Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler - The Right Complexion for the Connection with Alex Stapleton

Episode Date: September 5, 2019

Chelsea is joined in studio by Director, Alex Stapleton to discuss their Netflix Documentary, 'Hello Privilege, It's Me Chelsea.'Credits:Host: Chelsea HandlerGuests: Alex StapletonExecutive Producer: Conal Byrne Producers: Sophie Lichterman, Jack O’Brien Writers: Jamie Loftus, Anna Hossnieh & Sophie Lichterman  Consulting Producers: Nick Stumpf, Miles Gray, & Anna HossniehThis episode was Engineered, Mixed & Edited by: Danl Goodman Music by: KingsburyOrder: "Life Will Be the Death of Me"Available in stores and online now Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell. Connection is everything. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the Death of Me, a production of iHeartRadio. Okay, welcome to our podcast. This is Chelsea Joy Handler. Brandon, what's your middle name? Anthony. Brandon Anthony. Can I say your last name on this? You better not. Okay. And Alexandra Stapleton, who is my

documentary director. She's a documentary filmmaker and she happens to be the director of my latest film which will be released on netflix on september 13th called hello privilege it's me chelsea right yeah is that the name we settled on that is the name okay it was a long long road to shoot this documentary very long okay so alexandra let's how would you like me to say your name alex i call you alex is it alexandria alexandra drea drea but i like alex okay so people don't call you alexandra no they call you alexandria your mom no one calls me alexandria it's because it's too fucking long it's too fucking long and my first name is actually kristen well that's it's nice to meet you then it's good thank you for telling me that but my middle name is alexandria

i changed it to alex so people would think i was a man when i first got started oh wow that's smart did that help you i don't know i don't think so on my first film i would go into you know meet the interview subject and they would say we're waiting for alex stapleton and i'm like that's me and they're like no we're waiting for alex stapleton the director and so it didn't really work because people still didn't associate me a young woman of color you know with being a director so right i don't i don't fucking know yeah well it also helped i mean it doesn't go a long way because once they see you then they're like oh you're a woman let's start disrespecting you exactly no that's not every situation we don't want to i don't want to act like that's what it's like all

day long but it is for a lot of people just last year personally uh so tell us about some of the films that you've directed so people who aren't familiar with you are so the first film that i directed was called it was about roger corman i don't know why i'm spacing out corman's corman's world is what it was called it was a very long time ago that was the first film i did it took me five years to make i have a crush on him while i did you did is he alive he is alive well then i still do okay great just like robert muller yeah there's the same age range yep same age range maybe i think roger's a little bit roger's a little probably in his 90s now but that tall kind of tall lanky in control smarter than me yes he's roger's a sexy guy i met you right after you

came off of shooting something with lebron for hbo so i show ran a series right before coming on to this project with you uh called shut up and dribble uh that lebron executive produced uh with his company spring hill uh that was a three-part series for showtime it was a great showtime and you know i direct a lot of branded content um have done other uh docu-series projects we've worked with eddie schmidt yes eddie schmidt is the director from my uh chelsea does doc series and yes he introduced us actually when i was starting my netflix show you came in right we met then so we came together uh this was kind of a lengthy process because we started a project then we kind of stopped down and then we started again but uh we had to get all the right kind of

um parts and pieces in place which was kind of took a lot longer than we thought it would because white people were so resilient or resistant resistant to speaking resilient so they are resilient. Resistant to speaking about the subject of white privilege, which is the subject we wanted to encapsulate was coming from my own backyard. Something that I didn't realize I was a beneficiary of until I was older. I thought I really worked hard for everything I had. It was because of all my talent. And then I realized, well, wait a second, that can't be only the only part of the equation. So we came together and you came and kind of had an idea of where we should go and the issues to tackle.

And you gave me lots of reading material. One of the books that I want to recommend to people is White Rage by Carol Anderson. I'm Done Talking to White People About Race is another one by a British woman. It's a great book that I read. And then Black Like Me is a great book, which is a guy that he puts shoe polish on his face

and he poses as a black man in the South in the, what time period of time was that? It was the 60s. Back in the 19th, I want to say early 60s, maybe even, I think, earlier, late 50s. So these were great reading tools for me to get started. Obviously, there's myriad options to read about being a person of color or about white privilege or white denial of white privilege. But anyway, you get the picture.

