On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and vest start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlyn, do you want to open up a salon slash restaurant with me?
Yes? I do?
Okay, cool, I can't do either of the things.
Oh well, wait till you see the dance.
Okay, okay, Well I'm also really good at dancing, so.
Let's do that. Incredible, incredible. I think that that was a really that was strong. I was like, should we start to deceive each other? But just in general, just in life anyways, Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
My name's Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlyn Dante, and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point.
Absolutely true.
But what is that? Though?
Well, there's a lot of different versions of the Bechdel's test. It is originally created as a joke, as a bit.
As a goof yes, boof, a goof.
Uh by Alison Bechdel in the eighties for her incredible comics series Dikes to Watch Out For, often called the Bechdel Wallace Test because she co created it with her friend Liz Wallace. Our version of the test that we use requires that two people of a marginalized gender with names talk to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue.
And it should be plot impactful dialogue.
And that's the test. Most movies don't pass this one spoiler alert does.
It does because the movie we're talking about today is BAPS, Yeah, nineteen ninety seven. Same your Titanic came out. Sorry to mention it.
That was my first note. It's like greatest yudent film. We have a returning guest today, is it Third Ford?
I think time.
That's a jacket.
Yeah, I'm like Steve Martinette Saturday Night Live. Yeah.
Basically, yes, she's the host of Ihearts. There are no girls on the Internet. It's Bridget tod welcome back.
Thank you for having me. I was telling Caitlin off Mike that y'all could not have picked a better movie for me to talk about that I feel more strongly about. So I am so excited to be here.
Oh, we're so excited to have you tell us your relationship with Baps.
Well, I remember very distinctly watching this for the first time at a slumber party in the nineties. It was one of those do you ever have memories of going to Blockbuster and picking out a movie and being so excited and then getting that tub of popcorn that they had or you put it in the microwave. I have a clear memory of my mind of like going during a sleepover to rent this movie and watching it and sitting on my stomach and like just loving it.
I love memories like that too, where it's like I feel like the thing that sticks with me the strongest is like the politics among usually a group of girls in the Blockbuster, where you're trying to reach a consensus and there's like people calling each other over from one wall to the other being like that this one and then you have to debate.
It's exciting and this is such a sleepover movie.
It is, and so one of the reasons why I'm so excited to talk about it is that it is a movie that when it came out, was like controversial. People liked it, didn't like it, people had a lot to say about it, and I loved it from the beginning.
I loved it then, I love it now. If folks ever watched Real Housewives of Atlanta, there's a scene where one woman is trying to humiliate another woman when she's flowing a costume party, and so she's giving everybody glamorous Hollywood celebrities to come dressed as It's like, oh, you come dressed as Diana Ross, you come dressed as Billie Holliday And she's like, I want you to come dressed as halle Berry from BAPS, And it's meant to be like a deep insult. So it's definitely a movie that
holds a lot of wow. Co Yeah, she doesn't spoiler, she doesn't do she comes dressed as halle Berry and Dorothy Dandridge to sort of get around it, but yeah, it was like an.
Insult, ridiculous because halle Berry's looks in this movie iconic.
Yeah, the costuming is unbelievable. It helped me get around a lot of plot dissonance, I.
Know, and I do feel like the joke of the movie is supposed to be like, look how tacky these women look, But there are multiple outfits and halle Berry wears where I'm like, I would wear that today, no problem. If that was in my closet, I will be very happy.
Her character Natalie Dscell reads character like they're looking terrific.
It's true, It's true, And I speaking to your point, Bridget I was really I wasn't aware of the discourse around this movie when it came out. It's always interesting covering a movie that, like the way it was received, was so wrong, and then having to come back around gosh, this movie is my brother's age twenty seven years later, scary and sort of revisit it, which I'm glad that some writers have, but not as many as I would have expected.
Yeah, to prep for this, I read Roger Ebert's original review of this movie. Eviscerated it, like skewered it. It was worst of lists. And I, even if I don't agree with Roger Ebert, I usually love reading his reviews and like he could not stand this movie.
Yeah, I'm excited to dig into that.
I don't know Roger Ebert like when he hits, he hits what he misses it's so embarrassing, and I feel like we have had a feud with his ghosts on this show for many years.
Right, Well, it's the thing that we have talked about quite a lot where I mean this movie. First of all, it was a box office flop, unfortunately, and most critics hated it. But as we've talked about a lot on the show, most of the critics reviewing movies in like at least major publications in ninety seven were white men.
This is a movie about two black women made by black filmmakers, and so a lot of critics at that time were like, well, this movie isn't about someone who looks like me, and so therefore it's not for me, and therefore I don't understand it, and I don't like it.
Yeah there's and they're also we can save it for later.
But I feel like there was a lot of like respectability politics encoded into the reviews that I was reading, where like it was white reviewers deciding what was appropriate in terms of like how black women could be represented. It was an interesting thing to get into because then you also read interviews with the writer Troy Bayer, and she's like, I hated Robert Townsend's directorial choices and I don't like the movie, and so you're like well, a lot of things are going on.
Yeah, that's a good point, And like, I love Robert Townsend absolutely. Another movie that he had made was Hollywood Shuffle, So like, he definitely has somebody who was interested in playing with satire and stereotypes around culture and blackness. I make a larger point, whether or not that point like lands or false flat or whatever. I think he was clearly doing something with this movie, and I think a lot of the film reviewers maybe missed what he was doing.
But yeah, I read the same thing as you, Jamie, that one of the screenwriters on this movie was like, I hated it. I had a lot of issues with the script and this and that, and so I want to take that into account too. But I do think that some of the reviews that make this sound like it was just a vapid, cruel movie bashing working class black women. I don't see that, Jamie.
What is your relationship with this movie?
I had not seen this movie before, and that's sort of the beginning, middle, and an end of it.
I knew of it, and I.
Didn't know that Troy Bayer had written it. She's just like a really interesting person. The more I was reading about her, the Bore. I was like, she's just like she started as a sesame street kid and she's like Caitlin Durante Mode has.
A million degrees and a million things.
I would never mention it, but thank you for bringing it up.
Yeah, she has lived many lives, and I thought it was interesting again because I feel like so many times when we cover a movie, we're like, wonder how the writer felt about how the adaptation of their work translated to the screen, And Trey Byer was very outspoken about it, So, yeah, I hadn't seen it before. I think there's so much to love about this movie. It's such a sleepover movie. It's so clear who the movie's for, and everyone who is vocally outspoken about this movie were nowhere near who
the movie's for. So I'm excited to talk about it. Caitlin, what's your history?
I had also never seen it, though I know that it's been a request on the show from like a few select listeners. It's a cult classic, right, so it's not something that like tons and tons and tons of people are being like, you gotta cover this movie, but like the people who are requesting it are like, you have to do this movie. They're very fervent.
About Baps and Muriel's wedding, Like the listeners who want it wanted badly.
If any of those folks are listening, who like really have been requesting it, I hope I do it justice. I guess I'll just say.
That we've brought in a three timer. We've brought in a hitter.
Yeah.
No, you'll do great. This will be great, Everything will be great. We're gonna live forever.
Yeah.
Should I do the recap and we'll go from there, Let's do it. Okay. So we are in Decatur, Georgia. We meet two friends, Nissi that's Hallie Berry and Mickey that's Natalie to sell read rest in Peace. They work at a soul food restaurant that's owned by Bernie Mack. Loved seeing him already. You're like, I'm in, I'm in.
