Speaker 1: On the Doe Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Speaker 1: Or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the bec Del cast. Hey, Caitlin, Yes, Jamie,
Speaker 1: you look really familiar. Um do you want to go
Speaker 1: on a road trip to Florida and just see what happens?
Speaker 1: I think that's a great idea and I don't see
Speaker 1: how anything could go wrong. Every story that starts with
Speaker 1: an unsolicited invitation to Florida has canonically ended well, so
Speaker 1: I would encourage you to, you know, come along, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's gonna be so regular. Um, who's all going, Oh? Well, um?
Speaker 1: You know, so a couple of guys. Okay, cool, sounds
Speaker 1: good and safe. Yeah, it's going to be safe regular
Speaker 1: and I'm telling the truth. So nice, shall we Let's go?
Speaker 1: All right, let's do it? Well, you know, I did
Speaker 1: my best. That was my intro. I loved it. They're
Speaker 1: not all hit, but it is related to the movie.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Backtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
Speaker 1: my name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show
Speaker 1: where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
Speaker 1: the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point to
Speaker 1: initiate a larger conversation. But what is the back del test.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I'll tell you. It's a media metric
Speaker 1: created by a queer cartoonist, Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the
Speaker 1: Bechtel Wallace test. There are many versions of it. This
Speaker 1: is the one that we use currently. Two people of
Speaker 1: a marginalized gender must have names, and they must speak
Speaker 1: to each other about something other than a man for
Speaker 1: a two line exchange of dialogue at least, and ideally
Speaker 1: that exchange of dialogue is narratively meaningful and important. And
Speaker 1: today we're going to be covering a movie that has
Speaker 1: It's a newer movie, but it's been requested on the
Speaker 1: show since I think the trailer came out. I feel
Speaker 1: like that happens with a newer movies sometimes, like the
Speaker 1: second the trailer jobs, our listeners are like good. But
Speaker 1: due to the pandemic, it's kind of taken a while
Speaker 1: for this movie to really become accessible. But now that
Speaker 1: it has, we're thrilled to be covering it. And we
Speaker 1: have a wonderful guest coming to discuss the movie of
Speaker 1: the day, which is Zola. And our guest is a
Speaker 1: writer and op ed columnists for teen Vogue. It's Jamila Nasheede. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. Welcome, thanks for coming,
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on. So tell us about your relationship
Speaker 1: with the movie Zola, or just kind of your general
Speaker 1: feelings about your general experience with it. Yeah, well, so
Speaker 1: I saw it in UM at Sundance Festival. Cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really cool. That was my first Sundance UM.
Speaker 1: That's it was. It was definitely amazing. And it's funny
Speaker 1: because I had no intention on seeing like you know
Speaker 1: when you take a look at the program initially and
Speaker 1: you kind of read like the synapsis of all the films,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, for some reason, I just it
Speaker 1: wasn't at the top of my list. But I was
Speaker 1: chatting with my editor at teen Vogue on like which
Speaker 1: films they'd like me to cover, and they specifically asked
Speaker 1: for Zola. So I was like, sure, I'll do it, um,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't like pressed to see it immediately. UM.
Speaker 1: So I didn't go to the premiere, but quickly as
Speaker 1: I'm there like I'm there for maybe like a day
Speaker 1: or two before I saw it, and it's hands down
Speaker 1: the movie that I was hearing about the most, like everyone,
Speaker 1: because you know, you're out, you're at dinners again. This
Speaker 1: is pretty pandemic um, like right just before the pandemic
Speaker 1: to really like weeks. It was literally the last thing
Speaker 1: that I did before the pandemic that's soiled lifetime ago. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so everyone was talking about this movie and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is going on? Everyone just had nothing
Speaker 1: but amazing things to say about it. So I was
Speaker 1: really excited to see it. Um. And then I finally
Speaker 1: like fitted into my schedule and I had a plan
Speaker 1: to see it. And I actually say that two different
Speaker 1: hotels while I was at Sundance because I was learning
Speaker 1: the ropes Sundances like a whole like you have to
Speaker 1: I think you have to go at least once to
Speaker 1: kind of figure it out, and then after the first time,
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, so this is what to do, this
Speaker 1: is where to stay. So I checked into my second
Speaker 1: hotel and it's the day that I'm going to see
Speaker 1: Zola and there's a steam room there and that's like
Speaker 1: that's my jam. So I go down to the steam room.
Speaker 1: It's park City, Utah. All I brought lower like my
Speaker 1: snow boots, so I have like, you know, like my swimsuit,
Speaker 1: but I have a robe on over it and just
Speaker 1: like snow boots. And I'm going into this theme room
Speaker 1: and come out and I'm just looking kind of crazy
Speaker 1: and I see Jeremy o' harris in my hotel and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh. And he's um, one of
Speaker 1: the co writers of the film, and I'm like fan
Speaker 1: girling over him and I'm just and I'm like, are
Speaker 1: you Jeremial Harts? And they were like chatting a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm actually gonna see it's a lit
Speaker 1: to night. He's like, I'll see you there and I'm
Speaker 1: like cool. So, um, this story has no purpose, but no,
Speaker 1: it's exciting. It's all very exciting, though, it's like any
Speaker 1: Sundance story. I'm like, yeah, tell me, was the steam
Speaker 1: room what? So he wasn't in the steam room, So
Speaker 1: that's what That was the embarrassing part, because I feel
Speaker 1: like he was looking at me like what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Like why are you wearing this? What is happening? I
Speaker 1: don't think he knew what, you know. And then I
Speaker 1: bumped into him at least two more times in the hotel,
Speaker 1: and I was wearing the same thing each time, so
Speaker 1: I was coming from the same room each time. I
Speaker 1: was like, I feel like he probably thinks I'm stalking him,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like kind of being a weirdo. But yeah,
Speaker 1: So I went to I went to the screening later
Speaker 1: that night, and of all the films that I saw there,
Speaker 1: the audience was just like it was so lively. It
Speaker 1: was just you could feel it. Everyone was just having
Speaker 1: it was it felt like a ride. It was I
Speaker 1: don't know, the energy in there was just so big.
Speaker 1: And you know, the film is complex, it addresses so
Speaker 1: many different things, but at the same time, it is
Speaker 1: just like just from beginning to end, you're just like
Speaker 1: in it. So it's such a romp. It's such a
Speaker 1: wrong that's that sounds like so much fun. I want
Speaker 1: to go to Sundance some day. I know, like's if
Speaker 1: it's it's happening as we record this. I think it's
Speaker 1: going on right now, but it's like still a digital
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be there, you know, and then
Speaker 1: they're like no, They're like it's virtual. So I've been
Speaker 1: watching Sundance films for the past several days here at home,
Speaker 1: so basically the same thing as being a steam room
Speaker 1: and running into JEREMYO. Harris basically Jamie, what about you,
Speaker 1: what's your experience and general thoughts towards the movie. I
Speaker 1: was very, very excited to see this movie because when
Speaker 1: the Twitter, I mean, I just remember being on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I'm I've been to online my entire life, and I
Speaker 1: remember being on Twitter the day that the Zola Twitter
Speaker 1: threat was like happening, and so it was. I made
Speaker 1: sure I got the date right. It was October, which
Speaker 1: means I had just moved to l A and I
Speaker 1: was just so lonely and on my phone a million
Speaker 1: percent of the time, and so I I forget who
Speaker 1: it was, but someone like put me onto the fact
Speaker 1: that this was like a story being told in process,
Speaker 1: and then a few days later I read the whole
Speaker 1: story and quickly it was if I'm remembering the sequence
Speaker 1: of events correctly, it was very soon after and this
Speaker 1: speaks to it all that James Franco acquired the rights
Speaker 1: to this movie, and this was a time where we
Speaker 1: were all still supposed to be like who James Franco?
Speaker 1: Which we But anyways, I remember the I remember being
Speaker 1: everyone who read it like very very taken in by
Speaker 1: the Twitter thread. Um. The discourse around Twitter thread at
Speaker 1: the time was all over the place. So when I
Speaker 1: found out that that the movie was actually coming out,
Speaker 1: I was really excited to see it. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just so much to talk about with
Speaker 1: with this movie, um, and I'm excited to discuss. I mean,
Speaker 1: I of the many takeaways of this movie, Taylor Page
Speaker 1: is so good is one of my main takeaways. What's
Speaker 1: your history with this movie? I don't think I knew
Speaker 1: about the Twitter thread until after the movie came out,
Speaker 1: or like I mean, I saw it. I saw the
Speaker 1: movie in theaters in summer of when it was like
Speaker 1: right at the beginning of We're Vaccinated and theaters are
Speaker 1: opening back up, and well, I die if I go
Speaker 1: to see Space Jam. I don't know, but I'm willing
Speaker 1: to take the risk because it's Space Jam. You know,
Speaker 1: that was my thought process. Anyway, I felt okay about
Speaker 1: going to the theater, and I had heard good things
Speaker 1: about Zola, and I think by that point knew that
Speaker 1: it was based on a Twitter thread, but I hadn't
Speaker 1: read it, and I just kind of went into the
Speaker 1: movie not knowing much about it at all and was
Speaker 1: blown away by the humor of it and the just
Speaker 1: wild events of what is a mostly true story. And
Speaker 1: like we've said, it's uh, there's a lot to unpack.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of like commentary the movie is doing
Speaker 1: that's really interesting and I'm excited to get into it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I uh, I saw it a little less
Speaker 1: than a year ago in theaters. I really liked it.
Speaker 1: Have watched it a couple of times since then. And
Speaker 1: how is your theater experience? Was it there? It was
Speaker 1: not very crowded. But the other thing is like I
Speaker 1: will go to the movies on like at Tuesday at
Speaker 1: eleven am by myself a lot of the time, where
Speaker 1: like no one else is there. So it might have
Speaker 1: been one of those. Because I know the movie didn't
Speaker 1: make a ton at the box office. I think it
Speaker 1: had a pretty limited release, and you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: a huge blockbuster and it was so crazy because at Sundance.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, but I feel like it was,
Speaker 1: if not the first big cell like it was one
Speaker 1: of the first films to sell like it had a
Speaker 1: lot of hype and I don't know, and after I
Speaker 1: saw it, I was like, Oh, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: like huge the box office. This is going to be
Speaker 1: something that like it's going to come out in the
Speaker 1: summertime and everyone's gonna be there and it's gonna be
Speaker 1: like sold out theaters. So just the fact that it
Speaker 1: didn't really get to come out, you know, during the
Speaker 1: normal time. Yeah, right, it does seem like that. It
Speaker 1: bumps me out because it, yeah, it seems like it
Speaker 1: would have been way more of like a big hit
Speaker 1: in terms of like just people seeing it if it
Speaker 1: had come out. I don't know, because they know that
Speaker 1: they delayed the release of it so many times. And
Speaker 1: then it was like, it feels wild to say now,
Speaker 1: but there was a time where a summer seemed like
Speaker 1: a pretty safe bet. And even then, I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like it came out and then Delta was that
Speaker 1: and like it was up against a bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff that also had gotten delayed for the past year
Speaker 1: and a half that were like major, you know, highly
Speaker 1: anticipated blockbusters. You know, you're like James Bond movie, a
Speaker 1: couple of Marvel movies, things like that. So it was
Speaker 1: up against those things, and I think that if it
Speaker 1: had been released closer to like the end of the year,
Speaker 1: it would have gotten more like Oscar buzz and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But yeah, I think that there's just like
Speaker 1: kind of there were a few things that were like
Speaker 1: kind of working against it. I don't remember a lot
Speaker 1: of marketing for the movie either, so I don't know.
