Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn Beast,
Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Yep, just driving along with my auntie with twenty five
Speaker 2: gallons of milk in the car.
Speaker 3: Okay, And as with every every person does this in
Speaker 3: every single movie, and it stresses me out every single time.
Speaker 3: Why don't you turn your body around one hundred and
Speaker 3: eighty degrees while still fully accelerating, giving every audience member.
Speaker 4: A panic attack, and then and then screak, crash, collide
Speaker 4: with the hottest living man on the planet. Yeah, yes, God,
Speaker 4: what a meet cute.
Speaker 3: I was like, well done, well done everybody. I liked it.
Speaker 3: It was great. It was great. I would that would
Speaker 3: be such a great way to meet somebody.
Speaker 2: I would not call this a car accident. I had
Speaker 2: a car are blooper. I would say I very lightly
Speaker 2: tapped someone's rear. I was going like one mile an
Speaker 2: hour top someone's rear bumper and to kiss. Really, it
Speaker 2: was just a little smooch. Yeah, bumper to bumper, smooch.
Speaker 2: And there was a man in like the other driver
Speaker 2: was a man, but I did not start dating him.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, someone kisses the back of my car. I'm
Speaker 3: just like, you know what, life's hard, and it's like,
Speaker 3: keep driving, keep driving whatever. It's fine. No, And I
Speaker 3: could have been falling in love.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 2: Well he ruined it because he was like, let's exchange
Speaker 2: insurance information. There's a scratch on my car.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, right, no, that was already the
Speaker 2: grow up.
Speaker 3: Anyway, we're talking about this productive conversation.
Speaker 2: Yes, welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Derante, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where
Speaker 3: we talk about your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 3: And today we are in fact talking about a movie
Speaker 3: we've gotten a ton of requests for over the years,
Speaker 3: both when the show started and then a mysterious bump
Speaker 3: again about two years ago. And who can say why,
Speaker 3: but we were talking today about Mississippi Massala, which came
Speaker 3: out in nineteen ninety one, directed by Mira and I
Speaker 3: Are and written by Sunni Tara Poravalla, who I was
Speaker 3: not as familiar with but has written almost every like
Speaker 3: their duo that works together very frequently, for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 3: should we just get into it. Let's get our guests
Speaker 3: in here. I'm so excited. Oh wait, we should say
Speaker 3: what the Bechdel test is. We've been doing this for
Speaker 3: ten years. This is so embarrassing. Yeah, real quick.
Speaker 2: Bechdel test is a media metric created by a Quier
Speaker 2: cartoonist and best friend of the show, Alison Bechdel. It
Speaker 2: has many versions. The one that we use is do
Speaker 2: two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they
Speaker 2: speak to each other? And is there conversation about something
Speaker 2: other than a man? And we'll talk about that later,
Speaker 2: but in the meantime, our guest today is a professor
Speaker 2: and feminist historian. It's Derbamitra Welcome.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm so glad to be here. It's so fun
Speaker 6: to be here. Also, just like any feminist podcast, I'm
Speaker 6: here for it.
Speaker 5: So I'm ready.
Speaker 2: Yay, We're delighted to have you, truly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We found your work via an essay you wrote
Speaker 3: for Public Books a couple of years ago about this
Speaker 3: film that we'll link in the description as well. But
Speaker 3: we're curious to hear what your history with this movie is.
Speaker 6: Well, thank you so much. I think I saw this.
Speaker 6: I saw miss Sipimsala probably for the first time when
Speaker 6: I was eight or nine years old. I think I
Speaker 6: saw it right when it came up out in nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety one. And I was born in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 6: in the American South in Shreeveport, Louisiana, which is actually
Speaker 6: not that far from Mississippi. And I was born to
Speaker 6: a single mom in Shreveport, and she had me, and
Speaker 6: she had my older brother who was just a tiny
Speaker 6: toddler at the time, and the experience of being in
Speaker 6: Shreveport and being a person who was poor and a
Speaker 6: South Asian immigrant in Shreveport was very, very formative for me.
Speaker 5: It was very formative for my.
Speaker 6: Mother, who experienced a lot of struggle and really worked
Speaker 6: hard to create a life for us. And she watched
Speaker 6: Missus Simi Massala when it came out in the early nineties,
Speaker 6: and for her it was such a profoundly moving film
Speaker 6: that probably was the first time she felt some sense
Speaker 6: of representation on the screen. And when I first watched it,
Speaker 6: I didn't understand it. And then I watched it again,
Speaker 6: probably when I was in college, and then I watched
Speaker 6: it again in twenty twenty one when it was about
Speaker 6: to be part of the Criterion collection. Yeah, so it
Speaker 6: was like it became this film that represented the complexity
Speaker 6: of what it meant to be immigrant and diasporic in
Speaker 6: America and to think about the problem of race and
Speaker 6: racial difference not as a white Black problem, but as
Speaker 6: a problem across racial difference. Yeah, when my family moved
Speaker 6: to the American South, it was actually black communities who
Speaker 6: made our existence possible, who helped my mom, support my
Speaker 6: mom to gain access to public welfare, to gain access
Speaker 6: to food, to join the church, which is what my
Speaker 6: mom does, and I did it in that period.
Speaker 5: So for me, the.
Speaker 6: Film represents something that's extremely rare on film, which is
Speaker 6: the intimacy of relationships in the United States that make
Speaker 6: survival possible, but also the kind of contestations and sometimes
Speaker 6: social violence that is also part of those relationships. And
Speaker 6: so it really just expressed something that I feel is
Speaker 6: not often represented in film.
Speaker 5: Definitely, not not to mention.
Speaker 6: The fact that the idea that there was this incredibly
Speaker 6: gorgeous black woman, I mean a black man obviously, and
Speaker 6: beautiful Basy woman Indian woman on screen like for a
Speaker 6: South Asian American, I think for the whole generation of us.
Speaker 6: If you saw pictures of my mom and she looked
Speaker 6: so much like Srita, like long hair, gorgeous. Anyway, the
Speaker 6: moral of the story is the idea of that kind
Speaker 6: of representation on film was just unheard of at the time.
Speaker 6: So he was like an extraordinary experience for so many
Speaker 6: of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Jamie. What's your history with the movie? Had
Speaker 2: you seen it before?
Speaker 3: I had seen it once before, and unfortunately, I shamefully
Speaker 3: do need to credit a man as a part of
Speaker 3: what brought me to Missus Simmia Massala. That man's name
Speaker 3: is at least Zora Mom Donnie Okay, fair, So I
Speaker 3: do feel I know we saw it, that there was
Speaker 3: all of a sudden an uptick of mir and Nair's
Speaker 3: movies in theaters and repertory screenings when my Donnie became
Speaker 3: such a big figure in New York and then across
Speaker 3: the world. And so I saw a screening of Mississippi
Speaker 3: Missala year or two ago, I think, at Vidiots in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, and it was really fun. I had been
Speaker 3: hearing about it for years but hadn't yet seen it,
Speaker 3: and I mean, speaking to your point, derb It, It's
Speaker 3: just like it's such a singular movie and I've never
Speaker 3: seen anything like it. I've never seen such a specific
Speaker 3: cultural conversation happening in a movie before or since. And
Speaker 3: it also features two hot people making out. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just this movie is operating on so many levels
Speaker 3: and does so many I like, looking through how many
Speaker 3: notes I have for this movie, you would think that
Speaker 3: it would be like a tough watch, but it everything
Speaker 3: goes like it's effortless. How much this movie tackles in
Speaker 3: centered around this love story. And Yeah, I really enjoyed
Speaker 3: it and I'm excited to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Caitlin, what's your history. I hadn't seen this movie before.
Speaker 2: I had seen mir and IRE's Monsoon Wedding. That was
Speaker 2: my main exposure to her work. I saw that probably
Speaker 2: fifteen or so years ago, but I hadn't seen this one,
Speaker 2: and I was excited to watch it, and I thought
Speaker 2: it was really well done. I you know, it's a
Speaker 2: love story that I'm actually rooting for. It's commenting on
Speaker 2: a lot of different things in thoughtful ways. It is
Speaker 2: some of the hottest people you've ever seen, not that
Speaker 2: that's the most important thing of the movie. But worth noting.
Speaker 3: It's worth noting, and we'll be noting it time and
Speaker 3: time again.
Speaker 2: And yeah, when I was watching it for the first
Speaker 2: time the other day and the movie opens on Roshan
Speaker 2: Seth and I was like, wait a minute, I recognize him.
Speaker 2: And I realized what I recognize him from is Indiana
Speaker 2: Jones and The Temple of Doom, and his character is
Speaker 2: far more rich in this movie, So I'm glad he
Speaker 2: went on to have better roles.
Speaker 3: I recognized him from something even more not not that
Speaker 3: Indiana Jones. Recognizing him from Indiana Jones is humiliating, but
Speaker 3: I recognized him from Cheetah Girls three, The Cheatagirls, One World. Okay,
Speaker 3: tragically so iconic. Okay, we've listed our I.
Speaker 6: Mean I would say that, you know he I think
Speaker 6: anyone who's seen Missipi Masala will see this that he's
Speaker 6: one of the most sensitive and nuanced actors from Indian
Speaker 6: and British Indian film like just extraordinary. I would recommend
Speaker 6: for everybody here to see My Beautiful Launderette, which is
Speaker 6: a kind of queen iconic queer British a film about
Speaker 6: queer love and anyway, all of that is to say that,
Speaker 6: you know, he's an icon for many reasons. One because
Speaker 6: he plays you know, defies stereotypical types that would be
Speaker 6: given to an Indian actor of his kind and his generation.
