Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey, Human podcast. Before I get into it all, I wanted to take a moment. The last couple weeks, I have not been putting out the show because I'm in LA, and it's been a lot. And I was evacuated once, twice, almost three times from different locations because the fire fires were raging and moving so quickly. They were saying that at a rate of acreage gobbling up about 3 football fields a minute.
I don't know if you can wrap your head around that. I can barely wrap my head around it. When I evacuated my place, I could see the flames. And doing the math in my head, I was pretty scared. And that night was hurricane force winds. It was a crazy amount of wind. The palm trees were dropping their fronds, like, I mean, everywhere. Everywhere, everywhere. And as I was driving away, I was trying to swerve to miss palm fronds, as were everybody else. And,
yeah, it was like a whole thing. And then the second place I ended up by the way, shout out to the people that took me in. They did not know me personally. One woman knew me a little bit, but I was with other people. Everybody was sort of moving from place to place because everywhere we went, it became unsafe, and we'd
have to go somewhere else. So I want to thank, specifically, Jenny, and I want to thank Karen and Mike, who so graciously let me into their homes and let me stay and spend the night and fed me and kept me safe, and everybody had dogs, and that was so wonderful, because it was really traumatic and scary and uncertain, and I thought for sure my place was gonna burn down.
It didn't, but I really thought it was gonna, and those dogs and one cat, who was as old as the hills, kept in company, and were so loving and wonderful, as were the humans. And, yeah, so I didn't put out the show for 2 weeks because been dealing with all of that, Ended up going to see my family for a few days and to breathe some fresh air because the air in LA is really toxic right now. I already have issues with my voice in general and been coughing and things, so it
was good to get away. All that to say, I just I'm trying to articulate it. I've been trying to think of how to talk about all of this. There are people that lost everything, literally everything, other than maybe the shirt on their back and the pants on their legs, and it's super traumatic for everyone. This I I cannot begin to describe what it's like to see the decimation. It's horrific.
And watching this town come together and love each other and help each other and the survivor guilt for people whose homes didn't burn down, the grief that everyone's feeling, just the level of trauma is so high. And to the thousands of people that came in to save us, the firefighters, the EMTs, and the police, and, all of everybody, the evacuation route planners and the people at the WatchDuty app, who kept us all sane and insane at the same
time, but thank God for that app. And thank you, John and Kathy Penny, my lifeline through much of the crises that we endured. They were so kind to let me tag along to all their different friends' houses. I would have lost myself had I not had them as a touchstone. And also, just the prayers and love and that everyone around the world poured into our town. Boy, did we feel it. I'm telling you, powerful amount of love. Thank you for that as well.
It's, something I'll never forget, for sure, and it's it's a humbling, horrifying experience. I know I've probably said that word a few times, but I felt like it was important to speak to it and of it, before going into the episode. I know some people are wondering, and thank you for everybody that reached out. And for those who didn't totally get that too, I mean, what do you say to people? I don't know. You can't really say, how are you doing? Because nobody's doing well.
But we know that we're in your thoughts, just like, man, all the tragedies, all the horrors of this world, the one thing that is clear to me is that when given the opportunity to come together, it's really it's beautiful to see humans helping humans and animals, too. Oh, God, the imagery of the animals. I can't even go there. All that to say is just, thank you, and we're back online with the show. And, I hope it gives you a little bit of escapism.
And whatever you're going through, wherever you are in the world, I love you, and I am here thinking good thoughts and radiating them out. There is just so much stuff, y'all. Oh, my God. There, If you give blood, give blood. That's a really important thing just in general and everyday life saving kind of thing. If you're feeling like you might be in crisis, at least in the United States, you can dial 988, and there's people on the other line who will answer and be there for you
emotionally. And and if you need it physically as well and can call someone. I don't know what the numbers are worldwide. I'm sure every country has its own number. Probably every state has its own number. But I know in America, it's 988 you can call. So please, it's a it's an insane time in general, and we need you here. Don't give up. Stick around, please. And if if you need someone, please reach out. And yeah. Alright. This is episode 441, and my guest is Jay Zabriskie, who is
a really good friend. Love him to death. He teaches at L. A. Film School and has been in the film industry for decades. I sat in on one of his classes, African American images in American cinema, fascinating, cool class, hard to watch at times, of course, and so incredibly important. And I asked him to be on the show to talk about his what he knows about the history and and really, I guess, sort of a recap of the class here on the show. I
I mean, there's so much information. You can only get so much on the podcast, but I'm really glad he said yes. And, oh, also, he's in my short film, The First. He plays mister Heka. And, yeah, I just love Jay. He's the best, and I hope you do too. And in other news, I just finished a really good book. It's called In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger. I really love Sebastian's work, so I was excited to read this. It's really good. I highly recommend it.
Other stuff, check out hey human podcast.com for links and to learn more about my guests and the show. Hey Human Podcast is on YouTube under official Susan Ruth. I'm on patreon at susanruthism, TikTok, Instagram, susanruthism susanruth.com to learn more about me and my other artistic endeavors. Find my albums on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you get your music. Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast on Apple, Iheart, and Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcast. It's pretty much everywhere. And thank you for listening. Be well. Be kind. Be love. And here we go. Jay Zabriskie, welcome to Hey Human. Thank you. It's good to be here. Lovely to see you, friend. Yes. I know. Isn't that nice to have a chat with a friend? Yeah. It is. It it makes for a different kind of conversation. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So firstly, we're gonna talk about what shaped you as a person growing up.
