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Well come, well come, well come, well come, well come.
Welcome, Welcome home, y'all.
We're here for this week's mini pod. I am your host, Tiffany Krost, along with my co host Andrew Gillham.
I'll be honest with y'all.
We did not plan what we wanted to talk about, but I was like, let's just say record, because I always have things I want to talk to Andrew about.
Uh, they're always okay.
Well, the one thing I wanted to talk to you about, to be honest, Andrew, is Sinners.
But you have not seen it yet.
I have Ryan Coogler's you know I haven't. I have raved in all the news about how much it's earned. Oh my god, you know it's it's top slot debut and all the hate. Help me you talk about the substance?
Yeah?
Can you please bring me to speed on why is this so great? Why are I don't.
Want to spoil it? I think, and I don't want to.
I don't want to talk about it a lot because I want us to have a deeper conversation when you once you've actually seen it, Because The symbolism and history in this film is just beautiful and it's the movie we need.
Right now for this moment.
But I surmise that because a lot of the coverage for the film, you guys, the opening weekend, it was, you know, this film gross sixty five million, but Warner Brothers paid X amount of dollars, so long, long way before it's profitable. And what a strange way to frame a successful movie, you know. And that wasn't the only one. There was headline after headline that kind of downplayed its success, that cautioned excitement around it.
And I had not seen the film.
Once I saw the film, I said, ah, okay, now I see they're like we did. I have all these black folks going to watch this film, And because a lot of the people who liked it who don't look like us, I was looking like, I wonder what you're.
Getting out of the film?
What did you When did you understand this film do and mean? And it was I felt the same way about get Out. I'm like, all these people who love get Out, I'm like, when of the Kardashians saying, I must they love get Out?
I'm like, we missed most precisely what did.
The Kardashians love about get Out?
You know? And it was kind of like that with Cinner. So we'll have a deeper conversation around it. But I think I think a good conversation we could have, if you want, is what goes into black and brown creativity, because when the things that I've seen happen, like Master of None with Asiase I'm sorry, was one of the best shows. I mean, it was just so well done.
That's how we came to know Lena Way. I mean, it was just a really well done show, and it's like, yes, that's what happens when executives get out the way and just let brown people create. On some of our shows that we've seen insecure, I would say, is a show like that love Craft Country?
My god, love Craft oh man?
And why did that go away? Okay, struggling?
The second season of love Craft Country was going to be called Supremacy. I'm so mad me And so the reason why I've heard is HBO executives describe Misha Green as different cult, which of course makes me like, anytime you start describing us as difficult, I want to know what exactly the situation was.
Yeah, I want to know what did they disagree with you about? What did they say no?
And you know, Ryan Cougler with Centners, like he broke the bank on these people, and you know, to me, whatever he got paid, it wasn't enough. They're going to more than make their money back on this film. But it also just cast a wide net of influence over creators when we support high quality work and the level
of detail that Ryan Cougler paid to this film. There's a moment where you'll see Chinese characters who are Southern Chinese folks living in Mississippi, and you know this Andrew that, yes, that is a part of Southern culture in Louisiana. There's a huge Vietnamese community, you know, after the railroads, and you know kind of like how these populations came to be and how they came to be shaped. Follow a platform next next Shark on Instagram that gives api history.
So I don't know. I say all that to say, we're in a very unique moment in history where we are side eyeing.
Other communities, you know, where it's like, I don't know, you might have voted for this man, and I can't really rock with you, like I gotta go insular and only deal with black people, only talk to black people, And I certainly feel the most comfort there. But I just I know people within the ap PI community who who fight against anti black sentiment, who fight against racism, who are allies, like I have given them the title of ally. They've earned it and I've given it to them.
I know people in the Latino community who also are black folks. Y'all, there are there's Latino, there are black people, and then there are black Latinos. There's a venn diagram Latino own precisely in Dominica, in Port and everywhere there are black you know, the the slave ships stopped everywhere and some people, you know, you have Afro Colombian and who.
Was on that ship, by the way, looked different in different places, and some places they were Asians who were on uh those slave ships or under indentured servitude and
still treated and and employed on the slave labor. You talked about, you know, the railroad and the building of that, the connecting of the East and the West, and how it is that you know, Asians occupied so much of these rare places that you would find, you know, these buckets of community on the creative piece, because I don't think of myself as a creative and am certainly not
implied to to to to even think so. But I I have been watching or watched rather and I don't know which app it's on, but it interviewed all of these black actors, first the men and then the women. Oh god, if y'all have it, which which platform is that? On that apple?
We'll give us some money because we're given y'all whole free commercial.
