This is in response to a blog post on the website "The Root" that was written by Dr. Todd Boyd. In the article, Boyd postulates loosely why August Wilson's excellent play "Fences" has not been made into a movie. The full text can be found here:
http://www.theroot.com/views/why-august-wilson-was-no-tyler-perry
I understand that the audience Dr. Boyd is addressing here is probably a pretty receptive audience and one that forgives him for the numerous unfair and untrue generalizations that he makes throughout the piece. However, the notion that somehow Hollywood is incapable of understanding August Wilson's work is, quite frankly, horse manure. I am a school teacher that has taught "Fences" for ten years. I teach to classes that range in diversity from all black classes to classes that are all white. The kids get it. They love the play. I am a white man. I get it. Because of the coarse language and sometimes uncomfortable language, I historically read the play of the part of Troy. With five English classes every day, I have grown to play the part quite convincingly and it has always been the highlight of the year. This article strikes me to be incredibly pompous, dismissive and extremely blind to the realities of the world...and, more specifically, the actual events surrounding the adaptation of "Fences" into a movie.
Troy's own rendering of history comes into question in the play as he complains constantly to everyone who will listen, that the white man and white society kept him from playing baseball. His wife Rose gently points out that he was "too old" to play. What she really meant was...was that Troy was in jail for murder for fifteen years from the time he was 19 until the time he was 34. Not too many baseball teams then or now were taking in 34 year old felons and murderers...no matter how many home runs they hit on the grounds outside cell block six. Dr. Boyd also loses a sense of history when he dismisses the facts surrounding the adaptation of “Fences” into a movie, owing to the fact that it has never been made really is all about the clueless white figureheads in Hollywood that don’t get the play or the black experience.
“Fences” was a huge success on Broadway in 2010, with the star power of Denzel Washington to be sure. But it also had something to do with the quality of the play. People saw it as such and kept coming. James Earl Jones in 1987 also played the part of Troy and was extremely well reviewed as well. It swept the Tony's that year with best screenplay, actor and actress. So people like it. My students very much want to see this play made into a film. But Dr. Boyd leaves out an even more important part of the equation. Namely, that Paramount purchased the rights to the play in 1987. Now, when a studio buys a film, it is theirs and they can do with it as they please. They can change the entire cast to be white...but ultimately, they are in the driver's seat. However, Paramount wanted August Wilson to be a part of the project. So they consulted with him and gave him a voice in the direction a film was going to go.
What happened in 1987 was that August Wilson met with the studio executives to discuss the direction of the play being adapted to film. The first issue right out of the block was that August Wilson wanted a black director. He demanded a black director. The studio was not comfortable with accepting the mandate and the project sat on the shelf. It continued to sit on the shelf until 1990 when the studio once again met with Wilson. Wilson again insisted that the film be produced by an African American and the film went away.
The play was written in 1983. The play came to Broadway in 1987. Hollywood jumped on the play in that same year it appeared on Broadway. It seems that even to the layperson, that those "superficial doofus[es]" in Hollywood seemed to have seen some promise in the play and wanted to make a film. It is also extremely apparent that August Wilson hurt the chances of the play being made into a movie by his own admission.
Ironically, much like his short-sighted protagonist Troy Maxson, August Wilson held firm to the belief that no one was capable of understanding the kinds of experiences these characters were going through other than black men and black women. In an op-ed piece Wilson wrote for "Spin Magazine" in 1990 and later reprinted in the "New York Times", Wilson explained the vast array of differences between black and white societies. He also explained that the film was ready to be made, but that a promising white director was ready to do it and, ultimately, Wilson refused to allow that to happen.
Quote:
"I declined a white director not on the basis of race but on the basis of culture. White directors are not qualified for the job. The job requires someone who shares the specifics of the culture of black Americans."
August Wilson, "Spin Magazine", October 1990
(for the full Wilson editorial: http://obensonreport.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-want-black-director.html)
I understand and understood Wilson's point of view on the matter. I disagree with Wilson, to a degree, but that is not why I wrote this response. The editorial does paint a very divided society of black and white and even harkens back to the mindset of Malcolm X of how and what whites think about blacks. But again, this is not my focus here. Rather, the facts and quotes that I bring to this forum were not addressed by Dr. Boyd. They never existed. He paints a picture that clueless, dismissive Hollywood has no time for good, true Black American films. Again...excrement. The play was BOUGHT and made ready for film production by Hollywood, but was never made because the right director wasn't found. This isn't only a black phenomenon. There are countless stories and scripts that are picked up by studios and many more that are not and these films never get made. To opine so with distortions and generalizations is harmful to the uninformed readers of this piece and carries with it unfair stereotypes.
Perhaps with Wilson's death and the success of Denzel Washington’s Broadway revival, the road to seeing "Fences" making it to the silver screen is possible. I know virtually every student that I have ever had would go to see it as well. I also know that there will be one teacher in that audience who will be there mouthing the words of Troy:
"Ain't nothing wrong talking about death. That's part of life. Everybody gonna die. You gonna die, I'm gonna die. Bono's gonna die. Hell, we all gonna die."
That's EVERYBODY, Dr. Boyd. Blacks and whites. Doofuses and professors.