Can I say one thing about this? Yeah, not to hope this is it doesn't derail things. But I just want to say, Bernie mac rest in peace. Before he died, he has a chronic illness, or had a chronic illness called parcedosis, which my father also had. And so it's near and dear to me. But folks might not know that the University of Illinois Hospital Center has the Bernie mac Center for Sarcarnosi's research, and I donate every year.
Folks should donate. Oh my god, it's an undertreated, understudied chronic illness that disproportionately impacts black folks, and so it's a cause that's near to me. So please donate if you've got extra change. And thank you University of Illinois for studying this undertreated illness.
Whow we will link to that. I had no idea.
Yeah, thank you for letting me give back.
What Oh, of course, yeah, we'll support So yes, Bernie Mack is there. He's running the restaurant. Nissi and Mickey, they're best friends. They have similar esthetics in that they have really long fingernails. They're always wearing elaborate hairdoos that Nissi does because she's an aspiring salon owner.
She's technically making sausage at the beginning. But I consider that the hot dog representation of the movie as like, if a hot dog doesn't show up later, this movie still passes the Jamie Locktas hot dog test. Is there a hot time?
Is there a hot dog represented on screen? And close enough, I would say for this movie. So yeah, they wear flashy clothes, they've got the hairdos, they've got the nails, all that. On the radio, Nissi hears an announcement that auditions are being held in La to cast a dancer for Heavy D's dance Girl of the World, and whoever
is cast in this will get ten thousand dollars. And Nisi wants to go to this audition because she hopes to get cast and use that money to open a hair salon slash restaurant that presumably she would do the hair for and that McKey would be the chef at. I think of the idea.
Do you all think it's a good idea? Like I've been wrestling back and forth with whether or not this is a great idea or a terrible idea.
I think it feels like it's at high risk for like a fire.
Lots of hair and also ki yeah, right, like if someone with like a lot of hairspray and a lot of like grease grill, like I guess it depends on what kind of food they're serving.
Seems like a high accident.
Well, also just seems like unsanitary and unhygienic with like people's dander flying through the air and their hair all over the floor and stuff.
That's true, I mean spoiler alert, they end up doing it. Yes, So I wish we could fast forward a year. It'd be like, so what does Osha think?
Yeah, right, where's baps too? Which is all about the salon slash restaurant.
I also it was a twist of the movie for me to find out that the old man came up with the term baps. Yes, yeah, I was like, what he was just like coining on his deathbed.
Like, yeah, he uses his will to coin the phrase.
I just didn't see.
It coming, right, because they're like, what's baps? And then he's like black American princesses.
Yeah, I was like, wait, it was his idea.
Yeah, didn't see that coming.
And this is like true of so many rom coms. But I just thought there was a very fun, kind of bizarre liberal use of like a vague movie score where sometimes like something's happening that is like plot impactful, but not like the most serious thing in the world.
And it's like dude, dude, dude, including the entire end of the movie, the whole last minute there's no It was like they're just playing the score and I'm like, I would just like to know what they're saying, because they're saying things, m M, maybe the sound something happened. I don't know.
And they're like, if we just put music over this and show people's reactions, it'll be clear. Show don't tell you know. Yeah, do you remember wire screenwriting? Okay, So we also meet Nissi and Mickey's two boyfriends, Allie played by Pierre Edwards that's Niecy's boyfriend, and James played by Anthony Johnson that's Mickey's boyfriend. They're trying to start up like a car service company, but right now they're unemployed. They have questionable haircuts. They're kind of losers.
More importantly, they're not very nice to their girlfriends. Right if be a loser all you want if you're a good partner.
They are my least favorite part of this movie. I'm sure I'll get to it, but they are my least favorite part of this movie.
Write them out, yeah, truly.
I mean, I appreciate that Troy Byer's been outspoken about how she feels about the final product, but I wish she was a little more specific. I'm like, did she want the movie to end like that? Because it feels like the boyfriends did not deserve that.
Yeah. Anyway, So then Nissi sees another ad for the Dance Girl of the World contest and takes it as a sign that she and Mickey should definitely go to the audition in LA. Before they leave, though, they go out to a club because it's ladies night and they get in free, and a bunch of guys want to talk to them, but none of them want to or can spend the money to buy them drinks, including their boyfriends. So Nissi is all the more eager to get away and travel to LA and hopefully meet like a rich
guy in LA. On the flight, they're trying to learn etiquette from a book. Their hair is too big and it's blocking everyone's view of the in flight movie, very funny stuff.
There so many like vignettes. There's so many comedy montages. It's like, it's nineteen ninety seven, baby, we're doing comedy montages.
True fun fact. That flight attendant who was like, can you lower your hair? It's a severa Wilson from that TV. Oh my god.
Yeah, a lot of good cameos in this movie, including one we're about to see, which is LL cool J. Because they arrive in La they're at the airport, they accost LL cool.
J nineteen ninety seven.
They do this every time they see a famous person, because there's a bunch of cameos sprinkled throughout the movie, and they're always accosting whoever it is and being like, oh my god, I'm your biggest fan, marry me, sing for me, blah blah blah. They're always making a scene and.
Singing for me is like there's a Phantom of the Opera.
I can really relate to that scene with LL COOLJ.
Y'all.
I used to I might embarrass to say. I used to write him letters, like I had his like pictures on my wall, and I was so obsessed with him. People forget like in nineteen ninety seven, he was a real sex symbol and he made like music that was like very sensual.
What was in the letters?
Oh, I would be like, I thought there was a world where we might get together, So mind you, I was like a child. So it's a lot of like when we meet, like blah blah blah. Yeah, I was obsessed with him.
Was it the sort of thing where like ll COOLJ Industries would like send you something back, like fan mail stuff.
God, I wish they probably were like, let's never indulge this child's fantasy about we're.
Putting Bridget's name on a list.
If any even knows him, I would still accept a form letter back to this day, I would still happily take that.
Oh, in any case. They arrive in La they head to the audition. There's a very long line and Nissi kind of has like a dance off with another woman waiting in the line, which a man nearby notices.
I love the dance scene.
It's so weird, it's.
Just truly Yeah.
Then we don't see the audition, but we see her coming out of it, and she hasn't done well. The judges were like pass and she's feeling defeated and ready to head back to Georgia. But then that man noticed her earlier. His name is Antonio. He approaches Nissi and Mickey and tells them that his boss is looking for a dancer for a music video. It pays ten thousand dollars and provides room and board in a mansion in Beverly Hills.
And you're like, you're being abducted.
You're being abducted, Like this is what a scary proposal?
Yeah, and they're like, sounds great. So Antonio takes them to the mansion where they meet this rich guy named Isaac blakemore also his snooty butler named Manly. Nissy and Mickey get settled in at the mansion. There's a bedet scene where they don't know how a bidet works.
Nineteen ninety seven comedy Montage.
Yes, my first time ever seeing a bidet was this scene, and I didn't know what a bidet was, and so the scene I was still sort of like, so what is the little toilet? Like? I still didn't understand like the humor of the scene because I didn't know what a bidet was.
I still to this day.
I mean, I guess I've I've seen them now, but I've never I've never engaged.
I've never used one. I don't trust them.
I believe that, you know, now there's consumer bidets. You don't need to be in the one percent to have a bidet. I know people are evangelical about them.
I just don't know how you dry your ass, after all.
That's my question. Too, because from what I've read, it's like more environmentally friendly and more hygienic because they're not like using paper on your butt, but your butt gets wet, so wouldn't you have to use what are you using to dry your butt?
