Hey, what's up everybody. I'm Jamel Hill and welcome to politics and I heard podcast and unbothered production. Time to get spolitical? All right? This week is officially the last week of Black History Month, and I thought what better way to end the month than to go out with a little current Black history. Now. History was made this week when Howard University's men's swimming and diving team won the Northeast Conference championship for the second time in three
years now. When the Bison won the title back in twenty twenty three, it marked the first time in thirty four years that Howard had won a swimming and diving title. Howard's achievement is especially significant because right now Howard is the only HBCU left with a Division one swimming and
diving team. Howard being the last one standing, or rather swimming is really counter to the history of competitive swimming at historically black colleges and university As recently as the nineteen eighties, over twenty HBCUs offered swimming as a varsity sport. Notable figures such as Andrew Young and Samuel L. Jackson both swim competitively when they attended Howard and Moorehouse respectively. Unfortunately, over time, the number of HBCUs offered swimming as a
varsity sport dwindled because of resources, facilities, and interests. But like a lot of things in this country, some of that lack of interest can be attributed to Tadai racism. Now, I learned to swim growing up because my mother is a lifeguard and she swam when she was growing up. But that wasn't the case for a lot of black kids who are now my age, or grew up in my mother's generation or kids.
Now.
If you study the history of race in this country, you will find one of the most common vehicles of segregation, white supremacy, and racial violence was the public swimming pool. In the nineteen thirties, the Works Progress Administration was a program created under former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and it was part of his transformative New Deal. The WPA was an infrastructure program that put thousands of Americans to work to lift the country out of the depression by having
them build road, schools, and public pools. Up until that point, pools had largely been considered something for the elite and the wealthy, but under the WPA, over eight hundred new pools were built, and another three hundred were renovated. And these were elaborate pools. I mean some had sand, immaculate landscaping, and they were huge. The working class was finally going to be able to enjoy cooling off in style on
a hot summer day. Well, not everybody, because this was not a time where America was great for black people. We were largely ostracized from the Great American pool Party. While some pools were built in black areas for black residents to use, most were built for the comfort and convenience of white people. In the North and the South,
there were whites only pools and segregated pools. White people made it clear they did not want to swim with us, As the Daily Shows D. S. Sloan explains, it was because of knees and well ignorance and white supremacy, but also.
Needs cities didn't build pools and black neighborhoods, and white people didn't want us in their neighborhood pool. Parshally, we were concerned about black men intermingling with white women in such a sexual atmosphere. I mean, I know it might. It's so ridiculous to think of a public pool as a sexual atmosphere. But this was the nineteen twenty they were seeing knees for the first time. I'm talking the top, the bottom, that little knuckle part in the middle, the whole circle.
Woo have you seen these? Stupid but true? And speaking of stupid but true, the other reason white people didn't want black people at the pools is because they believed black people were unsanitary and unclean. Now, there's so many jokes to be made there, but I'm gonna just let y'all have fun with that one. Do your best. At some pools, black people could use the pools on certain days, and white supremacists also often use violence to let black
people know they were not welcome. In Pittsburgh, in nineteen thirty five, a black nine year old was badly beaten by a group of white kids. When the nine year old's mother reported the incident to police, the police officer told her quote, why can't you people use the Washington Boulevard pool?
I'm leaving you people? What do you mean do you people?
What do you mean you people? Saint Louis's first race riot was over a pool. In nineteen forty nine, White people violently attacked about forty black youth who showed up at the integrated pool fairground park. The white people attacked them with bats, bricks, pipes, and knives. The incident required four hundred police and twelve hours to calm things down.
Saint Louis, though, chose to resegregate its pools after that, and it saved that way until segregation was legally undone with the nineteen fifty four Brown Versus Board of Education Supreme Court decision and the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act. But rather than comply with the decision or I don't know, simply learn not to be racist, a lot of cities and community instead chose to simply shut down their public pools.
As it was, there wasn't a whole lot of public pools that were built in black communities, and in those communities, particularly the larger cities where there were whites and blacks, once white flight took hold, a lot of these by default black communities didn't have a pool. So black people not only had to deal with not having access to a pool, they also had to deal with the PTSD of being racially traumatized or simply wanting to swim. The lasting effect of that is this sixty four percent of
black kids can't swim. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, five to nineteen year olds who are black are five times more likely to drown in a swimming pool compared to their white peers, and black children ages eleven and twelve were ten times more likely to drown. Now this also has translated to overall interest in swimming.
Less than two percent of swimmers at the NCAA level are black, which brings me back to Howard, considering how it was dangerous at one point for us to even try to swim. It makes their most recent national championship that much more special. Despite the obstacles and threats to our community constantly has faced in swimming or otherwise, it seems we can always rely on one thing, our resilience. I'm Jamelle Hill, and I approved this message all right.
The Oscars are this weekend, and I am pleased to be joined today by someone who is up for not one, but two Oscars, one for Best Picture and another for Best Adapted Screenplay for his arresting film Nickel Boys, which is based on Colson Whitehead's novel. And this is not the first time I Guess has been nominated for an Oscar In twenty nineteen, he was also nominated for his documentary Hell County, This Morning, This Evening. He has had
a truly fascinating journey into film. Who was once a Georgetown basketball player with NBA dreams, and after his basketball career didn't pan out, he became inspired to follow his creative vision. Coming up next on Politics photographer and director Ramel Ross. So, Ramel, I'm going to start by asking you a question I ask every guest that appears on politics, and that is name an athlete or a sports moment that made you love sports?
Wow?
What a question? Well, an athlete? I unfortunately I don't have a unique answer. It's Michael Jordan, like he's always been, you know, that idol and that icon. But a sports moment for me, I like that better because that's like, really really really personal, I think, And it might have been when I was playing basketball in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, with I was like my friend group, you know, four or five friends and I like kids that we didn't get along with, and like were the type of like
friend groups that would fight. And I somehow think we figured out that we would fight by playing basketball and it starts to rain and it's black top and we're all like fifth and sixth grade, and it's it's like as memorable as like watching the finals with like, you know, Jordan, and I don't think Jordan ever played the Knicks or the suns or something where like every point mattered and everyone's drenched and no one has a real relationship to
like their skills because it's wet and like it's it's getting dark, and I remember, uh, you know, I think the moment's so meaningful.
