Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Always Be My Maybe with Keah Brown
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast.
- 0:02Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
- 0:05Speaker 2: all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they
- 0:08Speaker 2: have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and best start changing
- 0:13Speaker 2: with the Bechdel Cast.
- 0:16Speaker 3: Hello Bechdel Cast listeners, Hello Jamie and Caitlin.
- 0:20Speaker 4: Here a little plug at the top.
- 0:22Speaker 3: It's all coming together, it's all happening. I am going
- 0:25Speaker 3: to be going on a book tour for the paperback
- 0:30Speaker 3: release of my book Raw Dog, The Naked Truth about
- 0:33Speaker 3: hot Dogs. Ever heard of it? It is coming out
- 0:37Speaker 3: in soft cover. If you are the kind of person
- 0:40Speaker 3: that doesn't want to spend twenty eight dollars out of book,
- 0:42Speaker 3: fair enough, we have a more affordable option. And if
- 0:45Speaker 3: you haven't purchased the book and you know, maybe you're
- 0:48Speaker 3: able to now you know, it's also a great gift.
- 0:51Speaker 3: I sound so desperate. The thing is, it's a soft
- 0:54Speaker 3: cover book and people love us.
- 0:56Speaker 4: And I love a flaccid book.
- 0:58Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little book. And if you do have
- 1:02Speaker 3: the hardcover and you're a completionist, there is also a
- 1:06Speaker 3: brand new ForWord that I wrote, and also the acknowledgments
- 1:11Speaker 3: have been adjusted to acknowledge that my agents were resionists,
- 1:15Speaker 3: so I don't really thank them anymore. So there's a
- 1:18Speaker 3: thrilling edition there as well. But there is new stuff
- 1:21Speaker 3: in the book and it costs less and we love that.
- 1:25Speaker 3: I will be going on tour throughout the country to
- 1:29Speaker 3: promote the new book, and if you're a Bechdel head
- 1:32Speaker 3: and you're in the area, this is a really great
- 1:34Speaker 3: chance to come and hang out. It's all I'm at bookstores.
- 1:39Speaker 3: I did kind of bigger shows the first time around,
- 1:41Speaker 3: but this time we're just chilling. So for you kitling
- 1:44Speaker 3: with your permission, I'm just going to rattle off some dates.
- 1:47Speaker 3: What if I was like, no, no, click z, I'm
- 1:52Speaker 3: going to go pee.
- 1:54Speaker 4: No please, by all means tell us Okay.
- 1:58Speaker 3: May thirteenth, twenty twenty five, almost my birthday, So I
- 2:02Speaker 3: know I'm missing your birthday. It's an act of violence.
- 2:06Speaker 3: I will be at North Fig Bookshop in Los Angeles,
- 2:09Speaker 3: hosted by friend of the cast Julia Clair. May fourteenth.
- 2:13Speaker 3: I will be at Carmichael's Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky. On
- 2:17Speaker 3: May fifteenth, I will be at the Cambridge Public Library
- 2:21Speaker 3: in Massachusetts with the Harvard Bookstore and I will be
- 2:25Speaker 3: in conversation with one of my dear friends, PBS's own
- 2:29Speaker 3: Tory Bedford. On the nineteenth of May, I will be
- 2:34Speaker 3: in Portland, Maine at Longfellow Books, hosted by friend of
- 2:38Speaker 3: the cast, Mayo Williams.
- 2:39Speaker 5: I am very, very excited.
- 2:41Speaker 3: On the twentieth, I will be going down to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
- 2:46Speaker 3: my home state. I know they're going to be begging,
- 2:49Speaker 3: They're like, where are they? I will be at the
- 2:52Speaker 3: Midtown Scholar Bookstore and Cafe in conversation with Joe Piazza.
- 2:57Speaker 3: Then on May twenty first, I will be at the
- 3:00Speaker 3: Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia. And on May twenty second,
- 3:06Speaker 3: I will be at Coppersfield Books in Pedaluma, California. And finally,
- 3:13Speaker 3: on May thirty first, I will be at Marin Country Mart,
- 3:16Speaker 3: which is also with Coppersfield's book in Larkspur, California. So
- 3:21Speaker 3: if you live in those areas, please come out. I
- 3:24Speaker 3: would love to see you. I'd love to chat. Please
- 3:26Speaker 3: recommend your favorite hot dog, Let's talk, beck tol Cast,
- 3:30Speaker 3: let's do whatever. And there will be dates announced later
- 3:34Speaker 3: in the summer. So if you would like a show
- 3:38Speaker 3: or a signing to happen in your town. Please reach
- 3:42Speaker 3: out and I will send it to my publisher and
- 3:45Speaker 3: be like, see, I should go there. Anyways, that's a great.
- 3:51Speaker 3: It's begging works sometimes, and we'll link this full thing
- 3:56Speaker 3: in the description. But see you soon. I'm making a
- 4:00Speaker 3: little outfit and that's the Jamie Loftus promise.
- 4:04Speaker 4: I can't wait to see.
- 4:06Speaker 3: So if you click the link in the description, it
- 4:08Speaker 3: will take you to the full page where you can
- 4:11Speaker 3: register to go to these events. They are all free events,
- 4:15Speaker 3: so come and hang out and provided that I get
- 4:18Speaker 3: my shit together in time, there will also be speakers
- 4:20Speaker 3: from local unions at all of these signings, So come out,
- 4:24Speaker 3: make some friends, come hang out and h let's eat
- 4:27Speaker 3: some hot dogs.
- 4:28Speaker 4: Beautiful. We'll throw the link to be able to access
- 4:32Speaker 4: registration for the events on our link tree as well
- 4:35Speaker 4: link tree slash Bechtel Cast, so there's no excuse not
- 4:39Speaker 4: to come.
- 4:41Speaker 3: It's free, it's fun. I'll be wearing a little outfit.
- 4:44Speaker 3: Come buy the book.
- 4:45Speaker 1: Woo.
- 4:46Speaker 4: One last quick note about this episode. We were kind
- 4:50Speaker 4: of strapped for time during this recording and we ended
- 4:52Speaker 4: up having to record some pickups a few days later
- 4:55Speaker 4: with just Jamie and myself. So there's a chunk toward
- 4:58Speaker 4: the end of the episode where you might know notice
- 5:00Speaker 4: that our guest is not saying anything because she is
- 5:04Speaker 4: not there. So just giving everyone a quick heads up
- 5:08Speaker 4: about that. Enjoy the episode the cast.
- 5:14Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do Wow?
- 5:20Speaker 4: Jamie, will you always be my Maybe?
- 5:23Speaker 3: No, I'll always be your baby. I'll be your baby girl,
- 5:29Speaker 3: Always be your baby, Always be my baby girl, Nicole
- 5:32Speaker 3: Kipman twenty four.
- 5:34Speaker 4: So true.
- 5:35Speaker 3: I you know, it is funny thinking about after now
- 5:39Speaker 3: having seen the movie there that even the title is
- 5:42Speaker 3: indicating are these two right for each other? Welcome to
- 5:46Speaker 3: the Bechel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.
- 5:49Speaker 4: My name is Caitlin Deonte. This is our show where
- 5:52Speaker 4: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
- 5:55Speaker 4: Bechdel Test as a jumping off point, and that, of course,
- 5:59Speaker 4: is a medium created by Alison Bechtel. There are many
- 6:03Speaker 4: versions of the test, and the one that we use
- 6:07Speaker 4: is this, do two characters of a marginalized gender have names?
- 6:12Speaker 4: Do they speak to each other? And is there conversation
- 6:15Speaker 4: about something other than a man?
- 6:18Speaker 3: And in this economy is it too much to ask?
- 6:24Speaker 4: Yes?
- 6:24Speaker 3: Today? We'll find out. Yeah, we're really excited to We're
- 6:29Speaker 3: just gonna jump in this week. This is a long
- 6:32Speaker 3: time request. I think we have been getting consistent requests
- 6:36Speaker 3: for this movie since it came out almost six years ago. So,
- 6:40Speaker 3: you know, thank you for your patience. The time is now,
- 6:44Speaker 3: the guest is perfect. We are covering Always Be My Maybe,
- 6:50Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, directed by Nanachica, con starring and written by
- 6:55Speaker 3: Ali Wong and Randall Park.
- 6:58Speaker 4: Ever heard of them?
- 7:00Speaker 5: Hopefully they're right.
- 7:02Speaker 4: They're so funny. And speaking of so funny, our guest
- 7:07Speaker 4: today is an author, screenwriter, journalist, actress, also best friend
- 7:14Speaker 4: to the Pod period and you know her from past
- 7:18Speaker 4: episodes such as Ever After, Hairspray, Cadet Kelly nineteen ninety seven, Cinderella,
- 7:25Speaker 4: It's Kia Brown, Yay, I'm I'm.
- 7:29Speaker 1: So happy to be here, and they totally organically came
- 7:31Speaker 1: up with calling me bestie of the Pod. Yeah, it
- 7:34Speaker 1: was totally organic. I didn't treasure them at all.
- 7:37Speaker 5: It just felt right. It felt right, it did.
- 7:39Speaker 1: I just love them, and I was like, I need
- 7:41Speaker 1: to be here. I miss you, we miss you.
- 7:44Speaker 4: Thanks for coming back, come back always always always, So,
- 7:48Speaker 4: what is your history your relationship with always be my maybe.
- 7:53Speaker 1: Okay, So here's the thing. I love Ali Wong, and
- 7:58Speaker 1: when it first premiered, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna
- 8:00Speaker 1: watch it play like period. And then I watched it,
- 8:03Speaker 1: I fell in love with Randall Park, and I've been,
- 8:07Speaker 1: you know, rewatching it kind of regularly since because I
- 8:12Speaker 1: mean I knew who Randall Park was because he was
- 8:14Speaker 1: on Fresh off the Boat. But really my relationship is
- 8:17Speaker 1: just like, Wow, a man who I like.
- 8:21Speaker 4: Wild They really make it hard to like them, Yeah,
- 8:26Speaker 4: they do.
- 8:27Speaker 3: But Randall Park is I think, like s Tier, just
- 8:31Speaker 3: naturally charming, very much like it, just irresistible, very likable.
- 8:37Speaker 4: So yeah, you watch it when it first came out,
- 8:40Speaker 4: and then have just been watching it steadily since.
- 8:43Speaker 1: Yes, pretty much. It had been a while since I
- 8:45Speaker 1: did rewatch before the pod, but I rewatched it this
- 8:49Speaker 1: morning just to you know, refresh myself. But I tend
- 8:52Speaker 1: to watch it a lot when I'm like I need
- 8:54Speaker 1: a rom com day. I need something that feels like,
- 8:57Speaker 1: you know, life is good.
- 9:00Speaker 4: Nice. I'm not a big rom com person, never have been,
- 9:06Speaker 4: but this is one that I like a lot more
- 9:09Speaker 4: than a lot of other rom cos I saw that
- 9:11Speaker 4: when it I think right when it first came out.
- 9:14Speaker 4: Also my concept of time. I mean, I'm not saying
- 9:16Speaker 4: anything new here, but the pandemic really warped all of
- 9:20Speaker 4: our understanding.
- 9:21Speaker 3: This movie came out like yet the year before. I
- 9:24Speaker 3: feel like I have a real hard time with movies
- 9:26Speaker 3: from twenty nineteen now where you're like, you have no idea,
- 9:30Speaker 3: you don't know what it's like here. Well, I was like, yeah,
- 9:35Speaker 3: not the movie's fault, but I'm just like buckle in assholes.
- 9:40Speaker 4: Well, I was like, yeah, this movie probably came out
- 9:43Speaker 4: in like twenty twenty three. No, it came out so
- 9:47Speaker 4: many years before that, but.
- 9:49Speaker 1: Which felt like the weirdest time capsule. Watching it back,
- 9:53Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, why does this feel like an old
- 9:55Speaker 1: time film?
- 9:58Speaker 5: It is?
- 9:59Speaker 3: That was another thing I had in my notes where
- 10:01Speaker 3: I feel like this movie for me right now exists
- 10:04Speaker 3: in this kind of like Uncanny Valley where it feels
- 10:07Speaker 3: kind of dated because it was six years ago and
- 10:10Speaker 3: it's very like of the moment it came out, but
- 10:13Speaker 3: it's not old enough to feel nostalgic for it. And
- 10:16Speaker 3: so I feel like comedy movies that are like between
- 10:19Speaker 3: like six and you know, ten ish years old. You're like,
- 10:22Speaker 3: it's just it's I don't know, it's it's it doesn't
- 10:25Speaker 3: feel like, oh yeah, I miss this time. I'm like,
- 10:28Speaker 3: I don't miss twenty ninety. I guess in some ways
- 10:31Speaker 3: I do. But it was already pretty bad.
- 10:34Speaker 5: It was.
- 10:36Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, I mean I saw it pretty early
- 10:41Speaker 4: on into it being released on Netflix. I think I
- 10:44Speaker 4: got like a tiny theatrical release, but it was like
- 10:46Speaker 4: mostly a Netflix movie. Yeah.
- 10:48Speaker 3: And you can tell because they mentioned Fix broadly mentioned Netflix.
- 10:53Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 10:54Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 10:54Speaker 1: But the thing is, you know, it's the grossest part.
- 10:57Speaker 1: I find that so charming.
- 11:00Speaker 3: I mean, it's like the Christmas Expanded. Yeah, when Lindsay
- 11:05Speaker 3: Lohan is watching the Christmas Prints, I'm like, yeah, yeah,
- 11:07Speaker 3: I like that. But is there anything more twenty nineteen
- 11:11Speaker 3: than Ali Wong being like, is it the Crown? I'm like,
- 11:14Speaker 3: oh my god, it was a moment. It was a moment.
- 11:17Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 11:17Speaker 4: Anyway, So I generally like this movie. I have some thoughts,
- 11:21Speaker 4: I have some notes, but this is more my speed
- 11:25Speaker 4: when it comes to rom coms, and I'd seen it
- 11:28Speaker 4: I think twice before prepping for this episode. But yeah,
- 11:32Speaker 4: I'm excited to talk about it. Jamie what about You.
- 11:36Speaker 3: Okay, I this is my first time seeing this movie.
- 11:42Speaker 3: I was going in like kind of not even thinking
- 11:46Speaker 3: that I would not enjoy it because I love Ali
- 11:49Speaker 3: Wong Randall Park, one of the most charismatic comic actors
- 11:53Speaker 3: that exists. I read a little bit about the movie before.
