Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
Speaker 1: vest start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlyn, do you want to open up
Speaker 2: a salon slash restaurant with me?
Speaker 3: Yes? I do?
Speaker 2: Okay, cool, I can't do either of the things.
Speaker 4: Oh well, wait till you see the dance.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Well I'm also really good at dancing, so.
Speaker 5: Let's do that. Incredible, incredible. I think that that was
Speaker 5: a really that was strong. I was like, should we
Speaker 5: start to deceive each other? But just in general, just
Speaker 5: in life anyways, Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: My name's Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlyn Dante, and
Speaker 2: this is our show where we examine movies through an
Speaker 2: intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping
Speaker 2: off point.
Speaker 5: Absolutely true.
Speaker 3: But what is that? Though?
Speaker 5: Well, there's a lot of different versions of the Bechdel's test.
Speaker 5: It is originally created as a joke, as a bit.
Speaker 4: As a goof yes, boof, a goof.
Speaker 5: Uh by Alison Bechdel in the eighties for her incredible
Speaker 5: comics series Dikes to Watch Out For, often called the
Speaker 5: Bechdel Wallace Test because she co created it with her
Speaker 5: friend Liz Wallace. Our version of the test that we
Speaker 5: use requires that two people of a marginalized gender with
Speaker 5: names talk to each other about something other than a
Speaker 5: man for two lines of dialogue.
Speaker 4: And it should be plot impactful dialogue.
Speaker 5: And that's the test. Most movies don't pass this one
Speaker 5: spoiler alert does.
Speaker 2: It does because the movie we're talking about today is BAPS, Yeah,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven. Same your Titanic came out. Sorry to
Speaker 2: mention it.
Speaker 5: That was my first note. It's like greatest yudent film.
Speaker 5: We have a returning guest today, is it Third Ford?
Speaker 3: I think time.
Speaker 5: That's a jacket.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like Steve Martinette Saturday Night Live. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Basically, yes, she's the host of Ihearts. There are no
Speaker 2: girls on the Internet. It's Bridget tod welcome back.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. I was telling Caitlin off
Speaker 3: Mike that y'all could not have picked a better movie
Speaker 3: for me to talk about that I feel more strongly about.
Speaker 3: So I am so excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Oh, we're so excited to have you tell us your
Speaker 2: relationship with Baps.
Speaker 3: Well, I remember very distinctly watching this for the first
Speaker 3: time at a slumber party in the nineties. It was
Speaker 3: one of those do you ever have memories of going
Speaker 3: to Blockbuster and picking out a movie and being so
Speaker 3: excited and then getting that tub of popcorn that they
Speaker 3: had or you put it in the microwave. I have
Speaker 3: a clear memory of my mind of like going during
Speaker 3: a sleepover to rent this movie and watching it and
Speaker 3: sitting on my stomach and like just loving it.
Speaker 5: I love memories like that too, where it's like I
Speaker 5: feel like the thing that sticks with me the strongest
Speaker 5: is like the politics among usually a group of girls
Speaker 5: in the Blockbuster, where you're trying to reach a consensus
Speaker 5: and there's like people calling each other over from one
Speaker 5: wall to the other being like that this one and
Speaker 5: then you have to debate.
Speaker 4: It's exciting and this is such a sleepover movie.
Speaker 3: It is, and so one of the reasons why I'm
Speaker 3: so excited to talk about it is that it is
Speaker 3: a movie that when it came out, was like controversial.
Speaker 3: People liked it, didn't like it, people had a lot
Speaker 3: to say about it, and I loved it from the beginning.
Speaker 3: I loved it then, I love it now. If folks
Speaker 3: ever watched Real Housewives of Atlanta, there's a scene where
Speaker 3: one woman is trying to humiliate another woman when she's
Speaker 3: flowing a costume party, and so she's giving everybody glamorous
Speaker 3: Hollywood celebrities to come dressed as It's like, oh, you
Speaker 3: come dressed as Diana Ross, you come dressed as Billie
Speaker 3: Holliday And she's like, I want you to come dressed
Speaker 3: as halle Berry from BAPS, And it's meant to be
Speaker 3: like a deep insult. So it's definitely a movie that
Speaker 3: holds a lot of wow. Co Yeah, she doesn't spoiler,
Speaker 3: she doesn't do she comes dressed as halle Berry and
Speaker 3: Dorothy Dandridge to sort of get around it, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it was like an.
Speaker 2: Insult, ridiculous because halle Berry's looks in this movie iconic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the costuming is unbelievable. It helped me get around
Speaker 5: a lot of plot dissonance, I.
Speaker 3: Know, and I do feel like the joke of the
Speaker 3: movie is supposed to be like, look how tacky these
Speaker 3: women look, But there are multiple outfits and halle Berry
Speaker 3: wears where I'm like, I would wear that today, no problem.
Speaker 3: If that was in my closet, I will be very happy.
Speaker 2: Her character Natalie Dscell reads character like they're looking terrific.
Speaker 5: It's true, It's true, And I speaking to your point,
Speaker 5: Bridget I was really I wasn't aware of the discourse
Speaker 5: around this movie when it came out. It's always interesting
Speaker 5: covering a movie that, like the way it was received,
Speaker 5: was so wrong, and then having to come back around gosh,
Speaker 5: this movie is my brother's age twenty seven years later,
Speaker 5: scary and sort of revisit it, which I'm glad that
Speaker 5: some writers have, but not as many as I would
Speaker 5: have expected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to prep for this, I read Roger Ebert's original
Speaker 3: review of this movie. Eviscerated it, like skewered it. It
Speaker 3: was worst of lists. And I, even if I don't
Speaker 3: agree with Roger Ebert, I usually love reading his reviews
Speaker 3: and like he could not stand this movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm excited to dig into that.
Speaker 5: I don't know Roger Ebert like when he hits, he
Speaker 5: hits what he misses it's so embarrassing, and I feel
Speaker 5: like we have had a feud with his ghosts on
Speaker 5: this show for many years.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, it's the thing that we have talked about
Speaker 2: quite a lot where I mean this movie. First of all,
Speaker 2: it was a box office flop, unfortunately, and most critics
Speaker 2: hated it. But as we've talked about a lot on
Speaker 2: the show, most of the critics reviewing movies in like
Speaker 2: at least major publications in ninety seven were white men.
Speaker 2: This is a movie about two black women made by
Speaker 2: black filmmakers, and so a lot of critics at that
Speaker 2: time were like, well, this movie isn't about someone who
Speaker 2: looks like me, and so therefore it's not for me,
Speaker 2: and therefore I don't understand it, and I don't like it.
Speaker 4: Yeah there's and they're also we can save it for later.
Speaker 5: But I feel like there was a lot of like
Speaker 5: respectability politics encoded into the reviews that I was reading,
Speaker 5: where like it was white reviewers deciding what was appropriate
Speaker 5: in terms of like how black women could be represented.
Speaker 5: It was an interesting thing to get into because then
Speaker 5: you also read interviews with the writer Troy Bayer, and
Speaker 5: she's like, I hated Robert Townsend's directorial choices and I
Speaker 5: don't like the movie, and so you're like well, a
Speaker 5: lot of things are going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point, And like, I love Robert
Speaker 3: Townsend absolutely. Another movie that he had made was Hollywood Shuffle,
Speaker 3: So like, he definitely has somebody who was interested in
Speaker 3: playing with satire and stereotypes around culture and blackness. I
Speaker 3: make a larger point, whether or not that point like
Speaker 3: lands or false flat or whatever. I think he was
Speaker 3: clearly doing something with this movie, and I think a
Speaker 3: lot of the film reviewers maybe missed what he was doing.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I read the same thing as you, Jamie,
Speaker 3: that one of the screenwriters on this movie was like,
Speaker 3: I hated it. I had a lot of issues with
Speaker 3: the script and this and that, and so I want
Speaker 3: to take that into account too. But I do think
Speaker 3: that some of the reviews that make this sound like
Speaker 3: it was just a vapid, cruel movie bashing working class
Speaker 3: black women. I don't see that, Jamie.
Speaker 2: What is your relationship with this movie?
Speaker 5: I had not seen this movie before, and that's sort
Speaker 5: of the beginning, middle, and an end of it.
Speaker 4: I knew of it, and I.
Speaker 5: Didn't know that Troy Bayer had written it. She's just
Speaker 5: like a really interesting person. The more I was reading
Speaker 5: about her, the Bore. I was like, she's just like
Speaker 5: she started as a sesame street kid and she's like
Speaker 5: Caitlin Durante Mode has.
Speaker 4: A million degrees and a million things.
Speaker 2: I would never mention it, but thank you for bringing
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she has lived many lives, and I thought it
Speaker 5: was interesting again because I feel like so many times
Speaker 5: when we cover a movie, we're like, wonder how the
Speaker 5: writer felt about how the adaptation of their work translated
Speaker 5: to the screen, And Trey Byer was very outspoken about it, So, yeah,
Speaker 5: I hadn't seen it before. I think there's so much
Speaker 5: to love about this movie. It's such a sleepover movie.
Speaker 5: It's so clear who the movie's for, and everyone who
Speaker 5: is vocally outspoken about this movie were nowhere near who
Speaker 5: the movie's for. So I'm excited to talk about it. Caitlin,
Speaker 5: what's your history?
Speaker 2: I had also never seen it, though I know that
Speaker 2: it's been a request on the show from like a
Speaker 2: few select listeners. It's a cult classic, right, so it's
Speaker 2: not something that like tons and tons and tons of
Speaker 2: people are being like, you gotta cover this movie, but
Speaker 2: like the people who are requesting it are like, you
Speaker 2: have to do this movie. They're very fervent.
Speaker 5: About Baps and Muriel's wedding, Like the listeners who want
Speaker 5: it wanted badly.
Speaker 3: If any of those folks are listening, who like really
Speaker 3: have been requesting it, I hope I do it justice.
Speaker 3: I guess I'll just say.
Speaker 5: That we've brought in a three timer. We've brought in
Speaker 5: a hitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, you'll do great. This will be great, Everything will
Speaker 2: be great. We're gonna live forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Should I do the recap and we'll go from there,
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Okay. So we are in Decatur, Georgia.
Speaker 2: We meet two friends, Nissi that's Hallie Berry and Mickey
Speaker 2: that's Natalie to sell read rest in Peace. They work
Speaker 2: at a soul food restaurant that's owned by Bernie Mack.
Speaker 2: Loved seeing him already. You're like, I'm in, I'm in.
