Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
Speaker 1: bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Hey, Reverend Jamie, Hi, Angel Caitlyn, it's me No, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm guardian Angel, Caitlin, your guardian Angel. But not
Speaker 2: that you mentioned your wife. I just want to say
Speaker 2: that she's awesome and like so pretty and I love her.
Speaker 3: Is that cool to me too? I just like, I'm
Speaker 3: busy running the entire church.
Speaker 4: Mmmm hmm.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you don't really have time for her and
Speaker 2: I can have her.
Speaker 3: Well, no, but let's make sure to not really ask
Speaker 3: her how she feels at any point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just to be sure, of course.
Speaker 5: Not.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, great that one. So well, all right, good talk,
Speaker 2: good talk.
Speaker 3: Okay, now I banish you back to heaven and make
Speaker 3: sure the men in Black style wipe my memory before
Speaker 3: get where you girl.
Speaker 4: So it's as if the movie didn't happen exactly.
Speaker 2: But little Jeremiah he's gonna remember me.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because he's kind of like wonder he believes
Speaker 3: it the magic of Christmas, something something, the little bell
Speaker 3: for Polar Express, you know, oh yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Hello, and welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: Great intro as usual, we're recording earlier in the day
Speaker 3: than usual.
Speaker 4: You have to cut some slack.
Speaker 2: No, no, I think the people loved it.
Speaker 4: It's it's true. My name is Shamie Loftus.
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Deronte, and this is our show
Speaker 2: where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
Speaker 2: the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point. But reverend
Speaker 2: to Jamie, what is that? I could get used to this?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Test is a media metric originally created or
Speaker 3: co created by Alison Bechtel with her and Liz Wallace,
Speaker 3: originally as a bit for her comic from the nineteen
Speaker 3: eightiesd Likes to Watch Out For, originally a way of
Speaker 3: talking about how women were rarely talking to each other
Speaker 3: about anything in a movie, much less not men. The
Speaker 3: version of the test we use as we require that
Speaker 3: two people of a marginalized gender with names talk to
Speaker 3: each other about something other than a man for two
Speaker 3: lines of dialogue or more. This is going to be
Speaker 3: a journey today. True, and we have because it's the
Speaker 3: holiday season, we are covering holiday movies, and boy, do
Speaker 3: we have a holiday movie for you today, long time request,
Speaker 3: The Preacher's Wife from nineteen ninety six, starring Whitney Houston
Speaker 3: and Denzel Washington and Courtney b Vance and directed by
Speaker 3: Penny Marshall.
Speaker 4: I mean, you can't argue with that lineup.
Speaker 2: You certainly cannot. And here with us to chat about
Speaker 2: the movie are the hosts of the podcast Two Black
Speaker 2: Girls Rose. It's a podcast uncovering what we can learn
Speaker 2: about modern dating, love and relationships from popular television. It's
Speaker 2: Natasha and Justineways. Welcome, Welcome, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you for bringing us this beautiful, wholesome, and a
Speaker 3: little weird movie.
Speaker 7: It's one of my favorite remakes.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was a remake until I started
Speaker 2: doing the research for it. So yeah, it's adapted from
Speaker 2: an older movie from nineteen forty seven called The Bishop's Wife,
Speaker 2: which was adapted from a novel of the same name
Speaker 2: from I think published in the twenties or something like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the original starred Carrie Grant and Loretta Young.
Speaker 5: Yep, that's right.
Speaker 4: I did not watch it, but it seemed to.
Speaker 6: Be very I never watched it, that's right.
Speaker 4: I don't know where I would watch it. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: I mean I feel like in like the thirties and
Speaker 4: forties there was.
Speaker 3: A bad jillion and movies about the spirit of Christmas,
Speaker 3: and then also in the nineties and then now it's
Speaker 3: mostly just like Netflix movies about a woman getting bonked
Speaker 3: on the head on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2: So true. So tell us about your relationship, your history
Speaker 2: with this movie, Justine, do you want to go first?
Speaker 7: Sure, I can go first. I know this movie line
Speaker 7: by line. I could play every single character. I could
Speaker 7: sing every single song. At the very beginning of the
Speaker 7: movie where she was using ad libs to kind of
Speaker 7: call and response with the rest of the congregation in
Speaker 7: the church, I knew every single cue. I knew the lean,
Speaker 7: I knew the choreography. I know this movie inside and out.
Speaker 7: So I'm so excited to talk about every element of it.
Speaker 7: It's also a lot of elements in this movie have
Speaker 7: happened to me. I've lived with my grandmother, with my family.
Speaker 7: I have been in the choir at church. My mom
Speaker 7: is currently in many.
Speaker 6: Choirs at a church.
Speaker 7: And church culture was a big part of my growing up.
Speaker 7: I grew up in a really small church, so this
Speaker 7: is a really fun movie for me.
Speaker 2: Nice and Natasha, how about you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, damn, I didn't know that, Justine.
Speaker 8: This is like this is oh yeah, movie, damn documentary.
Speaker 9: I have not watched this in a couple of Christmases.
Speaker 9: It's hasn't been in my usual records, but I don't
Speaker 9: know why. We listened to the album for sure, Christmas Morning,
Speaker 9: cooking Breakfast usually, but yeah, it's been a minute since
Speaker 9: I watched the movie. So it was definitely like a
Speaker 9: walk down memory lane a little bit remembering the story.
Speaker 9: But I loved it. I mean, you can't beat Denzel Whitney.
Speaker 9: I mean the ensemble cast, just yeah, this is crazy.
Speaker 9: Music is crazy, the story is you know, magical, and yeah,
Speaker 9: definitely very nostalgic. I also grew up in the church,
Speaker 9: and yeah, just watching those elements just very familiar. And yeah,
Speaker 9: it's been a while, but I'm excited to talk about
Speaker 9: it with like very fresh eyes.
Speaker 2: Jamie, how about you.
Speaker 3: I'd seen this movie a couple of times before I
Speaker 3: was really into basic cable holiday movie marathons.
Speaker 4: Halloween marathons, whatever it was.
Speaker 3: If it was showing on TNT around holiday, saw it
Speaker 3: with five thousand commercial breaks, which is also how I
Speaker 3: watched it on TUB to prepare for this episode.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, so many commercials on Tube.
Speaker 4: Okay, we've all had. I was like, wow, okay, I'll
Speaker 4: buy laundry pods. My god. But yeah, I'd seen it
Speaker 4: growing up several times.
Speaker 3: I would also say, like Natasha, I grew up more
Speaker 3: with the soundtrack than.
Speaker 4: The movie itself. Okay, but I'd seen it many times.
Speaker 3: The soundtrack is very Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning nostalgic. And
Speaker 3: the one thing I remember knowing about this movie the
Speaker 3: strongest was my mom was really into the fact that
Speaker 3: Whitney Houston's mom was in this movie as well, and
Speaker 3: so she was I.
Speaker 4: Think, just mom's solidarity. Don't really know, but she.
Speaker 3: Was like, that's I don't know, well, not playing her mom,
Speaker 3: not playing her she's in it.
Speaker 6: She's like a cameo.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, the Wonders, I think it's the correct me.
Speaker 3: I think it's the exchange where it's the woman who
Speaker 3: stops her and is like, are you sure that you
Speaker 3: want to like split the choir parts? Like that, and
Speaker 3: Kitney is like yes, and then she's like did you
Speaker 3: like that? You know, because she's like it was acceptable,
Speaker 3: and I don't know. I like I ended up falling
Speaker 3: down a rabbit hole of learning about Whitney Houston's mom,
Speaker 3: who was also a very accomplished sing singer. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: just didn't know anyways, seen it a couple of times,
Speaker 3: was really delighted to revisit it, and I think that
Speaker 3: there's something to really be said for like a wholesome
Speaker 3: yet somewhat horny Christmas movie, and this really delivers.
Speaker 4: Kaitlin, what's your history?
Speaker 2: Well, I have never seen the movie before prepping for
Speaker 2: this episode, so the whole spectrum is represented between someone
Speaker 2: who knows this inside and out who had never seen it.
Speaker 2: So listeners may know that I'm the Grinch of the podcast.
Speaker 2: I am not really into Christmas spirit. I don't have
Speaker 2: any I'm the Grinch's dog, so I don't seek out
Speaker 2: Christmas e movies very much unless it's up at Christmas Carol,
Speaker 2: and then I will watch that every year. But yeah,
Speaker 2: so I had never seen this movie, and I don't
Speaker 2: know what I was expecting, but it was not a
Speaker 2: horny angel lusting after Whitney Houston and her lusting right back,
Speaker 2: and then Courtney b Vance being like, hello, can you not?
Speaker 2: And that's basically the movie.
Speaker 4: It's a lot to talk about, a lot to talk about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm excited to discuss. Should we just get
Speaker 2: into the recap?
Speaker 4: Let's do it all right?
Speaker 5: Sounds good.
Speaker 2: Actually, let's take a quick break and then we'll come
Speaker 2: right back. Okay. So we open with voiceover from a
Speaker 2: little kid named Jeremiah saying that this story he's about
Speaker 2: to tell is true, even though no one believes him.
Speaker 3: So many wholesome family movies are narrated by little boys,
Speaker 3: specifically yea, let's spread the love around. I feel like
Speaker 3: we've covered several movies this year that it begins with like, Hi,
Speaker 3: I'm a little guy.
Speaker 4: You won't believe what happened.
Speaker 2: It reminded me of a recent movie we've covered, Soul Food.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, also narrated by the little guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I do love a child narrator, though there is trustworthy,
Speaker 9: the most honest.
Speaker 4: And you only see them every twenty minutes or so.
Speaker 6: You're like, oh yeahs gives them reflection.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, says something profound.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's a week from Christmas. We are in
Speaker 2: a church. We meet Jeremiah's mom and dad. So that
Speaker 2: is Julia Biggs played by Whitney Houston. There's probably a
Speaker 2: more correct term for this, but I wrote down she's
Speaker 2: the lead singer of the church choir.
Speaker 5: Beyonce the yes.
