Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Speaker 1: Or do they have individualism?
Speaker 2: It's the patriarchy, zeph and best start changing with the
Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlyn, can you smuggle half a million
Speaker 3: dollars out of Cobbo for me? I need the money
Speaker 3: to get a haircut because my hair and beard are
Speaker 3: really strange.
Speaker 1: Classic Caitlin. Yes, of course, and I will. I promise
Speaker 1: to be like everyone in this movie, really bad at it.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Cool, cool, cool, yeah ough.
Speaker 1: An iconic introduction. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name
Speaker 1: is Jamie Loftis.
Speaker 3: My name is Caitlyn Deronte, and this is our show
Speaker 3: where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
Speaker 3: the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point to
Speaker 3: initiate a larger conversation.
Speaker 1: We sure do. But what is the Bechdel Test? Well
Speaker 1: we'll tell you. Yeah. So, if you've been listening to
Speaker 1: this show for a long time, you very likely know
Speaker 1: what it is. It is a media metric created by
Speaker 1: queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Originally in her comic dys To
Speaker 1: Watch Out For in the eighties. It was a one
Speaker 1: off joke just sort of pointing out how infrequently women
Speaker 1: talked to each other in blockbuster movies. But it has
Speaker 1: since been sort of taken on by culture at large
Speaker 1: to talk about how infrequently women talk in movies. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different versions of this test. The
Speaker 1: one we use on this show is as follows. We
Speaker 1: require that there be two people of a marginalized gender
Speaker 1: with names who speak to each other about something other
Speaker 1: than a man for two lines of die or more preferably,
Speaker 1: it should be a meaningful exchange of dialogue. Which we
Speaker 1: made that change Win Caitlyn like a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: because there were so many movies that it was like, well,
Speaker 1: someone talks to a waitress at one point, and the
Speaker 1: waitress is wearing a name tag, so it's feminist, and
Speaker 1: you're just like, well, okay, we have to make some adjustments.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyways, that's the version we use.
Speaker 3: Indeed, and today's movie is a long time request. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's Jackie Brown, the nineteen ninety seven movie written and
Speaker 3: directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Speaker 1: Someone who I don't think has ever experienced a scandal before.
Speaker 1: I think a no famously scandalous director.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also the production company Miramax.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard a bad word about this,
Speaker 1: So really, I don't think that we'll have really much
Speaker 1: talk about. It will be a really quick episode, yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 3: So we're doing Jackie Brown. We have an amazing guest
Speaker 3: with us who is a comedian, author of the book
Speaker 3: sex Bomb, and host of the BBC podcast No Country
Speaker 3: for Young Women. It's Saudia Asthmat.
Speaker 5: Hello, welcome, Welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Hello, thank you for being here and for bringing us
Speaker 3: this movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, you sent us a number of options of movies
Speaker 1: you'd like to cover on the show, and this was
Speaker 1: on the list. So we're curious. What is your history
Speaker 1: with the movie, Jackie Brown? And I guess sort of
Speaker 1: like with Tarantino movies overall, because I feel like it's
Speaker 1: hard to talk about one Tarantino movie without accidentally talking
Speaker 1: about all of them truly.
Speaker 4: So you know what I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 5: I was going through my watch the Robert de Naro
Speaker 5: movie Zone or Era.
Speaker 4: At that point in time, so I was just I.
Speaker 5: Really liked him, and I heard a lot about Jackie Brown,
Speaker 5: but not in terms of in any detail, like it
Speaker 5: would be thrown around, like I didn't know if it
Speaker 5: was a real movie about like a Jackie Brown was
Speaker 5: a real person, or like it's just a name that
Speaker 5: seems to crop up now and then. So it felt
Speaker 5: like it was part of pop culture and I just
Speaker 5: hadn't come across it. And also I don't know actually
Speaker 5: if I was trying to. I don't know if I
Speaker 5: was on my watching Robert de Niro or watching Sam
Speaker 5: Jackson zone, but I don't know what that's not a zone,
Speaker 5: but like in terms of my routine, if you like, so,
Speaker 5: I love both of them. And then I just watched
Speaker 5: I didn't know it was directed by Tarantino at the time,
Speaker 5: and I was blown away because it's not even about
Speaker 5: Robert de Niro or Sam Jackson, even though they're really great.
Speaker 4: It's about like Pam Grier's character, and.
Speaker 5: It really felt like a portrayal of a woman who
Speaker 5: is from a minority in a way that I'd never
Speaker 5: seen before that I felt like, obviously I've never had
Speaker 5: to smuggle money, right, but like that I could really
Speaker 5: relate to.
Speaker 4: In terms of the decisions that she had to make.
Speaker 4: So it was like breathless and I love this movie.
Speaker 5: And talking about Tarantino, so, I mean, he's made some
Speaker 5: of the best movies ever, Like Pulp Fiction is clearly like, ah,
Speaker 5: it's so good. I didn't really like Reservoir I'm not
Speaker 5: going to go through all of his movies, by the
Speaker 5: way and.
Speaker 4: Just tell you why. I thought. That's not very ring.
Speaker 4: That's not fair, is it.
Speaker 5: But there's a few that come to my like Django.
Speaker 4: I think that's how you say it, Jango one change change.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I really enjoyed it, although I didn't really like
Speaker 5: and Glorious Bastards and I didn't really like Reservoir Dogs.
Speaker 5: I think I was gonna say, and so obviously he's
Speaker 5: a genius, but I think we all know that being
Speaker 5: a genius doesn't come without its pitfalls.
Speaker 4: And I think you might know a few of them
Speaker 4: more than me. But yeah, I mean I don't know
Speaker 4: like he yeah, as you alluded to, he was.
Speaker 5: I think obviously he knew about Weinstein, but you know,
Speaker 5: so many actors probably did, and maybe it didn't occur
Speaker 5: to them to open their mouths even though everyone listens
Speaker 5: to them.
Speaker 4: But anyway, so I really like his movies and I
Speaker 4: don't know him personally.
Speaker 3: Hey me either, Yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship with the
Speaker 3: Tarantino Expanded Universe slash Jackie Brown specifically.
Speaker 1: Let's see. I Yeah, I feel like we've covered pulp
Speaker 1: fiction and kill Bill on the show before.
Speaker 3: I mean, we still need to redo our kill Bill episode.
Speaker 3: I know, I thought that was a raised from existence.
Speaker 1: Yes, so we did at one point. It was our
Speaker 1: first episode ever and we didn't know what we were
Speaker 1: talking about. So we'll REDI that at some point. But
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, like a lot of people, I'm
Speaker 1: very kind of hit and miss on Tarantino. Like obviously,
Speaker 1: he's very technically talented, and you know, I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: judge someone for enjoying his work. Kill Bill is still
Speaker 1: one of my favorite movies ever, for all of its flaws. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, as far as Tarantino goes, I it
Speaker 1: feels like almost an impossible discussion to have. Creatively, he's
Speaker 1: hit or missed for me, He's made stuff that I
Speaker 1: really love. I think that it's I don't know. His
Speaker 1: history on race is very talked about and occurred yes,
Speaker 1: it's I don't know. He's such a complicated person to
Speaker 1: talk about because he's written women characters in particular that
Speaker 1: I have a lot of love for and had influence
Speaker 1: on me. But at the same time, you have the
Speaker 1: kill Bill example, when during the Me Too movement, it
Speaker 1: came out that Uma Thurman was extremely injured on the
Speaker 1: set of Kill Bill, and Tarantino did nothing to help her,
Speaker 1: And so it's and.
Speaker 3: He was the reason why, Like he yeah, he pushed,
Speaker 3: he instructed her to drive like basically do a very
Speaker 3: unsafe stunt, and then she got badly injured because of it.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, sometimes even the things I
Speaker 1: enjoy about him creatively doesn't come through in his personal
Speaker 1: life or personal record whatsoever. Anyways, Jackie Brown, I had
Speaker 1: seen it once before. I remember one liking it too,
Speaker 1: being like it's so long. I still feel that way now, Yeah, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: what's your history with Jackie Brown?
Speaker 3: I had never seen it before. This was I think
Speaker 3: the one Tarantino movie that I had yet to watch.
Speaker 3: It's been on my list for a long time, but
Speaker 3: I just didn't get around to it until I had
Speaker 3: an excuse to do so for this podcast and I'm
Speaker 3: glad I finally watched it. I quite enjoyed it. I
Speaker 3: would rank it toward the top of my list of
Speaker 3: Tarantino movies because I think so too. Yeah, same with
Speaker 3: everyone else. I mean, he is a bit hit or miss.
Speaker 4: For me.
Speaker 3: I generally like most of his movies, but Hateful Eight,
Speaker 3: for example, I couldn't stand it. I did not like
Speaker 3: Once upon a Time in Hollywood at all. Other ones
Speaker 3: I like a bit more kill Bill is similarly my
Speaker 3: favorite of his. But yeah, Jackie Brown, I think it's
Speaker 3: an interesting departure to some degree from his other work,
Speaker 3: and I found it just like refreshing and fun to watch,
Speaker 3: and I really like the characters and performances, and there's
Speaker 3: just a lot of interesting things going on that we
Speaker 3: will discuss.
Speaker 1: But I definitely agree. I think it's like one of
Speaker 1: my especially because I think the last time I watched it,
Speaker 1: I was in college or something, and I mean I
Speaker 1: liked it the first time. I liked it even better
Speaker 1: this time because I feel like I just know more
Speaker 1: about the actors and had more interest in the context,
Speaker 1: and the context of this movie is really fascinating. So
Speaker 1: there's so much to.
Speaker 3: Talk about, for sure. Shall I do the recap and
Speaker 3: we'll go from there.
Speaker 1: Let's do it, and Sadia feels free to jump in
Speaker 1: at any point.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, again, this is a long movie, although it's
Speaker 3: not even long by today's standards. Every movie that comes
Speaker 3: out is three hours long, and it's like, only Titanic
Speaker 3: should be that long anyway.
Speaker 4: I mean, Titanic shouldn't have been that long either.
Speaker 5: Really, come on, Oh don't sorry, I didn't realize that.
Speaker 4: I want to you.
Speaker 3: I don't disagree. I could do an edit of Titanic
Speaker 3: that is two and a half hours, which would cut
Speaker 3: forty five minutes out of the runtime.
Speaker 1: So no way, no way, no way.
