Preacher's Wife with Natasha Scott-Reichel and Justine Kay

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Speaker 1: 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 bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Reverend Jamie, Hi, Angel Caitlyn, it's me No, no, no, I'm I'm guardian Angel, Caitlin, your guardian Angel. But not that you mentioned your wife. I just want to say that she's awesome and like so pretty and I love her.

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Speaker 3: Is that cool to me too? I just like, I'm busy running the entire church.

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Speaker 4: Mmmm hmm.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so you don't really have time for her and I can have her.

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Speaker 3: Well, no, but let's make sure to not really ask her how she feels at any point.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, just to be sure, of course.

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Speaker 5: Not.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Okay, great that one. So well, all right, good talk, good talk.

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Speaker 3: Okay, now I banish you back to heaven and make sure the men in Black style wipe my memory before get where you girl.

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Speaker 4: So it's as if the movie didn't happen exactly.

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Speaker 2: But little Jeremiah he's gonna remember me.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because he's kind of like wonder he believes it the magic of Christmas, something something, the little bell for Polar Express, you know, oh yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.

00:01:22
Speaker 2: Anyway, Hello, and welcome to the Bechdel Cast.

00:01:25
Speaker 3: Great intro as usual, we're recording earlier in the day than usual.

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Speaker 4: You have to cut some slack.

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Speaker 2: No, no, I think the people loved it.

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Speaker 4: It's it's true. My name is Shamie Loftus.

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Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Deronte, and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point. But reverend to Jamie, what is that? I could get used to this?

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Speaker 6: So?

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Speaker 3: The Bechdel Test is a media metric originally created or co created by Alison Bechtel with her and Liz Wallace, originally as a bit for her comic from the nineteen eightiesd Likes to Watch Out For, originally a way of talking about how women were rarely talking to each other about anything in a movie, much less not men. The version of the test we use as we require that two people of a marginalized gender with names talk to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue or more. This is going to be a journey today. True, and we have because it's the holiday season, we are covering holiday movies, and boy, do we have a holiday movie for you today, long time request, The Preacher's Wife from nineteen ninety six, starring Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington and Courtney b Vance and directed by Penny Marshall.

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Speaker 4: I mean, you can't argue with that lineup.

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Speaker 2: You certainly cannot. And here with us to chat about the movie are the hosts of the podcast Two Black Girls Rose. It's a podcast uncovering what we can learn about modern dating, love and relationships from popular television. It's Natasha and Justineways. Welcome, Welcome, thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 3: Thank you for bringing us this beautiful, wholesome, and a little weird movie.

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Speaker 7: It's one of my favorite remakes.

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Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was a remake until I started doing the research for it. So yeah, it's adapted from an older movie from nineteen forty seven called The Bishop's Wife, which was adapted from a novel of the same name from I think published in the twenties or something like that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, the original starred Carrie Grant and Loretta Young.

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Speaker 5: Yep, that's right.

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Speaker 4: I did not watch it, but it seemed to.

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Speaker 6: Be very I never watched it, that's right.

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Speaker 4: I don't know where I would watch it. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean I feel like in like the thirties and forties there was.

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Speaker 3: A bad jillion and movies about the spirit of Christmas, and then also in the nineties and then now it's mostly just like Netflix movies about a woman getting bonked on the head on Christmas Eve.

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Speaker 2: So true. So tell us about your relationship, your history with this movie, Justine, do you want to go first?

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Speaker 7: Sure, I can go first. I know this movie line by line. I could play every single character. I could sing every single song. At the very beginning of the movie where she was using ad libs to kind of call and response with the rest of the congregation in the church, I knew every single cue. I knew the lean, I knew the choreography. I know this movie inside and out. So I'm so excited to talk about every element of it. It's also a lot of elements in this movie have happened to me. I've lived with my grandmother, with my family. I have been in the choir at church. My mom is currently in many.

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Speaker 6: Choirs at a church.

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Speaker 7: And church culture was a big part of my growing up. I grew up in a really small church, so this is a really fun movie for me.

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Speaker 2: Nice and Natasha, how about you?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, damn, I didn't know that, Justine.

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Speaker 8: This is like this is oh yeah, movie, damn documentary.

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Speaker 9: I have not watched this in a couple of Christmases. It's hasn't been in my usual records, but I don't know why. We listened to the album for sure, Christmas Morning, cooking Breakfast usually, but yeah, it's been a minute since I watched the movie. So it was definitely like a walk down memory lane a little bit remembering the story. But I loved it. I mean, you can't beat Denzel Whitney. I mean the ensemble cast, just yeah, this is crazy. Music is crazy, the story is you know, magical, and yeah, definitely very nostalgic. I also grew up in the church, and yeah, just watching those elements just very familiar. And yeah, it's been a while, but I'm excited to talk about it with like very fresh eyes.

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Speaker 2: Jamie, how about you.

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Speaker 3: I'd seen this movie a couple of times before I was really into basic cable holiday movie marathons.

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Speaker 4: Halloween marathons, whatever it was.

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Speaker 3: If it was showing on TNT around holiday, saw it with five thousand commercial breaks, which is also how I watched it on TUB to prepare for this episode.

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Speaker 7: Oh my god, so many commercials on Tube.

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Speaker 4: Okay, we've all had. I was like, wow, okay, I'll buy laundry pods. My god. But yeah, I'd seen it growing up several times.

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Speaker 3: I would also say, like Natasha, I grew up more with the soundtrack than.

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Speaker 4: The movie itself. Okay, but I'd seen it many times.

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Speaker 3: The soundtrack is very Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning nostalgic. And the one thing I remember knowing about this movie the strongest was my mom was really into the fact that Whitney Houston's mom was in this movie as well, and so she was I.

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Speaker 4: Think, just mom's solidarity. Don't really know, but she.

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Speaker 3: Was like, that's I don't know, well, not playing her mom, not playing her she's in it.

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Speaker 6: She's like a cameo.

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Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, the Wonders, I think it's the correct me. I think it's the exchange where it's the woman who stops her and is like, are you sure that you want to like split the choir parts? Like that, and Kitney is like yes, and then she's like did you like that? You know, because she's like it was acceptable, and I don't know. I like I ended up falling down a rabbit hole of learning about Whitney Houston's mom, who was also a very accomplished sing singer. Yeah, I just didn't know anyways, seen it a couple of times, was really delighted to revisit it, and I think that there's something to really be said for like a wholesome yet somewhat horny Christmas movie, and this really delivers.

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Speaker 4: Kaitlin, what's your history?

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Speaker 2: Well, I have never seen the movie before prepping for this episode, so the whole spectrum is represented between someone who knows this inside and out who had never seen it. So listeners may know that I'm the Grinch of the podcast. I am not really into Christmas spirit. I don't have any I'm the Grinch's dog, so I don't seek out Christmas e movies very much unless it's up at Christmas Carol, and then I will watch that every year. But yeah, so I had never seen this movie, and I don't know what I was expecting, but it was not a horny angel lusting after Whitney Houston and her lusting right back, and then Courtney b Vance being like, hello, can you not? And that's basically the movie.

00:09:02
Speaker 4: It's a lot to talk about, a lot to talk about.

00:09:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm excited to discuss. Should we just get into the recap?

00:09:11
Speaker 4: Let's do it all right?

00:09:13
Speaker 5: Sounds good.

00:09:14
Speaker 2: Actually, let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back. Okay. So we open with voiceover from a little kid named Jeremiah saying that this story he's about to tell is true, even though no one believes him.

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Speaker 3: So many wholesome family movies are narrated by little boys, specifically yea, let's spread the love around. I feel like we've covered several movies this year that it begins with like, Hi, I'm a little guy.

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Speaker 4: You won't believe what happened.

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Speaker 2: It reminded me of a recent movie we've covered, Soul Food.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, also narrated by the little guy.

00:10:02
Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 9: I do love a child narrator, though there is trustworthy, the most honest.

00:10:09
Speaker 4: And you only see them every twenty minutes or so.

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Speaker 6: You're like, oh yeahs gives them reflection.

00:10:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, says something profound.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So it's a week from Christmas. We are in a church. We meet Jeremiah's mom and dad. So that is Julia Biggs played by Whitney Houston. There's probably a more correct term for this, but I wrote down she's the lead singer of the church choir.

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Speaker 5: Beyonce the yes.

00:10:46
Speaker 2: Director probably would be okay, yeah, nice. And then her husband, Henry Biggs played by Courtney b Vance. He's the reverend at this church called Saint Matthew's, and he's giving a sermon about temptation, and we're like foreshadowing much very different movie.

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Speaker 3: But it weirdly because I kind of forgot how horny this movie was. But there's also like another like trope of movies that take place in church. It always starts with like an ominous foreshadowing pulpit talk.

