Speaker 1: On the Dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef in best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bell Cast. Hi, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the backdel Cast. I'm Caitlin, I'm Jamie, and we're
Speaker 1: here to talk about movies and how they portray women.
Speaker 1: That was great. Yeah, that was like the most distinct
Speaker 1: I've ever done it. I know. I used to take
Speaker 1: us five minutes. Man, we are growing. How's your day?
Speaker 1: My day has been okay. Oh. So I went out
Speaker 1: for a jog. I jogg and I saw I ran
Speaker 1: past a guy who was chugging a box of Frenzya
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk, and I was like, that's unusual. And
Speaker 1: then I ran between him in a car and there
Speaker 1: was someone in the car filming him. So I was like,
Speaker 1: that makes more sense. He's doing it for like a bit,
Speaker 1: someone's filming him. I get it. But like first split second,
Speaker 1: I was like, why is this guy just chugging a
Speaker 1: box of Franzia on the sidewalk? It was real, like
Speaker 1: a real Franzia. I think it would be more work yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you'd have to empty out the bag, fill
Speaker 1: it with water. Why do that? Why not just chug Franah.
Speaker 1: I burned myself out on that, and I did that
Speaker 1: a couple of times in college, and now I disassociate
Speaker 1: it with the smell of the basement apartment I used
Speaker 1: to live in. Can't do it anymore. Yeah, not that
Speaker 1: it's great wine to begin with. No, my day was bad.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to hear that. That's okay, let's start that episode. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's do that. We are here with a wonderful guest.
Speaker 1: She is a comedian. She is a cellist. True story.
Speaker 1: She also has a show here at nerd Melt in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, California. Nina Daniels, thank you for having me, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here. You're welcome. And that's the end
Speaker 1: of the episode. But we did it. We uh. We're
Speaker 1: talking about a movie called Hidden Figures. Talk to us
Speaker 1: about when did you see this movie? I mean it
Speaker 1: came out, you know, not long ago, a few months ago. Actually, No,
Speaker 1: I saw it through SAG Awards in my living room
Speaker 1: on my laptop. How fancy. Yeah, because when you're in
Speaker 1: SAG they give you screeners. Nice so that was one
Speaker 1: of the screeners that I am watched and completely fell
Speaker 1: in love with. This movie so good. Yeah, I saw
Speaker 1: it in the theater by myself. I wish I had
Speaker 1: seen it in the theater. Yeah, it was great. I
Speaker 1: so I go to the movies by myself often and
Speaker 1: who knows why. Well, I'll talk to about with my therapist. No,
Speaker 1: it's very it's very therapeutic for me to go to
Speaker 1: the movies by myself. Um. But here's the thing. I
Speaker 1: don't let myself get emotional in public like I And
Speaker 1: it's another thing I need to talk to my therapy.
Speaker 1: It's about do I even have a therapist? Now, I
Speaker 1: don't should make an appointment, but I have a really
Speaker 1: hard time, like I can't let people see me cry.
Speaker 1: And this movie made me so emotional. I was like
Speaker 1: on the verge of tears the entire time because I'm
Speaker 1: just like, oh, these women are being mistreated and all
Speaker 1: this injustice. They're uplifting each other and and I was
Speaker 1: like just nearly crying the entire time. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't but I can't let anyone see me cry.
Speaker 1: I couldn't be you Literally a commercial makes me cry. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be like, because I love you like this sweet
Speaker 1: I cry. Oh, everybody laughs at me a movie because
Speaker 1: they just they see something and everybody just looks at
Speaker 1: me to see if tears are coming down. Yeah no,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very I repress my emotions and it's not healthy,
Speaker 1: but I don't. But that's good. Yeah, I should repress
Speaker 1: my maybe a little bit more. It interferes with your life. Really,
Speaker 1: it's well, I mean sometimes it's like, man, I gotta
Speaker 1: take a I gotta take a walk. Sometimes I was
Speaker 1: just to like walk off my emotions and then returned
Speaker 1: to I don't know. Today my therapist was like, I
Speaker 1: think you should spend the weekend inside and where bata
Speaker 1: block or sunglasses? Anyways, let's talk about the movie. See.
Speaker 1: I saw that the other first time. I really loved it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was great. Jimmy, when did you see it?
Speaker 1: I saw it last week and I really really liked it.
Speaker 1: It was one of the movies that I wanted to
Speaker 1: see over the holidays, and uh, I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: because my mom wanted to see the Jackie Oh movie,
Speaker 1: which was so great. I passed on that good call.
Speaker 1: It was not It was a stinker, but still still
Speaker 1: still feel ill from me right, It's just it was.
Speaker 1: It was a drag. But that's the Kennedy assassination for you.
Speaker 1: And this this movie made me feel so good and
Speaker 1: like was the sort of movie that I felt good
Speaker 1: about days after watching it, not as good as it
Speaker 1: made me feel. Oh yeah, talk about that. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I did want to see it in
Speaker 1: the movie theater, but I was so excited about it
Speaker 1: that I couldn't even wait because I had to screener.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have to see this like right now
Speaker 1: for many reasons. One which a lot of people probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't know, but all three women are or were UM
Speaker 1: some of the past members of the same sorority that
Speaker 1: I met. The office ality incorporated all three, so that
Speaker 1: was like really enlightening. It was like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: because quick at three lesson. But you know, in a
Speaker 1: African American sorority, we don't just pledge or participate in undergrad.
Speaker 1: It's like that movie The Firm. Once you get in
Speaker 1: you can't get out, like literally you're and you become
Speaker 1: more active once you get to UM, once you graduate.
Speaker 1: Enjoy was called grad chapter yeah or you're inactive like
Speaker 1: me and should be doing in grad chapter just pay
Speaker 1: your due and you're just like a general member. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was like I was really proud, really proud
Speaker 1: sister of Alpha Cappa Alpha watching them, like of course
Speaker 1: they were all sorears. It made me very proud. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: A little cocky now, you know. That made me excited
Speaker 1: and also made me excited, as you know, an African
Speaker 1: American woman to see three brilliant women and I thought
Speaker 1: and directed to such a great job of showing their
Speaker 1: brilliance and also showing what they had to deal with,
Speaker 1: but not like dumbing them down or not making it
Speaker 1: some SAPPI like woe is Me stories a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you know, some of these movies are like oh, the
Speaker 1: whole black person hand to struggle through. It was like
Speaker 1: this women were so confident and so like in the
Speaker 1: car the car scene when the car broke down and
Speaker 1: they were like, well you could walk or sit in
Speaker 1: the back of the bus and they were like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I was like, that's me right there,
Speaker 1: I don't think. So that was like a prime also
Speaker 1: to show the pride and the almost part of the
Speaker 1: arrogance of like, now we're not doing that, and during
Speaker 1: that ninety one nineteen sixty one that was very impressed.
Speaker 1: That scene ends with them fixing the car and then
Speaker 1: the or the cop pulls up and you're like, fuck
Speaker 1: this fucking cop. What's he gonna do in advance? And
Speaker 1: then um, right, yeah, but then they talked to him.
Speaker 1: They have to convince him that they're like, yes, we
Speaker 1: work at NASA, we do important things like we're not
Speaker 1: and he's just like, I didn't know there were women. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you knew That's not what he was gonna say. Was brilliant. Um.
Speaker 1: But then he offers to escort them the rest of
Speaker 1: the way, and that I wrote down what um what
Speaker 1: Mary says, yeah, because she's like three negro women are
Speaker 1: chasing the white police officer are down in highway in Hampton, Virginia,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, that these this is a god or
Speaker 1: dama a miracles. That I wrote that down as well, Kaitlin,
Speaker 1: do you want to do the recap? The recap? Oh Man.
Speaker 1: The story is about three black women, Katherine Gobel who
Speaker 1: becomes Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. Stories based
Speaker 1: on real life events. These were real women. They were
Speaker 1: all employed by NASA. This is a movie set in
Speaker 1: ne where in the middle of the space race with
Speaker 1: the Russians. You know, the US is trying to pull ahead.