I just I just got to say, I was so moved watch it and drawing the tears and other forms of emotions as I listened to these a list black actors' names that we would all know, you know, you know, off the dome, and how they reflect on their experience in an industry that wholly didn't value. And I say didn't as if it's past tense. I think it's it's still true, don't value, but certainly you know, in the moments that they're reflecting on, it's clear didn't value. I
mean Angela Bassett and that Tina Turner biopic. I'm still mad when I was reminded, you know, of the slight of hand that that that she was handed at that time for acknowledgment of the hard work that that's required that our folks do. But I think, Tiff, in so many ways, our creatives make it look so seamless, almost so effortless, like you underappreciate the amount of energy, effort, concentration, discipline that they had to exhibit to get that job done. And study it's so underappreciated.
Like Viola Davis is a Juilliard graduate, and she talks about studying at Juilliard and how, you know, having to learn different dialects, you know, having to learn the British dialects, having to learn Southern dialects, and it's like, well, why didn't white people have to learn different African dialects? You know, like why did we center whiteness in our craft? And it's so true the way that that's centered in everything.
We were talking a bit this week on the podcast about you know, cable news executives, you know, and and still what is centered is white perspective, white life. You know, even when you talk about evangelical so white is silent. You know, you assume evangelicals are with Trump because you're only thinking about the Billy Graham wing of evangelical in film,
you're only thinking about white perspective. You know that famous clip, infamous clip of Tony Morrison being interviewed and the woman saying, but you don't sent her white people in your books, as if that is the starting point, you know, like you're can we I have?
And also when they in politics, before you leave those examples and politics, when we say the real America, get out and talk to real Americans and what people commentators and analysts mean when they say the real America, what black people are working blue collar jobs and are disaffected in all parts of this land. Yet you got to go to the heartland quote to meet real Americans. Yeah, that they don't exist. Real Americans don't exist in cities.
Yeah yeah, real Americans. That I'm so offended by that entire notion. But that is like the thought process that that's the defining thought process for so many people. But I have a request one. I want you to see Sinners so we can do a whole mini pie. But Centers has me so inspired. I would like us to rewatch Lovecraft Country.
To rewatch I'm down there and watch it. I thought it was I thought it was powerful, and I can't I couldn't believe that the viewership if that were it was so was so lackluster that it wouldn't It was so beautifully done the acting girls.
But there's a woman who also plays in Centers and I don't know how to say her name, but she is so strikingly beautiful. She's actually British and I don't know where her country of origin is from, but she was born in the UK, and I'm gonna look it up because I want to give her her flowers.
I know her name, every everything I've seen her amazing. If there were a talent who is who was underrated, it would be her amazing.
And she loves you. Remember we ran into her at tammeron Hall Show.
I know I'm a fan, but I'm a sincere fan of her craft, of her Workie what you know, Jerny Smilett another one who I.
Thought I love Craft Country and her sister is played by woone Me Mosaku. I forgive me if that's not how you say her name, but woon me Osaku, who got the Chicago accent very like, she did it very well. Uh in Center, she got that Mississippi Southern actvert. I mean, she's just an amazing actions but strikingly beautiful. I just can't stop looking at this woman. I think she's I
just I think we're gonna see more of her. But I would like us, Yeah, I would like us to rewise The love Craft Country because it was one of the most beautiful pieces of television I've ever seen, and it really tapped into my imagination.
Is shaped how I saw.
Things the Name Yourself episode that Sensor and I was new Ellis. I don't want to give it away if you all haven't watched its years old, though, I feel like we should be able to talk about spoilers, but I would like you all to watch.
It with Yeah, dig in, dig in.
So it is so good, Jonathan Major.
It's mind shifting. Yeah, that's what creatives should do. Like we always talk about the imagination and how we reach a whole nother level of like the imaginative and the reimagining. They did that for us in reset a context and a set of experiences historically based in some cases otherwise
you know, in some instances derivatives of It's powerful. And I think that they're the ones who put peel the scales off of our eyes and allow us to see things more beautifully if you you know, to imagine things more beautifully. And I thank them for that.
Yeah, that's true.
Just we are we offer our gratitude for what they do on the screen, what they bring to their craft a seriousness. When you see BTS footage of Ryan Coogler on all of his films, from Fruit Station Uh to Creed to Black Panther to Sinners, he is involved at the molecular level, you know, like he is that his hands are stop everything he is, from the cinematography to the type of film they shoot on to the actors working closely with the actors and the storyboard, and he
puts such thought into it. And I think anytime that you're devoting that level of detail to your craft, that we owe you our attention. You know, I'm not at the theater like this on my phone. I'm not you know, chopping onions in the background. At home, I sit and honor the work of the folks who poured their heart into it, and so I don't like going.