Speaker 6: And also because he's iconic in all of these amazing
Speaker 6: films from Indiana Jones too, of course Girls three Yeah.
Speaker 5: Girls three, Monsoon Weddings.
Speaker 3: His performance in Mississimosla is so just He's really threatened
Speaker 3: a needle in a way that like very few people can.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I also love that you see a representation on screen
Speaker 2: of a man crying, which he does in multiple scenes,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, yes, let it out, king.
Speaker 6: I mean, and also like the friendship breakup between he
Speaker 6: and his old friend and you, I mean, that has
Speaker 6: kind of been one of the most heart breaks. There
Speaker 6: are so many extraordinary relationships in this film, but that
Speaker 6: to me was like, that's the one that is incredibly hard.
Speaker 5: And you're like, oh, totally between he and Oklo, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, why don't we take a quick break and
Speaker 2: then we'll come back for the recap. Okay, here is
Speaker 2: the recap of Mississippi Missala. We open in Kampala Uganda
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy two, during a period in history when
Speaker 2: people from the Asian diaspora were forced to leave Uganda.
Speaker 2: And we can talk a little bit later about the
Speaker 2: historical context there, but one such person is an Indian man,
Speaker 2: a lawyer named Jay Loha played by Roshan Seth. He,
Speaker 2: his wife Knu played by Sharmila Tagore, and their young
Speaker 2: daughter Mina pack up to leave, and Jay is especially
Speaker 2: despondent about leaving because he was born and raised in Uganda.
Speaker 2: I believe he's third generation Ugandan and a family friend
Speaker 2: who we were just mentioning, okay Loo bids them a
Speaker 2: tearful farewell, although Jay kind of refuses to say goodbye
Speaker 2: to Okello for reasons that will become clear over the
Speaker 2: course of the movie through flashbacks.
Speaker 3: But shout out to the actor who plays Kangabadhu because
Speaker 3: he gives one of I think the saddest looks I've
Speaker 3: ever seen in my entire life. It's a really really
Speaker 3: beautiful scene, such great performances all around.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The family boards a bus to begin their journey to
Speaker 2: leave Uganda. The bus is stopped by police. Keinu is
Speaker 2: removed from the bus at gunpoint and her luggage is searched.
Speaker 2: It's a very tense scene, but eventually the bus arrives
Speaker 2: at the airport and Mina's family boards a plane and
Speaker 2: they eventually end up in Greenwood, Mississippi by way of London.
Speaker 2: For several years in the middle, but we cut to
Speaker 2: eighteen years later, it's now nineteen ninety. We're in Greenwood, Mississippi.
Speaker 2: Mina is now an adult played by Serrita Childriy. She
Speaker 2: lives at a motel where she also works as a cleaner.
Speaker 2: Though right now, Mina is at a grocery store with
Speaker 2: an auntie, buying dozens of gallons of milk for a wedding.
Speaker 2: On the car ride home, Mina accidentally rear ends a
Speaker 2: van driven by Demetrius played by Denzel Washington. They exchange
Speaker 2: names and addresses for insurance purposes, and the car that
Speaker 2: Mina was driving belongs to a relative, Anneal, and He's
Speaker 2: worried that Demetrius might sue him over this accident, but
Speaker 2: Demetrius says, like, no worries, I'm not going to sue you.
Speaker 2: After a scene where other of Mino's relatives try to
Speaker 2: like smooth things over and be like we're not white,
Speaker 2: so we got to stick together and help each other out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we'll talk more about all of that.
Speaker 3: There's also there's like this ongoing theme of Americans and litigation,
Speaker 3: and specifically white Americans in litigation. But this like anxiety
Speaker 3: around like this is a specifically American thing, just suing
Speaker 3: the shit out of each other, which it's true.
Speaker 2: Americans are very litigious people.
Speaker 3: Amongst other things. Yeah, amongst many other things.
Speaker 6: There's also the backdrop of the fact that Jay himself
Speaker 6: is a lawyer. Yeah, right, So he's a defense attorney
Speaker 6: back in Uganda, and we can talk about that as well,
Speaker 6: because he's like kind of in this profession that is
Speaker 6: actually about defense Ugandan's through systems of justice. So there's
Speaker 6: kind of multiple forms like suing as a kind of
Speaker 6: weirdly American thing, suing in like totally minor matters versus
Speaker 6: what Jay finds to be moral of his life, which
Speaker 6: is to try to regain some sense of justice as
Speaker 6: it relates to his lost property in Uganda.
Speaker 2: But we learn more about Demetrius. He has his own
Speaker 2: carpet cleaning business. We also meet some members of his family,
Speaker 2: including his brother Dex and their father Willie Benn, who
Speaker 2: works at a restaurant. Then we cut to the wedding
Speaker 2: that Mina's family is attending. I believe it's Aneil's wedding,
Speaker 2: and we see women in the community gossiping about Mina,
Speaker 2: saying that because she's darker skinned and her family doesn't
Speaker 2: have money, she's not good enough for someone like Harry Patel.
Speaker 3: And one of these gossips is Mira and Yer, so yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're like, she's she's not good enough for
Speaker 2: Harry Patel. Though, this Harry fellow asks Mina to go
Speaker 2: out with him after the wedding, so he takes her
Speaker 2: to a bar and guess who happens to be there.
Speaker 2: It's Demetrious and he's kind of preoccupied when he runs
Speaker 2: into an old flame of his, a musician named Alicia,
Speaker 2: who is there with another man, a record producer, because
Speaker 2: she's trying to get her music career off the ground.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're they're both being a little bit diabolical during
Speaker 3: this first meeting, which I was which I was like, again,
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's just such a well written movie and
Speaker 3: it feels so real where I was like, wow, that
Speaker 3: never comes back, But of course it comes back that
Speaker 3: it's sort of like they're trying to use each other
Speaker 3: to make someone else jealous or feel a type of way,
Speaker 3: and then they end up falling in love and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because what happens is Demetrius asks Mina if
Speaker 2: she wants to dance to try to make Alicia jealous,
Speaker 2: and they get very close and cozy, and poor Harry
Speaker 2: Patel is like, what about me? And he ups and leaves.
Speaker 2: Demetrius then takes Mina home and a short time later
Speaker 2: she calls him and he invites her to his dad's
Speaker 2: birthday party that weekend. Meanwhile, we learn that Mina's dad, Jay,
Speaker 2: has been working on this lawsuit for the past five
Speaker 2: years where he's suing the Ugandan government for illegally displacing
Speaker 2: his family. Mina asks her mom what happened between her
Speaker 2: father and his friend Okaylo, but Keno changes the subject.
Speaker 2: Then we cut to Demetrius driving Mina to the birthday
Speaker 2: party and they're getting to know each other. Mina tells
Speaker 2: him about her backstory. She's been in Mississippi for three
Speaker 2: years before that, London for several years before that, Uganda,
Speaker 2: and she's never been to India despite being of Indian descent.
Speaker 2: Then they arrive at his family's house for the party.
Speaker 2: Mina meets his dad, his grandfather, his brother Dex, his
Speaker 2: aunt Rose, and his friend Tyrone played by Charles S. Dutton,
Speaker 2: who is she's already met him, but he continues to
Speaker 2: be rather creepily lusting after Mina. The family asks her
Speaker 2: a bunch of questions about where she's from, about having
Speaker 2: lived in Africa, about how Indian people ended up there,
Speaker 2: and then as soon as Demetrius's ex Alicia shows up,
Speaker 2: he and Mina leave. They go to the bayou and
Speaker 2: walk around where they're vibing and they kiss on the lips.
Speaker 3: Great theme, it's so romantic.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And also he asks for consent twice, which
Speaker 2: you almost never see, but you love to see it.
Speaker 2: Then he invites her to go with him to Biloxi,
Speaker 2: which I had to look up, being unfamiliar with this region,
Speaker 2: but it's a city in Mississippi on the coast and
Speaker 2: they're enjoying a nice little vacation, I believe on her birthday.
Speaker 2: But a few of Mina's relatives, including Anil and characters
Speaker 2: named Napkin and Pontiac, also happened to be in Biloxi,
Speaker 2: and they see Mina and Demetrius together, so they go
Speaker 2: after them, saying like stay away from our women. A
Speaker 2: fight breaks out, cops get involved, and Mina and Demetrius
Speaker 2: are arrested. Jay bails Mina out of jail. Her parents
Speaker 2: feel like she has brought shame to the family, but
Speaker 2: Mina tell them that she's in love with Demetrius. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Demetrius is also getting scrutiny from his family. A bank
Speaker 2: loan for his business is in jeopardy, and Mina's family
Speaker 2: tarnishes Demetrius's professional reputation around town. He goes to talk
Speaker 2: to Mina about all of this at the motel where
Speaker 2: she works, but Jay comes out instead, so Demetrius confronts
Speaker 2: him for disrespecting him and his business and confronts him
Speaker 2: for his lack of solidarity with other people of color. Also,
Speaker 2: Jay has received word from the Ugandan government about his
Speaker 2: lawsuit and they're granting him a hearing, and so he
Speaker 2: has to travel back to Kampala for that. We get
Speaker 2: a flashback of Jay's final night living in Uganda before
Speaker 2: he's forcibly removed. Okaelo is telling him that it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter that Jay was born in Uganda and identifies as
Speaker 2: you gandin more so than he does Indian, because Africa
Speaker 2: is for black Africans and Jay doesn't belong there.