Speaker 3: Can I say one thing about this? Yeah, not to
Speaker 3: hope this is it doesn't derail things. But I just
Speaker 3: want to say, Bernie mac rest in peace. Before he died,
Speaker 3: he has a chronic illness, or had a chronic illness
Speaker 3: called parcedosis, which my father also had. And so it's
Speaker 3: near and dear to me. But folks might not know
Speaker 3: that the University of Illinois Hospital Center has the Bernie
Speaker 3: mac Center for Sarcarnosi's research, and I donate every year.
Speaker 3: Folks should donate. Oh my god, it's an undertreated, understudied
Speaker 3: chronic illness that disproportionately impacts black folks, and so it's
Speaker 3: a cause that's near to me. So please donate if
Speaker 3: you've got extra change. And thank you University of Illinois
Speaker 3: for studying this undertreated illness.
Speaker 5: Whow we will link to that. I had no idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for letting me give back.
Speaker 2: What Oh, of course, yeah, we'll support So yes, Bernie
Speaker 2: Mack is there. He's running the restaurant. Nissi and Mickey,
Speaker 2: they're best friends. They have similar esthetics in that they
Speaker 2: have really long fingernails. They're always wearing elaborate hairdoos that
Speaker 2: Nissi does because she's an aspiring salon owner.
Speaker 5: She's technically making sausage at the beginning. But I consider
Speaker 5: that the hot dog representation of the movie as like,
Speaker 5: if a hot dog doesn't show up later, this movie
Speaker 5: still passes the Jamie Locktas hot dog test. Is there
Speaker 5: a hot time?
Speaker 2: Is there a hot dog represented on screen? And close enough,
Speaker 2: I would say for this movie. So yeah, they wear
Speaker 2: flashy clothes, they've got the hairdos, they've got the nails,
Speaker 2: all that. On the radio, Nissi hears an announcement that
Speaker 2: auditions are being held in La to cast a dancer
Speaker 2: for Heavy D's dance Girl of the World, and whoever
Speaker 2: is cast in this will get ten thousand dollars. And
Speaker 2: Nisi wants to go to this audition because she hopes
Speaker 2: to get cast and use that money to open a
Speaker 2: hair salon slash restaurant that presumably she would do the
Speaker 2: hair for and that McKey would be the chef at.
Speaker 2: I think of the idea.
Speaker 3: Do you all think it's a good idea? Like I've
Speaker 3: been wrestling back and forth with whether or not this
Speaker 3: is a great idea or a terrible idea.
Speaker 4: I think it feels like it's at high risk for
Speaker 4: like a fire.
Speaker 5: Lots of hair and also ki yeah, right, like if
Speaker 5: someone with like a lot of hairspray and a lot
Speaker 5: of like grease grill, like I guess it depends on
Speaker 5: what kind of food they're serving.
Speaker 4: Seems like a high accident.
Speaker 2: Well, also just seems like unsanitary and unhygienic with like
Speaker 2: people's dander flying through the air and their hair all
Speaker 2: over the floor and stuff.
Speaker 5: That's true, I mean spoiler alert, they end up doing it. Yes,
Speaker 5: So I wish we could fast forward a year. It'd
Speaker 5: be like, so what does Osha think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, where's baps too? Which is all about the
Speaker 2: salon slash restaurant.
Speaker 5: I also it was a twist of the movie for
Speaker 5: me to find out that the old man came up
Speaker 5: with the term baps. Yes, yeah, I was like, what
Speaker 5: he was just like coining on his deathbed.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, he uses his will to coin the phrase.
Speaker 5: I just didn't see.
Speaker 2: It coming, right, because they're like, what's baps? And then
Speaker 2: he's like black American princesses.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was like, wait, it was his idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, didn't see that coming.
Speaker 5: And this is like true of so many rom coms.
Speaker 5: But I just thought there was a very fun, kind
Speaker 5: of bizarre liberal use of like a vague movie score
Speaker 5: where sometimes like something's happening that is like plot impactful,
Speaker 5: but not like the most serious thing in the world.
Speaker 5: And it's like dude, dude, dude, including the entire end
Speaker 5: of the movie, the whole last minute there's no It
Speaker 5: was like they're just playing the score and I'm like,
Speaker 5: I would just like to know what they're saying, because
Speaker 5: they're saying things, m M, maybe the sound something happened.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: And they're like, if we just put music over this
Speaker 2: and show people's reactions, it'll be clear. Show don't tell
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, do you remember wire screenwriting? Okay, So
Speaker 2: we also meet Nissi and Mickey's two boyfriends, Allie played
Speaker 2: by Pierre Edwards that's Niecy's boyfriend, and James played by
Speaker 2: Anthony Johnson that's Mickey's boyfriend. They're trying to start up
Speaker 2: like a car service company, but right now they're unemployed.
Speaker 2: They have questionable haircuts. They're kind of losers.
Speaker 5: More importantly, they're not very nice to their girlfriends. Right
Speaker 5: if be a loser all you want if you're a
Speaker 5: good partner.
Speaker 3: They are my least favorite part of this movie. I'm
Speaker 3: sure I'll get to it, but they are my least
Speaker 3: favorite part of this movie.
Speaker 2: Write them out, yeah, truly.
Speaker 5: I mean, I appreciate that Troy Byer's been outspoken about
Speaker 5: how she feels about the final product, but I wish
Speaker 5: she was a little more specific. I'm like, did she
Speaker 5: want the movie to end like that? Because it feels
Speaker 5: like the boyfriends did not deserve that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, So then Nissi sees another ad for the
Speaker 2: Dance Girl of the World contest and takes it as
Speaker 2: a sign that she and Mickey should definitely go to
Speaker 2: the audition in LA. Before they leave, though, they go
Speaker 2: out to a club because it's ladies night and they
Speaker 2: get in free, and a bunch of guys want to
Speaker 2: talk to them, but none of them want to or
Speaker 2: can spend the money to buy them drinks, including their boyfriends.
Speaker 2: So Nissi is all the more eager to get away
Speaker 2: and travel to LA and hopefully meet like a rich
Speaker 2: guy in LA. On the flight, they're trying to learn
Speaker 2: etiquette from a book. Their hair is too big and
Speaker 2: it's blocking everyone's view of the in flight movie, very
Speaker 2: funny stuff.
Speaker 5: There so many like vignettes. There's so many comedy montages.
Speaker 5: It's like, it's nineteen ninety seven, baby, we're doing comedy montages.
Speaker 3: True fun fact. That flight attendant who was like, can
Speaker 3: you lower your hair? It's a severa Wilson from that TV.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of good cameos in this movie, including
Speaker 2: one we're about to see, which is LL cool J.
Speaker 2: Because they arrive in La they're at the airport, they
Speaker 2: accost LL cool.
Speaker 4: J nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2: They do this every time they see a famous person,
Speaker 2: because there's a bunch of cameos sprinkled throughout the movie,
Speaker 2: and they're always accosting whoever it is and being like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I'm your biggest fan, marry me, sing
Speaker 2: for me, blah blah blah. They're always making a scene and.
Speaker 5: Singing for me is like there's a Phantom of the Opera.
Speaker 3: I can really relate to that scene with LL COOLJ.
Speaker 5: Y'all.
Speaker 3: I used to I might embarrass to say. I used
Speaker 3: to write him letters, like I had his like pictures
Speaker 3: on my wall, and I was so obsessed with him.
Speaker 3: People forget like in nineteen ninety seven, he was a
Speaker 3: real sex symbol and he made like music that was
Speaker 3: like very sensual.
Speaker 4: What was in the letters?
Speaker 3: Oh, I would be like, I thought there was a
Speaker 3: world where we might get together, So mind you, I
Speaker 3: was like a child. So it's a lot of like
Speaker 3: when we meet, like blah blah blah. Yeah, I was
Speaker 3: obsessed with him.
Speaker 5: Was it the sort of thing where like ll COOLJ
Speaker 5: Industries would like send you something back, like fan mail stuff.
Speaker 3: God, I wish they probably were like, let's never indulge
Speaker 3: this child's fantasy about we're.
Speaker 5: Putting Bridget's name on a list.
Speaker 3: If any even knows him, I would still accept a
Speaker 3: form letter back to this day, I would still happily
Speaker 3: take that.
Speaker 2: Oh, in any case. They arrive in La they head
Speaker 2: to the audition. There's a very long line and Nissi
Speaker 2: kind of has like a dance off with another woman
Speaker 2: waiting in the line, which a man nearby notices.
Speaker 5: I love the dance scene.
Speaker 4: It's so weird, it's.
Speaker 5: Just truly Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then we don't see the audition, but we see her
Speaker 2: coming out of it, and she hasn't done well. The
Speaker 2: judges were like pass and she's feeling defeated and ready
Speaker 2: to head back to Georgia. But then that man noticed
Speaker 2: her earlier. His name is Antonio. He approaches Nissi and
Speaker 2: Mickey and tells them that his boss is looking for
Speaker 2: a dancer for a music video. It pays ten thousand
Speaker 2: dollars and provides room and board in a mansion in
Speaker 2: Beverly Hills.
Speaker 4: And you're like, you're being abducted.
Speaker 5: You're being abducted, Like this is what a scary proposal?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're like, sounds great. So Antonio takes them
Speaker 2: to the mansion where they meet this rich guy named
Speaker 2: Isaac blakemore also his snooty butler named Manly. Nissy and
Speaker 2: Mickey get settled in at the mansion. There's a bedet
Speaker 2: scene where they don't know how a bidet works.
Speaker 4: Nineteen ninety seven comedy Montage.
Speaker 3: Yes, my first time ever seeing a bidet was this scene,
Speaker 3: and I didn't know what a bidet was, and so
Speaker 3: the scene I was still sort of like, so what
Speaker 3: is the little toilet? Like? I still didn't understand like
Speaker 3: the humor of the scene because I didn't know what
Speaker 3: a bidet was.
Speaker 4: I still to this day.
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess I've I've seen them now, but
Speaker 5: I've never I've never engaged.
Speaker 2: I've never used one. I don't trust them.
Speaker 5: I believe that, you know, now there's consumer bidets. You
Speaker 5: don't need to be in the one percent to have
Speaker 5: a bidet. I know people are evangelical about them.
Speaker 2: I just don't know how you dry your ass, after all.
Speaker 3: That's my question. Too, because from what I've read, it's
Speaker 3: like more environmentally friendly and more hygienic because they're not
Speaker 3: like using paper on your butt, but your butt gets wet,
Speaker 3: so wouldn't you have to use what are you using
Speaker 3: to dry your butt?
