Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
Speaker 2: all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they
Speaker 2: have individualism?
Speaker 3: It's the patriarchy.
Speaker 2: Zephy and bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 4: Oh hey, there, teenager on the train that I sat next.
Speaker 3: To who me?
Speaker 4: Do you like ballet?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: But do you still do it?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: And I don't want to talk about it. Oh okay, sorry,
Speaker 3: Ballet killed my mother. Okay.
Speaker 2: Oh there I said it. Ballet and my dreams killed
Speaker 2: my mother. Okay, are you happy?
Speaker 5: Wow?
Speaker 4: That's a lot of trauma that you know.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like, did you ever watch Kruella?
Speaker 4: I must, I know, I haven't seen it.
Speaker 2: It's like so funny to me because it's like the
Speaker 2: girl Boss mentality taken to like a fourteen, So it's
Speaker 2: like it stops being bad and it starts getting funny.
Speaker 2: They rewrite it so that Kruella only hates Dalmatians because
Speaker 2: they like killed her parents.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right, And you're like, what, that's basically what
Speaker 3: happens in this movie.
Speaker 2: Ballet killed her mother and so now she can't talk
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 4: I mean fair, Yeah, anyway, Hello, and welcome to the
Speaker 4: Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin.
Speaker 2: I feel like the Sorry, my name is Jamie. I
Speaker 2: feel like the moral of this movie is if you
Speaker 2: dream too big, it will kill someone.
Speaker 3: So dream small or have no dreams.
Speaker 4: If you have ambitions to go to Juilliard, someone will
Speaker 4: get into a car accident or there will be some
Speaker 4: kind of car catastrophe every time you audition, because it
Speaker 4: happens twice.
Speaker 3: This happens a lot in movies of this era. I
Speaker 3: was thinking, there's some.
Speaker 2: Hilary Duff movie that is rancid unfortunately about like raise
Speaker 2: your voice I think is called no indeed.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh sorry, You're welcome now.
Speaker 1: It's like I can't Some podcasts Dana want you to
Speaker 1: say anything until they introduce you. So I was silently
Speaker 1: violently nodding. There's no rules, one thing about me. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bust out, calmly say oh oh, the epitome of
Speaker 1: white girls giving us nothing. Oh, raise your voice is
Speaker 1: a staple.
Speaker 2: I love the I mean, it's like equally ridiculous that
Speaker 2: Hilary Duff is the voice of a generation, that Julia
Speaker 2: Styles is the ballet prodigy of a generation.
Speaker 3: But she I think her brother dies. Her dreams kill
Speaker 3: her brother.
Speaker 1: Yes, her brother. They were going to I watched this
Speaker 1: movie recently, So what happened was they were on their
Speaker 1: way to a three Days Grace concert. They came back
Speaker 1: from it. He snuck out of the house. He got
Speaker 1: in trouble, but he snuck out of the house. They
Speaker 1: went because he wanted to do it for her. And
Speaker 1: then on the way back, when they're singing, headlights and
Speaker 1: he's dead and she can't see flashlight, she doesn't want
Speaker 1: to audition, but her brother secretly send in the tape
Speaker 1: for her.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: I love the specificity of them going to a three
Speaker 2: days Grace concert. What an embarrassing way to die?
Speaker 1: Are you many for? Hey? They died singing that. That's
Speaker 1: what happened. He died singing that.
Speaker 4: I guess I need to watch this movie.
Speaker 3: I've never seen it. Is it a D com?
Speaker 4: It sounds like it's a D com?
Speaker 1: No, No, But it's that middle ground place where like
Speaker 1: it's a little bit for older Ish teens. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: It's for the Degrassi crowd or something. It's like slaighty
Speaker 2: above dcom age And she sees his ghost like comes
Speaker 2: to the concert or whatever, I miss, I would have
Speaker 2: appreciated a Julia Styles mom ghost.
Speaker 1: Yes, sitting in the theater.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, Casper can do it.
Speaker 4: Save the Last Hands can do it exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've immediately gotten deroute. Sorry, Welcome to the
Speaker 2: Bexel Cast.
Speaker 4: Yes, this is our show where we examine movies through
Speaker 4: an inter sectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as
Speaker 4: a jumping off point. I just want to breeze right
Speaker 4: past that today. Look it up or listen to a
Speaker 4: different episode, because we show's.
Speaker 2: Been on for forty five years. Okay, if you don't
Speaker 2: know what the tech, we barely talk about it.
Speaker 3: It's the jumping off point.
Speaker 2: For a bigger discussion about Chilia styles.
Speaker 1: It's called marketing. Okay. And if you guys, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: not be attacking your audience. I know we have a.
Speaker 3: Brand to maintain.
Speaker 1: God no, but today's movie is.
Speaker 4: Not The Hill or Duff one we were just talking about.
Speaker 4: It's Save the Last Dance, and we have an amazing
Speaker 4: guest we're so excited about. They are an unseerious content
Speaker 4: creator trying to get people to be less mean to
Speaker 4: each other. It's Kadija, mumbo, thank you so much for.
Speaker 3: Being here, Thanks for having me. Oh gosh, we're starstruck.
Speaker 3: We're thrilled.
Speaker 1: We're fans, which is wild to be because I literally
Speaker 1: I'm listening to you. You're on Behind the Bastards, and
Speaker 1: y'all are talking about that weird CIA sex cult thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Roberts accusing me of murder right and.
Speaker 1: Left yep yep.
Speaker 4: So, Kadija, what is your relationship with Save the Last Dance?
Speaker 1: So, actually, Save the Last Dance is the first Okay,
Speaker 1: I grew up watching it.
Speaker 4: One.
Speaker 1: Of course, I always wanted to be a dancer growing up,
Speaker 1: but my parents wouldn't afford to put me in dance
Speaker 1: and were also like, girl dance. We did not come
Speaker 1: all the way from West Africa for you to come
Speaker 1: over here and dance, Like, open those books? What are
Speaker 1: you talking about? So? I always secretly loved ballerinas like
Speaker 1: that was always a thing that I like dreamt I
Speaker 1: could do. So I loved watching any kind of dance movie.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, my friend and I
Speaker 1: Chelsea Chelsea, Hey girl, I'm giving you a shout out, Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea,
Speaker 1: She's gonna be so thrilled. We watched it for a
Speaker 1: podcast that we did, like back in twenty two twenty
Speaker 1: I think, and it was the first YouTube video that
Speaker 1: I made, not giving like life advice or anything, but
Speaker 1: like actually talking about like a social issue and yeah,
Speaker 1: the dolls were like, oh, hey girl, this is keo
Speaker 1: and I was like, hmm, maybe I should talk about
Speaker 1: more of this stuff because I have half a sociology degree,
Speaker 1: so I may as well put in use.
Speaker 3: No, I didn't know.
Speaker 2: It was like a part of a turning point and
Speaker 2: the kind of content you're making that's so cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I did video essays like once a month,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I'm going to make life advice
Speaker 1: and then I'll do video essays once a month. And
Speaker 1: then I was like, why don't I just like kind
Speaker 1: of mix these too. So I just like turned my
Speaker 1: camera on one day and was like, we gotta talk
Speaker 1: about Save the Last Dance because I have issues with
Speaker 1: this movie.
Speaker 4: And then we watched that video. Because here's what happened
Speaker 4: with us. Jamie and I had prepped this episode to
Speaker 4: release on our Matreon as a part of Dance Sumber
Speaker 4: because the first movie we did was Flash Dance and
Speaker 4: then we were prepping to do Stay with the Last Dance,
Speaker 4: and then we were just like, this episode would really
Speaker 4: benefit from a guest.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we both we realized in Uni said, because
Speaker 2: we had both watched your video and had like quoted
Speaker 2: it extensively, and we're like, we should just invite.
Speaker 3: Them on the show. Like, what are we doing, We're
Speaker 3: being fools.
Speaker 2: So we put a pause, we reached out to you,
Speaker 2: and we were like, I wonder if the reply, and
Speaker 2: then we covered burlesque on the matriar.
Speaker 1: I fucking love burlest movie. I'm working side note, I'm
Speaker 1: working on a pole opera recital, and so that's a
Speaker 1: big inspiration visually aesthetically for it, because oh yeah, perfect
Speaker 1: watched it for the first time last year.
Speaker 4: What a film.
Speaker 3: It's just no hinges.
Speaker 2: It is so Yeah, we were really into the whole
Speaker 2: air rights plot twist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so movie. You know, it's a movie that
Speaker 1: feels like a movie. It right.
Speaker 3: That God disappeared too quickly, let's bring it back.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So anyway, so you responded, and here we all are
Speaker 4: and we're so delighted to have you. Yeah, Jamie, what
Speaker 4: is your relationship with Stay of the Last.
Speaker 2: Dance similar to Kadija. I grew up watching this movie.
Speaker 2: I feel like it was like a real sleepover classic.
Speaker 2: I definitely saw it several times. I went to like
Speaker 2: community ballet classes where we like didn't compete, no one
Speaker 2: was particularly good. So the dancing in this movie was
Speaker 2: really great because it's not very good and we're like,
Speaker 2: we could do that, and like, tragically we may have
Speaker 2: been able to do it, because it's mostly just pointing,
Speaker 2: standing up, sitting down.
Speaker 1: She does drop into those splits though, the middle splits.
Speaker 1: She does that. I was like, oh right, oh wait, okay,
Speaker 1: we weren't being kind to her because I forgot she
Speaker 1: immediately goes into that, and then everything else was yeah.
Speaker 2: She trained, she trained, But yeah, I had like a
Speaker 2: pretty limited history with this, but I hadn't seen it
Speaker 2: in a long time before prepping for this, and so
Speaker 2: you know, it's very much a confronting your nostalgia demons
Speaker 2: kind of thing. And yeah, I forgot a lot of
Speaker 2: what happened in this movie. And I also forgot I
Speaker 2: think that this was my first viewing of this movie
Speaker 2: where I realized, I don't know what they're preparing for.
Speaker 2: For a lot of this movie I don't know what
Speaker 2: the dancing, why he's training her, what qualifies him to
Speaker 2: train her.
Speaker 1: Because she's white and he's black and he's trying to
Speaker 1: give her flavor.
Speaker 2: God, that really does seem to be the internal logic
Speaker 2: of the movie, because I was like, wait a second,
Speaker 2: is he a dancer?
Speaker 3: Like do we know this?
Speaker 5: Not?
Speaker 2: What are they getting ready for? They're taking it so seriously.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: Right because it's not until like past the midway mark
Speaker 4: that she learns about the the next string of Juilliard auditions.
Speaker 4: So before that, he teaches her how to sit in
Speaker 4: a chair.
Speaker 1: And you, guys, I'm so sorry I need to say this.
Speaker 1: So as black people, dancing is really important, right, and
Speaker 1: so because of that, if you can't sit or stand
Speaker 1: or move your hips with some sort of attitude, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a family embarrassment. Honestly, Like two of
Speaker 1: my siblings can't dance. And every time I'm like, I'm kidding,
Speaker 1: I'm don't, I'm not. Black people are on a monolith
Speaker 1: and i am not the representation for black folks.
Speaker 4: I just He's like, you're not sitting in the chair, right,
Speaker 4: and so we have to incorporate this chair sitting as
Speaker 4: a part of your dance training.
Speaker 3: You're like, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Even though at steps the club there is no point
Speaker 1: that any of them are sitting. No, no, well, I like,
Speaker 1: unless they're talking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but the sitting isn't a part of the dancing.
Speaker 2: There's like four chairs for heated conversation there. This movie
Speaker 2: is I remember it being incredibly successful, and it just
Speaker 2: feels so like peak MTV movie of this time, where
Speaker 2: the soundtrack is pretty fucking awesome.
Speaker 1: The soundtrack is bumping. I was like, Okay, hold on,
Speaker 1: you can do it.
Speaker 4: Put your ass into it.
Speaker 1: Oh you said that so reluctantly, I know.
Speaker 4: I was like, I was like, because some of the
Speaker 4: lyrics are you can do it, put your back into it.
Speaker 4: And then I was like, is that the lyric or
Speaker 4: is it both of them?
Speaker 1: I think it goes back and forth.
Speaker 3: Music is amazing, Music is amazing. It could be good,
Speaker 3: things could be true.
Speaker 4: You're so right.
Speaker 1: I have a theory about this movie though, because I
Speaker 1: looked up the date it was released January twelve, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. Guys, this was a pre nine eleven America.
Speaker 1: This was and when you think about that, it explains
Speaker 1: this movie. I don't know how, but I'm one of
Speaker 1: those people that were always connected back to nine to eleven.
Speaker 4: I don't it's pre nine eleven and it's pre Shrek,
Speaker 4: and those are the two oo cultural markers.
Speaker 2: It is pre Shrek. You're right, yeah, right, the final
Speaker 2: movie before then eleven spiritually spiritually before it was like
Speaker 2: two months.
Speaker 3: I also didn't remember this in my memory.
Speaker 2: This movie happened in New York, but I think it's
Speaker 2: because anytime I saw a city in a movie and
Speaker 2: as a kid, as like New York City, even if
Speaker 2: they're constantly calling at Chicago, it's New York City, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: In any case, my history with this movie is yes,
Speaker 2: oh sorry, what is Oh my god?
Speaker 4: Sorry, just like no, it's fine. This movie came out
Speaker 4: when I when I was a freshman in high school,
Speaker 4: so I was like the target demo, and I don't
Speaker 4: think I saw in theaters, but I probably saw it
Speaker 4: a few times at different like friends sleepovers, and we
Speaker 4: were all just like wow, cool dancing, and we just
Speaker 4: we thought it was cool. And I don't think i've
Speaker 4: seen it since. So that's what my history is. Wow,
Speaker 4: And I can't wait to talk more about it because
Speaker 4: this is a wild, wild movie.
Speaker 1: It's a rich text.
Speaker 4: It's such a rich text.
