that we weren't seeing.
And literally, I remember one of the episodes had like,
you know, a a guy playing like trying to become
the president and talking about being a real American. And
it's interesting because this was being made back in the
(43:26):
nineties and it's completely reflective what we're seeing with Trump
right now, but then also reflective of what you know,
Ronald Reagan was doing. And the whole thing for me
is like, there is very little difference between Ronald Reagan
and Trump, you know when it comes to this type
of stuff. But just with the question that you're that
you're bringing up because of the fact that you know,
even though all of these feels good and you should
(43:47):
listen to it, you should watch it. Um, there aren't
too many that aren't problematic in their own way because
they still fell into one of the troupe like some
of these tropes, or they were still being done by
white folks like for example, Canny man Cannon is amazing.
I love Kenny man Um, It's great, Tony Todd is
amazing it. But again it falls again that one falls
specifically into one that we were seeing all the way
back for Birth of a Nation, where it's still this
(44:08):
black man. He's a villain, he's magical to a degree,
but he's a black man who is still coveting over
this white woman that he has to take in. And
you know that's just like we gotta see it again,
or you know, you take Abby for example, from the seventies,
where it's this black woman and she is killing people
by death and that literally you can say it's a
(44:35):
it's an expiration of sexual lisperation, but you could also
see that, like there is this thing about black womanhood
being scary to a lot of people, especially black sexuality,
because one of the things they do to black men
and black women is either they're over sexualizing us or
they're de sexualizing us. So you know, that's a problem.
I think the only thing, the only film I can
really really think about that if you want to see
something where doesn't fall into these type of tropes, and
(44:56):
it's just truly amazing, artistic, strong film is guns you
in his You should take out the time to look
up that film and to watch it. It's absolutely amazing.
It's very artistic, made back I think it was back
in the seventies at that point, and it was a
film that's very smart for his time, dealt with you know,
what it means to be a vampire, a black vampire,
(45:17):
and like, you know what it means to to deal
with addiction and you know, using that you know, via blood.
But you know, one of the things we bring up
in the in the documentary is so interesting is even
and it's something that that you brought up if you were, like,
you know, there's something culturally that we as black folks
are as a black and brown person, you're gonna understand
about your culture war that maybe a white person can't write. So,
for example, in that movie, the main character a vampire,
(45:40):
well to do rich established he's still scared of the police,
still scared of the police as a vampire that could
take them out, but he's still worried about that. He's
still worried about the white folks around him because even
at becoming this supernatural creature, he still has to think
about some of the things that we as you know,
black folks have to deal with from the first place.
(46:01):
So if there was any film that as a horror
buff or a film, you know, a ficionado obviously say
that that you should go check out from back in
the day at least take out the time to go
watch ganjan Hes. So for everyone listening this is this
is definitely a film fan uh film nerd episode. Uh.
(46:22):
Just a quick by the way, Ganja and Hess came
out on four nine, which, based on the title alone,
is tight. Uh. But what give give your elevator pitch
to Hord no Noir and why why our listeners should
check it out right now as soon as this episode ends.
(46:45):
Harvard Noir is a documentary that literally has never been
done before. There is no documentary that deals with the
history of African Americans, Black Americans from the nineteen hundreds
to prey in within the horror genre. You are quite
literally seeing the first film of is kind. It is historic.
(47:10):
Be a part of it, learn something new, find out
about a history that most folks in America are not
going to teach you about. That's why you should watch this. Like,
watching this is allowing yourself to be a part of
history being made, and I think that's important. Oh, if
you're not already downloading it, I don't know what else
(47:31):
is gonna get you to watch it. Thanks for listening.
By the way, shout out to everyone in the nerd
fan for all your suggestions. We get into it. Y'all
got a lot of things that y'all want us to cover.
We're gonna get to it week by week. That's a
job security. So I'm not even mad about I did
want to say so, I just a gunja and Hessan
Dwayne Jones is the star of it. Yes, so Doyanne
(47:54):
Dwyane is just He's a He's an amazing actor like honestly.
And and one thing I want to bring I do
want to bring up in this life for anyone that's listening. Um,
you know you'll be able to find me on social
media and stuff like that, but I'm not. I'm not
here to plug my social media. What I want to
tell folks, if you like a black and brown you're making,
you know you're making your horror feature, your horror script.
(48:16):
Hit me up straight up. I want to read what
you're making. I want to find the next thing and
it doesn't need to be get out, but if it
deals with us and it deals with horror, reach out
to me. I want to find these stories because I
want to keep the history of horror noir going because
(48:37):
the whole thing about it is we just don't need
a documentary. We need to see more of these films
being made and put out there. We're having a renaissance,
but that renaissance doesn't happen without the type of people
who are out there who want to get this type
of work made. And I want to be a part
(48:59):
of that as a writer but then also has directed.
So if you've got an idea, you've got a script.
It's hard. It's deal with black and brown folks. Reach
out to me, eat look at this. Every week we
give people more info on how to break into this industry. Yeah, yeah,
I know, this is this is I feel like we
went ran the true gamut because we got we did
(49:22):
uh development, and then now we're doing film. That's a
good thing. I hope y'all. I hope everyone's having a
good time. I mean, I don't know everyone here has
had a long day. I know it was like man,
but you know, uh, you know me. If you on
(49:45):
social media, I F Y n W A d I
W E on Twitter and Instagram, feel free to wish
me a happy birthday. Today is my birthday. Yeah, when
it drops it's going to be my birthday. No, my
type A wrote down your birthday already. Yeah, yeah, no,
I'm planning a little something for us to do, so
I'll be in touch. But yeah, you know if if
(50:08):
he's on Twitch. Thanks to all the nerd fam coming
in and y'all are starting to get way active in
that discord. So thanks for pulling up discord dot g
g slash Salt Squad. We got Nerdive sent once again.
Shout out to Fleckery for always dropping those footnotes in there.
So if you're too lazy to click on the app,
it's right there waiting for you. Shout out to Uh,
I'm gonna I'm gonna shout out some more mods. Definitely
(50:31):
gonna shout out so I said flak Largo since is great.
You know he loves Danny's post. Danny has helped him
a lot. Uh so big big shout out on that.
Danny just speaking out and being herself as really he
always tells me. I feel like he doesn't want to
bug Danny, so I just know you can. I get
(50:51):
overwhelmed sometimes, but I try to tweet and respond to
most of all. Good. Now you're making it seem like
I was being salty, but I was just saying it. Uh.
