The Bechdel Cast - Hollywood Shuffle with Sam Ike

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Sam Ike chat about Hollywood Shuffle!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @TheSamIke on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Nerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption. They were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right?

Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas.

Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name's Caitlin Durante. My name's Jamie Loftus. And this is our podcast in which we examine movies. Wow. Wow.

Okay. Should I keep going? We examine movies from an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. I know what that is. Okay. May I? Jamie, I'm going to hand it off to you. Wow.

We literally sound like we're like on pbs we're like doing a fundraiser um yeah i will i will gladly pick up the mantle here um thank you so much the vectal test is a media metric invented by queer cartoonist allison vectal sometimes called the vectal wallace test that requires that to for our purposes our little our little flourish a little spin on it our little take on it everyone needs a little take on it here's ours uh our version of the bechdel test requires that two people of a marginalized gender with names by the way speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue that's our little take on it wow wow most movies don't do it a lot simply don't or or this increasing trend that drives me

you know just into the ground like a little screwdriver is they do pass the Bechdel test but they still hate women like now it's like the whole thing where every director i feel like most directors have some functioning knowledge of the bechdel test at this point except for sofia coppola which is weird because her movies usually pass but like she didn't know what it was but now i feel like a lot of like misogynist directors do know what the bechdel test is make sure their movie passes it but they're like oh but still we're just gonna like brutalize every woman that's on screen but did she ask for a like a pudding from her daughter so it passes therefore a feminist film right hate it hate it but you know what can you do who was the actor i want to say it was diane lane but before i

i'm going to confirm this are you about to just fully cancel diane lane live on the show my mom loves under the tuscan sun you've got to be careful oh my gosh wow we should have jill on the podcast to talk about under the tuscan sun. I really can't think of someone more qualified to talk about under the Tuscan sun. Okay. Let me just Google this and then, and if I'm wrong, I'll cut this out. And if I'm right, I'll say it. Is it something nice about Diane Lane or something controversial? No, it's not. Okay. I'm right. Okay. Here's what it is. Diane Lane, she accidentally called the Bechdel test, the rectal test. This happened a couple of years ago. She was talking about the Bechdel test and I think

generally knew what it was, but didn't know what the, what the name of it was. And she called it the rectal test. Sometimes boomers really show up for you in a way that you didn't expect oh diane you know an effort was made and i uh i respect that oh knights and rodanthi people love knights and rodanthi i'm like she's been in every mom movie for the past 30 years why yeah was that a nicholas sparks adaptation it was I know that she fucks Richard Gere in it. Yes, it is a Nicholas Sparks one. Yes. Wow. Richard Gere and Diane Lane fuck a lot in movies. This doesn't pass the rectal test. Or nor does it pass the rectal test. So here's what happened. Diane Lane was doing an interview with Vanity Fair. She was talking about House of Cards.

She says, oh, but the show doesn't pass the rectal test, right? Am I saying that right? No. The fact that it was for House of Cards makes it 10 times more cursed on top of that. Oh, my God. What? Good for her. Yes. Should we talk about today's movie yes i'm so excited so our guest today a returning guest a friend of the show he's a comedian you remember him from our men in black

episode it's sam ike hey hey, Sam. Hey. Welcome back. Thanks for having me back. I appreciate it. So excited. We're delighted to have you. I love Diane Lane. Oh, really? Wait, what's your favorite Diane Lane performance?

I would go Unfaithful or Under the Tuscan Sun. Right, Unfaithful. Yeah, yeah. She's fucking Richard Gere in that one, that's she's fucking richard gear in that one she's fucking richard gear in that one too yeah she's wow yeah she's fucking a lot in that movie uh yeah yeah she's fantastic in it um she i mean i don't know if there's a bad there there are movies where diane lane is in it and it's not good but I don't know if there's a bad Diane Lane movie. Okay, sure. I do.

I feel like generally her starring vehicles are either really wholesome or like aggressively horny. Yeah. Under the Tuscan Sun is like the best mixture of Unfaithful and Knights in Rodanthe. It's like the, it's the Venn diagram of the, like, wait, is it that purple? It's the, it's like the it's the venn diagram of the like what is it that purple it's the it's like the yeah it's like the georgia of diane lane oh my god okay i feel i feel a patreon theme coming on it turns out there's a lot to say

about diane lane more than i realized diane december maybe yeah i would if we were like we're not covering how not halloween like a holiday movies this year we're covering diane lane movies okay we're gonna run out of holiday movies eventually so we're gonna have to pivot to something i hope so but as long as vanessa hudgens keeps you know appearing in front of a green screen, there's still going to be holiday movies. Yeah. Yeah.

Holiday movies are never going away. They're never going away. That's one genre. It's like, I think it's like holiday movies and horror movies. Those two are never going to go away. I'm fine with it. I'm like, you know what? They're always going to be mostly bad.

And I'm usually going to watch them. Yeah. And you really need just one location. You know what I mean? As long as you got a place where you can put a fucking tree and somewhere where you can, like, you need the woods. You need somewhere where you can kill someone in a remote place for a horror movie,

and then you need a place where you can have a Christmas tree and you can kill someone in a remote place for a horror movie and then you need a place where you can have a christmas tree and you can do a christmas movie it's like a pretty covid safety friendly genre yeah yeah exactly yeah oh man one of the best genres are cold that's like what are really that's so depressing but also it's like we were talking about this on the on the patreon a couple of oh during december where it was um some some of the like low rent uh holiday movies i watched this year you can tell they were shot with covid restrictions because they'll be like like there'll be scenes that take place adjacent to a party but you never see the party because there's

no party like just and then you can hear like party dot you know mp3 kind of playing in the background but it's just two people in a room because it's not safe to have anyone else there oh what a time to be alive wow happy belated birthday diane lane she just turned 56 this week oh wow incredible wow. Incredible. Happy birthday. This is a Diane Lane podcast now. So let's talk about today's actual movie, which does not star Diane Lane. It doesn't. It is the movie Hollywood Shuffle. Sam, tell us about your relationship with this movie.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm pretty sure it came out the year i was born and yeah it stars robert townsend who's one of my like childhood idols keen eye everywhere and co-wrote it with um another one of my childhood idols and it is one of the to me personally it's one of the funniest movies ever made um it's sketches all linked towards this actor named bobby taylor and his uh triumphs and struggles of trying to be a black actor in hollywood and it's um it's it i saw it when i was i don't know probably in high school and just because i like i i knew i would i loved in living color

a scary movie was like the funniest thing i'd ever seen at that point i was like i don't know 15 or whatever and um sure and then i saw this movie and i just i've i've watched it so many times it's definitely definitely one of the most re-watched comedies for me personally yeah i i just absolutely love it it's it's it's just one of those movies that like every joke is just like so fuck it's so quotable and it's also just one of those things where it's like i didn't have that many like all black films that were this funny you know you there weren't that many black comedies and this one is just like it's amazing and it's also the other thing is like how hard it was for robert townsend to make this movie

that yeah and and the whole point of it being so inspiring um it is one of the like i am a mostly cynical person when it comes to those things in films but like it is one of those films that actually did that for me uh yeah it's one of the few movies that i actually feel like uh i don't know hope i guess when i watch it you know like yeah uh i don't was that was that too long we can cut do no no say more i didn't i don't that was beautiful i was just i was waiting for you guys to be like oh now we gotta go to an ad

no that's great Jamie what's your relationship and history with this movie I'd never seen this movie before I knew of Robert Townsend because I used to watch reruns of The Parenthood when I was little. So that was primarily how I knew who he was, was this movie is so fucking good. I'm disappointed in myself. I haven't seen it sooner. It was so much fun.

It's so like the story behind it was really cool. And I feel like if you haven't seen this movie, you should stop the podcast and watch it now. It's on Pluto TV. You have no excuse not to watch it. I watched it on Canopy with my library card. Or not, is it Canopy? Or Hoopla, maybe.

