I interviewed actor Stephan James on Barry Jenkins' radical empathy, James Baldwin, black love stories and respectability plus British slang in 2018.
Recently the spectre of respectability has reared it’s ugly head in my life in numerous ways. I’m an anarchist at heart and a socialist in practice, so respectability is the last thing I am concerned with in my day to day.
One of my all time favourite essays alongside Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell, and Jean Paul Satre’s preface to Wretched of the Earth is No Disrespect: Black Women and the Burden of Respectability by Tamara Winfrey-Harris.
An excerpt:
It is hard for Black actresses to find multifaceted roles in Hollywood, and that pressure from the Black community to eschew portrayals that are not heroic makes it even harder: “That very mindset that you have, and that a lot of African Americans have, is absolutely destroying the Black artist…. If your criticism is that you just don’t want to see the maid…then I have an issue with that. Do I always have to be noble?”
For Black women, particularly those in the public eye, the answer to this question is often a resounding “Yes.” They are required to be noble examples of Black excellence. To be better. To be respectable. And the bounds of respectability are narrowly defined by professional and personal choices reflecting the social mores of the majority culture—patriarchal, Judeo-Christian, heteronormative, and middle class.
Respectability politics work to counter negative views of Blackness by aggressively adopting the manners and morality that the dominant culture deems “respectable.” The approach emerged in reaction to white racism that labeled Blackness as “other”—degenerate and substandard—with roots in an assimilationist narrative that prevailed in the late-19th-century United States. Black activists and allies believed that acceptance and respect for African Americans would come by showing the majority culture “we are just like you.” Black women in particular had their own set of stereotypes to battle, as they had long been labeled by white society as lascivious Jezebels, animalistic beasts of burden, and disreputable antiwomen.
In 2018, perhaps predicting that respectability would always rear it’s ugliness in my life as misogynoir has always done….
…I took the opportunity to ask one of our best actors his view. He gives a beautiful answer, that taught me something. I am learning every day.
Transcript (edited for clarity) and video below if you prefer.
SAM: It's so great to meet you, thank you.
We're here today talking about If Beale Street Could. Obviously you just got your Oscar noms yesterday which I'm really excited about, even though I think you were were robbed of cinematography, director, picture but still I'm glad to see Regina got hers.
So what I was first going to talk to you about was James Baldwin. Basically i watched the film a couple of months ago I was lucky enough to get a screening through premiere and thankfully it was a small small screening not very many people because I kept crying through the whole thing.
One quote came to mind, it's not from this book actually, it's another quote [by Baldwin] and it was “Anyone who's ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor”. That's a quote that I put on twitter all the time, but I thought watching it. ‘how expensive it is to be Black’. And I wanted to get your thoughts on that and your character Fonny, because at every turn it seems there are barriers, barriers, barriers and is that about being black or is it class, what do you think?
STEPHAN: yeah I mean I think that Baldwin is sort of a genius in describing the black experience and it's not specific to America at all. I'm Canadian and you know Fonny's experience is my experience. There's this system set up that uniquely gives certain types of people more problems than other types of people and you know it's a system that's supposed to protect you. But it doesn't serve a particular group of people and i think that we look at not only the system but the world in general. We can ask, why is it that the the chips are stacked against me? You know why, is it just because I was born into this skin? That’s why I'm treated unfairly? Why I have to work this much harder? I'm seen as one specific type of thing.
So for me I think that's what that was about and I think that's what this film is about. It's about showing the black experience in a way it's never been shown before. It's about showing black love in a way it's never been shown before, because this idea that black love is nonexistent, because we've never seen it. The fact is, it does exist and in 2019 it's kind of strange to say, but you know this is the first time that we're really getting to see it in cinema
SAM: I agree. I'm going to read a little quick thing from something Angela Bassett said in 2012. She was talking about Halle Berry's role in Monster’s Ball and the sort of roles that Angela Bassett takes. She says she will “not play a prostitute on screen”. And you know I don't think she's played enslaved characters either before. She basically said “you know i wasn't going to be a prostitute on film even though it wasn't a prostitute's part I couldn't do that because it's such a stereotype, stereotype about black women and sexuality. Film is forever it's about putting something out there you can be proud of ten years later”.
