When I was small, in the early '70s, my mother took me to see 'Cooley High.'
The first movie I ever saw was a blaxploitation movie. It was called 'Monkey Hustle.' Like I said, just listen to the name. That's a blaxploitation movie. It had these incredible, bigger-than-life images of people who looked like I did. Or who looked like I wanted to look like.
I think the whole stigma of 'black movies' is slowly being lost. When you look at movies like '12 Years A Slave,' to 'The Butler,' to 'The Best Man,' to 'Ride Along,' to even 'Think Like a Man' from last year - these movies are just good movies.
Perhaps, despite my objections, the success of films like: 'The Help,' 'Django,' 'The Butler,' or '12 Years a Slave,' will further persuade Hollywood to widen its view and edit its erroneous perception of what a commercial black film can look like.
Spike Lee made such a difference in terms of black filmmakers, the subtleties - those authors, those writers who write from love, and those who write from that lofty position of superiority.I felt he took aspects of the black experience in America and held it up for us to see. He tried to put it in perspective. He did put it in perspective in his unique way.
There have been so few decent films involving Negroes that right away everybody expects every film to do everything. But when you make a flick, there are maybe two things you're trying to put into that flick. You can put the other things in another time.
Back in the 1970s, it was mostly all-black audiences coming into the theaters. So, we presented stories they could relate to.
The black community has for a long time been a part of the Hollywood community, and of course we would love to have a more proportionate ratio of films that tell our stories.
Black movies don't have real names, they have names like Barbershop. That's not a name, that's just a location.
For me, whenever I would see a lot of 'black films,' I didn't feel represented in it. I didn't feel connected to the characters or the situations or the humor.
I grew up watching those blaxploitation movies. Ron O'Neal, Richard Roundtree, Jim Brown, Pam Grier. For the first time, I saw 'The Negro' get one over on 'The Man.'
Um, 'Soul Food'... Another wonderful little movie that could. Here's a film that, I think our budget was maybe $6 million. We shot it in Chicago in six weeks. I was so proud of the film, because it showed America that an African-American film about family could sell, could do well, could cross over and have true meaning.
I had seen 'Do the Right Thing' when I was at college, and it was incredibly inspiring as a piece of cinema. Just brilliant, I thought. But saw 'Malcolm X' with a crowded audience. It was my first time in an American cinema, hearing an audience respond. You know, in England, everyone is so restrained.
My cousin was Ron O'Neal, who was 'Superfly.' Films like 'Shaft' and 'Superfly' were the biggest things out there in the early '70s. It's hard to remember just how big they were - how much impact they had on the culture, the music, the fashions, the hair styles.
Ever since the romantic comedy-drama 'She's Gotta Have It' antagonized black women and black men in 1986, Spike Lee's films have enjoyed the outrage of various groups.
I worked at Warner Bros. for a while. I was the head of the minority talent casting. It was like pre-Spike Lee and post-blaxploitation era.
'Luke Cage' came out in 1972 at the height of the blaxploitation era. It was a literary response to this notion of blaxploitation movies. It was the first time in American culture that Hollywood was embracing black movies.
Well technologically and so forth, it's a breakthrough, and yet [Birth of a Nation,] it's very white supremacist to the core in terms of the narrative content.
In my opinion, Spike Lee is a national cultural treasure - to the black community in particular but to America in general.
I feel like part of my journey as a filmmaker is to tell different stories, whether they are just a black perspective on things that aren't necessarily hood movies, or Tyler Perry movies or Ava DuVernay movies. Love all those people, but that whole thing has been sowed up already.
All Blaxploitation is, is the opportunity for an African-American cast or lead actor or actress to do the same things that a white action hero gets to do.
Many times, I get young people asking, 'What do you think about black movies?' And I say, 'What are you talking about? You mean Hollywood movies that have black people in them?' It's gone back to that, and that's not the same thing as a black movie.
I think a lot of black filmmakers have done very well.
I'm a sponge for historical images of black people and black history on film.
Black films and television are growing and getting the recognition... and the opportunities.
