Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's a patriarchy, zeph and
Speaker 1: vest start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Hey, Caitlin, do you want this donut? By the way,
Speaker 2: I don't respect women.
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, I want a donut, but not from
Speaker 3: someone who doesn't. Oh wait, what does she say? I
Speaker 3: forget what Vanessa says in that me.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I read it. I donate donuts with
Speaker 2: boys who exploit women. This is what she says. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's my response to you, and the world shook
Speaker 2: on its axis in that moment when that sentence was
Speaker 2: written down. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is
Speaker 2: Jamie Loftis, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Caitlin Dronte, and this is our show where
Speaker 3: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Speaker 3: Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate
Speaker 3: larger conversations about representation. Jamie, what is the Bechdel Test?
Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you please, just as we have
Speaker 2: for many years, so many the bechel test is a
Speaker 2: media metric originally created by where cartoonist Alison Bechtel and
Speaker 2: her amazing collection likes to Watch out for. It is
Speaker 2: often called the Bechdel Wallace test because it was co
Speaker 2: created with her friend Liz Wallace. Lots of versions of
Speaker 2: this test. It was originally created as a bit, but
Speaker 2: it has sort of become a very prominent media metric.
Speaker 2: We're going to be talking about a lot of media
Speaker 2: metrics today. The version of the Bechdel test that we
Speaker 2: use requires that there be two characters of a marginalized
Speaker 2: gender with names who speak to each other about something
Speaker 2: other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue,
Speaker 2: and it should be plot relevant. Nothing like Hi, do
Speaker 2: you want a cappuccino? No, although in this movie that
Speaker 2: can be plot relevant. It depends.
Speaker 3: It's sort of important to the story.
Speaker 2: What is the obscenity judge quote that I can never remember?
Speaker 2: I know it when I see it?
Speaker 3: Oh about porn? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yes, anyways, let's move let's move forward.
Speaker 3: Yes, So today we have such an exciting guest. We're
Speaker 3: so happy to finally have her on the show. She's
Speaker 3: a Nigerian American writer, culture critic, former columnist, and author
Speaker 3: of the book Fat Off Fat on a Big Bitch Manifesto.
Speaker 3: You've seen a writing featured in outlets like Entertainment Weekly, Essence,
Speaker 3: Glamdam Paper, b Et, huff Post, MTV News, The Route,
Speaker 3: and many many more. She's also the creator and co
Speaker 3: creator of a number of different media tests that we're
Speaker 3: also going to talk about. It's Clarkisha Kent. Well, Oh.
Speaker 4: Y'all doing good?
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 4: I am good? I'm good. It's a long Monday.
Speaker 3: Yes, it truly is. It's raining very heavily in La
Speaker 3: right now, and I feel like the loud rain noises
Speaker 3: are going to pick up on my microphone.
Speaker 2: It's an ASMR episode. You know, we're gonna make do Carcasia.
Speaker 2: We're so excited to have you on the show. We've
Speaker 2: talked about the Kent Test on the show before and
Speaker 2: you've just been like, I guess we have been hoping
Speaker 2: to talk with forever. So thank you for being here, Thank.
Speaker 4: You for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm very excited.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're excited to have you. And yeah, tell us
Speaker 3: more about the Kent test and then the test that
Speaker 3: you co created with Sydney skuy G The Kelly and
Speaker 3: kat test.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so can test is you know straightforward.
Speaker 5: I would say it's a spiritual sister to the bagdel test,
Speaker 5: like it's aiming for the same thing, right, Like, hey,
Speaker 5: you I.
Speaker 4: Hate women.
Speaker 5: Very obvious, but you know I like to say that
Speaker 5: Americans like obvious things fed back to them. Right, So
Speaker 5: you can say, for example, racism is bad, and black
Speaker 5: people in healthcare and suffer a lot because racism is bad,
Speaker 5: They won't believe you to come back. We just feeds
Speaker 5: the paper to say, hey, we interviewed like twenty black
Speaker 5: people and they said racism is bad and healthcare. You
Speaker 5: know you need something on paper an the headline. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I use something on paper, right, So for me, that's
Speaker 5: what it was like. We know that media hates women,
Speaker 5: they treat us poorly, et cetera, et cetera, Right, but
Speaker 5: like when you don't have it on paper, it's easier
Speaker 5: for folks to gats like you.
Speaker 4: So that's what the contest was kind of born out of. Right.
Speaker 5: So it was like specifically, you know, I wanted to
Speaker 5: focus on black women for first and foremost, but also
Speaker 5: tangentially women of color, right, So.
Speaker 4: I was like, hey, our repen media is very terrible.
Speaker 5: And while I'm very iffy, like I wrote my book about,
Speaker 5: you know, representation matters because we're you know, we're in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four now, We're not in like Obama.
Speaker 4: Era resentation of politics.
Speaker 5: Right, It's still one of those things where, like for better,
Speaker 5: for worse, media will very much influence a public perception
Speaker 5: of certain people, certain groups, et cetera. Right, So that's
Speaker 5: what the cantest is for. I was like, hey, they
Speaker 5: portray us poorly. This happened actually very far reaching consequences
Speaker 5: for us. So I was like, I'm gonna get this
Speaker 5: on paper and I'm gonna walk through different pieces. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna make it accessible so that other people can use
Speaker 5: it right beyond me, right, and be like, hey, no,
Speaker 5: I watched this thing.
Speaker 4: Even though it's my favorite movie.
Speaker 5: I noticed like they treated this black female character really
Speaker 5: bad and it loved the bad taste in my mouth.
Speaker 5: But I didn't know how to say until you know, again,
Speaker 5: I've had this piece of paper in front of me.
Speaker 5: So the test actually was born out of what happened
Speaker 5: to Nicobahari and Sleepy Hollow.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, we've talked about that on the episode we
Speaker 3: did on Miss genteenth. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Actually, the especially the very last practeria on the test
Speaker 5: talks about it in terms of like turning a black
Speaker 5: female character into a sacrifice in a way that honestly
Speaker 5: on characteristic of them. Like, yeah, it was very ugly,
Speaker 5: and like after that happened, I was like, all right, I'm.
Speaker 4: Gonna I'm gonna put this on paper. So that's kind
Speaker 4: of what happened.
Speaker 5: Obviously, you know, when we get into you like the
Speaker 5: medium will look at today we can go over the
Speaker 5: requirements of the tests. But you know who was born
Speaker 5: out of and for the Killing Cat Test again spiritual
Speaker 5: cousin to the Can Test. I created with Sydney Skatje,
Speaker 5: who's a prominent fat the British activist.
Speaker 4: I consider them a great friend. It's fucking funny too.
Speaker 5: So the test was born out of once again very
Speaker 5: poor presentation for fat people media. Once again focusing on women,
Speaker 5: but you know also other marginalized genders.
Speaker 4: In this case, we did want to.
Speaker 5: Include white women because the fat rep for them is
Speaker 5: also not great. Now again my focus is going to
Speaker 5: be you know, black women are women of color, but
Speaker 5: I'm gonna include that too because some of the media
Speaker 5: is very ugly, especially if y'all remember because we liked
Speaker 5: the same age early two thousands media very bad, very bad,
Speaker 5: very bad for us, very bad.
Speaker 4: It was very bad.
Speaker 2: The shallow how era, yeah, is very very dark.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The name points to specifically more recent fat characters, which
Speaker 5: would be like Kelly Fort Insecure and Cap from Euphoria. Yeah,
Speaker 5: a lot of it was there, a similar similar overlap
Speaker 5: to the Kent tests, but like also like hyper specific
Speaker 5: stuff that goes into you know, styling for fat characters,
Speaker 5: which is really important to close it. They put us
Speaker 5: in right, Yeah, our family dynamics, our relationships, very particular
Speaker 5: tropes too, so we tried to go into a little
Speaker 5: more detail. But yeah, that was born last year, like
Speaker 5: I want to say, right before that, my book came out,
Speaker 5: so that this was fun, It was fun nice.
Speaker 2: And what is the public response to both of the tests, Bennet?
Speaker 2: It seems I mean, like I know that the second
Speaker 2: test is newer, but the Kent test I feel like
Speaker 2: it's just like a part of film discussion now, like
Speaker 2: it does make a marked difference.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it because it came out in twenty eighteen, which
Speaker 5: was the year Black Fans There came out. So that
Speaker 5: was actually the movie I graded on it and the
Speaker 5: second with Widows.
Speaker 4: Both guys loved that.
Speaker 5: I loved that for me, right, and you know, it's
Speaker 5: definitely evolved because I remember I published it in conjunction
Speaker 5: with my Quality for Her Who's run By I think
Speaker 5: Claramony at the time, and you know, it was part
Speaker 5: of a larger package, right, but the testa so just
Speaker 5: kind of took on a life of its own. It's
Speaker 5: just like, okay, well I'm the star here, I'm Beyonce
Speaker 5: of this thing, so.
Speaker 4: I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: But just god took off.
Speaker 5: So it also came out on International Women's Day, so
Speaker 5: I think that helped to like with the black profile.
Speaker 5: So since then, like you said, it is out there.
Speaker 5: You know, people talk about it, you know, shows like this.
Speaker 5: I've seen it come up in different like articles, journals,
Speaker 5: I see it pop up in people's dissertations, you know,
Speaker 5: and like you know, like high school, high school, middle school,
Speaker 5: you know, classrooms will also like college classrooms, like very
Speaker 5: sophisticated people drawing theory alongside the test. So that's been
Speaker 5: definitely interesting, very humbling. So I'm just like, wow, they
Speaker 5: got pretty far.
Speaker 3: So that's incredible.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm happy about that because we have to give
Speaker 5: people the tools to do better. And that was also
Speaker 5: an important part of the test too, because you know,
Speaker 5: I know that people are like, you give it numbers
Speaker 5: instead of like a past failed thing. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 5: because it's not about past fail It's about I mean,
Speaker 5: if you fail, then we obviously still got talked.
Speaker 4: Right, But it's not about that.
Speaker 5: It's about the fact that, like, you need to notice
Speaker 5: your own biases, right, Like I got my own right.
Speaker 5: Everybody has them, and I think refusing to name them
Speaker 5: makes it worse, you know, it makes it worse less
Speaker 5: and fester. So that's what the test was about, Like, yeah,
Speaker 5: you can have all the goodwill, you.
Speaker 4: Can have all the great intentions, like trying to make.
Speaker 5: What diverse characters I put in quotations for obvious reasons, Right,
Speaker 5: there was characters, But like if I go watch them
Speaker 5: and they're like some of the worst stereotypical characters anyone
Speaker 5: can come up with, then your attention doesn't really mean anything, right.
Speaker 3: Right, exactly. Yeah, inclusion doesn't automatically mean that it's good inclusion.
Speaker 3: It's still a matter of like making sure that it's
Speaker 3: meaningful and handled responsibly. That's something I really appreciate about
Speaker 3: the Kent Test is how thorough it is and how
Speaker 3: many different criteria you use to evaluate, because, as we
Speaker 3: often talk about on this show, like the Bechdel Test
Speaker 3: is a useful tool for the basis of a very
Speaker 3: very basic conversation. You know, it can springboard into other conversations,
Speaker 3: but it's very baseline. And people seem to still have
Speaker 3: a misunderstanding about its role in our show, and I
Speaker 3: get it. We did accidentally name the show after it,
Speaker 3: but it.
Speaker 2: Was like, twenty sixteen. Can't be held accountable for what
Speaker 2: I did in twenty sixteen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, truly. The people will be like, oh, so you
Speaker 3: must have liked that movie because it passed to the
Speaker 3: Bechdel Test, right, And I'm like, what, No, not like
Speaker 3: it's not like the be All end. So I appreciate
Speaker 3: how thorough the Kent Test is and its examination of media, and.
Speaker 2: The Kent Test is very relevant to the movie we're
Speaker 2: talking about today. We are covering the two thousand and
Speaker 2: five and boy is it two thousand and five movie
Speaker 2: Beauty Shop, a Queen Latifa vehicle, directed by Billy Woodruff,
Speaker 2: written by Kate Lanier and Norman Vance Junior Klarkisha, what
Speaker 2: is your history with this movie?
Speaker 5: First of all, it's you know, it's a Queen Latifa movie,
Speaker 5: and I love Queenlatifa. I would like watch her absolutely anything.