Speaker 5: I think only Mob movies should be three hours long
Speaker 5: because the Mob ones.
Speaker 4: I love them. I don't know why everybody's gonna die
Speaker 4: and lose the money. I know that, but I.
Speaker 1: Just like Barbie was an hour fifty two and I
Speaker 1: celebrated that both times. I was like, wow, I didn't
Speaker 1: even know it was legal to make a movie under
Speaker 1: two hours anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeay, anyway, okay, So here it is the recap for
Speaker 3: Jackie Brown. We briefly meet a flight attendant for Cabo
Speaker 3: Air named Jackie Brown. Played by Pam Greer.
Speaker 1: I felt very film bro proud of myself during the
Speaker 1: opening shot where I was like, hey, this is the
Speaker 1: chef from a graduate and it is this, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is normally something that a guy would yell at.
Speaker 3: Me, but now you're the one yelling.
Speaker 1: I am the yelling at No. One.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So then we cut to Ordell played by Samuel L. Jackson,
Speaker 3: who is an arms dealer talking about guns to Lewis
Speaker 3: played by Robert de Niro. Ordell has a girlfriend, Melanie,
Speaker 3: who we meet played by Bridget Fonda, who he does
Speaker 3: not treat very well. FYI, and we also learned that
Speaker 3: Ordell has half a million dollars in cash stashed in
Speaker 3: Then Ordell gets a call from his pal Beaumont, who
Speaker 3: needs to be bailed out of jail. So Ordell and
Speaker 3: Lewis go to a bail bondsman named Max Cherry played
Speaker 3: by Robert Forster. Ordell pays for Beaumont to be bailed
Speaker 3: out of jail, and then he pays Beaumont a visit
Speaker 3: he's played by Chris Tucker, and then Ordell shoots and
Speaker 3: kills Beaumont because Ordell figured that Beaumont would rat him
Speaker 3: out to avoid a long jail sentence. Then we cut
Speaker 3: back to Jackie Brown at Lax after one of her
Speaker 3: flight attendant shifts and two cops approach her, Mark and
Speaker 3: Ray played by Michael Bowen and Michael Keaton, and they
Speaker 3: want to look in Jackie Brown's bag where they find
Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars in cash and they know that she's
Speaker 3: smuggling it and they want to know who and Cabo
Speaker 3: gave it to her and who in the US she's
Speaker 3: giving it too, but she refuses to talk. But then
Speaker 3: they find a little baggie of cocaine with the cash,
Speaker 3: so then she is arrested and thrown in jail for
Speaker 3: possession with the intent to distribute, which is a bogus
Speaker 3: thing which they comment on, but anyway, she's arrested and
Speaker 3: thrown in jail and her bail is set at ten
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. So Ordell goes back to the bail bondsman,
Speaker 3: Max Cherry, wanting to transfer the ten thousand dollars bond
Speaker 3: that he paid for Beaumont and transfer it over to
Speaker 3: Jackie Brown. So Max goes and bails Jackie out of jail,
Speaker 3: and he sees her and he's like Hubba hubba a wooga, who's's.
Speaker 1: That in love? Att first cites her.
Speaker 3: And then he takes her for a drink to discuss
Speaker 3: her options, like kind of what she should do moving forward,
Speaker 3: and then he drops her off at home. Ordell then
Speaker 3: goes to Jackie's house, and it seems like he plans
Speaker 3: to kill Jackie for the same reason he killed Beaumont.
Speaker 3: He doesn't want anyone ratting him out, but she assures
Speaker 3: him that she didn't tell the cops anything. But she
Speaker 3: also realizes that his intentions might be malicious and that
Speaker 3: he might be trying to kill her, so she pulls
Speaker 3: a gun on him that she stole from Max Cherry,
Speaker 3: and then she negotiates a deal with Ordell so that
Speaker 3: he won't be put away in prison and where she
Speaker 3: will be set up financially if she does have to
Speaker 3: go to jail. The next morning, Max Cherry comes over
Speaker 3: to Jackie Brown's house to get his gun back, and
Speaker 3: she invites him in for coffee, and they're listening to
Speaker 3: and music and they're kind of vibing, and she tells
Speaker 3: him that she does not actually intend to cooperate with
Speaker 3: Ordell and that she's going to try to make a
Speaker 3: deal with the cops because she's fearful for her future,
Speaker 3: her financial security. Things like that.
Speaker 1: I will say Jackie throughout this movie, she's I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about what an incredible character she is, But
Speaker 1: I just kept thinking about how many times if I
Speaker 1: were Jackie that I would have forgotten something that I
Speaker 1: told someone. I was like, wow, I'm not smart enough
Speaker 1: to play the four D game of chess that she's playing.
Speaker 1: Because sometimes I'm like wait what and I'm like, oh, right,
Speaker 1: she's a genius, Like.
Speaker 3: Like is she keeping a diary? Like I don't know
Speaker 3: how she got drug?
Speaker 5: And even just caring about you know, having that portrayal
Speaker 5: of someone caring about their like financial freedom, their finances,
Speaker 5: their future. That's like something I never saw before either, really,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: So that's like she's a smart like she's yeah, she's
Speaker 4: very admirable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's so cool and just like even objectively and
Speaker 1: like her memory and ability to like juggle five thousand
Speaker 1: things at once is incredible. She's such a cool character
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so kind of out sorry do you ever lie, Jamie?
Speaker 4: Because I am bad at lying.
Speaker 5: So I think that's why I would have got shot, like,
Speaker 5: you know, I would have got shut.
Speaker 1: I definitely like I feel like outside of like small
Speaker 1: like like little white lie kind of things, and even
Speaker 1: sometimes I lose track of those, and then I'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh wait, I told that weird lie trying to impress
Speaker 1: someone once and now I've accidentally told them myself. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I couldn't do what she did. I would be dead
Speaker 1: in the first twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: So same, Yeah, I couldn't keep anything straight. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 3: Then we see Jackie meeting with those cops, Mark and
Speaker 3: Ray telling them about her dealings with Ordell, and then
Speaker 3: she meets with Ordell again and makes him think that
Speaker 3: she's working with the cops as a cover and that
Speaker 3: she is still loyal to him, and they make a
Speaker 3: plan where they will need two women to be and
Speaker 3: they specify women. They're like, it needs to be women
Speaker 3: to be kind of like intermediaries between Jackie and Ordell
Speaker 3: as far as like handing off the money to trick
Speaker 3: the cops into following the wrong woman during these couple
Speaker 3: different handoffs that they will be doing in order for
Speaker 3: Jackie to get this half million dollars from Cabo to
Speaker 3: Ordell in Los Angeles, where the story takes place, by
Speaker 3: the way, ever heard of it? Ever heard of it?
Speaker 3: Then Ordell leaves this meeting with Jackie, but then he
Speaker 3: sees Max run into Jackie and they're chatting, and He's like,
Speaker 3: what the fuck? Like, do they know each other? What's
Speaker 3: going on here? So now he's suspicious.
Speaker 4: He's so insecure, isn't he?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 1: Ah truly and it is always his downfall. Same with
Speaker 1: the de Niro character too.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah for sure, yep. I can't wait to talk
Speaker 3: about male fragility with these characters.
Speaker 1: My feet at top.
Speaker 3: Okay, So everyone goes through with this trial run of
Speaker 3: Jackie handing off ten thousand dollars to a woman named Shiranda.
Speaker 3: She's one of Ordell's many girlfriends, and this is happening
Speaker 3: at a mall food court, and then Shiranda will then
Speaker 3: hand it off the cash to Ordell.
Speaker 1: I wrote not to brag, but I wrote a story
Speaker 1: about mall food courts earlier this year, and there are
Speaker 1: so many iconic movie scenes that happen in mall food courts.
Speaker 1: I think the Jackie Brown scene is way up there.
Speaker 1: It was tied for me internally eighth grade. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say eighth grade, impactful mall food court seemed to.
Speaker 3: Me personally, they're some good ones. Yeah, fast times at
Speaker 3: Ridgemont High. I feel like has.
Speaker 1: And clueless has one. I love them all. I love
Speaker 1: a food court. I love drama at set location.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Same, Okay, So this handoff happens and the cops are
Speaker 3: there watching. Max is also there, and it seems like
Speaker 3: Max and Jackie are becoming somewhat of an item. He
Speaker 3: also notices another woman, Simone, who is involved in this handoff,
Speaker 3: who the cops are not aware of, so she's like
Speaker 3: the second woman who's there to be tricksy basically. Then
Speaker 3: Jackie goes to see Ordell and they hash out the
Speaker 3: second handoff of the half million dollars. So this time
Speaker 3: Jackie will hand off the money in a fitting room
Speaker 3: at a department store at the same mall. Now the
Speaker 3: exact plan with all of these like changes in the
Speaker 3: amounds are sunny. Yeah, I got confused because now Simone
Speaker 3: is not involved, but Ordell's girlfriend Melanie.
Speaker 1: Is well because Simone didn't Simone get ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: during the trial run And then she's like, I'm od
Speaker 1: of hearing and we were like good girl smoney.
Speaker 3: Yes, but it's unclear like who knows what or I
Speaker 3: forget like which information. It's just like it's all a
Speaker 3: bit confusing.
Speaker 5: It becomes so much about who you can trust at
Speaker 5: this point because there's no logic, sensors gone out.
Speaker 4: Of the windows.
Speaker 5: So yeah, it is about like you've got instinct, then
Speaker 5: who's going to let you down?
Speaker 4: Or can you afford to risk everything on? You know?
Speaker 5: This weird situation. But it was so strange because I've
Speaker 5: never had smuggle. I have to keep saying that, but
Speaker 5: we believe, you know, like please believe you guys. But
Speaker 5: actually we could all do the We're three women, we
Speaker 5: could do the test one. No, I'm just saying that, true. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it is, so it's weird how real this all felt,
Speaker 5: even though the stakes were so high and not very
Speaker 5: day to day.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, it feels very grounded, especially for a Tarantino movie.
Speaker 3: It's I would probably his most grounded one. Yeah. Anyway, Also,
Speaker 3: while all of this is happening, it seems like Jackie
Speaker 3: intends to only hand off fifty thousand dollars of the
Speaker 3: money to whoever's going to get it to Ordell, and
Speaker 3: that she's going to run off with the rest, and
Speaker 3: she's kind of co conspiring with Max about this plan.
