Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woka F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, prerecorded from the Brooklyn Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about this week of content with really strong,
Speaker 1: powerful women from all walks of life and through different industries.
Speaker 1: Today's conversation is with Carrie Twig, who is one of
Speaker 1: the co founders of the black owned, women owned production
Speaker 1: company called Culture House. Carrie started her career in politics
Speaker 1: and in policy and ended her political career with the
Speaker 1: Obamas as a special assistant to the President and then
Speaker 1: the director of Public Engagement for the Vice President. And
Speaker 1: during her time in the conversation that we have, she
Speaker 1: talked about the importance of storytelling and the importance of
Speaker 1: marginalized community telling their own stories and being in control
Speaker 1: of every part of production, from the writing of the story,
Speaker 1: to the producing of the story to the filming of
Speaker 1: the story. Culture House is really unique in Hollywood as
Speaker 1: it is one of the very few production houses that
Speaker 1: are very intentional about having seventy five percent the bare
Speaker 1: minimum in their mind, seventy five percent of the people
Speaker 1: that are involved in the company, that are working with
Speaker 1: the company be women and be women of color. And
Speaker 1: I think that that is really important because we understand
Speaker 1: how important these days story is. I bitch and moan
Speaker 1: every single week about the Democrats and their inability to
Speaker 1: message right, and all messaging is is telling a compelling
Speaker 1: story over and over and over again so that people
Speaker 1: latch onto it, and they find different ways right to
Speaker 1: latch onto those stories. But if you don't tell them right,
Speaker 1: and you allow the other person and to just dictate
Speaker 1: the narrative, then guess what, you end up completely out
Speaker 1: of the story, as we have seen right throughout the
Speaker 1: course of American history. So what's really exciting about this
Speaker 1: conversation for me is that Carrie, like myself, made a
Speaker 1: pivot from politics and policy and into the media and
Speaker 1: entertainment landscape. And I think that it's also really important
Speaker 1: to have conversations with folks that are doing something that
Speaker 1: is bold right, which is the fact that, guess what, right,
Speaker 1: women women of color are still very underrepresented in Hollywood
Speaker 1: in production in front of the camera as in behind
Speaker 1: the camera. And so Carrie will talk about a couple
Speaker 1: of amazing productions that are coming up, things that we
Speaker 1: are going to want to save on Hulu on Amazon
Speaker 1: Prime that are stories about black women, right, hair Tales
Speaker 1: is going to be a story that guess who the
Speaker 1: executive producer powerhouses are behind that, Oprah Winfrey and Tracy
Speaker 1: Ellis Ross right, And the story hair Tales is about
Speaker 1: the connection that black women have with their hair, how
Speaker 1: our hair has been politicized, right, what it means to
Speaker 1: be natural, what it means to go through these process
Speaker 1: and regardless of where you find yourself throughout the diaspora
Speaker 1: of black people, black women's hair, black hair is something
Speaker 1: that is incredibly important. And so to talk to Carrie
Speaker 1: about this story and how it came to be and
Speaker 1: when we are all going to lay eyes on it
Speaker 1: is really something to look forward to. Because here's the
Speaker 1: thing too, folks, is that I am tired, as I
Speaker 1: know that you are, of having conversations about the doom
Speaker 1: and gloom, having conversations about, you know, the end of
Speaker 1: the world and how it is fastly approaching. So it's
Speaker 1: really fun to be able to take a pivot from
Speaker 1: the doom and gloom and look at what good is
Speaker 1: actually coming out into the world, what is being poured
Speaker 1: into it. And there are so many good stories about
Speaker 1: people of color, people from marginalized communities, people whose stories
Speaker 1: have been underrepresented. So I really hope that you enjoy
Speaker 1: this convo with Carrie and check out Culture House at
Speaker 1: Culture dot House, which is also a production company and
Speaker 1: a cultural consultancy. Right, so very interesting the work that
Speaker 1: they are all doing and the fact that many of
Speaker 1: you have probably seen some of the work that has
Speaker 1: been produced. So I am super excited to bring this
Speaker 1: in depth conversation about how we fill ourselves up. The
Speaker 1: world is depleting us in ways that I don't think
Speaker 1: we ever we ever thought. We find ourselves sitting in
Speaker 1: front of the television, sitting in front of our phone,
Speaker 1: sitting in front of our laptops, and just having negativity
Speaker 1: be deposited onto us. So what does it mean to
Speaker 1: actually be in this space that is really dark and
Speaker 1: think about the art and the music and the movies
Speaker 1: and the films that can be created during this time
Speaker 1: and the importance of them being created during this time.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited for this conversation. Let me know in
Speaker 1: the comment section what you think about it, and I
Speaker 1: look forward to reading your comments. Folks. I am very
Speaker 1: excited to welcome to Okay Effort Daily for the very
Speaker 1: first time, the founding partner and head of development at
Speaker 1: Culture House, Carrie Twig, I want you to tell folks
Speaker 1: about your amazing company. And you know why, particularly now,
Speaker 1: we have seen so many and I guess it's not
Speaker 1: really so many when you look at the swath of
Speaker 1: white production companies and films and television that is made.
