Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeart Radio and fair
Speaker 1: Weather Friends Media. Today's episode of On Theme we might
Speaker 1: regret this episode later.
Speaker 2: Ah coom look alike to me.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie and I'm Eves, And today's story starts with regret.
Speaker 3: Oh, so we're gonna go d with this one? Should
Speaker 3: I grab some tissues?
Speaker 1: I mean, a little bit of soul searching and accountability
Speaker 1: is required to write this rut.
Speaker 3: So okay, I'm ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: So you know, we talked in a previous episode about
Speaker 1: how art making really forces us to try in public,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we're happy with the outcome of that process,
Speaker 1: but sometimes we don't love what comes out of the
Speaker 1: other end. Sometimes we want to stuff it in the
Speaker 1: back of a dark drawer, or bury it under ten
Speaker 1: feet of dense Georgia clay, or better yet, pretend like
Speaker 1: it never even existed. But because we can't turn back
Speaker 1: the clock, we are forced to live with our regret.
Speaker 1: So rather than treat the shameful work like a beautiful
Speaker 1: baby that we birthed into a harsh, harsh world, might
Speaker 1: choose to disown it instead treat it like in a
Speaker 1: strange child.
Speaker 3: You know that sounds dramatic, but it is kind of
Speaker 3: that serious folks will put a lot of time and
Speaker 3: effort into some of their creations and then be ashamed
Speaker 3: of them or whish they never created them in the
Speaker 3: first place.
Speaker 1: Are you speaking from experience, Katie? Are you the folks
Speaker 1: you speak of?
Speaker 3: I'm not too proud of it that there's no work
Speaker 3: or too or several in my past that I wish
Speaker 3: would have never seen the law to day for real?
Speaker 1: And which ones are those?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: You ain't gonna ask me the question, would you care
Speaker 3: to tell everyone about your most embarrassing pieces?
Speaker 1: Nah? Honestly not.
Speaker 3: I think I'm good exactly.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It could be cathartic, though, And the thing is we're
Speaker 1: not alone in our artistic regret. There are plenty of
Speaker 1: people who have put things out for eyes and ears
Speaker 1: and hearts and minds to enjoy and then poop poot
Speaker 1: them later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's not always about poor judgment or bad
Speaker 3: are either. It can be way more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: For sure. And it could just be that we get
Speaker 1: older in our perspectives shift.
Speaker 3: Or it could be that whatever message we are trying
Speaker 3: to convey no longer says right with us.
Speaker 1: Or it could be that the quality of the art
Speaker 1: doesn't hold up to our current standard.
Speaker 3: Or maybe we worked with the collaborator who's no longer
Speaker 3: our favorite person.
Speaker 1: You get it. The reasons abound, but regret can hit
Speaker 1: a little differently when you're a black artist. From the
Speaker 1: jump in our art in storytelling, we can be forced
Speaker 1: into certain roles, expected to act certain ways and talk
Speaker 1: about certain things. We're stereotyped and we're type cast. We've
Speaker 1: taken opportunities when we were hard up and jobbed. We're
Speaker 1: few and far between, and we say and we say,
Speaker 1: you felt that one, didn't you? I know that I
Speaker 1: need and you are not alone in that. And we
Speaker 1: say things about race before our thoughts have fully matured
Speaker 1: or evolved. We stared down our own internalized racism.
Speaker 3: We're human, We make mistakes, we grow, we change our
Speaker 3: minds period.
Speaker 1: And does that get even more complicated when you're dealing
Speaker 1: with societies that have lots of hang ups around race,
Speaker 1: Ones that love and hate to talk about race at
Speaker 1: the same damn time. Ones We're feelings about blackness and
Speaker 1: black people change on a dime, And sometimes we regret
Speaker 1: work that did not age well in the race Department,
Speaker 1: And that can be a heavy pill to swallow, because
Speaker 1: a law can we carry the burden of race on
Speaker 1: our shoulders. We ain't even have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: this construction in the first place, But that regret can
Speaker 1: feel pretty icky. But after that feeling has settled in
Speaker 1: and we've come to terms with the fact that we've
Speaker 1: done something we're not fully rocking with anymore, we get
Speaker 1: the chance to choose how we're going to reckon with
Speaker 1: our regret. And this is where we get to the
Speaker 1: story of Ernest Hogan.
Speaker 4: Part one, Ernest's Regret, Ernest Hegan.
Speaker 1: You remember that song that we heard up top. That's
Speaker 1: the song that Ernest Hogan, a black man born just
Speaker 1: a couple of months before Juneteenth in eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: composed and wrote. But we'll come back to that song later.
Speaker 1: So Ernest Hogan was born with the name Ernest Rubin
Speaker 1: Crotis Junior, but he later started using the last name
Speaker 1: Hogan for reasons that remained mysterious. One of many guesses
Speaker 1: is that he took the name Hogan to capitalize on
Speaker 1: the popularity of Irish performers at the time. But whether
Speaker 1: that's true or not, and beyond if it was that
Speaker 1: his clever marketing skills. Hogan was a man of many talents.
