Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef invest start
Speaker 1: changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante. My name
Speaker 1: is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where we
Speaker 1: talk about UH movies from an intersectional feminist lens. Caitlin,
Speaker 1: do you have a poem prepared for today? Is there
Speaker 1: any anything you'd like to share with the class? Here's
Speaker 1: the thing I did. Used to write poetry because I
Speaker 1: was once a teenager and and uh, actually this is
Speaker 1: something that probably you, Jamie don't know this about me,
Speaker 1: nor does really anyone. There was a time where in
Speaker 1: my comedy career, I was like, what if I start
Speaker 1: writing comedy poetry and that's on to something and that's
Speaker 1: what people know me as like I'm the poetry comedian
Speaker 1: because I've written several like comedic poems that I'm honestly
Speaker 1: very proud of. But I didn't follow through with my plan.
Speaker 1: Bring it back. Post pandemic is the perfect time you
Speaker 1: can rebrand your the comedy poet again that I feel
Speaker 1: like that's been a thing in the pandemic to like
Speaker 1: some comedians have like started writing poetry. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I am not one of them. I last read poetry
Speaker 1: in front of people when I was twelve, and the
Speaker 1: reception was really not good. I was like, it was
Speaker 1: a poem about like I was like trying to really
Speaker 1: like mesh with like the emo trend that was going on.
Speaker 1: And so I wrote a poem called not just Eyeliner,
Speaker 1: which was really confusing because I did not wear eyeliner
Speaker 1: and I never had I wasn't allowed to. And so
Speaker 1: I read this whole poem about how I'm more than
Speaker 1: just eyeliner, and then someone after classes was like, you
Speaker 1: don't wear an eyeliner? And I never wrote another poem
Speaker 1: the end, I think that and of itself was a poem.
Speaker 1: That story was very poetics. I should have been more
Speaker 1: I should have been more confident. I would be like,
Speaker 1: clearly you misunderstood it was a metaphor. There's a metaphor.
Speaker 1: But instead I was like, I'm sorry and never wrote
Speaker 1: a poem again. The movie we're talking about today is
Speaker 1: poetic justice, like so hard to not interject right now
Speaker 1: because I haven't been interrupted or introduced, so great, please
Speaker 1: I have. There's comedy, so there are comedy poems on
Speaker 1: like albums of mine, poems in between. Had a friend,
Speaker 1: comedian friend I went to college with, and I had
Speaker 1: him do interludes for every record I did for like
Speaker 1: the first four records, and two of them are poems
Speaker 1: because the albums are half rap and half poetry. I
Speaker 1: have not been introduced yet, but the poems are funny.
Speaker 1: Trust me. I'll tell you who I am later. Let's
Speaker 1: just formally introduce you now. The voice you just heard
Speaker 1: is that of a poet. Okay, first of all hip
Speaker 1: hop artists, activists, host of the podcast Hood Politics. He's
Speaker 1: got a poetry book coming out entitled terror Form. It's
Speaker 1: Jason Petty a k A propaganda, a k A prop
Speaker 1: That's that's me. You just told everybody my government name. Okay,
Speaker 1: word but uh yeah, yeah, so wonder poel wanted to
Speaker 1: look my homeboy, Alfonso mcfons. He said on my record,
Speaker 1: he goes, why did the crip cross the road? Because
Speaker 1: that was the end of the poem. I was like,
Speaker 1: it's brilliant, it's good, it's good when poetry is funny.
Speaker 1: It truly. I was like, it transcends, so I don't know,
Speaker 1: I like get really excited, and then I also get
Speaker 1: jealous because I'm like, how the fuck right they do that?
Speaker 1: There's a line, dude, because there's some poems that are
Speaker 1: attempting to be serious, but this, it is hilarious, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, because it's like this it's the
Speaker 1: fake deep and then you're presenting it as if you're
Speaker 1: a character, you know, so it becomes where it's like
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to laugh, but this is super funny,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like it's many as many years as
Speaker 1: I spent in like open mic scenes and and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and just you know, it's just you. It's
Speaker 1: like you're you're a character, and like you don't know it,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I don't I shouldn't be laughing, but
Speaker 1: it's so funny. I can't imagine the amount of cringe
Speaker 1: you had to sit through it Poetry open mix, because
Speaker 1: it's like a stand up of a mix. It's I
Speaker 1: feel like a similar like or maybe just a different
Speaker 1: a different brand of cringe that you have to sit there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the cringes like So there's two types. Right. There's the like,
Speaker 1: especially at open mics, and you know the scene I
Speaker 1: came from, it's like we want people to be involved,
Speaker 1: like you want people to love the craft, love poetry,
Speaker 1: and nobody has any ill thoughts towards a person if
Speaker 1: it's like, yo, this is my second poem they've ever written,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, or like they're just trying.
Speaker 1: So there's the air of humility. You know what I'm saying, Um,
Speaker 1: that's understandable. It's cringe e. But it's like you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you're learning. That's what open mics are for,
Speaker 1: that's what you know for comedy, like the one am slot.
Speaker 1: It's like this is you're working on something. So it's
Speaker 1: like it's dope, Okay, come back next week. You're gonna
Speaker 1: get better. Right. But then there's then there's the person
Speaker 1: that's like in the name of God, all on the
Speaker 1: Ancestors a sha like you know I had to that
Speaker 1: walked up there holding sage and instance and you're just like,
Speaker 1: what what do you what are you doing? What are
Speaker 1: you doing? What are you doing? You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: And so you're sitting through this like That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: This like what I like to call the overwoke, Like
Speaker 1: just you know, I can't play pool because the game
Speaker 1: ain't over to the white ball hit the black ball
Speaker 1: into the hole, Like, come on, man, bro, that's not
Speaker 1: the that's not the fight dog, Like there's the there's
Speaker 1: a fight, we gotta fight. I just don't think this
Speaker 1: one's it, you know. So like there's a gang of
Speaker 1: cringe you know, but it's the cringe of the one
Speaker 1: that swears their brilliant. It's just that's the cringe. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know that, But it does feel like kind of
Speaker 1: a similar thing of like the cringe of a comedian
Speaker 1: who's convinced they're hilarious when they are just demonstrably no
Speaker 1: one is laughing. Yes, Like at the end there like
Speaker 1: that audience was they didn't get it. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they get it. I don't think any of us did. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm people in there, not one person. Let's be extremely misunderstood. Goodness. Um,
Speaker 1: so probly what's your relationship with the movie Poetic Justice?
Speaker 1: Oh man? Where do I start? Um? The relationship? I
Speaker 1: mean it may have to do it like my location
Speaker 1: and my age group, like and who the director is.
Speaker 1: I'm originally from South Central Los Angeles, so and at
Speaker 1: the time, I'm in eighth grade, maybe somewhere around middle
Speaker 1: school when this when this is happening, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean maybe even probably younger than that. But like the
Speaker 1: point is it was like black people didn't see ourselves
Speaker 1: on camera like this, you know, the director from South Central,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. The story takes place in
Speaker 1: South Central, right, and this was like obviously a launch
Speaker 1: of so many other like sort of this like black Hollywood.
Speaker 1: It's like new school Black Hollywood that I got to
Speaker 1: like really experience this at like, you know, my whole
Speaker 1: coming of age. Like everything that came out after this
Speaker 1: was with boys in the hood and all this stuff
Speaker 1: that was like this takes place in l A. You know.
Speaker 1: So there's a very like emotional tie and and I
Speaker 1: don't know if it can be understated or overstated the
Speaker 1: transcendent nature of Tupac in Janet Jackson to to a
Speaker 1: black youth, you know, you know, venturing into you know,
Speaker 1: the beginnings of like coming out of childhood into boyhood
Speaker 1: that like I just I don't know if there were
Speaker 1: bigger stars than that, you know, and at the time,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's Janet Jackson Man like coming, it's She's
Speaker 1: like I just wonder if I just think, I just
Speaker 1: think her mythos would probably be just as legendary as
Speaker 1: Tupac if she passed, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: since she lived, you know, she's got to this level
Speaker 1: of icon that just Tupac's death and the mystery around
Speaker 1: it like created a lot of the mythology. But like
Speaker 1: the reality is there were no to human beings more
Speaker 1: physically gorgeous, you know what I'm saying. So the relationship
Speaker 1: not not only that it's like star studded, It's like
Speaker 1: there's like these like deep cuts, like hell q Tip
Speaker 1: from a tribe called Quest dies in the first scene,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So it's like these are
Speaker 1: stars for like Black America. Like again, I can't overstate this.
Speaker 1: This movie is star studded for like a preteen black kid,
Speaker 1: you know. So, which was why doing this pot is
Speaker 1: so it's gonna be so painful for me because you
Speaker 1: just want to protect you know, the emotional tie I
Speaker 1: have to it. Yeah, Yeah, I mean it's like the
Speaker 1: the emotional tie is immortal, is Yeah, yeah, Jamie, what
Speaker 1: about you? What's your history with it? UM? I've seen
Speaker 1: this movie before. I hadn't seen it in a long time.
Speaker 1: I remember watching this movie view with friends in high school.
Speaker 1: I think this was the first John Singleton movie I
Speaker 1: ever saw, which I don't know if that's like you,
Speaker 1: But I saw this and then I saw Boys in
Speaker 1: the Hood later, which I know is like chronologically out
Speaker 1: of order. But I really liked the movie because any
Speaker 1: movie where there was a girl as a protagonist, especially
Speaker 1: if I knew who it was, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: Jedi Jackson, this is great, And I really I really
Speaker 1: liked it UM. And then but I haven't, like, I
Speaker 1: haven't gone back to it in in a long time,
Speaker 1: and I mean, there's definitely stuff to talk about. And
Speaker 1: I also that the history and the um the way
Speaker 1: that this movie I just didn't really kind of I
Speaker 1: didn't know like the chronology of John Singleton's UM like movies,
Speaker 1: and how this movie was made kind of in reaction
Speaker 1: to feedback he got from having made Boys in the Hood,
Speaker 1: and just the conversation happening around the movie UM is
Speaker 1: just as interesting as as the movie itself. So I'm
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah, it's been I
Speaker 1: think at least ten years since I've seen it. What
Speaker 1: about you, Caitlin. This is one that I had never
Speaker 1: seen before, so I was excited to watch it for
Speaker 1: the first time. I was also very caught off guard
Speaker 1: when the first face you see in the movie is
Speaker 1: Billy Zanes, and I was like, I know, Billy Zane cameo.
Speaker 1: You're just like it's going. It was a bit jarring.
Speaker 1: I always love to see Billy's Ane, but it's Billy
Speaker 1: Zane and Lori Petty right, It's pretty I remember seeing
Speaker 1: it in the theaters being like, what are they going, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a movie within a movie. It's a good bait
Speaker 1: and switch. I forgot. I completely forgot that it opens
Speaker 1: that way and it starts with like, correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. It felt like, uh, like kind of bizarre
Speaker 1: Woody Allen reference at the beginning, because they're like playing
Speaker 1: Rhapsody and Blue over like the city Escape, and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is huh what is happening? And then it's Billy
Speaker 1: Zane And then the movie started and you see like
Speaker 1: the marquis for the movie at like the drive in
Speaker 1: that they're out and in the name of the movie
Speaker 1: is Deadly Diva or something like that, which is a
Speaker 1: play on Sem Fei Tao obviously, which is a is
Speaker 1: the title of a movie that Billy Zane was in
Speaker 1: a couple of years earlier. So I did not know
Speaker 1: that quite an easter egg. I liked that, um, that Justice.
Speaker 1: It's going to be so hard for me to not
Speaker 1: just say Janet Jackson that Justice. Um in that first
Speaker 1: scene is like, this movie is really good. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: it isn't she's talking about But Billy Zane isn't it?
Speaker 1: So it's amazing. So in a way, she's completely right.
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, I hadn't seen this movie. I was
Speaker 1: excited to see it, and I'm excited. Who talk about it?
Speaker 1: So should we get into the recap and go from there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and prop jump in whenever for the recap. The recap
Speaker 1: is open seasons. It is so we like I said,
Speaker 1: see Billy Zane and Lori Petty. It's revealed that they
Speaker 1: are characters in a movie that Justice. Janet Jackson and
Speaker 1: her boyfriend Marquel are watching at a drive in movie
Speaker 1: theater in South central l A. But during the movie,
Speaker 1: Marquel is shot and killed by a couple of guys
Speaker 1: he had had some conflict with a few days prior there.
Speaker 1: Let me let me jump in here. Uh, there's there's
Speaker 1: some there's some like hood Easter eggs in this too
Speaker 1: is like so obviously it opens once upon a time
Speaker 1: in South central l A. The drive ins in Compton. Though,
Speaker 1: so there's like hood shit happening because if you at
Speaker 1: the time, if you're from south central, we have no
Speaker 1: business going down to content, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: because like unless you know somebody down there, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be down there, you know what I'm saying. So but look,
Speaker 1: everybody on a date, you ain't worried about it. He
Speaker 1: probably forgot about the thing, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And you see him looking in the mirror. Like there
Speaker 1: were scenes in that that were so triggering is not
Speaker 1: the word, but very familiar, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So like that's the type of stuff that like if
Speaker 1: you from for us, why this part of this movie
Speaker 1: was so iconic. It makes you know the directors from
Speaker 1: here because those things are like, Okay, yeah, that's that,
Speaker 1: that's what would happen, because he wouldn't get shot in
Speaker 1: his own hood, like, nobody would do that, and from
Speaker 1: South Central one would do that. In South Central you
Speaker 1: are you are on the other side of town, you know,
Speaker 1: you further south. So that's a it's a just an
Speaker 1: interesting like moment. And then again it's cu Tip from
Speaker 1: a tribe called quest Like and I'm going, I'm at
Speaker 1: the age when this movie is coming out that I'm
Speaker 1: like falling in of with turns out what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do for the rest of my life. So I'm falling
Speaker 1: in love with hip hop, you know. So to see
Speaker 1: Tip in a movie, I was like, wait, rappers, can
Speaker 1: you can be in movies? And I knew Tupac was
Speaker 1: the star, but he don't count Tupac already in the stratosphere.
Speaker 1: He's gone. But like I was like, but this, but Tip, okay,
Speaker 1: he got to kiss you Jackson, you know, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and there and everyone is good in this movie too.