So what did you want to accomplish with this film? And what do you think we have accomplished with this film? What were your goals and what's the reality? I thought we were going to end racism with this film. Yeah, it didn't happen. But I know I really wanted to talk to white people. I mean, I think that was a really big objective, even when we first met and we were talking about the different ways that this documentary about white privilege could shape up. I thought that, you know, with all with every kind of racial incident that happens in this country, you know, be it on Twitter with like the Starbucks incident in white women, especially calling the cops on people of color just because they're black or even more extreme incidences where things turn violent.

you know that when white people commit hate crimes i feel like white people never really the white perpetrators or the white people that are responsible for that they kind of don't ever talk to the media like they go in hiding um they get pushed you know like social media comes after them the the media always gives a voice to black people who have been hurt and that's great like we need that but i i feel like why do these white people kind of get to just disappear without having to really take responsibility for their actions and not only take responsibility but a but a real chance to see if they can learn um and understand really like what they did i don't know just to to be responsible for their actions and to to maybe to try to like curb

that type of activity you know for other white people to stop acting like that and um we were shut down um every white person that we went that we went after to try to speak to them um uh to shine a light on what they what they did and to understand like why why why do you feel so threatened by black people why what what's going through your head how were you raised how how why is this an issue um no one really wanted to talk so black people were really were very much willing to talk to us and we got a lot of black people to participate in this show carol anderson yeah it was awesome it was amazing let's tell us a little bit about your background because your mother's black my mother is black my father is white so i am technically biracial but i identify

as a black woman i grew up in the south in houston texas my mother's also a black lesbian so i grew up with a lesbian mom who is in the South and got to kind of see a very different way of having to deal with the world through my mom. And with race, my black family, very working class. My white family, they're very Texan, you know, a lot of bubba's. But my family's really close. So I think that what brings them together is this struggle just, you know, every single day to put food on the table to support their families their kids send try to send a kid to college you know if possible just the regular things that most americans want to do and i feel like and this is something that we talked about when we first met i feel like the south gets a lot of like the

attention when it comes to race relations because everyone's like oh god down south everything's so messed up and that's what people that's like the narrative of you know liberals in california especially white people in New York, coastal elites, they feel like they live in this kind of utopia. And people in the South are, you know, it's like the Klan is still coming and white people are, segregation is still alive and well, and Jim Crow is alive and well. There are problems in the South, for sure. But I have never lived in a more segregated environment than my time in Los Angeles. Right, which is something that we talked about in the film, because we realize that while these

coastal liberal elites or liberal coastal elites are okay with saying, you know, voicing their opinions, that they want everybody to be treated equally, that everyone's progressive, everyone wants equal rights for everybody,

we still self-segregate. We don't want to live next door to black people because white people live in certain areas and black people live in certain areas and Asian people live in certain areas and Korean people live in certain areas, not to be confused with asian people and that everybody self-segregates in this city as as they do in many metropolises if that's how you say that plurally but it metropoli if uh but the other thing and then the opposite is true that black with people and white people in the south have

no problem living together and community and having community get together they just don't want black people having the votes and the voices that they have so it's the opposite there's two two bad things right yeah I mean I think if we're generalizing I mean those are really big big generalizations of of the differences I think that down south look and I'm from one part of the south but I think that the cultures do co-mingle more because class is kind of like more of an issue a lot of the times it's not to say that that you know as a black woman growing up in the south and especially like with what my mother went through that um i mean my mother was born into you know during jim crow uh the south was completely

segregated integration happened when she was in high school so i'm first generation integration um i'd say for that big leap to happen it's actually pretty progressive compared to los angeles or even new york you know i i agree with you 100 i think that people choose to self segregate here a lot but then they go to the ballot you know or they feel like oh i'm i love obama i mean that was another thing that we connected over that i think a lot of california white liberals um i felt that there was a race problem um when donald trump got elected and that wasn't really news to most people of color and that was something that we kind of talked about you thought that i mean i don't want to speak for you but that please do it's better than when i

speak for myself. But you felt that we had kind of moved past race, right? With Obama being elected. I thought we moved past racism and we were moving past sexism. I mean, I didn't even realize that sexism was the issue that it was before this Me Too movement. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit visit bell.ca for details and to check availability bell connection is everything when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart

and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying Shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island to deserve the same level of discourse.

