DEBORAH RILEY DRAPER

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You are black in the green room on KBLA Talk 1580 with me, your host Keith Underwood.

(00:06):
And this is your spot for real talk about entertainment with entertainers, creatives,
and showbiz professionals.
My guest today is an award-winning filmmaker who recently premiered her film, "Radified"
at the Bronze Lens Film Festival.
She is also the documentary and responsible for James Brown's "Say It Loud".

(00:29):
The legacy of Black Wall Street for size 73, Olympic Pride and the CBS News Special 13
days later.
Welcome to the room.
Deborah, Riley Draper.
Great.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's always nice to hear the work said by someone other than me.

(00:49):
I love hearing you.
You talk about some of the films and yes, the most recent one, "Radified" about the
one hundred year journey of women to get the equal rights amendment enshrined into
the Constitution so that it could have gender equality for all people and not just men.

(01:14):
In 13 days in Ferguson, aired on CBS in Paramount Plus, August 9th, looking back at the
10 years since the murder of Michael Brown to tell our stories and center our stories.
It's really important.
I think sometimes Black history is not top of mind.

(01:35):
So much that's current, but we often forget that our current circumstances are deeply connected
to what has happened and transpired in the past.
They don't exist in the vacuum that sometimes we need to look very closely and examine
and look for the clues that can help us solve what is now and what will be in the future.

(01:55):
Yeah.
What's the most important thing to you about sharing history through art?
Well, I think as a writer, director, filmmaker, it's, I feel a responsibility to shake and
mold, right? In addition to the story telling, the storytelling is inherent in the shaping

(02:18):
of, in the molding because the more opportunities we have to tell stories about characters and voices
and people and places that we don't often see, it helps people broaden their perspective.
It helps reduce stereotypes.
It helps reduce the other ring or that, oh, I don't understand them.
I don't know them.
I've not seen this before and it helps reduce that fear and the disconnect and it unifies

(02:45):
people and it helps people understand that we're all human, right?
And we need some of the same challenges and obstacles.
So when you see someone else's perspective or you hear their story or you see their art,
you become closer to them and it hopefully will inspire you to dig a little bit deeper,
have another conversation about it, have a little empathy, enjoy the art for what it is.

(03:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why is it important for black documentarians to tell black stories?
Well, I think it's important for black filmmakers to constantly figure out ways to preserve our
history and also, we approach our history because we're approaching ourselves.

(03:33):
So we do that automatically with a lens on authenticity, authenticity, but also nuance
from a lived experience that may help us understand something better or inspire us to dig
a little bit deeper because we know the outcome or we know the input or we've seen that equation

(03:53):
or we've lived through that equation.
So there are some things that will trigger us, right?
Both positively and negatively to jump into that subject matter and not be afraid of what
we might find and what we might see.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
We've seen so many states and townships that are banning books.

(04:15):
What are some of the things that can be done to make sure that those same things don't happen
to film that might be, you know, talking films that might be talking about some uncomfortable
truths?
You know, banning books, censorship is heart breaking, right?
Because we're so uncomfortable with other people and other things and things we don't

(04:43):
know about that we'd rather ban it than have a discussion.
Mm-hmm.
And I think on the local level, parents, students, neighborhoods, everyone, we have to hold
leaders accountable to have the tough conversations so that art is that the punished because people

(05:05):
can't understand what's right in front of them.
So the easiest thing to do is to punish art because you can't reconcile in the old fear
or you can't reconcile how you deal with other people or you can't reconcile uncomfortable
conversations, circumstances, past history, past aggression.
So we punish the artist.

(05:26):
No artist are the people that actually open our eyes and the people that help us usher
in, new thinking in different ways of approaching things, art and culture.
That's what makes society human.
Yes.
Yeah.
What about the aspect of power dynamics?

(05:46):
You know, when it comes to censoring stories, I think a lot of it has to do with people not
wanting to share power.
I won't say relinquish power, but share power or empower.
I think it's, I think it's empowered because when you, when you allow everyone to sit on

(06:09):
a shelf in a bookstore, right, that's empowering.
And that's, and that's democratizing the space and democratizing access and democratizing
equity.
That means, that means readers get a broader opportunity to read things, sellers get an opportunity
to sell more.
Authors won't feel like, oh, wow, if I write this book, I'm not going to get any shelf space

(06:33):
or no one's going to go online and search for it or I'm not going to be a part of the
algorithm that's going to tee this book up.
So all, that is, that is about power and empowering.
It's about status quo means that I don't want to include anyone else, not including anyone
else.

(06:54):
I'm not including their thinking.
I'm not including their experience.
I'm not including their merchandise.
There are, you know, and, and it's interesting because music, I think people feel very comfortable
including music, except we saw a little bit of that with cowboy Carter, right?
All of a sudden it's like, oh, no, no, no, what are you doing?

