The Bechdel Cast - The Secret Life of Bees with Maya Williams

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Maya Williams harvest honey and discuss The Secret Life of Bees! Follow Maya on Instagram at @emmdubb16 and check out eir website at mayawilliamspoet.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Also the fact that he's played by real life piece of shit, Paul Bettany or just like. Oh wait, I don't know about, oh my God. I mean, short story. We'll tell you what the show is in a second, but he's Johnny Depp's best friend. And there was, I was like following that case very closely two years ago now.

And yeah, there's a lot of texts between him and Johnny Depp that came up in court that were sort of Paul Bettany being like, I agree, she's horrible and much worse. So this is your public bulletin to- Paul Bettany and Nate Parker suck. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about Nate Parker on the last episode. We did.

Maya, that you were on for. That's true. Also, Nate Parker is playing, I think, a horrible character too. Like they're both- Yeah, oh my god, he sucks. At very least the two real life bad men in this movie also play bad men in the movie, I don't know.

2008, I don't know. Yeah. We'll talk about it. They're telling on themselves, I think, in their performances. They're like, I can relate. Hello everyone, welcome to the Bechtel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante.

My name is Jamie Loftus and this is our podcast where we take a closer look at your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens. And today, I just wanna get, I mean we already sort of started the episode. Let's just breeze past it. Yeah, let's bring our guests, is this her third, fourth appearance?

I can't even keep track. It's my third appearance. Third, oh my gosh, wow. Thank y'all so much for that, oh my goodness. Hat trick, hat trick, hat trick, we've done it. So the movie is The Secret Life of Bees. The guest is, they were the seventh poet laureate of Portland, Maine. You can check out their poetry collections.

Judas and Suicide refused a second date, and What's So Wrong with a Pity Party Anyway. You can also see their work in LGBTQ Nation, Stylist and Full Stop, as well as interviews in Black Girl Nerds. And you've heard her on our episodes on Perks of Being a Wallflower and Beyond the Lights. It's Maya Williams.

Hi. Welcome back. Thank you for having me back. And thank you all for your patience for how there's always a crappy masculine presenting person in the movies we have. I mean. Thank you for your patience. Oh God. It is kind of inevitable.

Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah, but every single one. I know, and three very different movies too. Yeah. Tell us about your relationship with Secret Life of Bees. Yeah, I read the Secret Life of Bees in the eighth grade after I saw it in the movies with my family. And I remember, I remember this being like a comfort movie at some point. And then I revisited it when my first book came out because of its analysis on like religion in black communities and suicidality.

And I had the opportunity to talk about it on the podcast, Black Girl Film Podcast. I am not a black girl, but I will always support black girls as a former black girl. And so there's some things that that I'll definitely repeat from today. But I'm especially excited to talk about the religious landscape from this book, because I have book commentary and film commentary notes to give.

We're back on commentaries, baby. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So you have read the book I have yeah good to know because I have not but I have read the yeah we would never read a book on this podcast as we've said I did read the Wikipedia synopsis so I feel so you've been very prepared to discuss I mean I think Maya we can agree they basically read the book. Yes. Yes. Proud of you. Yeah. Thank you.

Jamie, what about you? What's your relationship with the movie? I also don't have a relationship really with this at all. I was like, where do I remember this title from? The Airport. This was like a major, like this book, probably to this day, is like at the airport It's at the airport. It's up front and you're just like someday

I'm gonna know what happens in these books that are at the airport and today was the day I learned about what happened in This book that's at the airport. I I don't know. I I'm very excited to discuss it. I have like some Interest I'm excited to talk about like movies of this era too, because I feel like there are two movies that, and I don't mean to like compare, I mean that have like a similar through line of, that came out within a couple of years of each other, that are all movies that take place in the civil rights era

that I believe are all based on source material by white writers that are ultimately somehow about white teenage girls. I was also thinking of a movie I love, but Hairspray, very guilty of this, and The Help, which I haven't seen, but I double checked. So this was very much like something that was in media at this time.

And I was torn, because I think the performances in this movie are really lovely. And I am not immune to the powers of baby Dakota Fanning. I think that scene with her at the end is pretty incredible for a 13-year-old. But it just felt like, I don't know, ultimately I was like, why is this movie about her? It was just, I don't know. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, I was like, Jennifer don't know, ultimately I was like, why is this movie about her? Like it was just, I don't know.

Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, I was like, Jennifer Hudson just won an Oscar and she disappears for half the movie, like make it make sense. And I'm excited to talk about the production of this movie because I was, I mean, like, I mean, this is the second Gina Prince-Bythewood movie we've covered with Maya,

but I think the fourth on the show overall, because we've also done The Woman King and Love and Basketball. Oh, right, yes, yes, yes. So this was not my favorite of hers, and I was also like, I wonder what, and then I looked into why there was an eight year gap between her first and her second movie.

I think that there's a lot to say, and I did a little bit of research there. So I'm excited to talk about the context of how this film came together. But yeah, I don't know, I was like a little conflicted because there were some scenes and some moments in this movie that really got me and I think if I saw it when it came out I would it would have also been a comfort movie. Yeah, I hadn't seen this movie before. I hadn't read the book, as I said. So this was my first.

But you read the Wikipedia page. But I read the, woo. Log it on Goodreads, you did it. True, I'm an academic, I'm a scholar, I'm a genius for having done that. And yeah, I wasn't totally sure what to expect. And because of how my brain works, when I hear the title of this movie, I confuse it with Akilah and the Bee. Oh, I was confusing it with the secret life of pets. I mean, yes, that too. Okay, Brittany from the Black Girl

Film Podcast also said that like, like, oh, is this Akilah and said that like like oh no, it's not bad Movie and now I know that we still haven't covered a kilo in the B No, but we should there will come a day. Yes, so I was kind of confusing Secret life of bees with that movie but now I know the difference and Secret life of the American teenager like oh, yeah anyways true anything with the title The secret blank blank blank if it doesn't have to do with pets as you pointed out Jamie like it has to like it has to do with something about like some struggle with

Womanhood or girlhood. Oh, that's true. I mean, a woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets. The secret life of Titanic. So. Yeah, that's really interesting. I hadn't ever connected that, but you're totally right. That's bizarre. I also, this is also my earlier this week, we covered Bee Movie.

So we've just had. I'm excited for that episode. Bee is on the brain this week. And I also, I mean, I can't decide if I am being overly like I wish the movie just said this, but I'm like, bees are a matriarchy. The community in this movie is a matriarchy. Why aren't we talking more about it?

The book is more explicit about it. And like, and in the commentary commentary they talk about how like, oh this is one of the few film sets where we got to work with a bunch of women, not only on camera but behind the camera. But yeah, in the book there are all these like epigraphs about the matriarchy of bees and how like you don't need the male bees until you need to reproduce and stuff like that. Yeah, that's like, yeah, the, I mean, we were talking about it the other day,

like the male bees, you know, fuck, and then their dicks explode and then they're gone. And you're like. Yeah, they die. All right. And they serve that one purpose. Yeah, that's, how do you feel? Anyways, yes, okay.

So we're all kind of coming from slightly different places here. Yeah. I'm excited to talk about it. There's lots to talk about. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. I'm Tisha Allen, former golf professional

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Bzz, we're back. Yeah, watch out. I mean, at least here's what I'll say for Secret Life of Bees. It is the best movie about bees we've covered this week. And I believe it. Yeah, at least, you know, I have gripes with this movie, but it is not about a capitalist patriarchal conception of bees starring a Zionist bee.

So, you know, not a high bar to clear, but you know, we're saying. Yeah, this one is far better at least. Okay, so here's the recap of Secret Life of Bees. I'll place a content warning at the top here for anti-black racism and violence, child abuse, domestic abuse, and suicide and suicidal ideation. So we open on a scene where a four-year-old girl, Lily, is hiding in a closet while her father is

being abusive to her mother. A gun is dropped in front of Lily and she picks it up and shoots it by accident, killing her mother. We cut to ten years later. It's 1964. Lily is about to turn 14. She's played by Dakota Fanning. She lives on a peach farm with her father T Ray played by piece of shit Paul Bettany Who is still cold and cruel? for her birthday all Lily once is for him to Tell her what her mom was like and all he has to say about Lily's mom is that she was obsessed with saving bugs and Lily seems to have the same kind of fascination with insects.

