- [Charlamagne] Hollywood is being rebuilt,
by artists not afraid to disrupt the status quo,
telling fresh stories, and bringing to life characters
who until now, had been confined to the margins.
This is Emerging Hollywood.
- You know, I'm sure it's hard enough, right,
to get things done as an Asian American writer, right.
But you connect with another minority,
you and Aziz, and y'all tried to get a whole show sold.
Did you ever have any reservations about that?
- I just was like, man, this guy is so talented.
He has such a strong point of view.
He works harder than anyone I know.
I have a strong work ethic, I go crazy.
And on that show, I was like, oh this guy and me,
we really connected and we are friends.
We didn't think twice. He came into my office and was like,
let's do a show together.
And we're talking about it, as Parks was winding down.
And we're like, we want to be in New York,
and we want to do 10 episodes a year,
not 30 episodes or something.
- When you and Aziz were creating this show,
what did you want to say about the lives of the characters?
- Well, we just wanted to be authentic to our experience.
We didn't go in with a message, like,
this is what we want to say
about Indian people, Asian people.
It's more like, what are we going through?
When we sit down at dinner, what are we talking about?
And then you go from there.
And I feel like when stuff has that
kernel of emotional truth,
it starts to resonate with people.
- What do you do when you put together a writers' room,
and you have diversity there,
but the diverse people aren't really that good?
- (laughs) That's sticky situation, right?
You gotta hire the best people, man.
You gotta hire the best people.
And that's a tough thing, and ideally
you find people who are totally different from you
and are better than you.
That's the goal, right?
- How did you connect with Jay-Z,
to direct the Moonlight video?
- I got a call from my agent,
and they were like, are you in L.A. right now?
And I'm like, yeah, I'm getting on a flight
in four hours or something like that.
Would you want to meet with Jay-Z in the next two hours?
And I'm like, yeah, let's do it, so.
He had this video going, he ended up
interviewing his manager that meeting, then I met him later.
But they're like, let's play you the song.
I was like, okay, and me listening to this song
Moonlight over the phone for 30 seconds.
And then she's like, all right, what do you got?
I was like, can I get 24 hours?
Can I get some time?
She's like, okay, 24 hours,
and so I had two ideas and the crazier one
was the one we ended up going with, which is--
- Taking a very white show, frankly.
- Let's do a shot for shot remake
of an entire episode of Friends,
and just have an all black cast.
And then he was like, yeah, tell me about Friends.
I don't know that much about Friends.
And I'm like, believe me,
it's a show that white people love.
It was the show, and to me, it was representative
of the monoculture of the 90s, and the way that
you couldn't escape that.
And there's pros and cons, but one of the cons was
there's nobody who looks like us on that show
for 11 seasons or whatever, it was so crazy.
And so, it was funny, I actually did a round table
for the Hollywood Reporter, I think
and another person at the round table
was Marta Kauffman who created Friends.
And I had this secret that I was about to
shoot this video in two days
and I didn't tell her obviously, but--
- Are there any comparisons to be made between
the experiences of black artists
and Asian artists in Hollywood?
- Yeah, yeah, I think it's a marginalization thing too.
And often in opposite ways, in terms of the genders.
Asian men has generally been emasculated, right,
demasculinized, and historically,
black men have often been over-sexualized, the reverse.
And similarly, Asian women have been over-sexualized,
and black women have been de-sexualized.
And they were literally taking'em out of movies.
There's a movie called Romeo Must Die--
- I remember that.
- Remember Jet Li-- - and Aaliyah.
- [Alan] And they had a scene where they kiss
and they cut it out of the movie.
- [Charlamagne] I didn't know that.
- And it just, that is part of the
systematic demasculinization, if that's a word,
I don't know if it is,
but demasculinization of Asian American male.
Culture affects how we behave.
- That's true.
- Because the people who are least responded to
on dating apps are Asian men and black women.
- Well, that leaves more sisters for the Asian men,
if they really, you know what I mean?
- (laughs) Yeah, yeah.
- Let's talk about the Asian experience.
Has whitewashing finally stopped,
when it comes to Asian--
- I would never say it stopped.
Every time you think it stopped, they do it again,
so, you know, it's really the most disappointing
when they're characters that are based on Asian characters
and they still don't give it to an Asian actor.
Because if you're not gonna give us that,
we're not getting the normal shit either, so.
So, when are we gonna start, you know, so.
It is frustrating, but that's why it's really important
that there are Asian people behind the scenes,
behind the camera, writing, showrunning, directing
and also Asian people who are executives,
who are green lighting these movies.
- Does Hollywood care when y'all complain?
Do they hear you all?
- That's a good question.
We had a scene in Master of None about this in season one.
And it was kind of about how Asian and Indian people
don't really have a voice
and that's changing over time,
I mean, we're gaining a little bit of ground,
we're gaining a little bit of steam.
But look, we're behind.
We're just starting, we're just babies,
we're infants right now, so.
We don't expect the same representation yet,
but we're getting there and we're building on it.
- Have you ever had a white person
complain about you writing for them?
- Hasn't come up yet, I guess they're very tolerant.
No, not really, not really.
You know, Kenya Barris, who created Black-ish
said something interesting to me once.
He said, we don't get the reverse criticism very often
because you've learned their culture.
I feel like I know a lot about white culture.
I saw a lot of white culture-- - Yeah, absolutely.
- So I don't think a lot of white people saw
a lot of Asian American culture necessarily,
unless they were specifically exposed to it for some reason.
- Yeah, because as minorities,
we're forced to know about them,
but they're not necessarily forced to know about us.
- You gotta know about it, yeah.
- For survival, almost. - Yeah, man.
- Well it's a money thing too, right?
These Hollywood types are like,
look, just not a lot of Asians here.
I would rather cater to this other demo,
'cause there's just more of them, right?
You don't think so?
- Yeah, there's not a lot of guys who look like the Rock.
How many Samoans are in America?
He's making money-- - That is a fact.
- It's a special person, that's what it is.
You know what I mean, it's like,
I'm going to watch the Rock, whether or not I look like him.
- So what do you do, get an Asian guy
and put him in the gym, put him on some steroids?
- Yeah man, make a star, make a star, right?
Give me one, that's what y'all mean.
By the way, you're not doing anyone any favors
if you put someone in a movie and they're not ready.
Aziz and I talked about it before.
You can't just give people shows,
because if it's bad, it doesn't do us any favors.
It's gotta be great.
Our goal really was like, let's make this show
the best show that it can be
and one of the better shows out there, because
that's when it starts to really move the needle.
- Yeah, don't give me diversity for the sake of diversity.
Give me diversity because it's good.
'Cause the truth of the matter is,
when it's really good, you forget what you're even watching.
- Exactly, exactly, yeah.
You know, you watch Mad Men, it's really good.
So you're gonna make a show that's really good.
That's really, you gonna live up to that?
That's really high standard, you know.
So you gotta work as hard you can,
you gotta be ready, and you gotta
really really carry yourself to make it,
up to the standard.
(funky music)