Speaker 5: Is she's a special Where she was describing like paying
Speaker 5: drying on a wall, I would be there because she's
Speaker 5: very talented, and you know, this is one of her
Speaker 5: earlier movies and all over it to lie it was
Speaker 5: a spinoff of you know, the Barbershop movies, and I'm
Speaker 5: actually quite we didn't get no sequel or you know,
Speaker 5: third way, we didn't get into that, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: I know, So it's a very formative movie for me too, because,
Speaker 5: like I said, you know, early two thousands, Fat Rep
Speaker 5: was horrendous, honestly a comm against humanity. And you know,
Speaker 5: so there's some people out there that only some money
Speaker 5: for therapy bills behind that kind of era. But you know,
Speaker 5: Queen Latie for that era is very important because she
Speaker 5: was like I don't gonna want to even say unintentionally,
Speaker 5: because I feel like when black women do stuff, it's
Speaker 5: always intentional, even if it's like very understated. So for her,
Speaker 5: I feel like she functioned that eras like this like
Speaker 5: countercultural thing, like okay, y'all trying to make sad people
Speaker 5: look bad, you want us to feel bad, et cetera,
Speaker 5: et cetera. No, that's not what I'm here for someone
Speaker 5: to put out these movies because she had that, she
Speaker 5: had the last Holiday. There's a couple of other ones.
Speaker 5: It's not more problematic than others. But you know, you know,
Speaker 5: she put out these movies. She had these these interesting fashions.
Speaker 4: She always casts these hot asthmen as her love instruments. Yes,
Speaker 4: it was really great, So I'm.
Speaker 5: Just gonna be a special place in my heart. And yeah,
Speaker 5: it also was for me super enjoyable. But because like
Speaker 5: people that you would have never die of showing up
Speaker 5: in the movie, like there's her diamond, Afy Woodard.
Speaker 4: Then you got Andy McDowell, then you got Kevin By.
Speaker 5: Kevin went movies for fun, you know when they were fun.
Speaker 4: Haven't fun?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yes, we have like a child rapper little JJ.
Speaker 2: I mean we have this movie has everything. It has
Speaker 2: Octavia Spencer in a very small role before she was
Speaker 2: really famous. Like, yeah, this movie really put me in
Speaker 2: such a specific place. I was like I am in
Speaker 2: seventh grade and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie.
Speaker 2: I feel like we've covered a lot of these movies
Speaker 2: and the show recently. This was a sleepover movie for me.
Speaker 2: I've seen it at a number of sleepovers in middle school.
Speaker 2: I feel like it was on TV a lot as
Speaker 2: well later on. I haven't seen a second Barbershop movie
Speaker 2: where I know Gena's character is introduced, so I cannot
Speaker 2: speak to the Barbershop expanded universe, but I've seen the
Speaker 2: first Barbershop movie and then yeah, Beauty Shop. I feel
Speaker 2: like it was just an obvious pick because it's two
Speaker 2: thousand and five and it's a Queen Latifa movie, so
Speaker 2: I was really excited about it. Hadn't seen it in
Speaker 2: easily a decade, probably more before getting ready for this episode,
Speaker 2: and I was like, what do I remember about this movie?
Speaker 2: I remember Alfrey Woodard starting to recite Phenomenal Woman at
Speaker 2: the drop of a hat, and I remember little JJ,
Speaker 2: the child rapper, because I think I was like, he's
Speaker 2: cute and everything else I forgot, So I I it
Speaker 2: was a fun revisit ed. There's this shit little stuff
Speaker 2: to talk about, but it's nostalgic. It feels like you're saying, Clerkisha,
Speaker 2: like this movie is you know, flawed, but it's fun.
Speaker 2: It's like I just I really enjoyed it. I also
Speaker 2: did not realize it was Kevin Bacon until like a
Speaker 2: half hour in. Yes, I was like.
Speaker 5: Once we used to have fun these movies. I love
Speaker 5: that we can't do that now.
Speaker 2: Like I Kevin Veagan, would he take on these highlights now?
Speaker 2: I know? And I think like Kevin Bacon and Queen
Speaker 2: Latifa right now are on like crime procedurals, like they're not.
Speaker 2: Let's get Beauty Shop too. I don't need the crime
Speaker 2: procedurals anyways, Kitlyn, what's your history with Beauty Shop and
Speaker 2: the Barbershop Expanded Universe?
Speaker 3: Pretty brief? I had never seen Beauty Shop before prepping
Speaker 3: for this episode. I had seen the first barber Shop,
Speaker 3: but that's kind of where it begins and ends. So
Speaker 3: I've seen Beauty Shop twice now, and I also rewatched
Speaker 3: Barber Shop just to see kind of how the two compare.
Speaker 3: If there was any like notable things to say, I
Speaker 3: have a couple thoughts on it, but yeah, other than that,
Speaker 3: I hadn't seen it. But I do love Queen Latifa soul.
Speaker 3: It's always a pleasure to watch her. We just covered
Speaker 3: Valentine's Day, in which she has a very small role
Speaker 3: that it like does not do her justice at all.
Speaker 3: So it was a breath of fresh air to be
Speaker 3: able to actually like watch her in a starring role
Speaker 3: and just see all the talent that she has to offer.
Speaker 2: She's the best. I was trying to think of if
Speaker 2: there's other franchises. I feel like this has definitely happened,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't think of one off the top of
Speaker 2: my head where there was like a very male centered
Speaker 2: franchise like Barbershop. And I say this with love because
Speaker 2: I really love this movie. Like they kind of missus
Speaker 2: pac Man the spinoff where they're like, here's girl this
Speaker 2: movie you.
Speaker 3: Like Ocean's eight from the Oceans eleven, twelve, and thirteen franchise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a thing. It's a thing, and we should
Speaker 2: have had two of them.
Speaker 4: Truly, me is a better movie.
Speaker 5: I agree, there's still like some problematic aspects obviously, but
Speaker 5: like in comparison to Barbershop, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, So let's take a quick break.
Speaker 3: We'll come back for the recap and then we'll discuss.
Speaker 3: So we'll be right back and we're back all right.
Speaker 3: So here is the recap for Beauty Shop two thousand
Speaker 3: and five. We are in Atlanta. We meet Gina that's
Speaker 3: Queen Latifa's character, and her daughter Vanessa played by Paige Heard.
Speaker 3: They live with Gina's mother in law, Paulette played by
Speaker 3: Laura Hayes, and her daughter Darnell played by Kisha Knight Polliam.
Speaker 3: She's in her twenties, I think. And we see Gina
Speaker 3: drop her daughter Vanessa off at a private arts school,
Speaker 3: and then Gina goes to work at a beauty salon
Speaker 3: owned by a man named Horror. And this is Kevin
Speaker 3: Bacon like you've never seen or heard him.
Speaker 6: Before or since, I don't think, I think not yeah,
Speaker 6: And his thing is that he's very shitty and condescending
Speaker 6: to Gina, and Gina has aspirations of owning her own
Speaker 6: beauty shop.
Speaker 3: She also makes her own special hair conditioner that one
Speaker 3: of her clients, Joanne played by Mina Suvari, just swears by.
Speaker 3: She also uses this conditioner on another client, Terry played
Speaker 3: by Andy McDowell, and they're loving this homemade conditioner. We
Speaker 3: also meet Gina's colleague Lynn, played by Alicia Silverstone who
Speaker 3: wants to be a stylist, but right now her job
Speaker 3: at Jorges Salon is to shampoo the clients. So everyone
Speaker 3: wants much more than this provincial life.
Speaker 2: Basically, as I was watching this, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: I don't understand stand how hair salons work. I was like,
Speaker 2: is shampoo a job? I didn't realize.
Speaker 3: I've only ever been shampooed by the same person who
Speaker 3: then like cuts or styles my hair, so I didn't
Speaker 3: know that was a separate job.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's like, if you have enough money, there's someone
Speaker 2: whose job is just shampoo. I don't know. My hair
Speaker 2: looks like shit, Like I just don't know. No, it doesn't, Jamie, Well,
Speaker 2: it's okay, I accept it, but it does.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right. Then we see a scene where Gina's daughter,
Speaker 3: Vanessa plays piano. She's prepping for an upcoming recital. We
Speaker 3: learned that Vanessa's dad used to play, but he has
Speaker 3: passed away, so Gina is a widow. Back at the salon,
Speaker 3: Jorge gets upset with Gina about something unreasonable, and she's
Speaker 3: had enough of him, so Gina quits and then starts
Speaker 3: investigating how to open up her own beauty shop. She
Speaker 3: goes to the bank for a loan she gets it's
Speaker 3: rejected by a white lady banker who appears to have
Speaker 3: a crush on one of her colleagues. So then Gina
Speaker 3: gives her a makeover and it changes the banker's mind
Speaker 3: and she approves alone for thirty thousand dollars, which is
Speaker 3: like over one hundred thousand less than what Gina is
Speaker 3: hoping for, which means that the only thing Gina can
Speaker 3: afford is a pretty rundown though still functioning beauty shop,
Speaker 3: and she buys it. Gina, Vanessa, Paulette, and Darnell fix
Speaker 3: up the shop, although there's still this like big hole
Speaker 3: in the ceiling with all of these electrical wires sticking
Speaker 3: out and this loud piano music can be heard coming
Speaker 3: from upstairs. So Gina calls an electrician, Joe played by
Speaker 3: Jamon Hansu, to come and fix the wires, and then
Speaker 3: we're like, okay, love interest for Gina alert.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want this to become a movie trough. Why
Speaker 2: didn't like the hot guy that plays piano through your
Speaker 2: broken ceiling become a movie trope? It's such a good idea.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's also such a convenient relationship.
Speaker 4: Right, have one, like we're creative.
Speaker 3: Like I don't know, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2: I love just like the writers sitting and being like, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: there's a hole in the ceiling. What is the best
Speaker 2: thing to put in a hole in the ceiling? A
Speaker 2: beautiful man playing piano? Done, Let's proceed.
Speaker 3: Right, because again, it's a very convenient relationship. He lives upstairs,
Speaker 3: he's the one playing piano. Her daughter Vanessa plays the piano.
Speaker 3: So it's like, wow, everything's connected, hot stepdad alert. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The next day, the stylists, who were already renting space
Speaker 3: at the existing salon, they show up to work, so
Speaker 3: we meet a few of them, Chanelle played by Golden Brooks,
Speaker 3: Miss Josephine played by Alfrey Woodard, and Ida played by
Speaker 3: Sherry Shepherd, who who, by the way, is extremely gregnant. Yes,
Speaker 3: that is her whole thing. Have you with greg Yes?
Speaker 3: And Gina has also hired Lynn, the Alicia Silverstone character,
Speaker 3: but a couple of the other stylists, whose names are
Speaker 3: Mercedes and Portia, don't want to work with a white woman,
Speaker 3: so they bail and can you blame them? Based on
Speaker 3: Alicia Silverstone's conduct. After that, we'll talk about it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Then Gina's beauty shop officially opens. Some clients from the
Speaker 3: old shop come in, and Gina does her best to
Speaker 3: convince them that they should keep coming to her beauty shop.
Speaker 3: We see just everyone, all the stylists getting into the
Speaker 3: swing of things again. Lynn is doing very like Cringey
Speaker 3: White Lady nonsense. There's also this kid, Willie played by
Speaker 3: Little JJ, who's selling candy bars to raise money for
Speaker 3: his music video that he's gonna shoot, which just turns
Speaker 3: out to be him shooting footage of women's butts. So
Speaker 3: that's interesting.
Speaker 2: I felt a pang of shame realizing that this was
Speaker 2: the part of the movie I remembered the most. I
Speaker 2: blame my child brain.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I wrote him down in my notes as
Speaker 3: Patriarchy the Kid, because we always talk about Patriarchy the
Speaker 3: Guy on this show, but this is a new twist
Speaker 3: on it. We've got Patriarchy the Kid.
Speaker 2: If you can vanquish Patriarchy the Guy. But yeah, Patriarchy
Speaker 2: the Kid, I haven't seen that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah innovation anyway. So meanwhile, Jorge has found out that
Speaker 3: Gina has opened her own shop and he's not happy
Speaker 3: about it, especially after Gina poaches Terry aka Andy McDowell
Speaker 3: as a client. Then we meet Catfish Rita, who regularly
Speaker 3: stops by the shop to sell her home cooked food.
Speaker 3: We also see an inspector from the state board, so
Speaker 3: he's bureaucracy the guy. He comes by and slaps Gina
Speaker 3: with a fine for having trash in the alleyway, which
Speaker 3: was about to be picked up by this guy named
Speaker 3: James played by Bryce Wilson, who is an ex con.
