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? It's the patriarchy, zeph and Beast start changing
Speaker 2: it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 1: Hey, Caitlin, yeah, Jamie.
Speaker 3: Do you want to go to a to a treehouse
Speaker 3: and smoke cigarettes and or makeout?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: But I do. For some reason, one of us should
Speaker 3: pretend to not remember it happened until the end. It'd
Speaker 3: be like, no, I totally remembered it, and then we'll
Speaker 3: start making out again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And then do you want to watch
Speaker 1: a whole TV series with me?
Speaker 3: Honestly no, but I don't want to do that with anybody.
Speaker 3: What if, also, I was sort of it depends on
Speaker 3: the series, right.
Speaker 1: Well, what if it's the Jinks.
Speaker 3: If it was, of course, pursue this jinx, I would
Speaker 3: watch it again. But what if she was like SVU
Speaker 3: and You're like, no.
Speaker 1: That's such a commitment thirty thirty years worth of TV.
Speaker 3: I can't do that.
Speaker 1: Shout out to the episode of Law and Order SVU
Speaker 1: that I was an extra in, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Do you know how I mean? It's just so like,
Speaker 3: there's so many episodes. How would we find it? I
Speaker 3: would watch that episode with you and then we could
Speaker 3: make out we can't smoke cigarettes. I hate cigarettes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too, right, I.
Speaker 3: Think was how the negotiation should have gone in the
Speaker 3: tree house. Anyways, Welcome to the Bechel Cast. My name's
Speaker 3: Jamie Loftus, my.
Speaker 1: Name is Caitlin Derante, and this is our show where
Speaker 1: we analyze movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Speaker 1: Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate
Speaker 1: a larger conversation about representation in film. And such a
Speaker 1: freaky little diving board.
Speaker 3: And yeah, we are covering. I think this is one
Speaker 3: of the more recent movies we have covered in recent months.
Speaker 3: I feel like for some reason, we have been really
Speaker 3: not trapped, but like really in two thousand and three
Speaker 3: to two thousand and six. It's just kind of where
Speaker 3: we've been living, which is interesting because it was such
Speaker 3: a bizarro time. So I'm thrilled to be propelled into
Speaker 3: the present with a modern rom com. I think a
Speaker 3: genre that isn't getting much love these days.
Speaker 1: It's true, I think that the whole genre needs an update. Honestly,
Speaker 1: and I think that this movie What's Love Got to
Speaker 1: Do With It? Question Mark from twenty twenty two does
Speaker 1: interesting things to give like a modern spin on rom
Speaker 1: com tropes, and I'm excited to talk about them.
Speaker 3: I agree. Yeah, this movie. It's a very sweet movie.
Speaker 3: It's a very realm commy movie. But there's way more
Speaker 3: to it. And it's also I mean, it has an
Speaker 3: interesting backstory and it also it's so nice to watch
Speaker 3: a roalm com where you don't need to, at least
Speaker 3: to the same degree, like trudge through these dated tropes
Speaker 3: and be like, Okay, I have to make excuses in
Speaker 3: my head. I have to like do a mission impossible
Speaker 3: like laser thing to get to be able to enjoy this.
Speaker 3: It's it's a modern rom com, yes, imagine.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, this is not the What's Love
Speaker 1: Got to Do With It? The nineteen ninety three biopic,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've never seen it. It's a drama.
Speaker 1: It's a mute Tina Turner. This is not that movie.
Speaker 3: It's a really incredible performance. I will say. I think
Speaker 3: maybe one of my biggest notes with this movie is
Speaker 3: why did they call it this when that is already
Speaker 3: a famous movie. It's so confusing and it's so hard
Speaker 3: to find. However, you should find. I honestly think that
Speaker 3: you should. There should be a double feature programmed somewhere
Speaker 3: where you just watch both what What's Love Got to
Speaker 3: Do It? It's especially I think I would do ooh,
Speaker 3: this is my Barbenheimer for What's Love Got To Do
Speaker 3: With That? Both? I would say that the Tina Turner
Speaker 3: biopic first, and this as as a lighthearted palate cleanser,
Speaker 3: because What's Love Got to Do with It? The first
Speaker 3: one has pretty pretty, it gets it gets intense.
Speaker 1: Sure, I've never seen it, so I can't speak to it.
Speaker 3: We'll cover it on What's Love Got to Do With It?
Speaker 1: March over on the Matreon.
Speaker 3: But so anyway, we're covering the twenty twenty two film
Speaker 3: written by Jemima Khan, directed by Shaikhar Kapor, and we
Speaker 3: have an amazing guest here to discuss this movie with us.
Speaker 1: We certainly do. She is the producer and host of
Speaker 1: the podcast Immigrantly and the co producer and co host
Speaker 1: of the podcast Invisible Hate. It's Sadia Khan. Hi, Hi,
Speaker 1: how are you look so good? How are you?
Speaker 4: I am good and I'm so excited to dissect this
Speaker 4: movie with you, but justin if I. When I recommended it,
Speaker 4: I realized it's only available on Prime with like you
Speaker 4: have to rent it, and I felt so bad. I
Speaker 4: was like, oh my gosh, do we have to really
Speaker 4: rent it? I don't know how you washed it away
Speaker 4: you watched it, but I I rented it, watched it,
Speaker 4: and then recommend it.
Speaker 1: Yes, we all gave Jeff bezos are four dollars.
Speaker 3: I gave I don't remember who missus YouTube is. I
Speaker 3: gave missus YouTube four dollars.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, nice.
Speaker 3: So it could be an equally evil transaction. I'm not
Speaker 3: really sure. It probably is, probably, you know, statistically.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I had to detox myself after that, but that's fine.
Speaker 3: Right right, Yeah, anytime you give Jeff Bezos money, you
Speaker 3: just have to take like a long, a long shower
Speaker 3: and feel like, right right, it will be better, I
Speaker 3: know it.
Speaker 1: And then like donate to a local mutual aid effort.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, Sadia, what's your relationship with this movie?
Speaker 4: So it's interesting how until I was finalized to come
Speaker 4: on your show, I wasn't really thinking of watching this.
Speaker 4: I had heard of it. There was so much buzz
Speaker 4: around it. The screenplay is written by Jemi Makhan. She
Speaker 4: is ex wife of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imraan Khan,
Speaker 4: who was a very very famous cricketer in the eighties
Speaker 4: and nineties and I had a huge crush on him.
Speaker 4: I still do, but he's alust seventeen now I think
Speaker 4: he is. He used to be a lot harder, but anyways,
Speaker 4: So for me, this movie embodies so much that we
Speaker 4: don't see in mainstream media in the West. It's a
Speaker 4: rom com that features a Pakistani British family. It's outside
Speaker 4: the stereotypical representation of Muslims, Muslim man being a terrorist
Speaker 4: and Muslim woman being oppressed, and so I was. I
Speaker 4: was drawn to it from the get goal and then
Speaker 4: when you guys approached me and I thought, why not
Speaker 4: discuss something that people are probably not aware of or
Speaker 4: is not part of their consciousness, and maybe we can
Speaker 4: talk about something that's fun, but at the same time
Speaker 4: they can go watch it and just see a different
Speaker 4: side of a Muslim family.
Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah, I wasn't aware of this movie until either
Speaker 1: you pitched it to us, even though it has some
Speaker 1: like pretty big names in it in the cast. I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, what's this little indie comedy.
Speaker 3: Right, and then you're like, oh, no, everyone in this
Speaker 3: movie is very famous, famous. I also had I mean,
Speaker 3: it just came out in the US two months ago
Speaker 3: or so, I guess it was released in the US
Speaker 3: in May. But even so, I feel like I should
Speaker 3: have heard more about it. But I'm very glad I
Speaker 3: watched it, and I'm really glad that you, uh, you
Speaker 3: brought it to us, because yeah, I think, certainly growing
Speaker 3: up in the US, the anti Muslim sentiment in the world,
Speaker 3: and also especially in I feel like a lot of
Speaker 3: media that you consumed voluntarily or through just cultural osmosis
Speaker 3: when we were, when we were younger and still now
Speaker 3: is just not inclusive. It's very clear what the point
Speaker 3: of view is when talking about Pakistani characters. And yeah,
Speaker 3: this this movie felt like a breath of fresh air totally,
Speaker 3: and I was really interested in sort of the background
Speaker 3: of how it was, how it was made. And I
Speaker 3: just love rom coms so much, like I just am
Speaker 3: a sucker for people kissing in a treehouse. Unfortunately, it
Speaker 3: is pretty cute. It's pretty cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am less thrilled by rom comms in general,
Speaker 1: as listeners of the show probably know. But I I
Speaker 1: like them in theory. It's just that the execution of
Speaker 1: them is often like riddled with so many problematic things,
Speaker 1: as we've also discussed a lot on the show.
Speaker 3: But this movie is not immune too. I feel like
Speaker 3: there's no such thing as a perfect I don't know,
Speaker 3: I've yet to see a rom com that completely subverts tropes.
Speaker 3: It is so trupe. I not that I don't believe
Speaker 3: it's possible, and not that I wouldn't die in the
Speaker 3: pursuit of making the first perfect realm com, but it's
Speaker 3: it's a genre that's so I mean, the idea of
Speaker 3: like true love is so tropy that like accessing that.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's so tough without without some level
Speaker 3: of troping. Not to excuse it, but I was like
Speaker 3: not not shocked that when any realm coom, you're like, oh, there,
Speaker 3: there it is. There's the wise grandmother imparting advice. This
Speaker 3: is what happens in this genre.
Speaker 1: It's true. So yeah, shall we just dive into the
Speaker 1: recap and go from there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it all right?
Speaker 1: Okay, So we are in London, England. Ever heard of it?