(07:18):
So we cannot patrol art.
And I think when people assert their power into that, we have to say, hold on, you cannot
police creative expression.
You cannot police the nuances of my lived experience as I record them in a book or a film

(07:39):
or a song or canvas.
That is what is coming out of me based on my travels, my journeys, what I've seen, what
I've done, what I've experienced, what I've heard from my parents, grandparents or great
grandparents.
So all of that is a part of me.
So when we become more accepting and when we become more empathetic and open and not

(08:05):
have so much conscious and unconscious bias, like there's so much.
I can't even appreciate anything because you're like, oh my God, this is that.
That's not me.
Everything is all of us.
I mean, we really need to relax about it and just open up and enjoy.
Let me ask you a question.

(08:26):
Absolutely.
When you travel other places, you go there because you want to experience other places.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I'm going to try to get into the culture as much as possible.
Don't show me the tourist areas.
I want to get into the culture.
Exactly.
So that because we're curious.
We want to know.

(08:46):
So let's let people have the opportunity to know and you might can't always fly somewhere.
It might be easier to just watch something or something, but that can take you to other
lands and other places and other in other worlds.
That's the whole point.
Yeah.
It has been the most emotionally wrenching project that you've worked on so far.

(09:12):
I think in some ways they're all emotionally rich.
I mean, you know, most recently working on 13 days in Ferguson and in reliving through
archival and looking at all of the reports, the death of a young man down the street and

(09:38):
having a deeper understanding of the trauma of his body laying there for hours, not just
on his family, but on a community who lived in that apartment complex and they've got to
walk home or they've got to come home from work.
And there's this body that's there.
Yeah.

(09:59):
And it represents so many things and so many parts of our 400 plus year experience in this
country all wrapped up into that one moment.
It was heartbreaking and seeing the tears of his mother.
Yeah.

(10:20):
It's just heart wrenching because this is something that should not have occurred clearly, but
is something that occurs.
Yeah.
We seem to not have it occur, right?
And it goes back to understanding of people, understanding of place, understanding of culture,

(10:43):
but also understanding the history of police, understanding the history and the relationship
of black bodies in America and even understanding laws that were on the books about black people
walking and just walking or standing.

(11:03):
Just existing.
Just existing, particularly those, some of those laws from post reconstruction, existence
unless you are working is against the law.
Right.
And especially for the other class.
So with documentaries having so many bells and whistles and we see AI generated images

(11:32):
and animation and these, I'm sorry, these Oscar level reenactments, how are you utilizing
those tools?
Or is it more important to you just to focus on the storytelling?
You know for me that the process begins with finding a story that I'm interested in that

(11:56):
I'm curious about and it always, always, always starts with research.
I need to find out more about what I'm about to tell before I start to tell it.
So the tools and the technology that that comes when I'm in production and in post production
and certainly those are helpful.

(12:16):
But the old school research, we cannot people having those pre interviews, having those conversations
talking to someone who knows something about something.
Yes.
That is where I begin.
I begin with the people and the place and the things and I love to begin as far back as

(12:40):
I can go.
And I want to know what came before that came before that came before that to understand
what I'm looking at right now.
Right?
Yes.
You can't look at what I'm looking at right now in isolation.
There are things that contributed to this particular outcome that I have to investigate.
My first film, you know, and I encourage everyone to watch films made by people of color.

(13:08):
Just watch them for a number of reasons.
And here's why one, because we're always trying to establish that there's interest and enthusiasm
about the stories that we tell.
And we have to be able to prove that out so that we can continue to make more things.
Two, you have to know about more things in this world than just what's right in front of

(13:32):
your nose.
You need to see what's happening around you so that you can understand what's happening
to you and for you.
And three, creative some color makes such great work.
I mean, come on now.
But it's just fantastic.
Yeah.

(13:53):
What do you hope, Debra, that mass audiences that worldwide audiences will take away the
most from watching black stories?
That they're human stories, their universal stories, their global stories, their stories
about them, stories about us, our stories about everybody.
That's right.

(14:13):
More so than anybody else.
More so than anyone.
Yes.
So staff, or, you know, people go to my website, copybookpictures.com and pick a film.
Let's say they pick Versailles 73 American runway revolution, right?
This is a story about five American designers who take on five French designers in Paris,

(14:35):
right?
Yes.
And then they're going to be the king of the catwalk, the greatest names in fashion,
Halston, Bill Blas, Oscar D'Illorenta, you know, against Udiard or G-Von-She, Dior, Angaro,
right?
So you're like, wow, this is, this is the fight of, oh, good job.
Just the way that you said G-Von-She, that's, that got me excited.
Come on now.

