Latest / The Breakfast Club / Best of full interview: Mara Brock Akil Talks ‘Forever,' Black Love, Lessons From Storytelling, Girlfriends’ Movie + More

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Best of full interview: Mara Brock Akil Talks ‘Forever,' Black Love, Lessons From Storytelling, Girlfriends’ Movie + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club Morning, everybody is j n V.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Just hilarious. Charlamagne the guy, We are to Breakfast Club.
• 0:10
  Speaker 4: La La Rosa is here as well, and we got
• 0:12
  Speaker 4: a special guest in the building, legendary.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: That's right, Miss Mark brock a Kill.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome, thank you, good morning, good morning. Nice to be here.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: How are you, bless Black and Holly favorite. How's your energy?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: It's great? Okay, I'm really I'm floating.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: How does it feel to have yet another hit TV show?
• 0:29
  Speaker 5: Another another hit TV show? But this is global? This
• 0:34
  Speaker 5: is like the first time I have been on a
• 0:37
  Speaker 5: stage this big. Normally my shows are on up and
• 0:42
  Speaker 5: coming networks, So I feel like an angen new Actually
• 0:47
  Speaker 5: I feel I feel both veteran and both.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I'm also in awe. You know, it's just an idea.
• 0:57
  Speaker 5: Is a global conversation that it's kind of I'm sitting
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: in that. Mostly my career, I've been thinking about a
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: national conversation, but this is a global one. And I mean,
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: I've always known that our stories are global, but for
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: it to be a reality, it's pretty special.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And another hit, right to be at it. Thirty years
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in the game, thirty years in the game.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: But let's talk about it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: Of course, for people that are just tuning in, you
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: created shows like Girlfriends, the Game.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Being Mary Jane.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: You've written on The Jamie Fox Show and so many others,
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: but this one.
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: Is so many, see so many see you.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: This one's on Yeah, this one's on Netflix.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: So how did the next the Netflix play come together?
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: We're doing for I had a deal, you know, my
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: career did garner me a really wonderful deal out of
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: that deal?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I did stamp.
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: From the beginning, I hope you guys all saw that
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: amazing documentary that Roger Ross Williams directed, but about doctor
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: Abraham Kindy's work about the racist lies, I mean, the
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: myths of racism.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: That was my first offering in my deal, and this
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: was the second.
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: It took a minute, strikes and executive changes and whatnot.
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: It took a minute to get this one out, but
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: it was it was special. From the beginning, I met
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: Judy Bloom somebody Else's come on, come on, two.
• 2:19
  Speaker 6: Of my favorite storytellers, come.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: On, I mean, I mean, and that's God. First of all,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I didn't even realize that the book was going to
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: be fifty years old.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: By the time re released, it was not even in
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: my thinking of that time seventy five. But yeah, it
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: took us a minute to get it out, but we
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: got it out. And so when Netflix heard that that
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: my take on her story she was about, they were like,
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: we are about that too.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So it was a beautiful synergy.
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: One thing I will say about Netflix, when they're behind something,
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: they are behind it completely supported, resourced. I think that's
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: what's important to me in this this moment of this
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: hit show is that it was my vision was supported financially.
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: And also the episode ye we went to the vineyard,
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: taking your crew across the country in the middle of production.
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: That is another level of support and in a place
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: that the infrastructure is not there. Thank you so much. Yeah,
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: so it was it was amazing to feel like, wow,
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: I'm supported, to got money, to have the vision that
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: I want and to get the people that I need,
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: the collaborators. It's been amazing. So short answer is Judy
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: bluem is marlbacker Kill Netflix wanted all of that.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: We approach Netflix, do you approach it differently? Because you
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: know what a lot of the shows that we spoke
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: about is you have to wait for next week right,
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: So it's almost like you can't wait, you schedule it,
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: you write it down. Well, Netflix, a lot of times
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: it's a lot differently because everything is right there, smacking,
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: you can binge watch it is.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: At your own leisure.
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, correct, when you know that's I think that's what
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: I'm thankful for, or to know how to make television
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: and be able to stretch the canvas differently given different circumstances.
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: And so my job is to keep those keep you
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: on those eight episodes.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I learned that back in the day when we.
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: Used to have to do cliffhangers for the season, like
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: you know, doing Girlfriends or even Moesha.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: We had to get you watching.
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: For the you know, for the end of the season
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: or if there was a break in the middle of
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: the season. So I learned how to craft that shout
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: out to my mentor, I'm always gonna shout out my mentor,
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: Ralph Farquhar. I learned how to make TV that way,
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: how to keep you engage, how to keep.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: That binge going.
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: So I understood that, but it also was it was
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: also sort of just a fun way to play in
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: their sandbox. How do you win on their with their rules?
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: And so that was for me as a creative is wonderful.
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: But there's an like that athlete spirit in me, like
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: I want the ball, Like all right, I'll with the ball,
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: let's go. So that was fun to figure out.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: You said Judy Bloom was your first permission slip as
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: a story tell.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: So how does your in a child feel knowing that
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: you have done such justice to win her iconic works?
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: Why does my innery she feels on cloud nine. She
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: is twirling, she is Cartwill I to cartwell, back in
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: the day, I could cartwheel, backband, all the things she's doing.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: All of that. I'm very proud of myself.
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: It was interesting because my body of work, or I
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: approached my work, I don't ever I never saw myself
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: as needing ip. I'm like, I'm full of stories. I'm
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: full of original stories. So but when the opportunity to
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: reimagine one of her books, there was no thinking. My
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: hand just went up and I feel like it was
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: a little protective as well. It was like I want
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: to protect that story. I want to be able to
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: tell that story. But my little girl is like she's
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: she cabbage patches.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Does she feel like she made it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: Do you feel like you felt like she's felt like
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: she's made it a long while ago. I think this
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: is different in that it's a full circle moment.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I feel I often.
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: Say that you become a writer as a reader first,
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: and so I used to get lost in the pages
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: of Judy Blue, and so for me to be just
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: the divinity of it, like the divineness of it, that
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: I would come full circle fifty years later, like those
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: kinds of things, right, It's almost like it was written
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: for me. It was written for me and Judy. Matter
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: of fact, I'm going to get a chance to meet
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: her personally.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited going down to Key with yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, ok,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: yeah yeah.
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: You live this life once and I'm gonna live in
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: that dream. So I'm excited to meet her. We met
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: at the time on zoom and talked on the phone
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: and emailed, but just to meet her and say thank
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: you and have her signed my book. I'm just that
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: twelve year old girl is running to Key with.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: It. I've done it a couple of times.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just to mess Blue, Yeah, just to you know.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: That's why what I really would love is for people
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: to honor more of their story, the craftsmanship sitting in
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: the chair and writing.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: That woman sat in the chair and wrote.
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: I mean it's like she never got out of the chair,
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: just writing and that and what it would do just
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: someone sharing the story, just my own testimony is it
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: ignited something in me. And I think that even the
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: feedback I'm getting from the show, not just the show,
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: but the shows I've had in my career, it has
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: ignited other storytellers. And I want us to do I
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: want us to do more by that. We have so
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: many stories in us that will die in us if
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: we don't even start crafting them and writing them down.
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: And I appreciate like social media and we can do
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: things video and content. I get that too, and that's
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: a beautiful expression. But to literally craft story from a
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: writing perspective, to have those layers of theme and complexity,
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: and understanding that her book is still through this show now,
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: is still it still lives, It's universal, it's forever.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: But I'm bumped when I live there.
• 8:00
  Speaker 7: The original book was written in the seventies, Yeah, seventy five.
• 8:03
  Speaker 7: Why did you choose to specifically set this story in
• 8:06
  Speaker 7: twenty eighteen.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I had to look.
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: At what would make it fresh today and what to
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: maybe have to look at?
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: What where the kids are today?
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: And Judy and I talked about, well, they know a
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: lot about sex, like there's so much you could just
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: hit Twitter, hit hit whatever.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: There's no Twitter anymore. You get the point.
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: But intimacy, connection, those things, I think we're further away.
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: Even though we are more technical technolo I can't get
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: this word out technologically advanced.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: We don't have.
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: Though these tools are meant to connect us, we are
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: using them in very disconnecting ways. And I think that
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: to bring the phone into the conversation, one of it
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: is an opportunity to talk about something unique to this culture.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, excuse me culture, but this generation.
