Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
Speaker 2: all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they
Speaker 2: have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and best start changing
Speaker 2: it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: Hey, Jamie, Hey, Caitlyn, biz.
Speaker 4: Wha, it's me a secret b wait a second with
Speaker 4: a secret life?
Speaker 3: Is that a metaphor for something? I bet it is.
Speaker 5: I honestly thought you were going to take a completely
Speaker 5: different route.
Speaker 4: Wait what did you think I was going?
Speaker 5: Oh goodness, I thought you were gonna go like the
Speaker 5: darker route with like with like t ray don't ask
Speaker 5: me why.
Speaker 4: No, I wait, like that guy. I mean, we'll talk
Speaker 4: about it, but.
Speaker 5: We'll talk about it.
Speaker 3: Also, the fact that he's played by real life piece
Speaker 3: of shit Paul Bettany or just like, oh wait, I
Speaker 3: don't know about oh my, he's I mean, short story,
Speaker 3: we'll tell you the show is in a second. But
Speaker 3: he's Johnny Depp's best friend. And there was I was
Speaker 3: like following that case very closely two years ago now,
Speaker 3: and yeah, there's a lot of texts between him and
Speaker 3: Johnny Depp that came up in court that were sort
Speaker 3: of Paul Bettany being like, I agree, she's horrible and
Speaker 3: like and much worse. So you know, this is your
Speaker 3: public bulletin to.
Speaker 5: Paul Bettany and Nate Parker suck.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we talked about Nate Parker on the last episode
Speaker 4: that you were on four.
Speaker 5: It's true.
Speaker 3: Also Nate Parker is playing I think a horrible character too.
Speaker 3: Like they're both at very least the two real life
Speaker 3: bad men in this movie also play bad men in
Speaker 3: the movie I don't know two thousand and eight. I
Speaker 3: don't know. Yeah, we'll talk about it.
Speaker 4: They're telling on themselves. I think in their performances.
Speaker 3: They're like I can relate.
Speaker 4: Hello, everyone, Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is
Speaker 4: Caitlin Durda, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where
Speaker 3: we take a closer look at your favorite movies using
Speaker 3: an intersectional feminist lens. And today we have I just
Speaker 3: want to get I mean, we already sort of started
Speaker 3: this breeze. Yeah, let's bring our guess. Is this her
Speaker 3: third fourth appearance? I can't even third? My gosh, wow.
Speaker 5: Thank you ell so much for that. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: Pat Trick hat Trick Hat trick. We've done it.
Speaker 4: So the movie is The Secret Life of Bees. The
Speaker 4: guest is They were the seventh Poet Laureate of Portland, Maine.
Speaker 4: You can check out their poetry collections Judas and Suicide,
Speaker 4: Refused a Second Date, and What's So Wrong with a
Speaker 4: Pity Party?
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 4: You can also see their work in LGBTQ, Nation, Stylist,
Speaker 4: and Full Stop, as well as interviews in Black Girl Nerds.
Speaker 4: And you've heard her on our episodes on Perks of
Speaker 4: Being a Wallflower and Beyond the Lights. It's Maya Williams.
Speaker 3: Welcome.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me back, and thank you all
Speaker 5: for your patients, for how there's always a crappy masculine
Speaker 5: presenting person.
Speaker 4: In the movies we have, I mean, for your patients.
Speaker 4: Oh god, it is kind of inevitable. Yeah, unfortunately.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but every single.
Speaker 3: One I know in three very different movies too.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Tell us about your relationship with Secret Life of Bees.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I read The Secret Life of Bees in the eighth
Speaker 5: grade after I saw it in the movies with my family,
Speaker 5: and I remember I remember this being like a comfort
Speaker 5: movie at some point, and then I revisited it when
Speaker 5: my first book came out because of its analysis on
Speaker 5: like religion and black communities and suicidality, and I had
Speaker 5: the opportunity to talk about it on the podcast Black
Speaker 5: Girl Film Podcast. I am not a black girl, but
Speaker 5: I will always support Black girls as a former black girl,
Speaker 5: and so there's some things that I'll definitely repeat from today.
Speaker 5: But I'm especially excited to talk about the religious landscape
Speaker 5: from this book because I have book commentary and film
Speaker 5: commentary notes to get. We're back on commentary's baby.
Speaker 4: Yeah nice, So you have read the book? I have, Yeah,
Speaker 4: good to know because I have not, but I have
Speaker 4: read the Yeah. We would never read a book on
Speaker 4: this podcast. As we've said, I did read the Wikipedia synopsis.
Speaker 4: So I feel so you've been very prepared to discuss
Speaker 4: I mean, I think Mayo Wee can agree they basically
Speaker 4: read the book.
Speaker 1: Proud of you, Jamie.
Speaker 4: What about you? What's your relationship with the movie?
Speaker 3: I also don't have a relationship really with this at all.
Speaker 3: I was like, where do I remember this title? From
Speaker 3: the airport? This was like a major Like this book
Speaker 3: probably to this day is like at the airport. It's
Speaker 3: at the airport, it's upfront, and you're just like someday
Speaker 3: I'm gonna know what happens in these books that are
Speaker 3: at the airport. And today was the day I learned
Speaker 3: about what happened in this book that's at the airport.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm very excited to discuss it. I
Speaker 3: have like some interesting I'm excited to talk about, like
Speaker 3: movies of this era too, because I feel like there
Speaker 3: are two movies that and I don't mean to like compare,
Speaker 3: I mean that have like a similar through line of
Speaker 3: that came out within a couple of years of each other.
Speaker 3: That are all movies that take place in the civil
Speaker 3: rights era that I believe are all based on source
Speaker 3: material by white writers that are ultimately somehow about white
Speaker 3: teenage girls. I was also thinking of a movie I love,
Speaker 3: but Harspray Very Guilty of This and The Help, which
Speaker 3: I haven't seen but I double checked. So this was
Speaker 3: very much like something that was in media at this time,
Speaker 3: and I was kind I mean, I was torn because
Speaker 3: I think the performances in this movie are really lovely
Speaker 3: and I am not immune to the powers of baby
Speaker 3: Dakota Fanning. I think like that scene with her at
Speaker 3: the end is pretty incredible for a thirteen year old,
Speaker 3: but it just it just felt like I don't know. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: I was like, why is this movie about her? Like
Speaker 3: it was just I don't know.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, Jennifer Hudson just won an oscar
Speaker 3: and where and she disappears for half the movie? Like
Speaker 3: make it make sense? And I'm excited to talk about
Speaker 3: the production of this movie because I was, I mean like,
Speaker 3: I mean, this is the second Gina Prince Bythwood movie
Speaker 3: we've covered with Maya, but I think the fourth on
Speaker 3: the show overall, because we've also done there with a
Speaker 3: Woman King and love and basketball. Oh right, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: So this was this was not my favorite of hers,
Speaker 3: and I was also like, I wonder what And then
Speaker 3: I looked into like why there was an eight year
Speaker 3: gap between her first and her second movie. I think
Speaker 3: that there's a lot to say and I did a
Speaker 3: little bit of research there. So I'm excited to talk
Speaker 3: about like the context of how this film came together.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I don't know. I was like a little
Speaker 3: conflicted because there were some scenes, in some moments in
Speaker 3: this movie that really got me. And I think if
Speaker 3: I saw it when it came out I would it
Speaker 3: would have also been a comfort movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I hadn't seen this movie before. I hadn't read
Speaker 4: the book, as I said, so this was my first.
Speaker 3: But you read the Wikipedia page, but I read the
Speaker 3: log it on Goodreads. You did it.
Speaker 4: It's true. I'm an academic, I'm a scholar. I'm a
Speaker 4: genius for having done that. And yeah, I wasn't totally
Speaker 4: sure what to expect. And because of how my brain works,
Speaker 4: when I hear the title of this movie, I confuse
Speaker 4: it with Akila and the b Oh.
Speaker 3: I was confusing it with a Secret Life of Pets.
Speaker 4: I mean, yes, that too, Okay.
Speaker 5: Brittany from the Black Girl Film podcast also said that, like, like,
Speaker 5: oh no, it's not pet.
Speaker 4: It's a different movie. And now I know that.
Speaker 3: We still haven't covered Aequila in the Bee No, but
Speaker 3: we should. There will come a day.
Speaker 4: Yes, so I was kind of confusing Secret Life of
Speaker 4: Bees with that movie, but now I know the difference
Speaker 4: and Secret.
Speaker 3: Life of the American Teenager. Like, oh yeah, anyways.
Speaker 5: True, anything with the title the Secret blank blank blank,
Speaker 5: if it doesn't have to do with pets, as you
Speaker 5: pointed out, Jamie, like it has to like it has
Speaker 5: to do with something about like some struggle with womanhood
Speaker 5: or girlhood.
Speaker 3: Oh that's true.
Speaker 4: I mean a woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets.
Speaker 3: The secret life of Titanic. Oh yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 3: I hadn't ever connected that, but you're totally right, that's bizarre.
Speaker 3: I also we this is also my earlier this week
Speaker 3: we covered b movie, so.
Speaker 5: We've just excited for that episode.
Speaker 3: Is on the brain this week. And I also, I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't decide if I am being overly like I
Speaker 3: wish the movie just said this, but I'm like, bees
Speaker 3: are a matriarchy. The community in this movie is a matriarchy.
Speaker 3: Why aren't we talking more about it?
Speaker 5: The book is more explicit about it, and like, okay,
Speaker 5: and in the commentary they talk about how like, oh,
Speaker 5: this is one of the few film sets where we
Speaker 5: got to work with a bunch of women not only
Speaker 5: on camera but behind the camera. But but yeah, in
Speaker 5: the book there are all these like epigraphs about about
Speaker 5: the matriarchy of bees and how like you don't need
Speaker 5: the male bees until you need to reproduce and stuff
Speaker 5: like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's like, yeah, the I mean we were talking
Speaker 3: about it the other day, like the male bees, you know,
Speaker 3: fuck and then their dicks explode and then they're gone,
Speaker 3: and you're.
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, they die, all right, and they serve that
Speaker 4: one purpose.
Speaker 3: How I feel anyways. Yes, okay, so we're all kind
Speaker 3: of coming from slightly different places here. Yeah, I'm excited
Speaker 3: to talk about it.
Speaker 4: There's lots to talk about. Let's take a quick break
Speaker 4: and then we'll come back for the recap. B We're back.
Speaker 4: W Yeah, I'll watch out.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, at least, here's what I'll say for
Speaker 3: Secret Life of Bees. It is the best movie about
Speaker 3: bees we've covered this.
Speaker 5: Week, and I believe it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at least. Uh, you know, I have gripes with
Speaker 3: this movie, but it is not about a capitalist, patriarchal
Speaker 3: conception of bees starring a zionist bee. So you know,
Speaker 3: not a high bar to clear, but you know, we're.
Speaker 4: The saying, yeah, this one is far better at least. Okay,
Speaker 4: So here's the recap of Secret Life of Bees. I'll
Speaker 4: place a content warning at the top here for anti
Speaker 4: black racism and violence, child abuse, domestic abuse, and suicide
Speaker 4: and suicidal ideation. So we open on a scene where
Speaker 4: a four year old girl, Lily is hiding in a
Speaker 4: closet while her father is being abusive to her mother.
Speaker 4: A gun is dropped in front of Lily and she
Speaker 4: picks it up and shoots it by accident, killing her mother.
Speaker 4: We cut to ten years later. It's nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 4: Lily is about to turn fourteen. She's played by Dakota Fanning.
Speaker 4: She lives on a peach farm with her father t Ray,
Speaker 4: played by a piece of shit Paul Bettany, who is
Speaker 4: still cold and cruel. For her birthday, all Lily wants
Speaker 4: is for him to tell her what her mom was like.
Speaker 4: And all he has to say about Lily's mom is
Speaker 4: that she was obsessed with saving bugs, and Lily seems
Speaker 4: to have the same kind of fascination with insects. Bees
Speaker 4: seem to be just kind of like swarming to her
Speaker 4: and they're drawn to her.