Bees seem to be just kind of like swarming to her and they're drawn to her. I do like the literary concept of being a bug girl as like a hereditary trait. Yes, yes, true. Well, with her mom, it was cockroaches and we'll get into why that is. And yeah, with Lily, it's bees.

Yeah. And Roach Girl is hardcore. I mean, wouldn't be me. Yeah. I'll say that. I do not like bugs. My OCD and bugs are not compatible. Not a big fan myself.

But that night, Lily goes outside and digs up a box where she keeps some of her mom's belongings, including an illustration on a small plaque of wood that depicts a black Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. And it says Tiburon on the back, which is the name of a town in South Carolina where they are. T-Ray finds Lily outside at night and reprimands her. He makes her kneel in dry grits. He also thinks that she's been like having sex

with someone too. That's like I've been implied, yeah. For sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he's, you know, abusively punishing her. We also meet their housekeeper Rosalene, played by Jennifer Hudson of Cat's fame, of course. This is like Catting. Cat's Jennifer Hudson.

Fun Jennifer Hudson fact. She stays at the hotel that my fiance works at. Your fiance? My fiance, and she is very nice. The end. Aw, nice. I love that. So President Johnson has just signed

the Civil Rights Bill into law, which makes it easier for black people to vote. So Rosalene and Lily go into town so that Rosalene can register to vote. But on the way, three white men harass and attack Rosalene. But because of anti-black racism, Rosalene is the one who is arrested. Back home, T-Ray and Lily argue. T-Ray

tells her that before her mother died, she had left Lily and that the night that she was shot, her mother had come back only to collect the rest of her things before leaving forever. And Lily refuses to believe this and wants to think that her mom was coming back to take her with her. So Lily runs away from home and writes a note that says something like liars like you should rot in hell. I that was like yeah I I appreciated that note. I was like, good for you. I mean, not to keep invoking Titanic, but it's similar to the note that Rose leaves to Cal where she's like, now you can keep both of us locked in your safe. I know, but I do like that this,

it also feels so, I don't know, it just is very empowering to see her be like, bye dad, rotten hell. You're like, whoa, fuck yeah, because she's right. Yeah. So she runs away. She goes to the hospital to collect Rosaline,

who is there recovering after having been beaten before she's sent to jail. So they escape together and they head to that town of Tiburon. They stop for some food and Lily sees all of these jars of honey that have that same label on them that she's seen before, that same image of the black Mary and Jesus that was on the wood in the box of her mother's belongings. And the shopkeeper explains that a black woman named August Boatwright makes this brand of honey

and it's the best honey in South Carolina. August Boatwright sisters is so literary. You're just like, good literary names. So Lily and Rosaline find August's big pink house and they knock on the door and Lily tells August, played by Queen Latifah, and her sisters June and May, played by Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo, that they need a place to stay. But Lily lies and says that both of her parents have died and she and Rosaline are on their way to stay with her aunt and they'll work for August until they can afford a train ticket.

June is suspicious of this story and she doesn't like the idea of them staying. Understandably so. But August is more kind of like warm and sympathetic. So she's like, sure, you can stay in the honey house and cook and help with the bees. So Lily and Rosaline settle in. August starts to show Lily the ropes of beekeeping and Lily really takes to it. She is not afraid of bees or anything. And it made me wonder and I forgot to like look this up

but I'm like, I wonder if like Dakota Fanning is or is not afraid of bees. I wonder if Queen Latifah is or is not afraid of bees. So Queen Latifah, Tristan Wilds who plays Zach and Dakota Fanning each had to go through beekeeping training for the film. Yeah I also read that Gina Prince-Bythewood is deadly afraid of bees as well. Yes. And it was like they had to sort of all get through it together of like okay if I can be near the bees then you could be near the

bees and I guess that there's only there's only one CGI shot of bees and I don't think I would have been if if I had directed this movie, I would not have been that brave. I'm like, nah, no one's gonna know. No one's gonna know. Yeah, and I didn't even notice what was CGI and what wasn't, so good job there. But I am so afraid of bees, I would not ever be in a bee movie.

Me neither. I'll say that. I don't know, I wanna be brave. Our friend Alex, who was recently on the show, used to be a beekeeper, I wanna be, our friend Alex who was recently on the show used to be a beekeeper and I'm like, ah, someday, someday I'll be, but yeah, no, I'm terrified of them. They're so scary.

Love their work though. Exactly, I don't wanna be scared of them because of their work and I just am. Yeah. And I know they were here first, but I'm still afraid of them. I'm not trying to get in their way. I'm not trying to disrupt them, but it's just like. I would never kill a bee.

Let's be clear. I mean. They're important to the world. I got my first bee sting last year, which is like wild that it took that long. Oh my gosh. But it was when I was in Maine, Maya. Yeah, I was at the beach and it was trying to sting me

and so I swatted, but it was just like, no, no. This is, I'm literally dying on this hill and it stung me in the middle of my forehead. It was so bizarre, yeah. Oh my gosh. Look, much like many people in this movie, I've learned to forgive and move on. But yes, a difficult B experience.

Okay, so we learn more about the sisters, the Boatwright sisters and their lives. June is with this guy named Neil played by Nate Parker. Boo. Also real life piece of shit. Boo. Who wants to marry her, but she doesn't want to be married so she keeps saying no.

In the book she got left at the altar by a different man. Interesting. Oh so that's why. Yeah and like there's even a deleted scene where I believe Rosaline like tries to call her out and say like listen you need to live your life. I know your husband left you at the altar or whatever, but you need to get over yourself or whatever. But that scene got deleted.

Interesting. I don't know if I would like that better or worse. I feel like if they removed that plot point, I wish they had changed the ending for this character. Because I find it very frustrating. In my notes, I wrote like, so help me if she marries this guy at the end and spoiler alert. Sure enough she does.

She does it. Yeah. So that's June. She also plays the cello. And Alicia Keys studied the cello. Yes. Gosh, I didn't even know i mean has alicia keys been in other movies i didn't know that she had a like she has been in other movies really oh

my goodness and i knew that and like oh my gosh i'm like i'm blanking on the title oh no i just i just saw this with my friend with my best friend a month ago she and taraji p henson play in this very silly action movie and they're a lesbian couple. And it's so entertaining. Oh my God. They're not the main characters of the story. There are other characters in it. Ryan Reynolds is in it and stuff.

Ray Liotta was in it. She was in Smoke and Aces. Smoke and Aces, thank you. That's the one, okay. Wow, good for her. Yeah, she's in a few things. Big fan. So that's June. May is very sensitive and deeply empathic. She breaks down crying quite often.

We learned that she had a twin sister, April, who died when they were younger, which was incredibly devastating for May. There's very necessary context that they left out from the book about April. And they don't even touch upon it in the commentary either, which makes me very upset in either commentaries that I watched for this. So April and May are twins. And then there is an incident of racism at a candy store

and she expresses upsetness with her father about it and then her father's like, that's life, April, you're gonna have to put up with it. And then, so then April just feels so much of the weight of the world after that incident to the point where she takes a gun and takes her own life. And so when we talk about May later, there's a part of the book where June says,

it's just like April, and it makes me viscerally upset that they took out that context from the movie. And granted, I'm pretty sure some of it has to do with Gina Prince-Bythewood saying things like, we shouldn't have to over-explain ourselves, which they talked about a little bit in the commentary about certain plot points, such as June's backstory about being left at the altar, but yeah, I hate it. That adaptation changes sound so bizarre. Like I don't even, what is even the, I guess it's, yeah, like we have to quote unquote keep it light.

And it's like, well, in that case, she's a different text. Yeah. I don't know. Right. Interesting. I also just wanted to really quickly shout out Sophie Okunedo, because she's like so unbelievably accomplished. She's been nominated for every award under the sun. I saw her most recently in Janet Planet. Oh yeah. But she's also she was like nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Hotel Rwanda. She's won a Tony. She's like such a good movie. She's

done everything. But I feel like people don't really talk about her very much. I feel like she usually plays supporting roles. So just shout out to her. Definitely. So we learned this about her character, May. And Lily has also discovered that May wedges these little pieces of paper in a stone wall behind the house.

