The Bechdel Cast - Mississippi Masala with Durba Mitra

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Durba Mitra discuss Mississippi Masala (1991). Check out Durba's essay on the film at https://www.publicbooks.org/mississippi-masala-at-30-revisiting-a-film-classic-in-authoritarian-times/  Follow Durba on Instagram at @thirdworldwomen and check out her new book, The Future That Was -- https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691233604/the-future-that-was See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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On the Radio 831 podcast, join us, Sanjana Basker, and Tyler McCall, as we unpack all the trending tropes, fuzzy adaptations, book talk drama, and celebrity love stories with hot takes and sharp guests. Each episode digs into what these stories reveal about desire, fantasy, identity, and how we love now. Listen to the Radio 831. podcast on the Iheart radio 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. Yep, just driving along with my auntie,

with 25 gallons of milk in the car. Okay, and as with every, every person, does this in every single movie and it stresses me out every single time, why don't you turn your body around 180 degrees while still fully accelerating, giving every audience member a panic attack, and then, and then scree-crish, collide with the hottest living man on the planet. Yeah. Yes. God, what a meat cute. I was like, well done. Well done, everybody. I liked it. It was great. It was great. That would be such a great. That would be such a way to meet somebody. I would not call this a car accident. I had a car blooper, I would say. I very lightly tapped someone's rear. I was going like one mile an hour, tap someone's rear bumper.

It's a kiss, really. It was just a little smooch. Yeah. Bumper to bumper smooch. And there was a man in vault like the other driver was a man, but I did not start dating him. So. Oh. Someone kisses the back of my car. I'm just like, you know what, life's hard. And it's like, keep driving, keep driving, whatever. It's fine. And I could have been falling in love. He ruined it because he was like, let's exchange insurance information. There's a scratch on my car now. I was like, yeah, right. No, that was already there. Grow up. Anyway, we're talking about this. That was a productive conversation. Yes. Welcome to the Bechtel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name's Jamie Loftus. And this is,

is our podcast where we talk about your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens. And today we are, in fact, talking about a movie we've gotten a ton of requests for over the years, both when the show started and then a mysterious bump again about two years ago and who can say why. Who can say? But we are talking today about Mississippi Missala, which came out in 1991, directed by Miranar. And written by Sunni, Tera, Pora Vala, who I was not as familiar with, but has written almost every, like, their, they're a duo that works together very frequently.

For sure. Yeah. Should we just get into it? Let's get our guest in here. I'm so excited. Oh, wait. We should say what the Bechel Test is. We've been doing this for 10 years.

This is so embarrassing. Yeah. Real quick, Bechdel Test is a medium metric created by queer cartoonist and best friend of the show, Alison Bechdel. It has many versions. The one that we use is. is do two characters of a marginalized gender, have names, do they speak to each other, and is their conversation about something other than a man?

And we'll talk about that later. But in the meantime, our guest today is a professor and feminist historian. It's Derbimitra. Welcome. Oh, I'm so glad to be here. It's so fun to be here. Also, just like any feminist podcast, I'm here for it. So I'm ready.

Yay. Yeah. We're delighted to have you. Truly. Yeah, we found your work via an essay you wrote for public books a couple years ago about this film that will link in the description as well. But we're curious to hear what your history with this movie is. Well, thank you so much. I think I saw this, I saw Miss Sima Msalah probably for the first time when I was eight or nine years old.

I think I saw it right when it came up in out in 1991. And I was born in the 1980s in the American South in Shreveport, Louisiana, which is actually not that far from Mississippi. And I was born to a single mom in Shreveport. And she had me and she had my older brother who was just a tiny toddler at the time. And the experience of being in Trieveport and being a person who was poor and a South Asian immigrant in Shreveport was very, very formative for me. It was very formative for my mother. who experienced a lot of struggle and really worked hard to create a life for us.

And she watched Mrs. Sibb Mazzala when it came out in the early 90s. And for her, it was such a profoundly moving film that probably was the first time she felt some sense of representation on the screen. And when I first watched it, I didn't understand it. And then I watched it again, probably when I was in college. And then I watched it again in 2021 when it was about to be part of the criterion collection. Yeah. So it was like it became this film that represented the complexity of what it meant to be immigrant and diasporic in America. And to think about the problem of race and racial difference, not as a white-black problem,

but as a problem across racial difference. Yeah. When my family moved to the American South, It was actually black communities who made our existence possible, who helped my mom, who support my mom to gain access to, you know, public welfare, to gain access to food, to join the church, which is what my mom does. And I did in that period. So for me, the film represents something that's extremely rare on film,

which is the intimacy of relationships in the United States that make survival possible, but also the kind of contestations and, sometimes social violence that is also part of those relationships. And so it really just expressed something that I feel is not often represented in film. Definitely not. Not to mention the fact that the idea that there was this incredibly gorgeous black woman, I mean, a black man, obviously, and beautiful, Desi woman, Indian woman on screen, like for a South Asian American, I think for the whole generation of us, if you saw pictures of my mom when she looked so much like Sarita, like long hair, gorgeous. Anyway, the moral of the story is,

the idea of that kind of representation on film was just unheard of at the time. So it was like an extraordinary experience for for so many of us. Yeah, absolutely. Jamie, what's your history with the movie? Had you seen it before? I had seen it once before. And unfortunately, I shamefully do need to credit a man as a part of what brought me to Mississippi Missala. That man's name is at least Zoranam Dhani. Okay, fair. So I do feel I know we saw it that there was all of a sudden an uptick of Miranaris movies in theaters and repertory screenings when Mamdani became such a big figure in New York and then across the world. And so I saw a screening of Mississippi Missala a year or two ago, I think at Vidyats in Los Angeles.

And it was really fun. I had been hearing about it for years but hadn't yet seen it. And I mean, speaking to your point, Derb, it's just like it's such a singular movie. And I've never seen anything like it. I've never seen like such a specific cultural conversation happening in a movie before or since. And it also features two hot people making out. I mean, it's just this movie is operating on so many levels and does so many, like looking through how many notes I have for this movie you would think that it would be like a tough watch but it

everything goes like it's effortless how much this movie tackles in centered around this love story and yeah I really enjoyed it and I'm excited to talk about it yeah Caitlin what's your history I hadn't seen this movie before I had seen Miraneyer's monsoon wedding that was my main to her work. I saw that probably 15 or so years ago. But I hadn't seen this one and I was excited to watch it and I thought it was really well done. I, you know, it's a love story that I'm actually rooting for. It's commenting on a lot of different things in thoughtful ways. It is some of the hottest people you've ever seen. Not that that's the most important thing of the movie, but worth noting.

