The Bechdel Cast - The Blackening with Nonye-Brown West

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

This week, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Nonye Brown-West play a game (Saw vibes?!) at a cabin in the woods while discussing The Blackening. Check out the original sketch from 3Peat here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOPwQdDu-D8 Follow Nonye on Instagram and TikTok at @noneefizzle and check out her website at nonyecomedy.com See 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. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever.

But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.

What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts.

How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white and prints. It's bigger than a flag or mascot listen to rebel spirit on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts on the beckdell cast the questions asked if movies have women in them are all their discussions just boyfriends

and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hey jamie hey caitlin let's play a game it's me jigsaw but it's also me the villain from the blackening spoiler alert spoiler alert i also went oh the jigsaw parallels undeniable i mean i know it's like yeah every horror movie parallels that's the whole point but also jigsaw specifically you get a beautiful jigsaw oh you know but i don't i don't remember the words from college motif pastiche homage anything like you get one of those at the end oh i yes sorry i just was effusive about you so is that a yes you will play a game with me of course i'll play a game of course i'll play a game

oh good and i hope that it is basically bar trivia i love that that's the game it's bar trivia and you know me i love a pub quiz i I love bar trivia. I go all the time. Yes. I played it by myself in Paris when I was there recently. Brag, number one. Very, what's the movie? Very, Frances Ha, when she goes to Paris and just like hangs out, just like, hmm, what should I do? Sleeps most of the time, hangs out by herself. Yeah, I did manage to go outside and go to Bar Trivia. Well, it was because it was happening right after the comedy show that I just did at the

same location. So I was like, what? There's trivia here? There was only like five or six teams, but I was in like second place at one time because there was a round of 10 questions that were all Star Wars questions. And I got them all right. And it really propelled me to the front of the group. You single-handedly healed relations between France and the U.S. in that moment.

Yes. Anyway. Welcome to the Bechdel cast. I feel like that was a very focused intro. We're doing great. We nailed it. Yeah. Welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante. And this is our podcast where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point. But Jamie, what is it though? Okay, I can tell you. Okay. So the Bechdel test is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often called the Bechdel-Wallace

test because she co-created it with her friend, Liz Wallace. Lots of versions of this test. We sort of use it as a jumping off point for discussion because it was originally created as a joke for her comic dykes to watch out for. But the version of the test that we use requires that there be two characters with names of a marginalized gender who talk to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue. Low bar to clear. A lot of movies still don't, but more movies than used to. True. And there's also a lot of tests that have been inspired by this test, which I feel like is maybe more relevant to the conversation we're going to have today.

We have a highly requested movie today. We've been getting requests for this movie since before it came out. And we were waiting for the right time, the right place, the right guest. That's right. The stars have aligned today. We are covering The Blackening. And our guest is a writer and comedian. You've seen her on NPR and Sway in the Morning.

It's Noye Brown-West. Hi. Hello. Hello. Welcome. Thanks for having me on having me on guys oh my gosh thanks for being here a true Boston 2010s comedy scene reunion we did it here we are so good to see you yeah it's very good to see you both it's been a very long time Jamie Caitlin I just saw yeah we were hanging out in New York. Ever heard of it? No. Tell me more.

Noye, tell us about your relationship with this movie. I was very excited for it to come out because I saw the original sketch that Dwayne Perkins posted on his, I think, IG and YouTube everywhere. It was so funny. And we were friends at the time. I found like a, I don't remember where I found, I think I was like messaging them. And I saw this photo that they had sent me of us hanging out.

So I guess we were friends, you know? And so I was like, sure. The way comedy works. Yeah. You don't always remember yeah i'm like i did one show with duane perkins that means we're friends right he doesn't have any idea who i am but i we know each other we've all yeah we've all done shows with him and we're all his close personal friends i think it's safe to say i just checked he follows me back on Twitter so

we're actually really close oh we actually woke up next to each other wow we had like Facebook DM so that's another level that's another level old friendship yeah but yeah I couldn't wait to see it so I saw it the opening weekend and I saw it again. And then I have stars and I've watched it like four times on stars. Love it so much. Nice. It's one of my favorites. It's one of the three comedians that I know movies that came out last year or the year before. That rocks.

Okay. Huge flex. Well, listen, we all know people in movies and we're like, oh, that's a possibility. I didn't even realize they could be hiring us for that. When will that be? My manager has me in acting school now. And I'm like, OK. OK.

This might happen. I'm kind of old. So we'll see. Maybe a Viola Davis in the works. I don't know. I love this so the thing I do every couple of weeks is just like google and it like fills right in so you know that every aspiring actor does it where it's like actors who bloomed late you're just and it's like the same 10 people every time

you're like yes yes yes it's and and me and add me as well someday nice so you love the movie you've seen it many times seen it many times i'm a big fan love the humor something that i noticed right away in it is that they had every type of black person represented like in the humor and honestly the casting so like i'm first generation i'm nigerian they had a character for me they had a character that's supposed to be of like the core subset or something or you know just hood that's kind of what i've become in my in my old age so i was like oh i identify with a lot of this. But yeah, there were jokes to everybody. It was great.

Hell yeah. Even the nerdy guy. Yeah. He's a little bit of me too. We're all nerds here. I feel like I say that. What? We contain multitudes.

Jamie, how about you? What's your relationship with the movie? I mean, this is the second time I've seen it. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. It was like a movie I was really excited for last year. Also because just, yeah, Dwayne Perkins is an amazing standup who I've seen and performed with over the years.

And it's just like so exciting. Like you were just saying, like it's so exciting to be like, oh my God, wait, what? And then to see him in particular, because I mean, he's just like the person that I show up to the movie for it. Like just seeing him shine and seeing him be a movie star, you're just like, this is so

fucking cool. It was really exciting. I was excited to see it. I think it's a really funny movie. I think it's like it feels like tonally it feels like a throwback, but it also has like new ideas that I haven't seen in horror movies before. It just felt like a really cool split of, it has the feel of a 90s, like horror comedy to me. And it also has all of like, but it is obviously very, very clearly made in the modern day. I just really enjoyed it.

And also was a big fan of the original sketch. Like it was really, really cool. I think just again, in a world where we are conditioned to feel and so often it is true that artists and especially marginalized artists are not able to like make their own movies through these traditional channels but like here is an example of a sketch team that like hustled on stage I think UCB forever and then got like a chance to make a sketch for a couple thousand dollars with Comedy Central and then made a huge movie that people love.

