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Watermelon Woman with Chrystel Oloukoï · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: best start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Okay,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: it takes a little narration. So imagine I have a
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: camp quarter and I just turned it on and I'm
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: sitting in front of it, and I say, um, so
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about doing a podcast, and then it cuts
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to you and me and we're in the podcast studio.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: That makes sense, Yeah, it does. This is not my
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: best intro that I've ever had. I was just referencing
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the format of the movie, which if you haven't seen
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: The Watermelon Woman, I guess that would make no sense
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to you. Did you have an idea for an intro?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: This can all be this is an open forum. I
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: was gonna do love you. You're beautiful. I know that
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: seems so. I That was one of my favorite scenes,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: just because it you keep thinking it's going to end.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: If that it he did not ending, and she oh God.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: my name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our podcast
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: It's a way to just inspire us to have a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: larger conversation about representation in film. Jamie Fillum, what is
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the Bechtel Test? Well, i'll tell you. The Bechdel Test
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alice and Bechtel,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace test. That there's many different
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: versions of it. For this show, we require that there
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: be two characters of a marginalized gender with names talking
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and hopefully it's a meaningful exchange, not just a like,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: hey here, you dropped your toothbrush. Okay, like one of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: those one of those classic interactions. Yeah, I mean the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the old dropping the toothbrush trope. It's a meat cute.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: It's the meat cute you drop your toothbrush and then
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: see if anyone hot picks it up. Oh, I'm going
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to have to try that. Also, just a reminder that
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the original context of the Bechtel test was that Alison
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Bechdel's characters in comic dikes to watch out for. The
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: context was those characters are examining movies to see if
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: women talk to each other about something other than a man,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: because if they don't, then Alison Bechdel's characters can pretend
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: like the women in the movie are queer women who
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: they can like ship together, because of course, there was
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  Speaker 1: virtually no representation of queer women or queer romance of
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  Speaker 1: any kind in movies back then. So just a reminder
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  Speaker 1: that that's the context of the Bechtel test. The eighties
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  Speaker 1: was a bleak time, which sure was. Uh, we're so
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: excited to be covering the movie that we are covering today.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: We're covering the Watermelon Women today. It has been a
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: listener request for some time now, and the time is now.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: The moment has arrived, and we have an incredible guest
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: here to discuss this movie with us. We sure do.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: They are a writer and freelance video editor. It's Crystal
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: luk Oi. Hello, welcome, nice to be here, thanks for
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: joining us, Thanks for inviting me. Of course, So we
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: found a piece that you wrote for the anniversary of
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Watermelon Woman for the British Film Institute. Will of course
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: link to it in the show notes, but the pieces
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: entitled the Watermelon Woman at the Black Lesbian Classic that
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: wears its brilliance lightly. So we were like, oh, let's
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: get Crystal on the show and here you are, so
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: we're so excited to talk to you. You covered a
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: little bit in your piece, but could you tell us
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: about your your history with this movie and yeah, your
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: connection to it, Yeah, of course. So it's kind of
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite movies. Um. That made it also
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: more difficult to write about it that I encountered it
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  Speaker 1: at a time where I wasn't necessarily I wasn't necessarily
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: asking a lot of questions about my sexuality, like my
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  Speaker 1: my very queer wasn't like really question I had. I
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: was just I don't know, and I would figure that,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't like something I was thinking way deeply,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: And so I just liked it esthetically at first, and
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I just enjoyed it. And then I rewatched it way
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  Speaker 1: later with a group of friends, a group of queer friends,
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  Speaker 1: at a time where I had much more clarity about
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  Speaker 1: being queer, and it was like a group of black
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  Speaker 1: French queer people in Paris, where I'm from, and it
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  Speaker 1: was just such a different experience watching it like collectively
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  Speaker 1: in that way, and I just have so many fund
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  Speaker 1: memories attached to it because of that, like how affirmative
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: it was in coming to terms with my sexuality. And yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's beautiful. That's so nice. Movies are magical, you know,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: there are I miss watching movies with friends that so
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that sounds so lovely and it's like it's so special
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: for like the movies that can like help us understand
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: things about the world, help us understand things about ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: It's beautiful and just be really funny, dude, this movie
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  Speaker 1: is so so funny, and it's also just there's something
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: in watching something collectively, like so many things just went
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: way above my head the first time I saw it
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: by myself, and then you watch it with friends and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: like you understand all of those references. Um yeah, m hm, cool, Jamie.
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  Speaker 1: What's your history with the movie? I had not seen
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  Speaker 1: this movie before. I It's been recommended to me for
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: some time, and it is available on Showtime right now
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in the US, so I was like, oh, this is
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: this is great. Um. So I watched it a few
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: times to prepare for this episode, and I was really
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: blown away by it. It's such a It's just it's
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: so good in so many ways. I didn't have a
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: lot of context for what it was about, what the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: format was, all the different sort of connecting pieces of
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: this movie are also fascinating and incredible, and it's like
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  Speaker 1: it's so nineties in a really fun way as well, like,
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  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it's I love the like experimentation with
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  Speaker 1: like form and the history that is I don't know,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like and because still you mentioned this in
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  Speaker 1: your piece as well, like there are so many movies
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: that talk about really important stuff that are coming out
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: right now that feel really heavy in the way that
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the information is presented. And the Watermelon Woman just does
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  Speaker 1: everything so effortlessly. It was just such a such a pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's and and watching it back the second time,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I caught a bunch of stuff I didn't the first.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: It's just so it's so good. If you haven't seen
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the movie yet, um pause this episode and go watch it.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: It's so wonderful. Yeah. So I'm I'm I'm a recent convert.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Uh what about you, Caitlin. I don't have a long
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: history with it, but I did see it for the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: first time last I think last summer. Um it was
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: appearing on a lot of lists of like, hey, here's
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: black cinema that you probably haven't seen, and here's some
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: movies that you should check out. So Watermelon Woman kept
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: appearing on lists like that. So I watched it and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I thought it was really fun and I really just
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: enjoyed the tone and the humor and the characters and yeah,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: so not a long history, but it is pretty cool.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: It's so cool. Yeah, should we should we just get
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: into it. Let's get into it with the recap. So
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like a half narrative, half mockumentary style
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: where we open on Cheryl, who is played by writer
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: director Cheryl Dounier. She and her friend Tamara are videographers
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: who shoot like weddings and things like that. They also
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: worked together at a video rental store. Remember those it's
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: so nineties. It's oh do you remember, Like they had
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: like the empty cases and then you had to take
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the case to the counter and they'd be like the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: keeper of the VHS is, Yeah, those were the days. Um.
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  Speaker 1: So Cheryl is also an aspiring filmmaker and she has
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: been watching a lot of movies from the thirties and
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  Speaker 1: forties with black actresses whose real names are often not
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: listed in the credits of these movies. And there's one
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  Speaker 1: movie in particular called Plantation Memories where this beautiful black
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: woman is in the like Mammy role and she's only
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  Speaker 1: listed in the credits as the watermelon woman. So Cheryl
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: is very cure used about her and wants to make
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  Speaker 1: a film about her, like figuring out who she is,
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  Speaker 1: what her real name is, what her life was like,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: everything about her. Then Tomorrow invites Cheryl out with her
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  Speaker 1: new girlfriend and a blind date for Cheryl named Yvette,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and this is when we get that amazing karaoke scene.
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  Speaker 1: This scene is a lot like we have to get
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: into it. We really do. It's iconic. It's so good.
