Speaker 1: Push it. I'm khalil Ja Bron Muhammad.
Speaker 2: I'm Ben Austen. We're two best friends, one black, one white.
Speaker 1: I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And this is
Speaker 1: some of my best friends.
Speaker 2: Are Some of my best friends are black, White, Jewish Muslim.
Speaker 2: In this show, we wrestle with.
Speaker 1: The challenges and the absurdities of a deeply.
Speaker 2: Divided and unequal country. And today we're talking about inter
Speaker 2: racial and inter religious love on the big screen.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Ben, but so many people
Speaker 1: have asked me over the past several weeks. Are we
Speaker 1: going to talk about the Netflix movie you people?
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, so many. It's a movie that came
Speaker 2: out earlier this year. It's starring Jonah Hill and Eddie
Speaker 2: Murphy among many great actors, and it's written by Jonah
Speaker 2: Hill and Kenya Barris of Blackish fame.
Speaker 1: That's right, and this is a movie that is I mean,
Speaker 1: the opening line in this movie could not be more
Speaker 1: appropriate for.
Speaker 3: You and me.
Speaker 1: Yo, yo yo, Welcome to the Mowing Easy Show. I'm
Speaker 1: mow into my left is my favorite jew with nothing
Speaker 1: to do, My boy easy.
Speaker 2: All right, man. So, Jonah Hill's character Ezra he does
Speaker 2: a podcast. Two hosts, a gem doing a podcast with
Speaker 2: one white. It's about race and culture in America. And listen,
Speaker 2: as we speak, Pushkin lawyers are out there. They are
Speaker 2: going after Netflix to make sure that we get paid.
Speaker 1: That's right, because they stole our idea. They built a
Speaker 1: whole show, a whole movie around I knew it.
Speaker 2: I knew they would steal that.
Speaker 1: But no, seriously, this movie comes at a really interesting
Speaker 1: time in the country. I mean, we're somewhere in between
Speaker 1: the Trump era, the Biden era and what comes next.
Speaker 1: And as so often is the case, you know, this
Speaker 1: is a movie with a plaud It's an interracial rom com,
Speaker 1: but it's a rom com within this bigger social moment.
Speaker 2: And so of course you said, you said it's an
Speaker 2: interracial rom com, and I just want to say, there's
Speaker 2: a white man and a black woman they fall in love.
Speaker 2: But even more than that, or in addition to that,
Speaker 2: the white dude, Ezra is Jewish, the black woman is Muslim,
Speaker 2: so it's an inter religious rom com.
Speaker 1: Also, it's like an interracial inter religious rom com.
Speaker 2: How about that man last ensue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, as I was saying, and good point. As
Speaker 1: I was saying like, here is this mashup of relationships
Speaker 1: that are meant to show the boundaries of our existing society,
Speaker 1: to show the segregation that we still all live with,
Speaker 1: even for people like you and me, Even our communities
Speaker 1: here are represented as being sort of narrow and parochio
Speaker 1: and not really able to see the fullness of the
Speaker 1: other side.
Speaker 2: And this is where movies are really powerful because they
Speaker 2: show us ourselves and sometimes we even laugh at ourselves,
Speaker 2: but they're these cultural artifacts, these touchstones. We're able to
Speaker 2: understand all those boundaries and how to cross them by
Speaker 2: seeing versions of it on the screen or on our televisions.
Speaker 1: That's right, So guess what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about how well to some degree
Speaker 1: this movie helps us see ourselves, and to what degree
Speaker 1: there are these antecedents and other movie stories that unpack
Speaker 1: a similar topic.
Speaker 2: How are we going to do this today, Khalil, So in.
Speaker 1: The first half, we're going to talk about white black romance.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about two people falling in love
Speaker 1: and basically how American history and society and most especially
Speaker 1: their parents get in the way, like all the racial
Speaker 1: baggage that gums up the true love story at the
Speaker 1: heart of you people.
Speaker 2: Let's call lets what should we call that first half?
Speaker 1: Well, let's call it Guess Who's coming to dinner?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: All right, all right? And then the second part. I mean,
Speaker 2: I have a lot of experience with that first part
Speaker 2: that you're describing. But the second part, let's explore the
Speaker 2: black say more, in the second part, let's explore the
Speaker 2: black and Jewish dynamics. All right, let's look at the
Speaker 2: black and Jewish thing. So this movie comes out just
Speaker 2: a little bit or almost at the exact same time
Speaker 2: as Kanye West is saying he's about to go deaf
Speaker 2: con three on the Jewish people, after Kyrie Irving gets
Speaker 2: suspended from the NBA for tweeting about a movie.
Speaker 1: Net's player.
Speaker 2: That's right, he's on the Dallas Mavericks now because you know,
Speaker 2: Brooklyn was way too Jewish for him, Like he tweets about,
Speaker 2: you know, endorsing a movie that makes these claims about
Speaker 2: the Holocaust now not happening, and about Jews being involved
Speaker 2: in the slave trade. And listen, also amid like twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: this this last year was the highest ever on record,
Speaker 2: you know, record being going back to nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 2: of hate crimes against Jewish people, which you know, we
Speaker 2: could say is still like a fragment of say, what's
Speaker 2: going on in terms of racism towards blacks? But this
Speaker 2: is at this heightened moment. That's right, it's so interesting
Speaker 2: to explore this. And since you got a name for
Speaker 2: your part, I'm gonna call this what's what's your name?
Speaker 2: A rabbi and an e mom walk into a bar?
