Speaker 1: Pushing. This is sort of random, but I remember after
Speaker 1: college and I lived in Denver for a year and
Speaker 1: a half or something, and you came out to visit, right,
Speaker 1: and we went to a baseball game. We went to
Speaker 1: a Colorado Rockies game. And that was also the first
Speaker 1: weekend I saw hockey ever in my whole life first,
Speaker 1: and like, hockey, what is that? But I remember people
Speaker 1: around us at the baseball game started asking us questions
Speaker 1: like how do you guys know each other? They were
Speaker 1: really excited and interested and like were you in the
Speaker 1: military together, Like they couldn't conceive of a space where
Speaker 1: we would just had this kind of like comfort around
Speaker 1: one another. And it's sort of it's sort of triggered
Speaker 1: their their curiosity of where would that space exist. I
Speaker 1: just would distinctly remember it being kind of like the
Speaker 1: whitest place I'd ever visited in terms of activities too,
Speaker 1: like we went mountain bike ging. Yeah, we've never done
Speaker 1: that before. Yeah, And and having people look at us,
Speaker 1: even your roommate what was his name, Chip or Chad? Okay, Chip, Chad?
Speaker 1: Uh totally different? Um, so you know, really nice guy.
Speaker 1: I mean that I think even Chad was a little
Speaker 1: like Wow, Ben Scott, you know, got this black friend.
Speaker 1: I'm Khalil Jibrawn Muhammed and I'm Ben Austin. I was
Speaker 1: giving you a runaway. Oh yeah, I don't. I give
Speaker 1: myself runaway. You don't give me runaway. I'm Ben Austin
Speaker 1: and I'm Khalil Gibrad Muhammed. We're two best friends, one black,
Speaker 1: one wife. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And
Speaker 1: this is some of my best friends are some of
Speaker 1: my best friends are in this show. We wrestle with
Speaker 1: the absurdities and the challenges of a deeply divided and
Speaker 1: unequal country. Yeah. So we're going to talk today about buddies,
Speaker 1: Buddies on the big screen, interracial buddy films. Yep. And
Speaker 1: just a heads up because we're talking about interracial buddy films.
Speaker 1: Some of the clips contain offensive language. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about four to eight hours and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about other interracial buddy films today.
Speaker 1: No goddamn way to start a partnership. I get this
Speaker 1: partners sween brothers and we've friends. I'm putting you down
Speaker 1: and keeping you down until games is locked up or dead.
Speaker 1: And if Games gets away, you're gonna be sorry you
Speaker 1: ever met me. I'm already sorry. These Buddy films were
Speaker 1: about crossing the color line, creating relationships. So that opening
Speaker 1: scene we just heard, which has, you know, this classic line,
Speaker 1: we ain't buddies, we ain't partners, and we ain't friends,
Speaker 1: which set the moral arc of the story, which is
Speaker 1: that we're gonna be buddies, partners and friends, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna do a sequel, and we're going to launch all
Speaker 1: kinds of sequels. So I think it's an important moment
Speaker 1: to think about the last forty years since the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: and how we got to a moment where we're now
Speaker 1: talking about systemic racism because something about the notion of
Speaker 1: just being together didn't get us to the Promised Land. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think this moment of talking about racism in
Speaker 1: America and systemic racism in particular. This guy asked me
Speaker 1: the other day. He found out I was a historian,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, you teach at Harvard, you're an expert.
Speaker 1: I've been dying astis, So what do you think the
Speaker 1: solution is the First thing I say, I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: come on, I studied the past, but that was just
Speaker 1: me trying to demure from the question, and it is
Speaker 1: no seriously, And I said, well, what do you think
Speaker 1: and he said, integration, man, integration. I grew up in
Speaker 1: Jersey City. There's people everywhere from all over the world.
Speaker 1: And he said, we just need to spend more time together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's what these Buddy films were about. We were
Speaker 1: really shown something then that we were we were we
Speaker 1: were thinking about and revisiting a movie like that now,
Speaker 1: you know, to try to try to imagine that moment
Speaker 1: back when we were kids and what we saw. And
Speaker 1: then also this other thing like what do they what
Speaker 1: do they tell us? Now? What are we? What do
Speaker 1: we learn? What do we take away from them? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they are all these amazing films. There's everything from
Speaker 1: The Defiant Ones in nineteen fifty eight with Sydney Poortier
Speaker 1: and Tony Curtis. Everybody lives by and everybody stuck with
Speaker 1: what is even a swamp? Animals? Even that weasel. You're
Speaker 1: calling me a weasel. No, I'm calling you a white man.
