‘Light Girls’ Producer Stephanie Frederic Explains Why We Need Healing From Colorism

Even if we have never listened of Stephanie Frederic, chances are you’ve seen her work. Frederic, a 20-year maestro of a film industry, has finished a name for herself as a African-American owners of a prolongation association that privately markets to communities of color. As a owner and executive writer of FGW Productions

Frederic is deliberate a colonize in her margin — a perspective that her many new project, a documentary “Light Girls

More than 250 interviews were conducted in a march of filming “Light Girls,” with group and women deliberating colorism in a black village and a attitudes mostly compared with women of lighter complexions. The film, that has annoyed most plead online, includes reflections from informative total like Raven-Symoné

Frederic spoke recently with The Huffington Post to plead her career, her attention and her impasse with “Light Girls,” that premiered Monday on a OWN Network.

This talk has been edited for length and clarity.

You shoot, write, edit, furnish — we do it all! Did we set out to grasp such a multifaceted career and possess your possess company?

No, as a matter of fact we had suspicion my career would be as a radio news anchor, given that’s what we had been doing given we was out of college. That, to me, was a pinnacle. Nine cities after we finish adult in Hollywood. You do adequate luminary interviews and unexpected someone says ‘Hey, can we assistance us on a project?’ — that was one of a people during Disney. Next thing we know, I’m behind a scenes during “Toy Story.” That’s how my association was innate and what led me to so many film sets, and [that’s] how we’re means to assistance marketplace cinema to communities of color.

Oprah once said, “God can dream bigger dreams for we than we could ever dream for yourself.” we don’t know if she came adult with it, though she unequivocally pronounced it — it’s only so true. we had no thought that’s what we was being routed to… Here we am in Los Angeles, a longest I’ve ever lived anywhere in my whole life, and it’s fantastic. we adore L.A.

What changes have we seen in a past 20 years you’ve spent in a industry?

Let me only tell we right now, these are sparkling times. There’s a large change function that I’m unequivocally happy and unapproachable to be a partial of. We’re about to have a new Hollywood. What we meant by that is this: When we demeanour during a box bureau — those numbers that are so critical to everybody in a business — and who’s going to see movies, 51 percent of a box bureau now are people of color. Fifty-one percent.

Times are a-changin’. I’ve been observant this for a while — ‘Come on, Hollywood, a universe is changing, since can’t you? In a notation you’re going to arise adult and contend “No one is going to a box office, given no one wants to see this.”‘ Things are gonna change given they have to change, not given someone is sitting in one of those ivory towers meditative ‘Oh yeah, we should make this good film about Harriet Tubman, [or] we should do this regretful comedy starring dual African-Americans and marketplace it worldwide.’ The pivotal there is selling worldwide. We’ll be initial to do it given a assembly will direct it and wish it.

Why did we collect a “Light Girls” project? Why did we wish to work with Bill Duke?

I get a phone call from a crony of cave saying, “Bill Duke needs a writer for [his] ‘Light Girls’ documentary and we endorsed you.” And we said, “WHAT?!”

So we set adult a assembly and we go accommodate with him, carrying each goal of observant no. But we was meddlesome in conference what it was going to be about. When he pronounced “Light Girls,” we only couldn’t spin him down. we met with him twice before we pronounced yes, and partial of a reason is this — we had seen “Dark Girls” and we knew that it had ignited, as they say, a worldwide trending conversation. we watched it, and as a light-skinned lady we said, “Yeah, what they’re observant is true, though there’s another side.” And so when Bill Duke pronounced “We’re gonna do a other side”… it wouldn’t let me go — and here’s why: This is my family’s story.

We’re from New Orleans. we got family that are quadroons, one-fourth black — octoroons, one-eighth black — we don’t have to puncture too low to know that there’s so most pain out here given of a tinge of your skin. That pain is right on a surface. Every talk event we had, tears were flowing, somebody cried. It was one of a toughest documentaries I’ve ever done, if not a toughest, given of a tension and a tears flowing, people reliving that pain.

Wait until we hear a whole story. [People] have no thought how most pain these women have hold for years, for decades. It’s unequivocally sad. We need to heal, and that’s since Bill Duke wanted to do this documentary. We need to stop a madness, a black lady pain, given it’s so profitable. Black lady pain is profitable. Black lady stupidity is profitable.

One lady said, “No one else, no other ethnicity, has a operation of skin tone, a operation of hair, operation of physique type, [that] black women [have].” We need to stop a war. Instead of “team light skin, group dim skin,” let’s lay down and have an honest conversation. People ask me all a time, “What does recovering demeanour like?” Healing comes from heart-to-heart dialogue. Being honest with someone and observant ‘“Hey listen, I’m sorry, we didn’t like you, we was only jealous… we was insane during we and we had no reason to be insane during you.”

What recommendation do we have for women of tinge who wish to follow in your footsteps?

I tell each immature person: You gotta do your homework. You have to unequivocally know since we wish to be in this industry, and afterwards we have to do your task and find a mentor. Reach out to another African-American lady in a business. They’ll help.

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