Speaker 1: His work in the entertainment business began when he was
Speaker 1: just a child. He was in the circus and traveling
Speaker 1: minstrual troops. He acted in performances of Uncle Tom's Cabin,
Speaker 1: and eventually he moved on to vaudeville acts. Hogan busted
Speaker 1: his chops on the stage, making it big with his performance.
Speaker 3: Proless okay quick break for definitions. Miss shows were performance
Speaker 3: in the eighteen hundreds where white actors in blackface would
Speaker 3: be caricatures of black people in comedic sketches, or so
Speaker 3: they thought were funny, and was the case with Hogan.
Speaker 3: There were also black minstrel performers in groups who were
Speaker 3: also in blackface. So by the beginning of the twentieth century,
Speaker 3: mister shows were not as popular as they were in
Speaker 3: the eighteen hundreds. And as you said, Bauville took that
Speaker 3: spotlight instead, and those shows contained a bunch of different
Speaker 3: acts like magic, comedy, dancing, singing. They was doing a lot.
Speaker 1: True true, Thank you for that breakdown, Katie, So Hogan,
Speaker 1: he had a lot of acclaim and the money followed too.
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh one, he was reportedly one of the
Speaker 1: highest paid Black Vautville entertainers of his time. So by
Speaker 1: the end of the eighteen hundreds, Hogan had done his
Speaker 1: laps around the business. He'd already made a noteworthy impact
Speaker 1: on stage performance in the United States. But another field
Speaker 1: where he made his name was music. As authors Lynn
Speaker 1: Abbott and Doug Saroff put it in the book Out
Speaker 1: of Sight, The Rise of African American Popular Music eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine to eighteen ninety five, quote Ernest Hogan was
Speaker 1: a conspicuous player in RAGTIME's initial commercial inscendency end quote.
Speaker 1: In fact, he was called the father of ragtime during
Speaker 1: his life. The people recognized Hogan's hand in the birth
Speaker 1: and the success of the musical genre, even though its
Speaker 1: origins preceded his published works. In it, ragtime music is
Speaker 1: usually performed on the piano. Think of this. Hogan published
Speaker 1: Lapa malaw in eighteen ninety five and called it a
Speaker 1: rag The song even had a dance to go with it.
Speaker 1: The lyrics went like this, hand upon your head, let
Speaker 1: your mind roll far back back back and look at
Speaker 1: the stars. Stand up rightly, dance it brightly. That's the
Speaker 1: pass ma law ay sounds familiar.
Speaker 3: I could think of a few songs from the early
Speaker 3: they used a similar formula.
Speaker 1: Because we were in the cafeteria dancing to their tailors.
Speaker 4: Girl.
Speaker 1: It was an era, but yes, lapal Mala was a hit. Still,
Speaker 1: it didn't create quite the buzz that the song Hogan
Speaker 1: released the next year.
Speaker 4: Did.
Speaker 3: Let me guess that's the song we heard at the
Speaker 3: beginning of this episode.
Speaker 1: Hmm, exactly. So we'll get into it after the break
Speaker 1: and we're back and we're coming in hot with coon
Speaker 1: songs sounds like my kind of diddy. I stop playing.
Speaker 1: We are being serious here, Okay, okay, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: give the people a history.
Speaker 3: I I'll buy note.
Speaker 1: So, coon songs were kind of like minstrel shows in
Speaker 1: music form. They featured stereotypes of black people, and in
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties these songs were set to ragtime music
Speaker 1: and ooh Katie. So called coon songs had a moment.
Speaker 1: White folks ate these songs up the black dialect, the
Speaker 1: positioning of black folks as inferior, black life being the
Speaker 1: butt of the joke, all wrapped up in the neat
Speaker 1: package of a jolly little tune that can be enjoyed
Speaker 1: on a sunny Southern morning. Most cone songs were composed
Speaker 1: by white people, but many were created by black folks,
Speaker 1: and these songs were super popular in the late nineteenth
Speaker 1: century and into the early twentieth The sheet music sold
Speaker 1: really well, allowing white folks to perform the songs themselves
Speaker 1: and to ingest and reproduce the stereotypes portrayed in them.
Speaker 1: Of course, black folks had a lot of feelings about
Speaker 1: coon songs. They perpetuated negative caricatures of Black people, and
Speaker 1: they reinforced racism. White folks sung these syrupy, lively songs,
Speaker 1: happily pleased to say words out loud that disparaged black folks.
Speaker 1: Black and white people were so called coon shouters aka
Speaker 1: singers of these songs, but white women got the most
Speaker 1: notoriety from singing these numbers. Some black critics and musicians
Speaker 1: rejected kum songs as harmful and crude. Others acknowledged how
Speaker 1: they were crafted and performed skillfully about black entertainers, and
Speaker 1: that they had gained popularity worldwide. So these songs gave
Speaker 1: black entertainers opportunities, and they were testaments to their musical skill.
Speaker 1: But what what was the cost of that.