Speaker 1: There's in the Heat of the Night in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven Sydney Potier again, they call me, mister Tibbs. I
Speaker 1: mean he is, like, I don't know, he's the every
Speaker 1: black man in Hollywood at that time, and he's starring
Speaker 1: alongside Rod Steiger. You got Silver Streak with Gene wild
Speaker 1: there and Richard Prior. I can't pass for black. You
Speaker 1: tell him. I didn't say I was gonna make you black.
Speaker 1: I said I was gonna get you on the train.
Speaker 1: Now we've got to make them cops. Thank you black.
Speaker 1: And then they get back together and stir crazy. There's
Speaker 1: also Blazing Saddles, which was the first movie that my
Speaker 1: brother and I went to and we looked at one
Speaker 1: another and were like, damn, they make movies for us.
Speaker 1: And then and then we jump into the nineteen eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got Trading Places, dan Ackroyd, Eddie Murphy again from Cameroon.
Speaker 1: Do you remember me? It's Lionel, Joseph Yep and all
Speaker 1: the Beverly Hills cop movies of course, which which is
Speaker 1: when Eddie Murphy is at the prime of his career,
Speaker 1: disturbing the piece I got thrown out of a window.
Speaker 1: What's the fucking charge? Were getting pushed out of a
Speaker 1: moving far huh? Jay Walking. Then in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: you get White Men Can't Jump, which is in a
Speaker 1: samizingly amazing film with Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes. Now
Speaker 1: I'll see you a hustle man. Hey, I never used
Speaker 1: no goofy white motherfucker like fat Hey, who you calling
Speaker 1: coofy white motherfuck you. There's Rush Hour, which extends the
Speaker 1: genre of interracial buddy films to Jackie chan that. There's
Speaker 1: also Training Day with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawk, a
Speaker 1: kind of another version with that inversion, right exactly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so there. So there's a lot of films, right, it's
Speaker 1: been this is a genre that's been going on literally
Speaker 1: for half a century. So we're gonna talk about two
Speaker 1: in particular today, forty eight Hours, the first of Eddie
Speaker 1: Murphy's films, and also Lethal Weapon, which is a kind
Speaker 1: of a genre buster with Danny Glover and Mel Gibson. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these films set in motion, you know, dozens of copycat versions.
Speaker 1: So Khalil, you you were talking about all the ways
Speaker 1: that you, you know, Danny Glover to hide stereotypes. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that at the time at all of seeing
Speaker 1: that and feeling anything, Well, I think, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was very conscious of portrayals of blackness and black men,
Speaker 1: black people. You know, I remember watching The Cosby Show
Speaker 1: like everybody else, with a great sense of pride at
Speaker 1: this incredible family, the Huxtables, and so any movie that
Speaker 1: featured black people and particularly black men and key characters
Speaker 1: was a big deal. I Mean, I'd come off of
Speaker 1: seeing Richard Pryor, who mostly was doing comedy of one
Speaker 1: kind or another, whether it was in his own films
Speaker 1: or with Gene Wilder, and these films seemed, you know,
Speaker 1: they seemed more mature, more positive, and I remember feeling
Speaker 1: that I was invested in what was happening on the
Speaker 1: big screen. I think this is probably true for forty
Speaker 1: eight Hours too. I Mean, we don't talk about the
Speaker 1: genre of black savior films like we talk about the
Speaker 1: genre of white savior films. But that's that's the other
Speaker 1: thing that I think made these films interesting to black audiences. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing about the white character and all of these
Speaker 1: films is that for them to have the relationship with
Speaker 1: the black character, they need to be outsiders. That's part
Speaker 1: of the trope. You know, you're you're separate, You're a
Speaker 1: crazy person, a vigilante, not a team player, like you're
Speaker 1: outside somehow white society, normal white society, and therefore you
Speaker 1: could be linked up with this black person in some way.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm thinking about these Buddy films as black
Speaker 1: savior films, right because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: white people don't need saving but four right like, But
Speaker 1: for the characters Riggs who's suicidal, Nick Nolte, who's just
Speaker 1: an asshole cop who's very selfish and himself is quick
Speaker 1: triggered and racist, right like, he needs Eddie Murphy so
Speaker 1: he can stop being a racist cop. So these Buddy
Speaker 1: films are doing something to create space for black people
Speaker 1: in a white society that had only ever imagined them
Speaker 1: as something less than. So Eddie Murphy been. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course he was for our generation what Richard Pryor
Speaker 1: had been to our parents' generation, and what Dave Chappelle
Speaker 1: has been for a whole generation of young people who
Speaker 1: are younger than us, the black comic translator of all
Speaker 1: the racist myths and mythologies and absurdities in America. And
Speaker 1: that's part of the excitement of forty eight Hours. It's
Speaker 1: a breakout role and we know him already, but it
Speaker 1: was just part of my coming of age experience in
Speaker 1: Hyde Park and being at the local theater. And of
Speaker 1: course you and I ended up working literally we met
Speaker 1: the next year after that movie and work next door
Speaker 1: at Hyde Park Computers, the theater and the computer store.