00:11:25
Speaker 4: The same thing happens in Doubt.

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Speaker 5: Very God.

00:11:29
Speaker 4: It also starts with like, so doubt It's different movies.

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Speaker 6: Also one of my favorites, though I loved that.

00:11:41
Speaker 4: I really love doubt.

00:11:43
Speaker 2: Jamie's a big doubt head. Yeah okay. So then we also meet Julia's mom, Marguerite, played by Jennifer Lewis, and things are not going great at the church. They are not pulling in many donations. They have to close the youth center. Henry just feels like he's not doing much good for the community, and so he prays to God to send him some help. And then out of the sky falls Dudley. That's Denzel Washington, and Dudley is thrilled about being there. He's jumping around, he's dancing, and we're like, what's going on here?

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Speaker 6: He scares the children, He does scare them.

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Speaker 7: Oh wait, can I just say one thing about the amount of black icons that we see in the first ten minutes of this film. We see Loretta Devine, Jennifer Lewis, Paul Bates, and Sherry Headley aka Lisa mcdell the icon. So I just wanted to say, how many black icons, especially at that time.

00:12:46
Speaker 6: I want to say, between like eighty nine and ninety.

00:12:48
Speaker 7: Seven, those were like really really stand out black actors.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then more will show up because then the final Ritchie he's.

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Speaker 4: A jump scare. Oh my god's good, like he did well?

00:13:06
Speaker 8: Yeah?

00:13:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay. So Dudley has fallen out of the sky and he approaches Reverend Henry and he's like, hey, I'm here on behalf of God and I'm here to answer your request. But Henry doesn't believe him. He thinks it's some kind of joke and he drives off. So Dudley's like, Okay, I guess I'll try a different approach. Then a young black man named Billy gets arrested because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he's racially profiled, so he gets put in jail. Henry goes to the police station to try to help, but he can't really do anything about it. And then Henry's car won't start, and Dudley shows up again, and then Henry's car magically starts, and Dudley's like, yeah, I did that because once again I'm an angel. And then he explains that he, you know, used to be a human on Earth, his time was cut short. He went to Heaven, he became an angel, and he's just been waiting for a chance to come back to Earth and help and do good.

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Speaker 3: Everyone's reception of an angel in this movie is on a scale like it makes sense how Courtney b Vance reacts to him.

00:14:21
Speaker 4: Because he's like, I just don't believe you.

00:14:23
Speaker 3: This is all in a day's work to be to like, you know, passively accept what someone is saying. But later on it's like seems like other people fully believe he's an angel, and they're like, yeah, there's this angel who's hanging out with us. Now it's Christmas, I guess for a Christmas.

00:14:41
Speaker 2: But everyone thinks that he was just like sent by the church council to help. I don't think anyone else realizes he's an angel. They're just like he's a guy. He's a nice guy, he's hot.

00:14:51
Speaker 3: But Whitney Doesny's like hmm okay, like she's very I've used to like any time there's like a supernatural occurrence has to be a scream, there has to be a freaky Friday moment. But everyone's just sort of like, wow, this is wild, very Christmas to all.

00:15:10
Speaker 9: I also love Dudley's like imagery of like these angels in a waiting room in heaven, just like waiting to get sent down, just like how does it work? What's the process? Or even he seems like excited, like oh and I made it. My number was called.

00:15:25
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, okay, well, and then based on his clothes, I would guess he died in like the nineteen.

00:15:32
Speaker 6: Fifties because the nineteen.

00:15:37
Speaker 2: And because he's wearing like a fedora and like you know the OVERCD like men in that era. And so I'm like, okay, he's been waiting for like forty or forty five years or so to be sent back down to Earth. And he doesn't know what like windows is. He's like what how do what is computer? So I'm like, okay, he's from a different era and he's been waiting for.

00:15:58
Speaker 6: Dec when was pizza popular?

00:16:01
Speaker 5: Because he freaks out over the.

00:16:03
Speaker 6: Pizza in the hot dog.

00:16:05
Speaker 7: So I don't know when those Oh man, I don't be better about my food history.

00:16:09
Speaker 5: I got to research this after.

00:16:12
Speaker 4: Slice.

00:16:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jamie write a book about it. Sorry you're you're at Yeah Okay. So Dudley is with Henry, and he also outlines the rules of being an angel and helping people on Earth, which are that angels can't do anything that people should be doing, that everything that, like a person that an angel helps out does, has to be of their own free will. And finally, when an angel has accomplished his mission and leaves, then the person he was helping in this case, Henry won't have any memory of the angel anymore.

00:16:52
Speaker 4: That sounds like such a bummer job. I know he makes it. Being an angel sound like a lot of paper pushing, and then and like a lot of waiting around.

00:17:04
Speaker 3: And then it's like and then you get to do something amazing and maybe you'll even fall in love, but you can never have sex, and then no one remembers you and you have to go back to the waiting room.

00:17:14
Speaker 2: That's a thankless come.

00:17:15
Speaker 7: You should be able to have sex if you can't remember coming.

00:17:17
Speaker 3: On, that's that's right, except Jeremiah will remember for something. He's like, no, Mom, I swear to God, you had sex with Denzel Washington.

00:17:30
Speaker 6: I'm not the trauma.

00:17:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a very different tonal sequel to this movie where Jeremiah is in therapy years later being like, I know that this happened, but no one will acknowledge Denzel Washington's presence in my life one week.

00:17:48
Speaker 5: It's like haunted by the memory of Denzel.

00:17:50
Speaker 2: Oh God, Okay. So then as Dudley is saying goodbye to Henry, they shake hands and then there's like this surge of warm energy between them, and Henry's like, oh my god, what was that? And there's music and it's going like Lily.

00:18:08
Speaker 6: Does it remind you, guys of The Broad City?

00:18:10
Speaker 5: Woosh?

00:18:12
Speaker 9: I didn't connect that up my own, but yet when the wind is knocked out.

00:18:17
Speaker 6: Of her, yeah, we love the Broad City.

00:18:19
Speaker 5: Woosh.

00:18:19
Speaker 7: We Actually.

00:18:22
Speaker 9: That's one of my favorite episodes. Yes, it's the wind, not that.

00:18:28
Speaker 2: Which is what happens to Henry. He's like, oh my god. But then he's like, actually, I don't feel anything, and I still don't believe you by now. Meanwhile, things are falling apart. The church boiler explodes, Jeremiah's best friend Hakim is taken away to be put in foster care. Billy has to stay in jail because his bail is too high for his friends or family to be able to pay it. And then also things between Henry and his wife Julia are not great. He is too busy with a lot of these church matters to have much time for her, and Julia's mother, Marguerite, notices and she's like, get your house back together.

00:19:18
Speaker 4: Yeah. Marguerite really is like, hey, get over it.

00:19:22
Speaker 3: I my husband also neglected me for the same job, and you're like, can you at least commiserate guys.

00:19:30
Speaker 2: So then Dudley shows up again, being like, actually, I'm the reverend's new assistant. The church council sent me, and Henry's secretary, Beverly, played by Loretta Devine, thinks she's being fired and replaced, and Dudley's like, no, no, no, I'm just here an amazing job.

00:19:54
Speaker 5: She's so good for that.

00:19:56
Speaker 6: She's good at that kind of monologue.

00:20:00
Speaker 5: I'm playing like an anxious character.

00:20:03
Speaker 4: So well.

00:20:05
Speaker 7: Have you guys seen her on Watch What Happens Live? No, She's one of my all time favorite guests. I watch She went crazy, God, so drunk.

00:20:19
Speaker 4: That show is like chaotic.

00:20:23
Speaker 7: No, I want to be a bartender, so bad, so bad, And if you're listening, please me yes, but yes, Loretta Devine on Watch Happens Live is a very good episode.

00:20:38
Speaker 2: Hear this gossip, I will watch it, okay. So Dudley's like, no, no, no, I'm just here to help. And then Julia and Marguerite are like, sounds good to me, especially because you're hot and sexy, so we don't mind having you around basically, and then Dudley hangs out with Jeremiah and confronts him because Jeremiah is sad that Hakim has just left. Then Henry has a meeting with this guy named Joe Hamilton played by Gregory Hines. He's a real estate developer who wants to build like basically a mega church, and he wants Henry to be the reverend there.

00:21:22
Speaker 3: Also like another like eighties nineties trope of like a land developer as the main antagonist of the movie.

00:21:29
Speaker 4: We should bring that back, I mean, where does that go now?

00:21:33
Speaker 2: More than ever, let's villainize landlords. So Henry reluctantly accepts Joe's offer, and then when Henry tells Julie about it, she's furious that Henry didn't consult her and that he sold out. And also her father used to be the reverend at Saint Matthew's, so she feels like extra attachment to it, and she feels like she doesn't want the church to be abandoned or like her presence, her family's presence in the church to go away.