It's worth noting. And we'll be noting it time and time again. And yeah, when I was watching it for the first time the other day, and the movie opens on Roshan Seth. And I was like, wait a minute, I recognize him. And I realized what I recognize him from is Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom. And his character is far more rich in this movie. So I'm glad he went on to have.

better roles. I recognized him from something even more, not the Indiana Jones, recognizing him from Indiana Jones is humiliating, but I recognized him from Cheetah Girls 3, the Cheetah Girls One World. Okay. Tragically. So, iconic. Okay, we've listed our, I mean, I would say that, you know, he, I think anyone who's seen Mississippi Missala will see this, that he's one of the most sensitive and nuanced actors from Indian and British Indian film, like just extraordinary. I would recommend for everybody here to see my beautiful laundrette, which is a kind of iconic queer British film about queer love. And anyway, all of that is to say that, you know, he's an icon for many reasons.

One, because he plays, you know, defies stereotypical types that would be given to an Indian actor of his kind and his generation. And also because he's iconic in all. of these amazing films from Indiana Jones to of course. To the girls three. Yeah. The girls three, monsoon wedding, et cetera, et cetera. His performance in Mississippi Missala is so just, he's really threading a needle in a way that like very few people can.

It's amazing. Yeah. I also love that you see representation on screen of a man crying, which he does in multiple scenes. And I'm like, yes, let it out. King. I mean, and also like the friendship breakup between he and his old friend and you go. I mean, that has got to be one of the most heartbreak. There are so many extraordinary relationships in this film.

But that to me was like, that's the one that is incredibly heart wrenching. And you're like, oh, totally. Between he and O'Klo. Yeah. Yeah. Well, why don't we take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. So this is a podcast about video games. Kind of.

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We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys?

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Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves.

Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Okay, here is the recap of Mississippi Missala.

we open in Kampala, Uganda in 1972, during a period in history when people from the Asian diaspora were forced to leave Uganda. And we can talk a little bit later about the historical context there. But one such person is an Indian man, a lawyer named Jay Loha, played by Roshan Seth. he his wife kinu played by sharmila tagore and their young daughter mina pack up to leave and jay is especially despondent about leaving because he was born and raised in uganda i believe he's third generation ugandan and a family friend who we were just mentioning ocalo bids them a tearful farewell although jay kind of refuses to say good to O'Kello for reasons that will become clear over the course of the movie through flashbacks. But shout out to the actor who plays O'Kalow, Kanga, Mbadoo, because he gives one of, I think, the saddest

looks I've ever seen in my entire life. It's a really, really beautiful scene. Such great performances all around, yeah. Yeah. The family boards a bus to begin their journey to, leave Uganda. The bus is stopped by police. Kinou is removed from the bus at gunpoint and her luggage is searched. It's a very tense scene. But eventually the bus arrives at the airport and Mina's family boards a plane and they eventually end up in Greenwood, Mississippi by way of London for several

years in the middle, but we cut to 18 years later. It's now 1990. We're in Greenwood, Mississippi. Mina is now an adult, played by Sarita Chaudhry. She lives at a motel where she also works as a cleaner. Though right now, Mina is at a grocery store with an auntie buying dozens of gallons of milk for a wedding. On the car ride home, Mina accidentally rear-end, a van driven by Demetrius, played by Denzel Washington. They exchange names and addresses for insurance purposes. And the car that Mina was driving belongs to a relative, a Neal. And he's worried that Demetrius might sue him over this accident.

But Demetrius says, like, no worries, I'm not going to sue you after a scene where other of Mina's relatives try to, like, smooth. things over and be like, we're not white. So we got to stick together and help each other out. Yeah. And we'll talk more about all of that. There's also, there's like this ongoing theme of Americans and litigation and specifically white Americans in litigation, but this like anxiety around like this is a specifically American thing just suing the shit out of each other, which is true. Americans are a very litigious people. Yeah. Amongst other things.

Yeah, amongst many other things. There's also the backdrop of the fact that Jay himself is a lawyer. Yeah. So he's a defense attorney back in Uganda. And we can talk about that as well because he's like kind of in this profession that is actually about defending Ugandan's through systems of justice. So there's kind of multiple forms like suing as a kind of weirdly American thing. Suing in in like totally minor matters versus what Jay finds to be, you know, moral of his life, which is to try to regain some sense of justice as it relates to his

lost property in Uganda. But we learn more about Demetrius. He has his own carpet cleaning business. We also meet some members of his family, including his brother Dex and their father, Willi Ben, who works at a restaurant. Then we cut to the wedding that Mina's family is attending. I believe it's a Neal's wedding. And we see women in the community gossiping about Mina saying that because she's darker skinned

and her family doesn't have money, she's not good enough for someone like Harry Patel. And one of these gossips is Miranair. It's so wonderful. Yeah. So they're like, she's not good enough for Harry Patel. Though this Harry fellow asks Mina to go out with him after the wedding. So he takes her to a bar and guess who happens to be there? It's Demetrius and he's kind of preoccupied when he runs into an old flame of his, a musician named Alicia who is there with another man,

a record producer because she's trying to get her music career off the ground. Yeah, they're both being a little bit diabolical during this first meeting, which I was, which I was like, again, I'm like, it's just such a well-written movie. And it feels so real where I was like, wow, that never comes back, but of course it comes back. That it's sort of like they're trying to use each other to make someone else jealous or feel a type of way. And then they end up falling in love. And yeah. Yeah.

Because what happens is Demetrius asks Mina if she wants to dance to try to make Alicia jealous. And they get very close and cozy. And poor Harry Patel is like, um, what about me? And he ups and leaves. Demetrius then takes Mina home. And a short time later, she calls him and he invites her to his dad's birthday party that weekend. Meanwhile, we learn that Mina's dad, Jay, has been working on this lawsuit for the past five years,

where he's suing the Ugandan government for illegally displacing his family. Mina asks her mom what happened between her father and his friend O'Kalo. But Kino changes the subject. Then we cut to Demetrius driving Mina to the birthday party and they're getting to know each other. Mina tells him about her backstory. She's been in Mississippi for three years, before that London for several years, before that Uganda. And she's never been to India, despite being of Indian descent. Then they arrive at his family's house for the party.

Mina meets his dad, his grandfather, his brother Dex, his aunt Rose, and his friend Tyrone, played by Charles S. Dutton, who is, she's already met him, but he continues to be rather creepily lusting after Mina. The family asks her a bunch of questions about where she's from, about having lived in Africa about how Indian people ended up there. And then as soon as Demetrius's ex-Alisha shows up, he and Mina leave. They go to the bayou and walk around where they're vibing and they kiss on the lips. Great scene. It's so romantic. Oh, yeah. And also he asks for consent twice, which you almost never see, but you love to see it. Then he invites her to go with him to Biloxi, which I had to look up

being unfamiliar with this region, but it's a city in Mississippi on the coast. And they're enjoying a nice little vacation, I believe on her birthday, but a few of Mina's relatives, including Anil and characters named Napkin and Pontiac, also happened to be in Biloxi, and they see Mina's relatives, and Demetrius together. So they go after them, saying, like, stay away from our women. A fight breaks out. Cops get involved, and Mina and Demetrius are arrested. Jay bails Mina out of jail.

