The Bechdel Cast - What's Love Got To Do With It? (2022) with Saadia Khan

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

This week, we have an arranged recording with special guest Saadia Khan to discuss What's Love Got To Do With It? (2022). (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast Follow @swkkhan on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante, and @jamieloftusHELPSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Hey, Caitlin. Yeah, Jamie. Do you want to go up to a treehouse and smoke cigarettes and or make out? Um, yeah. I do.

For some reason, one of us should pretend to not remember it happened until the end and be like, no, I totally remembered it. And then we'll start making out again. Yeah, yeah do. But for some reason, one of us should pretend to not remember it happened until the end and be like, no, I totally remembered it. And then we'll start making out again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then do you want to watch a whole TV series with me? Honestly, no. But I don't want to do that with anybody. What if also I was sort of, it depends on the series, right?

Well, what if it's the Jinx? If it was, of course, if it was Jinx, I would watch it again. But what if it was of course of course if it's jinx i would watch it again but what if she was like svu and you're like no that's such a commitment 30 30 years worth of tv i can't do that shout out to the episode of law and order svu that i was an extra in thank you very much do you know how i mean it's just so like there's so many episodes how would how would we find it i would watch that episode with you and then we could make out. We can't smoke cigarettes. I hate cigarettes. Yeah, me too. This is how the negotiation should have gone in the treehouse. Anyways, welcome to the Bechtelcast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante and this is our show

where we analyze movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation about representation in film and such. A freaky little diving board and yeah we are covering i think this is one of the more recent movies we have covered in recent uh months i feel like for some reason we have been really not trapped but like really in 2003 to 2006 it's just kind of where we've been living, which is interesting because it was such a bizarro time. So I'm thrilled to be propelled into the present

with a modern rom-com. I think a genre that isn't getting much love these days. It's true. I think that the whole genre needs an update, honestly. And I think that this movie, What's Love Got to Do With It? from 2022, does interesting things to give like a modern

spin on rom-com tropes. And I'm excited to talk about them. I agree. Yeah, the spoofy. It's a a very sweet movie it's a very rom-commy movie but there's way more to it and it's also I mean it has an interesting backstory and it also it's so nice to watch a rom-com where you don't need to at least to the same degree like trudge through these dated tropes and be like okay I have to make excuses in my head i have to like do a mission impossible like laser thing to get to be able to enjoy this it's it's a modern rom-com yes imagine and to be clear this is not the what's love got to do with it the 1993 biopic i don't know i've never seen it it's a drama it's a mute tina turner it's this is not

that movie it's a really incredible performance i will say i think maybe one of my biggest notes with this movie is why did they call it this when that is already a famous movie it's so confusing and it's so hard to find um however you should find i honestly think that you should, there should be a double feature programmed somewhere where you just watch both What's Love Got To Do With It. Especially, I think I would do, ooh, this is my Barbenheimer for What's Love Got To Do With It, both of them. I would say the Tina Turner biopic first and this as a lighthearted palette cleanser. Because What's Love Got to Do With It, the first one has pretty, it gets intense. Sure. I've never seen it, so I can't speak to it.

We'll cover it on What's Love Got to Do With It March. Over on the Matreon. But, so anyway. We are covering the 2022 film written by Jemima Khan and directed by Shakar Kapoor. And we have an amazing guest here to discuss this movie with us. We certainly do. She is the producer and host of the podcast Immigrantly and the co-producer and co-host of the podcast Invisible Hate. It's Sadia Khan.

