Telling Our Stories

company called Culture House. Carrie started her career in politics and in policy and ended her political career with the Obamas as a special assistant to the President and then

the director of Public Engagement for the Vice President. And during her time in the conversation that we have, she talked about the importance of storytelling and the importance of marginalized community telling their own stories and being in control of every part of production, from the writing of the story, to the producing of the story to the filming of

the story. Culture House is really unique in Hollywood as it is one of the very few production houses that are very intentional about having seventy five percent the bare minimum in their mind, seventy five percent of the people that are involved in the company, that are working with the company be women and be women of color. And I think that that is really important because we understand

how important these days story is. I bitch and moan every single week about the Democrats and their inability to message right, and all messaging is is telling a compelling story over and over and over again so that people latch onto it, and they find different ways right to latch onto those stories. But if you don't tell them right, and you allow the other person and to just dictate the narrative, then guess what, you end up completely out of the story, as we have seen right throughout the

course of American history. So what's really exciting about this conversation for me is that Carrie, like myself, made a pivot from politics and policy and into the media and entertainment landscape. And I think that it's also really important to have conversations with folks that are doing something that is bold right, which is the fact that, guess what, right, women women of color are still very underrepresented in Hollywood in production in front of the camera as in behind

the camera. And so Carrie will talk about a couple of amazing productions that are coming up, things that we are going to want to save on Hulu on Amazon Prime that are stories about black women, right, hair Tales is going to be a story that guess who the executive producer powerhouses are behind that, Oprah Winfrey and Tracy Ellis Ross right, And the story hair Tales is about the connection that black women have with their hair, how our hair has been politicized, right, what it means to

be natural, what it means to go through these process and regardless of where you find yourself throughout the diaspora of black people, black women's hair, black hair is something that is incredibly important. And so to talk to Carrie about this story and how it came to be and when we are all going to lay eyes on it

is really something to look forward to. Because here's the thing too, folks, is that I am tired, as I know that you are, of having conversations about the doom and gloom, having conversations about, you know, the end of the world and how it is fastly approaching. So it's really fun to be able to take a pivot from the doom and gloom and look at what good is actually coming out into the world, what is being poured

into it. And there are so many good stories about people of color, people from marginalized communities, people whose stories have been underrepresented. So I really hope that you enjoy this convo with Carrie and check out Culture House at Culture dot House, which is also a production company and a cultural consultancy. Right, so very interesting the work that they are all doing and the fact that many of you have probably seen some of the work that has

been produced. So I am super excited to bring this in depth conversation about how we fill ourselves up. The world is depleting us in ways that I don't think we ever we ever thought. We find ourselves sitting in front of the television, sitting in front of our phone, sitting in front of our laptops, and just having negativity

be deposited onto us. So what does it mean to actually be in this space that is really dark and think about the art and the music and the movies and the films that can be created during this time and the importance of them being created during this time. So I'm excited for this conversation. Let me know in the comment section what you think about it, and I

look forward to reading your comments. Folks. I am very excited to welcome to Okay Effort Daily for the very first time, the founding partner and head of development at Culture House, Carrie Twig, I want you to tell folks about your amazing company. And you know why, particularly now, we have seen so many and I guess it's not really so many when you look at the swath of white production companies and films and television that is made.

But over the last I would say ten years or so, there's been a concerted effort by people of color BIPOC folks to own and operate their own production houses, to be the ones that are green lighting. So can you tell us a bit about Culture House and how this vision came to be? Absolutely so. I mean you bring up a really good point around the just broader ecosystem

that Culture House exists in. There has been a real movement and a lot of momentum behind people of color, BIPOC folks, queer folks starting their own production companies because we need to get involved in the process further down the supply chain right and have a voice in a perspective, be present in all aspects of the content creation. And that's really important and so that's a huge piece of why we organize our company the way that we did.

We're black, brown women owned production company, two other partners, and our work really focuses at the intersection of pop culture and politics, and we run production services. So a lot of production companies, even if they're organized from a financial or legal perspective as a production company, don't actually then carry the overhead required to create an actual production.

They will then end up having to subcontract to another company in order to run the budgets, to carry the insurance, to run the editing and the post process, to do the development, so on and so forth. And so then a lot of those companies that can and do have the wherewithal to have the overhead and to have those resources, or the legacy companies predominantly owned by men, predominantly white.

