The Bechdel Cast - Poetic Justice with Propaganda

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Propaganda write beautiful poetry and discuss Poetic Justice.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @prophiphop 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.

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from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, They're just dreams. Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. 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 Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. And this is our podcast where we talk about movies from an intersectional feminist lens. Caitlin, do you have a poem

prepared for today? Is there any, anything you'd like to share with the class? Here's the thing. I did used to write poetry because I was once a teenager and and uh actually this is something that probably you Jamie don't know this about me nor does really anyone there was a time where in my comedy career I was like what if I start writing comedy poetry and that's the thing onto something and that's what people know me as like I'm the poetry comedian because I've written several like comedic poems that I'm honestly very proud of but I didn't follow through with my plan bring it back post-pandemic is the perfect time you can rebrand you're the comedy poet again that's it I feel like that's been a thing in the pandemic too like some comedians have like started writing poetry I don't know I am not one of them I last

read poetry in front of people when I was 12 and the reception was really not good I was like it was a poem about like I was like trying to really like mesh with like the emo trend that was going on and so I wrote a poem called not just eyeliner which was really confusing because I did not wear eyeliner and I never had and I wasn't allowed to And so I read this whole poem about how I'm more than just eyeliner. And then someone after classes was like, you don't wear eyeliner. And I never wrote another poem. The end. I think that in and of itself was a poem.

That story was very poetic. I should have been more confident. I would be like, clearly you misunderstood. It was a metaphor. It was a metaphor. It was a metaphor. Uh-huh. But instead I was like, I'm sorry.

And never read a poem again. Wow. The movie we're talking about today is Poetic Justice. Yes. Trying so hard to not interject right now because I've been interrupted or introduced. So great. No, please. I have, there's comedy. to not interject right now because i've been interrupted or introduced so great no please i have there's comedy so there are comedy poems on like albums of mine no way poems in between i

had a friend a comedian friend i went to college with and i had him do interludes for every record i did for like the first four records and two of them are poems because the albums are half rap and half poetry yeah i i've not been introduced yet but the poems are funny trust me hell yeah i'll tell you who i am later well let's just formally introduce you now um the voice you just heard is that of a poet okay first of all of all, hip hop artist, activist, host of the podcast Hood Politics. He's got a poetry book coming out entitled Terraform. It's Jason Petty, AKA Propaganda, AKA Prop.

That's me, you just told everybody my government name. Okay, word. But yeah, yeah. So one of the point, so look, my homeboy Alfonso mcfons he said on on my record he goes why did the crypt cross the road because that was the end of the poem i was like yeah it's brilliant it's good it's good when poetry is funny it truly i was like it transcends yeah so i i don't know i i like get really excited and then i also

get jealous because i'm like how the fuck right they do that there's a line dude because there's some poems that are attempting to be serious but this shit is hilarious you know i'm saying because it's like this it's the fake deep and then you're presenting it as if you're a character you know so it becomes where it's like i'm not supposed to laugh but this is super funny you know especially like as many as many years as i spent in like open mic scenes and stuff like that just you know it's just you it's like you're you're a character and and like you don't know it and i'm like i don't i shouldn't be laughing but it's so funny i can't imagine the amount of cringe you had to sit through at poetry open mics because it's like at stand-up open mics it's i feel like the a similar

like or maybe just a different a different brand of cringe that you have to sit through yeah the cringe is like so there's two types right there's the like especially i open mics and you know the scene i came from it's like we want people to be involved like you want people to love the craft love poetry and nobody has any ill thoughts towards a person if it's like yo this is my second poem they've ever written you know i'm saying or like they just trying. So there's an air of humility. You know what I'm saying? That's understandable.

It's cringy, but it's like, you know, you're learning. That's what open mics are for. That's what, you know, for comedy, like the 1 a.m. slot. It's like, this is, you're working on something. So it's like, this is dope. Okay, come back next week. You're going to get better, right? But then there's the person that's like, in the of god our law and the ancestors ashe like you know i had to that

walked up there holding sage and incense and you're just like what what are you what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing you know i'm saying and so you're sitting through this like that's what i'm saying it's like what i like to call the overwoke like just you know i can't play pool because the the game ain't over till the white ball hit the black ball into the hole like come on fam bro that's not the that's not the fight dog like there's the there's a fight we gotta fight i just don't think this one's it you know so like there's a gang of cringe you know but it's the cringe of the one that swears they're brilliant. It's just that's the cringe.

Yes. You know. But it does feel like kind of a similar thing of like the cringe of a comedian who's convinced they're hilarious when they are just demonstrably no one is laughing. Yes. Like, oh, at the end, they like that audience was um they didn't get it i don't know they didn't get it i don't think any of us did man um yeah i don't know 200 people in there not one person got it 200 of us you must be extremely misunderstood oh goodness um so prop what's your relationship with the movie poetic justice oh man where do i start um the relationship i mean it may have to do with like my location and my age group like

and who the director is i'm originally from south central los angeles, and at the time, I'm in eighth grade, maybe, somewhere around middle school when this is happening. You know what I mean? Maybe even probably younger than that. But like, the point is, it was like, black people didn't see ourselves on camera like this. You know, the director from South Central, you know what I'm saying?

The story take place in South Central, right? And this was like, obviously a launch of so many other like sort of this like black hollywood this like new school black hollywood that i got to like really experience this at like a you know my whole coming of age like everything that came out after this was with boys in a hood and all this stuff that was like this takes place in la you know so there's a very like emotional tie and and I don't know if it can be understated or overstated the transcendent nature of Tupac and Janet Jackson to to a black youth you know I'm saying yeah you know venturing into, you know, the beginnings of like coming out of childhood into boyhood that like I just wonder if i just think i i just think her mythos

would probably be just as legendary as tupac if she passed you know i'm saying but since she lived you know she's got to this level of icon that just tupac's death and the mystery around it like created a lot of the mythology but like the reality is there were no two human beings more physically gorgeous you know i'm saying yeah so the relationship not not only that it's like star studded it's like there's like these like deep cuts like hell q-tip from a tribe called quest dies in the first scene you know i'm saying so it's like these are stars for like black america like again i can't overstate this this movie is star-studded for like a pre-teen black kid you know so at which was why doing this pod is so it's gonna be so painful for me because you just want to protect you know the emotional tie i have to it

yeah yeah i mean and it's like the the emotional tie is immortal is yeah yeah jamie what about you what's your history with it um i've seen this movie before i hadn't seen it in a long time i remember watching this movie with friends in high school i think this was the first john singleton movie i ever saw which i don't know if that's like on you but i saw this and then i saw boys in the hood later which i know is like chronologically out of order but uh i really liked the movie because any movie where there was a girl as a protagonist especially if i knew who it was i was like oh janet jackson this is great and i really liked it um and then but i haven't like i haven't gone back to it in in a long time and uh i mean there's definitely stuff to talk

about and i also that the the history and the and the way that this movie, I just didn't realize kind of, I didn't know like the chronology of John Singleton's like movies and how this movie was made kind of in reaction to feedback he got from having made Boys in the Hood. And just the conversation happening around the movie is just as interesting as the movie itself. So I'm,

I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah. It had been, I think at least 10 years since I've seen it. Uh, what about you, Caitlin? This is one that I had never seen before.

So I was excited to watch it for the first time. I was also very caught off guard when the first face you see in the movie is Billy Zane's. And I was like i don't know billy zane cameo you're just like where is this going it was a bit jarring i always love to see billy zane but it's billy zane and laurie petty right yeah uh-huh it's pretty it's i remember seeing it in the theaters being like what what? And then going, oh. Oh, it's a movie within a movie.

Yeah. It's a good bait and switch. I forgot. I completely forgot that it opens that way. And it starts with like, correct me if I'm wrong. It felt like a kind of bizarre Woody Allen reference at the beginning. Because they're like playing Rhapsody in blue over like the cityscape and you're like oh this is huh what is happening and then it's billy zane and then the movie starts and you see like the marquee for the movie at like the drive-in that they're out and in the

name of the movie is deadly diva or something like that ridiculous which is a play on femme fatale obviously which is a is the title of a movie that billy zane was in a couple years earlier so did not know that quite an easter egg i liked that um that justice it's gonna be so hard for me to not just say janet jackson that justice um in that first scene is like this movie is really good I was like no it isn't it's not good what are you talking about but Billy Zane is in it so it's amazing so in a way she's completely right yes um but anyway yeah I hadn't seen this movie I was excited to see it and I'm excited to talk about it. So should we get into the recap and go from there?

Yeah. And prop jump in whenever for the recap. The recap is open season. Yes, it is. Okay. So we, like I said, see Billy Zane and Lori Petty it's revealed that they are characters in a movie that Justice, Janis Jackson and her boyfriend Markel are watching at a drive-in movie theater in South Central LA but during the movie Markel is shot and killed by a couple guys he had had some conflict with a few days prior. There let me let me jump in here uh there's there's some there's some like

hood easter eggs in this too is like so obviously it opens once upon a time in south central la the the uh drive-ins in compton though so there's like hood shit happening because if you at the time if you're from south central we have no business going down to Compton. You know what I'm saying? Because, like, unless you know somebody down there, you shouldn't be down there. You know what I'm saying? So, but, look, everybody on a date. He ain't worried about it.

He probably forgot about the thing. You know what I'm saying? And you see him looking in the mirror. Like, there were scenes in that that were so triggering is not the word but very familiar you know what i mean so like that's the type of stuff that like if you from for us why this part of this movie was so iconic and makes you know the directors from here because those things are like okay yeah that's that that's what would happen because he wouldn't get shot in his own hood like nobody would do that in from south central South Central wouldn't do that in South Central.

You on, you on the other side of town, you know, you further South. So that's a, it's a, just an interesting like moment. And then again,

it's Q-tip from a tribe called Quest. Yeah. Like, and I'm going, I'm, I'm at the age when this movie is coming out that I'm like falling in love with, turns out what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. So I'm falling in love with turns out what i'm gonna do for the rest of my life so i'm falling in love with hip-hop you know so to see tip in a movie i was like wait

rappers can you can be in movies yeah and i knew tupac was the star but he don't count tupac already in the stratosphere he's gone but like i was like but this but tip okay he got to kiss janet jackson you know yeah anyway and and there and everyone is good in this movie too it's like when i yeah that the musician to actor pipeline is not 100 effective but in this movie i feel like it very much works yeah yeah yes Yes. For sure, yeah. So after the death of Markel, some time passes. Justice writes poetry to help her cope with her grief and to just generally make sense of the world. But it's all Maya Angelou poetry, too,

that is happening throughout the movie. And some of it, like, I don't know. I was like, maybe I just didn't know a lot of her poetry when I saw this the first time. But now I was like, oh, wait, I know this. Wait, it's Maya Angelou. It's Phenomenal Woman. I know this book.