Speaker 3: Which we saw a less in context clip of at
Speaker 3: the very beginning of the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I think this is also the flashback where
Speaker 2: we see Jay getting arrested and then Okaylo bailing him
Speaker 2: out of jail. Then Mina and her dad have a
Speaker 2: conversation about why they left Uganda, and it seems as
Speaker 2: though Jay is jaded by the fact that he was
Speaker 2: expelled from the country simply because of his race and ethnicity,
Speaker 2: and he thinks that maybe Indian people should just stick
Speaker 2: together and not mix with other people. Then, to retaliate
Speaker 2: for having his professional reputation ruined, Demetrius decides to sue
Speaker 2: Anil for fifty thousand dollars after all, claiming to have
Speaker 2: a back injury from when Mina rear ended him driving
Speaker 2: Anil's car. Jay decides to take his family back to Uganda,
Speaker 2: partly to get Mina away from Demetrius, partly to leave
Speaker 2: Mississippi where they don't feel wanted, and partly for his
Speaker 2: hearing and Kampala to try to reclaim his property, so
Speaker 2: Mina goes looking for Demetrius to say goodbye. She finds him,
Speaker 2: but he's upset, accusing her family of having a problem
Speaker 2: with black people, and she's like, well, you never asked
Speaker 2: me anything about myself because you were too busy using
Speaker 2: me to make your girl, your old girlfriend, Alicia jealous,
Speaker 2: and he's like, well, maybe that's how it was at first,
Speaker 2: but then I fell in love with you and they reconcile.
Speaker 2: Mina decides she doesn't want to accompany her parents to Uganda.
Speaker 2: She wants to go with Demetrius, who also wants to
Speaker 2: leave Mississippi, and they're gonna go somewhere together potentially start
Speaker 2: working together, so she tells her parents. Meanwhile, Jay returns
Speaker 2: to Uganda, I think without Kenu.
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely, because she is I think taking care of
Speaker 3: the business back at home.
Speaker 2: Right, and he learns that his friend Oklo died many
Speaker 2: years ago shortly after Jay left, seems at the hand
Speaker 2: of the Ugandan government, possibly for his dissent, and so
Speaker 2: Jay laments that he refused to say goodbye to Oklo.
Speaker 2: He realizes that home is where the heart is, and
Speaker 2: his heart is his family back in the US, but
Speaker 2: he will always feel a strong connection to his home
Speaker 2: country of Uganda the end. So let's take a quick
Speaker 2: break and we'll come back to discuss.
Speaker 3: And we're back. Where do I want to start? There's
Speaker 3: so much to talk about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Derba, does anything jump out to you as far
Speaker 2: as where to begin?
Speaker 5: Oh? I mean where to begin?
Speaker 6: As you pointed out Jamie right at the beginning, this
Speaker 6: film is actually so rich.
Speaker 5: There's so much to be said about it.
Speaker 6: When I wrote about it, you know, I partly wrote
Speaker 6: about it because I was talking about my own family
Speaker 6: history as I was talking about when we started. But
Speaker 6: I kind of feel like we should begin at the beginning.
Speaker 6: In that kind of early moment you described it as
Speaker 6: a meat cute. Is a hilarious meat cute because it's
Speaker 6: like ninety style cars breaking and you know, like it's
Speaker 6: two cars that are just giant metal boxes hitting each other.
Speaker 5: But you know it.
Speaker 6: To me, there's so many parts of this film that
Speaker 6: are extraordinary. We might start at the beginning only because
Speaker 6: I think the Uganda story in this is unusual, and
Speaker 6: I think often most people have not been exposed to,
Speaker 6: which is that the story of Mena's family and the
Speaker 6: story of Jay his wife Kinu is a story of
Speaker 6: like multiple forced migrations that happened over many, many generations. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and that feeling of displacement is like, I think so
Speaker 6: much a part of that of the film.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: To provide some additional historical context, obviously, it's a complex
Speaker 2: history and I'm not an expert in this area, but
Speaker 2: from what I understand, England was doing what England does,
Speaker 2: which is colonizing a country in the global South. So
Speaker 2: England was colonizing Uganda from the late eighteen hundreds to
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties, and during that time, the British brought
Speaker 2: over thirty thousand Indian people to Uganda to work, including
Speaker 2: to build the Uganda Railway, and the British invested in
Speaker 2: the education of the South Asian minority, but did not
Speaker 2: do the same for the indigenous Ugandans. That's right, which
Speaker 2: meant that the South Asian minority tended to have higher
Speaker 2: paying jobs and be better off financially, which led to
Speaker 2: resentment in the black Ugandan population.
Speaker 5: That's exactly right.
Speaker 6: I mean I at the time, in the late nineteenth century,
Speaker 6: India was like the crown jewel of the British Empire,
Speaker 6: meaning it was the longest held area, the richest area.
Speaker 6: That's how Britain got its wealth, and it also got its.
Speaker 5: Labor that way, right, And you know, what we know is.
Speaker 6: That the nineteenth century, the eighteenth the nineteenth century are
Speaker 6: stories of the movement of labor, enslaved labor, indentur of labor,
Speaker 6: and the movement of labors into Eastern Africa in Kenya
Speaker 6: and Uganda and Tanzania. Also in South Africa. We see
Speaker 6: this in the mines and in railroads. Is really critical
Speaker 6: to British imperial aspirations. Yeah, you know, and so it's
Speaker 6: about the forced movement of people. Exactly as you described,
Speaker 6: we see like the British create these divide and rural policies.
Speaker 6: And one of the things that I found really striking
Speaker 6: in the film is actually that we get a sense
Speaker 6: of the divide and rural policies here in the United
Speaker 6: States as well, but we don't often use the language
Speaker 6: like that we would.
Speaker 5: Describe for colonialism.
Speaker 6: So exactly as you said, Indians gain access to capital,
Speaker 6: they gain access to educational opportunities when they're in Uganda,
Speaker 6: they become the kind of business people on the ground
Speaker 6: in Uganda, and then they gain access to property. And
Speaker 6: we see the same in the depictions that are happening
Speaker 6: in Mississippi because in Mississippi, like we know, for many
Speaker 6: parts of the United States, Asian minorities or Asian immigrants,
Speaker 6: including South Asian immigrants, being to get access to small
Speaker 6: business loans, access to business ownership, usually hotels, motels, and
Speaker 6: liquor stores. And we see that across the American South,
Speaker 6: whereas black people from the same community have difficulty accessing
Speaker 6: small business loans. We see that in Dimitrius's own experience
Speaker 6: trying to gain access to a loan. And so the
Speaker 6: divide and rule that is taking place in Uganda is
Speaker 6: also taking place in the American South.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And the movie presents all of this in really
Speaker 2: nuanced ways.
Speaker 3: In this like really thoughtful I don't know the way,
Speaker 3: because this is history that I am still not well
Speaker 3: versed in, but I am at least aware of now,
Speaker 3: but was certainly not taught in you know, my American
Speaker 3: public school. And it's just, you know, yet another reminder
Speaker 3: of how intentionally colonialism and the complexities of colonialism aren't taught.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's striking and the fact that that logic kind
Speaker 3: of bears out in this story too, where we see
Speaker 3: Mina sort of explaining this story to Demetrius because this
Speaker 3: is not something that's really taught in American schools and
Speaker 3: intentionally so and so I feel like we as audience
Speaker 3: members are learning sort of with him essentially totally absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 6: And so yeah, so exactly as you describe, right, and
Speaker 6: so then in nineteen seventy two with the displacement, they
Speaker 6: forced expulsion of Asians. That happens under the dictatorship of Idiomine,
Speaker 6: who comes into power through basically a military coup, takes
Speaker 6: over the military.
Speaker 5: The military becomes.
Speaker 6: Like a militia on his behalf of his dictatorship, and
Speaker 6: then he says, Africa's for the Africans, for the black Africans.
Speaker 6: And by then there are eighty to one hundred thousand
Speaker 6: Indian descent Ugandans in Uganda.
Speaker 5: It's a huge population of people. Where they're going to go?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So some of them went to the US, some
Speaker 2: of them went to England, some of them went to
Speaker 2: India even though they maybe were never there before. And
Speaker 2: then in Mina and her family's case, they went to
Speaker 2: the US to Mississippi by way of London. I think
Speaker 2: Mina says she's only been in Mississippi for three years.
Speaker 2: Bits of this context we learn throughout the movie, but
Speaker 2: that's kind of the broad picture that contextualizes Jay and
Speaker 2: his motivation behind the lawsuit and wanting to return to
Speaker 2: Uganda and reclaim his stolen property, and that also informs
Speaker 2: to some degree his sentiments around the Black American community
Speaker 2: in Mississippi, because, like you said, Derba toward the top
Speaker 2: of the episode, the movie is constantly examining different characters'
Speaker 2: relationships to their racial and ethnic identity and how that
Speaker 2: plays into racial biases, how that plays into colorism, how
Speaker 2: that plays into people adhering to white supremacy even if
Speaker 2: they are not white. So many things, and we see
Speaker 2: this from many different angles, from many different characters.
