Beauty Shop with Clarkisha Kent

00:00:01
Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's a patriarchy, zeph and vest start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

00:00:16
Speaker 2: Hey, Caitlin, do you want this donut? By the way, I don't respect women.

00:00:22
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, I want a donut, but not from someone who doesn't. Oh wait, what does she say? I forget what Vanessa says in that me.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I read it. I donate donuts with boys who exploit women. This is what she says. Yeah, so that's my response to you, and the world shook on its axis in that moment when that sentence was written down. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftis, my.

00:00:46
Speaker 3: Name is Caitlin Dronte, 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 larger conversations about representation. Jamie, what is the Bechdel Test?

00:01:03
Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you please, just as we have for many years, so many the bechel test is a media metric originally created by where cartoonist Alison Bechtel and her amazing collection likes to Watch out for. It is often called the Bechdel Wallace test because it was co created with her friend Liz Wallace. Lots of versions of this test. It was originally created as a bit, but it has sort of become a very prominent media metric. We're going to be talking about a lot of media metrics today. The version of the Bechdel test that we use requires that there be two characters of a marginalized gender with names who speak to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue, and it should be plot relevant. Nothing like Hi, do you want a cappuccino? No, although in this movie that can be plot relevant. It depends.

00:01:57
Speaker 3: It's sort of important to the story.

00:01:59
Speaker 2: What is the obscenity judge quote that I can never remember? I know it when I see it?

00:02:05
Speaker 3: Oh about porn? Yeah?

00:02:07
Speaker 2: Yes, anyways, let's move let's move forward.

00:02:11
Speaker 3: Yes, So today we have such an exciting guest. We're so happy to finally have her on the show. She's a Nigerian American writer, culture critic, former columnist, and author of the book Fat Off Fat on a Big Bitch Manifesto. You've seen a writing featured in outlets like Entertainment Weekly, Essence, Glamdam Paper, b Et, huff Post, MTV News, The Route, and many many more. She's also the creator and co creator of a number of different media tests that we're also going to talk about. It's Clarkisha Kent. Well, Oh.

00:02:46
Speaker 4: Y'all doing good?

00:02:48
Speaker 2: How are you?

00:02:49
Speaker 4: I am good? I'm good. It's a long Monday.

00:02:52
Speaker 3: Yes, it truly is. It's raining very heavily in La right now, and I feel like the loud rain noises are going to pick up on my microphone.

00:03:00
Speaker 2: It's an ASMR episode. You know, we're gonna make do Carcasia. We're so excited to have you on the show. We've talked about the Kent Test on the show before and you've just been like, I guess we have been hoping to talk with forever. So thank you for being here, Thank.

00:03:16
Speaker 4: You for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm very excited.

00:03:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're excited to have you. And yeah, tell us more about the Kent test and then the test that you co created with Sydney skuy G The Kelly and kat test.

00:03:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, so can test is you know straightforward.

00:03:33
Speaker 5: I would say it's a spiritual sister to the bagdel test, like it's aiming for the same thing, right, Like, hey, you I.

00:03:41
Speaker 4: Hate women.

00:03:43
Speaker 5: Very obvious, but you know I like to say that Americans like obvious things fed back to them. Right, So you can say, for example, racism is bad, and black people in healthcare and suffer a lot because racism is bad, They won't believe you to come back. We just feeds the paper to say, hey, we interviewed like twenty black people and they said racism is bad and healthcare. You know you need something on paper an the headline. Yeah, I use something on paper, right, So for me, that's what it was like. We know that media hates women, they treat us poorly, et cetera, et cetera, Right, but like when you don't have it on paper, it's easier for folks to gats like you.

00:04:21
Speaker 4: So that's what the contest was kind of born out of. Right.

00:04:25
Speaker 5: So it was like specifically, you know, I wanted to focus on black women for first and foremost, but also tangentially women of color, right, So.

00:04:34
Speaker 4: I was like, hey, our repen media is very terrible.

00:04:37
Speaker 5: And while I'm very iffy, like I wrote my book about, you know, representation matters because we're you know, we're in twenty twenty four now, We're not in like Obama.

00:04:46
Speaker 4: Era resentation of politics.

00:04:48
Speaker 5: Right, It's still one of those things where, like for better, for worse, media will very much influence a public perception of certain people, certain groups, et cetera. Right, So that's what the cantest is for. I was like, hey, they portray us poorly. This happened actually very far reaching consequences for us. So I was like, I'm gonna get this on paper and I'm gonna walk through different pieces. I'm gonna make it accessible so that other people can use it right beyond me, right, and be like, hey, no, I watched this thing.

00:05:15
Speaker 4: Even though it's my favorite movie.

00:05:16
Speaker 5: I noticed like they treated this black female character really bad and it loved the bad taste in my mouth. But I didn't know how to say until you know, again, I've had this piece of paper in front of me. So the test actually was born out of what happened to Nicobahari and Sleepy Hollow.

00:05:32
Speaker 3: Oh yes, we've talked about that on the episode we did on Miss genteenth. Yeah.

00:05:38
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:05:38
Speaker 5: Actually, the especially the very last practeria on the test talks about it in terms of like turning a black female character into a sacrifice in a way that honestly on characteristic of them. Like, yeah, it was very ugly, and like after that happened, I was like, all right, I'm.

00:05:54
Speaker 4: Gonna I'm gonna put this on paper. So that's kind of what happened.

00:05:58
Speaker 5: Obviously, you know, when we get into you like the medium will look at today we can go over the requirements of the tests. But you know who was born out of and for the Killing Cat Test again spiritual cousin to the Can Test. I created with Sydney Skatje, who's a prominent fat the British activist.

00:06:16
Speaker 4: I consider them a great friend. It's fucking funny too.

00:06:18
Speaker 5: So the test was born out of once again very poor presentation for fat people media. Once again focusing on women, but you know also other marginalized genders.

00:06:30
Speaker 4: In this case, we did want to.

00:06:32
Speaker 5: Include white women because the fat rep for them is also not great. Now again my focus is going to be you know, black women are women of color, but I'm gonna include that too because some of the media is very ugly, especially if y'all remember because we liked the same age early two thousands media very bad, very bad, very bad for us, very bad.

00:06:56
Speaker 4: It was very bad.

00:06:57
Speaker 2: The shallow how era, yeah, is very very dark.

00:07:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:07:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:07:04
Speaker 5: The name points to specifically more recent fat characters, which would be like Kelly Fort Insecure and Cap from Euphoria. Yeah, a lot of it was there, a similar similar overlap to the Kent tests, but like also like hyper specific stuff that goes into you know, styling for fat characters, which is really important to close it. They put us in right, Yeah, our family dynamics, our relationships, very particular tropes too, so we tried to go into a little more detail. But yeah, that was born last year, like I want to say, right before that, my book came out, so that this was fun, It was fun nice.

00:07:39
Speaker 2: And what is the public response to both of the tests, Bennet? It seems I mean, like I know that the second test is newer, but the Kent test I feel like it's just like a part of film discussion now, like it does make a marked difference.

00:07:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, it because it came out in twenty eighteen, which was the year Black Fans There came out. So that was actually the movie I graded on it and the second with Widows.

00:08:03
Speaker 4: Both guys loved that.

00:08:05
Speaker 5: I loved that for me, right, and you know, it's definitely evolved because I remember I published it in conjunction with my Quality for Her Who's run By I think Claramony at the time, and you know, it was part of a larger package, right, but the testa so just kind of took on a life of its own. It's just like, okay, well I'm the star here, I'm Beyonce of this thing, so.

00:08:27
Speaker 4: I'm out of here.

00:08:28
Speaker 2: But just god took off.

00:08:29
Speaker 5: So it also came out on International Women's Day, so I think that helped to like with the black profile. So since then, like you said, it is out there. You know, people talk about it, you know, shows like this. I've seen it come up in different like articles, journals, I see it pop up in people's dissertations, you know, and like you know, like high school, high school, middle school, you know, classrooms will also like college classrooms, like very sophisticated people drawing theory alongside the test. So that's been definitely interesting, very humbling. So I'm just like, wow, they got pretty far.

00:09:09
Speaker 3: So that's incredible.

00:09:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm happy about that because we have to give people the tools to do better. And that was also an important part of the test too, because you know, I know that people are like, you give it numbers instead of like a past failed thing. I'm like, yeah, because it's not about past fail It's about I mean, if you fail, then we obviously still got talked.

00:09:31
Speaker 4: Right, But it's not about that.

00:09:33
Speaker 5: It's about the fact that, like, you need to notice your own biases, right, Like I got my own right. Everybody has them, and I think refusing to name them makes it worse, you know, it makes it worse less and fester. So that's what the test was about, Like, yeah, you can have all the goodwill, you.

00:09:50
Speaker 4: Can have all the great intentions, like trying to make.

00:09:54
Speaker 5: What diverse characters I put in quotations for obvious reasons, Right, there was characters, But like if I go watch them and they're like some of the worst stereotypical characters anyone can come up with, then your attention doesn't really mean anything, right.

00:10:09
Speaker 3: Right, exactly. Yeah, inclusion doesn't automatically mean that it's good inclusion. It's still a matter of like making sure that it's meaningful and handled responsibly. That's something I really appreciate about the Kent Test is how thorough it is and how many different criteria you use to evaluate, because, as we often talk about on this show, like the Bechdel Test is a useful tool for the basis of a very very basic conversation. You know, it can springboard into other conversations, but it's very baseline. And people seem to still have a misunderstanding about its role in our show, and I get it. We did accidentally name the show after it, but it.

00:10:50
Speaker 2: Was like, twenty sixteen. Can't be held accountable for what I did in twenty sixteen?

00:10:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, truly. The people will be like, oh, so you must have liked that movie because it passed to the Bechdel Test, right, And I'm like, what, No, not like it's not like the be All end. So I appreciate how thorough the Kent Test is and its examination of media, and.

00:11:12
Speaker 2: The Kent Test is very relevant to the movie we're talking about today. We are covering the two thousand and five and boy is it two thousand and five movie Beauty Shop, a Queen Latifa vehicle, directed by Billy Woodruff, written by Kate Lanier and Norman Vance Junior Klarkisha, what is your history with this movie?

