Beyond Servitude: Unpacking Black Agency With The Creators of The Porter
Courtesy of CBC; Photo: Shauna Townley
Black Canadian history is a story of struggle and refusal. It is where fear transforms into courage, where tenacity is cultivated by a radical belief in the dignity of Black people.
It is a love story.
It is where Black people exist in spite of, love in spite of, win in spite of. But it is also a complex narrative that cannot be reduced to oppression alone. It is a compilation in which Black joy and hope coexist with Black heartbreak and erasure. It is where we see ordinary Black people living fulfilling lives as mothers, husbands, friends, children and so much more.
This is what I took away from my recent conversation with the lead creative team behind The Porter, a new CBC original series. The eight-episode series tells the stories of Black Canadian sleeping car porters and their families as they navigate life in 1920s Montreal while making important contributions that shaped the development of Canada’s multicultural identity. The plot follows Junior Massey (played by Aml Ameen) and Zeke Garrett (played by Ronnie Rowe Jr.), two World War I brothers-in-arms who adopt vastly different approaches to coping with the daily injustices that they experience as Black male porters.
I sat down with the show’s executive producers, showrunners, creators, directors and writers Annmarie Morais, Arnold Pinnock, Marsha Greene, Charles Officer and RT Thorne. Our conversation focused heavily on the importance of Black historical representation in Canadian film. The creative team also discussed their intention for the series, challenges throughout the production process and their individual aspirations for the show. Below are some excerpts from our conversation.
Courtesy of CBC; Photo: Shauna Townley
Andre Harriott: Where did the idea come from to do a show like this?
Arnold: It's just the desire to want to know about this new country that we immigrated to. And to find out that there were people that were woven within the fabric of that history. That was the big thing for me. It was just the hunger to want to know about Black-Canadian history. You know, one of the things that I'd love to do was find books about Black-Canadian history and read them to my mom and dad and see how much joy they got out of that. I'll never forget there was one time I was in Nova Scotia and I went to a museum, and they had this boat in the museum. They had all these white figures, but then these little Black figures, every once in a while, were on the boat. I ran back, and I asked the guy, “what are these Black people for?” And he was like, “I don't know, dude. I'm sorry.” And it pushed me to go look things up. And that started my journey to want to know. It pushed me to want to go down this avenue. Then, all of a sudden, one common denominator that kept on showing up was porters. And let’s be straight up––it was the women that were behind these men that really helped to push this union forward. And the beauty of it is once you open up one avenue, you learn something about this, then you’re learning about the first Black taxi driver in Toronto, and you're learning about the first male or female Black lawyer in Calgary, and then you're learning about Africville. You're learning about all these things throughout, and you thought you were just learning about the porters. And I think it's a domino effect that once you go down this rabbit hole, so to speak, you start to learn more that has been uncovered and not revealed to you.
Courtesy of CBC; Photo: Shauna Townley
Andre Harriott: What was the research process like?
Marsha Greene: I think we have to give a shout out to Sarah-Jane (Saje) Mathieu, who was our historian who wrote a book called North of the Color Line. Saje has been studying the lives of porters for like 30 years. She sent us interviews she had done with porters in Winnipeg when she was like 20 years old in addition to her book. She was such an amazing resource for us. Even now, I'll still text her and be like did they say this? Did they do this? You know, just to know that history in general. When we started the show, I think a lot of the actors too were like, “What can I read? What can I watch?” You know, they, too, wanted to know some of the history that they were stepping into. And so we had a few documentaries and books that we recommended to people to read to kind of find out a little bit, just like a taste of the history and hopefully get to find out much more. It was really special. A lot of the history does take place in Winnipeg, so to bring that to Winnipeg and to be saying to everybody there––the crew who is from Winnipeg, or the actors and the background actors––to say, “This is your history. This happened in this very place.” To get to share that with them was really special for us.
Courtesy of CBC; Photo: Prairie Porter Inc. / Sienna Films Porter Inc.
AH: What did you learn from the research?
