why should we not entertain racism
Answers
For Netflix’s “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” writer-director-star Radha Blank channeled the frustrations of a career in theater into her first feature film. Chief among them: the white producer who helps her on-screen alter ego debut a play on Broadway. This gatekeeper’s less helpful notes include saying her piece isn’t “Black” enough, requires a white character to “grab the core audience” and would be perfect for a white director who just staged “A Raisin in the Sun.”
“Some people think he’s a caricature,” said Blank, who based the producer on various New York artistic directors and raps about programmers’ affinity for “poverty porn” in the movie. “With these predominantly white male gatekeepers, it’s the same kind of person making the same type of choices, controlling what kind of diverse stories are told. There needs to be more of an investment in trying to make the American theater reflect what America looks like.”