Speaker 1: And we meet Zoe played by Lily James, who goes
Speaker 1: to a wedding where she reconnects with her childhood friend,
Speaker 1: Kaz played by Shazad Latif. Kaz, who was born in
Speaker 1: the UK but whose family comes from Pakistan tells Zoe
Speaker 1: that he has asked his parents to arrange a marriage
Speaker 1: for him, or rather like assist in his pursuit of
Speaker 1: finding a partner, and Zoe cannot wrap her head around
Speaker 1: anyone wanting to marry someone who they don't already know
Speaker 1: and already love. She is looking for love and she
Speaker 1: dates around but has not been able to find the
Speaker 1: right guy for her.
Speaker 3: Yes, which we find out through one of the tropier
Speaker 3: elements of this movie that was making me laugh because
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, this isn't hurting anyone, it's just corny
Speaker 3: where there's this like through line of she's telling her
Speaker 3: niece's fairy tales in this like I don't know it was.
Speaker 3: It was really giving twenty twelve to me, where it
Speaker 3: was like once there was a beauty and there was
Speaker 3: a beast, but wait, this beauty was trying to break
Speaker 3: the glass ceiling.
Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, she's like once upon a time Cinderella
Speaker 1: cared more about the glass ceiling than glass slippers.
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, like wow, interesting hearing from Lily James,
Speaker 3: who literally played Cinderella.
Speaker 1: Wow, feel like there's.
Speaker 3: A little wink. There's a little wink going on.
Speaker 1: Okay. So Zoe, who is a documentary filmmaker, pitches and
Speaker 1: gets like studio backing or like production company funding or
Speaker 1: I don't know. She's talking to some suits who are
Speaker 1: very I.
Speaker 3: Liked the film bros. Those are like some of my
Speaker 3: favorite trophy because especially because the writer is a documentarian
Speaker 3: and so you just hear these like two like I
Speaker 3: don't know, it didn't feel totally overwrought where it's just
Speaker 3: like two white guy executives being like, ooh, women movie, Okay.
Speaker 1: Let's do it, and that's they're so hot right now,
Speaker 1: so let's make money off it.
Speaker 4: Could you could see that they were just you know,
Speaker 4: checking different boxes and they were a bit ass wholey,
Speaker 4: But then the depiction was realistic in some ways as well.
Speaker 1: Totally like so many industry people are exactly that way anyway.
Speaker 1: So she pitches this documentary about Kaz's arranged slash assisted marriage,
Speaker 1: and the film bros Are like, yeah, go for it,
Speaker 1: and then Kaz, after some convincing, reluctantly and eventually agrees
Speaker 1: to be the subject of this documentary, and so Zoe
Speaker 1: starts filming and interviewing him. They're talking about this relationship
Speaker 1: dynamic where Zoe says, like, what about love and Kaz
Speaker 1: says the name of the movie. Basically, He's like, what's
Speaker 1: love got to do with it? He's like, you don't
Speaker 1: always have to start in love. You can grow to
Speaker 1: love someone over time, and she just again continues to
Speaker 1: have a hard time wrapping her head around this. She
Speaker 1: also films Kaz and his parents Aisha end Zaheed played
Speaker 1: by Shabana Asmi and Jeff Mirza. They're all meeting with
Speaker 1: this matchmaker guy whose name is Mo and they're going
Speaker 1: over the various criteria that they want in a partner
Speaker 1: for Kaz. Then Zoe films Kaz going to this Muslim
Speaker 1: matchmaking event, but he doesn't meet anyone there who he
Speaker 1: clicks with because he is still looking for some kind
Speaker 1: of spark or click.
Speaker 3: It was making me like, I I this was this
Speaker 3: was so goofy, like journalist brain. But when she is
Speaker 3: filming the whole like mixer as like Okay, she's gonna
Speaker 3: get three hundred releases today. Best of luck with that,
Speaker 3: Lily James. That's a lot of paperwork, lady, But we
Speaker 3: never see her do any of a lot of my
Speaker 3: criticisms of this movie is the way.
Speaker 1: That she makes her documentary. I'm like, this is not correct.
Speaker 3: You know, you're right.
Speaker 4: It's they keep telling us how big a documentary and
Speaker 4: she is, but then you don't see it reflected in
Speaker 4: the movie. And I also want his crew she's not.
Speaker 4: I don't know what she's doing right. And then I
Speaker 4: also want to go back to most scene where Cosim's
Speaker 4: parents are basically sharing a list of you know, traits
Speaker 4: that they want in their daughter in law. Not that
Speaker 4: that particular scene is pretty much emblematic of problematic cultural
Speaker 4: norms that exist within South Asian culture and also in
Speaker 4: the context of arranged marriage. And Cosin keeps saying that
Speaker 4: he wants to click, but then fast forward to the
Speaker 4: bride to be he he just settles like he doesn't
Speaker 4: even want to have any shared any common interests. And
Speaker 4: we'll come to that, I'm sure, But yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 4: had a lot of contradiction.
Speaker 1: They don't click at all, Like it's really.
Speaker 4: And why I settle for somebody a decade younger, Like, dude,
Speaker 4: you could you could say no to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you could take a second skype call. It seems
Speaker 3: like very passive. I was confused. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 3: there were times where kas would say something but then
Speaker 3: do something far more passive. His character was interesting, yeah,
Speaker 3: because he was like, oh, he had like this list
Speaker 3: of like this is what I would want in a partner,
Speaker 3: and like the click. But yeah, but then the way
Speaker 3: that their meeting is their first meeting. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: fine that it's so awkward, but it stays that way,
Speaker 3: and he seems to resent her for being her age,
Speaker 3: which he knew, and he's like, why does she like
Speaker 3: to dance? You're like, because she's twenty two, that's why.
Speaker 1: That is why.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we're about to get to that car a lot
Speaker 1: where Kaz's parents want to introduce him to a woman
Speaker 1: named Maimuna who lives in Lahore, Pakistan, and he meets
Speaker 1: her skype. She's played by so jall Ali. They made
Speaker 1: a for Skype, and she's very quiet and reserved and
Speaker 1: it seems very awkward at first, but they eventually find
Speaker 1: some common ground off screen apparently off screen.
Speaker 3: He's like, no, you know, we've been texting and calling
Speaker 3: and we we like each other now. And it's like,
Speaker 3: believe it when I see it.
Speaker 4: Right, you can see from the get gool that she's
Speaker 4: not interested in him, Like she is totally totally out
Speaker 4: of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll find out why shortly.
Speaker 3: But I was honestly relieved when we found out why,
Speaker 3: because I was like this, I just felt for it
Speaker 3: because he was like judging her so kind of like
Speaker 3: not like overtly, but like behind the scenes, he definitely
Speaker 3: was judging her. And I was like, she she did
Speaker 3: nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: She just wants to be a human rights attorney.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And ultimately, Ultimately and Zoe deserve each other because
Speaker 3: they're both so boring and kind of judgmental.
Speaker 4: I'm glad you said that Zoe is so judgmental, and
Speaker 4: we could do an entire episode on how judgmental she is.
Speaker 4: Like it's not like she thinks there's something good about
Speaker 4: assistant or arranged marriage. She's not. She's not trying to
Speaker 4: approach it from a place of curiosity. She's judging it
Speaker 4: throughout the film, right.
Speaker 5: Every scene in a way that is like it's so
Speaker 5: funny because it's like, I know that Jemima Hunt is
Speaker 5: a very like talented, decorated documentary producer, but I'm just like,
Speaker 5: but then she would know that you can't just press
Speaker 5: pause and be like you're wrong, Like that's not how
Speaker 5: that's not how that works.
Speaker 3: You're that's that's not impartial.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no objectivity to her approach. But yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll discuss that further. Meanwhile, Zoe pays a visit to
Speaker 1: her mom, Cath played by Emma Thompson, who is pressuring
Speaker 1: Zoe to get married and start a family, and she's
Speaker 1: trying to set Zoe up with her vet James, but
Speaker 1: Zoe isn't really having it. There's also a scene where
Speaker 1: she considers freezing her eggs not bad for James. James,
Speaker 1: he seems sweet, another person in this movie who did nothing.
Speaker 3: Wrong and is just judged. And ooh that scene where
Speaker 3: Lily James is taking is doing her goofy thing she
Speaker 3: does with her nieces where she tells them boring stories
Speaker 3: that are about her secretly, where she's just talking shit
Speaker 3: about James to her nieces. I was like, what are
Speaker 3: you doing? And then he's standing right there because it's
Speaker 3: a rom com like.
Speaker 1: Man, and he's like, damn, she doesn't love me.
Speaker 3: It's like, and she feels comfortable sharing that with a
Speaker 3: seven year old for some reason, and for.
Speaker 1: Some reason, this seven year old is so interested in
Speaker 1: her story.
Speaker 3: These seven year olds are missing the bride. But now
Speaker 3: I'm gonna now, I'm gonna lazer in on the seven
Speaker 3: year old to be like they were. And then she's
Speaker 3: like and then she was in love and Lily James
Speaker 3: is like, no, she wasn't.
Speaker 4: She's even judging seven year olds, by the way, Yeah
Speaker 4: she is.
Speaker 3: So it's so frustrating when it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: because there is such a having a The likability of
Speaker 3: women characters across media is so often discussed in a
Speaker 3: very disingenuous way, and you hear it because from people
Speaker 3: who just generally don't seem to like women very much. However, Uh,
Speaker 3: Zoe is not. I did not find her to be
Speaker 3: likable at all. I did not like her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially again, she spends the whole movie being like
Speaker 1: this cultural practice of yours is weird and I hate it.
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, wow, maybe don't be like that anyway.