RT: One of the things that I learned––aside from a lot of the history of what these people accomplished and what they were able to do despite living in a clearly white supremacist society at the time––is that these people were just people. Like the men on these trains, you know––yes, they were very proper when they were addressing their customers, but these are young men. These are 20-year-old young men travelling across the country. You know what I mean? And while they were facing hardships and they were facing stuff every day––you know, insults and oppression and disrespect––they were still young men. And they were having fun on the road. They were playing, they were going out to clubs, they were enjoying that young life. It was vital for us to acknowledge that. One of the things that I'm really proud that we tried to do as well is not just show these characters as these archetypes. You know, I think a lot of times when people look at stories, especially Black historical stories, the characters tend to become these archetypes that we've seen before. And the reality is that people are people, man. It doesn't matter what era; people make mistakes. They joke around a little too much; they get a little wild. They have too much fun, you know? So that is something that we really wanted to bring to this show. Yeah, we're telling historical drama; it’s based on history, yes, but these people have inner lives. They have fun. They treat other people badly sometimes. They make bad decisions. And that whole humanist kind of approach is something that we just really wanted to bring to this show as well and show these people for who they were. Yes, different era, different speech, but they're still trying to live out their dreams, pursue their dreams, like Annemarie says, unapologetically, no matter what. So that was a beautiful thing that came from some of the research––to really just be like, “Okay, cool. The people we're talking about? They're kind of just like us, but at that time had to face their own problems.”
Courtesy of CBC; Photo: Shauna Townley
AH: What were some of the challenges you experienced during the production of the series?
Charles Officer: There was a fear at times of being like, you know, “am I doing this accurately?” And then at a certain point to let it go and go with the human experience of what we're trying to actually realize. It’s like George C. Wolfe when he made Ma Rainey. I asked him, “How do you approach historical material like that?” And he goes, “You have to live now. You're not going to the past; it's happening now.” So you have to think of it like that, and it actually liberates you a little bit because you can’t obsess about things. And that was also part of actually growing creatively through this process of stepping into something of this magnitude, feeling the weight of the responsibility of it, but also––like not letting us off the hook––but also just relaxing. Our instincts brought us here. And we have to rely on them because, at times, we were feeling like, “We don't have enough time to prep, man. How are we going to do this? Like we're not ready.” I tell RT straight up, “Bro, I don’t feel fully ready going into production.” And it's like, but what does that mean anyway? This was something that was on a whole different scale. It was a massive unknown for a lot of us. We were stepping into another realm of creating something. But there is something about asking your ancestors to carry you through it––that you have their permission and that they're going to be with you. I'm telling you, it got me through; that thought got me through on days and weeks that were very challenging.
Courtesy of CBC; Photo: Shauna Townley
Annmarie Morais: Our directors had to do a lot with a little time and, you know, tight budgets. And then you have moments in the story that are just challenging emotionally. We thankfully made a counsellor available for those who just felt like they needed that support because we had a lot of allies on this project with us playing people or saying things that they would not normally do or say. So I mean, it does a number on you, on all of us in different ways. There are a lot of these challenges, so every day, you just try your best to just, you know, accomplish what you can the best you can.
RT: There were moments where we had to shoot some difficult scenes, and we wanted the crew to actually understand the context of what they're shooting so that it's not just another day for them. But it was really a chance for them to learn a bit about what inspired this incident that we were shooting. We talked about it, and I believe Arnold and Charles gave a speech and told them about what it was. And so, you know, it's important as people take in this show that there are these different opportunities to sort of say, “Let me Google; let me find out about that.”
AH: What are your hopes for the series?
Marsha Greene: It was so important to us when we were making the show that this wasn't just about their servitude as porters. This was a show about people with agency, with dreams who were fighting in the resistance. There is a moment in the pilot when the customs agent refers to one of the porters as George. We kind of purposely let those moments be there, hoping that someone might be like, “Why did they call them George?” and look it up. Obviously, the show is inspired by the history, but we've made a fictional show, and we really hope that when you watch it, you ask, “Did that really happen?” We hope that people will go and look it up to see what's real, to see what really happened and learn about all of the things that we were inspired by when we were making the show.
Watch The Porter on Mondays at 9 p.m. (9:30 pm Newfoundland) on CBC TV or stream it anytime on CBC Gem, CBC’s streaming service.