Speaker 3: It almost definitely would have been my introduction to Carrie
Speaker 3: Washington as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was still a teacher when she was doing
Speaker 1: this movie. Really, yes, yes.
Speaker 3: That warms my heart. She's so good in it.
Speaker 4: Like she did not make enough money off this role.
Speaker 1: Because like citation needed, but I'm pretty sure that was
Speaker 1: the case. I remember. I don't know when I was
Speaker 1: looking this up because I just like to learn about
Speaker 1: like how movies are made or like what the tea
Speaker 1: was behind the scenes. And yeah, apparently she was still
Speaker 1: teaching while she was doing this movie, because you know,
Speaker 1: we know they don't pay actors, y'all.
Speaker 3: Come on, Nope, no, not ones that aren't famous already.
Speaker 4: I did look it up, and it seems to be
Speaker 4: referenced in a number of publications. Ay, they're pulling a
Speaker 4: quote from her in Today dot com and People dot com.
Speaker 1: Whoa, Okay, I love that, so it's true.
Speaker 4: But yeah, she didn't earn enough money from this role
Speaker 4: because actors and especially black women are severely underpaid.
Speaker 2: So which is still I mean, that's like a conversation
Speaker 2: that's been going on recently with.
Speaker 3: Henson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, crying off stage. Y'all too famous for their sah.
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous. Yeah, So that conversation is ongoing.
Speaker 4: Shall we talk about the movie?
Speaker 3: You know, I think the time has come.
Speaker 4: It's time. All right, Let's take a quick break first,
Speaker 4: and then we'll come back for the res cap and
Speaker 4: we're back. We're back, all right, So here's save the
Speaker 4: last dance. We meet Sarah played by Julia Stiles. She's
Speaker 4: a teenager who used to dance ballet. We get some
Speaker 4: flashbacks where she's hanging out with her mom. She's preparing
Speaker 4: for an audition to Juilliard. She's begging her mom to
Speaker 4: come to the audition. Sarah shows up at the audition
Speaker 4: and her mom is rushing to get there and is
Speaker 4: killed in a car accident along the way, right as
Speaker 4: Sarah is auditioning but like she's falling in it, and.
Speaker 2: Right as Sarah is like coming in hot but like
Speaker 2: she's blowing it anyways, you know, like like if she
Speaker 2: hadn't fallen, Juilliard has an eight percent acceptance rate, right.
Speaker 1: And also, girl, yeah, like you I saw her leg
Speaker 1: going up with some of those I was like, Julia,
Speaker 1: activate those glute muscles, girl, lift lift that leg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but no, it's definitely her mom's death that botches
Speaker 2: the I mean, honestly though, when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: that was like the most engaging editing sequence I'd ever
Speaker 2: seen in my life. Oh the juxtaposition, I mean, come on,
Speaker 2: it was right up there with Oh my gosh, do
Speaker 2: you remember I forget what song is playing in the
Speaker 2: Glee episode where the cheerleader gives birth.
Speaker 3: I think it's going on.
Speaker 1: Oh Bohemian Rhapsody. Yeah, God, it's I don't know where
Speaker 1: that was stored in my brain.
Speaker 4: What The fact that both of you even are referring
Speaker 4: to this sequence.
Speaker 2: Also really incredible too. Thousands era editing just just shut up.
Speaker 4: Okay. So the audition gets all messed up, and Sarah
Speaker 4: is devastated by her mother's death and she steps away
Speaker 4: from ballet. She arrives in the South Side of Chicago
Speaker 4: to live with her dad. Now their relationship is pretty awkward.
Speaker 4: He's showing her around his apartment she gets settled in.
Speaker 4: I was getting Charlie and Bella Swan vibes from this
Speaker 4: because it's a very similar scene where Charlie Swan's like,
Speaker 4: here's your bedroom, hope you'll like purple. Okay bye, very
Speaker 4: beginning of the first Twilight movie vibes.
Speaker 2: That is well spotted. I like that she has jazz dead.
Speaker 2: Had to be like, this is a character I haven't
Speaker 2: seen before. I don't think I've ever seen jazz dead.
Speaker 3: So jazz Dad, they say it's.
Speaker 2: All been done, not so ah, jazz dead is definitely
Speaker 2: I knew.
Speaker 4: Okay. So then Sarah goes to her first day at
Speaker 4: her new school, and it's worth noting that the student
Speaker 4: body is predominantly black and she's one of the few
Speaker 4: white students there. This will all become relevant later. During
Speaker 4: her English lit class, they're talking about Capodi and she
Speaker 4: gets into this literary debate with a classmate named Derek
Speaker 4: played by Sean Patrick Thomas. Sarah also meets a student
Speaker 4: named Shanil that's a young Kerry Washington who kind of
Speaker 4: takes Sarah under her wing and introduces Sarah to her friends.
Speaker 4: We learn that Derek is Shanil's brother. We also learned
Speaker 4: that Derek has aspirations to go to Georgetown and become
Speaker 4: a doctor.
Speaker 2: He had my number from the very beginning because he
Speaker 2: did the thing that I love when boys do in movies,
Speaker 2: which is quote things. He's quoting various things, and so
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, I have a crush on him.
Speaker 1: He's like if a god can read, I'm immediately like, oh.
Speaker 2: My god, like a teenage boy character is canonically literate.
Speaker 2: I'm like, ooh, okay, I'm gonna be interested in listening.
Speaker 1: And can we just say, real quick, we're talking about
Speaker 1: Kerry Washington. Kerry Washington before the lip quiver, because we
Speaker 1: all know that lip quiver. It's like the Florence Pew frown.
Speaker 1: And then is it Sean Patrick.
Speaker 4: It's yeah, he has three first names, and that's not acceptable.
Speaker 4: Sean Patrick Thomas, child actor, Serial Killers.
Speaker 1: So Patrick Thomas and his nostrils, because Sean packs of
Speaker 1: Thomas's nostrils every time I recognize it. I was like,
Speaker 1: good for you, man, his nostrils are doing their own performance.
Speaker 4: But anyway, they're flaring, and they were.
Speaker 1: Flaring a lot. I just couldn't stop staring at it.
Speaker 1: As a kid, I just really remember his nostrils.
Speaker 4: Okay, good nostrils. Game.
Speaker 3: It's like the Will Palter eyebrows.
Speaker 4: It's like, just sometimes that reminds me Jamie, did you
Speaker 4: do you remember that Will Poulter is in the Revenant,
Speaker 4: Yes I do. I did not remember that.
Speaker 2: The only reason I saw the Revenant I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm wanting the Revenant to get horny.
Speaker 1: I have no reference. I've never seen it.
Speaker 4: I had only seen it one other time, but I
Speaker 4: was scrubbing through it the other day for a little
Speaker 4: special surprise for one of our live shows coming up.
Speaker 4: But I was like, what Will Poulter's in this? I
Speaker 4: wonder if Jamie knows anyway. So back to Save the Last.
Speaker 2: Dance, a young Will Poultz. Okay, I don't like how
Speaker 2: I said that the same age. That's fine, okay.
Speaker 4: So one day in gym class, Sarah gets on the
Speaker 4: balance beam and she starts doing ballet type moves and
Speaker 4: Shanil and her friends are like, wow, you can do ballet.
Speaker 4: In that case, you should come with us to a
Speaker 4: hip hop club named Steps. So after school, Sarah, Shaneil, Derek,
Speaker 4: and their friend Snooky ahead of their time, they're hanging
Speaker 4: out and they're kind of planning to go to Steps,
Speaker 4: and they arrange to get Sarah a fake ID so
Speaker 4: that she can get into the club. And during this scene,
Speaker 4: Sarah is, how do I say this serving some attitude
Speaker 4: to Sookie and Derek and they're like, Wow, this white
Speaker 4: girl can hang. She's definitely this white girl is down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, virtually stot like her acting style is like just
Speaker 2: not selling this really very much.
Speaker 3: I wanted to shout out one of my favorite lines
Speaker 3: in the movie.
Speaker 2: I think it's Nicki at the beginning of I don't know,
Speaker 2: there's elements of this movie where you're like, for sure
Speaker 2: this was written by multiple people over the age of forty,
Speaker 2: because there's the there's the scene where I think it's
Speaker 2: like Nikki who's like she's dancing in the hallway and
Speaker 2: they're like, what are.
Speaker 3: You doing and she's like, I'm just doing a little hip.
Speaker 4: Hop, yeah, serving other people. And then Shaniel's like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's just a little hip hop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, You're like, that's a mom wrote that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The original script is whenen by some random white dude,
Speaker 1: and then this black woman came in later apparently and
Speaker 1: like rewrote it and stuff. But I was like, was
Speaker 1: this how they were talking to early two thousands or
Speaker 1: is this old head stuff?
Speaker 2: I think the damage was done when the first job,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say Cheryl Edwards innocent.
Speaker 1: Aryl Edwards protect black women, Daryl Edwards, Anna said anyway.
Speaker 4: So they're like, Wow, this girl's so cool, she should
Speaker 4: definitely hang out with us. So then Sarah meets Shanil
Speaker 4: at her place before they head out to Steps. And
Speaker 4: this is when Sarah learns that Shanil has a baby
Speaker 4: who her I believe it's her grandmother seems to be
Speaker 4: like the primary caregiver for and she Kneel's like, bye, baby,
Speaker 4: I'm going out to the club. So Chanil gives Sarah
Speaker 4: her fake ID, she makes some adjustments to Sarah's outfit
Speaker 4: and then they go into Steps. People are dancing, people
Speaker 4: are judging Sarah for being there. There's this girl named
Speaker 4: Nikki who's like, what's this white girl doing here?
Speaker 3: That scene that line.
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to say it, so I
Speaker 1: will say it. It's like, who invited the white girl
Speaker 1: to the negro function? Julia South guest mustn't been sick
Speaker 1: because there are any negroes here. And I was like, Julie,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop rolling your neck. You are in mixed
Speaker 1: company and you got invited here. You are a guest
Speaker 1: in this house common town. That's like when Adele put
Speaker 1: those Bantuo knots in and we were like, Adele, I
Speaker 1: love you and we always want to invite you places,
Speaker 1: but you stepped a little too far this a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that scene is baffled and you're just like she
Speaker 2: has Sarah. The character of Sarah, just in every situation,
Speaker 2: displays a stunning lack of cel phon awareness, like and
Speaker 2: is never punished for it. This is a world where
Speaker 2: her lack of self awareness will never result in even
Speaker 2: a stray look.
Speaker 4: She never learns anything from it. It's just like, what
Speaker 4: is the point of the movie.
Speaker 3: Then she's living the dream. She doesn't grow orgy.
Speaker 1: And she gets into Juliard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my gosh, she hasn't even become a better dancer.
Speaker 4: Despite all of Derek's efforts. Okay, so Nicky, she's like
Speaker 4: one of the antagonistic forces for Sarah, and she has
Speaker 4: a romantic history with Derek and she wants to get
Speaker 4: back together with him. He's not into her anymore. But
Speaker 4: because there's this like blossoming flirtation between Sarah and Derek,
Speaker 4: Nicky's like, h gross.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every word out of Nicki's mouth is just like
Speaker 2: a one liner insult.
Speaker 1: About Sarah being white. Yes, And I'm like, Nikki you
Speaker 1: listen girl, Bianka laws in love you down, high schooler forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you a little too light to be coming after this
Speaker 1: white girl. Not saying that you're white, but girl, it's
Speaker 1: the light skin privileged for me. And then I also
Speaker 1: was like, is Derek a colorist?
Speaker 4: I mean, it's possible.
Speaker 1: He's really me stepping back.
Speaker 4: It seems to be favoring light skin.
Speaker 1: Listen, Derek, I'm just curious. Although that is Hollywood though.
Speaker 1: They like a dark skinned black man and a mixed
Speaker 1: biracial black woman. That's the ideal couple form in Hollywood
Speaker 1: for black folks.
Speaker 4: We've seen it time and time again. Okay, So meanwhile,
Speaker 4: Sarah is at the club. She's just kind of watching
Speaker 4: people dance. She's observing, and then Derek comes over to
Speaker 4: her and asks her to dance. So they start dancing.
Speaker 4: He's showing her hip hop steps.
Speaker 2: They're just doing a little hip hop Caitlin, all right,
Speaker 2: She's like, what is this like, it's just a little
Speaker 2: hip hop.
Speaker 1: Then from now he's a little hip hop.
Speaker 4: She's not great at it, but she's trying her best.
Speaker 4: And then a fight breaks out that Derek gets caught
Speaker 4: up in the middle of because there's this guy named
Speaker 4: Malachi who Derek is friends with, and Malachi is involved
Speaker 4: in I think drug dealing is I don't know if
Speaker 4: they come out and say it specifically, but that seems
Speaker 4: to be the implication anyway, So there's this like fistfight.
Speaker 4: Everyone scatters, and so they leave the club and then
Speaker 4: Derek walks Sarah home and as they're saying goodnight, he's like,
Speaker 4: I could help you with your dance moves and she's like, okay,
Speaker 4: a montage.
Speaker 1: Oh say what? Say what?
Speaker 3: Say what?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that, I like it. Baby.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, there's standing up and sitting down.
Speaker 4: She has to learn how to sit in a chair.
Speaker 4: It's so important her mom died.
Speaker 3: Came and take it easy.
Speaker 4: So they're hanging out a lot and he is teaching
Speaker 4: her some steps, and like you pointed out, Jamie, they're
Speaker 4: not preparing for anything. She's not anticipating another Juilliard audition yet.
Speaker 4: My guess is just like they have a crush on
Speaker 4: each other, so they're using this as an excuse to
Speaker 4: hang out, but.
Speaker 2: It's the means by which they fall into weird love
Speaker 2: with each other.
Speaker 4: Right, So anyway, he's teaching her all this stuff and
Speaker 4: then she does a ballet move. He's like, whoa, you
Speaker 4: know ballet and she's like, yeah, but it killed my mom.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to talk about it attitude. I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about it. For what He's like,
Speaker 1: so you said, Rondijan whatever because you don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it, which I appreciated that lie.