Hi, guys. Hello. How are you? So good. How are you? So good. How are you? I am good. And I'm so excited to dissect this movie with you. But just an FYI, when I recommended it, I realized it's only available on Prime with

like you have to rent it. And I felt so bad. I was like, oh my gosh, do we have to really rent it? I don't know how you watched it or where you watched it but I I rented it watched it and then recommended it yes we all gave Jeff Bezos our four dollars I gave uh I don't remember who Mrs. YouTube is I gave Mrs. YouTube four dollars oh okay nice so it could be an equally evil transaction. I'm not really sure. It probably is probably, you know, statistically. Yeah, I had to detox myself

after that. But that's fine. Right, right. Yeah. Anytime you give Jeff Bezos money, you just have to take like a long, a long shower and be like, right, right better I know it and then like donate to a local mutual aid effort yeah so Sadia what's your relationship with this movie so it's interesting how until I was finalized to come on your show I I wasn't really thinking of watching this i had heard of it there was so much buzz around it the screenplay is written by jamaima khan she is ex-wife of former pakistani prime minister imran khan who was a very very famous cricketer in the 80s and 90s um and i had a huge crush on him i still do but he's almost 70 now i think he is he used to be a lot hotter but anyways um so for me this movie embodies so much that we don't see in mainstream media in the west it's a rom-com that features a pak British family. It's outside the stereotypical representation of

Muslims. Muslim man being a terrorist and Muslim woman being oppressed. And so I was drawn to it from the get-go. And then when you guys approached me and I thought why not discuss something that people are probably not aware of or is not part of their consciousness and maybe we can talk about something that's fun but at the same time they can go watch it and just see a different side of the Muslim family totally yeah I wasn't aware of this movie until me either you pitched it to us even though it has um some like pretty big names in it in the cast i was like oh what's this little indie comedy right and then you're like oh no everyone in this movie is very famous famous i also hadn't i mean it just came out in the u.s two months ago or so i guess

it was released in the u.s in may but even so i feel like i should have heard more uh more about it but i'm very glad i watched it and i'm really glad to you uh you brought it to us because um yeah i think certainly growing up in the u.s the uh anti-muslim sentiment in the world and also especially in i feel like a lot of media that you consumed voluntarily or through just cultural osmosis when we were when we were younger and still now um is just not inclusive uh it's very clear what the point of view is when talking about Pakistani characters and yeah this this movie felt like a breath of fresh air totally and I was really interested in sort of the background of how it was how it was made and I just love rom-coms so much like i just am a sucker for people kissing in a treehouse

unfortunately it is pretty cute it's pretty cute yeah i uh am less thrilled by rom-coms in general as listeners of the show probably know but i i like them in theory it's just that the execution of them is often like riddled with so many problematic things um as we've also discussed a lot on the show but this movie is not immune to i feel like there's no such thing as a perfect i don't know i have yet to see a rom-com that completely subverts tropes it is so true I not that I don't believe it's possible and not that I wouldn't die in the pursuit of making the first perfect rom-com but it's it's a genre that's so true I mean the idea of like true love is so tropey that like accessing that I feel like it's so tough without without some level of

tropey not to excuse it but I was like not not shocked that that and when any rom-com you're like oh there there it is there's the wise grandmother imparting advice this is what happens in this genre it's true so yeah should we just dive into the recap and go from there? Yeah, let's do it. All right. Okay, so we are in London, England, ever heard of it? And we meet Zoe, played by Lily James, who goes to a wedding where she reconnects with her childhood friend Kaz played by Shahzad Latif. Kaz who was born in the UK but whose family comes from Pakistan tells Zoe that he has asked his parents to arrange a marriage for him or rather like assist in his pursuit of finding a partner. And Zoe cannot wrap her head around anyone wanting to marry someone who they don't already know and

already love. She is looking for love and she dates around, but has not been able to find the right guy for her. Yes yes which we find out through one of the tropier elements of this movie that was making me laugh because i'm like well this isn't hurting anyone it's just corny where she there's this like through line of she's telling her nieces fairy tales in this like i don't know it was it was really giving 2012 to me where it was like once there was a beauty and there was a beast but wait this beauty was trying to break the glass ceiling right yeah she's like once upon a time cinderella cared more about the glass ceiling than glass slippers i was like wow like wow interesting hearing from lily james who literally played cinderella wow felt like there's a little wink there's a little wink going on um okay so zoe who is a

documentary filmmaker pitches and gets like studio backing or like production company funding or i don't know she's talking to some suits who are very i liked i liked the the film bros those were like some of my favorite trope because especially because the writer is a documentarian and so you just hear these like two like i don't know it didn't feel totally overwrought where it's just like two white guy executives being like, ooh, woman movie. Okay, let's do it. They're so hot right now. So let's make money off it. You could see that they were just, you know, checking different boxes and they were a bit assholey.

