Speaker 1: You know what, how are y'all doing, Nerd fan? This
Speaker 1: is nerdifficent. I'm iff you way way and sitting cross
Speaker 1: from me as always, Danny Fernandez, I'm doing good, Iffy.
Speaker 1: It is the Oscars just happened. Yeah, oh oh by
Speaker 1: this time, right, yeah, the Oscar has just happened. I'm
Speaker 1: either very excited about the Black clansman when or just
Speaker 1: pretending like I don't care. I'm very excited that into
Speaker 1: the Spider verse one arety calling that? Or I will
Speaker 1: have someone edit this on Monday. I'm very excited at
Speaker 1: that beep uh today. You know, man, we have a
Speaker 1: powerhouse of a guest, a good friend of mine. We
Speaker 1: worked on a thing together way back when it was
Speaker 1: it was like a you would have liked it, Danny.
Speaker 1: It was like if Peter Pan went to college, and
Speaker 1: you know, I was me. It was our mutual friend
Speaker 1: Christopher in Cell, right, Okay. I was afraid that I
Speaker 1: was describing something we did not work on together, because
Speaker 1: that's how bad my memory is. But I totally remember,
Speaker 1: because I remember when we first met at that table
Speaker 1: read and I was like, oh, because you know, I
Speaker 1: just saw your name, Xavier Bergen. But when I saw
Speaker 1: that it was a black person. I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. Also, good on Christopher in self for you know,
Speaker 1: getting I mean, but it's not like he was doing
Speaker 1: you a favorite. This is a you went to USC, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did the whole oh man. Yeah, and you're the
Speaker 1: second person I know who went to uh the USC
Speaker 1: Film School, and y'all all are doing great things. The
Speaker 1: other person was my friend Aaron Covington. Who wait, we
Speaker 1: knew another one? Who else? RB three? He goes by
Speaker 1: as us. Yeah, I know all of you made a Yeah,
Speaker 1: he made a he made a horror film. Ever, his
Speaker 1: h got a lot of coming up. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: it's exciting taking over RB three Xavier L. Bergen and
Speaker 1: Lett's introduce you first and say your whole name because
Speaker 1: you know, I know you, so I will just start
Speaker 1: talking to you. But yeah, Xavier, you recently had a
Speaker 1: documentary come out called Horror Newir that is a study
Speaker 1: of the history of black filmmakers in the horror genre.
Speaker 1: What kind of got you started on this? Like why
Speaker 1: did you want to make this documentary? So he's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing I always bring up. So just station of
Speaker 1: the actual documentary start with a homegirl Ashley Blackwell, who's
Speaker 1: the writer and producer, wanted them on The Bad Boy,
Speaker 1: and essentially it was based on the book It's also
Speaker 1: called a har noir by Dr Robin Our means Coleman
Speaker 1: shout out to her. So essentially she got up with
Speaker 1: Stage three Productions and they were like, you know, we
Speaker 1: want to make something that's like talking about this thing
Speaker 1: that we barely ever see on a regular basis. So
Speaker 1: I remember them telling me how, like you know, Shuttle
Speaker 1: was interested and they were thinking about it and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And then when Jordan's one was like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's let's pick this bad Boy up forget Out exactly,
Speaker 1: and then that's how everything really started to like push
Speaker 1: forward with it. And once they started getting together, that's
Speaker 1: when Shutter and Stage we said like, Yo, we want
Speaker 1: to get a director behind this, but we want someone
Speaker 1: who's young black who you know, knows some stuff about
Speaker 1: this and it's actually like within the culture of it.
Speaker 1: And that's when they reached out to me about it. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I had been following you, i think this past year,
Speaker 1: and so you were known for doing your threads. You're
Speaker 1: like you would keep people on the edge of their seats,
Speaker 1: but they're there. Yeah, No, I loved it, you like,
Speaker 1: it was so funny that you gave people even on this,
Speaker 1: like even on Twitter, like which, um, you can use
Speaker 1: though as a storytelling platform if you wanted to, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's how I got to know you from that.
Speaker 1: And then further, um, you are working on a project
Speaker 1: with one of our good friends which I can't name
Speaker 1: right now, but y'all will be seen that in a
Speaker 1: year or two. So but um, I guess what what
Speaker 1: got you into horror? Like what was the first movie
Speaker 1: or or franchise or something that you remember vividly where
Speaker 1: you're like, yes, this is it got you. I guess ignited,
Speaker 1: I want to do this. It's so funny. So you know,
Speaker 1: he um some a man Tony Todd, so you know,
Speaker 1: loving to death. And when we're at the premiere for
Speaker 1: Horror Noir, one of the things you brought ups like
Speaker 1: everybody always brings up Oh man, we watched candy Man.
Speaker 1: Watched Candy Man's Scared as the Scaredest and it would
Speaker 1: like he tony types, how old union like eight or nine?
Speaker 1: You know, like why why why y'all watching candy Man
Speaker 1: eight or nine? What type of parents do you have.
Speaker 1: But the whole thing about it is like I specifically
Speaker 1: remember Cannyman and Horizon, those two specifically like scaring the
Speaker 1: crap out of me as a kid. I still know
Speaker 1: why my parents even let me. Maybe I just didn't
Speaker 1: let him know I ended up seeing them, and that
Speaker 1: always just kind of stuck in my head for a
Speaker 1: long time, even before I was, you know, figuring out
Speaker 1: I want to go on the film and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm a cat from like down south,
Speaker 1: like you know, Alabama, Mississippi. So growing up as a kid, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm watching all this type of stuff, But
Speaker 1: wasn't nobody telling me that, oh, you know what your
Speaker 1: career could be, you could be a filmmaker. Wasn't nobody
Speaker 1: saying that for real? For real? So you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't really like get to understand the gestation of all
Speaker 1: the stuff that I liked until I got a lot
Speaker 1: older and realized this was the route that I wanted
Speaker 1: to go. Yeah, No, it's it is funny because you know, I,
Speaker 1: like I said, since I follow you, I already knew
Speaker 1: all about this, and it's such a great concept because
Speaker 1: I do think just especially because right now I think
Speaker 1: it's safe to say we're in a renaissance of black film.
Speaker 1: Like I just said it to myself when I saw, like, uh,
Speaker 1: that new film, uh Lina wayit is I think either
Speaker 1: producing or directing, and they just showed a teaser but
Speaker 1: it's like the two kids and then it has like
Speaker 1: the I'm gonna find the name so I can actually
Speaker 1: like shout it out properly. But I was like, man,
Speaker 1: we're in a renaissance, and it's weird because like it
Speaker 1: almost feels like where did it go? Because if you
Speaker 1: go back to the nineties, you know, we had t
Speaker 1: G I F. You had shows like uh, Family Matters
Speaker 1: on the air, Fresh Prints and all that stuff. And
Speaker 1: in the horror too you you mentioned a candy Man,
Speaker 1: but also uh one of one movie I mentioned recently
Speaker 1: that I was so surprised. I mentioned it in the
Speaker 1: room I'm in right now and no one else saw it.