00:11:35
Speaker 5: First of all, it's you know, it's a Queen Latifa movie, and I love Queenlatifa. I would like watch her absolutely anything. Is she's a special Where she was describing like paying drying on a wall, I would be there because she's very talented, and you know, this is one of her earlier movies and all over it to lie it was a spinoff of you know, the Barbershop movies, and I'm actually quite we didn't get no sequel or you know, third way, we didn't get into that, and I'm like, I know, So it's a very formative movie for me too, because, like I said, you know, early two thousands, Fat Rep was horrendous, honestly a comm against humanity. And you know, so there's some people out there that only some money for therapy bills behind that kind of era. But you know, Queen Latie for that era is very important because she was like I don't gonna want to even say unintentionally, because I feel like when black women do stuff, it's always intentional, even if it's like very understated. So for her, I feel like she functioned that eras like this like countercultural thing, like okay, y'all trying to make sad people look bad, you want us to feel bad, et cetera, et cetera. No, that's not what I'm here for someone to put out these movies because she had that, she had the last Holiday. There's a couple of other ones. It's not more problematic than others. But you know, you know, she put out these movies. She had these these interesting fashions.

00:12:55
Speaker 4: She always casts these hot asthmen as her love instruments. Yes, it was really great, So I'm.

00:13:03
Speaker 5: Just gonna be a special place in my heart. And yeah, it also was for me super enjoyable. But because like people that you would have never die of showing up in the movie, like there's her diamond, Afy Woodard.

00:13:16
Speaker 4: Then you got Andy McDowell, then you got Kevin By.

00:13:21
Speaker 5: Kevin went movies for fun, you know when they were fun.

00:13:26
Speaker 4: Haven't fun?

00:13:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yes, we have like a child rapper little JJ. I mean we have this movie has everything. It has Octavia Spencer in a very small role before she was really famous. Like, yeah, this movie really put me in such a specific place. I was like I am in seventh grade and.

00:13:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie.

00:13:50
Speaker 2: I feel like we've covered a lot of these movies and the show recently. This was a sleepover movie for me. I've seen it at a number of sleepovers in middle school. I feel like it was on TV a lot as well later on. I haven't seen a second Barbershop movie where I know Gena's character is introduced, so I cannot speak to the Barbershop expanded universe, but I've seen the first Barbershop movie and then yeah, Beauty Shop. I feel like it was just an obvious pick because it's two thousand and five and it's a Queen Latifa movie, so I was really excited about it. Hadn't seen it in easily a decade, probably more before getting ready for this episode, and I was like, what do I remember about this movie? I remember Alfrey Woodard starting to recite Phenomenal Woman at the drop of a hat, and I remember little JJ, the child rapper, because I think I was like, he's cute and everything else I forgot, So I I it was a fun revisit ed. There's this shit little stuff to talk about, but it's nostalgic. It feels like you're saying, Clerkisha, like this movie is you know, flawed, but it's fun. It's like I just I really enjoyed it. I also did not realize it was Kevin Bacon until like a half hour in. Yes, I was like.

00:15:06
Speaker 5: Once we used to have fun these movies. I love that we can't do that now.

00:15:11
Speaker 2: Like I Kevin Veagan, would he take on these highlights now? I know? And I think like Kevin Bacon and Queen Latifa right now are on like crime procedurals, like they're not. Let's get Beauty Shop too. I don't need the crime procedurals anyways, Kitlyn, what's your history with Beauty Shop and the Barbershop Expanded Universe?

00:15:30
Speaker 3: Pretty brief? I had never seen Beauty Shop before prepping for this episode. I had seen the first barber Shop, but that's kind of where it begins and ends. So I've seen Beauty Shop twice now, and I also rewatched Barber Shop just to see kind of how the two compare. If there was any like notable things to say, I have a couple thoughts on it, but yeah, other than that, I hadn't seen it. But I do love Queen Latifa soul. It's always a pleasure to watch her. We just covered Valentine's Day, in which she has a very small role that it like does not do her justice at all. So it was a breath of fresh air to be able to actually like watch her in a starring role and just see all the talent that she has to offer.

00:16:17
Speaker 2: She's the best. I was trying to think of if there's other franchises. I feel like this has definitely happened, but I couldn't think of one off the top of my head where there was like a very male centered franchise like Barbershop. And I say this with love because I really love this movie. Like they kind of missus pac Man the spinoff where they're like, here's girl this movie you.

00:16:38
Speaker 3: Like Ocean's eight from the Oceans eleven, twelve, and thirteen franchise.

00:16:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a thing. It's a thing, and we should have had two of them.

00:16:47
Speaker 4: Truly, me is a better movie.

00:16:50
Speaker 5: I agree, there's still like some problematic aspects obviously, but like in comparison to Barbershop, right.

00:16:59
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, So let's take a quick break.

00:17:03
Speaker 3: We'll come back for the recap and then we'll discuss. So we'll be right back and we're back all right. So here is the recap for Beauty Shop two thousand and five. We are in Atlanta. We meet Gina that's Queen Latifa's character, and her daughter Vanessa played by Paige Heard. They live with Gina's mother in law, Paulette played by Laura Hayes, and her daughter Darnell played by Kisha Knight Polliam. She's in her twenties, I think. And we see Gina drop her daughter Vanessa off at a private arts school, and then Gina goes to work at a beauty salon owned by a man named Horror. And this is Kevin Bacon like you've never seen or heard him.

00:18:04
Speaker 6: Before or since, I don't think, I think not yeah, And his thing is that he's very shitty and condescending to Gina, and Gina has aspirations of owning her own beauty shop.

00:18:19
Speaker 3: She also makes her own special hair conditioner that one of her clients, Joanne played by Mina Suvari, just swears by. She also uses this conditioner on another client, Terry played by Andy McDowell, and they're loving this homemade conditioner. We also meet Gina's colleague Lynn, played by Alicia Silverstone who wants to be a stylist, but right now her job at Jorges Salon is to shampoo the clients. So everyone wants much more than this provincial life.

00:18:54
Speaker 2: Basically, as I was watching this, I was like, Wow, I don't understand stand how hair salons work. I was like, is shampoo a job? I didn't realize.

00:19:06
Speaker 3: I've only ever been shampooed by the same person who then like cuts or styles my hair, so I didn't know that was a separate job.

00:19:14
Speaker 2: Maybe it's like, if you have enough money, there's someone whose job is just shampoo. I don't know. My hair looks like shit, Like I just don't know. No, it doesn't, Jamie, Well, it's okay, I accept it, but it does.

00:19:27
Speaker 3: Okay, all right. Then we see a scene where Gina's daughter, Vanessa plays piano. She's prepping for an upcoming recital. We learned that Vanessa's dad used to play, but he has passed away, so Gina is a widow. Back at the salon, Jorge gets upset with Gina about something unreasonable, and she's had enough of him, so Gina quits and then starts investigating how to open up her own beauty shop. She goes to the bank for a loan she gets it's rejected by a white lady banker who appears to have a crush on one of her colleagues. So then Gina gives her a makeover and it changes the banker's mind and she approves alone for thirty thousand dollars, which is like over one hundred thousand less than what Gina is hoping for, which means that the only thing Gina can afford is a pretty rundown though still functioning beauty shop, and she buys it. Gina, Vanessa, Paulette, and Darnell fix up the shop, although there's still this like big hole in the ceiling with all of these electrical wires sticking out and this loud piano music can be heard coming from upstairs. So Gina calls an electrician, Joe played by Jamon Hansu, to come and fix the wires, and then we're like, okay, love interest for Gina alert.

00:20:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want this to become a movie trough. Why didn't like the hot guy that plays piano through your broken ceiling become a movie trope? It's such a good idea.

00:21:05
Speaker 3: Yes, it's also such a convenient relationship.

00:21:11
Speaker 4: Right, have one, like we're creative.

00:21:14
Speaker 3: Like I don't know, I don't know what happened.

00:21:17
Speaker 2: I love just like the writers sitting and being like, okay, okay, okay, there's a hole in the ceiling. What is the best thing to put in a hole in the ceiling? A beautiful man playing piano? Done, Let's proceed.

00:21:29
Speaker 3: Right, because again, it's a very convenient relationship. He lives upstairs, he's the one playing piano. Her daughter Vanessa plays the piano. So it's like, wow, everything's connected, hot stepdad alert. Yeah. The next day, the stylists, who were already renting space at the existing salon, they show up to work, so we meet a few of them, Chanelle played by Golden Brooks, Miss Josephine played by Alfrey Woodard, and Ida played by Sherry Shepherd, who who, by the way, is extremely gregnant. Yes, that is her whole thing. Have you with greg Yes? And Gina has also hired Lynn, the Alicia Silverstone character, but a couple of the other stylists, whose names are Mercedes and Portia, don't want to work with a white woman, so they bail and can you blame them? Based on Alicia Silverstone's conduct. After that, we'll talk about it. Yeah, Then Gina's beauty shop officially opens. Some clients from the old shop come in, and Gina does her best to convince them that they should keep coming to her beauty shop. We see just everyone, all the stylists getting into the swing of things again. Lynn is doing very like Cringey White Lady nonsense. There's also this kid, Willie played by Little JJ, who's selling candy bars to raise money for his music video that he's gonna shoot, which just turns out to be him shooting footage of women's butts. So that's interesting.

00:23:07
Speaker 2: I felt a pang of shame realizing that this was the part of the movie I remembered the most. I blame my child brain.

00:23:15
Speaker 3: But yeah, I wrote him down in my notes as Patriarchy the Kid, because we always talk about Patriarchy the Guy on this show, but this is a new twist on it. We've got Patriarchy the Kid.

00:23:27
Speaker 2: If you can vanquish Patriarchy the Guy. But yeah, Patriarchy the Kid, I haven't seen that one.