I don't even know if I don't remember if we want or not.
That was gonna be my next question.
Yeah, who won?
Yeah, I just remember how epic it was and being like wow, like this is a place where or the epic happens, like you can participate in the epic before you have the language.
Of the epic.
Now, was there a point where you recognized in your athletic upbringing that your skill set was a little more advanced, that you potentially had something that would last beyond say high school or you know, the sort of the traditional stoppage time for most youth that are involved.
In sports, in that my sports would translate to something else.
Yeah, that you might be able to get a college scholarship or maybe even be a professional, Like, was there a moment when you registered, like I think I'm a little bit above what the normal level expectation.
Is for this. No, because I never was.
So I was a really late bloomer and I got into basketball seriously probably when I was a freshman in high school. And so I was always good at things and like tried really hard and played well, and it's like the best on my team then. And he looked at me and he was like, you know, you've got it, and I'm like, what do you mean, Like, what's it? He's like, I played with Grant and Hill at Tough Lakes,
Like I played Division two basketball. If you like, did this college workout, I think you could go to the NBA. And I was like all right, and I did it, and within a year I made varsity and then I did one more year and I was top one hundred players in the country. It was like really fast. And I think that translates to the idea of hard work, or the idea of having a plan, or the idea of discipline, because it was like shocking. If you work consciously hard, the progress you have.
And now with that, I mean, I don't know what your dream may have been before, you know, basketball kind of really entered the picture. But like at some point I assume that you entertained like, hey, I really want to be like a professional. So what was it like to what was that process like for you to realize that that was a goal that could be doable for.
You futurely looking at that and saying, well, it seems like I'm always getting better, you know, and is it possible to continue to get better to play with, you know, those who are playing at the highest level. And I'm lucky to play basketball in the Northern Virginia sort of DC area, and so the talent is just off the charts.
So you can measure yourself almost at all times.
You can go to a gym, you can go play in the league, and you can play against pro players they're there, or college players, and there's nothing more interesting than testing yourself against some one who is at the place that you'd like to be and after getting over the nerves, being like, wow, I'm not too far away, you know.
Now, Even then, despite your interest in sports, So but did you have interest in like photography, which I know, became like a huge component of your career or filmmaking. Like were there were their creative desires even then that you you wanted to fulfill.
Yeah, there were, there were, and they got sidelined because I became obsessed with sports, Like I drew a lot as a kid, like I had really you know, super middle class parents, very supportive, like they allowed my sister and how to do anything and supported us. So we tried the piano, we did karate, you know, like my sister did ballet, and I was attached to drawing and when I think about it, probably not element to your
school like poetry and writing. But then once I found sports, and once I yeah, I kind of just didn't, Like I stopped almost reading completely because you know, I just watch tapes, like I would just watch basketball games and like you would study the game and I would be practicing. I remember my dad told me once, which is like it's scarring now that I think about it. He was like, you know, if you're not working out, you know that there's someone that is.
And I was just like, what do you mean?
You know, like there's and then so every time you're sitting down, you're like, there's someone else who's practicing and they're getting better and that just I just only played basketball, which is why I think I excelled so fast.
But it was like extreme.
Now Georgetown, where you you played collegeball, they that wasn't because you dealt with an injury in high school. I mean, were they on the radar before the injury or how did that materialize?
Yeah?
Like I got good so fast that I became on like on all the you know, major D one school's radars. But they all wanted to see me play my senior year before they offered me a scholarship. But Georgetown, because I was a local kid and I wanted to go there because of Iverson, they offered me before my senior year. I just took it because what's better being close to home play at Iverson shadow I was a point guard.
And then that summer I got injured, and to George Stown's credit, you know, the first thing that my parents and I thought was like, oh, they're going to take the scholarship away, and they could because they have the power. And they were like, oh no, of course they're still coming,
like will help you get better in hell? And you know, literally they said if basketball, if you don't end up, you know, being an amazing basketball player or taking us to the championship like we hope you do, or you'll get a great education and you'll be shuttled off into the world. And it's like, I didn't know that those things happened. You know that schools cared about individuals and yeah, and their team, their players.
Yeah, that is a bit of a foreign concept. Wait a minute, you'll still you're caring about my personal development. Yeah, just what I can do for you in the basketball court. But even you know, getting an opportunity to go to Georgetown, which is a fantastic school. And by the way, count me among those black people who, because obviously grew up watching the John Thompson here, I totally thought Georgetown was
an HBCU. Se No, Georgetown was like, oh, this is like a whole elite university that is like, I mean, basketball was something they were obviously very good.
I did not know this smell. It was one of the most embarrassing realizations of my life. Too.
I didn't know either. I committed already, I had already committed up hot up.
You before you committed, you thought George was a HB Yeah, I.
Mean Georgetown was like going off to your scholarship. I was like, can I sign yesterday? Like I'd love to sign yesterday. I know that's not possible, but we can do it now. It was really funny. I was with my cousin Danika, and she made her promise not to say this publicly, but now that you have the same sort of misstep, and I don't.
We're in the trust tree. Yes.
And my uncle Kenyatta were like in a van outside my cousin's house in Upper Marlborough and something. Somebody said something and I was like, you know, HBCU and.
She was like and I was like, wait, what do you mean.
She's like it's not I'm like, but I mean you've seen the team, and she's like romel, like, I don't know if you're going to make it at Georgetown, if you if you're if you, yeah, it's like really embarrassing.
Listen. It was the same with University of Miami during the height of like the Hurricanes. I didn't I thought it was a black school. Yeah yeah, this is a rich private school.
Like yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you know your experience of going there, because I think you were on the teams with like Jeff Green was one of your teammates. Yeah, and it was somebody else whose name. I mean, I know you had a lot of other teammates.
Specific came in, like I came in two thousand with Mike Sweetney, Mike Sweetney. Yeah, and like Reuben Boomsha boomsha, Kevin braswell, like the Wan Dixon era in Maryland was on.
Yeah.
So what was what was it like to, you know, be able to play for Georgetown like a school you obviously were very emotionally connected to.