Her parents feel like she has brought shame to the family. But Mina tells them that she's in love with Demetrius. Meanwhile, Demetrius is also getting scrutiny from his family. family, a bank loan for his business is in jeopardy, and Mina's family tarnishes Demetrius's professional reputation around town. He goes to talk to Mina about all of this at the motel where she works, but Jay comes out instead. So Demetrius confronts him for disrespecting him and his business and confronts him for his lack of solidarity with other people of color. Also, Jay has received word from the Ugandan government about his lawsuit, and they're granting him a hearing,

and so he has to travel back to Kampala for that. We get a flashback of Jay's final night living in Uganda before he's forcibly removed. O'Kalo is telling him that it doesn't matter that Jay was born in Uganda and identifies as Ugandan more so than he does Indian, because Africa is for black, Africans and Jay doesn't belong there. Which we saw a less in context clip of at the very beginning of the movie. Yeah, yes. I think this is also the flashback where we see Jay getting arrested and then O'Kalo bailing him out of jail. Then Mina and her dad have a conversation about why they left Uganda and it seems as though

Jay is jaded by the fact that he was expelled from the country simply because of his race and ethnicity, and he thinks that maybe Indian people should just stick together and not mix with other people. Then to retaliate for having his professional reputation ruined, Demetrius decides to sue Aeneal for $50,000 after all, claiming to have a back injury from when Mina rear-ended him while driving Anil's car. Jay decides to take his family back to you, Uganda, partly to get Mina away from Demetrius, partly to leave Mississippi where they don't feel wanted, and partly for his hearing and Kampala to try to reclaim his property. So Mina goes looking for Demetrius to say goodbye. She finds him, but he's upset, accusing her family

of having a problem with black people. And she's like, well, you never asked me anything about myself because you were too busy using me to make your old girlfriend Alicia jealous. And he's like, well, maybe that's how it was at first. But then I fell in love with you. And they reconcile. Mina decides she doesn't want to accompany her parents to Uganda. She wants to go with Demetrius, who also wants to leave Mississippi, and they're going to go somewhere together, potentially start working together. So she tells her parents, meanwhile, Jay returns to Uganda, I think without Kynu. Yes, definitely.

Because she's, she's, I think, taking care of the business back at home. Right. And he learns that his friend O'Kalo died many years ago shortly after Jay left seems at the hand of the Ugandan government, possibly for his dissent. And so Jay laments that he. He refused to say goodbye to Okalo. He realizes that home is where the heart is, and his heart is his family back in the U.S.,

but he will always feel a strong connection to his home country of Uganda. The end. So let's take a quick break, and we'll come back to discuss. An epic rock adventure with Iheart Radio and shine down. in Toronto. Intimate and invite only, July 6.

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Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, new? Huge news. We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to a...

We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers.

This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed the game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo.

Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial, calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them.

Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. And we're back. Where do you want to start? There's so much to talk about. Yeah, Derba, does anything jump out to you as far as where to begin? Oh, I mean, where to begin. As you pointed out, Jamie, right at the beginning, this film is actually so rich.

There's so much to be said about it. When I wrote about it, you know, I partly wrote about it because I was talking about my own family history as I was talking about when we started. But I kind of feel like we should begin at the beginning in that kind of early moment. You described it as a meat cute. It's a hilarious meat cute because it's like 90-style car is breaking. And, you know, like it's... two cars that are just giant metal boxes hitting each other.

But, you know, to me, there's so many parts of this film that are extraordinary. We might start at the beginning only because I think the Uganda story in this is unusual. And I think often most people have not been exposed to, which is that the story of Mina's family, the story of Jay, his wife, Kinnu, is a story of like multiple forced migrations that happened over many, many generations. Yeah. And that feeling of displacement is like, I think, so much a part of that of the film. Yeah.

Absolutely. So, yeah, to provide some additional historical context, obviously it's a complex history, and I'm not an expert in this area. But from what I understand, England was doing what England does, which is colonizing a country in the global south. So England was colonizing Uganda from the late 1800s. to the 1960s. And during that time, the British brought over 30,000 Indian people to Uganda to work,

including to build the Uganda Railway. And the British invested in the education of the South Asian minority, but did not do the same for the indigenous Ugandans. That's right. Which meant that the South Asian minority tended to have higher paying jobs and be better off financially, which led to resentment in the black Ugandan population. That's exactly right. I mean, at the time in the late 19th century, India was like the crown jewel of the British Empire, meaning it was the longest held area, the richest area. That's how Britain got

its wealth. And it also got its labor that way, right? And what we know is that the 19th century, the 18th and 19th century are stories of the movement of labor, enslaved labor, indentured labor. And the movement of labors into Eastern Africa, in Kenya, in Uganda, and Tanzania, also in South Africa, we see this in the mines and in railroads, is really critical to British imperial aspirations. Yeah. You know, and so it's about the force movement of people. Exactly as you described, we see, like, the British create these divide and rural policies. And one of the things that I found really striking in the film is actually that we get a sense of the divide and rural policies here in this. the United States as well. But we don't often use the language that we would describe for colonialism.

So exactly, as you said, Indians gain access to capital. They gain access to educational opportunities when they're in Uganda. They become the kind of business people on the ground in Uganda. And then they gain access to property. And we see the same in the depictions that are happening in Mississippi. Because in Mississippi, like we know for many parts of the United States, Asian minorities or Asian immigrants, including South Asian immigrants, begin to get access to small business loans, access to business ownership, usually hotels, motels, and liquor stores. And we see that across the American South, whereas black people from the same community

have difficulty accessing small business loans. We see that in Demetrius' own experience trying to gain access to a loan. And so the divide-in rule that is to, taking place in Uganda is also taking place in the American South. Yeah, absolutely. And the movie presents all of this in really nuanced ways. In this like really thoughtful, I don't know, the way, because this is history that I am still not well versed in, but am at least aware of now, but was certainly not taught

in, you know, my American public school. And it's just, you know, yet another reminder of how intentionally, colonialism and the complexities of colonialism aren't taught. For sure. Yeah, it's striking. And the fact that that logic kind of bears out in this story, too, where we see Mina sort of explaining this history to Demetrius because this is like not something that's really taught in American schools and intentionally so.

And so I feel like we as audience members are learning sort of with him. essentially. Totally. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, yeah, so exactly as you describe, right? And so then in 1972 with the displacement, the forced expulsion of Asians that happens under the dictatorship of Idiomene, who comes into power through basically a military coup, takes over the military. The military becomes like a militia on his behalf of his dictatorship. And then he says, Africa is for the Africans, for the black Africans. And by then, There are 80 to 100,000 Indian descent Ugandans in Uganda. It's a huge population of people where they're going to go.