Speaker 3: I do like the literary concept of being a bug
Speaker 3: girl as like a hereditary trait.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, true.
Speaker 5: Well with her mom it was cockroaches, and we'll get
Speaker 5: into why that is and like and yet.
Speaker 3: With Lily it's bees, Yeah yeah, and roach girl is hardcore.
Speaker 4: I mean, wouldn't be me. I'll say that I do
Speaker 4: not like bugs.
Speaker 5: My OCD and bugs are not impatible.
Speaker 4: Not a big fan myself, But that night, Lily goes
Speaker 4: outside and digs up a box where she keeps some
Speaker 4: of her mom's belongings, including an illustration on a small
Speaker 4: plaque of wood that depicts a black virgin Mary and
Speaker 4: baby Jesus and it says Tiberan on the back, which
Speaker 4: is the name of a town in South Carolina where
Speaker 4: they are. Tray finds Lily outside at night and reprimands her.
Speaker 4: He makes her kneel in dry grits.
Speaker 3: He also thinks that she's been like having sex with
Speaker 3: someone too, that's he implied.
Speaker 4: Yeah for sure, Yeah, yeah yeah, and so he's, you know,
Speaker 4: abusively punishing her. We also meet their housekeeper, Rosaline, played
Speaker 4: by Jennifer Hudson of Cat's Fame.
Speaker 3: Of course, like Cas Jennifer Hudson, fun fun Jennifer Hudson.
Speaker 3: In fact, she stays at the hotel that my fiance
Speaker 3: works at. Your fiance, my fiance, and she is very
Speaker 3: nice the end.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So President Johnson has just signed the Civil Rights Bill
Speaker 4: into law, which makes it easier for black people to vote.
Speaker 4: So Rosaline and Lily go into town. So that Rosaline
Speaker 4: can register to vote, but on the way, three white
Speaker 4: men harass and attack Rosaline, but because of anti black racism,
Speaker 4: Rosaline is the one who is arrested. Back home, t
Speaker 4: Ray and Lily argue. Tiray tells her that before her
Speaker 4: mother died, she had left Lily and that the night
Speaker 4: that she was shot, her mother had come back only
Speaker 4: to collect the rest of her things before leaving forever,
Speaker 4: and Lily refuses to believe this and wants to think
Speaker 4: that her mom was coming back to take her with her.
Speaker 4: So Lily runs away from home.
Speaker 5: And writes a note that says something like liars like
Speaker 5: you sure, rotten Hell.
Speaker 3: I that was like, yeah, I appreciated that. No, and
Speaker 3: I was like, good for you.
Speaker 4: I mean, not to keep invoking Titanic, but it's similar
Speaker 4: to the note that Rose leaves to cal where she's like,
Speaker 4: now you can keep both of us locked in. You're safe.
Speaker 3: I know, but like, but I do like that this
Speaker 3: like it also feels so like I don't know, it
Speaker 3: just very empowering to see her be like bye dad,
Speaker 3: rotten Hell. You're like, whoa fuck? Yeah, because she's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So she runs away. She goes to the hospital
Speaker 4: to collect Rosaline, who is there recovering after having been
Speaker 4: beaten before she's sent to jail, so they escape together
Speaker 4: and they head to that town of Tiberon. They stop
Speaker 4: for some food and Lily sees all of these jars
Speaker 4: of honey that have that same label on them that
Speaker 4: she's seen before, that same image of the Black Mary
Speaker 4: and Jesus that was on the wood in the box
Speaker 4: of her mother's belongings, and the shopkeeper explains that a
Speaker 4: black woman named August Boatwright makes this brand of honey
Speaker 4: and it's the best honey in South Carolina.
Speaker 3: August but the boat right, sisters, is so literary, you're
Speaker 3: just like, it's good, good literary names.
Speaker 4: So Lily and Rosaline find August's big pink house amazing,
Speaker 4: and they knock on the door and Lily tells August
Speaker 4: played by Queen Latifah and her sisters June and May
Speaker 4: played by Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonado that they need
Speaker 4: a place to stay. But Lily lies and says that
Speaker 4: both of her parents have died and she and Rosaline
Speaker 4: are on their way to stay with her aunt, and
Speaker 4: they'll work for August until they can afford a train ticket.
Speaker 4: June is suspicious of this story and she doesn't like
Speaker 4: the idea of them staying understand, but August is more
Speaker 4: kind of like warm and sympathetic, so she's like, sure,
Speaker 4: you can stay in the honeyhouse and cook and help
Speaker 4: with the bees. So Lily and Rosaline settle in. August
Speaker 4: starts to show Lily the ropes of bee keeping, and
Speaker 4: Lily really takes to it. She is not afraid of
Speaker 4: bees or anything. And it made me wonder and I
Speaker 4: forgot to look this up, but I'm like, I wonder
Speaker 4: if like Dakota Fanning is or is not afraid of bees.
Speaker 4: I wonder if Queen Latifa is or is not afraid
Speaker 4: of bees.
Speaker 5: Oh so Queen Latifa, Tristan Wilds, who plays Zach, and
Speaker 5: Dakota Fanning each had to go through bee keeping training
Speaker 5: for the film.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I also read that Gina Prince Bythwood is deadly
Speaker 3: afraid of bees as well. Yes, And it was like
Speaker 3: they had to sort of all get through it together
Speaker 3: of like, Okay, if I can be near the bees,
Speaker 3: that you could be near the bees. And I guess
Speaker 3: that there's only there's only one cgi shot of bees
Speaker 3: and I don't think I would have been if I
Speaker 3: had directed this movie, I would not have been that brave.
Speaker 3: I'm like, na, you know it's gonna know, no, it's
Speaker 3: gonna be yeah.
Speaker 4: And I didn't even notice what was cgi and what
Speaker 4: yeah wasn't so that good job there, But I am
Speaker 4: I am so afraid of bees. I would not ever
Speaker 4: be in a b movie me neither. I'll say that.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I want to be brave. I our
Speaker 3: our friend Alex who was recently on the show, used
Speaker 3: to be a bee keeper, and like, some day, some
Speaker 3: day I'll be. But yeah, I know, I'm terrified of them.
Speaker 4: They're so scary.
Speaker 5: Love their work though exactly, I don't want to be
Speaker 5: scared of them, and because of their work and and
Speaker 5: I just just a yeah, and I know they were
Speaker 5: here first. I'm still afraid of them.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to get in their way, I'm not
Speaker 3: trying to disrupt them.
Speaker 4: But it's just like I would never kill a bee,
Speaker 4: let's be clear. I mean they're important to the world.
Speaker 3: I got my first beasting last year, which is like
Speaker 3: wild that it took that long, Oh my god, but
Speaker 3: it was when I was in Yeah, I was I
Speaker 3: was at the beach and it like it was trying
Speaker 3: to sting me in and so I swatted and then
Speaker 3: but it was just like no, no, this is I'm
Speaker 3: literally dying on this hill and it stung me in
Speaker 3: the middle of my forehead. It was so bizarre. Yeah,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh. Look much like many people in this movie,
Speaker 3: I've learned to forgive and move on. But yes, a
Speaker 3: difficult be experience.
Speaker 4: Okay, so we learn more about the sisters, the boat
Speaker 4: right sisters and their lives. June is with this guy
Speaker 4: named Neil played by Nate Parker, also real life piece
Speaker 4: of shit, who wants to marry her, but she doesn't
Speaker 4: want to be married, so she keeps saying no.
Speaker 5: And in the books she got left at the altar
Speaker 5: by a different man.
Speaker 3: Interesting, Oh so that's why.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And like, there's even a deleted scene where I believe,
Speaker 5: I believe Rosaline like tries to call her out and say, like, listen,
Speaker 5: you need to need to live your life. I know
Speaker 5: your husband left you at the altar or whatever, but
Speaker 5: you need to get over yourself or whatever. But that
Speaker 5: scene got deleted.
Speaker 3: Interesting. I don't know if I would like that better
Speaker 3: or worse. I feel like if they removed that plot point.
Speaker 3: I wish they had changed the ending for this character because.
Speaker 4: I find it very frustrating.
Speaker 3: In my notes, I wrote, like, so help me if
Speaker 3: she marries this guy at the end, and spoiler alert,
Speaker 3: sure enough, she does.
Speaker 4: She does it. Yeah, so that's June. She also plays
Speaker 4: the cello.
Speaker 5: And Alicia Keys studied the cello.
Speaker 3: Yes, gosh, I didn't even know has Alicia Key's been
Speaker 3: in other movies. I didn't know that she had a
Speaker 3: like she has been in other movies.
Speaker 5: Really, Oh my goodness, And okay, I knew that, and like,
Speaker 5: oh my gosh, I'm blanking. I'm blanking on the title.
Speaker 5: Oh no, I just I just saw this with my
Speaker 5: friend with my best friend a month ago. She and
Speaker 5: Taraji p Henson play in the very silly action movie
Speaker 5: and they're a lesbian couple and it's so entertaining, Like,
Speaker 5: oh my god. They're not the main characters of the story.
Speaker 5: There are other characters in it. Ryan Reynolds is in
Speaker 5: it and stuff. Ray Leota was in it.
Speaker 4: She was in smoking aces, smoking aces things.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 4: That's the one. Okay, wow, good for her. Yeah, she's
Speaker 4: in a few things, big fan. So that's June. May
Speaker 4: is very sensitive and deeply empathic. She breaks down crying
Speaker 4: quite often. We learned that she had a twin sister, April,
Speaker 4: who died when they were younger, which was incredibly devastating
Speaker 4: for May.
Speaker 5: There's very necessary context that they meant that they left
Speaker 5: out from the book about April, and they don't even
Speaker 5: touch upon it in the commentary either, which makes me
Speaker 5: very upset in either commentaries that I watched for this. So,
Speaker 5: April and May are twins, and then there is an
Speaker 5: incident of at a candy store and she expresses upsetness
Speaker 5: with her father about it, and then her father's like,
Speaker 5: that's life, April, You're gonna have to put up with it.
Speaker 5: And then so then April just feels so much of
Speaker 5: the weight of the world after that incident, to the
Speaker 5: point where she takes a gun and takes her own life.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: And so when we talk about May later, there's a
Speaker 5: part of the book where June says, it's just like April,
Speaker 5: and it makes me this really upset that they took
Speaker 5: out that context from the movie. Yeah, And granted, like
Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure some of it has to do if
Speaker 5: like Gina Prince Fyke would saying things like we shouldn't
Speaker 5: have to over explain ourselves, which they talked about a
Speaker 5: little bit in the and the commentary about certain plot
Speaker 5: points such as like June's backstory about being left at
Speaker 5: the altar. But yeah, I hate it.
Speaker 3: That the adaptation changes sound so bizarre, like I don't
Speaker 3: need what is even the I guess it's yeah, like
Speaker 3: we have to quote unquote keep it light, and it's like, well,
Speaker 3: in that case, she's a different text. Yeah, I don't know, right. Interesting.
Speaker 3: I also just wanted to really quickly shout out Sophie
Speaker 3: Okinado because she is like so unbelievably accomplished. She's been
Speaker 3: nominated for every award under the sun. I saw her
Speaker 3: most recently in Janet Planet.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, but she's.
Speaker 3: Also she was like nominated for an Oscar for her
Speaker 3: performance in Hotel Rwanda. She's won a Tony.
Speaker 4: She's like such a good movie.
Speaker 3: She's done everything. But I feel like people don't really
Speaker 3: talk about her very much. I feel like she usually
Speaker 3: plays supporting roles, So just shout out to her.
