"Honky" is a play by Greg Kallares that takes a humorous and provocative look at race, racism and marketing; Starting in September, Netflix will have exclusive rights to valuable Disney titles; South Africa is an increasingly popular locale for American films and TV shows.
Netflix is the exclusive home to Disney films starting in September
Netflix is a place where you can watch some of your favorite shows — new and old — and original series such as “Orange is the New Black,” “House of Cards” and “Master of None.” But on the blockbuster movie front, the streaming service hasn’t had much to offer ... until now.
Netflix struck a deal with Disney in 2012 to have the exclusive rights to stream new films from Marvel, Pixar, LucasFilm and Walt Disney Animation Studios. The deal finally goes into effect this September.
The Frame's John Horn spoke with Alisha Grauso — a contributing writer at Forbes and editor-at- large for the web site, Movie Pilot — to examine the significance of the deal.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
What does Netflix's exclusive deal with Disney actually mean for the company?
All new movies in 2016 from this point forward will only be released on Netflix. If you want to find anything from "Captain America: Civil War," to "Jungle Book," to "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" — anything coming out of Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar — will only be found on Netflix. It cannot be found on any other streaming platform. It won't be found on cable channels, it won't be found on premium pay channels and networks.
One of the bigger stories on Netflix is how much it is spending to get and produce original content. Netflix has said that it will spend $5 billion on original programming this year, and $6 billion next year, but it’s not really in the big blockbuster business, right?
It's not, but it is making original content. It did, for example, "Beasts of No Nation," which got quite a bit of acclaim and it is doing original series really well. Netflix and Marvel have formed a really strong partnership with the original series "Daredevil" and "Jessica Jones," which were really well received. And then they have a handful of other Marvel properties that are in development, turning them into series as well. They've just been doing crazy numbers on Netflix.
Well let's talk about those crazy numbers, because Netflix famously doesn't say how many people watch what shows, but there have been a couple of independent studies that looked at how many people were watching "Daredevil" and "Jessica Jones," which are both Marvel properties. What did those numbers from those independent analysis show?
An independent company, Luth Research, did a study and determined that about 11% of Netflix subscribers stream "Daredevil," which is more than "House of Cards," "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," more than other Netflix series, so it was doing quite well.
For me, the more telling figures were last year, NBCUniversal and The Firm — an independent research for Symphony — partnered to look at streaming video-on-demand to see how it stacked up against the traditional networks and cable outlets. They estimated that the ratings for "Jessica Jones," which was the second Marvel series that was adapted, averaged about 4.8 million viewers per episode in the 18-49 demographic, which is that all-important demographic.
So, putting that into perspective, that's actually a higher per-episode-average than Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," which airs...
On the broadcast network ABC, right?
Yeah, so that averages about 3.4 million viewers. I mean, "Jessica Jones" was outpacing, per episode, by well over a million viewers, and that's a huge number.
Is Netflix going after Amazon and Hulu and the other streaming sites? Or is it really going after HBO and Showtime and even the broadcast networks?
I think Netflix is kind of going after both. Right now, they seem to be putting all of their weight behind their original content, which kind of indicates that they're going after HBO, networks, cable channels. But at the same time, all of the other streaming services, like Hulu and Amazon, they have their own shows. But it seems like they're trying to play catch-up with Netflix. But this partnership with Disney and Marvel has been phenomenal for them and for their branding. Now there are rumors that they might start adapting "Star Wars" series for Netflix. That's the next big hope, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen either.
Film production in South Africa creates a boon and a dilemma for local actors
Drive along South Africa’s N2 highway near Cape Town and you may spy in the distance a huge wooden sailing ship stranded in the middle of an open field. It’s a prop – one of two boats built as sets for "Black Sails," a pirate adventure show produced for the U.S. cable network Starz. But that warship is also part of a larger invasion force — of foreign film and TV productions shooting in South Africa.
Denis Lillie, CEO of the Cape Film Commission says, "In 10 years time I think we are going to be catching up with a lot of the bigger cities, like London and L.A., for film production."
Patrick Walton, a longtime actor, stuntman and producer in Cape Town, has seen the boom develop. "I think we’ve grown from having three features a year to excess of forty," he says. Ever since the 2006 film, “Blood Diamond,” and the Clint Eastwood movie, “Invictus,” foreign productions have been flooding into South Africa from the U.S., Europe, Australia and India. They’re drawn by production rebates and a favorable exchange rate. And one more thing.
"People started to recognize that South Africa could match basically almost every location in the world," says Walton, "except for where you need a lot of snow."
The result is that many of the productions shot there are actually set elsewhere. “Black Sails” takes place in the Bahamas. A short-lived successor to the TV show “Baywatch” used a local beach to stand in for Malibu. “Homeland” shot an entire season here, doubling Cape Town for Islamabad. Walton says he played a sheriff in a series that took place in Arizona, "out in the desert. I think all the production needed to do was just place a few cactuses here and there."
It turns out that physically recreating Arizona or Malibu on the other side of the world isn’t that hard. The bigger challenge is populating these fake Americas with fake Americans.
"Before you come out of drama school, you’ve got to be able to do a really good American accent and a really good British accent," says Emma Ress, a talent agent who represents actors in Cape Town. Foreign productions cast her clients in a variety of small roles, as characters who are rarely South African.
Ress points out that when she was in drama school, students "would have to go the library" and "listen to tapes" to perfect their American accents. But these days, Cape Town actors look to people like Robyn Scott, an actor and voice coach, and to shows like the U.S. soap opera, “The Bold and the Beautiful,” which airs in South Africa.
Scott says that "every actor in that soap opera is doing the correct accent. And because it’s a soap opera, you know, everything’s slow. They speak quite slowly."
