A Special Conversation with Roxane Gay
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I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors.

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Let's see if I can do this. Hello, ladies. Hello, ladies. That's good. How did I do, Sam? How did I do? That was wonderful. I love it. I love it. I'm Saeed Jones. I'm Sam Sanders. And I'm Zach Stafford. And you are listening to Vibe Check.

Happy Juneteenth, friends. Today's extra special episode of Vibe Check features a conversation between myself and my longtime friend, professor, New York Times bestselling author, editor, Roxane Gay. I've been honored. I realized the other day that I got to know Roxane over a decade ago. She edited one of my essays for The Rumpus.

A great website co-founded by our friend Isaac Fitzgerald. That essay became my memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives. So, you know, that was a pretty good start to our friendship. Well, can I ask before, because I've been so looking forward to you having this conversation. And I guess what listeners should know is you're going to start getting a lot of surprise conversations with us pulling into our grab bag of friends.

that you may know of. Hopefully, you know these people or you should know them. But what I want to ask you, Saeed, is does it ever feel so wild that you, Roxanne, Isaac, and so many others began on the internet and now your careers are these huge kind of huge flowers? Because back then, people made fun of blogging and writing online. I don't think it feels weird that we became friends. And I mean, I'm delighted, you know, there's so many...

stars have to align for success for any one person. But I will say, I think something that we all have in common when I think of people like Daniel Jose Older, another friend, or Ashley C. Ford, certainly Roxanne, Isaac, we all had a genuine appreciation for the internet.

We had a genuine appreciation for the social web, and in particular, the opportunities it could create. And I think of Roxanne as someone who has been doing excellent work. Her first novel, Ayiti, Untamed State, Difficult Women, Bad Feminist. A lot of the work stands on its own, but also the delight and creative ambition with which she's embraced the social web.

has allowed her to form strong relationships with readers, you know? And I think all of us in different ways just got that. It just made sense, you know? Well, what I love about you and Roxanne and a ton of other writers that came up in that time, that really distinct relationship

that bloggers had, that early internet had, it stays with y'all. I can hear the strength of her voice, the strength of your voice. And it's like definitively influenced by like, I don't know, that Thought Catalog era where there was just some really personal blogging going on.

that launched careers like yours and hers. I'm also excited about this chat because this is the first time that we're having an interview in the Vibe Check feed. So, you know, we made this show and we wanted to have a space for the three of us to come together all the time. But we quickly realized...

Each of us are good interviewers in our own right. And each of us have folks we want to talk to in our own right. So this summer, listeners, you're going to hear Saeed interview Roxanne. You're going to hear Zach interview someone. I'm going to interview someone. There's going to be a few bonus episodes all summer with us in conversation with...

friends and loved ones. It starts out today with Roxanne and Saeed. What is this chat about, Saeed? So Roxanne and I talk about her relationship with television. I, of course, know her very much as a literary writer, a cultural critic, but she also writes for TV. She has several Hollywood projects kind of underway, and we talk about that. And so I was like, oh, let's talk

about your relationship to television from coming of age, you know, the kind of shows she started watching when she was finally allowed to watch TV because that's an interesting detail that comes up. Characters and shows that shaped who she is, her love of soap operas, why soap operas are such a really interesting genre that a lot of writers like Michael R. Jackson, who wrote A Strange Loop, also interested in. We talk about like, what's going on there? We get into the writer's strike and in particular, the

what the writer strike and the way the Hollywood system right now is run, what it means for Black women and Black people in these writers' rooms, because that wasn't something that I've been seeing covered a lot. And I think what's really cool with these interview episodes that y'all are going to hear from us is that you're going to hear us talking to people who are not just

brilliant, fascinating people. They're people that we personally go to when we have questions that we kind of want to bring back to Vibe Check. So I've already been kind of talking with her about the writer's strike and I was like, let's put it on the record. Absolutely.

I love it. I love it. Share with the girls. Yeah. So we have this bonus episode this month. Next month, you'll hear from Zach and his special guest. I'll have a special guest in August. But I guess we should call this what? The Vibe Check Conversation Series? What do we name this? Maybe Phone a Friend?