Speaker 1: The Russians get a man in space first. Everyone's freaking out.
Speaker 1: Katherine Gobel did a lot of the analytic geometry to
Speaker 1: calculate the trajectories and the landing and takeoff for the rockets. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Mary Jackson is she wants to be an engineer, but
Speaker 1: she can't because she doesn't have quite the right qualifications,
Speaker 1: or she has the qualifications, but they're like finding ways
Speaker 1: to suppress her ability to actually be an engineer because
Speaker 1: he's a woman. So she has to like petition and
Speaker 1: get a court age and all the stuff and so
Speaker 1: that she can take classes to get the qualifications. Long
Speaker 1: story short, she finally gets there. Yeah, she becomes an engineer. UM,
Speaker 1: but she's working in like this engineering department. UM. They're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to make it so that
Speaker 1: the space craft that they're trying to launch into space
Speaker 1: is ready for the astronauts to actually be there, and
Speaker 1: that it's safe so they don't all die in space.
Speaker 1: And then the third main character, Dorothy Vonne. She's essentially
Speaker 1: a supervisor, but they won't give her the title or
Speaker 1: the pay. And she's supervising a group of like twenty
Speaker 1: other black women who are all computers and and doing
Speaker 1: other you know, important math and analytics and stuff like
Speaker 1: that for NASA. UM. And it's basically just it takes
Speaker 1: place over of course of a few months, and they're
Speaker 1: all just trying to do the work that needs to
Speaker 1: be done to get people in space. The end. I
Speaker 1: think it's pull to point out that, you know, they
Speaker 1: were called computers because there were there were no computers
Speaker 1: yet IBM. They were just waiting to get their IBM. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Other characters who are important, um, Katherine's boss played by
Speaker 1: Kevin Costner. This is the first time I have not
Speaker 1: hated him in a movie. So yeah, like Kevin Klein,
Speaker 1: Yeah kind of clin has always been great. Yeah please Ken,
Speaker 1: So he's her boss. Then there's Jim Parsons. I forget
Speaker 1: his characters. Love his characters is Paul Paul Staff And
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I love Jim Parsons. He looks a
Speaker 1: little alien all the time. This a little alien looking guy.
Speaker 1: His character though, so despicable. Yes, he was so good
Speaker 1: at this movie. Yeah, he's alien. Kristen Dunnes plays a
Speaker 1: woman I don't entirely know what her job, Mrs Mrs Mitchell.
Speaker 1: She's a coordinator Achill. So it's the castle, same characters. Yeah, alright.
Speaker 1: The first thing I want to say about this movie
Speaker 1: is it it caused attention to the fact that, like
Speaker 1: one of the most significant historic and scientific feats of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, and also, like I don't know all
Speaker 1: of history, which was putting a man into space, was
Speaker 1: made possible by a group of black women who you've
Speaker 1: probably never heard about until now, because I didn't learn
Speaker 1: this stuff in history class. And that's why. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously the title of the movie suggests that these are
Speaker 1: hidden figures because we don't, like they don't teach us this,
Speaker 1: but I didn't learn about this. I didn't. I think
Speaker 1: that it kind of like that extends to the movie
Speaker 1: universe too, because I think about how many fucking space
Speaker 1: movies there are, and every time you catch at the
Speaker 1: control room, there's a white guy in there, there's you know,
Speaker 1: like there's barely any women at all, not to mention
Speaker 1: a person of color, and so it's like I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was thinking a lot about that during the movie too,
Speaker 1: just like you know, like Armageddon and Paul eleven and
Speaker 1: one of the characters I thirst and start to man
Speaker 1: um but who Katherine is later involved with, and like
Speaker 1: you would never see that reflected. I knew about Katherine Johnson. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, I had had actually forgotten.
Speaker 1: My dad was like, you wrote a paper on her.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh good, you know, but I was
Speaker 1: really young. But I definitely think seeing the movie definitely
Speaker 1: gave me brought awareness to a very different way. I mean,
Speaker 1: my parents were great because we learned about a lot
Speaker 1: of um African American people who were outstanding and amazing
Speaker 1: and change history. That we're not just Martluther King. I
Speaker 1: love him, but you know, or I would say Benjamin
Speaker 1: Bannon early and if anybody knows who he like, um,
Speaker 1: Paul Robeson, and I mean there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: that when I was a kid, my parents we would
Speaker 1: get a list of names to write a paper. And
Speaker 1: I did not go to school with the many other
Speaker 1: African Americans, especially teachers, so it be like me in
Speaker 1: the class and it would be only historical figures, but
Speaker 1: none of them would be black, and my parents would
Speaker 1: be like, they cross it out. Maybe you're doing a
Speaker 1: paper on this person. I would bring it back to them,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm doing it on, and the teacher.
Speaker 1: You could tell the teacher, look like, I did not
Speaker 1: assign that to you. But I'm definitely not going to
Speaker 1: challenge you on this because good luck challenging my mother.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that. You would lose that battle of hardcore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up in rural western Pennsylvania. I
Speaker 1: grew up in rural Long Island. Yeah. Man, that's the thing,
Speaker 1: like I like, I mean, I didn't have parents to
Speaker 1: be like, you're gonna do this paper on an American
Speaker 1: person and stead like I don't think we talked about
Speaker 1: in history class, like any notable figures in history who
Speaker 1: were black except maybe, uh, I mean, and not many
Speaker 1: women there. I mean, like I knew about Betsy Ross
Speaker 1: because she made a flag or something, but like, other
Speaker 1: than that, it was just a bunch of white dudes.
Speaker 1: My favorite woman growing up was um Surely Chisholm. She
Speaker 1: went for president first black women, like she's part of
Speaker 1: the women's suffers movement, Like she's no joke. Man, she
Speaker 1: was like I remember being a kid and be like
Speaker 1: I want to be like her. She was. So that's
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like we were lucky. We were very fortunate.
Speaker 1: We're exposed to so many people. Yeah, it was really
Speaker 1: interesting to um see. And I mean, I think what
Speaker 1: I love most about Hidden Figures as well is that
Speaker 1: it also showed the softness of African American women, meaning
Speaker 1: like they weren't like and and and I say, it's
Speaker 1: like I love being strong and and in the the
Speaker 1: portrayal of strong African and Black women. But like, these
Speaker 1: women were known for their brains and they didn't have
Speaker 1: to put anything on it. They were just being who
Speaker 1: they are and that's what made them up as their intelligence.
Speaker 1: And I felt like they led by their intelligence, and
Speaker 1: that to me was like that, you're refreshing thing to see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. I loved that. One of the other
Speaker 1: thing the main things this movie does is that it
Speaker 1: just shows how many hurdles these women had to jump
Speaker 1: over in like every part of their job and outside
Speaker 1: of their job, just to like prove that they're capable
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, we are, we can do this, and
Speaker 1: then exactly and everyone's just like I don't know about that,
Speaker 1: but it's also proved yourself. It's also a testament to
Speaker 1: when someone says cream always rises to the top. Literally
Speaker 1: they needed them because no one could do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like no one else could do it, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's almost like if you can make yourself so useful
Speaker 1: that nobody else could do it. And it was interesting,
Speaker 1: like also to about the engineering with Mary and that
Speaker 1: character even you know, saying, you know, I'm Jewish and
Speaker 1: I came here from but the thing is like you're
Speaker 1: still a man, you know, and you're still a white
Speaker 1: man in America. Like, so it was really interesting this
Speaker 1: see him have that because her obscle wasn't just being
Speaker 1: a woman where she needed to take the courses they
Speaker 1: didn't allow African Americans, so that was really I mean
Speaker 1: being a woman was part of it, but second layer
Speaker 1: of it is it didn't allow a woman of color.