Speaker 1: I do wish it had performed better at the box
Speaker 1: office though. Anyway, should I get into the recap and
Speaker 1: then we'll go from there, sure? Sure, and then Jimmila
Speaker 1: feel free to jump in whenever. Alright, So we opened
Speaker 1: on two women, Zola played by Taylor Page and Stephanie
Speaker 1: played by Riley Kyo. Kyo. Yeah, she's uh, because every
Speaker 1: movie has some sort of weird nepotism attached. She's Elvis nepotism. Whoa, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did not know that, but like a niece or something,
Speaker 1: I think granddaughter? Oh my, is that right? I think
Speaker 1: so it should be wrong, but I just know that
Speaker 1: Elvis connection to yea, how about that Elvis nepotism. You
Speaker 1: don't get that. You don't get that every day? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Elvis's granddaughter. Huh wow. Uh So the two of them
Speaker 1: are putting on makeup, and then Zola breaks the fourth
Speaker 1: wall and says, I think verbatim of the tweet that
Speaker 1: also kicked off the Twitter thread, you want to hear
Speaker 1: a story about how me and this bitch here fell out.
Speaker 1: It's kind of long, but it's full of suspense. Then
Speaker 1: we get text on the screen that says, on October
Speaker 1: at Underscore, Zola our moon tweeted the following in a
Speaker 1: hundred forty eight tweets, and then it says most of
Speaker 1: what follows is true. So we flash back to Zola
Speaker 1: meeting Stephanie at a restaurant where Zolo works as a server.
Speaker 1: I think canonically, in real life that restaurant was Hooters.
Speaker 1: Shout out to the place where I did work as
Speaker 1: a delivery driver. True story. I was a Hooters delivery
Speaker 1: driver for a summer in State College, Pennsylvania. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Thank you. I have a lot of stand
Speaker 1: up material about it. Um So, Zola meets Stephanie. Stephanie
Speaker 1: recognizes her because they both dance slash work as strippers.
Speaker 1: We then see them dancing together, they're hanging out, they're
Speaker 1: becoming friendly, and the next day Stephanie invites Zola on
Speaker 1: a trip to Florida so they can dance at some
Speaker 1: clubs and make a bunch of money. We see Zola
Speaker 1: say goodbye to her boyfriend, and then she sets off
Speaker 1: on this trip with Stephanie, as well as Stephanie's roommate,
Speaker 1: whose name Zola won't learn for a while. He's played
Speaker 1: by Coleman Domingo, but we'll come to find out he
Speaker 1: goes by X. We also meet Stephanie's boyfriend, Derek, who
Speaker 1: is played by cousin Greg Nicholas Braun, who is most
Speaker 1: famous for Succession, but also he's also famous for sky High.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, a sky High kid, I'm
Speaker 1: seeing him. He's in sky High as Zak. Good for
Speaker 1: him and Coleman Domingo has been in a bit jillion things.
Speaker 1: I feel like he's on a real hot streak right
Speaker 1: now with him. I'll watch anything with him in it.
Speaker 1: He's great. So it's a twenty hour drive to Tampa,
Speaker 1: and on the way we can start to sense that
Speaker 1: Zola is getting uncomfortable and apprehensive about this trip, mostly
Speaker 1: because of the people who are on it and their behavior.
Speaker 1: They arrive in Tampa and drop Derek off at this
Speaker 1: grungy motel. Then they head to the strip clubs. It's
Speaker 1: pretty uneventful at first. Then Stephanie takes some photos of
Speaker 1: the two of them and sends them to X, and
Speaker 1: it turns out he is Stephanie's pimp, and he uses
Speaker 1: these photos to set up and add on back Page,
Speaker 1: which I think is now defunct. But there's it's so
Speaker 1: funny because it's like canonical to the story that this
Speaker 1: sixth place uh sometime in but it's just so wild.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's like five, you know, less
Speaker 1: than five years after this movie comes out, and so
Speaker 1: much of the Internet that they're using and referring to
Speaker 1: is like feels so old and so like using a
Speaker 1: Facebook status for revenge. I'm like, where were we ever
Speaker 1: so young? Right? So back Page, as Zola point, it's
Speaker 1: out as a place where you can buy and sell sex. Um.
Speaker 1: Zola is not interested in this whole back page ad thing,
Speaker 1: so she tries to leave, but X threatens her so
Speaker 1: she has no choice but to stay, and then he
Speaker 1: takes Zola and Stephanie to a hotel where he has
Speaker 1: arranged for several men to meet them there for sex.
Speaker 1: Zola confronts Stephanie saying, you know, no shade and no shame,
Speaker 1: but this is not what you told me. I was
Speaker 1: coming here to do. I just thought we would be dancing.
Speaker 1: And then Stephanie is saying, oh, I didn't know this
Speaker 1: was going to happen either, but I'm scared and I
Speaker 1: don't want to be alone. So Zola feels kind of
Speaker 1: guilted into staying. We will later learn that this is
Speaker 1: Stephanie being manipulative, but Zola lets the first guy into
Speaker 1: the room. Stephanie has sex with him while Zola just
Speaker 1: has to awkwardly by the door and stare at the wall.
Speaker 1: We get her voice over it says they start fucking.
Speaker 1: It was gross. My favorite line to the movie. It
Speaker 1: gets called back to later. It's amazing both times. Yes, Uh,
Speaker 1: this first guy, that the John. He leaves after paying
Speaker 1: Stephanie a hundred and fifty dollars, which Zola comments is
Speaker 1: way too low. She says posty is worth thousands, and
Speaker 1: she posts a new ad for Stephanie for five a pop. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Derek is trying to call Stephanie. He can't get a
Speaker 1: hold of her. He doesn't know what's happening. He's clearly
Speaker 1: insecure about what she does for a living. He leaves
Speaker 1: the motel room to find some food and then meets
Speaker 1: this guy another name we won't know for a while Slash.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we ever do learn his name.
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's actually a good question. But he
Speaker 1: does some magic tricks and kind of befriends Derek. Then
Speaker 1: back in the hotel room, we get a montage of
Speaker 1: Stephanie having sex with several men. She makes a lot
Speaker 1: of money eight thousand dollars, which she has to hand
Speaker 1: over to X the next day. He takes most of it.
Speaker 1: He gives Zola some, doesn't give Stephanie any. He's also
Speaker 1: immediately suspicious of the guy Derek had befriended the night before.
Speaker 1: X thinks that this guy is going to slit their
Speaker 1: throats and steal the money they made, so they have
Speaker 1: to rush out of there and go to another hotel.
Speaker 1: X's behavior gets even more erratic. He continues to intimidate Zola.
Speaker 1: He brings in this random woman who's pointing a gun around.
Speaker 1: We find out, or if you like read the Twitter thread,
Speaker 1: you learned that she is X's fiance Yeah, or at
Speaker 1: least like his serious girlfriend. Or something like that. But yeah, there,
Speaker 1: that's a contextuals I. I reread the thread for to
Speaker 1: prepare for for this and it holds up. It's classic
Speaker 1: American literature. I'm serious, truly, I agree. Yeah, so she's
Speaker 1: pointing a gun around. Then X gives Zola a gun.
Speaker 1: Zola also finds out that Stephanie has done the same
Speaker 1: thing before with other women, where she kind of invites
Speaker 1: them along and it turns out to be set up.
Speaker 1: Zola is obviously very betrayed and pissed. Derek is also
Speaker 1: mad at Stephanie for kind of just having this general
Speaker 1: profession and lifestyle. He tries to quote save her by
Speaker 1: shaming her on social media. She says, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be saved. Then they head to this house, another
Speaker 1: thing that X had apparently arranged for them. A group
Speaker 1: of men are about to gang bang Stephanie, and then
Speaker 1: the point of view shifts to Stephanie's point of view
Speaker 1: and we get her version of the story based on
Speaker 1: a series of her posts on Reddit from October, a
Speaker 1: few days after Zola had posted her original Twitter thread.
Speaker 1: Um she explains how she meets Zola, how it was
Speaker 1: Zola's idea to take the trip, not hers how Stephanie
Speaker 1: doesn't know anything about stripping because she's a Christian. She
Speaker 1: talks about how Zola is jealous, and Stephanie's version of
Speaker 1: the story is extremely racist toward Zolo specifically, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: very much comes across in the movie as well. I
Speaker 1: mean in the way that that whole sequence is like
Speaker 1: framed and told and totally h Then we cut back
Speaker 1: to Zola's point of view. She and Stephanie go to
Speaker 1: another hotel to meet more clients, but it's a setup.
Speaker 1: The client is the guy who Derek had befriended. The
Speaker 1: magic trick guy says he's the rival hustler. Yes, so
Speaker 1: he's also a pimp. He and this other guy c
Speaker 1: c abduct Stephanie. Zola manages to get away and calls X,
Speaker 1: who drags Zola back to the hotel along with Derek
Speaker 1: to get Stephanie back. It's a very intense hostage situation.
Speaker 1: Guns are being pointed around, but then X finally gets
Speaker 1: the upper hand and everyone gets out and goes back
Speaker 1: to X's Tampa house. Uh. Zola is like, I gotta
Speaker 1: get out of here. Derek begs Stephanie to leave with him.
Speaker 1: It's kind of implied that she wants to stay and
Speaker 1: make more money, which is also how the true story
Speaker 1: goes as well. Um, and then he threatens to suicide
Speaker 1: and then jumps off the balcony, but he doesn't die
Speaker 1: because we cut to x Zola, Stephanie, and Derek, who
Speaker 1: is bleeding and badly injured there in the car, driving
Speaker 1: presumably back to where they all live, which I think
Speaker 1: is Detroit. Um, that is the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
Speaker 1: to discuss and we're back. Um. Before we get into it,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to something that I thought was like
Speaker 1: one of the funnier details or one of the things
Speaker 1: that I remembered from the Twitter account that got changed
Speaker 1: for the movie. I'm like, I wonder, why is that
Speaker 1: when in Zola's Twitter thread when Derek or the Derek
Speaker 1: his name is Jarrett in real life, same energy. But
Speaker 1: when when Derek jumps off the balcony and the Twitter thread,
Speaker 1: like so the true story, he doesn't even hit the
Speaker 1: ground because his pants get caught on something, so he's
Speaker 1: just like hanging and then Stephanie and Eggs have to
Speaker 1: like pluck him off like he's like a little cat
Speaker 1: stuck in a tree. Right, But then I also read
Speaker 1: that real life Zola, whose name is Asia King, she
Speaker 1: admits to having embellished some of the details of the
Speaker 1: story and jared that one suicide attempt Apparently, unless I'm
Speaker 1: misunderstanding this, but the way I read it, he threatened
Speaker 1: suicide but never attempted it. So that's something that like
Speaker 1: Asia King embellished to make the story a bit more cinematic.
Speaker 1: I suppose. I mean it worked on me. I think
Speaker 1: about that all the time. I'm like, he got caught
Speaker 1: and he was just hanging there. Wow. Alright, she's an
Speaker 1: amazing writer. That's the right, right, Like where, yeah, where
Speaker 1: where to begin? Where do we want to start here?
Speaker 1: Good question. I will say that I don't know that
Speaker 1: there's a lot about this movie that I feel a
Speaker 1: little out of my depth with in terms of, like
Speaker 1: the representation of sex work in general and specifically black
Speaker 1: stuck workers, which is something that like media has not
Speaker 1: represented well or thoughtfully or meaningfully throughout history. From what
Speaker 1: I could tell with the various you know, articles I
Speaker 1: read and accounts from sex workers responding to Zola's story,
Speaker 1: and I found stuff that was mostly a response to
Speaker 1: the Twitter thread rather than the movie itself. Um. I
Speaker 1: couldn't find a lot about like sex workers responses to
Speaker 1: Zola the movie, but I did find some stuff from
Speaker 1: black sex workers who comment on how they felt seen
Speaker 1: by this Twitter thread. How um For example, UM pulling
Speaker 1: from a quote in an article from Now Toronto entitled
Speaker 1: how Zola made space for Black sex workers st worries
Speaker 1: with a Twitter thread quote according to Ellie, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if it's aud a Ker or Ellie aid Ker
Speaker 1: from Maggie's Toronto sex Worker Action Project. Every black exotic
Speaker 1: dancer remembers the moment they were reading that thread for
Speaker 1: the first time. Um. And then this is Ellie quoting
Speaker 1: it spoke to so many workplace dynamics that a lot
Speaker 1: of us were used to. It was so exciting because
Speaker 1: it was a narrative told from the perspective of another
Speaker 1: black sex worker. That's what made it so relatable. End quote.