Speaker 1: So yeah, her mom's trying to set her up with
Speaker 1: James the Vet. She's not really having it. She also
Speaker 1: considers freezing her eggs because she does she says she
Speaker 1: wants to be a mother, although she'd rather be a father,
Speaker 1: which I thought was pretty funny. But she decides that
Speaker 1: freezing her eggs is not a good option for her
Speaker 1: after all. Then her best friend Helena tells Zoe that
Speaker 1: she found out that her husband Harry, has been cheating
Speaker 1: on her for a while. Also, Zoe hooks up with
Speaker 1: a man who she later realizes is married and cheating
Speaker 1: on his wife with Zoe. So Zoe is losing more
Speaker 1: and more faith that this whole love and family thing
Speaker 1: could pan out for her or anyone really. Then Kaz
Speaker 1: reveals to Zoe on camera because she's still making her
Speaker 1: documentary with zero crew, only one camera, no microphones, no lighting,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: I didn't mind that they romcomified the documentary job, especially
Speaker 3: because the writer knew damn well that that's not how
Speaker 3: you make a documentary. But I was like, yeah, it
Speaker 3: is kind of fun to be like a documentary is
Speaker 3: when you watch back film you shot while drinking a
Speaker 3: gigantic glass of wine. That's how that works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that'd be fun just editing on iMovie on
Speaker 1: your personal laptop. Anyway, So Kas reveals that he has
Speaker 1: gotten engaged to Maimuna and the wedding is in a month,
Speaker 1: and he invites Zoe and her mom Kath to come
Speaker 1: to Pakistan where the wedding will be, to just hang
Speaker 1: out for a bit as he and his family gears
Speaker 1: up for this wedding. So they all arrive in Lahore
Speaker 1: and and Cos meets his bride to be Maimuna in
Speaker 1: person for the first time. It's a bit awkward, and
Speaker 1: Zoe continues to question if he wants to go through
Speaker 1: with this, but he says he does, and Kaz takes
Speaker 1: Zoe to a bizarre he puts a necklace on her.
Speaker 1: It feels very romantic, even though I would argue that
Speaker 1: these two people have zero chemistry on.
Speaker 3: Screen, as is so common and that is the make
Speaker 3: or break factor of any rom com where it's like,
Speaker 3: I will watch absolute dog shit if I believe the
Speaker 3: two leads want to fuck each other.
Speaker 1: True, it's such a beautiful thing to watch, it is.
Speaker 1: The point is it seems like they're vibing a bit.
Speaker 1: Zoe is like, remember how I was your first kiss
Speaker 1: in the treehouse and he's like, no, I don't remember that.
Speaker 1: But then later he's like, I've never forgotten. I was
Speaker 1: lying before.
Speaker 4: They're like, why the hell was he lying there?
Speaker 1: I did not get that. Is he just like denying
Speaker 1: his feelings for her because he knows that he's about
Speaker 1: to get married to someone else. Yeah, maybe it's.
Speaker 3: Like it sounds like they were like fourteen when this happened.
Speaker 1: Right, they were like tweens or something.
Speaker 3: He wasn't cheating on me moonas she was a baby
Speaker 3: when that happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was four when that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Caaz and Zoe also talk about his sister Jamila,
Speaker 1: who the family has more or less disowned because she
Speaker 1: married a white, non Muslim man and that broke her grandparents'
Speaker 1: hearts and it just really upset the whole family, which
Speaker 1: is there in the story to imply that if Caaz
Speaker 1: and Zoe were to get together, it would be a
Speaker 1: huge disgrace to his family. Right, so the steaks are high.
Speaker 1: Then that night is the Mendy, the like pre wedding
Speaker 1: party where Mamona is no longer the timid, soft spoken,
Speaker 1: modest woman that we all thought she was she parties.
Speaker 1: Oh she's drinking. Oh she's smoking weed. Oh she's tearing
Speaker 1: it up on the dance floor. Oh she has gay
Speaker 1: friends and so she's also.
Speaker 3: Sinner. I loved this scene for her where she like
Speaker 3: basically calls Zoe a loser. Like she's like, Okay, if
Speaker 3: you're not fucking chill, I guess I'll go over here.
Speaker 3: She like she calls her cousin Zoe old losers. Good
Speaker 3: for her, She's like, I thought you would be modern,
Speaker 3: you know, living in London and everything, but you guys
Speaker 3: suck and I'm gonna go get sucked up on coke
Speaker 3: massalas on the dance floor. I love Memuna and the
Speaker 3: maymuna defense for us.
Speaker 1: She at first I was just like, who is this
Speaker 1: woman who like she barely says a single sentence at
Speaker 1: a at a time, like one word responses. And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden she's like, I'm a wild child,
Speaker 1: I'm a girl's gone wild, and I'm like, yes, more
Speaker 1: of this, please.
Speaker 4: You know. But what I did not get was this
Speaker 4: this transition or this change in her behavior from the
Speaker 4: way she appeared on Skype versus the way she acted
Speaker 4: because if she is studying to be a human rights lawyer,
Speaker 4: her family seems pretty modern. She should have been less
Speaker 4: timid having those conversations with him, So why was she
Speaker 4: acting the way she was during those skype calls? Not
Speaker 4: get that?
Speaker 3: I was curious about that, Yeah, because I thought that
Speaker 3: they were setting up a different character where I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: she's like socially awkward or that was like how it
Speaker 3: felt when we met her. I was like, Oh, she's
Speaker 3: really shy, maybe like she's not comfortable. But then you're like, hmm,
Speaker 3: clearly that's not true. Maybe I don't know. The closest
Speaker 3: I was getting was like her family was like watching
Speaker 3: her have that, but I don't know. Yeah, it's felt
Speaker 3: like a mismatch where it seemed like she has this
Speaker 3: big personality but when we're introduced to.
Speaker 1: Her, she's suppressing all of it. Right that skype call
Speaker 1: I thought was establishing like she's another like not good
Speaker 1: match for Kaz because they barely have a conversation and
Speaker 1: she's saying she's giving him nothing and he's having to
Speaker 1: keep the conversation going, and I'm like, oh, they're not compatible.
Speaker 1: He has to find the next person. But it's like no,
Speaker 1: that's who he ends up marrying. Okay, anyway, so Kas
Speaker 1: learns all this stuff about Maimuna, that she's, you know,
Speaker 1: a party animal, and it comes as quite of a
Speaker 1: shock to him. So he spends most of the evening
Speaker 1: hanging out with Zoe, whose feelings for each other seemed
Speaker 1: to be bubbling closer to the surface.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: Then the following day is the marriage ceremony, where prior
Speaker 1: to the ceremony, Zoe tries to convince Caause not to
Speaker 1: go through with it, and she's just like everyone's pretending,
Speaker 1: Like you should stop pretending, Like what about Jamila, your sister,
Speaker 1: She's not even here, Like this is a facade. And
Speaker 1: he's like, just because you have horrible taste in men
Speaker 1: and you always end up with the wrong person doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that I will.
Speaker 3: Oh, he goes, he really, I was like, oh ouch,
Speaker 3: what is he? I wrote down? I wrote down what
Speaker 3: he said because it hurt my feelings, he says. He says,
Speaker 3: I have a question, does it hurt less when you
Speaker 3: aim low? And miss as.
Speaker 1: Like, oh out, wow?
Speaker 3: Is bad? Gnar? Really? I mean to be fair, She's
Speaker 3: been really judgy towards him for weeks. At this point, yeah, true,
Speaker 3: but I was like, ooh ooh that was I felt
Speaker 3: that in my gut.
Speaker 1: Also, he says something like, if the first guy you
Speaker 1: date is a dick, that's like a hymn problem. If
Speaker 1: the next ten guys you date are also dicks, then
Speaker 1: maybe you should like look inward and see why that is.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, as someone who has dated exclusively
Speaker 1: horrible men one after the other and it's not my fault,
Speaker 1: I resented that statement.
Speaker 3: And also the beautiful irony is like, you're being a
Speaker 3: dick right now? Show me, like, how are you being
Speaker 3: better menor awhile, Yeah that was. I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of things I don't care for in
Speaker 3: Zoe's behavior, but as like dating men and them all
Speaker 3: sucking like common experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so true. Anyway, So Kuz and Maimona get married,
Speaker 1: although Maimuna is crying an awful lot and we're wondering
Speaker 1: what's happening there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So here's what I would say though, And the
Speaker 4: statement that Cosim's mother makes eyeshop that a lot of
Speaker 4: women cry, even if they're really happy that happens. It's
Speaker 4: a tradition, like you just have to show how devastated
Speaker 4: you are leaving your family behind, your parents, and those
Speaker 4: who don't cry, it's like it's kind of frowned upon,
Speaker 4: and it used to be more intense obviously twenty thirty
Speaker 4: years ago, and now nobody really gives a shit. But
Speaker 4: I remember I did not cry at all, and I
Speaker 4: am telling you I was judged. I was judged for
Speaker 4: not crying. Like there was, you know, a lot of
Speaker 4: gossip and conversations around it. So yeah, you kind of
Speaker 4: you kind of have to pretend to cry sometimes you
Speaker 4: really do cry because you're leaving your bab in solme
Speaker 4: and you have this strong attachment do your family, coming
Speaker 4: from collectivist societies. But yeah, so I wouldn't dig this
Speaker 4: as a signal that she was unhappy, because a lot
Speaker 4: of Pakistani girls do cry.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, we do find out that she is crying,
Speaker 1: at least partially because she is unhappy entering this marriage.
Speaker 1: But yes, cousin's mom was like, oh, it's it's tradition
Speaker 1: for Pakistani women to cry as they leave their family, So.
Speaker 3: That's good to know. Yeah, because I wasn't sure because
Speaker 3: of what we learned later if Kaz's mom was just
Speaker 3: saying that to be like, it's all good. But okay,
Speaker 3: that's I didn't know that CAD weddings are so like
Speaker 3: across cultures are so entrenched in performance. Yes, like all
Speaker 3: weddings are performance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. So then Zoe returns to the UK
Speaker 1: and starts dating James the Vet and.
Speaker 4: It's such a sweet guy. Though he is my favorite
Speaker 4: character in this movie.
Speaker 1: He is sweet, he treats her well, he seems to
Speaker 1: be emotionally mature.
Speaker 3: But in the she's like, boom, let him go. Yeah,
Speaker 3: dates someone who likes him.
Speaker 1: I don't know why she stays with him because she
Speaker 1: clearly isn't in love with him and he's not the
Speaker 1: right guy for her.