Speaker 1: But over the last I would say ten years or so,
Speaker 1: there's been a concerted effort by people of color BIPOC
Speaker 1: folks to own and operate their own production houses, to
Speaker 1: be the ones that are green lighting. So can you
Speaker 1: tell us a bit about Culture House and how this
Speaker 1: vision came to be? Absolutely so. I mean you bring
Speaker 1: up a really good point around the just broader ecosystem
Speaker 1: that Culture House exists in. There has been a real
Speaker 1: movement and a lot of momentum behind people of color,
Speaker 1: BIPOC folks, queer folks starting their own production companies because
Speaker 1: we need to get involved in the process further down
Speaker 1: the supply chain right and have a voice in a perspective,
Speaker 1: be present in all aspects of the content creation. And
Speaker 1: that's really important and so that's a huge piece of
Speaker 1: why we organize our company the way that we did.
Speaker 1: We're black, brown women owned production company, two other partners,
Speaker 1: and our work really focuses at the intersection of pop
Speaker 1: culture and politics, and we run production services. So a
Speaker 1: lot of production companies, even if they're organized from a
Speaker 1: financial or legal perspective as a production company, don't actually
Speaker 1: then carry the overhead required to create an actual production.
Speaker 1: They will then end up having to subcontract to another
Speaker 1: company in order to run the budgets, to carry the insurance,
Speaker 1: to run the editing and the post process, to do
Speaker 1: the development, so on and so forth. And so then
Speaker 1: a lot of those companies that can and do have
Speaker 1: the wherewithal to have the overhead and to have those resources,
Speaker 1: or the legacy companies predominantly owned by men, predominantly white.
Speaker 1: And so we made a choice to run those production
Speaker 1: services ourselves because there wasn't a company like ours that
Speaker 1: shared our perspective, that share aired our point of view,
Speaker 1: that was able to do the entire provide the entire
Speaker 1: supply chain of content. And that was a major choice
Speaker 1: that we made. That made it harder as a business.