Speaker 1: So I saw a lot of responses like this to
Speaker 1: the story, especially the Twitter thread, and I imagine that
Speaker 1: would extend into the movie as well, because the movie
Speaker 1: seems so faithful to the thread and is a well
Speaker 1: directed movie by j Nisa Bravo. Yeah, so yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of feel the same, Like after seeing it before
Speaker 1: I even wrote my review, which you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not even a deep dive review because this at the time,
Speaker 1: I was still processing it because I had to write
Speaker 1: it like immediately, and my gut reaction initially, like after
Speaker 1: I saw it, I was like, there was a lot
Speaker 1: going on here, but I'm into it. I liked it.
Speaker 1: I like the packaging of it, like the presentation of
Speaker 1: it overall. But then again there's there's the whole fact
Speaker 1: of it being about such heavy, heavy topics, you know,
Speaker 1: like sex work and sex trafficking, um, and it's and
Speaker 1: then also just having a black woman on screen, and
Speaker 1: I'm personally I'm I mean, I'm a black woman, and
Speaker 1: I am a little sensitive about the depiction of black
Speaker 1: women on screen and just like exploitation and just making
Speaker 1: sure that you know. But as I was reading more
Speaker 1: about it, because Jamie, unlike you, I was not familiar
Speaker 1: with the Twitter thread, and I feel like I can't
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say that as a black person. But I
Speaker 1: wasn't really heavy. That was like my first semester of
Speaker 1: grad school. I was not really on this. I wasn't
Speaker 1: on Twitter like that, but then understandable. But as I
Speaker 1: was doing research, as I was writing about it, I
Speaker 1: became much more comfortable with the film because, like you said, Jamie,
Speaker 1: initially it was going to be in James Franko's hands
Speaker 1: and that is terrifying, and I believe I read I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was really Stone. I've I read
Speaker 1: somewhere where Asia was talking about it and just saying
Speaker 1: that things were progressing because there were two different writers
Speaker 1: I believe attached to it when James Franko was attached
Speaker 1: to it, and they were also white men, and it
Speaker 1: was just changing. The story was not it didn't feel
Speaker 1: honest to her. And reading more about her perspective just
Speaker 1: like as a person, as like a human and her
Speaker 1: relationship with Jim Nixa and Jeremio Harris and like and
Speaker 1: also Taylor Um, it made me a lot more comfortable.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, regardless of what the content is like,
Speaker 1: whether or not it makes people uncomfortable or it makes
Speaker 1: people just question things, I'm like, if this is her story,
Speaker 1: then I'm here for it. So like I appreciated the
Speaker 1: film as just being like this black woman had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to tell her story and you know, and she
Speaker 1: also spoke in some interview about people were questioning her
Speaker 1: at first, like the validity of it, um, but she
Speaker 1: was saying if she was a white woman, she felt
Speaker 1: very confident that people would just believe her. Um. So
Speaker 1: there was like fact checking done like Rolling Stone did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they did, like an article. Yeah, because that's like part
Speaker 1: of what the story. I think that that's like it's
Speaker 1: based on the Twitter thread and the Rolling Stone, right,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Yeah, So she was like after
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stone piece, She's like, that is when people
Speaker 1: really started to pay attention to it or like engage
Speaker 1: with it in a way like, oh, this is like
Speaker 1: an actual story. Yeah. I read Asia talking about that
Speaker 1: as well. And just the fact that, you know, her
Speaker 1: story was treated with such a hefty dose of skepticism
Speaker 1: until it, like you were saying, Jimmie, like until it
Speaker 1: was fact checked and formally quote unquote endorsed by a
Speaker 1: white journey list at a legacy publication. And then once
Speaker 1: that happened, it's like, oh, okay, well now we can
Speaker 1: we can take this seriously. Which is I feel like
Speaker 1: just so telling Yeah for sure, Which, Yeah, the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone article. It recounts part of this story that the
Speaker 1: movie doesn't cover, where after Zola gets back to Detroit
Speaker 1: with Jerrek and it has told the Stephanie character, whose
Speaker 1: real name is Jessica. She's told Jessica like, I'm never
Speaker 1: talking to you again, lose my number, don't call me
Speaker 1: kind of thing. She gets a call from her a
Speaker 1: few days later. She's calling from a jail in Vegas
Speaker 1: or she's been arrested in Vegas on like human trafficking charges,
Speaker 1: because I mean, it's obvious from the movie that the
Speaker 1: X character who in real life goes by Z, so
Speaker 1: a different letter at the end of the alphabet. This
Speaker 1: this Z guy was like a known trafficker. There's another
Speaker 1: part of the story where like they had basically abducted
Speaker 1: these two young women and we're trafficking them and they
Speaker 1: got arrested and then z Z had a long history
Speaker 1: of doing this and like a few murder yes, which
Speaker 1: makes me kind of like, so, I'm I'm kind of
Speaker 1: like in a in a weird headspace now after having
Speaker 1: read that article and thinking like, oh, this this story
Speaker 1: gets so much darker. It's already quite dark and manages
Speaker 1: a comedic tone, but also appropriately like lets you know
Speaker 1: when a serious thing is happening, and then when it's
Speaker 1: appropriate to laugh it lets you laugh. But the story,
Speaker 1: the dark story does get darker, and now I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my, like I kinda even though the guilty for
Speaker 1: like laughing, and yeah, and in in a way that
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, is it okay that this movie kind
Speaker 1: of makes, like, I mean arguably sort of makes light
Speaker 1: of sex trafficking? And is that distinction between like sex
Speaker 1: work that sex workers do willingly and sex trafficking that
Speaker 1: people are obviously forced into and doing against their own
Speaker 1: free will. Is that distinction made clear enough in the movie?
Speaker 1: I think so, But I now kind of have different
Speaker 1: questions about Yeah, some aspects of the whole story, I
Speaker 1: agree it is really I mean, especially I think in
Speaker 1: particular with the issue of human trafficking, because it is
Speaker 1: such a historically poorly portrayed and dealt with topic in
Speaker 1: movies and still now is like barely discussed. I know
Speaker 1: that I, like personally don't have the knowledge base to
Speaker 1: be able to make any sort of call of like
Speaker 1: how this movie in particular portrayal fairs. But I'll say
Speaker 1: as a viewer, I did find it a little bit confusing,
Speaker 1: where I guess there were moments where I was as
Speaker 1: a viewer as I didn't feel like the lines were
Speaker 1: made completely clear, which in some ways could just be
Speaker 1: another way of putting you in Zola's shoes of like
Speaker 1: Zola slowly realizing that this has crossed from one area
Speaker 1: to another. But there I don't know, Like I I
Speaker 1: struggled with that element of it. And then it's it's
Speaker 1: tricky because when you're dealing with real life people who
Speaker 1: are still I mean, this happened six years ago, very
Speaker 1: much alive, I feel like it gets into this accistential
Speaker 1: question that we kind of can't really answer of like
Speaker 1: can you make omitting something that huge creative choice? You know,
Speaker 1: like it's just it's and I don't have an answer
Speaker 1: to that. I don't know. It definitely also felt really
Speaker 1: conflicted just because of everything you just said about just
Speaker 1: because I enjoyed the film so much and I didn't
Speaker 1: walk away from the film feeling the way that I
Speaker 1: would have thought that I would have felt if I
Speaker 1: was told that I was about to walk into a
Speaker 1: theater and see a movie about sex traffic, Well, that's
Speaker 1: like that like has sex trafficking and a lot of violence,
Speaker 1: and just like the topics and the issues that this
Speaker 1: film you know, covers, But I don't know, like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it does a good job of of
Speaker 1: really separating, you know, sex work from sex trafficking kind
Speaker 1: of like depicting them in totally different ways. But I
Speaker 1: part of me feels like it did an okay job,
Speaker 1: just because, like with the Zolo character, I felt like
Speaker 1: she was very comfortable with who she was in her
Speaker 1: identity as a sex worker from the very beginning, and
Speaker 1: even like when they got to the when I got
Speaker 1: to Florida and they're in the strip club, but just
Speaker 1: like that little scene where she's like who even be
Speaker 1: to day? And she's like dressing up and it's like
Speaker 1: it's her thing, Like she's like shining and she's just
Speaker 1: in it. And then even when she's on stage before
Speaker 1: that guy says she looks like will Be Goldberg, which
Speaker 1: was which is that was? That was so strange? But
Speaker 1: her face was just like everything Taylor Page. She was
Speaker 1: amazing in it. She's so good, she's so good. But
Speaker 1: I just felt like I felt like her identity and
Speaker 1: you know, her ownership of being a sex worker. I
Speaker 1: felt like she felt comfortable in that, and then when
Speaker 1: the sex trafficking came along, like she made it clear,
Speaker 1: like you know, where her boundaries were. But it also
Speaker 1: didn't feel like she was necessarily shaming Stephanie. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: which she Steven says in a line of dialogue that
Speaker 1: I think might have been added for the movie. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this was included in the twitter throat
Speaker 1: is something that like, I think it was added. But
Speaker 1: I thought that that was a really smart addition because
Speaker 1: she says, no shade, no shame, do you, but that
Speaker 1: is not what you told me I was coming down
Speaker 1: here to do. So like the Zola character is, you know, saying,
Speaker 1: if that's what you want to do, by all means,
Speaker 1: knock yourself out, but like you told me something different
Speaker 1: and now you're betraying my trust and so like. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the movie does make the clear distinction. But
Speaker 1: I guess my concern is that people, you know, like
Speaker 1: the swerf's out there who already conflate sex work that's
Speaker 1: done willingly and consensually and being a victim of sex trafficking,
Speaker 1: those people might see this movie and like jump to
Speaker 1: the wrong conclusions and mistakenly think that this movie proves
Speaker 1: their point because of how close Zola comes to becoming
Speaker 1: a victim of sex trafficking. But I don't know to
Speaker 1: your point the question and does remain like because I'm
Speaker 1: not well versed enough in it either to like really
Speaker 1: feel like I can really just stand in the firm
Speaker 1: just stance on this. But like it definitely, like I
Speaker 1: said before, I didn't feel as heavy as I feel
Speaker 1: like it could have been or maybe should have been
Speaker 1: to some people's points, you know, because of the topic.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think the fact that
Speaker 1: it didn't for me, I was like, maybe this is
Speaker 1: the film's way of kind of showing how easy it
Speaker 1: is to kind of get swept into it. I don't know,
Speaker 1: that doesn't even make sense. Yeah, I know that totally.
Speaker 1: It does. Yeah. Actually, that's that's one thing about the
Speaker 1: movie that I was like, Zola is a passive observer
Speaker 1: of the events of the story more so than a
Speaker 1: like traditional protagonist of a movie who's like especially like
Speaker 1: a hero's journey type story, who is like making way
Speaker 1: more active choices. Um. I guess that's just like the
Speaker 1: nature of the like things that happened to you in
Speaker 1: real life. Uh. It make for an interesting movie adaptation though,
Speaker 1: because it's like, Okay, well we have this this like
Speaker 1: character who's the protagonist, who is mostly an observer of events.
Speaker 1: She is making active choices here and there. But um,
Speaker 1: I found that kind of I don't know, just interesting,
Speaker 1: I guess I kind of. I mean, maybe I'm like
Speaker 1: reaching here, but I kind of liked I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like the movie puts you in, like, even though
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, she's not like super active in the
Speaker 1: traditional sense of like I'm doing this and I'm doing this,
Speaker 1: I feel like Janik's Bravo did a really good job
Speaker 1: of making the act of observing feel active, because it's
Speaker 1: like Zola has to be so like watching everyone's every
Speaker 1: move to the point where it's obviously very very draining
Speaker 1: in order to like survive the experience. So even though
Speaker 1: it's like it didn't feel like I mean, obviously it's
Speaker 1: like this movie is also just following a Twitter thread
Speaker 1: of someone recounting observing people. But I felt like she
Speaker 1: did a really good of putting you in, Like it's
Speaker 1: not that she's not being active, because like it's because
Speaker 1: she feels like she can't and like has to be
Speaker 1: so careful about what she chooses to do, not do,
Speaker 1: say and not saying stuff like that. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I thought the movie did a good job of like
Speaker 1: putting you in that headspace. Definitely, it definitely did that
Speaker 1: for me too. And and also just like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like her, like how quiet she was and and just
Speaker 1: the observing I think that was kind of like her superpower.
