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Jackie Brown with Sadia Azmat · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Or do they have individualism?
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: It's the patriarchy, zeph and best start changing with the
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlyn, can you smuggle half a million
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: dollars out of Cobbo for me? I need the money
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: to get a haircut because my hair and beard are
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: really strange.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Classic Caitlin. Yes, of course, and I will. I promise
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to be like everyone in this movie, really bad at it.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Cool, cool, cool, yeah ough.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: An iconic introduction. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is Jamie Loftis.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: My name is Caitlyn Deronte, and this is our show
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point to
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: initiate a larger conversation.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: We sure do. But what is the Bechdel Test? Well
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: we'll tell you. Yeah. So, if you've been listening to
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: this show for a long time, you very likely know
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: what it is. It is a media metric created by
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Originally in her comic dys To
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Watch Out For in the eighties. It was a one
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: off joke just sort of pointing out how infrequently women
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: talked to each other in blockbuster movies. But it has
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: since been sort of taken on by culture at large
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to talk about how infrequently women talk in movies. So
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different versions of this test. The
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: one we use on this show is as follows. We
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: require that there be two people of a marginalized gender
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: with names who speak to each other about something other
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: than a man for two lines of die or more preferably,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: it should be a meaningful exchange of dialogue. Which we
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: made that change Win Caitlyn like a couple of years ago,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: because there were so many movies that it was like, well,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: someone talks to a waitress at one point, and the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: waitress is wearing a name tag, so it's feminist, and
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: you're just like, well, okay, we have to make some adjustments.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Anyways, that's the version we use.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Indeed, and today's movie is a long time request. Yes,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: it's Jackie Brown, the nineteen ninety seven movie written and
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: directed by Quentin Tarantino.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Someone who I don't think has ever experienced a scandal before.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I think a no famously scandalous director.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Also the production company Miramax.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard a bad word about this,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So really, I don't think that we'll have really much
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: talk about. It will be a really quick episode, yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: No.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: So we're doing Jackie Brown. We have an amazing guest
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: with us who is a comedian, author of the book
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: sex Bomb, and host of the BBC podcast No Country
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: for Young Women. It's Saudia Asthmat.
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: Hello, welcome, Welcome, Thank you for having me.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Hello, thank you for being here and for bringing us
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: this movie.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: So, you sent us a number of options of movies
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you'd like to cover on the show, and this was
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: on the list. So we're curious. What is your history
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: with the movie, Jackie Brown? And I guess sort of
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: like with Tarantino movies overall, because I feel like it's
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: hard to talk about one Tarantino movie without accidentally talking
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: about all of them truly.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: So you know what I'm not gonna lie.
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: I was going through my watch the Robert de Naro
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: movie Zone or Era.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: At that point in time, so I was just I.
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: Really liked him, and I heard a lot about Jackie Brown,
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: but not in terms of in any detail, like it
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: would be thrown around, like I didn't know if it
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: was a real movie about like a Jackie Brown was
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: a real person, or like it's just a name that
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: seems to crop up now and then. So it felt
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: like it was part of pop culture and I just
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: hadn't come across it. And also I don't know actually
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: if I was trying to. I don't know if I
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: was on my watching Robert de Niro or watching Sam
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: Jackson zone, but I don't know what that's not a zone,
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: but like in terms of my routine, if you like, so,
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: I love both of them. And then I just watched
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: I didn't know it was directed by Tarantino at the time,
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: and I was blown away because it's not even about
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: Robert de Niro or Sam Jackson, even though they're really great.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: It's about like Pam Grier's character, and.
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: It really felt like a portrayal of a woman who
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: is from a minority in a way that I'd never
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: seen before that I felt like, obviously I've never had
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: to smuggle money, right, but like that I could really
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: relate to.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: In terms of the decisions that she had to make.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: So it was like breathless and I love this movie.
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: And talking about Tarantino, so, I mean, he's made some
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: of the best movies ever, Like Pulp Fiction is clearly like, ah,
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: it's so good. I didn't really like Reservoir I'm not
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: going to go through all of his movies, by the
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: way and.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: Just tell you why. I thought. That's not very ring.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: That's not fair, is it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: But there's a few that come to my like Django.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: I think that's how you say it, Jango one change change.
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I really enjoyed it, although I didn't really like
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: and Glorious Bastards and I didn't really like Reservoir Dogs.
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: I think I was gonna say, and so obviously he's
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: a genius, but I think we all know that being
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: a genius doesn't come without its pitfalls.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: And I think you might know a few of them
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: more than me. But yeah, I mean I don't know
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: like he yeah, as you alluded to, he was.
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: I think obviously he knew about Weinstein, but you know,
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: so many actors probably did, and maybe it didn't occur
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: to them to open their mouths even though everyone listens
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: to them.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: But anyway, so I really like his movies and I
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: don't know him personally.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Hey me either, Yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship with the
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Tarantino Expanded Universe slash Jackie Brown specifically.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Let's see. I Yeah, I feel like we've covered pulp
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: fiction and kill Bill on the show before.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, we still need to redo our kill Bill episode.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: I know, I thought that was a raised from existence.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, so we did at one point. It was our
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: first episode ever and we didn't know what we were
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: talking about. So we'll REDI that at some point. But
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think, like a lot of people, I'm
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: very kind of hit and miss on Tarantino. Like obviously,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: he's very technically talented, and you know, I'm never gonna
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: judge someone for enjoying his work. Kill Bill is still
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite movies ever, for all of its flaws. So,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, yes, as far as Tarantino goes, I it
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: feels like almost an impossible discussion to have. Creatively, he's
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: hit or missed for me, He's made stuff that I
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: really love. I think that it's I don't know. His
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: history on race is very talked about and occurred yes,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it's I don't know. He's such a complicated person to
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: talk about because he's written women characters in particular that
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of love for and had influence
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: on me. But at the same time, you have the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: kill Bill example, when during the Me Too movement, it
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: came out that Uma Thurman was extremely injured on the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: set of Kill Bill, and Tarantino did nothing to help her,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: And so it's and.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: He was the reason why, Like he yeah, he pushed,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: he instructed her to drive like basically do a very
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: unsafe stunt, and then she got badly injured because of it.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, sometimes even the things I
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: enjoy about him creatively doesn't come through in his personal
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: life or personal record whatsoever. Anyways, Jackie Brown, I had
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: seen it once before. I remember one liking it too,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: being like it's so long. I still feel that way now, Yeah, Caitlin,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: what's your history with Jackie Brown?
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I had never seen it before. This was I think
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: the one Tarantino movie that I had yet to watch.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: It's been on my list for a long time, but
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: I just didn't get around to it until I had
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: an excuse to do so for this podcast and I'm
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: glad I finally watched it. I quite enjoyed it. I
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: would rank it toward the top of my list of
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Tarantino movies because I think so too. Yeah, same with
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: everyone else. I mean, he is a bit hit or miss.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: For me.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: I generally like most of his movies, but Hateful Eight,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: for example, I couldn't stand it. I did not like
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Once upon a Time in Hollywood at all. Other ones
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: I like a bit more kill Bill is similarly my
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: favorite of his. But yeah, Jackie Brown, I think it's
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: an interesting departure to some degree from his other work,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: and I found it just like refreshing and fun to watch,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: and I really like the characters and performances, and there's
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: just a lot of interesting things going on that we
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: will discuss.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: But I definitely agree. I think it's like one of
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: my especially because I think the last time I watched it,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I was in college or something, and I mean I
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: liked it the first time. I liked it even better
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: this time because I feel like I just know more
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: about the actors and had more interest in the context,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and the context of this movie is really fascinating. So
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: there's so much to.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Talk about, for sure. Shall I do the recap and
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: we'll go from there.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Let's do it, and Sadia feels free to jump in
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: at any point.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Okay, Well, again, this is a long movie, although it's
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: not even long by today's standards. Every movie that comes
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: out is three hours long, and it's like, only Titanic
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: should be that long anyway.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: I mean, Titanic shouldn't have been that long either.
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: Really, come on, Oh don't sorry, I didn't realize that.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: I want to you.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: I don't disagree. I could do an edit of Titanic
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: that is two and a half hours, which would cut
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: forty five minutes out of the runtime.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: So no way, no way, no way.
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: I think only Mob movies should be three hours long
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: because the Mob ones.