But it's so, I mean, it weaves in so seamlessly. And I feel like that's a really good choice by John Singleton, too, to just, like, go to the master and not be like, let's see how this goes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like it's almost like it's like feminism for his time because I don't know who's more who's more iconic than Maya Angelou. Like, you know what I'm saying? And to say that that's the driving voice of this film, I guess in 91, you could be like, this is feminism.

You know what I mean? I mean, by, yeah, by just like including women's voices at all as a male writer writing about women, it's like the bar is low, but that's not nothing. And her poetry, and I was also just like, so psyched at her cameo later in the movie too. Yeah, that was dope. Aunt June.

And then so we hear this poetry as voiceover throughout the entire movie. It kind of comes in and out. Professionally, Justice is a hairstylist. Aisha, played by Regina King, is one of justice's clients and best friend the salon owner jesse played by tyra farrell asks justice when she's gonna get over markel and find herself a good man as if on cue a postman lucky that's Tupac, enters the salon, flirts with Justice, but she kind of fucks with him and he's like, never mind. And then Lucky's friend, Chicago, played by Joe Torre, asks him to come along on a drive to Oakland. He's bringing his girlfriend, so Lucky asks if he can hook him up with one of chicago's

girlfriend's friends right here real quick again another like uh thing that the rest of us are catching is like again okay obviously regina king becomes the regina king we all know now but at the time at least for our community again she's already a star you know so she was you know she had the the 227 uh little sitcom when she was when she was a little girl and then joe tory was like the host of comic view and like deaf comedy jam so these dudes like again it was like it this movie is so stacked you know and like and i can't get over like that was one thing that like now as an adult looking back at it i was like dang john he broke the bank for this thing man because this this mug is stacked right and then a second thing i was thinking about too is like

now looking back i'm like pock is supposed to be or lucky's character is supposed to be he's one of the good ones and i'm like and that's the juxtaposition because again the bar is low he's got a job do you know i'm saying he wants to take care of his kids he sees the gangster dudes doing the thing he's choosing to do something else you know know what I'm saying? So you're supposed to see him as not as toxic as all the other. And now I'm just like, I look at him now and I'm just like, this is the bare minimum, man. But at the time I was like, yeah, man, Lucky a good dude. You know?

Yeah, well, I mean, that comes up pretty early in the movie, too, that he's a father and he takes his kid out of a really toxic situation at home and goes home with his mom. Yeah. Yeah, that's what happens next. But he negs women every step of the way. The whole time. It's like every woman he meets, he's got something to say. Sheesh.

We also learn about his musical aspirations. One of the reasons he wants to go to Oakland, they're on like a postal service run, but he also intends to meet up with his cousin Khalil because they're both aspiring musicians who like collaborate on different things. Yeah. Meanwhile, it turns out that Aisha is the one who is dating Chicago.

So and when he asks if she knows anyone who like she can hook Lucky up with, she's like, oh, yeah, my friend Justice. Hey, Justice, take this drive with us. And she's like, yeah my friend justice hey justice take this drive with us and she's like no thanks but she ends up going anyway because she and jesse have a hair show in oakland and her car won't start so she's like well i guess i'll get a ride in this mail truck so when she shows up she's like wait a minute i recognize this guy and so she and lucky are both kind of like yeah you know they've have this little history of like her him hitting on her her rejecting him so they're like and then it turns into this fun road movie yeah yeah my sister is uh quite a few years older

than me so she's actually at the time she's like the age of the characters okay yeah and so like there's not one outfit that uh justice is wearing that my sister didn't have you know i mean so i'm like it's like this girl looks like my sister you know all of the like burning the edges of her braids like it's like this is the way we lived you know and um but i remember asking my sister i used to always ask because like she always had these quick comebacks when, you know, guys were hitting on her. Since I was so much younger, I was always her alibi. So I went to so many things that I probably shouldn't have gone to because I was the alibi for her to tell our parents. You know what I'm saying?

Like, you know, tell my mom where she was. Yeah. She was just like, oh, you you know like she would pick me up from school and i'd be like oh thanks for the ride home we'd end up somewhere in burbank you know i'm saying at like some dude's house you know they breaking up bricks you know i'm saying because she's hollering at the boy you know so i was just her alibi right so anyway um or she's like hey you want to go get jack in a box and'm Jack, but we'd stop by seven other houses before we go to Jack. Point is, I was always in these like adult situations I probably shouldn't have been in.

But I used to always witness her shoot dudes down. And she would get creative after a while. And like little things like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, you got a name? And she'd be like, don't everybody? Or so, can I get your number? She it's like you got to get your own so she would like she was just super creative and i just remember thinking like why are you so mean and that because you know i'm a little boy so i was just like doc and i'm still nervous to like walk up to like uh yolanda gonzalez and ask her to dance you know i'm saying like i'm still just a nerd kid so i'm just like why are you that would kill me if yolanda said that to me like i would

never ask anyone ever like why are you so mean you know and she was just trying to explain to me like jason this happens every day all the time every day she's like fools don't understand no like you just you and after a while it just gets boring so you're like i'm just gonna entertain myself but at the time i was like i okay dang my sister's mean you know and so the way so the way that she the way justice just kept shutting this fool down you know i'm saying i was like no wonder he's so mad you know i'm saying you're just mean why are you so mean you know and i like i mean i had two sisters i had another sister same way but she used to just stare my other sister my other sister passed away she used to stare at dudes they would say stuff she would just look at them just silent that's the ultimate

punishment too i wish i had i wish i had the constitution to do any of this this sounds amazing dog my sister they were cold both my sisters they was cold you know what i'm saying but like and i i honestly i i it wasn't until adulthood that i really understood like you oh oh you you just because i was like dog i would be crushed if anybody said this to me. But I'm also not going, hey, bitch, like I'm not doing that either. You know what I'm saying?

So probably why nobody's saying it to me. Makes a difference. Makes a difference. Yes. Oh, yeah. She's just reacting to being constantly harassed. Yes.

Basically. So that's what happens for the first chunk of this trip, where they set off on this drive to Oakland. Justice and Lucky do not get along. He's like, why are you so quiet? Why are you so mean? You're so stuck up. And then he calls her a bitch several times.

They get into a screaming match, which results in Justice getting out of the mail truck in the middle of nowhere. Lucky drives off, but Aisha's like, you have to stop and go back and pick up my friend. What are you going to do? They're like hours away. I was like, oh no.

That was clearly the grapevine. If you're from LA, you're like, that's the grapevine. You're on your way. You know what I'm saying? There's nothing there. Don't get out the car there. And no one's going to drive by for a while. No one's going to see you.

Yeah. So they go back and get her. Justice eventually gets back in. They make a stop where Chicago and Lucky talk about women and relationships. Justice and Aisha talk about men. This is where, again, John Singleton's brilliance is like he sneaks in an amazing sociocultural lesson.

In the same way, Boys in the Hood has this one moment about gentrification that's so iconic when Lawrence Fishburne is teaching them about ownership and gentrification and stuff like that. In this moment, they're just at this liquor store and she's like, yo, where the oldie? That's like old English english like malt liquor justice is like oh they don't sell that outside

the hood yeah and it's like that just quick like you know i'm saying that quick like aha like this just he he just sneaks these like zingers in you know i'm saying that are a part of the story so you don't feel like you're being preached at you know right yeah totally yeah and then they they leave from that like little rest stop or whatever and then they're driving again they smell some barbecue they realize it's coming from the johnson family reunion and they're like oh let's stop and see if we can get some food um which works they mistake them for being part of this family and then cut pete this is my favorite scene in the movie by far i of course loved this family reunion. During this time, also Justice and Lucky chat a bit. They start to find some common ground.

Yeah. Then Aisha and Chicago get in a huge fight. They have to leave the family reunion and get back on the road. Justice calls Aisha out for her alcohol abuse. They then make another stop at an african cultural fair justice and lucky keep warming up to each other meanwhile aisha and chicago's relationship is falling apart i think it really like speaks to the the pacing that john singleton's able to achieve here where like by the time they got to the fair i was like this is all happening in one day like yeah which makes sense for that drive but i was like it's just paced so like methodically of like yeah whatever you can tell kind of early it's like oh janet

jackson is going to she's going to fix him she's going to change him yeah or that's where it seems like it's going and it happens in a day and it's like again it's it's stupid i just i just bleed los angeles or california so i just noticed this type stuff that they chose to take pch rather than the five the five yeah yeah and it's like three hours longer to go up pch so it's like this is the worst way to go you know and you're mail carriers don't you know that you know but how are you gonna have like the iconic like beach scenes right because you're definitely not gonna get like a pan-african festival you know i'm saying going through fresno yeah yeah you know it's just dairy farms you know so i get it that you had to do that for the look

but yeah like you it don't hit you until like you said that you're like, wait, this was a day, you know? Yeah. Like a lesser writer could have really made it feel like a day, but it just like they, everyone does go through like some manner of an arc in the space of like whatever, 10 AM to eight at night. Yeah.

I also love how Lucky keeps being like, we have a schedule to stick to. We have to like, we got to get there at night. Yeah. I also love how Lucky keeps being like, we have a schedule to stick to. We have to like, we gotta get there at a certain time. So let's take the PCH and add three hours to the drive. Yes, this is ridiculous. Oh goodness. So these relationships are, these dynamics are changing. Chicago and Aisha's relationship is falling apart.

Chicago hits Aisha and there's some violence there. So they leave Chicago behind. They're like, fuck you, dude. He lunges at justice as well, doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah. That's what set Lucky off to be like, all right. Because at first he was like, it's none of my business.

You know? And it's like, just when you're ready to like like lucky yeah and then he's like i'm not gonna jump not gonna intervene when a woman is being yeah by your friend yeah it's so crazy because it's like and then now i'm being generous here but it's like in some senses he's like that fool's my co-worker we just get along like we not we ain't really homies like right it's just funny he's my friend he's a work friend you know and again i'm obviously i don't feel like this but he's like aisha is mouthy she is kind of like berating him at a level well I probably obviously I wouldn't date somebody that toxic or be in a relationship that toxic already right but the point is is like it rather than crying which is what any other well-processed human would do at that moment he decides to hit

her you know and then when he lunges at justice is when yeah he jumps in but i i i remember feeling like regina king is the most familiar character in this in the way that she's playing it because again it's one of those things where you're like oh you're really from here like you're really from los angeles and i can tell you know janet it's kind of hard to suspend reality because we're like well you're a Jackson right you know I'm saying like very wealthy yeah you know you are Michael Jackson's little sister like how I can't you didn't go to Crenshaw High like I know you didn't so it's kind of hard to you played the hell out of that role but it's kind of hard like Regina you like nah 64th and Vermont like I know you from here you know i'm saying so the way that she was just like god dog the way she was tearing that food down you know i'm saying

and uh it to me it just it's just highlighted like to get bigger to get like more meta here just highlighted just how you guys talk about intersectional like what interlocking systems of injustice does how institutionalized racism how it eventually trickles down to us hating each other you know i'm saying and never having the space to process that hate and it turns into clear and evident domestic violence you know i'm saying so much so that again within our community there's one thing there's one thing that black people learn especially when you grow up the way i grow up is you mind your fucking business you're saying like you look i hear what's going on over there we don't call the police where i'm

from please mess around shoot me i'm the one that called they go. We don't call the police where I'm from. Police mess around, shoot me. I'm the one that called. So we don't call them. You stay out of their business. They stay out of mine. We don't know what they got going on. You know what I'm saying? And most of the time it's for better or for worse, you know, but like, look, they just, nah, they crazy.