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: Excuse me, what it is doing to them personally emotional,
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: their emotional self there there, and then how it's even
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: affecting their physical self and then affecting their future. And
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: that's what the book was about, how do we explore
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: our emotional self, our physical self while maintaining a healthy future.
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: And this was my conversation today. Also between I also
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: wanted to talk about in the black family. By by
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: changing the white family to black, it allowed me to
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: also talk about a time that I think is very
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: important for us to document between Trayvon Martin's murder and
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: George floyd murder. George Floyd's murder, we as black people,
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: we as black families, as mothers and fathers, we were
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: screaming into a vacuum about the fear over our children.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: And there was no amount of fancy zip codes or
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: education that can save your child, you know, And that
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: was scary and I wanted, I needed a place for
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: me as a mother to release all of that fear.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And then also then look at how much.
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: We are We are out of love, but we are
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: raising our children from that fear, and how that is
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: hurting our children and their inability to have a natural
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: right of passage, to explore again their emotional their emotional self,
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: their emotional maturity, their physical self, their physical maturity, to
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: have sex or not have sex, who to have it with,
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: what's the right conditions, all of those choices that they're
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: supposed to be making right now to protect the beautiful future.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And that's another thing.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: We need to open up some space because our children
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: also need a future and it's tough out there, and
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: I couldn't imagine being them today thinking about what do
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: you want to be with your grow up, Well, what's
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: out there and so and we adults need to get
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: it together. And so this is a part of my offering.
• 10:56
  Speaker 8: When the when the book so and back in the seventies,
• 10:59
  Speaker 8: it was controversial because of the things that it explored.
• 11:01
  Speaker 8: Today it's not controversial because we are so open. Like
• 11:04
  Speaker 8: what you talk about when you were crafting, like what
• 11:07
  Speaker 8: the storyline would be and how you would redo it.
• 11:09
  Speaker 8: Were there things that you were like, I want to
• 11:11
  Speaker 8: make sure I get to or make sure I get
• 11:13
  Speaker 8: in this storyline. Because you also made it feel closer
• 11:14
  Speaker 8: to home for like black teens. You know, now forever
• 11:17
  Speaker 8: feels like it's our story. But you had to do
• 11:19
  Speaker 8: it a different way.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: I think it's controversial black male vulnerability. It's just there's
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: no room for it. I think there's no images for it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: And yet when I'm looking in the world, within my
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: own children, their friends, and the community beyond that, a
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: lot of boys, and more specifically black boys, they're not
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: all that hard, you know. They don't have any room
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: for their complexity, they don't have any room for their feelings.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: Like it's always funny to me, especially by the group
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: of boys I'm around, they're all privileged. They live a
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: great life. Time to take a picture. They were laughing
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: two seconds ago, you trying to take the picture, and
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: then they get that stoic.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: What you mean mugging for?
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: You know?
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: And if you realize how much that's imparted on young
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: black boys all the time about what is manly? What
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: are those images of what a man is? And I
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: wanted to make a room.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: For the real reflection. I'm actually looking at the real thing.
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: It's just what gets on that bigger screen and how
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: important it is. I know, we talk about representation matters.
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: That's why it matters. You got to see yourself in
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: order to decide is that beautiful?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Is that how I want to look?
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Is that right? That type?
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: You know?
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I can't see it?
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: And I think I also think boys and working on
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: this project, it made me look at something I hadn't
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: looked at before.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I think boys are getting their heartbroken a lot sooner.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I felt so bad for justin the whole time.
• 12:45
  Speaker 8: Why because I just felt like some of the things
• 12:48
  Speaker 8: that they were experiencing, Like I mean, I remember being
• 12:51
  Speaker 8: that age and going through.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Like my first like relationship things. But I don't know.
• 12:55
  Speaker 8: I just felt like a lot of times the characters
• 12:57
  Speaker 8: they were yearning for this like space of like I
• 13:01
  Speaker 8: don't know, to just be okay, and the things would
• 13:03
  Speaker 8: be going good and then something what else would happen.
• 13:05
  Speaker 8: It'd be something small would be like for Kesha, like
• 13:08
  Speaker 8: the video gets sent to her phone and she's finally
• 13:10
  Speaker 8: in this relationship, you.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Know what I mean.
• 13:12
  Speaker 8: Like things were just like happening, and I'm like, they
• 13:13
  Speaker 8: need kids, Like why can't they just be and not
• 13:16
  Speaker 8: you deal with these things?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: But yes, life, and it's also technology that we didn't have.
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: We got some freedoms without you know that they don't
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: They're not afforded. And so that's what I want to
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: talk about. It's like, are we making any room for them?
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: Like one of the things that I love when we
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: every production meeting, I said, we're making an epic and
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: intimate love story within a love letter to Los Angeles, right,
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: And what that meant to me is that we need
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: to see them in scope and scale and epic. I
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: need to see them their bodies in the space in
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: Los Angeles. What that means is that they it's a
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: feeling cinematically that I'm making you feel that they belong here,
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: and when they belong here, they.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Belong to us.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: And so you would engage with our children differently psychologically, emotionally.
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: Those things are important in our image. On the details,
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: the details on anyone makes them feel more human to you.
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: So I want to make just room for their humanity
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: so that we think about the measures around technology, we
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: think about what the rules are for these kids. I mean, like,
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: these kids are being told today that you make one
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: false move, you won't get a scholarship.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, come on, it's the truth that follows them
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: for the rest of their lives and the.
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: Rest of their lives, and that where is any room.
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: There's no humanity in that.
• 14:33
  Speaker 8: That's how I felt. Maybe that was the yes at
• 14:36
  Speaker 8: the humanity part. I'm like, yo, she's young, she made
• 14:38
  Speaker 8: a mistake.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 14:39
  Speaker 8: Now it's following her, and it's like he's in love
• 14:41
  Speaker 8: and he just doesn't how to navigate it. Now he
• 14:43
  Speaker 8: feels like he's not a good person or not not
• 14:45
  Speaker 8: a good person. He doesn't feel like he can win
• 14:47
  Speaker 8: the girl in the beginning of things, and I felt.
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: Bad for that, Like, but you know what, back in
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: the day, back in the day, boys have to walk
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: across the room to ask you to dance.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Did you ever have you ever done that?
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: This course?
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: How did did you ever get rejected?
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: No?
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: Before you, because I'll be honest, I only went when
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: I knew I was going to be received. If I
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: knew I was gonna get rejected or there was a
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: fifty to fifty chance, I wasn't gonna try. Of course,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: remember it wasn't you know back then it was a
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: party and everybody standing on the wall and you have to,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: like you said, you.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: Have to walk across.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: And if I knew this person wasn't feeling me, didn't
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: weaken me, didn't have a crush on me, didn't write me,
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: I wasn't going.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: But if I knew that I got that little stair,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: that little smile, I was gonna go.
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: So it was all those social duds that you have
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: to learn in real time. We're not learning that.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: There's no space for that.
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: So I'm advocating for I want the kids to be
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: back outside, like it's even sad we shot on Fairfax
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: Avenue right it's.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: A ghost town right now.
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: But back in twenty eighteen where it was depicted, that
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: was a place for them to be, but there's we
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: are where are kids allowed to be?
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: But that's why I love the scene. I love the scenes,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: and I.
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: Love Oh God, especially at the prom, because I feel
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: like in that moment, Justin was you know, everybody talks
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: about he's chasing the young lady.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: To me, it felt like he was chasing his blackness.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, thank you for seeing that.
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, one of the things I was trying
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: to say, trying to keep your son, trying to keep
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: our children safe. Sometimes we're isolating them. He had a
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: pretty prison, but it was up on the hill, isolated,
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: and he's looking for more. But I can also understand
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: don she's so scared to put him outside, you know,
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: also scared is he going to measure up to where
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: they are? You know, I'm saying she's probably not saying that,
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: but that's psychologically, it's kind of it's under there.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: But fun fact, I was so proud as.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: A producer to put all those black and brown kids
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: taking over the Pantamtica Peer. I don't you know, I
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: found one of the location. I think that's I think
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: the last time someone took over the Peer at that
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: scale was.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, but That means something to me,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: That means something.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: That we how we take up the space, the epicness
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: and the beauty of us. These these kids are looking
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: like this all over our country and we see it
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: on Instagram or TikTok or things like that. But to put
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: it on that scale, that level of beauty, Anthony Hemingway
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: directed his butt off in that.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: You know, the kids were just beautiful.