Speaker 4: Definitely. Yeah, so we learned this about her character May,
Speaker 4: and Lily has also discovered that May wedges these little
Speaker 4: pieces of paper in a stone wall behind the house,
Speaker 4: and it's her writing her like feelings on the paper
Speaker 4: and putting him in the wall. So we learn these
Speaker 4: things about the sisters. We also see them often discussing
Speaker 4: things like racism and depression that they observe and experience
Speaker 4: at the hands of white people. So there's a number
Speaker 4: of conversations to that effect throughout the movie. Then Lily
Speaker 4: meets Zach played by Tristan mac Wilde's. This is August's godson.
Speaker 5: Who is Adele's love in. Tristan, Hello, I'm sorry I
Speaker 5: keep inter.
Speaker 3: Rept Oh my god, no, can't wait. Fun fact. Never
Speaker 3: never would have known.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think. I never watch music videos, so
Speaker 4: I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: He wasn't seen that one in years.
Speaker 4: So Zach is close to Lily's age, I think a
Speaker 4: couple years older because he has a driver's license and drive,
Speaker 4: so he's at least sixteen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in the book he's sixteen. By the time this
Speaker 5: was being filmed, Dakota Fanning was thirteen going on fourteen
Speaker 5: and Tristan was eighteen going on nineteen.
Speaker 4: Oh oh that is yeah, then that's upsetting based on
Speaker 4: something that happens later, which is the kiss on screen. Okay,
Speaker 4: well we'll go back to that.
Speaker 5: Yes we will.
Speaker 4: So Zach helps August with bee keeping as well, and
Speaker 4: he and Lily become friends. He tells her that he
Speaker 4: wants to be a lawyer when he grows up. She
Speaker 4: wants to be a writer. They're vibing, but a.
Speaker 5: Quick, quick thing. Yeah, how okay? How is it that
Speaker 5: the same girl who is willing to watch things about
Speaker 5: like the Civil Rights Act passing with Rosaline not know
Speaker 5: who third Good Marshal is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's ok.
Speaker 4: There's a lot to discuss about.
Speaker 3: That, and it's it is like one of the things
Speaker 3: that I feel like, you can you know, however well intentioned,
Speaker 3: like if you can feel that like a white lady
Speaker 3: wrote the source material, because sometimes it just feels like
Speaker 3: very broad in a way that like is like this
Speaker 3: young white girl learns about racism, which is also basically
Speaker 3: Hairspray and The Help. It's like, why can't it just
Speaker 3: be about Roslyne? Unfortunately? I mean I don't even dislike
Speaker 3: the character of Lily. I don't dislike her journey. I
Speaker 3: think that there is it's a very but it just
Speaker 3: feels like she overshadows so much of what is it? Like,
Speaker 3: I think you could write her out of the movie
Speaker 3: for sure, pretty easily. It just feels like there's two
Speaker 3: different stories that Yeah, Roslyne and the sisters are just
Speaker 3: like not getting the amount of narrative real estate that
Speaker 3: they deserve exactly.
Speaker 5: And then the commentary, Gina talks about how in the
Speaker 5: in the scene where she's first having breakfast with the
Speaker 5: boat right sisters, she was all like, we really wanted
Speaker 5: to showcase Lily being taken care of for the first time,
Speaker 5: where she's not making food for her father instead others
Speaker 5: are making food for her. And I have such mixed
Speaker 5: feelings about that because I'm like, if you really want
Speaker 5: to show a loving, collaborative thing when you have this
Speaker 5: young white girl as the as the centerpiece, you could
Speaker 5: have made the scene where they're cooking together, right and
Speaker 5: that being loving, Because yeah, I'm not a big fan
Speaker 5: of like all these black women, with the exception of June.
Speaker 5: June is like I don't have time for this, but
Speaker 5: like a lot of these black women being like, oh
Speaker 5: are you okay, Let's make you food and da da.
Speaker 3: Da, Right, Yeah, I agree, which is it's just like
Speaker 3: such a media fixture of this decade.
Speaker 4: Right because at the end of the day, it's still
Speaker 4: a story about black characters like servicing the white main protagonist.
Speaker 3: And raising her and yeah, you know, and that just
Speaker 3: obviously doesn't sit well. And then you're also like, it's
Speaker 3: not that I don't want Lily to be loved and
Speaker 3: cared for it, but like, why was this the narrative solution,
Speaker 3: Like you're saying, Maya, there's like simple things that the
Speaker 3: story could have done to I don't know, rectify it.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe it's not a completely solvable thing, but.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll discuss that further as well. So it's been
Speaker 4: about a week since Lily has arrived at the Boatwright
Speaker 4: House and June continues to be skeptical. She's like, why
Speaker 4: are you still here? Lily's just like haha, idkay, And
Speaker 4: then she asks about the honey jar label that depicts
Speaker 4: a black virgin Mary and baby Jesus and August. With
Speaker 4: the help of her church friends.
Speaker 5: The Daughters of Mary.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, they have their own religion.
Speaker 3: Question Mark.
Speaker 4: I wasn't super clear on that, but I'll touch.
Speaker 3: On that when we get It's like, we have the
Speaker 3: right guests.
Speaker 4: So August tells a story about an enslaved man who
Speaker 4: had come across this wooden figure of a woman who
Speaker 4: God sent to protect him. August now has this wooden figure.
Speaker 4: You're in her home and they touch her heart and pray,
Speaker 4: and Lily's about to go do this like touching the
Speaker 4: wood figure's heart, but memories of her past and her
Speaker 4: mother's death come flooding back and she faints and.
Speaker 5: June stops playing the cello right then and there, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I like, don't I don't want you touching her?
Speaker 3: I yeah, I was like, I have a lot of
Speaker 3: empathy for Lily. But yeah, my note there was like,
Speaker 3: it's not about you right now, Lily, chill out there.
Speaker 3: You traumatize thirteen year old how dare you?
Speaker 4: And Lily, you know, recovers. Things continue on as they
Speaker 4: had been. She's you know, crushing on Zach and wants
Speaker 4: to smooch him on the face. Then there's a scene
Speaker 4: where they harvest purple honey and she licks it off
Speaker 4: Zach's finger, and I was so scandalized by that scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: In the commentary, they had talked about like, so do
Speaker 5: we portray this do we not portray this? D Dakota
Speaker 5: Fannings's mom was there that day and she was like,
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna look at the screen. They decided to
Speaker 5: do it because it was it was a scene from
Speaker 5: the book.
Speaker 4: So well, now that I know that he was legally
Speaker 4: an adult and she was thirteen, I'm like even more
Speaker 4: horrified by it.
Speaker 3: And that's like a production issue too, It's like that's
Speaker 3: on the production to make sure that that doesn't happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's you know, awful, but that happens. And
Speaker 4: then there's a scene where Lily and August tend to
Speaker 4: the bees, but they're not flying around their highs like usual.
Speaker 4: They're inside the hive and August says, yeah, bees have
Speaker 4: a secret life that we don't know anything about, and
Speaker 4: we're like, that's basically the name.
Speaker 3: Of the movie.
Speaker 4: Then there's a scene where there's like a water hose
Speaker 4: fight and June kind of like finally loosens up and
Speaker 4: plays with them, but then she breaks down crying because
Speaker 4: she and Neil recently broke up because because.
Speaker 3: He calls here a bitch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like she's like, I don't want to be married
Speaker 4: and he's like, well, you're a selfish bitch. Then and
Speaker 4: he leaves, so a horrible character.
Speaker 3: And then you're like, surely we won't be seeing him again.
Speaker 4: Well JK.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Then one night Lily asks May if she knew a
Speaker 4: woman named Deborah Owens. This is Lily's mother, although Lily
Speaker 4: doesn't mention this, but she sees May luring cockroaches with
Speaker 4: Graham crackers and marshmallows the same way that t Ray
Speaker 4: had described Lily's mother as doing. So she makes this
Speaker 4: connection and May says, yes, I knew Deborah. She stayed
Speaker 4: in the Honeyhouse many years ago, and she was the
Speaker 4: sweetest person. The memory of Deborah makes May tear up,
Speaker 4: and she leaves. But now Lily has confirmation that her
Speaker 4: mother stayed in this house. So the next day, Zach
Speaker 4: invites Lily to go into town with him, and while
Speaker 4: they're hanging out, Lily relays this information of yeah, my
Speaker 4: mom stayed here, but I didn't tell anyone because I
Speaker 4: was afraid the truth would wreck everything. And he's like,
Speaker 4: you know, empathetic towards that, And then they go to
Speaker 4: the movies together in a segregated theater, but Lily and
Speaker 4: Zach sit together which.
Speaker 5: In the colored section, not the white section.
Speaker 4: Right, yes, and these racist men come in and abduct Zach.
Speaker 4: So Neil and this other man who's like a family
Speaker 4: friend go out looking for Zach. August and June decide
Speaker 4: not to tell May that Zach is missing because they
Speaker 4: think it'll be too much for May to handle emotionally,
Speaker 4: but May finds out anyway. It does gravely affect her,
Speaker 4: especially because they all know that when a black person
Speaker 4: is taken like this, they often never come back. May
Speaker 4: go out to her wall spends several hours there. Then
Speaker 4: they can't find her, so August, June, Lily, and Rosaline
Speaker 4: go looking, and they discover May's body in a stream,
Speaker 4: after having died by suicide, and everyone is devastated. Sometime later,
Speaker 4: against all odds, Neil and that family friend find Zach
Speaker 4: and they bring him back, and so there's a tearful reunion.
Speaker 4: Neil and June seem to rekindle their relationship in that moment,
Speaker 4: and you're like, no, Jim, get away from him. You're
Speaker 4: so close. Then August finds May's suicide note, which says
Speaker 4: that it's her time to go, but it's the rest
Speaker 4: of the family's time to live, so don't mess it up.
Speaker 4: And it's such a heart wrenching moment in the movie.
Speaker 4: They hold a funeral from May, and then Lily shows
Speaker 4: a picture of her mother to August and August is like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I knew her and I figured out that you're her daughter,
Speaker 4: and Lily breaks down crying. She feels that she's to
Speaker 4: blame for what happened to Zach and May, that she's
Speaker 4: to blame for her mother's death, saying that she's unlovable,
Speaker 4: and August tells Lily that she's not unlovable. There's love
Speaker 4: all around her. And then August reveals that she used
Speaker 4: to be Lily's mom's nanny when Deborah was a child,
Speaker 4: and that August knew Deborah most of her life. And
Speaker 4: she describes Deborah and Tray's relationship early on that he
Speaker 4: wasn't abusive at first, but Deborah fell out of love
Speaker 4: with him after a while, married him anyway because she
Speaker 4: was pregnant with Lily, and then Deborah left him after
Speaker 4: a few years and came to stay with August in
Speaker 4: the honeyhouse, and Lily's like, and she brought me with
Speaker 4: her right and August as no, sorry, she came by herself.
Speaker 4: So it seems like what t Ray had said about
Speaker 4: her mom leaving Lily might be true, which of course
Speaker 4: upsets Lily, and she goes to the honeyhouse and smashes
Speaker 4: a bunch of jars of honey.
Speaker 3: I really, I mean, I want to talk about it
Speaker 3: more fully. I really appreciated parts of this scene, especially
Speaker 3: with I don't know. I was trying to put myself
Speaker 3: in august shoes of like what would I tell a kid?
Speaker 3: And I found her like honesty very touching, even though
Speaker 3: it was painful, where it was like, I really appreciate
Speaker 3: about her character that she doesn't you know, like she's gentle,
Speaker 3: but she doesn't sugarcoat stuff, and she treats Lily like
Speaker 3: an adult in that moment, which you know isn't always
Speaker 3: the right call, but it's I just I don't know.
Speaker 3: I was really surprised at that choice, and I really
Speaker 3: liked it because I feel like when you're that often
Speaker 3: adults will just you know, bullshit, yachd because I think
Speaker 3: you can't handle something. And even though it's painful, I
Speaker 3: was like, Wow, that was like a really powerful and
Speaker 3: risky thing.