Speaker 2: Director probably would be okay, yeah, nice. And then her husband,
Speaker 2: Henry Biggs played by Courtney b Vance. He's the reverend
Speaker 2: at this church called Saint Matthew's, and he's giving a
Speaker 2: sermon about temptation, and we're like foreshadowing much very different movie.
Speaker 3: But it weirdly because I kind of forgot how horny
Speaker 3: this movie was. But there's also like another like trope
Speaker 3: of movies that take place in church. It always starts
Speaker 3: with like an ominous foreshadowing pulpit talk.
Speaker 4: The same thing happens in Doubt.
Speaker 5: Very God.
Speaker 4: It also starts with like, so doubt It's different movies.
Speaker 6: Also one of my favorites, though I loved that.
Speaker 4: I really love doubt.
Speaker 2: Jamie's a big doubt head. Yeah okay. So then we
Speaker 2: also meet Julia's mom, Marguerite, played by Jennifer Lewis, and
Speaker 2: things are not going great at the church. They are
Speaker 2: not pulling in many donations. They have to close the
Speaker 2: youth center. Henry just feels like he's not doing much
Speaker 2: good for the community, and so he prays to God
Speaker 2: to send him some help. And then out of the
Speaker 2: sky falls Dudley. That's Denzel Washington, and Dudley is thrilled
Speaker 2: about being there. He's jumping around, he's dancing, and we're like,
Speaker 2: what's going on here?
Speaker 6: He scares the children, He does scare them.
Speaker 7: Oh wait, can I just say one thing about the
Speaker 7: amount of black icons that we see in the first
Speaker 7: ten minutes of this film. We see Loretta Devine, Jennifer Lewis,
Speaker 7: Paul Bates, and Sherry Headley aka Lisa mcdell the icon.
Speaker 7: So I just wanted to say, how many black icons,
Speaker 7: especially at that time.
Speaker 6: I want to say, between like eighty nine and ninety.
Speaker 7: Seven, those were like really really stand out black actors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then more will show up because then the
Speaker 2: final Ritchie he's.
Speaker 4: A jump scare. Oh my god's good, like he did well?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay. So Dudley has fallen out of the sky
Speaker 2: and he approaches Reverend Henry and he's like, hey, I'm
Speaker 2: here on behalf of God and I'm here to answer
Speaker 2: your request. But Henry doesn't believe him. He thinks it's
Speaker 2: some kind of joke and he drives off. So Dudley's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I guess I'll try a different approach. Then a young
Speaker 2: black man named Billy gets arrested because he was in
Speaker 2: the wrong place at the wrong time and he's racially profiled,
Speaker 2: so he gets put in jail. Henry goes to the
Speaker 2: police station to try to help, but he can't really
Speaker 2: do anything about it. And then Henry's car won't start,
Speaker 2: and Dudley shows up again, and then Henry's car magically starts,
Speaker 2: and Dudley's like, yeah, I did that because once again
Speaker 2: I'm an angel. And then he explains that he, you know,
Speaker 2: used to be a human on Earth, his time was
Speaker 2: cut short. He went to Heaven, he became an angel,
Speaker 2: and he's just been waiting for a chance to come
Speaker 2: back to Earth and help and do good.
Speaker 3: Everyone's reception of an angel in this movie is on
Speaker 3: a scale like it makes sense how Courtney b Vance
Speaker 3: reacts to him.
Speaker 4: Because he's like, I just don't believe you.
Speaker 3: This is all in a day's work to be to like,
Speaker 3: you know, passively accept what someone is saying. But later
Speaker 3: on it's like seems like other people fully believe he's
Speaker 3: an angel, and they're like, yeah, there's this angel who's
Speaker 3: hanging out with us. Now it's Christmas, I guess for
Speaker 3: a Christmas.
Speaker 2: But everyone thinks that he was just like sent by
Speaker 2: the church council to help. I don't think anyone else
Speaker 2: realizes he's an angel. They're just like he's a guy.
Speaker 2: He's a nice guy, he's hot.
Speaker 3: But Whitney Doesny's like hmm okay, like she's very I've
Speaker 3: used to like any time there's like a supernatural occurrence
Speaker 3: has to be a scream, there has to be a
Speaker 3: freaky Friday moment. But everyone's just sort of like, wow,
Speaker 3: this is wild, very Christmas to all.
Speaker 9: I also love Dudley's like imagery of like these angels
Speaker 9: in a waiting room in heaven, just like waiting to
Speaker 9: get sent down, just like how does it work? What's
Speaker 9: the process? Or even he seems like excited, like oh
Speaker 9: and I made it. My number was called.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, okay, well, and then based on
Speaker 2: his clothes, I would guess he died in like the nineteen.
Speaker 6: Fifties because the nineteen.
Speaker 2: And because he's wearing like a fedora and like you
Speaker 2: know the OVERCD like men in that era. And so
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, he's been waiting for like forty or
Speaker 2: forty five years or so to be sent back down
Speaker 2: to Earth. And he doesn't know what like windows is.
Speaker 2: He's like what how do what is computer? So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: he's from a different era and he's been waiting for.
Speaker 6: Dec when was pizza popular?
Speaker 5: Because he freaks out over the.
Speaker 6: Pizza in the hot dog.
Speaker 7: So I don't know when those Oh man, I don't
Speaker 7: be better about my food history.
Speaker 5: I got to research this after.
Speaker 4: Slice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jamie write a book about it. Sorry you're you're
Speaker 2: at Yeah Okay. So Dudley is with Henry, and he
Speaker 2: also outlines the rules of being an angel and helping
Speaker 2: people on Earth, which are that angels can't do anything
Speaker 2: that people should be doing, that everything that, like a
Speaker 2: person that an angel helps out does, has to be
Speaker 2: of their own free will. And finally, when an angel
Speaker 2: has accomplished his mission and leaves, then the person he
Speaker 2: was helping in this case, Henry won't have any memory
Speaker 2: of the angel anymore.
Speaker 4: That sounds like such a bummer job. I know he
Speaker 4: makes it. Being an angel sound like a lot of
Speaker 4: paper pushing, and then and like a lot of waiting around.
Speaker 3: And then it's like and then you get to do
Speaker 3: something amazing and maybe you'll even fall in love, but
Speaker 3: you can never have sex, and then no one remembers
Speaker 3: you and you have to go back to the waiting room.
Speaker 2: That's a thankless come.
Speaker 7: You should be able to have sex if you can't
Speaker 7: remember coming.
Speaker 3: On, that's that's right, except Jeremiah will remember for something.
Speaker 3: He's like, no, Mom, I swear to God, you had
Speaker 3: sex with Denzel Washington.
Speaker 6: I'm not the trauma.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a very different tonal sequel to this movie
Speaker 3: where Jeremiah is in therapy years later being like, I
Speaker 3: know that this happened, but no one will acknowledge Denzel
Speaker 3: Washington's presence in my life one week.
Speaker 5: It's like haunted by the memory of Denzel.
Speaker 2: Oh God, Okay. So then as Dudley is saying goodbye
Speaker 2: to Henry, they shake hands and then there's like this
Speaker 2: surge of warm energy between them, and Henry's like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, what was that? And there's music and it's
Speaker 2: going like Lily.
Speaker 6: Does it remind you, guys of The Broad City?
Speaker 5: Woosh?
Speaker 9: I didn't connect that up my own, but yet when
Speaker 9: the wind is knocked out.
Speaker 6: Of her, yeah, we love the Broad City.
Speaker 5: Woosh.
Speaker 7: We Actually.
Speaker 9: That's one of my favorite episodes. Yes, it's the wind,
Speaker 9: not that.
Speaker 2: Which is what happens to Henry. He's like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: But then he's like, actually, I don't feel anything, and
Speaker 2: I still don't believe you by now. Meanwhile, things are
Speaker 2: falling apart. The church boiler explodes, Jeremiah's best friend Hakim
Speaker 2: is taken away to be put in foster care. Billy
Speaker 2: has to stay in jail because his bail is too
Speaker 2: high for his friends or family to be able to
Speaker 2: pay it. And then also things between Henry and his
Speaker 2: wife Julia are not great. He is too busy with
Speaker 2: a lot of these church matters to have much time
Speaker 2: for her, and Julia's mother, Marguerite, notices and she's like,
Speaker 2: get your house back together.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Marguerite really is like, hey, get over it.
Speaker 3: I my husband also neglected me for the same job,
Speaker 3: and you're like, can you at least commiserate guys.
Speaker 2: So then Dudley shows up again, being like, actually, I'm
Speaker 2: the reverend's new assistant. The church council sent me, and
Speaker 2: Henry's secretary, Beverly, played by Loretta Devine, thinks she's being
Speaker 2: fired and replaced, and Dudley's like, no, no, no, I'm just
Speaker 2: here an amazing job.
Speaker 5: She's so good for that.
Speaker 6: She's good at that kind of monologue.
Speaker 5: I'm playing like an anxious character.
Speaker 4: So well.
Speaker 7: Have you guys seen her on Watch What Happens Live? No,
Speaker 7: She's one of my all time favorite guests. I watch
Speaker 7: She went crazy, God, so drunk.
Speaker 4: That show is like chaotic.
Speaker 7: No, I want to be a bartender, so bad, so bad,
Speaker 7: And if you're listening, please me yes, but yes, Loretta
Speaker 7: Devine on Watch Happens Live is a very good episode.
Speaker 2: Hear this gossip, I will watch it, okay. So Dudley's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm just here to help. And then Julia and Marguerite
Speaker 2: are like, sounds good to me, especially because you're hot
Speaker 2: and sexy, so we don't mind having you around basically,
Speaker 2: and then Dudley hangs out with Jeremiah and confronts him
Speaker 2: because Jeremiah is sad that Hakim has just left. Then
Speaker 2: Henry has a meeting with this guy named Joe Hamilton
Speaker 2: played by Gregory Hines. He's a real estate developer who
Speaker 2: wants to build like basically a mega church, and he
Speaker 2: wants Henry to be the reverend there.