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: The our costume designers amazing, our production design was amazing,
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: Our cinema tigraphy was amazing.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. We had we had the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: thing lit up.
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: I was on cloud nine that day that we shot
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: and we got out of their safe and sound.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: That's also important.
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: But it's uh, our kids having space in the world,
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: chasing their chasing themselves, figuring out who they are, including
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: of their blackness, including of their you know, what they like,
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: just who they are.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Even the making room for I know, I get a
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: lot of comments around.
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: He likes Naruto. Yeah, a lot of black kids love Narto.
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: You know, we're a part of the world.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: So that was fun.
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: And as much as it's a story about the kids,
• 18:02
  Speaker 6: it's a story about the adults, right, Like like the
• 18:05
  Speaker 6: way Judy Bloom made people feel seen at thirteen, it
• 18:07
  Speaker 6: feels to me like you're making us feel seen at
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: forty something fifty something. So what do those ages need
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: that nobody's writing about.
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: I'm going to keep saying this over it just more complexity,
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: more of our human side. Like don't you know, I've
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: said before, I don't you know. I don't really believe
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: in positive images. I think they can be just as
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: damaging as negative images.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Really found on that break down.
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: Because okay, so the negative image is is a product
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: of a lie, going back to the documentary, like it's
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: the perpetuating the lies and the mists of us that's
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: been out there. So a lot of black people want
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: a positive image because they want to rewrite the wrong
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: of somebody else's view of me. But what that doesn't
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: as an artist, it keeps me behind the eight ball.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: I'm chasing up and trying to clean up somebody else's mess.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: I'm from the Zori nil Hurston school of thought. I
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: know my people, I see my people. I want to
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: be able to talk about them fully and in the
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: spectrum of our humanity, there is light and dark. We
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: are not we are not perfect to be perfect. That's
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: just as hard to be perfect as it is to
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: be bad.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Like I want to. I want the spectrum of my humanity.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: I want to be able to make a mistake and
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: have my village patch me up and put me back
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: out there.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I deserve that.
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: You deserve that, We deserve that, And so I want
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: the spectrum of who I am. And sometimes i'm you know,
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: sometimes I'm not great, and sometimes I am in the
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: same day, in the same hour.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And I deserve that that.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: Sort of exploration of who I am as a human being,
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: and I give that to my characters. I think Dawn,
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: for instance, you know, people there's a lot of conversation
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: about her as a mother, but that black mother has
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: raised a lot of kids to get them, to keep
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: them alive. Does she does serve looking at herself? Yes,
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: my high my name is Marb Barack and Kill and
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: I'm a former Dawn. I put my pain on the screen.
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, I wanted to out of love.
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to overprotect my children and rightfully so.
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah, But and you end up, well, she ended up
• 20:17
  Speaker 6: raising her child out of fear and not love. And
• 20:20
  Speaker 6: that's a question I always ask because I feel like
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: my father raised me out of fear and I love,
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: not meaning that he didn't love me.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, oh they love and the kids know that. The
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: kids know that they love. But it still feels constrained.
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: But that dynamic was amazing though, the way you had
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: don you know, being the overprotective parent who was raising
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: her son out of fear and our love.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: But then the father Wood Harris character was, you know, high.
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: Emotional like you, you know, very vulnerable, soft with his
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: son in a way that we don't really see on TV,
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: especially between black men and between black men period.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: You thought that was incredible.
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: Thank you, I really, first of all, shout out to
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: Wood Harris and Karen Pittman.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Kill You couldn't cat did it any better?
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: No, I mean that, I mean as soon as we
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: met Lovey and Michael and put them together, it was like,
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: come on, chemistry off off the jump.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Their chemistry was amazing. Karen and Woods, you know.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: That I did want to depict two types of black
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: families that are that we that we recognize, right but
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: speaking about the Edwards for a moment, it just shows
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: you the need to have two partners in a home.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Just the balance of it all I think that Eric.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: Could be that because he has such a solid foundation
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: in down and vice versa. I'm saying, I feel like
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: he had his emotional maturity is because how much he
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: is loved also by her and so and he can
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: allow for her fear in a moment like this. Keep
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: in mind, he's also aware of her worries about her
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: children were in a hoodie, So he understands and boys,
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: and he understands how how assertive she is, and he
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: knows all that stuff about her. And that's a lot
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: of my backstory when I'm writing those characters, and how
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: much it's and it is irritating in parenting when you
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: have different approaches at a very crucial moment when now
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: the kids can talk back, you know, I mean, when
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: they're younger, it's a little you know, it's a little
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: easier on the parenting different dynamics sometimes, but the stakes
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: being high right these these children are about to be out
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: of the house, those things get a little bit, you know,
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: we all react a little differently.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: We'll talk about the importance of that. I think we
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: missed that a lot.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: We've seen it a lot more with my parents, But
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: I think in these days, people don't.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: I don't think.
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: Care to really respect a two parent household. It just
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: seems like it's it's very loose, and people forget about
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: what it means to kids and how important it is.
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: Well, it's just another witness to the you know, to
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: the witnessing in a lot of ways, like you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: one of the in my own parenting, I used to
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: get frustrated about why the kids seem to act up
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: a little bit more with me than they did with
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: their father.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: And I was like, and I would complain this lame
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: all the time.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: And then later I realized, Wow, what a privilege it
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: is that your children are the safest with you to
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: act that you know what out you know, and you're
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: just like, oh, I am the safest place in the
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: world for them to be to just show they ask.
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: And when you realize that honor, it's like, oh, okay,
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: so then how can I then how can I just
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: be fortified, you know, in order to take those moments right?
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: When I realized then I feel like the father or
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: the second parent is the first bridge to the outside world,
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: and how needed that role is because they kind of,
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: you know, they they rise up a little bit, they
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: you know, they they act, they act a little bit
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: better for dad, you know time and in the case
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: of our home, right, and so there's a bridge to
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: that emotional uh maturity that they can.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Move through. And then then you drop them off at
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: somebody's house and they come back.
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: Your kid is amazing, they did this, they did that,
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: and you're like, oh, so you do know how to act.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: And that that just rhythm.
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: And then sometimes you know, when I would be upset
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: about things, I did have someone there to tell me.
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: Are you're fine, they love you, You're you're you're you're
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: tripping a little bit. You just relax a little bit.
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: But that level of care, that level of the dance
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: between the parents and the child is actually beautiful when
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: you finally settle down into it and get into the roles.
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: They're just rolled and it's okay to it's okay to
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: lean into them. And then and then there's sometimes that
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: like I get things that.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: They don't get.
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: I get not just the acting out, I get those
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: I get those intimate details, you know, I get those
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: real when they're really really safe and they're telling you things,
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: You're like, oh, shoot, I'm trying to remember it so
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: I can so I can go back and tell.
• 25:11
  Speaker 7: Don't tell that and something you don't yeah for a while,
• 25:15
  Speaker 7: I know, well my wife, my wife will say, well,
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: I'm gonna tell dad, but he's not gonna judge.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: You're not getting in trouble or you know some things.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: But I have the most difficult time with really being
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: understanding right, And the reason being is similar to what
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: you just said, Like my wife will yell at my
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: kids every day, right for something small. I yell once
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: a week, yes, and it's the worst thing ever. And
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: I'm like, my mom doesn't yell like it.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Was the same yell.
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: But they feel like Mom is that safe place they
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: can open up, they can be comfortable. But dad is
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: the barrier to the outside.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: World, barrier to the outside world. And to see that.
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: And then on on Keisha's side, being you know, having
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: a single mother, how much you need a village. So
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: she's very resourced and you know, the Edwards were more
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: resourced finance, They got nannies and housekeepers and stuff. She's
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: got the bills, she's got cousins, she's got her grandfather,
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: her dad. And then we that was that was purposeful.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: We revealed that the dad's been around. We just he's
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: not physically there all the time, and he's not carrying
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: his complete share, but he is present.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I would just.
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: Say that everybody is represented in this show. What's the
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: most uncomfortable truth you had to face?
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: The right forever? Honestly?
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: Just you know, you'd like to think that you're an
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: amazing mother, just with my shortcomings as a mother. I
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: think when I acknowledge that, I think not only my
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: children and then our our community of children need more space.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: We had to look at where I was allowing that.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I think that was uncomfortable. I think the other part
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: was the depiction of.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: Getting into the nitty gritty around these like the sex
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: tapes and then the betrayals that are happening with these
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: children whose brains aren't fully functioned yet and making bad.