Speaker 1: It's like whenever that the musician to actor pipeline is
Speaker 1: not effective, but in this movie, I feel like it
Speaker 1: very much works. Yes for sure. Yeah. So after the
Speaker 1: death of Marquel, some time passes, Justice writes poetry to
Speaker 1: help her cope with her grief and to just generally
Speaker 1: make sense of the world. But it's all Maya Angelou
Speaker 1: poetry that is happening throughout the movie, and some of
Speaker 1: it like I don't know. I was like, maybe I
Speaker 1: just didn't know a lot of her poetry when I
Speaker 1: saw this the first time, But now I was like,
Speaker 1: oh wait, wait, that's it's a phenomenal woman. I know,
Speaker 1: but it's so I mean, it weaves in so seamlessly.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, And I feel like that's a really good
Speaker 1: choice by John Singleton to to just like go to
Speaker 1: the master and not be like, let's see how this goes,
Speaker 1: because yeah, and it's like it's almost like it's like
Speaker 1: feminism for his time, because I don't know who's more
Speaker 1: who's more iconic than my Angelo, like you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And to say that that's the driving voice
Speaker 1: of this film, I guess in ninety one you could
Speaker 1: be like this is feminism, you know what I mean
Speaker 1: I mean by yeah, by by just like including women's
Speaker 1: voices at all as a male writer write about women.
Speaker 1: It's like the bar is low, but that's not nothing.
Speaker 1: And her poetry, and I was also just like so
Speaker 1: psyched at her at her cameo later in the aunt
Speaker 1: June and then so we hear this poetry as voiceover
Speaker 1: throughout the entire movie. It kind of comes in and out.
Speaker 1: Um professionally, Justice is a hairstylist. Aisha played by Regina
Speaker 1: King is one of Justice's clients and best friend. The
Speaker 1: salon owner, Jesse played by Tyra Farrell, asks Justice when
Speaker 1: she's gonna get over Marquel and find herself a good
Speaker 1: man as if on cue a postman. Lucky that's Tupac
Speaker 1: enters the salon, flirts with Justice, but she kind of
Speaker 1: works with him and he's like, never mind. And then
Speaker 1: Lucky's friend Chicago played by Joe Torrey, asks him to
Speaker 1: come along on a drive to Oakland. He's bringing his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: so Lucky asks if he can hook him up with
Speaker 1: one of Chicago's girlfriend's friends. Right here, real quick. Again,
Speaker 1: another like uh thing that the rest of us are
Speaker 1: catching is like again, okay, obviously, Regina King becomes the
Speaker 1: Regina King we all know now, but at the time,
Speaker 1: at least for our community. Again, she's already a star,
Speaker 1: you know, so she was, you know, she had the
Speaker 1: two to seven, a little sitcom when she was she
Speaker 1: was a little girl. And then Joe Torre was like
Speaker 1: the host of Comic View and like deaf comedy jam.
Speaker 1: So these dudes, Like again, it was like this movie
Speaker 1: is so stacked, you know, and like and I can't
Speaker 1: get over. Like that was one thing that like, now
Speaker 1: as an adult looking back at it, I was like, dang, John,
Speaker 1: he broke the bank for this thing, man, because this
Speaker 1: this mug is stacked, right. And then the second thing
Speaker 1: I was thinking about two is like, now looking back,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Pockets supposed used to be our Lucky's character
Speaker 1: is supposed to be he's one of the good ones.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, and that's the juxtaposition because again the
Speaker 1: bars low he's got a job, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: He wants to take care of his kids. He sees
Speaker 1: the gangster dudes doing the thing, he's choosing to do
Speaker 1: something else, you know what I'm saying. So you're supposed
Speaker 1: to see him as not as toxic as all the
Speaker 1: other Now I'm just like I look at him now
Speaker 1: and I'm just like this the bare minimum bat like.
Speaker 1: But but at the time I was like, yeah, man, Luck,
Speaker 1: you're good dude, you know. Yeah, well, I mean he
Speaker 1: that that comes up pretty early in the movie too,
Speaker 1: that like he's he's a father and he takes his
Speaker 1: kid out of like a really toxic situation at home
Speaker 1: and goes home with his mom. Yeah, yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: happens next. But he negs women every step of the
Speaker 1: way the whole time, like every you got something to say.
Speaker 1: We also learned about his musical aspirations. He one of
Speaker 1: the reasons he wants to go to Oakland. They're on
Speaker 1: like a postal service run. But he also intends to
Speaker 1: meet up with his cousin Khalil, because they're both aspiring
Speaker 1: musicians who like collaborate on different things. Meanwhile, it turns
Speaker 1: out that Aisha is the one who is dating Chicago
Speaker 1: So and when he asks if she knows anyone who
Speaker 1: like she can hook Lucky up with, she's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: my friend Justice. Hey, Justice, take this drive with us.
Speaker 1: And she's like no thanks, But she ends up going
Speaker 1: anyway because she and Jesse have a hair show in
Speaker 1: Oakland and her car won't start, so she's like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll get a ride in this mail truck.
Speaker 1: So when she shows up, she's like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I recognize this guy, and so she and lucky. You're
Speaker 1: both kind of like yea, you know, they have this
Speaker 1: little history of like her him hitting on her, her
Speaker 1: rejecting him, so they're like and then it turns into
Speaker 1: this fun road movie. My sister is uh, quite a
Speaker 1: few years outer than me, so she's actually at the time,
Speaker 1: she's like the age of the characters, and so like
Speaker 1: there's not one outfit that Justice is wearing that my
Speaker 1: sister didn't have, you know what I mean, almost like
Speaker 1: like this girl looks like my sister, you know, all
Speaker 1: of the burning the edges of her braids, Like it's
Speaker 1: like this is the way we lived, you know. And um,
Speaker 1: but I remember asking my sister. I used to always
Speaker 1: ask because like she always had these quick comebacks when
Speaker 1: you know, guys were hitting on her. Since I was
Speaker 1: so much younger, I was always her alibi. So I
Speaker 1: went to so many things that I probably shouldn't have
Speaker 1: gone to you because I was the alibi for her
Speaker 1: to tell our parents, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, tell my mom where she was. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: was just like oh, you know, like she would pick
Speaker 1: me up from school and I'd be like, oh, thanks
Speaker 1: for the right home. We'd end up somewhere in Burbank.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, at like some dude's house.
Speaker 1: You know, they're breaking up bricks. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Because she's hollering at the boy. You know, So I
Speaker 1: was just her alibi, right, So anyway, UM like, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to go get Jack in the box and
Speaker 1: on jacket. But we'd stopped by seven other houses were jack.
Speaker 1: The point is I was always in these like adult situations.
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't have been it, but I used to
Speaker 1: always witness her shoot dudes down, and she would get
Speaker 1: creative after a while and and like little things like
Speaker 1: it was like hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, you got
Speaker 1: a name? And she'd be like don't everybody? Or so
Speaker 1: can I get your number? It's like you gotta get
Speaker 1: your own. So she would like she was just super creative,
Speaker 1: and I just remember thinking like, why are you so mean?
Speaker 1: And that was because you know, I'm a little boy.
Speaker 1: So I was just like, and I'm still nervous to
Speaker 1: like walk up to like Yalanda Zalez and ask her
Speaker 1: to dance, you know what I'm saying, Like, I'm still
Speaker 1: just a nerd kids, So I'm just like, why are
Speaker 1: you that would kill me if Yolanda said that to me,
Speaker 1: Like I would never ask anyone ever, like why are
Speaker 1: you so mean? You know? And she was just trying
Speaker 1: to explain to me, like Jason, this happens every day
Speaker 1: all the time. Every day She's like, fools, don't understand no,
Speaker 1: like you just you And after a while it just
Speaker 1: gets boring. So You're like, I'm just gonna entertain myself.
Speaker 1: But at the time, I was like, Okay, dang, my
Speaker 1: sister's mean, you know, so the way so the way
Speaker 1: that she the way Justice just kept shutting his food down,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I was like, no, wonder
Speaker 1: he's so mad, you know what I'm saying. She just mean,
Speaker 1: why are you so mean? You know? Not like I mean,
Speaker 1: here had two sisters, I had another sister, same way.
Speaker 1: But she used to just stare my other My other
Speaker 1: sisters passed away. She was just staring dudes. They would
Speaker 1: say stuff, she would just look at them, just silent.
Speaker 1: That's the ultimate punishment too. I wish I had I
Speaker 1: wish I had the Constitution to do any of this.
Speaker 1: This sounds amazing. Dog, my sid they were cold, my sisters,
Speaker 1: they were cold, say but like, and I honestly it
Speaker 1: wasn't until adulthood that I really understood like you, oh
Speaker 1: oh you just because I was like, dog, I would
Speaker 1: be crushed. I mean if I said this to me,
Speaker 1: you know. But I'm also not going like, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing that either. I'm saying so probably why nobody's saying
Speaker 1: it to me makes a difference. Yes, oh yeah, she's
Speaker 1: just reacting to being constantly harassed basically. Um So that's
Speaker 1: what happens. For the first chunk of this trip where
Speaker 1: they set off on this drive to Oakland, Justice and
Speaker 1: Lucky do not get along. He's like, why are you
Speaker 1: so quiet? Why are you so mean? You're so stuck up?
Speaker 1: And then he calls her a bit several times. They
Speaker 1: get into a screaming match, which results in Justice getting
Speaker 1: out of the mail truck in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Lucky drives off, but Aisha is like, do you have
Speaker 1: to stop and go back and pick up my friends?
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? They're like hours away, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, that was clearly the grape vine.
Speaker 1: If you're from l A, You're like, that's the grape
Speaker 1: There's nothing there. Don't get out the car there and
Speaker 1: no one's gonna no one's gonna drive by for a while,
Speaker 1: no one's gonna see Yeah, So they go back and
Speaker 1: get her. Justice eventually gets back in. They make a
Speaker 1: stop where Chicago and Lucky talk about women in relationships,
Speaker 1: Justice and Asia talk about men. This is what again.
Speaker 1: John Singleton's brilliance is like he sneaks in an amazing
Speaker 1: socio cultural lesson in the same way Boys in the
Speaker 1: Hood has this like one moment about gentrification that's like
Speaker 1: so iconic where Lawrence Fishburn is teaching them about ownership
Speaker 1: and like gentrification and stuff like that. In this moment,
Speaker 1: they're just at this your store and she's like, yo,
Speaker 1: where the oldie that's like old English like malt liquor.
Speaker 1: Justice is like, oh, they don't sell that outside the hood,
Speaker 1: And it's like that just quick, like you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying that quick like ha, like this just he
Speaker 1: he just sneaks these like singers in, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying that are a part of the story. So
Speaker 1: you don't feel like you're being preached at you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally yeah. And then they leave from that little rest
Speaker 1: stop or whatever, and then they're driving again, they smell
Speaker 1: some barbecue. They realize it's coming from the Johnson family
Speaker 1: reunion and they're like, oh, let's stop and see if
Speaker 1: we can get some food. Um, which works. They mistake
Speaker 1: them for being part of this family and then beat
Speaker 1: This is my favorite scene in the movie by far.
Speaker 1: I loved this family reunion. UM. During this time, also
Speaker 1: Justice and Lucky chat a bit. They start to find
Speaker 1: some common ground. Then Aisha and Chicago get in a
Speaker 1: huge fight. They have to leave the family reunion and
Speaker 1: get back on the road. Justice calls Aisha out for
Speaker 1: her alcohol abuse. They then make another stop at an
Speaker 1: African cultural fair. Justice and Lucky keep warming up to
Speaker 1: each other. Meanwhile, Aisha and Chicago's relationship is falling apart.
Speaker 1: I think it really like speaks to the pacing that
Speaker 1: John Singleton is able to achieve here, where like by
Speaker 1: the time they got to the fair, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is all happening in one day day, like, which
Speaker 1: makes sense for that drive, but I was like, it's
Speaker 1: just paste so like methodically of like whatever you can
Speaker 1: tell kind of early it's like, Oh, Janet Jackson is
Speaker 1: going to she's going to fix him, She's going to
Speaker 1: change him to it too, or that's where it seems
Speaker 1: like it's going and it happens in the day and
Speaker 1: it's like again, it's it's stupid. I just I just
Speaker 1: bleed Los Angeles or California. So I just noticed this
Speaker 1: type stuff that they chose to take pH rather than
Speaker 1: the five. Yeah, and it's like three hours longer to
Speaker 1: go a pH. So it's like, this is the worst
Speaker 1: way to go, you know, in your mail carriers. Don't
Speaker 1: you know that? You know? But how you going to
Speaker 1: have like the iconic like beach scenes because you're definitely
Speaker 1: not going to get like a Pan African festival, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying going through Fresno. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: it's dairy farms, you know. So I get it that
Speaker 1: you had to do that for the look, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like you don't hit you until, like you said that,
Speaker 1: you're like, wait, this was a day, you know, like
Speaker 1: a lesser writer could have really made it feel like
Speaker 1: a day. But it just like everyone does go through
Speaker 1: like some manner of an arc in the space of
Speaker 1: like whatever ten am to eight at night. I also
Speaker 1: love how Lucky keeps being like we have a schedule
Speaker 1: to stick to, we have to like we gotta get
Speaker 1: there at a certain time, so let's take the PC
Speaker 1: and three hours to the drive. Yes, it's ridiculous goodness.
Speaker 1: So these relationships are these dynamics are changing Chicago and
Speaker 1: Aisha's relationship is falling apart. Chicago hits Aisha and there's
Speaker 1: some violence there. So they leave Chicago behind. They're like,
Speaker 1: fuck you dude. He lenges a justice as well, doesn't he. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what said Lucky off to be like all right,
Speaker 1: because at first he was like, it has none of
Speaker 1: my business, you know, and it's like just when you're
Speaker 1: ready to like like Lucky, yeah, and then he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna jump, not gonna intervene when a woman
Speaker 1: is being by your friends. Yeah. It's so crazy because
Speaker 1: it's like and then now I'm being generous here, but
Speaker 1: it's like in something just he's like that fool's my coworker.
Speaker 1: We just get along like we're not wait really homies,
Speaker 1: Like this is funny? Is my friend freeds a work friend?
Speaker 1: You know? And again I'm obviously I don't feel like this,
Speaker 1: but he's like, I Usha is mouthy. She is kind
Speaker 1: of like berating him at a level. Well, I probably
Speaker 1: obviously I wouldn't date somebody that toxic or be in
Speaker 1: a relationship that toxic already. But the point is is like,
Speaker 1: rather than crying, which is what any other well processed
Speaker 1: human would do, at that moment, he decides to hit her,
Speaker 1: you know, and then when he lunches at justice is
Speaker 1: when yeah, he jumps in. But I I I remember
Speaker 1: feeling like Regina King is the most familiar character in
Speaker 1: this in the way that she's playing it, because again,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where you're like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: really from here, like you're really from Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: I can tell you know, Janet, it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to suspend really because we're like, well, you're a Jackson, right,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, yeah, you know you
Speaker 1: were Michael Jackson's little sister, Like how I can't you
Speaker 1: didn't go to Crunshaw High, Like I know you didn't,
Speaker 1: So it's kind of hard. You played the hell out
Speaker 1: of that role. But it's kind of hard like Regina,
Speaker 1: you like naht and vernth like I know you from here,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm saying. So the way that she was
Speaker 1: just like got dog, the way she was tearing that
Speaker 1: food down, you know what I'm saying, and uh it
Speaker 1: to me, it just it's just highlighted, like to get bigger,
Speaker 1: to get like more meta. Here, just highlighted just how
Speaker 1: you guys talk about intersectional like what interlocking systems of
Speaker 1: injustice does, how institutionalized racism, how it eventually trickles down
Speaker 1: to us hating each other, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and never having the space to process that hate, and
Speaker 1: it turns into clear and evident domestic violence, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So much so that again within our community,
Speaker 1: there's one thing, there's one thing that black people learn,
Speaker 1: especially when you grow up the way I grow up
Speaker 1: is mind your fucking business, Joe saying, like you look,
Speaker 1: I hear what's going on over there. We don't call
Speaker 1: the police. Where I'm from, police mess around, shoot me.