Speaker 1: Yeah what people of color? For that intersectionality. She had
Speaker 1: to go to court to take a class like I
Speaker 1: think it was like a high school. She had to
Speaker 1: go take it at a night class, which was which
Speaker 1: was like wow, Yeah, there's so many steps she had
Speaker 1: to go through just to be able to get the
Speaker 1: credentials she needed to do the job that she was
Speaker 1: already qualified to do. My mom would have totally done
Speaker 1: that for real. My mom would have been excuse me,
Speaker 1: here we go. Uh. And and it was it was
Speaker 1: nice to see I mean, it wasn't like a main
Speaker 1: focal point, but it was nice to see their their
Speaker 1: home lives as well, um and that the other roles,
Speaker 1: because I feel like it would have been easy to
Speaker 1: just keep this in the workplace, and it would have
Speaker 1: still been powerful if it was just in the workplace.
Speaker 1: But it was nice to see um, not just the
Speaker 1: professional hurles, but it um trying to maintain a life
Speaker 1: for their kids and all this stuff because they still
Speaker 1: love all the pressures associated with mother right. Yeah, all
Speaker 1: three of those women had young children, and um, Catherine
Speaker 1: was a single mother at like she started out that way.
Speaker 1: She ends up marrying Jim Johnson. But I love that relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love like you know, they showed such a respectful
Speaker 1: like black love, which I loved. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is so sweet. When he apologized to her for
Speaker 1: doubting her when they first met, I was like, all right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because what is the first thing he said? Because he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I understand you work at NASA, and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we do all the you know, the calculations, and he's
Speaker 1: just like, oh, they let women. And then he stops talking.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, man, I funked up real bad. She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna walk away and you should shut up. And
Speaker 1: then the next time he's like, I owe you an apology.
Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, I'm waiting for it. It also showed
Speaker 1: the complications in Mary's marriage right, which I loved as well,
Speaker 1: the juxtaposition of that relationship versus that and also married
Speaker 1: not like she didn't play down and come down for
Speaker 1: her husband even though he had all the use like
Speaker 1: issuesn't concerned and she was just like, yeah, no, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm gangster. I'm doing it like you shouldn't believe you
Speaker 1: should not you know, which is I'm such an optimist.
Speaker 1: It's so hard for me to like, look at the
Speaker 1: glasses never half compt to me. It's always have full.
Speaker 1: So I was like, go, Mary, you can do this. Well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just like just seeing these three main characters who pretty
Speaker 1: much at almost every point in the movie just refused
Speaker 1: to be bulldozed by literally the entire world that's trying
Speaker 1: to bud and and uh you know, like you're saying
Speaker 1: it just like making themselves so like incredibly intelligent and
Speaker 1: useful that you can't I didn't like they couldn't have
Speaker 1: done it without them. Also, the intelligence wasn't um, it
Speaker 1: wasn't forced. It was like quiet intelligent. That's what I love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like came across very organganically, which is how we
Speaker 1: they're doing the job. They're just I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that scene. It's one of
Speaker 1: the opening scenes where they're broke down on the side
Speaker 1: of the road and Dorothy is like fixing the car.
Speaker 1: And I mentioned in an earlier episode of this podcast
Speaker 1: where I'm like, I hate that trope or like to
Speaker 1: show a woman to show that she's not just like
Speaker 1: any other woman, she's good at fixing cars, and like
Speaker 1: it's an annoying trope, but like that's what happened in
Speaker 1: this movie, like they broke down. I believe that that
Speaker 1: character knew how to fix and thens something like in Transformers,
Speaker 1: like you see Megan Fox leaning over the hood of
Speaker 1: a car basically like having sex with a car. Male
Speaker 1: gaze all over the place, like lingering up and down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like she was I thought I thought she was
Speaker 1: literally I thought it was like I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: that she was actually supposed to be fixing that Wait. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, what's she doing next to that car?
Speaker 1: I was like, this is the part in the movie
Speaker 1: when want some like the one to sell sex. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And then in this movie like Dorothy's like splayed out
Speaker 1: lying on the ground like under the car. Actually you
Speaker 1: actually think, yeah, it wasn't sexy. It was just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she just is trying to figure out what the problem is,
Speaker 1: and any context of the movie like that made total sense.
Speaker 1: It didn't feel trophy at all. No, no, actually, and
Speaker 1: you're saying it didn't. It didn't even any even think
Speaker 1: about it until right now, you know, you're bringing up
Speaker 1: It was just like a normal thing that happened. You're like, yep,
Speaker 1: this checks out, Yeah, and that was that wasn't I
Speaker 1: feel like the reason people usually do that trope is
Speaker 1: because the like whatever whoever the female character is is
Speaker 1: like portrayed as like so unrealistically that they're like, but wait,
Speaker 1: she's grounded, and these women are portrayed realistically for the
Speaker 1: duration of the movie so it's like cool, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: can fix cars. There's so much cooler than me. Part
Speaker 1: of what made me love this movie even more it
Speaker 1: was there was a few um campaigns around the time
Speaker 1: when it was actually in theaters, UM where a lot
Speaker 1: of people were donating to send uh classes of kids
Speaker 1: to go see this movie. And it's amazing that as
Speaker 1: many classes as as did got to see it in
Speaker 1: the theater. But just thinking about like years down the line,
Speaker 1: this will be like watched in history classes and there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of movies like it, and it's that
Speaker 1: to me was like so exciting of like imagine being
Speaker 1: whenever seven or eight years old and and seeing this movie.
Speaker 1: It would be I think I think a couple of
Speaker 1: the actors was like I think Tonti Pinson I think
Speaker 1: also made Octavie I spent some like bought out theaters.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I believe they brought out theaters so that
Speaker 1: people and go in and see it. Oh man, that's yeah.
Speaker 1: So like this movie, I don't know, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of movies you see where you're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is going to have a serious legacy and impact far
Speaker 1: beyond the time it's actually in theaters. Um, and they're
Speaker 1: like the UM. I felt like the accurate portrayal of
Speaker 1: Paul and Katherine and Paul's Jim Parson's character. I like
Speaker 1: the fact that he just stayed in his character the whole,
Speaker 1: like to the end. He was not going to give
Speaker 1: up being an asshole at all. And I loved it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, was it like a romantic ending with that dude? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like, great, that's great. You're racist and you
Speaker 1: hate women and you're gonna stay that way, right because
Speaker 1: in n that would have been what happened. But also
Speaker 1: so you know what, you know what's so funny This
Speaker 1: movie was a great example of nobody wanting to be
Speaker 1: at the bottom. And what I mean by that is like,
Speaker 1: so the men treated the women bad like Mrs Mitchell
Speaker 1: and she treated the black women bad because somebody had
Speaker 1: to just like trickled down, like they're gonna treat me poorly?
Speaker 1: Do I want to treat like nobody wants to be
Speaker 1: the bottom? And she was another one who was just terrible.
Speaker 1: And even when she I guess did a good thing,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even good. She was she was just like yeah, no,
Speaker 1: she like there's that scene where she's in the bathroom
Speaker 1: and change her idea about at all. Yeah, there's that
Speaker 1: scene and she's like in the restroom with um Dorothy,
Speaker 1: and after they had like desegregated the bathroom, um, when
Speaker 1: Mrs Mitchell's like, you know, just by the way, you
Speaker 1: think I don't have anything against you, and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you believe that that's what you think. And
Speaker 1: it's so funny because when when the real Catherine said
Speaker 1: that never happened, she was like, he don't know, I
Speaker 1: went to the bathroom right there. They certainly had to
Speaker 1: like amp up the drama to make it like a
Speaker 1: cinematic experience. I'm sure, Like, I'm sure. Also, she doesn't
Speaker 1: didn't need to be like called in at the last
Speaker 1: moment because he's about to launch into space. And then
Speaker 1: they didn't. She wasn't allowed in the room. Oh really, no,
Speaker 1: she was not actually allowed in the room. That's upsetting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was also made up. Yeah, they got to
Speaker 1: embellish stuff for she wasn't allowed in the room. But
Speaker 1: she did the man, great good friend got the job done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mrs Mitchell, I know she's not as bad as Paul,
Speaker 1: but she kissed me off. She was she was a
Speaker 1: woman makes it worse. Yeah, I mean, it's just every
Speaker 1: scene she's in and maybe no, I mean, like I
Speaker 1: guess Kris and Duns did a good job because whole yeah,
Speaker 1: this whole movie. Every time she was on screen, I
Speaker 1: was just like, like, what is she going to do now?
