Jackie Brown with Sadia Azmat

00:00:01
Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands? Or do they have individualism?

00:00:10
Speaker 2: It's the patriarchy, zeph and best start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

00:00:16
Speaker 3: Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlyn, can you smuggle half a million dollars out of Cobbo for me? I need the money to get a haircut because my hair and beard are really strange.

00:00:33
Speaker 1: Classic Caitlin. Yes, of course, and I will. I promise to be like everyone in this movie, really bad at it.

00:00:45
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Cool, cool, cool, yeah ough.

00:00:48
Speaker 1: An iconic introduction. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftis.

00:00:53
Speaker 3: My name is Caitlyn Deronte, and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation.

00:01:06
Speaker 1: We sure do. But what is the Bechdel Test? Well we'll tell you. Yeah. So, if you've been listening to this show for a long time, you very likely know what it is. It is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Originally in her comic dys To Watch Out For in the eighties. It was a one off joke just sort of pointing out how infrequently women talked to each other in blockbuster movies. But it has since been sort of taken on by culture at large to talk about how infrequently women talk in movies. So there's a lot of different versions of this test. The one we use on this show is as follows. We require that there be two people of a marginalized gender with names who speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of die or more preferably, it should be a meaningful exchange of dialogue. Which we made that change Win Caitlyn like a couple of years ago, because there were so many movies that it was like, well, someone talks to a waitress at one point, and the waitress is wearing a name tag, so it's feminist, and you're just like, well, okay, we have to make some adjustments.

00:02:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:02:22
Speaker 1: Anyways, that's the version we use.

00:02:24
Speaker 3: Indeed, and today's movie is a long time request. Yes, it's Jackie Brown, the nineteen ninety seven movie written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.

00:02:37
Speaker 1: Someone who I don't think has ever experienced a scandal before. I think a no famously scandalous director.

00:02:48
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:02:48
Speaker 3: Also the production company Miramax.

00:02:52
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard a bad word about this, So really, I don't think that we'll have really much talk about. It will be a really quick episode, yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:03
Speaker 5: No.

00:03:03
Speaker 3: So we're doing Jackie Brown. We have an amazing guest with us who is a comedian, author of the book sex Bomb, and host of the BBC podcast No Country for Young Women. It's Saudia Asthmat.

00:03:16
Speaker 5: Hello, welcome, Welcome, Thank you for having me.

00:03:20
Speaker 3: Hello, thank you for being here and for bringing us this movie.

00:03:26
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:03:26
Speaker 1: So, you sent us a number of options of movies you'd like to cover on the show, and this was on the list. So we're curious. What is your history with the movie, Jackie Brown? And I guess sort of like with Tarantino movies overall, because I feel like it's hard to talk about one Tarantino movie without accidentally talking about all of them truly.

00:03:50
Speaker 4: So you know what I'm not gonna lie.

00:03:52
Speaker 5: I was going through my watch the Robert de Naro movie Zone or Era.

00:03:57
Speaker 4: At that point in time, so I was just I.

00:04:00
Speaker 5: Really liked him, and I heard a lot about Jackie Brown, but not in terms of in any detail, like it would be thrown around, like I didn't know if it was a real movie about like a Jackie Brown was a real person, or like it's just a name that seems to crop up now and then. So it felt like it was part of pop culture and I just hadn't come across it. And also I don't know actually if I was trying to. I don't know if I was on my watching Robert de Niro or watching Sam Jackson zone, but I don't know what that's not a zone, but like in terms of my routine, if you like, so, I love both of them. And then I just watched I didn't know it was directed by Tarantino at the time, and I was blown away because it's not even about Robert de Niro or Sam Jackson, even though they're really great.

00:04:47
Speaker 4: It's about like Pam Grier's character, and.

00:04:51
Speaker 5: It really felt like a portrayal of a woman who is from a minority in a way that I'd never seen before that I felt like, obviously I've never had to smuggle money, right, but like that I could really relate to.

00:05:04
Speaker 4: In terms of the decisions that she had to make. So it was like breathless and I love this movie.

00:05:10
Speaker 5: And talking about Tarantino, so, I mean, he's made some of the best movies ever, Like Pulp Fiction is clearly like, ah, it's so good. I didn't really like Reservoir I'm not going to go through all of his movies, by the way and.

00:05:23
Speaker 4: Just tell you why. I thought. That's not very ring. That's not fair, is it.

00:05:27
Speaker 5: But there's a few that come to my like Django.

00:05:30
Speaker 4: I think that's how you say it, Jango one change change.

00:05:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, I really enjoyed it, although I didn't really like and Glorious Bastards and I didn't really like Reservoir Dogs. I think I was gonna say, and so obviously he's a genius, but I think we all know that being a genius doesn't come without its pitfalls.

00:05:51
Speaker 4: And I think you might know a few of them more than me. But yeah, I mean I don't know like he yeah, as you alluded to, he was.

00:06:00
Speaker 5: I think obviously he knew about Weinstein, but you know, so many actors probably did, and maybe it didn't occur to them to open their mouths even though everyone listens to them.

00:06:12
Speaker 4: But anyway, so I really like his movies and I don't know him personally.

00:06:20
Speaker 3: Hey me either, Yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship with the Tarantino Expanded Universe slash Jackie Brown specifically.

00:06:31
Speaker 1: Let's see. I Yeah, I feel like we've covered pulp fiction and kill Bill on the show before.

00:06:39
Speaker 3: I mean, we still need to redo our kill Bill episode. I know, I thought that was a raised from existence.

00:06:46
Speaker 1: Yes, so we did at one point. It was our first episode ever and we didn't know what we were talking about. So we'll REDI that at some point. But I mean, I think, like a lot of people, I'm very kind of hit and miss on Tarantino. Like obviously, he's very technically talented, and you know, I'm never gonna judge someone for enjoying his work. Kill Bill is still one of my favorite movies ever, for all of its flaws. So, I mean, yes, as far as Tarantino goes, I it feels like almost an impossible discussion to have. Creatively, he's hit or missed for me, He's made stuff that I really love. I think that it's I don't know. His history on race is very talked about and occurred yes, it's I don't know. He's such a complicated person to talk about because he's written women characters in particular that I have a lot of love for and had influence on me. But at the same time, you have the kill Bill example, when during the Me Too movement, it came out that Uma Thurman was extremely injured on the set of Kill Bill, and Tarantino did nothing to help her, And so it's and.

00:07:57
Speaker 3: He was the reason why, Like he yeah, he pushed, he instructed her to drive like basically do a very unsafe stunt, and then she got badly injured because of it.

00:08:06
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, sometimes even the things I enjoy about him creatively doesn't come through in his personal life or personal record whatsoever. Anyways, Jackie Brown, I had seen it once before. I remember one liking it too, being like it's so long. I still feel that way now, Yeah, Caitlin, what's your history with Jackie Brown?

00:08:28
Speaker 3: I had never seen it before. This was I think the one Tarantino movie that I had yet to watch. It's been on my list for a long time, but I just didn't get around to it until I had an excuse to do so for this podcast and I'm glad I finally watched it. I quite enjoyed it. I would rank it toward the top of my list of Tarantino movies because I think so too. Yeah, same with everyone else. I mean, he is a bit hit or miss.

00:08:58
Speaker 4: For me.

00:08:58
Speaker 3: I generally like most of his movies, but Hateful Eight, for example, I couldn't stand it. I did not like Once upon a Time in Hollywood at all. Other ones I like a bit more kill Bill is similarly my favorite of his. But yeah, Jackie Brown, I think it's an interesting departure to some degree from his other work, and I found it just like refreshing and fun to watch, and I really like the characters and performances, and there's just a lot of interesting things going on that we will discuss.

00:09:38
Speaker 1: But I definitely agree. I think it's like one of my especially because I think the last time I watched it, I was in college or something, and I mean I liked it the first time. I liked it even better this time because I feel like I just know more about the actors and had more interest in the context, and the context of this movie is really fascinating. So there's so much to.

00:09:57
Speaker 3: Talk about, for sure. Shall I do the recap and we'll go from there.

00:10:03
Speaker 1: Let's do it, and Sadia feels free to jump in at any point.

00:10:07
Speaker 4: Thank you.

00:10:08
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, again, this is a long movie, although it's not even long by today's standards. Every movie that comes out is three hours long, and it's like, only Titanic should be that long anyway.