I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite BookTok creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Brandon, what about you? You grew up in South Dakota.

Yeah, I grew up in the Midwest. Are there any Black people there in South Dakota? There is a large Native American population. So for us, that was the segregation that you saw was the Native Americans who still live on reservations. But what's interesting here, Alex, talk about the race issue that sometimes it's out of sight, out of mind. So you think these issues have been resolved. But then, like I told you recently, I was in San Diego with my boyfriend and someone drives down and yells fags at us. And it's like, oh, no, these things are still happening.

You just live in such a bubble that you forget there are places outside of your area that are still facing these issues. Friends are still going through things. OK, this is a question really quick. You are classifying people as black. What is appropriate? african-american or black before i continue i think it's up to the individual okay i prefer black okay because i think african-american sounds really formal okay to me personally but if i met another black person they're like i i need to be addressed as an african okay well for like a

default white person who just wants to be respectful like what is there one that we should go with in your opinion i think you're safe with either okay well so like african-american friends who still say like yeah i'll like i'm in la and i'll go to a club and like you get a second look like there's and so it's not until someone says something because if you're not personally affected by it like i haven't been called a fag since junior high and i'm in you know liberal san diego thinking like they're rainbow flags flying that's never going to happen here for me walking down the street holding a hand but it still does and it's important to have those reminders i think that these issues are not resolved like they are still happening and we

need to be aware of it and san diego's not as liberal as la no but you still i mean it's more pretty conservative yeah i mean well okay for me it was like you're being in a you're in a city You're in the city. Like, there are rainbow flags flying. Right, right, right. There are other gay couples. I'm not an anomaly in South Dakota. Yeah, but were you flying those rainbow flags off of your own shoulder?

Or were there actually some other ones around? I was shooting rainbow fireworks out of my butthole. Like, that's how gay it was. That's how you celebrate pride. Thank you. Thank you very much. So to that point, I think that there are a lot of us who kind of assume, you know, when I say us, white people. Right.

That, oh, I've not seen racism lately. It's not happening. And it is. And that's kind of like the thing, though, right? It's like white privilege is that you don't have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis. Or notice it. Or notice it. You're not looking out for racist acts because you're surrounded mostly by people who look like you.

Yeah. And I think that, I mean, it goes back to why I think it was easier for us to find black people to sit down and talk with us. Because, I mean, pretty much the culture, black people as a culture, we're used to having these conversations. It's not, it doesn't like, it doesn't make us nervous. But I think that we found, and I don't think it's a secret that white people kind of like the hair stand up on their backs a little bit, like the minute that we get, you know, people get into a racial conversation or a conversation about race, because my personal opinion is that, and I even, I mean, I would say this even for my white family, like white

people tend to take things personal when we talk about race they tend to make it like about them about them it's like the only time that they take on this weird but it's a classic defense mechanism anytime you're defending yourself you want to like lay blame get blame off of you right so which means that it doesn't mean you're guilty but you're acting like it yeah when instead you can engage somebody and say oh how can i be better educated on the subject matter right like you know when you're talking to somebody in the trans community what would you like me to refer to you as right be be generous and and thoughtful and considerate and then then you can't make a mistake because how can that be a mistake right you can't ask a question and then be attacked for wanting

to know the answer that's just common courtesy well that's why i'm so excited for this is the podcast i've been most excited for because and so when you say like oh white people don't want to talk to us like oh god that's so interesting because like i was so excited like i wrote questions down this morning like i couldn't stop thinking about okay so alex is coming in like how can I grow as a person like how can I be better and I think sometimes people take that on as like they just want to cause but seeing the documentary be produced and still realizing like no there are always ways to grow and of course with like the political climate and in the media you see so much more of what the issues really are and like one of them that I want to talk

about later is Halle Bailey being cast as the little mermaid Disney right who is an African American you know young girl and people are up in arms about it and so I just haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So today, before I came in, I'm like, this is like, I'm so lucky to be able to go and like, talk about this and ask the questions, because that's the only way to get better. So it's sad that like someone else who is Caucasian, white would not want to take that opportunity. Well, that and I think, I think the really big thing, and I hope that this documentary, because I feel like it's, it's not like there's a you have to be white or black or Latino or whatever to watch it but i think that it's because we're kind of using your story chelsea is like

