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What did the five fingers say to the face.
My wife's name, your fucking n not you remixing that joke in the messiest way possible.
Sometimes you gotta stand on business and hand out some slaps.
Nah, putting your hands on another real life person like that is a wild How about fictional slaps for fictional characters.
I'm good with that. We're diving into a realm filled with characters who often make us greate, our teeth, furrow our brows, and sometimes, let's go ahead admit it, make us each to reach into that story and deliver a perfectly executed whack. Today's episode, this episode slaps, I'm.
Katie and I'm Eves.
You know, I think the highest compliment you can give a storyteller is wanting to slap the shit out of one of their characters.
Okay, please elaborate.
I mean, as storytellers, one of the main goals is to make your audience feel something, So to elicit such a visceral reaction from one of your characters really speaks to the skill of the storyteller.
Okay, I see what you're saying. Wanting to slap a character doesn't mean you want to slap the creator or that you don't like the work as a whole.
Nah. See, one of my favorite novels has a character that I would just need sixty seconds with to put the pause on her.
Okay, which character is that?
I can't help but think of Leoni and Jessmine Wards sing Unburied Sing?
Have you read it not yet? But it is on my list?
Okay. So it follows a young boy named Jojo and his troubled family, his mom, Leoni, grappling with addiction, and his grandfather Pop, a tough old man hiding some deep secrets. Leoni decides to take Jojo and his little sister on a road trip to pick up their father, who's getting released from prison. But this isn't your typical family road trip. Ghosts, both figurative and literal, starts showing up in the past, intertwines with the present in some really haunting ways.
That sounds very layered. I couldn't imagine why you want to slap any of these characters.
Well, here's the thing. The narrative doesn't just focus on one character's perspective. We get inside the minds of Jojo, Leoni, and even the ghosts themselves. And so we're hearing from Jojo a little boy I feel immense sympathy for because he's in this family that's highly dysfunctional, and he's painting this picture of his mom is irresponsible and emotionally unavailable.
That is kind of sad.
Yeah, I felt so bad for Jojo, and Leoni had her own trauma that was a contributing factor to the way she's acting. So I do want to extend some empathy her way. But what really got me is her need for validation from white men and how that negatively impacts her children.
Oh lot.
Okay, Soa Leoni's brother was killed by a white man fifteen years prior to the story beginning. She has two babies by the cousin of the white man who kills her brother. Okay, like, out of all the people in the world, that's who you choose. So her baby daddy's in jail, which you know she happens, But the kid's white grandfather is racist and makes it abundantly clear that having black grandkids is unacceptable.
Okay, I do see how that's hard for Jojo.
I'm really sensitive about kids, even fictional ones. And Leoni's brother was killed when she was a kid, which you don't really know how something like that will affect someone, but it's very clear to me that she's making sure she passes down that generational trauma. Like, no circle are being broken here, Let the circle.
Be a broken child. Sounds like you want to slap some sense into her.
Yeah, that's true. I guess I don't have to put the pause on her all the way. But there is a character I believe there is no hope in talking sense into them, so a Will Smith level slap is necessary.
Will Smith to smack the shit out of it.
A word, yep, I'll let you know who after the break, all right?
Who is it? Who is it?
Okay? So I might be cheating a little bit because this character actually does get slapped.
Definitely cheating.
But she only got slapped near the very end, and how she was moving, she should have been slapped at the beginning, middle and two times at the end. Drum roll please. The Mom and Medea's family reunion played by the Lynn Whitfield. And when I tell you Lynn Whitfield can play a villain, I'm always going to put some respect on her name. Because the way she could teach an advance course on villain try at an ivy league.
It sounds like you would be the one leading that class, not.
Be being that villain. I'm speaking oie facts. The mom whose name is Victoria in the movie really did her kids dirty.
I'm seeing a pattern.
Ooh, you're right well. One, she offers one of her daughters to her husband to sexually assault when she was a little girl and shows literally no remorse. She tells her she should feel good that she was able to keep her family together by being assaulted. And two, she's using her other daughter as a bank account, trying to marry her off to an abusive, wealthy man.