00:22:07
Speaker 9: That's me was a wild moment, him selling the church that belonged to his wife's father, like out from underneath her without even consulting. It's like, is this real life?

00:22:19
Speaker 5: How are you going to live past this?

00:22:22
Speaker 3: And she's only allowed to be upset about it for like a scene. Yeah, and then I was like, well, get over it.

00:22:29
Speaker 4: You're like, shouldn't you be mad to that?

00:22:32
Speaker 6: Right?

00:22:33
Speaker 4: You have a huge attachment to this church.

00:22:35
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's like grounds for divorce. It was kind of swept under, like it was nothing.

00:22:41
Speaker 4: This would be written by man.

00:22:43
Speaker 9: Yeah.

00:22:43
Speaker 7: I think that's when the audience starts turning and being like, you know what, maybe you can't fuck Denzel Washington.

00:22:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm rooting for Julia and Dudley.

00:22:57
Speaker 6: Yeah all that.

00:23:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a scene where I was like, oh, this movie was written by two men. If they're like, well, they'll discuss the fact that this happened, but also, you know, it's ultimately they have to accept their decision.

00:23:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So Dudley, meanwhile, he's concerned about Henry and Julia's marriage, so he's like, Julia, all you need to do is just go dancing together and reignite that spark. But Henry is too busy to go. So he's like, Dudley, you take her dancing.

00:23:33
Speaker 7: So would you imagine handing off your woman to Denzel Washington and go to jazz night?

00:23:41
Speaker 6: Right?

00:23:43
Speaker 5: Her little.

00:23:46
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, and she when she's walking down the stairs and Dudley's like, hubba hubba.

00:23:56
Speaker 3: It's so like I feel like that's the power of Denzel washing, where it's like it's not necessarily a horny shot, but he makes it a horny shot.

00:24:06
Speaker 7: Yeah, the eyes and it might be a little bit of projection. Now, like you were horny watching Denzil perhaps maybe, or.

00:24:16
Speaker 2: Horny watching Whitney.

00:24:17
Speaker 7: It's or horny watching Whitney even very active people. Yeah, it was crazy crazy.

00:24:29
Speaker 2: Okay, So then Julia and Dudley go dancing. Lionel Richie's there and he's like, Julia, you should sing the way you used to when you came here. Because this movie uses any excuse to have Whitney Houston sing. It happens so many times, so many times.

00:24:45
Speaker 6: I think it's actually really important.

00:24:47
Speaker 5: Though.

00:24:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, I want to talk about it towards the end, but I think it is important that Whitney, Well, it's important. And also I'm sure it was a demand.

00:24:55
Speaker 2: I in this movie if I could sing in every twelve scenes. Okay, So she sings, Dudley is like, wooo, good job, and they ultimately just like have a very nice time at the jazz club. They come home Henry, But I mean there is so much, so that when they come home, Henry is very jealous and he's like, I don't believe this, and Dudley's like, well, that's your problem. You don't believe anything anymore. You're compromising your values, you're ignoring your wife, and you haven't even done anything about your son losing his best friend, and you don't even believe that Billy is innocent. So Henry's like, maybe he's right. So Henry goes to the courthouse and gives an impassioned speech to the judge. Next thing we know, Billy is free and home. Then there's a scene where Julia and Dudley are ice skating.

00:26:01
Speaker 5: And Julian Dudley are on a date.

00:26:03
Speaker 3: They're on a date and if you're so on a date that she is like, Jeremiah, get out of here.

00:26:11
Speaker 9: Yeah, Jeliah was side eyeing, Yeah, Jeremy bench.

00:26:15
Speaker 5: Looking like something is not right here.

00:26:18
Speaker 9: Date.

00:26:20
Speaker 2: He like knew that he was the third wheel, so he's like, I need to sit down, I need to go over here drink my cocoa. And then, like Julian Dudley, if we thought they were vibing before, now they are by being and this romantic music is playing, and we're like, is she gonna have sex with an angel? Happening?

00:26:45
Speaker 6: Thrill through my seven year old body.

00:26:47
Speaker 7: If I found out that they were going to have an affair at the local Hilton. Oh my god, y'all don't even know, do you. Me and Natasha just had an episode of this reviewing some holiday movies that'll come out the end of November. But we talked about how there's not a whole lot of like on screen chemistry the way that there used to be in films with couples, Like, right, Whitney and Denzel have such a fair secrecy chemistry, and Whitney and Courtney have such husband wife Obama chemistry. Yeah, chemistry this film, I think.

00:27:28
Speaker 4: It really is. I feel the same way about a lot.

00:27:30
Speaker 3: It feels like there's more of like an algorithmic nature to casting now, and it's like not consider like.

00:27:38
Speaker 4: Like, okay, who are two people with like huge.

00:27:40
Speaker 3: Followings that like aren't the same audiences to be like they're in love and it's like it doesn't work.

00:27:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think they do chemistry tests anymore. Yeah, before like figuring out who they should cast, they have such discrete affair.

00:28:00
Speaker 6: Oh, my god, specifics.

00:28:03
Speaker 2: And you know who else can tell is Julia's mom, Marguerite. They come home from ice skating and she all but like screams, and she's like, you cannot have sex with Dudley. You're married to Henry. And then also Henry sees all the chemistry they have and he's like, Dudley, stay away from my wife and leave right now. So then there's a scene where Julia and Henry are taking Christmas baskets to people, and Julia calls him out for being jealous and he's like, I'm not jealous. Meanwhile, Dudley is lurking nearby and he uses his angel powers to blow Henry over, so he falls in the snow. And then Julia comes over and Dudley blows her over next to Henry because in an earlier scene, she had told Dudley a story about how when they were kids, she and Dudley fell in the snow together and that's how they knew they were gonna get married someday or something. And so now they're in the snow again and they're vibing, they're kind of reconnecting as husband and wife, and then other things start to get better too. The church has a new boiler. Henry has arranged to bring Hakeem back to stay with them over the holidays, and then Henry goes to Joe Hamilton, that real estate guy, to be like, never mind, I'm not going to be a sellout in your mega church. And Joe is like, oh yeah, well I bought the mortgage and I'm going to tear your church down. And so suddenly the stakes are so high. Dudley goes to see Joe Hamilton and he's basically like, I'm an angel and if you tear down this church, I will see to it that you go straight to Hell.

00:29:56
Speaker 4: My God. They have the piano that they have at the Magic Castle.

00:30:00
Speaker 3: You're like, oh yeah, really impressive, really cool. God, it's so Christmas movie.

00:30:10
Speaker 9: I love the little subtle random ways that they like wheeled magic and like the power of God, like playing the piano, why that moment.

00:30:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, turning on a radio, you know, really powerful stuff.

00:30:24
Speaker 4: He's like, wait, that not even plugged it.

00:30:26
Speaker 3: You're like, yeah, that's God's God.

00:30:33
Speaker 2: Okay, So I think it's Christmas Day now. Dudley comes to the church to say goodbye to Julia, saying it's time for him to leave, and then Henry gives this big Christmas sermon in which he was planning to tell everyone that the church is going to be torn down, but then he goes off script and gives a passionate sermon about hope and love and forgiveness and how an angel helped him and they're gonna save the church, and everyone's like whoo, and Dudley's like, oh, he finally believes me. And then Julia sings some more because Whitney Houston put in her contract that she has to sing song, and then Joe Hamilton is like, never mind, I won't tear down your church. And so all is well, which means that Dudley's angel mission is accomplished, which also means that Henry and Julia forget.

00:31:35
Speaker 3: He has to go back to what sounds like pergetory. It sounds like he works, he works a cent.

00:31:41
Speaker 10: Yeah, it literally sounds like no exit like it sounds scary, Yeah, yes, but it's heaven right because Dudley accomplished his mission, Henry Angelia forget Dudley.

00:31:54
Speaker 2: Now they don't recognize him. It's like they never met him, but Jeremiah still does. And then the movie ends with the family together and happy. They adopt Hakeem and now Dudley is the angel tree topper on their Christmas tree. The end.

00:32:15
Speaker 6: Yes, Merry Christmas.

00:32:20
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss, and we're back.

00:32:35
Speaker 3: But what if all you wanted for Christmas was to have sex with angel Denzel Washington?

00:32:41
Speaker 4: How does that work? How does that square?

00:32:43
Speaker 2: Julia does not get her wish, her Christmas wish.

00:32:47
Speaker 4: But at least she'll never know.

00:32:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, shall we start with some context corner?

00:32:54
Speaker 5: Yes?

00:32:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, So this movie is an adaptation we already said for a movie from the forty that none of us have ever seen and probably never will, because this one is good. Directed by Penny Marshall, obviously a very iconic director.

