Justin Simien is out to show Black creativity has always been integral to Hollywood's success

Director Justin Simien emphasizes in MGM+ series 'Hollywood Black' that Black talent has been a part of Hollywood from day one.

Director, writer and producer Justin Simien, who a decade ago crashed through the Hollywood gates with his Sundance-winning film “Dear White People,” doesn’t approach his four-part MGM+ documentary series, “Hollywood Black,” from the perspective of Hollywood letting Black talent in. Instead, he emphasizes how Black talent or at least the concept of Blackness has been a part of Hollywood from day one.

“From its very beginnings, Hollywood has been fascinated with Blackness,” Simien says in the first episode. “Not only are we the first subjects in early motion pictures, but we are also the subject of the first blockbusters, early animation and, of course, the first talkie.”

The Houston native, who takes his cues from iconic Black Hollywood historian Donald Bogle’s 2019 book of the same name, told NBC News that the series is personally meaningful — it is what he, himself, needed.

“So many times in my career, I reached for a documentary about our experience in film, and there just wasn’t one there,” he said. “And sometime around 2020, I was having a dark night of the soul moment in Hollywood. I was successful on the outside. I sold my second feature. I was in the third season of my show based on my first feature. And it just hurt. It just hurt every day to do what I love, and I didn’t understand why it was difficult in ways that were hard to articulate,” said Simien, who recently directed the feature film “The Haunted Mansion.” 

The director said he first turned to Bogle’s other seminal work, “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks,” a book he had read in high school.“But it hit different,” he said, “and I realized that the focus was more on the actors in that book, what they were going through, and it just felt like my present-day experience. I could see how my experience was a continuum.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/hollywood-black-mgm-justin-simien-director-rcna167494

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