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: I love them. I don't know why everybody's gonna die
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: and lose the money. I know that, but I.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Just like Barbie was an hour fifty two and I
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: celebrated that both times. I was like, wow, I didn't
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: even know it was legal to make a movie under
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: two hours anymore.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Yeay, anyway, okay, So here it is the recap for
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Jackie Brown. We briefly meet a flight attendant for Cabo
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Air named Jackie Brown. Played by Pam Greer.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I felt very film bro proud of myself during the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: opening shot where I was like, hey, this is the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: chef from a graduate and it is this, I was like, Wow,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: this is normally something that a guy would yell at.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Me, but now you're the one yelling.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I am the yelling at No. One.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So then we cut to Ordell played by Samuel L. Jackson,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: who is an arms dealer talking about guns to Lewis
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: played by Robert de Niro. Ordell has a girlfriend, Melanie,
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: who we meet played by Bridget Fonda, who he does
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: not treat very well. FYI, and we also learned that
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Ordell has half a million dollars in cash stashed in
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: Then Ordell gets a call from his pal Beaumont, who
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: needs to be bailed out of jail. So Ordell and
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Lewis go to a bail bondsman named Max Cherry played
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: by Robert Forster. Ordell pays for Beaumont to be bailed
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: out of jail, and then he pays Beaumont a visit
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: he's played by Chris Tucker, and then Ordell shoots and
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: kills Beaumont because Ordell figured that Beaumont would rat him
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: out to avoid a long jail sentence. Then we cut
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: back to Jackie Brown at Lax after one of her
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: flight attendant shifts and two cops approach her, Mark and
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: Ray played by Michael Bowen and Michael Keaton, and they
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: want to look in Jackie Brown's bag where they find
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars in cash and they know that she's
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: smuggling it and they want to know who and Cabo
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: gave it to her and who in the US she's
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: giving it too, but she refuses to talk. But then
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: they find a little baggie of cocaine with the cash,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: so then she is arrested and thrown in jail for
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: possession with the intent to distribute, which is a bogus
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: thing which they comment on, but anyway, she's arrested and
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: thrown in jail and her bail is set at ten
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars. So Ordell goes back to the bail bondsman,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Max Cherry, wanting to transfer the ten thousand dollars bond
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: that he paid for Beaumont and transfer it over to
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Jackie Brown. So Max goes and bails Jackie out of jail,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and he sees her and he's like Hubba hubba a wooga, who's's.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: That in love? Att first cites her.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: And then he takes her for a drink to discuss
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: her options, like kind of what she should do moving forward,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: and then he drops her off at home. Ordell then
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: goes to Jackie's house, and it seems like he plans
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: to kill Jackie for the same reason he killed Beaumont.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: He doesn't want anyone ratting him out, but she assures
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: him that she didn't tell the cops anything. But she
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: also realizes that his intentions might be malicious and that
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: he might be trying to kill her, so she pulls
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: a gun on him that she stole from Max Cherry,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: and then she negotiates a deal with Ordell so that
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: he won't be put away in prison and where she
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: will be set up financially if she does have to
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: go to jail. The next morning, Max Cherry comes over
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: to Jackie Brown's house to get his gun back, and
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: she invites him in for coffee, and they're listening to
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: and music and they're kind of vibing, and she tells
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: him that she does not actually intend to cooperate with
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: Ordell and that she's going to try to make a
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: deal with the cops because she's fearful for her future,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: her financial security. Things like that.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I will say Jackie throughout this movie, she's I mean,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about what an incredible character she is, But
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I just kept thinking about how many times if I
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: were Jackie that I would have forgotten something that I
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: told someone. I was like, wow, I'm not smart enough
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: to play the four D game of chess that she's playing.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Because sometimes I'm like wait what and I'm like, oh, right,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: she's a genius, Like.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: Like is she keeping a diary? Like I don't know
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: how she got drug?
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: And even just caring about you know, having that portrayal
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: of someone caring about their like financial freedom, their finances,
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: their future. That's like something I never saw before either, really,
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: So that's like she's a smart like she's yeah, she's
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: very admirable.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's so cool and just like even objectively and
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: like her memory and ability to like juggle five thousand
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: things at once is incredible. She's such a cool character
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so kind of out sorry do you ever lie, Jamie?
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: Because I am bad at lying.
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: So I think that's why I would have got shot, like,
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: you know, I would have got shut.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I definitely like I feel like outside of like small
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: like like little white lie kind of things, and even
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: sometimes I lose track of those, and then I'd be like,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: oh wait, I told that weird lie trying to impress
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: someone once and now I've accidentally told them myself. Anyways,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do what she did. I would be dead
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: in the first twenty minutes.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: So same, Yeah, I couldn't keep anything straight. Yeah, Okay.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Then we see Jackie meeting with those cops, Mark and
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Ray telling them about her dealings with Ordell, and then
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: she meets with Ordell again and makes him think that
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: she's working with the cops as a cover and that
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: she is still loyal to him, and they make a
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: plan where they will need two women to be and
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: they specify women. They're like, it needs to be women
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: to be kind of like intermediaries between Jackie and Ordell
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: as far as like handing off the money to trick
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: the cops into following the wrong woman during these couple
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: different handoffs that they will be doing in order for
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Jackie to get this half million dollars from Cabo to
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Ordell in Los Angeles, where the story takes place, by
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: the way, ever heard of it? Ever heard of it?
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Then Ordell leaves this meeting with Jackie, but then he
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: sees Max run into Jackie and they're chatting, and He's like,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: what the fuck? Like, do they know each other? What's
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: going on here? So now he's suspicious.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: He's so insecure, isn't he?
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: Like?
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Ah truly and it is always his downfall. Same with
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the de Niro character too.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah for sure, yep. I can't wait to talk
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: about male fragility with these characters.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: My feet at top.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Okay, So everyone goes through with this trial run of
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: Jackie handing off ten thousand dollars to a woman named Shiranda.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: She's one of Ordell's many girlfriends, and this is happening
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: at a mall food court, and then Shiranda will then
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: hand it off the cash to Ordell.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: I wrote not to brag, but I wrote a story
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: about mall food courts earlier this year, and there are
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: so many iconic movie scenes that happen in mall food courts.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: I think the Jackie Brown scene is way up there.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: It was tied for me internally eighth grade. I was
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: gonna say eighth grade, impactful mall food court seemed to.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Me personally, they're some good ones. Yeah, fast times at
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Ridgemont High. I feel like has.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And clueless has one. I love them all. I love
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: a food court. I love drama at set location.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: Same, Okay, So this handoff happens and the cops are
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: there watching. Max is also there, and it seems like
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Max and Jackie are becoming somewhat of an item. He
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: also notices another woman, Simone, who is involved in this handoff,
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: who the cops are not aware of, so she's like
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: the second woman who's there to be tricksy basically. Then
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Jackie goes to see Ordell and they hash out the
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: second handoff of the half million dollars. So this time
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Jackie will hand off the money in a fitting room
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: at a department store at the same mall. Now the
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: exact plan with all of these like changes in the
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: amounds are sunny. Yeah, I got confused because now Simone
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: is not involved, but Ordell's girlfriend Melanie.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Is well because Simone didn't Simone get ten thousand dollars
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: during the trial run And then she's like, I'm od
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of hearing and we were like good girl smoney.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Yes, but it's unclear like who knows what or I
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: forget like which information. It's just like it's all a
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: bit confusing.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: It becomes so much about who you can trust at
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: this point because there's no logic, sensors gone out.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: Of the windows.
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: So yeah, it is about like you've got instinct, then
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: who's going to let you down?
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: Or can you afford to risk everything on? You know?