Speaker 1: We're almost contiguous, and yeah, and seeing movies there was
Speaker 1: a big deal. Yeah. So that movie I think is
Speaker 1: really powerful because it is so steeped in racism, Like
Speaker 1: you're talking about forty eight hours, forty eight hours, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It is in your face. I mean, if
Speaker 1: a weapon verst color blind version of this, right, this
Speaker 1: is just the opposite. Yeah, so this is very much
Speaker 1: a Hollywood film. Joel Silver produces this film, maybe it's
Speaker 1: his first one, and he ends up producing actually Lethal
Speaker 1: Weapon and a million other movies. But there's something that
Speaker 1: still feels really unique about this and different from other films.
Speaker 1: There's all this racism in the film, but it feels
Speaker 1: like it's an analysis of racism and race rather than
Speaker 1: being racist. Oh. Absolutely, From the very first moment, the
Speaker 1: opening scene is you know where one guy breaks in
Speaker 1: the one out of prison, and the whole way he
Speaker 1: does it is by saying racist things against him as
Speaker 1: a as a Native American. Right, it's from the very
Speaker 1: opening lines, you got a big mouth. He's only joking.
Speaker 1: They have the water place, firewater Tonto. Is that what
Speaker 1: you mean? Firewater? Huh? Yeah, there's firewater Tonto. Right. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so Eddie Murphy is joined in this league, this band
Speaker 1: of criminals, um, that includes two white guys, an Indian
Speaker 1: and a black guy. It's kind of like one of
Speaker 1: those jokes, right, like what happens when two white guys
Speaker 1: in Indian and black guy get together and rob a bank?
Speaker 1: And so that's like the conceit of the film out
Speaker 1: the gate and uh, the racism directed towards the character.
Speaker 1: What if was his name? Billy? Yeah, Billy the Native
Speaker 1: American guy? Yeah, Billy yeah, Billy. Um is just it
Speaker 1: means it's it's it's all dropping from the beginning. And
Speaker 1: so partly what I'm thinking about seeing that as kids
Speaker 1: is how commonplace it was to play to this racist
Speaker 1: humor in these stereotypes, right, yes, saying it felt like
Speaker 1: that race is always present and on people's minds, and
Speaker 1: people talk about it, and people worry about it, and
Speaker 1: people joke about it, and it's there at every moment,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't necessarily lead to racism, but you don't
Speaker 1: pass up a moment to mention it, or to joke
Speaker 1: about it, or to nudge something about it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the humor. The humor is dramatized, so it's not
Speaker 1: meant for laughs. Right, It's like, we all know this
Speaker 1: is how we really think and talk about each other,
Speaker 1: so we're going to lean into that. In fact, Nick
Speaker 1: Nolty's character, I mean, he you know, he opens as
Speaker 1: this kind of you know, working stiff cop who's sleeping
Speaker 1: with this woman. You know, he's noncommittal, it's just about
Speaker 1: the sex, and it's just another day on the job.
Speaker 1: And this day happens to be one where he's going
Speaker 1: to end up getting some black guy out of jail
Speaker 1: to solve a crime. But the first thing you know,
Speaker 1: out of his mouth basically within the conversation when he
Speaker 1: meets Eddie Murphy shortly after, he basically says, I need
Speaker 1: your help, is you know I thought you were a
Speaker 1: smart boy, like I mean, and he says it just
Speaker 1: shy of a Southern twang. Oh man, it it I mean,
Speaker 1: I I it goes from boy jive. He calls him
Speaker 1: a spear chucker. He says, you, um, what was He
Speaker 1: calls him watermelon at one point. Yeah, later on, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he calls him a chocolate colored loser. And then and
Speaker 1: then finally it like builds builds built, and they have
Speaker 1: this scene where they get in the fist fight. He
Speaker 1: uses the N word it like, I mean he goes
Speaker 1: to places you're like watermelon, damn, like spear chucker, like
Speaker 1: and another actor. You know, if you had Mel Gibson
Speaker 1: saying on those lines, it would have come across totally differently.