Speaker 2: I know someone who had like one of those consumer
Speaker 2: bidets that you just like install in your toilet and
Speaker 2: then yeah, they had a designated butt towel. But then
Speaker 2: it's like, so now your butt towels just hanging in
Speaker 2: your bathroom with all your buttrooms all over it, and
Speaker 2: I don't care how effective the bidet is. It's not
Speaker 2: killing the bacteria from your ass.
Speaker 3: It's just water.
Speaker 5: And what if I'm your friend and I come over
Speaker 5: and you're.
Speaker 2: Accidentally touched the like what if you think it's a
Speaker 2: hand towel and draw your hands with it.
Speaker 5: It's like pa mints, you know how like yeah in
Speaker 5: the urinals, you mean know, like how anytime there's like those,
Speaker 5: like they're delicious. Unfortunately, the mints, like outside of bathrooms,
Speaker 5: are like at restaurants and they there was like a
Speaker 5: test for how much urine because Americans are gross and
Speaker 5: don't wash their hands, and it was like these are
Speaker 5: one They're just calcified p and you're like, oh no,
Speaker 5: so you can never have them out of restaurant. If
Speaker 5: they're just out raw, not wrapped, you can't have them.
Speaker 5: There's pea in them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people are out here putting their unwashed, urine soaped hands,
Speaker 3: raw dog into a bowl of communal mints. People.
Speaker 5: There's science to back up peepee hands and poop poo towels.
Speaker 5: It's a six sad world we live in.
Speaker 2: And food in your salons and hair and your restaurants
Speaker 2: just a mess. Don't do it, okay. So then after
Speaker 2: the bedet scene, they sit down with Isaac, who reveals
Speaker 2: that he isn't actually making a music video. What he
Speaker 2: is looking for is a woman to play a particular part,
Speaker 2: which is that Isaac's rich, elderly uncle who is dying
Speaker 2: of cancer. His story is that he was madly in
Speaker 2: love with this woman named Lily, but he never got
Speaker 2: to be with her or marry her because he's white
Speaker 2: and she was black, and his family forbid their relationship.
Speaker 2: But now that this uncle is on his deathbed, Isaac
Speaker 2: wants to find a woman to pretend to be Lily's granddaughter,
Speaker 2: and so that's who he wants Nissi to play, and
Speaker 2: Nissi and Mickey are very touched by this story, so
Speaker 2: Nissi agrees to do it.
Speaker 5: You could already tell, well, I mean just from like
Speaker 5: the I don't know the actor who plays Isaac, but
Speaker 5: you can just tell that, like he's up to no
Speaker 5: good based on how he's like looking at people. But
Speaker 5: already from the beginning, the plan is too weird to
Speaker 5: not be secretly evil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, if they were remaking this movie, he would
Speaker 3: be cast, well, pre allegations he would be cast by
Speaker 3: Armie Hammer, like a person in a movie that you're like,
Speaker 3: don't trust him. He's bad. It's not been revealed yet.
Speaker 3: You can just tell by his face.
Speaker 5: Yes, I feel like Adam Brodie's playing a lot of
Speaker 5: those parts these days. Yeah, but maybe it's just because
Speaker 5: we're about to cover ready or not where it's like
Speaker 5: he's a nice guy. Unless he also did that in
Speaker 5: Promising Young Woman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did it in American fiction, right, Yeah, he
Speaker 2: plays like an agent or something, yes.
Speaker 5: Right, Like he plays just kind of like slimeballs.
Speaker 2: Similar character in uh Jennifer's Body too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my.
Speaker 4: God, wow, Yeah, this is like a.
Speaker 3: A thing with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it happens a lot in horror movies where if
Speaker 2: you need like a slimy white guy in a thriller
Speaker 2: or a horror movie, and you will and you will
Speaker 2: need that, you cast either Adam Brody or Justin Long.
Speaker 5: Wow, that's true. I wonder how often they're like, Duke,
Speaker 5: you get out to play devious short kings. We don't know,
Speaker 5: we don't anyways.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So the friends meet the dying uncle, Don Blake
Speaker 2: Moore played by Martin Landau. Fun very fun at first.
Speaker 2: He's like shocked and angry that they're there, but then
Speaker 2: he quickly warms up to Nissi and Mickey. They have
Speaker 2: dinner together, but Mickey's like, what the fuck is this
Speaker 2: boring chicken? So she goes to the kitchen and whips
Speaker 2: up some soul food and Don loves it. She keeps
Speaker 2: making it for him for the next few days, and
Speaker 2: it seems like his health is improving, although Manly the
Speaker 2: butler disapproves. He still doesn't like the ladies.
Speaker 3: This is such a great seat. I love a montage
Speaker 3: of like a black woman is coming in and taking
Speaker 3: charge and shaking things up like This movie does not
Speaker 3: spare on the montages, right no, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5: It was kind of like, I mean, from a note
Speaker 5: taking perspective, it was very helpful because sometimes you're like, oh,
Speaker 5: nothing's gonna happen for a minute. Cool, I can catch
Speaker 5: up on my not It's great, great on my first
Speaker 5: blotch uh huh.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, Don is feeling better and he even feels
Speaker 2: up to taking Nissie and Mickey on a shopping spree.
Speaker 2: So then we get a clothes trying on montage, but
Speaker 2: nephew Isaac is lurking nearby taking pictures and it's clear
Speaker 2: that he's up to something. And then he's talking on
Speaker 2: the phone with someone.
Speaker 4: He's doing like a vaguely evil phone call.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And then the actor, again, I don't know anything about
Speaker 5: this actor, but he's kind of cracking me up with
Speaker 5: the over the top evilness. Where his scene like talking
Speaker 5: to someone on the phone being like, don't we'll be
Speaker 5: very rich souon click, and then it like just pans
Speaker 5: down to him and then he goes, good, all right,
Speaker 5: you're bad amazing acting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like he intends to like set someone
Speaker 2: up or blackmail someone. We're not really sure what the
Speaker 2: plan is. Meanwhile, Mickey and that guy Antonio who works
Speaker 2: at the estate. They're having a secret affair, and Antonio
Speaker 2: claims to be from a wealthy family in Italy and
Speaker 2: he wants to spend all of his money on Mickey,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't seem trustworthy either. He's also up to something.
Speaker 2: Then Don takes Nissi and Mickey out to a fancy
Speaker 2: dinner and they're trying to act sophisticated and classy, but
Speaker 2: they keep seeing celebrities and they're making a scene. Then
Speaker 2: Don wants to know more about his beloved Lily, so
Speaker 2: Nissi like crams her mouth full of food to avoid
Speaker 2: talking about her. She kind of like makes some stuff up.
Speaker 2: You can't even understand her. It's very funny. Then back
Speaker 2: at the estate, Mickey and Antonio are canoodling again, and
Speaker 2: Antonio is like, I have a ring for you, but
Speaker 2: it's in this safe, but I can't get it open,
Speaker 2: and she tries to open the safe, and it's clear
Speaker 2: that he's just trying to like get her to put
Speaker 2: her fingerprints on the safe to incriminate her.
Speaker 4: Later, no, I was like, Micky, he's wearing a leather glove.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, they're canodling. They're like laying in bed and
Speaker 3: she's like in a nighty and she's like, why are
Speaker 3: you wearing these leather gloves? And yeah, I feel like
Speaker 3: Mickey would be smarter than that, you would think.
Speaker 5: There's a number of times where I's like, these women
Speaker 5: are smart.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, why don't they notice that they're being deceived?
Speaker 5: Women be being deceived in movies.
Speaker 2: I mean not to victim blame these women.
Speaker 5: Although you know there's some equal opportunity deception in this movie.
Speaker 5: The women are are also deceiving Martin Landau.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 4: It makes you think I'm not mad about it.
Speaker 5: And also Martin Landau's not mad about it, weirdly, and no,
Speaker 5: he's like very down to be deceased. He's like, I've
Speaker 5: got forty five minutes to Liz, you know whatever.
Speaker 2: He loves it.
Speaker 5: He seems to.
Speaker 2: It's his kink anyway. So later that night, a burglar
Speaker 2: comes in and knocks out Manly the butler, and it
Speaker 2: wakes up Nissy and Mickey, so they come down and
Speaker 2: kick the burglar's ass, and he turns out to be Antonio,
Speaker 2: and he's in cahoots with nephew Isaac, who is trying
Speaker 2: to defraud his uncle and take his money by claiming
Speaker 2: that he is mentally unfit because he had brought in
Speaker 2: two women from the quote unquote ghetto who were robbing
Speaker 2: him every night. This is all explained by Don's lawyer,
Speaker 2: Tracy Shaw played by Troy Bayer aka the screenwriter of
Speaker 2: the movie, and once this is all figured out, Don
Speaker 2: offers Nissi and Mickey each fifty thousand dollars for their trouble,
Speaker 2: but they refuse, saying that they're there because they want
Speaker 2: to be there, which makes Don trust them even more.
Speaker 2: He takes them out dancing, but the guilt of lying
Speaker 2: to Don about being the granddaughter of his beloved Lily
Speaker 2: is really weighing on Nissi, so she writes a letter
Speaker 2: to Don and plans to give it to him and
Speaker 2: then like leave the estate shortly thereafter. But before they
Speaker 2: can do that, the butler manly, who has warmed up
Speaker 2: to Nissi and Mickey.
Speaker 3: Also.
Speaker 5: I thought that was a fun subversion, the butler being nice.
Speaker 5: You always expect him to be dastardly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he is at first, but then he's like, wow,
Speaker 2: we like the Sam soap opera. Let's be best friends.
Speaker 2: It didn't take much kind of love that he has
Speaker 2: arranged for Nissi and Mickey's boyfriends Ali and James to
Speaker 2: come to the estate, and these guys are trying to
Speaker 2: get their act together so that they can like deserve
Speaker 2: these women. But meanwhile, Don suddenly collapses and he's rushed
Speaker 2: to the hospital.
Speaker 5: He dances himself to death. The issue of his health
Speaker 5: is a little all over the place of the movie,
Speaker 5: because we're introduced to him as if he does not
Speaker 5: have a lot of time to live, but then he's
Speaker 5: very sprightly for a while. He's briefly brought back to
Speaker 5: full health by Mickey's cooking ostensibly yeah, and then has
Speaker 5: a very steep decline.
Speaker 4: It's very like movie health.
