Back in 2008 when the TV show Lost was the biggest show in the world, Harold Perrineau (Michael Dawson) gave an interview about how the show portrayed him and his son (Walt, played by Malcolm David Kelley) as Black characters. The backlash was swift, and Perrineau recently explained just what that felt like. Spoiler: It felt bad.
In a recent deep dive on the show in Vanity Fair — which is a great read all-around and worth checking out — Perrineau revealed how he gave the interview and how it “quoted him fairly and accurately.”
“She asked me something, and I said—I don’t remember exactly the quote, but I’m gonna give you a roundabout version of it. I said, ‘You know, for me, as a Black person, the idea that Walt winds up living with his grandmother and not living with his father, that feels like one of those clichés—Black kids who have been raised by their grandparents because neither of their parents are around for them. I would’ve liked to have seen something a little better happen, but that’s not the way it went down.’”
Now remember, this is 2008. Obama wasn’t even officially president yet. There was no Black Lives Matter movement, and gay people couldn’t get married. The country’s come a long way since then, but even in today’s climate, Perrineau’s comments would probably be similarly handled by the political right.
That’s not all he said, though. In the same interview, he was asked if it bothered him that he didn’t get to reconnect with his son in the show. He didn’t hold back:
“… There are all these questions about how they respond to Black people on the show. Sayid gets to meet Nadia again, and Desmond and Penny hook up again, but a little Black boy and his father hooking up, that wasn’t interesting? Instead, Walt just winds up being another fatherless child. It plays into a really big, weird stereotype and, being a Black person myself, that wasn’t so interesting.”
His take was not only derided by fans of the show but by its producers as well. He was accused of playing the “race card,” and he felt like he was being asked to suppress his own feelings to save other people’s discomfort. That, he said, did not feel good.
The issue for Perrineau was clear: “I get to talk about being Black, you know? ’Cause I am Black. You can ignore it. But I get to talk about it.” The network tried to douse the flames by saying he was just mad he was leaving the show.
“I’m not angry that I left the show. Like, that’s what I think as a fan.”
Even worse, he was asked to apologize.
“Me mentioning the color of my skin—that just sent everybody off the rails. We came up with something, but it took weeks, because I was like, ‘I didn’t say anything wrong. And she didn’t report anything wrong. Nobody did anything wrong.’ But societally—people so loved the show. They couldn’t hear one thing against it.”
By pushing back against producers on the show, Perrineau found out the hard way what happens when you go against the almighty showrunners in Hollywood. Sounds brutal.