Donald Glover is 42 years old, but he’s already lived many lives.
He got his start as an early YouTuber, making short sketch videos with the Derrick Comedy troupe. At age 23, Tina Fey hired him to write for her NBC sitcom “30 Rock,” where he and the other writers won awards for their work. But he wasn’t done with smaller projects: He and his Derrick Comedy colleagues made a movie called “Mystery Team,” which played at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Soon after, Glover jumped back to the big leagues by being cast as Troy Barnes in NBC’s “Community,” and he stayed with that show for most of its run.
I’m skipping some notable credits (remember when he showed up in The Martian”?), but around this time, things really took off for him. In 2016, he created, co-wrote, and starred in FX’s boundary-pushing and creatively dazzling series “Atlanta,” earning him incredible acclaim, including an Emmy for his performance and another for directing. (He was actually the first Black person to win an Emmy for directing a comedy series.) His performance as Lando Calrissian was the best part of “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” he voiced Simba in Jon Favreau’s billion-dollar version of “The Lion King,” and a few years later, he co-created and starred in Season 1 of Prime Video’s “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” series.
Oh, and pretty much the whole time, he’s also written and performed music under the moniker Childish Gambino, releasing multiple albums with wildly different styles, winning Grammys, and even starring in a musical movie with Rihanna titled “Guava Island,” which includes a performance of his smash-hit song “This is America.” Not bad.
Glover is one of the most talented multi-hyphenates working in the entertainment industry, and he’s provided today’s quote of the day.
Quote of the Day by Donald Glover
“I think in entertainment or art it’s important to know the difference between things. Like, Anthony Bourdain wasn’t pretentious, but he definitely knew the difference between a dry aged wagyu and a smash burger. Neither is better or worse than the other. They’re just different experiences. And I wouldn’t want to have either every day. But I would never confuse the two. I expect the same of my audience.”
Donald Glover said this in 2022 in a piece for Interview Magazine in which he interviewed himself. (Is that concept odd? A little. But he’s a bit of an unusual guy. That’s what makes him so interesting.) The exchange that immediately followed that quote is fascinating as well. The “interviewer” version of Glover says, “That seems like a lot to ask of a large audience, no?” The “real” Glover responds:
“I don’t think so. You have to be honest. Especially with other Black artists. Because I think we all think we have to support each other, which we do, but sometimes supporting each other is telling someone, ‘This isn’t good, to me.’ And you have to know why, and not be a hater, and they have to take that criticism in good faith. Then we can grow together. Then we can help each other’s recipes. You’re not helping them if they think they’ve made a ‘sophisticated’ beef patty and it’s really a homemade tuna sandwich. Again, both can be good.”
Deeper Meaning of Donald Glover’s Quote
In this instance, Donald Glover was talking about the difference between his show, “Atlanta,” and the FX comedy series “Dave,” about white rapper Lil Dicky — but for the purposes of this article, it doesn’t really matter what the two specific comparison points are. The sentiment behind the quote is the thing that stands out, and it essentially boils down to audiences showing some discernment about how we think and talk about what we watch. You may want to just come home after a long day at work, turn your brain off, and watch whatever happens to be on. That’s obviously your prerogative! But there’s a gigantic chasm between watching, say, the latest season of a Netflix reality TV show and watching HBO’s “Chernobyl,” for example, and the latter is not “bad” or “boring” or “hard to follow” if you’re not giving it your full attention and expecting to be able to keep up while you’re half-watching and scrolling on your phone.
As Glover says, neither thing is inherently better or worse than the other. But when they’re approached with the same mentality, that’s not an ideal way to consume and contextualize art and entertainment. I partially interpret this to mean that if the people making the things we watch actually care about what they’re doing, we should try to provide a good-faith attempt to engage with the material with a similar level of care.
More Quotes from Donald Glover
- “Careers very rarely are a waste of time; jobs usually are.”
- “I’m very confident in my point of view. ‘Cause I think that that’s all you can really have. I’m never really going to know what anybody else is going through, so it’s just kind of your job to be expressive with your point of view.”
- “Resistance is a symptom of the way things are, not the way things necessarily should be.”
- “We lay out our lives in a narrative that we understand, like a movie, but are you enjoying making it, or are you wondering, ‘Who’s watching my movie?'”
- “I’m not scared of the future at all. The future is progress if you treat it right.”