I know someone who had like one of those consumer bidets that you just like install in your toilet and then yeah, they had a designated butt towel. But then it's like, so now your butt towels just hanging in your bathroom with all your buttrooms all over it, and I don't care how effective the bidet is. It's not killing the bacteria from your ass.
It's just water.
And what if I'm your friend and I come over and you're.
Accidentally touched the like what if you think it's a hand towel and draw your hands with it.
It's like pa mints, you know how like yeah in the urinals, you mean know, like how anytime there's like those, like they're delicious. Unfortunately, the mints, like outside of bathrooms, are like at restaurants and they there was like a test for how much urine because Americans are gross and don't wash their hands, and it was like these are one They're just calcified p and you're like, oh no,
so you can never have them out of restaurant. If they're just out raw, not wrapped, you can't have them. There's pea in them.
Yeah, people are out here putting their unwashed, urine soaped hands, raw dog into a bowl of communal mints. People.
There's science to back up peepee hands and poop poo towels. It's a six sad world we live in.
And food in your salons and hair and your restaurants just a mess. Don't do it, okay. So then after the bedet scene, they sit down with Isaac, who reveals that he isn't actually making a music video. What he is looking for is a woman to play a particular part, which is that Isaac's rich, elderly uncle who is dying
of cancer. His story is that he was madly in love with this woman named Lily, but he never got to be with her or marry her because he's white and she was black, and his family forbid their relationship. But now that this uncle is on his deathbed, Isaac wants to find a woman to pretend to be Lily's granddaughter, and so that's who he wants Nissi to play, and Nissi and Mickey are very touched by this story, so Nissi agrees to do it.
You could already tell, well, I mean just from like the I don't know the actor who plays Isaac, but you can just tell that, like he's up to no good based on how he's like looking at people. But already from the beginning, the plan is too weird to not be secretly evil.
Yeah, right, if they were remaking this movie, he would be cast, well, pre allegations he would be cast by Armie Hammer, like a person in a movie that you're like, don't trust him. He's bad. It's not been revealed yet. You can just tell by his face.
Yes, I feel like Adam Brodie's playing a lot of those parts these days. Yeah, but maybe it's just because we're about to cover ready or not where it's like he's a nice guy. Unless he also did that in Promising Young Woman.
Yeah, he did it in American fiction, right, Yeah, he plays like an agent or something, yes.
Right, Like he plays just kind of like slimeballs.
Similar character in uh Jennifer's Body too.
Yeah, oh my.
God, wow, Yeah, this is like a.
A thing with him.
Yeah, it happens a lot in horror movies where if you need like a slimy white guy in a thriller or a horror movie, and you will and you will need that, you cast either Adam Brody or Justin Long.
Wow, that's true. I wonder how often they're like, Duke, you get out to play devious short kings. We don't know, we don't anyways.
Anyway, So the friends meet the dying uncle, Don Blake Moore played by Martin Landau. Fun very fun at first. He's like shocked and angry that they're there, but then he quickly warms up to Nissi and Mickey. They have dinner together, but Mickey's like, what the fuck is this boring chicken? So she goes to the kitchen and whips up some soul food and Don loves it. She keeps making it for him for the next few days, and it seems like his health is improving, although Manly the
butler disapproves. He still doesn't like the ladies.
This is such a great seat. I love a montage of like a black woman is coming in and taking charge and shaking things up like This movie does not spare on the montages, right no, Oh my gosh.
It was kind of like, I mean, from a note taking perspective, it was very helpful because sometimes you're like, oh, nothing's gonna happen for a minute. Cool, I can catch up on my not It's great, great on my first blotch uh huh.
So, yeah, Don is feeling better and he even feels up to taking Nissie and Mickey on a shopping spree. So then we get a clothes trying on montage, but nephew Isaac is lurking nearby taking pictures and it's clear that he's up to something. And then he's talking on the phone with someone.
He's doing like a vaguely evil phone call.
Yeah.
And then the actor, again, I don't know anything about this actor, but he's kind of cracking me up with the over the top evilness. Where his scene like talking to someone on the phone being like, don't we'll be very rich souon click, and then it like just pans down to him and then he goes, good, all right, you're bad amazing acting.
Yeah, it seems like he intends to like set someone up or blackmail someone. We're not really sure what the plan is. Meanwhile, Mickey and that guy Antonio who works at the estate. They're having a secret affair, and Antonio claims to be from a wealthy family in Italy and he wants to spend all of his money on Mickey, but he doesn't seem trustworthy either. He's also up to something. Then Don takes Nissi and Mickey out to a fancy dinner and they're trying to act sophisticated and classy, but
they keep seeing celebrities and they're making a scene. Then Don wants to know more about his beloved Lily, so Nissi like crams her mouth full of food to avoid talking about her. She kind of like makes some stuff up.
You can't even understand her. It's very funny. Then back at the estate, Mickey and Antonio are canoodling again, and Antonio is like, I have a ring for you, but it's in this safe, but I can't get it open, and she tries to open the safe, and it's clear that he's just trying to like get her to put her fingerprints on the safe to incriminate her.
Later, no, I was like, Micky, he's wearing a leather glove.
Yeah. Yeah, they're canodling. They're like laying in bed and she's like in a nighty and she's like, why are you wearing these leather gloves? And yeah, I feel like Mickey would be smarter than that, you would think.
There's a number of times where I's like, these women are smart.
Like, yeah, why don't they notice that they're being deceived?
Women be being deceived in movies.
I mean not to victim blame these women.
Although you know there's some equal opportunity deception in this movie. The women are are also deceiving Martin Landau.
That's true.
It makes you think I'm not mad about it.
And also Martin Landau's not mad about it, weirdly, and no, he's like very down to be deceased. He's like, I've got forty five minutes to Liz, you know whatever.
He loves it.
He seems to.
It's his kink anyway. So later that night, a burglar comes in and knocks out Manly the butler, and it wakes up Nissy and Mickey, so they come down and kick the burglar's ass, and he turns out to be Antonio, and he's in cahoots with nephew Isaac, who is trying to defraud his uncle and take his money by claiming that he is mentally unfit because he had brought in two women from the quote unquote ghetto who were robbing
him every night. This is all explained by Don's lawyer, Tracy Shaw played by Troy Bayer aka the screenwriter of the movie, and once this is all figured out, Don offers Nissi and Mickey each fifty thousand dollars for their trouble, but they refuse, saying that they're there because they want to be there, which makes Don trust them even more.
He takes them out dancing, but the guilt of lying to Don about being the granddaughter of his beloved Lily is really weighing on Nissi, so she writes a letter to Don and plans to give it to him and then like leave the estate shortly thereafter. But before they can do that, the butler manly, who has warmed up to Nissi and Mickey.
Also.
I thought that was a fun subversion, the butler being nice. You always expect him to be dastardly.
Yeah, and he is at first, but then he's like, wow, we like the Sam soap opera. Let's be best friends. It didn't take much kind of love that he has arranged for Nissi and Mickey's boyfriends Ali and James to come to the estate, and these guys are trying to get their act together so that they can like deserve these women. But meanwhile, Don suddenly collapses and he's rushed to the hospital.
He dances himself to death. The issue of his health is a little all over the place of the movie, because we're introduced to him as if he does not have a lot of time to live, but then he's very sprightly for a while. He's briefly brought back to full health by Mickey's cooking ostensibly yeah, and then has a very steep decline.