Speaker 1: It's a harder, more complex business to run, to set
Speaker 1: up to sustain, but it was important from a kind
Speaker 1: of political point of view for all of us. I'm
Speaker 1: the new bee in the film in TV world. My company,
Speaker 1: you know, um my partners are long time filmmakers. Ray
Speaker 1: Rachel Genre, She's been in the doc world for you know,
Speaker 1: twenty years, went to Tish, went to film school, did
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Nicole Glevski, She's she ran a m
Speaker 1: she ran a film festival. She's produced everything you can
Speaker 1: imagine from you know, big budget features to indie features,
Speaker 1: to scripted to nonscripted to doc kind of and everything
Speaker 1: in between. And I sort of wandered out of DC
Speaker 1: five years ago trying to figure out how things got
Speaker 1: on TV. Thankfully, we all kind of met and bonded,
Speaker 1: and I was really able to They were at an
Speaker 1: inflection point in their career. They'd been running a production
Speaker 1: company for several years with a different partner, and they
Speaker 1: were winding that company down and really trying to think
Speaker 1: about what was next when we all met. So our
Speaker 1: timing was really good that I sort of brought in
Speaker 1: my perspective and we were able together to craft a
Speaker 1: vision that ultimately became Culture House. I love this, and
Speaker 1: I love the fact that you just said that you
Speaker 1: wandered your way out of DC because I did the
Speaker 1: same in twenty sixteen. It was like the Obamas are leaving,
Speaker 1: and so I am leaving as well, Like I am
Speaker 1: packing up my life and heading to New York. You know,
Speaker 1: I have said often when I started out in media,
Speaker 1: which was during the fight for marriage equality, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was when I had decided that policy wasn't the
Speaker 1: only thing that drives change, that it is also media, right,
Speaker 1: And when I talked about media initially, it was essentially
Speaker 1: around how mainstream media and cable news would reflect back
Speaker 1: out us the issues that need to be paid attention to,
Speaker 1: or who is important, who do we invoke empathy about,
Speaker 1: and what have you? For you making this, making the
Speaker 1: transition from the Obama White House into entertainment, did you
Speaker 1: see it as as as an opportunity to kind of
Speaker 1: expand where you were in this big, major place of change,
Speaker 1: to find a different avenue to tell different stories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean to me, I do the same work I did.
Speaker 1: I just have different tactics and I do it in
Speaker 1: a different industry. But from my experience, and I obviously
Speaker 1: can't speak to the experience of other people in the
Speaker 1: White House, but it's not a coincidence to me that
Speaker 1: so many people left the Obama era, including the Obama's
Speaker 1: and went storytelling. I think that there was a shared
Speaker 1: experience around like why is this so difficult? Like why
Speaker 1: can't we in setting aside the Senate, setting aside the racism,
Speaker 1: there is also just a fundamental reality that whether it's healthcare,
Speaker 1: whether it's economic policy, whether it was environmental policy, the
Speaker 1: political or the legislative and policy vision was too far
Speaker 1: ahead of where the culture of the nation actually was.
Speaker 1: And the reality is that these ideas, the idea of
Speaker 1: what your society can be, has to exist in the
Speaker 1: imagination of citizens first, and then you can build policy
Speaker 1: and then you can build legislation around it. And the
Speaker 1: way that you sort of accept people's imagination is through
Speaker 1: the stories, the stories that we would tell, the stories
Speaker 1: that we repeat, the stories we share, the stories were
Speaker 1: exposed to and so to me it was sort of going.
Speaker 1: It was the same work of I'm someone who's animated
Speaker 1: to change society, and I have been since I was
Speaker 1: a very young person. It has animated basically every choice
Speaker 1: I have ever made, and so to me, it's about
Speaker 1: doing that work, but slightly earlier in the process before
Speaker 1: you get to the place where you're trying to build
Speaker 1: a legislative agenda or policy agenda around it. It's moving
Speaker 1: up a little bit and doing the cultural the kind
Speaker 1: of scaffolding, the cultural scaffolding that allows for a allows
Speaker 1: for the political or governmental vision to be articulated that
Speaker 1: I believe in, there needs to be a value set
Speaker 1: in order in place before the government that I would
Speaker 1: like to see can actually make good on that visions.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: we're kind of in the place that we are, both
Speaker 1: politically and culturally, because we've lost sight of having any
Speaker 1: type of shared vision and shared identity. And I think
Speaker 1: that that there, to me, has always been the opportunity
Speaker 1: for culture, for pop culture to be able to decrease
Speaker 1: that gap, right that like the idea that stories that
Speaker 1: are about or center black people, queer people are ones
Speaker 1: that are said that, well, you know, that's for this
Speaker 1: particular group, Like they're not. It's not a shared it's
Speaker 1: not a shared story of like the American story. Like
Speaker 1: we're having these conversations right now and seeing this pushback,
Speaker 1: do you think that it's like, how do you aside
Speaker 1: from folks like yourself who have created their own entity
Speaker 1: in culture house. What advice do you have for people
Speaker 1: that are trying to maneuver and expand the spaces that
Speaker 1: are inherently white, that are inherently male, but they're trying
Speaker 1: to take up space. That's interesting. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: part of me takes issue with the found with the
Speaker 1: even the idea that there are spaces that are inherently
Speaker 1: male or inherently white. I think they are populated by
Speaker 1: white men, but doesn't mean they're inherently for them. And
Speaker 1: we can get into the kind of social design and
Speaker 1: the fact that our economy is all sorts of workplaces
Speaker 1: were designed in the image of and to facilitate white maleness.
