PHOTOGRAPHER: DJENEBA ADUAYOM BY: NIA GROCE
STYLISTS: BETH GIBBS & JADE CHUNG PRODUCERS: EMILY JENSEN & JADE CHUNG ART DIRECTOR: JADE CHUNG
MAKEUP: CELINA RODRIGUEZ / REBEKAH ALADDIN HAIR: MARCIA HAMILTON
PHOTO EDITOR: CHRISTINA HONG DESIGNER: JADE CHUNG
LOCATION: GOLD STAR INN
MELINA WEARS: PYER MOSS JACKET AND SKIRT; STYLIST'S OWN T-SHIRT; Sonia Boyajian EARRINGS AND NECKLACE
At its core, Queen & Slim is a film about love. The plot follows Queen (played by newcomer Jodie-Turner Smith) and Slim (Oscar-nominee Daniel Kaluuya) in the immediate aftermath of their first date — albeit, a first date in which they find themselves entangled in a cross-country run from the police. Hollywood loves a classic romance, but will it love that story when it centers around a black man killing a cop in self-defense?
Before you try to ground the movie in a more familiar story about a couple on the lam, Queen & Slim’s screenwriter Lena Waithe and director Melina Matsoukas are quick to correct any “Bonnie and Clyde” interpretations of their film. That’s far too reductive a take for a tale that prides itself on being a narrative deliberately created by Black people, for Black people. The fact that it’s the first feature film for both Matsoukas and Waithe alone highlights the rarity for Black creators to have complete control over their own stories, as the two have already more than paid their dues to earn it.
Matsoukas, for one, has parlayed a career as a Grammy Award-winning music video director for the likes of Beyoncé and Rihanna into a TV director for acclaimed series such as Insecure. Waithe, meanwhile, has made her mark as both an actress and an Emmy Award-winning writer. The gravity of this moment, therefore, is not lost on either of them.
“It's important for me to have two brown-skinned leads and to tell this story the way we chose to tell it. Us having final cut — I think that's a big reason why it’s hitting people the way it is,” said Waithe, who initially got the “seed” of an idea from author James Frey. “We know that this is a Black movie that's for Black audiences. And more often than not, you get Black entertainment that is curtailed to a white audience because they know Black folks are going to show up because of us, but they also want white people to show up.”
“To have final cut on our first film, it's really unheard of,” echoed Matsoukas. “We're able to employ four young, Black photographers with all very different angles to come to our film and interpret it in their way. I work with a creative director on my side who's of color and so is our graphic designer. The power of me just having control of my narrative has allowed me to then empower other artists and what they do as well.”
LENA WEARS: BERLUTI COAT; UNION LOS ANGELES SHIRT; LENA'S OWN RING
Power, as Matsoukas touches on, hasn’t exactly been doled out generously in Hollywood to women or people of color in general, and certainly not to women of color specifically. Waithe, for one, distinctly recalls writing this script as a “rebel cry” spurred from her own lack of power while working on The Chi, the SHOWTIME drama series which she created.
But Queen & Slim is already significantly raising both her and Matsoukas’ public profiles. Even before its highly-anticipated premiere, the movie has led to several magazine covers (including this one), article features and interviews for Waithe and Matsoukas. That makes it the buzziest project yet for the two since their Emmy award-winning “Thanksgiving” episode of Master of None, the Netflix series that jump-started the duo’s writer-director relationship (a connection that Waithe likens to that of “sisters”). However, one has to wonder if that buzz will translate into a real change in the power imbalance in the industry for women of color creators like themselves.
Waithe notes the fact that the movie, which doesn’t debut in theaters until November 27, is already being counted out by some. “What's been interesting right now is — even though it's still very early — you have a lot of lists that are coming out about Oscar hopefuls or award contenders. And every single time me, Melina and our film are put on these, ‘long shot’ [lists]. Even someone said, ‘It's so good but I doubt it will get any recognition with the amount of movies that are coming down the pipe,’” she said.
The difference between those other prestige movies that do make the short list is that their protagonists “all look a certain way,” i.e. white, as Waithe notes. “Obviously, me and Melina don't do it for that, but I find it very interesting that people are saying we won't even be a part of the awards conversation. I wonder, if we were a movie with two white leads doing a similar story would we then be in the conversation?” Waithe asked.
With a plot that hinges on a deadly encounter between a white police officer and a Black man, it still has yet to be seen if Queen & Slim will find itself embroiled in other heated conversations that sometimes arise due to the extra scrutiny around such works. Matsoukas directed Beyoncé’s ground-breaking “Formation” video, for example, which stirred up a string of criticisms after its debut in 2016. But as far as any concerns of backlash or “anti-police” rhetoric goes this time around, neither she nor Waithe have any.
