The New Yorker Radio Hour - Lena Waithe on Police Violence and “Queen & Slim”

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

Lena Waithe is the screenwriter and creator of the Showtime series “The Chi,” about the South Side of Chicago, but she tells Jelani Cobb, “Getting your own TV show is like getting beaten to death by your own dream.” Her first script for a feature film is “Queen & Slim,” directed by Melina Matsoukas. It’s about a man and woman who are on a not-great first date, during which they unintentionally kill a police officer at a traffic stop that escalates. “I just wanted to write something about us. But unfortunately, if I’m writing about us, how can I ignore the fact that we’re being hunted?” The film arrives in the aftermath two notorious police killings of black people in their homes—Botham Jean in Dallas and Atatiana Jefferson in Fort Worth—only the latest in a long line of similar murders. “I do not want that kind of publicity for my film,” Waithe says. “I am like every other black person. . . . Every time these stories hit our phones, a piece of us dies, because we know that we could be next.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In 2017, Lena Waith made TV history. She was the first black woman to win an Emmy for comedy screenwriting. That was for her work on Netflix's Master of None. And the episode she wrote was based on her own experience coming out to her mother. Waite's debut as a film screenwriter is with the new movie Queen and Slim. And while it's not drawn directly from her own life, the film turns on an experience that's all too common for people of color.

A bad run-in with a police officer. Jelani Cobb, a staff writer at The New Yorker, recently sat down to talk with Lena Waith. And fair warning, they do mention a couple of key plot points in the course of their conversation. You know, you won the Emmy in 2017. And, you know, you've been ubiquitous since then. You know, you have the film that's just about to come out, Queen and Slim.

You have The Shy. You have 20s. You have the film you were telling me that you just, you know, wrote seemingly like, I mean, it sounds like you wrote it like in the middle of running to pick up your dry cleaning. It was like, oh, let me just knock out this script here while I'm waiting for them to get my laundry. But in your Showtime series, The Shy, one of your characters, Emmett, who was played by Jacob Latimore, is really into sneakers.

Yeah. And I know you're a major sneakerhead yourself. So do you write a part of yourself into each of your characters? I can't not, you know. Yes, I'm the vessel, but because I am, some of me is going to get in there. You know, I do try to let the characters speak through me. But it's also therapy for me.

It's also a place for me to work out my stuff. My favorite artists are the ones that you can see them in their work. You see that, you know, what that person's trauma is because it keeps popping up. Especially someone's Spike's early work. Like, you see the things he was struggling with. It's funny when you said that, it was like the first person I thought about actually was Spike Lee. Mm-hmm. You see his stuff.

You know, like Jungle Fever to me is, I think, one of his most underrated movies because it is obviously something that he is grappling with. I don't know if you can make that movie now. No, no. You can't make that movie now. Some of the themes I think that were, like, the conversation was in a particular place when that first, my film first came out. You can't do that. Yeah. Like, people, black Twitter would, like, lose it.

So I've read that you started watching TV at an early age and that you refer to it as your third parent or your other parent. And so, you know, just how much TV were you watching? And what shows in particular were you really connected to? Oh, man. I spend a lot of time in front of the television. I think that's not abnormal for kids raised by single parents, you know. I had a very black mom in the sense that there's an old-fashionedness of caring about how her children present, trying to give us the things, the material things that we need, and also being.

in a position without our father. Your father passed away when you were young. When I was 14, suddenly. When we lived in my grandmother's house on the south side of Chicago, living in a home and sort of like this almost protected little neighborhood. But I spent a lot of time alone watching television, and I would watch old television because that's what my grandmother wanted to watch. She would watch good times and all in the family,

And I would watch that stuff with her. And then I would watch Cosby show, a different world, living single, Martin, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and I also discovered Mary Telemore show, Maud, Rota. That's a lot of classic television. Yeah, that's the thing. I will watch current television, but I was also fascinated by old television. Things like that I would really listen to and learn and pay attention to, pay very close attention to. So, in essence, I've been studying this and story and character since I was a very young person.

and then decided to really learn the craft. And so I went to Columbia College in Chicago, which happened to be my own backyard, and I wasn't quite ready to leave Chicago just yet. Can I actually, before we leave that, though, can I ask you a little bit about the television part? Sure. At what point did you kind of transition from, you know,

observing, laughing at it, you know, thinking this is fun, to watching it the way a writer watches those shows, the mechanics of it, the timing and pulling that apart? Like, do you know when you made that transition? I think how. high school. High school was when I started to discover, like, the commentary, the special features on DVDs because I wanted to, I'd watch the episodes a million times, but I wanted to dissect them. I wanted to understand them. I wanted to know why they were written the way they were written.