Yeah, it was.
Incredible and I I savored every moment of it. So it's easy to look back and be like and not have regrets, you know, like I did my best and I took advantage of the education and the community. But man, like to walk into that to the Kenner and I was at Kinner League, I'm sorry to walk into what was the name of the arena, the arena, it's like McDonough arena. To walk into McDonough arena and like to see Patrick Ewing's jersey, Alondo Mornings jersey, and to.
Like have them come and play with us.
I mean, we're kind of the center of at least at that time of basketball in the city, you know, because of the Kenner League, all the pros would come play with us in the summertime, and so we have all the Wizards coming in, like the Legacy and the it's just so incredible, like so incredible, and like you wear Georgetown jersey and then like people come in and they look at you as if you're one of them, and obviously you're not, but like you're part of a family.
It's like really like very proud to have played with them.
And you were coached by JT three, right, John Thompson the third What was your relationship like with him?
Yeah?
He was, Yeah, I think one of the best coaches I've had. I have never had a coach that had been so sort of human, you know, like very approachable, like very i want to even say, low key and soft spoken, but seemed to have like a very strong vision, high expectations, and I think had a lot of the
father figure traits that that John Thompson, Big John had. Yeah, I'll never forget, Like my mom passed away when I was in Georgetown, and I'll never forget, you know, three days after it happened, just being home and like just getting a knock on my door. It's just being John Thompson,
you know, it's just like coming to hang out. And it was just like really surprising, you know, because family, although my family had always come to all the games, you don't see the coaches outside of that small community, like not very often do the teams go to their houses at least as we had the community at Georgetown. That's like the kind of guy was. And that's an
extreme example. I imagine a coach would go visit. But that stuff is really meaningful, you know, And that's he cared a lot about individuals.
Most people who are just even casually familiar with athletics understands that it takes a lot of discipline, a lot of discipline, a lot of hard work, those kind of things. In what ways would you say your background in sports kind of prepared you for what you're doing now?
Yeah, I love thinking about these things.
I think that there's I just can't I feel like now in culture, athletes are really having access to the arts and like it's really okay to be you.
Know, EMO and a basketball player.
You know, like it's okay to like Metallica and then also you know, be really into sports and where a Jersey. But when I was growing up it was the opposite. Like, you know, basketball culture was something you go into and it subsumes you, and if you don't, you know, very few people could be like as Rob Men or Bill Walton on their team without everyone just being like, you know,
shoving you off to the side. But I love the way that sports taught me that you do things now that you won't see a payoff for until later, and you don't know when it's going to show up, you know, like investing in like a stock or something like, you have your expect to get these gains in a month or in two months, but when you're practicing something like you can't say in one month, I'm going to be able to do this move in a game seamlessly, unconsciously
and integrated into my skill set do the thing I need to do. It just shows up one day, and that not being able to predict when it does allows one to like commit to the task at hand and not worry too much about when it is, just knowing that it will. And that to me is what filmmaking
is and what photography is. Looking at art the way that other people's work integrates itself into the way in which you think about your own work and your own self, and then it shows up sometimes when you don't know it.
Also, like the way that I used a camera.
I've been making images for a really long time in the specific community, and now I have a muscle memory of framing and making images that is very similar to a jump shot. Like if you give me a camera, I make images that look like my images because I've done it so much. And I don't know when that clicked, but I knew it would because of sports.
Now, George Stown, you majored in fine arts, was it?
No?
No?
I majored double majored in English and sociology. Then I got a minor in this thing called the inter arts, which are strange because it's just as like one improp Class one painting, Class one photography, so kind of hotchposh.
How much thought had you given to what your life might look like without basketball?
None? I was like lost completely, but not even a butt actually lost. I knew, I think, And I came to this conclusion while chat with someone about these things because it's not something.
That I think about in language.
You know, you kind of have feelings about the stuff, and you can sit in the feelings, but to articulate it's different. Because I lost my mother and basketball about the same time, photography and English language came into my life in a way that.
I took it very seriously.
So it's about identity formation and knowledge production, and that was happening at that time, which paid dividends into towards the art that I'm making now. But at that moment, it was just a space that I felt safe and I felt control over my thoughts.
And my destiny.
You know, if I think I'm going to go to the NBA, everything's telling me I am my scholarships, you know, you know, nominating McDonald's all American. You lose your future. You don't know what to do, but then you also lose your mom. You're like, I have no idea what the future looked like, and so settling into the craft it filled those voids, and so I didn't have to think about my future because I had something that I could practice.
So at what point did you realize that, Hey, I think this is something I want to pursue, pursuing the arts, pursuing filmmaking, photography, Like, at what point did you realize, like, this is the direction I needed to go.
I was obsessed with photography so much so that I was getting in trouble. When I lived in Northern Ireland and played professional basketball for a year, worked for this organization called Piece Players International that was using divide, using
basketball to bridge social divides with Casoclus and Protestants. So I was a regional photographer and sometimes I spend more time taking photographs for them than I would doing the real work, which was not good of course, And the organization got an sp that year and there was an ESPN photographer that came don't remember his name. They looked at my photographs and he was like, oh, you've got a good eye.
And I was like, what's a good eye? I don't even know.
Yeah, so like look it up and you know, chat with him one or two times while he's photographing for ESPN, and he, you know, indirectly convinced me that I could make photograph like people like people would like my images or something. And at that point I was like, I want to be a photographer and got back and immediately just super obsessed, started teaching photography and elementary schools and.
Yeah, that was it right now at that point, like at what point did you start to consider filmmaking as like this is going to be sort of I don't on is it the word I'm looking for, but an extension of what I've already done.
That wasn't until I was in Alabama and I had photographed three years in Hell County.
And I was making just when you were working on your documentary.
This is right before.