But in reference to Jay was kind enough to be in my short film, The First. He played mister Heckeff, which is great in the opening scene. I got to read a book upside down in French. Yeah. You read a book upside down. Well, nobody knew it was upside down. No. No. Yeah. But it is it is funny to know that now watching it. But you you know, a god can do that kinda thing. That's true. I flipped it around. You know? Yeah. Just to show off a little. I I was totally comfortable reading
it upside down. It was great. You teach at LA Film School. Mhmm. And I was lucky enough to sit in one of your classes. Thank you for that invitation. That was a lovely day. I was honored to have you. Yeah. It was really fun. And thank you for being here. You were very kind to say yes. So let's jump in and start with, where are you from? How did your upbringing shape you? It's funny. I was ready to talk about, African American images. So We're gonna do that
too. Oh, absolutely. No, I know. What shaped me? Well, I I will tell you, honestly, I'm a child of the sixties. I was very much aware, although I was too young to participate in any of the civil rights activities, but I was very aware of it. My father, I think, in particular, had a great deal of influence on me because he certainly was an intellectual. And he introduced me to James Baldwin, and he introduced me to, W. E. B. Du Bois and and the black writers of the time,
historically and and currently. Dick Gregory was an amazing comedian, very, very active in the civil rights movement. And so I had that kind of background. And, also, when the New York City school system went on strike, I actually was a child who went to the Black
Panthers breakfast program. So I was aware of this this entity called the Black Panthers, you know, on top of being aware of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, aware of the March on Washington and all these, you know, these things that were going on, at the time. So I I just think I was aware of of civil rights. I was aware of human rights. I was aware, you know, what it meant to be a thinking person, I
guess. And in the work that I do now with the students, I try to encourage them to do the same thing, to think outside of the things that we're doing. I'm not supposed to have political discussions in my class, but invariably, they come up because filmmaking is about life. Filmmaking is about things that are going on around you. So how can you not discuss the things that are going on around you?
And I'm very interested in what the young people in my class have to say, and and are are they thinking about these things? So those are the kinds of things I think that shaped me. Were your parents particularly political? No. No. My father was was an atheist. My mom was a certified public accountant. She was very independent.
When my parents divorced, she managed to raise me and my 3 brothers, as well as pursue her career, becoming a certified public accountant, which is hard, one of the few African American women to do so at the time, and was quite successful at it. My dad was in banking. They shared numbers clearly when they were Yeah. They did. It didn't transfer to me. Yeah. I'm not big on numbers. But but, you know, when you talk about things that shape you,
I will tell you this. My grandparents had a lot to do with it too. My grandma my grandparents survived the depression, and they were able to buy property out on Long Island in an area that very few black people did, in in the Hamptons. We still have some of that property left. But my grandmother used to wash people's clothing, my mother's mother, in the, in the depression, and my grandfather painted flagpoles in the, for the US Navy.
So, you know, I'd come out of this lower middle class work ethic. My mother's father was a chauffeur and a bank guard, in New York. And, for black people, this was very rare. A black owned bank? No. No. No. Dry dock savings bank. Very, very much a a white owned bank. It's no I don't think I think dry dock was was bought by another bank, but growing up, it was Drydock. At any rate so, you know, I have this I have this sort of can do background from from my parents and my grandparents.
These are all very American industrial put your head down and work type positions. Very much so. Very much so. But it also made me very aware of the position of African Americans in white society. My father chafed at that and and paid penalties for that because he was very much he was a very intelligent man and very outspoken man and really did not like the vessels that he was put into. He wanted to be an architect and, felt that there was no no place for
him to be to be an architect. So he he went into banking and and so forth. Ultimately ended up in the state department and and did very well, Not, you know, not in the diplomatic side, but on the the nuts and bolts side. That's that's, where I come from. You know? Where are you in the birth order of your siblings? I'm number 1. Eldest child. I'm number 1. Regardless. Ask me. No. No, I am. Ask my brothers. They tell me I picked on them.
Very close in age? 18 months for my nearest one, 7 years for the next one, and then 20 years for the for the third one, because my mother decided to marry again after my parents had split. And, she had another another child. Yeah. I didn't pick on him too much because he was a baby. So, but, the other brother certainly felt that I had picked on them. I I don't have that memory. I I don't think so. Well, like I say, every child grows up in
a different family. It even in in their own family, every child grows with different parents. I think every sibling has a completely different they have shared experiences. But in general, I think every child has a different experience and a different set of parents growing up in a family. I think that's a good point because, you know, as they say, you know, you can never step in the same place in a river twice. And so your parents are maturing as, you know, the
next sibling comes along. So they meet different parents that have experiences and they know what not to do, what to do, as I certainly have learned. My own kids, yeah, that's a that's a good that's a good observation. But, see, that's why you're such a good writer. You know? The human experience is such a key one. Oh, yeah. Growing as you grew up in New York then. Yeah. Completely. I'm a I'm a New York kid. I love New York. I I was just there over the holidays.
It reminded me what I love about it and why I let why I didn't not unhappy that I left, you know? Because I got off the plane in LA and it was balmy and sunny. I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah. It is lovely and sunny. Growing up, especially as a first child in the family and an understanding of of blackness and moving through those spaces as a as a black boy, a black man, and having parents who, you know, who have come up in the American dream.
Did it did it alter, do you think, maybe your experience from other people you knew or friends of people you went you know, high school friends and things? Well, you know, it's funny because I would say that okay. Let's see if I can put this in perspective. My path was I went to an all black elementary school. And then right around that time, they decided that it was a great idea to ship me off to a white school, to try to, you know, to integrate it.
I don't know who was supposed to benefit from that, but I was really happy where I was because I went to I had to take 2 buses and 2 trains to get to the school. And I'll never forget, my mom I was 12, I guess. And my mom said, okay. Now I'm gonna show you how to get to school. So she went with me. Took time off from work, went with me, put me on, this is the 1st bus. This is the 1st train. It's the 2nd train. This is the 2nd bus. This is where
you get off. Now you remember how we got here because you're going to come home by yourself. I got a bus pass and that was it. Nowadays, you would never put your 12 year old boy or girl on a on a on a New York City public train, bus, whatever. I don't think, anyway. But, that was it. And I went to school and, I remember coming home one day very upset. And the reason I don't remember, actually, my mom had to remind me of this. We had a school dance.
