FLASHBACK: Black Soapers Aren't Whitewashed 1982

BLACK SOAPERS AREN'T WHITEWASHED - WILLIAMS IS GOOD AS BAAAD BROTHER

By Renee V. Lucas
Philadelphia Daily News
August 31, 1982

He's talented, black and working in television. At a time when black characters have disappeared from the small screen faster than you can say "Roots," Darnell Williams is the hottest black star of daytime television via his portrayal of "Jesse Hubbard," the baaad brother of the soap opera ALL MY CHILDREN (AMC).

It's been a year and a half since he joined AMC as the tough, ghetto-bred, teenager whose appearance brought more realism to an otherwise boring and white-washed black middle class family in the mythical Pine Valley. Jesse brought the "Grants" substance by showing that they too had fears, hostilities and passions, as do their white counterparts.

While rescuing the AMC blacks from flat characterland, "Jesse" has become more than a vehicle for enhancing the dramatic. His character raises considerable question in the minds of white television executives and black performers alike because of what might be considered negative aspects of his character.

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He is, for example, currently suspected of molesting a teenage girl - although his friends know it couldn't be true. The New York Times says that some have dubbed Hubbard "the most controversial character on the soap scene." It is a title Williams graciously declines.

"I really don't see him (Jesse) as controversial. He's billed as controversial only because he's the first of his type . . . right now. He's only negative because of the situation he was thrust into - his mother dying, having to move in with these folks that were just too close to white . . . He lashes out, but he's sensitive too. I think the contrast is what's the attractive quality. It gets a lot of feedback. No conflict makes for a boring script."

The boring script malady is something that continues to plague black storylines, on the soaps and on prime time television. Sherry Johnson, in American Film, writes that roles involving blacks drop conveniently into one of three slots - the sugary goody-two-shoes, the robust mother-to-all, and the "resident shadow," thrown in for color contrast. Williams says the problem is because "we don't have enough black writers or supervision."

"When you want to put a black family on," he explains earnestly, "you just need supervision. You need consultants, people that come from (the black family experience), who know what they're talking about. As far as I know you just don't have that in TV yet. There's nobody saying 'No, they don't do this in a black family, they do this.' We have panels of white people," Williams adds, adopting a Richard Pryor-style "white folks" accent," saying, 'Ok, let's have the blacks do this .' And it doesn't work like that!"

As one who's "always had trouble accepting the basic stereotypical stuff they've been giving us throughout the years," the 28-year-old, London-born actor has come to the conclusion that much of the push for sensitive and entertaining treatment of black experiences must come from internal sources, where potential is lying untapped.

Independent production companies, made up of black professionals who would develop scripts, is essential to the survival of black images on television, Williams believes. They would give birth to projects specifically tailored for black actors and audiences. Projects, Williams points out, that are of such high quality that "they get the right ears to hear it, the right eyes to see it, and say 'Yes, we'll go with this.'" Williams cites a black soap opera as one vehicle with strong possibilities for success.

"I think there should be a soap opera on the air, the core of which is a black family. It doesn't matter where that family is - whether it's poor, middle-class, or rich. It should be dealt with as a black family, their friends and relations. There's enough of an audience to start it out with good ratings, and if you get the right people behind it, the right talent, the right supervision, the right production staff and directors - not saying they all have to be black, but good people - it could work.

"I was thinking of talking to Agnes Nixon (the "grande dame" of daytime) about this black soap thing," he adds. "Ideally, I would like to have it sold to her, and be able to get some people that I know and trust as writers. I'd love to be the creator of the first black soap.

"But before I even take these ideas to Agnes I wanted to get an actual
college survey, 'What do you think about a black soap? Would you watch it? What would you like to see happen on a black soap? etc.' Then I'd gather all this stuff in a pile . . . " he mimes mounds of papers and charts from his research, "and take it to her and say 'Look, why don't we talk about something?'"

Williams also has ideas for movie plots centering on characters that offer challenging roles to black actors and actresses. One of his "little babies" involves a black college student who is studying law and trying to cope with a demanding family situation.

"He's married and has a kid," he explains, "they separate, and somehow the mother is totally out of the picture. The guy has to deal with going to school to get his law degree and having a baby to care for. He's got the state trying to take the kid away from him, because he's young, in college, and they feel the baby needs a mother figure . . . I think it would make a great movie. It's something that's contemporary, believeable, attractive, and not an insult to anybody or anything except injustice."

The drama-adventure type movie is another genre Williams would like to see more open to blacks, a vivid cross between fantasy and reality featuring suave, romantic heroes.

When asked if major producers and directors would accept a black man in those type of roles without falling back on the " blaxploitation" sterotypes of the '70s - when films starring blacks were largely concerned with drugs, violence and sexual escapades - Williams nods, then answers with confidence.

"Yeah, they will," he says thoughfully, " I don't know when, but they will . . . and I'll be part of it."