To the theater.
Stand Barry Jenkins to be similar, you know, a Miami Boy, but and and and then you know the Lion King and and even in illustrations and playful ways, still incorporating the richness of us. Like if you get the subtext, you know, they don't make it hard for you to be able to access it. But if you if you're willing to get the subtext, it just it makes your spine stiffen a little bit, you know, when you when you are consuming that kind of thing, it's like, all right,
I see I hear myself. I see myself. This is not some caricature of who I am, but rather a more true reflection. It's empowering, especially when you get to see it on you know, on a big screen.
You know you have an appreciation for film the way I do, because we will at random act out an entire scene and you know totally, you know all the words, the intonation in everything. We both are very we are into content. I just thought about that as we're talking about this. Yeah, we did a whole Andrew and I were walking in Midtown, New York and acted out the entire scene of dream Girls.
I don't I was like, I'm trying to think what which was it was?
I only got it's so ridiculous. I don't even remember, but it was so ridiculous. But that's not what We've done several movies together where we just will randomly act out a scene.
A boomerang used to be my I don't think I had to give it up for a while. I was like, you know, you can't be earthy kid always my God, yeah done.
Lady Luise, Lady Ylluise.
Lady Yllouise. Those are some characters, man, classics.
Those are our classes. Oh God, like coming to America, those are our classes.
Yeah, I would tell you boomerang though, really, I mean, it just shifted my mind around possibility. I had not seen a film with the whole big a corporate building in New York looking, you know, tall skyscrapers, all black, wore, black folks owned all the floors. Then you know that you're in the secure you know, from security, you know, all the way to the executive. It was.
Working in the millroom.
I'm telling you, Murphy.
For that to really opening, because we were young, you know, we weren't entering our career. We were in like middle school and high school at that time. So to see something like that as a possibility, you know, and then to turn that possibility into a probability to enter institutions of higher ed to explore that, you know, like, what an amazing.
That's to say nothing about the soft porn, you know.
Yeah, yeah, okay, I was Lauren r Et suggesting, and I like this. This is our call to the listeners and viewers. What is a classic movie or TV show that transformed you? You know that you saw it and it was like wow, this really tapped into something for you. And give us the name of the TV show or the movie and what it was about that. You can
drop it in the comments. You can send in a video and yeah, we can pick this because I'm sure Angela has a film too, so we can pick this conversation up with her.
But yeah, I want.
What I'm shot.
I mean, I have others. But just in recent history, the Name Yourself episode in Lovecraft where this woman essentially had lived a thousand lives and had traveled through a thousand years and acquire this knowledge and learn the ways to harness energy and to self define in a way
that takes you to such another level. Astronauts describe it as the overview effect that once you transcend out of this Earth and you look down at this planet and you see all that you know, there are billions of galaxies all around us, And the overview effect makes you consider that, man, just last week, I was this little,
tiny person worrying about paying taxes and my mortgage. But then when you broadcast out in the macro on a whole of the lefl outside the universe, and you realize, I am but a tiny grain of sand in the hour glass of time. A billion people existed before me, a billion people will exist after me. What is it that I am doing here? What is it I'm meant to be doing here? How do I self define? How do I harness this energy that will likely live on forever? Will I go on to live a thousand more lives?
So that was the overview, but also in the granular, the Mother Earth's incarnateness of black women. You know that we are warriors, healers, shine and have always had such a rebirthed black men. We love black men. There are counterparts, you know, we are on equal footing, but we are the pathway to life. And what that meant for her and the one thing that could bring her back to this tiny little planet Earth was her child, the love
for her Chiuse. She had to go back for her daughter, but she came back.
With all this knowledge.
And I'm telling you, Andrew, you know you and I have had conversations about this. Me and Natasha had that that conversation. It wasn't a movie, but it changed my life about tapping into your imagination. I won't get into it because I told a story so many times on the podcast, But Andrew and Latasha had the most beautiful exchange about what it means for black people to tap
into our imaginations. So that episode of love Craft Country made me tap into my own and just it's something I'm still working through and how to harness my own energy. Like I'm over here, Like I don't have the energy or time to get in the back and forth earth on a cable news platform that seems so.
Small for me.
I don't have the energy or time to focus on. Every insult doesn't deserve my response, Every short tone doesn't deserve my attention. Every negative person, every negative comment, every little strife, if somebody got a beef with me, that doesn't deserve my energy. How am I harnessing my energy to create something almost metaphysical? Love you always love Craft, You'll get what.