00:10:19
Speaker 4: I mean, Titanic shouldn't have been that long either.

00:10:21
Speaker 5: Really, come on, Oh don't sorry, I didn't realize that.

00:10:26
Speaker 4: I want to you.

00:10:27
Speaker 3: I don't disagree. I could do an edit of Titanic that is two and a half hours, which would cut forty five minutes out of the runtime.

00:10:35
Speaker 1: So no way, no way, no way.

00:10:37
Speaker 5: I think only Mob movies should be three hours long because the Mob ones.

00:10:40
Speaker 4: I love them. I don't know why everybody's gonna die and lose the money. I know that, but I.

00:10:45
Speaker 1: Just like Barbie was an hour fifty two and I celebrated that both times. I was like, wow, I didn't even know it was legal to make a movie under two hours anymore.

00:10:56
Speaker 3: Yeay, anyway, okay, So here it is the recap for Jackie Brown. We briefly meet a flight attendant for Cabo Air named Jackie Brown. Played by Pam Greer.

00:11:09
Speaker 1: I felt very film bro proud of myself during the opening shot where I was like, hey, this is the chef from a graduate and it is this, I was like, Wow, this is normally something that a guy would yell at.

00:11:23
Speaker 3: Me, but now you're the one yelling.

00:11:26
Speaker 1: I am the yelling at No. One.

00:11:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. So then we cut to Ordell played by Samuel L. Jackson, who is an arms dealer talking about guns to Lewis played by Robert de Niro. Ordell has a girlfriend, Melanie, who we meet played by Bridget Fonda, who he does not treat very well. FYI, and we also learned that Ordell has half a million dollars in cash stashed in Then Ordell gets a call from his pal Beaumont, who needs to be bailed out of jail. So Ordell and Lewis go to a bail bondsman named Max Cherry played by Robert Forster. Ordell pays for Beaumont to be bailed out of jail, and then he pays Beaumont a visit he's played by Chris Tucker, and then Ordell shoots and kills Beaumont because Ordell figured that Beaumont would rat him out to avoid a long jail sentence. Then we cut back to Jackie Brown at Lax after one of her flight attendant shifts and two cops approach her, Mark and Ray played by Michael Bowen and Michael Keaton, and they want to look in Jackie Brown's bag where they find fifty thousand dollars in cash and they know that she's smuggling it and they want to know who and Cabo gave it to her and who in the US she's giving it too, but she refuses to talk. But then they find a little baggie of cocaine with the cash, so then she is arrested and thrown in jail for possession with the intent to distribute, which is a bogus thing which they comment on, but anyway, she's arrested and thrown in jail and her bail is set at ten thousand dollars. So Ordell goes back to the bail bondsman, Max Cherry, wanting to transfer the ten thousand dollars bond that he paid for Beaumont and transfer it over to Jackie Brown. So Max goes and bails Jackie out of jail, and he sees her and he's like Hubba hubba a wooga, who's's.

00:13:57
Speaker 1: That in love? Att first cites her.

00:14:01
Speaker 3: And then he takes her for a drink to discuss her options, like kind of what she should do moving forward, and then he drops her off at home. Ordell then goes to Jackie's house, and it seems like he plans to kill Jackie for the same reason he killed Beaumont. He doesn't want anyone ratting him out, but she assures him that she didn't tell the cops anything. But she also realizes that his intentions might be malicious and that he might be trying to kill her, so she pulls a gun on him that she stole from Max Cherry, and then she negotiates a deal with Ordell so that he won't be put away in prison and where she will be set up financially if she does have to go to jail. The next morning, Max Cherry comes over to Jackie Brown's house to get his gun back, and she invites him in for coffee, and they're listening to and music and they're kind of vibing, and she tells him that she does not actually intend to cooperate with Ordell and that she's going to try to make a deal with the cops because she's fearful for her future, her financial security. Things like that.

00:15:19
Speaker 1: I will say Jackie throughout this movie, she's I mean, we'll talk about what an incredible character she is, But I just kept thinking about how many times if I were Jackie that I would have forgotten something that I told someone. I was like, wow, I'm not smart enough to play the four D game of chess that she's playing. Because sometimes I'm like wait what and I'm like, oh, right, she's a genius, Like.

00:15:41
Speaker 3: Like is she keeping a diary? Like I don't know how she got drug?

00:15:45
Speaker 5: And even just caring about you know, having that portrayal of someone caring about their like financial freedom, their finances, their future. That's like something I never saw before either, really, you know.

00:15:57
Speaker 4: So that's like she's a smart like she's yeah, she's very admirable.

00:16:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's so cool and just like even objectively and like her memory and ability to like juggle five thousand things at once is incredible. She's such a cool character for sure.

00:16:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, so kind of out sorry do you ever lie, Jamie? Because I am bad at lying.

00:16:21
Speaker 5: So I think that's why I would have got shot, like, you know, I would have got shut.

00:16:25
Speaker 1: I definitely like I feel like outside of like small like like little white lie kind of things, and even sometimes I lose track of those, and then I'd be like, oh wait, I told that weird lie trying to impress someone once and now I've accidentally told them myself. Anyways, I couldn't do what she did. I would be dead in the first twenty minutes.

00:16:44
Speaker 3: So same, Yeah, I couldn't keep anything straight. Yeah, Okay. Then we see Jackie meeting with those cops, Mark and Ray telling them about her dealings with Ordell, and then she meets with Ordell again and makes him think that she's working with the cops as a cover and that she is still loyal to him, and they make a plan where they will need two women to be and they specify women. They're like, it needs to be women to be kind of like intermediaries between Jackie and Ordell as far as like handing off the money to trick the cops into following the wrong woman during these couple different handoffs that they will be doing in order for Jackie to get this half million dollars from Cabo to Ordell in Los Angeles, where the story takes place, by the way, ever heard of it? Ever heard of it? Then Ordell leaves this meeting with Jackie, but then he sees Max run into Jackie and they're chatting, and He's like, what the fuck? Like, do they know each other? What's going on here? So now he's suspicious.

00:18:00
Speaker 4: He's so insecure, isn't he?

00:18:02
Speaker 5: Like?

00:18:02
Speaker 1: Ah truly and it is always his downfall. Same with the de Niro character too.

00:18:08
Speaker 3: Oh yeah for sure, yep. I can't wait to talk about male fragility with these characters.

00:18:16
Speaker 1: My feet at top.

00:18:20
Speaker 3: Okay, So everyone goes through with this trial run of Jackie handing off ten thousand dollars to a woman named Shiranda. She's one of Ordell's many girlfriends, and this is happening at a mall food court, and then Shiranda will then hand it off the cash to Ordell.

00:18:42
Speaker 1: I wrote not to brag, but I wrote a story about mall food courts earlier this year, and there are so many iconic movie scenes that happen in mall food courts. I think the Jackie Brown scene is way up there. It was tied for me internally eighth grade. I was gonna say eighth grade, impactful mall food court seemed to.

00:19:04
Speaker 3: Me personally, they're some good ones. Yeah, fast times at Ridgemont High. I feel like has.

00:19:10
Speaker 1: And clueless has one. I love them all. I love a food court. I love drama at set location.

00:19:17
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:19:17
Speaker 3: Same, Okay, So this handoff happens and the cops are there watching. Max is also there, and it seems like Max and Jackie are becoming somewhat of an item. He also notices another woman, Simone, who is involved in this handoff, who the cops are not aware of, so she's like the second woman who's there to be tricksy basically. Then Jackie goes to see Ordell and they hash out the second handoff of the half million dollars. So this time Jackie will hand off the money in a fitting room at a department store at the same mall. Now the exact plan with all of these like changes in the amounds are sunny. Yeah, I got confused because now Simone is not involved, but Ordell's girlfriend Melanie.

00:20:17
Speaker 1: Is well because Simone didn't Simone get ten thousand dollars during the trial run And then she's like, I'm od of hearing and we were like good girl smoney.

00:20:29
Speaker 3: Yes, but it's unclear like who knows what or I forget like which information. It's just like it's all a bit confusing.

00:20:39
Speaker 5: It becomes so much about who you can trust at this point because there's no logic, sensors gone out.

00:20:45
Speaker 4: Of the windows.

00:20:45
Speaker 5: So yeah, it is about like you've got instinct, then who's going to let you down?

