“At the end of the day, my job as a storyteller is to talk about the human condition,” Dear White People creator Justin Simien told the Comedy Actor Roundtable. ‘It’s through my lens as a black person, and through these kids’ lens as young black people, but it has to be about something that we all can feel and touch upon.”
“We’re being really conditioned to think of things in very black and white terms,” Simien said of the current political climate, and political correctness. “We’re human beings, we’re capable of seeing the gray areas, we should be capable of holding multiple things at once.”
Simien also addressed media coverage of current race relations in America, explaining that a purpose needs to be communicated. “You want to talk about all these things that are happening,” said Simien, “but if it’s not communicating something that’s important to the story or the characters, or something that’s going to last, we’ve got to kind of filter it out.”
“I do stil put a bunch of pop culture references, because I do want you to feel like you should have watched it when it came out,” Simien joked. “I want people to just constantly feel ashamed.”
As for the #MeToo movement, the writer told the Roundtable, “I think women have been going through some bullshit for a long time, so I’m kind of okay with the over correction, just to keep it real. I think that there is a line, there’s a danger, but I’m also happy that I’m an artist and I can talk about that through my work.”
Justin Simien is the writer and director of the 2014 film Dear White People, landing his Netflix series of the same name.
The full Emmy Roundtables air every Sunday on SundanceTV beginning June 24 and on THR.com the following Monday. The full Comedy Showrunner Roundtable starring Whitney Cummings, Pamela Adlon, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Justin Simien, Alec Berg and Mike Schur airs July 29 on Sundance TV. Tune in to THR.com/roundtables for more roundtables featuring talent from the year’s top shows.
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