00:33:09
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think of it.

00:33:10
Speaker 3: We've covered several of her movies on the show before. We recently covered Big, We've covered a leak of their own, and now this movie, as it is written by I think that this movie is an interesting case, an interesting I mean questionable case of a lot of high up white creatives with an all black cast because the screenplay is written by two white guys. However, Denzel Washington was the major production force in getting this movie made. It was produced through his production company, Mundy Lane Entertainment, and at the time he gave an interview about sort of the importance and his commitment to having an all black cast in this movie, although he did consider having Julia Roberts in the main part at one point.

00:33:57
Speaker 4: Yes, what then was like, never mind Whitdy Houston, Oh.

00:34:01
Speaker 6: My god, that would have changed the whole movie. That's yeah.

00:34:05
Speaker 9: No, Jennifer lewis Les was adopted or something.

00:34:09
Speaker 4: Jer is all these six years older than I.

00:34:13
Speaker 6: Was gonna say.

00:34:13
Speaker 7: She does not give Whitney Houston's mom at all.

00:34:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I kept forgetting that they were at Sisters, but okay.

00:34:20
Speaker 6: So yeah, yeah.

00:34:22
Speaker 3: Denzel Washington said this at the time, just about his company in general. I'm happy to know that on a film like Devil in a Blue Dress, we put one hundred or so many black people to work. And it was the same thing with the Preacher's Wife, and it will be the same thing with other films that I'm involved in, whether I'm on a producer level or not. We do it because they're capable and because nobody else is necessarily looking out for them. Speaking about black actors and black creatives in general.

00:34:48
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:34:48
Speaker 9: Nice.

00:34:49
Speaker 5: I love knowing that.

00:34:50
Speaker 6: I didn't realize that Denzel was.

00:34:52
Speaker 9: I mean, I saw that Penny Marshall had directed it, but it was Donzell's production company behind it, which I don't know that either.

00:34:58
Speaker 5: That feels good.

00:34:59
Speaker 9: Also, I think we can get into it, but like the representation of the church and the black family, and I think it felt very authentic. So it makes sense that there were black creatives behind the scene that helped make it, you know, bring justice to it. Yeah, and we stand Penny Marshall, but I was like, why her directing it? Although, like apparently Denzel Washington sought her out specifically and was like, you need to direct this movie, please, And she originally turned it down because she didn't think the script was very good, but then it got rewritten and then she came on board. Denzel also approached Whitney Houston and was like, you have to be in this movie, and.

00:35:41
Speaker 2: She said, okay. But I did a little bit of research on the novel that it was based on, which you know, it's not the most relevant thing except to say that it ends very very differently from both the movie adaptation from the forties and the preacher's wife.

00:36:03
Speaker 4: She does have sex with Denzel Washington.

00:36:07
Speaker 7: Yes, please tell me that it's closer to that.

00:36:11
Speaker 2: It's not quite that, but it is closer to it. So the way the book ends is that the angel, who in this case is named Michael, he realizes or he learns, that he as an angel, can't fulfill quote unquote mortal love because it's not related to divine intervention. So he can't have sex basically because it would be inappropriate and it's not divine enough or something and very philosophical.

00:36:44
Speaker 6: Okay, wow.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: So he returns to heaven after helping the bishop character, and then Julia realizes that she will never have a passionate relationship with her husband. She then decides to have another child to share her love with since she knows she won't get that love from her husband.

00:37:14
Speaker 5: Oh god, weird, I got dark.

00:37:18
Speaker 6: Well, it is so weird.

00:37:21
Speaker 2: And when I was also looking up this, but I couldn't find a whole lot of information about it. But it's also listed as like satire. I think it might be more satirical than both movie adaptations, which I think are far more earnest.

00:37:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, that makes more sense. Still weird, still.

00:37:40
Speaker 7: Weird, weird, but also explains Hakim's character.

00:37:44
Speaker 6: Yes, child could be Yeah.

00:37:48
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a good point because when I ended the movie, I didn't really feel that hopeful for Whitney. I mean, I know, the music is going and everyone's smiling and it's Christmas, but like, Okay, the church is still gonna be around. That's great, but he's still busy as hell, Like that was the real issue with Henry, Like he's never home. So is that problem solved? Like we don't get any result on that.

00:38:15
Speaker 3: So yeah, I felt the same way, like she's pretty much back to.

00:38:18
Speaker 4: One at the end of the movie.

00:38:21
Speaker 2: Especially because Henry's assistant, Loretta Divine is like remember that part at the end where that character Saul is like, I'm gonna marry you, and Reverend You're gonna have to find a new secretary, implying that like she won't work anymore now that she's married. Yeah, so he's gonna be even more busy. I mean, maybe he'll hire another like assistant or secretary. But yeah, it ended a little bizarrely to me. Yeah, and then another thing I wanted to point out about kind of the development of this movie is that an earlier version of the script had Julia being quite underdeveloped, so, according to an interview with Whitney Houston, she says, Julia was a little sterile, and I thought she needs to be more realistic. She needs to get a little mad sometimes because she's being put off a lot. She needs expression, she needs to be able to express herself, and she needs a job. She needs something to do, as opposed to The Bishop's Wife, where she was just the bishop's wife. So I think she pushed for a more developed character in Julia with Rewrites, although I would argue that they could have done a bit more to develop her because, at least for me, like the Julia character mostly exists as like the object of two men's affection more than like a fully realized, fleshed out yeah character who was like allowed to make active choices and do anything that steers the direction of the story. And I think, like Whitney Houston, being that character like maybe tricks people into thinking she's a more dynamic and interesting character than she actually is. But like I kept being like, yeah, this movie is called the Preacher's Wife, so I expected it to be more about her doing things right.

00:40:27
Speaker 3: She's kind of like just I mean, I saw that quote as well, and I was like, wow, it sucks that Whitty Houston had to push to get.

00:40:35
Speaker 4: What felt like not even this.

00:40:37
Speaker 3: Very much, right, Yeah, And I mean I think just in general, like this is like I don't know if this character is a complete example of this, but I feel like there's very often when there's like a woman at the center of a story, especially if she is a wife and a mother, like she's written in this kind of sterile way, and like she's only allowed to have an inner life up to a very particular point, and then at a point where it actually become a threat or like too much about her, it.

00:41:04
Speaker 4: Scales back because the script takes great care.

00:41:07
Speaker 3: To say like she is an excellent wife and mother, like that point is hit on repeatedly, and that she loves her husband even though like, but we can feel the vibe in this see but okay, you know, I don't know or like the scenes between her and her mother feel like they're mostly there to reinforce her goodness, even though it's usually her mom yelling at her about potentially.

00:41:32
Speaker 4: I don't know.

00:41:33
Speaker 3: I kind of struggled with how kind of underdeveloped she felt I'm like, just let her have like a crisis about her marriage, like it doesn't make her a bad person.

00:41:42
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.

00:41:44
Speaker 9: Yeah, her whole focus is on her focus on her mother's focus is on like the keeping the household together, meaning their marriage, and yeah, she's not really allowed to have like an outer life. I guess she gets this little dalliance with Dudley, But I think it was interesting how Henry his focus is so external and it's fine, but it seems as if the issues within their household, like the success of it being solved, relies on Julia mm hmm.

00:42:13
Speaker 5: Like his business.

00:42:15
Speaker 9: His first business is the church and getting that together, and Julia needs to work harder to get his attention back. And that's basically yeah, what her focus could only be. And as soon as she starts something with Dudley, it eventually gets halted pretty quickly.

00:42:31
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah.

00:42:32
Speaker 7: I will say her involvement and position at the church is a pretty common one of most of the times the preacher's wife is the head of the music at the church, and her being Whitney Houston obviously.

00:42:44
Speaker 6: Gives it a leg up.

00:42:45
Speaker 7: But also this is, according to Wikipedia, the best selling gospel album of all time is the soundject of this film, which is not surprising because it is fantastic, But what it also does for Julia is it kind of gives her kind of like a sister act kind of storyline of like I have this talented choir just waiting for stardom. Like it gives her that kind of leadership position, but it's still at her husband's church, so it's still kind of underneath her husband's kind of wing or shadow. But what it does do is give her a leadership position and a place where she can like really stand out in this film.

00:43:21
Speaker 2: Which apparently she had to fight for again. She's like yeah, She's like, can my character do can she have a job, do anything?

00:43:29
Speaker 5: Do anything? Yeah?

00:43:31
Speaker 6: Yeah? Can I just sell these records? But you know I can, like.

00:43:36
Speaker 2: O right, yeah.

00:43:39
Speaker 7: But I just thought that was a really it's a part of the film that I never thought about of how important the soundtrack is to the development of Julia's character.

00:43:48
Speaker 4: Totally.