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  Speaker 1: I like it. It was such a I like getting
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: used to how Cheryl Danner um paces these scenes is
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: so fun because I was in my I guess I
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: was just in my Hollywood movie brain where I was like, Oh,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be bad and then it's going to stop.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: But they let her sing the entire song. It's so funny. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that character is so funny because she's like, I'm a
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  Speaker 1: singer and I almost got a role in a Spike
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Lee movie, and that goes to show how amazing of
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: a performer I am. And then she gets up there
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and she's just like love, it's incredible. Shout out to
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the the actor who who, like I was able to
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: keep a straight face through that entire scene because it
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: was a beautiful, terrible karaoke performance. Yes. Um. So, then
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  Speaker 1: Cheryl starts making her film and investigating who the Watermelon
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  Speaker 1: Woman is. She asks different people on the street if
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: they know anything about the Watermelon Woman, and then she
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: interviews her mom, who at first is like, I don't
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: know who that is, but then she recognizes her as
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: someone who used to perform at clubs. Shout out to
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  Speaker 1: Cheryl Danie's real mom, real mom, Irene. Yeah. So. Meanwhile,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Cheryl meets a cute lady at the video store, Diana.
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  Speaker 1: She's played by Guenevere Turner, and they flirt a little bit,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and it's video store flirting too, It's
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: such a specific brand of flirting that no longer exists. Yeah.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: She's like, here, watch this Roman Polanski movie and you
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: were like yeah. Um. Then Cheryl interviews a man who
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: tomorrow knows who's like basically like a black film buff.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: He's very knowledgeable about early black film, but he is
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: not familiar with the Watermelon Woman. He says something like,
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  Speaker 1: women are not my specialty. Tomorrow is like, yeah, we know. Um.
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  Speaker 1: Another very funny interaction. And then Cheryl and Tomorrow go
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to the library to do some research on both the
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  Speaker 1: Watermelon Woman and Martha Page, who is the white woman
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  Speaker 1: who rerected the Plantation Memories movie, but there's very little
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: info about anything they're looking for. And then Cheryl finds
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: a woman named Shirley Hamilton's who knows the Watermelon Woman
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: as Faye richards and that turns out to be her
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: stage name because her real name was Faith Richardson. She
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: was a singer. She used to perform at nightclubs in Philadelphia,
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  Speaker 1: and Faye and Martha Page used to hang around together
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  Speaker 1: a lot, and it's clear that they were together romantically. UM.
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  Speaker 1: So Cheryl is not very excited because she's like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: like me, she was a black lesbian. And then Cheryl
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: gets her hands on more movies starring Faye richards and
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: she watches them with Diana. They kiss, they have sex.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Diana starts helping Cheryl on the Watermelon Woman project, and
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  Speaker 1: while this is happening. There is strain on Cheryl's relationship
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: with Tamara because she doesn't like the Cheryl is dating Diana,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: because Diana inserts herself so quickly into the project. It's like,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: and we've a really strange ownership relationship to that whole project. Yeah. Yeah,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to get into that discussion because it is like,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: even as a viewer, there's kind of whiplash where there.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I think it's like at that dinner scene with Tomorrow
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and Stacy and Cheryl and Diana, and Diana is like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: our project, and yes, Tomorrow is like, what are you
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: talking about? Like, Cheryl has been working on this for
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: months and months. You you just got here, like relax. Yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And then Cheryl and her co worker Annie go to
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: New York City Ever Heard of It? To the Center
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: for Lesbian Information and Technology a k A. Clit Hilarious, incredible,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and they find a bunch of photos of Faye Richards,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: one of which has a handwritten note on the back
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to someone named June Walker. So now Cheryl has another lead.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: They also interview Martha Page's sister, who is still living,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: but she is racist and homophobic and refuses to believe
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: that her sister was a lesbian and was lovers with
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Faye Richards But then Cheryl gets in touch with June
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Walker and discovers that she was in a long term
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: relationship with Faye. So Cheryl and June arranged to have lunch,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: but when Cheryl gets there, she learned that June was
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: just taken to the hospital, but she did leave a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: letter for Cheryl which talks about phase life and how
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: it was so much more than her relationship with Martha
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Page and how Martha has nothing to do with how
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: people should remember Faye. And then the movie ends with
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Cheryl reflecting on her experience, her relationships, her friendships, and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: what the Watermelon Woman a k a. Faith Richard's a ka.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Faith Richardson means to her and how she feels hopeful
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and inspired. And then there's a title card at the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: very end with text that says, sometimes you have to
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: create your own history. The Watermelon Woman is fiction, which
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the first time I saw this movie, the whole time
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, Faye Richards, like she must be
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a real person like the Watermelon Woman, this this is
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: all real, And then it turns out nope, this was
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: completely fiction. Shymelon twist at the end. Um So that's
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: come right back to discuss and we're back. Where do
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: we want to start here? There's there's so much to
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: talk about. A Yeah, Crystal, does does anything jump out
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: to you right away? I think yes, that question of
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the video store and that specific aestetic because I think
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: that is that that side the video store where she
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: needs and where she where she works also with Tamara.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: But there's also the video is static that comes in
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and out at some point in the movie. That's really
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: interesting how she like records herself the camcorder. Yeah. I
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: don't know what you're making of this. I mean I
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: just thought it was a really cool way to introduce this. Again,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: she's like making what we think is almost like when
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: you watch the movie, you're like, oh, this is kind
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: of like a documentary, Like this is like part narrative
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: part documentary. And unless you already know that the Watermelon
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: woman is not a real person. Again, I just assumed.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I was like, this, this is like a real person
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: that Cheryl, because she's also like playing herself more or less,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: and it were like really kind of it just like
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: gets you to think that this is like something that
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: she's really searching and investigating, and like that kind of
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: grainy video footage helps to set up that expectation, and
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: then you find out, oh, no, this is just Cheryl
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Dunier taking like obviously the historical context is there, because
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: a little context corner here is that like the journey
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: that Cheryl the character goes on in the movie of
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: like watching old films from the thirties and forties and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: seeing actors who are black women in these mammy roles
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: but noticing that they're not often credited by name. That's
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: basically how the development of this movie started, where writer
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: director Cheryl Donier was like doing research for a class
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: on black film history, realized that a lot of black
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: actors were not credited in these early movies, and decided
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: that she wanted to tell a story about black women
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: in the early days of Hollywood. Thus was born the
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: concept for the film The Watermelon Woman. So you know,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: she took kind of like an amalgamation of a bunch
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: of actors from that time and sort of invented the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Watermelon Woman. And just like the way it was shot
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: gets you to be like oh this this is real.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Oh wait, no it's not. Yeah, I really like, I mean,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: I'm like she's she's like playing this like game of
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: like four D chess that you don't even understand until
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the movie is almost over, because it's you know, she's
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: setting it up by wanting to educate her audience about
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: black film history, which she is doing, and then she
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: also says that the beginning of the movie, like I
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: want to put black women at the front of my work,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: which she is also doing by like chronicling her own
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: fake process in introducing all like all these really different
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: characters with all these different views on the same topic,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and it just, I don't know, watching this movie a
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: second time was even more fun, like sort of knowing
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: what she's doing going in and just seeing how like
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: elegantly it's done, and like she's just doing so so
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: much at once with with it seems like like a
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: kind of classic nineties low budget vibe that is just
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: like so fun. For sure. Yes, there's like a real
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: sense of like freedom in the way she's just like,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: let me just pick up a camera and documents. Yeah,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the way in which I'm searching for that lost ancestor,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: which I don't know. It feels really like particular to
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: that time in the nineties and like I don't see,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: like I those something so native about it, and even
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the way it starts, like so like the first few
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: minutes of the feeling the first time I watched it,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, what's happening? I don't understand why were
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: we are at the wedding? Like what what is she
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: trying to set up? But yeah, it's like it just
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: feels really free in a way that I feel like
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: it feels very like a product of its time and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: this democratizing of camera and video work. Um, yeah, I
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: just love it. Yeah. And I know you wrote about
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: this in your piece about like new Queer cinema and
