Cass' interview with
Mario Van Peebles
Director and Star of
Baadasssss! (2003)

Cass'Baadasssss! Movie review

The Discussion

On June 11, 2004, I had the wonderful pleasure of interviewing actor, writer and director, Mario Van Peebles. His latest movie, Baadasssss!, premiered in New York on May 28, 2004. Baadasssss! chronicles the behind the scenes making of his father, Melvin Van Peeble's, 1971 blockbuster hit, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. [Please note that I have not seen Baadasssss! because it won't be shown in New Orleans until July 2, 2004. However, Mr. Van Peebles graciously agreed to do a second interview after I have had an opportunity to review it.]

MarioVP:
Good morning. Well let's make your day then!!!

Cass:
My name is Cassandra and I'm with 3 Black Chicks? Have you heard of us?

MarioVP:
No, but I want to hear more about you 3 Black Chicks now!

Cass:
[Laughing]. We're movie/entertainment critics. The question that started us thinking was "Why are there no nationally known Black movie reviewers?", and as they say, "the rest is history."

MarioVP:
Is this an Internet site?

Cass:
Yes. Go to 3blackchicks.com. The other Chicks, Bams and The Diva, send their regards.

MarioVP:
Cool. Have you read the comments about Baadasssss! on rottentomatoes.com?

Cass:
Not yet. I typically don't read other reviews until after I've done mine.

MarioVP:
Today and yesterday, Baadasssss! received its highest movie review so far.

Cass:
I've heard such great buzz about Baadasssss! but it won't be shown in New Orleans until July 2, 2004.

MarioVP:
It's a whole different thing when you see it. We can do this interview for now, but call me back because when you see it, you'll say, let me talk to this knucklehead again.

Cass:
Great.

MarioVP:
I just love your Web site's name. I think it's great!

Cass:
Thank you. We're trying to do our thang. We're all working our independent 9 to 5 jobs, and doing this the other hours of the day. So tell me about Baadasssss!

MarioVP:
When I first sent the script around to all the studios, the notes I received were "Can you make Baadasssss! a hip-hop comedy on the set?" Well there's always some clowning and some version of the modern-day minstrel show, so there's some validity because laughter is a real thing.

Cass:
Right. We're all entitled to laughter and escapism but to what degree does it cross the line in terms of what we see on the screen and the portrayal of our people?

MarioVP:
It's the lack of spectrum that is hurtful for us if we don't have people of color in A Beautiful Mind, Lost in Translation or Good Will Hunting and all we get is hip-hop on a plane or a boat or a car.

Cass:
I totally agree!

MarioVP:
Did you see the thing on CNN the other day about Shaker High School?

Cass:
No, I didn't.

MarioVP:
It showed at Shaker High, which is 50% African-American, and 50 years after Brown v. The Board of Education, black kids at that school were getting 82% of the D's and the F's, and the white kids who were getting the higher grades. Well this information was printed in the school paper. Parents were all upset and hyped, saying how could they print this because this was racist. So they hired a brother to do a report and he does this in depth report. It took him a year or so to do it, and he lays the blame at the foot of a lot of the black parents.

Cass:
Which is similar to what Bill Cosby recently said at Howard University?

MarioVP:
Right. But the problem is, this cat up and died. He basically said that fair enough, there is an income gap, that white families have more money.

Cass:
Without a doubt.

MarioVP:
Fair enough, a lot of us are in one-parent homes. Fair enough a lot of us are speaking Ebonics at home to our kids, which doesn't help our kids on tests. He said that the biggest difference was that our kids were watching 30% more TV and movies than the white kids. So what are our children watching?

Cass:
Negative stereotypes of themselves.

MarioVP:
You got it. They're watching BET and imagery of us that subconsciously creates a culture of anti-intellectualism. It also means that if you have your own Web site or you can talk proper English, you're trying to be white. So it's a voluntary slave mechanism. I was like, "WOW, that's deep." Then I thought about it, who was the last coon muthf!$% that was an intellectual, who was a real brotha?