Speaker 4: That was really cool for sure. So later Lily and
Speaker 4: Zach have a conversation he says how angry he is
Speaker 4: about what happened to him, and Lily is basically like, well,
Speaker 4: just make sure your anger doesn't become you know, like
Speaker 4: hatefulness and violent, and then they talk about their future
Speaker 4: plans again they kiss. As we alluded to, there's kind
Speaker 4: of some more moments of like tying up of loose ends,
Speaker 4: where Rosaline says that she successfully registered to vote. June
Speaker 4: is like, hey, Neil, if you ask me to marry
Speaker 4: you again, I'll say yes. They get engaged. You're like
Speaker 4: that no, and then there's a knock on the door
Speaker 4: and it's Lily's dad, t Ray. He had figured out
Speaker 4: where she was. He demands that Lily come back home
Speaker 4: with him. He's being very aggressive and violent.
Speaker 5: Whereas she's being like, oh, won't you come in to
Speaker 5: have a seat if you want to like ooh like
Speaker 5: the need to be polite.
Speaker 4: Like them, Yeah, right, Well, because she doesn't know how
Speaker 4: he's gonna behave, and it turns out he blake. He
Speaker 4: behaves horribly.
Speaker 3: He's still a bad guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's still horrible. Lily refuses to go with him,
Speaker 4: and August is like, yeah, I know, Lily has a
Speaker 4: home here as long as she wants, so, you know,
Speaker 4: t Ray realizes he has lost this battle and he
Speaker 4: goes to leave, but before he does, Lily asks him
Speaker 4: if it's true that when her mother came back, like
Speaker 4: back home to Tray's house, if she was only coming
Speaker 4: back for her things like he said, or if it
Speaker 4: was something else, And he's like, no, she was coming
Speaker 4: back for you, Lily. He drives off out of her
Speaker 4: life forever, and Lily embraces her found family slash found
Speaker 4: Mothers of August, June, and Rosaline. She writes about this
Speaker 4: experience and puts the notebook that she wrote it in
Speaker 4: on May's wall, and that's how the movie ends. So
Speaker 4: let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.
Speaker 3: And we're back, and we're back.
Speaker 5: So in the books ending, yes, it's August, Rosaline and
Speaker 5: the daughters of Mary crowding around t Ray going like,
Speaker 5: you're not gonna take this girl with you. And I
Speaker 5: assume that because like there's not as much character development
Speaker 5: in the film, and like you can only do so
Speaker 5: much in a films. It's the it's the three main moms,
Speaker 5: and I'm and I'm okay with that. But what she
Speaker 5: asks Tray before he leaves, because some somewhere along in
Speaker 5: the book this whole thing she's not only is she
Speaker 5: trying to figure out like whether or not her mom
Speaker 5: came back for her, she's also trying to figure out
Speaker 5: did I really kill my mom? Because all I remember
Speaker 5: is the gun going off. So she asked t Ray,
Speaker 5: did I really kill my mom? And he's like, I
Speaker 5: know you don't want to hear this. I know you'd
Speaker 5: want it to be her who did it to herself,
Speaker 5: or me who did it, But it was you and
Speaker 5: it wasn't your fault. And then he takes off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which again is like another I don't know, just
Speaker 3: like a very unsugarcoated truth for Lily.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the movie's ending feels much more like hollywoodified.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's really interesting. I mean, yeah, it does
Speaker 3: feel like a very I mean in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: I think all the way from like the Nate Parker
Speaker 3: character back and they're going to get married, and that is,
Speaker 3: you know, a Hollywood signifier of a happy ending. And
Speaker 3: the mean guy goes away, but not before she knows
Speaker 3: that she I guess there's so many places to start.
Speaker 3: I was kind of I don't know, I was thinking about,
Speaker 3: this movie is a lot about mothers and mothering, et cetera,
Speaker 3: and I feel like a lot of like there are
Speaker 3: missed opportunities in there. But I guess the hollywoody ending.
Speaker 3: Not that I wanted Willy to be abandoned by her mother,
Speaker 3: but I thought it was getting like in that scene
Speaker 3: where we're just talking about with Lily and August, like,
Speaker 3: I thought it was getting at something that we don't
Speaker 3: see in movies very often, which is that like mothers
Speaker 3: are not inherently, you know, naturally gifted, amazing perfect parents.
Speaker 3: And because the movie goes out of its way to
Speaker 3: make it clear that Deborah had a lot of struggles
Speaker 3: with mental health, she was abused, yeah, and you know,
Speaker 3: was like set up to not really be able to
Speaker 3: be a good parent to Lily. But I feel like
Speaker 3: we so often see characters that you know, in spite
Speaker 3: of whatever they're going through, being a mother is a
Speaker 3: quality that will transcend any struggle you've had, and that
Speaker 3: is like so often not true. And I not that
Speaker 3: it's a great thing, but I always think it's interesting
Speaker 3: when imperfect mothers are shown in movies. But it felt
Speaker 3: like the ending kind of undercut that was like, no,
Speaker 3: she actually was a perfect mother. I don't know. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I just thought that they're you know, I
Speaker 3: feel like I sound mean for being like I wish
Speaker 3: Lily was abandoned, but I feel like we don't hear
Speaker 3: stuff like that very often.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and like, and August does tell Lily about how,
Speaker 5: like depress people often do things that they may not
Speaker 5: comprehend at times, they may because they may not feel
Speaker 5: like themselves. And they talk about this briefly about May
Speaker 5: about how like, oh, a lot of doctors just told
Speaker 5: us to institutionalize her, so we made the whaling wall
Speaker 5: instead so we don't have to put her away. In
Speaker 5: the book, they talk about that for May, and they
Speaker 5: talk about that for for Deborah too, out how they're yeah,
Speaker 5: so yeah, this's for for white women and black women
Speaker 5: who are like I'm struggling. It's like, just we'll put
Speaker 5: you away for a minute to calm down.
Speaker 3: God, I'm curious in general. Yeah, because you've written about
Speaker 3: mental health and depression so extensively, Maya, how do you
Speaker 3: feel like this this movie does with those topics?
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I because like I talked about this
Speaker 5: in the Beyond the Lights episode about how how I
Speaker 5: wish Gina Prince Backwood had more space to do more
Speaker 5: about mental health in her and her film work, because
Speaker 5: that is a topic that she's so interested in. And
Speaker 5: when it came to filming May's suicide scene, in the commentary,
Speaker 5: they said they only did it and in one take
Speaker 5: because some of it had to do with like all
Speaker 5: of the actresses being in the water longer than they
Speaker 5: were supposed to, as well as Dakota Fannings hours like
Speaker 5: she can only be kept until like nine pm. And
Speaker 5: at the same time, it's like, I'm grateful that that
Speaker 5: scene was only done in one take because of like
Speaker 5: the actor's mental health and that, and that the scene
Speaker 5: turned out well. And this was also before a time
Speaker 5: because now we see movies whenever there's content about suicide
Speaker 5: at the end credits, there's all like, if you're if
Speaker 5: you're ever, if you have a loved one is struggling
Speaker 5: with suicidality, call this number, And no one thought to
Speaker 5: do that at the time, in like two thousand and seven,
Speaker 5: two thousand and eight. So I just I just think
Speaker 5: a lot about how for its time, it was so
Speaker 5: meaningful to see, uh, to see a black family struggle
Speaker 5: with suicidal loss and to struggle with it during a
Speaker 5: time such as the Civil rights era even And there's
Speaker 5: this scene where May has more time the wall to cry,
Speaker 5: and I like that scene, and I like the Gina
Speaker 5: Prince Bythewood really wanted that scene. And at the same time,
Speaker 5: we don't spend enough time with may or May and
Speaker 5: Rosaline's friendship either, and that makes me upset. I wanted
Speaker 5: more time with that. There's so much there to talk about,
Speaker 5: and there's so much there to talk about when it
Speaker 5: comes to religiosity and mental health too. In the book,
Speaker 5: they also talk about how how not only there's the
Speaker 5: Whaling Wall, there's also there was one time she was
Speaker 5: watching the news to the point where she was like
Speaker 5: hitting herself in the face, and they decide to carry
Speaker 5: her and put her in a bathtub, and they're like,
Speaker 5: just watch the troubles away. And it's like they're using
Speaker 5: the tools they have at that time. And I have
Speaker 5: a lot of respect for that. I love that the
Speaker 5: Whaling Wall is so public in their backyard. I love
Speaker 5: that people can see it, and I love the visibility
Speaker 5: of it, the visibility of that sadness, while also at
Speaker 5: the same time I have so many questions about what
Speaker 5: my therapist once called spiritual passing, where you're like, well,
Speaker 5: everything's fine because God has me. Everything's fine because I'm
Speaker 5: writing to God now and that's okay, rather than actually
Speaker 5: sitting with the sadness. So I do have so many
Speaker 5: follow up questions about whether or not that was a
Speaker 5: discussion able to be had at the time or and
Speaker 5: also to be fair when talking about this on the
Speaker 5: Black Girl Film Club, like it could be that like
Speaker 5: maybe maybe that was the best way for May so
Speaker 5: that she could spend time on her own. Maybe that
Speaker 5: was the best way, like because maybe she's not a talker,
Speaker 5: Maybe maybe she does need to cry and just write
Speaker 5: it out. So yeah, I get how when I was younger,
Speaker 5: how this movie was a comfort movie for me, while
Speaker 5: also at the same time, as I get older, just
Speaker 5: continuing to have questions about the tools that we have
Speaker 5: to take care of ourselves versus how to use them
Speaker 5: or do we need to come up with more tools
Speaker 5: and things of that nature, and how and how much
Speaker 5: lateiency can we give for the time putting the phrase
Speaker 5: the time in air quotes. People can't see me, they
Speaker 5: can hear me.
Speaker 4: No, but one thing that really struck me was how
Speaker 4: supportive her sisters were and how they gave her space
Speaker 4: to emote and grieve and do anything else she needed
Speaker 4: to do with her emotions. And there were never any
Speaker 4: moments of judgment or as it's May being May again,
Speaker 4: you know, and.
Speaker 5: She still chose to leave, and she still chose to
Speaker 5: take her life. Yeah, even with all that support, Yeah
Speaker 5: for sure.
Speaker 4: But it was like really heartening, I think to see
Speaker 4: an example on screen of family members supporting another family
Speaker 4: member who you know is prone to depression and you know,
Speaker 4: a very empathic person who feels so deeply and for
Speaker 4: them to be supportive and patient and all that, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I was really nice to see.
Speaker 3: I mean, and particularly and this isn't like harp done
Speaker 3: or should it have been, but just how you know,
Speaker 3: you think about like in the mid century, how horrifically
Speaker 3: both black patients and women were treated in institutions where
Speaker 3: it's just like it's a it's very very clear that
Speaker 3: given the options at the time, this is by far
Speaker 3: in May's best interest, in the family's best interests, and
Speaker 3: that that is never you know, called into question, because
Speaker 3: I feel like sometimes there is the like, well would
Speaker 3: she be quote unquote better off. And it just like
Speaker 3: always irritates me when talking points like that come up.
Speaker 3: But it's just very matter of fact. It is very
Speaker 3: clear that this is the right environment or you know,
Speaker 3: the best environment available. I love May Yeah, and I also,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that this ties to a larger
Speaker 3: point that we've already referenced. But I also is bummed
Speaker 3: to not see her and Rosalie's friendship develop more because
Speaker 3: I was bummed that we didn't see more Rosaline, Like
Speaker 3: it's so frustrating. I mean, the thing that, in really
Speaker 3: any context, not that I'm like more character should interact
Speaker 3: with Lily, but even Roselyne isn't interacting with Lily as much.