So I moved here and I was living in DC from like two thousand and seven to two thousand and nine, teaching photography, making images. Couldn't afford to live there, moved to Alabama, start teaching photography there, start coaching basketball, and I'm like obsessed with photography. I'm like studying it, you know, digging into the history, and I'm taking images, which is
so interesting. I'm taking images and all of them look like someone else's, right, but they're really beautiful, you know, but they're like I know that there's that I'm not in them. I'm channeling what I like to call universal standards of beauty, and so I'm trying to figure out why my images don't look like my own, you know, in the same way that every person has a different jump shot, you try to shoot like someone else you
will never be successful. You have to find the way that the ball in your body mechanics work with space and time and the ball like you have to find you. And after three years, I like figured something out with photography where I was really in dialogue with my own image making process and the history and blackness, and like,
I'm like, oh, I understand how to make images. And about that time, I'm like, I wonder what that looks like in film, Like what does that specificity, what does that reflexivity look like in the moving image?
And that's when I started Hell County Now.
To go immediately to then begin working on a documentary about the place where you were living. What sort of gave you the idea that you wanted to focus in on Alabama, on Hell County in particular.
Yeah, So I'd moved there and I didn't know that I was moving to one of the most historic counties for fine art photography like this sky Walker Evans and this guy wheream Christian Berry had been photographing there. They kind of produced what most people know as rural poverty visually, and they were working for I don't think when christ Marry was Thelice Walker Evans was hired by the Farm Security Administration to photograph as Dorth theer Lange and all
these other historical photographers. And I go to this place that is essentially the most photograph region or the most known reason for rural poverty, and all of the folks that are imaged are white. And I'm like, Okay, that's interesting. Why are there not images of people of color? And then I look at the way in which people of
color have been photographed in the region. I'm like, Okay, these people of color have obviously been photographed by white people because there's a distance there, there's an objectification, and it's not even necessarily explicit, you know, there's just something
I noticed that's not in our community. And so I'm like, well, what's it look like for a person like myself, who considers the South to be a sort of culture sack for Black American identity to come to the South from the North with all these notions of this is how
you help it? You know, you guys are a little bit behind New York, you know, like, what's it look like for me to look at the South as it's my conceptual home that kind of became my working mantra in a way or my working constitution, and with that, I wonder what cinema's participation in the language of blackness as it relates to said those ideas.
Now, that project was nominated for an oscar correct, So you know, even though a lot of creatives they don't necessarily do creative work for validation. But what did it feel like, I know now, like for you to have like this, this, you know, first project that you've done, you know, at that scale, to be received in that way.
It's crazy.
You know. One thing that's funny is I was on The Daily Show with Trevoroa and this is right after we get nominated, and he's like, you got nominated in your first one, like what's the next? And I'm like, I'm done, never making another one. And then you make Nickel Boys, and then of course Nicol Boys gets nominated and I'm like, I'm seriously done, Like why would I
ever make a third? Just kidding, No, it's you know, it's incredible for one's ego, I think, But I think what it taught me, If that's the way to answer the question, is that people people don't know what they want. People think they know what they want. People's tastes are led by people who are making things, and essentially it pays, it pays, it pays off, maybe to the maximum if you dig into like subjectivity and into yourself, and people will come to it, like people want to like new things.
Because the film is, especially in twenty seventeen, like it is not it's not supposed to be nominated for an oscar, you know, Like the film was anti consumption, Like I built it as a response to image making of people of color, Like it was supposed to be this grappling between what you expect and what you're gidding and the image is in your own head and you're responding to it with your own imagination. You're completing the film, like
all these big ideas. But then it was accepted because I think at that time people of color and not people of color, were a little bit tired of the way in which films narrativize lives and the way in which images of people of color sometimes feel a bit reductive. And that's validating and encouraging.
Well, we could have done this entire podcast on Nickel Boys alone. I wanted it last night, so it's very fresh in top of my Yes, seven million questions without giving it away. But we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more from you, and we are going to get into a deep discussion of Nickel Boys, which is nominated for an Oscar or a couple of Hobscars this year, all right back in
the Moway. So, as I mentioned before the break, I have so much I want to talk to you as it relates to Nickel Boys, which is based off Coldon Whitehead's book, which was a Polite Surprise winning book. And I remember hearing about the book and it was always on my to read lists at some point and I never got around to it. And so when I first heard about Nickel Boys, I was like, oh, this is
an opportunity. Even though I have to say I always go into it when something's based off a book, I always went to it with a preconceived bias like this ain't gonna be as good, blah blah blah, you know whatever. And I think the best films made about books are the films that actually make you want to read a book. And that's how I felt after watching Nickel Boys. It made me want to read the book because I have to say, just purely from an esthetic standpoint, and this
is not really my lane. It's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, like just the way it was shot, the images, and so your photography background like really showed up in this. Is that even if and it's a very quiet movie, you know, like it's just it's quiet and powerful, like kind of all at once.
And of course, like most people, I was very struck by the perspective in which you chose to do the movie, which was a first person lens and you know, just talk to me about like that that's a brave decision to make for this kind of for this kind of work, Like what what gave you the courage to present this film this way?
Yeah.
I think there's a bunch of factors, and I could talk forever about all of them, but I'll try to summarize it into one is that this is like second career for me, Like a lot of people, I think, and this is hot take, maybe not a hot take. I think make films, worried about making the next one, you know, like I want to do this for a living, and you know, this is going to give me an opportunity to do this, Like I'm not thinking about another film. I'm only trying to make the most powerful thing once,
you know. And I think with that, I think, yeah, I don't have failure. Failure doesn't occur to me because I've already had like the most extreme failure, which is like losing basketball, like to me, my body giving out, and like, I don't know, like it couldn't get worse, Like what's worse than that, you know, making a film and someone not liking it. I don't I'm sorry you don't like it. You know, I'm sure I'm going to
like it, you know. And I think with that, and with yeah, it's allowed me to be a free thinking sort of art maker in which it's less about reception
and more about intention. That's the first thing. And I think the second thing is I've been working on the ideas that are in this film for fifteen years, because they started with my photography, and then they you know, the three years of making images and then finding the thing, then then making a photo series that I thought was really meaningful, then making Hell County, This Morning, This Evening, which is essentially a first person film without my hands
in it. So this is kind of the next iteration of my art practice, so I relatively know what I'm doing, so I have the like I have the practice I've been practicing for a long time. It was just about resources and collaborators.
Well, it didn't feel like you were doing something bubld. That's what it sounds like, you're.
Saying, exactly.