Speaker 1: There's something about about about Nick Nolty's racism and like
Speaker 1: also like he's this giant, hulking guy and so shabby
Speaker 1: and worn out, and like his lines are delivered with
Speaker 1: a weariness. You know, it's not like he's not there's
Speaker 1: not like a spit edge to them. He's just like
Speaker 1: he's just fallen apart. Yeah. Well again, I think he's
Speaker 1: also standing in as this Irish cop. Like he he
Speaker 1: has a proverbial Irish cup of coffee. He pulls out
Speaker 1: his flask and drops a little whiskey in it before
Speaker 1: he gets his day started, and his racism is dripping
Speaker 1: from him, which is a way of kind of signifying
Speaker 1: that the moral arc right of his experience is gonna
Speaker 1: be coming to terms with how shitty he is as
Speaker 1: a person to black people and all that's inside of
Speaker 1: him that Eddie Murphy stands in as this canvas for
Speaker 1: him to spew on, including as you pointed out, this
Speaker 1: line over he calls him literally an overdressed, charcoal colored loser.
Speaker 1: But the truth is he is himself a loser his
Speaker 1: well but he but he, but he is right. Nobody
Speaker 1: likes this guy so so that that idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought of the film in a way
Speaker 1: as a black savior movie. Um. And there's this, there's
Speaker 1: this is this amazing moment when they're in the black
Speaker 1: bar and Nick Nolty's character essentially apologizes for all the
Speaker 1: racist things. He said, muff, that was just doing much job,
Speaker 1: keeping me down. Yeah, well, doing your job. Don't explain everything, Jack, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, as long as you feeling like Abraham Lincoln,
Speaker 1: which at first I was like, I confused it with
Speaker 1: with George Washington. Was it telling the truth? And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh no, he means freeing the slaves exactly,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I mean the the idea that you know
Speaker 1: in his raspy, weary voice. He says all the words
Speaker 1: again and apologizes, I was just doing my job holding
Speaker 1: you down. And Eddie Murphy's line is amazing, you know,
Speaker 1: doing your job doesn't explain all of it, right, and
Speaker 1: he says, yeah, yeah, you're right, fuck like like like
Speaker 1: and then it's so like real and crazy that this
Speaker 1: is actually happening in this in this buddy movie that
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy has to like deflate it with his laugh, right, No,
Speaker 1: it was. I agree, it was incredible, and I mean
Speaker 1: this is this is where I think the film is
Speaker 1: groundbreaking for taking head on how so many Americans are
Speaker 1: thinking about these issues in this moment. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things that this film does
Speaker 1: powerfully that say lethal weapon doesn't do at all. It
Speaker 1: actually shows them develop a relationship. They actually do connect.
Speaker 1: And then there's a sense too of like the other
Speaker 1: kind of male bonding of doing a job well that
Speaker 1: they both live by a code, you know, that their
Speaker 1: sense of this being you know, your pluck and your ingenuity.
Speaker 1: When Nick Nolty defends him against the chief, he says
Speaker 1: he might be a convict, but he's the smartest partner
Speaker 1: I ever worked with right. That's that's a big part
Speaker 1: of what you're talking about, which is that that their
Speaker 1: authentic relationship has has to rise above the normal rules
Speaker 1: that apply in a society that's broken. They maybe that's
Speaker 1: a good good moment to talk about that. That bar
Speaker 1: scene the probably the famous scene in the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this scene, you know they're they're going in to
Speaker 1: find out where this guy Billy is, and they know
Speaker 1: that he used to bartend there, and they walk into
Speaker 1: this bar and it is just like some fantasy land
Speaker 1: of if they say redneck bar. Like the first shot,
Speaker 1: you hear these fiddles, it's like the Charlie Daniels band,
Speaker 1: and you see a woman on stage dancing to like fiddles,
Speaker 1: going nuts. Every single person in there is white, and
Speaker 1: he is wearing a cowboy hat, and there are Confederate
Speaker 1: flags everywhere we where, Like it just goes from small
Speaker 1: Confederate flag, bigger, big Confederate flag, bigger Confederate flag. And
Speaker 1: so the first line that Eddie Murphy says, not a
Speaker 1: very popular place for my kind of place, always like
Speaker 1: custry boys. They're sure there. I was gonna like you.
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy. The work that he does in this scene.