Speaker 3: Also like another like eighties nineties trope of like a
Speaker 3: land developer as the main antagonist of the movie.
Speaker 4: We should bring that back, I mean, where does that
Speaker 4: go now?
Speaker 2: More than ever, let's villainize landlords. So Henry reluctantly accepts
Speaker 2: Joe's offer, and then when Henry tells Julie about it,
Speaker 2: she's furious that Henry didn't consult her and that he
Speaker 2: sold out. And also her father used to be the
Speaker 2: reverend at Saint Matthew's, so she feels like extra attachment
Speaker 2: to it, and she feels like she doesn't want the
Speaker 2: church to be abandoned or like her presence, her family's
Speaker 2: presence in the church to go away.
Speaker 9: That's me was a wild moment, him selling the church
Speaker 9: that belonged to his wife's father, like out from underneath
Speaker 9: her without even consulting. It's like, is this real life?
Speaker 5: How are you going to live past this?
Speaker 3: And she's only allowed to be upset about it for
Speaker 3: like a scene. Yeah, and then I was like, well,
Speaker 3: get over it.
Speaker 4: You're like, shouldn't you be mad to that?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 4: You have a huge attachment to this church.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's like grounds for divorce. It was kind of
Speaker 9: swept under, like it was nothing.
Speaker 4: This would be written by man.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think that's when the audience starts turning and being like,
Speaker 7: you know what, maybe you can't fuck Denzel Washington.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm rooting for Julia and Dudley.
Speaker 6: Yeah all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a scene where I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this movie was written by two men. If they're like, well,
Speaker 3: they'll discuss the fact that this happened, but also, you know,
Speaker 3: it's ultimately they have to accept their decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So Dudley, meanwhile, he's concerned about Henry and
Speaker 2: Julia's marriage, so he's like, Julia, all you need to
Speaker 2: do is just go dancing together and reignite that spark.
Speaker 2: But Henry is too busy to go. So he's like, Dudley,
Speaker 2: you take her dancing.
Speaker 7: So would you imagine handing off your woman to Denzel
Speaker 7: Washington and go to jazz night?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 5: Her little.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, and she when she's walking down the
Speaker 2: stairs and Dudley's like, hubba hubba.
Speaker 3: It's so like I feel like that's the power of
Speaker 3: Denzel washing, where it's like it's not necessarily a horny shot,
Speaker 3: but he makes it a horny shot.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the eyes and it might be a little bit
Speaker 7: of projection. Now, like you were horny watching Denzil perhaps maybe, or.
Speaker 2: Horny watching Whitney.
Speaker 7: It's or horny watching Whitney even very active people. Yeah,
Speaker 7: it was crazy crazy.
Speaker 2: Okay, So then Julia and Dudley go dancing. Lionel Richie's
Speaker 2: there and he's like, Julia, you should sing the way
Speaker 2: you used to when you came here. Because this movie
Speaker 2: uses any excuse to have Whitney Houston sing. It happens
Speaker 2: so many times, so many times.
Speaker 6: I think it's actually really important.
Speaker 5: Though.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I want to talk about it towards the end,
Speaker 6: but I think it is important that Whitney, Well, it's important.
Speaker 6: And also I'm sure it was a demand.
Speaker 2: I in this movie if I could sing in every
Speaker 2: twelve scenes. Okay, So she sings, Dudley is like, wooo,
Speaker 2: good job, and they ultimately just like have a very
Speaker 2: nice time at the jazz club. They come home Henry,
Speaker 2: But I mean there is so much, so that when
Speaker 2: they come home, Henry is very jealous and he's like,
Speaker 2: I don't believe this, and Dudley's like, well, that's your problem.
Speaker 2: You don't believe anything anymore. You're compromising your values, you're
Speaker 2: ignoring your wife, and you haven't even done anything about
Speaker 2: your son losing his best friend, and you don't even
Speaker 2: believe that Billy is innocent. So Henry's like, maybe he's right.
Speaker 2: So Henry goes to the courthouse and gives an impassioned
Speaker 2: speech to the judge. Next thing we know, Billy is
Speaker 2: free and home. Then there's a scene where Julia and
Speaker 2: Dudley are ice skating.
Speaker 5: And Julian Dudley are on a date.
Speaker 3: They're on a date and if you're so on a
Speaker 3: date that she is like, Jeremiah, get out of here.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Jeliah was side eyeing, Yeah, Jeremy bench.
Speaker 5: Looking like something is not right here.
Speaker 9: Date.
Speaker 2: He like knew that he was the third wheel, so
Speaker 2: he's like, I need to sit down, I need to
Speaker 2: go over here drink my cocoa. And then, like Julian Dudley,
Speaker 2: if we thought they were vibing before, now they are
Speaker 2: by being and this romantic music is playing, and we're like,
Speaker 2: is she gonna have sex with an angel? Happening?
Speaker 6: Thrill through my seven year old body.
Speaker 7: If I found out that they were going to have
Speaker 7: an affair at the local Hilton. Oh my god, y'all
Speaker 7: don't even know, do you. Me and Natasha just had
Speaker 7: an episode of this reviewing some holiday movies that'll come
Speaker 7: out the end of November. But we talked about how
Speaker 7: there's not a whole lot of like on screen chemistry
Speaker 7: the way that there used to be in films with couples, Like, right,
Speaker 7: Whitney and Denzel have such a fair secrecy chemistry, and
Speaker 7: Whitney and Courtney have such husband wife Obama chemistry. Yeah,
Speaker 7: chemistry this film, I think.
Speaker 4: It really is. I feel the same way about a lot.
Speaker 3: It feels like there's more of like an algorithmic nature
Speaker 3: to casting now, and it's like not consider like.
Speaker 4: Like, okay, who are two people with like huge.
Speaker 3: Followings that like aren't the same audiences to be like
Speaker 3: they're in love and it's like it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think they do chemistry tests anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 2: before like figuring out who they should cast, they have
Speaker 2: such discrete affair.
Speaker 6: Oh, my god, specifics.
Speaker 2: And you know who else can tell is Julia's mom, Marguerite.
Speaker 2: They come home from ice skating and she all but
Speaker 2: like screams, and she's like, you cannot have sex with Dudley.
Speaker 2: You're married to Henry. And then also Henry sees all
Speaker 2: the chemistry they have and he's like, Dudley, stay away
Speaker 2: from my wife and leave right now. So then there's
Speaker 2: a scene where Julia and Henry are taking Christmas baskets
Speaker 2: to people, and Julia calls him out for being jealous
Speaker 2: and he's like, I'm not jealous. Meanwhile, Dudley is lurking
Speaker 2: nearby and he uses his angel powers to blow Henry over,
Speaker 2: so he falls in the snow. And then Julia comes
Speaker 2: over and Dudley blows her over next to Henry because
Speaker 2: in an earlier scene, she had told Dudley a story
Speaker 2: about how when they were kids, she and Dudley fell
Speaker 2: in the snow together and that's how they knew they
Speaker 2: were gonna get married someday or something. And so now
Speaker 2: they're in the snow again and they're vibing, they're kind
Speaker 2: of reconnecting as husband and wife, and then other things
Speaker 2: start to get better too. The church has a new boiler.
Speaker 2: Henry has arranged to bring Hakeem back to stay with
Speaker 2: them over the holidays, and then Henry goes to Joe Hamilton,
Speaker 2: that real estate guy, to be like, never mind, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to be a sellout in your mega church.
Speaker 2: And Joe is like, oh yeah, well I bought the
Speaker 2: mortgage and I'm going to tear your church down. And
Speaker 2: so suddenly the stakes are so high. Dudley goes to
Speaker 2: see Joe Hamilton and he's basically like, I'm an angel
Speaker 2: and if you tear down this church, I will see
Speaker 2: to it that you go straight to Hell.
Speaker 4: My God. They have the piano that they have at
Speaker 4: the Magic Castle.
Speaker 3: You're like, oh yeah, really impressive, really cool. God, it's
Speaker 3: so Christmas movie.
Speaker 9: I love the little subtle random ways that they like
Speaker 9: wheeled magic and like the power of God, like playing
Speaker 9: the piano, why that moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, turning on a radio, you know, really powerful stuff.
Speaker 4: He's like, wait, that not even plugged it.
Speaker 3: You're like, yeah, that's God's God.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I think it's Christmas Day now. Dudley comes
Speaker 2: to the church to say goodbye to Julia, saying it's
Speaker 2: time for him to leave, and then Henry gives this
Speaker 2: big Christmas sermon in which he was planning to tell
Speaker 2: everyone that the church is going to be torn down,
Speaker 2: but then he goes off script and gives a passionate
Speaker 2: sermon about hope and love and forgiveness and how an
Speaker 2: angel helped him and they're gonna save the church, and
Speaker 2: everyone's like whoo, and Dudley's like, oh, he finally believes me.
Speaker 2: And then Julia sings some more because Whitney Houston put
Speaker 2: in her contract that she has to sing song, and
Speaker 2: then Joe Hamilton is like, never mind, I won't tear
Speaker 2: down your church. And so all is well, which means
Speaker 2: that Dudley's angel mission is accomplished, which also means that
Speaker 2: Henry and Julia forget.
Speaker 3: He has to go back to what sounds like pergetory.
Speaker 3: It sounds like he works, he works a cent.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it literally sounds like no exit like it sounds scary, Yeah, yes,
Speaker 10: but it's heaven right because Dudley accomplished his mission, Henry
Speaker 10: Angelia forget Dudley.
Speaker 2: Now they don't recognize him. It's like they never met him,
Speaker 2: but Jeremiah still does. And then the movie ends with
Speaker 2: the family together and happy. They adopt Hakeem and now
Speaker 2: Dudley is the angel tree topper on their Christmas tree.
Speaker 2: The end.
Speaker 6: Yes, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss,
Speaker 2: and we're back.
Speaker 3: But what if all you wanted for Christmas was to
Speaker 3: have sex with angel Denzel Washington?
Speaker 4: How does that work? How does that square?
Speaker 2: Julia does not get her wish, her Christmas wish.
