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Rod and Karen are joined by Hadiyah of the Black Ass Podcast to discuss comedy, her path to stand up, living in LA, speaking on black topics as a creative, Katt Williams had a gun pulled on him, Tiffany Haddish on her Emmy, Viola Davis regrets The Help, police chief frames black teens, racist Mississippi state senator, Cynthia Erivo playing Harriet Tubman, Wal-Mart shop lifters, ear necklace wearing inmate, 1400 counts of bestiality and sword ratchetness.
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I think I remember a while ago listening to a black british actor talk about how the roles simply aren’t there in the UK which is why they come to the US to get roles that wouldn’t be available to them in their own country. It’s makes sense to go where the job are. As far as them playing distinctly american characters, I don’t feel one way about it one way or another as long as the actor is black and the skin tone is close to the person they were portraying. Besides, I distinctly remember seeing a movie where Denzel played in a British movie and he had a horrible British accent. And how many American’s played Mandela? Forrest Whitaker won an oscar for playing Idi Amin. Were there no Ugandan actors? See I don’t know the rules. I guess people everyone has their own triggers.
I just found out that the main guy from the show Snowfall is also British. I don’t know what the crack epidemic was like in England but I doubt it was anything like it was in the US but that kid is acting his ass off. Most of us wouldn’t even know these people were British unless you heard them speak in an interview. I didn’t know Idris was British until a few years ago. Mainly because I’m slow.
I have no doubt Cynthia Erivo will do an awesome job, but I understand why people feel a certain way about her b/c of the Luuvie ish. That sad, it really sucks b/c it keeps being lost that Kasi Lemons, a brilliant black female director, is helming this project. This is being done by Focus Features and they churn out Oscar bait. I’m rooting for Kasi to get the Oscar she should’ve got for Eve’s Bayou.
Whew Lord! When Karen said “Animalfucks.com”, I almost crashed my car laughing so hard. And it wasn’t what she said, it’s HOW she said it, with the quickness and such confidence. I started believing that MAYBE this site must really exist! Karen, you stole the whole show with that one!
Now see, you motherfuckers are trying to get a nigga fired. I almost lost it when Karen said “Animalfucks.com”. Had these white people thinking I had a coughing fit. It was all good when we had offices, then my employer moved to an open seating plan, so now I’m exposed.
I implore you to reduce the funny or I”l have to report you guys to the TBGWT HR department.
Man that Cynthia Erivo situation is so complicated. On the one had i get people feeling a way about her proximity to Luvvie and in general seeing a lot more black british actors coming over and being hired a lot but on the other hand the situation for black creatives is not the greatest over here. You barely have any decent roles for black actors in movies and they’re mostly stuck on long running soaps operas being cycled in and out. There’s always the token black character on shows not set in the 1900s that never gets to do much and the only british movies you get really pushed internationally are the costume dramas. When you look at what the black actress Naomie Ackie (who was cast in Star Wars Episode 9) is best known for onscreen, its in that Lady Macbeth movie and she played a maid. There’s not a lot opportunities there especially when these period pieces almost always gloss over the black people that were around and their stories and act like there wasn’t a slave trade over here either. You wont see stuff like Chewing Gum cross over often. The black actors/writer/directors (you almost have to dabble in everything) who do stay over here and are really invested in making the situation better can only do so much in an industry that doesn’t really support their work as much as their white peers. Its inevitable that the talent will move where there are more jobs for them. I don’t really think rejecting them and calling them “these people” is productive. It just sucks that the decision-makers in hollywood have this bias towards “classical training” that leads to situations in our communities like this. Some people are acting like this is all cut and dry but theres a lot of factors that people sometimes ignore. I do get the hurt from how some africans and black british folks act towards black Americans having been in spaces with both groups but man, it feels like the people in this situation folks should be direcitng their ire to are people like the casting directores i dunno. I’m not advocating people being harrassed but just skipping over to the actor who has no power over casting and just… man i dont even know haha. I felt pretty much the same way y’all felt about it.