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We really gotta go support Top Five now cuz Chris Rock has been on his real spit during this promo run.
The writer/director/producer/actor/comedian has a great essay in the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter and we’ve culled a few choice quotes below which we’d like to discuss, but make sure to read the full piece because he reveals a gang of information about how he’s gotten where he has and who he’s looking to to help him make his next moves:
Chris Rock on a scene cut from Top Five in which Kevin Hart’s character calls out being the only black agent at the agency:
“We cut it out in Top Five, but there had been a scene where Kevin Hart, who plays my character’s agent, is in his office talking to me, and he finds out that “Zoolander” (Ben Stiller) is down the hall and he’s mad because none of the agents called him. He’s the only black agent at the agency, and there was a line in the movie like, “I’m the only black agent here. They never invite me to anything, and these people are liberals. This isn’t the Klan.””
It sounds like a shame the scene was cut. That token business is the bullish, especially when it’s so-called liberals doing the excluding…
On what he describes as the racism of the ‘slave state in L.A.':
“But forget whether Hollywood is black enough. A better question is: Is Hollywood Mexican enough? You’re in L.A, you’ve got to try not to hire Mexicans. It’s the most liberal town in the world, and there’s a part of it that’s kind of racist — not racist like “F— you, ni**er” racist, but just an acceptance that there’s a slave state in L.A. There’s this acceptance that Mexicans are going to take care of white people in L.A. that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
It’s kinda funny that L.A. doesn’t get called out for this more often. People treat California like it’s Benetton or something and forget about the way Mexicans are treated.
On his thoughts that the “hot” guy role in Hollywood goes to a white man although as he states, “more women want to f— Tyrese than Jamie Dornan”:
“When there’s a hot part in town and the guys are reading for it, that’s just what happens. It was never like, “Is it going to be Ryan Gosling or Chiwetel Ejiofor for Fifty Shades of Grey?” And you know, black people f—, too. White women actually want to f— black guys, sometimes more than white guys. More women want to f— Tyrese than Jamie Dornan, and it’s not even close. It’s not a contest. Even Jamie would go, “OK, you got it.”
Yeah that’s something America definitely isn’t ready for — not unless it’s Quentin Tarantino serving it up in big overly exaggerated doses. Yes, white women want that black D but the white guys funding the film industry aren’t ready to get that real. Do you agree?
On crossing over race barriers in comedy:
“And you should at least be able to count on your people, and then it grows from there. If someone’s people don’t love them, that’s a problem. No one crosses over without a base. But if we’re going to just be honest and count dollars and seats and not look at skin color, Kevin Hart is the biggest comedian in the world. If Kevin Hart is playing 40,000 seats in a night and Jon Stewart is playing 3,000, the fact that Jon Stewart’s 3,000 are white means Kevin has to cross over? That makes no sense. If anybody needs to cross over, it’s the guy who’s selling 3,000 seats.”
On the racial progress made on Saturday Night Live:
“But there’s been progress. When I was on Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago, we did a sketch where I was Sasheer Zamata’s dad and she had an Internet show. Twenty years ago when I was on Saturday Night Live, anything with black people on the show had to deal with race, and that sketch we did didn’t have anything to do with race. That was the beauty: The sketch is funny because it’s funny, and that’s the progress.”
Chris Rock’s thoughts on Hollywood being a ‘white industry’ and what he thinks makes the best candidates to run the black division of a studio:
“It’s a white industry. Just as the NBA is a black industry. I’m not even saying it’s a bad thing. It just is. And the black people they do hire tend to be the same person. That person tends to be female and that person tends to be Ivy League. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
On how he couldn’t have made Top Five in a studio:
“The best ones are made outside of the studio system because they’re not made with that many white people — maybe one or two, but not a whole system of white people. I couldn’t have made Top Five at a studio. First of all, no one’s going to make a movie with a premise so little and artsy: a star putting out a movie and getting interviewed by a woman from The New York Times. I would have had to have three two-hour meetings explaining that black people also read The New York Times. A studio would’ve made it like Malibu’s Most Wanted.”
These comments are what make us want to go see ‘Top Five’. Hollywood NEEDS to recognize that there are plenty of intelligent black people in America who are looking for content that is going to speak to us and our lifestyles. Everything doesn’t have to be a rap video.
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