Speaker 2: I really like that, but yeah, because I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: they he said the thing that teen movies never say,
Speaker 2: the thing that you're thinking.
Speaker 4: That's nice, Okay, So she's refusing to talk about her mom. Also,
Speaker 4: Sarah has witnessed Malachi threatening and assaulting a girl at school,
Speaker 4: and rather than telling him about that or like doing
Speaker 4: anything to help protect this girl, she's just like, hey, Derek,
Speaker 4: why are you friends with Malachi? And Derek defends him,
Speaker 4: and then they move on. They just move right past
Speaker 4: that conversation. Generally speaking, though, we just get a lot
Speaker 4: of scenes of Sarah and Derek dancing and vibing, and
Speaker 4: then Derek discovers that he got accepted into Georgetown, so
Speaker 4: he and Sarah go out to celebrate. We get a
Speaker 4: scene where they're on the l and a white lady
Speaker 4: is giving them disgusted looks because she doesn't like interracial couples.
Speaker 4: So Sarah and Derek start heavily noodling. They're all over
Speaker 4: each other. I don't even they they've kissed at this point,
Speaker 4: but they're just That's.
Speaker 1: What shocked me. Yeah, on her neck, and I was like,
Speaker 1: has his lips even been on your mouth? No?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was really Yeah, because after he gets into Georgetown,
Speaker 2: it's game on for some reason, Like.
Speaker 1: Listen, the prospect of full tuition and your future being
Speaker 1: set for you. If that doesn't aroused you in this economy,
Speaker 1: I don't know what would.
Speaker 2: I'm like, there has to be a missing scene where
Speaker 2: they are like because it seems like they're together really
Speaker 2: suddenly after like this really slow burned flirtation, and then yeah,
Speaker 2: in the train scene, you're.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, I guess that they're dating because they're on
Speaker 3: a date and they're like making out on the train.
Speaker 4: But they haven't even kissed on the lips yet. It's
Speaker 4: it's really weird. But anyway, So they go to the ballet.
Speaker 4: She's apprehensive about going in because of all of her
Speaker 4: ballet trauma, but they watch the performance. It upsets her.
Speaker 4: And this is when she tells Derek that she feels
Speaker 4: responsible for her mother's death because she died on the
Speaker 4: way to Sarah's Juilliard audition. And she's crying and Derek's like,
Speaker 4: it's not your fault. Don't give up on your dreams.
Speaker 4: You can still go to Juilliard and dance ballet, and
Speaker 4: she's like, so true, Okay, I'll do it.
Speaker 2: I'm also just like, if I were Derek, I'd be like,
Speaker 2: she should stop dancing.
Speaker 1: And go to therapy for U for at least a
Speaker 1: few months. Seriously.
Speaker 2: Well, also like if I was the superstitious type, which
Speaker 2: I am, I'd be like, seems like every time this
Speaker 2: girl auditions for Juilliard, someone she loves die and she wants.
Speaker 1: Me to show up to that audition.
Speaker 3: I'm not going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to Georgetown.
Speaker 2: Yeah Yeah, I'm just like they're gonna I guess that's
Speaker 2: just a high school couple, but I'm like, you guys
Speaker 2: are gonna break up soon. Unfortunately, I'm I didn't have
Speaker 2: him go to a school in New York Yeah, to
Speaker 2: imply that they would like stay together.
Speaker 3: The plot did not give them a chance, because.
Speaker 1: Georgetown is a DC is that yeah, okay, okay, I
Speaker 1: guess not too far, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, all they've been through a long distance relationship.
Speaker 2: It just seems cruel right.
Speaker 4: Anyway, So she is like, okay, fine, I'll dance again,
Speaker 4: and this is when they have their first on screen kiss.
Speaker 4: Then she takes out her ballet shoes and puts them
Speaker 4: on for the first time since her mom died, and
Speaker 4: she learns that Juilliard is holding auditions in Chicago in
Speaker 4: one month, so she starts prepping and getting into shape,
Speaker 4: which includes ballet classes and it also includes Derek continuing
Speaker 4: to teach her hip hop dance. Then we see them
Speaker 4: at Steps again doing some of the choreography they practiced,
Speaker 4: and people are watching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, are they rehearsing to go to Steps?
Speaker 2: Because that's so like if true, that is like maybe
Speaker 2: they really did find each other, because that is like
Speaker 2: the doorkiest thing in the world.
Speaker 3: That's so cute and weird.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know if this happens or not,
Speaker 4: but I feel like, when you go to a dance club,
Speaker 4: you don't do choreography that you practiced in a random classroom.
Speaker 1: Y'all have not gone to clubs with dancers. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you something, the girls. The girls will bust out
Speaker 1: the corey yo oh, the dance circle. Yeah. I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in my early twenties going to
Speaker 1: clubs with dancers that it was always a thing. They
Speaker 1: wouldn't bust out like choreo that they learned in class,
Speaker 1: but they definitely would bust out stuff where you're like,
Speaker 1: did you practices? Yeah, this is a little bit rehearse.
Speaker 3: Did you rehearse for a party?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 3: Well I stand corrected.
Speaker 1: Then I'm just here to be the reference for black
Speaker 1: and dance.
Speaker 4: You know, thank you. Okay. So everyone's like watching their
Speaker 4: choreography and they're like, oh my gosh, wow, look at Sarah.
Speaker 4: Go except Nikki, who cuts in and starts dancing with Derek.
Speaker 4: She's putting her butt all over him, and Sarah gets
Speaker 4: jealous and leaves the dance floor.
Speaker 3: I love that turnive phrase, Gaale.
Speaker 1: I know she's putting her butt all over him. So
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, yeah, I mean she is am
Speaker 1: I wrong' No, no, you're correct, not wrong.
Speaker 3: I just didn't acpect the words in that order.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly the way they came together poetry.
Speaker 3: She can do it.
Speaker 4: She puts her ass into it.
Speaker 1: Every time you quote the lyrics, you do it so reluctantly.
Speaker 1: Well that time I did that on purpose. Okay, good, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: it was a call back. Oh we love a callback.
Speaker 2: You're right, you're right, you're right putting her ass onto it.
Speaker 4: Right, we need a remix of the song.
Speaker 1: You can put your ass.
Speaker 3: All over it, all over it.
Speaker 1: That's what he said.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay. So Nikki is dancing with Derek now, Sarah
Speaker 4: is off to the side, and Malachi approaches Sarah to
Speaker 4: be like, stay away from Derek Whitey.
Speaker 1: He calls her, he's oil you, milk.
Speaker 4: That does definitely happened.
Speaker 1: Okay, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: So then Derek comes over and he's like, babe, but
Speaker 4: what's the matter. We were just dancing. It's no big deal.
Speaker 4: I would never do anything to hurt you. And she's like,
Speaker 4: t he okay. So then they go back to her
Speaker 4: place and she's like, my.
Speaker 2: Jazz dad is out jazzing all night, out jazzing all
Speaker 2: night with Kim Katrol.
Speaker 3: She's there scattinga.
Speaker 2: He looked at all the he dogs, he looked at
Speaker 2: all the I never knew such a hell of balloon.
Speaker 4: Like I didn't know you had it memorized.
Speaker 3: Is that little dog Ray had to do one for.
Speaker 4: Listeners who were not aware we were referring to a
Speaker 4: video where Kim Katrol scats with her jazz husband yes and.
Speaker 1: His double bass his upright yes, and.
Speaker 4: It's maybe the most uncomfortable thing that one could watch.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So he's out jazzing away he is while his
Speaker 2: daughter's fucking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because they have sex in the living room because
Speaker 4: that's like where her bedroom is right now. She's sleeping
Speaker 4: on the couch. They fuck on the couch, presumably, and
Speaker 4: we don't talk about that enough anyway. Okay, Then we
Speaker 4: see a couple scenes where Derek is hanging out with
Speaker 4: Malachi and some other guys and they're judging him for
Speaker 4: dating a white girl. Then they're playing basketball and there's
Speaker 4: a drive by shooting because Malachi is in the middle
Speaker 4: of this turn for luckily, no one is hurt, but
Speaker 4: Malachi is gonna have to retaliate later on. And then
Speaker 4: this is juxtaposed. This drive by shooting basketball scene is
Speaker 4: juxtaposed with Sarah and Nicki also playing basketball in gym class,
Speaker 4: but they're getting into a scuffle Niki is like, I
Speaker 4: don't like white girls like you getting in my way
Speaker 4: and taking my men. So they get into this fight,
Speaker 4: and later at Steps, Malachi is trying to get Derek
Speaker 4: involved in that like kind of retaliation scheme. Malachi insults
Speaker 4: Sarah because she's standing right there, and so Derek punches him.
Speaker 4: Then there's a scene where Sarah goes with Shanil and
Speaker 4: her baby to a doctor's appointment and Shaneil is like, hey, Sarah,
Speaker 4: I think Nicki has a point about white women being
Speaker 4: with black men, and Sarah doesn't get it, she doesn't
Speaker 4: want to hear it, and she leaves. Cut to Sarah
Speaker 4: working with Derek on her Juilliard audition and he's like, oh,
Speaker 4: let's go to this couple's only night at Steps, and
Speaker 4: she's reluctant to go, and she's not even sure they
Speaker 4: should be together at this point because it seems like
Speaker 4: no one wants them to be together. They argue and
Speaker 4: ultimately break up, so then Derek approaches Malachi to be like, oh, sorry,
Speaker 4: I punched you, Let's be friends again. Malachi is like great,
Speaker 4: I need you to show up and help me at
Speaker 4: my turf war, and Derek is like oh yeah, I'll
Speaker 4: be there.
Speaker 2: I'm like, Derek Georgetown, Derek, come on, you're kidding.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, Sarah keeps working on her audition, but it's not
Speaker 4: going well her auditions. The following day, she has a
Speaker 4: tender moment with her dad, who I've mostly left out
Speaker 4: of the recap, but he is in the movie and
Speaker 4: we can bring him up.
Speaker 2: He's I'm sorry I did too much jazz and not
Speaker 2: enough Dad, and she's like, I forgive you.
Speaker 3: Sort of yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that it seems like her parents
Speaker 2: were divorced for some time, but I was sort of like, wow,
Speaker 2: he does not care that his child's mother is very
Speaker 2: suddenly dead.
Speaker 3: He's like showing no. He's like, well sucks, his life
Speaker 3: is fair.
Speaker 1: I was giving one night stand were nice seed, We
Speaker 1: hooked up, she had you, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: gotta go, jazz id you this. I can't.
Speaker 3: He was not even pretending to care.
Speaker 4: He was not no good for jazz Dad anyway. So
Speaker 4: she's like, I just miss mom so much and I
Speaker 4: need someone who loves me to be at my audition,
Speaker 4: and jazz Dad is like, well, I love you, I
Speaker 4: could come, and she's like really, then we see Shaniel
Speaker 4: admitting to Derek that she had told Sarah that she
Speaker 4: agreed with Nikki that black men shouldn't date white women,
Speaker 4: and Derek realizes that's probably why Sarah was so confused
Speaker 4: about her relationship with Derek, so he calls the thing
Speaker 4: off with Malachi and rushes to Sarah's audition. The audition
Speaker 4: is once again intercut with Malachi and his minions.
Speaker 3: It's true, Kevin Stewart, Bob, everyone's there.
Speaker 4: They're all there, so we see them shooting at the
Speaker 4: other people who they're in this like turf war with.
Speaker 4: But Malachi and his minions get caught and arrested and
Speaker 4: also their car explodes, so it's like, again, if you're
Speaker 4: in a car while Sarah is auditioning for Juilliard, there's
Speaker 4: going to.
Speaker 3: Be a kid.
Speaker 2: I was like, truly, like people get into auto rex
Speaker 2: while she's trying to achieve.
Speaker 1: Off this you're dancing hurts people literally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like be honest, like it's not worth it and
Speaker 2: you know it, you know it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're not good enough to justify all these people's cars.
Speaker 2: Exploding live sir is You're not Yeah, you're not borishna
Speaker 2: cough try not to pass out at that really good reference.
Speaker 2: I just dropped, Oh too late, pass Kay's throwing up.
Speaker 4: Okay anyway, so Malachai has gotten arrested. Meanwhile, at the audition,
Speaker 4: Sarah messes up right away and she's like, I'm not ready.
Speaker 4: But then Derek bursts in and he runs to the stage.
Speaker 4: He's like, you can do it. So she starts again,
Speaker 4: and at first it seems like traditional ballet, but then
Speaker 4: it becomes a blend of ballet and hip hop, and
Speaker 4: then are like, whoa.
Speaker 1: What is this music?
Speaker 3: She's doing a little hip hop?
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Like the judges are like, what is that.
Speaker 1: She's like they went from shrowning to smile, like just
Speaker 1: a little hip hop.
Speaker 4: And then the judge who hates her is like, welcome
Speaker 4: to Juilliard.
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't say this on the record, welcome to Juilliard.
Speaker 1: Which Chelsea and I when we watched this movie, we
Speaker 1: were as musicians who've like auditioned for Juilliard and all
Speaker 1: these other schools like that are like known in our
Speaker 1: community but not necessarily known outside of it because we
Speaker 1: both trained as classical singers. We were like, bitch, first off,
Speaker 1: you're not getting into the school because your audition sucked.
Speaker 1: You had somebody burst in during your audition. The audacity
Speaker 1: of that y. Third, the judges are never going to
Speaker 1: look that mean to you. They want you to succeed.
Speaker 1: They're not frowning and looking at you. They're like, hey, okay.
Speaker 1: They're concentrated or they're smiling because they want you to
Speaker 1: do well because they don't want to be seeing shitty performances. Thirdly,
Speaker 1: no judge ever, so she, after not seeing all the
Speaker 1: other auditions, would say, I can't say this all the record.
Speaker 1: Welcome to julie'sard. He's not the only one on that panel.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, that just drove me nuts. That drove me
Speaker 1: un nuts.