Yeah. So some of them went to the U.S., some of them went to England, some of them went to India, even though they maybe were never there before. Right. And then in Mina and her family's case, they went to the U.S. to Mississippi by way of London. I think Mina says she's only been in Mississippi for three years. bits of this context we learn throughout the movie, but that's that's kind of the broad picture that contextualizes Jay and his motivation behind the lawsuit and wanting to return to Uganda

and reclaim his stolen property. And that also informs to some degree his sentiments around the black American community. in Mississippi. Because like you said, Derba, toward the top of the episode, the movie is constantly examining different characters' relationships to their racial and ethnic identity

and how that plays into racial biases, how that plays into colorism, how that plays into people adhering to white supremacy even if they are not white, so many things. And we see this from, many different angles from many different characters. I also think, like, I find that this film is one of the most honest in the way that it examines

anti-black racism among South Asian diasporic people. And Jay's anti-black racism, when he says that his daughter is not allowed to be in a relationship with Demetrius, is very, you know, in some ways, the movie is trying to tell us a story about his prejudices that comes from a personal, experience of alienation and violence that happens between his friendship breakup, essentially, with O'Kalo. But in terms of her family members, we get a deep-seeded sense of anti-black racism in that community, which was really interesting when I was writing about the film. I thought that was a really important point to point out. And I mean, I should just note there's two very,

very well-known Indian-Ugandan or Ugandan descent, South Asian diasporic people who are in the public eye right now. One is Zeran Mamdani, of course, Mirr's son, who is the product of this film. We can talk about that in his second. And then the other is Cash Patel, the, I guess, head of the FBI. And you get a really different sense of the trajectory of what happens in diaspora. Really different guys. Really different guys. Yeah. Yep. And speaking to the Zora Mamdani of it all and his origin story and how it relates to this film. I think without Mississippi Masala, we might not have Zaraad Mabani. So we have you definitely not so much. That's definitely true. Yeah. His father is Mahmoud Mamd Mamdani, an extraordinary political theorist, thinker, who is Indian descent, Ugandan, who was himself expelled in

1972 and in fact has recently written a book called Slow Poison about his own expulsion and the experience of returning back to Uganda, which is worth anyone reading. But as you all probably know, on the film, Mira did many, many different interviews with people of Ugandan descent and people in the American South. She did a tour of the American South. And in that period, she met Mahmoud Bamdani, this famous academic. And there was a love story of their own. So, Right at the end of the film, you can see that she dedicates the movie to him. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Which is so cute. And this movie, I believe, comes out the same year that Zerodamani comes out. Comes out. Into our world. His mom's uterus. Yeah. Yeah. Look, Miranair was releasing in 1991.

She's producing a lot this year. Yeah, that's true. And all of it impactful. Yes. But yeah, the love story that exists, I mean, I just, I love a love story inside of a love story. It's impossible to resist. Yeah, it seems like, because she was married to another man when she was doing this research. Who's a producer and production is on her on the movie.

Yeah, Mitch Epstein. It's juicy. And I don't know exactly what happened, but my head canon is that it seems like their marriage was already kind of falling apart at that point. But that she went to interview her soon-to-be husband, Mahmoud, Mamd, Mom Dani. And she's just like, hmm, let me put a pin in this. And then they smooched and made a baby. And now that baby is the mayor of New York City. Life comes at you fast. It sure does. And then Mira and Sunni, this screenwriter, after their trip, to Kampala to do the research there. They went to Mississippi, where they met a carpet cleaner

named Demetrius and decided to model that character after this real-life person. So the script comes together. Ben Kingsley was originally supposed to play Jay, but he stepped down, which meant that Mirren Eyre lost funding for the project because the funding was sort of contingent on Ben Kingsley's involvement, but she was able to get more funding when Denzel was cast. Although there is a story about how executives were really trying to push for the character played by Denzel to be a white actor. They were pushed. I mean, it's a story that she's told many times and usually with a really funny button,

which is that she said she tells the producers, there will be white actors. they will all be playing waiters, which is iconic, incredible. I mean, it's also, I mean, so Mir and I and I work together because all of the papers, all of the materials that are related to the making of Mississippi Missala, but also all of her films are held at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard. And I collected those papers. And when we were working together, you know, essentially I learned to. so much about her filmmaking process.

And so she, you know, she was like just extraordinary and remarkable for all kinds of reasons. So, I mean, she was one of the only women filmmakers doing this kind of work at the time that she was doing it. You know, we have so many people today who follow in the footsteps. But, you know, feminist filmmakers were not getting big budget films by any means. So getting funded for this was really hard. And if you go into her archives, you can see all of the casting calls for Mississippi And I'll just note that archive is open and free to the public. So I just want to note that for

anyone who wants to go in. It has all the posters. And she has these little moleskin notebooks where she writes notes about every aspect of making the film, like what she's doing, her decision making, who she interviewed. And she's like a real ethnographer. She goes and talks to lots of different people. But there are all of these folders with the casting calls with little headshots of all of the like famous South Asians of the period. You know, there's very few South Asian actors at the time who were famous and and miras little notes about who's beautiful and who's good looking and who should be in what brought the shot. And so in there you can see that Denzel coming onto the film was the, you know, the thing that made it possible. And also, I mean, it's, I mean, it's not shocking

to hear from white film executives, but without a black actor in that role, the story is impossible to tell. Like the entire shape of the movie changes. I enjoyed learning about more about her. That's first of all, incredible that you compiled that collection. I can't wait to go back home and visit. I highly suggest it. It has amazing things. And I'll talk about other stuff in there, but I really suggest it for anyone who wants to learn more about me or not. We should be writing a thousand books about her because she's so interesting. One thing I didn't know about her that I watched a bunch of interviews with her to prepare for this that I know you know, but I want our listeners to know too. We've talked pretty frequently on this show about directors who are

spotleting specifically like non-actors that are in a vulnerable, like that are from a vulnerable community and how as a director and as an artist can you continue to support that community after the movie has ended after like the dust of something being released is I think we've talked about it most frequently with tangerine comes right to mind. And Mirra Naird did this incredible thing with her first film, which I haven't seen, or her first fiction, her first narrative film, Salam Bombay, that features normal kids and has started a now 37 year, or like a close to 40 years foundation that didn't just support that group of children featured in the movie, but has supported children in Mumbai for, yeah, since the movie came out, it's called the Salam Bombay

foundation and you know she's spoken a lot about how she was inspired by her mother's work as a social worker in terms of like how to build this and how to get the right people involved that just is a place for I think I believe that there's also kids that live there there are some kids that just get access to resources and education there but really kind of following through in this like political art mission and creating something that's been and it seems like really impactful and sustaining far beyond the life of, you know, the movie's release itself is just so inspiring and so cool. I think also what you would see, so she started first doing little documentary films. Although she's always been a storyteller, if you ever have a conversation with Mir naier, you know that she's one of the greatest storyteller, so charismatic, so amazing.