00:23:33
Speaker 3: Yeah innovation anyway. So meanwhile, Jorge has found out that Gina has opened her own shop and he's not happy about it, especially after Gina poaches Terry aka Andy McDowell as a client. Then we meet Catfish Rita, who regularly stops by the shop to sell her home cooked food. We also see an inspector from the state board, so he's bureaucracy the guy. He comes by and slaps Gina with a fine for having trash in the alleyway, which was about to be picked up by this guy named James played by Bryce Wilson, who is an ex con. But Gina doesn't care about that, and she hires him because she admires his braid work, and so he starts working at the shop, and all of the stylists and all of the customers think James is so hot, but because of reductive stereotypes, they suspect he might be gay.

00:24:37
Speaker 2: It really was like it felt like a comprehensive list of reductive two thousand and five stereotypes around gay men. Like, just when you think they had played every hit, there was another one that I didn't even remember. Was a thing like he watches Oprah, Like it's just unbelievably weird and specif and two thousand and five in the pejorative way.

00:25:04
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. Then Gina's sister in law, Darnell, gets in trouble with the law because she was riding around on her boyfriend's motorcycle, which turned out to be stolen, so she goes to jail. Gina bails her out of jail, and so to pay her back, Darnell starts working at the beauty shop. Also, Octavia Spencer's there in a quick scene where Chanelle makes a fat phobic remark to her, and then that's all we get from Mockdavius Spencer, although I wanted to point out the connection of So Gina has a photograph of Madame CJ. Walker, who's like her icon. She has that image hanging in her beauty shop. And of course Madame CJ. Walker was the first American woman who is like a self made millionaire. She made her fortune selling cosmetics and hair care products specifically for black women. And of course, Octavius Spencer played her in the Netflix series Self Made. So way full circle. Okay, So then there's an electrical emergency at the shop.

00:26:19
Speaker 2: There's a plot emergency. We've got to get the hot guy over here to fix the plot emergency.

00:26:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, she calls Joe. He comes and sets up like a backup generator, but she still gets another fine from the State Board inspector guy, and if she gets one more citation, the shop will be shut down. So the steaks are high. Also, she and Joe are kind of vibing, and there's one point where Gina's daughter Vanessa goes upstairs to play piano with Joe, and then Gina goes upstairs too, and then they're vibing some more, and then business continues as usual. Joanne, that's the Mina Suvari character, she reappears and tells Gina that she's going to hook her up with a deal to sell Gina's homemade conditioner to Cover Girl, and Gina's like, that's amazing, which.

00:27:15
Speaker 2: Was very exciting. And also I was like, Discover Girl, do they have hair.

00:27:19
Speaker 3: Prayer care products?

00:27:21
Speaker 2: Not that I know of, it doesn't matter, but I did pause and Google. I was like, did I miss they were trying to get into it. Gina was going to be their gateway into hair care?

00:27:33
Speaker 3: Sure? Was this also the time the Queen Latifa was like one of the faces of Cover Girl.

00:27:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to say yes or right before because I remember her foundation. I was like the one of the first ones I got because all of the few that had shades that were dark as me. So I was just like, all right, buy your shit. Loved it for me, but yeah, either then or right before, differently.

00:27:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I figured there it must be some connection between like her being like one of the faces of Cover Girl and why that's in this movie.

00:28:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, she started working with Cover Girl in two thousand and one.

00:28:08
Speaker 3: Well there you go in any case, So this deal is like kind of on the table, and Gina's very excited about it. She takes all the stylists out to a club to celebrate. Joe shows up because Vanessa invited him because we have another kid trying to set up their parents with a love story. So Joe and Gina dance, and then James and Lynn dance and they also start making out, and everyone's like, hmm, I guess James isn't gay.

00:28:42
Speaker 2: Do do do do do do do do?

00:28:44
Speaker 5: Just like, uh, you yet you miss napped because he was a humfold Yeah.

00:28:50
Speaker 3: Right, yeah. Don't make assumptions about people's sexuality or gender or anything.

00:28:56
Speaker 2: And of course it's presented as a binary like there's no in this world. A conversation around bisexuality pants. Actually like that is not a part of the two thousand and five movie Years.

00:29:08
Speaker 3: Certainly not so Yeah, they start dating and then Joe and Gina go home together and they kiss on the lips.

00:29:18
Speaker 2: Woo.

00:29:19
Speaker 3: The next day, that kid Willie who's always again videotaping women's butts, he sees Orgey pay off the inspector from the state board and it becomes clear that Jorge is responsible for all these finds that Gina has been getting and that he's trying to shut down her shop, and Willie catches all of this on his video camera.

00:29:40
Speaker 2: Again, I love this plot, contrive it.

00:29:43
Speaker 3: It's great.

00:29:43
Speaker 2: They're like, who knew that the creepy kid with a cam corridor was a plant to catch Kevin Bacon up to no good? It's just such movie logic.

00:29:54
Speaker 4: I love it.

00:29:56
Speaker 3: I feel like the parallel in barber Shop is the two guys who keep lugging around the ATM that they stole, and then it ends up paying off at the end because it's like, oh, there's a reward if you find the ATM and that saves the shop. So anyway, movies, this movie feels like a movie. You know, it's been said all right, So then Gina is trying to still close this deal of selling her conditioner to Cover Girl, but then Joanne gets into an argument with Lynn and Chanelle in the shop. After Joanne assaults James and Joanne is making a scene, she wants Chanelle to be fired, but Gina refuses to fire her, so Joanne calls the deal with Cover Girl off and storms out. And then that night someone I wasn't sure if it was implied to be Joanne or if it's implied to be Jorge or who exactly does this, but someone vandalizes the beauty shop definitely define poor Okay, but that scene takes place immediately after Joanne storms out, So I'm like, was it her, Like, was she so angry about this that she It was a little unclear to me.

00:31:13
Speaker 2: But yeah, and Joanne like basically disappears after that anyway. Yeah, I also thought it was horrorhe but yeah, there's so many devious people to uh choo start at this point.

00:31:24
Speaker 3: True, if you're a blonde, white person in this movie, you're doing something bad in basically every scene.

00:31:30
Speaker 2: It's true.

00:31:32
Speaker 3: So the next day is Vanessa's piano recital and Gina goes to it, but she has all this other stuff weighing on her mind, the vandalism and the deal being called off with cover Girl. But when she comes back to the shop, the stylists have cleaned and fixed the place back up. Even so Gina is like, I don't know if we can keep the shop going, like there's not enough money. We're struggling. But then a woman bursts in the shop. She's about to go to a wedding, and Gina fixes her up and uses her conditioner on her, and everything's great. And let's put a pin.

00:32:09
Speaker 2: In that this movie is really well written. I just there's so many.

00:32:13
Speaker 3: Play Chekhov's radio host.

00:32:16
Speaker 2: Just like Chekhov's kid with a cam corner, right, Because before we find out who this woman is who is about to go to this wedding, Willie comes in and gives Gina the tape of George colluding with the inspector guy.

00:32:32
Speaker 3: So Gina goes to Jorge and confronts him and she's like, nice, try bitch, You're a loser and I'm a winner. And then they're at the shop again, and it turns out that the woman who came in to get fixed up before the wedding is this radio host Helen played by Adel Gibbons, who they always listen to in the shop. And Helen shouts out Gina and her shop and her conditioner.

00:32:57
Speaker 2: We're all cheering.

00:32:59
Speaker 3: It's great, everything's fine, everything's good. She's got publicity and the shop is gonna be a okay. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

00:33:23
Speaker 2: And we're back. Where to begin? Calrqaysia, Is there anything that jumps out to you or you'd like to start?

00:33:30
Speaker 5: So? I will say that I like the movie's very colorful. Color has been drained from all our movies as of late.

00:33:38
Speaker 4: I don't like it.

00:33:38
Speaker 5: It's very technically fitting with the time, was very dystoping, right, So I love it. It's super colorful and like I think we talked about right before we started the episode, the cast love to cast is just again people that you wouldn't expectively just showing up, like you said me a Safari enemy, Dow, Kevin Bacon, every Wordard Okay Via Spencer Like, people kept showing up and I was like, this is great, this is great.

00:34:04
Speaker 4: So I loved it for that reason.

00:34:06
Speaker 5: I also loved that it was you know, because I did used to like the Barbershop, so I loved that it was a spin off, like it was a nice constutu thing going. And like I said, this movie, I've done it before in my like Twitter spaces before, you know, the rab Bastard Block, the Blackform. But yeah, I had definitely passed the Kent test with like flying colors, like eight out of eight excellent.

00:34:28
Speaker 4: So yeah, again it's like for me like top ten movies.

00:34:32
Speaker 5: So I'm definitely excited to get into like further discussion.

00:34:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was curious how it would fare on the Kent test. But because it's a movie about camaraderie and friendship among black women. It's a movie about a black woman being a business owner and an entrepreneur, and also an examination of the obstacles she's up against in a racist, classiest world being a black businesiness owner. We see the scene where you know, she can't get approved for the business loan at the bank. At first, she's told by the white banker that she doesn't have the adequate you know, like credit, collateral or capital. But we know that black people are often denied loans for businesses and mortgages and everything because of systemic racism, and then she's only approved for a loan that's a very small fraction of what she initially requested. So all these things that she's up against, including also the white guy that she works for towards the beginning of the movie, who doesn't value her work, he feels threatened by her. He constantly undermines her. There's the bureaucracy, the guy, the white guy who's always coming in and like slapping her with fines. I like that the movie explores all that in a meaningful way.

00:35:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, while still very much remaining a too Like I think this movie has a very light touch, but it's not evasive in a way that I think a lot of movies are. Because I mean, even in the scene at the bank that you're describing, like Gina says explicitly like she knows why she is not being given a fair shot at this bank load, like it is very clear, and even then she doesn't get what she asked for and that she deserved and that a white business person would very likely get without a lot of.

00:36:27
Speaker 3: Struggle, any pushback. Yeah. Also that banker is like, you know, you can apply for a credit card instead of throwing around your race card. And then when Gina approaches her in the bathroom, she's like, don't kill me. She's afraid that. She's like, it's like violence on her. I'll just like, get.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: This, this racist banker got a free haircut. It's not fair, but it gets the beauty shot.