- 11:56Speaker 3: I love that they co wrote it together. I love
- 12:00Speaker 3: that there was so much energy, like their fans to
- 12:04Speaker 3: get this movie made. I love that they have like
- 12:07Speaker 3: randomly known each other for a long time and wanted
- 12:10Speaker 3: to do this for I found the background story so charming.
- 12:12Speaker 3: I'm like, let's go. I can't wait. And I did
- 12:15Speaker 3: not like the movie.
- 12:17Speaker 5: I didn't like it.
- 12:18Speaker 3: I found it and part of this is like me
- 12:21Speaker 3: projecting a little bit. But but but hear me out.
- 12:24Speaker 3: I think this couple is not gonna make it.
- 12:27Speaker 5: I think this.
- 12:27Speaker 3: I found it very stressful. I found this couple to
- 12:31Speaker 3: be very, very, very stressful. I think she should not
- 12:35Speaker 3: have this man's child. He learned how to do laundry
- 12:38Speaker 3: three days ago. And she's like, I think I'm gonna
- 12:41Speaker 3: I want to be with you for the rest of
- 12:42Speaker 3: my life. I like, I don't know, I don't And
- 12:45Speaker 3: I also find it like this is very rom comy,
- 12:47Speaker 3: but I feel like a lot of rom coms, the
- 12:50Speaker 3: reason that they don't quite click is because they don't
- 12:52Speaker 3: bother to write one of the characters. But both of
- 12:56Speaker 3: these characters are We know a lot about them. They're
- 12:58Speaker 3: fully realized. We know about their backgrounds, and that is
- 13:01Speaker 3: why I feel confident when I say these people are
- 13:04Speaker 3: fundamentally incompatible for each other. They're not going to make it.
- 13:08Speaker 3: I think they should marry other people and then like
- 13:11Speaker 3: hook up over the holidays like grown ups. To you,
- 13:15Speaker 3: they should not get married. I think truly. Like I
- 13:19Speaker 3: the the watching the last fifteen minutes, I was like,
- 13:22Speaker 3: I'm so worried for her because this guy and I
- 13:25Speaker 3: am projecting here, but like these things happen. A guy
- 13:29Speaker 3: comes up, you know, he's like.
- 13:30Speaker 5: Guess what, guess what.
- 13:31Speaker 3: Two weeks ago, everything about me changed. I am a
- 13:34Speaker 3: fundamentally new person, and it's for you. I no longer
- 13:38Speaker 3: resent your success. I am willing to uproot my entire
- 13:41Speaker 3: life to be with you. I've fully processed the death
- 13:44Speaker 3: of my mother, and actually I think it would be
- 13:46Speaker 3: amazing if you made a ton of money making her recipes.
- 13:49Speaker 3: I also think that's creepy.
- 13:51Speaker 4: But anyways, his mom like plagiarizing his mom's recipes.
- 13:55Speaker 5: I think she should.
- 13:57Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like she should have like checked
- 13:58Speaker 3: in with him more before being like, just's what my
- 14:00Speaker 3: business is your dead mom's recipes?
- 14:02Speaker 5: What? I like?
- 14:04Speaker 3: I am not rooting for them. I think that ten
- 14:07Speaker 3: days after the events of the last scene in this movie,
- 14:10Speaker 3: he wakes up and is like, oh my god, I
- 14:13Speaker 3: have left everything I ever know. I don't have a job.
- 14:16Speaker 3: I have stated in public that it is my dream
- 14:20Speaker 3: to like, I feel like the feminism of this movie
- 14:23Speaker 3: is very weird, where it's like feminism is a man
- 14:27Speaker 3: definitely changing and giving up on any of his ambition.
- 14:31Speaker 3: You're like, no, it's not, but his band isn't gonna
- 14:33Speaker 3: be successful, like we all saw it that.
- 14:36Speaker 5: It's just I found.
- 14:38Speaker 3: It so stressful, like she has taken on and I
- 14:42Speaker 3: think she's asking too much of him by having him
- 14:45Speaker 3: move across the country, like she is not compromised with
- 14:48Speaker 3: him at all. I just am like, I don't know.
- 14:51Speaker 3: I've been in couples counseling before, and these two are
- 14:54Speaker 3: they are not gonna go the distance I feel I
- 14:57Speaker 3: feel for them. They deserve happiness, but not with each other.
- 15:01Speaker 4: I don't disagree. I also don't think they're compatible nor
- 15:06Speaker 4: will they make it. But I've never seen a rom call.
- 15:09Speaker 3: Blood pressure was off the charts. I was so scared
- 15:13Speaker 3: for them.
- 15:13Speaker 4: For me, I'm just like, I watch any rom com
- 15:15Speaker 4: and I'm like, yeah, none of these people are gonna
- 15:18Speaker 4: make it. I don't even like consider that.
- 15:21Speaker 3: See I get I think, I mean, I see what
- 15:26Speaker 3: you're saying, but I think that I just found it busy.
- 15:29Speaker 3: I mean, and there's we'll talk about. There's so much
- 15:31Speaker 3: to love about this movie. There's a lot to love
- 15:33Speaker 3: about this movie, but I just was so I found
- 15:36Speaker 3: the central relationship to be so distracting, where every beat
- 15:40Speaker 3: of the movie of them growing closer, I'm like, this
- 15:43Speaker 3: is toxic.
- 15:44Speaker 5: This is toxic.
- 15:45Speaker 3: And you don't need to marry the person you lost
- 15:48Speaker 3: your virginity too, Like you can just be close with
- 15:52Speaker 3: them and be like I always find that to be
- 15:53Speaker 3: like a weirdly conservative thing to be like, oh, you know,
- 15:56Speaker 3: it's your first love. Also this, oh my god, sorry,
- 16:00Speaker 3: I was like, my face is hot the scene where
- 16:05Speaker 3: and this is definitely be projecting because I recently lost
- 16:08Speaker 3: a parent. But like the way that that is the
- 16:11Speaker 3: dead mom trope I thought was so cheap and like
- 16:16Speaker 3: he also, I mean, it is funny that Randall Park
- 16:18Speaker 3: is visibly like forty five and he's like, I'm just
- 16:22Speaker 3: a seventeen year I'm just a little guy.
- 16:25Speaker 5: I loved that.
- 16:26Speaker 1: I loved it because I felt the same way about
- 16:28Speaker 1: Elie Wong. I was like, yeah, they try it.
- 16:33Speaker 3: It was literally watching Penn fifteen for ten minutes of
- 16:35Speaker 3: the movie.
- 16:36Speaker 1: Literally, you're like, I loved them fifteen, So yeah, celebratory.
- 16:41Speaker 3: I wish I almost wish they'd played into that a
- 16:44Speaker 3: little more. But I mean I didn't have an issue
- 16:46Speaker 3: with that, but just that that, like the way that
- 16:49Speaker 3: that played out where his mom had just died. Ali
- 16:52Speaker 3: Wong is like, well, she's my mom too, and and
- 16:54Speaker 3: Randall Park correctly is like, well, no she's not. And
- 16:58Speaker 3: then she's like, I'm never gonna speak to you again.
- 17:00Speaker 3: I was like, that's awful. You're being a bad friend.
- 17:04Speaker 3: And she never apologizes, She never apologizes for doing that.
- 17:08Speaker 3: I oh, ooh, these characters. I just think they need
- 17:13Speaker 3: to go to therapy and don't move in together, don't
- 17:18Speaker 3: have a kid, focus on yourselves.
- 17:22Speaker 1: What I'm about to say it's so controversial, I can't wait.
- 17:26Speaker 1: First of all, I disagree entirely. Okay, So here's the thing. Okay,
- 17:30Speaker 1: I think it wasn't that he I'm speaking solely of
- 17:34Speaker 1: the end of the movie. I don't think he flew
- 17:36Speaker 1: there and was like I changed all of these things
- 17:39Speaker 1: about myself just for you. I think it was just like,
- 17:43Speaker 1: I would rather fuck up on all lives things win
- 17:48Speaker 1: you than I would without you. And so for me.
- 17:52Speaker 1: And here's the kicker. We deeply agree that she never apologized,
- 17:56Speaker 1: and I hate it. That's so weird. I don't understand
- 17:58Speaker 1: why movie he's well meaning or not cut out necessary
- 18:03Speaker 1: apologies because I think that she desperately needed to give
- 18:07Speaker 1: him one when she's like, you're an asshole and didn't
- 18:09Speaker 1: talk to him for like fifteen years because she said, hey,
- 18:12Speaker 1: my mom just died. Like my mom just died, and
- 18:15Speaker 1: I know you loved her. Cool, we love that, but
- 18:19Speaker 1: she was my mom, Like he's grieving hello, But I
- 18:23Speaker 1: don't know. There was just something about it that I
- 18:26Speaker 1: was just like, And this is really in part because
- 18:29Speaker 1: I'm so used to couples not having chemistry anymore.
- 18:33Speaker 3: Yeah, Like that's a very their chemistry is amazing.
- 18:35Speaker 1: Their chemistry is amazing, So I think that that's what's
- 18:37Speaker 1: doing the heavy lifting for me. But I literally was like, oh,
- 18:40Speaker 1: I hope they make it.
- 18:43Speaker 3: I hope they're make it, even though.
- 18:45Speaker 1: They've got a ton of stuff to work through. Like,
- 18:47Speaker 1: like you said, she doesn't really compromise at all throughout
- 18:50Speaker 1: the movie, Like I forgot until you said it that
- 18:53Speaker 1: they literally flew across the world and the dad it's like,
- 18:58Speaker 1: thanks for letting us visit to see the new rest
- 19:00Speaker 1: And then I was like, oh.
- 19:01Speaker 3: Right, yeah, she's like I made this right. She doesn't
- 19:04Speaker 3: mean even though she has a restaurant in San Francisco.
- 19:07Speaker 1: That she can easily run, she could have changed the
- 19:09Speaker 1: restaurant in San Francisco to be closer to what she
- 19:12Speaker 1: always wanted it to be, not open a new one.
- 19:15Speaker 3: And the end of the plot moved so quickly that
- 19:19Speaker 3: it was very whiplashy, where yeah, no, she doesn't compromise
- 19:23Speaker 3: at all, which is I guess, okay to the extent
- 19:27Speaker 3: that they broke up, Like she didn't, she didn't owe
- 19:30Speaker 3: him anything. But like there is this montage of like
- 19:34Speaker 3: Randall Park randomly gets his shit together and he's like,
- 19:37Speaker 3: I'm just he just moved into his own apartment and
- 19:40Speaker 3: now he's leaving, Like what do you mean?
- 19:43Speaker 1: And you know how expensive it is to break a lease.
- 19:45Speaker 3: He's like, San Francisco, I'll like get real. He's like,
- 19:49Speaker 3: I'm out of here all right before we sorry, sorry,
- 19:53Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
- 19:55Speaker 3: to the recap and then we will dive back in.
- 20:08Speaker 4: And we're bad.
- 20:10Speaker 3: This is thrilling, this, this is hot.
- 20:14Speaker 4: This is this is heat from a stove that.
- 20:18Speaker 3: Sasha Randall Park's dead Mom's recipe.
- 20:21Speaker 1: Like also, like, no, it got to be rude, but like,
- 20:24Speaker 1: why couldn't they kill off the dam Like.
- 20:28Speaker 3: I like, I thought his I thought the dad character
- 20:31Speaker 3: was so charming.
- 20:32Speaker 1: I love the dad. But if you're gonna kill off
- 20:35Speaker 1: a character, why is it always the mom?
- 20:37Speaker 6: It's always so often always And I was literally, okay again,
- 20:42Speaker 6: I just like, don't think this movie is very well written,
- 20:44Speaker 6: because I was literally in the middle of writing down
- 20:47Speaker 6: I love the mom character, and then it cut to
- 20:51Speaker 6: they're just chilling on a bridge and the dad walks.
- 20:53Speaker 3: It reminded me of the first scene in a series
- 20:55Speaker 3: of unfortunate events, just like he comes out of the
- 20:58Speaker 3: shadows and he's like, bad news, your mom's dead, and
- 21:01Speaker 3: then cut to their fucking You're like, what the pasic.
- 21:05Speaker 5: Is so bizarre?
- 21:07Speaker 2: You know what?
- 21:08Speaker 1: I hated. I hated her parents because I hate when
- 21:12Speaker 1: it's like parents are absentee and then they're like, well
- 21:17Speaker 1: I showed up now, and like again this has been projecting,
- 21:21Speaker 1: But I hate an absentee parent that's like, oh, well,
- 21:24Speaker 1: you know, I went in and bought the food at
- 21:26Speaker 1: the restaurant, and I didn't tell them that we were related,
- 21:29Speaker 1: so like I paid full price, but that's gonna be
- 21:32Speaker 1: the fix to our relationship. It's like either way, yeah,
- 21:35Speaker 1: I know that Randall's mom wasn't her mom, but her
- 21:40Speaker 1: parents still like she didn't have anybody else. When she
- 21:43Speaker 1: said I had me, she's like you had parents, and
- 21:46Speaker 1: she's like, yeah, they were alive, but they weren't.
- 21:50Speaker 3: I wish that they had like gotten into that a
- 21:52Speaker 3: little bit more, because too, we didn't. We weren't really
- 21:56Speaker 3: told unless I missed it and it was said in passing.
- 21:58Speaker 3: We weren't really told why they weren't around. There wasn't
- 22:02Speaker 3: really which I mean, I just would have appreciated I
- 22:04Speaker 3: guess more context there. And then on Randall Park's side,
- 22:08Speaker 3: I feel like you could get I mean, it's still
- 22:11Speaker 3: I agree the dead mom troupe is such a trope,
- 22:13Speaker 3: but like if more reference was made to her throughout
- 22:16Speaker 3: the movie, it would feel less tropy. But she really
- 22:20Speaker 3: only comes up at very plot convenient moments.
- 22:24Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 22:24Speaker 3: I was curious about her parents too, because you're totally right.
- 22:27Speaker 3: He like, I think like the bond that she has
- 22:30Speaker 3: with Randall Park's mom Marcus, sorry, Marcus's mom. I believe
- 22:36Speaker 3: her name is Judy, but I thought that was like
- 22:39Speaker 3: really cool and like a surrogate parent and like someone
- 22:42Speaker 3: who can give you emotional support but they just don't
- 22:45Speaker 3: really get into it ever. And I don't know, Yeah,
- 22:49Speaker 3: I just it' And then the way that, yeah, she
- 22:54Speaker 3: the way she forgives her parents at the end, it
- 22:57Speaker 3: feels like she just does that because the movie needs her. Yes,
- 23:01Speaker 3: And like you're saying, like, oh, how convenient that now
- 23:03Speaker 3: that I am wildly successful, You're like, I don't know,
- 23:06Speaker 3: I guess I'll show up and like get a bunch
- 23:09Speaker 3: of fancy food and like you're even.