Speaker 3: Real, unreal.
Speaker 2: We just covered flash dance as well, and she also
Speaker 2: whiffs the beginning of her audition. She's like, can I
Speaker 2: start again? But the twist was flash dances. We don't
Speaker 2: even know if she gets in because the movie doesn't
Speaker 2: give a shit. They just wanted to date a forty
Speaker 2: year old man. But this one is interesting, yeah, because
Speaker 2: it's like I never registered the disruption. As a kid,
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, of course it's gonna happen, But as
Speaker 2: an adult you're like, wow, they do not relent, Like
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, you can't be in here, and then
Speaker 2: she's like, no, let him in, and then he comes.
Speaker 3: On stage on stage.
Speaker 2: It was Wow, they really found each other. They're weirdos.
Speaker 1: I wrote in my notes, you need someone to go
Speaker 1: to the audition with you. Girl, you ain't cut out
Speaker 1: for this business because listen. Maybe it was a salty
Speaker 1: bitterness of me of like pursue my dreams without my parents' permission,
Speaker 1: but like my parents didn't even know if I had
Speaker 1: auditions for shit. I take myself there on the bus,
Speaker 1: did it and went back home like I don't I'm
Speaker 1: sorry anyway, Maybe she's too co dependent. She's too co dependent,
Speaker 1: and it's frustrating.
Speaker 3: Like not for nothing.
Speaker 2: I'd be mortified if someone I liked or like, someone
Speaker 2: who I cared about was at an audition. I'm like,
Speaker 2: leave me to the wolves that you'll never never.
Speaker 4: Watch me look at me.
Speaker 1: You don't need to perceive this, Okay, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: about it, and tell you about it from my delusional
Speaker 1: fantasy where they loved me, but like.
Speaker 3: Me, I was robbed. I can't have anyone know that
Speaker 3: I was not, in fact robbed.
Speaker 4: Oh goodness, Okay, so let's take a quick break and
Speaker 4: then we'll come back to discuss. And we're back, and
Speaker 4: where shall we start, Kadija, is there anything.
Speaker 1: You would like me this evil which is like so
Speaker 1: many things? Okay? Rich text. Firstly, yes, Nikki, I didn't
Speaker 1: believe Bianka Lawson had this much attitude, and I didn't
Speaker 1: believe her as the character. It almost felt like she
Speaker 1: was like do I really got to say all this,
Speaker 1: like you coming up in here stealing our men? And
Speaker 1: her neck I was like, give her something for that,
Speaker 1: because her neck kept rolling and she kept talking about
Speaker 1: like Okay, sorry, maybe this is a sorry, there's so
Speaker 1: many things. Maybe the early two thousand, take your time,
Speaker 1: thank you. Maybe the early two thousands were a different time.
Speaker 1: But you know, A, I personally have never been around
Speaker 1: a group of black dudes, at least then hearing my
Speaker 1: older brother's friends talk about white women and later that
Speaker 1: would be that angry about you being with a white person.
Speaker 1: Usually they're like, you got a white girl, look at you?
Speaker 1: Oh you think you big money? Now, Like that's the
Speaker 1: kind of shit. Not all of them would say, but
Speaker 1: some of them would say, so, all of them being like, god,
Speaker 1: white women are trouble. I mean, maybe now that's a
Speaker 1: conversation happening because Jonathan Major's but it's also like was
Speaker 1: the white woman to trouble or were you anyway? You
Speaker 1: know what? You know what, it's a complicated topic.
Speaker 4: It's very complicated that the movie is not equipped to
Speaker 4: discuss meaningfully in any way.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't have introduced it, Like I get maybe the
Speaker 1: one scene of the lady, the white lady in the
Speaker 1: train looking at them could have been a way to
Speaker 1: just do it, and like that would have been the
Speaker 1: only instance they really brought up of it. But of course,
Speaker 1: you know, movies have to have conflict. Instead of the
Speaker 1: conflict being I'm working through my trauma of my mom
Speaker 1: dying and dance and all of that, it's I'm kind
Speaker 1: of working through that, but mostly I like this guy
Speaker 1: that I've become codependent with. But he's black and I'm white,
Speaker 1: and this is two thousand and one and we're not
Speaker 1: supposed to be together.
Speaker 2: Right, so it has to And I feel like it's
Speaker 2: I hope of phrasing this curst late, but I feel
Speaker 2: like the movie does a lot of stuff to make
Speaker 2: Sarah seem to be the oppressed person like they go
Speaker 2: so far into the revert, like they're like, well, racism
Speaker 2: affects white girls as well, and you're like no, And
Speaker 2: this never like really registered for me until I was
Speaker 2: watching it at this time. But it's like you see
Speaker 2: a lot of black characters judging white characters, but you
Speaker 2: don't really see the reverse very much in the world
Speaker 2: of this movie, and so it comes off.
Speaker 1: Very weird, right, Yeah, because there's a way to me,
Speaker 1: there is a conversation there of yeah, like the colorism
Speaker 1: of all the joke that I made about Derek maybe
Speaker 1: being a colorist, or like, uh, just the idea that
Speaker 1: you're in a space. And I'm glad that Chanil pointed
Speaker 1: out when she was talking to Derek. She was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I was really upset with Kenny, So I
Speaker 1: was just really annoyed, and it was saying it from
Speaker 1: a place of anger, less about like the actual relationship
Speaker 1: and more so just like I was mad because my
Speaker 1: baby's daddy's out here acting wild. And I'm glad that
Speaker 1: at the end of it he showed up and they
Speaker 1: both said hey to each other, and it was like
Speaker 1: a hey, we're going to try to figure this out
Speaker 1: as opposed to a you got a aight shit baby, daddy.
Speaker 1: All the black girls are stuck with what does she say,
Speaker 1: you come in take it to our men after jail.
Speaker 4: Jail drugs and drive bys.
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, jail drugs and drive bys. I was just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it. You know, different neighborhoods, especially because we're
Speaker 1: talking about poor black folks, so there's a different dynamic
Speaker 1: there too. It was just like all black people are
Speaker 1: poor and live in this part of Chicago, and because
Speaker 1: of that, they don't relate. Like even when her friend
Speaker 1: is on the phone with her and it's like, you
Speaker 1: have white guys at your school, that's the only time
Speaker 1: you hear a white person and be kind of and
Speaker 1: the white lady looking at them a work person, be
Speaker 1: kind of like what And she doesn't say it because
Speaker 1: she's secretly embarrassed or what. I don't know, Like does
Speaker 1: she answer her when she asked.
Speaker 4: Her She says because she's like, I met someone. And
Speaker 4: her friend assumes that the only guy that she would
Speaker 4: date would be a white guy, and she's like, oh,
Speaker 4: I didn't know they had white guys at your school,
Speaker 4: and she's like, they don't, but doesn't necessarily clarify that
Speaker 4: the guy that she met is not white.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and again it's like you don't even
Speaker 2: see that character, like none of the white characters that.
Speaker 3: Are we don't know.
Speaker 2: The lady on the train, she's like racism the lady,
Speaker 2: and then they banquished racism the lady.
Speaker 3: And then kind of like move.
Speaker 2: Forward where it's like such as we have like patriarchy
Speaker 2: the guy, where it's like you just have to get
Speaker 2: rid of this one guy and you've solved it, which
Speaker 2: is like you know, movie logic, But like her dad
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to have, you know, an issue with her
Speaker 2: dating Derek, but also he doesn't give a shit about it,
Speaker 2: so I don't know.
Speaker 1: Or he does it, but like when he's at the door,
Speaker 1: she's like, now it's not a good time and he leaves.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, is it because he's black or because
Speaker 1: he's dating her? Or I was like, are we going
Speaker 1: to explore this? I mean, he's a jazz musician living
Speaker 1: in the South Side of Chicago. He probably knows black people,
Speaker 1: I should hope, But you know, white people stole jazz too,
Speaker 1: so yes, so I'm like, you know, but we don't
Speaker 1: ever explore anything besides racism the Lady and reverse racism
Speaker 1: Nikki right.
Speaker 4: I mean, there might be a world where this could
Speaker 4: conceivably happen. But even just Sarah, who comes from what
Speaker 4: appears to be a predominantly white suburban or more rural
Speaker 4: community going to the South Side of Chicago, she.
Speaker 1: Was in Vermont, they did that all permits here, like
Speaker 1: what's the whitest pa.
Speaker 4: Right, being suddenly immersed in a predominantly black community, and
Speaker 4: for her to just be like, yeah, I'm so cool
Speaker 4: with this. I fit in right away because of all
Speaker 4: the attitude I'm giving. And it's also like, Okay, that
Speaker 4: implication's also pretty messed up.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I'm glad that, like the black girls
Speaker 1: are having some fun, but it's all attitude and neck rolling.
Speaker 1: And I'm like the one scene at the beginning when
Speaker 1: she's with the black nerds and they're all sitting at
Speaker 1: the table being like we are the future, I was like,
Speaker 1: representation matter, Oh gosh, be like, don't let me catch you.
Speaker 1: See to get that table again, it's like see high school,
Speaker 1: high school.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the clicks are there, but yeah, I mean, ultimately
Speaker 4: this movie ends up just being about a white girl
Speaker 4: suddenly finding herself in this black community and being like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's just a little hip hop. Well I'll learn that
Speaker 4: and then I'll all basically appropriate everything that is near me.
Speaker 4: She starts dressing differently. She starts like wearing her hair
Speaker 4: in twists and braids.
Speaker 1: And she starts wearing tims. Yes, yes, yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the turning point in the movie. She put on those
Speaker 1: timberlands and.
Speaker 4: She was like slamming, said slammon so much.
Speaker 1: She said slamming a lot.
Speaker 2: I forget if this was from your video, but like,
Speaker 2: I also watched Kenny j D's video about Save the
Speaker 2: Last Dance that came out recently, which was really really funny.
Speaker 2: But like the legacy of like movies where that this
Speaker 2: feels like very clearly placed in where it's like a
Speaker 2: white character like works through some external issue in their
Speaker 2: lives by briefly being in a predominantly black community.
Speaker 1: This is a story of Taylor's oldest time hate and
Speaker 1: paneteer and bring it on? Mmm? Is it the second
Speaker 1: or third one with the launge noles in it? When
Speaker 1: she's crumping?
Speaker 4: Oh god, I want to I want to say the
Speaker 4: first one, so I couldn't say.
Speaker 1: This is basically say the last Dance but haten paniteer,
Speaker 1: and she goes to a predominantly black school.
Speaker 3: Bring it on all are and nothing?
Speaker 1: Yes, bring it on all or nothing. She goes to
Speaker 1: predominantly black school and cheers there, and the black girls
Speaker 1: had roll their necks and do not like her. And
Speaker 1: then she shows that she can do it by doing
Speaker 1: white mediocre dancing, which I'm gonna be honest and Canada
Speaker 1: at least I'll see at the clubs like, we'll all
Speaker 1: be dancing having a good time. You turn around, a
Speaker 1: white girl does like a little booty pop and a
Speaker 1: group of black guys are like, hey, hey, I'm like girl, girl,
Speaker 1: it's not that special, it's we all need to calm down.
Speaker 1: So they're emboldened by this. But I think the thing
Speaker 1: that the major theme that I really got from this
Speaker 1: was I do not trust Hollywood in general, but I
Speaker 1: do not trust Hollywood to make movies like this, because
Speaker 1: even if they had a white guy write it and
Speaker 1: then a black woman come in to like sort it out,
Speaker 1: it's still Hollywood depictions of what they expect an audience
Speaker 1: to want and appreciate, as opposed to depictions informed by
Speaker 1: real people, cause, like, I'm not against hearing black people
Speaker 1: talk with attitude or roll their necks or whatever. Like
Speaker 1: Pea Valley is one of my favorite shows, and I
Speaker 1: think it does a really good job of depicting Southern
Speaker 1: folks that I grew up around and heard talk black
Speaker 1: and white, but predominantly black, and like the different race
Speaker 1: relations in there too. I don't know, it just feels
Speaker 1: like more grounded in reality when I watch that show,
Speaker 1: and the difference of when I hear a black person
Speaker 1: writing it and a black person of a certain age
Speaker 1: writing for it, like insecure and rap shit and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, versus an older white man writing this dance
Speaker 1: movie because dance movies were popular in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: and then they're like, oh, we need it to look better,
Speaker 1: so let's have this black woman. I don't know how
Speaker 1: involved she was in it, so I don't want to
Speaker 1: discredit her, but it's also like, yeah, I'm just like Hollywood,
Speaker 1: I'm giving you SIDEI And I know the actors only
Speaker 1: have but so much can because they're like, listen, a
Speaker 1: gig is a gig. Let me just come for here.
Speaker 1: Sadie's damn lines, get my money and go.
Speaker 2: But Yeah, Yeah, there's not a lot of information I
Speaker 2: was able to find about the production of this movie.
Speaker 2: I was really hoping for like an oral history kind
Speaker 2: of peace on this movie, but it doesn't seem like
Speaker 2: one exists, which is really frustrating because this movie, and
Speaker 2: a lot of teen movies, feels like studio notes within
Speaker 2: an inch of its life, to the point where it's
Speaker 2: like incoherent at certain parts, and it seems like whole
Speaker 2: scenes or like storylines are kind of dropped. But I
Speaker 2: was honestly surprised that this movie has a black director
Speaker 2: and a black co writer because it just seems so
Speaker 2: all over the place. And I wish I knew because
Speaker 2: the name of the director, he's predominantly a TV director
Speaker 2: before this, named Thomas Carter. Carter who side note, I
Speaker 2: thought it was just really funny. He's like, when I
Speaker 2: saw Julia Styles dance in Ten Things I Hate About You,
Speaker 2: I knew she had to be in this.
Speaker 3: I'm like, did you that's why she.
Speaker 1: Danced Ten Things I Hate About You?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a see where she gets up on the
Speaker 4: table at a party and starts dancing, And again I
Speaker 4: would say, like, not particularly well, right.