Speaker 1: I'm the one that called. They go, so we don't
Speaker 1: call it. You stay out of their business. They stay
Speaker 1: out of mind. We don't know what they got going on,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And most of the time
Speaker 1: it's for better or for worse, you know, but like look,
Speaker 1: they just now they're crazy. You just stay out of that, Like,
Speaker 1: don't worry don't get in the middle of that. You
Speaker 1: don't know, you don't know which one of them connected.
Speaker 1: You mess around, they mess around, called their cousin. You
Speaker 1: catch a spray bullet for standing up in the middle
Speaker 1: of this. Stay out of it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And all of that toxicity just sits in our like
Speaker 1: just in our community, so that like the obvious answer
Speaker 1: right now is to funk out the car and stop this,
Speaker 1: like you know what I'm saying, or not even don't
Speaker 1: even let it get there, like the minute they start,
Speaker 1: like Okay, y'all, you know what I'm saying, Like you
Speaker 1: stopped that before even gets to that. But you just
Speaker 1: learned from being in such a like just growing up
Speaker 1: with such toxicity to like, no, let me stay out
Speaker 1: of that. You all know, you know what I mean? Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: That's part of what I'm really interested to talk about
Speaker 1: Lucky in general, because it seems like he is like
Speaker 1: on a kind of path towards like altering some of
Speaker 1: those But but I feel like the movie does kind
Speaker 1: of give you the context of why he feels that way,
Speaker 1: even when you're like I completely disagree with what he's
Speaker 1: either tolerated or how he's acting. I feel like John
Speaker 1: Singleton does do a good job of giving you the
Speaker 1: context of like this is not a vacuum. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because when you think of Lucky's character, you juxtaposed that
Speaker 1: to tone Loke, which was the other baby daddy who's
Speaker 1: also remarkably famous at the time, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So you you juxtaposed it to him, to the dude
Speaker 1: that you know, his baby mama was sleeping with, to
Speaker 1: the hood that the you know, the project building that
Speaker 1: they live in, and then the homies that drive up
Speaker 1: that got guns in the car. You're like, you juxtapose
Speaker 1: who Lucky is in relation to what he's around all
Speaker 1: the time. You're like, I understand you. I understand that
Speaker 1: you believe you are making the better choices, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's like that's the part that like again, it's
Speaker 1: like if I could put that like on that emotion
Speaker 1: on billboards, especially when we start talking about police brutality
Speaker 1: and George Floyd and stuff like that, when you move
Speaker 1: into things like please understand the context here, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like, there's a lot of hurdles were
Speaker 1: jumping over, you know, and it's not it's not an excuse,
Speaker 1: but again it's context, right, and you even see police
Speaker 1: hassling people in the neighborhood. Yeah, the movie is not
Speaker 1: about that, but it's something that you get a glimpse
Speaker 1: of because like this is their reality. It's another like
Speaker 1: very yeah, really smooth John Singleton, like the like you're
Speaker 1: saying prop with like the convenience start a scene where
Speaker 1: it's just like something that happens, and then they keep
Speaker 1: moving through the world. But it's like, oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: is like a very intentionally done for sure. So let's
Speaker 1: see they've let they've left Chicago behind. Justice and Lucky
Speaker 1: get even closer. He talks more about his musical aspirations.
Speaker 1: She tells him about her family history. They finally kiss,
Speaker 1: and I believe it's implied they have sex. If I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken that we cut a chat with a blanket.
Speaker 1: You're just like maybe, I don't know. It's like it's
Speaker 1: sunset there. Well, the main indication is shortly after that
Speaker 1: they're back in the car and Lucky he's like, I
Speaker 1: have to tell you something and she's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna tell me that you have something as
Speaker 1: in like an s T I I was like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: nothing like that. I have a daughter. And she's like, well,
Speaker 1: why didn't you tell me that? Sooner? The ultimate sexually
Speaker 1: transmitted um right yo. I was actually pretty taken back
Speaker 1: as to like why she reacted so largely about him
Speaker 1: having a child, because I was like, wait, why, like
Speaker 1: why is she furious about this like that? I I
Speaker 1: guess again like product of my time, Like I wouldn't
Speaker 1: I would have been relieved if somebody would have been like,
Speaker 1: I have something to tell you that I would be nervous.
Speaker 1: And she was like, yo, did you just give me something?
Speaker 1: And then he's like no, I have a daughter. Oh
Speaker 1: all right, cool? How old is she? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, tell me about her? Do you have
Speaker 1: any pictures? Like? You know, Like I feel like that
Speaker 1: would have been such a relief rather than like outraged,
Speaker 1: you know, I was kind of I mean, there's like
Speaker 1: a few points in how Justice has written that I'm
Speaker 1: a little kind of confused on like the choices that
Speaker 1: were made that is like set up, and I think
Speaker 1: is it's at the family reunion scene where Justice says
Speaker 1: something like or maybe it's in that scene where it's
Speaker 1: just their thoughts are being voiceovered while they're at the beach,
Speaker 1: where she's like, oh, he looks like he has a kid,
Speaker 1: or like I I feel like it was implied that
Speaker 1: maybe she was like that's too much work, that's too
Speaker 1: much like, yeah, I don't really know. It was kind
Speaker 1: of unclear um why. Yeah, she does ask him about
Speaker 1: it at the family reunion. She's like, oh, you seem
Speaker 1: like the type who would have a kid, and rather
Speaker 1: than confirming that at the time, he's just like he
Speaker 1: says like, ha ha, anyway, I'll never tell Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I forgot about that part because she was kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like dragging him as if like you got baby stashed
Speaker 1: everywhere you don't even take it care of, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. He's like, yeah, you don't even know,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, because he's a good dad, yeah,
Speaker 1: relatively stomping out of somebody yeah yeah, and then leaving
Speaker 1: her for the weekend with his mom, which she told
Speaker 1: him not to do. She's like, I'm raising this using
Speaker 1: this baby. Take it back back anyway. So right as
Speaker 1: this is all happening, they have arrived in Oakland, only
Speaker 1: to discover that Lucky's cousin Khalil has just been shot
Speaker 1: and killed, and Lucky is devastated and he tells Justice like, oh,
Speaker 1: if we had gotten here sooner, this would have never happened.
Speaker 1: And he blames Justice and the time they spent together
Speaker 1: for like not allowing him to prevent this from happening
Speaker 1: to Khalil, and he storms off. Justice is very hurt.
Speaker 1: She This is when we get the voice over poem
Speaker 1: Phenomenal Woman Lucky. We see him dealing with his grief,
Speaker 1: and then sometime later back in l A, Lucky brings
Speaker 1: his daughter Kesha into the salon where Justice works. He apologizes,
Speaker 1: they kiss and make up, and the movie ends with
Speaker 1: Justice doing Keisha's hair. So that's the story. Let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break and we will come back to discuss,
Speaker 1: and we're back where to the beginning here. There's there's
Speaker 1: so much to talk about. Is there anything that jumps
Speaker 1: out to you right away? Prop? I mean, it's hard
Speaker 1: to not think about it in terms of like when
Speaker 1: I first saw it versus you know, a married man
Speaker 1: with two children. Now you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: it's kind of like there's like two mes you know
Speaker 1: watching it? Now you know what I'm saying um, and
Speaker 1: the me when I first saw it again as like
Speaker 1: a preteen just mesmerized with the posters on my wall
Speaker 1: just came to life in this movie. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Um in the city that I grew up in.
Speaker 1: You know. So there's so much like black star power
Speaker 1: in there that that like emotions kind of like override
Speaker 1: a lot of the like clear problematic. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying things now as a father that I'm just like,
Speaker 1: damn man um. So yeah, So I think that like
Speaker 1: the idea of like at one time I saw the
Speaker 1: women in this film as strong as leads. As Like
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, this is a great depiction of women,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, you know, like what
Speaker 1: do you mean? Like she's a business owner. She's telling
Speaker 1: her men ain't ship, you know, and you know she like,
Speaker 1: you know, she doing her thing, and that was in
Speaker 1: a bad relationship, but you know that happens, you know,
Speaker 1: and and Justice went through some serious trauma, and you
Speaker 1: know she had up walls and she knew doing her things.
Speaker 1: She in that big house by herself, and you know,
Speaker 1: she's got a very cute cat. She's got the cute
Speaker 1: cat and now she's fine happiness. That's dope. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: writes my Angelo poems like I mean, come on, dude,
Speaker 1: like how is where's the problem? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I think it's it's like it left me interrogating
Speaker 1: kind of doing some like revisionist history with my own
Speaker 1: sort of opinions and understanding. Um So I think that
Speaker 1: like that's the that's the main thing that like in
Speaker 1: relation to like I don't know if bect illness is
Speaker 1: a word in relation to that where I'm just like heang, dude,
Speaker 1: like wow, you know, uh, you just walk away going yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're so used to I'm so used to seeing
Speaker 1: bad depictions of black men that I forget to notice
Speaker 1: everything else, you know what I mean. It's like your
Speaker 1: triag ng and this sitting down for this really made
Speaker 1: me notice more. Yeah. And I mean especially when you
Speaker 1: you know, you see a movie like this in your
Speaker 1: formative years and like how influential it was, and when
Speaker 1: you read like interviews and stuff from John Singleton, who
Speaker 1: who says with this movie, he wanted to show South
Speaker 1: Central in a different light than had been depicted before
Speaker 1: in movies. He wanted to focus on the women in
Speaker 1: his community. He wanted to tell a story specifically about
Speaker 1: black people in South Central falling in love. Like that's
Speaker 1: that was his inspiration. And because there were so few
Speaker 1: movies of that nature, especially during this time, that's a
Speaker 1: very strong, powerful thing. That doesn't Lucky being a problematic
Speaker 1: figure and a toxic person in different areas of his
Speaker 1: life doesn't negate all of this, all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: all of like the power that comes with that representation.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like I totally understand like kind of being
Speaker 1: of two minds about it. You can't like there's no that.
Speaker 1: The thing about like the again, the mythology around Tupac
Speaker 1: is like in all the movies he's in, you know,
Speaker 1: he's Bishop and Juice, you know what I'm saying, He's
Speaker 1: Striker in like you know, Above the Rim, all these
Speaker 1: like iconic like movies that part of build his his
Speaker 1: his mythology. It's hard to see a film and only
Speaker 1: see him at that as that character, Like I still
Speaker 1: see Tupac, you know what I'm saying, And all that
Speaker 1: Tupac was and stood for as far as like in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways reimagining of black masculinity. You know,
Speaker 1: he was actually very well read. You know, he's my
Speaker 1: My father was a black panther. You know, his mother
Speaker 1: was a black panther. So it's like there's this like
Speaker 1: this rage against the machine attitude about him, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And that like he represents in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. You know, if you think about like
Speaker 1: active gang membership, it's really a small percentage of humans
Speaker 1: in South Central, you know what I'm saying. So, like
Speaker 1: it's cool to see a movie that's not about the
Speaker 1: four kids in the back of the room, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. That's more about the other twenty five
Speaker 1: of us trying to just finish high school, you know,
Speaker 1: but having to intersect with this all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to separate even now the character Lucky from Tupac. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like this movie. I didn't know this
Speaker 1: for sure when I first saw this movie, but that
Speaker 1: it's in it's partially based on an experience that Tupac
Speaker 1: had between So I read that on the scholarly journal
Speaker 1: Wikipedia that here it is that the like the seed
Speaker 1: of this movie was about a like brief relationship Tupac
Speaker 1: had with a poet named Anne Marie rose Um who
Speaker 1: he met between takes of Juice. That's crazy that so,
Speaker 1: I I don't know exactly I wasn't able to find
Speaker 1: the exact like did he bring this to John Singleton,
Speaker 1: I don't really know, but it sounds like he had
Speaker 1: had a similar um a similar experience to this, at
Speaker 1: least in the abstract, to the point where like this
Speaker 1: poet Emery Rose had box braids and that was the
Speaker 1: reason that Janet Jackson like had her hair the way
Speaker 1: she did in this point. And so it is like
Speaker 1: Lucky and Tupac, I guess that they're kind of like
Speaker 1: connected in this this really personal way, which yeah, I
Speaker 1: had no idea that that was a thing. And I
Speaker 1: think that, like I have some stuff that that John
Speaker 1: Singleton R. I. P. Has Has said over the years
Speaker 1: about this movie. It's really interesting because it's like I
Speaker 1: think that it's it's not necessarily the most important thing
Speaker 1: to know, but I just think it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, holy shit, he was only twenty five when
Speaker 1: he made this movie. That is like, so didn't know that,
Speaker 1: which means he was even younger when he did Boys
Speaker 1: in the Hood. Yeah, he was. He is like a
Speaker 1: huge history making Artists. He was the youngest person ever
Speaker 1: to be nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards.
Speaker 1: He was twenty four when Boys in the Hood was nominated.
Speaker 1: This was his first movie after that. He's only when
Speaker 1: it's so wild and I mean it's even with the
Speaker 1: like issues I do have with this movie, it's like
Speaker 1: you can't not respect the ship out of like the
Speaker 1: creative risk this is to take coming off of like
Speaker 1: Boys in the Hood was this gigantic success. It was,
Speaker 1: it was huge, it was iconic. And then he I
Speaker 1: was going through kind of the interviews he was doing
Speaker 1: in for Poetic Justice, and he just talked about how he, like,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to do something else and was like
Speaker 1: not afraid to try something else. And even though this movie,
Speaker 1: I guess that this movie was not as like critically
Speaker 1: a claim him as Boys in the Hood, but it was,
Speaker 1: you know, he did what he wanted to do, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's a lot of kind of dissonance.
Speaker 1: There's some stuff that he says that I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is so cool and insightful, and then there's other
Speaker 1: stuff that feels very of its time. Um, So I'll
Speaker 1: just I guess, uh, some of some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that really that really I thought was really cool, he Kaitly,
Speaker 1: and you've alluded to a lot of it already. Was
Speaker 1: he wanted to show like love in the Hood, He
Speaker 1: wanted to do a road movie. He wanted to have
Speaker 1: a black female protagonist at a time where that was
Speaker 1: not a choice that most directors were going to make
Speaker 1: it all and he did that very intentionally. And then
Speaker 1: on the other end, something that I thought was really
Speaker 1: interesting and feels like, oh, the nineties really were a
Speaker 1: very different time. Was he was kind of asked, um,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm pulling from a Village Voice interview here from
Speaker 1: but he's asked, like, so, you've made this like woman's movie,
Speaker 1: and he is, really, he really does not want that
Speaker 1: label put on the movie. And I think the quote
Speaker 1: is interesting. He says, uh, this is not a woman's movie.