00:20:50
Speaker 4: Or can you afford to risk everything on? You know?

00:20:54
Speaker 5: This weird situation. But it was so strange because I've never had smuggle. I have to keep saying that, but we believe, you know, like please believe you guys. But actually we could all do the We're three women, we could do the test one. No, I'm just saying that, true. Yeah, it is, so it's weird how real this all felt, even though the stakes were so high and not very day to day.

00:21:19
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:21:19
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, it feels very grounded, especially for a Tarantino movie. It's I would probably his most grounded one. Yeah. Anyway, Also, while all of this is happening, it seems like Jackie intends to only hand off fifty thousand dollars of the money to whoever's going to get it to Ordell, and that she's going to run off with the rest, and she's kind of co conspiring with Max about this plan. Then it's time for the big exchange, so Jackie heads to the mall, as does Max, as does Lewis and Melanie, and Jackie hands off the fifty thousand dollars to Melanie in the dressing room, and then Jackie leaves the remaining half million dollars in the dressing room on purpose, and then she rushes out of the store and calls for Ray, the Michael Keaton cop, and she tells him that Melanie burst into the dressing room and took all of the money and ran out, so she's spinning this web of lies.

00:22:29
Speaker 1: Yarns. Yeah.

00:22:31
Speaker 3: Then we flash back to this exchange from Melanie and Lewis's point of view. Louis is on edge. He's being aggressive and awful, and then after the handoff, he keeps getting lost in the department store and then in the parking lot, and Melanie keeps taunting him about it, and he blows a gasket and shoots and kills Melanie in the parking lot.

00:22:58
Speaker 1: Which I forgot about and did not see coming and was quite shocked.

00:23:03
Speaker 3: It happens really abruptly, yeah.

00:23:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:23:07
Speaker 3: Then we get the exchange from Max's point of view where he watches Jackie come out of the dressing room, and then he goes in and retrieves the bag with the half million dollars in cash, and he leaves the mall cut two Louis picking up Ordell, and Lewis is like, by the way, I shot Melanie, and Ordell is not mad about it, but he is mad when he looks in the bag and discovers that only forty thousand dollars is in there, not the full half million, and he suspects that it was Jackie Brown who stole it. And then Lewis is like, oh, wait a minute, I did see Max Cherry in the department store, but I didn't even think anything of it. But it is by yeah, and Ordella is like, well, you're bad at your job, and then he shoots and kills Lewis.

00:24:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:24:06
Speaker 3: Which It's funny to see a Robert de Niro character being bad at crime, because in most of his other movies he's pretty good at crime.

00:24:16
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed, Like, I mean, obviously his character is horrible, but I feel like it's, Yeah, it's really rare to see him in like a very like I don't know, like Lewis is a diption outside of being like he yeah, he's like a total dufeist like he. I don't know. I think I just associate de Niro characters with like hyper competence that I'm like, Wow, he's really not gonna get He's not He's got nothing to hide. He's just not good at this.

00:24:46
Speaker 3: There's a scene I think he might be really high and that's why he's acting this way. But he's like spacing out after he has called Simone to try to figure out where she is, and he's like trying to hang up the phone and he keeps spending it around because he can't figure out how to hang up this landline and it's just it's great. Uh Anyway, So Ordell shoots and kills Lewis for being bad at his job, and then he hides out at Sharonda's place. Then we cut to Ray questioning Jackie Brown, and he's just like, what the hell happened? Because of what Jackie told him, he thinks that, you know, she tried to hand off this fifty thousand dollars to Melanie and that Melanie ran off with it and that's why Melanie got shot, and he has no idea about this half million dollars that Max has. But Ray feels that he now has enough evidence to convict Ordell because he's been after Ordell this whole time. But before the cops can get to Ordell, Ordell and Max have a conversation where Ordell is like, Okay, I know you helped Jackie steal money, so she needs to give it back or I'm going to kill her. And so Max tells Ordell that Jackie does want to give the money back. So they head to Max's office where Jackie and the money are and Ordell comes into the office, but it's a setup and the cops are there, and Ray jumps out and shoots Ordell. Then we cut to three days later. Jackie has the half million dollars that only Max knows about of the people who are still alive at least, and she's given some of it to Max for helping, and then she says goodbye to Max. They kiss, she tells him she's headed to Spain.

00:26:49
Speaker 1: Kiss it's it's fine.

00:26:52
Speaker 3: Really, I was like, uh.

00:26:54
Speaker 1: I thought it was a good kiss. I don't know, maybe it was just early sure.

00:27:00
Speaker 3: But she tells him she's heading to Spain, and then the movie ends with her driving off. So that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss and we're back.

00:27:21
Speaker 1: Yes, where shall we start, Well, let's do some context corner and then yeah, go from there. Excellent.

00:27:31
Speaker 3: Okay, So basically prior to this movie, Tarantino had directed Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and he had you know, written and starred in a few other movies before this, and all of that has had cemented him as this kind of like Indie Darling director that also had box office appeal, who also had this very distinct style. So he's on his way to being this like, you know, a tour status.

00:28:04
Speaker 1: And also I feel like something that also carries through and Jackie Brown is like he was already gaining this reputation as someone who is able to like revive an actor's career, because I feel like John Travolta's career was really sort of kickstarted again by Pulp Fiction. I feel like Pam Greer's career here and Max Cherry, who I had not heard of.

00:28:25
Speaker 3: This actor Robert Forster, Yeah, he was bigger in I think the late sixties and seventies, but by the time this movie was being cast, he didn't even have like an agent or a manager, like his career was basically over.

00:28:40
Speaker 1: And then we got nominated for a goddamn Oscar. I think that Pam Greer should have been also nominated for Oscar like but anyways, yes, yeah.

00:28:49
Speaker 3: So anyway, Tarantino acquired the rights to three Elmore Leonard novels because he wanted to make at least one of them into a movie. He wasn't sure which one. One of these novels is called rum Punch, which is the one that Tarantino decided to adapt, and it was his first time adapting anything. And so the significant thing here is that in the book rum Punch, the main character, Jackie Burke, is a white woman, and Tarantino rewrote the character as a black woman, Jackie Brown, with Pam Grier in mine specifically yea, yeah exactly, so like Jackie Brown's last name is a nod to her character in Foxy Brown, which is a famous nineteen seventies blacksploitation film. Now, as far as why Tarantino made this change, I couldn't find anything super explicit or specific, but it just seems like he wanted to pay homage to blacksplotation film and pay homage to Pam Greer and her career as an actor in these nineteen seventies blax quotation films such as Foxy Brown and Coffee Right.

00:30:07
Speaker 1: I was reading that there was a bunch of because I have not seen either of those movies, but I guess that there's a bunch of references to them. Yes, within Jackie Brown. I was Yeah, for what I was able to gather, it just it seems like what you're saying, and that he just wanted to meet Pam Greer really bad. Clay question Mark, Yeah, I was. I mean, especially with conversations about Tarantino, and because the Uma Thorntman story kind of haunts me so much because I have so much love for kill Bill and what happened to her on the side of that movie was so terrible. I was like, how did Pam Greer feel about working with this man? It turns out pretty good, which is great. I'm I am glad that Pamger had a good experience, But yeah, it sounds like he just sort of sought her out and was like, Hey, I wrote this for you. Do you want to be super fame miss again and she was like.

00:31:01
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, although she did not realize that the part was written for her, because when Tarantino sent her the script, she didn't take it very seriously because she thought he was sending it to her because she was being considered for the much smaller role of Melanie. And so she's just like whatever. And then when Tarantino called her, he's like, no, I want you as Jackie Brown, and she's like, oh yeah tight. So, like we said, this movie revitalized her career because she had come to fame in the seventies with these various bl exploitation films, and then her career kind of tapered off after that, and.

00:31:47
Speaker 1: She she turned forty, which is not allowed, not.

00:31:52
Speaker 3: Allowed if you're a woman. That is sort of the context that we are working with that I feel like could transition into a conversation about Tarantino's handling of race. Yeah, because as we said, he makes choices and he's he's got a checkered history when it comes to treatment of race in his movies, where, for example, you know, he cast himself in pulp fiction as a character who very casually throws around.

00:32:30
Speaker 1: The n word.