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: how it like the restraints of like hetero noormative Hollywood cinema,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Like New Queer cinema basically just like breaks those restraints off,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: and a lot of films from that time we're like,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: we're just gonna do whatever we want. We're going to
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: tell the stories the way we want. Like a lot
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of rigid conventions of like cinematic story re telling, we're
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: not going to abide by those, And how this is
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: just a pivotal movie in that movement of new queer cinema. Yeah,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: and it's very it's very gender too, because like a
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: not especialist of your queer cinema, but like my understanding
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of the kinds of dynamics that we're operating at the
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: time is um the directors, like the Sis men directors
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: were had a tendency to like use more film, which
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: is much more expensive to film with, and the women
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: directors usually were using like video and other genres. So
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: there's also that aspect of like, yeah, what you said,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: like the low budget, which I feel like, if your
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: time to do something that's cinematic in a way and
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: that looks that correspond to like a certain normative idea
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: of like what's beautiful, I feel I feel it like
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: much strongly now, which is why I like there's something
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: really free about how she like just doesn't care about
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: what people deem beautiful or what people deem cinematic, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: just like you have dislike student film esthetic that's completely assumed,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: like she's not trying to cover it. Yeah, She's like,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I want real people to be in my movie, and
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I want something that feels like a real story. Like
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: everything just feels incredibly authentic in the way that few
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Hollywood movies can deliver that sense. Yeah, and I liked that.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: I mean something another thing about the format that I
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: didn't see coming, but when it happens, you're like, oh,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: that that is so cool, and and never happens in
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: popular movies is like they are just little vignettes where
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: it's just like Cheryl and Tomorrow just like hanging out
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: for a minute and they're just like on a building
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: they answering, and you're like, what's going on? And then
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: after ten seconds you're like, no, I think I like
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: this and it's just them having fun. Like I don't
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: even know if that was like scripted or anything, but like, yeah,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: there seems to be like a lot of also, like
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: distance from any kind of like rules or like plan
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of what's going to happen. Yeah, I'll be honest, Like
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the first time I saw the movie, because I come
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: from like a screenwriting background, so I was like, oh,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: there's like a lot of screenwriting rules that are broken here,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: because like the inciting incident happens off screen where she
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: discovers the watermelon woman when she's watching that movie, Like
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that happens off screen. She just talks about it after
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the fact. There are a few scenes where it seems
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: like tension is about to like ramp up, and then
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it just cuts away into the scene like that's that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: scene where Diana enters with that argument that that Cherylyn
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow are having about her at Diete is just like hi,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and then the scenes of he like did you hear
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: did you not hear? Right? Yeah? So I was like
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I found it a little jarring the first time I
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: watched it because I was like, oh, all these like
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: all these conventions are being ignored and all these like
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: rules are being broken. But then you just you're like,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: but it's fine, Like we still understand what's happening. You're
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: still emotionally engaged with the story. You're still rooting for
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Cheryl to like find out as much information about the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Watermelon Woman as possible, and it all works. I feel
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: like those things have like you not seeing every single
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: plat point fall down on the screen. It's like part
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: of why I completely fell for it being part documentary
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the first time, because it's like not every document like
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: most documentaries don't catch every critical moment, and so when
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: she's like describing something that happened a little earlier that day.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I the first time I watched, I was like, oh,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: this feels completely like a documentary because you you wouldn't
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: get every single second of everything. So I feel like
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: it also like lends itself to to the format that
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: she's messing around with too. And we I mean we
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: there was such a low budget to this, where I
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: think the budget was three thousand dollars, which was a
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: combination of grant money, fundraisers, and donations from her friends
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: from like Cheryl Dunier's friends. So she's working with very
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: little money. So it makes sense that she would, like
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: you were saying Crystal about she's shot on a lot
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of video because film is too expensive. It just was
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: like very clever to me that she with the resources
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: she had, she was like, oh, like what can I
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: do with this? And like what will lend the best sense?
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: So like just shooting on video as if she's making
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: like a very low budget documentary, it just like it
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: works because I feel like, so often you see a
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: movie where you get footage of like a home video
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and this like huge budget, like major Hollywood production, and
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, this home video was clearly shot by
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: a professional cinematographer because it just looks too good and
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: then it's like run through an editing program to be like, no,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: this is a camp corridor and it's like, I didn't
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: you just do that in the first place. But I
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: think that's that's one of the very beautiful aspects to
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the Waterman and Woman. That's like, I find the new
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: in that work, and even in her earlier shots, like
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: so resourceful in like doing things with what you have,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: even if you don't have access to like big budgets.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: And it's like even the fact that like fab Richardson
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: is like a fictional character, and like how much of
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: that is due to like not having access to like
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: actual archives but also not being able to pay for
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: those archives even if they exist. So yeah, I just
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: like there's so much creativity in what she's doing. That's like, yeah,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: it's just feels like a brick collage of salts, but
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: that works really well. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Another thing that
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I really like that we sort of started talking about was, um,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: how she is able to get a lot of history
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: across but do it in this kind of effortless way
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: where I feel like a lesser filmmaker could have made
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it like and here's the historical portion of of the movie.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: But she like creates this really like kind of bizarre
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: character who's got a house full of memorabilia and like
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: they're like messing around with him, and he's giving like
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of interesting, solid information, but it doesn't I
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: don't know, like there there When movies I feel like
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: try to weave in history, sometimes it becomes like lecture mode,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: and she is able to avoid it completely while still
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: educating her audience on on like a lot of stuff,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, I learned stuff from that scene
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: with with the film Buff. But also at the end
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: it ends in this really funny way. I don't think
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I've really seen someone pull it off that effortlessly before.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: And that scene plays into a pretty common like motif
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: or theme throughout this movie because that film Buff guy,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: he's like, women are not my specialty. I don't know
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: anything about women and women in film. I don't know
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: who the watermelon woman is, which again part of this
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: sort of bigger theme of their being very limited access
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: to information and Crystal you talk about this in your
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: piece where they are all these like gatekeepers who Cheryl
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: comes up against that are either kind of like withholding information,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: or there's just a general limited access to information because
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: things were not properly documented or properly archived. Because you've
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: got that librarian man who just keeps being like, well
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: did you check the reference section? Did you do? You
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: even know how to use a library, And they're like, yeah,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: we know how to use a library, but you don't
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: have any information in your library. And then there's like
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the lady at Clint who won't let them get footage
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: of these photos of Fay because she's like it's confidential
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: and not just that, but like she has like any
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: any box full of information that is about black film stars,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: she just like dumps out on the table in this
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: really cal's way where you're like, oh my gosh, she
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: really even has to rescue one of those bookses at
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: some point like yeah, catching it defied force. Yeah, he
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: swee is a mess in then, And I think that's
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: like I love what you said about how effortless it
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: comes across, and I think it's that way also because
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I don't actually think that there is any respect for history,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: like mainstream history, and it's not something like it's not
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: something to be passed down religiously because it's so like
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: biased and so full of erasures that it's actually like
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: it's more of a testament, like the I look at
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the film more of a testament of like what's possible
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: beyond the confines of history, rather than trying to like
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: bring those forgotten black actresses back into the canon of
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the mainstream of history. Yeah, yeah, because I think there's,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: like there are real actresses who get mentioned in the
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: movie or like mentioned in the credits, like Butterfly McQueen
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and Hardie McDaniel, which are names that like people obviously
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: still remember today, but there are like just as many