Speaker 3: But Gina doesn't care about that, and she hires him
Speaker 3: because she admires his braid work, and so he starts
Speaker 3: working at the shop, and all of the stylists and
Speaker 3: all of the customers think James is so hot, but
Speaker 3: because of reductive stereotypes, they suspect he might be gay.
Speaker 2: It really was like it felt like a comprehensive list
Speaker 2: of reductive two thousand and five stereotypes around gay men. Like,
Speaker 2: just when you think they had played every hit, there
Speaker 2: was another one that I didn't even remember. Was a
Speaker 2: thing like he watches Oprah, Like it's just unbelievably weird
Speaker 2: and specif and two thousand and five in the pejorative way.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. Then Gina's sister in law, Darnell, gets in
Speaker 3: trouble with the law because she was riding around on
Speaker 3: her boyfriend's motorcycle, which turned out to be stolen, so
Speaker 3: she goes to jail. Gina bails her out of jail,
Speaker 3: and so to pay her back, Darnell starts working at
Speaker 3: the beauty shop. Also, Octavia Spencer's there in a quick
Speaker 3: scene where Chanelle makes a fat phobic remark to her,
Speaker 3: and then that's all we get from Mockdavius Spencer, although
Speaker 3: I wanted to point out the connection of So Gina
Speaker 3: has a photograph of Madame CJ. Walker, who's like her icon.
Speaker 3: She has that image hanging in her beauty shop. And
Speaker 3: of course Madame CJ. Walker was the first American woman
Speaker 3: who is like a self made millionaire. She made her
Speaker 3: fortune selling cosmetics and hair care products specifically for black women.
Speaker 3: And of course, Octavius Spencer played her in the Netflix
Speaker 3: series Self Made. So way full circle. Okay, So then
Speaker 3: there's an electrical emergency at the shop.
Speaker 2: There's a plot emergency. We've got to get the hot
Speaker 2: guy over here to fix the plot emergency.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she calls Joe. He comes and sets up like
Speaker 3: a backup generator, but she still gets another fine from
Speaker 3: the State Board inspector guy, and if she gets one
Speaker 3: more citation, the shop will be shut down. So the
Speaker 3: steaks are high. Also, she and Joe are kind of vibing,
Speaker 3: and there's one point where Gina's daughter Vanessa goes upstairs
Speaker 3: to play piano with Joe, and then Gina goes upstairs too,
Speaker 3: and then they're vibing some more, and then business continues
Speaker 3: as usual. Joanne, that's the Mina Suvari character, she reappears
Speaker 3: and tells Gina that she's going to hook her up
Speaker 3: with a deal to sell Gina's homemade conditioner to Cover Girl,
Speaker 3: and Gina's like, that's amazing, which.
Speaker 2: Was very exciting. And also I was like, Discover Girl,
Speaker 2: do they have hair.
Speaker 3: Prayer care products?
Speaker 2: Not that I know of, it doesn't matter, but I
Speaker 2: did pause and Google. I was like, did I miss
Speaker 2: they were trying to get into it. Gina was going
Speaker 2: to be their gateway into hair care?
Speaker 3: Sure? Was this also the time the Queen Latifa was
Speaker 3: like one of the faces of Cover Girl.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to say yes or right before because
Speaker 5: I remember her foundation. I was like the one of
Speaker 5: the first ones I got because all of the few
Speaker 5: that had shades that were dark as me. So I
Speaker 5: was just like, all right, buy your shit. Loved it
Speaker 5: for me, but yeah, either then or right before, differently.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I figured there it must be some connection between
Speaker 3: like her being like one of the faces of Cover
Speaker 3: Girl and why that's in this movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she started working with Cover Girl in two thousand
Speaker 2: and one.
Speaker 3: Well there you go in any case, So this deal
Speaker 3: is like kind of on the table, and Gina's very
Speaker 3: excited about it. She takes all the stylists out to
Speaker 3: a club to celebrate. Joe shows up because Vanessa invited
Speaker 3: him because we have another kid trying to set up
Speaker 3: their parents with a love story. So Joe and Gina dance,
Speaker 3: and then James and Lynn dance and they also start
Speaker 3: making out, and everyone's like, hmm, I guess James isn't gay.
Speaker 2: Do do do do do do do do?
Speaker 5: Just like, uh, you yet you miss napped because he
Speaker 5: was a humfold Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah. Don't make assumptions about people's sexuality or gender
Speaker 3: or anything.
Speaker 2: And of course it's presented as a binary like there's
Speaker 2: no in this world. A conversation around bisexuality pants. Actually
Speaker 2: like that is not a part of the two thousand
Speaker 2: and five movie Years.
Speaker 3: Certainly not so Yeah, they start dating and then Joe
Speaker 3: and Gina go home together and they kiss on the lips.
Speaker 2: Woo.
Speaker 3: The next day, that kid Willie who's always again videotaping
Speaker 3: women's butts, he sees Orgey pay off the inspector from
Speaker 3: the state board and it becomes clear that Jorge is
Speaker 3: responsible for all these finds that Gina has been getting
Speaker 3: and that he's trying to shut down her shop, and
Speaker 3: Willie catches all of this on his video camera.
Speaker 2: Again, I love this plot, contrive it.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 2: They're like, who knew that the creepy kid with a
Speaker 2: cam corridor was a plant to catch Kevin Bacon up
Speaker 2: to no good? It's just such movie logic.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: I feel like the parallel in barber Shop is the
Speaker 3: two guys who keep lugging around the ATM that they stole,
Speaker 3: and then it ends up paying off at the end
Speaker 3: because it's like, oh, there's a reward if you find
Speaker 3: the ATM and that saves the shop. So anyway, movies,
Speaker 3: this movie feels like a movie. You know, it's been
Speaker 3: said all right, So then Gina is trying to still
Speaker 3: close this deal of selling her conditioner to Cover Girl,
Speaker 3: but then Joanne gets into an argument with Lynn and
Speaker 3: Chanelle in the shop. After Joanne assaults James and Joanne
Speaker 3: is making a scene, she wants Chanelle to be fired,
Speaker 3: but Gina refuses to fire her, so Joanne calls the
Speaker 3: deal with Cover Girl off and storms out. And then
Speaker 3: that night someone I wasn't sure if it was implied
Speaker 3: to be Joanne or if it's implied to be Jorge
Speaker 3: or who exactly does this, but someone vandalizes the beauty
Speaker 3: shop definitely define poor Okay, but that scene takes place
Speaker 3: immediately after Joanne storms out, So I'm like, was it her, Like,
Speaker 3: was she so angry about this that she It was
Speaker 3: a little unclear to me.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and Joanne like basically disappears after that anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I also thought it was horrorhe but yeah, there's so
Speaker 2: many devious people to uh choo start at this point.
Speaker 3: True, if you're a blonde, white person in this movie,
Speaker 3: you're doing something bad in basically every scene.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 3: So the next day is Vanessa's piano recital and Gina
Speaker 3: goes to it, but she has all this other stuff
Speaker 3: weighing on her mind, the vandalism and the deal being
Speaker 3: called off with cover Girl. But when she comes back
Speaker 3: to the shop, the stylists have cleaned and fixed the
Speaker 3: place back up. Even so Gina is like, I don't
Speaker 3: know if we can keep the shop going, like there's
Speaker 3: not enough money. We're struggling. But then a woman bursts
Speaker 3: in the shop. She's about to go to a wedding,
Speaker 3: and Gina fixes her up and uses her conditioner on her,
Speaker 3: and everything's great. And let's put a pin.
Speaker 2: In that this movie is really well written. I just
Speaker 2: there's so many.
Speaker 3: Play Chekhov's radio host.
Speaker 2: Just like Chekhov's kid with a cam corner, right, Because
Speaker 2: before we find out who this woman is who is
Speaker 2: about to go to this wedding, Willie comes in and
Speaker 2: gives Gina the tape of George colluding with the inspector guy.
Speaker 3: So Gina goes to Jorge and confronts him and she's like, nice,
Speaker 3: try bitch, You're a loser and I'm a winner. And
Speaker 3: then they're at the shop again, and it turns out
Speaker 3: that the woman who came in to get fixed up
Speaker 3: before the wedding is this radio host Helen played by
Speaker 3: Adel Gibbons, who they always listen to in the shop.
Speaker 3: And Helen shouts out Gina and her shop and her conditioner.
Speaker 2: We're all cheering.
Speaker 3: It's great, everything's fine, everything's good. She's got publicity and
Speaker 3: the shop is gonna be a okay. So that's the movie.
Speaker 3: Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.
Speaker 2: And we're back. Where to begin? Calrqaysia, Is there anything
Speaker 2: that jumps out to you or you'd like to start?
Speaker 5: So? I will say that I like the movie's very colorful.
Speaker 5: Color has been drained from all our movies as of late.
Speaker 4: I don't like it.
Speaker 5: It's very technically fitting with the time, was very dystoping, right,
Speaker 5: So I love it. It's super colorful and like I
Speaker 5: think we talked about right before we started the episode,
Speaker 5: the cast love to cast is just again people that
Speaker 5: you wouldn't expectively just showing up, like you said me
Speaker 5: a Safari enemy, Dow, Kevin Bacon, every Wordard Okay Via
Speaker 5: Spencer Like, people kept showing up and I was like,
Speaker 5: this is great, this is great.
Speaker 4: So I loved it for that reason.
Speaker 5: I also loved that it was you know, because I
Speaker 5: did used to like the Barbershop, so I loved that
Speaker 5: it was a spin off, like it was a nice
Speaker 5: constutu thing going. And like I said, this movie, I've
Speaker 5: done it before in my like Twitter spaces before, you know,
Speaker 5: the rab Bastard Block, the Blackform. But yeah, I had
Speaker 5: definitely passed the Kent test with like flying colors, like
Speaker 5: eight out of eight excellent.
Speaker 4: So yeah, again it's like for me like top ten movies.
Speaker 5: So I'm definitely excited to get into like further discussion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was curious how it would fare on the
Speaker 3: Kent test. But because it's a movie about camaraderie and
Speaker 3: friendship among black women. It's a movie about a black
Speaker 3: woman being a business owner and an entrepreneur, and also
Speaker 3: an examination of the obstacles she's up against in a racist,
Speaker 3: classiest world being a black businesiness owner. We see the
Speaker 3: scene where you know, she can't get approved for the
Speaker 3: business loan at the bank. At first, she's told by
Speaker 3: the white banker that she doesn't have the adequate you know,
Speaker 3: like credit, collateral or capital. But we know that black
Speaker 3: people are often denied loans for businesses and mortgages and
Speaker 3: everything because of systemic racism, and then she's only approved
Speaker 3: for a loan that's a very small fraction of what
Speaker 3: she initially requested. So all these things that she's up against,
Speaker 3: including also the white guy that she works for towards
Speaker 3: the beginning of the movie, who doesn't value her work,
Speaker 3: he feels threatened by her. He constantly undermines her. There's
Speaker 3: the bureaucracy, the guy, the white guy who's always coming
Speaker 3: in and like slapping her with fines. I like that
Speaker 3: the movie explores all that in a meaningful way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, while still very much remaining a too Like I
Speaker 2: think this movie has a very light touch, but it's
Speaker 2: not evasive in a way that I think a lot
Speaker 2: of movies are. Because I mean, even in the scene
Speaker 2: at the bank that you're describing, like Gina says explicitly
Speaker 2: like she knows why she is not being given a
Speaker 2: fair shot at this bank load, like it is very clear,
Speaker 2: and even then she doesn't get what she asked for
Speaker 2: and that she deserved and that a white business person
Speaker 2: would very likely get without a lot of.
Speaker 3: Struggle, any pushback. Yeah. Also that banker is like, you know,
Speaker 3: you can apply for a credit card instead of throwing
Speaker 3: around your race card. And then when Gina approaches her
Speaker 3: in the bathroom, she's like, don't kill me. She's afraid that.
Speaker 3: She's like, it's like violence on her. I'll just like, get.