your story of white privilege i feel like it might resonate with white audiences the soundtrack should have been as i walked through life as a whitey no problemos and nothing happened or everything happened but i feel like white people i mean it's not a feeling it's factual white people need to talk to white people more you know it's like men who don't talk about their emotions yeah it's that it's that being stuck and not a woman able to deal necessarily get that man to talk about his emotions right because there's so much stuff attached to that and i feel it's a fact that i that a lot of white people don't necessarily hear the same message from a black person or you know a person of color communicating hey i was offended because you did this this and

this and this whereas if a white person enters the equation and talks to another white person it's like they can have this off-the-record conversation you know yeah about how to be a better ally yeah so i think it's a similar thing i think people you know white people are stuck with their lack of i mean not all white people i think there's obviously many that are trying to do a better job but i i do think that it is similar to men being stuck emotionally you know it's like that hump you don't want to get over and when you do get over it you're like oh okay I'm so much more educated now, you know, now I get it. So tell me about, okay. Cause you forced me to reunite with my ex-boyfriend from high school. I forced you to? Basically. Yeah. I mean,

how would you frame that? I didn't want to meet him again. No, you didn't. Well, you were very, it's not that you didn't. I would say you were nervous. Yes. And I didn't know if he was, you know, how he was going to look at me. I mean, he had spent 14 years incarcerated, which i had no idea because you told me i think i've been out for 14 years so we flipped that information we did so that was a shocker but i did go and see him and this was a guy who i dated in high school was a drug dealer his name was taishan we got arrested a couple times for pot well he got arrested i was let go every time i got pregnant a couple times had two abortions and then i moved out went back to my community and never saw him again and then he ended up being put in the system

for minor possession of marijuana no it wasn't it wasn't a couple of strikes yeah so that led to another one which led to him being found guilty of armed robbery but he had had a full scholarship to UNLV which he lost basically because of being put into that system where I was there for both times and was told by the police to go back to my house wherever that was and when I was done with Taishan when I woke up and was like, okay, I'm not going to be in this world. Well, actually, my father dragged me out of there by my hair and was like, come back. You're not staying here anymore. I was able to go back into my life and go. I didn't graduate high school. I wasn't supposed to graduate high school in time. But because of where I was from and because of my

family, they bent the rules for me. And I went to summer school and I graduated. I'd lost all credit of my junior year in high school and made it up in a summer. At my own pace, I went to alternative school so i could graduate in time so i was afforded the luxuries that taishan would never ever have been afforded and his life was pretty much it's not ruined because he's out now and he has five children and he's got a job and he's healthy and he's not using but his life went off the track whereas mine was fine and from an outside perspective largely due to the color of your skin yep you had the complexion i would say that was the yeah that's what he said i had the complexion for the connection. And then Tyshawn also thought we were going to get back together

and that he was coming to California to live with me. And I had to remind him that he's on parole and he can't leave the state of New Jersey. That would have been a fun surprise for me. I think that that was a really interesting point, like behind the scenes, because when I met you, I feel like the narrative and the story, I mean, you even opened this podcast up with white privilege for you. I think you kind of in your head thought that it started when you got to la and then bam you know the white privilege meter was on and you started your you got this career then i became an elitist which is what i always wanted to be which is you know my goal was to have lots of money and cleaning ladies and people who worked at my house because i wanted

the exact opposite experience of growing up in my parents house so that's that so that's the truth of the matter and that's where i think that's where it turned on for you and i think what the film what we were trying to accomplish was to say no this this goes way deeper than that and the fork in the road probably started even before taishan it definitely did but that was when you were still in high school and look at the difference of how your life turned out compared to his and it's not to it's not to exploit taishan it's not to make it like oh he like you said he's in a really good place right now and his family like they're very happy and he is not using and I think you know has kind of come out of that but he lost a lot and it was interesting for me