I'm talking about.
I'm one another. Yeah, mine's so simple Brange was good.
That was good.
No simple boomerang wouldn't would not be the one I would reflect it. It would be definitely a different world. And that's simply because as it coming from a family that didn't have a tradition of going to college in my media household, it gave me the goal to go to college, to go to Healman, very specifically and all the way through believe even that Hillman was a real place up until I started sending my SAT scores out and I'm looking for the codes and Hillman wasn't one
of the codes, and it tripped me up. And that was the only moment eleventh grade was when I realized it was fake. Yeah, that it was. It was. It was the amalgamation of all of our HBCUs that wasn't one place, but that this is a life that can be experienced at many places, but exclusively at an HBCU. Yes, And that's what set my site there.
It was no other option for me, like I had to go to HBCU only because of a different world.
I said, I had to go to hill Man. Yes, And then I got my heart broken. Well fam you fam oh no no, no, no, no, Ultimately, I went to my hill.
You went to MAN. We lived in Wakanda. You went to HBC.
You lived in Wakanda. You had your Wakanda experience at FAM. You I had my experience at THAU. And I think the other thing about a different world also is what it meant to be among community, you know, like what it meant to be with us, And to know that there was every different type of black person.
On the planet.
You know, there were the super religious people, there were like the skateboarders. There were like the West Coast, like gnarly unrelatable, both the Black American princess. So I'm like, you got a car, you know, you down here in a dad line, your dad owns like dealerships, support.
And Chanel's and all this. You know, Yes, it's like what.
It shaped helped shape my worldview here. So yeah, but you know, someone.
Said, people who don't understand what it means to be reflected in that way. I mean, it's just it's such an undervalue statement when I hear people say, you know, to see yourself reflected, because I often wonder are the other people who are in earshot of hearing you say this?
Really grasping because if you're the majority and you have always been the image that's reflected, I kind of feel like the only time you know that this is a privilege, and maybe you don't even give it its credit, is maybe when you're in a room as a white person you look around and you realize you're the only way you don't realize it, you know it from the moment
you enter it. And then I often used to say to some of my colleagues, like, now you get a semblance, maybe just a little linkling of what I get to experience literally going every day in and out of the day as a mayor or a commissioner or whatever, or in this room, at these seats and at these tables of power and decision and influence, and to be there and to never see yourself walk through the damn door, never a presenter, never the option that is on the
menu of options of what we could decide or choose. That only until then do you get to really grasp the significance of this statement what it means to see yourself reflected.
That's so true, Andrew, that's so true. Okay, Well you got our thoughts.
I just want to add one.
We want to hear you, but something that we can when we when we hear you all thought something we may want to revisit. Someone said on they made a comment on my post that Dwayne and Whitley's relationship was toxic, and.
I have since visited she was.
Remember she kissed Ron like she went out with your your best friend and kissed them in your face.
Like, hey, you got her back at the wedding altar? You want her back, please please?
Like they I mean, but that was when you as a grown woman. I'm looking at that like nomn. She really was. She was interesting.
She was analyzed it that way. Yes, so this is why we want and need the feedback from from y'all our listeners, because it may put a whole new spin on the thing that.
We thought we knew totally totally all right, Well, thank you. I knew we would come up.
I wasn't really sure that I wanted to talk about creators, but I really did see thank you.
I like when we just hit record, we always have stuff to talk about.
It's also possible that I'm willing and really able to talk about anything, just like you are. What do you want to do today?
Yes, we flow, we flow, We always have stuff. Whether the cameras are rolling or not, we always have stuff to talk about. Sometimes I wish there were this cameras rolling with us and they hit record, because some of our best conversations as we're having food gasms, when we've like found a great restaurant and we're or way.
We take a good walk.
Yes, well, I love my good.
Walks are always good.
I love my walk yep. And on that note, everybody know about those walks because when you see the cousins to go for a walk, if you win that walk, you better get to get in when that walk happens, so you're gonna miss the walk anyway. Thank you guys, welcome home, Thanks for tuning in uh and we'll see you next time on the Mini Pod when Angelo's back. Be sure to check out Stay to the people, you guys to see that out there hitting the pavement, and
you'll see us on sour as well. If you liked this episode, share it, post it, comment, talk about it, subscribe, tell your friends to listen, and be sure to spread the words. This is how we can create more content and be here in conversation and community with you all. We'll see you next time on native Land Pod. I'm Tiffany Cross here with my co host Andrew Gillim.
Welcome home, Andrew Gillim, and welcome home y'all.
Native Land Pod is the production of iHeart Radio and partnership with Recent Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.