Speaker 3: I think I know why, but it's she's it's misguided.
Speaker 3: She's just such a dufus.
Speaker 1: She truly is. Then it's time for a screening of
Speaker 1: Zoe's documentary, which has a mixed response, where Maimuna thinks
Speaker 1: it's beautiful and she loves it, but and his family
Speaker 1: are outraged that Zoe included his sister Jamila and her
Speaker 1: non Muslim husband. On top of that, James breaks up
Speaker 1: with Zoe because he knows that she's not in love
Speaker 1: with him and he doesn't want to be her like,
Speaker 1: yeah he advocated yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, I was happy for him, mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And then Zoe gets word from the Broe suits who
Speaker 1: are like funding the documentary that they are not going
Speaker 1: to move forward with the project because it's quote a
Speaker 1: diverse subject, which is great, but through a white lens,
Speaker 1: which is not so great. And it's like, well, why
Speaker 1: didn't you say that before she made the documentary? Like
Speaker 1: why is this just now coming up?
Speaker 3: That was my confusion too, because I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: fair point, but weird time to bring it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they already knew what it was going to
Speaker 1: be about as she pitched it.
Speaker 3: So but they were so bold over that by the
Speaker 3: fact that she was a woman, that they forgot that
Speaker 3: she was white.
Speaker 4: Yes, so they don't get the intersectional box, right, They
Speaker 4: didn't get that. Maybe the funders pointed out maybe somebody
Speaker 4: said something to them and then they realized. But yeah,
Speaker 4: they had typical bruised They don't know everything, right, Oh,
Speaker 4: they know very little.
Speaker 3: I would say, yeah, and I that was such an
Speaker 3: interesting plot point because I'm like, I don't disagree with
Speaker 3: what they're saying, but it's wild that they stumbled on
Speaker 3: it because we've watched her make this documentary and there
Speaker 3: has been no care taking. It's just like, because I
Speaker 3: think the phrase they uses white lens, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that is quite literally what she was doing the whole time.
Speaker 3: They're not wrong, That's what I thought too.
Speaker 4: I was like, ooka a good decision, but too late.
Speaker 1: I guess too late? And why is it coming from
Speaker 1: those guys and not like Kazu's family for example, Like
Speaker 1: if I was them, I would be like, why are
Speaker 1: you a white lady the person to tell our story?
Speaker 4: I think for them because she grew up being in
Speaker 4: their home, maybe they see her as part of their family,
Speaker 4: extended family. So I don't think they see her as
Speaker 4: this white woman documenting their lives, so they don't see
Speaker 4: her through that lens.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, yeah, that's exactly what she does anyway,
Speaker 1: that's what she's doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's I mean, Kazu's family is so welcoming
Speaker 3: to Zoe and also it seems like her mom. It
Speaker 3: seems like they are basically functioned as Kat's family, and
Speaker 3: I mean the cath character will get to her, but
Speaker 3: they're yeah, they're they're very kind to the I had
Speaker 3: to look up there the Stephenson family. Sure, yes, just whatever,
Speaker 3: very rom COMMI name. Yeah, it felt like Zoe. The
Speaker 3: point of view of Zoe's documentary was so Western in
Speaker 3: that like she she was just like well, coming in
Speaker 3: with the assumption that her viewer would not respect or
Speaker 3: approve of assisted marriage in any way, and being like,
Speaker 3: but I can prove that it's not all bad, Like,
Speaker 3: it's just coming in with the perspective that obviously Western
Speaker 3: approaches to relationships are healthy and great, which is like.
Speaker 1: So all of this stuff has happened, and Zoe is
Speaker 1: very depressed and lonely and defeated, and then we get
Speaker 1: a reveal that Maimuna is in love with someone back
Speaker 1: in Pakistan and that she went through with this marriage
Speaker 1: for her family, who like insisted that she get married
Speaker 1: to Kaz And he's like, well, what do we do now,
Speaker 1: and she says, will pretend like everyone else brutal. My
Speaker 1: head canon is that she was in love with another woman.
Speaker 1: We don't see who the person she's in love with.
Speaker 3: But I guess they are. They are only referred to
Speaker 3: as someone.
Speaker 1: Else, someone else, the mysterious someone else. Yes, anyway, so
Speaker 1: she's like, we'll just pretend because that's what needs to
Speaker 1: be done. And then Kaz has a conversation with his
Speaker 1: mom where she says that all she wants is for
Speaker 1: her kids to be happy, and he's like, well, I
Speaker 1: just want to be a good son. Meanwhile, Zoe and
Speaker 1: her mom are having a conversation about relationships and how
Speaker 1: kath admires Zoe's independence, but also we all need other people,
Speaker 1: and I wish you would learn to let people care
Speaker 1: about you and not like close yourself off to everyone.
Speaker 3: And you're like, sure, that's what you were trying to
Speaker 3: do by forcing her to date a veterinarian, right.
Speaker 1: Then Zoe gets an email from Kaz and Mamuna where
Speaker 1: we don't know the whole message until Kaz shows up
Speaker 1: for aid at his parents' house, where he reveals that
Speaker 1: he and Maimuna are getting divorced because they don't want
Speaker 1: to pretend anymore, and he also reveals that he has
Speaker 1: invited his sister, Jamila and her husband and baby to
Speaker 1: meet their family. The family finally embraces Jamila and her husband,
Speaker 1: and then Zoe runs off to the treehouse and she's like,
Speaker 1: come here, Kaz, and he's like, TI hei what And
Speaker 1: she's like, let's kiss again in the treehouse, just like
Speaker 1: our first kiss. And he's like hah okay, and then
Speaker 1: the kiss.
Speaker 3: I don't know why. I was so irritated that it
Speaker 3: took them forever to kiss.
Speaker 1: So long she keeps like cleaning in and then pulling back,
Speaker 1: and then leaning in and pulling back, and it's like,
Speaker 1: just kiss already, and then they do.
Speaker 3: Anyways, at least they do and they live happily. Ever,
Speaker 3: it's implied that they get buried I think, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: by the credits, but they're.
Speaker 4: Taking it slow. They're taking it slow. They just want
Speaker 4: to get to know each other more. Really, I thought
Speaker 4: they knew each other really well. But anyway, since childhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, since childhood, right, And I like that because at
Speaker 3: the end, you get in the credits, you get just
Speaker 3: I don't know if it feels very like two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven rom Cow where you're like, oh, it's just
Speaker 3: like a bunch of kind of like Blueberry like where
Speaker 3: are they now kind of things. And may Moona's back
Speaker 3: and apparently maybe broke up with that person since she
Speaker 3: was dating because she's like, I finished college, my parents
Speaker 3: love me, SEEA, And I was like, yeah, good for her.
Speaker 1: You go girl. So that's the movie. Let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and we'll come back to discuss. And we're back.
Speaker 3: Where shall we start study? Is there anything that was
Speaker 3: that stood out to you that you wanted to start with.
Speaker 4: A lot of thoughts. I think they could have developed
Speaker 4: Memuna's character a little more. I did not see that
Speaker 4: change or evolution of who she was. Why was she
Speaker 4: pretending to be the way she was during her skype gods?
Speaker 4: And then in the end she says, my parents love me.
Speaker 4: I'm a human rights lawyer. Well, if your parents love you,
Speaker 4: you could have confided in them before getting married and
Speaker 4: they would have been fine with it. So why take
Speaker 4: that journey?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 4: Why was documentary the trigger for everyone to realize what
Speaker 4: was happening in their lives how she did their lives for?
Speaker 4: So I have problem with that. I honestly like ayisha
Speaker 4: ask character more, although she is problematic in some ways,
Speaker 4: but then she's the matriarch and she is who she is,
Speaker 4: and she has agency. I think she has more agency
Speaker 4: than Zoe or Mamuona.
Speaker 3: So too, like I think that honestly like and Kath
Speaker 3: is such a goofy character, but I think that Ayisha
Speaker 3: and Kath both sort of have more agency than the
Speaker 3: younger women in the movie, which is interesting. I mean,
Speaker 3: I wonder how intentional that was. As I was watching this,
Speaker 3: I sort of because I think that the movie and
Speaker 3: I know that, and I guess I didn't see the
Speaker 3: interviews where Jemima con was saying that this was not
Speaker 3: an autobiographical story, even though it reflected elements of her life,
Speaker 3: where it's like a white documentarian marries into a Pakistani family.
Speaker 3: Although you know, I guess that in the space of
Speaker 3: this movie, Zoe does not technically marry into a Pakistani family.
Speaker 3: But as I was watching this, I feel like the
Speaker 3: movie definitely overly focuses on Zoe in a way that
Speaker 3: centers whiteness in a way that feels unlike, kind of
Speaker 3: icky and unnecessary. And that might just be coming from
Speaker 3: the writer's experience. But as I was watching this, because
Speaker 3: they reference maybe it's because Emma Thompson's in it, and
Speaker 3: they reference love actually at the beginning of the movie
Speaker 3: by calling it love contractually. But I thought that this
Speaker 3: movie would have worked for me more if it was
Speaker 3: treated more as an ensemble cast versus putting Zoe and
Speaker 3: causes relationship at the center of the movie because Saudia,
Speaker 3: I totally agree. I think there were all of these
Speaker 3: characters that I wanted so much more from, and I
Speaker 3: would have loved to like cut away to especially. I
Speaker 3: also wanted more Jamila. I was so interested in Jamila's
Speaker 3: baxtone relationship with her mother. Yeah, and like it was
Speaker 3: very like satisfying to see her accepted back into her
Speaker 3: family at the end of the movie, but I want
Speaker 3: to I mean I was just really interested in how
Speaker 3: long have they been separated for? Like what was her
Speaker 3: relationship with Ishauld like before that, Like, it just it
Speaker 3: felt like there was it was a missed opportunity not
Speaker 3: including Jamila as more than kind of a plot point.