Maybe we let the listeners come up with it. Yes, yes. Listeners, tell us what to call this segment. But with that, I guess, Saeed, start the party. Let's get into it. I'm excited for you to hear my conversation with esteemed author and critic Roxane Gay. Oh my God, let's get into it. So...

On Vibe Check, we always start our conversations by checking each other's vibe, asking how we're doing. And so I thought I'd ask you, Roxane Gay, esteemed cultural critic, writer, person in the world. What's your vibe? My vibe is...

Fed up. It's just been a rough couple years. So my vibe is just, she's done. She's through. She's over it. Yeah. I was going to say, what's your vibe, Saeed? I would say feeling a little threadbare. And at least personally, I'm just in this point where I am having to prioritize taking care of myself.

I love when I have the capacity to think about being a teacher or an educator, you know, my life as a citizen. But right now, Saeed needs to take care of Saeed. I hear that. I hear that.

Oh, man. Well, I mean, I will say the gift of Vibe Check is even when we're talking about tough stuff, by the end, we all feel a little lighter, hopefully. Yes, I've been looking forward to this all day. So I think this is going to be great. Yay. So this conversation, you have such...

capacity and you thrive in so many ways in mediums. But I realized, I mean, one, we had drinks recently and we ended up talking about TV and the writer's strike. But I realized, I was like, you know, you've been doing a lot of work in Hollywood and in the television space. And from my perspective as a viewer, as someone more custom to the book world, I feel like there's this thing where like,

go to Hollywood and then sometimes just kind of disappear in a way. Like they're there, but they're not there. And then suddenly they emerge with this television project. And you're like, oh, that's what you were doing. So I thought it would be cool to kind of get a sense of your relationship to television, what you've been doing for the last few years in that particular medium. What's it like compared to books?

And then obviously, everything's going on outside, like more broadly in terms of the strike, streaming, literally on fire. Literally. So I guess to start, I wanted to ask you, you know...

Thinking back, and this is me thinking like Roxane Gay in Nebraska, like coming of age, I wanted to ask, like, what's some of the television that helped make you you? Some of the shows, characters, or even just like defining moments that kind of felt, in retrospect, really important? Well, you know, I actually have an interesting relationship to television in that I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a child. Ah!

So that's why I read so much. And honestly, I think that's why I write so much. I had a very active imagination and I was able to exercise that imagination through books. And we were allowed one hour of television a week. And so it could be one show or we could apportion that one hour across multiple shows. Oh, you could divide it up. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And my brothers and I got mighty creative, especially when, even though now we know differently, when the Cosby show started to air, we would split it up like half Little House on the Prairie, half Cosby show.

So we were just walking around not knowing how shit ends all the time. Oh, that's so funny. What was it like? And I love that you mentioned moments like the Cosby show, because I think really the 80s, 90s, a big thing with television was that it was kind of the water cooler, even if you were a kid. I mean, I remember in kindergarten, like a Michael Jackson music video debuts, and it's all anyone on the playground is talking about. So for you and your brothers, what was it like?

kind of only having bits and pieces of what your classmates might have been obsessing over.

It was truly just bits and pieces. And so much of what my classmates were talking about at the time, like who shot J.R.? And here's what happened last night on Knott's Landing. I'm like, I just don't know. And then I went to boarding school. And then I lost my mind. I just was all TV all the time when I was not in class because there was no one there to tell me I couldn't. So I watched Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place religiously.

And, you know, it really was those kinds of evening soap operas that began to shape my television aesthetic. And this was well before prestige television was a thing. Right. And honestly, it was the nascence of cable. So many of us just, you know, you kind of watched what you were served up. There wasn't a lot of choice. And then MTV and HBO started. And so there literally were like two more choices. Right.

And so I just kind of watched whatever. And television in general is pretty interesting. Television writers do know what they're doing and they do know how to construct narratives and keep you engaged from week to week. And especially back then, cliffhangers really like at the end of every single episode, there was always this amazing thing that happened, this climax and then this climax.

Right. Like sweeps week? Yes. And you know what's so funny is that every May sweeps week. And so you knew that May was when you were going to get the good shit. Yeah, you were like, clear the schedule. I actually think that's one of the things that's been lost with streaming. And many things have been lost, but...

Now we have like the fall finale. It's like just made up shit that does not really exist that we have now become accustomed to and May sweeps no longer exists. So TV shows do end and sometimes they end on a cliffhanger, but I don't know that anyone really cares anymore. I don't.

