Black Love is not perfect, but it's certainly worth it. That's why we're here for the new docu-series on OWN, Black Love, created by fillmmakers Codie & Tommy Oliver.
Codie got the idea for the film before she met her now husband, Tommy, back in 2008 when she was frustrated with the narrative about Black woman and marriage.
"The media was aggressively putting out a message about a Black marriage crisis and about Black women being the least desirable. Saying that the more education you have, the less likely you are to find a man," said Codie. "Those headlines—though there was data to contribute to the story—the headlines did the most damage because they didn’t give any context. They didn’t give any context about how people are generally getting married later."
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"As a Black woman who was single at the time, we felt like the divorce rate is high and the media is telling me that statistically I can’t find someone and fall in love and have a happy marriage. It was just very sad. And at the same time I felt it was important to see the other side. This was before I met Tommy. If the media is saying we can’t do something and we know that there are happy couples exist, then maybe we just need to see them and hear their stories. At the same time the Obama’s were elected into office and everyone was just obsessed with them and their Black Love and they’re so happy. It felt beautiful to see them but it felt like we need more. It shouldn’t all hinge on this one couple so I wanted to create a place where Black Love stories lived."
"It wasn’t until I met Tommy in 2013 and told him about it and he said, “Ok, this is a documentary, and we’re going to do it. And we’re going to do it tomorrow,” because that’s who Tommy is. He makes a decision and he moves quickly. And so that’s what we did. And we set out to make a feature-length documentary. Fast forward to two years later and 50 some odd interviews in and we realized we had such beautiful, robust stories and that there was more to it than 90 minutes and we decided to do a docu-series."
The duo interviewed of a variety of couples including some you'll recognize--like Tia Mowry & Cory Hardrict and Meagan Good & Devon Franklin--and some you won't. During the process they learned so much about marriage and how to make it work on you and your spouse's terms. "We’ve interviewed now over 80 couples, so there’s no shortage of gems. Every relationship is different, so we can watch the same interviews and take something different from it," said Codie.
"We spoke with a couple. Two women, who had been married for over 13 years. They had six kids and one of the things they shared with us was that it doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to make peace. Which is a really important thought because a lot of times I think we try to make sense of things. We want our partner to do what we would do. Then you spend more time arguing or debating, “Why, why, why?” It doesn’t have to make sense. As long as it doesn’t hurt you, just take it, be quiet, go along or be supportive because it makes peace between you and your partner.
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Tommy: Even when your wife doesn’t make any damn sense. (laughs)
Codie: That’s the point, my love.
Tommy: I love you.
"One of the quotes that he would like me to adopt--we [interviewed] a wife and she had been with her husband for 8 years. They met and married in four months which is pretty incredible. She said, “Marriage is like self-love for two. If I get a cup of coffee, you get a cup of coffee. If I’m doing something for me, I should make sure I’m doing something for him."
Tommy: And Codie is still learning to think about that. (laughs)
Codie: Right. Like he’s still learning how to make peace, my love. Those are two lessons that stuck out to us.
Tommy: Another really big one is picking your battles. That's one we struggle with to this day, but I found throughout these interviews and it's something that’s really important, is learning to know what’s worth fighting for and what’s not worth fighting for.
Codie: To know for yourself first. Because it’s subjective for each person. Because if you have five issues with your spouse, but what’s going to make the biggest impact for you to address.
The way Black Love shares the stories of various couples in a way that's refreshing and much-needed. "It was really important to address various parts of a relationship," said Codie. "The first episode is how love begins, the stories of people meeting and the other episodes are about challenges that come up in a relationship. That’s really how we structured the series so that we could get in all these diverse stories. We don’t claim to have the secret. We don’t claim to have one way to get from year one to year seventy, so it was really important to show all the diverse couples and the choices they made to work on strengthening their marriages."
Catch Black Love on OWN Sept. 2 at 9pm ET.