It's very like movie health.
Right exactly.
Yeah.
So then Nisi goes to the hospital and she's trying to tell Don that she's not really Lily's granddaughter, but he dies before she can get the words out, and then the attorney, Tracy informs them that Don already knew that she wasn't Lily's granddaughter because he was aware that Lily never had any children. He just cared about Nissi and McKee out of the kindness of his heart. He
just enjoyed the company. Then Tracy is like, by the way, here's Don's last will and testament in which he leaves everything to his baps okaya.
A thing he made up. It's three minutes before passing away, which I just feel like we cannot overlook. Yeah, I think that there's an argument that, like there's sort of a finndom element to mister Blakemore because.
And I love it. I've never seen anything like it in the movie where he's.
Just like knowingly being deceived, but he's like, let's party, let's let's have fun. In the end, he tries to give them one hundred thousand dollars collectively at one point, like hmmm, he's just kind of down to clown that mister Blakemore.
I kind of get it, Like he's got money. His nephew is like trying to take advantage of him. I think he's got money and he knows he's about to die, so it's like I may as well having a good time, like eating soul food and dancing at the club with these women.
That's how I did go out.
Yeah, I respect it. I mean, and it's like, I'm sure if we knew more about him, because he runs a fabric business, a textile business. I'm like, for sure, you know, if he's that rich, he's exploiting someone. Yeah, but this is a Cinderella story and he is the benevolent rich guy who's kind of getting Finn dambed. I don't hate it.
Right, Speaking of Cinderella, Natalie decel Red is in Brandy Cinderella also from this year, from nineteen ninety seven or was that a different year?
I believe so, Yeah, yeah, this is nineteen ninety seven. She plays one of the stepsisters, Minerva.
Right, She's so great, Like, I feel like she never got her due. But I feel like if you were watching black sitcoms in the nineties, you've seen her in everything. She was such a gem and I just, yeah, it makes me sad that she's no longer with us because her current would probably be really popping today.
Yeah, I remember her from Eve he would ever watch, Yes, yes, even Cinderella also before we cut the brake. Yeah, because Natalie des cel Reads no longer with us, halle Berry. I didn't see this at the time she passed away, but halle Berry posted like a really sweet tribute to her when she passed.
And I want to share it.
Really quick.
Yeah, she said.
Quote.
Natalie represented actual black women, not what black women are perceived to be. For that, she was often underrated, passed over, deprived of the platform she truly deserved. But her light continues to shine through the people who grew up watching her, the people who knew her best, and those of us who loved her. I'll love you forever, my sweet friends. So nice, beautiful, and you can just feel in this movie, even when the movie is weird and kind of off
the rails, that like they're having fun. They're definitely having a hell of a time.
Oh yeah, anyways, Natalie des Sell, we love her. So the movie ends with Niscy and Mickey inheriting Don's fortune. Nephew Isaac is there being like what.
The heck no?
And then this new fortune they have enabled Nissi and Mickey to open up their salon slash restaurant in Beverly Hills called Lily's with a Z. Also, Ali and James have opened up their car service. Also, Dennis Rodman is.
There as a cameo nineteen ninety seven.
They all live happily ever after that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss and we're back.
We're back.
Maybe where shall we start? I mean, Bridget, if you have a strong instinct, I feel like we've already also sort of started to talk about how this movie was received.
I think that's a good place to start. So I felt this way when I watched it, and it was even more clear to me be watching it today, which is that this movie at times, I can understand how people think, like, oh, it's making fun of these working class black women. However, to me, this is a movie about black women who have goals and dreams and who like can really visualize and do the work to get
them to those dreams. And the thing that gets them to their goals and their dreams is like their creativity, their ingenuity, right. Like there's a scene when they first get into the car, the limo when they're going to the mansion and they take off their wigs and they're gonna do a whole different hairdew and it's like that's creativity, right, Like. I don't think the movie is trying to make fun
of that. I think the movie is trying to be like the reason why these women are the kind of women who would take a flight to La to try to get on Heavy D's music video and say yes to these authors that seem kind of outlandish. Is because they are creative. Is because they like possess these qualities that are the reason why they address the way they do and also are the reason when they go for
their goals. I see this as a movie about dreamers and the creativity and foresight that it takes to really architect a life for yourself based on that dream.
Hell yeah, yeah. There is so much that was like lost in the way that the movie was received because they're super motivated. There's a piece I found that was in Refinery twenty nine back in twenty eighteen, Remember then No by An Cohen that sort of examines the critical response versus how she felt, which is very similar to how you feel, Bridget.
And also, I mean it's it reads.
Very clearly, and it feels really condescending the way that this criticism comes off, because, in like the Ebert reviews, the motivation and how active they are in the story is not mentioned. The fact that they are motivated and have dreams aren't mentioned. I think that the way it's dealt in the movie can be a little like Uneven and the way that the movie prescribes their ending is weird.
Although I am glad they got their salon restaurant. That probably wasn't a good business idea, but that whole sort
of saga is fascinating. And what a Cohen sort of digs into here is this movie is clearly a part of the very nineties rags to riches women's story, but it's one of the few rags to riches story about black women, and it's received as I mean, and I bravely still have not seen Pretty Women in my life, so I have to take everyone else's word for how much this movie, especially in the montage, just kind of
reflects things that happen in Pretty Women. What Ann Cohen is arguing is that the reception of this movie is when Halle Berry and Natalie des Seller doing it, it's portrayed as trashy. When Julia Roberts is doing the same thing on Rodeo Drive, it's presented as unbelievably charming, and how that is mask off racist in the same era of sleepover movies, and like.
In Pretty Woman, I hadn't clocked that comparison, but I think it's a good one. It's funny I was just listening to Tina Fey on Las Culturista's and she was like, when I was watching Pretty Woman, me and my cousin would be like, are we the only people who have realized that, like, as a sex worker, it's probably going great this time because it's Richard Gear, but there's probably other stories that you're not hearing from her work that are like maybe not so great and not so rack.
But yeah, I think that Pretty Woman example is an interesting one because it's like who's come up story do
we celebrate? And who's come up story is like just like fodder for laughs, I guess, And yeah, I just I almost think that what some of these reviewers who didn't like the movie, not all of them, but what some of them are actually saying is like, if you are a working class woman who dresses flashy and has really long nails and your indicator Georgia, it is absurd that you would think you could go to LA and like dance at a heavy D video or like make
it or have some sort of dream. It almost seems like what they're actually saying in their mask off moments in these reviews is like that premise is what is unbelievable, not that the movie is like making fun of them or whatever. It almost kind of reveals the way that they're kind of like putting a negativity on that. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, it's so weird reading them where it's clear that like Roger Ebert feels that he is doing a righteous thing while still clearly putting in a lot of his own biases. And it's also like, it's
also fine to not love a sleepover a movie. I think that there's also a gendered aspect to this, but it's far more likely for again the Pretty Woman in comparison, because I was just looking at the original marketing for this movie, and it's very clear in how they're marketing baps who they want to go see it, because the tagline is these pretty women are Clueless, and you're like, okay, well even say in the tage, yeah, they drop two similar movies in the tag line.
You're like, okay, so this is like all the same thing, but movies like.
Pretty Women and Clueless are far more likely to be you know, escalated to like, well, this is actually like a pretty.
Good movie quote unquote, and yeah.
That's just racist and unfair and I don't even think this is like an amazing movie, but it's not what it's like. Holding it to that standard is silly.