Speaker 3: Then it's time for the big exchange, so Jackie heads
Speaker 3: to the mall, as does Max, as does Lewis and Melanie,
Speaker 3: and Jackie hands off the fifty thousand dollars to Melanie
Speaker 3: in the dressing room, and then Jackie leaves the remaining
Speaker 3: half million dollars in the dressing room on purpose, and
Speaker 3: then she rushes out of the store and calls for Ray,
Speaker 3: the Michael Keaton cop, and she tells him that Melanie
Speaker 3: burst into the dressing room and took all of the
Speaker 3: money and ran out, so she's spinning this web of lies.
Speaker 1: Yarns. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Then we flash back to this exchange from Melanie and
Speaker 3: Lewis's point of view. Louis is on edge. He's being
Speaker 3: aggressive and awful, and then after the handoff, he keeps
Speaker 3: getting lost in the department store and then in the
Speaker 3: parking lot, and Melanie keeps taunting him about it, and
Speaker 3: he blows a gasket and shoots and kills Melanie in
Speaker 3: the parking lot.
Speaker 1: Which I forgot about and did not see coming and
Speaker 1: was quite shocked.
Speaker 3: It happens really abruptly, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Then we get the exchange from Max's point of view
Speaker 3: where he watches Jackie come out of the dressing room,
Speaker 3: and then he goes in and retrieves the bag with
Speaker 3: the half million dollars in cash, and he leaves the
Speaker 3: mall cut two Louis picking up Ordell, and Lewis is like,
Speaker 3: by the way, I shot Melanie, and Ordell is not
Speaker 3: mad about it, but he is mad when he looks
Speaker 3: in the bag and discovers that only forty thousand dollars
Speaker 3: is in there, not the full half million, and he
Speaker 3: suspects that it was Jackie Brown who stole it. And
Speaker 3: then Lewis is like, oh, wait a minute, I did
Speaker 3: see Max Cherry in the department store, but I didn't
Speaker 3: even think anything of it. But it is by yeah,
Speaker 3: and Ordella is like, well, you're bad at your job,
Speaker 3: and then he shoots and kills Lewis.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Which It's funny to see a Robert de Niro character
Speaker 3: being bad at crime, because in most of his other
Speaker 3: movies he's pretty good at crime.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed, Like, I mean, obviously his character is horrible,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's, Yeah, it's really rare to
Speaker 1: see him in like a very like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like Lewis is a diption outside of being like he yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like a total dufeist like he. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think I just associate de Niro characters with like
Speaker 1: hyper competence that I'm like, Wow, he's really not gonna
Speaker 1: get He's not He's got nothing to hide. He's just
Speaker 1: not good at this.
Speaker 3: There's a scene I think he might be really high
Speaker 3: and that's why he's acting this way. But he's like
Speaker 3: spacing out after he has called Simone to try to
Speaker 3: figure out where she is, and he's like trying to
Speaker 3: hang up the phone and he keeps spending it around
Speaker 3: because he can't figure out how to hang up this
Speaker 3: landline and it's just it's great. Uh Anyway, So Ordell
Speaker 3: shoots and kills Lewis for being bad at his job,
Speaker 3: and then he hides out at Sharonda's place. Then we
Speaker 3: cut to Ray questioning Jackie Brown, and he's just like,
Speaker 3: what the hell happened? Because of what Jackie told him,
Speaker 3: he thinks that, you know, she tried to hand off
Speaker 3: this fifty thousand dollars to Melanie and that Melanie ran
Speaker 3: off with it and that's why Melanie got shot, and
Speaker 3: he has no idea about this half million dollars that
Speaker 3: Max has. But Ray feels that he now has enough
Speaker 3: evidence to convict Ordell because he's been after Ordell this
Speaker 3: whole time. But before the cops can get to Ordell,
Speaker 3: Ordell and Max have a conversation where Ordell is like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I know you helped Jackie steal money, so she needs
Speaker 3: to give it back or I'm going to kill her.
Speaker 3: And so Max tells Ordell that Jackie does want to
Speaker 3: give the money back. So they head to Max's office
Speaker 3: where Jackie and the money are and Ordell comes into
Speaker 3: the office, but it's a setup and the cops are there,
Speaker 3: and Ray jumps out and shoots Ordell. Then we cut
Speaker 3: to three days later. Jackie has the half million dollars
Speaker 3: that only Max knows about of the people who are
Speaker 3: still alive at least, and she's given some of it
Speaker 3: to Max for helping, and then she says goodbye to Max.
Speaker 3: They kiss, she tells him she's headed to Spain.
Speaker 1: Kiss it's it's fine.
Speaker 3: Really, I was like, uh.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a good kiss. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe it was just early sure.
Speaker 3: But she tells him she's heading to Spain, and then
Speaker 3: the movie ends with her driving off. So that's the movie.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
Speaker 3: to discuss and we're back.
Speaker 1: Yes, where shall we start, Well, let's do some context
Speaker 1: corner and then yeah, go from there. Excellent.
Speaker 3: Okay, So basically prior to this movie, Tarantino had directed
Speaker 3: Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and he had you know,
Speaker 3: written and starred in a few other movies before this,
Speaker 3: and all of that has had cemented him as this
Speaker 3: kind of like Indie Darling director that also had box
Speaker 3: office appeal, who also had this very distinct style. So
Speaker 3: he's on his way to being this like, you know,
Speaker 3: a tour status.
Speaker 1: And also I feel like something that also carries through
Speaker 1: and Jackie Brown is like he was already gaining this
Speaker 1: reputation as someone who is able to like revive an
Speaker 1: actor's career, because I feel like John Travolta's career was
Speaker 1: really sort of kickstarted again by Pulp Fiction. I feel
Speaker 1: like Pam Greer's career here and Max Cherry, who I
Speaker 1: had not heard of.
Speaker 3: This actor Robert Forster, Yeah, he was bigger in I
Speaker 3: think the late sixties and seventies, but by the time
Speaker 3: this movie was being cast, he didn't even have like
Speaker 3: an agent or a manager, like his career was basically over.
Speaker 1: And then we got nominated for a goddamn Oscar. I
Speaker 1: think that Pam Greer should have been also nominated for
Speaker 1: Oscar like but anyways, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyway, Tarantino acquired the rights to three Elmore Leonard
Speaker 3: novels because he wanted to make at least one of
Speaker 3: them into a movie. He wasn't sure which one. One
Speaker 3: of these novels is called rum Punch, which is the
Speaker 3: one that Tarantino decided to adapt, and it was his
Speaker 3: first time adapting anything. And so the significant thing here
Speaker 3: is that in the book rum Punch, the main character,
Speaker 3: Jackie Burke, is a white woman, and Tarantino rewrote the
Speaker 3: character as a black woman, Jackie Brown, with Pam Grier
Speaker 3: in mine specifically yea, yeah exactly, so like Jackie Brown's
Speaker 3: last name is a nod to her character in Foxy Brown,
Speaker 3: which is a famous nineteen seventies blacksploitation film. Now, as
Speaker 3: far as why Tarantino made this change, I couldn't find
Speaker 3: anything super explicit or specific, but it just seems like
Speaker 3: he wanted to pay homage to blacksplotation film and pay
Speaker 3: homage to Pam Greer and her career as an actor
Speaker 3: in these nineteen seventies blax quotation films such as Foxy
Speaker 3: Brown and Coffee Right.
Speaker 1: I was reading that there was a bunch of because
Speaker 1: I have not seen either of those movies, but I
Speaker 1: guess that there's a bunch of references to them. Yes,
Speaker 1: within Jackie Brown. I was Yeah, for what I was
Speaker 1: able to gather, it just it seems like what you're saying,
Speaker 1: and that he just wanted to meet Pam Greer really bad.
Speaker 1: Clay question Mark, Yeah, I was. I mean, especially with
Speaker 1: conversations about Tarantino, and because the Uma Thorntman story kind
Speaker 1: of haunts me so much because I have so much
Speaker 1: love for kill Bill and what happened to her on
Speaker 1: the side of that movie was so terrible. I was like,
Speaker 1: how did Pam Greer feel about working with this man?
Speaker 1: It turns out pretty good, which is great. I'm I
Speaker 1: am glad that Pamger had a good experience, But yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like he just sort of sought her out
Speaker 1: and was like, Hey, I wrote this for you. Do
Speaker 1: you want to be super fame miss again and she
Speaker 1: was like.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, although she did not realize that the part
Speaker 3: was written for her, because when Tarantino sent her the script,
Speaker 3: she didn't take it very seriously because she thought he
Speaker 3: was sending it to her because she was being considered
Speaker 3: for the much smaller role of Melanie. And so she's
Speaker 3: just like whatever. And then when Tarantino called her, he's like, no,
Speaker 3: I want you as Jackie Brown, and she's like, oh
Speaker 3: yeah tight. So, like we said, this movie revitalized her
Speaker 3: career because she had come to fame in the seventies
Speaker 3: with these various bl exploitation films, and then her career
Speaker 3: kind of tapered off after that, and.
Speaker 1: She she turned forty, which is not allowed, not.
Speaker 3: Allowed if you're a woman. That is sort of the
Speaker 3: context that we are working with that I feel like
Speaker 3: could transition into a conversation about Tarantino's handling of race. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because as we said, he makes choices and he's he's
Speaker 3: got a checkered history when it comes to treatment of
Speaker 3: race in his movies, where, for example, you know, he
Speaker 3: cast himself in pulp fiction as a character who very
Speaker 3: casually throws around.
Speaker 1: The n word.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's also, you know, one of the few white
Speaker 3: directors of that time who was even willing to address
Speaker 3: race in his movies at all and willing to cast
Speaker 3: I would say, more actors of color in his movies
Speaker 3: than most other big name auteur white guy directors of
Speaker 3: that time. Again not saying that he handles race well
Speaker 3: every time he does it. But there are interesting things
Speaker 3: happen in this movie, one of the main ones being
Speaker 3: the thing we mentioned of him specifically rewriting, because this
Speaker 3: almost never happens, where oftentimes, in a book a character
Speaker 3: will be a person of color, and then when a
Speaker 3: director gets their hands on it, they adapt it and
Speaker 3: whitewash it and now the character is suddenly white. It
Speaker 3: very rarely happens in the reverse. And I mean him
Speaker 3: wanting to pay homage to black exploitation films, is I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you.
Speaker 4: Explain black exploitation to me? Please? Is that?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 4: What genre is that? Or you don't have to if
Speaker 4: you don't.