Speaker 3: It just shows that we'd be talking about the same
Speaker 3: stuff over and over, like has there been a new conversation,
Speaker 3: because it really reminds me of like, do you remember
Speaker 3: when Shotty low Ipraphy he was trying to have a
Speaker 3: reality TV show called All My Baby Mamas.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that. That sounds like parody, and I
Speaker 1: don't remember that.
Speaker 3: Nigga's a protested why people were mad. They're like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, this is like showing stereotypes. Dad da da
Speaker 3: da okay, And like five years later, here come the
Speaker 3: Duggers with all twenty million of their kids and they
Speaker 3: sexually assault on folks and stuff. White people were like,
Speaker 3: let them cook, but like Black people were like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is like so bad. It seems like it's an
Speaker 3: example of that in every art form, like whether it's
Speaker 3: reality TV, which we can like argue the merits of
Speaker 3: its artfulness, but even like urban fiction that first of.
Speaker 1: All, urban fiction held us down throughout the middle school years.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, we was passing in books site. But
Speaker 3: like during Bill Cutton's campaign he went after urban fiction,
Speaker 3: talking about Sister Soldia in particular.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that.
Speaker 3: It's like do I think, like, as you said, white
Speaker 3: people should be getting like rich off of singing coon songs. No,
Speaker 3: but like should black people maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which also I mean there's a whole layer of
Speaker 1: respectability of politics that's involved in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Us wanted to look good in front of massive Essentially
Speaker 1: how we choose to express ourselves out in public being
Speaker 1: something that's highly policed by us ourselves, and here in
Speaker 1: returns the internalized racism.
Speaker 3: But I mean, when you're when you've been police for
Speaker 3: so long, you can take the police away because there's
Speaker 3: a cop that lives in your head exactly.
Speaker 1: It's subsumed as part of you now. And of course,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to minimize that, because these are
Speaker 1: questions that we should be asking. It's just that so
Speaker 1: frequently we turn to this more so authoritative or definitive
Speaker 1: way of looking at it rather than Okay, let's sit
Speaker 1: down and think about the nuances of this should we
Speaker 1: be doing or should we not? And I think that
Speaker 1: also comes down to the conversations that we should be
Speaker 1: having in public, and that conversations that should be happening
Speaker 1: in private. But these coon songs are already something that
Speaker 1: are so widely disseminated that they have their own gravity
Speaker 1: at that point. So I can see how much turmoil
Speaker 1: that causes in us collectively and individually because they've taken
Speaker 1: on this life of their own. And it's like it's
Speaker 1: so many things, because there's also the layer of us
Speaker 1: choosing to and wanting to share our work beyond ourselves
Speaker 1: and not being able to control how other people use it.
Speaker 3: I think it has a lot to do with shame too.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to be empathetic for the people who are like,
Speaker 3: we need to like not do this anymore, because I'm
Speaker 3: trying to think, has there been an occasion where I
Speaker 3: heard some piece of music or a movie or something
Speaker 3: where I'm like, this should not be allowed And I
Speaker 3: can't really think of one because there's just so many
Speaker 3: people in the world. It's like some people can do
Speaker 3: this coon shit, and some people can do like more
Speaker 3: like you know, things that I would want to listen
Speaker 3: to or watch or read. Stereotypes have truth in them,
Speaker 3: so like if you're ashamed that you like watermelon, it's
Speaker 3: a reflection.
Speaker 1: Is what you're saying.
Speaker 3: You know, It's like okay, like eat your watermelon, It's okay.
Speaker 3: But I think it's like that shame and like that
Speaker 3: respectability that you talked about, Like, oh, like, we can't
Speaker 3: do this thing because it's perceived this way, even if
Speaker 3: it's not a bad thing. So yeah, I'm trying to
Speaker 3: be empathetic for the people who were kind of cool
Speaker 3: on the coon songs and like trying to shut them down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we know that a black man composed and wrote this, Like,
Speaker 1: now what do we do with it? Which I don't
Speaker 1: know still hasn't been answered, but.
Speaker 3: It sounds like Ernest Hogan had some thoughts.
Speaker 1: He did he did, So now we've arrived at the
Speaker 1: song the object of Hogan's regret, all coons look alike
Speaker 1: to me subtitled A Darky Misunderstanding. First of all, I
Speaker 1: love that subtitle.
Speaker 3: Ray He's like, in case she did not understand.
Speaker 5: All coons look alike to me, I've got love the ball.
Speaker 3: So to some up the story of the song, the narrator,
Speaker 3: who's a black man, has a significant other named Lucy,
Speaker 3: but she's not worried about him because she got a
Speaker 3: new man who treats her even better. Plus, all coons
Speaker 3: black men look the same to her anyway, so it
Speaker 3: doesn't even matter which one she chooses. The narrator, on
Speaker 3: the other hand, has not moved on. He doesn't understand
Speaker 3: her change of heart, and he's hurt by what she said.