So do you extend that same empathy to Victoria like you did to Leone? Because I remember in that movie Victoria says she had a rough childhood.
Yes, she did say her mother was neglectful and abusive. But you know what I don't like at your big age, you know what you're doing and you know it's wrong, and you just don't care how it's impacting anybody else as long as you feel like you're coming up at the end of the day. And Lisa, the one who was assaulted by her mom's husband as a child. Does slap Victoria at the family reunion, but.
That maun loves you.
He's a damn food.
You are such a bitch.
But the other sister should have slapped her too, like she was trying to get you to marry this fool who's blackening your eye and busting your lip. It's payback time. It's time to knuck and buck. So I'm curious which fictional characters leave you wanting to give them a good old fashioned.
My first vote is for Troy Maxon in August Wilson's play Fences.
Ooh nah, that is a character who's easy to dislike.
Yeah, not a villain, not at all. But he is not charming or agreeable. He had some odds stacked up against him, and he had lived a tough life by the time we get to know him in the nineteen fifties and sixties Pittsburgh. But that doesn't change the fact that he is high key annoying and makes some poor choices.
That's putting it nicely.
Look, Troy is kind of a mess, but he has some weight on his shoulders, so I give him some grace, but not enough to not want to slap him. To be real, He's not the only character in the play that made me smack my teeth more than once, but he's the main source of my irritation in that story.
All right, So tell me what is it about him that bothered you so much?
Okay, let me start with the easy one. So he's been with his wife Rose for eighteen years, and he has a baby with another woman, and he tells Rose this at the same time he tells her that he's having the affair.
Okay, just driving by.
Talking all this stuff about how the other woman makes him laugh, he feels comfortable with her. The way that commerce station goes, it's like a woe is me. I've tried to live well and be a good husband, but it's been hard being here with you, even though you've been a good woman. And when she tries to say her piece, when Rose does, when she talks about how she's hurt, he gets mad.
It's giving gaslighting, absolutely girl.
And the scenes we see with him this deep into his marriage to Rose, he's not super loving with her. And his relationship with his son Corey. He was basically holding that boy hostage. It's for sure coming from a place of concern for Corey's future based on his own negative experiences. But well intentioned doesn't always mean right.
Oh say that again, But well intentioned don't always mean right, okay, and he tries to control his son's dreams and keep him working the way that he wanted him to.
There's a moment when Corey tries to pass Troy on the steps leading up to their front door, and Corey doesn't say, excuse me. Troy's already on the outs and outs with his family, and he's definitely in his feeling and yearning for a power play, so he goes so far us to tell his son, nigga, that's what you are.
You just just another nigga on the street to me.
Corey ends up trying to hit Troy with his own back, but he couldn't take the swing. Dun Corey, that nigga right. He tried to, he couldn't do it. I know, I'm with you, kitty, What can I say? The play starts with the August Wilson quote. When the sins of our fathers visit us, we do not have to play host. We can banish them with forgiveness. As God, in his largeness and loss.
So we should know that somebody in this story is going to test our nerves like from the very beginning.
And did Wilson Moore does? Now?
So who else made you feel like a loving backhand was in order?
Well, we got to take a quick break first, but when we come back, we'll get into the last character on our list that brings up them fighting feelings. Now, this last character is from another classic work, this time from the seventies.
Ooh, a golden era that it was, especially in R and B. All the romance, the breakups, the broken hearts, the dramas, the fights. Seventies R and B is full of dramatic love stories.
M hm. So you know it's no stranger to the lying, cheating significant other.
Uh oh, give us the last character.
Now, okay, if you haven't seen it already, there is quite a pattern and both of our choices here. So my last choice is Sureley in the song Woman to Woman.
Ain't it the same thing? You know what? Okay?
By Shirley Brown. So I think some of the kids these days might call her a pick me.
Oh yeah, I mean, in my opinion, both of them were pigmies, both of them, both Shirley and Barbara.
Oh, Shirley and Barbara and the song were both picknies.