Speaker 2: Right exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then Nisi goes to the hospital and she's trying
Speaker 2: to tell Don that she's not really Lily's granddaughter, but
Speaker 2: he dies before she can get the words out, and
Speaker 2: then the attorney, Tracy informs them that Don already knew
Speaker 2: that she wasn't Lily's granddaughter because he was aware that
Speaker 2: Lily never had any children. He just cared about Nissi
Speaker 2: and McKee out of the kindness of his heart. He
Speaker 2: just enjoyed the company. Then Tracy is like, by the way,
Speaker 2: here's Don's last will and testament in which he leaves
Speaker 2: everything to his baps okaya.
Speaker 5: A thing he made up. It's three minutes before passing away,
Speaker 5: which I just feel like we cannot overlook. Yeah, I
Speaker 5: think that there's an argument that, like there's sort of
Speaker 5: a finndom element to mister Blakemore because.
Speaker 4: And I love it. I've never seen anything like it
Speaker 4: in the movie where he's.
Speaker 5: Just like knowingly being deceived, but he's like, let's party,
Speaker 5: let's let's have fun. In the end, he tries to
Speaker 5: give them one hundred thousand dollars collectively at one point,
Speaker 5: like hmmm, he's just kind of down to clown that
Speaker 5: mister Blakemore.
Speaker 3: I kind of get it, Like he's got money. His
Speaker 3: nephew is like trying to take advantage of him. I
Speaker 3: think he's got money and he knows he's about to die,
Speaker 3: so it's like I may as well having a good time,
Speaker 3: like eating soul food and dancing at the club with
Speaker 3: these women.
Speaker 2: That's how I did go out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I respect it. I mean, and it's like, I'm
Speaker 5: sure if we knew more about him, because he runs
Speaker 5: a fabric business, a textile business. I'm like, for sure,
Speaker 5: you know, if he's that rich, he's exploiting someone. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but this is a Cinderella story and he is the
Speaker 5: benevolent rich guy who's kind of getting Finn dambed. I
Speaker 5: don't hate it.
Speaker 2: Right, Speaking of Cinderella, Natalie decel Red is in Brandy
Speaker 2: Cinderella also from this year, from nineteen ninety seven or
Speaker 2: was that a different year?
Speaker 5: I believe so, Yeah, yeah, this is nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 5: She plays one of the stepsisters, Minerva.
Speaker 3: Right, She's so great, Like, I feel like she never
Speaker 3: got her due. But I feel like if you were
Speaker 3: watching black sitcoms in the nineties, you've seen her in everything.
Speaker 3: She was such a gem and I just, yeah, it
Speaker 3: makes me sad that she's no longer with us because
Speaker 3: her current would probably be really popping today.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I remember her from Eve he would ever watch, Yes, yes,
Speaker 5: even Cinderella also before we cut the brake. Yeah, because
Speaker 5: Natalie des cel Reads no longer with us, halle Berry.
Speaker 5: I didn't see this at the time she passed away,
Speaker 5: but halle Berry posted like a really sweet tribute to
Speaker 5: her when she passed.
Speaker 4: And I want to share it.
Speaker 5: Really quick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she said.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 5: Natalie represented actual black women, not what black women are
Speaker 5: perceived to be. For that, she was often underrated, passed over,
Speaker 5: deprived of the platform she truly deserved. But her light
Speaker 5: continues to shine through the people who grew up watching her,
Speaker 5: the people who knew her best, and those of us
Speaker 5: who loved her. I'll love you forever, my sweet friends.
Speaker 5: So nice, beautiful, and you can just feel in this movie,
Speaker 5: even when the movie is weird and kind of off
Speaker 5: the rails, that like they're having fun. They're definitely having
Speaker 5: a hell of a time.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, anyways, Natalie des Sell, we love her. So
Speaker 2: the movie ends with Niscy and Mickey inheriting Don's fortune.
Speaker 2: Nephew Isaac is there being like what.
Speaker 3: The heck no?
Speaker 2: And then this new fortune they have enabled Nissi and
Speaker 2: Mickey to open up their salon slash restaurant in Beverly
Speaker 2: Hills called Lily's with a Z. Also, Ali and James
Speaker 2: have opened up their car service. Also, Dennis Rodman is.
Speaker 4: There as a cameo nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2: They all live happily ever after that's the movie. Let's
Speaker 2: take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss
Speaker 2: and we're back.
Speaker 3: We're back.
Speaker 5: Maybe where shall we start? I mean, Bridget, if you
Speaker 5: have a strong instinct, I feel like we've already also
Speaker 5: sort of started to talk about how this movie was received.
Speaker 3: I think that's a good place to start. So I
Speaker 3: felt this way when I watched it, and it was
Speaker 3: even more clear to me be watching it today, which
Speaker 3: is that this movie at times, I can understand how
Speaker 3: people think, like, oh, it's making fun of these working
Speaker 3: class black women. However, to me, this is a movie
Speaker 3: about black women who have goals and dreams and who
Speaker 3: like can really visualize and do the work to get
Speaker 3: them to those dreams. And the thing that gets them
Speaker 3: to their goals and their dreams is like their creativity,
Speaker 3: their ingenuity, right. Like there's a scene when they first
Speaker 3: get into the car, the limo when they're going to
Speaker 3: the mansion and they take off their wigs and they're
Speaker 3: gonna do a whole different hairdew and it's like that's creativity, right, Like.
Speaker 3: I don't think the movie is trying to make fun
Speaker 3: of that. I think the movie is trying to be
Speaker 3: like the reason why these women are the kind of
Speaker 3: women who would take a flight to La to try
Speaker 3: to get on Heavy D's music video and say yes
Speaker 3: to these authors that seem kind of outlandish. Is because
Speaker 3: they are creative. Is because they like possess these qualities
Speaker 3: that are the reason why they address the way they
Speaker 3: do and also are the reason when they go for
Speaker 3: their goals. I see this as a movie about dreamers
Speaker 3: and the creativity and foresight that it takes to really
Speaker 3: architect a life for yourself based on that dream.
Speaker 5: Hell yeah, yeah. There is so much that was like
Speaker 5: lost in the way that the movie was received because
Speaker 5: they're super motivated. There's a piece I found that was
Speaker 5: in Refinery twenty nine back in twenty eighteen, Remember then
Speaker 5: No by An Cohen that sort of examines the critical
Speaker 5: response versus how she felt, which is very similar to
Speaker 5: how you feel, Bridget.
Speaker 4: And also, I mean it's it reads.
Speaker 5: Very clearly, and it feels really condescending the way that
Speaker 5: this criticism comes off, because, in like the Ebert reviews,
Speaker 5: the motivation and how active they are in the story
Speaker 5: is not mentioned. The fact that they are motivated and
Speaker 5: have dreams aren't mentioned. I think that the way it's
Speaker 5: dealt in the movie can be a little like Uneven
Speaker 5: and the way that the movie prescribes their ending is weird.
Speaker 5: Although I am glad they got their salon restaurant. That
Speaker 5: probably wasn't a good business idea, but that whole sort
Speaker 5: of saga is fascinating. And what a Cohen sort of
Speaker 5: digs into here is this movie is clearly a part
Speaker 5: of the very nineties rags to riches women's story, but
Speaker 5: it's one of the few rags to riches story about
Speaker 5: black women, and it's received as I mean, and I
Speaker 5: bravely still have not seen Pretty Women in my life,
Speaker 5: so I have to take everyone else's word for how
Speaker 5: much this movie, especially in the montage, just kind of
Speaker 5: reflects things that happen in Pretty Women. What Ann Cohen
Speaker 5: is arguing is that the reception of this movie is
Speaker 5: when Halle Berry and Natalie des Seller doing it, it's
Speaker 5: portrayed as trashy. When Julia Roberts is doing the same
Speaker 5: thing on Rodeo Drive, it's presented as unbelievably charming, and
Speaker 5: how that is mask off racist in the same era
Speaker 5: of sleepover movies, and like.
Speaker 3: In Pretty Woman, I hadn't clocked that comparison, but I
Speaker 3: think it's a good one. It's funny I was just
Speaker 3: listening to Tina Fey on Las Culturista's and she was like,
Speaker 3: when I was watching Pretty Woman, me and my cousin
Speaker 3: would be like, are we the only people who have
Speaker 3: realized that, like, as a sex worker, it's probably going
Speaker 3: great this time because it's Richard Gear, but there's probably
Speaker 3: other stories that you're not hearing from her work that
Speaker 3: are like maybe not so great and not so rack.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think that Pretty Woman example is an
Speaker 3: interesting one because it's like who's come up story do
Speaker 3: we celebrate? And who's come up story is like just
Speaker 3: like fodder for laughs, I guess, And yeah, I just
Speaker 3: I almost think that what some of these reviewers who
Speaker 3: didn't like the movie, not all of them, but what
Speaker 3: some of them are actually saying is like, if you
Speaker 3: are a working class woman who dresses flashy and has
Speaker 3: really long nails and your indicator Georgia, it is absurd
Speaker 3: that you would think you could go to LA and
Speaker 3: like dance at a heavy D video or like make
Speaker 3: it or have some sort of dream. It almost seems
Speaker 3: like what they're actually saying in their mask off moments
Speaker 3: in these reviews is like that premise is what is unbelievable,
Speaker 3: not that the movie is like making fun of them
Speaker 3: or whatever. It almost kind of reveals the way that
Speaker 3: they're kind of like putting a negativity on that. Does
Speaker 3: that make sense?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, it's so weird reading them where
Speaker 5: it's clear that like Roger Ebert feels that he is
Speaker 5: doing a righteous thing while still clearly putting in a
Speaker 5: lot of his own biases. And it's also like, it's
Speaker 5: also fine to not love a sleepover a movie. I
Speaker 5: think that there's also a gendered aspect to this, but
Speaker 5: it's far more likely for again the Pretty Woman in comparison,
Speaker 5: because I was just looking at the original marketing for
Speaker 5: this movie, and it's very clear in how they're marketing
Speaker 5: baps who they want to go see it, because the
Speaker 5: tagline is these pretty women are Clueless, and you're like, okay,
Speaker 5: well even say in the tage, yeah, they drop two
Speaker 5: similar movies in the tag line.
Speaker 4: You're like, okay, so this is like all the same thing,
Speaker 4: but movies like.
Speaker 5: Pretty Women and Clueless are far more likely to be
Speaker 5: you know, escalated to like, well, this is actually like
Speaker 5: a pretty.
Speaker 4: Good movie quote unquote, and yeah.