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: This weird situation. But it was so strange because I've
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: never had smuggle. I have to keep saying that, but
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: we believe, you know, like please believe you guys. But
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: actually we could all do the We're three women, we
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: could do the test one. No, I'm just saying that, true. Yeah,
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: it is, so it's weird how real this all felt,
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: even though the stakes were so high and not very
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: day to day.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, it feels very grounded, especially for a Tarantino movie.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: It's I would probably his most grounded one. Yeah. Anyway, Also,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: while all of this is happening, it seems like Jackie
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: intends to only hand off fifty thousand dollars of the
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: money to whoever's going to get it to Ordell, and
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: that she's going to run off with the rest, and
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: she's kind of co conspiring with Max about this plan.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Then it's time for the big exchange, so Jackie heads
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: to the mall, as does Max, as does Lewis and Melanie,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: and Jackie hands off the fifty thousand dollars to Melanie
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: in the dressing room, and then Jackie leaves the remaining
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: half million dollars in the dressing room on purpose, and
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: then she rushes out of the store and calls for Ray,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: the Michael Keaton cop, and she tells him that Melanie
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: burst into the dressing room and took all of the
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: money and ran out, so she's spinning this web of lies.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Yarns. Yeah.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Then we flash back to this exchange from Melanie and
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Lewis's point of view. Louis is on edge. He's being
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: aggressive and awful, and then after the handoff, he keeps
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: getting lost in the department store and then in the
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: parking lot, and Melanie keeps taunting him about it, and
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: he blows a gasket and shoots and kills Melanie in
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: the parking lot.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Which I forgot about and did not see coming and
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: was quite shocked.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: It happens really abruptly, yeah.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Then we get the exchange from Max's point of view
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: where he watches Jackie come out of the dressing room,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: and then he goes in and retrieves the bag with
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: the half million dollars in cash, and he leaves the
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: mall cut two Louis picking up Ordell, and Lewis is like,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: by the way, I shot Melanie, and Ordell is not
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: mad about it, but he is mad when he looks
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: in the bag and discovers that only forty thousand dollars
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: is in there, not the full half million, and he
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: suspects that it was Jackie Brown who stole it. And
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: then Lewis is like, oh, wait a minute, I did
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: see Max Cherry in the department store, but I didn't
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: even think anything of it. But it is by yeah,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: and Ordella is like, well, you're bad at your job,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: and then he shoots and kills Lewis.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: Which It's funny to see a Robert de Niro character
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: being bad at crime, because in most of his other
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: movies he's pretty good at crime.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed, Like, I mean, obviously his character is horrible,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: but I feel like it's, Yeah, it's really rare to
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: see him in like a very like I don't know,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: like Lewis is a diption outside of being like he yeah,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: he's like a total dufeist like he. I don't know.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I think I just associate de Niro characters with like
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: hyper competence that I'm like, Wow, he's really not gonna
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: get He's not He's got nothing to hide. He's just
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: not good at this.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: There's a scene I think he might be really high
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: and that's why he's acting this way. But he's like
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: spacing out after he has called Simone to try to
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: figure out where she is, and he's like trying to
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: hang up the phone and he keeps spending it around
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: because he can't figure out how to hang up this
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: landline and it's just it's great. Uh Anyway, So Ordell
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: shoots and kills Lewis for being bad at his job,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: and then he hides out at Sharonda's place. Then we
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: cut to Ray questioning Jackie Brown, and he's just like,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: what the hell happened? Because of what Jackie told him,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: he thinks that, you know, she tried to hand off
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: this fifty thousand dollars to Melanie and that Melanie ran
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: off with it and that's why Melanie got shot, and
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: he has no idea about this half million dollars that
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Max has. But Ray feels that he now has enough
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: evidence to convict Ordell because he's been after Ordell this
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: whole time. But before the cops can get to Ordell,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Ordell and Max have a conversation where Ordell is like, Okay,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: I know you helped Jackie steal money, so she needs
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: to give it back or I'm going to kill her.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: And so Max tells Ordell that Jackie does want to
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: give the money back. So they head to Max's office
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: where Jackie and the money are and Ordell comes into
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: the office, but it's a setup and the cops are there,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: and Ray jumps out and shoots Ordell. Then we cut
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: to three days later. Jackie has the half million dollars
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: that only Max knows about of the people who are
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: still alive at least, and she's given some of it
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: to Max for helping, and then she says goodbye to Max.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: They kiss, she tells him she's headed to Spain.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Kiss it's it's fine.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Really, I was like, uh.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I thought it was a good kiss. I don't know,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: maybe it was just early sure.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: But she tells him she's heading to Spain, and then
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: the movie ends with her driving off. So that's the movie.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: to discuss and we're back.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, where shall we start, Well, let's do some context
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: corner and then yeah, go from there. Excellent.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Okay, So basically prior to this movie, Tarantino had directed
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and he had you know,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: written and starred in a few other movies before this,
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: and all of that has had cemented him as this
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: kind of like Indie Darling director that also had box
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: office appeal, who also had this very distinct style. So
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: he's on his way to being this like, you know,
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: a tour status.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: And also I feel like something that also carries through
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and Jackie Brown is like he was already gaining this
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: reputation as someone who is able to like revive an
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: actor's career, because I feel like John Travolta's career was
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: really sort of kickstarted again by Pulp Fiction. I feel
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: like Pam Greer's career here and Max Cherry, who I
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: had not heard of.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: This actor Robert Forster, Yeah, he was bigger in I
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: think the late sixties and seventies, but by the time
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: this movie was being cast, he didn't even have like
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: an agent or a manager, like his career was basically over.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And then we got nominated for a goddamn Oscar. I
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: think that Pam Greer should have been also nominated for
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Oscar like but anyways, yes, yeah.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: So anyway, Tarantino acquired the rights to three Elmore Leonard
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: novels because he wanted to make at least one of
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: them into a movie. He wasn't sure which one. One
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: of these novels is called rum Punch, which is the
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: one that Tarantino decided to adapt, and it was his
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: first time adapting anything. And so the significant thing here
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: is that in the book rum Punch, the main character,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Jackie Burke, is a white woman, and Tarantino rewrote the
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: character as a black woman, Jackie Brown, with Pam Grier
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: in mine specifically yea, yeah exactly, so like Jackie Brown's
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: last name is a nod to her character in Foxy Brown,
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: which is a famous nineteen seventies blacksploitation film. Now, as
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: far as why Tarantino made this change, I couldn't find
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: anything super explicit or specific, but it just seems like
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: he wanted to pay homage to blacksplotation film and pay
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: homage to Pam Greer and her career as an actor
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: in these nineteen seventies blax quotation films such as Foxy
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Brown and Coffee Right.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I was reading that there was a bunch of because
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I have not seen either of those movies, but I
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: guess that there's a bunch of references to them. Yes,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: within Jackie Brown. I was Yeah, for what I was
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: able to gather, it just it seems like what you're saying,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and that he just wanted to meet Pam Greer really bad.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Clay question Mark, Yeah, I was. I mean, especially with
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: conversations about Tarantino, and because the Uma Thorntman story kind
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: of haunts me so much because I have so much
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: love for kill Bill and what happened to her on
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the side of that movie was so terrible. I was like,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: how did Pam Greer feel about working with this man?
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: It turns out pretty good, which is great. I'm I
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: am glad that Pamger had a good experience, But yeah,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: it sounds like he just sort of sought her out
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and was like, Hey, I wrote this for you. Do
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: you want to be super fame miss again and she
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: was like.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, although she did not realize that the part
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: was written for her, because when Tarantino sent her the script,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: she didn't take it very seriously because she thought he
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: was sending it to her because she was being considered
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: for the much smaller role of Melanie. And so she's
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: just like whatever. And then when Tarantino called her, he's like, no,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: I want you as Jackie Brown, and she's like, oh
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: yeah tight. So, like we said, this movie revitalized her
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: career because she had come to fame in the seventies
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: with these various bl exploitation films, and then her career
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: kind of tapered off after that, and.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: She she turned forty, which is not allowed, not.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Allowed if you're a woman. That is sort of the
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: context that we are working with that I feel like
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: could transition into a conversation about Tarantino's handling of race. Yeah,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: because as we said, he makes choices and he's he's
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: got a checkered history when it comes to treatment of
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: race in his movies, where, for example, you know, he
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: cast himself in pulp fiction as a character who very
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: casually throws around.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: The n word.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's also, you know, one of the few white
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: directors of that time who was even willing to address
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: race in his movies at all and willing to cast
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: I would say, more actors of color in his movies
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: than most other big name auteur white guy directors of
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: that time. Again not saying that he handles race well
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: every time he does it. But there are interesting things
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: happen in this movie, one of the main ones being
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: the thing we mentioned of him specifically rewriting, because this
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: almost never happens, where oftentimes, in a book a character
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: will be a person of color, and then when a
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: director gets their hands on it, they adapt it and
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: whitewash it and now the character is suddenly white. It
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: very rarely happens in the reverse. And I mean him
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: wanting to pay homage to black exploitation films, is I
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: don't know.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, do you.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: Explain black exploitation to me? Please? Is that?
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: Like?