Speaker 1: Because it's like it's where Jim Parson's character is outright,
Speaker 1: like very straightforward, I don't respect you. I didn't like
Speaker 1: just the way that Mrs Mitchell would get those underhanded
Speaker 1: passive so great that they didn't make it like they
Speaker 1: didn't do they didn't do what every other movie does,
Speaker 1: make it this obvious racism, because it's not really how
Speaker 1: a lot of racism is. A lot of it is
Speaker 1: just how she played it. It's like so layered and
Speaker 1: intertwined it was. I mean, it was her belief system,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, her belief system, and when
Speaker 1: it's your leaf system, you don't really have to put
Speaker 1: anything on it. And that was a very complicated I thought,
Speaker 1: um role. I thought she did a really amazing job
Speaker 1: with she had that character the other white woman too,
Speaker 1: who is working in like the space task group, who
Speaker 1: is like just as bad. She didn't get as much
Speaker 1: a screen time. But she was so dismissive of Catherine.
Speaker 1: She's like, she was but do you remember when he
Speaker 1: said with a computer what happened? She said, Oh, she's
Speaker 1: standing right behind you. Yea that yeah, that wasn't okay moment.
Speaker 1: But then later on when Catherine has to go to
Speaker 1: the restroom for the first time and she's excuse me,
Speaker 1: where's the restroom and the woman goes, I have no
Speaker 1: idea where your bathroom is, and then like returns to
Speaker 1: her phone call, just like very dismissive. And I thought
Speaker 1: it was so. But I also think it's a product
Speaker 1: of do you think she was treated well there? Oh no,
Speaker 1: absolutely so. I think it's also like, I think it's
Speaker 1: also that thing of like you had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: be somebody else's boss. I mean, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, women are feeling that, you know, and
Speaker 1: she probably had a lot of people, you know. I
Speaker 1: feel like it was more of a wrote thing for
Speaker 1: her because how many black women actually ever walked in
Speaker 1: the room. I'm gonna say none, well even let's say none.
Speaker 1: Mrs Mitchell says that she's like, this is the first,
Speaker 1: You're the first, because when Katherine walked into that room.
Speaker 1: Everybody was he gave her the garbage can, right because
Speaker 1: she thought that he thought she was a custodian. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he gave her the garbage can. And then and you
Speaker 1: could tell Jim Parson's character already minute his mind that
Speaker 1: he was not going to respect her totally. And when
Speaker 1: he told him, Kevin told him, oh, you gotta do
Speaker 1: her do his math too. What a blow to that.
Speaker 1: Maybe laughed so hard you could like see his dick
Speaker 1: wilt receed into his body. It was, it was, it was,
Speaker 1: it just fell out, like leaked out of his pants
Speaker 1: like that was such a and that happens so many times,
Speaker 1: and he's like he sucks he does. Yeah. I wonder um,
Speaker 1: because I feel like anytime there's a movie based on
Speaker 1: true events, um, the family of whoever the villain has retaliates.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there was any of that and this kid,
Speaker 1: I don't know research on it, because people love to
Speaker 1: get money by being like he wasn't that bad. It's
Speaker 1: like he was. He was probably worse. And they said
Speaker 1: it was worse. Actually they sent their treatment in this um.
Speaker 1: They said the treatment was actually worse than what was betrayed. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like if they did it accurately, they probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't get to keep the PG rating. Like I'm sure
Speaker 1: like kids were thrown at them. I can imagine what happened.
Speaker 1: One of the points I wanted to make is why
Speaker 1: did it take until two thousand sixteen for this movie
Speaker 1: to be made about these people from the sixties? I mean,
Speaker 1: when when was the book published? The book was published
Speaker 1: in two thousand and sixty. It was just clemed. But
Speaker 1: I tried to read the book but it wasn't out
Speaker 1: yet because I actually I was told that I was
Speaker 1: going to have an audition for this movie. Really, yes,
Speaker 1: I had a general at Fox and they told me
Speaker 1: about this movie, oh and another like little nice inside tidbit.
Speaker 1: I had just done Hotels dot com commercial that Ted
Speaker 1: Melfy directed, who was a director of Hidden Figures. So
Speaker 1: it was right after that they were like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a you know, general at Fox. And I
Speaker 1: mean know, I saw it was cast. I was like,
Speaker 1: I was at a joke, like you's know, like hello,
Speaker 1: that cast was amazing. I'm like, yeah, that was cute.
Speaker 1: But I was trying to get my hand on the
Speaker 1: book and trying to get as much information as I
Speaker 1: could on the project so that I could I really
Speaker 1: wanted to audition for it, but I never did. Well,
Speaker 1: that's another thing we could talk about, is that another
Speaker 1: movie directed they're written by a white guy. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: probably why did to take this long? So I didn't
Speaker 1: didn't have to be in directed by a white guy.
Speaker 1: That wasn't like that was a big thing. That was
Speaker 1: the thing. You have this movie about these three African
Speaker 1: American women and it didn't go to uh like Abra
Speaker 1: du Renett or you know, I mean the up and
Speaker 1: coming African American director, which is a very interesting story.
Speaker 1: And for me, I was hugely conflicted because I had
Speaker 1: I loved Ted Melfy from St. Vincent. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a huge And I think the reason why I booked
Speaker 1: that Hotel dot Com commercial was because in my callback
Speaker 1: when I went in, I was like, what are you
Speaker 1: doing here? Because I couldn't believe the director from St.
Speaker 1: Vincent was the director of my commercial and I was
Speaker 1: and I didn't have the wherewithal to be like see
Speaker 1: him in this, you know, be like hmm, okay, I
Speaker 1: think I know who that is and just be quiet.
Speaker 1: I was like Oh my god, what are you doing here?
Speaker 1: This is awesome, like literally didn't even care. And one
Speaker 1: of it but again that one commercial pay for stag
Speaker 1: for my health insurance, remember one commer. But he was
Speaker 1: such a great guy, and I remember thinking, oh, but
Speaker 1: he's like really, he's really good. Yeah, it's it's always
Speaker 1: tree because he did I mean, he had his hand
Speaker 1: in pretty much every part of the movies got the direction,
Speaker 1: producing and writing credit. The first draft of the movie
Speaker 1: was written by a woman and then and it was
Speaker 1: a woman with a lot of experience with NASA to
Speaker 1: who her name is Allison Schroeder. Yeah, yeah, or she
Speaker 1: had like interned at NASA. I grew up near Cape
Speaker 1: Canever the whole bit, um so you know, Ted Milfie
Speaker 1: didn't write the whole thing. But it would have been
Speaker 1: nice though it would. It would have been nice too.
Speaker 1: I would have even like maybe Aba du Verney or
Speaker 1: de Rees who did Bessie and um Pariah. I would
Speaker 1: have loved to see one of them do it. Would
Speaker 1: actually like d do It would have been great to
Speaker 1: see her do it. Yeah, because I mean, and Ted
Speaker 1: Melfy does a good job in the movie turned out amazing,
Speaker 1: but it's like not history, it's not his story. But
Speaker 1: I also wonder, you know, how would they have been
Speaker 1: able to get that PG rating because d is hardcore.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe it depends. I mean she had to. I'm
Speaker 1: sure she could. Yeah, And and the PG rating I
Speaker 1: think is so important for how long this movie will
Speaker 1: be remembered to, like if it just makes it more
Speaker 1: accessible to too young like you said, like it can
Speaker 1: be screened in schools now for like elementary kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my mom already got a copy of the DVD. She
Speaker 1: teaches second grade. How adorable are they sending it to schools.