Speaker 2: This, this racist banker got a free haircut. It's not fair,
Speaker 2: but it gets the beauty shot.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In any case, I was really happy to see. I
Speaker 2: don't know, I think just like when I think of
Speaker 2: movies from this era that have a cast that mostly women,
Speaker 2: I'm like, this is great. I wonder how they're gonna
Speaker 2: somehow make it about a man anyways, because I feel
Speaker 2: like we see that a lot, but that doesn't really
Speaker 2: happen here. I liked that. I mean even in the
Speaker 2: like Little JJ and Gina's daughter, I thought that they
Speaker 2: were going to force, you know, a child romance, but
Speaker 2: it's like that is mercifully avoided. And this is a
Speaker 2: rare example. I think that we're often like you can
Speaker 2: cut out the love story. It's not a big deal.
Speaker 2: But I really like this love story. I think it's sweet.
Speaker 2: I don't think it gets in the way. Like I
Speaker 2: think where I get frustrated with love story plots is
Speaker 2: when it all of a sudden is taking up all
Speaker 2: the air in the movie, but here it's like Gina
Speaker 2: deserves love. He's a great guy, he's obsessed with her,
Speaker 2: he's hot.
Speaker 3: He's so supportive, and.
Speaker 2: He's not like on screen so much that he all
Speaker 2: of a sudden sort of is taking over the movie
Speaker 2: above the community of women. And so I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: fine with it. I like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I'm also like, let Queen Latifah be gay
Speaker 3: in more movies. If she does have to be in
Speaker 3: a hetero relationship in a movie, who better than Jaimon Hansu, Right?
Speaker 7: Who?
Speaker 2: Also I think married Kimoraly Simmons shortly after this, if
Speaker 2: I'm recalling my Komoraly Simmons history correctly.
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't know if they're ever officially married, but
Speaker 5: like they were together while a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because he was like on her show, right, Okay,
Speaker 2: Wow two thousand Sprain, it's coming back. This movie really
Speaker 2: did bring back some like regressed like thoughts that just
Speaker 2: like were collecting dust like information about Komoralley Simmons, who's
Speaker 2: also in this movie in a very two thousand and
Speaker 2: five cameo. But yeah, I mean I think that this
Speaker 2: movie does a great job at like remaining centered on
Speaker 2: the characters that are advertised, which almost never happens. Do
Speaker 2: we want to talk about sort of the women who
Speaker 2: work at the shop. Yeah, we have a lot of
Speaker 2: people to choose from, and again, like distinct personality is
Speaker 2: it everyone has their own, which I feel like is
Speaker 2: also very true of the barbershop movies. But I just
Speaker 2: like it's beauty shop and I like women better, so
Speaker 2: this is good. Yeah, I mean I feel like everyone
Speaker 2: has within the shop. It's more like this is the
Speaker 2: woman who does this, This is the woman who does this.
Speaker 2: But that's very I don't know, ensemble comedy ish, right,
Speaker 2: I felt like outside of the Linn stuff, which we
Speaker 2: should probably get into, I mean, all of the women
Speaker 2: are really cool. I like that. Like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: for the most part, like it just felt very community
Speaker 2: like people giving each other shit. I enjoyed it. Lynn, Okay,
Speaker 2: where do we start. There are other movies that have
Speaker 2: done this. I can't remember what movies we've talked about
Speaker 2: that half, but that like it seems like there is
Speaker 2: the suggestion that, like the racism that Gina faced at
Speaker 2: Jorgees and also in the world as we've seen at
Speaker 2: the bank, in all these different situations is comparable to
Speaker 2: Lynn at Gina's Beauty Shop, and it does not work
Speaker 2: at all because that's not true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was a little confused by that choice.
Speaker 2: I'm opening the floor to the Linn situation.
Speaker 5: You know again oral two thousands shit right, So people
Speaker 5: their racial politics is very what you know what one
Speaker 5: of those things were Like, No, I feel like it
Speaker 5: definitely could be written better because I know what they're
Speaker 5: trying to say, what it's saying it very badly. One
Speaker 5: of those things where it's just like, you know, you
Speaker 5: can't be someone who is not a member of the community,
Speaker 5: right and thinks that you're going to just be touch
Speaker 5: of people's.
Speaker 4: Head and hair, right.
Speaker 5: Like, I don't know about other people, but like for me,
Speaker 5: you know, I am what's definite. I'm not jeering, but
Speaker 5: I was like born here firmly in the States. You know,
Speaker 5: I grew up in a very strong, robust, very tight
Speaker 5: knit Black American community, and you know a lot of
Speaker 5: us are just like, you know, if we don't fuck
Speaker 5: with you, you can't touch our head. Like that's the whole thing,
Speaker 5: Like you cannot touch our head. Nope, hair and nope.
Speaker 5: It's a very intimate thing for someone to just you know,
Speaker 5: putting their hands in your hair, doing whatever, right, so
Speaker 5: I could get the distrust of this life random white
Speaker 5: girl coming here, she's about to touch my head, Like
Speaker 5: I don't know, I don't know. So I understand what
Speaker 5: they were trying to say in the fact that you know,
Speaker 5: she would have to play ball with the community and
Speaker 5: you know, like really plug in. Now how they end
Speaker 5: up praying it was beards, So this was like, you know,
Speaker 5: trying to give her like this halfway black saying because
Speaker 5: she is Southern, so she had that going for her.
Speaker 4: So I don't know why she.
Speaker 5: Didn't just lean into day, but like it's weird like
Speaker 5: halfway black picasto, but not fully right.
Speaker 4: You know, she's there.
Speaker 2: We recently covered Save the Last Dance, and it very
Speaker 2: much reminded me. I mean, it wasn't as bad as
Speaker 2: the Julia Styles makeover from or It's just a different
Speaker 2: flavor of bad. Like I don't know, but I was like,
Speaker 2: this was something that happened in movies in the two thousands.
Speaker 2: Is I agree with the cl Like the way that
Speaker 2: Lynn talks is very like all lives matterie where she's
Speaker 2: like I've done everyone's hair black, white and polka dot.
Speaker 2: I'm like, that's all lives matter rhetoric. Like that's like
Speaker 2: you're I don't know, you.
Speaker 5: Were missing the entire point, like you were in you know,
Speaker 5: you're not poor had shop anymore where like not even
Speaker 5: in the clientele is like white, Like no, you are
Speaker 5: Gina's shop where nine the client til is black, and like.
Speaker 4: They don't know you. So so yeah, you're.
Speaker 5: Gonna get some looks, gonna get some you know, standoffish,
Speaker 5: clipped responses.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's one of those things. Were lying.
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't mind some of the hairstyles, but others.
Speaker 5: Was like you're doing a lot, you know, it's just
Speaker 5: enough to like display that you have these skills and
Speaker 5: leave it at dat, like focus on the skills, like
Speaker 5: you're trying to do this weird black cosplays like it
Speaker 5: wasn't needed. But like I said, two thousands racial pots
Speaker 5: is really weird. Like it's really weird even from certain
Speaker 5: black stars and black celebrities. Lord notes, Oh and that
Speaker 5: could be its a whole different, like honestly episode and
Speaker 5: show true.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to take a little detour because I
Speaker 3: wrote out the beats of Lynn's story just to be like,
Speaker 3: what are any of these choices? But the detoy I
Speaker 3: want to take is who made this movie? Who wrote
Speaker 3: the movie? And so there's a story by credit by
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Hunter. She is a black woman who has worked
Speaker 3: mostly into as a writer and producer. I don't know
Speaker 3: to what extent she wrote any draft of a script
Speaker 3: or what exactly her involvement is, but she's credited with
Speaker 3: a story by credit. The two credited screenwriters of this
Speaker 3: movie are Norman Vance Junior, who is another writer mostly
Speaker 3: working in TV. He's a black man, and then Kate Vanier.
Speaker 3: We have talked about her before on this show, on
Speaker 3: the set It Off episode, because she is a white
Speaker 3: woman who wrote a bunch of movies with predominantly black casts.
Speaker 3: She wrote the screenplay for set it Off, She wrote
Speaker 3: the Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do With It?
Speaker 3: She wrote Crazy Sexy Cool, the TLC story, She wrote Glitter,
Speaker 3: and she wrote Glitter. We have to remember that she
Speaker 3: did write Glitter. She's got some crimes under her belt.
Speaker 2: She has to answer for it. I haven't seen Bitter
Speaker 2: in a long time.
Speaker 3: And as we talked about on the set It Off episode,
Speaker 3: she like defended these movies she written by saying, like, well,
Speaker 3: I know black people, and I love black people, so
Speaker 3: that gives me permission to write black stories as if
Speaker 3: they're my own stories to tell. So that is one
Speaker 3: of the co writers of this movie. So with that
Speaker 3: in mind, let's return back to some of these other topics.
Speaker 3: So going back to Lynn to speak to what you
Speaker 3: were saying Clarkisha about like the reluctance to trust her
Speaker 3: from the clientele and the other stylists at the beauty shop, Like, yes,
Speaker 3: that absolutely tracks, and her conduct. Lynn's conduct, her desperate
Speaker 3: attempt to try to fit in by doing like weird
Speaker 3: appropriate of stuff like that also tracks because that is
Speaker 3: a lot of white people behavior that we see a
Speaker 3: lot of the time.
Speaker 2: But it's not done critically exactly it happened.
Speaker 3: And in fact, her arc is that all the black
Speaker 3: people in the shop encourage her to keep appropriating and
Speaker 3: change her hairstyle and like talk a certain way, and
Speaker 3: then it lands her this black boyfriend who for as
Speaker 3: much as I enjoy the romance between Gina and Joe,
Speaker 3: I'm like, what is this romance between Lynn and James,
Speaker 3: I don't understand because.
Speaker 2: It's also caught in the crossfire of the homophobic triph
Speaker 2: that's going on. So it's just yeah, like a perfect
Speaker 2: storm of two thousand and five movie flaws.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so her character's arc in like the way because
Speaker 3: at first, like when she's engaging in all this like
Speaker 3: appropriative behavior, we cut to Alfre Woodard and she Shephard
Speaker 3: like giving her looks and being like what the fuck
Speaker 3: is she doing? But then by the end they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is actually awesome what you're doing.
Speaker 2: On board the other end of that, we have the
Speaker 2: Mina Suvari character who assaults James just like full on,
Speaker 2: although I would guess that the politics of the sexual
Speaker 2: politics of two thousand and five probably would not say that,
Speaker 2: but that's definitely what happens. That micro interaction I thought
Speaker 2: was really interesting for they didn't like because like she
Speaker 2: grabs his butt as he's walking past her. Already she
Speaker 2: just assaulted him, and then Lynn calls her out on it,
Speaker 2: but only because James is her boyfriend, not because Mina
Speaker 2: Savari just assaulted someone like and again, very very uncritical
Speaker 2: and it's more like, oh, you're jealous, and like, no,
Speaker 2: you just committed a crime, Like what again? Two thousand
Speaker 2: and five. But yeah, Mina Savari is really oscillating between
Speaker 2: like a full on villain. But then she also makes
Speaker 2: the connection with cover Girl like that was all over
Speaker 2: the place.
Speaker 4: I mean, actually very true to life.
Speaker 5: It's why I'm being honest with you, and you know,
Speaker 5: dealing with white women, especially in these professional capacities right
Speaker 5: very you know, doctor Jeko, mister Hyde type shit.
Speaker 4: So it actually made sense that she was like that.
Speaker 5: And then for you know, Lynn and her, I'm really
Speaker 5: glad you kind of putting them on this like spectrum,
Speaker 5: right because you have Lynn, Like, let's be honest, Lynn's
Speaker 5: given white trash.
Speaker 4: Like let's keep it up. But she's given white trash, right,
Speaker 4: and then you got men up.
Speaker 5: I forgot her character's name, but she given like even
Speaker 5: know was waspy white, that.
Speaker 3: Kind of thing, upscale kind of.
Speaker 5: So it makes sense that they will be like fighting
Speaker 5: over this person for like the wrong reason. Honestly, for me,
Speaker 5: it's given like plantation politics, like hey, that's that's fine.
Speaker 4: You know, I own that you can't be touched and
Speaker 4: that's my property. That's what's given.
Speaker 5: I was like, ew, like what again, because like you said,
Speaker 5: it's beauty shop that it's very quick, it's very subtle,
Speaker 5: but it's like it's just like, hey, do you do
Speaker 5: you see what we're doing with this right? So for me,
Speaker 5: I was just like, no, that character makes absolute sense.
Speaker 3: Especially yeah, that she's the type of white woman who
Speaker 3: will like engage with black people even give them her money,
Speaker 3: you know, her business as long as it serves her.
Speaker 3: But the second anyone challenges her.
Speaker 2: Or I mean, she demands that someone gets fire later.