Speaker 3: By the end of the movie, Like I feel like
Speaker 3: she kind of gets it's we are told but not
Speaker 3: shown that she is now a part of the boat
Speaker 3: right sisters family unit, but I don't. Yeah, and I'm
Speaker 3: glad that happens, But again, yeah, I feel like we're
Speaker 3: told that more than we see that grow. There's a
Speaker 3: part of me that's like, why doesn't Rosaline get to
Speaker 3: learn how to do be keeping, you know, just in
Speaker 3: the way that we can like kind of write Lily
Speaker 3: out of this story. Yeah, Like I think the story
Speaker 3: favors Lily so much that Roselyne kind of gets lost
Speaker 3: in the shuffle, which is a shame because like I
Speaker 3: actually do I think in a lot of movies that
Speaker 3: take place in this era where it's like the little
Speaker 3: white girl needs to learn about racism.
Speaker 5: And it doesn't help that like sum sumanc kid like
Speaker 5: has said that wrote that some of Rosaline's mannerisms is
Speaker 5: inspired by her own nanny that she grew up with.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Yeah, it's just really bizarre to me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because it's like I understand at the beginning of the
Speaker 3: movie what Rosaline and how Rosaline and Lily, you know,
Speaker 3: rely on each other to some extent. Lily needs an
Speaker 3: adult in her life who cares what happens to her,
Speaker 3: and I mean Rosaline it seems like also needs someone
Speaker 3: in her working environment who is kind to her. Like
Speaker 3: I understand their bond, but it seems like as the
Speaker 3: movie goes on, Rosaline's connection to anybody just feels more tenuous.
Speaker 3: And then she shows up to be like this is
Speaker 3: a great situation for me, and like I believe you,
Speaker 3: but I haven't, Like I don't get all iver really
Speaker 3: is you really only see her kind of cooking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Rosaline's arc is going from certainly working for,
Speaker 4: if not living with, this white family. I don't would
Speaker 4: It's not even clear if she lives there or not.
Speaker 5: In the books she does not.
Speaker 4: Okay, we don't even know in the movie. The movie
Speaker 4: doesn't really care enough about her character exactly. But either way,
Speaker 4: she spends a lot of time at this Owens household
Speaker 4: taking care of Lily, so much of her life is
Speaker 4: tending to white people, and she goes from that situation
Speaker 4: to now living among other black women and that very
Speaker 4: drastic change in dynamic. That's a far more interesting story
Speaker 4: to me, exactly.
Speaker 3: It just seems like two different stories. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I think Lily's story is interesting. I just don't
Speaker 3: think it belongs in this movie. It just feels like
Speaker 3: a different movie.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, So yeah, I definitely clocked Rosaline's narrative importance
Speaker 4: diminishing as the story goes on.
Speaker 3: Which happens to Jennifer Hudson. That's the story of Jennifer
Speaker 3: Hudson's life, And because she's also in the Sex and
Speaker 3: the City movie, she's like the most poorly written characters
Speaker 3: of all time. And you're just like, she just won
Speaker 3: an oscar for fuck's sake.
Speaker 4: Anyways, exactly, Yeah, that's nuts.
Speaker 5: In the commentary, she talks about how uh what side
Speaker 5: by she I mean, Gina Prince Bythewood. She she talks
Speaker 5: about how she's like so at first we see Rosaline
Speaker 5: like very very nervous around t Ray and like not
Speaker 5: as outspoken, and then like she becomes more outspoken by
Speaker 5: the end, like especially when she says, well, I guess
Speaker 5: I'm back now at Tray and I'm like, no, give
Speaker 5: us more, right, more, I want more. I want more
Speaker 5: scenes like when she was telling Lily off in the forest, right,
Speaker 5: like that's that's that's what I want more.
Speaker 3: She had a strong establ I mean, and it's horrific
Speaker 3: seeing the racist abuse of that character endoors of course,
Speaker 3: and also there I don't know if either of you
Speaker 3: saw that. There there's a weird anecdote production anecdote about
Speaker 3: Gina Prince Bythewood like basic like had.
Speaker 5: Oh the method acting bullshit, that's.
Speaker 3: Right, they met that. Yeah, they had a bunch of
Speaker 3: white actors harassed Jennifer Hudson in like a convenience store
Speaker 3: and call her the N word and like all of
Speaker 3: this like pretty nasty stuff, and but genafrinces Bythewood sort
Speaker 3: of was like, well, she had just won an Oscar,
Speaker 3: so she had to understand what it was like to
Speaker 3: feel not respected. And I was like that kind of
Speaker 3: I don't Yeah, that's she's a great actor. You don't
Speaker 3: need to like yeah exactly.
Speaker 5: She said that in the commentary too, and she and
Speaker 5: also in the fight scene, Jennifer Hudson is doing her
Speaker 5: own stunts and like, actually does get punched in the face.
Speaker 5: And I don't like that. I don't find that impressive.
Speaker 5: I don't like, no, found that so impressive.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, no, I know, I want to chuck
Speaker 3: it up. I want to share that. Yeah, because I
Speaker 3: have that quote here and I had to read it
Speaker 3: twice and be like what this is from? And I'll
Speaker 3: be quoting from it for other reasons. But an interview
Speaker 3: that Gena Prince Bythewood did with Essence at the time
Speaker 3: this came out, she said, we had very little rehearsal time,
Speaker 3: and Jennifer was coming off the whole Oscar experience and
Speaker 3: was in a whole other world so she could get
Speaker 3: in Risally's head. I set up an improvisation and hired
Speaker 3: some white actors to be in a drug store and
Speaker 3: told her in Dakota to meet me there. I told
Speaker 3: them it was an improvisation, but I didn't know Jennifer
Speaker 3: thought it was real. My only direction to her was
Speaker 3: to not hit anybody. The shopkeeper followed her around and
Speaker 3: accused her of stealing. When Jennifer would ask for help,
Speaker 3: another one would turned around in answer to Dakota. The
Speaker 3: third guy used the N word, and I saw Jennifer's
Speaker 3: had whip over to him, and I got scared for
Speaker 3: a second. She said all she remembered was to not
Speaker 3: hit anybuddy. When I talked to them afterward about what
Speaker 3: they got out of it, Jennifer said the hardest thing
Speaker 3: was feeling invisible. It was great bonding for Fanning in
Speaker 3: Hudson and I was just like, no, that's like, that's
Speaker 3: deeply fucked up to Jennifer Hudson. And I also think
Speaker 3: it's pretty weird to do to a child actor too.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, she Dakota. Fanning is actually kneeling in real
Speaker 5: grits in the film.
Speaker 4: Oh, which yeah, seems very painful. Yeah, so okay, weird
Speaker 4: choices directorially.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Gina Prince Bythewood was was all like, oh,
Speaker 5: I need to I need to kneel in the grit
Speaker 5: so that I know, like if I if I can
Speaker 5: handle it, Shirley Dakota can handle it.
Speaker 3: But Gina, you're an adult, like right. Anyways, the production
Speaker 3: around this movie, I mean, do you mind if I
Speaker 3: take a quick side quest. So something I thought was
Speaker 3: interesting was this movie, It May Not Chalk You was
Speaker 3: originally going to be.
Speaker 6: Directed by a white director date white man, Yes, David
Speaker 6: Gordon Green, which also is like, I can't imagine a
Speaker 6: weirder like Dan and McBride's best friend. Do we really
Speaker 6: think he's the best suited for this? Like I like
Speaker 6: his work, but like.
Speaker 3: What the why would you do that? Anyways, Gina Prince Bythewood,
Speaker 3: this is her first movie after Love and Basketball, but
Speaker 3: it came out eight years later, And I feel like
Speaker 3: this so often happened to directors of color, to women directors,
Speaker 3: and specifically this is like reeks of kind of misogynore
Speaker 3: in terms of getting a good second project. What I
Speaker 3: think is interesting is I believe she originally turned this
Speaker 3: down because she's pretty picky with the project she wants
Speaker 3: to do as is her right. She had taken some
Speaker 3: time off to have her kids. But what she'd been
Speaker 3: working on for five or so years that never ended
Speaker 3: up happening was an adaptation of this really long book
Speaker 3: about mental health and about bipolar specifically. Let me find
Speaker 3: the title of I Know This Much Is True by
Speaker 3: Wally Lamb. I'm not familiar with it. I don't know
Speaker 3: if you are. The description is it's a nine hundred
Speaker 3: page epic tale about an unhappy house painter and his
Speaker 3: institutionalized identical twin brother, a paranoid, schizophrenic and like Gina
Speaker 3: Prince Bythewood, I guess she grew up. I know, we've
Speaker 3: talked about her extensively on this show, but she was
Speaker 3: adopted and grew up in a white family and had
Speaker 3: a bipolar brother. So this book really resonated with her.
Speaker 3: She wanted to make it, she wrote to the author,
Speaker 3: she got permission, It took years, but then when it
Speaker 3: finally came to Fox. This is from a DGA article
Speaker 3: from like fifteen years ago. When the brass at Fox
Speaker 3: two thousand demanded an A list actor to play the
Speaker 3: dual role. The projects fell apart because none of the
Speaker 3: movie stars approach would say yes to working with a
Speaker 3: relatively new director, which feels very telling to me, And
Speaker 3: the fact that so it seems like, you know, even
Speaker 3: though she speaks highly of this film, it just anecdotally
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like this was her first choice for her
Speaker 3: second film, and that this movie was made for a
Speaker 3: smaller budget than Love in Basketball. It was made for
Speaker 3: eleven million dollars and every actor had to take a
Speaker 3: pretty major pay cut to be a part of it,
Speaker 3: which I feel like is so often true in movies
Speaker 3: that spotlight black women specifically. I mean, I think we
Speaker 3: most recently talked about this in relation to the Color
Speaker 3: Purple musical film of like how These there was a
Speaker 3: huge salary issue with how undervalued the black actresses were,
Speaker 3: But in any case, it just felt, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I felt frustrated for even though I have notes for
Speaker 3: Gina Princepipot on this movie, I was frustrated for her that, Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think if you put a white male
Speaker 3: director in her shoes, they have no problem getting first
Speaker 3: of all, their second movie, but also their second movie
Speaker 3: on source material of their choosing exactly, And I you know,
Speaker 3: I wish she had gotten to make the movie that
Speaker 3: she wanted to make because after love and basketball, she
Speaker 3: should have been able to do fucking anything, and the
Speaker 3: fact that she wasn't is just very you know, state of.
Speaker 4: The industry for sure. I and we've alluded to the
Speaker 4: overall narrative, and we're like, why is it about this
Speaker 4: white girl, or if it is, if it's a movie
Speaker 4: about a young white girl and her you know, journey
Speaker 4: figuring out what did happen with her mom, and you
Speaker 4: know that narrative, why is it nestled into this other
Speaker 4: story about these black women that movie right, rite that too,
Speaker 4: So that is an issue in and of itself. I
Speaker 4: do think that this movie does handle some things well
Speaker 4: as far as identifying the varying degrees of micro and
Speaker 4: macroaggressions directed toward black people and the different ways that
Speaker 4: racial prejudice can manifest, because we see many examples of that.
Speaker 4: And I did appreciate at least that this movie does
Speaker 4: portray a white protagonist that like is a participant in
Speaker 4: the racial prejudice and that like it gives her room
Speaker 4: to grow. I think a white director would have been
Speaker 4: inclined to be like, oh, well, sure there's racism, but
Speaker 4: my protagonist who is a white child who grew up
Speaker 4: in the Jim Crow South. She has no racial what
Speaker 4: the hell. She understands everything about white supremacy and how
Speaker 4: it oppresses and marginalizes black people because like white fragility
Speaker 4: makes it so that white people have a very hard
Speaker 4: time acknowledging their participation and complicity in white supremacy. So
Speaker 4: this movie being directed by a black woman, she's able
Speaker 4: to very easily identify those things, and it does make
Speaker 4: for I think a better and more authentic movie than
Speaker 4: it would have been if it had been directed by,
Speaker 4: for example, David Gordon Green. So those are some things
Speaker 4: that I think are handled better.