Okay, Yeah, but I know that it is, but only in the sort of studio commercial system, because in the art world, no one would be like, this is bold. They would be like, oh, interesting, peace like it means this,
it means this. But for commercial films too forefront black subjectivity to use the camera in this way, to like not have traditional narrative markers that explore emotion and empathy and expected ways, you know, which is like showing the violence and or you know, making the devastating part of one of the characters lives at the end of the film, an entire scene that goes on for a long time. That's just the language of studios. So so yeah, it wasn't It wasn't that much of a leip.
I guess, as somebody who is getting more intimately acquainted with how things work in Hollywood through my own projects, I couldn't help but think as the after I'd finished Nickel Boys, I how did this get made? The number one thing that came to mind, especially we see we see sort of what is being prioritized, like a lot of nostalgia, a lot of remakes, that kind of thing.
I was like, and while this is based off a book, I'm like, I don't know who green lit this, but like just share what what you can about that process, because this is the type of movie I easily see you go into a pitch meeting and they're like, yeah.
No, you know, yeah, well Jamel, you know, I introduce you to the people. Yeah, you know, one of them sitting over there right across you know, yeah, I mean yeah, Edward. Edward works with MGM and Orian And you know, I can only say that it was you know, Plan B, which is Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner and Dde Gardner, Alana Mayo at Oriyan, Jocelyn Barnes at Louvertore and David Levine at Anonymous Content, like those were the brain trust, like
the you know plann. We owned the rights and they actually came to me because they saw Hell County this morning, this evening and Dede Gardner, who was like a kind of adapted screenplay.
Whisperer for directors was.
Like, this book is really really, really fascinating, and like, because of these elements, I think it needs it in the form, needs to be equal to the content and in hell count of this morning, this evening, that's a huge concept of the film. So she was like, I didn't think anyone could do it aside from Ramel. I mean, I didn't know she thought that highly of it until
kind of after and thought that highly of me. She approached me and said they loved the film, Colson loved how kind of this morning, this evening?
What do you think about this book?
And then I proceeded to ask my co writing partner Jocelyn Barnes, and we kind of went forward, but they didn't flinch at the idea, which is crazy in hindsight.
It is because again that was my immediate thought, Like I wonder what this process was, this was like. But what was really fascinating is as I was doing research for this interview is seeing that Closon Whitehead did not provide any feedback of this at all, Like he really removed himself from this process. So how did you receive that part that he didn't seem to want anything to do with the filmmaking part of it, not in a negative way, but he wanted to clearly create some distance.
Yeah.
Well, I thought that he would at first, you know, want to participate. And when I sent him an email thanking him for the opportunity, I assumed there would be a conversation that would start. But he like wrote back like good luck, you know, like you got it. I look forward to seeing the movie. And I went back to the email. He actually said I sent him the script too. I won't read the script, I'll just watch
the movie. But I realized after talking with Barry Jenkins, who made Moonline and some other things, some other great films, that he did the same with him, and so he is a distance, a distant collaborator with his own work, which I appreciate and I imagine was free freeing for Barry as well.
Yeah, I was just saying, did that make you a little nervous at all? Because by the time he sees it, if he didn't like it, I know, right, Yeah, Well, I don't know what to tell you.
Well, you know, like a question, it's a good question, but it like Jocelyn Barnes my code writer and I we had to think immediately, like who we owe what to I think if if Colson's novel wasn't based on the Doser School for Boys. Well, there's this book by doctor Aaron Kimberley called We Carry Their Bones, which was a sort of nonfiction account of her as the lead forensic investigator and kind of exumer of the entire story.
Essentially she works for a University of South Florida. It was like her crew that went and dug up the bodies and like you know, put together the documents that the government would then use to really solidify almost like scientifically what happened. It's based on a real story like this is these are like facts and devast it's devastatingly true. So Jocelyn and I have to ask, like do we owe Calson or do we owe the Doser School boys? You know, like what's what? And of course we owe Calson.
Like he's given us the opportunity to use his ip the mythology that he built around Elwood and Turner the Nickel Boys is why most people know about the story. Like he needed to elevate it to literature for us to get it to hopefully elevate it to cinema. But yeah, it was we figured we owed most to Dozier and then second to Caulson, respectively.
Calson.
If you listen, no, that makes sense because for those who are listening and watching who are not familiar, you know this is based off it's a reformatory school where they were clearly abusing black boys. They had their own system of like apart time and segregation within this reformatory school. And your film takes us of sort of inside the emotional the physical toll that these boys are going through.
But the way you do it, I think if somebody just said, okay, this is what the story is about, people would automatically assume like, oh, this is gonna be black trauma from start to finish. Yeah yeah, but it's not that, you know. And what I loved about it too, is that I thought the imagination of violence was actually more powerful than showing these boys getting brutalized the way
that they were. And I would love to for you to share why you made that such an intentional choice that you didn't want to just show these boys being beating. You wanted the audience to think about this violence differently yeah, and the.
Way that you're asking it to me now, in this specific sort of thread of conversation, it's making me realize something about that in that I also think it's more powerful to not show it, which is why Jocelyn and I did it. And the reason that is is because black people in general are over indexed visually with violence
onto our bodies, right like it's in culture's imagination. There was a time in which it was really important that we show the things that we have, the Rodney King footage that we have, the movies in which we're seeing graphically, because people didn't believe it, and people actually didn't know the extent to which it was true. But at some point it becomes a sort of it happens to them, not us, or that's all that happens to them, and so they become a sum of that or inextricably connected
to it. I think we kind of all know these things intuitively. But I think what's interesting is that for people who are traumatized, they're like Mark, like, they don't need to they don't need to go through the trauma to have the trauma be produced in their brain because they've experienced it in their past and so you know, someone who was in the war and hears all the sound and sees all the things. If they're in a city in the fourth of July, it is popping off like they're going.
Back and it's really scary for them.
But it seems to me the way that you asked a question that actually culture is like that as it relates to black imagery, in that it seems like culture is traumatized with the over index large culture at large, American culture at large, black, white, every single color. But it's interesting to think of those images as being trauma and not just being images that are content.
