These are  about 6 large companies who own all Mass Media in the USA.
Comcast
The Walt Disney Company
Time Warner
Fox
CBS Corporation
Viacom

These large companies control the bulk of what we watch on TV, Film and read in books and newspapers.

Here’s some examples of who owns what….
Time Warner owns: HBO, Turner Broadcasting and Warner Brothers

FOX owns:  FX, FOX Network, 20th Century Fox, National Geographic Studios and Fox Searchlight

AMC owns : IFC, Sundance TV, BBC America, IFC Films

Disney owns : ABC network, Lucasfilm, Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney films, Lifetime Network, ESPN, Marvel Entertainment

All of these companies own hundreds of smaller affiliate TV stations and invest in independent production companies.

Fox Searchlight financed Nate Parker.  When they decided to invest $20 million dollars in this black man of course they did their research.  Of course they looked into his past. Of course they knew he was accused of raping a white woman with his white friend who also is his writing partner.  Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch who hired Roger Ailes who was the mastermind behind Fox News, who was sexually harassing his female employees.  The same Fox network that backs Fox news that creates content to reinforce fear based racial stereotypes that harm the black community.

The folks over at Fox are stunningly, blatantly brilliant at creating racial content that hurts the black community while, at the same time employs members of the black community and tells compelling stories about facets of the black community.

Mass media is not as simple as the colors black and white.  There are contradictions and nuances.

I watch a TON of Television and I notice things.

I stopped watching Gotham, which is on Fox network, (and I watch network TV on Hulu…which is a consortium of Fox, Time Warner, through the ABC TV network) because I noticed that usually a black character, male or female, was violently shot in the first 10 minutes of show pretty consistently.  That just pissed me off.   I tolerated it because Jada Pinkett Smith had an interesting character…then she was gone…I kept watching and like every week a black character was shot or stabbed or killed in some violent way in the first 10 minutes of the show…then the story line was based on the white people.

Empire..a show with a ton of black people right?  Well…yes.  Created by a gay black man, with powerful storylines for the gay black male character and his relationships with his parents and partners.  Well done.  Yet…Cookie even though she is well-played is an ex con who sold drugs and did time for the love of her life…and the show goes back to the minstrel shows for the black female characters stereotypes from Mammy to Hottentot venus to the tragic mullato…they are all in Empire.  Along with the white trophy wife…all there.  I chose not to watch that hot mess.

Sleepy Hollow was interesting in the beginning.  Great Black Female lead…possible love interest with a time traveling Ichbod Crane…yet they never allowed those characters chemistry to turn into a relationship and I heard they killed off the Black female lead…Again Fox.
So it does not surprise me that Fox searchlight films would find a black man, accused of raping a white woman, married to a white woman who writes a compelling story about a slave revolt with a white writing partner to invest $20 million to make his film.

I’m sure it will be brilliant.  I mean the trailer brought me to tears.

It’s SO fucked up that Fox Searchlight produced this!!  Yep it’s another slave narrative…yes the slaves revolt…but spoiler alert…they are all killed violently in the end.  And the same organization that calls the Black Lives Matter movement a terrorist organization funded this film about a slave revolt.

What is Fox telling us… go ahead  The Blacks…revolt..we are going to make America Great again…give us a reason to shoot you down.

But Show business is a business.  Whatever makes the white people who control the studios money will be what gets produced.  And they are BRILLIANT at getting all of our money.

And the Birth of a Nation looks like it’s a brilliant film.  But as the hero-worship and the golden pedestal gets built for Nate Parker to stand on while the media works to take him down…don’t get caught up in the simple arguments that will come up.  Some will simply say boycott this rapist!!  Others will say…support the brother they are trying to take down the black man!!

It’s complicated.

Do some research and if you are truly “woke” recognize propaganda and ask WHY.

Why does one particular network only show dark-skinned Black men with white women as love interests?  Why does this network only show Dark Skinned Black Women as single mothers, maids, prostitutes, down trodden blue-collar workers, overweight best friends, sassy home girls who chew gum?

Art does reflect life.  Yep, there are Black Men out there who consider their rite of privilege to be having a white trophy wife and light skinned children living in a white neighborhood to be their american dream.

Yes, there are white women out there who are so amazed that these Black men treat them like goddesses… why not just say yes to the money and the pretty bi racial babies they will bear and enjoy the benefits of wealthy black men and be a trophy wife?

But…I digress.

There are only about 6 Media organizations who control all of what we see in the entertainment industry.  Support the networks who are putting out the programming that is employing Black artists in work that humanizes.

Don’t think that the images that have been shown in our entertainment are not a part of the angry white people who are out there supporting that racist Republican who is running for President.  Fox knows EXACTLY what it is doing and what it takes to control the minds of its minions.

But guess what…there ARE networks who see the financial value of producing humanizing work.  In my opinion, The Disney corporation has turned out to be the largest ally in the Corporate Entertainment industry to women, People of Color and the LGBT communities.

Even here in NYC in my little world as an actor, the majority of TV and Film work I have been cast in, has been on ABC and on films produced by the Disney corporation. Viola Davis’ production company  JuVee Producions  is backed by ABC which is owned by Disney.  ABC has created a strong relationship with Shonda Rimes production company Shondaland which has been creating humanizing awesome stories for over 10 years on ABC.  Disney also owns the Lifetime network which has programming for and by women that is producing shows featuring diverse casts of women characters telling all kinds of compelling, amazing, and terrifying  stories.

As the fall rolls in and the racial debates begin to flow around The Birth of A Nation begin to spew… remember  when it comes to race in America…we have always been living duality.  There have always been blacks and whites who are in relationships each other while  at the same time being prejudiced and racist towards one another.  This is America.

Ashe

J9

UPDATE October 12

Over Columbus Day weekend I saw the movie. Here’s my problem…if you are making a bio-pic about Nat Turner’s life….shouldn’t there be some actual FACTS in the bio-pic?  The movie makes it seem as if Nat Turner chose revolt only after his wife was raped which is a total lie.  This movie minimizes the activism of the black women of the time and is propaganda to boost the ego of a Nate Parker, a troubled black man with great connections.

This film was not good.  It was boring and not historically factual.  There was some good acting in it and creative use of the camera, but I now understand why FOX chose this film.

Pick a troubled Black Man, currently married to a white woman accused of  raping another white woman with his white best friend to create a lie about a slave revolt with an race battle that never happened in reality that ends with all the black men getting shot and Nat Turner getting lynched.  What a great black man to put forward in the media to use as an example for right wing pundits while at the same time squashing any protests about how blacks are portrayed in the media.