Speaker 1: Rightfully so, Hogan died of tuberculosis in nineteen oh nine,
Speaker 1: but of course the impact of his work and so
Speaker 1: called Coon song in general lived on. Let me be clear,
Speaker 1: I am not interested in belittling his accomplishments in stage
Speaker 1: work are pioneer status in ragtime, But I am interested
Speaker 1: in Hogan's feelings about all coons look alike to me
Speaker 1: after he released it to the world. In the book
Speaker 1: One hundred Years of the Negro in show Business by
Speaker 1: fellow Black vaudeville entertainer Tom Fletcher, Fletcher talks about a
Speaker 1: conversation that he had with Hogan. According to Fletcher, Hogan
Speaker 1: said that the word kon was controversial, sure, but it
Speaker 1: made him money at a time when making money was hard,
Speaker 1: and it put some money in many other entertainer's pockets too,
Speaker 1: And he said it injected more life into show business.
Speaker 1: He pointed out how people went on to do their
Speaker 1: own versions of the song without the word koon. I
Speaker 1: put it on, and he acknowledged the musicians who played
Speaker 1: Ragtime in back rooms, but never published their work. His
Speaker 1: Ragtime Songs controversy over the content, notwithstanding documented a history
Speaker 1: that could have been lost or at least fallen by
Speaker 1: the wayside, had he not produced them. Fletcher paraphrased Hogan
Speaker 1: in the book quote, with nothing but time on my hands. Now,
Speaker 1: I often wonder if I was right or wrong. So
Speaker 1: the thing that my mind is really pondering is the
Speaker 1: fact that his name followed the recording everywhere, Like everything
Speaker 1: you see in On, no matter who's sang it is
Speaker 1: like this was composed by Ernest Hogan. So there were
Speaker 1: many others who sang it, but we knew who it
Speaker 1: was attributed to, and he just can't escape that reputation.
Speaker 1: No matter what context is being presented in. Even if
Speaker 1: there is conversation around the complexity of his legacy, the
Speaker 1: issue with it being a Kon song and the word
Speaker 1: Kon and the context of it all is still the
Speaker 1: starting point of that conversation. Today, I feel a way
Speaker 1: even talking about him now because it's like, yes, I
Speaker 1: still get to talk about him, his very important legacy,
Speaker 1: all that he accomplished, But the starting point of this
Speaker 1: conversation is still about that work and the regret.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's probably like rolling around his grave that we're
Speaker 3: talking about him like this, right hery is I got
Speaker 3: wrote other shit took.
Speaker 1: Another example of this kind of race related regret that
Speaker 1: falls on the shoulders of black storytellers is Octavia Butler's
Speaker 1: novel Survivor.
Speaker 4: Part two Octavia is Regret.
Speaker 1: Survivor was published in nineteen seventy eight is part of
Speaker 1: her Patterness series, which also includes the books Pattern master
Speaker 1: Mind of My Mind while Seed and Clay's Arc, but
Speaker 1: Survivor wasn't included in the series its compilation Seet to
Speaker 1: Harvest that was published in two thousand and seven. That's
Speaker 1: because Butler didn't want anything to do with Survivor after
Speaker 1: it was released. Survivor is set on another planet. The
Speaker 1: book revolves around Alana, who was adopted by the Missionaries.
Speaker 1: The Missionaries are a group of Christian humans who left
Speaker 1: Earth due to the threat of the Clay Arc plague.
Speaker 1: The native inhabitants of the planet, the Cone, have fur
Speaker 1: and can change colors, but they are relatively human like.
Speaker 1: Their social roles are determined by their fur color, and
Speaker 1: there are rival tribes of Cone on the planet and
Speaker 1: Alana ends up having to negotiate her way between the
Speaker 1: missionaries and the two tribes in order to help save
Speaker 1: the missionaries. Of course, folks have different feelings about the book.
Speaker 1: There are readers that have recognized its merits and its flaws.
Speaker 1: They've respected Butler's wish for it never to be reprinted,
Speaker 1: and also said that it deserves a reprint. But regardless
Speaker 1: of the criticism and pray, Butler did not like the novel.
Speaker 1: She expressed this feeling in multiple interviews. In nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: Randall Keenan interviewed Octavia Butler over the phone for the
Speaker 1: journal Kalalou. One of the things that I was most
Speaker 1: embarrassed about in my novel Survivor is my human characters
Speaker 1: going off to another planet and finding other people they
Speaker 1: could immediately start having children with. Later, I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you can't really erase embarrassing early work, but you don't
Speaker 1: have to repeat it. Octavia didn't erase it, but she
Speaker 1: did make sure it wasn't disseminated much more widely than
Speaker 1: it already was. She thought that the book wasn't finished
Speaker 1: yet when she sold it to Double Day. She even
Speaker 1: said at one point that she sold it because she
Speaker 1: needed money to travel to do research for her other work,
Speaker 1: a little book you might have heard of called Kindred.
Speaker 1: She clearly wasn't proud of Survivor's treatment of race and species.
Speaker 1: This is what she said in an interview with Teresa
Speaker 1: Lyttleton for Amazon. When I was young, a lot of
Speaker 1: people wrote about going to another world and finding either
Speaker 1: little green men or little brown men, and they were
Speaker 1: always less in some way. They were a little sly
Speaker 1: or a little like the natives in a very bad
Speaker 1: old movie. And I thought, no way, apart from all
Speaker 1: these human beings populating the galaxy, this is really offensive garbage.