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: What genre is that? Or you don't have to if
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: you don't.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: So it's basically so it's a genre, a subgenre most
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: popular in the nineteen seventies, where a lot of black
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: filmmakers and the casts were predominantly black. So it was
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: like a very black run and black lead group of movies.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: But they're called black splotation of because they are relying
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: on different stereotypes a lot of times, like the characters
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: were like pimps or drug dealers or gun runners, things
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: So it's what the name suggested it to be exploiting
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: the black dive in a way.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, although it does feel worth mentioning that the two
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: black exploitation movies that Pamger is most famous for were
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: written and directed by white director Jack Hill.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: True.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so there are sort of like variations within the genre.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: You know, not all of them are necessarily relying on
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: stereotypes things like that. But Tarantino wanting to pay homage
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: to those films is I don't know, I don't know
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: how to feel about it necessarily one way or another.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: And then another thing he does is he has various
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: characters comment on race throughout the film. Mostly it's Samuel L. Jackson.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Another thing to note here is that Tarantino originally wrote
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: the part of Ordell for himself. Tarantino was planning for
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: a long time to play Ordell, so.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Glad he stopped acting in so stressful watching him act
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: it really is.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: So after a long time he decided to you know,
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: relinquish the part and cast Samuel L. Jackson in the role,
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: which I'm again glad he did. I'd much rather watch
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: Samuel L. Jackson on screen than Tarantino. But that lends
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: itself to Ordell making different comments about how like when
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: he's in Max Cherry's office and Max wants to know, well,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: if you already have ten thousand dollars, why can't you
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: just you know, why do you need a bond? Why
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: can't you take that money and bail out Beaumont? And
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Ordell is like a black man showing up with ten
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars in cash. They're gonna want to know how
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: I got it. They'll want to keep a chunk of it,
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: claiming that there's like court costs all this stuff. So
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: he's saying, yeah, that they're gonna make racist assumptions about him,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: and you know, nothing will work out in his favor. Similarly,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: he's talking about when he wants Jackie Brown bailed out,
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: and he's commenting on the charge that she has been
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: charged with that she you know, was caught with less
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: than two ounces of cocaine but charged with intent to distribute,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: and he says, you know, a movie star gets caught
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: with that same amount, they'd get charged with just possession,
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: which is a far less severe crime. But because it's
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: a black woman, she's charged with this bogus, far more
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: severe crime.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's again like I don't know, I'm
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: like not trying to hand it to Tarantina too much
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: because it feels weird too. But yeah, like you were
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: saying earlier, Caitlin, it's like this is more commentary you
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: would get from a movie by a white director than
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: than most directors at this time, and just more commentary
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: on race in a big movie. In general, beau Vivie
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: is super successful.
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I mean, I guess my point is like
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: I wasn't necessarily expecting to see that in this movie
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: because again I didn't really I knew very little about
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: it going in, just that it was a Tarantino movie.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: And again he.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: Based on his treatment of race and him throwing around
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: the N word very casually a few years before in
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: pulp fiction, but then him turning around and adapting this
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: character to specifically include a black woman as the protagonist
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: of his movie and framing her in a way that
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: in my opinion, makes her really awesome and like a
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: really complex character. And that plus like including other commentary
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: about race. Nothing too extensive in this movie, but again
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: it's more than you'd expect from a white director in
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: the nineties, which you know, the bar is very low,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: and that doesn't necessarily, you know, mean that he should
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: get all these prizes and recognition. But I don't know,
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: it's complicated.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: It's interesting, which like there's I mean, we can link
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: this in the description of the episode two because yeah,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: that topic alone there has been so much written about. Yeah,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: it like comes up every time he releases a movie,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: usually because he has once again written it into the movie, right,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and I know that he is. He and Spike Lee
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: have had this sort of long standing back and forth
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: about how Spike Lee feels like Spike Lee has a
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: sort of storied history of being like, this is fucking
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: weird that you do this this much like knock it off. Yeah,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: we can link that in the description because it is
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think, very relevant. And also there's it
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: like infinite there is like twenty plus years of debate
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: about his use of the N word in movies, which
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: is absolutely wild and this movie was another example of
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: like there was a wave of discourse like that in
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven. So for longer than some of our
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: listeners have been alive, this conversation has been going on.
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: For the listeners who haven't heard like his rationale if
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: you want to call it rationale, Like does he explain?
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: He does he ever own why he says it?
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: So he's commented on it many times. I don't know.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess everyone react the way react, so
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: he sort of in twenty fifteen, I think he had
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: his all time worst response to it. When The Hateful
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Eight came out. He did an interview with Brett Easton Ellis,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: which I feel like doesn't help and address this controversy again,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: saying quote, if you sit through the criticism, you see
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: it's pretty evenly divided between pros and cons. But when
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: black critics came out with savage think pieces about Django,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Django unchained, I couldn't have cared less. If people don't
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: like my movies, they don't like my movies, and if
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: they don't get it, it doesn't matter. The bad taste
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: that was left in my mouth had to do with this.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: It's been a long time since the subject of a
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: writer's skin was mentioned as often as mine. You wouldn't
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: think the color of a writer's skin should have any
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: effect on the words themselves. In a lot of the
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: more ugly pieces, my motives were really brought to bear
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: in the most negative way. It's like I'm some super
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: villain coming up with this stuff unquote, which seems like
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: playing the victim to a pretty absurd extent.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I really don't understand, who don't.
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: This sounds like a very like a lot of words,
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: but I didn't get any thread in what.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't even get.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: It's those sharp sentences that it's so bizarre too, because
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I mean that reaction. It's I again, like this movie,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I think like Addresses, Like there's a scene between Ordell
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and Max where Max essentially is like, are you appealing
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: to my white guilt to get me to do this?
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And it's like, for I don't know, for a writer,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: that is like trying to interact with those concepts and
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: these conversations to also say that in such a clueless way,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: it's just like, yeah, baffling. Anyways, So we'll link more,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: but yeah.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: to discuss further and we're back.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Jackie Brown.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it. Sadia, you had mentioned that you
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: related to this character in meaningful ways, so I'm interested
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: to hear your thoughts on that.
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: I'm just totally blown away by the character and this movie.
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: Is about her.
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: This is such a strong movie given that the cast,
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: the other cast is quite a list past, but she
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: just overshadows the.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: Whole film, Like the whole deal is, like you can't
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: start watching her.
• 42:15
  Speaker 6: She's sassy, she's real, she's vulnerable, she's flawed, she's a survivor,
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: and she's all of those things most of the time,
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: and we're we're really with her, and like, you know,
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: it's hard what she's going through, and I don't know, it's.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: Like I don't know, I just I fell in love
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: with her so so much. And I think it's also
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: like for me when I watched it, it was just
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: like a reminder, like I did get this kind of
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: moment where it's like, what I've never seen.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: Anybody like her.
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: So that added to the impact that she had is
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: that this is a figure that we really need to
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: watch and this is a character a person like her
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: that I love to watch, and I could have continued
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: to watch her go to Spain.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: And you know, it wasn't.
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: Even about relationship, which is really rare, like I think
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: or women is often you know, you want them to
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: kind of have a partner or that's a big part
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: of the story, if not the story. But this wasn't
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: about those. That was so secondary and so for her
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: to own everything in those in that kind of context,
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: for me, it was like I've never seen it before.
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: I couldn't start watching it. I wanted her to have
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: all the money. I wanted her to win and I
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: don't know how, but it was just like it was
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: really cool, and it just felt she was very honest,
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: she'd been through a lot. And yeah, just to repeat,
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: I hate repeating myself, but it's just like I think
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: it's because there's such an absence of women like her
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: on screen that it really like touched me quite a lot.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: Right, I mean, because it's rare to have a movie
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: of this genre, you know, like a crime thriller, noir
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: type movie that center is a woman as the protagonist
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: who we are rooting for, the one where she's like
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: the smartest person in the room, in any room she's in,
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: she's doing a lot of the planning. She's playing all
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: of these people like she's she's the one. She comes
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: out on top.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: She's not hyper sexualized, which yeah, and you can't be
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: bad at her, like even though she's got all of
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: the strings, like you know how sometimes you hate like
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: the villain in Bond or whatever, Like we're so with her,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: even though we're annoyed because we don't know what's going
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: on or whatever, we're feeling for her and it's like
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: we're really going through it as the audience.
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: But like she's Yeah, she doesn't really do a lot wrong.
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: There's no victim blaming. It's like this sometimes, you know,
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: if there's you know, women in crime, it's like we
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: we have only like a one D relationship with them
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: or something like that. But even though she's a little
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: bit flawed, like we're still with her.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: There's no blame here.
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: There's really complex and it's kind of just enjoyable to
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: see this that you can't start watching.