Speaker 1: Don't say that, or you'll have every feminist in town
Speaker 1: coming out for attack. It's a film with a black
Speaker 1: woman as a central character, directed by a black man,
Speaker 1: which is like all true, but I think it's it's
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of this is not the first
Speaker 1: time I've heard a quote similar to that from a
Speaker 1: male director of Like in the nineties, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like men were not considering themselves feminists and like labeling
Speaker 1: yourself a feminist if you were a man, there was
Speaker 1: this stigma attached to it. And that comes across in
Speaker 1: Lucky's character too when he talks about like you're not
Speaker 1: one of those feminists, right, and then immediately it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he does not think kylie of feminists. Um, and it's
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just I thought that that was
Speaker 1: that was such a like interesting of the time thing
Speaker 1: to say of like the idea of label in your
Speaker 1: movie as feminist made it less marketable, where it's like,
Speaker 1: now that's not really the case at all. You know.
Speaker 1: It's in in Black Twitter. Uh there's this other podcast
Speaker 1: with Joe Button's and and these other you know men.
Speaker 1: They were discussing, um, post New Deal, just like breakdown
Speaker 1: of the black family, you know, um, some of the
Speaker 1: sort of clear and obvious like disenfranchisement and like just
Speaker 1: the psi op that like the nation did on the
Speaker 1: psyche of black men, right, you know. Um, and you
Speaker 1: know after the war effort offering things to you know,
Speaker 1: black mothers, the you know who were now the head
Speaker 1: of the house because either men were at war or
Speaker 1: whatever the case. Maybe he was trying to make this
Speaker 1: argument that like part of what even deeper deeply destroyed
Speaker 1: the black male psyche was. This is his argument was that, uh,
Speaker 1: it's like, let me make this clear, Okay. This is
Speaker 1: his argument was that, um, when we came back, you know,
Speaker 1: finally got on our feet after the war efforts and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and you know, after dealing with all
Speaker 1: it took to try to finally get rights and you know,
Speaker 1: get jobs as black men, that our women chose the
Speaker 1: money over us, so they kept getting government subsidies and
Speaker 1: kind of being like, oh, we actually don't need husbands.
Speaker 1: They chose to go to work, they chose to go
Speaker 1: do their own things. So he said, in our psyches,
Speaker 1: we started feeling like, dang, this was supposed to be temporary,
Speaker 1: Like this was supposed to be until we can get
Speaker 1: ourselves together. But you're choosing the money over us, and
Speaker 1: that choice he's he says, like, you know, travel through
Speaker 1: the rest of our sort of like collective traumas if
Speaker 1: you will. So when you move forward into this black
Speaker 1: feminist movement, his argument is that even that movement has
Speaker 1: helped to destroy the confidence of black men, and why
Speaker 1: why can't whack y'all can't get your ship together. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: here's why, you know, or here's part of why. It's
Speaker 1: his argument, he's saying, Black families were always strong pro
Speaker 1: pre Jim Crow, pre artists. You had, we had all
Speaker 1: kinds of support, whether it was through our churches or
Speaker 1: in double a CP, like the family unit was. We
Speaker 1: had a very tight nuclear family in the black community
Speaker 1: historically because we had to survive, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So his argument is like this destroyed us, to which
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, far be it for me to like,
Speaker 1: you know, disagree with my elders, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not gonna you know, like I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do that, but I am gonna say it's like we
Speaker 1: had this unit. But it's like I feel like we
Speaker 1: have yet to like be honest with ourselves about how
Speaker 1: bad patriarchy existed in Black families, Like I feel like
Speaker 1: we don't want to admit misogyny in our homes and
Speaker 1: because we're like, well, let's be real, prop our families
Speaker 1: are led by we already know women are in charge
Speaker 1: and our college is very different. Were not liked in
Speaker 1: white people, you know what I'm saying, Like that's like,
Speaker 1: that's like the argument among among the black community is
Speaker 1: like or at least this this argument is like, well
Speaker 1: at least we're not bad as them, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like we treat our women differently than everybody else.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, okay, I mean my grandma ran
Speaker 1: ran the house, you know. I mean I understand that, right,
Speaker 1: but let's not let's not lie to ourselves fellas, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And I feel like this statement,
Speaker 1: like again with Lucky talking about you know what in feminists?
Speaker 1: Are you or or him saying no, this ain't no
Speaker 1: feminist movie. I think in a lot of ways again,
Speaker 1: if we talk about like the triaging of like okay,
Speaker 1: well we all black, so we all suffering, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So I don't understand why you're parsing
Speaker 1: this particular thing out. You know, you feel me like
Speaker 1: it's like that's the attitude, and it's like, actually, we
Speaker 1: treat your a hell of different, you know what I'm saying. Then,
Speaker 1: Tyler and Tanner, do you know what I'm saying? Like
Speaker 1: we don't talk to our women the way that they
Speaker 1: talk to them white ladies. We don't. We don't talk
Speaker 1: like you know what I'm saying. So you have this
Speaker 1: attitude about it. So when you talk about feminists like
Speaker 1: hold on dog, like, nah, is that is that you
Speaker 1: hanging from them lynch and trees? No, that's us hanging
Speaker 1: you know, So you have this defense. I feel like
Speaker 1: that we are still I'm saying. It's like to my shame,
Speaker 1: like we're still reckoning with the reality of like, na,
Speaker 1: we got blood on our hands, Like Claretta Scott King
Speaker 1: was not allowed to talk, Like that's Martin Luther King's wife, yourself,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like he didn't let her talk because women
Speaker 1: don't belong in the pulpit, Like what did you talking about, bro? Like,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, you know what I'm saying. And I
Speaker 1: feel like this, uh, this moment that you're bringing up
Speaker 1: is like again like connected to where we're at now,
Speaker 1: which is obviously very different where like it's like, yo, no,
Speaker 1: we're all about like nah, lead black women, black women, voices,
Speaker 1: black women, you know what I'm saying. So it's like
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see I feel like if we still
Speaker 1: have what I know we do, we still have a
Speaker 1: lot of reckoning we need to do with like our
Speaker 1: roles as black men with misogyny and patriarchy, you know,
Speaker 1: because they because the rap stuff is easy. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, I need a gangster bitch like he was.
Speaker 1: He was singing out in the cars like Okay, that's obvious.
Speaker 1: All right, that's easy. We know that stuff. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, I'm talking about life for real, for real,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Thank you for for kind
Speaker 1: of like like breaking that down and unpacking that because
Speaker 1: it that does like give such a clearer context to
Speaker 1: where John Singleton is coming from there and then like regardless,
Speaker 1: he does center a black woman and this yeah, and
Speaker 1: a young black woman where you know, well we'll we'll
Speaker 1: talk about justice his storyline more. But it's you know it,
Speaker 1: it was I get not surprising, but always just like
Speaker 1: holy ship like discouraging to go back and see how
Speaker 1: few black women were directing movies at all, much less
Speaker 1: directing stories that reflected their own experience back in the nineties.
Speaker 1: It's extremely low number. There was, I think, most notably
Speaker 1: in terms of wide release. There was Julie Dashes Daughters
Speaker 1: of the Dust, and then Cheryl Dounier is the Watermelon Woman.
Speaker 1: But outside of that, it was so it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: set it off, Stella got a groove Back, but those
Speaker 1: were both directed by men, you know, and exactly, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I was gonna say. And I was like,
Speaker 1: and they're still as relates to men, especially how Stella
Speaker 1: gotta groove back, you know what I'm saying right right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And it's so it's it's like, ultimately, it's I think,
Speaker 1: like a worthwhile creative risk that John Singleton like tried
Speaker 1: to tell this story even though it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk through it. But the fact that it
Speaker 1: but it's also equally frustrating that it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: would a black woman have written this story a little
Speaker 1: more cogently, a little clearer probably, but it wasn't it
Speaker 1: just the money and the movement was not um, you know,
Speaker 1: giving them the resources they needed. It. It's it's never
Speaker 1: you know, a lack of talented directors or writers. It's
Speaker 1: it's the fact that it's. Yeah, seeing how few wide
Speaker 1: releases from black women came out in the nineties is
Speaker 1: just incredibly discouraging. Yeah, let's take another quick break and
Speaker 1: then we'll be right back. Should we talk about the
Speaker 1: relationship between Justice and Lucky the problems there in the
Speaker 1: put it off long enough, I mean, you know, the
Speaker 1: foundation of the bay sis of this relationship. He comes
Speaker 1: into the salon, he tries to flirt with her and
Speaker 1: ask her out, which to me that was like like
Speaker 1: he'd at least in the context of the way that
Speaker 1: he did it, it was like fine, like whatever, But
Speaker 1: then he does not take being rejected well. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of where we're starting off. Then at the beginning
Speaker 1: of their road trip, we talked about this a little
Speaker 1: bit already, but he calls her mean, he calls her
Speaker 1: stuck up, He calls her an angry bitch, a feminist,
Speaker 1: and it's all because she's just like quiet and not
Speaker 1: responding to him talking about like wanting a quote gangster bitch,
Speaker 1: and like I do like that. That's made out to
Speaker 1: seem a little embarrassing for him because he's like mumbling,
Speaker 1: and it was like, you look, so why do yeah? Uh?
Speaker 1: I used to once upon a time, like I taught
Speaker 1: high school and I had a section where I had
Speaker 1: to tea like beginning level of psychology, right, and the
Speaker 1: kids loved it inner city school and um, so we
Speaker 1: got to like all the like post Freudian stuff like
Speaker 1: reaction formations and like projection and stuff like that. Like, um,
Speaker 1: it was like the most effortless and endless source of
Speaker 1: examples I could give these like ninth graders as to
Speaker 1: like what this is? You know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: this this was a perfect example like of reaction formation
Speaker 1: where it's like, hey, you want to go out with me? No,
Speaker 1: that's because you're ugly, Like what like you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, bro, you just got look take it
Speaker 1: on the chin. Everybody takes else, you know, everyone takes else, bro,
Speaker 1: And you just take it on the chin. Live to
Speaker 1: fight another day, you know. But just that perfect example
Speaker 1: of like I tease, I tease my, UM, I tease
Speaker 1: my wife and my my my my older daughter. Um.
Speaker 1: About like how as a little boy you start learning
Speaker 1: how to process rejection somewhere around fifth grade, you know,
Speaker 1: because like because of how big the reaction is, of
Speaker 1: how gross boys are, when you finally felt enough courage,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying to like you know, and
Speaker 1: and poor kid don't let the kid be queer, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like, you know, when you first
Speaker 1: have to start figuring out what it means to get
Speaker 1: a know, you know, and like and having to like
Speaker 1: by That's why I'm like, by the time you get
Speaker 1: to high school or get outside of high school and
Speaker 1: you see like the clearly this guy's a douche bag
Speaker 1: get more yes is than you, You're like, well, I
Speaker 1: guess is that the way to Is that how you
Speaker 1: do it? Like you know, or you're just like whatever,
Speaker 1: you whatever, bit you're stupid, you know, it's like okay, man,
Speaker 1: like you have to learn how to process. No, you know,
Speaker 1: I wish that that was like that there, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, but it's like so few kids are taught
Speaker 1: how to deal with rejection. I feel like that's that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like when you're growing up, I feel like there's almost
Speaker 1: I guess, unless you're really lucky or you have like
Speaker 1: parents who are fucking on it, like which almost nobody does.
Speaker 1: Uh right, Like no, Like I I don't know a
Speaker 1: kid in the world that grew up and then you know,
Speaker 1: around fifth grade, it's like they were told regardless of gender,
Speaker 1: like hey, if you're you know, here is like a
Speaker 1: way that you can ask someone something that is respectful
Speaker 1: and like here's how to judge boundaries, and here's how
Speaker 1: to deal with rejection that isn't just lashing out. And
Speaker 1: but it's like, I feel like those conversations are really
Speaker 1: rare with with kids and and would make a huge
Speaker 1: fucking difference. Yes, I'm so impressed with Like I hate
Speaker 1: to use the term gen z, but that's where my
Speaker 1: daughter refers to herself as so like the amount of
Speaker 1: like we during when the pandemic started, you know, we
Speaker 1: we totally got on this, like all right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: show you all of the movies from from our childhood,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like so and she's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, my my other daughter is dope, like totally
Speaker 1: an anime. She's like a Star Wars nerd. Like like
Speaker 1: she's dope, you know what I'm saying. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: she got like a little fake slitherin tattoo on her arm,
Speaker 1: like she's cool, you know what I'm saying. Um, So,
Speaker 1: at some point we was like, all right, Breakfast Club,
Speaker 1: weird Science, Like, let's show her all these flicks, right,
Speaker 1: And as we're showing them, specifically, what gave us pause
Speaker 1: was like when we got to Weird Science and you know,
Speaker 1: they're making this woman, you know what I'm saying, and
Speaker 1: so like, my my daughter's like, what the funk is this?
Speaker 1: Like just like you know, she's like cussing at us
Speaker 1: because she's like, this is y'all gotta nah, hony, like
Speaker 1: this don't ride you know what I'm saying. It's like
Speaker 1: so proud of her, you know what I mean, for
Speaker 1: her already knowing like no no no no no no
Speaker 1: no no no no no no no no no no,
Speaker 1: we're not She's like, y'all watch this. This is a movie.
Speaker 1: He thought this was good good. Yeah, it's just and
Speaker 1: it's like all these different moments. She was like the
Speaker 1: breakfast Club she rocked with, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: She was like, Okay, this you know obviously because it's
Speaker 1: about it's a coming age is much different movie. But
Speaker 1: like some of the other stuff he was trying to
Speaker 1: show her, she was just like nah or not, this
Speaker 1: is horrible. Yeah. I was like you know what I'm
Speaker 1: me and my wife are like, yo, I'm super proud
Speaker 1: of this little girl. Just nah. She's like no, just no, no,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, future future Bectel cast guests, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the sounds of it, yeah, oh gosh, yeah, this the
Speaker 1: basis of this relationship. And then that that argument that
Speaker 1: having the in the truck ends with him screaming at
Speaker 1: her saying like fuck you bitch, get out of here,
Speaker 1: like all this stuff, and then again not a great
Speaker 1: foundation on which to build a romance. And yet I'd
Speaker 1: argue she he doesn't necessarily deserve a second chance after
Speaker 1: the way he treats her like in that first conversation,
Speaker 1: and and the way she stands up for herself is
Speaker 1: like again it's it's like it's interesting to watch with
Speaker 1: like I was trying to put on goggles with like
Speaker 1: mixed results, but like the way that she's standing up
Speaker 1: for herself I think is like pretty cool and like
Speaker 1: very like direct. And but he interprets this as like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're being aggressive, you're being cold, you know.