Speaker 5: Sure, Like even in the Tiny Thing to like they're
Speaker 5: all referred to as as miss, whereas in the book
Speaker 5: they're not. So that's it's it's a tiny thing, but
Speaker 5: it still makes a huge impact. But also at the
Speaker 5: same time, like Lily doesn't call Rosaline miss until after
Speaker 5: she says like she's a registered voter, which I take
Speaker 5: issue with.
Speaker 3: What it's true, Yeah, And I mean I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, one one movie can't take on everything. But
Speaker 3: it's again, it's like, I feel like we got some
Speaker 3: strong stuff towards the beginning of the movie that kind
Speaker 3: of goes away where you know, again from Rosaline who's
Speaker 3: kind of bailed on, it felt a little like okay,
Speaker 3: that like her happy ending is like I'm going to
Speaker 3: vote for Lyndon Johnson and you're like, like, okay, better
Speaker 3: than the alternative.
Speaker 5: But like.
Speaker 3: It just felt a little like, you know, YadA YadA,
Speaker 3: we're at the beginning, we're getting more complex stuff from her,
Speaker 3: where you know, it felt more grounded in like, you know,
Speaker 3: I would never buy that Dakota Fanning's character didn't have
Speaker 3: a lot of internalized racism based on her upbringing, but
Speaker 3: I did buy that she wouldn't understand that the civil
Speaker 3: rights bill being passed doesn't mean everything is better overnight.
Speaker 3: And I liked that moment with Rosaline where she's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: technically maybe, but it's a piece of paper and like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, like it felt like we were being
Speaker 3: set up for more complex conversations that ended up happening.
Speaker 4: Sometimes. There's another one that worked for me, where it's
Speaker 4: this scene where Rosaline is attacked by the white men
Speaker 4: and they're demanding that she apologize and Lily is begging
Speaker 4: for her to comply with this request and to apologize,
Speaker 4: and Rosaline refuses, and then she is arrested, and then
Speaker 4: a little later, Lily says something like, well, yeah, you
Speaker 4: were foolish for, you know, pouring your tobacco spit on
Speaker 4: that white man, and even more foolish for not apologizing
Speaker 4: if apologizing would have saved your life, And Rosaline's response is,
Speaker 4: I know you don't understand this, but apologizing to those
Speaker 4: men would have just been a different way of dying,
Speaker 4: except I would have to live with it. But then,
Speaker 4: like after that, any of those more nuanced conversations like
Speaker 4: kind of don't happen at least between at least with Rosaline,
Speaker 4: because she just sort of disappears mostly from the movie.
Speaker 3: One thing I appreciated that I think, just again we
Speaker 3: are we don't often see represented in movies is a
Speaker 3: black family that is like a middle class, upper middle class.
Speaker 3: I mean, their house fucking rocks. I don't know what
Speaker 3: that white class that is in nineteen sixty whatever, But.
Speaker 5: The book they explained that they're dad was a dentist.
Speaker 3: Okay, but yeah, I mean I think that that you know,
Speaker 3: to this day is still a fairly underrepresented class. And
Speaker 3: so it is. It was it was nice to see.
Speaker 4: Another example of like Lily's racial prejudice is she's like, wow,
Speaker 4: I've never seen black people who are so cultured and right, I.
Speaker 3: Know, like Rosaline, mean, while Rosaline sitting right there, I
Speaker 3: would have been like like.
Speaker 4: But then but then Rosaline is like, actually, neither have I.
Speaker 5: And yeah, there's even a part where Rosaline's all like,
Speaker 5: I ain't never I have never heard of it. And
Speaker 5: I'm like, you didn't have to change anything, you don't
Speaker 5: change anything. But at the same time, I feel like
Speaker 5: that comes from comes from the book. Like I feel
Speaker 5: like like we just see a lot of Lily's internalized
Speaker 5: thoughts about Rosalne in a way that just that just
Speaker 5: makes me mad. Like she like wrote, Rosaline just does
Speaker 5: not give a crap, and that's seen a lot more
Speaker 5: in the book. And Lily's all like, oh my god, Rosaline,
Speaker 5: I wish you'd care more. I wish you'd like not
Speaker 5: like do that in front of the boat, right sisters
Speaker 5: or whatever. And she's internalizing all of this, and I
Speaker 5: think some of that carried into like how to portray
Speaker 5: her in the movie, and I wish that didn't happen.
Speaker 3: Interesting, gosh, it's Rosaline was done dirty Jennifer Hudson in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight, Like, it just was not fair,
Speaker 3: not a fair time to our friend Jennifer Hudson and
Speaker 3: the fact that she'd have to wait until it's twenty
Speaker 3: nineteen to play her greatest role in Cats. You mean
Speaker 3: of Grizabella the glamour Cat.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, of course.
Speaker 5: Wait when did when did Aretha come out?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Aretha? I think Aretha came out afterwards. But I was
Speaker 3: also just being an asshole. Cats as hard.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, we imagine if we were like Jennifer Hudson's
Speaker 4: greatest performance in the greatest movie of all time Cats,
Speaker 4: although she she is the best, I mean she she
Speaker 4: has a great performance. You think she's in a way
Speaker 4: better movie than she's actually in, which is like, how
Speaker 4: was she to know?
Speaker 3: But yeah, she's They didn't know that, they weren't gonna
Speaker 3: edit out her human body, like couldn't have known?
Speaker 4: Yeah. Can we talk about June and her relationship with Neil?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hate it.
Speaker 4: I hate it. It's him constantly asking her to marry him.
Speaker 4: She says, no, I don't want to be married now
Speaker 4: or ever. Like you mentioned, Maya, the movie deletes the
Speaker 4: context for why. But even if honestly I appreciated that
Speaker 4: there was no context, Like I didn't mind that that
Speaker 4: context wasn't there, because people are allowed to not want
Speaker 4: to get married and to not have true, you know,
Speaker 4: any traumatic backstory that informs that they can just say,
Speaker 4: like I don't want to get married. So I actually
Speaker 4: was like, hell, yeah, June, you don't want to get married.
Speaker 4: And she doesn't have to give a reason, and a
Speaker 4: lot of people around her are like, you're so scared.
Speaker 4: What are you so scared of? And she's like, I'm
Speaker 4: not scared. I just don't want to get married. But
Speaker 4: Neil keeps like pestering her. He then calls her a
Speaker 4: selfish bitch, and then they break up about it and.
Speaker 3: He never apologizes.
Speaker 5: He never apologizes, And Gina Prince Bythewood had talked about
Speaker 5: like while directing Alicia. She said something along the lines
Speaker 5: of like, oh, it's so oh, it's amazing. How how
Speaker 5: even though she's very firm and talking about how she's
Speaker 5: not scared of anything, you can see the fear in
Speaker 5: her eyes.
Speaker 3: And like, and this is the couple we're rooting for.
Speaker 4: Are you to disagree?
Speaker 5: Because like a lot of that just come from and again,
Speaker 5: I know I talked about this in the Beyond the
Speaker 5: Lights episode, like it just goes back to like Gena
Speaker 5: Prince Bythewood's view of romantic relationships in a way where
Speaker 5: I'm like, yeah, ah, buddy, And like there's a scene
Speaker 5: where where Lily sees June and Neil kissing, and I
Speaker 5: bring this up because this is connected back to Lily
Speaker 5: and Zach's kiss scene and how Gina Prince Bithwood said
Speaker 5: in the commentary, she was like, it was nice to
Speaker 5: portray this form, this form of this form of innocence.
Speaker 5: It was nice to do this at the at the
Speaker 5: Wailing Wall because of because after Lily and May's scene
Speaker 5: where they talk about kissing that's not in the book
Speaker 5: but was an addition added to the story, and then
Speaker 5: talked about like oh, she she caresses Zach's face, similar
Speaker 5: to how June caress is Neil's face, and it's like it's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't don't talk about my friend Zach like that,
Speaker 3: like that's Zach. Is seems like a really nice, a
Speaker 3: nice kiss.
Speaker 5: And I also just I'm getting very bored with like
Speaker 5: people asking actors what was it like kissing your co
Speaker 5: star because like there's a commentary with Queen Latifa and
Speaker 5: Dakota fanning the producers and Gina, and both Queen Latifa
Speaker 5: and Gina asked Dakota, what's going through your mind? And like,
Speaker 5: to paraphrase what Dakota said, she was just like had
Speaker 5: a job to do.
Speaker 3: Child, he should be illegal, Like I I also, yeah,
Speaker 3: I always think that, especially when you ask a child
Speaker 3: like that, it is like the creepiest thing one could
Speaker 3: do in that situation, especially like, hey, that.
Speaker 4: Right, especially when and I only just learned this about
Speaker 4: an hour ago, that she was kissing. You said he
Speaker 4: was eighteen going on nineteen the actor, yep, and she's
Speaker 4: thirteen certain going on fourteen. Yeah, let's not do that.
Speaker 4: Don't cast an actor who is that much older if
Speaker 4: you do insist on having an on screen kiss like that.
Speaker 4: But also like is it necessary she's a choy, Like right,
Speaker 4: let's not.
Speaker 3: There can be yeah, like there you can get across
Speaker 3: their bond without doing that. Like, yeah, this was a bummer.
Speaker 4: To go back to June and Neil real quick to
Speaker 4: just like close the loop on that. So he calls
Speaker 4: herselfish bitch. They break up. She changes her mind for
Speaker 4: reasons that are not clear. You could maybe say that
Speaker 4: maybe it had something to do with what May had
Speaker 4: said in her suicide note, where she's like, you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's my time to go, but your time to live,
Speaker 4: implying that the only way to live as a woman
Speaker 4: is to get heterosexually married to a man.
Speaker 3: A person doesn't like it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And granted August does say like, oh, there was
Speaker 5: a time I was in love and like I loved
Speaker 5: him enough to marry him, but I loved my freedom
Speaker 5: more so I like, so I appreciate that contrast, and
Speaker 5: at the same time, it again, it just doesn't help,
Speaker 5: like like this idea of like.
Speaker 1: Come on, June, Mary Neil, marry yeah, like let him
Speaker 1: wear you down so much that, for reasons that aren't clear,
Speaker 1: you change your mind even though you were so like
Speaker 1: headstrong about not getting married prior to this, and it.
Speaker 3: That really has struck me of like why is August
Speaker 3: able to have that grace? But I feel like June
Speaker 3: is like often presented as like being cold and like
Speaker 3: mean for not wanting to get married, and August is
Speaker 3: not portrayed that way, even though their reasoning sounds basically identical.
Speaker 3: So I just thought that was like bizarre mud.
Speaker 4: And then, as we've alluded to, and we talk more
Speaker 4: about this on the Beyond the Lights episode, I don't
Speaker 4: think it's we don't need to like rehash it in
Speaker 4: a lot of detail. But and will place another trigger
Speaker 4: warning here for rape and sexual assault. But Nate Parker
Speaker 4: is a rapist. He raped a woman in the late
Speaker 4: nineties while he was in college. He denied it, charges
Speaker 4: were eventually dropped. He was able to go on to
Speaker 4: have a an acting career, and for some reason he
Speaker 4: gets cast in movies despite this being pretty easily accessible knowledge.
Speaker 3: So who can say why? Who can say why these
Speaker 3: things have.
Speaker 4: Who does it have something to do with? I don't
Speaker 4: know the patriarchy anyway, you whispering patriarchy if we if
Speaker 4: if we whisper it, it'll go away.
Speaker 5: Welcome, welcomed to my smar gonna talk about the patriarchy.
Speaker 3: Caitlin, is the patriarchy in the room with us right now?
Speaker 4: It's behind me, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yes? So yeah, yeah, it's every male character except I
Speaker 3: mean it's it's so because I in my notes, I
Speaker 3: was like, at least we have Zach. But then the
Speaker 3: casting age disparity is like, well kind of we don't
Speaker 3: I like the character, Uh yeah, really really good character.
Speaker 5: Zach's mom was Lafonda in Napoleon Dynamite.