But she, one of the films that I love teaching from Mirr and I are is a 1985 documentary that, she produced, that she made called India Cabaret, which is about the women who work in the dancing industry, essentially sex work and adjacent to sex work in Bombay. This is before she made Salam Bombay, where essentially women who are performing in bars, you wouldn't call them strip clubs, but equivalent, you know, sensual kind of performances. And I think from that film, you get an understanding of Mira's real commitment and interest to thinking about the sexual possibility and liberation and dreaming of women and how those worlds are foreclosed or policed or violently censored by the communities within which they live,

but how women try to create worlds through their own systems of ideas of desire. And I think we get that a lot in Mississippi Masala too, right? Mina is such a defiant character. I immediately find myself attracted to her. As a young woman, I so find myself empathetic to who she wanted to be and how she wanted to desire and how her desires exceeded, you know, supposed norms from her own community and the men who follow her into a hotel room and then call the police on her and Demetrius.

Yeah. Right. Because it seems as though there's pressure. from her parents to some degree and then just the larger Indian diasporic community around her in Mississippi that there's pressure on her to specifically get with an Indian man. So for her to get romantically involved with a black man

is defying that expectation and there's a lot of anti-black racism surrounding that where, like that scene toward the beginning after the, fender bender where Mina's uncles go to Demetrius to be like, hey, you know, like, it doesn't

matter if you're black, brown, Mexican, Puerto Rican, you know, you know, we're not white, so we have to stand together. United, we stand, divided, we fall. And you get the sense that maybe he does believe that, but maybe he's also just saying that to avoid

a lawsuit. And then when they go after the lovers, in the hotel room and one of them is saying like stay away from our women the mask comes off and it's like oh maybe you don't actually believe in solidarity and you know so that's exactly right the false nature of the solidarity that they express early on and I think the film makes us ask like where will solidarity come from like what what kind of solidities can we forge and in this case you know is it the solidarity like demetrius is a business owner

but is doing working class labor inside of a hotel or motel system that is owned by the Indian diaspora. So these are people who are in the lower middle classes and or lower class doing labor that no white southerner wants to do. And so they are in the excluded classes. And yet the way we create hierarchies within those communities, the nuances of those stories and those, that sense of violent intimacy, is so profound in this film. And I think, like, to me, you know, it's very rare that you find that kind of, there's something about this moment in the 1990s

in the early 90s, like this movie came out at the same time as Boys in the Hood, the same year. And that is not surprising to me because there's something deeply local about the storytelling that's happening in this early 90s period that I love, you know,

that is trying to tell about structures of hierarchy within communities and the stories that, previously to this were never represented on screen. It's so specific in a way that, like, I feel like we get less of over time. I mean, I feel like whatever, the independent movies sort of come and go in popularity and, like, how well distributed they are, I guess. But it is really cool seeing this.

Like, I think almost every movie we've covered from the early 90s has this sort of level of very, like, intense specific. and something that we so rarely get to see in movie set in the U.S. is like a conflict between obviously white Americans are involved in, but they're not centered or pandered to or, you know, just the things that honestly, like I almost expect in a movie that discusses race is that there's going to be like a sympathetic white character somewhere and that just is, is not what's happening here.

It's, I hate that that feels kind of like stark, but it does. Who are the characters that you all found to be, like who's a sympathetic character to you? I mean, Mina. Of course. Potentially Demetrius.

But who do you find, like, do you find yourself sympathetic to Jay? I do. Yeah, I do. I don't think he's, like, he's perhaps not perfect in the way that no one is. But I very much empathize with his struggle. Again, he was forcibly displaced from his home country that he loves deeply and was deeply loyal to. He had to take his family elsewhere.

And they are affected by that to some degree, but it doesn't seem, they don't seem as affected as Jay. And he is, again, like, you know, the lawsuit and the loss of his friends. and all these things that seem to bring a deep sadness to him. Yeah, it's like one of the many, I feel like, it feels like it's like an impossible writing challenge to write a character like does display anti-black racism, like just does, full stop is called out to his face by Demetrius to the point where Jay can't quite do it, but like almost does have to agree with him.

But it, I feel like it's, it's contextualized but not excused, which also has a lot to do with Rishan Seth's performance. But it's hard. Yeah. I feel like the, the context we get for why he's behaving this way is not such that we would ever, you know, feel as he does towards this relationship, but you do understand where it's coming from. I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the character who I wanted to know more about, but who is, just extraordinary also is her mom, Kinnew. Yeah. I also felt, I was like, I want to know more about Mina herself and like her pursuits and interests.

She says like, yeah, I'll go to college eventually. What does she maybe want to study? What are her interests? I do appreciate that in the romance between her and Demetrius, they do have a lot in common. Mostly it seems based on how they navigate the world.

They have different cultural backgrounds, but they have similar class backgrounds, similar professions. The thing that really stuck with me about what bonded them or that's manifest itself in different ways, but that they're both making very intentional sacrifices. We know that they have both made, they've both sacrificed the opportunity for higher education

in the interest of being there for kind of their father specifically. which is like such a specific bond that is like really, really strong that again, it's like the story makes you kind of wait to find out. You know this about Mina pretty quickly, but you find out when Mina goes to the cookout that Demetrius was going to go to university and then ended up staying behind because his mother passed and he wanted to be present for his dad, which is like, I mean, that's a strong trauma bond to have with someone. I thought it was like really thoughtful. I do wish that we knew Demetrius's family a little bit better as well, where we only have like a handful of scenes with Willie Ben. And we do get, I mean, towards the

end we get a scene with Demetrius and Jay, which is very impactful and like so much of what the movie is about exists in that scene. And then we get a scene with Mina and Willie Ben that their relationship hasn't really been built to have that same impact. It's more of just like a plot scene. You mean the one where she's like, where's your son? Yeah, that's sort of like the whole scene where she's like, where is your son? He's like, all right, he's, he's over there. And that's kind of the scene. Because it's like that relationship wasn't like kind of built quite in that same way. I do like the birthday party scene though, where, where Demetrius's family is kind of interrogating Mina because they're fascinated. They're like, wait a minute, you're Indian, but you're

from Africa? How could that be? And, you know, she gives them the context about how her family was brought there, trafficked there to build the railway. And she's like, but I've never been to India. And they're like, oh, that's like us. We've never been to Africa. Yeah. Right. I mean, those, that's like, that's the thing, right? Which is like all of these forced, like, forcibly displaced people, whether through systems of enslavement or through colonialism or through colonialism or through colonialism and then what happens later, which is American capitalism, which brings people to the U.S. and from the 1960s on. Like that world where we are all, all these people of color put into intimate relationships with one another on behalf of some other project. And we all have to