Speaker 1: But she she says like, don't call me a bit.
Speaker 1: You don't know anything about me. I'm a black woman.
Speaker 1: I deserve respect. Don't call me a bit. If I'm
Speaker 1: a bit, your mother's a bit. And just like all
Speaker 1: this stuff that is like you know, she has like
Speaker 1: the top of mind comebacks that anyone would want to have,
Speaker 1: but he just takes it all, you know, at the beginning.
Speaker 1: And again it's like, you know, she heals his misogyny
Speaker 1: in a day, um, but at the beginning, I mean
Speaker 1: he he, you know, is not receptive to it at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the journey of like of Lucky in some ways,
Speaker 1: obviously everybody a different scale. I think I relate to
Speaker 1: in the sense that like it depending on how trash
Speaker 1: you actually are, like most, well I'll not say mostly,
Speaker 1: but I'll say like homies I'll run with like we
Speaker 1: never saw ourselves as problematic because we knew problematic dudes,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So we're like, no, that
Speaker 1: food is a problem. You don't stand what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like he trash, Like that's a scumbag, douchebag, that food's trash,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So I think in his head,
Speaker 1: it's like that's what I'm saying, Like she heals his
Speaker 1: misogyny because I feel like in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: obviously I was never there, but I know in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, like I've had, you know, corrective moments,
Speaker 1: you know, what I'm saying in the sense to where
Speaker 1: you like you don't come in, you come in thinking
Speaker 1: you're different, you know what I mean. And so for
Speaker 1: him to be like why are you so quiet? What
Speaker 1: you right? And it's like in his head he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm being approachable, like I'm tring. I'm trying to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with you, like you feel me like dang,
Speaker 1: I'm you riding in the car like you know, I
Speaker 1: don't understand what I'm doing wrong, you know. Uh, but
Speaker 1: having that arc you know, again, this ain't to defend him,
Speaker 1: but what I'm saying is like that's the part that's like,
Speaker 1: in my mind in some ways relatable, you know, little
Speaker 1: stuff like I thought when I got married, like, yo,
Speaker 1: it's my job to take care of I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: care of all the household bills, you spend your money on,
Speaker 1: what you want to spend your money on, because I'm
Speaker 1: a real man, you know what I'm saying, I take
Speaker 1: care of out you feel me, It's like, well, you
Speaker 1: know we can have a conversation about it. To ask
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh yeah, you know, like so
Speaker 1: like that type of like you know what, I don't
Speaker 1: know where I got Where did I get that from?
Speaker 1: But then you started questioning like you know, absolutely correct,
Speaker 1: you know? Or like when we were dating, Hey, you
Speaker 1: want to go out? And I would feel weird about
Speaker 1: saying like I don't have the money to go out today,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to say that, so I would try to come
Speaker 1: up with like a million other things and she'd be like,
Speaker 1: I got it, And I'm like you sure, like, well
Speaker 1: I gotta go nowhere, you know, and she's like what
Speaker 1: the man? Like, I'm telling you it's cool, you know?
Speaker 1: So not that For me, it was like that sort
Speaker 1: of evolution to where it was more like obviously knew better,
Speaker 1: Like again, I just wasn't that much trash to know
Speaker 1: that ppposed to talk to nobody like this, but but
Speaker 1: you don't. But there's there's levels to this ship, you
Speaker 1: feel me Like if you don't, you don't realize it
Speaker 1: until somebody pointed out you know what I'm saying, um
Speaker 1: and and and and I think like anybody like you
Speaker 1: get defensive when you already see yourself as not what
Speaker 1: someone's calling you, you know what I mean? I always
Speaker 1: I feel like the best example of this is just
Speaker 1: like talking to white men about racism. It's scary. It's
Speaker 1: scary for them to think that they're guilty. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So when you start going, na, bro,
Speaker 1: now you too, do you know what I'm saying? Like
Speaker 1: that's hard, you know, um, but if you if you
Speaker 1: down like and like I said, I'm down, So I'm like, nah,
Speaker 1: show me, you know what i mean? Like, all that
Speaker 1: to say is delpas. She stood up to him and
Speaker 1: as as hood as she did, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and as like you know, fuck you, fuck you fuck
Speaker 1: you know I'm saying like whatever it was she met
Speaker 1: him there. You know what I'm saying is like it's
Speaker 1: just it's crazy. It's not crazy. I'm not supposed to
Speaker 1: say that one, but it's it's it's a trip. I
Speaker 1: think I'm actually glad. Y'all added that to the email.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's gonna make this in there,
Speaker 1: but like that's what I'm saying, that's akin, that's growth,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That's so I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I never I never thought about that.
Speaker 1: We didn't either, ye bring it up to us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just been the past couple of years. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: all on a journey and in many arenas to unlearned
Speaker 1: things grow as people. We're all on our own little
Speaker 1: mail truck to Oakland in a way, making stop taking
Speaker 1: the long route, the male truck of life man. And
Speaker 1: then so then they, you know, they do start to
Speaker 1: find common ground in this like connection. You know, they're
Speaker 1: they both have like artistic aspirations that are similar. Like
Speaker 1: she writes poetry, he writes hip hop music. Um or
Speaker 1: I guess do we even learn that that's what he does?
Speaker 1: I'm unclear. You hear when you hear the real to reels,
Speaker 1: when you hear the recordings of his cousin Win the Base,
Speaker 1: which fun fact, was Coolio. I don't know if you know,
Speaker 1: did you recognize a voice as soon as he started playing,
Speaker 1: I was like, that's Coolio. Yeah, so John second thing
Speaker 1: out everybody, everybody? Yeah, so uh so in what he
Speaker 1: was saying, yeah that pop was like or Lucky was
Speaker 1: like I help him with ideas, but it's like it's
Speaker 1: his So it sounds like he's like I'm more of
Speaker 1: a producer, you know, got it, got it, got it? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So even so they have you know similar aspirations, so
Speaker 1: that you know, they find areas to connect, and then
Speaker 1: things fall apart again when he does that thing that
Speaker 1: he keeps doing is like projecting. He blames the time
Speaker 1: he spent with her for not being able to prevent
Speaker 1: the death of his cousin, and you know, sabotage is
Speaker 1: this relationship, and then comes back and apologizes a little,
Speaker 1: you know, some time later, and she forgives him. I
Speaker 1: do like the women in the salon. They don't I
Speaker 1: don't think they even know what the context was, but
Speaker 1: they were just like I wouldn't have forgiven him. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't forgive him. They were the best dude and the way.
Speaker 1: And then before that happened, when I was looking at
Speaker 1: the cheating girl and she was just like she didn't
Speaker 1: think I know who that is, I was like, dog,
Speaker 1: this is the realist right now. So I guess what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is it was very hard for me to
Speaker 1: root for this romantic relationship because of how horribly Lucky
Speaker 1: treats Justice throughout the whole story, and especially at the beginning.
Speaker 1: And I was far more interested in the friendship between
Speaker 1: Justice and Aisha than Justice and Lucky. Yeah, I I liked.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the last thing I'll say about
Speaker 1: Justice and Lucky is again it's like I also was
Speaker 1: not rooting for their romantic relationship, but I do appreciate
Speaker 1: how John Singleton kind of gives like context in depth
Speaker 1: where you need it, where it's like sometimes when a
Speaker 1: character acts out and lashes out against someone and you
Speaker 1: have no contact for it whatsoever, you're like, oh, funk
Speaker 1: that person, Like that's awful. That's not how you treat people.
Speaker 1: But especially with that, with that sort of last beat
Speaker 1: where it's like, I mean when when they when they
Speaker 1: get to Oakland and immediately like something awful happens and
Speaker 1: Lucky is like reeling and doesn't know what to do,
Speaker 1: and it's it just felt like, yeah, he was like
Speaker 1: projecting his anger like frustration at at someone he could
Speaker 1: hurt in that moment because he was so hurt, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's like not right and it's not like
Speaker 1: Justice is deserving of that anger in any way, but
Speaker 1: in that moment, you're like, oh, he just this anger
Speaker 1: is just gonna hit someone. The first person that's there
Speaker 1: is who it's going to hit. And I appreciate it
Speaker 1: that they took that moment with him in the basement
Speaker 1: when he's listening back to to Coolio, but that like
Speaker 1: they give you that moment of vulnerability and he finally
Speaker 1: does like he's able to cry, but it's only by himself.
Speaker 1: And just like moments like that, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's like I'm still not rooting for them to end
Speaker 1: up together, but I appreciated the kind of like depth
Speaker 1: of the storytelling there. I wish we honestly, I wish
Speaker 1: we got more, you know, more of that with with
Speaker 1: Justice in general. I yeah, there's I like Justice a lot.
Speaker 1: I liked and I don't even mind at the movie
Speaker 1: kind of takes this time and letting you know what
Speaker 1: her background is, Like I think that could be like
Speaker 1: a really cool storytelling approach of like you find out
Speaker 1: something kind of late in the game, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that kind of makes sense for why you are the
Speaker 1: way you are and why you react the way you do.
Speaker 1: But I just like, I don't know, Yeah, I wish
Speaker 1: that we just got to see more of of her
Speaker 1: outside of the Lucky dynamic, like you were saying, Caitlin
Speaker 1: like with Ayesha and yeah, yeah, and that like I
Speaker 1: love how important her poetry is to her, but it's
Speaker 1: like you don't really get that. It doesn't really come
Speaker 1: into the story that much where I don't know, Like
Speaker 1: I like how it's woven in, but there's just I
Speaker 1: thought there was more opportunities to like dig into that,
Speaker 1: because it's like you're presented the movie like this is
Speaker 1: going to be all about her, and then it's kind
Speaker 1: of it's kind of more it becomes more ensembly, yeah,
Speaker 1: because then you cut away after the first few minutes
Speaker 1: of like setting up her exposition and stuff, you cut
Speaker 1: away from her and you get a bunch of backstory
Speaker 1: on Lucky and like his job and his daughter and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And I was like, oh, we're kind
Speaker 1: of we're not seeing justice for like many many minutes
Speaker 1: in a row, which is kind of a weird choice
Speaker 1: considering she's like poised as being the protagonist of this movie.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I I agree that I would
Speaker 1: have liked to see a little bit more of her
Speaker 1: interior life. It's the same amount that Lucky gets, because
Speaker 1: I feel like you get a lot of Lucky's home
Speaker 1: life and you get a lot of his work life,
Speaker 1: and you, I guess you do get justice his work life,
Speaker 1: and you see her at the salon and talking with
Speaker 1: their coworkers, but you don't like her home life is
Speaker 1: so solitary, which makes sense later, but you just it
Speaker 1: just feels like there's a piece of her story that
Speaker 1: is like I just, yeah, I guess I can't like
Speaker 1: describe it, right, But no, I never I Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's great. I always I did think that, like the
Speaker 1: scene when he goes picks up his daughter, and I said,
Speaker 1: I was like, it's kind of long, like you know,
Speaker 1: and because I get it that you're he's developing the
Speaker 1: plot here, but like, yeah, I was like, it's good.
Speaker 1: It probably could have been shorter, you know. And then
Speaker 1: the yeah, the glimpse into whatever is going on under
Speaker 1: the surface with with Justice is just that one scene
Speaker 1: at home when she's taking care of herself, making the
Speaker 1: faces and the mirror and stuff like that. We're like
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh my gosh, she's depressed, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, But I don't know why she's depressed,
Speaker 1: and maybe you're trying to hold that for the reveal
Speaker 1: to the end. But uh, yeah, like I I when
Speaker 1: you said you were interested in her friendship with Aisha
Speaker 1: a little more that, like, Yeah, that really got my
Speaker 1: wheel spinning, because that's definitely left unresolved and as we
Speaker 1: far as we know, Chicago still somewhere on the northern
Speaker 1: coast Chicago or hooever, still wandering fifteen miles outside of
Speaker 1: to this day, he'd have lost his job. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. They where our truck yet delivering a
Speaker 1: Michael Ravenport. They're really in the middle of nowhere by
Speaker 1: the time he gets kicked off. Yeah. I think one
Speaker 1: of the reasons too that I felt like there was
Speaker 1: something missing with Justices characterization is that a lot of
Speaker 1: the conversations she has early on with people are her
Speaker 1: and her boss Jesse, like the owner of the salon,
Speaker 1: and her and Nisha, but they're the conversations are about
Speaker 1: you need a man. When are you going to find
Speaker 1: yourself a good man? Um, which is you know, I
Speaker 1: guess the very nineties movie thing to do, especially for
Speaker 1: this genre, but like also I think a very like
Speaker 1: men writing women thing to do. Yeah, yeah, which I
Speaker 1: can't meet. I can't argue there. I thought though, like
Speaker 1: the age of the owner or the person saying that
Speaker 1: to me is like that's where you get away with it.
Speaker 1: Because that is something that our aunties would say to us,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm and so when I so even
Speaker 1: then when I think back to myself, like they say,
Speaker 1: when you wat your little girlfriend, you got to a
Speaker 1: little you keep God, Jay's keep him a little girlfriend,
Speaker 1: a little pretty little thing, don't you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So that's so are are like elders would say stuff,
Speaker 1: say stuff like that to us. But as a movie choice,
Speaker 1: I think it's, yeah, that's that's a trip. It's you know,
Speaker 1: next to a woman who owns her own business, like
Speaker 1: you know, clearly fine, like she doing her thing, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Like, so it's interesting that that
Speaker 1: would be your responses. And to me, she come off
Speaker 1: as somebody that like, men are toys. To me, I
Speaker 1: used them when I feel like them. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wrote down what she said. She said, a man
Speaker 1: ain't nothing but a tool. You have to know when
Speaker 1: to take them out of the box and when to
Speaker 1: put him back in. And if you lose one, you
Speaker 1: just go out and get yourself another one. So for
Speaker 1: that for her to be this like, yeah, just you know,
Speaker 1: use men whenever you want, which is like also not
Speaker 1: the best advice, but for her to also be like,
Speaker 1: but you're never We're gonna find happiness until you find
Speaker 1: yourself a man who loves you and who you love
Speaker 1: forever and ever. I was like, mm, there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of dissonance there. That was where I was just
Speaker 1: like like I And John Singleton does say in interviews
Speaker 1: that he he spoke to a lot of the women
Speaker 1: in his life and women he knew from South Central
Speaker 1: to build out this world. But I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's in those moments where you kind of feel like
Speaker 1: the male author is is showing a little bit where
Speaker 1: I like that, Like the three women we get to know,
Speaker 1: I guess Jesse, Ayisha, and Justice, like they're all very
Speaker 1: different people and they have really different approaches to life.