Speaker 3: And whah my god, that's but I want to be
Speaker 3: I share.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: I have not thought about Napoleon Dynamite in so long.
Speaker 4: I feel like it's another movie we need to cover.
Speaker 3: I know, but I'm almost afraid to. I was like,
Speaker 3: what there?
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, could.
Speaker 3: It possibly have aged? Well? I don't.
Speaker 5: I just don't think.
Speaker 4: Only one way to find out.
Speaker 3: I used to have a vote Pedro shirt and an
Speaker 3: I Love Lamp shirt. I mean, yeah, I was. I
Speaker 3: don't want to talk about it. Yeah yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean Zach as a character is a character I enjoyed.
Speaker 4: And you know, the interactions between him and Lily or
Speaker 4: another example of her like harboring these racial prejudices, because
Speaker 4: there's that scene where they're talking about their future hopes
Speaker 4: and dreams and she's like, oh, yeah, are you going
Speaker 4: to be a professional football player? And he's like, why
Speaker 4: do white people always think that the only way black
Speaker 4: people can be successful is to play sports? And he
Speaker 4: says he wants to be a lawyer, and she's like, oh, really,
Speaker 4: I've never heard of a black lawyer before. And then
Speaker 4: he's like Thurgood Marshall hello, and she's like, yeah, I
Speaker 4: don't know him, and it's just another way of like
Speaker 4: her being isolated and not knowing about the world.
Speaker 3: I'd say, see, I kind of had a different read
Speaker 3: of that scene where where I do like appreciate that
Speaker 3: you know she again, it's like she's not made out
Speaker 3: to be immune to racism, because that would make no
Speaker 3: sense given her lived experience. It just feels like sometimes
Speaker 3: in like this subgenre of movies that like Zach was
Speaker 3: there in that moment to teach her about racism, I mean,
Speaker 3: versus to have it be more of like a character development.
Speaker 3: And I feel like that is like so common to
Speaker 3: movies that managed to center a young white person. Is
Speaker 3: that like a lot of the black characters like struggles, ambitions,
Speaker 3: whatever it may be, is like they're there to characterize,
Speaker 3: but they're also there to be like, guess what you naive,
Speaker 3: Dakota Fanning, they're good. Marshall exists.
Speaker 5: Another thing I'll point out, the boat right sisters are
Speaker 5: older in the book then than who is casted to
Speaker 5: portray them. In the film, and granted they sort of
Speaker 5: kind of age Queen Latifah up, but not by much.
Speaker 5: So I just find that fascinating around how much of
Speaker 5: it had to do with having to sell a movie
Speaker 5: and having like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith be
Speaker 5: be producers on it and like and stuff like that
Speaker 5: or Yeah, but I'm also aware that like Gina Prince
Speaker 5: Bythwood and Alicia Keys are our friends, so that's sort
Speaker 5: of connected to like, Alicia Keys is casting in the
Speaker 5: in the.
Speaker 3: Film, but she's really good in it. I really I
Speaker 3: liked her performance.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, But another examples fantastic of you know, Hollywood favoring
Speaker 4: younger women. Yeah, what else we got? Fulk I mean,
Speaker 4: as you mentioned Maya, the book draws a clearer metaphorical
Speaker 4: parallel between the lives of bees and what the women
Speaker 4: in the story you're experiencing. But the movie is just like,
Speaker 4: here are the logistics about how bee keeping works, and
Speaker 4: it's far less like thematic and metaphorical.
Speaker 3: The only moment where it really comes back is when
Speaker 3: may is sort of foreshadowing her own death by talking
Speaker 3: about worker bees. Where that was like the only moment
Speaker 3: where it felt like making an explicit connection to this
Speaker 3: community of women, to the beemmunity.
Speaker 5: It's one of the few epigraphs from the book that's
Speaker 5: that's said.
Speaker 7: In the movie Oh no kidding, Okay, Yeah, And also
Speaker 7: going into MHM is now where I do the big
Speaker 7: religion deep.
Speaker 5: Dive play, Okay, because the because again the the bees
Speaker 5: are connected to the religious landscape as well. So so Sue,
Speaker 5: my kid had been spending a lot of time writing
Speaker 5: non fiction before she wrote fictional books. And she has
Speaker 5: written a lot about progressive, progressive spirituality, the divine feminine.
Speaker 5: I will unpack that and like in a minute, because
Speaker 5: I have mixed feelings about that. But but yeah, this
Speaker 5: is her first fictional book. And she has been doing
Speaker 5: this project for years of like looking up different artistic
Speaker 5: sculpt sculptures of like different Madonnas of different racial identities
Speaker 5: and different cultural backgrounds. And she and then she did
Speaker 5: find a piece from a ship that was supposed to
Speaker 5: embody the Virgin Mary and which letter to write this
Speaker 5: book and letter to like think about her own time
Speaker 5: during the Civil rights movement at the age of fourteen,
Speaker 5: and also what I like about the Secret Life of
Speaker 5: be is it It's one of the few film representations
Speaker 5: I've seen of black folks within within practicing Catholicism, because
Speaker 5: usually it's it's in Protestant Pentecostal churches or like or
Speaker 5: if there is Catholicism represented, it's because they go to
Speaker 5: a Catholic school. It's not because they're necessarily Catholic or
Speaker 5: they're of of Afrolatin X descents as to why they're
Speaker 5: practicing Catholicism, and with with this practice with the daughters
Speaker 5: of Mary, the ship head that they that they call
Speaker 5: Mary had been in the boat Right's family for quite
Speaker 5: some time, like the book describes their mom even talking
Speaker 5: to her going like going like, oh my goodness, you
Speaker 5: should have had a girl, have been a lot less
Speaker 5: trouble and stuff like that, and uh. And their so
Speaker 5: their mom is Catholic and their dad is an Orthodox Eclectic,
Speaker 5: which is a denomination that leans more specifically to Eastern
Speaker 5: Christianity rather than Western Christianity. And also they even the
Speaker 5: book also talks about Rosaline's spiritual background too, like she
Speaker 5: she engages in an altar work that that lily is
Speaker 5: fascinated by Antiray is like, no, don't don't mess with
Speaker 5: that food, with that voodoo shit, which is very racist
Speaker 5: of him to say. And and at first Rosaline's not
Speaker 5: into the Daughters of Mary thing, but she eventually gets
Speaker 5: into it, even though she just most of the time
Speaker 5: just sits there. And I think she's only like touched
Speaker 5: the heart of.
Speaker 4: Mary one time.
Speaker 5: And and they also talk about the connection with with
Speaker 5: bees as part of their religious tradition too, like they
Speaker 5: talk about like so this So the scene in the
Speaker 5: movie where August puts the black covers on the bee hives,
Speaker 5: that's the only thing from the book that they show.
Speaker 5: And apparently it wasn't written in the script, but Gina
Speaker 5: Prince Bithwood wanted a shot of that before they were
Speaker 5: before they were done. I'm glad that shot exists. And
Speaker 5: so when it comes to death rituals, honey used to
Speaker 5: be used for embalming. They used to shape tombs in
Speaker 5: the shape of bee hives when when early Christians were
Speaker 5: hiding from from Romans. Not only was there like the
Speaker 5: fish symbol, there was also there were also bee symbols.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, And in.
Speaker 5: The book, August says covering the hives was supposed to.
Speaker 8: Keep the bees from leaving. You see, the last thing
Speaker 8: they wanted was their bees swarming off. When a death
Speaker 8: took place, having bees around was supposed to ensure that
Speaker 8: the dead person would live again. She also says, back
Speaker 8: when the Christians hid from the Romans down in the catacombs,
Speaker 8: they used to scratch pictures of bees the walls to
Speaker 8: remind each other that when they died, they'd be resurrected.
Speaker 5: And she said, and she also says something about about
Speaker 5: how like this figure came from came from a ship,
Speaker 5: and the people wanted to believe about the Virgin Mary's
Speaker 5: spirit within that, within that figure and see and see
Speaker 5: themselves in in that figure, because because she says something
Speaker 5: along the lines of how people deserve a God that looks.
Speaker 4: Like them, which gets referenced to some extent in the
Speaker 4: movie where the label of the honey jars has black
Speaker 4: Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. And there's a part where
Speaker 4: Lily is like, what's that about? And June says something like,
Speaker 4: you mean, like, why is Mary black? Or why is that?
Speaker 4: And that's that's what prompts the scene where August and
Speaker 4: the is it the daughters of Mary?
Speaker 5: The Daughters of Mary, it's the it's how they're described
Speaker 5: in the book I recognize that they don't say that
Speaker 5: in the movie.
Speaker 4: They probably do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in the in The Daughters of Mary, sugar girl
Speaker 5: has a husband named Otis who's mostly quiet and just
Speaker 5: sits there.
Speaker 4: More men should be like this.
Speaker 5: It's easy to get rid of Otis in the movie.
Speaker 5: But yeah, when going into like the whole divine feminine
Speaker 5: thing that sumanc Kid talks about, Like, like on one end,
Speaker 5: I appreciate that the progressiveness of it because of how
Speaker 5: often women are under underrepresented in religious and spiritual conversations.
Speaker 5: But then at the same time it crosses into like
Speaker 5: turfy territory, trans exclusionary radical feminism type territory and doesn't
Speaker 5: make a lot of room for for religious or spiritual
Speaker 5: trans folks. I remember in the Color Purple episode, y'all
Speaker 5: talked about Alice Walker siding with JK. Rowling and like
Speaker 5: she's also she's also a spiritual writer, and like she
Speaker 5: she came out with an apology question mark, I don't
Speaker 5: know how I feel about it, And also like I'm
Speaker 5: too scared to look into like how sumanc kid feels
Speaker 5: about trans people. I'm too nervous. But yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 5: typically like whenever there are folks specifically women with some
Speaker 5: form of a Christian background, even as they tried to
Speaker 5: make it progressive or try to lean into womanhood of
Speaker 5: it by by calling things like the divine feminine. I
Speaker 5: do get scared at times, where as far as like
Speaker 5: like like I don't I don't want to take your
Speaker 5: journey away from you. And at the same time, if
Speaker 5: you're if you're divine feminine doesn't include trans people, I
Speaker 5: don't know how I feel about that. So yeah, that's
Speaker 5: those Those are all my notes and feelings about the
Speaker 5: religious landscape of Yes, this movie, in the book that
Speaker 5: inspired it.
Speaker 4: That's very interesting, most if not all of that gets
Speaker 4: left out of the movie, Like all of that right
Speaker 4: kind of historical context and b significance isn't really in
Speaker 4: the movie. It's just Queen Latifa being like, yeah, and
Speaker 4: then we put smoke on the bees to masks they're
Speaker 4: pheromones and calm them down, which the movie gets wrong.
Speaker 3: They're like smoking the bees, they're killing us, and it's
Speaker 3: like all the bees have like emphysema, and you're like,
Speaker 3: it's not it's just not.
Speaker 4: In conclusion, being movie sucks. But yeah, there is there
Speaker 4: chemicals in this In the smoke.
Speaker 5: Is that the problem or is it just a matter?
Speaker 5: They're like, Oh, it's smoke.
Speaker 4: They're suggesting it's like tobacco smoke in B movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're acting like it's cigarette smoke. It's so Terry
Speaker 3: Seinfeld IQ of zero, Like it's just yeah.
Speaker 5: The producer, one of the producers of this movie kept
Speaker 5: getting letters from people saying that they wanted Queen Latifah
Speaker 5: to adopt them.
Speaker 4: Seeing this movie.
Speaker 3: Who could relate? Who could relate?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: Yeah, does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss
Speaker 4: about the Secret life of Bees?
Speaker 3: I think that's everything that I had it. I don't know. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: I'm like it was. It feels very much a product
Speaker 3: of its time.