I don't know that appointment television in the traditional sense really exists anymore. And with prestige television on cable and streaming, I don't know that they have to create programming programs

That ends in cliffhangers. And I think that oftentimes they don't know if they're going to be renewed. So every season finale has to also potentially serve as a series finale. Right. It has to be able to function. Yeah, it has to function as both so that there's at least some semblance of closure. And so, you know, it's been interesting to see how...

television has evolved over the course of my life and I still love it just as much. And I'll watch anything, uh, reality TV, prestige drama, absolute schlock, like whatever. Is there anything, is there any, like for me, I can't like true crime. I cannot do true crime. Oh, I don't do true crime. I must say I, I have lived enough true crime in my own life. I'm, I'm good.

And I will read true crime. When I was a kid, I read a ton of true crime. I read this one book and I've never forgotten it called Perfect Victim about a young woman who was like kept in a box under a man's bed and his wife would like sleep in the bed and she didn't know that this girl was in the box under the bed.

And it went on for seven years. And after I read that, I kind of forgot about it. And then the internet happened and Wikipedia. And then one day I Googled her and realized, oh, she's still alive. She got away. She's alive. I don't know that she's thriving, but she's not in the box anymore. And that was actually when I stopped reading True Crime because...

I realized this isn't just, you know, like the way true crime writers write, they make it seem like a novel. Like it's very gripping. And you're like Truman Capote did this, of course, and many other writers. And so I just kind of stopped. And with true crime television, I get why people are into it, but I just watch it. And I just think, why are we making an aesthetic out of like the most horrifying things that can happen to people and

I don't know. It just, for me, isn't pleasant. Yeah. You and I both write about difficult things in different mediums, right? And

I don't have guilt about it, but I do feel like it's important to check myself about what I think the storytelling can do. It just seems like, and maybe it's because television is a visual medium, so you're getting the storytelling and the visual experience. What is it that makes it so... It just feels like it hijacks our brains sometimes, you know? I think it does. And I think it also hijacks, to an extent, our understanding of the world. And...

I always wonder about that. And, you know, I talk about this all the time, but I think that's what makes media literacy so important is making sure that we're teaching ourselves and each other how to consume these kinds of things and how to place them in the proper context.

And I think sometimes we do that well and sometimes we don't. And sometimes we don't. You have to be willing to do the work because Lord knows television is doing its end, you know, in this kind of oppositional. And, you know, we see what happens when people don't do the work. Like right now there's this generation of young people and God bless them.

But they're like, I'm not comfortable watching a couple on television kiss because I don't know if they consented and yada, yada, yada. There's this new prudery and this strange understanding of consent.

I'm surprised by how many people think actors are actually having sex. Yes, they genuinely, it's so like, I can only think of one instance in a movie where the actors actually did have sex.

And it was a brutal, brutal movie. And I'm forgetting the title, but I wrote about it in Bad Feminist. And it just doesn't happen. It does not happen. There are so many things like, and when you see like a bulge, it's actually not the actor's bulge. It's a packer. It's all an illusion. They have layers and layers and so many tools. And thankfully now we have intimacy coordinators who actually are doing the Lord's work, particularly for women. Right.

- I follow an anti-Semitic coordinator on TikTok and I've learned so much. But I wanna ask you about this because you think so much about gender, the body, shame, and how all of that just is shot through our culture. It's occurred to me, on one hand we have people

And I'm trying to give them grace who were like, oh, those actors having that sex scene. I'm worried about consent or like, uh, I think they actually had sex. Like this happened a lot with Chloe Bailey and Swarm. She has a sex scene and people, you know, and like having to explain you like there's a whole like balloon ball between their bodies. They weren't even physically touching.

On the other hand, I don't hear anyone say it's so crazy how Game of Thrones got away with murdering hundreds of actors when it comes to violence. When it comes to someone on screen getting killed or shot or stabbed, I don't see people going, oh my God, how could HBO allow them to stab that person? Why is it different for sex with a lot of viewers? Just crudery.

and strange ideas about what is and is not appropriate, especially in the United States. I'll say for sure, these conversations simply do not happen in other countries, particularly in European countries.

