Post by Moses on Mar 24, 2005 0:25:19 GMT -5
Found at: www.gotriad.com/article/articleprint/14642/-1/53/
History of black America inspires actor/filmmaker[/size]
By JERI ROWE, Go Triad
(Thursday, March 17, 2005 1:00 am)
I first knew Tim Reid as Venus Flytrap. Maybe you did, too. He played the hip DJ with the cool, wide-lapel threads who gave “WKRP in Cincinnati,” a CBS series from 1978-82, its edge and much-needed dose of color in a very white-guy show.
But talk to Reid about his own hip origins — you know, where he saw the real Venus Flytraps — and he’ll bring up “Colored Town.” That was where Reid grew up, in a tough, working-class section in Norfolk, Va., where whites rarely tread and blacks survived on their wits and with the help of each other.
Reid lived there with his grandmother in a boarding house she ran. The five-room house is gone, but Reid hasn’t forgotten that place or its people. He remembers Redbone and Rufus, Lucille and Clyde, the woman he called “Grandma” and his own numbers-playing relative, the hustler he knew as Uncle Joe.
To Reid, this is black America. I would expect he’ll talk about that Friday at N.C. A&T. It’s just that he doesn’t see enough of those rich slices of black life on big or small screens, and he wants people to understand there’s more to the history of black America than just “Roots.”<br>
And for nearly three decades, ever since he slid into Venus Flytrap’s cool threads, he’s told people that.
In the late 1970s, after going to actor’s school and doing stand-up comedy in a topless club, Reid auditioned for the role of Venus Flytrap. He told the network TV’s white-guy cartel that he thought Venus was a shuck-and-jive stereotype. Many higher-ups blew him off, except the director, a white Southerner named Hugh Wilson.
Wilson told Reid he was the first actor to audition who mentioned that. Then, he said something that changed Reid’s professional life forever. He said, “Let’s find that guy together.” Reid got the part.
In 1987, Reid slipped into the TV skin of Frank Sadler on “Frank’s Place,” a half-hour show about life in a New Orleans’ restaurant. Man, that show rocked. It had that great theme song from Louis Armstrong and showed all too well the Crescent City’s funky subculture, voodoo, zydeco and all. But “Frank’s Place” seemed too smart for network TV. It barely survived a year on CBS. Yet, Reid earned an Emmy nod.
Then, in 1997, prodded by the entrepreneurial spirit he first saw in “Colored Town,” he spotted his dream just up the road in Petersburg, Va. He and his wife, Daphne Maxwell Reid, plunked down $11 million and turned a soybean field into a 60-acre moviemaking spot he calls New Millennium Studios.
Now, Reid directs and produces independent films. He travels the world looking for good stories because he believes in the universal appeal of such a tale, particularly ones about black America. Talk to him about it, and Reid’s voice takes flight.
“I’m just passionate about that little black community I grew up in, and I look for ways in every story I do to pay respects and honor the people who came before me,” says Reid, 58.
“The thing is, I’m just frustrated because I feel like we’ve overlooked some of the history of black America. We helped build this country, but we are ashamed of what we’ve done. We survived the most brutal, dehumanizing things put on any group of human beings, and today we’re astronauts and everything you can think of in less than 100 years.
“These are the same people who were slaves and couldn’t speak the language, and yet we survived. And we don’t want to write about that?”
If you go Friday night, you’ll hear Reid talk about the power of the media. He’ll urge students to think beyond the quick-millions, bling-bling world of entertainment and emphasize the need to find those captivating stories from people of color, both here and across the globe.
He’s found some of them. And he’s talked about them in the past. Like the story about Henry “Box” Brown, a slave from Virginia who packed himself in a crate and was shipped to freedom in the North. Or the one about Valida Snow, the Tennessee woman who could speak seven languages, survived a World War II concentration camp and was named by no other than Louis Armstrong as the second best trumpet player in the world.
To Reid, those stories need to be told.
“They lived such incredible lives,” he says. “It’s a big world out there, and you can inspire people with these stories. Man, that is what life is all about. I’m in the inspiration business, not the victimization business.”
Your talk at A&T is called "Black Images In The Media.'' What are they?
I cover it from historical perspectives, just the power of the media and how it shapes our opinions and attitudes. I mean, all media - sports and magazines - show us how we view our world and the people of our world.
It's not an indictment of the media, but I'm saying, let's look at the image of black America from the very beginning, and when you do, you can see a striking rhythm of attitudes in life based on the current popular view of black America. We were viewed as beasts of burden … and now we have young black Americans seen as aggressive young bucks.
So, you want that changed …
"It's like the slogan, 'Guns don't kill people. People kill people.' You try to reach the people who create those images and get them to be as objective as possible so they can make better judgments rather than snap judgments. Just get to know people better. And when that happens, the media can be a powerful tool if that is your goal. I mean, all these channels, and we know more about wildebeests in the Serengeti than we do about the suburbs of L.A.
In a 2003 speech at Barber-Scotia College near Concord, you told students interested in filmmaking the need to show a world beyond hip-hop culture. Talk to me about that.
What I meant was don't let the pop culture or entertainment media define your culture. Now, that's not an indictment of hip-hop. It's a powerful force in pop culture today. But don't allow Nike or Gatorade or McDonalds who are using this hip-hop phenomenon to further their brand to define your culture and be the engine of the train. Look at the whole hip-hop phenomenon. Seventy percent of the hip-hop music made is bought by white kids. It's a white phenomenon, not a black one, and to think it's actually defined in America by the black community.
Just ask yourself, 'Who's really driving the culture? The black community or the media?''
You've talked to many what you call "young minds.'' What have you found?
I've met so many young kids who want to be in communications or in the entertainment industry and they don't ask questions or seek out answers. I tell them that with people like myself, they should challenge them. That's what communications is all about.
So what are you trying to do?
I'm just trying to get young minds majority in communications, theater or the media to take seriously their craft. They are in the developmental stage. They need more information. It is show business, but its' the business of show. It's not all glamour and glitz. That is what we sell - the sizzle - but the steak that people devour is the business.
I know you haven't seen "Diary of a Mad Black Woman,'' the year's first underground hit. But is that film an example of what you're talking about?
Tyler Perry (the film's 35-year-old director) did his thing in small theaters and he knew everything about his movie. He did his business first. He knew every laugh. He honed that story, put his own money into it and people wanted to see it.
Black people spend 25 cents to every dollar they make. Now, I've heard people say, 'Blacks don't go to movies.' Give me a break. (Perry) knew what they wanted to see and he made millions. He knew his audience, and his audience came out to see (his film).
And the lesson in this is …?
(Students) have to be goal oriented. (Perry) had the passion, and he wasn't going to be stopped. You could learn that from Babe Ruth. Whether you're talking about making movies or hitting home runs or building a coffee franchise, the basic elements of being successful are the same. You need the same information, the same passion and understand the person you're selling to. When you don't do your homework, it's more difficult to you.
I hate the term 'bling-bling,' but young people I see in these seminars want to make a lot of money and get the nice cars. They're in it for the glitz and glamour. But I ask them, 'Where would your heart be after 30 years of barely surviving?' Nine times out of 10 they say they're not going to do it. They want to make millions of dollars, live in mansions in Beverly Hills and have lunch with Halle Berry or Denzel Washington. But the reality of it, a small percentage of them will be successful.
Are the students you talk to listening to you?
Time will tell. But the majority of them aren't. But I don't think in those terms. I'm not trying to build an army. I want to the business to be good for moviemaking.
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