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of how she made it
Speaker 1: out alive or how she was able to kind of
Speaker 1: re established or just like just get her own power
Speaker 1: or get like get her own authority throughout the story,
Speaker 1: because it felt like the story was it was kind
Speaker 1: of going off the rails and then it was, but
Speaker 1: it was like, but she's still felt so firm in
Speaker 1: her power as like a character or as a person.
Speaker 1: So I think I think that silence and I think
Speaker 1: that the observing of everything kind of just like helped
Speaker 1: her navigate it. But it also just felt it also
Speaker 1: felt really telling, just like or just interesting to watch
Speaker 1: her just like a black woman on screen, just like
Speaker 1: navigating all of this stuff and just like she's experiencing
Speaker 1: so much violence, Like even the like the non physical violence,
Speaker 1: just like just the whole experience, the chaos of it all,
Speaker 1: and and just like it's just so much violence just
Speaker 1: coming at her and she's just like internalizing it and
Speaker 1: just like looking at it. And that just felt very
Speaker 1: relatable to me, um and just like for like my
Speaker 1: existence or even the existence of like other black women.
Speaker 1: So that was really interesting to me, just like watching
Speaker 1: how she just kind of dealt with all of that
Speaker 1: and then found wait, found a way to like navigate
Speaker 1: a space. And then hearing Asia talk about it, she
Speaker 1: just talks like the Twitter threat, she like says it.
Speaker 1: It was her like the writing of it all, because
Speaker 1: I mean it's comedic in the Twitter thread as well,
Speaker 1: but it's like but the writing of it all was
Speaker 1: like healing for her. It was like it was traumatizing
Speaker 1: when she you know, it was a trauma, like it's
Speaker 1: a it's a funny and you know at certain points,
Speaker 1: but it was at its heart like a trauma. And
Speaker 1: like that was how she processed it, I think, turning
Speaker 1: it into something that I guess we could all like
Speaker 1: get on board with. But also sometimes like the scariest
Speaker 1: things when when you're out of it, they're like sometimes
Speaker 1: it can be kind of funny. I mean, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like humorous coping mechanism of like yeah right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you like laugh so that you don't cry every day
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I guess it's like the tone that I was
Speaker 1: like a little like, is this kind of is this
Speaker 1: tone sort of like mean that it's maybe making light
Speaker 1: of this scary and dangerous situation where again, yeah, she's
Speaker 1: she's often the victim of violence. Is that making light
Speaker 1: of all this? But it is maintaining the same tone
Speaker 1: as the original Twitter thread, So they're adapting her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: since that's how like Zola chose to present this story, then, like,
Speaker 1: you know, who am I to say anything about tone
Speaker 1: and a person's healing process. I can totally get someone
Speaker 1: who does. Like, whenever someone tells me they've seen it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, so what do you think? What? Like I
Speaker 1: can if someone came to me and said, I feel
Speaker 1: like it was like it minimizes it and it wasn't
Speaker 1: Like I could totally understand how someone could have that
Speaker 1: experience seeing it. So there's that because you know, part
Speaker 1: of me like I get that. But yeah, like you said,
Speaker 1: for me. It was more like, well, if this is
Speaker 1: her story and this is how she presented it, and
Speaker 1: she and like she's on board with how it was told,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I will take it as it is.
Speaker 1: But like, but then there's a question of amplifying it,
Speaker 1: Like you said, like, is it is it problematic to
Speaker 1: amplify a story if it is something indeed that you
Speaker 1: know minimizes it. But I don't know, it's so hard.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it almost feels like, well, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: of course one movie couldn't tackle all of that, but
Speaker 1: it is like it's an interesting discussion. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like the way that I was able to too,
Speaker 1: I still don't like love the choices, and I very
Speaker 1: much understand the criticism. And it's like I feel like,
Speaker 1: in order to engage with the movie on its terms,
Speaker 1: you have to view it as like this is adapting
Speaker 1: the Twitter threat, like including apparently the embellishments that Asia
Speaker 1: King made that I didn't I thought this guy was
Speaker 1: hanging off the side of a building from his pants. Uh,
Speaker 1: Like nope, And of course the writers of the movie
Speaker 1: would have known that, but they choose to include it anyways,
Speaker 1: because it's they're adapting her story and the tone of
Speaker 1: how she told it, in the way that she told it,
Speaker 1: and in that way, I feel like it's successful. But
Speaker 1: I also very much see how it's like and again
Speaker 1: it's like this isn't on anyone involved in this movie,
Speaker 1: but just because it's like the topic of human trafficking
Speaker 1: is so huge and so poorly represented in movies, I
Speaker 1: feel like it always becomes like triple scrutinized when anyone
Speaker 1: even attempts to talk about it, because it's like, I'm
Speaker 1: I think about the sex trafficking and human trafficking story
Speaker 1: that I think I first saw in movie theaters unfortunately
Speaker 1: would have been like taken. That's what I was going
Speaker 1: to say, and that I haven't analyzed it from that perspective.
Speaker 1: And again I'm not an expert, but like not good,
Speaker 1: safe to say, not useful, And I feel like there's
Speaker 1: so many stories about human trafficking that you know, it's
Speaker 1: like some guy, some action hero bus in and resolves
Speaker 1: human trafficking and the way that bodies are shot is
Speaker 1: very exploitative and very trauma porn essentially, so the hero
Speaker 1: can come in and solve this societal ill in one scene.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I think that it is very bold
Speaker 1: for a movie to even take on this topic because
Speaker 1: it's so loaded. But I also like, yeah, obviously I
Speaker 1: don't think it was like handled perfectly, but I don't
Speaker 1: know what that would look like. I don't know, say,
Speaker 1: what could they do to make it right? Like what
Speaker 1: could have done right exactly? So I'm just like, and
Speaker 1: I know what would have been horrible is James Franco's
Speaker 1: version of the We know it wouldn't work, and we
Speaker 1: have seen many examples of what doesn't work. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we have any listeners who have more
Speaker 1: knowledge on this topic than we do, or maybe could
Speaker 1: direct us to movies that that you feel has handled
Speaker 1: the subject of human trafficking relatively well, I would be
Speaker 1: very interested to hear. I can't imagine that there will
Speaker 1: be for me, like a single film that will address it.
Speaker 1: Like the more I read on it, I just can't.
Speaker 1: I can't picture one film or one piece of just
Speaker 1: work or artwork I can really depict it, and it's
Speaker 1: in all of its complexities, you know, So I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I kind of take it. I take
Speaker 1: Zola as being just a contribution to the conversation, just
Speaker 1: like one perspective and one specific experience. I think the
Speaker 1: only like for me because it again, like to go
Speaker 1: back to what I said, I do feel like it
Speaker 1: just kind of shows how easily you can kind of
Speaker 1: just like tread that line and just the next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, it like happens. And also just I don't
Speaker 1: know because when I, like, when I first learned about
Speaker 1: you know, sex trafficking and human trafficking, it seems so big, right,
Speaker 1: like it's going to be a big operation, Like you're
Speaker 1: gonna know what's happening when it's happening, you know, And
Speaker 1: then this movie it kind of just I didn't know
Speaker 1: what was happening until it started, like you know, so
Speaker 1: it almost presents it in a way that and this
Speaker 1: is gonna I'm gonna try to phrase this in a
Speaker 1: way that isn't It almost makes human trafficking accessible, and
Speaker 1: by that I mean like it like makes it so
Speaker 1: that you can understand that this is a thing that
Speaker 1: can happen on a very small scale where like basically
Speaker 1: two people are orchestrating a sex trafficking operation. There are
Speaker 1: obviously other examples of like human trafficking where away bigger thing.
Speaker 1: But I think it it just sort of sheds a
Speaker 1: light on yeah, this this is sometimes how this goes
Speaker 1: down in a way that was like kind of eye
Speaker 1: opening for me, because yeah, when I think of like,
Speaker 1: because of the way it's represented in media, I think
Speaker 1: of sex trafficking is like, yeah, someone gets abducted when
Speaker 1: they're on vacation in Europe and then Liam Neeson has
Speaker 1: to find a movie has to find this enormous like
Speaker 1: outfit of criminals. There are hundreds of them who were
Speaker 1: just going on the phone and like, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think going back to what you were just saying, Jamila,
Speaker 1: I feel like there is such a wide variety of
Speaker 1: of how this can take place, and Zola is showing
Speaker 1: you one way that it can take place. And I
Speaker 1: mean and literally did in the case of this story,
Speaker 1: which I do, I do still wonder. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, the decision to withhold what ends up happening,
Speaker 1: I don't I just don't know. I agree, I agree,
Speaker 1: I think the ending it definitely falls flat like that.
Speaker 1: That was definitely a missed opportunity and I think that
Speaker 1: definitely could have been something that that kind of just
Speaker 1: tied it together in a way that acknowledged the severity
Speaker 1: of what happened. I think that may have been something
Speaker 1: that would have made because like when I walked away
Speaker 1: from the film, like I really enjoyed this film, but
Speaker 1: there's something I don't know, And then I think that
Speaker 1: acknowledgement and that like really just addressing like what really
Speaker 1: happens next, and like who these people were and like
Speaker 1: how bad it was. Like I think that would have helped, right,
Speaker 1: because the movie kind of lets the Stephanie character slash
Speaker 1: real life person Jessica off the hook for being very
Speaker 1: culpable for being part of this sex trafficking operation in
Speaker 1: a way that she should be like should be held
Speaker 1: more accountable by the movie. I think I just kind
Speaker 1: of I also think that it's like knowing that information
Speaker 1: also serves Zola. I know that the movie is very
Speaker 1: focused on, like obviously Zola, it is the name of
Speaker 1: the movie, but I think it also like serves Zola's
Speaker 1: character to like that heightens this like knowing what happens
Speaker 1: with Ze and Jessica X and Stephanie whatever and the
Speaker 1: real life consequences, like that heightens the entire story that
Speaker 1: happened to Zola because it very easily could have been her. Like,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's all very very relevant. And also
Speaker 1: it's like you can address that in a couple of
Speaker 1: I don't know, like title cards at the end of
Speaker 1: the movie of like those classic like here's what happened
Speaker 1: to this character, here's what Like I feel like that
Speaker 1: happens at the end of most true story movies. I
Speaker 1: wonder if that was ever I'll just be curious enough
Speaker 1: that was like included in any drafts or like what
Speaker 1: conversation led to that not being included? Yeah, because if
Speaker 1: you don't google, it literally just looks like they get
Speaker 1: away right right, and like everyone just gets away, and
Speaker 1: it's just like I don't know, I'm like, so it
Speaker 1: did this happen? You know? When the reality is like
Speaker 1: a week later things have changed, so and it's like
Speaker 1: and it also is like, so Zola got out of
Speaker 1: this situation truly in like the nick of time. Like
Speaker 1: it's just so, I don't know. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: other stuff to talk about with this movie, but I'm uh,
Speaker 1: and it's all it's all challenging. Let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break and then come back to talk about those things.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about how the movie provides commentary
Speaker 1: on race, Like you have the character of Stephanie and
Speaker 1: her boyfriend, who are both white, appropriating elements of Black
Speaker 1: culture in the language they use, they're kind of style hairstyles,
Speaker 1: and the way they talk, the way they talk, and
Speaker 1: then direct a bunch of like racist microaggressions or macro
Speaker 1: aggressions at Zola. And I feel like the movies like
Speaker 1: providing this effective commentary on you know, how white people
Speaker 1: like Stephanie can appropriate blackness when it's convenient for them,
Speaker 1: which they can then exploit to kind of give them
Speaker 1: more perceived coolness quote unquote or like perceived credibility, but
Speaker 1: then obviously still benefit from all the privilege that being
Speaker 1: white affords them, right and fall back on that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like that sequence with like Jessica's story or Stephanie's
Speaker 1: story perfectly illustrates her, you know, like we've seen her
Speaker 1: appropriating Black culture and like observing Zola so carefully in
Speaker 1: this creepy way for the whole movie. And then the
Speaker 1: second she needs to play the part of like innocent
Speaker 1: white girl of like I'm a Christian, I don't know
Speaker 1: what huh she plays that part to a t and
Speaker 1: like is very like it's just very clear what she's doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a lot. Um the black scent. That was definitely
Speaker 1: a lot to get past in the beginning. And but yeah,
Speaker 1: throughout the film just watching her just appropriate black culture
Speaker 1: and misappropriated I don't know, it was a lot. But
Speaker 1: it was also like and it was uncomfortable. It's like
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable, but it's also just like unfortunate because it's
Speaker 1: like still realistic because there are definitely people like that. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe not to that extreme, but definitely that's definitely a thing.