And I just think it's amazing. It's really funny and I'm excited to talk about it. Caitlin, what's your history? I saw it in theaters and I was similarly excited for it to come out. I was getting a lot of like Instagram ads and trailers for it. And I was like, oh, I love Dwayne Perkins. He's a hilarious stand up comic, as we've all already

said. It's just the Dwayne Perkins fan club. Yeah, truly. Yeah. So I it seemed something that was like just very up my alley because I love a horror comedy. Not that I'm not a fan of like pretty straight horror, but I seek it out probably the least of all the major genres. But if you add some comedy in there, then I'm way more likely to be on board. So I was very excited to see it. I saw it with some friends. We all enjoyed it. And then yeah, I've watched it a couple times since then. It is a very rewatchable movie. For sure. Definitely.

Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to recap it. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee,

Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from like what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs hi i'm evil angoria hi i'm. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. Season two. Season two. Are we recording? Are we good? Oh, we push record, right? Okay. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite

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This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. We're back. And here is the recap. So we open on a couple, Morgan and Sean,

played by Yvonne Orji and Jay Pharoah, at a cabin in the woods. This like continues the grand tradition that I feel like was begun maybe by Scream. My horror movie knowledge is not comprehensive, but like already you open the movie with the two kind of most famous people in the movie and then they die. Like it's just a time-honored tradition you see two famous people and you're just like we're gonna lose them we're gonna lose them yeah you're like oh they had only the budget to pay them for one day they had at most a day and a half with these two famous people yeah they make that joke in the movie too like yeah they're just like yeah you don't want to be someone a little too famous at a horror movie

yeah so they are at this house and they're waiting for their other friends to arrive for a college reunion slash juneteenth celebration but right now it's night and it's spooky and there's a masked person lurking outside watching them through the window and they discover this game room in the house and in the middle of the room is this board game called the blackening and it's this very weird creepy thing where there's a face that looks like blackface minstrel kind of thing like old racist toys yeah or like any cartoon that was made before the 50s you know yeah yeah so that's kind of like the centerpiece of the game board and out of curiosity, they start playing. And the first question is, name a black character who survives in a horror movie, answer correctly, or you die. And they kind of brush it off,

they're not taking it seriously. And they don't answer before the time limit. And then a masked man, the one who was lurking outside, shows up and kills them? I could answer that question. Please. So, like, I wanted to, like, yell at the screen. During the first time I saw it, I could yell at the screen because it was one of those theaters.

Sphere. In the movie Sphere, which I feel like is a horror movie. I love horror movies, and I would categorize that as a horror movie. Okay. I don't think I've seen it. Yeah, Samuel L. Jackson's character survives,

but they all, all of them technically survive. I think two of them might like, okay. Oh no. I think two people do actually die, but Samuel L. Jackson survives. I don't remember his character's name though.

Okay. So would I have been murdered? Probably. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, yeah,

it depends. You might've gotten away on a technicality. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I hope you never are in a situation where you find out. True. So Jay Pharoah's character is killed and then Yvonne Orgy's character is like abducted.

Cut to the other friends who that couple was waiting for. I think it's the next day they're in the car on their way to the cabin we meet duane played by duane perkins allison played by grace byers and lisa played by antoinette robertson it's established that allison and lisa can kind of communicate telepathically not in a like literal sci-fi way more in like a jokey way we're like like a best friend way right close friends just know what the other one is thinking or just all black people too because i've done it with people at stop and shop done it with people on the train one woman actually communicated to me that my my lace in my wig was lifting. And then she handed me a clip.

So just all with the eyes. Beautiful. I feel like black people, people of color, we can do it with each other. Yeah, white people cannot do this. No, in fact, we may in fact do the opposite. Yeah. Okay, so then we also meet Shanika, played by X Mayo. She is in a separate car. She stops at a convenience store for some snacks, where a creepy white guy is working behind the counter. She also bumps into Clifton, played by Jermaine Fowler, who she didn't realize was coming to the reunion. Then we meet King, played by Melvin Gregg, who is already

at the cabin, where a white park ranger whose name is Ranger White. Ranger White, yeah. And later Ranger White. White, yeah. He's played by Diedrich Bader. He's giving King a hard time because he thinks King is trying to break into the cabin. But then the others show up and they're like, no, we're renting this place for the weekend. So Ranger White leaves. We also meet Namdi, played by Cinqua Walls. He is handsome. Yeah, super handsome.

He's handsome, for sure. Dwayne doesn't like him because Namdi and Lisa used to date, but he cheated on her a bunch. And like Dwayne was always there to kind of pick up the pieces. But Namdi and Lisa are back together, which is something that will like create tension among them throughout the movie. They settle into the house or the cabin. There's some creepy vibes. Allison notices the door to the game room. She's like, what's that? But it's locked. Then they start drinking and doing Molly and playing spades. They reflect as a group how some of them have changed or how they haven't changed since college. They're all kind of not sure why Clifton is there he wants to learn how to play spades but they don't want to be bothered teaching him do you two know how to play spades no i do not i play it

periodically but we like actually had a tournament this christmas it was like me my sister my little brother and my husband and my sister and my husband were together because they're like best friends me and my little brother were together we won every single time it was crazy hell yeah nicely done they were terrible we gotta note my husband is white so that might be why they lost you know sure yeah i've always been curious about it is it similar to the game hearts it's just like hearts okay but only you have to um in hearts, you don't have to, like, predict how many books you're going to win, how many hands you're going to win.

But in spades, you have to predict. And then you lose points or gain points if you hit it exactly right. Got it. Okay. Yeah. It's cool. I never advanced from, like, go fish and slap jack, unfortunately. I know how to play some games. I know how to play hearts game i know how to play hearts i know how to play canasta anyone else out there in the world no what's that slide into my dms if you're a big

canasta head it's a two deck traditionally card game although there are versions of it where you can play with more decks it's similar to bridge in the sense that like a lot of like old white ladies play it black people love bridge too though okay okay nice that's what i just assume all old people are doing in social situations yeah just playing yeah playing bridge in any case so clifton's like, I want to play spades, but they're mostly just dismissing him because he's like not really their friend and they're not sure why he's there. I think it's nice of them that they like didn't kick him out. I know that plot wise, but like they could have been meaner. Yeah, true. Yeah.

They made him a drink. They got him a chair. They took his bag. That's nice. You know, i feel like he has like sort of the revenge of the nerds syndrome right where it's like oh like everyone is like oh well he's kind of a misfit you know he's just lonely and you're like no no you've trusted baby elon musk don't let him in. Spoiler alert.

