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Eve's Bayou with Bridget Todd · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the bel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy zef in best
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Memory is a
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: selection of images, some elusive others imprinted indelibly on the brain. Hello,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: My name's jam Lovedes. Caitlin, I thought you werena say
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: this summer I killed my podcast co host. I was
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: thirty four years old. Oh, that would have been okay,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: just to get things after a really sinister begins that
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you know what, we close enough. Honestly, I would watch
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: that movie even if even if I had to die
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: at the end. You know, I've in fact, I might
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: welcome it. Hi, Jamie us assured that I will never
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: kill you. But what if you you know, what if
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: in your mind you've set off a chain of events
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: that leads to like someone else, Like what if you
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: say something to someone and then it gets around to
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: so and so, and then Jack O'Brien kills and then
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you're like, it's my fault. But but Jack O'Brien pulled
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the trigger, so sure I would definitely feel responsible and
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: guilty about it, but I also don't. I hope that
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I never, like accidentally or on purpose, do anything that
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: might like trigger a chain of events that leads to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: your murder. Thank you so much. Ultimately, I do think
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it would be funny if Jacob Bryan murdered me just
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: because I'm like, I just don't see it happening, but um,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: it would be. It would be a wild twist in Sherwood.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: That conversation. Um did not entirely pass the back to
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the I think maybe areas of it did. I should
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: have said, I should have jacko Brian, you should have said,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and then it would have been completely above board. Yeah.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Bechtel Cast. This Caitlin and My podcast
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: where we talk about your favorite movies and your least
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: favorite movies from an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Test as a jumping off point, which is a media
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel. There are different
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: variations of the test. Ours is that two people from
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of any marginalized gender have to have names, they have
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to speak to each other and their conversation has to
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: be about something other than a man for at least
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a two line exchange of dialogue. Not many movies can
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: do it, but I think you're in for a treat today. Yes,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you are, so with that, I say we introduce our
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: guests and get the ball rolling. She is the host
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: of the podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: as well as the miniseries Disinformed. It's Bridget Todd. Hi. Hello,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. Being on this podcast
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: has been a little bit of a dream of mine,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: so I'm so happy that it's finally a reality. The
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: time is here. We've been trained to make it happen
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: for so long, and the stars are finally aligned. And Jamie,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: if Jack O'Brien happens to kill you, I'll always happily
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: take your place. I perfect. See there's a greater plot.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Oh that's you know what. Honestly, in the event of
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: my untimely death, please do not avenge me and instead
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: just begin to host the Baxtelcast. You can bequeath it
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to me. That's the right word. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I'll start my will tonight. And just just to make
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: sure everything is all set, yeah, is illegal? Exactly exactly?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Is that? Is that something that would be really funny
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: if you could not Funny is not the word, but interesting,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: if you could leave your job to another person. Maybe
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: someone's done that. Someone has to have done that, right,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I tried to. I feel like that's just like rich people,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: dynasties could do that. But it would be funny if
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: you're like, I'm a second grade teacher at the Kennedy
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: School and I leave my job to my twelve year
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: old son, like wild, Well, there's sounds like there's a
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  Speaker 1: movie plot there. Exactly. Okay, So Bridget, we're so excited
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  Speaker 1: to have you here. Thank you for being here. Tell
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: us what your history, your relationship with today's movie, which
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: we forgot to say is eaves By. You tell us
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: all about it. Yeah, so it's a movie. So I
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: had to really like think hard about my fationship with
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: this movie. I realized that my parents had it on VHS,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: and so I think I watched it when I when
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: it first came out, I was like a child because
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: my parents just had it and it was one of
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: those movies. My parents didn't have a lot of movies
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  Speaker 1: on VHS, so it was like one of those movies
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  Speaker 1: that I had seen a couple of times just by
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: virtue of my parents having it. Another another one of
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: those movies would be Nell. You know those movies were like, Oh,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: my parents randomly just had this on VHS for some reason.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: And I remember distinctly my brother, who was a bit older,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: being like, oh, I tried to watch that movie, and
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: nothing much happens in it, and so really thinking like, oh,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: it's a movie that's like not good or it's boring. Really,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: just based on this offhand comment my brother made when
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  Speaker 1: I was a child, that's the best. And I could
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: also I could definitely see how a child watching this
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: movie would think that nothing really happens in it. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of it. As a kid, I think most
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  Speaker 1: of the plot and subtexts went right over my head.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't like, I could not have even though I've
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: seen I had seen it, most to the major plot
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: points I could not have articulated. And also, something I
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: have to say is that this is a bit embarrassing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: But when I was young, I went through a phase
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: where I was doing some like child acting and like
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: child modeling and child pageantry. And I don't know if
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: y'all know this. But the main character Eve, the titular character,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Journey Smillett, she was I guess she was a bit
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: younger than me, but like our era of doing that
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: stuff over lapped, and so I once went to an
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: audition that she was also auditioning for. But she was
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: like the girl like if you like she was on
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a full House, she was in um that movie with
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Robin Williams Jack like she was. She was like a
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  Speaker 1: certain kind of young girl in in like a window
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: of the nineties. WHOA, that's that. You've had interactions with
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  Speaker 1: Journey at like, I mean, I guess there's really no
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  Speaker 1: The great thing about Journey Smillett is there's no such
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  Speaker 1: thing as peak Journey small She's had so many phases
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of her career that you could argue right now like
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Birds of Prey, Journey smaller is peaked Journey smaller. You
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: just she's been. It's so where I feel like she
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  Speaker 1: like isn't brought up a lot as like an iconic
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  Speaker 1: child actor, which is strange because she has been so
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: consistently really good, yeah, and very recognizable. Um And it's
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: been fun to see her, like her work on Lovecraft Country,
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  Speaker 1: like It's been interesting to see her have this staying power.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: She is like unbelievable in this movie, like good Lord,
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  Speaker 1: so good a child actor. I can get behind Jamie.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: What what's your relationship? I am ashamed to say. I
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: only recently learned that this movie, uh existed. I knew
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: about the writer, director, Kasi Lemon's, like I had seen
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of her later work and I like recognized
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: her from her acting days, but I hadn't heard that
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: much about this movie until I was working on Lolita
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: podcast plug a couple of months ago and I was
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: looking up like kind of iconic movies that addressed child
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: sex abuse in one way or another, and eaves By
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  Speaker 1: You popped up and I was like, oh, we've gotten
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: requests for this, and kind of like I learned about
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: the movie from there, so I I don't know. I
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: it was strange too, because it's like this movie came
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: out in nineties seven and appears to have been snubbed
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  Speaker 1: for all of the major like most major awards, which
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: is really frustrating, But it was like a popular movie
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: at the time. Like I asked my mom if she
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  Speaker 1: had seen it, She's like, oh, yeah, I saw it
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: like a lot of people saw that movie, and I
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: was like, why don't I ever hear about it? I
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: don't know, it was just kind of I'm I'm like
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: bummed out and like surprised that I didn't know about
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: it until recently. But I, holy ship, there's so much
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to talk about with this movie. I'm really excited to
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: talk about it. The fact that this is her first
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: movie is like, yeah, who, like the bar is so high,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: it's so so good for sure, Kitl. What's your history
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: with this movie? Um, it was on my radar for
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: a while, but I hadn't seen it until we started
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: prepping for this episode, And yeah, it's I did not
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: know how challenging of a movie it was going to be.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And I'm very like, I'm nervous to talk about it. It
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  Speaker 1: It just like deals with some very challenging subject matter
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh no, I'm gonna funk this up.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I'm excited to talk about it. I'm
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: nervous to talk about it. There's a lot to unpack
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, that's that's pretty much it. Yeah, yeah,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I was really looking forward to One of the reasons
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: why I'm looking forward to our conversation is because when
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I was watching it, I kept saying, like I forgot that,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: you know, Um, I guess we'll get into it. But
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I was really excited to hear Jamie since of your
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: work on the Lada podcast about some of the themes
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: in the film, like there I think I must have
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: just like blocked out that is a plot device in
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: eves by you when I saw, or I guess because
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I saw when I was young. I think it just
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: like went over my head. Um, But yeah, I was like, oh,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I bet Jamie's got some interesting inside from doing so
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: much research for the Lida Body. Yeah, there's there's a lot.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm excited isn't the word. But I think it
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: will be like an interesting conversation for all of us
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: to to talk about because I thought that, like, I mean,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: there are so many movies that hand handle it so
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: like extremely poorly. And I also can imagine like if
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I had seen this movie when I was too young,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have I don't know, like the way it's
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: presented would have been confusing to me. But I like,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I think generally like it's done like really really thoughtfully
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: and like in a way that I I don't know Yeah,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: that I don't really see you very much, so I'm
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: excited to talk about it. Yeah, should I do the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: recap and we'll go from there. Let's do it, Okay,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: So this would be I think a good time. Just
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: for a trigger warning for child sexual abuse and incest. Um.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: So the movie opens with some voiceover from the titular
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: character Eve as an adult. She's talking about memories and
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: she says that line that we referenced in the beginning
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: of the episode that she killed her father when she
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: was ten years old. Um. We are in a place
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: called Eve's Bayou, which is a small creole community in
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Louisiana in the nineteen sixties. We cut to the Batiste
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: family throwing a decadent party and we meet a ten
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: year old girl, Eve that's Journey Smallett. Her father is
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: a respected doctor that's Samuel L. Jackson. Her mother roz
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: is Lynn Whitfield. She's the prettiest woman in town. And
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: she also has a younger brother, Poe, played by Jake Smollett.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And you can tell that they're related so much. A
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: light like poor Megan Good. These two kids are so related. Also,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that this was young Megan Good, and
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that Megan Good was a child actor.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I was. I'm a fan of adult Megan Good. Didn't
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: know she's been at this for so long, because yes she.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Megan Good plays Eve's older sister, Cecily, who had has
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: just turned fourteen. We also meet Eve's grandmother and her aunt, Moselle,
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  Speaker 1: played by Debbie Morgan. So at this party, Eve gets
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: jealous because her dad always is dancing with her sister
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Cecily and never with her, and this is also where
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: she catches her father having sex with another woman, Maddie
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Moreau played by Lisa Nicole Parson. And later that night,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Eve tells her sister Cecily what she saw, but Cecily
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: doesn't believe her, and she kind of fabricates this more innocent,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: alternate version of what you've must have seen. Yeah, the
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: guess it's the the rapid succession of gas lighting. Uh
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: that happens to even the first hour of this. You're
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: just like Eve, right. And then later that night Eve
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: has a premonition that her aunt Moselle's husband Harry dies
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: and it comes true. Um. So, Eve has this kind
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: of ability of foresight, as does her Aunt Moselle, and
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: she works as a psychic counselor and in some cases
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: she incorporates voodoo into her practices. Meanwhile, Louis continues on
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: with his dalliances with different women around town. Flay Grant,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: by the way, I'm just like it has eyes. What
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: are you doing? Like there's one scene when he takes
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: her on his like doctor house calls and like there's
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: a woman who's like in a nighty in bed, like
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I need I need some healing, and he just like
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: closes the door on his daughters one dinner, She's like,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: wink wink could go outside. I'm like she's like she's
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: ten not oh right. Yeah, So that's his m o
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and Eve's mother, Roz is either growing suspicious of this
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: or perhaps already fully aware, not like she knows and then,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: which Eve also starts to figure out, is happening on
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: a pretty regular basis. So one day Roz and Aunt
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Moselle stopped by a market where a woman named Elzora
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: played by Diane Carroll is giving fortunes and Roz gets
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: her fortun been told and Alzura says, you're in pain,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: but you should just kind of stay quiet and wait.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Sometimes a soldier falls on his own sword, and in
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: three years you'll be happy again. Look to your children,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Look to your children. And this is like very ominous
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and Ras is kind of freaking out about it. And
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: then Moselle has a premonition that a child gets hit
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: by a train, and Ras is terrified because she thinks
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: it might be it'll be one of her children, so
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: she coops them up in the house for several weeks. Well, also,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: you missed the part where el Zora is so mean
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to Moselle. It's like a psychic on psychic, like right
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: roast battle. I was like, oh my god. She's like like,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I don't need no catbone to tell you that you're
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the black widow and any man who lays with you
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: is gonna die. And she the scene is actually upsetting
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: because she's like you old witch. And she in the jar.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: This woman has been like cutting her money and she