Speaker 1: People ask me why I don't like Survivor, my third novel,
Speaker 1: and it's because it feels a little bit like that
Speaker 1: some humans go up to another world and immediately begin
Speaker 1: meeting with the aliens and having children with them. I
Speaker 1: think of it as my star Trek novel. Making art
Speaker 1: is hard, and we can be our own worst critics,
Speaker 1: and Butler did her fair share of publicly and privately
Speaker 1: disavowing the book and asking people not to read it,
Speaker 1: but it lives on. In an essay based on a
Speaker 1: talk that she gave in twenty eleven, writer and activist
Speaker 1: Alexis Pauline says about the novel, definitively, we need it,
Speaker 1: and I've seen that sentiment also said by other people
Speaker 1: who have commented on the work. Octavia's regret was so
Speaker 1: deep that she didn't want the work to be reproduced anymore.
Speaker 1: This self censorship is pretty much the opposite of what
Speaker 1: happened with Hogan's song, which made its way onto sheet
Speaker 1: music prints and into the mouths of plenty of performers
Speaker 1: across time and space. Butler wanted no more witnesses, wanted
Speaker 1: the story of Survivor to end there. But despite her
Speaker 1: disdain and reasons for disliking the novel, many of the
Speaker 1: people who did read it responded with consideration and thoughtfulness.
Speaker 1: We're going to make work we don't love, and we
Speaker 1: can't control how people receive it. Both Hogan and Butler's
Speaker 1: stories feel like exercises in letting go, but from opposite
Speaker 1: ends of a spectrum.
Speaker 3: I wonder if the afterlife of these works deal with
Speaker 3: the amount of autonomy like Octavia Butler had as opposed
Speaker 3: to Ernest Hogan, they lived in different times and spaces,
Speaker 3: and I mean by that point she was a well
Speaker 3: known writer, and we you know, had gained significantly more
Speaker 3: rights at that point, so she was able to censor
Speaker 3: it to a certain extent. But like you said, Hogan's
Speaker 3: just went on and despite him like, hey, I don't
Speaker 3: like this song anymore. It's also very like comforting to
Speaker 3: know that someone like as talented as Octavia Butler was like,
Speaker 3: I was just doing this for check so I could
Speaker 3: do the thing I really wanted to do, And it
Speaker 3: sounds like she knew was like, Okay, these are the
Speaker 3: books that were popular when I was a kid, Like,
Speaker 3: let me just write one because I know it'll sell.
Speaker 3: And I guess not really thinking too far into the
Speaker 3: future of like, oh, like then I won't want people
Speaker 3: to read it, though.
Speaker 1: But I wonder how much of that processing was happening
Speaker 1: while she was writing it versus once it's published, because
Speaker 1: at that point she had an opportunity to see how
Speaker 1: people did respond to it. And it's one of those
Speaker 1: things too, where you can't control how people receive it.
Speaker 1: But I think that in this case, there is a
Speaker 1: lot of ambiguity, way more ambiguity in her work than
Speaker 1: there was in Hogan's. Like the conversation around race colonialism, captivity,
Speaker 1: all of the things that come up in this work,
Speaker 1: and so so many more.
Speaker 3: It is, like, I think, easier to misinterpret.
Speaker 1: I think in the case of Octavia Butler's work is
Speaker 1: more of a situation where the more you think about it,
Speaker 1: the more many different ways you can flip it. Because
Speaker 1: it's a plot, it's in its own genre, and there
Speaker 1: are so many ways you can take it. Versus Ernest
Speaker 1: Hogan's song was like a very straightforward plot. If we
Speaker 1: think of it in terms of storytelling, it's not that
Speaker 1: hard to follow versus how we can you can choose
Speaker 1: to take one way down the road versus another way
Speaker 1: down the road. When we think about things in Octavia Butler's.
Speaker 3: Novel, right, I think people will misinterpret things all the time,
Speaker 3: or like ascribe certain metaphors or meanings when there really
Speaker 3: isn't any. But I think when that happens, and it's
Speaker 3: like on the positive side, the author will be like, yee.
Speaker 1: Ye, I thought, was it that sound good enough? Regret
Speaker 1: HiT's different. In the Internet age, stuff lives on and
Speaker 1: it's not ever going away. We have scream shots, ar
Speaker 1: coved web pages, secret recordings, all kinds of receipts, so
Speaker 1: it's easy for us to be reminded of our regrets.
Speaker 3: I think with the Internet, the regrets cycle is probably
Speaker 3: much quicker, just because once you put something out there,
Speaker 3: there are you know, blogs that can like write something
Speaker 3: about it, there's people on social media who can comment,
Speaker 3: and you see it in real time, like it gets
Speaker 3: flashed on your phone. You see the person like you
Speaker 3: can basically see the person typing it out with the
Speaker 3: little dots like oh this sucks or whatever, or oh
Speaker 3: like this is so problematic or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3: And then you know, depending on how big your audiences,
Speaker 3: that criticism might be on like the front pages of
Speaker 3: New York Times, you'd.
