Hidden Figures with Nina Daniels

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Speaker 1: On the Dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef in best start changing it with the Bell Cast. Hi, and welcome to the backdel Cast. I'm Caitlin, I'm Jamie, and we're here to talk about movies and how they portray women. That was great. Yeah, that was like the most distinct I've ever done it. I know. I used to take us five minutes. Man, we are growing. How's your day? My day has been okay. Oh. So I went out for a jog. I jogg and I saw I ran past a guy who was chugging a box of Frenzya on the sidewalk, and I was like, that's unusual. And then I ran between him in a car and there was someone in the car filming him. So I was like, that makes more sense. He's doing it for like a bit, someone's filming him. I get it. But like first split second, I was like, why is this guy just chugging a box of Franzia on the sidewalk? It was real, like a real Franzia. I think it would be more work yeah, I mean, you'd have to empty out the bag, fill it with water. Why do that? Why not just chug Franah. I burned myself out on that, and I did that a couple of times in college, and now I disassociate it with the smell of the basement apartment I used to live in. Can't do it anymore. Yeah, not that it's great wine to begin with. No, my day was bad. I'm sorry to hear that. That's okay, let's start that episode. Okay, let's do that. We are here with a wonderful guest. She is a comedian. She is a cellist. True story. She also has a show here at nerd Melt in Los Angeles, California. Nina Daniels, thank you for having me, guys, thanks for being here. You're welcome. And that's the end of the episode. But we did it. We uh. We're talking about a movie called Hidden Figures. Talk to us about when did you see this movie? I mean it came out, you know, not long ago, a few months ago. Actually, No, I saw it through SAG Awards in my living room on my laptop. How fancy. Yeah, because when you're in SAG they give you screeners. Nice so that was one of the screeners that I am watched and completely fell in love with. This movie so good. Yeah, I saw it in the theater by myself. I wish I had seen it in the theater. Yeah, it was great. I so I go to the movies by myself often and who knows why. Well, I'll talk to about with my therapist. No, it's very it's very therapeutic for me to go to the movies by myself. Um. But here's the thing. I don't let myself get emotional in public like I And it's another thing I need to talk to my therapy. It's about do I even have a therapist? Now, I don't should make an appointment, but I have a really hard time, like I can't let people see me cry. And this movie made me so emotional. I was like on the verge of tears the entire time because I'm just like, oh, these women are being mistreated and all this injustice. They're uplifting each other and and I was like just nearly crying the entire time. And I was like, I can't but I can't let anyone see me cry. I couldn't be you Literally a commercial makes me cry. Oh, yeah, I'll be like, because I love you like this sweet I cry. Oh, everybody laughs at me a movie because they just they see something and everybody just looks at me to see if tears are coming down. Yeah no, I'm I'm very I repress my emotions and it's not healthy, but I don't. But that's good. Yeah, I should repress my maybe a little bit more. It interferes with your life. Really, it's well, I mean sometimes it's like, man, I gotta take a I gotta take a walk. Sometimes I was just to like walk off my emotions and then returned to I don't know. Today my therapist was like, I think you should spend the weekend inside and where bata block or sunglasses? Anyways, let's talk about the movie. See. I saw that the other first time. I really loved it. I thought it was great. Jimmy, when did you see it? I saw it last week and I really really liked it. It was one of the movies that I wanted to see over the holidays, and uh, I wasn't able to because my mom wanted to see the Jackie Oh movie, which was so great. I passed on that good call. It was not It was a stinker, but still still still feel ill from me right, It's just it was. It was a drag. But that's the Kennedy assassination for you. And this this movie made me feel so good and like was the sort of movie that I felt good about days after watching it, not as good as it made me feel. Oh yeah, talk about that. I mean, well, first of all, I did want to see it in the movie theater, but I was so excited about it that I couldn't even wait because I had to screener. I'm like, I have to see this like right now for many reasons. One which a lot of people probably wouldn't know, but all three women are or were UM some of the past members of the same sorority that I met. The office ality incorporated all three, so that was like really enlightening. It was like, oh my goodness, because quick at three lesson. But you know, in a African American sorority, we don't just pledge or participate in undergrad. It's like that movie The Firm. Once you get in you can't get out, like literally you're and you become more active once you get to UM, once you graduate. Enjoy was called grad chapter yeah or you're inactive like me and should be doing in grad chapter just pay your due and you're just like a general member. But yeah, so it was like I was really proud, really proud sister of Alpha Cappa Alpha watching them, like of course they were all sorears. It made me very proud. That's awesome. A little cocky now, you know. That made me excited and also made me excited, as you know, an African American woman to see three brilliant women and I thought and directed to such a great job of showing their brilliance and also showing what they had to deal with, but not like dumbing them down or not making it some SAPPI like woe is Me stories a lot of times, you know, some of these movies are like oh, the whole black person hand to struggle through. It was like this women were so confident and so like in the car the car scene when the car broke down and they were like, well you could walk or sit in the back of the bus and they were like, no, I don't think so. I was like, that's me right there, I don't think. So that was like a prime also to show the pride and the almost part of the arrogance of like, now we're not doing that, and during that ninety one nineteen sixty one that was very impressed. That scene ends with them fixing the car and then the or the cop pulls up and you're like, fuck this fucking cop. What's he gonna do in advance? And then um, right, yeah, but then they talked to him. They have to convince him that they're like, yes, we work at NASA, we do important things like we're not and he's just like, I didn't know there were women. Yeah, yeah, you knew That's not what he was gonna say. Was brilliant. Um. But then he offers to escort them the rest of the way, and that I wrote down what um what Mary says, yeah, because she's like three negro women are chasing the white police officer are down in highway in Hampton, Virginia, nineteen sixty one, that these this is a god or dama a miracles. That I wrote that down as well, Kaitlin, do you want to do the recap? The recap? Oh Man. The story is about three black women, Katherine Gobel who becomes Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. Stories based on real life events. These