Speaker 5: That's just racist and unfair and I don't even think
Speaker 5: this is like an amazing movie, but it's not what
Speaker 5: it's like. Holding it to that standard is silly.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I completely agree, And the fact of the
Speaker 3: matter is that, like it has endured culturally, and so again,
Speaker 3: I love this movie. I'm not gonna pretend like it's
Speaker 3: the most groundbreaking, the best movie ever. I had my
Speaker 3: issues with it, but the fact that it has maintained
Speaker 3: this cultural legacy shows that there was something going on.
Speaker 3: Like I even read that they were thinking about turning
Speaker 3: it into a stage adaptation, which if they did that,
Speaker 3: it would be a hit, no doubt. In my mind,
Speaker 3: it would kill.
Speaker 5: It's a Cinderella story. It literally is a Cinderella story.
Speaker 5: There's so many really good, like be fun nineties rags
Speaker 5: to riches stories, and this should be more discussed. I
Speaker 5: hope that this movie experiences resurgence, and that would be
Speaker 5: the perfect way to do it. Is like this movie
Speaker 5: is screaming to be adapted into a musical.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I do think like there are topics that
Speaker 3: are dealt with in the movie with humor that are
Speaker 3: like very real pieces of cultural discourse in the black community,
Speaker 3: like the montage when Mickey is making the food and
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, the nutrition is said that this food
Speaker 3: clogs the arteries and she's like, no, not the way
Speaker 3: that I make it. And I know it's played for
Speaker 3: a laugh, but like there are today like conversations about
Speaker 3: soul food and whether or not it's healthy and this
Speaker 3: idea that like, oh, well, collar greens are very similar
Speaker 3: to kale, but one of those foods enjoy is like
Speaker 3: a connotation of being health food and one doesn't, even
Speaker 3: though they're like practically the same thing. That is a
Speaker 3: very real cultural conversation that has endured today, and the
Speaker 3: movie like plays with that and has a discourse about
Speaker 3: that in a humorous way. Albeit but like I think
Speaker 3: there are more serious things going on in this film
Speaker 3: than some of these critics may be clocked.
Speaker 4: Which is like part of what makes Robert Townsend such
Speaker 4: an amazing filmmaker. Because we covered Hollywood Shuffle of Gosh
Speaker 4: a couple.
Speaker 5: Of years ago. Now yeah, oh nice, But that's like
Speaker 5: what he's great at is like finding a way to
Speaker 5: talk about hyper specific like have these conversations in a
Speaker 5: comedy montage versus like a very didactic, serious thing. Like
Speaker 5: it just feels very Robert townsendy, but I wanted to
Speaker 5: just share Troy Bayer's feelings on the adaptation, partially just
Speaker 5: because I love drama and because you're messy, because I
Speaker 5: do love reading about drama, and I think it is
Speaker 5: really interesting where like this is the sort of quote
Speaker 5: that you always want the confirmation of, but you very
Speaker 5: rarely actually get. And it just feels like a kind
Speaker 5: of a good lesson for writers in general, because it
Speaker 5: seems like what the issue ultimately was with Troy Byer
Speaker 5: and Robert Townsend is that Robert Townsend is generally a
Speaker 5: writer director and seemed to be on set very comfortable
Speaker 5: adjusting stuff as he went because he was adjusting his
Speaker 5: own writing. But in this case, this is the first
Speaker 5: movie he directed that was not written by him, and
Speaker 5: it seems like he used that same approach of like, well,
Speaker 5: I don't quite like how that works, We're going to
Speaker 5: adjust it. That ended up, in Troy Bayer's opinion, kind
Speaker 5: of meaningfully affecting what she had written, which is an interesting,
Speaker 5: hyper specific kind of problem that I don't think indicates
Speaker 5: any ill will on Robert Townsend's part, but it's just interesting.
Speaker 5: So Troy Byer gave an interview the year after this
Speaker 5: came out, as she was promoting a movie that she
Speaker 5: had written and directed after being unhappy with how BAPS
Speaker 5: had gone, called Let's Talk About Sex. So here's her quote.
Speaker 5: When I saw the final cut, I was so devastated
Speaker 5: because I really believed that my words had not honestly
Speaker 5: made it onto the screen. The director was a writer
Speaker 5: director himself, and it was the first time he directed
Speaker 5: someone else is writing. He took the liberty of changing
Speaker 5: stuff as he shot the film. At the end of
Speaker 5: the day, when I saw the film, I hated it.
Speaker 5: It was really embarrassed, and it was too late for
Speaker 5: me to take my name off the picture. Then I
Speaker 5: got killed by critics.
Speaker 4: Me the writer.
Speaker 5: I thought, I'm just going to take the money from
Speaker 5: this awful experience and put it into my own film.
Speaker 5: I'm going to direct it and make sure my words
Speaker 5: make it to the screen. If the critics try to
Speaker 5: kill me, now, there's nothing they can say that's going
Speaker 5: to hurt me, because I know I did my very best.
Speaker 5: Those are my words on screen, and I stand by them.
Speaker 5: I took the money from BAPS to make my movie Wow,
Speaker 5: which is also I mean, I don't know I'm on.
Speaker 5: I think team everybody here. This is also like Troy
Speaker 5: Byer's first screenwriting credit. She started as an actor. She
Speaker 5: has since gotten a master's degree in eco liberation and
Speaker 5: community psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology.
Speaker 4: Wow, she's written like, she's.
Speaker 5: Truly very very interesting. She's written self help books. She
Speaker 5: was married to the guy that produced all of the
Speaker 5: Saw movies for fifteen years. You're just like iconic. I know, know,
Speaker 5: I was pretty thrilled to find out that there is
Speaker 5: a direct BAPS to Saw connection, But I don't know.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't think that that takes away from
Speaker 5: the movie, because it did just seem like a creative
Speaker 5: chafing and kind of like a lesson that a lot
Speaker 5: of writers learn and why a lot of writers become
Speaker 5: directors is because that shit will happen.
Speaker 4: But I just wanted to share that. And also, she's
Speaker 4: in the movie, which is wild.
Speaker 2: She's in the movie, so I wonder if she like
Speaker 2: observed scenes where she's like, this isn't how I wrote this.
Speaker 3: Oh God, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: Robert?
Speaker 5: Like my skin crawl? I'd be so stressed. There's like
Speaker 5: things that I'm credited as having written and I've seen
Speaker 5: the episode and been like, huh, well, I guess I
Speaker 5: wrote that.
Speaker 3: Does it happen a lot in the biz.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's definitely been my And I don't mean like
Speaker 5: there's nothing, but like there's you know, especially in like
Speaker 5: sitcom writing, where there's like jokes that were there that
Speaker 5: you're like, I didn't write that or I don't know.
Speaker 5: So anytime someone's like, well the writing of this, the
Speaker 5: writer should have been thinking, I'm like just putting it
Speaker 5: out there, very likely they did not write that. And
Speaker 5: there's also jokes I've really enjoyed that I've been credited
Speaker 5: with that absolutely were not me.
Speaker 3: So it goes both ways. Yeah, it just goes.
Speaker 4: You do end up getting credit that you don't deserve
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 2: So let's take another quick break and we'll come back
Speaker 2: for more discussion, and we're back. Something I really appreciate
Speaker 2: about this movie is that it centers to black female friends.
Speaker 2: There's so few movies about I mean female friendship in
Speaker 2: general and then specifically black female friendship. And it feels
Speaker 2: like a really real, authentic friendship because you see them
Speaker 2: supporting each other, they're lifting each other up. But it's
Speaker 2: not as though they're like always agreeing on everything. Like
Speaker 2: we see them disagree about how to handle things, we
Speaker 2: see them trying to hold each other accountable for something,
Speaker 2: usually how they're conducting themselves around a celebrity. Yes, it's
Speaker 2: like them, you know, they're challenging each other, they're disagreeing,
Speaker 2: but they're also ultimately just like very loving and supportive
Speaker 2: of each other. And they're so funny together. Like, I
Speaker 2: love to see women be funny in movies because it
Speaker 2: seldom is allowed to happen because until like pretty recently,
Speaker 2: it felt like women were not ever written to be
Speaker 2: the funny characters in comedy movies. They were like the Killjoys,
Speaker 2: the shrews, because they were often movies written by men
Speaker 2: who were bringing in all of their biases. It's usually
Speaker 2: the men who get to be the funny ones in
Speaker 2: comedy movies. But like Halle Berry and Natalie desseil Read
Speaker 2: are clowning in almost every scene, like the physical humor,
Speaker 2: the jokes, Like everything is just so funny.
Speaker 5: It's so goofy. I love it. And the fact I
Speaker 5: feel like a lot of that is likely attributable to
Speaker 5: the fact that a black woman wrote this.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and their friendship is so supportive.
Speaker 5: I like that. I feel like it's very often in
Speaker 5: a friendship movie where you get like one front turns
Speaker 5: on the other and it's like, I'm gonna have this
Speaker 5: come up by myself and fuck you. It's like Raven
Speaker 5: during the Cheetah Girls. Yeah, she's like, I'm the star.
Speaker 5: But even when the other one is not making great choices,
Speaker 5: they are always supportive of each other. There's never a
Speaker 5: question that, like one person's success is not going to
Speaker 5: be the other person's success. And I think that that's
Speaker 5: really beautiful thing that, Yeah, you just like rarely get
Speaker 5: in a movie about women, because we're so conditioned to
Speaker 5: think that women will turn on each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they'll be petty, they'll backstab each other, Yeah, all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, because those are the stories that
Speaker 2: are written by men and that's what we're used to seeing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's never any moment like that. They're just
Speaker 2: there for each other every step of the way. I
Speaker 2: also want to note that there is more body diversity
Speaker 2: in this movie than you normally see. Because Mickey is fat,
Speaker 2: there's no attention drawn to that. It's just completely normalized
Speaker 2: a very normal part of her character. I wonder if
Speaker 2: there is an argument to be made that, like she's
Speaker 2: the one who is like the cook, she cooks soul food,
Speaker 2: and you know, the thin one does hair and is
Speaker 2: like more focused on like a kind of beauty oriented thing,
Speaker 2: and if there's some kind of like veiled thing there.
Speaker 2: But I think you'd almost kind of have to read
Speaker 2: into that to like reach that conclusion, because at least
Speaker 2: on like the surface or the way it's presented, it
Speaker 2: just like all feels very normalized, at least to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree, and I would also even go
Speaker 3: further and say that like in the nineties and today,
Speaker 3: it's so easy to be like, oh, well, halle Berry
Speaker 3: is the thin one, and so she has the fleshed
Speaker 3: out in her world. She has the romantic partner. But
Speaker 3: they're both kind of given like they both have partners.