And it's her writing her, like, feelings on the paper and putting them in the wall. So we learn these things about the sisters. We also see them often discussing things like racism and oppression that they observe and experience at the hands of white people. So there's a number of conversations to that effect throughout the movie. Then Lily meets Zack, played by Tristan MacWilds. This is August's godson, who is- Adele's loving Tristan. Hello. I'm sorry, I keep interrupting. Oh my god. No kit. Wait, fun fact. Never, never

would have known. Yeah, I don't think I never watch music videos. So I didn't know that he was in that. I haven't seen that one in years. So Zach is close to Lily's age, I think a couple years older, because he like has a driver's license and can drive. So he's at least 16. Yeah, in the book he's 16. By the time this was being filmed, Dakota Fanning was 13 going on 14, and Tristan was 18 going on 19. Oh, that is then, that's upsetting based on something that happens later, which is they kiss on screen.

Okay, well, we'll go back to that. Yes, we will. So Zach helps August with beekeeping as well, and he and Lily become friends. He tells her that he wants to be a lawyer when he grows up. She wants to be a writer. They're vibing. But a quick quick thing. Yeah. How okay how is it that the same girl who is willing to watch

things about like the Civil Rights Act passing with Rosalie and not know who Thurgood Marshall is? Yeah it's there's a lot to discuss about that. And it's just like one of the things that I feel like you can, you know, however well intentioned, like you can feel that like a white lady wrote the source material because sometimes it just feels like very broad in a way that like is like, this young white girl learns about racism,

which is also basically hairspray and the help. It's like, why can't it just be about Rosaline? Unfortunately, I mean, I don't even dislike the character of Lily. I don't dislike her journey. I think that it's a very, but it just feels like she overshadows so much of what is, like I think you could write her out of the movie.

For sure. Pretty easily. It just feels like there's two different stories that Rosaline and the sisters are just like not getting the amount of narrative real estate that they deserve. Exactly. And then the commentary Gina talks about how,

in the scene where she's first having breakfast with the Boatwright sisters, she was all like, we really wanted to showcase Lily being taken care of for the first time, where she's not making food for her father instead, others are making food for her. And I have such mixed feelings about that because I'm like, if you really want to show a loving collaborative thing when you have

this young white girl as the centerpiece, you could have made the scene where they're cooking together right and that being loving because yeah i'm not i'm not a big fan of like all these black women with the exception of june june is like i don't have time for this uh but like a lot of these black women being like oh are you okay let's make you food and da da da right yeah, yeah, I agree, which is just like such a media fixture of this decade. Right, because at the end of the day, it's still a story about black characters like servicing the white main protagonist.

And raising her. Yeah. And that just obviously doesn't sit well. And then you're also like, it's not that I don't want Lily to be loved and cared for, but like, why was this the narrative solution? Like you're saying, Maya, there's like simple things that the story could have done

to, I don't know, rectify it. I don't know, maybe it's not a completely solvable thing, but yeah, it is. We'll discuss that further as well. Um, so it's been about a week since Lily has arrived at the boat, right? House and June continues to be skeptical. She's like, why are you still here? Lily's just like, ha ha.

I D K. And then she asks about the honey jar label that depicts a black Virgin Mary and baby Jesus and August with the help of her church friends the daughters of Mary yes yeah they have their own religion question mark I wasn't super clear on that but I'll touch on that when we get to. I was like, we have the right guests. Yeah. So August tells a story about an enslaved man who had come across this wooden figure of a woman who God sent to protect him. August now has this wooden figure in her home and they touch her heart and pray. And Lily's about to go do this, uh, like touching the wood figure's heart, but memories of her

past and her mother's death come flooding back and she faints. And June stops playing the cello right then and there. And I'm like, don't, I don't want you touching her. I, yeah, I was like, I, I have a lot of empathy for Lily. But yeah, my note there was like, it's not about you right now, Lily, chill out. You traumatized 13 year old, how dare you? And Lily recovers, things continue on as they had been.

She's crushing on Zach and wants to smooch him on the face. Then there's a scene where they harvest purple honey and she licks it off Zach's finger. And I was so scandalized by that scene. Yeah. In the commentary, they had talked about like, oh, do we portray this? Do we not portray this? Dakota Fanning's mom was there that day and she was like, I, do we portray this? Do we not portray this? Dakota Fanning's mom was there that day and she was like, I'm not gonna look at the screen.

They decided to do it because it was a scene from the book, so. Well, now that I know that he was legally an adult and she was 13, I'm like even more horrified by it. And that's like a production issue too. It's like that's on the production to make sure that that doesn't happen. Yeah.

So that's awful, but that happens. And then there's a scene where Lily and August tend to the bees, but they're not flying around their hives like usual. They're inside the hive and August says, yeah, bees have a secret life that we don't know anything about. And we're like, that's basically the name of the movie.

Then there's a scene where there's like a water hose fight and June kind of like finally loosens up and plays with them. But then she breaks down crying because she and Neil recently broke up because. Because he called her a bitch. Yeah, like she's like, I don't wanna be married. And he's like, well, you're a selfish bitch then

and he leaves. So horrible character. And then you're like, surely we won't be seeing him again. Well, JK. Then one night, Lily asks May if she knew a woman named Deborah Owens. This is Lily's mother, although Lily doesn't mention this, but she sees May luring cockroaches with graham crackers and marshmallows the same way that T-Ray had described Lily's mother as doing. So she makes this connection. And May and May says yes I knew

Deborah she stayed in the Honey House many years ago and she was the sweetest person. The memory of Deborah makes May tear up and she leaves but now Lily has confirmation that her mother stayed in this house so the next day Zach invites Lily to go into town with him. And while they're hanging out, Lily relays this information of, yeah, my mom stayed here, but I didn't tell anyone because I was afraid the truth would wreck everything. And he's like, you know, empathetic toward that. And then they go to the movies together in a segregated theater.

But Lily and Zach sit together, which- And the colored section, not the white section. Right, yes. And these racist men come in and abduct Zach. So Neil and this other man, who's like a family friend, go out looking for Zach. August and June decide not to tell May that Zach is missing because they think it'll be too much for May to handle emotionally. But May finds

out anyway, it does gravely affect her, especially because they all know that when a black person is taken like this they often never come back. May goes out to her wall, spends several hours there, then they can't find her. So August, June, Lily and Rosaline go looking and they discover May's body in a stream after having died by suicide. And everyone is devastated. Sometime later, against all odds, Neil and that family friend find Zach and they bring him back. And so there's a tearful reunion. Neil and June seem to rekindle their relationship in that moment. And you're like, no, June, get away from him. You're so close.

Then August finds May's suicide note, which says that it's her time to go, but it's the rest of the family's time to live. So don't mess it up. And it's such a heart wrenching moment in the movie. They hold a funeral for May. And then Lily shows a picture of her mother to August. And August is like, yeah, I knew her, and I figured out that you're her daughter.

And Lily breaks down crying. She feels that she's to blame for what happened to Zach and May, that she's to blame for her mother's death, saying that she's unlovable. And August tells Lily that she's not unlovable. There's love all around her. And then August reveals that she used to be Lily's mom's nanny when Deborah was a child and that August knew Deborah most of her life. And she describes Deborah and T-Ray's relationship early on that he wasn't abusive at

first, but Deborah fell out of love with him after a while, married him anyway because she was pregnant with Lily, and then Deborah left him after a few years and came to stay with August in the Honey House. And Lily's like, and she brought me with her, right? And August says, no, sorry, she came by herself herself so it seems like what T-Ray had said about her mom leaving Lily might be true yeah which of course upsets Lily and she goes to the honey house and smashes a bunch of jars of honey I really I mean I want to you know talk about it more fully I really appreciated parts of this scene especially with with, I don't know,

I was trying to put myself in August's shoes of what would I tell a kid, and I found her honesty very touching, even though it was painful, where it was like I really appreciate about her character that she doesn't, she's gentle, but she doesn't, you know, like she's gentle but she doesn't sugar coat stuff and she treats Lily like an adult in that moment

which, you know, isn't always the right call but it's, I just, I don't know, I was really surprised at that choice and I really liked it because I feel like when you're that age, often adults will just you know bullshit you because I think you can't handle something and even though it's painful I was like wow that was like a really powerful and risky thing that was

really cool. Mm-hmm for sure. So later Lily and Zach have a conversation. He says how angry he is about what happened to him. And Lily is basically like, well, just make sure your anger doesn't become, you know, like hatefulness and violent. And then they talk about their future plans again. They kiss, as we alluded to. There's kind of some more moments of like tying up of loose ends where Rosaline says that she successfully registered to vote. June is like, hey Neil, if you ask me to marry you again, I'll say yes. So they get engaged. You're like, no. And then there's a knock on the door and it's Lily's dad, T-Ray. He had figured out where she was. He demands that Lily come back home with him. He's being very aggressive and violent.