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: Wanted to make sure I protected Keisha by also allowing
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: the truth to be told. You know I'm saying, and
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: the way it is experienced, and it can be the outcome,
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: you know, even and it's and he's he made a
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: horrible choice. I actually think Christian is not I don't,
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: I don't. I know he messed up royally right, but
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: I also think that there's room for him but I
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: know that people are like no.
• 27:43
  Speaker 8: So when he came back into this not that I was,
• 27:45
  Speaker 8: I was like, why did Why is he backing around
• 27:48
  Speaker 8: and all these things?
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And she's dealing with so much stuff right now. We
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: don't make And that's the other thing too.
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: I've seen grown women not make great decisions, I'm saying,
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: and we just put all this pressure. She's sixteen, you're young,
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: and we're trying to negotiate a lot.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I was trying to arc
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: out what the.
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: Keisha character is what would it be like to be
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: invisible at a PWI for most of your life, not
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: I think, not be reflected back that you are beautiful?
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: And then the first time you get attention from the
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: ball or I'm saying that, who is How are we
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: making those decisions? How are we making those choices to
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: be seen, to be loved, to.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Be cared for.
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: In a time when speaking about sexuality, especially that period
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: and on, young women are saying, hey, I have sexual urges.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I mean girls need love too.
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: There they're the ones leading sometimes the blowjob conversation.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: They're like, we can do so you're.
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: In this world that some things are really okay to
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: do and just trying to negotiate all of these things.
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: It's she made, she made a batch, he made a
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: bad choice. Everybody's trying to impress, somebody trying to do.
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: These kids are managing a lot, and then the public
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: record of it and the forever record of it.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: It's very hard to live with.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: So I think that faith your question was what some
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: of the hardest things, trying to be honest about the
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: times and honest about why people are making the choices
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: that they are making, even when you are I know
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: that it's no not a lot of compassion for the
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: Christian character, and I'm aware of that, and that was
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: very That was a very tough choice to make, trying
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: to make it as honest and grounded as possible and
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: so that it can be the thing in the middle
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: of this love story that they actually moved through. What's
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: great to me about the Justin and Keisha's that they both.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Come from love.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: They know it.
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: It may be a little complicated, it may not be
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: you know, ideal and times, but they know they're loved.
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: And what's beautiful is to watch two young people choose
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: love from having been loved. And I think what's beautiful
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: for us as a community, especially family, especially as parents,
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: is our ability to witness our children's choices while they're
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: still in our home. What it's also happening in society.
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: They're calling it late bloomer. I think that's a new term.
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: I mean, young people are not even getting to feel
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: desired until they're like damn, they're thirty.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: They're not even know like that reciprocal like he liked me,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I like her?
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: What they got to go outside? You got to get off.
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: Well there for that, I think there's that's there's that too,
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: and then and then, and that's the other layer we're
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: putting on it.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: We go outside.
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: But some of our kids and some you know, that's
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: I wanted to talk about putting our kids in private
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: white institutions. They go through most there's a there's an upside, right,
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: you're trying to give them the best education, set them
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: up for the best you know, future.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: But the consequence of that is they're not being seen.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: That's social.
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: They don't feel beautiful, they don't feel handsome, they don't
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: feel important, there's nothing marrying them back.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Oftentimes that's what I feel.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: Like that So that so when you say they have
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: to get outside. They are outside.
• 31:18
  Speaker 8: To that party in the stairs, and Justin tells her
• 31:20
  Speaker 8: that she's beautiful, yes, or gorgeous, and she stops and
• 31:23
  Speaker 8: I'm like, I mean, but to your point what you
• 31:25
  Speaker 8: just said, they're like the only black kids.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 31:27
  Speaker 8: For her to hear that from him, it probably was
• 31:29
  Speaker 8: a whole different type of your gorgeous or you're beautiful,
• 31:32
  Speaker 8: whatever you had said to her. But I didn't even
• 31:33
  Speaker 8: think about that point of it. I just thought it
• 31:35
  Speaker 8: was just our first time interacting with a boy. She like, yeah,
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: you know, yeah, there's not enough to sort of like.
• 31:40
  Speaker 8: And it may be that maybe other kids like them,
• 31:42
  Speaker 8: but maybe they're conditioned not to for race reasons or
• 31:45
  Speaker 8: things of that nature.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: But I don't know that.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: Our kids sometimes they're outside, but they're not always connected.
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: That's why we've spent a lot of time and money
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: trying to get to the vineyard.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: But that's two weeks. Yeah, that's two weeks.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: But it's funny that you said it.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: That's you know, my daughter had the same problem, and
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: I wanted her to go to HBCU because of that.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: I went to Hampton and she didn't. She went to
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: great schools. A lot of white kids but nobody ever.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: Approached her, so she didn't feel beautiful, she didn't feel away.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: And then when she should there approached her.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: No, nobody proud now, But the problem is she never
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: felt that love, so she a little depressed. She felt
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: like she wasn't as beautiful as she is. And then
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: when she finally when she got when she went to
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: n YU, there's no campus, so she felt even worse.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: And then COVID hit.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: So now if you you know Manhattan, Manhattan is your campus,
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: so there is no campus, so you're going to venues
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: and clubs with everybody. And that made me nervous because
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: now she's not well equipped. And thank god she found
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: somebody that that did find it. But at first black, yeah,
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: but at first she.
• 32:46
  Speaker 8: Was You have to say that, y'all kids are going
• 32:49
  Speaker 8: to very nice schools, so it might not always be black.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, it was very difficult.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: But I felt guilty about that for years because I
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: was like, am I setting them up for failure?
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Am I setting them up for somebody not to love them?
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: Because I went to a black school, I lived in
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: a black neighborhood, so I'm seeing love all day long.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: And she didn't have that feeling. She didn't have those friends.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: Which which is probably why she's so close to me
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: now and I'm kind of like her best friend. Like
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: we go out and we do things like right now,
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: she just text me Dad, what time you coming home?
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: And she's twenty three years old? What is just that relationship?
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: But give me it gave me a guilt as a parent.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: It's funny when you asked me what I have to face?
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: That's that, that's that's.
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: I know we made choices for a certain reason. But
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: you're thinking, ooh, what you know, my kids are fine,
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: But also that's what you moved through when you're just
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: trying to give them the world, the best, the best
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: you can give them, and you realize, oops.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I missed that part.
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: So they are getting outside and then La specifically, you
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: know these kids don't want to drive it Like I
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: was at the DMV, like at nine am on my birthday.
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: They are not so I mean that. So it was
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: how are they even seeing each other? And that goes
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: back to where are the spaces. I was at the
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: skating rink, I was at this, there was I was
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: at the mall, I was here. That's not happening that
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: much anymore, and so that concerns me as well. So
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: I'm hoping that some of these images on the show
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: makes people want to connect, get outside, be back outside.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I think we need that.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, the beauty of it is.
• 34:18
  Speaker 7: Let me get a damn question, miss k how the
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: whole town knew about the sex tape?
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: But Keisha mother, Well, now it's funny.
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: That's why we were in la That's why I did
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: above the ten and below the ten certain communities can
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: know it and hold it and let you know it
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: when they feel like it.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: But below the ten, she was able to keep that.
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: She was able to keep that going, and that shows
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: the disconnect of the village. There was no parent from
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: those communities that thought to call Shelley.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: That is all, you know. That's the other thing I
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: did make.
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: A commentary on that, being a black parent, sometimes in
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: these schools, you're you're a parent, but are you really
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: part of the community. Sometimes, and now I'm not saying
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: it's one hundred percent like that, but sometimes that's where
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: things do part. You know, when when there is judgment
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: or or maybe that's the right wrong word, when there's
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: not real community, when there's not real connection, when there's
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: not real care that you're just seen as a part
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: of this, like a sprinkle on top to our communities.
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: And I say that in a generality, I think there's
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: certainly some families who are figuring that out. But so
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: it's not please don't come for me that we can't
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: figure that out. But what I've also noticed in these
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: communities is sometimes I mean in these worlds because Shelley's
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: from a different economic backets she's lived, she doesn't live
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: anywhere close to where these communities are. She's further away
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: from the information. And it took Dawn to find out
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: to bring it.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Back to her.
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: You know, black love has been so commodified lately, right
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: Like I feel like, you know, you see people doing
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: the matching outfits on the ground, or you know, they
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: have Black love weddings.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: But what makes Forever feel real and not curated?