Speaker 6: I also think I find that this film is one
Speaker 6: of the most honest in the way that it examines
Speaker 6: anti black racism among South Asian diasporic people, and Jay's
Speaker 6: anti black racism when he says that his daughter is
Speaker 6: not allowed to be in a relationship with Demetrius, is
Speaker 6: very you know, in some ways, the movie is trying
Speaker 6: to tell us a story about his prejudices that comes
Speaker 6: from a personal experience of alienation and violence that happens
Speaker 6: between his friendship breakup essentially with Okaylo, But in terms
Speaker 6: of her family members, we get a deep seated sense
Speaker 6: of anti black racism in that community, which was really
Speaker 6: interesting to me when I was writing about the film,
Speaker 6: I thought that was a really important point to point out.
Speaker 6: And I mean, I should just note there's two very
Speaker 6: very well known Indian Ugandan or Ugandan descent South Asian
Speaker 6: diasporic people who are in the public eye right now.
Speaker 6: One is Auran Mamdani. Of course Mirah's son, who is
Speaker 6: the product of this film. We can talk about that
Speaker 6: in his and then the others Cash brtel H, the
Speaker 6: I guess head of the FBI, and you get a
Speaker 6: really different sense of the trajectory of what happens in
Speaker 6: diasporashighly different guys, really different guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. And speaking to the Zoramumdani of it all
Speaker 2: and his origin story and how it relates to this film.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think without Mississippi Massala, we might not have Dani,
Speaker 3: so we.
Speaker 5: Would definitely not Yeah, that's definitely true.
Speaker 6: Yeah, his father is mahmud Maamdani, an extraordinary political theorist
Speaker 6: thinker who is Indian descent Ugandan who it was himself
Speaker 6: expelled in nineteen seventy two, and in fact has recently
Speaker 6: written a book called Slow Poison about his own expulsion
Speaker 6: and the experience of returning back to Uganda, which is
Speaker 6: worth anyone reading. But as you all probably know, on
Speaker 6: the film, Mira did many, many different interviews with people
Speaker 6: of u Gotten descent, in people in the American South.
Speaker 6: She did a tour of the American South, and in
Speaker 6: that period she met Mamou Bamdani, this famous academic.
Speaker 5: And there was a love story of their own. So
Speaker 5: right at the end of the film, you can see
Speaker 5: that she dedicates the movie to him.
Speaker 3: Which is so cute. And this movie, I believe comes
Speaker 3: out the same year that Zora Mamdani comes.
Speaker 6: Comes out into our worlds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, Miraa and Ira was releasing in nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: one producing this year. That's correat and all of it impactful. Yes,
Speaker 3: But yeah, I the love story that exists, I mean,
Speaker 3: I just I love a love story. Inside of a
Speaker 3: love story, it's impossible to resist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like because she was married to another
Speaker 2: man when she was doing this research.
Speaker 3: Is a producer and production designer on the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mitch Epstein, it's Jenny and I don't know exactly
Speaker 2: what happened, but my head canon is that it seems
Speaker 2: like their marriage was already kind of falling apart at
Speaker 2: that point, but that she went to interview her soon
Speaker 2: to be husband mamood Mom Donnie, and she's just like, hmm,
Speaker 2: let me put a pin in this. And then they
Speaker 2: smooched and made a baby. And now that baby is
Speaker 2: the mayor of New York City.
Speaker 3: Life comes at you fast, that sure does.
Speaker 2: And then Mira and Sunny the screenwriter, after their trip
Speaker 2: to to Compaula to do the research there, they went
Speaker 2: to Mississippi where they met a carpet cleaner named Demetrius
Speaker 2: and decided to model that character after this real life person.
Speaker 2: So the script comes together. Ben Kingsley was originally supposed
Speaker 2: to play Jay, but he stepped down, which meant that
Speaker 2: mir and I are lost funding for the project because
Speaker 2: the funding was sort of contingent on Ben Kingsley's involvement,
Speaker 2: but she was able to get more funding when Denzel
Speaker 2: was cast.
Speaker 3: But there is a story about how executives were really
Speaker 3: trying to push for the character played by Denzel to
Speaker 3: be a white actor. They were pushed. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: a story that she's told many times and usually with
Speaker 3: a really funny button, which is that she would she said,
Speaker 3: she tells the producers there will be white actors, they
Speaker 3: will all be playing wait, which that's correct.
Speaker 6: Is iconic, incredible, I mean it's also I mean, so
Speaker 6: mir and Ira and I work together because all of
Speaker 6: the papers, all of the materials that are related to
Speaker 6: the making of Mississippi Massala, but also all of her
Speaker 6: films are held at the Slessenger Library on the History
Speaker 6: of Women in America at Harvard, and I collected those papers,
Speaker 6: and when we were working together, you know, essentially I
Speaker 6: learned so much about her filmmaking process and so she
Speaker 6: you know, she was like just extraordinary and remarkable for
Speaker 6: all kinds of reasons. I mean, she was one of
Speaker 6: the only women filmmakers doing this kind of work at
Speaker 6: the time that she was doing it. You know, we
Speaker 6: have so many people today who follow in the footsteps.
Speaker 6: But you know, feminist filmmakers like if we're not getting
Speaker 6: big budget films by any me and so getting funded
Speaker 6: for this was really hard.
Speaker 5: And if you go into her archives. You can see
Speaker 5: all of the casting calls for.
Speaker 6: Mississppi Massala and I'll just note that archive is open
Speaker 6: and free to the public, So I just want to
Speaker 6: note that for anyone who wants to go in, it
Speaker 6: has all the posters, and she has these little moleskin
Speaker 6: notebooks where she writes notes about every aspect of making
Speaker 6: the film, like what she's doing, her decision making, who
Speaker 6: she interviewed, and she's like a real ethnographer. She goes
Speaker 6: and talks to lots of different people. But there are
Speaker 6: all of these folders with the casting calls, with little
Speaker 6: headshots of all of the like famous South Asians of
Speaker 6: the period of you know, there's very few South Asian
Speaker 6: actors at the time who were famous, and Mira's little
Speaker 6: notes about who's beautiful and who's good looking, and who
Speaker 6: should be in watch shot and so in there you
Speaker 6: can see that Denzel coming onto the film was the
Speaker 6: you know, the thing that made it possible.
Speaker 3: And also, I mean it's I mean, it's not shocking
Speaker 3: to hear from white film executives, but without a black
Speaker 3: actor in that role, the story is impossible to tell.
Speaker 3: Like the entire shape of the movie changes. I enjoyed
Speaker 3: learning a bit more about her. Oh, that's first of all,
Speaker 3: incredible that you compile that collection. I can't wait to
Speaker 3: go back home and visit.
Speaker 5: I highly suggest it.
Speaker 6: It has amazing things, and I'll talk about other stuff
Speaker 6: in there, but I really suggest it for anyone who
Speaker 6: wants to learn more about me and I Are. We
Speaker 6: should be writing a thousand books about he because she's
Speaker 6: so interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One thing I didn't know about her that I watched
Speaker 3: a bunch of interviews with her to prepare for this.
Speaker 3: That I know you know, but I want our listeners
Speaker 3: to know too. We've talked pretty frequently on this show
Speaker 3: about directors who are spotlighting, specifically like non actors that
Speaker 3: are in a vulnerable like that are from a vulnerable community,
Speaker 3: and how as a director and as an artist, can
Speaker 3: you continue to support that community after the movie has ended,
Speaker 3: after like the dust of something being released is I
Speaker 3: think we've talked about it most frequently with Tangerine comes
Speaker 3: right to mind, and Mira and I Are did this
Speaker 3: incredible thing with her first film, which I haven't seen,
Speaker 3: her first fiction, her first narrative films, Salam Bombay, that
Speaker 3: features normal kids and has started a now thirty seven
Speaker 3: year or like a close to forty years foundation that
Speaker 3: didn't just support that group of children featured in the movie,
Speaker 3: but has supported children in Mumbai for Yeah, since the
Speaker 3: movie came out. It's called the Salam Bombay Foundation. And
Speaker 3: you know, she's spoken a lot about how she was
Speaker 3: inspired by her mother's work as a social worker in
Speaker 3: terms of like how to build this and how to
Speaker 3: get the right people involved. That just is a place
Speaker 3: for I think I believe that there's also kids that
Speaker 3: live there. There are some kids that just get access
Speaker 3: to resources and education there, but really kind of following
Speaker 3: through in this like political art mission and creating something
Speaker 3: that's been it seems like really impactful and sustaining far
Speaker 3: beyond the life of you know, the movie's release itself
Speaker 3: is just so inspiring and so cool.
Speaker 6: I think also what you would see, So she started
Speaker 6: first doing little documentary films, although she's always been a storyteller.
Speaker 6: Could if you ever have a conversation with Me and
Speaker 6: I Are, you know that she's one of the greatest storyteller,
Speaker 6: so charismatic, so amazing. But one of the films that
Speaker 6: I love teaching from Mer and I Are is in
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty five documentary that she produced so that she
Speaker 6: made called India Cabaret.
Speaker 5: Which is about the.
Speaker 6: Women who work in the dancing industry essentially sex work
Speaker 6: and adjacent to sex work in Bombay. This is before
Speaker 6: she made Salam Bombay, where essentially women who are performing
Speaker 6: in bars you wouldn't call them struck clubs, but equivalent,
Speaker 6: you know, sensual kind of performances. And I think from
Speaker 6: that film you get an understanding of Mira's real commitment
Speaker 6: and interest to thinking about the sexual possibility and liberation
Speaker 6: and dreaming of women, and how those worlds are foreclosed
Speaker 6: or policed or violently censored by the communities within which
Speaker 6: they live, but how women try to create worlds through
Speaker 6: their own systems of ideas of desire. And I think
Speaker 6: we get that a lot in Mississippi Massala too.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: Mina is such a defiant character. I immediately find myself
Speaker 6: attracted to her.