Speaker 3: I'm just like yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say the thing that I probably shouldn't say
Speaker 1: in mixed company. But here we go, older black man
Speaker 1: at a certain age. Y'all, y'all be given to little
Speaker 1: too much? What what is this? What you saw? Julius?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. There are plenty of white girls out there
Speaker 1: that could have done a lot more and not been
Speaker 1: like I think Julius Sous played it well. And how
Speaker 1: stiff she was, especially like in the beginning, you notice
Speaker 1: little things with how she puts her feet, how she stands,
Speaker 1: you know, the ballet training, like I think she that
Speaker 1: was directed well and I think she really did that well.
Speaker 1: But it was still just like, even when they're doing
Speaker 1: the dance and they're doing the steps and whatever, I
Speaker 1: was just like, girl, Derek dropped to the splits, flipped
Speaker 1: back up. He was doing be boy stuff. What was
Speaker 1: she doing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like it does feel like this movie
Speaker 2: is directed by someone much older than the age demographic,
Speaker 2: which is true. He is almost fifty when he directed this.
Speaker 2: Not true to be agist with the direction, But when
Speaker 2: you're making a movie for teenagers, you should like talk
Speaker 2: to one, you should talk to one well because you're
Speaker 2: also talk to with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're bringing in the baggage of like two generations
Speaker 4: removed from the target demo and the actors in the movie,
Speaker 4: and so yeah, you're like bringing in this kind of
Speaker 4: like generational baggage from a bygone era. And all of
Speaker 4: this is happening in two thousand and one, which is like,
Speaker 4: you know, over twenty years ago now. So like it is,
Speaker 4: despite the movie having a black director and having a
Speaker 4: black co writer, the sole story by credit goes to
Speaker 4: Dwayne Adler, who is a white man. A black woman
Speaker 4: named Cheryl Edwards has a co screen running credit with
Speaker 4: Dwayne Adler, but we're not quite sure to what extent
Speaker 4: she was involved. When they're are like, you know, co
Speaker 4: screenplay credits, that could mean any number of things. It
Speaker 4: could mean that they both wrote separate drafts. It could
Speaker 4: mean that they collaborated together on drafts. It could mean
Speaker 4: that she was just brought in to rewrite the dialogue,
Speaker 4: which is honestly, I feel like probably the most likely thing,
Speaker 4: where like, yeah, his dialogue just didn't sound authentic at all,
Speaker 4: and so she although I'm completely speculating, you know, don't
Speaker 4: quote me on this.
Speaker 2: And he goes on to make this a cottage industry,
Speaker 2: like Duayne I.
Speaker 1: And that's the reason why I was sideways, because he
Speaker 1: did a lot of these fuckings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he found something that worked and just relentless save
Speaker 2: the last dance the way she moves. Don't remember that
Speaker 2: one step up, save the last dance too, step up
Speaker 2: to the streets, make it happen. I don't know that
Speaker 2: is step up, three D, step up, Revolution, step up
Speaker 2: all in He makes like a billion step up dollars
Speaker 2: after this because he's like, uh, yeah, I think I.
Speaker 3: Get kids movies and you're like, Dwayne, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure those share Dwayne.
Speaker 1: The kids just want to dance to a little hip.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean, despite the movie having a few
Speaker 4: black creatives in like significant roles, significant creative roles, as
Speaker 4: you point out in your video, Esda Kadija, like this
Speaker 4: movie still has kind of like the stink of written
Speaker 4: by a white person all over it.
Speaker 1: It's Hollywood white gaze, not the Hollywood white gaze. Because
Speaker 1: I always have to clarify that.
Speaker 3: Not Andy Cohen.
Speaker 1: Well that's a whole other that's a whole other conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't have time, but I mean just yeah,
Speaker 4: the way that this story ends up panning out as
Speaker 4: far as like she ends up in this predominantly black space,
Speaker 4: she starts just basically appropriating the culture. Anytime anyone calls
Speaker 4: her out for any behavior, she doesn't learn anything from it.
Speaker 4: She takes it as an attack, and then she's just like, well,
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna do whatever I want to do. And
Speaker 4: then she ends up incorporating the things that she learned
Speaker 4: from Derek into her like ballet audition for Juilliard. So
Speaker 4: it's like, yeah, me, a white woman, I'm going to
Speaker 4: introduce hip hop to Juilliard. And then the white judgers
Speaker 4: are like the twist, it's bad, amazing, but they love it,
Speaker 4: and they're like, welcome to Juilliard.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and it's and I feel like it's also implied.
Speaker 2: And this like reminds me of a lot of the
Speaker 2: conversations from several years ago and still now of how
Speaker 2: like your Charlie d'milio's on TikTok would take and repost
Speaker 2: dances originally done by black users and then become super
Speaker 2: famous and you know, make a bajillion dollars off of
Speaker 2: that appropriation, and it's like, we don't get the feeling
Speaker 2: that at the end of this movie that like Sarah
Speaker 2: is going to continue doing hip hop and or that
Speaker 2: she's gonna even continue like living in a predominantly black neighborhood.
Speaker 2: It's like she's used what she needs and now she's
Speaker 2: like going to it seems like cast it off and
Speaker 2: move on because she's gotten what she wants.
Speaker 3: A thing that I.
Speaker 1: Didn't talk about in my video essay that I am
Speaker 1: thinking about more now is how we package desirability because
Speaker 1: I think someone like a Julia Styles, she's pretty popular
Speaker 1: around that time as an actor, and even now with
Speaker 1: like a Charlie Dmeliar or whatever like TikTok. People talk
Speaker 1: about the algorithm and how it does like certain facial features,
Speaker 1: certain looks, even complexions, like there is bias in its algorithm,
Speaker 1: skin tone bias and all that stuff. We I think
Speaker 1: collectively people just like good music, right, and they just
Speaker 1: like something that is a vibe, and a lot of
Speaker 1: hip hop or R and B and all that stuff
Speaker 1: is a vibe. It's the same thing in reverse, like
Speaker 1: when you're like black people, why you love Paramore so much?
Speaker 1: It's like, leave me alone, Hey, Williams. Slatt, don't do
Speaker 1: me like, I actually went to an emo phase. So like,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of like pop punk girlies. But
Speaker 1: even black people that do not listen to that type
Speaker 1: of music are like no, no, no. They will sing
Speaker 1: misery business top to bottom and be like the shit slaps,
Speaker 1: you know. And Hailey Williams is a great singer and
Speaker 1: she's a lot of uh she grew up in the South,
Speaker 1: she's a lot of different inspirations. Anyway, for me, the
Speaker 1: thing and this is my own bias. I'm speaking for
Speaker 1: my own perspective. Black people are not a monolith. I
Speaker 1: tend to view it sometimes as like when I've been
Speaker 1: around other black folks and stuff, if you're talented, if
Speaker 1: you're good, if you're whatever, we'll recognize that. That's it.
Speaker 1: Like you just have to be good. Like Renee Rapp
Speaker 1: was singing Dangerously in Love with Jennifer Hudson on her
Speaker 1: show If So many of the comments were like, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: how are you gonna let this girl eat you up
Speaker 1: like that? Jennifer ooh, you know, And so it's just like,
Speaker 1: if you're good, the shit's good. It doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: your skin color is. But I think with white audiences
Speaker 1: and This is a question I've asked a lot. It's
Speaker 1: will white audiences show up to things where they are
Speaker 1: not the center of attention or they are not centered
Speaker 1: in it? And how do we do introduce this style
Speaker 1: of music? Even though hip hop was very popular in
Speaker 1: the nineties and two thousand that was like the biggest time.
Speaker 1: And this is the question I don't really know the
Speaker 1: answer to my speculation, and I speculate this a lot
Speaker 1: in videos. Is that a lot of us need to
Speaker 1: work on practicing our empathy muscles when it comes to
Speaker 1: putting ourselves in the perspective of a character who we
Speaker 1: don't look like. And for a lot of darker skin folks,
Speaker 1: black and brown people, especially if you grow up in
Speaker 1: this part of the world, you are used to seeing
Speaker 1: media that does not look like you a lot, but
Speaker 1: you can still empathize with the characters. Like Interteller is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite movies. There are a couple of
Speaker 1: black people in it, sure, but like, it's not about
Speaker 1: black people or anything like that. It's just a story
Speaker 1: about love, you know, so like and I fucking love it.
Speaker 1: But I think not enough audience members like it's particularly
Speaker 1: not enough white folks will watch or invest in movies
Speaker 1: and TV shows where it's not for them quote unquote,
Speaker 1: or they're not centered in it, which is why, like
Speaker 1: we'll have a whole separate black genre of movies where
Speaker 1: I'm like, if I say to a black person, the
Speaker 1: my family fucked my husband, they know exactly I'm talking
Speaker 1: about soul food. They know, you know. But like you
Speaker 1: ask a white person if they see so food, and
Speaker 1: a lot of times they're like, what or one of
Speaker 1: my friends to see the color purple? He's white. You's
Speaker 1: see the color purple way too many times. More times
Speaker 1: I've seen it, and I was always like, I'm sorry, Kevin,
Speaker 1: what you see the color purple? Eight? What? Like? And
Speaker 1: it even surprises me because I'm not used to white
Speaker 1: folks not centering themselves and practicing that empathy muscle of
Speaker 1: consuming media that isn't necessarily cater to them, that doesn't
Speaker 1: have them in mind, but it's still about people totally.
Speaker 4: Like And this is something that I've had to contend
Speaker 4: with in my own like movie watching journey, where that's
Speaker 4: just so much of what's available are white centered stories.
Speaker 4: So they're just so ubiquitous that if you go to
Speaker 4: the movies or if you want to watch a movie,
Speaker 4: nearly ten out of ten times it's going to be
Speaker 4: a white centered story, which is why white people do
Speaker 4: have to almost deliberately seek out or like they have
Speaker 4: to kind of put in a more conscious effort, and
Speaker 4: most of them simply don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you don't think about it. You don't know
Speaker 1: what you don't know. So from a like compassionate place, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't know what you don't know, so you don't
Speaker 1: know that you're missing a whole genre. But also from
Speaker 1: a girl you got internet in access and saying wi fi,
Speaker 1: we all do. Like if you don't, if you don't
Speaker 1: want to put yourself in those positions to watch those
Speaker 1: movies where you might not get all the references or
Speaker 1: you might not like understand certain things, then you're not
Speaker 1: going to. I'm someone who loves diverse stories and stuff,
Speaker 1: so I'll watch a whole bunch of shit. I don't
Speaker 1: know nothing about living in Ireland back during the nineties,
Speaker 1: but Dairy Girls is fucking hilarious, like you know, but
Speaker 1: also Irish people gangang you know.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, it does kind of challenge like when
Speaker 2: you were saying, like, well, what it means when you say,
Speaker 2: like a movie is for you versus it's not where
Speaker 2: like a lot of white audience members, we'll look at
Speaker 2: a movie and be like, well, it's not for me
Speaker 2: because I don't see myself in it, so it's not
Speaker 2: for me. Where it's like the true meaning of that
Speaker 2: is like I don't like that genre generally, or that's
Speaker 2: like not a director I let but I think that, yeah,
Speaker 2: that white audience members are so default, and like I've
Speaker 2: done this in the past and had to like call
Speaker 2: myself in and be like, yeah, just because you can't
Speaker 2: see yourself in it does not mean it's not for you,
Speaker 2: you fucking loser.
Speaker 1: Oh it started. It started kind it was like calling
Speaker 1: and there was like you fucking broken book too, bitch.
Speaker 3: Well that self talked fucking piece of shit.
Speaker 1: But no, I always try to tell people in my videos,
Speaker 1: like you need to be intentional about consuming different things
Speaker 1: because media is not a place where you go to
Speaker 1: for creativity. It's not thinking outside the box. It's not
Speaker 1: a vision. They're packaging and selling to you what they
Speaker 1: think you want. And when they find somebody else that
Speaker 1: is willing to do something else and be creative and
Speaker 1: other people like it, they jump on that, you know,
Speaker 1: like the Barbie movie. It made all the money, so
Speaker 1: now they're like, Okay, we're going to jump on stuff
Speaker 1: like that too, because clearly the audience wants it. But
Speaker 1: they weren't going to just make that movie. People had
Speaker 1: to fight them for it to be made. It had
Speaker 1: to have If they were going to have a female director,
Speaker 1: it had to be someone like Greta who is well known,
Speaker 1: because they're not just going to take a chance, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's just very like the audience
Speaker 1: dictates a lot of things, and we don't give ourselves
Speaker 1: enough power or enough agency to say if I actually
Speaker 1: want to go out of my way and purposely start
Speaker 1: supporting other things and investigating other things, I can do that,
Speaker 1: and the media and all that stuff will follow if
Speaker 1: more of us are doing that. Like I purposely diversify
Speaker 1: when I was on Instagram. I'm taking a bit of
Speaker 1: a break right now, but when I was on there,
Speaker 1: I have made a conscious effort to follow accounts of
Speaker 1: people with different body shapes, different abilities, all of that,
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I need to put in my face
Speaker 1: and see difference and be comfortable with that. It's like
Speaker 1: a lack of repeated exposure. The more that I expose
Speaker 1: myself to difference, the different ways that human beings can
Speaker 1: come in, the more I value human life, no matter
Speaker 1: what it looks like. The more I'm able to see
Speaker 1: any type of story that somebody tells, and I see
Speaker 1: the humanity of that person in myself, no matter what
Speaker 1: they And I know that there are certain things I
Speaker 1: won't be able to relate to specifically because of their identity,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to discount that. But I also
Speaker 1: think we use that as an excuse to not try
Speaker 1: to put ourselves in other people's shoes because it makes
Speaker 1: us uncomfortable. We don't want to step on toes. And
Speaker 1: it's like, you can love people for the square fact
Speaker 1: that they are people and not need to step on
Speaker 1: toes and all this other stuff. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that makes sense, but yeah.
Speaker 3: No, totally yeah.