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: I would ask you, what did you feel.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: That I actually saw myself?
• 36:16
  Speaker 6: I saw me and my wife, you know, I saw
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: my teenage daughter and her friends. I saw how I mean,
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: It's a little simple things like the conversations they was
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: having it to cookout, like arguing about you know Kanye, Yeah,
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: they're smoking the weed and then the kids come and
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: they try to put it out, but you know, they
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: dance into their own music. I just felt like, that's
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: just real aesthetics. That's what real black love and black
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: relationships look like. And even things like, you know, not
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: arguing it or trying not to argue in front of
• 36:45
  Speaker 6: the kids, or even if you and you and your
• 36:47
  Speaker 6: significant other disagree, not showing that in front of the child.
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: It was times that Wood would be like yo, yea,
• 36:53
  Speaker 6: and then she would know, and then he would say
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: what he said, all vice versa, and I just I
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: just thought that was powerful.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: It's just be paying attention to my own life, the
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: life around me, just paying attention to us. I think
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: that's my job as a storyteller, you know, Nina Simone says,
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: I'm here to reflect the times. It's for me to
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: look at us, look at each other, and find all
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: those I know about your guilt because I have it.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: And I have my own.
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying. I know about these things.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: I know about how how beloved by a black man
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: who can be very strong in his opinions. But it's
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: not intimidating.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: It's you know, he might feel intimidated to the world.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: He's not intimidating to me. You know what I'm saying.
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: I know there's love there. And also and he knows
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: I'm strong black, a strong black woman. She's got an opinion.
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna say something. I can say it without losing
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: my softness.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: I want your kids to bring home a black significant other.
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, not because of racism, but because you want
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: somebody to understands. You want somebody that's gonna understand you
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: and what you will.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: To protect you and protect you and protect you. That's
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: what I mean.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: Think at the core of a parenting, we want to
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: be we want to love our kids, and we want
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: our kids loved, and we want them protected.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: We want them safe in the world. And so.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: You know, our history will tell us that it just
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: seems like the odds are better that way.
• 38:11
  Speaker 8: Keisha's story, well, first to bring home the black significant
• 38:14
  Speaker 8: other when Dawn she's upset, she and Justin doesn't have
• 38:19
  Speaker 8: his phone or whatever. But then at one point she's
• 38:21
  Speaker 8: open to him getting back into the world and having
• 38:23
  Speaker 8: the phone or whatever. Because wood Harris is like, you know,
• 38:25
  Speaker 8: he met a girl like you know, ease up on
• 38:27
  Speaker 8: them a little bit when they had that conversation when
• 38:30
  Speaker 8: she findances down with him and she's trying to like
• 38:31
  Speaker 8: get in his business about who he's dating and who
• 38:33
  Speaker 8: the person is. As a mom yourself personally, what did
• 38:38
  Speaker 8: you put into that conversation that you do with your
• 38:40
  Speaker 8: own kids when you're trying to enter into their world
• 38:42
  Speaker 8: and like make sure that even though they're at the
• 38:44
  Speaker 8: white schools and all these things, the blackness is still
• 38:46
  Speaker 8: there without being like you got to be black because
• 38:48
  Speaker 8: she was very like soft, but she was also it
• 38:50
  Speaker 8: was obvious she wanted him to be with a black girl.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: We just talk real, you know.
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: We've always just been honest with our kids from the jump.
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: They're from their level of understanding, you know what I'm saying,
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: using their language for their entry into the conversation, you know, uh,
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: being very honest.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Why, I mean, why I want you to be with
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: a black woman?
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: You know, even though that could be challenging, even though
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: it's like I can, yeah, you can date whoever you
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: want to date.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: This is going to be your life. But I'm gonna tell.
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: You why, and just I just why. I think it's beautiful.
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: I just think I just give my opinion, but make
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: room for theirs. That's I think that's what's important, is
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: for me to make room for theirs for so I
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: use that, I use you know, it's funny because even
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: the music, I think one of the things. Music is
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: a big part of the show, and it's funny. In
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: my car, I let them have the OX. I just
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: want to know. I just want to witness them. I
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: want to know what they're thinking about. So every like forth,
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: you know, like if you get like a Spotify account
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: and you don't you do like the base, you got
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: to get a commercial like every four songs. So in
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: my car, you get a lecture every four songs. And
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: we used to debate about, Okay, if I don't let
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: you eat McDonald's all the time because of x y Z,
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: I need you to understand what these lyrics are doing,
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: what you're eating, and so.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: He's like, mama's just to beat, just to beat. Well, no,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: it's more than a bee.
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: So we talked about that. They push back because we
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: talked about misogyny and things like that. He was like, well,
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: the women, some of the female rappers that got I said, yeah,
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: misogeny is not particular to one group of people.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Massage he's misogyny.
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: It's just like you know, racism is racism, it's it's
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: it's so you get to talk to your kids and
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: find out who they are and and give them your
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: point of view while the world gives them gives them
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: their point of view. And so I think if you
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: remain a trusted place, they are going to hear your voice,
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: God willing, they will hear it before they get themselves
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: in any kind of danger or you know that kind
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: of thing.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: But I feel like just giving them my opinion, what
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: emotional space, and then show my.
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: Life, you know what I'm saying, living my life, you know,
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: like even like with even like your career paths or
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: your future path, teaching them how I recognize that I'm
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: a writer? I reminded, how did I know that I
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: was a writer? How did I know what my path was?
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: Teaching them those things, what it's going to feel like
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: in your body, what it's going to look like, how
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: you're going to act, you know, when it's going to
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: take discipline.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Where's the sacrifice in these ideas? You know what?
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: Even like you know, yes, mom and Dad, we made
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: a lot of money, but understand we're built on a legacy.
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: Let's go back to grandma and granddad and grant grandparents,
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: and let me tell you where you came from. This
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: is you know, us owning more than one home is
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: not new to this family.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: It happened over here. Understand that.
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: Understand So you got to give them history, opinion, knowledge,
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: show it be it. You know, even when we talk
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: about dreams, I talk about my dreams. I still got
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: dreams and so and dream take resources.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: So are you going to hit that basketball train or not?
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Because I could use that money.
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: I want you to stay there for a second, like,
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: how was your own evolution spiritually, emotionally as a mother.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: How did that influence the writing of.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Fel Oh completely?
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: So my writing styles I tend to muse off of
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: I find them. I tell the truth through fiction. I'm
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: a journalism major. I went to Northwestern. Shout out to Northwestern,
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: I allus called shout out. I love Northwestern. One of
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: the best choices I've ever made. I went to medil
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: So A lot of my.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Approach to a to a story, I start to lock in.
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: On there'll be a muse and then I open up
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: to see what what is happening in the zeitgeist?
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: What is happening.
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: At strong sociology classes, like what's where are we at
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: as a people? So I figure out where the teenagers
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: were where we're at today. So my children were my
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: muse because that's what I was concerned about. So I
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: came into this this project just as a concerned mother.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: My guilt.
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: Am I doing this right? Am I giving enough space?
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: Did we pick the right schools for them?
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: We pay?
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: Did we set up our life in a way that's
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: really going to support them as you start to think
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: about the more complexity parts of their life as and
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: life was changing fast because of technology as well. Right,
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: So that's where I was at the same time that
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: the Judy Bloom opportunity came. And that's where my big
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: bang happens. Wow, And that's how I put those So
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: I'm musing off of my own parenting. So I started
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: therapy because of parenting.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I realized.
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: People are your amazing mom. But I was like, I
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: need to feel like a better mom. So let me
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: start unpacking some of the things, all these sort of
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: all the things that therapists take you through. And so
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: I started doing that and realizing how I was parenting
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: from a catastrophic place a fear, not just because of
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: the times, but just all the things, and you realize, Okay,
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: I need to let this go in order to be
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: a better mother. And I think the best way I
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: can do that is offer it in my work and
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: mirror myself and allow. And I think that's the power
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: of storytelling. When you share your story or a testimony
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: in church, it actually hits the hearts and souls and
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: spirits of so many other people. But that's why sharing
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: of the story is so important. It's not just about you,
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: It's about the collective us, right, and so bringing all
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: those things to bear and having this amazing opportunity with
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: the book to place all of these things.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Even in the translation of the book.
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: I got to talk about what it's like to be
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: black parents, you know, Judy got to talk about what
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: it's like to be white parents of that time.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: But let me tell you what it's like to be
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: black parents in America.