Speaker 1: Just it's masterful, right, But it also it's also the
Speaker 1: moment where Eddie Murphy and bo ease the actual power
Speaker 1: of policing. Yes, right, yeah, that's that's a moment where
Speaker 1: Nick Nolte sees a version of himself and realizes how
Speaker 1: much power and privilege he actually has. Yeah, so before
Speaker 1: they go into this Honckey talk bar, Eddie Murphy's character
Speaker 1: Reggie Hammond says to Nick Nolty's character Jack Kates, the
Speaker 1: thing that gives you power is your badge. I could
Speaker 1: get the information if I just had a badge. And
Speaker 1: Nick Nolty he says, no way. You know, I'm a
Speaker 1: great cop. I know what I'm doing. And so they
Speaker 1: make a bet and he says, I'll give you my
Speaker 1: badge and you can you can try to see if
Speaker 1: you can get the same information out of these people.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, it's it's such a powerful moment in
Speaker 1: the film because, to anyone's surprise, no one has seen
Speaker 1: a film a moment like this in a in a
Speaker 1: Hollywood scene. This is probably this is probably top ten
Speaker 1: scene for groundbreaking use of comedy to illustrate some of
Speaker 1: the most powerful social forces in society, including how much
Speaker 1: the intersection of race and policing matter in our system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is orson Wells level right here, like this
Speaker 1: this is up there. Yeah yeah, all right, listen up.
Speaker 1: I don't like white people. I hate rednecks. You people
Speaker 1: are rednecks. It means I'm enjoying this shit. Yeah, so okay,
Speaker 1: So like that is the moment where Eddie Murphy fully
Speaker 1: embodies Nick Noti's power. He literally turns. He basically collides
Speaker 1: the power of policing with the power to be racist
Speaker 1: because he can do anything to these people and they
Speaker 1: can do nothing about it. You know what I am.
Speaker 1: I'm your worst fucking night man, man manigga would have badged.
Speaker 1: I mean, I got permission to kick your fucking ass
Speaker 1: whenever I feel like it. And that that is the
Speaker 1: slavery metaphor playing out in this moment which Nick Nolte.
Speaker 1: And what I love about the scene is it's also
Speaker 1: the moment where Nick Nolte is watching this. The camera
Speaker 1: comes back to Nick Nolty time and time again, so
Speaker 1: that he can see with his own eyes what he
Speaker 1: has been doing to people. Yeah and maybe maybe like
Speaker 1: he sees it, but he doesn't. It doesn't sink in yet,
Speaker 1: but it's part, it's part of the process grow. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think we should take a look then at
Speaker 1: how this notion of power and privilege moves out of
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy to another movie that Joel Silver makes five
Speaker 1: years later, another interracial buddy film, another cop action film,
Speaker 1: and this time Danny Glover plays the straight guy, and
Speaker 1: he's the cop in charge. He's Sergeant Murtok, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, all these stereotypes are completely inverted. He's
Speaker 1: a family man, he's hashes, he's played by the rules,
Speaker 1: he's fifty years old, thinking about retirement because he's already
Speaker 1: done his twenty year bit. And he gets this crazy
Speaker 1: ass lunatic white guy as a partner who's played by
Speaker 1: Mel Gibbs. Fascinating. So the premise of Lethal Weapon is,
Speaker 1: you know, Danny Glover's character, Murtile is his name, Roger
Speaker 1: Murtile is Murtalk, Murtalk, Murtalk. Yeah, he's a cop. You know,
Speaker 1: he's guess he's near retirement or something like he's just
Speaker 1: turned fifty and then copy years. You know, that's like
Speaker 1: twenty five good years on the force. Yeah, so you're
Speaker 1: at that done they're on the lapd and he gets
Speaker 1: this renegade partner, you know, the outside or not the
Speaker 1: team player, you know, and and somebody who they think
Speaker 1: is suicidal, and it's Mel Gibson, right, and that's a
Speaker 1: real bad I'm a real company's a really fucking gun.
Speaker 1: It turns out to be a little crazy in the end.
Speaker 1: I mean, when we saw it, do you think of
Speaker 1: it as like an important film in any way of
Speaker 1: seeing like interracial you know, males bonding in some way.
Speaker 1: Did you remember it that way? I did. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: thing that struck me on seeing it now because I
Speaker 1: also remember just just the imagery of seeing the movie
Speaker 1: posters and seeing the VHS box all the time, of
Speaker 1: thinking like that it meant something and seeing it now
Speaker 1: is how little it's actually an interracial film. The cast is,
Speaker 1: it's a black man and a white man, but that race.
Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like the idea of I don't
Speaker 1: see color like that's that's the story of the film.
Speaker 1: That there's no actual writing or very little where they're
Speaker 1: interrogating race, where they're thinking about it, where they're asking
Speaker 1: about it. It's not present. They're not actually interested in
Speaker 1: one another there, you know, it's just a sketch of
Speaker 1: the story. Like they don't they don't really bond over
Speaker 1: anything beyond the surface, and they don't exist in terms
Speaker 1: of their racial identities. They just exist in the you know,
Speaker 1: in the present to do action. See see, this is
Speaker 1: where I would disagree. So I think that whether it
Speaker 1: was deliberate in the scriptwriting or whether it was in
Speaker 1: the casting itself, is a commentary on race. If mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, Danny Glover is a socially conscious actor.
Speaker 1: Second of all, he basically inverts every stereotype in his role. Now,
Speaker 1: the truth is, had it been a white guy, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily be able to make this commentary. But I
Speaker 1: think it matters to the viewer. It matters to the
Speaker 1: audience that the boss of this film is the black guy,
Speaker 1: the guy who's the family guy, is the black guy,
Speaker 1: the guy who is representing black cops at a time
Speaker 1: when black cops are still being killed by fellow officers
Speaker 1: when they're off duty um and are forming organizations to
Speaker 1: try to fight against racism inside of law enforcement. It
Speaker 1: matters that he's the one in that really powerful scene
Speaker 1: when they're investigating the murder of the women who died
Speaker 1: in the opening scene and they go up to that
Speaker 1: group of kids. Come on, man, you can't say that's
Speaker 1: not about race. Is that a real gun? Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: this is a real gun. Did you kill people? No,
Speaker 1: it's some guys hurting someone. I try to shoot him
Speaker 1: in the lake or something, just to stop them. Mama's police, missie,
Speaker 1: black people. Is it true? Yea? Is it true? Is
Speaker 1: that true? True? Is that true? Maybe? Kids scream? Scream?
Speaker 1: Do you like icecream? Yeah? Yeah? I think that that
Speaker 1: is such a powerful scene in this film because it
Speaker 1: didn't it just didn't have to happen. It did not
Speaker 1: have to happen. Nothing about that brief moment with those
Speaker 1: kids had to go there other than the need to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that there was this larger social reality happening and
Speaker 1: that those kids were bearing witness to it. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't just we were kind of saying the same thing,
Speaker 1: like like there's a there's a symbolism of their presence,
Speaker 1: but it's very rarely written into the script and meaning.
Speaker 1: And so there's a scene later where, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the Special Forces guy shoot Riggs. Mel Gibson and Murtog's
Speaker 1: daughter has been kidnapped and He's running around the streets
Speaker 1: of La holding a gun, his shirt off. He looks
Speaker 1: crazy and police are pulling up and never is there
Speaker 1: a moment like, oh shit, they might shoot him, right
Speaker 1: and and in forty eight hours, it's like every moment
Speaker 1: that you know, cost people up like we're gonna shoot
Speaker 1: this motherfucker, and you always feel that, And so it's
Speaker 1: sort of race blind at different times. And yet there's
Speaker 1: this symbolism. And so the daughter, they're like, they live
Speaker 1: in some neighborhood and you're like, all right, that's interesting,
Speaker 1: but they don't discuss that in terms of what it
Speaker 1: means for them to live in that neighborhood. The daughter
Speaker 1: is going on some date with a white boy. You
Speaker 1: know that. He says, blond hair, that's not an issue. Um,
Speaker 1: they don't don't really talk about it. But then there
Speaker 1: are these two moments when they try to script in
Speaker 1: some race and one is at the dinner table where
Speaker 1: they beat box. And this is like some white Hollywood
Speaker 1: version of like, well, what would a black family do
Speaker 1: if they're you know, at dinner. I think they're gonna
Speaker 1: beat box and then they wrap I'm going to find Roger.