You know, Yeah, I mean, that's that's why I didn't I didn't read a single review about this movie before I saw it. I knew about that again the existence of the book, and I knew the general plot line, and so when I started the movie, I was thinking, I was like, I just hope, like I'm not halfway through this movie, and I wanted to sort of piro wet off a building. I was totally thinking that. I was like, please, don't let this be another another round
of fresh trauma. And so when it got to the point of where you know, you're showing what happens in the White House, if you will, the place where they took the boys that needed to be disciplined. It was far more thoughtful and scary the way that you did it. Being able to hear the young man trembling and shaking, and him hearing the sounds and the other like that was way. That was what That was the perfect note from me, as opposed to like just showing some random
acts of violence. I don't think I would have gotten it the same way.
It's also I think that's the human experience of those things, you know. And if we're going to take point of view seriously, and I like to say, like make the camera an organ, then people aren't viewing that they're actually in the other room. And it's actually true to the way in which the film and the camera exists.
So it kind of just makes practical sense as well.
Did you ever think of doing this movie a different way or did you always know how you wanted to do?
Man? I really I credit my co writing partner.
Like I remember finishing the book and like, you know, thinking a bit, and you know, the first thought after a while I was reading it was point of view, And I call Jocelyn and I tell her what I'm thinking, and she's always supportive. So she wasn't like, man, you can't do that, or Bory, that's crazy. She was just like, oh, that's.
Interesting, and we we just went with it. But what if she didn't.
I never had another thought, but I wonder, like, what other versions it would have been?
Yeah, no idea.
Why did you because this seemed to be a theme and a message in the film without being in avert message. But why did you think it was important to sort of showcase vulnerability in black Boys?
Yeah? Man, that's like.
Such a good question that I think just emerging naturally through the way in which I like to use the camera, because I think that you know, I remember after shooting hel County this morning, this evening, and I remember Jocelyn being in the edit with me, like, you know, consulting when I was making cuts, and I.
Remember her asking me, are you gay?
You know, just like straight up, you know, and she she identifies as queer, like she has she has a a female partner, And obviously she's not saying it in any sort of like eighties use of day age, just like just yeah, because like the way that you know, I really like the camera like caresses the skin and its proximity, and the way in which it kind of aestheticizes quote unquote black bodies in a way that's not objectifying, but it's like tender and loving and romantic, but it's
not necessarily sexually romantic, you know. But that's that's the way in which like the way in which I photograph, especially with the moving image, it is very intimate. And that's the way that I see people, and that's the way that I see men, and that you know, is built into the language of the film and even you know, in the writing process, the images that I was writing, uh for each the way that each we're going to look at each other. And we actually had to dial
some back. And I've never seen this because some of them were too Like I remember I made an image of like Turner like tracing Elwood's leg all the way to the scar and then like tracing the scar with his finger. And I think it's a beautiful image, right, And that's what you would do to a friend. That's what I would do to it, like my father, you know, like if he had a scar keyloid or something. And
that's something that's in black families. And in nuclear families, but in the context of this film, that would mislead the audience, so we kind of had to take that out. But you see the intimacy in the way in which they talk at each other and the way that they
look at each other. And I think that every person, every black Mail, I would say, speaking at large for everyone, were also trying not to has those relationships that are romantic but platonic, where it's like, Man, I love you like you've been there for me, you see me, I see you, and maybe you never say that. But this was an opportunity through Colson's characters, because it's already there, to kind of lean into it with the camera and with their gaze at each other and with their proximity.
Yeah, I picked up on that, you know, as their their friendship developed, is that this was this was an intimate friendship, and it was presenting black male friendship in a very different way than what we've seen, but in a way that you know, I certainly granted, I'm a woman, so I'm speaking from this standpoint, but I didn't think in a way that would hesitate to use the word undermine, but in a way that would sort of undermine sort
of black masculinity, because that's always the charge. It's like, oh, they just want to you know, destroy black masculinity. No, it's actually to me like it's showcasing a level of vulnerability where they're giving each other permission all the time to be themselves and to be their most intimate selves again without this being about a romance. And so like I thought you nailed that very well, you know, definitely.
It's also like at a moment and a place in which is needed most, right, Like this isn't just typical high school and two boys just like hanging out in the locker room.
This is like a place in.
Dream circumstances where they need this because no one else is showing them this level of affection, you know.
Frankly.
So with that being said, how do you hope black boys and men feel after seeing nickel boys?
Yeah?
I hope that they I want to say, feel seen, or I hope maybe that they can allow themselves to be seen and they can see people without you know, the no Homo thing or without the no Diddy or whatever, yeah whatever, or.
Guys like we're over there. Yeah, it's like you're over a certain age, like you should not still be saying about please.
It's so unnecessary, but like it just shows the way in which people are still protective over that other people view their sexuality or their gender identity, which I'm unsure if is still culturally oppressive or if it's just individually held onto you know, who can really tell. Yeah, I hope that there's just another example of ways to be in relationships with people that are open and and you're present.
Because this film has been nominated, what is it a Best Picture of Adapted Screenplay. Yeah, yeah, correct, very incredible honors, you know, to be to be nominated so second time out right as a you know Oscar Award nomination. How does this feel compared to when you were nominated for a Hale County.
I mean, the Hell County one was unbelievable. I think the best part about the Hell County ones and no one saw it coming, you know, like when we got nominated, everyone was like like how did they do that? And we were like Ryan Warner, He's like this guy snatic who was like just like really smart and was like,
this film is powerful. And I think if we have a small campaign, because it's all about a campaign like these films don't get to where they are without a lot of support from the studios and a lot of
support from the publics and the critics. This time around, it's most incredible, honestly, which seems like it's a cop out to say the right thing, but it's just true that the story of the Doser Boys is like now part of the Academy and it's part of cinema history, because man, if this film's and this film was all intent, like the whole process, the writing process, the pitching process, it was all like, man, it would be like, it'd be great if they let us do this. This is
so meaningful, This is so meaningful. It doesn't matter how it's received. Obviously we want it received well, we think we're communicating something specific, But man, like, how cool is it to have someone go into a theater and on the same screen that they'll they'll watch Interstellar, same screen that they watch Poor Things, or the same screen they're watching Wicked, they see black subjectivity and black point of view.