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: actors from that era who, like this fictional character of
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the Watermelon Woman, have been completely forgotten and completely erased
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: because like records were never even kept in the first
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: place of them and their work. So and and I
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: like how again, like Cheryl Dania uses the kind of
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: like free for all format of this movie too challenge
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: the way that this history is kept, where I forget
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: what person she's talking to, but it's someone who is saying, like, oh,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: it's impossible that that Faye and Martha could have been
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: in a relationship that just absolutely wouldn't have happened during
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: this time, and as they're talking, Cheryl edited like a
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: million photos of them together, clearly dating, and just I
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: don't know, like, yeah, that the not only like addressing
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: how the gatekeepers are acting towards Cheryl and acting extremely
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: dismissive or disorganized or whatever the situation is in the nineties,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: but also that the history, like you're like you're saying crustal,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the history that she's accessing needs to be combed through
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: as well, because there's just so much bias in how
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: phase life was documented in the first place, and it's
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: so significant that in the end, like most of the
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: crucial information she gets it is like not from all
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: those like libraries or like official repositories of knowledge, but
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: like literally is a queer community in Philly and like
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: those older black lesbians. Like that's also something I really
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: appreciate about this film, is like seeing older black lesbians
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: on screen is something that's so rare and like reflecting
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: about like like the memories of faith that cannot like
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: clash a bit with Shares on narration and what she
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: wants to remember. But I don't know, I thought that
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: generational aspect and the way in which people preserve memories
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: that are not deemed worth preserving in libraries and mother
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: arms was really interesting, Yeah, especially because like the information
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: that Cheryl is able to find about Faye Richard's in
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: like books and archives and stuff all focus on her
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: relationship with Martha Page, this white woman. And then when
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: she goes and gets information from June Walker, who is
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: like Faye Richard's life partner for twenty years, June is like, why, like,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: why are you focusing on this Martha Page lady? She
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: has nothing to do with phase life. That was only
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: like a small sliver like But and then like Cheryl
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: her sort of like conclusive thought is like, well, you know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: it's all kind of important, Like it's it's just helpful
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: to see the whole scope, the whole picture of at all.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it just goes to show that, like what
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: little is available in like the quote unquote history books
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: still frames Faye Richard's in terms of her relationship to
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: a white woman, where like, again, that was only a
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: small sliver of her life and the rest of the
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: time she was like singing in black clubs in Philadelphia
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: to what does the one woman say? She's like, yeah,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: all of us Stone butch Lesbians loved her, and we
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: she's saying to all of us, she sang for us,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: that was so beautiful. But yeah, I feel like that
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: that focus on that white woman Mata page, it's not
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: just the doing of the of official history, but it's
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Sharriers herself and what she wants to like, Like, it's
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: interesting this that ending um end is trying to complexity
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: and trying to hold all of the parts of someone,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: but also like you're not actually holding all of the parts,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: You're still focusing on some of them more than others.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: And I feel like she was really like working through
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: her own relationship also with Diana through through fee which
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: like explain a bit emphasis and a bit of your
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: session on math page. But yeah, it's it's like it
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: talks to like what again that disregard for history and
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: official history and even like collective memory, but that sense
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: that anyone is free to an extent with like respect
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: of course, but to like take from the past what
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: allows them to like find a sense or like find
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: meaning in the present. And the fact that like that
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: is going to be tensioned between different generations of black
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: lesbians around what happened, what did not happen, but it
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that she has to completely bye bye that
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Hord or generation sense. I just found that that portrayal
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: of that tension was really interesting because you don't necessarily
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: entility side with Cheryl, but you also understand her desire
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: to hold out of those spiecies of fair together. Yeah, yeah,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't see that, like the the like shades of
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: gray in the ending coming. I thought it was so
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: interesting that the choice that she makes, because when you
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: hear you know, June's that, I was like, oh, yeah,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: of course, like that's nothing would be more infuriating to
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: someone's partner of twenty years than for them to be
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: defined by a way in the past relationship that was
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: way overblown in terms of its importance in the love
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: of your life's you know, lifetime. And then also seeing
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: like where where Cheryl is kind of navigating all these
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: ways of keeping history and all these roadblocks that she encounters,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and then at the end sort of being like, Okay,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I've talked to everyone I could possibly talk to. Here's
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: how I'm choosing to keep this history, and like she
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: is presenting it the way that is most significant to
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: her and not necessarily like what June would want, and
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: we don't know what Fay would want, and and and
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: again it's like it's done so smoothly without feeling like
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: you're being bashed over the head with like history it's
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: so complicated, which it is, but the way that Cheryl
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: does it is just so effortless. And and in the
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: way that these characters are written to it's like everyone
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Like no one is completely right or
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: wrong in their perception of anything, and it's like you're
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: able to connect even if you don't agree with the
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: character's perspective on something, you can understand where they're coming from.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: And like it's just I don't know the characters are
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: are and the way they relate to each other is written,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: so it just feels so real in the way that
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: how people deal with each other. This movie June reminds
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: me a lot of Tamara in some ways. Um And
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: as much as like you have disparity between Faye and
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Cheryl and Diana and matter Page, I feel like Tamara
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: also kind of resonate a lot with that perspective of
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: like this kind of hostility or tension in relationship to
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: friends or like partners who give a lot of time
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: and space intra community space to the white friends or
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the white partners, and the kind of dynamics at tensions
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: that that can create. And there's something in the energy
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: and there and the hostility in these two characters that
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: feels very similar, like the tone, the ending ton of
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: that letter and the anchor in June's voice, why do
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: you want like okay, that question, why do you want
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: to make it about matter page? It's remind in me
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: of Tamara asking like saying to Jerial, Yeah, once again,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: you're dating a white woman wants to be black, right, Yeah,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: there's definite parallels. And another thing that Tomorrow says like
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Cheryl has ordered a bunch of these like thirties and
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: forties movies where the black characters in those movies are
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: all like the Mammy archetype. And Tomorrow says like, I
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: can't stand most of the ship that Hollywood puts out today,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: let alone that like old Mammy ship, Like why are
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: you so obsessed with these old, terrible movies that do
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: not represent black people? Well? Which is a fair question. Yeah,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Like it's very easy to see why, Like I don't know.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: It makes it like that where Tabor is like why
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: are you subjecting yourself of this? Like what is in
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: it for you? Like go you know, go outside. Uh.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Like there's just like this like very perverse pleasure that
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Shares takes into those movies that just like like sometimes
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: I have questions, like I don't know, if you see
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: that scene where you have the TV screen where you
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: see Fay Richards playing into plantation memories and like comforting
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: the white mistress, I think at that moment, and then
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: you have Cherios face right next to the screen that's
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: imitating the voice, and it's like there's so much pleasure
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: in like you can see like she's enjoying it so
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: much and like trying to get into face skin, and
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what's happening. We need a bit of therapy.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: She's like Jamie and I when we watch Titanic and
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: recyce the entire movie along with the characters. Yeah, she's
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: like doing that. She also is kind of like wearing
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the costume and she's like really getting into it and
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: she knows all the dialogue and it's like and it
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: does make you wonder, like Cheryl, you know why? But
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: then it's like watching that bear out, It's like I
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, like, there are are moments where you're like, sure,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? But then she does. But then
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: it's like it wasn't for nothing, because she does end
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: up digging into and like preserving a piece of history
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: that wouldn't have been preserved otherwise. And so it's like
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: at some point you're like, I think she's just like
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: torturing herself for no reason. But then at the end
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, it wasn't for no reason. She like
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: there there was no effort to document this person's existence
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: and and their life and who they really were or
