Emmy Talk: ‘Black-ish’ Star Anthony Anderson On That Powerful Episode About ‘Hope’
As we enter Emmy season — nomination voting runs through June 27 — Yahoo TV will be spotlighting performances, writing, and other contributions that we feel deserve recognition.
For a comedy series, ABC’s Black-ish certainly knows how to tackle serious topics. In its two seasons on ABC, the family-themed comedy has won several NAACP Image Awards, but this season’s stellar episode, “Hope,” contained a scene that may finally win the show the Emmy adulation it so deserves — not to mention a second Emmy nomination for lead actor Anthony Anderson.
The episode took place in the Johnson living room as the family gathered to watch a news report about the verdict for a police officer who killed an unarmed black teenager. When the news report denounced the vilification of the police involved and described the victim as “no angel,” the Johnsons’ reactions ranged from outrage to fear.
Related: Review: ‘Black-ish’ Argues Eloquently About How Black Lives Matter
With the younger children sent off to the kitchen to look at takeout menus, the rest of the family members discussed the deaths of Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, and other young blacks at the hands of police, but they couldn’t agree on when the right time is to discuss the circumstances of these deaths in front of the children. Bow (Tracee Ellis Ross) wanted to protect her babies from the harsh realities of the world and let them hold on to their innocence a little longer, but Dre (Anderson) wanted to tell their kids the truth.
The parents finally come together when recalling President Obama’s inauguration. In an emotional moment, Dre recounted when the First Couple left the safety of their bulletproof car to walk out to the crowd, reminding his wife how terrified they both were that “someone was going to snatch that hope away from us like they always do.“
It was a powerful moment, a tear-jerking, Emmy-worthy one, and Anderson wasn’t acting when it was time to get emotional while shooting the scene.
“That scene was not only impactful to me, but it was personal to me and our community at large,” he tells Yahoo TV. “The magnitude of this entire episode: when is it the right time to address this with your children and to talk about it?”
Anderson says the episode was written by Black-ish creator Kenya Barris after his own young children watched coverage of the St. Louis riots on TV and asked him, “Daddy, why is everybody so mad?” — a line that is used in “Hope.”
Anderson also had his own personal connection to the episode.
“Growing up in Compton in the ‘80s, being a victim of police brutality, it’s something that I lived,” he says. “So yeah, we pull this content from our lives. We’re always going to tell the stories that we live.”
Anderson says he believes progress is being made — slowly but surely — and in the end, he feels Black-ish has done its job by just getting people to talk about real-life subjects without sugar-coating them for a comedy.
“We pride ourselves on dealing with divisive topics and bringing people to the table to have a conversation,” he says. “We brought them to the table and hopefully, at the end of the conversation, each side has a better understanding of the other as they walk away.”
Black-ish will return to ABC this fall. Catch up on episodes via Hulu, Amazon, or iTunes.
Read more Emmy Talks, including:
Emmy Talk: ‘Life in Pieces’ Star Zoe Lister-Jones
Emmy Talk: ‘Veep’ Star Tim Simons
Emmy Talk: ‘Master of None’ Co-creators Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang
Emmy Talk: ‘The Grinder’ Star Fred Savage
Emmy Talk: ‘Silicon Valley’ Star Thomas Middleditch
Emmy Talk: ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Songwriting Duo Rachel Bloom and Adam Schlesinger
