The coronavirus crisis has turned all of Hollywood upside down, and the hoped-for return to even a small degree of normalcy remains uncertain.
But one segment of the entertainment industry has been particularly shaken to its core: the circle of black and Latino creators. There are heightened concerns about their creative and personal futures.
Several creators of color, such as Kenya Barris, Shonda Rhimes, John Ridley, Lena Waithe and others have enjoyed solid mainstream success in recent years. Though the struggle for greater diversity within the industry is not finished, Hollywood has become demonstrably more inclusive, a sharp turn from earlier decades when insightful and provocative projects involving people of color were not enthusiastically embraced.
"There has been nothing short of a black renaissance in film and TV," said Barris, the creator of "black-ish" and the new Netflix family comedy "blackAF," in which he stars. "When that movement stops, you always wonder, 'What will come of it?' What happens when you press the pause button? My fear is there's a drastic change [coming]. The writers' strike gave birth to reality TV. What will this give birth to? I'm fearful."
Some prominent black and Latino creators fear the progress made by meaningful and entertaining cultural content might suffer a troubling setback. Others are more hopeful.
Gloria Calderón Kellett, co-creator and showrunner of the Latino family series "One Day at a Time," said her concerns go beyond job opportunities.
"Social change has come about because of storytelling," she said. "There have been social shifts. These shows were getting love, getting critical acclaim. People are rabid for this kind of information and content."
No time for problems
Ridley, Oscar-winning screenwriter of "12 Years a Slave" and creator of ABC's "American Crime," has gravitated toward projects that have sharply probed racially charged issues such as discrimination, immigration and class disparity.
"It's been, 'Here are these problems, this is why these problems are here, and this is how these problems affect us,' " he said.
He fears the kinds of provocative perspectives that have won him acclaim might be in jeopardy because of the COVID-19 crisis.
"There's not an appetite in the larger Hollywood space for an examination of systemic problems and the personification of those problems," he said.
Though he understands the reasoning, he still is troubled.
"People want happiness and escapism — of course they do," he said. "But in this environment when there are 400,000 scripted shows on the air, it breaks my heart that most people won't have the wherewithal to go after something more complicated."
Author Walter Mosley, executive producer and writer of FX's "Snowfall," is optimistic.
"There's all this potential," he said. "It has a lot to do with race and economics and gender. If we can get people to say, 'We're all having this problem together,' then there's a lot we can learn from each other. That's a great thing. It's like, 'What are you needing? What's your blood pressure? Do you have diabetes? How is that going?' "
He added, "The world is trying to heal itself. If you can see all that, there's a potential to learn from this experience, which in many ways is awful. There's a possibility that a white person in a poor white community might say, 'Hey, I'm having the same problem as those black people over there or those brown people over here.' This is a bad time, but at the same time it offers us all an opportunity to make us all better."
"Hollywood" - Google News
June 09, 2020 at 11:55PM
https://ift.tt/37hQ0uj
Hollywood minorities fear post-pandemic fallout - Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Hollywood" - Google News
https://ift.tt/38iWBEK
https://ift.tt/3fdiOHW
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Hollywood minorities fear post-pandemic fallout - Minneapolis Star Tribune"
Post a Comment