And, you know, when you come from an all black environment, that's it's kind of hermetically sealed, you know? The teachers are white or black, whatever, but, you know, you're very comfortable in your neighborhood. And I was. My, you know, my my my all my friends were the same. You know, their parents were some parents were cops. Some parents were sanitation workers. Other parents were bus drivers. So it's very working class, middle working middle class kind of neighborhood.
And so I go blithely along to this new experience, you know, not particularly thinking that I'm integrating or even caring that that's what I'm doing. So I asked this girl to dance, and she said, I don't dance with animals. And I was, like, really, really blown away by that. It was very, very painful. And the reason I'm telling you this only because I completely wiped it out of my memory, and my mom reminded me one day, and I said, wow. I I didn't I didn't remember that. Anyway,
persevered at the school. All of my friends were white because I was one of very few African Americans there. I was in the music program, and we tried to get a jazz band together and do some things. I ended up swimming, you know, turning adversity into swimming. And, the kids there were cool eventually with me, and I was cool with them. And, you know, it was my first touch of Italian, Worked a lot of Italian Americans at this school. And maybe that's why I love Italy so
much. No. I I have no idea. So I'm not sure how old you are. So I'm not does that mean that you were part of that first wave of of integration? Yeah. But see, I I don't know because I don't know how New York fit in. Right. Because everybody did it at a different time. Right. I I'm not I mean, you know, New York chose to do this. But, yes, I I'm I'm up there. I'm I'm I'm a I'm a solid boomer. Believe me.
That's a lot of trauma to to send kids into this sort of new without any kind of help or support. None. Yeah. None. None. This was after the breakfast program, I think. My timeline my timeline may be a bit but I'm pretty sure it was. Did the Black Panther environment empower you to
deal with some of those challenges? Or I mean, at 12, no one's really thinking about all this kind of you know, the social and political ramifications of how America is trying to shift toward better, for lack of a better word, a better future. We're still working on? Work in progress. Work in progress. I would have to say no because I don't remember any kind of political discourse. They were just feeding kids and making sure they had something to do after school.
Exactly. Exactly. Because the school system was on strike. You know, in retrospect, I I see what was done to to dismember the Black Panthers. And it's a shame because, yes, they had this this violent rhetoric and this tough guy stance, but there were some really wonderful things that they did in in black communities across the country. And women you know, black women, were very, very involved and and did not
get the attention, I think. The image of the Black Panthers is, you know, Huey Newton with the gun and the thing and, you know, The way he talks about Angela Davis as much or any yeah. Mhmm. And the what black women did for the vote. Yeah. Well, that's a that that's another we could do another whole show on that. Yeah, for sure. Anthony Vaughn (3six forty seven): Black women were very involved in the
suffragette movement. Yeah. Anthony Vaughn (3six forty seven): And had nothing to show for it, at the end of it. And of course, memory glosses over a lot of things, but I don't really remember being particularly politically active at this point. I was just reacting socially to what was, you know, what I was dealing with and trying to keep good grades because that was, you know, that's part of the family thing. You gotta get good grades. Now my brothers and, you know, I always tease them. I
said, because they all had it easy. So after I was the guinea pig with this stupid integration thing, they opened up new schools in our neighborhood, you know, 15 mile radius, middle schools and so forth. So my brothers went to that middle school, and then he went to prep school, and then he went to Yale, and, you know, they had all the good stuff. You know? I'm slugging along at public school, public middle school, public high school, but I'm quite proud of them. You know?
One went to Yale. The other one went to Dartmouth. So I'm proud of them. And when you headed off to college, did you already have in your mind to be in the filmmaking world? Was that something that came later? No. What happened was in middle school, I was in music. I loved music. In high school, I continued that. And then I found out there was this thing called, acting theater. So I started acting and, that was my thing, music and art. When I got to NYU, I honestly did not know what I wanted
to do. I didn't even know that there was a film program. I didn't know anything about that. Loved movies like everybody else, you know? So I'm thinking around and I I'm thinking, well, okay, since Since I don't know what my major's gonna be, let me get rid of all the basic courses, get past all of this, and then I'll declare a major when I figure out what I wanna do. Then I discovered there was this thing called film, a film program.
I had 2 very special teachers, Martin Scorsese for directing problems class and, Martin Martin who wrote that, Taxi Driver. He was writing writing teacher. Oliver Stone was in my class, one of my classes, and I was able to catch up with him a couple years ago and, you know, reminded him of it. And and we talked
about that period of his life. He didn't remember me, but I remembered him, because we were all these wet behind the ears kids in this class, and there was this intense brooding presence in the class, and that was Olive Stone, who, had already been, at that point, had already first volunteered, with a, like an NGO type, organization in Nam and had been going back as a soldier in Nam and now was now was in school. So when he came back, you know, he was a pretty serious
pretty serious person. I I don't know if if he had already written. It was Midnight Express, I think it was. I think he had. College was, you know, that's what I was into, and I I had no idea, you know, how amazing Scorsese was. He had just done he had done Boxcar Bertha. He was in that the corpsman group. And, you know, I was just lucky to have him for that that one semester. Then he's gone, you know, doing his thing. How are you looking at cinema up until
this point? Because I think this will segue nicely into what you teach now. But how are you taking in the cinema that you're experiencing? Well, you know, it's funny because I kinda begin my presentation to my students this way. I was exposed to to a lot. I mean, I I love I love the program. I mean, when I came through the program, it was kind of new. So a lot of things, you know, developed
as a program matured. You know? So I I'm I'm aware of all the all this amazing filmmaking and production being being done. Very little of it had African Americans in it. In fact, I don't honestly remember in any of my film history classes being shown any films by African Americans or that that involved African Americans. I believe I found these on my own, things like nothing but a man, because that came out in 64, Ivan Dixon. It was just my own curiosity
to to find this. Television, of course, was was evolving, and and I was aware of Bill Cosby's work and so forth, not I Spy, because, you know, like every other young kid, I was really crazy for, spy stuff. I didn't wasn't really appreciative, shall we say, of the groundbreaking work that people like Sidney Poitier, Paul Robeson. I was not even aware that there was such a thing as as, black filmmakers of the teens and and twenties. Oscar Micheaux. No. Never heard of
them. I bet they, I bet they're, they're taught now at NYU and, and all other film schools. And I know my students have never heard of it because they all come up to me. I mean, I'm, I'm really honored when I know that they're actually listening and they say thank you because we've learned something we never knew about before.