You cannot watch the film without being inside the head and eyes of a person of color.
That doesn't exist.
That's never happened before, and that is like a cultural gesture that personally is just like meaningful. You know, a kid watches the thing, watches the film and they're looking down on Elwood's body as he ties a string around his finger, like that's you, that's us, that's every person, all people are equal, whatever, And so the denomination was like just cool. You know, it's just like we it got elevated to a space that we could never have imagined.
You know.
So will it be a letdown if you do another movie and it's not nominated?
No, definitely, definitely. I mean week long depression. You know, I can't believe I didn't go three for three?
Whoe is me? What a hard life? You got?
It? Like bad a thousands. See, look at the standard
that you wound up, you wound up setting. Now, as you said this before earlier in this podcast, about how now you see many more athletes that are now in the creative space and now feeling comfortable, you know, kind of being in that space as someone who had to make you made this transition in quite successfully, Like what would be some of your advice or things you wish you knew when you were trying to make that tradition transition that could be helpful to other athletes who want
to kind of follow a similar path that you have followed.
And honestly, I feel like I made all the right decisions, or more so, the universe conspired in my favor, you know, because I largely think that most people work hard, most people care, and like things happen that are out of one's control that like set people off, set them in certain ways, and like, you know, more is out of control than we realize, you know, until something goes astray, and then you're like, oh, yeah, my tire could have run flat at any point in time and I could
have crashed into a car. Probably a bad example, but I think, yeah, I think that if I was for my younger self, I probably would have tried to be myself earlier. I think I waited until I lost my mom in basketball.
To really.
Say I don't care about what people think, and like, if I wanted to read while people were hanging, I would just read all day. If I wanted to like say something that was on my mind, I would say it instead of like holding it back because I didn't think people would think what I'm saying is cool. I like really bought into basketball culture my first couple of
years especially going to Georgetown. They had a really big tradition and all the athletes coming from around the country were also steeped in that tradition.
You know.
I like wore chain my first year, you know, and like super baggy clothes.
When I was in high.
School, I was listening to Sublime and wearing Abercrombie, you know, and then when I went to Georgetown, I was like boo boo, you know, I got my my TEMs.
Now would be fresh, you know, like those types of things.
So I would probably encourage those if they're interested, to just like continue to find who they are and to not worry about what people think.
What sounds tripe, but it's true.
This question just popped into my mind just hearing you kind of discuss it in that way. Is like, do you think sports, maybe not every sport, but just the function and the machinery of sports, that it robs athletes of their identity?
Hmm. I love that question.
Never thought about it before, because it's hard to say whether or not something is I would say in the past, Yes, I think it's hard to say whether or not something is taking something from someone when it's always giving them something too, you know, because it's also giving you so much about yourself that maybe doesn't have a traditional place to be expressed that it just falls into the language
of sports. But like what it does for confidence, what it does for teamwork, what it does for just genuine, genuine understanding of what one's physical limits are, what one's capable of.
I think.
There's dividends in anything that someone wants to do. It's just a way of learning about oneself at its minimum, you know, and most people aren't pushed. Most people, I believe, aren't pushed. I think most people exist and they are challenged in like utilitarian ways. But like to push yourself past what you thought you would do only because you never thought that there was something beyond what you thought was a limit is like human development. Like that is
a powerful thing. But I think as sports culture has existed previously, I would say that it cut off ways of expressing oneself, probably in the same way that being a college athlete, especially at a Division one big school level, I think is an honor of privilege. It also limits the classes you can take right like I couldn't. I couldn't take any courses that were from three pm to the end of the day. So what am I going to study? There's only certain things that I can study.
But it's also given me the identity of a basketball player and all those other things. So it's twofold. It's like giving it's it's robbing me of those other courses, those other academic pursuits, but it's given me so much as an athlete for both.
Yeah, are you amazed or how amazed are you that Jeff Green is still playing?
Yo, Uncle Jeff they called him, We called him Uncle Jeff when he was on the team, and now he's actually uncle actually uncle Jeff.
Actually somebody he's the uncle of the league.
But the thing is is, like it's not surprising because when he came and played with us, like you know, Alonso or Pat or the Kemba would come and like train with him, and he was like beating them and like doing things where you're like, he, how is this dude eighteen years old?
He made no sense. He made no sense, you know what I mean?
Where the person is just clearly more talented, more physically, he has prowess, Like so he had that like Lebron, you know, grown madness to him.
He could probably what if Jeff place forever?
It's I'm like, I remember him vividly in college and it's like that dude is still pleasing.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
It's pretty remarkable. You know, people talk about Lebron beating father Time. I was like Jeff Green did too. Man, he did a lumped father Time up a couple of times. So I usually end the podcast with what I call a messy question.
All right, So those weren't messy questions.
It comes to the messy question. This is the one design to get you that headline that surely you probably need right before the askers to do it. Who is the greatest Hoya? Is it Patrick Ewing or is it Alan? I?
Oh, so you're making me choose between those two? I am so I was gonna say Junkyard dog. You know what I'm saying, Like, I'm just kidding that out right, right, man, that's a really good question because I don't believe in best, but I know the spirit of what you're asking, right it is.
Yeah, it's not necessarily even though I was surprised he said this, like Magic Johnson said Kobe was the greatest Laker, right yeah, And so you know, to that end, it is like who is the greatest hoya is it? Is it ewing?
You know I'm going to say and I know I know at junior too, and this is this I apologize.
I apologize, you know. You know I'm going to take a really the scope of what we can consider to be why one is better than the other. If we're gonna say that, I'm gonna say a on Irison because I think his story.
Being arrested in high school. You know, his size, I.
Think his you know, his relationship to black culture, like the hoods, the sagging pants, the carrying like he he has a fullness in as it relates to basketball that I think very few athletes in general have to their sports. He actually changed culture sort of multiple times and became an icon from everything from like underdogs to just trying
to stay true to your community. And so I'll say, AI, but I love Pat and he's a genius and a phenom and contributed to basketball in ways that difficult to express.
I gotta go there now. You said before about how those guys used to come back and you all will hoop against him. So did you get to play against Pat you all the time.
All the time? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. What was that like?
