The 1990s saw the birth of a new kind of black cinema. These were films that, despite being produced for black audiences, had real budgets. They cost millions to make and upheld basic Hollywood production standards. True, the budgets of these films were, in comparison to those made for white audiences (default Americans), smallâbut compared to earlier black-made films for black markets, the budgets were gigantic. The black people portrayed in these filmsâwhich were, if not a romantic comedy/drama, a straight-up comedy or dramaâtended to be middle- or upper-class and not preoccupied with racism.
Black 1990s cinema also featured a new breed of black talent that was eventually identified as "black Hollywood," and its stars are now black-household names: Nia Long, Larenz Tate, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, Jada Pinkett Smith, Omar Epps, Ice Cube, and, of course, Regina Hall.
Hall's first film was 1999's The Best Man, a rom-com directed by Spike Lee's cousin, Malcolm Lee (a key figure in the new black cinema), and set amid Chicago's black upper crust. Hall had a small part, but it launched her career. In 2000, she appeared in Scary Movie and Love & Basketball, both black-made films aimed at both black and white American audiences. That was the year Hall became an official member of black Hollywoodâand since then, she's appeared in several Scary Movies and romantic comedy after romantic comedy (The Honeymooners, Death at a Funeral, About Last Night, Think Like a Man, etc.).
In the 2017 black Hollywood film Girls Trip (another Malcolm Leeâhelmed work), Hall plays a "lifestyle guru" at the center of a circle of girlfriends (they call themselves the Flossy Posse). This is Hall in her element: an all-black cast that's performing for a mass black audience.
Last year, Magnolia Pictures released Support the Girls, directed by noted indie filmmaker Andrew Bujalski and starring Hall. These two artists came from very different cinematic universes, but what their collaboration produced was a work that tells us a lot about the director and even more about Hall.
Support the Girls is a world away from Girls Trip. Hall's character, Lisa, is working-class and manages a Texas bar/restaurant called Double Whammies, which has a business model similar to Hooters. Hall's employer is white, her employees are mostly white, and she spends much of the movie trying to keep the declining establishment running. This is not by-the-numbers black Hollywood. It's a movie that demanded a lot from Hall. Her character has to navigate a marriage that's on the rocks, racist hiring policies imposed by the business's white owner, and young white women in bad relationships who seem to come up with bad ideas much, much faster than good ones.
The Hall in Support the Girls had to be vulnerable in a way that wasn't demanded of her in the black rom-coms that made her famous. We get the sense that though Lisa is practical and hardworking, she may not be able to overcome the challenges that beset her from all sides. It is in the context of this exposure, this vulnerability, that Hall excels. What you never fail to believe at any moment in Support the Girls is that what keeps Hall going is a warm heart in a cold, cold world.