You know. Also Razarick those guys for holding it down
always flew for one of my new mods doing your Thing,
and also marred by guests because he was complaining that
I shouted at all the other mods out and not
(51:11):
him on the podcast. As for shows coming up, you
can catch your boy. Uh, you'll post about it. I'll
post about him to look there. Danny Well Xaviera was
going to say, where can people catch horn Noir? Oh? Yeah,
so you can find horn Noir on shutter dot com.
You can find shutter dot com or you can pick
(51:32):
up Shutter streaming app and either. Thing I'll tell everybody is,
you know, they've given out a seven day free trial,
so y'all know what that means. I'm not gonna say
anything else, but you know what that means. All I'm
asking you to do is just watch my documentary and
if you stay, stay but you know, just watch the documentary,
(51:53):
tweet about it. Please let them know that you watched
it because so many I've seen so many people tweet
about it in the community. Yeah, it's it's been amazing
how many folks are and literally if you watch it,
hit me up on Twitter x l n B or
hit up horror noir film on Twitter. Um, you'll find
me on Instagram XLMB stories, hard nor Film on Instagram
(52:18):
or just hard normal on Facebook. Let me know if
you're watching it and if you like it. I love it.
It's literally my first feature film, so it's it's it's
it's a fresh rod and tomatoes. I want to see
y'all tell me how dope go? Tell um? Um, I'm
at miss Danny Fernandez on all the things, and uh yeah,
(52:40):
I don't know. Follow me on Twitter because that's where
I tweet my my shows and my appearances and stuff.
So um oh yeah. Thank you to everyone that's been
going to te public dot com slash nertificent and showing
us in your merch. We love it. We love it
so much. And Iffy and I have been reposting on
our instant stories and sharing, and thank you to every
and that took a second to go rate us on
(53:01):
iTunes and really doesn't make a difference. We appreciate y'all,
and as we always say, stay nerdy.
You know what, how are y'all doing, Nerd fan? This
is nerdifficent. I'm iff you way way and sitting cross
from me as always, Danny Fernandez, I'm doing good, Iffy.
It is the Oscars just happened. Yeah, oh oh by
this time, right, yeah, the Oscar has just happened. I'm
either very excited about the Black clansman when or just
(00:35):
pretending like I don't care. I'm very excited that into
the Spider verse one arety calling that? Or I will
have someone edit this on Monday. I'm very excited at
that beep uh today. You know, man, we have a
powerhouse of a guest, a good friend of mine. We
(00:58):
worked on a thing together way back when it was
it was like a you would have liked it, Danny.
It was like if Peter Pan went to college, and
you know, I was me. It was our mutual friend
Christopher in Cell, right, Okay. I was afraid that I
was describing something we did not work on together, because
(01:18):
that's how bad my memory is. But I totally remember,
because I remember when we first met at that table
read and I was like, oh, because you know, I
just saw your name, Xavier Bergen. But when I saw
that it was a black person. I was like, yes,
thank you. Also, good on Christopher in self for you know,
getting I mean, but it's not like he was doing
you a favorite. This is a you went to USC, right, Yeah, yeah,
(01:42):
I did the whole oh man. Yeah, and you're the
second person I know who went to uh the USC
Film School, and y'all all are doing great things. The
other person was my friend Aaron Covington. Who wait, we
knew another one? Who else? RB three? He goes by
(02:03):
as us. Yeah, I know all of you made a Yeah,
he made a he made a horror film. Ever, his
h got a lot of coming up. Yeah, I know,
it's exciting taking over RB three Xavier L. Bergen and
Lett's introduce you first and say your whole name because
(02:23):
you know, I know you, so I will just start
talking to you. But yeah, Xavier, you recently had a
documentary come out called Horror Newir that is a study
of the history of black filmmakers in the horror genre.
What kind of got you started on this? Like why
(02:45):
did you want to make this documentary? So he's an
interesting thing I always bring up. So just station of
the actual documentary start with a homegirl Ashley Blackwell, who's
the writer and producer, wanted them on The Bad Boy,
and essentially it was based on the book It's also
called a har noir by Dr Robin Our means Coleman
shout out to her. So essentially she got up with
(03:07):
Stage three Productions and they were like, you know, we
want to make something that's like talking about this thing
that we barely ever see on a regular basis. So
I remember them telling me how, like you know, Shuttle
was interested and they were thinking about it and stuff
like that. And then when Jordan's one was like, oh,
let's let's pick this bad Boy up forget Out exactly,
(03:29):
and then that's how everything really started to like push
forward with it. And once they started getting together, that's
when Shutter and Stage we said like, Yo, we want
to get a director behind this, but we want someone
who's young black who you know, knows some stuff about
this and it's actually like within the culture of it.
And that's when they reached out to me about it. Yeah. Well,
(03:50):
I had been following you, i think this past year,
and so you were known for doing your threads. You're
like you would keep people on the edge of their seats,
but they're there. Yeah, No, I loved it, you like,
it was so funny that you gave people even on this,
like even on Twitter, like which, um, you can use
(04:13):
though as a storytelling platform if you wanted to, you know.
So that's how I got to know you from that.
And then further, um, you are working on a project
with one of our good friends which I can't name
right now, but y'all will be seen that in a
year or two. So but um, I guess what what
got you into horror? Like what was the first movie
(04:35):
or or franchise or something that you remember vividly where
you're like, yes, this is it got you. I guess ignited,
I want to do this. It's so funny. So you know,
he um some a man Tony Todd, so you know,
loving to death. And when we're at the premiere for
Horror Noir, one of the things you brought ups like
everybody always brings up Oh man, we watched candy Man.
(04:57):
Watched Candy Man's Scared as the Scaredest and it would
like he tony types, how old union like eight or nine?
You know, like why why why y'all watching candy Man
eight or nine? What type of parents do you have.
But the whole thing about it is like I specifically
remember Cannyman and Horizon, those two specifically like scaring the
(05:19):
crap out of me as a kid. I still know
why my parents even let me. Maybe I just didn't
let him know I ended up seeing them, and that
always just kind of stuck in my head for a
long time, even before I was, you know, figuring out
I want to go on the film and stuff like that,
because you know, I'm a cat from like down south,
like you know, Alabama, Mississippi. So growing up as a kid, like,
(05:40):
you know, I'm watching all this type of stuff, But
wasn't nobody telling me that, oh, you know what your
career could be, you could be a filmmaker. Wasn't nobody
saying that for real? For real? So you know, I
didn't really like get to understand the gestation of all
the stuff that I liked until I got a lot
older and realized this was the route that I wanted
to go. Yeah, No, it's it is funny because you know, I,
(06:03):
like I said, since I follow you, I already knew
all about this, and it's such a great concept because
I do think just especially because right now I think
it's safe to say we're in a renaissance of black film.