Speaker 3: So it's basically so it's a genre, a subgenre most
Speaker 3: popular in the nineteen seventies, where a lot of black
Speaker 3: filmmakers and the casts were predominantly black. So it was
Speaker 3: like a very black run and black lead group of movies.
Speaker 3: But they're called black splotation of because they are relying
Speaker 3: on different stereotypes a lot of times, like the characters
Speaker 3: were like pimps or drug dealers or gun runners, things
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 5: So it's what the name suggested it to be exploiting
Speaker 5: the black dive in a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, although it does feel worth mentioning that the two
Speaker 1: black exploitation movies that Pamger is most famous for were
Speaker 1: written and directed by white director Jack Hill.
Speaker 4: True.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there are sort of like variations within the genre.
Speaker 3: You know, not all of them are necessarily relying on
Speaker 3: stereotypes things like that. But Tarantino wanting to pay homage
Speaker 3: to those films is I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 3: how to feel about it necessarily one way or another.
Speaker 3: And then another thing he does is he has various
Speaker 3: characters comment on race throughout the film. Mostly it's Samuel L. Jackson.
Speaker 3: Another thing to note here is that Tarantino originally wrote
Speaker 3: the part of Ordell for himself. Tarantino was planning for
Speaker 3: a long time to play Ordell, so.
Speaker 1: Glad he stopped acting in so stressful watching him act
Speaker 1: it really is.
Speaker 3: So after a long time he decided to you know,
Speaker 3: relinquish the part and cast Samuel L. Jackson in the role,
Speaker 3: which I'm again glad he did. I'd much rather watch
Speaker 3: Samuel L. Jackson on screen than Tarantino. But that lends
Speaker 3: itself to Ordell making different comments about how like when
Speaker 3: he's in Max Cherry's office and Max wants to know, well,
Speaker 3: if you already have ten thousand dollars, why can't you
Speaker 3: just you know, why do you need a bond? Why
Speaker 3: can't you take that money and bail out Beaumont? And
Speaker 3: Ordell is like a black man showing up with ten
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in cash. They're gonna want to know how
Speaker 3: I got it. They'll want to keep a chunk of it,
Speaker 3: claiming that there's like court costs all this stuff. So
Speaker 3: he's saying, yeah, that they're gonna make racist assumptions about him,
Speaker 3: and you know, nothing will work out in his favor. Similarly,
Speaker 3: he's talking about when he wants Jackie Brown bailed out,
Speaker 3: and he's commenting on the charge that she has been
Speaker 3: charged with that she you know, was caught with less
Speaker 3: than two ounces of cocaine but charged with intent to distribute,
Speaker 3: and he says, you know, a movie star gets caught
Speaker 3: with that same amount, they'd get charged with just possession,
Speaker 3: which is a far less severe crime. But because it's
Speaker 3: a black woman, she's charged with this bogus, far more
Speaker 3: severe crime.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's again like I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: like not trying to hand it to Tarantina too much
Speaker 1: because it feels weird too. But yeah, like you were
Speaker 1: saying earlier, Caitlin, it's like this is more commentary you
Speaker 1: would get from a movie by a white director than
Speaker 1: than most directors at this time, and just more commentary
Speaker 1: on race in a big movie. In general, beau Vivie
Speaker 1: is super successful.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I mean, I guess my point is like
Speaker 3: I wasn't necessarily expecting to see that in this movie
Speaker 3: because again I didn't really I knew very little about
Speaker 3: it going in, just that it was a Tarantino movie.
Speaker 1: And again he.
Speaker 3: Based on his treatment of race and him throwing around
Speaker 3: the N word very casually a few years before in
Speaker 3: pulp fiction, but then him turning around and adapting this
Speaker 3: character to specifically include a black woman as the protagonist
Speaker 3: of his movie and framing her in a way that
Speaker 3: in my opinion, makes her really awesome and like a
Speaker 3: really complex character. And that plus like including other commentary
Speaker 3: about race. Nothing too extensive in this movie, but again
Speaker 3: it's more than you'd expect from a white director in
Speaker 3: the nineties, which you know, the bar is very low,
Speaker 3: and that doesn't necessarily, you know, mean that he should
Speaker 3: get all these prizes and recognition. But I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's complicated.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, which like there's I mean, we can link
Speaker 1: this in the description of the episode two because yeah,
Speaker 1: that topic alone there has been so much written about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it like comes up every time he releases a movie,
Speaker 1: usually because he has once again written it into the movie, right,
Speaker 1: and I know that he is. He and Spike Lee
Speaker 1: have had this sort of long standing back and forth
Speaker 1: about how Spike Lee feels like Spike Lee has a
Speaker 1: sort of storied history of being like, this is fucking
Speaker 1: weird that you do this this much like knock it off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can link that in the description because it is
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, very relevant. And also there's it
Speaker 1: like infinite there is like twenty plus years of debate
Speaker 1: about his use of the N word in movies, which
Speaker 1: is absolutely wild and this movie was another example of
Speaker 1: like there was a wave of discourse like that in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven. So for longer than some of our
Speaker 1: listeners have been alive, this conversation has been going on.
Speaker 5: For the listeners who haven't heard like his rationale if
Speaker 5: you want to call it rationale, Like does he explain?
Speaker 4: He does he ever own why he says it?
Speaker 1: So he's commented on it many times. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess everyone react the way react, so
Speaker 1: he sort of in twenty fifteen, I think he had
Speaker 1: his all time worst response to it. When The Hateful
Speaker 1: Eight came out. He did an interview with Brett Easton Ellis,
Speaker 1: which I feel like doesn't help and address this controversy again,
Speaker 1: saying quote, if you sit through the criticism, you see
Speaker 1: it's pretty evenly divided between pros and cons. But when
Speaker 1: black critics came out with savage think pieces about Django,
Speaker 1: Django unchained, I couldn't have cared less. If people don't
Speaker 1: like my movies, they don't like my movies, and if
Speaker 1: they don't get it, it doesn't matter. The bad taste
Speaker 1: that was left in my mouth had to do with this.
Speaker 1: It's been a long time since the subject of a
Speaker 1: writer's skin was mentioned as often as mine. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: think the color of a writer's skin should have any
Speaker 1: effect on the words themselves. In a lot of the
Speaker 1: more ugly pieces, my motives were really brought to bear
Speaker 1: in the most negative way. It's like I'm some super
Speaker 1: villain coming up with this stuff unquote, which seems like
Speaker 1: playing the victim to a pretty absurd extent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I really don't understand, who don't.
Speaker 5: This sounds like a very like a lot of words,
Speaker 5: but I didn't get any thread in what.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't even get.
Speaker 1: It's those sharp sentences that it's so bizarre too, because
Speaker 1: I mean that reaction. It's I again, like this movie,
Speaker 1: I think like Addresses, Like there's a scene between Ordell
Speaker 1: and Max where Max essentially is like, are you appealing
Speaker 1: to my white guilt to get me to do this?
Speaker 1: And it's like, for I don't know, for a writer,
Speaker 1: that is like trying to interact with those concepts and
Speaker 1: these conversations to also say that in such a clueless way,
Speaker 1: it's just like, yeah, baffling. Anyways, So we'll link more,
Speaker 1: but yeah.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
Speaker 3: to discuss further and we're back.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Jackie Brown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it. Sadia, you had mentioned that you
Speaker 3: related to this character in meaningful ways, so I'm interested
Speaker 3: to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 5: I'm just totally blown away by the character and this movie.
Speaker 4: Is about her.
Speaker 5: This is such a strong movie given that the cast,
Speaker 5: the other cast is quite a list past, but she
Speaker 5: just overshadows the.
Speaker 4: Whole film, Like the whole deal is, like you can't
Speaker 4: start watching her.
Speaker 6: She's sassy, she's real, she's vulnerable, she's flawed, she's a survivor,
Speaker 6: and she's all of those things most of the time,
Speaker 6: and we're we're really with her, and like, you know,
Speaker 6: it's hard what she's going through, and I don't know, it's.
Speaker 5: Like I don't know, I just I fell in love
Speaker 5: with her so so much. And I think it's also
Speaker 5: like for me when I watched it, it was just
Speaker 5: like a reminder, like I did get this kind of
Speaker 5: moment where it's like, what I've never seen.
Speaker 4: Anybody like her.
Speaker 5: So that added to the impact that she had is
Speaker 5: that this is a figure that we really need to
Speaker 5: watch and this is a character a person like her
Speaker 5: that I love to watch, and I could have continued
Speaker 5: to watch her go to Spain.
Speaker 4: And you know, it wasn't.
Speaker 5: Even about relationship, which is really rare, like I think
Speaker 5: or women is often you know, you want them to
Speaker 5: kind of have a partner or that's a big part
Speaker 5: of the story, if not the story. But this wasn't
Speaker 5: about those. That was so secondary and so for her
Speaker 5: to own everything in those in that kind of context,
Speaker 5: for me, it was like I've never seen it before.
Speaker 5: I couldn't start watching it. I wanted her to have
Speaker 5: all the money. I wanted her to win and I
Speaker 5: don't know how, but it was just like it was
Speaker 5: really cool, and it just felt she was very honest,
Speaker 5: she'd been through a lot. And yeah, just to repeat,
Speaker 5: I hate repeating myself, but it's just like I think
Speaker 5: it's because there's such an absence of women like her
Speaker 5: on screen that it really like touched me quite a lot.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, because it's rare to have a movie
Speaker 3: of this genre, you know, like a crime thriller, noir
Speaker 3: type movie that center is a woman as the protagonist
Speaker 3: who we are rooting for, the one where she's like
Speaker 3: the smartest person in the room, in any room she's in,
Speaker 3: she's doing a lot of the planning. She's playing all
Speaker 3: of these people like she's she's the one. She comes
Speaker 3: out on top.
Speaker 2: She's not hyper sexualized, which yeah, and you can't be
Speaker 2: bad at her, like even though she's got all of
Speaker 2: the strings, like you know how sometimes you hate like
Speaker 2: the villain in Bond or whatever, Like we're so with her,
Speaker 2: even though we're annoyed because we don't know what's going
Speaker 2: on or whatever, we're feeling for her and it's like
Speaker 2: we're really going through it as the audience.
Speaker 5: But like she's Yeah, she doesn't really do a lot wrong.