to kind of try to peel back the the layers a little bit to for you to see like oh no this goes way deeper than just being in California with my comedy career you know and I think that's kind of runs parallel to how i think white people think about race like you kind of white people are like oh well i worked really hard for this and okay i can kind of see what you're saying a little bit you know when it comes to like my job or or you know they they want to kind of they can accept white privilege in small doses but white privilege is a daily event it's it's yeah it's huge it's systemic it's you know it goes all the way down to like to when we were babies in a hospital you know what i mean it's so rooted in like our everyday life you know we're we're judged by

our the sex that we are as well as the race that we are and like where we come from i mean all of these things are factors and how our lives are shaped we didn't get really deep when our film we weren't able to cover every topic but i thought that it was really interesting that your story also with taishan and what you experienced in high school also was reflective of what was happening in the state of New Jersey. And to go back to this whole false narrative that everything's okay on the coasts, and everything's fucked up in the South. New Jersey is like one of the worst states when it comes to the disparity of white and teens of color, but specifically black teens that are incarcerated. I think the national average and we have to, this is a fact checking.

I believe the national average is seven to one. And in New Jersey, it was 30 to one. I think it's going to be a shock to people that new jersey is actually very messed up when it comes to they have a lot of racism in new jersey and they're and they're dealing with it on a systemic level and there's people they're fighting the good fight to do that work but so it's no coincidence that you know your story actually proves the statistics you got when you encountered law enforcement it was like oh this poor girl needs to go back to her people whereas taishan is you know thought of as a perpetrator you know no second chances and that was something that ryan when we sat down with with ryan in new jersey he i think he really was good at explaining that for too many black and

brown kids and teens there are no second chances you know there are no um there's no there's no room to mess up and i think that is something that's armor that are a reality that i think that I wear and that people of color wear all the time that we don't always if I mess up on a job it might like devastate my career you know and for a white male especially I would say even more so than a white woman it's like oh you know we're very forgiving of mistakes and especially with teens and with young people and with kids I think that you got a lot of opportunities to correct yourself yeah I mean there was a judge the other day that excused a boy that was accused of rape because he had good grades.

Really? There was an article I read. I mean, I don't know what came of the case, but yeah, he was saying, well, he should get lesser sentence because he's doing really well in school and he had a scholarship. As if that exonerates you.

What is your experience working as a female black director? I've been working. I dropped out of school. My father doesn't know that. But I dropped out of school when I was 19. Well, that's how you become a director. Congratulations. And I'm turning 40.

Congratulations. So 20 years. And I started out from the bottom, you know, as a PA and like intern actually and worked my way up. I don't think I thought about race, to be honest, in my 20s a lot because it was just so hard. I mean, I was living in New York and it was just hard to like keep the lights on. Like I just, I don't know, I was just on autopilot. And I didn't really think about being a woman and I don't think I thought about my race often. it wasn't until like after my first film that I started to notice this weird kind of difference with all of my colleagues like all the guys that were kind of we all started at the same time and when they made their first feature their careers started and they were get you know they were making they were directing commercials and getting tv offers and and I was like how is this magically happening and then my film you know I'm not saying Corman's world is like gonna blow you away but it got into the Cannes Film Festival. It competed at Sundance. We got bought. I mean, that's a big

deal for an indie. And it's a great film. I've seen it. Well, thank you. And I couldn't get a job. And it was so weird because I had a lawyer and I just remember her like, well, you need to do this and you need to do that. And I'm like, I need to pay my rent next month. What am I missing? How is everyone else continuing to work and to grow and excel and I'm not? And I'm not going to say that that was 100% because I was a black woman, but I started to, my eyes were kind of open to a little bit of a different reality that I felt that I was facing. And I probably feel like it was a little bit more of just being a woman because I think that this business, I think it's different for black men than it is for black women. You know, I think that to be male in Hollywood

as a director is a huge advantage and it still is. I think right now it's great to see so many black women and so many women just in general get these opportunities to direct on television shows and to get features and to get you know big budgeted features off the ground but we'll see how long it lasts do you think it's women like Shonda Rhimes that have like to me she was one of the first big mainstream you saw her everywhere she had hit shows a contract with a network was there a turning point that you did see that you're like it's this person or it was this event that now diversity in african-american for black people i think it was ava i think she was yeah uh diverne i think that she because shonda rhymes is like doing the scripted television