Like I just said it to myself when I saw, like, uh,
that new film, uh Lina wayit is I think either
producing or directing, and they just showed a teaser but
(06:24):
it's like the two kids and then it has like
the I'm gonna find the name so I can actually
like shout it out properly. But I was like, man,
we're in a renaissance, and it's weird because like it
almost feels like where did it go? Because if you
go back to the nineties, you know, we had t
G I F. You had shows like uh, Family Matters
on the air, Fresh Prints and all that stuff. And
(06:45):
in the horror too you you mentioned a candy Man,
but also uh one of one movie I mentioned recently
that I was so surprised. I mentioned it in the
room I'm in right now and no one else saw it.
But it was so big when I was a kid,
Tales from the Hood, like my anthology. I mean, you know,
some of it, you know, don't hold up as well,
but man if I was just so blown away that, yeah,
(07:08):
it was such a good like we just always have
been making it it's just the spotlight and how much
people are you know, really showing it. And you know,
I feel like the nineties were a time where like
we were making movies, but they always put it in
a box where it's like, oh, that's a black movie,
that's a and I feel like we're finally hopefully starting
(07:29):
to move away from that. You know, you didn't hear
like Moonlight being called the black movie. It was like
the art movie to see full stop and uh and
I and you know, same thing with Black Klansmen, like
you can now you know, have these movies, especially like
Black Panther, you know, like you know, we just talked
about that last week, but a movie like that, you know,
(07:51):
like everyone said, like, you know, it was supposed to
be done in the nineties, and I could very easily
see people just kind of pushing that off to the the
side and be like, that's the black superhero movie for
black people. And now you got you know, people trying
to claim it for themselves, you know, like like where's
my space in what kinda And it's like, well, you
(08:11):
don't need that space, yeah, So you know, all right,
so they reach out to you, you hop on and
I'm assuming one of the first thing, did you read
the book before you did the documentary or like when
you got it your like, let's let me check this out.
So yeah, that's the thing that you know. Of course,
they reached down there like yo, you're interested, Um, you know,
we want you to come in and we're gonna have
(08:31):
you pitched, because you know, they were looking at a
couple of folks. Yeah, and I was like, okay, well
I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do it right, So
sat down, you know, read the book, then literally beast
it out like this, you know, twelve to fifteen page
like you know, a type a little book of how
I wanted to see it, how I wanted the different
errors to come in and go through based on the
book and things to that degree. And of course, like
(08:51):
the nice thing, it's like literally ride and shout out
to you know, actually black one Daniel Burrows had already
like build out something like a huge outline that already
that's up some of the stuff that I was just
now reading, you know, within it. Because they have been
in this word, especially Ashley, for such a long time.
So put it together, send it over to them, they
send it back, Send over. I sent it a couple
of times, like going back and forth to see what
(09:13):
they want any things like that, and then you stop
hitting me up and I was like, oh man, maybe
maybe maybe I didn't get this. And then they finally
got back to me like, Yo, we love this. We
want you to come onto this and you know, start shooting.
And I was just excited for it, because you know,
the thing for me is like, you know, I love films,
you know, I love what I do, but I also
(09:33):
love it when I see black folks and the black
and brown folks and that bad Boy. So to have
something that specifically spoke to us that with us was
huge for me. That's the type of stuff that I
want to see in the first place. So for the
me to be a director of it, to be a
part of it, that's crazy. And honestly, when I was
first making I was like, Okay, I'm coming here to
make this Bad Boy. Maybe it blows up and not,
(09:55):
who cares, Like, I'm just happy to be making this,
And I would have never expected the type of viral
success that's like been happening with it, Like that was
not something I was thinking about whatsoever, but it came
with it. Yeah, yeah, and is have you done a
documentary before this? So on suit very very small, like
you know, small short dots. So I did a documentary
(10:17):
back in two thousand and eleven about the tornado that
hit um Alabama, tech Loose Alabama. Back in the day.
I did a documentary that specifically dealt with what it
meant to be like a black woman in the mental
health system. So like that was way way back before
See and all that type of stuff. But you know,
coming into SC and all that stuff, I focused so
much on narrative. So when they finally hit me back
(10:38):
and I'm like, okay, I'm doing the doc well, you
know it's been a second, but you know I'm down
for this. Yeah. Yeah, No, that's because that's what I
was saying. A lot of your work is narrative. So
I was wondering what did that shift feel like? Because
I feel like that almost just from a personal you know,
I guess film fan perspective would give you an edge
because I find the best document documentary are one that
(11:01):
tell a story. And you know, the argument is that
all documents do. But I find that when you have
a narrative director behind it, their brain is already in
that mode that you're kind of pushing the story more
than I feel like a lot of docs can get
heavy on the information and kind of feel disjointed and
not flow as well because of that. Uh is did
(11:22):
you feel like you had that advantage or where you like, look,
I'm I'm just trying to make their vision come true.
What an interesting thing when you look at her and
are like, you know, for the most part, it really
it literally is clips from a whole bunch of movies
and talking heads, like you know, it's usually what folks
will be like, Oh man, that's what it's gonna be. This,
I don't want to watch the documentary. But what we
(11:47):
make sure we wanted to do because we literally dealing
with like going for the nineteen hundreds to like the
present day, And what we realized is we needed to
not only make it informative, but it needed to be fun.
It needed to be interesting. It needed to be the
type of thing where like you're enjoying yourself as you're
as you're listening to all this type of stuff. And
that's something that I think we did a great job with.
(12:09):
And but I think even before I came in with
with the entire production team with the producers, with Ashley,
with Danielle, they all understood that if we're gonna get
folks to watch this, it needs to be fun while
also being informative in giving you the type of lessons
that like you're not gonna get anywhere else, um, because
you know, to be one held you like, I love
(12:30):
USC to death, amazing school, so happy I went there,
but you know, quite literally going to the school, there
are no classes like this. There's there's nothing like this,
like whatsoever. Like the only place I can think of
right now is Dr Coleman's classes that she teaches at
her university. And then also Tonna Reeve Do who does
the Sunken Place courses at u c l A. Um.