Speaker 5: There's no victim blaming. It's like this sometimes, you know,
Speaker 5: if there's you know, women in crime, it's like we
Speaker 5: we have only like a one D relationship with them
Speaker 5: or something like that. But even though she's a little
Speaker 5: bit flawed, like we're still with her.
Speaker 4: There's no blame here.
Speaker 5: There's really complex and it's kind of just enjoyable to
Speaker 5: see this that you can't start watching.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, like you were saying, Jamie, she's the
Speaker 3: way that a lot of women in her position as
Speaker 3: a female character in a crime thriller movie, that character
Speaker 3: would be hyper sexualized and or she would be framed
Speaker 3: as like the fem fetal, but that is never how
Speaker 3: she's represented, and especially for her to be centered as
Speaker 3: the protagonist in a movie like this, especially as a
Speaker 3: black woman, and especially as a black woman who is
Speaker 3: older than thirty or thirty five, Like, these are very
Speaker 3: rare things to see.
Speaker 1: And this is I forget when we talked about this, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: But I feel like it's like Pam gre the actor
Speaker 1: is over forty when this is filmed. But we also
Speaker 1: I feel like often see actors who are older, but
Speaker 1: they're still playing like a thirty seven year old, and
Speaker 1: in this movie it is stated she is forty four
Speaker 1: years old. And also like does I don't know, like
Speaker 1: also the character matches that because I do think that
Speaker 1: there is, like even now, like a pressure to eternally
Speaker 1: seem like you are in your late thirties early forties,
Speaker 1: even if you're an actor into your fifties and sixties.
Speaker 3: The Sandra Bullock effect, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Totally, and I and it's like has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the actors. It's all the whatever cultural pressure to
Speaker 1: look at a certain age long after that makes human sense.
Speaker 1: But I liked that like, Yeah, like Jackie Brown is,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I liked how this movie approached age
Speaker 1: as a theme, And I didn't even realize until those
Speaker 1: conversations were had between a few different characters, because I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, Jackie obviously talks about it most explicitly when
Speaker 1: she talks about aging with Max and also points out
Speaker 1: how aging for her is framed differently than the way
Speaker 1: it is for him. And I thought that scene was
Speaker 1: like really great and like beautifully done between them. And
Speaker 1: you also see the freaky DeNiro care talk about aging too,
Speaker 1: because now he can't smoke weed at he are like,
Speaker 1: but it's like everyone like most characters. I don't know
Speaker 1: as much for Ordell, but for like most characters, we
Speaker 1: get to know interact with the idea of aging in
Speaker 1: a way that felt I don't know, like I guess,
Speaker 1: more thoughtful than I was expecting it to. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think it's like also rare to see you know,
Speaker 1: Pam Career and oh what's the what's Max Cherry's name? Again?
Speaker 1: God damn it? Oh, Robert Forster, Robert Forster to see
Speaker 1: actually like age well, like whatever, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: want to get into age gap discourse today, but like
Speaker 1: age appropriate older couple as the leading romantic story is
Speaker 1: again just like doesn't really happen even now still and
Speaker 1: I just thought it was I don't know. I liked
Speaker 1: how each character sort of got to explore what that
Speaker 1: meant to them, And I think that's seen like between
Speaker 1: Jackie and Max illustrates her motivation on why she's doing
Speaker 1: what she's doing so beautifully and so empathetically and like
Speaker 1: you can't watch that scene and not want her to
Speaker 1: get every cent as well.
Speaker 5: Just on the same point as you, Jamie, is that
Speaker 5: I'm not objectifying her. I don't know that sounds really weird,
Speaker 5: but in terms of like I'm not fixated with her
Speaker 5: appearance as beautiful as she is, Like that doesn't really
Speaker 5: like it's not my central focal point. Like I think
Speaker 5: I only realized at the end when that, like you
Speaker 5: said that that kiss happened, that I'm like, she's a
Speaker 5: sexy lady, but like you, I'm seeing her as a
Speaker 5: human and outrounded person. I'm not just like checking her
Speaker 5: out like the whole time, or it's not that she's
Speaker 5: a Yeah, I think you already made that point about
Speaker 5: her not being sexualized.
Speaker 1: Yes, which is like really cool. I don't know, Like
Speaker 1: I again, I just like didn't expect it because Tarantino's
Speaker 1: super hidden miss on how he sexualizes his female characters
Speaker 1: as well. And you know, there's a bajillion studies about
Speaker 1: how women of color in general are more likely to
Speaker 1: be sexualized in movies that anyone is making, especially in
Speaker 1: the West, And so I don't know, I just like
Speaker 1: I loved the scene where like Max falls in love
Speaker 1: with Jackie at first sight and she's just walking like.
Speaker 3: She's having spent several days maybe in jail, and she's
Speaker 3: like disheveled, and she wants to go to like a
Speaker 3: dark bar so that no one can see her because
Speaker 3: she's like, I look like I just got out of jail.
Speaker 3: But he's just like, that's the most beautiful woman I've
Speaker 3: ever seen, and.
Speaker 1: He's not wrong.
Speaker 3: Like Pam Greer has such a presence on screen, like
Speaker 3: she has just a face that you want to stare
Speaker 3: at for hours and hours and hours, Like it's just
Speaker 3: she's just so magnetic and every man who she encounters
Speaker 3: basically falls in love with her because Max sees her
Speaker 3: it's love at first sight. There are various allusions to
Speaker 3: Ray the Michael Keaton cop liking her, having a crush
Speaker 3: on her. He like takes her out to dinner several
Speaker 3: times to like discuss the case, but like it doesn't
Speaker 3: need to be over dinner, but he's just like, I
Speaker 3: love I just want to look at her. The bartender.
Speaker 3: It's like a brief, like two second scene, but like
Speaker 3: the bartender at the cockatoo, Inn is like, hey baby.
Speaker 5: But the characters like her can be made. Why why
Speaker 5: aren't they made since then? Or obviously not before? Fine,
Speaker 5: but like since then, how come it's proven that this
Speaker 5: is a realistic portrayal of a character? Like it's very rare,
Speaker 5: isn't it?
Speaker 1: It does still feel I mean, it's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like there's far fewer examples since Jackie Brown then
Speaker 1: there should be. And I don't know, like I think
Speaker 1: this is probably all Pam Greer, but it feels so
Speaker 1: cool and rare to have a character who is sexy
Speaker 1: but not sexualized, Like I don't I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it just has to deal with like her
Speaker 1: persona and what a good like an amazing actor and
Speaker 1: what an amazing performance this is. But like she's so
Speaker 1: naturally like magnetic and sexy and cool that it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it feels like this movie just
Speaker 1: lets Pam Greer do her work and perform and just
Speaker 1: like you have no trouble believing that anyone would fall
Speaker 1: in love.
Speaker 5: With her, And it's so like freeing because I'm not
Speaker 5: focused on her being sexualized. I'm seeing so many different
Speaker 5: aspects of her that I wouldn't if she was being sexualized.
Speaker 5: So I'm not saying that there's no room for sexualized characters,
Speaker 5: but I think because it's just always the case that, like,
Speaker 5: because I'm so unpreoccupied with her, like those kind of
Speaker 5: aspects of her, I'm allowed to just let go and
Speaker 5: be in the story and follow her and not just
Speaker 5: parts of her, like I don't. Yeah, it's not focunistic
Speaker 5: at all. It's just like you're with the character, you're
Speaker 5: not we've had because of her looks or because of
Speaker 5: superficial things.
Speaker 1: Right, totally, Yeah, you just need her. I wanted to
Speaker 1: point out one more of the age things because I
Speaker 1: just I don't know, I'm like, wow, age is never
Speaker 1: discussed in movies, but the Cops at one point in
Speaker 1: the first scene that Jackie has with the two cops
Speaker 1: where they're going through her bag and she's holding her ground.
Speaker 1: She's not putting up with like not taking the bait
Speaker 1: after bait after bait that they're throwing at her. And
Speaker 1: one of those pieces of bait is related to both
Speaker 1: her age, race, and class, I think, all in the
Speaker 1: same sentence where one of the characters says something akin
Speaker 1: to like, if I was a forty four year old
Speaker 1: black woman with a shitty job, I don't think I
Speaker 1: would have another year to throw away, So you better
Speaker 1: cooperate with us. Yeah, And I don't know. It's just
Speaker 1: like such a vile thing to say to her, and
Speaker 1: she just like does I mean, obviously doesn't fall for it.
Speaker 1: She doesn't fall for anyone's bullshit, but it was you know.
Speaker 1: I think that like that line sticks with her because
Speaker 1: it comes up in a roundabout way later in that
Speaker 1: conversation with Max, and her takeaway is like that's the
Speaker 1: reason she's not going to cooperate with the cops. Is
Speaker 1: like she's going to get her fucking eat prey love story,
Speaker 1: and like there's totally there's Jackie Brown, two very different vibes. Almost, Well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing.
Speaker 3: Like her motivation is the intersection of her age, her race,
Speaker 3: and her class because she and her status as someone
Speaker 3: who has been incarcerated because she has a prior conviction
Speaker 3: and where she served. I don't know if she served
Speaker 3: jail time, but she was on probation for a while,
Speaker 3: because it's referenced that she was formerly married and her husband,
Speaker 3: who was a pilot, got caught for smuggling drugs I
Speaker 3: think or something and she was his accomplice. So she
Speaker 3: got apprehended by the law to some degree, and it
Speaker 3: made it so that she couldn't get work with the
Speaker 3: major airlines, which is why she's working for Cabo Air,
Speaker 3: which I don't know if that's a real airline or not,
Speaker 3: but in the movie, it's widely known that it's like
Speaker 3: the shittiest airline to work for, and it's you know,
Speaker 3: referenced that she only makes sixteen thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 3: and so she's looking out for herself and she knows
Speaker 3: that like as a black woman in her mid forties
Speaker 3: with a prior arrest or, like you know, something on
Speaker 3: her record, the cards are very much stacked against her,
Speaker 3: and she needs to do whatever it takes to look
Speaker 3: out for herself. And that's why she's like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to steal this half a million dollars from this shitty
Speaker 3: arms dealer who's like bad hit everything, and we're rooting
Speaker 3: for her because of it.
Speaker 4: Did you guys?
Speaker 5: Sorry, we talked about this very briefly at the beginning,
Speaker 5: but did you learn anything about yourselves when you watch
Speaker 5: this that did you think you would do the same
Speaker 5: as her? Or what was your anxiety that was like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, I couldn't do that, Like, what did
Speaker 5: you learn about your pelf?