00:36:54
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:36:55
Speaker 2: In any case, I was really happy to see. I don't know, I think just like when I think of movies from this era that have a cast that mostly women, I'm like, this is great. I wonder how they're gonna somehow make it about a man anyways, because I feel like we see that a lot, but that doesn't really happen here. I liked that. I mean even in the like Little JJ and Gina's daughter, I thought that they were going to force, you know, a child romance, but it's like that is mercifully avoided. And this is a rare example. I think that we're often like you can cut out the love story. It's not a big deal. But I really like this love story. I think it's sweet. I don't think it gets in the way. Like I think where I get frustrated with love story plots is when it all of a sudden is taking up all the air in the movie, but here it's like Gina deserves love. He's a great guy, he's obsessed with her, he's hot.

00:37:53
Speaker 3: He's so supportive, and.

00:37:56
Speaker 2: He's not like on screen so much that he all of a sudden sort of is taking over the movie above the community of women. And so I'm like, I'm fine with it. I like it.

00:38:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I'm also like, let Queen Latifah be gay in more movies. If she does have to be in a hetero relationship in a movie, who better than Jaimon Hansu, Right?

00:38:21
Speaker 7: Who?

00:38:21
Speaker 2: Also I think married Kimoraly Simmons shortly after this, if I'm recalling my Komoraly Simmons history correctly.

00:38:28
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't know if they're ever officially married, but like they were together while a long time.

00:38:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because he was like on her show, right, Okay, Wow two thousand Sprain, it's coming back. This movie really did bring back some like regressed like thoughts that just like were collecting dust like information about Komoralley Simmons, who's also in this movie in a very two thousand and five cameo. But yeah, I mean I think that this movie does a great job at like remaining centered on the characters that are advertised, which almost never happens. Do we want to talk about sort of the women who work at the shop. Yeah, we have a lot of people to choose from, and again, like distinct personality is it everyone has their own, which I feel like is also very true of the barbershop movies. But I just like it's beauty shop and I like women better, so this is good. Yeah, I mean I feel like everyone has within the shop. It's more like this is the woman who does this, This is the woman who does this. But that's very I don't know, ensemble comedy ish, right, I felt like outside of the Linn stuff, which we should probably get into, I mean, all of the women are really cool. I like that. Like, I don't know, for the most part, like it just felt very community like people giving each other shit. I enjoyed it. Lynn, Okay, where do we start. There are other movies that have done this. I can't remember what movies we've talked about that half, but that like it seems like there is the suggestion that, like the racism that Gina faced at Jorgees and also in the world as we've seen at the bank, in all these different situations is comparable to Lynn at Gina's Beauty Shop, and it does not work at all because that's not true.

00:40:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was a little confused by that choice.

00:40:34
Speaker 2: I'm opening the floor to the Linn situation.

00:40:37
Speaker 5: You know again oral two thousands shit right, So people their racial politics is very what you know what one of those things were Like, No, I feel like it definitely could be written better because I know what they're trying to say, what it's saying it very badly. One of those things where it's just like, you know, you can't be someone who is not a member of the community, right and thinks that you're going to just be touch of people's.

00:41:00
Speaker 4: Head and hair, right.

00:41:02
Speaker 5: Like, I don't know about other people, but like for me, you know, I am what's definite. I'm not jeering, but I was like born here firmly in the States. You know, I grew up in a very strong, robust, very tight knit Black American community, and you know a lot of us are just like, you know, if we don't fuck with you, you can't touch our head. Like that's the whole thing, Like you cannot touch our head. Nope, hair and nope. It's a very intimate thing for someone to just you know, putting their hands in your hair, doing whatever, right, so I could get the distrust of this life random white girl coming here, she's about to touch my head, Like I don't know, I don't know. So I understand what they were trying to say in the fact that you know, she would have to play ball with the community and you know, like really plug in. Now how they end up praying it was beards, So this was like, you know, trying to give her like this halfway black saying because she is Southern, so she had that going for her.

00:41:59
Speaker 4: So I don't know why she.

00:42:00
Speaker 5: Didn't just lean into day, but like it's weird like halfway black picasto, but not fully right.

00:42:08
Speaker 4: You know, she's there.

00:42:10
Speaker 2: We recently covered Save the Last Dance, and it very much reminded me. I mean, it wasn't as bad as the Julia Styles makeover from or It's just a different flavor of bad. Like I don't know, but I was like, this was something that happened in movies in the two thousands. Is I agree with the cl Like the way that Lynn talks is very like all lives matterie where she's like I've done everyone's hair black, white and polka dot. I'm like, that's all lives matter rhetoric. Like that's like you're I don't know, you.

00:42:44
Speaker 5: Were missing the entire point, like you were in you know, you're not poor had shop anymore where like not even in the clientele is like white, Like no, you are Gina's shop where nine the client til is black, and like.

00:42:57
Speaker 4: They don't know you. So so yeah, you're.

00:43:01
Speaker 5: Gonna get some looks, gonna get some you know, standoffish, clipped responses.

00:43:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's one of those things. Were lying.

00:43:08
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't mind some of the hairstyles, but others. Was like you're doing a lot, you know, it's just enough to like display that you have these skills and leave it at dat, like focus on the skills, like you're trying to do this weird black cosplays like it wasn't needed. But like I said, two thousands racial pots is really weird. Like it's really weird even from certain black stars and black celebrities. Lord notes, Oh and that could be its a whole different, like honestly episode and show true.

00:43:39
Speaker 3: Well, I want to take a little detour because I wrote out the beats of Lynn's story just to be like, what are any of these choices? But the detoy I want to take is who made this movie? Who wrote the movie? And so there's a story by credit by Elizabeth Hunter. She is a black woman who has worked mostly into as a writer and producer. I don't know to what extent she wrote any draft of a script or what exactly her involvement is, but she's credited with a story by credit. The two credited screenwriters of this movie are Norman Vance Junior, who is another writer mostly working in TV. He's a black man, and then Kate Vanier. We have talked about her before on this show, on the set It Off episode, because she is a white woman who wrote a bunch of movies with predominantly black casts. She wrote the screenplay for set it Off, She wrote the Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do With It? She wrote Crazy Sexy Cool, the TLC story, She wrote Glitter, and she wrote Glitter. We have to remember that she did write Glitter. She's got some crimes under her belt.

00:44:54
Speaker 2: She has to answer for it. I haven't seen Bitter in a long time.

00:44:57
Speaker 3: And as we talked about on the set It Off episode, she like defended these movies she written by saying, like, well, I know black people, and I love black people, so that gives me permission to write black stories as if they're my own stories to tell. So that is one of the co writers of this movie. So with that in mind, let's return back to some of these other topics. So going back to Lynn to speak to what you were saying Clarkisha about like the reluctance to trust her from the clientele and the other stylists at the beauty shop, Like, yes, that absolutely tracks, and her conduct. Lynn's conduct, her desperate attempt to try to fit in by doing like weird appropriate of stuff like that also tracks because that is a lot of white people behavior that we see a lot of the time.

00:45:56
Speaker 2: But it's not done critically exactly it happened.

00:46:00
Speaker 3: And in fact, her arc is that all the black people in the shop encourage her to keep appropriating and change her hairstyle and like talk a certain way, and then it lands her this black boyfriend who for as much as I enjoy the romance between Gina and Joe, I'm like, what is this romance between Lynn and James, I don't understand because.

00:46:26
Speaker 2: It's also caught in the crossfire of the homophobic triph that's going on. So it's just yeah, like a perfect storm of two thousand and five movie flaws.

00:46:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, so her character's arc in like the way because at first, like when she's engaging in all this like appropriative behavior, we cut to Alfre Woodard and she Shephard like giving her looks and being like what the fuck is she doing? But then by the end they're like, yeah, this is actually awesome what you're doing.

00:46:58
Speaker 2: On board the other end of that, we have the Mina Suvari character who assaults James just like full on, although I would guess that the politics of the sexual politics of two thousand and five probably would not say that, but that's definitely what happens. That micro interaction I thought was really interesting for they didn't like because like she grabs his butt as he's walking past her. Already she just assaulted him, and then Lynn calls her out on it, but only because James is her boyfriend, not because Mina Savari just assaulted someone like and again, very very uncritical and it's more like, oh, you're jealous, and like, no, you just committed a crime, Like what again? Two thousand and five. But yeah, Mina Savari is really oscillating between like a full on villain. But then she also makes the connection with cover Girl like that was all over the place.

00:48:02
Speaker 4: I mean, actually very true to life.

00:48:04
Speaker 5: It's why I'm being honest with you, and you know, dealing with white women, especially in these professional capacities right very you know, doctor Jeko, mister Hyde type shit.

00:48:14
Speaker 4: So it actually made sense that she was like that.

00:48:17
Speaker 5: And then for you know, Lynn and her, I'm really glad you kind of putting them on this like spectrum, right because you have Lynn, Like, let's be honest, Lynn's given white trash.

00:48:26
Speaker 4: Like let's keep it up. But she's given white trash, right, and then you got men up.

00:48:31
Speaker 5: I forgot her character's name, but she given like even know was waspy white, that.

00:48:36
Speaker 3: Kind of thing, upscale kind of.

00:48:38
Speaker 5: So it makes sense that they will be like fighting over this person for like the wrong reason. Honestly, for me, it's given like plantation politics, like hey, that's that's fine.

00:48:50
Speaker 4: You know, I own that you can't be touched and that's my property. That's what's given.

00:48:53
Speaker 5: I was like, ew, like what again, because like you said, it's beauty shop that it's very quick, it's very subtle, but it's like it's just like, hey, do you do you see what we're doing with this right? So for me, I was just like, no, that character makes absolute sense.

00:49:08
Speaker 3: Especially yeah, that she's the type of white woman who will like engage with black people even give them her money, you know, her business as long as it serves her. But the second anyone challenges her.

00:49:24
Speaker 2: Or I mean, she demands that someone gets fire later.

00:49:27
Speaker 3: Very Karen behavior. And she's not demanding that Lynn that the Alicia Silverson character gets fired another white woman. She's demanding that Chanelle, a black woman, get fired, and Gina's like, no, get the fuck out of my shop. So yeah, the Mina Sufari character, her behavior also tracked. We're just seeing like different versions of white women white women ing in this movie between Lynn and between Joanne I think is her character's name.