00:43:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, Justine, because this movie is a documentary, how did you feel about how the church was representative portrayed within the.

00:43:58
Speaker 7: Movie so perfectly, so perfectly. That's why it does not surprise me, even though I didn't know it that Denzel Washington's production company was behind this because I went to a church where it was really small. There was no air conditioning, but it was a stop on the underground railroad, so there was like.

00:44:15
Speaker 6: A historic aspect to the church.

00:44:17
Speaker 7: It's been around since like eighteen fifty six, I think, but it's like so small.

00:44:21
Speaker 6: The people who run it are all seventy.

00:44:23
Speaker 7: Plus and the choir is like phenomenal, and they made most of their donations and money through Christmas.

00:44:31
Speaker 5: So this is a very accurate portrayal.

00:44:33
Speaker 3: And then I thought it was cool that the Georgia Mass Choir is like the main like it's like a professional, huge.

00:44:38
Speaker 5: Successful mm hmm.

00:44:40
Speaker 4: Yep.

00:44:41
Speaker 5: I was gonna add another.

00:44:42
Speaker 9: I think really authentic aspect of the church in the movie is like the struggling black church.

00:44:48
Speaker 6: Yep.

00:44:49
Speaker 9: I feel like every church I've been to there's like a building fund. There's like a fundraiser for something. Something's broken, somebody's son needs the down payment for, you know, a new house, sore needs the deposit for school, and the whole community.

00:45:04
Speaker 5: Is rallying around.

00:45:05
Speaker 6: So I thought that was very very true to form.

00:45:08
Speaker 9: When I think it's billy, they get to bailed money for Billy, and like how involved Henry was, how involved everybody was. That is I mean, that's so authentic to just like the community feel of church, even the moment where the youth center got closed and how like devastating that was just for the kids, because oftentimes the church.

00:45:29
Speaker 6: Is that's the hangout spot.

00:45:31
Speaker 9: Yeah yeah, not even during Sundays, like maybe during the week once they know your life is going to Bible study and then you're just like hanging out with everybody else, you know, downstairs at the youth center. So yeah, I thought that was very very authentic. Just those little tiny moments made it very much like, Okay, this is we're in a for real black church.

00:45:50
Speaker 6: It's not just a movie. This feels like real.

00:45:52
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:45:52
Speaker 2: That's something I really liked about the movie is that it presents this notion of like just because it's Christmas time doesn't mean that all of these like issues that affect a community go away, the way that so many Christmas movies are like, Wow, it's the most magical time of year. It's cookies and gingerbread men and sugar and cocoa and everything's amazing and so beautiful, which and that's because so many movies center upper middle class white characters or families in like predominantly white suburbs, or they'll be in like castles or an estate something like that. And I just appreciate that this movie centers a black family and black community, and you know, it has it depicts a lot of things that affect this community. You know, the struggle of a lot of these characters being in a poorer class, a character being racially profiled and arrested just days before Christmas, Like these things unfortunately do happen in the movie. Is like, yeah, these things don't stop happening just because it's December twentieth or something.

00:47:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, I never thought about that. It's a good point.

00:47:11
Speaker 3: And it's still like a like it presents all these very real, authentic issues.

00:47:16
Speaker 4: It also still is.

00:47:18
Speaker 3: A very like joyful movie and has like a very hopeful message, which I feel like is a difficult needle to kind of thread at that this movie does really well.

00:47:28
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a good point because I feel like, sometimes, yeah, it could be a very thin line with like a movie that's trying to show like social issues or like the plight of you know, black poverty or whatever, like it could get you know, dark and said, and the way that they're able to maintain like humor and magic and romance is actually really impressive.

00:47:48
Speaker 1: It is.

00:47:48
Speaker 7: Yeah, you need all those characters. You need the guy who drives the church van. You need the nice lady who's a lawyer who goes to church like. You need all those people in order to insert all that he were and levity into these situations because they.

00:48:03
Speaker 5: Bring it in real life.

00:48:05
Speaker 2: You need Loretta Divine to be there.

00:48:07
Speaker 6: You have to have Loretta Divine.

00:48:08
Speaker 4: Yes, I wish that we had more Loretta Divine. I mean mainly.

00:48:14
Speaker 3: For for like the comic relief through line of like she thinks that Denzel Washington is trying to displace her when he's working for his job. Is I think, much worse than anyone else is in the movie. It sounds like he lives in hell kind of.

00:48:30
Speaker 2: Do you see how excited he was when he was eating pizza. He's like, oh my God, I haven't had food in forty years.

00:48:37
Speaker 4: Does God not let you eat?

00:48:39
Speaker 9: I started torturing them up there. What I thought it was supposed to be fataday so that you could.

00:48:43
Speaker 6: Get whatever you want, whatever you wanted. However you want to be made.

00:48:46
Speaker 3: What God's like feeding them astronaut food. They're like, yeah, anyways, but I wish that we had more Loretta. Did we do learn a little bit about her character? We know that she's a single mom, But I just felt like, like we talk about on the show all the time, there were opportunities and characters and obviously like unbelievable actors that like, why wouldn't she take advantage of an opportunity to show Loretta Divine and Whitney Houston like acting together more? Because also this came out the year after Waiting to Exhale, You're like, oh my god, chemistry is off the charts, Like, write a more meaningful friendship for them.

00:49:33
Speaker 4: Because it's like if you cast Leratta divine.

00:49:35
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously every second she's on screen is amazing. It's again, it's very like two guys read this movie that Denzel Washington's Christmas gift to her is a boyfriend.

00:49:45
Speaker 4: But it was sweet. I liked it, Like, I just felt like.

00:49:49
Speaker 3: There was so much more potential for that character, especially because we already know that she and Whitney Houston have like unbelievable chemistry because of a huge movie that came out the year before.

00:49:59
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a good point. They very much underutilized her. Yeah.

00:50:04
Speaker 5: I think another thing in the movie.

00:50:05
Speaker 9: There was a lot of little subplots, not all necessary. I love Loretta, love to see her, but that was like a random subplot. I agree, Like Whitney really only talks with her mother, more confides in her mother, I guess a little bit in Dudley. But yeah, I don't know why they didn't give her like an out or have some other aside a.

00:50:30
Speaker 2: Friendship, a female friendships and how scandalous would it have been if it was her husband's assisted That would have been fabulous.

00:50:39
Speaker 3: At another subplot, Yeah, because Loretta Devine has like information about him that she like.

00:50:46
Speaker 4: That's that's an important friendship.

00:50:48
Speaker 7: Yes, exactly knows his schedule. That's how she could sneak around with the dates with Dudley. She could have gone on more dates.

00:50:54
Speaker 9: Like.

00:50:56
Speaker 3: They started a Googled calendar for instadality.

00:50:59
Speaker 4: That makes me so happy. Uh Yeah, And I think like I liked that. I mean, yeah, I guess that Julia and Dudley are friends. I get. I mean they're friends, but also they're friends, they have.

00:51:14
Speaker 5: More than friends.

00:51:16
Speaker 2: They're winking at each other. They're flirting.

00:51:19
Speaker 3: I guess this is like my last thought on Julia's character is that I think it's interesting that they give her And I'm pretty sure this detail was added when Whitney Houston was cast to justify her singing more of like, oh, she used to really like singing at this club, but now she only sings at the church, but she still misses singing at the club and really enjoyed it, and Lionel Ritchie.

00:51:38
Speaker 4: Wishes that she was there. More just a cool detail.

00:51:41
Speaker 3: I really liked that scene, but I feel like it like introduces like one of those subplots that like she is looking for fulfillment outside the church and looking for like validation of her singing outside the church, but she doesn't get that, and everyone close to her, especially I mean definitely her husband, but also Dudley and her mom kind of like reinforced to her, like you should be happy with what you have, like that Dudley literally says that to her. He's saying, like everything you ever wanted, you already have, and it's like, well, I'm pretty sure several scenes ago she told you that's not true. Like I found it, like in the way that again, like the wife and mother box of like you're lucky to be in the place that you are, and it would be selfish to want more or different.

00:52:31
Speaker 7: It's important too that in that scene at the club, she's singing a secular song, she's not singing a song about God.

00:52:37
Speaker 6: Yeah, that is really important to the film. And that's yeah.

00:52:40
Speaker 4: Wow.

00:52:40
Speaker 7: I never really even realized how like instrumental that one scene is to giving us a little tease into who she was before.

00:52:49
Speaker 5: But that's true.

00:52:49
Speaker 7: And I always, my, well, my whole family is always like, she's not singing about God and this she's singing about her and Dudley.

00:52:56
Speaker 6: This is scandalous and crazy.

00:53:00
Speaker 4: But it's such a good song.

00:53:02
Speaker 6: Yeah, I love that song.

