Macro’s Black Screen Production: critiques of capitalism and fantasies of escape

In 2015, Charles D. King exited WME, where he had worked since 1997 and risen through the ranks to become its first ever African American partner, to establish a new talent management and screen media production company, Macro. Since then, Macro has differentiated itself from Hollywood’s major studios and talent agencies by cultivating a reputation for elevating the voices of people of color in front and behind the screen and catering to underserved audiences of color by producing content with more diverse stories. At the same time, King and Macro have sought to ingratiate themselves to major distribution executives as they continue to rely on companies such as Netflix, WarnerMedia and Sony to get their films and television series in front of audiences. In doing so, Macro’s business adheres to longer-term challenges encountered by Black producers who have often been forced to choose between remaining niche and independent or sacrificing their independence for more mainstream success.
These challenges and dynamics are also reflected in Macro’s fiction film and television productions, which often contain critiques of capitalism (Sorry to Bother You, Gentefied) and/or fantasies of escape from slavery (Mudbound, They Cloned Tyrone) as well as from and to America and the American dream (The Land, Farewell Amor, Flybread Face and Me). While several of these productions explore the implications that slavery and its legacy have for African Americans in the United States, several others explore immigrants’ struggles to achieve a better way of life by conforming to American society and meeting the needs of American capitalism while remaining connected to their broader diaspora and navigating their ‘othering’ by White American society.
With all this in mind, this paper adopts a cultural production approach that explores Macro’s productions in their industrial and cultural contexts. Following a brief overview of Macro’s business and how it navigates contemporary Hollywood, the paper explores how the company contributes to productions that, on one hand, contain rarely told stories about people of color, but, on the other, cater to White audiences by adhering to certain quality aesthetics and perpetuating ideas about the American dream and racial uplift. In doing so, the paper sheds light on the work of a leading, Black-led production and management company and, in turn, shows how producers and talent managers contribute to Black production.