Whereas she's being like, oh, won't you come in? Have a seat if you want to. Like, ooh, like the need to be polite like that. Yeah. Right. Well, cause she doesn't know how he's gonna behave. It turns out he played he behaves horribly. He's still a bad guy. Yeah, horrible. Lily refuses to go with him. And August is like, Yeah, no, Lily has a home here as long as she wants. So you know know, T-Ray realizes he has lost this battle and he goes to leave. But before he does, Lily asks him if it's true that when her mother came back, like back home to T-Ray's house, if she was only coming back for her things like he said, or

if it was something else. And he's like, No, she was coming back for you, Lily. He drives off out of her life forever, and Lily embraces her found family slash found mothers of August, June and Rosaline. She writes about this experience and puts the notebook that she wrote in on May's wall. And that's how the movie ends. So let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss. I'm Tisha Allen, former golf professional and the host of Welcome to the Party, your newest obsession about the wonderful world that is women's golf. Featuring interviews with top players on tour like LPGA superstar Angel Yin. I really just sat myself down at the end of 2022 and I was like, look, either we make it or we quit.

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Tunga-Vallilola, and Jordan Love have with their agents at Athletes First. For the first time ever, the agents who orchestrate these deals are sharing the details of the negotiations and everything that led up to their clients signing on the dotted line. Listen to the Athletes First Family podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And we're back. And we're back. So in the book's ending, it's August, Rosaline, and the daughters of Mary crowding around T-Ray going like, you're not gonna take this girl with you.

And I assume that because there's not as much character development in the film and you can only do so much in a film. It's the three main moms and I'm okay with that. But what she asks T-Ray before he leaves, because somewhere along in the book, this whole thing, not only is she trying to figure out whether or not her mom came back for her, she's also trying to figure out, did I really kill my mom?

Because all I remember is the gun going off. So she asks T-Ray, did I really kill my mom? And he's like, I know you don't want to hear this. I know you'd want it to be her who did it to herself or me who did it, but it was you. And it wasn't your fault. And then he takes off. Yeah. Which again is like another, I don't know, just like a very unsugarcoated truth for Lily. Yeah, the movie's ending feels much more like Hollywood-ified. Yeah. That's really interesting. I mean, yeah, it does feel like a very,

I mean, in a lot of ways. I think all the way from like, the Nate Parker character is back, and they're gonna get married, and that is, you know, a Hollywood signifier of a happy ending. And the mean guy goes away, but not before she knows that she, I guess, there's so many places to start.

I was kind of, I don't know, I was thinking about, this movie's a lot about mothers and mothering, et cetera. And I feel like a lot of, like, there are missed opportunities in there, but I guess the Hollywood II ending not that I wanted Lily to be Abandoned by her mother, but I thought it was getting like in that scene We were just talking about with Lily in August Like I thought it was getting at something that we don't see in movies very often which is that like mothers are not

in movies very often, which is that mothers are not inherently naturally gifted, amazing, perfect parents. And because the movie goes out of its way to make it clear that Debra had a lot of struggles with mental health, she was abused, and was set up to not really be able to be a good parent to Lily. But I feel like we so often see characters that,

in spite of whatever they're going through, being a mother is a quality that will transcend any struggle you've had, and that is so often not true. And not that it's a great thing, but I always think it's interesting when imperfect mothers are shown in movies, but it felt like the ending kind of undercut that was like, no, she actually was a perfect mother. I don't know. I don't know. I just thought they're, you know, I feel like I sound mean for

being like, I wish Lily was abandoned, but I feel like we don't hear stuff like that very often. Yeah, and August does tell Lily about how depressed people often do things that they may not comprehend at times, because they may not feel like themselves. And they talk about this briefly about May, about how, oh, a lot of doctors just told us to institutionalize her, so we made the wailing wall instead, so we don't have to put her away. In the book, they talk about that for May

and they talk about that for Debra too. How they're. Yeah, so yeah, for white women and black women who are like, I'm struggling, it's like, oh, we'll put you away for a minute to calm down. I'm curious in general, yeah, because you've written about mental health and depression so extensively,

how do you feel like this movie does with those topics? Oh my gosh. I could. Cause like I talked about this in the Beyond the Lights episode about how I wish Gina Prince-Beth would had more space to do more about mental health in her film work because that is a topic that she's so interested in. And when it came to filming Mae's suicide scene in the commentary, they said they only did it in one take because

some of it had to do with all of the actresses being in the water longer than they were supposed to as well as Dakota Fanning's hours, like she can only be kept until like 9 p.m. and at the same time it's like I'm grateful that that scene was only done in one take because of like the actors mental health and that the scene turned out well and this was also before a time, because now we see movies whenever there's content about suicide. At the end credits, there's all like, if you have a loved one is struggling with suicidality,

call this number. And no one thought to do that at the time in like 2007, 2008. So I just think a lot about how for its time, it was so meaningful to see uh to see a black family struggle with suicidal loss and to struggle with it during a time such as the civil rights era even and there's this scene where Mae has more time at the wall to cry and I like that scene and I like that Gina Prince Bythewood really wanted that scene and at the same time we don't spend enough time with Mae or Mae and Rosalene's friendship either

and that makes me upset. I wanted more time with that. There's so much there to talk about and there's so much there to talk about when it comes to religiosity and mental health too. In the book and mental health too. In the book they also talk about how not only there's the wailing wall, there's also there was one time she was watching the news to the point where she was like hitting herself in the face and they decide to like carry her and put her in a bathtub and they're like just watch the troubles away and it's like they're using the tools they have at that time and I have a lot of respect for that. I love that the Wailing Wall is so public in their backyard.

I love that people can see it and I love the visibility of it, the visibility of that sadness. While also at the same time, I have so many questions about what my therapist once called spiritual bypassing, where you're like, well, everything's fine because God has me, everything's fine

because I'm writing to God now and that's okay, rather than actually sitting with the sadness. So I do have so many follow-up questions about whether or not that was a discussion able to be had at the time. Or, and also to be fair, when talking about this on the black girl film club, like it could be that like maybe that was the best way for May so that she could spend time on her own. Maybe that was the best way,

like because maybe she's not a talker. Maybe she does need to cry and just write it out. So yeah, I get how when I was younger, how this movie was a comfort movie for me, while also at the same time as I as I get older just continuing to have questions about the tools that we have to take care of ourselves versus how to use them or do we need to come up with more tools and things of that nature and how and how much how much leniency can we give for the time I'm putting I'm putting the phrase the time in air quotes.

People can't see me, they can hear me. No, but one thing that really struck me was how supportive her sisters were and how they gave her space to emote and grieve and do anything else she needed to do with her emotions and there were never any moments of judgment or oh, it's May being May again. And she still chose to leave and she still chose to take her life.

Even with all that support. For sure, but it was like really heartening, I think, to see an example on screen of family members supporting Yes another family member who you know is prone to depression and and you know a very empathic Person who feels so deeply and and for them to be supportive and patient and all that Yeah, it was really nice to see yeah I mean in particularly and this isn't like harped on nor should it have been but just how you know you think about like in the mid-century how horrifically both black patients and women were treated in institutions where it's just like it's It's very very clear that

Given the options at the time This is by far in May's best interest and in the family's best interest and that that is never called into question because I feel like sometimes there is the like, well, would she be quote unquote better off? And it just like always irritates me when talking points like that come up. But it's just very matter of fact, it is very clear that this is the right environment

or the best environment available. I love me. Yeah, and I also, I mean, I think that this ties to larger point that we've already referenced, but I also was bummed to not see her and Rosaline's friendship develop more because I was bummed that we didn't see more of Rosaline. Like, it's so frustrating.