Speaker 3: I would be so afraid of getting murdered by someone
Speaker 3: that I and I'm such a rule follower that.
Speaker 4: I'd be like, okay, so not for you.
Speaker 3: I'm such a baby.
Speaker 4: It was hard. It was hard to decide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was also, I mean, I think you mentioned
Speaker 1: it earlier. I was like, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: could keep my facts straight sufficiently morally. I have no
Speaker 1: scruples about what Jackie is doing. And if I were
Speaker 1: in a similar position, I you know, if I thought
Speaker 1: I could pull it off, Yeah, maybe I would try,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. I was like, I would need
Speaker 1: someone that I trust to be like wait, what lie?
Speaker 1: Did I tell again? Like I would need someone.
Speaker 3: Well, she trusts Max, and I want to just chat
Speaker 3: about that relationship a little bit more because, like as
Speaker 3: you said, Saudia, it is that relationship is like almost
Speaker 3: it's like barely even a subplot in this movie. It's
Speaker 3: just sort of there. It's not really taking up any
Speaker 3: space there. You know, he likes her from the get go.
Speaker 3: She's not like exploiting him or using him necessarily because
Speaker 3: she never tries to be like I love you and
Speaker 3: that's why you have to do this for me. She's
Speaker 3: just like I'm trying to do this thing. Can you
Speaker 3: help me? And he's like, well, I love you so yes.
Speaker 3: And I was like, hm, I wonder if they're gonna
Speaker 3: like stick them together at the end, and she does
Speaker 3: like kind of halfheartedly invite him to go to Spain
Speaker 3: with her. He declines, I'm not surprised that this movie
Speaker 3: didn't do it, because like that's not a Tarantino thing
Speaker 3: to do. He usually doesn't go for those cliche Hollywood endings.
Speaker 1: But I think, I mean, I was surprised at how
Speaker 1: like I think it again, like for me connected to
Speaker 1: the sexy but not sexualized thing where I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean trying to think of a clear cut example.
Speaker 1: But again just with like women over forty in movies,
Speaker 1: I flick it is the older you get as an actor,
Speaker 1: if you're a woman or anyone of a marginalized gender,
Speaker 1: the less likely it is that you are going to
Speaker 1: be shown as romantically viable for sure. And I like
Speaker 1: that she kind of gets her little like I don't know.
Speaker 1: This relationship is like very much a side quest of
Speaker 1: the movie. It is there. It helps move the plot
Speaker 1: along a little bit, but it's like she I kind
Speaker 1: of liked where they left it, where it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't force the relationship and that like I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously he'll be hung up on her until
Speaker 1: he dies, but that's kind of his prefer She's got
Speaker 1: to move on. And I love that the movie gives us,
Speaker 1: you know, those like book endings of Jackie by herself,
Speaker 1: like moving through the world, and this time she's like
Speaker 1: driving with intention. She's not being ushered along by this
Speaker 1: moving whatever at the airport, like I don't know, she's
Speaker 1: It's wow. It feels very like and my life was
Speaker 1: the prize at the end of the movie, and you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm in control. It's cool.
Speaker 3: This is from a Variety piece from a few years
Speaker 3: ago entitled Jackie Brown at twenty, meaning the movie is
Speaker 3: twenty years old, Jackie Brown at twenty. Pam Greer has
Speaker 3: a better idea for an ending, and so Pam Greer's
Speaker 3: pitch for an alternate ending for this movie is this quote.
Speaker 3: In my ending, we have a nice kiss, a second kiss,
Speaker 3: and embrace, and he lets all the phone calls go
Speaker 3: to voicemail. He'll take care of them later. He turns
Speaker 3: out the lights, takes the keys, with me kids in
Speaker 3: the car, I drive off, and all of a sudden
Speaker 3: he becomes this chatterbox and annoying. I go around the block,
Speaker 3: drop him off, and peel out of there.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's great.
Speaker 4: I like that because I think what made their you
Speaker 4: can't call.
Speaker 5: It relationship, but their connection interesting was the whole kind
Speaker 5: of danger of this kind of smuggling deal type of thing.
Speaker 5: And so if that's the sexy thing and that's kind
Speaker 5: of resolved itself, then yeah, maybe like the reality, I
Speaker 5: think basically it's a bittersweet, but it's probably more correct
Speaker 5: that they don't end up together because daily life just
Speaker 5: isn't going to be.
Speaker 1: For Jackie right, Yeah, I think he's too much of
Speaker 1: a square for her, and it seems like he kind
Speaker 1: of I kind of appreciated that he seemed to have
Speaker 1: the self knowledge to understand that, and that's part of
Speaker 1: why he's like, I can't I can't go on a vacation.
Speaker 1: I'm too boring.
Speaker 4: Oh, Jamie is going in.
Speaker 1: Well, I really know, I really liked Max, Like I
Speaker 1: thought that like he was a I don't know, I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of Yeah, there's a lot about this,
Speaker 1: especially for a Tarantino movie that surprised me, where I
Speaker 1: feel like you don't get a lot of like gentle men,
Speaker 1: not not gentlemen, but like gentle men in Tarantino movies.
Speaker 1: But Max Cherry is, you know, a pretty gentle man,
Speaker 1: and I appreciated him. And I also was like, would
Speaker 1: I want to go on a European vacation with him?
Speaker 1: Probably not. I feel like Jackie's on to I truly
Speaker 1: am like, what is the like? Yeah? And I also,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think I'm just a sucker for
Speaker 1: like relationship subplots that are like we like had this
Speaker 1: really weird, interesting moment in our lives that we shared together,
Speaker 1: and then we moved on. I always kind of appreciate
Speaker 1: that kind of story, and it seems like they'll both,
Speaker 1: you know, remember each other fondly. And also I kind
Speaker 1: of liked that they're like, well, I didn't like this,
Speaker 1: but it was like Max was so like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think inspired by meeting Jackie that he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: getting out of the bail bond game and then he
Speaker 1: does not, which just felt very true to life, true
Speaker 1: like I'm always like I'm I'm done with whoever whatever,
Speaker 1: and then you know, two seconds later you're like, well, no,
Speaker 1: I actually have to pay rent this month, so I
Speaker 1: guess I'm not done.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: Can we talk about the other women in the movie?
Speaker 3: Who oh boy? Are all girlfriends of Ordell?
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, Tarantino used up all his respect
Speaker 1: for women on Jackie's character, and he had none despair
Speaker 1: for anybody else.
Speaker 3: This is true.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: The character with the most screened time of those girlfriends
Speaker 3: of Ordell is Melanie, played by Bridget Fon. So we
Speaker 3: learn very early on that Ordell mistreats Melanie. He expects
Speaker 3: her to wait on him hand and foot. There's a
Speaker 3: scene where they're watching feminist masterpiece Chicks who love guns.
Speaker 1: I thought that was like funny satire for yeah.
Speaker 3: Also noteworthy in that scene is Ordell is like talking
Speaker 3: to Lewis about all of his gun knowledge, and he's
Speaker 3: saying that his customers want particular guns because certain movies
Speaker 3: made them look cool, even if the guns themselves are
Speaker 3: not very good quality. But he's like, well, they want
Speaker 3: the cool guns from the cool movies. And so he's
Speaker 3: just commenting on how influential media is. Anyway, So Melanie
Speaker 3: is mistreated if she tries to, you know, challenge Ordell,
Speaker 3: he threatens her with violence. She spends most of the
Speaker 3: movie shit talking or Dell to Lewis, saying like he
Speaker 3: doesn't actually know anything. He's like he thinks he's Johnny
Speaker 3: Gunn or something, but he doesn't know shit. She also
Speaker 3: later shit talks Lewis to his face, saying like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: wonder you got arrested and like went to jail. You're
Speaker 3: really bad at this, uh, and then he retaliates by
Speaker 3: shooting her, which we'll get to in a second.
Speaker 1: But when you when you explain it like that, it's
Speaker 1: sort it's interesting. I don't know, maybe there's nothing to this,
Speaker 1: but like it seems like Melanie is this sort of
Speaker 1: like behavioral inverse of Jackie in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: where like Jackie knows that she is mostly surrounded by
Speaker 1: incompetent men, but generally has enough patience to play it
Speaker 1: to her advantage. Yeah, where Melanie does not have that patience. True,
Speaker 1: And I like, I don't know, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: like I I'm I'm so curious of like what you're
Speaker 1: supposed to think about her death. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to take because I feel like there's a way that
Speaker 1: it's just like aid an act of cruelty and like
Speaker 1: some sort of comment on like masculinity about the DeNiro character.
Speaker 1: But I also think there's a viewing of it that
Speaker 1: it's like, well, she brought it upon herself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's but I don't know that's the thing. Like
Speaker 3: she so she gets she later gets roped into this
Speaker 3: like hand off sting thing and she becomes an integral
Speaker 3: part of the plan. But then she almost immediately is
Speaker 3: shot and killed in a way that, like we said,
Speaker 3: we do not see coming at all. And it got
Speaker 3: me thinking about the other characters who are killed in
Speaker 3: the movie and why they are killed. Because the people
Speaker 3: who are killed are Beaumont, Lewis, Ordell, and Melanie, not
Speaker 3: in that order exactly, but Beaumont and Lewis are killed
Speaker 3: by Ordell because they do something foolish. They're a liability
Speaker 3: to Ordell. Basically, they're screwing up his operation, and so
Speaker 3: he kills them to protect himself and eliminate these liabilities.
Speaker 3: Ordell is killed because he's the bad guy who has
Speaker 3: to be taken down. He is also him getting killed
Speaker 3: to me felt like the movie punishing him for his
Speaker 3: bad behavior. He's cruel to women, he's he's going to
Speaker 3: kill the character that we're rooting for, Jackie Brown, so
Speaker 3: he has to die, and that's the narrative punishing him.
Speaker 3: But then Melanie is killed, like because she challenged Lewis's
Speaker 3: fragile ego, and it's just like I don't know how
Speaker 3: to interpret it exactly like you were saying, Jamie.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: And then Ordell is like, when Lewis is like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I did shoot Melanie and she's basically dead, Ordell is
Speaker 3: like you couldn't talk to her, you couldn't just hit her.
Speaker 3: And then Lewis is like, well, I don't know, I
Speaker 3: just shot her, and so Ordell is like, well, if
Speaker 3: you had to do it, you had to do it.