Okay, so then suddenly the lights go out and Lisa notices something or someone lurking outside. They're very creeped out. They search the house for a fuse box and they realize that all the doors in the house are now locked except for that game room from earlier. They enter it and discover that same game, the Blackening Game, which has game pieces specific to each of them. So they think it's their friend Morgan messing with them. So they start to play. Then the very racist face on the game says, pick a card and save Morgan. And they're like, what do you mean save Morgan? And then a TV turns on in the room showing Morgan tied up and trapped somewhere. And the game is like, if you answer 10 questions correctly, Morgan lives and you're all free to go. But if you get one wrong, she dies. So they have no choice but to play. They start playing and it's questions about Black history

and Black pop culture. They get several correct until they get to a trick question about the show Friends. Hilarious. They get it wrong. And it seems like Morgan is about to be killed, but she manages to get away and they realize that she's in the basement. So they try to open the door, but then the masked killer comes through the door and is shooting arrows at them with a crossbow. A few of them get injured, but then they stab the killer in the foot and shoot at him with the gun that King brought. So the killer kind of scurries off. The group ends back up in the game room and the killer forces them to keep playing the game. For the next round, they have to sacrifice the person who they deem to be the quote-unquote

blackest and send them out to face the killer. Because normally in horror movies, the black character always dies first. So they all select Clifton, since again, he's not really their friend. So Clifton goes outside and the killer shoots him with an arrow and drags him away. Then the friends are like, all right, we're done with this. We're not playing your game anymore. And the killer's like, okay, well, guess what? It's the sudden death round, pretty literally where you can either stay in the house and like hide or go outside and try to escape. But either way, I'm coming for you. So Dwayne, Lisa and Namdi decide to stay inside while Shanika, Allison, and King go outside to make a run for it. The inside group goes into the basement to try to find Morgan.

They don't, but they find some other creepy shit. So they go back upstairs. And everyone is like acknowledging every horror movie trope at every single step. It's like the don't split up trope. The don't go downstairs trope. Yeah, I do just love a horror movie where all the characters have seen horror movies. Right. And then do it anyways.

It's beautiful. Oh my god. Yeah, that's always great. Yeah. I just saw a Korean film, like a Korean horror movie that was basically that. The whole thing was just them going to an asylum, which everyone was like, maybe we shouldn't do this. Splitting up. Everyone said, maybe we shouldn't do this.

Sacrificing the weakest. And she immediately dies. Terrible. I mean, I feel like the blackening sort of demonstrates sometimes it's just a pragmatic choice. It didn't not make sense. Right. Yeah. When Allison is like explaining the whole thing, it's like, yeah, maybe it does make sense for you to split up, actually. Yeah. upstairs and run into Ranger White from earlier. He seems to be an ally who wants to help them, so they proceed, but with caution. Meanwhile, the outside group is trying to get to a main road, but the killer finds them and is shooting arrows at them. They fight back, and Allison eventually kills him.

They pull off his mask, and it's the creepy man from the convenience store, a guy named Camden Connor. But they realize that he's wearing different boots than whoever they had stabbed in the foot, so there must be more than one killer. Another reference to screen the multiple killers yeah meanwhile ranger white is trying to get the other group to safety but he

like hears a noise he goes to check it out there's a moment where they think he might be the killer because they find one of the masks in his vehicle but then ranger white gets killed and it turns out he was an ally all along they run back into the house duane gets separated from the other two for a bit but then you know they reunite inside the other killer is after them but they managed to kill him too after duane pukes on his face yeah very real I feel like I would throw up if I was getting chased right I really love that you just like blew through that you're like after he throws up anyway you're like that's actually a really impactful moment in the film yeah sorry I didn't mean to overshadow it and something else you skipped from the other death is like they reference the dance scene

from scary movie oh i forgot about that this is cinema it's cinema it really is all the references so now everyone is back inside they've killed the two. They pull off the second person's mask, and he looks just like the other guy, and his name is Clive Connor. It turns out they are twins, but it seems like they were both hired by someone else to kill this group of friends. Then Dwayne, Shanika, Lisa, and Namdi go back down to the basement to try to find their other friends, Morgan and Sean, instead they find Clifton, who appears to be dead. Yeah, another like saw-coated moment. Oh, yeah. He appears to be dead.

Oh, right. And then he stands up there is nothing more fun to me in a horror movie when all of a sudden someone goes you're just like whoa it's the best it's like yeah it's just how like i wake up every day and it's fun to watch yes so there's a newspaper clipping on clifton about an incident from 10 years ago where he killed someone in a drunk driving accident. And they're like, what's this about?

And then twist Clifton wakes up. Basically the saw music is playing. No, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. He's the mastermind.

He's the bad guy behind all of this. He traps them inside the basement. And we learn that he's basically enacting revenge against them because on this night, 10 years ago, they were all at a Juneteenth party playing spades. And Clifton made a mistake during the game. And then everyone gave him shit for it. And he got really embarrassed. And he got drunk for the first time ever, drove home and killed someone in this drunk driving accident. And his life has been in shambles ever since with jail time and everything. So he's getting revenge and the friends are trying to like form a plan to disarm Clifton using their like close friends telepathy abilities. But it doesn't work because he also can hear them. And meanwhile, upstairs, Allison and King find a remote control on one of the dead guys. And they're trying to figure out how to unlock the basement, but they accidentally turn off all the lights. So the friends in the basement use this as an opportunity to fight back against Clifton. There's a scuffle and they eventually defeat and kill Clifton and like throw him into this very deep well.

So the six friends having all survived, they're now outside trying to figure out what to do. They know that calling the cops is a horrible idea. And by this time, the credits are inexplicably running. Right. I don't know why this is like a post-credits moment. Feels like a studio decision. I don't know. Yeah. Could be. So rather than calling the cops, they call the fire department but then they still get sprayed down and that's like the little button that ends the movie was hilarious that was so funny when i i remember seeing that the first time i like spit out my drink it was so funny also something you left out clifton starts laughing from the bottom of the well. So he might not be dead. I think that there's going to be a second.

Exactly. There's going to be a second film, which I know they're working on now. Yes, I saw that. Very excited. Let's take another quick break and then we'll come back to discuss. Hey, everyone.

It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all

about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 unhearts 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. 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. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar.

Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts.

Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. Season two. Season two. Are we recording? Are we good? Oh, we push record, right?

And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Seeing that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba, and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. So all of these... We have, we thank Latin culture. There's a mention of blood sausage in Homer's Odyssey

that dates back to the 9th century B.C. B.C.? I didn't realize how old the hot dog was. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And we're back. Where should we start?