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: even like their name. It was like really hard to
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: find out who Fay was. And I loved how Tamara
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: and and Cheryl came at that issue completely differently because
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: both of their outlooks, You're like, oh, I get it,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: but Cheryl's just Cheryl's doing the weird costplay huff. Yeah.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Talking about like Hattie Hattie McDaniel and some of those
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: other actresses, I think it's also significant to me. I'm
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: not sure what to make of it, but it's significant
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: to me that the money in those films was often
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: a plus size or like a fat black woman that
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: didn't like necessarily confirmed to like standards of like beauty,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: like even in terms of like futurism and like skin color,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: like it was often like a very dark skinned woman
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: and like fair Witson is like so as a complete
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: opposite of that, like she's like this very thin. She's
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: not like King, but she's not darkk in either, and
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: like in terms of features, she's like she doesn't have
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: have what has been associated with like African features quote
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: unquote like the I don't know, it's significant that Cherl
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: would choose that specific actress to play that role and
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to play that history. And I don't know what to
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: make of it, because it's just interesting to see all
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, the fear of the money being sexualized
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: in that way and not just being like a site
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: of like comfort for like white children or like white families,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: but like also like a sexual being and like a
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: queer sexual being. But then I'm wandering, like is it
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: only possible because she was made finn and like good
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: looking in that way. I don't know, I have so
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: many questions. Yeah, it is very curious because like Fay Richards,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: the fictional person slash character is embodying this many role
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: but didn't look like other actors who played those mammy roles. Yeah,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: so it's like that that is I don't know what
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: to make of it either. We got to get Cheryl
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: on the pod. We've got questions, yes, because it seems
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: like everything I don't know that it watching get back
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: a couple of times. It seems like she's making all
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of these decisions really intentionally, and I wonder if she's
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: ever if she's ever spoken to it, because it's like,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: clearly she she knows her ship. You know, she's built
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: that this film scholar character. She has all of the
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: memorabilia acts like, so I'm like, well, well she knows
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: what she's talking about. I wonder why that was the
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: way she chose to go with with the story. I
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: don't know. I wish it was like spoken about a
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: little more explicitly now that we're talking about it, because
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: then you also have the character slash real life person
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Camille Poulia, who I had to do some research on
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: because I did not know because okay, because the thing
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: is like kavil Plia is like every time I'm supposed
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: to learn why she's problematic, I start to learn and
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: then I get really tired and I don't actually learn.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: I know she's messy, but I don't know the context
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: of what, but like for good the details, but I think,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: is it okay. I don't want to like defame her
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: in anyways, but I feel like she was defending the
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: use of like Rachual Slows at some point there was
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: a scandal like that, right that would not surprise me.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: I just did a very periphery Wikipedia search about her
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: because Okay, so for for context, this is the like
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the character that Cheryl goes to. She's like a professor
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: slash culture critic who Cheryl interviews seeing if she knows
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: anything about the Watermelon woman and typical typical of like
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: the Waterman and Woman and the documentary style, like she's
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: paying herself and her And it's been commented that Camille
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Paulia is doing a parody version of herself, but then
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: when you read about her, you're like, I don't think
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: this is parody because so basically she's giving very strong
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: opinions in this interview, basically saying that black people's opinions
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: about the tropes in all old Hollywood are wrong, that
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: the Mammy character has been misinterpreted, and it's actually a
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: really good thing. That like the image of a little
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: black boy with a watermelon, that's actually a really good
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: positive thing in the world. Her Italian family for like
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: no reason, like, and then she's the character who's like
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: interracial relationships. What that couldn't have possibly been a thing?
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: That was her? Okay, that was her, and Cheryl's cutting
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: in like, uh, clearly it was. And then you read
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: about her on Wikipedia and real life. Camille Polia is
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: a libertarian. I'm pretty sure she's a turf. In the nineties,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: she supported NAMBLA and supported lowering the age of consent
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: to fourteen years old, among other things. So she has
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: some real dogshit views. So I don't think this was
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: a parody of her. I think this is probably who
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: she really was. I RL and also, like, parody has
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: always been used to like masks actual racist feelings, so
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't be the first time exactly. So I don't
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: like Camille Paulia no hard paths. Every time I learned
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: something about her as like I need, I need to
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: go on a walk. I was surprised to see her
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: in this movie, but there are like there's a few again,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Cheryl's gotta come on the pot I want
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: to understand like the decision making going on here, because
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: there was another person. Sarah Shulman plays the clip archivist
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: who's dumping out of boxes and she's like been a
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: queer activist and like an AIDS activist specifically for decades
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: and decades. And it's again, it's it's like, it's very
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: easy to confuse this as an actual documentary at the
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: beginning because there's real figures, um from academia coming into this.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: It's Cheryl's real mom, like all of these people that
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: that actually existed. The Camille polly a thing threw me
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: for threw me for a loop. It was that was
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: very unpleasant, but it was unpleasant, but also like so
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: exactly it like it was like such an accurate representation,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: like especially being in academia at the moment I'm doing
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: my PhD. Of like the way sometime Scota would speak
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: with such authority, right an arrogance about things they don't
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: know she about. Because this is the same people who
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: are like perpetuating what version of history we learn and
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: we see. And it just makes you really unsettled to
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: know that people like uh, that lady are teaching the
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: youth of America and are still pretty prominent figures too.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: I was like surprised to see how prominent Camille Polia
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: still is. I uh, this is post episode j B
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: and Caitlin Wow love below. Um. So, I wanted to
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: just drop in here because I've learned a lot about
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: Camille paglias work since we recorded this episode several weeks ago.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Because quick plug, I'm working on a podcast about Kathy
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: comics and so and so like that comic was coming
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: out between the seventies and the two thousand's, and so
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I've been doing research on the different feminist waves of
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: those times, right, and so in a book I was
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: reading that I recommend called Backlash by Susan Faludi. It
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: was written in the late eighties, and it examines how
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of the gains that the feminist movement that
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: is very imperfect, but but the gains of the feminist
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: movement in the nineteen seventies were backlashed in the pop
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: culture and politics of the nineteen eighties and the Reagan years.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: It's very interesting, it's very long, but but Camille Paglia
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: is brought up in that book a number of times
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: as kind of the scholar who kind of exemplifies that
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: backlash where uh Camiele Paglia was famous for writing stuff
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: like that women who report date rape and anyone who
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: reports date rape like it, the onus is on them
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: to not get raped summarized thing there. Uh there have
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: been and I think you mentioned this in the episode,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: there have been more recent scandals with her comments on
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: trans people on the Me Too move and she's just
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I'm not aligned with her politics at all, and so yeah,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: I don't recommend reading her work. I found it very unpleasant.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: But the context of of her history and kind of
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: how Susan Faludi suggests that she came to prominence through
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: the backlash movement made a lot of sense and kind
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: of made me understand why this libertarian cameo. Paglia uh
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: had such swing in her day and still does to
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: an extent. So gross don't love it. Back to the episode, Oh,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: another really funny joke from the movie is as Cheryl
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: is doing her research, she comes upon She's like, oh,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: there's this new book. I found it a gay and
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: lesbian bookstore. It's called Hollywood Lesbians by Doug mcgowden. And
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: then she was like, I wonder if he's a lesbian,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: which is just another example of like how like a
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: guy named Doug, probably not a lesbian, is writing a
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: book about Hollywood lesbians, and um, you know, probably not
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: the best person to write that book. And it's all
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: like white women on the cover of the book too,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: is like something that pops out right away. So it's
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: just yeah, I's like another like I guess I'm more subtle,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: not in in that specific joke, but just of like
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: who is keeping the history? Who is being put at
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: the front of these histories, and like, is the person
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: who's presenting it to you even reliable in terms of
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: what their biases are? Uh, let's take another quick break
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: and we'll be right back, and we're back. What else?