Speaker 1: And then but in this at the same time, like
Speaker 1: just being racist, it's just there's that. And then there's
Speaker 1: like the scene in the car where she's she turns
Speaker 1: around and she's talking to she's telling Zola some story
Speaker 1: about some other neural just being so it's it's just
Speaker 1: very racist. And then just Zola's just like looking at her.
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the moments where Zola
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, like I made a mistake coming on
Speaker 1: this trip and Asia, she said Jessica Um and her
Speaker 1: boyfriend in real life, she said, they were like using
Speaker 1: the N word, the whole time. And that's definitely the
Speaker 1: energy that you get from just the film, even though
Speaker 1: they left it out of the film, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I haven't really unpacked it because it's just very unfortunately,
Speaker 1: just feels very familiar, just like I've definitely I've I've
Speaker 1: witnessed this this type of energy in real life. Um
Speaker 1: and just like you know, just I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm curious your thoughts on this. I was
Speaker 1: surprised throughout the whole movie because Stephanie never drops this.
Speaker 1: This is like how she talks and like how she
Speaker 1: behaves throughout the whole movie. I expected at a certain
Speaker 1: point for Zola to like start calling her out for
Speaker 1: it or mention it or something. It never happens, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm curious, is to your thoughts and like, is
Speaker 1: that just like another kind of like mechanism the Zola
Speaker 1: and other black people. One of those things is like
Speaker 1: a choose your battles kind of thing where like it's
Speaker 1: not worth it or she's not worth it, or you know,
Speaker 1: something like that or I don't know, I just I
Speaker 1: was surprised that you never see that character who seems
Speaker 1: quite good at advocating for herself and like understanding kind
Speaker 1: of boundaries and things like that. Why she never calls
Speaker 1: the Stephanie character out for doing that. I mean, it
Speaker 1: made sense to me just because I've definitely met white
Speaker 1: people like that. And while I will have so many
Speaker 1: thoughts in my head and I will talk to all
Speaker 1: of my black friends about it because it's just like,
Speaker 1: what is what is happening here, I won't say anything
Speaker 1: to them because I mean, I do think it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a pick your battles, but it's also just
Speaker 1: like sometimes I'm like, maybe this person really thinks this
Speaker 1: is who they are, and I don't have the energy
Speaker 1: to sit here and to just like let them know
Speaker 1: because also like if if that is really like the
Speaker 1: persona that you're taking on unnecessarily, I feel like you
Speaker 1: might be someone who is not who is not going
Speaker 1: to be receptive to like a conversation on like why
Speaker 1: you're doing this right true and like and like who
Speaker 1: you because it's just I just can't imagine like like
Speaker 1: that character, I can't imagine she would have been any
Speaker 1: kind of receptive to it. I feel like she would
Speaker 1: have kind of just duck her heels in even further
Speaker 1: and just like gone harder to prove, like, no, this
Speaker 1: is who I am. It just seems it seems realistic
Speaker 1: to me because I can't imagine saying anything until a
Speaker 1: white person who's like that, I'd just be like, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: like I know that I need to avoid you moving forward. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you might not be someone that I can um trust.
Speaker 1: But but Zela, again, you know, I forget this sometimes
Speaker 1: that she was nineteen when it happened, because sometimes some
Speaker 1: people were just like why would you go I'm like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Why would you go on this
Speaker 1: trip with this? But then it's like she's nineteen. Nineteen
Speaker 1: year olds do a lot of things. Yeah, they do
Speaker 1: a lot of things, and it's like you might make
Speaker 1: some money and you might just have it's a road trip,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't know. On the surface, maybe it
Speaker 1: sounded like it could have been like an adventure and
Speaker 1: when you're nineteen is all you want, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm thirty five and I make horrible choices frequently. So
Speaker 1: she contextualizes it in the Twitter thread by saying, like
Speaker 1: I had gone down to Florida to do something similar
Speaker 1: before and made fifteen thousand dollars and so it's like
Speaker 1: I understand why she would like accept the invitation and
Speaker 1: also why it would have been clear to her. I mean,
Speaker 1: and it was clear to her very early on that
Speaker 1: like this was not going to be the fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollar trip she was sort of it was alluded to
Speaker 1: it maybe being I thought it was interesting that Janniksa
Speaker 1: Bravo was asked about basically like building the Stephanie character
Speaker 1: and Riley Kio. I mean it it's interesting reading about
Speaker 1: how the actors approached their parts differently, because Asia King
Speaker 1: and Taylor Paige spoke quite a bit like in the
Speaker 1: forming the movies, Zola Riley Kyo did not speak to Jessica.
Speaker 1: That was not a part of the approach, but it
Speaker 1: sounded like um Jenneck, So Bravo and Riley Kio had
Speaker 1: discussions about like, well, how are we going to present
Speaker 1: this character? How is she going to talk? Like how
Speaker 1: I basically it sounded like a conversation of like how
Speaker 1: far into this are we going to go? And it
Speaker 1: sounds like Asia King has said to multiple press outlets
Speaker 1: like that's how Jessica talked, and like that's just reflective
Speaker 1: of the experience. And I think that that should be
Speaker 1: reflected in the movie, and Jenneck so Bravo agreed on
Speaker 1: that point. And I do think. I mean, it's like
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, it's it's so ugly and
Speaker 1: cringe e and painful to watch, and it's like, I'm
Speaker 1: I don't know. I it seems like it was the
Speaker 1: right creative choice for the movie to do that, because
Speaker 1: it's just an early indicator of like who this character is. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. And I also I read all that too
Speaker 1: about you know, well Asia saying that that is how
Speaker 1: the character spoke, but honestly, even if she didn't say that,
Speaker 1: that's exactly how I would picture this character. Um. And
Speaker 1: then I also, you know, Jannisa, she like she really
Speaker 1: wanted to go all the way and like she got
Speaker 1: I believe, like a dialect coach or everything varilly like
Speaker 1: it was, and then she was like, now go deeper,
Speaker 1: and it was cringe e. But it just like I
Speaker 1: can't picture this character any other way, even just from
Speaker 1: reading it, and just like this is this is the
Speaker 1: kind of this is the kind of white woman that
Speaker 1: I would expect to have in this situation. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's like it does make It's like it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be cringe e. It's not like I mean because I
Speaker 1: feel like that the last time we've had a calm
Speaker 1: reversation about about black scent in movie, it was about Aquafina,
Speaker 1: where it was like her characters using it in it
Speaker 1: like a completely not self aware way in a way
Speaker 1: that was extremely misappropriative and exploitative and like stealing an
Speaker 1: offensive stereotype of black culture in order to like lift
Speaker 1: yourself up. And that's not what's happening here, especially because
Speaker 1: of who is behind the camera in this movie right exactly,
Speaker 1: and who's telling the story, who's telling the exactly. What
Speaker 1: if James Franco would have kept this film and it
Speaker 1: would have been like that would have been not at lant,
Speaker 1: that would math have landed well for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: right exactly. It reminds me of like every time like
Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino puts himself in his movie and then he's
Speaker 1: like saying the N word and we're just like, why
Speaker 1: did what? I can't? I can't, I can't. Yeah, at
Speaker 1: least he doesn't seem to do it anymore. I guess,
Speaker 1: well I'm not allowed to do it. Yeah, It's like
Speaker 1: check the date of when you're listening to this, give
Speaker 1: a time, not that you said that we're going to
Speaker 1: see a trailer in a month, so something. I'm sorry everybody.
Speaker 1: He said his name three times and now he's uncanceled.
Speaker 1: But truly what a horrible person. No, but yeah, like totally.
Speaker 1: I like, it's totally different from the ho Aquathina thing,
Speaker 1: and it's I think that's the biggest part of Zola
Speaker 1: for me, because again, going into it, I wasn't super
Speaker 1: familiar with the Twitter threat. I skimmed a few things
Speaker 1: before I walked in there because I was like preparing
Speaker 1: in my mind to write the article, and I learned
Speaker 1: more about the story, so I was I was definitely
Speaker 1: cautious and nervous, and then when Stephanie began speaking, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, for the whole week I had to
Speaker 1: sit through this. But but just like holding onto the
Speaker 1: fact that Jannisa jeremyo Hairs co writer, like there are
Speaker 1: black people who were behind the telling of the story
Speaker 1: and the presentation of it, and also like Asia and
Speaker 1: just the fact that she still had it seemed like
Speaker 1: she still had a lot of control over the narrative.
Speaker 1: I don't know. That made me feel like more comfortable
Speaker 1: with like what was happening. I mean, but it's still
Speaker 1: like it sucked, but it just but it also felt authentic.
Speaker 1: There there are a lot of there are a lot
Speaker 1: of white people out there who who speople with glass
Speaker 1: or like non black people in general. Like you said,
Speaker 1: like and it it's always cringe e for sure. This
Speaker 1: is maybe a good point to mention. Yeah, like because
Speaker 1: we've made a lot of reference to the like key
Speaker 1: creatives in this movie, but just to like shout everybody out. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's directed by Jennie Bravo, screenplays by Jenisa and
Speaker 1: Jeremy oh' harris. Um. But there's also I mean it's
Speaker 1: mostly women and people of color who are making the
Speaker 1: movie at the highest level, top to bottom. Um. Obviously
Speaker 1: Asia is involved. Dave Franco is still credited as a producer,
Speaker 1: which I have to imagine is some like leftover Franco
Speaker 1: related I'll talk about it. Um. But um, we have
Speaker 1: a woman as the primary cinematographer, Ari Wegner, who also
Speaker 1: just did the Power of the Dog. We have a
Speaker 1: um my women and a black woman editing the movie,
Speaker 1: Joy McMillan, who had previously done Moonlight. Um, and had
Speaker 1: worked on Jennis's first feature Lemon, that came out in
Speaker 1: also edited If Beale Street could talk, She's like huge, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's done so much. And then also the music was
Speaker 1: written by Micah Levy, who I believe is non binary. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so it is a very diverse team that's making
Speaker 1: this movie. And I feel like, yeah, I mean it's again,
Speaker 1: it's like I hate that we have to keep bringing
Speaker 1: up what the James Franco iteration of this story would
Speaker 1: have been, but it's like it would have been extremely
Speaker 1: different if there were different creatives at the helm of
Speaker 1: this story. And I really like how everything I've read
Speaker 1: about the production of this movie sounds like Asia King
Speaker 1: was like meaningfully involved in every step of the way
Speaker 1: and sort of like giving her blessing as things were
Speaker 1: developing to be like, no, this is reflective of like
Speaker 1: the story that I want to tell, and like giving
Speaker 1: her that agency I feel like is rare for any
Speaker 1: person who's whose writing is being adapted or whose story
Speaker 1: is being told, But in particular a black woman describing
Speaker 1: a story of sex work like that, I feel like
Speaker 1: that's never That's something that just doesn't happen in movies.