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: I don't it's probably not that different from you know,
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: other generations. But this is the These are the details
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: of our time, and this is what it looks like.
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: And this is why we love our kids just as
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: much as you love your kids.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: But they have it. They don't have as much freedom sometimes.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: And here's why.
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: Black boys are just as vulnerable and actually are just
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: as I'm nervous mostly about black boys when it comes
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: to sexuality, because before they can even say they love someone,
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: they're considered enemy number one because of their They're they're
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: not little boys anymore. They are their bodies just getting
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: bigger muscles on their body, having a penis, They're suddenly
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: like a threat.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: You have to talk about rape. You got to talk
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: about that with black boys. Just your presence.
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: Sometimes it may not be what you and the young
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: woman consent it to, but you are and still in
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: the time if their parents say, we witness that in
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: real time, these things are happening. So we've got to
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: be we can be real clear on consent. We've got
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: to be real clear on these sorts of things. Wanting
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: to put that not for wanting to not only protect
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: my own sons, but all of these beautiful black boys
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: that I get to, you know, be in community with
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: that I love, and I don't want to see hurt
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: and I don't want to see miss understood and misjudged
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: just by their physical presence, nothing more than that. And
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: because they don't like to smile because you know, they
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: want to keep it real. I want them to see
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: I want them to see beyond that. I want to
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: see black boy vulnerability. I want people to see them
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: as they're fuel that that that they actually can cry
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: and Michael jokes, Michael Cooper jokes and goomore, I gotta
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: cry again.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, you gotta cry again. He's hurt.
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: He's more sensitive, I said, the character sensitive. I said that, so,
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: but yeah, because I just want to Yeah, black boys
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: cry and they also ball, and they also go for
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: their dreams, and they want the girl, and and they
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: they get the grades.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: They do all they struggle, you know, they they're frustrated,
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: they're all of those.
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: Things, and then when they finally get what they want,
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: it scares them for some reason. Because he know he
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: didn't mean none of that stuff he said. I don't
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: want to give it away, but he ain't mean none
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: of that stuff on that last episode.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: I don't think he really want I know he didn't
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: want to walk away.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Why I think no.
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: I think he was just afraid of what he was.
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: He was afraid of losing it. So he feels like
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: letting it go would be less painful than just losing it.
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: You know what I love about storytelling because it meets
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: the viewer where they're at. You're going to see it
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: that way, and someone's going to see that. While he
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: understood that, he did not have the capacity to let
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: go of her and choose himself, so he needed to
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: choose himself, he would have just stayed up underneath her.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people do that. A lot of
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: young people do that because it feels good to be loved.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: It feels good.
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: For somebody to call you and want to see you
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: and hug you and kiss you, and you can get
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: lost in that and you can lose time. I think
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: he understood time is ticking, and that's a reality to
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: being young and making that leap in the especially in
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: the capitalistic democracy.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: You gotta go. He understood that, and she helped him
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: understand that.
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: It felt to me like he didn't He wasn't chasing
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: her by the end of the series though, he was
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: literally just chasing an identity that he hadn't felt before,
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: like that, like that real blackness, like the blackness that
• 48:32
  Speaker 6: you know his mom and his dad wanted him to
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: have and not lose.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: By growing up the way he grew up.
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: By the end of the show, he felt like yo
• 48:39
  Speaker 6: going to that prom with her and just being around
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: her and her and her friends and hearing her say
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: she wanted to go to Howard. It didn't feel like
• 48:45
  Speaker 6: he was just he was chasing her. He was chasing
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: his blackness.
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: To me, I think all can be true, all can
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: be true, But also imagine you get to Howard and
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: all you know is Keisha.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: He might just be all up underneath Keisha. Yeah, and that,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: and really, I.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: Mean, hey, I'm sure he played those scenarios out.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I know he did, because we do as a writing team.
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: But what I again, what I love about storytelling is
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: that it meets the viewer where they are. And this
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: is what's beautiful about the show, and all the different
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: conversations that are coming up, all the different opinions that
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: are coming up.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: This is us.
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: This is the best dinner party you can ever have,
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: and you just this is what we think. And everybody's
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: got opinions, and what sticks to you is for you,
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: and what sticks to you is for you, what irritates you.
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: It's also for you what irritates you as a writer.
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: This is some game I give. It's like a lot
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: of times people like I don't like that. I don't
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: like that is just as important as the what you
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: do like in writing, because I say, what sticks to
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: you is yours. That's your examinations. That's for you to examine.
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: It's called your attention. You can't shake it, you can't
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: let it go good or bad. Look into that, investigate there,
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: dig there. I think that's what I think. That's why
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: my I think that's why I keep getting hits after
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: hits is because I like digging deeper into to us
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: and I think, who doesn't want to be seen? And
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: I think a lot of our stories either they're missing
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: or they've been distorted, like it said the negative, like
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: they've been distorted. I think when you start to really
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: see yourself, you know, you might want to tighten up here,
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: little tighten up. They for the most party, like I'm cute,
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: I'm cute, I'm doing okay.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: I'm doing all right.
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: I can lose five pounds whatever, but for the most part,
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: I'm doing all right.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: I think that.
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: Those ideas of ourselves or what we're stuck on, that
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: may be for you to examine.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: You to look at. And I think that's why we
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: need more storytellers out there.
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: I got three more questions if you've got to, Yeah,
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: what emotional space does Forever occupy than none of your
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: previous shows.
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: What emotional space is it occupy that? I think the
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: cross generational idea. You know, for the most part, I've
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: written at adult conversation, though that I've had parents come
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: into those stories. They're not They're like drive bys in
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: a lot of ways. I just think the complexity of
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: family and the and the generational.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: Connection and that I just really enjoyed that.
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: I think also the scale emotionally, it allowed me to
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: really scale.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Us that I enjoyed that. And it you know, the
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: kids say, take up space. It allowed me to take
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: up space for us and for myself.
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: And what did Judy Bloom teach you about softness? And
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: how does that show up in your characters now?
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: Well, softness is details, I think, especially in the book Forever,
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: most of the book is about Catherine's internal feelings, thoughts,
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: and to use that much time on the internal space
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: is really a privilege, a luxury. Oftentimes, most of our
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: storytime we're more observed than we are explored, and I
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: enjoyed being able to explore. And that's what Judy taught
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: in her in her writing all the books. She's an
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: internal writer, and then she allowed us she gave as
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: young people reading her books, you're validating these feelings inside
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: that I don't necessarily show because I don't want to
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: be embarrassed or I don't want to be judged, or
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: I don't want to be misunderstood.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: So kids are keeping a lot to themselves. And she
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: was being honest on the page.
• 52:56
  Speaker 5: So I believe I've been doing that in my body
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: of work, and I got to do it again to
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: give young people a view of themselves today like she
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: gave us, you know, fifty years ago.
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: My last question is forever about love you've had, love
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: you've lost, or love you still believe.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: In all the above.
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: I believe in love. I believe in love. One of
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: the things I'm really proud of with the ending. I
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: know there's a controversy about the ending, but what I
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: love that Justin and Keisha showed us is how love
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: endures and it takes its shape, shifts, can it's dynamic,
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: can change, but love can stay present. And they showed
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: us how to let go and keep love in that
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: in that ending, I think we could learn a lot from.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Justin and Keisha. You know, the question, you know.
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: Is someone is this Is this a forever love or
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: the one you rem forever? And I would like to
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: think that we as we move through our lives as
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: human beings, that when we choose to use that word
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: right I loved you, that you there's a present that
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: you were so present and so loving that even if
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: you don't last, the couple doesn't last, the love can last.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: It just it might shift to.
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: Wow, it might just shift to we always just sort
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: of text each other on each other's birthday that you
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: matter to me.
• 54:31
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: One of the fun things you realize when you're re
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: visiting the work, especially as young people. Oftentimes that's where
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: our big dreaming happens, and those young loves that a
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: lot of times the best part of you is packed
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: in somebody else's memory of you.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: And so to have access back to those people actually is.
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: Good for you to remember who you are when you
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: lose your way, because you're gonna lose your way, so
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: love holds you there. So it is about the past,
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: the present, and the future. And I think that love
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: can take many different forms, you know, And you know,
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: I have my young one plays baseball and I've learned
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: a lot about watching him sit in the stands play baseball,
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: long games, long games. But what's beautiful about it is
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: everybody who walks into that batter's box has a different fight.