And I would say probably South American countries. I would say even in Canada and Mexico, even within this continent, I think the United States is unique in its sort of moral insistence on chastity.

but violence is fine. That people are like, I don't, yeah, it's very puritanical. I don't want my child to see two people making love or being affectionate or intimating intimacy, but I'm completely fine with a lot of murder. Take, for example, Black Panther, incredible movie. In the first movie, they did not want to show two women kissing. Meanwhile, Eric Killmonger straight up murders his girlfriend. Right.

And everyone's like, oh, yes, Killmonger. And I've never, I love the movie and I love Ryan Coogler's work. And the movie is about as perfect as a movie can be. But it's really interesting that when we watch these movies under the banner now of Disney, people don't really want to see them have sexual lives and are 100% fine with what

What is quite a lot of violence across all of the Marvel movies. Like the snap, like half the world disappears. Right. Half the universe. Yeah. That's true. I forgot. It is the whole universe. Wild. But we're not going to talk about sex. My mom would joke about it, but she meant it growing up, you know, in the age of Blockbuster. Can I get this? No. Can I get this? Okay. And it was always violence is fine. No sex. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It's interesting. So then you go from like no TV to all of the TV. Yes. To all of the TV. Was there a moment as, because I have to imagine, you know, you were a passionate reader. Passionate readers shockingly become great writers. Was there a point in all of this where you were like, also one day I want to get into TV?

I think so. I didn't even necessarily think of it as TV, but I love writing. I love telling stories. And I always just wanted to tell great stories. And I really always, you know, especially from a young age, teenage, not like very young, I kind of thought it would be so cool to, especially, you know, I was obsessed with writing for Melrose Place. Okay.

Okay. That's exactly what I was like, what kind of show did teenage Roxane Gay want to write for? Teenage Roxane Gay wants to write a soap opera and adult Roxane Gay is writing a nighttime soap opera. And I'm fine with it. Like the studio notes for the first draft of my pilot for a show called Negroland that I'm writing, when I turned it in, they were like, okay.

you know, our network is really less prestige, more soap opera. And I was like, okay, I can actually give you, I'm fine with that note. Thank you. I will give you soap opera. I can step away from HBO. I think her exact words were like, we're not HBO.

And I was just like, well, I will save the HBO version so people know I can do it. And I'm fine to give you what you want. But I wanted to write a soap opera. I love the melodrama, the betrayals, the passionate loves, the breakups, the mess. Like, give me mess. This is interesting to me because two writers that are also coming to mind, Carmen Maria Machado and...

You know, I think as literary and prestigious, as elevated of a fiction writer as I can think of, loves Law and Order and has an entire novella about Law and Order, which I would say nighttime soap opera space procedural, right? And then Michael R. Jackson, A Strange Loop, his next show is White Girl in Danger, which is all about soap operas. What?

what's going on? Why are so many of the most talented... And I think of you like in a literary capacity, and I love this richness, but what is it? Why do you think there's this relationship there? I think that we love storytelling. Okay. And...

People like to judge daytime soap operas, but, you know, many of these shows are on the air for not years, but decades. Decades. Days of our lives, General Hospital, One Life to Live, As the World Turns, Another World, Passions. Some of these shows, of course, are no longer with us. R.I.P. Passions. Right? What a show. Right.

Many of these shows have like 40, 50, 60 years. To be able to tell a reasonably coherent story across six decades, I respect it. Like people still watch. Now, viewership has, of course, changed and so on. But I can still tell you about the day Marlena levitated because she was possessed by the devil. And...

That's on Days of Our Lives. And then like 20, 30 years later, you'll turn on the TV and the same motherfuckers are still like in Salem doing their shit. And that blows my mind. It's kind of incredible. I like that. It's like actors that we were watching at that time. Yeah, the amount of longevity and consistency that these people like, they go and they like try to like make it on mainstream television, like evening television. Whether it works out or not, they often come back. Yeah.