Speaker 1: But it was so big when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: Tales from the Hood, like my anthology. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: some of it, you know, don't hold up as well,
Speaker 1: but man if I was just so blown away that, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was such a good like we just always have
Speaker 1: been making it it's just the spotlight and how much
Speaker 1: people are you know, really showing it. And you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like the nineties were a time where like
Speaker 1: we were making movies, but they always put it in
Speaker 1: a box where it's like, oh, that's a black movie,
Speaker 1: that's a and I feel like we're finally hopefully starting
Speaker 1: to move away from that. You know, you didn't hear
Speaker 1: like Moonlight being called the black movie. It was like
Speaker 1: the art movie to see full stop and uh and
Speaker 1: I and you know, same thing with Black Klansmen, like
Speaker 1: you can now you know, have these movies, especially like
Speaker 1: Black Panther, you know, like you know, we just talked
Speaker 1: about that last week, but a movie like that, you know,
Speaker 1: like everyone said, like, you know, it was supposed to
Speaker 1: be done in the nineties, and I could very easily
Speaker 1: see people just kind of pushing that off to the the
Speaker 1: side and be like, that's the black superhero movie for
Speaker 1: black people. And now you got you know, people trying
Speaker 1: to claim it for themselves, you know, like like where's
Speaker 1: my space in what kinda And it's like, well, you
Speaker 1: don't need that space, yeah, So you know, all right,
Speaker 1: so they reach out to you, you hop on and
Speaker 1: I'm assuming one of the first thing, did you read
Speaker 1: the book before you did the documentary or like when
Speaker 1: you got it your like, let's let me check this out.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's the thing that you know. Of course,
Speaker 1: they reached down there like yo, you're interested, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we want you to come in and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: you pitched, because you know, they were looking at a
Speaker 1: couple of folks. Yeah, and I was like, okay, well
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do it right, So
Speaker 1: sat down, you know, read the book, then literally beast
Speaker 1: it out like this, you know, twelve to fifteen page
Speaker 1: like you know, a type a little book of how
Speaker 1: I wanted to see it, how I wanted the different
Speaker 1: errors to come in and go through based on the
Speaker 1: book and things to that degree. And of course, like
Speaker 1: the nice thing, it's like literally ride and shout out
Speaker 1: to you know, actually black one Daniel Burrows had already
Speaker 1: like build out something like a huge outline that already
Speaker 1: that's up some of the stuff that I was just
Speaker 1: now reading, you know, within it. Because they have been
Speaker 1: in this word, especially Ashley, for such a long time.
Speaker 1: So put it together, send it over to them, they
Speaker 1: send it back, Send over. I sent it a couple
Speaker 1: of times, like going back and forth to see what
Speaker 1: they want any things like that, and then you stop
Speaker 1: hitting me up and I was like, oh man, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe maybe I didn't get this. And then they finally
Speaker 1: got back to me like, Yo, we love this. We
Speaker 1: want you to come onto this and you know, start shooting.
Speaker 1: And I was just excited for it, because you know,
Speaker 1: the thing for me is like, you know, I love films,
Speaker 1: you know, I love what I do, but I also
Speaker 1: love it when I see black folks and the black
Speaker 1: and brown folks and that bad Boy. So to have
Speaker 1: something that specifically spoke to us that with us was
Speaker 1: huge for me. That's the type of stuff that I
Speaker 1: want to see in the first place. So for the
Speaker 1: me to be a director of it, to be a
Speaker 1: part of it, that's crazy. And honestly, when I was
Speaker 1: first making I was like, Okay, I'm coming here to
Speaker 1: make this Bad Boy. Maybe it blows up and not,
Speaker 1: who cares, Like, I'm just happy to be making this,
Speaker 1: And I would have never expected the type of viral
Speaker 1: success that's like been happening with it, Like that was
Speaker 1: not something I was thinking about whatsoever, but it came
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, yeah, and is have you done a
Speaker 1: documentary before this? So on suit very very small, like
Speaker 1: you know, small short dots. So I did a documentary
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and eleven about the tornado that
Speaker 1: hit um Alabama, tech Loose Alabama. Back in the day.
Speaker 1: I did a documentary that specifically dealt with what it
Speaker 1: meant to be like a black woman in the mental
Speaker 1: health system. So like that was way way back before
Speaker 1: See and all that type of stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: coming into SC and all that stuff, I focused so
Speaker 1: much on narrative. So when they finally hit me back
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, I'm doing the doc well, you
Speaker 1: know it's been a second, but you know I'm down
Speaker 1: for this. Yeah. Yeah, No, that's because that's what I
Speaker 1: was saying. A lot of your work is narrative. So
Speaker 1: I was wondering what did that shift feel like? Because
Speaker 1: I feel like that almost just from a personal you know,
Speaker 1: I guess film fan perspective would give you an edge
Speaker 1: because I find the best document documentary are one that
Speaker 1: tell a story. And you know, the argument is that
Speaker 1: all documents do. But I find that when you have
Speaker 1: a narrative director behind it, their brain is already in
Speaker 1: that mode that you're kind of pushing the story more
Speaker 1: than I feel like a lot of docs can get
Speaker 1: heavy on the information and kind of feel disjointed and
Speaker 1: not flow as well because of that. Uh is did
Speaker 1: you feel like you had that advantage or where you like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just trying to make their vision come true.
Speaker 1: What an interesting thing when you look at her and
Speaker 1: are like, you know, for the most part, it really
Speaker 1: it literally is clips from a whole bunch of movies
Speaker 1: and talking heads, like you know, it's usually what folks
Speaker 1: will be like, Oh man, that's what it's gonna be. This,
Speaker 1: I don't want to watch the documentary. But what we
Speaker 1: make sure we wanted to do because we literally dealing
Speaker 1: with like going for the nineteen hundreds to like the
Speaker 1: present day, And what we realized is we needed to
Speaker 1: not only make it informative, but it needed to be fun.
Speaker 1: It needed to be interesting. It needed to be the
Speaker 1: type of thing where like you're enjoying yourself as you're
Speaker 1: as you're listening to all this type of stuff. And
Speaker 1: that's something that I think we did a great job with.
Speaker 1: And but I think even before I came in with
Speaker 1: with the entire production team with the producers, with Ashley,
Speaker 1: with Danielle, they all understood that if we're gonna get
Speaker 1: folks to watch this, it needs to be fun while
Speaker 1: also being informative in giving you the type of lessons
Speaker 1: that like you're not gonna get anywhere else, um, because
Speaker 1: you know, to be one held you like, I love
Speaker 1: USC to death, amazing school, so happy I went there,
Speaker 1: but you know, quite literally going to the school, there
Speaker 1: are no classes like this. There's there's nothing like this,
Speaker 1: like whatsoever. Like the only place I can think of
Speaker 1: right now is Dr Coleman's classes that she teaches at
Speaker 1: her university. And then also Tonna Reeve Do who does
Speaker 1: the Sunken Place courses at u c l A. Um.