“You know, ‘Formation’ wasn't anti-police, it was pro-Black life. And I think that this film is as well. It's about black people surviving and not being killed,” Matsoukas said. “And so if you're anti that, then you're on the wrong side of history. I'm not really concerned with the law enforcement element as much as supporting Black people living and thriving and succeeding. That's where I put my focus on and I hope that the rest of the world does as well because that's what's important here.”
The more pressing discussion at hand lies within the overall craftsmanship behind the film, a labor of love and meticulous planning that should not be overshadowed by any cultural commentary. After Waithe brought Matsoukas onboard, the director “tightened some things up” and helped to shape each character’s authentic voice, making sure Slim sounded like “a working everyday Black man” and that Queen “didn't come off as too cold or too harsh in that she felt like a Black woman,” explained Waithe.
“Melina cares so much about the little things and I'm about the
bigger picture,” said Waithe. “The ideology of ‘love is in the details’
is something that I'm really trying to pick up on. And that's a big thing I've learned from Melina, don't be afraid to go in and move something a few inches to the left. Don't be afraid to go in and pull a piece of lint out of an actor's hair. Because it may not seem like it
matters in the grander scheme of things, but ultimately it does matter.”
Matsoukas’ attention to detail proves just as prevalent in the Queen & Slim soundtrack, a testament to the music video maven that she is. “I knew from the beginning that I wanted it to be this extravagant Black music. And to show the history from soul and blues to modern hip-hop and R&B. I really wanted it to show the gamut of who Black people are musically and sonically,” she explained.
Like its protagonists, the movie’s soundtrack travels across America, shifting from bounce music in New Orleans and onto the Mississippi blues. “I wanted you to feel the regional musical choices and how that lends to their story,” Matsoukas said.
“Growing up in the ’90s and early 2000s, Lena and I both wanted to bring back the soundtrack. We grew up on amazing soundtracks, from Love Jones to Nutty Professor and Boomerang,” she added. “There's even a joke in the film like, ‘Did you know ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ before or after we saw Love Jones?’’ And we've introduced this new generation to so many different kinds of music that they maybe weren't aware of, so that was really important for me to do with this.”
“We know that this is a Black movie that's for Black audiences.”
“I want my legacy to be in creating change and to bring truth to the screen.”
LENA WEARS: BERLUTI COAT; UNION LOS ANGELES SHIRT; LEVI'S JEANS; NIKE AIR FORCE 1 "MORE THAN"
MELINA WEARS: PYER MOSS JACKET; STYLIST'S OWN T-SHIRT; Sonia Boyajian EARRINGS AND NECKLACE
MELINA WEARS: PYER MOSS JACKET, PANTS AND BOOTS; Jacques Marie Mage SUNGLASSES; MELINA'S OWN EARRINGS
To achieve such a musical feat, Matsoukas enlisted the likes of Motown Records president Ethiopia Habtemariam and fellow Insecure crew member and music supervisor Kier Lehman. She then tapped Solange to help consult on the music choices, who in turn recommended Dev Hynes as the composer. “Our Quincy Jones,” as Matsoukas described him. Alongside Hynes’ score, records old and new from Raphael Saadiq, Megan Thee Stallion, Lauryn Hill and more combine to form what Matsoukas calls “a meditation on the Black experience.”
That “Black experience” naturally traverses the idea of romantic love as a central theme of Queen & Slim. But it also encapsulates the love of community, another core heartbeat of the movie — on and off the screen. Just as Queen and Slim seek refuge and support from characters like the exuberant, Gucci-clad Uncle Earl (played by Bokeem Woodbine) throughout the film, so too did Waithe and Matsoukas rely upon their own network to create it. It’s what they both credit as allowing them the opportunity to be able to push boundaries with a storyline such as this one and to affect change behind-the-scenes.
“We're encouraging each other and we're working with each other and I think that's the main solve to this. They don't really have a choice, because we want to work with each other,” Matsoukas said of the industry’s push for representation. “My opportunities have been given to me by other Black people because we see ourselves in each other. We're all a reflection of a very similar experience, but also very different experiences. We want to put that in our work… experiences represented and told by the people who have actually lived it. We know the value in that because we haven't had the opportunity to do that before.”
Waithe also acknowledges that inclusivity is “getting better,” albeit in a way that is driven out of fear. “The good news is, now, all these studios, networks and production companies, they're scared. They're scared about getting ‘Me Too'd.’ They're scared about being called out for not being diverse enough,” she said. “So they're doing it, not out of the kindness of their hearts, but they're doing it because nobody wants to deal with that kind of smoke. So that's a bit of a good thing, but there's still a lack of representation when it comes to prestigious movies.”
