Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions has made an unusual but very valuable hire. According to The Hollywood Reporter, activist and scholar Kamil Oshundara will serve as cultural executive at the company, “a unique role not seen very often in Hollywood production circles.”
The job will see Oshundara helping ensure that Monkeypaw creates “critically conscious media” and successfully represents marginalized communities in its projects. Oshundara’s focus will be on academic and cultural research, which will in turn inform storylines and characters. She’ll also oversee “Wendell and Wild,” a stop-animation feature Monkeypaw has in the works at Netflix.
As THR points out, not many production companies designate positions that not only concentrate on inclusivity, but also use social and cultural research to support creative decisions. For example, inclusion rider co-creator and Pearl Street Films’ Head of Strategic Outreach Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni does similar work but does not hold the title “cultural executive.”
“Coming from an academic background, Kamil’s dedication to rigorous cultural research is tremendous, and her focus of creating artistic platforms for underrepresented voices is both inspiring and exactly the spirit in which Monkeypaw was founded on,” said Peele.
Oshundara completed a degree in African-American studies and world arts and cultures at UCLA. Her areas of interest included revolutionary art by women of the Black Panther Party, black speculative art highlighting black horror, and “the mobilization of fear, fantasy, and futurism in genre to explore the material realities of oppression and resistance for black women.”
Writer, community organizer, artist, and curator are also among Oshundara’s many titles. This summer the multi-hyphenate will represent Monkeypaw at Comic-Con and participate in a panel about the politics of the record-breaking “Black Panther.” She’ll also attend the Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn, where she will interview and lead a roundtable discussion with black punk women.
Monkeypaw is the company behind the critical and box office hit “Get Out,” Peele’s directorial debut. The “Key & Peele” alum won this year’s best original screenplay Oscar for the horror/social satire genre pic. Monkeypaw’s upcoming projects include the HBO anthology horror series “Lovecraft Country,” showrun by Misha Green (“Underground”), and a four-episode Amazon docuseries about Lorena Bobbitt.