Speaker 4: But at least she'll never know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, shall we start with some context corner?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So this movie is an adaptation we already said
Speaker 3: for a movie from the forty that none of us
Speaker 3: have ever seen and probably never will, because this one
Speaker 3: is good. Directed by Penny Marshall, obviously a very iconic director.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think of it.
Speaker 3: We've covered several of her movies on the show before.
Speaker 3: We recently covered Big, We've covered a leak of their own,
Speaker 3: and now this movie, as it is written by I
Speaker 3: think that this movie is an interesting case, an interesting
Speaker 3: I mean questionable case of a lot of high up
Speaker 3: white creatives with an all black cast because the screenplay
Speaker 3: is written by two white guys. However, Denzel Washington was
Speaker 3: the major production force in getting this movie made. It
Speaker 3: was produced through his production company, Mundy Lane Entertainment, and
Speaker 3: at the time he gave an interview about sort of
Speaker 3: the importance and his commitment to having an all black
Speaker 3: cast in this movie, although he did consider having Julia
Speaker 3: Roberts in the main part at one point.
Speaker 4: Yes, what then was like, never mind Whitdy Houston, Oh.
Speaker 6: My god, that would have changed the whole movie. That's yeah.
Speaker 9: No, Jennifer lewis Les was adopted or something.
Speaker 4: Jer is all these six years older than I.
Speaker 6: Was gonna say.
Speaker 7: She does not give Whitney Houston's mom at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I kept forgetting that they were at Sisters,
Speaker 3: but okay.
Speaker 6: So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Denzel Washington said this at the time, just about his
Speaker 3: company in general. I'm happy to know that on a
Speaker 3: film like Devil in a Blue Dress, we put one
Speaker 3: hundred or so many black people to work. And it
Speaker 3: was the same thing with the Preacher's Wife, and it
Speaker 3: will be the same thing with other films that I'm
Speaker 3: involved in, whether I'm on a producer level or not.
Speaker 3: We do it because they're capable and because nobody else
Speaker 3: is necessarily looking out for them. Speaking about black actors
Speaker 3: and black creatives in general.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Nice.
Speaker 5: I love knowing that.
Speaker 6: I didn't realize that Denzel was.
Speaker 9: I mean, I saw that Penny Marshall had directed it,
Speaker 9: but it was Donzell's production company behind it, which I
Speaker 9: don't know that either.
Speaker 5: That feels good.
Speaker 9: Also, I think we can get into it, but like
Speaker 9: the representation of the church and the black family, and
Speaker 9: I think it felt very authentic. So it makes sense
Speaker 9: that there were black creatives behind the scene that helped
Speaker 9: make it, you know, bring justice to it. Yeah, and
Speaker 9: we stand Penny Marshall, but I was like, why her
Speaker 9: directing it? Although, like apparently Denzel Washington sought her out
Speaker 9: specifically and was like, you need to direct this movie, please,
Speaker 9: And she originally turned it down because she didn't think
Speaker 9: the script was very good, but then it got rewritten
Speaker 9: and then she came on board. Denzel also approached Whitney
Speaker 9: Houston and was like, you have to be in this movie, and.
Speaker 2: She said, okay. But I did a little bit of
Speaker 2: research on the novel that it was based on, which
Speaker 2: you know, it's not the most relevant thing except to
Speaker 2: say that it ends very very differently from both the
Speaker 2: movie adaptation from the forties and the preacher's wife.
Speaker 4: She does have sex with Denzel Washington.
Speaker 7: Yes, please tell me that it's closer to that.
Speaker 2: It's not quite that, but it is closer to it.
Speaker 2: So the way the book ends is that the angel,
Speaker 2: who in this case is named Michael, he realizes or
Speaker 2: he learns, that he as an angel, can't fulfill quote
Speaker 2: unquote mortal love because it's not related to divine intervention.
Speaker 2: So he can't have sex basically because it would be
Speaker 2: inappropriate and it's not divine enough or something and very philosophical.
Speaker 6: Okay, wow.
Speaker 2: So he returns to heaven after helping the bishop character,
Speaker 2: and then Julia realizes that she will never have a
Speaker 2: passionate relationship with her husband. She then decides to have
Speaker 2: another child to share her love with since she knows
Speaker 2: she won't get that love from her husband.
Speaker 5: Oh god, weird, I got dark.
Speaker 6: Well, it is so weird.
Speaker 2: And when I was also looking up this, but I
Speaker 2: couldn't find a whole lot of information about it. But
Speaker 2: it's also listed as like satire. I think it might
Speaker 2: be more satirical than both movie adaptations, which I think
Speaker 2: are far more earnest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, that makes more sense. Still weird, still.
Speaker 7: Weird, weird, but also explains Hakim's character.
Speaker 6: Yes, child could be Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a good point because when I ended the movie,
Speaker 9: I didn't really feel that hopeful for Whitney. I mean,
Speaker 9: I know, the music is going and everyone's smiling and
Speaker 9: it's Christmas, but like, Okay, the church is still gonna
Speaker 9: be around. That's great, but he's still busy as hell,
Speaker 9: Like that was the real issue with Henry, Like he's
Speaker 9: never home. So is that problem solved? Like we don't
Speaker 9: get any result on that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I felt the same way, like she's pretty
Speaker 3: much back to.
Speaker 4: One at the end of the movie.
Speaker 2: Especially because Henry's assistant, Loretta Divine is like remember that
Speaker 2: part at the end where that character Saul is like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna marry you, and Reverend You're gonna have to
Speaker 2: find a new secretary, implying that like she won't work
Speaker 2: anymore now that she's married. Yeah, so he's gonna be
Speaker 2: even more busy. I mean, maybe he'll hire another like
Speaker 2: assistant or secretary. But yeah, it ended a little bizarrely
Speaker 2: to me. Yeah, and then another thing I wanted to
Speaker 2: point out about kind of the development of this movie
Speaker 2: is that an earlier version of the script had Julia
Speaker 2: being quite underdeveloped, so, according to an interview with Whitney Houston,
Speaker 2: she says, Julia was a little sterile, and I thought
Speaker 2: she needs to be more realistic. She needs to get
Speaker 2: a little mad sometimes because she's being put off a lot.
Speaker 2: She needs expression, she needs to be able to express herself,
Speaker 2: and she needs a job. She needs something to do,
Speaker 2: as opposed to The Bishop's Wife, where she was just
Speaker 2: the bishop's wife. So I think she pushed for a
Speaker 2: more developed character in Julia with Rewrites, although I would
Speaker 2: argue that they could have done a bit more to
Speaker 2: develop her because, at least for me, like the Julia
Speaker 2: character mostly exists as like the object of two men's
Speaker 2: affection more than like a fully realized, fleshed out yeah
Speaker 2: character who was like allowed to make active choices and
Speaker 2: do anything that steers the direction of the story. And
Speaker 2: I think, like Whitney Houston, being that character like maybe
Speaker 2: tricks people into thinking she's a more dynamic and interesting
Speaker 2: character than she actually is. But like I kept being like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this movie is called the Preacher's Wife, so I expected
Speaker 2: it to be more about her doing things right.
Speaker 3: She's kind of like just I mean, I saw that
Speaker 3: quote as well, and I was like, wow, it sucks
Speaker 3: that Whitty Houston had to push to get.
Speaker 4: What felt like not even this.
Speaker 3: Very much, right, Yeah, And I mean I think just
Speaker 3: in general, like this is like I don't know if
Speaker 3: this character is a complete example of this, but I
Speaker 3: feel like there's very often when there's like a woman
Speaker 3: at the center of a story, especially if she is
Speaker 3: a wife and a mother, like she's written in this
Speaker 3: kind of sterile way, and like she's only allowed to
Speaker 3: have an inner life up to a very particular point,
Speaker 3: and then at a point where it actually become a
Speaker 3: threat or like too much about her, it.
Speaker 4: Scales back because the script takes great care.
Speaker 3: To say like she is an excellent wife and mother,
Speaker 3: like that point is hit on repeatedly, and that she
Speaker 3: loves her husband even though like, but we can feel
Speaker 3: the vibe in this see but okay, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know or like the scenes between her and her
Speaker 3: mother feel like they're mostly there to reinforce her goodness,
Speaker 3: even though it's usually her mom yelling at her about potentially.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I kind of struggled with how kind of underdeveloped she
Speaker 3: felt I'm like, just let her have like a crisis
Speaker 3: about her marriage, like it doesn't make her a bad person.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 9: Yeah, her whole focus is on her focus on her
Speaker 9: mother's focus is on like the keeping the household together,
Speaker 9: meaning their marriage, and yeah, she's not really allowed to
Speaker 9: have like an outer life. I guess she gets this
Speaker 9: little dalliance with Dudley, But I think it was interesting
Speaker 9: how Henry his focus is so external and it's fine,
Speaker 9: but it seems as if the issues within their household,
Speaker 9: like the success of it being solved, relies on Julia
Speaker 9: mm hmm.
Speaker 5: Like his business.
Speaker 9: His first business is the church and getting that together,
Speaker 9: and Julia needs to work harder to get his attention back.
Speaker 9: And that's basically yeah, what her focus could only be.
Speaker 9: And as soon as she starts something with Dudley, it
Speaker 9: eventually gets halted pretty quickly.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 7: I will say her involvement and position at the church
Speaker 7: is a pretty common one of most of the times
Speaker 7: the preacher's wife is the head of the music at
Speaker 7: the church, and her being Whitney Houston obviously.
Speaker 6: Gives it a leg up.
Speaker 7: But also this is, according to Wikipedia, the best selling
Speaker 7: gospel album of all time is the soundject of this film,
Speaker 7: which is not surprising because it is fantastic, But what
Speaker 7: it also does for Julia is it kind of gives
Speaker 7: her kind of like a sister act kind of storyline
Speaker 7: of like I have this talented choir just waiting for stardom.
Speaker 7: Like it gives her that kind of leadership position, but
Speaker 7: it's still at her husband's church, so it's still kind
Speaker 7: of underneath her husband's kind of wing or shadow. But
Speaker 7: what it does do is give her a leadership position
Speaker 7: and a place where she can like really stand out
Speaker 7: in this film.