I mean he was just blocking everyone's shots, you know. I mean the kimbe was was the most interesting because I think he was the most sneaky, you know. Alonzo was just like a physical beast. Pat was like really agile. As I remember, the best or the most interesting moment of playing against pros was Jordan came and played with us with Randy Moss, right right, real surprise to everyone.
Okay, so what happened?
So this is when Craig Eestick was coaching, and he had he was like, all right, guys, someone's coming to the gym today.
I don't want you guys to take any pictures. Just act like everything's normal.
And pros are always coming by, so we're like, all right, whatever, and then like the door's open, Phil Collins walks in and.
We're like, hell is Phil Collin's doing him?
And Michael Jordan walks in with the glow obviously you know, everyone's like blinded their eyes. And then Randy Moss walks in, and Jordan was coming out retirement playing for the Wizard, so he wanted to come get a run in. And I think maybe because Randy Moss was just part of the brand or his friend he came to and I don't think anyone has ever told this story. I'll say it really quick. Randy Moss got a still and drop step dunked on Reuben Boomsay Boomshe with the most unbelievable
athleticism and resounding bang. All I remember is turning around because everyone's running this way. I just remember Randy Moss like getting the ball and like looking at him like drop stepping and the rim being right here and his arms just.
Being parallel with it.
Boom and Rooms was a Boomsha was a shot blocker, and he was shameless to seven foot one too. He's from Camroon, Like he doesn't care about getting dunked on. He's going for the block, and it was just like so beautiful. And Randy Moss like six to two or something, six three or.
Maybe like six four bunnies. I would have never.
Yeah, those bunnies. Have you seen videos of him and Jay will though, Yeah, yeah, yeah out of.
West Virginia and they yeah, I mean everybody said that really very easily been a professional basketball player. That's what I'm just like, well, what that was? When Jordan was with the Wizards, That's when I affectionately call him his power forward.
Days because he was.
A little different before and he's just like he just doesn't continue to rise, you know, and then have to just do the do it.
But a little bit below the rim I used to seeing him play. Oh, that must have been that must have been great.
Yeah, I mean definitely a memory to keep, a memory to keep.
Or mel I want to thank you so much for joining me here on the podcast of good Luck with the nominations. For all those out there listening and watching, make sure you go see Nickel Boys. You can get on Amazon by the way, Yeah, yep, it is on Amazon stream last night, so yes, you can go check it out. But it's it's really a beautiful, majestic film. That might be a way to describe it, but it's
a great Yeah, it's a great film. And U now I look forward to reading the book and because you really the way that you presented it, it would be it just makes you more curious, is about like wow, I wonder what the whole you know, kind of story behind this is or like what these you know? You just you just wanted a little more. And I always prefer to leave a movie like actually wanting more as a past of the opposite feelings.
So what's great because the book is full, it like fills on all the details.
And you know, yeah, I figured as much. I was like, that's why I was like, oh, it really made me curious about the book. But beautifully shot. So good luck with everything.
Thank you very much for having me.
One more segment to go, and you guys know what that means. I got questions to answer up next, your viewer slash listener questions, and I have plenty of answers coming up next on the final segment of Spolatives. Normally, as you guys know, I wrap every episode of Politics by taking a question from you all about something that's been on your mind. But today I decided to use this time to address something that is on my mind
given some very recent events. In the last week, my good friend, my sister joy and reid Or was fired by MSNBC. A lot of you are big fans of the Readout as am I. That was her nightly news program that was ONSNBC, and she no longer will have that program. And we look across the landscape of news media, especially nightly news, you will see that there are a lot of faces of color that are now absent, and
especially when it comes to black women. I believe now the only black women in primetime in nightly news are Laura Coats and Abby Phillips at CNN. Now the reason why Joy's dismissal it sparked a lot of outrage, certainly a lot of fear, but I think particularly in the journalism community, it let us know something that we've always known, is that, especially in this time, in this climate, that black journalists, black media is especially vulnerable because of who
is in office now. As you know, Joanne Reid has been a very staunch critic of Donald Trump, as have I, as have others, not just black folks, but other folks in particular. You look at Jim Acosta also let go by seeing n he was another one who is a primary critic of Trump. And so it's hard not to see these decisions being made and look at it from a sixty four thousand view, which is are these moves being made to appease the person who is occupying the White House or are these simply a result of how
the television businesses can go, which is very fickle. My read on it is this, and I didn't use the word read on purpose, though I guess it can serve a little bit as a double Endtonda is that joy Ann Reid has been a strong voice. She's been a tremendous voice. She's one of the smartest people on television, and for her to not have a show at this critical time, I think we're all worse off for that.
And as we go forward and as we're charting what this age of media looks like, one thing we know for sure is that the media is not at its
strongest when strong voices are eliminated. A reminder that in order for a democracy to thrive, you need a free press, and unfortunately, because of corporate journalism, is getting harder and harder for authentic voices like Joys to be able to be platformed, to be supported, and not just supported by the masses, because a lot of people supported Joyne Read in terms of her audience, but supported by the people that actually sign your paycheck. So wishing my homie Joyanne
Read all the best. I'm sure her next step will be even bigger and bolder than the one that she's leaving, and I hope you all out there support her in whatever her next move is. Now, as I said, a bit earlier. Usually this time is reserved for questions from you all that will still continue. So if you have a question for me, you can hit me up on social media or email. I'm at Jamail Hill across all social media platforms, Twitter, Instagram, Fan based, Blue Sky, and threads,
please use the hashtags politics. You also have the option of emailing me as Politics twenty twenty four at gmail dot com. You can send me a video of your question, but please make sure it is thirty seconds or less. Don't forget to follow and subscribe to Spolitics on iHeart and followspolitics pod on Instagram and tiktoks. Politics is spelled s po l I tics. A new episode of Spolitics drops every Thursday on iHeart Podcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts. This is politics where sports and politics don't just mix, they matter. Politics is the production of iHeart Podcasts and The Unbothered Network. I'm your host Jamail Hill. Executive producer is Taylor Shakog. Lucas Hymen is head of audio and executive producer. Original music for Spolitics provided by Kyle Vis from wiz Fx.