Speaker 1: I think she paid for it out of pocket. And
Speaker 1: that's what teachers doing now. Yeah, even though our head
Speaker 1: of education doesn't know that, but you know that they
Speaker 1: paid their own pencils. But you know, yeah, their own God,
Speaker 1: that's a whole other thing that I could like flip
Speaker 1: a table over. But my my mom and her her
Speaker 1: teacher friends, they all have like a a little group
Speaker 1: and they take turns buying movies and stuff and help
Speaker 1: each other out. But anyways, teachers are treating you know,
Speaker 1: it's amazing too. It's amazing to be your mom teacher
Speaker 1: second grade, right, I mean in second grade, you see
Speaker 1: a movie about three African American mathematicians, Like not just
Speaker 1: black kids, I mean all kids see this. It's like,
Speaker 1: can me do you? I mean that's like there are
Speaker 1: kids their first president was black. It's what they know.
Speaker 1: That's wild. I mean, it's so it's so cool, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know. That makes me feel good because this
Speaker 1: movie can have like such a role in like normalizing
Speaker 1: that two kids early on to the point where it
Speaker 1: wouldn't seem unusual at all and totally. I mean in
Speaker 1: my family, my family, especially my mom's side and mostly
Speaker 1: um pH d s men and women. Um So I
Speaker 1: was raised around extraordinary, extraordinary after Americans, So it was
Speaker 1: always like weird to me that people didn't know that,
Speaker 1: Like that's like everybody I was raised around. What are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Like a single parent house. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what's that like? Because I had three generations to deal
Speaker 1: with great grandparents, grandparents, and my parents get in trouble
Speaker 1: at one house, you got in trouble two more time
Speaker 1: to two other houses. That was not nice. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean a part of that might be that the way
Speaker 1: black people are portrayed in mainstream media usually not that great, right,
Speaker 1: But but it's also interesting to me because most of
Speaker 1: my life was built around I'm watching mainstream media probably
Speaker 1: like y'all, like I'm learning this with you, Like what
Speaker 1: the hell are they talking about? Who are they talking about?
Speaker 1: I remember like growing up, especially when the Internet became
Speaker 1: a big thing. Yeah, I had read things. I knew
Speaker 1: things were going on where I definitely was not ignorant,
Speaker 1: not with my parents. But on the flip side, I'm like,
Speaker 1: my experience was around people who were educated, highly educated.
Speaker 1: A matter of fact, you didn't have a doctorate. They
Speaker 1: used to look at you like like, what's with you?
Speaker 1: He's gonna stop there, you under achiever? Going to stop
Speaker 1: at a bachelor's degree? You disgusted, you know. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was like they were like, oh gosh, you know my
Speaker 1: mom's first cousins, all of their children went to Ivy
Speaker 1: League schools, like they all went to even before that.
Speaker 1: My aunt was one of the first. I think she
Speaker 1: was one the first black women and to Harvard Law School,
Speaker 1: I believe. And she spoke fluent Chinese, which is and
Speaker 1: I went to study abroad. I speak Japanese, but it's
Speaker 1: because she studied Chinese, which is why I wanted to
Speaker 1: take Japanese. So these were influences that I took for
Speaker 1: granted almost because I figured that everybody, you know, had
Speaker 1: that experience, that everybody knew that about the African American experience,
Speaker 1: that was that was my norm, and not that I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen or experienced. My dad's side of the family
Speaker 1: is very different from my mom's, and not that I
Speaker 1: haven't seen or experienced that as well. But the thing
Speaker 1: that influenced me the most was um my dad's side.
Speaker 1: Remember being like, gosh, man, these women they have like
Speaker 1: you know, the standard was like high. Yeah, well that's
Speaker 1: I mean, what's great about this movie is it normally
Speaker 1: it normalizes a portrayal that you don't often see the
Speaker 1: Black community, which were black women especially, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean you feel like black women are portrayed as caretakers.
Speaker 1: They're strong and struggling in a single mom and they're
Speaker 1: all these like you guys, like literally fight the world
Speaker 1: to achieve anything. You're down trodden, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: really yeah, it's it's it's refreshing because all I see
Speaker 1: is people like people like me. I'm like, oh, well
Speaker 1: do yeah, I understand that that these are women that
Speaker 1: I relate to I wish I was brought up around
Speaker 1: smart people, really great or anyone besides white people. I
Speaker 1: grew up in a town where my I went to
Speaker 1: high school. There were three black people in my high school,
Speaker 1: and two of them were opted by white families. So
Speaker 1: they're just there was no diversity. There's no, There's just none.
Speaker 1: I was lucky to grow up in a very diverse
Speaker 1: city and be exposed to a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: I feel like, people don't look at a frail white
Speaker 1: girl and be like, oh, she would know that, I mean,
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful for that because even I remember,
Speaker 1: like when I was transitioning from moving home to college,
Speaker 1: like you just some people have no fucking clue and
Speaker 1: it's such a wake up call to Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm from the suburbs too, and my town was actually
Speaker 1: I wanted to say a large percentage of Latino really,
Speaker 1: but it was so segregated because I didn't go to
Speaker 1: school with one Latino maybe one, oh yeah, two, and
Speaker 1: I remember their names, Um say them right now now.
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, shout at but I mean, although my school
Speaker 1: is a public school, and although my school was a
Speaker 1: very large public school, I was an honest program, and
Speaker 1: there were two of us to African American, and I
Speaker 1: remember the other one as well. She was the Georgetown
Speaker 1: we were in that program, and then one Latino and
Speaker 1: that in in one Asian grould, so literally everybody. It
Speaker 1: felt like I was in a utopia with in a society.
Speaker 1: Everybody else was running around intermingling, and I'm in a
Speaker 1: world completely separate from everybody else. They even put us
Speaker 1: in a different wing, you know how where the computers
Speaker 1: were in that movie. That reminded me of where we
Speaker 1: were put as honor students in a different place, away
Speaker 1: from everybody else, but in a different part of campus almost.
Speaker 1: And that was like a really weird experience for me
Speaker 1: because my day, the majority of it was spent in
Speaker 1: the majority white environment. And then the only time I
Speaker 1: saw I saw anyone of color was at track practice.
Speaker 1: And I also played the cello, so that's the whole
Speaker 1: another life. Yeah, So it was really interesting experience for
Speaker 1: me to be the one person I felt like that
Speaker 1: knew So I knew so much about my culture, but
Speaker 1: I realized a lot of people didn't, and I did
Speaker 1: not feel like I wasn't really fighting really, but my
Speaker 1: mom was, and I didn't even realize that until I'm
Speaker 1: like an adult now. My mom was the one who
Speaker 1: would be like no when my parents, both of them,
Speaker 1: my dad and my mom would be like, no, you're
Speaker 1: gonna do a report on this person. And it cannot
Speaker 1: be like people that everybody knows, you're gonna do something
Speaker 1: on you know, this person. So it was really interesting
Speaker 1: that they had to wear with all to say no,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna do that. You're gonna you're my job
Speaker 1: is to be the teacher, and I know a lot
Speaker 1: of black peoplen't want to be the teacher, but for
Speaker 1: my parents are like, that's your job. You're going to
Speaker 1: go in and because of what you're doing that inevitably
Speaker 1: will open other people's minds. So yes, that was like awesome,
Speaker 1: that is great. I'm trying to think if there's anything
Speaker 1: else about the movie I wanted to say, and maybe
Speaker 1: worried the book because I mean, watching it as you know,
Speaker 1: as as an adult, it makes me want to you know,
Speaker 1: you can tell that there's probably a lot of moments
Speaker 1: that are left out of the movie so I can
Speaker 1: reach a larger audience. But I want to. But I
Speaker 1: also think a lot of women. I mean, couldn't women
Speaker 1: relate to And he told her if you were a man,
Speaker 1: would you want to be an engineer? She'd be like,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't really be one. Yeah, she's I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to wish I would be one. I would be like
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like I would be one.
Speaker 1: And it's not that's not over. Um, that's not over. Hello.