You just stay out of that. Like, don't worry. Don't get in the middle of that. You don't know which one of them connected. You mess around. They mess around, call their cousin. You catch a spray bullet for standing up in the middle of this stay out of it you know i'm saying and all of that toxicity just sits in our like just in our community so that like the obvious answer right now is to

fuck out the car and stop this like you know i'm saying or not even don't even let it get there like the minute they start like yo okay y'all you know i'm saying like you stop that before it even gets to that but you just learn from being in such a like just growing up with such toxicity to like nah let me stay out of that no you don't know you know what i mean yeah yeah that's part of what i'm really interested to talk about lucky in general because it seems like he is like on a kind of path towards like altering some of those but it but I feel like the movie does kind of give you the context of why he feels that way even when you're like I completely disagree with what he's either tolerating or how he's acting I feel like yeah John Singleton does do a good job of giving you the context of like this is not a

vacuum yeah yeah yeah because when you think of Lucky's character, you juxtapose that to Tone Loke, which was the other baby daddy, who was also remarkably famous at the time. You know what I'm saying? So you juxtapose it to him, to the dude that, you know, his baby mama was sleeping with, to the hood that they, you know,

the project building that they live in. And then the homies that drive up that got guns in the car you're like if you juxtapose who lucky is in relation to what he's around all the time you're like i i understand you i understand that you believe you are making the better choices you know and that's like that's the part that like again is like if i could put that like on that emotion on billboards especially when we start talking about police brutality and george floyd and stuff like that when you move anything is like please understand the context here you know i'm saying like there's a lot of hurdles we're jumping over you know and it's not it's not an excuse but again it's context you Right. And you even see police hassling people in the neighborhood.

The movie's not about that, but it's something that you get a glimpse of because this is their reality. That's another really smooth John Singleton. Like you were saying, Prop, with the convenience store scene where it's just something that happens and then they keep moving through the world but it's like oh yeah that is like a very intentionally done for sure yeah so let's see they've let they've left chicago behind justice

and lucky get even closer uh he talks more about his musical aspirations she tells him about her family history they finally kiss and i believe it's implied they have sex if i'm not mistaken yeah that we cut away a long shot with a blanket you're just like maybe yeah i don't know it's like it's sunset they're on the beach well the main indication is shortly after that they're back in the car and lucky's like i have to tell you something and she's like oh no you're not gonna tell me that you have something as in like an sti oh okay he's like no no nothing like that i have a daughter and she's like well why didn't you tell me that sooner the ultimate sexually transmitted um right yo i was actually pretty taken back as to like why she reacted so largely about him having a child

because i was like wait why like why is she furious about this like that i i i guess again like product of my time like i wouldn't i would have been relieved if somebody would have been like i have something to tell you if i would have been nervous and she was like yo did you just give me something and then he's like no i have a daughter oh all right cool how old is she you know saying like tell me about her do you have any pictures like you know like i feel like that would have been such a relief rather than like outrage you know i i was kind of i mean there's like a few points in how justice is written that i'm a little kind of confused on like the choices that were made uh that is like set up in i think

is it at the family reunion scene where justice says something like or maybe it's in that scene where it's just like their thoughts are being voice overed while they're at the beach yeah where she's like oh he looks like he has a kid or like i i i feel like it was implied that maybe she was like that's too much work that's too much like yeah i don't really know it was kind of unclear um why yeah she does ask him about it at the family reunion she's like oh you seem like the type who would have a kid and rather than confirming that at the time he's just like he says like haha anyways i'll never tell oh yeah yeah i forgot about that part because she was kind of like yeah like dragging him as if like oh you got baby stashed everywhere you ain't even taking care of

him you know i mean he's yeah, you don't even know. You know what I mean? Yeah, because he's a good dad. Yeah, relatively. I've been stomping the shit out of somebody in front of his children. Yeah. Wild.

Yeah. And then leaving her for the weekend with his mom, which she told him not to do. She's like, I'm not raising this i'm not raising this baby i take it back i take it back oh anyway so right as this is all happening they have arrived in oakland only to discover that lucky's cousin khalil has just been shot and killed and lucky is devastated and he he tells Justice, like, oh, if we had gotten here sooner,

this would have never happened, and he blames Justice and the time they spent together for, like, not allowing him to prevent this from happening to Khalil, and he storms off. Justice is very hurt. This is when we get the voiceover poem, Phenomenal Woman. Lucky, we see him dealing with his grief. And then sometime later, back in LA, Lucky brings his

daughter Keisha into the salon where Justice works. He apologizes. They kiss and make up, and the movie ends with Justice doing Keisha's hair. So that's the story. Let's take a quick break and we will come 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 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.

I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and in my life. It's too late for that. 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. One session. 24 hours.

BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think i need to hear you say it that was live audio of a woman's nightmare this machine is approved and everything you're allowed to be

doing this we passed the review board a year ago we're not hurting people 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, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen.

Dragged. I'm N.K., 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 is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing

some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back. Where to begin here? There's so much to talk about. Is there anything that jumps out to you right away, Prop? I mean, it's hard to not think about it in terms of like when I first saw it versus, you know, a married man with two children now. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's kind of like there's like two me's, you know, watching it now.

You know what i'm saying um and the me when i first saw it is again is like a preteen just mesmerized with the posters on my wall just came to life in this movie you know what i'm saying um and the city that i grew up in you know so there's so much like black star power in there that that like emotions kind of like override a lot of the like clear problematic, you know, and things now as film as strong as leads as like, I'm like, nah, this is a great depiction of women. You know what I'm saying?

Like, you know, like, what do you mean? Like, she's a business owner. She's telling her men ain't shit, you know?

And you know, she like, you know, she doing her thing and that one's in a bad relationship, but you know, that happens, you know? And,

and, uh, justice went through some serious trauma and yeah you know she had up walls and she knew doing her thing she in that big house by herself and you know she's got a very cute cat she's got the cute cat and now she's fine happiness that's dope yeah she writes maya angelo poems like i mean come on dude like how is where's the problem you know what i'm saying so i think it's it's like it left me interrogating kind of doing some like revisionist history with my own sort of opinions and understanding um so i think that like that's the that's the main thing that like in relation to

like i don't know bechdelness is a word but in relation to that, where I'm just like, dang, dude, like, wow. You know, you just walk away going, yeah. Because you're so used to, I'm so used to seeing bad depictions of black men that I forget to notice everything else. You know what I mean? It's like you're triaging and this sitting down for this really made me notice more sure yeah and I mean especially when you you know you see a movie like this in your formative years and like how influential it was and when you read like interviews and stuff from John Singleton who says with this movie he wanted to show South Central in a

different light than had been depicted before in movies he wanted to focus on the women in his community he wanted to tell a story specifically about black people in South Central falling in love like that's yes that was his inspiration and because there were so few movies of that nature especially during this time that's a very strong powerful thing yeah that doesn't lucky being a problematic figure and a toxic person in different areas of his life doesn't negate all of this all of that stuff all of like the power that comes with that representation so yeah i like i totally understand like kind of being of two minds yeah about it and you can't like there's no that the thing about like the again the mythology

around tupac is like in all the movies he's in, you know, he's Bishop and juice, you know what I'm saying? He's striker in like, you know, above the rim, all these like iconic, like movies that part of built his, his, his mythology. It's hard to see a film and only see him at the, as that character. Like I still see Tupac, you know what I'm saying? Right. And all that Tupac was and stood for as far as like,

in a lot of ways, a re-imagining of black masculinity. You know, he was actually very well read. You know, my father was a black Panther, you know, his mother was a black Panther. So it was like, there's this like, this rage against the machine attitude about him. You know, his mother was a Black Panther. So it was like, there's this like, this rage against the machine attitude about him. You know what I'm saying? And that like, he represents in a lot of ways,

you know, if you think about like active gang membership, it's really a small percentage of humans in South Central. You know what I'm saying? So like, it's cool to see a movie that's not about the four kids in the back of the room. You know what I'm saying? So like, it's cool to see a movie that's not about the four kids in the back of the room. You know what I mean? That's more about

the other 25 of us trying to just finish high school. You know? But having to intersect with this all the time. You know? It's hard to separate, even now,

the character Lucky from Tupac. Sure. Totally. Yeah. And it sounds like this movie, I didn't know this for sure when i first saw this movie but that it's in it's partially based on an experience

that tupac had uh between so i read that uh on the scholarly journal wikipedia that there it is that that the like the seed of this movie uh was about a like brief relationship tupac had with a poet named anne marie rose um who he met between takes of juice that's crazy isn't that wild i did not know that so i i i don't know exactly i wasn't able to find the exact like did he bring this to John Singleton? I don't really know. But it sounds like he had had a similar experience to this, at least in the abstract, to the point where, like, this poet Anne-Marie Rose had box braids. And that was the reason that Janet Jackson, like, had her hair the way she did in this movie. Oh, my gosh. Anna Jackson like had her hair the way she did in this movie. So it is like Lucky and Tupac.

I guess that they're kind of like connected in this this really personal way, which, yeah, I had no idea that that was a thing. And I think that like I have some stuff that that John Singleton, R.I.P. has has said over the years about this movie it's really interesting because it's like i think that it's it's not necessarily the most important thing to know but i just think it's like i don't know i'm like holy shit he was only 25 when he made this movie that is like whoa so didn't know that which means he was even younger when he did boys in the hood yeah he wasn't he he is like a huge history making artist he was the youngest person ever to be nominated for best director at the academy awards he was 24 uh when boys in the hood was nominated this was his first movie after that he's only 25 uh when that is wild it's so wild and yeah i mean it's even with the like issues i do have with this movie it's like you can't not respect the shit out of like the the creative

risk this is to take yeah coming off of like boys in the hood was this gigantic success it was it was huge it was iconic and then he uh i was going through kind of the interviews he was doing in 1993 for poetic justice and he just talked about how he like just wanted to do something else and was like not afraid to try something else and even though this movie i guess that this movie was not as like critically acclaimed as boys in the hood but it was you know he did what he wanted to do and yeah i don't know there's a lot of kind of dissonance there's some stuff that he says that i'm like oh this is so cool and insightful and then there's other stuff that feels very of its time um so i'll just i guess uh some of some of the stuff that really that really i thought was

really cool he uh cait Caitlin you've alluded to a lot of it already was he wanted to show like love in the hood he wanted to do a road movie he wanted to have a black female protagonist at a time where that was not a choice that most directors were going to make at all and he did that very intentionally and then on the other end something i thought was really interesting and feels like oh the 90s really were a very different time yeah uh was he was kind of asked um i'm pulling from a village voice interview here from 1993 but he's asked like so you've made this like woman's movie and he is really he really does not want that label put on the movie and i think the quote is interesting he says uh this is not a woman's movie

don't say that or you'll have every feminist in town coming out for attack it's a film with a black woman as a central character directed by a black man which is is like all true. But I think it's, I'm trying to think of, this is not the first time I've heard a quote similar to that from a male director of like, in the 90s, you know, it's like men were not considering themselves feminists and like labeling yourself a feminist. If you were a man, there was this stigma attached to it.