Speaker 3: And I think, yeah, she is more certainly more interesting
Speaker 3: than Zoe as a character, And yeah, I just wish
Speaker 3: that there was more because I think that there is
Speaker 3: a really interesting spread of characters, but we don't really
Speaker 3: get to know many of them.
Speaker 1: And then Zoe making this documentary, which we've already said,
Speaker 1: is like her coming into this subject matter with no
Speaker 1: object activity. The whole time, she's just basically like mocking
Speaker 1: causes him and his values, his cultural values, his family's values.
Speaker 1: She's being like judgy and snarky the whole time about
Speaker 1: it in a way that like feels very like racist
Speaker 1: and xenophobic, where it's like, yeah, these these cultural practices
Speaker 1: that are different than mine, Well I think they're ridiculous,
Speaker 1: is her stance basically, But through making this documentary, she
Speaker 1: reunites this family, like the sister Jamila comes back and
Speaker 1: everyone embraces her at the end, and that's like kind
Speaker 1: of the big climactic moment of the movie. And it's
Speaker 1: implied that that only happens because of Zoe's like interference,
Speaker 1: which makes it a white savior story.
Speaker 4: Exactly it does. I'm so Gladkaitlny said that because I
Speaker 4: keept thinking about it and I was watching Jemima Han's press,
Speaker 4: like she did a lot of press around it, and
Speaker 4: one of the recurring themes was, Oh, I just want
Speaker 4: to reorient people to what arranged marriage really is. And
Speaker 4: I'll be the first one to say that arranged marriage
Speaker 4: has a lot of problems, like people seek partners within
Speaker 4: certain casts, certain socio economic groups. Arranged marriage can be problematic,
Speaker 4: but then there are redeeming elements to it, as is
Speaker 4: with anything like dating apps, they can be very transactional,
Speaker 4: and they can also be based on certain preferences that
Speaker 4: people have around education, looks, whatever. And after I watched
Speaker 4: the movie, I was like, Ah, are you really saying
Speaker 4: that arranged marriage is not that bad? Because to me
Speaker 4: it comes across as you know, what arranged marriage is,
Speaker 4: or she calls it assisted marriage is a really shitty
Speaker 4: way to find love. So yeah, I mean, I didn't
Speaker 4: take this whole thing off arranged manages or assisted malagies.
Speaker 3: I'm not that bad, right, which is like a very
Speaker 3: judgmental way to present that, even if that's your opinion. Like,
Speaker 3: I don't know. There are so many issues I had
Speaker 3: with and it's so bizarre because I understand that the
Speaker 3: writer is like, this is not an insert for me,
Speaker 3: it's really hard to not see it that way I had.
Speaker 3: I kind of had to have difficulty not inherently connecting
Speaker 3: her to this character. But the ethos of the movie,
Speaker 3: I mean seems to be it seems like this movie
Speaker 3: is for like it seems more directed at white audiences
Speaker 3: than anyone else, or Western audiences in general, people that
Speaker 3: don't have an understanding of Pakistani culture. But it comes
Speaker 3: at it in the I mean, I think that the
Speaker 3: movie is coming at it from the same perspective that
Speaker 3: Zoe the filmmaker is, where it's like, let's mythbust, Like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we all agree that this seems bad, but what if
Speaker 3: it's good? And you're like, that's not a neutral perspective
Speaker 3: to come in on. That's super judgmental. And then the
Speaker 3: the way that the movie ends, I feel like implies
Speaker 3: that she was right all along, and yeah, totally so.
Speaker 3: And I guess that the one I mean, there are relationships.
Speaker 3: I know that causes brother oh what's his brother's name
Speaker 3: for Ruke, I mean, he is very happy in his marriage,
Speaker 3: and that is presented, and like, I appreciate that, but
Speaker 3: there's such non characters that it feels like it felt
Speaker 3: more like a gesture than any actual interest in exploring,
Speaker 3: Like you're saying, Saudia like this very complicated thing. And
Speaker 3: in the same way where when Kause is first talking
Speaker 3: with his parents about what qualities he's looking for in
Speaker 3: a partner, there is a reference. It's like a joke
Speaker 3: about colorism, and then but that's it, and then it
Speaker 3: doesn't come back and there's like, I don't know the
Speaker 3: way the way that this movie presented it, I feel
Speaker 3: like I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 3: Jemima Kahn did collaborate. I mean I read about her
Speaker 3: research process and it seems like she drew from her
Speaker 3: own experiences. And then she said that she did fifty
Speaker 3: interviews with people who had had assisted marriages or gone
Speaker 3: through that process and then decided against it, which, Okay,
Speaker 3: that's great, but it still feels like her perspective is
Speaker 3: central to the way that Pakistani culture is presented.
Speaker 1: Right, because if it's not clear to listeners. So, Jemima
Speaker 1: Kahn is a journalist, documentarian. She's worked you know, as
Speaker 1: an executive producer in TV quite a bit. This is
Speaker 1: her first screenplay. But she is a white woman who
Speaker 1: was married to Imram Khan for ten years in the
Speaker 1: mid nineties to mid two thousands. She lived in Pakistan
Speaker 1: with him. I think for those ten years. I believe
Speaker 1: she converted to Islam when they got married, So.
Speaker 3: She, I guess had done reporting on this topic in
Speaker 3: the past.
Speaker 1: I don't know, right, but she is a white woman
Speaker 1: with a with that perspective, like an outsider's perspective telling
Speaker 1: the story, which like before I started doing research on
Speaker 1: who made the movie, I just saw, you know, written
Speaker 1: by Jemima Khn. I didn't know who that was, and
Speaker 1: I assume because of her last name, oh, this is
Speaker 1: probably a Pakistani writer. But then I was like, none
Speaker 1: of this is adding up, Like why is this a
Speaker 1: white savior story? Why is there's so much like scrutiny
Speaker 1: toward this cultural practice? And then I looked up who
Speaker 1: Jemima Khan was and I was like, oh, everything makes
Speaker 1: sense now. The movie is directed by an Indian director,
Speaker 1: a man named Shook Kapoor, but the artistic vision, as
Speaker 1: far as like the narrative goes, was written by a
Speaker 1: white woman, and I'm like, oh, this makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense.
Speaker 4: You know. It's interesting. Jemima Hahn, first of all, is
Speaker 4: revered in Pakistan because of, you know, the way she
Speaker 4: almost adapted to a culture that was so alien to her,
Speaker 4: and she's taken more nuanced approach to Pakistani politics Muslim identity.
Speaker 4: Her work is pretty symbolic of the nuance that she adds.
Speaker 4: After watching this movie, I was almost disappointed because I
Speaker 4: felt like the person that she is and how explicit
Speaker 4: she is about the nuances that she wants to explore
Speaker 4: through that identity, whether it's Muslim or Pakistani. She did
Speaker 4: not bring that to this particular movie, And as you said,
Speaker 4: I don't know if she was trying to appeal more
Speaker 4: to the Western audience, but then the idea should have
Speaker 4: been to give them something to ruminate over, right, to
Speaker 4: have more conversations around, rather than ah, you know, this
Speaker 4: is what was expected. So I honestly was disabbointed in
Speaker 4: this movie.
Speaker 3: That's yeah. I wasn't aware I had her. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'd seen some of her documentaries in the past, which
Speaker 3: are all unrelated, but yeah, it felt I don't know,
Speaker 3: and I know that I think she's fairly new to
Speaker 3: the fiction space in general, but it's it felt like
Speaker 3: a really poor application of write what you know, because
Speaker 3: if there's like sure, do that, but like not when
Speaker 3: your other objective is to responsibly portray a culture that
Speaker 3: is not your native culture. I have a quote from
Speaker 3: her that I think because I guess I was I
Speaker 3: when I learned more about her, at least in the abstract,
Speaker 3: because I didn't know what her reputation in Pakistan was.
Speaker 3: But yeah, once I learned more about her, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: has she said who this movie is for, and she
Speaker 3: kind of has like she I think is willing to
Speaker 3: and kind of has admitted that this movie is more
Speaker 3: geared towards Western audiences to show Pakistani people in a
Speaker 3: genre where they do not normally appear. So I have
Speaker 3: a quote from her here where she expands on that.
Speaker 3: I have a lot of thoughts about it, but we'll discuss.
Speaker 3: She says. The question is what compelled you to focus
Speaker 3: on the subject of assisted marriage as your first script?
Speaker 3: She says, quote in part, the reason why I chose
Speaker 3: the genre of rom com was because I'd never seen
Speaker 3: a rom com that features Pakistan, and I felt Pakistani's
Speaker 3: I know, definitely feel their country and culture have been
Speaker 3: somewhat unfairly demonized on screen. They feel they're always seen
Speaker 3: as the terrorists, the butt of the jokes, the shady
Speaker 3: ISI operatives or whatever. I understand they're a scary side
Speaker 3: to Pakistan because I experienced that as well. But there
Speaker 3: is also this incredibly beautiful side of that country and
Speaker 3: the people which I experienced when I was there, whether
Speaker 3: it's the music, the food, the architecture, the color, the vibrancy,
Speaker 3: the hospitality, all of that I felt was worth showcasing, unquote,
Speaker 3: So inside of that, it feels like she is basically
Speaker 3: saying this is for Western audiences specifically. I still don't
Speaker 3: agree with her approach at all. I think it's very
Speaker 3: weird and reductive.
Speaker 1: Totally.
Speaker 4: You're absolutely right, and to me, yes, you see some
Speaker 4: smattering off redeeming qualities. Right, So when Kaz talks about
Speaker 4: number forty seven and number forty eight are words abot
Speaker 4: or when they joke about random checks at airports, I
Speaker 4: get that. I've been full decide for a random check.
Speaker 4: I've lived in the US for over two decades. I
Speaker 4: am citizen, and I know that happens, right, and it
Speaker 4: is extremely frustrating. And to her defense, maybe she was
Speaker 4: trying to just put it out there and let the
Speaker 4: audience see it without being too preachy. But my problem
Speaker 4: is not with what she showed in a subtle way.