MELINA WEARS: PYER MOSS JACKET, PANTS AND BOOTS; Jacques Marie Mage SUNGLASSES; MELINA'S OWN EARRINGS LENA WEARS: UNION LOS ANGELES JACKET AND T-SHIRT; BERLUTI PANTS; THOM BROWNE SHOES; Jacques Marie Mage SUNGLASSES; LENA'S OWN NECKLACES
As much as Waithe, Matsoukas and their team all believe in the prestige of their own film, at the end of the day it’s the audiences around the world who will determine its box office stats and subsequently its success — or at least, the kind of success that matters in Hollywood. “It depends on whether or not people show up for it, talk about it, tweet about it, post about it. It depends on whether or not the celebs, the taste makers that come see it possibly tell people, ‘You got to go see it,’” Waithe said. “If they do, we have the potential to make this a high grossing film.”
Hard numbers aside, Waithe plans to continue using any influence that she gains to bring others up right along with her. She herself counts Gina Prince-Bythewood, Mara Brock Akil, Ava DuVernay and Jenifer Lewis among the industry veterans that helped raise her in Hollywood, allowing her to express “a level of authenticity that none of them have ever told me to shy away from.”
“I'm just showing up as me,” Waithe stated, describing her buzz cut, lack of heels, dresses at awards shows and “masculine-presenting” look. “And I think just even in me doing that, I realize now, is revolutionary because I'm still an anomaly. And I look forward to the day when I'm not… Any power I gain from [Queen & Slim], I'ma put back into the community. I'm going to figure out how can I use that level of fame to put other motherf*ckers on. It's important that if you do get some shine, don't just hoard it.”
Matsoukas shares similar ideals, and despite being admittedly uncomfortable with the increased spotlight, understands what having this platform means. “If you see my Instagram, you know that it's not really about me and that I like to promote art and the vision and other people's work as well. So I'm trying to become comfortable with it, mostly because I understand what having a woman like me behind the camera means to the world and to the next generation,” she said.
It’s why both she and Waithe remain fearless in telling their stories, and this one — a portrayal of deep-rooted trauma, yet a reminder that beauty always finds its way through the cracks anyway. And love and community are always the key ingredients to do so.
“I'm just trying to keep that in perspective, that it's really not about me, but it's about highlighting the issues and the conversation that I am a part of,” Matsoukas added. “But I don't want my legacy to be in my celebrity. I want my legacy to be in creating change and to bring truth to the screen.”
MELINA WEARS: Bonfire of the Vanities LACE TOP; GUCCI LACE TIGHTS; JIL SANDER SLEEVELESS COAT; Brother Vellies BOOTS; Sonia Boyajian BROOCHES, NECKLACE AND EARRINGS
LENA WEARS: LOUIS VUITTON LEATHER JACKET; STYLIST'S OWN T-SHIRT; LOUIS VUITTON PANTS; PYER MOSS x REEBOK SHOES; Jacques Marie Mage SUNGLASSES; LENA'S OWN NECKLACE
Video courtesy of Universal Pictures
Melina Matsoukas and Lena Waithe Are Telling a Story About Love
But will their debut feature film Queen & Slim be loved back?
- Melina Matsoukas
- LENA WAITHE
“My opportunities have been given to me by other Black people because we see ourselves in each other.”
- MELINA MATSOUKAS
“I'm going to figure out how can I use that level of fame to put other motherf*ckers on.”
- LENA WAITHE
STYLISTS: BETH GIBBS & JADE CHUNG
PRODUCERS: EMILY JENSEN & JADE CHUNG
ART DIRECTOR: JADE CHUNG
MAKEUP: CELINA RODRIGUEZ / REBEKAH ALADDIN
HAIR: MARCIA HAMILTON
PHOTO EDITOR: CHRISTINA HONG
DESIGNER: JADE CHUNG
LOCATION: GOLD STAR INN
“My opportunities have been given to me by other Black people because we see ourselves in each other.”
- MELINA MATSOUKAS
Matsoukas shares similar ideals, and despite being admittedly uncomfortable with the increased spotlight, understands what having this platform means. “If you see my Instagram, you know that it's not really about me and that I like to promote art and the vision and other people's work as well. So I'm trying to become comfortable with it, mostly because I understand what having a woman like me behind the camera means to the world and to the next generation,” she said.
It’s why both she and Waithe remain fearless in telling their stories, and this one — a portrayal of deep-rooted trauma, yet a reminder that beauty always finds its way through the cracks anyway. And love and community are always the key ingredients to do so.
“I'm just trying to keep that in perspective, that it's really not about me, but it's about highlighting the issues and the conversation that I am a part of,” Matsoukas added. “But I don't want my legacy to be in my celebrity. I want my legacy to be in creating change and to bring truth to the screen.”