- 23:10Speaker 1: The little birthday party they had where she was they
- 23:13Speaker 1: were like oh, they go all out for the sun
- 23:17Speaker 1: god son whatever he is. And she's like, oh, when
- 23:20Speaker 1: I was eight, they gave me like a I don't know.
- 23:23Speaker 4: A pair of foot flop.
- 23:24Speaker 1: Thank you, I said, a trapper Jesus, I'm aging myself
- 23:28Speaker 1: a pair of foot flaps.
- 23:29Speaker 5: And I'm just like and like, what changed?
- 23:31Speaker 1: Yeah, like explore that. Why are they not saying, like,
- 23:35Speaker 1: I just think not enough round coms show apologies in
- 23:40Speaker 1: the way that I need them to.
- 23:42Speaker 4: For sure. Yeah, we've talked about that quite a bit
- 23:44Speaker 4: on many but.
- 23:46Speaker 3: On a few levels here like yeah, like we we
- 23:49Speaker 3: needed a better I mean, there was technically an apology
- 23:52Speaker 3: from the parents, but it was like half asked.
- 23:55Speaker 1: Yeah. I was like, hey, we're here now, Yeah, we
- 23:58Speaker 1: flew to you, so like lead on a plane, let's let's.
- 24:02Speaker 3: Just let everything else go like step one. Because also
- 24:06Speaker 3: like some bouscemis hast stuff in here. That Again, towards
- 24:10Speaker 3: the end, it's so rushed where they break up. It
- 24:14Speaker 3: seems like the understanding is they're not going to speak anymore.
- 24:17Speaker 3: But then he starts calling her I do her every
- 24:21Speaker 3: single day, being like, hey, I don't know if you
- 24:23Speaker 3: want to hear from me, and you aren't replying, but
- 24:25Speaker 3: guess what, I learned how to do laundry on this
- 24:28Speaker 3: my forty fifth birthday, or like whatever the fuck he's doing,
- 24:31Speaker 3: and he keeps contacting her, and the plot validates that
- 24:34Speaker 3: he was right to do that because she was buying
- 24:39Speaker 3: all of his merch or something and she wasn't upset,
- 24:42Speaker 3: And you're like.
- 24:43Speaker 1: It's like, if that's the case, the merch buying was
- 24:47Speaker 1: what both because I was like, if you're buying his
- 24:49Speaker 1: merch and you're not upset anymore, then reach out and
- 24:52Speaker 1: say something. Especially because they had the earlier scene where
- 24:55Speaker 1: they both wanted to text each other and neither of
- 24:58Speaker 1: them did. It would have been a real nice callback
- 25:01Speaker 1: for her to be like, even if she wasn't like
- 25:03Speaker 1: everything's good, just like you know, good luck or whatever
- 25:06Speaker 1: some sort of like dramatic ass sign off, but you
- 25:09Speaker 1: know that even when they get back to being in touch,
- 25:13Speaker 1: that would have made it even sweeter. But I will
- 25:15Speaker 1: say my favorite part of the entire movie, surprisingly is
- 25:21Speaker 1: when they like hook up for the first time after
- 25:23Speaker 1: he punches Keanu Reeves, because I remember watching it for
- 25:27Speaker 1: the first time and being like, oh, so, like Randall
- 25:30Speaker 1: Park is hot, you know, like I was just like,
- 25:33Speaker 1: oh yeah, plot aside, I was like, oh okay, because
- 25:37Speaker 1: I forget that men can be hot. I forget that
- 25:39Speaker 1: they can be so often, so often. And then I'm
- 25:43Speaker 1: just like, oh wow, okay, I see what she was
- 25:46Speaker 1: doing all right, Like everybody she kisses in the movie
- 25:50Speaker 1: is attractive. She's so right, she's so real for that.
- 25:56Speaker 1: But then it's just like, yeah, I think about certain
- 25:59Speaker 1: things of like I love the movie. I love their chemistry.
- 26:01Speaker 1: Chemistry is so rare from movies these days. I think
- 26:04Speaker 1: that they can just put hot people together and it's
- 26:07Speaker 1: gonna be great, like any anyone.
- 26:09Speaker 4: But you you know, oh, is that the Glenn Powell?
- 26:12Speaker 4: What's her face?
- 26:13Speaker 3: Seeing it?
- 26:14Speaker 1: I hate it?
- 26:15Speaker 4: Not a shred of chemistry so badly written of a
- 26:19Speaker 4: movie as well.
- 26:19Speaker 1: She literally acts like she just took a Bena drill
- 26:23Speaker 1: before each of her lines, like she took a benadrill.
- 26:27Speaker 1: They said action and she did a line. I can't
- 26:32Speaker 1: no chemistry. It was like watching paint dry, but worse,
- 26:37Speaker 1: so bad.
- 26:38Speaker 3: That was a movie that I was like, I've watched
- 26:41Speaker 3: it on a plane in five years.
- 26:44Speaker 4: You know, don't skip it, don't even bother.
- 26:46Speaker 3: Yeah, there's better playing movies to watch.
- 26:49Speaker 4: Yes, anyway, So the recap of.
- 26:53Speaker 5: We've told you a lot of what happens.
- 26:55Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm gonna speak for this.
- 26:57Speaker 5: Okay, here we go.
- 26:58Speaker 4: We meet two best friends kids in San Francisco in
- 27:01Speaker 4: nineteen ninety six.
- 27:02Speaker 3: They mysteriously sound like an Ali Sorry I'm complaining again.
- 27:07Speaker 3: Every character in this movie mysteriously sounds like they're reading
- 27:10Speaker 3: Ali Wong's stand up. It doesn't matter. These children speak
- 27:14Speaker 3: in lines from Baby Cobras.
- 27:17Speaker 4: So this is Sasha Tran and Marcus Kim. They're best friends.
- 27:22Speaker 4: Sasha is a latch key kid. Her parents are often
- 27:25Speaker 4: out running their store, so she goes over to Marcus's
- 27:29Speaker 4: house quite a bit and hangs out with him and
- 27:31Speaker 4: his mom and his dad. His mom teaches Sasha a
- 27:34Speaker 4: few things about cooking. She also already has kind of
- 27:38Speaker 4: like a proclivity for it, and she has to like
- 27:40Speaker 4: prepare her own meals quite a bit. This will obviously
- 27:43Speaker 4: pay off later because she becomes a chef. Anyway, they
- 27:46Speaker 4: hang out. There's a quick montage of them growing up together.
- 27:50Speaker 4: They're goofing, they're hanging. Marcus is in a band as
- 27:54Speaker 4: a teenager that'll also be a thing. Later in the movie,
- 27:58Speaker 4: we cut to two thousand and three. They are now
- 28:01Speaker 4: seniors in high school. Sasha is played by Ali Wong,
- 28:05Speaker 4: Marcus is played by Randall Park. Now they're still best friends,
- 28:09Speaker 4: and then Marcus gets word that his mom has died
- 28:13Speaker 4: in an accident, and after the funeral, Sasha gets Marcus
- 28:18Speaker 4: out of the house to try to get his mind
- 28:21Speaker 4: off of it. They start kissing via her surprise, kissing
- 28:25Speaker 4: him initially.
- 28:27Speaker 3: But again, I'm just like her bedside manner with his
- 28:31Speaker 3: mother's tragic passing is so unbelievably bad, which she's like,
- 28:36Speaker 3: will this help?
- 28:38Speaker 4: Like no, But they start making out and they have
- 28:42Speaker 4: sex in the back of his Toyota Corolla, but it's
- 28:46Speaker 4: very awkward afterward and they get into an argument and
- 28:51Speaker 4: Sasha storms off. Cut to twenty nineteen in Los Angeles.
- 28:57Speaker 4: Ever heard of it? Sasha and Marcus haven't for many years.
- 29:01Speaker 3: They were at Stories. Did you notice when they were
- 29:03Speaker 3: at Stories?
- 29:04Speaker 1: Oh?
- 29:05Speaker 5: No, I didn't.
- 29:06Speaker 3: There was definitely one scene. It was supposed to be
- 29:08Speaker 3: San Francisco, but La heads well, no, the bookstore Stories
- 29:12Speaker 3: is uh one of the greatest places in the city,
- 29:15Speaker 3: and there's definitely they definitely shot teenage Randall Park being
- 29:20Speaker 3: in his band was like at one of our bookstores
- 29:23Speaker 3: down the street.
- 29:24Speaker 4: Over, I did not realize that.
- 29:26Speaker 3: Wow, I would recognized that weird mural. It's just like
- 29:31Speaker 3: when Lady Gaga was at the Verge.
- 29:34Speaker 5: Wow.
- 29:35Speaker 4: Yeah, Wow, a star is born.
- 29:37Speaker 3: Hollywood, Hollywood. I was like, wow, I've bombed on both
- 29:41Speaker 3: of those stages.
- 29:42Speaker 5: That's so cool.
- 29:43Speaker 4: Same yeah, okay. Anyway, So it's twenty nineteen. Now, Sasha
- 29:48Speaker 4: is now a successful celebrity chef. She's about to open
- 29:52Speaker 4: a restaurant in San Francisco in a couple of weeks.
- 29:55Speaker 4: She's got a hot fiance, a fiance Brandon, played by
- 30:00Speaker 4: Daniel day Kim.
- 30:02Speaker 3: I'm for cheering Daniel day Kim in a beige track suit.
- 30:06Speaker 3: I was like a bu, like a b really horny
- 30:09Speaker 3: for the beige tracksuit for some reason, and I was
- 30:12Speaker 3: like wow.
- 30:12Speaker 1: I was like, yes, Diva, I didn't I didn't know
- 30:16Speaker 1: your game, but I know it now.
- 30:18Speaker 3: You know when someone can look hot in a tracksuit,
- 30:21Speaker 3: it's like, okay, this is a this is another level.
- 30:24Speaker 4: Yeah, good for you, good for you. Truly. Anyway, So
- 30:28Speaker 4: they're engaged, but it doesn't seem like they have a
- 30:30Speaker 4: very warm or loving relationship. Meanwhile, Marcus lives in San Francisco.
- 30:36Speaker 4: He's still in his band called Hello Peril. They play,
- 30:41Speaker 4: you know, like crummy gigs or what we're supposed to
- 30:44Speaker 4: think or crummy gigs. He smokes a lot of weed.
- 30:47Speaker 4: He still lives with his dad, who's played by James Sato,
- 30:51Speaker 4: and Marcus is not motivated by capitalism, so we are
- 30:54Speaker 4: supposed to think that he's kind of a loser. And
- 30:57Speaker 4: I have a lot of stuff to talk about regarding class.
- 31:01Speaker 3: Okay, that's another big thing about, Like, yeah, I don't
- 31:06Speaker 3: I do like that their business, which again they're like,
- 31:10Speaker 3: oh you're not. I'm like, these are really good union jobs,
- 31:14Speaker 3: like right, like shut up.
- 31:16Speaker 1: Let's call a spaderes bad do. I think that the
- 31:19Speaker 1: band is trash absolutely, But his day dadad, his day
- 31:23Speaker 1: job is kind of like a big one, Like that's
- 31:26Speaker 1: a good job. That's a good man, Savannah, and it
- 31:29Speaker 1: is wild.
- 31:32Speaker 3: I truly, I was like, I cannot like especially because
- 31:36Speaker 3: these characters are in their thirties, Like I would not
- 31:40Speaker 3: be like, oh, you know this man that I'm in
- 31:44Speaker 3: love with who has a like great union job, I'm
- 31:48Speaker 3: not going to be like quit, leave everything you know
- 31:51Speaker 3: and be in.
- 31:52Speaker 5: Your horrible band, Like I don't.
- 31:56Speaker 3: Support men's dreams like that.
- 31:57Speaker 4: Like, well, I think it's because he works a blue
- 32:01Speaker 4: collar job that we're supposed to be, Like he needs
- 32:04Speaker 4: to get out of that.
- 32:05Speaker 5: He needs to do more.
- 32:07Speaker 3: Yeah, that's sort of part of the girl bossiness of
- 32:10Speaker 3: this of like it is coded that someone could not
- 32:13Speaker 3: possibly be satisfied or content working at blue collar job,
- 32:19Speaker 3: or that they couldn't be content living where they grew
- 32:22Speaker 3: up either, like you have to move to New York
- 32:24Speaker 3: City and be an artist or you're a failure.
- 32:26Speaker 4: Totally okay. So back in La Sasha's fiance Brandon says
- 32:33Speaker 4: that he wants to postpone their wedding and see other
- 32:36Speaker 4: people for a while, and Sasha's friend and colleague, Veronica
- 32:41Speaker 4: played by Michelle Buteau, is like what the fuck, like
- 32:45Speaker 4: fuck that guy, and Sasha's like, yeah, probably. Then she
- 32:51Speaker 4: and Veronica head to San Francisco together to open the
- 32:54Speaker 4: new restaurant. They rent a house there and Veronica hires
- 32:58Speaker 4: Marcus and his dad to install or repair an air
- 33:04Speaker 4: conditioning unit. And Veronica did this to try to get
- 33:07Speaker 4: Sasha and Marcus to reconnect, but things are still awkward
- 33:11Speaker 4: between them. This is the first time they're seeing each
- 33:13Speaker 4: other in like sixteen years or something. Mister Kim suggests
- 33:18Speaker 4: that Sasha goes to Marcus's gig the following night, and
- 33:23Speaker 4: he also says like, hmm, I'm surprised you lost touch.
- 33:27Speaker 4: I always thought you'd maybe get together, and they're.
- 33:30Speaker 3: Like, he's really plot vibes at different moments. Yeah, he
- 33:36Speaker 3: walks into the city. He's like, your mother is dead.
- 33:39Speaker 3: He walks into the cities, like you two should be
- 33:41Speaker 3: to get together. At the end of the.
- 33:42Speaker 1: Movie, I acause, first of all, I love the actor
- 33:47Speaker 1: who plays his dad, but I also laughed at the
- 33:50Speaker 1: point in the film when he was like, I can
- 33:53Speaker 1: do my shot in the ass by myself, and it's
- 33:56Speaker 1: like we saw him to give you a shot on
- 33:57Speaker 1: the shoulder, so I was right when did it twitch right? There?
