10 Little-Known Facts The Love Jones Cast Revealed About The Film For Its 20th Anniversary
They Didn’t Anticipate the Impact, But Knew It Would Shift the Culture
Producer Helena Echegoyen put it best. At the time Love Jones came out, a few other films that told deeper, more complex stories about Black culture and love were also coming out or preparing to be released. The film, along with those others, had an impact on the type of images we would get to see of Black folks.
It was a time in black culture where there was a paradigm shift. Hip-hop was growing and becoming more mainstream, and the black middle class was emerging and there were more conversations being had about black culture as art, not just as commerce. All of these things were happening and then this movie kind of comes out. And it wasn’t the only one — “Eve’s Bayou” and “Waiting to Exhale” and “Soul Food” and “Gridlock’d.” There were a lot of films at that time that were shifting the culture. I think that that is what you remember, and when you remember that, it’s almost like it takes on a different life. It’s not a film anymore, it’s a symbol.
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