Speaker 2: And like having it be like again, just like having
Speaker 2: the prerequisite be that something needs to be relatable for
Speaker 2: you to be able to connect with it, which is
Speaker 2: absolutely not true.
Speaker 1: Bitch, stretch out your brain muscles like stop this, y'all.
Speaker 4: I teach in my screenwriting classes. Brag, I teach screenwriting classes.
Speaker 4: Go to my website Kaitlyn Johntay dot com and sign
Speaker 4: up for that centering yourself. I say, one of the
Speaker 4: reasons that theme is so important as a writer to
Speaker 4: be like cognizant of what theme you're putting forth is because,
Speaker 4: like we relate to stories, not because the characters have
Speaker 4: the same exact experience that we do, but because those
Speaker 4: movies explore universally relatable themes that can be told via
Speaker 4: any person, any type of person, from any background. But
Speaker 4: the thing about privilege is that it tends to warp
Speaker 4: your brain. And the more privilege you have, and the
Speaker 4: more positions of privilege that you occupy, and especially if
Speaker 4: you're just not an inherently empathetic person, you allow that
Speaker 4: to warp you and to just turn an eye to
Speaker 4: anyone who doesn't share that same privilege as you. So
Speaker 4: that's why I think so many white people are like, well,
Speaker 4: this movie is about black people, Well, how could I
Speaker 4: possibly relate? This is not for me. There is no
Speaker 4: world in which I could relate to any of these
Speaker 4: storylines or any.
Speaker 3: Of these characters, Like, I can't relate with this. I'm like,
Speaker 3: you haven't seen the movie. You don't know that, like you.
Speaker 4: It's yeah, it's very first and then Save the Last
Speaker 4: Dance is an interesting case study because the cast is
Speaker 4: predominantly black, but because the protagonist is a white person.
Speaker 4: You know, you discuss this in your video as well,
Speaker 4: but it just means that now it's a bunch of
Speaker 4: black characters propping up a white protagonist and being there
Speaker 4: to support this white narrative in this white girl's you know,
Speaker 4: struggle of self actualization.
Speaker 1: Like and that's the thing that bothers me the most.
Speaker 1: It's always this like privilege will give you, like you said,
Speaker 1: it warps your brain, and it gives you this navel
Speaker 1: gazing thing where everything is about you and everything is personal,
Speaker 1: like people calling out the way the world is, which
Speaker 1: she's like, open up your pretty brow and look at
Speaker 1: the world, like you live in a different world than me.
Speaker 1: Instead of taking that as an opportunity to look inwards more,
Speaker 1: it's well, I want to be with this guy, and
Speaker 1: like obviously these are all teenagers, so like okay, but
Speaker 1: at the same time, like privileged kind of infantilizes you
Speaker 1: too suretely you you really don't and difficult things become
Speaker 1: way too hard to deal with because I'm like Darren's mama.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know where she is. They don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: shaneil is in high school and has a baby. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: you lost your mom and that is very difficult. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to ever discount that because losing a parent
Speaker 1: is so difficult, But they also lost their parent and
Speaker 1: are dealing with other stuff and are poor, like you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, I'm just like girl like. But
Speaker 1: it's an expectation. It's who, what bodies, what types of
Speaker 1: bodies and people do we expect to be in those
Speaker 1: positions versus the ones that we don't. And I think
Speaker 1: this also works with like Western audiences. If you live
Speaker 1: in America and Canada and you're a type person that
Speaker 1: doesn't like to watch international movies because you can can't relate,
Speaker 1: you could relate to many international quote unquote international films.
Speaker 1: It's international because you don't live in that part of
Speaker 1: the world. But anyway, like I think about that with
Speaker 1: the movie qtis because I always will defend this movie
Speaker 1: and people will always look at me sideways like talk about,
Speaker 1: oh ah, please have me back for qties. I got
Speaker 1: so much to say because I am gmbian and the
Speaker 1: stories about a Senegalese girl Gmbhia's inside of Senegal. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of similar cultures. Like I could watch the
Speaker 1: movie without subtitles because I could understand the language they
Speaker 1: were speaking when it wasn't French. But yeah, she did
Speaker 1: a lot of work to try and talk to actual
Speaker 1: girls that age, interviewed a bunch of them, had a
Speaker 1: psychologist on set, all this other stuff, And people in
Speaker 1: France and in Senegal were like, yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: good movie, like it's pretty, you know whatever. But people
Speaker 1: here were like, how dare you look at what you've
Speaker 1: done to the children and blah blah blah blah, freaking
Speaker 1: out about this stuff and trying to guise it under Well,
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna watch that movie because it's just groom
Speaker 1: or behavior and blah blah blah. And I'm like, y'all
Speaker 1: have adults playing teenagers in TV shows having sex with teacher,
Speaker 1: and you use it to justify that it's okay because
Speaker 1: they're adults and you don't see the problem with that,
Speaker 1: But you see an issue with this. You'll use any
Speaker 1: excuse to not consider other perspectives when it challenges the
Speaker 1: way you see the world.
Speaker 3: Oh, please come back and talk about cuties.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I yeah, I want to rewatch it to.
Speaker 1: The problem around that movie.
Speaker 3: Lord, yeah I remember with Sarah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like she does have a problem and
Speaker 2: like she has something to work through to the extent
Speaker 2: that she's like lost her mom and she's.
Speaker 3: Lost a parent.
Speaker 2: But like you're saying, like her problem or that what
Speaker 2: she's working through is just more important. It's just more
Speaker 2: important and the world has to bend to ushering her
Speaker 2: through that problem, where like Sarah is present, but she
Speaker 2: doesn't take initiative to help any of her friends through
Speaker 2: their problems, and the movie doesn't have that ex to her.
Speaker 2: Like the movie keeps being like she's the most amazing
Speaker 2: girl to ever live, and you're just like she's going
Speaker 2: through something, but she's like certainly.
Speaker 3: Not, you know, like she's really really hot.
Speaker 2: And I feel like we see a lot of people
Speaker 2: in the movie apologizing to her uselessly.
Speaker 1: Even at the end when Shaneil apologized her, like we're
Speaker 1: still cool. I'm like, Okay, maybe Shanil didn't shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been that, Like you get into tip with your friends,
Speaker 1: she shouldn't have especially agree with Nikki is like that's
Speaker 1: the animy bitch you agree, will buy op. But even
Speaker 1: the way Sarah's like yeah, we're cool, but still has
Speaker 1: an attitude I'm like, bitch.
Speaker 2: You owe her an apology as well, Like it's just
Speaker 2: like it's really yeah, like the world bends to solve
Speaker 2: Sarah's problem and solve Sarah's life while like playing into
Speaker 2: a lot of stereotypes that just like the whole thing
Speaker 2: is really undercooked.
Speaker 1: It feels like, yes, that's a good word.
Speaker 4: And again it's a white protagonist but a predominantly black
Speaker 4: cast otherwise, but I think like this movie was so
Speaker 4: popular and like popular among my age bracket, and I
Speaker 4: don't know if young people are still here. We probably not,
Speaker 4: but I feel like they're like, Okay, how do we
Speaker 4: make this movie that has a predominantly black cast palatable
Speaker 4: to a mainstream white audience exactly? And it feels like
Speaker 4: the movie just caters to that constantly, because again, like
Speaker 4: Sarah is very rarely challenged. Anytime someone does challenge her,
Speaker 4: she just like gets up and walks away and doesn't
Speaker 4: do any introspection or like again, she doesn't learn or
Speaker 4: grow except when it comes to learning hip hop and
Speaker 4: then she.
Speaker 3: Just which arguably she does what.
Speaker 4: She doesn't do very well either, but like the story
Speaker 4: is told in such a way where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is palatable for white audiences because we're just watching
Speaker 4: her kind of just do whatever she wants, appropriate whatever
Speaker 4: she wants, not learning lessons along the way, even though
Speaker 4: they're like friend of the show. Jordaane Cyles has a
Speaker 4: piece called White Girls, Better Black Women and Save the
Speaker 4: Last Dance where she talks about how Shaneil was like
Speaker 4: done so dirty and has like good points and is
Speaker 4: actually challenging Sarah and saying like, look around you. You're
Speaker 4: taught that there's only one world, but like black people
Speaker 4: know differently. And rather than like Sarah being like, hmm,
Speaker 4: maybe there's something to this, maybe I should, you know,
Speaker 4: look at this from a different point of view, she
Speaker 4: just like gets up and leaves the crowded like medical
Speaker 4: facility that they're in, and she's just like, well, this
Speaker 4: is making me uncomfortable, so I have to leave.
Speaker 1: It's like you came with me to disappointment. I'm asking
Speaker 1: you for help. Also, girl open and putting red eyes
Speaker 1: you over here, sitting here, word about you, Jewel audition.
Speaker 1: I got a baby that I did get care of. Yes,
Speaker 1: Dad is trying my patience every two mins.
Speaker 5: It m h.
Speaker 1: It's like people will often depict black women as bitter
Speaker 1: but not go into why they might be bitter for sure,
Speaker 1: Why am I upset? Why am I angry? Because I
Speaker 1: don't think being bitter or angry is a bad emotion
Speaker 1: to have. I'm like, lean into the anger, lean into
Speaker 1: your villain era, like, feel your feelings. But why is
Speaker 1: it that me feeling those feelings makes you so uncomfortable
Speaker 1: to the point where you have to walk away, or
Speaker 1: you step away or I have to come and apologize
Speaker 1: to you. No, bitch, I'm feeling something, I'm upset about it.
Speaker 1: You're lucky I'm telling you and talking to you about
Speaker 1: it instead of either ignoring you. But she refuses to engage.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing with a lot of like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I always test white folks that a, I are you
Speaker 1: to my life with how I can engage with them
Speaker 1: on topics about race, because I'm like, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to act like races in a thing like obviously I
Speaker 1: want to see people's people. I'm a human ask you know,
Speaker 1: But I'm also live in the real world and try
Speaker 1: to think practically. And so if anytime I'm talking to
Speaker 1: you about racial issues or things happening to people in
Speaker 1: different parts of the world, and your immediate response is
Speaker 1: to disengage, to like, I can't. You're showing me that
Speaker 1: you can't deal with hard things or you don't want to.
Speaker 1: You choose to not deal with hard things, which you're
Speaker 1: allowed to when you have a certain amount of privilege,
Speaker 1: when you live even in a certain part of the world,
Speaker 1: when you have a certain amount of income. So then
Speaker 1: I just know that you're not for me. And I
Speaker 1: could not be friends with Sarah because I'd be like, girl,
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, Nikki was annoying for what she said, but
Speaker 1: she has a bit of a point. She's like, sorry,
Speaker 1: she does she does a bro clock is right twice
Speaker 1: a day.
Speaker 2: And Sarah refuses to even consider that there's any truth
Speaker 2: to what NICKI saying, to what Daniels saying, and just
Speaker 2: I don't know. It has this like superhuman ability to
Speaker 2: make the takeaway from every scene be about her.
Speaker 1: You know what it is? Oh my god, Okay, I
Speaker 1: had I have a few biracial friends, and one of
Speaker 1: them one of my best friends. She says that her
Speaker 1: fear is always her mom is white and her dad's black.
Speaker 1: Fear is always that her mom would say some shit
Speaker 1: like I'm not racist, I have black children. Like that's
Speaker 1: always her deep fear. And I had never thought of
Speaker 1: that before because I'm not biracial, and I remember being like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that is actually because people will. Sarah
Speaker 1: thinks that she is standing in resistance, in solidarity and
Speaker 1: defiance because she is dating a black guy.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: It's given Kim Kardashian when she wrote that letter about
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm gonna have black children and I
Speaker 1: can't believe that the world will treat them this way.
Speaker 1: And Chris was like, really proud of you, Kim, and
Speaker 1: I was like, go, your children are so fucking wealthy.
Speaker 1: Your kids are not not to say that they might not.
Speaker 1: They're gonna deal with stuff whatever, But like your kids
Speaker 1: that will be able to have security get driven in
Speaker 1: black tinted out window cars everywhere. Those are the black
Speaker 1: kids you're worried about.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I managed to wipe that that statement from my mind.
Speaker 3: I'm forgot.
Speaker 6: Sorry, sorry, no, but there's this phenomenon of you know,
Speaker 6: white people being like, well, I can't be racist, I
Speaker 6: have a black friend, or I'm dating a black guy,
Speaker 6: or like.
Speaker 1: Do you know a black person or you actually friends
Speaker 1: with them? Because like a lot of y'all know black people,
Speaker 1: but are you actually friends?
Speaker 3: What do you have out?
Speaker 4: Do you go to their house? Yeah?
Speaker 1: This? Yeah, I'm like, And also you need to have
Speaker 1: more than like this is the other thing. You need
Speaker 1: to make a conscious effort of some people. You can't
Speaker 1: help where you live, right unless you have the money
Speaker 1: to move places. So if you live in areas where
Speaker 1: you're only seeing black people, like you don't see black
Speaker 1: people that much, and the only interaction you have is
Speaker 1: through the media, different types of media, not just TV
Speaker 1: shows and movies, advertising, whatever. When you meet a black person,
Speaker 1: you're using your frame of reference. What do you know
Speaker 1: about black people? Even if it's not you intentionally doing it,
Speaker 1: it's like a knee jerk response. We're always sussing out places,
Speaker 1: always trying to suss out information. Whatever. If I had
Speaker 1: never seen a white person before, and I watch movies
Speaker 1: all the time white people in it, girl, I'm using
Speaker 1: a stereotypes first, because I'm like, is that you're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to handle this icy food? You know?
Speaker 3: Like shit, like that, But yeah.
Speaker 1: I also have grown up in so many different types
Speaker 1: of environments where I've been in predominantly black spaces, predominantly
Speaker 1: Hispanic schools, predominantly white schools as well, So like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting when you note that people have never had
Speaker 1: to go out of their comfort zones in terms of
Speaker 1: their physical identity and how little we mix or integrate.