No, yeah. Does anywhere jump out for you? Where would you like to start? I don't know. There's some moments I just love. we're back and we're back where should we start no yet does anywhere jump up for you where would you like to start i don't know there's some moments i just love i really liked when they sing the sister act song to each other so start a new song if you wanna be somebody and you wanna go somewhere you gotta wake up and pay attention so me and my sisters will randomly just like sing that to each other if whatever's happening calls for it you know what i mean randomly just like sing that to each other. If whatever's happening calls for it. You know what I mean? So I like seeing that in a movie.

Sure. And then I did like the part where the really hot woman played by Antoinette Lisa was saying, why do black women have to save everybody all the goddamn time? When she's like killing the guy. And I was like, yeah. That was my little like, yeah. Exactly. Like killing the guy. And I was like, yeah. That's my little like, yeah. Exactly. Like black power.

Black women power movement moment for the movie. I feel like that's kind of part of a larger thing, which is that like women are allowed to do things in this movie in a way that they're often not allowed to do things in most movies, where like, you know, obviously, it's Shanika, Allison, and Lisa, they're, you know, answering the questions of the game. They're fighting back against the killer. And I didn't clock any moment where a woman had to be saved by a man but we do see alison save king when the killer is descending on him in the woods we have women killing the two masked minions okay bello alison kills one and lisa kills other one. I also appreciated that a queer character, Dwayne, kills the final big bad. So it's like you have characters who are not normally even

allowed to participate. Well, not even allowed to live. Yeah, to live to participate. Yeah, right. It's no surprise that a black woman co-wrote this script i wanted to shout her out because tracy oliver is i think like a modern icon in comedy writing just in general because she started i mean she was the writer who co-kicked off isa ray's career with the misadventures of awkward black girl back back in 2011. Yeah, I'll never forget for some reason, like, she and Issa Rae came to speak at my school when I was like a sophomore in or like a freshman or sophomore in college about that web series. And she's gone on to have such a cool career. And like, she was a co writer on Girls Trip. She wrote a barbershop sequel, which the director of this movie, Tim Story, was also the director of the original barbershop amongst many, many, many other movies.

I'm sorry. I have scholarly journal Wikipedia up. 2000's Fantastic Four. Interesting deep cut. Think Like a Man 1 and 2. The Shaft reboot. ride along and ride along two. If there's one thing Tim's story is going to do, it's stick with his franchises. But yeah, like a lot of sort of modern icons are involved in this movie. I totally agree with you, Caitlin.

I love how much agency the women in this story have. I do wish that we had more like, because obviously it's a huge ensemble cast. You have to be very careful about like what relationships you're giving focus to. I do wish that there was more relationships between women that were given focus because I do feel like it was mostly the relationships between women and men, whether it was romantic or not. There didn't feel like a strong core friendship between women. And I felt like, I don't know, I wanted that. And you could tell everyone is friends, but there wasn't like an ongoing sort of story between women. And I wish that that was there.

I did write down all the instances where the women were talking to each other about something other than a man or not involving a man and it was like always about drugs or spades and then there was like the sister acts which powerful interaction nonetheless exactly it's like i'm glad there's a movie where women are talking about these things but yeah you're right they didn't really you didn't really feel that much depth of their relationship unless it was the talking to each other telepathically because the women did that with each other a lot yeah but they weren't really talking about anything deep but that's also refreshing because as a black person nothing takes me out of a movie

more when all of a sudden there's a deep conversation when it's a silly movie and you know about whatever we go through in day-to-day life as black people it's like okay well this was a comedy and so yeah until you're like all my life I've had to fight and they literally are fighting for their lives here and you can barely complain which I loved I love that. I think what would have helped for me is because we get, there's only one real subplot in the movie, which is the relationship situation between Lisa and Nnamdi and then Dwayne's sort of resentment of that. So the three of them are kind of embroiled in this subplot. So I think what

would have been nice is if the other three charactersiled in this subplot so i think what would have been nice is if the other three characters had their own subplot and that would have allowed allison and shanika to have a subplot and then we would have seen shanika and allison interacting more and have a better understanding of their friendship or something along those lines where like a an entire subplot revolved around at least two of the women and we could get a better sense of their friendship or something along those lines where like a an entire subplot revolved around at least two of the women and we could get a better sense of their friendship yeah i do feel like they attempted that with the adderall yeah that shanika gives allison and then also with king being so injured like just shot immediately and then shot in the same place where they had

to rescue him i feel like that was the attempt at that but maybe they cut some things i don't know yeah because it didn't seem like a full sub story at all right yeah that was the thing that i had written down where it was just like i want the studio notes and production history of this movie like what was there that got cut because it is like a tight movie it's an hour and a half my favorite kind of movie not complaining i love when a movie is not three hours long it's my favorite unless it's titanic and that's the only exception to the and it has to be three hours but like i'm not complaining about the length but i am curious like because you have an eight person cast which relationships were

explored in earlier drafts what was left and why did the relationships that are focused on end up being focused on because i'm honestly i mean i like namdi it just felt like yeah it ultimately kind of ended up like the subplot ended up revolving around this kind of like this straight couple from college and you have more interesting dynamics right there i don't know i'm being picky but that said i think that the dynamic between lisa and duane is really interesting and not one that you see often explored of just kind of how he it seems like in college was her closest friend who she would go to when her relationship wasn't going well but not when her relationship was going good and that's a rare thing to see explored and i thought it was really well done i just wish you just got to see more

between like especially with like shanika i felt like there was a ton of opportunities for her to like be characterized a little more because x mayo is so funny and like can do anything i was like give her more to do you know but it's only an hour and a half so what are you gonna do true right well something i do like about her character is that she swims in the lake because, you know, this movie has an agenda to like dispel a lot of tropes or examine popular tropes, whether they be racist tropes or just sort of general tired movie tropes. And one of them, she says something like, oh, I'm going to swim to the other side. I can see like houses on the other side of the lake. They probably assume we can't even swim. But then

King is like, well, I can't. And she's like, way to be a stereotype. But, you know, then she swims in the lake. Also, she is a fat character. And she's the only one who does a physical activity like this, which is also rare to see in a movie where a fat character. And she's the only one who does a physical activity like this, which is also rare to see in a movie where a fat character is written to do some kind of physical activity like this. So I appreciated the different stereotypes were unraveled there. I love that too. I love that because in elementary school, like my biggest friend was the one who like swam the fastest, ran the fastest. And it was nice to see that represented in a movie.