Speaker 1: And which which says to me just like based on
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like it's hard to put on nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven goggles for like watching this, but it feels
Speaker 1: like in that scene with Sam Jackson and de Niro
Speaker 1: that like it's kind of played as a joke right
Speaker 1: after it happens, because that's like such a Tarantino scene
Speaker 1: of like Sam Jackson in a car talking about a
Speaker 1: recent murder, and it's like some of the most iconic
Speaker 1: scenes that he's written. I don't know. This is not
Speaker 1: one of them, obviously, but I don't know. I felt
Speaker 1: like her, I don't understand why in a movie where
Speaker 1: I feel like I did understand most of why things
Speaker 1: were happening, that felt casual and random in Seid, And
Speaker 1: maybe that's what it was supposed to be. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't really know. And I also, towards the end
Speaker 1: of Melanie's character arc, was not sure what she was
Speaker 1: trying to do either, because it's like she had we
Speaker 1: know that her motive is that Ordele treats her poorly
Speaker 1: and she wants to fuck him over in some way,
Speaker 1: and that's why she's leveraging this new I don't know,
Speaker 1: like awkward, weed smoking hang situation with Lewis to her advantage.
Speaker 1: I don't understand really why, Like, but on the day
Speaker 1: of their plan, like she is running behind, Like there's
Speaker 1: I just like didn't understand what we were supposed to
Speaker 1: take away from her behavior like that was very unsettled,
Speaker 1: and I think just was made to some extent to
Speaker 1: make her seem like incompetent and kind of just like
Speaker 1: a bimbo in the bad way, not in the coup way.
Speaker 3: Well, there are a lot of male directors who do
Speaker 3: this where they're like, yeah, there are certain types of
Speaker 3: women who do deserve respect, but if you're this type
Speaker 3: of woman, you do not deserve respect. And I think
Speaker 3: Tarantino views someone like the Melanie character as the type
Speaker 3: of woman who does not deserve respect, and therefore she's
Speaker 3: gonna make choices that ultimately get her killed, and the
Speaker 3: movie is gonna basically sort of blame her for getting killed,
Speaker 3: and it's like, well, she was asking for it basically
Speaker 3: because of the way she is. That's at least my
Speaker 3: interpretation of it. I think you could read it differently,
Speaker 3: but that's how I sort of feel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm on bored with that. It's just bizarre
Speaker 1: because it's like this, she feels more in line with
Speaker 1: like a more stereotypical Quentin Tarantina character wedged inside of
Speaker 1: this movie that pushes against a lot of what you
Speaker 1: would consider to be stereotypical Quentin Tarantino characters. And I
Speaker 1: also just like Bridget Fonda, and I wish that she
Speaker 1: got a better ending. I like that at least at
Speaker 1: least before she dies. You do get like this moment
Speaker 1: between her and Jackie, even though it doesn't pass the
Speaker 1: fact with us and they don't even ever really meet,
Speaker 1: like face to face really because anytime that Jackie is entering,
Speaker 1: I think the one time that they might have a conversation,
Speaker 1: Melanie is leaving as Jackie arrives. But Jackie does try
Speaker 1: to like give her extra like she gives her like
Speaker 1: the cherry on top, because what did Ordella ever do
Speaker 1: for either of us? Yeah, I liked that little moment
Speaker 1: of solidarity even though she's got like forty five minutes
Speaker 1: left to live for reasons unclear to me, Yeah, I liked.
Speaker 1: I mean the other two we hear about two other characters.
Speaker 1: They're both girlfriends of Wordel.
Speaker 3: I think Simone and Shiranda.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, I don't know. The way that Ordel talks
Speaker 1: about women is just horrible. Does not have a good
Speaker 1: thing to say about anybody. I think he's talking about
Speaker 1: Shiranda when he says that he basically prayed on her
Speaker 1: dream of moving to Hollywood. Yeah, and is keeping her
Speaker 1: captive to some extent as his girlfriend talks about her
Speaker 1: like she is not smart at all. But I believe
Speaker 1: she is also the one that takes the money and
Speaker 1: fucks him over.
Speaker 3: Right, No, that's Simone. Oh, good for Simone. So Simone
Speaker 3: is right. So Simone is the middle aged woman who
Speaker 3: who we meet when she's like doing a little dance
Speaker 3: for Lewis in this like blue sequin dress. She's the
Speaker 3: kind of secret person who's there for the trial run
Speaker 3: of that like first money and Off, and then she
Speaker 3: skips town with ten thousand dollars and they never hear
Speaker 3: from her again, good for her. Shironda is the younger woman.
Speaker 3: She's only nineteen. Meanwhile, Sam Jackson, like his character's in
Speaker 3: his forties, late forties, presumably, like you said, he talks
Speaker 3: about her very disrespectfully calls her like a country bumpkin
Speaker 3: kind of thing, and then later she does that handoff
Speaker 3: and she interacts very briefly with Jackie, and that's kind
Speaker 3: of all we see of the food at the food court.
Speaker 3: She eats some of her meal, and then later she's
Speaker 3: in the room when Ordell and Max are talking, and
Speaker 3: it's implied that she's like so stoned out of her mind.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing on Heroin that she's like basically incapacitated and
Speaker 3: she doesn't even like speak or does like barely conscious
Speaker 3: in that scene. So those other two women of like
Speaker 3: Simone and Shiranda, they are important to the story for
Speaker 3: like the different sting operations that go down, but they
Speaker 3: get very little screen time, They get very little characterization.
Speaker 3: The characters nor the movie seem to respect them very much,
Speaker 3: and then they're you know, in a couple scenes and
Speaker 3: then gone, so there isn't really even much to talk
Speaker 3: about with them.
Speaker 1: I really do like picture Quinn Garantino in his house
Speaker 1: with like a vial full of respect for women characters,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I don't know, I'm fresh out.
Speaker 3: I used it all up on that one.
Speaker 1: It's gonna have to phone it in. Yeah, which sucks
Speaker 1: because again, I feel like we've been talking about this
Speaker 1: for as long as the show has existed. I think
Speaker 1: the first time we may have talked about it was
Speaker 1: in the original Star Wars a New Hope episode where
Speaker 1: it's like movies that have one amazing woman character and
Speaker 1: then no one for them to really talk to other
Speaker 1: than men for the whole movie. Yeah, which this movie
Speaker 1: is not completely an example of, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it's not perfect, but what
Speaker 1: movie is. I just love Jackie Brown so much that
Speaker 1: I want to forget this movie for certain things. But also,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm team Bridget Fonda. She's very talented, she's
Speaker 1: married to Danny Elfman, whoa is that fun.
Speaker 3: She's also a NEPO person because she's Henry Fonda's granddaughter,
Speaker 3: Peter Fonda's daughter. The whole Fonda family is just I mean,
Speaker 3: I like them, Jane Fonda's she's Jane Fonda's niece.
Speaker 1: This is I'm pro Fonda. I'm not made of stone.
Speaker 3: Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 7: Not?
Speaker 1: That was uh, that's battle I had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we were kind of alluding to this There
Speaker 3: are a couple interactions between women, but as far as
Speaker 3: this movie passed seeing the Bechdel test, I do think
Speaker 3: that an exchange between Jackie and Sharonda, Yes at the
Speaker 3: mall court does pass.
Speaker 1: It does, yeah, because they are and I would say
Speaker 1: that that's their meeting. Is definitely very meaningful. Even though
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a ton of plot relevance, it feels
Speaker 1: I was really happy that the movie at least took
Speaker 1: a second to introduce them to each other. They're mostly
Speaker 1: talking about food at the mall, but yeah, there's subtext.
Speaker 1: I think it counts true. But I think that that
Speaker 1: is the only time that we get because the other
Speaker 1: exchanges are very brief. Between Pamguer and Bridget Fonda, there's
Speaker 1: a moment of solidarity, but it's over a mutual being
Speaker 1: fucked over by Ordell, so that that doesn't pass.
Speaker 3: But maybe when Melanie is like, you look really good
Speaker 3: in that suit and Jackie's like thanks.
Speaker 1: Oh that's true. Okay, feminist masterpiece. I take back everything.
Speaker 3: I can take it all back, but onto the real
Speaker 3: end all be all of movie rating systems, the Nipple scale, Yes,
Speaker 3: where we rate the movie on a scale of zero
Speaker 3: to five Nipples based on examining the movie through an
Speaker 3: intersectional feminist lens. So this one, oh, this is a
Speaker 3: tricky one. You know, you have such an incredible character
Speaker 3: in Jackie Brown. Again, she's the smartest person in the room.
Speaker 3: You know, she's a realistically flawed character. She's you know,
Speaker 3: she's highly motivated. What is motivating her are interesting relatable
Speaker 3: things as far as like, again the intersection of her age, race,
Speaker 3: and class.
Speaker 5: And I like that she's not like beholden to anybody
Speaker 5: like those flaws are hers.
Speaker 4: It's not like there's a whole I.
Speaker 5: Mean, there's probably a big backstory, but it's not kind
Speaker 5: of alluded to, and so there's no like you feel
Speaker 5: for her, but it's not like a pity feel.
Speaker 3: For her for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's highly empathetic as a character, and I'm rooting
Speaker 3: for her every step of the way. And you know,
Speaker 3: the Pam Greer performance is incredible, and there's just so
Speaker 3: much to love and admire about the Jackie Brown character.
Speaker 3: But as we said, Tarantino seems to have used up
Speaker 3: all of his respect for women on that one character,
Speaker 3: and then the rest of the female characters are not
Speaker 3: offered that same level of respect or characterization, and yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know, there's just.
Speaker 1: Melanie could have just disappeared, Yeah, like she could have
Speaker 1: like like we didn't need to.
Speaker 3: Gotten away from Lewis.
Speaker 4: In some respect, I think the treatment of the.
Speaker 5: Smaller roles of the women it says a lot about
Speaker 5: the guys as well, and I feel like it's also
Speaker 5: about the world that's been created.
Speaker 4: They're not very I don't know what the word I mean, upmarket.
Speaker 5: Is probably a bad choice of word, but it's like
Speaker 5: I still hold them accountable to an extent. Does that
Speaker 5: make sense what I'm saying, Like in terms of the
Speaker 5: male characters, their sloppiness towards the women, it's about them
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 3: I do think the movie is commenting on their like
Speaker 3: fragile male egos and.