- 34:04Speaker 3: Again, it's just like the lack of detail that appears
- 34:10Speaker 3: a different because it's like they're like, I'm his caretaker,
- 34:12Speaker 3: but we don't know, we don't know have any context
- 34:15Speaker 3: for what that means. He implies that he doesn't need
- 34:19Speaker 3: a caretaker, but then it kind of comes back later
- 34:22Speaker 3: as if he does like it was just really confused
- 34:26Speaker 3: and and and then again, I think Ali Wank's character
- 34:28Speaker 3: was super insensitive by being like, what.
- 34:30Speaker 5: Do you mean you're just saying you need to be.
- 34:32Speaker 3: Your dad's caretaker because you won't follow your dream or
- 34:35Speaker 3: such like how projecting you're projecting?
- 34:39Speaker 1: And then the thing with him getting with the Diana
- 34:43Speaker 1: Ross impersonator. I was like, Okay, I guess, like I
- 34:52Speaker 1: get it. Yeah, like I'm happy for you, you know,
- 34:57Speaker 1: but it just it just seems so rare and don
- 35:00Speaker 1: and and also too, I did not like the character
- 35:05Speaker 1: of his girlfriend. I know you're not supposed to like
- 35:09Speaker 1: the girlfriend Jenny, but I particularly found the like Keanu
- 35:13Speaker 1: Reeves bit with her annoying, like not him, we love Keanu,
- 35:18Speaker 1: and like she's a great actress, but it was also
- 35:21Speaker 1: just like flat wise, she's like I'm just gonna stay
- 35:25Speaker 1: and like, you know, talk to him about saving yet sorry.
- 35:31Speaker 4: Oh we're about to be We're getting close.
- 35:33Speaker 3: Yeah, this is this is a chaos episode. I love you.
- 35:38Speaker 4: Oh Okay. So Sasha decides to go to Marcus's band's
- 35:42Speaker 4: gig that night or the next night or whatever, and
- 35:46Speaker 4: it's a nice time and it seems like maybe things
- 35:49Speaker 4: are starting to be less awkward between Marcus and Sasha.
- 35:53Speaker 4: But then Marcus's girlfriend, Jenny played by Vivian Bang shows up.
- 35:58Speaker 4: She's a big fan of Sasha's and wants to cook
- 36:00Speaker 4: for her, So Jenny invites her back to like her
- 36:03Speaker 4: and Marcus's place and basically makes a hot dog based
- 36:07Speaker 4: dish for Sasha.
- 36:08Speaker 3: Yeah, and uh, Sasha has a real snob about it.
- 36:12Speaker 3: I'm like, listen, there's a b I have a book
- 36:14Speaker 3: for you.
- 36:15Speaker 1: I got to be fair. Who likes who likes? Though, and.
- 36:20Speaker 3: I think, well, okay, I'm uniquely going to defend them.
- 36:26Speaker 3: But when properly cooked, it didn't seem like she cooked
- 36:28Speaker 3: it very well though.
- 36:29Speaker 4: Yeah, it seemed like a pretty gross dish. Yeah, But
- 36:33Speaker 4: the whole idea here is that Jenny is very cooky
- 36:37Speaker 4: and clearly not the right match for Marcus.
- 36:41Speaker 3: Even though it's like they're making it out like and
- 36:44Speaker 3: and there, I thought we were a couple of cheap
- 36:46Speaker 3: jokes that they have this character say where it's like
- 36:49Speaker 3: the idea again where it's just like, this movie has
- 36:52Speaker 3: moments that feel bizarrely conservative, like Jenny's character brings up
- 36:58Speaker 3: that she was she used to be poly amorous, and
- 37:01Speaker 3: that's very much like.
- 37:04Speaker 5: She's weird.
- 37:05Speaker 1: Weird. Yeah, I didn't have the spiritually married thing right.
- 37:10Speaker 1: That was also played for laughs.
- 37:12Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just yeah, it was just kind of
- 37:14Speaker 3: cheap because it's like, Okay, if polyamory is not your thing,
- 37:18Speaker 3: that's fine, But we're looking at two characters who lost
- 37:21Speaker 3: their virginity to each other and barely get along. Like
- 37:24Speaker 3: I'm supposed to take your feelings on polyamory seriously, get
- 37:29Speaker 3: a grip.
- 37:31Speaker 1: Yes.
- 37:32Speaker 4: Anyway, So they're all hanging out and then Marcus gives
- 37:36Speaker 4: Sasha a ride home in the car that they had
- 37:39Speaker 4: sex in all those years ago.
- 37:40Speaker 1: Which I like, sorry, but I just hate to eat
- 37:44Speaker 1: get that car like it took me off. I don't
- 37:47Speaker 1: know why I had such a visible reaction, and I
- 37:49Speaker 1: was like, get a new.
- 37:52Speaker 3: You've got a good job, Like, I don't know that
- 37:54Speaker 3: it's not a it's not a money Why he's still
- 37:57Speaker 3: driving the carl.
- 37:59Speaker 4: Get a vehicle shrug.
- 38:01Speaker 3: They're both such anyway.
- 38:02Speaker 4: They they're reminiscing about the past, and then she invites
- 38:09Speaker 4: him to a birthday party the following day at her parents' house.
- 38:12Speaker 4: They're celebrating a little cousin or something. During the party,
- 38:17Speaker 4: Sasha gets a call from her fiance Brandon, who she
- 38:21Speaker 4: had seen on social media canoodling with pad Malakshmi, and
- 38:26Speaker 4: so Sasha yells.
- 38:28Speaker 3: At him, Daniel Da Kevin pad Mlakhvi, like, honestly make
- 38:32Speaker 3: it happen, watch someone arrange that day.
- 38:38Speaker 4: Anyway, they break up is basically what happens. Meanwhile, Sasha
- 38:44Speaker 4: and Marcus seem to be connecting more and more, although
- 38:47Speaker 4: it's still a little awkward between them, but they go
- 38:51Speaker 4: out for some food and they talk about Marcus's band.
- 38:55Speaker 4: Sasha thinks that they're good and they can be really big,
- 38:59Speaker 4: but Mark doesn't have huge aspirations, and she keeps judging him.
- 39:04Speaker 3: For that, which again is like this is where it starts.
- 39:08Speaker 3: It really started to kick in for me of like,
- 39:11Speaker 3: then you guys just aren't compatible. It's okay, Like it's
- 39:15Speaker 3: it's not a character I mean, I think the way
- 39:17Speaker 3: that she's judgmental of him is a character flaw and
- 39:20Speaker 3: is a dark quality. But it's like, if she wants
- 39:23Speaker 3: someone who is really ambitious and working in a creative field,
- 39:28Speaker 3: this is not the person for you. Accept it.
- 39:32Speaker 1: Also, I think the bigger thing is and again as
- 39:35Speaker 1: the defender of this relationship aside.
- 39:40Speaker 4: I'm neutral, is like, the band's not good, Like I look.
- 39:44Speaker 3: That because Randall Park, I guess was He's like, it's
- 39:47Speaker 3: based on my band from the nineties. I was like, well, yeah,
- 39:50Speaker 3: claud you're an act right.
- 39:52Speaker 1: The thing is is like I know he likes to
- 39:54Speaker 1: wrap and do that stuff. Like I'm like talk shows
- 39:56Speaker 1: and stuff, and that's great. We love a hobby, but
- 39:59Speaker 1: the the band is so that sounded Sony Randall Park,
- 40:03Speaker 1: I love you, You're perfect, but it's just like, I
- 40:06Speaker 1: just don't feel like the band itself was as good
- 40:10Speaker 1: as she was trying to make us believe it was. Therefore,
- 40:14Speaker 1: I was like, oh, she wants to really like him
- 40:17Speaker 1: because she just keeps telling people, Oh my god, they're
- 40:19Speaker 1: good and they could be big. No, they won't be.
- 40:22Speaker 1: They can't be.
- 40:23Speaker 5: When she's like, why don't you.
- 40:24Speaker 3: Go on a world tour, I'm like, what do you talk?
- 40:26Speaker 5: Did you hear?
- 40:27Speaker 1: What? Talent and money and time? What do you guys
- 40:33Speaker 1: do it? And I think maybe that's very AI wound
- 40:36Speaker 1: with me. I'm an earth sign, but I just feel
- 40:38Speaker 1: like I'm a virgirl, so like we love a plan
- 40:42Speaker 1: I just feel like your job with your daughter is
- 40:45Speaker 1: great if you want to just take over that. Butiness
- 40:47Speaker 1: that made more sense to me than like holding on
- 40:50Speaker 1: to I'm gonna be in this bak like do it
- 40:54Speaker 1: for fun. But I just felt like plot wise, it
- 40:57Speaker 1: didn't work to me, Like her opening the restaurant after
- 41:01Speaker 1: his mom worked for her character.
- 41:05Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
- 41:06Speaker 4: I didn't mind some of the band's lyrics. I'll say that.
- 41:10Speaker 4: Oh I thought they were kind of funny.
- 41:12Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, Like I punched on I've seen that all
- 41:15Speaker 1: the time, Like I was, I was singing it, I
- 41:18Speaker 1: was the credits, and I'm like, why don't I remember
- 41:20Speaker 1: all these words?
- 41:22Speaker 3: I thought the tennis ball song was cute, but they're
- 41:26Speaker 3: they're like forty. I was like, I can't be just
- 41:30Speaker 3: like saying songs about tennis ball different and be like
- 41:34Speaker 3: and I'm a viable partner. That's again.
- 41:37Speaker 5: But like, yeah, I agree that they were.
- 41:40Speaker 3: They were really pushing the band is like, but and
- 41:42Speaker 3: and like you're saying, Kia that his character. It didn't
- 41:45Speaker 3: seem like that was his Like I want to be
- 41:49Speaker 3: a famous musician like that, right, I don't know. Yeah,
- 41:53Speaker 3: it's like it's if he is content and I don't know.
- 41:57Speaker 3: It just felt like so like, uh, black and white
- 42:00Speaker 3: in terms of what needed to happen with his character,
- 42:02Speaker 3: because it does seem like, yes, it would probably make
- 42:06Speaker 3: sense for him to like have his own place if
- 42:09Speaker 3: he's able to and like mature a little bit and it,
- 42:13Speaker 3: but because the movie doesn't seem interested in like examining
- 42:17Speaker 3: his grief for like why he's making those choices and
- 42:22Speaker 3: doesn't want to leave the home or whatever, it is,
- 42:25Speaker 3: like I just wish that there was some sort of
- 42:26Speaker 3: gray area to explore of like, yes, he has a
- 42:29Speaker 3: ways to go and like he's still growing as a person,
- 42:33Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean like I don't know, yeah, just
- 42:35Speaker 3: that the only version of success is being a famous
- 42:38Speaker 3: musician in New York City is like wild kind.
- 42:42Speaker 1: It's it's also just I think really weird that, like
- 42:48Speaker 1: I think you can absolutely be career focused, like Eli
- 42:51Speaker 1: Lung's character. Why do I not know their names? What
- 42:54Speaker 1: is going on with me?
- 42:55Speaker 4: Sasha and Marcus Sasha?
- 42:57Speaker 1: Okay, the thing with like Alis, the thing with Sasha, Like, Okay,
- 43:04Speaker 1: I know I want to do I want to I
- 43:06Speaker 1: want to have restaurants. I want to do like like
- 43:09Speaker 1: this is important to me and his sort of thing
- 43:11Speaker 1: is like I'm grieving and that's important to me. But
- 43:16Speaker 1: I don't know. I just felt like it would have
- 43:17Speaker 1: been so much richer if he had a thing that
- 43:19Speaker 1: he was like good at, you know, right again that's
- 43:24Speaker 1: that's me speaking from a capitalistic society. But like what
- 43:26Speaker 1: if he could draw girl folded like a launcher.
- 43:30Speaker 3: I would have felt like like one of his French girls.
- 43:33Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I don't know.
- 43:36Speaker 4: I just felt like I maybe I'm just a defender
- 43:40Speaker 4: of the band Hello Peril, But I was like that
- 43:43Speaker 4: was his thing, that that is what he's doing.
- 43:45Speaker 5: It needs your support.
- 43:46Speaker 4: Is it amazing?
- 43:47Speaker 2: No?
- 43:48Speaker 4: But I would have gone to see them for fun
- 43:51Speaker 4: one night.
- 43:51Speaker 1: I don't know, for fun for sure.
- 43:53Speaker 3: Yeah for fun, Yeah, for fun one night.
- 43:57Speaker 1: Imagine her trying to follow him around in a world tour.
- 44:00Speaker 1: I mean it's just the songs.
- 44:03Speaker 3: I was like, this band has been together for twenty
- 44:06Speaker 3: years or something and they I only have three songs.
- 44:10Speaker 1: Which is why it because everybody looks younger than I.
- 44:15Speaker 3: Mean they are, because I did it, Charlie ye Is
- 44:19Speaker 3: they were born. I mean they're like fifteen years younger
- 44:21Speaker 3: than well.
- 44:22Speaker 4: They addressed that in the movie, they're like, oh, it's
- 44:25Speaker 4: just me and I forget the other guy's name, but
- 44:27Speaker 4: it's like those were the original members and then they're
- 44:29Speaker 4: like and then we added new people later.
- 44:31Speaker 1: So also, like, again, I've seen this movie a handful
- 44:34Speaker 1: of times at this point, never knew that the parents
- 44:37Speaker 1: had a store.
- 44:38Speaker 4: Never only because it's in one quick, almost throwaway line
- 44:43Speaker 4: where they leave a message on the answering machine for
- 44:45Speaker 4: young Sasha and they're like, sorry, we won't be home.
- 44:48Speaker 4: We're stuck at the store. Make yourself dinner. So like
- 44:50Speaker 4: that's the only time we have any indication of what
- 44:53Speaker 4: they do, right, But yeah, that also could have been
- 44:55Speaker 4: like why don't we see them at the store or
- 44:57Speaker 4: something something? Anyway, so where were we? This is shortly
- 45:05Speaker 4: after Sasha and Brandon have broken off their engagement and
- 45:13Speaker 4: oh yeah, and then like Sasha is like, Marcus, you
- 45:16Speaker 4: should try to be a famous new musician and he's like, no,
- 45:20Speaker 4: no thanks, that's not really why I'm doing this. And
- 45:23Speaker 4: then that night, while Sasha is catering a wrap party
- 45:27Speaker 4: for a Netflix show, she meets someone and we don't
- 45:32Speaker 4: know who it is at first, and we're like, oh,
- 45:34Speaker 4: who could it be? And we'll find out soon that
- 45:37Speaker 4: it's Keanu Reeves.