Cass:
Who was that brotha to you?

MarioVP:
Brother Malcolm. I just played Brother Malcolm in Ali.

Cass:
You were fabulous in that role.

MarioVP:
Thanks. Also, the sisters and brothers of The Panther Party and Melvin Van Peebles, of course.

Cass:
Of course, Melvin Van Peebles.

MarioVP:
What's so interesting about the comments the brother from the L.A. Times wrote, he said, "Isn't it interesting that 50 years after Brown v. The Board of Education, the biggest hurtful thing we have is our imagery." For example, P. Diddy is a lot smarter than he will ever let on.

Cass:
But that comes at a price P. Diddy may not want to pay just yet.

MarioVP:
He just can't blow his street credibility. He really doesn't have to talk like that, because he's a sharper cat.

Cass:
The fact that he is playing in A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway proves your point.

MarioVP:
But we downgrade and we downplay.

Cass:
For whose benefit though?

MarioVP:
Well back to the L.A. Times articles, he said "that the same day you have a movie like Soul Plane opening," which is basically saying black folks can't even fly a plane right, "you have Baadasssss! opening, saying we can not only fly a plane right, but we can make the first independent film with the first crew that has white folks, black folks, women, Asians and Hispanics." We can not only play basketball, but we can own the team.

Cass:
I'm standing in line to support as many black movies as I can. Grant it, I can't see another Kate Hudson movie or another Dumb & Dumberer movie, but I have to admit that I didn't see Soul Plane because I'm tired of these buffoonery-type films. [Deesha's question: "Should artistic freedom silence all that noise, or should the black actors and directors be more responsible about putting out stereotypical images of Us?"]

MarioVP:
I'm glad were talking and I can't wait for you to see Baadasssss! About five years ago, I had a dinner party at my house because I realized that we didn't break bread enough together. So I said, no publicists, no reporters, just come over to my crib and we'll have dinner. It was John Singleton, Gary F. Gray, Reggie Hudlin, and all these brothers and sisters and we just sat around eating and talking. The first thing we did was play the dozens - Your movie sucked - because we do that as a people!

Cass:
[Laughing].

MarioVP:
That's how we have dealt with our stuff over the years, with humor. After awhile though, the room got quiet and I looked around and said, "Wow, look at us. Not one of us has been behind bars. Not one of us has a can of spray paint in the car.

Cass:
Well, preach on son!

MarioVP:
We all went to college. We're not on crack. Most of us knew our dads, and only one or two of us want to perpetuate like we were in a gang. Yet, we're not allowed to make movies about folks like us.

Cass:
Folks like us don't sell tickets, yet folks like them do. Ironic.

MarioVP:
You got that right because we're being told that our audiences consist of people wearing baggy pants and sneakers.

Cass:
The only reason my pants would be baggy is if Atkins actually worked for me (which it ain't).

MarioVP:
Oh, you must be the funny Chick, right?

Cass:
Ya think? We were fed something altogether different in terms of positive images though.

MarioVP:
We were being told, and this is what they told me for Baadasssss!, if you are going to have a complex relationship in this film, like the one you have between the father and son, you got to do it with white characters. Black folks don't want to see that. They want to see some humor and escapist cinema.

Cass:
Not true because there is no escaping from Our Real World. Black films that deal with complex relationships like Jordan Walker-Pearlman's The Visit, might help those searching for answers resolve their problems.

MarioVP:
But "They" can't deal with that. They said, we love your directing. We'll invite you out to do the Italian Job, but if you are going to make complex movies, you have to use white characters. Grant it, we should step out and make movies with white folks and we shouldn't be locked into any cinematic stereotypes. However, the point is if you're making a movie with black characters in it, the studios will give you a lot of flack if you try to make it a film that is a thinking movie. In essence, what they're saying is that our shyt has to be dumb-downed and goofy to work. We've got to jump up and down and say, "Show me the money," or we aren't going to get no love from the studios. And I refused to do that.