I think it was on Hoopla. You've read a book. That would be better than Pluto TV because it just, we were talking about this off mic. Pluto TV is such a cursed application. What was your experience with this movie, Caitlin? I saw it in college as a part of where I did go, not once, but twice. I, of course, hate to bring this up.

But in my undergrad education, I was taking like a film studies or a film history class. And they were just kind of running through the whole like American film history. And this got shown, I think, as movie, because we, there was like a section on blaxploitation films. And then I think this movie got shown to us because it was like, and here's a response to like the blaxploitation movement. So I saw it then. And I remember thinking it was super funny and just like really poignant. But I hadn't watched it since then. So I was excited to revisit it.

And I think there's a lot to talk about. And I'm excited. There was one. I usually like, I don't know, sometimes when there are sketches in movies, I get turned off. But it works so perfectly in this movie. Like it's so and all the sketches are so funny like yeah yeah and it's one of those things where it's like it's interesting now watching it because like every aspect of hollywood shuffle is kind of like integrated

in different mediums where there wouldn't be a movie like this anymore like there's a podcast about these subjects there's more sketches on youtube of this like every part of it is like broken out in a different way now where uh it's just it's such a interesting time capsule and it's also so fascinating how much of it holds up you know yeah and not to say there are parts of it that don't hold up there. What? Oh, yeah. Hold on. We'll talk about them.

I had no notes. But, yeah, it was, I mean, it was, like, I kind of wish I, like, I had watched this in film school. Because it literally is, like, a mini film history, like, the funniest version of it. I don't know. For sure. Should should i do the recap let's do it and we'll go from there okay so we open on bobby taylor who's played by robert townsend who directed produced and co-wrote this movie oh like a quadruple threat. Yeah. Bobby is an actor who is practicing for an upcoming movie audition. And the role he is auditioning for is Jimmy, who it's a little vague exactly who Jimmy is, but he's like a gang leader or like a pimp or something along those lines. I'm sorry there's just something so funny about listening to you describe that we open on Jimmy

he may be a pimp or a drug dealer he's some kind of scallywag I've become slightly British he's some sort of scallywag. I've become slightly British. He's some sort of scallywag. He goes full Paddington on it. I just love how you so fast hit it by, who is Jimmy?

What is this storyline in this movie? Who is Jimmy? we know that he needs revenge that's what we know about right yeah jimmy needs to revenge i mean i i'm sorry i don't need to go but like when we now i kind of want to talk about jimmy's revenge as a movie should we wait or do we or do we get into it now we well because it is kind of fascinating it is i i would have liked to have seen the movie that they make within this movie because it would have been probably the worst movie ever made like it would be such a mess like jimmy's like the monologue that bobby is practicing is like so just like bizarre and repetitive and like obviously extremely racist and it's just like

a mess yeah that's the thing that i don't understand it's called jimmy's revenge jimmy's brother dies jimmy is already at the scene when he dies the guy who killed him is there so jimmy's about to attack him i assume that's what he's talking about the whole time so how long is this movie like doesn't he get the like that's what i kept thinking about when i was like when you when you just brought that up i was like wait yeah how long it's jimmy's revenge he's yeah you know what i mean he's jimmy yeah it's all right it's happening right there it's maybe it's a short film it's it's a seven minute film i didn't even connect that i was like wow I should have been thinking harder about Jimmy and what his goals were. That's on me.

Because what happens after? Right. We never see. So Jimmy is like not the best role. But even so, if Bobby gets this part, it will be a big break in his career. Then we meet Bobby's mom, his grandma, and his little brother. We see a commercial for a TV show about Mr. Batty or something like that. It's a show where a half man, half bat lives with a white suburban family. Batty boy. Batty family. Batty boy. Batty boy. Batty boy. Hey, you know what you guys should do for your next Patreon?

You should just do Durante just fucking just doing descriptions of sketches. There was a bat who's half man, half bat. He was living in the suburbs of Michigan. I love listening to you describe all of these. This is great. Oh, now I feel self-conscious. No, no, this is, no, you're so accurate. You know what I mean?

You're accurate. You're clear. It's great. I'm loving what you're you know what i mean you're accurate you're clear it's it's it's great i'm loving what you're doing i just never heard anybody actually describe what happens in the sketches in the hollywood shuffle before and it's mind-blowing to me like yeah just to hear half man half bat i mean that's the way he's described in the movie. So, yeah. Yeah, which is even funnier because he's just wearing a costume from iPark.

That's another thing. What's the background on Batty? Like, why is he with that family like i don't know how did he get there is it a fresh prince of bel-air situation where he was like he sent over because like like the like you know it's just it's tough for a bat in like la so he's gotta go he got in one little fight and his mom got scared so we're gonna go send you uh to live with this white family in Michigan yeah and he's a grown man too he's like it's not like he's growing up with the kids you know he's like a young it's not like a Casper situation he's like a fully he's a full adult yeah yeah oh i only bring up baddie boy because he'll he comes back later so you know i have to i have

to plant the seed it'll pay off and pay off with yeah boy there is check off spaddy boy There is. Chekhov's baddie boy. Okay, so anyway, so we see that commercial. Then we see Bobby call out of work because he's like, I have to go to the dentist, but it's really so he can go to this audition. Then we see a montage of other black actors auditioning for various roles, but many of them are there for the same role that Bobby is there for. And then he talks to another actor who comments on how this role of Jimmy is like a white man's stereotype of a black man and how the only roles that Hollywood ever lets them play are slaves and butlers and things like that. I remember he was like like time to go audition and then we cut to bobby having kind of like a daydream fantasy thing which uh which is a commercial for black acting school

which i think is one of the most famous scenes from this movie yeah where basically it's a school where white teachers teach black actors how to play criminals gang leaders pimps drug dealers all manner of roles like that it's such a great scene it's so good it's so good and knowing that i didn't know that like robert townsend was like a second city guy and knowing that made it an even better viewing experience oh my god i and i love the audition scenes where you've seen all those different actors coming in and when that one that one like scholarly actor comes in and then yeah they're like you're the worst actor he's like i could try in an iamic and then when they had the actual gang member he's and then he pulls out the knife and i was like

i was like this is this is it it's oh it's such a great sequence sorry yeah yeah yeah yeah i want to talk all about that because there's like a lot of really good commentary in that montage that we'll discuss. Yeah. So then Bobby goes to work at the hot dog stand where he works and the actor who plays baddie boy shows up and Bobby is like, hey. In like a gigantic limousine. Yeah. Great. in like a gigantic limousine yeah great and bobby asks him about acting and how can you tell if a

script is good and baddie boy is like well if your character doesn't die then it's a good script and we're like oh wow the bar is low um then we see we see a scene where Bobby has been playing basketball with his friends. And then they talk about how there needs to be more black film critics. And then we cut to another kind of fantasy daydream of Bobby's about these two black guys who sneak into movies and then review them. And then we see knockoff versions of Amadeus, Indiana Jones, Dirty Harry, and then a zombie movie. Then Bobby gets a call from his agent saying that the casting directors at the audition really liked him and that he has gotten a callback, but they're looking for an Eddie Murphy type. So then we get another dream sequence where Bobby's at his callback saying that he doesn't

want to be eddie murphy he just wants to be himself but then he like can't help but to do an eddie murphy impression it's great and then this is the same year that robert townsend directs raw like yeah yeah it's so good are you reading this i wrote I wrote this down, and yes, I am reading it. Okay, I was just thinking. I was like, holy shit. I was like, did you just rewatch this yesterday? I was like, you can recite this whole thing? Sam, I write it down. Otherwise, I will forget everything

yeah I read that Eddie Murphy saw Hollywood Shuffle and like demanded that Robert Townsend direct his stand up special that's the best and then I didn't know that I don't know I just like did a deep

dive on Robert Townsend last night because I'm like I just know him as the guy from the parenthood um where like when he was like in his early 20s he was like passed over for snl in favor of eddie murphy he just like eddie murphy was like haunting his life and then they became friends oh i love that. Okay, so then we see Bobby quit his job at the hot dog stand, banking on making it as an actor. And then he visits his uncle at a barbershop and he expresses some concerns about,

oh, what if he's not good enough? What if I don't make it as an actor? He goes to his callback and nails it and he gets the part and he celebrates with his girlfriend i think uh lydia yeah we're supposed to think she's an important character because she's on the poster for the movie but uh but i can't name one thing about her other than she certainly is a girlfriend yes they watch a detective movie with his grandmother who comes in and sits between them.

