Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K Brown and American Fiction director Cord Jefferson speak to Yahoo about the satire and the ways in which it can start a conversation.
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00:00 Deadbeat Dan's, rappers, crack.
00:02 You said you wanted black stuff.
00:03 That's black, right?
00:05 I see what you're doing.
00:06 Congratulations on the many Oscar nominations
00:08 that the film has got.
00:09 Thank you so much.
00:10 Thank you.
00:11 Are you happy that Hollywood is acknowledging the film
00:14 and it's really valid message?
00:16 Yeah, of course.
00:17 You know, the really nice thing about Oscar nominations
00:22 is that it is other artists.
00:26 You know, it is your colleagues, your peers.
00:29 And so to be welcomed into that group of people,
00:34 especially for a first film is, yeah,
00:38 it's just a true honor.
00:41 This recognition comes not only as a result
00:45 of the quality of the work for anyone.
00:48 It comes too because a film and that work
00:51 has support behind it from the studio
00:55 and the backers of the film to make sure
00:57 that the work is seen.
01:00 And in this case, Orion and Amazon MGM
01:02 have been incredibly energetic in getting this film out.
01:06 We won the Toronto Film Festival.
01:08 That didn't hurt.
01:09 But they have been committed to getting our film
01:15 to audiences and getting our film in front of the Academy.
01:19 And that's made the difference.
01:21 It's, you know, there's some wonderful work out there,
01:26 wonderful films and performances out there,
01:28 beautiful stuff that, you know, wasn't recognized this year.
01:32 It doesn't mean the work wasn't good.
01:34 - Right.
01:35 - You know, we're not here by ourselves or by accident.
01:38 And I'm appreciative of that.
01:40 - I think the film is saying that the narrow swath
01:45 in which we have been accustomed to
01:47 with regards to black life
01:49 doesn't invalidate that slice of life, right?
01:54 Whether you're talking about "12 Years a Slave,"
01:56 whether you're talking about "Roots,"
01:58 whether you're talking about "Precious,"
01:59 whether you're talking about "Boys in the Hood,"
02:01 these stories are good stories
02:04 and they're important to be shared,
02:06 but they shouldn't be shared
02:07 to the exclusion of other stories.
02:09 And they shouldn't be the ones that are told
02:11 over and over again to make mainstream audiences think
02:15 that this is what black life is, period.
02:18 It's a part of, right?
02:20 And so people have been recognized
02:23 in all of those films that I just named
02:25 or TV show, "The Roots," in that particular situation,
02:28 and they've been recognized deservedly, right?
02:32 But it doesn't have to be just black pain
02:36 that merits your rewards or awards or what have you.
02:41 Like, black life is more than just pain.
02:43 There is joy, there's complexity, there's frustration,
02:47 there's artistic sort of like a search for that integrity.
02:50 Like all of those things are part of black life
02:53 because all of those things are part of life, right?
02:57 So I'm happy to get recognized.
02:59 - You're absolutely right about those films.
03:02 I have to say, though, that there have been films
03:05 that I've watched that have told certain stories,
03:09 certain narratives from the black perspective,
03:14 and I was uncomfortable watching some of those films
03:18 for this reason, not because I was made
03:21 to feel uncomfortable, but it seemed to me
03:24 that there was a type of fetishizing or voyeurism
03:29 that was employed to explore violence against black bodies.
03:35 - Okay. - And that that was used
03:42 really as a marketing tool and to make it digestible
03:45 to audiences in a way that I thought was really, really odd.
03:50 So some of those, yes, include a wide range of perspectives,
03:55 but some of them deserve critique.
04:01 - Understood.
04:02 We'll talk off camera. - We'll talk off camera.
04:04 (laughing)
04:06 (laughing)
04:09 [BLANK_AUDIO]