were real women. They were all employed by NASA. This is a movie set in ne where in the middle of the space race with the Russians. You know, the US is trying to pull ahead. The Russians get a man in space first. Everyone's freaking out. Katherine Gobel did a lot of the analytic geometry to calculate the trajectories and the landing and takeoff for the rockets. Meanwhile, Mary Jackson is she wants to be an engineer, but she can't because she doesn't have quite the right qualifications, or she has the qualifications, but they're like finding ways to suppress her ability to actually be an engineer because he's a woman. So she has to like petition and get a court age and all the stuff and so that she can take classes to get the qualifications. Long story short, she finally gets there. Yeah, she becomes an engineer. UM, but she's working in like this engineering department. UM. They're trying to figure out how to make it so that the space craft that they're trying to launch into space is ready for the astronauts to actually be there, and that it's safe so they don't all die in space. And then the third main character, Dorothy Vonne. She's essentially a supervisor, but they won't give her the title or the pay. And she's supervising a group of like twenty other black women who are all computers and and doing other you know, important math and analytics and stuff like that for NASA. UM. And it's basically just it takes place over of course of a few months, and they're all just trying to do the work that needs to be done to get people in space. The end. I think it's pull to point out that, you know, they were called computers because there were there were no computers yet IBM. They were just waiting to get their IBM. Yeah. Other characters who are important, um, Katherine's boss played by Kevin Costner. This is the first time I have not hated him in a movie. So yeah, like Kevin Klein, Yeah kind of clin has always been great. Yeah please Ken, So he's her boss. Then there's Jim Parsons. I forget his characters. Love his characters is Paul Paul Staff And I think, yeah, I love Jim Parsons. He looks a little alien all the time. This a little alien looking guy. His character though, so despicable. Yes, he was so good at this movie. Yeah, he's alien. Kristen Dunnes plays a woman I don't entirely know what her job, Mrs Mrs Mitchell. She's a coordinator Achill. So it's the castle, same characters. Yeah, alright. The first thing I want to say about this movie is it it caused attention to the fact that, like one of the most significant historic and scientific feats of the twentieth century, and also, like I don't know all of history, which was putting a man into space, was made possible by a group of black women who you've probably never heard about until now, because I didn't learn this stuff in history class. And that's why. I mean, obviously the title of the movie suggests that these are hidden figures because we don't, like they don't teach us this, but I didn't learn about this. I didn't. I think that it kind of like that extends to the movie universe too, because I think about how many fucking space movies there are, and every time you catch at the control room, there's a white guy in there, there's you know, like there's barely any women at all, not to mention a person of color, and so it's like I don't know. I was thinking a lot about that during the movie too, just like you know, like Armageddon and Paul eleven and one of the characters I thirst and start to man um but who Katherine is later involved with, and like you would never see that reflected. I knew about Katherine Johnson. Yeah, And as a matter of fact, I had had actually forgotten. My dad was like, you wrote a paper on her. I was like, oh good, you know, but I was really young. But I definitely think seeing the movie definitely gave me brought awareness to a very different way. I mean, my parents were great because we learned about a lot of um African American people who were outstanding and amazing and change history. That we're not just Martluther King. I love him, but you know, or I would say Benjamin Bannon early and if anybody knows who he like, um, Paul Robeson, and I mean there's a lot of people that when I was a kid, my parents we would get a list of names to write a paper. And I did not go to school with the many other African Americans, especially teachers, so it be like me in the class and it would be only historical figures, but none of them would be black, and my parents would be like, they cross it out. Maybe you're doing a paper on this person. I would bring it back to them, this is what I'm doing it on, and the teacher. You could tell the teacher, look like, I did not assign that to you. But I'm definitely not going to challenge you on this because good luck challenging my mother. Good luck with that. You would lose that battle of hardcore. Yeah, I mean, I grew up in rural western Pennsylvania. I grew up in rural Long Island. Yeah. Man, that's the thing, like I like, I mean, I didn't have parents to be like, you're gonna do this paper on an American person and stead like I don't think we talked about in history class, like any notable figures in history who were black except maybe, uh, I mean, and not many women there. I mean, like I knew about Betsy Ross because she made a flag or something, but like, other than that, it was just a bunch of white dudes. My favorite woman growing up was um Surely Chisholm. She went for president first black women, like she's part of the women's suffers movement, Like she's no joke. Man, she was like I remember being a kid and be like I want to be like her. She was. So that's what I mean, Like we were lucky. We were very fortunate. We're exposed to so many people. Yeah, it was really interesting to um see. And I mean, I think what I love most about Hidden Figures as well is that it also showed the softness of African American women, meaning like they weren't like and and and I say, it's like I love being strong and and in the the portrayal of strong African and Black women. But like, these women were known for their brains and they didn't have to put anything on it. They were just being who they are and that's what made them up as their intelligence. And I felt like they led by their intelligence, and that to me was like that, you're refreshing thing to see. Yeah, I love that. I loved that. One of the other thing the main things this movie does is that it just shows how many hurdles these women had to jump over in like every part of their job and outside of their job, just to like prove that they're capable and like, yeah, we are, we can do this, and then exactly and everyone's just like I don't know about that, but it's also proved yourself. It's also a testament to when someone says cream always rises to the top. Literally they needed them because no one could do it. Yeah, like no one else could do it, you know. So it's almost like if you can make yourself so useful that nobody else could do it. And it was interesting, like also to about the engineering with Mary and that character even you know, saying, you know, I'm Jewish and I came here from but the thing is like you're still a man, you know, and you're still a white man in America. Like, so it was really interesting this see him have that because her obscle wasn't just being a woman where she needed