Speaker 1: I remember when I remember when you sent me the
Speaker 1: screening and I watched it and I ediately messaged you
Speaker 1: because this quote from it just stuck out so much
Speaker 1: to me, and it was it said, black history is
Speaker 1: black horror. Can you like talk about that quote and
Speaker 1: how and how y'all tackled that in the documentary. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, the big thing to understand about that quote is,
Speaker 1: you know, for a lot of white folks, they have
Speaker 1: to find the other to be scared of, whether that
Speaker 1: is black people where that it is like you know,
Speaker 1: a monster from a lagoon, whether it's um, you know, robots,
Speaker 1: there's it's always a standing for something because in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, America is set up to be a
Speaker 1: nation where white folks tend not to have the type
Speaker 1: of things that truly like you know, um oppressed or
Speaker 1: scare them in the same way, whereas black folks, so
Speaker 1: much of the system is set up to oppress us
Speaker 1: that you know, for us, a horror is dealing with
Speaker 1: the police, a horror is dealing with the judicial system.
Speaker 1: Like all those type of things are scared to us
Speaker 1: because it's a real life thing in what we deal
Speaker 1: with as black folks can be and usually is very horrific.
Speaker 1: So it's it's what we wanted folks to understand. What's that,
Speaker 1: you know, you take it all the way back to
Speaker 1: like you know that film Birth of the Nation one,
Speaker 1: like you know d W. Griff and it's you know,
Speaker 1: white folks, but I mean they they showed it in
Speaker 1: the White House, like Woodrow Wishon was like, man, I
Speaker 1: love this, I like that. Probably it's still playing there
Speaker 1: to day, like literally back back during that time, they
Speaker 1: were like, this is the most accurate representation there is
Speaker 1: what and you got to think about, like this quote
Speaker 1: unquote revolutionary film to white folks during that time, is
Speaker 1: pushing the Ku Klux Klan as the saviors of America.
Speaker 1: I don't think it needs to It can't be understated
Speaker 1: how horrifying that had to be for black folks to
Speaker 1: not only see our lives portrayed in this way, to
Speaker 1: again have black face at this time and want to
Speaker 1: bring up the fact that black uh Frederick Douglas was
Speaker 1: talking about how bad black face was back in the day,
Speaker 1: so you know, this ain't just no new thing. And
Speaker 1: then you have this showing their lives and showing the
Speaker 1: folks that are lynching and killing us being held as
Speaker 1: the heroes. There is no words harder than that. And
Speaker 1: what we needed to show with horror her from you
Speaker 1: know d. W. Griffith to um, you know King Kong
Speaker 1: two Engagi that a lot of times what you were noticing,
Speaker 1: especially back then, was that white folks were either using
Speaker 1: us black people or taking our features and pushing them
Speaker 1: into standings for us for that fear, and that's something
Speaker 1: we needed folks to understand about, like how because the
Speaker 1: biggest thing we have to understand, like Hollywood from then
Speaker 1: to now is the biggest exporter of culture worldwide, Hollywood
Speaker 1: shows on the screens is what more often than not,
Speaker 1: the world thinks of certain people. And it's a horrifying
Speaker 1: thing to think about that for such a long time
Speaker 1: and even to this day, that we still have these stereotypical,
Speaker 1: horrific and unfair characterizations of black and brown people as
Speaker 1: the other, as something to be scared of. And that
Speaker 1: was a very big point we had to make clear
Speaker 1: upfront when it came to the documentary. So I never
Speaker 1: heard of, seen or known about this in gagy movie.
Speaker 1: And then I just did a quick search and I
Speaker 1: was like, damn, we only seventeen minutes in it. I'm
Speaker 1: already mad. So just just a quick brief for anyone.
Speaker 1: In God is a nineteen thirties pre code exploitation film.
Speaker 1: It purports to be a documentary about Sir Hubert Warrens
Speaker 1: Wednesday of London on an expedition to the Belgian Congo,
Speaker 1: and depicts a tribe of guerilla worshiping woman encountered by
Speaker 1: an explorer. The film claims to show a ritual in
Speaker 1: which African women are given over to guerrillas as sex slaves,
Speaker 1: but in actuality was mostly filmed in Los Angeles, using
Speaker 1: white actresses in black face in place of natives. It
Speaker 1: was produced and distributed by Nat Spitzer's Congo Pictures, which
Speaker 1: had been formed expressly to make the film. Although marketed
Speaker 1: under the pretense of being an ethnographic film, the premise
Speaker 1: was a fabrication, leading to the Motion Pictures UH Motion
Speaker 1: Picture Producers and Distribution Association to retract any involvement with
Speaker 1: the film. So, yeah, that's that's what that is for
Speaker 1: those who might be wandering. That's such a good point.
Speaker 1: And that's and to really get into that. We talked
Speaker 1: about this a little bit in The Horror and even
Speaker 1: furthermore in Twilight Zone, and that fact that true horror
Speaker 1: UH kind of borrows from real human nature, and and
Speaker 1: then that kind of using that same psychology, This all
Speaker 1: makes sense. And that's why I like get Out is
Speaker 1: such a simplistic idea and why it's so powerful. And
Speaker 1: it's so powerful when you really have to understand that
Speaker 1: you really don't have to be black to get get
Speaker 1: out and get why it's scary, But it goes that
Speaker 1: much further when you are black and that and it
Speaker 1: is crazy to think that you know, yeah, they really
Speaker 1: were just afraid of us, you know, back then for
Speaker 1: them to just do this in And this also shows
Speaker 1: the power of media and how like films like this
Speaker 1: can perpetuate so many stereotypes and so many unearned fears
Speaker 1: that you know, someone can see a child and think
Speaker 1: they have these superpowers because you know, this type of
Speaker 1: stuff is just threatened in the DNA. Uh. And it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I made this kind of correlation before,
Speaker 1: but as creators, that's something I don't take lightly. And
Speaker 1: just like Uncle Ben said, as with great power comes
Speaker 1: great responsibility. There's power to your words. There's power to
Speaker 1: the things you create, and they can have good consequences
Speaker 1: and they can very much so have bad consequences, like
Speaker 1: these movies like Birth of a Nation and Engagi and
Speaker 1: it's and it seems like it's a great mind in
Speaker 1: the zitgeis brain thing too, because um, I don't know
Speaker 1: if all of y'all saw Black Klansmen, but they also
Speaker 1: splicing clips from Birth of a Nation and you can
Speaker 1: see and it and it is jarring to see, like
Speaker 1: if you did not know that was the movie. You
Speaker 1: would think that it's something fabricated by Spike Lee to
Speaker 1: know that that is a thing that people went and
Speaker 1: and in the same way they were doing in the movie,
Speaker 1: like watching it like a popcorn flick. That's what people
Speaker 1: were doing. I mean, like you said, it was played
Speaker 1: in the White House. Um. But you know, that's why
Speaker 1: I think things like like Core Noir is so important
Speaker 1: because we still are talking about birth of a Nation,
Speaker 1: like we might have gotten Gaggy. I'm sure they are
Speaker 1: praying we forget those movies, but like, yeah, no one
Speaker 1: is out here like highlighting the other stuff that we
Speaker 1: that you cover in the film. And I actually want
Speaker 1: to get into it and really start talking about like
Speaker 1: those black films. And we'll do that right after these
Speaker 1: messages and we're back. And I did want to say
Speaker 1: before we hop in if he I saw you on
Speaker 1: Twitter today batting for Rod Sterling with all the John
Speaker 1: Wayne stuff, because it's so frustrating that this excuse that like,
Speaker 1: oh everyone was racist back then, and it was like Noah,
Speaker 1: and I went back and I watched that interview and
Speaker 1: what it was because remember we were saying that Rod
Speaker 1: Sterling was really which is great because you know, Jordan
Speaker 1: is now taking over that mantel I'm doing twilight Zone.