Speaker 1: I'm not disagreeing with that, but I do think that
Speaker 1: we have One of the things that we have to
Speaker 1: constantly remember is that adversarialness is also energy draining. It's
Speaker 1: your second work, right if you are thinking about, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do I infiltrate this space you are in order
Speaker 1: to do X, you just gave yourself two jobs and
Speaker 1: everyone else who's in that space only has one. And
Speaker 1: so for me, it's sort of like, is that how
Speaker 1: I want to expend my energy, or can I just
Speaker 1: do things? Can I build something that feels right to me,
Speaker 1: that makes sense to me, do it my way, eliminate
Speaker 1: as much if I as much as I can around
Speaker 1: the infiltration. And there's people who are good at that,
Speaker 1: there's people who enjoy that. I personally am not one
Speaker 1: of them anymore. I have my little moments when you're
Speaker 1: like fix it from the inside, But generally speaking, I'm
Speaker 1: just like girl mine, got no more time for this,
Speaker 1: Like I'm just going to build the thing I want
Speaker 1: to build and make it so dope that it's kind
Speaker 1: of it's its own undeniable force. And if you guys
Speaker 1: don't want, I don't go where I'm not invited. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't go to someone's party in why would I do that?
Speaker 1: Why would I be in someone's house when I was
Speaker 1: not I am not welcome there? And so I just
Speaker 1: I try to reduce the amount of time and energy
Speaker 1: I spend banging against a door that does not want
Speaker 1: to go, and use all of that energy to find
Speaker 1: the places which exist, Like there's there's places exist where
Speaker 1: you will be welcome, you'll be celebrated, where people actually
Speaker 1: want you there and value your opinion. As opposed to
Speaker 1: getting stuck on the like it has to be this company,
Speaker 1: or it has to be this outlet or this distributor,
Speaker 1: and I have to tell this story. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe that's true for some people. I try not to
Speaker 1: get too attached to what something looks like from the
Speaker 1: outside and just really focus on like my personal feelings
Speaker 1: and experience of when I'm interacting with someone, and if
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel good, then I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: there or be there. I don't know. I just don't
Speaker 1: subject myself to it because time is precious and energy
Speaker 1: is precious, and I don't want to do twice as
Speaker 1: much as twice as much work as everybody else. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that's right, because I mean there has been
Speaker 1: so much conversation in the past two years, particularly through COVID,
Speaker 1: around black women, black people reclaiming rest and reclaiming the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, you've hired me for this one thing.
Speaker 1: But often times, what regardless of what industry it is,
Speaker 1: you're doing multiple jobs, um, and you're and you're being
Speaker 1: you're being set up in a way where to your
Speaker 1: earlier point, there isn't scaffolding, There isn't you know, there
Speaker 1: isn't a net that is created for your success, knowing
Speaker 1: that oftentimes if you're coming in um into different spaces.
Speaker 1: I know, for me, in politics and in you know,
Speaker 1: in a variety of places, I was the only black
Speaker 1: face in the room, the only black queer face in
Speaker 1: the room, which means that now I have to talk
Speaker 1: to you about white supremacy, and I have to talk
Speaker 1: to you about homophobia and transphobia, and I have to
Speaker 1: talk to you about like all of these different things.