You know, John Black is still like hanging around Salem. Yeah. General Hospital, many of the same actors. Like the only thing that makes them really exit the narrative is actual death. Not soap opera death, which is temporary. Real death. But like death, death. And there's something about that. And Law & Order, I actually, I think it's in Difficult Women. Actually, I don't know if I published it. Ooh, not us getting a deep cut. Not us getting a deep cut. Oh yeah, you get a deep cut. I wrote a short story called

something like Evening Procedural, and it was about like 15 seasons, and based on Law & Order SVU. And when I read Carmen's story, I was like, oh, yes, I'm not the only one who's obsessed with this show. What Law & Order does is also what soap operas did, longevity. And the formula is predictable. There's something comforting in that, that every episode, most of the time of Law & Order and SVU,

There's going to be a sort of maybe season-long narrative, but in each episode, there's going to be some kind of resolution. And I think people take comfort in that resolution, that sense that the world is chaotic. We don't know what's going to happen, but we do know that there might be some measure of justice tonight. And especially in the realm of violence and sexual violence, when there is so little justice to be had in the real world, there's something almost aspirational about

about a world where the police believe victims across the gender spectrum, where police recognize gender differences, where police understand that there are nuances to what a cisgender male victim might be experiencing compared to a cisgender woman.

trans people face certain kinds of violence. And have they always been on board with the gender spectrum? No, but none of us have really. We've learned, we've grown to, you see these things happen on the show too, as cultural sensibilities change, these very long running shows also change. And I find that to be just very, very compelling. Wow.

Wow. It's almost like that longevity turns the one life to live or law and order almost into a person. I mean, these shows, these franchises basically have something more akin to human lifetimes in which like people who are been around for 30, 40, 50, 60 begin to have the opportunity hopefully to change and evolve too. Oh, absolutely. All right, listeners, it's time for a break. We'll be back in just a bit. Stay tuned.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors.

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden.

Here's an HIV pill dilemma for you. Picture the scene. There's a rooftop sunset with fairy lights and you're vibing with friends. You remember you've got to take your HIV pill. Important, yes, but the fun moment is gone. Did you know there's a long-acting treatment option available? So catch the sunset and keep the party going. Visit pillfreehiv.com today to learn more. Brought to you by Veve Healthcare.

I'm back with Roxane Gay, and we're going to jump right back in. Let's talk about then the last few years. You know, I know you like earlier in Rumpus and, you know, when Untamed State came out and then the supernova that is Bad Feminist. And now, you know, you're a multiple New York Times bestselling author. You have your own imprint named after you. Come on, you better. And I wonder, you know, what's it like?

going from that tremendous and so well-deserved success in the medium of books, and then you're in writers' rooms and you're in the Hollywood space. What has it been like these last few years? It's working. As you mentioned, you've got several projects. I do. I do. It's been great. And certainly it's been educational. Mm.

When you write books, essays, short stories, whatever, it's just you and the page and it's thrilling and you're the master of your own destiny for better or worse. And it's often for worse. TV writing is very collaborative.

Not only in the sense that if you're in a writer's room, you're collaborating with a bunch of other people and everyone's pitching ideas. It's like when a gifted and talented kid goes to an Ivy League university and realizes that it's an entire university of gifted and talented kids. Yeah. Where you realize, oh, there are lots of us. Yeah. Yeah.

Some of the best and brightest people are working in writers' rooms, whether you like them or not. I mean, these people are at the top of their game. You have to be really good. I mean, there's lots of mediocrity, but in general, to get there, you have to have something going on. And so you're competing with the best of the best.

to get your ideas on the page, to get your ideas heard by the showrunner and the head writer. And so, you know, for me, I actually think that it gave me a useful dose of humility and just sort of understanding I have a lot to learn. And I think I needed that at that time, not because I was running amok with arrogance. My self-esteem isn't built for that. But, you know, I just...

I think I had gotten not disillusioned per se, but just a little depressed about writing in general. And I just wanted something different. And maybe to sort of hear less of my own voice and starting to work in writers rooms. And I've done three now.

It really just helped me to understand that my career in TV is going to take a minute and that I have a lot to learn. And it's not just as easy as snapping your finger because I've actually had no problems. And I don't mean this in an arrogant way. I have not had any problem selling a show. I have sold every show or idea that I've pitched.

work, but none of them have gotten made. And yet none of them have gotten made, which is fine. You know, one of the things people don't realize is that you can do development for years and years and years and actually get paid and still not have anything that, you know, is getting made. And so I ended up working in the room of Queer as Folk. It was a mini room and I got an episode of TV on

to the television. It aired. It was great.