Speaker 1: Um Is. I watched that interview that I was talking about,
Speaker 1: and he and the story he wanted to tell was
Speaker 1: on Emmett Till and the studio kept essentially bastardizing it
Speaker 1: and changing it to the point that it was unrecognizable,
Speaker 1: where he was like, I no longer am going to
Speaker 1: be a part of this, but he did try. Like
Speaker 1: That's the thing though, is that he was saying, no,
Speaker 1: they kept trying to censor us um to the point
Speaker 1: that they got into this discussion about pre censorship, and
Speaker 1: it was essentially that writers would um not even try.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't even because because what we were saying with
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone, which I'm so excited to see what Jordan
Speaker 1: is going to deal with it, is that a lot
Speaker 1: of those stories were about people of color and what
Speaker 1: they went through but this but studios wouldn't let them
Speaker 1: essentially show it. So instead it had to be an
Speaker 1: alien or it had to be you know, something like that,
Speaker 1: because it was easier for white audiences to feel sorry
Speaker 1: for an alien than for a person of color. I know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I always call that even though this
Speaker 1: comes much later, the The X Men Effect where made
Speaker 1: a hole like that whole series is about racism, but
Speaker 1: they had to use mutants to get it, and and
Speaker 1: it still didn't work if you look at some of
Speaker 1: these comments from comic Comic book, still work. He tried,
Speaker 1: he did everything. He gave you all the clues, Mr Policeman. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's yeah, so let's talk about some of these films.
Speaker 1: So not a Living Dead, that is super cool. It's
Speaker 1: actually if you haven't I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, but if you haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: you can watch it. I believe it's fair use. You
Speaker 1: can watch on YouTube. It's only a bunch of different
Speaker 1: cinema platforms that you can check out. But that was
Speaker 1: really important. I remember that. And even though spoiler, I
Speaker 1: guess it's not a spoiler because it's like what fifty
Speaker 1: or sixty years old that he dies, but I do
Speaker 1: know that that was It was such a stark contrast.
Speaker 1: Then when get Out happened that it was like having
Speaker 1: not having to go through that again, like getting to
Speaker 1: actually have a having your protagonists live. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a huge thing because you know, you know, so not
Speaker 1: a living dead like was truly made it amazing? Is
Speaker 1: you know You've got Dwayne Drums as a as the
Speaker 1: inneritative character in there, and it's this black man who's
Speaker 1: taken over everything, who's beating up white people, taking out
Speaker 1: white zombies. And you know, Tanana Reeve brings it up
Speaker 1: in in the documentary where I'm she said, like this
Speaker 1: has to be horrifying. Is he something like this to racists,
Speaker 1: like you know, for them to see stuff like this,
Speaker 1: especially with everything that was going on in the late
Speaker 1: you know sixties, you know, around that time, and the
Speaker 1: juxtaposition with it is like, you know, as powerful as
Speaker 1: it was what happened to him, he still got killed
Speaker 1: at the end. And while that might be realistic or
Speaker 1: feel right, I think what made Get Out so strong
Speaker 1: is that, like, you know, we've seen the realistic stuff
Speaker 1: we've seen you know, black men in like you know,
Speaker 1: prison suits. We've seen us get constantly killed and maimed
Speaker 1: and lynched and destroyed not only in real life but
Speaker 1: also in film and then also in horror films. So
Speaker 1: you know, one thing that Uh Jordan brings up in
Speaker 1: the documentary is the fact that, like, you know, the
Speaker 1: reason why he went to right, he did where he lives,
Speaker 1: and he succeeds and he gets out of it. Is
Speaker 1: because you know, as black folks, we needed something to applaud,
Speaker 1: we needed something to lift up. And like essentially and
Speaker 1: sometimes happening to the nineties two with Tells from the Hood,
Speaker 1: where we're not getting the justices that we need in
Speaker 1: real life. So at least in some things in entertainment,
Speaker 1: in the films that we're making, can we see some
Speaker 1: of this restorative justice that we're not getting, you know,
Speaker 1: right now in America? And that's something that was true
Speaker 1: back then and in the sixties, during the nineties who
Speaker 1: tell Us from the Hood, and then even more so,
Speaker 1: like you know, with get Out, Coming Out, and that
Speaker 1: was just it was huge, Like literally I still remember,
Speaker 1: you know, being to get out and seeing them you know,
Speaker 1: cock the cock car come up and I still remember,
Speaker 1: like you know, some of the white was like, yes,
Speaker 1: he's okay, and you know, I'm just likely I mean, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's that's all I see some cock cars. I see
Speaker 1: them size. That's not a good thing. So to to
Speaker 1: to see my man come and it's not a con
Speaker 1: and it's his homeboy and He's like, Yo, let's go,
Speaker 1: we getting out of here. That was that was huge.
Speaker 1: That was huge because that's not something we get to
Speaker 1: see on a regular basis for you know, black people,
Speaker 1: for black characters in in films in general. Like a
Speaker 1: great example is, have y'all got the chance to watch
Speaker 1: bird Box? Yeah? Saw it? Yea, yeah, yeah, So you
Speaker 1: know I enjoyed bird Box. I enjoyed it. But you know,
Speaker 1: folks act well, you know, we're doing so much better
Speaker 1: and things are like, you know, changing, and you're not
Speaker 1: seeing the same stereotypes that you saw back then. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, let's talk about a little rail. In
Speaker 1: bird Box, he meets them maybe like twenty minutes into
Speaker 1: the film, maybe five to ten minutes later, he's like,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm gonna do with this, you know,
Speaker 1: crazy zombie man like trying to get inside. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna run straight in there, and I'm gonna sacrifice myself
Speaker 1: for all these white folks. And that's literally the sacrificial Negro.