Speaker 1: And then I have to do my job, um, which
Speaker 1: has found me working for myself many for the past
Speaker 1: several years for that particular reason. Um. You know, in
Speaker 1: within within culture House you say that seventy five percent
Speaker 1: um of the folks in front of and behind the
Speaker 1: camera are black, Codigenous people of color and women identified.
Speaker 1: Why was that number important to you? And do you
Speaker 1: think that you know because again other companies, production places,
Speaker 1: cable news, all of these things say it's so hard,
Speaker 1: we don't know where to look, we have no idea
Speaker 1: where to find these talented people of color, and yet
Speaker 1: you manage to create a company with seventy five percent
Speaker 1: and make that your number. So how did you come
Speaker 1: to that Yeah, how did you come to that distinction? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we have twenty six people on staff, and twenty five
Speaker 1: of them are women, and I think twenty of them
Speaker 1: are women of color. So we do the same thing
Speaker 1: everyone else does. We have a job, we have roles
Speaker 1: to hire, We access our network because of who we are,
Speaker 1: our networks look a particular way. And so that is
Speaker 1: so the idea that like it's some great challenge to
Speaker 1: hire people of color is completely laughable. But have all
Speaker 1: of these people who have lived a particular way and
Speaker 1: have just not interacted socially, not interacted sort of in
Speaker 1: any meaningful way with people of color, and then they're
Speaker 1: scrambling to try and fill and they don't. They're not
Speaker 1: even one person removed. They're like seven or eight. Like
Speaker 1: there's people who are trying to then hire and diverse
Speaker 1: by sets who like wouldn't have a person of color
Speaker 1: at their wedding, who have gone to je damn yeah,
Speaker 1: or like I wouldn't know who to call to invite
Speaker 1: to a dinner party, like I have no one let alone.
Speaker 1: And that's that's that's their fundamental failure. And so for us,
Speaker 1: this idea of like seventy five percent it's like, at
Speaker 1: least and it's not even a sweat, is what would
Speaker 1: happen organically? Like, it's not even a thing. It's not aspirational.
Speaker 1: M And So I was on some like inner street
Speaker 1: panel conversation about this, and someone was talking about some
Speaker 1: TV commercial that they shot in Las Vegas, Nevada. Were like, well,
Speaker 1: you know it was Nevada, so it was super hard
Speaker 1: to like get a diverse crew in a diverse set.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm pretty sure. Correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Nevada is, if not
Speaker 1: majority non white, very close to it. So what are
Speaker 1: you saying to me? How is that possible? How is
Speaker 1: the one of the countries entertainment capitals of the world.
Speaker 1: What are you telling me you can't find someone in
Speaker 1: Vegas that isn't white, that knows how to use lights?
Speaker 1: How lazy? I screw you that they are there. Y'all
Speaker 1: just don't know any y'all just just say you don't
Speaker 1: know any brown folks, right, you don't know any black folks.
Speaker 1: You don't know any you don't know any. So that's
Speaker 1: what the problem is. It's not that we don't exist,
Speaker 1: is that y'all? Right, so right, yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: the supply chain, and it's like, listen, the supply chain
Speaker 1: is real because human beings act like human beings and
Speaker 1: call people to work with, call people that they know,
Speaker 1: and call people that they like, and give the same
Speaker 1: people opportunity over and over and over again because getting
Speaker 1: to know new people's hard and it feels risky and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, Like we do the same thing, we
Speaker 1: call the same directors, we call the same people. They
Speaker 1: just happen to all the black, brown, queer women something
Speaker 1: you know. Um, But people don't do these interventions in
Speaker 1: their own personal lives, right They're forty five stumbling around
Speaker 1: trying to make their first black friend. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: y'all act like it's us that are in, Like you
Speaker 1: just haven't seen us your whole life. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's about I mean, in all honesty, it is
Speaker 1: about self interrogation, right, like it is about the asking
Speaker 1: yourself why and why am I only caring about this
Speaker 1: to your point at forty five? And I didn't care
Speaker 1: about it at twenty, right, Like I didn't care about
Speaker 1: it as I was growing my career to make sure
Speaker 1: that there's not only a diversity in race, in gender, identity,
Speaker 1: and orientation, but that there is a diversity in thought.