Speaker 5: As a young woman.
Speaker 6: I so find myself empathetic to who she wanted to
Speaker 6: be and how she wanted to desire and how her
Speaker 6: desires exceeded, you know, supposed norms for her own community
Speaker 6: and the men who follow her into a hotel room
Speaker 6: and then call the police on her and Demetrius.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, because it seems as though there's pressure from
Speaker 2: her parents to some degree, and then just the larger
Speaker 2: Indian Diceborg community around her in Mississippi that there's pressure
Speaker 2: on her to specifically get with an Indian man. So
Speaker 2: for her to get romantically involved with a black man
Speaker 2: is defying that expectation. And there's a lot of anti
Speaker 2: black racism surrounding that, where like that scene toward the
Speaker 2: beginning after the Fender Bender where Mina's uncles go to
Speaker 2: Demetrius to be like, hey, you know, like doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if you're black, Brown, Mexican, Puerto Rican. You know, you know,
Speaker 2: we're not white. So we have to stand together united,
Speaker 2: we stand. Divided, we fall, and you get the sense
Speaker 2: that maybe he does believe that, but maybe he's also
Speaker 2: just saying that to avoid a lawsuit. And then when
Speaker 2: they go after the lovers in the hotel room and
Speaker 2: one of them is saying like, stay away from our women,
Speaker 2: the mask comes off and it's like, oh, maybe you
Speaker 2: don't actually believe in solidarity.
Speaker 5: And you know, so that's exactly right.
Speaker 6: The false nature of the solidarity that they expressed early
Speaker 6: on and I think the film makes us ask like
Speaker 6: where will solidarity come from? Like what kind of solidarities
Speaker 6: can we forge? And in this case, you know, is
Speaker 6: it the solidarity? Like Demetrius is a business owner, but
Speaker 6: is doing working class labor inside of a hotel or
Speaker 6: motel system that is owned by the Indian diaspora. So
Speaker 6: these are people who are in the lower middle classes
Speaker 6: and or lower class doing labor that no white Southerner
Speaker 6: wants to do. And so they are in the excluded classes.
Speaker 6: And yet the way we create hierarchies within those communities,
Speaker 6: the nuances of those stories and those that sense of
Speaker 6: violent intimacy is so profound in this film, and I think, like,
Speaker 6: to me, you know, it's very rare that you find
Speaker 6: that kind of there's something about this moment in the
Speaker 6: nineteen nineties, in the early nineties, Like this movie came
Speaker 6: out at the same time as Boys in the Hood
Speaker 6: the same year, and that is not surprising to me,
Speaker 6: because there's something deeply local about the storytelling that's happening
Speaker 6: in this early nineties period that I love, you know,
Speaker 6: that is trying to tell about structures of hierarchy within
Speaker 6: communities and the stories that previously did this one never
Speaker 6: represented on screen.
Speaker 3: It's so specific in a way that like I feel
Speaker 3: like we get less of over time. I mean, I
Speaker 3: feel like whatever, the independent movies sort of come and
Speaker 3: go in popularity and like how well distributed they are
Speaker 3: I guess, but it is really cool seeing this. Like
Speaker 3: I think almost every movie we've covered from the early
Speaker 3: nineties has this sort of level of very like intense specificity,
Speaker 3: and something that we so rarely get to see in
Speaker 3: movies set in the US is like a conflict between
Speaker 3: obviously white Americans are involved in, but they're not centered
Speaker 3: or pandered to or you know, just the things that honestly,
Speaker 3: like I almost expect in a movie that discusses race
Speaker 3: is that there's going to be like a sympathetic white
Speaker 3: character somewhere, and that just is not what's happening here.
Speaker 3: It's I hate that that feels kind of like stark,
Speaker 3: but yeah, but it does.
Speaker 6: Right, Who are the characters that you all found to be? Like,
Speaker 6: who's a sympathetic character to you? I mean Mina of
Speaker 6: course potentially, but who do you find Like do you
Speaker 6: find yourself sympathetic to.
Speaker 3: J I do, Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's necessary. Like he's perhaps not perfect
Speaker 2: in the way that no one is, but I very
Speaker 2: much empathize with his struggle. Again, he was forcibly displaced
Speaker 2: from his home country that he loves deeply and was
Speaker 2: deeply loyal to. He had to take his family elsewhere,
Speaker 2: and they are affected by that to some degree, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem they don't seem as affected as Jay,
Speaker 2: and he is again, like you know, the lawsuit and
Speaker 2: the loss of his friend and all these things that
Speaker 2: seemed to bring a deep sadness to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like one of the many I feel like,
Speaker 3: it feels like it's like an impossible writing challenge to
Speaker 3: write a character like Jay who like does display anti
Speaker 3: black racism, like just does full stop. Is called out
Speaker 3: to his face by Demetrius to the point where Jay
Speaker 3: can't quite do it but like almost does have to
Speaker 3: agree with him. But it I feel like it's it's
Speaker 3: contextualized but not excused, which also has a lot to
Speaker 3: do with rashon Set's performance. But it's hard. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: feel like the context we get for why he's behaving
Speaker 3: this way is not such that we would ever you know,
Speaker 3: feel as he does towards this relationship, but you do
Speaker 3: understand where it's coming from. I don't know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I feel like the character who I wanted
Speaker 6: to know more about but who is just extraordinary.
Speaker 5: Also is her mom Kinu.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also felt I was like, I want to
Speaker 2: know more about Mina herself and like her pursuits an interest.
Speaker 2: She says like, yeah, I'll go to college eventually. What
Speaker 2: does she maybe want to study? What? What are her interests?
Speaker 2: I do appreciate that in the romance between her and Demetrius,
Speaker 2: they do have a lot in common. Mostly it seems
Speaker 2: based on how they navigate the world. They have different
Speaker 2: cultural backgrounds, but they have similar class backgrounds, similar professions.
Speaker 3: The thing that really stuck with me about what bonded
Speaker 3: them or like that's manifest itself different ways, but that
Speaker 3: they're both making very intentional sacrifices. We know that they
Speaker 3: have both made They've both sacrificed the opportunity for higher
Speaker 3: education in the interest of being there for kind of
Speaker 3: their father specifically, which is like such a specific bond
Speaker 3: that is like really really strong. That Again, it's like
Speaker 3: the story makes you kind of wait to find out
Speaker 3: you know this about Mina pretty quickly but you find
Speaker 3: out when Mina goes to the cookout that Demetrius was
Speaker 3: going to go to university and then ended up staying
Speaker 3: behind because this mother passed and he wanted to be
Speaker 3: present for his dad, which is like, I mean, that's
Speaker 3: a that's a strong trauma bond to have with someone.
Speaker 3: I thought it was like really thoughtful. I wish I
Speaker 3: do wish that we knew Demetrius's family a little bit
Speaker 3: better as well, where we only have like a handful
Speaker 3: of scenes with Willie Ben, and we do get I mean,
Speaker 3: towards the end, we get a scene with Demetrius and
Speaker 3: Jay which is very impactful and like so much of
Speaker 3: what the movie is about exists in that scene, and
Speaker 3: then make it a scene with Mina and Willi Ben
Speaker 3: that their relationship hasn't really been built to have that
Speaker 3: same impact. It's more of just like a plot scene,
Speaker 3: you mean.
Speaker 2: The one where she's like, where's your son?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's sort of like the whole scene where she's
Speaker 3: like where is your son? He's like, all right, he's
Speaker 3: over there, and that's kind of the scene because they
Speaker 3: it's like that relationship wasn't like kind of built quite
Speaker 3: in that same way.
Speaker 2: I do like the birthday party scene though, where where
Speaker 2: Demitrius's family is kind of interrogating Mina because they're fascinated.
Speaker 2: They're like, wait a minute, you're Indian, but you're from Africa.
Speaker 2: How could that be? And you know, she gives them
Speaker 2: the context about how her family was brought their traffic
Speaker 2: to there to build the railway, and she's like, but
Speaker 2: I've never been to India and they're like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: like us, We've never been to Africa.
Speaker 6: Yes, right, I mean that's the thing, right, which is
Speaker 6: like all of these forced like forcibly displaced people, whether
Speaker 6: through systems of enslavement or through colonialism or through colonialism,
Speaker 6: and then what happens later, which is American capitalism, which
Speaker 6: brings people to.
Speaker 5: The US and from the nineteen sixties on, like that
Speaker 5: world where we are all.
Speaker 6: All these people of color put into intimate relationships with
Speaker 6: one another on behalf of some other project, and we
Speaker 6: all have to grapple with the fact that we're told
Speaker 6: that we're not from the place. And we see that
Speaker 6: right now in American rhetoric, right, which is like that
Speaker 6: rhetoric that the Indian American or the immigrant is not
Speaker 6: really from this place, right, and so you can so
Speaker 6: easily expel them, and we sell that literal expulsion in
Speaker 6: this film, which is actually from It's like, you know,
Speaker 6: from thirty five years ago, and yet it feels so
Speaker 6: relevant now. And the same thing for the fact that,
Speaker 6: you know, the Black American Southern story is told not
Speaker 6: only a story of people who are deeply located in
Speaker 6: the South, but also as people who were dislocated from
Speaker 6: a place that they never get to go to. That
Speaker 6: story as a kind of parallel is very I think sophisticated.