grapple with the fact that we're told that we're not from the place. And we see that right now in American rhetoric, right, which is like that rhetoric that the Indian American or the immigrant is not really from this place, right? So you can so easily expel them. And we sell that literal expulsion in this film, which is actually, it's like, you know, from 35 years ago. And yet it feels so relevant now. And the same thing for the fact that, you know, the Black American Southern story is told not only a story of people who are deeply located in the South, but also as people who were dislocated from a place that they never get to go to. That story as a kind of parallel is very, I think, sophisticated. It's told very well in this in this film. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's a

contrast between the black characters who are quite removed from their ancestral culture and Mina's community, several of whom seem to be born and raised in India. And there's a scene, I think, at the wedding where I think it's napkin gives a speech saying that, just because we're 10,000 miles away from India, we should not forget our roots, culture, tradition, and gods. And that's the other thing. Like, even though there are very few white characters and they get very little time on screen, the characters we're following throughout the story very much feel the effects of white supremacy that's constantly looming around them. Totally. I think the only white characters, like, as you said, those are waiters. I think police

officers. Pops, bankers. Bankers, exactly. They represent cats. capital, they represent corseality. Yeah. Which is really interesting. Yeah. Just evil systems. It's where we're seeing it. But yeah, the Indian characters have the privilege of having closeness to their culture and being

able to, or at least more close, more closeness for sure. Or I would say like almost like a reenactment. It's not even like a closeness. It's more like we will reenact this to create a system of belonging for ourselves. And that reenactment will also include the patriarchy. Like in case you're wondering, like that, you know, like we're also going to be your uncles who surveil you when you go to Biloxi to try to have this love affair. Like, and these like, you know, completely unfit Basie uncles like come in and try to beat them. And it's like such a striking story.

In some ways it's a story to me, I guess maybe it resonates with me as a person of the diaspora of the way that diaspora of the way that diaspora. sometimes actually reinforce or actually create new systems of patriarchy because that policing of our borders becomes more important in the place that we've been displaced to than even the place of our home. Sure, yeah. Going off of that attack and also how quickly her uncles are to get the police involved, we see that happen. And the cops are threatening to arrest Mina for like soliciting sex, being or

sex worker. Of course, they're going to arrest the black man involved. The cops are doing everything you would expect they would do in the situation. But even on a longer timeline, as infuriating as it is to watch play out, I appreciate that the movie does go out of its way to show that, I mean, it cuts from that scene where Mina is defending herself to her parents saying, like, I think it was a line where it's like, it doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter. And then we cut to it mattering to everybody in all of these really frustrating ways and seeing that at least in terms of his business, in terms of his reputation, that Demetrius does have more to lose because of how black Americans are treated and how,

you know, this rumor mill that's surrounding this incident that had nothing to do with Mina or Demetrius is going to possibly lose Demetrius his business. And just seeing the immediate, immediate violent effects and then also the violent consequences that happen, well, not consequences, they didn't do anything. The violence that continues over time is infuriating. And it does, you know, when Demetrius confronts Jay, which wasn't even planned, I mean, that was sort of, it's, it's Jay's fault that confrontation happens because he won't let Demetrius and Mina just have a conversation, even though I think Mina's like 20,

in the movie. Yeah, she's fully grown. Yeah. And that confrontation between them is, I mean, it's also two incredible actors, but, but it's so earned. And seeing Demetrius and Tyrone have to go to meeting after meeting after meeting and, you know, be gaslit as to why he's losing his business and why his reputation has been so thoroughly affected by this attack, by. by Mina's uncles, but also obviously by the police and by all of these white supremacist systems. Right. And you can see like the difference, right, which is like Mina is attacked on the basis of her sexuality. She's like perceived as a prostitute. I've actually written a book on this, which is like about the control of women's sexuality. And his is on the basis of capital, right? We got to take away the capital. And it's amazing. I mean, so interesting to me, I'm going to go back to Mina's mom, Kano.

who's played by this amazing Indian actress, Charmilla Tagore. Everybody check out Shabila Tagore. Who is like, she's iconic. She's iconic by the 1990s. And so Mirr and I knew what she was doing by casting her in this role. And the mom knows that her daughter is grown. And she knows that what her daughter is doing is not wrong. And she's mediating the relationship between the father who's dug his heels in

and the community that's judging, and, you know, excluding her daughter and, you know, treating her like a sexual deviant, this daughter who she recognizes in herself, like that, that relationship I found to be really nuanced and profound. You know, like, there's so many relationships. And the only relationship we haven't yet really talked about is Mina's and Demetrius's. Yeah. I like it.

I love it. I think in general they're very sweet and respectful to you. each other. Of course, the basis of the relationship with Demetrius using Mina to make his ex-girlfriend jealous. He admits to it. Yeah. And he says, yes, that is how it started, but also then I fell in love with you. So. Yeah. And I also, I mean, it's not quite the same level of like, I guess, strategy that Mina's doing with Harry. But also, she's not being very nice to Harry Patel, who my understanding is didn't do anything to deserve that. You know, I'm sure he got over it over the weekend, but I still like, damn, rough night for Harry Patel. I mean, I didn't feel so bad for me, Harry,

only because I was like, Harry probably thinks she's easy. Like, I'm sorry, not in a crude way. But Mina is seen as not the nice girl within that spark community. And so Harry, by taking her out, knows what he's doing. And then, of course, she exceeds that too, because she's my like she is my life goals like I want to be that defiant I mean Mina is so I just like for a moment one so like specific and so herself and so like I mean there's like that early scene right before they go to the wedding where she you know it seems like her her mother is kind of talking around mentioning colorism and Mina just says it and it's like sorry you have a dark skin daughter. Yeah. Which again was just like I don't know like how many versions of that do we see of like

someone talking around an issue and then there's someone in the room who is just like let's just say what it is and go to this fucking wedding we don't want to go to. And then yeah, cut to the aunties being colorist and saying that she's not good enough for the likes of Harry. So it almost feels like she's defying that colorism by being like, oh, you think, you think I'm not good enough for him? Well, I'm going to use him and send him packing then. Exactly. And I will just be exuberantly beautiful this whole time. Along the way. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, overall with that relationship between Mina and Demetrius, I mean, also the sex scene. Oh, yes. I mean, we have to talk about the sex scenes. We got to. Even the scene where they're in separate rooms on the phone with each other.

And they're both like just splayed out on their bed. That to me was almost hotter than the sex scene. I know. Oh, that's definitely the best sex scene. Yeah. Yeah. Something about Denzel Washington being like, what are you wearing? And Sarita de Trojee replying a t-shirt is the hottest thing I've ever seen in my entire life.