Speaker 1: Where am I getting people from? How am I? How
Speaker 1: am I storytelling and creating richness? If everybody looks the
Speaker 1: same as me and it's from the same place. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think that that like, But that is about
Speaker 1: self interrogation. It is about saying that, hey, maybe I
Speaker 1: didn't grow up in this space, So what do I
Speaker 1: need to do in order to be better, in order
Speaker 1: to be more nimble? Um, you have a new production
Speaker 1: that is going to be coming out released June twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. Um, which gives us all something to look
Speaker 1: forward to and something for me to look forward to. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll hit that timeline. But we're going Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you don't you have a new production. Okay, you have
Speaker 1: a new production in the works in the world. Okay,
Speaker 1: actually set today, Okay, hiding in a back room, all right,
Speaker 1: So hair Tales. You have powerhouse executive producers Oprah and
Speaker 1: Tracy Ellis Ross that are behind the hair Tales which
Speaker 1: will be on Hulu and tell us about this, tell
Speaker 1: us about the rich stories and about black women and
Speaker 1: their identity and connection with their hair and how this
Speaker 1: came about. Yeah, I mean, it's such a beautiful project.
Speaker 1: It's created by a woman named Michaela Angela Davis, and
Speaker 1: she has been working in sort of the cultural academic
Speaker 1: hairspace for a really long time. Tracy coming on as
Speaker 1: an executive producer and a host of the show, which
Speaker 1: is also really exciting. Dovetailed really perfectly with her launching
Speaker 1: pattern and pattern yeah, you know, but also these are
Speaker 1: women who trace their their journey of self acceptance through
Speaker 1: their journey with their hair. Right, their hair represented became
Speaker 1: a sort of prism for how they interacted with the world,
Speaker 1: how they were seeing, how they saw themselves, how they
Speaker 1: would nurture themselves, how they were taken care of by
Speaker 1: the people who raised them, and so there's so much
Speaker 1: Our hair really becomes this portal and this lens through
Speaker 1: which we can tell so much about who we are.
Speaker 1: You know, in my life, my dad braided my hair
Speaker 1: every morning, and he had five little sisters, and so
Speaker 1: he'd been braiding hair in some former fashion for forty
Speaker 1: five years between having five little sisters and then two daughters.
Speaker 1: And when he when I asked him, I think I
Speaker 1: was like twelve, for my twelfth birthday, asked if I
Speaker 1: could do my own hair, and so he just started
Speaker 1: washing the dog every week and started bothing the dog.
Speaker 1: It's like, what do I do with all that's time? Exactly?
Speaker 1: But like that, even that story, that story of who
Speaker 1: did my hair? Growing up will tell you so much
Speaker 1: about how I was raised, about who my family, how
Speaker 1: my family is organized, about who I am, about my
Speaker 1: orientation to the world. And that's true for so many
Speaker 1: of us. You know, you can ask questions of your
Speaker 1: mom or your grandma, your auntie when y'all look at
Speaker 1: each other in the eye, but she's sitting up behind you,
Speaker 1: maybe you wouldn't have the courage to sort of and
Speaker 1: vice versa. She might tell you things that she might
Speaker 1: not be able to look you in the eye and
Speaker 1: tell you. But when she's braiding your hair can like
Speaker 1: briefly remind you, like, hey, you know this is happening
Speaker 1: or is it about to happen or such and such,
Speaker 1: And so our hair has become this really important milestone
Speaker 1: then in the kind of intimate space of black women.
Speaker 1: And then it's also this way for us to talk
Speaker 1: about what we're really up against and how we interact
Speaker 1: with the world right all the cultural stories, the way
Speaker 1: that black barbershops and beauty salonts have been used as
Speaker 1: organizing hubs in the Black community throughout America since time.