But then the depiction was realistic in some ways as well. Totally. Like so many industry people are exactly that way. Anyway, so she pitches this documentary about Kaz's arranged slash assisted marriage. And the film bros are like, yeah, go for it. And then Kaz, after some convincing, reluctantly and eventually agrees to be the subject of this documentary. And so Zoe starts filming and interviewing him. They're talking about this relationship dynamic where Zoe says, like, what about love?

And Kaz says the name of the movie, basically. He's like, what's love got to do with it? He's like, you don't always have to start in love. You can grow to love someone over time. And she just, again, continues to have a hard time wrapping her head around this. She also films Kaz and his parents, Aisha and Zahid, played by Shabana, Azmi, and Jeff Mirza. They're all meeting with this matchmaker guy whose name is Mo, and they're going over the various criteria that they want in a partner for Kaz. Then Zoe films Kaz going to this Muslim matchmakingmaking event but he doesn't meet anyone there who he

clicks with because he is still looking for some kind of spark or click it was making me like i i this was this was so goofy like journalist brain but when she was filming the whole like mixer i was like okay she's gonna get 300 releases today best of luck with that lily james that's a lot of paperwork lady but we never see her do any of a lot of my criticisms of this movie is the way that she makes her documentary i'm like this is not correct you know you're right it's it's like they keep telling us how big a documentarian she is but then you don't see it reflected in the movie and i also want to go crew she's not i don't know what she's doing right and then i also want to go back to mo's scene where um kazim's parents are basically sharing a list of you know traits that they

want in their daughter-in-law now that that particular scene is pretty much emblematic of problematic cultural norms that exist within South Asian culture and also in the context of arranged marriage. And Kazim keeps saying that he wants to click, but then fast forward to the bride-to-be. He just settles. He doesn't even want to have any shared, any common interests. And we'll come to that, I'm sure. But yeah, there aren't a lot of contradictions. They't click at all like it's really weird and why settle for somebody a decade

younger like dude you could you could say no to that yeah right you could take a second skype call it seems like very possible i was confused yeah i feel like there were times where Kaz would say something, but then do something far more passive. His character was interesting. Yeah, because he was like, oh, he had like this list of like, this is what I want in a partner and like the click. But yeah, but then the way that their meeting is their first meeting. I mean, it's fine that it's so awkward but that but it stays that way and he seems to resent her for being her age which he knew and he's like why does she like to dance you're like because she's 22 that's why that is why yeah so we're about to get to that part a lot where kaz's parents want to

introduce him to a woman named memuna who lives in lahore pakistan and he meets her over skype she's played by sejal ali um they meet over skype and she's very quiet and reserved and it seems very awkward at first but they eventually find some common ground off screen apparently off screen he's like no you know we've been texting and calling and we we like each other now it's like and it's like believe it when i see it you can see from the get-go that she's not interested in him like she is totally totally out of it um yeah yeah and we'll find out why shortly but um i was honestly relieved when we found out why because i was like this i i just felt for it because he was like judging her so kind of like not like overtly but like behind the scenes he definitely was judging her and i was like she

she did nothing wrong i know she just wants to be a human rights attorney yeah yeah and ultimately ultimately kaz and zoe deserve each other because they're both so boring and kind of judgmental i'm glad you said that zoe is so judgmental and we could do an entire episode on how judgmental she is like it's not like she thinks there's something good about assisted or arranged marriage she's not or she's not trying to approach

it from a place of curiosity she's judging it throughout the film right in every scene in a way that is like it's so funny because it's like i know that jemima han is a very like talented decorated documentary producer but i'm just like but then she would know that you can't just press pause and be like you're wrong like that's not how that's not how that works you're that's that's not impartial yeah there's no objectivity to her

approach but yeah we'll we'll discuss that further um meanwhile zoe pays a visit to her mom kath played by emma thompson who is press pressuring Zoe to get married and start a family. And she's trying to set Zoe up with her vet, James. But Zoe isn't really having it. There's also a scene where she considers freezing her eggs. How bad for James. James, he seems sweet. Another person in this movie who did nothing wrong and is just judged.