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: I wanted to just shout out that this is the
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: first feature length narrative film directed by black lesbian, the
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: first we know of, the first we know of. Yes true,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: right like face features and made the like other uncovered histories,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: that's true. I also, this is just such an interesting
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: movie to cover on our podcast. It just feels especially
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: relevant because it's a movie about how representation in media,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: or a lack thereof, how it affects people, how it
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: affects the main character of Cheryl, how it affects Cheryl
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: the filmmaker, and how it inspires her to make a
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: movie about black women. And there's a part in the
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: movie early on where Cheryl the character, because I feel
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: like we have to distinguish Cheryl the character from Cheryl
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: the the director. Um Cheryl the character. She's doing like
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: a talking head interview kind of thing in front of
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: like the video camcorder, and she's talking about the project
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: she's wanting to work on, and she's like, you know,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: I want to make a film, but I don't really
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: know what I want to make a film on. I
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: just know it has to be about black women because
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: our stories have never been told. Which is like the
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: impetus for her to make this documentary about the Watermelon Woman.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: It's Cheryl Junier the director's impetus for like wanting to
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: make this narrative film the Watermelon Woman. There's just like
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: all these layers, but it's just all about a lack
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: of representation inspiring her to tell her own story and
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: to you know, tell a story about black women and
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: black queer women. I was interested too, I had never
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: done like a deep divan Cheryl Dinier's like work prior
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: to The Watermelon Woman before prepping for this episode, and
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: it seems like there is like a fair amount of
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: overlap between the character and the film the actual filmmaker
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: there where most of her early work is centered around
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: the black lesbian community. There's a lot of um and
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: I would I didn't get to watch her short films
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: before this episode, but there's a lot of it seems
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: like she's exploring the theme of like interracial lesbian relationships
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: a lot. And yeah, like how I would say, if
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: you've seen The Waterman and Woman, you've seen her earlier shots. No,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: it's it's unfair. It's unfair. It's unfair. I'm just being
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just being provocative here, but it's it's a lot
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: of like repetition of that trope of um, the black
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: lesbian dating. It's like typical bourgeois white woman and like
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: having to deal with like Mike raig rations like racism
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: and like deciding if that relationship is even worthing. It's
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: I don't have questions for you as a person, and
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: like like how she's like working out like I understand
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: as an as a person, she's like working out something
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: through all of those shots and movies, because even like
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: some of her features after also deal with that film.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: But it's just it's just the insistent on that specific
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: film is very striking. Um there's one that I mentioned
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: quickly in the piece. There's one shot that's no, I
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: don't mention it actually as a POTLG and the Passion,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: which is basically like Chirl with her friends, like having
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: like like a dinner at home, and you have this
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: like canon equal white woman and like the kind of
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: tensions we emerge into friend groups from having that white
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: woman present in like this intra community space. And the
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: enter is another one where the title itself is like
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: it's called like Greetings from Africa. Yeah, yeah, and it's
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: basically like this white woman that like she dates briefly
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: and then she's like, oh, I'm doing all this engine
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: will work in Africa and like when they like it's
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: just like a one thing and they're like separate, and
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: she receives this card from this white woman who is
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: known Africa and it was like hey, which is kind
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: of hinted it in The Waterman and Woman because I
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: think Diana also has some engine work, right, Yeah. And
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: then she also She's like, I was born in Jamaica,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: isn't that cool? And Tamara is like yeah, And then
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Cheryl and her friends because Tomorrow is dating a woman,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: is it Stacy? Is that her name? And they're all
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: just like, hey, why are you here again? And these
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: also feels very nineties, Like I feel like that's a
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: time where people were like really hashing out all of
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: those questions, which also like explains the kind of I
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: don't know, irritation or like to find that like we
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: can feel like we're like over it now and it
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: feels like very passy, but like, yeah, I think it's
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: also like a predict of its time in that sense. Yeah,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: for sure, totally. Yeah. I mean the way that the
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Ryl Diana relationship plays out is it does like as
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I was reading about her older work, I was like, oh,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: this is this is a theme that comes up for
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: her a lot, and it was this is a side up.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: But I was like, wait, I recognize the lady who
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: plays Diana. It's because she's like co wrote American Psycho anyways, Yeah,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: and and is in it. She plays a character in it,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: and the Edwards Yeah, yeah, she's like this iconic queer
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: rent and so I was like, oh, that's just like
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: her when she was really young. Interesting. Um, but yeah,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: the the way that Cheryl writes Diana too, I mean
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: that dinner scene is so cringe e for so many reasons.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: But Diana is kind of instinct that no matter what
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: anyone at the table says, she just immediately finds a
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: way to make it about herself and like, you know,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: kind of like hijacked the conversation no matter what is
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: being discussed. And then she's like, oh, look I'm so cool.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Oh I've lived everywhere. Oh I've done this, I've done that.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: And it's like we were talking about not not even
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: remotely that, and she just like her instinct is to
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: center herself and the push and pull in that I
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: feel like it I don't know, I mean, it kind
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: of gets resolved, but it kind of doesn't by the
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: end of the movie with Cheryl and Tamara, where Cheryl's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: kind of like, I hope we'll figure it out, Like
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: we don't really know what happened, but it's clear that
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Hamard is uncomfortable with how passive Cheryl becomes in those situations,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: which is like an interesting tension to set up. And
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: then but it doesn't really resolve by the end of
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: the movie either. That was another one of those like
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: screenwriting things. I was like, but where's the what's the
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: closure there? I want I want to know where their
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: friends again? No closure? Uh? Does anyone have any other fat? Yeah?
