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On Dec. 5, Hollywood lost an icon. At 101, Norman Lear passed away at his home in Los Angeles. Among the many hats he had worn — prolific TV creator, legendary boundary pusher, major philanthropist — was mentor to Kenya Barris. As so many of Lear’s shows did, Barris’ Black-ish used comedy to tackle big subjects and complex social issues. And Lear famously loved it, so much so that he’d visit the Black-ish writers room and shower the show with praise. In the week since his passing, Barris has had time to reflect on Lear’s impact, both on him as a comedy writer and as a man.
I don’t think I knew how much of an impact Norman really had until I started doing TV myself. You actually start seeing it in the work, like, “Oh, this is All in the Family,” or “This is The Jeffersons.” But I think it really hit me around the Black-ish pilot. Somehow, he had gotten a hold of the pilot and was able to see it. Then, very early into the taping of the show, he came by the writers room and he made a to-do of [what I was doing], and he didn’t have to. He really didn’t have to. And then I started getting the calls. I started hearing from executives, I started hearing from agents, I started hearing from other writers. And when the show debuted, he always made a point to speak on it or call me or talk about certain things, and it took me a while to stop fan-ing out on him.
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I went to sit Shiva with his family over the weekend, and I was talking with them about this notion of being seen, which is what Norman did for a lot of culture. But he made me feel seen and in him making me feel seen, he made other people see me. And it was interesting that he was the one who did it — there were other people who I would have thought it would’ve come from, but it came from Norman, and it changed my career. There’s just no other way of putting it: I would not have this career without him. The idea that he felt what I was doing was on the right path, and that he said it to me and to other people, changed the direction of my career. I went from being a writer in a certain lane and labeled as that to him putting me into a place and making other people see me in that place, and it never really changed. He made me important.
I’ll never forget that first time he came to the Black-ish room. He must have been 90 or 91, and he sat down and just started pitching. It was so great. He actually came in a couple of other times, too, but I remember being at Sony, and it was me, a few white guys and this other young, Black writer, who had a hoodie on, and I’m introducing everyone to Norman. I’m like, “This is Danny, this is Isaac…” and I get to our Black writer, and the writer goes, “I’m Maurice.” And Norman goes, “Of course you are.” Even in his 90s, his jokes didn’t feel soft. They felt edgy. They felt borderline offensive if you wanted to take them that way. But he was metal sharpening metal, and he never backed off that. Norman saw the world and the world around him really mattered, and that’s the thing that I try to do.
He was such a straight shooter, too. And he’d been through things in his marriage, things with his kids, things in his career, and so when I started getting multiple shows, he talked to me about the effect that he felt like [all that success] had on his relationships. And it was a precursor for things that actually ended up happening in my life. Like, I went through a divorce, and we would talk about those things. There were a lot of parallels, and he was always someone I felt I could reach out to — and Lyn, too, his wife, who was just a very strong presence in terms of talking about the other side and how things would have an effect on this or that. So, it became this real friendship, which I never saw coming.
One of his pieces of advice that really stuck — and that I wish that I had listened to more — was this idea that ambition is a really great thing, but it has to be checked, particularly when it comes to your family. Having multiple shows and movies and all of these things, I know they took a toll on me, personally — on my marriage and my kids. And he’d talk to me about it often because I think that he was very, very ambitious when he began, and it had some effects on him. But for me, at the time that it was happening, when the opportunities are coming, you’re just like, “But I’m a Black guy, I gotta do this…” And he was just like, “They’ll be there.” He was always trying to slow me down, and it’s something that I wish that I had heard because he was right: Ambition is a really great thing, but it has to be checked.
It’s funny. I just saw his son, Ben, who’s amazing, and I asked him, “How are you doing?” And he was like, “I’m OK. It’s just kind of weird.” And at first, I wanted to be like, “Is it weird? He was 101.” But then I stopped, and I thought about it, and I got it. I got what he meant because it almost felt like Norman had beaten the whole age thing. He stayed so sharp for so long, and eventually, your body just gives out. You’d talk to him, and from year to year, you’d see little things, but in general, he stayed so sharp and so relevant. And so I do feel like it’s a strange thing to say about someone who had lived such a long, rich life, but it does feel weird that he’s not here. It really does.
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