So let's talk about the soon-to-be released film, Queen and Slim. You would pitch this idea at a party by James Frye, correct? Yeah, highly a reporter party. I'm at the party. And, And he introduces himself. Like, he just said, I have this idea for a movie that I can't write. And I was like, all right, what's the idea? And he was just like, yeah, black man, black woman on the first date. It's not going great. It's not horrible.

But anyway, he's driving her home and on the way home they get pulled over by a police officer. Things escalate pretty quickly, and they kill him as self-defense and decide to get in the car and go. I thought, hmm, that's interesting. and it just like stuck with me and he probably thought he was never going to hear from me again but I was like no it's exchange information he had a title, he had an outline and I was just like I don't need any of that

I was like I just want to take this idea and like run with it my writing resume wasn't as long as it is now so I don't even know if he knew it could have been a complete disaster it could have been like not what he wanted and the whole development thing but the way I get down is that I'm a one-man band when I'm writing but then I have a whole community

of people and artists that I have a whole community of people an artist that I show it to and get feedback from. And a lot of the writers on the shy season one, like I'm really grateful to Kathy Kasakei, because initially it was going to start with Queen watching her client be executed. That was going to be the first image. She was going to be apologizing to the family for not being able to do enough,

not being able to save their son. And Kathy was like, you don't think you need that, just starting a date. And I was like, but then people won't understand why she's so. like in such a state and Kathy was like so what? I remember like hearing myself

explaining why that would be difficult and then I was like for all those reasons like yeah that's exactly why I should start this way and let the audience sort of like I'm going to just pill her like an onion. The film does in fact open on this date you know they're a diner

you see these two dark complexioned African American people with this light just almost dancing on their skin. Oh, yeah, that's so beautiful. Normally I would go home and have a glass of wine by myself, but I didn't feel like being alone. Not tonight.

You didn't have any friends or family you can call? No. So you turn to Tinder? Yeah. What made you pick me? I liked your picture. Whatever? You had this sad look on your face.

I felt sorry for you. But what exactly do you want us to know about these two people? in that scene? You know, I think what's presented, you know, what do you know about a person when you sit down on the first date with them, what they choose to present, you know, what you choose to assume, you know, and all the assumptions you make and the assumptions about each other. And they're also an algorithm of all of us in a way. You know, one is religious, one is not, one is close to their family, one isn't.

One wants to leave a mark on the world, one wants to just exist in it. They're all of us. The character, Queen who's played by Jodie Turner Smith, who's a comparative newcomer, and she's paired with Daniel Kaluya, who was, like, involved in everything at this point. And it's interesting, though, that they don't use their names. Is that kind of deliberate? Yeah. Yeah. That was the thing.

I deliberately chose to do that because, and I remember thinking I was writing it, I was like, Can I, like, get away with this? Oh, I'll try. Let's see what happens. But I didn't want to reveal their names until they were killed because I don't know Trayvon Martin's name. I don't know Emmett Till's name. I don't know Eric Garner's name. I don't know Mike Brown's name.

I don't know Sandra Bland's name unless they were killed. That's how I came to know their names. So that was a thing that I purposefully wanted to do is to say you often don't know black people's names unless police kill us. Wow. There's an easy impulse to compare the film to Bonnie and Clyde, which seems off to me. But in a recent interview, you said that it's more like a heterosexual Thelma and Louise. How does the story change when there are two black people on the run in America? It changes in every way because it instantly becomes political.

It instantly becomes important. instantly becomes revolutionary because of literally the color of their skin. And I think what's so, I think what's so palpable about it is who they kill. And it's about what to kill the police officers. Yes, exactly. And what do the police represent to us? They represent Jim Crow. They represent, you know, just injustice.

They represent death to us, a lot of us. And for them to kill that in a complicated way, it's not intentional. They didn't go out to say, oh, we're going to kill a cop tonight. They were just existing in the world and trying to find joy. And while doing that, they get pulled over and that joy is interrupted. and writing those two scenes was probably the most difficult thing I've ever done and I rewrote those scenes like so many times

and there's so many different variations of those scenes. There was a point that's up where she killed the cop and he killed it and they both did and strangled. I mean, it was a million different versions of it and then I finally landed on what people see. So it really kind of plays with these different things where no one is innocent, no one is guilty. Everyone is just trying to survive.

I think that's what sparked something's in me about the idea. We flip the narrative. We flip it. And then to me it becomes a love story. Then it's about these two people being forced to get to know each other. They have no choice. But it's also about I used, you know, Malcolm X as sort of a reference point for her.

and Monoithy King as a reference point for him. And then by the end of the film, I think they sort of swapped places. So I wondered about this because, you know, the story parallels, obviously a lot of what we've seen in the news recently. The night that I saw the film was the same day that the verdict had come down in the Botham Gene shooting. Oh. This was when police officer Geiger shot this young man in his own home.