00:32:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's also, you know, one of the few white directors of that time who was even willing to address race in his movies at all and willing to cast I would say, more actors of color in his movies than most other big name auteur white guy directors of that time. Again not saying that he handles race well every time he does it. But there are interesting things happen in this movie, one of the main ones being the thing we mentioned of him specifically rewriting, because this almost never happens, where oftentimes, in a book a character will be a person of color, and then when a director gets their hands on it, they adapt it and whitewash it and now the character is suddenly white. It very rarely happens in the reverse. And I mean him wanting to pay homage to black exploitation films, is I don't know.

00:33:32
Speaker 1: I mean, do you.

00:33:32
Speaker 4: Explain black exploitation to me? Please? Is that?

00:33:35
Speaker 5: Like?

00:33:35
Speaker 4: What genre is that? Or you don't have to if you don't.

00:33:38
Speaker 3: So it's basically so it's a genre, a subgenre most popular in the nineteen seventies, where a lot of black filmmakers and the casts were predominantly black. So it was like a very black run and black lead group of movies. But they're called black splotation of because they are relying on different stereotypes a lot of times, like the characters were like pimps or drug dealers or gun runners, things like that.

00:34:11
Speaker 5: So it's what the name suggested it to be exploiting the black dive in a way.

00:34:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, although it does feel worth mentioning that the two black exploitation movies that Pamger is most famous for were written and directed by white director Jack Hill.

00:34:27
Speaker 4: True.

00:34:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there are sort of like variations within the genre. You know, not all of them are necessarily relying on stereotypes things like that. But Tarantino wanting to pay homage to those films is I don't know, I don't know how to feel about it necessarily one way or another. And then another thing he does is he has various characters comment on race throughout the film. Mostly it's Samuel L. Jackson. Another thing to note here is that Tarantino originally wrote the part of Ordell for himself. Tarantino was planning for a long time to play Ordell, so.

00:35:08
Speaker 1: Glad he stopped acting in so stressful watching him act it really is.

00:35:14
Speaker 3: So after a long time he decided to you know, relinquish the part and cast Samuel L. Jackson in the role, which I'm again glad he did. I'd much rather watch Samuel L. Jackson on screen than Tarantino. But that lends itself to Ordell making different comments about how like when he's in Max Cherry's office and Max wants to know, well, if you already have ten thousand dollars, why can't you just you know, why do you need a bond? Why can't you take that money and bail out Beaumont? And Ordell is like a black man showing up with ten thousand dollars in cash. They're gonna want to know how I got it. They'll want to keep a chunk of it, claiming that there's like court costs all this stuff. So he's saying, yeah, that they're gonna make racist assumptions about him, and you know, nothing will work out in his favor. Similarly, he's talking about when he wants Jackie Brown bailed out, and he's commenting on the charge that she has been charged with that she you know, was caught with less than two ounces of cocaine but charged with intent to distribute, and he says, you know, a movie star gets caught with that same amount, they'd get charged with just possession, which is a far less severe crime. But because it's a black woman, she's charged with this bogus, far more severe crime.

00:36:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's again like I don't know, I'm like not trying to hand it to Tarantina too much because it feels weird too. But yeah, like you were saying earlier, Caitlin, it's like this is more commentary you would get from a movie by a white director than than most directors at this time, and just more commentary on race in a big movie. In general, beau Vivie is super successful.

00:37:09
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:37:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I mean, I guess my point is like I wasn't necessarily expecting to see that in this movie because again I didn't really I knew very little about it going in, just that it was a Tarantino movie.

00:37:27
Speaker 1: And again he.

00:37:30
Speaker 3: Based on his treatment of race and him throwing around the N word very casually a few years before in pulp fiction, but then him turning around and adapting this character to specifically include a black woman as the protagonist of his movie and framing her in a way that in my opinion, makes her really awesome and like a really complex character. And that plus like including other commentary about race. Nothing too extensive in this movie, but again it's more than you'd expect from a white director in the nineties, which you know, the bar is very low, and that doesn't necessarily, you know, mean that he should get all these prizes and recognition. But I don't know, it's complicated.

00:38:22
Speaker 1: It's interesting, which like there's I mean, we can link this in the description of the episode two because yeah, that topic alone there has been so much written about. Yeah, it like comes up every time he releases a movie, usually because he has once again written it into the movie, right, and I know that he is. He and Spike Lee have had this sort of long standing back and forth about how Spike Lee feels like Spike Lee has a sort of storied history of being like, this is fucking weird that you do this this much like knock it off. Yeah, we can link that in the description because it is I mean, I think, very relevant. And also there's it like infinite there is like twenty plus years of debate about his use of the N word in movies, which is absolutely wild and this movie was another example of like there was a wave of discourse like that in nineteen ninety seven. So for longer than some of our listeners have been alive, this conversation has been going on.

00:39:25
Speaker 5: For the listeners who haven't heard like his rationale if you want to call it rationale, Like does he explain?

00:39:32
Speaker 4: He does he ever own why he says it?

00:39:35
Speaker 1: So he's commented on it many times. I don't know. I mean, I guess everyone react the way react, so he sort of in twenty fifteen, I think he had his all time worst response to it. When The Hateful Eight came out. He did an interview with Brett Easton Ellis, which I feel like doesn't help and address this controversy again, saying quote, if you sit through the criticism, you see it's pretty evenly divided between pros and cons. But when black critics came out with savage think pieces about Django, Django unchained, I couldn't have cared less. If people don't like my movies, they don't like my movies, and if they don't get it, it doesn't matter. The bad taste that was left in my mouth had to do with this. It's been a long time since the subject of a writer's skin was mentioned as often as mine. You wouldn't think the color of a writer's skin should have any effect on the words themselves. In a lot of the more ugly pieces, my motives were really brought to bear in the most negative way. It's like I'm some super villain coming up with this stuff unquote, which seems like playing the victim to a pretty absurd extent.

00:40:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, I really don't understand, who don't.

00:40:42
Speaker 5: This sounds like a very like a lot of words, but I didn't get any thread in what.

00:40:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't even get.

00:40:50
Speaker 1: It's those sharp sentences that it's so bizarre too, because I mean that reaction. It's I again, like this movie, I think like Addresses, Like there's a scene between Ordell and Max where Max essentially is like, are you appealing to my white guilt to get me to do this? And it's like, for I don't know, for a writer, that is like trying to interact with those concepts and these conversations to also say that in such a clueless way, it's just like, yeah, baffling. Anyways, So we'll link more, but yeah.

00:41:30
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss further and we're back.

00:41:43
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Jackie Brown.

00:41:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it. Sadia, you had mentioned that you related to this character in meaningful ways, so I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that.

00:41:56
Speaker 5: I'm just totally blown away by the character and this movie.

00:42:01
Speaker 4: Is about her.

00:42:02
Speaker 5: This is such a strong movie given that the cast, the other cast is quite a list past, but she just overshadows the.

00:42:09
Speaker 4: Whole film, Like the whole deal is, like you can't start watching her.

00:42:15
Speaker 6: She's sassy, she's real, she's vulnerable, she's flawed, she's a survivor, and she's all of those things most of the time, and we're we're really with her, and like, you know, it's hard what she's going through, and I don't know, it's.

00:42:31
Speaker 5: Like I don't know, I just I fell in love with her so so much. And I think it's also like for me when I watched it, it was just like a reminder, like I did get this kind of moment where it's like, what I've never seen.

00:42:43
Speaker 4: Anybody like her.

00:42:44
Speaker 5: So that added to the impact that she had is that this is a figure that we really need to watch and this is a character a person like her that I love to watch, and I could have continued to watch her go to Spain.

00:42:57
Speaker 4: And you know, it wasn't.

00:42:58
Speaker 5: Even about relationship, which is really rare, like I think or women is often you know, you want them to kind of have a partner or that's a big part of the story, if not the story. But this wasn't about those. That was so secondary and so for her to own everything in those in that kind of context, for me, it was like I've never seen it before. I couldn't start watching it. I wanted her to have all the money. I wanted her to win and I don't know how, but it was just like it was really cool, and it just felt she was very honest, she'd been through a lot. And yeah, just to repeat, I hate repeating myself, but it's just like I think it's because there's such an absence of women like her on screen that it really like touched me quite a lot.

00:43:43
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, because it's rare to have a movie of this genre, you know, like a crime thriller, noir type movie that center is a woman as the protagonist who we are rooting for, the one where she's like the smartest person in the room, in any room she's in, she's doing a lot of the planning. She's playing all of these people like she's she's the one. She comes out on top.