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: And so I often think about relationship. Right, did you
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: swing the bat? Did you have a they call it?
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: Did you have a good at bat? And sometimes you're
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: at bat, you strike out, but you still had a
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: good at bat. And I think that's what I think
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: love is about. Are we having a good at bat?
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: Are we swinging? Are we using our technique? Are we
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: using all the knowledge we've spent all week learning for
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: this one to two times we get to walk in
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: that batter's box and are we using it?
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Are we do we?
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Do we whatever the shoulders and the hips.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: And all that kinds of.
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: All those things, all those things you gotta do with
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: this ball coming at you eighty ninety miles an hour.
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: That's love And I think that I would like to
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: think that we can all approach it at a good
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: at that.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 56:21
  Speaker 8: I have one final question Regina King in her directing, Yes,
• 56:26
  Speaker 8: thank you for asking. Yeah, because okay, so I was
• 56:29
  Speaker 8: trying to look to see what the conversation around it
• 56:31
  Speaker 8: was online. But I remember when I first found out
• 56:33
  Speaker 8: that she was doing it, my first thought was, I
• 56:34
  Speaker 8: wonder what their conversations were like, like what changes she
• 56:37
  Speaker 8: made and what she brought to the screen, because I
• 56:39
  Speaker 8: heard you say a lot of it was about gear
• 56:40
  Speaker 8: life as a parent as well too.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: But no, it's you move. Let me be very clear.
• 56:46
  Speaker 6: I muse.
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: I have a muse entry point, and then once I
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: go into that entry point, then I become a journalist
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: almost and look at the world around and then that's.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: How I sort of craft my stories.
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: That said it's beautiful about the art form is that
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: the art form is a collaborative art form. I had
• 57:07
  Speaker 5: to sit in that chair. Judy had to sit in
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: that chair to write that book. I go look at
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: the book. I had to sit in that chair and
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: adapt that book. But one of the first phone calls
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: you make after you have a script, you call your
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: casting director Kim Coleman, and then the second immediate is
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: who is going to direct? And I called Regina King
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: and said, I think it's time for us to collaborate again.
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: She first Regina I first worked together when in early
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: in her directing career she directed episodes of Being Mary
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: Jane and she went off to have a really wonderful
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: directing career, and it was like, okay, I need you
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: to help. This's helped me reset the tone. We both
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: are mothers, we both love our sons. I needed Regina King,
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: I need that chemistry, her iconic performances as an actress.
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: I would love them rooted in these characters, especially helping
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: us launched this love story within these two young actors,
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: anchoring them and their chemistry and everybody knowing where they
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: are in this play, in this world. Then, of course
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: we built out the team and the decisions that we
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: make together, you know, finding Combio, who is our DP,
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: Suzuki our production designer. We collaborate on the ideas of
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: our you know, our costume, Minka and Tanja, these are
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: the principal storytellers that.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: We need to help tell our story.
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: Just helping to make those decisions together, it was really
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: lovely to help set the tone for it so that
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: we can take off and run. I mean, you know,
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: Anthony Hemingway coming in, Timby Banks, all of these major
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: decisions are editors, you know, Carolina and Naomi and just
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: Gary gunn Our composer kier Lehman. We put like it's
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: almost like speaking of baseball references, almost like you have
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: your baseball cards out, You're like, we should bring this
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: for this I got this for this thing. You kind
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: of put it together and it's fun to puzzle together.
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: It's fun to sort of collaborate on that level. So
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: she and my company Story twenty seven Hers Royal Ties,
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: we've come together to help set a bar of excellence
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: that we want the show to live in and thrive from.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: And you know what Season two is going.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: I'man, I have ideas. I still have to go through
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: the process.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: Part of well, I think another thing that makes me
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: successful is how I honor my partnerships and I come
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: into it respectfully and really to always garner that to
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: garner that energy back to me. But I have a
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: concept of what I need to do. I won't share
• 59:44
  Speaker 5: it until my partners are signed off on it. But
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: my next steps are me coming into a meeting ready
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: to talk to Netflix around Hey, this is where I
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: see it, and this is where I think it should go.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: Hearing their feedback, their concerns, taking that in consideration, sometimes
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: debating it for a while, but finding a way to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: communicate why I think it's the way it's to go,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: and if not, where is the compromise in that, and
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: feeling good about the artistic flexibility that I have to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: craft story to figure that out. So I'm looking forward
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: to that and success especially. You know, sometimes success can
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: make people tighten up too.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: Right, it's not playing tomorrow. Yeah, I hit after hitt
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: in multiple decades. Okay, streaming services, the linear television, give
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 6: her what she wants, that's right, including the fifty million
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: dollars for girlfriends we need.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: It's that simple.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: It's that simple. We've been talking about this. It's real.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: It's really that simple, and I'm excited. I think it's
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: gonna come. I don't know, I feel I feel it
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: like I don't know. Last time I was here, we
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: talked about it, and I think what was beautiful in
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: my journey at that time was for me to claim
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: the value and understand the boundaries and understand what it is.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know, just I think.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: And also this success breeds more success, so I kind
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: of feel, oh know, I kind of feel like I
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: think it's.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Time and a success Girlfriends just had on Netflix.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 8: Oh my god, oh my god, like they should see
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 8: generational success and people watch it.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: I watch that.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 8: I rewatched the whole thing with my mom and I
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 8: was like, this is so different, But.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: You know, it's fine.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: Finding out people are putting girlfriends on for their go
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: to sleep. It's their they call it their comfort TV
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: show that they put on and they just let it run.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: And some people let it run while they go to sleep.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: Blows my mind. Secondarily, my youngest son. I noticed that.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: He will tell me like his friends are watching it
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: and they think, I'm your mom is cool.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Because she does girl. So I still got street cred jobs,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: I still got it in the game. I'm up and
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: down all that up and down for thank you, thank you,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: thank you.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 6: And I don't know if people know, but nine to
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 6: eleven of this year marks twenty five years of Girlfriends
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: ago this.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: Year, so we need to make that announcement, right, it's time.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: That would be the announcement today.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: It only makes sense. The first episode was nine eleven,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: two thousand.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: Still looks so good, all of them still looks.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: I saw Tracy recently.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: We went to go see the Wiz went back on
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: the screen.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Did anybody see it on the screen?
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: Oh, you guys, I've seen the Wiz over and over,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: you know, but the Wiz on big screen. I haven't
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: seen that since I was a young girl. And Tracy
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: and I went together to go see it and we
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: had a ball. And it was also really fun to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: watch her watch her mom. It was kind of like, oh,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: this is like very meta, right, So that was amazing.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: Then Jill, Yeah, Jilly gold birthday party. So to your point,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: they look smashing.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: To it has to happen. It's going to happen. I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: know what's going to happen.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 6: Yes, because it's like the one black sitcom that we
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 6: really did not get any closure on whatsoever, and there's
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 6: so many loose ends to tie up.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: You know. It's really it's not just loose ENSEI it's
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: actually very relevant. I think it's a very karmic idea
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: to have the show have a ending in a film.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: I just want to do a movie because of where
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: we as a society have grown around the importance of relationships,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: and Tony and Joan breaking up I think has been
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: the hardest thing on the audience even over Joan not
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: getting her man, you know what I'm saying, And so
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: I think that that's an interesting thing to put back
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: in the chat.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: So it's still relevant to this day.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: It's like, how does friendship come back together or not
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: come back together? Right? Can you still find that love
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: of your life when you choose? You know what I'm
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: doing all right? By myself, I'm doing nothing. There's nothing
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: wrong with me for not having had a husband like
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: we But that was a different conversation back at the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: time we were producing that show to where we have
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: progressed today twenty five years later.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: There's a different.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: Value in society around relationships and friendship and how important
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: friendship is and the you know, the the sustaining of it,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: the care of it, the beauty of it, the complexity
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: of it.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, look at us grow.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: And then and then also this idea that you're not
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 5: broken because you're not in partnership romantically. It's not to
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: say that you don't want that, but understanding that there's
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: a different there's a different you know, entry point into
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: that that it's not just being married to be married.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: You want to be really partnered with your soulmate or
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: your you know those was a twin flame?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Which one it did? Whatever joy fair one it is,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: whichever one's the hot one?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: That one? No one.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 8: I was gonna say, So Joan is, you can't say anything,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 8: but Joan is, actually she does still want to be
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 8: married and be with a person or she's just gonna
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 8: do it.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: But I'm just talking about where we left her. And
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna give it. It's funny because like it
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: sounds like you're not doing all by herself still. I'm
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: just talking about where we are in society again, because
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: she would be shared with you guys very openly that
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: my writing process, My writing process is like who am
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: I musing on? And then you open up to seek
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: where society is the journalist in me, And that's where
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: we are. And that's all I'm sort of commenting on
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: in that where we left the show twenty five years,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: where society is. I feel the relevance of girlfriends is
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: almost matched to where our ending was. Yeah, wow, and
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: so and even and we've talked about their physical beauty
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: even that I'm saying, even how as you know that's important,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 5: you know, and and and also how do we get
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: there and what are we doing even my generation of women,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: which is also the generation of those women on girlfriends,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: We've pioneered a whole new conversation around We're openly going to.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: Talk about paramenopause and menopause.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: We're not going down like the previous generations being oki doped.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: By the lies over there.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: So it's like those there's so much to talk about,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: I think in a new a new iteration of the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: ending that we're still holding on to from twenty five
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: years ago.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: So it's an interesting thing.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 5: To hold on to in terms of like the details
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: of what I would do. I'm not going to share
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: that because that's my currency, you know, My ideas are
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: my currency. My craftsmanship is how I make you know,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: everybody got a dressed, but it's how I make the
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: dress right, you know.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: I'm excited for that opportunity. I just I don't know, energetically,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: I just feel it differently. I mean, because I'm on
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: your show now. See it's like it's like even that
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: is a beautiful omen right because we talked about it
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 5: last time I was there, and now I'm back and
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: we're talking about it again.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: Mean there's nothing guaranteed, but the girlfriends is a guaranteed.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: I don't care what nobody why global easily.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: I want to show you this opposedly this last week,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: now that we're grown, which friend was the most toxic?