kind of thing and isn't and i think that she's great and that's amazing it just didn't really affect me i met ava at sundance with corman actually and i was on a panel because at sundance that year I was a black female director with the movie and competition and uh I wasn't invited to any of the black events because for some reason no one thought that I was black I don't know if it was because of the movie that I did or whatever and I wrote to the I think it was like the black house at Sundance and I wrote to them I was like you're doing all these events for all the black directors at Sundance and I haven't like can I come and they were like oh shit sorry like we thought you were Native American I don't know what they thought I was I don't think they thought I

was a woman either that's where the name that's where it happened to me as well on the phone on the phone um but ava i did it so anyway they invited me to come and speak at this on this panel and ava was there and that was the first time i met her and this is before she was soup she blew up and ava's magical because she doesn't just take success for her she brings everybody with her and i and she was doing that then like no one knew who i was i was this like young i was like 28 years old and I had I was on a panel with you know a black audience talking about Roger Corman and it was not hitting and Ava was like um Ava really had my back and then she did press after that and she kept in all of her interviews she kept saying there's not it's not just me

there's other directors that are right behind me and she would put me in this in that list you know of of folks and I think that's when I started to kind of the light went on for me and I still think she's doing that you know like right now i'm sure running a series for effects and so cheryl denier who's a you know an amazing black lesbian filmmaker is the director producer on queen sugar and ava is doing it on queen sugar you know she she only brings women to the table and i think this season it's it's predominantly women of color that she's giving uh rise to and then that way these women can go out and go get more jobs, you know, to keep the lights on in their house and to grow as a director and to get better at their craft. And I have to say, Chelsea, like, I think

I totally 100% completely mean this. I feel like you're a person that does that. I feel like you're a giant champion for women. I think for you to let me do this film and to hire me really was a very personal thing for me because it's you don't get those opportunities all the time and it's not like i had done five million things on race yeah well i'm glad that we found each other i'm glad that we met and i'm glad that we had a good working relationship together and i mean it was a big learning experience for me i'm only sad that you know you feel like you want to tackle a subject and you just scratch the surface and you really want to dig into something yeah because when i did my original docuseries for netflix the race one was the one that i found most compelling

personally in like as a viewer so i wanted to scratch the surface even further which we did but there's just so much to do and so and so many places and directions to go in it's hard to focus that attention and the world was happening in real time and you know i think that even in the in the span of like when we were making this film i feel like the united states of america changed so i mean it's still changing so drastically that's true and it's hard to keep up with i mean when we were first doing this i know that we spoke a lot about we did not want to include 45 you know in the i don't even like saying his name i'd like to say to all my listeners i wanted some acknowledgement for how few times i've said his name in this podcast i barely talk about the guy

anymore so i just want you to know that i've been touched and healed hallelujah amen sister And to you too, Brandon. Amen, sister. Thank you. Okay, well, this sounds like a good time to take a break. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability.

Bell. Connection is everything. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, Shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. see you between the pages we don't really talk about him

at all I don't even think he's mentioned in the film at one point he was he's not the problem he's a symptom and I was confused in the beginning that he was the problem he is not the problem he was a catalyst his election was a catalyst for an awakening I think with a lot of white folks

yes and that is a good thing if we can get to the next level which is like he is no different I mean he's just he's a symptom exactly what you said he is no different than you know what this country has faced over and over and over again dating back to hundreds of years ago and i think it's a missed opportunity to make race conversations in this day and age about 45 and not about real things you know real talk um how do we change laws and that was another really big thing i think that

we forgot to mention was you know i think that the challenging part was because this is such a giant topic where do you how do you like hone it in um and yeah your personal story we followed that but i also think that your work i think people were will be surprised even when we were shooting i think people were were i saw that for you it felt like there was a connection between race and voting because you are so invested with getting people out to go vote and that seemed like this kind of interesting like intersection you know when talking about white privilege because if you don't vote if you don't have a say in an election you can't change the systemic ways that the government and the laws are hurting you as a community and i you know i know it's not like

the sexiest of subjects you know to talk about voter suppression and all of that but i actually think it's the foundation of and it's educational because people some people don't believe that voter suppression is happening and people don't understand how that how it can happen or they don't understand what gerrymandering is all the things that i you know that i learned after the election you know so many people um don't know about and you don't realize there's a huge lack of education in this country about those things so voting is the tool that you have to use it is the only way to have your voice heard and which is hard for people when they get turned away at voting polls or voting places and told to go somewhere else after they've you know I remember