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: throws it and it breaks. I gotta say, I probably
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: if I met a creepy old voodoo lady, I probably
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: would like not be so rude to her. I probably wouldn't.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I would like. I was a little
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: concerned that she was being so openly hostile to this
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: woman who seemed so scary. Yeah, it's it's it's fun
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: because there's um there's a number of actors in this movie,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: mostly female actors, who had really established themselves in soap operas,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and it seems like that they're like, oh, these are
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: two soap opera like legends, being like I'm not cursed
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: and like throwing a you know, shattering glass. I love
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the soap opera act like you just there's so many
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: like amazing actors who started in soaps, but when they
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: get to like go back to their roots, it's exciting.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought that up because I mean,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Diane Carroll is an icon from Dynasty. Like, I don't
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: know if you'll watch Dynasty. I was definitely like young
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: watching it when my grandma was rewatching it. But like
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: her role on the old Dynasty's where she would always
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: you know that that expression like oh, I have the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: receipts that comes from her. She originated that. There's an
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: amazing scene from an old Dynasty episode where it's like
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: her and she's wearing a her and she's like, I
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: have the receipts and she's like throwing them, uh honestly
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: shout out to a fucking icon legend, like so happy
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that she's in this movie. And I think that she
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: does pump up the drama, the soapy drama in an
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: amazing way. It's so the way that like when she
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: like does the like the ha ha, You're like, oh
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: my god, that is like I had to go. I
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: forgot that she was on Dynasty, and I was like,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: oh my god, what was her because I remember watching reruns.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I was like, what was her character's name? It was
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Dominique Devereaux. It was Dynasty. And then Debbie Morgan was
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: on All My Children for a really long time time
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and she was the first black woman to win an
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Emmy for soap opera. But yeah, they're the soap opera
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: energy in that scene was really just help exciting. Also,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Moselle screams you're a horrid, lying old witch, which almost
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: passes the Bechdel test exception said that the fortune was
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: about men and her husband's who will die. So yeah,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I skipped over that part because there's a whole subplot
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: where like then Moselle like me a man and like,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: but all of her husbands have died, and she like
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: explains all of this to Eve and then but this other,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: this new man comes in and they fall in love
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and she's afraid that he's going to die if they
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: get married. I just kind of I basically skip over
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: that in the recap, but that is a part of
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the movie. I just was like, that was like one
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: of my favorite scenes in the movie. Yeah, the reenactment
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: of that, the part where she's telving up talking about
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: her um where Moselle is talking about her ex lovers
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and it's like that that re enactment scene of her
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: ex lover, her husband getting shot by her ex lover.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, my heart was like racing. It is
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: like it's very sopy, but the way it's acted out,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, this is like a play. Like the
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: way that it's appearing in the reflection, I was like, oh, yes,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: this is like this is a Broadway Award winning play.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, it's so good. Yep um okay. So then
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Moselle has her premonition about a child being killed, so
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Roz coops all her children up in the house. Everyone
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is getting very restless. Eve has an outburst, which is
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: also like I think that's my favorite scene where she
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: like is just like screaming and she's like calling everyone
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: out on their ship and like giving everyone attitude. And
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I was like, damn, that is again very good child
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: acting and I'm here for it. And then it was
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: like I was like, oh my gosh, now she's going
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to talk to Moselle and Mozelle is gonna believe her.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: And then Moselle does believe her, but she's like, I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: do believe you, but if you speak your truth, I
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: will kill you, Like I will, oh right. So then
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: one day Cecily leaves against her her mother's like explicit
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: instructions to stay home, and she goes to visit her dad,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and then she also goes to the beauty parlor and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: her mother is really upset because Cecily disobeyed her and
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: she hits her. And then that night Ros and Louis
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: argue and then Moselle's premonition comes true. My child gets
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: hit by a bus, but it was not one of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the Batiste children, so they're like so weird. They throw
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a party when a kid is killed by a bus.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: You're like, thank god it wasn't one of mine. I
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: do appreciate the grandma and that scene. She's not in
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the movie very much, but she's just like, you, guys,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: a child has died. And they're like, they're like, not
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: my problem. We can go out a child that they know.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh, it's like so and So's boy, and
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: it's like you you know this family like it is
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: like it's funny, isn't the word? But I'm just like, wow,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: it's it's just like there's not room in the movie
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: too mourn this fictional child. But it's like, oh, this
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: kid was probably friends with the Batiste kids, and they're
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: just like, who do they know the child by name?
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: They obviously I know him like in their community. Yeah,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: they're I appreciated grandma advocating on behalf of fictional bus kid. Yes, truly, um,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: but they're very excited that they can go outside again.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And then Eve goes to tell Cecily the news, but
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Cecily is very upset and she has kind of shut down,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and it might be because she has just gotten her period,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it might be because ros had hit her not long ago,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and she lashes out violently at Eve and then she
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: continues to like stay like just emotionally and mentally shut
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: down for a few weeks, and then she tells Eve
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: what's really going on, which is that a few weeks ago,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the night that her parents had a big fight was
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: like the night of this big storm. Cecily went to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: go comfort her father, but he abused her sexually and physically,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and upon hearing this, Eve once her father dead for
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: doing that to her sister. So Eve goes to el Zora,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: who practices voodoo in hopes that she can help Eve
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: kill her father. And it's around this time also that
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Eve heavily suggests to Maddie Moreau's husband that Maddie is
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: cheating on him. That's another really good Journey Smileett scene
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: where you can like, oh, it's especially with child actors,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: like wow, you can really see the gears turning in
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: her head of like should I do it? Should I
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: do it? Should I do it? And then it's like, yeah,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: it's really good and obviously like it was effective. I
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: mean I don't know, I mean maybe not the way
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: that she and the way that she wanted, but like
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: you know, part of me was thinking, like imagine being
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: an adult, an adult man, and a child is telling
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: you what is going on in your own household, Like yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: that that was brutal. And then the second that was like,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: this story is so well crafted that it's like, oh,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the second that happens, I'm like, oh, like I sort
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of saw the incoming, but it was like satisfying because
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: of how full circle, like every everything that's planted has
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: this significance, and yeah, if you think you know what's coming,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: you might be right. So then Eve goes back to
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: el Zora and the voodoo that el Zora had performed
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: arm was not what Eve had expected, and she's not
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: sure if it's going to work. And then Eve has
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: second thoughts about wanting her father dead, so she goes
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: to him, who is at that moment with Maddie, and
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: then Maddie's husband shows up, figures out what's going on,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and shoots and kills Louis, which plays out the way
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: that Moselle's premonition had played out earlier, where it seems
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: like someone had got hit by a train. So the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: family grieves the loss of Louis, and then Eve finds
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: a letter that Louis had wrote to his sister Moselle,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: who had apparently accused Louis of abusing his daughter, and
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: in the letter, Louis explains his version of what happened,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: that Cecily was the one to come on to him
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and that he fought her off. Um, so Eve confronts Cecily,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: accusing her of having lied a what happened, and it's
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a very heavy emotional moment. They're both in tears and
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Cecily says, I don't know what happened, and they decided
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: to just get rid of the letter, and then the
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: voice over comes back in repeating that line about memory
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: being a selection of images, some elusive others imprinted indelibly
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: on the brain. And that is the end of the movie.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So the last shot is like haunting. Yeah, so let's
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we will come right
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: back to discuss and we're back. Um, so I think
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: it would probably be best to start with kind of
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the most sensitive aspects of this conversation and then lead
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: into the kind of more fun parts. So yeah, I mean, all,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I guess star there. I've been unfortunately like researching Child's
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: excuse for like seven or eight months at this point,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and so there's like a lot of that I had
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: watching this movie that were I mean, okay, so I
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: guess like trigger warning for this whole section, and we
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: can even like time code out in the description, like
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: if you want to skip over this conversation, you can
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: pick up here. But yeah, I thought that this was, like,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: especially for its time, like a pretty authentic portrait of
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: how abuse plays out, and I really appreciated just kind
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of like how it was showed for the kind of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: mess that it is and how it affects families in
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: such specific ways. So, first of all, like this this
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: movie shows it shows the sexual abuse of a young
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: black girl, which is I think for for like by
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and large in movies it is shown to be abused
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: towards six white girls, which absolutely does happen very frequently,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: but not at the same rate that it happens in
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: black and indigenous communities. So it's like, I feel like
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: it's an important story to tell on that end. And
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: another thing that it kind of touches on that I
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: feel like is really not still kind of not understood
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: in any meaningful way, is that nine times out of
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: ten um sexual abuse experience as a child happens by
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: someone that you know at least somewhat, but most often
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: it is someone that you know well. And so like
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: we're we were raised, you know, because this happens in
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: the sixties. So first of all, we don't even have
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: these resources commonly availables, and they were even less available
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: in the sixties. And like we're generally taught as kids
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: that we should be afraid of strangers, and there's no
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: education and there's no kind of like attempt to raise
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: away and us that there could be a threat from
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: someone that you know. And then if that happens, who
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: do you talk to? And it's just like not a
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: conversation that has had even now and definitely wasn't had
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: in the sixties. And so I don't know, I mean,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: it's I thought it was a really interesting approach, especially
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to set up the idea of like how memories are
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: so complicated and like it's just science that the more
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: often you visit a memory, the more often it tends
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: to sort of change and shift a little bit. But
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I think with Sicily, what it comes down to is
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: like she's uh, like a girl who she knows and
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: we know by watching the movies, she has no one
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: to turn to who's going to believe her, and she's
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: it's there's and we'll talk about kind of like the
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: generational trauma aspects of this movie and a bit, but
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: she's well aware that there's really not anyone in her
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: life except Eve who is going to receive this information
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: in a way that is not blaming her um. And
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: so I really I don't know. I mean, it's so
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: depressing to see it laid out that way. But I
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: feel like this movie, the points that Sicily's story touches
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: are it's so common and it's like you never see
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: it happen. Yeah, I mean, and and and even if
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: like best case scenario for Sicily at this time in
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: history in particular, like even if she had told her mother,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: her grandmother, her aunt and everyone believed her and everyone
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: was like, we're here to support you, there were still
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: no resources legally that she would have had because it's
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: still such a patriarchal structure, and you know, particularly being
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: black family, like dealing with the legal system in the
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, like, there would have just been so few
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: options for her. And I feel like it so where
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: it's it's interesting seeing this from Eve's perspective, especially because
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: she's trying to understand where her sister is coming from.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know, it's just it's like it's
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking and shitty. And then also seeing that I didn't
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: see the um the letter from the dad coming through
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: at the end of just abusers truly going to the grave,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: being just completely unable to see themselves for who they
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: are and like to spend their entire lives deflecting, deflecting,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: deflecting because you know, it's like her father knows that
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: her word won't be believed over his where for most people,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: and that he is you know, he is the most
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: powerful person in that family, and and he's a very
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: powerful member of that community that town, Like everyone looks
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: up to him, everyone respects him. Yeah. So at the
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: end where like Cecily says, I don't know what happened
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: based on like conversations I had with like psychologists and
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: specialists in that field, it's like she's very likely being
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: completely honest there, like this happened to her really recently,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: um by someone that she loved and trusted. Uh, she
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't have anyone to talk to about it. She doesn't
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: really have many people around her who can help her understand,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and there were no systems at this time to be
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: able to talk to a kid about something like that.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, I don't know, it's like heartbreaking, but
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I thought it was like so well written and so
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: well performed by by Megan Good. So I have to say,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: and I don't know if this is like So when
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I watched this movie last night, and I watched it
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: with my partner and then I reread the Wikipedia entry,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I had the same read on the ending that you did.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: My partner was like, oh his tape was like he