Speaker 1: They have really different outlooks, but you really only get
Speaker 1: to see those outlooks like either in like quick flashes
Speaker 1: of friendship, like you get kind of a tease with
Speaker 1: Justice and Ayisha, but mostly you see how these like
Speaker 1: really distinct personalities react to relationships with men only. And
Speaker 1: I would have liked to see these, like I thought,
Speaker 1: pretty like well crafted characters of like you have a
Speaker 1: woman who's a little older and owns her own business,
Speaker 1: and like just men are tools to her. And then
Speaker 1: you have Ayisha, who's like young and like exploring herself
Speaker 1: and she's like struggling with alcoholism. And then Justice is
Speaker 1: so introverted and it's like, you know, let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about some other stuff too. Like there, those are so different.
Speaker 1: I also found a ton of joy in the hint
Speaker 1: of like the the gay relationship between the two male
Speaker 1: hair stylists. Okay, unclear about what exactly was. So the
Speaker 1: call was, I don't know if you caught this. The
Speaker 1: call was when he's on the colonies, he's got aids. Oh,
Speaker 1: that was the call. That's why he was freaking out
Speaker 1: and he's fighting with this other stylists. Yeah. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's it's this whole other story happening because again, a
Speaker 1: very well known trope in inner city living is your
Speaker 1: male hair stylists is most likely gay, you know, and
Speaker 1: uh so it's a trope, but it comes from something,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So like that moment, to me,
Speaker 1: I was like, again, this is John Singleton sneaking, sneaking
Speaker 1: the things in you know what I'm saying, and them
Speaker 1: kind of dealing with that. I kind of wished, And
Speaker 1: I mean, I know it's like such a side story.
Speaker 1: It would have been such a derailment, but I kind
Speaker 1: of wish they would have liked finished that one a
Speaker 1: little bit more, you know what I'm saying. But I
Speaker 1: was like, what is going on here? Yeah, we're looking
Speaker 1: at it with like post stigma, Like at the time
Speaker 1: there was still such a stigma, so you know, you
Speaker 1: can only hand at it, you know again back to
Speaker 1: like the black male persona of themselves and like things
Speaker 1: that we're still not ready to admit. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I think I think it kind of goes
Speaker 1: back to that, but I had now, like again looking back,
Speaker 1: like I appreciate him doing that. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you like at least started down that road,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, to like have a little
Speaker 1: more inclusive understanding of like all that it means to
Speaker 1: be you know what we are, because it's not like
Speaker 1: it's not like there wasn't l G B t Q
Speaker 1: in the nineties, you know what I'm saying, Like it
Speaker 1: didn't just appear like you know, I've always been here,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Yeah, Yeah, I'd be curious
Speaker 1: what our queer listeners think of that, because I honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is blowing my mind because I did
Speaker 1: not know how to read that scene at all. I
Speaker 1: could be wrong, I could be absolutely wrong, but like
Speaker 1: the way that she was patting his back, the way
Speaker 1: that he was looking, the way that the character was,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is the type of stuff again,
Speaker 1: going back to the South Central stuff. This is the
Speaker 1: type of stuff that in my mind, I'm like, that
Speaker 1: looks real familiar to me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I'd be really interested to hear what your queer
Speaker 1: audience says too, because again, this was like I'm coming
Speaker 1: at it from a black lens, you know, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's what it would look like to me, you know
Speaker 1: what i mean, Like at least then, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: that's what it was looked like then, you know, especially
Speaker 1: at a time where queerness and and the like, you know,
Speaker 1: aids panic was so widely just cooked into media. That's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why. That's why it's like I drew that conclusion too,
Speaker 1: because we was still we're still like I mean, at
Speaker 1: there was so we was only a few years out
Speaker 1: of thinking that it only happened to queer people, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like, at the end of the eighties,
Speaker 1: that's we actually thought that it was only this community,
Speaker 1: you feel me. So I think that there's like that moment,
Speaker 1: in my mind, was his attempt to humanize in the
Speaker 1: way that he knew how you know, I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: it's you know what I'm saying. It definitely, I'm sure
Speaker 1: like opened the door, if only by a small crack
Speaker 1: as far as representation goes, because so many movies of
Speaker 1: that era, if there was an inclusion of any queer characters,
Speaker 1: it was they were the butt of a joke, coated tropes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all the all the stuff. Yeah, and yeah, so it's like, yo,
Speaker 1: he's still a trope, you know what I'm saying. So like,
Speaker 1: but like you said, like I felt as though this
Speaker 1: was much now. Granted, when I was a preteen, I
Speaker 1: didn't catch this, Like I felt like I caught it
Speaker 1: in this in watching it this weekend, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Um, And I actually thought, like, that's actually
Speaker 1: a much more powerful moment than I would have guessed,
Speaker 1: you know. And and again giving John Singleton his propers
Speaker 1: as to like how he processes and sneaks in political
Speaker 1: issues into his movies. I was like, this is probably
Speaker 1: one of those moments. It's tricky because during that time
Speaker 1: it was seen as a big risk for filmmakers to
Speaker 1: include queer characters at all. So yeah, and it might
Speaker 1: have been that reason that like the fact that we
Speaker 1: don't even know what that phone call was about because
Speaker 1: we can only just sort of like speculate and fill
Speaker 1: in the gaps, just speaks to the fact that like
Speaker 1: so little time time is dedicated to these characters. That again,
Speaker 1: was it's like just a very nineties thing. So while
Speaker 1: I appreciate like the the attempt at inclusion, it's all
Speaker 1: it's like very much still like a product of its
Speaker 1: time in terms of like we get so little, it's
Speaker 1: not that meaningful. Yeah, yeah, Like I would just be
Speaker 1: curious to know what our listeners think, yea, because it
Speaker 1: wasn't even reading for me. Maybe it did in the time.
Speaker 1: And again it's it's like, you know, the frustrating thing
Speaker 1: here is ultimately like there should have been more projects
Speaker 1: by queer directors that were championed and and and there
Speaker 1: were in the nineties, but but certainly not to the
Speaker 1: extent that was needed, and so it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not all on John Singleton to do every single thing,
Speaker 1: but it's but that said, it's like it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: that feels kind of like an incremental thing that even
Speaker 1: like to him. And because at this time, it's like
Speaker 1: having a black female central character was perceived as a
Speaker 1: creative risk, and including queer people in any way was
Speaker 1: perceived as a risk. And so you know, none of
Speaker 1: it is perfectly done, but most directors wouldn't even touch it.
Speaker 1: So it's yeah, it's very very complicated. I hope this
Speaker 1: isn't a derailment, but it might. Well if you ever
Speaker 1: you start something like that, it probably is right, but
Speaker 1: take it away. Yeah, in the way that you're saying, like, hey,
Speaker 1: having a queer main character, having a black female, or
Speaker 1: just a female lead in general being a risk, Like
Speaker 1: I wonder sometimes I just I get into these like
Speaker 1: thought bubbles of like why was why and how did
Speaker 1: that become a belief? It just seems like of all
Speaker 1: the places for a prejudice or patriarchy to like put
Speaker 1: their flag in the sand at like why why this?
Speaker 1: This seems like you know what what reminded me of
Speaker 1: this thing. Like I watched um Hysterical on f X
Speaker 1: about like female comics, and they were talking about this
Speaker 1: thing like this women aren't funny thing and that like
Speaker 1: a lot of female comics face and I just feel
Speaker 1: like this is the most that's impossible to defend, like
Speaker 1: that trope, like why would you put your flag of
Speaker 1: all the things to put your flag on you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, So the whole So I felt like
Speaker 1: that with like female comics not beyond like what is
Speaker 1: you talking about? Like you can't defend that, Like that's
Speaker 1: an improvable and why would funny be gendered? Like this
Speaker 1: is stupid? Like why that one? So to me? So
Speaker 1: to me when I think about like well, what's the
Speaker 1: risk to have a gaycare why? Like what like show
Speaker 1: me the film that failed, Like do you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying? That had a woman living, Like what is
Speaker 1: you talking about? Just so that's what it makes me.
Speaker 1: That's what it makes me think when you're like, well
Speaker 1: it was a risk, Like what Like why is that
Speaker 1: a risk? Like I mean? And what is like that mental?
Speaker 1: I mean? And what it boils down to is that
Speaker 1: the people in charge of the film industry are still
Speaker 1: a majority old, straight white, So it's like, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's not I think that it's presented as a risk.
Speaker 1: But we I mean, we've talked about this a zillion
Speaker 1: times on the show. When there are women centered in stories,
Speaker 1: when there are black women centers in stories, where there
Speaker 1: are queer people centered in stories, most of those movies
Speaker 1: do extraordinarily well. Because that's like, so it's it's it's
Speaker 1: frustrating to have it presented as like, well, this is
Speaker 1: a creative risk and you're like, but what about like
Speaker 1: all five brillion examples, you know, and here are billions
Speaker 1: of dollars in revenues. That's what I mean. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: I mean, it's an indefensible position. So I'm like, if
Speaker 1: you run the studio and you're telling me that's a risk,
Speaker 1: and then I show you seventeen home runs, then I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the where are you getting this from? Like that
Speaker 1: don't why don't you just say what it really is?
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. And so that's the part
Speaker 1: that like, that's the part that I just go, God,
Speaker 1: this just blows my mind. Yeah, a derailment was a derailment? No, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's very relevant to like our
Speaker 1: our show because it is because, like like you said, Jamie,
Speaker 1: the people who historically have run the studios run the industry,
Speaker 1: which is yeah, and still mostly do. This is Hollywood
Speaker 1: is and always has been, and probably always will be,
Speaker 1: only concerned about profit margins and the very specific demographic
Speaker 1: of people who are making the business and creative decisions
Speaker 1: regarding movies perceive certain stories to be a risk, even
Speaker 1: though again there's so much evidence to the contrary, verifiably false.
Speaker 1: But then what will happen is like someone else comes to,
Speaker 1: you know, the studio and says, Okay, I have an
Speaker 1: idea for another black superhero movie, for example, and they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: we already have one of those. We don't right when
Speaker 1: it's like, can you give a second of thought to this? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you already have forty seven thousand white superhero I'm just like,
Speaker 1: have we seen the Marvel Universe? Like, what is you
Speaker 1: talking about? There's plenty of space. Yeah, it's not a
Speaker 1: defensible vision, but I feel like it is, especially in
Speaker 1: in the nineties. I mean up until pretty recently, it
Speaker 1: was like not a position that most Hollywood people would question.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh yeah, totally, yeah, no, there can only
Speaker 1: be one movie with black women as a protagonist. Totally
Speaker 1: makes sense, you know, yeah, yeah, It's just like I
Speaker 1: just I get meta on those things where I'm just
Speaker 1: like why this, Like why is that the thing? Like
Speaker 1: there's of all that, like you can't because again, you
Speaker 1: can't defend this, that's there's clear evidence otherwise I just
Speaker 1: don't understand why that's the thing. Well, it's the infuriating
Speaker 1: thing too, because it reaches the point with those kinds
Speaker 1: of executives where they are like their own prejudices and
Speaker 1: like discomfort with stories that do not reflect them directly,
Speaker 1: reaches the point where they're leaving money on the table
Speaker 1: for kind of reason. Yes, it's yeah, ridiculous. It's very frustrating,
Speaker 1: and I think both of you are hilarious. Women are funny.
Speaker 1: Did it we myth busted? Busted? I just feel like,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're not talking about I know this is
Speaker 1: not what this episode is about, but it's just it's
Speaker 1: front of mind because I'm just like, where did y'all
Speaker 1: even get that? Like? Who? I'm like you, where did you? Like?
Speaker 1: I feel like y'all y'all just pulled that one out
Speaker 1: your gask like, there's no you have there's no reason,
Speaker 1: there was no way you could have ever drawn that
Speaker 1: conclusion by living on earth, Like, that's just not how
Speaker 1: you why. I had a guy that I was very
Speaker 1: briefly dating and not dating after this comment from him
Speaker 1: say to me specifically, pretty women can't be funny. Um,
Speaker 1: and I said, number one, thank you for calling me pretty.
Speaker 1: Number two funk off forever. Yeah, essentially, Yeah, that's ridiculous. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: poetic justice, any other any other uh one thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to bring up. Aisha does this thing again. Regina
Speaker 1: king Is is amazing. She's only twenty two in this movie,
Speaker 1: I'm like, so good. Her performance is incredible. She's she's
Speaker 1: so she brings the comedy and humor I mean speaking
Speaker 1: of women being hilarious. The humor that she brings to
Speaker 1: every role I've ever seen her in is just like staggering.
Speaker 1: I love her character. She does do this thing though
Speaker 1: that that bothered me and it felt, you know, of
Speaker 1: the of the time, and it's still a thing that
Speaker 1: that happens today. Where one of the reasons that her
Speaker 1: relationship with Chicago is is not is not great is
Speaker 1: that she is constantly be rating him for his inability
Speaker 1: to maintain an erection and his premature ejaculation. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: we've talked about on this show pretty recently. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked about penis size specifically and like how problematic
Speaker 1: it is to shame people for having a small penis.
Speaker 1: And then like with Aisha, she's insulting Chicago's like quote
Speaker 1: manhood and like deliberately trying to emasculate to him for
Speaker 1: the things that he's experiencing, which is similarly problematic. But
Speaker 1: that's a complicated issue though, because it's like that in
Speaker 1: the fact that that is not how you should talk
Speaker 1: to your partner in no way justifies the way he
Speaker 1: reacts to it, which is absolutely you know, yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the interlocking thing that like it's still like her
Speaker 1: character is. I mean, it's spot on, like that's that's
Speaker 1: a hood girl, you know what I'm saying, who in
Speaker 1: her brain is doing the right thing? Because man at ship,
Speaker 1: so they only want me for this, So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get what I need from him, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And it's like it's almost like you know, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: using the tools of the oppressor against them. Like so
Speaker 1: this it's that's what she's doing. It's like this is
Speaker 1: this is what it means to be a boss is
Speaker 1: you rerate the people up under you. So it's like
Speaker 1: she's just doing what toxic masculine culture taught you to do.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, you'd be a person into submission,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: again that's the part that like, I mean, I grieve now,
Speaker 1: you know seeing that image. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I know it's a movie, but it's like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: I just I see my childhood, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I see I see the girls I grew up with,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, And uh, I grew up
Speaker 1: in a mixed black and Latino community, so like like
Speaker 1: I know this exact version in the Latino world, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And it's just coming from this
Speaker 1: environment that you you this is all you know, Like
Speaker 1: all you know is like a boss runs things, don't
Speaker 1: take no ship from nobody. You know, you ain't got
Speaker 1: no love for house, you know what I'm saying. You
Speaker 1: just have this like attitude where it's like it's no love.