And so we made a choice to run those production services ourselves because there wasn't a company like ours that shared our perspective, that share aired our point of view, that was able to do the entire provide the entire supply chain of content. And that was a major choice that we made. That made it harder as a business. It's a harder, more complex business to run, to set up to sustain, but it was important from a kind of political point of view for all of us. I'm

the new bee in the film in TV world. My company, you know, um my partners are long time filmmakers. Ray Rachel Genre, She's been in the doc world for you know, twenty years, went to Tish, went to film school, did the whole thing. Nicole Glevski, She's she ran a m she ran a film festival. She's produced everything you can imagine from you know, big budget features to indie features, to scripted to nonscripted to doc kind of and everything

in between. And I sort of wandered out of DC five years ago trying to figure out how things got on TV. Thankfully, we all kind of met and bonded, and I was really able to They were at an inflection point in their career. They'd been running a production company for several years with a different partner, and they were winding that company down and really trying to think

about what was next when we all met. So our timing was really good that I sort of brought in my perspective and we were able together to craft a vision that ultimately became Culture House. I love this, and I love the fact that you just said that you wandered your way out of DC because I did the same in twenty sixteen. It was like the Obamas are leaving, and so I am leaving as well, Like I am

packing up my life and heading to New York. You know, I have said often when I started out in media, which was during the fight for marriage equality, and you know, it was when I had decided that policy wasn't the only thing that drives change, that it is also media, right, And when I talked about media initially, it was essentially around how mainstream media and cable news would reflect back out us the issues that need to be paid attention to,

or who is important, who do we invoke empathy about, and what have you? For you making this, making the transition from the Obama White House into entertainment, did you see it as as as an opportunity to kind of expand where you were in this big, major place of change, to find a different avenue to tell different stories. Yeah, I mean to me, I do the same work I did. I just have different tactics and I do it in

a different industry. But from my experience, and I obviously can't speak to the experience of other people in the White House, but it's not a coincidence to me that so many people left the Obama era, including the Obama's and went storytelling. I think that there was a shared

experience around like why is this so difficult? Like why can't we in setting aside the Senate, setting aside the racism, there is also just a fundamental reality that whether it's healthcare, whether it's economic policy, whether it was environmental policy, the political or the legislative and policy vision was too far ahead of where the culture of the nation actually was.

And the reality is that these ideas, the idea of what your society can be, has to exist in the imagination of citizens first, and then you can build policy and then you can build legislation around it. And the way that you sort of accept people's imagination is through the stories, the stories that we would tell, the stories that we repeat, the stories we share, the stories were exposed to and so to me it was sort of going.

It was the same work of I'm someone who's animated to change society, and I have been since I was a very young person. It has animated basically every choice I have ever made, and so to me, it's about doing that work, but slightly earlier in the process before you get to the place where you're trying to build

a legislative agenda or policy agenda around it. It's moving up a little bit and doing the cultural the kind of scaffolding, the cultural scaffolding that allows for a allows for the political or governmental vision to be articulated that I believe in, there needs to be a value set in order in place before the government that I would like to see can actually make good on that visions.

You know, I think that one of the reasons why we're kind of in the place that we are, both politically and culturally, because we've lost sight of having any type of shared vision and shared identity. And I think that that there, to me, has always been the opportunity for culture, for pop culture to be able to decrease that gap, right that like the idea that stories that are about or center black people, queer people are ones that are said that, well, you know, that's for this

particular group, Like they're not. It's not a shared it's not a shared story of like the American story. Like we're having these conversations right now and seeing this pushback, do you think that it's like, how do you aside from folks like yourself who have created their own entity in culture house. What advice do you have for people that are trying to maneuver and expand the spaces that are inherently white, that are inherently male, but they're trying

to take up space. That's interesting. I mean, I guess part of me takes issue with the found with the even the idea that there are spaces that are inherently male or inherently white. I think they are populated by white men, but doesn't mean they're inherently for them. And we can get into the kind of social design and the fact that our economy is all sorts of workplaces were designed in the image of and to facilitate white maleness.