- 45:38Speaker 3: I remember this was like, this was like a very
- 45:41Speaker 3: like break the Internet kind of moment when it happened.
- 45:45Speaker 3: That's the only thing I knew about this movie was
- 45:48Speaker 3: that there is an extended Keanu Reeves cameo and it.
- 45:52Speaker 4: Yes where he plays himself, which I don't mind. I
- 45:55Speaker 4: had a good time.
- 45:56Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.
- 45:58Speaker 5: I'm a hater.
- 45:58Speaker 3: I mean, I love Kia know, I just I'm burned
- 46:01Speaker 3: out on like a celebrity being like celebrities are weird.
- 46:06Speaker 1: It's like, well, I think I liked it because he
- 46:09Speaker 1: just seems so excited because he was like and I
- 46:12Speaker 1: never get to play, you know, and I'm like half
- 46:15Speaker 1: agent or something. There was like some interview you did
- 46:18Speaker 1: where he like made it deeply philosophia, when I was like,
- 46:22Speaker 1: I love that for you can like if you're happy,
- 46:25Speaker 1: I'm happy and I'm the only thing that I really
- 46:27Speaker 1: like about it is the extended bit when he like
- 46:29Speaker 1: goes to visit Ellie Wong and like a stand up
- 46:32Speaker 1: show or whatever. She'll be like, oh, my ex husband
- 46:35Speaker 1: or my my ex boyfriend came to see me and
- 46:38Speaker 1: like that's the bit that I like. It's like this extended,
- 46:41Speaker 1: years long thing that they're like, Oh, it's beautiful we
- 46:44Speaker 1: used to do.
- 46:45Speaker 3: I mean, Ali Wong is the close I also love.
- 46:47Speaker 3: I feel like she and Bill Hayter what a powerful couple.
- 46:52Speaker 5: I know too.
- 46:54Speaker 3: I was like that, it just makes sense. I love
- 46:56Speaker 3: it. It does.
- 46:58Speaker 4: They seem so happy they do had no idea they
- 47:00Speaker 4: were together.
- 47:01Speaker 5: Isn't that a.
- 47:02Speaker 3: Good match though?
- 47:03Speaker 1: You're just like such a good match.
- 47:05Speaker 4: Oh okay. So then Sasha has just met some mystery guy. Meanwhile,
- 47:14Speaker 4: Marcus's dad is like, I don't know about your girlfriend, Jenny.
- 47:18Speaker 4: You should be with Sasha and tell her how you feel.
- 47:22Speaker 4: And Marcus is like, hmm, sounds like a good idea.
- 47:26Speaker 4: So he goes to her and he's about to tell her,
- 47:29Speaker 4: but before he can, Sasha is like, I met someone.
- 47:33Speaker 4: Let's all go on a double date. And then it
- 47:35Speaker 4: turns out to be Keanu Reeves is her new lover,
- 47:39Speaker 4: playing himself, and Jenny is starstruck. Marcus is like, oh
- 47:44Speaker 4: my fucking god, Like, how am I supposed to compete
- 47:47Speaker 4: with Keanu Reeves. Marcus also thinks that he's like a
- 47:51Speaker 4: pretentious douchebag because he's playing a very goofy version of himself.
- 47:57Speaker 4: And then everyone goes to Keanu's hotel for a nightcap
- 48:00Speaker 4: and they play a game where they ask each other
- 48:03Speaker 4: questions and Sasha reveals that she has always had a
- 48:06Speaker 4: crush on Marcus, or at least like during their childhood,
- 48:10Speaker 4: and he's like, what really, I had no idea, and.
- 48:13Speaker 3: Then she's like, but not anymore, not for nothing. I
- 48:15Speaker 3: found that line confusing that he was like, you liked me.
- 48:18Speaker 3: I was like, you guys did have sex likes. It's
- 48:23Speaker 3: not that, I mean, I guess, the whole life thing,
- 48:26Speaker 3: but I was like, you fucked. You can't be completely
- 48:29Speaker 3: shocked that she was attracted to you.
- 48:31Speaker 4: Right, Yeah? And then things escalate from there, and this
- 48:36Speaker 4: game culminates in Marcus and Keanu getting into a fistfight,
- 48:41Speaker 4: and so Marcus and Sasha leave together. Jenny stays with
- 48:45Speaker 4: Keanu because they're like kind of vibing, I guess, and
- 48:48Speaker 4: then in the car ride home, Sasha and Marcus get
- 48:52Speaker 4: into another fight where Marcus accuses Sasha of, you know,
- 48:57Speaker 4: like filling her life with meaningless awards and related ships,
- 49:01Speaker 4: and Sasha accuses him of wasting his talent and potential,
- 49:05Speaker 4: and then he, surprised kisses her this time, but she's like, oh,
- 49:11Speaker 4: let's keep smooching, and then they go to her place
- 49:16Speaker 4: and have sex.
- 49:16Speaker 5: The sex scene is great.
- 49:19Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, no complaints, no complaints.
- 49:22Speaker 1: No good scene.
- 49:23Speaker 3: Let's keep it. Let's keep that scene in.
- 49:25Speaker 1: There, keep that scene in there.
- 49:27Speaker 4: And then after this, Sasha and Marcus start dating and
- 49:31Speaker 4: it's nice for a little while, but then Sasha has
- 49:34Speaker 4: to go to New York to open her restaurant there.
- 49:38Speaker 4: Marcus is apprehensive about going with her, and then after
- 49:42Speaker 4: this like red carpet event, they get in another fight
- 49:46Speaker 4: where he's like, I think the food you make is
- 49:49Speaker 4: pretentious and it caters to rich white people, and she's like, oh, yeah,
- 49:53Speaker 4: well I need you to be more supportive of my
- 49:56Speaker 4: capitalistic ambitions.
- 49:59Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's it's fair to ask for support
- 50:02Speaker 3: of her ambition. I would think that that is unreasonable.
- 50:05Speaker 3: I think what is unreasonable is at the end of
- 50:08Speaker 3: the movie, she is still making food basically for rich
- 50:12Speaker 3: white people, but now she's making his dead mom's recipes
- 50:15Speaker 3: for rich white people, and I'm like, it's it's worst
- 50:18Speaker 3: question mark.
- 50:19Speaker 1: Like, meanwhile, I'm like, girl, get your bill.
- 50:22Speaker 3: I'm not upset that she's like successful, I don't know.
- 50:26Speaker 3: That's fine.
- 50:27Speaker 4: I have a whole piece that I'll be quoting from
- 50:29Speaker 4: later that's all about how Sasha's character is complicit in
- 50:34Speaker 4: gentrification and all this stuff. All yeah, we'll get to that.
- 50:38Speaker 4: But anyway, So now it's the night of the opening
- 50:43Speaker 4: of Sasha's San Francisco restaurant. Marcus doesn't go with her,
- 50:48Speaker 4: and he says he doesn't want to go to New
- 50:49Speaker 4: York with her either, So they basically break up and
- 50:53Speaker 4: they're both very sad, and Sasha goes to New York
- 50:56Speaker 4: alone and he starts to harass her. Yeah, but he
- 51:01Speaker 4: then he tries to start to get his life together. First,
- 51:04Speaker 4: there's like an audition with his band that he absolutely
- 51:08Speaker 4: blows because he gets drunk and like pisses on the stage.
- 51:11Speaker 4: But then they redo the audition and this time they
- 51:14Speaker 4: nail it. And then he moves into his own apartment
- 51:18Speaker 4: and he takes over the merch sales for his band
- 51:21Speaker 4: and they start selling a bunch of.
- 51:23Speaker 3: Merch except no, they don't. And this is never like again,
- 51:27Speaker 3: I'm like that never to me should be a source
- 51:30Speaker 3: of conflict of like, oh, you think so little of
- 51:34Speaker 3: my potential as an artist that you were buying all
- 51:37Speaker 3: of the merch, Like, how would that not be a
- 51:38Speaker 3: hit to his confidence?
- 51:39Speaker 7: See that's not even see yeah, I would be like,
- 51:42Speaker 7: oh you bought all my thank you, I love you
- 51:46Speaker 7: bad because if somebody was like, oh I want to
- 51:49Speaker 7: see if he succeed.
- 51:51Speaker 1: And they bought all my books. Baby, I'm not gonna
- 51:53Speaker 1: be upset. I'm gonna be like, thank you, I love you.
- 51:56Speaker 1: Let's like you know, fair enough, Yeah, you know, go
- 51:59Speaker 1: do it, or like.
- 52:01Speaker 4: Yeah, anyway, the movie's almost over. So now he goes
- 52:07Speaker 4: to Sasha's San Francisco restaurant because he's like, maybe she's
- 52:12Speaker 4: there and maybe I can talk to her. But she's
- 52:15Speaker 4: not in New York famously like she said, right. But
- 52:18Speaker 4: he goes into her office and this is when he
- 52:21Speaker 4: sees that she had bought all of his merch and
- 52:24Speaker 4: so he's like, wait a minute, does she love me?
- 52:27Speaker 4: So then he buys a suit and he goes to
- 52:29Speaker 4: New York to surprise Sasha at an awards ceremony, and
- 52:34Speaker 4: he makes a big speech about how he wants to
- 52:37Speaker 4: be with her no matter what, and they kiss and
- 52:40Speaker 4: make up, and then she takes him to her New
- 52:43Speaker 4: York City restaurant and then twist, it's the restaurant where
- 52:48Speaker 4: she has plagiarized his mom's recipes and you guys, she.
- 52:53Speaker 1: Got her blessing from beyond. I don't know how this.
- 52:57Speaker 3: At this point, I'm like, if I'm Randall Park, I'm
- 53:00Speaker 3: ever speaking to this woman again, and I'm suing her.
- 53:03Speaker 4: And he said, he's like, wow, that's awesome.
- 53:05Speaker 8: She's like, I stole your mom's recipes and I'm going
- 53:09Speaker 8: to do it in my little gentrification pistro and then
- 53:13Speaker 8: goes to her like the widower.
- 53:16Speaker 3: And is like, she'd love this right after the business
- 53:20Speaker 3: is open, Like, yeah, that.
- 53:22Speaker 1: Would be nice. If it was just like not open
- 53:24Speaker 1: and that's what she was planning to do, right, that
- 53:27Speaker 1: would have that would have worked a little bit better,
- 53:29Speaker 1: I think. But I also saw in the beginning how
- 53:33Speaker 1: her mom was like very supportive of her cooking and
- 53:36Speaker 1: she's like, oh, here's how you do it. So in
- 53:38Speaker 1: a way, it felt like she was sharing in this
- 53:41Speaker 1: moment with I'm just excuse, but she was sharing this
- 53:45Speaker 1: moment with his mom, and it was like.
- 53:48Speaker 3: You know, I mean, I knew what they were going for.
- 53:51Speaker 3: I just like it just felt so I mean, I
- 53:53Speaker 3: think that this was one of the many elements of
- 53:55Speaker 3: like the last fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie.
- 53:57Speaker 3: They just felt really really really rush.
- 54:01Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 54:02Speaker 4: Well, anyways, that's the end of the movie. Basically, like
- 54:05Speaker 4: Marcus Loves the Restaurant, the opening goes, well, everyone has
- 54:09Speaker 4: a nice time the end. So let's take another quick
- 54:13Speaker 4: break and we'll come back to discuss further.
- 54:27Speaker 3: And we're back. I know that we have a lot
- 54:32Speaker 3: to get to. One of the things I just wanted
- 54:35Speaker 3: to sort of go back to the original round of
- 54:37Speaker 3: press around this movie when it came out, because something
- 54:40Speaker 3: that I also, you know, knew about this movie that
- 54:43Speaker 3: is absolutely worth talking about is that it is one
- 54:47Speaker 3: of the few, like mainstream rom coms that has Asian
- 54:51Speaker 3: American characters at its center and is also written by
- 54:57Speaker 3: literally the stars of the movie but Asian American, right.
- 55:00Speaker 3: I believe the director in Nanachaka Khan, who also has
- 55:04Speaker 3: is like a PROLIFICXIT comm director, is Iranian American, and
- 55:09Speaker 3: there is a lot of diversity in front of and
- 55:13Speaker 3: behind the camera, which in rom comms is still extremely
- 55:18Speaker 3: extremely rare. I mean, we were just talking about anyone
- 55:21Speaker 3: but you, which is my understanding. Is a blindingly white movie,
- 55:28Speaker 3: and there was a lot written at the time this
- 55:31Speaker 3: movie came out celebrating that, I think gratefully so there
- 55:36Speaker 3: was a vox essay that I bravely read by writer
- 55:42Speaker 3: Jason Sheen that sort of breaks down a lot of
- 55:46Speaker 3: what he felt the Asian American stereotypes being challenged very
- 55:50Speaker 3: subtly in this movie. The piece is called why Always
- 55:55Speaker 3: Be My Maybe's Asian American Underachiever is groundbreaking and specifically
- 56:00Speaker 3: into Randall Park's character and talking about how, you know,
- 56:04Speaker 3: the representation of an Asian American character who is not
- 56:09Speaker 3: fighting against but not meeting the like very model minority
- 56:14Speaker 3: stereotypes that we often see Asian American characters written into.
- 56:20Speaker 3: We can link it in the description, but I just
- 56:22Speaker 3: wanted to share sort of hys thesis here. He writes.
- 56:27Speaker 3: It might sound strange, but an Asian American lead character
- 56:30Speaker 3: playing a low achiever might be just what our community
- 56:33Speaker 3: needs right now. The story of Asians in America is
- 56:35Speaker 3: a happy one at first glance. As the nation's fastest
- 56:38Speaker 3: growing racial group, we're seen as an educated quote unquote
- 56:41Speaker 3: model minority citizens who have earned society's respect, but Asian
- 56:45Speaker 3: American achievement often faces backlash. And we've discussed these trips
- 56:51Speaker 3: on the show before. But I think that it definitely
- 56:54Speaker 3: is a positive thing to just have again simple thing
- 56:59Speaker 3: that we never see, these characters that exist that we
- 57:02Speaker 3: never see. So I think that that is great. I
- 57:06Speaker 3: don't totally agree that Randall Park's character having a blue
- 57:10Speaker 3: collar job is passively accepted by the movie. I think
- 57:13Speaker 3: that's sort of where I chafe it that a little bit.
- 57:16Speaker 3: But I do think, you know, from a representation standpoint,
- 57:20Speaker 3: it's wonderful.