that story that Oprah told remember right when she was campaigning for Stacey Abrams she was talking about that a man who went to four different voting places and walked and walked and she said every time I vote it's for that man who got turned away from four different places and he'd walk something like you know eight miles no white person will ever walk eight miles to vote that hasn't happened once just like women don't masturbate into plants white people don't walk to the polls and if they do it's around the corner brandon did you have any follow-up questions i have a lot that i would like to get into it because it's you know alex is it's in media i'm just gonna take a quick shower um great okay well

so back to the little mermaid one of the things i want to touch on is that there's a lot of feedback right now of a cartoon character who is white with red hair being recast as an African-American girl. So obviously, the aesthetic is completely different. And when I first saw the news, my initial reaction as someone with nostalgia towards Little Mermaid, my favorite Disney movie, is that she just didn't match what your conceptualized idea of her should be based on the cartoon. Now, Halle Bailey looks exactly like the Little Mermaid in African-American form.

She's got the lips, the nose, the big eyes, like she looks like a Disney princess. So I had to take a second to think that anyone can play that role. It's a fairy tale. It's a fantasy. And mermaids aren't real. But there was still that like momentary, like it should be a white girl with red hair, even though I know that's wrong. So like what feedback, like how can we reconcile our ideals of like that certain roles should

be played by certain people or that now they're saying there's a lot of like necessary diversity that like people are just being put in positions or like roles are being recast just so they're African-American or just so they're Asian or just so they're Native American. I had a friend who said, oh, now I can't get a job because everyone's hiring, you know, minorities and women. Right. And he's like, and they're not qualified to do these jobs. They're not more qualified than I am.

I'm like, yes, but you've had an advantage by being male. Right. Right. So now it's time to give it up a little bit. And people don't want to deal with that because, again, equality feels like a loss to some people who've had it their whole life. And I feel I mean, yeah, I mean, the statistics still prove that white men are totally OK in the United States of America, actually in the world. uh they're they're doing just fine um i think that the that the representation for the disney princess is kind of multi-pronged because i grew up with with you know ariel ariel ariel ariel uh ariola that's where i want to go but i know that actually it's ariel short for ariola oh my god um i grew up with that white princess too and i think that that's sad that like we

there's this whole of not just instead of a celebration instead of saying yeah great great a black girl gets it this is awesome yeah people are like pissed it's kind of crazy and if there's like facebook groups being set up to take her down i mean it's nonsense um well first of all No one should be that committed to any fictionalized character. Sounds like you are as committed as one can be. Well, because in my head, as that six-year-old kid watching that movie, you have an expectation. Right. But I'm not going to start.

Like, I don't give a shit. Like, she, first of all, she has an incredible singing voice. Like, she's going to kill it as Little Mermaid. Yeah. But there was still that momentary, like, oh, it should be a white girl with red hair. But you're, but by you just being honest about that weird kind of shift in your head and being able to vocalize that and like life goes on and you were able to kind of like reset and go oh you know right like i can't wait i can't wait to see her in the world the same way my favorite

version of any disney movie is cinderella with brandy and whitney houston like i still watch it like i still what about will smith is aladdin i didn't like that but i didn't like the movie like it wasn't because of him like i just i seem to have missed a lot of nothing nothing about that what the fuck you guys you guys may as well be speaking north korean um i think that uh i you know i think that if you get if you if it stings for a second get over it you know i mean that would be my what i my opinion about uh to people who are which is actually a very honest natural reaction it's a it's a better reaction than to you know it's almost a more um organic reaction than to go yes that's great you know i get more worried about the white person that shows me this

article and is like hey I just want you to know Disney's really doing a good job they've gotten you know Ariel is now black aren't you excited and they're bringing that to me I have nothing to fucking do with like the Disney I mean that would actually be more alarming than someone like yourself saying you know I saw this and I was like kind of like weirded out by my own brain that in my subconscious mind I was kind of like oh well and that adolescent expectation again like that's what it was but again a lot of characters are being repurposed they're actively trying to incorporate diversity so what is your take on shows that are doing that like a lot of Netflix shows, like every table has an Asian and African-American and Native American, like in a