And that comes across in Lucky's character too, when he talks about about like you're not one of those feminists right and then immediately it's like oh yeah he does not think highly of feminists yeah um and it's i don't know i just i thought that that was that was such a like interesting of the time thing to say of like the idea of labeling your movie as feminist made it less marketable where it's like now that's not really the case at all you know it's in in black twitter uh there's this other podcast with joe buttons and and these other you know men they were discussing post-New Deal, just like breakdown of the black family, you know, some of the sort of clear and obvious like disenfranchisement and like just the psyop that like the nation did on the psyche of black men. Right. You know, and, you know, after the war effort, offering things to, you know, black mothers, you know, who are now the head of the house because either men were you know black mothers the you know who were now the head of the house because either men were at war or whatever the case may be he was trying to

make this argument that like part of what even deeper deeply destroyed the black male psyche was this is all his argument was that uh i was like, let me make this clear, okay? This is his argument, was that when we came back, you know, finally got on our feet after the war efforts and stuff like that. And, you know, after dealing with all it took to try to finally get rights and, you know, get jobs as black men,

that our women chose the money over us. So they kept getting government subsidies and kind of being like, oh, we actually don't need husbands. They chose to go to work. They chose to go do their own things. So he said, in our psyches, we started feeling like,

dang, this was supposed to be temporary. Like this was supposed to be until we can get ourselves together, but you choosing the money over us and that choice he's he says like you know travel through the rest of our sort of like collective traumas if you will so when you move forward into this black feminist movement his argument is that even that movement has helped to destroy the confidence of black men and why why can't why y'all can't get y'all shit together he's like well here's why you know or here's part of why it's his argument he's saying black families were always strong pre-jim crow pre-audits you have we had all kinds of support whether it was

through our churches or naacp like the family unit was a we had a very tight nuclear family in the black community historically because we had to survive you know i'm saying so his argument is like this destroyed us to which i'm like okay far be it for me to like, you know, disagree with my elders. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not going, you know, like, I'm not going to do that. But I am going to say it's like we had this unit, but it's like, I feel like we have yet to like be honest with ourselves about how bad patriarchy existed in black families.

Like, I feel like we don't want to admit misogyny in our homes and because we're like well let's be real prop our families are led by we already know women are in charge and our cause is very different we not like them white people you know i'm saying like that's like that's like the argument among among the black community is like or at least this this argument is like well at least we not bad as them you know i'm saying like we treat our women differently than everybody else and i'm like okay okay i mean my grandma ran ran the house you know i mean i understand that right but let's not let's not lie to ourselves fellas you know i'm saying and i feel like this statement like again

with lucky talking about you're not one of the feminists are you or or him saying no this ain't no feminist movie i think in a lot of ways again if we talk about like the triaging of like okay well we all black so we all suffering you know i'm saying so i don't understand why you parsing this particular thing out you know you you feel me like it's like that's the attitude and it's like actually we treat y'all hella different you know i'm saying then tyler and and tanner do you know i'm saying like we don't talk to our women the way that they talk to them white ladies we don't we don't talk like you know i'm saying so you have this attitude about it so when you talk about feminine it's like hold up dog like nah you is that is that you hanging from them lynching trees? Not as us hanging, you know. So you have this defense. I feel like that we are still I'm saying it's like to my shame, like we're still reckoning with the reality of like, nah, we got blood on our hands.

Like Claretta Scott King was not allowed to talk like this. Martin Luther King's wife, yourself said like he didn't let her talk because women don't belong in a pulpit like what is you talking about bro like let's be honest you know I'm saying and I feel like this uh this moment that you bringing up is like again like connected to where we're at now which is obviously very different where like it's like yo no we're all about like nah lead black women black women voices black women you know i'm saying so it's like it's interesting to see i feel like if we still have which i know we do we still have a lot of reckoning we need to do with like our roles as black men with uh misogyny and patriarchy you know because the eat because the

rap stuff's easy you know i'm saying anita gangster bitch like he was like he was singing that one in the car it's like okay that's obvious all right that's easy we know that stuff you know i'm saying i'm talking about like for real for real you know what i mean yeah thank you for for kind of like like breaking that down and unpacking that because it that does like give such a yeah clearer context to where John Singleton is coming from there. And then like, regardless, he does center a black woman in this story. And a young black woman where, you know, we'll talk about Justice's storyline more, but it's, you know, it was, I guess, not surprising, but always just like holy shit like yeah discouraging to go back uh and see how few uh black women were directing movies at all much less directing uh stories that reflected their

own experience back in the 90s it's extremely low number there was i think most notably in terms of wide release there was julie dash's daughters of the dust and then uh cheryl dunye's the watermelon woman but outside of that it was so it's like you know set it off set it up how stella got her groove back but those were both directed by men you know and exactly yeah that's all i was going to say and i was like and they're still as relates to men right especially how stella got a groove back you know i'm saying right Right. Right. Absolutely. And it's, so it's, it's like,

ultimately it's, I think like a, a worthwhile creative risk that John Singleton like tried to tell this story, even though it's like, you know, we'll, we'll talk through it, but the fact that it,

but it's also equally frustrating that it's like, you know, would a black woman have written this story a little more cogently a little clearer probably but it wasn't it just the the money and the the movement was not yeah um you know giving them the resources they needed it's it's never you know a lack of talented directors or writers it's it's the fact that it's yeah seeing how few wide releases from black women came out in in the 90s is just incredibly discouraging wild yeah yeah let's take another quick break and then we'll be right back Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price.

Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. 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. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up?

Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago.

We're not hurting people. 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, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged.

I'm NK, 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 is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with.

But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Should we talk about the relationship between Justice and Lucky? And the problems they're in? The problems they're of. We put it off long enough. I mean, you know, the foundation of the basis of this relationship,

he comes into the salon he tries to flirt with her and ask her out which to me that was like like he at least in the context of the way that he did it it was like fine like whatever yeah right but then he does not take being rejected well so that's kind of where we're starting off then at the beginning of their road trip we talked about this a little bit already but he calls her mean uh he calls her stuck up he calls her an angry bitch a feminist and it's all because she's just like quiet and not yeah responding to him talking about like wanting a quote gangster bitch and like i do like that that's made out to seem a little embarrassing for him because he's like mumbling it it was like you look so strange why

are you doing this yeah uh i used to once upon a time like i taught high school and i had a section where i had to teach like beginning level psychology. Right. And the kids loved it. Inner city school. And so when we got to like all the like post 40 and stuff like reaction formations and like projection and stuff like that. Like it was like the most effortless and endless source of examples. I could give these like ninth graders as to like what this is. You know what i'm saying so this this was a perfect example like of reaction formation where it's like hey you want to get out

with me no that's because you're ugly like what what like you know i'm saying like bro you just got look take it on the chin everybody takes l's you know everyone takes L's bro and you just take it on the chin live to fight another day you know but just that perfect example of like I tease I tease my um I tease my wife and my my uh my older daughter um about like how as a little boy you start learning how to process rejection somewhere around fifth grade you know was like because of how big the reaction is of how gross boys are when you finally felt enough courage you know i'm saying to like you know and and poor kid don't let the kid be queer you know i'm saying like you know when you first have to start figuring out what it means to get a no you know and like and having to like by that's why i'm like by the time you get to high

school or get outside of high school and you see like the clearly this guy's a douchebag get more yeses than you you're like well i guess is that the way to is that how you do it like you know or you're just like whatever you whatever bitch you're stupid you know it's like okay man like you gotta learn how to process no you know i wish that that was like something that there yeah i mean i mean but it's like so few kids are taught how to deal with rejection i feel like that's that yeah yeah like when you're growing up i feel like there's almost i guess unless you're really lucky or you have like parents who are fucking on it like yeah which almost nobody does uh no one does right like no like i i don't know a kid in the world that grew up and then you know around fifth grade it's like

they were told regardless of gender like hey if you're you know here is like a way that you can ask someone something that is respectful and like here's how to judge boundaries and here's how to deal with rejection that isn't just lashing out and yeah but it's like i feel like those conversations are really rare with with kids and and would make a huge fucking difference yes i'm so impressed with like i hate to use the term gen z but that's what my daughter refers herself as so like the amount of like we during when the pandemic started you know we we totally got on this like all right we're gonna show you all of the movies from from our childhood you know what i mean like so and she's like i mean my my other daughter's dope, so, and she's like, I mean, my, my older daughter's dope, like totally an anime.

She's like a star Wars nerd. Like, like she's dope. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, she got like a little fake Slytherin tattoo on her arm. Like she's cool. You know what I'm saying? So at some point we was like, all right, breakfast club, weird science. Like let's show her all these flicks. Right. And as we're showing them specifically, what gave us pause was like when we breakfast club weird science like let's show her all these flicks right and as we're showing them specifically what gave us pause was like when we got to weird science and you know they're making this woman you know i'm saying and so like my my daughter's like

what the fuck is this like just like hey you know she's like cussing at us because she's like this is y'all gotta nah homie like this don't ride you know what i'm saying so i'm like so proud of her you know what i mean for her already knowing like no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no we not she's like y'all watch this this is a movie you thought this was good yeah good yeah it's just and it's like all these different moments she was like the the breakfast club she rocked with you know i mean she was like okay this you know obviously because it's about it's a coming age it's a much different movie yeah but like some of the other stuff we was

trying to show her she was just like nah nah the premise is flawed we're not this is horrible yeah i was like you know what i'm me and my wife were like yo i'm super proud of this little girl you know i'm saying like just nah she's like nah just no no and i was like okay future future bechtel cast guests right by the sounds of it yeah oh gosh yeah this the basis of this relationship and then that that argument that they have in the in the truck ends with him screaming at her saying like fuck you bitch get out of here like all this stuff and then again not a great foundation on which to build a romance and yet i'd argue he doesn't necessarily deserve a second chance after the way he treats her like in that first conversation and and the way she stands up for herself is like, again, it's like it's interesting to watch with like I was trying to put on 1993 goggles with like mixed results. But like the way that she's standing up for herself, I think is like pretty cool and like very like direct.