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to me that the thing that
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: like the last roof for cher All is really its
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: family visit, as the fact that Na is not defending
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: her and like not even like trying to react to
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: like how her relatives behavior and like the racism, like
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: even like a black maid passing through doing that visit.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: And it's just interesting like that question of interracial relationships
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: and like walking it out for yourself as an individual.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: But then like also when a family gets involved and
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: when your friends also when like what your friends are
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: ready to accept or not was also interesting, right Yeah? Yeah,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: I mean that's the scene where Diana like, you're you're
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: kind of like because it's the interview with the with
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: the racist, homophobic sister of the White Lady director Martha Page.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: I keep wanting to say, Martha Plimpton, is that a
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: real person? Martha Plimpton everything? Um, But Martha Page, you know,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: you keep I was kind of waiting for Diana to
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: like say something, and she just kind of doesn't. She
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: freezes up, and like, I don't know that. Again, that's
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: just like a relationship that I would I would like
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: to hear Cheryl Danier talk about like how she where
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: she was crafting that, where that was coming from, because
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's a lot and it's really interesting, and
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: but but then it's it kind of it's not that
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: it goes nowhere, it's just that you don't really know
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: where they're at at the end, or like exactly how
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: Cheryl Danier feels about all of it. Like she's presented
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: all these different perspectives on this relationship, but we don't
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: really know like where she landed on it, which again
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: it's like interesting that doesn't happen in movies a lot.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: And then maybe and then I was I got into
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: my own head. I'm like, Jamie, you're such a baby.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: You expect people to spoon feed you. The moral of
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: the storage, Well, that's another interesting thing about this movie,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: which is the queer cinema that makes it to more
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: like Hollywood mainstream is often about like centering on a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: queer relationship and like a queer romance as it begins
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: and in its early stages in a way that and
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: we've talked about this on different episodes, where it's like
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: a male gaze fetishized version of lesbian romance, whereas this movie,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: you know, it's about a woman who is working on
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: this project who you know, happens to meet a woman
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: and start dating her, but that's not the focus of
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: the movie. It's just presented as a normal part of
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: the main character's life. We also see other normal parts
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: of her life, like her job and her friend group,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: which by the way, are mostly other lesbians, which I
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: feel like is very common in real life where lesbians
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: are friends with many other lesbians, but you don't often
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: see that on screen. So I appreciate that this movie
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: just does a really nice job of normalizing a lesbians
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: life with things like being in a relationship, but that
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: not being the driving force of her life. It's just
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: an aspect of her life, and we see her interact
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: with her friends, and especially Tamara, who whose main subplot
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: in the movie is that she's really horny and her
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: girlfriend is not having sex with her, and she keeps
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: me like I'm trying to get some my girlfriend keeps
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: not putting out and I'm really horny about Charles. She's
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: in grad school. Can you like cut her some slack,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: she's getting her m b A. Like she she's busy,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: she's stressed out. So it's just like it's a really
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: cool thing to see that all normalized, which is what
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: you get when there's a movie written and directed by
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: a queer person. Yeah, and and like we I mean
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: we just recorded an episode last week on a Portrait
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: of a Lady on Fire, which which is like a
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: movie that we both really enjoyed. But it's like, you know,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of like it's a forbidden love. It's
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: a forbidden old timey love between two willowy white ladies,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: and like, you know, there's a lot of I don't
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: know that this movie is just presenting a reality. It
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: like feels like a slice of life movie that like
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: documents uh person's community and life in a very specific place. Too.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: I love how prominent Philly at multiple points in history
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: is and that feels effortless in terms of like how
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: important the location is to the movie. And it just
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know, this movie is doing so much without like,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: like you said to your piece or stuff like without
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: making it seem like it's doing so much. It's really interesting. Yeah,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: it says like there's a real like sense of pleasure
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: and playfulness. You don't like it never gets heavy in
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: any way. It was interesting about that Philip out like
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: when she says when June says that like kind of
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: revives that whole history of bars and places where lesbians
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: used to hang it specifically black lesbians, and how those
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: have disappeared a bit already by the time Childs start
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: making the movie, and like thinking even now how it
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: has even more disappeared. It's just like, Yeah, there's something
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: really sad about aspect of queer life in the city
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: and the space that don't exist more. Yeah, one thing
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: we haven't talked about yet is there's a there's a
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: there's a hot sex scene in the movie. I just
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: wanted to shout it out. Not only there's a hot
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: sex scene, but I just think she wouldn't really like
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: showing her butts in movies. I just I just like
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: notice that we're watching some of her film several times, Like,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: first of all, she has a really nice but but
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: like it comes out a lot in The Watermelon Woman
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: and other shots and yeah, if I had such a
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: nice but I would also show it. We do see her,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: but we see her nips. We see one of your
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: turner's nips as well. Yeah, I mean kind of hearkening
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: back to a discussion we had on the Portrait of
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: a Lady on Fire episode where a lot of movies
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: about a lesbian romance that are directed by men a
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: k A Blue is the warmest color. Is like, they're
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: so fetishy and so like male gazy, whereas this one,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, the people behind the camera are Cheryl
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Junier and also in front of the camera and a
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: lot of the scenes, but then you've got um. The
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: director of photography is a woman, Michelle Crenshaw. It's also
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: edited by a woman, Annie Taylor, So you know when
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: the representation behind the camera is people who are just
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: more interested in showing what lesbian sects actually looks like
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: rather than like a very site. Didn't Chryl Danner edit it?
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Am I missing she? I think she edited it herself,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: which is maybe why her butt comes up so much. Sorry,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: I was pulled. I don't know where I let me check. Yeah,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: I thought I saw maybe it was a Wikipedia Either way,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: there was a woman editing editing it in it, I
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: don't know. I thought it was a good sex scene. Yeah,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: she's the editor. Okay, so my bee. I have no
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: idea who Annie Taylor is. I don't know where I
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: got that information. Sorry. Oh wait, film editing by this
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: is on IMDb. Annie Taylor, That's where I got that mystery. Mystery.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe Annie Taylor is Ryl Dunier's pseudonym for when she's
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: an editing pseudonym. Uh. Yeah that. I thought that the
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: like that the sex scene was enjoyable, and it also
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: felt I don't know what makes a sex scene nineties,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: but the sex scene also felt very nineties, where it's
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: like a lot of like tight shots and like it
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: just felt like it was like being cut around, kind
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: of like a music video and you're like, yeah, the
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: music too. I can't remember exactly what song is playing,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: but I was like this, it's a time machine and
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: I am transported right back to the mid nineties. Um,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: does anyone have anything else they want to talk about?