to take the courses they didn't allow African Americans, so that was really I mean being a woman was part of it, but second layer of it is it didn't allow a woman of color. Yeah what people of color? For that intersectionality. She had to go to court to take a class like I think it was like a high school. She had to go take it at a night class, which was which was like wow, Yeah, there's so many steps she had to go through just to be able to get the credentials she needed to do the job that she was already qualified to do. My mom would have totally done that for real. My mom would have been excuse me, here we go. Uh. And and it was it was nice to see I mean, it wasn't like a main focal point, but it was nice to see their their home lives as well, um and that the other roles, because I feel like it would have been easy to just keep this in the workplace, and it would have still been powerful if it was just in the workplace. But it was nice to see um, not just the professional hurles, but it um trying to maintain a life for their kids and all this stuff because they still love all the pressures associated with mother right. Yeah, all three of those women had young children, and um, Catherine was a single mother at like she started out that way. She ends up marrying Jim Johnson. But I love that relationship. Yeah, I love like you know, they showed such a respectful like black love, which I loved. I was like, oh, this is so sweet. When he apologized to her for doubting her when they first met, I was like, all right, yeah, yeah, because what is the first thing he said? Because he's like, oh, I understand you work at NASA, and she's like, yeah, we do all the you know, the calculations, and he's just like, oh, they let women. And then he stops talking. He's like, oh, man, I funked up real bad. She's like, I'm gonna walk away and you should shut up. And then the next time he's like, I owe you an apology. She's like, yeah, I'm waiting for it. It also showed the complications in Mary's marriage right, which I loved as well, the juxtaposition of that relationship versus that and also married not like she didn't play down and come down for her husband even though he had all the use like issuesn't concerned and she was just like, yeah, no, I'm I'm gangster. I'm doing it like you shouldn't believe you should not you know, which is I'm such an optimist. It's so hard for me to like, look at the glasses never half compt to me. It's always have full. So I was like, go, Mary, you can do this. Well. Yeah. Just like just seeing these three main characters who pretty much at almost every point in the movie just refused to be bulldozed by literally the entire world that's trying to bud and and uh you know, like you're saying it just like making themselves so like incredibly intelligent and useful that you can't I didn't like they couldn't have done it without them. Also, the intelligence wasn't um, it wasn't forced. It was like quiet intelligent. That's what I love. Yeah, just like came across very organganically, which is how we they're doing the job. They're just I wanted to talk a little bit more about that scene. It's one of the opening scenes where they're broke down on the side of the road and Dorothy is like fixing the car. And I mentioned in an earlier episode of this podcast where I'm like, I hate that trope or like to show a woman to show that she's not just like any other woman, she's good at fixing cars, and like it's an annoying trope, but like that's what happened in this movie, like they broke down. I believe that that character knew how to fix and thens something like in Transformers, like you see Megan Fox leaning over the hood of a car basically like having sex with a car. Male gaze all over the place, like lingering up and down. Yeah, but like she was I thought I thought she was literally I thought it was like I didn't even realize that she was actually supposed to be fixing that Wait. Yeah, I was like, what's she doing next to that car? I was like, this is the part in the movie when want some like the one to sell sex. Yeah, exactly, And then in this movie like Dorothy's like splayed out lying on the ground like under the car. Actually you actually think, yeah, it wasn't sexy. It was just like, yeah, she just is trying to figure out what the problem is, and any context of the movie like that made total sense. It didn't feel trophy at all. No, no, actually, and you're saying it didn't. It didn't even any even think about it until right now, you know, you're bringing up It was just like a normal thing that happened. You're like, yep, this checks out, Yeah, and that was that wasn't I feel like the reason people usually do that trope is because the like whatever whoever the female character is is like portrayed as like so unrealistically that they're like, but wait, she's grounded, and these women are portrayed realistically for the duration of the movie so it's like cool, Yeah, they can fix cars. There's so much cooler than me. Part of what made me love this movie even more it was there was a few um campaigns around the time when it was actually in theaters, UM where a lot of people were donating to send uh classes of kids to go see this movie. And it's amazing that as many classes as as did got to see it in the theater. But just thinking about like years down the line, this will be like watched in history classes and there's not a lot of movies like it, and it's that to me was like so exciting of like imagine being whenever seven or eight years old and and seeing this movie. It would be I think I think a couple of the actors was like I think Tonti Pinson I think also made Octavie I spent some like bought out theaters. Oh yeah, I believe they brought out theaters so that people and go in and see it. Oh man, that's yeah. So like this movie, I don't know, there's not a lot of movies you see where you're like, oh, this is going to have a serious legacy and impact far beyond the time it's actually in theaters. Um, and they're like the UM. I felt like the accurate portrayal of Paul and Katherine and Paul's Jim Parson's character. I like the fact that he just stayed in his character the whole, like to the end. He was not going to give up being an asshole at all. And I loved it. I'm like, was it like a romantic ending with that dude? Yeah, it was like, great, that's great. You're racist and you hate women and you're gonna stay that way, right because in n that would have been what happened. But also so you know what, you know what's so funny This movie was a great example of nobody wanting to be at the bottom. And what I mean by that is like, so the men treated the women bad like Mrs Mitchell and she treated the black women bad because somebody had to just like trickled down, like they're gonna treat me poorly? Do I want to treat like nobody wants to be the bottom? And she was another one who was just terrible. And even when she I guess did a good thing, it wasn't even good. She was she was just like yeah, no, she like there's that scene where she's in the bathroom and change her idea about at all. Yeah, there's that scene and she's like in the restroom with um Dorothy, and after they had like desegregated the bathroom, um, when Mrs Mitchell's like, you know, just by the way, you think I don't have anything against you, and she's like, yeah, I'm sure you believe that