Speaker 4: Be like, oh damn.
Speaker 3: But that being said, I think the regret is probably
Speaker 3: more instantaneous because of the Internet. But I don't know
Speaker 3: if the artist expresses that regret because I feel like
Speaker 3: people be like very defensive.
Speaker 1: So this makes me think of Viola Davis in the
Speaker 1: twenty eleven movie The Help, which is based on a
Speaker 1: novel of the same name by a white woman named
Speaker 1: Catherine Stockett.
Speaker 4: Part three, Viola's Regret.
Speaker 1: Go and google Viola Davis The Help, and you'll find
Speaker 1: plenty of articles written over several years talking about how
Speaker 1: she has misgivings about the story and taking the role.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you haven't read or watched The Help,
Speaker 3: I'll sum it up for you. The story said in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixties Mississippi. In it, a white woman named Skeeter
Speaker 3: collects the stories of black domestic workers for a book
Speaker 3: that she's writing. The workers are treated poorly, and part
Speaker 3: of Skeeter's mission is to expose this treatment. Once she
Speaker 3: gets enough of the workers to open up, she finishes
Speaker 3: the book, publishes it anonymously, and gives the profits to
Speaker 3: the workers. Yola Davis plays Abilene Clark. Her character is
Speaker 3: the film's narrator and a nanny who raises a white
Speaker 3: socialized child. In the end, she leaves her job and
Speaker 3: decides to become a writer.
Speaker 6: No one that ever asks me what it feels like
Speaker 6: to be me. Once I told the truth about that,
Speaker 6: I felt free.
Speaker 3: The movie was criticized for its white saviorism and its
Speaker 3: forefronting of the white characters versus the black one that
Speaker 3: the plot was actually focused on. In an interview with
Speaker 3: Vanity Fair Viola, Davis talked about the conflicting feelings that
Speaker 3: she had about the help. She felt like, quote, it
Speaker 3: wasn't the voices of the maids that were heard.
Speaker 7: Playing a maid in twenty and eleven, and you know
Speaker 7: my Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen. It was like, that
Speaker 7: was just so a part of how I saw it.
Speaker 7: I saw stereotype, and I didn't want to put that
Speaker 7: out there. I didn't want to be kind of blasted
Speaker 7: by the African American community, especially to be totally honest,
Speaker 7: but there is no way that you can read this
Speaker 7: book and look at the script, and even look at
Speaker 7: this movie and say that anyone was a stereotype.
Speaker 1: In that interview, you can hear her really wrestling with
Speaker 1: so many things, the history of black women in film
Speaker 1: playing stereotypical roles, her admiration for black actors who came
Speaker 1: before her, like Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly me queen, her
Speaker 1: desire to play characters that are a round and complicated,
Speaker 1: her hesitance to play a character that could be viewed
Speaker 1: as tasteless or flat, her fear about receiving negative criticism
Speaker 1: from black audience members, and her desire to take roles
Speaker 1: that are meaningful, challenging, and worthy. Of her time in legacy.
Speaker 1: She clearly wanted to make good art be part of
Speaker 1: a story that was told.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And in that last part where she talks about
Speaker 3: how the characters are not stereotypes in the book, it
Speaker 3: takes you back to Hogan's regret, how there were definitely
Speaker 3: stereotypes in Hogan's music and Coon songs in general, but
Speaker 3: he recognized that the situation wasn't so black and white.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, it was like they felt
Speaker 3: the way of the race on their shoulders. They felt
Speaker 3: some sort of responsibility for representing the race well, being
Speaker 3: good black stewards, not disappointing the Black delegation. Davis even
Speaker 3: said in a twenty eighteen New York Times interview, the
Speaker 3: responsibility of feeling like I am the great black female
Speaker 3: hope for women of color has been a real professional challenge.
Speaker 3: Being that role model and picking up that baton when
Speaker 3: you're struggling in your own life has been difficult.
Speaker 1: I really wish that we could release this weight for real.
Speaker 3: This predicament does also make me think, though, of the
Speaker 3: difference between regretting your own work versus regretting being in
Speaker 3: a part of someone else's. What do you mean by that, Like,
Speaker 3: I feel like it probably hits different for Viola Davis
Speaker 3: to be in like these white people's movie portraying the stereotype.
Speaker 3: Like maybe if you wrote it and you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: that was like in bad taste, or like I didn't
Speaker 3: know enough and it was my thing and you can
Speaker 3: kind of take full ownership over it, versus like I
Speaker 3: was low key just like a pod and I'm embarrassed
Speaker 3: now and you feel all this weight for like disappointing
Speaker 3: Black people are not like portraying black people how you
Speaker 3: wanted to or you think we should be portrayed, and
Speaker 3: he was just like an employee.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I can't speak for a Viola Davis, but I
Speaker 1: would imagine that's probably a different kind of shame. I
Speaker 1: guess if shame would be the word to use, because
Speaker 1: I guess the decision making was different. When you're writing
Speaker 1: your own work or creating your own work, then you're
Speaker 1: able to make those decisions at every step of the way.