And I love that, like taking a step back from sort of show running and being the head writer and sort of not knowing, you know, like hitting the ground, like, cause they'll just let you do it. If you can write a book, they're kind of like, go ahead. And you're like, oh, let me read some scripts and figure this out. And so to sit in a room and break a season and write an episode and understand how the whole process works, it was a really great and useful step back.

And I actually would do it again. I enjoy being in a writer's room. I also think that a lot of the problems that we're hearing about through the writer's strike are absolutely there. You know, oftentimes when you watch a TV show, you're like, there must not have been any queer people or any trans people or any black people in the room. But I'll tell you what, I was in a room where all of those things were there. And sometimes I,

the white showrunners don't listen. I have seen it now more than once. And I realized, oh my God, sometimes we are in the room and we're just fucking ignored.

And that sounds, you know, I was listening to a conversation with a New Yorker between Samantha Irby, incredible, and Doreen St. Felix, incredible. Oh, God, she's the best. And Samantha Irby was talking about, you know, as a Black queer woman, what it felt like to work on this dream show. She's loved Sex and the City for so long. And then when she said she at one point heard someone say, oh.

a Black person must not have been involved. And then someone was like, no, Samantha Irvie is very much involved. And their response was like, well, all skin folk ain't kin folk. And it was just like, obviously how painful that is. But to what you're saying, it's like, even when you're in the room, it doesn't necessarily mean you have all the power in that space. I remember we were in the room and it was me and a bunch of other really great, I don't want to name their names if they don't want to be named, but some really great Black and Brown writers who

And we kept trying to express to the showrunners that if you deracinated the characters of color in the script and didn't mention their race, they would all read the same. There was nothing culturally specific about the people of color in the show to indicate that they were people of color. And that was a real problem. And we were just completely ignored.

And I started to understand, okay, this is how it actually happens. And I gained a whole lot more empathy for all of the writers of color who tend to be one of two or one of one in these writers' rooms. And then you see the discourse happening and people assuming, and I've been part of that saying, oh, there's no writer of color. I'm like, oh gosh, no, there is a writer of color in the room a lot of the time and they're not heard. And Mo Ryan just published a really great book called Burn It Down, which

And she's burning it all down and showing, for example, how toxic the Lost Writers Room was and how consistently women of color, people of color, and especially Black people who are pushed to the side, who are ignored, who are labeled as difficult, both in front of and behind the camera. And it's just, you always wonder then, okay,

How do we make a place for us in this industry when even now with this much scrutiny, they're still doing these very toxic things? And the rooms I've been in have not been toxic. I want to be clear. I've actually had very good experiences, but I've also seen how sanity and Black people, people of color explaining their lives, explaining what would be authentic, what would be real, what would be complex is completely ignored.

Well, then to that point, I do want to obviously acknowledge the strike and what's going on. I've learned so much. I'm grateful for strikes. I'm grateful for the labor movement because even if it's happening in an industry you're not in, you learn so much. It really does. And it helps you. Something I haven't gotten to hear a lot of is what the WGA strike and now the SAG members striking as well, what

can this mean for Black TV writers? What can this mean for the people you've been talking about? I've gotten a sense of what's at stake more generally, but do you have a sense of how this could hopefully improve conditions for Black people who love and want to make good television? In an ideal world, this would wake people up.

But Black people have been talking about how we're treated in writers' rooms for quite a few years now. I don't know that the strike is going to change anything specifically for us. But what it will do...

is allow the sort of lower level writers to have a shot at moving up through the ranks instead of staying at story editor for years and years without ever getting individual episodes, without ever getting more than union minimums, which when you do one show a year in LA or New York is not necessarily a living wage because these are extremely expensive cities and

And when you are only working for 10 weeks in a mini room, for example, you know, it's hard to make that work. It sounds like adjuncting. It's exactly like adjuncting. And for example, I've written an episode of television, but I've never been on set.

So I didn't get to go on set with my co-writer. His name is Azam Mahmood, and I liked him very much. We co-wrote this episode and we didn't get to go to set. It was just, we wrote the scripts. The whole show was written before they went to New Orleans to film.