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, it seems like she was confused about
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: what happened and that you know, it's inconclusive. It's like,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I I hate to use its phrase, but like he said,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: she said, Wikipedia did not help the The Wikipedia entry
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: on like the like plot, it says at the end,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Eve confronts Sicily and uses her second site to discover
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: what really happened. It ends with the sisters holding hands
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: gazing into the sunset. And so I had the exact
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: same reading that you did that like obviously the father
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: wrote this letter, you know, being like I didn't do this,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: How could you think I would do this? And that
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to by the end at least I finished
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: that movie thinking something like that that like the way
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: that Cecily described it is the way that it happened.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that, like there might be a
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: read of the movie where there's where it's more ambiguous.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: To me. I had the same reaction where I was like, oh, well, clearly,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: you know, clearly he did this. And it was funny
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: because when that so I have a I have a
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: very very like visceral reaction when sexual violence is part
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: like a plot device in a movie where I'm almost like,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: it's almost like disorienting and I kind of can't. It
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: challenges so much of like what I I've seen before,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: And so the beginning of the movie they go to
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: such a great pains to show that the father is
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: like so doting of a father, particularly to Sicily, And
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: so it's one of those things where you know, it's
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: exactly what you were saying, Jamie, where I was like,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: was he were the signs always there that he was
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: an abuser and I just missed them. I'm I'm remembering
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: them as charming, but actually they were creepy. That there's
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: that there's a scene early on when they're at that
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: lavish party and he's dancing with Sicily and he's like, oh,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: you guys can't. Isn't my daughter a beautiful dancer? And
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: scenes like that where you're like, well, wait, was that
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: indicative of something more sinister going on? And I'm and
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I'm and I missed it because I was so caught
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: up in this idea of like what a good dad.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I think this movie does a good job of challenging
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: our understanding of memory and challenging our understanding of like
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: how we put a puzzle together to really show what's
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: actually happening, because I cause I do feel like towards
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the end, it's not clear to me what I have seen, right,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: it's just a it's this a doting father where like
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: his daughter got mixed up? Or is this a sexual abuser?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I think like the movie, and I think that when
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: these things play out, I think abusers oftentimes can use
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: that that same dynamic of like, well, you know there,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: everyone's gonna think I'm just a good dad, Like who's
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: gonna believe this? I think that it could kind of
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: work on multiple levels. I guess what I'm saying. Yeah,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: that's so. That is my thing with this movie. It
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: feels to me as though there is too much ambiguity,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and I wish that ambiguity had been just more squashed
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: by the end or something, because especially so I also
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: read it that she is a survivor of abuse and
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: he is an abuser. I think the three of us
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: are all just the type of people who are inclined
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to believe survivors believe women. That was our read, But
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: both times I watched this movie, by the end, I
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: was like, there's just there are ways to interpret it
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: differently than our read. And I think that's a dangerous thing,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: especially when dealing with a subject like child sex abuse,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: which is something that if you're going to tell a
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: story about it, there shouldn't be ambiguity, because if there's ambiguity,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: that gives people a chance to say, I don't think
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: it happened like that, or I don't believe them, or
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: it's all a big misunderstanding, especially because like we had
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: seen that other scene earlier where Cecily kind of it's like, no, Eve,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: that's not what you saw. You saw this version of
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the truth. And the fact that we have seen Cecily
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: distort the truth before, I think would also be grounds
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: for an interpretation that she is distorting the truth this
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: time too. I don't think that's what happened, or that
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: was not my read of it. But again, there's so
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: much ambiguity there, and at least for me there was
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: that I can I can see different interpretations of it.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: And then after like having all these thoughts, I came
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: upon an interview with the cast as well as the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: director of this movie, Casey Lemons, that was like the
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: twentieth anniversary special, and when asked about that scene that
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: plays out two different ways, one as an adult abusing
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: a child, and then the the second version, which is
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: a child having like a misguided I don't even know
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: how to just know what to call it exactly, but
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: the second version. This is what Casey Lemons said about
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: this moment in the movie quote. My intention was, what
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: if you explode this moment. It's actually a very innocent
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: relationship that they're having. He loves his daughter, she adores
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: her father. They adore each other, and what if one
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: night they crossed a line and we're both completely traumatized.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: But it spun everything else out of control. So to me,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: it wasn't controversial, it was the story. It was strange
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: for people to ask me why do you have that
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: angle there? Well, that's the story end quote. So even
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Casey lemons it's not helpful at all, a little evasive.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, okay, I was really hoping.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, she's gonna come through for us.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: She's gonna be like I didn't that's a little man,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: that's that's a weird I mean, whatever, it's her movie.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I can't I can't be like huh, but yeah, we
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: can sort of be like I guess it's it's I
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: don't know. I feel like a number of ways about it.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I do agree that any movie that depicts child sex
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: abuse should be pretty clear about them, Like it's the
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: easiest thing in the world to condemn, Like, why wouldn't
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: you more clear they condemn it. I guess the argument
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: that I can see for the I mean, it's just
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: like it's I don't even I'm not even totally bothered
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: by the fact that we are told that he doesn't
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: see what he was doing as abuse. That is how
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: abusers feel all the time. But it's just like going
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: that one step further to make it clear how the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: movie feels. I guess that the only count and this
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: is like not even how I feel, but I do.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know in movies and like this it almost
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: not to bring Doubt into the conversation, but similar to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Doubt a story that it's iconic and it does address
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: child sex abuse, and I feel like it's like almost
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like if this is just like kind
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: of a movie thing that happened sometimes, but it's like
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: a movie that's supposed to start a discussion where it's
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: like bridget with you and your partner, you both interpreted
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the ending really differently, and then by discussing how you
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: felt like differently about the ending. I don't know, Like
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I do see value in like ambiguous endings that can
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: start conversations. I just don't know that like this topic
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: is the one to have the this much ambiguity with.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I remember, like leaving the theater seeing Doubt, my mom
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: was like, so do you think he did it? Which
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: is like should not be the question you're asking. It's
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: like we need to be asking a more sophisticated question
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: than that, Like yeah, well, just something I want to
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: say is I think that, like you know, movies like
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Doubt and use by you, I mean, and Jamie, you
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: could probably speak to this as well. It is exceedingly
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: rare for child, for anybody, but especially children, to lie
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: about sexual violence, right, Like, It's just that, like, it's
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: exceedingly rare. And I think that movies like Doubt and
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: movies like Ease by You, even though I enjoy them both,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: I do think it makes it. It presents a universe
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: we're in. Maybe it's not rare, but we know it's rare,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, I agree, And I
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: might have been giving this movie maybe a little more
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: credit then it totally deserves on that end. It's just
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I where I'm coming from is I've seen so many
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: movies that have just absolutely missed the mark, that don't
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: even present the possibility that a child could be telling
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: the truth about something like this. That the fact that
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: we are presented clearly with the fact that whatever happens
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: that Cecily is like extremely traumatized by it and alters
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the course of her life. You don't usually even get
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: that much. And and she like shuts down, she becomes
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: like she is like displaying all these kind of like
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: classic symptoms of a child who has suffered abuse and
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: doesn't know who to turn to about it. And you
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: don't even usually get that much, which is really really bleak. Um. Yeah,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and it's I do think that there is some value
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: in kind of reminding audiences that like abusers are going
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: to you know, generally defend themselves to the grave and
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: like it. Yeah, I don't know, it's that's so interesting.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, I'm in like a weird headspace for it.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: But I for me, I was like, oh, the ending
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: is like even based on like the images they chose
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: to show Eve's um, you know, like vision at the end,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: I thought. For me, I was like, oh, I think
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: that that corroborates in her reaction based off of that vision.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Is like it seems like she was like I believe you.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry I came at you believing are like demonstrably
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: deceitful abusive father like her reaction. But I like, and
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I'd probably have to go back and rewatch that the
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: vision that you've has at the very end. But I
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: feel like the like specific images that were chosen to
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: be included in that vision still contribute to the ambiguity
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: of it. Well at the end of Okay, so at
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, here's how I feel about
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Like this is like something that I've been thinking about
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: a lot the last couple of weeks. But um, I
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: think that were like often like when we're talking about
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: stories like this and crimes like this, the thing is like,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: even if what Samuel L. Jackson's character is saying is true,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: he's still a child sex abuser, Like it doesn't matter,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? Like, I think that
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: there's like in the case of like, I'm just like
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: fully Lolita brain. But like in the case of Lolita,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of like how people have discredited her character
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: as by saying like, well, she had a crush on him,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: and so somehow like displaying any attempt to experiment with
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: power as an adolescent means that you deserved whatever happened
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: to you. When it's like, at the end of the day,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: whether you know whether Cecily's presentation of the crime was
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: true or whether Samuel L. Jackson's was. Either way, even
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: if it was, you know, a kid trying to experiment
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: with power with an adult that they trust, it's still
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: abuse for him to reciprocate for even a second and
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: then to physically abuse her afterwards. So I but I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: but the problem is I don't think that a lot
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: of people understand that that even if even if like
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: someone initiates with you, that the power and balance is
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: that large and it's incestuous and all these other things,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: that it is still on the powerful adult, and that
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: is still who the So yeah, I don't know. I'm
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: just like I've talked to a lot of survivors who
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: have felt guilt and have felt, you know, what happened
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: to them was somehow less valid because they had been
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: curious about what that experience would be like, and then
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: when an adult took advantage of them, you know it,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: it was abuse, and it confused them and it caused
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: all these negative repercussions in their life. And so I
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: feel like it's it sucks because like, no matter what
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: happened in that scenario, even with Samuel L. Jackson's character
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: painting himself in the best possible light, he is still
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: an abuser. And so it's like, yeah, yeah, And I
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: want to add one thing to that. So I completely
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: agree with you, and I want to take it a
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: bit further. And this might, I mean, this might be
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: colored by my own you know, whatever I'm I'm bringing
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: to this conversation, But I agree with you and I
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: also would say, even if the moment between him and
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Cecily during the storm never happened, you and I have
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: already talked about the beginning of this movie, where you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: he at a party at his in in his home
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: with his wife and his children, he takes a woman
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: that is not his wife into a back room of
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: his of his home to have sex with her, right
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: and his daughter happens to be there and sees it.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: He takes his daughter on these house calls where he's
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: very clearly there to have sex with women. So even
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: if even if the thing was Cecily never happened, he
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: is still a grown man introducing a very adult level
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: of sexuality the end of the lives of his children,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: who are very young and too young to understand what's
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: going on. And so that's that is not how healthy
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: mature adults engage with their children. So I would say
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: that he, you know, has cultivated a vibe in his
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: household with his children where it's no wonder they're confused
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: about sexuality. I would say that this movie wants him
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: to be a lot more blameless than he is for
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: some of the other behavior, because I feel like, of course,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: like his kids can't feel safe and healthy in an
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: environment where he is irresponsibly sexualizing things in a way
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: that that that is far too advanced for them to understand,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: because their kids, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: It's it's weird because it's like I think that like
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: we're like having like I now knowing that quote from
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: from Casey Lemons, I'm just like, how much of this
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: was intended? It's yeah, I know who even I mean,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: it's like, I I mean, I guess if we're being generous,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: like you could interpret her saying that's just how the
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: story goes of like you know, have the conversation. I'm
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: not going to answer your questions for you, which is
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: like valid, but I'm just like, well, you could denounce
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: child sex abuse, that would be that would be that