Yeah. And then like as that's happening, like her, I don't know if it's like a silk or satire. sheet or something is like slowly between her side. Revealing the fact that she does not have underwear on and you're just like, oh my God. Yeah, yeah. And then when they do finally have sex, it

is like, I just, it's so like tender and sensual and I was like, hubba, hubba. I feel like that also kind of speaks to you. There's so many beautiful elements in the filmmaking in the like in the way we see both, you know, both in Uganda

and in Mississippi, the colors on the screen, the colors are crazy, right? And I will just say, like, as a person of color, the lighting in this film is incredible because we can see the contrast and the beautiful differences between skin color, which requires a very skilled filmmaker. Yeah, and cinematographer, which is one of Miranar's characteristics of her films is just the extraordinary beauty of what we get to see on the on screen. And the idea that we get to see, you know, so the number of scenes that their skin is touching,

to show contrast, but also to, you know, intimacy and contrast. That is just like, again, something you don't get a sense of until, you know, nowadays we hear black filmmakers talk about this often, right? Which is like so often in old films you don't see good lighting. But this film, the lighting, and from what I understand, they use different film for Uganda and for Mississippi to capture the sense of the lighting. You know, there's a kind of warm hue in Mississippi. And we get a different warm hue when he's, you know, when Jay goes back to Uganda and he's holding the baby right at the end, obviously. But, yeah.

And then there's like, it's all sweaty. Sorry, I'm going to go back to the sex. It's all sweating. Like, the sweat is good. A shout out to the sweat. Yes, more sweat, please. But no, you're totally right. Because we are so used to, in American movies, Western movies in general,

any time a country in the global south is depicted, it's almost always portrayed as this barren wasteland, dusty, dirty. But like the version that we get of Uganda is so lush and green and flowers everywhere. And it's just gorgeous. So I deeply appreciated that. Also, back to the sex scene. Just flip-flopping back and forth. Worth noting that Denzel Washington, and this is pretty well known,

but he generally refuses to kiss white women in movies. Like he'll avoid roles where he would be in a romantic relationship with a white woman because he feels it does a disservice to his fan base, many of whom are black women who are so rarely shown on screen as being romantically viable. Obviously, Mina isn't black, but brown, South Asian women are also typically not shown as romantic interests in Hollywood movies. He does refuse to have romantic interests who are white women, but one of the things that he describes is that it's really about America, right? It's, yes, his fan base is often the black community, but it's also about the fact that the idea of a black man and a white woman is so deeply ingrained in the deep racial violence of America. For sure.

That white communities and white viewers have an association with that relationship, with those relationships. That is just, you know, tied to histories of slavery and lynching. And for him, you know, being able to be. his full self as an actor and to serve the art requires not having, you know, to deal with the weight of those, that invocation. And that was, what was striking is the fact that he did this film, you know, so he, and in that sex scene, there is some real, you know, things that I would have, again, I saw this film when I was really young. And I think that there's like a nipple bite up in there. Like, I think, you know, like there is. And, you know, like the idea of seeing,

a brown nipple. I'm sorry for being as explicit. Oh my God. No, we're all, this is the show. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I just, I just think that it's really important. Totally. Like I had just never seen body like that, you know? It's just amazing. No, it's incredible. It's so hot. And it's so like, and in a like, in that like imperceptible way that you can just like feel when you watch something, it's, I don't know. It's just like it's a really well-directed and performed love scene. It's so good. There was a interview with Denzel Washington in the last couple of years, I think, 2024, where kind of just building on this, he was asked why he didn't

do more romantic comedies or romantic films and singled out Mississippi Massala as kind of one of the few he had done. And he, I just thought it was interesting to note that he corrected, he was like, because I wasn't offered any. because rom-coms during the time he would have been doing them in his, you know, 20s through 40s or whenever you typically do them as a man, certainly not as a woman. Yeah, turn 30 and you die. But when he would have been doing them, they weren't being offered to black actors, at least not at the budget levels that he was working in in other genres.

Totally. anyone have other thoughts about the film i just wanted to say why do you think they have to leave at the end who um what does that do for you in terms of the storyline i guess i was like fixated on their like the commonality they had of having postponed starting their own lives in the interest of their family and it seemed at least to be that like this was the two of them who were already in love choosing to start their lives and not delay starting their lives for other people in their life even if that comes with like I mean I think especially well with with both of their fathers that the goodbye is really difficult and doesn't happen in person for either because it would be

too painful even though it's like you get those great like post credit kissing scenes and you're like, yeah, they were, it worked out. It does feel kind of bittersweet too, because it's like, you know that this isn't their preference, but like at some point it, I don't know, I read it as like, if I let my family stay in the driver's seat, my life is never going to start. Yeah, I felt that too, that they wanted to sort of release themselves from the constraints that they felt about pressure, societal. pressures, familial pressures, things like that. And also, they're both young. Mena's 24. I don't know how old

Demetrius is supposed to be, but I'm guessing around the same age. And then, Denzel is fully, Denzel is fully a decade plus older. Okay, okay, got it. I wonder if he's meant to be playing a character that's about her age, though? I think so, yeah. But either way, they're, if she's like mid-20s, because they hang out like three times before they're like, I love you. And I'm like, okay, that's that's fast. But that's also 20-something behavior. Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. I guess I thought that there was like this feeling like particularly for Mina's family. And for Mina, like she was forcibly expelled from Uganda as a kid. She's forced to move. And Demetrius is forced to stay home because his mom has passed. And then it's like there's this one moment where they have like a moment of consent or choice, which I liked the idea of, you know, that like here are people who have been like displaced or held down or subordinated and oppressed. And here was this idea that there was some other vision of freedom where you choose to have it, which I loved the idea of. And then there's the dancing at the end, you know. I love that scene. I just cry. Yeah.

So good. And then Jay's like holding the baby. The baby. Oh my God. The baby. And the baby makes his face. Oh my God. I can't.

I can't. I just just crying. Weeping. In the theater. Yeah. So beautiful. It's so good. Yeah.

How many kinds of love can you depict on at the end of a film? That's kind of amazing. Yeah. It's so incredible. Like it. for almost every character things come full circle I think yeah I think maybe like the last thing

I think just like going back to something you said earlier Durba that I wish that we had a little more with Kino insight into because I feel I feel like a lot of it is in the writing but I feel like it's more in Sharmilla Tagore's performance that you have these like I don't know yeah that

you get the feeling that she really understands what Mina is feeling and has felt that way herself, which I feel like mostly comes across in performance. And it would have been cool to see a little bit more of them together. But again, it's like that's nitpicking at some point because it's like this movie is already successfully like drawing out so many relationships. Yeah, it's doing so much. I agree though. I would have liked to know more about, especially Cano's backstory, because we learned so much about Jays. Right. And I also think it's worth mentioning that like so many immigrants to the U.S. who in their home country were highly educated, doctors, lawyers, professors, things like that, they come to the U.S. and their credentials are deemed not worthy.

and they are forced into work that has nothing to do with what they studied and things like that. And that's the case for Jay where in Uganda he was a lawyer and then in the U.S. runs a liquor store. Not that there's anything wrong with running a liquor store, of course, but it seems like maybe he wanted to keep pursuing laws. Yeah. But yeah, we do learn so much about his backstory. And I would have liked to know more about Kinoos because was she born in Uganda? she born elsewhere, what were her hopes and dreams, etc.? I think especially because she, we see her as the target of violence in that opening sequence.

