{"id":142881,"date":"2022-11-29T12:33:02","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T12:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/robert-townsend-on-making-biting-satire-hollywood-shuffle-it-was-hard-back-then-to-make-a-movie-movies\/"},"modified":"2022-11-29T12:33:02","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T12:33:02","slug":"robert-townsend-on-making-biting-satire-hollywood-shuffle-it-was-hard-back-then-to-make-a-movie-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/robert-townsend-on-making-biting-satire-hollywood-shuffle-it-was-hard-back-then-to-make-a-movie-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Townsend on making biting satire Hollywood Shuffle: ‘It was hard back then to make a movie’ | movies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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R<\/span><\/span>obert Townsend moved to Los Angeles in the early 80s, determined to become a Hollywood star. And though he had quickly emerged as a draw on the standup circuit, the Chicago native struggled to reckon with the structural racism he encountered while auditioning for bit parts on film and TV \u2013 the vast majority of them raw-fisted stereotypes, from snitch to slave .<\/span><\/p>\n

Before long, Townsend’s casting call stories \u2013 some of them humiliating, most of them hilariously tone deaf \u2013 became too overwhelming for his regular postmortems with Keenen Ivory Wayans, who was going through the exact same thing.<\/p>\n

Even as he landed meaty supporting roles in Cooley High and A Soldier’s Story, Townsend tried roping Wayans into a film project about their career heartbreaks, but Wayans was skeptical. Townsend never went to film school, much less he had shot or written anything. Townsend didn’t have much money either. What he did have was training with a Chicago theater group called the Experimental Black Actors Guild, starting at age 14. \u201cI was around technicians who were Black \u2013 writers, directors, producers, set designers,\u201d Townsend says to the Guardian. \u201cI was telling Keenen, We can do this. There’s nothing mystical or magical about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1987, a year after Spike Lee announced himself with She’s Gotta Have It, Townsend released Hollywood Shuffle \u2013 a 78-minute comedic allegory about the compromises the industry forces on Black actors in exchange for honest work. Townsend shows impressive range as hero Bobby Taylor, a hungry young actor who daydreams of roles in slave dramas and blaxploitation flicks \u2013 at once parodying familiar tropes while yearning to play them seriously. His off-screen hustle left a mark, too.<\/p>\n

Townsend maxed out a handful of credit cards, or $60,000 in debt, to make Hollywood Shuffle \u2013 which went on to gross more than $5m at the box office. Roger Ebert called it \u201ca logistical triumph\u201d. It heralded Townsend as a multitalented star and indie film world darling, and established on-screen careers for co-stars Wayans (In Living Color), John Witherspoon (Friday), Anne-Marie Johnson (In the Heat of the Night) and even introduced Damon Wayans. This month it was announced that the film will be added to the Criterion Collection list in February. Its impact on independent film-making has been understated for far too long. \u201cThere’s probably a 20-year period where people are saying, ‘I’m gonna make my movie on credit cards,’\u201d notes renowned film scholar Elvis Mitchell. \u201cthat’s <\/em>Hollywood Shuffle.\u201d<\/p>\n

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