Cass:
I have friends who are independent filmmakers - Zon Dumas, R.E. Henry and Tambay Obenson -- and they continue to struggle with securing financing to get their dreams to the big screen and to the masses. The characters in their films are complex and they are struggling with dreams deferred too. Yet, they haven't given up and they refuse to settle for something less.

MarioVP:
I can certainly relate to that. Having made Baadasssss! I didn't dumb it down. In fact, Ebert called it "one of the best movies of the year." And you know what?

Cass:
Yep. Our folks aren't seeing it, but white folks are.

MarioVP:
You got that right. White folks are seeing it, and people like you and me are seeing it. Well, let's say the Black intelligentsia, which there are about 12 people, and 2 of them are in my family. [Laughing]. There are two kinds of audiences - there are the audiences that read and there are the audiences that look.

Cass:
The audiences that look are standing in line to see Soul Plane.

MarioVP:
Or if they don't see a 90-foot billboard, they're seeing The Day After Tomorrow, Shrek or Soul Plane. So why should the studio make anything for them if they are going to see these movies any damn way. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing that movie.

Cass:
Me either, because I like all the black actors in Soul Plane. It's just the depiction of us that I continue to have a problem with seeing on the big screen.

MarioVP:
The bottom line is now we have an opportunity with this movie to say we can do something different.

Cass:
Some black audiences have fallen for the propaganda that we lack the attention span and level of understanding to see diverse movies about ourselves, which is ridiculous.

MarioVP:
But are we waking up and going to see thought provoking films?

Cass:
Far and few between, which is a sad commentary. You should check out some of the comments voiced on the Viewers Voices page. Specifically, Bayzoo's comment is, "I just hope that WE (Black people) strongly support this film, so that it doesn't wither away into the Black cinema abyss. . .The theatre I saw it in here in NYC was only about half full, even though this was a 8:30PM, Friday night showing, on opening night. Soul Plane was playing in the screening room right next to it. When my girlfriend and I walked into the area in which both films were playing, we saw a little bit of a line forming close to the screening rooms, and we thought that it was for Baadasssss! Nope - it was for Soul Plane. However, in the Baadasssss! theater, there was a good mixture of ethnicities, which was good to see."

MarioVP:
That's pretty powerful. Now, I'm going to have to read some of the other comments. There's such a gap in our own community, so forget about blaming white folks.

Cass:
Which again, is the same thing Cosby said, like I mentioned before.

MarioVP:
I support the brother's comments. Barkley said it too. "You can't be at Wal-Mart and have 7 children."

Cass:
Especially if they have 7 different daddies who can't support them.

MarioVP:
Which is what Jackson said, "If you can't feed the baby, then don't have the baby."

Cass:
Our folks are living on welfare and want to blame DA MAN for them having 7 kids. The truth of the matter is your dad was an angry black man, in terms of what was happening in his community some 30-plus years ago.

MarioVP:
You're right. My dad was pissed off and is still pissed off, as I am at systemic-isms -- genderisms, racism, sexism -- but I'm not mad at anybody. Melvin Van Peebles was the first guy to have a multiracial crew. He said we've all been disenfranchised so we can win together. If you are angry and you let that poison you versus let it drive you, then that's a different thing.

Cass:
You're the host of "That's Black Entertainment - Actor, Comedians, Westerns". As part of your hosting duties, was there a lot of research involved, and did that help you prepare for writing and filming Baadasssss!?

MarioVP:
Absolutely. But I've grown up in this industry. Brother Malcolm said, "If they don't want you at their restaurant, build your own restaurant."

Cass:
They don't call it Soul Food for nothing!

MarioVP:
And my father said, "If they don't want you in their movies, make your own movies."

Cass:
Which independent black filmmakers are trying to do and are doing.