that's what you think. And it's so funny because when when the real Catherine said that never happened, she was like, he don't know, I went to the bathroom right there. They certainly had to like amp up the drama to make it like a cinematic experience. I'm sure, Like, I'm sure. Also, she doesn't didn't need to be like called in at the last moment because he's about to launch into space. And then they didn't. She wasn't allowed in the room. Oh really, no, she was not actually allowed in the room. That's upsetting. Yeah, so that was also made up. Yeah, they got to embellish stuff for she wasn't allowed in the room. But she did the man, great good friend got the job done. Yeah, Mrs Mitchell, I know she's not as bad as Paul, but she kissed me off. She was she was a woman makes it worse. Yeah, I mean, it's just every scene she's in and maybe no, I mean, like I guess Kris and Duns did a good job because whole yeah, this whole movie. Every time she was on screen, I was just like, like, what is she going to do now? Because it's like it's where Jim Parson's character is outright, like very straightforward, I don't respect you. I didn't like just the way that Mrs Mitchell would get those underhanded passive so great that they didn't make it like they didn't do they didn't do what every other movie does, make it this obvious racism, because it's not really how a lot of racism is. A lot of it is just how she played it. It's like so layered and intertwined it was. I mean, it was her belief system, you know what I mean, her belief system, and when it's your leaf system, you don't really have to put anything on it. And that was a very complicated I thought, um role. I thought she did a really amazing job with she had that character the other white woman too, who is working in like the space task group, who is like just as bad. She didn't get as much a screen time. But she was so dismissive of Catherine. She's like, she was but do you remember when he said with a computer what happened? She said, Oh, she's standing right behind you. Yea that yeah, that wasn't okay moment. But then later on when Catherine has to go to the restroom for the first time and she's excuse me, where's the restroom and the woman goes, I have no idea where your bathroom is, and then like returns to her phone call, just like very dismissive. And I thought it was so. But I also think it's a product of do you think she was treated well there? Oh no, absolutely so. I think it's also like, I think it's also that thing of like you had the opportunity to be somebody else's boss. I mean, I think a lot of you know, women are feeling that, you know, and she probably had a lot of people, you know. I feel like it was more of a wrote thing for her because how many black women actually ever walked in the room. I'm gonna say none, well even let's say none. Mrs Mitchell says that she's like, this is the first, You're the first, because when Katherine walked into that room. Everybody was he gave her the garbage can, right because she thought that he thought she was a custodian. Yeah, yeah, he gave her the garbage can. And then and you could tell Jim Parson's character already minute his mind that he was not going to respect her totally. And when he told him, Kevin told him, oh, you gotta do her do his math too. What a blow to that. Maybe laughed so hard you could like see his dick wilt receed into his body. It was, it was, it was, it just fell out, like leaked out of his pants like that was such a and that happens so many times, and he's like he sucks he does. Yeah. I wonder um, because I feel like anytime there's a movie based on true events, um, the family of whoever the villain has retaliates. I wonder if there was any of that and this kid, I don't know research on it, because people love to get money by being like he wasn't that bad. It's like he was. He was probably worse. And they said it was worse. Actually they sent their treatment in this um. They said the treatment was actually worse than what was betrayed. Well, yeah, I feel like if they did it accurately, they probably wouldn't get to keep the PG rating. Like I'm sure like kids were thrown at them. I can imagine what happened. One of the points I wanted to make is why did it take until two thousand sixteen for this movie to be made about these people from the sixties? I mean, when when was the book published? The book was published in two thousand and sixty. It was just clemed. But I tried to read the book but it wasn't out yet because I actually I was told that I was going to have an audition for this movie. Really, yes, I had a general at Fox and they told me about this movie, oh and another like little nice inside tidbit. I had just done Hotels dot com commercial that Ted Melfy directed, who was a director of Hidden Figures. So it was right after that they were like, oh, you're gonna have a you know, general at Fox. And I mean know, I saw it was cast. I was like, I was at a joke, like you's know, like hello, that cast was amazing. I'm like, yeah, that was cute. But I was trying to get my hand on the book and trying to get as much information as I could on the project so that I could I really wanted to audition for it, but I never did. Well, that's another thing we could talk about, is that another movie directed they're written by a white guy. Yeah, and probably why did to take this long? So I didn't didn't have to be in directed by a white guy. That wasn't like that was a big thing. That was the thing. You have this movie about these three African American women and it didn't go to uh like Abra du Renett or you know, I mean the up and coming African American director, which is a very interesting story. And for me, I was hugely conflicted because I had I loved Ted Melfy from St. Vincent. Yeah, that was a huge And I think the reason why I booked that Hotel dot Com commercial was because in my callback when I went in, I was like, what are you doing here? Because I couldn't believe the director from St. Vincent was the director of my commercial and I was and I didn't have the wherewithal to be like see him in this, you know, be like hmm, okay, I think I know who that is and just be quiet. I was like Oh my god, what are you doing here? This is awesome, like literally didn't even care. And one of it but again that one commercial pay for stag for my health insurance, remember one commer. But he was such a great guy, and I remember thinking, oh, but he's like really, he's really good. Yeah, it's it's always tree because he did I mean, he had his hand in pretty much every part of the movies got the direction, producing and writing credit. The first draft of the movie was written by a woman and then and it was a woman with a lot of experience with NASA to who her name is Allison Schroeder. Yeah, yeah, or she had like interned at NASA. I grew up near Cape Canever the whole bit, um so you know, Ted Milfie didn't write the whole thing. But it would have been nice though it would. It would have been nice too. I would have even like maybe Aba du Verney or de Rees who did Bessie and um Pariah. I would have loved to see one of them do it. Would actually like d do It would have been great to see her do it. Yeah, because I mean, and Ted Melfy does a good job in the movie turned out amazing, but it's like not history, it's not his story. But I also wonder, you know, how