white person, which I think is great. How does that compare to TV shows like Black-ish that it's a predominantly African-American cast? Like, do you feel like one is better for mainstream exposure than the other, like seeing an all Black family versus like a Black kid who's been positioned somewhere? I think you need it all. But the real change that I'm not seeing that I think really needs to happen is like, who are the executives? You know what I mean? Who are the people in the boardroom that are greenlighting these shows how how black how many black executives are are working at netflix or working at disney or working at effects or you know these companies that are generating all of this content that to me is actually fixing the system more so than like oh

for for a year we've got like some we're trending right now with like our african-american content i was just reading the new york times this weekend had a really good article about black directors from the 90s that got these one-off you know i mean like i like it like that which is one of my favorite movies in high school uh was directed by a black woman uh juice you know with tupac i mean all these great movies obviously john singleton was from that generation and he went on to have a very fruitful you know career r.i.p but all of these other directors they got one shot and then that was it and then they were kind of like left in this you know very white male world to try to survive and then when hollywood was like oh these are making money let's order

10 000 of them it was great but then for their second films when they made something like the inkwell that didn't do that well it was like oh you're done you know and i think that that's what i'm nervous about with this era with the me too movement and with you know um this movement to put more people of color in roles and even as directors because that's great but we really need to see more women and and more people of color like working at these companies you know that because those are the people that make that continue to make the decisions you know moving forward well and it's impactful behind the scenes yeah that there's a certain expectation then where a lot of times i think you can see it in anything that's being produced it's a white person making

a decision on behalf of a minority on how their idea of representation should be, not necessarily how it would actually be. And so for a lot of the companies, like the big companies, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, they're doing this. I think that there is more of an effort to put out content that is specific to those audiences, but not to make sure that there are people in place to ensure that it's actually. Right. It's going to, it has staying power.

It's going to stay, you know, like when we were making this, the netflix show dear white people i believe that that netflix canceled the show after two seasons yeah and people went like lost their minds and then the show stayed and that's great right but maybe if there were a couple more black executives at netflix that could have been communicated without this like you know like trench warfare situation on twitter you know to keep the to keep that film alive and i mean excuse me that that tv show alive and i think you know when you're especially when you're dealing with content that's that is about race um i think that it's important that i mean as a director i feel like it's actually critical that

you have black executives that you can actually have like a unofficial conversation with where they understand the nuances of what's happening so that you can make a better product right you can speak to more people and when you're trying there's a lot that gets lost in translation and And this New York Times article about these directors from the 90s, I think that that was something that they faced. And then, you know, their careers didn't have staying power. And that's really – that ain't cool. I'm not saying that it is a fad. I just feel like the way we keep it – keep the momentum up is to look at it, like, as a whole – you know, wholeheartedly.

But, yeah, there's just got to be more mix-up and mash-ups. Yeah, I think that's a good point, though, to not leave it as is, to think of it as it's the long game. It's not like, you know, filling up a tank. It's actually trying to figure out how you sustain this. And that should be the intention. And that's, I mean, that's Hollywood. I mean, I think this business is, for Corman's World, I actually interviewed Jack Nicholson. And he was reflecting on his time back in the 1960s and 70s.

And he was the one who, like, taught me this, which was, you know, if something is successful, in hollywood like people will order literally 10 000 of them they want the same thing over and over and over again especially if they can do it cheap or for free and um that's just the nature of the beast that the business that we all work in and that's fine but like let's put some people with let's let that beast and like the people behind the scenes look a little bit different and be from different worlds because maybe i don't know the approach will be a little a little bit different yeah and they don't know what's going to strike with what the next thing is that's going to strike right um okay well this has been very enlightening i want to thank you brandon for

preparing for the podcast with all your questions and um he's you're a great interviewer brandon alex you're a great director and chelsea you're just you thank you guys oh thank you brandon okay alex your turn um bernice thank you for being here she's passed out on the floor and uh we will see you next week this has been life that will be the death of me get bell pure fiber internet with crave netflix and disney plus from 94 a month price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit visit bell.ca for details and to check availability bell connection is everything when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people

survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally

important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm gonna have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments nothing is off the table it's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart pop culture conversations or a

community of readers who love to think a little too much you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts see you between the pages Life Will Be the Death of Me is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.