Speaker 1: The way that black hair is an incredible economic resource
Speaker 1: for women to be entrepreneurial, to get themselves through college,
Speaker 1: to open their first businesses, whether it's you know, the
Speaker 1: first self made women Black women in this history of
Speaker 1: this country, to women entrepreneurs around the world today, it
Speaker 1: is a source of our oppression right, whether that ability politics,
Speaker 1: whether that's the Crown Act, which recently you know, didn't
Speaker 1: proceed through the US Senate with some white girls representing
Speaker 1: a senator calling it the bad Hair Bill. And that's
Speaker 1: all a mechanism of being able to discriminate against Black
Speaker 1: women for hair as it grows out of their head,
Speaker 1: as they choose to articulate and wear it them because
Speaker 1: it's an effort to continue to styme me the power
Speaker 1: of Black women and our agency, not only our bodily agency,
Speaker 1: even our cultural agency. And so our hair remains this
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful cipher almost of our public life, but also
Speaker 1: of our intimate individual life, our family life, our community life,
Speaker 1: and so it was just so far past due for
Speaker 1: a really rich artistic exploration. There are some incredible artists
Speaker 1: who are contributing to this show. There are some incredible guests,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be hopefully as hopefully you know who
Speaker 1: we're making it for. We'll find it as magical as
Speaker 1: it's been to make it. Yeah, you know, I just
Speaker 1: I often don't think that we get to see those
Speaker 1: intimate portrayals of ourselves that are outside of the body
Speaker 1: politic talking about what is wrong with our hair as
Speaker 1: opposed to the journey and the beauty and like the
Speaker 1: connection and relationship and familialness. And I can tell you
Speaker 1: I have locks. And when I had decided, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty years ago to lock my hair, my grandparents who
Speaker 1: have since passed there my family's Jamaican, and my grandparents
Speaker 1: who were just like, what kind of job are you
Speaker 1: going to get if you lock your hair? Like it
Speaker 1: was coming from Jamaica, they had only associated having locks with,
Speaker 1: you know, with Rastafarianism, with this whole idea of counterculture,
Speaker 1: and could not foresee at all me being in politics
Speaker 1: on television with you know, with locked hair. And it
Speaker 1: was you know, and it was like a moment that
Speaker 1: really took me aback of you know, the politics of
Speaker 1: hair within my own family and saying, oh, well, you
Speaker 1: were all good and fine so long as it was
Speaker 1: being pressed and permed and tortured or braided, but if
Speaker 1: you were to do something with your natural hair, it
Speaker 1: was just like, we're concerned about your employment and that
Speaker 1: you know, and that and that was incredibly real at
Speaker 1: at time, um, so long ago. But not even the
Speaker 1: number of aunties that asked me if I was getting
Speaker 1: a press pressing my hair before starting at the White House.
Speaker 1: They're like, well, surely you're gonna get a relaxer or
Speaker 1: surely you're going to like I was like to go
Speaker 1: work for black people. No, no, I will not. But
Speaker 1: it was people were just like, are you sure, like
Speaker 1: maybe maybe just like a little bit maybe like fine,
Speaker 1: maybe don't go all relax or like a little bit
Speaker 1: of charte, just like take a little bit down, a
Speaker 1: little bit of charte. What are you talking about? Um?
Speaker 1: But it was very stressful to a lot. And also
Speaker 1: like my family's from the Caribbean, from Barbados, so but
Speaker 1: even my aunties that are American, we're just like, girl,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Get that you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I remember, I remember, I remember the Obama
Speaker 1: girls being attacked when um they had two strand twists
Speaker 1: in I mean the like the odd dast I just
Speaker 1: that brings me back to that dark place, um, because
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh my god, here here I
Speaker 1: was as excited that I'm like, black girls are sitting
Speaker 1: in the White House getting their hair done and I
Speaker 1: like what And I remember talking about this like giddily,
Speaker 1: and then to see them attacked for this A well,
Speaker 1: it's it's not done. It doesn't look right, but messy
Speaker 1: buns with blonde hair is totally fine and acceptable. Um,
Speaker 1: so I am yeah, It's just it's it's absurd. I
Speaker 1: think that this is incredibly exciting. I cannot wait to
Speaker 1: watch it. Is it going to be? Is it a series?