Speaker 1: Oh oy oy OOI all right?
Speaker 2: So, like even the title you People is is like
Speaker 2: coded kind of racism and often like unintentional bigoted phrase
Speaker 2: like hey you people. It's a lot like some of
Speaker 2: my best friends are. It's perfect movie for us to
Speaker 2: talk about right here, here is the breakdown of what
Speaker 2: happens in You People. And there're gonna be a few
Speaker 2: spoiler alerts, but you need to know some of the
Speaker 2: plot and what happens in it for us to talk
Speaker 2: about it for this to make sense.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So, Jonah Hill's Ezra and Lauren London's Emrah they meet
Speaker 2: cute in Los Angeles?
Speaker 1: What does me cute mean?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: You know what's yes, you do, man, that's every that's
Speaker 2: every rom com you meet in a funny way, and
Speaker 2: you know, you get connected. And then they go on
Speaker 2: this date and the date, you know, there's a montage.
Speaker 2: You know, it lasts for hours, they talk into the night,
Speaker 2: and then it jumps ahead six months and they're living together.
Speaker 2: And you know, in my opinion about this movie, these
Speaker 2: two actors, Jonah Hill and Lauren London, they have zero chemistry.
Speaker 2: This is my opinion. They have nothing. They have nothing together.
Speaker 1: But can I say something about this just for a second.
Speaker 1: There is an important thing that brings them together, right,
Speaker 1: which is quote unquote the culture. The culture, and in
Speaker 1: that way, the culture being you know euphemism for black
Speaker 1: culture hip hop. Yeah, they share this in common. So
Speaker 1: they both hit kind of hip hop heads. They're both
Speaker 1: in the sneaker culture. And as we've already said, Zara
Speaker 1: is a co host with a black co host who
Speaker 1: is non gender conforming mo who is an actual comedian,
Speaker 1: and so he's he's like got his real bona fides.
Speaker 1: He's not just some some Jewish dude from lam.
Speaker 2: See. See you're already like codd on me. He's not
Speaker 2: just some Jewish dude. This is already messed up. We're
Speaker 2: already like you're black and Jewish from Chicago. So more plot.
Speaker 2: It's all going, well, they're living together. Then Ezra's like,
Speaker 2: I want to take this another step further. I'm in love.
Speaker 2: I want to marry her. But two people white and black,
Speaker 2: they don't exist in a cultural irracial bubble. They have
Speaker 2: to meet one another's parents. You know, parents are they
Speaker 2: stand in as like all of the rest of society
Speaker 2: the past, and really like who the children are? That's right,
Speaker 2: and it's you know, these are the things that are
Speaker 2: going to keep people apart.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're right, these are the things that are going
Speaker 1: to keep people apart. So much so that this whole
Speaker 1: story around what the parents are capable of. Hearkens back
Speaker 1: to a film over fifty years ago called Guess Who's
Speaker 1: Coming to Dinner. It is, in many ways the precedent
Speaker 1: for this story. This is a film with a bang
Speaker 1: up cast of character. Sidney Potier, that's right.
Speaker 2: You're like, you're like out here, like I am the
Speaker 2: Hollywood reporter, a bang up cast.
Speaker 1: Yes, your auditioning, oh man whatever, Spencer, Tracy, Sidney Poitier,
Speaker 1: Catherine Hepburn as the mother of the white daughter who
Speaker 1: who they're worried about marrying Sidney Poitier. Isabelle Sanford appears
Speaker 1: here as Tilly the maid, and then introducing a woman
Speaker 1: named Catherine Houlton, who is the main character, who is
Speaker 1: the white woman who is gonna marry Sidney Poitier. This
Speaker 1: movie comes out in late nineteen sixty seven. It's just
Speaker 1: six months after the Loving versus Virginia Supreme Court case.
Speaker 1: You remember what that case was.
Speaker 2: That is so amazing to think about. So a movie
Speaker 2: about interracial marriage comes out right after the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: says it's now legal for black and white people to
Speaker 2: get married.
Speaker 1: That's right, which had been banned across the South and
Speaker 1: most particularly. The film says in the film, in the
Speaker 1: writing of the script says, sixteen or seventeen states would
Speaker 1: object to you guys getting married.
Speaker 2: So that on that movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, it's amazing the pressing issue, like the weight
Speaker 1: of the world, is happening in the context of this film.
Speaker 1: So here's a quick story. These two fall in love,
Speaker 1: as they say, in twenty minutes. They both happen to
Speaker 1: be in Hawaii. Sidney Poitier plays this epidemiologist. He's a
Speaker 1: world renowned public health doctor. And it's not clear what
Speaker 1: the character Joey is actually doing for a living. But
Speaker 1: she's twenty three years old. She's young, she's exploring the world.
Speaker 1: These two fall in love, they meet cute, and they
Speaker 1: fall in love instantly. So the big idea here is
Speaker 1: that they want to get married immediately, and they have
Speaker 1: to convince Joey's parents, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, that
Speaker 1: they should get married, but they wanted to do it
Speaker 1: the old fashioned way to get permission. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, this is what the story turns on.
Speaker 1: Will the parents consent, will the parents go along? But
Speaker 1: there's a wrinkle here. Instead of this being like some
Speaker 1: story about some throwback Alabama parents you know who would
Speaker 1: of course object, Spencer Tracy, the father, is presented as
Speaker 1: this San Francisco liberal, you know. He when he first
Speaker 1: meets John, who is played by Sidney Poortier, he is
Speaker 1: all in. He's like, Hey, who's this guy? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: what an accomplished gentleman you are. He pays no attention
Speaker 1: to the possibility that this guy wants to marry his daughter.