- 57:22Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. A lot of movies treat Asian characters
- 57:26Speaker 4: and Asian American characters as a monolith and adhere to
- 57:29Speaker 4: so many reductive tropes, and I agree that this movie
- 57:33Speaker 4: subverts a lot of them. I wanted to share a
- 57:37Speaker 4: quote from Ali Wong from an interview that she and
- 57:41Speaker 4: Randall Park did in Glamour, where she says, quote to me,
- 57:46Speaker 4: Marcus's character is very much a type of guy that
- 57:49Speaker 4: I grew up with, a very Asian American dude who
- 57:51Speaker 4: grew up in the Bay and lives at home well
- 57:54Speaker 4: into his thirties. Because of gentrification and rent is so
- 57:57Speaker 4: expensive in San Francisco. They have this artistic passion and
- 58:00Speaker 4: they're not that ambitious because they're third generation. Their parents
- 58:05Speaker 4: don't have that crazy immigrant mentality. That's something I have
- 58:09Speaker 4: never seen on camera before. But that's something I very
- 58:12Speaker 4: much grew up with. These guys were so sexy and confident,
- 58:16Speaker 4: but they're good, you know, and his dad is his friend,
- 58:20Speaker 4: and you haven't seen that kind of Asian dad before.
- 58:24Speaker 4: My dad was born in the United States. He didn't
- 58:26Speaker 4: have any accent. He was very progressive and he journaled.
- 58:31Speaker 4: He's really into self reflection. I know a lot of
- 58:34Speaker 4: dads like that, and I have always felt like it's
- 58:37Speaker 4: a shame that they weren't on camera. This is not
- 58:40Speaker 4: the Asian American rom com. This is an Asian American
- 58:45Speaker 4: rom com. That's an Asian American dad. That's an Asian
- 58:49Speaker 4: American guy I haven't seen before parentheses on screen, and
- 58:54Speaker 4: that's very exciting to me. Unquote. So that's from Ali Wong.
- 58:59Speaker 4: Randall Ark had similar comments about seeing a lack of
- 59:02Speaker 4: Asian American characters in certain roles in media. I'm going
- 59:06Speaker 4: to paraphrase from an interview with him in Associated press,
- 59:11Speaker 4: where he says that he always wanted to play the
- 59:14Speaker 4: romantic lead in a movie, but those parts weren't available
- 59:18Speaker 4: to him in Hollywood, so he was like, well, in
- 59:22Speaker 4: that case, I have to write my own story where
- 59:25Speaker 4: I can be the romantic lead since the industry isn't
- 59:29Speaker 4: affording me those opportunities. And then Ali Wong also says
- 59:34Speaker 4: that it was very important to her that all of
- 59:36Speaker 4: her characters love interests be Asian American and that in
- 59:41Speaker 4: all of her work, it's important that she shows her
- 59:44Speaker 4: attraction and desire toward Asian American men, which all of
- 59:49Speaker 4: that speaks to Hollywood's tendency to desexualize Asian men and
- 59:55Speaker 4: the refusal to present Asian men as romantically viable p
- 1:00:00Speaker 4: and so all of this to say, obviously, Ali Wang
- 1:00:04Speaker 4: and Randall Park were very mindful of the stereotypical representation
- 1:00:09Speaker 4: of Asian American characters that existed on screen previously, and
- 1:00:14Speaker 4: with this movie, they wanted to show more nuance and
- 1:00:17Speaker 4: diversity in the type of Asian American characters who appear
- 1:00:21Speaker 4: on screen.
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: Yeah, I think what's really nice as like the person
- 1:00:26Speaker 1: of color, like the black person right now on the
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: pot is like I went into it being like I
- 1:00:31Speaker 1: forgot how nice it was not to have something centered
- 1:00:34Speaker 1: around whiteness, Like, yeah, there was a conversation around like,
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: you know, you're catering your restaurant to like rich white people,
- 1:00:41Speaker 1: but it was like not to be inundated with whiteness
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: as a default was really really nice because it's been
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: such a long time, which again, what is time with
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: the pandemic, but it's been such a long time since
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: I've seen that happen.
- 1:01:01Speaker 3: Since, right, for sure. That's why I feel we've I
- 1:01:05Speaker 3: feel like we will probably unfortunately keep talking about this
- 1:01:08Speaker 3: on the show of like feeling like around this time
- 1:01:11Speaker 3: in the late twenty tens, where there was starting to
- 1:01:16Speaker 3: be more representation in genres where we didn't normally see it,
- 1:01:21Speaker 3: we were getting better written characters who weren't meant like
- 1:01:25Speaker 3: sis men weren't the default. And then in the last
- 1:01:29Speaker 3: couple of years, it feels like, I mean, amongst many
- 1:01:32Speaker 3: other things, that that progress is sliding backwards and experiencing
- 1:01:36Speaker 3: significant backlash. And yeah, I mean, for all the gripes
- 1:01:39Speaker 3: I have about this movie, it's I can't think of many,
- 1:01:45Speaker 3: you know, movies that have made at this budget with
- 1:01:49Speaker 3: this amount of marketing as well that center Asian American characters.
- 1:01:53Speaker 4: Well that's the thing, because I just saw two movies
- 1:01:57Speaker 4: that are at the time of this recording, I think,
- 1:01:59Speaker 4: still in theaters but hard to find because they don't
- 1:02:03Speaker 4: have huge releases. But I saw The Wedding Banquet.
- 1:02:07Speaker 3: And Oh Yes, It's a Nice.
- 1:02:09Speaker 4: Indian Boy, which are two queer romantic comedies slash dramaedis
- 1:02:15Speaker 4: that feature predominantly Asian American characters, and but they're not
- 1:02:21Speaker 4: They don't have the same marketing around them, so I
- 1:02:24Speaker 4: feel like a lot of people don't know about them
- 1:02:26Speaker 4: or as much about them.
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: Yeah, they're on my list. I'm trying to figure out
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: how I can see them both because I've heard good thing.
- 1:02:33Speaker 3: They're both really good right there, but they're hard to like.
- 1:02:35Speaker 3: I I also saw The Wedding Banquet and it's already
- 1:02:39Speaker 3: like halved in terms of the numbers of screenings that
- 1:02:42Speaker 3: it's getting, and I haven't seen any marketing for it.
- 1:02:45Speaker 3: Like I just knew I'll see anything Bowen yangs in,
- 1:02:49Speaker 3: so the ads found me.
- 1:02:53Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean overall, like I saw a lot
- 1:02:55Speaker 4: of writing about this movie to the effect of how
- 1:02:59Speaker 4: refreshing it was for so many viewers, particularly Asian American audiences,
- 1:03:05Speaker 4: where they were able to see a pretty standard rom
- 1:03:09Speaker 4: com story because the idea for this movie was Ali
- 1:03:13Speaker 4: Wang and Rendall Park being like, hey, we should make
- 1:03:16Speaker 4: our own version of When Harry Met Sally, right, And
- 1:03:19Speaker 4: the movie follows a lot of the same beats as
- 1:03:23Speaker 4: that movie, So it's a pretty you know, standard rom
- 1:03:26Speaker 4: com narrative, but it features characters who look like them
- 1:03:30Speaker 4: and who had similar upbringings and who had similar cultural experiences,
- 1:03:35Speaker 4: and who were also living regular lives. Because this movie,
- 1:03:41Speaker 4: because it came out a year after Crazy Rich Asians,
- 1:03:44Speaker 4: a lot of people who wrote about this movie were like,
- 1:03:47Speaker 4: Crazy Rich Asians was fun and everything, but I couldn't
- 1:03:50Speaker 4: really relate to those characters because they're literal billionaires. But
- 1:03:55Speaker 4: Always be My Maybe had like familiar people in it.
- 1:03:59Speaker 4: And also a lot of people had written about how
- 1:04:02Speaker 4: there was in Always Be My Maybe no real focus
- 1:04:06Speaker 4: on their like quote unquote otherness, and that there was
- 1:04:10Speaker 4: like no real clash of Eastern versus Western values. Not
- 1:04:15Speaker 4: that those things aren't worth exploring in media, but this
- 1:04:19Speaker 4: movie is more like, hey, look at these regular American
- 1:04:23Speaker 4: people who are living laughing, loving, and they just happen
- 1:04:27Speaker 4: to be Asian. So that was like very refreshing for
- 1:04:32Speaker 4: a lot of people. I'll share a quote from a
- 1:04:37Speaker 4: New Yorker piece written by Jiayang Fan entitled what Always
- 1:04:43Speaker 4: Be My Maybe understands about making an Asian American rom
- 1:04:46Speaker 4: com quote. I watched Always Be My Maybe alone in
- 1:04:50Speaker 4: a theater in Manhattan, acutely aware that this was a
- 1:04:53Speaker 4: mainstream movie of America's favorite variety, the rom com, and
- 1:04:58Speaker 4: of the fact that a multi ethnic audience had sat
- 1:05:02Speaker 4: down to watch two Asian leads fall in love. More
- 1:05:05Speaker 4: than anything else, it was the film's depiction of growing
- 1:05:08Speaker 4: up in the US in an Asian home that made
- 1:05:10Speaker 4: my heart yelp. The and oh oh no, a word
- 1:05:15Speaker 4: that I don't know how to say, involuble yeah now that, oh,
- 1:05:19Speaker 4: thank you so much, ritual of removing shoes before entering
- 1:05:24Speaker 4: a house, the plastic covered furniture in Sasha's parents' home,
- 1:05:28Speaker 4: which so resembled my own childhood living room. To watch
- 1:05:31Speaker 4: these mundane, culturally specific details exposed on the big screen,
- 1:05:35Speaker 4: the very things that I and many Asian American kids
- 1:05:39Speaker 4: once wanted to hide, felt quietly radical. And then the
- 1:05:44Speaker 4: piece goes on to talk about various other culturally specific
- 1:05:47Speaker 4: things that the movie includes that felt very familiar and
- 1:05:51Speaker 4: authentic to the writer, such as like having to consume
- 1:05:56Speaker 4: media about white people like Clarissa's plans at all and
- 1:06:00Speaker 4: Wayne's world because that's all there was when they were
- 1:06:03Speaker 4: growing up, or parents trying to avoid any service that
- 1:06:07Speaker 4: requires tipping because they were poor and had to be
- 1:06:12Speaker 4: very careful with their money.
- 1:06:14Speaker 1: So I also think it's funny too, like as the
- 1:06:17Speaker 1: disabled person, the joke. I remember when I first watched
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: the movie, the joke about the parking placards really pissed
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: me off. But then I watched it today and I
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: was like, oh, that's really funny. Like I think part
- 1:06:30Speaker 1: of it is just like one I chilled out because
- 1:06:32Speaker 1: like for a while there, I was just like yeah,
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: and then you know, I like relaxed a little bit.
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: But it was actually funny this go around.
- 1:06:41Speaker 4: You mean the scene where they noticed how when they're
- 1:06:43Speaker 4: in Chinatown and.
- 1:06:45Speaker 1: Yeah, how every every part has the parking platters. Yeah,
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: that scene, I was like, Oh, this is actually funny.
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: And I don't know, I think I think two, it
- 1:06:54Speaker 1: really shows the passing of time for me. I mean
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: this said nothing to do technically with a movie. But
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: when I first sat like, I think I wrote an
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: article about it about how like or a tweet or
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: something when Twitter was good about how that singular section
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: upset me. And then I noticed today that I was
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: like fully laughing at it, and I said, oh, what
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: was you look at that? Just so sometimes it just
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: takes a second, but I think that there's something. I
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: think jokes like that are a good way of punching up,
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: and not enough people do it. And I'm just saying
- 1:07:28Speaker 1: that it's like a person who has never fully seen
- 1:07:31Speaker 1: herself represented in rob concert otherwise, and like jokes like
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: that that's a good one because it's not like cracking
- 1:07:38Speaker 1: on disabled people to do what it's just like with
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: all these placards.
- 1:07:42Speaker 4: Like yeah, and then and then Sasha is like, yeah,
- 1:07:46Speaker 4: they have these placards, but look at him getting out
- 1:07:48Speaker 4: of his truck all able bodied, which could mean that
- 1:07:52Speaker 4: he just has an invisible disability, right you know.
- 1:07:55Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think it.
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: Does a good job and either both like poking at
- 1:08:00Speaker 1: her and the idea that she has no idea how
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: like disability actually works, and also the idea that like
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: people are just so convinced that disable people have all
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: kinds are gaming the system. I remember once this lady
- 1:08:13Speaker 1: like knocked on the car door and I put my
- 1:08:15Speaker 1: hand out, like my right hand out so she could see.
- 1:08:18Speaker 1: I'm like, hello, what what are you gonna do? Like
- 1:08:22Speaker 1: I'm supposed to have this? Why are you tryed? God,
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: I just wanted to let you know that the police
- 1:08:27Speaker 1: are out here. Okay, thanks? Cool fun.
- 1:08:32Speaker 4: I mean, for me, my big criticism around this movie,
- 1:08:35Speaker 4: and I've already alluded to this is the way that
- 1:08:39Speaker 4: the movie handles class and.
- 1:08:44Speaker 3: Which in some ways I've also noticed that, And I
- 1:08:47Speaker 3: was like, in some ways, I feel like that is
- 1:08:50Speaker 3: it is truly just like they made a rom com
- 1:08:54Speaker 3: that centers Asian American characters in a way that I
- 1:08:57Speaker 3: think was very impactful, but they still made an American
- 1:09:00Speaker 3: rom com where it is like insensitive to class and
- 1:09:04Speaker 3: like very bootstrap aspirational in all the ways that American
- 1:09:08Speaker 3: rom coms tend to be.
- 1:09:10Speaker 4: Right.
- 1:09:10Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I almost I mean not to invalidate what
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: you're saying, obviously, Caitlin, but I almost feel like that's
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: the beauty in it, because when you approach any genre
- 1:09:22Speaker 1: as a person of color, people do expect you to have,
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: like the set decisions and set thoughts on all of
- 1:09:30Speaker 1: the things that other rom coms tend to ignore.
- 1:09:33Speaker 9: So there's some power in the fact that they didn't
- 1:09:37Speaker 9: address it in that way, because it was like, Okay,
- 1:09:39Speaker 9: we don't have to in the same way that they don't,
- 1:09:42Speaker 9: you know, when Harry met.
- 1:09:43Speaker 3: Staley totally right, like setting the bar high, like higher
- 1:09:47Speaker 3: for marginalized creators kind of thing.