MarioVP:
I grew up in a "By Any Means Necessary" filmmaking family. When I sent Baadasssss! out to all the studios, all the studio heads said, "No, no, no. Make it a hip-hop comedy or make it more for white folks, then you can do it, because we love it." Well, I said, "You know what, here's a brother from the south side of Chicago who has the French Legion of Honor Award, who didn't ever doubt his blackness but does happen to speak Dutch and French, and he was one of the first black officers in the United States Air Force. So we can be all that.

Cass:
And more.

MarioVP:
That's what I wanted to show. I made New Jack City in 36 days. I made Posse and Panther in 40 days, but I was forced to shoot Baadasssss! in 18 days.

Cass:
18 days is amazing. How did you come up with the financing? Was it your own money, and similar to what your dad did?

MarioVP:
I used my own money, and some from Showtime because I did stuff for them. I got Michael Mann to executive produce. Ossie Davis said he'd be in the movie, but since I couldn't afford a hotel, he stayed at my house. Sister Nia Long came in for no bling, bling, just for the project. The same thing with David Allen Greer and Joy Bryant.

Cass:
I just love it when we support each other with these types of positive projects.

MarioVP:
A lot of us will show up and they do come out for something with nutritional value. We're taught that we only come out for the money, which is not true, I'm here to tell you. Some people will fade away, but other people don't. Bill Cosby, Earth, Wind & Fire, John Singleton, Sally Struthers, Adam West, Paul Rodriguez, white, black, male, female, old, young, all came forward and it was beautiful. We all came together and made a movie and this movie is getting the best reviews of the year. But, a lot of our folks are saying they're going to see it, but they're not doing it.

Cass:
Yet they can spend hundreds of dollars on sneakers and weird hairstyles.

MarioVP:
You know what that means? By the time they try to see it, it won't be in theater.

Cass:
I was so excited to see the billboard for Baadasssss! at Canal Place. How long did the voices of Baadasssss! actually fester in your brain and then into a script?

MarioVP:
I was on the set of Ali and playing Brother Malcolm, and it turns out that my father interviewed Malcolm at length. I started talking with Malcolm's eldest daughter, Ms. Shabazz, about the meeting of our two fathers. It was very interesting because Brother Malcolm was very distraught about the terrorist attack where Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Robertson, were killed in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. At the time, Malcolm was a father with four little girls, and here I was playing Brother Malcolm and my two little girls were playing my daughters in the movie. There were these great emotional highs and lows for me in playing that role. The more I talked to her and the more I talked to Ali, who kept asking me about my pop, I thought if Ali was one of the first athletes to stand up and use the ring not just to box but to say something and stand for something, then Melvin was the first film director to stand up and use the screen not just to entertain us but to stand for something.

Cass:
What a great legacy for you to have!

MarioVP:
They were the forerunners of what would become the Black Power Movement. Today's hip-hop audience have inherited the bravado of The Panthers, of the Angela Davises, of the Melvins, the Malcolms, and the Alis, but without the political ideology to support it. If we could make the movie about Ali, could we make the movie about Melvin now, and could we help to bring some political ideology to a lost generation?

Cass:
Here's the dichotomy -- when you think in terms of movies or documentaries like Tupac: Resurrection, which I thoroughly enjoyed, it was shown on 800 or so screens, only grossing a little over $4.6 million its opening weekend, but movies like Scary Movie 3 opened on 3,000 plus screens earning a little over $48 million. I have a problem with that. Initially, Tupac was such a positive individual, but the role that he played outside of that was his demise.

MarioVP:
Exactly. He was caught in the very trick bag that Cosby is talking about. If Tupac admitted that he went to Juilliard, or that he knew something about ballet or that he read Shakespeare, then he was trying to be white and he'll loose his street credibility. But, Melvin Van Peebles said, "Fuck that. I know I'm a brother, because I can't catch a cab uptown any quicker than anybody else.

Cass:
Do you think society has changed any, even in its less overt differences back in the 1970's as compared to today?