I mean, the thing that in really any context, not that I'm like more characters should interact with Lily, but even Rosaline isn't interacting with Lily as much by the end of the movie. Like I feel like she kind of gets, we are told but not shown that she is now a part of the Boatwright Sisters family unit. But I don't, yeah, and I'm glad that happens,

but again, yeah, I feel like we're told that more than we see that grow. There's a part of me that's like, why doesn't Rosaline get to learn how to do beekeeping? Isn't the way that we can kind of write Lily out of this story? Yeah, I think the story favors Lily so much that Rosaline kind of gets lost in the shuffle,

which is a shame because I actually do, I think in a lot of movies that take place in this era where it's like the little white girl needs to learn about racism. And it doesn't help that like, Sumonk Kid has said that some of Rosaline's mannerisms is inspired by her own nanny that she grew up with. Oh wow.

Yeah. It's just really bizarre to me, yeah, because it's like I understand at the beginning of the movie what Rosaline, how Rosaline and Lily rely on each other to some extent. Lily needs an adult in her life who cares what happens to her. And I mean Rosaline it seems like also needs someone

in her working environment who is kind to her. Like I understand their bond, but it seems like as the movie goes on, Rosaline's connection to anybody just feels more tenuous. And then she shows up to be like, this is a great situation for me. I'm like, I believe you you but I haven't like I Don't get all I've released you really only see her kind of cooking. Yeah. I mean Rosaline's arc is going from

Certainly working for if not living with this white family I don't it's not even clear if she lives there or not in the book. She does not okay Yeah, we don't even know in the movie, because the movie doesn't really care enough about her character, unfortunately. But either way, she spends a lot of time at this Owens household taking care of Lily. So much of her life is tending to white people. And she goes from that situation to now living

among other black women and that very drastic change in dynamic, that's a far more interesting story to me. Exactly. It just seems like two different stories. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think Lily's story is interesting. I just don't think it belongs in this movie. It just feels like a different movie.

Yeah, right. Yeah. So yeah, I definitely clocked Rosaline's narrative importance diminishing as the story goes on. Which happens to Jennifer Hudson, that's the story of Jennifer Hudson's life in 2008, because she's also in the Sex and the City movie, playing one of the most poorly written characters of all time, and you're just like,

she just won an Oscar for fuck's sake. Anyways. Exactly. Yeah for fuck's sake. Anyways. Exactly. Yeah, that's nuts. Yeah. In the commentary, she talks about how, what's that, by she, I mean, Gina Prince-Bythewood, she talks about how she's like,

so at first we see Rosaline very nervous around T-Ray and not as outspoken, and then she becomes more outspoken by the end, especially when she says, well, I guess I'm back now at T-Ray and like not as outspoken and then like she becomes more outspoken by the end like especially when she says well I guess I'm back now at T-Ray and I'm like no give us more give right more I want more I want more scenes like when she was telling Lily off in the forest right like that's that's that's what I want more of. She had a strong estal I mean and it's horrific seeing the racist abuse of that character indoors. Of course.

And also there, I don't know if either of you saw that, there's a weird anecdote, production anecdote about Gina Prince-Bythewood, like basic, like had- Oh, the method acting bullshit. That's right. The method, yeah, they had a bunch of white actors harass Jennifer Hudson in a convenience store

and call her the N-word and all of this pretty nasty stuff. But Gina Prince-Bythewood sort of was like, well, she had just won an Oscar, so she had to understand what it was like to feel not respected. And I was like, that kind of sucks. I don't, she's a great actor. You don't need to do that to her. exactly. She said that in the commentary too and she and also in the fight scene

Jennifer Hudson is doing her own stunts and like actually does get punched in the face and I don't like that I don't find that impressive. I don't like no Found that so impressive and I'm like, no. I know, I wanna chalk it up. I wanna share that, yeah, cause I have that quote here and I had to read it twice to be like, what? This is from, and I'll be quoting from it for other reasons,

but an interview that Gina Prince-Bythewood did with Essence at the time this came out. She said, we had very little rehearsal time and Jennifer was coming off the whole Oscar experience and was in a whole other world. So she could get in Rosalie's head, I set up an improvisation and hired some white actors to be in a drug store and told her and Dakota to meet me there. I told them it was an improvisation, but I didn't know Jennifer thought it was real. My only direction to her was to not hit anybody. The shopkeeper followed her around and accused her of stealing. When Jennifer would ask for help, another one would turn around and answer to Dakota.

The third guy used the N-word and I saw Jennifer's head whip over to him and I got scared for a second. She said all she remembered was to not hit anybody. When I talked to them afterward about what they got out of it, Jennifer said the hardest thing was feeling invisible. It was great bonding for fanning in Hudson. And I was just like, no, that no, that's deeply fucked up to Jennifer Hudson and I also think it's pretty weird to do

to a child actor too. Oh yeah, Dakota Fanning is actually kneeling in real grits in the film. Oh, which yeah, seems very painful. Yeah. So, okay, weird choices directorially. Yeah, and Gina Prince-Bythewood was all like, oh, I need to kneel in the grit so that I know,

like if I can handle it, surely Dakota can handle it. But Gina, you're an adult. Anyways, the production around this movie, I mean, do you mind if I take a quick side quest? So, something I thought was interesting was, this movie, it mean, do you mind if I take a quick side quest? So something I thought was interesting was this movie, it may not talk to you, was originally going to be directed by a white director. White man.

Yes, David Gordon Green, which also is like, I can't imagine a weirder, like Danny McBride's best friend. Do we really think he's best suited for this? Like I like his work, but like what the, why would you do that? Anyways, Gina Prince Bythewood, this is her first movie after Love and Basketball, but it came out eight years later.

And I feel like this so often happens to directors of color, to women directors, and specifically, this is like reeks of kind of misogynoir in terms of getting a good second project. What I think is interesting is I believe she originally turned this down because she's pretty picky with the project she wants to do as is her right.

She'd taken some time off to have her kids, but what she'd been working on for five or so years that never ended up happening was an adaptation of this really long book about mental health and about bipolar specifically. Let me find the title of, I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. I'm not familiar with it, Maya, I don't know if you are.

The description is, it's a 900 page epic tale about an unhappy house painter and his institutionalized identical twin brother, a paranoid schizophrenic. And like Gina Prince Bythewood, I guess, she grew up, I know we've talked about her extensively on this show, but she was adopted and grew up in a white family and had a bipolar brother. So this book really resonated with her. She wanted to So this book really resonated with her. She wanted to make it she wrote to the author She got permission it took years, but then when it finally came to Fox This is from a DGA article from like 15 years ago

When the brass at Fox 2000 demanded an a-list actor to play the dual role the project fell apart because none of the movie stars approach would say yes To working with a relatively new director, which feels very telling to me. And the fact that, so it seems like, you know, even though she speaks highly of this film, it just anecdotally doesn't seem like this was her first choice for her second film.

And that this movie was made for a smaller budget than Love and Basketball. It was made for $11 million and every actor had to take a pretty major pay cut to be a part of it, which I feel like is so, so often true in movies that spotlight black women specifically. I mean, I think we most recently talked about this in relation to the Color Purple musical film

of like how there was a huge salary issue with how undervalued the black actresses were. But in any case, it just felt, I don't know, I felt frustrated for, even though I have notes for Gina Prince-Bightlett on this movie, I was frustrated for her that like, I mean, I think if you put a white male director in her shoes, they have no problem getting,

first of all, their second movie, but also their second movie on source material of their choosing. Exactly. And I wish she had gotten to make the movie that she wanted to make because after Love and Basketball, she should have been able to do fucking anything. And the fact that she wasn't is just very,

state of the industry. And we've alluded to the overall narrative and we're like, why is it about this white girl? Or if it's a movie about a young white girl and her journey figuring out what did happen with her mom and, you know, that narrative, why is it nestled into this other story about these black women that should be its own movie? Right. Right. That too.

So that is an issue in and of itself. I do think that this movie does handle some things well as far as identifying the varying degrees of micro and macro aggressions directed toward black people and the different ways that racial prejudice can manifest, prejudice can manifest because we see many examples of that. And I did appreciate at least that this movie does portray a white protagonist that like is a participant in the racial prejudice and that like it gives her room to grow. I think a white director would have been inclined to be like, oh well sure there's racism, but my protagonist who is a white child who grew up in the Jim Crow South, she has no racial prejudices. She's like what the hell? She understands everything about white supremacy and how it

oppresses and marginalizes black people because like white fragility makes it so that white people have a very hard time acknowledging their participation and complicity in white supremacy. So this movie being directed by a black woman, she's able to very easily identify those things and it does make for, I think think a better and more authentic movie than it would have been if it had been directed by for example David Gordon Green. So those are some things that I think are handled better. Sure, like even in the tiny things too like they're all referred to as Miss, whereas in the book they're not.