Speaker 2: Which apparently she had to fight for again. She's like yeah,
Speaker 2: She's like, can my character do can she have a job,
Speaker 2: do anything?
Speaker 5: Do anything? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Can I just sell these records? But you know
Speaker 6: I can, like.
Speaker 2: O right, yeah.
Speaker 7: But I just thought that was a really it's a
Speaker 7: part of the film that I never thought about of
Speaker 7: how important the soundtrack is to the development of Julia's character.
Speaker 4: Totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Justine, because this movie is a documentary, how did
Speaker 3: you feel about how the church was representative portrayed within the.
Speaker 7: Movie so perfectly, so perfectly. That's why it does not
Speaker 7: surprise me, even though I didn't know it that Denzel
Speaker 7: Washington's production company was behind this because I went to
Speaker 7: a church where it was really small. There was no
Speaker 7: air conditioning, but it was a stop on the underground railroad,
Speaker 7: so there was like.
Speaker 6: A historic aspect to the church.
Speaker 7: It's been around since like eighteen fifty six, I think,
Speaker 7: but it's like so small.
Speaker 6: The people who run it are all seventy.
Speaker 7: Plus and the choir is like phenomenal, and they made
Speaker 7: most of their donations and money through Christmas.
Speaker 5: So this is a very accurate portrayal.
Speaker 3: And then I thought it was cool that the Georgia
Speaker 3: Mass Choir is like the main like it's like a professional, huge.
Speaker 5: Successful mm hmm.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 5: I was gonna add another.
Speaker 9: I think really authentic aspect of the church in the
Speaker 9: movie is like the struggling black church.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 9: I feel like every church I've been to there's like
Speaker 9: a building fund. There's like a fundraiser for something. Something's broken,
Speaker 9: somebody's son needs the down payment for, you know, a
Speaker 9: new house, sore needs the deposit for school, and the
Speaker 9: whole community.
Speaker 5: Is rallying around.
Speaker 6: So I thought that was very very true to form.
Speaker 9: When I think it's billy, they get to bailed money
Speaker 9: for Billy, and like how involved Henry was, how involved
Speaker 9: everybody was. That is I mean, that's so authentic to
Speaker 9: just like the community feel of church, even the moment
Speaker 9: where the youth center got closed and how like devastating
Speaker 9: that was just for the kids, because oftentimes the church.
Speaker 6: Is that's the hangout spot.
Speaker 9: Yeah yeah, not even during Sundays, like maybe during the
Speaker 9: week once they know your life is going to Bible
Speaker 9: study and then you're just like hanging out with everybody else,
Speaker 9: you know, downstairs at the youth center. So yeah, I
Speaker 9: thought that was very very authentic. Just those little tiny
Speaker 9: moments made it very much like, Okay, this is we're
Speaker 9: in a for real black church.
Speaker 6: It's not just a movie. This feels like real.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's something I really liked about the movie is that
Speaker 2: it presents this notion of like just because it's Christmas
Speaker 2: time doesn't mean that all of these like issues that
Speaker 2: affect a community go away, the way that so many
Speaker 2: Christmas movies are like, Wow, it's the most magical time
Speaker 2: of year. It's cookies and gingerbread men and sugar and
Speaker 2: cocoa and everything's amazing and so beautiful, which and that's
Speaker 2: because so many movies center upper middle class white characters
Speaker 2: or families in like predominantly white suburbs, or they'll be
Speaker 2: in like castles or an estate something like that. And
Speaker 2: I just appreciate that this movie centers a black family
Speaker 2: and black community, and you know, it has it depicts
Speaker 2: a lot of things that affect this community. You know,
Speaker 2: the struggle of a lot of these characters being in
Speaker 2: a poorer class, a character being racially profiled and arrested
Speaker 2: just days before Christmas, Like these things unfortunately do happen
Speaker 2: in the movie. Is like, yeah, these things don't stop
Speaker 2: happening just because it's December twentieth or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I never thought about that. It's a good point.
Speaker 3: And it's still like a like it presents all these
Speaker 3: very real, authentic issues.
Speaker 4: It also still is.
Speaker 3: A very like joyful movie and has like a very
Speaker 3: hopeful message, which I feel like is a difficult needle
Speaker 3: to kind of thread at that this movie does really well.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a good point because I feel like, sometimes, yeah,
Speaker 9: it could be a very thin line with like a
Speaker 9: movie that's trying to show like social issues or like
Speaker 9: the plight of you know, black poverty or whatever, like
Speaker 9: it could get you know, dark and said, and the
Speaker 9: way that they're able to maintain like humor and magic
Speaker 9: and romance is actually really impressive.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you need all those characters. You need the guy
Speaker 7: who drives the church van. You need the nice lady
Speaker 7: who's a lawyer who goes to church like. You need
Speaker 7: all those people in order to insert all that he
Speaker 7: were and levity into these situations because they.
Speaker 5: Bring it in real life.
Speaker 2: You need Loretta Divine to be there.
Speaker 6: You have to have Loretta Divine.
Speaker 4: Yes, I wish that we had more Loretta Divine. I
Speaker 4: mean mainly.
Speaker 3: For for like the comic relief through line of like
Speaker 3: she thinks that Denzel Washington is trying to displace her
Speaker 3: when he's working for his job. Is I think, much
Speaker 3: worse than anyone else is in the movie. It sounds
Speaker 3: like he lives in hell kind of.
Speaker 2: Do you see how excited he was when he was
Speaker 2: eating pizza. He's like, oh my God, I haven't had
Speaker 2: food in forty years.
Speaker 4: Does God not let you eat?
Speaker 9: I started torturing them up there. What I thought it
Speaker 9: was supposed to be fataday so that you could.
Speaker 6: Get whatever you want, whatever you wanted. However you want
Speaker 6: to be made.
Speaker 3: What God's like feeding them astronaut food. They're like, yeah, anyways,
Speaker 3: but I wish that we had more Loretta. Did we
Speaker 3: do learn a little bit about her character? We know
Speaker 3: that she's a single mom, But I just felt like,
Speaker 3: like we talk about on the show all the time,
Speaker 3: there were opportunities and characters and obviously like unbelievable actors
Speaker 3: that like, why wouldn't she take advantage of an opportunity
Speaker 3: to show Loretta Divine and Whitney Houston like acting together more?
Speaker 3: Because also this came out the year after Waiting to Exhale,
Speaker 3: You're like, oh my god, chemistry is off the charts, Like,
Speaker 3: write a more meaningful friendship for them.
Speaker 4: Because it's like if you cast Leratta divine.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously every second she's on screen is amazing.
Speaker 3: It's again, it's very like two guys read this movie
Speaker 3: that Denzel Washington's Christmas gift to her is a boyfriend.
Speaker 4: But it was sweet. I liked it, Like, I just
Speaker 4: felt like.
Speaker 3: There was so much more potential for that character, especially
Speaker 3: because we already know that she and Whitney Houston have
Speaker 3: like unbelievable chemistry because of a huge movie that came
Speaker 3: out the year before.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a good point. They very much underutilized her. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think another thing in the movie.
Speaker 9: There was a lot of little subplots, not all necessary.
Speaker 9: I love Loretta, love to see her, but that was
Speaker 9: like a random subplot. I agree, Like Whitney really only
Speaker 9: talks with her mother, more confides in her mother, I
Speaker 9: guess a little bit in Dudley. But yeah, I don't
Speaker 9: know why they didn't give her like an out or
Speaker 9: have some other aside a.
Speaker 2: Friendship, a female friendships and how scandalous would it have
Speaker 2: been if it was her husband's assisted That would have
Speaker 2: been fabulous.
Speaker 3: At another subplot, Yeah, because Loretta Devine has like information
Speaker 3: about him that she like.
Speaker 4: That's that's an important friendship.
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly knows his schedule. That's how she could sneak
Speaker 7: around with the dates with Dudley. She could have gone
Speaker 7: on more dates.
Speaker 9: Like.
Speaker 3: They started a Googled calendar for instadality.
Speaker 4: That makes me so happy. Uh Yeah, And I think
Speaker 4: like I liked that. I mean, yeah, I guess that
Speaker 4: Julia and Dudley are friends. I get. I mean they're friends,
Speaker 4: but also they're friends, they have.
Speaker 5: More than friends.
Speaker 2: They're winking at each other. They're flirting.
Speaker 3: I guess this is like my last thought on Julia's
Speaker 3: character is that I think it's interesting that they give
Speaker 3: her And I'm pretty sure this detail was added when
Speaker 3: Whitney Houston was cast to justify her singing more of like, oh,
Speaker 3: she used to really like singing at this club, but
Speaker 3: now she only sings at the church, but she still
Speaker 3: misses singing at the club and really enjoyed it, and
Speaker 3: Lionel Ritchie.
Speaker 4: Wishes that she was there. More just a cool detail.
Speaker 3: I really liked that scene, but I feel like it
Speaker 3: like introduces like one of those subplots that like she
Speaker 3: is looking for fulfillment outside the church and looking for
Speaker 3: like validation of her singing outside the church, but she
Speaker 3: doesn't get that, and everyone close to her, especially I
Speaker 3: mean definitely her husband, but also Dudley and her mom
Speaker 3: kind of like reinforced to her, like you should be
Speaker 3: happy with what you have, like that Dudley literally says
Speaker 3: that to her. He's saying, like everything you ever wanted,
Speaker 3: you already have, and it's like, well, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 3: several scenes ago she told you that's not true. Like
Speaker 3: I found it, like in the way that again, like
Speaker 3: the wife and mother box of like you're lucky to
Speaker 3: be in the place that you are, and it would
Speaker 3: be selfish to want more or different.
Speaker 7: It's important too that in that scene at the club,
Speaker 7: she's singing a secular song, she's not singing a song
Speaker 7: about God.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that is really important to the film. And that's yeah.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 7: I never really even realized how like instrumental that one
Speaker 7: scene is to giving us a little tease into who
Speaker 7: she was before.