And then we get a sequence of this detective movie that they're watching where Robert Townsend plays like a film noir detective solving a murder. Then he's about to go in for his first day of shooting this movie, Jimmy's Revenge, which revenge which again is a seven minute short film we've decided and he reads this note from his little brother about how his brother really looks up to bobby and then bobby overhears his grandma talking about how she doesn't want him adding to the negative portrayals of black people in movies and she thinks he should get a job at the post office then he shows up to set and he hears that the naacp is going to picket the movie because of its racist stereotypes so then we see another dream sequence where he's being picketed and then his grandma and his little brother and his girlfriend disown him

and then his grandma and his little brother and his girlfriend disown him. And then they kill him. And then they kill him. I love when the kid's like, if you print that, I'll sue. I'll sue. That kid is so cute. I'm like, where are they now? The character's name, I forget his little brother's, Stevie, right?

Stevie. Stevie is so cute and funny. A plus child actor. Truly. So then we're back in reality. He shoots a scene from the movie, but his character is just so reductive. And the direction he's getting from the white filmmakers is very racist. And his grandma and little brother are so disappointed in him and

he's disappointed in himself. So Bobby quits and walks off the set. Then there's another dream sequence where he's imagining himself in all of these awesome movie roles and then he imagines himself winning an oscar and then the movie ends with him doing a commercial for the post office saying you know if you can't take pride in your work you can always get a job at the post office and that's how the movie ends except for that song at the end the song during the credits. Right. Then there's a fun, like moral of the story song over the credits.

And then the movie ends. And before that, there's the Hollywood, that, that credit sequence. They had that song one in a million and it's so good. I love that. I love that song.

And they play at the beginning of the movie too. It's yeah. Oh, it's delightful. Yeah. It's delightful. Yeah. Just a great soundtrack. What a way to bookend a movie. So that's the story.

Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss. Hey, I'm Gianna Prudente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcast. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions,

like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job

and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it? Like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017,

was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning

her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. the best guest, right? Well, this week, we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn

is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs,

the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God. I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, my God. I would love it. I have to watch Lost.

Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad.

I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge. I'm not going to hawk this slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum.

Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. The initiative. Thank you. Wow. All right. And we're going to take a quick commercial break. I always wanted to say that.

Well, I'll splice that audio into the next time we have it no i'm doing it it won't it won't it won't feel organic it will it won't feel right okay well we'll figure we'll figure out a way to make this work i just want to earn it i want to i want to have that ability to just be like in the middle of this podcast be like oh i think it's a good time for a break well we'll leave this up to you sam so you better not screw it up oh man i'm gonna forget so quickly it's gonna be like that four or five thing again okay well now that we are back thanks to sam taking the lead so i mean this movie is just like it's one big string of commentary on the way black people are represented in hollywood like that's very

clearly the agenda of this movie and that is very clearly what's coming across so yeah i kind of just made a list of the different things that we get commentary on um so basically you guys brought like google sheets and shit this is awesome i'm telling you sam we write things down we simply bring yo you guys got mad notes yo you bought mad notes this is yo for real for real this is like no lie this is like wow all right well hell yeah so there's effective commentary on obviously the roles that tend to be only available to black actors such as especially so this movie came out in 1987 this is more true then than it is now but a lot of these things that get commented on are still current problems in Hollywood 30 years later. Yeah.

So the rules that tend to only be available for black actors, such as playing slaves, pimps, gang leaders, drug dealers, any kind of criminal, really. And just commentary on how damaging that is to black people. There's commentary on the expectation of white filmmakers for black actors to like act more black, quote unquote, or to mimic an existing bankable movie star who is black rather than like let black actors just like be themselves or like figure out their own brand and there's all that mention of eddie murphy of course and how like they they just reference black actors who have already tested well with white audiences right and they don't want to stray outside of the black actors that they know test well with white audiences and then as far as like when uh black women are auditioning for these parts it's like they're always about to be murdered or assaulted like there's not even there's it's it's even worse yeah there's commentary on light-skinned black actors

we see two light-skinned black guys at this audition at the beginning of the movie one of them is saying how like white casting directors were telling him that he wasn't black enough for the part the other one is saying how like they weren't sure if he was black or not and then he says how he uses suntan lotion now and i wasn't was the implication that he was like intentionally trying to keep himself as light as possible so that he could pass as white and then therefore get more rolls yeah was that what was happening there okay i think the i think he was trying to say he was trying to like come off as like like dark-skinned italian or something like that uh-huh yeah i got it i'm pretty i think that's what it was said i don't know i i i didn't fucking bring notes dog like i

i feel so where are your notes like yo i fucking i i did not bring notes and i feel bad don't worry about it oh my god no i i liked i mean it was the uh colorism came up a bunch throughout this movie it comes up in the um in the black acting school sketch as well like it comes up all the time and we were i don't know we were just talking about colorism in our selena episode a couple of weeks ago and this is a movie that literally lays out all of those talking points in the funniest way possible and it also overlaps with like how uh latinx actors are stereotyped because they like end up casting i think in jimmy's revenge they end up casting light-skinned black actors to play latinx roles and like it just becomes a just a big racist mess like right and and it's all like laid out for you in i don't know

i had to like rewind a couple times because i was like laughing because it's funny and then i was like wait a second they just said something really really important and then i had to like do a do an intellectual watch after after yeah it's the kind of thing of it's just like any minority would do you know and that was and that's like that's something that it still didn't change at all really in the 90s you know it was um in the uh black acting school like one of the things that always like strikes me one of the things that's like always so funny with the black acting school is just like when they have the white actors show the black actors like how to walk and stuff oh yeah it's like it's just it's just my it's it's one of those things that's like i'm watching this movie and i

think about like what it is now 30 years later and it's, it's one of those things that it's like, I'm watching this movie and I think about like what it is now, 30 years later. And it's like switch from just like the way he normally talks to the way the white filmmakers want him to talk when he's like acting in the audition or like on set yeah because they want him to be more of what they think a black person is and how they think a black person talks and there's even a line in the end credit song where one of the white filmmakers says that he learned about black people from TV. And he's sort of using that as like his defense and his excuse. But those racist portrayals influenced his racist portrayals. So, you know, you just get this like never-ending cycle of negative

representation in media yeah because rich white people are making all of the decisions oh and and just the idea of jimmy himself like the the character of jimmy like this i this podcast is mostly going to be about jimmy's revenge uh we should just title this jimmy's uh but like jimmy's revenge it's like he i did he brings to it in the audition such a ridiculous like stereotype because he knows that's what would appease them right because like jimmy in and of itself if you just like re it's like oh yeah this could have been like a tough guy but they like purposely want this like foolish you know buffoon and it's like yeah that's that's a part that's like always got to me definitely and there's commentary in this movie as well on

black actors resenting these like racist stereotypical roles that they are presented with and not wanting to play them but having to do it anyway because they need work they need to be able to support themselves and those are the only roles available to them so they can't turn them down even though they're so regressive and reductive like that that actor who keeps going to Bobby and being like, I can't believe that someone would do this part. And then he's like, all right, I'm going. And then he takes it. And it's him who comes back at the end, right?

