The Community Created Through The TV Series Robyn Hood

Actress: Jessye Romeo, Location: Pickering, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Photographer: Ajani Charles

The second last episode of season 1 of Robyn Hood airs tonight, Wednesday, November 8, 2023, at 10:00 PM EST through Global TV and Stack TV, and the season finale airs next Wednesday, November 15, 2023, at 10:00 PM EST.

Following its television debut, one of the most amazing things about the series (to me) is how nearly everyone involved has supported the project through official and unofficial screenings, parties, promoting the series online, and other means.

I am not sure what seems more surreal to me at this point: the process of being involved in the production of Robyn Hood as the series’ unit still photographer, watching the result of months of collective hard work and ingenuity on a television screen, or the different forms of online controversy that the show has triggered.

I had many other surreal moments associated with Robyn Hood.

For example, when I first saw Janessa Melina Mendez, professionally known as Chromazz, on Robyn Hood’s call sheet, I thought I was hallucinating because I did not envision her on a television series before that moment. I was genuinely confused until I saw footage of her wardrobe fitting process and realized we had become co-workers.

I had recently reached out to her people about including her in my 17-year-old documentary project on Toronto’s hip-hop culture, community, and history, Project T-Dot, as she is a Toronto-based recording artist and model. Thankfully, I now have the Project T-Dot footage of her that I wanted.

Actress: Jessye Romeo, Actress: Sydney Kuhne, Location: Pickering, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Photographer: Ajani Charles

To her credit, Chromazz auditioned for her role, and after watching her audition tapes, she was endorsed by Jessye Romeo, who plays Robyn Hood’s lead role, Robyn Loxley.

Ultimately, Chromazz took her role seriously and worked as hard as anyone else on the sets of Robyn Hood. And she was easy to work with.

She can become an actor who works regularly if she undergoes enough training, auditions, and film studies, although I imagine she would be typecasted.

Another surreal moment involved Chromazz getting booed at Rolling Loud mere days after a scene involving her getting booed beside Manuel was recorded in Hamilton, Ontario, for Robyn Hood. I was in attendance for both nearly identical scenarios.

I know that art imitates life, but that was too uncanny.

A few weeks ago, I was at a Robyn Hood screening at a downtown Toronto penthouse, about fifteen minutes from my condo.

Actress: Sydney Kuhne, Location: Pickering, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Photographer: Ajani Charles

The series showrunner and executive producer (alongside Chris Roberts and Kerry Appleyard), Julien Christian Lutz, professionally known as Director X, as well as Idrissa Sanogo, who plays Alan A. Dale on Robyn Hood, the penthouse owner AJ, and Julien and Idrissa’s friends.

The Loft was dimly lit and eclectic, with chalkboard walls encouraging spontaneous drawings.

After watching the television debut of Robyn Hood’s fifth episode, one of my favourites that featured the sets, themes, and wardrobe I appreciated the most from the show, Julien began discussing some of Robyn Hood’s online controversies.

Since Robyn Hood was in production, after it wrapped, once it debuted, and since it debuted, numerous netizens on various social media platforms, including but not limited to TikTok, YouTube, and IMDb (Internet Movie Database), have criticized the series incessantly, especially concerning many of its modern themes and the gender and race swapping of characters from the original Robin Hood myth.

Review bombing, often associated with platforms like IMDb, is a form of coordinated online harassment or protest in which many users intentionally post negative or low-rated reviews for a particular movie, TV show, video game, or other media content.

This coordinated effort aims to manipulate the content's overall user rating or review score to inflate or deflate its perceived quality artificially.

Actress: Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova, Location: Pickering, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Photographer: Ajani Charles

From my perspective, Robyn Hood has been review bombed through IMDb, as there is a significant lack of middle-ground ratings. The ratings are excessively bad, and far worse than I would rate the shows I dislike the most, but none

Also, it has significantly more reviews than slightly older Canadian shows with larger budgets that were promoted to a greater degree than Robyn Hood, like the series The Lake, which my longtime friend Kaveh Mohebbi contributed to as a writer.

Today, Robyn Hood has 5,551 votes through IMDb, whereas The Lake has 2,657.

Many prominent YouTubers have vehemently opposed everything about Robyn Hood.

Interestingly, instead of accepting their criticisms at face value and remaining silent or allowing the series’ fans to speak on its behalf, Julien opted to engage in online discussions with various prominent YouTubers and others online about the premise of the series, its strengths, its weaknesses, why it has been controversial and so on.

His discussions, mainly through YouTube, were brilliant because he engaged in civil discourse with his most visible critics, listening to them and expressing his opinions. If that is not humility, I do not know what is.