Speaker 2: I'm all into this because I've seen this at some point,
Speaker 2: but I've totally forgotten it.
Speaker 1: So I'm down, yes, And the mother, Katherine Hepburn, shows
Speaker 1: all of these faces of consternation and concern, but in
Speaker 1: the end it is clear that she's okay with this.
Speaker 1: And so the story is about getting on board at.
Speaker 2: Some nineteen sixties white liberals they want to you know,
Speaker 2: this is in the civil rights moment. They want to
Speaker 2: embrace this idea of interracial marriage, that it's okay, that's right.
Speaker 1: And so at some point the dad is being called
Speaker 1: out by this priest who's like one of his best friends.
Speaker 1: Monsignor Ryan shows up and he has this really powerful line.
Speaker 1: He says, you know something, I'm surprised at you. Says,
Speaker 1: you know what, You're just some broken down, phony liberal
Speaker 1: who has to come face to face with your own principles.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: He says, there is some reactionary bigot trying to get
Speaker 1: out in you. And I'm like, oh snap, that is
Speaker 1: such a powerful resident line, right. That is the line
Speaker 1: that in many ways you people plays with. It's like
Speaker 1: this notion that liberals are all cool with everything until
Speaker 1: it's their own kid. This movie reserves, though the most
Speaker 1: strident critiques of this relationship, for the black character played
Speaker 1: by Isabel Sandford. The maid Tilly, She is the one
Speaker 1: who has given the responsibility in this film for our
Speaker 1: tiulating black people's perspectives on interracial marriage. In this clip,
Speaker 1: she's challenging Sidney Poitier because she's like, Hey, I have
Speaker 1: raised this girl my whole life, and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to let you mess up her life.
Speaker 5: You may think you're fooling Miss Joy and her folks,
Speaker 5: but you ain't fooling me for a minute. You think
Speaker 5: I don't see what you are. You're one of those
Speaker 5: smooth talking, smart ass niggas just out of all you
Speaker 5: can get with your black power and all that other
Speaker 5: trouble making nonsense. You bring any troubling in and you
Speaker 5: just like to find out what black power really mean.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So that is a really powerful statement. And in many ways,
Speaker 1: Sidney Poitier's black parents, who are eventually invited to dinner,
Speaker 1: never really articulate their objections they're placed on this maid.
Speaker 1: But in the end, this story resolves itself with the
Speaker 1: father coming around because he's ultimately challenged by his wife
Speaker 1: who's like, I've never been more disappointed in you. And
Speaker 1: the moral of this story is that while he has
Speaker 1: to come to terms with this, he basically says that
Speaker 1: you guys will have to survive in a world full
Speaker 1: of prejudices, bigotries, blind hatreds, and stupid fears, and you
Speaker 1: will have to cling to each other and to quote unquote,
Speaker 1: screw all those people.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting. It sounds like a lot of the
Speaker 2: movie is focused on the parents rather than on the
Speaker 2: young people and their dynamics. What we were saying before
Speaker 2: about society being represented by the parents.
Speaker 1: That's right, all right, we're going to take a break.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, so we are we are fifty
Speaker 2: years later. Now we're you know, nineteen sixty seven. Guess
Speaker 2: who's coming to dinner? And now we're at you people.
Speaker 2: You know, interracial love has been legal for more than
Speaker 2: half a century. What does you people have to say
Speaker 2: about this story about interracial love that's different.
Speaker 1: Well, first thing, it's like a world made by Lewis
Speaker 1: far Kahan and the Black power movement.
Speaker 2: Well you meant, well.
Speaker 1: The signpost in this film of like what blackness is
Speaker 1: is embodied in the character of Eddie Murphy. The father
Speaker 1: of the main character. Eddie Murphy's name is ackbar Amira's father.
Speaker 1: That's right, Eddie Murphy's name is Akbar, and of course
Speaker 1: he's changed his name like so many radicals in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and seventies, from Woody from Woody.
Speaker 2: The first time we see him, he's walking in. He's
Speaker 2: wearing a Fred Hampton was murdered t shirt. That's right,
Speaker 2: former Black Panther leader. And so he's coming and he
Speaker 2: is all of the signifiers of being a black radical,
Speaker 2: that's right.
Speaker 1: And to my mind, he's the closest thing as importing
Speaker 1: the voice of Tilly played by Isabelle Sandford into this story.
Speaker 1: He's the most unreasonable person in this story, so much
Speaker 1: so that he actually blames his wife's white grandfather, who
Speaker 1: apparently was some light scanned dude, for like polluting the
Speaker 1: bloodstock of his light scanned daughter. Let's listen to this
Speaker 1: clip where Akbar is leaning over to his wife to
Speaker 1: blame her for this whole fiasco.
Speaker 3: There's your white granddaddy, come back and haunt me.
Speaker 1: What that nigga never liked me?
Speaker 5: And it started off by him putting them strong ass
Speaker 5: jeans in you that lighten up the coffee, and my
Speaker 5: babies are you?
Speaker 1: Then he planted a poison pill in my little baby girl, and.
