Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mom and Maya
Speaker 1: acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this
Speaker 1: podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to canceled The
Speaker 1: Lazy Girls Guide to Bizarre Celebrity cancelations. It is Jesse
Speaker 1: and Claire Stephens here, and you might have heard we
Speaker 1: are putting on a hot pod summer to.
Speaker 2: Get me back to the twee night Everything is going
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: That means that you'll be hearing from us all summer,
Speaker 1: along with no break, Claire. They were probably looking forward
Speaker 1: to a break, and we're like, guys, we're still here
Speaker 1: more do you want more? We ain't going nowhere. I
Speaker 1: thought I was on holiday. Well no, because we want
Speaker 1: to give you some of our favorite moments from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four every week across the holiday period. Excitingly, we
Speaker 1: will be back to regular programming on January the fourteenth,
Speaker 1: which is not very far away. We have to come
Speaker 1: back to work, clar We have to come back to work.
Speaker 1: Who we have, Yes, we do. I'm not working out
Speaker 1: how many days, but allegedly it's soon. Anyway, Today we
Speaker 1: need to talk about emmastone. Can you picture her in
Speaker 1: your mind? Should she have played a Hawaiian woman who
Speaker 1: was part Asian in a film. Absolutely not. It's not
Speaker 1: for us to say. But no, I don't know. No.
Speaker 1: This is a moment from our big episode on emmastone
Speaker 1: Jesse Aloha controversy. This is perhaps one of my favorite
Speaker 1: canceled defenses of all time. Aloha was a twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: romantic comedy starring Bradley Cooper, Rachel McAdams, John Krasinski, Phil Murray,
Speaker 1: and Emmastone. You can't let one small mouth Falgus.
Speaker 2: Rowan a second chance?
Speaker 1: What does a second chance? Your old boss.
Speaker 2: Wants you back. It's away our old stomping ground.
Speaker 1: Halloha, he'll crass. You're back in the game.
Speaker 2: I want to introduce you to your Air Force liaison.
Speaker 1: She's a fast burner, a double espresso, sir, I'm still Jack.
Speaker 1: It was directed by Cameron Crowe, who directed such bangers
Speaker 1: as Almost Famous Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky and we boret
Speaker 1: A Zoo. Vanilla Sky also known as your husband's favorite
Speaker 1: favorite film. I was talking to my husband about this
Speaker 1: and I said, you know that terrible movie Aloha. This
Speaker 1: guy directed it, but he's actually directed some good movies
Speaker 1: and Rory said, such as Vanilla Skuy because he knew
Speaker 1: who the director was his favorite movie. He makes everyone
Speaker 1: watch it. It's not that good anyway. As of today,
Speaker 1: Cameron Crowe has not directed a film since Aloha because
Speaker 1: he was on a run. It will soon become clear
Speaker 1: why he was like writer director. He was dominating Hollywood stride,
Speaker 1: and then he went, I'm gonna take a risk here.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a film called Aloha after how
Speaker 1: you say Hello Wai in Hawaii, and I'm gonna really
Speaker 1: take a swing and cast Emma Stone. Did she play
Speaker 1: a Hawaiian person? A quarter Hawaiian, a quarter Chinese? Oh shit, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I tried to watch this years ago and couldn't. That's
Speaker 1: how bad it was. If you like to watch things
Speaker 1: that are upsetting to yeah, I went, I went, it's
Speaker 1: set in a beautiful place. Yeah, it's got a beautiful cast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the plot's horrific. What else could I want? Yeah? What
Speaker 1: could I want? I couldn't watch it. It was commercially
Speaker 1: and critically a failure. It costs thirty seven million to
Speaker 1: make and then grossed twenty six million with that cast,
Speaker 1: with that cast, so word must have rows it about
Speaker 1: because my memory is a an Emma Stone with makeup
Speaker 1: that made her racially ambiguous, which I'm pretty sure is
Speaker 1: more racist and I think like a military vibe. Okay,
Speaker 1: the premise is this, While an assignment in Hawaii, military
Speaker 1: contractor Brian Gilcrest Bradley Cooper reconnects with his old flamee
Speaker 1: Rachel McAdams, now married to an Air Force recruit, John Krasinski.
Speaker 1: He also spends time with Alison John Krasinski the office Office. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that guy. Yeah, yeah, and he's really hot
Speaker 1: in it. He's kind of jacked. He also spends time
Speaker 1: with Alison Ning Emma Stone, a hard nosed fighter pilot
Speaker 1: who watches every move that he makes. As they travel
Speaker 1: through the lush terrain, Brian finds himself falling for Ning,
Speaker 1: while his conversations with Tracy provide a shocking revelation from
Speaker 1: their past. Now it's too confusing, it's too confusing. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you about the character Alison Ing. It's ng.
Speaker 1: It's like ring without the R or the ice. As
Speaker 1: I said, she's meant to be one quarter Chinese, one
Speaker 1: quarter Hawaiian. She's sort of like the cultural voice in
Speaker 1: this right, but she's played by Emma Stone, which is
Speaker 1: problematic in that Emma Stone is German, English, Irish and
Speaker 1: wait for it, because this is important Scottish. This is
Speaker 1: why we look alike. We've got identical backgrounds. No, genuinely.