He goes back. He's just clearly resentful that Bobby has gotten the part, but trying to high ground it. He's like, yeah, I don't know if I would have taken on such an offensive role, but you know, but he's there in the same movie doing a smaller role,

which, which to me is like the equivalent of like people like commenting on a tweet. You know what I mean? It's like, Oh, I have this moral superiority, but yet I'm going to engage in like the same behavior you know like i yeah it's real blue check behavior yeah i i think that the way that this movie kind of lays out just the predicament that

bobby and all of these black actors are in is like even with how they're received by the black community like it's they like you just can't win because it's like okay if you want to be an actor there are only these offensive roles available so the option is to either quit what you're passionate about or play the game and then now like your grandma doesn't respect you and like that like that is so i don't know like i'd never seen that laid out so well yeah i i completely agree but i i think you're also forgetting about the third option which is to be the best actor in a post office commercial and that's true if you that's always like the third option is you can be flow the progressive lady of the u.s postal service and if you could pull if you could get that i

mean it's kind of the best of both worlds so like let's always remember the third option it's always on the table yes yes yes yes yes yes that is that is the hero's journey here i like to think that's the only commercial he ever does too and he just makes bank you know what i mean i mean it's like the residuals uh had to have been sweet on that and it was timeless it wasn't a dated looking commercial anytime i hear about people being in commercials i'm like holy shit like it's ridiculous money i'm i hope that he bought a house with his postal service commercial yeah because you know how federally funded the united states post office is just paying millions of dollars to advertise all the time that's true

hey sent any mail lately i love it yo people need stamps and they don't know where to go that's where bobby comes this is a this is a great time for nad if you're looking for stamps in your town hall but you don't know where to go in the middle of your place of business you can always go to the post office well sam a ringing endorsement of the united states postal service you can cut that out you're gonna cut no i'm keeping no i'm keeping it also the post office is having a bit of a moment right now so you know people about the post office is having a bit of a moment right now so yo people about the post office i've seen people in post office crop tops i'm like what is going on here i bought so much post office merch pre-election it was yeah but i want to talk about i think like the real third option here

which is to do what robert townsend did which is he like wrote this movie co-wrote this movie directed it produced it funded it himself it only had a 100 000 budget the movie made 5 million at the box office which you know isn't a lot of money but comparatively for the small budget it was on it was like considered a big success and then he got an amazing career out of it he was like directing eddie murphy specials by the end of that calendar year like that's amazing so it's yeah and i wanted to i found an article vanity fair vanity fair yes i love when we find the same research both finding the one article that Yo, you guys take so many notes that your notes come together. Like that's your notes is symbiotic.

It's like Venom and Tom Hardy. Wow. I was not expecting you to use that reference. Yo, me either. You think I came in here with notes? Nah, nah, man. I'm straight up improv-ing, and that's the best I could come up with.

A Venom reference. Incredible. I did not pre-plan a Venom reference. That's the new like, that's like the new yin and yang. It's just Tom Hardy and Venom. Oh, wow. We have fun. But yeah, that Vanity Fair piece is great.

Yes, yes, yes. I wanted to read a little bit from it just to give a little bit of background on robert townsend and sort of like how this movie came together so the article is entitled 30 years later the searing critiques of hollywood shuffle still sting uh quote townsend was inexperienced he didn't go to film school and hadn't directed a short film. So he had not directed Jimmy's Revenge before. But he still snuck it in there. It's like Mank. He didn't go to film school and hadn't directed a short film,

but determined to tell a story about being marginalized by the industry. In 1984, he had a small role in the Oscar-nominated A Soldier's Story. I told my agent I want to do more movies like this, Townsend tells Vanity Fair. My agent was like, Robert, they only do one black movie a year. You just did it. Be happy. But Townsend wasn't happy, so he talked to his friend Waynes, whom he'd met at the improv in New York. I thought my dream of being an artist was dying because at the time, the only roles Keenan and I were auditioning for were slaves and pimps and stereotypes of basketball players who couldn't read, Townsend said. It was all the negative stuff.

And then Keenan and I started talking and I was like, we should do a movie about our lives. That's how it started. And then they wrote the script together without any studio backing, though Townsend was faced with financing the film on his own. He says, quote, the idea of somebody writing, directing and producing and starring in a movie, especially a person of color, wasn't heard of. Everybody said the bar was so high you couldn't get in if you didn't have millions and millions of dollars and then he eventually raised a hundred thousand dollars to make shuffle using money he earned from acting gigs as well as credit cards end quote so the rest is history yeah i i love the story of how this movie was made and that it actually I mean it is kind of like that thing that we talk about on the show pretty frequently is Hollywood refusing to make a movie that audiences clearly want to see because once it is made like against all odds it does super well. and like this made back its budget 50 times like it launched the career of of a few different people

and like it it's always so frustrating like when you're like why why wouldn't you just make a movie with a black auteur like why why yeah and it's that like van gogh thing of like you know townsend never really got the credit for this movie and yet it's like it's such a cornerstone of like so much that comes after it you know and uh it's it's it's really amazing thinking of like how much stuff has been made and it's like oh this is this seems like a thing from hollywood shuffle and how many careers were made from it. It's really, like, amazing. And then when you look at Townsend's career after this movie, it's like he, for the most part, doesn't make a movie

like anything that he actually lampooned in Hollywood Shuffle. And that's one of the most, like, amazing things about his career is, like, he kind of stuck to, for better or for worse, he stuck to the hollywood shuffle like he you know he makes like a biofilm he makes uh a family sitcom a black superhero movie you know it's like it's kind of like it's kind of remarkable that he actually like still stuck to those principles i guess yeah, he's a man of integrity. I love, I'm like, oh, he's great.

And then, and I guess just going off, as amazing as it is that he was able to make this movie the way he was, it is like, it's both inspiring and kind of like, because we've heard this story of like marginalized filmmakers having to like jump through all sorts of hoops financially and production wise in order to get their first

movie made and then you hear other stories of like Wes Anderson was just handed 10 million dollars he couldn't even write on paper and they said this boy I like i like the cut of his jib and he seems like he'll come up he'll come up with something and meanwhile there's like these you know and it's like whatever that's no shade to wes anderson he figured it out eventually but like you know it just just the disparity and like who is handed money even though they're not even qualified and like amazing artists with like a really clear perspective like robert townsend and i'm also thinking of like jeff barnaby like his story of making rhymes for young ghouls or uh a woman walks home at alone at night i got the

title wrong but like all of these like really amazing movies with the, that are just different. Like the, the climb to get it released and like made the way the director wants is so steep. And meanwhile, we're just handing Wes Anderson a blank check and being like, you'll figure it out. 22 year old, like good luck.

It's infuriating. There's even some commentary similar to that in Hollywood shuffle where there's a scene where toward the end, Bobby is like observing white actors in the studio that he's in. Basically, it's just like, yeah, white actors are given a scene where they're like professing their love for each other and then he sees another white action star who's like making demands of the script and then like the white producers are like acquiescing to his demands for the most part so yeah hey i was just thinking man i would love to see wes anderson direct a remake of hollywood shuffle that would be you know that would be so amazing

all the parts would be played by ralph fines and fuck it a perfectly symmetrical reimagining or it was the same movie and it was all black actors but they were all wearing bow ties same cast same cast just in bow ties and then there's just like so much

headroom above the actors in every shot oh my god i like i know that wes anderson is a competent filmmaker i just get exhausted even thinking about watching one of his movies it's just there's just too much it's too much i like moonrise kingdom a lot i like that one i still haven't seen that i like that one a lot i didn't see the i didn't see the dog one oh i love dogs i did not like i love dogs really at all you didn't like that one i think it's funny that it's called i love dogs it took me forever to figure out that it's just called i love dogs oh me too i didn't know marley and Me was about a dog. Oh, yeah.

Isn't it dog, dog dies? Yeah. Right? Sorry, spoilers for Marley. I thought it was like a Julia and Julia thing with Bob Marley. Wow. Sam, you have to write that script. Just Amy Adams just being like, I love weed.