And, I wanted to read you this this quote because it's something this, by the way, was an amazing called Black Cinema Regeneration, Regeneration at the it was at the Academy Museum. But I was flipping through this and apropos of what we're talking about, James Baldwin said in 1968, it is of the utmost importance that a black child see on the screen on that screen, someone who looks like him.
Our children have been suffering from the lack of identifiable images for as long as our children have been born. You know, I certainly fell into that category. You know, certainly in other arts like music, I was aware, partly because of my father, of, of the literature of African American writers. I was aware of the music, obviously, the jazz greats.
But my dad was so eclectic that he introduced me to people who were not, you know, like, for example, you know, everyone has heard of, Louis Armstrong or, John Cole Coltrane. Right? But maybe not Youssef Lateef, maybe not Pharoah Sanders. These were guys who are on, you know, on a cutting edge, that contributed greatly to to our music, to the music of
America. To kind of come back to where I am now, to find out and discover the richness of work of African American artists from the very beginning of cinema, is very gratifying. And I really hope more students are aware of this. That's not taking anything away from the contributions of female, directors because there were quite a few in the early years, female directors who were fighting against the system to try to break through. Asian Americans have the same complaints that that we have
had. You know, having whites in yellow face. I've watched on channel 9 in New York. They used to have a thing called the $1,000,000 movie. They used the theme from Gone With the Wind, was the $1,000,000 movie. And so I would see, things like the Marx Brothers, and I would see, Charlie Chan, you know, which was a horrible representation of Asian Americans, but that's what was there. Cartoons are even worse. Yeah. Cartoons are
way over the top. I you know, when I was sitting in your class and I I knew going in, of course, that there was going to be things that would likely make especially 20 year olds, the students, really uncomfortable, you know, to be Mhmm. Faced with the truth of things when so many people are trying to ignore historical accuracy. Right. I'm curious. How do you experience your kids, your students experiencing those things?
I approach it this way. I say pretty much at the start that I'm gonna discuss some things that are, going to be uncomfortable. And I say none of this is designed or intended to make anybody feel bad about themselves. I say, y'all didn't do anything.
And then I take I I kind of mash massacre a quote from, Ava DuVernay's wonderful movie origin, where I say, something to the effect the character in the movie says something to the effect that, you know, we're living in this house that was built by others, and it's got broken windows and rugs messed up and, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah. You didn't build this house. We didn't build this house, but it's on us to fix this house.
And that's what I say. I'm looking for allies in this and information makes us allies. That's what I want. I don't wanna make anybody feel bad. You know, what, what, what use is it to say, well, you know, white folks did blackface and they were, you know, and they they produced these horrible images of blacks and Asians and so forth. So, it's your fault. Well, that's that's absurd. No, but I want you to join me in recognizing that it was absurd. And what what will
you do now? What can you, as a creative person, do now to add to the conversation that improves this house that we are now living in? Which is interesting too to think that the school would say, as do many schools, make sure that there's nothing political discussed. And it's it's hard to not because politics and social justice and sociology and all of they're all in bed together. You can't have one without the other. They all meet each other. Absolutely. Plus, we're creative people.
We are aware of what's going on in our lives. We wanna make films about the things that we're experiencing. Are we experiencing this political stuff? The sociological changes, the effects of, artificial intelligence, and its implications, and social media, and what it's doing to children, and to adults, and relationships, blah, blah, blah. All rich fertile ground for thinking people. But see, I think that's exactly the danger.
Because if, for example, this new administration is successful in destroying the department of education, If they are successful in making it so that only the states have control of the the educational, norms or guidelines for everybody, we're gonna have some really stupid people. Well, it was certainly ignorant. It will cause an incredible division. Sorry. I meant ignorant. Yeah. It'll it'll cause an incredible division of of knowledge. And,
well, knowledge is power. We know that that is a fact. It will only divide us more because the quote unquote elites or the educated, which I I think, unfortunately, those two words have now become synonymous. They're not. They're not at all. No. But they've they've, you know, intellect or education or a lack of ignorance has been vilified. Yes. Yes. My big issue, of course, is a willful ignorance. That's what that's what it breaks my heart. That's what makes me very sad.
That willfully, I don't wanna know things Yes. Stance. Because it's so painful. It is. That leads us back to not wanting to have a good an honest discussion of history as opposed to really looking at what was done. It's also a big f u to most of the people on the planet that don't look like you or act like you or worship like you or talk like you, whatever they like you part of it is. Yes. Absolutely. Also, how do we begin to break down these divisions if we don't learn about each
other? Yeah. It seems like a really lonely, angry existence. Yeah. This is completely off topic, but I started listening to Shaboozy, and that led me to Jelly Roll. These are people I never would have heard because I don't do country music. Right? And Jelly Roll has a song called I'm Not Okay that tears me up because it is so full of pain. And I'm thinking, these are the people that the democrats missed. They don't understand that there's a lot of people, you know, who are not okay.