Speaker 4: My problem is the overarching theme of this story, which
Speaker 4: to me, as Jamie and Caitlin both of you said,
Speaker 4: is reductive and extremely symbolic of the white savior narrative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's frustrating, especially because now I'm like, how does
Speaker 3: this I don't know, I do. It seems like her
Speaker 3: heart was in the right place when she was doing this. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but like the character of Zoe, it seems like she
Speaker 3: should have meaningfully included Pakistani people in the process of
Speaker 3: making this because otherwise it seems I mean, it's a
Speaker 3: very like I get it as when you're making something,
Speaker 3: it is difficult to not make your perspective central to it.
Speaker 3: But it's like if if you're aware of that, which
Speaker 3: I would imagine she would be because she's such an
Speaker 3: accomplished documentary producer, then it is on you to bring
Speaker 3: in people who can, you know, give the film what
Speaker 3: it needs. And it seems like that wasn't really done
Speaker 3: here and whether her heart is in the right place,
Speaker 3: which it seems like it very well. Maybe it's like
Speaker 3: it's clear that like she is the main character in
Speaker 3: a movie where she's claiming that that's not the goal
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 1: Movie and that her like white western colonizer perspective is
Speaker 1: actually the right one, and she's showing that by saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: because the arranged or assisted marriage thing doesn't work. See,
Speaker 1: it didn't work with Kaz and my Mona, it didn't
Speaker 1: happen for Jamila, and she seems super happy with her family.
Speaker 1: The characters who it does seem to work for are
Speaker 1: either framed as antagonistic forces in Kaz's mom or they
Speaker 1: are characters who we barely get to know, such as
Speaker 1: Faruk and his partner what was her name, Yasmin maybe anyway.
Speaker 3: And they're they're also as a god and they're a
Speaker 3: Harry Potter couple.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. Did either of you see the movie
Speaker 1: Polite Society that came out earlier this year.
Speaker 4: I haven't. I've heard so many good things about it
Speaker 4: and I have yet to watch it.
Speaker 3: Same.
Speaker 1: I loved it. It's so funny, it's so good, and
Speaker 1: it tells a similar story in the sense that it's
Speaker 1: like examining arranged marriages in specifically a Pakistani family who
Speaker 1: live in the UK from the perspective you would want
Speaker 1: to hear that from. Because it was written and directed
Speaker 1: by Nita Minsor who grew up in a Pakistani Muslim family.
Speaker 1: So there's no white lens, there's no like you know.
Speaker 1: It's just like a very funny, smart, clever examination of
Speaker 1: that and I highly recommend it to everybody.
Speaker 4: I loved it interesting. You know, Saja Lali, who plays
Speaker 4: Memuna in this film is a brilliant actress, a brilliant
Speaker 4: Pakistani actress, and I feel like her character was not
Speaker 4: developed or exploited the way she could have been. Right,
Speaker 4: And I'm really eager to watch the other movie now
Speaker 4: because at the end of the day, it's not a
Speaker 4: judgment on love or arranged marriage. I think arranged marriage
Speaker 4: in many ways is problematic and I'll be the first
Speaker 4: one to see. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: what I took away from it is it's even more
Speaker 4: problematic that people would believe it to.
Speaker 1: Be based on watching a movie like this one.
Speaker 4: What's to do with it?
Speaker 3: Right, It's so confused because I feel like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting that the writer is distancing herself
Speaker 3: from the character of Zoe in this way. I feel
Speaker 3: like it would be more honest and make more sense
Speaker 3: and be more like more honest to the viewer to
Speaker 3: say that like clearly for her assisted marriage for her
Speaker 3: and her ex husband, like assistant marriage was not what
Speaker 3: they wanted and like because that is their personal experience.
Speaker 3: And I feel like, you know, it just feels interesting
Speaker 3: that she chose she's choosing to distance herself from it.
Speaker 3: But it's like, no, it's that is a part of
Speaker 3: like your marriage's story, why distance, because it makes it
Speaker 3: at least contextualizes where she's coming from. But because it's
Speaker 3: presented in this sort of like vacant space, it feels
Speaker 3: very judgmental. And it seems like the tacit statement of
Speaker 3: this movie is the Western approach to the current Western
Speaker 3: approach to relationships is correct, which also feels confusing because
Speaker 3: the movie kind of waffles on that as well, where
Speaker 3: it sort of implied that James and Zoe's relationship is
Speaker 3: a different kind of arrangement that Emma Thompson's character is
Speaker 3: trying to do. But that's kind of dropped also, and
Speaker 3: like I wasn't quite sure what the movie was trying
Speaker 3: to say there.
Speaker 4: That's a great point, Jamie, because their arrangement could also
Speaker 4: be considered and assisted something tot right. But at the
Speaker 4: end of the day, look, marriage as an institution is problematic.
Speaker 4: After a decade, all marriages sn whether arranged or not arranged.
Speaker 4: I'm not getting arranged marriage, and I still feel marriage
Speaker 4: is work in progress always, So maybe we should have
Speaker 4: a movie about marriage as an institution. Yeah, and let's
Speaker 4: let's really dissect that frist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, and I feel like this movie was in
Speaker 3: an interesting position to say more about that, but then
Speaker 3: kind of chickened out on the proper way to do
Speaker 3: it because we also have Zoe's friends. We have like
Speaker 3: her close friend who has the kids that she's won't
Speaker 3: stop telling these horrible, boring stories too. It's convoluted. I
Speaker 3: was like, God, if that was my aunt, I'd be like,
Speaker 3: please just give me the iPad. Stop. That's what are
Speaker 3: you talking about? But her nieces there there, I think
Speaker 3: they're the kids of her friend.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Helena, who is sort of set up to be
Speaker 7: it's just all nothing quite connected with me. Where it's
Speaker 7: like they were trying she was trying to say something
Speaker 7: there where it was like Helena and Harry. Okay, so
Speaker 7: Harry is cheating on his wife and it's clearly taking
Speaker 7: a big emotional toll on her, and that I feel
Speaker 7: like the movie presents as like a strike against the
Speaker 7: Western approach to marriages, but that becomes confusing because we
Speaker 7: know nothing about these.
Speaker 3: Characters, and like, so I guess worse. I think it
Speaker 3: like the implication there is like, well, they didn't have
Speaker 3: an assistant marriage, so it was true love and so
Speaker 3: true like I don't know. I just was confused at
Speaker 3: like they were always different relationships presented in a very
Speaker 3: intentional way, but it didn't add up to anything that
Speaker 3: made cohesive sense to me.
Speaker 1: I also felt that the movie cast judgment on Zoe's
Speaker 1: character for doing anything besides like trying to be in
Speaker 1: a long term, committed relationship, because there are different scenes
Speaker 1: where she like goes to a club and goes home
Speaker 1: with a random guy and it's.
Speaker 3: Always happens every time, right.
Speaker 1: Also, the guy that she goes home with that she
Speaker 1: realizes is married I thought was the same guy as
Speaker 1: James the Vet because they look exactly alike.
Speaker 3: And I'm just like, she has a type.
Speaker 4: She's got a type, a type exactly because.
Speaker 1: All the guys we see like a montage prior to
Speaker 1: that earlier in the movie of various guys that she
Speaker 1: has gone on dates with who you know, end up
Speaker 1: not being the one, and they all look the same too,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, stop casting the same exact like white
Speaker 1: guy with light brown hair who's like the same height
Speaker 1: and build as every other guy in the movie.
Speaker 4: Now, what if Gemes and Zoey ended up together? That
Speaker 4: would be a Kese for assistant marriage right, it.
Speaker 3: Would it would have been Yeah, this movie comes down
Speaker 3: firmly any kind of assisted marriage is why bother. But
Speaker 3: here's this Harry Potter couple, so I guess you could
Speaker 3: get lucky, and you're just like, that's it feels. I
Speaker 3: don't know, and I have another I feel bad. I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm like roasting this writer. But I was
Speaker 3: really frustrated with her approach because I feel like another
Speaker 3: element that fruster did me about Zoe and kind of
Speaker 3: puts me on the defensive about Jemima conn saying that
Speaker 3: this character is not a self insert Is that a
Speaker 3: lot of this is more of like just a general
Speaker 3: feeling I have about rom coms where I feel like
Speaker 3: rom coms that work the romantic leads have a good
Speaker 3: sense of humor about themselves, and that's sort of like
Speaker 3: why it feels relatable and easy to Zoe does not
Speaker 3: have a good sense of humor about herself at all.
Speaker 3: She is very defensive, not in the way that like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, this is like the same production this
Speaker 3: production company I was reading a lot of the coverage of,
Speaker 3: like will this be the comeback for this legendary rom
Speaker 3: com production company? This is the same production company that
Speaker 3: released kind of every popular British rom com in the
Speaker 3: last twenty or thirty years. Like there, it's the same
Speaker 3: company that put out Bridget Jones and all these other movies.
Speaker 3: And like what works about a good rom com is
Speaker 3: the calm, and like the leads have a good sense
Speaker 3: of humor about like Okay, my love life keeps not
Speaker 3: working out, but it's not like a humorless vacuum in
Speaker 3: a way, Like Zoe takes herself way too seriously and
Speaker 3: so does.
Speaker 1: Cos she doesn't prop fall once. Well I need.
Speaker 3: Saying that though, I mean, but like it just feels
Speaker 3: like she and she and cause in different moments, but
Speaker 3: more so Zoe just feel very self important and judgmental.
Speaker 3: And I think Zoe is the center of that. I
Speaker 3: don't know, like there there was some rum I wasn't
Speaker 3: really feeling. The calm not.
Speaker 1: A lot of calm. Yeah, So I don't quite even
Speaker 1: understand why Zoe and Kus end up together at the end,
Speaker 1: because they don't seem to have anything in common as
Speaker 1: far as like, yes, they're philosophies on love and romance
Speaker 1: and life in general. They have no shared hobbies except
Speaker 1: for table tennis, like why are they even together?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, I didn't even think of that. That
Speaker 4: makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: Why the whole movie is them arguing about their philosophies
Speaker 1: on what a relationship should be.