So it's a tiny thing, but it still makes a huge impact. But also at the same time, Lily doesn't call Rosaline Miss until after she says, she's a registered voter, which I take issue with. What? It's true. Yeah, and I mean, I don't know. One movie can't take on everything,

but again, I feel like we got some strong stuff towards the beginning of the movie that kind of goes away where, again, from Rosaline, who's kind of bailed on, it felt a little like, okay, that her happy ending is like, I'm gonna vote for Lyndon Johnson. You're like, okay, better than the alternative,

but it just felt a little yada yada, where at the beginning we're getting more complex stuff from her, where it felt more grounded in like, I would never buy that Dakota Fanning's character didn't have a lot of internalized racism based on her upbringing, but I did buy that she wouldn't understand

that the Civil Rights Bill being passed doesn't mean everything is better overnight. And I liked that moment with Rosaline where she's like, yeah, technically maybe, but it's a piece of paper. And I don't know, it felt like we were being set up for more complex conversations that ended up happening sometimes. There's another one that worked for me

where it's the scene where Rosalene is attacked by the white men and they're demanding that she apologize and Lily is begging for her to comply with this request and to apologize and Rosaline refuses and then she is arrested and then a little later Lily says something like well yeah you were foolish for you know pouring your tobacco spit on that white man and even more foolish for not apologizing if on that white man and even more foolish for not apologizing if apologizing would have saved your life.

And Rosaline's response is, I know you don't understand this, but apologizing to those men would have just been a different way of dying except I would have to live with it. But then like after that, any of those more nuanced conversations like kinda don't happen, at least between,

at least with Rosalene, because she just sort of disappears mostly from the movie. One thing I appreciated that I think just again, we don't often see represented in movies is a black family that is like middle class upper middle class I mean their house fucking rocks I don't know what that what class that is in 1960 whatever but in the book they explained that their dad was a dentist okay but yeah I mean I think that that

you know to this day is still a fairly underrepresented class. And so it was nice to see. Another example of like Lily's racial prejudice, is she's like, wow, I've never seen black people who are so cultured. Right. I know, like Rosaline, being all Rosaline sitting right there,

I would have been like, but then Rosaline is like, actually neither have I. There's even a part where Rosaline's all like, I ain't never, I have never heard of them. And I'm like, you didn't have to change anything. You don't have to change anything. But at the same time, I feel like that comes from, comes from the book. time, I feel like that comes from the book.

I feel like we just see a lot of Lily's internalized thoughts about Rosaline in a way that just makes me mad. Rosaline just does not give a crap. And that's seen a lot more in the book. And Lily's all like, oh my god, Rosaline, I wish you'd care more. I wish you'd not do that in front of the Boatwrights sisters or whatever and she's internalizing all of this

and I think some of that carried into how to portray her in the movie and I wish that didn't happen. Interesting, gosh, Rosaline was done dirty. Jennifer Hudson 2008, it just was not fair, not a fair time to our friend Jennifer Hudson 2008, like it just was not fair, not a fair time to our friend Jennifer Hudson. And the fact that she'd have to wait until 2019 to play her greatest role. In Cats, you mean?

Of Grizabella the Glamour Cat, yes. Yes, of course. Wait, when did Aretha come out? Oh, Aretha, I think Aretha came out afterwards, but I was also just being an asshole, cats is horrible. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, imagine if we were like, Jennifer Hudson, greatest performance

in the greatest movie of all time, Cats. Although she, she is the best. I mean, she gives a great performance. She thinks she's in a way better movie than she's actually in, which is like, how was she to know? But she's definitely giving. They didn't know that they weren't gonna edit out

her human body. They just like, couldn't have known. Yeah. Can we talk about June and her relationship with Neil? Yeah. I hate it. I hate it. It's him constantly asking her to marry him.

She says, no, I don't want to be married now or ever. Like you mentioned, Maya, the movie deletes the context for why, but even if, honestly, I appreciated that there was no context. Like I didn't mind that that context wasn't there because people are allowed to not want to get married and to not have, you know, any traumatic backstory that informs

that they can just say like, I don't want to get married. So I actually was like, hell yeah, June, you don't want to get married. And she doesn't have to give a reason. And a lot of people around her are like, you're so scared. What are you so scared of? And she's like, I'm not scared. I just don't want to get married. But Neil keeps pestering her. He then calls her a selfish bitch, and then they break up about it.

And he never apologizes. He never apologizes. Gina Prince-Bythewood had talked about, while directing Alicia, she said something along the lines of, oh, it's amazing how how even though she's very firm in talking about how she's not scared of anything, you can see the fear in her eyes. And this is the couple we're rooting for?

I agree to disagree. Because a lot of that just comes from, and again, I know I talked about this in the Beyond the Lights episode, it just goes back to Gina Prince-Bythewood's view of romantic relationships in a way where I'm like, Yeah. Ah, buddy. And like, there's a scene where, where Lily sees June and Neil kissing.

And I bring this up because this is connected back to Lily and Zach's kiss scene and how Gina Prince-Bythewood said in the commentary. She was like, it was nice to portray this form of innocence. It was nice to do this at the wailing wall because after Lily and May's scene where they talk about kissing, that's not in the book, but was an addition added to the story. And then talked about like, oh, she caresses Zach's face similar to how June caresses Neil's face. And it's like, it's...

Yeah, don't talk about my friend Zach like that. Like that's, Zach seems like a really nice kid. And I also just, I'm getting very bored with people asking actors, what was it like kissing your co-star? Because there's a commentary with Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning, the producers and Gina. And both Queen Latifah and Gina asked Dakota, what's going through your mind?

To paraphrase what Dakota said, she was just like, I had a job to do. Child ID should be illegal. Like I also, yeah, I always think that especially when you ask a child like that, it is like the creepiest thing one could do in that situation. Is be like, hey, that, ugh, ugh.

Right, especially when, and I only just learned this about an hour ago, that she was kissing, you said he was 18 going on 19, the actor? Yep. And she's 13, so. 13 going on 14, yeah. Yeah, let's not do that. Don't cast an actor who is that much older.

If you do insist on having an on screen kiss like that, but also like, is it necessary? She's a child. Like, let's not. There can be, yeah, like there, you can get across their bond without doing that. Like, right. Yeah. It just was a bummer. To go back to June and Neil real quick, to just close the loop on that. So he calls her selfish bitch, they break up. She changes her mind for reasons that are not clear. You could maybe say that maybe it has something to do

with what May had said in her suicide note, where she's like, it's my time to go, but your time to live, implying that the only way to live as a woman is to get heterosexually married to a man. A mean person who doesn't like you. Yeah, and granted August does say, oh there was a time I was in love,

and I loved him enough to marry him, but I loved my freedom more. So I appreciate that contrast, and at the same time, again, it just doesn't help. This idea of, come on June, marry Neil, marry Neil. Yeah, like let him wear you down so much that for reasons that aren't clear, you change your mind,

even though you were so like headstrong about not getting married prior to this. And it just. That really struck me of like, why is August able to have that grace? But I feel like June is like, often presented as like being cold and like mean for not wanting to get married,

and August is not portrayed that way, even though their reasoning sounds basically identical. So I just thought that was like bizarre. And then as we've alluded to, and we talk more about this on the Beyond the Lights episode, I don't think it's, we don't need to like rehash it in a lot of detail, but, and we'll place another trigger warning here

for rape and sexual assault, but Nate Parker is a rapist. He raped a woman in the late 90s while he was in college. He denied it, charges were eventually dropped. He was able to go on to have an acting career and for some reason he gets cast in movies, despite this being pretty easily accessible knowledge. So.

Who can say why? Who can say why these things happen? Who, does it have something to do with, I don't know, the patriarchy? Anyway. Are you whispering? The patriarchy. If we whisper it, it'll go away.