Speaker 5: They're in a funk, right, These guys are in a funk.
Speaker 5: As you kind of said earlier about Robert de Niro's character, like.
Speaker 4: He's basically a loser.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think it's like it's not like the
Speaker 5: best portrayal of women, or it's not a good portrayal
Speaker 5: of women. However, I think they're also accountable in terms
Speaker 5: of they're not great portrayals of men.
Speaker 3: Either, right, I mean Tarantino does not have respect. I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't know how he feels about like
Speaker 3: ordell Or, but I mean he seems to think Max
Speaker 3: Cherry is a pretty nice guy. Yeah, and I can't
Speaker 3: argue with him. I was like, I was like, I
Speaker 3: like Max, but also like we didn't oh, we didn't
Speaker 3: even talk about like Jackie Brown colluding with the cops
Speaker 3: and like her cooperation with the police and you know,
Speaker 3: but also maybe you just have to chalk it up
Speaker 3: to again, she's gonna do whatever it takes, because she
Speaker 3: also plays the cops like she's not like there to
Speaker 3: be like, no, you guys are awesome and I'm definitely
Speaker 3: helping you with one hundred percent integrity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't say that this movie is procused pro coright, No,
Speaker 1: it seems like she she makes it very like I
Speaker 1: think that, like especially in that scene where it's hurt,
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm going to do whatever is necessary to
Speaker 1: survive in a way where I can be happy. Like
Speaker 1: justifies how she games everything in every single role, right
Speaker 1: and where like woaho, hell Yeah. But then like I
Speaker 1: think more it's pro cop to make Michael Keaton a
Speaker 1: cop because I think he's really hot. Well, I know,
Speaker 1: someone is so sexy. That's sort of my thing. Casting
Speaker 1: someone as young Michael Keaton does it for me, right.
Speaker 3: Casting someone as likable as Michael Keaton as a cop
Speaker 3: character is a little too pro cop for my for
Speaker 3: my taste, but even so, yeah, it's It's just it's
Speaker 3: Jackie Brown again being the smartest person in the room,
Speaker 3: being able to keep track of everything that she's said
Speaker 3: to everyone, anticipating things that will probably like she knows
Speaker 3: all about Murphy's Law, like whatever can go wrong will,
Speaker 3: She's like anticipating things. I also like the contrast between Beaumont,
Speaker 3: who willingly gets in the trunk of a car for
Speaker 3: like basically no reason. He's like the reason that Ordell
Speaker 3: is like, yeah, because I need you to spring out
Speaker 3: and surprise these people. I'm selling the guns too. It's
Speaker 3: just like the flimsiest thing ever. Bowman's just like, well, okay.
Speaker 1: It's horrible, and how the horrible thing is When that
Speaker 1: scene happened, I believed him. I was like, wow, I
Speaker 1: really would not make it five minutes into this movie.
Speaker 1: I would have been like, yeah, I guess I owe
Speaker 1: you as sure.
Speaker 3: You get into the trunk of a car, no problem.
Speaker 3: But when as soon as you know, Max tells Jackie
Speaker 3: about like, oh yeah, Beaumont got killed a few days ago.
Speaker 3: Jackie's like, oh, well, that was obviously Ordell, and obviously
Speaker 3: he's going to try to kill me too, So I
Speaker 3: need to prepare. Like she's just so good at being
Speaker 3: hyper aware of the situation and all the nuances and
Speaker 3: like anticipating anything that might happen, and she's incredible. So
Speaker 3: with all of this in mind, I think I'll give
Speaker 3: the movie.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of.
Speaker 3: Tempted to give it like three nipples because there are
Speaker 3: some maybe even three and a half.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Wow, I was even gonna go for it.
Speaker 1: Is that too scary?
Speaker 3: That's not scary?
Speaker 1: Is that too scary?
Speaker 3: All right, I'll go three and at half because at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, it is still Quentin Tarantino
Speaker 3: writing the N word into his script one hundred times. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So three and a half nipples, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: distribute them between Pam Greer, the actors who played Shiranda
Speaker 3: and Simone, and Sam Jackson, who I just love and
Speaker 3: he's the greatest, so much so that I'm on a
Speaker 3: first name basis with him.
Speaker 1: Hey Sam, Wow, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: Four.
Speaker 1: For some reason, four doesn't sit right with my with
Speaker 1: my spirit, So I'll go, I'll go three point seven. Five.
Speaker 1: Let's get let's get into some real decimones. Get number freaky.
Speaker 1: Jackie Brown is such an awesome character. I feel like it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's just so many elements of like, I mean, we
Speaker 1: have talked about it, but centering a black woman in
Speaker 1: her forties in a like huge movie was really rare then,
Speaker 1: is really rare now. And also that like she's sexy,
Speaker 1: but she's not like I don't know, the camera doesn't
Speaker 1: like make a meal of her in a creepy way
Speaker 1: at any point. She's really smart, she's really motivated, but
Speaker 1: not in a way that it's like becomes like weird
Speaker 1: Mary Sue kind of behavior. Like the steaks are very real,
Speaker 1: and like she's I don't know, she's just like the
Speaker 1: coolest fucking character, and I wish that she had again,
Speaker 1: just like women in her life to talk to. I
Speaker 1: always think it's fascinating when you find these characters who
Speaker 1: are like these amazing women that you're like, how does
Speaker 1: Jackie Brown not have five? Hundred friends like, she is
Speaker 1: so cool and so loved by everyone she encounters that
Speaker 1: you would think if the movie allowed her to encounter
Speaker 1: more women, they too would love her. And I just
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, we don't really get into
Speaker 1: Jackie Brown's or anyone in this movie's you know, backstory
Speaker 1: in a meaningful way, which didn't bother me, But I
Speaker 1: just I don't know. It would have been cool to
Speaker 1: see what a true, like deep friendship would have seemed
Speaker 1: like for her. But whatever it's she is incredible. I
Speaker 1: think Melanie and Simone and Ronda were all done different
Speaker 1: types and degrees of disservice, but Jackie She's untouchable. And
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna give it three point seven five. I'm
Speaker 1: giving them all to Pam Greer because it's her movie. Baby.
Speaker 3: I feel like you could have written out as much
Speaker 3: as I like Robert de Niro as an actor, I
Speaker 3: feel like you could have written him out of the
Speaker 3: movie and then given Jackie Brown a friend instead of
Speaker 3: giving Ordell a friend. That's my controversial This.
Speaker 1: Doesn't This doesn't resolve the problem, but it would been
Speaker 1: kind of fun if Rubbertcenio is Jackie Brown's best friend.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Sardio, how about you? What say you?
Speaker 5: This is so hard because it's my choice, but I think, yeah,
Speaker 5: I was going to go for four, but maybe three
Speaker 5: point nine, but that's just weird, so probably let me
Speaker 5: go for four.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh yeah, because it.
Speaker 7: Definitely did make me see things in a really refreshing way,
Speaker 7: even though like we've definitely commented and I've taken on
Speaker 7: board the notes about the side characters, which isn't great from.
Speaker 5: Like obviously when we're kind of in the industry, so
Speaker 5: we know that all characters should be rounded, but like
Speaker 5: that's not what he's gone for really, so, but she
Speaker 5: is totally eclipsed everything, and I think given that I
Speaker 5: really don't see women black women so real and so
Speaker 5: kind of winners and inspiring survivors all of those things,
Speaker 5: it's like yeah, before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, Sadia, thank you so much for joining us for
Speaker 3: this discussion. Tell us where people can follow you online,
Speaker 3: tell us about your book, or plug anything you want
Speaker 3: to plug.
Speaker 4: Thank you, ladies.
Speaker 5: It's been so much fun and like, yeah, you made
Speaker 5: me love this movie again and so much more. I
Speaker 5: don't know why I don't watch this like more often,
Speaker 5: so My book is called Texom. You can't see it
Speaker 5: because I've learned my zoom.
Speaker 4: Oh. Anyway, my book is my memoir.
Speaker 5: It's about kind of dating as a Muslim woman, which
Speaker 5: you never get to hear about in a nuanced way.
Speaker 5: I guess, well you ever get to hear about is
Speaker 5: Muslim women being repressed. So I'm really excited it's coming
Speaker 5: out in America. I'm confused because I was told that
Speaker 5: it's coming out on the twenty ninth of August, but
Speaker 5: my friend in America said they can already order it now,
Speaker 5: so if you do want to support you can. You
Speaker 5: can get your good, older independent bookstore to order it,
Speaker 5: or you can get it from Amazon or anywhere basically. So,
Speaker 5: I really enjoyed writing that and hopefully I can write
Speaker 5: another one. You can find me on Instagram mostly at
Speaker 5: Sadia underscore asthmats with an at the end. And I
Speaker 5: also have a website which is Sadia asthmat dot com
Speaker 5: and it has a free guide if you want to
Speaker 5: sign up to my mailing list. It's ten things You've
Speaker 5: always wanted to ask about my head scarf but we're
Speaker 5: too afraid to ask.
Speaker 4: So you can download it for free.
Speaker 5: And it's a little list that I made and that's
Speaker 5: my plugs.
Speaker 3: Amazing. Thank you again.
Speaker 4: And I'm coming to America. Sorry, oh my god, of
Speaker 4: another movie.
Speaker 5: I'm coming to New York September and October twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: So I'm really excited. So hell yeah, my first ever
Speaker 4: time in America and I can't wait. I'm so excited.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm away from the melt More food courts because
Speaker 5: I hear there's a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 5: trouble that goes down there, so I wrote.
Speaker 1: So dangerous it goes down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, We'll enjoy your travels, and thanks again for coming
Speaker 3: on the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: You can follow us on social media at Bechdel Cast
Speaker 3: and subscribe to our Matreon at patreon dot com slash
Speaker 3: Bechdel Cast, where you will get two bonus episodes every
Speaker 3: single month, always centering a super fun, awesome genius theme.
Speaker 3: And you'll also get access to our back catalog of many,
Speaker 3: many episodes, all for five dollars a month.
Speaker 4: I imagine.
Speaker 1: And you can also get our our merchover at teapublic
Speaker 1: dot com slash the Bechdel Cast for all of your
Speaker 1: merchandizing needs. And on that note, let's get into the
Speaker 1: car of our recently dead guy we knew and Dry.
Speaker 1: I have to the airport and go eat prey love
Speaker 1: in Madrid.
Speaker 3: Bye bye bye