They're not doing okay. They're working hard. They're not doing okay. And part of the problem is, the people who are telling them, who are pretending to be listening to them, are actually exploiting them. When they find out if they ever find out what Trump really thinks of them and what his administration intends to take away from them I mean, not even just Trump. I mean, I would
just they'd say politics in general. Like, Trump is representative of a lot of things that you and I. Maybe not everyone who listens to this show believes that, but you and I certainly believe he's representative of a lot of things that we do not hold dear. However, politics across the board that's that's the great, 23 Ski Doo that has been done to people is that they have been told to worship at the feet of whatever political party they reflect in their minds that they think they're they're
a part of. But that party really only cares up to a point. Well, of course. You know? Yes. Yes. Well, I you know, the point is we're stuck with this. You know? We have 2 parties. That's it. You know? It's not like, Italy with its chaotic, you know, or or Europe with its, you know Six parties. 6 parties and, you know, and they're all fighting. And maybe that's a better way. Now we're getting really existential with it, I suppose. It's just power
versus the people that have no power. And that's really the bottom line. Mhmm. And anytime the people that don't have power start to use their voice and look around and say, hey, you know what? If I'm gonna speak up, I'm also gonna speak up for these other people that don't have a voice. And then the people in power say, oh, oh, no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. We like our power. We don't want to have any power. No. I I mean, I think that's the conundrum. You
know? How do you give voice to the voiceless? And and, you know, isn't that the problem with populism? Right? You know? Because if if that if the populous is not informed, then they're gonna make some really bad choices. If we go back to talking about film, and there's the idea of, oh, only certain looks or certain faces or certain Mhmm. You know, men doing this and not you know, a chick film or, oh, if there's black people in this or Asian people in that, you know, whatever it
is. There is a hierarchy of the money crunchers saying this has value and this doesn't, which is why it's so exciting when shows like Abbott Elementary or movies like origin or, you know, whatever it is. Actually, these things make 1,000,000 of dollars, by the way. They do. You know, maybe there are some cracks, you know, because some of these projects are slipping through. I I don't know. I mean, let's go back to the seventies, all in the family. How the hell did
that ever get on the air? You think that would get on the air now? We treasure that. You know? Talk about pushing boundaries and making people face the realities of who we all are. Right. But normally, I found a way to to talk about politics in a humanistic way that allowed us to laugh at it and and made us think about it. You know, Archie Bunker was representative of a certain way of thinking. Mhmm. And, Meathead was another thing. And they would clash, and and and that's how he would get the
ideas out. And Edith would be in the middle, you know. And then all of a sudden, you know, Archie would try to do something to put Edith down, and she would just smack him back, and he would be surprised. But I think you spoke to it earlier in that the thing that Norman Lear did is that he wasn't also afraid to show Archie's pain. Absolutely. Absolutely. Archie was a a was a a a three-dimensional, character, but that's why it worked. And maybe that's we need to get back
to that. Maybe when we when we start talking about these people who are are being left behind, we we paint them as three-dimensional people. The line in Jelly Roll's thing is I'm I'm not okay, but I'm gonna be alright. That gives you a much fuller picture. It really made me aware of how much there's a group of people that I'm not aware of, how much they are hurting. It's a pretty small planet. Isn't it? And it's the only one we have, you know? There's this rush to go to
Mars. I'm like, why? We're just gonna go there and bring the same crap over there. I mean, we do it here. We go to Austin because Austin is a cool place, and then we all bring our condominiums and our, you know, California attitudes or whatever. And now Austin is not as cool as it used to be. Right? I get the excitement of space and the wanting to
adventure outward. I completely understand. But also, I find it difficult to think here's somebody who can afford to really fix some problems at home, you know, here on the planet and chooses to look at the how do we go to somewhere else? Mhmm. And maybe start messing that one up. I I have my personal things around that. I think that it has to do more with mining rights and has little to do with saving humanity. Because the first people that get to mine Mars are gonna make a freaking fortune.
Absolutely. That's that's what it really is. In my opinion, that's what it's about. I don't think it's, just a matter of your opinion. I think you're absolutely correct. I think it's a reality. I just read today that there is a discussion about how soon we're gonna be ready to do mining on the moon. Yeah. Why would we wanna mess with the moon? Because the moon affects the tides and a lot of things on earth. Do we really wanna go up there and start chipping away and taking things away and
pounding and blowing shit up? I don't think it's a good idea. I do not think it's a good idea. Yeah. I know. It is it's I'm not even a scientist, and I don't think it's a good idea. Yeah. But again, sometimes I wonder how much people really consider humanity. I don't think a lot. When it comes to money, humanity is not at the top of the list of let's make sure. Right. Well, I mean, it kinda syncs up with what we're discovering about UnitedHealth,
Group, right, as a total. Mhmm. Because it was clear that they had a policy of denying claims as a profit center to the extent that there was a person called the denial nurse, that this person's job I don't know if it was a female, could have been a male. Their job was to simply deny claims, find a reason to deny the claim. Well, why do we have insurance? What am I paying the the for the insurance for
if you're gonna cover me? And then you find out there's, something called a benefits manager that's in between the pharmaceutical company and your doctor. We don't even need that person, but they're all these profits and It is bonkers. I'm in Italy. Yes. They take half your salary for taxes. That's true. But I had an accident 20 years ago while I was there. Busted up my head, bleeding all over the place. They rushed me to the ER, patched me up, follow ups, you know, stitches,
care, everything. You know how much I paid? 0. The taxi ride over maybe. I mean, why are we paying so much for health care? We have not the best health care in the world. We have the worst health care in the world. Yeah. It is a good switcheroo, ain't it? Lot of this country's got a lot of switcheroo ing going on. Yes. That's what little switcheroo. Yeah. A little shell game. I think they're called shell games. Right? Follow follow the peanut and then good luck. Well, you discover
that there's no peanut. I grew up around Times Square when they really had real shell games. You know, before Giuliani came and turned it into Disneyland, there was there was real life on the streets, you know, guys selling watches, you know, Like that scene in, in Shaft. You know? He's got 12 watches up his arm. He says, hey, brother. I bought a timepiece. That's that's the Times Square I remember. Alright.