Speaker 3: Well, and I think it like overstates this. I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess because you were like, why are these two together?
Speaker 3: Which is how we felt. We felt a lot of
Speaker 3: round cooms. But like, I think it also like overstates.
Speaker 3: I think the logic of this movie, and the logic
Speaker 3: of a lot of Western romance movies assumes a level
Speaker 3: of progressiveness to Western relationships. Will characterizing assisted marriage or
Speaker 3: any really Eastern relationship as regressive. But also the ethos
Speaker 3: to every single Hallmark movie that's ever come out is
Speaker 3: like you should marry your neighbor.
Speaker 1: And you're like, it's Christmas time and you have to
Speaker 1: get married now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's Christian Christmas and you have to marry
Speaker 3: your neighbor whether you like them or not. And you're like, well,
Speaker 3: where is the where is the progressiveness? Like it's it's
Speaker 3: all you know, Like the subtext of it is very regressive.
Speaker 4: I don't see a happily ever off to want them.
Speaker 4: I really don't know.
Speaker 1: They're gonna butt heads about a lot of things.
Speaker 4: Like they are going to devot, they are going to
Speaker 4: divorce eventually as well.
Speaker 1: That's that's my deacon for sure. I think you know,
Speaker 1: there will be problems with the in laws because one
Speaker 1: Cath is the queen of micro aggressions. It seems that
Speaker 1: I should resent Zoe taking an interest in her son
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, the relationship is never gonna work out.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That brings me back to like why I wish Jamila
Speaker 3: had been allowed to be an actual character in the movie,
Speaker 3: where it felt very like tie a bow on a
Speaker 3: rom com move to have Jamila come over one time
Speaker 3: and have her entire family immediately accept her, even though
Speaker 3: the stakes were set extremely high as to why she
Speaker 3: was no longer welcome. It just was like, I need
Speaker 3: to understand why this is happening other than there's five
Speaker 3: minutes left in the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, truly. And something that I do like about the movie,
Speaker 1: at least on its surface, is you know I was
Speaker 1: talking before about how rom coms are usually not the
Speaker 1: genre for me, but for specific reasons like I'm excited
Speaker 1: by and I'm always on the lookout for rom comms
Speaker 1: that have a compelling reason that the two characters don't
Speaker 1: get together until the end. Because for many rom coms,
Speaker 1: the kind of the narrative vehicle or the narrative thrust.
Speaker 3: You might say, Caitlin loves to say thrust, and I fucking.
Speaker 1: Get it's awesome. I hate so the narrative thrust is
Speaker 1: that there is something keeping the lovers apart for most
Speaker 1: of the movie. Now, historically, in a lot of rom coms,
Speaker 1: it's a very toxic or reductive reason. It's like one
Speaker 1: or both characters are lying to each other throughout the
Speaker 1: whole movie, or there's some kind of like bet or deceit,
Speaker 1: or like the woman is too focused on her magazine
Speaker 1: job and she can't make time for her her personal life,
Speaker 1: or there's something like trophy and exhausting like that.
Speaker 3: I kind of love rom coms for that, where they're like,
Speaker 3: this job, well, this movie does it where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: her job of documentary, which is looking at laptop and
Speaker 3: drinking red wine means that she can never be happy.
Speaker 1: Sure, So I appreciate rom comms that subvert those tropes
Speaker 1: or try to subvert them. And I feel like this movie, again,
Speaker 1: on its surface, finds an interesting and compelling reason that
Speaker 1: the characters don't get together until the end, and it
Speaker 1: is one that like, you know, there are tropes and
Speaker 1: it is a lot of her scrutinizing his cultural values,
Speaker 1: but it is these cultural values that are like kind.
Speaker 4: Of premanding them to be together. Yeah, absolutely right.
Speaker 1: So I was like, Okay, that's interesting on its surface. Again,
Speaker 1: it's not executed very well, but I did at least
Speaker 1: appreciate that that the characters, although I would say that
Speaker 1: they're actually not honest with each other, because if they
Speaker 1: were honest with each other, Kaz would just be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I have a crush on you, and she'd be like
Speaker 1: I have a crush on you too. Should we kiss
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the movie instead of at the end?
Speaker 3: Like all right, well, yeah, I think that that's like,
Speaker 3: I mean, we've talked about a bunch of issues as
Speaker 3: bovie has, but one of them is like we should
Speaker 3: believe that they really want to be together the whole time,
Speaker 3: or this narrative device is like far less effective, right,
Speaker 3: But yeah, Sadia, I agree with you. It's like I
Speaker 3: don't think that they want the same things in life,
Speaker 3: and because also we don't really know what cause wants,
Speaker 3: like we just sort of he gives sort of a
Speaker 3: very generic like I'm a good guy. I want a
Speaker 3: lady that has a job or not. I want someone
Speaker 3: who's nice or not mean. And you're like it's so vague,
Speaker 3: and then we know that she she's kind of like
Speaker 3: Liz lemoning a little bit and she's like, I you know,
Speaker 3: can women have it all? And you're like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you can because I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like if if you want to tell the story, I
Speaker 3: feel like you have to give us two characters that
Speaker 3: It's like, I need these people together.
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for them. And at no point was I
Speaker 1: rooting for them to be together.
Speaker 3: I wasn't anyway, they also weren't really rooting for them,
Speaker 3: like that was how I knew, or I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't. I guess I don't believe in this relationship
Speaker 3: because you know that scene where they're texting and she
Speaker 3: almost sends don't get married tomorrow, and then she deletes
Speaker 3: it and involuntarily I was like, good, it's good that
Speaker 3: she didn't send that. And I was like, well, I
Speaker 3: guess I'm not rooting for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, does anyone have an anything else they'd like to discuss.
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah. My one last thing is just like a quick
Speaker 1: overview on the parents' generation and how they're approaching various
Speaker 1: relationship thing like outlooks. And also kath being like best
Speaker 1: friends with a con family but saying nothing but racist
Speaker 1: things about them the entire time, which is like pretty
Speaker 1: boomer behavior generally speaking, but it makes you wonder, like
Speaker 1: she seems to have been friends with them for many,
Speaker 1: many years, you think that she would scale back on
Speaker 1: her extremely offensive and reductive views about this family that
Speaker 1: she claims is like her best friends, but who knows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's presented very in a way that I felt like,
Speaker 3: cut kathle out of slack. Also the cass Emma Thompson
Speaker 3: you're like and you don't want me to like her.
Speaker 3: I know it's fair and I love her, but I
Speaker 3: think it's very presented like that's just Kath as if
Speaker 3: it warrants no examination beyond that's just Cath.
Speaker 1: Right, because you also have Zoe sort of calling her
Speaker 1: out sometimes but also only doing the bare minimum. She's
Speaker 1: letting a lot of shit slide. She's also saying some
Speaker 1: kind of weird things herself sometimes.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's something I had written down to you. I
Speaker 3: was like, is kath as comically like xenophobic as she
Speaker 3: acts just to make Zoe look less xenophobic in comparison?
Speaker 4: Maybe you're right, that sounds right, I would say, though,
Speaker 4: with God's character, I can see somebody like her in
Speaker 4: her generation age group saying all the things that she's saying,
Speaker 4: So I would expect that from somebody like cats.
Speaker 1: It is super realistic.
Speaker 4: It is super realistic, right, So I think that's why
Speaker 4: I don't get mad at her as much, because I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I could see somebody like saying things that she's saying
Speaker 4: in this film, right, Sure.
Speaker 1: For sure, I just wish that Zoe had been more
Speaker 1: active about like holding her mom accountable for all the
Speaker 1: shit she was saying. But it's like, again, very bare
Speaker 1: minimum stuff that Zoe is doing.
Speaker 3: That's just cat.
Speaker 1: And then for Kaz's parents when they're like, we already
Speaker 1: alluded to this scene, but that moment when they're listing
Speaker 1: off the criteria that they're wanting in a partner for him,
Speaker 1: I she was like, yeah, not too dark and long
Speaker 1: hair and soft spoken, which to me reads like hyper
Speaker 1: feminine there's an implication that they're only interested in someone
Speaker 1: from like a similar class or like the same like
Speaker 1: soff because they're they seemed to be well to do.
Speaker 1: And then the dad says, you know a woman who's
Speaker 1: not too ambitious or too into women's lib And I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, yike, sir.
Speaker 4: And you know what, I can again see somebody from
Speaker 4: that generation in Pakistan saying all those things, not just
Speaker 4: that generation. I'm sure again arranged marriagers can be problematic,
Speaker 4: but I wish Kaz said something. I wish he intervened.
Speaker 4: I wish he said something like, oh, this is so wrong.
Speaker 4: Why would you say all of those things? Right? He's
Speaker 4: just sitting there quiet as if he doesn't have anything
Speaker 4: to say. Yeah, And that really bothered me more than
Speaker 4: his parents saying all those things.
Speaker 1: Totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I felt like that was I guess not in
Speaker 3: a good way. But one of the things that Zoe
Speaker 3: and Kaz had in comment was that Zoe very lightly
Speaker 3: pushed back on her parents prejudice, and so did Kaz.
Speaker 3: And I feel like that was done as a reflexive
Speaker 3: gesture by the filmmakers to be like, well, that's how
Speaker 3: this generation would act, and this generation doesn't approve, but
Speaker 3: we don't see them actually do anything or meaningfully pushback
Speaker 3: about it, so it sort of ends up being like, well,
Speaker 3: it just felt like a kind of an empty gesture
Speaker 3: to have them even react if there is no follow
Speaker 3: up or yeah whatever, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate that. Kez challenges Zoe in that one
Speaker 1: scene where she's like, how are we even different? And
Speaker 1: he's like, well, you don't get asked where you're from
Speaker 1: and how often you go back to Pakistan all the time.