would they have been able to get that PG rating because d is hardcore. Maybe maybe it depends. I mean she had to. I'm sure she could. Yeah, And and the PG rating I think is so important for how long this movie will be remembered to, like if it just makes it more accessible to too young like you said, like it can be screened in schools now for like elementary kids. Yeah, my mom already got a copy of the DVD. She teaches second grade. How adorable are they sending it to schools. I think she paid for it out of pocket. And that's what teachers doing now. Yeah, even though our head of education doesn't know that, but you know that they paid their own pencils. But you know, yeah, their own God, that's a whole other thing that I could like flip a table over. But my my mom and her her teacher friends, they all have like a a little group and they take turns buying movies and stuff and help each other out. But anyways, teachers are treating you know, it's amazing too. It's amazing to be your mom teacher second grade, right, I mean in second grade, you see a movie about three African American mathematicians, Like not just black kids, I mean all kids see this. It's like, can me do you? I mean that's like there are kids their first president was black. It's what they know. That's wild. I mean, it's so it's so cool, Like I don't know. That makes me feel good because this movie can have like such a role in like normalizing that two kids early on to the point where it wouldn't seem unusual at all and totally. I mean in my family, my family, especially my mom's side and mostly um pH d s men and women. Um So I was raised around extraordinary, extraordinary after Americans, So it was always like weird to me that people didn't know that, Like that's like everybody I was raised around. What are you talking about? Like a single parent house. I'm like, what's that like? Because I had three generations to deal with great grandparents, grandparents, and my parents get in trouble at one house, you got in trouble two more time to two other houses. That was not nice. Well, I mean a part of that might be that the way black people are portrayed in mainstream media usually not that great, right, But but it's also interesting to me because most of my life was built around I'm watching mainstream media probably like y'all, like I'm learning this with you, Like what the hell are they talking about? Who are they talking about? I remember like growing up, especially when the Internet became a big thing. Yeah, I had read things. I knew things were going on where I definitely was not ignorant, not with my parents. But on the flip side, I'm like, my experience was around people who were educated, highly educated. A matter of fact, you didn't have a doctorate. They used to look at you like like, what's with you? He's gonna stop there, you under achiever? Going to stop at a bachelor's degree? You disgusted, you know. Yeah, it was like they were like, oh gosh, you know my mom's first cousins, all of their children went to Ivy League schools, like they all went to even before that. My aunt was one of the first. I think she was one the first black women and to Harvard Law School, I believe. And she spoke fluent Chinese, which is and I went to study abroad. I speak Japanese, but it's because she studied Chinese, which is why I wanted to take Japanese. So these were influences that I took for granted almost because I figured that everybody, you know, had that experience, that everybody knew that about the African American experience, that was that was my norm, and not that I hadn't seen or experienced. My dad's side of the family is very different from my mom's, and not that I haven't seen or experienced that as well. But the thing that influenced me the most was um my dad's side. Remember being like, gosh, man, these women they have like you know, the standard was like high. Yeah, well that's I mean, what's great about this movie is it normally it normalizes a portrayal that you don't often see the Black community, which were black women especially, you know. I mean you feel like black women are portrayed as caretakers. They're strong and struggling in a single mom and they're all these like you guys, like literally fight the world to achieve anything. You're down trodden, you know. So it's really yeah, it's it's it's refreshing because all I see is people like people like me. I'm like, oh, well do yeah, I understand that that these are women that I relate to I wish I was brought up around smart people, really great or anyone besides white people. I grew up in a town where my I went to high school. There were three black people in my high school, and two of them were opted by white families. So they're just there was no diversity. There's no, There's just none. I was lucky to grow up in a very diverse city and be exposed to a lot of stuff that I feel like, people don't look at a frail white girl and be like, oh, she would know that, I mean, and I'm so grateful for that because even I remember, like when I was transitioning from moving home to college, like you just some people have no fucking clue and it's such a wake up call to Yeah, but you know, I'm from the suburbs too, and my town was actually I wanted to say a large percentage of Latino really, but it was so segregated because I didn't go to school with one Latino maybe one, oh yeah, two, and I remember their names, Um say them right now now. I'm kidding, shout at but I mean, although my school is a public school, and although my school was a very large public school, I was an honest program, and there were two of us to African American, and I remember the other one as well. She was the Georgetown we were in that program, and then one Latino and that in in one Asian grould, so literally everybody. It felt like I was in a utopia with in a society. Everybody else was running around intermingling, and I'm in a world completely separate from everybody else. They even put us in a different wing, you know how where the computers were in that movie. That reminded me of where we were put as honor students in a different place, away from everybody else, but in a different part of campus almost. And that was like a really weird experience for me because my day, the majority of it was spent in the majority white environment. And then the only time I saw I saw anyone of color was at track practice. And I also played the cello, so that's the whole another life. Yeah, So it was really interesting experience for me to be the one person I felt like that knew So I knew so much about my culture, but I realized a lot of people didn't, and I did not feel like I wasn't really fighting really, but my mom was, and I didn't even realize that until I'm like an adult now. My mom was the one who would be like no when my parents, both of them, my dad and my mom would be like, no, you're gonna do a report on this person. And it cannot be like people that everybody knows, you're gonna do something on you know, this person. So it was really interesting that they had to wear with all to say no, you're not gonna do that. You're gonna you're my job is to be the teacher, and I know a lot of black peoplen't want to be the teacher, but for my parents are like, that's your job. You're going to go in and because of what you're doing that inevitably will open other people's minds. So