Speaker 2: It has grown into this white boy that invited us
Speaker 2: to lunch at Roscoe Man. All right, Eddie Murphy, h
Speaker 2: what's interesting you're saying that he sort of is voicing
Speaker 2: Tilly from guess Who's coming to dinner? But he's also
Speaker 2: the white dad because in this movie, he's the one
Speaker 2: that's opposed to this marriage. He's the one that's opposed
Speaker 2: to the union of black and white. And we get
Speaker 2: Ezra's parents embodied by Julia Luis Dreyfus, you know, from
Speaker 2: Veep and from Seinfeld. She plays Shelley Khane, and she
Speaker 2: is like genuinely thrilled. She's giddy that she's going to
Speaker 2: have this black daughter. That's right.
Speaker 1: There's this early moment where she says something like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to become a family of color. We are
Speaker 1: going to be a family of the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And her races is, you know, showing white people
Speaker 2: as oblivious they're inadvertently racist. And you know the first
Speaker 2: time that she has the kids come to their house
Speaker 2: to dinner, the white family's house, she says apropos of
Speaker 2: absolutely nothing the first time meeting her. You know, the
Speaker 2: police are and always have been fucked up they're really
Speaker 2: terrible to black people. I hate it, you know. She
Speaker 2: just announces this out of nothing, total awkward, a different
Speaker 2: kind of racism than opposing this marriage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but can I say something to you about that.
Speaker 1: There's a kind of virtue signaling in that. And that's
Speaker 1: what I was trying to say with Spencer Tracy's character,
Speaker 1: like he's the San Francisco liberal who gets it, like
Speaker 1: there's nothing weird about this black dude in my apartment.
Speaker 1: I am down with that. So yes, this is the
Speaker 1: updated version of that kind of liberal virtue signaling. So
Speaker 1: you people, in some ways, given that point imagines racism
Speaker 1: is only really about bigoted individuals. It's not really a
Speaker 1: social commentary and structural racism, even as it gestures to
Speaker 1: police violence or as an other line that the character
Speaker 1: Shelley Cohen articulates is that everyone should bow to the
Speaker 1: national anthem. These really aren't the issues that motivate like kneeling.
Speaker 2: Kneeling, Yeah, she's trying to She's like a Colin Kaepernick,
Speaker 2: She's trying to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these really aren't the issues that carry. The more
Speaker 1: weight to the film, the more way of the film
Speaker 1: really falls on stereotypes, you know, the sort of bigoted
Speaker 1: ideas that people still hold when they think, you know
Speaker 1: you people. That's the kind of conceit of this film.
Speaker 2: That's super interesting. And I agree with you completely that
Speaker 2: that the movie to me like shows wacky characters being
Speaker 2: wacky and it's there, you know, there isn't some deeper
Speaker 2: analysis and you know, like a lot of these types
Speaker 2: of movies, the way this one functions is it's sort
Speaker 2: of an excuse to get mostly men to hang out
Speaker 2: with one another and to do something. So we get
Speaker 2: Jonahill and Eddie Murphy's character. They're going to go off
Speaker 2: and like explore one another.
Speaker 1: And like there's actually funny montage of moments, right, there's.
Speaker 2: A montage of moments when they go out and like
Speaker 2: Eddie Murphy is testing him of like how much does
Speaker 2: he really know about the culture? And here black culture
Speaker 2: and so like what constitute black culture in the movie
Speaker 2: in this moment, is he's going to take him to
Speaker 2: a basketball court in the hood or a barber shop
Speaker 2: that's actually like a gang barbershop. You know, they never
Speaker 2: actually go to Achbar's house. Akbar is Muslim. They don't
Speaker 2: go to a mosque you know, this is the whole
Speaker 2: extent of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so some of our listeners might be thinking, Okay, Benicola,
Speaker 1: you guys are beating up on this film a little
Speaker 1: bit too much. You're imposing too much ectation.
Speaker 2: I'm going to beat up on him more, man, I'm
Speaker 2: going to beat up on him more, because like Eddie
Speaker 2: Murphy's working at like thirty percent here.
Speaker 1: You know, it is like it is one of the
Speaker 1: most low key performances in all of cinematic history. But
Speaker 1: there's a there's a counterpoint to this film, and it's
Speaker 1: the film, for example, that Jordan Peele makes about white
Speaker 1: liberals and the way they literally commodify black bodies. Get Out.
Speaker 1: Get Out is a story of inner ration, romance turned
Speaker 1: into a horror story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you were talking about Guess Who's coming to Dinner?
Speaker 2: I was thinking about how that how get Out is
Speaker 2: a total response to that. It is like taking that
Speaker 2: and turning it into a horror film. That when you
Speaker 2: go to this house and these these well meaning liberals, Uh,
Speaker 2: there is something so much deeper and structural that is,
Speaker 2: it's so dangerous that it's going to fucking kill you.
Speaker 1: That's right, And the metaphor of being lobottomized and having
Speaker 1: your bolly stolen is just the horror spin on it.
Speaker 1: But the point is that you're still being consumed, that
Speaker 1: black culture is being consumed, that blackness is being consumed,
Speaker 1: even by so called friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something that irked me about you people. I
Speaker 2: got to admit. It's like, so, Ezra is supposed to
Speaker 2: be this guy who is He says, I was raised
Speaker 2: by hip hop, you know. But he's talking to his
Speaker 2: fiance his girlfriend's parents, and you know, he can't even
Speaker 2: talk about uh, Malcolm X clearly, and he's got one
Speaker 2: of his boys, and one of the jokes is that
Speaker 2: one of his boys stormed the Capitol on January And
Speaker 2: come on, man, you can't have both, you know, like
Speaker 2: like as a joke, it just doesn't even work. It's
Speaker 2: this idea that you just said of like quirky you know,
Speaker 2: individual racism and having no like larger implications. That's right,
Speaker 2: all right, man, So spoiler alert, Like, you know, the
Speaker 2: movie moves forward and this couple, Emra and Ezra they
Speaker 2: decide that they just can't do it. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: The pressure that the failures of the family, the friends,
Speaker 1: the network, the whole social community that they're part of
Speaker 1: just is not evolved enough to handle this relationship.