Actress, Recording Artist, Model: Janessa Melina Mendez Professionally Known as Chromazz, Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Photographer: Ajani Charles

Also, as Julien stated at AJ’s penthouse, the debates he engaged in were paradoxically a form of great press that probably far exceeded the attention Robyn Hood would have received through conventional media.

Many of the series’ critics have not realized that their criticisms and the time and attention spent watching Robyn Hood’s first season have increased its volume of streams more than their indifference would have.

In a way, they are some of Robyn Hood’s biggest fans, and Julien’s online discussions about Robyn Hood led many of his critics to become his fans.

When I realized that Julien was leaning into the conversations, as mentioned earlier, to promote Robyn Hood, I was reminded that he is a marketing genius.

As the Dalai Lama once stated, "In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher."

Similarly, Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "The only way to deal with an enemy is to make him your friend."

Actress, Recording Artist, Model: Janessa Melina Mendez Professionally Known as Chromazz, Actress: Jessye Romeo, Actor: Nykeem Provo, Actor: Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz, Actor: Idrissa Sanogo, Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Photographer: Ajani Charles

I consider Julien a mentor and have learned far more from observing him than asking direct questions.

Working less closely with him as a production assistant through 235 Films in 2008 and 2009 and working closely with him since 2018, primarily through Operation Prefrontal Cortex, has improved my career and, ultimately, my life.

As he continued describing his social media adventures, I realized that Nykeem Provo, who plays Little John on Robyn Hood, and Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz, who plays Guy Gisbourne on the show, had been in the penthouse since the screening began.

It was great to see them, as we always have a good laugh. And socially, very few people are as entertaining as actors and actresses.

I then realized that Nykeem and Manuel had become great friends and that my opinion of Robyn Hood is highly biased because it has educated and benefitted me and many others involved to a significant extent. The series also brought us all together.

I have been attending Robyn Hood's official screenings, unofficial screenings, and parties since last summer, and they are still being organized to this day. And I have documented most of them.

Actor: Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz, Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Photographer: Ajani Charles

That says a lot about the community that Robyn Hood and Julien have manifested and the relationships formed through the series, and the lessons learned through its productions will probably outlast most YouTube channels and other social media profiles based on critiquing film and television projects.

Regarding Robyn Hood’s criticisms, I have noticed that most of the critiques do not fall within its demographics of ideal viewers, the viewers it was produced for, namely, young adults.

In Canada, the age group that typically encompasses young adults are individuals between 18 and 24, and most of the most active critics of the seires are in their 30s or older.

Moreover, after being involved in the series’ production throughout the summer of 2022, it was, and still is, evident to me that a TV series is an incredibly challenging project to bring to life, regardless of the budget and scope; it is nearly impossible for anyone to successfully pitch a series, let alone acquire funding for it, and follow through on successfully producing it.

The percentage of people who can accomplish such feats must be significantly less than 1% globally, so the fact that Robyn Hood exists is a momentous occasion, at least to those involved in bringing it to life.

Many of Robyn Hood’s critics are content creators (as opposed to artists or filmmaking professionals) who would never be able to produce a television series if doing so was one of their goals.

Actor: Nykeem Provo, Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Photographer: Ajani Charles

Many of them also went as far as criticizing Julien personally, even though many of the facets of Robyn Hood that they are angered by were not of his making.

A combination of unique skills is required to create a YouTube channel with hundreds of thousands of engaged followers, if not more; there is no doubt about that. And making a successful YouTube channel, depending on one’s definition of successful, is an accomplishment worth celebrating.

But based on a balance of probabilities, being a professional filmmaker is more complicated than building an online audience, monetized or not, and involves a higher barrier to entry.

Although some of Robyn Hood’s criticisms are valid and understandable, I would rather be Spike Lee than any of his critics.

Furthermore, there are far more pressing matters amongst individuals, communities, and the world than a television-based reimagining of the Robin Hood myth.

There are more significant problems facing humanity than a television series, and coincidentally, the SAG-AFTRA strike that ended this week is the longest in Hollywood history and has cost many film and television professionals in America and elsewhere their livelihoods.

Executive Producer: Julien Christian Lutz Professionally Known As Director X, Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Photographer: Ajani Charles

Many such professionals who once had consistent or part-time income through filmmaking are now homeless or on the verge of insolvency, which is tragic.

Thankfully, the strike ended before things got much worse.

Working in film and television is a privilege and a blessing I refuse to take for granted, and I look forward to working with the fantastic people I met through Robyn Hood again, much sooner than later.

Actress, Recording Artist, Model: Janessa Melina Mendez Professionally Known as Chromazz, Location: Pickering, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2022, Cinematographer: Ajani Charles

The Community Created Through The TV Series Robyn Hood

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