Right, Yeah, I completely agree, And the fact of the matter is that, like it has endured culturally, and so again, I love this movie. I'm not gonna pretend like it's the most groundbreaking, the best movie ever. I had my issues with it, but the fact that it has maintained this cultural legacy shows that there was something going on. Like I even read that they were thinking about turning it into a stage adaptation, which if they did that, it would be a hit, no doubt. In my mind, it would kill.
It's a Cinderella story. It literally is a Cinderella story. There's so many really good, like be fun nineties rags to riches stories, and this should be more discussed. I hope that this movie experiences resurgence, and that would be the perfect way to do it. Is like this movie is screaming to be adapted into a musical.
Yeah, And I do think like there are topics that are dealt with in the movie with humor that are like very real pieces of cultural discourse in the black community, like the montage when Mickey is making the food and they're like, oh, the nutrition is said that this food clogs the arteries and she's like, no, not the way
that I make it. And I know it's played for a laugh, but like there are today like conversations about soul food and whether or not it's healthy and this idea that like, oh, well, collar greens are very similar to kale, but one of those foods enjoy is like a connotation of being health food and one doesn't, even though they're like practically the same thing. That is a very real cultural conversation that has endured today, and the movie like plays with that and has a discourse about
that in a humorous way. Albeit but like I think there are more serious things going on in this film than some of these critics may be clocked.
Which is like part of what makes Robert Townsend such an amazing filmmaker. Because we covered Hollywood Shuffle of Gosh a couple.
Of years ago. Now yeah, oh nice, But that's like what he's great at is like finding a way to talk about hyper specific like have these conversations in a
comedy montage versus like a very didactic, serious thing. Like it just feels very Robert townsendy, but I wanted to just share Troy Bayer's feelings on the adaptation, partially just because I love drama and because you're messy, because I do love reading about drama, and I think it is really interesting where like this is the sort of quote that you always want the confirmation of, but you very
rarely actually get. And it just feels like a kind of a good lesson for writers in general, because it seems like what the issue ultimately was with Troy Byer and Robert Townsend is that Robert Townsend is generally a writer director and seemed to be on set very comfortable adjusting stuff as he went because he was adjusting his
own writing. But in this case, this is the first movie he directed that was not written by him, and it seems like he used that same approach of like, well, I don't quite like how that works, We're going to adjust it. That ended up, in Troy Bayer's opinion, kind of meaningfully affecting what she had written, which is an interesting, hyper specific kind of problem that I don't think indicates any ill will on Robert Townsend's part, but it's just interesting.
So Troy Byer gave an interview the year after this came out, as she was promoting a movie that she had written and directed after being unhappy with how BAPS had gone, called Let's Talk About Sex. So here's her quote. When I saw the final cut, I was so devastated because I really believed that my words had not honestly made it onto the screen. The director was a writer director himself, and it was the first time he directed someone else is writing. He took the liberty of changing
stuff as he shot the film. At the end of the day, when I saw the film, I hated it. It was really embarrassed, and it was too late for me to take my name off the picture. Then I got killed by critics.
Me the writer.
I thought, I'm just going to take the money from this awful experience and put it into my own film. I'm going to direct it and make sure my words make it to the screen. If the critics try to kill me, now, there's nothing they can say that's going to hurt me, because I know I did my very best. Those are my words on screen, and I stand by them. I took the money from BAPS to make my movie Wow, which is also I mean, I don't know I'm on. I think team everybody here. This is also like Troy
Byer's first screenwriting credit. She started as an actor. She has since gotten a master's degree in eco liberation and community psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology.
Wow, she's written like, she's.
Truly very very interesting. She's written self help books. She was married to the guy that produced all of the Saw movies for fifteen years. You're just like iconic. I know, know, I was pretty thrilled to find out that there is a direct BAPS to Saw connection, But I don't know.
I mean, I don't think that that takes away from the movie, because it did just seem like a creative chafing and kind of like a lesson that a lot of writers learn and why a lot of writers become directors is because that shit will happen.
But I just wanted to share that. And also, she's in the movie, which is wild.
She's in the movie, so I wonder if she like observed scenes where she's like, this isn't how I wrote this.
Oh God, what are you doing?
Robert?
Like my skin crawl? I'd be so stressed. There's like things that I'm credited as having written and I've seen the episode and been like, huh, well, I guess I wrote that.
Does it happen a lot in the biz.
Yeah, it's definitely been my And I don't mean like there's nothing, but like there's you know, especially in like sitcom writing, where there's like jokes that were there that you're like, I didn't write that or I don't know. So anytime someone's like, well the writing of this, the writer should have been thinking, I'm like just putting it out there, very likely they did not write that. And there's also jokes I've really enjoyed that I've been credited with that absolutely were not me.
So it goes both ways. Yeah, it just goes.
You do end up getting credit that you don't deserve as well.
So let's take another quick break and we'll come back for more discussion, and we're back. Something I really appreciate about this movie is that it centers to black female friends. There's so few movies about I mean female friendship in general and then specifically black female friendship. And it feels like a really real, authentic friendship because you see them supporting each other, they're lifting each other up. But it's
not as though they're like always agreeing on everything. Like we see them disagree about how to handle things, we see them trying to hold each other accountable for something, usually how they're conducting themselves around a celebrity. Yes, it's like them, you know, they're challenging each other, they're disagreeing, but they're also ultimately just like very loving and supportive
of each other. And they're so funny together. Like, I love to see women be funny in movies because it seldom is allowed to happen because until like pretty recently, it felt like women were not ever written to be the funny characters in comedy movies. They were like the Killjoys, the shrews, because they were often movies written by men who were bringing in all of their biases. It's usually the men who get to be the funny ones in
comedy movies. But like Halle Berry and Natalie desseil Read are clowning in almost every scene, like the physical humor, the jokes, Like everything is just so funny.
It's so goofy. I love it. And the fact I feel like a lot of that is likely attributable to the fact that a black woman wrote this.
Yeah for sure.
Yeah, and their friendship is so supportive.
I like that. I feel like it's very often in a friendship movie where you get like one front turns on the other and it's like, I'm gonna have this come up by myself and fuck you. It's like Raven during the Cheetah Girls. Yeah, she's like, I'm the star. But even when the other one is not making great choices, they are always supportive of each other. There's never a question that, like one person's success is not going to
be the other person's success. And I think that that's really beautiful thing that, Yeah, you just like rarely get in a movie about women, because we're so conditioned to think that women will turn on each other.
Yeah, they'll be petty, they'll backstab each other, Yeah, all that kind of stuff, because those are the stories that are written by men and that's what we're used to seeing. But yeah, there's never any moment like that. They're just there for each other every step of the way. I also want to note that there is more body diversity in this movie than you normally see. Because Mickey is fat, there's no attention drawn to that. It's just completely normalized
a very normal part of her character. I wonder if there is an argument to be made that, like she's the one who is like the cook, she cooks soul food, and you know, the thin one does hair and is like more focused on like a kind of beauty oriented thing, and if there's some kind of like veiled thing there.
But I think you'd almost kind of have to read into that to like reach that conclusion, because at least on like the surface or the way it's presented, it just like all feels very normalized, at least to me.
