Ava DuVernay's advice on Hollywood: "Follow the white guys; they've got this thing wired"

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Ava DuVernay delivered they keynote address at this year’s BlogHer Conference in New York City.

Following her remarks, DuVernay addressed several topics in a Q&A session ranging from her upcoming projects to career advice.

So how do you make it in an industry dominated by white males?

“You gotta follow the white guys,” DuVernay said. “Truly. They’ve got this thing wired,” she said. “Too often, we live within their games, so why would you not study what works? Take away the bad stuff — because there’s a lot — and use the savvy interesting stuff and figure out how they can apply. It’s a good one for the ladies.”

She also discussed her much-publicized talks with Marvel about directing their upcoming Black Panther film.

“For me, it was a process of trying to figure out, are these the people I want to go to bed with?” she said. “Because it’s really a marriage, and for this, it would be three years. It’d be three years of not doing other things that are important to me. So it was a question of, is this important enough for me to do?”

DuVernay did say at one point, her answer was “yes” to direct the project. Ultimately, she said, Marvel’s vision for the film would have been put ahead of hers would have put their vision ahead of hers. She likened it to working fro Shonda Rhimes on Scandal as a guest director. 

“I was there to serve her vision, in her world — a fabulous world!” she said.

Scandal yes. Black Panther no.