Speaker 4: To me, you could parse out different parts of this
Speaker 4: story and isolate them and they should just kind of
Speaker 4: be their own thing. And the fact that they're overlapping
Speaker 4: just means that the narratives of the black women suffer
Speaker 4: for it. So yeah, uh, Well, the movie does pass
Speaker 4: the Bechtel test for sure for large swaths of the
Speaker 4: movie between many different characters, so no problems there. As
Speaker 4: far as our Nipple scale, though, where we rate the
Speaker 4: movie on a scale of zero to five nipples. Examining
Speaker 4: the movie through an intersectional feminist lens, Hmmm, I'm kind
Speaker 4: of leaning toward like a two and a half or
Speaker 4: three for the reasons that we've discussed throughout the episode
Speaker 4: and like what I was just talking about as far
Speaker 4: as like, yes, the black characters are important narratively, but
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, it's still very much
Speaker 4: a story about a white girl's journey with like black
Speaker 4: characters as the backdrop, almost and there's nothing inherently wrong
Speaker 4: with a story about a white girl.
Speaker 3: You know, loved the substance.
Speaker 4: Exactly, but yeah, it's it's a It's what we've already said.
Speaker 4: It's just like, let you know, these other characters have
Speaker 4: their own story. I'll give it three nipples, one to
Speaker 4: Queen Latifah, one to Jennifer Hudson, and one too Sophie
Speaker 4: Oknado nice the end, I'm gonna go three as well.
Speaker 3: I mean, I love Gena France Bythwad. This movie did
Speaker 3: not super work for me, but I think a lot
Speaker 3: of that is connected to the source material as well. However, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, even just like some of the directing choices
Speaker 3: she made, putting Jennifer Hudson through that bizarre or a
Speaker 3: deal like without making sure that even if she did know,
Speaker 3: it was fake, Like, I just Jennifer Hudson should have
Speaker 3: had the opportunity to be like no, thanks, Like you
Speaker 3: don't need to teach me what racism is for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just because I've won an oscar doesn't mean I'm
Speaker 4: immune from racism, Like what even?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I also think that that's that's a really
Speaker 3: weird situation to put a kid in as well, Like
Speaker 3: it just yeah, like some of her her choices I
Speaker 3: have questions about. But I also feel like, as we've
Speaker 3: talked about with Gina Prince Bythewood before, that she has
Speaker 3: never gotten the opportunities that she's deserved, especially the earlier
Speaker 3: in her career. You go, but we talked about this
Speaker 3: on the Woman King episode where it was just completely
Speaker 3: snubbed at the Oscars for her work, And so, you know,
Speaker 3: I think that while I don't agree with a lot
Speaker 3: of the choices she's making here, I also think she's
Speaker 3: put between a rock and a hard place constantly because
Speaker 3: she wasn't able to make the movie she wanted to,
Speaker 3: And that is also deeply unfair. Yeah, in terms of
Speaker 3: being a product of its time, a civil rights era
Speaker 3: story adapted from a work of a white writer that
Speaker 3: centers a white teenager, very popular thing to do in
Speaker 3: this stretch of five years. And while I think that
Speaker 3: Lily is a you know, fairly well written character all
Speaker 3: things considered, and it's not that I dislike her, again,
Speaker 3: it just feels like this, but but her being centered
Speaker 3: in the story means that the majority black cast becomes
Speaker 3: supporting characters, and that just doesn't feel right at all.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to give it three nipples. I'm going
Speaker 3: to give one to Jennifer Hudson, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: give one to Jennifer Hudson and dream Girls, and we
Speaker 3: to give one to Jennifer Hudson and Cats.
Speaker 4: Dream Girls another movie we have to cover. Wow, so
Speaker 4: much to do the.
Speaker 3: Last time, the last time I dream Girls. This is
Speaker 3: so loser coded. After my junior prom when you're supposed
Speaker 3: to like go out and like get drunk and kiss,
Speaker 3: they were like, hey, for any any loser kids, you
Speaker 3: can come back to the high school cafeteria and we're
Speaker 3: going to show dream Girls on DVD. And I've watched
Speaker 3: dream Girls and drank milk. I was like, it was
Speaker 3: so fucking pathetic. Anyways, I liked the movie, but I
Speaker 3: just that movie I associate with being like a gigantic loser.
Speaker 4: Wow, I love that story. Thank you so much, Maya.
Speaker 4: What say you?
Speaker 3: Maya's still recovering from what a loser I was in
Speaker 3: high school. No.
Speaker 5: But but here's the thing though, when you cover dream
Speaker 5: Girls on this on this podcast, non loser status.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean step into the bad side. I step
Speaker 3: into the bad side is just like and I love
Speaker 3: that song so much. That was my favorite song at
Speaker 3: the time, dream Girls. Anyways, Anyways, I will.
Speaker 5: Give this movie three and a half nipples because I
Speaker 5: do love that May's portrayal in the movie is a
Speaker 5: lot better than the book. And again, a lot of
Speaker 5: it just has to do with like Lily's fourteen year
Speaker 5: old voice talking about things she doesn't understand and using
Speaker 5: ablest language about May in a way that I didn't like.
Speaker 5: So I love that there is. Even though more space
Speaker 5: could have been given to May, I do love that
Speaker 5: May does get some space and even some original content
Speaker 5: added to her character in the in the hair braiding
Speaker 5: scene with Lily and I, Oh my gosh, I June
Speaker 5: deserved so much better and some of the behind the
Speaker 5: scenes details they talk about, like we wanted to make
Speaker 5: June a more accessible character, and that made me mad,
Speaker 5: especially when it came to like how more context would
Speaker 5: have made her a more accessible character. And like another
Speaker 5: thing in the book, she plays music for for people
Speaker 5: for the dead, whether they're dying in hospice or like
Speaker 5: or like they're playing she's playing at funerals, and she
Speaker 5: used to work as a mortician, and like and not
Speaker 5: having a history about like having that history when it
Speaker 5: comes to like having a younger sister die by suicide
Speaker 5: and then in your adult life having a sister died
Speaker 5: by suicide is like would have been incredible context to
Speaker 5: give Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: I sorry? I was like, I just realized my brain
Speaker 3: is soup because I was like, I was like, the
Speaker 3: Grateful Dead weren't were they performing? Then she worked with
Speaker 3: the dead, like as in the Bodies, not not the band.
Speaker 4: I was like, do people refer to the Grateful Dead
Speaker 4: as the dead?
Speaker 3: Yes? I only know that because my brother is a
Speaker 3: huge dead head.
Speaker 4: He's a dead head.
Speaker 3: Oh he is. And I think I'm going to this
Speaker 3: is I think I'm going to a concert with him
Speaker 3: for his birthday.
Speaker 4: A Dead concert.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're supposed to be twelve hundred hours long. I
Speaker 3: can't wait, can't wait. Oh my gosh. Wow, Well, I'm
Speaker 3: sure my brother would be proud of me. I was like, whoa,
Speaker 3: the Grateful Dead should have been in that movie. That's wild.
Speaker 5: Anyways, all the performances are fantastic. It makes me so
Speaker 5: uncomfortable watching watching some of the special features continent of
Speaker 5: like Paul Bettany and Nate Parker being like the the
Speaker 5: nice guys and like when like, clearly they're not so nice,
Speaker 5: and it makes me uncomfortable. There are many things I
Speaker 5: love about this movie. There are many things I continue
Speaker 5: to interrogate about this movie. So I'm gonna give it
Speaker 5: three three and a half. And I often I notice
Speaker 5: I've been noticing this. I tend to make people share
Speaker 5: a nipple and then the event for the half one
Speaker 5: one person gets okay. So I'm gonna give one nipple
Speaker 5: for Queen Latifa and Alicia Keys to share one nipple
Speaker 5: to be shared between Jennifer Hudson and Sofio Canido. I'll
Speaker 5: give a nipple for Oh my gosh, I'm blinking. I'm
Speaker 5: blinking on the actual actress's name, Oh, the one in
Speaker 5: Zachary's mom Laonda from Napoleon Time. Oh yes, I know,
Speaker 5: I'm going to look up her name. I need to,
Speaker 5: I need to get this right.
Speaker 4: Her name is Chandrella Avery.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I'm gonna give a nipple to Chandre Chandrella
Speaker 5: Avery and Sandra Hernandez, the costume designer. Oh, I love
Speaker 5: all of the boat Right's sister's dresses, especially that purple
Speaker 5: dress that August wears when talking one on one to
Speaker 5: Lily with like her Debor's Box of Things. And then
Speaker 5: the final half nibble to India Ari for her song
Speaker 5: beautiful in the movie.
Speaker 3: Lofe Maya. Thank you so much for coming back.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me back. We still
Speaker 5: need to do something on Dear Evan Hansoon.
Speaker 3: I know y'all are.
Speaker 5: Like, oh no, but I'm over here like, oh yeah.
Speaker 4: It's time, it will happen. I still have never seen
Speaker 4: that movie. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3: So Caitlyn, I think you'll think it's I mean, it
Speaker 3: is kind of funny.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: Ultimately that of a comic guy who's.
Speaker 4: In it would later go on to be in does
Speaker 4: that movie called Band Camp Theater camph Theater Camp Theater Camp,
Speaker 4: which I enjoyed very much.
Speaker 5: So it's a fun mover.
Speaker 4: Yes, Maya, thank you so much for joining us. Come
Speaker 4: back anytime. Thank you for Dear Evan Hanson.
Speaker 5: Or any other movie or listen, listen, I'm I'm willing
Speaker 5: to wait for Dear Evan Hanson if need be, we'll no,
Speaker 5: it's it's always an honor talking about films with y'all.
Speaker 5: So thank you very much for letting me come back.
Speaker 3: Course, thank you so much for coming back.
Speaker 4: Where can people check out your work? Follow you on
Speaker 4: social media? Plug anything you'd like to plug?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I am on Instagram, Blue Sky and Twitter at
Speaker 5: e M M dubb one sixteen, so M doub sixteen.
Speaker 5: I have a website Maya williamspoet dot com. M A
Speaker 5: y A Williams Poe dot com. You can buy either
Speaker 5: one of my poetry collections from that website, or you
Speaker 5: could read any of my other published work, whether it's
Speaker 5: poetry or essays or stuff like that. So yeah, I
Speaker 5: have a chatbook out now called What's So Wrong with
Speaker 5: a Pity Party Anyway? Via a garden party collective, my
Speaker 5: best friend came out with a book called The Space
Speaker 5: Between Men, Yes, through Penguin Random House. Miaus Willis wrote
Speaker 5: The Space Between Men would highly recommend this beautiful poetry collection,
Speaker 5: which also touches on suicidality, gender, spirituality, mythos for folks
Speaker 5: who are interested in that.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 4: We'll have to check that out.
Speaker 5: Oh I forgot one more thing. I'm so sorry, I
Speaker 5: forgot one more thing.
Speaker 4: Oh please.
Speaker 5: I am open for poetry commissions if you are looking
Speaker 5: for a poem for an upcoming event or for a
Speaker 5: loved one. I also audio record poems for performances such
Speaker 5: as drag performances, less performances, theater performances. So if you
Speaker 5: were interested in that, you can email me at Maya
Speaker 5: Williams one six at gmail dot com or use the
Speaker 5: context form and my website.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Oh my gosh, that's so I love that
Speaker 4: you do all of those performances. You can follow us
Speaker 4: on Instagram at Bechdel Cast. You can subscribe to our Matreon,
Speaker 4: where we cover two movies a month based on an
Speaker 4: amazing theme, such as Insecttober, which we just finished up
Speaker 4: in which we covered b movie, which, as we've said,
Speaker 4: absolutely sucks.
Speaker 3: Not enough bees. Well go over to Yeah you need.
Speaker 4: More bas movie content, Well, we've got lots for you.
Speaker 3: Hell, you can get our merchover at teapublic dot com
Speaker 3: slash the Bechdel Cast and uh, until then, folks, let's
Speaker 3: go harvest some honey. Tell me bye, okay, bye bye.
Speaker 4: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 4: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 4: by mo La Boord. Our theme song was composed by
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