And that's because of the new mini room phenomenon. So also it will allow Black people to enter the pipeline that used to exist to go from story editor to showrunner. Now, oftentimes you stay at story editor or whatever the lowest rank is.

or sometimes you're dropped in as showrunner without any experience, and you're expected to know what all of the most accomplished showrunners learned over years and years of working their way through the ranks. And to be clear, it doesn't... And tell me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is for writers... I mean, one, it would just be nice to be on set when you worked on something, you know, just as a show of respect. But also, it's like...

It doesn't seem that it would cost the studios. It's like it's literally just give this person a guest pass and let them be on set. But two, doesn't it also mean, like you said, you're not getting kind of the training you need? Well, the training and also learning about how to make script changes on the go, on set. Because sometimes the actors get the lines and they realize, oh, this doesn't quite work. Right.

or we need an adjustment. And so it's useful to learn what that looks like in real time and be able to do it in real time. And it requires...

you know, a level of nimbleness and agility that you can sort of have inherently, but that gets better the more you're on set and you see this kind of thing happening and you're actually given the thing, go and punch up the dialogue in the fight scene or whatever. And a lot of times Black people aren't getting these mentoring opportunities, aren't getting to set, they're

you know, a lot of the writers on Abbott Elementary, which is the most popular show on TV right now, are talking about how they're getting paid minimums, how they're not getting the credit they deserve. And if that's happening to shows on the most visible show with a great showrunner who knows what she's doing and who cares and is a writer herself, then,

Can you imagine what's happening to the writers on lesser known shows who don't have that level of visibility and, quite frankly, that budget? The strike is a good thing. Yeah.

We'll see. Well, I guess as a landing point, I mean, I trust where you see. So I guess I just want to ask, I mean, we don't know how long the strike will go on. It could go on for a couple more weeks. It could go on for a couple more months. How do you feel? How do you feel about the strike's future? You know, for me, I'm lucky. I have multiple sort of streams of income. So I know that I'll be okay. I have a job still as a professor, right?

And a writer. And so I'm deeply concerned for people who only TV write. They're going to be in dire straits if they're not already there. Plus all of the ancillary people who work on sets, script supervisors and cast and crew, like everyone's out of work right now. And it's just, I'm really worried, but I think that we're going to get at least some of the concessions that we need to go back to work and, and,

I just hope that it happens in July-ish, but the studios, given how quickly they resolved the DGA negotiation,

I think it shows that they don't really respect writers and this could go on indefinitely. And so I just, I can't, I don't have enough experience in TV to really predict how long this is going to go, but I would love for this to be wrapped up in July once SAD goes on strike. And I'm actually in both unions and I voted for striking in both. And, and,

especially with AI, I think that's going to be a very existential threat to actors in particular. I mean, writers too, but the AI is already showing that it can't write shit. It's just the best. That's not the threat. The threat is not that. But I do think that actors have a lot on the line and that it's now or never in terms of addressing the challenges that come with AI. So we'll see.

We will see. Well, we'll leave it there, Roxanne. It's always a joy.

obviously just to just even just sit next to you in total silence, but it's especially a joy to get to talk to you about TV. Cause I don't know if we've gotten to like, I've learned. I don't think we've vibed. And I love TV. Like I will talk about TV for shit. I could talk about TV for hours and hours and days. Oh my God. It was Melrose place. That was Brian Austin green. I just remember the men. I don't remember anything. No, Brian Austin green was actually on 90210. Oh, okay.

I'm getting my Caucasians mixed up again. Oh, I mean, why wouldn't you though? They're interchangeable. You know, no, I mean it. We're doing our best. They all look the same to me. I love it. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support Vibe Check, please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast listening platform and tell a friend, blackmail them if you must.

Special thank you, of course, to Roxane Gay for joining me. Huge thank you to our producer, Chantel Holder, engineers Sam Kiefer and Brendan Burns, and Marcus Holm for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp, a.k.a. Brandisha Sharp, from Agenda Management and Production. And of course, y'all, we want to hear from you. Don't forget, you can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. I want to know, if you have opinions on soap operas or...

or the writer's strike, anything that came up during this conversation that lit up ideas for you, let us know. You can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. And of course, you can keep in touch with us on Instagram at The Ferocity, at Zach Staff, and at Sam Sanders. Use the hashtag vibecheckpod. Stay tuned for another episode this Wednesday. Bye. Stitcher.

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