Because you're right, you never see that, you know. And also, like, I grew up in a family where we all swam, you know. So that was also nice. Yeah. And it made sense like socioeconomically too because he was like supposed to be this character that seems as though he was from an inner city where a lot of people don't know how to swim not just the black people it's like if you don't have access to pools so I love that they it seemed like they even thought about that yeah it would take like the length of three episodes to

go through the amount of detail the script goes through and just like especially in the trivia sequences i feel like you're getting a lot of like really overt references to black pop culture but like also there's just a million tiny moments in this movie where it's just like effortlessly kind of taking down what you're expected to see in a horror movie by just like letting the characters be the characters and that's the best obviously a huge theme of this movie is the story kind of examining this idea of black as a spectrum where you know some black people are quote-unquote more black than others based on interests or lifestyle or things like that and ultimately the movie comes down on the

side of there's no such thing as a black spectrum and it's harmful to think that although you do see the characters like having to work through that and learn that because they're talking about oh well this person's more black than this person because xyz and there's a whole scene predicated on that and that's the scene that the original sketch by the comedy troupe three pete right it's like this whole movie is based on that i was kind of waiting for that in the whole because i was like are they gonna do the sketch in the movie are they gonna do the sketch because it was like a really famous sketch and they did they did the sketch i felt so it was like they basically said the title of i mean they do also say the title of the movie

in the movie but you're just like they did the sketch. Yes. So like, ultimately, the characters have to learn that, you know, it's their differences that make them special. And there's no one way to be black. And it's not as cheesy as I'm making it sound in the movie. I feel like they did already know that. And it's very, it's very funny that the character that didn't know that, Clifton, was the one who even designed the game. Because they even say, like, what do you mean who's the blackest? Like, they're even like, what do you mean? That doesn't even make sense. And the things that they say in that scene are so funny because they're usually the things that are said to people to be like, oh oh you're not black enough like the thing they say to nomdy where

it's like oh your original recipe black because you're from africa that's usually the thing that said to be to take away some blackness from a person so they like definitely thought about that yeah and also like allison's allison is a biracial character too and she is sort of repeatedly like dunked on for it kind of clowned on for it and that she defends herself and like and i also just love the sort of contrivance that it's like basically a college reunion where they all know each other and it just like builds the perfect world to be like oh i'm just going to project who I was 10 years ago onto this person and then you have to be like well wait a second why am I giving Namdi shit why am I giving Allison shit the same way I did 10 years ago and you sort of see the characters organically grow through having to do

that and it's still funny because they've known each other for 10 years so they don't have to be like polite about it that's true another thing I really liked with um Allison's character there is a stereotype in the black community especially at the academic level where the mixed race kids are gonna be in every like African-American studies class they're really gonna try really really hard to learn every little ounce of like black history. And they keep bringing that up with her character. You know, she's the one that knew all the words, the black national anthem. She's wearing a Rosa Parks t-shirt. I thought that was really funny. Yeah, they really did think of all the tropes they did. It was great great but even in like addressing all of these tropes every character

had humanity like there was no character that it felt like even if it was like a very sort of like broad character like germaine fowler's character who i feel like is maybe the least you know like given any respect because he famously voted for trump which is the quickest way to lose respect for a character but yeah that i would imagine as duane perkins and tracy oliver are writing this script it has to be such a like tricky like needle to thread of like how do we show these stereotypes debunk them and have these characters have individual humanity but they did it it just like it's a really thoughtful script in that way yeah yeah they did an excellent job because at no point did I feel like I was watching a very like stereotypical movie I just I felt like oh this was

written by black people and I can tell. And I feel very represented. Everyone that I watched the movie with felt represented. And it was good. I was going to ask you guys, when did you realize that Clifton was the murderer? Because I realized it immediately in the convenience store. Yeah. He's being very sus at the top.

Yeah. No, I feel like there are so many red herrings presented at the beginning of this movie where you're like well even if it does have to do with the scariest guy we've seen so far it's probably not actually him who's nearby and it's Clifton and yeah I mean that weirdly goes into conversations we've been having on this show forever with like the revenge of the nerds kind of trope where it's like oh in the 80s and into the 90s there was this whole idea of you know that the nerd character is owed something

by others around them and that we have wronged them and that there is a wrong to be made right and now it's like there's almost like an automatic like oh oh, he's not a bad guy. He's just lonely. He's just a misfit. And now I feel like that's come all the way around because the world is run by cruel nerds. Yeah. So when I see a nerd stock character, I'm automatically like, well, I don't know. In 2023, when the movie came, like, you know, we can't be so sure that we're supposed to be on this guy's side. Exactly. Either way, thrilled to see Jermaine Fowler.

Don't care in what capacity. Right. That's true. He's always good to see. Yeah. That was the thing for me where I was like very immediately suspicious of him. And I was like, oh, he's probably the killer. Partly because Jermaine Fowler is like not playing to type at

all yeah normally he's like you know a very smooth sexy person not that nerds can't be sexy obviously but like we're about to get 500 emails like excuse me obviously we're nerds yeah hello and we do fine no but he's playing not to type with this character so i was like hmm that i bet that's like indicative of something about his character but then when he goes outside and gets shot with the crossbow i was like i guess it's not him and then there's you know the red herring of ranger white showing up and you're like, oh, is he an ally? Isn't he? Can they or can they not trust him? And he gives that like monologue about, oh, if I was invited to the cookout, I'd be honored. But I wouldn't go because I know that that would like my presence there would be a disturbance of an all black space.

And I wouldn't want to do that and all this stuff. And they're like, oh, that's actually a pretty good answer. But then they find the mask in his car and you don't know if you can trust him or not and then ultimately he dies and he was seems like he was trying to help them so i found that kind of roller coaster of like can we can we not trust this character to be amusing i guess yeah yeah that was good it's a good fake out yeah because it's also like i mean this movie is doing so much at once where like it's straddling genres it's trying to dispel all of these time-honored tropes and it's just like trying to create a coherent horror movie where there's like the right amount of fake out villains and the right amount of twists and it does everything yeah i thought that twist made

it's so cynical but like as a now horror movie fan when park ranger white returned i just looked at where we were in the runtime and it was like well it's not him yeah like based on the runtime it's not him but i wonder how it will end up not being him right that's true because it's like we just watch too many movies now or like you guys especially probably watching any movies we're pilled we know the formulas it's true it's bad i also just want to shout out duane the character duane the person and writer and actor in this movie, it was very important to Dwayne Perkins that there be a representation of a queer character who's not just like the gay best friend who has like very little actual characterization, who's just there to be, you know, a stereotype and make

little jokes and stuff like that. And so obviously, he put a lot of care into writing and performing this character that has dimension. Again, he's a participant in this subplot with Lisa and Namdi. And it really focuses, I think, on... I think Lisa and Dwayne are kind of like, if you had to choose central characters, I feel like it's them. For sure. It's for sure yeah so you know i appreciate that that he has this subplot that characterizes him a bit more and yeah it was again just important to duane perkins he was talking about especially the intersection of being black and queer and he wanted to really focus on that and make sure that that character is someone who other people could see and look up to. So exactly. So how do you guys feel about I'm going to I'm going to do a deep black question.

