oh my gosh i have a quote from you i
saved it on my phone
shattering the glass ceiling pew pew pew
[Applause]
hey everyone i am latoya rapino i'm an
executive producer and writer and a
director for the proud family louder and
prouder and i'm tar nicole whitaker
director of the animated series the
proud family louder and prouder so
latoya thank you so much for joining me
here on disney plus voices to discuss
what we know has been historical lack of
representation of black women in the
media especially in animation i'm so
glad we get to talk about this and
everything this show is doing to change
that tell me about your st lucian
background and how that has influenced
your work on the proud family louder and
powder i i just feel like you don't see
a lot of stories about black people from
like other parts of the diaspora and on
proud family it was the first time i got
to tell a story about like
a character that isn't like that is
black from
caribbean descent or black from like
afro-latinx descent it's cool how the
proud family looks at different versions
of being like a black person and like
really validates and celebrates that
absolutely yeah you're killing it like i
you are the first black female director
i've ever worked with and
it's been amazing working with you
likewise girl
can you share how you got into directing
animation and how your family influenced
your career i was always reading you
know about animation and about film even
when i was pretty little
and both of my parents were really
creative in their own way so they always
really supported my interest in the arts
and it was always something that was in
the house when i grew up you know my mom
would be singing and i would be drawing
and painting
um so you know very grateful and and
feel so fortunate to have two black
parents that were very supportive of me
at an early age yeah
so when we talk about being historically
left out of these positions of power in
the media how do you feel about that
because i mean i know it makes me feel
some kind of way
oh yeah i feel i do feel like the
responsibility to tell true and
authentic stories as much as i can
and i think about how representation
from the top down matters especially
when it comes to
how black folks are represented in tv as
a black woman um
what made the proud family louder and
prouder different from any other
projects you've directed and what made
it so special two things that i think
stand out to me this is the first show
i've ever worked on where the main
character
and
90 of the supporting characters are
either black or persons of color it is
also the first show i've ever worked on
where i am not the only black person on
the show i've only ever worked where i
am literally the only person
in this space making this project that
can speak to the usually one like black
character that we are portraying and it
felt like there was kind of this like
pressure to to be like oh what would you
as a black person do and i'm like i am
not the ambassador for black
so like i just it's so nice not having
to be the ambassador for black people
exactly
exactly exactly you know in my
experiences a lighter skin black woman
is going to be very very different from
someone who's deeper toned so it's like
i can't speak for all of us you know
what i mean like
but i have felt you know um
empowered to use my position to you know
address colorism as much as i can in my
artwork i'm sure this happened on some
of your episodes where it's like you've
had conversations about character skin
tones and kind of tried to keep track of
like how is this character portrayed
what is their skin tone as much as
possible not falling into like oh this
darker complected character is cast as
this or this lighter complected
character's cast as this and i do feel
you know that pressure and
responsibility to try and
you know
represent us in the best flight possible
which is you know it's an
it's an incredible task and and it's
almost it's almost too much i can't you
know represent all of us obviously i'm
curious like did being the only black
person and the only black woman in those
rooms were you tailoring your behavior
because of that at all um you know i did
feel the pressure to always give you
know 200 percent to everything i was
working on
um and you know that is a lot of
pressure that i put on myself because
you know i wanted to
open the door for the next generation of
young black artists so i was like i have
to do well personally because you're the
beta test yeah exactly yeah and i wanted
to make sure i was opening doors for the
next round of young black creatives i do
totally agree that having
a proud family especially having like
bruce and ralph kind of
creating this space where everybody felt
super safe and i've never been on a show
like that before where
i was i was allowed to
vocalize
the way that things seemed maybe that
they could be more authentically
portrayed or they could be more like
genuine or lean into something like oh
actually when i was a 14 year old black
girl this is what i did so like yeah
that was that was life-changing man
exactly exactly and i feel like we did
have a very you know diverse crew and
anyone who had you know strong feelings
about anything were you know encouraged
to speak up and bring their thoughts to
the table so what are your thoughts on
the representation of the lgbtq plus
community and the evolution of the
traditional family dynamics in this
series that was really incredible to me
that the show went the places it went
when talking about like lgbtq plus um
you know subject matter i identify as
you know a queer woman and it it it hit
home for me because i have you know had
these sorts of conversations with my mom
i think that showing
the evolution of oscar's mentality
towards the lgbtq experience and um
black lgbtq people was super reflective
of what it felt like like as a black
lgbtq plus person i'm really proud of
what we're
what we did and i think we are just
starting to scratch the surface um and i
think that's a wonderful thing but i i
would look forward to the day where
it is normalized and you know
there's multiple characters yeah because
there's i mean and it's like not all
they are right like that's that's i
think when it when you'll know that oh
it's fully normalized is when it's not
like this whole story is about how this
character is queer so yeah exactly what
was it like for you to work on a series
like the proud family labyrinth prouder
with such a strong female lead like
penny do you think it will influence and
change the next generation of children i
do have a very special episode that's
dear to my heart where they're speaking
out and standing up to injustice and and
racism and i think it's just a powerful
thing for kids to see that hey you know
your voice matters what you do matters
you you know might be young but you
still have the power to make a change
were you a penny like do you do you feel
like you had a voice to kind of speak up
against these sorts of things i really
did feel like my words mattered my
thoughts mattered
um and
yeah i definitely
let my voice uh ring loud and proud
whenever i was always a rebel
yes i went through kind of this weird
ebb and flow of having a voice where
it's like when i was a little kid i was
a diva and then i guess somewhere around
like late middle school high school i
don't know what happened but i felt like
i was suddenly very aware of the fact
that i was the only black person in my
group of friends i i started to like
quiet myself and because i didn't want
to be like you know the angry black
woman i feel like i forgot how to feel
the emotion of anger for a long time
because i was like never be mad you
never be mad
and i feel like the proud family has
really
i don't know if you feel the star but
like it's kind of given me permission to
like just be me again like in a way i
haven't been in a long time
absolutely what would you say are the
pitfalls of being at the forefront of
authentically portraying black lives i
feel like it's challenging or it's
especially challenging because
when you're the first
you are going to do things wrong i want
to hear the black community's response
to this portrayal so we can keep getting
better at the portraying of black people
absolutely we have not all had the same
experiences
um you know some some things connect us
all obviously um but i think when
there's more diversity and
representation in tv and film overall
you know more stories representing more
of us can be told so it's not like you
know we have to try and fit every black
experience into like 20 minutes
the only way to kind of show different
types of black experiences is to have
different types of black people on the
screen and i i really loved djanae for
this because i feel like she's become
such a complex character and i love that
and i really hope in the next seasons we
get to push these characters more out of
their archetypes because yeah we just
need more more black people
more and more more and more
how do you think we can pass on the
lessons that we've learned and
get more representation on both sides of
the camera i think we need to recognize
that young black creatives looking to
break into the industry are well of
untapped potential you know and
creativity as much as anyone else and
they just need to be given a shot i
think we just need these the studios and
i'm really grateful to what bruce did
and what disney allowed us to do
kind of putting untested black talent
that have the skills but not the
experience right yeah into these shows
and just watching them thrive exactly
exactly girl has been really great
connecting with you today always hang
out let's do this again absolutely you
know it makes my day to see you um but
thank you so much for joining me in this
amazing conversation literally anytime
thank you everyone for joining us on
disney plus voices and please make sure
to watch the proud family louder and
prouder now streaming on disney plus
you