Yeah. By Idiotamine's regime that we see that and we don't really get context for her relationship to Uganda feels like just something that there is room for, I guess. Yeah. Well, the movie does pass the Bechdel test. I think I kind of forgot to pay attention. as I often do these days. It definitely does.

There's a few, I mean, it is very often that women are either talking about J or Demetrius, depending on the pairing of women. I definitely think there's room for more women in the story going on to what we were just talking about. But it does pass between Mina and her mother. I believe it also passes once or twice between Mina and Aunt Rose, who is Demiress. Oh, yeah. Who only gets one scene, but she's so lovely. She is quite a memorable character.

Also between Mina and her auntie, they talk about milk. They do. And also, Mina talks to her friend Tedis, who is only in one scene. I was hoping Tedis would come back, but she's at the scene in the bar. And she seems to know Demetrius. So I'm like, why isn't she coming back? Yeah. Because I would have liked to explore that friendship further.

I wrote down it. It was like when she didn't come back, I'm like, I feel like there's a deleted scene with her somewhere. Yeah. Could be. Yeah. But on to the Bechtelcast nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. Honestly, in a rare Bechtelcast moment, I'm giving this the full five nipples. Hell yeah.

I think it's doing so much. I think it is handling the topics that it handles with such care and nuance and specificity in a way that few movies before or since have been able to do. Yeah, it's just a great, great film. And by our standards, top marks across the board. So yeah, five nipples. I'll give one to Mir and Iyer. I'll give one to her son.

And I'm going to start referring to. Zora Mamdani as Mir and I're son. I mean, I think he's used to it. I will say, yeah, until like a year ago. Yeah. I think that's a kid. That was his whole deal for a while. Yeah. And he was Mahmoud Mamd Mahmdani's son. I should just, you know, you know, this incredibly beautiful orator, scholar, father, who, um, both of them, between the two of them, you get a sense of why their son is so good at what he does. Yeah. Yep. And I'll just repeat the some of my nipples between Charmela Tagore,

Sarita Chaudry, Sunni Terraporevala, and I don't know if that adds up to five, but you get the idea. I'm gonna be a huge bitch and go four and a half, only because I know, evil, bad, only because I did

want a little more of Kinu and a little more insight into, in a and I've been guilty of this as well, but the, the, um, It does seem like the script is a little more interested in children's relationships to their fathers, which is a common thing. Whatever. It is a relatively small thing, but something that I just wish we had more of the mother-daughter relationship. Outside of that, I mean, we've been saying it for an hour and a half now.

It is just like an extraordinary movie. I've never seen a movie like this. And the fact that this movie is taking so much on dealing. with it very gracefully and with nuance. And there's like one of the hottest sex scenes I've ever seen. Just like incredible. So I'm going four and a half. And I'm just going to make it easy and give them all to Mirren Nair. Nice. That's amazing. Darba how about you? Oh, I get to keep out nipples. It's amazing. I'm going to go, you know, it's really interesting. If you look in the period that when this book, when this film came out, you know, first of all, the film was depicted.

as like a story of love between like a South Asian or an Indian American and, you know, African American. And I feel like if you think about it now, you can see so many other elements. Like the story of Uganda is so important in this film and the story of multiple displacements and the kind of divide and rule that's part of racial regimes. All of those things for me make it like I think I'm at four and a half as well. And I'm at four and a half, the only half being exactly as you described, if you look in the same period, Bell Hooks actually has a really interesting essay on Miranair's film and on race relations at that time from the 1990s, from 92. And some of the feminists of that period were critical of the film because they felt that some of the feminist themes like the complexity of women's relationships or the stereotypical sensibility of the aunties who are judging Sarita Childery's character that some of the stereotypes were too stereotypical.

I have to say now looking back, though, that I find it to be profound. Like, there is like some caricature sensibility, like when you're in the wedding scene or in your, but I don't find them to be wrong. Like, aunties are aunties. They are judgmental. Sometimes they be like that. They be like that. Exactly. So I'm going to go four and a half with the only, only because I wish that I could have seen more of Sharmilla Tagore because I love her so, so much.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining us for this discussion. Yeah, please come back. Please. I would love to. Tell me what feminist filmmaker we can talk about next. Hell yeah. Incredible.

Incredible. Where can people follow your work, check out your books, social media, anything you want to plug? I'm on Instagram at Third World Women, and I just wrote a book, which just came out in March, which is called The Future That Was, a History of Third World Feminism against Authoritative. which looks at how communities of women from across the third world and women of color in the United States, they tried to imagine a new world where women would be free, where they would have equality, where they would have access to equal rights and sexual rights and reproductive rights, and how they work to build that world and how, perhaps unfortunately, that world has not yet come to be. That sounds fascinating.

I can't wait to read it. I can't wait to follow up with you about checking. out Miranair's work at Harvard. That's so cool. That's like that just sounds like the most incredible curation project that exists. I will also shout out. There is a Zeranmanbani music video called Nani. Yes. I'm sure many of you have seen where he is doing a rap about Nani's or grandmothers. And the star of that video is this incredibly famous, amazing celebrity chef and cookbook author, Modulor Joffrey. And her collections are also now held at the Slusandra Library at Harvard. So if you want to see some dope South Asian women, go look at those

collections. Oh, yeah. I used to walk by that library every day when I lived in Somerville to get to Harvard Square, the Red Line T-station. No one goes to the light. I mean, like more people need to go to that library. There's like great biopics and great films and great music videos that could come out of the materials in there. Angela Davis is in there, June Jordan. They're amazing women who are whose papers are held in that collection. Shout out libraries. I know. Shout out libraries. Exactly. Free and open to the public. Yep. Let's try to keep it that way. Yeah. Seriously. And then you can follow us on Instagram at Bechtelcast and you can subscribe to our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon where you get two bonus episodes every single month. You get

access to our back catalog of over 200 bonus episodes, all for $5 a month at patreon.com slash bectalcast. Best way to support the show. And with that, shall we get in our cars and lightly tap someone's bumper and have a meat cute and then hot, steamy sex about it? Yeah, sounds like a good time. Why not? I'm ready for my meet-tube.

Yeah. See you. Bye. Bye. Bye. The Bechtelcast is a production of IHeart Media, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. And me, Caitlin Durante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtenen.

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