Speaker 2: Ezra is on his podcast and he laments that race
Speaker 2: in America conquers love, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: when it comes to black and white people, I don't
Speaker 2: think love is enough.
Speaker 1: There's too many other outside factors.
Speaker 2: He says, whether friends or family. People can't accept what
Speaker 2: they don't understand. That's a really good podcast. Huh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, thinking about Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? In
Speaker 1: this film, there is something that feels like it didn't evolve,
Speaker 1: like it didn't feel the promise of Guess Who's coming
Speaker 1: to dinner, which ultimately was the cautionary note of a
Speaker 1: generation two generations ago, and in this film is basically saying,
Speaker 1: not only are we no further along, but we don't
Speaker 1: even have the guts to talk about what's happening in
Speaker 1: our states. I mean, you think about Guess Who's coming
Speaker 1: to dinner? Talking about sixteen or seventeen states that had
Speaker 1: outlawed marriage. We've got sixteen or seventeen states that outlawed
Speaker 1: even talking about structural racism, So you know, we're going
Speaker 1: to take a break and when we come back, we're
Speaker 1: going to look at the inter religious part of this
Speaker 1: rom com story.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back, all right, all right, Khalil, we
Speaker 2: are back on the Mow and Easy Show.
Speaker 1: And I got my jew with nothing to do, hang
Speaker 1: it out with me this afternoon.
Speaker 2: That is so true, so true, all right, man, about
Speaker 2: Jewish stuff. Every Jewish person I know who saw this
Speaker 2: movie doesn't like it. They're angered by it, they're frustrated
Speaker 2: by it. And let me tell you, Jewish people are
Speaker 2: on like high alert for stuff like this. They want
Speaker 2: stuff like this to be like meaningful. They want to
Speaker 2: like for it to get into like, you know, the
Speaker 2: good stuff about Jewish and Black history of working together.
Speaker 2: They wanted to do something progressive and listen, I did
Speaker 2: tons of research, really really, oh man. I went to
Speaker 2: Jewish Twitter, you know, I searched it. I read the foreword.
Speaker 2: I mean I was looking around.
Speaker 1: And to an editorial.
Speaker 2: Man, to be very serious. There are editorials all over
Speaker 2: like Jewish publications. For real, they are talking about this
Speaker 2: and for Jewish people something like this. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: going to quote a Philip Roth short story. They want
Speaker 2: to know, is you people? Is it good for the
Speaker 2: Jews or no good for the Jews.
Speaker 1: Well, I was maybe not quite in that line. I
Speaker 1: was curious if they felt like the film was a
Speaker 1: touchstone for evoking the historic relationship of progressive Jews and
Speaker 1: black civil rights activists from the nineteen sixties, Like saw
Speaker 1: this film as kind of a way to jump start
Speaker 1: or re energize that relationship because I know a few
Speaker 1: conversations I've had with some of my Jewish friends, my
Speaker 1: other Jewish friends, that's a topic that often comes up.
Speaker 2: Man, they wanted it, they wanted it to do. There's
Speaker 2: actually a joke in there when Amira's brother first learns
Speaker 2: that his sister is dating a guy named Ezra. He's
Speaker 2: hopeful because he's like, is that a third generation civil
Speaker 2: rights leader? You know, like everyone was named sort of
Speaker 2: like you know, they had these old Testament.
Speaker 1: Names, right that he's not actually white, but he's a
Speaker 1: black dude with a Jewish Jewish first name. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is a funny joke.
Speaker 2: So so I want to say that this movie in
Speaker 2: terms of Black and Jewish relationships, to me, it started promising.
Speaker 2: And I watched this with my family, so my two
Speaker 2: black Jewish children and my black wife and the first
Speaker 2: scene is set in a synagogue on Joam Kapoor, the
Speaker 2: holiest day of holy days. And you know, so already
Speaker 2: we have a sense that, yes, these are white people,
Speaker 2: but there are certain kind of white people.
Speaker 1: They're Jewish, And can I ask a question about that
Speaker 1: as a non Jew? By that you mean because because
Speaker 1: they were obviously Jews that don't go to synagogue or
Speaker 1: Yam Kapur, So you're saying that it's also religiously meaningful
Speaker 1: self identified Jews. That you mean or does everybody go
Speaker 1: to synagogue on ya.
Speaker 2: It's like the one day when people if you're Jewish, yes,
Speaker 2: it's the one day we're going to do something. So
Speaker 2: like like people are going to synagogue one day a year.
Speaker 2: That's the one day a year. And it actually Ezra
Speaker 2: is signaled right away as one of those guys, like
Speaker 2: he's wearing high tops in there, his legs are shaken,
Speaker 2: he's totally uninterested in this. He is told he is
Speaker 2: related to us as somebody who is a secular Jew
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Got it well. I was like both curious about how
Speaker 1: you responded to the engagement ring moment because there's this
Speaker 1: joke in the film about the size of Ezra's engagement
Speaker 1: ring that he's purchased for Mirah. It's tiny, and first
Speaker 1: teases him about it, but then there's this like setup
Speaker 1: for how he's going to present it to a mirror,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, oh, is that like a
Speaker 1: bridge too far?