00:49:56
Speaker 2: And Andy McDowell's character too, who like kind of ends up skating through the movie and then we have the whole butt prosthetic at the end that I did not remember. But with Andy McDowell, there are a series of like microaggressions that she does. I mean, I feel like the one that stood out for me, was trying to bring up Janet Jackson in an insulting way, which is a very early two thousands talking point, but like, if you were alive in the early two thousands, you can tell exactly what the writers are doing. Where like she's basically regurgitating the white media narrative around Janet Jackson that completely blamed her and literally called her crazy. And it just all these horrible, untrue things that on a long enough timeline that narrative has shifted. But Andy McDowell is a white woman, first of all, trying to connect with a room full of black women by insulting Janet jack Like, it just this is like unbelievably misguided. And in that case, if like the movie knows that and Annie McDowell is wrong and she has to, like you, get her shit together kind of not that she necessarily does.

00:51:12
Speaker 3: But and then another part of her character is at first she's like catfish rita your soul food, No thanks, I don't eat like that, and then she comes around. It almost honestly feels like to some degree this movie is more interested in a few of the character arcs of the white women than it is of Because I would love to have seen more of a subplot of Alfrey Woodard's or Sherry Shepherd or what's the actor who plays Chanelle Golden Golden Brooks, Like, where are their little vignettes of their interior lives. We know that Sherry Shepherd's character is pregnant, but we don't really know much else about it except that she's also like horny for every other man she sees. Pretty funny, but like I felt those characters were a little underdeveloped. I would have loved to see more of their interior lives and more of just like their relationships with each other. But I feel like there's a lot of real estate in the story given to these white women like b characters that I don't know if that was an attempt to quote unquote make this movie more marketable to a wide spread audience, I not sure, But it plays out in a way that reads weird, and it's focusing on characters who I don't care about, and I would rather see more of the others.

00:52:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think we necessarily needed a gradient of types of white women this movie. We do get more of an arc for Keisha Knight William's character Darnell, where I feel like this movie. I mean again, I think I totally agree. Where I would have liked more detailed arcs for their women within the shop, we do get some decent time with the family outside the shop.

00:53:00
Speaker 3: That true.

00:53:01
Speaker 2: I don't know. I enjoyed that where you know, Gina and Darnell have this like antagonistic but loving, very familial relationship even though it's very plotty. I liked when Darnell came back to the shop and did want to work with Gina. I don't know, I wish like I don't have that much to say about Darnell, but she did have an arc. I liked her, and I really like Gina's daughter. I think that's the story between her. Gina and Joe is so sweet and Kayla and I have talked to Billy Tis about like, when you put a precocious child in the movie, it can go a lot of ways. Yes, you real back, it can be grating, but I really thought that that balance was really sweet. I love the jazz that Joe teaches her comes back like that kind of brings the two of them together. I loved it, and I love that she says my favorite line in the movie, I don't eat donuts with boys who exploit women.

00:54:05
Speaker 3: Okay, can we talk about that kid real quick because the patriarchy. The kid Willie played by Little JJ. So, as we've discussed, he's going around shooting footage with his little handheld video camera. He's always shooting women's butts, making comments on women's bodies in general. He routinely gets called out for it, Vanessa, that quote they already shared, Jamie, and then Gina says something like, don't come back here until you learn how to speak to a lady. But he doesn't listen. He keeps coming back. But it feels like such a contradictory choice to have that behavior of him objectifying and sexualizing women be called out. But then the movie does the same exact thing by having a bunch of like this male gay cinematography that specifically focuses on women's butts. It also has women making shamy comments about other women's bodies.

00:55:04
Speaker 2: There's a lot of early two thousands fixation on plastic surgery. Plastic surgery.

00:55:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then also, like the kid, ultimately the fact that he was filming women's butts is a good thing actually, because if he wasn't doing that, he would have never gotten that footage that incriminates Kevin Bacon, so.

00:55:25
Speaker 2: I didn't think of it that way. But yeah, that's not great. He was right to do that.

00:55:32
Speaker 3: So I just found his character frustrating overall.

00:55:36
Speaker 2: According to my little brother, he was doing serviceable work over at all that and so maybe this just wasn't Little JJ's big moment. His moment was on all that fair.

00:55:47
Speaker 5: I appreciate him not sugarcoating, as you said, patriarchy the kid, because again, it is usually just being like, oh, this adult male popped out nowhere and he's a misogynistic ass. But you know that doesn't happen until they become adults. I'm like, no, that's not the case. And for me, you know, I have them showing that, you know, because I don't like movies that try to sanitize human behavior, like now, they don't show it to me and try to glorify it because you know, you know, there's some piece of me to do that. They're like, oh, this is terrible, but you know they're an anti hero. I don't want to watch that ship. But I appreciate things like that because I remember recently, I think you saw the little announcement about tweaks that being made to a certain character and a certain production with a kid who has an air on his head. I'm not gonna say it because I'm not trying to get them, but you know, they were trying to make a key change to one of the main characters because they're like, oh, you know him in the original series, Like he started off as very misogynistic and we want to da da da da, but.

00:56:51
Speaker 4: Why he is a young boy. That's what they do.

00:56:55
Speaker 5: That's not to excuse it, but like you need to be able to show that trajectory because you know, his team ends up being girls and both of them, both his sister and the new teammate, put him in his place, so then he has to start reshaping his world view about you know, girls and women, right, Like it's the thing we talked about earlier in the show where we talked about biases, right, Like, clearly he was born with his bias because of like you know, his tribe and what their gifts to seeing women do, right, but like just not your tribe, Like this is not that time. So you're supposed to show him shifting after being checked, but not just them. But you know, later in the series by other really awesome and very dynamic women and girls.

00:57:35
Speaker 4: Right, So I like when movies and media are like real about this shit.

00:57:40
Speaker 5: But also don't try to be like it's okay, because it wasn't okay. Right, Like he said, he did get routinely called out on it. Now I wish somebody would took his camera, but right, you know, you know, but yeah, no, I.

00:57:52
Speaker 4: Do appreciate that, Like, no, let's don't sugarcrowd it because this was how.

00:57:56
Speaker 3: The behavior is called out, Yes, at the very least, and this other show that shall not be named. It's important to show arcs like that because yes, many young men and boys, they're a product of their environment, and their environment is patriarchy, so they learn things that need to be unlearned, and it's important to show people unlearning their biases and so to make an adjustment that ignores that.

00:58:23
Speaker 2: Like yeah, particularly in media for kids too. Yeah, watching a character that you love unlearned that in real time is genuinely motivational.

00:58:35
Speaker 3: What else? Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?

00:58:40
Speaker 2: I don't have too much else. I just wanted to shout out the director Bill Wooddriff, who we often cover the music video director to feature director Pipeline. Some of the most prolific music video directors of the nineties into the two thousands, like Truly name a popular act at this time, particularly Black musical acts at this time. He directed Truly Everybody ninety seven, big year for him. I just wanted to shout out his ninety seven because the hits are great. He did a Backstreet Boys music video this year, he did an Outcast music video. He did genu Wine, he did Usher, You Make Me Wanna, He did Salt and Peppa, Are You Ready? And he did Celine Dion My Heart Will Go On in nineteen ninety seven.

00:59:29
Speaker 3: I mean, the Titanic connection is.

00:59:32
Speaker 2: Every found the Titanic Connection, It's everything. But he also, I mean directed his first movie, which I haven't watched in forever, But he also directed Honey and the various movies in the Honey Expanded universe. So just wanted to shout him out. Still working today, Clerkisha, Is there anything else you wanted to touch on?

00:59:57
Speaker 5: I just want to dig up the movie for it's very vast representations of black women.

01:00:04
Speaker 4: We don't get that as much anymore.

01:00:06
Speaker 5: I think there are there are some talents in Black Hollywood that are trying to reverse that. You know, I'll shout out like Easter Ray Quintin Brunston, like they're really trying to like over time, trying to like in their own way, right, because it's not the responsibility, right, Like they're trying to like kind of like drag us back from like what our current landscape looks like, which is like, you know, the biracial woman standing in for like.

01:00:32
Speaker 4: Every black woman ever.

01:00:34
Speaker 5: The aggressive colorism that kind of is really pervasive unfortunately in a lot of our work because some of these male creatives apparently have to work out their ego on screen and you know, I guess they're comitties and attractions on screen, right, So I appreciate I've always appreciate Queen Latifa's work for like displaying black women in you know, various ways, and also across various generations too, you know, because the young, the old, the middle age, Like the movie has like everybody there, yeah, different shades to body sizes because like I said, it's not as commonplace anymore, which makes me sad to say, but yeah, it's one of my favorite movies for that reason because like you just see like different generations of women coming together to make Gina's dream come true, which is big fucking you.

01:01:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of wish there were more of these two. But you see scenes where they're all chatting about something. There's a scene where they're talking about like do you get your pubic hair waxed or do you leave it natural?

01:01:39
Speaker 2: Also very two thousands discussion.

01:01:42
Speaker 3: Then that like transitions into a conversation about like ooh, men, who cry? Is that acceptable or not? They come down on the side of no, and so you know, very two thousand and five interpretation of that. But I love the scenes of just like their comrade and them laughing together and reciting phenomenal woman together and just like all of those moments were really special. And also, Queen Lativa has done so many like ensemble movies with a black cast between set it off this movie Girl's Trip. I'm sure I'm forgetting some but like she's the queen of that and I didn't even mean to make that pun Wow.

01:02:27
Speaker 2: Look at you humiliated. I think the last thing I wanted to shout out was that Queen Latifa produced this movie as well, which I feel like we are always trying to make sure we're talking about behind the camera as well, and I think, I mean, I would be comfortable betting that a lot of what this movie does right is because she also had control behind the camera, So I wanted to shut that out as well as one of the first I think the first project that she produced in her movie career was Bringing Down the House, which a mot and sort of from there on out, she produced all of the movies that she was starring in at least, and I feel like that is reflected in this movie, like her character is in charge. There is like no point where I don't know, like the tropes of the era can't really touch Queen Latifa in her movie for the most part. And I think that that is like a really important thing for movie stars, especially marginalized movie stars, to have, is like control over their image and how they're portrayed because you cannot trust producers, like so you have to be one yourself kind of.