Speaker 5: But that's true.
Speaker 7: And I always, my, well, my whole family is always like,
Speaker 7: she's not singing about God and this she's singing about
Speaker 7: her and Dudley.
Speaker 6: This is scandalous and crazy.
Speaker 4: But it's such a good song.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I love that song.
Speaker 2: I think that Henry kind of gets let off the
Speaker 2: hook a little too easily because, like I understand that
Speaker 2: he is a very important member of this community. A
Speaker 2: lot of people look to him for guidance and for
Speaker 2: assistance and all this kind of stuff. So he's very
Speaker 2: you know, busy running around, but he is like pretty
Speaker 2: actively neglecting his relationship with his partner. And like we said,
Speaker 2: like Marguerite is always on Julia's case about it. She's
Speaker 2: never on Henry's case to be like.
Speaker 3: Even though she doesn't like him, which is where like,
Speaker 3: why are you defending him so hard when you seem
Speaker 3: to actively dislike.
Speaker 2: Him, right, yeah, And she's like, well, you know, my
Speaker 2: husband was the same way, and that's just how it is.
Speaker 2: And it's like it doesn't.
Speaker 4: You hate him too, like you don't have to be
Speaker 4: nice to him.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Marguerite's always being like Julia, the responsibility is
Speaker 2: on you to like maintain this household and keep this
Speaker 2: family together, but like seems like she's doing all she can. Meanwhile, Henry,
Speaker 2: you know, he's doing his responsibilities around the community, but
Speaker 2: he also doesn't seem to be fully acknowledging that it's
Speaker 2: taking a toll on his marriage. And there's a scene
Speaker 2: where like I think they're eating breakfast together and he's
Speaker 2: like being snippy and he says something like, if you
Speaker 2: were listening more closely, you would have heard an apology
Speaker 2: in there, But now I have to go to a meeting,
Speaker 2: and it's like, well, you actually didn't apologize, which is
Speaker 2: why no one heard it. And then he like gets
Speaker 2: so and like I get it. He's like very threatened
Speaker 2: by Dudlin understandable. It's Denzel Washington. He's very handsome, and
Speaker 2: he's also actively seducing his wife, but he doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to take much accountability for their relationship, and I think
Speaker 2: by the end, he still doesn't fully recognize like, oh,
Speaker 2: I need to be a more present partner in this
Speaker 2: relationship and good thing that I don't know who Dudley
Speaker 2: is anymore, or else I would still probably be really jealous.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that's what's really missing from the movie,
Speaker 9: is like a full circle moment for Henry acknowledging, like
Speaker 9: a full accountability moment. Yeah, that's why I kind of
Speaker 9: ended being like I don't really have much hope for them,
Speaker 9: Like the church isn't sold yay, but like your marriage
Speaker 9: is still in the good And I think also, yeah,
Speaker 9: Henry is he.
Speaker 5: Gets off very easily.
Speaker 9: He's not only neglectful of his wife, but even his son.
Speaker 9: His son's ye best friend got sent to foster care.
Speaker 9: Like no conversation between the two of them. He keeps
Speaker 9: missing moments and appointments with his son, and like you
Speaker 9: don't see Marguerite saying anything about that, Like it's really
Speaker 9: very much focused on the marriage, and you know, poor
Speaker 9: little jeremiahs like sitting back witnessing all of this and
Speaker 9: getting the brunt of it in his own way by
Speaker 9: not having his dad present, for sure.
Speaker 4: And then has to remember all of it and no
Speaker 4: one else does.
Speaker 6: He's the only one with the trauma.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: I'm not convinced at the end of the movie that
Speaker 3: he's necessarily going to treat her better right now that
Speaker 3: everything's done. And also that doesn't make the work he's
Speaker 3: doing in his community any less important and he less impactful,
Speaker 3: any less taxing on your energy. But it feels like
Speaker 3: a very low bar to be like, Okay, so he's
Speaker 3: not going to sell her family's church to a land developer.
Speaker 4: You're like, that's a really low bar. Yeah, that shouldn't
Speaker 4: have been on the table.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he had did not sell the church. It was
Speaker 6: handed to you by your wife's family. It's true.
Speaker 2: Joe Hamilton, by the way, speaking of this land developer guy,
Speaker 2: I was like Joe Hamilton because black people can be
Speaker 2: bloodsucking real estate sharks. Too interesting.
Speaker 6: Also another iconic black actor.
Speaker 9: Oh my god, yeah, for sure, that is interesting. The
Speaker 9: choice of making the real estate vulture guy a black
Speaker 9: guy and he's from the community too, right, he seems
Speaker 9: very familiar. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder how that is done in the a. Again,
Speaker 3: like we didn't watch the original or read the original.
Speaker 3: I wonder if that is like a one to one
Speaker 3: thing from the original.
Speaker 4: Don't know the.
Speaker 2: Movie, and I think the book focuses more on the bishop.
Speaker 2: Bishop Henry is trying to raise money to build a
Speaker 2: huge cathedral for his overcrowded parish. So it's actually the
Speaker 2: bishop's idea to be like, let's build a huge church,
Speaker 2: rather than an outside like real estate developer coming in
Speaker 2: and trying to bring the bishop onto the mega church. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's a story change. I don't even know if
Speaker 2: there is a real estate developer character in the original
Speaker 2: source material anyway.
Speaker 3: Again, a very nineties choice, Like I it's like that
Speaker 3: is a main plot point in Casper.
Speaker 4: That was the main plot point.
Speaker 2: In like so many Save the Build, the Hannah Montana movie,
Speaker 2: Save the Building.
Speaker 4: Yeah, save the building. And it's like, I mean, in
Speaker 4: the case.
Speaker 3: Of this movie, in the case of all those movies, yeah,
Speaker 3: they had to save the building.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the stakes they're high. I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk a little bit more about Julia and Marguerite's relation. Actually,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like we maybe covered it.
Speaker 9: I do want to add though, like I love I
Speaker 9: love Jennifer Lewis. She has played so many mothers, so
Speaker 9: many black films.
Speaker 2: I love her character.
Speaker 5: She's terrible but also great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's always like I don't like to get into
Speaker 2: other people's business, and all she does is get into
Speaker 2: other people's.
Speaker 6: Everybody's up in the business.
Speaker 9: Yeah, smoking her cigarette in the house as the child's
Speaker 9: walking around.
Speaker 3: God bless, it's great. I also, I still am like
Speaker 3: brutal that they cast her as Whitney's mom when she
Speaker 3: is I can't say it enough, a mere six years older.
Speaker 4: Ridiculous than Whitney.
Speaker 3: She was born in fifty seven, Whitney was born in
Speaker 3: sixty three.
Speaker 4: That does happen every once in a while.
Speaker 3: I feel like that was a that was a big
Speaker 3: thing people talk about with Golden.
Speaker 4: Girls all the time too.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, is that like the mother daughter were unbelievably
Speaker 3: close in age, and you're like, oh, you're kind of
Speaker 3: roasting this other actor for no reason. But anyways, Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: Jennifer Lewis, it's like, I mean, it's not like you
Speaker 3: would want anyone else playing this part.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and she has.
Speaker 6: Just like strong black mom energy.
Speaker 9: She does.
Speaker 7: She has strong black mom energy, and she could really
Speaker 7: be a villainous in a great way. And she was
Speaker 7: a little bit of a villain in this film, I think, but.
Speaker 2: In a very like realistic, authentic fairly.
Speaker 9: Yeah, just like all up in their business, observing their
Speaker 9: marriage because she lives there, always wants to put her
Speaker 9: two cents in there, and then yeah, cracking down on
Speaker 9: her daughter for what's going on your house, like get
Speaker 9: it together. I taught you better than this. I wish
Speaker 9: she I mean, she's very authentic, so it is what
Speaker 9: it is. I wish she had a little bit more
Speaker 9: of like a harder stance against.
Speaker 5: Henry right yeah, and calling.
Speaker 9: Trying to hold him account, but more than just her daughter.
Speaker 9: I wish even just like one or two more lines
Speaker 9: about that would have been just add a little bit
Speaker 9: more balanced and have you know, someone else on Julia's team.
Speaker 9: But I think they wanted to keep her character very traditional,
Speaker 9: just like the focus daughter, your focus is on the household,
Speaker 9: Remember that that was what my focus was.
Speaker 5: Now I passed that on to you, right.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean it's like again, most of the women we've
Speaker 3: talked about, Like, there's certainly more that could have been
Speaker 3: done with her.
Speaker 4: Again, we could have given her a friend in the church.
Speaker 3: This is a community she's like been connected to for
Speaker 3: longer than anyone else in the movie.
Speaker 4: But they sort of were like, no, we're just gonna
Speaker 4: sort of.
Speaker 3: Have her scold witty Houston in the kitchen every twenty
Speaker 3: minutes or so.
Speaker 4: I liked her scene with Denzel that was fun.
Speaker 2: Oh, when she's like, walk me over to the neighbor's house,
Speaker 2: stay away from my daughter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like should they hook up? Like I'm open
Speaker 4: to what this looks like.
Speaker 6: Anybody?
Speaker 2: I mean, well, okay, when we first meet Marguerite, when
Speaker 2: Jeremiah's like giving voice over and like introducing all the
Speaker 2: main characters, he says something like and that's my grandma.
Speaker 2: Everyone says she needs a man, whatever that means, and
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, forgot I mean, god.
Speaker 6: It's so unnecessary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, another unnecessary dig.
Speaker 9: Like an unnecessary dig, but also a very true aside
Speaker 9: that we're in the church looking at.
Speaker 5: She's still single.
Speaker 9: We haven't hooked up with anybody yet. Again, what happened
Speaker 9: to the last one? Like that's also so true.
Speaker 2: And then I want to list off a few because
Speaker 2: horny angel representation is important. There's been a lot of
Speaker 2: horny angel erasure.
Speaker 4: Are there other horny angels? I can't think of another
Speaker 4: horny angel.
Speaker 2: And no, I'm saying that it's been nothing but erasure.