I don't know why she also mentions that Meryl Streep won Oscars without all that. Anyway I wanted to kind of talk to you about respectability and black respectability. I’ve looked through some of your roles. I personally don't watch enslaved narratives, that's my decision and I have nothing against anybody else who does. Nonetheless I did watch Underground, the tv series and I saw through your roles you seem to take quite sort of large fantastic characters, such as Jesse Owens. But you did do one series I think it was called The Book of Negroes and I wanted to see what sort of roles do you think are available (to black people) and what do you see going on in the future for your roles?
STEPHAN: Well for me I think that stories like Selma where I played John Lewis, those to me are just incredible American stories. They're bigger than black stories. Those are incredible American stories. John Lewis led the civil rights movement at 21 years old. I look at John Lewis as a hero, so I saw myself playing a superhero quite frankly. The same thing with Jesse Owens, to go over to Berlin in 1936 and be able to triumph the way he did and effectively change the world through sport, through running, that just struck me as you're bigger than an American hero, you're a world hero and so I see those characters as,quite frankly, superheroes and I'd be glad to tell those stories again.
SAM: So can you see yourself playing the equivalent of, I forget his name the actor who's in 12 Years a Slave, which I've never seen and I expect probably never will. Would you play the part that he played?
STEPHAN: Chiwetel Ejiofor, I mean there's no telling. I think it's less about, you're playing a slave and more about you're telling a story that means so much. You're giving people an education tha really is so important. I think that oftentimes people find it hard to look at stories like this, but why do we find it hard? What inside of us has affected us that much, that we can't even look at the truth. I know that these things have really happened in the world, so I'm not ashamed
SAM: Then again you've got Fruitvale Station. I saw that recently for the first time and Black Panther actually in the same day and I thought how little accolade Fruitvale Station got compared to the films he's [Ryan Coogler] directed subsequently and I wonder is Hollywood not so interested in contemporary stories of black people, whether it's a love story or you know a police brutality story?
STEPHAN: I wonder, yeah I mean, I think that everything is sort of situational and I can't speak for Hollywood but every individual is going to react to something differently. Like sometimes seeing stories of oppression or you know wrongdoing by the police, sometimes that's harder to look at than Black Panther. You understand what i'm saying, so I think that's really subjective to who is receiving the art and who's telling it
SAM: I was gonna talk about radical empathy. So on twitter an article came down my timeline and it said BARRY JENKINS TALKS ABOUT RADICAL EMPATHY and that excited the hell out of me, because I'm a filmmaker too. I thought, good god that's exactly what we should be talking about. He mentioned a certain scene in the film and he talked about radical empathy and putting the audience in the shoes of the characters. Kiki's character as well, the scene where basically you're looking at the camera and in the background there's some music and the camera swings from here to there.
How is it filming with Barry, where you've got a filmmaker who actually cares about empathy. You hear so many horror stories about different directors. I know you've working for quite a while, so how was it working with Barry on those terms?
STEPHAN: I love Barry and watching his other films you kind of expect those moments to come, those super super close-ups where you're looking directly in the camera. But it's still a strange thing nonetheless i have to go through as an actor. Barry Jenkins is one of the great humanists that we have in this business and so he's able to capture a side to an experience that we don't often get to see in cinema. His film choices are radical in themselves. Look at Moonlight, a story about the black queer experience and what that's like and then with this [If Beale Street Could] you know showing black love, between Tish and Vonny in a way that black love has never been portrayed. For me you know I don't shy away from those moments. I don't think Barry shies away from those moments, where he's telling us, the actors to look directly in the camera. He's also telling the audience, you're not allowed to look away and I think that's the strongest part about those moments.
SAM: fantastic thank you. So this is maybe perhaps a bit more fun. You're Canadian, you seem to play a lot of American character. I'm sure during your career you'll play all sorts over time but i thought seeing as we're in London i would just talk to you a little bit about London slang. Have you ever heard of the rapper Stormzy?