Speaker 1: That is one of the stereotypes we see on a
Speaker 1: regular basis all the way back to the nine hundreds
Speaker 1: too now and we're still dealing with those type of
Speaker 1: stereotypes that we need to push back against. In the
Speaker 1: film that came out that came out this year last
Speaker 1: yea literally this year, like right now this year, the
Speaker 1: two of them like little and intrevante, you know, And
Speaker 1: I guess maybe you can kind of say like O
Speaker 1: came around with the people, he came to love a
Speaker 1: little bit. Mo. I never liked the fact of that
Speaker 1: one that you know, it's like what two, three, five
Speaker 1: years later and he still got an immaculate haircuts that
Speaker 1: like did you save your Barbara? And then he died
Speaker 1: five days before they found you. Also, he was just jacked,
Speaker 1: like right, because you have a different body Like even
Speaker 1: I was like, even if you're lifting like logs and stuff,
Speaker 1: your body type is a little bit different than like
Speaker 1: straight up just doing squats to eat so much to
Speaker 1: keep that that that huge pack them biceps. I was like,
Speaker 1: not not realistic, y'all. But what we pay attention to
Speaker 1: those two specifically, like again like who lives in the
Speaker 1: uh in the Sandral book, in the Little Kids and
Speaker 1: our two black characters. You know, we don't see any
Speaker 1: black woman in it. I don't think we saw any
Speaker 1: black woman in it, but the two black carreters. We
Speaker 1: had the two men, both of them. We're justified or not,
Speaker 1: We're still the sacrificial negroes, which is a trot we
Speaker 1: see on a regular basis even now in h Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's funny because you you see these things, unless
Speaker 1: you're like actively trying to combat it, you do see
Speaker 1: these things pop up because it's just so as creatives,
Speaker 1: we put out what we ingest, and unless you're actively
Speaker 1: trying to go against the grain, actively looking at the work,
Speaker 1: because sometimes you know, right now I'm writing, you know,
Speaker 1: going through like doing rewrites on once it right now,
Speaker 1: and going through I see myself do certain things and like,
Speaker 1: you know, so like the lead of this show is
Speaker 1: supposed to be an Indian female. That that's that's what
Speaker 1: what the current plan is. But the name isn't you know,
Speaker 1: particularly Indian. It's just a typical what what would be
Speaker 1: perceived as a quote unquote white name. And because of that,
Speaker 1: I find myself, you know, just falling into the trope
Speaker 1: of like in my head, are automatically making her white?
Speaker 1: And then you know, and then you know, obviously we'll
Speaker 1: be like, no, well, what what speaks to her? Because
Speaker 1: obviously the one of the showrunner is Indian, so he's like,
Speaker 1: this is this is this would be like this, that
Speaker 1: would be like that type of stuff. And it's so
Speaker 1: crazy how quickly like if you don't explicitly make in
Speaker 1: your mind that this person is this race, your mind
Speaker 1: defaults to white because that's all the media we've been
Speaker 1: taken in. And that's and when we're like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to create some of what I've been watching
Speaker 1: you do that. I had to do that when I
Speaker 1: started writing sketch, because you know, right around the time
Speaker 1: I started writing sketch was pointed out that you know,
Speaker 1: I think we had the issue with U. S and L,
Speaker 1: you know, where they had no black women, and then
Speaker 1: in general most comedy things were heavily men based. So
Speaker 1: when I wrote sketches, I just would make it half
Speaker 1: and half, no matter what. Fift me women and and
Speaker 1: like the question be like why are you doing it?
Speaker 1: Why not like, oh, you're just trying to, You're just
Speaker 1: trying to, And I was like, yeah, I am, because
Speaker 1: the only way to change it is to change it,
Speaker 1: and there's no reason when you look at like I.
Speaker 1: And that's what I found is when I would go
Speaker 1: back and look at the rooms, like there's no reason
Speaker 1: that this person has to specifically be you know, uh,
Speaker 1: a man. There's no reason there whereas like, you know,
Speaker 1: we when you make like a person of color or
Speaker 1: a woman and thing you like the just the description
Speaker 1: of which, by the way, I actually haven't seen uh
Speaker 1: night have Living Dead uh most because like I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I typically don't care for black and white movies, mostly
Speaker 1: because I'm like funny enough, like, oh, well, that's just
Speaker 1: like old movies made for white people. I didn't know
Speaker 1: the lead was black. I would have saw this yesterday,
Speaker 1: you know, like like but the thing of them at
Speaker 1: the way, like him being in this role in eight
Speaker 1: it was the It was the first time an African
Speaker 1: American actor was cast to star in a horror film
Speaker 1: and one of the first times in American cinema where
Speaker 1: a person of color was given an important role when
Speaker 1: the script does not explicitly call for one. And that
Speaker 1: and that's how it was. So it's funny how like
Speaker 1: like we had to work past you know, them doing
Speaker 1: black face, and then after that, like it was only
Speaker 1: if you were playing like a slave, you know, or
Speaker 1: if you watch a lot of old Western since that's
Speaker 1: in the zeitgeis right. Now, you know, you had uh,
Speaker 1: Mexicans playing Mexicans and you had Native Americans sometimes playing
Speaker 1: natives like you had to be your person, and that
Speaker 1: seems to be the weird like new de facto argument
Speaker 1: against diversity in film wars, like well, we should just
Speaker 1: have people playing the roles they do, like you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is actually great. It's what uh Vigo Mortenson when
Speaker 1: they kind of brought up like the writer of this
Speaker 1: and why you know it's a white writer and black
Speaker 1: and he was like, well, he was like look if
Speaker 1: if if This was a very hilarious clip because when
Speaker 1: you watch the faces, they are all types of shade.
Speaker 1: But he's like, but if you know me, Herschela wants
Speaker 1: to write a story about a white or an Italian
Speaker 1: guy from YadA, YadA, YadA, he can do that, so
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be saying X should be X. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, there's a difference because there's like you're
Speaker 1: thinking about it in a totally different way, like like
Speaker 1: for example, if we go back to the room example,
Speaker 1: like I said, my showrunners Indian, so he is making
Speaker 1: sure there's authenticity there when you have, like you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying, I don't think any white person could
Speaker 1: ever write black stories or black roles. But there there's
Speaker 1: a level of authenticity that isn't gonna set off their alarms.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you run into the mistake of just just
Speaker 1: re skinning a white roll. But there's like levels to
Speaker 1: people of color. Their experiences are different. There's gonna they're
Speaker 1: gonna react to things differently. One of our good friends,
Speaker 1: I won't say his name because you know, not trying
Speaker 1: to blest this out, but he was doing a short
Speaker 1: and and in the short he was saying like it
Speaker 1: was him and his buddy, they're both black, and they
Speaker 1: like they were too high in the short, and so
Speaker 1: they were like, let's call the cops. And he was like,
Speaker 1: we black people would never do that. Black people, you
Speaker 1: would never call the cops if you were too high.