I'm not disagreeing with that, but I do think that we have One of the things that we have to constantly remember is that adversarialness is also energy draining. It's your second work, right if you are thinking about, like, Okay, how do I infiltrate this space you are in order to do X, you just gave yourself two jobs and everyone else who's in that space only has one. And so for me, it's sort of like, is that how I want to expend my energy, or can I just

do things? Can I build something that feels right to me, that makes sense to me, do it my way, eliminate as much if I as much as I can around the infiltration. And there's people who are good at that, there's people who enjoy that. I personally am not one

of them anymore. I have my little moments when you're like fix it from the inside, But generally speaking, I'm just like girl mine, got no more time for this, Like I'm just going to build the thing I want to build and make it so dope that it's kind of it's its own undeniable force. And if you guys don't want, I don't go where I'm not invited. I wouldn't go to someone's party in why would I do that? Why would I be in someone's house when I was

not I am not welcome there? And so I just I try to reduce the amount of time and energy I spend banging against a door that does not want to go, and use all of that energy to find the places which exist, Like there's there's places exist where you will be welcome, you'll be celebrated, where people actually want you there and value your opinion. As opposed to getting stuck on the like it has to be this company, or it has to be this outlet or this distributor,

and I have to tell this story. It's like, Okay, maybe that's true for some people. I try not to get too attached to what something looks like from the outside and just really focus on like my personal feelings and experience of when I'm interacting with someone, and if it doesn't feel good, then I'm not going to go there or be there. I don't know. I just don't subject myself to it because time is precious and energy is precious, and I don't want to do twice as

much as twice as much work as everybody else. I mean, I know that's right, because I mean there has been so much conversation in the past two years, particularly through COVID, around black women, black people reclaiming rest and reclaiming the fact that you know, you've hired me for this one thing.

But often times, what regardless of what industry it is, you're doing multiple jobs, um, and you're and you're being you're being set up in a way where to your earlier point, there isn't scaffolding, There isn't you know, there isn't a net that is created for your success, knowing that oftentimes if you're coming in um into different spaces.

I know, for me, in politics and in you know, in a variety of places, I was the only black face in the room, the only black queer face in the room, which means that now I have to talk to you about white supremacy, and I have to talk to you about homophobia and transphobia, and I have to talk to you about like all of these different things. And then I have to do my job, um, which has found me working for myself many for the past

several years for that particular reason. Um. You know, in within within culture House you say that seventy five percent um of the folks in front of and behind the camera are black, Codigenous people of color and women identified.

Why was that number important to you? And do you think that you know because again other companies, production places, cable news, all of these things say it's so hard, we don't know where to look, we have no idea where to find these talented people of color, and yet you manage to create a company with seventy five percent and make that your number. So how did you come

to that Yeah, how did you come to that distinction? Yeah, well, we have twenty six people on staff, and twenty five of them are women, and I think twenty of them are women of color. So we do the same thing everyone else does. We have a job, we have roles to hire, We access our network because of who we are, our networks look a particular way. And so that is so the idea that like it's some great challenge to

hire people of color is completely laughable. But have all of these people who have lived a particular way and have just not interacted socially, not interacted sort of in any meaningful way with people of color, and then they're scrambling to try and fill and they don't. They're not

even one person removed. They're like seven or eight. Like there's people who are trying to then hire and diverse by sets who like wouldn't have a person of color at their wedding, who have gone to je damn yeah, or like I wouldn't know who to call to invite to a dinner party, like I have no one let alone. And that's that's that's their fundamental failure. And so for us, this idea of like seventy five percent it's like, at least and it's not even a sweat, is what would

happen organically? Like, it's not even a thing. It's not aspirational. M And So I was on some like inner street panel conversation about this, and someone was talking about some TV commercial that they shot in Las Vegas, Nevada. Were like, well, you know it was Nevada, so it was super hard to like get a diverse crew in a diverse set. And I was like, I'm pretty sure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Nevada is, if not majority non white, very close to it. So what are

you saying to me? How is that possible? How is the one of the countries entertainment capitals of the world. What are you telling me you can't find someone in Vegas that isn't white, that knows how to use lights? How lazy? I screw you that they are there. Y'all just don't know any y'all just just say you don't know any brown folks, right, you don't know any black folks. You don't know any you don't know any. So that's what the problem is. It's not that we don't exist,

is that y'all? Right, so right, yeah, I mean it's the supply chain, and it's like, listen, the supply chain is real because human beings act like human beings and call people to work with, call people that they know, and call people that they like, and give the same people opportunity over and over and over again because getting to know new people's hard and it feels risky and blah blah blah, Like we do the same thing, we

call the same directors, we call the same people. They just happen to all the black, brown, queer women something you know. Um, But people don't do these interventions in their own personal lives, right They're forty five stumbling around trying to make their first black friend. And then yeah, y'all act like it's us that are in, Like you

just haven't seen us your whole life. Yeah, it's it's it's it's about I mean, in all honesty, it is about self interrogation, right, like it is about the asking yourself why and why am I only caring about this to your point at forty five? And I didn't care about it at twenty, right, Like I didn't care about it as I was growing my career to make sure that there's not only a diversity in race, in gender, identity, and orientation, but that there is a diversity in thought.

Where am I getting people from? How am I? How am I storytelling and creating richness? If everybody looks the same as me and it's from the same place. Um, and I think that that like, But that is about self interrogation. It is about saying that, hey, maybe I didn't grow up in this space, So what do I need to do in order to be better, in order to be more nimble? Um, you have a new production that is going to be coming out released June twenty twenty two. Um, which gives us all something to look

forward to and something for me to look forward to. Um, I'll hit that timeline. But we're going Okay, okay, okay, you don't you have a new production. Okay, you have a new production in the works in the world. Okay, actually set today, Okay, hiding in a back room, all right,

So hair Tales. You have powerhouse executive producers Oprah and Tracy Ellis Ross that are behind the hair Tales which will be on Hulu and tell us about this, tell us about the rich stories and about black women and their identity and connection with their hair and how this came about. Yeah, I mean, it's such a beautiful project. It's created by a woman named Michaela Angela Davis, and she has been working in sort of the cultural academic

hairspace for a really long time. Tracy coming on as an executive producer and a host of the show, which is also really exciting. Dovetailed really perfectly with her launching pattern and pattern yeah, you know, but also these are women who trace their their journey of self acceptance through

their journey with their hair. Right, their hair represented became a sort of prism for how they interacted with the world, how they were seeing, how they saw themselves, how they would nurture themselves, how they were taken care of by the people who raised them, and so there's so much Our hair really becomes this portal and this lens through which we can tell so much about who we are.

You know, in my life, my dad braided my hair every morning, and he had five little sisters, and so he'd been braiding hair in some former fashion for forty five years between having five little sisters and then two daughters. And when he when I asked him, I think I was like twelve, for my twelfth birthday, asked if I could do my own hair, and so he just started washing the dog every week and started bothing the dog. It's like, what do I do with all that's time? Exactly?

But like that, even that story, that story of who did my hair? Growing up will tell you so much about how I was raised, about who my family, how my family is organized, about who I am, about my orientation to the world. And that's true for so many of us. You know, you can ask questions of your mom or your grandma, your auntie when y'all look at each other in the eye, but she's sitting up behind you, maybe you wouldn't have the courage to sort of and

vice versa. She might tell you things that she might not be able to look you in the eye and tell you. But when she's braiding your hair can like briefly remind you, like, hey, you know this is happening or is it about to happen or such and such, And so our hair has become this really important milestone then in the kind of intimate space of black women.

And then it's also this way for us to talk about what we're really up against and how we interact with the world right all the cultural stories, the way that black barbershops and beauty salonts have been used as organizing hubs in the Black community throughout America since time.

The way that black hair is an incredible economic resource for women to be entrepreneurial, to get themselves through college, to open their first businesses, whether it's you know, the first self made women Black women in this history of this country, to women entrepreneurs around the world today, it is a source of our oppression right, whether that ability politics, whether that's the Crown Act, which recently you know, didn't proceed through the US Senate with some white girls representing

a senator calling it the bad Hair Bill. And that's all a mechanism of being able to discriminate against Black women for hair as it grows out of their head, as they choose to articulate and wear it them because it's an effort to continue to styme me the power of Black women and our agency, not only our bodily agency,

even our cultural agency. And so our hair remains this incredibly powerful cipher almost of our public life, but also of our intimate individual life, our family life, our community life, and so it was just so far past due for a really rich artistic exploration. There are some incredible artists who are contributing to this show. There are some incredible guests, and it's gonna be hopefully as hopefully you know who we're making it for. We'll find it as magical as

it's been to make it. Yeah, you know, I just I often don't think that we get to see those intimate portrayals of ourselves that are outside of the body politic talking about what is wrong with our hair as opposed to the journey and the beauty and like the connection and relationship and familialness. And I can tell you

I have locks. And when I had decided, you know, twenty years ago to lock my hair, my grandparents who have since passed there my family's Jamaican, and my grandparents who were just like, what kind of job are you going to get if you lock your hair? Like it was coming from Jamaica, they had only associated having locks with, you know, with Rastafarianism, with this whole idea of counterculture, and could not foresee at all me being in politics

on television with you know, with locked hair. And it was you know, and it was like a moment that really took me aback of you know, the politics of hair within my own family and saying, oh, well, you were all good and fine so long as it was being pressed and permed and tortured or braided, but if you were to do something with your natural hair, it was just like, we're concerned about your employment and that you know, and that and that was incredibly real at

at time, um, so long ago. But not even the number of aunties that asked me if I was getting a press pressing my hair before starting at the White House. They're like, well, surely you're gonna get a relaxer or surely you're going to like I was like to go work for black people. No, no, I will not. But it was people were just like, are you sure, like maybe maybe just like a little bit maybe like fine, maybe don't go all relax or like a little bit of charte, just like take a little bit down, a

little bit of charte. What are you talking about? Um? But it was very stressful to a lot. And also like my family's from the Caribbean, from Barbados, so but even my aunties that are American, we're just like, girl,

what are you talking about? Get that you know. Yeah, I mean I remember, I remember, I remember the Obama girls being attacked when um they had two strand twists in I mean the like the odd dast I just that brings me back to that dark place, um, because I was just like, oh my god, here here I was as excited that I'm like, black girls are sitting in the White House getting their hair done and I like what And I remember talking about this like giddily, and then to see them attacked for this A well,

it's it's not done. It doesn't look right, but messy buns with blonde hair is totally fine and acceptable. Um, so I am yeah, It's just it's it's absurd. I think that this is incredibly exciting. I cannot wait to watch it. Is it going to be? Is it a series? Is it a doc? What is the how? How is this going to take form? Is it's the sixth episode season? Um? And it will air simultaneously on Hulu and own, so wonderful linear option as well as the Hulu option, which

is great. And as we wrap up, Carrie, do you have any other projects in the works that you can get us excited about us so we have a good

distraction from you know, not a democracy crumbling exactly. So we do have a show on Disney Plus that's coming out in August or September called Growing Up, and that is really about these moments and our adolescence where shame really creeps in and can really change our life and sort of how do we have a peer to peer conversation about those moments, hopefully for young people and head them off of the past so they're not trying to work it out with their therapist at forty but can

just like never take on that baggage, trust me, you know, like the things if I could go back and just like, this is not a thing to worry about, It's not a thing. Put Put all this down, Put all this concern and shame that you have around this particular thing down,

and go live your life. And that was really what we were trying to do as the four executive producers of the show, myself, my business partners, and Bree Larson, the actress who really came to us with this vision around a show about shame and so as anything from starting your period to coming out to transitioning to living on a rez and feeling isolated to not getting into the college. You want not acne feeling colorism like an

immigrant experience. Right. So these ten they're ten different stories, all centered around young people who really struggled with something and there are a few years removed from it now, but talking about it and recreating it and think trying to dissect for the audience, like how easy and universal it's the same. It's the same universal thing. We all go through it as we're trying to figure out who the hell we are and what we're going to do.

And so whether you had that exact experience or not, it's also like it's so deeply relatable and trying to figure out how we can liberate ourselves earlier in the process and not even really begin to bring some of that on so that we our kids can be a little bit freer than we got to be. So I'm really proud of that show, and I'm really excited for that UM to debut in on Disney Plus. As I said, um,

later later this year. UM, we're working on a you know, another show about black folks and black women in music for Netflix that I can't talk too much about on that one, UM, and that's on the horizon. Yeah, on the horizon. Well, as your projects come together and you're getting ready to launch, I hope that you will come back and chat with us some more because I need more joy in my life and this provides me with

that kind of energy and excitement. So Karrie, thank you so much for making time for okay A and for the work that you're doing and the change that you're making in a completely different format. You allow folks to see that they don't have to just live inside of one box, that there are so many opportunities as big as you can dream. So thank you. Thank you so much for having me and such a pleasure to meet you at last. Thank you as always, dear friends. Power

to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.