STEPHAN: Of course
SAM: oh fantastic, well I hope you guys get to hang out with some of these cool people while you're here. But anyway so a few a couple of years ago the police it turns out were trying to get more in with the kids. So they did a little session where they explained some of the slang from London and put it up on a whiteboard. I am going to tell you some of the slang and you see if you know what it means. Let's see if we get we get through them
so the first one is BEEF TING FAM
STEPHAN: oh that's it's gonna be a fight
SAM: yeah very good okay, PENG
STEPHAN: jeez i feel like i've heard this one before but i don't know right, it's like fit she's you know attractive
SAM: okay okay BLUD
STEPHAN: that's like my brother, i'm blood same thing yeah
SAM: okay ROAD MAN and do you have the equivalent in Canada i wonder
STEPHAN: road man, no is that just the man who's on the road
SAM: pretty much, the police said it was ‘a teenager who involves themselves in smoking weed’ no i don't even know what is that ‘puffer soccer and man bag at ride on a bike’. I mean that's their description but that's not i would have guessed. Actually, I don't want you to go away for this interview thinking that their definitions of these words are right either!
SAM: so goat
STEPHAN: greatest of all time
SAM: feds
STEPHAN: police
SAM: yeah i think that must be an American one, iIdon't know how that's come to us, but anyway
SAM: Stormzy
STEPHAN: artist
SAM: well they say ‘not the weather, rapper from Croydon’, so at least they know that anyway.
SAM: So the last thing basically, you're filming for two things actually the NDA podcast which stands for NO DICKHEADS ALLOWED and also NON DISCLOSURE ACT and for Media Diversified. We do a session right at the end of our podcast where we do something called GET IN THE BIN and HERE AND FABULOUS. i'll just explain and ask you because Ava who's my partner in crime couldn't be here today so it's just me so you're going to be standing in for her. She's a comedian.
So during this last week, let's say all month if you could, who would you like to get in the bin, the person who's annoyed the hell out of you whether in public or private etc
Who would you like to on bin day take themselves out to the trash and put themselves in the bin and stay there?
STEPHAN: Donald Trump
SAM: Donald Trump, I don't even need to ask you for reasons on that one.
Okay, that's fine and then who's your here and fabulous. So someone who's like lit up the world and done good stuff within the last week or month or recently?
STEPHAN: Probably like Chance the Rapper. He’s always doing incredible incredible stuff for the community. Whether it be donating, whether it be free concerts. Chance the Rapper, definitely
SAM: Okay cool and lastly then, so you are Canadian. What canadian historical figure would you want to play if the opportunity arose?
STEPHAN: that's a good one, i'm gonna have to get back to you on that.
SAM: okay then, next time, next film. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you
If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins’s follow-up to Moonlight, starring KiKi Layne and Stephan James as a pair of lovers torn asunder, is a triumph.'
Barry Jenkins makes movies about black love. His 2008 debut, Medicine for Melancholy, chronicled a one-night stand turned burgeoning romance in a maddeningly gentrifying San Francisco.
Moonlight, his wonderful follow-up and 2016 best-picture winner, is a coming-of-age story about a fatherless queer boy set among the impoverished Miami neighborhoods that were once home to Jenkins himself.
Its endgame isn’t sex, or even necessarily sexuality, but something even more rare in movies: pure, loving intimacy between black men, sexual and not. Now comes If Beale Street Could Talk, Jenkins’s extraordinary adaptation of James Baldwin’s soulful 1974 novel. It’s a lush, courageous black melodrama set in 1970s New York, a story about love defying injustice—or trying its damndest to.
Tish (newcomer KiKi Layne), 19, and Fonny (Stephan James), 22, were once childhood playmates—chubby, laughing babes taking baths together, being raised alongside one another, despite yawning differences between their families’ social and religious beliefs. Fonny’s mother is extremely devout, as are his sisters. Tish and her sister, Ernestine (Teyonah Parris), are more modern: well-raised, hard-working women who nevertheless curse in front of their parents.'
Have a good day.
Sam
P.S I know there is going to be some non-black women and /or middle class women who try to take my experiences and use them as their own. Trust me, I will hunt you down if you do and you will catch these hands.