Speaker 1: And and you know, obviously the wider you know, I
Speaker 1: got a little we got a little like defensive, and
Speaker 1: he was like, oh, well you know this, and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: that's someone telling you of the experience. And I could
Speaker 1: have told you right there, like no, they that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be their first instinct to call the cops. That's never
Speaker 1: their instinct. Ever, we were if you and I were
Speaker 1: on a panel. I think it was at Wonder Con
Speaker 1: or something, but it was with Steven L. Sears, who
Speaker 1: remember he was the writer for zena Warrior Princess, And
Speaker 1: even on the panel he was like, um that excuse,
Speaker 1: Like he was like, it's actually the easiest is to
Speaker 1: write for straight white guys because that's the world that
Speaker 1: we live in. That's the world that's been set up
Speaker 1: for them. It's actually the easiest to rite for them
Speaker 1: because that's how that's the world that cinema has been
Speaker 1: reflective of and everything is you know in this world
Speaker 1: is reflective of them, and it's much harder to write
Speaker 1: a different perspective. Yeah, and it's and it's all mostly
Speaker 1: because you've shared that experience. I'm hoping ten years down
Speaker 1: the line, after Xavier's fifth Academy Award, you know, a
Speaker 1: young white kid can write a black story because he's
Speaker 1: just obsessed with Xaviers movies. And even then there still
Speaker 1: won't be that full authenticity, but at least he'll have
Speaker 1: a little more information than he does. Now, what would
Speaker 1: you watch? Now, here's something I want to bring up
Speaker 1: to that I think is interesting. So we're having all
Speaker 1: of these discussions about diversity and inclusion and um, you
Speaker 1: know how we want to get more you know, black
Speaker 1: folks and brown folks women into these roles. And you
Speaker 1: know a lot of folks think that, oh well, this
Speaker 1: is a new discussion, this is only happening recently. That's
Speaker 1: not true, like literally, okay, So taking it back to horror,
Speaker 1: you take it all the way back to you know,
Speaker 1: the the nineties nineties and you have you know, Oscar
Speaker 1: me Show and you have Spencer Williams. So you know
Speaker 1: these guys, did you know films like Son of Ingagi
Speaker 1: or The Blood of Jesus or you know, Marching On.
Speaker 1: This was literally in the you know twenties, thirties and
Speaker 1: forties too black men. Now most folks know Spencer Williams
Speaker 1: um from Andy and Amos, which is gonna Old Susco
Speaker 1: and then Oscar michhow was quite literally this black man
Speaker 1: who was sick and in the in the in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds was sick of the betrayals of how
Speaker 1: black folks were being done and said, I'm gonna self
Speaker 1: finance my own films so we can see the actual
Speaker 1: black experience from our own eyes. So again, like you know,
Speaker 1: anybody who's listening to this, go look them up. Spencer Williams,
Speaker 1: Arsking Me Show. These were Caster was doing this type
Speaker 1: of stuff from the nineteen hundreds to like the nineteen
Speaker 1: forties and fifties before things, you know, things started to
Speaker 1: get more centralized and they got you know, boxed out,
Speaker 1: especially Arsking Me Show. But it speaks to the fact
Speaker 1: that the problems that we're facing right now in the industry,
Speaker 1: there's two cats, two black men that were trying to
Speaker 1: combat this almost like you know, fifties, sixty years ago,
Speaker 1: like you know, even further back than that, And that
Speaker 1: speaks to how just ingrained this is in the idea
Speaker 1: that this is now just a new issue. It's just
Speaker 1: not it's not true. It's not true. We've been dealing
Speaker 1: with this for a long time to where I can
Speaker 1: literally give you examples of folks trying to combat this,
Speaker 1: specifically in a genre of film from the nineteen twenties
Speaker 1: and thirties. Like you know, it's just it's crazy to
Speaker 1: even understand that that's like something that we have in
Speaker 1: the first place. But it speaks to the fact that
Speaker 1: these type of pushes that we're trying to do. It's
Speaker 1: not new. It didn't just starting twenty This is something
Speaker 1: that's been, you know, happening all the way back over
Speaker 1: a century ago. And really it's just the fact that
Speaker 1: for a lot of folks, they're just now hearing about
Speaker 1: it or caring about it. Yeah. I did want to
Speaker 1: say before we wrap up on that A Living Dead
Speaker 1: that George A. Romero you touched on this on the
Speaker 1: documentary that he was saying if you kind of what
Speaker 1: you were saying, that they didn't specify that they wanted
Speaker 1: a black actor. It just so happened that Duane Jones
Speaker 1: was the best actor that they saw, so it was like,
Speaker 1: he has to have it. I think that is amazing.
Speaker 1: And I know for you and I like, like you
Speaker 1: were saying, I realized, in working on these rooms and
Speaker 1: now seeing casting and what they bring in, if you
Speaker 1: don't specify of all ethnicities, if you don't write that
Speaker 1: on there, they will default to white. And I started
Speaker 1: to realize that working in these writers rooms where I
Speaker 1: was like I had to specifically put it on there. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just so frustrating. It's frustrating. Um. But we will
Speaker 1: get into more of these films. We just have to
Speaker 1: take a quick break. We're going to continue the conversation
Speaker 1: right after this can welcome back. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: those messages. We are back still here with my man's
Speaker 1: Xavier Bergen uh Danny also sitting across from me. Now
Speaker 1: that we've checked everyone in, let me posit another question.
Speaker 1: So we talked about Night of Living Dead. So what's
Speaker 1: another you know, black horror film you talk about in
Speaker 1: the movie that you know, what's maybe one that you
Speaker 1: maybe didn't see before, something that kind of uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, surprise here. You went to film school, so
Speaker 1: I doubt there's many things you haven't seen before. So
Speaker 1: you know, interestingly enough, like you know, of course I
Speaker 1: had had heard of it a lot, and you know,
Speaker 1: you heard jokes and stuff about it. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I jumped into doing this that I finally watched Blackula.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. You know, a lot of folks,
Speaker 1: it's just a old, you know, black sportation film. There's
Speaker 1: nothing good or interesting or powerful or culturally connective about it.
Speaker 1: It's just you know, throw anything from you know, back then.
Speaker 1: But during that time, Blackula was huge, absolutely huge, in
Speaker 1: the Black Sportation era, and on a bigger level, it
Speaker 1: was directed by William Marshall, like a black man. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing, Like you go back to the seventies,
Speaker 1: there was there wasn't no black folks who were actually
Speaker 1: helm directing and writing films like it just wasn't like
Speaker 1: the Black exportation era, you know, black exploitation. And the
Speaker 1: whole thing about it was that like while we were
Speaker 1: finally getting you know again Tonano reeved and dcor Um
Speaker 1: robint Armans Coleman brings it up that we were getting
Speaker 1: on the screen, you were seeing us, but the representation
Speaker 1: of us was not good because you know, we were all,
Speaker 1: you know, pimps, hose, you know, slapping folks, shooting stuff,
Speaker 1: shaft type of stuff, the pimp type of stuff. And
Speaker 1: the whole thing about it is what made Blackla really
Speaker 1: stick out was that William Marshall was a twenty three
Speaker 1: year old black man directing this type of film. Like,
Speaker 1: first off, it'sn't heard of for a black person to
Speaker 1: even get to direct at that time, still not easy now,
Speaker 1: but for him to be twenty three years old doing
Speaker 1: this is unprecedented, and he brings up I mean one
Speaker 1: of the One of the biggest things that really stuck
Speaker 1: with me is when we were doing the interviews for it,
Speaker 1: and you know, Willen Marshall was talking about this and
Speaker 1: he specifically brought up how even though he was the
Speaker 1: director of the film, everyone else underneath them we're all white.