(12:54):
I remember when I remember when you sent me the
screening and I watched it and I ediately messaged you
because this quote from it just stuck out so much
to me, and it was it said, black history is
black horror. Can you like talk about that quote and
how and how y'all tackled that in the documentary. Well,
I mean, the big thing to understand about that quote is,
(13:16):
you know, for a lot of white folks, they have
to find the other to be scared of, whether that
is black people where that it is like you know,
a monster from a lagoon, whether it's um, you know, robots,
there's it's always a standing for something because in a
lot of ways, America is set up to be a
nation where white folks tend not to have the type
of things that truly like you know, um oppressed or
(13:39):
scare them in the same way, whereas black folks, so
much of the system is set up to oppress us
that you know, for us, a horror is dealing with
the police, a horror is dealing with the judicial system.
Like all those type of things are scared to us
because it's a real life thing in what we deal
with as black folks can be and usually is very horrific.
(14:01):
So it's it's what we wanted folks to understand. What's that,
you know, you take it all the way back to
like you know that film Birth of the Nation one,
like you know d W. Griff and it's you know,
white folks, but I mean they they showed it in
the White House, like Woodrow Wishon was like, man, I
love this, I like that. Probably it's still playing there
(14:27):
to day, like literally back back during that time, they
were like, this is the most accurate representation there is
what and you got to think about, like this quote
unquote revolutionary film to white folks during that time, is
pushing the Ku Klux Klan as the saviors of America.
(14:53):
I don't think it needs to It can't be understated
how horrifying that had to be for black folks to
not only see our lives portrayed in this way, to
again have black face at this time and want to
bring up the fact that black uh Frederick Douglas was
talking about how bad black face was back in the day,
so you know, this ain't just no new thing. And
(15:14):
then you have this showing their lives and showing the
folks that are lynching and killing us being held as
the heroes. There is no words harder than that. And
what we needed to show with horror her from you
know d. W. Griffith to um, you know King Kong
two Engagi that a lot of times what you were noticing,
(15:36):
especially back then, was that white folks were either using
us black people or taking our features and pushing them
into standings for us for that fear, and that's something
we needed folks to understand about, like how because the
biggest thing we have to understand, like Hollywood from then
to now is the biggest exporter of culture worldwide, Hollywood
(16:00):
shows on the screens is what more often than not,
the world thinks of certain people. And it's a horrifying
thing to think about that for such a long time
and even to this day, that we still have these stereotypical,
horrific and unfair characterizations of black and brown people as
(16:22):
the other, as something to be scared of. And that
was a very big point we had to make clear
upfront when it came to the documentary. So I never
heard of, seen or known about this in gagy movie.
And then I just did a quick search and I
(16:43):
was like, damn, we only seventeen minutes in it. I'm
already mad. So just just a quick brief for anyone.
In God is a nineteen thirties pre code exploitation film.
It purports to be a documentary about Sir Hubert Warrens
Wednesday of London on an expedition to the Belgian Congo,
(17:03):
and depicts a tribe of guerilla worshiping woman encountered by
an explorer. The film claims to show a ritual in
which African women are given over to guerrillas as sex slaves,
but in actuality was mostly filmed in Los Angeles, using
white actresses in black face in place of natives. It
was produced and distributed by Nat Spitzer's Congo Pictures, which
(17:24):
had been formed expressly to make the film. Although marketed
under the pretense of being an ethnographic film, the premise
was a fabrication, leading to the Motion Pictures UH Motion
Picture Producers and Distribution Association to retract any involvement with
the film. So, yeah, that's that's what that is for
those who might be wandering. That's such a good point.
(17:45):
And that's and to really get into that. We talked
about this a little bit in The Horror and even
furthermore in Twilight Zone, and that fact that true horror
UH kind of borrows from real human nature, and and
then that kind of using that same psychology, This all
makes sense. And that's why I like get Out is
such a simplistic idea and why it's so powerful. And
(18:09):
it's so powerful when you really have to understand that
you really don't have to be black to get get
out and get why it's scary, But it goes that
much further when you are black and that and it
is crazy to think that you know, yeah, they really
were just afraid of us, you know, back then for
them to just do this in And this also shows
(18:32):
the power of media and how like films like this
can perpetuate so many stereotypes and so many unearned fears
that you know, someone can see a child and think
they have these superpowers because you know, this type of
stuff is just threatened in the DNA. Uh. And it's like,
you know, I think I made this kind of correlation before,
(18:54):
but as creators, that's something I don't take lightly. And
just like Uncle Ben said, as with great power comes
great responsibility. There's power to your words. There's power to
the things you create, and they can have good consequences
and they can very much so have bad consequences, like
these movies like Birth of a Nation and Engagi and
it's and it seems like it's a great mind in
(19:16):
the zitgeis brain thing too, because um, I don't know
if all of y'all saw Black Klansmen, but they also
splicing clips from Birth of a Nation and you can
see and it and it is jarring to see, like
if you did not know that was the movie. You
would think that it's something fabricated by Spike Lee to
know that that is a thing that people went and
(19:36):
and in the same way they were doing in the movie,
like watching it like a popcorn flick. That's what people
were doing. I mean, like you said, it was played
in the White House. Um. But you know, that's why
I think things like like Core Noir is so important
because we still are talking about birth of a Nation,
(19:58):
like we might have gotten Gaggy. I'm sure they are
praying we forget those movies, but like, yeah, no one
is out here like highlighting the other stuff that we
that you cover in the film. And I actually want
to get into it and really start talking about like
those black films. And we'll do that right after these
messages and we're back. And I did want to say
(20:24):
before we hop in if he I saw you on
Twitter today batting for Rod Sterling with all the John
Wayne stuff, because it's so frustrating that this excuse that like,
oh everyone was racist back then, and it was like Noah,
and I went back and I watched that interview and
what it was because remember we were saying that Rod
Sterling was really which is great because you know, Jordan
(20:45):
is now taking over that mantel I'm doing twilight Zone.
Um Is. I watched that interview that I was talking about,
and he and the story he wanted to tell was
on Emmett Till and the studio kept essentially bastardizing it
and changing it to the point that it was unrecognizable,
where he was like, I no longer am going to
be a part of this, but he did try. Like
(21:06):
That's the thing though, is that he was saying, no,
they kept trying to censor us um to the point
that they got into this discussion about pre censorship, and
it was essentially that writers would um not even try.
