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Interview with Charmain Johnson

If it weren’t for Atlanta Black Pride 2007, the hit lesbian web series Lovers and Friends would have never been made. In fact, it would have been an old script collecting dust on writer/director Charmain Johnson’s desk.

The easygoing Johnson grew up with a love of writing and a desire to start making films – something she began doing while attending a media arts-centric high school and studying film in college. After school, she began working on projects that spoke closer and closer to her own experiences. “I was doing lots of little projects, and I had just finished doing a documentary. After that, I had done a short lesbian film called Piece of Welfare. It got me into writing about the whole lesbian community, especially in those short vignettes.”

“So I decided to go ahead and write Lovers and Friends episode one – not really knowing where it was going to go, because me and my co-producer Kay [Greene] were doing a lot of different things, a lot of different projects together, and at the time, we were looking for something to go on the web – but that wasn’t it!”

The script was shelved while the pair worked on other projects (including a rough idea to do a sketch comedy-style concept). It wasn’t until her fateful trip to Atlanta that Johnson thought she had something real with her “on the side” script.

“I think that was the first time I had been a part of what I consider to be a movement,” she said. Something had clicked.

“It was just very inspiring to me, it was my first time in Atlanta, my first time at a pride event, really. I had been to a couple of others, but nothing like that! That made me feel like ‘Ok, there’s a market and there’s support in the lesbian community. There’s an audience waiting to be brought into – waiting to be entertained’.”

And after that? “When we got back, we just kind of hit the ground running – and here we are now!” The series’ adoring fans have a lot to be happy about – it’s one of the most inclusive, realistic, and downright funniest shows on the digital tube. The characters come from a wide range of backgrounds and represent folks from all over the class, race, gender identity and sexuality spectrums, without ever giving the impression that there’s a “token” present.

“Really, the way the characters came about was just me deciding to sit down and write! I wanted to write something that was based on lesbians – especially women of color.”

“I kind of patterned Kai after myself… except for the whole personal trainer part!” She laughed. “Other than that, I started with Kai, and Kai was kind of like the heroine. I said, ‘Ok, I’m going to go in the opposite direction, and I’m going to write Dre, and write her as the villain. Lisa is the damsel in distress.’ That’s really how everything started.”

Johnson admitted she was a “religious” fan of The L Word, despite its faults and race and gender representation gaps.

“I saw them bring Tasha in,” she said, reminiscing on the early days of writing her own show. “For me, I saw what they were trying to do, but I also wanted to take it and flip it.” She said. “I wanted to take the cast, but instead of Tasha being the minority, for instance, Christina is the minority in our cast. It’s not like I wanted it to be an all-black cast, or an all-ethnic cast. I just wanted the women of color – the women from an ethnic background – NOT to be the minority.”

For the most part, fans are thrilled that there’s a show that really highlights diversity.

“When we started, the majority of the response was ‘Oh my God, I’m so glad there’s something for women of color now, I know somebody just like this character… its so real, the realism of it, the storylines… etc'”

“A much smaller margin,” She continued, “is that we fit into some sort of stereotype. What I always say about that is that this isn’t meant to be a political stance of any sort, and it’s based off of real people, real events. It’s not meant to be watered down or whitewashed or sugarcoated, whatever you want to call it. It’s meant to be very real, blunt and in your face, you know?”

“I think sometimes people in that 10 percent fail to realize that there’s a wide variety of types of people in the show, but I think some people tend to focus on the Dre and Holloway characters as portraying some sort of stereotype. A lot of other people [on the show] come from a wide spectrum – middle class, upper class, what have you. I’m trying to show a broad spectrum of lesbian women of color.” That broad spectrum includes a commendable diversity of gender and sexuality, something that’s been met with a wide swath of gratitude – and misunderstanding.

“That’s another thing I didn’t understand when we first came out,” She started. “Some people didn’t like that we had some more masculine women on the show. I was a little offended by that… sometimes people are so afraid of a stereotype that they tend to shove real people in the closet, and say ‘I don’t want to show you that, because I just want to show this part of our community’ I feel like there haven’t really been many masculine women characterized in television. Maybe some movies, but only very out of the mainstream… its not really been put out there.”

“That’s why I really wanted to bring both – and all different types, from the extremely feminine to extremely masculine to everyone. They all exist, and I don’t want to put anybody in the closet and say ‘you can’t be represented'”

Each episode is a labor of love – and Johnson admits it takes a lot of time to put them together, thanks to scheduling issues with a large cast and laundry list of real-world locations. It takes a couple of weeks to write, another three to shoot, and a bit more to edit, but the cast and crew have a blast making it happen. Johnson said they laugh quite a bit, and thoroughly enjoy some of the wackier moments, such as shooting the infamous “dog-kidnapping” scene in season one.

“We did that a million times, with the dog and Tori being on the ground, the actress that plays Tiana running out screaming — we had the neighbors coming out to watch what was going on! Getting the dog to cooperate was hilarious, she kept jumping around!” she laughed. “We were like ‘how do we do this, how do we get this dog to not do anything, not bark, etc.’

“We ended up trying to get the dog to follow the bone so many times that it was just, like, Nicole Pina ended up on the ground, just sliding around on the ground. Eventually she said, ‘You know what, I’m just going to grab the dog, and just run!'”

Johnson also admitted that this sequence was inspired by real-life events.

“I was kind of the Kai character. Let me say though, it didn’t exactly happen that way – the thing that was similar about the whole situation was that Kai left her dog with her ex, and wanted to get it back. Also – my ex girlfriend was a lot like Tiana’s character!” she laughed. “We didn’t actually go in and take the dog or anything!” she added, with a chuckle.

There’s a lot going on for Johnson – and for the series. The show, currently in its third season, is continuing, while two full spin-off series are planned.

“We’re doing Lovers and Friends Atlanta. We had a huge response from Atlanta, and the way it started, I have a fondness for Atlanta, that being a birthplace of where we decided to do the show. We had to bring it to Atlanta!”

She got into the details quickly. “The character of Sasha ends up moving to Atlanta… we decided to take the story there and continue on. You kind of get an idea of what Sasha is really thinking, because Sasha was a villain in a lot of ways, in the first and second season. I didn’t want to leave it at that. She’s a complicated individual, and I kind of wanted to “uncomplicate” her for the masses to kind of understand her.” That’s in development now, and Johnson notes that fans should be able to start watching the “Hotlanta” episodes in August.

A spin-off based on the Holloway character is also in the works, and Johnson claims it’ll be a bit more like The Wire or The Sopranos. It makes sense, since Holloway is basically the lesbian version of Tony Montana – a drug lord with swagger and suits to match.

Of course, the prime series is still going strong, with its most “risqué” episodes yet. She’s coy about the future of the show, aside from assuring us that all is well.

“Right now,” she began, “we’re in the ‘lets see what happens’ stage. We plan on continuing, for sure, and we’re not turning down any deals when it comes to network television or cable television, that’s for sure! We’ve been in talks and whatnot, though nothing has been set in stone as far as TV. We plan to really just see where it takes us.”

Lovers and Friends on TV? It could happen. But until then, don’t fret — there’s plenty of story to go around, and Johnson is committed to bringing it all to life, in one way or another.

“If you see us on television, that would be great! If not, we’re still going to be doing what we’re doing.”

Lovers and Friends Seasons 1 and 2 will be released on DVD on April 13.

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