- 1:09:52Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying, because I mean,
- 1:09:55Speaker 4: so much of art, the creators of color make is
- 1:10:02Speaker 4: held to a very rigid standard, and if there's too
- 1:10:07Speaker 4: much subversion then people will be all up in arms
- 1:10:10Speaker 4: and oh, this isn't a rom com because X y
- 1:10:14Speaker 4: Z I just I mean. And also this came out
- 1:10:17Speaker 4: in twenty nineteen, when culturally we were less critical of capitalism.
- 1:10:23Speaker 4: I think in the past five years there's been a
- 1:10:26Speaker 4: pretty significant shift.
- 1:10:28Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, the pandemic got a lot of people radicalized.
- 1:10:32Speaker 4: For sure, So I'm not surprised that this movie isn't
- 1:10:37Speaker 4: very critical of capitalism, but I still think it's worth
- 1:10:41Speaker 4: pointing out where it manifests in a couple different ways.
- 1:10:45Speaker 4: One of them is part of the dynamic of their
- 1:10:48Speaker 4: relationship is that by capitalists society's standards, Sasha is more
- 1:10:55Speaker 4: quote unquote successful because she's a business owner and she
- 1:10:58Speaker 4: has more money and more ambition. And then by those
- 1:11:02Speaker 4: same standards, Marcus is quote unquote not successful because he
- 1:11:07Speaker 4: lives with his dad and he has a blue collar
- 1:11:09Speaker 4: job and he doesn't have these huge career ambitions, and
- 1:11:14Speaker 4: he still drives the same car from when he was
- 1:11:17Speaker 4: a teenager, and he's you know, content to play in
- 1:11:20Speaker 4: this band at this small club and never make any
- 1:11:23Speaker 4: money from the band and all this kind of stuff,
- 1:11:25Speaker 4: and they constantly argue about these differences, which to your point, Jamie,
- 1:11:32Speaker 4: is that they are, like they're not catal. But the
- 1:11:36Speaker 4: movie it frames Marcus's situation as something that needs to
- 1:11:42Speaker 4: be fixed more or less, where he has the arc
- 1:11:45Speaker 4: where he you know, he moves out of the dad's
- 1:11:48Speaker 4: place and he you know, gets the audition at the
- 1:11:51Speaker 4: bigger club and he starts making money, which is actually
- 1:11:56Speaker 4: just Sasha buying his march. But like it's not until
- 1:11:59Speaker 4: then that they end up together and happy.
- 1:12:04Speaker 3: But he's like quote unquote viable. Yeah, which again I
- 1:12:09Speaker 3: feel like for me the fix here because I hear
- 1:12:12Speaker 3: what you're both saying, and I feel like the fix
- 1:12:15Speaker 3: here is the writing gets caught up in this like
- 1:12:18Speaker 3: capitalistic idea of what happiness looks like when this conversation
- 1:12:23Speaker 3: I feel like would be more effective and would make
- 1:12:26Speaker 3: me feel less kind of icky about the relationship if
- 1:12:29Speaker 3: it was about passion versus success. And I think Kia
- 1:12:34Speaker 3: you mentioned earlier, like if we saw that Randall Park
- 1:12:38Speaker 3: loves being in this band, it is his passion. It
- 1:12:41Speaker 3: is like his source of joy. And Ali Wong's character
- 1:12:45Speaker 3: loves being a chef and like building these restaurants. But
- 1:12:50Speaker 3: the conflict is she is making a lot of money
- 1:12:53Speaker 3: doing it. He isn't. But they have passion, but it
- 1:12:57Speaker 3: feels like it gets instead sort of involved like a
- 1:13:01Speaker 3: very capitalistic, rigid definition of success.
- 1:13:04Speaker 1: And also too, it just seems like the thing with
- 1:13:08Speaker 1: Sastress like does she love it or is it just
- 1:13:11Speaker 1: the career she's good at? Right?
- 1:13:13Speaker 5: Not clear?
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: That's the question that I have too, because I was
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: just like, do you love your job because you don't
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: seem that happy doing right.
- 1:13:22Speaker 3: She's like, I'm doing it because I have to. And
- 1:13:25Speaker 3: it's also but it's like why do you have to
- 1:13:29Speaker 3: let's keep Yeah, you just want to like push the
- 1:13:31Speaker 3: script a little further. And I mean, and Kaitlyn, you're
- 1:13:35Speaker 3: totally right the gentrification aspect, Like in some ways it's like, yeah,
- 1:13:41Speaker 3: this is what Meg Ryan would do it in a
- 1:13:44Speaker 3: I mean, at least, at very least, this is not
- 1:13:47Speaker 3: the most egregious gentrification realm complot point that will always
- 1:13:51Speaker 3: go to you've got mail.
- 1:13:54Speaker 10: But but but yeah, it just especially if a movie
- 1:13:58Speaker 10: made in twenty nineteen, it felt again, I'm wondering if
- 1:14:03Speaker 10: there were drafts of the script that dealt with this
- 1:14:05Speaker 10: a little or that developed this.
- 1:14:07Speaker 3: Or a little more thoughtfully, because it just felt so
- 1:14:11Speaker 3: fast at the end.
- 1:14:13Speaker 1: Even I think too then it's is gonna be I
- 1:14:15Speaker 1: don't know, but like remember the white girl that she
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: was like the assistant of and she she was gonna
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: get Yes, she was scared, she was gonna get fired
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: the whole time, even if she was like, you know what,
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: I'm gonna relinquish dealing with this one here. I'll give
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: Michelle Puto's other one and I'm gonna put my focus
- 1:14:36Speaker 1: on this one restaurant. Even that I feel like would
- 1:14:40Speaker 1: have helped with the like less feeling work monopoly pieces,
- 1:14:45Speaker 1: you know, because after a while it was like, oh, yeah,
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: I got one.
- 1:14:47Speaker 3: In New York, I got a she's franchising, Like, yeah,
- 1:14:51Speaker 3: she's franchising.
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: It was like, girl, I get it. But at the
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: same time, you can't the mean Marcus for not having
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: direction when your direction is just you and constant movement
- 1:15:04Speaker 1: without being able to rest. There's something to have to
- 1:15:07Speaker 1: your therapist, a bounty, but like, why do you need
- 1:15:09Speaker 1: to be in constant movement? Sit down somewhere, take on that, take.
- 1:15:15Speaker 3: Us correct, as the kids said, touch some grass, Ali Wong. Yeah,
- 1:15:20Speaker 3: And I mean it's the criticism of the gentrification aspects
- 1:15:25Speaker 3: of the restaurant come up really fast and only at
- 1:15:29Speaker 3: the end, and the only resolution given for it is, oh,
- 1:15:33Speaker 3: I'll just steal your dead mom's recipe. Does that work?
- 1:15:37Speaker 3: And it weirdly and he's like, oh, yeah, that solves
- 1:15:40Speaker 3: gentrification as long as you.
- 1:15:42Speaker 1: Like, as long as we can stop the whole fusion,
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: just make them as they are, and that's that. And
- 1:15:47Speaker 1: it's just like, I don't I don't think we knew
- 1:15:49Speaker 1: enough of their material thoughts in a lot of places
- 1:15:53Speaker 1: that we needed them.
- 1:15:54Speaker 3: For sure, sure, because we don't know I mean like
- 1:15:56Speaker 3: is again, yeah, where it's just like it seems like
- 1:15:58Speaker 3: there's a sort of void of passion between these two
- 1:16:02Speaker 3: characters in their pursuits, where I'm like, is Ali Wong
- 1:16:07Speaker 3: really passionate about the food her restaurants serve? We don't
- 1:16:12Speaker 3: really know, we don't really ever see her cooking. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 1:16:18Speaker 4: I have alluded to this piece a couple times already,
- 1:16:22Speaker 4: but I just want to share a few quotes from
- 1:16:26Speaker 4: a piece in plan A magazine by writer Promise Lee
- 1:16:32Speaker 4: entitled Always Be My Maybe Gentrification and the Asian American
- 1:16:36Speaker 4: rom com. The piece starts by commenting on the criticisms
- 1:16:41Speaker 4: of crazy rich Asians when that movie came out, how
- 1:16:45Speaker 4: it only portrayed very affluent Asian characters really just.
- 1:16:50Speaker 3: The richest people humanly possible. Yeah, reruly.
- 1:16:54Speaker 4: It goes on to make a similar point that we
- 1:16:58Speaker 4: were making earlier regarding the Sasha characters, kind of like
- 1:17:02Speaker 4: constantly berating Marcus for his lifestyle.
- 1:17:07Speaker 3: And the movie, like the events and logic of the movie.
- 1:17:10Speaker 3: Siding with her on that is, I feel like it's
- 1:17:12Speaker 3: never like she has a because it's one thing if
- 1:17:14Speaker 3: she has a realization of like I've been so judgmental
- 1:17:18Speaker 3: based on class, or like, I think there's such a
- 1:17:21Speaker 3: thing as like projecting at the class you grew up in,
- 1:17:23Speaker 3: or whatever it may be, But there is no such realization.
- 1:17:27Speaker 3: It's just like it seems like those are the values
- 1:17:29Speaker 3: of the movie, right, Yeah.
- 1:17:31Speaker 4: And then the piece goes on to examine her work
- 1:17:35Speaker 4: as a like restauranteur and the types of restaurants that
- 1:17:40Speaker 4: she's opening, and so the piece says, quote of course,
- 1:17:44Speaker 4: the film's concluding scene demonstrates that its ideal of innovation
- 1:17:48Speaker 4: does not equate to a rejection of all tradition. Tradition
- 1:17:52Speaker 4: for Sasha must be done well. It needs to sell.
- 1:17:55Speaker 4: Sasha's final invention in the film is a Korean restaurant,
- 1:17:58Speaker 4: more quote unquote authentic then her previous eateries, as it
- 1:18:03Speaker 4: is based on Marcus's late mother, Judy's old recipes. But
- 1:18:08Speaker 4: despite the film's occasionally positive portrayal of local, authentic restaurants,
- 1:18:12Speaker 4: its end goal is clear. The ideal isn't the local
- 1:18:16Speaker 4: Cantonese dim sum joint with rude service that Marcus and
- 1:18:19Speaker 4: Sasha grew up frequenting. It is Judy's way, the gentrifying
- 1:18:24Speaker 4: hip Korean eatery that reworks old family recipes for a
- 1:18:27Speaker 4: different demographic. For all the talk of Sashu's turned to authenticity,
- 1:18:32Speaker 4: the film shows no ambiguity as to who the target
- 1:18:35Speaker 4: audience is for Judy's Way. In its final shot of
- 1:18:39Speaker 4: the restaurant's long line of white professionals and high heels
- 1:18:42Speaker 4: in pinstriped blazers, the piece goes on to say gentrification
- 1:18:47Speaker 4: has been widely portrayed in rigidly racialized terms, with working
- 1:18:51Speaker 4: class residents of color being forced out of their neighborhoods
- 1:18:54Speaker 4: by affluent or middle class white developers and residents. But
- 1:18:58Speaker 4: always be my maybe show as a crucial element frequently
- 1:19:02Speaker 4: understated or overlooked in the relentless calculus of gentrification, the
- 1:19:07Speaker 4: act of complicity of more affluent people of color in
- 1:19:11Speaker 4: displacing their less privileged counterparts. Entrepreneurs like Sashia churn out
- 1:19:16Speaker 4: restaurant after restaurant that no one needs in the community,
- 1:19:20Speaker 4: but that threatens the livelihood of workers of color that
- 1:19:23Speaker 4: depend on the sustenance of local businesses unquote. So yeah,
- 1:19:27Speaker 4: I just wanted to share that. I thought that was
- 1:19:29Speaker 4: a really great piece.
- 1:19:32Speaker 3: And the thing that is frustrating about this is I
- 1:19:34Speaker 3: think that you can maintain the tone of this movie
- 1:19:38Speaker 3: and still address it. And it's sort of hint because
- 1:19:43Speaker 3: the elements of gentrification are hinted at in passing with jokes.
- 1:19:47Speaker 3: You can tackle a topic as serious and insidious as
- 1:19:52Speaker 3: gentrification in a rom com, and I think that these
- 1:19:55Speaker 3: writers are well qualified to do it, which kind of
- 1:19:58Speaker 3: makes it a little more bizarre that it goes in
- 1:20:02Speaker 3: so hard on the capitalism.
- 1:20:03Speaker 4: Angle, right, so disappointing.
- 1:20:08Speaker 3: But again, I mean, as as Kio is saying too,
- 1:20:12Speaker 3: it's you know, it is one of the ways in
- 1:20:16Speaker 3: which this movie kind of for worse adheres to the
- 1:20:20Speaker 3: values of the American rom com because American rom coms
- 1:20:23Speaker 3: are nothing if very pro capitalist.
- 1:20:27Speaker 4: Absolutely. One of the things that is subverted switching gears here.
- 1:20:35Speaker 4: But that I wanted to comment on is glasses representation.
- 1:20:40Speaker 5: Oh, I thought that too.
- 1:20:42Speaker 3: I mean, that's Ali Wong in general. She's been on
- 1:20:45Speaker 3: that beat for for many years. And some of the
- 1:20:48Speaker 3: best glasses in the game.
- 1:20:50Speaker 4: Such good glasses. Yeah. Friend of the Show Canise Mobley
- 1:20:54Speaker 4: often cites this movie when talking about representation of characters
- 1:20:58Speaker 4: wearing glasses. And then I would go on to realize
- 1:21:01Speaker 4: that there's like, there are whole Reddit threads about her
- 1:21:05Speaker 4: glasses in this movie. But basically the idea is, this
- 1:21:09Speaker 4: is one of the only movies where a woman or
- 1:21:14Speaker 4: I guess, person of any gender, but specifically a woman
- 1:21:18Speaker 4: in this case in a romantic lead who wears glasses
- 1:21:23Speaker 4: in general and keeps them on the whole movie and
- 1:21:27Speaker 4: like doesn't take them off as some like she's all
- 1:21:29Speaker 4: that style makeover.
- 1:21:32Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:21:32Speaker 3: No, I I appreciate that. I think about that a
- 1:21:36Speaker 3: lot because I I guess it is like sort of
- 1:21:39Speaker 3: drilled into you culturally because I wear glass. My vision's horrible.
- 1:21:42Speaker 3: I wear glasses, but usually not two occasions, and that
- 1:21:47Speaker 3: is a very culturally bashed in thing. I do wonder
- 1:21:50Speaker 3: to some extent if that movie because there is the
- 1:21:55Speaker 3: she's all that element of I feel like just the lazy,
- 1:22:00Speaker 3: you know, twentieth century person wearing glasses, dork thing.