Speaker 3: I don't like either of their partners, but they both
Speaker 3: have like a romantic arc. And I did notice there
Speaker 3: were a couple of places where it would be very
Speaker 3: easy to have Mickey be the one who was doing
Speaker 3: physical things, like the scene with the bidet it splashes
Speaker 3: up in halle Berry's face, and I think in a
Speaker 3: lot of movies it was like, oh haha, have the
Speaker 3: funny fat friend do something really physical, And this movie
Speaker 3: takes I think takes intention to lean away from that
Speaker 3: a little bit at times.
Speaker 2: For sure, it's like equal opportunity slapstick, physical right comedy. Also,
Speaker 2: I think in a lot of movies it would have
Speaker 2: been the case where the you know, thin, traditionally beautiful
Speaker 2: by Western beauty standards character would be the protagonist and
Speaker 2: then her friend would be like the quote unquote sidekick
Speaker 2: who doesn't have any kind of subplot of her own
Speaker 2: or any scenes where it's just focusing on her. But
Speaker 2: she also has that like separate love story kind of
Speaker 2: thing with Antonio, who of course ends up being like
Speaker 2: awful and desaitful. But we see a number of scenes
Speaker 2: where the focus of the scene is on Mickey and
Speaker 2: Nissi is nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 5: Right, and there's like never any I don't know, I
Speaker 5: feel like often when a fat character, especially during this era,
Speaker 5: is given a love interest, it's like in this condescending way,
Speaker 5: but like you also just have Natalie to sell and
Speaker 5: she fucking rocks and.
Speaker 2: His course, yeah she's the cutest.
Speaker 5: But it does feel like rare. And again, the movie
Speaker 5: is written by a woman like there's nothing for me
Speaker 5: at least that zim Mickey's story that feels like a
Speaker 5: reflection of her body. I do feel like, even though
Speaker 5: we have dual protagonists here, that Nissie is ultimately more
Speaker 5: so the protagonist than Mickey. Yeah, because we get like,
Speaker 5: I don't know, it felt a little uneven to me,
Speaker 5: which doesn't necessarily feel pointed. Also, halle Berry's.
Speaker 4: Famous, and I think she was quite famous by this point, right, So.
Speaker 3: It's funny that you would ask to like she was
Speaker 3: getting famous. But at this time we had not sort
Speaker 3: of accepted that halle Berry was a star star, and
Speaker 3: so she had done interesting the Spike Lee movie Jungle Fever,
Speaker 3: where she plays Samuel L. Jackson's girlfriend and she's like
Speaker 3: heavily drug addicted and it's very sad. She's in that
Speaker 3: movie Losing Isaiah, where she's another person who has kind
Speaker 3: of a sad trajectory in the movie.
Speaker 5: She's in The Flint Stone.
Speaker 3: That's right, she's the like sexy secretary alongside Billy Zane.
Speaker 3: She turns out to be like the bad guy in
Speaker 3: that movie.
Speaker 5: Not to spoil Hockley, Yes, and her character's name is
Speaker 5: Sharon stone seteeny amazing.
Speaker 2: She's also on Boomerang in ninety two.
Speaker 5: So she's like famous but maybe not leading lady famous yet.
Speaker 5: Is that where we're at?
Speaker 3: That's what I would put it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's
Speaker 3: sort of getting there. But like I think that if
Speaker 3: there was like a star attached to this movie, it
Speaker 3: was halle Berry.
Speaker 5: Right, because I was like, where is halle Berry in
Speaker 5: her career at this point? Okay, so she's not like,
Speaker 5: it's not Peek halle Berry quite yet.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 4: I feel like that's maybe early two thousands either way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like Nissi does kind of get the
Speaker 5: edge in terms of the attention that the movie pays
Speaker 5: and think it like clicked for me meaningfully, even though
Speaker 5: it's like it's not like Mickey is in it less,
Speaker 5: but Nissi's story kind of takes precedence more. Her relationship
Speaker 5: with mister Blake Moore is closer and the movie puts
Speaker 5: more emphasis on it, and her relationship with her boyfriend
Speaker 5: from home is given way more president because when Mickey's
Speaker 5: boyfriend comes back, James, you're sort of like, who is
Speaker 5: this guy again?
Speaker 4: But we've been hearing about Nissy's boyfriend the whole time.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 5: In that scene in the car, I was like, they're
Speaker 5: gonna do it, They're gonna do it. Where she's like
Speaker 5: I've been in love with someone from day one. I
Speaker 5: was like, I've only ever seen this man yell at you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, No, the.
Speaker 3: Time to talk about how much I hate the boyfriends, Yeah,
Speaker 3: lay into them. So I like a lot about this movie,
Speaker 3: But the thing I cannot stand is the boyfriends and
Speaker 3: the scene at the end. I feel like this comes
Speaker 3: up in movies that y'all talk about a lot, where
Speaker 3: Mickey and Nissi have this like trajectory where they learn
Speaker 3: a lot about themselves, they have a lot of developments
Speaker 3: all of that. Meanwhile, all Nisy's boyfriend does is, I guess,
Speaker 3: get his driver's license and cut his hair and that
Speaker 3: like that's meant to be like, oh he is good
Speaker 3: enough for me now. Poor Mickey, her boyfriend doesn't do
Speaker 3: anything but cry and be like I want to take
Speaker 3: you out to dinner and then fall into a As
Speaker 3: far as we know, he has no character arc, no development.
Speaker 3: He has just come back and is just crying at.
Speaker 4: Her, and he also like insults her multiple points.
Speaker 5: I think he's the only example I don't well, actually
Speaker 5: which boyfriend was it. It's either her boyfriend or Niezy's
Speaker 5: boyfriend in the Club Winner's Still in Georgia that like
Speaker 5: calls her a heifer and like is like, that's the
Speaker 5: only example I could find in the movie that like
Speaker 5: her like sizes commented on in any way, and it's
Speaker 5: by someone that loves her question mark like hate it. Fuck.
Speaker 3: I think what's going on here is a trope that
Speaker 3: was like very popular in the nineties. It's still a
Speaker 3: thing now, but like, I think we're getting away from it,
Speaker 3: which is like, it is much better to be just
Speaker 3: with somebody than single, right. I think that either of
Speaker 3: these two women, especially at the end when they get
Speaker 3: the money, would be much better off without either of
Speaker 3: these two scrubs. But I think in the universe of
Speaker 3: this movie, they're like, oh, well, better to have somebody
Speaker 3: who calls you a heifer than nobody, And yeah, I
Speaker 3: just I hate that so much. They would be much
Speaker 3: better off without either of those guys.
Speaker 2: Yes, for sure. I don't know why they're they're at all,
Speaker 2: or if they need to be there at the beginning
Speaker 2: to signify like these women don't have a full understanding
Speaker 2: of their worth yet. But then they learn that and
Speaker 2: they learn that they're better off without these guys, and
Speaker 2: they dump them and then they're written out of the
Speaker 2: movie for the rest of the movie. But why do
Speaker 2: they come back and why do they have like a
Speaker 2: redemption arc? And I think it's implied that, like the
Speaker 2: cars in their car service business that they start up
Speaker 2: are the same cars from the estate, so they just
Speaker 2: like get those cars for free, and then they're like,
Speaker 2: here's our business now, and it's like, no, you guys
Speaker 2: don't deserve any of this. You treat your girlfriends poorly,
Speaker 2: and you need to get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 3: Yes, like the girls had an arc that led to
Speaker 3: them getting the money, so presumably the guys are just
Speaker 3: taking some of their money to start their and the
Speaker 3: cars to start their business, which was lofty to begin with.
Speaker 3: And we're meant to swoon like I don't I don't
Speaker 3: like it. Y'all can keep that it stinks. Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, that was really really frustrating, And even with the
Speaker 5: way that their loser coded feels also very like kind.
Speaker 4: Of entrenched in class presentation too, because really.
Speaker 5: All that's changed when niece's boyfriend whose name escapes me
Speaker 5: and will continue to that's okay when he no h
Speaker 5: make his boyfriend al Ali. When Ali comes back, all
Speaker 5: that's really changed is how he's presenting himself. He's presenting
Speaker 5: himself in a more upper class quote unquote respectable way.
Speaker 5: But it's like, yeah, that doesn't change how you have
Speaker 5: treated her this entire time. And it feels like this
Speaker 5: sort of other side of a Cinderella come up narrative
Speaker 5: where it's like if a guy learns how to dress
Speaker 5: differently like they're richer, then all is forgiven and it
Speaker 5: implies that like that makes him a better person, and
Speaker 5: he does treat her better once he's wearing nicer clothes.
Speaker 5: It's just like nith.
Speaker 2: Very nineties mentality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is like a thing that happens within the
Speaker 3: universe of the film with Mickey and Nissi too, where
Speaker 3: as the film goes on, their clothes and their hair
Speaker 3: and their nails and their teeth get like less and
Speaker 3: less and less outlandish. You might be like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: they're in Beverly Hills, so they're just and they go shopping,
Speaker 3: so they're you know, learning how to fit in with
Speaker 3: where they're at. But within the universe of the film.
Speaker 3: I do have a question of, like, well, is the
Speaker 3: film trying to be like, oh, the way they were
Speaker 3: dressed at the beginning is bad, and now that they're
Speaker 3: dressed more conservative, it's good. And her boyfriend cut his
Speaker 3: perm and so that's good, and now they are a match.
Speaker 3: Because again I recognize that the way that they dress
Speaker 3: in the beginning is like over the top, but like,
Speaker 3: I don't think it's bad, and I don't think it's
Speaker 3: like says something about who they are. And I wonder
Speaker 3: if the movie is maybe saying something different, Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 5: With you on this journey with you, because I mean
Speaker 5: up until that point where the ending, also, all of
Speaker 5: the stuff about their dreams coming true happens during the credits,
Speaker 5: and you're like why why why? But yeah, like that
Speaker 5: aesthetic change felt pointed when that was like something I
Speaker 5: up to that point had really liked about the movie
Speaker 5: was even though they are deceiving, mister Blake Moore.
Speaker 2: I mean, rich white men should be tricked.