Speaker 1: The thing this movie has, like it's the ending, is
Speaker 1: very uplifting because it's like they went on to do
Speaker 1: these things and they were regarded as the most brilliant
Speaker 1: minds in NASA, and and you're like, yeah, good for them,
Speaker 1: And then you're like, wait a minute, it's fifty years later,
Speaker 1: over fifty years later, and they're still rampant racism and
Speaker 1: misogyny all around us. Also to like, how do you
Speaker 1: think that I feel even with what I do. I
Speaker 1: play the cello. Even now, this is twenty seventeen, no
Speaker 1: one can name like a black cellist, not even meal
Speaker 1: a female like, no one because at the time I
Speaker 1: was during research, there were no black cellist and the
Speaker 1: Philharmonic in the country. So those first are still happening.
Speaker 1: Misty Copley, like those first are still happening. I mean,
Speaker 1: the reason why I haven't act as a comedian is
Speaker 1: because there are no black cellist's fresh I didn't make
Speaker 1: songs like the most famous black cellis, you know, because
Speaker 1: I'm the only one you probably know, probably only cellist,
Speaker 1: do you know, yo, people know I know, yeah exactly,
Speaker 1: but you know, so it's it's it's so like I'm
Speaker 1: waiting for the movie of you know, the first Black
Speaker 1: ballaweena're like Misty Copeland or the first Black cellist. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's still more work to be done, and
Speaker 1: I'm so excited because then in like give me something
Speaker 1: to look forward to. I want to be a first.
Speaker 1: I want to achieve some stuff over here. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, there's still areas of life that are still untapped.
Speaker 1: We lift each other so we can we can get there.
Speaker 1: And as women, I mean, I think women in general
Speaker 1: should have been able to relate to you know, not
Speaker 1: just African American women, but like if you look at
Speaker 1: the white women in that movie, they was so like oppressed.
Speaker 1: You can tell they were just suffering, suffering, Like because
Speaker 1: even for Mrs Mitchell, for her, that's probably like a
Speaker 1: kind of a big job, you know, because she's she's
Speaker 1: the kind of the boss. She's a coordinator. But even
Speaker 1: with that, who knows what her her background when she
Speaker 1: wanted to really do who knows, Like, who knows, I
Speaker 1: think she could have handled her, I don't know, choices
Speaker 1: a lot better. Oh yeah, But it's not even about
Speaker 1: like I'm not saying that her character. I mean, we
Speaker 1: already know what her character is. But you look at
Speaker 1: the dynamics between men and women in between. You you're
Speaker 1: dealing with multiple layers men, women, um, African American, white,
Speaker 1: and you're just like layering all this stuff on there.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, you see the secretary in
Speaker 1: the you know, in the task group. Yeah, you see
Speaker 1: like the secretary. It's almost like she kind of really
Speaker 1: knows it's not gonna work. You know, she kind of
Speaker 1: already wrote it off, like, yeah, this is not gonna work.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many people see me get
Speaker 1: on stage with that show and be like, Okay, what happened? Man?
Speaker 1: And then they'll come back to the show and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: it was really good. Actually, because she says to her,
Speaker 1: she says, I'm like, don't expect Mr Harrison to warm
Speaker 1: up to you, like and then, um, because maybe you
Speaker 1: didn't want up to her. Yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe he never warmed up to her. Yeah, it's very possible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the character of Mrs Mitchell, as much as
Speaker 1: I can't stand here like the the like very tightly
Speaker 1: repressed energy because she's sort of like in the middle
Speaker 1: of she is not kind to black women because she
Speaker 1: needs to feel important, and then she's constantly taking ship
Speaker 1: from the white men and it just kind of results
Speaker 1: in this weird little ball of fury like you just
Speaker 1: and and it's uncomfortable because she plans to how to
Speaker 1: go home and cook and touch somebody's toes and rub
Speaker 1: his back. She worked the whole damn Jay, you may
Speaker 1: forget that. She's like, man, I listened to Jim tell
Speaker 1: me what to do and in a Sheldon from Big
Speaker 1: Bang theory, but she says things like, you know, you're
Speaker 1: the first black woman in this group. Don't embarrass me,
Speaker 1: And it's like you, yeah, but so did so did
Speaker 1: the other character too. Don't embarrass us, you know. But
Speaker 1: it's also but it's also like, what's funny about that
Speaker 1: is she thinks that that woman is going to embarrass her.
Speaker 1: That's the funny part, Like, really, I'm like, do you
Speaker 1: clearly don't know like the level of she was so
Speaker 1: unaware of how talented they were. All she knows is
Speaker 1: I can't believe I had to come down here to
Speaker 1: get one of you. Basically, you're so unaware how freaking
Speaker 1: phenomenal they are. It makes me laugh. All I can
Speaker 1: think about is that there's a poem by my Angelo
Speaker 1: called Phenomenal Women, No phenomenal Woman, And I'm like, and
Speaker 1: our sorority is always like quote this poem, And all
Speaker 1: I can think about is you have no anything. How
Speaker 1: fearce these women are, these women are, there'reen circles around
Speaker 1: you and all you know. But that's how her job is.
Speaker 1: I gotta get down here, get this thing. All she
Speaker 1: knows I gotta fill this, fill this, fill this field
Speaker 1: is I don't want to deal with your issues with
Speaker 1: wanting a raised chicken. You're lucky in her mind, you're
Speaker 1: lucky or even here she says that too, Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: lucky and have a job. Yes, and really it really
Speaker 1: is a reverse. You're looking you have a job because
Speaker 1: they're all so much smarter than you. Yeah, she for real,
Speaker 1: she would have rocked Dorothy would have rocked her job
Speaker 1: so hard that woman would be unemployed. She's back in
Speaker 1: the kitchen having more babies by Jim Roast, Jim can
Speaker 1: fuck off. I found out a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the charity screenings UM where quite a few of them
Speaker 1: were sponsored by the actors, and there was also a
Speaker 1: girl Scout initiative to get a bunch of girl Scouts
Speaker 1: uh to be able to go. And then there were
Speaker 1: different ones sponsored by uh, you know, Octavia Spencer, Genel
Speaker 1: Money uh and and Tag p Henson also Jim Persons,
Speaker 1: also Ted Malfie, and so I think that there was
Speaker 1: like fifteen different cities that ended up getting a ton
Speaker 1: of young people that see the movie. Girl Scouts still around. Huh,
Speaker 1: they're still I know you a girl scope. So was I?
Speaker 1: So was? I always get the most patches because my
Speaker 1: dad worked out of college and he make everybody come
Speaker 1: into his UM office and buy girls cut cookies. So
Speaker 1: I would win every time the whole college. My parents
Speaker 1: were not motivated in regards to my girls, and I'm
Speaker 1: not a salesman, so yeah, I would only ever get
Speaker 1: like my grandma and my uncle to buy a box.
Speaker 1: And I'd be like I've sold toy boxes and like,
Speaker 1: shut up, Caitlin, get out of here. No, no, we
Speaker 1: were rocking it. Yeah. I love girl Scouts until they
Speaker 1: told us to go camping. Yeah, as we just say,
Speaker 1: the wilderness brutal. I'm like, I know, I have no desire.
Speaker 1: If I had a choice, I would never go outside. No.
Speaker 1: My mom and I were like, Okay, we're at the
Speaker 1: closest hotel, like we are not. Um, he invented uh
Speaker 1: in or plumbing for a reason. I'm not gonna I
Speaker 1: will say that my parents for it as a certain lifestyle,
Speaker 1: and I'm grateful for I was like, no, we do.
Speaker 1: We do not like camping. Maybe I wish they had.
Speaker 1: Was it called glamping now? Is that what it's called? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want a Lambers camping. Yeah, I would. We would
Speaker 1: totally sign up for that. But my mom and I
Speaker 1: were like, oh my god. My mother like, where your
Speaker 1: slippers in that shower? I don't know what's in there.
Speaker 1: We were terrible. We were just like this is gross.