Speaker 4: Actually, I can speak to the experience of growing up
Speaker 4: in a predominantly white community. I grew up in a
Speaker 4: small rural town in western Pennsylvania. There was very, very
Speaker 4: very little racial or ethnic diversity, and of course I'm
Speaker 4: going to and I did harbor racial biases growing up.
Speaker 4: I didn't know any better, And like you said, my
Speaker 4: frame of reference was in the media I was consuming.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't until I went to college and actually
Speaker 4: like met and befriended people who weren't white and started
Speaker 4: to learn and interrogate. And I had to do so
Speaker 4: much unlearning of like what I had learned as far
Speaker 4: as stereotypes and tropes and the idea of systemic racism
Speaker 4: was something I was only like peripherally understanding and familiar with,
Speaker 4: and I had to do so much work to learn
Speaker 4: more about it. So, yes, these are real things. But
Speaker 4: the problem is that most people who do have this
Speaker 4: white privilege, like we said, it warps them and they
Speaker 4: don't want to be bothered. They don't feel like it's
Speaker 4: their place to comment on it or to think about it.
Speaker 4: It doesn't affect them, So why would they, you know,
Speaker 4: spend the time to do anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean even conversely, I grew up in a
Speaker 2: predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood and that because I feel
Speaker 2: like the way that this is presented is that, like
Speaker 2: Julius Diles, by being a white girl in a predominantly
Speaker 2: black space, that's all it takes to do the work
Speaker 2: is just by like hanging out.
Speaker 3: For a couple of weeks. And it's like, that's absolutely
Speaker 3: not true.
Speaker 2: There are white people in my community that are tremendously racist.
Speaker 2: Like it's just feels like it's this very movie presentation
Speaker 2: that sets the bar it like sub zero, like in
Speaker 2: the core of the earth to be like to actually
Speaker 2: have engaged with any issue on race, which again, like
Speaker 2: we were talking about, Sarah doesn't. She does not engage,
Speaker 2: like she's around.
Speaker 1: But she combatd that white lady in the train and
Speaker 1: that was it.
Speaker 2: She defeated racism, the lady, and you're just like, it's
Speaker 2: just I don't know. I mean, I guess it does
Speaker 2: go back to your point, like it's just like unbelievably Hollywood,
Speaker 2: and it's like the problem of racism has to be solved,
Speaker 2: and it's like the stakes are the same as getting
Speaker 2: into Juilliard in spite of having no talent, and like
Speaker 2: these are the two and they're equally important because fucking
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 1: When you said you grew up in probably black and
Speaker 1: Hispanic neighborhood, I was like, I'm always fascinated by white
Speaker 1: people like that. Not because I'm like, what was that like,
Speaker 1: but just because I'm like, okay, so you've grown up
Speaker 1: around in proximity to people, and you felt what it
Speaker 1: has been like to be a minority. I think more
Speaker 1: than anything, too many people don't experience what it's like
Speaker 1: to be a minority somewhere, and so they don't ever
Speaker 1: consider again that practicing the empathy muscle of oh no,
Speaker 1: I get that actually, because I know what it feels
Speaker 1: like on a human. As you were saying before, themes right,
Speaker 1: like a universal theme of feeling like a fish out
Speaker 1: of water, feeling out of place somewhere, feeling like the
Speaker 1: only whatever whatever somewhere. A lot of people don't ever
Speaker 1: have to have that experience, even when we travel to places.
Speaker 1: You know, people will go to resorts and whatever just
Speaker 1: so they don't have to be around the locals. And
Speaker 1: like it's just kind of you know, it's very like
Speaker 1: we really don't like to let go of our company.
Speaker 1: People don't like to be uncomfortable, and you know, but
Speaker 1: that was before nine to eleven. Baby, Sorry, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Then everything ja a little bit like.
Speaker 4: Sarah's like white discomfort is something that we see throughout
Speaker 4: the movie, and it's just like, no, it was actually
Speaker 4: fine for her to walk away from that conversation with
Speaker 4: Shanil where Shanil is making good points, and but because
Speaker 4: it made Sarah the white girl uncomfortable, she has to leave.
Speaker 4: And then it's actually Shanil who owes Sarah an apology
Speaker 4: by the end, and it's just like.
Speaker 1: For making her uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: This is like off topic, but like I have some
Speaker 2: issues with how like self care.
Speaker 3: Stuff is sort of present, like mental health.
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of like mental health languages
Speaker 2: has been co opted to get people out of uncomfortable
Speaker 2: conversations they need to be having it that they don't
Speaker 2: want on.
Speaker 1: A video about therapy speak Oh my god, wait in
Speaker 1: my spirit.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be crash landed into my algorithm. It's like,
Speaker 2: I mean, it is wild. I think that there is
Speaker 2: a like self care lend you can apply to that
Speaker 2: scene where we're saying that Julia Styles's character is clearly wrong,
Speaker 2: where it's like she had to protect her energy from
Speaker 2: the discomfort. She doesn't need to engage with that, which
Speaker 2: is just like telegraphic that like she doesn't need to
Speaker 2: engage with issues around race and poverty because they don't
Speaker 2: affect her. And you're just like, ugh, well I'm excited
Speaker 2: for that video.
Speaker 3: Thank you, poor Malachi.
Speaker 1: Okay, Malaki deserved more too, because he was there was
Speaker 1: a lot. There was masculinity, your respect, a particular black masculinity,
Speaker 1: and what does that do that expectation, especially when you
Speaker 1: don't have, as he's saying, like the smarts, like allegedly
Speaker 1: he doesn't have the smarts like Derek like to go
Speaker 1: to Georgetown. He's like, this is what I have. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's something. Oh but no, no, he's just a mean,
Speaker 1: he was abusive and terrible, so yeah, like.
Speaker 2: You know, right, And it's like Malachi doesn't really have
Speaker 2: a chance with the audit because we see him being
Speaker 2: physically abusive to a student, but.
Speaker 1: We don't see the nice part of him. We only
Speaker 1: hear though, like he was willing to go to Juvie
Speaker 1: for Derek, which is an admirable trait to do. Like
Speaker 1: these like they threw everything at him and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna snitch. Like there could have been even
Speaker 1: that moment when he came to Julia Styles. I forgot
Speaker 1: what had happened before I watched it, so I thought
Speaker 1: he was gonna come up to her and try to
Speaker 1: like talk to her or like say something. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just thought that maybe there was gonna be a
Speaker 1: conversation there instead of just your oil and milk. But
Speaker 1: I'm also like, maybe maybe all of these characters are
Speaker 1: defensive and apprehensive round Julia because it don't seem like
Speaker 1: she wants to listen, so they're all like, bitch.
Speaker 3: Right, you white right? Could be that, And on top
Speaker 3: of that, she's weird and.
Speaker 4: And she's not very good at dancing. Yeah, what I
Speaker 4: found interesting about that especially the Malachi Derek friendship. Is
Speaker 4: something that I observe a lot among men and their
Speaker 4: friendships with each other. Is that someone who has seen
Speaker 4: a different side of a person will say like, Hey,
Speaker 4: that guy was really shitty to me, or I saw
Speaker 4: that guy doing something really awful, maybe you shouldn't be
Speaker 4: friends with him, and the guy's like, well, I haven't
Speaker 4: seen that. I've only seen the good side of him.
Speaker 4: So I don't believe you, Slash. I don't think what
Speaker 4: you're saying is valid. This is a thing that I mean,
Speaker 4: just speaking to my experience as a comedian, there will
Speaker 4: be like male comedians who are singing the praises of
Speaker 4: another male comedian. I'll be like, oh, that's interesting because
Speaker 4: that guy like sexually harassed me, and then they're like,
Speaker 4: well he was nice to me.
Speaker 1: So yoh, you are right. That is the point to
Speaker 1: bring up too, because that's the other thing. It's like,
Speaker 1: I wish that they would have explored their friendship more
Speaker 1: so that at least we as the audience understand why
Speaker 1: Derek has such an allegiance to this guy that just
Speaker 1: seems like he hates women in general, not just white women,
Speaker 1: but especially white women.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but the movie glosses over that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like the way the Malachite character is handled
Speaker 2: is super messy, where it's like from it feels like
Speaker 2: the empathy that the movie has for him changes from
Speaker 2: scene to scene depending on what needs to happen in
Speaker 2: the scene, and so it just comes off super messy.
Speaker 2: Some of the lines he says are funny, such as
Speaker 2: that the black man's life madness in mayhem, and I
Speaker 2: was like, what the what.
Speaker 1: This is the other thing? This is where sorry, go ahead,
Speaker 1: before I just put.
Speaker 3: It that that was the end of that particular thought.
Speaker 1: It just I almost sound like an angry, bitter black feminist,
Speaker 1: but like, you know what, actually they deserved each other
Speaker 1: because what big Black men will try to victimize themselves
Speaker 1: as much as white women will sometimes, And I'm just like, there,
Speaker 1: y'all go ahead. Not obviously I'm not talking about all
Speaker 1: black men are all all white women, because I gotta
Speaker 1: say it that because y'all be like, yeah, but truly
Speaker 1: must be a day ending and why when a black
Speaker 1: man says that's a black man's world madness and mayhem?
Speaker 1: So that's why you had that girl yoked up in
Speaker 1: the bathroom.
Speaker 2: Right like they're all I just yeah, that friendship felt
Speaker 2: like under examined. I mean, which gets to something that
Speaker 2: I was feeling sort of throat the movie, where it's like,
Speaker 2: the movie has obviously an interest in Derek and in Chanel,
Speaker 2: but like not to the same extent that they're interested
Speaker 2: in Sarah.
Speaker 3: So there's stuff that will.
Speaker 2: Be introduced to us that kind of just goes away,
Speaker 2: or the movie's attitude kind of flip flops, because it
Speaker 2: seems like what's important to the movie is that Sarah's
Speaker 2: journey is on track and consistent, and so if things
Speaker 2: get a little sloppier to the characters around her, no
Speaker 2: big deal.
Speaker 1: I have a question for y'all, do you know what
Speaker 1: the plot of say, the Last Dance to Is it
Speaker 1: the same thing where it's another white girl that goes
Speaker 1: into a black.
Speaker 4: I've never seen it. I have no idea.
Speaker 2: So my understanding is that it's a continuation of Sarah's story,
Speaker 2: although it's not played by Julia Stiles, so it's like,
Speaker 2: I think it's just Juilliard. Okay, wait, let me, I'm
Speaker 2: on the Wikipedia thing. Okay, so yes, she's a Juilliard.
Speaker 2: She's now played by Isabella Miko, who is in Coyote
Speaker 2: Ugly apparently.
Speaker 1: Okay, Coyote Ugly.
Speaker 2: Now, sorry, here's a sentence that jumped out at me.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm pretty sure she just gets a different
Speaker 2: black boyfriend at Juilliard.
Speaker 3: During orientation.
Speaker 2: On her first day at Juilliard, Sarah meets Miles Sultana,
Speaker 2: who takes her for a trombone player. When she what what,
Speaker 2: I don't know, she's air they're in not a ballet dancer.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: When she tells him she is there for ballet, he
Speaker 2: questions whether she is a ballerina. Sarah boldly states she's
Speaker 2: already a ballerina. She is there to become a came
Speaker 2: at ballerina. So she just dates another guy actually.
Speaker 3: By Columbus Short.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, of course it's Columbus Store. He was in
Speaker 1: all those dance movies. Okay, yeah, where is it him?
Speaker 3: Is he in Stumpy Ard?
Speaker 1: Yes? Okay, yeah, fucking love.
Speaker 3: Stop the art, this whole decade of dance movies. You're
Speaker 3: just like, my god.
Speaker 1: Let's have fun again. Bring back the dance movie.
Speaker 3: Yah, let's right one.
Speaker 1: Let's do a dance movie, my dream movie. Since you're
Speaker 1: a screenplay writer, I'm going to give you this idea
Speaker 1: and like, if it ever comes to fruition, I just
Speaker 1: want to be a little percentage. It's like an enemy's
Speaker 1: to lovers cheerleader rivalry where the two captains are you know,
Speaker 1: they're the femme girlies, but they're enemy teams and then
Speaker 1: they both end up at a gay conversion camp and
Speaker 1: have to break out together and that's how they become lovers.
Speaker 1: And while that's happening on the inside, on the outside
Speaker 1: their team are coming together to try and like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what the plot is.
Speaker 3: Bring it on, but I'm a cheerleader, like pallidation.
Speaker 4: That's so great. I'm not a writer.
Speaker 1: I'm big ideas, but when it comes to sitting down
Speaker 1: and writing it, I'm like, girl, I don't know, this
Speaker 1: is hard.
Speaker 4: Oh goodness, No, that sounds like a great story. But yeah,
Speaker 4: say the last dance to I haven't seen it. I
Speaker 4: can't really.
Speaker 2: Say save the last dance to the streets Havannah Knight.
Speaker 3: Now we've done them all, does anyone?
Speaker 1: I guess? Havanah Knights is probably another example of that
Speaker 1: of like white girl goes into Spanish culture and learns
Speaker 1: how to dance. I haven't seen it though, so I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: I love Dirty Dance and Cavena Nights. It was my
Speaker 3: introduction to Diego Luna.
Speaker 2: He's the romantic lead in it, and a picture them
Speaker 2: now that was on heavy sleepover rotation. Unfortunately, Baby Diego
Speaker 2: Luna Bragg.
Speaker 4: Does anyone have anything else they would like to talk about?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I feel like we could keep talking for
Speaker 2: hours truly, I'm like, what is this movie?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I was like, are there any other lines that
Speaker 1: I particularly thought were interesting?
Speaker 4: I do think it's hilarious that Shaneil is like she,
Speaker 4: you know, dreams of going to fashion school and she
Speaker 4: like designs and like puts together all these outfits. But
Speaker 4: I'm like, are her outfits good? Because I feel like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they should have thought more about that. Not very
Speaker 1: they should have thought more about that, like just the
Speaker 1: way and I know she like styled her in the
Speaker 1: car and stuff and like did that quick change whatever?