Speaker 1: It's pimping out here. I'm getting what I got. You
Speaker 1: feel me rather than and why should the men get
Speaker 1: it all? You feel me like I'm gonna do my
Speaker 1: pimp into you know, and m and I always say,
Speaker 1: like from a male perspect active, I use the term
Speaker 1: pimping on purpose because it's like, and we have a
Speaker 1: whole episode on the Top Politics about it where I'm
Speaker 1: like something about your soul has to crumble and die
Speaker 1: to be a good pimp, like you have like you
Speaker 1: have to be dead inside because of like what you
Speaker 1: have to do to another human being to be a
Speaker 1: successful one is like you can't do that and have
Speaker 1: a soul, Like it's just the two don't work, you know.
Speaker 1: So to me, it's like that PERSONA is the worst
Speaker 1: of us, you know what I mean, but it's presented
Speaker 1: as the most successful of us, the most alluring of us,
Speaker 1: because it's the most flashy, it's the most you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like nobody can hurt you, you know,
Speaker 1: because we spend so much time hurt all the damn
Speaker 1: time we heard, you know what I'm saying, So you
Speaker 1: just take on that that person And and then again,
Speaker 1: why scho the dudes have all the fun. So rather
Speaker 1: than like, you know, having this like a little boy,
Speaker 1: your soul is broke, you know. And I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: repeat that. It's like you you learned from the worst
Speaker 1: of us, you know, and and it's it's and you
Speaker 1: know and and be honest, like you know, lucky for me,
Speaker 1: Thank thank my lucky stars. Like even though my parents split,
Speaker 1: you know, my father was around, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: so like and I was around a lot of like
Speaker 1: I knew a lot of dads, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And I was able to navigate away from a lot
Speaker 1: of those choices. But but don't get me wrong, him
Speaker 1: coming home with like bruised knuckles from working, you know,
Speaker 1: laying concrete all day, you know what I'm saying to
Speaker 1: an honest date's pay was very different than that sixty
Speaker 1: four and Paula, you feel me, came bouncing down the
Speaker 1: road with all these bad girls on his arms. You
Speaker 1: feel me, Um, it was very hard, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's why why would you not desire that?
Speaker 1: You know? Um? So her character all that to say,
Speaker 1: her character actually kind of grieve me in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. Because it just it reminds it reminded me
Speaker 1: of like just the like the allure you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, of taking on that persona and how it's
Speaker 1: like it's it's destroying her and it's destroying them, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, and her alcohol like her, she's hurt,
Speaker 1: she's in pain. Yeah, I'm saying, So that's why you're
Speaker 1: doing this. Yeah, that's why I wish that there and
Speaker 1: this this does seem to be I haven't seen a
Speaker 1: few titles in like John Singleton's later work, but it's
Speaker 1: like I know that he's not generally like he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to spell out the moral for you, like clearly
Speaker 1: at the end of the movie, and I like totally
Speaker 1: respect that approach. I do wish that, like you you
Speaker 1: got like some sort of button for her character because
Speaker 1: I think that, you know what you're saying, prop makes
Speaker 1: total sense of like she is using the tools of
Speaker 1: the oppressor to survive. She's clearly and a lot of pain,
Speaker 1: and you don't really get a feeling for where she lands,
Speaker 1: even though it's so clear that she's like really hurting,
Speaker 1: and it's I think that that expands to what you
Speaker 1: were saying earlier, Caitlin is like, I think that just
Speaker 1: by exploring the Justice Aysha friendship and history would have
Speaker 1: served the movie overall because you just would have gotten
Speaker 1: more from both of them. Because with Justice, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you the outside of that like conversation before
Speaker 1: she and Lucky Um hook up, the most of what
Speaker 1: we learned about her is like her telling us, and
Speaker 1: it's very internal, and she's so withdrawn from the people
Speaker 1: in her life, and it would have been Yeah, like
Speaker 1: I would have I like that you have so many
Speaker 1: different kinds of flawed people in this narrative. But yeah,
Speaker 1: like with with Ayisha and Justice specifically, I just would
Speaker 1: have liked to see those those flaws and those sources
Speaker 1: of hurt and like justices, grief and just like explore
Speaker 1: them a little more together and and not just see
Speaker 1: there her manifest through their relationships with men Um, because
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that scene on the side of the
Speaker 1: road with Justice and Aisha, that's such a powerful scene
Speaker 1: and like where you know, Aisha throws up justices like this,
Speaker 1: you're hurting me and you're hurting yourself and this brings
Speaker 1: me pain from my life because my mom did this
Speaker 1: and just all this stuff that you're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: more of that, Like I just I don't know, because yeah,
Speaker 1: that that Aisha Chicago storyline. I mean, it's it's so
Speaker 1: fucked up on on, you know, and and there's different
Speaker 1: levels of fault at play here, and nothing justifies how
Speaker 1: he physically abused her. And seeing someone set off by
Speaker 1: being masculated and responding with violence. Unfortunately, it's like you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's that doesn't come from nowhere, Like that happens
Speaker 1: all the time. And yeah, I just I wish that
Speaker 1: was still shocking. It was. Yeah, I didn't see it coming.
Speaker 1: I knew it was coming, and I still and I
Speaker 1: still was like like it's still like shook me. You know,
Speaker 1: like I know it's a movie and I've seen the movie,
Speaker 1: and I still can't believe he did that. You know,
Speaker 1: I do think that that it was like because we
Speaker 1: talked about on the show a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of like because Chicago is kind of just like a guy,
Speaker 1: you know, he's like a pretty like he's just a guy.
Speaker 1: He loves his hairbrush. He's not in the union. He's
Speaker 1: not in the union. That's unfortunately most people. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: but like I always think it is like an interesting
Speaker 1: and often effective storytelling mechanism to like have a really common,
Speaker 1: you know, abuse tactic like Chicago physically lashing out at
Speaker 1: his partner like attributed to a normal guy, because that
Speaker 1: is more often than not, you know, like it's not
Speaker 1: generally supervillains walking through that. It's it's normal people. That
Speaker 1: it comes from this like very dark place of hurt
Speaker 1: and in his case, feeling emasculated, and that that that's
Speaker 1: coming from I don't know, Yeah, not having the like tools,
Speaker 1: you know, to just first of all, to not be
Speaker 1: in a relationship in the first place, because like there
Speaker 1: was y'all should have both known this, like this ain't
Speaker 1: gonna work. But like horrible humans, I'll say it toxically right,
Speaker 1: but like to have the tools to just kind of
Speaker 1: like stop a fight, which is something I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, after so many years of marriage, it's we
Speaker 1: still I still have to catch myself too to be
Speaker 1: figure out how to stop a fight and go, okay, listen,
Speaker 1: here's here's what's coming up with me. Here's what it
Speaker 1: reminds me of. And we will never get any further,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying until this and this is
Speaker 1: dealt with because that's your your purposefully trying. That's one
Speaker 1: thing we made a real a big deal about, like
Speaker 1: was to be like, let's assume that no one's trying
Speaker 1: to hurt the other, Like I'm not trying to. I'm
Speaker 1: going to, but like assume that I'm not trying to,
Speaker 1: you know. But whenever like that feeling feels up where
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, I feel like you're trying to hurt
Speaker 1: me or you're trying to one up me, like to
Speaker 1: have that like stop, stop the moment, step out of
Speaker 1: it for a second and just be like, I'm getting
Speaker 1: too much in the weeds. The point I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make is like black men need to go to therapy.
Speaker 1: It's the point I'm trying to make go to therapy.
Speaker 1: Fellas Like I would extend that to oh man, and
Speaker 1: I would extend that to all people. I was like,
Speaker 1: how about literally everybody? Yes, could God go to therapy?
Speaker 1: What I tell you dig like, oh, oh man, I'm
Speaker 1: just like if you just go to fam, you just
Speaker 1: need to go to therapy. You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: just go to therapy, go to therapy. Just go to therapy. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a ship. Would this whole movie would have been
Speaker 1: so much shorter, just wit the therapy that comes up
Speaker 1: a lot too on the show. We're like, this plot
Speaker 1: of this movie wouldn't have even happened if every of
Speaker 1: all these characters were just in therapy. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish. And there's like a part there. I liked
Speaker 1: that there was early in the movie so clear of
Speaker 1: an out for justice where her car doesn't start. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I just don't just don't get in
Speaker 1: the mail truck. Boom problem solved done. Yeah, you could
Speaker 1: just not go, can't make it. She had to go
Speaker 1: to her hair show though I know, yeah she did
Speaker 1: have she did have to get to the hair show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she could have called her boss. She could car. Did
Speaker 1: I get a ride of Yeah, the car won't start?
Speaker 1: A girl? Can I go with you? Like easy? You
Speaker 1: wanted to go? But then the whole time and been
Speaker 1: like why are you? Why are you an old single?
Speaker 1: Twenty three? Like yeah, actually yeah, see a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I guess she did kind of make the most logical
Speaker 1: choice given the information she had at that moment, you know,
Speaker 1: which is like look, I'll just I'll just sit here,
Speaker 1: I'll just write I don't know who the other guy is,
Speaker 1: plus her best friends. There my best friend. It's only
Speaker 1: a few hours that she was going to like, there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of things. No, rus three hours longer,
Speaker 1: Like why are you going that way? Lucky? Come on? Yeah? Uh?
Speaker 1: Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie? Um?
Speaker 1: I wanted to share this quote from writer named Michelle
Speaker 1: Wallace who originally reviewed this movie uh in Entertainment Weekly.
Speaker 1: I was looking scrambling, one could say, to find, um,
Speaker 1: just just an in site from a black feminist of
Speaker 1: how this movie was received at the time, and I
Speaker 1: thought her writing was really interesting. So I just wanted
Speaker 1: to share this quote from her. She says, quote as
Speaker 1: a consequence of his unwillingness to take this work or
Speaker 1: indeed black female thought seriously, his poet has no voice,
Speaker 1: meaning John Singleton. He invents Injustice a character who seems
Speaker 1: capable of morality and intelligence, but then he gags her unquote.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I mean the more I think about this movie,
Speaker 1: the more I'm like, how much of this is Justice's
Speaker 1: story and how much of it is it Lucky's still
Speaker 1: like it doesn't feel Yeah, I don't know, it's it
Speaker 1: centers around this this romantic relationship where we as we've
Speaker 1: talked about like don't get to know Justice all that well,
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure we can call her the protagonists.
Speaker 1: I think there's like a dual protagonist situation happening. Like
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's unsurprising that like a man directing
Speaker 1: would like gravitate more towards the male character that he
Speaker 1: had created in terms of like having the audience experienced
Speaker 1: the story through a man's lens. But they're just felt
Speaker 1: like a bit of dissonance throughout the story For me,
Speaker 1: I agree, And I think that that's like the last
Speaker 1: thought that I had that Again, it's like, I'm very
Speaker 1: glad that this movie exists. I think that it was,
Speaker 1: you know, like a valiant effort and iconic in many ways,
Speaker 1: but particularly because John Singleton literally has the work of
Speaker 1: Maya Angelou here, who speaks to the black female experience
Speaker 1: so like eloquently, like most maybe most iconically ever in
Speaker 1: the US, um, I feel like it almost makes it
Speaker 1: stick out a little more how we don't know that
Speaker 1: much about Justice, particularly in the moment where she's reading
Speaker 1: Phenomenal Woman, one of the most famous poems of all
Speaker 1: time by anybody that is a about womanhood and about
Speaker 1: processing your own experiences. And during that sequence, I was like,
Speaker 1: I just felt like a little unearned because it's such
Speaker 1: a beautiful poem. And I was like, but I don't
Speaker 1: understand how this is about justice. I don't understand how
Speaker 1: Justice would write this poem about everything that just happened,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, based right, based on the
Speaker 1: events of the story up until that point, like Okay,
Speaker 1: you were screamed at by a man to sex with
Speaker 1: a few hours later, like in that like, I don't
Speaker 1: is that like a men's idea of what is empowering
Speaker 1: for women? I just don't. I mean, and this is
Speaker 1: like not even a severe like burn to John Singleton's work,
Speaker 1: but it's because it's you know, it's hard to rise
Speaker 1: to Maya Angel's level. But I just felt like the
Speaker 1: story didn't rise to her poetry totally. Yeah, the last
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to because we've like referenced this earlier,
Speaker 1: but um Janet act and uh, you know, she grew
Speaker 1: up very rich, and I was like, oh, how did
Speaker 1: she prepare for this role? How how did she do it?
Speaker 1: She hung out with a hairdresser and three women from
Speaker 1: South Central and eight waffles for three weeks. That's how
Speaker 1: she prepared. It was just it was such a simple.
Speaker 1: And then she said, I grew up black and proud,
Speaker 1: and because I become from a wealthy family doesn't mean
Speaker 1: I can't relate to a working girl's pain. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. She she hung out in ate waffles
Speaker 1: for three weeks and that was her friend. I know.
Speaker 1: I was just like, you know, there's this feelings of
Speaker 1: privilege jumping out there. Yeah, cool to not know that. Sorry, no,
Speaker 1: I'm saying for her, like for her it cool. She
Speaker 1: had just kept that to herself. Nothing. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: say nothing. Oh, you know, it's acting. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like we came from this, but it's not
Speaker 1: like we were always this, you know, right, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I just want to go stay with the fan. I
Speaker 1: ate waffles for three weeks? What this Crossford? Yes, I
Speaker 1: canna tell you a funny story. Okay, I know for
Speaker 1: a fact, because would nobody that was at this thing
Speaker 1: would ever listen to this. So this is great. Um.
Speaker 1: Early on in the career, I was on this tour,
Speaker 1: uh two thousand and twelve, a bunch of us um
Speaker 1: and uh It just remind me of the Waffles thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I'm the only one on the tour that's from
Speaker 1: l A. Everybody else is there off from the south, right,
Speaker 1: give or take a couple of dudes from New York.
Speaker 1: So it's like our big tour bus tour first, like
Speaker 1: major thing. We're playing the Palladium. It's incredible, right, So
Speaker 1: it's like um again, l A boy, I can't believe
Speaker 1: I get to play the Palladium. This is like bucket list.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Right, so we get there. The promoters like, hey, man, okay,
Speaker 1: it's twelve black men, right, twelve black men and our
Speaker 1: DJ who's Puerto Rican from New York and the homie
Speaker 1: Andy from syrac just like just Andy, like just lacrosse
Speaker 1: playing like Boston strong white boy. Right, But and Andy
Speaker 1: can wrap his ass off like he wanted those rappers.
Speaker 1: I know, just white boy from upstate New York. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So just so you know him,
Speaker 1: you already know him, right, So anyway, the promoter walks
Speaker 1: and he grows, man, I just want to congratulate you guys.
Speaker 1: You're playing the Palladium. You sold it out, guys, So like, hey,
Speaker 1: has a gift. You know, I'm gonna give you something
Speaker 1: just from l A to remember your thing. Right now again,
Speaker 1: I'm the native, right, everybody else not from l A.
Speaker 1: So the guy breaks out. He's got stacks of Roscoe's
Speaker 1: Chicken and Waffles T shirts, right, and he's passing him out.