Speaker 3: Very Karen behavior. And she's not demanding that Lynn that
Speaker 3: the Alicia Silverson character gets fired another white woman. She's
Speaker 3: demanding that Chanelle, a black woman, get fired, and Gina's like, no,
Speaker 3: get the fuck out of my shop. So yeah, the
Speaker 3: Mina Sufari character, her behavior also tracked. We're just seeing
Speaker 3: like different versions of white women white women ing in
Speaker 3: this movie between Lynn and between Joanne I think is
Speaker 3: her character's name.
Speaker 2: And Andy McDowell's character too, who like kind of ends
Speaker 2: up skating through the movie and then we have the
Speaker 2: whole butt prosthetic at the end that I did not remember.
Speaker 2: But with Andy McDowell, there are a series of like
Speaker 2: microaggressions that she does. I mean, I feel like the
Speaker 2: one that stood out for me, was trying to bring
Speaker 2: up Janet Jackson in an insulting way, which is a
Speaker 2: very early two thousands talking point, but like, if you
Speaker 2: were alive in the early two thousands, you can tell
Speaker 2: exactly what the writers are doing. Where like she's basically
Speaker 2: regurgitating the white media narrative around Janet Jackson that completely
Speaker 2: blamed her and literally called her crazy. And it just
Speaker 2: all these horrible, untrue things that on a long enough
Speaker 2: timeline that narrative has shifted. But Andy McDowell is a
Speaker 2: white woman, first of all, trying to connect with a
Speaker 2: room full of black women by insulting Janet jack Like,
Speaker 2: it just this is like unbelievably misguided. And in that case,
Speaker 2: if like the movie knows that and Annie McDowell is
Speaker 2: wrong and she has to, like you, get her shit
Speaker 2: together kind of not that she necessarily does.
Speaker 3: But and then another part of her character is at
Speaker 3: first she's like catfish rita your soul food, No thanks,
Speaker 3: I don't eat like that, and then she comes around.
Speaker 3: It almost honestly feels like to some degree this movie
Speaker 3: is more interested in a few of the character arcs
Speaker 3: of the white women than it is of Because I
Speaker 3: would love to have seen more of a subplot of
Speaker 3: Alfrey Woodard's or Sherry Shepherd or what's the actor who
Speaker 3: plays Chanelle Golden Golden Brooks, Like, where are their little
Speaker 3: vignettes of their interior lives. We know that Sherry Shepherd's
Speaker 3: character is pregnant, but we don't really know much else
Speaker 3: about it except that she's also like horny for every
Speaker 3: other man she sees. Pretty funny, but like I felt
Speaker 3: those characters were a little underdeveloped. I would have loved
Speaker 3: to see more of their interior lives and more of
Speaker 3: just like their relationships with each other. But I feel
Speaker 3: like there's a lot of real estate in the story
Speaker 3: given to these white women like b characters that I
Speaker 3: don't know if that was an attempt to quote unquote
Speaker 3: make this movie more marketable to a wide spread audience,
Speaker 3: I not sure, But it plays out in a way
Speaker 3: that reads weird, and it's focusing on characters who I
Speaker 3: don't care about, and I would rather see more of
Speaker 3: the others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think we necessarily needed a gradient of
Speaker 2: types of white women this movie. We do get more
Speaker 2: of an arc for Keisha Knight William's character Darnell, where
Speaker 2: I feel like this movie. I mean again, I think
Speaker 2: I totally agree. Where I would have liked more detailed
Speaker 2: arcs for their women within the shop, we do get
Speaker 2: some decent time with the family outside the shop.
Speaker 3: That true.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I enjoyed that where you know, Gina
Speaker 2: and Darnell have this like antagonistic but loving, very familial
Speaker 2: relationship even though it's very plotty. I liked when Darnell
Speaker 2: came back to the shop and did want to work
Speaker 2: with Gina. I don't know, I wish like I don't
Speaker 2: have that much to say about Darnell, but she did
Speaker 2: have an arc. I liked her, and I really like
Speaker 2: Gina's daughter. I think that's the story between her. Gina
Speaker 2: and Joe is so sweet and Kayla and I have
Speaker 2: talked to Billy Tis about like, when you put a
Speaker 2: precocious child in the movie, it can go a lot
Speaker 2: of ways. Yes, you real back, it can be grating,
Speaker 2: but I really thought that that balance was really sweet.
Speaker 2: I love the jazz that Joe teaches her comes back
Speaker 2: like that kind of brings the two of them together.
Speaker 2: I loved it, and I love that she says my
Speaker 2: favorite line in the movie, I don't eat donuts with
Speaker 2: boys who exploit women.
Speaker 3: Okay, can we talk about that kid real quick because
Speaker 3: the patriarchy. The kid Willie played by Little JJ. So,
Speaker 3: as we've discussed, he's going around shooting footage with his
Speaker 3: little handheld video camera. He's always shooting women's butts, making
Speaker 3: comments on women's bodies in general. He routinely gets called
Speaker 3: out for it, Vanessa, that quote they already shared, Jamie,
Speaker 3: and then Gina says something like, don't come back here
Speaker 3: until you learn how to speak to a lady. But
Speaker 3: he doesn't listen. He keeps coming back. But it feels
Speaker 3: like such a contradictory choice to have that behavior of
Speaker 3: him objectifying and sexualizing women be called out. But then
Speaker 3: the movie does the same exact thing by having a
Speaker 3: bunch of like this male gay cinematography that specifically focuses
Speaker 3: on women's butts. It also has women making shamy comments
Speaker 3: about other women's bodies.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of early two thousands fixation on plastic surgery.
Speaker 2: Plastic surgery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then also, like the kid, ultimately the fact
Speaker 3: that he was filming women's butts is a good thing actually,
Speaker 3: because if he wasn't doing that, he would have never
Speaker 3: gotten that footage that incriminates Kevin Bacon, so.
Speaker 2: I didn't think of it that way. But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: not great. He was right to do that.
Speaker 3: So I just found his character frustrating overall.
Speaker 2: According to my little brother, he was doing serviceable work
Speaker 2: over at all that and so maybe this just wasn't
Speaker 2: Little JJ's big moment. His moment was on all that fair.
Speaker 5: I appreciate him not sugarcoating, as you said, patriarchy the kid,
Speaker 5: because again, it is usually just being like, oh, this
Speaker 5: adult male popped out nowhere and he's a misogynistic ass.
Speaker 5: But you know that doesn't happen until they become adults.
Speaker 5: I'm like, no, that's not the case. And for me,
Speaker 5: you know, I have them showing that, you know, because
Speaker 5: I don't like movies that try to sanitize human behavior,
Speaker 5: like now, they don't show it to me and try
Speaker 5: to glorify it because you know, you know, there's some
Speaker 5: piece of me to do that. They're like, oh, this
Speaker 5: is terrible, but you know they're an anti hero. I
Speaker 5: don't want to watch that ship. But I appreciate things
Speaker 5: like that because I remember recently, I think you saw
Speaker 5: the little announcement about tweaks that being made to a
Speaker 5: certain character and a certain production with a kid who
Speaker 5: has an air on his head. I'm not gonna say
Speaker 5: it because I'm not trying to get them, but you know,
Speaker 5: they were trying to make a key change to one
Speaker 5: of the main characters because they're like, oh, you know
Speaker 5: him in the original series, Like he started off as
Speaker 5: very misogynistic and we want to da da da da, but.
Speaker 4: Why he is a young boy. That's what they do.
Speaker 5: That's not to excuse it, but like you need to
Speaker 5: be able to show that trajectory because you know, his
Speaker 5: team ends up being girls and both of them, both
Speaker 5: his sister and the new teammate, put him in his place,
Speaker 5: so then he has to start reshaping his world view
Speaker 5: about you know, girls and women, right, Like it's the
Speaker 5: thing we talked about earlier in the show where we
Speaker 5: talked about biases, right, Like, clearly he was born with
Speaker 5: his bias because of like you know, his tribe and
Speaker 5: what their gifts to seeing women do, right, but like
Speaker 5: just not your tribe, Like this is not that time.
Speaker 5: So you're supposed to show him shifting after being checked,
Speaker 5: but not just them. But you know, later in the
Speaker 5: series by other really awesome and very dynamic women and girls.
Speaker 4: Right, So I like when movies and media are like
Speaker 4: real about this shit.
Speaker 5: But also don't try to be like it's okay, because
Speaker 5: it wasn't okay. Right, Like he said, he did get
Speaker 5: routinely called out on it. Now I wish somebody would
Speaker 5: took his camera, but right, you know, you know, but yeah, no, I.
Speaker 4: Do appreciate that, Like, no, let's don't sugarcrowd it because
Speaker 4: this was how.
Speaker 3: The behavior is called out, Yes, at the very least,
Speaker 3: and this other show that shall not be named. It's
Speaker 3: important to show arcs like that because yes, many young
Speaker 3: men and boys, they're a product of their environment, and
Speaker 3: their environment is patriarchy, so they learn things that need
Speaker 3: to be unlearned, and it's important to show people unlearning
Speaker 3: their biases and so to make an adjustment that ignores that.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, particularly in media for kids too. Yeah, watching
Speaker 2: a character that you love unlearned that in real time
Speaker 2: is genuinely motivational.
Speaker 3: What else? Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?
Speaker 2: I don't have too much else. I just wanted to
Speaker 2: shout out the director Bill Wooddriff, who we often cover
Speaker 2: the music video director to feature director Pipeline. Some of
Speaker 2: the most prolific music video directors of the nineties into
Speaker 2: the two thousands, like Truly name a popular act at
Speaker 2: this time, particularly Black musical acts at this time. He
Speaker 2: directed Truly Everybody ninety seven, big year for him. I
Speaker 2: just wanted to shout out his ninety seven because the
Speaker 2: hits are great. He did a Backstreet Boys music video
Speaker 2: this year, he did an Outcast music video. He did
Speaker 2: genu Wine, he did Usher, You Make Me Wanna, He
Speaker 2: did Salt and Peppa, Are You Ready? And he did
Speaker 2: Celine Dion My Heart Will Go On in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3: I mean, the Titanic connection is.
Speaker 2: Every found the Titanic Connection, It's everything. But he also,
Speaker 2: I mean directed his first movie, which I haven't watched
Speaker 2: in forever, But he also directed Honey and the various
Speaker 2: movies in the Honey Expanded universe. So just wanted to
Speaker 2: shout him out. Still working today, Clerkisha, Is there anything
Speaker 2: else you wanted to touch on?
Speaker 5: I just want to dig up the movie for it's
Speaker 5: very vast representations of black women.
Speaker 4: We don't get that as much anymore.
Speaker 5: I think there are there are some talents in Black
Speaker 5: Hollywood that are trying to reverse that. You know, I'll
Speaker 5: shout out like Easter Ray Quintin Brunston, like they're really
Speaker 5: trying to like over time, trying to like in their
Speaker 5: own way, right, because it's not the responsibility, right, Like
Speaker 5: they're trying to like kind of like drag us back
Speaker 5: from like what our current landscape looks like, which is like,
Speaker 5: you know, the biracial woman standing in for like.
Speaker 4: Every black woman ever.
Speaker 5: The aggressive colorism that kind of is really pervasive unfortunately
Speaker 5: in a lot of our work because some of these
Speaker 5: male creatives apparently have to work out their ego on
Speaker 5: screen and you know, I guess they're comitties and attractions
Speaker 5: on screen, right, So I appreciate I've always appreciate Queen
Speaker 5: Latifa's work for like displaying black women in you know,
Speaker 5: various ways, and also across various generations too, you know,
Speaker 5: because the young, the old, the middle age, Like the
Speaker 5: movie has like everybody there, yeah, different shades to body
Speaker 5: sizes because like I said, it's not as commonplace anymore,
Speaker 5: which makes me sad to say, but yeah, it's one
Speaker 5: of my favorite movies for that reason because like you
Speaker 5: just see like different generations of women coming together to
Speaker 5: make Gina's dream come true, which is big fucking you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of wish there were more of these two.
Speaker 3: But you see scenes where they're all chatting about something.
Speaker 3: There's a scene where they're talking about like do you
Speaker 3: get your pubic hair waxed or do you leave it natural?
Speaker 2: Also very two thousands discussion.