00:44:10
Speaker 2: She's not hyper sexualized, which yeah, and you can't be bad at her, like even though she's got all of the strings, like you know how sometimes you hate like the villain in Bond or whatever, Like we're so with her, even though we're annoyed because we don't know what's going on or whatever, we're feeling for her and it's like we're really going through it as the audience.

00:44:27
Speaker 5: But like she's Yeah, she doesn't really do a lot wrong. There's no victim blaming. It's like this sometimes, you know, if there's you know, women in crime, it's like we we have only like a one D relationship with them or something like that. But even though she's a little bit flawed, like we're still with her.

00:44:44
Speaker 4: There's no blame here.

00:44:45
Speaker 5: There's really complex and it's kind of just enjoyable to see this that you can't start watching.

00:44:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, like you were saying, Jamie, she's the way that a lot of women in her position as a female character in a crime thriller movie, that character would be hyper sexualized and or she would be framed as like the fem fetal, but that is never how she's represented, and especially for her to be centered as the protagonist in a movie like this, especially as a black woman, and especially as a black woman who is older than thirty or thirty five, Like, these are very rare things to see.

00:45:29
Speaker 1: And this is I forget when we talked about this, Caitlin, But I feel like it's like Pam gre the actor is over forty when this is filmed. But we also I feel like often see actors who are older, but they're still playing like a thirty seven year old, and in this movie it is stated she is forty four years old. And also like does I don't know, like also the character matches that because I do think that there is, like even now, like a pressure to eternally seem like you are in your late thirties early forties, even if you're an actor into your fifties and sixties.

00:46:07
Speaker 3: The Sandra Bullock effect, Yeah.

00:46:09
Speaker 1: Totally, and I and it's like has nothing to do with the actors. It's all the whatever cultural pressure to look at a certain age long after that makes human sense. But I liked that like, Yeah, like Jackie Brown is, I don't know, I liked how this movie approached age as a theme, And I didn't even realize until those conversations were had between a few different characters, because I think, I mean, Jackie obviously talks about it most explicitly when she talks about aging with Max and also points out how aging for her is framed differently than the way it is for him. And I thought that scene was like really great and like beautifully done between them. And you also see the freaky DeNiro care talk about aging too, because now he can't smoke weed at he are like, but it's like everyone like most characters. I don't know as much for Ordell, but for like most characters, we get to know interact with the idea of aging in a way that felt I don't know, like I guess, more thoughtful than I was expecting it to. Yeah, And I think it's like also rare to see you know, Pam Career and oh what's the what's Max Cherry's name? Again? God damn it? Oh, Robert Forster, Robert Forster to see actually like age well, like whatever, I mean, I don't want to get into age gap discourse today, but like age appropriate older couple as the leading romantic story is again just like doesn't really happen even now still and I just thought it was I don't know. I liked how each character sort of got to explore what that meant to them, And I think that's seen like between Jackie and Max illustrates her motivation on why she's doing what she's doing so beautifully and so empathetically and like you can't watch that scene and not want her to get every cent as well.

00:48:18
Speaker 5: Just on the same point as you, Jamie, is that I'm not objectifying her. I don't know that sounds really weird, but in terms of like I'm not fixated with her appearance as beautiful as she is, Like that doesn't really like it's not my central focal point. Like I think I only realized at the end when that, like you said that that kiss happened, that I'm like, she's a sexy lady, but like you, I'm seeing her as a human and outrounded person. I'm not just like checking her out like the whole time, or it's not that she's a Yeah, I think you already made that point about her not being sexualized.

00:48:50
Speaker 1: Yes, which is like really cool. I don't know, Like I again, I just like didn't expect it because Tarantino's super hidden miss on how he sexualizes his female characters as well. And you know, there's a bajillion studies about how women of color in general are more likely to be sexualized in movies that anyone is making, especially in the West, And so I don't know, I just like I loved the scene where like Max falls in love with Jackie at first sight and she's just walking like.

00:49:21
Speaker 3: She's having spent several days maybe in jail, and she's like disheveled, and she wants to go to like a dark bar so that no one can see her because she's like, I look like I just got out of jail. But he's just like, that's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, and.

00:49:36
Speaker 1: He's not wrong.

00:49:37
Speaker 3: Like Pam Greer has such a presence on screen, like she has just a face that you want to stare at for hours and hours and hours, Like it's just she's just so magnetic and every man who she encounters basically falls in love with her because Max sees her it's love at first sight. There are various allusions to Ray the Michael Keaton cop liking her, having a crush on her. He like takes her out to dinner several times to like discuss the case, but like it doesn't need to be over dinner, but he's just like, I love I just want to look at her. The bartender. It's like a brief, like two second scene, but like the bartender at the cockatoo, Inn is like, hey baby.

00:50:21
Speaker 5: But the characters like her can be made. Why why aren't they made since then? Or obviously not before? Fine, but like since then, how come it's proven that this is a realistic portrayal of a character? Like it's very rare, isn't it?

00:50:38
Speaker 1: It does still feel I mean, it's like, yeah, I feel like there's far fewer examples since Jackie Brown then there should be. And I don't know, like I think this is probably all Pam Greer, but it feels so cool and rare to have a character who is sexy but not sexualized, Like I don't I don't know. I mean, I think it just has to deal with like her persona and what a good like an amazing actor and what an amazing performance this is. But like she's so naturally like magnetic and sexy and cool that it's like, I don't know, like it feels like this movie just lets Pam Greer do her work and perform and just like you have no trouble believing that anyone would fall in love.

00:51:26
Speaker 5: With her, And it's so like freeing because I'm not focused on her being sexualized. I'm seeing so many different aspects of her that I wouldn't if she was being sexualized. So I'm not saying that there's no room for sexualized characters, but I think because it's just always the case that, like, because I'm so unpreoccupied with her, like those kind of aspects of her, I'm allowed to just let go and be in the story and follow her and not just parts of her, like I don't. Yeah, it's not focunistic at all. It's just like you're with the character, you're not we've had because of her looks or because of superficial things.

00:52:03
Speaker 1: Right, totally, Yeah, you just need her. I wanted to point out one more of the age things because I just I don't know, I'm like, wow, age is never discussed in movies, but the Cops at one point in the first scene that Jackie has with the two cops where they're going through her bag and she's holding her ground. She's not putting up with like not taking the bait after bait after bait that they're throwing at her. And one of those pieces of bait is related to both her age, race, and class, I think, all in the same sentence where one of the characters says something akin to like, if I was a forty four year old black woman with a shitty job, I don't think I would have another year to throw away, So you better cooperate with us. Yeah, And I don't know. It's just like such a vile thing to say to her, and she just like does I mean, obviously doesn't fall for it. She doesn't fall for anyone's bullshit, but it was you know. I think that like that line sticks with her because it comes up in a roundabout way later in that conversation with Max, and her takeaway is like that's the reason she's not going to cooperate with the cops. Is like she's going to get her fucking eat prey love story, and like there's totally there's Jackie Brown, two very different vibes. Almost, Well, that's the thing.

00:53:27
Speaker 3: Like her motivation is the intersection of her age, her race, and her class because she and her status as someone who has been incarcerated because she has a prior conviction and where she served. I don't know if she served jail time, but she was on probation for a while, because it's referenced that she was formerly married and her husband, who was a pilot, got caught for smuggling drugs I think or something and she was his accomplice. So she got apprehended by the law to some degree, and it made it so that she couldn't get work with the major airlines, which is why she's working for Cabo Air, which I don't know if that's a real airline or not, but in the movie, it's widely known that it's like the shittiest airline to work for, and it's you know, referenced that she only makes sixteen thousand dollars a year, and so she's looking out for herself and she knows that like as a black woman in her mid forties with a prior arrest or, like you know, something on her record, the cards are very much stacked against her, and she needs to do whatever it takes to look out for herself. And that's why she's like, I'm going to steal this half a million dollars from this shitty arms dealer who's like bad hit everything, and we're rooting for her because of it.

00:55:02
Speaker 4: Did you guys?

00:55:03
Speaker 5: Sorry, we talked about this very briefly at the beginning, but did you learn anything about yourselves when you watch this that did you think you would do the same as her? Or what was your anxiety that was like, oh my god, I couldn't do that, Like, what did you learn about your pelf?