Speaker 1: Everyone else above him, we're all white. And he literally
Speaker 1: had to fight fight with them to actually get off
Speaker 1: the vision that he was trying to make, because even
Speaker 1: for them, it still was like this, this is a
Speaker 1: black man direct and he doesn't need to have the
Speaker 1: type of power that we would give to a you know,
Speaker 1: a Ra Marro or someone else you know that was
Speaker 1: you know, doing this type of stuff. And what killed
Speaker 1: me a little bit is he talked about this and
Speaker 1: you could tell that this was a man who did
Speaker 1: something that was culturally important, but he didn't get to
Speaker 1: have the career that he should have. If you go
Speaker 1: up and look up his credits, he looked at William Marshall.
Speaker 1: He did Black like he did a couple of other
Speaker 1: things TV stuff, but it's not how much there and
Speaker 1: you realize that he made one of the biggest films
Speaker 1: in the seventies, the early seventies, and that still wasn't
Speaker 1: enough for him to actually build out a career as
Speaker 1: a filmmaker. And it's just crazy to think about the
Speaker 1: marginalization that comes into that and what that means, and
Speaker 1: how like, you know, if we didn't have someone like him,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be able. I wouldn't be able to do
Speaker 1: what I'm doing right now, like we wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to do during now without William Marshall. But to the
Speaker 1: regular person, they don't even know Black, they don't know
Speaker 1: William Marshall, or they treat Black as a joke without
Speaker 1: understanding how culturally significant that is, not only within horror,
Speaker 1: but just within the larger film history. What were some
Speaker 1: of them films that you did enjoy, I mean aside
Speaker 1: from get out, Like, what were some of the other
Speaker 1: films that you talked about in the documentary that you
Speaker 1: did actually that weren't as problematic? Oh man, So all
Speaker 1: of them? Okay, unfortunately, a lot of them, no matter what,
Speaker 1: are somewhat you know, probably so I think a good
Speaker 1: example is, like, you know, the Girl with all the Gifts.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys have seen that one.
Speaker 1: I haven't, but I saw a like it was a
Speaker 1: side by side film comparison, I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: need to see this so like, for example, that one
Speaker 1: is amazing. It's it's a really good film, like and
Speaker 1: wants you check it out, and you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of reminiscent of not Living Dead in that, like they
Speaker 1: weren't trying to make it for a little black girl,
Speaker 1: but you know, she came in. She just killed it
Speaker 1: and they decided to go with her. In the social
Speaker 1: commentary that came out of it, being specifically a black
Speaker 1: girl made it and again Tonana rebrought this up. It
Speaker 1: just made it sharper and stronger and more uh concise
Speaker 1: in comparison to maybe if they had just done it
Speaker 1: with a little white girl or you know something you
Speaker 1: know to that degree, Um, I'm trying to think of
Speaker 1: something else that you know, Pops, because all of them
Speaker 1: like it's only really recently now, like of course you
Speaker 1: think of tales, talesmanhood like you know, of course, I
Speaker 1: think that it's one that you didn't have some problematic
Speaker 1: stuff there, um to you know, to a degree, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the big things Paula I think about a
Speaker 1: Paula Jay Parker and seeing like you know, women getting
Speaker 1: beating things to that degree isn't great, but it's still
Speaker 1: pushed a lot of the restorative justice that we weren't seeing.
Speaker 1: And literally, I remember one of the episodes had like,
Speaker 1: you know, a a guy playing like trying to become
Speaker 1: the president and talking about being a real American. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting because this was being made back in the
Speaker 1: nineties and it's completely reflective what we're seeing with Trump
Speaker 1: right now, but then also reflective of what you know,
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan was doing. And the whole thing for me
Speaker 1: is like, there is very little difference between Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: and Trump, you know when it comes to this type
Speaker 1: of stuff. But just with the question that you're that
Speaker 1: you're bringing up because of the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: even though all of these feels good and you should
Speaker 1: listen to it, you should watch it. Um, there aren't
Speaker 1: too many that aren't problematic in their own way because
Speaker 1: they still fell into one of the troupe like some
Speaker 1: of these tropes, or they were still being done by
Speaker 1: white folks like for example, Canny man Cannon is amazing.
Speaker 1: I love Kenny man Um, It's great, Tony Todd is
Speaker 1: amazing it. But again it falls again that one falls
Speaker 1: specifically into one that we were seeing all the way
Speaker 1: back for Birth of a Nation, where it's still this
Speaker 1: black man. He's a villain, he's magical to a degree,
Speaker 1: but he's a black man who is still coveting over
Speaker 1: this white woman that he has to take in. And
Speaker 1: you know that's just like we gotta see it again,
Speaker 1: or you know, you take Abby for example, from the seventies,
Speaker 1: where it's this black woman and she is killing people
Speaker 1: by death and that literally you can say it's a
Speaker 1: it's an expiration of sexual lisperation, but you could also
Speaker 1: see that, like there is this thing about black womanhood
Speaker 1: being scary to a lot of people, especially black sexuality,
Speaker 1: because one of the things they do to black men
Speaker 1: and black women is either they're over sexualizing us or
Speaker 1: they're de sexualizing us. So you know, that's a problem.
Speaker 1: I think the only thing, the only film I can
Speaker 1: really really think about that if you want to see
Speaker 1: something where doesn't fall into these type of tropes, and
Speaker 1: it's just truly amazing, artistic, strong film is guns you
Speaker 1: in his You should take out the time to look
Speaker 1: up that film and to watch it. It's absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: It's very artistic, made back I think it was back
Speaker 1: in the seventies at that point, and it was a
Speaker 1: film that's very smart for his time, dealt with you know,
Speaker 1: what it means to be a vampire, a black vampire,
Speaker 1: and like, you know what it means to to deal
Speaker 1: with addiction and you know, using that you know, via blood.
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the things we bring up
Speaker 1: in the in the documentary is so interesting is even
Speaker 1: and it's something that that you brought up if you were, like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's something culturally that we as black folks
Speaker 1: are as a black and brown person, you're gonna understand
Speaker 1: about your culture war that maybe a white person can't write. So,
Speaker 1: for example, in that movie, the main character a vampire,
Speaker 1: well to do rich established he's still scared of the police,
Speaker 1: still scared of the police as a vampire that could
Speaker 1: take them out, but he's still worried about that. He's
Speaker 1: still worried about the white folks around him because even
Speaker 1: at becoming this supernatural creature, he still has to think
Speaker 1: about some of the things that we as you know,
Speaker 1: black folks have to deal with from the first place.