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: would be just you know, even if it's just that,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: that would be great. Um. But yeah, I mean it's like, yeah,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: we we all and I think most listeners of this
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: show we believe sicily that you know, gigantic trauma was caused,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: and even with the most support possible, it's still, you know,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: kind of a lifelong journey for many people to recomm
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: with this kind of abuse. Um, But yeah, I just
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: want to like, no matter what happened in that situation,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: no matter whose account or somewhere in between is true,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: he's a child sex abuser, like period, end of story. Um,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: And there's and especially with children, it's like there's there
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: is no like perfect victim. And yeah, I think that,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: like it's that's just like something that we even like
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: you know, like feminist and people who are like very
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: inclined to believe survivors like need to work on is
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: like the way that these like dynamics play out are
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: not cleanly, like I said no, and then he did this,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Like it is often very ambiguous and it comes down
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: to power dynamics and all these other things. So sure,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: and I wonder if the intention was to explore like
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: that version of the ambiguity. But she told us, I
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: just I know, and we also like, you know, just
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: considering the context of the time that this movie came
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: out today, Like so this is like ven where steeped
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: in you know, patriarchal standards, toxic masculinity, a rape culture
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: that tends to believe the perpetrators of these crimes rather
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: than the survivors. This is our rape culture. Every generation
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: has their own rape culture. This is our rape culture.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: So so to to tackle a story that deals with
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: this subject matter again, it has to be done so
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: carefully and that ambigu I really feel that that ambiguity
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: needs to be removed if you're going to tackle it responsibly.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: And I just I can't. And it's like, sure, this
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: is us, you know, post me too, but even like,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: oh god, that's what that's that's what this is. Why
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: this I was like so nervous to talk about this
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: movie and then why I think it's so challenging and well,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: the other thing too, is um, the other thing that
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: really bothers me about this movie is the abuse that
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: we see happen on screen. Is us seeing actor Samuel L. Jackson,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: a full adult male kiss that's Megan Good on screen,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: who was fifteen or sixteen at the time of shooting
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: this movie. Underage. Yeah, I just it could have been
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: should have been framed in such a way where this
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: child actor did not have to kiss and be kissed
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: by an adult many. Oh, I don't like it. Like
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: it's not like I don't like it. I think there
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: are ways to even if you are trying to depict
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: like a scene. You're trying to depict on screen an
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: underaged girl and a grown man. You want you wanted
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: to pick them together. There are ways to get around
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: having a The actor's actually portray this right like, there
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: are ways to do it. I just don't like it.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if you have ever seen
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: that movie. Um, it's the it's the it's kind of
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: build as like a sequel to do the right thing.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: The Spike Lee movie I'm gonna blank the name. Oh um,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Red Hook Summer. It's a it's a like wild movie,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: but I do not recommend it, but there's a there.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: It also deals with childhood sexual violence. And something about
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: that movie that really sticks with me is that the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: way that it's the picked it seems so it seems
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: it's so egregiously like you know, you you as a
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: as a filmmaker, you don't want to be depicting a
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: child and an adult having like having a physical sexual
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: like relations on screen. And I feel like sometimes sometimes
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: films can get there, maybe they're trying to critique it
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: or attack it or what have you, but at the
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: end of the day, you don't want to be depicting
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: it on screen. At least in my book, right, I
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: just think that there's there's gotta be a way to
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: handle it differently. I think, yes, I agree, Yeah, I
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: this is this episode is a long plug for Lolita podcast.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: There's there's like a whole, there's a whole. I I
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: completely agree, and there's it's frustrating because what I think,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: just knowing is when the second Lolita movie came out,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: so I'm very intimately familiar with what the laws were
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: with child performers in this specific year. Um So, first
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: of all, I feel like it is always not even
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: if you have, like there's a number of stories of
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: like movies that that well, this is part of the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: reason that I was frustrated that there isn't a ton
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: of information about the production of this movie, or there
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't as much as I would have liked on the
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: subject matter I was interested in because at this time
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: there was a law for movies that were shot in
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: nine six, at least there was a new law introduced
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: where there couldn't be any like you had to guaranteed
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: this movie went past a lawyer to be allowed to
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: be released because there was a Child Pornography um Act
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: passed in that severely restricted what you could show on screen,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: and it was like generally a pretty good law, but
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: then you find kind of all these um stories that
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: are people trying to skirt around this law. So I
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: would guess that in many of the shots that you
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: don't see Megan Goods face that is not her, that
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: is an adult body double. That seems to be the
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: most popular workaround that said, you do still see the
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: actress underage Megan good kiss Samuel L. Jackson and I
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: just two things. Is like, first of all, no matter
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: how much like there's sometimes like a director will be like, well,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: I had a you know, a child psychologist on call,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: so that if the actor didn't feel comfortable talking to me,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: they could talk to this person. It's just not worth
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: the risk at all, like for anyone. And it's like,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: if you need evidence that that's true, talked to almost
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: any child actor who has been like Natalie Portman has
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: talked about it extensively. There's like a number of child
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: actors who have done scenes like this where like I
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: just didn't feel comfortable, like I felt like I felt
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: like there's a hundred people around me whose jobs depend
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: on me doing this. I and I was ten, What
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: was I going to do? You know? And then on
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: top of that, one of the the the I guess
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: the one of the main notes I had for just
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: like how this because I do think that for eaves By,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: you handles c s A in a movie like better
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: than almost any other movie of this year or this
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: series of years did, which is not to say it's perfect,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: but it is definitely better because this is the year
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: that Lolita came out. Right, I actually have a question
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: for you. I don't I'm not to keep making you
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: talk about Lolita, but so I've seen that n version
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: of Lolita several times. There are scenes where um, Jeremy
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Irons and Dominique Swain kiss There's like a scene where
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: like she's sitting on his lap. Is that a body
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: double or is that actually her? When there's it's it's
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: a bunch of different stuff. The amount of time and
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: it's like it ultimately obviously was not worth it, right,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, for them, it was anytime she appeared to
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: be nude, it was a body double. Anytime that she
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: kissed him, they had to run it by a lawyer.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Her parents were on set and there was a child
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: psychologist on set anytime she sat on his lap, there
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: was a pillow between them. So there are like more
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: measures than would be taken even a decade before, but
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: it's still not enough. Going off of that, I had
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: a conversation with a friend of this podcast, Eva Vivez,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: who is a survivor and has you know, incorporated just
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: kind of the lasting effects of CISA into a lot
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: of her work, and she pointed out, and it's totally
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: true that um in stories about CISA, the movies and
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: projects that tend to be more recognized are movies and
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: projects that explicitly show the abuse. And she feels strongly
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: that that is like very telling bias and also something
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: that just doesn't need to happen, Like you can show
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: the effects of CISA without showing it, And that's even
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: true for this movie. You could not have those scenes
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: and still have that plot point be effective, right, Like
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: you don't need to show it. But the movies that
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: are most successful that deal with this topic always always
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: always show it, and the movies that just show the
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: effects of it are more likely to kind of get
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: swept under the rugs. So that's like another that's just
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, like it's it's so except voitative, and I
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: think it really it. I mean, I think we should
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: be asking the question whether or not physical depictions of
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: childhood sexual violence we're making that profitable and why because
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: it sounds like from what you just said, it sounds
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: like we are we are, and it's it's frustrating because
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: it's like I don't know it's there. It's a really
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: complicated question to even wrote, because I don't know. I
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't able to find out if if Kasey Lemons was
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: a survivor of this kind of abuse her self, but
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: I know of like several survivors of abuse who have
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: made movies about CSA that show to an extent what
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: that abuses, whether it's in montage or whatever. And so
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: it's like I don't even really feel comfortable being like
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: no one can do it. I think that when you're
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: when you have a child actor you it's kind of
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: unconscionable to do um. But in terms of like I
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, it's like there was that it
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: was like a really popular HBO movie a couple of
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: years ago. I think it's called The Act or is
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: that what it was by Jennifer Fox, and it was
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: starring La Laura Dern, and it was about Jennifer Fox's
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: childhood sexual abuse, and it actually it reminded me a
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: lot of Eve's bio to the part where I'm certain
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: that she has seen it, where it is about her
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: revisiting her child sexual abuse and revisiting the memories, and
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: the more she talks to people in her life from
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: that time, the more the memories kind of change in
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: shape and end up kind of landing on what she
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: believes the truth is. And yeah, sorry, it's the tail.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: It's not the act that which is like I feel
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: complicated about it. That's not what the episode is about,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: but it is it. It takes on similar stuff where
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: it shows you the abuse in a way that just, uh,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: it's it's weird because it's like, I don't want to
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: tell a survivor like you shouldn't have done this, But
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: in terms of like having a child actor in that scene,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think that they should have. Like it's extremely complicated,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: but I personally, like, I personally think that you could
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: if I could change stuff about ease By, I would
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: get rid of the physical depiction of those scenes. And
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: I think that honestly, it can be more impactful to
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: hear the child and the abuser describe it in their
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: own words. You can have the same effect without having
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: to show that and just kind of make it a
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: little clearer, like you were saying, like you're boss saying
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: at the end that no matter whose recollection is corrected,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: she is a survivor of abuse, and that that's like
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: something she's going to need to, you know, continue to
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: deal with throughout her entire life. Well, from that same
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: interview with the cast and some of the crew, Megan
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Good spoke about like these specific moments in the movie,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: and here's what she had to say. Again. The actor
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: who plays Cecily says, quote, we had to shoot it
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: probably fifteen times, so God, we had to shoot my perspective,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: his perspective, and then the actual perspective of what really happened. Now,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I'm going to pause from the quote here for a
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: moment because it is not specific. She means by that
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: it is not specific what the quote actual perspective of
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: what really happened is. They're playing around with us. I
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: don't like it. I don't like it because it's possible
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: that that was even cut from the movie. Like whatever
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: she's talking about might not even appear, because I know
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: there's like a director's cut of this movie too at
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: different I'm not sure. But so here's the rest of
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: the quote. I remember the day before the scene, everyone
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: was so anxious. You okay, you okay. I'm like, yeah,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I'm fine. Sam was as equally nervous. That was kind
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: of the defining moment. That's the moment that brought the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: movie be together and what it was based on. I
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: felt a huge responsibility to do a good job, but
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I was definitely nerve wracked for sure. End quote. So
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: just to hear that, like they had to shoot it
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: so many times, everyone was feeling very uneasy about it,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Like those are indications that like, don't fucking put it
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: in the movie. And it really it really speaks to
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: what you were just talking about, Jamie, about like Natalie
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Portman saying, you know, so many people's jobs and so
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: much money depends on me just being able to do this,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: and I maybe I didn't want to do it, but
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: like I just had to. I just had to do it, right.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think that we should be putting children in
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: positions who they're already so vulnerable, putting them in positions
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: where they feel this way and they feel an immense
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: like the fact that Megan Good said she felt pressure
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: to get it right that just kind of heart it's
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: and it says, it's like drives me, like she's not
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: even the only child actor that had to deal with
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: this exact issue this calendar year. Like that is so
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: absurd that it's like there are just young teens and
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: kids being put in this position in the first place,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: where like, yeah, it's it's an unfair ask. It's also
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: like the fact that it's also a financial transaction on
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: top of that, where so even like you know, it's
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: like if you have even one parent who's kind of
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: acting in bad faith and doesn't want to rock the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: boat and wants to make sure that the check has
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: gotten then it's not even a guarantee that Like, I mean,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: this movie proves not all parents are good and like
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: and certainly, you know, child actors parents have a very
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: sordid record of acting in the best interest of their children.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: And so I don't even necessarily trust like a fourteen