Speaker 1: You get the privilege of being able to say that
Speaker 1: you're British not British born, like I have to say.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not expected to apologize on behalf of
Speaker 1: all brown people anytime there's a terror attack in the world.
Speaker 1: So he at least does challenge her, But I wish, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was like more pushback from the thirty two year
Speaker 1: olds of this movie that and that scene, to me
Speaker 1: is one of the more powerful scenes in the movie
Speaker 1: right because it really spoke to a lot of us
Speaker 1: who've been through those situations right where we've been judged
Speaker 1: for somebody else's actions, or we've been treated mistreated based
Speaker 1: on how some other people are acting or reacting.
Speaker 4: So I think that really spoke to me, and I wish,
Speaker 4: as you said, he did more of that in a
Speaker 4: subtle way, because his dynamic with his parents would be different,
Speaker 4: coming from an East Asian culture. He probably would be
Speaker 4: more respectful or whatever. But he could still push back
Speaker 4: on colorism. He could push back on how they were
Speaker 4: objectifying women, that they were trying to upbrides, that they
Speaker 4: were trying to look for him totally, which again is
Speaker 4: a bit disappointing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely anything else. Does this movie pass the Bechdel test?
Speaker 1: I think so, right at least between.
Speaker 3: It passes between Zoe and her mom a number of times.
Speaker 3: It doesn't pass between characters that I wish it did.
Speaker 3: I don't think it passes between Pakistani women at any
Speaker 3: point in the movie really, which feels again just like
Speaker 3: if whatever I mean it. As we've discussed a million.
Speaker 6: Times, the Bechdel test is like not the be all
Speaker 6: end all of anything, but I do think it's instructive
Speaker 6: where it's like, if it is a diverse movie and
Speaker 6: includes a white family in a Pakistani family and it
Speaker 6: only passes the Bechdel test inside of the white family.
Speaker 1: Not great, And that's the relationship dynamic that you get
Speaker 1: a lot more of screen time.
Speaker 3: Than those are the women that are being prioritized.
Speaker 1: There are a few scenes where the grandmother is telling
Speaker 1: her story of her marriage, and that's true, Aisha is
Speaker 1: like translating and also kind of like talking to her.
Speaker 1: I think also maybe towards the end when the grandmother
Speaker 1: and Jamila interact, that could pass. But those are very
Speaker 1: brief scenes in a movie that you would think those
Speaker 1: characters would be interacting more.
Speaker 3: And I guess I was also coming from the place
Speaker 3: of like talking about marriage. It is I thought, like
Speaker 3: implied the yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, marriage to a man, right, you're right.
Speaker 4: I think there are a couple of conversations between Eyeshine
Speaker 4: Calf as well, which is not within the same community.
Speaker 4: But those conversations about I guess food or culture are
Speaker 4: outside the realm of you know, marriage, dating boys, men whatever.
Speaker 3: Totally.
Speaker 1: Oh and it passes when Maimuna says beautiful documentary, so we.
Speaker 3: Oh it okay, she's like that what I said.
Speaker 4: But also yeah, that's the trigger point for her. That's
Speaker 4: when she, you know, has all the power and she
Speaker 4: gains to tell everybody that she's not interested.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's the documentary. The document the very judgy documentary
Speaker 1: made by a white woman, empowers her to realize that's free.
Speaker 4: What if the documentary was not made, then they would
Speaker 4: be in this relationship forever, forever.
Speaker 3: I kind of also love that the documentary canonically never
Speaker 3: comes out like you're.
Speaker 6: Just like.
Speaker 1: For the best, honestly for the best? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: moving on to the perfect metric on which to evaluate
Speaker 1: a movie, which is of course our nipple scale, where
Speaker 1: we rate the movie on a scale of zero to
Speaker 1: five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional
Speaker 1: feminist lens. And I would give this honestly, I think
Speaker 1: it's gonna have to be like a split down the middle,
Speaker 1: two point five, maybe three nipples. I wish I could
Speaker 1: give it more because, as you said at the top, Sadia,
Speaker 1: it's a rom com that features a Pakistani family and
Speaker 1: that represents Pakistani people and Muslim people in a way
Speaker 1: that you know, Western movies rarely do, which is great,
Speaker 1: But because of the lens that the story is being
Speaker 1: told through, it fumbles a lot and ends up just
Speaker 1: saying like rather than like an objective examination of something
Speaker 1: like an arranged or an assisted marriage, it's coming down
Speaker 1: as like with the same point of view as the
Speaker 1: main character, who is just being incredibly judgie and mocking
Speaker 1: a lot of the time in a way that feels
Speaker 1: like it there are racist undertones, Islamophobic undertones, and things
Speaker 1: like that. So with that in mind, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I'll do two and a half nipples, and I will
Speaker 1: give one to Maimuna, I'll give one to Jamila the sister,
Speaker 1: and I'll give my half nipple to the grandmother, who
Speaker 1: was like I had to ride off on a horse
Speaker 1: that I was allergic to and was not really happy
Speaker 1: about the whole thing. And then I don't know if
Speaker 1: she is Aisha's mother or if she's wait, what's causes
Speaker 1: Dad's name? I think she's she is Ayisha's math Okay,
Speaker 1: so like, yeah, her daughter is like mistranslating to be
Speaker 1: like no, it was an awesome experience full of love.
Speaker 1: So the grandmother gets my half nipple.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give it two and a half as well.
Speaker 3: I think that this movie, I mean we've talked about like,
Speaker 3: I think that this movie was an attempt. I want
Speaker 3: to be so generous to the writer as to say
Speaker 3: her heart is in the right place. I think it
Speaker 3: really could have benefited from a co writer, And it
Speaker 3: seems like, even if this movie is a as she says,
Speaker 3: like her attempt to be more inclusive and show Western
Speaker 3: audience's a Pakistani family in this genre, which I think
Speaker 3: is a good instinct, and it's not even like she
Speaker 3: is a completely illogical person to do that, but it
Speaker 3: felt like a collaboration would have sort of kept things
Speaker 3: in check in a more responsible way, because I do
Speaker 3: think that Pakistani families obviously should be included in all
Speaker 3: genres of movie, including goofy rom coms like this one,
Speaker 3: you know, goofy rom coms where there's no chemistry between
Speaker 3: the leads. Everyone should be in those movies. Great, but
Speaker 3: it did seem like if that is her goal strictly
Speaker 3: having a white British woman write it, even with her
Speaker 3: connections to Pakistan, it doesn't totally make sense and it
Speaker 3: doesn't totally come together for this movie. And on a person,
Speaker 3: I mean, I just felt like there were so many
Speaker 3: women in this movie who I was more interested in
Speaker 3: than the lead character, and it ended up being kind
Speaker 3: of a frustrating experience of like, there is a lot here,
Speaker 3: but the places the movie focuses are very pointed, a
Speaker 3: very white and colonially centered and also boring, so kind
Speaker 3: of the worst of worlds in some ways. But I
Speaker 3: do think, you know, I I hope you know. Years
Speaker 3: down the line, this is viewed as kind of more
Speaker 3: of a stepping stone movie towards a more inclusive rom
Speaker 3: com landscape. This one was kind of a miss for me,
Speaker 3: although it had its moments and I love my Muna
Speaker 3: and Okay, so I'm gonna do two and a half nipples.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give one to Mymuna, one to Jamila, and
Speaker 3: a half to Aisha. Three characters that I thought were
Speaker 3: really interesting, and I wish that we had gotten to
Speaker 3: see more of them outside of how they relate to
Speaker 3: cousin Zoe, who to me, were the least interesting characters,
Speaker 3: and that's why I'm like, they deserve each other. I
Speaker 3: didn't like them, you know.
Speaker 4: For me, I am I'm still confused as to whether
Speaker 4: I should do two or two and a half because
Speaker 4: I did have a lot of expectations from this movie
Speaker 4: and I'm really disappointed. But I do agree that I
Speaker 4: would give one to the grandmother. I wanted to know
Speaker 4: more about her character and her backstory. Half to Aisha
Speaker 4: and half each to Memuna and Jamila, because even Memuna
Speaker 4: at times was annoying because I didn't know where she stood.
Speaker 6: It was so.
Speaker 4: Inconsistent and it bothered me. I was like, if she
Speaker 4: has this, you know, modern liberal family, and if she
Speaker 4: is studying to be a human rights lawyer, why why
Speaker 4: does she pretend to be somebody else? There are so
Speaker 4: many women in Pakistan who are comfortable expressing their agency,
Speaker 4: especially those who come from families like Memuna's, and it
Speaker 4: just was mind boggling to me. They weren't consistent in
Speaker 4: her characterization and that really bothered me.
Speaker 1: Well, Sadia, thank you so much for joining us. This
Speaker 1: has been a treat. Come back anytime.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bring us anything we love. We love it all.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. This was so
Speaker 4: much fun.
Speaker 1: Yay, Where can people check out your podcasts? Follow you
Speaker 1: on social media, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So podcasts Immigrantly and Invisible Heat are on every streaming platform.
Speaker 4: They can follow me on Twitter at s w k
Speaker 4: K and it's s w k KHN. And don't ask
Speaker 4: me why I came up with that, because Sadia is
Speaker 4: a very common name and I couldn't find another handle.
Speaker 4: But You can also find immigrantly at immigrantly Underscore pod
Speaker 4: on Twitter and on Instagram at immigrantly pod Wonderful Amazing.
Speaker 1: You can follow us at Bechtolcast on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also scoot over to our Patreon aka maatreon
Speaker 1: at patreon dot com slash bechtol Cast, where you get
Speaker 1: two bonus episodes every month for only five dollars a month,
Speaker 1: and it also gets you access to our back catalog
Speaker 1: of one hundred and fifty bonus episodes.
Speaker 3: You can also check us out if you want some
Speaker 3: merch over at teapublic dot com slash v Bechtel Cast
Speaker 3: for all your merchandising needs.
Speaker 1: And with that, let's go into the treehouse and kiss.
Speaker 3: And take forever to kiss.
Speaker 1: Okay, bye bye