yes, that was like awesome, that is great. I'm trying to think if there's anything else about the movie I wanted to say, and maybe worried the book because I mean, watching it as you know, as as an adult, it makes me want to you know, you can tell that there's probably a lot of moments that are left out of the movie so I can reach a larger audience. But I want to. But I also think a lot of women. I mean, couldn't women relate to And he told her if you were a man, would you want to be an engineer? She'd be like, I wouldn't really be one. Yeah, she's I wouldn't have to wish I would be one. I would be like you know what I mean, like I would be one. And it's not that's not over. Um, that's not over. Hello. The thing this movie has, like it's the ending, is very uplifting because it's like they went on to do these things and they were regarded as the most brilliant minds in NASA, and and you're like, yeah, good for them, And then you're like, wait a minute, it's fifty years later, over fifty years later, and they're still rampant racism and misogyny all around us. Also to like, how do you think that I feel even with what I do. I play the cello. Even now, this is twenty seventeen, no one can name like a black cellist, not even meal a female like, no one because at the time I was during research, there were no black cellist and the Philharmonic in the country. So those first are still happening. Misty Copley, like those first are still happening. I mean, the reason why I haven't act as a comedian is because there are no black cellist's fresh I didn't make songs like the most famous black cellis, you know, because I'm the only one you probably know, probably only cellist, do you know, yo, people know I know, yeah exactly, but you know, so it's it's it's so like I'm waiting for the movie of you know, the first Black ballaweena're like Misty Copeland or the first Black cellist. Like, you know, there's still more work to be done, and I'm so excited because then in like give me something to look forward to. I want to be a first. I want to achieve some stuff over here. So yeah, you know, there's still areas of life that are still untapped. We lift each other so we can we can get there. And as women, I mean, I think women in general should have been able to relate to you know, not just African American women, but like if you look at the white women in that movie, they was so like oppressed. You can tell they were just suffering, suffering, Like because even for Mrs Mitchell, for her, that's probably like a kind of a big job, you know, because she's she's the kind of the boss. She's a coordinator. But even with that, who knows what her her background when she wanted to really do who knows, Like, who knows, I think she could have handled her, I don't know, choices a lot better. Oh yeah, But it's not even about like I'm not saying that her character. I mean, we already know what her character is. But you look at the dynamics between men and women in between. You you're dealing with multiple layers men, women, um, African American, white, and you're just like layering all this stuff on there. And I think you know, you see the secretary in the you know, in the task group. Yeah, you see like the secretary. It's almost like she kind of really knows it's not gonna work. You know, she kind of already wrote it off, like, yeah, this is not gonna work. I can't tell you how many people see me get on stage with that show and be like, Okay, what happened? Man? And then they'll come back to the show and be like, oh, it was really good. Actually, because she says to her, she says, I'm like, don't expect Mr Harrison to warm up to you, like and then, um, because maybe you didn't want up to her. Yeah, you know what I mean, maybe he never warmed up to her. Yeah, it's very possible. Yeah. And then the character of Mrs Mitchell, as much as I can't stand here like the the like very tightly repressed energy because she's sort of like in the middle of she is not kind to black women because she needs to feel important, and then she's constantly taking ship from the white men and it just kind of results in this weird little ball of fury like you just and and it's uncomfortable because she plans to how to go home and cook and touch somebody's toes and rub his back. She worked the whole damn Jay, you may forget that. She's like, man, I listened to Jim tell me what to do and in a Sheldon from Big Bang theory, but she says things like, you know, you're the first black woman in this group. Don't embarrass me, And it's like you, yeah, but so did so did the other character too. Don't embarrass us, you know. But it's also but it's also like, what's funny about that is she thinks that that woman is going to embarrass her. That's the funny part, Like, really, I'm like, do you clearly don't know like the level of she was so unaware of how talented they were. All she knows is I can't believe I had to come down here to get one of you. Basically, you're so unaware how freaking phenomenal they are. It makes me laugh. All I can think about is that there's a poem by my Angelo called Phenomenal Women, No phenomenal Woman, And I'm like, and our sorority is always like quote this poem, And all I can think about is you have no anything. How fearce these women are, these women are, there'reen circles around you and all you know. But that's how her job is. I gotta get down here, get this thing. All she knows I gotta fill this, fill this, fill this field is I don't want to deal with your issues with wanting a raised chicken. You're lucky in her mind, you're lucky or even here she says that too, Yeah, you're lucky and have a job. Yes, and really it really is a reverse. You're looking you have a job because they're all so much smarter than you. Yeah, she for real, she would have rocked Dorothy would have rocked her job so hard that woman would be unemployed. She's back in the kitchen having more babies by Jim Roast, Jim can fuck off. I found out a little bit more about the charity screenings UM where quite a few of them were sponsored by the actors, and there was also a girl Scout initiative to get a bunch of girl Scouts uh to be able to go. And then there were different ones sponsored by uh, you know, Octavia Spencer, Genel Money uh and and Tag p Henson also Jim Persons, also Ted Malfie, and so I think that there was like fifteen different cities that ended up getting a ton of young people that see the movie. Girl Scouts still around. Huh, they're still I know you a girl scope. So was I? So was? I always get the most patches because my dad worked out of college and he make everybody come into his UM office and buy girls cut cookies. So I would win every time the whole college. My parents were not motivated in regards to my girls, and I'm not a salesman, so yeah, I would only ever get like my grandma and my uncle to buy a box. And I'd be like I've sold toy boxes and like, shut up, Caitlin, get out of here. No, no, we were rocking it. Yeah. I love girl Scouts until they told us to go camping. Yeah, as we just say, the wilderness brutal. I'm like, I know, I have no desire. If I had a choice, I would never go outside. No. My mom and I were like, Okay, we're at the closest hotel, like we are not. Um, he invented uh in or plumbing for a reason. I'm not gonna I will say that my parents for it as a certain lifestyle, and I'm grateful