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: or fifty year old mother to say, like, no, she
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: can do it, Like that may not be true, like
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: or or you know, there's can then there should And
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that quote reminds me a lot
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: of Yeah, the actor who played the lead to this,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: this girl, Dominique Swain, that was like a very similar
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: thing of like, yeah, it was really nerve wracking, and
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: everyone was really nervous, and like Jeremy Irons was like
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: crying during the scene, and just everyone was really stressed
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: out about it, and I just did my best because
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: I knew I had to do it, and like everyone,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I just I think that there are
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: ways to tell these stories because their stories worth being told.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: But in live action it's not worth the risk towards
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: the underage performer period, Like I feel like there's not
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: to like hand it to, you know, Tarantino or anything.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: But like how in kill Bill, like the most traumatic
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: scene towards a kid happens in animation instead of having
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: making it happen, you know, instead of putting a child
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: actor through the grueling, brutal, violent sexual violence that takes
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: place in that scene. Like if you really, really, really,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: as a director, feel that this needs to be shown,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: you have to work around, like you you can't make
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: a kid do it because you think it needs to
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: be done, find another way, And I think there are like,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: like you just said, there's so many ways around it.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: I've seen so I've seen it done. Listen, there are
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: ways to do it or it's like no one is
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: going to be confused that you're watching a scene that's
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: meant to be about childhood, sexual assault or something. Right,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: there are so many ways around it, and I just
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: think like just depicting it on screen I think is
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: the least imaginative when there are so many different ways. Like,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: if you're a storyteller, I always feel there's a there's
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: a way to show something in a way that's respectful,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: and especially for something that's that is as fraught and
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: sensitive as this topic. You you got, you got, you
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: have to like be willing to work to find that solution. Yeah.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: I wish I wish the Casey Lemons had said more
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: on on that, because it's like I do think that
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: this is like one of the better told c s
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: A stories of this decade, and it still makes a
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: series of very common missteps that end end up you know,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: kind of putting definitely putting a child actor in danger
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: and under undue pressure for a kid. Yeah. Yeah, so
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: it's I don't know. I think like it's it's fucking hard,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Like I it's I I am glad that a story
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: like this was was being attempted to be told, but
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: it's certainly not told perfectly. Um so yeah, yes, I
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: mean it's it's challenging. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's like
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: there's so few, like I can't really think of many
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: movies that are like, yeah, nailed it, Like the closest
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: like this is this, Like you couldn't think of a
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: more different movie, but like one of the only movies
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: that I feel like was really praise was heaped upon
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: it and it had a lot to do with these
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: themes but didn't show abuse. Is like Spotlight, Like that's
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: one of the only movies that is centrally involves child
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: sexual abuse and doesn't show it. And I guess Doubt
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: does it too. But the central question around Doubt is
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: like did it happen? When it's like that's not the question.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: It's not the question, at least in Spotlight. It's like, yeah,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: it obviously happened. It happened, that we don't need to
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: show it on screen, but rest assured that it definitely happened,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: and that works. I am glad that movies like that exists. Yeah,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: and it can be like effective and you can come
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: out you know, if it's framed to you a certain way.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: You can even have characters in the story that doubt
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: the truth of what happened and take you through like
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: the journey of like discovering Oh, like I should have
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: just believed these survivors the entire time, and like it
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: can be done because that's part of the narrative of
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: Like a lot of people who are survivors of abuse,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: they face other people not believing them, or they face
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: their own like did this happen? How did it happen
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: at all? Happen so quickly? I don't exactly know the like,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: especially when you live in a culture that is inclined
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: to not believe you and to kind of gas light
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: you into alternate versions of reality. Like that's part of
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: many survivors experience. But again, that's why it has to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: be handled so responsibly and so carefully if you're going
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: to tell a story about it. Yeah, it's weird. It's
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: weird because I feel like they're outside of the fact
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: that I mean, we all agree that the actual scenes
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: should not have been shot, but it's like to a
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: one viewer who is inclined to believe survivors, I feel
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: like it's all there, but it's but for people who
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: are not inclined to believe survivors. And then also just
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: like straight up, I can't really put myself in the
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: mindset of like an adult, I don't. I mean, I'm
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: curious of like what the conversations were, because I'm like,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: you know, they were certainly different and I and I
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: and I bet that there were a lot of people
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: that left with like, well, you know, I love Samuel L. Jackson,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: so shrug, like just unclear. Yeah, especially when you cast
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: like huge, really famous actors and roles like that. I
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: feel like audiences are very often like I love sam Jackson,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: I love Jeremy Irons, So I guess no harm, no foul,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, I honestly like I almost feel like I'm
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: bringing a lot of my own baggage into this movie.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: But you know that the scene in the movie where
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Mozelle uh from blanking her name Lin Witfield, the mom
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: and the grandmother are all talking and it's they're having
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: a very adult conversation about infidelity, and uh, Samuel Jackson
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: comes home and Cecily is like, you need to go
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: down to the bar because the women are mad, mad,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: like get out of the house, you know. Again, sort
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: of the idea of like I think Samuel L. Jackson's
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: presence and their household was very disruptive to the to
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: the young, to the girls, to his young daughters. I
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: think that like he in Cheap brought his sexuality into
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: his home in a way that made it made it
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: his children's business, It made it was like on their minds,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: and I think, you know, it's clear to me that
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of ambiguity in the universe of the film.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: But there's a scene in the film that I feel
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: like for me, it's it's kind of like case closed.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: After he is shot and have his funeral, there's this
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: scene where the mom and all the kids are in
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: bed together and it's sort of almost this like picturesque
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: like a frame, And it seems to me like Samuel L.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Jackson was the cause of a lot of disruption in
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: their household. Now that he is dead, their household is
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: one of like stability and and like they're on this
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: process of becoming healthier and healing and so like it's
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: like obviously, you know, even sad that her father is dead,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: and like the funeral scene is very is very rough.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: But it seems it seems to me that the universe
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: of the film is suggesting that his presence being removed
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: from their their domestic life, is what gives them the
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: ability to like have this kind of chance, a little
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: more stability and a little more like, you know, a
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: little more like I don't even know the word for it,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: like domestic just not having yeah, yeah, true, Yeah, it's
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: what the It's what the fortune teller says to she says,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: just wait for three years and you'll be happy and right,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: you'll have peace. That's why I am, like, I am
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: frustrated it and kind of like it to some extent,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: like inclined to be like it's all there in the writing,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: and it's like you didn't see it. You you didn't
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: see it, you know, but it's like, you know, but
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: in a lot of audience members didn't see it. If
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: there's still people in that are like, I don't know,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: but I feel like, you know, I don't know. It
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: gets so tricky because you I just don't like, I
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: feel like everything you need to know is in the story. Right,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: But it's like some of it is pretty subtle. Some
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: of it you need to like really be paying attention,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: or some of it you just need to kind of have,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, like a particular perspective that is
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: going to believe the children, because I feel like if
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: you can get yourself into that mindset, all the information
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: you need is there. But the fact that I don't know, it's, yeah,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: it's you can't put it entirely on the artist to
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: be like you have to spoon feed to every male
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: audience viewer that this is a bad thing. Like it
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: sucks that it's like that that is still kind of
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: a reality, do you know what I mean? Like I
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: wish that we could make more subtle films about topics
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: like this, but it's just such an underdiscussed issue that
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: people don't fucking get it. And it's like you need
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: movies like fucking Spotlight where it's literally taking the little
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: apple sauce and putting it in your mouth of like
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: this is a crime, this is bad, eat your food,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: don't do crimes, you know. Like it's just so there's
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: no like like in the way that there for for
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: other issues, there has been more you know room for
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: subtlety in art, there isn't on this issue, and I
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: think that that, you know, sucks for artists who have
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: experienced it and want to speak to it and there aren't,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Like it kind of sucks. It's like if the worst
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: thing you've ever been through you want to make some
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: sort of artistic expression of that, and then you're like,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: but I have to make it really fucking obvious or
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: people are gonna think I'm endorsing the worst thing that's
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: ever happened to me. Like it's such a catch twenty
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: two of the Like, it's really frustrating. It's really frustrating.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: Like I don't think it's necessarily like I think you
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: can hold Casey Lemons personally accountable for allowing that scene
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: to be shot and that that is like ultimately on her,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: but in terms of how people misinterpret her work when
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: all the answers are there, like I mean, it's like
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: I think that it is, like it would be better
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: served if it were made extremely clear. But I also
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: don't want to be like, and Casey Lemons is wrong
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: for not having done that, because it's like she clearly knows,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: you know, like she gave us all the you know,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: it's like what if? What was that? What was that
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: ridiculous movie? That's like Mr Policeman, I gave you all
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: the clues. That's literally Casey Lemons in this script like
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: she gave you all the clues, you did not solve
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: the case. And that is on society, right, Like, yeah,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: well how about this. Let's take a quick break and
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: really collect ourselves and will come back for more and
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: we're back, all right, where shall we pivot? I know,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: I feel poorn, Jamie. It's like all childhood, all talking
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: about childhood sexual assault all the time for you, now right,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: it is my new area of expertise. I hate it.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: But but there's so much else to talk about with
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: this movie as well. Yes, where should we start? Well,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: first of all, one thing that is very much worth
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: noting is that this is a coming of age story
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: for a black girl, which is something that we almost
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: never see in Hollywood cinema. It is a kind of
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: narrative arc that is reserved almost exclusively for white children.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: So the fact that a black girl is the focus
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: is awesome. That it is a story fraught with such
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: like turmoil and trauma is I guess what I'm saying
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: is I would love to see more coming of age
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: stories about black indigenous people of color that are less
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: steeped in so much trauma and are focused on more,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: you know, some of the more joyous aspects of coming
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: of age. But even so, um, this is kind of
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: a monumental film, and that it is one of the
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: few coming of age stories about a black girl and
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: black children. So yeah, and I think, like, you know,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about some of the heavier aspects
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: of this film, but there are you know, the film
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: it's not it's not entirely heavy, right, Like Eve has
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: a good relationship with her sister and brother. You get
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: to see, like there are some scenes of Sicily and
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: Eve interacting that I that I really liked. It's like,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: oh you get you get to see like the tenderness
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: of girlhood when she puts the snake on her brother
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: post pillow, like you get to see the like, you know, mischievousness. Yes,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: it's like you know, I there there were parts of
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: it that I thought were nice to be depicted. Also,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: it's like, I mean, I'm a sucker for like Louisiana
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: kind of that like like languid, like you know, oh
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: like the Bayou and the and the Weeping Willows. Like
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: it's quite a picturesque movie, and like it it depicts
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: the outdoors in a really beautiful way. And like, we
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: don't get a lot of movies where it's about black
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: girlhood on the backdrop of outdoor beauty. That's something that
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: like I love and you don't get a lot of. Um,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: So this movie, there is a lot of like in
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: addition to the heavier aspects of it that we've talked about,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: there is some like joy, There is some like beauty,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: you know what. I think it really does a nice
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: job of depicting some elements of black girlhood that we
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily to see explored on screen very often. For sure. Yeah,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: there are those scenes that like are scenes of levity
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: I love and are probably my favorite scenes in the movie,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: especially that kind of chunk where they're all cooped up
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: in the house and everyone's just like playing pranks on
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: each other or um again, that scene where Eve is
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: just sort of lashing out and yelling at everyone. And yeah,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: like you said, I mean, you see these really interesting
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: relationships between women and girls. You see this relationship between
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: the two sisters, You see mother daughter relationships. You see
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: even her aunt Moselle, all these female relationships being explored
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: again in a way that like most movies don't bother
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: And with Eve specifically, I mean, she's just like a
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: really cool character. I feel like it's like people very