Speaker 1: But yeah, they don't really like they give.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we need more about that. We need more Shaneil.
Speaker 3: In general, it was like, I don't know enough about
Speaker 3: two thousand and one.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like I missed opportunity that I thought
Speaker 2: because we learn about Shanil and Derek's mom really late
Speaker 2: in the plot, Like it's presented as a twist that
Speaker 2: is not a twist, and it's like, why couldn't we
Speaker 2: have just learned this earlier. It's because the movie doesn't
Speaker 2: care about them the same way it cares about Sarah.
Speaker 3: But that felt like.
Speaker 2: Because and again, this is like a plot point that
Speaker 2: is like riddled with stereotypes. But their mom is absent.
Speaker 2: It's described that she's in jail quote for drugs ellipses,
Speaker 2: for things women do for drugs ellipses, And you're like, okay,
Speaker 2: but even if we're just taking the plot point that
Speaker 2: Sarah and Shanil's mother are both absent, they're not like
Speaker 2: that is like a chance for an opportunity, a chance
Speaker 2: to connect like something.
Speaker 1: Early on, Yeah, I lost whatever. But also this is
Speaker 1: the part where I was like, ah, y'all should have
Speaker 1: let the black people leave because Mama Dean would have
Speaker 1: come around the corner and been like, yet them drugs
Speaker 1: the Reagan planet. You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well to that point as far as like I'm
Speaker 4: not even sure why Shanil takes Sarah under her wing,
Speaker 4: like and then do Derek and Sarah have anything in common,
Speaker 4: aside from the fact that they've both read Capodi and
Speaker 4: have opinions on it that they read for class. I
Speaker 4: just it feels like another like undercooked romance where it's like,
Speaker 4: what do they like about each other?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have common.
Speaker 1: Derek toes the line of being in his world, but
Speaker 1: also he wants to go to Georgetown, and he knows
Speaker 1: about Capodi and he's a black intellectual, so like there's
Speaker 1: a certain like he's classed differently than the people around
Speaker 1: him because of that intelligence and because of the way
Speaker 1: he can talk and how he can code switch and
Speaker 1: go back and forth. He doesn't really code switch that much,
Speaker 1: but like, you know, just like he's teeters that line
Speaker 1: I guess of being black but not Malachi or snooky black.
Speaker 4: Right, So is the movie implying that because he is
Speaker 4: like quiet intellectual, then he like it makes sense for
Speaker 4: him to be with a white person.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know if much I got the vibe
Speaker 1: of like less that and more like maybe it's a
Speaker 1: respectability thing of like, Okay, we want to show different
Speaker 1: depictions of black folks, so we have the nerdy black
Speaker 1: dudes for a quick second, but Derek is a black
Speaker 1: man that like anyone would want, not even just black women,
Speaker 1: but even a white girl would want. He's smart, he
Speaker 1: is driven, Like that's what she Neiel's talking about. She's like,
Speaker 1: he's gonna make something of his life. He's not gonna
Speaker 1: have kids and just leave them, like and we don't
Speaker 1: have enough of that.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh no, it's bleak. I will say
Speaker 4: to pay this movie a tiny little compliment, even though
Speaker 4: it doesn't handle anything thoughtfully that at this time, the
Speaker 4: early two thousands, very few movies featured an interracial relationship.
Speaker 4: We very rarely saw interracial kiss time with Jungle Fever.
Speaker 3: And that was the eighties, which.
Speaker 1: Fucking fever. I saw the Guard.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, there are a few exactly nineties.
Speaker 3: It was rare. It was pretty rare for a while.
Speaker 3: You got like one a decade.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 4: And like movies that maybe had almost like an implied
Speaker 4: interracial romance, such as like Men in Black where it's
Speaker 4: like Will Smith and then I forget the actor's name,
Speaker 4: but they don't kiss. There's no interracial kiss on screen
Speaker 4: in many cases.
Speaker 3: So I was like, okay, bad boys as well.
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, I feel like we had that same
Speaker 4: conversation yeah, on that episode as well. Point is that
Speaker 4: there was very little representation of inter racial relationships or
Speaker 4: like physical contact at this time. Not that it's necessarily
Speaker 4: a representation when as far as how that relationship plays out,
Speaker 4: but it is representation.
Speaker 1: See the thing with representation, if there is more, more
Speaker 1: of it, just more of it. The clumsy versions that
Speaker 1: come through, they're not as big a deal, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's it's not as big a deal, say, the
Speaker 1: last dance is like, okay, cute whatever, But because there
Speaker 1: are so few and far between, and because if one
Speaker 1: doesn't do well immediately, it's like, well that's a wrap,
Speaker 1: you know. It's just like, yeah, let's just allow ourselves
Speaker 1: to make more bad depictions so that we can have enough.
Speaker 4: And more pictures of it just like being normalized, rather
Speaker 4: than because like a lot of the discourse between the
Speaker 4: characters in this movie are characters discussing is this a
Speaker 4: good idea? Should interracial relationships happen? Whereas if it's more
Speaker 4: representation of just like two people who are in love
Speaker 4: and they're together and they happen to be an interracial couple,
Speaker 4: and that's just presented as a perfectly normal thing. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but we were getting very little of that at the time.
Speaker 1: Are there any movies that y'all can think of, movies
Speaker 1: or TV shows that you can think of where they've
Speaker 1: had an interracial couple of like any mix that you've
Speaker 1: been like, Ah, this was a pretty interesting take.
Speaker 4: I feel like I've pointed out different examples of this
Speaker 4: on various episodes. I can't even remember the movies anymore,
Speaker 4: but I know I've made the comment of like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is an interracial couple where no attention is brought
Speaker 4: to it. It's just presented as like a very normalized
Speaker 4: thing we covered.
Speaker 2: I don't think that this is necessarily the best example.
Speaker 2: We covered something New last year and that that was
Speaker 2: another movie about interracial relationships that was a little all
Speaker 2: over the place.
Speaker 3: But it's like, yeah, there you go, we haven't covered
Speaker 3: it yet.
Speaker 1: But oh, Romeo must die. Listen, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: I fucking love rob Let's Die.
Speaker 3: That's really brand Thank you, thank you, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: I thought this was a safe space. I'm just looking up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something new is on there a fellow.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, I guess Brandy Cinderella. I guess that is cere.
Speaker 1: Brandy Cinderella is the perfect example of that, because they
Speaker 1: really just let us pop into a fantasy world and
Speaker 1: have fun. I wish Predess would have done that from
Speaker 1: the beginning. Just do that, Just do that.
Speaker 2: I feel like we see interracial couples in media more
Speaker 2: today than we used to, certainly, but at least in
Speaker 2: this era it is. I mean, but there were also
Speaker 2: other movies that featured interracial couples, in dance movies, specifically
Speaker 2: around yes this time, like it was a thing.
Speaker 1: They're bringing two worlds together.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and it always center as usually a white girl
Speaker 2: who's like learning tolerance and a little something about herself,
Speaker 2: and you're like, all right, that's the one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, real quick. I wanted to point out there's that
Speaker 4: moment where Sarah is given the fake ID so that
Speaker 4: she can get into Steps, where at least fifty percent
Speaker 4: of the movie takes place. It seems they never go
Speaker 4: anywhere else, it's always Steps, And she's given this fake
Speaker 4: ID and Sarah sees the photo and she's like, oh,
Speaker 4: she's ugly. She's fat, oh girl, And that is just
Speaker 4: a thing that Sis said in the movie without being challenged,
Speaker 4: and that was pretty nasty.
Speaker 1: She's twenty one.
Speaker 3: Right, and see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's I mean there's a lot of parts of
Speaker 2: this view I mean, or very of the era in
Speaker 2: just kind of like dismissive and weird ways.
Speaker 3: It's an extremely two thousand and one movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in any case, does this movie pass the Bechdel test?
Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah it does. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that's the positive we can say.
Speaker 2: That is just further proof that it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: one metric invented as a joke.
Speaker 3: But it does. It does pass.
Speaker 4: It does pass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least between Sarah and Shaneil And then I
Speaker 2: also think between Sarah and her mom in the two
Speaker 2: seconds in this movie where she is alive, yes, where
Speaker 2: she's like, come on, and then her mom's like it's
Speaker 2: a florist emergency or fucking whatever.
Speaker 4: Sure, also between Sarah and Nikki when they are yeah fighting.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it does pass. But what about our metric,
Speaker 4: the most important media metric ever conceived, the nipple scale
Speaker 4: zero to five nipples, and we raid it. Based on
Speaker 4: examining the movie through an intersectional feminist, lens I would
Speaker 4: not rate this movie highly.
Speaker 1: The minute she said intersectional feminist, lens I was like, ooh,
Speaker 1: I gotta take off two more points.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So honestly, I mean it
Speaker 4: was a very two thousand and one attempt to examine
Speaker 4: something that the movie did not have the capacity to
Speaker 4: examine meaningfully at all, and based on how it's basically
Speaker 4: just a movie about a white girl who appropriates black culture,
Speaker 4: and any time that anyone calls her out or she's
Speaker 4: made to feel uncomfortable, the movie is just like, yeah,
Speaker 4: can't you sense how uncomfortable she is? And isn't that
Speaker 4: too bad? And they need to apologize to her for it, right.
Speaker 3: And they can't.
Speaker 4: She's doing her best. It's such a hard situation for
Speaker 4: her to be in, can't you see that? And it's
Speaker 4: just like, no, all of the framing around that is
Speaker 4: really quite silly. So I'll give it a half nipple
Speaker 4: for showing an interracial kiss in two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: Yes, I thought I was mean I was gonna give
Speaker 1: it one point three nipples.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, please unpack it.
Speaker 1: But that's only because they employed more black people. That's
Speaker 1: literally it. Because black people were on the payroll.
Speaker 4: A lot of people got a paycheck.
Speaker 1: Yes, whether that paycheck was good is uh, but.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, based on Carrie Washington's anecdote about
Speaker 4: having to return to teaching after this movie because she
Speaker 4: couldn't quit her day job because what you would think
Speaker 4: would have been a role that should have paid the
Speaker 4: bills for a while, Uh didn't do that.
Speaker 3: So oops, I'm gonna go one nipple.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, this movie is not doing very much
Speaker 2: and I don't know, I don't think I have anything
Speaker 2: else to add to it. It's just like a movie
Speaker 2: with a predominantly black cast that still manages to be
Speaker 2: about a white woman. It's kind of like, holy shit,
Speaker 2: it's they really.
Speaker 1: The bamboozled us. They it was deceptive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got us also not for nothing, like I
Speaker 2: know what we are mostly.
Speaker 3: Talking about the themes, the characters.
Speaker 2: It's boring. This movie's boring. There's long stretches of it
Speaker 2: that I was bored.
Speaker 4: And the dancing isn't fun to watch because it's.
Speaker 1: No three D and step up two like the ship
Speaker 1: was like they were doing so they were dancing.
Speaker 4: There's a reason I own Stomps the Yard on DVD.
Speaker 4: It is fun to match.
Speaker 1: You admitting you own Stop Yard on DVD. You ow
Speaker 1: that movie DVD?
Speaker 4: Probably when did it come out? Like two thousand seven.
Speaker 1: So you have an old ooh wow.
Speaker 4: I bought it in like as soon as it came
Speaker 4: out on DVD because I saw it in the theaters twice.
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody else that had owes that movie,
Speaker 1: like just no one, not race or anything. I just
Speaker 1: don't know anyone that owes that movie or saw that
Speaker 1: movie twice in theaters.
Speaker 3: I can't explain it.
Speaker 1: I just listen. I spoke to love Romeo must Die so.
Speaker 1: And my favorite problematic movie is The Hot Chick. It
Speaker 1: is so.
Speaker 3: Problem I have never seen it.
Speaker 1: I have so much fun watching that movie.
Speaker 3: It has come back kitties in The Hot Chicks.
Speaker 1: Rachel McAdams one of her first movies. A young Ashley
Speaker 1: Simpson is in there as a little cameo.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: It's yeah.
Speaker 4: Well anyway, there you have it. That's our save of
Speaker 4: the last Dance episode. Kadita, thank you so much for
Speaker 4: joining us. It's been an absolute treat. Please come back
Speaker 4: us or please any movie I love, Coots or literally anything.
Speaker 4: Where can people check out your work? Follow you online?
Speaker 4: Plug away.
Speaker 1: You can find me at Kadija dot bo on TikTok, Instagram.
Speaker 1: What's that other one? I don't go on X but
Speaker 1: I have one. You can find me on YouTube. Just
Speaker 1: look up Kadijimbo.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you want to check out some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that I'm doing that isn't online related, Operatica, the
Speaker 1: pole opera show that I'm producing. You know, the landing
Speaker 1: page just says coming soon, but the image is pretty cute,
Speaker 1: so check it out and follow the Instagram Operatica Events.
Speaker 1: That's O p e r A t I k A
Speaker 1: Events amazing.
Speaker 5: Hell yeah, and if you can check us out on
Speaker 5: social media at Bechdelcast, you can go to our Matreon
Speaker 5: where again, rather than releasing this saved the last dance
Speaker 5: episode there, which was our original intention, we swapped it
Speaker 5: out for a burlesque episode, so you can.
Speaker 2: Really pritch discussion going on over there as well as
Speaker 2: flash Dance. And that's five bucks a month for two
Speaker 2: new episodes every month and access to our entire back catalog.
Speaker 2: You can also get our birch over at teapublic dot
Speaker 2: com Slash the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 1: Woo.
Speaker 4: And with that, let's go to our Juilliard audition. But
Speaker 4: be careful, don't get in a car because it's gonna crash.
Speaker 1: Jesus, Bye Bye.
Speaker 4: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 4: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lickterman, edited
Speaker 4: by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Speaker 4: Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosenski. Our logo and merch
Speaker 4: is designed by Jamie Loftus and a special thanks to
Speaker 4: Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit
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