And, ooh, that scene where Lily James is doing her goofy thing she does with her nieces, where she tells them boring stories that are about her secretly. Where she's just talking shit about James to her nieces. I was like, what are you doing? And then he's standing right there because it's a rom-com like man yeah and he's like damn she doesn't love me it's like and she feels comfortable sharing that with a seven-year-old for some reason and for some reason the seven-year-old is so interested in her story these seven-year-olds are missing the point that now i'm gonna now i'm

gonna laser in on the seven-year-old to be like they were and then she's like and then she was in love and lily james is like no she wasn't she's even judging seven-year-olds by the way yeah she is so it's so frustrating when it's like i don't know because there is such a having a the likability of women characters across media is so often discussed in a very disingenuous way. And you hear it from people who just generally don't seem to like women very much. However, Zoe is not I did not find her to be likable at all. I did not like her. Yeah. her to be likable at all i did not like her yeah especially again she spends the whole movie being like this cultural practice of yours is weird and i hate it and it's like um yeah wow maybe don't

be like that anyway so um yeah her mom's trying to set her up with James the vet. She's not really having it. She also considers freezing her eggs because she does. She says she wants to be a mother, although she'd rather be a father, which I thought was pretty funny. But she decides that freezing her eggs is not a good option for her after all. Then her best friend Helena tells Zoe that she found out that her husband Harry has been cheating on her for a while. Also Zoe hooks up with a man who she later realizes is married and cheating on his wife with Zoe. So Zoe is losing more and more faith that this whole love and family thing could pan out for her or anyone, really. Then Kaz reveals to Zoe on camera because she's still making her documentary with zero crew, only one camera, no microphones microphones no lighting etc etc honestly i didn't i didn't mind that they rom-comified the documentary job especially because the writer knew knew damn well that that's not how you make a documentary but i was like yeah it is kind of fun to be like a

documentary is when you watch back film you shot while drinking a gigantic glass of wine that's how that works yeah yeah that'd be fun sure just editing on iMovie on your personal laptop uh anyway so Kaz reveals that he has gotten engaged to Maimouna and the wedding is in a month and he invites Zoe and her mom, Kath, to come to Pakistan where the wedding will be to just hang out for a bit as he and his family gears up for this wedding. So they all arrive in Lahore and Kaz meets his bride-to-be, Maimouna, in person for the first time. It's a bit awkward. And Zoe continues to question if he wants to go through with this but he says he does and kaz takes zoe to a bazaar he puts a necklace on her it feels very romantic even though i would argue that these two people have zero chemistry on screen um as is so common and that is the make

or break factor of any rom-com where it's like i will watch absolute dog shit if i believe the two leads want to fuck each other true it's it's such a beautiful thing to watch it is point is it seems like they're vibing a bit zoe is like remember how i was your first kiss in the tree house and he's like no i don't remember that but then later he's like i've never forgotten i was lying before and you're like why the hell was he lying though i did not get that yeah is he just like denying his feelings for her because he knows that he's about to get married to someone else yeah maybe it's like it sounds like they were like 14 when this happened right they were like what do you lose tweens or something yeah um he wasn't cheating on memuna she was a baby when that happened yeah she was four when that happened yeah um so kaz and zoe also talk

about his sister jamila who the family has more or less disowned because she married a white non-muslim man and that broke her grandparents. And it just really upset the whole family, which is there in the story to imply that if Kaz and Zoe were to get together, it would be a huge disgrace to his family. Right. So the stakes are high. Then that night is the mendi, the like pre-wedding party, where Maimouna is no longer the timid, soft-spoken, modest woman that we all thought she was. She parties. Oh, she's drinking. Oh, she's smoking weed. Oh, she's tearing it up on the dance floor oh she has gay friends and so she's also sinner i i loved this scene for her where she like basically calls zoe a loser like she's like okay if you're not fucking chill i guess i'll go over here she like she calls her cousin zoe old losers. Good for her.