Speaker 1: There was unsurprisingly backlash to this casting decision. A Jezebel
Speaker 1: headline read, Emma Stone playing a half Asian character in
Speaker 1: Aloha literally? Why? Literally? The Media Action Network for Asian
Speaker 1: Americans released a statement about the all white casting of
Speaker 1: a movie set in Hawaii, and they said that sixty
Speaker 1: percent of Hawaii's population is Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Speaker 1: Caucasians make up about thirty percent of the population, but
Speaker 1: from watching the film, you'd think they made up ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent. Now. The director responded to the backlash and
Speaker 1: he said, I've heard your words and your disappointment. I
Speaker 1: offer a heartfelt apology to all who felt this was
Speaker 1: an odd or misguided casting choice. So has he explained, well, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, as far back as two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: Captain Allison Ing, we've written to be a super proud
Speaker 1: one quarter Hawaiian who was frustrated that by all outward appearances,
Speaker 1: she looked nothing like one Okay, a half Chinese father
Speaker 1: was meant to show the surprising mix of cultures often
Speaker 1: prevalent in Hawaii. Extremely proud of her unlikely heritage, she
Speaker 1: feels personally compelled to over explain every chance she gets.
Speaker 1: The character was based on a real life redheaded local
Speaker 1: who did just that. Ah, that's all lovely. The difference
Speaker 1: is that the local was actually Hawaiian. Okay, Yeah, Hollywood
Speaker 1: has an appalling track record when it comes to diverse representation.
Speaker 1: And did you not think it was strange? Do make
Speaker 1: Emma Stone play someone with the last name ying did nothing?
Speaker 1: The issue, isn't it? And it's also like she's not
Speaker 1: some unknown actress where you could almost put aside everything
Speaker 1: you knew about them and maybe go, hey, maybe not actress.
Speaker 1: It's Hawaiian. I know she's not. She is the whitest
Speaker 1: actress who exists. She's so so white, which is fine
Speaker 1: because ninety nine percent of roles for really white people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we got one role here for someone who isn't complete,
Speaker 1: isn't completely white. Yeah, and we go you know what,
Speaker 1: you know it hasn't been given a chance. Emily, little
Speaker 1: old Emily. You know, she was fifteen inch made that PowerPoint. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she hustled, Let's give her a go. Oh. I really
Speaker 1: do think this is one of those examples. I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: with how things like this happen in Hollywood, right that
Speaker 1: no one sits around the table and goes Because I
Speaker 1: think what happened is Cameron Crowe wrote it, and he went,
Speaker 1: I'll just ask, I'll ask, and if it's weird, she'll
Speaker 1: tell me, she'll say something. And maybe she thought he asked,
Speaker 1: it must not be weird. Yeah, And then I think
Speaker 1: Bradley Cooper was like, well, I don't know. He said
Speaker 1: that it's fine. Everyone thought the other would check. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a class studio meeting, and you're thinking, no, the
Speaker 1: studio checked. We got this signed off by all Hawaiian people, yeah,
Speaker 1: or something. Somebody did something to make sure that this
Speaker 1: was It's a diffusion of responsibility. It's no one person's fault.
Speaker 1: It is everyone's fault to varying degree. Because I think
Speaker 1: Emma Stone is also like, hold on, Rachel McAdams is
Speaker 1: in this film. She wouldn't sign on if this is offensive.
Speaker 1: Bradley Cooper wouldn't know. John Krasinski seems like a good guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't star in a scene with me if I
Speaker 1: was cosplaying somebody of a different race when I really
Speaker 1: but everybody at the whensk I made Vanilla Skuy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he doesn't do stupid things. And then he's gone, oh look,
Speaker 1: it's just yeah. It was definitely one of those things
Speaker 1: where you look at the poster and you're like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: how did that happen? They want me to believe em
Speaker 1: the Stone's Hawaiian who made that? Call all of you
Speaker 1: a little bit. But Jesse, it wasn't just that the
Speaker 1: casting was bad. It was the film itself. And speaking
Speaker 1: of people, you cancel along the way Cameron grow, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's he steel? And why hasn't he worked since other
Speaker 1: than a lower Because it was so bad? I think
Speaker 1: he got scared away from Hollywood. Yeah, Jesse come up
Speaker 1: against this in the cancel courtroom before. When people do
Speaker 1: a really bad piece of work, they hide, they hide,
Speaker 1: they retreat into a sou and they go, never mind me,
Speaker 1: here's a review. And then they retreat and then they
Speaker 1: throw Emmstone out and then they go back to their
Speaker 1: snow cave. Sorry if you're hurt, but they're offering in
Speaker 1: the Stone Yeah, look, here's Emma Stone. Yeah, Bradley Like,
Speaker 1: he's just offering people going leave me alone in a
Speaker 1: snow cave in my cave. Here's a review from Vox.