Speaker 3: Then that like transitions into a conversation about like ooh, men,
Speaker 3: who cry? Is that acceptable or not? They come down
Speaker 3: on the side of no, and so you know, very
Speaker 3: two thousand and five interpretation of that. But I love
Speaker 3: the scenes of just like their comrade and them laughing
Speaker 3: together and reciting phenomenal woman together and just like all
Speaker 3: of those moments were really special. And also, Queen Lativa
Speaker 3: has done so many like ensemble movies with a black
Speaker 3: cast between set it off this movie Girl's Trip. I'm
Speaker 3: sure I'm forgetting some but like she's the queen of
Speaker 3: that and I didn't even mean to make that pun Wow.
Speaker 2: Look at you humiliated. I think the last thing I
Speaker 2: wanted to shout out was that Queen Latifa produced this
Speaker 2: movie as well, which I feel like we are always
Speaker 2: trying to make sure we're talking about behind the camera
Speaker 2: as well, and I think, I mean, I would be
Speaker 2: comfortable betting that a lot of what this movie does
Speaker 2: right is because she also had control behind the camera,
Speaker 2: So I wanted to shut that out as well as
Speaker 2: one of the first I think the first project that
Speaker 2: she produced in her movie career was Bringing Down the House,
Speaker 2: which a mot and sort of from there on out,
Speaker 2: she produced all of the movies that she was starring
Speaker 2: in at least, and I feel like that is reflected
Speaker 2: in this movie, like her character is in charge. There
Speaker 2: is like no point where I don't know, like the
Speaker 2: tropes of the era can't really touch Queen Latifa in
Speaker 2: her movie for the most part. And I think that
Speaker 2: that is like a really important thing for movie stars,
Speaker 2: especially marginalized movie stars, to have, is like control over
Speaker 2: their image and how they're portrayed because you cannot trust producers,
Speaker 2: like so you have to be one yourself kind of.
Speaker 3: And I was reading different interviews with her and her
Speaker 3: intentions with this movie, and she's like, yeah, to spin
Speaker 3: off from barber Shop, but I wanted to make it
Speaker 3: its own thing and showcase black women, and like the
Speaker 3: intentions are clear. I had one last little thing I
Speaker 3: wanted to chat about and I'm curious on everyone's thoughts
Speaker 3: on this. But in theory, this is a movie about
Speaker 3: people who work with mostly black hair. A few of
Speaker 3: the clients are these white these awful white women, but
Speaker 3: it's mostly black clientele, and I feel like there was
Speaker 3: more of an opportunity to see black hair being styled,
Speaker 3: and I feel like the movie doesn't necessarily take a
Speaker 3: lot of those opportunities, especially for seeing black women who
Speaker 3: wear their hair natural. It might be a reflection of
Speaker 3: like the.
Speaker 4: Era, definitely reflection of that era.
Speaker 5: We don't get to the what I call modern natural
Speaker 5: hair movement, because natural hair has come in and out,
Speaker 5: you know, and out of times. But more recent movement,
Speaker 5: I would have said, like early twenty teens.
Speaker 4: I might be a little bit off by a couple
Speaker 4: of years.
Speaker 5: So we weren't really there yet. We were still stuck
Speaker 5: on you know, the hair crack, the relaxsuit. We're still
Speaker 5: stuck on that thing. And I remember, you know, even
Speaker 5: at that time when you started telling people that you
Speaker 5: had stopped using relax because it's giving you obvious perm
Speaker 5: what we call perm scabs, you know, and then later
Speaker 5: found out to be giving people cancer as a lot
Speaker 5: of us suspective, right, you know when even when you
Speaker 5: were like, yeah, I don't use that stuff anymore, they'd
Speaker 5: be like, what.
Speaker 4: Like how do you start your hair otherwise, like isn't
Speaker 4: it like hard?
Speaker 5: And you know that's a complex discussion that we usually
Speaker 5: have within our community. Boy, it's one of those things
Speaker 5: where like a lot of that rhetoric is very driven
Speaker 5: by you know, white bee standards.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, right, But yeah, no, I agree with you.
Speaker 5: Their their definitely technically was more of an opportunity, but
Speaker 5: because of the hair politics at the time, they weren't
Speaker 5: gonna I think the most they would have done is
Speaker 5: like if you've ever been to like a black beat shop,
Speaker 5: they have like the the very creative stack styles of
Speaker 5: hair and curls that are stacked up. You got the
Speaker 5: you know, like not quite the bang, but you got
Speaker 5: the hair hang you know, hair hanging in front their face.
Speaker 5: And it's just like really marvelous example of like honestly
Speaker 5: black people using geometry to like bills like these styles
Speaker 5: stack them up on their head like is real creative shit.
Speaker 5: But yeah, no, I agree with you, and that like
Speaker 5: there there was a way to put more of those
Speaker 5: styles in there, even if you weren't focusing on the
Speaker 5: natural aspect for like obvious reasons. But yeah, that explains
Speaker 5: someone dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah that makes sense and all the more reason we
Speaker 3: need Beauty Shop too.
Speaker 2: All things that could have been addressed in Beauty Shop
Speaker 2: to two thousand and seven, which for some reason we
Speaker 2: did not get.
Speaker 3: Was that like in development and it just didn't happen or.
Speaker 2: No, that was just the year I think it would
Speaker 2: have come out.
Speaker 3: I see it, see.
Speaker 2: It two years later. That's when sequels come out.
Speaker 3: That's true. Well, Beauty Shop to twenty twenty five, just
Speaker 3: putting it out there in the world.
Speaker 2: I'll take it. I would love it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll love too. I'm just like, none of you
Speaker 4: are dead, so let's you know, let's yeah.
Speaker 3: You're all still kicking.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One last thing. The radio host at the very beginning,
Speaker 3: because like you see her like Vio her voiceover and
Speaker 3: just like her in the booth, like doing broadcasts throughout
Speaker 3: the movie, and at the very beginning, DJ Helen is
Speaker 3: like that Michael Vick so hot, right, and it's like, yep,
Speaker 3: it's two thousand and five, yes, I know.
Speaker 2: It's like, wait, that's not how that sentence ends today.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, what a time to be alive. Let's talk
Speaker 2: about a number of tests. This movie very much passes
Speaker 2: the Bechtel test to the point where it's like it
Speaker 2: just does. I mean, like you were just sort of
Speaker 2: flisting off kitline. I mean the women in this story.
Speaker 2: I mean there's a many conversations between women that we're
Speaker 2: moving the plot ahead. There's also just a lot of
Speaker 2: conversations between women, women of different races, different classes, different
Speaker 2: body types. This movie has every kind of conversation between women,
Speaker 2: which so rare.
Speaker 3: It's great true.
Speaker 2: But I'd also like to talk about the contest because
Speaker 2: you mentioned Quirkysha that it is a full on pass.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does pass it eight out of eight. So
Speaker 4: just to go over it.
Speaker 5: So the contest has points, so all the way from
Speaker 5: like A to G right. So first one is must
Speaker 5: not solely be a walking stereotype or truck, and he's
Speaker 5: not focused on white character. And if it's like you know,
Speaker 5: expansive piece of media, then multiple right, But in this case,
Speaker 5: I focus on mainly Gina and then you know a
Speaker 5: couple other people, so you know, Gina's not a walking,
Speaker 5: talking black stereotype. So We're good, right, must have their
Speaker 5: own plot or near to arc. She got it so
Speaker 5: on someone that's been her whole thing. She wants to
Speaker 5: get off from Jorge Thumb really straightforward stuff. Mass must
Speaker 5: not solely be included in the narrative for just for
Speaker 5: holding down a male character. No, we got an opposite
Speaker 5: Joeys hold her down, which I appreciate, you know.
Speaker 4: No, this is her story.
Speaker 5: He's her nice successory slash dessert as share would say,
Speaker 5: not to share famous tours love her. No, he's just
Speaker 5: there as you know nice looks like get and but
Speaker 5: it's her. It's the genus show right so past and
Speaker 5: then you have must not slowly be included in the
Speaker 5: narrative to prop of white female character once again, is
Speaker 5: Gina's show?
Speaker 4: Do they show up?
Speaker 5: Yes, but you know this is this is her thing,
Speaker 5: So no, she's not there to hold up, you know,
Speaker 5: or be some character.
Speaker 4: Development for you know, a white girl.
Speaker 5: Right right, then, we have must not so exist in
Speaker 5: the film slash piece of media for the purpose of
Speaker 5: speedisulation aside from JJP and JJ again, that's not what
Speaker 5: this movie is about. Right again, you know this is
Speaker 5: her show. She's trying to make her dream come true.
Speaker 5: She's trying to keep her shop open because one thing
Speaker 5: to like open it. You know, so many businesses open
Speaker 5: per year, but how many people like how many stay
Speaker 5: open and like for the same period of time.
Speaker 4: So that's her whole focus the whole movie.
Speaker 5: So past then we have must have at least one
Speaker 5: interaction with another black woman or woman of color. Duh,
Speaker 5: whole cats that whole cats like you. She'd turn and
Speaker 5: talk to I don't know, the water girl, and like,
Speaker 5: you know Keisha right there, you know, there are people
Speaker 5: outside the shop she interacts with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also love that in the world have made
Speaker 2: up jobs. Cappuccino girl, a job. It's great, great after school.
Speaker 4: Job, it's perfect. I was like, I love that. So yeah,
Speaker 4: definitely pass.
Speaker 5: And then obviously there's an additional point here that I
Speaker 5: put in tests where it's just like it's always going
Speaker 5: to be bonus if the women are not immediately related,
Speaker 5: which again passes, because you know, even though Darnell is
Speaker 5: the thing, you know, she all the other women in Salona,
Speaker 5: people that she interacts with routinely, and they're not blood related, right,
Speaker 5: So there's that in the last one must not be
Speaker 5: the go to character sacrifice in the film slash piece
Speaker 5: of media. We won't even have to talk about it
Speaker 5: here because none of that happens. No one wants laying
Speaker 5: down their life for random white person. Again, this is
Speaker 5: her movie, you know, she's kicking it and then trying
Speaker 5: to you know, be successful in this world.
Speaker 4: So yeah, literally eight eight.
Speaker 5: I didn't have no notes aside from the ones we
Speaker 5: kind of already discussed, which again are part of you know,
Speaker 5: the problematic two thousand and five canon of terrible movie trope, which.
Speaker 3: And then how does the movie fair on the Kelly
Speaker 3: and Cat test?
Speaker 5: So the Kelly Cat tests on a grave Shaw real
Speaker 5: quick because technically in me and Sid haven't taken it
Speaker 5: on like a full run through a lot of these
Speaker 5: movies because, as you probably suspect, a lot of them
Speaker 5: are just downright BD. So just be like they're just
Speaker 5: being like okay, zero or one or like max like three,
Speaker 5: you know, And for this test is actually out twelve
Speaker 5: versus like eight in terms of yeah, so I'll read
Speaker 5: the description real quick and then points right.
Speaker 4: So, the Kelley and Cat test is a media litmus test.
Speaker 5: Designed to determine whether a piece of media has provided
Speaker 5: the audience with thoughtful representation of fat black women and
Speaker 5: or non men.
Speaker 4: Black is a brackets So like I said, you know,
Speaker 4: does include other women, right.
Speaker 5: This test is named after Kelly Prenni of Insecure and
Speaker 5: Ca Hernandez of Euphoria, both of whom were subject to
Speaker 5: fat phobic treatment on their respective shows. Fat Phobia is
Speaker 5: in a version of hostility or disdain for fatness or
Speaker 5: fat people. So skipping down, you know, to the criteria,
Speaker 5: like I said, the least something can get zero, most
Speaker 5: of them get twelve points, right, so number one, the
Speaker 5: character will be immediately disqualified if they're merely a skinny
Speaker 5: or thin actor in a fat suit. Like, we don't
Speaker 5: even have to like ZM zero done, We don't even
Speaker 5: have to go into it. And then you know, since
Speaker 5: we're using Gina will take her through tests, right, So
Speaker 5: must have their own character arc. Got it must not
Speaker 5: be included in the narrative to really for a skinny
Speaker 5: and or life skinned person's care dark no.
Speaker 4: Got it good.
Speaker 5: Therefore must not be referred to as big, bone, voluptuous, curvy, fluffy, husky,
Speaker 5: plus sized, or sick at any point of the narrative.
Speaker 5: I don't think she was referred to as that, so
Speaker 5: I think she still passes. I do think I remember
Speaker 5: like big bone being thrown around. I'm not entirely sure.
Speaker 5: I'd have to go back and like really listening closely.