00:53:03
Speaker 2: I think that Henry kind of gets let off the hook a little too easily because, like I understand that he is a very important member of this community. A lot of people look to him for guidance and for assistance and all this kind of stuff. So he's very you know, busy running around, but he is like pretty actively neglecting his relationship with his partner. And like we said, like Marguerite is always on Julia's case about it. She's never on Henry's case to be like.

00:53:36
Speaker 3: Even though she doesn't like him, which is where like, why are you defending him so hard when you seem to actively dislike.

00:53:43
Speaker 2: Him, right, yeah, And she's like, well, you know, my husband was the same way, and that's just how it is. And it's like it doesn't.

00:53:50
Speaker 4: You hate him too, like you don't have to be nice to him.

00:53:53
Speaker 2: But yeah, Marguerite's always being like Julia, the responsibility is on you to like maintain this household and keep this family together, but like seems like she's doing all she can. Meanwhile, Henry, you know, he's doing his responsibilities around the community, but he also doesn't seem to be fully acknowledging that it's taking a toll on his marriage. And there's a scene where like I think they're eating breakfast together and he's like being snippy and he says something like, if you were listening more closely, you would have heard an apology in there, But now I have to go to a meeting, and it's like, well, you actually didn't apologize, which is why no one heard it. And then he like gets so and like I get it. He's like very threatened by Dudlin understandable. It's Denzel Washington. He's very handsome, and he's also actively seducing his wife, but he doesn't seem to take much accountability for their relationship, and I think by the end, he still doesn't fully recognize like, oh, I need to be a more present partner in this relationship and good thing that I don't know who Dudley is anymore, or else I would still probably be really jealous.

00:55:12
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that's what's really missing from the movie, is like a full circle moment for Henry acknowledging, like a full accountability moment. Yeah, that's why I kind of ended being like I don't really have much hope for them, Like the church isn't sold yay, but like your marriage is still in the good And I think also, yeah, Henry is he.

00:55:32
Speaker 5: Gets off very easily.

00:55:34
Speaker 9: He's not only neglectful of his wife, but even his son. His son's ye best friend got sent to foster care. Like no conversation between the two of them. He keeps missing moments and appointments with his son, and like you don't see Marguerite saying anything about that, Like it's really very much focused on the marriage, and you know, poor little jeremiahs like sitting back witnessing all of this and getting the brunt of it in his own way by not having his dad present, for sure.

00:56:03
Speaker 4: And then has to remember all of it and no one else does.

00:56:08
Speaker 6: He's the only one with the trauma.

00:56:10
Speaker 4: Oh my god, yeah, I agree.

00:56:13
Speaker 3: I'm not convinced at the end of the movie that he's necessarily going to treat her better right now that everything's done. And also that doesn't make the work he's doing in his community any less important and he less impactful, any less taxing on your energy. But it feels like a very low bar to be like, Okay, so he's not going to sell her family's church to a land developer.

00:56:39
Speaker 4: You're like, that's a really low bar. Yeah, that shouldn't have been on the table.

00:56:45
Speaker 6: Yeah, he had did not sell the church. It was handed to you by your wife's family. It's true.

00:56:51
Speaker 2: Joe Hamilton, by the way, speaking of this land developer guy, I was like Joe Hamilton because black people can be bloodsucking real estate sharks. Too interesting.

00:57:08
Speaker 6: Also another iconic black actor.

00:57:12
Speaker 9: Oh my god, yeah, for sure, that is interesting. The choice of making the real estate vulture guy a black guy and he's from the community too, right, he seems very familiar. Yeah.

00:57:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder how that is done in the a. Again, like we didn't watch the original or read the original. I wonder if that is like a one to one thing from the original.

00:57:33
Speaker 4: Don't know the.

00:57:34
Speaker 2: Movie, and I think the book focuses more on the bishop. Bishop Henry is trying to raise money to build a huge cathedral for his overcrowded parish. So it's actually the bishop's idea to be like, let's build a huge church, rather than an outside like real estate developer coming in and trying to bring the bishop onto the mega church. Yeah, so that's a story change. I don't even know if there is a real estate developer character in the original source material anyway.

00:58:12
Speaker 3: Again, a very nineties choice, Like I it's like that is a main plot point in Casper.

00:58:19
Speaker 4: That was the main plot point.

00:58:20
Speaker 2: In like so many Save the Build, the Hannah Montana movie, Save the Building.

00:58:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, save the building. And it's like, I mean, in the case.

00:58:29
Speaker 3: Of this movie, in the case of all those movies, yeah, they had to save the building.

00:58:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the stakes they're high. I wanted to talk a little bit more about Julia and Marguerite's relation. Actually, I don't know. I feel like we maybe covered it.

00:58:45
Speaker 9: I do want to add though, like I love I love Jennifer Lewis. She has played so many mothers, so many black films.

00:58:55
Speaker 2: I love her character.

00:58:57
Speaker 5: She's terrible but also great.

00:59:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's always like I don't like to get into other people's business, and all she does is get into other people's.

00:59:06
Speaker 6: Everybody's up in the business.

00:59:08
Speaker 9: Yeah, smoking her cigarette in the house as the child's walking around.

00:59:14
Speaker 3: God bless, it's great. I also, I still am like brutal that they cast her as Whitney's mom when she is I can't say it enough, a mere six years older.

00:59:24
Speaker 4: Ridiculous than Whitney.

00:59:26
Speaker 3: She was born in fifty seven, Whitney was born in sixty three.

00:59:30
Speaker 4: That does happen every once in a while.

00:59:32
Speaker 3: I feel like that was a that was a big thing people talk about with Golden.

00:59:35
Speaker 4: Girls all the time too.

00:59:36
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, is that like the mother daughter were unbelievably close in age, and you're like, oh, you're kind of roasting this other actor for no reason. But anyways, Yeah, No, Jennifer Lewis, it's like, I mean, it's not like you would want anyone else playing this part.

00:59:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, and she has.

00:59:54
Speaker 6: Just like strong black mom energy.

00:59:57
Speaker 9: She does.

00:59:58
Speaker 7: She has strong black mom energy, and she could really be a villainous in a great way. And she was a little bit of a villain in this film, I think, but.

01:00:07
Speaker 2: In a very like realistic, authentic fairly.

01:00:14
Speaker 9: Yeah, just like all up in their business, observing their marriage because she lives there, always wants to put her two cents in there, and then yeah, cracking down on her daughter for what's going on your house, like get it together. I taught you better than this. I wish she I mean, she's very authentic, so it is what it is. I wish she had a little bit more of like a harder stance against.

01:00:38
Speaker 5: Henry right yeah, and calling.

01:00:41
Speaker 9: Trying to hold him account, but more than just her daughter. I wish even just like one or two more lines about that would have been just add a little bit more balanced and have you know, someone else on Julia's team. But I think they wanted to keep her character very traditional, just like the focus daughter, your focus is on the household, Remember that that was what my focus was.

01:01:03
Speaker 5: Now I passed that on to you, right.

01:01:05
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah.

01:01:06
Speaker 3: I mean it's like again, most of the women we've talked about, Like, there's certainly more that could have been done with her.

01:01:11
Speaker 4: Again, we could have given her a friend in the church.

01:01:14
Speaker 3: This is a community she's like been connected to for longer than anyone else in the movie.

01:01:19
Speaker 4: But they sort of were like, no, we're just gonna sort of.

01:01:21
Speaker 3: Have her scold witty Houston in the kitchen every twenty minutes or so.

01:01:27
Speaker 4: I liked her scene with Denzel that was fun.

01:01:30
Speaker 2: Oh, when she's like, walk me over to the neighbor's house, stay away from my daughter.

01:01:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like should they hook up? Like I'm open to what this looks like.

01:01:43
Speaker 6: Anybody?

01:01:44
Speaker 2: I mean, well, okay, when we first meet Marguerite, when Jeremiah's like giving voice over and like introducing all the main characters, he says something like and that's my grandma. Everyone says she needs a man, whatever that means, and it's like, okay, forgot I mean, god.

01:02:05
Speaker 6: It's so unnecessary.

01:02:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, another unnecessary dig.

01:02:10
Speaker 9: Like an unnecessary dig, but also a very true aside that we're in the church looking at.

01:02:18
Speaker 5: She's still single.

01:02:19
Speaker 9: We haven't hooked up with anybody yet. Again, what happened to the last one? Like that's also so true.

01:02:27
Speaker 2: And then I want to list off a few because horny angel representation is important. There's been a lot of horny angel erasure.

01:02:39
Speaker 4: Are there other horny angels? I can't think of another horny angel.

01:02:43
Speaker 2: And no, I'm saying that it's been nothing but erasure.

01:02:49
Speaker 4: Horness is beautiful and from Heaven, exactly right. It's why people exist.