- 1:22:05Speaker 5: Nerd alert.
- 1:22:07Speaker 3: Yeah, but also having worked in production, I do sort
- 1:22:09Speaker 3: of wonder if it's just a glare issue sometimes, like
- 1:22:13Speaker 3: it is hard to film people in glasses, but the
- 1:22:17Speaker 3: glasses are such a huge part of who Ali Wong is,
- 1:22:21Speaker 3: and you know, certainly no one could accuse Ali Wang
- 1:22:25Speaker 3: of being anything but very hot and like treated as such. Yeah,
- 1:22:31Speaker 3: that is a good I hadn't even thought of that.
- 1:22:33Speaker 3: I just was admiring her frames. She has great taste
- 1:22:36Speaker 3: in frames, she really does.
- 1:22:38Speaker 4: Yeah, the movie does pass the Bechdel test. Yeah, but
- 1:22:44Speaker 4: between Sasha and Veronica and her mom and Marcus's mom,
- 1:22:52Speaker 4: so yeah, there's many interactions.
- 1:22:55Speaker 3: I will say, we didn't have a lot of time
- 1:22:57Speaker 3: to talk about Michelle Buttoe's character, not that there's a
- 1:22:59Speaker 3: ton to talk but I did think again where this
- 1:23:02Speaker 3: is like, this is firmly an American rom com where
- 1:23:05Speaker 3: Michelle Buteau is best friending the hell out of this role.
- 1:23:11Speaker 3: Like we don't know anything. We do find out that
- 1:23:14Speaker 3: she has a partner, but her whole thing is she's
- 1:23:17Speaker 3: pregnant and she really cares about Ali Wong's character's interior life.
- 1:23:22Speaker 3: It's very rom com.
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: Also, I noticed this time for the first time that
- 1:23:28Speaker 1: she knew them when they were kids. Yes, I never
- 1:23:31Speaker 1: noticed that she was supposed to be the other little
- 1:23:33Speaker 1: girl at the table.
- 1:23:35Speaker 9: Yeah.
- 1:23:35Speaker 4: I also noticed that on my most recent watch.
- 1:23:38Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, oh, I never popped them.
- 1:23:40Speaker 4: Because they don't talk to her or address her by
- 1:23:42Speaker 4: name or anything like that.
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: So yeah, and I was just like, it really reiterated
- 1:23:47Speaker 1: my desire. I know that she has survival as the thickest,
- 1:23:50Speaker 1: but it really reiterated my desire to see her in
- 1:23:53Speaker 1: like a firmly rom com movie that's full of all
- 1:23:58Speaker 1: of the tropes.
- 1:23:59Speaker 3: I haven't seen it, but she was in Babes last year, right, Yeah, Babes.
- 1:24:04Speaker 5: Was it bad?
- 1:24:04Speaker 3: I haven't seen it.
- 1:24:05Speaker 4: Oh no, I didn't love it, and she plays the
- 1:24:08Speaker 4: same best friend character. It's not it doesn't center her
- 1:24:12Speaker 4: quite as much, and.
- 1:24:13Speaker 1: So like, I just want to see her like in
- 1:24:16Speaker 1: that way, even though I know she has figures. I'm like,
- 1:24:19Speaker 1: give give the girl, and I rang it on Netflix movie.
- 1:24:23Speaker 1: She's so funny. She carries a lot of these as
- 1:24:26Speaker 1: the best friend, a lot of these roles.
- 1:24:29Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like she has replaced like the Judy
- 1:24:32Speaker 4: Greer best friend rom cos she has.
- 1:24:34Speaker 3: Kind of millennial Judy Greer, and much like Judy Greer,
- 1:24:38Speaker 3: we must free her. She has so much talent.
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: She does.
- 1:24:43Speaker 4: As far as our nipple scale goes, where we raped
- 1:24:45Speaker 4: the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it
- 1:24:50Speaker 4: through an intersectional feminist lens, there's a lot to love
- 1:24:54Speaker 4: and appreciate about this movie as far as represent goes
- 1:25:01Speaker 4: of centering Asian American characters written by Asian American writers
- 1:25:06Speaker 4: who are pulling from their own experiences, pulling from people
- 1:25:10Speaker 4: they know, broadening the scope of the type of Asian
- 1:25:13Speaker 4: American person you tend to see represented on screen. Letting
- 1:25:17Speaker 4: these characters be the romantic leads in a rom com
- 1:25:23Speaker 4: who are falling in love and arguing all the time.
- 1:25:28Speaker 3: But you still get like all the rom com you know,
- 1:25:31Speaker 3: itches scratched, where there's I thought that Ali Wong's wardrobe
- 1:25:37Speaker 3: in this movie is fucking spectacular. Yeah, it has the
- 1:25:42Speaker 3: visuals of a rom com. It has the fashion, it
- 1:25:44Speaker 3: has the random big parties, it has.
- 1:25:47Speaker 5: You know, it is like.
- 1:25:49Speaker 3: An actual, real, real representation in a needed way, and
- 1:25:53Speaker 3: also has a very familiar rom coom plot.
- 1:25:56Speaker 4: For sure, And it's one of the few rom coms
- 1:25:58Speaker 4: it actually attempts jokes. I don't necessarily think all of
- 1:26:02Speaker 4: them land that well, but like I was laughing many times,
- 1:26:06Speaker 4: there's calm.
- 1:26:06Speaker 5: There's calm.
- 1:26:07Speaker 4: There's calm in the rom com and so many wrong
- 1:26:09Speaker 4: coms don't actually have calm, which has always bugged me.
- 1:26:12Speaker 4: But yeah, there's there's jokes in this and I appreciate that.
- 1:26:16Speaker 1: And also it has the thing that I love the
- 1:26:18Speaker 1: most in all calms of the wrong is the big
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: embarrassing moment. So like when she gets caught letting do
- 1:26:25Speaker 1: in Your Day, Cam's character have it in the windows
- 1:26:27Speaker 1: open and they can all hear. That's one of the
- 1:26:30Speaker 1: cornerstones of all good rom comes.
- 1:26:32Speaker 3: You do, yes, you do need, uh that moment where
- 1:26:35Speaker 3: everyone's like, pretty lady doing what scaring.
- 1:26:40Speaker 4: In front of children and you're scaring the goats.
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: I did laugh.
- 1:26:47Speaker 3: That was great.
- 1:26:48Speaker 1: That was funny.
- 1:26:49Speaker 4: But yeah, and again the thing about it not interrogating
- 1:26:54Speaker 4: capitalism at all and kind of just being like, yeah,
- 1:26:57Speaker 4: the only way that they that it makes sense for
- 1:27:00Speaker 4: them to end up together is if the Marcus character
- 1:27:04Speaker 4: sort of embraces capitalism.
- 1:27:06Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:27:06Speaker 3: So, I mean, yeah, when you put it that way.
- 1:27:10Speaker 4: I think I'll give the movie like three point seventy
- 1:27:13Speaker 4: five for somewhere around their nipples, and I will give
- 1:27:20Speaker 4: them to the goats at the party.
- 1:27:23Speaker 3: I'm gonna go I guess I'm gonna go thre I
- 1:27:29Speaker 3: think I'm gonna go three. I mean, for all the
- 1:27:33Speaker 3: reasons you just described, Caitlin, I was so nervous to
- 1:27:36Speaker 3: come into that. Thank you for being perceptive to be
- 1:27:39Speaker 3: really not rooting for this couple. But I do, I
- 1:27:42Speaker 3: do agree. I mean, I obviously, I mean I'm I'm
- 1:27:45Speaker 3: not Asian American. I have I see myself in rom
- 1:27:49Speaker 3: comms all the time. There's nothing, if not many white
- 1:27:53Speaker 3: women with brown hair and rom coms, and so I
- 1:27:56Speaker 3: can't speak to the experience of feeling represented in this genre.
- 1:28:00Speaker 3: And it was really cool reading through a lot of
- 1:28:04Speaker 3: the specifics of and also just how Ali Wong and
- 1:28:08Speaker 3: Randall Park really intentionally collaborated on that. I don't think
- 1:28:12Speaker 3: it's a coincidence that Nanatchka Khan had worked extensively with
- 1:28:15Speaker 3: both of them on Fresh Off the Boat, which is
- 1:28:17Speaker 3: a show that has a very similar goal. And so
- 1:28:20Speaker 3: I think, like representationally, this movie is wonderful and takes
- 1:28:23Speaker 3: a lot of great steps forward. I do feel like
- 1:28:26Speaker 3: it's guilty of girl Boss feminism, which was so many
- 1:28:30Speaker 3: things in twenty nineteen. So it's not a like this
- 1:28:34Speaker 3: movie is I think every so many attempts at feminism
- 1:28:37Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen had this Sheryl Sandbergie vibe to it.
- 1:28:42Speaker 3: But ultimately I'm dogging it for this couple does not
- 1:28:46Speaker 3: belong together. I found the relationship very stressful, which is
- 1:28:51Speaker 3: me fully projecting as a woman that once moved to
- 1:28:54Speaker 3: Maine to try to make it work. So yeah, these
- 1:28:58Speaker 3: fictional people should learn form my mistakes and break up.
- 1:29:02Speaker 4: I think more people should break up. I love breaking up,
- 1:29:06Speaker 4: normalize breaking up. People break up, please, Kia, how about you?
- 1:29:13Speaker 1: I'm going to also go three points eight five?
- 1:29:18Speaker 4: Oh, I know, groundbreaking, groundbreaking, Kia, Yes.
- 1:29:24Speaker 1: I think so because I just like it and I
- 1:29:27Speaker 1: know that they have all their issues, but I really
- 1:29:30Speaker 1: hope they make it. And also one of the nipples
- 1:29:34Speaker 1: I'm gonna give to the dad because I just think
- 1:29:38Speaker 1: I did appreciate that little friendship that they were like
- 1:29:41Speaker 1: genuinely close, and he didn't do the thing where he
- 1:29:43Speaker 1: pulled away after the mom died, because I hate that
- 1:29:45Speaker 1: trop even more than I hate the dead mom Troke.
- 1:29:48Speaker 5: I love his dance too, right, And so.
- 1:29:50Speaker 1: I'm going to give another nipple to Michelle Bhutto because duh.
- 1:29:54Speaker 1: And then my last nipple is going to be to
- 1:29:57Speaker 1: the very quick scene where Ali Wong Sasha flashes herself.
- 1:30:02Speaker 1: So then so then so that you can see her
- 1:30:06Speaker 1: bro I just think it's so funny and I like
- 1:30:09Speaker 1: cackled out loud. I just love it and I would
- 1:30:12Speaker 1: love for them to work together again. And like again
- 1:30:15Speaker 1: Randall Park, it just like that's sexy. Just shifted so
- 1:30:18Speaker 1: much for me in terms of how I view him,
- 1:30:21Speaker 1: and so I see him now, I'm like, heyvid hair O, well.
- 1:30:27Speaker 4: Nice, well, Kia, thank you so much for joining us
- 1:30:29Speaker 4: once again. Come back anytime. You're always welcome back.
- 1:30:33Speaker 1: Please. I love it here.
- 1:30:34Speaker 4: What would you like to plug? Tell us where people
- 1:30:37Speaker 4: can follow you and find your work?
- 1:30:39Speaker 1: Okay, you can follow me on Instagram at Kia k
- 1:30:42Speaker 1: E A H Underscore, Maria m A R I A.
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: I'm also on Blue Sky at Kia Brown at Blue
- 1:30:51Speaker 1: Skot I don't shit. And if you're like on Facebook,
- 1:30:55Speaker 1: I don't know who is anymore, but I do still
- 1:30:57Speaker 1: have a Facebook page and it's the Kia Brown. I'm
- 1:31:01Speaker 1: currently writing what I hope will read, my fourth book,
- 1:31:06Speaker 1: Another Esthet. But you can always and please do purchase
- 1:31:11Speaker 1: any of the three books that I have out right now.
- 1:31:14Speaker 1: And if you want to be the al woe to
- 1:31:17Speaker 1: my to my Marcus, please buy all of the books
- 1:31:22Speaker 1: and just keep buying them.
- 1:31:24Speaker 4: Buy so many copies of Kiya's books to show her
- 1:31:27Speaker 4: that you love her exactly.
- 1:31:30Speaker 3: My mom has a copy of Sam's Super Seeds in
- 1:31:34Speaker 3: her classrooms.
- 1:31:35Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that makes me so happy.
- 1:31:37Speaker 3: Yes, so also, I mean it's predicalar I'm a fan
- 1:31:40Speaker 3: of all of your work, But if you have a
- 1:31:41Speaker 3: teacher in your life, get a copy of sam Super
- 1:31:44Speaker 3: Seeds for their classroom.
- 1:31:45Speaker 1: Yes, it's a great book. I'm biased, but it's right.
- 1:31:48Speaker 5: It's true, it's true, you're not wrong.
- 1:31:51Speaker 4: You can follow us at the place called Instagram if
- 1:31:55Speaker 4: you must, please do.
- 1:31:57Speaker 3: It's the only place we are so if not there,
- 1:32:00Speaker 3: you're gonna have a hard time keep it up, so
- 1:32:03Speaker 3: head over there. You can also join us on our
- 1:32:06Speaker 3: Patreon aka Matreon, and please do that too, where for
- 1:32:10Speaker 3: five dollars a month, you can get access to two
- 1:32:14Speaker 3: new episodes with Caitlin and myself doing a theam of
- 1:32:19Speaker 3: sometimes You're Choosing Sometimes ours. It's a very sort of
- 1:32:23Speaker 3: like goofy looser version of our format. And you don't
- 1:32:27Speaker 3: only get access to those two new episodes a month,
- 1:32:30Speaker 3: you can access to a back catalog of nearly two
- 1:32:34Speaker 3: hundred episodes. So if you're running out of episodes on
- 1:32:37Speaker 3: the main feed. Guess what, there is an affordable way
- 1:32:40Speaker 3: to have that not be true anymore. And there's a
- 1:32:42Speaker 3: really fun community over there, and.
- 1:32:45Speaker 4: We love you. Yes, so thanks for listening, and you
- 1:32:51Speaker 4: listeners will always be our maybe babies.
- 1:32:55Speaker 3: Babies, I love you, babies, Bye bye bye.
- 1:33:04Speaker 4: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
- 1:33:08Speaker 4: Caitlin Drante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
- 1:33:12Speaker 4: by mo La Boord. Our theme song was composed by
- 1:33:15Speaker 4: Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskressensky. Our logo and
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