Speaker 5: It's told very well in this film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because there's a contrast between the black characters
Speaker 2: who are quite removed from their ancestral culture and Mina's community,
Speaker 2: several of whom seem to be born and raised in India.
Speaker 2: And there's a scene I think at the wedding where
Speaker 2: I think it's Napkin gives a speech saying that just
Speaker 2: because we're ten thousand miles away from India, we should
Speaker 2: not forget our roots, culture, tradition, and gods. And that's
Speaker 2: the other thing. Even though there are very few white
Speaker 2: characters and they get very little time on screen, the
Speaker 2: characters were following through the story very much feel the
Speaker 2: effects of white supremacy that's constantly looming around them.
Speaker 5: Totally.
Speaker 6: I think the only white character is like, as you said,
Speaker 6: the waiters, I think police officers, bankers, bankers exactly. They
Speaker 6: represent capital, they represent coarsonality, which is really interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just evil systems us where we're seeing it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the Indian characters have the privilege of having
Speaker 2: closeness to their culture and being able to or at
Speaker 2: least more closest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 6: Or I would say like almost like a reenactment. It's
Speaker 6: not even like a closeness. It's more like we will
Speaker 6: re enact this to create a system of belonging for ourselves,
Speaker 6: and that reenactment will also include the patriarchy, like in
Speaker 6: case you're wondering like that, you know, like we're also
Speaker 6: going to be your uncles who surveil you when you
Speaker 6: go to Biloxi to try to have us love affair
Speaker 6: like and these like you know, completely unfit, basy uncles
Speaker 6: like come.
Speaker 5: In and try to beat them.
Speaker 6: And it's like such a striking story. In some ways,
Speaker 6: it's a story to me. I guess maybe it resonates
Speaker 6: with me as a person of the diaspora. Of the
Speaker 6: way that diasport communities sometimes actually reinforce or actually create
Speaker 6: new systems of patriarchy, because that gleasing of our borders
Speaker 6: becomes more important in the place that we've been displaced
Speaker 6: to than even the place.
Speaker 5: Of our home.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, going off of that attack, and also how quickly
Speaker 3: her uncles are to get the police involved. We see
Speaker 3: that happen.
Speaker 2: And the cops are threatening to arrest Mina for like
Speaker 2: soliciting sex, being a sex worker. Of course they're going
Speaker 2: to arrest the black man involved.
Speaker 3: The cops are doing everything you would expect they would
Speaker 3: do in the situation. But even on a longer timeline,
Speaker 3: as infuriating as it is to watch play out, I
Speaker 3: appreciate that the movie does go out of its way
Speaker 3: to show that. I mean, it cuts from that scene
Speaker 3: where Mina is defending herself to her parents saying, like
Speaker 3: I think it was a line where it's like it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter, and then we cut to
Speaker 3: it mattering to everybody in all of these really frustrating ways,
Speaker 3: and seeing that, at least in terms of his business,
Speaker 3: in terms of his reputation, that Demetrius does have more
Speaker 3: to lose because of how black Americans are treated and
Speaker 3: how you know it this rumor mill that's surrounding this
Speaker 3: incident that had nothing to do with Mina or Demetrius
Speaker 3: is going to possibly lose Demetrius his business. And just
Speaker 3: seeing the immediate violent effects and then also the violent
Speaker 3: consequences that happen and will not consequences they didn't do anything.
Speaker 3: The violence that continues over time is infuriating and it
Speaker 3: but it does. You know, when Demetrius confronts Jay, which
Speaker 3: wasn't even planned, I mean that was sort of It's
Speaker 3: Jay's fault that confrontation happens because you won't let Demetrius
Speaker 3: and Mina just have a conversation, even though I think
Speaker 3: Mina's like twenty four in the.
Speaker 5: Movie, Yeah, she's fully grown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that confrontation between them is I mean, it's
Speaker 3: also two incredible actors, but it's so earned. And seeing
Speaker 3: Demetrius and Tyrone have to go to meeting after meeting
Speaker 3: after meeting, and you know, be gaslet as to why
Speaker 3: he's losing his business and why his reputation has been
Speaker 3: so thoroughly affected by this attack, you know, by Mina's uncles,
Speaker 3: but also obviously by the police and by all of
Speaker 3: these white supremacist systems.
Speaker 6: Right, and you can you can see like the difference, right,
Speaker 6: which is like Mina is attacked on the basis of
Speaker 6: her sexuality. She's like perceived as a prostitute. I've actually
Speaker 6: written a book on this, which is like about the
Speaker 6: control of women's sexuality and his is on the basis
Speaker 6: of capital.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: We got to take away the capital and is amazing.
Speaker 6: I mean it was so interesting to me. I'm going
Speaker 6: to go back to Mina's mom. Can you like who's
Speaker 6: played by this amazing Indian actress, Charmeula Tagore. Everybody check
Speaker 6: out Shamila Tigore, who is like, she's iconic, She's iconic
Speaker 6: by the nineteen nineties. And so mir and Iyer knew
Speaker 6: what she was doing by casting her in this role.
Speaker 5: And the mom knows that her.
Speaker 6: Daughter is grown, and she knows that what her daughter
Speaker 6: is doing is not wrong. And she's mediating the relationship
Speaker 6: between the father who's dug his heels in and the
Speaker 6: community that's judging and you know, excluding her daughter and
Speaker 6: you know, treating her like a sexual deviant, this daughter
Speaker 6: who she recognizes in herself, Like that that relationship I
Speaker 6: found to be really nuanced and profound, you know, like
Speaker 6: there's so many relationships and the only really we haven't
Speaker 6: yet really talked about is Mina's and Demetrius is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it, I love it. I think in
Speaker 2: general they're very sweet and respectful to each other. Of course,
Speaker 2: the basis of the relationship with Demetrius using Mina to
Speaker 2: make his ex girlfriend jealous, he admits to it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he says, yes, that is how it started. But
Speaker 2: also then I fell in love with you.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and I also, I mean, it's not quite
Speaker 3: the same level of like I guess strategy that Mina's
Speaker 3: doing with Harry, But also she's not being very nice
Speaker 3: to Harry Petel, who my understanding is didn't do anything
Speaker 3: to deserve that. You know, I'm sure he got over
Speaker 3: it over the weekend, but I still like, damn rough
Speaker 3: night for Harry Patel.
Speaker 6: I mean, I didn't feel so bad for me Harry,
Speaker 6: only because I was like, Harry probably thinks she's easy,
Speaker 6: like I'm sorry, not a crude wade. But Mina is
Speaker 6: seen as not the nice girl within that di sport community,
Speaker 6: and so Harry, by taking her out, knows what he's
Speaker 6: doing and then of course she exceeds that too, because
Speaker 6: she's my like, she is my life goal.
Speaker 5: I want to be that defiant.
Speaker 3: I mean, Mina is so I just like for a
Speaker 3: moment one so like specific and so herself and so like.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's like that early scene right before they
Speaker 3: go to the wedding where she, you know, it seems
Speaker 3: like her her mother is kind of talking around mentioning colorism,
Speaker 3: and Mina just says it and it's.
Speaker 2: Like, sorry, it's just go dark skinned daughter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but which again was just like I don't know,
Speaker 3: like how many versions of that do we see, of
Speaker 3: like someone talking around an issue and then there's someone
Speaker 3: in the room who is just like, let's just say
Speaker 3: what it is and go to this fucking wedding we
Speaker 3: don't want to go to.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, cut to the Auntie's being colorist, saying
Speaker 2: that she's not good enough for the likes of Harry.
Speaker 2: So it almost feels like she's defying that colorism by
Speaker 2: being like, oh, you think you think I'm not good
Speaker 2: enough for him, Well I'm gonna use him and send
Speaker 2: him packing then.
Speaker 6: Exactly, and I will just be exuberantly beautiful this whole.
Speaker 2: Along the way yeah, yea. But yeah, overall with that
Speaker 2: relationship between Mina and Demetrius, I mean also the sex scene.
Speaker 5: The way you have to talk about the sex scene.
Speaker 2: Gotta even the scene where they're in separate rooms on
Speaker 2: the phone with each other and they're both like just
Speaker 2: splayed out on their beds.
Speaker 3: Had to me it was almost hotter than the sex scene.
Speaker 5: Oh that's definitely the best sex scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Somehow something about Denzel washing did being like what are
Speaker 3: you wearing and charge requiring a T shirt is the
Speaker 3: hottest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then like as that's happening, like her I want
Speaker 2: to I don't know if it's like a silk or
Speaker 2: satin sheet or something, is like.
Speaker 5: Slowly queen her sad feeling.
Speaker 2: The fact that she does not have underwear on, and
Speaker 2: you're just like, oh my god.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And then and yeah, when they do finally have sex,
Speaker 2: it is like, I just it's so like tender and sensual,
Speaker 2: and I was like, hubba, hubba.
Speaker 6: I feel like that also kind of speaks to there's
Speaker 6: so many beautiful elements in the filmmaking in the like
Speaker 6: in the way we see both you know, both in
Speaker 6: Uganda and in Mississippi.
Speaker 5: The colors on the screen.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the colors are crazy, right, And I will just
Speaker 6: say like, as a person of color, the lighting in
Speaker 6: this film is incredible because we can see the contrast
Speaker 6: and the beautiful differences between skin color, which requires a
Speaker 6: very skilled cinematography maker, Yeah, and cinematographer which is one
Speaker 6: of mer and there's you know, characteristics of her films.