Speaker 1: And the point is that that they actually don't have, like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, black people can't all naturally rap. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you notice this, but you can see
Speaker 1: on their fridge like an end apartheide sticker. Oh, I
Speaker 1: totally saw it. This is why you and I are
Speaker 1: not agreeing on this because I think this is the
Speaker 1: Reagan era. This is an era of I mean no, listen,
Speaker 1: Reagan appoints several key black people in cabinet positions, like
Speaker 1: basically building the base of a kind of black conservative
Speaker 1: movement that is very much about color blindness and seeing
Speaker 1: people as individuals. This is the zeitgeist of the Reagan moment,
Speaker 1: that's this feeling. This film is like part of that brainwashed.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. It's like, for the most part,
Speaker 1: it's not exploring that idea. It's not you know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't never lends it. Its surfaces at a couple of
Speaker 1: moments like this, but for the most part, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not they're not they're not thinking about their racial identities,
Speaker 1: they're not discussing them. So then I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about the very end of the film and what you're saying,
Speaker 1: because so you know, I mean, the premise doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter in a way, it's like just a mcguffin, as
Speaker 1: they say, it's set up. You know, there's a murder,
Speaker 1: there's some drugs. They have to stop it, and the
Speaker 1: bad Vietnam Special Forces guys are trying to kill them.
Speaker 1: And so one of these guys played by Gary Busey
Speaker 1: is the other Special Forces and then he and Mel
Speaker 1: Gibson have this fight on Danny Glover's suburban lawn. The
Speaker 1: very ends, yeah, because he's he you know, they need revenge,
Speaker 1: and in some absurd way, they all the police arelike,
Speaker 1: you know, even though he's murdered all these people, let's
Speaker 1: let them fight like fist fight as like, you know,
Speaker 1: to work this out like man to man. And this
Speaker 1: is such a man world. And and so you know,
Speaker 1: in the end, Mel Gibson is getting he's getting beat up.
Speaker 1: He takes his shirt off, you know, purposefully like he's
Speaker 1: he's you know, this is Mel Gibson. It's raining, he's wet.
Speaker 1: He has this mullet, like a long mullet, you know,
Speaker 1: curly mullet, and you know he's getting punched, but he's
Speaker 1: punching back and he he ends up knocking this guy
Speaker 1: out and the police are arresting him, and but then
Speaker 1: Gary Busey you know, does a jiu jitsu moves and
Speaker 1: pulls a gun from one of the officers. And at
Speaker 1: this point mel Gibson is with his shirt off and
Speaker 1: soaking wet and exhausted, and Danny Glover has draped him
Speaker 1: in a blanket and is holding him into his chest.
Speaker 1: The total buddy moment, dude, Like, this is the culmination.
Speaker 1: This is the culmination of a movie that is in
Speaker 1: conversation with other buddy films, which no, man, I gotta,
Speaker 1: I gotta set this up right, because the film starts
Speaker 1: in classic buddy film fashion with them saying we are
Speaker 1: stuck with each other, right, and the culminating scene that
Speaker 1: you're about to describe is the full narrative arc of
Speaker 1: that relationship. I got your partner. Yeah, So culmination is
Speaker 1: the right word because it's totally orgasmic. It's actually the
Speaker 1: two of them coming together, like like, he is naked,
Speaker 1: mel Gibson, exhausted, He's draped in a blanket on Danny
Speaker 1: Glover's chest, holding him and he says, you know, I
Speaker 1: got you, buddy, I got you, buddy, And then Gary
Speaker 1: Busey it turns out that he has a gun on them,
Speaker 1: and they both hold up their guns simultaneously and and
Speaker 1: you know, shoot one after the other. No, I we
Speaker 1: totally agree on that. And that is the story of
Speaker 1: Cold War Reagan America. Right. Our enemies are foreign, not domestic.
Speaker 1: We as individuals can rise and succeed in this nation
Speaker 1: if we are hard working, if we are family people,
Speaker 1: if we love on our kids, if we don't do drugs,
Speaker 1: if we show restraint. That is the moment where how
Speaker 1: does it end? Right? Because the next scene is a
Speaker 1: family scene. The next scene after this as orgasmic embrace
Speaker 1: of this black guy and white guy. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: of course, Danny Glover towers over mel Gibson, right, you
Speaker 1: know he is black Mammy Fogure in this moment. Right.
Speaker 1: The next scene is them going back to his house
Speaker 1: and inviting Rigs into the home with his dog Sam
Speaker 1: to join the family in a holiday meal. That is
Speaker 1: the closure of Cold World America. Right. We are cops,
Speaker 1: we kill bad guys. We do this together. We are
Speaker 1: in this together. So what's obvious about these films is
Speaker 1: these are films for white audiences, for white men who
Speaker 1: are making these films and imagining that liberal Hollywood is
Speaker 1: talking to white guys around America who you know who
Speaker 1: who are having very isolated, segregated, all white experiences. And so,
Speaker 1: as a white guy, what do you think these films
Speaker 1: tell us as we look back and thinking about our
Speaker 1: own relationship and coming of age in the the nineteen eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I also tried to watch these movies and
Speaker 1: see whether I saw myself in them, you know, definitely,
Speaker 1: definitely not in mel Gibson, you know, but I do
Speaker 1: think it is that sense of redemption that you talked about.