00:55:18
Speaker 3: I would be so afraid of getting murdered by someone that I and I'm such a rule follower that.

00:55:24
Speaker 4: I'd be like, okay, so not for you.

00:55:27
Speaker 3: I'm such a baby.

00:55:29
Speaker 4: It was hard. It was hard to decide.

00:55:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was also, I mean, I think you mentioned it earlier. I was like, I don't know if I could keep my facts straight sufficiently morally. I have no scruples about what Jackie is doing. And if I were in a similar position, I you know, if I thought I could pull it off, Yeah, maybe I would try, but I don't know. I was like, I would need someone that I trust to be like wait, what lie? Did I tell again? Like I would need someone.

00:56:02
Speaker 3: Well, she trusts Max, and I want to just chat about that relationship a little bit more because, like as you said, Saudia, it is that relationship is like almost it's like barely even a subplot in this movie. It's just sort of there. It's not really taking up any space there. You know, he likes her from the get go. She's not like exploiting him or using him necessarily because she never tries to be like I love you and that's why you have to do this for me. She's just like I'm trying to do this thing. Can you help me? And he's like, well, I love you so yes. And I was like, hm, I wonder if they're gonna like stick them together at the end, and she does like kind of halfheartedly invite him to go to Spain with her. He declines, I'm not surprised that this movie didn't do it, because like that's not a Tarantino thing to do. He usually doesn't go for those cliche Hollywood endings.

00:57:02
Speaker 1: But I think, I mean, I was surprised at how like I think it again, like for me connected to the sexy but not sexualized thing where I don't know, I mean trying to think of a clear cut example. But again just with like women over forty in movies, I flick it is the older you get as an actor, if you're a woman or anyone of a marginalized gender, the less likely it is that you are going to be shown as romantically viable for sure. And I like that she kind of gets her little like I don't know. This relationship is like very much a side quest of the movie. It is there. It helps move the plot along a little bit, but it's like she I kind of liked where they left it, where it was like, yeah, they didn't force the relationship and that like I don't know. I mean, obviously he'll be hung up on her until he dies, but that's kind of his prefer She's got to move on. And I love that the movie gives us, you know, those like book endings of Jackie by herself, like moving through the world, and this time she's like driving with intention. She's not being ushered along by this moving whatever at the airport, like I don't know, she's It's wow. It feels very like and my life was the prize at the end of the movie, and you're like, I'm in control. It's cool.

00:58:25
Speaker 3: This is from a Variety piece from a few years ago entitled Jackie Brown at twenty, meaning the movie is twenty years old, Jackie Brown at twenty. Pam Greer has a better idea for an ending, and so Pam Greer's pitch for an alternate ending for this movie is this quote. In my ending, we have a nice kiss, a second kiss, and embrace, and he lets all the phone calls go to voicemail. He'll take care of them later. He turns out the lights, takes the keys, with me kids in the car, I drive off, and all of a sudden he becomes this chatterbox and annoying. I go around the block, drop him off, and peel out of there.

00:59:10
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's great.

00:59:13
Speaker 4: I like that because I think what made their you can't call.

00:59:18
Speaker 5: It relationship, but their connection interesting was the whole kind of danger of this kind of smuggling deal type of thing. And so if that's the sexy thing and that's kind of resolved itself, then yeah, maybe like the reality, I think basically it's a bittersweet, but it's probably more correct that they don't end up together because daily life just isn't going to be.

00:59:41
Speaker 1: For Jackie right, Yeah, I think he's too much of a square for her, and it seems like he kind of I kind of appreciated that he seemed to have the self knowledge to understand that, and that's part of why he's like, I can't I can't go on a vacation. I'm too boring.

00:59:58
Speaker 4: Oh, Jamie is going in.

01:00:01
Speaker 1: Well, I really know, I really liked Max, Like I thought that like he was a I don't know, I think it's kind of Yeah, there's a lot about this, especially for a Tarantino movie that surprised me, where I feel like you don't get a lot of like gentle men, not not gentlemen, but like gentle men in Tarantino movies. But Max Cherry is, you know, a pretty gentle man, and I appreciated him. And I also was like, would I want to go on a European vacation with him? Probably not. I feel like Jackie's on to I truly am like, what is the like? Yeah? And I also, I don't know, I think I'm just a sucker for like relationship subplots that are like we like had this really weird, interesting moment in our lives that we shared together, and then we moved on. I always kind of appreciate that kind of story, and it seems like they'll both, you know, remember each other fondly. And also I kind of liked that they're like, well, I didn't like this, but it was like Max was so like, I don't know, I think inspired by meeting Jackie that he's like, I'm getting out of the bail bond game and then he does not, which just felt very true to life, true like I'm always like I'm I'm done with whoever whatever, and then you know, two seconds later you're like, well, no, I actually have to pay rent this month, so I guess I'm not done.

01:01:27
Speaker 4: Uh.

01:01:29
Speaker 3: Can we talk about the other women in the movie? Who oh boy? Are all girlfriends of Ordell?

01:01:41
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, Tarantino used up all his respect for women on Jackie's character, and he had none despair for anybody else.

01:01:49
Speaker 3: This is true.

01:01:49
Speaker 4: Yes.

01:01:51
Speaker 3: The character with the most screened time of those girlfriends of Ordell is Melanie, played by Bridget Fon. So we learn very early on that Ordell mistreats Melanie. He expects her to wait on him hand and foot. There's a scene where they're watching feminist masterpiece Chicks who love guns.

01:02:18
Speaker 1: I thought that was like funny satire for yeah.

01:02:22
Speaker 3: Also noteworthy in that scene is Ordell is like talking to Lewis about all of his gun knowledge, and he's saying that his customers want particular guns because certain movies made them look cool, even if the guns themselves are not very good quality. But he's like, well, they want the cool guns from the cool movies. And so he's just commenting on how influential media is. Anyway, So Melanie is mistreated if she tries to, you know, challenge Ordell, he threatens her with violence. She spends most of the movie shit talking or Dell to Lewis, saying like he doesn't actually know anything. He's like he thinks he's Johnny Gunn or something, but he doesn't know shit. She also later shit talks Lewis to his face, saying like, oh, no, wonder you got arrested and like went to jail. You're really bad at this, uh, and then he retaliates by shooting her, which we'll get to in a second.

01:03:25
Speaker 1: But when you when you explain it like that, it's sort it's interesting. I don't know, maybe there's nothing to this, but like it seems like Melanie is this sort of like behavioral inverse of Jackie in a lot of ways, where like Jackie knows that she is mostly surrounded by incompetent men, but generally has enough patience to play it to her advantage. Yeah, where Melanie does not have that patience. True, And I like, I don't know, I'm not trying to like I I'm I'm so curious of like what you're supposed to think about her death. I didn't know what to take because I feel like there's a way that it's just like aid an act of cruelty and like some sort of comment on like masculinity about the DeNiro character. But I also think there's a viewing of it that it's like, well, she brought it upon herself.

01:04:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's but I don't know that's the thing. Like she so she gets she later gets roped into this like hand off sting thing and she becomes an integral part of the plan. But then she almost immediately is shot and killed in a way that, like we said, we do not see coming at all. And it got me thinking about the other characters who are killed in the movie and why they are killed. Because the people who are killed are Beaumont, Lewis, Ordell, and Melanie, not in that order exactly, but Beaumont and Lewis are killed by Ordell because they do something foolish. They're a liability to Ordell. Basically, they're screwing up his operation, and so he kills them to protect himself and eliminate these liabilities. Ordell is killed because he's the bad guy who has to be taken down. He is also him getting killed to me felt like the movie punishing him for his bad behavior. He's cruel to women, he's he's going to kill the character that we're rooting for, Jackie Brown, so he has to die, and that's the narrative punishing him. But then Melanie is killed, like because she challenged Lewis's fragile ego, and it's just like I don't know how to interpret it exactly like you were saying, Jamie.

01:05:55
Speaker 1: I don't know.

01:05:56
Speaker 3: And then Ordell is like, when Lewis is like, yeah, I did shoot Melanie and she's basically dead, Ordell is like you couldn't talk to her, you couldn't just hit her. And then Lewis is like, well, I don't know, I just shot her, and so Ordell is like, well, if you had to do it, you had to do it.