Speaker 1: But when you're stepping into something that has been fully
Speaker 1: formed already and you're just one piece of the puzzle
Speaker 1: in the entire ty of the image, then I can
Speaker 1: see what you mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't know, have you heard of
Speaker 3: that movie called The Best of Enemies? So Taraji p
Speaker 3: Hinson is in it, and people kind of had the
Speaker 3: same criticism. So it's like about this black woman who
Speaker 3: befriends uh Kukuks clan member and they like form this
Speaker 3: like unlikely duo.
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm not you're making this sound like
Speaker 1: a buddy comedy.
Speaker 4: And try out.
Speaker 3: The way that the black woman that Taraji p Hinson
Speaker 3: is playing and Atwater is portrayed is just like this
Speaker 3: a you know, like there's no depth. She's just like
Speaker 3: there as like a placeholder when she was like a
Speaker 3: whole civil rights activist. But like when people pointed that
Speaker 3: out to Taraji, she was very like defensive about it,
Speaker 3: like she didn't publicly she didn't get it. So I mean,
Speaker 3: I think kudos to Viola Davis for like publicly saying
Speaker 3: like I wouldn't do this again, and like people be
Speaker 3: thinking like actors are super rich and they can like
Speaker 3: turn down any job. That is not the case for
Speaker 3: a lot of people. And I think especially for Viola
Speaker 3: Davis back in twenty eleven, like now she's noticed this
Speaker 3: like huge actress, but like going back in the time Machine,
Speaker 3: Like did she feel empowered to be like, no, I'm
Speaker 3: not going to take this, Like I'm good financially without
Speaker 3: this role.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one thing that just came up for me is
Speaker 1: how I think, from the outside looking in this, what
Speaker 1: Viola Davis did and also going back to Hogan, what
Speaker 1: he did can feel like very safe bets. Like I
Speaker 1: think if somebody looking at the help would be like,
Speaker 1: that's a very safe role of you to take, and
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's like also not a safe
Speaker 1: role to take, because Viola Davis herself knowledged how difficult
Speaker 1: it could be for her to take this because she
Speaker 1: knew all of the context of the role, all the
Speaker 1: trappings that a role like that could come with, and
Speaker 1: the backlash that she could receive for it. And it
Speaker 1: was the same for Hogan because it was a very
Speaker 1: safe thing to do because minstrel cy was already very
Speaker 1: popular thing. Yeah, and he knew that in creating this
Speaker 1: song he could have a hit that many people enjoyed.
Speaker 1: So it was like a balance between safety and risk
Speaker 1: that they were teetering on this tight rope across a canyon. Okay, imagery.
Speaker 3: I also think like about the popularity of certain things,
Speaker 3: like how does that impact her regret? Because The Help
Speaker 3: was a very popular movie. It was a very popular
Speaker 3: buck and became a very popular movie. And it's like
Speaker 3: if you just did like an indie film, then I
Speaker 3: many people saw, but it was the same thing. Would
Speaker 3: you still feel that regret or like, are you feeling
Speaker 3: that regret because of it's like the echo chamber of
Speaker 3: people like commenting on it and like more people can
Speaker 3: see you doing this thing.
Speaker 1: I think echo chamber is a perfect way to put it,
Speaker 1: because I think it's an amplification of that feeling most
Speaker 1: likely because if I have a feeling that's personal, I
Speaker 1: know how that feels in my body and how to
Speaker 1: handle it. But when that feeling is exacerbated because I
Speaker 1: have a bunch of other people basically affirming that feeling,
Speaker 1: I would imagine it's a lot bigger. And especially when
Speaker 1: you're a person who's as big as Viola Davis is
Speaker 1: in a movie as big as The Help is, So
Speaker 1: can't feel good. And another thing that I will say
Speaker 1: about that too, speaking of amplification, is that it wasn't
Speaker 1: just once that she addressed it or that people asked
Speaker 1: her about it, right I wonder what it was like
Speaker 1: for her to say that out loud repeatedly.
Speaker 3: I think it's also freeing, like as a up and
Speaker 3: coming actor who may like really look up to Viola
Speaker 3: Davis like see her doing that too, Yeah, because it
Speaker 3: could be, you know, what someone needs to hear so
Speaker 3: that they don't get into a role that they suspect
Speaker 3: they might regret later, or also like, Okay, I did
Speaker 3: this thing that I regret. It's not the end of
Speaker 3: the world. I can like build upon my body of
Speaker 3: work and like that's not the thing that I'm truly
Speaker 3: like known for.
Speaker 1: I love that you said that, because I don't think
Speaker 1: there's an answer to this question that we've posed around
Speaker 1: what does regret look like in public? For black people
Speaker 1: who are facing race related regret in their work, It's
Speaker 1: something that has to be worked through in every single instance,
Speaker 1: and clearly, like seeing other people talk about it out
Speaker 1: loud in the way that they process it can be
Speaker 1: something that's helpful for other people. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if we can put that in a neat little bow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, these aren't the last times that this is
Speaker 1: going to happen, Absolutely not, because can't be expected to
Speaker 1: be perfect or to know everything about race. When we
Speaker 1: create work and we're trying to do it authentically and
Speaker 1: fearlessly and lovingly, then things aren't always gonna come out
Speaker 1: right true.
