In the article titled “'Every Single Word Spoken' By Actors Of Color,” actor Dylan Marron’s project that aims to uncover the amount of Hollywood discrimination was discussed. However, he acknowledged how he was neither the first nor the only one to shed light on it. Another group has taken a stance on the issue in the form of a podcast called "Black Men Can't Jump in Hollywood."
The podcast, soon to be launched by a new podcast network called "HeadGum," created by College Humor, stars Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld and features three actors in New York providing comedic commentary on the underrepresentation of black actors in Hollywood. The trio consists of Jonathan Braylock, James III and Jerah Milligan with their inaugural episode delving into how few black actors there are and discussing their plans for the future.
“The premise of this show is that we are going to be reviewing films with leading black men, but the criteria is that it has to be a studio made film — no indie films,” Braylock said early on in the episode. “Here’s the thing — we wanna know why Hollywood finds it so, so difficult to cast black men in leading roles of major motion pictures.”
After giving a brief outline of what kind of content to expect, the three went on to discuss how popular black actors are a rarity. They bring up Will Smith, Denzel Washington and — that’s it.
“Actually guys, we've got Denzel,” Milligan said. “We might as well stop. We got two.”
While they do go on to mention Samuel Jackson, Don Cheadle and Idris Elba, Braylock argues against them by saying they haven’t led a movie in a long time. He also argues that there are movies catered to black audiences, yet none that are “only” for white people.
Another issue that the group brought up is that Hollywood often makes excuses for why black men aren't cast in major films.
“Hollywood has a few reasons why it doesn’t cast black men,” Braylock said. “…Sometimes you'll hear this: ‘we couldn't cast a black actor because we couldn't find someone that had enough 'box office appeal.'”
They then went on to discuss how actor Hayden Christensen was relatively unknown and still was given a major role in "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith." They followed up by talking about how Sam Worthington, leading actor in "Avatar," was a part of one of the most successful films of all time and yet has not made major headlines since. This relates back to Marron’s Washington Post interview where he asked, “… why are we using white people to tell these universal stories? And what is that saying?”
This first episode shows promise for the group of actors as their points echo sentiments shared by many. Their ability to balance serious racial issues with relatable comedy makes this podcast one to watch out for.
Be sure to listen to their first episode and follow them on Tumblr and Spreaker for future updates!