01:02:56
Speaker 2: The scene where Dudley tells Julia to buy a neglige because he's like, oh my god, I would look so hot in this, Oh my god, for your husband, but it would be so hot.

01:03:10
Speaker 3: And she's like, I don't know, I'm looking for a present from my son. And he's like, oh, okay, never mind, never mind, never mind.

01:03:17
Speaker 4: The moment is passed.

01:03:20
Speaker 2: It's yeah. And then the scene towards the end where Dudley's looking at Julia and Henry's wedding photo and then he uses his like angel powers to replace Henry with his own image, and then God gets pissed off and like thunder happens, and he's like, sorry, maybe they'll reunite in heaven or purgatory or.

01:03:45
Speaker 4: I don't want to go to that version of heaven.

01:03:48
Speaker 2: Stress. Hope, yeah, I hope.

01:03:50
Speaker 9: He gets another assignment to come back somehow escapes.

01:03:55
Speaker 2: I also wanted to shout out Hans Zimmer wrote the score for this movie.

01:04:00
Speaker 7: Yeah wild really yeah, oh wow, wow, I didn't know that.

01:04:05
Speaker 5: I mean, the music is amazing, Yeah it is. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Wow.

01:04:11
Speaker 2: And then I also just to point out, like there are a handful of characters that make like fat phobic comments for jokes.

01:04:19
Speaker 6: Yeah, that just.

01:04:22
Speaker 2: Feels very of the era for like casual fat phobia to be just so normal in a movie of this time.

01:04:31
Speaker 6: When did fat phobia stop in films?

01:04:34
Speaker 2: Never?

01:04:35
Speaker 7: Never?

01:04:36
Speaker 8: Right?

01:04:37
Speaker 2: Okay, it's just still there.

01:04:40
Speaker 5: Cool, Okay, yeah.

01:04:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, does anyone have anything else they want to talk about?

01:04:46
Speaker 9: I just thoroughly enjoyed watching this. I have to just like think about because this came out when nineteen ninety six.

01:04:55
Speaker 6: I was even just looking at everyone's career.

01:04:57
Speaker 9: At this time, Denzel had just won the Oscar for Glory mess supporting. We had got to see him as Malcolm X Philadelphia, like we know Denzel.

01:05:08
Speaker 6: Now and then you know twenty whatever thirty years later.

01:05:12
Speaker 9: But he was kind of I don't want to say up and coming, but he was still in the early stages of his career seem to see just to have that context. And then Whitney too, she was just in The Bodyguard. Courtney b Vance, I think had won a Tony already by now for Fences, Jennifer Lewis is in a million.

01:05:31
Speaker 5: Movies by now.

01:05:32
Speaker 9: The cast is just really impressive, like just so super stacked, especially now in twenty twenty three thinking about all these people's careers. Now, just how special of a movie it was to have this like ensemble black cast.

01:05:46
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that.

01:05:47
Speaker 2: And even though I'm lukewarm on the Reverend Henry character, Courtney b vanced like his speech at the courthouse and then his sermon, especially at the very end of the movie, I was like, do I believe in God now? Like he's making a believer out of me.

01:06:09
Speaker 3: He's so good, especially at the end where it's like a four minute speech, where again the takeaway from that speech is that he's not going to have the church turned into a mall, And you're like the fact that this that's this powerful in spite.

01:06:24
Speaker 4: Of you doing so little. He's really impressive. The testament to.

01:06:30
Speaker 2: Him, Yeah, he's the one who convinces Joe Hamilton to not tear down the church, even though an angel had showed up the night before to be like, I'm going to send you to hell if you do this. But Joe Hamilton's still like there to be like, well, this is the last little sermon before I rip this place down, and then he's like, wait a minute, now that the reverend giving his sermon, it feels like that's what convinces him to change his mind.

01:06:58
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think definitely as problematic as Henry's character is in being the neglectful husband, father, all this, I think his characters probably fully formed the best I think in terms of he really does a great job or maybe the writing is a great job of showing him as like the black lead of the church and how how much they really belong to the community, and that struggle of yeah, he has a life as kids, but he also belongs to everybody else, and the seeing him kind of drowning in that I empathize with him as terrible as he is as a.

01:07:35
Speaker 5: Husband and so many other things.

01:07:38
Speaker 9: You can see his exhaustion of like I just want to sit down and maybe yeah, I just want to be a family man, but instead I belong to everybody in the community.

01:07:46
Speaker 5: And I think Corney B.

01:07:46
Speaker 9: Vance does a great job at bringing that and the writing brings a great job of bringing that to life. I wish, obviously we could have saw more of that out of Whitney's character as the wife of that person, because that is a whole other lived experience, being the first lady of a big church. So that's what's disappointed. Particularly so it's called the Preacher's wife, and you would hope that we could see more her story. But I will give Corney b. Vance and his character that credit. That felt very I was able to empathize with him on that.

01:08:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, that was a question I had as far as because this is a movie adapted from two different kind of source materials, both properties. You know, the the nineteen forty seven movie cast creative minds behind that All White People. The novel Oh Yeah, came out in nineteen twenty eight, again by Robert Nathan. He's a sephardic two he I assumed, because this movie again feels very authentic. I was like, Oh, this must just be like an original, unadapted thing. But to learn that it was adapted from source materials that were not written and created by black creators and because this particular movie, Preacher's Wife, was written and directed by white filmmakers. Is there anything that feels like inauthentic to these black characters, the black community, the black experience, or does it feel like they pretty much nailed it, because that's always a concern I have where it's like, you know, a black cast.

01:09:27
Speaker 6: Yeah, but the top creative voices money.

01:09:31
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:09:34
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a great question. I think they nailed it.

01:09:38
Speaker 7: Honestly, I was gonna say no, even the landlord's character him, it's actually really important that he was from the hood and acts like that.

01:09:47
Speaker 1: M hmm.

01:09:48
Speaker 6: That's actually like a.

01:09:49
Speaker 7: Really common thing that I think happens across many ethnicities, but definitely in the black community. Or once you get money, you're just willing to step on whoever, because you can't go back. You can't even imagine going back to the place that you came from. So yeah, I would say nothing's really missing, which is remarkable.

01:10:08
Speaker 4: I mean, Natasha, you said it earlier too.

01:10:10
Speaker 3: It's like, I'm sure that Denzel Washington's production company being so like integral to this movie getting made.

01:10:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

01:10:18
Speaker 3: And Denzel Washing did like made good on that statement he made in ninety six of like centering black characters and getting black creatives involved. I was looking over just the roster of movies that he's produced or his production company.

01:10:32
Speaker 4: Has made over the years, and it's like, awesome.

01:10:35
Speaker 9: Yeah, I would not have guessed this was written and directed by white people.

01:10:39
Speaker 4: Never.

01:10:39
Speaker 9: Yeah, I would not. Though I was surprised when I read that, was like, oh yeah, that was after the fact. So yeah, I think they definitely nailed it for sure.

01:10:47
Speaker 2: Okay, good to know.

01:10:48
Speaker 3: Also, annual shout out to how many classic Christmas songs and stories are written by Jewish people.

01:10:54
Speaker 4: It's like, That's Wild.

01:10:58
Speaker 3: Irving Berlin, White Christmas, the Christmas song read Off the Red Nose Reindeer, Silver Bells, Winter Wonderland, I'll Be Home for Christmas, all written by Jewish composers.

01:11:08
Speaker 9: Yeah, wow, shout out.

01:11:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's one of my favorite facts to visit every Christmas.

01:11:21
Speaker 4: Cool. But does this movie pass the Bechdel test?

01:11:27
Speaker 2: I think it does. Between Julia and Marguerite, in a small handful of exchanges, they are usually talking about Henry or Dudley or Jeremiah, but I think there's an exchange where in the context of this conversation is still like Marguerite being like, you need to get your household under control, and Julia doesn't want to hear it, so she's like, Okay, you can watch me leave and you can look at my behind. She like, I gave you that behind. So they're talking about Whitney Houston's butt and that does cast.

01:12:06
Speaker 4: And that's an important exchange. Yeah, it actually is for their relationship. So it does pass. It does I mean, like this whole conversation speaks to you.

01:12:14
Speaker 3: I think there were plenty of opportunities for the women in this story to interact more and have more meaningful relationships.

01:12:24
Speaker 4: So even though it does pass, I would say, like spiritually not a very strong pass.

01:12:29
Speaker 3: We could be ahead and way more women talking to each other, for sure. But what about the world's most important metric which we made up.

01:12:38
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the nipple scale, our scale of zero to five nipples where we examine the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. I would give this.

01:12:53
Speaker 9: Man.

