Halle Berry, Jill Biden and Kesha Join 'Unreasonable Conversation'

Halle Berry got the memo.

HAS A day of unreasonable conversations, At a talk at the Getty Center in Los Angeles on Monday, the star regaled an audience of TV and film writers, Hollywood executives and activists with a deeply personal episode: About three years ago, when she felt excruciating pain after sex with her newborn. partner, Berry's doctor diagnosed her with the worst case of herpes he had ever seen, she recalls.

Co-chair of the event Kerry Washington had opened proceedings by urging speakers to be not only unreasonable but also courageous in tackling hot-button topics ranging from artificial intelligence and climate change to the nagging bass line of the day, political polarization and Berry's shocking revelation was certainly courageous.

It was also funny, informative and clearly more than surprising for his interlocutor on stage, First Lady Jill Bidenwho joined the event for praises her husband's recent decree invest $12 billion in women's health research.

I do not do any of them comment, Biden said with a slightly worried laugh as Berry's testimony gained momentum toward the big reveal: The cause of her post-coital misery was not herpes for the record, no herpes but the hormonal changes that accompany menopause. Menopause is the focus of the White House's new health funding.

You're going to have so much to write about, Biden told the Hollywood scribes in the room.

But will they do it?

The answer to this question is better TV shows?

A Day of Unreasonable Conversation, led by social impact agency Propper Daley, with partner organization Invisible Hand as creative directors, aimed to unlock progress through the power of narrative and creative expression. This includes inspiring Hollywood creatives, television writers, to embrace their role as agents of change and tell stories that amplify pressing social and political issues, stories that reach audiences across the spectrum ideological.

We face enormous obstacles, whether it's the climate crisis, the need for affordable care, the wars in Israel, Gaza and Ukraine, an epidemic of loneliness, broken ideas about what what are reality and truth. That's a lot, Washington told the crowd, which included the Emmy-winning writer. Jason Katims, producer Stacey Sher and FX executive Gina Balian. Now, some people might say: So you think the answer to this question lies in better TV shows? And I say yes! I do! I think at least that's part of it, because for a lot of people, television is the only way for them to meet people different from themselves.

Hosted with energy by the comedian and actor Phoebe Robinson, a self-styled Oprah on a low budget, the program was a firehose of conversations between creators, activists and politicians. Adam Conover, comedian and member of the Writers Guild of America 2023 negotiating committee, kicked off the first panel (topic: The Labor Understory) by spontaneously attacking the billionaire class, including the Getty family whose Brentwood campus was the setting for the day.

Jefferson cordthe Oscar-winning writer-director of American fiction, asked Americans about exhaustion around the discussion of race alongside One Day at a Time showrunner Gloria Caldern Kellett, psychiatrist Jonathan Metzl, journalist Michele Norris and comedian-filmmaker W. Kamau Bell. Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa, the Filipino-American founder of the digital news site Rappler, has sounded the alarm about the existential threats that technology poses to journalism and our human rights. Christine Blasey FordBrett Kavanaugh accuser whose memoir was released Tuesday and sexual assault survivor Chanel Miller explored the risks and rewards of telling the truth.

There was brilliance and chutzpah to make difficult things stand up. Kesha shared his songwriting journey. Who wants to listen to an angry woman? she said of her 2017 hit, Pray, this stems from his long-running legal battle with producer Dr. Luke. It turns out a lot of people do. Join the US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy for a discussion on loneliness, Paris Hilton was vulnerable in her studded Valentino stilettos (and generated the slightest cynical murmur across the auditorium with a timely mention of her production company). Even TikTok empress Charli DAmelio took the stage, in front of a crowd older and smaller than her usual target demo, with her own message about mental health.

It was a fast-paced and very tight show. It was entertaining, enlightening and galvanizing. And, to use Washington's expression, it was a lot.

My friend Stacy Rukeyser, a writer and showrunner, took all of this to heart and wondered how she was going to deploy what she was learning. As the daughter of a woman with Alzheimer's disease, she recounted a discussion between Author of Maid and Class, Stephanie Land and actress Yvette Nicole Brown on caregivers of the sandwich generation. As a storyteller, she sparked more of the era's characters, dreaming up stories for speakers like Dawson Holle, a 20-year-old dairy farmer turned North Dakota state representative with I Love Dairy socks coming out from under his wrists. Or Sharon Lavignethe grassroots activist fighting against the petrochemical plants in Cancer Alley, Louisiana, whose anguish for her community was palpable.

Hollywood under threat

The possibility of a second Trump presidency was up in the air, although his name wasn't mentioned much before an afternoon session with the Guzmn family, conservative Mexican immigrants Bernardo and Lupita, who voted for Trump in 2016, and their liberal daughter Mnica, author of I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Inquisitive Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.

The Guzmns told moderator Krista Tippett how they communicate with love and respect across the red-blue divide, despite some heated arguments over these issues. At this point, the audience was into its seventh hour of active listening, and I found myself wishing for more demonstration of Guzmn's good, juicy conflict (a Robinson coinage), but Tippett kept the focus on the tools of relaxation.

Among the unreasonable conversations that haven't happened, at least on stage, is one about a shrinking entertainment industry where fewer TV series are getting the green light. The writers at the Getty Auditorium were already on board, ready to use their platform to change hearts and minds, but as production resumes action too slowly after last year's strikes, many of them don't yet know what their next platform will be.

Yet, as a non-TV writer, I was struck by futurist Sinead Bovell's forceful comments on artificial intelligence, seen by many Hollywood writers as a potential threat. uncontrollable beast ready to ravage their livelihood. It's impossible to build a future if you're only shown examples of the future you don't want, Bovell said. Tell the stories of technology and evolution, of co-evolution with people, and say that you want to see the stories where we manage to prepare for our future well.

Environmental activist Sage Lenier made a similar, if more confrontational, argument for ending the glorification of hyperhyperconsumerism on screen. I don't want to see the Wolf of Wall Street anymore, I don't want to see the luxury fashion shopping sprees anymore, she said. You need to tell better stories about what it would mean to live sustainably, what a sustainable culture would mean, what a decarbonized culture looks like, it's not just, like, Oh, the Escalade is electric, I swear .

At a time when horror is the safest thing at the box office and dystopia dominates TV series, are creators really going to follow this kind of direction from benefactors outside the industry? I'm inspired to be as strong and proud as Halle Berry was about menopause, said Rukeyser, who created Sex/Life for Netflix. She won't be afraid of hot flashes the next time she writes a middle-aged female character, Rukeyser added, and I will point out that her life and career are far from over.

At the conference cocktail party, Lynn Renee Maxcy, whose writing credits include Hulus's The Handmaids Tale, cited the panel on loneliness as a highlight before opening her notebook for the day: several pages of notes from breathtaking density. “I'm focusing on something called protopies, which is somewhere between dystopia and utopia, where there are serious problems, but they are being improved little by little,” Maxcy said. And we need to involve everyone; you need community in action.

Michael Kelly, vice president of social impact at Participant, a studio where social change is anchored in the mission, also looked on the bright side of things. I'm a nerd, so I love Star Trek, he told me. And what I like about Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek is that it presents this image of the future and what it looks like when you look at the bridge of the Enterprise, there are women in leadership, there are has different ethnicities, and I think his vision was, Hey, if we can show you what's possible, maybe you can do it.

So Hollywood, tell the story of the change you want to see in the world, while you still can.