The two two of the dark the dark skin characters did die first. But then they have Nnamdi who arguably is like maybe darker than both of them who does survive and then everyone else is like somewhat light-skinned oh you mean with Morgan and Sean dying first yeah that is something that I feel like this movie would have actually tried to avoid and it's kind of surprising that it went for that yeah right yeah because they do talk about colorism in the movie and there's this running joke of like Aunt Viv from Fresh Prince and she's eventually replaced by a lighter skinned actor. And there's another moment where the group, I think it's the ones who stay

in the house and like after it's like the sudden death thing. And one of the characters says, oh, typical for like the killer to go for the darker people first so they're acknowledging colorism and so it is still i will say that lisa was also dark skin so like two dark skin people survive but she died first uh-oh makes you think yeah that also registered for me and i sort of went back to like, well, they are the two most famous cast members. And I was wondering, like, is it a logistical thing? Because it feels clear that for the most part, I think that this movie was written for certain actors in mind, ideally. But the first two people, I mean, I guess if I'm playing devil's

advocate, I would guess that the first two characters who die were just written as the first two characters who die. Obviously, they're black characters, but I'm sort of wondering if it's like, whatever the most famous black woman and the most famous black man that want to be in this movie will go with that. And then like in retrospect, it sort of ended up like you're saying which makes total sense of they are darker yeah i don't know what do you think i don't know i'm having a panic attack i literally asked that question to like see if you guys would freak out but i'm just kidding it was i'm so sorry we're falling apart i was sort of like Yvonne Orgy and Jay Pharoah. I mean, they're both so famous. Yeah. So, of course, they don't have more than two days to commit to this. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. And I do feel like the lead story, other than them fighting off a murderer, being between Namdi, Lisa, and Dwayne was because like those three actors, I feel like this was like kind of their vehicle. It was definitely Dwayne was because like those three actors I feel like this was like kind of their vehicle it was definitely Dwayne's vehicle and then Antoinette there I keep calling her Antoinette because that's just like her real name and Nnamdi I'm not good at saying his real name they're also pretty famous yeah so I wonder if that's why the other characters kind of got cut away not saying that they're not as famous because X Mayo's very famous like so is yes grace byers grace byers yeah i mean as an empire fan i love empire oh my god yeah as an empire fan like that was one of my first like oh there she is i know

i was excited to see her yeah her husband was too, which I love. So that was pretty cool. Oh, wow. Yeah. He's been doing stuff. He's been directing a lot, too. But I just feel like they definitely were put, every movie you can tell who they're pushing, right? Who they're trying to say, you know, hello to Hollywood, book them and more things. And I feel like that other storyline, like the romantic storyline, was that.

That was my thought about it. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So hopefully it worked. Hopefully Dwayne will be in more things. Oh, God. I mean, like, regardless of any criticism anyone has of this movie, if Dwayne Perkins ends up being a movie star.

Then we won. It's gravy. It's fine. Yeah, we're good. Yeah. Our close personal best friend, Dwayne Perkins. He's like actually on the phone right now with us. Yeah.

Yeah. He's just shy. Yeah, Facebook messaging. I will say that one of the members of the comedy troupe, Three Pete, who made the original sketch, which I believe has disbanded a few years ago, but one of the original members was my friend Namdi. I don't think the character Namdi was really based on him. I think they're just like, who are the people that were in this group? A lot of the characters have the same names as the members of this group, but not played by

the same actors with the exception of Dwayne Perkins. But yeah, I think Namdi is like, supposed to be my friend Namdi. So there's a little flex. Oh, yeah. So were they involved? Like the other people in the sketch troupe? Were they involved in the film? I actually don't look that up. If they are, I couldn't really tell they're not credited really in any sort of like writing capacity. I certainly hope they were compensated because this movie was very much made off of the very successful comedy central sketch but yeah i wasn't able to find information about it yeah another thing i wanted to point out just a small criticism of the movie but this is a movie that's guilty of having one of the villains have a facial difference.

One of the twins has one eye. And we've talked about this huge trope in especially horror movies, but... Disability, yeah, representing evil. Yeah. Villain will have a facial difference and it's meant to telegraph to the audience, like, this is how we know they're a villain or this is part of why they're a villain. And this is a very harmful trope, obviously, that the movie does still participate in. I feel like similarly, one of the villains has asthma and uses an inhaler, the way that a lot of movie villains

are often written to have a breathing condition. So this movie does still lean into some tropes, not in a way that I feel like was malicious. It was more just like, oh, I'm writing a horror movie. What do horror movies do? And like, they just maybe didn't consider the harmful implications of some of the tropes. Even the makeup they put on officer white, like the makeup they put on him was to make him look weird. Like the way that his face was done in production was to be like, Oh,

something's wrong with him. Something's a little off. Right. Even though he, you know, he has a red herring, like even in that and clifton also he seemed like he might have been like on the spectrum a little bit which was also not great yeah they were really doing basically a caricature of that with the clifton character and i don't know if that's the way it was written or if that's

just the way you know the performance went i agree I had a similar note no yeah yeah that it just felt like there and again I want the studio notes history of this because you don't need to other white characters very much to make them suspicious it just felt like almost like sort of a default, like less thoughtful choice by whoever. I have no idea. Like, is this a writer choice? Is this a director choice? Is this a studio choice? I have no idea.