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, like you were saying, Jamie, she's the
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: way that a lot of women in her position as
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: a female character in a crime thriller movie, that character
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: would be hyper sexualized and or she would be framed
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: as like the fem fetal, but that is never how
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: she's represented, and especially for her to be centered as
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: the protagonist in a movie like this, especially as a
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: black woman, and especially as a black woman who is
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: older than thirty or thirty five, Like, these are very
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: rare things to see.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: And this is I forget when we talked about this, Caitlin,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: But I feel like it's like Pam gre the actor
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: is over forty when this is filmed. But we also
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: I feel like often see actors who are older, but
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: they're still playing like a thirty seven year old, and
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: in this movie it is stated she is forty four
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: years old. And also like does I don't know, like
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: also the character matches that because I do think that
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: there is, like even now, like a pressure to eternally
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: seem like you are in your late thirties early forties,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: even if you're an actor into your fifties and sixties.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: The Sandra Bullock effect, Yeah.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Totally, and I and it's like has nothing to do
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: with the actors. It's all the whatever cultural pressure to
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: look at a certain age long after that makes human sense.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: But I liked that like, Yeah, like Jackie Brown is,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I liked how this movie approached age
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: as a theme, And I didn't even realize until those
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: conversations were had between a few different characters, because I think,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, Jackie obviously talks about it most explicitly when
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: she talks about aging with Max and also points out
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: how aging for her is framed differently than the way
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: it is for him. And I thought that scene was
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: like really great and like beautifully done between them. And
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: you also see the freaky DeNiro care talk about aging too,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: because now he can't smoke weed at he are like,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: but it's like everyone like most characters. I don't know
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: as much for Ordell, but for like most characters, we
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: get to know interact with the idea of aging in
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: a way that felt I don't know, like I guess,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: more thoughtful than I was expecting it to. Yeah, And
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I think it's like also rare to see you know,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Pam Career and oh what's the what's Max Cherry's name? Again?
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: God damn it? Oh, Robert Forster, Robert Forster to see
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: actually like age well, like whatever, I mean, I don't
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: want to get into age gap discourse today, but like
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: age appropriate older couple as the leading romantic story is
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: again just like doesn't really happen even now still and
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I just thought it was I don't know. I liked
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: how each character sort of got to explore what that
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: meant to them, And I think that's seen like between
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Jackie and Max illustrates her motivation on why she's doing
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: what she's doing so beautifully and so empathetically and like
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: you can't watch that scene and not want her to
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: get every cent as well.
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: Just on the same point as you, Jamie, is that
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: I'm not objectifying her. I don't know that sounds really weird,
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: but in terms of like I'm not fixated with her
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: appearance as beautiful as she is, Like that doesn't really
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: like it's not my central focal point. Like I think
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: I only realized at the end when that, like you
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: said that that kiss happened, that I'm like, she's a
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: sexy lady, but like you, I'm seeing her as a
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: human and outrounded person. I'm not just like checking her
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: out like the whole time, or it's not that she's
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: a Yeah, I think you already made that point about
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: her not being sexualized.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, which is like really cool. I don't know, Like
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: I again, I just like didn't expect it because Tarantino's
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: super hidden miss on how he sexualizes his female characters
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: as well. And you know, there's a bajillion studies about
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: how women of color in general are more likely to
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: be sexualized in movies that anyone is making, especially in
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: the West, And so I don't know, I just like
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: I loved the scene where like Max falls in love
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: with Jackie at first sight and she's just walking like.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: She's having spent several days maybe in jail, and she's
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: like disheveled, and she wants to go to like a
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: dark bar so that no one can see her because
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: she's like, I look like I just got out of jail.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: But he's just like, that's the most beautiful woman I've
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: ever seen, and.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: He's not wrong.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: Like Pam Greer has such a presence on screen, like
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: she has just a face that you want to stare
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: at for hours and hours and hours, Like it's just
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: she's just so magnetic and every man who she encounters
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: basically falls in love with her because Max sees her
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: it's love at first sight. There are various allusions to
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: Ray the Michael Keaton cop liking her, having a crush
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: on her. He like takes her out to dinner several
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: times to like discuss the case, but like it doesn't
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: need to be over dinner, but he's just like, I
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: love I just want to look at her. The bartender.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: It's like a brief, like two second scene, but like
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: the bartender at the cockatoo, Inn is like, hey baby.
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: But the characters like her can be made. Why why
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: aren't they made since then? Or obviously not before? Fine,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: but like since then, how come it's proven that this
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: is a realistic portrayal of a character? Like it's very rare,
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: isn't it?
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: It does still feel I mean, it's like, yeah, I
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: feel like there's far fewer examples since Jackie Brown then
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: there should be. And I don't know, like I think
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: this is probably all Pam Greer, but it feels so
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: cool and rare to have a character who is sexy
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: but not sexualized, Like I don't I don't know. I mean,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I think it just has to deal with like her
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: persona and what a good like an amazing actor and
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: what an amazing performance this is. But like she's so
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: naturally like magnetic and sexy and cool that it's like,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like it feels like this movie just
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: lets Pam Greer do her work and perform and just
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: like you have no trouble believing that anyone would fall
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: in love.
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: With her, And it's so like freeing because I'm not
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: focused on her being sexualized. I'm seeing so many different
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: aspects of her that I wouldn't if she was being sexualized.
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: So I'm not saying that there's no room for sexualized characters,
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: but I think because it's just always the case that, like,
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: because I'm so unpreoccupied with her, like those kind of
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: aspects of her, I'm allowed to just let go and
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: be in the story and follow her and not just
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: parts of her, like I don't. Yeah, it's not focunistic
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: at all. It's just like you're with the character, you're
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: not we've had because of her looks or because of
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: superficial things.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Right, totally, Yeah, you just need her. I wanted to
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: point out one more of the age things because I
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: just I don't know, I'm like, wow, age is never
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: discussed in movies, but the Cops at one point in
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the first scene that Jackie has with the two cops
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: where they're going through her bag and she's holding her ground.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: She's not putting up with like not taking the bait
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: after bait after bait that they're throwing at her. And
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: one of those pieces of bait is related to both
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: her age, race, and class, I think, all in the
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: same sentence where one of the characters says something akin
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: to like, if I was a forty four year old
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: black woman with a shitty job, I don't think I
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: would have another year to throw away, So you better
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: cooperate with us. Yeah, And I don't know. It's just
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: like such a vile thing to say to her, and
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: she just like does I mean, obviously doesn't fall for it.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: She doesn't fall for anyone's bullshit, but it was you know.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I think that like that line sticks with her because
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: it comes up in a roundabout way later in that
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: conversation with Max, and her takeaway is like that's the
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: reason she's not going to cooperate with the cops. Is
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: like she's going to get her fucking eat prey love story,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: and like there's totally there's Jackie Brown, two very different vibes. Almost, Well,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: that's the thing.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: Like her motivation is the intersection of her age, her race,
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: and her class because she and her status as someone
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: who has been incarcerated because she has a prior conviction
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: and where she served. I don't know if she served
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: jail time, but she was on probation for a while,
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: because it's referenced that she was formerly married and her husband,
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: who was a pilot, got caught for smuggling drugs I
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: think or something and she was his accomplice. So she
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: got apprehended by the law to some degree, and it
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: made it so that she couldn't get work with the
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: major airlines, which is why she's working for Cabo Air,
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: which I don't know if that's a real airline or not,
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: but in the movie, it's widely known that it's like
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: the shittiest airline to work for, and it's you know,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: referenced that she only makes sixteen thousand dollars a year,
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: and so she's looking out for herself and she knows
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: that like as a black woman in her mid forties
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: with a prior arrest or, like you know, something on
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: her record, the cards are very much stacked against her,
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: and she needs to do whatever it takes to look
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: out for herself. And that's why she's like, I'm going
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: to steal this half a million dollars from this shitty
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: arms dealer who's like bad hit everything, and we're rooting
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: for her because of it.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: Did you guys?
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: Sorry, we talked about this very briefly at the beginning,
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: but did you learn anything about yourselves when you watch
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: this that did you think you would do the same
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: as her? Or what was your anxiety that was like,
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: oh my god, I couldn't do that, Like, what did
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: you learn about your pelf?
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: I would be so afraid of getting murdered by someone
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: that I and I'm such a rule follower that.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: I'd be like, okay, so not for you.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: I'm such a baby.