And but he interprets this as like, you know, you're being aggressive, you're being cold, you know. But she says like, don't call me aggressive you're being cold you know but she she says like don't call me a bitch you don't know anything about me i'm a black woman i deserve respect don't call me a bitch if i'm a bitch your mother's a bitch and just like all this stuff that is like you know she has like the top of mind comebacks that yeah anyone would want to have but he just takes it all you know as at the beginning and again it's like you know she heals his misogyny in a day um but at the beginning i mean he he you know is is not receptive to it at all yeah i think the journey of like of lucky in some ways obviously

everybody at a different scale i think i relate to in the sense that like depending on how trash you actually are like most well i'll not say mostly but i'll say like homies i run with like we never saw ourselves as problematic because we knew problematic dudes you know i'm saying so we're like no that fool's a problem you understand i'm saying like he trash like that's a scumbag douchebag that fool's trash yeah you know i'm saying so i think in his head it's like that's what i'm saying like she heals his misogyny because i feel like in a lot of ways obviously i was never there but i know in a lot of ways like I've had you know corrective moments you know I'm saying in the sense to where you like you don't come in you come in thinking you're

different you know what I mean and so for him to be like why are you so quiet what you writing it's like in his head he's like no I'm being approachable like I'm trying I'm trying to have a conversation with you like you feel me like dang I'm you riding have a conversation with you. Like, you feel me? Like, dang, you riding in the car? Like, you know, I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, you know? But having that arc, you know, again, this ain't to defend him, but what I'm saying is, like, that's the part that's, like, in my mind, in some ways relatable, you know? Little stuff, like, I thought when I got married, like,

yo, it's my job to take care of i'm gonna take care of all the household bills you spend your money on what you want to spend your money on because i'm a real man you know i'm saying i take care of the house you feel me and it's like well you know we gotta have a conversation about it you ask and i was like oh yeah you know like so like that type of like you know what i don't know where i got where did i get that from but then you started questioning like you know type of like, you know what? I don't know where I got, where did I get that from? But then you started questioning, like, you know, you are absolutely correct. You know, or like when we were dating, hey, you want to go out?

And I would feel weird about saying, like, I don't have the money to go out today. You know what I'm saying? Like, but I didn't know how to say that. So I would try to come up with like a million other things. And she'd be like i i got it and i'm like you you sure like well i gotta go nowhere you know and she's like what the man like i'm telling you it's cool you know so not that for me it was like that sort of evolution to where it was more like i obviously knew better like again i just wasn't that much trash to know

you ain't supposed to talk to nobody like this but but you don't but there's there's levels to this shit you feel me like and you don't you don't realize it until somebody pointed out you know what i'm saying um and and and and i think like anybody like you get defensive when you already see yourself as not what someone's calling you you know i mean i always i feel like the best example of this is just like talking to white men about racism it's scary it's scary for them to think that they're guilty you know what i'm saying so when you start going nah bro nah you too doc you know i'm saying like that's hard you know um but if you but if you're down like you stand like i said i'm down so i'm like nah show me you know i mean like all that to say it's dope how she stood up to him

and as as hood as she did you know i'm saying and as like you know fuck you fuck you fuck you you know i'm saying like whatever it was she met him there you know i'm saying is like it's it's just it's crazy it's not crazy i'm not supposed to say that but it's it's it's a trip i think i'm actually glad y'all added that to the email i don't know if it's gonna make this in there but like to that's what i'm saying that's again that's growth you know what i mean that's what i was like you know what i never i never thought about that we didn't either until yeah they're bringing it up to us yeah it's just been the past couple years yeah we're all on a journey in in many arenas to unlearn things grow as people

we're all in our own little mail truck to oakland in a way making stops taking the long route the mail truck of life oh man oh and so then they you know they do start to find common ground in this like connection you know they're they both have like artistic aspirations that are similar like she writes poetry he writes hip-hop music um or I guess do we even learn that that's what he does I'm unclear about like you hear when you hear the reel-to-reels when you hear the recordings of his cousin wearing the bass which fun fact was Coolio I don't know if you know did you recognize the voice as soon as it started playing I was like that's Coolio yeah so wow John suckleton got everybody got everybody yeah so uh so in what he was saying yeah that pop was like i or lucky was like i help him with ideas but it's like it's his so

sounds like he's like i'm more of a producer you know got it got it got it yeah so even so they have you know similar aspirations so that you know they find areas to connect. And then things fall apart again when he does that thing that he keeps doing is like projecting. He blames the time he spent with her for not being able to prevent the death of his cousin and, you know, sabotages this relationship and then comes back and apologizes a little you know sometime later and she forgives him i do like the women in the salon they don't i don't think they even know what the context was but they were just like i wouldn't have forgiven him i wouldn't forgive him they were the best dude and the way and then before that happened when they was looking at the cheating girl and she

was just like i don't think i know who that is i was like dog this is the realist yeah so real right now yeah so i guess what i'm saying is it was very hard for me to root for this romantic relationship because of how horribly lucky treats justice throughout the whole story and especially at the beginning and I was far more interested in the friendship between Justice and Aisha than Justice and Lucky yeah I I liked I mean I guess the the last thing I'll say about Justice and Lucky is again it's like I I also was not rooting for the romantic relationship, but I do appreciate how John Singleton kind of gives like context in depth where you need it, where it's like sometimes when a character acts out and lashes out against someone and you have no context for it whatsoever, you're like, oh, fuck that person. like that's awful that's not how you treat people but especially with that with that sort of last beat where it's like i mean when when they when they get to oakland and immediately like something awful happens and lucky is like reeling and doesn't know what to do and instead it just felt like yeah he was like projecting his anger and like frustration at at someone he could hurt in that moment because

he was so hurt and you know it's like not right and it's not like justice is deserving of that anger in any way but in that moment you're like oh he just this anger is just gonna hit someone the first person that's there is who it's gonna hit and i appreciated that they took that moment with him in the basement when he's listening back to to coolio but that like they give you that moment of vulnerability and he finally does like he's able to cry but it's only by himself and just like moments like that i was like oh that's like i'm still not rooting for them to end up together but i i appreciated the kind of like depth of the storytelling there. I wish we, honestly, I wish we got more, you know, more of that with Justice in general.

Yeah, there's, I like Justice a lot. I like, and I don't even mind that the movie kind of takes its time in letting you know what her background is. Like, I think that could be like a really cool storytelling approach of like, you find out something kind of late in the game. You're like, Oh,

that kind of makes sense for why you are the way you are and why you react the way you do. But I just like, I don't know. Yeah. I wish that we just got to see more of, of her outside of the lucky dynamic. Like you were saying, Caitlin, like with Aisha and yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And that like, I love how important her poetry is to her, but it's like, you don't really get that. It doesn't really come into the story that much where, I don't know, like I like how it's woven in, but there's just, I thought there was more opportunities to like dig into that because it's like you're presented the movie like this is going to be all about her and then it's kind of it's kind of more on it becomes more ensembley yeah yeah because then you cut away after the first few minutes of like setting up her exposition

and stuff you cut away from her and you get a bunch of backstory on lucky and like his job and his daughter and stuff like that and i was like oh we're kind of we're not seeing justice for like many many minutes in a row which is kind of a weird choice considering she's yeah like poised as being the protagonist of this movie but i don't know i i i agree that i would have liked to see a little bit more of her interior life or at least the same amount that lucky gets because i feel like you get a lot of lucky's home life and you get a lot of his work life and you i guess you do get justice's work life and you see her at the salon and talking with her co-workers but you don't like her home life is so solitary which makes sense later but you just it just feels

like there's a piece of her story that is like i just yeah i guess i can't like describe it right but no i never i yeah i it's it's crazy i always i did think that like the the scene when he goes picks up his daughter and all stuff i was like it's kind of long like you know and it's because i get it that you're he's developing the the plot here but like yeah i was like it's good probably could have been shorter you know and then the yeah the glimpse into whatever's going on under the surface with with justice is just that one scene at home when she's taking care of herself making the faces and the mirror and stuff like that where like where I'm like oh my gosh she's depressed you know what I mean yeah but I don't know why she's depressed and maybe you're trying to hold that for the reveal to the end but uh yeah

like I I when you said you were interested in her friendship with Aisha a little more that like yeah that really got my wheels spinning because that's definitely left unresolved and as we far as we know chicago still somewhere on the northern coast i was gonna say we don't get no resolution with chicago whatsoever still wandering 15 miles outside of oakland to this day he'd have lost his job you know i'm saying they like where our truck at it is delivering a michael ravenport no they're really in the middle of nowhere by the time he gets kicked off He'd have lost his job. You know what I'm saying? They like, where our truck at? Delivering to Michael Ravenport. They're really in the middle of nowhere by the time he gets kicked off.

Yeah. I think one of the reasons too that I felt like there was something missing with Justice's characterization is that a lot of the conversations she has early on with people are her and her boss, Jesse, like the owner of the salon, her and aisha but they're the

conversations are about you need a man when are you going to find yourself a good man yeah um which is you know i guess a very 90s movie thing to do yeah especially for this genre but like it's also i think a very like men writing women thing to do yeah yeah which i can't i mean can't argue there you know what i'm saying uh i i i thought though like the age of the owner or the person saying that to me is like that's where you get away with it because that is something that our aunties would say to us you know what i'm saying so when i so even now when i think back to myself like they say when you're with your little girlfriend you got your little girl you keep dot jace keep him a little girlfriend little pretty little thing don't you know i mean so that's so our like elders

would say stuff say stuff like that to us but as a movie choice i think it's yeah that's that's a trip it's with you know next to a woman who owns her own business, like, you know, clearly fine. Like she doing her thing. You know what I'm saying? Right. So it's interesting that that would be your response. And to me, she come off as somebody that like men are toys to me. I use them when I feel like, you know. Yeah. I wrote down what she said. She said a man ain't nothing but a tool. You have to know when to take them out of the box and when to put him back in and if you lose one you just go out and get yourself another one so for that for her to be this like yeah you just you know use men whenever you want which is

like also not the best advice but for her to also be like but you're never gonna find happiness until you find yourself a man who loves you and who you love forever and ever it's like there's a little bit of dissonance there that was where i was just like oh like i and and john singleton does say in interviews that he he spoke to a lot of the women in his life and women he knew from uh south central to build out this world but i feel like yeah it's in those moments where you kind of feel like the male author is showing a little bit where I like that the three women we get to know,