Yeah, she was like a sentence, but it was very light. Yeah. And then not long after that, we saw the death of 28-year-old Tatiana Jefferson. It was an African-American woman who was killed in her home by a white police officer, also in Texas. Was it ever a fear that this subject matter in the film would strike too close to home for viewers? No, no. I had no idea this many more black bodies would have dropped by the time we got close to home. opening. I do not want that kind of publicity for the film. I do not. Because I am like every other black person, I'm traumatized every time these stories come out. Every time these stories hit our phones, our Instagram feed, our Twitter, our TV, we, a piece of us dies because we know that

we could be next. And, um, I think that's really where this story was born out of, you know, me feeling like a second-class citizen, even though people may feel as if I sit in a place of privilege, I don't think people understand, like, the way things were different just a few years ago and where I didn't feel like I had a voice. I didn't feel like I had a person to turn to help me

in my space as a new show creator, trying to have a say or agency. And so that's where I went and said, I'm going to write something just on my own. That's the thing no one can take from me. I just wanted to write something about us. But unfortunately, if I'm writing about us, how can I ignore the fact that we're being hunted?

When you say us, you mean African Americans? We say black people. Yeah. I don't want to keep spoiling for the film for those who haven't seen it, but I have to ask you about one scene with a man or slender. convinces the woman, Queen, to stop at a bar for a quick dance. They're clearly in a lot of trouble at this point. And, you know, one of the most striking things about the scene

is that despite all this trouble that's hanging over them, Slim doesn't really care. You know, he wants to take her out essentially a date while they are fugitives. And there's a moment in there where he orders a drink and the bartender is an older black woman. And she says, He's on a house.

Thank you. Don't worry you're safe here. And there's a kind of recurring theme, you know, betrayal and trust throughout. And can you talk a little bit about that scene and what you were thinking about as you created it? Oh, yeah. I wanted there to be a sense of community, you know, in the film. A sense of unity, a sense of they are heroes in some people's eyes. I had to ask myself, how would those two people be really?

received if they walked into a predominantly black establishment after being seen on tape killing the cop how would they be received we create the heroes in which we need and people needed them they needed them to mean something more than what they were and there's also that sort of bit of an underground railroad feel of you know you can this is a safe spot you know this is a safe haven you can come hang here for a little bit but but But also, because I'm not a simple writer, I know that there's also people maybe of a certain generation that would necessarily celebrate that. Sure. There's other African Americans who are very critical of them.

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And so I made sure that all those voices were heard in a way that felt honest and grounded and true. You know, one of the first things that struck me was the way in which the incident with the police officer is almost like the officer is almost like patient zero in an outbreak. where his actions cause every single other person we meet throughout the course of that at film to really confront the question of what they stand for.

And because the incident is on video, everyone sees it, and they're interpreting it through their own lens. Absolutely. And I wonder if that was what you were wanting to do, they kind of put all these people in front of these screens on their phone or on their computers or whatever, and then say, here's this thing. You know, tell me how you interpret this.

Tell me what this is. Right. Well, I think that's what we do every day. You know, when we look at our screen, you know, or see the latest viral video or watch the news, how we take in the news, is we interpret it in our own, but we bring our stuff to it. And that's why everybody has different opinions about things. But ultimately, I believe every little little.

choice and thing we do affects our lives. And, you know, that date is a choice. It's a choice that she makes that she doesn't want to be alone that night. I totally hear what you're saying in terms of. I really like that idea is that he's the patient zero. But it's also, you know, it's three people grappling with America's history. really in a moment. So one last thing.

You've talked about your relationship with television from your childhood and the way that that evolved from you observing these shows and enjoying these shows to you studying them and dissecting them and taking them apart. And you had this dream

of participating in this world in some way. Is it everything that you would have hoped it to be? It's more. it's more and it's less that's the thing in what ways it's more in that it's almost like

trying to describe to someone what having a child is like you can talk all day but until you have your own you won't know how great it is but also how devastating it can be I heard this great thing from a writer

in this program I was doing where you kind of learn how to be a showrunner and they said getting your own TV show is like being beaten to death with your own dream. And it's true. That's what it is. You can't want to beat a heavyweight champion of the world

and not take some licks. So I'm going to get hit sometimes. It's a matter if I hit back, which I will. That's a great way to conclude. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

The writer, actor and producer, Lena Waith. She talked with Jelani Cobb, a staff writer at the New Yorker. Wath wrote the film Queen and Slim, directed by Molina Matsukas, and it comes out later this month. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for this week, and I hope you'll join us next time.

We've got an extraordinary story. It's about a young woman who went into the darkest reaches of the white supremacist movement and came back out again. That story from the New Yorkers, Andrew Moranz. See you then. The New Yorker Radio Hour

is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tuneiards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment Fund.