Speaker 2: Let's listen to that.
Speaker 1: So what's the story here? That's your grandmother, Yes, my
Speaker 1: grandmother's and it's her she got into Holocaust or whatever,
Speaker 1: Like how old is she?
Speaker 4: It's from the Holocaust?
Speaker 5: Been a minute. I think she got catering.
Speaker 3: She was like three or four years old.
Speaker 1: It's a different time from them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, so so jokes about the Holocaust,
Speaker 2: you know, they could be a little dangerous, you know.
Speaker 2: But uh but even that joke is like being tasteless
Speaker 2: or controversial. Like that's where a lot of humor lize
Speaker 2: and even a lot of truth. I was still with
Speaker 2: the movie at that point, Okay, right, I like that.
Speaker 2: I liked that I was there, But from for me,
Speaker 2: from there, the movie sort of falls off the cliff,
Speaker 2: like why why? What so?
Speaker 1: Because because I have to admit, first time I saw
Speaker 1: the film, I was a little bit less impressed. Second time,
Speaker 1: I thought it grew on me.
Speaker 2: Ah, I had a different like, I was like okay
Speaker 2: with it because I watched it with my family. The
Speaker 2: first time, they were willing to laugh at anything, and
Speaker 2: then the second time, I was like, oh man, I
Speaker 2: was also.
Speaker 1: Half asleep the first time, so I'll admit that.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right. So to me, that the character's jewishness,
Speaker 2: that that how they are, how they are Jewish, is
Speaker 2: sort of invisible. It's not really a part of the film.
Speaker 2: And even from those first moments and from those first jokes,
Speaker 2: it starts to disappear. And even if they are secular
Speaker 2: Jews in Los Angeles, still sort of like what that means.
Speaker 2: And since you used another movie to make an explanation,
Speaker 2: since you use some guess who's coming to dinner, I'm
Speaker 2: going to bring up another Jewish movie, a recent Jewish movie.
Speaker 2: So last year, this movie Armageddon Time came out and
Speaker 2: did you see that movie?
Speaker 1: I did not. I didn't even know it came out.
Speaker 2: It was too Jewish.
Speaker 1: It was like only shown in synagogues and in Jewish
Speaker 1: community centers.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's a big release movie. So it's
Speaker 2: about and you know, it's kind of relevant to us
Speaker 2: because it's about two middle school kids in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: one black, one white, and it definitely focuses on the
Speaker 2: Jewish family, all right, And so this Jewish middle school
Speaker 2: boy is trying to figure out the world and his
Speaker 2: friendship with this black kid, and he goes to his
Speaker 2: grandfather who's played by Anthony Hopkins, which is kind of funny.
Speaker 2: Anthony Hopkins is not Jewish. He's playing this Jewish guy.
Speaker 2: But the thing about this movie is that the Jewish
Speaker 2: is so omnipresent. So the grandfather who's still you know,
Speaker 2: all the grandparents, they still have their European accents because
Speaker 2: they've come there from the Holocaust. They're talking about the Holocaust,
Speaker 2: they're talking about being Jewish. And really what's presented to
Speaker 2: the characters is a kind of choice in the face
Speaker 2: of racism in America. They have to make a choice
Speaker 2: between coming across as Jewish or white, and the two
Speaker 2: are different. They could lean into the privilege that, you know,
Speaker 2: the whiteness gives them access to a kind of privilege
Speaker 2: and they can lean up to it, or they can
Speaker 2: sort of say we're going to stand up against injustice
Speaker 2: and risk that.
Speaker 1: And so here, justice in this context has to do
Speaker 1: with whom.
Speaker 2: With racism that the Jewish grandson is hearing anti black racism.
Speaker 2: And so here's the grandfather played by Anthony Hopkins, talking
Speaker 2: about his experiences from the Holocaust, and he's schooling his
Speaker 2: grandson on what to do.
Speaker 4: You run the mom thing next time those schmuck say
Speaker 4: anything better about those black kids or those stans. You'd
Speaker 4: be a mens to those kids. Okay, they never had
Speaker 4: your advantage.
Speaker 2: Yo, Man, what's deep about this is at no. But
Speaker 2: later in the movie the father his father gives the
Speaker 2: exact opposite advice. He's like, you got to save yourself
Speaker 2: whatever leg up you can get. You know, we face
Speaker 2: so much anti semitism and oppression. We need to like,
Speaker 2: if you've got an advantage, take it. But in New People, Man,
Speaker 2: and New People, there is no choice, all right. The
Speaker 2: characters aren't wrestling with being white and Jewish. You know,
Speaker 2: Jewish Jewishness comes up in a couple jokes, but it's
Speaker 2: mostly not there. And I'm like, I'll give one example,
Speaker 2: and you could probably think of others too when you
Speaker 2: start thinking of the movie this way. So all of
Speaker 2: the female characters are incredibly underwritten in New People. But
Speaker 2: there's this scene where Shelley and Emira, you know, so
Speaker 2: they're going to go off in the same way that
Speaker 2: the men have gone off, and they don't. There's nothing
Speaker 2: Jewish about what they do. They go to a spa.
Speaker 2: There's no like explanation of like, there's nothing that Emirah
Speaker 2: has to do to try to understand who they are.