Speaker 5: It's truly a victimist crime. He likes it, and he yeah,
Speaker 5: it turns him on. So whatever, Like it seems like
Speaker 5: everyone is okay with the deception that they're involved with
Speaker 5: even though there's like brief you know, just speaking to
Speaker 5: like the kind of random unevenness of the movie where
Speaker 5: halle Berry is like racked with guilt in some scenes
Speaker 5: and then other scenes she's like my whatever, Like I'm
Speaker 5: on the side of my whatever. But either way, like
Speaker 5: outside of that sort of plot contrivance, they're themselves for
Speaker 5: the whole movie. They're not like adjusting who are They're
Speaker 5: not I think, outside of like a few kind of
Speaker 5: jokes that again I thought was interesting and I didn't
Speaker 5: miss that they didn't get into it more. But like
Speaker 5: halle Berry has like an etiquette book, and etiquette books
Speaker 5: are so entrenched in how to act like a respectable
Speaker 5: white woman, and that's just what that whole cottage industry is,
Speaker 5: especially the further back in time you go. But that's
Speaker 5: dropped immediately and they're themselves the whole movie, and they
Speaker 5: are appreciated for being themselves. And so to see that
Speaker 5: little aesthetic change at the end felt like, well, they
Speaker 5: were like loved and accepted for who they were.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like the movie doesn't kind of misses
Speaker 2: an opportunity to comment on the fact that like, yes,
Speaker 2: they feel the pressure to adhere to this like standard
Speaker 2: of propriety that is very much put forth by like
Speaker 2: wealthy white society, and that they're like trying to adhere
Speaker 2: to it. Either from an etiquette point of view. There's
Speaker 2: like scenes where someone says, like, oh, how are you,
Speaker 2: and then like Mickey responds and like the way that
Speaker 2: she traditionally would, and then Nissie cuts in to be like, no,
Speaker 2: we're doing very well, thank you, like in a very
Speaker 2: like proper kind of way. But yeah, they usually abandoned
Speaker 2: that sort of like etiquette propriety stuff that they were
Speaker 2: trying to learn and then they just behave like themselves.
Speaker 2: But as far as like they're esthetic choices, which is
Speaker 2: like one of the most memorable things about their characters,
Speaker 2: and like the poster is like very much like look
Speaker 2: at them and their flashy outfits and they're wacky hair
Speaker 2: jews and stuff like that. That gets more and more toned
Speaker 2: down throughout the movie, and I feel like the movie
Speaker 2: doesn't fully comment on like, ye, well, why are they
Speaker 2: like leaning into adhering to these like standards of propriety
Speaker 2: when that's not who they are, Like, that's not how
Speaker 2: they want to present themselves. And it just sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: well they're just doing it the end. So I wish
Speaker 2: there had been more like thoughtful examination of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that their aesthetic choices are such
Speaker 3: a big part of this movie and something that I
Speaker 3: was really and I would also want for the movie
Speaker 3: to sort of take stock of that a little bit differently,
Speaker 3: the same as you. And I also like a quote
Speaker 3: that was looming large in my mind when I was
Speaker 3: rewatching this was from this fashion designer Narsha Willis, who
Speaker 3: used to do these shirts that say ghetto until proven
Speaker 3: fashionable because you're meant to think that these outfits are
Speaker 3: outlandish and over the top, but if they were wearing
Speaker 3: them today, like on TikTok or on Instagram, they would
Speaker 3: absolutely kill. And so my god, yeah would they like kill?
Speaker 3: And so I do think like it goes back to
Speaker 3: what I was saying about, like when I saw this
Speaker 3: movie as a youth, to me, it felt like, uh,
Speaker 3: sometimes over the top celebration of the ways that sometimes
Speaker 3: these fashion choices can be so creative, so like on
Speaker 3: another level, so future forward, just so doing their own creative,
Speaker 3: distinct different thing that certainly took creative know how to
Speaker 3: get there, and today in twenty twenty four, that is
Speaker 3: like even more salient, but within the universe of the film. Again,
Speaker 3: I agree with you, Caitlin. I don't know that they
Speaker 3: are aware of the ways in which people like me
Speaker 3: are watching it and being like, oh my god, there's trendsetters,
Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, right.
Speaker 5: It feels like a very like having it both ways,
Speaker 5: where it's like the movie obviously knows that they look incredible,
Speaker 5: but it's also undercut by like, but this is like
Speaker 5: can't be quote unquote like low class incredible, where you're like, no,
Speaker 5: this is like really influential fashion. And the outfits at
Speaker 5: the end, you know, they look great because they're gorgeous,
Speaker 5: but what is that that's a pantsuit?
Speaker 3: It's not them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a.
Speaker 5: Hillary Clinton outfit, you know, like it's I don't I
Speaker 5: don't love it.
Speaker 2: It's especially frustrating considering that, like so much of American
Speaker 2: pop culture, which permeates like global pop culture as far
Speaker 2: as just clothes and media and all that kind of
Speaker 2: stuff is invented by black people and black women, So
Speaker 2: it's like, well, then why are they toning it down?
Speaker 3: Like ugh?
Speaker 5: I mean, also that's invented the fact that the term
Speaker 5: baps like that existed prior to this movie, and it
Speaker 5: is so just I don't know, like weird, maybe tongue
Speaker 5: in cheek to just attribute it to Martin Landau and
Speaker 5: this is very much a term that came out of
Speaker 5: the black community. But they're like, no, it's basically Martin
Speaker 5: Landa's idea. He was dying one day and was like,
Speaker 5: guess what I had just thought of? Anyways, Yeah, I
Speaker 5: don't know. There's other tropes that this movie subscribes to
Speaker 5: that I am more tempted to attribute to, like the
Speaker 5: Cinderella genre we're in where there is like devious nephew, right,
Speaker 5: But ultimately the two old white men in this movie
Speaker 5: are great guys that deserve the best, which is very
Speaker 5: like part I think of mister Bald from Annie or whatever.
Speaker 4: Who's mister Bald.
Speaker 5: What's his name?
Speaker 4: Oh, mister Noah hair I can't think of his name.
Speaker 5: Daddy wore Bucks, yes, right, like just someone that you're like,
Speaker 5: the way that they got this money has to be evil.
Speaker 5: You can't get this much money doing something good for
Speaker 5: the world. But in the world of this rags to
Speaker 5: riches story, they are this benevolent force that has to
Speaker 5: be on the side of our protagonist, which is often
Speaker 5: a young woman or girl. Rich white old man gives
Speaker 5: young women a lot of money. You know, I'd accept it.
Speaker 5: But this is very much a formula that exists, and
Speaker 5: I feel like the Martin Landau character being at the
Speaker 5: end of the day a nice old man. It falls
Speaker 5: cleanly into that.
Speaker 3: What do we think he did for a living? Or like,
Speaker 3: how do you think he made his millions?
Speaker 5: They said fabrics and I was like, oh, yeah, which
Speaker 5: I'm like that, So I'm not optimistic about his like labor.
Speaker 2: Right, the labor practices, I'm sure very exploitative.
Speaker 5: But we're not supposed to think about.
Speaker 4: That no or any movie like it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I would like to draw some parallels between this movie
Speaker 2: and Eddie murphy Haunted Mansion, because both movies, yeah, friend,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. Both movies involve a rich white
Speaker 2: guy who was in love with a black woman and
Speaker 2: the family disapproved and she ends up gone in a way,
Speaker 2: and we're not really sure what happens to.
Speaker 5: Her, even know if she's alive or not. Are they
Speaker 5: going to say if she's alive? Is he going to
Speaker 5: ask if she's alive?
Speaker 2: I thought maybe Lily would show up me at some point,
Speaker 2: but no, we're not really sure.
Speaker 4: Right, it seems like pointed that they weren't saying that
Speaker 4: she had died.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I was like, Oh, she's gonna come back at the
Speaker 5: end to be like halle Berry, you impostor.
Speaker 2: But she doesn't.
Speaker 4: We will die with that mystery.
Speaker 2: We don't know we will, And I wanted to Mansion
Speaker 2: at least we know that that woman does very dead die.
Speaker 2: But anyway, Also, there's like a butler in both stories
Speaker 2: who's like, they play out very differently in the two movies,
Speaker 2: but there is a butler who's like very loyal to
Speaker 2: his rich white guy boss. And you know, so I
Speaker 2: think that's where the parallels end.
Speaker 4: But that's still I mean, but yeah, the butler in
Speaker 4: Haunted Mansion ends up being quite evil.
Speaker 2: Evil Yeah yeah, yeah, he gets dragged to hell.
Speaker 4: Playing Butler Stereo times Justice for Butler's.
Speaker 5: Sorry. I'm on Daddy Warbucks's Wikipedia.
Speaker 3: Actually we're gonna say Daddy warbucks dot com.
Speaker 4: I was like, what did Daddy Warbucks do bad?
Speaker 5: He was an industrialist, but his Wikipedia page is very
Speaker 5: funny and he is not real. He eventually became a
Speaker 5: foreman in the rolling mill, married Missus Warbucks and worked
Speaker 5: and planned for a family and house of their own.
Speaker 5: When Daddy began they call him daddy throughout. When Daddy
Speaker 5: began to make big money during World War One, his
Speaker 5: marital happiness was lost.
Speaker 4: You're like, oh, no.
Speaker 3: Daddy, Daddy.
Speaker 2: No, also a foreman in a mill. Who is this
Speaker 2: Billy's aid from Titanic?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is villain coded uh, Daddy. That's basically who
Speaker 5: Martin Lantau is in this. They keep going uncle, he's uncle, Daddy,
Speaker 5: He's daddy, And that's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about?
Speaker 3: I just had one other note, which is that some
Speaker 3: of the references in this movie were so first of all,
Speaker 3: very of an era, but also so tight. When the
Speaker 3: girls are fighting Antonio, they think he's burglar and they're like,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do them like Tyson, and she's like, oh,
Speaker 3: you didn't see the last fight because you were in
Speaker 3: the kitchen getting popcorn. That Do you remember how in
Speaker 3: the nineties Tyson was known for like these big hyped
Speaker 3: boxing matches would only last for like thirty seconds because
Speaker 3: he would knock people out. Oh, I remember distinctly. My
Speaker 3: parents had a fight party and my dad went to
Speaker 3: get burgers off the grill, and when he came back,
Speaker 3: the fight was over and they had paid, like I
Speaker 3: don't know however much money back then, one hundred dollars
Speaker 3: or something to get the fight on pay per view.
Speaker 3: And it was like, well, I guess you missed it.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, okay, I did not.
Speaker 3: Know that some of these references are so tight, and so.
Speaker 2: Just like, yeah, it's good, it's good. Unfortunately, one of
Speaker 2: my favorite jokes is from one of the Loser boyfriends.
Speaker 2: But it's when Mickey's boyfriend James is saying, how oh,
Speaker 2: when we got to dinner, you know, we have to
Speaker 2: watch other people eat and he's crying and he's like,
Speaker 2: I want to eat too.
Speaker 3: So okay, that was a pretty good line. I'll give
Speaker 3: him that.