Speaker 4: Horness is beautiful and from Heaven, exactly right. It's why
Speaker 4: people exist.
Speaker 2: The scene where Dudley tells Julia to buy a neglige
Speaker 2: because he's like, oh my god, I would look so
Speaker 2: hot in this, Oh my god, for your husband, but
Speaker 2: it would be so hot.
Speaker 3: And she's like, I don't know, I'm looking for a
Speaker 3: present from my son. And he's like, oh, okay, never mind,
Speaker 3: never mind, never mind.
Speaker 4: The moment is passed.
Speaker 2: It's yeah. And then the scene towards the end where
Speaker 2: Dudley's looking at Julia and Henry's wedding photo and then
Speaker 2: he uses his like angel powers to replace Henry with
Speaker 2: his own image, and then God gets pissed off and
Speaker 2: like thunder happens, and he's like, sorry, maybe they'll reunite
Speaker 2: in heaven or purgatory or.
Speaker 4: I don't want to go to that version of heaven.
Speaker 2: Stress. Hope, yeah, I hope.
Speaker 9: He gets another assignment to come back somehow escapes.
Speaker 2: I also wanted to shout out Hans Zimmer wrote the
Speaker 2: score for this movie.
Speaker 7: Yeah wild really yeah, oh wow, wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 5: I mean, the music is amazing, Yeah it is. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: it makes sense. Wow.
Speaker 2: And then I also just to point out, like there
Speaker 2: are a handful of characters that make like fat phobic
Speaker 2: comments for jokes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that just.
Speaker 2: Feels very of the era for like casual fat phobia
Speaker 2: to be just so normal in a movie of this time.
Speaker 6: When did fat phobia stop in films?
Speaker 2: Never?
Speaker 7: Never?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's just still there.
Speaker 5: Cool, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, does anyone have anything else they want to
Speaker 2: talk about?
Speaker 9: I just thoroughly enjoyed watching this. I have to just
Speaker 9: like think about because this came out when nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 6: I was even just looking at everyone's career.
Speaker 9: At this time, Denzel had just won the Oscar for
Speaker 9: Glory mess supporting. We had got to see him as
Speaker 9: Malcolm X Philadelphia, like we know Denzel.
Speaker 6: Now and then you know twenty whatever thirty years later.
Speaker 9: But he was kind of I don't want to say
Speaker 9: up and coming, but he was still in the early
Speaker 9: stages of his career seem to see just to have
Speaker 9: that context. And then Whitney too, she was just in
Speaker 9: The Bodyguard. Courtney b Vance, I think had won a
Speaker 9: Tony already by now for Fences, Jennifer Lewis is in
Speaker 9: a million.
Speaker 5: Movies by now.
Speaker 9: The cast is just really impressive, like just so super stacked,
Speaker 9: especially now in twenty twenty three thinking about all these
Speaker 9: people's careers. Now, just how special of a movie it
Speaker 9: was to have this like ensemble black cast.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2: And even though I'm lukewarm on the Reverend Henry character,
Speaker 2: Courtney b vanced like his speech at the courthouse and
Speaker 2: then his sermon, especially at the very end of the movie,
Speaker 2: I was like, do I believe in God now? Like
Speaker 2: he's making a believer out of me.
Speaker 3: He's so good, especially at the end where it's like
Speaker 3: a four minute speech, where again the takeaway from that
Speaker 3: speech is that he's not going to have the church
Speaker 3: turned into a mall, And you're like the fact that
Speaker 3: this that's this powerful in spite.
Speaker 4: Of you doing so little. He's really impressive. The testament to.
Speaker 2: Him, Yeah, he's the one who convinces Joe Hamilton to
Speaker 2: not tear down the church, even though an angel had
Speaker 2: showed up the night before to be like, I'm going
Speaker 2: to send you to hell if you do this. But
Speaker 2: Joe Hamilton's still like there to be like, well, this
Speaker 2: is the last little sermon before I rip this place down,
Speaker 2: and then he's like, wait a minute, now that the
Speaker 2: reverend giving his sermon, it feels like that's what convinces
Speaker 2: him to change his mind.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think definitely as problematic as Henry's character is
Speaker 9: in being the neglectful husband, father, all this, I think
Speaker 9: his characters probably fully formed the best I think in
Speaker 9: terms of he really does a great job or maybe
Speaker 9: the writing is a great job of showing him as
Speaker 9: like the black lead of the church and how how
Speaker 9: much they really belong to the community, and that struggle
Speaker 9: of yeah, he has a life as kids, but he
Speaker 9: also belongs to everybody else, and the seeing him kind
Speaker 9: of drowning in that I empathize with him as terrible
Speaker 9: as he is as a.
Speaker 5: Husband and so many other things.
Speaker 9: You can see his exhaustion of like I just want
Speaker 9: to sit down and maybe yeah, I just want to
Speaker 9: be a family man, but instead I belong to everybody
Speaker 9: in the community.
Speaker 5: And I think Corney B.
Speaker 9: Vance does a great job at bringing that and the
Speaker 9: writing brings a great job of bringing that to life.
Speaker 9: I wish, obviously we could have saw more of that
Speaker 9: out of Whitney's character as the wife of that person,
Speaker 9: because that is a whole other lived experience, being the
Speaker 9: first lady of a big church. So that's what's disappointed.
Speaker 9: Particularly so it's called the Preacher's wife, and you would
Speaker 9: hope that we could see more her story. But I
Speaker 9: will give Corney b. Vance and his character that credit.
Speaker 9: That felt very I was able to empathize with him
Speaker 9: on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, that was a question I had as far
Speaker 2: as because this is a movie adapted from two different
Speaker 2: kind of source materials, both properties. You know, the the
Speaker 2: nineteen forty seven movie cast creative minds behind that All
Speaker 2: White People. The novel Oh Yeah, came out in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty eight, again by Robert Nathan. He's a sephardic two
Speaker 2: he I assumed, because this movie again feels very authentic.
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, this must just be like an original,
Speaker 2: unadapted thing. But to learn that it was adapted from
Speaker 2: source materials that were not written and created by black
Speaker 2: creators and because this particular movie, Preacher's Wife, was written
Speaker 2: and directed by white filmmakers. Is there anything that feels
Speaker 2: like inauthentic to these black characters, the black community, the
Speaker 2: black experience, or does it feel like they pretty much
Speaker 2: nailed it, because that's always a concern I have where
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, a black cast.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but the top creative voices money.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a great question. I think they nailed it.
Speaker 7: Honestly, I was gonna say no, even the landlord's character him,
Speaker 7: it's actually really important that he was from the hood
Speaker 7: and acts like that.
Speaker 1: M hmm.
Speaker 6: That's actually like a.
Speaker 7: Really common thing that I think happens across many ethnicities,
Speaker 7: but definitely in the black community. Or once you get money,
Speaker 7: you're just willing to step on whoever, because you can't
Speaker 7: go back. You can't even imagine going back to the
Speaker 7: place that you came from. So yeah, I would say
Speaker 7: nothing's really missing, which is remarkable.
Speaker 4: I mean, Natasha, you said it earlier too.
Speaker 3: It's like, I'm sure that Denzel Washington's production company being
Speaker 3: so like integral to this movie getting made.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 3: And Denzel Washing did like made good on that statement
Speaker 3: he made in ninety six of like centering black characters
Speaker 3: and getting black creatives involved. I was looking over just
Speaker 3: the roster of movies that he's produced or his production company.
Speaker 4: Has made over the years, and it's like, awesome.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I would not have guessed this was written and
Speaker 9: directed by white people.
Speaker 4: Never.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I would not. Though I was surprised when I
Speaker 9: read that, was like, oh yeah, that was after the fact.
Speaker 9: So yeah, I think they definitely nailed it for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, good to know.
Speaker 3: Also, annual shout out to how many classic Christmas songs
Speaker 3: and stories are written by Jewish people.
Speaker 4: It's like, That's Wild.
Speaker 3: Irving Berlin, White Christmas, the Christmas song read Off the
Speaker 3: Red Nose Reindeer, Silver Bells, Winter Wonderland, I'll Be Home
Speaker 3: for Christmas, all written by Jewish composers.
Speaker 9: Yeah, wow, shout out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's one of my favorite facts to visit
Speaker 3: every Christmas.
Speaker 4: Cool. But does this movie pass the Bechdel test?
Speaker 2: I think it does. Between Julia and Marguerite, in a
Speaker 2: small handful of exchanges, they are usually talking about Henry
Speaker 2: or Dudley or Jeremiah, but I think there's an exchange
Speaker 2: where in the context of this conversation is still like
Speaker 2: Marguerite being like, you need to get your household under control,
Speaker 2: and Julia doesn't want to hear it, so she's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: you can watch me leave and you can look at
Speaker 2: my behind. She like, I gave you that behind. So
Speaker 2: they're talking about Whitney Houston's butt and that does cast.
Speaker 4: And that's an important exchange. Yeah, it actually is for
Speaker 4: their relationship. So it does pass. It does I mean,
Speaker 4: like this whole conversation speaks to you.
Speaker 3: I think there were plenty of opportunities for the women
Speaker 3: in this story to interact more and have more meaningful relationships.
Speaker 4: So even though it does pass, I would say, like
Speaker 4: spiritually not a very strong pass.
Speaker 3: We could be ahead and way more women talking to
Speaker 3: each other, for sure. But what about the world's most
Speaker 3: important metric which we made up.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the nipple scale, our scale of zero to
Speaker 2: five nipples where we examine the movie through an intersectional
Speaker 2: feminist lens. I would give this.
Speaker 9: Man.
Speaker 2: I wish I could go higher, but I feel like
Speaker 2: I could only give it like two nipples because while well,
Speaker 2: it does feel like it really represents the black community
Speaker 2: in the Black church authentically I wished for so much
Speaker 2: more for the Julia character. I wished for more from
Speaker 2: Loretta Divine's character, but again, especially Julia, where the movies
Speaker 2: called the Preacher's wife in theory, it should be kind
Speaker 2: of her doing more stuff and being able to make
Speaker 2: more active choices, and instead she again just ends up
Speaker 2: kind of being the object of affection of Dudley the Angel,
Speaker 2: Dudley the horny Angel.