01:03:39
Speaker 3: And I was reading different interviews with her and her intentions with this movie, and she's like, yeah, to spin off from barber Shop, but I wanted to make it its own thing and showcase black women, and like the intentions are clear. I had one last little thing I wanted to chat about and I'm curious on everyone's thoughts on this. But in theory, this is a movie about people who work with mostly black hair. A few of the clients are these white these awful white women, but it's mostly black clientele, and I feel like there was more of an opportunity to see black hair being styled, and I feel like the movie doesn't necessarily take a lot of those opportunities, especially for seeing black women who wear their hair natural. It might be a reflection of like the.

01:04:31
Speaker 4: Era, definitely reflection of that era.

01:04:34
Speaker 5: We don't get to the what I call modern natural hair movement, because natural hair has come in and out, you know, and out of times. But more recent movement, I would have said, like early twenty teens.

01:04:46
Speaker 4: I might be a little bit off by a couple of years.

01:04:48
Speaker 5: So we weren't really there yet. We were still stuck on you know, the hair crack, the relaxsuit. We're still stuck on that thing. And I remember, you know, even at that time when you started telling people that you had stopped using relax because it's giving you obvious perm what we call perm scabs, you know, and then later found out to be giving people cancer as a lot of us suspective, right, you know when even when you were like, yeah, I don't use that stuff anymore, they'd be like, what.

01:05:16
Speaker 4: Like how do you start your hair otherwise, like isn't it like hard?

01:05:19
Speaker 5: And you know that's a complex discussion that we usually have within our community. Boy, it's one of those things where like a lot of that rhetoric is very driven by you know, white bee standards.

01:05:30
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, right, But yeah, no, I agree with you.

01:05:33
Speaker 5: Their their definitely technically was more of an opportunity, but because of the hair politics at the time, they weren't gonna I think the most they would have done is like if you've ever been to like a black beat shop, they have like the the very creative stack styles of hair and curls that are stacked up. You got the you know, like not quite the bang, but you got the hair hang you know, hair hanging in front their face. And it's just like really marvelous example of like honestly black people using geometry to like bills like these styles stack them up on their head like is real creative shit. But yeah, no, I agree with you, and that like there there was a way to put more of those styles in there, even if you weren't focusing on the natural aspect for like obvious reasons. But yeah, that explains someone dead.

01:06:20
Speaker 3: Yeah that makes sense and all the more reason we need Beauty Shop too.

01:06:25
Speaker 2: All things that could have been addressed in Beauty Shop to two thousand and seven, which for some reason we did not get.

01:06:31
Speaker 3: Was that like in development and it just didn't happen or.

01:06:35
Speaker 2: No, that was just the year I think it would have come out.

01:06:37
Speaker 3: I see it, see.

01:06:38
Speaker 2: It two years later. That's when sequels come out.

01:06:42
Speaker 3: That's true. Well, Beauty Shop to twenty twenty five, just putting it out there in the world.

01:06:48
Speaker 2: I'll take it. I would love it.

01:06:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll love too. I'm just like, none of you are dead, so let's you know, let's yeah.

01:06:57
Speaker 3: You're all still kicking.

01:06:58
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:06:58
Speaker 3: One last thing. The radio host at the very beginning, because like you see her like Vio her voiceover and just like her in the booth, like doing broadcasts throughout the movie, and at the very beginning, DJ Helen is like that Michael Vick so hot, right, and it's like, yep, it's two thousand and five, yes, I know.

01:07:18
Speaker 2: It's like, wait, that's not how that sentence ends today. That's yeah, what a time to be alive. Let's talk about a number of tests. This movie very much passes the Bechtel test to the point where it's like it just does. I mean, like you were just sort of flisting off kitline. I mean the women in this story. I mean there's a many conversations between women that we're moving the plot ahead. There's also just a lot of conversations between women, women of different races, different classes, different body types. This movie has every kind of conversation between women, which so rare.

01:08:00
Speaker 3: It's great true.

01:08:02
Speaker 2: But I'd also like to talk about the contest because you mentioned Quirkysha that it is a full on pass.

01:08:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does pass it eight out of eight. So just to go over it.

01:08:12
Speaker 5: So the contest has points, so all the way from like A to G right. So first one is must not solely be a walking stereotype or truck, and he's not focused on white character. And if it's like you know, expansive piece of media, then multiple right, But in this case, I focus on mainly Gina and then you know a couple other people, so you know, Gina's not a walking, talking black stereotype. So We're good, right, must have their own plot or near to arc. She got it so on someone that's been her whole thing. She wants to get off from Jorge Thumb really straightforward stuff. Mass must not solely be included in the narrative for just for holding down a male character. No, we got an opposite Joeys hold her down, which I appreciate, you know.

01:08:57
Speaker 4: No, this is her story.

01:08:59
Speaker 5: He's her nice successory slash dessert as share would say, not to share famous tours love her. No, he's just there as you know nice looks like get and but it's her. It's the genus show right so past and then you have must not slowly be included in the narrative to prop of white female character once again, is Gina's show?

01:09:19
Speaker 4: Do they show up?

01:09:20
Speaker 5: Yes, but you know this is this is her thing, So no, she's not there to hold up, you know, or be some character.

01:09:28
Speaker 4: Development for you know, a white girl.

01:09:29
Speaker 5: Right right, then, we have must not so exist in the film slash piece of media for the purpose of speedisulation aside from JJP and JJ again, that's not what this movie is about. Right again, you know this is her show. She's trying to make her dream come true. She's trying to keep her shop open because one thing to like open it. You know, so many businesses open per year, but how many people like how many stay open and like for the same period of time.

01:09:56
Speaker 4: So that's her whole focus the whole movie.

01:09:58
Speaker 5: So past then we have must have at least one interaction with another black woman or woman of color. Duh, whole cats that whole cats like you. She'd turn and talk to I don't know, the water girl, and like, you know Keisha right there, you know, there are people outside the shop she interacts with.

01:10:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also love that in the world have made up jobs. Cappuccino girl, a job. It's great, great after school.

01:10:24
Speaker 4: Job, it's perfect. I was like, I love that. So yeah, definitely pass.

01:10:30
Speaker 5: And then obviously there's an additional point here that I put in tests where it's just like it's always going to be bonus if the women are not immediately related, which again passes, because you know, even though Darnell is the thing, you know, she all the other women in Salona, people that she interacts with routinely, and they're not blood related, right, So there's that in the last one must not be the go to character sacrifice in the film slash piece of media. We won't even have to talk about it here because none of that happens. No one wants laying down their life for random white person. Again, this is her movie, you know, she's kicking it and then trying to you know, be successful in this world.

01:11:07
Speaker 4: So yeah, literally eight eight.

01:11:09
Speaker 5: I didn't have no notes aside from the ones we kind of already discussed, which again are part of you know, the problematic two thousand and five canon of terrible movie trope, which.

01:11:21
Speaker 3: And then how does the movie fair on the Kelly and Cat test?

01:11:25
Speaker 5: So the Kelly Cat tests on a grave Shaw real quick because technically in me and Sid haven't taken it on like a full run through a lot of these movies because, as you probably suspect, a lot of them are just downright BD. So just be like they're just being like okay, zero or one or like max like three, you know, And for this test is actually out twelve versus like eight in terms of yeah, so I'll read the description real quick and then points right.

01:11:57
Speaker 4: So, the Kelley and Cat test is a media litmus test.

01:12:01
Speaker 5: Designed to determine whether a piece of media has provided the audience with thoughtful representation of fat black women and or non men.

01:12:09
Speaker 4: Black is a brackets So like I said, you know, does include other women, right.

01:12:13
Speaker 5: This test is named after Kelly Prenni of Insecure and Ca Hernandez of Euphoria, both of whom were subject to fat phobic treatment on their respective shows. Fat Phobia is in a version of hostility or disdain for fatness or fat people. So skipping down, you know, to the criteria, like I said, the least something can get zero, most of them get twelve points, right, so number one, the character will be immediately disqualified if they're merely a skinny or thin actor in a fat suit. Like, we don't even have to like ZM zero done, We don't even have to go into it. And then you know, since we're using Gina will take her through tests, right, So must have their own character arc. Got it must not be included in the narrative to really for a skinny and or life skinned person's care dark no.

01:13:03
Speaker 4: Got it good.

01:13:05
Speaker 5: Therefore must not be referred to as big, bone, voluptuous, curvy, fluffy, husky, plus sized, or sick at any point of the narrative. I don't think she was referred to as that, so I think she still passes. I do think I remember like big bone being thrown around. I'm not entirely sure. I'd have to go back and like really listening closely.

01:13:26
Speaker 3: Other characters' size is commented on by different people, but I don't know if any of it's specifically directed. Although the kid really says something like you're thick something, I don't know if that counts.

01:13:39
Speaker 5: Patriarchy the child, so then we'll be like, God, damn it, patriarchy the child.

01:13:46
Speaker 4: But yeah, technically, yeah, that would be.

01:13:48
Speaker 5: So we're you know, back down to too. And the point of that too, because I know people will ask. The point of that too is to make you know, fat is not a dirty word. It been made word because of people, obie, but you know it's fat is a neutral descriptor.

01:14:03
Speaker 4: It's like saying short, skinny, whatever.

01:14:06
Speaker 5: It's just people's own biases have been attached to it. Absolutely, So then we have must not easily be dismissed as a common sapphobic and or colors trope. Like we mentioned with the cat test, Gina doesn't really have that issue because she's like a three dimensional being. You know, I do want to make it clear that tropes are not hearingly bad. But if your character literally is like four tropes in a trench coat, Danny, you've got some problems, not some problems like you're in but you definitely are not a great writer.

01:14:36
Speaker 2: Like where's the character? Yeah?

01:14:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, like what are we doing? So now next one?

01:14:41
Speaker 5: Six should have at least one romantic interest if it's relevant to the piece of media's or raw Drey two. So man for Joe's hot ass is there and you know, like we commented on, he is a nice little treat, not the main course.