Speaker 2: It's just like eh, and the same thing like like
Speaker 2: Akbar doesn't take Ezra to a mosque or anything religious.
Speaker 2: You know, there's just like some at some point, there's
Speaker 2: just like some you know, silly joke. You know, Ezra
Speaker 2: has to date other women, Jewish women, and there's like,
Speaker 2: you know, you what do you know about black culture?
Speaker 2: Maybe you know about bagel culture. That's like the extent
Speaker 2: of like the Jewishness.
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is that religion here is treated
Speaker 1: almost like a caricature.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a wink at different moments. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, I thought it was interesting that part of
Speaker 1: the way to show Akbar's bigotry, his own anti whiteness,
Speaker 1: so to speak, is that he is a big fan
Speaker 1: of Far Khan and goes through this long, elaborate story
Speaker 1: of how he received a koofi from Far Khan as
Speaker 1: kind of a special ceremonial rites of passage for him,
Speaker 1: and so far Khan stands in as this kind of
Speaker 1: both acknowledgment of his Muslim identity, which is very controversial
Speaker 1: in terms of most Muslims who are Sunni Muslims, even
Speaker 1: a black people, and also as this political controversy that
Speaker 1: makes him even more unlikable in some ways as a character,
Speaker 1: as really a setup for the moral arc of the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so Lewis Fowerkunt also has this history of
Speaker 2: anti Semitism, He's made comments before, and so Ezra has
Speaker 2: zero stake in this, like he doesn't there, Like what
Speaker 2: do you think about Lewis Fowerkun. He's like, I love him,
Speaker 2: He's great, He's got nothing. The parents are a little
Speaker 2: more uncomfortable, but this seemed like an opportunity to explore things.
Speaker 2: You put these two parents together, the Muslim parents and
Speaker 2: the Jewish parents, something could have happened. And actually, let's
Speaker 2: stay with that scene a little bit more because it's
Speaker 2: it takes place. There's a dinner at the children's house
Speaker 2: and they invite both sets of parents to bring them together.
Speaker 1: And this is the guests who's coming to dinner moment
Speaker 1: for this film. This is the filmic homage to that
Speaker 1: earlier film when everyone is in the room and we
Speaker 1: are set up for fireworks.
Speaker 2: And so the parents start talking and their differences around
Speaker 2: race and religion start to emerge, and they're all sort
Speaker 2: of like you know, hot button issues that come up.
Speaker 2: Listen to this moment.
Speaker 4: All I'm saying is that our people came here with
Speaker 4: nothing like everybody else.
Speaker 1: Actually, you kind of sort of came here with the
Speaker 1: money that you made from the slave trade. Like everyone preach,
Speaker 1: preach mother, preach mother. It's very I would like to
Speaker 1: see your sources on Maybe go.
Speaker 3: Get my purse.
Speaker 1: I've got my slave receipts in my purse.
Speaker 2: Go get my purse. Because I don't turn on the
Speaker 2: news every day and see people in Yamaka's getting shot
Speaker 2: by police just because they was out minding their business. Okay, wow, yeah,
Speaker 2: I want you to just talk about this and get
Speaker 2: in trouble. Yeah. So, so there's like there are different
Speaker 2: pieces of this, and there's like the last thing that
Speaker 2: Eddie Murphy's Achbar says is really interesting, right, like like
Speaker 2: Jewish people who is white are not being killed by
Speaker 2: police officers right, that's like a conversation about privilege, about whiteness,
Speaker 2: what is anti Semitism, what's anti blackness? Like it's all
Speaker 2: kind of there, but man, it's caked up in this
Speaker 2: other stuff, you know, Like that that thing that the
Speaker 2: mother says Nea Long's character, Fatima Achbar's wife, she's saying
Speaker 2: the exact sort of racist, anti Semitic trope. That is
Speaker 2: what got Kyrie Irving in trouble. So, like what to
Speaker 2: make of it? That scene, Like it's just like throwing
Speaker 2: out a laundry list of stuff and it's not owning
Speaker 2: any of the any of the material.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree with you there, And it did
Speaker 1: feel like, again it positioned in this case, and this
Speaker 1: might explain why so many of your Jewish friends and
Speaker 1: so many within the larger Jewish community in the United
Speaker 1: States felt like the film wasn't a good film because
Speaker 1: it was an unnecessary provocation. It's also generally within the
Speaker 1: main of the black community, a talking point even among
Speaker 1: black people who identify as Muslims, whether their nation of
Speaker 1: Islam Muslims or Sunni Muslims. So in that way, the
Speaker 1: film traffics in a stereotype that has this kind of
Speaker 1: both sidesism to it, meaning it's you know, like the
Speaker 1: white privilege has to be set against this black list
Speaker 1: nationalism that is extreme and anti semitic, and that's not
Speaker 1: really how most people aren't engaging into what is already
Speaker 1: a difficult relationship.
Speaker 2: And you know, so what was what was so problematic
Speaker 2: or troubling about those moments when you know, Kyrie Irving
Speaker 2: endorsed that film, or when Kanye West spoke out against
Speaker 2: Jewish people, is that you know, you said that most
Speaker 2: most black people aren't trafficking in this kind of like
Speaker 2: anti semitic language, but a lot of people don't know
Speaker 2: what's what's in the mainstream, and you know, to suddenly
Speaker 2: hear it in in famous black people talking about it
Speaker 2: and hearing it even coming from the right, and then
Speaker 2: to be in kind of a mainstream Netflix movie like this,
Speaker 2: it does have this kind of you know, danger of
Speaker 2: even feeling like, oh no, this must be okay. And
Speaker 2: as you said, it's like set up against something like
Speaker 2: police brutality.