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know, writers really often kind of missed the
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: mark on like making a highly motivated and like fun
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: child character who was also clearly constricted by the limits
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: that childhood imposes on you. And I feel like the
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: way that Casey Lemon's rights, Eve really like toes that
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: line in a cool way, because it's like even honestly,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: like when I first read the kind of synopsis of
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: this movie, I thought this whole movie was going to
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: be like Eve being successfully gas lit by her family
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: that this never happened, and I was pleasantly surprised that
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: she For the most part, it's like she retains her
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: truth of what happened pretty consistently, and she is like
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: frustrated and confused that the people in her life are
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: trying to tell her it didn't happen. Like her dad
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: immediately is like, don't worry, that was nothing. That was nothing,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: And then she goes to Cecily, which I honestly read
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: of like Cecily probably not like I don't know. I
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: I think with some of Cecily's storylines, I plugged myself
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: into like big sister mode and thought, like, you know,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: if my little brother came to me saying that he
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: had seen, you know, my dad doing something awful that
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: I already knew about, I probably would you know, at
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: that age, would have like defaulted to be like no,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: no, no no, no, no, no, don't worry, because you don't
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: want your younger sibling to take on the same like
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: psychic weight of how funked up your parents are that
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: you do. And so it's like, but Eve still knows
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: pretty consistently, like she tells the same story every time.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: She's like, and it's more like I know it, I saw,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: but everyone keeps telling me it's not true. And the
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: question is more like why is that? As opposed to
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: like I must be wrong? Like I like how confident
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: she is in what she saw, And it's like more
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: navigating her confusion of like why are people avoiding this
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable truth? Yeah, and she doesn't avoid it as soon
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: as Cecily tells her, She's like, let's kill Dad, Like
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: she like, let's set up kill him. It's amazing, Like,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: and I think importantly, you know, Cecily makes up that
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: story of like, oh you know, uh, the the woman
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: fell into dad and they were laughing, blah blah blah.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: And then later she's like, I I as soon as
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: you said it, I believed you. You know. So you know,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: it's it's clear that like, you know, Cecily deep down
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: know she's telling the truth. And really it is it
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: is eves unfaltering ability to see the truth and speak
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: the truth throughout the movie, and that you're right. It's
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: important to note that she doesn't falter, that she's like, no,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: I know what I saw, I know what's going on.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to continue to speak on it, right. Yeah.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: That that which kind of like brings to this the
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: like the cycle of like gaslighting that it's I don't know,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: like the yeah, the cycle of gaslighting that takes place
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: with the women in this family and kind of how
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: that is structured it like I felt somewhat familiar to
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: me in a lot of ways, especially I mean this
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: has taking place in this sixties, right, So we are
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: to sort of assume that her mother Roz, like there's
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: not a ton of career options, there's not a you know,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of welcomeness to the idea of being divorced,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: of being a single parent, and like her autonomy is
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: fairly limited by being married to this powerful man in
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: the community, and she seems to be very aware of
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: that um And so it's it's like broke my heart
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: at all these different points in the movie to see
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: these relationships between women kind of be like, I don't know,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: like passing on this generational guilt and this generational trauma
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: onto each other because it's like, I don't know, I
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: don't know. I was like trying to think of how
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: to phrase this correctly, but I feel like at times
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: like ros is a shitty parent. At a bunch of
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: different points, she locks her kids in the house for
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: no reason really. When Eve confronts her with the truth,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: she can't handle it, and so instead she punished as
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: her kids who are trying to understand what's going on
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: in their own household. But you know that it's coming
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: from this place of deep trauma that she holds and
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: instead of I don't know. It's just so hopeless in
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: some ways because it's like, well, who could Ross turn
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: to that could really help her, Like she knows that
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: she doesn't really have anyone who can help her, and
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: so instead like she's kind of to some extent protect
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: that she I think she thinks she's protecting her kids,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: but in a lot of ways she's like taking it
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: out and her kids. It's just I just really see
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: the ways in this movie that the adults are making
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: their traumas, their hang ups, their issues, they're just putting
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: them on their kids, and they're really things that are
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: just too heavy for their kids because their kids right
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: right right, there's that scene to where Ros and Mozelle
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: are like taking a stroll and then they like come
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: up on that market. But before that, Ros is like complaining,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: like confiding in Moselle about her like crumbling marriage and
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: how you know her husband who's unfaithful, and Moselle is
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: just like, well, um just waited around, and you know
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: one day he'll finally see what he already has and
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: he'll stop chasing for it. And it's like that's not
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: good advice. But I in seeing that, like I also
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: believe that Moselle knows that's not true. Like I don't know,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: it's I guess maybe like this was my intern, but
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: it just felt like most of the like the grown
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: women in this movie were all pretty aware that like
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: Louis was not a good father or a good husband,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: he was just a good provider. And then that was
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: like there wasn't much they could do about it, and
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: like it's just I don't know. It made me so sad.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: And and the relationship between Cecily and Roz as well,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: like I feel like speaks a lot too. Why Cecily
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: reacts the way she does in some moments where like
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: her attempts to rebel and challenge her her mom's pretty
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: like irrational ways of dealing with her kids are met
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: with like violence and like threats, like she is like
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: hit by her mom. And then when it seems like
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: ros might be trying to kind of like reconcile with her,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: she's like, I understand, like I see a lot of
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: myself in you, but if you do something like that again,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: you're fucked. And it's like, well, then why would Cecily
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: feel comfortable going to her mother with this abuse that
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: she experienced, Like her mother's kind of made it clear
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: that she's not open to hearing it, like she's very
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: closed off and you understand why too. So it's just
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: like ah, yeah, yeah, there's the scene when Roz slaps Cecily.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: You know, something that I think is important to know
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: is that Cecily, you know, Roz has had all the
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: kids trapped in the house, fucking version suicide style if
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: they can't leave. And that's like what I was thinking
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: the whole time. I was like minding me of the
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: version suicide. Um, it's it's it's similar. Is there's some
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: there's some interesting you know. And also I was like, oh,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: like shout out to that quarantine life. I know all
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: about it. Um. But so so when Cecily goes to
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: the hairdresser, this is just something that like I picked
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: up on as a like black girl who was raised
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: by a black mom. You know, in the whole movie,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: Cecily has very long hair, and when she goes to
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: the beauty parlor, she comes back and her hair has
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: been cut, And so I know that like that, like
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: my mom and I have that exact same argument where
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: I like, I think it is a symbol of a
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: certain kind of black girlhood to have like long, straight
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: hair past your shoulders. And Cecily being like, you know,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a I'm asserting my own body autonomy.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: I'm going to cut my hair. When she takes off
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: that rain hood and her mom sees that her hair
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: has been cut, that's like a that's like a shift, right.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: She's like, you know, this girl thinks she's grown. And
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: I think like that is another part of the dynamic
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: I think is there between them where Cecily is really
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what it means for her to be,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: like go from girlhood to like young womanhood, and her
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: mom is clearly not able to shepherd her over that
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: threshold in a way that you would want any you
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: would want your mom to be. That's like what we
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: were saying, like like her mom is not able to
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: be there for her, not not open to hearing what
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: she has to say. And I think that, Yeah, it's
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: not surprising to me that Cecily would be completely not
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: able to open up to her mom about what's actually
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: going on in her life because her mom has has
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: made it clear that what's important to her is not
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: how her kid is doing, what her kids needs, It's
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: about kind of trying to maintain some sense of order
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: in this increasingly chaotic household. Yeah, absolutely, and the way
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: that like I don't know that I thought that this
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: was like this was like such a story of like
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: women and girls processing guilt and like taking on so
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: much guilt for things that it's like no, no, no,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: Like there's so many moments and I feel like it
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: happens with by the end, it happens to Eve as well.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, Moselle is really guilt ridden
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: for feeling that she is responsible for the death of
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: her first husband when it's like she did not put Yeah,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: but I'm talking about the specifically the one that got
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: shot in the joke, but like she Yeah, she's kind
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: of taken on this guilt and it's like I am
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: a murderer when it's like it is not ideal to
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: she done your spouse, but that does not make you
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: responsible for their murder, you know what I mean? And
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: like there's that guilt. We see Raws take on guilt
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: when Cecily becomes more withdrawn and it's like, is it
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: because I did this? I did this? And in that way,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: she's kind of right because she did hit her daughter,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: But like it's just like you see every woman and
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: girl in this story to some degree, whether they're right
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: to be doing it or not, just take on a
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: massive amount of guilt. And you don't see any man
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: in this story. Like Samuel L. Jackson's whole narrative is
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: his ability to deflect guilt and deflect the idea that
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: he could do something wrong, where meanwhile he's surrounded by
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: women who are taking on that guilt for him and
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: then also taking on additional guilt for things that they
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: have nothing to do with their own actions. Yes, like
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: that one guy shoots Samuel L. Jackson, that's a friend
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: of his. You never, like, you just never hear from
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: him again. It's like, oh yeah, Like they don't even
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: like explore it. That's why I'm really happy that at
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: the end, Mozelle, who has taken on all this guilt,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: she meets her like long haired, jeans wearing painter lover
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: who like, I'm just assuming all they're doing is fucking,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: and she's getting portraits of herself painted and like by
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: the end she's like, yeah, I'm marrying him. I don't
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: care what that that old witch said. I'm going to
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: marry him, and like maybe we'll die together, like I'm
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: happy that by the end of the movie she has
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: had a trajectory where she's like, yeah, I can continue
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: to I'm deserving of love. I can continue to seek
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: out love and marry, marry a man who loves me,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: you know, and like spend the rest of my days
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: like getting my portrait painted. I love that she like
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: chooses joy at the end, and like almost I don't know,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: I kind of I would really be curious of like
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: Casey Lemons thought about kind of that platfoint, but I
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: felt like that's almost like a severing of this like
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: quote unquote curse that it seems like a haunting this
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: family when it's like, no, it's she's gonna assert what
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: she wants. She's gonna like that's nice. I want I
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: want the best for her. And I thought it was
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: really interesting with Moselle as well, that I don't know
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: she's like, first of all, like the performance by Debbie
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: Morgan is like it's so good. But on top of that,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: like where I thought it was interesting that she is,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: you know, Samuel L. Jackson's sister, and to watch her
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: it felt very like of this time that she is
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: like kind of defensive about him, like if something comes
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: up with him, whether it's from Ros, whether it's from Eve,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: whether it's from Sicily, She's always like, we're not talking
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: about that. I can even believe you, and we're not
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: talking about that. But then you find out at the
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: end of the movie, you know it's not enough, right
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: because she should be taking these women who she loves
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: seriously and at their word over her brother, who she
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: we know knows is an abusive person. How much power
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: she has to stop it is kind of up for question,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: but like she could. I just thought it was interesting
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: at the end that the movie kind of goes out
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: of its way to tell you that there was a
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: confrontation between them that where where Moselle said explicitly like
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: how could you have done this to my niece? What
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: the funk it? Like, it's clear that they came to
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: blows about this, and then Moselle did believe Cecily the
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: entire time, and that like, I don't know, it's it
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: just like again, it just like felt familiar in a
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: really frustrating way of like just how imperfectly and frustrating
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: these things can fall out where you can like talk
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: to someone and be like I don't think that person
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: believed me, when in fact they may have, but they
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to deal with it, and so then
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: they go to yell at someone else and just like
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: this whole I don't know the way that like trauma
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: could be passed on through this whole chain of events
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: and interactions and like it's all done so imperfectly, and
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just also messy, but you also
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: sort of at least can understand where most people are
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: coming from, even if you disagree, Like, ah, but isn't
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: that how it is? Like I mean that that quote
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: that that Caitlin opened the episode with this like so
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: is so spot on, Like isn't that how it is?