Speaker 1: At all. So it's cool to to see for sure.
Speaker 1: I love that call out, your call out of all
Speaker 1: of the people who you know, were in charge of
Speaker 1: bringing this film to was you know, from the top level,
Speaker 1: um and just like being very or just pointing out
Speaker 1: the fact that there were so many women, women of color,
Speaker 1: people of color, non non binary people. I think that's
Speaker 1: why because this film also, like if you think about
Speaker 1: how it was visually, it could have been a lot
Speaker 1: more chaotic and exploited, like like I don't recall seeing
Speaker 1: very many new naked women. I mean you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: or just like in a way about yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we don't see female nudity. We see full frontal
Speaker 1: male nudity. Boy do we? Uh, I've got to I've
Speaker 1: got a quote from Janet's Bravo here about her like
Speaker 1: approach to the visual because I was curious about that
Speaker 1: because it was like, I don't know, midway through the movie,
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that is of course, like if
Speaker 1: you didn't know that a woman wasn't making this movie
Speaker 1: going into it, I feel like that is the key
Speaker 1: tell is like that she doesn't jump to exploit women's
Speaker 1: bodies unfortunately, I mean, and that's not. You know, there
Speaker 1: are some mail filmmakers that don't, but statistically they do.
Speaker 1: Um So, here's what jenneks So Bravo said about specifically
Speaker 1: working on like the framing with her cinematographer Ari Wagner.
Speaker 1: She says, um quote, I wanted things to feel consensual.
Speaker 1: I talked with Ari, who shot the film, and Katie,
Speaker 1: the production designer, about what consent looks and feels like
Speaker 1: in American films. Sometimes nudity on screen doesn't feel consensual.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about some Helmet Newton photographs and why
Speaker 1: they work for me. They're often so naughty and so sexual,
Speaker 1: but it feels like there is this consent between the
Speaker 1: photographer and the model, and the model feels in control
Speaker 1: of the narrative even though she is not behind the lens.
Speaker 1: I wanted to find that the women felt taken care
Speaker 1: of and exposing the men. It wasn't a ha, I
Speaker 1: get to do it, or I'm a woman and this
Speaker 1: is a woman's gaze. There was maybe some politics there,
Speaker 1: but it was really about being so much inside what
Speaker 1: the women who were being bought were seeing unquote, which
Speaker 1: I feel like comes across pretty clearly in the visual
Speaker 1: language of the movie. I agree. I also love this
Speaker 1: kind of ties back to what we were talking about
Speaker 1: a little earlier. Just those mirror scenes. It's so Alice
Speaker 1: in wonderlandy to need to like it's such a cool
Speaker 1: setup for a shot, but just even how she uses
Speaker 1: those shots where there's that scene you were talking about earlier, Jamila,
Speaker 1: where Zola is looking at herself and all these different
Speaker 1: outfits and like who are you going to be today? Zola?
Speaker 1: Like that is such a cool way of showing like
Speaker 1: how this woman views herself in the different and also
Speaker 1: just like a cool I feel like it's I guess
Speaker 1: that's technically like a dress up montage in the movie,
Speaker 1: but it's just like telling you how different clothes make
Speaker 1: her feel, and like that's a I just loved it.
Speaker 1: And then in the mirror scenes where Stephanie's present, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's used in a totally different way where
Speaker 1: it's like Zola is able to see herself in the mirror,
Speaker 1: Stephanie doesn't seem to really see herself. She's she's looking
Speaker 1: at Zola because she's like there's so much of Zola's
Speaker 1: behavior that Stephanie is trying to imitate and take on
Speaker 1: as her own and I just I don't know if
Speaker 1: those scenes were I thought were so well done and interesting,
Speaker 1: no male gaze cinematography here, some gnarly dick shots m
Speaker 1: in a way that I'm also like, is that shamy
Speaker 1: of different penis types? Because a lot of them, like
Speaker 1: you get like I remember the one in particular that's
Speaker 1: like a very large penis. I remember that getting a
Speaker 1: big laugh in the theater and then they had a
Speaker 1: heart on it got a like yes, which, um, what
Speaker 1: about people with small penises and those are nice to
Speaker 1: you anyway? Yeah, I mean it's like I think that's
Speaker 1: definitely a discussion, but it's like, I don't know, very
Speaker 1: low in this movie, like on the list of priorities
Speaker 1: I have to talk about with this movie, right Ridge, Right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I thought it's interesting that it's like I feel
Speaker 1: like people are so quick to apply that like it's
Speaker 1: the female gays when I don't know, I like that
Speaker 1: Jennick's a Bravo and she's like pretty consistently done this
Speaker 1: throughout her career kind of like pushes back against the
Speaker 1: very the more obvious interpretations of her own work, and
Speaker 1: it's like, no, here's where I was coming from this
Speaker 1: is what I was thinking about, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: don't jump to the easiest interpretation of my work, please. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: like I think red or heard her say something about
Speaker 1: like because typically when it comes to sex work on screen,
Speaker 1: it's it's I mean, the women's bodies who you know,
Speaker 1: are the ones that are just all out there. But
Speaker 1: then like she wanted to kind of just shine a
Speaker 1: light on the men who are involved with it because
Speaker 1: I feel like so many times we'll see like a
Speaker 1: whole scene like context where and I'll just be like
Speaker 1: the woman, the woman, the woman, the guy will kind
Speaker 1: of have like it's like he's not even present in
Speaker 1: what's happening. So it's kind of like I feel like
Speaker 1: her way of really including them in the conversation and
Speaker 1: like saying no, like no, the act of what's happening here,
Speaker 1: whatever the situation. Maybe what's happening here is there's a
Speaker 1: man who's actively involved in it. He's not just like
Speaker 1: a passing figure and I owe another um. And again
Speaker 1: it's like where I can't speak on this with any
Speaker 1: sort of authority, but something that worked for me in
Speaker 1: watching this movie was the subtle and not subtle ways
Speaker 1: that the story acknowledges the stigma that comes with being
Speaker 1: a sex worker. Um, and that kind of spans I mean,
Speaker 1: the two examples I'm thinking of are in Stephanie's case,
Speaker 1: when Derek, I mean, like Stephanie is awful, no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. But when when Derek basically outs her as
Speaker 1: a sex worker to her entire family, the response that
Speaker 1: that prompts from her, I feel like, kind of addresses
Speaker 1: the stigma that is applied to her by her own
Speaker 1: family by knowing how she's supporting herself even though she
Speaker 1: is a terrible person. That that was like an interesting
Speaker 1: in text way of addressing that. And then in Zola's case, Um,
Speaker 1: it's I feel like, even more subtle, but it made
Speaker 1: me so frustrated and sad for her. Where there's two
Speaker 1: times where people in her life, like Zola has a
Speaker 1: support system, she has people checking in with her from
Speaker 1: her life. But my interpretation, and let me know if
Speaker 1: I'm off here, but was that she didn't I mean,
Speaker 1: she talked to her boyfriend and her mom briefly throughout
Speaker 1: this trip, and it just seems like she was not
Speaker 1: in a place with either of them where she felt
Speaker 1: comfortable being like, hey, I'm in danger and that like
Speaker 1: I don't know. I it's not something I can like
Speaker 1: completely relate with. But it's like, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: especially remembering that this character is supposed to be nineteen
Speaker 1: of like you were in a horrible situation and there
Speaker 1: is like this level of shame and embarrassment attributed to
Speaker 1: that situation, to the point where you don't ask for
Speaker 1: help when someone who could probably help you reaches out.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just that those moments, those like
Speaker 1: two moments for Zola really hit for me. Also, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I forget if that was in the Twitter threat or not.
Speaker 1: I think that she does mention her boyfriend reaching out
Speaker 1: and her not cluing him into what's happening. I think
Speaker 1: that happens in the thread. I didn't even think about it,
Speaker 1: and it's like an excellent point. That's another part of
Speaker 1: this movie that I really just have the process because
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I don't know. That's like it's either
Speaker 1: a discomfort because I think, I mean, her boyfriend knew
Speaker 1: to an extent, like he knows, he knows that she's
Speaker 1: a dancer like a stripper, right, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's checky. I don't know, Like there's like
Speaker 1: so many and there's so many little moments in this
Speaker 1: movie like that we're like because that, I feel like
Speaker 1: you could also interpret that as, like, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: embarrassment for being in a dangerous situation, or it could
Speaker 1: be a stigma issue, or it could be a little
Speaker 1: bit of both, and it's like, you can't really know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I wonder if one of the reasons
Speaker 1: we're so perplexed by a lot of this is we've
Speaker 1: just hardly seen this type of representation of sex workers
Speaker 1: in movies, like representation that is more nuanced and complex
Speaker 1: and actually centers sex workers as major characters and doesn't
Speaker 1: just put them in the background or make them a
Speaker 1: minor character. And we're just not used to seeing that
Speaker 1: because most of the representation of sex work we have
Speaker 1: seen has been very stereotypical, very harmful, not very nuanced
Speaker 1: or meaningful. And even Asia King has discussed that, you know,
Speaker 1: pop culture gets sex workers wrong all the time and says,
Speaker 1: uh quote, either it's too glamorized or it's too dehumanized.
Speaker 1: It's never about just a sex worker who is confident,
Speaker 1: enjoys their job and that's just who they are. So
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's like partially because we've just seen
Speaker 1: so little representation on screen of that type of sex
Speaker 1: worker who you know, enjoys what they're doing and it's
Speaker 1: just like her job. She's just her job. Yeah, she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't tell my mom, my boyfriend. I'm literally
Speaker 1: just at work. They'll find it so, which I mean
Speaker 1: just speaks to the need for more meaningful representations of
Speaker 1: sex work and sex workers on screen so the general
Speaker 1: public can have a better understanding of what it's like,
Speaker 1: and because sex work is such a large spectrum, the
Speaker 1: whole spectrum needs to be represented. Because the only media
Speaker 1: I consume that involves sex workers on a regular basis
Speaker 1: is the porn that I watch, which is also often
Speaker 1: I mean, not that respectful to women. But I found
Speaker 1: a few websites that are way better at it anyway,
Speaker 1: I watch porn. Everybody brag. I think that should be
Speaker 1: the tagline of this episode. Uh yeah, it's like and
Speaker 1: and like even speaking like going off what you're just saying.
Speaker 1: The fact that there are not more stories about sex
Speaker 1: workers where sex workers are meaningfully a part of the
Speaker 1: creative process puts an undue amount of pressure on the
Speaker 1: movies that do address sex work, like we've sort of
Speaker 1: talked about in a few points in this episode so
Speaker 1: far of just like there shouldn't be this much pressure
Speaker 1: on a single movie to address so much. But the
Speaker 1: reason that that pressure, the temptation to apply that pressure
Speaker 1: exists because there's so few options. So it's like this
Speaker 1: very it's it's fucked. I guess so yes, yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I just want to shout out. Another shot that I
Speaker 1: really liked was the overhead shot of them peeing, and
Speaker 1: I just was like a perfect character, Like I really
Speaker 1: loved Jennicks Bravo's work, but like little stuff like that
Speaker 1: of like Zola is going to squat above the seat,
Speaker 1: Stephanie is gonna plant, and that tells you so much
Speaker 1: about those characters in a single shot. And then and
Speaker 1: then Zila uses tissue, Stephitely does not use tissue, and
Speaker 1: then the color of the p it's I loved that
Speaker 1: shot so much a man could not have And it's
Speaker 1: like that's like a uniquely like corret a thesis on that,
Speaker 1: like that's right, that shot, Like I embarrassingly took a
Speaker 1: picture of it on my phone because I was like,
Speaker 1: this is so like I just another big laugh from
Speaker 1: the theater and conclusion, Stephanie needs to drink more water.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, she's hatred. I was like, well, I
Speaker 1: unfortunately I've seen that piss before and I was never
Speaker 1: in a good place when I was pissing it. Um
Speaker 1: just like, no no wiping at all. I was. I
Speaker 1: know that's how you know she's the villain of the story.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just wanted to shout that shout out
Speaker 1: because it really um got a big old reaction out
Speaker 1: of me, such smart and cool, like there's no dialogue.