Yeah, I would agree, and I would also even go further and say that like in the nineties and today, it's so easy to be like, oh, well, halle Berry is the thin one, and so she has the fleshed out in her world. She has the romantic partner. But they're both kind of given like they both have partners. I don't like either of their partners, but they both
have like a romantic arc. And I did notice there were a couple of places where it would be very easy to have Mickey be the one who was doing physical things, like the scene with the bidet it splashes up in halle Berry's face, and I think in a lot of movies it was like, oh haha, have the funny fat friend do something really physical, And this movie takes I think takes intention to lean away from that a little bit at times.
For sure, it's like equal opportunity slapstick, physical right comedy. Also, I think in a lot of movies it would have been the case where the you know, thin, traditionally beautiful by Western beauty standards character would be the protagonist and then her friend would be like the quote unquote sidekick who doesn't have any kind of subplot of her own
or any scenes where it's just focusing on her. But she also has that like separate love story kind of thing with Antonio, who of course ends up being like awful and desaitful. But we see a number of scenes where the focus of the scene is on Mickey and Nissi is nowhere to be seen.
Right, and there's like never any I don't know, I feel like often when a fat character, especially during this era, is given a love interest, it's like in this condescending way, but like you also just have Natalie to sell and she fucking rocks and.
His course, yeah she's the cutest.
But it does feel like rare. And again, the movie is written by a woman like there's nothing for me at least that zim Mickey's story that feels like a reflection of her body. I do feel like, even though we have dual protagonists here, that Nissie is ultimately more so the protagonist than Mickey. Yeah, because we get like, I don't know, it felt a little uneven to me, which doesn't necessarily feel pointed. Also, halle Berry's.
Famous, and I think she was quite famous by this point, right, So.
It's funny that you would ask to like she was getting famous. But at this time we had not sort of accepted that halle Berry was a star star, and so she had done interesting the Spike Lee movie Jungle Fever, where she plays Samuel L. Jackson's girlfriend and she's like heavily drug addicted and it's very sad. She's in that movie Losing Isaiah, where she's another person who has kind of a sad trajectory in the movie.
She's in The Flint Stone.
That's right, she's the like sexy secretary alongside Billy Zane. She turns out to be like the bad guy in that movie.
Not to spoil Hockley, Yes, and her character's name is Sharon stone seteeny amazing.
She's also on Boomerang in ninety two.
So she's like famous but maybe not leading lady famous yet. Is that where we're at?
That's what I would put it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's sort of getting there. But like I think that if there was like a star attached to this movie, it was halle Berry.
Right, because I was like, where is halle Berry in her career at this point? Okay, so she's not like, it's not Peek halle Berry quite yet.
Correct.
I feel like that's maybe early two thousands either way.
Yeah, I feel like Nissi does kind of get the edge in terms of the attention that the movie pays and think it like clicked for me meaningfully, even though it's like it's not like Mickey is in it less,
but Nissi's story kind of takes precedence more. Her relationship with mister Blake Moore is closer and the movie puts more emphasis on it, and her relationship with her boyfriend from home is given way more president because when Mickey's boyfriend comes back, James, you're sort of like, who is this guy again?
But we've been hearing about Nissy's boyfriend the whole time.
True.
In that scene in the car, I was like, they're gonna do it, They're gonna do it. Where she's like I've been in love with someone from day one. I was like, I've only ever seen this man yell at you.
Yeah, no, No, the.
Time to talk about how much I hate the boyfriends, Yeah, lay into them. So I like a lot about this movie, But the thing I cannot stand is the boyfriends and the scene at the end. I feel like this comes up in movies that y'all talk about a lot, where Mickey and Nissi have this like trajectory where they learn a lot about themselves, they have a lot of developments
all of that. Meanwhile, all Nisy's boyfriend does is, I guess, get his driver's license and cut his hair and that like that's meant to be like, oh he is good enough for me now. Poor Mickey, her boyfriend doesn't do anything but cry and be like I want to take you out to dinner and then fall into a As far as we know, he has no character arc, no development. He has just come back and is just crying at.
Her, and he also like insults her multiple points.
I think he's the only example I don't well, actually which boyfriend was it. It's either her boyfriend or Niezy's boyfriend in the Club Winner's Still in Georgia that like calls her a heifer and like is like, that's the only example I could find in the movie that like her like sizes commented on in any way, and it's by someone that loves her question mark like hate it. Fuck.
I think what's going on here is a trope that was like very popular in the nineties. It's still a thing now, but like, I think we're getting away from it, which is like, it is much better to be just with somebody than single, right. I think that either of these two women, especially at the end when they get the money, would be much better off without either of
these two scrubs. But I think in the universe of this movie, they're like, oh, well, better to have somebody who calls you a heifer than nobody, And yeah, I just I hate that so much. They would be much better off without either of those guys.
Yes, for sure. I don't know why they're they're at all, or if they need to be there at the beginning to signify like these women don't have a full understanding of their worth yet. But then they learn that and they learn that they're better off without these guys, and they dump them and then they're written out of the movie for the rest of the movie. But why do they come back and why do they have like a
redemption arc? And I think it's implied that, like the cars in their car service business that they start up are the same cars from the estate, so they just like get those cars for free, and then they're like, here's our business now, and it's like, no, you guys don't deserve any of this. You treat your girlfriends poorly, and you need to get the fuck out of here.
Yes, like the girls had an arc that led to them getting the money, so presumably the guys are just taking some of their money to start their and the cars to start their business, which was lofty to begin with. And we're meant to swoon like I don't I don't like it. Y'all can keep that it stinks. Yeah.
No, that was really really frustrating, And even with the way that their loser coded feels also very like kind.
Of entrenched in class presentation too, because really.
All that's changed when niece's boyfriend whose name escapes me and will continue to that's okay when he no h make his boyfriend al Ali. When Ali comes back, all that's really changed is how he's presenting himself. He's presenting himself in a more upper class quote unquote respectable way. But it's like, yeah, that doesn't change how you have
treated her this entire time. And it feels like this sort of other side of a Cinderella come up narrative where it's like if a guy learns how to dress differently like they're richer, then all is forgiven and it implies that like that makes him a better person, and he does treat her better once he's wearing nicer clothes. It's just like nith.
Very nineties mentality.
Yeah, there is like a thing that happens within the universe of the film with Mickey and Nissi too, where as the film goes on, their clothes and their hair and their nails and their teeth get like less and less and less outlandish. You might be like, oh, well, they're in Beverly Hills, so they're just and they go shopping, so they're you know, learning how to fit in with where they're at. But within the universe of the film.
I do have a question of, like, well, is the film trying to be like, oh, the way they were dressed at the beginning is bad, and now that they're dressed more conservative, it's good. And her boyfriend cut his perm and so that's good, and now they are a match. Because again I recognize that the way that they dress in the beginning is like over the top, but like, I don't think it's bad, and I don't think it's
like says something about who they are. And I wonder if the movie is maybe saying something different, Yeah, I'm.
With you on this journey with you, because I mean up until that point where the ending, also, all of the stuff about their dreams coming true happens during the credits, and you're like why why why? But yeah, like that aesthetic change felt pointed when that was like something I up to that point had really liked about the movie was even though they are deceiving, mister Blake Moore.
I mean, rich white men should be tricked.