(14:55):
You know.
And so guess who the Americans had that made their show the best?
Well, black models that included Beth Ann Hartison, Dean Hartison's mother, Pat Cleveland,
Alva Chen, these early black models in the 70s literally ripped the roof off the Chateau

(15:20):
Divarçade in Paris, right?
So the launch of American Predaporté would not have been possible without these black women
who wore the clothes.
Because nobody knew who Halston was in that moment, nobody was checking for Ann Klein or Bill
Blas and the one black designer that was present was Steven Burles, right?

(15:43):
So even, even in the Chateau Divarçade November 28, 1973 with the Rothschilds underwriting
this event, they couldn't have it without the presence of a black designer and black
models.
Absolutely.
With ratified, you're discussing the Equal Rights Amendment.

(16:05):
What's the biggest misconception about the Equal Rights Amendment?
Well, let me tell you, my misconception, I thought it was already passed.
So I thought, back in 1972, when it was passed, that it was actually signed and enshrined
in the Constitution, I did not realize that, you know, one hundred years later from

(16:29):
when that bill, when that amendment was first introduced, even though it has the 38 states,
that because of the Trump memo in 2020, the archivists of the United States of America
did not enshrine that amendment into the Constitution.
Therefore, the Constitution still refers to the rights of men.

(16:58):
Now whether gender is recognized in the United States Constitution.
That is very, very shocking.
And how do you explore that in the film?
Well, you know, we take a look at every single year for the past 100 years, there have been

(17:19):
women fighting to have this enshrined in the Constitution, right?
So we look at these key, seminal moments in that fight when it was first introduced in the
70s when they thought they had it done in the Ronald Reagan era when it died, right?
And then when it came back, right after Trump was elected and women were like, we, this,

(17:47):
clearly, we need gender protection in the Constitution.
And that fight for the past four years to really get that enshrined in the Constitution.
And we look at it through the work of three women in Virginia because Virginia is the
38th state.
And 2020 became the 38th state.

(18:07):
And based on Article 5 in the Constitution, once you have 38 states, it's a rap.
It is usually an amendment.
And once it was ratified, Jennifer McClell and Jennifer Carol Foy and Katie Hornock,
the three women that we follow this modern day fight, right, to get it ratified in Virginia

(18:31):
and ultimately in the US.
We see them win in Virginia and lose in America.
And this fight continues so the fight isn't over.
And in 2025, that fight will continue and someone will introduce that resolution again and

(18:51):
people who will pass.
Yeah.
And in recent news, tragically, Amber Thurmond, you know, Dan and Georgia, you know, she
died due to not getting a necessary procedure that by some could have been perceived as an
abortion.
Why is a film like ratified that talks about this history of equal rights?

(19:18):
Why is it important to those current issues, you know, like abortion rights?
Gender equality and being able to have agency and autonomy as a woman over the types of
decisions to save your life, to have equal pay, to have equal rights.

(19:38):
That just not, doesn't just affect women.
It affects anyone connected to a decision that impacts gender.
So for example, if your wife was having a baby and you couldn't get paternity rights,
that's a gender equality issue.
Absolutely.
Father, you know, if my life is in danger, I should be able as a woman to make a choice.

(20:08):
For my existence, to protect my life.
Absolutely.
Period.
So regardless of where we stand on abortion, wherever you are, when you're in ER, and you're

(20:29):
about to bleed to death, yes.
You don't want there to be a politician and a legislation that prevents a physician from
saving your life.
Yeah.
And gender equality protects our rights in that way.

(20:51):
Our reproductive rights are right to be paid equally, not $59, but $1.
That's right.
A dollar on the dollar.
$6.8 on the dollar, but a dollar on the dollar.
It protects us from gender-based violence.
It protects people who have been marginalized.

(21:15):
And especially black women, Native American women, Asian women, who not only are marginalized
because they're women, they're also marginalized because of race.
So they're doubly marginalized, so they need double protection.
Yes.
This has been so fantastic.
How can everyone find out more information about ratified, how to watch it, or where it's

(21:42):
screening?
Yes, ratifythefilm.com.
And please check that out.
Please go to copy, bloodpictures, as well.
I have not done a good job in telling people to support and watch the films that I make,

(22:03):
and the films that directors of color make.
And so all this year, I've been saying that, and I've not said that enough and strongly
enough, and vocally enough in the past 12 years.
We must preserve black film.
We must preserve the opportunity for independent film period to exist.

(22:24):
But we must ensure that there is an opportunity for the generations of filmmakers coming behind
me to have distribution, to have an audience, to not be censored, to have fair access to grants
and other labs so that they can move their skill forward.
So go to copy, bloodpictures.com.
Watch all the films.

(22:45):
All right.
Deborah Riley Draper.
This has been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for joining me on Black in the Green Room.
Thank you so much.
For more information on upcoming guests and shows, please check us out on Instagram at Black
in the Green Room.
You can also follow me on IG at Mr. Keith L. Underwood and FB at Just Keith L. Underwood.

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Until next time, this has been Black in the Green Room.
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