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: Like there are so many things from my childhood where
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, like this thing happened, and you know
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't like it, but you know, I
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: can understand where they're coming I can understand why she
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: did this, she was trying to protect me whatever. Like
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: I think that when you go back and you deconstruct
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: your memories that were so complicated and fraud I think
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: that it's always like this sort of frustrating and unsatisfying,
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: but but also kind of you can sort of see
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: where they're coming from, if that makes sense. Yeah, I
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: feel like I mean that's like I don't know, that's
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: like I definitely feel that way about my parents a
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: lot at the time of Like, God, I the execution
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: was extraordinarily bad, but I can like acknowledge what they
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: were going through while they were making those decisions and
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: still think they were wrong for A, B and C.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: And just like that, especially the fact that this movie,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: you know, it takes place in the nineteen sixties, where
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: like the power dynamics are even huger, and like the
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: disparity of how much power these women would have had
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: to get away from this guy. It seems like that there.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: You know, it's the only reason that Moselle is kind
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: of like making her own living is because she doesn't
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: have another option. M Well, that might bring us to
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: a quick discussion on the way voodoo is represented in
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: the movie. So we talked about this on our Princess
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: and the Frog episode about how voodoo is often very
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: wildly misrepresented in Hollywood, and that really extends to any
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: African diaspora religion, but you know, voodoo is the one
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: that is most popularly depicted in Hollywood. The representation usually
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: paints these religions as being just like rooted in evil.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: It's like dark magic, there's violence, and the demonization of
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: these religions has everything to do with racism. So I
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: was like, I was curious about just like how voodoo
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: in this movie is represented, because it's a pretty big
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: compoe of the story we see practice. I don't know
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: how authentic um the practices of voodoo are. I couldn't
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: find any writing on how well Louisiana voodoo is represented
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: specifically in this film, and I don't know enough about
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: the religion to comment on it, but I did read
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: the Casey Lemons said she didn't really do any research
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: on voodoo before writing the movie, and it shove. I
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: was like, it does. I was just like, yeah, I
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: guess that this is like all it does seem kind
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: of like off the top of your head, like rehashing
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: of things that we've seen of like how how voodoo
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: has been represented in other movies. Yeah, I honestly didn't
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: do a ton of research on this end and kind
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: of went in with the assumption that because I looked
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: into like Casey Lemons is like back history of like, Okay,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: so I can't find any reason that she would know.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: And then I was like, I'm just assuming that it's wrong.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: Every time you see like voodoo represented in American movies,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: I just kind of I'm like, I'm assuming this is
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: way off. But I don't know. I feel the same way.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, I couldn't tell you if this is like
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: an authentic depiction of Louisiana voodoo. I'm going to assume
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: not because it was nineteen seven, and I think that, like,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: you know, there are certain like visual signifiers that I
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: think are there that I'm like, oh, yeah, she probably
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: and like no offense to her. She probably was just
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: like yeah, put her the like voodoo practitioner in a
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: certain outfit and call it a day, right, Like there's
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: that scene where she's got her face painted white, Like
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: I think she was like, I want to have some
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: clear visual markers so that people are like, yep, this
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: is voodoo happening. I don't know that. I don't know
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: that I would say that she went too deep into it,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: that's my read. Yeah, I would say at the very least,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: there are some things that the movie manages to avoid
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: that we've seen play out in other movies where like
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: Eve goes to Elzora and she's expecting in return a
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: voodoo doll, and Elzora is like, no, that's not a thing.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: I did another thing to try to kill your father,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: but not a doll, because like, the voodoo doll is
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: not an actual thing in the real voodoo religion, or
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: at least not the way that is the way we
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: see voodoo dolls in Hollywood. That's not accurate. And I
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: at least appreciate that the way that Samuel and Jackson's
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: character dies is because he gets shot by a man
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: who was pretty explicitly or implicitly told that his wife
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: was cheating on him, and not because like voodoo killed him.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: So at least the movie avoids those types of things.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: But it's just that Eve thinks that that's what happened,
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: like they're even Yeah, I was confused. I was like,
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: for a second, I like almost got galaxy brain about
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: it because I thought, you know, it's like, okay, maybe
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: it's like because you know, like there's a lot of
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: people who present as like, oh, you know, like I
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: am a psychic, and they're actually not, and they're kind
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: of just like being touristy. I was like, maybe that's
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: what Elsora is supposed to be as kind of like
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: because that's what Moselle says. It's like, Oh, she's just
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: like a tourist, Like she comes to the market. You know,
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: she's a side show attraction because we see that misrepresentation
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: all the time, kind of at any large carnivalry event
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: of like this fraud. But then we're kind of led
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: to believe that she is not a fraud. But then
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: also I guess that was the question I left the
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: movie with him, like was she a fraud or not?
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: Because there were certain elements of her that kind of
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: reminded me of like that scene in The Wizard of
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: Oz where the wizard is going through basket while her
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: thing is closed. Like sometimes I was getting that by
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: but then other times I was like, is she a fraud?
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: Like I don't know. I don't know, because she gets
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: it right with ros right, she's like wait, wait a while.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: But if she doesn't need to wait three years, does she,
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: like she well, maybe it takes three years for them
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: to like just fully recover or like heal from their grief.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: It's like it's clear to us that Moselle and Eve's like,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: I don't even know, Like their ability to see the
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: future is authentic, and that is like in text true,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: But I still was not clear on whether el Zora
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: was legit or not. I wasn't sure. Let's also keep
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: in mind that Elzora charges even twenty dollars to kill
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: a man. That's I mean, come on, sixties money. I
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: actually looked it up the the inflation it will be
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: two sixteen dollars they're about today to kill a man.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: She grifted a child, Like yeah, what are the what
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: are the ethics of her like accepting money from a
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: literal child to kill a man? Like I just have
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of time, It's it's murky, I would think. Yeah,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: I'd be curious of like listeners who have seen this
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: movie what your impression was, because by the end I
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: sort of felt like she's the Wizard of Us, like
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: she only because the people who can genuinely see into
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: the future to some extent, we are like told visually
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: explicitly that that is true, and you don't ever get
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: that for Elzaura. So I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: I know that definitely, the presentation of voodoo is like
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: off in this movie. It's definitely not like a faithful,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: you know thing. But but I wasn't sure if like
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: we were supposed to go through this being like, oh,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: you know, Elzora is kind of like doing this touristy
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: act that Eve believes because she's a kid. You know,
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: she gave this woman two hundred dollars. Oh my god. Stressful.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm I'm curious to hear from any listeners
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: who have a more in depth understanding of actual voodoo practices,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: just how you feel about this movie's depiction of voodoo. Yeah, Um,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: does anyone have any other thoughts on the movie? I
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: wanted to I had, I had a few things. I
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: wanted to just kind of shout out the team behind
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: this movie that we do not. I mean, it goes
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: without saying that black women writing and directing their own
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: movies is such a huge I mean, especially just was
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: not happening very much. And so in terms of like
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: the background of this movie, you will not be surprised.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: It's like the I feel like, and this is true
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: with female directors kind of generally you get a lot
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: of that actor to director pipeline because Casey Lemons was
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: already an established director and I feel like you an
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: established actor or sorry, an established actor. Yeah, and then
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: she doesn't direct her first movie to her late thirties,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: and I can think of like five women off the
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: top of my head who that's true for right now. Um,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: and how like that is kind of it seems like
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: the most not to say, I mean, there's plenty of
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: female directors who that is not the case for, but
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: it seems like the most efficient current pipeline for female directors.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: And that's where Casey Lemons comes from. And then she
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: makes like animazing. But she was like an established actor
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: who started writing and directing because she was dissatisfied with
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: the roles she was getting as an actor, these like
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: very you know, like oh, I'm the black best friend
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: or I'm just like this kind of like sidelined character.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: And so she just took it upon herself to start
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: writing stories from her own perspective, which is amazing. And
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: I also every time I see the actor to director pipeline,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like, why can't they Why can't we just be directors?
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: Why is that pipeline not available? That said, I'm very
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: glad that Kasey Lemons was able to create all these
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: like amazing media roles that she wasn't able to play originally.
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: We also have a few different kind of rarities behind
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: the scenes, which I feel like sometimes we get great
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: representation in front of the camera and then behind it's
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: like more white guys. Uh this. We have a a
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: female cinematographer, Amy Vincent, who you have almost certainly seen
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of her work. She did two of my
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: favorite youth movies. She also did Jawbreaker and the Lemony
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: Snaket movie. But she's a love job breaker. It's so good.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: We've got to cover Jawbreaker. Sometimes she's done. She's done.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: She's done a lot. More like she's like I think,
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: one of kind of the iconic female cinematographers. Um, she's
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: done a whole lot. She did I Hurt Huckabees if
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: you care, I guess, uh, and Oh my God, and
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: that horrible Seth McFarland movie, A Million Ways to Die
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: in the West, So you know, she has a wide
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: variety of things she's done. Um. We also have a
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: black female editor, which is like I feel like there's
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: of all the positions in Hollywood, they are overwhelmingly white
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: as editor like may in fact take the cake. And yeah,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: there's a black female editor of this movie. Her name
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: is Tara Lynn shop Share. I hope I'm saying that right. Um,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: she also edited Love and Basketball when they see us
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: Secret Life of Bees, and like, there's all these like
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: amazing projects in I think one of the like most
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: white male dominated areas of movie. Love and Basketball another
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: black classic, right, yes, that is a classic. So she
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: seems like she's just, you know, kind of an icon
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: in that field. Just like a lot of great representation
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: behind the camera as well, and like the t I mean,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: everything in this movie jels so well. The and also
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't know Kasey Lemon's studied cinematography in college as well,
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: so you have to imagine she's bringing some stuff to
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: the cinematography too. And it's all You're like, Wow, more
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: movies should be made like this. There's also, um, it's
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: a man, but a black composer. Terrence Blanchard opposed the
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: score Jazz Legend and he uh guide but he plays
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: the trumph and then he won an Academy Award for
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: Black Klansman a couple of years ago. Oh that's right,
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: That's why I know that name. Yeah, he and and
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: then I guess he and I. He and Casey Lemons
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: also wrote an opera together, or they were supposed to,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: and then COVID hit and now they're going to release
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: their opera later. Like I love. I love when collaborators
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: like working together and then they do a bunch of
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: like weird ship Like I'm like, yeah, sure, write an opera,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: why not like Casey Lemons opera. I guess you know,
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: if it's safe to see, I would see it. Um.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: So I just I was. I really loved just how
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: like how my representation there was behind the camera, definitely,
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: especially in those like those are like three very major roles,
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: you know, what is it they called like the top
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: like this this top six title card whatever roles, and
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: like they're almost always given to white men in Hollywood productions.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that was awesome And for nineteen I'm like, okay,
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: pretty good. The other So shooting started on this movie
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: and Casey Lemons was either pregnant, gregnant, um or she
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: had just given birth to her first child. I couldn't
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: really figure out exactly what the timeline was there, but
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: I was like, that is cool, because like society has
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: this image of women that if like you're a mother,
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: you especially like a new mother, or if you're pregnant,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: you can't work, or if you're a working woman, you
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: can't be a mother. So like she was just like, no,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: like I'm going to make this movie and I'm also
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: a mother and two things can be true. Love that
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: for her. I think you're so right that we have
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: this misconception that I a woman has a baby, she
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: may as well just like crawl into a grave and
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: die for a few years. Yeah, that's I didn't know that.