Speaker 3: Other characters' size is commented on by different people, but
Speaker 3: I don't know if any of it's specifically directed. Although
Speaker 3: the kid really says something like you're thick something, I
Speaker 3: don't know if that counts.
Speaker 5: Patriarchy the child, so then we'll be like, God, damn it,
Speaker 5: patriarchy the child.
Speaker 4: But yeah, technically, yeah, that would be.
Speaker 5: So we're you know, back down to too. And the
Speaker 5: point of that too, because I know people will ask.
Speaker 5: The point of that too is to make you know,
Speaker 5: fat is not a dirty word. It been made word
Speaker 5: because of people, obie, but you know it's fat is
Speaker 5: a neutral descriptor.
Speaker 4: It's like saying short, skinny, whatever.
Speaker 5: It's just people's own biases have been attached to it. Absolutely,
Speaker 5: So then we have must not easily be dismissed as
Speaker 5: a common sapphobic and or colors trope. Like we mentioned
Speaker 5: with the cat test, Gina doesn't really have that issue
Speaker 5: because she's like a three dimensional being. You know, I
Speaker 5: do want to make it clear that tropes are not
Speaker 5: hearingly bad. But if your character literally is like four
Speaker 5: tropes in a trench coat, Danny, you've got some problems,
Speaker 5: not some problems like you're in but you definitely are
Speaker 5: not a great writer.
Speaker 2: Like where's the character? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like what are we doing? So now next one?
Speaker 5: Six should have at least one romantic interest if it's
Speaker 5: relevant to the piece of media's or raw Drey two.
Speaker 5: So man for Joe's hot ass is there and you know,
Speaker 5: like we commented on, he is a nice little treat,
Speaker 5: not the main course.
Speaker 4: We love that for her.
Speaker 3: A lot of movies that do afford a fat character
Speaker 3: a love interest, they are paired with another fat person,
Speaker 3: as if to say, oh, only fat people would be
Speaker 3: attracted to other fat people and never any other combination.
Speaker 3: And the Joe character is a muscular sin man who
Speaker 3: is very attracted to Queen Latifah. And it was a
Speaker 3: refreshing thing to see.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I want to add here that Sidney particular
Speaker 5: one to make sure that it should be noted that
Speaker 5: you know, since we're thinking about like being sex inclusive
Speaker 5: and gender exclusive, right, there are people that aren't interested
Speaker 5: in romance or they're there asexual. But you know, we
Speaker 5: also put it after like being like you know, but
Speaker 5: you have to be careful with that because again you
Speaker 5: might fall into that territory of black tropes where we're
Speaker 5: talking about like the Mammy or someone else, some other
Speaker 5: female character whose they are sexless. Right, So it's a
Speaker 5: really delicate like dance. Now, if you're a good writer,
Speaker 5: you should be fine, but as we know, it's a
Speaker 5: lot of bad writers out there. So yeah, so next
Speaker 5: must have at least one interaction with you know, the
Speaker 5: fat person. I would say, every woman in that film
Speaker 5: has you know, various body shapes, so she does at
Speaker 5: some point interact with them. You know, there's our Tavius Spencer.
Speaker 5: I would even add the radio host, you know. And
Speaker 5: it's not a thing where it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: look they're interacting.
Speaker 4: It's just very.
Speaker 3: Normal, normalized. Yeah, she talks to Sherry Shepherd.
Speaker 5: Again, bonus point if they're not related, which they aren't.
Speaker 5: You know, they're kicking it, but they're not related, So
Speaker 5: then we have it must not.
Speaker 4: Be subject to photicization.
Speaker 5: So that's a little difficult with JJ being there unfortunately,
Speaker 5: so we can't give this point it's not her fault,
Speaker 5: it's fault.
Speaker 4: It's Oh but you know, he dire.
Speaker 5: If we were to subtract him, she would have been
Speaker 5: fine because, like I said, it's not all that for
Speaker 5: her to literally focus on her very important goal of
Speaker 5: being like, you know, a business woman.
Speaker 4: Right, So there's that nine.
Speaker 5: Must show no high profixations when it comes to food
Speaker 5: and or exercise. This one was been very important to
Speaker 5: me and Sid because there's a lot of media out there.
Speaker 5: If you know, if a fat woman gets lucky enough
Speaker 5: to like leave a show or film, there's some big
Speaker 5: like marathon she's training for.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, it's really bad, Like there's some big.
Speaker 2: There's whole movies about that. Oh my god.
Speaker 5: Yeah, even happened to Kelly at one point where she
Speaker 5: was like trying to train for something, and I was like.
Speaker 4: Do y'all see how see like, wem not the only
Speaker 4: one who sees this.
Speaker 5: I'm the only one, okay, but yeah, No, we were
Speaker 5: very much sick of that. I was like, I don't
Speaker 5: want to hear nothing about no fucking marathon, no exercise,
Speaker 5: no gym, didn't.
Speaker 4: No gym that I don't want to hear by no
Speaker 4: fucking food.
Speaker 2: Just be normal person.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Now, obviously you know life's come for then you know,
Speaker 5: people can also do with some things, like you know,
Speaker 5: eds when it comes to food, right, But like a
Speaker 5: lot of times that's not what they're talking about.
Speaker 4: A lot of these riders are just going straight to
Speaker 4: like gluttonous tar you know, very.
Speaker 3: Like the stereotypes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, territory. And I'm like, but so you just not
Speaker 4: you're not really serious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you gave this no thought. You just took what
Speaker 3: you already think, you know, and then put it in
Speaker 3: the movie.
Speaker 2: And again it feels like the sort of situation where
Speaker 2: if the nuance is there, you can feel it, and
Speaker 2: it is most often not not there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so there's that's so obviously Gina is not once
Speaker 5: again not conserved that shit.
Speaker 4: Nope, just to run her.
Speaker 5: Business, so she good, dear ten must have access to
Speaker 5: adequate soling. Even though we all feel ways about early
Speaker 5: two thousand sactions for the times she looked good for that, Yes,
Speaker 5: in the context of two thousand and five she looked.
Speaker 2: Just have to remember that it was a moment in time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, for the time period she was in
Speaker 5: the fashions.
Speaker 4: So now I would have been like girl, what do
Speaker 4: you have one? But currently I mean not curently at
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 5: Great, right, so she was fine, must have at least
Speaker 5: one supportive parents slash frontal figure.
Speaker 4: She did.
Speaker 5: Actually it was a little hard on Darnall or whatever
Speaker 5: Latin for obviously too, because Darnell did need to get
Speaker 5: her shit together.
Speaker 4: I'm like, why do you run around with these no
Speaker 4: good black girl get it together?
Speaker 5: But you know, yeah, she did have a supportive parent
Speaker 5: slash frontal figure.
Speaker 4: I forget forget her name, but.
Speaker 8: You know, yeah her mother in law, right, yes, yeah,
Speaker 8: so really just encouraging her to keep pursuing her dreams
Speaker 8: despite the obvious and you know, systemic obstacles that were
Speaker 8: placed in front of her.
Speaker 4: Right. So, yeah, passes.
Speaker 5: So we got the last one, which must have at
Speaker 5: least five to ten minutes of dialogue in the standard
Speaker 5: thirty minute episode, ten to fifteen minutes of dialogue in
Speaker 5: the standard sixty minute episode, and at least the fourth
Speaker 5: of the total.
Speaker 4: Run time of the film.
Speaker 5: I remember people ask the first of all, I suly
Speaker 5: she passes, right, but yeah, people usually ask me about
Speaker 5: that and SID two and they're like, why.
Speaker 4: Did you feel the need to include that in particular
Speaker 4: because it's very specific.
Speaker 5: Right, the contest doesn't mention no run times or dialogue
Speaker 5: or things like that, right, But for here it was
Speaker 5: important because mainly because of Cat in the first season Euphoria,
Speaker 5: she has her own very rich, if not mildly disturbing arc.
Speaker 5: You know, keep one hundred because it was moldly disturbing.
Speaker 5: But I was like, you know, but it was an arc. Yes,
Speaker 5: fat people don't have to be perfect angelic character as
Speaker 5: we'd be doing some fucked up shit too.
Speaker 4: Right, So very very strong, obvious, rich arc.
Speaker 5: And we get to season two and if she gets
Speaker 5: to talk for two minutes in an episode, it's a
Speaker 5: big deal.
Speaker 4: Like that's how sharp and ugly the drop off was.
Speaker 5: You know, there are rumors that you know, Sam was
Speaker 5: beefing with her behind the scenes. Obviously I try to
Speaker 5: respect her because you know, it's complex with actors and
Speaker 5: these really weird producers and show runs and directors, and
Speaker 5: you know, they still got to work, so I respect them,
Speaker 5: not really if they won don't want to put their
Speaker 5: business on front street, I respect that.
Speaker 4: But you know, it's very.
Speaker 5: Clear that some funck shit was going on because it
Speaker 5: impacted how often she showed up and how long she
Speaker 5: showed up. She had no discernible arc that whole season,
Speaker 5: no discernible arc at all.
Speaker 4: It was very yarn.
Speaker 5: Because like when she was one of my favorite reasons
Speaker 5: for the first season, like I tune, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: what's Kat doing?
Speaker 4: Is she being the anti fat friend again?
Speaker 5: I love that for me, Like I remember part of
Speaker 5: the show where you know Maddie, you know, then her
Speaker 5: friend cast her to event and Cat is just like
Speaker 5: basically like they don't have toportizations.
Speaker 4: And I was like, finally a bad fat friend.
Speaker 5: I've waited so long for this and finally I got it.
Speaker 4: Yes, terrible love that for herself. Please more.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but that's where that last one comes from, like
Speaker 5: the very sharp, ugly decline of her screen presence. So
Speaker 5: obviously here Gena passes a Flying Colors because she is
Speaker 5: the main character. There, you know, other characters, you know, tertiary, secondary,
Speaker 5: but she's the main character.
Speaker 4: So she passes. So let me, let's count it up.
Speaker 4: Let's count it up. Drum dram bro nine ten So.
Speaker 7: We got ten, ten out of twelve or ten out
Speaker 7: of twelve, very hearty pass right, So obviously we got
Speaker 7: again zero to twelve.
Speaker 4: So zero to one is reprehensible.
Speaker 5: We're like, reprehensible, get this ship off my screen, like what?
Speaker 5: So then we got two to four. We call it
Speaker 5: laughable because you know, attempt was made.
Speaker 4: Was it a good one?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 5: Really?
Speaker 4: Is there hope for you? Maybe I don't know you.
Speaker 5: Then we got five to seven. We called it passable.
Speaker 5: We're like, hey, this guy has some good bones. You're
Speaker 5: not like one hundred terrible. You do need to work
Speaker 5: on yourself. You to have a come to juice moment,
Speaker 5: a bunch of bises about fat people.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 5: Then we have eight to ten, which is you know
Speaker 5: where you shop would fall. It's credible, you did a
Speaker 5: lot of work. It looks good. You know, there were
Speaker 5: just some some minor points you couldn't get over unfortunately,
Speaker 5: And like we talked about in this movie, technically, Gina
Speaker 5: the character is not a fault for the lost points.
Speaker 5: It's like of the people around her that get abducted.
Speaker 5: And that's sometimes how life is. Like you do everything
Speaker 5: right if somebody go along and kind of like true,
Speaker 5: So yeah, good, she's good, Like the.
Speaker 4: Film was good.
Speaker 5: And then obviously we have eleven to twelve, which highest
Speaker 5: which we call marvelous, like perfect.
Speaker 4: Ten out of ten, no notes.
Speaker 5: I don't know if there is a movie out there
Speaker 5: that could score twelve. I would really have to get
Speaker 5: with sin and be like, do we think there's something
Speaker 5: out there that can do it?
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think the highest we will to
Speaker 4: me get if.
Speaker 5: We look at I guess currently existing media would probably
Speaker 5: be like the ten.
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe eleven. Maybe on a good day. I don't
Speaker 4: know who was seen your twelve, but I could be wrong.
Speaker 3: I feel like this movie would have gotten to twelve
Speaker 3: were it not for the little JJ character.
Speaker 2: I know, we really and we're coming down hard on him, but.
Speaker 3: Look, but look, he made some choices.
Speaker 2: He was holding us back lots of points.