Speaker 3: I regret this episode.
Speaker 1: But seriously, we might even regret it a little bit
Speaker 1: more now because we convince someone to sing all coons
Speaker 1: look alike to me? Talk about a COONa having trouble.
Speaker 1: I think I have enough fumone.
Speaker 5: It's all about my Lucy Jenny's stubble, and she has
Speaker 5: caused my heart. Mon, there's another COONa Baba from Virginia
Speaker 5: in society.
Speaker 4: He's the leader of the day.
Speaker 5: And now my honey, Galla's going to quit me. Yes,
Speaker 5: she's gone andrew a this coon away.
Speaker 1: She's no excuse to turn me loose.
Speaker 3: I've been abused.
Speaker 5: Now I'm all confused because these words She then did say, Well.
Speaker 1: All coons look alike to me.
Speaker 5: I've gotten lother ball, you see, And he's just as
Speaker 5: good to me as you Nick ever tried to be.
Speaker 5: He spends his money efree, I know we can agree,
Speaker 5: So I don't like you know how all coons look
Speaker 5: alike to me?
Speaker 1: The person you just heard singing that song was Coley Gilchrist,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't let her leave without talking to her
Speaker 1: about her experience of singing all coons look alike?
Speaker 4: To me?
Speaker 1: What kind of emotions come up in you when you
Speaker 1: think about Ernest Hogan being a black man writing this
Speaker 1: for white audiences.
Speaker 5: It was off putting and it kind of felt a
Speaker 5: bit like, you know, I was almost judging him and
Speaker 5: thinking he was a bit of a traitor for just
Speaker 5: saying those things about the black community and painting us
Speaker 5: in this picture. And although it was kind of used
Speaker 5: at black people's expense, he was trying to create a
Speaker 5: name and probably sustain himself back.
Speaker 1: In those times. So how did you feel singing it?
Speaker 1: Just now?
Speaker 5: It was a bit hard to to just get over
Speaker 5: myself in a sense and to get those words out
Speaker 5: in the atmosphere and kind of shake off, you know,
Speaker 5: any feelings I had towards it.
Speaker 1: But I think the biggest thing.
Speaker 5: That helped me is just putting on that actress kind
Speaker 5: of facade.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything else to add in terms of
Speaker 1: your feelings about this, I.
Speaker 5: Would just say I would love to continue. This has
Speaker 5: opened my eyes to a person and other people, other
Speaker 5: writers like him, that I knew nothing about, but I
Speaker 5: think it's important to continue to be a student as
Speaker 5: an artist and to learn about basically your ancestors and music.
Speaker 1: I think it's really good to continue to do.
Speaker 5: Your research and learn, learn as much as you can.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Coli Gilchrist for singing all Koons look
Speaker 1: alike to me. Oh, and stick around through the credits
Speaker 1: to hear Coli sing the rest of the.
Speaker 3: Song all right time for my favorite and only segment
Speaker 3: of this pot roll credits, Who What? When?
Speaker 4: Where?
Speaker 3: How would you like to give credit to you?
Speaker 1: I like to give credit to braids.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: I have been wearing my hair in small braids that
Speaker 1: I've had in for like a month now, I think,
Speaker 1: and I just love how I don't have to do
Speaker 1: anything to it. I'm not really thinking about how it looks.
Speaker 1: I have to put so little energy our thought into it.
Speaker 1: Braids are so versatile, they're so useful. They're coming in
Speaker 1: so many different shapes and forms, and I'm thankful for
Speaker 1: the brads that I have in my hair right now.
Speaker 1: Shout out to braids.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'd like to give credit to old friends. I've
Speaker 3: had an old friend reach out, so shout out to you,
Speaker 3: old friend.
Speaker 1: I love it. That's it for today. See y'all next
Speaker 1: week with another episode. On Theme is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and fair Weather Friends Media. This episode was written
Speaker 1: by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and
Speaker 1: produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us on Instagram at on
Speaker 1: Theme Show. You can also send us an email at
Speaker 1: hello at on Theme dot Show. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. Never said a word to hurt
Speaker 1: the feelings.
Speaker 5: I always bought a presence by the score, and now
Speaker 5: my brain with sorrow, am or really because she won't
Speaker 5: accept them anymore. If I treated how wrong she may
Speaker 5: have left me like all the rest. She's gone and
Speaker 5: let me down. If I'm lucky, I'm going to catch
Speaker 5: my policy and win my sweet thing away from town
Speaker 5: before I'm worried. Yes, I'm desperate and I've been joned
Speaker 5: and I'll get dangerous. Oh my, if these words she
Speaker 5: says to me, well, all coons look alike to me.
Speaker 5: I've got another ball, you see, and he's just as
Speaker 5: good to me as you.
Speaker 1: Nigga ever tried to be. He spends his money EF.
Speaker 5: Free, and I know we can agree, So I don't
Speaker 5: like you, know how all coons look alike to me,