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: That's really cool. Um. Yeah, the last two production e
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: Slash reception things are no, it's about men, but I
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: thought that they were interesting. They I think, as is
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: also very common in this case woman and particularly like
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: a woman of color making her first movie. She needed
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: a very powerful man to co sign on the project
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: before it could be made. So this project was kind
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: of like languishing the script. It existed for some time
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't until Samuel L. Jackson was like, I'll
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: star in the movie, okay, and then you could get made.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, it's it's definitely not ideal.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: That's something that needs to keep changing. But I do
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: like to see powerful men using that power to like
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: bring new talent into the folds. And so that was cool.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: This was also this is kind of neither here nor there.
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: I just was like genuinely really surprised because we are
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: always talking about Roger. Yeah, I was like, because we
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: have been dragging Roger Ebert NonStop correctly for years, because
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: he just like sucks. He generally has no idea what
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: anyone like, any story that is not for him explode
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: at lee. He's like confusing, hated it, negative stars, hated
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: it for losers. But uh in in kind of a
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: shocking he'll turn here. Roger Ebert named this movie hit
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: the best film of Wow. That that is surprising to me.
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: That is very surprising to me because he I have
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: my own feelings about him that I find not surprising. Yeah,
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: I did too. I was like, wow, Okay, at least
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: he's a Cathy Lemon stand. I Like, it's not you know,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: it's something. It might have been Chas Ebert his wife's doing.
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: That might have been chairs. She's like, give me this
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: one thing. But I wonder if his sort of championing
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: this movie led to another fact about this movie, which
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: is that it was the highest grossing independent film of
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: nine seven, So I wonder if he was like ringing endorsement,
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: like encourage more people to go see it, because it
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: had a four million dollar budget and it grossed fifteen
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: million at the box office, which again doesn't feel it
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't sound huge, but for an independent movie, fifty million
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: dollars at the box office pretty significant. Seven money too,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: Like that's that, Yeah, that's big. I do wonder, Yeah,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: I do, because I feel like, for all of its
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: issues that we have talked about at length, at this point,
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: I am surprised that this movie is not like that
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: not everybody knows about it. It seems like a real
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: like classic of its genre, and it does so much
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: that not many movies are doing. And so I guess
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: I was glad that Ebert pushed it. It just I
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: don't know. Ultimately, I'm like, I just wish more people
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: knew about this movie. I wish it was like more taught.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: I wish it was more discussed, like and I wish that.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: I think that honestly, it's the sort of thing where
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: at the time had the fucking and I know that
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: we're always like the Golden Globes are for losers, right,
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: oscars are for losers? Like it almost call without saying,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: but being recognized in some way by those institutions does
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: sort of, I feel like, have an effect on solidifying
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: certain movies as movies worth remembering and movies worth recognizing.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: And I just wish that this movie had been recognized
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: more by those institutions. And I wonder if if they had, like,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: would it be a movie that we would just be
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: hearing more about now? Like, Yeah, I wish I'd seen
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: this movie sooner. For for all of its flaws, I
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: really it's doing so much that movies of its time
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: we're not attempting. Well, if you'd grown up in my house,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: you would have had it on VHS and it would
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: have been one of five movies like you a Little
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: Cabinet that one could watch if they wanted the movie Cabinet.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: My mom had the fucking CBS Ron Perlman, Beauty and
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: the Beast on VHS and talk about a classic, horny classic,
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: Linda Hamilton's and Ron that we will not be covering
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: it on the show, but boy have I seen a
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: lot of it. Oh goodness, is is there anything else
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: anyone wants to discuss I mean the episodes longer than
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: the movie at this point, I don't Isn't that true
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: of literally all of our episodes within the past two years.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: It's true. Speaking of which, my Chicken Run posters coming
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: in the mail today, I'm very excited Ginger is on
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: her way. Hell yeah, Uh, well, it probably comes as
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: no surprise that this movie does pass the Bechdel test.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: Women are interacting. Women and girls are interacting in this
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: movie with each other a lot, and the DuVernay test
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: as well. Yes, indeed, Um, the female characters are talking
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: a lot about men and a lot of scenes either
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: like about Louis or about Mozelle's husbands. But there are
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: still quite a few scenes that pass the Bechdel test. Yeah.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: I guess that brings us to our our nipple scale,
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: where we examine the movie based on just intersectional feminism,
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: and I think this movie is going to break my
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: brain trying to assign it a nipple number. Um. I
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: think I want to give it three or three and
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: a half because, as we've discussed that, like, the information
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: is there that allows for a pretty clear interpretation that
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: Cecily is a survivor of abuse and that her father
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: is an abuser, and I appreciate that this movie is
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: trying to tackle this subject matter, and I think that
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: the intent was to approach it responsibly. However, I do
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: still feel that the movie ends in a way that
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: allows room for interpretation and for a different reading, which
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: again I think is a very dangerous thing to do
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: in regards to child set abuse. That said, it's still
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: an important piece of Black cinema and of cinema in general. Um,
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Oh gosh, yeah, I guess three and
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: a half and I'll kind of distribute them evenly to
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: Casey Lemon's Journey, Smollett, Lynn Whitfield, Megan Good, Debbie Morgan,
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: just just all the women in All Star. Yes, Yeah,
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: so that's that I'm gonna go. I'm I'm tempted to
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely doing it three and a half. I'm tempted
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: to even go for a four. But I'm going to go,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: I think with a three and a half because I
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: do agree that for its time is I mean, it's
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: it's so hard, right because I think that in terms
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: of talking about child sex abuse on screen, I feel
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: like I can say pretty confidently that this movie does more,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: more than anyone was even attempting to do it the
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: same at this time while also making a lot of
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: this same fuck ups that movies at this time we're
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: doing it. Is like, as far as I concert, like
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: never going to be worth the risk to put a
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: child performer in a position like that. I I feel
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: a little differently about the ambiguity because I do feel
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: like she gave us all the clues, Mr Policeman, and
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: so I don't want to necessarily punish the movie for
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: that because I do feel like Casey Lemons does give
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: us all the information. I do just wish that like
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: I guess we didn't even talk about this, But the
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: line that I think was cross like crossed the line
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: for me was when Moselle told Eve like your dad
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: says he wishes he had gotten that last dance. That
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: for me kind of crossed the line of like, so
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: we're gaslighting beyond the grave? Is like for real? Like
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: is that necessary? And so I do think that the
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: movie gives Samuel L. Jackson's character more than he deserves
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: in terms of ambiguity. I am, I don't know, I
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: just for sure the conversation was not sophisticated enough in
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: the general public then or now clearly for people to
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: inherently believe sicily. I think if we were living in
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: this fantasy world where we were as a society inclined
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: to believe survivors, that a lot of the choices in
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: this movie wouldn't bother me as much. And so I
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: am like, I'm it's kind of confusing because I don't
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: want to punish Casey Lemons or the art for society
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: not being where it needs to be on this issue,
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: but it isn't, and so I just don't really know.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: I do know that I really dislike the fact that
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: the scene was filmed in the medium that it was
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: everything else, I'm kind of like, I don't know, Uh,
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: stories about generational trauma, I think are are really rarely
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: done well and thoughtfully, and this movie kind of takes
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of boxes in terms of like showing you,
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of the effects of generational trauma and
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: showing you like, yes, ros is wrong a lot of
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: the time, while also showing her empathy in other moments
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: in a way that felt really like, I mean, you
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: can't ask for like a harder task as a writer
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: than to show all of this stuff. I don't know.
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've like I am genuinely, I'm just glad
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: that Casey Lemons did it, and like for all of
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: its failures, I feel like it's a triumph that it
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: happened and that it was released and that it had
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: this cultural impact, and I don't want to punish it
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: for society being worthless. I don't know, I don't know.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm gonna go three and a half and
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to feel h and broken. I'm
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: giving all of my nipples to Debbie Morgan because she
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: really she really did it with this one. Yeah, Bridge,
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: what about you? I think I would put this. It's
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: a tough call for me. I would say between three
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: point five and four nipples. I say for the the heavy,
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: you know, female lead talent both on camera and behind
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: the camera, I think it's I can't go lower. Um.
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I can give it a solid
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: for but I'm some I'm somewhere in there. Sure cool, Yeah,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: I totally agree. Well, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: What a what a treat it's been, What what a
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: memory this will be for all of us. Thank you
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: for thank you for bringing us this movie truly. I'm like,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: I'm so happy that we got to talk about it. Yeah,
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: it's it's I'm happy that this was on the agenda
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: because I it's nice to have a reason to rewatch it.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: And it's just nice to have a throwback of kind
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: of a time capsule, capsule of how we were dealing
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: with representing black girlhood, black womanhood on screen. It's it's
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: nice to look back to see kind of where we
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: were at then and where we've come now. So I
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: appreciate having the the reason to rewatch totally. Yeah, and
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: UM tell us where people can check out your stuff,
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: listen to your podcast, follow you on social media, etcetera. Well,
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: thank you for asking. So if you want to hear
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: more from me, please please check out my podcast. There
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: are No Girls on the Internet on I Heart Radio. Um.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: Right now, we're doing this great mini series all about
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: disinformation called Disinformed and really elevating some narratives around marginalized people,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: women of color, women, how we've all played a role
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: showing up online and how we have gotten to this
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: very kind of particular social and political moment that we
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: find ourselves in. So if you're interested in that, please
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: check it. Out. It's called They're No Girls on the Internet.
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: And you can follow me on Instagram at Bridget Murray
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: in d C or on Twitter at Bridget Murray. Yeah,
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: and Bridget truly come back anytime. Oh it's been a pleasure.
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: I'll be back y'all. You'll you'll will not be able
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: to get rid of me. Ah wow. Well, you can
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: check us out on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtel Cast.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: You can subscribe to our Patreon a k a. Matreon.
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Chicken Run, I believe that episode will have
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: recently dropped, among many others, and that's specialist classic Chicken Round.
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: My goodness. Um, that's a patreon dot com slash petel Cast.
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: It's five dollars a month and you get two bonus
• 1:56:27
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• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: can also get T shirts I always miss my cue here. Uh.
• 1:56:36
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• 1:56:38
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• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: so um, you know, log on in, see what you
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: like and until next time. Just a memory now and
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's imprinted indelibly on your brain through the
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: m P three file. But bye a.