It's truly a victimist crime. He likes it, and he yeah, it turns him on. So whatever, Like it seems like everyone is okay with the deception that they're involved with even though there's like brief you know, just speaking to like the kind of random unevenness of the movie where halle Berry is like racked with guilt in some scenes and then other scenes she's like my whatever, Like I'm
on the side of my whatever. But either way, like outside of that sort of plot contrivance, they're themselves for the whole movie. They're not like adjusting who are They're not I think, outside of like a few kind of jokes that again I thought was interesting and I didn't miss that they didn't get into it more. But like halle Berry has like an etiquette book, and etiquette books are so entrenched in how to act like a respectable white woman, and that's just what that whole cottage industry is,
especially the further back in time you go. But that's dropped immediately and they're themselves the whole movie, and they are appreciated for being themselves. And so to see that little aesthetic change at the end felt like, well, they were like loved and accepted for who they were.
Yeah, it feels like the movie doesn't kind of misses an opportunity to comment on the fact that like, yes, they feel the pressure to adhere to this like standard of propriety that is very much put forth by like wealthy white society, and that they're like trying to adhere
to it. Either from an etiquette point of view. There's like scenes where someone says, like, oh, how are you, and then like Mickey responds and like the way that she traditionally would, and then Nissie cuts in to be like, no, we're doing very well, thank you, like in a very like proper kind of way. But yeah, they usually abandoned that sort of like etiquette propriety stuff that they were trying to learn and then they just behave like themselves.
But as far as like they're esthetic choices, which is like one of the most memorable things about their characters, and like the poster is like very much like look at them and their flashy outfits and they're wacky hair jews and stuff like that. That gets more and more toned down throughout the movie, and I feel like the movie doesn't fully comment on like, ye, well, why are they like leaning into adhering to these like standards of propriety when that's not who they are, Like, that's not how
they want to present themselves. And it just sort of like, yeah, well they're just doing it the end. So I wish there had been more like thoughtful examination of that.
Yeah, And I think that their aesthetic choices are such a big part of this movie and something that I was really and I would also want for the movie to sort of take stock of that a little bit differently,
the same as you. And I also like a quote that was looming large in my mind when I was rewatching this was from this fashion designer Narsha Willis, who used to do these shirts that say ghetto until proven fashionable because you're meant to think that these outfits are outlandish and over the top, but if they were wearing them today, like on TikTok or on Instagram, they would absolutely kill. And so my god, yeah would they like kill?
And so I do think like it goes back to what I was saying about, like when I saw this movie as a youth, to me, it felt like, uh, sometimes over the top celebration of the ways that sometimes these fashion choices can be so creative, so like on another level, so future forward, just so doing their own creative, distinct different thing that certainly took creative know how to get there, and today in twenty twenty four, that is like even more salient, but within the universe of the film. Again,
I agree with you, Caitlin. I don't know that they are aware of the ways in which people like me are watching it and being like, oh my god, there's trendsetters, you know. Yeah, right.
It feels like a very like having it both ways, where it's like the movie obviously knows that they look incredible, but it's also undercut by like, but this is like can't be quote unquote like low class incredible, where you're like, no, this is like really influential fashion. And the outfits at the end, you know, they look great because they're gorgeous, but what is that that's a pantsuit?
It's not them.
Yeah, it's like a.
Hillary Clinton outfit, you know, like it's I don't I don't love it.
It's especially frustrating considering that, like so much of American pop culture, which permeates like global pop culture as far as just clothes and media and all that kind of stuff is invented by black people and black women, So it's like, well, then why are they toning it down?
Like ugh?
I mean, also that's invented the fact that the term baps like that existed prior to this movie, and it is so just I don't know, like weird, maybe tongue in cheek to just attribute it to Martin Landau and this is very much a term that came out of the black community. But they're like, no, it's basically Martin Landa's idea. He was dying one day and was like, guess what I had just thought of? Anyways, Yeah, I
don't know. There's other tropes that this movie subscribes to that I am more tempted to attribute to, like the Cinderella genre we're in where there is like devious nephew, right, But ultimately the two old white men in this movie are great guys that deserve the best, which is very like part I think of mister Bald from Annie or whatever.
Who's mister Bald.
What's his name?
Oh, mister Noah hair I can't think of his name.
Daddy wore Bucks, yes, right, like just someone that you're like, the way that they got this money has to be evil. You can't get this much money doing something good for the world. But in the world of this rags to riches story, they are this benevolent force that has to be on the side of our protagonist, which is often a young woman or girl. Rich white old man gives young women a lot of money. You know, I'd accept it.
But this is very much a formula that exists, and I feel like the Martin Landau character being at the end of the day a nice old man. It falls cleanly into that.
What do we think he did for a living? Or like, how do you think he made his millions?
They said fabrics and I was like, oh, yeah, which I'm like that, So I'm not optimistic about his like labor.
Right, the labor practices, I'm sure very exploitative.
But we're not supposed to think about.
That no or any movie like it.
Right.
I would like to draw some parallels between this movie and Eddie murphy Haunted Mansion, because both movies, yeah, friend, thank you so much. Both movies involve a rich white guy who was in love with a black woman and the family disapproved and she ends up gone in a way, and we're not really sure what happens to.
Her, even know if she's alive or not. Are they going to say if she's alive? Is he going to ask if she's alive?
I thought maybe Lily would show up me at some point, but no, we're not really sure.
Right, it seems like pointed that they weren't saying that she had died.
Yeah.
I was like, Oh, she's gonna come back at the end to be like halle Berry, you impostor.
But she doesn't.
We will die with that mystery.
We don't know we will, And I wanted to Mansion at least we know that that woman does very dead die. But anyway, Also, there's like a butler in both stories who's like, they play out very differently in the two movies, but there is a butler who's like very loyal to his rich white guy boss. And you know, so I think that's where the parallels end.
But that's still I mean, but yeah, the butler in Haunted Mansion ends up being quite evil.
Evil Yeah yeah, yeah, he gets dragged to hell.
Playing Butler Stereo times Justice for Butler's.
Sorry. I'm on Daddy Warbucks's Wikipedia.
Actually we're gonna say Daddy warbucks dot com.
I was like, what did Daddy Warbucks do bad?
He was an industrialist, but his Wikipedia page is very funny and he is not real. He eventually became a foreman in the rolling mill, married Missus Warbucks and worked and planned for a family and house of their own. When Daddy began they call him daddy throughout. When Daddy began to make big money during World War One, his marital happiness was lost.
You're like, oh, no.
Daddy, Daddy.
No, also a foreman in a mill. Who is this Billy's aid from Titanic?
Yeah, it is villain coded uh, Daddy. That's basically who Martin Lantau is in this. They keep going uncle, he's uncle, Daddy, He's daddy, And that's fine.
Yeah, does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about?
I just had one other note, which is that some of the references in this movie were so first of all, very of an era, but also so tight. When the girls are fighting Antonio, they think he's burglar and they're like, I'm gonna do them like Tyson, and she's like, oh, you didn't see the last fight because you were in the kitchen getting popcorn. That Do you remember how in the nineties Tyson was known for like these big hyped boxing matches would only last for like thirty seconds because
he would knock people out. Oh, I remember distinctly. My parents had a fight party and my dad went to get burgers off the grill, and when he came back, the fight was over and they had paid, like I don't know however much money back then, one hundred dollars or something to get the fight on pay per view. And it was like, well, I guess you missed it.
Oh wow, okay, I did not.
Know that some of these references are so tight, and so.
Just like, yeah, it's good, it's good. Unfortunately, one of my favorite jokes is from one of the Loser boyfriends. But it's when Mickey's boyfriend James is saying, how oh, when we got to dinner, you know, we have to watch other people eat and he's crying and he's like, I want to eat too.
So okay, that was a pretty good line. I'll give him that.
That's a good joke.