They wouldn't even because because what we were saying with
Twilight Zone, which I'm so excited to see what Jordan
is going to deal with it, is that a lot
of those stories were about people of color and what
(21:27):
they went through but this but studios wouldn't let them
essentially show it. So instead it had to be an
alien or it had to be you know, something like that,
because it was easier for white audiences to feel sorry
for an alien than for a person of color. I know,
I mean, I I always call that even though this
comes much later, the The X Men Effect where made
a hole like that whole series is about racism, but
(21:50):
they had to use mutants to get it, and and
it still didn't work if you look at some of
these comments from comic Comic book, still work. He tried,
he did everything. He gave you all the clues, Mr Policeman. Uh,
let's yeah, so let's talk about some of these films.
So not a Living Dead, that is super cool. It's
actually if you haven't I mean, I don't know how
(22:11):
you haven't seen it, but if you haven't seen it,
you can watch it. I believe it's fair use. You
can watch on YouTube. It's only a bunch of different
cinema platforms that you can check out. But that was
really important. I remember that. And even though spoiler, I
guess it's not a spoiler because it's like what fifty
or sixty years old that he dies, but I do
know that that was It was such a stark contrast.
(22:31):
Then when get Out happened that it was like having
not having to go through that again, like getting to
actually have a having your protagonists live. Yeah. Yeah, it's
a huge thing because you know, you know, so not
a living dead like was truly made it amazing? Is
you know You've got Dwayne Drums as a as the
inneritative character in there, and it's this black man who's
(22:55):
taken over everything, who's beating up white people, taking out
white zombies. And you know, Tanana Reeve brings it up
in in the documentary where I'm she said, like this
has to be horrifying. Is he something like this to racists,
like you know, for them to see stuff like this,
especially with everything that was going on in the late
(23:15):
you know sixties, you know, around that time, and the
juxtaposition with it is like, you know, as powerful as
it was what happened to him, he still got killed
at the end. And while that might be realistic or
feel right, I think what made Get Out so strong
is that, like, you know, we've seen the realistic stuff
we've seen you know, black men in like you know,
(23:36):
prison suits. We've seen us get constantly killed and maimed
and lynched and destroyed not only in real life but
also in film and then also in horror films. So
you know, one thing that Uh Jordan brings up in
the documentary is the fact that, like, you know, the
reason why he went to right, he did where he lives,
and he succeeds and he gets out of it. Is
(23:57):
because you know, as black folks, we needed something to applaud,
we needed something to lift up. And like essentially and
sometimes happening to the nineties two with Tells from the Hood,
where we're not getting the justices that we need in
real life. So at least in some things in entertainment,
in the films that we're making, can we see some
(24:20):
of this restorative justice that we're not getting, you know,
right now in America? And that's something that was true
back then and in the sixties, during the nineties who
tell Us from the Hood, and then even more so,
like you know, with get Out, Coming Out, and that
was just it was huge, Like literally I still remember,
you know, being to get out and seeing them you know,
cock the cock car come up and I still remember,
(24:43):
like you know, some of the white was like, yes,
he's okay, and you know, I'm just likely I mean, yeah, exactly,
that's that's all I see some cock cars. I see
them size. That's not a good thing. So to to
to see my man come and it's not a con
and it's his homeboy and He's like, Yo, let's go,
(25:04):
we getting out of here. That was that was huge.
That was huge because that's not something we get to
see on a regular basis for you know, black people,
for black characters in in films in general. Like a
great example is, have y'all got the chance to watch
bird Box? Yeah? Saw it? Yea, yeah, yeah, So you
know I enjoyed bird Box. I enjoyed it. But you know,
(25:26):
folks act well, you know, we're doing so much better
and things are like, you know, changing, and you're not
seeing the same stereotypes that you saw back then. No, no, no,
no, no no, no, let's talk about a little rail. In
bird Box, he meets them maybe like twenty minutes into
the film, maybe five to ten minutes later, he's like,
(25:47):
you know what I'm gonna do with this, you know,
crazy zombie man like trying to get inside. I'm just
gonna run straight in there, and I'm gonna sacrifice myself
for all these white folks. And that's literally the sacrificial Negro.
That is one of the stereotypes we see on a
regular basis all the way back to the nine hundreds
too now and we're still dealing with those type of
(26:11):
stereotypes that we need to push back against. In the
film that came out that came out this year last
yea literally this year, like right now this year, the
two of them like little and intrevante, you know, And
I guess maybe you can kind of say like O
came around with the people, he came to love a
little bit. Mo. I never liked the fact of that
one that you know, it's like what two, three, five
(26:31):
years later and he still got an immaculate haircuts that
like did you save your Barbara? And then he died
five days before they found you. Also, he was just jacked,
like right, because you have a different body Like even
(26:53):
I was like, even if you're lifting like logs and stuff,
your body type is a little bit different than like
straight up just doing squats to eat so much to
keep that that that huge pack them biceps. I was like,
not not realistic, y'all. But what we pay attention to
those two specifically, like again like who lives in the
(27:15):
uh in the Sandral book, in the Little Kids and
our two black characters. You know, we don't see any
black woman in it. I don't think we saw any
black woman in it, but the two black carreters. We
had the two men, both of them. We're justified or not,
We're still the sacrificial negroes, which is a trot we
see on a regular basis even now in h Well,
(27:36):
it's it's funny because you you see these things, unless
you're like actively trying to combat it, you do see
these things pop up because it's just so as creatives,
we put out what we ingest, and unless you're actively
trying to go against the grain, actively looking at the work,
because sometimes you know, right now I'm writing, you know,
(27:57):
going through like doing rewrites on once it right now,
and going through I see myself do certain things and like,
you know, so like the lead of this show is
supposed to be an Indian female. That that's that's what
what the current plan is. But the name isn't you know,
particularly Indian. It's just a typical what what would be
(28:19):
perceived as a quote unquote white name. And because of that,
I find myself, you know, just falling into the trope
of like in my head, are automatically making her white?
And then you know, and then you know, obviously we'll
be like, no, well, what what speaks to her? Because
obviously the one of the showrunner is Indian, so he's like,
this is this is this would be like this, that
(28:40):
would be like that type of stuff. And it's so
crazy how quickly like if you don't explicitly make in
your mind that this person is this race, your mind
defaults to white because that's all the media we've been
taken in. And that's and when we're like, Okay, I'm
just trying to create some of what I've been watching
you do that. I had to do that when I
(29:01):
started writing sketch, because you know, right around the time
I started writing sketch was pointed out that you know,
I think we had the issue with U. S and L,
you know, where they had no black women, and then
in general most comedy things were heavily men based. So
when I wrote sketches, I just would make it half
and half, no matter what. Fift me women and and
(29:23):
like the question be like why are you doing it?