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, okay, yes, I agree with you.
But she was also a very complex person with a lot of feelings. She was a woman in love. She was deeply hurt, deeply troubled, but she was still faithful to her two time and man.
Yeah, I mean, how could I forget? Shirley picked off her phone and called the other woman.
Yep, wrung her and said, then proceeded to tell Barbara how she was going through her man's pockets and found her name and number. Very bold, yes, But then Shirley went on to tell Barbara how she's basically this man's lifeline. She buys his clothes, his food, his bed, and she pays his car note every month.
Okay, daddy wore books stop.
Playing, but for real, she said, she wasn't gonna give him up. He's hers, and she wasn't gonna let Barbara break up her happy home.
Happy is doing a lot of work there. Hey, Shirley's words, not mine. She also asked, Barbara, wouldn't you have done the same thing? Okay, So Barbara Mason had a few of her own choice words in her own song from his Woman to You. Wait, I did not know that she had a response. They were they were going back and forth. Yes, I wonder, Wait was this true story?
No, it wasn't. No, this was made up by writers. I think it was kind of one of those things like, oh, it's a universal experience that a lot of people have. But it wasn't based on something that actually happened in their two lives.
Okay, So they wasn't going like bar for Bara would each other.
It wasn't. It wasn't any kind of battle R and B situation.
Okay, because that would have been a real messy, real tea.
Yes, but Barbara Mason did come back with the heat now, okay, because she has some stuff to say. So, as you can tell by the title of the song, she was claiming him too. From is woman to you she was like, I'm his woman. Now you got it wrong. It's a rich text, yes, yes, ma'am. And Barbara was cold. She said that she was broke but and I quote, he's been giving me what he's getting from you.
Okay, that have pissed me off, And yes.
It would have pissed me off too, But she was really bold about it. Barbara, she went and put salt on the womb. I feel bad for Shirley, I really do. This man is a silent third party in Woman to Woman.
Wait, he didn't have his own track like it's two by.
Bitch, not that I know of. That might be somewhere in the cannon that I'm unfamiliar with. I've never heard it, but if the people want to correct me about that, they can do so. They also never said this man's name, so I'm guessing they wouldn't because they went with Shirley and Barbara, but they didn't say They didn't say his name, which they gave him more length than they should have because out that man out him.
Okay, they said, we know his name, yes, and we know he ain't no good, so I'm not letting him off the hook here.
Okay. Shirley said that the best of her years went to him, and it sounded like she was singing to convince herself that she had control over the situation, which honestly makes me pretty sad thinking about, like the emotions were really coming out in that song. But I still want to slapper.
Hey.
I know I don't know the whole story, but Sureley truly she played herself, calling Barbara and claiming.
That man play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Mm hmm, make a move that Bowld. Gotta be prepared for whatever may come your way.
Okay, So it's interesting the ones we picked that, Yeah, because.
Most of yours had to do with mistreatment of children.
Yes, was about ancient men and women.
Which has nothing to do with my real life. I must say, I've never experienced in such situation.
But why do you think like those are the two examples that really stood out to you.
I think it's because it's insidious, like it's a betrayal, and I think betrayals make really great stories and they also make really salacious stories. So there's romance involved, there's sex involved, there's like companionship involved. So it's also like there is another layer of deep friendship underneath all of that. So there's like a good story in here somewhere, because
clearly Shirley had some good years with this man. So I feel like, I mean, I love a good character study, and I feel like I may I don't know if I really know the answer to it, but I feel like I may have picked both of these that are similar just because they're so deeply hurtful, I guess, and that's why what would make me want to slap these people, like don't you don't you know better? Can't you do better? Haven't you been thinking at all?
Hmm?
Okay, but maybe we can go deeper. But you tell me, you tell me why you think he chose the ones you did well.