It's the exact same setup as Julie and Joe. Exact same movie. I really want to see that. exact same movie hey sam this would be a really interesting time to um take an ad break just in case oh shit hey guys you know what this conversation is great but you know what's even better what ads we should take we should we're gonna take a quick commercial break and we'll be right back, folks. Incredible. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

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Is this going okay i'm sorry i'm having an absolute ball i just feel like i just i just feel like your your uh listeners are gonna be like what the what the hell they let the guy do now only only for you we we make this exception for you and you alone sam only only friends can toss to break also we well i'm surprised we have not brought this up yet but the the episode that we did with you a few years ago now was a live episode that we recorded in boston and because it was in boston jamie's mom was there and jamie's mom that fateful meeting for anyone who remembers this on the men in black episode was aggressively aggressively hitting on sam during the show loudly you can it was sparks were flying in the middle of our podcast also the room that that was like the the the smaller theater at improv boston like you you can't overstate how physically close the audience is to you like so my mom could have just reached out and like held your hand like yes yes it should have happened honestly yes

i mean it still can it's still what's stopping you it's never too late honestly no doubt like i added your mom on facebook immediately after the show i love it oh it's still it's not it's not too late my mom just bring over a diane lane dvd yeah i got that i got that diane lane dvd uh candle what oh was it Ann Taylor an Ann Taylor candle that's what I'm going to bring oh wow she will be disarmed she won't know what to do she'll be like I've only ever seen this in a Diane Lane movie before I can't believe

it's happening I mean honestly for real I mean you know like you know all joking aside I just I I really think your mom's like just just just a great just a great woman and you know I think it's amazing how she just raised such a loving and caring uh family and uh you know and if she's listening like you know my dms are open jill you hear that jill dm this man don't blow this i'm very attached to the idea of sam uh becoming dad. So this would be huge for me.

So am I. So am I. Well, here's, okay. Here's where I would like to get into some of the more criticism of this movie, because while there is a lot of very effective

commentary in the movie there are some parts that um just the movie kind of fails to touch on and i'm talking mostly about how black women are largely left out of this commentary yeah black women are not entirely absent because there are different moments where some of the black actors who are women are talking about how they are usually only cast in like sex worker roles yeah or or just straight up murder victim roles right yeah i it's like that yeah one of the things that stuck out to me was like i feel like we're led to believe that women are more involved in this movie than they are like the marketing of this movie um ann marie johnson who plays uh bobby's girlfriend lydia like she's on the poster

and then you're like oh so this is like she's gonna be involved but she's kind of she we don't i mean i couldn't tell you a thing about this character that isn't uh she's gonna be involved but she's kind of she we don't i mean i couldn't tell you a thing about this character that isn't uh she's bobby's girlfriend right his girlfriend his girlfriend which sucks because it's like the performance is really cool is that your ron perlman no there's that's i'm sorry i didn't mean to cut you off but but that sounded like Ron Perlman. No, that was me quoting ourselves on this very podcast for a long running joke, which you'd know if you'd ever listen, Sam. Holy shit. Well, I listen to every episode. I get 10 minutes in.

I'm like, no Ron Perlman reference. I'm out. I do that with every single podcast. That's why that's why I didn't get in into cereal. I I'm getting really into the Ron Perlman Beauty and the Beast series. We talked about it on a past episode, but I just kind of kept watching it. But yeah, like Emery Johnson, who like goes on to have like a pretty great career she was like on in living color that's where i realized that i recognized her from in the middle of watching

this movie um but it's there's so many opportunities for lydia in this movie that i feel like are all kind of dropped in and we mostly see her in like either she's being supportive towards Bobby, which is great, but like that's kind of it. Or you see her in like a fantasy that Bobby is having about her, not fantasy, like a nightmare sequence where she all of a sudden isn't supportive of him. But that is really the only two modes we see her in is like supporting my boyfriend or not supporting my boyfriend. We know where she works. Yeah. That's it. That's it.

And I mean, not only could we just have seen more of her, there was just there's just so much room for commentary on the way black women are represented in Hollywood. And there just really isn't much in the way of that commentary at all. There's another moment where in the audition scene toward the beginning of the movie, there are two women who are talking to each other about one of them had been invited over to a movie director's house at midnight. And instead of there being any kind of commentary on how women and particularly women of color are exploited by powerful people in the entertainment industry instead of that a joke is made about how the woman was like of course i went to his house and i was one minute early teehee so just like there were opportunities feminism i i was re-watching this movie this morning and i was like yo that's gonna be a becto cast note

i was like yo they're gonna mention that on the becto cast were you right it's true though because it's like there was a like a moment in the movie where like robert townsend is beyond qualified to be making all of these like he's making a ton of amazing points in this same scene and then yeah it's like there's kind of a misogynist joke that like implies that like oh you know these actors you know they get it they don't they don't mind having to like have sex with these nasty directors in order to get work and that was and then the only other woman you see preparing in that sequence is uh flailing around because she's going to be a murder victim right yes um so yeah just most of the meaningful commentary in this movie about black

representation in hollywood is about black men specifically and again in this movie black women are largely left out of the conversation which is a bummer because they are like as we were kind of talking about it's like the struggles that black women face in the industry are compounded with misogyny on top of everything so there's yeah i was bummed and i think like another thing that makes it always like so tough is like in in this film there's also this like idea in the in this time period where a black woman's like the best thing she could be was a great mom or a great grandma you know in a lot of those movies and in those films and it's like and that was like that's like one of those things was like it it was like the importance of

of black motherhood is shown like is very important in a lot of things that that robert townsend does and it's and it's also seen in this movie but it was the it's the fact that there's nothing beyond that you know right totally which is always like which is the disappointing factor definitely i almost wish i was i i wish that his girlfriend was like also an actor or something like she could have been like included in the story that way where it's like oh here's a person we already know played by an amazing comic actress and and then like you know ask literally ann marie johnson when you're writing this movie like it'll it's always that thing of just like oh if you don't you know fully know what are the specific struggles

that black female actors face just ask your friend like yeah she's right there so much room for it she's literally right there she's on she's hanging out on the poster of your movie um but yeah she's right there so much room for it she's literally right there she's on she's hanging out on the poster of your movie um but yeah that's a great that like if if she had also been like a struggling actor auditioning for roles that were largely racist stereotypes like that could have opened up all those opportunities for much needed commentary on that very topic but and it would have just like made their relationship a little more interesting too yeah because all we know is like they're dating they love they love each other which is like great but like it would be cool if they had like that

like they bonded over this like shared frustration and struggle as well for sure oh yeah i just wish that there was more of ann marie johnson in this movie because in the middle i was like wait a second she's like super fucking talented i wish she was doing more i did like i guess that yeah the the mother figures the mother and then particularly the grandmother who what what show is she on she's on good times yeah another show i watched i watched a lot of nick at night as a child but i liked that bobby's grandmother was kind of like she kind of ended up being the only person who you know saw what was going on and said it which i thought was kind of cool I just wish that there was like more I don't know more more of her yeah in fact for the first like 50 or so minutes of the movie I was like oh I guess we're just gonna

meet the grandmother and then she's never gonna come back into the story but then she does and she plays a pretty significant role in sort of inspiring Bobby to like walk off this set and quit this movie because in this world you bring your entire family to shoot a movie with you yep that was the other thing i was like wow he just brought literally everyone he knows to the set including his child brother and they were filming the whole movie in that one day it's like a goddamn play the harder you think of it about it the less jimmy's revenge makes sense but yeah so i like that the grandmother character becomes important and a lot of what she says is like again part of this important commentary that's happening in the movie and then there's even like a nice conversation between her and bobby's mom where she's saying like i don't want a grandson of mine to be adding to all this

negative imagery of black people in media and his his mom is like, yes, everything you're saying is right, but also it's work. Like he needs to work. And if this is his chosen line of work, like he's got to do what's available to him. And so there's like that, you know, the push and pull of, do I take a horribly racist role or do i you know like abide by my principles which means never getting work and never making money so it's like this whole the just a tug of war kind of

thing with your own conscience but um yeah yeah like we said there's we get introduced to the grandmother at the very beginning and then she's pretty much absent from the story until the last like 20 minutes or so right and i liked i mean i liked that conversation that his mother and grandmother were having like that is i feel like that's like that conversation they're having is at the core of the movie and like clearly he like really values their respect and like doesn't want to disappoint them and they're kind of at the core of like the kind of like the back and forth that he's experiencing of like does he take this role or not but yeah but they're just barely there i don't know yeah yeah i mean it is it is one of those things where it's like i i wish there was definitely more in that because that that central theme of the movie

comes down to two black women talking and it's like i wish there was more of a lead-up to it yeah yeah that that was like that and then the uh the unchecked homophobia that came up at a few points in this movie were certainly very 1987 yeah but yeah i don't know it's that was i mean how the how the female characters are kind of sidelined uh was like really the the main thing that bummed me out about this movie because otherwise it's like saying so much that no movie ever does and saying it that is so like still unfortunately like super relevant yeah and it's like you know black black women deserve to be a part of that conversation and there's just as much if not you know even more like comedic stuff to draw on um but it's just not what this movie's doing yeah i guess that like the the most the one of the

biggest bummers of it is like that's the that's the most that a lot of the black actress the three black actress in this movie got to do other than the stereotypes in the movie like like that year like that's also like just such a such such a stark thing is like they don't really do a whole lot in necessarily this movie but it's and it's still not it's at least not the thing that they are lampooning in it and it's like still like such a mind warp of just like awfulness yeah wait i'm this is i'm looking at ann marie johnson's imdb and i'm realizing i've seen her in so much stuff including she was an iconic role on that so raven she played donna cabana on that so raven all my that's so raven heads will know who i'm talking about wow huge she was in boomerang i remember that oh yeah wow wait that makes me so happy i'm googling donna

cabana because she had the best outfits anyways um shout out to donna cabana it's saying it over and over it It gets silly every day. I wish I knew what that was. Same. I also did not watch That's So Raven. Wait, I want to make sure I'm getting her character description right. I'm pretty sure she's like a famous fashion designer in the world of That's So Raven. She's like Raven's hero. She looks up to Donna Cabana and she wants to be just like Donna Cabana.

And then she meets donna cabana and guess what donna cabana is a bit of a wacky character oh my disney channel um so you know it's uh written uh it's co-written with keenan ivory waynes and robert townsend directed by robert townsend it's produced by robert townsend and there is a woman in the mix here um there is a uh female latinx producer named lydia nicole who has gone by lydia fernandez at different times in her career but uh i did not like i once i saw pictures of her she was in a bunch of uh she's like a child actor who kind of became a producer and now um is in charge of a uh non-profit called common sense media and like advocates for representation in media uh but this was like her first producing gig she was previously

in another movie we talked about recently stand and deliver the classic i think she was one of the students in stand and deliver i'm not i'm not exactly sure um but then she kind of pivoted into um producing and backing projects that she believed in she started doing stand-up in her late 20s and like started all these like women of color comedy showcases in LA and like I don't know I just that rules I enjoyed learning about her and she she started um after that she she collaborated with uh Robert Townsend I think a few more times she's like a producer on a bunch of his projects and um and they're buds so I just wanted to give her uh her a shout it's always, I mean, especially in the late 80s, there's like barely any women high up in any Hollywood project. And so I'm glad that she she like had a seat at the table there.

Yeah, that's awesome. Shout out, Lydia. Oh, yeah. Shout out, Lydia. I wonder if the character in this movie, Lydia, was named after her. I probably makes, yeah. Wow. I did all that research and did not make that connection.

Yeah, see that? See that? That's that symbiotic relationship you guys have. Your notes fit into each other's notes. Yeah. We need each other to connect the dots sometimes. Yeah. Yo, mad, mad mad venom vibes here

sometimes i listen to the themes that eminem theme song from venom when i just need a good laugh because it's so funny whoa i didn't know that was a thing oh my god you have to it's just like him who knows what he's saying for most of it but then he goes just venom venom venom venom but like it's just he just screams venom and you're just like this is such a disaster it's so it's the funniest song in the world i forgot all about that song oh man yeah the best part of venom they played in the movie yeah as if that movie could could get any more like bash you over the head with what it's about eminem starts screaming venom in the middle it's really funny yeah that movie is wild it's great that's also the most san francisco movie that's like that year it's like that movie and last black man in san francisco were like i was like wow that it was like that was part of the

the san francisco come up yes san francisco representation at an all-time high you had sorry to bother you oh yeah last black man for san francisco and venom like they all came out like within a year i was like yo mad san francisco movies all very similar oh yeah wow incredible venom i also just want to uh do a quick shout out i mean i don't really have like much to note in terms of his character but but always love to see John Witherspoon. Oh, yes. John Witherspoon, so good. The best.

He's his boss at the hot dog stand. Winky dinky dog. Winky dinky dog. I was curious. I was like, when I saw that, I'm like, I wonder how, because their uniform and the aesthetic is similar to Good Burger. And I'm like, I wonder if Good Burger is pulling from the Hollywood Shuffle aesthetic. It's the expanding universe.

Jamie, I think it's crucial that we cover Good Burger on the Bechdel cast. Absolutely. In my notes, I wrote like am I reaching winky dinky dog looks I don't think so I that Good Burger was my favorite movie I don't know what year it came out but whatever year it came out that was my favorite movie of that year that had been like 97 yeah well then I was like Titanic was my favorite if it is 97 obviously titanic is my favorite movie of 97 but i would love to see like you at like 10 years old but you're a top 10 and you're like you're like you're like yo it's it's titanic it's good burger

and i found as good as it gets I found it tart a bit derivative for me yeah yeah derivative that was the word I was thinking if tart's a flavor right I think movies can be tart I haven't revisited Good Burger in so long oh my god but my little Good Burger antenna went up because they have the same like hats

I'm like maybe that's just what hats looked like at fast food restaurants in the 80s and 90s i don't know i think so even so even so good burger is important for us to talk about speaking of winky dinky dogs um another thing that didn't love to see obviously was bobby constantly fat shames one of his co-workers at Winky Dinky Dogs. And another just like, of the time, still a problem in Hollywood. Not good. Another thing I wanted to, Sam, you brought this up, but I wanted to just say a little bit more about it as far as another piece of commentary that the movie does in terms of black actors with really impressive credentials being forced into again just the reductive roles that are available to them because there's that scene where like that guy's like i just i got my degree at the royal academy of dramatic art and then he goes on to

try to audition for this role he doesn't do a good job and then he's like wait a minute i can do it in iambic pentameter um i yeah yeah i always i always think of as a class thing like i always think of him as like this this like uppity like uh ivy league guy and it's like oh no you can't even you can't you know you have you are so removed from from what's like really going on to be able to do it and and then to have the audacity to be like oh yeah i can do it it's like my favorite thing i was it's very it's so funny i was reading it as how so many black actors will have like or just like performance artists in general they'll have gone gone to Juilliard or some really well-regarded school. They'll have an impressive educational background.

They'll have had to put in so much more work than their white peers. But, you know, have access to way fewer opportunities to showcase their hard work and their talent which seems very pulled from like robert townsend's own life too because he's like extremely well trained he like went through all every second city course on the planet he was like a part of a theater company in new york like he like put in the hours. Those scenes especially, I feel like the movie is at its strongest when he's pulling from his personal experience. The same for Keenan Ivory Wayans

because he went to school for this for fucking years and years and years. You know what? I forgot to mention this when we were talking about Winky Dinky Dogs. What am I... Go on. Perfect beginning to a sentence.

I just love when he's like, when we see that the minimum wage has only gone up $5. Oh my gosh. In 32, or 33 years, yeah. I was like, holy shit. Because Keanu Reeves is like, i was making 215 i'm making 265 yeah holy shit yeah man i don't know what adjusted for inflation that even is but like damn it's just it it's criminal. How little we pay. It's not good. For minimum wage.

I wanted to, Caitlin, you referenced this at the beginning. I have some notes on it, that how this movie was received at the time of its release. Yes. So it's kind of, I did notice that there were a few lukewarm reviews based on kind of the stuff we were talking about where like some reviewers kind of knocked townsend for not addressing or just kind of making light of

the struggle of black female actors and also of queer people and like there were certainly points lost mostly from female reviewers from that yeah but it's generally really well reviewed when it comes out Ebert gave it three stars which I mean he's only got two thumbs he's only got two thumbs but he's got three stars where's this motherfucking getting these stars from and he does I guess I guess he does three out of four stars. So if you're thinking of five, like, so he, he gave, he said it was an artistic compromise, but a logistical triumph announcing the arrival of a new talent whose next movie should really be something. And it's like, shut up.

But like, you sounded just, you sounded just like tarantula when you said it's like people, people liked it. was it did really well and it seemed like um yeah everyone was like oh wow like here's this like new auteur and so so that i found that i honestly like you just never know with especially in like the late 80s where it's like there's next to no one in the film reviewing community that is not an old white guy that like is really trying to be roger ebert so i think there's worth noting though that at least on the rotten tomatoes count this movie was only reviewed by 25 critics versus major blockbuster wide release movies that will get hundreds of reviews so this is the type of movie like it could have been elevated had more critics reviewed it and reviewed it positively and like that would have encouraged more people to see it and in fact i'm

curious so listeners tell us how familiar you are with this movie because this movie i think is kind of it's like off the beaten path oh yeah for a lot of audiences like it's not a super well-known movie and i knew next to nothing about it before we started prepping for this episode yeah i feel like most people i know very few people who have heard of it it's always like it's always either someone has seen it and loved it or has never even heard of it right like i i've never met someone who's been like oh i heard of it i i've always wanted to see it you know i've never like yeah like it's that kind of movie where it's like people who would be into it have like definitely seen it you know or they're

like wow i can't believe i didn't see it and you know it's like it reminds me of knights of rodanthe is that how you say it knights of rodanthe i'm like is rodanthe a person or a place um we don't know i think it's a small village in italy that's honestly a safe bet i was hoping you both were gonna be like oh yeah yeah yeah i've heard of it no here's what's really embarrassing i've seen nights in rodanthe nights of rodanthe i don't know what preposition it is i've seen that movie i have no idea what rodanthe is i rodanthe i don't know what preposition it is i've seen that movie i have no idea what rodanthe is i i can't i don't remember it reminds me of uh that movie evening you ever see that no it's like vanessa redgrave and like patrick wilson and um um well uh uh what's her

name from uh center beauty the or no beauty beauty state the one with Billy Crudup where he's like Claire Danes and Claire Danes and I don't know why that was the movie that I thought was the movie Claire Danes the way that you got to Claire Danes that was some more

Tom Hardy venom Rodanthe is a tiny village it is? Or Tom Hardy venom. Rodanthe is a tiny village. Oh, wow. It is? Yeah. Hell yeah. Nailed it.

Hell yeah. Yeah, you guys thought I didn't bring fucking notes. I brought notes. I brought notes to the Bechdel. You know what I mean? Well, does anyone have any other thoughts on hollywood shuffle oh yeah we were talking that's one of my favorite movies yeah we should do we should do a podcast episode about it i think that might be a good idea. We'll see.

Oh, I just wanted to say my favorite part in Hollywood Shuffle has always been the movie critics segment. It's just my absolute favorite. It's just jokes on top of jokes. I love it so much. I don't want to see Attack of the Street Pimps, and I think it's just jokes on tops of jokes i i love it so much there i don't want to see attack of the street pimps and i think it's it's bad everything about it it's it's very existence is uh bad for society but god damn that's hilarious that scene is just so fucking funny when they're because like they've reviewed those and when they do the amadeus and he's like i used to say this when my friends was like man i ain't gonna see any bullshit i can't pronounce like how are you

gonna be like how are you gonna be like i'm gonna see i'm a i'm a what i can't stop laughing and then when they do the dirty harry because i always i never liked dirtyirty Harry and when they did the Dirty Larry and that whole Dirty Larry sequence I think is like one of the funniest things I've ever seen like when he's like when they're talking about the guns and then and then they're like yo you think you're gonna have a fucking conversation right now like I just I just love this movie man yeah that was and and at the end of the the attack of the street pimps review they they like they were like it was full of stereotypes but we thought the direction was brilliant when they're like yo that guy looks just like the dude from down the street. I used to crack up so much. I really liked that.

This is a very like specific joke that people don't make often because it's a weird joke to make often. But at the end of the movie reviewing segment, they give a high five and they do like a light slap. They go like, which always makes me laugh so much when someone does a bunch of tepid high fives in a row hadn't seen it in a while i was laughing i can't remember if i'm gonna get you sucker came out before this i think it came out right after i think right after right so this was damon wayans debut on screen i think wow that's the other thing that's so amazing is like you look at this cast and it's just like a list of black excellence from like you know damon wayans paul mooney robert townsend uh like it's it's just remarkable um i just wish more women had been involved meaningfully especially because they cast helen martin who is like an iconic black sitcom actress.

Like, why not give her more to do? Yeah. Yeah, no. I mean, hey, I completely agree with you. I love feminism. Famously. New t-shirt design. Our merch is just getting more and more bass as time passes

i love feminism sam ike 2021 no yo if you guys start doing nah your next merch your next merch is gonna be like you two as venom and hardy like front to back. Like one of you is Venom. One of you is Hardy. And like that's the new merch. Like yo Bechdel listeners. If you're still listening. Go on the comments. Go on the Bechdel cast Reddit. Get Jamie and Durante.

To make Venom t-shirts. Done. Done. Fine. I'll do it well does the movie pass the Bechdel test um I think I didn't think it did I wasn't I wasn't sure I honestly like I wasn't paying super super close attention but it did seem like most times female characters were talking to each other. It was about either Bobby or there is that thing where they were at the,

at the audition scene where two nameless actresses were talking about getting sexually harassed by a male director. There's a couple, there's a scene where the, like the casting director, i think is like her oh yes yeah she is named as millicent she is talking to another woman who gets named as miss strickland and they talk about the role that miss strickland is auditioning for and like the type of person they are looking for so that technically passes and then the the scene with Bobby's mom.

I was so nervous. Wait, so it does pass. I think it does. Wow. I would also, I think there's an argument to be made for the scene where Bobby's mom and grandma, they are talking about Bobby, but it's part of a larger conversation about negative representations of black people in media so i was like okay that that feels like it could be maybe an exception to the rule i don't know bottom line women aren't in this movie enough there's not enough commentary on the way black women are represented in media no and it's a bummer because there's more than enough like room for it in this movie and like more than enough material to and things to be said yeah about it and with that in mind as

far as our nipple scale in which we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on an intersectional examination of the movie even though it is providing a lot of really funny and effective commentary on the way Black men specifically are represented in Hollywood. As we've been saying, there is a noticeable lack of commentary as it relates to Black women and their representation in media

and i think even though some of the characters who are women in the movie like especially the grandma i would say is the kind of most important character to bobby yeah she still doesn't get that much screen time his his girlfriend doesn't get much screen time. We know nothing about her. There's just not enough there. And there are many cases in which Black men haven't shown up for Black women as much as they should. And this just kind of feels like one of those examples of like, why wouldn't you when you're making a movie that is specifically like a satire and specifically commentary on black representation in media? Why wouldn't you include black women in that more meaningfully? And then there's the homophobic jokes and slurs that get made. So I don't know where to land on this exactly on the nipple scale.

I guess I think I can only really give it like a 2.5 yeah yeah I was gonna go like a 2.5 I agree with everything you're saying yeah there's just there's a ton of opportunities to include women and commentary on how black

women struggle in Hollywood here it wasn't done you have like such a like such tremendously like such such tremendously talented black actresses in this movie and they don't really get to do much but i do feel like this movie does something that just wasn't done at all at this time and there wasn't any money put behind and the fact that it exists through like robert townsend's like sheer willpower is really amazing yeah and and and i was happy to see that there is a female producer but yeah ultimately it's like there's no reason women and queer people shouldn't have been included more meaningfully here and uh i wish it had yeah

that said i really enjoyed the movie it's i'm like i would if you haven't seen it genuinely you should see it it's really funny and good yeah but two nipples as far as uh as far as our scale goes i guess yeah and i will give uh hmm who will i give my nipples to i will give i'll give one to helen martin and i'll give one to ann-Marie Johnson I'll go the obvious route I'll do the same and I'll give my extra half nipple to winky dinky dogs iconic yeah Sam what about you what are your thoughts um I I do agree with everything you said. I think for me, one of those things is just like a male black comic. It's I see I look at the film and I just see what it what it's done. And to me, I feel like some of the shortcomings is made up for what it has done for black creative people as a whole

for 30 years sure and i think that it set a standard it set a precedent it set a pathway and i think that pathway has been used greatly for men and women this is still like a there's still a lot to do but i i do feel like it does do that and you know at the same time it's just like there's not there weren't a lot of um just to get to a black male in 1987 writing producing and starring in his own film that is seen by countless theaters across the. That feat in and of itself, I feel like, is just so impressive and just so meaningful overall. That I think that some of the stuff that I think would be, if it was remade today, which, you know, we already talked about why it wouldn't work today. But, like, if it was remade today, I think those things would not be in it. Right. So I look at it as like it also probably wouldn't have as meaningful of an impact as it did then.

And I feel like what it does there, I feel like it's just like it's the only thing I can see when I see the film. Yeah. But I again, don't i don't disagree it's just it's just it's just something that i i can only see its progress because it's just it's the only thing like it there's there still hasn't been anything quite like it besides scary movie which is made by the the co-writer of the film you know um so it it's a feat that only two black guys have ever done in 30 years and one of them both of them were in that same movie you know so it's it's just that that's that's what i see but i also don't disagree with anything you said uh at the end of the day i would give it like i would give it five nipples and I would give all them to Anthony Hopkins

the twist wait full disclosure I might cut that whole human stain part out of the episode so if you wanna I like it I like the mystery i will based on based on

what you just described i i'll bump up to a 2.5 i'll match caitlin there because i hadn't yeah like the the fact that hollywood shuffle did like pave the way for black female comedians black female you know auteurs like yeah it's very existence is the the thing that i find so as funny like to me it's still one of the funniest movies i've ever seen but it's very existence even exceeds how much i love its humor sure yeah it's legacy even though and that's what kind of like i wish it had it definitely has a legacy and it definitely did a lot to pave the way and inspire particularly black filmmakers and just artists of color i wish that it had a bigger legacy in terms of i wish more people have seen this movie but you can see

its impact truly like well it was it was kind of fun to watch this movie and also and and be able to be like oh i you know i've seen like a ton of tv and movies that clearly are pulling from this movie i just didn't realize it right totally yeah yeah it's and it yeah it's just it's so i can't stress enough how to any listener that hasn't seen it, like how goddamn funny it is. It's so funny. Oh, I wonder, do most of your listeners, have they seen the movie? Like, do they tell you if they've seen the movie? Some people only listen to the episode if they've seen the movie.

Some people will listen to the episode regardless of whether or not they've watched the movie. Yeah, because most of the movies you guys do is old. So I was always fascinated. Yeah, because I wonder if anyone's listeners and hasn't seen it and still wants to see it. You know what I mean? I'm fascinated if you guys have any of that kind of like ratio if like there's a lot of people that like oh yeah yeah i checked out lolita because i heard on the back okay hopefully not that one i think that um

regardless of it it's shortcomings that we discussed i think this is a movie worth watching so if you have not seen it and you have listened to this episode all the way to this point i would recommend checking the movie out because again it's still making a lot of meaningful and important and effective points that are still again all too relevant today so in that, like there's some things that like age poorly about this movie, the, you know, the homophobia and the fat shaming and the kind of ignoring women, but there's other, there's many other things about it. You know, the ignoring women. But other things about it are, are still sadly pretty relevant so yeah um well sam thank you so much for joining us on this

roller coaster of an episode uh i've had a blast me too so oh thanks for being here uh where can people check out your your stuff follow you on social media yeah um you can follow me at uh the sam ike on twitter and instagram um you can also um if you want i've been trying to become like the biggest zoom comic so if you can follow me on zoom hell yeah i'm www.zoom.com slash 467 hp 52 fc 27 wxy that's my zoom link click on it i'll join you get in the group build my brand fuck yeah amazing it's gonna My brand. Fuck yeah. Amazing. It's going to happen. I've got a good feeling about this. The pivot to Zoom is going to be huge. It's going to be big.

Yo, love this. I'm going to be crushing it. I'm going to get like, I'm already at like, I'm already at like 3,000 Zoom followers, yo. Wow. Just people just sitting there waiting for me to come on and be like yo here's my house and you know what you know who also is gonna hear this jill loftus jill's about to send a request did she listen to every episode yeah she listened she will listen to your episode she doesn't listen caitlin has a more thorough mother than i do my mom does listen to your episode. She doesn't listen. Caitlin has a more thorough mother than I do.

My mom does listen to every episode. Hi, Mom. Hi, Lori. Yo, Mrs. Durantula, yo. Shout out. Durantula has always been really tight. I hope you're enjoying Scranton. Shout out.

She doesn't live in Scranton. I thought you're from scrinton no i've never lived none of my family has ever lived in scrinton they live outside of state college pennsylvania uh damn it yes you're right you're you tell me that every time and i always think you're saying scrinton i always for so is i always think you're saying scran good grief well yeah so our moms are cool that's the moral of this story and uh what else you can follow us on social media on twitter and instagram at bechtel cast you can check out our patreon aka matreon we have a bunch of episodes there in the back catalog and probably a lot of diane lane on the way who knows so much diane lane coming up i can't wait for your

listeners to be like yo i really liked them but when they got into that diane lane phase it was really tough they just lost me they lost that magic when they started focusing on strictly diane lane unfortunately it is going to inspire us to change the name of the podcast to the rectal cast and who knows what that's going to be about even. Diane really fucked us over. But anyway, if you do want to check out our Matreon material, you can do that at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. It's a $5 a month subscription and you get access to two bonus episodes every month plus all past and future Diane Lane episodes. Holy shit. Is this a bonus episode? No, this is a real one. This is a made-famey.

Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. I would have, like, tried. I didn't notice. You would have taken notes. I would have taken notes. Well, honestly, it's fine. It's better that you didn't. Yeah.

We wouldn't have gotten the Tom Hardy Venom reference if you had taken notes. And that was just beautiful, pure improv. Yo, I love yes and and shit, man. And that was just beautiful, pure improv. Pure sport. Yo, I love yes and and shit, man. Shout out to Del Close. Also, we've got our TeePublic store where you can get all of our merch, including maybe a new t-shirt design that is I Love Feminism. I Love Feminism.

Sam, I am like. Let's see how many. They're going to start, they're going to start really just flying off the shelves. Yo, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, the way to go, you guys got to get into that Venom. You got to get into that Venom way. Oh, sure.

Yeah. That too. It's true. They got that sequel, Woody Harrelson. Oh, really? Oh, God. Yeah, Woody Harrelson's going to be Carnage. Carnage is like Venom, but red.

Pass. Hard pass. But yeah, you can get our merch at tpublic.com slash the Bechtel cast. And with that, bye, everyone. Hell yeah. Bye. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadson.

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