Why not like, oh, you're just trying to, You're just
trying to, And I was like, yeah, I am, because
the only way to change it is to change it,
and there's no reason when you look at like I.
And that's what I found is when I would go
back and look at the rooms, like there's no reason
that this person has to specifically be you know, uh,
a man. There's no reason there whereas like, you know,
(29:47):
we when you make like a person of color or
a woman and thing you like the just the description
of which, by the way, I actually haven't seen uh
night have Living Dead uh most because like I was like, oh,
I typically don't care for black and white movies, mostly
because I'm like funny enough, like, oh, well, that's just
(30:08):
like old movies made for white people. I didn't know
the lead was black. I would have saw this yesterday,
you know, like like but the thing of them at
the way, like him being in this role in eight
it was the It was the first time an African
American actor was cast to star in a horror film
and one of the first times in American cinema where
(30:28):
a person of color was given an important role when
the script does not explicitly call for one. And that
and that's how it was. So it's funny how like
like we had to work past you know, them doing
black face, and then after that, like it was only
if you were playing like a slave, you know, or
if you watch a lot of old Western since that's
(30:48):
in the zeitgeis right. Now, you know, you had uh,
Mexicans playing Mexicans and you had Native Americans sometimes playing
natives like you had to be your person, and that
seems to be the weird like new de facto argument
against diversity in film wars, like well, we should just
have people playing the roles they do, like you know, like, oh,
(31:11):
this is actually great. It's what uh Vigo Mortenson when
they kind of brought up like the writer of this
and why you know it's a white writer and black
and he was like, well, he was like look if
if if This was a very hilarious clip because when
you watch the faces, they are all types of shade.
But he's like, but if you know me, Herschela wants
(31:32):
to write a story about a white or an Italian
guy from YadA, YadA, YadA, he can do that, so
we shouldn't be saying X should be X. And I
was like, well, there's a difference because there's like you're
thinking about it in a totally different way, like like
for example, if we go back to the room example,
like I said, my showrunners Indian, so he is making
(31:55):
sure there's authenticity there when you have, like you know,
and I'm saying, I don't think any white person could
ever write black stories or black roles. But there there's
a level of authenticity that isn't gonna set off their alarms.
And sometimes you run into the mistake of just just
re skinning a white roll. But there's like levels to
(32:16):
people of color. Their experiences are different. There's gonna they're
gonna react to things differently. One of our good friends,
I won't say his name because you know, not trying
to blest this out, but he was doing a short
and and in the short he was saying like it
was him and his buddy, they're both black, and they
like they were too high in the short, and so
(32:39):
they were like, let's call the cops. And he was like,
we black people would never do that. Black people, you
would never call the cops if you were too high.
And and you know, obviously the wider you know, I
got a little we got a little like defensive, and
he was like, oh, well you know this, and it's like, no,
that's someone telling you of the experience. And I could
have told you right there, like no, they that wouldn't
(33:01):
be their first instinct to call the cops. That's never
their instinct. Ever, we were if you and I were
on a panel. I think it was at Wonder Con
or something, but it was with Steven L. Sears, who
remember he was the writer for zena Warrior Princess, And
even on the panel he was like, um that excuse,
Like he was like, it's actually the easiest is to
write for straight white guys because that's the world that
(33:23):
we live in. That's the world that's been set up
for them. It's actually the easiest to rite for them
because that's how that's the world that cinema has been
reflective of and everything is you know in this world
is reflective of them, and it's much harder to write
a different perspective. Yeah, and it's and it's all mostly
because you've shared that experience. I'm hoping ten years down
(33:44):
the line, after Xavier's fifth Academy Award, you know, a
young white kid can write a black story because he's
just obsessed with Xaviers movies. And even then there still
won't be that full authenticity, but at least he'll have
a little more information than he does. Now, what would
you watch? Now, here's something I want to bring up
to that I think is interesting. So we're having all
(34:04):
of these discussions about diversity and inclusion and um, you
know how we want to get more you know, black
folks and brown folks women into these roles. And you
know a lot of folks think that, oh well, this
is a new discussion, this is only happening recently. That's
not true, like literally, okay, So taking it back to horror,
you take it all the way back to you know,
(34:25):
the the nineties nineties and you have you know, Oscar
me Show and you have Spencer Williams. So you know
these guys, did you know films like Son of Ingagi
or The Blood of Jesus or you know, Marching On.
This was literally in the you know twenties, thirties and
(34:46):
forties too black men. Now most folks know Spencer Williams
um from Andy and Amos, which is gonna Old Susco
and then Oscar michhow was quite literally this black man
who was sick and in the in the in the
early nineteen hundreds was sick of the betrayals of how
black folks were being done and said, I'm gonna self
(35:08):
finance my own films so we can see the actual
black experience from our own eyes. So again, like you know,
anybody who's listening to this, go look them up. Spencer Williams,
Arsking Me Show. These were Caster was doing this type
of stuff from the nineteen hundreds to like the nineteen
forties and fifties before things, you know, things started to
(35:30):
get more centralized and they got you know, boxed out,
especially Arsking Me Show. But it speaks to the fact
that the problems that we're facing right now in the industry,
there's two cats, two black men that were trying to
combat this almost like you know, fifties, sixty years ago,
like you know, even further back than that, And that
(35:50):
speaks to how just ingrained this is in the idea
that this is now just a new issue. It's just
not it's not true. It's not true. We've been dealing
with this for a long time to where I can
literally give you examples of folks trying to combat this,
specifically in a genre of film from the nineteen twenties
(36:11):
and thirties. Like you know, it's just it's crazy to
even understand that that's like something that we have in
the first place. But it speaks to the fact that
these type of pushes that we're trying to do. It's
not new. It didn't just starting twenty This is something
that's been, you know, happening all the way back over
(36:31):
a century ago. And really it's just the fact that
for a lot of folks, they're just now hearing about
it or caring about it. Yeah. I did want to
say before we wrap up on that A Living Dead
that George A. Romero you touched on this on the
documentary that he was saying if you kind of what
you were saying, that they didn't specify that they wanted
(36:52):
a black actor. It just so happened that Duane Jones
was the best actor that they saw, so it was like,
he has to have it. I think that is amazing.
And I know for you and I like, like you
were saying, I realized, in working on these rooms and
now seeing casting and what they bring in, if you
don't specify of all ethnicities, if you don't write that
(37:14):
on there, they will default to white. And I started
to realize that working in these writers rooms where I
was like I had to specifically put it on there. Um,
it's just so frustrating. It's frustrating. Um. But we will
get into more of these films. We just have to
take a quick break. We're going to continue the conversation
right after this can welcome back. I hope you enjoyed
(37:43):
those messages. We are back still here with my man's
Xavier Bergen uh Danny also sitting across from me. Now
that we've checked everyone in, let me posit another question.