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Why did you leave?
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 6: Because we're her own now, so we have a different
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 6: perception of all of them.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Uh Todd?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: Todd?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 6: Todd had no business, You had no business maritime, But honestly,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 6: people always leave Lenn out. Lynn would be considered very
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 6: toxic nowadays because she didn't have no boundaries.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: She didn't respect nobody's boundaries.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: I think she was the most at one with herself,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: was the.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 6: Only one that was unproblematic to me. But Lynn didn't
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 6: respect anybody's boundaries. I have interesting theories about Joan and
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 6: uh Tony.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you, why did you use the word toxic?
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: I reposed to me that was just a conversation starter,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: But why did you repost that conversation starter?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 6: I think I think that they had traits that could
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 6: be considered toxic.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: You know what I want to say about that?
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: What I love about the vulnerability and the complex city
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: of the characters that later they can be analyzed yes,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: and give some language about what they were brave enough
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 5: to be. And what I look at between the generations
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: is that when we there's this generations, we have more
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 5: language to label things, to label it. I feel like
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: those characters and so the word toxic, I just sort
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 5: of underscore, highlight and circle because that can be this
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: blanket over them that doesn't deserve to be there.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: And that's what I'm saying is that we are complex. Now.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: I'm not saying that the complexity means you need to
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: be friends with them for a lifetime. You may only
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 5: complex for a while, you know. I'm not saying you
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: can't grow from them. I can't say you might, like
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: I said, you might not have a good at bat
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: and strike out.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: But I don't know. I just I want to be
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: I think it's.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: Important to examine, but not hold the label true and
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: what because one of the things that Lynn represents to
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 5: me and what she I think represented to the generation
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 5: that was actually beautiful.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: Is that.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: At the time that I was writing that series, all
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: black women were presented that they knew exactly who they
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 5: are what they needed to be in.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Order to be accepted. Lynn represented she didn't know but
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: she was still loved even in her sexual like she was.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 8: That was probably like the first time I ever saw
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 8: a woman, black woman on camera that she was queer,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 8: but like, we didn't know really what that was.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: We didn't know that. Yeah, I just thought Lynn was
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: just like the girl who just did whatever she wanted
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 8: And everybody has that friend, yes, and those friends they
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 8: have to be strong in themselves to a certain extent
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 8: because you're so different than everybody else.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: And if you think about len and you put it
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: in this new drugs, she was break the no boundaries.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 5: She was actually instead of it being toxic, she was
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: actually being progressive. Most people would align queerness to progressive thought, right.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 5: She was challenging notions why one could say the way
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: she lived her life was communal living, which is now
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 5: a conversation for the future.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying how.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: We look at things and being careful not to I
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: think it's beautiful to analyze because that's how we progress,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 5: but be careful not to then blanket everything with labels.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: Let's go back to forever. In twenty eighteen, we were
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: saying ADHD. Twenty twenty five, we're saying you're divergent. Language
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: keeps changing as we understand ourselves. And I think that's
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: an interesting thing about the power of language. And one
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: of the things I want to be mindful of, especially
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: in our community, is how quick we are to say, Oh, he's.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Toxic, she's toxic, toxic, toxic, toxic.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: I would love to say, Okay, maybe that aspect of
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: that person needs some development, needs some growth. Don dj Mbi, Mara, Don,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: we are in this, Okay, our guilt fear. Maybe as
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: parents we need to release that, understand what it is,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 5: and let it go.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: But just be careful not to keep blanketing us.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: And our desire to grow and our desire to urge,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 5: you know, and get whole. So that's what I would say.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 5: I think what I love about the collection of those women,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: those characters is as complicated or toxic as they were,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: even in that we deserve love and they were trying
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 5: to figure it out, and they're different ways to stay
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 5: together and their friendship and then their respective relationships, you know,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 5: and and that how do we move forward together in
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: the complexity of us.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Just Carrie and Samantha fell out and nobody called them
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: toxic when they.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 8: They did know people people so toxic. You to the
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 8: first person I can remember say that. People feel like
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 8: Carrie is like was wronged by Samantha, and Samantha is
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 8: just his free friend who just eventually. They still want
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 8: to see him get back together as friends. People want
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 8: Jill to never speak to Jone again.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: No, that's not true.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: People feel like they were bad friends to each other.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 6: Maybe, but that's not true. We definitely want them to
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: get back together. That's part of the closure. We want
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 6: to see if Jill and Joan become friends again.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Arguing do you guys know? But I'm asking you guys,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: do you really? I know you do? Charlayne, you are
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: very clear about wanting to see a movie.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: You are sixteen.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 5: I want to also say I'm always going to take
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 5: a moment to say thank you because you also that
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 5: means a lot to me as a storyteller, Like wow,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 5: that that level of impact on you and even the
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 5: fact that me and Judy Bloom are the same thing.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: So I'm a thank you.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: Now, you three you want to are you going to
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 5: go spend some money at the theater to go see
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 5: a girl walk to the theater.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to be in the damn Yes, I agree.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: My wife is taking me there so fast.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 6: It would be an event. There's not too many events anymore.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 6: It would be an event.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: I think so too. I think peopleoul dress up.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: I think people on this nice dress and.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: Be something.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 8: You asked on Sherry Shepherd for her to open her phone.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 8: She knows somebody with fifty million dollars these too, Yeah.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: Who you got in your phone? Let's call somebody. Yeah,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, let's call somebody. Yes, thank you
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: for joining us, thank you for having me.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: It's on Netflix now. We appreciate it. It's a long conversation.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: We appreciate it.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: I loved it, and I love what you say.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 6: You've always been so intentional, and you're right. Girlfriends gave
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 6: us a lot of a lot of vocabulary.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: I had another question, but it gave us a lot
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 5: to It gave us a lot to have a conversation about.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 5: And I think that's really where everything is at is communication,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 5: have conversation, share ideas. Were not all we're going to agree,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: but I think we all get to know each other.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: But what do you want for ever? To get people
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: permission to do?
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: And that's my last question, I promised, what do I
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: want forever love?
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: I want people to think more about love in every
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 5: aspect of their life. And actually, even if we're older,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 5: that it's okay to want that that first love kind
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 5: of feeling. Like what do we need to do to
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: get back to that.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: First love kind of feeling? I don't know.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 5: I just think it's I think as a human spirit,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 5: having a human experience, dancing with love all the time, it's.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Got to be our top endeavor. So that's what I want.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: Marl Rocker Kill. We appreciate you so much. We love you,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: we value you, appreciate you and all your work.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: That's right, Thank you. I really appreciate being here. Thank you.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: It's the breakfast Club.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club.