Speaker 1: There's something comforting in them, right, Like that's how we're
Speaker 1: redemption for white men. That that the sense of you know,
Speaker 1: coming together is also a sense of, you know, the
Speaker 1: country's ideals being realized in a way that also isn't
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like the social order is being transformed.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's it's ah, you don't have to
Speaker 1: give up very much to see this piece um. In fact,
Speaker 1: you gain a friend, and that's if that's all it
Speaker 1: takes to have a better society. That you have a
Speaker 1: new buddy and that everyone likes you. You know that
Speaker 1: that that the this is a very easy version of
Speaker 1: racial reconciliation. Yeah, yeah, I think that's exactly right. So,
Speaker 1: I mean we are in this present moment of these
Speaker 1: the last several years where people have been called to
Speaker 1: account and and so looking back on these movies from
Speaker 1: our youth and are wrestling with race and racism and
Speaker 1: where white people are looking at themselves and looking at
Speaker 1: the system. And it's a look that often people are
Speaker 1: avoiding because it's uncomfortable. But sometimes you almost all you
Speaker 1: have to do, I guess is is the nod or
Speaker 1: the corporate sponsorship or the like on Twitter. And that
Speaker 1: feels somewhat equivalent to these movies. I don't know that
Speaker 1: we were They weren't revolutionary for sure. No, But I
Speaker 1: mean I mean to you too, not about us. I mean,
Speaker 1: like if we're thinking about what what do we make
Speaker 1: of these films and the world they've played and how
Speaker 1: people were socialized, you know, in the course of our
Speaker 1: coming of age. Right, So we are fifty basically, um,
Speaker 1: I mean I am a little younger than you. Of
Speaker 1: course you're you're fifty m forty nine. But the notion
Speaker 1: that seeing these films, or watching MTV, or playing on
Speaker 1: a sports team with black people, or having one in
Speaker 1: your band was was enough? So yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's what what what I
Speaker 1: learned looking back on these films, Yeah, that it wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: It maybe necessary in a way to create possible relationships
Speaker 1: that would change our politics and rewrite the rules of
Speaker 1: our society, but yeah, not enough. That's one to grow on. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: Well I learned a lot about how we were supposed
Speaker 1: to be buddies by watching these films. Again, friends and partners. Friends, Yeah,
Speaker 1: say we were, we were friends partners, but I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, on the tennis court, we were never friends
Speaker 1: of partners basketball. That's the line that that's the line
Speaker 1: that starts their their interaction. We ain't brothers, we ain't partners,
Speaker 1: and we ain't friends. Yea. And then I got that
Speaker 1: that's what I have tattooed on my arm. It's it
Speaker 1: all came together and I loving brotherly embrace. Yeah. Yeah, alright, man,
Speaker 1: case closed, All right, love you love you man? So
Speaker 1: do Some of My Best Friends Are is a production
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by
Speaker 1: me Khalil, Debron Muhammed, and my best friend Ben Austin.
Speaker 1: It's produced by Serf Vincent and edited by Karen Shakerji.
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez. Our associate editor is Tischell Williams,
Speaker 1: and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias. Our executive producers are
Speaker 1: Leta Molad and Mia La Belle Special thanks to Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1: You've been formative to our lives. Thanks to my wife Stephanie,
Speaker 1: who was our sharpest listener on this episode, and macatl
Speaker 1: the biggest movie watcher I know, who help with research
Speaker 1: at Pushkin. Thanks to Heather Faine, Carly Niggliori, John Schnars,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song, Little Lily, is by
Speaker 1: fellow chicagoan AVERYR. Young from his amazing album Tubman. You
Speaker 1: will definitely want to check out more of his music
Speaker 1: at his website averyar Young dot com. You can find
Speaker 1: Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you
Speaker 1: can sign up for our newsletter at Pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 1: To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. If you
Speaker 1: love this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider becoming
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Speaker 1: You got a Hot Mike, Hot Mike. I'm ready as
Speaker 1: as as we say on the golf course, as your
Speaker 1: motor running. I don't know what that means. When you're ready,
Speaker 1: that's when you're ready, now whatever, that's when you're ready.
Speaker 1: You grew up. You grew up. You grew up three
Speaker 1: blocks exactly, and we were My father told me, he
Speaker 1: said to me, we are not people who play golf.
Speaker 1: He said that to me