Speaker 6: Is just the extraordinary beauty of what we get to
Speaker 6: see on the film on screen and the.
Speaker 5: Idea that we get to see.
Speaker 6: You know, they so the number of scenes that their
Speaker 6: skin is touching to show contrast but also to you know,
Speaker 6: intimacy and contrast that is just like again something you
Speaker 6: you don't get a sense of until you know. Nowadays
Speaker 6: we hear black filmmakers talk about this often, right, which
Speaker 6: is like so often in old films you don't see
Speaker 6: good lighting. But this film the lighting and from what
Speaker 6: I understand, they use different film for Uganda and for
Speaker 6: Mississippi to capture the sense of the lighting. You know,
Speaker 6: there's a kind of warm hue in Mississippi and we
Speaker 6: get that a different warm hue when he's you know,
Speaker 6: when Jay goes back to Uganda and he's holding the
Speaker 6: baby right at the end, obviously, but yeah, and then
Speaker 6: there's like, it's all sweaty. Sorry, I'm gonna go back
Speaker 6: to the sex. It's all sweating, Like the sweat is good,
Speaker 6: shout out.
Speaker 3: To the sweat.
Speaker 2: Yes, more sweat please, But no, you're totally right, Like,
Speaker 2: because we are so used to in American movies, Western
Speaker 2: movies in general, anytime a country in the global South
Speaker 2: is depicted, it's almost always portrayed as this barren wasteland, dusty, dirty.
Speaker 2: But like the version that we get of Uganda is
Speaker 2: so lush and green as flowers everywhere, and it's just gorgeous.
Speaker 2: So I deeply appreciated that. Also, back to the sex scene,
Speaker 2: just for the flopping back and forth. Worth noting that
Speaker 2: Denzil Washington, and this is pretty well known, but he
Speaker 2: generally refuses to kiss white women in movies, Like he'll
Speaker 2: avoid roles where he would be in a romantic relationship
Speaker 2: with a white woman because he feels it does a
Speaker 2: disservice to his fan base, many of whom are black
Speaker 2: women who are so rarely shown on screen as being
Speaker 2: romantically viable. Obviously, Mina isn't black, but brown South Asian
Speaker 2: women are also typically not shown as romantic interests in
Speaker 2: Hollywood movies.
Speaker 6: He does refuse to have romantic interests who are white women.
Speaker 6: But one of the things that he describes is that
Speaker 6: it's really about America, right. It's yes, his fan base
Speaker 6: is often the black black community, but it's also about
Speaker 6: the fact that the idea of a black man and
Speaker 6: a white woman is so deeply ingrained in the deep
Speaker 6: racial violence of America for sure, that white communities and
Speaker 6: white viewers have an association with that relationship, with those
Speaker 6: relationships that is just you know, tied to histories of
Speaker 6: slavery and lynching.
Speaker 5: And for him, you know, being.
Speaker 6: Able to be his full set as an actor and
Speaker 6: to serve the art requires not having, you know, to
Speaker 6: deal with the weight of those that invocation. And that
Speaker 6: was what was striking is the fact that he did
Speaker 6: this film, you know so and in that sex scene
Speaker 6: there is some real, you know, things that I would
Speaker 6: have Again. I saw this film when I was really young,
Speaker 6: and I think that there's like a nipple bite up
Speaker 6: in there, Like.
Speaker 5: I think, yeah, you know, like there is, and you know,
Speaker 5: like the idea of seeing a brown nipple. I'm sorry
Speaker 5: for being.
Speaker 2: Is explicit, but oh my no, we're all this is
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just I just think that
Speaker 6: it's really important, totally, Like I had just never seen
Speaker 6: body like that.
Speaker 5: You know, it's just amazing.
Speaker 2: No, it's incredible.
Speaker 3: It's so hot and it's so like and you know,
Speaker 3: like in that like imperceptible way that you can just
Speaker 3: like feel when you watch something. It's I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's just like it's a really well directed and love scene.
Speaker 3: It's so good. There was an interview with Denzel Washington
Speaker 3: in the last couple of years, I think twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: We're kind of just building on this. He was asked
Speaker 3: why he didn't do more romantic comedies or romantic films
Speaker 3: and singled out Mississippi Massala as kind of one of
Speaker 3: the few he had done. And he I just thought
Speaker 3: it was interesting to note that he corrected. He was like,
Speaker 3: because I wasn't offered any because rom coms during the
Speaker 3: time he would have been doing them in his you know,
Speaker 3: twenties through forties or whenever. You typically do them as
Speaker 3: a man, certainly not as a woman. Yeah, turn thirty
Speaker 3: and you die, but but when he would have been
Speaker 3: doing them, they weren't being offered to black actors at
Speaker 3: least not the at the these budget levels that he
Speaker 3: was working in in other in other genres.
Speaker 2: Totally, anyone have other thoughts about the film?
Speaker 6: I just wanted to say, why do you think they
Speaker 6: have to leave at the end? Who or what does
Speaker 6: that do for you in terms of the storyline.
Speaker 3: I guess I was like fixated on their like the
Speaker 3: commonality they had of having postponed starting their own lives
Speaker 3: in the interest of their family, and it seemed at
Speaker 3: least to me that like this was the two of
Speaker 3: them who were already in love choosing to start their
Speaker 3: lives and not delay starting their lives for other people
Speaker 3: in their life, even if that comes with like I mean,
Speaker 3: I think, especially well with both of their fathers, that
Speaker 3: the goodbye is really difficult and doesn't happen in person
Speaker 3: for either because it would be too painful. Even though
Speaker 3: it's like you get those great like post credit kissing
Speaker 3: scenes and you're like, yeah, they were it worked out,
Speaker 3: it does feel kind of bittersweet too, because it's like
Speaker 3: you know that this isn't their preference, but like at
Speaker 3: some point. I don't know. I read it as like,
Speaker 3: if I let my family stay in the driver's seat,
Speaker 3: my life is never going to start.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I felt that too, that they wanted to sort of
Speaker 2: release themselves from the constraints that they felt about pressures,
Speaker 2: societal pressures, familial pressures, things like that. And also they're
Speaker 2: both young. Mina's twenty four. I don't know how old
Speaker 2: Demetrius is supposed to be, but I'm guessing around the
Speaker 2: same age, and.
Speaker 3: That Denzel is fully Denzel's fully a decade plus older.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, got it. I wonder if he's meant to
Speaker 2: be playing a character that's about her age.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But either way, there if she's like mid twenties,
Speaker 2: because they they hang out like three times before they're
Speaker 2: like I love you, and I'm like, okay, that's that's fast.
Speaker 3: But that's those twenty something behavior. Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 6: I guess I thought that there was like this feeling like,
Speaker 6: particularly for Mina's family, and for Mina like she was
Speaker 6: forcibly expelled from U Gonde as a kid. She's forced
Speaker 6: to move, and Demetrius is, you know, forced to stay
Speaker 6: home because his mom has passed. And then it's like
Speaker 6: there's this one moment where they have like a moment
Speaker 6: of consent or choice, which I liked the idea of.
Speaker 5: You know that like here.
Speaker 6: Peoples who have been displaced or held down or subordinated
Speaker 6: and oppressed, and here was this idea that there was
Speaker 6: some other vision of freedom where you choose to have it,
Speaker 6: which I loved the idea of.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And then there's the dancing at the end, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I love that.
Speaker 5: I just cry. Yeah, so good.
Speaker 2: And then and then Jay's like holding the baby baby, Oh.
Speaker 5: My god, baby, and the baby takes his face. Oh
Speaker 5: my god. I can't, I can't. I just it's just crying,
Speaker 5: weeping in the in the theater. Yeah, it was so beautiful,
Speaker 5: so good. Yeah. How many kinds of love can you
Speaker 5: depict on at the end of a film? That's kind amazing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so incredible, like it for almost every character, even
Speaker 3: like things come full circle. I think, yeah, I think
Speaker 3: maybe like the last thing, I think, just like going
Speaker 3: back to something you said earlier, Derba, that I wish
Speaker 3: that we had a little more with Keenu. Yeah, insight
Speaker 3: into because I feel I feel like a lot of
Speaker 3: it it is in the writing, but I feel like
Speaker 3: it's more in Shre mill Tigre's performance that you have
Speaker 3: these like like I don't know, yeah, that you get
Speaker 3: the feeling that she really understands what Mina is feeling
Speaker 3: and has felt that way herself, which I feel like
Speaker 3: mostly comes across in performance, And it would have been
Speaker 3: cool to see a little bit more of them together.
Speaker 3: But again, it's like that's nitpicking at some point, because
Speaker 3: it's like this movie is already successfully like drawing out
Speaker 3: so many relationships, it's.
Speaker 2: Doing so much. I agree, though I would have liked
Speaker 2: to know more about especially Canoe's backstory, because we learned
Speaker 2: so much about Jay's. And I also think it's worth
Speaker 2: mentioning that, like so many immigrants to the US who
Speaker 2: in their home country were highly educated doctors, lawyers, professors,
Speaker 2: things like that, they come to the US and their
Speaker 2: credentials are deemed not worthy and they are forced into
Speaker 2: work that has nothing to do with what they studied
Speaker 2: and things like that. And that's the case for j
Speaker 2: where in Uganda he was a lawyer and then in
Speaker 2: the US runs a liquor store. Not that there's anything
Speaker 2: with running a liquor store, of course, but seems like
Speaker 2: maybe he wanted to keep your super fronts. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, we do learn so much about his backstory,
Speaker 2: and I would have liked to know more about Canoes
Speaker 2: because was she born in Uganda? Was she born elsewhere?
