plug: Hollywood Shuffle (1987)

“There’s always work at the post office.”

It’s hardly a secret anymore that show business is, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, a cruel, shallow money trench where thieves and pimps run free and good people die like dogs for no good reason. And it should surprise no one that it’s an even worse scene for Black people. Today’s plug is Robert Townsend’s Hollywood Shuffle, a foundational, bleak satirical comedy that takes no prisoners in its scathing critique of Hollywood’s mass exploitation of Black artists and Black stereotypes for the entertainment and enrichment of white America.

Hollywood Shuffle was co-written by Townsend and Keenan Ivory Wayans, and the movie’s structure is a melding of their respective instincts. A series of imminently Wayans-esque sketches are strung together with a through-line narrative that follows struggling actor Bobby Taylor (Townsend) as he navigates the ethical and economic implications of trying out for and accepting stereotypical Black roles (aka virtually the only roles available to him in 1980s Hollywood).

The demoralizing push and pull of art, commerce, and exploitation has always been the major obstacle for artists, especially artists of color. Hollywood Shuffle’s particular blend of narrative and sketch comedy demonstrates this with (if you’ll excuse the cliche’s) biting satire and personal storytelling that all clearly comes from a place of overwhelming and unfortunate intimacy with the whole situation. Check out this clip and tell me it’s not a borderline documentary of what auditions are like for Black actors in Hollywood.

Now, watch this sketch that gets sat the same subject from a more surreal and maybe even more painful angle.

Robert Townsend and crew shot this movie in LA without permits, and reportedly wore UCLA t-shirts to disguise themselves as film students. Townsend also supposedly put up $40,000 of the film’s $100,000 with several personal credit cards and shot the film with recycled film stock for 17 days spread out over two years between stand-up tours. Hollywood tends to love and incentivize movies about itself, but only when they uphold its status-quo fantasy. In capturing a real time and place, guerilla-style, with satirical specificity, movies like Hollywood Shuffle are documents of how shitty a big machine like show business can treat dejected working-class people who just want the freedom to be creative. As the ethics behind the creation of the things we consume feel more critical than ever, maybe we should be seeking out truly independent, locally-sourced films like we do other goods.