Speaker 1: So if there was any film that as a horror
Speaker 1: buff or a film, you know, a ficionado obviously say
Speaker 1: that that you should go check out from back in
Speaker 1: the day at least take out the time to go
Speaker 1: watch ganjan Hes. So for everyone listening this is this
Speaker 1: is definitely a film fan uh film nerd episode. Uh.
Speaker 1: Just a quick by the way, Ganja and Hess came
Speaker 1: out on four nine, which, based on the title alone,
Speaker 1: is tight. Uh. But what give give your elevator pitch
Speaker 1: to Hord no Noir and why why our listeners should
Speaker 1: check it out right now as soon as this episode ends.
Speaker 1: Harvard Noir is a documentary that literally has never been
Speaker 1: done before. There is no documentary that deals with the
Speaker 1: history of African Americans, Black Americans from the nineteen hundreds
Speaker 1: to prey in within the horror genre. You are quite
Speaker 1: literally seeing the first film of is kind. It is historic.
Speaker 1: Be a part of it, learn something new, find out
Speaker 1: about a history that most folks in America are not
Speaker 1: going to teach you about. That's why you should watch this. Like,
Speaker 1: watching this is allowing yourself to be a part of
Speaker 1: history being made, and I think that's important. Oh, if
Speaker 1: you're not already downloading it, I don't know what else
Speaker 1: is gonna get you to watch it. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: By the way, shout out to everyone in the nerd
Speaker 1: fan for all your suggestions. We get into it. Y'all
Speaker 1: got a lot of things that y'all want us to cover.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get to it week by week. That's a
Speaker 1: job security. So I'm not even mad about I did
Speaker 1: want to say so, I just a gunja and Hessan
Speaker 1: Dwayne Jones is the star of it. Yes, so Doyanne
Speaker 1: Dwyane is just He's a He's an amazing actor like honestly.
Speaker 1: And and one thing I want to bring I do
Speaker 1: want to bring up in this life for anyone that's listening. Um,
Speaker 1: you know you'll be able to find me on social
Speaker 1: media and stuff like that, but I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 1: here to plug my social media. What I want to
Speaker 1: tell folks, if you like a black and brown you're making,
Speaker 1: you know you're making your horror feature, your horror script.
Speaker 1: Hit me up straight up. I want to read what
Speaker 1: you're making. I want to find the next thing and
Speaker 1: it doesn't need to be get out, but if it
Speaker 1: deals with us and it deals with horror, reach out
Speaker 1: to me. I want to find these stories because I
Speaker 1: want to keep the history of horror noir going because
Speaker 1: the whole thing about it is we just don't need
Speaker 1: a documentary. We need to see more of these films
Speaker 1: being made and put out there. We're having a renaissance,
Speaker 1: but that renaissance doesn't happen without the type of people
Speaker 1: who are out there who want to get this type
Speaker 1: of work made. And I want to be a part
Speaker 1: of that as a writer but then also has directed.
Speaker 1: So if you've got an idea, you've got a script.
Speaker 1: It's hard. It's deal with black and brown folks. Reach
Speaker 1: out to me, eat look at this. Every week we
Speaker 1: give people more info on how to break into this industry. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, this is this is I feel like we
Speaker 1: went ran the true gamut because we got we did
Speaker 1: uh development, and then now we're doing film. That's a
Speaker 1: good thing. I hope y'all. I hope everyone's having a
Speaker 1: good time. I mean, I don't know everyone here has
Speaker 1: had a long day. I know it was like man,
Speaker 1: but you know, uh, you know me. If you on
Speaker 1: social media, I F Y n W A d I
Speaker 1: W E on Twitter and Instagram, feel free to wish
Speaker 1: me a happy birthday. Today is my birthday. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: it drops it's going to be my birthday. No, my
Speaker 1: type A wrote down your birthday already. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'm planning a little something for us to do, so
Speaker 1: I'll be in touch. But yeah, you know if if
Speaker 1: he's on Twitch. Thanks to all the nerd fam coming
Speaker 1: in and y'all are starting to get way active in
Speaker 1: that discord. So thanks for pulling up discord dot g
Speaker 1: g slash Salt Squad. We got Nerdive sent once again.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Fleckery for always dropping those footnotes in there.
Speaker 1: So if you're too lazy to click on the app,
Speaker 1: it's right there waiting for you. Shout out to Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna shout out some more mods. Definitely
Speaker 1: gonna shout out so I said flak Largo since is great.
Speaker 1: You know he loves Danny's post. Danny has helped him
Speaker 1: a lot. Uh so big big shout out on that.
Speaker 1: Danny just speaking out and being herself as really he
Speaker 1: always tells me. I feel like he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: bug Danny, so I just know you can. I get
Speaker 1: overwhelmed sometimes, but I try to tweet and respond to
Speaker 1: most of all. Good. Now you're making it seem like
Speaker 1: I was being salty, but I was just saying it. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know. Also Razarick those guys for holding it down
Speaker 1: always flew for one of my new mods doing your Thing,
Speaker 1: and also marred by guests because he was complaining that
Speaker 1: I shouted at all the other mods out and not
Speaker 1: him on the podcast. As for shows coming up, you
Speaker 1: can catch your boy. Uh, you'll post about it. I'll
Speaker 1: post about him to look there. Danny Well Xaviera was
Speaker 1: going to say, where can people catch horn Noir? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can find horn Noir on shutter dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find shutter dot com or you can pick
Speaker 1: up Shutter streaming app and either. Thing I'll tell everybody is,
Speaker 1: you know, they've given out a seven day free trial,
Speaker 1: so y'all know what that means. I'm not gonna say
Speaker 1: anything else, but you know what that means. All I'm
Speaker 1: asking you to do is just watch my documentary and
Speaker 1: if you stay, stay but you know, just watch the documentary,
Speaker 1: tweet about it. Please let them know that you watched
Speaker 1: it because so many I've seen so many people tweet
Speaker 1: about it in the community. Yeah, it's it's been amazing
Speaker 1: how many folks are and literally if you watch it,
Speaker 1: hit me up on Twitter x l n B or
Speaker 1: hit up horror noir film on Twitter. Um, you'll find
Speaker 1: me on Instagram XLMB stories, hard nor Film on Instagram
Speaker 1: or just hard normal on Facebook. Let me know if
Speaker 1: you're watching it and if you like it. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's literally my first feature film, so it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a fresh rod and tomatoes. I want to see
Speaker 1: y'all tell me how dope go? Tell um? Um, I'm
Speaker 1: at miss Danny Fernandez on all the things, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Follow me on Twitter because that's where
Speaker 1: I tweet my my shows and my appearances and stuff.
Speaker 1: So um oh yeah. Thank you to everyone that's been
Speaker 1: going to te public dot com slash nertificent and showing
Speaker 1: us in your merch. We love it. We love it
Speaker 1: so much. And Iffy and I have been reposting on
Speaker 1: our instant stories and sharing, and thank you to every
Speaker 1: and that took a second to go rate us on
Speaker 1: iTunes and really doesn't make a difference. We appreciate y'all,
Speaker 1: and as we always say, stay nerdy.