But in a movie that, yeah, is like so, you know, based on taking down all of what you're meant to assume in a horror movie it felt like yeah especially with disability it was not as juicy right but the movie does yes fun and funny i also want to shout out the predominantly black production team. We've already talked about the director and the writers. There's also the team of producers is mostly Black. The cinematographer, Todd A. Dos Reyes. The music, Dexter Story, and production designer, Cecil Gentry, all Black filmmakers. It's pretty cool. Wow. Pretty cool. And I might be leaving some people out,

but those are like, you know, some of the main creative decision makers. So just wanted to shout those out. Shout out to Lionsgate. Shout out. Always choosing

diverse programming. So that's pretty good. They did Joyride also. They do a bunch of my favorite television shows. Yeah. The Power Universe

is Lionsgate. So, yeah. Nice. nice and also just you know box office wise this movie was made for five million dollars wow which is wild especially because this is in last year dollars this is in current dollars um and it more than tripled its budget which is you know i don't know i feel like so often especially with movies that are made by black directors by marginalized directors in general or by women i mean just any marginalized director it's always brought to like well you know like if you can't get butts in seats you can't tell us blah blah but like this movie tripled its budget if there are not more movies like the blackening or more

movies from this creative team coming out it is a structural problem there is no argument for this movie being unsuccessful it tripled its budget and it's funny and everyone liked it so yeah i don't know i'm like getting ahead of it but i'm like shut up in advance well i do know that they're working on a second one well it's yet to be seen if it actually comes out because those state of things you never know but hopefully right yeah yeah people are trying to just like delete hollywood in general but we'll see we shall does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss the only other thing i had to say was like i feel as if anytime there is a like niche movie that comes out so like a genre movie basically a horror movie it's always like oh this is the first horror movie directed by a woman. And it's like treated like that, or this is the first black horror movie. And, you know, this is not something

that is being endorsed by the blackening. It clearly draws from the legacy of black horror movies. But if you enjoyed this movie, there is a whole genre of black horror movies in case you need to hear that. Because I feel like the way that Hollywood marketing works is very often any movie by a marginalized director is made to seem like the first movie that's ever existed. And that thankfully, is very rarely actually true. And so if you enjoyed The Blackening, there are so many movies like The Blackening going back decades and you should check them out. That's right. I would also recommend the documentary called Horror Noir, A History of Black Horror, which

examines tropes and horror movies in general centering Black characters or that involve Black characters. But it's a really good documentary that breaks a lot of that down so highly recommend on the same uh subject you guys are very right there are a lot of uh horror films by black people that i loved in like the 70s 80s like every decade but would you consider leprechaun in the Hood a black horror movie? I cannot safely say because I've never seen it. I haven't seen it.

Would you know? Yeah. No. But I feel like it was marketed that way. Like it definitely was marketed to black people. I was like, oh, there are lots of black people in this. I'm like, because he's in the hood, he's still played by a famous white man. A leprechaun? A leprechaun.

Yeah. Leprechaun in the hood. Yeah. We've covered 500 movies, but that is not one of them. I mean, I feel like it definitely. I understand why you haven't i'll say that right now um i think warwick davis honestly wouldn't even tell people to watch it at this point but it has become sort of a classic so i mean if you want to come back on the show and talk about

that movie with us you are more than welcome yeah a camp movie is a camp movie is a camp movie that's true yeah i haven't re-watched it recently but i do have vivid memories of it just like it just would not be okay in this day or maybe it would maybe do great because of the way things are going but it shouldn't be so like maybe yeah if you guys want to watch it i don't think you're gonna like it but only one way to find out yeah i can't wait it's like a howard the duck type vibe i don't know if you saw that i mean i've seen a clip i haven't seen any of the leprechaun movies no but i've seen clips from at least one of them and it seems goofy as hell yeah does anyone have anything else before we bechdel test it no let's bechdel test it i feel like it's gonna be good it does pass

lisa shanika and allison all talk to each other in different combinations both verbally and telepathically. And so that makes it kind of an interesting and novel pass. A telepathic pass, but it definitely passes. Yes. So yeah, kind of that's all there is to say about it. And they talk about something other than a man. Although in the first 30 minutes, it's touch and go because there's a lot of just talking about Nnamdi or Dwayne. Yes, very true. But they do move on from that. After that, they're talking about weapons. They're talking about Adderall.

They're quoting Sister Act 2, you know, stuff like that. Love it. Love to see it. I was going to say just on because I'm all about intersectionality. So for intersectional feminism passes that test too they talk about race class culture sexuality spirituality it kind of like encompasses that whole thing as well absolutely for sure the movie scores very high marks on the kent test which of course is a media metric created by friend of the cast clarkisha k. If you're not familiar, it's a pretty comprehensive list of criteria

that examines representation of women of color, and especially black women in media. So I haven't done a full breakdown for this movie in relation to the Kent test, but I'd imagine it gets pretty high marks. And that kind of brings us to our nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens i'm gonna go like four and a half on this one i think it's doing so much i love comedy as a vehicle to examine things like, you know, racist tropes in movies and to examine

really anything. But I think it's such an effective tool for that. And I think this movie does such a good job of that. The different just kind of thematic things that the movie explores, the tropes that it seeks to dispel, things like that. I appreciate that the women are characterized in such a way that they are allowed to do things in the story and push the story forward with their choices and actions. I appreciate that they are distinct characters. There's body diversity among them. There's all kinds of stuff that we don't see. And this movie writes women in such a way that they are, you know, all the characters of this movie, but I pay particular attention to the way women are written in horror movies and how cautious and aware of their

surroundings they are because women in horror movies are almost never written that way. They're just oblivious. They're just like careless, not doing anything. But like these characters, and again, particularly these women, and even more specifically, these Black women are like appropriately cautious and aware of their surroundings. So it's not hard to do, but yet most horror movies don't do it. This one does. I appreciated that. I also think it's really cool that the movie centers Juneteenth. There's just so little acknowledgement of Juneteenth in Hollywood movies and in media in general. So it's cool that this holiday is the backdrop for this movie. So much to love about this movie. I would say that where I would take off any kind of nipple points would be the few harmful tropes that it does lean into

regarding ascribing a facial difference or disability or neurodivergence to the villains, specifically violent villains. And it's just surprising that this movie does this since it seeks to avoid and subvert so many other harmful tropes, which is why I will still give the movie 4.5 nipples. I really love this movie. I think it's so funny. And I'll throw my nipples to the original group three pete and the cast of the movie so that's who gets my nipples they can divide them up how they choose i'm gonna go on like a four nipple about uh i think this movie is wonderful. I think the fact that this movie exists fucking rocks. I think that the legacy of black horror

needed sort of like a shot to the leg and that the blackening very, very, very much did that and that it will lead to a number of wonderful movies. I do wish that because we have a cast of a lot of women that there was more narrative space made for relationships between women.