Speaker 1: That's like amazing story talk show don't tell anyways. Does
Speaker 1: anyone have any other thoughts about the movie? I guess,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't really feel they need to talk
Speaker 1: about Derek that much. I do feel like, I mean,
Speaker 1: and this is again, this is like it's hard to like,
Speaker 1: you can't really put it on. Janet's a Bravo and
Speaker 1: Jeremy o'harris, but it's like the the way that suicide
Speaker 1: is presented in this movie is very jokey he he
Speaker 1: ha ha. When it's implied in the story that he
Speaker 1: was seriously suicidal, and like the Derek character. I mean,
Speaker 1: there is a little bit to talk about there, because
Speaker 1: he's like, I don't know, I maybe this isn't the
Speaker 1: episode to like open this discussion, maybe because it is
Speaker 1: like pretty fraught and the like there's a lot but
Speaker 1: like the way that quote unquote beta male characters traditionally
Speaker 1: are presented in movies, I just find it very interesting
Speaker 1: because and this this movie seems conscious of it of
Speaker 1: like the Nicholas I mean the Nicholas brauncast. Staying tells
Speaker 1: you everything you need to know in a way, but
Speaker 1: like you know, he's presented as like you're supposed to
Speaker 1: feel a little bad for him. He's harmless, he doesn't
Speaker 1: quite know what's going on, like he's being left out
Speaker 1: of the loop, he's being mistreated by his girlfriend, which
Speaker 1: he is, but then also views himself as this hero
Speaker 1: in this story that is not happening and puts his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: who he claims to love, in a very dangerous situation
Speaker 1: by like outing this and in a way that also
Speaker 1: puts Zola in immediate danger. Where anytime Stephanie or Derek
Speaker 1: do something to one up each other, it puts Zola
Speaker 1: in danger also, and no one ever addresses that Zola
Speaker 1: is clearly aware of it, but it's like they're just
Speaker 1: so like caught up in their own bullshit that I
Speaker 1: don't know that whole that character, I just I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's it's like the move, it's one of
Speaker 1: the the movie seems very aware of, Like this guy
Speaker 1: is like, in some way you have to have you
Speaker 1: have some empathy for him, because he's clearly not in
Speaker 1: a good mental state. But in the other way, he's
Speaker 1: putting people in danger right and left, and is like
Speaker 1: shaming of the work that his girlfriend does. It's not
Speaker 1: clear exactly to what extent he under stands that she's
Speaker 1: part of this sex trafficking thing. Well, later there's a
Speaker 1: scene where he said something and zlose like, what do
Speaker 1: I look like? I wanted this? And then he turns
Speaker 1: to Stephanie AND's like, you brought another girl or something else.
Speaker 1: So he does he knows, and I feel like he
Speaker 1: kind of plays it off by being like, I'm the
Speaker 1: goofy boyfriend. You should feel bad for me because my
Speaker 1: girlfriend doesn't love me, which is like all seems to
Speaker 1: be true, but you're also very much aware of what's
Speaker 1: going on, and you're not doing anything that doesn't serve
Speaker 1: your own interests, and so it's like it's interesting because
Speaker 1: he's he's he is like I think the most the
Speaker 1: character presented the most comedically in the movie, and he's
Speaker 1: been I mean, definitely if you're too online, that character
Speaker 1: has been like memed and like jift to death on Twitter,
Speaker 1: and so I just kind of wonder. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: think that it comes across clearly who he is in
Speaker 1: the movie, but I don't know how much the like
Speaker 1: cultural takeaway from that character was like this is not
Speaker 1: a great guy, like he's presented, you know in pop
Speaker 1: culture is very like look at this kind of sad
Speaker 1: sack kind of guy. He's he doesn't know what's going on,
Speaker 1: he's left out of the loop and he's sad, and
Speaker 1: it's like he does know what's going on and he's
Speaker 1: complicit in all of it. Yeah, especially like in just
Speaker 1: the light of the world we've been living in in
Speaker 1: the past several years. Like I didn't think of it
Speaker 1: that way, but definitely like a character like that, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, or just portraying it and just like
Speaker 1: giving them that just writing them off a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think it also like leaves room for all of
Speaker 1: these dangerous type of characters in real life, just like yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it reminds me again, I feel like I've
Speaker 1: I've made this comparison that it's like it's not quite
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say, but I don't know, but
Speaker 1: like almost like the nerd character and like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: supposed to feel bad for them, like when it's like, well,
Speaker 1: but think about what actually doing and what knowledge they
Speaker 1: have and how they're weaponizing it against other people around them,
Speaker 1: And like I think we've gotten there with the nerd character,
Speaker 1: but maybe this character, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's tricky because again it's like that's not even a
Speaker 1: criticism of the movie, because I think the movie is
Speaker 1: aware of that, um and tells us that. So I
Speaker 1: think it's an interesting conversation. Maybe well, maybe I'm sure
Speaker 1: that this stock character will endure. We'll come back, we'll
Speaker 1: circle back to it. And then the last thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to there's so many little moments in this movie, um,
Speaker 1: but the moment that really stuck with me as well
Speaker 1: as of just like how isolated Zola is made to
Speaker 1: be in this movie and also just sounds like in
Speaker 1: the story itself is the moment where Zola is at
Speaker 1: the pool. She's in public at the pool, and X
Speaker 1: is pretty aggressively threatening her, say like this, you know
Speaker 1: you're going to do this, this, and this. You're going
Speaker 1: to be complicit in this human trafficking operation or I'm
Speaker 1: going to hurt you, basically, And there's like this little
Speaker 1: moment where a waiter asked her if she's okay and
Speaker 1: then is kind of intimidated by X into like move along,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to see here, and like again, I mean again,
Speaker 1: it's there's a lot of ways to look at that scene,
Speaker 1: but I just thought that, like, even like I don't
Speaker 1: know if this was in the Twitter threat or not,
Speaker 1: but just even having that included in the movie, I
Speaker 1: feel like just makes her predicament so clear. It's like
Speaker 1: you can be in broad daylight and still in in
Speaker 1: in public and not be protected. Yeah, and yet it's
Speaker 1: kind of a funny movie. It's wild and yet it's
Speaker 1: a romp um. Yeah. Does anyone have any other thoughts
Speaker 1: about the movie? Probably? But right I know, I'm like
Speaker 1: I feel like in a year or something, I'll have
Speaker 1: you know, there will be more written about it and
Speaker 1: more perspectives, because there's already a lot written about it,
Speaker 1: but we haven't even we didn't even talk about like
Speaker 1: the height of the movie's action where it's like Zola
Speaker 1: is like assaulted by like when she when after Stephanie
Speaker 1: has been knocked out, so you know, very clearly physically
Speaker 1: assaulted Zola is, Like I mean, it's just it's a
Speaker 1: very very difficult scene to watch because her being calm
Speaker 1: through an assault. There are like lives on the line
Speaker 1: in the way that the scene is working, Like if
Speaker 1: she it is a really really hard scene to watch
Speaker 1: where it's like, if she can't survive this abuse, then
Speaker 1: everyone including her is going to get shot possibly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a terrible Yeah. That moment does not
Speaker 1: get mentioned in the Twitter thread. Interesting, Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: think does anyone I can double check that. I don't
Speaker 1: think it at least not in that much detail because
Speaker 1: in the Twitter thread, and again I didn't reread the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone article because that whole damn website is paywalled,
Speaker 1: so I don't know the fact checking of it. But um,
Speaker 1: but in the original Twitter thread, uh, it's said that
Speaker 1: z like shoots that guy in the head, like that
Speaker 1: the rival. Uh was it the rival Hustler? The rival
Speaker 1: Hustler is like shot in the head by z But
Speaker 1: I don't think that there is that like moment of
Speaker 1: Zola being explicitly abused in the original story. I think
Speaker 1: also that z shooting the rival Hustler is one of
Speaker 1: the things that Asia King admits to having embellished in
Speaker 1: the Twitter or thread. So if I remember correctly, the
Speaker 1: like according to the thread, so I think the movie
Speaker 1: embellishes on the thread, and then the thread embellishes what
Speaker 1: actually happened. Um, I do not believe this is this
Speaker 1: assault even happens in the Twitter thread, although it could
Speaker 1: be something that like Asia King just it did happen
Speaker 1: and then just left out because it's extremely It's Twitter.
Speaker 1: It's a very triggering thing. You know, it's a very
Speaker 1: traumatizing thing. But maybe you know, she told the screenwriters
Speaker 1: like this did happen. I'm only speculating here. We we
Speaker 1: don't know. UM. I kind of feel like like Jamie,
Speaker 1: like to your point, just even describing the scene, whether
Speaker 1: or not you know what happened or not, just like
Speaker 1: as a scene in the in the movie, and just
Speaker 1: like watching her endure it and just like knowing how
Speaker 1: much is at stake. That kind of goes back to
Speaker 1: the questions of you know how this movie interrogates like
Speaker 1: race or intersectionality just as a black woman, because even
Speaker 1: like her role as she got in on all of this,
Speaker 1: she kind of ended up becoming uh, Stephanie's protector um
Speaker 1: and like that's literally like that's her job. She's supposed
Speaker 1: to be there to make sure nothing happens to her.
Speaker 1: And that's when she has that moment where she says, well,
Speaker 1: who's looking out for me? And like I felt like
Speaker 1: that was a powerful moment and I feel like or
Speaker 1: just the stakes of everything with her and just like
Speaker 1: trusting her, or like when Coleman demingoes X, like why
Speaker 1: do I not remember I'm like everyone's government names um.
Speaker 1: When when takes her on the balcony and like gives
Speaker 1: her the gun and that's the moment that he's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is this is now your burden? You know
Speaker 1: that felt like something worth mentioning, Like when it comes
Speaker 1: to just just discussions on race and intersectionality and just
Speaker 1: what it's like to exist as a black woman and
Speaker 1: just so many different spaces. But here's an example of
Speaker 1: it and just it kind of you know, it felt familiar,
Speaker 1: right she She's expected to be this like white woman's protector.
Speaker 1: There's at least one scene where as like Stephanie starts
Speaker 1: selling sex and Zola is like basically being the hostess
Speaker 1: of this like letting the people in. The first guy
Speaker 1: looks Zola up and down and says, I ordered a
Speaker 1: white woman or something like that. Just every step of
Speaker 1: the way on this trip, Zola is being devalued and
Speaker 1: put in dangerous and traumatizing situations because as a black woman,
Speaker 1: her life isn't seen as valuable by these people around her.
Speaker 1: Stephanie is weaponizing her white woman hood in like kind
Speaker 1: of like playing the hits Um in terms of what
Speaker 1: that looks like where she's in a way that like
Speaker 1: as if you were you find out twenty minutes later
Speaker 1: she's completely lying like she knows exactly what's going on.
Speaker 1: And there is I mean, that's not to dismiss a
Speaker 1: power dynamic between she and X which is never made
Speaker 1: quite explicitly clear, but it is like she is in
Speaker 1: danger in that situation with him to an extent, and
Speaker 1: we see that she doesn't have access to money and
Speaker 1: that she is completely dependent on him in order to
Speaker 1: be able to continue to survive. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: to dismiss that power dynamic, but in the way that
Speaker 1: like she's acting like this is the first time this
Speaker 1: has ever happened. I have no idea what's going on,
Speaker 1: And she starts crying to Zola saying, like you need
Speaker 1: to protect me, like this is I mean, like you're
Speaker 1: just saying Jamila with a different pair of characters, like
Speaker 1: it is your burden to protect me, even though you
Speaker 1: never asked to be here, And like watching Zola have
Speaker 1: to deal with that and like have that unnecessary pressure
Speaker 1: put on her, and then to find out twenty minutes
Speaker 1: later that it was complete total bullshit, like she knew
Speaker 1: exactly what was going on. It's it's it's it's tricky,
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot. And that's the thesis of today's episode. Today.