I think kind of the opposite of you, Like your examples are people that are like choosing to be in relationship with each other, and then mine are like, I mean, at a certain point, you can choose to be in relationship with your parents, but as a child, you really don't have that agency. And so Jojo definitely doesn't have
that agency. He's still in the house with Leoni. In the Tyler Perry example, the kids are grown, but the mom is very much like trying to control a lot of things still, And so I think that is interesting to me. It's like how people who are in positions of power treat others, especially those that you would think, oh, they're supposed to have like this unconditional love for them, but really you see them looking out for themselves first.
And I don't even think Leoni necessarily is malicious because she just has like so much other shit going on. You know, she's addicted to drugs. She's like literally seeing the ghost of her murdered brother. You know, maybe if that was me, I wouldn't be the best mother either.
So it makes sense. But then you think, like, Okay, well, at a certain point, Jojo has no choice in the matter when leone, you know, as an adult who chose to be with the man she wit, you know what I'm saying, you know, chose to be into the stuff she's in two as far as like the recreational drugs she's in two. So I think what's interesting to me is like the choice or lack thereof in those stories.
And the children are innocent parties in all of this.
Yeah, I think more innocent. I do think in the media example, which you know how I feel about media, I do, But do.
The people know how you feel about media talk about it.
I think the bougie blacks have gotten on the bandwagon of not liking Medea, and for good reason.
Let's start there.
I a go I ain't gonna hold you for good reason. Some of the some of the movies are terrible. I tried to watch the Halloween movies boo. Yeah, I don't even I don't even know if it's Madea's hallween or boo, whatever it's called. I tried to watch that terrible, could not watch it. So some of them are just like money grabs. But I do think his earlier works he was trying. I do think Wndia's Family he was trying.
There was a lot going on in the story. He wrote, produced and starred them, so it's a lot of work very you know, into the movies. But in the Tyler Perry example, I do think because the kids are older and like you would think, just like girl, you and yo mid thirties, like stand up, you know what I mean.
But in the same token, they could really be stuck in that childlike mindset around their mom, just like letting her just do anything and like run the show and like abuse them in these like really hurtful ways, just because that's what the dynamic they already set up. So it's kind of sad to see you just like continuing on. But the mom definitely used to get yes again.
Yeah, I don't know, there's something that's rewarding about feeling that way about a character too.
Yeah, but Lynn Whitfield. I think like she will bring that out of you. I feel like, even if the character isn't a bad person, I don't think I've seen her play like a really nice character. No, she'd be mean.
She know how to do it well too.
She's been typecasted, but she'd be playing her role.
Yeah, so.
Go miss wild.
But yeah, I think your examples are a lot more noble than mine are, because I guess I'm I feel like I'm expecting too much out of people for mine to be like you knew better and you should have
done better, but like also understanding that they're flawed. So for the people in my instances, I wanted to slap Troy because he just did some stupid stuff and he knew better, and it was clear that he did because throughout the whole play in Fensis, Troy was talking to his friend being like, yeah, I ain't doing nothing with that woman, Like he tried to deny it for so long.
So it's like, if you really thought nothing was wrong, then why are you lying? Why are you trying to cover your tracks?
Yeah? Why? But it's like people do that all the time, and it's because he knew that the consequences wouldn't be great, But he wasn't. He didn't have enough integrity to face up to like what he did and the consequences of the thing that he did and he knew was wrong from the jump.
Yeah, if you really that nigga Union got a lie and there.
Was nothing, there's no impediment for him, like I feel like there is for the people in your stories and what they were going through and the reasons why they acted as they did. Maybe not none, but just like in comparison to Troy, his choice to not tell her was a lot less challenged by other things going on in his life. What you mean? He wasn't addicted to
any substances. He lived a good home life, His wife Rose treated him well, he lived with his children, He had gotten out of prison after being in prison for a long time and claimed to have turned his ways around. So there really wasn't much in his way to like even cheat on her in the first place, but also to not tell her in a way that like you just need to you need to do what you gotta do. You gotta you gotta step up. Why you not? So?
I know for me in real life, like if I see someone mistreating a kid, like I'm ready to go to war for it. Are you the same way as when you see like someone being unfaithful? Are you like ready to slap that person? No, probably not in real life, or like not ready to slap them, But do you not feel any type of way? Do you feel away when you see that? Or it's just like I'm on my business.