for I was like, no, we do. We do not like camping. Maybe I wish they had. Was it called glamping now? Is that what it's called? Yeah, I want a Lambers camping. Yeah, I would. We would totally sign up for that. But my mom and I were like, oh my god. My mother like, where your slippers in that shower? I don't know what's in there. We were terrible. We were just like this is gross. I felt like we would have been horrible in the wilderness. Man, we would have been horrible. Oh And my dad was like, I mean he's a professor, so my dad would be my dad to take the tour guy's job. The tour guy be like saying something, and my dad was My dad's so smart. I think he is a computer. My dad would literally be like just to add to that, I mean, my dad knows everything about everything, but he just retains everything because I watch him. No way I'll keep the keepers. Yeah. I had an intense p t A mom when I was younger with my mom one of those Yeah, my mom didn't My mom didn't go back to work until I was eleven. She used to be a banker before I was born and then ended up staying home with me an all tend of my cousins, uh, from when before I was born until I Yes, it would be ten kids at my house every day, sugar. And then she went back and she was a p t A mom when when she wasn't working and was just taking care of like this brood of children. Um. And then now she works at that school that she used to be at, the PTA and she like went back and got her masters and now she teaches because I think that she just really wore the principle down by being around for like ten consecutive years. Yeah, I mean my mom probably had to deal with so in the honest program, she had to deal with like certain things in terms of teachers, not only just being a black female. There was one honors program I got, like, we had a Regents exams in New York. I got like a nineties seven on the Regents exam and they didn't put me in Honors English the following year. But they didn't put any women in Honors English the following year, hardly any and my mom like noticed it. My mom was like, uh no, they had to go and fight to get us in on his English. I didn't know that. Mom was like, you guys are racist and sexist, and these women and these kids need to get into this class. She got a nineties seven on the beings. Are you crazy? That's my mom terrific. Are there any final thoughts anyone has about the movie? I loved it. I want more kids to see it. Like I said before, it was just nice. It was just nice to see let's we're ready, sisters, because like that that pride is like what we were raised around. So it's just like, yeah, I get this, and it's just great to see that. Obviously this passes the back. Yes, we should usually Yeah. Like there it's like almost a comical passing of the test. Yeah, it happens, And I mean I only wrote down like the scenes that happened in the first half hour, and there are like six of them where it passes. Like in the first scene where the three women are together fixing the car, they're talking about the car, they're talking about their jobs at NASA. Then there's a room full of women, the one that like Dorothy's handing out assignments too. They're all talking each other there. Mrs Mitchell comes in and is like, hey, who can handle analytic geometry here? Most of their conversations whenever there are two women talking to each other, are not about a man. It's usually about their job, space, travel, math, you know, any number of things. There's a ton, there's a ton of scenes where it passes the test, no question about it. It reminds me of my first job. I had. On first job, the MODS Investor Service, there's a rating agency companies, fortunately a hundred companies, and my job in the summer was to use a genie coal efficient to figure out the average income of homes in certain areas. And I remember it was really statistics and I remember like sitting there like telling people is why I do for summer. I'm like seventeen, eighteen years old and people could be like, no, man, we don't even know what you're talking about. And I remember like thinking about that first job and and granted, I mean I love math and I'm great at it, but not the way these women are. But it made me feel really good that I was like throwing out stuff. But you know, I was like yeah, and people are like, what the hell she's talking about. It reminds me of my job as a Hooters delivery driver man bringing a bag. No, actually, like I I was. I was, yeah, that was a real thing for Hooters. You were you were uber um like um, but no, actually I was the only woman they hired to be a delivery driver and mostly other guys got fired. So I was like one. I was like, you're the last one. Here's the last one. I kind of your story must be told. It must call Melfie. I had. I had a math job once. I wouldn't say excelled at it, but I worked at the comptroller's office for all the summers in college. Uh still couldn't exactly tell you what a comptroller does, but I didn't crush crush a lot of numbers in that very cold office for the people who did not really know how to use computers. That was mostly what I did was walk around and tell almost retirees how to you know, use Microsoft work. You were like the Dorothy you like I would. Yeah. Yeah, we didn't talk a lot about her, but like, um, I mean she was great and she like had the foresight to know, like to learn the computer. She forgot about that. Yeah, she's snuck in there to learn about the machine. And then she stole a book from the library. And I love that speech. She's like, I pay taxes. Everything in this library was paid by taxes. Mind. But but do you realize the impact of not being able to get the knowledge? Yeah, knowledge being withheld from you. I can't even wrap my mind around that. I did not realize until this movie that libraries were segregated like that, that there was I did not know that. Yeah, I mean, if you even think forget about just like in this movie before, what was the one thing the slave math not want that slaves to know. They don't want them reading. You could not read. Theyn't want literate people because literally people know how to fight back and how to fight that. They didn't want them to have the tools. So what do you do if you want to keep someone down, You take their educ withhold you withhold knowledge, right, And that goes back to having to go to court to take a night class, like the exactly limiting access to education exactly exactly and basically like humiliating people, yeah for for needing to jump through all those hoops to even have access. It's like, it's it's just And then when she walks into that class and like when she finally gets like, she petitions, she does all the things she needs to do, and she finally has granted access to this class she needs to take, and she walks in and it's a bunch of white dudes. It's a white teacher, and they're just like, what do we do? This curriculum isn't designed for women, And she's like, I think it'll be fine. It's another that's a good point to the fact that it should needs to be easier for women. Yeah, that's unfathomable to me because the women in my family was so intelligent. I feel like it was I mean, the yeah, the attitude was like, oh, your woman, you're small, in brain? How could you ever possibly handle this information? Man? It just reminds me of that. Wasn't there like a Barbie where you like