Speaker 1: They're like equivalents, right right, Well, I think you've convinced
Speaker 1: me now that we've had a full work up of
Speaker 1: the failures of this film to deal with inter religious
Speaker 1: components of this relationship that actually the film isn't as good.
Speaker 1: My first impression is probably the more accurate one. That
Speaker 1: all being said, I have a final idea. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of meat on the bones left, you know what
Speaker 1: this movie attempts to do. And so many of our
Speaker 1: listeners know that you are a talented writer, and I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking, I don't know. I mean, call me a dreamer,
Speaker 1: but I'm just wondering, you know, like, after seeing this film,
Speaker 1: did it occur to you to think about writing the
Speaker 1: story your love story of you and Danielle has high
Speaker 1: school sweethearts and you have this fabulously handsome best friend
Speaker 1: you know, who is there along the way to coax
Speaker 1: you and to give you an extra dolca Black culture
Speaker 1: and legitimacy so that you can woo this beautiful black
Speaker 1: woman you know, who will one day gone to be
Speaker 1: your bride. And you all have a few amazing interracial children.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, this is an amazing story.
Speaker 2: I hope that they're like, you know, Hollywood people are
Speaker 2: listening to this, you know, at least the Netflix people,
Speaker 2: you know. And one of the first scenes is you
Speaker 2: might remember this that when when we're going off to
Speaker 2: college and we're having our final dinner together.
Speaker 1: Do you mean our story and our Ben Danielle and
Speaker 1: Khalil story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in real life. Do you remember where we went?
Speaker 1: Did we go to Red Lobster?
Speaker 2: So Danielle and I are going to Red Lobster because
Speaker 2: that was like fancy for us. And you just no
Speaker 2: cell phones or whatever. You just happened to show up
Speaker 2: like the quirky best friend.
Speaker 1: Like you just happen to show up. I held like
Speaker 1: forty five minutes.
Speaker 2: But me like, imail you to cover anything. But you know,
Speaker 2: so I actually I actually have a happy ending in
Speaker 2: a way.
Speaker 1: I have one too.
Speaker 2: You go through all of this that that just coincidentally.
Speaker 2: Kanye tweeted this weekend that he now loves Jewish people again.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, and the reason is Jonah Hill.
Speaker 1: Wow, he bore some Jewish therapy.
Speaker 2: Like, but what's funny? It was seeing Jonah Hill in
Speaker 2: a movie. But it wasn't this movie. It wasn't It
Speaker 2: wasn't you people. It was twenty one Jump Street.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. I don't know if that actually that's true.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that means good things no bad
Speaker 1: things on the horizon for Kanye.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't put a lot of my sedaka
Speaker 2: in his in him.
Speaker 1: Well, my happy ending is this. You guys got married
Speaker 1: how many years ago?
Speaker 2: Now? Twenty almost twenty almost.
Speaker 1: Twenty years ago, And just so our listeners know that
Speaker 1: that crash date at Red Lobster led to me being
Speaker 1: the only person who was invited to their wedding in
Speaker 1: New York City at City Hall on a random I believe,
Speaker 1: November day, beautiful Chili day. I was the best man.
Speaker 1: I was the matron of honor because I was married
Speaker 1: at that time. I was the photographer, the witness. I
Speaker 1: was your only reception date.
Speaker 2: When you showed up were I said, meet us at
Speaker 2: the foot of Brooklyn Bridge because we were going to
Speaker 2: get you know, we were going to get married at
Speaker 2: City Hall, but I didn't tell you. I tell you.
Speaker 2: I said that I want you to take some holiday photographs.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: And then you showed up with all your cameras because
Speaker 2: you know, you're the son of a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer,
Speaker 2: you'd like twelve cameras. And you looked at us and
Speaker 2: you were like, they're a little bit more dressed up
Speaker 2: and Ben is carrying a bouquet and like all this
Speaker 2: other stuff and your hands started to shake and you
Speaker 2: just started to cry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a special moment.
Speaker 2: So it was a great moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well man, this was This was a really great conversation.
Speaker 1: We touched on some important themes, not only in cinematic history,
Speaker 1: but also in how much more work needs to be
Speaker 1: done in trying to capture what it means to do
Speaker 1: interracial love in a rom com or a drama or
Speaker 1: anything else on the big screen. All right, all right,
Speaker 1: love you.
Speaker 2: Man, Love you too.
Speaker 1: Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil,
Speaker 1: Jabron Muhammad and my best friend Ben Austin.
Speaker 2: This show is produced by Lucy Sullivan. It's edited by
Speaker 2: Sarah Nix with help from Keshel Williams. Our engineer is
Speaker 2: Amanda Kwang, and our managing producer is Constanza Gallardo at Pushkin.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Leitol Molad, Julia Barton, Heather Faine, Carly Migliori,
Speaker 1: John schnarz Retta Cone, and Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 2: Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan The
Speaker 2: brilliant Avery R. Young from his album Tubman. You definitely
Speaker 2: want to check out his music at his website Averyaryong
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin pods,
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Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and new people. There's definitely no passover Sata, but
Speaker 2: here's a little taste of my family sat this year.
Speaker 5: Our story begins with degreation, our telling ends with glory.
Speaker 2: We are slaves in Egypt and were gods from where
Speaker 2: lad struct our ancestors out of Egypt. We are our children, children, children,