Let's get back to you. The the full title of this class that you teach, one of the classes African American images in American cinema. I only get as far I start from the very beginning, which is, an image called the cake walk, which is a, black and white silent image of these black folks all gussied up in their Sunday best, making fun of white society. I think that's what the cakewalk is about, and they're just dancing and prancing and having a great time.
And it's just so much fun to watch them very unselfconsciously, doing this. And that's the first, images that that I'm aware of, motion picture images I'm aware of of, African American people, in cinema, followed the next year by something called the kiss, which I really gotta see if I can get a clip of that, which and add to my lecture, because I have, some still photographs. But it's a black man and a black woman, and they kiss, and it's a big, you know, close-up, and it's a big deal.
But I go all the way I can only get as far as the blaxploitation, period. And I I think it's a good place to stop because it really was the beginning of this explosion, in my opinion, of, of black directors and actors and so forth that was never was never able to be put back into the box. Because out of that, we have Spike Lee, and Ava DuVernay, and Julie Dash, and, just so many wonderful, amazing directors. Now the amount of directors that are African American, it's like 5 or 6 pages when you
do a Google search. Did you I can't remember. Was Gene Roddenberry with the interracial kiss between, Kirk and Uhura? Yes. It's definitely part of my class. The first interracial kiss on on television. I love telling that story because Nichelle Nichols, who played lieutenant Uhura, was telling it. Roddenberry, who was really so far ahead, of his time, I I think he stands on the shoulders of of Rod Serling, who also
was, I think, a humanist. So the whole point of Star Trek for for those of you who are probably looking at the the 17 variations, but the original Star Trek was very groundbreaking because it was the first time there was, a group of multiracial people on the bridge of a of a ship, a starship in this case. Lieutenant Uhura was a black female communications officer. James Kirk, of course, was the captain.
Anyway, in 1968, as this first iteration of Star Trek was coming to an end, there was a script where they get captured by this planet where the people on the planet can make Kirk and Uhura and, Spock and nurse, can't remember her name, nurse, I want to say nurse Ratchet, but that's one clue of cuckoo's nest. That's cuckoo's nest. Yeah. So that's not right, but the nurse, they were a couple. And, these people are making them do stupid things.
They're prancing around. They're dancing. They're, you know, whatever. At any rate, they get the idea that they're gonna make Kirk and Uhura, kiss. So the the the studio knows they have the script, and the deal was that we're we're gonna shoot it 2 ways. We're gonna shoot it with the kiss, and we're gonna shoot it without the kiss. Certainly, because the southern markets are not gonna really like to see this. Right? It's bad enough that they're together touching each other. We're talking
1968. Right? Just before Hoot Kiss was coming to dinner, came out, I believe. They shoot the scene with the kiss. Right? Now they're running out of time. It's golden hour. And golden hour in film, for those of you who don't know, is extraordinarily expensive. Right? It's double time heading into triple time. It's very expensive. So they wanna get this done. So they do 2 or 3 takes with the kiss. This is on film, by the way. And, they get to the point of the director
says, okay. Let's do the one without the kiss. Alright. Now they do it supposedly. Now nowadays, when a director is working a scene, they get to see what the camera sees. So in those days in 68, there was no video village. There was no television monitor or whatever to be able to see what was going on. So the only person that knew what really happened was the camera operator. And he wasn't talking. So they get to the next day and they're screening the dailies.
Dailies are the film that is shot the day before is processed and then screened for the director, the producer, in this case, the studio, because they really wanna see how this kiss thing worked out. So they're showing this they're showing it and there's the kiss. There's the kiss. It's great. And they say, okay. Let's see the one without the kiss. So they put that take up on the projector and lo and behold, Shatner, instead of not kissing her, he
I'm sorry. He doesn't kiss her. But what he does is he turns, he bends her down and he looks straight at the camera. He spikes the lens blowing the take. So it doesn't matter whether he kissed her or not. He can't use the take. So now they have to use the kiss. And that was, I'm sure that was deliberate on Roddenberry and Shatner's part. I don't think Shatner did it on his own. But Roddenberry Shatner made so that the kiss is was, shown. And I I give them high marks for
for having done that. That was the year, by the way, for those of you who don't know, 1968 was a very, very pivotal year. Martin Luther King was killed in April. Loving versus Virginia was decided by the Supreme Court, which allowed that interracial marriages were legal, and it was unconstitutional to prevent interracial marriage. Sidney Poitier was in a movie, called guess who's coming to dinner. So all this is going on at the same time, and then you have the kiss. Pretty powerful year.
Again, it's impossible for cinema not to be political if it's doing its job. But the fact that that's political makes me crazy. It's not. It's not political, but we've made it into politics. Like, the first time, 2 women kiss or 2 men kiss. That's a big Sure. That's political. Right? I just I think it's so fascinating that along the way, which actors and or actresses were acceptable in whichever like, is a Dorothy Dandridge more acceptable or is, Bruce Lee, for example? You know, why is
that more acceptable? Or that that sort of idea that there were certain actors and actresses who everyone could embrace for whatever particular reason. I always think that's really interesting. It it is. And and one of the things I talk about in my lecture is the difficulty for people like Dorothy Dandridge and, Lena Horne, Hazel Scott to be accepted and to find roles.
On the on the male side, you had Hara Belafonte, you know, who was a heartthrob, you know, for many women, black and white, which was part of the of the problem. I mean, an amazing amazingly talent multi talented And activist. Very much so. He was an activist and and never shied away from that. He and the horn, both were part participants in the civil rights, the march on Washington. There's a great PBS interview with Belafonte. I'm gonna leave some people out, but Belafonte is in it.