Speaker 1: I felt like we would have been horrible in the wilderness. Man,
Speaker 1: we would have been horrible. Oh And my dad was like,
Speaker 1: I mean he's a professor, so my dad would be
Speaker 1: my dad to take the tour guy's job. The tour
Speaker 1: guy be like saying something, and my dad was My
Speaker 1: dad's so smart. I think he is a computer. My
Speaker 1: dad would literally be like just to add to that,
Speaker 1: I mean, my dad knows everything about everything, but he
Speaker 1: just retains everything because I watch him. No way I'll
Speaker 1: keep the keepers. Yeah. I had an intense p t
Speaker 1: A mom when I was younger with my mom one
Speaker 1: of those Yeah, my mom didn't My mom didn't go
Speaker 1: back to work until I was eleven. She used to
Speaker 1: be a banker before I was born and then ended
Speaker 1: up staying home with me an all tend of my cousins, uh,
Speaker 1: from when before I was born until I Yes, it
Speaker 1: would be ten kids at my house every day, sugar.
Speaker 1: And then she went back and she was a p
Speaker 1: t A mom when when she wasn't working and was
Speaker 1: just taking care of like this brood of children. Um.
Speaker 1: And then now she works at that school that she
Speaker 1: used to be at, the PTA and she like went
Speaker 1: back and got her masters and now she teaches because
Speaker 1: I think that she just really wore the principle down
Speaker 1: by being around for like ten consecutive years. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean my mom probably had to deal with so in
Speaker 1: the honest program, she had to deal with like certain
Speaker 1: things in terms of teachers, not only just being a
Speaker 1: black female. There was one honors program I got, like,
Speaker 1: we had a Regents exams in New York. I got
Speaker 1: like a nineties seven on the Regents exam and they
Speaker 1: didn't put me in Honors English the following year. But
Speaker 1: they didn't put any women in Honors English the following year,
Speaker 1: hardly any and my mom like noticed it. My mom
Speaker 1: was like, uh no, they had to go and fight
Speaker 1: to get us in on his English. I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Mom was like, you guys are racist and sexist, and
Speaker 1: these women and these kids need to get into this class.
Speaker 1: She got a nineties seven on the beings. Are you crazy?
Speaker 1: That's my mom terrific. Are there any final thoughts anyone
Speaker 1: has about the movie? I loved it. I want more
Speaker 1: kids to see it. Like I said before, it was
Speaker 1: just nice. It was just nice to see let's we're ready, sisters,
Speaker 1: because like that that pride is like what we were
Speaker 1: raised around. So it's just like, yeah, I get this,
Speaker 1: and it's just great to see that. Obviously this passes
Speaker 1: the back. Yes, we should usually Yeah. Like there it's
Speaker 1: like almost a comical passing of the test. Yeah, it happens,
Speaker 1: And I mean I only wrote down like the scenes
Speaker 1: that happened in the first half hour, and there are
Speaker 1: like six of them where it passes. Like in the
Speaker 1: first scene where the three women are together fixing the car,
Speaker 1: they're talking about the car, they're talking about their jobs
Speaker 1: at NASA. Then there's a room full of women, the
Speaker 1: one that like Dorothy's handing out assignments too. They're all
Speaker 1: talking each other there. Mrs Mitchell comes in and is like, hey,
Speaker 1: who can handle analytic geometry here? Most of their conversations
Speaker 1: whenever there are two women talking to each other, are
Speaker 1: not about a man. It's usually about their job, space, travel, math,
Speaker 1: you know, any number of things. There's a ton, there's
Speaker 1: a ton of scenes where it passes the test, no
Speaker 1: question about it. It reminds me of my first job.
Speaker 1: I had. On first job, the MODS Investor Service, there's
Speaker 1: a rating agency companies, fortunately a hundred companies, and my
Speaker 1: job in the summer was to use a genie coal
Speaker 1: efficient to figure out the average income of homes in
Speaker 1: certain areas. And I remember it was really statistics and
Speaker 1: I remember like sitting there like telling people is why
Speaker 1: I do for summer. I'm like seventeen, eighteen years old
Speaker 1: and people could be like, no, man, we don't even
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. And I remember like thinking
Speaker 1: about that first job and and granted, I mean I
Speaker 1: love math and I'm great at it, but not the
Speaker 1: way these women are. But it made me feel really
Speaker 1: good that I was like throwing out stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: I was like yeah, and people are like, what the
Speaker 1: hell she's talking about. It reminds me of my job
Speaker 1: as a Hooters delivery driver man bringing a bag. No, actually,
Speaker 1: like I I was. I was, yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: real thing for Hooters. You were you were uber um
Speaker 1: like um, but no, actually I was the only woman
Speaker 1: they hired to be a delivery driver and mostly other
Speaker 1: guys got fired. So I was like one. I was like,
Speaker 1: you're the last one. Here's the last one. I kind
Speaker 1: of your story must be told. It must call Melfie.
Speaker 1: I had. I had a math job once. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say excelled at it, but I worked at the comptroller's
Speaker 1: office for all the summers in college. Uh still couldn't
Speaker 1: exactly tell you what a comptroller does, but I didn't
Speaker 1: crush crush a lot of numbers in that very cold
Speaker 1: office for the people who did not really know how
Speaker 1: to use computers. That was mostly what I did was
Speaker 1: walk around and tell almost retirees how to you know,
Speaker 1: use Microsoft work. You were like the Dorothy you like
Speaker 1: I would. Yeah. Yeah, we didn't talk a lot about her,
Speaker 1: but like, um, I mean she was great and she
Speaker 1: like had the foresight to know, like to learn the computer.
Speaker 1: She forgot about that. Yeah, she's snuck in there to
Speaker 1: learn about the machine. And then she stole a book
Speaker 1: from the library. And I love that speech. She's like,
Speaker 1: I pay taxes. Everything in this library was paid by taxes. Mind.
Speaker 1: But but do you realize the impact of not being
Speaker 1: able to get the knowledge? Yeah, knowledge being withheld from you.
Speaker 1: I can't even wrap my mind around that. I did
Speaker 1: not realize until this movie that libraries were segregated like that,
Speaker 1: that there was I did not know that. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you even think forget about just like in this
Speaker 1: movie before, what was the one thing the slave math
Speaker 1: not want that slaves to know. They don't want them reading.
Speaker 1: You could not read. Theyn't want literate people because literally
Speaker 1: people know how to fight back and how to fight that.
Speaker 1: They didn't want them to have the tools. So what
Speaker 1: do you do if you want to keep someone down,
Speaker 1: You take their educ withhold you withhold knowledge, right, And
Speaker 1: that goes back to having to go to court to
Speaker 1: take a night class, like the exactly limiting access to
Speaker 1: education exactly exactly and basically like humiliating people, yeah for
Speaker 1: for needing to jump through all those hoops to even
Speaker 1: have access. It's like, it's it's just And then when
Speaker 1: she walks into that class and like when she finally
Speaker 1: gets like, she petitions, she does all the things she
Speaker 1: needs to do, and she finally has granted access to
Speaker 1: this class she needs to take, and she walks in
Speaker 1: and it's a bunch of white dudes. It's a white teacher,
Speaker 1: and they're just like, what do we do? This curriculum
Speaker 1: isn't designed for women, And she's like, I think it'll
Speaker 1: be fine. It's another that's a good point to the
Speaker 1: fact that it should needs to be easier for women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's unfathomable to me because the women in my family
Speaker 1: was so intelligent. I feel like it was I mean,
Speaker 1: the yeah, the attitude was like, oh, your woman, you're small,
Speaker 1: in brain? How could you ever possibly handle this information? Man?
Speaker 1: It just reminds me of that. Wasn't there like a
Speaker 1: Barbie where you like pulled the string and it was
Speaker 1: like math is hard? But what do you think that's
Speaker 1: a portrayal for white women? What that like? Like that frail?