01:12:54
Speaker 2: I wish I could go higher, but I feel like I could only give it like two nipples because while well, it does feel like it really represents the black community in the Black church authentically I wished for so much more for the Julia character. I wished for more from Loretta Divine's character, but again, especially Julia, where the movies called the Preacher's wife in theory, it should be kind of her doing more stuff and being able to make more active choices, and instead she again just ends up kind of being the object of affection of Dudley the Angel, Dudley the horny Angel.

01:13:39
Speaker 3: And so sing that to the tune of Rudolph the redne wants to buy you Launcher Ray.

01:13:53
Speaker 2: He will take you ice skating. Okay, So the relationship between Julia and her husband Henry just feels like there's not nearly as much of an arc as I would have wanted, because she's putting in all of the effort into their relationship and to like being a parent to their child, and Henry is kind of neglecting his family unit and paying way more attention to the community, which of course is important, but like he needs to find a balance and I don't think he does by the end of the movie, and that makes me feel really sad for Julia. But the movie ends on a note of like, no, everything's fine now, and I'm like, but is it okay, so and again, I just found Julia to be underdeveloped. I wish she had just more of an exterior life and just we knew more about her and what her hopes and dreams were, you know, outside of her relationship. But you know, I love to watch Whitney Houston sing. I loved watch Jennifer Lewis.

01:15:01
Speaker 4: Which is ultimately what this movie is.

01:15:02
Speaker 2: All of my would really basically, if you take out the singing scenes, the movies forty five minutes long. But yeah, I just there was a lot to be desired for me, for Julia's character. So I'll go with two nipples, and I will give one to the late great Whitney Houston, and I'll give the other to We'll split the other between Jennifer Lewis and Loretta Divine Nice.

01:15:31
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go a little higher. I'm gonna go I'm gonna go three. I think that for all the reasons we discussed, this movie is not in spite of the title.

01:15:41
Speaker 4: I feel like we see this pretty often.

01:15:42
Speaker 3: In spite of the title, is not actually a movie about a woman. It's kind of a movie about two men and how they feel about this woman. We are not really clued into how Julia feels at length at any point, and I think that her take away at the end of the movie being like, you should be happy, you should be satisfied with what you have.

01:16:04
Speaker 4: Merry Christmas is like.

01:16:07
Speaker 3: A little bit grim And just the fact that there's so many talented black women in this movie and we don't really get to see them be around each other, which again, like especially at the lack of Loretta Divine in Whitney Houston the year after Waiting to Exhale, it just boggles the mind.

01:16:27
Speaker 4: But there's a lot that this movie has going for.

01:16:31
Speaker 3: It that is like extremely like a step forward in the Christmas movie genre at all. Having a huge movie center and all black cast, I think, especially at this point in time, was like really cool, especially because Denzel Washington was so integral in making it happen and having his production company involved.

01:16:53
Speaker 4: This movie is directed by a woman. You don't see that very often still Yep.

01:16:58
Speaker 3: Granted, Penny Marshall is obviously a white women, but you still you don't see women directing big budget movies frequently at now and so, and also I'm maybe sliding up the rating a little bit because Whitney Houston wasn't in many movies, and I treasure each and every one of them, even though Brandy Cinderella is still the best hole.

01:17:23
Speaker 6: Dam I was just gonna say, we watched that this weekend.

01:17:27
Speaker 4: I feel like that has the energy of a holiday movie.

01:17:31
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's so good.

01:17:34
Speaker 4: So I'm going to give this three nipples.

01:17:36
Speaker 3: I'm going to give one to Whitney, I will give one to Jennifer Luke. No, I'm going to give one to Lara Divine, and then I'm going to give the last one to Sissy Houston, Whitney's mom.

01:17:47
Speaker 9: Nice, Nice, Okay, I can go. I'm going to go right in the middle. Give it two and a half nimmals. I think, yeah, similar to what you just said, Jamie. It just feels like such a regression post Waiting to Exhale, which was such a powerful movie for women, for black women. To see Whitney and Loretta in particular being so underutilized when we know their potential.

01:18:17
Speaker 5: Was probably the.

01:18:18
Speaker 6: Most disappointing element of the movie.

01:18:20
Speaker 9: I will give a nipple to just a collective nipple for like the great cast of beautiful, powerful black women, again sadly underutilized, but just so appreciate their presence. Just being iconic and just being in this movie altogether is really special. I'd give one, definitely to Whitney for providing us this amazing album that we are all still bumping every Christmas one probably so the end of time. And then I'll give my half two. Oh, I guess I gave one to Whinny al ready. But I was gonna say for Julia's character getting to have even just a tiny dense el valliance and take back a little bit of power, even if it was just a smidge, I'm gonna give it to her.

01:19:07
Speaker 4: Light a light they're doing.

01:19:09
Speaker 2: In the ice skating scene, they're like they onto each other.

01:19:13
Speaker 6: And yeah, it's nice, Yeah it's nice. I shout out to her for that.

01:19:19
Speaker 7: But I'm gonna give three nipples. I agree with everything that you guys said, but I do think that there is a world where we could remake this film where the gospel choir goes to the McDonald's gospel fest and wins a million dollars and that's how they save the building the church, and we can get Hamilton out of here, and we could just get the character out of here, and we can just make Whitney be the savior of the church for her father and for her husband. She could be like, y'all can't live without me, bam, I think we should make another one.

01:19:58
Speaker 9: We could do that, Yeah, like you keep all the choir and the dance team.

01:20:07
Speaker 6: Yes, be so good.

01:20:11
Speaker 7: So the fact that there's room for that, I love it. I'm going to give one nipple to Whitney. I'm gonna give one to Penny Marshall because as she is a white woman working on a black film, there haven't been many white directors working with black production companies. So I applaud her for that and I'm sure she had to do a lot of research and it shows.

01:20:31
Speaker 6: So thank you, Pammy.

01:20:33
Speaker 7: And then I'm going to give one to Loretta Divine for being the best, Yes, the best.

01:20:38
Speaker 2: Well, Natasha and Justine, thank you so much for joining us for this wonderful discussion and come back anytime. Oh my god son, where can people check out your podcast? Tell us more about it? How do people follow you online? Et cetera.

01:20:57
Speaker 9: Yeah, So we're two black girls, one Rose. You can find us everywhere podcasts are found. We primarily cover reality dating shows. We are currently covering the real Housewives of Potomac, which.

01:21:10
Speaker 5: Is a good mess.

01:21:12
Speaker 6: It's really deep dive into female friendship.

01:21:15
Speaker 7: It was gonna say it's very feminist of all the Housewives franchises.

01:21:19
Speaker 9: Yeah, so a little bit of dating and relationships and marriage, but we're definitely deep diving into just like sisterhood and themes of female friendship. We've been covering The Bachelor for the past six years. We currently wrapping up Golden Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise, which we do in our Patreon, Patreon, dot com slash Two Black Girls, One Rose for all all our video and special bonus content, and yeah, find us on all social media platforms.

01:21:44
Speaker 5: Two Black Girls, One Rose amazing.

01:21:47
Speaker 2: Have you, either for the show or just in your personal lives watch the dating show Naked Attraction.

01:21:54
Speaker 6: No, I can't with the de robing dating shows that the sibling in.

01:22:00
Speaker 4: The line needs to be drawn something.

01:22:02
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying.

01:22:03
Speaker 2: It's my new obsession I love.

01:22:07
Speaker 9: Oh my god, I need to give it as it's a UK Yeah, where people get naked and you see everything.

01:22:14
Speaker 2: They're not blurring things out. There's lots you're seeing. All you're seeing dicks, all you're seeing.

01:22:20
Speaker 4: Oh my god, all you're saying, but I was.

01:22:24
Speaker 2: Like, no, it's on HBO.

01:22:27
Speaker 9: Oh okay, he's getting recommended.

01:22:30
Speaker 6: I'm a fan, he's getting recommended.

01:22:32
Speaker 5: He's getting recommended. Like, you don't watch that one. No, I've been actually avoiding it.

01:22:37
Speaker 4: Everyone not die of exposure.

01:22:40
Speaker 2: That's like, yeah, I mean they're indoors, so it's I'm sure it's warm in any case. Thank you again so much for being here as our guests. You can follow us on Instagram mostly these days. At Bechtel Cast. You can subscribe to our patreons Matreon at patreon dot com slash spectrol Cast. You get two bonus episodes every month, plus access to the entire back catalog, all for five dollars a month.

01:23:09
Speaker 3: And you can get our merch over at teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast. And with that, let's let Denzel Washington men in black style, wide bar brains and go about our Christmas with our lives completely unchanged.

01:23:27
Speaker 4: Did he even do a good job?

01:23:29
Speaker 2: We don't know, or was he just horny? We'll never know?

01:23:35
Speaker 6: All right, Bye bye.

01:23:41
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Dorante 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 and merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle US. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash Bechtelcast