Believe it or not, Charlton Heston is in it. Mister pry the gun from my cold dead hands. He was part of it. He was very much on board, with the ideas behind the march on Washington. Marlon Brando was part of that group. It was a discussion during during the the March on Washington. I'm pretty sure it was PBS. I guess my point is, what I what I hope that the students will walk away with is an appreciation for how we got to where we are now.
And the responsibility of that I think they have to be charged with about exploring our world now, knowing where we have come from, knowing the the way media, the way film had been used in the past. What can they do now to to enlarge the conversation, to to encourage dialogue among people, to to share the experiences. One of the things that I say to them is, please do not make another Marvel hero movie. Make something that you care about, really care about, know, not just another action movie. I
love action movies. I'm a John Wick fan. No question. Okay. But make something that means something to you, you know, that that will open up people's thinking, hearts. I don't know if they'll be getting that message. Let's see. Some are. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, you were you were talking about Bruce Lee and Dorothy Dandridge, and I was just thinking they basically basically had the same problems
just later. You know, Bruce Lee, amazingly talented, you know, had done the string of successful Chinese kung fu movies, came to Hollywood, and they they just said, nah, you know, you you know, nobody wants to see you do this stuff. And he wanted that part really badly, you know, but they they couldn't imagine they couldn't imagine an Asian man being who's a real kung fu artist walking through the wild west doing kung fu. They'd rather have a white guy who didn't know kung fu, who was all
faked in camera trickery. I remember being really upset about that because, I was a Bruce Lee fan, and I was studying kung fu, Kung Fu S. I was glad that the show was on the air, but I remember saying, that should be Bruce Lee. I mean, this guy doesn't even know what he's doing. There's all kind of I did. I think Bruce Lee taught David Carradine, didn't he? Yeah. Mhmm. He took a lot of irony about a lot of people. A lot of people, studied, when he opened up his school.
He, he he worked with a lot of Hollywood actors. And he was sexy. I mean, he would've done it would've it he would've done real well. But again Yeah. Do you like water? I'm like, I'm already there, buddy. That's right. I'll get all the people. Every time you see me, you turn into water. Yes, sir. I wish I had that power. But yeah. No. I I I think that's the thing. It was a limitation and a and a desire to to control the truth about things. If America's interested in kung fu, why not
go to the source? You know, why would you take a pale imitation? I'm not trying to make a pun here. No pun. Yeah. Intended. Yeah. But it's a pale imitation. You know? Yeah. And did the world end when Kirk kissed lieutenant O'Horn? World didn't end. You know? It's not gonna end now if because we understand the true history of racism and slavery and and cultural misappropriation. World's not gonna end. We're gonna know more about what went on.
You know? Every time someone says to me, well, you know, why should I feel guilty about it? You shouldn't feel guilty. I don't want you to feel guilty. I want you to help me make it better. By your feeling guilty, you're sort of saying, well, there's nothing to be done. You know, I feel bad. I don't want you to feel bad. Yeah. It's interesting. I read some some woman was talking about how her kid came home and he was crying because, you know, they had learned about I don't remember if it
was the holocaust or slavery. It was something terrible that history has has done. And, you know, she said, oh, my kid was crying and I don't wanna and I thought, that's a good thing. Your child is experiencing something called empathy. That's beautiful. That's actually something to encourage in people. Yeah. We want we want more empathetic people. I'm hoping that I wanna I wanna say better minds. I don't know if that's the correct word, but I'm hoping that Better angels,
maybe. Better angels. We will we will appeal to the better angels, and we will prevent the, elimination of history, true history being taught in in school. I I'd like to see civics brought back. I'd like to see people understand how government really works, understand that it's you know, the president can't do everything. Then the vice president can't do anything. That's for sure. Yeah. The vice president, you know, responsible for the president does is kinda silly. It is silly.
But people just don't know. But that's the thing. Ignorance is a powerful tool for the people that wield the power. Well, yes. It's a very useful tool. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. No. I agree. Yeah. So as an instructor, I have to push back against that. Yeah. And I'm glad you do. I really did enjoy your class. It's excellent. And I really enjoyed watching your students take it in because it's the seed. Well, that's good. I I must admit, I'm so busy talking that I don't even see
that. Yeah. I'm focusing on what I'm trying to say. But I I I take pride in introducing them to people that they've never heard of before, like Oscar Micheaux, and understanding that Hadda McDaniel got an Oscar. You know? A lot of people don't know that. You know? 1st black woman to get an Oscar. To understand that there were many, many black owned film production companies in the twenties, They they did a lot of work.
Amos and Andy, the the the black man who played the television version of Amos and Andy, his name is Spencer Williams, was in many of these early race films and continued to direct race films, in the forties and, and fifties, even though he was in the fifties playing this shucking and jiving character, Amos and Andy. You know? People should know that Bill Cosby was a very successful comedian before he became America's dad. He was a very successful comedian who was in a a really cutting edge
TV show called I Spy. And, you know, people in my generation, we revered Bill Cosby for that. You know? Richard Pryor came along. It was like, oh, this is amazing. We got 2 guys that are just hilarious. You know? Have you ever seen Richard Pryor's bit about God when he comes on stage and yeah. I have I've I've listened to his albums.
I used to try to do it, then the one with the monkey running around is like, It's tricky for people like Bill Cosby, of course, because, like you said, a brilliant comic, brilliant at everything that he did, and America's dad and beloved. But the truth of the matter is, you know, also a monster. And that's a really interesting thing Yes. I think for people to understand is you can be both things. Yes. You can be brilliant and do incredible bodies of work and be a terrible
person. A lot of our arts, a lot of our history is that. Mhmm. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. I I don't shy away from that. I I say that. I say that in the lectures. We didn't know at the time that he was a monster, that he was drugging women all the way back when he was doing I Spy. It's so weird because I'll it'll come across my timeline is The Cosby Show, and I freaking love that show. I'm sorry I love
it, and I love A Different World. And I watch these shows, and somewhere in the back of my mind, you know, the little birdie is saying, yeah. But yeah. But I'm like, yeah. But, shit, it's so good. Yeah. Yeah. It was so beautiful. It's like, how do you hold both those thoughts at the same time? That that's really not that unusual. I mean, for example, I talk about the the minstrel man. Al Jolson. Al Jolson. Al Jolson, you know, made a fortune singing and playing in blackface.
