hey so I watch a lot of je and um this past year um because my health has taken a really really bad decline it's starting to get better now thank God but um you know it took a really bad turn so I watched even more TV than usual because I was kind of like stuck in bed a lot and one thing I noticed as I was watching these streamed shows and movies and stuff is that very rarely did I find a show that I liked that had um a starring a person in a starring role who looked like me and um that was a little depressing and of course I've noticed this before of course I mean I've noticed that since I was a little kid but I guess when all you have is TV um which is really pathetic it kind of you notice it more and it it kind of hurts more and it got me to thinking about um The Journey that black women have had in Hollywood and I thought about you know during the Gone With the Wind era I guess that's the Golden Age of Hollywood um there were so many like really interesting movies that were filmed and um it was a really interesting period however it wasn't a great time for actresses who were dark skinned like me because they um they could really only get gigs or roles as the maid or the servant and usually it wasn't even a dignified uh character who they were playing usually the character had to be kind of comedic like she had to the actress had to pretend to be ignorant uneducated um like she couldn't speak correctly uh and just really dumb so they were kind of like a lot of times black women were like the jesters or the comedic relief and movies where they had to play Someone really uneducated and I don't think honestly that has changed all that much I mean these days we do see actresses like you know Jennifer Lopez violin Davis and Lupita whose last name my heart I can't I think it's Meo you see them in um in a lot of starring rols which is wonderful and that is like so refreshing to see that it's um it's really nice but usually you just see them you know it's the same women of color actresses of color over and over and over again which it's fine I like them and I like that they've had so much success but my point is that it's almost like Hollywood is afraid to give other actresses color the same opportunities and they keep sticking with what they know um so I feel like Hollywood has a long way to go and I did a little bit of research not a whole lot but I just looked up this one statistic from the Gina Davis Institute I said that between 2009 and 2019 black women represent only 3.7% of leads and co-leads in top gr so it's not if you're you know dark skinned like me or if you're just a person who watches a lot of TV and you kind of have noticed H there's not really that many black actresses and St RS it's not just you it is actually a problem um and another thing too that I noticed okay like some of my favorite movies and I'm sored rambling a little bit as I address this I guess this is kind of an emotional topic and something sometimes when things are emotional I ramble a bit but so as I was watching a lot of stuff know in bed um I would watch some of my favorite Classics again and then some newer stuff but I went back to stuff like you know Breaking Bad and mman and um the office like that real I actually watched that for the first time because it was just on Netflix and as I was watching those I'm like okay these are really good like excellent so well written where are the black black women I mean there's so many of us in real real life like we're all over the planet not just in Africa we're everywhere so where are the black women and they're not there there's maybe like one or two one or two um black female actresses usually towards the end of the series because by that time the showrunner has probably gotten some Flack that they have they're not um their cast is not diverse enough at least this is what I'm guessing so they hire like are right in a black character black fale character at the last minute for over in there it's of awkward you're kind of like okay who's this woman and where did she come from and I don't really care about her story I've been follow these other characters from the start so yeah there's that um it's just really disappointing like when was the last time Christopher Nolan Aaron sorin or even as much as I love him stevenh Spielberg created a film that featured a black female character in a major role um I think Stephen Spielberg may have done that like once in recent years um I think Ready Player one had a black a black character I can't think of any other films he did that do and I love I love him so much I think he's a wonderful person and his movies are like my favorite movies ever but still I mean I'm just being honest where are we um yeah it's just like most shows and movies that are considered groundbreaking rarely feature women who look like me and when they do usually it's like we're used as prop or or for the comedic relief and we have no substance we're just a one note character who you know gets laughed at for wearing a wig or wearing weave and can't speak properly and he was kind of ignorant so we're still the butt of the joke just like we were during Hollywood's golden age it's sad that that just hasn't changed all that much um fortunately though there are shows like Bridgton and even the good place that have like a nice diverse cast that features you know not just one race but there's everybody you have your black people you have Hispanic you have Asian people everybody's and that's really nice and I wish that more big names would start that like Shan de just a big name she's awesome everyone I wish that more would learn for her like learn from her like Christopher Nolan you can make really smart films with black women in them we're not going to degrade your movies um believe it or not some black women actually do like you know physics and I don't know other things that are not usually associated with women who look like me um yeah so I don't know I just think it would be good if Hollywood did more to in to be inclusive as much as they preach they talk about inclusivity if that's a word in diversity they don't live up to what they I think they're very hypocritical um and like I was saying a lot of times when black women are featured in major roles it's just so it's just because we're the fun of the joke and um one thing I've noticed is that a lot of times shows that are written and I'm not saying this about all um because you have your JJ runs who are amazing and I love him I love that he always has in First cast and also I love but so I hate to use the phrase white let me think of a different phrase a lot of these shows that are helmed by people who don't make diversity a priority say that um when they do include especially if it's a comedy and they do include a black female character they will use her to say racist things but it's really they're using her as a mouthpiece how they really feel and the jokes that they would like to tell about black people and about Hispanic people and about Asian people but they know they can't say it because of the color of their skin so they'll hire a black actress or another actress of color have her say and say okay see now we're covered so and like I did see that happen sometimes on onreal um that did happen unreal a couple of times at least that's my perspective of it where they're just using people of color to get away with saying racist things that that we would never actually say in real life but it's obviously written by a writer so I don't know it's just um it's very very disturbing it's very disturbing to to realize that when you're watching movies and realize how disrespected you you are as a person and the poor other women who look like you we have so much more to offer than stupid plots about baby daddy drama which it's just ridiculous um but yeah I mean our planet is so full of people of all different races and cultures and backgrounds and we would be stronger if we worked together and got to know each other's cultures and understand each other more instead of separating ourselves and making fun of each other um and I think entertainment is yet another medium that we have used that our race and I want I say race I mean the human race has used to separate that separating ourselves from each other which is ridiculous because separating ourselves is a great way for us to fail as a race the human race um but if we actually learned how to work together got to know each other better then we would be more power strong um and I think you know entertainment is just one of those mediums that we could use to our advantage to get to know each other better and um hopefully hopefully that's something that'll happen in the near future this was a very rambly video but it was something that really really bothered me a lot I guess because it's reflective of some things I've experienced in real life on the job you know like I worked as a an associate producer for a while um in television news IES which is why I quit actually support myself I couldn't pay my rent on what I was making even though I was literally writing a TV show and working really really hard probably harder than a lot of my colleagues Were A different race and I noticed the same thing about another uh female she was not an associate producer she was actually a Le producer where she worked harder than anybody and yet her pay was capped whereas you had men who were A different race than us were both their pay they got they would have got so just seeing like the how things aren't there across the board in Hollywood and on the job in real life it just just it's very disappointing and we need to change so that's all I just was gonna ramble about that today and uh if you have any thoughts on the subject please feel free to leave them in the comments and thank you if you made it through this longed