I guess, Jessie, Aisha, and Justice, they're all very different people and they have really different approaches to life. They have really different outlooks, but you really only get to see those outlooks either in quick flashes of friendship, like you get kind of a tease with justice and aisha but mostly you see how these like really distinct personalities react to relationships with men only and i would have liked to see these like i thought pretty like

well-crafted characters of like you have a woman who's a little older and owns her own business and like yeah just men are tools to her and then you have Aisha who's like young and like exploring herself and she's like struggling with alcoholism and then justice is so introverted and it's like you know let's talk about some other stuff too like they're those are so different i also found a ton of joy in the hint of like the the gay relationship between the two male hairstylists okay i'm unclear about what exactly was yo so the call was i don't know if you caught this the call was when he's on the call he's got aids oh that was the call that's why he was freaking out and he's fighting with this other stylist yeah yeah so this is this whole other story happening because again a very well-known trope in inner city living is your male hairstylist is most likely

gay you know and uh so it's a trope but it comes from something you know i'm saying so like that moment to me i was like again this is john singleton sneaking sneaking the things in you know i'm saying and them kind of dealing with that i kind of wished and i mean i know it's like such a side story it would have been such a derailment but i kind of wish they would have like finished that one a little bit more you know i'm saying it clearer i've just made it clearer the like 2021 but i was like what is going on here yeah we're looking at it with like post stigma right like at the time there was still such a stigma so you you only you could only hint at it, you know, again, back to like the black male persona of themselves in like things that we still not ready to admit. You know, I'm saying I think I think it kind of goes back to that. But I now like again, 2021 me looking back like I appreciate him doing that you know i'm saying i'm glad you like at least started

down that road you know i'm saying to like have a little more inclusive understanding of like all that it means to be you know what we are because it's not like it's not like there wasn't lgbtq in the 90s you know i'm saying like it didn't just appear like you know always been here you know i'm saying yeah yeah i'd be curious to what our queer listeners think of that because i honestly i'm like this is blowing my mind because i did not know how to read that scene at all yeah i could be wrong i could be absolutely wrong but like the way that she was patting his back the way that he was looking the way that the character was i was like this is the type of stuff again going back to the south central stuff this is the type of

stuff that in my mind i'm, that looks real familiar to me. You know what I mean? And I'd be really interested to hear what your queer audience says, too, because, again, this was, like, I'm coming at it from a black lens, you know? And I'm like, that's what it would look like to me. You know what I mean? Like, at least then. You know what I'm saying?

That's what it would look like then, you know what I'm saying? That's what it would look like then, you know, especially at a time where queerness and, and the, like, you know, AIDS panic was so widely just cooked into media. That's. Yeah. Wow.

That's why, that's why I was like, I drew that conclusion too. Cause we were still, we were still like, I mean, at the woods is 93. So we was only a few years out of thinking that it only happened to queer

people. You know what I'm saying? Like at the end of the eighties, that's, we actually thought that it was only a few years out of thinking that it only happened to queer people. You know what I'm saying? Like at the end in the 80s, that's we actually thought that it was only this community. You feel me? So I think that there's like that moment in my mind was his attempt to humanize in the way that he knew how. You know, I mean, obviously it's 93. You know, it definitely I'm sure like like opened a door if only by a small crack yeah as far as representation goes because so many movies of that era if there was an

inclusion of any queer characters it was they were the butt of a joke yeah coded tropes yeah yeah all the all the bad stuff yeah yeah so it's like yo he's still a trope you know i'm saying so like but like you said like i i i felt as though this was much now granted when i was a preteen i didn't catch this like i felt like i caught it in this in watching it this weekend you know i'm saying um and i actually thought like dang that's actually a much more powerful moment than i would have guessed you know and again giving john singleton his propers as to like how he processes and sneaks in political issues into his movies i was like this is probably one of those moments it's tricky because during that time it was seen as a big risk for filmmakers to include queer characters at all so

yeah and it might have been that reason that yeah like the fact that we don't even know what that phone call was about because yeah like we can only just sort of like speculate and fill in the gaps yeah right just speaks to the fact that like so little time is dedicated to these characters absolutely that again was it's like just a very 90s thing so while i i appreciate like the the attempt at inclusion it's all it's like very much still like a product of its time in terms of like we get so little yeah it's not that meaningful yeah i i yeah on like i i would just be curious to know what our listeners think yeah because it wasn't even reading for me maybe it did in the time and again it's like you know it the frustrating thing here is ultimately like there should have been

more uh projects by queer directors that were championed and yeah and and there were in the 90s but but certainly not to the extent that was needed and so it's like you know it's not all on john singleton to do every single thing but it's totally but that's it it's it's yeah it it see it that feels kind of like an incremental thing that even yeah like to him and because at this time it's like having a black female central character was perceived as a creative risk and including queer people in any way was perceived as a risk. And so,

you know, none of it is perfectly done, but most directors wouldn't even touch it. So it's, yeah, it's very, very complicated. I hope this isn't a derailment well it might well if you restart something like that it probably is right uh but like take it away

yeah in the way that you're saying like hey having a queer main character having a black female or just a female lead in general being a risk. Like I wonder sometimes I just, I get into these like thought bubbles of like, why was, why and how did that become a belief? It just seems like of all the places for a prejudice or a patriarchy to like put their flag in the sand at like why why this this seems ridiculous like you know what what it reminded me of this thing like i watched

um hysterical on uh fx about like female comics and they were talking about this thing like this women aren't funny thing yeah and that like a lot of female comics face and i just feel like this is the most that's impossible to defend like that trope like why would you put your flag there of all the things to put your flag on you know i'm saying so the whole so i felt like that would like female comics not be i'm like what is you talking about like you can't defend that like that's an improvable and why would funny be gendered like this is stupid like why that one so to me so to me when i think about like well it's a risk to have a gay character why like what like show me the film that failed like do you know i'm saying that had a woman living like what is you talking about i just so that's what it makes me that's what it makes me think when you're

like well it was a risk like what like why is that a risk like i mean and and what is like that mental i mean and what it boils down to is that the people in charge of the film industry are still majority old straight white guys so it's like it's an on it's it's not i think that it's presented as a risk but we i mean we've talked about this a bajillion times on the show when there are women centered in stories when there are black women centers in stories where there are queer people centered in stories most of those movies do extraordinarily well because that's my point yes like so it's it's frustrating to have it presented as like well this is a creative risk and you're like but what about like all five here's a trillion examples you know and here's

billions of dollars in revenue yes that's what i mean yeah that's what i mean it's an indefensible position so i'm like if you run this studio and you telling me that's a risk, and then I show you 17 home runs, then I'm like, where are you getting this from? Why don't you just say what it really is? You know what I'm saying? And so that's the part that I just go, guys, this just blows my mind. And there's a derailment.

Was that a derailment it was that a derailment no well i mean it's it's very relevant to like our our show because it is because like like you said jamie the people who historically have run the studios run the industry which is yeah and still mostly do this is hollywood is and always has been and probably always will be only concerned about profit margins and the very specific demographic of people who are making the business and creative decisions regarding movies yeah perceive certain stories to be a risk, even though, again, there's so much evidence to the contrary. It's verifiably false. Verifiably false.

But then what will happen is someone else comes to the studio and says, okay, I have an idea for another black superhero movie, for example, and they'll say, well, we already have one of those. One at a time, yeah. Right, when it's like, can you give a second of thought to this? Yeah, no. You already have 47,000 white superhero movies. I'm just like, have we seen the Marvel Universe?

Right, right. What is you talking about? There's plenty of space. Yeah, it's not a defensible provision, but I feel like it is especially in in the 90s yeah i mean up until pretty recently it was like not a position that most hollywood people would question they're like oh yeah totally yeah no there can only be one movie with uh black woman as a protagonist totally makes sense you know yeah i yeah uh it's just like i just i get meta on those

things where i'm just like why this like why is that the thing yeah like there's of all the like you can't because again you can't defend this that's there's clear evidence otherwise i just don't understand why that's the thing well that's the infuriating thing too because it reaches the point with those kinds of executives where they are like their own prejudices and like discomfort with stories that do not reflect them directly reaches the point where they're leaving money on the table for kind of no reason.

Yes. Yes. It's, yeah, ridiculous. Yes. It's very frustrating. I think both of you are hilarious. Women are funny. We funny did it we myth busted busted i just feel like i mean no we're not talking about i know this is not what this

episode's about but it's just it's front of mind because i'm just like where did y'all even get that like who i'm like you ain't where did you like i feel like y'all just pulled that one out your ass like there's no you have there's no reason there was no way you could have ever drawn that conclusion by living on earth like that's just not a how you why you why this one i had a guy that i was very briefly dating and not dating after this comment from him say to me uh specifically pretty women can't be funny um and i said uh number one thank you for calling me pretty number two fuck off forever yeah essentially yeah that's ridiculous i'm uh yeah yeah anyway poetic justice any other

one thing I wanted to bring up Aisha does this thing again I love Regina King is amazing she's only 22 in this movie I'm like god damn it she's so good her performance is incredible she's

so she brings the comedy and humor. I mean, speaking of women being hilarious, the humor that she brings to every role I've ever seen her in is just like staggering. I love her character. She does do this thing though that bothered me and it felt, you know, of the time. And it's still a thing that happens today

where one of the reasons that her relationship with chicago is is not is not great is that she is constantly berating him for his inability to maintain an erection and his premature ejaculation yeah which we've talked about on the show pretty recently yeah yeah we talked about penis size specifically and like how problematic it is to shame people for having a small penis and then like with Aisha she's insulting Chicago's like quote manhood and like deliberately trying to emasculate him for the things that he's experiencing which is similarly problematic but that's a complicated issue though because it's like that in the fact that that is not how you should talk to your partner in no way justifies the way he reacts to it which is

absolutely physical you know yeah totally yeah yeah that's the interlocking thing that like it's still like her character is i mean it's spot on like that's that's a hood girl you know what i'm saying um who in her brain is doing the right thing because men ain't so they only want me for this so i'm gonna get what i need from them you know what i'm saying and it's like it's almost like you know yeah it's using the tools of the oppressor against them like so this it's this is what she's doing it's like this is this is what it means to be a boss is you berate the people up under you so it's like she's just doing what a toxic masculine culture taught you to do right i'm saying you beat a person into submission you

know i'm saying and i think like that's again that's the part that like i mean i grieve now you know seeing that image you know i'm saying uh i know it's a movie but it's like yeah you i just i see my childhood you know i'm saying i see i see the girls i grew up with you know i'm saying i see i see the girls i grew up with you know what i'm saying and uh i grew up in a mixed black and latino community so like like i know this exact version in the latino world you know i'm saying and it's just coming from this environment that you you this is all you know like all you know is like a boss runs things don't take no shit from nobody you know you ain't got no love for hoes you know i'm saying you just have this like attitude where it's like it's no love it's pimping out here i'm

getting what i got you feel me so rather than and why should the men get it all you feel me like i'ma do my pimping too you know and um and i i always say like from a male perspective i use the term pimping on purpose because it's like and we have a whole episode on the top politics about it where i'm like something about your soul has to crumble and die to be a good pimp like you have like you you have to be dead inside because of like what you have to do to another human being to be a successful one is like you can't do that and have a soul like it just the two don't work you know so to me it's like that persona is the worst of us you know I mean but it's presented as the most successful of us the most alluring of us because it's the

most flashy it's the most you know i'm saying like nobody can hurt you you know because we spend so much time hurt all the damn time we hurt you know i'm saying so you just take on that that person and and then again why should the dudes have all the fun so rather than like you know having this like a little boy your soul is broke you know, having this like, a little boy, your soul is broke, you know, and I'm not going to repeat that. It's like, you, you learn from the worst of us, you know, and, and it's, it's, you know, and to be honest, like, you know, lucky for me, thank, thank my lucky stars. Like, even though my parents split, you know, my father was around, you know what I mean? So like, and I was around a lot of like i knew a lot of dads

you know i'm saying and i was able to navigate away from a lot of those choices but but don't get me wrong him coming home with like bruised knuckles from working you know laying concrete all day you know i'm saying to an honest day's pay was very different than that 64 impala you feel me came bouncing down the road with all these bad girls on his arms you feel me um it was very different than that 64 impala you feel me came bouncing down the road with all these bad girls on his arms you feel me um it was very hard you know i'm saying it's why why would you not desire that you know um so her character all that to say her character actually kind of grieved me in a lot of ways because it just it reminds it reminded me of like, just the, like the allure, you know what I'm saying? Of taking on that persona and how it's like, it's destroying her.