Talent agent Ress says if the production boom in South Africa continues, she’d like to see local actors being offered more than just bit parts. "Black Sails," for instance, has one or two South African co-stars, but most local actors play cannon fodder, which Ress says is unfortunate: "It just seems a pity that they’re not being afforded the opportunity to audition for the supporting leads at least."
And not only are they getting small roles, but the parts that are available to South Africans in international productions tend to be for white men. And Ress also points out that South African actors have often been paid much less than their foreign counterparts.
"We’re trying to get on top of that now," she says. "And there seems to be a big complaint that our actors have become very expensive. But I think that we are finding our feet in what actors are paid around the world."
Accent coach Scott is confident that as more South Africans master the nuanced dialect of "The Bold of the Beautiful," they’ll land bigger and more diverse roles in U.S. and other foreign productions. Scott notes that she and some of her students were recently cast in a Warner Bros straight-to-DVD project, a modern-day Cinderella film shot in Cape Town.
"When I looked at the cast list," she says, [I saw] South African, South African, South African, South African, South Africans. And they all had to do an American accent. A lot of them came to me and we just checked up on everything before auditions, but I was just so proud. So, yes, it’s shifting.
Greg Kalleres' play, 'Honky,' targets racism in advertising and in our culture at-large
Audiences often have a peculiar response to Greg Kalleres' darkly comic play, "Honky." Most of the time, he sees them laughing with hands over their mouths -- unsure of whether they should laugh out loud at the racial humor.
The play revolves around an advertising copywriter who’s afraid a commercial that he wrote led to a fatal encounter between two black teens over a pair of sneakers. Kalleres knows marketing well. He’s written and produced commercials for Nike and Brand Jordan, among other companies. His play is making its Los Angeles premiere after successful runs in New York City and San Diego.
Kalleres spoke with The Frame recently to explain how "Honky" addresses race and the role of marketing in our culture.
Interview Highlights:
Why did you decide to call the play "Honky?"
I did it because the play is so much about language and the power of words. The word honky — though it might have been a derogatory word for a white person — is now powerless. In the play, I posit that if there is one offensive word for a white person, it's racist. If you're a liberal-leaning white person, most likely the word racist keeps you up at night. The idea that anyone would think you're racist is so horrible that you will do anything to avoid being called that.
Prejudice is how we see people and bigotry is how you behave outwardly. Which were you trying to explore?
What I started being interested in with this play is language and how we talk to each other. We might have the best intentions in the world, but we might be ignorant. We might not be ignorant, but lack the language to express that. I wanted to write a play where language was the antagonist, where every character in some way or another was struggling with using the right words and being able to communicate.
There's an advertising jingle in the play that is loaded with language. You worked in advertising as a copywriter. Can you talk about the jingle and why it is so central to the story?
The thing that inspired me to write this play was my experience in advertising. I was a white guy writing for brands like Nike and Brand Jordan, where we were told that this specific shoe would be targeted at young African-Americans. You'd be in a room full of white people, and maybe one black person, and you're all discussing demographics. You talk about race a lot in advertising. I remember being 25 years old and writing these ads and thinking, This is weird.
As weird as it must have been for you in a group of white men talking about how to sell shoes to a black audience, it must have been really uncomfortable for the black man who was in that room. That's a perspective you're really trying to explore in the play, right?
Exactly, right. There's a [black] character named Thomas in the play and he's a shoe designer. He grew up well-educated in a wealthy white community and he's always been conflicted about that. His friends were in a poorer neighborhood and used to make fun of him, calling him "rich kid," or "honky" or things like that. Thomas always finds himself in rooms with white people. Throughout the play, and going back to the theme of language, there's this idea of coding — how Thomas talks when he's in a room with his white boss and how he talks when he's in a room with his sister. Something I wanted to explore was language and context — where you are and who you are talking to. It so often happened where there was that one black person in the room, and they're hearing all these questions. Every now and then something awkward would be said and everyone would look at this black person as if, Was that OK? It's the most horrible, awkward and comical thing to watch.
Do you see that black and white audiences have a different reaction to the material?
I have not watched who's specifically laughing at what. I will say that I have seen black audiences laugh much more freely than whites. Humor about race in black culture is much more common. They've been dealing with this for a long time. They know that, as painful as it is, it's also a place for humor — these things they deal with every day. For white people, there's more discomfort and it usually takes them until about scene three before they realize that it's okay to laugh.
What's clear in the play is that the characters are often uncomfortable. That feeling is also shared by the audience. Was it your intention that the audience squirm almost as much as the characters on stage?
Yeah, I think so. You never want to say you want to write a play where everyone is uncomfortable, because that's not the idea. I think it's a very funny play. There will be moments of squirming and then there's also an absurdist joke that you will hopefully laugh at. That discomfort is there because it's there all the time in life. These moments that are on stage I hope will reflect experiences that we all share when it comes to race. I've had audiences that were silent the entire play and I thought they hated it. Afterwards I would do a talk-back and I would say, "Gosh did you hate the play?" They would say, "No, I was laughing the whole time just with my hand over my mouth." I would watch the next night and it was true!
In this play, there is a pharmaceutical company that invented an imaginary drug called "Driscotol." What's the idea behind that?
"Driscotol" is a pill that posits that it can end and cure racism. But more important than the pill is the advertising of the pill. The advertising is: If you don't take it, you're a racist. Which is a brilliant advertising idea because no one will worry you're going to say something wrong. You won't have to watch what you say anymore because you can just say, It's cool, I'm on the pill. It's like the new, It's OK, I have a black friend.
"Honky," produced by Rogue Machine Theatre, is at The MET Theatre in Hollywood through June 12.