Speaker 1: Like you like you don't know as much. I mean
Speaker 1: obviously this movie was like you know, it was an
Speaker 1: African American woman, but I mean I feel like I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is this Like I don't know that this woman
Speaker 1: maybe she's not as smart really, But then it maybe
Speaker 1: when I got older it made more sense that, oh
Speaker 1: men really think this that was I was so blinded
Speaker 1: by that, so blinded because as a as a woman,
Speaker 1: as a girl in my class, I was with the
Speaker 1: nose dudes asked. So I didn't even really think about
Speaker 1: Like I didn't think about gender, Like Jenna didn't even
Speaker 1: come into my brain like that. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It didn't occur to me until maybe high school, but
Speaker 1: probably later because I mean, like I love everyone in
Speaker 1: my family. The males in my family are present betas,
Speaker 1: Like every major male figure in my life. Uh was
Speaker 1: a beta is a beta to this day and so
Speaker 1: like and even down to like me and my cousins
Speaker 1: and and uh, I don't know exactly what the split
Speaker 1: between girls and boys about have and half, but the
Speaker 1: girls that I grew up with, we were you know,
Speaker 1: we were whipping their assets stuff at school, and that
Speaker 1: was just sort of what what what it was and
Speaker 1: what it always know what I think about it actually too,
Speaker 1: that's actually true, it is. I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: raised thing. I think, but men just really think they're
Speaker 1: smart than women. Yeah, I think, I think. I think
Speaker 1: it's I don't think maybe women of color experienced it
Speaker 1: to a greater degree where you know, people assume, oh
Speaker 1: you're not going to be as smart, you're not going
Speaker 1: to know as much, etcetera. But white women, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: so interesting. Like I just think it's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to sit there and feel you're right and you sit
Speaker 1: there and you want But that's something I don't understand,
Speaker 1: Like I understand it intellectually, but in reality, in experience,
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, this is not true. It just like
Speaker 1: takes you a really long time to realize that that
Speaker 1: is actually what's happening. Like this was very like specific
Speaker 1: memory in college of like I was starting to do
Speaker 1: comedy stuff and it was like taking an interest in it.
Speaker 1: And I had been like feeling weird for a while
Speaker 1: and then she just hit me. I'm like, oh, you
Speaker 1: just don't think that I can do this, like and
Speaker 1: it was. It hadn't occurred to me until college. I
Speaker 1: think I think college it hit me that people also too,
Speaker 1: I'm being in I'm a decent master, that I'm a
Speaker 1: really good like micro econ and statistics like that was
Speaker 1: like my thing in my micro econ class, which like
Speaker 1: everybody always fail. So you know, gray on the curve
Speaker 1: and I remember they were like, well, somebody destroyed the
Speaker 1: curve because she got it was me up the curve.
Speaker 1: And I realized now he never said who destroyed the curve,
Speaker 1: but he did when I did. It did not hit
Speaker 1: me until much later. I was like, I wonder if
Speaker 1: he'd said that because I was a black woman in
Speaker 1: this class of mostly white dude, do you think he
Speaker 1: was trying to he was calling attention to it because
Speaker 1: he wanted you to be He wanted the other students
Speaker 1: to be mad at you. Well, I think they were mad.
Speaker 1: I don't think that was his intention. I think he
Speaker 1: wanted them to acknowledge that I had done this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they were mad, pissed. You know. I was like, whatever, man,
Speaker 1: curve destroyer. That's a brutal position to be in. Loved
Speaker 1: it and I tried to achieve it every time. No mercy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's write the movie on our nipple scale. Nipples,
Speaker 1: nipples scale. This is another movie that I'm going to
Speaker 1: give a very high nipple rating. Two, maybe even a five,
Speaker 1: like a four point five or five. I'm gonna commit.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it a five. Um. I love the
Speaker 1: way the three main women are portrayed. Um, they're just
Speaker 1: they're they're constantly like uplifting each other. I just love
Speaker 1: them that the movie shows women in a way we
Speaker 1: haven't seen before, typically three black women who are aerospace
Speaker 1: engineered geniuses. That was a really cool thing to see
Speaker 1: on screen. And I just really enjoy this movie. And
Speaker 1: it makes me feel a lot of feelings that I
Speaker 1: don't like to admit that I have because feelings are dumb.
Speaker 1: They're in there, they're I know, I forget that I'm trying.
Speaker 1: But um, so I want to do is talk about
Speaker 1: my favorites all day. Every day. I pay someone a lot,
Speaker 1: have money to listen to my feelings. That's smart. I'm
Speaker 1: debt how to do that because i love to talk
Speaker 1: about my feelings so much. And I'm getting to give
Speaker 1: it five out of five for sure. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: for all the reasons that you said. Also, just every
Speaker 1: character in this movie is portrayed with nuance that I
Speaker 1: think that if the attention to detail hadn't been so strong,
Speaker 1: it would have been very easy to paint every character
Speaker 1: in this movie with far broader strokes, and it wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been as effective. Um, I'm so happy this movie
Speaker 1: exists and that people will be able to watch it.
Speaker 1: I like want to show my kids this movie. Yeah, hardcore.
Speaker 1: Five nipples, Yeah, hardcore. Each about three African American women
Speaker 1: mathematicians who will portrayed layer multidimensional characters. Hell yeah, five nipples.
Speaker 1: We did. This is the second movie that's gotten out
Speaker 1: of like whatever we've done that they've gotten the five
Speaker 1: out of five treatment. The first one was MO, wanna Nina?
Speaker 1: Do you have anything you want to plug? Or where
Speaker 1: can people find you online? I have a website meaning
Speaker 1: Daniel dot com. I'm huge into snapchat, Instagram, so on
Speaker 1: Instagram mean that Daniel is a dot official and snapchat
Speaker 1: on um Nina's Playground, And I have a monthly show,
Speaker 1: like you said earlier here at the Nerk Mount most
Speaker 1: of the last Tuesday of the month. Anything Else presents
Speaker 1: the playground and it's awesome and a lot of fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: anything you want to plug Jamie. Um, yes, this is
Speaker 1: this episode is going to come out in the future,
Speaker 1: but right now. I made a bunch of pinatas today.
Speaker 1: Do you know a live stream at jash tomorrow that
Speaker 1: you'll be able to watch by the time this episode
Speaker 1: comes out, And it's entirety. It's called Swan Lake Live
Speaker 1: from a Locked Basement. I'm gonna do ballet, Y're gonna
Speaker 1: I made a bunch of new cartoons for it. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I've got to go finish making the pinatas for it.
Speaker 1: It takes place on the day of Round Reagan's assassination,
Speaker 1: and I've got a big pinata of Jodi Foster's head
Speaker 1: and gotta smash it. I love everything about that. I
Speaker 1: was going to satto to it, so watch that and
Speaker 1: uh and at Hamburger Fun. Yeah. I don't have any
Speaker 1: cool um Swan Lake projects or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: you can follow me at Caitlin Toronto on what Are.
Speaker 1: You can follow the podcast on Twitter too, at Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: You can email us. I haven't we haven't talked about
Speaker 1: the email. I don't even know if we've gotten any
Speaker 1: I should check it, but anyway, we just email us.
Speaker 1: We don't, we just check it. Maybe i'll ' sit
Speaker 1: that part out. We'll see. We well, we we answer face.
Speaker 1: It says on our Facebook page that we answer messages
Speaker 1: very quickly. I was like, hell, yeah, go very awesome,
Speaker 1: but yeah, find us on Facebook, find us on Twitter.
Speaker 1: You can email us at the Bechtel Cast at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com and rate and review us on iTunes and
Speaker 1: we're on SoundCloud. Shout out to Aristotle or on Baby.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much Nina for being here. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. It was awesome and um, reach
Speaker 1: for the stars. Guys. It's a it's a hidden figures. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was like, are you are even a monologue right now?
Speaker 1: This is the famous Land soliloquy our yeah, yeah, just
Speaker 1: a moment his end to end. Yeah, okay, um alright
Speaker 1: yeah bye by Yang Toodles