Yeah. And it's destroying them. You know what I'm saying? And her alcohol, like her drinking problem too. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Cause you're like, she's hurt. She's in pain. You know what I'm saying?

So that's why you doing this. Yeah. That's why I wish that there, and this, this does seem to be i i haven't seen a few titles in like john singleton's later work but it's like i know that he's not generally like he doesn't want to spell out the moral for you like clearly at the end of the movie and i like totally respect that approach i do wish that like you you got like some sort of button for her character because i think that you know what you're saying prop makes total sense of like she is using the tools of the oppressor to survive she's clearly in a lot of pain and you don't really get a feeling for where she lands even

though it's so clear that she's like really hurting and it's i think that that expands to what you were saying earlier caitlin is like i think that just by exploring the the justice aisha friendship and history would have served the movie overall because you just would have gotten more from both of them because with justice i mean i think you the outside of that like conversation before she and Lucky hook up, most of what we learn about her is like her telling us, and it's very internal, and she's so withdrawn from the people in her life, and it would have been, yeah, like I would have,

I like that you have so many different kinds of flawed people in this narrative, but yeah, like with Aisha and Justice specifically, I just would have liked to see those flaws and those sources of hurt and like Justice's grief and just like explore them a little more together and not just see their hurt manifest through their relationships with men. Because that's, I mean, that scene on the side of the road

with Justice and Aisha, that's i mean that scene on the side of the road with justice and aisha that's such a powerful scene and like where you know aisha throws up justice is like this you're hurting me and you're hurting yourself and this like brings me pain from my life because my mom did this and just all this stuff that you're just like, oh, more of that. Like, I just, I don't know. Because, yeah, the Aisha Chicago storyline, I mean, it's so fucked up on, you know. So fucked up. There's different levels of fault at play here. And nothing justifies how he physically abused her.

And seeing someone set off by being emasculated and responding with violence unfortunately it's like you know that's that's that doesn't come from nowhere like that happens all the time and yeah i just i wish that it was still shocking dude it was yeah i didn't see it coming i i knew it was coming and i still and i still was like ah like it still like shook me you know like i know it's a movie and i've seen the movie and i still can't believe he did that you know i do think that it was like because we talk about on the show a lot a lot of like because chicago's kind of just like a guy you know he's like a pretty like he's run of the mill he's just a guy he loves his hairbrush he's not in the union he's not in the union that's unfortunately most people um yeah but but

like i i always think it is like an interesting and and often effective storytelling mechanism to like have a really common you know abuse tactic like chicago physically lashing out at his partner like attributed to a normal guy because that is more often than not you know like yeah it's not generally super villains walking through that it's it's normal people that it comes from this like very dark place of hurt and in his case feeling emasculated and and that that that's coming from i don't know yeah not having the like tools yeah you know to just first of all to not be in a relationship in the first place because like there was y'all should have both known this night this ain't gonna work you know what I'm saying but like toxic as hell yeah horrible humans you know what I'm saying toxically right but like to have the tools to

just kind of like stop a fight which is something I feel like you know after so many years of marriage it's we still I still have to catch myself too to be figure out how to stop a fight and go okay listen here's here's what's coming up with me here's what it reminds me of we will never get any further you know i'm saying until this and this is dealt with because that's your you're purposefully trying that's one thing we like we made it real a big deal about like was to be like let's assume that no one's trying to hurt the other like i'm not trying to i'm going to but like assume that i'm not trying to right you know but whenever like that feeling fills up where it's like yo i feel like you're trying to hurt me are you trying to one-up me like to have that like stop

stop the moment step out of it for a second and just be like i'm getting too much in the weeds the point i'm trying to make is like black men need to go to therapy is the point i'm trying to make it's like go to therapy fellas like i would extend that to all men and i would extend that to all people i was like how about literally everybody yes good god go to therapy would i tell you doc like oh lord oh man i'm just like if you just go to fam you just need to go to therapy you know i'm saying like just go to therapy go to therapy just go to therapy okay like amen this whole shit would have this whole movie would have been so much shorter gotta just went to therapy that comes up a lot too on the show we're like this plot of this movie wouldn't have even happened if every if all these characters were just in therapy yeah yeah yeah

i wish i and there was like a part there i i liked that there was early in the movie so clear of an out for justice where her car doesn't start i was like oh yeah just i i liked that there was early in the movie so clear of an out for justice where her car doesn't start i was like oh yeah just don't just don't get in the mail truck boom problem solved done yeah you could just not go yeah like can't make it she had to go to her hair show though i know yeah she did have a work she did have to get to the hair show yeah she could have called her boss she could clearly got there did i get a ride yeah my car won't start girl can i go with you like easy you wanted to go but then her body yeah you thought lucky was the whole time and been like why are you why are you an old why are you single 23 like yeah touche actually yeah actually as a matter of fact like i guess she did kind of make the

the most logical choice given the information she had at that moment yeah which is like look i'll just i'll just sit here i'll just write i don't know who the other guy is right plus her best friends there my best friend it's only a few hours we'll just i'll just get it over you didn't know that he was gonna take the pch like there's just a lot of things'll just i'll just get it over you didn't know that he was gonna take the pch like there's just a lot of things no nor did he know yeah that's true bros three hours longer like why are you going that way lucky come on lucky yeah uh does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie um i wanted to share this quote from a writer named Michelle Wallace, who originally reviewed this movie in 1993 for Entertainment Weekly. I was looking scrambling, one could say, to find just an insight from a black feminist of how this movie was received at the time

and I thought her writing was really interesting so I just wanted to share this quote from her. She says, quote, as a consequence of his unwillingness to take this work or indeed black female thought seriously, his poet has no voice, meaning John Singleton.

He invents injustice, a character who seems capable of morality and intelligence, but then he gags her, unquote. Yeah, I mean, the more I think about this movie, the more I'm like, how much of this is Justice's story and how much of it is it Lucky's story? Like, it doesn't feel...

Yeah, I don't know. It centers around this this romantic relationship where we as we've talked about like don't get to know justice all that well no i'm not even sure we can call her the protagonist i think there's like a dual protagonist situation happening like i mean it's it's unsurprising that like a man directing this would like gravitate more toward the male character that he had created in terms of like yeah having the audience experience the story through a man's lens yeah but there just felt like a bit of dissonance yeah throughout the story for me i agree and i

think that that's like the the last thought that i had that again again, it's like I'm very glad that this movie exists. Yeah. I think that it was, you know, like a valiant effort and iconic in many ways. But particularly because John Singleton literally has the work of Maya Angelou here, who speaks to the black female experience so like eloquently, like most, maybe most iconically ever in the US. I feel like it almost makes it stick out a little more how we don't know that much about justice, particularly in the moment where she's reading Phenomenal Woman, one of the most famous poems of all time by anybody that is about womanhood and about processing your own experiences and during that sequence i was like it just felt like a little unearned yeah because it's such a

beautiful poem and i was like but i don't understand how this is about justice i don't understand how justice would write this poem no about everything that just happened you know what i mean based right based on the events of the story up until that point like okay you were screamed at by a man who you had sex with a few hours later like in that like i don't i don't is that like a men's idea of what is empowering for women i just don't i mean and this is like not even a severe like burn to John Singleton's work, but it's because it's, you know, it's hard to rise to Maya Angelou's level. But I just felt like the story didn't rise to her poetry. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

The last thing I wanted to because we like reference this earlier, but Janet Jackson, you know, she grew up very rich and i was like oh how did she prepare for this role how how did she do it uh she hung out with a hairdresser and three women from south central and ate waffles for three weeks that's how she prepared oh my god i was just it was such a simple and then she said i grew up black and proud and because i've become from a wealthy family doesn't mean i can't relate to a working girl's pain i was like oh i don't know she hung out and ate waffles for three weeks and that was her i know i was just like you know there's a feel some privilege jumping out there yeah it'd be cool to not know that you know i'm sorry no i'm saying for her like for her it'd if she'd have just kept that to herself.

Or say nothing. Yeah, just say nothing. Oh, you know, it's acting. You know what I'm saying? Like we came from this, but it's not like we were always this, you know. Right. You know, I just went to go stay with the fam. I ate waffles for three weeks.

What? Can I tell you a funny story? Yes. Can I tell you a funny story? Oh, yeah. can i tell you a funny story yes can i tell you a funny story oh yeah okay i i know for a fact because would nobody that was at this thing would ever listen to this so this is great um early on in the career i was on this uh tour uh 2012 a bunch of us um and uh it just reminded me of the waffles thing uh and i'm the only one on the tour that's from L.A.

Everybody else is, they're all from the south, right? Give or take a couple dudes from New York. So it's like our big tour, bus tour, first like major thing. We're playing the Palladium. It's incredible, right? So it's like, again, L.A. boy, I can't believe I get to play the Palladium. This is like bucket list. Oh, my God, right?

So we get there. The promoters like, Hey man. Okay. It's 12 black men, right? 12 black men. And our DJ who's Puerto Rican from New York and the homie Andy from

Syracuse. Just like, just Andy, like just lacrosse playing like boston strong white boy right but andy can rap his ass off like he one of those rappers i know just white boy from upstate new york you know i'm saying so just so you know him you already know him right yeah so anyway the promoter walks in he goes man i just want to congratulate you guys you're playing the palladium you sold it out guys so like hey as a gift you

know i'm going to give you something just from la to remember your thing right now again i'm the native right everybody else not from la so the guy breaks out he's got stacks of roscoe's chicken and waffles t-shirts, right? And he's passing them out. He's like, huh? Waffles? Roscoe's? Right? So we're all looking at each other like, did he just give us chicken and waffle t-shirts?