Speaker 1: Is there is there anything else anyone else wants to
Speaker 1: touch on before we wrap up? I don't think so well.
Speaker 1: This movie passes the Bachdel test. Tell you what it does.
Speaker 1: It does in scenes that are again very cringe e
Speaker 1: because it's Stephanie doing a black scent and lying to
Speaker 1: Zola's face and lying and manipulating Zola the whole time.
Speaker 1: But that's how the story went down in real life,
Speaker 1: so it is representative of real life conversations that happen
Speaker 1: sometimes as far as our nipple scale goes, the scale
Speaker 1: of zero to five nipples, based on how the movie
Speaker 1: fares examining it through an intersectional feminist lens, it was hard.
Speaker 1: It's another tricky one, I would say, because of who
Speaker 1: told the story originally and the way they presented the story,
Speaker 1: the tone that Asia King used, the just unfolding of
Speaker 1: events the movie is. It seems to be a pretty
Speaker 1: faithful adaptation from the tweets the people making the movie,
Speaker 1: particularly the writers and director, and the lens by which
Speaker 1: they are delivering this story. The fact that Asia King
Speaker 1: was involved in the process of that, so it's like
Speaker 1: her story as told by her, told on her terms.
Speaker 1: That's what makes the movie effective. I'll give the movie
Speaker 1: four nipples. I think, just kind of based on the
Speaker 1: uncertainties we've had throughout the episode, just sort of the questions,
Speaker 1: although maybe I don't know, maybe that's too low. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's like I'm judging it too harshly based on the
Speaker 1: things that we said about like how we there is
Speaker 1: like too much pressure placed on movies like this because
Speaker 1: they're having to do so much to like represent something
Speaker 1: that's been underrepresented. I'll stick with four nipples though this
Speaker 1: is something that you know, maybe looking back on the
Speaker 1: movie in a year or two, it'll be higher or lower.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but um, for now, it's four nipples.
Speaker 1: I will give one to Jennison Bravo, I will give
Speaker 1: one to Jeremy o' harris, I will give one to
Speaker 1: Taylor Page, and I will give one too Common Domingo.
Speaker 1: I'll go for as well. I think that, um, you
Speaker 1: know again, I hope that the conversation around this movie continues,
Speaker 1: mainly just because like more people should see this movie. Um.
Speaker 1: I hope that it continues to like find its audience
Speaker 1: over time, because I feel like the pandemic really screwed
Speaker 1: this movie in a way that wasn't fair, and I
Speaker 1: hope that people continue to see it. Um yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I there's a lot of heavy stuff addressed in
Speaker 1: this movie. I think the team behind this movie is
Speaker 1: fucking incredible, and I just like love Jenexa problems work
Speaker 1: so much and am so like I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see future stuff she makes I think, really like the
Speaker 1: main thing that sticks with me here is I just
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about human trafficking to be able
Speaker 1: to um make any sort of definitive call on that front.
Speaker 1: But I do wish that we had been given because
Speaker 1: the movie is has such invested interest in telling the
Speaker 1: story of Zola. I mean, maybe they just don't include
Speaker 1: what ends up happening as it pertains to human trafficking
Speaker 1: because that wasn't included in the Twitter thread. But I
Speaker 1: personally think it would have been helpful for the audience
Speaker 1: and wouldn't have hurt the tone of the movie in
Speaker 1: any way to um in include that information. That's my opinion.
Speaker 1: But I mean, this movie is I I really enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and it also like it's just so challenging in so
Speaker 1: many ways. I feel like we all have acknowledged that.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know, I gotta keep thinking about it,
Speaker 1: um because there's just so much going on. Um Jadeck's
Speaker 1: a Bravo and an interview with I Think a Slate
Speaker 1: said that ultimately this movie is a cautionary tale about
Speaker 1: making friends with white people actually, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: leave it at that, and with with that, and giving
Speaker 1: Asia King, you know, like the agency to like tell
Speaker 1: her own story, being the core missions of this movie.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's super super successful in accomplishing those things,
Speaker 1: and then there's also all this other stuff. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go four nipples. I will be watching this movie again.
Speaker 1: I feel like I think I'm gon wait a year
Speaker 1: and then watch it again and see if I've become
Speaker 1: a smart her person or not. Um, but I'll give
Speaker 1: four nipples. I'll give one to Jenik's Bravo. When did
Speaker 1: Jeremio Harris, one to Joey McMillan, the editor, and one
Speaker 1: to Ari Wagner, the cinematographer. I thought everyone did a
Speaker 1: great job. Jimmie, La, what do you think? You literally
Speaker 1: said everything that I was gonna say, Jamie, I agree.
Speaker 1: I will give this four nipples. And I did wait
Speaker 1: a year, a year more than a year, two years.
Speaker 1: I saw this movie initially played Commas two years ago
Speaker 1: January twenty UM, and I just rewatched it again today.
Speaker 1: So um, and I still don't feel smarter. So there's
Speaker 1: sad to have two years to get smarter. I will say,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, um, but you're like, we're already
Speaker 1: on the same level. So it's like, really, it's really
Speaker 1: sad for me, but yeah, I give it four nipples
Speaker 1: for the same reason I feel like, I mean, the
Speaker 1: main reason that it worked for me I was start
Speaker 1: with that is again, as I mentioned, just the fact
Speaker 1: that it gave Asia, a black woman, the opportunity to
Speaker 1: have control and agency over her story and to tell
Speaker 1: her story. And also just the fact that she just
Speaker 1: it started on Twitter, like it literally started on Twitter.
Speaker 1: There are so many black women, or women of color,
Speaker 1: or non binary women just or non binary women, non
Speaker 1: binary people, or just people in general whose stories just
Speaker 1: aren't being told on a platform like a Sundance or
Speaker 1: the big screen in general. And the fact that her
Speaker 1: story was able to go from Twitter to the big
Speaker 1: screen and that she was able to be involved with
Speaker 1: it throughout the process, and the fact that she seemed
Speaker 1: I mean, she was at Sundance with all their interviews,
Speaker 1: she sat she sat in with them on every on
Speaker 1: every conversation, and the fact that she seemed so comfortable
Speaker 1: with it and just so on board with it and
Speaker 1: just so proud of it. Like that's what kind of
Speaker 1: spoke to me. I'm like, well, this is her story
Speaker 1: and she seems out of the finished product, And to me,
Speaker 1: that's like just to see a black woman have that
Speaker 1: type of control who like, it's not in this industry.
Speaker 1: She didn't go to film school, she didn't like learn
Speaker 1: how to you know, write scripts on a professional level,
Speaker 1: but she was able to tell her story and share
Speaker 1: it in such a on such a big platform. And
Speaker 1: I think that's that's powerful to me. Whether or not
Speaker 1: the story resonates with you, just the fact that it's told,
Speaker 1: I think is just like meaningful. Um So, there's that.
Speaker 1: But then again, you know the shortcomings of it, and
Speaker 1: just like I do feel like the main shortcoming from
Speaker 1: me is just like there was just a missed moment
Speaker 1: with the ending, and I agree, just like if if
Speaker 1: we were shown a little bit more of what actually
Speaker 1: happened when it's all said and done, that definitely would
Speaker 1: have I think that would have had a really big impact.
Speaker 1: And like you said, Jamie, I don't think it would
Speaker 1: have taken away from the story at all or the film.
Speaker 1: Sorry if that car was really loud? Um so yeah
Speaker 1: that so yeah, I give it for nipples. I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's a really good film. I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. I think it's also something that I
Speaker 1: don't think I've seen before. Like when I saw it,
Speaker 1: I was like, this feels different. So you know at
Speaker 1: the end of the day that that's an accomplishment in itself.
Speaker 1: Because there's so many things I just feel so like
Speaker 1: we've seen them before, or even the use of social media,
Speaker 1: and just like how it was shot, and just I
Speaker 1: heard Jenexa talk about how she like pictured like cellophane,
Speaker 1: kind of like the way she wanted it to look
Speaker 1: like on top of I don't know, I can't remember
Speaker 1: how she explained it, but like the shininess at certain
Speaker 1: moments of it, especially in the mirror sequence, just like
Speaker 1: so many things, like it was just shot in such
Speaker 1: an interesting way. But again just the fact that there
Speaker 1: were some there were black women at the top just
Speaker 1: controlling all of this, and so I'm here for it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so for an apples, I will give one
Speaker 1: to jenex Appravo, I will give one to Taylor Page,
Speaker 1: I will give one to Colman Domingo. And Okay, so
Speaker 1: like I want to give this one to Jeremo Harris,
Speaker 1: but I also I just I think Riley Kyo did
Speaker 1: a great job in the depiction of his character, I
Speaker 1: mean her performances, I mean noteworthy. Yeah, the performance is great,
Speaker 1: Like I hate the character deeply, like more than more
Speaker 1: than most, but the performance is great. So I you know,
Speaker 1: I just want to give her a shout out. But
Speaker 1: I'm going to give the fourth one to jeremal Hair.
Speaker 1: It is just because co writing it and just like
Speaker 1: it's just unique. It's and I really I'm hoping that
Speaker 1: we get to see a lot more stories that that
Speaker 1: make it all the way to the big screen. But
Speaker 1: they start off like just you know, simple and small
Speaker 1: and just you know, just I don't know, beautiful. Plus,
Speaker 1: Jeremo Harris is a close personal friend of yours. Now
Speaker 1: based on all the times you bumped hotel and hotels,
Speaker 1: we are best friends. We're best friends, and he just
Speaker 1: does not know it yet. Um so you will, you
Speaker 1: will give it time. I also, I wanted to double
Speaker 1: gift all four of my nipples to the P shot.
Speaker 1: I forgot that that was what I was oriinking to do,
Speaker 1: give four nipples to the P shot because it is
Speaker 1: now my favorite shot in all of movies, is a
Speaker 1: shot that will go down in history. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of want to go to film school just I
Speaker 1: can talk to somebody about that. I truly, I like,
Speaker 1: I really do think that there's there's a whole paper
Speaker 1: in there. It's God. I guess I love P driven storytelling.
Speaker 1: I'm learning P visibility. It's finally, your pizza says a
Speaker 1: lot about what's going on in your life and the
Speaker 1: way you pee, while that tells just as much in
Speaker 1: this essay, I will well, Jimmila, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. It's been an absolute treat. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. This has been wonderful, Like
Speaker 1: having the opportunity again to rewatch this movie two years later,
Speaker 1: just like, really think about all of the things. This
Speaker 1: has been great. Come back anytime to cover, to cover anything, whatever.
Speaker 1: Where can people follow you online and check out your
Speaker 1: writing and all that good stuff? Um? People can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter or Instagram at Mila nash um and
Speaker 1: I write regularly for teen Vogue. UM So if you
Speaker 1: just check out teen vows website, search my name, I'm
Speaker 1: there nice but yeah beautiful, And you can follow us
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram at pecktel cast. You can go
Speaker 1: to our Matreon which is at patreon dot com. Slash
Speaker 1: pecktel Cast and get to bonus episodes every month, plus
Speaker 1: access to the back catalog of bonus episodes. This month,
Speaker 1: we're observing Jane Austebruary because you all won't stop requesting
Speaker 1: Jane Austen adaptations. And it took us five years, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna do it, and we're gonna read a book.
Speaker 1: I'm reading a book. Everybody, I said I'd never do it,
Speaker 1: but I'm doing. I'm reading Pride and Prejudice. Wow, we're
Speaker 1: like regular tenth graders over here. So tune in to
Speaker 1: Jane Ary or Austin August all your heart or the
Speaker 1: thing that you said, Jamie, And uh yeah, so that's it.
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com, slash specktel cast, and you can find
Speaker 1: our merch at t public dot com slash the pectel cast.
Speaker 1: Get it or don't get it, none of our business.
Speaker 1: And with that, um, let's get the hell out of Florida. Gang.
Speaker 1: Let's let's please leave, please yes, Bye bye