01:06:16
Speaker 1: And which which says to me just like based on I don't know, Like it's hard to put on nineteen ninety seven goggles for like watching this, but it feels like in that scene with Sam Jackson and de Niro that like it's kind of played as a joke right after it happens, because that's like such a Tarantino scene of like Sam Jackson in a car talking about a recent murder, and it's like some of the most iconic scenes that he's written. I don't know. This is not one of them, obviously, but I don't know. I felt like her, I don't understand why in a movie where I feel like I did understand most of why things were happening, that felt casual and random in Seid, And maybe that's what it was supposed to be. I don't I don't really know. And I also, towards the end of Melanie's character arc, was not sure what she was trying to do either, because it's like she had we know that her motive is that Ordele treats her poorly and she wants to fuck him over in some way, and that's why she's leveraging this new I don't know, like awkward, weed smoking hang situation with Lewis to her advantage. I don't understand really why, Like, but on the day of their plan, like she is running behind, Like there's I just like didn't understand what we were supposed to take away from her behavior like that was very unsettled, and I think just was made to some extent to make her seem like incompetent and kind of just like a bimbo in the bad way, not in the coup way.

01:08:04
Speaker 3: Well, there are a lot of male directors who do this where they're like, yeah, there are certain types of women who do deserve respect, but if you're this type of woman, you do not deserve respect. And I think Tarantino views someone like the Melanie character as the type of woman who does not deserve respect, and therefore she's gonna make choices that ultimately get her killed, and the movie is gonna basically sort of blame her for getting killed, and it's like, well, she was asking for it basically because of the way she is. That's at least my interpretation of it. I think you could read it differently, but that's how I sort of feel.

01:08:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm on bored with that. It's just bizarre because it's like this, she feels more in line with like a more stereotypical Quentin Tarantina character wedged inside of this movie that pushes against a lot of what you would consider to be stereotypical Quentin Tarantino characters. And I also just like Bridget Fonda, and I wish that she got a better ending. I like that at least at least before she dies. You do get like this moment between her and Jackie, even though it doesn't pass the fact with us and they don't even ever really meet, like face to face really because anytime that Jackie is entering, I think the one time that they might have a conversation, Melanie is leaving as Jackie arrives. But Jackie does try to like give her extra like she gives her like the cherry on top, because what did Ordella ever do for either of us? Yeah, I liked that little moment of solidarity even though she's got like forty five minutes left to live for reasons unclear to me, Yeah, I liked. I mean the other two we hear about two other characters. They're both girlfriends of Wordel.

01:10:06
Speaker 3: I think Simone and Shiranda.

01:10:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, I don't know. The way that Ordel talks about women is just horrible. Does not have a good thing to say about anybody. I think he's talking about Shiranda when he says that he basically prayed on her dream of moving to Hollywood. Yeah, and is keeping her captive to some extent as his girlfriend talks about her like she is not smart at all. But I believe she is also the one that takes the money and fucks him over.

01:10:38
Speaker 3: Right, No, that's Simone. Oh, good for Simone. So Simone is right. So Simone is the middle aged woman who who we meet when she's like doing a little dance for Lewis in this like blue sequin dress. She's the kind of secret person who's there for the trial run of that like first money and Off, and then she skips town with ten thousand dollars and they never hear from her again, good for her. Shironda is the younger woman. She's only nineteen. Meanwhile, Sam Jackson, like his character's in his forties, late forties, presumably, like you said, he talks about her very disrespectfully calls her like a country bumpkin kind of thing, and then later she does that handoff and she interacts very briefly with Jackie, and that's kind of all we see of the food at the food court. She eats some of her meal, and then later she's in the room when Ordell and Max are talking, and it's implied that she's like so stoned out of her mind. I'm guessing on Heroin that she's like basically incapacitated and she doesn't even like speak or does like barely conscious in that scene. So those other two women of like Simone and Shiranda, they are important to the story for like the different sting operations that go down, but they get very little screen time, They get very little characterization. The characters nor the movie seem to respect them very much, and then they're you know, in a couple scenes and then gone, so there isn't really even much to talk about with them.

01:12:26
Speaker 1: I really do like picture Quinn Garantino in his house with like a vial full of respect for women characters, and he's like, I don't know, I'm fresh out.

01:12:36
Speaker 3: I used it all up on that one.

01:12:37
Speaker 1: It's gonna have to phone it in. Yeah, which sucks because again, I feel like we've been talking about this for as long as the show has existed. I think the first time we may have talked about it was in the original Star Wars a New Hope episode where it's like movies that have one amazing woman character and then no one for them to really talk to other than men for the whole movie. Yeah, which this movie is not completely an example of, but for the most part, I don't know. I mean, it's not perfect, but what movie is. I just love Jackie Brown so much that I want to forget this movie for certain things. But also, you know, I'm team Bridget Fonda. She's very talented, she's married to Danny Elfman, whoa is that fun.

01:13:24
Speaker 3: She's also a NEPO person because she's Henry Fonda's granddaughter, Peter Fonda's daughter. The whole Fonda family is just I mean, I like them, Jane Fonda's she's Jane Fonda's niece.

01:13:39
Speaker 1: This is I'm pro Fonda. I'm not made of stone.

01:13:44
Speaker 3: Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?

01:13:48
Speaker 1: Uh?

01:13:48
Speaker 7: Not?

01:13:49
Speaker 1: That was uh, that's battle I had.

01:13:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we were kind of alluding to this There are a couple interactions between women, but as far as this movie passed seeing the Bechdel test, I do think that an exchange between Jackie and Sharonda, Yes at the mall court does pass.

01:14:09
Speaker 1: It does, yeah, because they are and I would say that that's their meeting. Is definitely very meaningful. Even though it doesn't have a ton of plot relevance, it feels I was really happy that the movie at least took a second to introduce them to each other. They're mostly talking about food at the mall, but yeah, there's subtext. I think it counts true. But I think that that is the only time that we get because the other exchanges are very brief. Between Pamguer and Bridget Fonda, there's a moment of solidarity, but it's over a mutual being fucked over by Ordell, so that that doesn't pass.

01:14:52
Speaker 3: But maybe when Melanie is like, you look really good in that suit and Jackie's like thanks.

01:14:58
Speaker 1: Oh that's true. Okay, feminist masterpiece. I take back everything.

01:15:03
Speaker 3: I can take it all back, but onto the real end all be all of movie rating systems, the Nipple scale, Yes, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five Nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. So this one, oh, this is a tricky one. You know, you have such an incredible character in Jackie Brown. Again, she's the smartest person in the room. You know, she's a realistically flawed character. She's you know, she's highly motivated. What is motivating her are interesting relatable things as far as like, again the intersection of her age, race, and class.

01:15:55
Speaker 5: And I like that she's not like beholden to anybody like those flaws are hers.

01:16:01
Speaker 4: It's not like there's a whole I.

01:16:03
Speaker 5: Mean, there's probably a big backstory, but it's not kind of alluded to, and so there's no like you feel for her, but it's not like a pity feel.

01:16:12
Speaker 3: For her for sure.

01:16:13
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:16:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's highly empathetic as a character, and I'm rooting for her every step of the way. And you know, the Pam Greer performance is incredible, and there's just so much to love and admire about the Jackie Brown character. But as we said, Tarantino seems to have used up all of his respect for women on that one character, and then the rest of the female characters are not offered that same level of respect or characterization, and yeah, I don't know, there's just.

01:16:50
Speaker 1: Melanie could have just disappeared, Yeah, like she could have like like we didn't need to.

01:16:54
Speaker 3: Gotten away from Lewis.

01:16:57
Speaker 4: In some respect, I think the treatment of the.

01:17:02
Speaker 5: Smaller roles of the women it says a lot about the guys as well, and I feel like it's also about the world that's been created.

01:17:09
Speaker 4: They're not very I don't know what the word I mean, upmarket.

01:17:12
Speaker 5: Is probably a bad choice of word, but it's like I still hold them accountable to an extent. Does that make sense what I'm saying, Like in terms of the male characters, their sloppiness towards the women, it's about them as well.

01:17:27
Speaker 3: I do think the movie is commenting on their like fragile male egos and.

01:17:33
Speaker 5: They're in a funk, right, These guys are in a funk. As you kind of said earlier about Robert de Niro's character, like.

01:17:39
Speaker 4: He's basically a loser.

01:17:41
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think it's like it's not like the best portrayal of women, or it's not a good portrayal of women. However, I think they're also accountable in terms of they're not great portrayals of men.