MarioVP:
I have to say yes on some levels and on some levels no. There are no heads of any studios that are people of color, who can green light a movie.

Cass:
Which is still a sad commentary though.

MarioVP:
Of course. We know that the gains of the 1960's with Affirmative Action are slowly being whittled away by this administration. So freedom is not a wall you knock down. Freedom is a car. If you take your foot off the gas, it slows down. We've taken our foot off the gas and we need to wake up and realize what we are doing and take some responsibility like Brother Cosby said and say, "Wait a minute, lets raise the bar."

Cass:
Instead of behind bars.

MarioVP:
What was so hip about the thing on CNN, was at the end, when it showed yes we are getting 82% of the D's and F's at this school, but a group of the upper classmen were pissed off and got together to make a difference. They were the A students, but the minority within the minorities getting the D's and F's. They were so mad that they formed a group like the Alphas and they went to the incoming class members and pulled them aside and put them in a room together and told them they were taking an oath, "I am proud to be black, I'm going to break this stereotype and I'm going to get A's and nothing less than B's. And if you don't you will hear from us." You know those new kids started getting A's and B's.

Cass:
Right because they were reaching back to help their own.

MarioVP:
I met a sister at the end of the premiere of Baadasssss! with tears in her eyes, and initially I couldn't read her. She was very moved by the movie, and she said, "Look, you've got to talk to my son. My son is 9. He doesn't have his father in his life, and it's just been me. This little black man has been making straight A's and has been on the Dean's list every year. But, this is the first year he is going to a new school and he is making D's and F's."

Cass:
Why?

MarioVP:
She said, "He's little, and the other boys in his class are saying that he's trying to be white. He's a punk and they're gonna kick his ass. The next step, they are going to pressure him into joining a gang. He needs to see a strong black man who is cool, who is bilingual, who is proud to be educated, and yet knows who he is."

Cass:
Being a single parent and raising a son, I certainly understand her dilemma.

MarioVP:
If all we see are ballplayers who can't talk, or rappers that don't want to talk, we're in trouble. When the hip hoppers come see Baadasssss! they come out it like it's a shot in the arm. The white folks are just reviewing it, well it's a good movie, which is great. But for us, it's an anthem, and they're coming out saying, "Oh my God, this is showing us all we can be, on the same day Soul Plane is saying we can't fly a plane."

Cass:
How much of this movie is fact-based and how much is a spin-on your own personal version?

MarioVP:
It's basically based on my dad's book, and it's very heavy fact-based. In fact, only two theaters in the United States showed Sweetback, and it eventually became a top grossing independent hit. It was also the first movie where the brotha got away.

Cass:
And kept running.

MarioVP:
At the end of Sweetback, it said "This bad ass nigger is gonna come back and collect some dues," this one reviewer said, "Not only did he come back 33 years later, but he brought his son."

Cass:
[Laughing]. I did review Sweetback for our book, in fact, it's on page 137, and I gave it a scathing review because the opening scene was very hard for me to look at. I'm sure you've gotten a lot of comments that.

MarioVP:
I deal with that in Baadasssss! so it will be great to hear what you think after you see it. Once you see it, you'll see a whole different perspective.

Cass:
I have this bad habit of looking up the meaning of names, and the Hebrew meaning of your Italian name means, "bitter, king-ruler." Bitter, i.e., following in the footsteps. And, king-ruler, you are the ruler of your own destiny. Are you now in a place where you are in more control of your own personal destiny?

MarioVP:
I think this is a very interesting time in my life. I set out to do certain things in my life and I have done a lot of those things. I know, like Brother Malcolm, whatever I felt passionate about, I had to take action.

Cass:
Being a workaholic, ambitious and passionate, are certainly traits of a Capricorn.

MarioVP:
And the thing is, I get such great love from my kids. I really love being a father.

Cass:
How old are your daughters?

MarioVP:
One is 11 and she went with me to a series of meetings. I wanted to take her with me because it's so important for young women to see that and to have a good relationship with their father.