Welcome, welcome to ASMR. Gonna talk about the patriarchy. Caitlin is the patriarchy in the room with us right now. It's behind me, isn't it? Yes. So yeah, every male character, except I mean, it's so, because in my notes I was like,

at least we have Zach, but then the casting age disparity is like, well, kind of we don't. I like the character. Yeah. Really, really good character. Zach's mom was LaFonda in Napoleon Dynamite. Oh my God.

And I didn't know this until a week ago. Whoa. Oh my God. That's just a fun tip that I want to be sure I shared. Yeah, thank you. I have not thought about Napoleon Dynamite in so long. I feel like it's another movie we need to cover. I know, but I'm almost afraid to.

I was like, what, they're, I mean, yeah. Could it possibly have aged well? I don't, I just don't think so. Only one way to find out. Exactly. I used to have a Vogue Pedro shirt and an I Love Lamp shirt. Oh my goodness.

I was, I don't want to talk about it. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, Zach as a character is a character I enjoyed and the interactions between him and Lily are another example of her like harboring these racial prejudices because there's that scene where they're talking about their future hopes and dreams and she's like, Oh yeah, are you going to be a professional football player? And he's like, Why do white people always think that the only way black people can be successful is to play sports? And he says he wants to be a lawyer. And she's like, oh really?

I've never heard of a black lawyer before. And then he's like Thurgood Marshall, hello? And she's like, yeah, I don't know him. And it's just another way of her being isolated and not knowing about the world. I just see, I kind of had a different read of that scene where I do appreciate that she, again, it's like she's not made out to be immune to racism

because that would make no sense given her lived experience. It just feels like sometimes in this sub-genre of movies that Zach was there in that moment to teach her about racism versus to have it be more of like a character development. And I feel like that is like so common to movies that managed to center a young white person is that like a lot of the black characters

like struggles, ambitions, whatever it may be is like they're there to characterize, but they're also there to be like, guess what, you naive Dakota Fanning, Thurgood Marshall exists. Another thing I'll point out, the Boatwright sisters are older in the book than who is casted to portray them in the film. And granted they sort of kind of age Queen Latifah up,

but not by much. So I just find that fascinating around how much of it had to do with having to sell a movie and having Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith be producers on it and stuff like that. But I'm also aware that Gina Prince-Bythewood and Alicia Keys are friends, so that's sort of connected to Alicia Keys' casting

in the film. And she's really good in it. I really liked her performance. Absolutely. But another example of Hollywood favoring younger women. Yeah. What else we got? Folks?

I mean, as you mentioned, Maya, the book draws a clearer metaphorical parallel between the lives of bees and what the women in the story are experiencing. But the movie is just like, here are the logistics about how beekeeping works, and it's far less thematic and metaphorical. The only moment where it really comes back is when May is sort of foreshadowing her own death by talking about worker bees.

Where that was like the only moment where it felt like making an explicit connection to this community of women, to the bee community. It's one of the few epigraphs from the book that's said in the movie. Oh, no kidding, okay. Yeah. Yeah and also going into Is now where I do the big religion deep dive please a little bit. Okay

Cuz the cuz again the the the bees are connected to the religious landscape as well So so sum Kidd had been spending a lot of time writing nonfiction before she wrote fictional books and she has written a lot about progressive spirituality, the divine feminine, I will unpack that in a minute because I have mixed feelings about that, but yeah this is her first fictional book. And she has been doing this project for years of looking up different artistic sculptures

of different Madonnas of different racial identities and different cultural backgrounds. And then she did find a piece from a ship that was supposed to embody the Virgin Mary, and which led her to write this book and led her to like think about her own time during the civil rights movement at the age of 14. And also what I like about the Secret Life of Bees is it's one of the few film representations I've seen of black folks within practicing Catholicism, because usually it's in Protestant Pentecostal churches,

or if there is Catholicism represented, it's because they go to a Catholic school, it's not because they're necessarily Catholic, or they're of Afro-Latinx descent as to why they're practicing Catholicism. And with this practice, with the Daughters of Mary, the ship head that they call Mary had been in the boatwright's family for quite some time.

Like the book describes their mom even talking to her, going like, oh my goodness, you should have had a girl, it would have been a lot less trouble and stuff like that. And so their mom is Catholic and their dad is an Orthodox Eclectic, which is a denomination that leans more specifically to Eastern Christianity rather than Western Christianity. And also, the book also talks about Rosaline's spiritual background too. She engages in altar work that Lily is is fascinated by and T Ray is like no don't don't mess with that food with that voodoo shit Which is very racist of him to say

And and at first Rosaline's not into the daughters of Mary thing But she eventually gets into it even though she just most of the time just sits there And I think she's only like touched the heart of Mary one time. And they also talk about the connection with bees as part of their religious tradition too. Like they talk about like so the scene in the movie where August puts the black covers on the beehives. in the movie where August puts the black covers on the beehives.

That's the only thing from the book that they show. And apparently it wasn't written in the script, but Gina Prince-Bythewood wanted a shot of that before they were done. I'm glad that shot exists. And so when it comes to death rituals, honey used to be used for embalming. They used to shape tombs in the shape of bee hives.

When early Christians were hiding from Romans, not only was there like the fish symbol, there were also bee symbols. Oh, okay. In the book, August says, covering the hives was supposed to keep the bees from leaving. You see, the last thing they wanted was their bees swarming off when a death took place. Having bees around was supposed to ensure that the dead person would live again. She also says, back when the Christians hid from the Romans

down in the catacombs, they used to scratch pictures of bees on the walls to remind each other that when they died, they'd be resurrected. And she also says something about how this figure came from a ship and the people wanted to believe about the Virgin Mary's spirit within that figure and see themselves in, in that figure because, uh, because she said something along the lines of, uh, uh, how people deserve a God that looks like them.

Um, which gets referenced to some extent in the movie where the, the label of the honey jars has black Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. And there's a part where Lily's like, what's that about? And June says something like, you mean like, why is Mary black? Or why is that actually on honey? And that's that's what prompts the scene where August and the is it the daughters of Mary? The daughters of Mary. It's the it's's how they're described in the book. I recognize that they don't say that in the movie. They probably do. Yeah. In the Daughters of Mary, Sugar Girl has a husband named Otis who's mostly quiet and just sits there. More men should be like that. It's easy to get rid of Otis in the movie.

But yeah, when going into the whole divine feminine thing that Sumonk Kidd talks about, on one end I appreciate the progressiveness of it because of how often women are underrepresented in religious and spiritual conversations. But then at the same time, crosses into like turfy territory, trans exclusionary radical feminism type territory and doesn't make a lot of room for religious or spiritual trans folks.

I remember in the color purple episode y'all talked about Alice Walker siding with JK Rowling and she's also a spiritual writer and she came out with an apology, question mark. I don't know how I feel about it. And also, I'm too scared to look into how a sumac kid feels about trans people. I'm too nervous. Yeah. Fair enough.

But yeah, typically whenever there are folks, specifically women with some form of a Christian background even as they try to make it progressive or try to lean into womanhood of it by calling things like the divine feminine, I do get scared at times where as far as like, I don't want to take your journey away from you. And at the same time, if you're divine feminine doesn't include trans people, I don't know how I feel about that. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, those are all my notes and feelings about the religious landscape of this movie and the book that inspired it. That's very interesting. Most if not all of that gets left out of the movie. Like all of that kind of historical context and bee significance isn't really in the movie. It's just Queen Latifah being like, yeah,

and then we put smoke on the bees to mask their pheromones and calm them down, which B-movie gets wrong. Yes. They're like smoking the bees. They're killing us. And it's like all the bees have like emphysema and you're like, this is not, this is just not. In conclusion, B-movie sucks.

But yeah. Is there chemicals in this, in the smoke? Is that the problem or is it just a matter of like, oh, it's smoke. They're suggesting it's like tobacco smoke in B-movie. Yeah, they're acting like it's cigarette smoke. It's so Terry Seinfeld IQ of zero. Like it's just, yeah. The producer, one of the producers of this movie

kept getting letters from people saying that they wanted Queen Latifah to adopt them Who can relate who could relate you know Yeah, does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss about the secret life of bees? I think that's everything that I had it. I don't know ultimately, I'm like, it was, it feels very much a product of its time to me. You could parse out different parts of this story and isolate them and they should just kind of be their own thing and the fact that they're overlapping just means that the narratives of the black women suffer for it. So yeah,

well the movie does pass the Bechtel test for sure. For large swaths of the movie between many different characters. So no problems there. As far as our nipple scale though, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples, examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. I'm kind of leaning toward like a two and a half or three for the reasons that we've discussed throughout the episode and like what I was just talking about as far as like, yes, the black characters are important

narratively but at the end of the day, it's still very much a story about a white girl's journey with like black characters as the backdrop almost. And there's nothing inherently wrong with a story about a white girl. Loved the substance. There. There. Exactly.

