Actor-comedians David Spade and Dana Carvey have suggested that Hollywood should quit focusing on race and gender, calling it a “little diminishing” to individual accomplishments.
The former Saturday Night Live alums shared their thoughts about Hollywood’s handling of race and gender issues during an episode of their Fly on the Wall podcast. Spade began by saying the insistence on race and gender leads to separation.
“On race, let me just say at any of these award shows, I saw a clip the other day saying, ‘And this gentleman won, and he’s the first Black director to win for this documentary,’ I wish they would quit saying that because I think everyone we can’t all be equal to you,” Spade said.
“‘Oh, the first in 30 years to have a Black actor win this.’ If you just say we’re all actors . . .now this is my point of view, that it just makes it more even and not, we’re all just the same. We’re all acting,” he added.
Spade recalled how producers on the hit NBC sitcom Just Shoot Me would regularly inform him and the cast when a female director would be working with them that week.
“I [would] go, ‘That’s fine. Just is it a director? Yeah. Okay, we got it.’ Like you don’t even have to say that,” Spade said. “Female director. It feels like a little, not condescending, but a little diminishing. That’s a good word. It’s a little 5%. Instead of going, ‘We don’t have a regular director,’ you know what I mean? So, I was a big proponent of fighting that.”
Carvey joked about winning an Emmy Award and the presenters saying he was “198th straight white male that has won this award.”
Carvey and Spade made headlines in March when they publicly blamed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom for the decline of Hollywood.
“Dude, I’m so old,” Spade said. “I was on the lot at CBS Radford when we were doing ‘Just Shoot Me.’ … And also they were doing ‘Seinfeld,’ and I’d see him on his bike. It was the greatest lot. Of course, just filed for bankruptcy, the lot. Terrifying in LA Thanks, Karen Bass. Thanks, Gavin.”