Cass:
I have a great relationship with my dad. He was a teacher for 38 years, and he taught everything from social studies to drama. My parents indoctrinated my brothers and sisters with a wealth of educational activities. We now flock to independent films, the opera, the ballet, Community Theater, or gallery openings. It was that kind of upbringing back in the 1970's that black families actually strived for, and didn't consider it being white. Of course, it was important for me to teach those same types of educational experiences to my son (who is an artist) and hopefully he'll pass the educational torch on to his children.

MarioVP:
They say you have two loves in your life, but I think we probably have three. The first is what you do. The second is who you do it with, and third to me is, what you change and do with it while you are here. If your son does that in his field, and I do it in mine, and you do it in yours, then Each One, Teach One, then we can do it. I remember this story about an old guy in a big storm and there are all these starfish on the beach dying. The old man is walking down on the beach and one by one he is throwing these starfish back into the water. This young cat comes down and says, "Man, look at all of these starfish dying. What is that going to do? That's not going to make a difference." So the old man picks up another starfish and he says, "But to this one right here, it does."

Cass:
Of course, it only takes one. But that one saved starfish can help two, and so on.

MarioVP:
If I in my way do my thing, and your son and you, and others do their thing, we can counter this thing. Again, it's just like Barkley said, "You have kids having seven kids and working at Wal-Mart, and they are making no attempts to change."

Cass:
That's exactly what DA MAN wants -- for us to kill ourselves from within, and not think positive or think outside the box. But I can't blame da man for not getting an A because I didn't study or didn't do the work.

MarioVP:
Then we have to go back to slavery. Germans came from Germany. The French came from France and the Italians came from Italy, but where did "Negroes" come from?

Cass:
Stolen from our country by force.

MarioVP:
We were dragged here and disconnected from our history. So to some extent, and my dad wrote a book about it called The True American, we are the true Americans because we had our stuff taken away and all we get is the immediacy of what is happening in America. However, that's not enough to survive. So we have some advantages and some great disadvantages. What slavery did do is make us one huge tribe. There are more Black people in North America than in any other place in the world that speak the same language. We also have economic and political power.

Cass:
But when it comes to people making economic choices for their careers and their livelihoods, do we have the right to dictate to the P. Diddies in our society that it's not cool to be streetwise or acting non-white or strictly hip-hop (which is an altogether marketing strategy) just to make a buck?

MarioVP:
It was the same thing you were saying about Tupac. Here's this dichotomy of a brother who happens to be way more educated and brighter, and yet exists in this gangsta world where he had to take it down about five notches.

Cass:
But the choice becomes, do you stand up for what you believe is right or do you do this simply for an economic base?

MarioVP:
In this society, we tend to judge success by economics, and then you would just make Soul Plane 12 or Booty Call 2. I don't make films just from an economic standpoint. The film has to have a social, artistic, or political agenda, but that's me. Even though we're not all monolithic, we still have to start raising the bar. That's why I wanted to make this movie.

Cass:
Baadasssss! raises the bar?

MarioVP:
Yes Some people are going to reach people individually, and some on a mass level with a web site, reach a bunch of people. We have to find a way within the confines and the framework of what we love to reach and to teach

Cass:
Do you think studio executives are going to finance more of your Reach and Teach One type film projects?

MarioVP:
They are very excited that it is being reviewed so well. But if black folks don't go. . .

Cass:
Which is a worse dilemma to be in.

MarioVP:
And "we" can't complain when we get Booty Call 2 or Day After Tomorrow Again.

Cass:
I've taken up way too much of your time. Thanks for making this a great day for me.

MarioVP:
It was a pleasure. Don't forget to call me back after you see Baadasssss! because I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Cass:
I'll call you back after I see Baadasssss! to finish the interview.

MarioVP:
I look forward to your comments.

Cass:
Thanks, and until next time.

Thank you also to Alex Klenert at Donna Daniels Public Relations for scheduling this interview.

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