01:17:53
Speaker 3: Either, right, I mean Tarantino does not have respect. I don't know, I don't know how he feels about like ordell Or, but I mean he seems to think Max Cherry is a pretty nice guy. Yeah, and I can't argue with him. I was like, I was like, I like Max, but also like we didn't oh, we didn't even talk about like Jackie Brown colluding with the cops and like her cooperation with the police and you know, but also maybe you just have to chalk it up to again, she's gonna do whatever it takes, because she also plays the cops like she's not like there to be like, no, you guys are awesome and I'm definitely helping you with one hundred percent integrity.

01:18:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't say that this movie is procused pro coright, No, it seems like she she makes it very like I think that, like especially in that scene where it's hurt, She's like, I'm going to do whatever is necessary to survive in a way where I can be happy. Like justifies how she games everything in every single role, right and where like woaho, hell Yeah. But then like I think more it's pro cop to make Michael Keaton a cop because I think he's really hot. Well, I know, someone is so sexy. That's sort of my thing. Casting someone as young Michael Keaton does it for me, right.

01:19:20
Speaker 3: Casting someone as likable as Michael Keaton as a cop character is a little too pro cop for my for my taste, but even so, yeah, it's It's just it's Jackie Brown again being the smartest person in the room, being able to keep track of everything that she's said to everyone, anticipating things that will probably like she knows all about Murphy's Law, like whatever can go wrong will, She's like anticipating things. I also like the contrast between Beaumont, who willingly gets in the trunk of a car for like basically no reason. He's like the reason that Ordell is like, yeah, because I need you to spring out and surprise these people. I'm selling the guns too. It's just like the flimsiest thing ever. Bowman's just like, well, okay.

01:20:09
Speaker 1: It's horrible, and how the horrible thing is When that scene happened, I believed him. I was like, wow, I really would not make it five minutes into this movie. I would have been like, yeah, I guess I owe you as sure.

01:20:24
Speaker 3: You get into the trunk of a car, no problem. But when as soon as you know, Max tells Jackie about like, oh yeah, Beaumont got killed a few days ago. Jackie's like, oh, well, that was obviously Ordell, and obviously he's going to try to kill me too, So I need to prepare. Like she's just so good at being hyper aware of the situation and all the nuances and like anticipating anything that might happen, and she's incredible. So with all of this in mind, I think I'll give the movie.

01:20:59
Speaker 1: I'm kind of.

01:21:00
Speaker 3: Tempted to give it like three nipples because there are some maybe even three and a half.

01:21:06
Speaker 1: I don't know, Wow, I was even gonna go for it. Is that too scary?

01:21:11
Speaker 3: That's not scary?

01:21:12
Speaker 1: Is that too scary?

01:21:13
Speaker 3: All right, I'll go three and at half because at the end of the day, it is still Quentin Tarantino writing the N word into his script one hundred times. Yeah, So three and a half nipples, and I'm going to distribute them between Pam Greer, the actors who played Shiranda and Simone, and Sam Jackson, who I just love and he's the greatest, so much so that I'm on a first name basis with him.

01:21:41
Speaker 1: Hey Sam, Wow, yeah yeah.

01:21:45
Speaker 4: Four.

01:21:46
Speaker 1: For some reason, four doesn't sit right with my with my spirit, So I'll go, I'll go three point seven. Five. Let's get let's get into some real decimones. Get number freaky. Jackie Brown is such an awesome character. I feel like it. Yeah, there's just so many elements of like, I mean, we have talked about it, but centering a black woman in her forties in a like huge movie was really rare then, is really rare now. And also that like she's sexy, but she's not like I don't know, the camera doesn't like make a meal of her in a creepy way at any point. She's really smart, she's really motivated, but not in a way that it's like becomes like weird Mary Sue kind of behavior. Like the steaks are very real, and like she's I don't know, she's just like the coolest fucking character, and I wish that she had again, just like women in her life to talk to. I always think it's fascinating when you find these characters who are like these amazing women that you're like, how does Jackie Brown not have five? Hundred friends like, she is so cool and so loved by everyone she encounters that you would think if the movie allowed her to encounter more women, they too would love her. And I just I don't know. I mean, we don't really get into Jackie Brown's or anyone in this movie's you know, backstory in a meaningful way, which didn't bother me, But I just I don't know. It would have been cool to see what a true, like deep friendship would have seemed like for her. But whatever it's she is incredible. I think Melanie and Simone and Ronda were all done different types and degrees of disservice, but Jackie She's untouchable. And so I'm gonna give it three point seven five. I'm giving them all to Pam Greer because it's her movie. Baby.

01:23:48
Speaker 3: I feel like you could have written out as much as I like Robert de Niro as an actor, I feel like you could have written him out of the movie and then given Jackie Brown a friend instead of giving Ordell a friend. That's my controversial This.

01:24:03
Speaker 1: Doesn't This doesn't resolve the problem, but it would been kind of fun if Rubbertcenio is Jackie Brown's best friend.

01:24:10
Speaker 3: Anyway, Sardio, how about you? What say you?

01:24:14
Speaker 5: This is so hard because it's my choice, but I think, yeah, I was going to go for four, but maybe three point nine, but that's just weird, so probably let me go for four.

01:24:25
Speaker 1: Okay, oh yeah, because it.

01:24:27
Speaker 7: Definitely did make me see things in a really refreshing way, even though like we've definitely commented and I've taken on board the notes about the side characters, which isn't great from.

01:24:41
Speaker 5: Like obviously when we're kind of in the industry, so we know that all characters should be rounded, but like that's not what he's gone for really, so, but she is totally eclipsed everything, and I think given that I really don't see women black women so real and so kind of winners and inspiring survivors all of those things, it's like yeah, before.

01:25:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, hell yeah.

01:25:06
Speaker 3: Well, Sadia, thank you so much for joining us for this discussion. Tell us where people can follow you online, tell us about your book, or plug anything you want to plug.

01:25:19
Speaker 4: Thank you, ladies.

01:25:20
Speaker 5: It's been so much fun and like, yeah, you made me love this movie again and so much more. I don't know why I don't watch this like more often, so My book is called Texom. You can't see it because I've learned my zoom.

01:25:34
Speaker 4: Oh. Anyway, my book is my memoir.

01:25:36
Speaker 5: It's about kind of dating as a Muslim woman, which you never get to hear about in a nuanced way. I guess, well you ever get to hear about is Muslim women being repressed. So I'm really excited it's coming out in America. I'm confused because I was told that it's coming out on the twenty ninth of August, but my friend in America said they can already order it now, so if you do want to support you can. You can get your good, older independent bookstore to order it, or you can get it from Amazon or anywhere basically. So, I really enjoyed writing that and hopefully I can write another one. You can find me on Instagram mostly at Sadia underscore asthmats with an at the end. And I also have a website which is Sadia asthmat dot com and it has a free guide if you want to sign up to my mailing list. It's ten things You've always wanted to ask about my head scarf but we're too afraid to ask.

01:26:29
Speaker 4: So you can download it for free.

01:26:30
Speaker 5: And it's a little list that I made and that's my plugs.

01:26:34
Speaker 3: Amazing. Thank you again.

01:26:35
Speaker 4: And I'm coming to America. Sorry, oh my god, of another movie.

01:26:38
Speaker 5: I'm coming to New York September and October twenty twenty three.

01:26:42
Speaker 4: So I'm really excited. So hell yeah, my first ever time in America and I can't wait. I'm so excited.

01:26:49
Speaker 5: Well, I'm away from the melt More food courts because I hear there's a lot of there's a lot of trouble that goes down there, so I wrote.

01:26:56
Speaker 1: So dangerous it goes down.

01:26:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, We'll enjoy your travels, and thanks again for coming on the show.

01:27:03
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.

01:27:05
Speaker 3: You can follow us on social media at Bechdel Cast and subscribe to our Matreon at patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast, where you will get two bonus episodes every single month, always centering a super fun, awesome genius theme. And you'll also get access to our back catalog of many, many episodes, all for five dollars a month.

01:27:33
Speaker 4: I imagine.

01:27:34
Speaker 1: And you can also get our our merchover at teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast for all of your merchandizing needs. And on that note, let's get into the car of our recently dead guy we knew and Dry. I have to the airport and go eat prey love in Madrid.

01:28:05
Speaker 3: Bye bye bye