If it's somebody I know close, then I would say I definitely am judging that person, but I also understand that we don't always make logical decisions, and that also I'm not their partner, so their tolerances for cheating might be completely different than mine are. So like, who am I to say that for the other person?
At least so you'll judge them and not say nothing. Probably so, depending on how deep it is, though, Like if it's a friend who's coming to me over and over telling me about their cheating trials, then it might be different. But I haven't experienced that, so you'll know how it would manifest in the real world.
Yeah.
I think what's interesting in the examples of who we wanted to slap it was because of how they were treating other people, So it really could have also been like who we wanted to hug because like, I really want to hug Jojo and be like, oh baby, it's okay. And the daughters in the Tyler Perry movie it's like kind of like girl like, yeah, I have to deal with this, you know, like really talk to them and stuff.
And it seems like it might be similar with with your examples with Rose, like would you want to like hug Rows and be like Jysis.
Yeah, I would definitely want to hug Rows. She put up with a lot, she was there through it all. She was there after Troy's death. She was there for his child, mind you, which I didn't mention. Yeah, for the people who don't know, she raised his child that he had with the other woman.
I feel like that's kind of normal though.
I mean, this is one of those child situations like.
Yeah, because like what are you gonna do put a baby on a fucking cardboard box on the side of the road.
Some people, Yeah, I ain't done nothing, didn't deserve it, So yes, it made sense. But she was here for it very quickly, Like in the in the play, he was like, well, what, I gotta go get the baby, I gotta raise the baby, and she was like, I ain't fucking with you when I'm fucking with that baby in that moment, and I was like, I don't know if I would have had it in me to so self assured, so composed and so thoughtful in that moment. And that's how she was, That's how her character was.
She was used to his ship, but an affair is a different level. And that was still new news. You said, it just starts compounding and it gets easier and easier over time to just yes, that's settling.
And now it's time for roll credits, where we give credit to a person, place, or a thing that we've encountered during the week. Eaves, who are what would you like to give credit to today?
I want to give credit to walking. Walking. It is something that's so accessible, it's easy to do every day. It's good for our health, it's easy to do from anywhere. It doesn't take a lot for me to get up and want to go and walk, and it's really it can be meditative as well. So that's what I want to give credit to you today. Nice, I too like to walk.
It's been a little cult for me though, because I like to walk in the morning, but when it's like in the twenties. I'm gonna hold on to that bed.
Hold on tight, I'm a hold Oh.
I would like to give credit to libraries. They're just really great and your girl be running through a library. I love a library. I love getting a book. And I'm a little receipt. They tell you how much money you saved, You're like, yes, and you know what. I encourage everyone to get a library card, even if you're not really going to the library like that. They based the funding in part on how many people are signing up for library cards, like renewing their library cards. I
have library card at multiple cities. Don't tell nobody I got DC New York.
Do it then wherever you go library cards and different area codes.
Yeah, because even when you're traveling, like say you're traveling somewhere for like a week or two, I think you can get like a little guests library cards. And they don't just have books, you know, they have music, movies, puzzles. Some places with real good libraries be having appliances and yard equipment and stuff like that. So yeah, shout out to the local libraries period.
Yes, all the resources and cultural passes too.
Oh yeah, you can go to the zoo. You can go to museums. Lots of stuff going on. Oh yes, the parks, lots and lots of stuff going on. To the library. They have classes there, they have book clubs there, podcast clubs, podcast clubs there, usually the people too.
If you like a recommendations will provide recommendations that are tune too different things that are going on during the year, like Native American Heritage months are if it's around Halloween, it will be spooky recommendations.
M H. And shout out to the library that do not like cops in here.
And shout out to the libraries that let people who don't have housing stay at them. I love that, Katie. You know I love libraries too, So I'm a fan of your choice for this week.
Thanks for listening, See you next week.
Bye bye. On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves, Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
It was produced by Tari Harrison and edited in sound designed by Dylan Fagan.
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