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: It was hard. It was hard to decide.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was also, I mean, I think you mentioned
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: it earlier. I was like, I don't know if I
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: could keep my facts straight sufficiently morally. I have no
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: scruples about what Jackie is doing. And if I were
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: in a similar position, I you know, if I thought
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: I could pull it off, Yeah, maybe I would try,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. I was like, I would need
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: someone that I trust to be like wait, what lie?
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Did I tell again? Like I would need someone.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: Well, she trusts Max, and I want to just chat
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: about that relationship a little bit more because, like as
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: you said, Saudia, it is that relationship is like almost
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: it's like barely even a subplot in this movie. It's
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: just sort of there. It's not really taking up any
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: space there. You know, he likes her from the get go.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: She's not like exploiting him or using him necessarily because
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: she never tries to be like I love you and
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: that's why you have to do this for me. She's
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: just like I'm trying to do this thing. Can you
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: help me? And he's like, well, I love you so yes.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: And I was like, hm, I wonder if they're gonna
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: like stick them together at the end, and she does
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: like kind of halfheartedly invite him to go to Spain
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: with her. He declines, I'm not surprised that this movie
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: didn't do it, because like that's not a Tarantino thing
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: to do. He usually doesn't go for those cliche Hollywood endings.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: But I think, I mean, I was surprised at how
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: like I think it again, like for me connected to
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: the sexy but not sexualized thing where I don't know,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: I mean trying to think of a clear cut example.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: But again just with like women over forty in movies,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: I flick it is the older you get as an actor,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: if you're a woman or anyone of a marginalized gender,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the less likely it is that you are going to
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: be shown as romantically viable for sure. And I like
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: that she kind of gets her little like I don't know.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: This relationship is like very much a side quest of
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: the movie. It is there. It helps move the plot
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: along a little bit, but it's like she I kind
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: of liked where they left it, where it was like, yeah,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: they didn't force the relationship and that like I don't know.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously he'll be hung up on her until
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: he dies, but that's kind of his prefer She's got
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: to move on. And I love that the movie gives us,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: you know, those like book endings of Jackie by herself,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: like moving through the world, and this time she's like
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: driving with intention. She's not being ushered along by this
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: moving whatever at the airport, like I don't know, she's
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: It's wow. It feels very like and my life was
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: the prize at the end of the movie, and you're like,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I'm in control. It's cool.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: This is from a Variety piece from a few years
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: ago entitled Jackie Brown at twenty, meaning the movie is
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: twenty years old, Jackie Brown at twenty. Pam Greer has
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: a better idea for an ending, and so Pam Greer's
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: pitch for an alternate ending for this movie is this quote.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: In my ending, we have a nice kiss, a second kiss,
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: and embrace, and he lets all the phone calls go
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: to voicemail. He'll take care of them later. He turns
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: out the lights, takes the keys, with me kids in
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: the car, I drive off, and all of a sudden
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: he becomes this chatterbox and annoying. I go around the block,
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: drop him off, and peel out of there.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's great.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: I like that because I think what made their you
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: can't call.
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: It relationship, but their connection interesting was the whole kind
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: of danger of this kind of smuggling deal type of thing.
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: And so if that's the sexy thing and that's kind
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: of resolved itself, then yeah, maybe like the reality, I
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: think basically it's a bittersweet, but it's probably more correct
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: that they don't end up together because daily life just
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: isn't going to be.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: For Jackie right, Yeah, I think he's too much of
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: a square for her, and it seems like he kind
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: of I kind of appreciated that he seemed to have
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: the self knowledge to understand that, and that's part of
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: why he's like, I can't I can't go on a vacation.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: I'm too boring.
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: Oh, Jamie is going in.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Well, I really know, I really liked Max, Like I
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: thought that like he was a I don't know, I
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: think it's kind of Yeah, there's a lot about this,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: especially for a Tarantino movie that surprised me, where I
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: feel like you don't get a lot of like gentle men,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: not not gentlemen, but like gentle men in Tarantino movies.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: But Max Cherry is, you know, a pretty gentle man,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: and I appreciated him. And I also was like, would
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: I want to go on a European vacation with him?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Probably not. I feel like Jackie's on to I truly
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: am like, what is the like? Yeah? And I also,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I think I'm just a sucker for
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: like relationship subplots that are like we like had this
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: really weird, interesting moment in our lives that we shared together,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: and then we moved on. I always kind of appreciate
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: that kind of story, and it seems like they'll both,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: you know, remember each other fondly. And also I kind
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: of liked that they're like, well, I didn't like this,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: but it was like Max was so like, I don't know,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: I think inspired by meeting Jackie that he's like, I'm
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: getting out of the bail bond game and then he
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: does not, which just felt very true to life, true
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: like I'm always like I'm I'm done with whoever whatever,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: and then you know, two seconds later you're like, well, no,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: I actually have to pay rent this month, so I
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: guess I'm not done.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: Can we talk about the other women in the movie?
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: Who oh boy? Are all girlfriends of Ordell?
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, Tarantino used up all his respect
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: for women on Jackie's character, and he had none despair
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: for anybody else.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: This is true.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: The character with the most screened time of those girlfriends
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: of Ordell is Melanie, played by Bridget Fon. So we
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: learn very early on that Ordell mistreats Melanie. He expects
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: her to wait on him hand and foot. There's a
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: scene where they're watching feminist masterpiece Chicks who love guns.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: I thought that was like funny satire for yeah.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: Also noteworthy in that scene is Ordell is like talking
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: to Lewis about all of his gun knowledge, and he's
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: saying that his customers want particular guns because certain movies
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: made them look cool, even if the guns themselves are
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: not very good quality. But he's like, well, they want
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: the cool guns from the cool movies. And so he's
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: just commenting on how influential media is. Anyway, So Melanie
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: is mistreated if she tries to, you know, challenge Ordell,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: he threatens her with violence. She spends most of the
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: movie shit talking or Dell to Lewis, saying like he
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: doesn't actually know anything. He's like he thinks he's Johnny
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: Gunn or something, but he doesn't know shit. She also
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: later shit talks Lewis to his face, saying like, oh, no,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: wonder you got arrested and like went to jail. You're
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: really bad at this, uh, and then he retaliates by
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: shooting her, which we'll get to in a second.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: But when you when you explain it like that, it's
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: sort it's interesting. I don't know, maybe there's nothing to this,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: but like it seems like Melanie is this sort of
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: like behavioral inverse of Jackie in a lot of ways,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: where like Jackie knows that she is mostly surrounded by
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: incompetent men, but generally has enough patience to play it
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: to her advantage. Yeah, where Melanie does not have that patience. True,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: And I like, I don't know, I'm not trying to
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: like I I'm I'm so curious of like what you're
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: supposed to think about her death. I didn't know what
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: to take because I feel like there's a way that
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: it's just like aid an act of cruelty and like
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: some sort of comment on like masculinity about the DeNiro character.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: But I also think there's a viewing of it that
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, she brought it upon herself.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's but I don't know that's the thing. Like
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: she so she gets she later gets roped into this
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: like hand off sting thing and she becomes an integral
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: part of the plan. But then she almost immediately is
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: shot and killed in a way that, like we said,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: we do not see coming at all. And it got
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: me thinking about the other characters who are killed in
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: the movie and why they are killed. Because the people
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: who are killed are Beaumont, Lewis, Ordell, and Melanie, not
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: in that order exactly, but Beaumont and Lewis are killed
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: by Ordell because they do something foolish. They're a liability
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: to Ordell. Basically, they're screwing up his operation, and so
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: he kills them to protect himself and eliminate these liabilities.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: Ordell is killed because he's the bad guy who has
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: to be taken down. He is also him getting killed
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: to me felt like the movie punishing him for his
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: bad behavior. He's cruel to women, he's he's going to
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: kill the character that we're rooting for, Jackie Brown, so
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: he has to die, and that's the narrative punishing him.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: But then Melanie is killed, like because she challenged Lewis's
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: fragile ego, and it's just like I don't know how
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: to interpret it exactly like you were saying, Jamie.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: And then Ordell is like, when Lewis is like, yeah,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: I did shoot Melanie and she's basically dead, Ordell is
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: like you couldn't talk to her, you couldn't just hit her.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: And then Lewis is like, well, I don't know, I
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: just shot her, and so Ordell is like, well, if
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: you had to do it, you had to do it.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: And which which says to me just like based on
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Like it's hard to put on nineteen
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: ninety seven goggles for like watching this, but it feels
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: like in that scene with Sam Jackson and de Niro