So we talked about Night of Living Dead. So what's
another you know, black horror film you talk about in
the movie that you know, what's maybe one that you
maybe didn't see before, something that kind of uh, I
(38:05):
don't know, surprise here. You went to film school, so
I doubt there's many things you haven't seen before. So
you know, interestingly enough, like you know, of course I
had had heard of it a lot, and you know,
you heard jokes and stuff about it. But it wasn't
until I jumped into doing this that I finally watched Blackula.
(38:26):
And here's the thing. You know, a lot of folks,
it's just a old, you know, black sportation film. There's
nothing good or interesting or powerful or culturally connective about it.
It's just you know, throw anything from you know, back then.
But during that time, Blackula was huge, absolutely huge, in
the Black Sportation era, and on a bigger level, it
(38:49):
was directed by William Marshall, like a black man. And
here's the thing, Like you go back to the seventies,
there was there wasn't no black folks who were actually
helm directing and writing films like it just wasn't like
the Black exportation era, you know, black exploitation. And the
whole thing about it was that like while we were
(39:10):
finally getting you know again Tonano reeved and dcor Um
robint Armans Coleman brings it up that we were getting
on the screen, you were seeing us, but the representation
of us was not good because you know, we were all,
you know, pimps, hose, you know, slapping folks, shooting stuff,
shaft type of stuff, the pimp type of stuff. And
the whole thing about it is what made Blackla really
(39:32):
stick out was that William Marshall was a twenty three
year old black man directing this type of film. Like,
first off, it'sn't heard of for a black person to
even get to direct at that time, still not easy now,
but for him to be twenty three years old doing
this is unprecedented, and he brings up I mean one
(39:52):
of the One of the biggest things that really stuck
with me is when we were doing the interviews for it,
and you know, Willen Marshall was talking about this and
he specifically brought up how even though he was the
director of the film, everyone else underneath them we're all white.
Everyone else above him, we're all white. And he literally
(40:14):
had to fight fight with them to actually get off
the vision that he was trying to make, because even
for them, it still was like this, this is a
black man direct and he doesn't need to have the
type of power that we would give to a you know,
a Ra Marro or someone else you know that was
(40:34):
you know, doing this type of stuff. And what killed
me a little bit is he talked about this and
you could tell that this was a man who did
something that was culturally important, but he didn't get to
have the career that he should have. If you go
up and look up his credits, he looked at William Marshall.
(40:55):
He did Black like he did a couple of other
things TV stuff, but it's not how much there and
you realize that he made one of the biggest films
in the seventies, the early seventies, and that still wasn't
enough for him to actually build out a career as
a filmmaker. And it's just crazy to think about the
(41:17):
marginalization that comes into that and what that means, and
how like, you know, if we didn't have someone like him,
we wouldn't be able. I wouldn't be able to do
what I'm doing right now, like we wouldn't be able
to do during now without William Marshall. But to the
regular person, they don't even know Black, they don't know
William Marshall, or they treat Black as a joke without
(41:37):
understanding how culturally significant that is, not only within horror,
but just within the larger film history. What were some
of them films that you did enjoy, I mean aside
from get out, Like, what were some of the other
films that you talked about in the documentary that you
did actually that weren't as problematic? Oh man, So all
(41:59):
of them? Okay, unfortunately, a lot of them, no matter what,
are somewhat you know, probably so I think a good
example is, like, you know, the Girl with all the Gifts.
I don't know if you guys have seen that one.
I haven't, but I saw a like it was a
side by side film comparison, I was like, oh, I
need to see this so like, for example, that one
is amazing. It's it's a really good film, like and
(42:19):
wants you check it out, and you know, it's kind
of reminiscent of not Living Dead in that, like they
weren't trying to make it for a little black girl,
but you know, she came in. She just killed it
and they decided to go with her. In the social
commentary that came out of it, being specifically a black
girl made it and again Tonana rebrought this up. It
just made it sharper and stronger and more uh concise
(42:43):
in comparison to maybe if they had just done it
with a little white girl or you know something you
know to that degree, Um, I'm trying to think of
something else that you know, Pops, because all of them
like it's only really recently now, like of course you
think of tales, talesmanhood like you know, of course, I
think that it's one that you didn't have some problematic
stuff there, um to you know, to a degree, you know,
(43:04):
one of the big things Paula I think about a
Paula Jay Parker and seeing like you know, women getting
beating things to that degree isn't great, but it's still
pushed a lot of the restorative justice that we weren't seeing.
And literally, I remember one of the episodes had like,
you know, a a guy playing like trying to become
the president and talking about being a real American. And
it's interesting because this was being made back in the
(43:26):
nineties and it's completely reflective what we're seeing with Trump
right now, but then also reflective of what you know,
Ronald Reagan was doing. And the whole thing for me
is like, there is very little difference between Ronald Reagan
and Trump, you know when it comes to this type
of stuff. But just with the question that you're that
you're bringing up because of the fact that you know,
even though all of these feels good and you should
(43:47):
listen to it, you should watch it. Um, there aren't
too many that aren't problematic in their own way because
they still fell into one of the troupe like some
of these tropes, or they were still being done by
white folks like for example, Canny man Cannon is amazing.
I love Kenny man Um, It's great, Tony Todd is
amazing it. But again it falls again that one falls
specifically into one that we were seeing all the way
back for Birth of a Nation, where it's still this
(44:08):
black man. He's a villain, he's magical to a degree,
but he's a black man who is still coveting over
this white woman that he has to take in. And
you know that's just like we gotta see it again,
or you know, you take Abby for example, from the seventies,
where it's this black woman and she is killing people
by death and that literally you can say it's a
(44:35):
it's an expiration of sexual lisperation, but you could also
see that, like there is this thing about black womanhood
being scary to a lot of people, especially black sexuality,
because one of the things they do to black men
and black women is either they're over sexualizing us or
they're de sexualizing us. So you know, that's a problem.
I think the only thing, the only film I can
really really think about that if you want to see
something where doesn't fall into these type of tropes, and
(44:56):
it's just truly amazing, artistic, strong film is guns you
in his You should take out the time to look
up that film and to watch it. It's absolutely amazing.
