Dewayne Perkins & The Blackening: Creating his own lane as a storyteller and filmmaker

This interview was conducted on June 28th; before the SAG-AFTA Strike was implemented on July 14th!

If you haven’t watched “The Blackening,” you are definitely missing out. This movie is a delightful comedy that will keep you laughing from start to finish. It cleverly weaves in various cultural nuances and satirical elements, prompting viewers to contemplate their own stereotypes as well as those of others.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dewayne Perkins, the talented writer, creator, and one of the stars of the film. He is an incredibly talented comedic genius who successfully expanded a short comedy skit into a captivating and entertaining full-length feature film. During our conversation, we explored his inspiration for the film, and more importantly, we delved into the motivations that drive him as a writer. He has a desire to witness a shift in the narrative. His goal is to draw attention to individuals who are often ignored in movies, giving them the opportunity to be depicted in a fresh and different way.

Cox: The Blackening is hilarious and an instant hit, Dewayne. I want to know about you and where this love for storytelling and entertainment comes from. 
Perkins: As a kid, I was very entertained by entertainment. I loved movies and television shows. At the same time, I was math and science-oriented, so when I watched TV or movies, I would pick up the patterns of how the story was being told. 

When I went to high school, I was a bit of a jock; I played football, and we were even on the dance team. It wasn’t until I found improv and sketch there that I could inhabit a lot more than just myself. The playground felt bigger than some of the earlier areas I explored. 

So, when it was time for me to go to college, I chose a theater school. It was a very severe and rigorous acting program. I got cut from it and remember thinking; this feels right. Like it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted to do. Plus, I wanted the freedom to create what has not been done versus spending all my time and money assimilating what is already there. So, I started working and doing sketches and comedy on my own. 

This is when I found my comedic voice, knowing this was what I wanted to do. I have opinions about the world, and the best way to put them out there is through the guise of entertainment. Even The Blackening, on the surface, is entertaining and fun, but when you leave the theaters, I hope you are like: “Wait, there was something else there.”   

Cox: There are levels when it comes to what you create and how you tell stories. 
Perkins: As a queer Black man, that is how I had to exist in life. I had to enter spaces and be very aware of my presence and how I came off while still being very clear to insert myself into the space. And that is who Dewayne is as an artist. He loves the entertainment aspect of entertainment while still having a consciousness of wanting to create art that progresses society. 

Cox: I love that you bring this intersectionality into your career as an actor, but mainly as a writer, where you are in complete control of the story’s narrative. 
Perkins: Exactly, and I started writing because, as an actor, I felt like there wasn’t enough space for me to express my voice, which was significantly different from what I was being asked to portray. And living in my body for as long as I have now, I felt like my experiences were just as interesting as the experiences I’m being forced to tell. I did not understand why there wasn’t a space for it. So, it became a priority of mine. So let me tell my story now! 

Cox: That is truly a testament to who you are and your character. What advice would you give the younger Dewayne, if any? 
Perkins: That is a tricky question because I am obsessed with the person I am now, and my younger self will eventually figure it out. But I would impart my confidence and how I got it to a younger me. Letting him know he doesn’t have to care about what people say. It doesn’t matter. Even as a child, I was very self-aware because I had to exist in environments I knew I did not want to be in. 

So, my advice would be, “Keep doing you, girl.” 

Cox: Now that I have learned more about Dewayne, I am ready to know where the concept for The Blackening came from. 
Perkins: I was doing an all-Black sketch show in Chicago and tasked with creating an opening scene for the show. At that particular time, the comedy institution that I was a part of was predominately white. And for the show, many Black people have individually felt tokenized in that space. So, when we got together, I was like, ooh, what is a sketch that can speak to this dynamic of us finally being able to do something together? Sitting on my couch a little high, I was like, okay, what if we were all in a horror movie? 

A horror movie was the perfect scenario because when we talk about tokenization, we can get into things like if the Black person dies first when everybody is black, then that messes everything up. 

And that is how I thought about the comedy because what do we do with all these Black people? In parallel, discussing Blackness through the lens of whiteness was a subversive way of talking about being Black, especially about the things that do not make us Black, so we could show that it does not matter. It will be Black no matter what because you are Black. And that became the basic premise. 

Cox: How did it go from sketch to movie? 
Perkins: The sketch became very popular after I wrote it, and we performed it in the comedy club space. It then got moved to a bigger theater, Woolly Mammoth Theater, pitched to Comedy Central for a web series deal, and that is when it became the sketch online. And then Tracey Oliver saw it, and that is when it became a movie. 

Cox: When it came to the movie, were there any changes you had to make from the original sketch? 
Perkins: We had to expand it and make the characters feel natural so people cared about them. We wanted to stay true to the sketch but also expand the relationships. So, within the movie, you see the sketch, but we changed things because we didn’t want to recreate the same thing. There are a lot of different jokes, but there are also some of the same jokes. We want it to finish the journey like this: this is how it started, and this is how it will finish. 

Cox: So many Black archetypes and stereotypes are present in the characters of The Blackening. It’s hilarious. Do you have a favorite character? 
Perkins: I have a special love for every character because they were meant to present a stereotype, a trope, or, you can say, an archetype. They are meant to force the audience to investigate how they see stereotypes because stereotypes are just generalizations. 

The idea was to give these characters, which represent real people who historically aren’t given a space in a film to be whole people, the opportunity to be that. Like the gay best friend, you can be the hero at the end. They don’t have to be a tool for the plot or to further someone else’s narrative. They can exist in all their fullness. 

I know someone like each of these characters in my real life, so I wanted to allow the characters to take up space and entirely exist within the movie. 

Cox: This movie has a layered message about stereotyping people. 
Perkins: This movie allows the audience to question stereotypes and the boxes we put people in, like the characters. It lets people know that these confinements are ridiculous and should go away. 
 
Cox: Speaking of stereotypes, I love how you showcase the gay best friend relationship with the straight female friend and the ensuing dynamics. 
Perkins: Yes, that was very important to me. I often find that romantic relationships are prioritized over platonic ones in the media. And many of my platonic relationships have been very significant in my growth as a person. To bring it to the gay best friend perspective was important because I don’t think too often people are forced to think about voice points from queer people. I wanted to put that at the forefront with friendship, not heterosexual relationships. 

I felt revolutionary with this because it is hidden in the movie but still buried within this entertaining core comedy package. People that get it will get it, and it will resonate with those it resonates with. 
 
Cox: What do you hope people take from your character, Dewayne? 
Perkins: I hope the takeaway is seeing a very CLEAR point of view from a Black queer man.   

Cox: When we look at the group of friends, you push the stereotypes in some of the funniest scenes, like when they are playing the board game. 
Perkins: I felt like that was going to be easier to push the theme of how people aren’t monolithic by showing these people to be different. The characters embody what makes them different while seeing how greatly different they can all be while still being part of the community. 

Then there is the point of view regarding the reference to Blackness that is explored and how people feel about it. That is why it was great to write these characters and stories with characters who lived through these experiences. It added an extra layer of truthfulness to the movie. 
 
Cox: I need to know what the creative process was like when it came to the questions the board game asked. 
Perkins: That was one of the hardest parts of writing because we had to be specific with the cultural references. It had to be something other people would know as well. It couldn’t be enough to win the game. We had to have it where some wouldn’t know either. Because the whole point of that scene is to demonstrate how they would all die individually without the community’s help. We had to tap into each person’s identity to see what they would bring from their lived experience that would give them the knowledge they needed to survive. So, we had to work backwards with this one. To create questions that fit within those confines. It was more complicated than I thought. It wasn’t just let us make funny questions; it was what these questions were saying about these people.