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: I think that was it. Yeah. Oh does the movie
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: pass the Bechtel test? Yeah, of course, almost the whole time, Yes,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: and also passes the Vito Russo test. Just want to
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: give that a shout out. Also a number of other
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: tests like the DuVernay test. So, uh, we've got our
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: nipple scale, which is zero to five nipples based on
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: how the movie fares looking at it through an intersectional
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: feminist lens, and you know, I would probably give this,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: I mean it's nearly a five, if not a five.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: I mean it's a movie about representation and a lack
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: thereof and then a like correcting of that. But it's
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: like basically Cheryl Dune' is like, well, there are no
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: movies about black lesbians. Well guess what now there is.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: You're welcome. And yeah, it's just it explores some really
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: interesting themes that it poses some interesting questions. Uh. There
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: there's representation that we rarely see that we weren't seeing
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: prior to this. We're that we're still barely seeing, especially
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: in mainstream because you know, even though this is a
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: pivotal movie in like new queer cinema, in black cinema,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: most people still haven't seen this movie. Like it is
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: not something that a wide audience has seen or maybe
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: even knows about. Yeah, that's also what makes it a
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: bit sad to me because like if you look at
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: least for like black queer cinema, that isn't like there
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: use some significant films that I've come out, but like
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: in terms of like black lesbians, there isn't that much more.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: And it was five years ago, right, Yeah. It was
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: kind of discouraging when when we because it's like we
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: wanted to cover more black queer cinema and the fact
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: that it was like the what you know this is
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's presented kind of as as The Pinnacle,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: and yeah, it happened, you know, when we were all
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: children like and I don't know it. I'm glad that
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: some progress has been made, but it's like, well, we
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: have a problem here if if the you know, if
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: The Pinnacle was in six Yeah, hopefully listeners who are
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: listening to this episode, if you haven't already seen it,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: go see it rented. You know, it might also be
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: available on canopy, like your your library. I'm not sure,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: but I think it is. I just I can't find
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: my library card. Either way, it is accessible, so check
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: it out. Tell your friends about it because it's well,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about gate keeping a little bit,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: which is like something that Cheryl the character comes up
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: against a lot in trying to access information. There's also
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: like this pretty major Hollywood gate keeping thing where it's
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: hard for anyone to get a movie out there and
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: in front of a wide audience, but especially if you're
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: a black woman, if you're a queer woman, if you're
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: a queer black woman, like you know, the odds just
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: keep getting stacked more and more against you, just in
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: terms of like we Cheryl Danier like particularly like the
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: way she navigates the low budget of this movie so well,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: to the point where it seems very intentional and like,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: but the fact that she had to do that at all.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: I think this came up last year when we were
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: covering A Girl Walks Home Alone at night, where especially
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: when there's women of color directing stories that that center
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: women of color, it's you always heard these stories about
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: like they had to scrape together the money to get
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: this made. It was really hard to find distribution. And
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: even now The Watermelon Woman is more widely accessible, but
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: that it doesn't seem like that was the case for
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: a long time for like the early history of this movie.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: And meanwhile, you know, you hear like stories about white
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: male auteurs who barely know how to hold a camera,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: and they're like, I have faith in him, He'll figure
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: it out. Like it's here's here's a hundred million dollars
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: to make your movie, like right, So the odds are stacked,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: were stacked against Cheryl Dounier, and yet she managed to
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: make a really cool, funny movie that is extremely important
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: and extremely pivotal. And for those reasons, I'll give it
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: five nipples. This is this is rare on the on
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: the show, we we do not often do this. So
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to give the Watermelon woman five nipples and
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: I'll distribute them to Cheryl tomorrow. I want to get
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: what's her name, Yvette, who sings the terrible karaoke you know,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: she was just doing her best. I hope, I hope
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: Evette finds love. If it finds a karaoke partner, she
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: deserves it. I'll give one nipple to Faye Richards and
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: all the women that she symbolizes, and I'll give my
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: is that am I up to five nipples? Now? I
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: don't know, I'll give I feel like I've got one
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: more and June, yes, June gets my last nipple absolutely,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's me. Yeah, meet I'll meet you
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: at five. It's a rare pleasure. I think that there's
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: there's definitely I mean, like we were talking throughout, it's
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: like there's still just questions that I would want to
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: hear Cheryl Dnier's perspective on, just in terms of like
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: plot choices and character choices and and just like the
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: themes that she really focuses on for this movie. But
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: in terms of our show, it's like this movie is
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: like firing on all cylinders, where, yeah, it's a movie
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: about how representation affects people, it's about historical gatekeeping. It's
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: also like a fun rob through Philadelphia in the nineties.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Like it's just I wasn't like, I don't I don't know,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what to expect going into this movie.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: But having it be like this really light but fascinating
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: nineties movie, and and it's cool that. I mean, Cheryl
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: Dnier is very much still working. It seems like she's
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: mostly working in TVD stays, but she directed an episode
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: of Lovecraft Country last year All Rise, which I think
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: was a court shop. She's been, she's she's directing, she's
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: in there. She lives in Oakland. Yeah, and directed Sugar. Yeah,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: she's like I mean, and it's I'm I'm glad that
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: the Watermelon Woman kind of launched her into this successful
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: directing career. But I also like, why haven't we given
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: her a hundred million dollars to make whatever the funk
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: she wants? You know, like I think that it's worth,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: you know, scrutinizing these pipe these movie pipelines where you know,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: Cheryl Danyer is killing it and she's clearly, I mean,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: it seems like doing work that is important to her,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: and it's really good work. But it's like, why where
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: is Cheryl Danyer's blank check? That is my question. But
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: Eddie Ways, this movie is incredible. If you haven't seen it,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: highly recommend and watch it with friends. I can't wait
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: to be able to watch movies with friends. This is
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: like such a I don't know. It was so fun
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: and I learned, I learned stuff, and usually I resent
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: learning things in movies, but this made it just it
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: went down easy, it was and I just I loved it.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: So I'll go five nips as well, two to Cheryl Danier,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: one to June, one to Faye, and one to I Forget.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: There was like a separate director or artist who like
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: curated all the images of Faye Richards and I want
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: to give my last nipple to her. Yes, yes, yes,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: she was a director of photography. Okay, wait thought so.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: I just love the thoroughness of creating this history of
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: Fay Richards. And I saw through some research that that
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: ended up becoming like an art exhibit that like went
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: to Mocha, Like the history of this fictional character also
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: has this entire like art exhibit built around her, and
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: and it was also auctioned off to friends, and that's
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: part of the film's budget. Actually, wow, wait, I didn't
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: do that. Yeah. Yeah, they auctioned off some of the
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: images and the money they got from that went to
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: making the movie. So something we didn't mention, but I
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: think that's quite significant. It's also like, um, I think
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: with Tongues and Tied, it's the water women in Tones
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: and Tired are the two movies that were funded with
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: like public funding, and they were like a huge debate
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: in Congress around like funding films and like conservatives being like, oh,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: like we're funding like this awful and like a natical
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: and a moral stories and um, I think after that,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: like they completely restructured the way films were funded, and
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: the specific pockets of money that made those two films
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: possible were no longer accessible. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: but it's significant that they were discussed, Like thinking about
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: films such as these being discussed in Congress and piecing
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: off conservatives, which is always a pleasure. Exactly, Crystal, what
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: what is your nipple rating of this movie? So I'm
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: hesitating between four and five nipples, and I think I
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: will stay with the hesitation, especially like I think there's
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: something to be said about her mental health comes into
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: and cand like like there are some jokes that are
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: it like nineties, But I would give one nipple to
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: share you Donnie as a director, one to share it
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: Donnie as an actress, one to her, but one one
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: to Tamara, who's like, I just love Tamara so funny,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: and the final one to June because it's just so
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: nice to see all the black lastins on screen, and
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: I hope we see more of that. Yeah. I think
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: there's there's something around generations and like queerness that's really
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: missing for me in filmography and seeing different generations of
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: queer people together on screen. Yeah, there's even I think
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: it's in June's voiceover towards the end, she's saying to Cheryl,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I just I hope you realize that like
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: Faye was a part of basically like a movement that
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: allows your lifestyle to be possible, like she we like
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: our generation paved the way for you and Cheryl, I
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: don't remember she responds to that directly, but just the
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: fact that it's like in the movie and like that
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: is put out there is something that um is important
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: to remember. Yeah, well, Crystal, thank you so much for
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: joining us and the pleasures all ours. Where can people
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: follow you on social media? Is there anything you'd like
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: to plug? I'm on Twitter and very active on Twitter
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: at and I'm also on Instagram m Chrystal dotniqus nice
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: and you can follow us at Bechtel Cast on Twitter, Instagram.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: We have a Patreon a k a Matreon at patreon
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: dot com, slash Spectel Cast. Yeah, there's over I think
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: there's almost like a hundred bonus episodes there. If you
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: have run out of stuff on the main fade, We're
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: going to cover Stewart Little this month for reasons, uh
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: and then our t public dot com slash the Bechtel
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: Cast for all of your merchandising needs. Other than that,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: should we all go to karaoke? Bye bye