Speaker 2: What were her hopes and dreams, et cetera.
Speaker 3: I think especially because she we see her as the
Speaker 3: target of violence in that opening sequence by Idio means
Speaker 3: regime that we see that and we don't really get
Speaker 3: context for her relationship to you, Ganda feels like just
Speaker 3: something that there is room for. I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the movie does pass the Bechdel test. I
Speaker 2: think I kind of forgot to pay attention, as I
Speaker 2: often do these days.
Speaker 3: It definitely does. There's a few I mean, it is
Speaker 3: very often that women are either talking about Jay or Demetrius,
Speaker 3: depending on the pairing of women. I definitely think there
Speaker 3: was room for more women in the story, going on
Speaker 3: to what we were just talking about. But it does
Speaker 3: pass between Mina and her mother. I believe it also
Speaker 3: passes once or twice between Mina and Aunt Rose, who
Speaker 3: is Demetrius's who only gets one scene, but she's so lovely.
Speaker 2: She is quite a memorable character. Also between Mina and
Speaker 2: her Auntie. They talk about milk they do, and also
Speaker 2: Mina talks to her friend Tedisee, who is only in
Speaker 2: one scene. I was hoping todise would come back, but
Speaker 2: she said the scene in the bar, and she seems
Speaker 2: to know Demetrius, So I'm like, why isn't she coming back?
Speaker 2: Because I would have liked to explore that friendship further.
Speaker 3: I've writted out of this is like when she didn't
Speaker 3: come back, I'm like, I feel like there's a deleted
Speaker 3: scene with her somewhere.
Speaker 5: Yeah, could be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But onto the Bechtel Cast nipple scale, where we
Speaker 2: rate the movie on a scale of zero to five
Speaker 2: nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. Honestly,
Speaker 2: in a rare Bechdel Cast moment, I'm giving this the
Speaker 2: full five nipples. Hell. Yeah, I think it's doing so much.
Speaker 2: I think it is handling the topics that it handles
Speaker 2: with such care and nuance and specificity in a way
Speaker 2: that few movies before or since have been able to do. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just a great, great film and by our standards,
Speaker 2: top marks across the board. So yeah, five nipples. I'll
Speaker 2: give one to mir and I are. I'll give one
Speaker 2: to her son, and I'm going to start referring to
Speaker 2: Zora Mum Donnie as Myra and i Are's son.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think he's used to it.
Speaker 5: I will say, yeah, until like a year ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he was Mani's son.
Speaker 6: I should just you know, yes, incredibly beautiful rader, scholar
Speaker 6: father who both of them, Between the two of them,
Speaker 6: you get a sense of why their son is so
Speaker 6: good at what he does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. And I'll distribute the rest of my nipples
Speaker 2: between Charmila Ta gore So Rita, Chodri, Sunni Tera Porvala
Speaker 2: And I don't know if that adds up to five,
Speaker 2: but you get the idea.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm gonna be a huge bitch and go four
Speaker 3: and a half because I know evil bad only because
Speaker 3: I did one. A little more of kenure and a
Speaker 3: little more insight into in a and I've been guilty
Speaker 3: of this as well. But the it does seem like
Speaker 3: the script is a little more interested in children's relationships
Speaker 3: to their fathers, which is a common thing. Whatever. It
Speaker 3: is a relatively small thing, but something that I just
Speaker 3: wish we had more of the mother daughter relationship. Outside
Speaker 3: of that, I mean, we've we've been saying it for
Speaker 3: an hour and a half now. It is just like
Speaker 3: an extraordinary movie. I've never seen a movie like this,
Speaker 3: And the fact that this movie is taking so much
Speaker 3: on dealing with it very gracefully and with nuance, and
Speaker 3: there's like one of the hottest sex scenes I've ever seen,
Speaker 3: Just like incredible. So I'm going four and a half
Speaker 3: and I'm just going to make it easy and give
Speaker 3: them all to Mira and I are nice.
Speaker 5: That's amazing, Deba.
Speaker 2: How about you, Oh, I.
Speaker 5: Get to keep on nipples. It's amazing. I'm going to go.
Speaker 6: You know, it's really interesting if you look in the
Speaker 6: period that when this book and when this film came out.
Speaker 6: You know, first of all, the film was depicted as
Speaker 6: like a story of love between like a South Asian
Speaker 6: or an Indian American and you know, African American. And
Speaker 6: I feel like, if you think about it now, you
Speaker 6: can see see so many other elements, like the story
Speaker 6: of Uganda is so important in this film, and the
Speaker 6: story of multiple displacements and the kind of divide and
Speaker 6: rule that's part of racial regimes. All of those things,
Speaker 6: for me, make it like I think I'm at four
Speaker 6: and a half as well, and I'm at four and
Speaker 6: a half, the only half being exactly as you described.
Speaker 6: If you look in the same period, Bell Hooks actually
Speaker 6: has like a really interesting essay on mir and IR's
Speaker 6: film and on race relations in that time from the
Speaker 6: nineteen nineties, from ninety two, and some of the feminists
Speaker 6: of that period were critical of the film because they
Speaker 6: felt that some of the feminist themes, like the complexity
Speaker 6: of women's relationships or the stereotypical sensibility of the aunties
Speaker 6: who are judging sureth the Childrea's character, that some of
Speaker 6: the stereotypes were too stereotypical. I have to say now
Speaker 6: looking back, though, that I find it to be profound,
Speaker 6: like there is like some caricature sensibility, like when you're
Speaker 6: in the wedding scene or in your but I don't
Speaker 6: find them to be wrong, like aunties are aunties, like
Speaker 6: they are judgmental.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they like that they'd.
Speaker 5: Be like that exactly.
Speaker 6: So I'm going to go four and a half with
Speaker 6: the Only only because I wish that I could have
Speaker 6: seen more of Shermula Tigre, because I love her so
Speaker 6: so much.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for joining us for this discussion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, please come back please.
Speaker 6: I would love to tell me what feminist filmmaker we
Speaker 6: can talk about next.
Speaker 3: Helly incredible, incredible.
Speaker 2: Where can people follow your work? Check out your books,
Speaker 2: social media? Anything you want to plug.
Speaker 6: I'm on Instagram at Third World Women, and I just
Speaker 6: wrote a book which was just came out in March,
Speaker 6: which is called The Future. That was a history of
Speaker 6: Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism, which looks at how communities
Speaker 6: of women from across the Third World and women of
Speaker 6: color in the United States. It tried to imagine a
Speaker 6: new world where women would be free, where they would
Speaker 6: have equality, where they would have access to equal rights
Speaker 6: and sexual rights and reproductive rights, and how they work
Speaker 6: to build that world and how perhaps unfore fortunately that
Speaker 6: world has not yet come to be.
Speaker 2: That sounds fascinating. I can't wait to read it.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to follow up with you about checking
Speaker 3: out Va and irs work at Harvard. That's so cool,
Speaker 3: That's like that just sounds like the most incredible curation
Speaker 3: project that exists.
Speaker 6: I will also shout out there is a zoron mum
Speaker 6: Bunny music video called Nanni yes uh, which I'm sure
Speaker 6: many of you have seen where he is doing a
Speaker 6: rap about Nanni's or grandmother's and the star of that
Speaker 6: video is this incredibly famous, amazing celebrity chef and cookbook
Speaker 6: author modu Or Geoffrey. And her collections are also now
Speaker 6: held at the Sassenger Library at Harvard. So if you
Speaker 6: want to see some dope South Asian women, go look
Speaker 6: at this collection.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, cool. I used to walk by that library
Speaker 2: every day when I lived in Somerville to get to
Speaker 2: Harvard Square the redline T station.
Speaker 5: No one goes to the li. I mean, like more
Speaker 5: people need to go to that library.
Speaker 6: There's like great biopics and great films and great music
Speaker 6: videos that could come out of the materials in there.
Speaker 6: Angela Davis is in there, June Jordan. They're amazing women
Speaker 6: who are whose papers are held in that collection.
Speaker 2: Shout out libraries, I know, shout.
Speaker 5: Out libraries exactly, true, free and open to the public.
Speaker 3: Yep, let's try to keep it that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah seriously. And then you can follow us on Instagram
Speaker 2: at Bechdel Cast and you can subscribe to our Patreon
Speaker 2: aka Matreon, where you get two bonus episodes. Every single
Speaker 2: month you get access to our back catalog of over
Speaker 2: two hundred bonus episodes, all for five dollars a month
Speaker 2: at patreon dot com. Slash Bechdel Cast the best way
Speaker 2: to support the show. And with that, shall we get
Speaker 2: in our cars and lightly taps someone's bumper and have
Speaker 2: a meet cute and then hots DEMI sex about it?
Speaker 3: Yeah sounds like a good time.
Speaker 5: I'm ready for my meet cute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seriously you Bye bye bye.
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
Speaker 3: produced by Me Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 2: And Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtermann and.
Speaker 3: Edited by Caitlyn Dorante. Ever heard of them?
Speaker 2: That's me and our logo and merch and all of
Speaker 2: our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftis, Ever
Speaker 2: heard of her?
Speaker 3: Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
Speaker 3: was composed by Mike Kaplan.
Speaker 2: With vocals by Katherine Vosskrasinski.
Speaker 3: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Speaker 3: Aristotle Acevedo.
Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree Slash
Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast