The Bechdel Cast - Love & Basketball with Zainab Johnson

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

We're celebrating Valentine's Day with love... and basketball... by chatting with special guest Zainab Johnson about Love & Basketball.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @zainabjohnson 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.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that 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. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister? Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, They're just dreams. hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white and prints. They lie. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit 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 effin' vast, start changing it with the Bechdelcast.

Hi, welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name's Caitlin Durante. And this, as always always is our podcast about the portrayal of women in movies usually not that good not that good not that good how many episodes have we done of this 500 000 um and women have been portrayed well in four of them i think conservatively we're like oh that was pretty good and then some people it's like you know somewhere over 50 percent good but then you're like but still a failing score yeah anyways um we use the Bechdel test or okay here's what I'm going to try to do because of today's movie

um Bechdel basketball can we combine the two a basketball basketball or bechdel ball test i mean we could thoughts no okay i like loving basketball yeah that's today's movie uh we use the bechdel test though to uh initiate a larger conversation about the representation of women in film and the bechdel test of course is a media metric created by cartoonist allison bechdel uh sometimes called the bechdel wallWallace test. And it requires that two female identifying characters who have names must speak to each other about something other than a man for at least two lines of dialogue. That's our metric. Right.

Theoretically, they could talk about love or basketball and it could pass the Bechdel test. That's true. But it depends. The Bechdel ball test, though. You're really doubling down on this. Fine. I'm going to figure this out by the end of the episode. Okay, I trust you.

Thank you so much. So we are talking about love and basketball. We have a guest, of course. She is a hilarious comedian, and we love her dearly. It's Zainab Johnson. Hi. Hello. Welcome.

Thanks for being here. Thank you for coming out. So what's your history, your relationship with Love and Basketball? I love the movie Love and Basketball. Do you basketball the movie Love and Basketball? I don't basketball the movie Love and Basketball, but I used to play basketball. Okay. I used to play basketball in junior high school and high school and a little bit of college and I saw Love and Basketball when

I was in high school maybe the WNBA had just Love and Basketball came out maybe the first year the WNBA not long after or two yeah very close right yeah very close Love and Basketball came out in 2000 the WNBA I think was established in 96 but okay but i guess that i was just like reading in the background i guess the first draft of the movie was written before the wmba existed so they like changed the ending to include anyways yes very soon after yeah yeah well you know it felt like a movie at the time when i saw it it felt like a movie that was being made for me i'd seen a lot of movies like as a teenager and then when i saw that movie i just felt like oh somebody wrote a movie for me yeah and and i and that's why i liked it yeah i felt that way about like bend it like

beckham because i was a soccer player okay nice and i well i didn't have the same exact experience as the protagonist of that movie i was like oh a soccer movie starring and I well I didn't have the same exact experience as the protagonist of that movie I was like oh a soccer movie starring women yeah I felt that way about Black Swan yeah what's your history with this movie Caitlin I had honestly never seen it until we prepped yeah I somehow I I missed it and I'm sorry, everybody, but I have seen it three times now since I found out we were going to do this episode. And I rather enjoy it. Yeah. It is one of the best movie soundtracks ever in life.

And one of the best songs that plays in the movie is not on the soundtrack. And I hate when they do that. It's one of those Maxwell songs. It's that Maxwell song. There's like two big songs in the movie where it's when he, you know, she's like, I'll play you for your heart, which, oh, come on.

Come on. It's like we watched it together yesterday. I was fully crying. It's just so beautiful. I love it so much. It is just so, it's such, for me, it's like I was in a relationship while I was playing basketball.

And it felt like a lot of times the two were intertwined. Yeah. And so when I watch that movie, I just feel like, I just feel like it's such a good representation. I think of what a lot of female athletes go through. I also, I feel like I wasn't seeing a lot of coming of age stories that were all black cast in like really good representation. And I feel like loving, I say loving hip hop. Oh my God. Loving basketball.

I feel like it gave me that too. I feel like it gave me representation in so many different ways. And I was very appreciative for that. And we've talked about this on the podcast before but so few mainstream coming-of-age stories focus on people of color black girls black people at all uh it's mostly white people yeah and this movie does like triple duty where it's like it's a female story it's a black story and it's like an athletic story that isn't just focused on like. Yeah.

It's just this movie has everything. Has it all. This is a big sleepover movie for me. I feel like this would be in the regular. I don't know when I would have first seen it, but I know that it was like I played basketball when I was younger, like through seventh grade and then stopped. But it was mostly just because I was tall and around. And then the second that they're like, it also requires skill. I was tall and around um and then the second that

they're like it also requires skill I was like I should probably just bow out um but I really like like I I just this would I feel like you know at a sleepover you do like a double feature with your friends this would like often be in the rotation and so all the even the moments that are like maybe a little bit corny it is still like i'll i'll play you for your heart like that's i love it so much it like yeah i don't know this movie still like gets me all worked up i love that i feel like this is like a very specific like flash point of like what my end to this movie was but when i first saw it the proud family must have been on the disney channel did either of you ever watch the proud family no not really but i know it's star kyla pratt

yeah exactly so i was like oh that's penny proud in the movie and so i was like yeah i'll watch this um yeah it's it i i have a lot of love for it great i think that movie introduced kyla pratt was this like her first i believe it was her first big. Because I just didn't know what she looked like. Yeah. She just sounded. I just knew her voice from a cartoon. Yeah.

I was like, no, that's Penny Pratt. Yeah. She's so good in it, too. Everyone like all the performances in this movie are so. I heard this interview very recently that Sinai Latham, who starred as Monica in the movie. She said that she wasn't the chosen actress yes for the film like whoever they wanted they couldn't get yeah I did a little bit of research there's a pretty good like oral history that was written about Love and Basketball I think

on its like 15th anniversary a couple years ago and yeah it sounds like Sanaa and the director Gina Prince-Bythewood had a really like contentious on-set relationship because Sanaa didn't know if she was cast for months and months and it was like this weird like her life was on hold she was waiting to find out it sounded like Gina was trying to Gina was like trying to cast Serena Williams it was trying to like cast an athlete and teaching them how to act instead of teaching an actor how to play. Right. And I think that there was some production like, no, you should teach an actor how to play because you should definitely teach an actor how to play. Yeah. Like it's it's I feel like it rarely works out when you try to teach an athlete how to act with exceptions, but especially if you're going to get an athlete that's not even the same sport that doesn't make sense like this isn't a tennis movie no shade to

serena but i gotta teach you two things yeah why not just teach the actor one thing yeah so it sounded yeah it sounded like she had uh or sanat had like was like given a lot to push up against her yeah she kind of felt rejected yeah And I think it's very hard. Are any of us actors? I'm an actor. Not professionally. I am. The reason why I ask is because if you are,

you know how it feels when, when you feel like you're wanted as a, as an artist period, you know how it forget it as a person, you know how it feels to be in a space and feel like you're wanted to be there versus being in a space where you feel like you're not wanted and then having to be spectacular when you feel unwanted right you know and i imagine that that's very difficult but i would have never known watching right with the performance she turns in is so incredible and like so uh but her and Omar Epps were really dating I know I I was telling

Caitlin before because I hadn't re-watched it in like a couple of years but I was like yeah that's that like virginity scene with them is like I have like such a specific memory of seeing it because I think at whatever time I saw it when I was like eight a specific memory of seeing it. Cause I think at whatever time I saw it, when I was like eight or nine, it was like the hottest thing I'd ever witnessed in my life. And so I was like, wait, is that scene like really hot? And Caitlin was like, I don't know. I mean, it's a sex scene. And then, but I don't know, in my head it was like the most. I mean, yeah. When you see it as a, in your formative years, that scene is. Yeah. I mean, yeah, when you see it in your formative years. That scene is great. Yeah, I don't know if I think it's hot now, but I definitely, I mean, I was a teenager when I saw it and I felt like it was one of the hotter things that I had ever seen.

Yeah, exactly. Up until that point. But also I felt like there was so much vulnerability in that scene. Yeah. I want to talk all about that. Yeah. Even when I watch, even if I watch it now, because Loving Basketball is one of those movies where if it comes on, I'm just going to watch it.

Yeah. Like if I'm in a hotel, it's like, I don't know where I was going today, but I'm watching Loving Basketball. Thanks TNT or whoever. Exactly. Whoever plays it.

But I just, I just feel like when I watch it, that is such a typical story. You have this best friend who's a boy, but he doesn't see you as like an attract. You know, he doesn't see you as like this possible love interest. Right. And then you like step out one day and he like sees you and you've had this like love for him. I don't know.

It's a tale as old as time. Yeah. So then when they did it, I was just like, yeah, y'all got to do. I very rarely root for people to do it in movies. Yeah. Especially like young people. It makes me a little bit uncomfortable. Yeah.

And I was rooting. I was like, yeah, let's get. Come on. And it's like one of those. Start this. Love. Let's start this. The love part. Happily ever after already the love part of

love and basketball we need the love there and i feel like watching it now i'm like oh they're both visibly like 25 i don't feel that weird about it like it's all right if if they actually looked 17 maybe i would feel weird about it but i was like oh they're you know they're adults right they're supposed to be teenagers but they're adults it's all good here uh should i get into the group the recap yeah so the structure we've got a uh rather than a three-act structure this time around it's a four-quarter structure because basketball is split up into four quarters because but i guess the only sport that's really built for the three-act structure is hockey oh there are only three periods in a hockey game yes well where's the hockey movie that exactly follows we don't need one we don't need one it's fine uh okay so the first quarter we

open in 19 i think 81 with monica as a kid she has moved to a new neighborhood. Yes. And she wants to play basketball with some neighborhood boys, including Quincy. And they're like, you're a girl. Girls can't play basketball. Girls can't ball. And she's like, screw you. I'm going to be the first woman in the NBA. And then she plays two on two with them. And she's really, really good.

And then Quincy's ego is threatened by this and he pushes her down and her face gets scuffed up which i guess gives her a scar that she has for her whole life yeah yes um but then the next day he's like wait you're cool would you be my girl and she says yes and then they kiss and then he counts down he's like we need to kiss for five seconds and he counts it on his fingers it's really cute but then almost elementary it is it is but then almost immediately after that um they break up because Quincy is again his ego is hurt because she won't ride on the back of his bike and then she's like well your dad plays for the worst team in the NBA because his dad is also a professional basketball player for the Clippers, I think.

Right. And you get context for why. I mean, not that it excuses it, but you get context for like why Quincy treats women the way he does pretty quickly because then you just see his dad and then you're like, oh, that's his dad. His dad hates women, too. He's like, OK, my my role model loves basketball and is mean to ladies got it got it so then we move on to the second quarter where monica and quincy are in high school they both play basketball for their high school teams i do love that moment when like the movie jumps ahead in time and then you see the like the person you know is the main actor

i don't know it's just an excited you're like oh yeah there she is she's on the poster and monica is hoping to get recruited to play basketball in college but she has a bit of a temper and her coach often benches her because of it. She doesn't get to play as much as she would like. She and Quincy are friends. They watch each other's basketball games, but they're not in love. Or maybe they are in love, but they're not doing anything about it.

They're secretly in love. They argue a lot. There's a lot of tension. They're doing the teasing each other. Because Quincy's always like dating someone else and making out with a bunch of different girls yes um because sorry yeah he's like a star and I feel like in the second quarter first of all let me just go back yeah first quarter just as much as they show Quincy's example in his father they show Monica's example in her mother yes and it's

very important as to why her temper is how how is, why she's so outspoken, why she is the fighter that she is. Right. But then when they go to the second quarter, I feel like they do a really good job of showing how little celebration women get for being as good. Yeah. At something. It's like Quincy is this star.

Right. And so he's going to get everything that you can think a star athlete male is going to get. Right. And then Monica is also this star, but she doesn't she seems like she's having the hardest time. And I feel like that was a very accurate representation. Totally. Of what sports are like, what life is like just for men and women doing the same thing right right because it's like very clear that monica's doing the exact same thing at the same like caliber yeah but yeah i mean she's getting pushback from her mom because she's not quote-unquote feminine enough she's getting pushback from her sister she's getting pushback from quincy who is like

i mean i feel like and especially there's a lot of people in her life criticizing her for not being more interested in dating when it's like she's got a full plate like yeah her anger doesn't see like it's justified in all the forces that are right around her but then like yeah by contrast yeah like Quincy is getting like all the accolades and all the recruiters love him and he's like getting all the women and like even the girls that try and befriend her are not befriending her because they think she's cool or talented they're befriending her to simply try and get a date with Quincy right right which is like yeah of course she's fucking pissed off like it's yeah that reminds me when I was in high school playing soccer um the women's soccer team scored more points throughout the fall season one year than the football team. And football, when you score a point, it's six or seven points. I don't really

know how football works, but the members of the football team were still hot shit that everyone loved. And then everyone's like, girls' soccer, who wants to watch that? And it's like, we're doing better than the football team. And one of their touchdowns is six times as many points as one of our goals but you know what you know the only people who can fix that are women everything that men ever do in life this is going to sound crazy especially as young boys especially as like adolescents is that yeah it's to get women so the way women support men's sports and ogle after men if we did that for women it would only bring men it would bring everybody around because everybody wants to be where women are it just it just especially in high school yeah where are the hot girls we're

going there oh yeah they're at the girls soccer game then we gotta be at the girls soccer game and then they get there they're like oh wait these girls are really fucking good at soccer that's true we have to travel in herds we have to get mid yeah damn but we didn't have the cheerleaders cheering at our soccer games they were at the football games yeah i i know because we didn't have cheerleaders at our games but the boys had cheerleaders um at the basketball games oh that's so frustrating it's we did we had them if our game was on a day where the boys had cheerleaders um at the basketball games oh that's so frustrating it's we did we had them if our game was on a day where the boys weren't playing but if it was if we ever played when they played then they prioritized priority yeah that i mean that tracks but then we won a

city championship so right exactly yep um anyway so so she and Quincy, they're friends. They argue a lot. And then it's the last game of the season. It's like the championship game for Monica. But her team loses by one point and she's devastated. Then there's this spring dance where Monica's sister, Lena, played byina hall sets monica up with this cute college boy who she knows and then quincy also goes to the dance with shawnee gabrielle union's character and quincy and monica both act like they're not into each other but they very clearly are because

they're staring at each other while they're dancing with other people yeah and there's an in-sync song playing even though it's 1988 but you know what is there yeah just got paid Friday nights I'm like I could pull up any song from bye bye bye from memory I was like now are you sure the NSYNC didn't make the song over I'm pretty sure I actually I should check because I was like but it sounded like it was Justin Timberlake's voice I can't tell right okay well I'll I'll triple check it okay because i was like wait a second what what anyways let's let's table it okay i'll look it up and then they both go home after the dance and they're still next door neighbors and they're like hey she opens a

letter from usc saying that she's been recruited to play basketball for them and he's like i'm going there too and then they kiss and then uh they go into her room and have sex then we cut to the third quarter they are both freshmen at usc they're in love they are together they're both playing basketball for the teams at usc and monica's coach and a few of her upperclassmen teammates are giving her a hard time because she's like you know a rookie but again Quincy is having a very easy time and everyone loves him and the fans the coaches he's he's having a very easy go of it but then he finds out that his dad was having an affair or maybe is currently having an affair in some of my favorite anytime we were talking about this yesterday but anytime there's like they're cheating look and then private

detective photos come out and they're like the most incriminating thing humanly possible and also impossibly close i love movie private detective photos i mean there's no question about what it's like high resolution like and whenever you see like real pi photos you're like oh i sort of see what's going on there but it's like high resolution mr allstate like committing a deed yeah um anyways so what happens after that he needs monica to be there for him but it's important for her to make curfew. Right. She is having to balance both love and basketball. And this one moment when he's kind of, you know, his family is being torn apart. He's having a rough time.

She's like, well, I can't be there for you right now. I have to make curfew or else I won't be able to start in the game. And he gets really hurt and mad. And he kind of teaches her a lesson by uh taking another girl on a date like right in front of her yeah that's oof oof and yeah then he breaks up with her he's like you you're not here for me i'm gonna drop out of school anyway and go pro then well no he has a famous line he says why don't you go fuck Dick Vitale? Yeah. That line.

Only because that time Dick Vitale was so, like such a big sports name in sport. Yeah. A sports commentator. I don't know if he still is. I have no idea. I was like, I had to look up who he was. Oh, he was such a big deal. And like, he was just such a big deal.

Like, I believe in the 90s. Okay. In early 2000s. Okay. And so for him to call her out like that, it was like, oh, I mean, that was pretty, that's like, like if somebody was trying to be a singer and they were like, why don't you go fuck Ryan Seacrest? Like, I don't know.

I don't know. But it was something like that. Right, right. It was like the nerve of him. And Dick Vitale was some old ass white man. Is he the person they play a clip of in the movie well there's like that weird cut to like an espn yeah is that an old ass white man so for him to say that but he was like who that was you know dick vitale was such a huge sports commenter

commenter commentator i don't know he was huge okay okay that makes because every time that park has since i've seen this movie for the first time i was like who the fuck is that why does he have so much screen time like he must be famous otherwise this part makes no sense right yeah okay yeah okay that breakup scene is so oh i just like it's so mad for monica every single time she was one night it was one night. It was one night. She was there for most of the time. All the other nights. Anywho, so okay, then we cut to the fourth quarter.

And it's a few years later. Monica is playing pro ball in Spain. Quincy is playing for the Lakers. But he tears his ACL. And he's in the hospital. And Monica goes to visit him. and then Tyra Banks comes in and she's like we're engaged I always forget Tyra Banks is in this and then she suddenly is and you're like oh yeah I forget all the time too yeah but like when I at the time when I thought I was like oh that's so cool look Tyra Banks but now when I look back at it, I'm like, yeah, like even an injured ass athlete

can get like a supermodel. As much as she was only playing like a flight attendant or something, but it's like, like he ain't got shit going. He ain't got no college degree. And then there's like that scene where like Alfre Woodard is like,

you know, he can do better. I'm like, better than Tyra Banks. What are you talking about? I mean, I know she's talking about monica she's talking about yeah she is like the first time she says something nice to her daughter oh that relationship is so i mean i can't wait to talk about it yeah yeah for sure so you know monica is like oh no he's engaged and then she decides that um basketball isn't really fun for her anymore she decides to kind of give it up she's like something's missing from it

i think she ends up getting a job working at her dad's bank for a little while yeah and then quincy's like i don't get it you love basketball and then one night she wakes him up because they're both staying at their parents houses which are again next door to each other and she's like what's missing from basketball is you quincy i love you i've loved you since i was 11 he's like i'm getting married to tyra banks i love tyra banks and then she wants to play him for his heart. Yeah. She thinks that if he lets her win, that will be like the signal that he wants to be with her. But he doesn't let her win. He wins. And she's like, no, she's walking away.

And he's like, wait a minute. Oh, let's rematch or something. I see that part a little bit different. Oh, really? Okay. I didn't see it as Monica thought that he would let her win. I thought that she truly thought that she had a chance at beating him. Yeah, I think it's a little bit more empowering.

That's why when she misses or whatever, it's like a final shot where she misses or he makes it and it's like devastating for her. But it's not devastated like how dare you make that. It's like how did I let that. She beats herself up as if it's the devastated like want want like how dare you make that it's like how did i let that she beats herself up as if it's the championship game in high school right right so i don't think she was like he'll let me win and that proves he loves me i think that it was a surprise after she loses and he's like got it i totally see that i was thinking like because

there's that scene earlier when they're in college and like they're playing like strip basketball and she says something like or he's like oh i let you win or something because like so they could like strip and see each other naked so i thought that was like a kind of a continuation of that but also like i think what you're saying makes more sense and it's probably the case yeah like i think it was i think it was like yeah this is what we used to do but i think she thought, like if somebody says you're the only thing missing from basketball, like what's missing from basketball is you. I think she really, that was her last, that was her last line of defense. It's like, I'm going to try and beat you and you'll have to be with me.

And I think she really believed, I mean, he had a freaking knee brace on. If I can't beat you any other time as an adult, I'll beat you after you just fucking tore your ACL. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I mean, either way, like it's,

you get that amazing moment of like him having to, like he wins. He has all of a sudden the power in this situation. And then it almost like she inadvertently, or depending on how you look at it, maybe on purpose, he has to like call his own bluff and be like,

I won, but like, let's rematch. And then they kiss. And then we're like, poor Tyra Banks. She's fucked. I didn't give a shit about Tyra Banks.

I was so invested in Monica and Quincy. It was torture to even see. I'm like, when are we going to get back on track with this love? Oh, it's, and it is is like it is so satisfying when they oh yeah i get very emotional about it and then at the end yeah so we cut to what i think should have been called overtime because we've got the first four quarters and then we've got another flash forward missed opportunity i know right but we see monica

and quincy they are married they have a baby he's sitting on the sidelines with the baby and she's playing in the wmba with the la spark yes continue their la love story it was like so many left right i'm like this oh man i guess monica moves for a while but for the most part i'm like quincy never had to move his entire life that's yeah great. Good for him. So, yeah, that's the story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss. 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

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and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health

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And we're back. Where should we start? Where to begin? There's so much to cover. There's love. There's basketball. And that's it. And that's just the beginning. I guess there's a lot to cover. There's love, there's basketball, and then that's it. And that's just the beginning. I guess there's two topics to discuss.

Well, I mean, Zainab, as you already mentioned, like, this is almost an entirely black cast. This is every major role being played by a black actor. I think the only exception is Monica has a white coach in college. Oh, right. But I mean, she's's kind of like she's in like three seasons there's like that one-on-one where it's whatever that like coach thing where they're like I'm hard on you because I care right like all right whatever bye and like yeah but yeah I almost I forgot about her uh yeah right but yeah I mean it's representation that we don't see very much in mainstream movies, especially. And the fact that it's I mean, and we've already sort of started to touch on this, but like women being athletes, much less black women being athletes and like having it treated with the, you know, like importance that it deserves to be treated is so cool.

We have a black female director who wrote and directed this movie this is i think this was her first movie ever that she made and so yeah you have like a lot of this movie has right right from i was gonna say right from the jump corny okay right from the beginning this movie has so much going for it that most i mean most movies period much less an athletic movie would have um and I hope I'm saying her name clearly Gina Prince Bythewood was also like at least a high school basketball player and so I was doing some research on the production of this movie and I guess she one of her frustrations was that she had seen women playing basketball in movies before, but she thought it was never filmed well.

And so that female basketball players, and especially black female basketball players, had been done a disservice where there'd never been a movie that was about it. And even when there was scenes, she was like, they were clearly not playing real basketball. They didn't look like they had the athletic power that female basketball players have to have. And so she was kind of leading with like that being the goal and then built this story kind of around it. Interesting. Yeah.

I will say that, you know, who looked like they couldn't play a lick of basketball Quincy. He looked like, I was like, okay of basketball quincy yes he looked like i was like okay we gotta stop with him playing basketball any scenes where he has to look like he's playing basketball because it's pretty terrible yeah also okay not to body shame omar epps but he somehow makes it to the nba he's like 5 10 or something like he he seems so short and again shout out to all our short kings out there not that 5 10'10 is even that short, but like.

Short kings are, I mean, everything to me. I'm like, how did you make it to pro basketball when you're pretty average height? The same way Tom Cruise climbs a freaking building and jumps out of a plane and saves everybody and he's 4'2". Yeah. and he's four two yeah i think we thought that quincy was i think i assumed that quincy was taller than omar epps is in real life i have no idea what his height was but i mean that was tall he is yeah i mean it's it doesn't help that like his father is really like yeah much taller than him yeah i don't know i mean also i feel like you can kind of easily justify the height discrepancy by being like well he's also got

like some pretty strong nepotism going for him too also he played the correct position for his height like what we have to remember is some of our best basketball players some of our favorite basketball players around that time especially one of the biggest basketball players when when loving basketball came out was alan iverson who was a point guard and he was a very small so point guards are normally shorter or they don't have to be like no they don't have to be seven foot so i mean it's great when they are sure right it's great when if you're doing anything if you're taller that's going to give you more wingspan more but a lot of them and some of the really good ones have been smaller okay okay that makes sense i don't know enough about an athlete not smaller for a regular man i think what we have to

also remember at that time is omar epps was like one of the it black guys yeah yeah you know he had done so many movies that were like sort of coming of age black movies and so it just just forget like what's true to a story what also happens in hollywood is like who will people pay to see right oh right like let's get i think tupac was dead already okay i'm going i'm going i'm just saying there's still that same thing where you wonder like why did they get this person to play this role oh they were hot at they were the hot thing at the time and like Omar Epps had already played an athlete in like two other movies so it's like he was and it seems like um for the director as well he was it's so weird how like the characters the way the characters are treated by the story also kind of mirrors how the director's relationship with them because like Omar Epps was

her first choice there was never a question he kind of sailed through it and then in the in the meantime so i had an incredibly difficult time throughout the entire thing and just there were more just kind of just like monica by mistake and yeah i didn't realize or maybe i'd forgotten that she and omar epps were dating for the whole time of this movie. I just love when people find love and basketball. Yes. I guess that's what I'm saying. Cool. Just to continue the conversation about women in sports and the movies about them.

Yes. Most sports movies are not about women, believe it or not. Imagine that. There are some, though, and we've covered a fair amount of them on the podcast already between A Leak of Their Own, Bend It Like Beckham, Bring It On, Center Stage is either a recent episode or an upcoming episode, depending on when this episode comes out. And then also Black Swan is an upcoming episode. And then we also covered I, Tonya on the Matreon.

But it's just worth noting that so few sports movies are focused on women, but it's also comes at no surprise to us because women's sports are not valued by the general public. Yeah. But it's always like when, especially when movies about female athletes do well, it always like raises the tide for, like you were saying, Z Zainab like seeing yourself on screen and like the impact of maybe like a young girl who wanted to play basketball but didn't like you know sometimes you're just like is that what I should be doing is this like what a girl like quote-unquote can do and then you see a movie like this and you're like oh okay I could do that yeah great um okay so well

we've covered some of the basketball part of love and basketball um should we cover some of the love let's cover the love because the love is where things get a little um the love's trickier so the relationship between monica and quincy is often a bit tumultuous he is perhaps not a feminist icon in that he does have a pretty fragile male ego throughout most of the movies starting from all of the quarters all of the quarters he lashes out with ego related stuff starting with you know at the very beginning when he's saying like girls can't play ball and then scars her for life pushes her down because she's about to beat him and he's like well I can't have that I can't have a girl beating me at basketball so and then you know she

does there's the exchange where she says I'm gonna be the first girl in the NBA and he's like you're not gonna be in the NBA I'm gonna be in the NBA and you're gonna be my cheerleader that doesn't set necessarily a good example for the rest of their relationship. Also, like the whole like, you have to sit on my bike and I'll drive you around. She's like, I want to ride my own bike. Then he pushes her down again. But she fights back and, you know, insults his dad and the Clippers and stuff. Then they're in high school. This is before they get together.

He still isn't treating her very well. He negs her a lot. Well, there's, I mean, there's that whole setup throughout their kind of relationship in high school and college where he seems to like kind of continuously flirt with other women to quote unquote teach her a lesson, which ends up kind of being one of the reasons that they like break up and things kind of come to a head is like anytime she is whatever not doing what he wants her to do or not acting how she wants him to act um or sorry reverse that he will initiate like kind of emotional warfare and be like okay well if you're not going to do this then i'm going to go talk to you know and just almost reminding her like i have options

i don't need you and just kind of using that to put her down when she's already so kept down by so many things it makes me mad right for her sometimes then right I know I feel so bad because I'm like I have so much sympathy for Quincy oh really I do I know that that's like as you're as you were talking I was thinking like even when I even when I was young and saw the movie I don't know I have a like even when I even when I was young and saw the movie I don't know I have a lot of siblings and so when I see the behavior like obviously it's all I see it definitely as egotistical but I also I see it more as immaturity and I see Quincy was like an only child right and he truly mirrored exactly what he saw with his dad yeah with his dad and his mom like he truly

mirrored exactly that and then i think like when we first saw them there's certain things that are like true to a time right right so like if i see a movie that's in like um during slavery or something right and somebody wants somebody to be super like a superhero right but they instead get whipped it's like yeah that was slavery that's what happened historically you know what i'm saying right and so when i think about him doing what he did when him saying girls don't play basketball when i think about as much as i was not born in 1981 i can't think of any images even in the 80s where i saw women playing basketball sure ever sure right i didn't know know friends who played basketball the first time that I played basketball, which was in the late 90s.

Nobody was like, you should play basketball. I saw no examples. It was just like, I walked in the gym one day, and it was a basketball, and some other girls were playing, and I was tall enough. And they were like, you should probably do this too. You know? But so I feel like his statement while it sounds so misogynistic it's it's actually just like a fact of that time right and it's like

reflecting what he knows right that's like one thing that i think that this movie does really well is even when quincy is saying stuff that like now and and in some instances for its time as well, like sound misogynist and cruel. And at times it genuinely is like sometimes the way he treats Monica, you're like, this is not OK. Yeah. But I at least appreciate that the movie makes it clear to you that his behavior and her behavior don't exist in a vacuum. And you get this equal focus on like you know he's very clearly pulling from the behavior of his father and and to watch him I wish it even like I I guess perfect world I wish that if things coming to a head with his father and him kind of losing faith and like you know that moment that I feel like happens for a lot of people where you're like

oh my parent isn't perfect and like there goes my hero or whatever that I feel like happens for a lot of people where you're like, oh, my parent isn't perfect. And like, there goes my hero or whatever. That's the name of a song, right? But like, you know, when that kind of all comes crashing down, you almost like want it to impact his behavior even more. But like, you do see where it comes from. I don't know. And just like watching the way he and Monica deal with things differently where Quincy sees an example and he emulates it you can't really fault him for

that that's what kids do right but then you see Monica sees an example in her mother and she rejects it and she's like I don't want to be that person I see how my mom is treated like in that amazing scene where she's like, I saw how, you know, dad treated you and I didn't want to be that person. So yeah, I mean, it's,

it's, it's tough because like Quincy has a ton of toxic behavior that I feel like Monica, I mean, I think, okay, this is maybe getting a little off track, but like the thing that bothered me,

I mean, you could make the argument that he maybe should have demonstrated a little more improvement as a person before Monica should have taken him back but what frustrated me on like a doing whatever a critical rewatch which I've never done yeah for this movie was at the end he like owes her an apology for the way they broke up like that was very clearly on him it was all riding on like you couldn't be there for me when I needed you it was one night like it's I feel like with a few years of distance you could be like okay I overreacted maybe and he doesn't apologize to her she apologizes to him yeah for being like I should have been there that night I was like no

you shouldn't have you won that game like you know so that is my major thing with their relationship is like i wish he had made more of a change in in the way that he deals with his life before she took him right because you're right a lot of it is like him being immature and like modeling his behavior after the examples that are set for him by his parents and that's how parenting works and that's how children are raised so you like there's yeah we can't place too much blame on him as a younger person but as he as he grows and you know sees the world around him and really starts to understand how the world works and that you can't you know be constantly disrespecting women and your girlfriend yeah and also your girlfriend might be better at basketball than

you have to accept also he was like so codependent like as when we see monica after him as an adult we see her always on her own we see her in this different country i think it's like really like like everybody travels now right at the very least for an instagram post but i feel like as a single woman playing, but you know, in, in the early nineties for you to just be going around the world, especially when you're an example of what a woman should do is your mom who is dependent on your father.

I just felt like that was so like Vogue for her to do that was, you know, she just was clearly like the stronger person all of the time. And he was cold dependent he was never alone and he never really had to like answer for that or i mean you you hope i like to think by the end end of the movie where she's in the wmba and he's kind of like doing the stay-at-home dad thing or we don't know what he's doing but he's he's there being the supportive force it's kind of the first time where we see him being the supportive force where she's supporting him the entire movie until they break up and then it was nice at the end to see

like okay he is going to be a supportive force for her finally like he owes her that and you you hope that these discussions have been maybe head off screen you know maybe while she's pregnant maybe they're just figuring stuff out at the house i don't know right but yeah yeah like she is such a strong cool person and sometimes i'm like does quincy fully understand how fucking great monica is i hope so i hope so i hope so um and another it's like the Monica defense force. And then also, I mean, even though his, you know, behavior, like we said, is toxic in a lot of ways, especially when he's younger. She's always challenging it. She's always pushing back against against like several characters who are giving her a hard time. Her mom's always like, be more feminine.

Quit acting like a boy all the time. Her dad's like, you know, control your temper. Quincy says, control your temper. And she calls out this like sexist double standard at one point where she says to Quincy there in high school. She says, you know, you jump in some guy's face. You talk smack. You get a pat on your ass. Basically saying like you get congratulated for getting angry. But because I'm a female, I get told to calm down and act like a lady.

And that just, I mean, we had a friend of the cast saraya shamali on the podcast her book rage becomes her is all about how historically women's anger hasn't been allowed hasn't been socially acceptable women just aren't allowed to be angry or express anger and she's doing that and she she's like i should be allowed to be angry. Like I lost a game. Like, let me emote about that. And people are just like, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, her mom calls her out for displaying too much emotion about her performance in the game. Like she's like,

it's just a game. Yeah. Relax. Like you, she says something like that attitude you get when you lose is like not whatever, not becoming. Um,

she tells her to smile more at one point too. And, and yeah. And Monica never folds to that for sure. Yeah. So yeah. Uh, Monica's always pushing back,

challenging the status quo challenging uh anything like sexist that gets said to her and which is so interesting too because it's also that conversation like nature versus nurture like you know it's like quince it's like monica has no example of strength really yeah but she's the strong perk i don't want to say that because i feel like there's something strong in the choice that her mom made to i feel like whatever okay she's nothing nothing like her mom so that's just nature right who how she is and who she is it's just nature but then quincy is like all nurture like i'm this is all like i'm a product of yeah yeah and i think that that was very i like i mean yeah because i feel like everyone's I don't

know there should be like some nature nurture spectrum of like some people fall a little more on the like yeah this is just how they are and then some people very much are like I'm following in so-and-so's footsteps or like this is what I saw I don't know yeah Monica's so her own person I think it was like a really interesting choice to also include her sister, who is very much more on the nurture side of like she's going basically with her mother's example. And we see her later that, you know, she's she's a stay at home mom and she's had a kid and all this stuff. And that she's kind of rewarded with the favorite title for taking her mom's cues versus pushing against them because it just stands to make Monica even more like unique in her own family of like yeah it's not like her sister wasn't like impervious to it right and in most scenes with her sister it's her sister like

brushing and doing her hair and it's like a very like you know feminine kind of domestic type of thing and and we're not saying that like that is lesser than you know monica playing basketball and choosing like that's you know they're they're just different is all i don't think the movie is saying that either like the movie's not passing judgment on her sister for going a different way but it's just i guess or her mom really i feel like she passes judgment on her own mom but i don't think the movie is is well because you i would say well yeah i feel like because you get that scene with the two of them and and monica is you know kind of like you know why she's doing it but you're like oh ease up a little bit where she's shitting on her mom because her mom ah it's so

like it breaks your heart a little bit because her mom keeps bringing up when monica like got dolled up for the prom and looked traditionally like feminine the way her mom wanted her to and her mom's always like that's my proudest memory of you like when i was making you do something you didn't want to do and she brings that up again and monica snaps at her and then we get to see how her mom what is that is it camille yeah that's the name of the character and then camille kind of gives her perspective of like i had dreams too there were i mean like you were saying zaynab like she's a product of her time in a lot of ways where like she got pregnant and felt like well this is the option and had to like kind of sideline

her own ambition and also she thought that i do think the movie was passing a little bit of judgment on the homemaker but i think that they also were like but here's why like i feel like they tried to give both sides of like here's the problem but let's just show what causes let's just show why it's not really a problem you know with her mom like I feel like the mom felt like she was a hero in so a shero in some sense because she was like yeah but I made sure that you guys always ate I made like this is what I could do well yeah and I did it as best as I could every single day I showed up I set aside sometimes what made me happy because this is what made your dad happy and that allowed your lives to be what they are

and I think a lot of mothers do I have friends that are mothers like they're young mothers and they still are like my husband won't take the trash out. And in my mind, I'm like, just don't take the fucking trash out. Yeah, he'll have to eventually. Yeah, now we just all living in trash. Somebody got to break first. Right. But they always take the trash out.

Yeah. Do you hear what I'm saying? Which just allows the behavior. Well, I think that is actually what Monica is passing judgment against her mom for, which is not pushing back never tell there's that scene in early on when um monica's dad is like which shirt should i wear and she's like this one he's like well just iron them both just in case and then she's like okay i guess i have

to do all your ironing and like yeah she never challenged you never pushed back and like maybe why don't you learn how to iron yourself and iron your own shirt? But and that's what Monica was like. It's not that you're a homemaker. It's not that I pass no judgment against that. Mom, it's that you never challenged anything. You never stood up for yourself. Yeah. I mean, that's just an interesting dynamic.

Yeah. And like that generation gap just kind of being because that's like kind of like the boomer Gen x divide is like starting with gen x that was like a more like let me fucking do something i'm going to keep challenging it and that's why i think why you're saying like monica like allowed herself to be angry and like allowed herself to to have a temper and to have a quote attitude because she's like well if my mom's not going to do it like i i don't want to I don't want to do that that's not who I am I don't want to be that and I'm going to because you could see moments where like her mom wanted to she's like really don't have to iron both but she didn't she didn't say

anything and um she just chose to remain silent and that's like what bothered Monica yeah also I think it would have been very different. And this is just a small stipulation and a pet peeve of mine. Yeah. If he would have said, hey, baby, I'm not sure which one I want to wear. Can you iron both? But to come in and say, what do you think? Oh, you think that? Why don't you just iron both? It's like, why did you even ask my opinion? Oh, yeah. Because he's just saying like, well, fuck what you think yeah i don't trust your opinion yeah yeah oh there's and and then there's a lot i mean you don't see her quite as much but i i thought that um quincy's mom is also an interesting character where you get that scene

where she is you know miserable she's found out that her husband's been cheating on her on top of you know we knew that their relationship was in trouble anyways because we saw them fighting we saw him also expecting her to do stuff that she was just like give me this one thing and he wasn't doing it and then there's that scene where Quincy you know you kind of see him fall apart in a way because his mom is devastated she's like your father's been cheating on me. And he doesn't believe her at first. He's like, there's no way that could be true.

Because if that's true, then like his whole view of himself is going to have to change. But it's like, Oh my gosh, the brunch people are mad. But, but it's like, it's interesting that like,

yeah, he like Quincy is so caught up in this view of his father because of the way he's been brought up that you know it's like his mom needs to have these high-res pi photos for her son to be like oh fuck this is happening right which was like i don't know i thought that that was like a well-written moment for quincy because you're like oh he's like far down the rabbit hole of like my dad is perfect like his mother is in tears and drunk by the pool and he's like i don't know seems like you might be overreacting you know um yeah i thought i wish i almost wish that relationship was explored a little bit more but it's like you only got so many minutes

right and then uh they apparently get divorced because we see quincy's mom with a new man new hair and a new man yeah i like i like i like that like weird movie like film language where quincy's dad fat and i think it's the third quarter he's a little down in his luck he's gone through a divorce and it's just communicated to you by him being at a bar by himself and you're like oh he's not and he's like wearing beige and you're like he's not doing great he's not doing great yeah we got to take another quick break so time out and then we'll be right back Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered.

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these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Can we talk about the subplot with Sidra?

Yeah, her teammate in college that I found to be interesting and like also kind of reflective of this of the time where with women playing basketball in the late 80s, which is when she's in college, into the early 90s, the trajectory for women to continue being athletes and to be pro athletes, they have to go overseas, like there's no WNBA in the US yet. So I understand they're like, this then creating this intense competition between women who are teammates, but there's still, you know, there's still this sense of like, well, there's so few opportunities for us that we kind of have to compete against each other right like best case scenario they have to uproot their lives and move to spain right um because you see this moment early on when sidra is like spotting her as she's uh bench pressing and she says something like you know just because we play

the same position doesn't mean we need to compete with each other. Just kidding. You're a soft ass freshman. And then she like drops the inch press bar thing on her. So it's like, oh, that was so close to being a nice moment. But then it's like, oh, wait, well, like, when you contextualize is like, yes, like, and there are so many spaces where just not that many women are allowed still. And we do feel like we have to compete against each other for yeah like for its time that dynamic like and i like how it develops over the course of the movie too and you see they reach a truce and then they become friends and this whole thing but it's like it sucks because it is like it is like a movie trope of just like women being against each other

irrationally just because like there's another woman in the room she's my competition for this guy but that's not their dynamic it's like they are in competition for the same very finite thing and I don't know I feel like even like I've like felt that way before and it like makes me feel bad to think about now of like being in a space where you're like okay there's only so many spots that I will be allowed to fill yeah and so like, I'm not here to make friends. And so her attitude makes, it sucks because it's like, it's hard to watch. And you're like, oh, why can't we all just be on the same team?

Why can't we get along? Guys, why can't we just be friends? But I think that, yeah, the characters are written. At first, I mean, she seems maybe a little mean at first glance when she drops the barbell on Monica. That was maybe not very cool. But you get the context for it, I feel like. Yeah.

I hate that narrative period that like women have to fight. I really do. And I do recognize that in a lot of instances, there is this finite space that we feel we need to compete for. But I think that's also true, too. I think that a lot of what we see in the athletics of this seems like oh why the girls gotta be like that but it's just that's athletics it's just that we focus on

Monica in this story because this story really isn't about Quincy this story is about Monica and so that's something that's going to happen also in the male locker room between a freshman and a senior I think that they probably recruit a little bit differently. You know, like there's probably way more number one teams for men to go to.

There's way more prospering teams for a male athlete to go to than a female athlete. But I think you get that same thing. No senior wants a freshman, regardless of their gender, to come in and take their spot. Absolutely. Yeah, and I feel like there's – I don't watch sports movies, so I can't, to come in and take their spot. Absolutely. Yeah. And I feel like there's, I don't watch sports movies, so I can't name examples off the top of my head.

But there's definitely examples of like male driven sports movies where you see kind of the same dynamic. Rookie of the year? Probably. I've never seen it. I don't know. But it is. Yeah, that totally makes sense.

What I liked about Sidra or like, you know she she is like coming in hot she's very clearly threatened by monica's presence and but then when she loses her spot she i almost you're like oh the worst thing this movie could do right now is like have them get in a fight or like some one of those really tropey like over the top things but i really was like i really like how that scene like the choice that when they're at the party yeah she takes she has like a ton of dignity about it and she's clearly pissed off because fucking of course she is but she just is like don't let this happen to you bye and and then they see each other in spain years later i was like oh that's like classy as hell like not a lot of people have

that true and then she's like and then they get dinner together and there's like a little playful banter where she's like here's my championship trophy it's here on the table um and then but like yeah sidra's like are you fucking spanish guys or what and she's like no i've only ever had sex with one person can we can we talk about that really quick? Yeah. That was one thing that I was like, oh, movie, why you gotta do that? Where, okay, so, and I'm sure that there's a case against this, but I feel like, okay,

this sort of lines up with prejudices of that time that sort of like still bleed into now. But like, I think the movie wants us to believe that Monica has only ever had sex with Quincy. That is sort of the implication we're getting at every moment. And, you know, like we're raised from so young or I remember, I think probably a lot of why this romance appealed to me so much when I was little is like, oh, the first boy I kiss is going to be the one person that I'm ever with and like that is something that I think especially girls are raised with is like you are supposed to be with one person where boys are often encouraged to you know like get around and be promiscuous and like they're not which I mean just in terms of math how is that possible like if every girl is only ever with one person how are men with so many

people like I'll just have to lie about it. There were camps of women that were just like, I never married my one person. Yeah, it's like you can't. God, imagine having to marry your first kiss. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. I would live in Hartford. I would be in trouble. Okay, anyways.

This movie is challenging of so many things. And that was one thing that you're like, oh, it didn't really push back on that kind of fantasy we're presented with as kids. Because it's made clear, started from when he was like 15, 16. Quincy is like not discouraged from being promiscuous. And like we're not shaming him for that. Although his mom is like, whose earring is this? But it's only his mom. His dad's like yeah this rules his friends

are like this rules every girl at school is throwing themselves at him uh gabrielle union is sending her coochie through the mail which is my favorite line in the whole movie there uh and and like his like promiscuity has never called in the question which it shouldn't be but i feel like the movie just i thought it would have been cool if like Monica had had another boyfriend or just thought it would have been cool, too. Because because and there's just I just always have it in my head of like sometimes it's like you need. This is my opinion of the like sometimes you need a second relationship just to know if the first relationship was like the right one, because otherwise you have nothing to compare it to right and then you're like i could be having terrible sex forever you'd never know right so that was like one thing that i'm like i i wish that monica had been sort of allowed by the story to have more of a personal life give her a spaniard boyfriend

yeah why couldn't she have had sex with one of the Spanish guys? When she was like, no, these guys aren't my type. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? I thought that it was doing two things. And I'm really probably going to get torn apart for this. I thought that they were trying to point out like, yeah, Monica has only ever been with Quincy. Which is like, if that's true, if, you know, for women out there, if that's the case, that's fine as well. But also like, it's totally fine to be fucking.

Yeah. You know, whatever. But I also thought that, and this may be because I was around a lot of female athletes, and I think that something that you fight against as a female athlete is being straight or gay. Oh, okay.

And I felt like with Sidra's character specifically they had her speak sort of very cavalier in that way about her sex life in Spain to sort of address like two female athletes can be together and they don't they don't have to be gay women yeah okay I think that that's, I just thought at that time, like, I don't think that that's something, I don't think that that's the conversation if Love & Basketball was made in 2020, that they would feel the need to touch on.

But I think Love & Basketball came out in 2000. I don't think there was nearly as much acceptance or pride or, you know what I'm saying? I just think that it was still pretty taboo. Sure. And it being a period piece on top of that, where you're like, oh, it's the late 80s. That's interesting, I hadn't even thought about that.

And Monica kind of directly addresses, in a, you know, not a 2020 elegant way, but addresses, yeah, that assumption that she would be queer, or I mean, she like yells at her mom like yeah oh you think i'm a lesbian because i'm always focused on my game well that's not true so she's kind of like in some ways she's addressing this stereotype and then she's also doing this no homo thing that is like 80s into recently right because it's the scene where her like mom's like

why why can't you dress more like a girl and and stuff like that and she's like let's because i'm a lesbian and then her mom goes and she's like no i'm not but like but yeah i mean yeah that that almost it's i don't think it's as bad as this example but like that reminded me of a scene and there's something about mary where uh cameron diaz like jokes about being bisexual as a way to be like, gotcha Ben Stiller. So like anytime when queerness is like lied about as either kind of a weapon or a joke against someone else, like that's obviously not okay.

Yeah. It was, she's kind of addressing like that stereotype. Yeah. And she's doing it to like challenge her mom. Cause her mom, and that reminds me of a storyline and bend it like Beckham where the Keira Knightley characters mom is like, why can't you wear like lacy bras and dresses? that reminds me of of a storyline in bend it like beckham where the karen knightley character's mom

is like why can't you wear like lacy bras and dresses and why do you always dress like a boy and act like a boy because like monica is pretty tomboyish and she embraces that and she's fine with that and and tomboy isn't getting enough screen time i know yeah i was a tomboy growing up and like and yeah like it's it's nice represent and there is that like kind of tropey scene in the very beginning where the person that you thought was a boy takes off their hat or takes off their helmet twist they're a girl which does happen this movie but the way it's handled in terms of like her being like yeah i'm a lesbian just kidding is not handled well but there is like again, just constantly pushing back against like the status quo.

Yeah. And like the stereotypes that are pushed. Yeah. On her. So yeah, if that scene was written in 2020, it would sound different. But I feel like, yeah, it's kind of clear what she's saying, even though she's saying it in a very 1980 whatever right way i also wanted to talk about the sex scene a little bit more yes just in the sense that it's right well because it's the love part of love and basketball i think it's a pretty like and we've analyzed a lot of sex

scenes in on this podcast but i was like this is like one of the most realistic and like kind of like responsibly done i guess like sex scenes you've ever i've seen in movies because he takes out a condom and you see you see him you never see someone take out a condom especially teenager like that's such an important thing for teenagers to see and like the fact that we see like a high school student and knowing history you're like you should definitely wear protection right uh but i like that scene because my it's it's from monica's perspective which i feel like you never really get a scene especially like a virginity scene told from the woman's perspective like it's very like it's a sexy scene but it's also focused on

you can tell she's even though she's initiated it but she's nervous she's nervous she's so and it's like she's covering up her boobs the whole time that was something that i just didn't like my research about the production um was and it's like you're like oh 2000 jesus christ that the director was getting a lot of pushback against and that was their argument for wanting it to be an r-rated movie because i guess that scene was originally even a little bit longer and a little more focused on her like anxiety but also her pleasure and like things we'd never get to see in movies and like she had to make an argument to still get the pg-13 rating that this movie also the mpaa was like it's a

rated r and she's like oh right and she was pretty and she was able to effectively make the argument that it's like i she was like i think you're just saying this because it's from a woman's perspective and what she did was she took a sex scene from a movie I've never seen but I've heard is very long called Meet Joe Black oh Brad Pitt it's a Brad Pitt movie when did it come out 1998 okay so like while this movie was being probably evaluated by the MPAA there's a scene where I guess Brad Pitt's character loses his virginity it's an even like in terms of what they show, it's an even raunchier scene. And it's told from his character's perspective.

And so she played those scenes, but side by side. And she's like, why is this movie PG-13 and mine has to be rated R? And they had to give it to her. Go Gina. That doesn't surprise me at all though. I know, yeah. Yeah, but she does initiate the kissing.

She does surprise kiss him, but he's receptive to it. Whatever. Yeah. She does. Yeah. But she does initiate the like the kissing. She does surprise kiss him, but he's receptive to it. Whatever. Yeah. But yeah, she's like, yeah, here's my naked body and put your dick in me. It's a great sex scene. Every time I see it, I'm like, and they play like that cover of the Kate Bush song. And you're just like, oh, this scene is the best and then like there's jamie you mentioned this when we were watching it together but um just like kind of like speaking

of sex and sexuality we see locker scenes of like female athletes in this movie compare this movie to this locker scenes like the locker room scenes in carrie which come from a male director a male cinematographer it's like lingering male gaze like completely objectifying women that's one of those moments where you're like oh this movie is directed by a woman clearly because when you see it sometimes the way that like men will direct female locker room scenes it's just like women are wearing like Victoria's Secret bras they're like grabbing each other in this kind of soft porny kind of way where it's like no they really are just changing and having conversations right is 90% of it so

I think that was like all the big stuff that I had I think the only other thing is just like a comment on and this is like one of those like immaturity things rather than because we were all very problematic when we were teenagers um or at least you were when you grew up in the 90s but monica like slut shames a lot of like especially the girls are going after quincy and it's like okay she's doing that because she's probably jealous because she's secretly in love with quincy right but there's like a lot of the cheerleaders are written to be very two-type like this movie i mean this movie doesn't really have a vested interest in challenging cheerleader stereotypes that's what bring it on is for but um but the cheerleaders in this movie are written very like they're boy crazy they're like blah blah blah yeah yeah i feel

like it's very interesting this movie only really had two types of women. You either had the really like independent woman character in Monica, but then every other woman, I mean, we don't see really her team. We don't see the lives of her teammates, but every other woman that they focus on in the film, it's pretty much like for the service of a man. Yeah.

Yeah. Period. And it's, and that's like why it's even more like, I wish Monica could have had sex with someone else just because it's like, I feel like her character is almost because she's so independent and hardworking and like focused on her goals that she's, her character is slightly desexualized a little bit in a way that it's,

I feel like in this movie isn't like a bad offender of it at all but it's just like something that i was picking up on of like the any time there's a career woman in a movie she's desexualized for being like you know whereas you see fucking like wolf of wall street where it's like yeah this is a very high powered maybe not capable that's a bad example but like they can't stop fucking right they're addicted to fucking um i don't know i mean i don't think she's entirely desexualized because we do see and we get a number yeah we see her have sex so but like the fact that she isn't permitted to like explore outside of her sexual experience with quincy

right is worth noting for sure yeah did. Did you have any other thoughts? I could talk about this all day. Yeah. Even with the sort of problematic conversations, I think it's still a movie that I'll like continuously enjoy. And I think I, you know how like in the fight for change, sometimes you have to be extreme and so it leaves out the reality that there are women who have only ever had eyes for one person

or like even when I think about my own sexual history I'm very much not sexual if I'm not in love with a with a guy you know and but I also understand like even in love and basketball I feel like anything that anybody picks out about it it's all true and valid but then I'm like the other side is all true and valid too so to me I think this is a movie that like holds up pretty well. Oh, for sure. That it, you know, it's 20 years old, but it's exploring a lot of things that I think are ahead of its time. Yeah. In an ideal world, I would have liked to see maybe Quincy not, if he was going to be so toxic at the beginning, I think we need to see a more significant character arc for him where he's more respectful and treats her better by the end or just him being more respectful from the start

but also you know taking into account the context of the time period and yeah that's that whole like nature versus nurture conversation again but um yeah if there's gonna be a because i'm not necessarily drawn to like romance stories that much so if there is going to be a romantic storyline in a movie i have very specific guidelines that i want it to like fall within and i just want it to be if it is a hetero relationship i want the man to be really really nice and respectful and we're not really getting that as much as i would like in this movie um but at the same time i think it's ahead of its time in in many ways and the fact that you do have this very strong outspoken woman who allows herself to be angry who challenges the status quo um who is never, like, when she's told,

girls don't play basketball, you can't be in the NBA, she never listens. She's just like, fuck it, I have a trajectory, and I'm going to go on it. And, yeah, she just, like... I mean, she, yeah, Monica pushes back again so much that it's, like, these are small gripes. And it's, like, also, I mean, not every strong woman you meet, it's just, I mean not every strong woman you meet it's just I mean not

everyone's pushing against every single thing that's like there's only so much energy and it's also I mean it's kind of consistently communicated that she has to work so much harder to have the same thing that Quincy has that like it makes sense that she has less time to date I just yeah I just sort of wish that that had gone a little more acknowledged and it felt just like a little taken for granted. That was just, but that was just like my read of it. I'm very happy though with her happily ever after,

which for me felt like the WNBA game. Like I know the happily ever after is supposed to be her with Quincy, but I just, I'm just so happy that that final clip is her starting playing the game yeah and then her husband sidelined on the sidelines with the i'm like yeah this is how it is she deserves it yeah it's just nice to see her finally get like what she has deserved the whole movie yeah i do i do find it a little annoying that she's like well i don't

like playing basketball anymore because quincy you're not a part of my life and it's like he clearly he didn't feel that way right he's like i'm i have tyra banks i'm good um but if she hadn't showed up he would have just gotten married but he would have been unhappy he would have been unhappy yes he's not saying it because men are freaking stupid but he is sitting there tortured yeah yeah i i mean that would have been his punishment is that he would have had to have a loveless marriage with tyra banks right um yeah i think the main thing for me is that i wish the romantic storyline would have gone the love part of love and basketball would have gone a little differently but everything else about the movie for the most part is pretty top-notch yeah and we're sitting over here in 2020 like

you know it was 2000 yes we get it it was 2000 it was also 1980 whatever right yeah but he could have apologized he should have apologized every time there every time there's a scene where you know the man should be apologizing and then the woman apologizes and then they kiss. You're just like, damn it. He barely apologizes for giving her permanent scar on her face. He writes this little card that says, I'm sorry. But it's like, no, let's hear you say the words. I'm sorry.

Don't get your mom to bake a cake for her. Say you're sorry. I was like, what? I mean, it's like Monica's parents must secretly hate Quincy's parents for just being like, write a sorry note. I'm like, you guys have so much money. I wonder what came first, like that in the script or Sinai being cast. Because you know, Sinai's scar is actually-

It's real? Yeah. Oh, interesting. It's her real scar. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So I wonder if that was sort of they wrote that in yeah just like how they write in uh harrison ford's scar the origin stories of it in the third indiana

jones movie anyway sorry to bring it up just struggle to care about harrison ford um does this movie pass the backdoor test yes yes yeah i think it does there's a lot of dialogue which is two sentences at least two sentences it's not about a guy with like monica and her teammates uh it passes a few different coach her coach her mom her mom her sister yeah yeah there's a lot i mean it's it is monica's story like and you get to see yeah so she interacts with a lot of women she interacts with a lot of women yay yay uh as far as nipple scale okay so our our nipple scale zero to five nipples uh based on its representation of women i would give this i want to say like a 3.75 i think again i still take issue with some of the aspects of the romance part of the story and then like yeah the thing where it's like she says she's a lesbian as a joke to like

as a shock kind of thing for her mom different little things like that but overall like i said i think it's ahead of its time i think the fact that it's an almost entirely black cast is something we hardly ever get to see. And I think it handles a lot of things really well. And in like a really nuanced way where even though like some characters are toxic and some characters have some like problematic points of view. There's, you know, it's contextualized and it's because that's how people are. Like we're, no one's perfect. We're all, sometimes we say stupid shit and sometimes we do stupid shit constantly we're total fuck-ups um but yeah i think it's just like a very nuanced realistic uh examination of life and love and

basketball yes yeah i'll go 3.75 too i just i mean i agree with everything you said there's like a little bit about the romance that you're like oh there's a little more to explore there i am left a little bit like on the rewatch underwhelmed that they end up together at the end because like we've sort of been talking about uh quincy never really had to do the work to earn her forgiveness um the story kind of makes it seem like he can do basketball without her but she somehow is completely empty without him yeah just the precedent it sets is like you know sure end up together but demonstrate some improvement you know it's like the fact that it was like she was going to give up her career on top of she forget she like apologizes

to him for something she doesn't owe him an apology for on top of we don't see him do any of the work before they end up together it's just like it's just like a few things too many right especially because he spends so much time not treating her very well and right just like negging her and just like not and and like the whole thing where he you know tries to teach her a lesson by basically cheating on her because she wasn't there for him one time and we know that that's not good but we just don't see that he's grown but we don't see that he's grown past that behavior so in that way i'm like i'm willing to cut this movie slack in some places for the

many many things it does right but the relationship just like rings a little hollow to me on the rewatch it feels it's just for me it's too toxic of a romantic relationship for me to want to root for ultimately but another huge thing about this movie is there's a lot of representation behind the camera, too, which you never, ever, ever see. Even now, like if you have a predominantly black cast, oftentimes a lot of people behind the straight white man is still just a list of white guys. Yeah. And maybe a white lady, if you're lucky, like it's, it's very rare. And just after doing a little research about Gina Prince-Bythewood, she's been like this incredible advocate for having women behind the scenes, for having people of color behind the scenes. And she's just been like a real force for getting people work who should be working

and having influence in the industry. This movie was also edited by a woman which you very rarely see um so just on top of the fact that it is written and directed by a black woman it's a black woman's story it's also there was some bullshit that when the year this came out where there was another movie called girl fight which was karen kusama's first movie and this movie like just because it was about women of color who were athletes everyone was like they're the same movie, which is like, okay, 2000. Right. Girlfriend is really good, though.

We should cover it sometime because it's really interesting. I love Kieran Kusama. In any case, yeah, there's like, there's a lot going on that's great in front of the camera and behind it. So 3.75 from me. Yeah. I would say, I'd say I would give it maybe four nipples I feel like they did I mean there are some things that are problematic just like you know I mean even when we talk about Gabrielle Union yeah as a character it's like she was kind of a go-getter too do we

like what she was going to get maybe not but she was motivated she was motivated of a go-getter too. Do we like what she was going to get? Maybe not. But she was motivated. She was motivated. You know, and I feel like sometimes women, when we tell stories about other women, sometimes we pass a judgment on quote unquote promiscuity or sexual liberation. You know, that Gabrielle Union's character is just the opposite version of Monica, really.

Right, but she wants love more than basketball yeah you know but and that's the thing like that character gets slut shamed a lot exactly no she's just trying to get dick yeah she doesn't like get the well this is like she doesn't really get the opportunity to like make a case for herself or just be like

or push back or anything like that yeah like we don't even we don't get the full person we don't know who she is outside of this sexual experience that she's trying to have with Quincy right which is like a little bit unfair but there's also not enough time in the movie for it where's the sequel I don't want to see that um so I'll give it I'll give it four nipples there's a lot of things that I watch and listen to now that I saw years ago and I'm like how in the hell the story of our lives yeah and loving basketball

I still enjoy it appreciate it um really appreciate certain aspects like the sex scenes you know I felt like they were tasteful I felt like they were from her perspective um yeah I'd give it four yeah yeah I don't know I just feel there's a part of me that doesn't excuse Quincy but I do feel some sort of sympathy sure for him and I feel like his life would have been miserable without Monica yeah she makes She makes everything better. And it's like, I just like hold on to that last scene. I'm like, he's doing some work on the back end to make up for all those times. And like him being with Monica, now he doesn't mess up two women's lives because he would have messed up Tyra Banks' life. Really, that is, yeah, that basketball game at the end with when she plays for his heart is the best thing that ever happened to Tyra Banks.

Right. She doesn't even know it yet. Yeah. Exactly. Well, Zainab, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. This was so much fun. Where can people follow you online, check out your stuff?

On social media. Every single platform is Zainab Johnson, Z-A-I-N-A-B Johnson. My website is Zainab Johnson, Z-A-I-N-A-B Johnson. My website is Zainab Johnson. You guys can go to social media on my website and see where I'm performing or just be my friend. My online friend. I'm not one of those people that thinks social media is my real friend. I also, oh, I have a podcast. It's called Honesty with Z.

Honesty is spelled H-O-N-e-s-t-e-a um with z and it's you can find it anywhere you get podcasts hell yeah yeah thanks for having me ladies thank you for being here you can follow us uh all the normal places uh mostly twitter instagram don't send us a message on facebook we We never check it. We won't see it. Sorry. You can sign up for the Patreon, patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. $5 a month will get you two extra episodes. We've got merch on tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast. And, you know, this basketball season,

have some love, too, if you want. Love and basketball. There's room for both. I can't top that thank you bye daphne caruana galicia was a maltese investigative journalist who on october 16th 2017 was assassinated crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one woman wiki leaks she exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

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