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: that like it's kind of played as a joke right
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: after it happens, because that's like such a Tarantino scene
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: of like Sam Jackson in a car talking about a
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: recent murder, and it's like some of the most iconic
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: scenes that he's written. I don't know. This is not
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: one of them, obviously, but I don't know. I felt
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: like her, I don't understand why in a movie where
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: I feel like I did understand most of why things
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: were happening, that felt casual and random in Seid, And
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: maybe that's what it was supposed to be. I don't
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: I don't really know. And I also, towards the end
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: of Melanie's character arc, was not sure what she was
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: trying to do either, because it's like she had we
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: know that her motive is that Ordele treats her poorly
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: and she wants to fuck him over in some way,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: and that's why she's leveraging this new I don't know,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: like awkward, weed smoking hang situation with Lewis to her advantage.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: I don't understand really why, Like, but on the day
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: of their plan, like she is running behind, Like there's
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: I just like didn't understand what we were supposed to
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: take away from her behavior like that was very unsettled,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: and I think just was made to some extent to
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: make her seem like incompetent and kind of just like
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: a bimbo in the bad way, not in the coup way.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: Well, there are a lot of male directors who do
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: this where they're like, yeah, there are certain types of
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: women who do deserve respect, but if you're this type
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: of woman, you do not deserve respect. And I think
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: Tarantino views someone like the Melanie character as the type
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: of woman who does not deserve respect, and therefore she's
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: gonna make choices that ultimately get her killed, and the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: movie is gonna basically sort of blame her for getting killed,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: and it's like, well, she was asking for it basically
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: because of the way she is. That's at least my
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: interpretation of it. I think you could read it differently,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: but that's how I sort of feel.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm on bored with that. It's just bizarre
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: because it's like this, she feels more in line with
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: like a more stereotypical Quentin Tarantina character wedged inside of
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: this movie that pushes against a lot of what you
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: would consider to be stereotypical Quentin Tarantino characters. And I
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: also just like Bridget Fonda, and I wish that she
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: got a better ending. I like that at least at
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: least before she dies. You do get like this moment
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: between her and Jackie, even though it doesn't pass the
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: fact with us and they don't even ever really meet,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: like face to face really because anytime that Jackie is entering,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: I think the one time that they might have a conversation,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: Melanie is leaving as Jackie arrives. But Jackie does try
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: to like give her extra like she gives her like
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: the cherry on top, because what did Ordella ever do
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: for either of us? Yeah, I liked that little moment
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: of solidarity even though she's got like forty five minutes
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: left to live for reasons unclear to me, Yeah, I liked.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: I mean the other two we hear about two other characters.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: They're both girlfriends of Wordel.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: I think Simone and Shiranda.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, I don't know. The way that Ordel talks
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: about women is just horrible. Does not have a good
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: thing to say about anybody. I think he's talking about
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: Shiranda when he says that he basically prayed on her
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: dream of moving to Hollywood. Yeah, and is keeping her
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: captive to some extent as his girlfriend talks about her
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: like she is not smart at all. But I believe
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: she is also the one that takes the money and
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: fucks him over.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: Right, No, that's Simone. Oh, good for Simone. So Simone
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: is right. So Simone is the middle aged woman who
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: who we meet when she's like doing a little dance
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: for Lewis in this like blue sequin dress. She's the
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: kind of secret person who's there for the trial run
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: of that like first money and Off, and then she
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: skips town with ten thousand dollars and they never hear
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: from her again, good for her. Shironda is the younger woman.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: She's only nineteen. Meanwhile, Sam Jackson, like his character's in
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: his forties, late forties, presumably, like you said, he talks
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: about her very disrespectfully calls her like a country bumpkin
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: kind of thing, and then later she does that handoff
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: and she interacts very briefly with Jackie, and that's kind
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: of all we see of the food at the food court.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: She eats some of her meal, and then later she's
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: in the room when Ordell and Max are talking, and
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: it's implied that she's like so stoned out of her mind.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: I'm guessing on Heroin that she's like basically incapacitated and
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: she doesn't even like speak or does like barely conscious
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: in that scene. So those other two women of like
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: Simone and Shiranda, they are important to the story for
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: like the different sting operations that go down, but they
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: get very little screen time, They get very little characterization.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: The characters nor the movie seem to respect them very much,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: and then they're you know, in a couple scenes and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: then gone, so there isn't really even much to talk
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: about with them.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: I really do like picture Quinn Garantino in his house
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: with like a vial full of respect for women characters,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: and he's like, I don't know, I'm fresh out.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: I used it all up on that one.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: It's gonna have to phone it in. Yeah, which sucks
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: because again, I feel like we've been talking about this
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: for as long as the show has existed. I think
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: the first time we may have talked about it was
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: in the original Star Wars a New Hope episode where
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: it's like movies that have one amazing woman character and
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: then no one for them to really talk to other
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: than men for the whole movie. Yeah, which this movie
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: is not completely an example of, but for the most part,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it's not perfect, but what
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: movie is. I just love Jackie Brown so much that
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: I want to forget this movie for certain things. But also,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm team Bridget Fonda. She's very talented, she's
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: married to Danny Elfman, whoa is that fun.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: She's also a NEPO person because she's Henry Fonda's granddaughter,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: Peter Fonda's daughter. The whole Fonda family is just I mean,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: I like them, Jane Fonda's she's Jane Fonda's niece.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: This is I'm pro Fonda. I'm not made of stone.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Uh?
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 7: Not?
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: That was uh, that's battle I had.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we were kind of alluding to this There
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: are a couple interactions between women, but as far as
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: this movie passed seeing the Bechdel test, I do think
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: that an exchange between Jackie and Sharonda, Yes at the
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: mall court does pass.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: It does, yeah, because they are and I would say
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: that that's their meeting. Is definitely very meaningful. Even though
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have a ton of plot relevance, it feels
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: I was really happy that the movie at least took
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: a second to introduce them to each other. They're mostly
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: talking about food at the mall, but yeah, there's subtext.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: I think it counts true. But I think that that
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: is the only time that we get because the other
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: exchanges are very brief. Between Pamguer and Bridget Fonda, there's
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: a moment of solidarity, but it's over a mutual being
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: fucked over by Ordell, so that that doesn't pass.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: But maybe when Melanie is like, you look really good
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: in that suit and Jackie's like thanks.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: Oh that's true. Okay, feminist masterpiece. I take back everything.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: I can take it all back, but onto the real
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: end all be all of movie rating systems, the Nipple scale, Yes,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: where we rate the movie on a scale of zero
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: to five Nipples based on examining the movie through an
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: intersectional feminist lens. So this one, oh, this is a
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: tricky one. You know, you have such an incredible character
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: in Jackie Brown. Again, she's the smartest person in the room.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: You know, she's a realistically flawed character. She's you know,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: she's highly motivated. What is motivating her are interesting relatable
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: things as far as like, again the intersection of her age, race,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: and class.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: And I like that she's not like beholden to anybody
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: like those flaws are hers.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: It's not like there's a whole I.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 5: Mean, there's probably a big backstory, but it's not kind
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: of alluded to, and so there's no like you feel
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 5: for her, but it's not like a pity feel.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: For her for sure.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's highly empathetic as a character, and I'm rooting
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: for her every step of the way. And you know,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: the Pam Greer performance is incredible, and there's just so
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: much to love and admire about the Jackie Brown character.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: But as we said, Tarantino seems to have used up
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: all of his respect for women on that one character,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: and then the rest of the female characters are not
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: offered that same level of respect or characterization, and yeah,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know, there's just.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: Melanie could have just disappeared, Yeah, like she could have
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: like like we didn't need to.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: Gotten away from Lewis.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: In some respect, I think the treatment of the.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 5: Smaller roles of the women it says a lot about
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 5: the guys as well, and I feel like it's also
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 5: about the world that's been created.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: They're not very I don't know what the word I mean, upmarket.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 5: Is probably a bad choice of word, but it's like
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 5: I still hold them accountable to an extent. Does that
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 5: make sense what I'm saying, Like in terms of the
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 5: male characters, their sloppiness towards the women, it's about them
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: as well.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: I do think the movie is commenting on their like
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: fragile male egos and.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 5: They're in a funk, right, These guys are in a funk.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 5: As you kind of said earlier about Robert de Niro's character, like.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: He's basically a loser.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I think it's like it's not like the