Did this promoter just give us that? Right? And Andy's like, this is awesome. Like, oh, my God. Like, what are you guys problems? You love Roscoe's. Right. Didn't we go there for lunch, guys? Right. So I was just like, this promoter just gave 12 black men a waffle T-shirt for selling out his venue. I wasn't mad as much as I was like,

this is hilarious. He really, like, again, because I'm from here. So I'm like, bro, bro, of all the gifts you could have given us, this man gave us. And I get it. It's next door to the Palladium.

There's a Roscoe's next door to the Palladium. I understand. Right, I understand. But at the same time, I was just like, bro, waffles? So i hadn't thought about that until you told me janet jackson in prep for this show went and ate waffles for three weeks that's really what y'all think of us that's crazy oh my god i wonder if john singleton knew that that was her process. I know, right? I don't know. That is hilarious.

I haven't told that story in years. That is. I'm sorry for resurfacing that. No, it's all good. Me and the homie Andy, we still laugh at that story because he was just like, this was my first lesson. Because I was like, I don't understand the problem. We love waffles

don't we i was like yes andy waffles are delicious they're amazing i had some this morning yes and now i'm hungry for waffles thanks we bought a new waffle iron too you know what i'm saying i might actually actually make waffles oh my goodness night waffles are special seriously dude night waffles breakfast for dinner is still a treat my favorite oh well what's the bechdel score the movie does pass the bechdel test it does a few different times yeah okay by our standard which we forgot to talk about at the top of the show but considering the like meaningful conversation between two people two named characters of any marginalized gender the because justice and aisha talk about hair they talk about aisha's drinking problem they do talk about men a lot yeah yeah as do justice and jesse i think they exclusively talk about no

there's a scene where they talk about receipts yeah they talk about receipts and a little like a rogue line about poetry and i was like yeah okay we we got an exchange but yeah it wasn't got one right oh and and and jesse says something like why are you wearing that hat all the time and but other than that makes you think it's a lot of conversations about men and then in terms of our nipple scale zero to five nipples based on an examination of intersectional feminism as it applies to the movie i feel like this one might get kind of a split down the middle i feel like maybe like a 2.5 where 2.5 nipples yes i'm so sorry to be bisecting a nipple and a half oh my god that's harsh two and a half nips yeah two and a half because i yeah i mean i like justice as a character i love aisha i love their friendship I just think there was opportunities to yeah explore more about these women in the movie I don't like that there are so many people telling

justice oh you just need a man and then you'll be happy yeah I also cannot get behind the justice lucky relationship especially after how we see him treating her early on. But I appreciate the general idea of wanting to center a story around Black joy and Black people falling in love, while also showing these characters in their world and their circumstances and providing the context in a nuanced way. So two and a half nipples. I'll give one to Janet Jackson. I'll give one to Regina King. And I'll give one to Cousin Pete.

My half nipple to Cousin Pete. Cousin Pete! Icon. And we all know Janet's nipple is pretty iconic, man. It's a Super Bowl nipple. I would recommend, there's a super bowl nipple i would uh i would recommend there's a really good episode of you're wrong about uh about the the super bowl the super bowl nip slip and how demonized uh janet jackson was after that for no fucking reason fortunately

history is now uh correctly targeting justin timberlake good that because i was just you know what yes because there's he is the villain even back then yeah even back then i was like oh he dodging a bullet because bro you you physically did the act like what did you yeah how is this i don't understand how you getting away with this like Like, yeah, that was, I, I, I will pride myself being like something about this. How is this on her? Things don't add up. Cause she had a jewel on it.

That's cause it's her. She can put what she want on her. She didn't expect it just because you i'm wearing underwear right now that don't mean i expect it to be seen it's clean i like my underwear but i don't think it's gonna be on camera so leave that lady alone you know i it's a really i will we'll link that episode in the in the description because it's a it's a it's a good one they they go in uh like they do the deep lore for that story yes i'll do i'll do uh i'll do a 2.5 as well i think like there we've talked a lot about it i'm really glad that this movie exists uh i'm i'm glad that uh justice is centered in the way she is. I appreciate I just generally appreciate John

Singleton's work and how he did like from being a very young artist like push himself to include more voices in his work however imperfectly it was done which I think we've talked a lot about ways that it could have definitely been improved on. Because it's like there was more to justice than we got to see. And I feel like by trimming out some of the like excess talk about men and we could have, you know, more effectively explored her story. You could have explored the friendship with her and Aisha. And there was just like a lot left on the table. I felt like that it would have been really interesting to explore and I also think that you know I would imagine and even though you know John Singleton spoke with a number of black women to put this story together you know having black

women in creative roles certainly would have served to fix some of these problems as well I would imagine yeah but for for its time i think it's doing a lot i'm i it was it was really interesting to revisit i'm not rooting for this relationship but i'm rooting for the individuals involved so i'll give it 2.5 one to Aisha and then I'll give I'll give the half to the mail truck uh sacred vessel uh yeah I actually I have no disagreements with your your assessment I every time you keep saying you're not rooting for justice and lucky in my brain I keep going janet jackson and tupac which is what i'm rooting for you know i'm saying yeah because i'm like i'm actually am rooting for janet jackson and tupac and then i'm like oh which means i'm not rooting for justice and lucky you know i'm saying? So like, I think that, so yeah, I think that I guess I'll go to 2.5 too, because I feel like it's the best attempt of a man telling a woman's story. And do you understand what I'm trying to say here? Like, if you, if you're gonna do it, this is probably as good as it's gonna get you know because because it's not your story you know

i'm saying so because i'm looking at myself going i probably would have made a lot of the same decisions too because i just i only know this from observing y'all you know from like that's that's what i see you guys talk about at the hair salon you know i'm saying this you know and yeah that sounds like my auntie you know i'm saying'm saying? I know a girl like this. You know what I'm saying? I think it's because of that. So because I'm not them, you know what I mean? So I would, if I were to tell the story, it would be this.

So I feel like, yeah, it's like, this is the best any, a man could get, you know, short of just saying, handing the reins over to being like, hey, can you write this? Can you write these characters? You know what I'm saying? Which would probably, you know, obviously push it over the half mark at least, right? Right. Yeah, I think the sort of the sage kind of Obi-Wan Kenobi,

you know, tone of the shop owner is at least worth a nipple. You know, she's a mentor, you know. Maybe not the best one, but she is one, you know. You know, I think that what pushes it over the top is Maya Angelou. Yes. Oh, yes. Wait. And them, yeah.

So I feel like I was going to say that might give me a 2.75 because of the three mamas sitting at the table basically calling the girls out on their shit you know i'm saying that was just like that girl ain't more married than the man on the moon like you was not married look at her you know i'm saying like so the mama's the mama's doing it but then the mama's being as old school is like my man would never let me walk around here you know i mean so it's like that's why you don't get a full nip you know I'm saying because you're still perpetuating you know I'm saying stuff we trying to get away from but that moment of those you know mothers again is like the authenticity of that to me is something that's so important you know but again it's like i could still see

how that's a boy talking about his grandmothers right you know i mean it's not necessarily a a daughter talking about her grandmothers you feel me so like so i could still so i think that at the end of the day it's a 2.5 so or 2.75 i think so i'm gonna go nipple for janet uh it's gonna get hard here so i'm gonna have to go nipple for um aisha i think half a nip goes to the store owner i keep forgetting her name jesse jesse jesse half a nip goes to the store owner. I keep forgetting her name. Jessie. Jessie. Jessie.

Half a nip goes to Jessie and then the three fourth goes to Maya Angelou. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This was so fun. God, I have so much respect for you guys. I've been fanboying all week telling my wife like, dude, I get to be on the show. I'm so nervous. They're going to like, this is going to be so be so bad i'm gonna put my foot in my mouth so i thought about thinking i thought about it at first i was like what is the most out of pocket horrible thing

i'm just gonna open with it just get it out of the way say something so wrong out the box and just be done i think you did absolutely fantastic. Oh my God, thank you so much. And tell us about your stuff, your social media, your book, your podcast. Yeah, the book goes along with like a series of like music EPs I've been dropping. They're all called Terraform. It's some of the stuff we're talking about here

kind of like in a meta way kind of goes with it terraform is just you know science fiction nerd word when you find a distant planet what you got to do to make it livable so the poetry and the music is around like well what if we did that here because earth is becoming less and less livable whether it's physical uh like geologically, or just socio culturally and interpersonally, just all these things are just really thinking, okay, what if we could just start over and build this build our civilization from scratch? Like, yeah, what will we keep? What do we need to throw away? What what are we not imagining? You know, like, where have we limited ourselves? Like, for example, in the last,

in the last chapter of this poetry book, I asked the question that kind of like, I feel like this, this, your podcast asks is like, imagine a world without patriarchy. And so somebody asked me that. And I was like, I can't. Yeah. And it just like, I was like, I honestly can't. Cause somebody said, imagine a world without misogyny, patriarchy, racism. Imagine it. What would it look like? And I was like, I was like, jazz came from racism. Because like, because you segregated, you segregated.

So I was like, that's where we came from. So I was like, dang, like, I have a limited imagination, you know? So, so, so like, but what if we could? What is a world without patriarchy? What would have never happened? Where would we have gotten to? You know what i'm saying so like so that so a lot of ways the book is like it's a challenge you know um and the music is a challenge to like yeah just like imagine a better future build a livable world so that's the uh that's the poetry in the book the music in the podcast uh politics

i just believe like if you understand gang life, you understand geopolitics. And even if it's even, it not even just gang life. If you survived eighth grade, you know, if you like figured out which, like if you want,

if you knew how to navigate mean girls or like just which table to sit at at lunch when you were a freshman, you know, you had to figure out which table to sit at. lunch when you were a freshman you know you have to figure out which table to sit at like you actually understand geopolitics so i'm essentially like it's like 30 minutes of whatever like conversations are in the zeitgeist that like you kind of feel like maybe i know what this is but maybe i don't where i'm like you know what it is and i'm just gonna like lay it out in like kind of hood terms you know that's fun amazing it's great thank you again so much for being here what what a treat it's been come back anytime don't even play with me like that because i will

absolutely come back i think you guys are like i'm this is no gas like i think y'all are brilliant and i think you're so fucking funny but and the funniest is like it's smart like that's the i'm just like god these girls are just so funny so yeah so i appreciate y'all man oh my goodness i'm blushing no you're not shut up i can see you i'm taking screenshots kayla dorante right now oh my god well thank you so much all right thank you you're amazing we're also big fans whatever Big fans. Whatever. Thank you. You can follow us on social media, Twitter, Instagram, at Bechtelcast. We've got our Patreon at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. And it's $5 a month. And it's two bonus episodes plus access to the back catalog.

And our merch store, tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast we just did borat 2 on the matreon if that's something that uh intrigues you oh my god that's i don't think i can handle that one um and let's all go write some poetry let's do it bye-bye daphne Caruana Galizia 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 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.

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