But yeah, it's what we've already said. It's just like, let these other characters have their own story. I'll give it three nipples one to Queen Latifah one to Jennifer Hudson and one to Sophie Okunado the end I'm gonna go three as well. I mean, I I love Gina Prince by the way this movie did not Super work for me,

but I think a lot of that is connected to the source material as well. However, yeah, I mean, even just like some of the directing choices she made putting Jennifer Hudson through that bizarre ordeal, like without making sure that even if she did know it was fake, I'd like, I just, Jennifer Hudson should have had the opportunity to be like, no thanks, you don't need to teach me

what racism is. For sure. Yeah, just because I won an Oscar doesn't mean I'm immune from racism, like what even is that? And I also think that that's a really weird situation to put a kid in as well. Like, it just, yeah, like some of her choices I have questions about, but I also feel like as we've talked about

with Gina Prince-Bythewood before, that she has never gotten the opportunities that she's deserved, especially the earlier in her career you go, but we talked about this on the Woman King episode, where it was just completely snubbed at the Oscars for her work. And so, you know, I think that while I don't agree with a lot of the choices she's making here, I also think she's put between a rock and a hard place constantly because she wasn't

able to make the movie she wanted to. And that is also deeply unfair. Yeah, in terms of being a product of its time, a civil rights era story adapted from a work of a white writer that centers a white teenager, very popular thing to do in this stretch of five years. And while I think that Lily is a fairly well-written character, all things considered, and it's not that I dislike her. And again, it just feels like this, but her being centered in the story means

that the majority of black cast becomes supporting characters, and that just doesn't feel right at all. So I'm gonna give it three nipples. I'm gonna give one to Jennifer Hudson,. I'm gonna give one to Jennifer Hudson, and I'm gonna give one to Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls, and I'm gonna give one to Jennifer Hudson in Cats. Dreamgirls, another movie we have to cover.

Wow, so much to do. I'll have a good time covering that. The last time I saw Dreamgirls, this is so loser coded. After my junior prom, when you're supposed to go out and get drunk and kiss, they were like, hey, for any loser kids, you can come back to the high school cafeteria and we're gonna show Dreamgirls on DVD. And so I watched Dreamgirls and drank milk.

I was like, it was so fucking pathetic. Anyways, I liked the movie, but that movie I associate with being like a gigantic loser. Oh. Wow, I love that story. Thank you so much. Maya, what say you? Maya's still recovering from what a loser I was

in high school. No, but here's the thing though, when you cover Dreamgirls on this podcast, nod loser status. Right. I mean, Step Into the Bad Side is just like, and I love that song so much. That was my favorite song at the time, Dreamgirls. Anyways. I will give this movie three and a half nipples. So I do love that May's portrayal in the movie

is a lot better than the book. And again, a lot of it just has to do with like Lily's 14 year old voice talking about things she doesn't understand and using ableist language about May in a way that I didn't like. So I love that there is, even though more space could have been given to May, I do love that May does get some space and even some original content added to her character in the hair

braiding scene with Lily. And I, oh my gosh, June deserved so much better. In some of the behind the scenes details they talk about, like we wanted to make June a more accessible character and that made me mad, especially when it came to like how more context would have made her a more accessible character. And like another thing in the book, she plays music for people, for the dead, whether they're dying in hospice

or like they're playing. She's playing at funerals. Oh my god. She used to work as a mortician and having a history about having that history when it comes to having a younger sister die by suicide. And then in your adult life, having a sister die by suicide is like, would have been incredible context to give.

Are you kidding me? I, sorry, I was like I just realized my brain is soup because I was like the Grateful Dead weren't, were they performing then? She worked with the dead like as in the bodies, not the band. I was like whoa. Do people refer to the Grateful Dead as the dead?

Yes, I only know that because my brother is a huge dead head. Oh, he's a dead head. Oh, he is. And I think I'm going to a concert with him for his birthday. Nice. A dead concert? Yeah, they're supposed to be 1,200 hours long.

I can't wait. Can't wait. Oh my gosh, wow. Well, I'm sure my brother to be 1200 hours long. I can't wait can't wait Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, I'm sure my brother be proud of me. I was like, whoa, the Grateful Dead should have been in that movie That's wild. Anyways All the performances are fantastic It makes me so uncomfortable watching watching this some of the special features content of like Paul Bettany and Nate Parker being like, the nice guys and like clearly they're not so nice

and it makes me uncomfortable. There are many things I love about this movie. There are many things I continue to interrogate about this movie. So I'm gonna give it three and a half. And I often, I notice, I've been noticing this. I tend to make people share a nipple and then the event for the half one, one person gets a, okay.

Um, so I'm going to give one nipple, uh, for Queen Latifah and Alicia Keys to share. One nipple to be shared between Jennifer Hudson and Sophie Okunedo. I will give a nipple for, oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the actual actress's name. Oh, the one in Napoleon title. Zachary's mom, AKA Lafonda from Napoleon title. Oh yes. No, I'm going to look up her name.

I need to get this right. Her name is Shondrella Avery Thank you. I'm gonna give a nipple to Shondrella Avery and Sandra Hernandez the costume designer. Oh, I love all of the Boatwright Sisters dresses especially that purple dress that August wears when talking one-on-one to Lily with like her Deborah's box of things and then the final half nibble to India Ahri for her song Beautiful in the movie.

Oh, lovely. Maya, thank you so much for coming back. Thank you so much for having me back. We still need to do something on Dear Evan Hansen. I know y'all are like, oh no, but I'm over here like, oh yes. It's time. It will happen. I still have never seen that movie. I don't know what it is.

Caitlin, I think you'll think it's, I mean, it is kind of funny. Okay. It's ultimately kind of a comedy. The guy who's in it would later go on to be in, is that movie called Band Camp? Theater Camp. Theater Camp. Theater Camp.

Which I enjoyed very much. It's a fun movie. Yes. Maya, thank you so much for joining us. Come back any time for Dear Evan Hansen. Or any other movie. Or anything. Listen, listen.

I'm willing to wait for Dear Evan Hansen if need be. We'll save it. We'll save it for you. But no, it's always an honor talking about films with y'all, so thank you very much for letting me come back. Of course. Thank you so much for coming back. Where can people check out your work, follow you on social media, plug anything you'd like

to plug. Yeah I am on Instagram, Blue Sky, and Twitter at emmdubb116 so mdub16. I have a website mayawilliamspoet.com mayawilliamspoet.com. You can buy either one of my poetry collections from that website or you could read any of my other published work, whether it's poetry or essays or stuff like that, so yeah. I have a chapbook out now called What's So Wrong With a Pity Party?

Anyway, via Garden Party Collective. My best friend came out with a book called The Space Between Men. Yes. Through Penguin Random House, Mia S. Willis wrote The Space Between Men. Would highly recommend this beautiful poetry collection, which also touches on suicidality, gender, spirituality, mythos for folks who are interested in that. Amazing. I'll have to check that out. Oh, I forgot one more thing. I'm so sorry, I forgot one more thing.

Oh no, please. I am open for poetry commissions. If you are looking for a poem for an upcoming event or for a loved one, I also audio record poems for performances such as drag performances, burlesque performances, theater performances. So if you are interested in that,

you can email me at mayawilliams16 at gmail.com or use the contact form and my website. Thank you. Oh my gosh, that's so I love that you do all of those performances. You can follow us on Instagram at Spectalcast. You can subscribe to our matriarch where we cover two movies a month based on an amazing theme such as insecttober which we just finished up in which we covered B movie which as we've said absolutely sucks. Not enough bees well go over to the.

Yeah you need more B movie content. Right. Well we've got lots for you. Hell yeah. You can get our merch over at teapublic.com slash The Bechdel Cast. And until then, folks, let's go harvest some honey. Yummy.

Bye. OK, bye. Bye. The Bechdel Cast 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 Voskrasensky. 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 slash bechtelcast.

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