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 5: best portrayal of women, or it's not a good portrayal
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 5: of women. However, I think they're also accountable in terms
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 5: of they're not great portrayals of men.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: Either, right, I mean Tarantino does not have respect. I
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: don't know, I don't know how he feels about like
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: ordell Or, but I mean he seems to think Max
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: Cherry is a pretty nice guy. Yeah, and I can't
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: argue with him. I was like, I was like, I
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: like Max, but also like we didn't oh, we didn't
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: even talk about like Jackie Brown colluding with the cops
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: and like her cooperation with the police and you know,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: but also maybe you just have to chalk it up
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: to again, she's gonna do whatever it takes, because she
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: also plays the cops like she's not like there to
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: be like, no, you guys are awesome and I'm definitely
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: helping you with one hundred percent integrity.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't say that this movie is procused pro coright, No,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: it seems like she she makes it very like I
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: think that, like especially in that scene where it's hurt,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: She's like, I'm going to do whatever is necessary to
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: survive in a way where I can be happy. Like
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: justifies how she games everything in every single role, right
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: and where like woaho, hell Yeah. But then like I
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: think more it's pro cop to make Michael Keaton a
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: cop because I think he's really hot. Well, I know,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: someone is so sexy. That's sort of my thing. Casting
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: someone as young Michael Keaton does it for me, right.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: Casting someone as likable as Michael Keaton as a cop
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: character is a little too pro cop for my for
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: my taste, but even so, yeah, it's It's just it's
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: Jackie Brown again being the smartest person in the room,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: being able to keep track of everything that she's said
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: to everyone, anticipating things that will probably like she knows
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: all about Murphy's Law, like whatever can go wrong will,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: She's like anticipating things. I also like the contrast between Beaumont,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: who willingly gets in the trunk of a car for
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: like basically no reason. He's like the reason that Ordell
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: is like, yeah, because I need you to spring out
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: and surprise these people. I'm selling the guns too. It's
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: just like the flimsiest thing ever. Bowman's just like, well, okay.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: It's horrible, and how the horrible thing is When that
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: scene happened, I believed him. I was like, wow, I
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: really would not make it five minutes into this movie.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: I would have been like, yeah, I guess I owe
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: you as sure.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: You get into the trunk of a car, no problem.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: But when as soon as you know, Max tells Jackie
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: about like, oh yeah, Beaumont got killed a few days ago.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: Jackie's like, oh, well, that was obviously Ordell, and obviously
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: he's going to try to kill me too, So I
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: need to prepare. Like she's just so good at being
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: hyper aware of the situation and all the nuances and
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: like anticipating anything that might happen, and she's incredible. So
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: with all of this in mind, I think I'll give
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: the movie.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: Tempted to give it like three nipples because there are
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: some maybe even three and a half.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Wow, I was even gonna go for it.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: Is that too scary?
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: That's not scary?
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: Is that too scary?
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: All right, I'll go three and at half because at
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, it is still Quentin Tarantino
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: writing the N word into his script one hundred times. Yeah,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: So three and a half nipples, and I'm going to
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: distribute them between Pam Greer, the actors who played Shiranda
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: and Simone, and Sam Jackson, who I just love and
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: he's the greatest, so much so that I'm on a
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: first name basis with him.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: Hey Sam, Wow, yeah yeah.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: Four.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: For some reason, four doesn't sit right with my with
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: my spirit, So I'll go, I'll go three point seven. Five.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: Let's get let's get into some real decimones. Get number freaky.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: Jackie Brown is such an awesome character. I feel like it. Yeah,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: there's just so many elements of like, I mean, we
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: have talked about it, but centering a black woman in
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: her forties in a like huge movie was really rare then,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: is really rare now. And also that like she's sexy,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: but she's not like I don't know, the camera doesn't
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: like make a meal of her in a creepy way
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: at any point. She's really smart, she's really motivated, but
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: not in a way that it's like becomes like weird
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: Mary Sue kind of behavior. Like the steaks are very real,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: and like she's I don't know, she's just like the
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: coolest fucking character, and I wish that she had again,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: just like women in her life to talk to. I
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: always think it's fascinating when you find these characters who
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: are like these amazing women that you're like, how does
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: Jackie Brown not have five? Hundred friends like, she is
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: so cool and so loved by everyone she encounters that
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: you would think if the movie allowed her to encounter
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: more women, they too would love her. And I just
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, we don't really get into
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: Jackie Brown's or anyone in this movie's you know, backstory
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: in a meaningful way, which didn't bother me, But I
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: just I don't know. It would have been cool to
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: see what a true, like deep friendship would have seemed
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: like for her. But whatever it's she is incredible. I
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: think Melanie and Simone and Ronda were all done different
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: types and degrees of disservice, but Jackie She's untouchable. And
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: so I'm gonna give it three point seven five. I'm
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: giving them all to Pam Greer because it's her movie. Baby.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: I feel like you could have written out as much
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: as I like Robert de Niro as an actor, I
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: feel like you could have written him out of the
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: movie and then given Jackie Brown a friend instead of
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: giving Ordell a friend. That's my controversial This.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: Doesn't This doesn't resolve the problem, but it would been
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: kind of fun if Rubbertcenio is Jackie Brown's best friend.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 3: Anyway, Sardio, how about you? What say you?
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 5: This is so hard because it's my choice, but I think, yeah,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: I was going to go for four, but maybe three
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 5: point nine, but that's just weird, so probably let me
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 5: go for four.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, oh yeah, because it.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 7: Definitely did make me see things in a really refreshing way,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 7: even though like we've definitely commented and I've taken on
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 7: board the notes about the side characters, which isn't great from.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 5: Like obviously when we're kind of in the industry, so
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 5: we know that all characters should be rounded, but like
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 5: that's not what he's gone for really, so, but she
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 5: is totally eclipsed everything, and I think given that I
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 5: really don't see women black women so real and so
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 5: kind of winners and inspiring survivors all of those things,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: it's like yeah, before.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, hell yeah.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: Well, Sadia, thank you so much for joining us for
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: this discussion. Tell us where people can follow you online,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: tell us about your book, or plug anything you want
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: to plug.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: Thank you, ladies.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 5: It's been so much fun and like, yeah, you made
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 5: me love this movie again and so much more. I
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 5: don't know why I don't watch this like more often,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 5: so My book is called Texom. You can't see it
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 5: because I've learned my zoom.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 4: Oh. Anyway, my book is my memoir.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 5: It's about kind of dating as a Muslim woman, which
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 5: you never get to hear about in a nuanced way.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 5: I guess, well you ever get to hear about is
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 5: Muslim women being repressed. So I'm really excited it's coming
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 5: out in America. I'm confused because I was told that
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 5: it's coming out on the twenty ninth of August, but
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 5: my friend in America said they can already order it now,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 5: so if you do want to support you can. You
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 5: can get your good, older independent bookstore to order it,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 5: or you can get it from Amazon or anywhere basically. So,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 5: I really enjoyed writing that and hopefully I can write
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 5: another one. You can find me on Instagram mostly at
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 5: Sadia underscore asthmats with an at the end. And I
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 5: also have a website which is Sadia asthmat dot com
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 5: and it has a free guide if you want to
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 5: sign up to my mailing list. It's ten things You've
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 5: always wanted to ask about my head scarf but we're
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 5: too afraid to ask.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: So you can download it for free.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 5: And it's a little list that I made and that's
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 5: my plugs.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: Amazing. Thank you again.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 4: And I'm coming to America. Sorry, oh my god, of
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 4: another movie.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 5: I'm coming to New York September and October twenty twenty three.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: So I'm really excited. So hell yeah, my first ever
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: time in America and I can't wait. I'm so excited.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm away from the melt More food courts because
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 5: I hear there's a lot of there's a lot of
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 5: trouble that goes down there, so I wrote.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: So dangerous it goes down.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, We'll enjoy your travels, and thanks again for coming
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 3: on the show.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 3: You can follow us on social media at Bechdel Cast
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: and subscribe to our Matreon at patreon dot com slash
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: Bechdel Cast, where you will get two bonus episodes every
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: single month, always centering a super fun, awesome genius theme.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: And you'll also get access to our back catalog of many,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 3: many episodes, all for five dollars a month.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: I imagine.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: And you can also get our our merchover at teapublic
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: dot com slash the Bechdel Cast for all of your
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: merchandizing needs. And on that note, let's get into the
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: car of our recently dead guy we knew and Dry.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: I have to the airport and go eat prey love
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: in Madrid.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: Bye bye bye