And I feel like the things that this movie falls back on are both what you said, Caitlin, in the sort of ableist tropes that appear within the movie but also just sort of the heteronormative tropes that appear within this movie in spite of the fact that our sole queer character as far as we know end up being sort of the hero of the movie like i feel like in a cast that is about split down in terms of gender if we're talking in the binary sense i wish that there were more dynamics between women that were seen because there's a lot of setup that I feel like we could have had more of and there could have been explored more. But there are very few movies like this coming out at any time,

much less last year. And it's a funny movie. It's a great movie. I really appreciate and want to shout out what we were just talking about of how the diversity behind the camera equals the diversity in front of the camera because i feel like in so many movies that we

talk about that have a lot of black actors in front of the camera that energy is rarely matched behind the camera because of how hollywood is structured and the fact that the blackening actually is like doing that on all sides is wonderful yeah I think it's a really funny movie I think it's really rewatchable I hope we get a sequel oh my god I don't trust Hollywood with fucking anything right now same honestly they can't seem to release anything without deleting it three months later but this is a really awesome movie I, it's fun and it was successful and I want to see more like it.

So I'm going to go for nipples. I am going to give one to Tracy Oliver, two to Dwayne Perkins because, you know, he's doing double duty at least in this movie. And then I will give my final nipple to X Mayo because I'm a fan. Hell yeah. How about you, Noye? I think I'm going to go higher than both of you, but it's not going to be perfect five. I think I'm going to do

a four and three quarters nipple, which I do have three quarters of a nipple on my right side. I won't get too into it. But I agree with you with the ableism. And then also, I do wish they built the female relationships a little bit more or just, you know, showed more scenes with that. I do appreciate that it was a short movie, like you were saying, Jamie. I love a short movie. That's why I've been able to see it so many times, to be honest. Because it's like just watching a television show at this point or a YouTube video. I watch all these retrospectives on YouTube that are the same hour and a half. So I do like that. I know that there's a second one being worked on. Please let it happen. I mean, if the budget was only $5 million for the first one, they could do

it again with the same budget. Hopefully they would get more money though, this time. And that leads me to give the three quarter nipple to Lionsgate for making it happen with that small budget. Thank you to them. And then, you know, just evenly disperse my nipples to the cast, the writers, the crew. Yeah, everyone that just made it happen because that's great. i love giving my nipples away too feels good you know it's liberating give them away heal them of the eczema then give them right back all right that was tmi well no it's perfect oh can i also say okay this is you two are are white but I do love that it was still just rated R when they got to say nigga so much. That's very refreshing for me. That they still let it have just the rated R rating because there

was once upon a time that would mean like an NC 17 and C 17 or something, you know, based on what I saw, I still feel like this movie could have warranted a PG 13. Same. Yeah yeah the violence wasn't that graphic i mean i guess if you're going on gore honestly that the thing that stuck with me the most was the vomit and that's very pg-13 i just can't deal with it i think the rated r was because of the use of nigga like the use of the n-word because i don't know if you guys can say that on this podcast so i'm gonna say n-word you can oh okay yeah said it like eight times i mean like we talk about that a lot though of like why in the rating system why do certain movies get our ratings and so often it's just because of like something that is not commonly accepted among like the white middle class is

like what will directly influence the rating and i feel like i'm glad this movie got an r rating and i also think it could have been a pg-13 rating and done even better as a result because this should have been a movie that was i mean i think it probably was anyways because thankfully it is easy to sneak into r-rated movies but this this should have been a movie that was readily accessible to any high schooler. Why wouldn't it be? True. The first time I saw it, there were definitely some high schoolers in there. So definitely people were able to see it.

So that's good. But you're right. It should have been PG-13. So I take back my kudos for that. Because even with the use of nigga, it should it should have been pg-13 that's true yeah they say fuck a lot and i think pg-13s are only allowed like one or two fucks okay which is also ridiculous and like grow up like what 14 year old is like oh one fuck yeah okay that's all i'll use moving forward i used to say fuck all the time when I was six.

I don't know where I heard it, but I got in trouble at school all the time for saying it. If six-year-olds in Catholic school can say fuck all they want, then it should be in movies. Then a movie can say fuck. Every kid says fuck. Why? It's fun and it doesn't hurt anybody. True. Anyway. No, thank you so much for joining us thank you for having me it was really fun i'm sorry if i was so quiet some of the time i just like really

like how much work you guys put into your research it's like very nice and you guys have that very like mpr oh no calming voice, sorry. Public radio calming voice. I'll take the compliment. Thank you so much. That is a compliment. I love it. What I'm hearing is that I'm brilliant. Yes.

And so cool and also beautiful. So. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for coming on the show. Tell us where people can follow you online, check out any of your stuff. Plug away. All right. Yeah, you can find me my schedule

at no yay comedy.com. No n y e comedy.com. I think I have some stand up on there. I don't even remember anymore. I'm going to be traveling a lot. So I'll be in New England a bunch of times this summer. I'll be in DC and that'll be in like September-ish. Yeah. And you can follow me at Noni Fizzle at Gmail or sorry, no, not Gmail. Sorry. I'm on autopilot. I don't even know. Noni Fizzle at Gmail is not my email address. So Noni Fizzle at Instagram. So that's N-O-N-E-E-F-I-Z-Z-L-E. And then I'm not really on Twitter anymore, but it's at that Noye. I will retweet stuff that I think is funny. I might post a show so you can follow me there. And that's just that N-O-N-Y-e and also my ig and my instagram sorry that's the same thing i'm so tired you guys i had no coffee today my instagram and my tiktok are the same thing

okay now i'm done perfect that was beautiful i loved every moment of it yeah you can follow us on mostly instagram these days but also Twitter if you so feel inclined at Bechtelcast. You can subscribe to our Patreon, aka Matreon. It's $5 a month. You get two bonus episodes every month that center a super fun, super cool theme that's brilliant and awesome and beautiful as well. And never weird and never doesn't beautiful as well and never weird and never doesn't make sense and always so normal actually and that's all at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast and we've also got a link tree where you can find some of our goodies. Linktree slash Bechtelcast. And Jamie, tell them about our little merch store. Oh, maybe

I will. So we also have a merch store over at tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast where you can get all of the random Bechtelcast inside jokes you've been listening to for years onto a shirt, a bag, a pillow, whatever you so please.

And it's all designed by Jamie. And it's all designed by Jamie. And it's all designed by me. And with that, what does everyone say we all call the fire department and see what happens? Let's do it. Bye-bye. Bye.

Bye. The Bechdelcast is a production of iHeart Media, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus,

and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country

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Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, Emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school

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