Speaker 3: Well, I think brings us to our nipple scale, a
Speaker 3: metric of our very own that is, you know, really
Speaker 3: prestigious and really well thought out and carefully named and
Speaker 3: all that important stuff. But we rate the movie on
Speaker 3: a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining
Speaker 3: the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. So even though
Speaker 3: we've talked about some of the pretty dated things that
Speaker 3: the movie does here and they're considering it fares so
Speaker 3: well on both of your tests, Clarkisha, I'm inclined to
Speaker 3: give it like a four four nipples. I'll dock it
Speaker 3: for the stuff that we talked about, such as like
Speaker 3: the lack of critical thinking when it came to Lynn's arc,
Speaker 3: and like how she ultimately is represented in the movie,
Speaker 3: and a few other things like that. But at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, this is a movie about a
Speaker 3: black woman getting out from under the oppressive force that
Speaker 3: it is her white boss, and opening up her own
Speaker 3: shop and having her own autonomy and financial independence, and
Speaker 3: employing mostly black women and having camaraderie with them, and
Speaker 3: being a really good boss and a good mother and
Speaker 3: just a good friend all around. And it's stuff that
Speaker 3: we so seldom see in mainstream movies. So it was
Speaker 3: very refreshing to see all of that. So I'm gonna
Speaker 3: land on four nipples, and I'll split them between Queen Latifah.
Speaker 3: I'll give one to Sherry Shepherd because I enjoy her
Speaker 3: very much. I will give one to Alfree Wodard of course,
Speaker 3: and you know what, Golden Brooks gets my last one.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, I'll go for I want to go four
Speaker 2: and a half because it's so much fun. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm gonna go four point two five
Speaker 2: just to be in an argument with my self for
Speaker 2: no reason. But now I think this movie is so
Speaker 2: the fact that, I mean, building on what we've been
Speaker 2: talking about, what you just said, Katelyn, the fact that
Speaker 2: this movie tackles so much and it is still a comedy.
Speaker 2: It is like, it addresses a lot of systemic racism,
Speaker 2: it addresses misogyny and misogyn wire specifically, and it is
Speaker 2: still very much a comedy and it's an ensemble cod
Speaker 2: It's just like all of these things that I miss
Speaker 2: in movies so much and is a really good case
Speaker 2: study for how much a comedy is equipped to handle,
Speaker 2: like and I think that there is. We're just sort
Speaker 2: of starting to get back to movies like that, and
Speaker 2: I really really hope we keep getting them, especially movies
Speaker 2: like this that we have a nearly all the cast
Speaker 2: of all black women, And it's just I don't know,
Speaker 2: I feel like sometimes you hear critics talk like this
Speaker 2: is not possible, and it's like, well, but but it
Speaker 2: happened almost twenty years ago, and it happened before it's
Speaker 2: happened since, Like I would love movies like beauty Shop
Speaker 2: to be really and fully back, you know, docking the movie,
Speaker 2: like we've talked about for the regressive stereotypes or of
Speaker 2: the time, mostly docking for the homophobia and a little
Speaker 2: bit of the body politics this movie has. But it
Speaker 2: is kind of like it just speaks to like the
Speaker 2: power of Queen Latifa that none of these stereotypes touch her.
Speaker 2: They sometimes touch other characters, but Queen Latifa is just
Speaker 2: like she is such a star, like she produces her
Speaker 2: own work. I also want to hand it to this
Speaker 2: movie for having a pretty diverse team behind the camera,
Speaker 2: which we don't often have. Yeah, we have a black director,
Speaker 2: we have you know, the Kate Lanier of it all.
Speaker 2: You can listen to our set it Off episode or
Speaker 2: or more on that. But Norman's advanced junior is still
Speaker 2: a very successful working TV writer today. You know, I
Speaker 2: think that it would have been meaningful and would make
Speaker 2: a lot of sense for this movie to have had
Speaker 2: a black woman in a rectorial role because we still
Speaker 2: so rarely have that, especially you know, movies with big
Speaker 2: budgets or you know, this movie has had twenty five
Speaker 2: million dollar budget, big for a comedy of the time.
Speaker 2: But there's just so much to love about this movie.
Speaker 2: It made me excited to watch it again next time.
Speaker 2: It's such a comfort movie. And yeah, so I'm going
Speaker 2: to go four point two five nipples. I might just
Speaker 2: go for I don't know, four point two five. Sure
Speaker 2: to give one to Queen Latifah. I'm going to give
Speaker 2: one to Alfred Woodard one to Vanessa because I really
Speaker 2: loved her, and it's so hard to have a child
Speaker 2: prodigy not make me deeply annoyed. So good for her.
Speaker 3: She was really playing that piano. They weren't faking it.
Speaker 2: She was really playing. I know, I love. Yeah, there
Speaker 2: was no cutback to like clearly adult arms or like
Speaker 2: James Cameron's hands drawing. Any had to get in there.
Speaker 3: I had to get another t Titanic reference in there.
Speaker 2: You sorry? And then the rest goes to to Sherry
Speaker 2: Shepherd and the fictional little Greg she was carrying. Oh yes,
Speaker 2: of course, what would you rate this movie?
Speaker 4: I'll definitely give you like four point five. You know,
Speaker 4: I usually create either like an whole or half that
Speaker 4: I'm terrible. Then i'll really be petty.
Speaker 5: I'll be like it was a zero point one eight too,
Speaker 5: Like I'll just be making up, like because I hate
Speaker 5: your movies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, So definitely four point five. I would
Speaker 4: say the half would go to the radio. I forget,
Speaker 4: but I thank you. Oh yeah, because I appreciate her.
Speaker 5: I appreciate on people in powerful positions, pull people on
Speaker 5: because that's what we're supposed to Tony and Morris's birthday
Speaker 5: was just yesterday.
Speaker 4: I love her down. It's one of my favorite authors.
Speaker 5: And she has this quote and accusly on paraphrazing, but
Speaker 5: in the course she basically talks about, you know, when
Speaker 5: you get to these fancy jobs, get to these positions
Speaker 5: you always manifested or prayed for, you need to make
Speaker 5: sure you hold the door open for somebody else, or
Speaker 5: you said someone else up, or you put someone else
Speaker 5: else on otherwise, if you know what was is four
Speaker 5: So I love that Helen did that. She was like, hey,
Speaker 5: she did me solid. I'm gonna return to favor Now.
Speaker 5: Obviously she she's not in most of the movie, just
Speaker 5: those small parts, but you know, she changes Gena's life
Speaker 5: by doing that. So I'm like, you getta do a
Speaker 5: twenty five girl. Definitely giving one to Gina. She's a superstar.
Speaker 5: So I would give the second one to I would
Speaker 5: say halfrey Wood's character too. I just love when she
Speaker 5: puts out into the the phenomenal woman.
Speaker 2: That's I think it's like three different times.
Speaker 4: It's great.
Speaker 5: I love that for her. I would give it to
Speaker 5: once again Vanessa.
Speaker 4: She's so fun.
Speaker 5: She's also so like quick, very witty, like when she
Speaker 5: puts Jaj in his place is.
Speaker 4: Very like, oh bam, and they didn't linger. She's just like, hey,
Speaker 4: I don't know the fuck with you, You're not right.
Speaker 5: And then it's not this big moment of like, look, hey,
Speaker 5: I'm rejecting patriarchy. The kid like no, she's just like, hey,
Speaker 5: I've seen how you interact with other people.
Speaker 4: I don't like you.
Speaker 2: I've got a parent trap to take care of every hair.
Speaker 4: I don't have to like I'm not.
Speaker 5: So that'll be three. So the last one I'm gonna
Speaker 5: lean Sherry, gonna lean Sherry. You know she does a lot,
Speaker 5: but you know, I do love that. You know, she's
Speaker 5: just this pregnant woman who's very like sex positive, very
Speaker 5: fucking funny. She and then her names that she wants
Speaker 5: to name her children is just fucking ridiculous, but you
Speaker 5: just gotta go along with it.
Speaker 4: Because that's her right. I wouldn't give it to Goldie,
Speaker 4: but like, her character is very.
Speaker 5: Grating in terms of like some of the you know,
Speaker 5: regressive politics that we talked about the show. And even
Speaker 5: though I don't like meanness of already in this movie,
Speaker 5: like her hyperfixation on her titties is very weird to
Speaker 5: me because I'm just like, listen, they look good, like
Speaker 5: fuck her, but day look look.
Speaker 2: At one in a hand mirror in one shot.
Speaker 4: I was like, you had for the time, right, because
Speaker 4: we know how some of those how bad something they
Speaker 4: can go wrong?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you know a little watch, there's a whole
Speaker 5: thing around them. I'm sure y'all remember. But yeah, we
Speaker 5: give it to Sherry. She's so funny and she's so sweet.
Speaker 3: There's a fun little anecdote. I was watching a couple
Speaker 3: of videos where Queen Lativa and Cherry Shepherd are talking
Speaker 3: either on a Queen Lativa show or on Cherry Shepherd Show,
Speaker 3: but anyway, they're recounting this story about how Sherry was
Speaker 3: doing a scene that the producers wanted to cut because
Speaker 3: they deemed it too silly, and it was a scene
Speaker 3: between her and Alfrey Woodard and she's like, well, allfree
Speaker 3: Woodard isn't silly. I'm the silly one, so clearly, like
Speaker 3: it's me and my performance that they don't like. And
Speaker 3: then so she was like feeling really bad about it,
Speaker 3: and you know, didn't want the scene to be cut,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't up to her. And then Queen Latifa
Speaker 3: like knocks on her trailer door to be like, do
Speaker 3: you do the scene the way you want to do it, like,
Speaker 3: don't suppress any silliness, like be the performer you want
Speaker 3: to be, and I'll fight for this scene to stay
Speaker 3: in the movie. And they did and it worked out,
Speaker 3: and Sherry Shepherd was forever grateful about it. I don't
Speaker 3: know specifically what scene they were talking about, but yeah,
Speaker 3: well I'm not totally sure.
Speaker 2: It's a comedy. There's no such thing.
Speaker 3: Right exactly. I'm like, why wouldn't you leave a silly
Speaker 3: scene in a comedy? But anyways, so yeah, it was
Speaker 3: just like this moment of Queen Latifa lifting her up
Speaker 3: and supporting her creative vision and it was really sweet.
Speaker 2: Love it. And that's the power of being a producer too,
Speaker 2: is you can advocate for your co stars in a
Speaker 2: way that the other producers aren't going to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Clark Kisha, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: It was such a treat.
Speaker 2: This was so fun.
Speaker 3: Come back anytime for any movie.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Where can people check out your work you're writing, follow
Speaker 3: you on social media, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Read your book?
Speaker 5: Oh thank you so, my book Off on a Big
Speaker 5: Bitch Manifesto is out. Obviously, I prefer you buy from
Speaker 5: the famous press website, which is who published it. You know,
Speaker 5: you can get it Barne's novel on Amazon Books a million,
Speaker 5: you get mostly anywhere. Also, support your local library if
Speaker 5: you're in a position where you can online my book.
Speaker 5: That is okay, girl, I get it. We in a
Speaker 5: super recession, all right. But make sure you support your
Speaker 5: local library because they will have it, whether it's the
Speaker 5: hard copy or an e book, or they have like
Speaker 5: the audiobooks.
Speaker 4: I did do that too, They will have it.
Speaker 5: Support your local library, get a library card, make sure
Speaker 5: they don't get shut down. It is one of our
Speaker 5: final third spaces. People get complaining about third spaces disappearing.
Speaker 5: That's one and she needs all help. She's on her
Speaker 5: last live, especially the New York Yes, so there's that.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's also you can find me on you know, Twitter,
Speaker 5: which is Twitter. I'm not gonna ever call it x
Speaker 5: no so Twitter, I'm so you know at Ironald Date Underscore.
Speaker 5: I go back and forth and from Keith the account,
Speaker 5: so we don't see it really depends, you know, Instagram
Speaker 5: at Clarkisha Kent, and then I'm on High Social too.
Speaker 4: I haven't been there a little bit, but yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: on there also with Clarkisha Kent.
Speaker 5: My website is currently down for construction right now because
Speaker 5: I got to move some stuff around, but you usually
Speaker 5: can find.
Speaker 4: Me there as well. Www dot clarkishcampt.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us today. This has
Speaker 2: like truly been years in the making. We're really happy
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Speaker 3: You can also go to our link tree link tree
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Speaker 3: I don't know an upcoming tour we're doing in the UK,
Speaker 3: and it's not just any tour, it's the Shrek Tannic Tour,
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Speaker 6: Li'st it okay, Bye bye.
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