01:14:57
Speaker 4: We love that for her.

01:14:59
Speaker 3: A lot of movies that do afford a fat character a love interest, they are paired with another fat person, as if to say, oh, only fat people would be attracted to other fat people and never any other combination. And the Joe character is a muscular sin man who is very attracted to Queen Latifah. And it was a refreshing thing to see.

01:15:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I want to add here that Sidney particular one to make sure that it should be noted that you know, since we're thinking about like being sex inclusive and gender exclusive, right, there are people that aren't interested in romance or they're there asexual. But you know, we also put it after like being like you know, but you have to be careful with that because again you might fall into that territory of black tropes where we're talking about like the Mammy or someone else, some other female character whose they are sexless. Right, So it's a really delicate like dance. Now, if you're a good writer, you should be fine, but as we know, it's a lot of bad writers out there. So yeah, so next must have at least one interaction with you know, the fat person. I would say, every woman in that film has you know, various body shapes, so she does at some point interact with them. You know, there's our Tavius Spencer. I would even add the radio host, you know. And it's not a thing where it's like, oh my god, look they're interacting.

01:16:23
Speaker 4: It's just very.

01:16:24
Speaker 3: Normal, normalized. Yeah, she talks to Sherry Shepherd.

01:16:28
Speaker 5: Again, bonus point if they're not related, which they aren't. You know, they're kicking it, but they're not related, So then we have it must not.

01:16:37
Speaker 4: Be subject to photicization.

01:16:39
Speaker 5: So that's a little difficult with JJ being there unfortunately, so we can't give this point it's not her fault, it's fault.

01:16:48
Speaker 4: It's Oh but you know, he dire.

01:16:51
Speaker 5: If we were to subtract him, she would have been fine because, like I said, it's not all that for her to literally focus on her very important goal of being like, you know, a business woman.

01:17:02
Speaker 4: Right, So there's that nine.

01:17:05
Speaker 5: Must show no high profixations when it comes to food and or exercise. This one was been very important to me and Sid because there's a lot of media out there. If you know, if a fat woman gets lucky enough to like leave a show or film, there's some big like marathon she's training for.

01:17:26
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, it's really bad, Like there's some big.

01:17:29
Speaker 2: There's whole movies about that. Oh my god.

01:17:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, even happened to Kelly at one point where she was like trying to train for something, and I was like.

01:17:37
Speaker 4: Do y'all see how see like, wem not the only one who sees this.

01:17:42
Speaker 5: I'm the only one, okay, but yeah, No, we were very much sick of that. I was like, I don't want to hear nothing about no fucking marathon, no exercise, no gym, didn't.

01:17:51
Speaker 4: No gym that I don't want to hear by no fucking food.

01:17:54
Speaker 2: Just be normal person.

01:17:57
Speaker 5: Yeah. Now, obviously you know life's come for then you know, people can also do with some things, like you know, eds when it comes to food, right, But like a lot of times that's not what they're talking about.

01:18:07
Speaker 4: A lot of these riders are just going straight to like gluttonous tar you know, very.

01:18:11
Speaker 3: Like the stereotypes.

01:18:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, territory. And I'm like, but so you just not you're not really serious.

01:18:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, you gave this no thought. You just took what you already think, you know, and then put it in the movie.

01:18:25
Speaker 2: And again it feels like the sort of situation where if the nuance is there, you can feel it, and it is most often not not there.

01:18:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, so there's that's so obviously Gina is not once again not conserved that shit.

01:18:39
Speaker 4: Nope, just to run her.

01:18:41
Speaker 5: Business, so she good, dear ten must have access to adequate soling. Even though we all feel ways about early two thousand sactions for the times she looked good for that, Yes, in the context of two thousand and five she looked.

01:18:59
Speaker 2: Just have to remember that it was a moment in time.

01:19:02
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, for the time period she was in the fashions.

01:19:07
Speaker 4: So now I would have been like girl, what do you have one? But currently I mean not curently at the time.

01:19:15
Speaker 5: Great, right, so she was fine, must have at least one supportive parents slash frontal figure.

01:19:21
Speaker 4: She did.

01:19:21
Speaker 5: Actually it was a little hard on Darnall or whatever Latin for obviously too, because Darnell did need to get her shit together.

01:19:28
Speaker 4: I'm like, why do you run around with these no good black girl get it together?

01:19:33
Speaker 5: But you know, yeah, she did have a supportive parent slash frontal figure.

01:19:38
Speaker 4: I forget forget her name, but.

01:19:39
Speaker 8: You know, yeah her mother in law, right, yes, yeah, so really just encouraging her to keep pursuing her dreams despite the obvious and you know, systemic obstacles that were placed in front of her.

01:19:54
Speaker 4: Right. So, yeah, passes.

01:19:57
Speaker 5: So we got the last one, which must have at least five to ten minutes of dialogue in the standard thirty minute episode, ten to fifteen minutes of dialogue in the standard sixty minute episode, and at least the fourth of the total.

01:20:11
Speaker 4: Run time of the film.

01:20:12
Speaker 5: I remember people ask the first of all, I suly she passes, right, but yeah, people usually ask me about that and SID two and they're like, why.

01:20:22
Speaker 4: Did you feel the need to include that in particular because it's very specific.

01:20:26
Speaker 5: Right, the contest doesn't mention no run times or dialogue or things like that, right, But for here it was important because mainly because of Cat in the first season Euphoria, she has her own very rich, if not mildly disturbing arc. You know, keep one hundred because it was moldly disturbing. But I was like, you know, but it was an arc. Yes, fat people don't have to be perfect angelic character as we'd be doing some fucked up shit too.

01:20:51
Speaker 4: Right, So very very strong, obvious, rich arc.

01:20:57
Speaker 5: And we get to season two and if she gets to talk for two minutes in an episode, it's a big deal.

01:21:05
Speaker 4: Like that's how sharp and ugly the drop off was.

01:21:09
Speaker 5: You know, there are rumors that you know, Sam was beefing with her behind the scenes. Obviously I try to respect her because you know, it's complex with actors and these really weird producers and show runs and directors, and you know, they still got to work, so I respect them, not really if they won don't want to put their business on front street, I respect that.

01:21:27
Speaker 4: But you know, it's very.

01:21:28
Speaker 5: Clear that some funck shit was going on because it impacted how often she showed up and how long she showed up. She had no discernible arc that whole season, no discernible arc at all.

01:21:40
Speaker 4: It was very yarn.

01:21:42
Speaker 5: Because like when she was one of my favorite reasons for the first season, like I tune, I was like, Okay, what's Kat doing?

01:21:49
Speaker 4: Is she being the anti fat friend again?

01:21:51
Speaker 5: I love that for me, Like I remember part of the show where you know Maddie, you know, then her friend cast her to event and Cat is just like basically like they don't have toportizations.

01:22:05
Speaker 4: And I was like, finally a bad fat friend.

01:22:10
Speaker 5: I've waited so long for this and finally I got it.

01:22:14
Speaker 4: Yes, terrible love that for herself. Please more.

01:22:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, but that's where that last one comes from, like the very sharp, ugly decline of her screen presence. So obviously here Gena passes a Flying Colors because she is the main character. There, you know, other characters, you know, tertiary, secondary, but she's the main character.

01:22:36
Speaker 4: So she passes. So let me, let's count it up. Let's count it up. Drum dram bro nine ten So.

01:22:44
Speaker 7: We got ten, ten out of twelve or ten out of twelve, very hearty pass right, So obviously we got again zero to twelve.

01:22:56
Speaker 4: So zero to one is reprehensible.

01:23:00
Speaker 5: We're like, reprehensible, get this ship off my screen, like what? So then we got two to four. We call it laughable because you know, attempt was made.

01:23:10
Speaker 4: Was it a good one?

01:23:11
Speaker 1: Not?

01:23:11
Speaker 5: Really?

01:23:13
Speaker 4: Is there hope for you? Maybe I don't know you.

01:23:18
Speaker 5: Then we got five to seven. We called it passable. We're like, hey, this guy has some good bones. You're not like one hundred terrible. You do need to work on yourself. You to have a come to juice moment, a bunch of bises about fat people.

01:23:33
Speaker 1: Like.

01:23:34
Speaker 5: Then we have eight to ten, which is you know where you shop would fall. It's credible, you did a lot of work. It looks good. You know, there were just some some minor points you couldn't get over unfortunately, And like we talked about in this movie, technically, Gina the character is not a fault for the lost points. It's like of the people around her that get abducted. And that's sometimes how life is. Like you do everything right if somebody go along and kind of like true, So yeah, good, she's good, Like the.

01:24:05
Speaker 4: Film was good.

01:24:06
Speaker 5: And then obviously we have eleven to twelve, which highest which we call marvelous, like perfect.

01:24:11
Speaker 4: Ten out of ten, no notes.

01:24:13
Speaker 5: I don't know if there is a movie out there that could score twelve. I would really have to get with sin and be like, do we think there's something out there that can do it?

01:24:25
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think the highest we will to me get if.

01:24:30
Speaker 5: We look at I guess currently existing media would probably be like the ten.

01:24:36
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe eleven. Maybe on a good day. I don't know who was seen your twelve, but I could be wrong.

01:24:42
Speaker 3: I feel like this movie would have gotten to twelve were it not for the little JJ character.

01:24:49
Speaker 2: I know, we really and we're coming down hard on him, but.

01:24:52
Speaker 3: Look, but look, he made some choices.

01:24:55
Speaker 2: He was holding us back lots of points.

01:24:59
Speaker 3: Well, I think brings us to our nipple scale, a metric of our very own that is, you know, really prestigious and really well thought out and carefully named and all that important stuff. But we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. So even though we've talked about some of the pretty dated things that the movie does here and they're considering it fares so well on both of your tests, Clarkisha, I'm inclined to give it like a four four nipples. I'll dock it for the stuff that we talked about, such as like the lack of critical thinking when it came to Lynn's arc, and like how she ultimately is represented in the movie, and a few other things like that. But at the end of the day, this is a movie about a black woman getting out from under the oppressive force that it is her white boss, and opening up her own shop and having her own autonomy and financial independence, and employing mostly black women and having camaraderie with them, and being a really good boss and a good mother and just a good friend all around. And it's stuff that we so seldom see in mainstream movies. So it was very refreshing to see all of that. So I'm gonna land on four nipples, and I'll split them between Queen Latifah. I'll give one to Sherry Shepherd because I enjoy her very much. I will give one to Alfree Wodard of course, and you know what, Golden Brooks gets my last one.