Speaker 3: And so sing that to the tune of Rudolph the
Speaker 3: redne wants to buy you Launcher Ray.
Speaker 2: He will take you ice skating. Okay, So the relationship
Speaker 2: between Julia and her husband Henry just feels like there's
Speaker 2: not nearly as much of an arc as I would
Speaker 2: have wanted, because she's putting in all of the effort
Speaker 2: into their relationship and to like being a parent to
Speaker 2: their child, and Henry is kind of neglecting his family
Speaker 2: unit and paying way more attention to the community, which
Speaker 2: of course is important, but like he needs to find
Speaker 2: a balance and I don't think he does by the
Speaker 2: end of the movie, and that makes me feel really
Speaker 2: sad for Julia. But the movie ends on a note
Speaker 2: of like, no, everything's fine now, and I'm like, but
Speaker 2: is it okay, so and again, I just found Julia
Speaker 2: to be underdeveloped. I wish she had just more of
Speaker 2: an exterior life and just we knew more about her
Speaker 2: and what her hopes and dreams were, you know, outside
Speaker 2: of her relationship. But you know, I love to watch
Speaker 2: Whitney Houston sing. I loved watch Jennifer Lewis.
Speaker 4: Which is ultimately what this movie is.
Speaker 2: All of my would really basically, if you take out
Speaker 2: the singing scenes, the movies forty five minutes long. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I just there was a lot to be desired for me,
Speaker 2: for Julia's character. So I'll go with two nipples, and
Speaker 2: I will give one to the late great Whitney Houston,
Speaker 2: and I'll give the other to We'll split the other
Speaker 2: between Jennifer Lewis and Loretta Divine Nice.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go a little higher. I'm gonna go I'm
Speaker 3: gonna go three. I think that for all the reasons
Speaker 3: we discussed, this movie is not in spite of the title.
Speaker 4: I feel like we see this pretty often.
Speaker 3: In spite of the title, is not actually a movie
Speaker 3: about a woman. It's kind of a movie about two
Speaker 3: men and how they feel about this woman. We are
Speaker 3: not really clued into how Julia feels at length at
Speaker 3: any point, and I think that her take away at
Speaker 3: the end of the movie being like, you should be happy,
Speaker 3: you should be satisfied with what you have.
Speaker 4: Merry Christmas is like.
Speaker 3: A little bit grim And just the fact that there's
Speaker 3: so many talented black women in this movie and we
Speaker 3: don't really get to see them be around each other,
Speaker 3: which again, like especially at the lack of Loretta Divine
Speaker 3: in Whitney Houston the year after Waiting to Exhale, it
Speaker 3: just boggles the mind.
Speaker 4: But there's a lot that this movie has going for.
Speaker 3: It that is like extremely like a step forward in
Speaker 3: the Christmas movie genre at all. Having a huge movie
Speaker 3: center and all black cast, I think, especially at this
Speaker 3: point in time, was like really cool, especially because Denzel
Speaker 3: Washington was so integral in making it happen and having
Speaker 3: his production company involved.
Speaker 4: This movie is directed by a woman. You don't see
Speaker 4: that very often still Yep.
Speaker 3: Granted, Penny Marshall is obviously a white women, but you
Speaker 3: still you don't see women directing big budget movies frequently
Speaker 3: at now and so, and also I'm maybe sliding up
Speaker 3: the rating a little bit because Whitney Houston wasn't in
Speaker 3: many movies, and I treasure each and every one of them,
Speaker 3: even though Brandy Cinderella is still the best hole.
Speaker 6: Dam I was just gonna say, we watched that this weekend.
Speaker 4: I feel like that has the energy of a holiday movie.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to give this three nipples.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give one to Whitney, I will give
Speaker 3: one to Jennifer Luke. No, I'm going to give one
Speaker 3: to Lara Divine, and then I'm going to give the
Speaker 3: last one to Sissy Houston, Whitney's mom.
Speaker 9: Nice, Nice, Okay, I can go. I'm going to go
Speaker 9: right in the middle. Give it two and a half nimmals.
Speaker 9: I think, yeah, similar to what you just said, Jamie.
Speaker 9: It just feels like such a regression post Waiting to Exhale,
Speaker 9: which was such a powerful movie for women, for black women.
Speaker 9: To see Whitney and Loretta in particular being so underutilized
Speaker 9: when we know their potential.
Speaker 5: Was probably the.
Speaker 6: Most disappointing element of the movie.
Speaker 9: I will give a nipple to just a collective nipple
Speaker 9: for like the great cast of beautiful, powerful black women,
Speaker 9: again sadly underutilized, but just so appreciate their presence. Just
Speaker 9: being iconic and just being in this movie altogether is
Speaker 9: really special. I'd give one, definitely to Whitney for providing
Speaker 9: us this amazing album that we are all still bumping
Speaker 9: every Christmas one probably so the end of time. And
Speaker 9: then I'll give my half two. Oh, I guess I
Speaker 9: gave one to Whinny al ready. But I was gonna
Speaker 9: say for Julia's character getting to have even just a
Speaker 9: tiny dense el valliance and take back a little bit
Speaker 9: of power, even if it was just a smidge, I'm
Speaker 9: gonna give it to her.
Speaker 4: Light a light they're doing.
Speaker 2: In the ice skating scene, they're like they onto each other.
Speaker 6: And yeah, it's nice, Yeah it's nice. I shout out
Speaker 6: to her for that.
Speaker 7: But I'm gonna give three nipples. I agree with everything
Speaker 7: that you guys said, but I do think that there
Speaker 7: is a world where we could remake this film where
Speaker 7: the gospel choir goes to the McDonald's gospel fest and
Speaker 7: wins a million dollars and that's how they save the
Speaker 7: building the church, and we can get Hamilton out of here,
Speaker 7: and we could just get the character out of here,
Speaker 7: and we can just make Whitney be the savior of
Speaker 7: the church for her father and for her husband. She
Speaker 7: could be like, y'all can't live without me, bam, I
Speaker 7: think we should make another one.
Speaker 9: We could do that, Yeah, like you keep all the
Speaker 9: choir and the dance team.
Speaker 6: Yes, be so good.
Speaker 7: So the fact that there's room for that, I love it.
Speaker 7: I'm going to give one nipple to Whitney. I'm gonna
Speaker 7: give one to Penny Marshall because as she is a
Speaker 7: white woman working on a black film, there haven't been
Speaker 7: many white directors working with black production companies. So I
Speaker 7: applaud her for that and I'm sure she had to
Speaker 7: do a lot of research and it shows.
Speaker 6: So thank you, Pammy.
Speaker 7: And then I'm going to give one to Loretta Divine
Speaker 7: for being the best, Yes, the best.
Speaker 2: Well, Natasha and Justine, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 2: us for this wonderful discussion and come back anytime. Oh
Speaker 2: my god son, where can people check out your podcast?
Speaker 2: Tell us more about it? How do people follow you online?
Speaker 2: Et cetera.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So we're two black girls, one Rose. You can
Speaker 9: find us everywhere podcasts are found. We primarily cover reality
Speaker 9: dating shows. We are currently covering the real Housewives of Potomac, which.
Speaker 5: Is a good mess.
Speaker 6: It's really deep dive into female friendship.
Speaker 7: It was gonna say it's very feminist of all the
Speaker 7: Housewives franchises.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so a little bit of dating and relationships and marriage,
Speaker 9: but we're definitely deep diving into just like sisterhood and
Speaker 9: themes of female friendship. We've been covering The Bachelor for
Speaker 9: the past six years. We currently wrapping up Golden Bachelor
Speaker 9: and Bachelor in Paradise, which we do in our Patreon, Patreon,
Speaker 9: dot com slash Two Black Girls, One Rose for all
Speaker 9: all our video and special bonus content, and yeah, find
Speaker 9: us on all social media platforms.
Speaker 5: Two Black Girls, One Rose amazing.
Speaker 2: Have you, either for the show or just in your
Speaker 2: personal lives watch the dating show Naked Attraction.
Speaker 6: No, I can't with the de robing dating shows that
Speaker 6: the sibling in.
Speaker 4: The line needs to be drawn something.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's my new obsession I love.
Speaker 9: Oh my god, I need to give it as it's
Speaker 9: a UK Yeah, where people get naked and you see everything.
Speaker 2: They're not blurring things out. There's lots you're seeing. All
Speaker 2: you're seeing dicks, all you're seeing.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, all you're saying, but I was.
Speaker 2: Like, no, it's on HBO.
Speaker 9: Oh okay, he's getting recommended.
Speaker 6: I'm a fan, he's getting recommended.
Speaker 5: He's getting recommended. Like, you don't watch that one. No,
Speaker 5: I've been actually avoiding it.
Speaker 4: Everyone not die of exposure.
Speaker 2: That's like, yeah, I mean they're indoors, so it's I'm
Speaker 2: sure it's warm in any case. Thank you again so
Speaker 2: much for being here as our guests. You can follow
Speaker 2: us on Instagram mostly these days. At Bechtel Cast. You
Speaker 2: can subscribe to our patreons Matreon at patreon dot com
Speaker 2: slash spectrol Cast. You get two bonus episodes every month,
Speaker 2: plus access to the entire back catalog, all for five
Speaker 2: dollars a month.
Speaker 3: And you can get our merch over at teapublic dot
Speaker 3: com slash the Bechdel Cast. And with that, let's let
Speaker 3: Denzel Washington men in black style, wide bar brains and
Speaker 3: go about our Christmas with our lives completely unchanged.
Speaker 4: Did he even do a good job?
Speaker 2: We don't know, or was he just horny? We'll never know?
Speaker 6: All right, Bye bye.
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 2: Caitlin Dorante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 2: by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Speaker 2: Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosenski. Our logo and merch
Speaker 2: is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
Speaker 2: Aristotle US. For more information about the podcast, please visit
Speaker 2: Linktree Slash Bechtelcast