Speaker 1: Crow came into a low heart with a cast that
Speaker 1: could melt silver linings, playbooks, off the planet, a dreamy
Speaker 1: setting that people wouldn't mind spending eternity staring at. A
Speaker 1: script that rights itself. Filmed set in Hawaii and Hawaii.
Speaker 1: When we went to Hawaii, we were like, boom forgetting
Speaker 1: Sarah Marshall. Yeah, Boom, Blue crash, boom, hich go to
Speaker 1: every set. Yes, And I've just realized that all of
Speaker 1: those movies are about white people. You know what I
Speaker 1: didn't do. I didn't say, where's Aaloha filmed? Because I
Speaker 1: didn't did say care, let's go to the Jurassic Park
Speaker 1: part Yeah? Yeah, because that was very good. But the
Speaker 1: whitewashing of Hawaii, it's serious. It's very problematic. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: Vox review said, it's a script that writes itself because
Speaker 1: people will throw money at you to see Bradley Cooper
Speaker 1: kiss Emma Stone and Rachel McAdams and the actual real
Speaker 1: life experience of living in Hawaii It's both mystifying and
Speaker 1: unfair that he managed to take all that and turn
Speaker 1: it into whatever Aloha is. I just could not shake
Speaker 1: the films haunting and naked mediocrity. I was left thinking
Speaker 1: about Aloha long after I left the theater. The movie
Speaker 1: taunted me in a way that other bad movies hadn't.
Speaker 1: This is when we do our movie marathon where we
Speaker 1: watch and live blog cats, which we've been promising to
Speaker 1: do for a while because of James Hardy's involvement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Aloha is after that. Yeah, No, I think
Speaker 1: it's really important that we will. I watched the trailer
Speaker 1: and I went, yeah, nah, it doesn't make sense. Doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. So Emma Stone what has sometimes been referred
Speaker 1: to as the mannic Pixie dream girl. Oh yeah, And interestingly,
Speaker 1: it was a Cameron Crowe film, Elizabethtown that made a
Speaker 1: reviewer coin that term with the Kirsten Dunce. Yet I
Speaker 1: do remember, because I did start to watch this movie
Speaker 1: before I turned it off, and I do remember that
Speaker 1: Emma Stone's character was all like blah, like just like
Speaker 1: had no filter and turning up everywhere and like way
Speaker 1: too straightly. But I'm hot, Yeah, I'm crazy, but I'm sexy.
Speaker 1: I'm actually so crazy it makes me sexy. Yea, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'd.
Speaker 2: Love to get a beverage or a peppermint t.
Speaker 1: I discuss all kinds of stuff, the sky, future, yeah, everything.
Speaker 2: I'm a peppermint t girl.
Speaker 1: Well, you have a good time.
Speaker 2: I met with you, sir.
Speaker 1: Now, she played a trope. That's an issue, but she
Speaker 1: did play it in an abysmal film. A BuzzFeed review,
Speaker 1: you said, Aloha is the world's most bewildering romantic comedy,
Speaker 1: and it really I mean, wow, it's just we all
Speaker 1: have to go and watch it together. I'm surprised that
Speaker 1: her career was somehow re because it all went somewhere
Speaker 1: from there. No, yeah, everybody Wentley Hooper's still working, Rachel
Speaker 1: mccadams is still working, and amm A Stone only has
Speaker 1: she do she ever formally apologize? Yes, yes, yes, so
Speaker 1: she apologized for her role. In a twenty fifteen interview,
Speaker 1: She said the controversy around her casting opened her eyes
Speaker 1: in many ways. She said, I've become the butt of
Speaker 1: many jokes. I've learnt on a macro level about how
Speaker 1: insane the history of whitewashing is. In Hollywood, and how
Speaker 1: prevalent the problem truly is. It ignited a conversation that's
Speaker 1: very important. Then there was a moment at the Golden
Speaker 1: Globes in twenty nineteen where the host made a joke
Speaker 1: about crazy rich Asians and how it was the first
Speaker 1: movie to tell an Asian story since Aloha, and Emma
Speaker 1: Stone called out, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Crazy changeons is nominee. It's a night for Best Picture,
Speaker 2: Musical or cormedy. It is the first studio film with
Speaker 2: an Asian American lead since Ghosts in the shallon Aloha from.
Speaker 1: Me, Oh that's funny. Yeah, She's like, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: regret it. I'm so I'm so sorry. That is not
Speaker 1: the end of our episode on Emma Stone. In fact,
Speaker 1: that was just a little bit. To listen to that
Speaker 1: entire episode, just click the link. In our show notes,
Speaker 1: we look into how Emma lied about her name, how
Speaker 1: she has too many best friends and just simply is
Speaker 1: not hustling enough for her success. We're recanceling three things
Speaker 1: every week over the summer break, including celebrities, TV shows,
Speaker 1: celebrity couples, and press tours because we need to keep
Speaker 1: the investigations running. You can find videos from the podcast
Speaker 1: and evidence of the celebrity crime on our Instagram at
Speaker 1: the Twins Underscore Thoughts, or on TikTok At canceled the podcast,
Speaker 1: Bye