It's very artistic, made back I think it was back
in the seventies at that point, and it was a
film that's very smart for his time, dealt with you know,
what it means to be a vampire, a black vampire,
(45:17):
and like, you know what it means to to deal
with addiction and you know, using that you know, via blood.
But you know, one of the things we bring up
in the in the documentary is so interesting is even
and it's something that that you brought up if you were, like,
you know, there's something culturally that we as black folks
are as a black and brown person, you're gonna understand
about your culture war that maybe a white person can't write. So,
for example, in that movie, the main character a vampire,
(45:40):
well to do rich established he's still scared of the police,
still scared of the police as a vampire that could
take them out, but he's still worried about that. He's
still worried about the white folks around him because even
at becoming this supernatural creature, he still has to think
about some of the things that we as you know,
black folks have to deal with from the first place.
(46:01):
So if there was any film that as a horror
buff or a film, you know, a ficionado obviously say
that that you should go check out from back in
the day at least take out the time to go
watch ganjan Hes. So for everyone listening this is this
is definitely a film fan uh film nerd episode. Uh.
(46:22):
Just a quick by the way, Ganja and Hess came
out on four nine, which, based on the title alone,
is tight. Uh. But what give give your elevator pitch
to Hord no Noir and why why our listeners should
check it out right now as soon as this episode ends.
(46:45):
Harvard Noir is a documentary that literally has never been
done before. There is no documentary that deals with the
history of African Americans, Black Americans from the nineteen hundreds
to prey in within the horror genre. You are quite
literally seeing the first film of is kind. It is historic.
(47:10):
Be a part of it, learn something new, find out
about a history that most folks in America are not
going to teach you about. That's why you should watch this. Like,
watching this is allowing yourself to be a part of
history being made, and I think that's important. Oh, if
you're not already downloading it, I don't know what else
(47:31):
is gonna get you to watch it. Thanks for listening.
By the way, shout out to everyone in the nerd
fan for all your suggestions. We get into it. Y'all
got a lot of things that y'all want us to cover.
We're gonna get to it week by week. That's a
job security. So I'm not even mad about I did
want to say so, I just a gunja and Hessan
Dwayne Jones is the star of it. Yes, so Doyanne
(47:54):
Dwyane is just He's a He's an amazing actor like honestly.
And and one thing I want to bring I do
want to bring up in this life for anyone that's listening. Um,
you know you'll be able to find me on social
media and stuff like that, but I'm not. I'm not
here to plug my social media. What I want to
tell folks, if you like a black and brown you're making,
you know you're making your horror feature, your horror script.
(48:16):
Hit me up straight up. I want to read what
you're making. I want to find the next thing and
it doesn't need to be get out, but if it
deals with us and it deals with horror, reach out
to me. I want to find these stories because I
want to keep the history of horror noir going because
(48:37):
the whole thing about it is we just don't need
a documentary. We need to see more of these films
being made and put out there. We're having a renaissance,
but that renaissance doesn't happen without the type of people
who are out there who want to get this type
of work made. And I want to be a part
(48:59):
of that as a writer but then also has directed.
So if you've got an idea, you've got a script.
It's hard. It's deal with black and brown folks. Reach
out to me, eat look at this. Every week we
give people more info on how to break into this industry. Yeah, yeah,
I know, this is this is I feel like we
went ran the true gamut because we got we did
(49:22):
uh development, and then now we're doing film. That's a
good thing. I hope y'all. I hope everyone's having a
good time. I mean, I don't know everyone here has
had a long day. I know it was like man,
but you know, uh, you know me. If you on
(49:45):
social media, I F Y n W A d I
W E on Twitter and Instagram, feel free to wish
me a happy birthday. Today is my birthday. Yeah, when
it drops it's going to be my birthday. No, my
type A wrote down your birthday already. Yeah, yeah, no,
I'm planning a little something for us to do, so
I'll be in touch. But yeah, you know if if
(50:08):
he's on Twitch. Thanks to all the nerd fam coming
in and y'all are starting to get way active in
that discord. So thanks for pulling up discord dot g
g slash Salt Squad. We got Nerdive sent once again.
Shout out to Fleckery for always dropping those footnotes in there.
So if you're too lazy to click on the app,
it's right there waiting for you. Shout out to Uh,
I'm gonna I'm gonna shout out some more mods. Definitely
(50:31):
gonna shout out so I said flak Largo since is great.
You know he loves Danny's post. Danny has helped him
a lot. Uh so big big shout out on that.
Danny just speaking out and being herself as really he
always tells me. I feel like he doesn't want to
bug Danny, so I just know you can. I get
(50:51):
overwhelmed sometimes, but I try to tweet and respond to
most of all. Good. Now you're making it seem like
I was being salty, but I was just saying it. Uh.
You know. Also Razarick those guys for holding it down
always flew for one of my new mods doing your Thing,
and also marred by guests because he was complaining that
I shouted at all the other mods out and not
(51:11):
him on the podcast. As for shows coming up, you
can catch your boy. Uh, you'll post about it. I'll
post about him to look there. Danny Well Xaviera was
going to say, where can people catch horn Noir? Oh? Yeah,
so you can find horn Noir on shutter dot com.
You can find shutter dot com or you can pick
(51:32):
up Shutter streaming app and either. Thing I'll tell everybody is,
you know, they've given out a seven day free trial,
so y'all know what that means. I'm not gonna say
anything else, but you know what that means. All I'm
asking you to do is just watch my documentary and
if you stay, stay but you know, just watch the documentary,
(51:53):
tweet about it. Please let them know that you watched
it because so many I've seen so many people tweet
about it in the community. Yeah, it's it's been amazing
how many folks are and literally if you watch it,
hit me up on Twitter x l n B or
hit up horror noir film on Twitter. Um, you'll find
me on Instagram XLMB stories, hard nor Film on Instagram
(52:18):
or just hard normal on Facebook. Let me know if
you're watching it and if you like it. I love it.
It's literally my first feature film, so it's it's it's
it's a fresh rod and tomatoes. I want to see
y'all tell me how dope go? Tell um? Um, I'm
at miss Danny Fernandez on all the things, and uh yeah,
(52:40):
I don't know. Follow me on Twitter because that's where
I tweet my my shows and my appearances and stuff.
So um oh yeah. Thank you to everyone that's been
going to te public dot com slash nertificent and showing
us in your merch. We love it. We love it
so much. And Iffy and I have been reposting on
our instant stories and sharing, and thank you to every
and that took a second to go rate us on
(53:01):
iTunes and really doesn't make a difference. We appreciate y'all,
and as we always say, stay nerdy.
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Ify Nwadiwe
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