He had one moment, had one moment, and then he Leonardo DiCaprio and fell into a body of water fully clothed.
Wait, is that a Leonardo dicaprioism.
Yes, In every movie he's basically he will end up in a body of water with all of his clothes on. I made a super cut to this effect. It's stunning and if you want to watch it, you should come to our Shrek Tannic tour in the UK because we will be showing it at the show.
Really great plug opportunity.
Yeah, that was masterful, Thank you so much, thank you. The only other thing I had was just again pulling from that Refinery twenty nine article that opens with just a couple of statistics that illustrates how like we've been talking about this whole episode, how this is a rare movie that centers black women and also so allows them to have fun and be goofy, and how rare that is.
And then that countered with the other thing we've been talking about, which is how hyper critical and overly critical critics tend to be of movies that don't really exist very often. Yeah, how An Cohen opens the article is with these stats that I thought, what interesting. Hollywood released approximately one hundred and forty three movies in nineteen ninety seven. Of those, just seventeen starred a black performer in the
top billing. Most of those roles, as with men in black double team money talks, most wanted and switched back, were given to black men opposite white male co leads. Others like Amistad focused on a historic slavery narrative, so that there's only really a couple of movies each year, especially at this time, that centers strictly black characters at all, much less black women. The only other ensemble movies that came out, we've actually covered one us Love Jones and Soul Food.
So yeah, I just like speaks to like this movie.
Does it have its faults?
Yes?
Yeah, it's also a goofy comedy from nineteen ninety seven.
It's an extremely goofy movie, I would say.
I would say that as well representation as a goofy black girl. We need representation for our goofy corny asses to like engage in some screwball hijakes on screen.
Yeah, we need more hijacks, more hijis. Yeah, I think that was all I had. Does anyone else have anything?
Nope?
This movie passes the Bechdel test.
Yes it does. The women are talking now and then about their boyfriends or about don or Antonio, but they also talk about hair, they talk about food, they talk about opening up their business, they talk about dancing, they talk about being in la all that kind of stuff. So handily passing what about our nipple scale, though, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I'm tempted to go like a three and a half
or a four on this one. I love that this is a movie made by black filmmakers that features and centers a friendship between two black women that is fun and light and there's a distinct lack of tragedy, which, again, like as we were just kind of hinting at, so many stories, especially from this era, that centered black characters were like rife with the tragedy of the black experience, and this movie is just like all about like it's a Cinderella story, as we've been saying, like it's a
fairy tale, and it's just like so fun to watch these characters. And I don't know why the boyfriends are there right them out of the story. There's some like kind of class implications that I don't love, but other than that, it's just like such a fun movie about two black women who are best friends and they're grifting a rich white guy and that's what should happen all the time.
So and I just can't enough how much he's loving the grift.
Yeah, I love it.
He's obsessed. So I'm gonna give it four nipples. I am sad on Troy Buyer's behalf that she didn't like the final product and felt that her story and her words in the screenplay were not properly translated to film. But despite that, it's still a fun, enjoyable movie for me. So I'm going to go four nipples, and I will split them between Troy Buyer, halle Berry, and Natalie des sill Read.
I think like a three and a half because I really feel Troy Byer's pain here and being like, it's my big break. I've been acting for years, this is my big screenwriting break. Black women so infrequently get to write anything on a scale like this and then to watch it and be like, oh, my heart is with her. And also I think that there's so much to love about this movie. It's so fun. It centers black women and their friendship in ways that we almost never see
in movies. Even now. The ways that I find it frustrating are very of its time, mostly the boyfriends. Honestly, like, I think that it didn't become permissible until sometime in the two thousands. For a protagonist who is a straight woman to end up not with a man, even if that man is not good for her, She's got to end up with somebody, and that is the case here. But I feel like, if you can cut through that noise,
it's just like, the performances are so funny. I love Like, if we don't get to see halle Berry do comedy ever, which is I feel like the dancing audition line scene alone, You're like, well, we deserved more of halle Berry comedy movies. And Natalie dcell is a master comic actor. She's amazing, and I wish she had more to do here. I wish that there was like more of an even protagonist situation here. But I love to see her. I love her.
It's so wild that she was in two really fun, amazing, very different Cinderella stories that centered black women in the same year. Good for You in nineteen ninety seven and Yeah, I hate the boyfriends, love the baps. Three and a half nipples.
Put that on a shirt.
I would buy it. Hell yeah, is it out of five nips?
Out of five nips?
Yes, I'm gonna go for Obviously, I have a soft spot for this movie. I feel any movie that you watched with your head cradled on your hands on your tummy while kicking your feet at a slumber party, you can only go solo. I agree. I do feel for the screenwriter, and I'm really happy that she spoke up. I would love to see her original version of this movie, like what was her vision. I also a sucker for a movie that has a lot of random cameos people
of an era playing themselves. You know, I don't think it's heavy v is in the movie. Yeah. So, like there's a one scene where they go to dinner and it's like every celebrity ever is having dinner has the same reservation time. So I love all the fun nineties cameos. Yeah, yeah, I just I love a screwball comedy, and I just get the sense that the two leads were like off screen and on screen like friends. You just can you can just send a work from them that is really delightful.
So I'll go for Oh beautiful Bridget, thank you so much for joining us again. It's always such a treat to have you come back anytime.
Oh my god, thank you for having this. You know, this was such a great way to spend my getting to watch baths and then talk about it thoughtfully for an hour, like thank you, this is a gift.
We're so happy to do it, Like it's this movie put me in a great mood, right I have finished. Pacheco was like, I, oh god, it's so hard to be in a great mood.
At this movie put me in a great mood truly.
Where can people check out your work? Follow you on social media, et cetera.
Yeah, you can check out my podcast on iHeartRadio called There Are No Girls on the Internet. You can later this month, depending on when this comes out, you can listen to another podcast that I have with Next Chapter Podcasts called Beef, where we are digging into the juiciest historical rivalries that you've never heard of. Well, yeah, you can find me on Instagram at bridget Marie and DC, on Twitter at Bridget Marie, on Blue Sky at Bridget tad, or on TikTok at Bridget makes Pods very nice.
I just learned what Blue Sky was. How did I miss it?
I have an account and I posted once and then I was like, all right, get them done, and you did it.
My New Year's reolution was to use Twitter less. So that's I'm trying to like play with blue Sky more. So maybe I'll see all there.
Hell yeah, yeah, see you there anyway. You can follow us on Patreon aka r Matreon at patreon dot com slash Bechtyl Cast. We released two episodes every month, plus you'll get access to our back catalog of over one hundred and fifty episodes at this point, all for five dollars a month.
If you live in the UK, you can come see us on tour. We're gonna be touring throughout the UK in number of cities, more days to come in late May, so check that out. And you can also get our merch at teapoplic dot com slash the Bechtel Cast.
That's right. Links to all of that stuff, including the ticket links for our tour, are at linktree slash Bechtel Cast. So scoot over there, grab those tickets, grab that merch, wear it to the show, et cetera, and yeah, we'll see you later. Wow, amazing dismount.
I have a reservation along with every famous person at Beverly Hills at the restaurant Parselon, So if you'd like to join me and scream at various celebrities.
That's for a yeah, And I'm gonna go there and be like, oh my god, Jamie Loftis, I love you, I love your book.
Raw Dogs, be like easy, easy, I'm just trying to eat hair.
They hated Dennis Radman for they Yes, we'll do, We'll do, Bye Bye bye.
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosenski. Our logo in merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechtelcast