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*Lena Waithe is calling out Black movie stars who have reached baller status but have not invested in young filmmakers of color.
In an interview with The New York Times, Waithe noted that one of the biggest roadblocks facing Black content creators is the lack of Black financiers in Hollywood.
“Don’t get me started on black financiers!” she said. “How many of those do we have? I’m not [going to name] names because I know better, but there are some very big black movie stars out there, and they could pay for two or three or even five small independent movies to get made by black directors and black writers.”
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See you in November. @QueenAndSlim pic.twitter.com/v5GsAnnCxR
— Lena Waithe (@LenaWaithe) June 24, 2019
The Emmy-winning writer/producer noted that “Moonlight” and “12 Years a Slave,” two films that are “very important to the black community” were produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B production company.
“[It] wasn’t Denzel. Wasn’t Will Smith,” Waithe said. “You won’t catch me making $20 million a movie and not paying for at least four or five independent movies a year. I do give credit to Ava [DuVernay] for trying to build something that hasn’t been built before, but that’s a lot on Ava’s back.”
She continued, “I’m over here trying to build a community, and I don’t see other people doing it. I really do feel like there’s a way for us to change the movie business from the inside out, but we’re all in our own silos doing our own thing. We’re definitely in the middle of a renaissance, make no mistake. In 20 years, people are going to be writing about what you’re writing about. But for me, I want more.”
Lena also criticized the way movies are reviewed these days.
“A lot of bad black movies get good reviews because white critics are afraid to pan them,” she said. I love what Chris Rock had to say, that black people haven’t overcome until we’re allowed to fail. We still feel this guilt of, ‘Go support this movie because there’s black folks in it.’”
Read more of her Times interview here.