And I asked my students, I said, well, look at this clip. You know, he's singing mammy in blackface, and they're cutting to his mother, who is white. I said, didn't anybody notice that there was a discrepancy here? Why is he in blackface? What's the need for him to be in blackface singing mammy to his real mother? Well, maybe cinema mother who's sitting there white, looked like a nice little sweet old white lady. Didn't that bother didn't anybody say, wait a minute. This is this is stupid.
But at the same time, while he's making these, you know, kind of negative, images of African Americans, as a person, I think he actually appreciated African American culture. I think he respected African American, entertainers and musicians. And I tell I tell the story to 2 men, who were who I learned about at NYU, by the way. The 2 men who, Noble, Sissel, and Eubie Blake were at the top of, of of African American, you know, music,
musical theater. They had done a, very successful show called Shuffle Along, and Shuffle Along was basically like the Hamilton of the day. I mean, anybody that was anybody, black, white, purple, whatever, went to see shuffle along on Broadway. Anyway, so these 2 successful artists are trying to have dinner in Connecticut. That's the north. And the restaurant owner would not serve them because they were black. This is real life.
This is real life. And Al Jolson happened to run into them, and they told him what's going on, and he made sure that they had dinner. So a small thing, but an important thing because it balances it out. So why, you know, why on one hand is he doing these negative images, but at the same hand, as a real person, he's helping out doing something very activist. Right? And I think that's the point. These two things can both be true. Why is Step
and Fetchit? Step and Fetchit was so successful making these horrible images of African Americans, only to be resurrected by the NAACP in 1974 because they felt that his character was like a Loki type figure figure. Felt that his character, you know, usually worked his way out of situations because he knew more about things and was able to trick so called superior people. But as I tell my students, it's
still very painful to watch. And I love playing that clip and have them guess what the hell he's talking about because his patois is so weird. And, you know, even after dozens of screenings, I still can't understand everything that he's saying. He doesn't talk like that in in real life, you know, but he created this persona.
Fred Astaire. Fred Astaire does this thing in a a movie called swing time where he's, you know, supposedly paying homage to Bill Bojangles Robinson, who had revolutionized tap dancing for everybody. And everybody recognized that Bo Bojangles was was, you know, the king. Right? Yet he does this thing in Swing Time, where he's dressing up in his clownish outfit in blackface, you know, and that is supposedly honoring Bojangles. Well, it's not. It's making you know,
it's saying, hey. I can take the best from the best and make fun of you. Well, in reality, Bojangles was just a master and was an amazing, dancer. People like Savion Glover looked back at his work. The Nicholas Brothers looked back at what Bojangles contributed And, Gregory Hines. I produced a documentary for Italian television and we got to interview the Nicholas Brothers. We got to interview Gregory Hines. Unfortunately, Savion Glover's management would not allow us
to do that, which was a shame. Brenda Bufalino is a a white tap dancer who comes to mind, who we interviewed. What's the doc called? This is Tap. I don't think it was shown here. I'll tell you why. First of all, it was produced for Italian television, although everybody speaks in English and so forth. The producers, because we couldn't get to Simeon Glover, the the executive producer, I should say, took the
film, went back to Italy. They cut it together, and they decided they wanted to to have Savion Glover in the movie one way or the other. So what they did was, without our knowledge, they came back. They hired some of the crew that we had worked with without our knowledge. They didn't hire me back, bring me back to New York. They went to see Savion Glover perform. And with a hidden camera, they shot his performance, pieces of his performance, and they put it in the movie.
Nope. And I go, if you lost your mind, you can't do that. I was furious. We couldn't do anything about it. They had done it, cut it into the movie. It's in the copy that I have, but we can't show it. You know? And and also the way they shot it is crap. You know, when we shot people performing, we, you know, we did we have, you know, good camerawork, you know, so forth. And it really, really bothered me because I really I really liked,
what the work that we did. The Italian director was upset because he knew that they had done wrong, but it was the executive producer who intended it to that's that's it. And then he gave his girlfriend producer title. Of course. He He had done zip on the film. I actually did nothing on the film. But, Jay, you are amazing. Well, thank you. I feel like all of the the timeline of what you could be teaching is so vast.
I really hope the school gives you the opportunity to have it be I don't know how it works over there if it's just everything as a singular class. But if you get the opportunity to pitch it to them and say, give me a whole semester or however long the school year lasts Yeah. Take it, please, because I think it's really important. I am interested in in the the TED talk concept. I would really, the TED talks that I've seen are about an hour.
So I would really have to restructure it and really have just sort of key highlights because there's just so much in our history. You know? I mean, that's the thing. I'd love for you to do a TED talk, but what I really want is for you to do an entire series. Well, I don't okay. I don't know if you can do that. You could do a series on your own and film it and then sell it to a PBS or a Nat Geo or a Discovery or I don't know all those channels, but, you know, something
like that. That'd be pretty badass. Alright. You produce it, and I'll I'll I'll Let's do it. Let's make it. Let's do it. Okay. We'll do it. I've been collecting bits of, you know, information, historical information, that this, you know, keeps coming. I've got I've got a folder full of stuff that I I can't put into the, lecture. Okay. We're gonna talk about this. K. Jay, thank you for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank
you for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank you for listening, everybody. Bye. Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Iheart, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks. Bye.