pulled the string and it was like math is hard? But what do you think that's a portrayal for white women? What that like? Like that frail? Like you like you don't know as much. I mean obviously this movie was like you know, it was an African American woman, but I mean I feel like I'm like, what is this Like I don't know that this woman maybe she's not as smart really, But then it maybe when I got older it made more sense that, oh men really think this that was I was so blinded by that, so blinded because as a as a woman, as a girl in my class, I was with the nose dudes asked. So I didn't even really think about Like I didn't think about gender, Like Jenna didn't even come into my brain like that. Yeah, I don't know. It didn't occur to me until maybe high school, but probably later because I mean, like I love everyone in my family. The males in my family are present betas, Like every major male figure in my life. Uh was a beta is a beta to this day and so like and even down to like me and my cousins and and uh, I don't know exactly what the split between girls and boys about have and half, but the girls that I grew up with, we were you know, we were whipping their assets stuff at school, and that was just sort of what what what it was and what it always know what I think about it actually too, that's actually true, it is. I don't think it's a raised thing. I think, but men just really think they're smart than women. Yeah, I think, I think. I think it's I don't think maybe women of color experienced it to a greater degree where you know, people assume, oh you're not going to be as smart, you're not going to know as much, etcetera. But white women, Yeah, that's so interesting. Like I just think it's an interesting thing to sit there and feel you're right and you sit there and you want But that's something I don't understand, Like I understand it intellectually, but in reality, in experience, I'm like, no, this is not true. It just like takes you a really long time to realize that that is actually what's happening. Like this was very like specific memory in college of like I was starting to do comedy stuff and it was like taking an interest in it. And I had been like feeling weird for a while and then she just hit me. I'm like, oh, you just don't think that I can do this, like and it was. It hadn't occurred to me until college. I think I think college it hit me that people also too, I'm being in I'm a decent master, that I'm a really good like micro econ and statistics like that was like my thing in my micro econ class, which like everybody always fail. So you know, gray on the curve and I remember they were like, well, somebody destroyed the curve because she got it was me up the curve. And I realized now he never said who destroyed the curve, but he did when I did. It did not hit me until much later. I was like, I wonder if he'd said that because I was a black woman in this class of mostly white dude, do you think he was trying to he was calling attention to it because he wanted you to be He wanted the other students to be mad at you. Well, I think they were mad. I don't think that was his intention. I think he wanted them to acknowledge that I had done this. Yeah, but they were mad, pissed. You know. I was like, whatever, man, curve destroyer. That's a brutal position to be in. Loved it and I tried to achieve it every time. No mercy. Yeah, so let's write the movie on our nipple scale. Nipples, nipples scale. This is another movie that I'm going to give a very high nipple rating. Two, maybe even a five, like a four point five or five. I'm gonna commit. I'm gonna give it a five. Um. I love the way the three main women are portrayed. Um, they're just they're they're constantly like uplifting each other. I just love them that the movie shows women in a way we haven't seen before, typically three black women who are aerospace engineered geniuses. That was a really cool thing to see on screen. And I just really enjoy this movie. And it makes me feel a lot of feelings that I don't like to admit that I have because feelings are dumb. They're in there, they're I know, I forget that I'm trying. But um, so I want to do is talk about my favorites all day. Every day. I pay someone a lot, have money to listen to my feelings. That's smart. I'm debt how to do that because i love to talk about my feelings so much. And I'm getting to give it five out of five for sure. Yeah, I mean for all the reasons that you said. Also, just every character in this movie is portrayed with nuance that I think that if the attention to detail hadn't been so strong, it would have been very easy to paint every character in this movie with far broader strokes, and it wouldn't have been as effective. Um, I'm so happy this movie exists and that people will be able to watch it. I like want to show my kids this movie. Yeah, hardcore. Five nipples, Yeah, hardcore. Each about three African American women mathematicians who will portrayed layer multidimensional characters. Hell yeah, five nipples. We did. This is the second movie that's gotten out of like whatever we've done that they've gotten the five out of five treatment. The first one was MO, wanna Nina? Do you have anything you want to plug? Or where can people find you online? I have a website meaning Daniel dot com. I'm huge into snapchat, Instagram, so on Instagram mean that Daniel is a dot official and snapchat on um Nina's Playground, And I have a monthly show, like you said earlier here at the Nerk Mount most of the last Tuesday of the month. Anything Else presents the playground and it's awesome and a lot of fun. Yeah, anything you want to plug Jamie. Um, yes, this is this episode is going to come out in the future, but right now. I made a bunch of pinatas today. Do you know a live stream at jash tomorrow that you'll be able to watch by the time this episode comes out, And it's entirety. It's called Swan Lake Live from a Locked Basement. I'm gonna do ballet, Y're gonna I made a bunch of new cartoons for it. Uh, and I've got to go finish making the pinatas for it. It takes place on the day of Round Reagan's assassination, and I've got a big pinata of Jodi Foster's head and gotta smash it. I love everything about that. I was going to satto to it, so watch that and uh and at Hamburger Fun. Yeah. I don't have any cool um Swan Lake projects or anything like that, but you can follow me at Caitlin Toronto on what Are. You can follow the podcast on Twitter too, at Bechtel Cast. You can email us. I haven't we haven't talked about the email. I don't even know if we've gotten any I should check it, but anyway, we just email us. We don't, we just check it. Maybe i'll ' sit that part out. We'll see. We well, we we answer face. It says on our Facebook page that we answer messages very quickly. I was like, hell, yeah, go very awesome, but yeah, find us on Facebook, find us on Twitter. You can email us at the Bechtel Cast at gmail dot com and rate and review us on iTunes and we're on SoundCloud. Shout out to Aristotle or on Baby. Thank you so much Nina for being here. Thank you, thank you so much. It was awesome and um, reach for the stars. Guys. It's a it's a hidden figures. Uh. I was like, are you are even a monologue right now? This is the famous Land soliloquy our yeah, yeah, just a moment his end to end. Yeah, okay, um alright yeah bye by Yang Toodles