01:26:48
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, I'll go for I want to go four and a half because it's so much fun. I don't know. I don't know. I'm gonna go four point two five just to be in an argument with my self for no reason. But now I think this movie is so the fact that, I mean, building on what we've been talking about, what you just said, Katelyn, the fact that this movie tackles so much and it is still a comedy. It is like, it addresses a lot of systemic racism, it addresses misogyny and misogyn wire specifically, and it is still very much a comedy and it's an ensemble cod It's just like all of these things that I miss in movies so much and is a really good case study for how much a comedy is equipped to handle, like and I think that there is. We're just sort of starting to get back to movies like that, and I really really hope we keep getting them, especially movies like this that we have a nearly all the cast of all black women, And it's just I don't know, I feel like sometimes you hear critics talk like this is not possible, and it's like, well, but but it happened almost twenty years ago, and it happened before it's happened since, Like I would love movies like beauty Shop to be really and fully back, you know, docking the movie, like we've talked about for the regressive stereotypes or of the time, mostly docking for the homophobia and a little bit of the body politics this movie has. But it is kind of like it just speaks to like the power of Queen Latifa that none of these stereotypes touch her. They sometimes touch other characters, but Queen Latifa is just like she is such a star, like she produces her own work. I also want to hand it to this movie for having a pretty diverse team behind the camera, which we don't often have. Yeah, we have a black director, we have you know, the Kate Lanier of it all. You can listen to our set it Off episode or or more on that. But Norman's advanced junior is still a very successful working TV writer today. You know, I think that it would have been meaningful and would make a lot of sense for this movie to have had a black woman in a rectorial role because we still so rarely have that, especially you know, movies with big budgets or you know, this movie has had twenty five million dollar budget, big for a comedy of the time. But there's just so much to love about this movie. It made me excited to watch it again next time. It's such a comfort movie. And yeah, so I'm going to go four point two five nipples. I might just go for I don't know, four point two five. Sure to give one to Queen Latifah. I'm going to give one to Alfred Woodard one to Vanessa because I really loved her, and it's so hard to have a child prodigy not make me deeply annoyed. So good for her.

01:29:45
Speaker 3: She was really playing that piano. They weren't faking it.

01:29:48
Speaker 2: She was really playing. I know, I love. Yeah, there was no cutback to like clearly adult arms or like James Cameron's hands drawing. Any had to get in there.

01:29:59
Speaker 3: I had to get another t Titanic reference in there.

01:30:01
Speaker 2: You sorry? And then the rest goes to to Sherry Shepherd and the fictional little Greg she was carrying. Oh yes, of course, what would you rate this movie?

01:30:12
Speaker 4: I'll definitely give you like four point five. You know, I usually create either like an whole or half that I'm terrible. Then i'll really be petty.

01:30:21
Speaker 5: I'll be like it was a zero point one eight too, Like I'll just be making up, like because I hate your movies.

01:30:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, So definitely four point five. I would say the half would go to the radio. I forget, but I thank you. Oh yeah, because I appreciate her.

01:30:42
Speaker 5: I appreciate on people in powerful positions, pull people on because that's what we're supposed to Tony and Morris's birthday was just yesterday.

01:30:50
Speaker 4: I love her down. It's one of my favorite authors.

01:30:51
Speaker 5: And she has this quote and accusly on paraphrazing, but in the course she basically talks about, you know, when you get to these fancy jobs, get to these positions you always manifested or prayed for, you need to make sure you hold the door open for somebody else, or you said someone else up, or you put someone else else on otherwise, if you know what was is four So I love that Helen did that. She was like, hey, she did me solid. I'm gonna return to favor Now. Obviously she she's not in most of the movie, just those small parts, but you know, she changes Gena's life by doing that. So I'm like, you getta do a twenty five girl. Definitely giving one to Gina. She's a superstar. So I would give the second one to I would say halfrey Wood's character too. I just love when she puts out into the the phenomenal woman.

01:31:40
Speaker 2: That's I think it's like three different times.

01:31:42
Speaker 4: It's great.

01:31:44
Speaker 5: I love that for her. I would give it to once again Vanessa.

01:31:49
Speaker 4: She's so fun.

01:31:50
Speaker 5: She's also so like quick, very witty, like when she puts Jaj in his place is.

01:31:55
Speaker 4: Very like, oh bam, and they didn't linger. She's just like, hey, I don't know the fuck with you, You're not right.

01:32:01
Speaker 5: And then it's not this big moment of like, look, hey, I'm rejecting patriarchy. The kid like no, she's just like, hey, I've seen how you interact with other people.

01:32:11
Speaker 4: I don't like you.

01:32:12
Speaker 2: I've got a parent trap to take care of every hair.

01:32:14
Speaker 4: I don't have to like I'm not.

01:32:17
Speaker 5: So that'll be three. So the last one I'm gonna lean Sherry, gonna lean Sherry. You know she does a lot, but you know, I do love that. You know, she's just this pregnant woman who's very like sex positive, very fucking funny. She and then her names that she wants to name her children is just fucking ridiculous, but you just gotta go along with it.

01:32:40
Speaker 4: Because that's her right. I wouldn't give it to Goldie, but like, her character is very.

01:32:44
Speaker 5: Grating in terms of like some of the you know, regressive politics that we talked about the show. And even though I don't like meanness of already in this movie, like her hyperfixation on her titties is very weird to me because I'm just like, listen, they look good, like fuck her, but day look look.

01:32:59
Speaker 2: At one in a hand mirror in one shot.

01:33:02
Speaker 4: I was like, you had for the time, right, because we know how some of those how bad something they can go wrong?

01:33:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you know a little watch, there's a whole thing around them. I'm sure y'all remember. But yeah, we give it to Sherry. She's so funny and she's so sweet.

01:33:20
Speaker 3: There's a fun little anecdote. I was watching a couple of videos where Queen Lativa and Cherry Shepherd are talking either on a Queen Lativa show or on Cherry Shepherd Show, but anyway, they're recounting this story about how Sherry was doing a scene that the producers wanted to cut because they deemed it too silly, and it was a scene between her and Alfrey Woodard and she's like, well, allfree Woodard isn't silly. I'm the silly one, so clearly, like it's me and my performance that they don't like. And then so she was like feeling really bad about it, and you know, didn't want the scene to be cut, but it wasn't up to her. And then Queen Latifa like knocks on her trailer door to be like, do you do the scene the way you want to do it, like, don't suppress any silliness, like be the performer you want to be, and I'll fight for this scene to stay in the movie. And they did and it worked out, and Sherry Shepherd was forever grateful about it. I don't know specifically what scene they were talking about, but yeah, well I'm not totally sure.

01:34:24
Speaker 2: It's a comedy. There's no such thing.

01:34:26
Speaker 3: Right exactly. I'm like, why wouldn't you leave a silly scene in a comedy? But anyways, so yeah, it was just like this moment of Queen Latifa lifting her up and supporting her creative vision and it was really sweet.

01:34:40
Speaker 2: Love it. And that's the power of being a producer too, is you can advocate for your co stars in a way that the other producers aren't going to do.

01:34:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Clark Kisha, thank you so much for joining us. It was such a treat.

01:34:54
Speaker 2: This was so fun.

01:34:55
Speaker 3: Come back anytime for any movie.

01:34:58
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

01:35:00
Speaker 3: Where can people check out your work you're writing, follow you on social media, et cetera.

01:35:05
Speaker 2: Read your book?

01:35:07
Speaker 5: Oh thank you so, my book Off on a Big Bitch Manifesto is out. Obviously, I prefer you buy from the famous press website, which is who published it. You know, you can get it Barne's novel on Amazon Books a million, you get mostly anywhere. Also, support your local library if you're in a position where you can online my book. That is okay, girl, I get it. We in a super recession, all right. But make sure you support your local library because they will have it, whether it's the hard copy or an e book, or they have like the audiobooks.

01:35:41
Speaker 4: I did do that too, They will have it.

01:35:43
Speaker 5: Support your local library, get a library card, make sure they don't get shut down. It is one of our final third spaces. People get complaining about third spaces disappearing. That's one and she needs all help. She's on her last live, especially the New York Yes, so there's that.

01:36:00
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

01:36:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's also you can find me on you know, Twitter, which is Twitter. I'm not gonna ever call it x no so Twitter, I'm so you know at Ironald Date Underscore. I go back and forth and from Keith the account, so we don't see it really depends, you know, Instagram at Clarkisha Kent, and then I'm on High Social too.

01:36:20
Speaker 4: I haven't been there a little bit, but yeah, I'm on there also with Clarkisha Kent.

01:36:25
Speaker 5: My website is currently down for construction right now because I got to move some stuff around, but you usually can find.

01:36:31
Speaker 4: Me there as well. Www dot clarkishcampt.

01:36:34
Speaker 3: Amazing.

01:36:35
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us today. This has like truly been years in the making. We're really happy you're here. Yes, you can find us all over the place at Twitter, Instagram, at Bechdelcast, you can follow our Patreon aka Matreon. Five dollars a month gets you two bonus episodes a month and access to over one hundred and fifty episodes of back catalog. Yeah.

01:37:00
Speaker 3: You can also go to our link tree link tree slash Bechdel Cast, where you will find tickets to oh, I don't know an upcoming tour we're doing in the UK, and it's not just any tour, it's the Shrek Tannic Tour, where we are covering either Titanic or Shrek, the most important movies of our age. And you can get those tickets and we'll see you there. And then our merch is at teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast. And with that, should we all go to the beauty shop and get our hair done.

01:37:35
Speaker 6: Li'st it okay, Bye bye.

01:37:42
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voss Grossenski. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thing to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree Slash Bechtelcast