Speaker 2: That's a good joke.
Speaker 5: He had one moment, had one moment, and then he
Speaker 5: Leonardo DiCaprio and fell into a body of water fully clothed.
Speaker 3: Wait, is that a Leonardo dicaprioism.
Speaker 2: Yes, In every movie he's basically he will end up
Speaker 2: in a body of water with all of his clothes on.
Speaker 2: I made a super cut to this effect. It's stunning
Speaker 2: and if you want to watch it, you should come
Speaker 2: to our Shrek Tannic tour in the UK because we
Speaker 2: will be showing it at the show.
Speaker 4: Really great plug opportunity.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was masterful, Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 5: The only other thing I had was just again pulling
Speaker 5: from that Refinery twenty nine article that opens with just
Speaker 5: a couple of statistics that illustrates how like we've been
Speaker 5: talking about this whole episode, how this is a rare
Speaker 5: movie that centers black women and also so allows them
Speaker 5: to have fun and be goofy, and how rare that is.
Speaker 5: And then that countered with the other thing we've been
Speaker 5: talking about, which is how hyper critical and overly critical
Speaker 5: critics tend to be of movies that don't really exist
Speaker 5: very often. Yeah, how An Cohen opens the article is
Speaker 5: with these stats that I thought, what interesting. Hollywood released
Speaker 5: approximately one hundred and forty three movies in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 5: Of those, just seventeen starred a black performer in the
Speaker 5: top billing. Most of those roles, as with men in
Speaker 5: black double team money talks, most wanted and switched back,
Speaker 5: were given to black men opposite white male co leads.
Speaker 5: Others like Amistad focused on a historic slavery narrative, so
Speaker 5: that there's only really a couple of movies each year,
Speaker 5: especially at this time, that centers strictly black characters at all,
Speaker 5: much less black women. The only other ensemble movies that
Speaker 5: came out, we've actually covered one us Love Jones and
Speaker 5: Soul Food.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I just like speaks to like this movie.
Speaker 5: Does it have its faults?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's also a goofy comedy from nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2: It's an extremely goofy movie, I would say.
Speaker 3: I would say that as well representation as a goofy
Speaker 3: black girl. We need representation for our goofy corny asses
Speaker 3: to like engage in some screwball hijakes on screen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we need more hijacks, more hijis. Yeah, I think
Speaker 5: that was all I had. Does anyone else have anything?
Speaker 2: Nope?
Speaker 5: This movie passes the Bechdel test.
Speaker 2: Yes it does. The women are talking now and then
Speaker 2: about their boyfriends or about don or Antonio, but they
Speaker 2: also talk about hair, they talk about food, they talk
Speaker 2: about opening up their business, they talk about dancing, they
Speaker 2: talk about being in la all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So handily passing what about our nipple scale, though, where
Speaker 2: we rate the movie on a scale of zero to
Speaker 2: five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 2: I'm tempted to go like a three and a half
Speaker 2: or a four on this one. I love that this
Speaker 2: is a movie made by black filmmakers that features and
Speaker 2: centers a friendship between two black women that is fun
Speaker 2: and light and there's a distinct lack of tragedy, which, again,
Speaker 2: like as we were just kind of hinting at, so
Speaker 2: many stories, especially from this era, that centered black characters
Speaker 2: were like rife with the tragedy of the black experience,
Speaker 2: and this movie is just like all about like it's
Speaker 2: a Cinderella story, as we've been saying, like it's a
Speaker 2: fairy tale, and it's just like so fun to watch
Speaker 2: these characters. And I don't know why the boyfriends are
Speaker 2: there right them out of the story. There's some like
Speaker 2: kind of class implications that I don't love, but other
Speaker 2: than that, it's just like such a fun movie about
Speaker 2: two black women who are best friends and they're grifting
Speaker 2: a rich white guy and that's what should happen all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 4: So and I just can't enough how much he's loving
Speaker 4: the grift.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: He's obsessed. So I'm gonna give it four nipples. I
Speaker 2: am sad on Troy Buyer's behalf that she didn't like
Speaker 2: the final product and felt that her story and her
Speaker 2: words in the screenplay were not properly translated to film.
Speaker 2: But despite that, it's still a fun, enjoyable movie for me.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to go four nipples, and I will
Speaker 2: split them between Troy Buyer, halle Berry, and Natalie des
Speaker 2: sill Read.
Speaker 5: I think like a three and a half because I
Speaker 5: really feel Troy Byer's pain here and being like, it's
Speaker 5: my big break. I've been acting for years, this is
Speaker 5: my big screenwriting break. Black women so infrequently get to
Speaker 5: write anything on a scale like this and then to
Speaker 5: watch it and be like, oh, my heart is with her.
Speaker 5: And also I think that there's so much to love
Speaker 5: about this movie. It's so fun. It centers black women
Speaker 5: and their friendship in ways that we almost never see
Speaker 5: in movies. Even now. The ways that I find it
Speaker 5: frustrating are very of its time, mostly the boyfriends. Honestly, like,
Speaker 5: I think that it didn't become permissible until sometime in
Speaker 5: the two thousands. For a protagonist who is a straight
Speaker 5: woman to end up not with a man, even if
Speaker 5: that man is not good for her, She's got to
Speaker 5: end up with somebody, and that is the case here.
Speaker 5: But I feel like, if you can cut through that noise,
Speaker 5: it's just like, the performances are so funny. I love Like,
Speaker 5: if we don't get to see halle Berry do comedy ever,
Speaker 5: which is I feel like the dancing audition line scene alone,
Speaker 5: You're like, well, we deserved more of halle Berry comedy movies.
Speaker 5: And Natalie dcell is a master comic actor. She's amazing,
Speaker 5: and I wish she had more to do here. I
Speaker 5: wish that there was like more of an even protagonist
Speaker 5: situation here. But I love to see her. I love her.
Speaker 5: It's so wild that she was in two really fun, amazing,
Speaker 5: very different Cinderella stories that centered black women in the
Speaker 5: same year. Good for You in nineteen ninety seven and Yeah,
Speaker 5: I hate the boyfriends, love the baps. Three and a
Speaker 5: half nipples.
Speaker 2: Put that on a shirt.
Speaker 3: I would buy it. Hell yeah, is it out of
Speaker 3: five nips?
Speaker 2: Out of five nips?
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm gonna go for Obviously, I have a soft
Speaker 3: spot for this movie. I feel any movie that you
Speaker 3: watched with your head cradled on your hands on your
Speaker 3: tummy while kicking your feet at a slumber party, you
Speaker 3: can only go solo. I agree. I do feel for
Speaker 3: the screenwriter, and I'm really happy that she spoke up.
Speaker 3: I would love to see her original version of this movie,
Speaker 3: like what was her vision. I also a sucker for
Speaker 3: a movie that has a lot of random cameos people
Speaker 3: of an era playing themselves. You know, I don't think
Speaker 3: it's heavy v is in the movie. Yeah. So, like
Speaker 3: there's a one scene where they go to dinner and
Speaker 3: it's like every celebrity ever is having dinner has the
Speaker 3: same reservation time. So I love all the fun nineties cameos. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I just I love a screwball comedy, and I just
Speaker 3: get the sense that the two leads were like off
Speaker 3: screen and on screen like friends. You just can you
Speaker 3: can just send a work from them that is really delightful.
Speaker 2: So I'll go for Oh beautiful Bridget, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining us again. It's always such a treat
Speaker 2: to have you come back anytime.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, thank you for having this. You know,
Speaker 3: this was such a great way to spend my getting
Speaker 3: to watch baths and then talk about it thoughtfully for
Speaker 3: an hour, like thank you, this is a gift.
Speaker 5: We're so happy to do it, Like it's this movie
Speaker 5: put me in a great mood, right I have finished.
Speaker 5: Pacheco was like, I, oh god, it's so hard to
Speaker 5: be in a great mood.
Speaker 4: At this movie put me in a great mood truly.
Speaker 2: Where can people check out your work? Follow you on
Speaker 2: social media, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can check out my podcast on iHeartRadio called
Speaker 3: There Are No Girls on the Internet. You can later
Speaker 3: this month, depending on when this comes out, you can
Speaker 3: listen to another podcast that I have with Next Chapter
Speaker 3: Podcasts called Beef, where we are digging into the juiciest
Speaker 3: historical rivalries that you've never heard of. Well, yeah, you
Speaker 3: can find me on Instagram at bridget Marie and DC,
Speaker 3: on Twitter at Bridget Marie, on Blue Sky at Bridget tad,
Speaker 3: or on TikTok at Bridget makes Pods very nice.
Speaker 2: I just learned what Blue Sky was. How did I
Speaker 2: miss it?
Speaker 5: I have an account and I posted once and then
Speaker 5: I was like, all right, get them done, and you
Speaker 5: did it.
Speaker 3: My New Year's reolution was to use Twitter less. So
Speaker 3: that's I'm trying to like play with blue Sky more.
Speaker 3: So maybe I'll see all there.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, yeah, see you there anyway. You can follow
Speaker 2: us on Patreon aka r Matreon at patreon dot com
Speaker 2: slash Bechtyl Cast. We released two episodes every month, plus
Speaker 2: you'll get access to our back catalog of over one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty episodes at this point, all for five
Speaker 2: dollars a month.
Speaker 5: If you live in the UK, you can come see
Speaker 5: us on tour. We're gonna be touring throughout the UK
Speaker 5: in number of cities, more days to come in late May,
Speaker 5: so check that out. And you can also get our
Speaker 5: merch at teapoplic dot com slash the Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 2: That's right. Links to all of that stuff, including the
Speaker 2: ticket links for our tour, are at linktree slash Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 2: So scoot over there, grab those tickets, grab that merch,
Speaker 2: wear it to the show, et cetera, and yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: see you later. Wow, amazing dismount.
Speaker 5: I have a reservation along with every famous person at
Speaker 5: Beverly Hills at the restaurant Parselon, So if you'd like
Speaker 5: to join me and scream at various celebrities.
Speaker 2: That's for a yeah, And I'm gonna go there and
Speaker 2: be like, oh my god, Jamie Loftis, I love you,
Speaker 2: I love your book.
Speaker 5: Raw Dogs, be like easy, easy, I'm just trying to
Speaker 5: eat hair.
Speaker 3: They hated Dennis Radman for they Yes, we'll do, We'll do,
Speaker 3: Bye Bye bye.
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 2: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 2: by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Speaker 2: Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosenski. Our logo in merch
Speaker 2: is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
Speaker 2: Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit
Speaker 2: linktree slash Bechtelcast