Speaker 1: Is it a doc? What is the how? How is
Speaker 1: this going to take form? Is it's the sixth episode season? Um?
Speaker 1: And it will air simultaneously on Hulu and own, so
Speaker 1: wonderful linear option as well as the Hulu option, which
Speaker 1: is great. And as we wrap up, Carrie, do you
Speaker 1: have any other projects in the works that you can
Speaker 1: get us excited about us so we have a good
Speaker 1: distraction from you know, not a democracy crumbling exactly. So
Speaker 1: we do have a show on Disney Plus that's coming
Speaker 1: out in August or September called Growing Up, and that
Speaker 1: is really about these moments and our adolescence where shame
Speaker 1: really creeps in and can really change our life and
Speaker 1: sort of how do we have a peer to peer
Speaker 1: conversation about those moments, hopefully for young people and head
Speaker 1: them off of the past so they're not trying to
Speaker 1: work it out with their therapist at forty but can
Speaker 1: just like never take on that baggage, trust me, you know,
Speaker 1: like the things if I could go back and just like,
Speaker 1: this is not a thing to worry about, It's not
Speaker 1: a thing. Put Put all this down, Put all this
Speaker 1: concern and shame that you have around this particular thing down,
Speaker 1: and go live your life. And that was really what
Speaker 1: we were trying to do as the four executive producers
Speaker 1: of the show, myself, my business partners, and Bree Larson,
Speaker 1: the actress who really came to us with this vision
Speaker 1: around a show about shame and so as anything from
Speaker 1: starting your period to coming out to transitioning to living
Speaker 1: on a rez and feeling isolated to not getting into
Speaker 1: the college. You want not acne feeling colorism like an
Speaker 1: immigrant experience. Right. So these ten they're ten different stories,
Speaker 1: all centered around young people who really struggled with something
Speaker 1: and there are a few years removed from it now,
Speaker 1: but talking about it and recreating it and think trying
Speaker 1: to dissect for the audience, like how easy and universal
Speaker 1: it's the same. It's the same universal thing. We all
Speaker 1: go through it as we're trying to figure out who
Speaker 1: the hell we are and what we're going to do.
Speaker 1: And so whether you had that exact experience or not,
Speaker 1: it's also like it's so deeply relatable and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how we can liberate ourselves earlier in the
Speaker 1: process and not even really begin to bring some of
Speaker 1: that on so that we our kids can be a
Speaker 1: little bit freer than we got to be. So I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of that show, and I'm really excited for
Speaker 1: that UM to debut in on Disney Plus. As I said, um,
Speaker 1: later later this year. UM, we're working on a you know,
Speaker 1: another show about black folks and black women in music
Speaker 1: for Netflix that I can't talk too much about on
Speaker 1: that one, UM, and that's on the horizon. Yeah, on
Speaker 1: the horizon. Well, as your projects come together and you're
Speaker 1: getting ready to launch, I hope that you will come
Speaker 1: back and chat with us some more because I need
Speaker 1: more joy in my life and this provides me with
Speaker 1: that kind of energy and excitement. So Karrie, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for making time for okay A and for
Speaker 1: the work that you're doing and the change that you're
Speaker 1: making in a completely different format. You allow folks to
Speaker 1: see that they don't have to just live inside of
Speaker 1: one box, that there are so many opportunities as big
Speaker 1: as you can dream. So thank you. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me and such a pleasure to meet
Speaker 1: you at last. Thank you as always, dear friends. Power
Speaker 1: to the people and to all the people. Power, get
Speaker 1: woke and stay woke as fuck.