Speaker 1: He's like, uh, Waffles roscars right. So we're all looking
Speaker 1: at each other like did he just give us chicken
Speaker 1: and waffle T shirts? Did this? Did this promoter just
Speaker 1: give us that? Right? And and he's like this is awesome,
Speaker 1: Like oh my god, like what are you guys? Problems?
Speaker 1: You love Roscoe's, right? Didn't we go there for lunch? Guys? Right?
Speaker 1: So it's just like this promoter just gave twelve black
Speaker 1: men a waffle T shirt for selling out his venue.
Speaker 1: I wasn't mad as much as I was like, this
Speaker 1: is hilarious. He really like again because I'm from here.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, Bro, Bro, all the of all the
Speaker 1: gifts you could have given us, this man gave us.
Speaker 1: And I get it. It's next door to the padium.
Speaker 1: There's a Roscoe's next door to I understand, right, I understand,
Speaker 1: But at Samet, I was just like, Bro Waffles So
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that until you told me Janet
Speaker 1: Jackson and trep for this show winning eight waffles for
Speaker 1: three weeks. That's really what y'all think of us, chrazy.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I wonder if John Ingleton new that
Speaker 1: was I don't know, that is hilarious. I just I
Speaker 1: haven't told that story a year. I'm sorry for resurfacing that. No,
Speaker 1: it's so good. And me and Hommie Andy, we still
Speaker 1: laugh at that story because he was just like that
Speaker 1: was He's like, this was my first lesson, Like because
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't understand the problem. Like, we
Speaker 1: love waffles, don't we. I was like, yes, Andy, waffles
Speaker 1: are delicious, They're amazing. I had some this morning. Yes,
Speaker 1: and now I'm hungry for waffles. We bought a new
Speaker 1: waffle iron two. You know what I'm saying, I might
Speaker 1: actually actually make waffles. Night waffles are special. Seriously, dude,
Speaker 1: night waffles breakfast for dinner is still a treat my favorite. Well,
Speaker 1: what's the Bechtel score? The movie does pass the Bechdel
Speaker 1: tests by our standards, which we forgot to talk about
Speaker 1: at the top of the show, but considering the like
Speaker 1: meaningful conversation between two people, two named characters of any
Speaker 1: marginalized gender. The because Justice and you should talk about hair.
Speaker 1: They talk about Asia's drinking problem. They do talk about
Speaker 1: men a lot, Yeah, as do Justice and Jesse. I
Speaker 1: think they exclusively talk about No, there's a scene where
Speaker 1: they talk about receipts. Yeah, they talk about receipts and
Speaker 1: like a rogue line about poetry. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: we got an exchange, but yeah, it wasn't that right.
Speaker 1: Oh and and and Jesse says something like why are
Speaker 1: you wearing that hat all the time? And that makes
Speaker 1: you thinks it's a lot of conversations about men. And then,
Speaker 1: in terms of our nipple scale zero to five nipples
Speaker 1: based on an examination of intersectional feminism as it applies
Speaker 1: to the movie, I feel like this one might get
Speaker 1: kind of a split down the middle. I feel like,
Speaker 1: maybe like a two point five where two point five
Speaker 1: nipples Yes, I'm so sorry to be bisecting a nipple
Speaker 1: and half harsh yeah to it and a half because yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I like Justice as a character, I love Aisha,
Speaker 1: I love their friendship. I just think there was opportunities
Speaker 1: to explore more about these women in the movie. I
Speaker 1: don't like that there are so many people telling Justice, Oh,
Speaker 1: you just need a man and then you'll be happy.
Speaker 1: I also cannot get behind the Justice Lucky relationship, especially
Speaker 1: after how we see him treating her early on. But
Speaker 1: I appreciate the general idea of wanting to center a
Speaker 1: story around black joy and black people falling in love
Speaker 1: while also showing these characters in their world and their
Speaker 1: circumstances and providing the context in a nuanced way. So
Speaker 1: two and a half nipples. I'll give one to Janet Jackson,
Speaker 1: I'll give one to Regina King, and I'll give one
Speaker 1: to cousin Pete my half nipple. And we all know
Speaker 1: Janet's nipple is pretty iconic. Man, it's it's a super
Speaker 1: Bowl nipple. I would I would recommend there's a really
Speaker 1: good episode of You're Wrong about about the super Bowl,
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl nip slip, and how demonized Janet Jackson
Speaker 1: was after that for no fucking reason. Fortunately, history is
Speaker 1: now correctly targeting Justin because I was just you know what, yes,
Speaker 1: because there's he is the villain. Even back then, yeah,
Speaker 1: even back then, I was like, oh, he digged in
Speaker 1: a bullet because you you physically did the act, Like
Speaker 1: what did you? How is this? I don't understand how
Speaker 1: you getting away with this? Like, yeah, that was I
Speaker 1: will pride myself being like something about this. How is
Speaker 1: how is this because she had a jewel on it?
Speaker 1: That's because it's certain she could put what she wanted
Speaker 1: and she didn't expected just because you I'm wearing underwear
Speaker 1: right now that on me, and I expected to be seen.
Speaker 1: It's clean. I like my underwear, but I don't think
Speaker 1: it's gonna be on camera. So leave that lady alone,
Speaker 1: you know it, don't really ill. We'll link that episode
Speaker 1: in the in the description because it's it's a it's
Speaker 1: a good one. They go in, uh like they do
Speaker 1: the deep lore for that story. I'll do, I'll do.
Speaker 1: I'll do a two point five as well. I think
Speaker 1: like there, We've talked a lot about it. I'm really
Speaker 1: glad that this movie exists. I'm glad that justice is
Speaker 1: centered in the way she is. I appreciate I just
Speaker 1: generally appreciate John Singleton's work and how he did, like
Speaker 1: from being a very young artist, like push himself to
Speaker 1: include more voices in his work. However, imperfectly it was
Speaker 1: done UM, which I think we've talked a lot about
Speaker 1: ways that it could have definitely been improved on UM
Speaker 1: because it's like there there was more to Justice than
Speaker 1: we got to see. And I feel like by trimming
Speaker 1: out some of the like excess talk about men and
Speaker 1: we could have, you know, more effectively explored her story.
Speaker 1: You could have explored the friendship with her and Aisha,
Speaker 1: and there was just like a lot left on the table.
Speaker 1: I felt like that it would have been really interesting
Speaker 1: to explore. And I also think that, you know, I
Speaker 1: would imagine and even though you know, John Singleton spoke
Speaker 1: with a number of black women to put this story together,
Speaker 1: you know, having black women in creative roles certainly would
Speaker 1: have served to fix some of these problems as well,
Speaker 1: I would imagine. But for for its time, I think
Speaker 1: it's doing a lot. I'm it was. It was really
Speaker 1: interesting to revisit. I'm not rooting for this relationship, but
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for the individuals involved. So I'll give it
Speaker 1: two point five one of justice, one of Ayesha, and
Speaker 1: then I'll give I'll give the half to the mail
Speaker 1: truck uh sacred vessel. Uh. Yeah, I actually I have
Speaker 1: no disagreements with your your assessment. Every time you keep
Speaker 1: saying you're not rooting for Justice and Lucky. In my brain,
Speaker 1: I keep going, Janet Jackson in Tupac, which is what
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for, you know what I'm saying, Because I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm actually am rooting for Janet Jackson in Tupacs. And
Speaker 1: then I'm like, oh, which means I'm not rooting for
Speaker 1: Justice and Lucky, you know what I'm saying. So like
Speaker 1: I think that, So yeah, I think that. I guess
Speaker 1: I'll go to two point five too, because um, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's the best attempt of a man telling
Speaker 1: a woman's story. And do you understand I'm trying to
Speaker 1: say here, like if you if you're gonna do it,
Speaker 1: this is probably as good as it's gonna get, you know,
Speaker 1: because because it's not your story, you know what I'm saying. So,
Speaker 1: because I'm looking at myself going, I probably would have
Speaker 1: made a lot of the same decisions too, because I
Speaker 1: just I only know this from observing y'all, you know,
Speaker 1: from like that's that's what I see you guys talk
Speaker 1: about at the hair salon. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: you know, And yeah, that's was like my auntie. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, I know a girl like this,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I think it's because of that.
Speaker 1: So because I'm not them, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: So I would if I were to tell the story,
Speaker 1: it would be that. So so I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like this is the best any a man could get,
Speaker 1: you know, short of just saying handing the reins over
Speaker 1: to being like, hey can you write this? Can you
Speaker 1: write these characters? You know what I'm saying, uh, which
Speaker 1: would probably you know, obviously push it over the half
Speaker 1: mark at least, right, Yeah, I think the uh, the
Speaker 1: sort of the sage kind of Obi wan kenobi, you know,
Speaker 1: tone of the shop owner is at least worth a nipple.
Speaker 1: You know, she's a mentor, you know, maybe not the
Speaker 1: best one, but she is one, you know. You know.
Speaker 1: I think that that what pushes it over the top
Speaker 1: is Maya Angelo. And then yeah, so so I feel
Speaker 1: like I was gonna say I might that might give
Speaker 1: me a two point seven five because of because of
Speaker 1: the three mamas sitting at the table basically calling the
Speaker 1: girls out on their ship. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: That was just like that girl ain't mo married than
Speaker 1: the man on the moon, like you was not married,
Speaker 1: look at her for you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: so the mama's the mama's doing it. But then the
Speaker 1: mama's being as old school is like my man would
Speaker 1: never let me walk around here with you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So it's like that's why you don't get
Speaker 1: a full nip, you know what I'm saying, because you're
Speaker 1: still perpetuating you know what I'm saying, stuff we're trying
Speaker 1: to get away from. But that moment of those you know,
Speaker 1: mother's again is like the authenticity of that to me
Speaker 1: is something that's so important, you know. But again it's
Speaker 1: like I could still see how that's a boy talking
Speaker 1: about his grandmother's you know what I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a daughter talking about her grandmother's. You feel me
Speaker 1: so Like so I could still so I think that
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's a two five
Speaker 1: so or two point seven five, I think. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go nipple for Janet. Uh, it's gonna get hard here,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna have to go nipple for um Aisha.
Speaker 1: I think half a nip goes to the store owner.
Speaker 1: I keep forgetting her name, Jesse, Jesse, half a nip
Speaker 1: goes to Jesse, and then the three four goes to
Speaker 1: Maya Angelo. Yeah, well probably, thank you so much. God,
Speaker 1: I have so much respect for you guys. I've been
Speaker 1: fan boying all week, telling my wife, like, dude, I
Speaker 1: get to be on this show. I'm so nervous they're
Speaker 1: gonna like this is gonna be so bad. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put my foot in my mouth. So I thought about thinking.
Speaker 1: I thought about it at first. I was like, what
Speaker 1: is the most out of pocket horrible things. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna open with it. Just get it out of the way,
Speaker 1: say something so wrong out the box, and just be done.
Speaker 1: I think you did absolutely fantastic. Oh my god, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. And tell us about your stuff, your
Speaker 1: social media, your book, your podcast. Yeah. The book goes
Speaker 1: along with like a series of eat like music EPs
Speaker 1: I've been dropping. They're all called terraform. It's um some
Speaker 1: of the stuff we're talking about here kind of like
Speaker 1: in a metaway kind of goes with the terraform is
Speaker 1: just you know, science fiction nerd word. When you find
Speaker 1: a distant planet, what you gotta do to make it livable.
Speaker 1: So the poetry and the music is around like, well,
Speaker 1: what if we did that here? Because Earth is becoming
Speaker 1: less and less livable, whether it's physical, uh like geologically
Speaker 1: or just socio culturally and interpersonally, just all these things
Speaker 1: and just really thinking, Okay, what if we could just
Speaker 1: start over and build this, build our civilization from scratch?
Speaker 1: Like what will we keep? What do we need to
Speaker 1: throw away? What? What are we not imagining? You know,
Speaker 1: like if we limited ourselves, Like for example, in the
Speaker 1: last in the last chapter of this poetry book, I
Speaker 1: asked the question that kind of like I feel like
Speaker 1: this this year podcast asked is like, imagine a world
Speaker 1: without patriarchy? And so somebody asked me that and I
Speaker 1: was like I can't, yeah, And it's just like I
Speaker 1: was like, I honestly can't because I might say, imagine
Speaker 1: where without misogyny, patriarchy, racism, imagine it? What what would
Speaker 1: it look like? And I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: jazz came from racism because like because you segregated, you segregated.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's we came from. So I was like, dang,
Speaker 1: like I have a limited imagination, you know, so so
Speaker 1: so like, but what if we could, what is the
Speaker 1: world without patriarchy? What would have never happened? Where would
Speaker 1: we have gotten to? You know what I'm saying? So
Speaker 1: like so that so that a lot of ways, the
Speaker 1: book is like it's a challenge, you know, um, and
Speaker 1: the music is a challenge to like, yeah, just like
Speaker 1: imagine a better future, build a livable world. So that's
Speaker 1: the that's the poetry in the book, the music in
Speaker 1: the podcast, Uh, hood politics. I just believe like if
Speaker 1: you understand gang life, you understand geo politics. And even
Speaker 1: if it's even not even just gang life, if you
Speaker 1: survived eighth grade, you know, if you like figured out
Speaker 1: which like if you want if you knew how to
Speaker 1: navigate mean girls, or like just which table to sit
Speaker 1: at at lunch when you were a freshman, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to figure out which table to sit at,
Speaker 1: Like you actually understand geo politics. So I'm essentially like
Speaker 1: it's like thirty minutes of whatever like conversation during the
Speaker 1: zigeist that like you kind of feel like maybe I
Speaker 1: know what this is, but maybe I don't. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what it is, and I'm just gonna like
Speaker 1: lay it out in like kind of hood terms. You know,
Speaker 1: that's fun amazing, it's great. Thank you again so much
Speaker 1: for being here. What a treat it's been. Come back
Speaker 1: any time. Don't even play with me like that, because
Speaker 1: I will absolutely come back. I think you guys are like,
Speaker 1: I'm this is no gas Like. I think y'all are brilliant,
Speaker 1: and I think you're so fucking funny. But and the
Speaker 1: funny is is like it's smart, Like that's the I'm
Speaker 1: just like, god, these girls are it's just so funny.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I appreciate you all. Man. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: I'm blessing you're not shut up. I can see you.
Speaker 1: I'm taking screenshots kin tote. Well, thank you. You're amazing.
Speaker 1: We're also big fans whatever than you. You can follow
Speaker 1: us on social media Twitter, Instagram, at pecktel Cast. We've
Speaker 1: got our Matreon at patreon dot com slash pecketel Cast,
Speaker 1: and it's five dollars a month and it's to bonus episodes,
Speaker 1: plus access to the back catalog and our merch store
Speaker 1: t public dot com slash the pectel Cast. We just
Speaker 1: did bored at two on the Matreon. If that's something
Speaker 1: that intrigues you, oh my god, I don't think I
Speaker 1: can handle that one um and let's all go write
Speaker 1: some poetry. Let's do it. Bye bye,