She's like, I thought you would be modern, you know, living in London and everything. But you guys suck. And I'm going to go get fucked up on Coke Masalas on the dance floor. I love Maymuna. I'm the Maymuna defense force she she at first i was just like who is this woman who like she barely says a single sentence at a at a time um like one word responses and then all of a sudden she's like i'm a wild child i'm a girl's gone wild. And I'm like, yes, more of this, please. You know, but what I did not get was this, this transition or this change in her behavior from

the way she appeared on Skype, versus the way she acted, because if she is studying to be a human rights lawyer, her family seems pretty modern. She should have been less timid having those conversations with him. So why was she acting the way she was during those Skype calls? I did not get that. I was curious about that. Yeah, because I thought that they were setting up a different character or I was like, oh, she's like socially awkward. Or that was like how it felt when

we met her I was like oh she's really shy maybe like she's not comfortable but then you're like clearly that's not true maybe I don't know the closest I was getting was like her family was like watching her have that conversation but I don't know yeah it felt like a mismatch where it seemed like she has this big personality but when we're introduced to her she's suppressing all of it right that Skype call I thought was establishing like she's another like not good match for Kaz because they barely have a conversation and she's saying she's giving him nothing. And he's having to keep the conversation going. And I'm like, oh, they're not compatible. He has to find the next person. But it's like, no, that's who he ends up marrying. Okay. Anyway, so Kaz learns all this stuff about Maimouna that she's, you know, a party animal. And it comes as quite of a shock to him. So he spends most of the evening hanging out with

Zoe, whose feelings for each other seem to be bubbling closer to the surface. Then the following day is the marriage ceremony, where prior to the ceremony, Zoe tries to convince Kaz not to go through with it and she's just like everyone's pretending like you should stop pretending like what about jamila your sister she's not even here like this is a facade and he's like just because you have horrible taste in men and you always end up with the wrong person doesn't mean that I will oh he goes he really I was like oh ouch what is he I wrote down I wrote down what he said because it hurt my feelings he says he says I have a question does it hurt less when you aim low and miss I was like oh

ouch wow that was bad gnarly I mean and to be fair she's been really judgy towards him for weeks at this point yeah true but i was like oh oh that was that was i felt that in in my gut also he said something like if the first guy you date is a dick that's like a him problem if the next 10 guys you date are also dicks then maybe maybe you should like look inward and see why that is. And I'm like, okay, as someone who has dated exclusively horrible men one after the other. Yeah, people. And it's not my fault. I resented that statement.

And also the beautiful irony is like you're being a dick right now. Show me. Yeah. Like, how are you being better uh men are wild yeah that was I was like you know there's a lot of things I don't care for in Zoe's behavior but as like dating men and them all sucking like common experience yeah it's so true um anyway so kaz and maimuna get married although maimuna is crying an awful lot and we're wondering what's happening there yeah so here's what i would say though um and and the statement that um kazim's mother makes aisha that a lot of women cry even if they're really happy that happens it's a tradition

like you just have to show how devastated you are leaving your family behind your parents and those who don't cry it's like it's kind of frowned upon and it used to be more intense obviously um 20-30 years ago now nobody really a shit um but i remember i did not cry at all and i am telling you i was judged i was judged for not crying like there was you know a lot of gossip and conversations around it so yeah you you kind of you kind of have to pretend to cry sometimes you really do cry because you're leaving your parents home and you have this strong attachment to your family coming from collectivist societies but yeah so I wouldn't take this as a signal that she was unhappy because a lot of Pakistani girls do cry

sure yeah we do find out that she is crying, at least partially because she is unhappy entering this marriage. But yes, Kazim's mom was like, Oh, it's it's tradition for for Pakistani women to cry as they leave their family. So that's good to know. Yeah, because I wasn't sure because of what we learned later, if if Kazim's mom was just saying that to be like it's all good uh but okay that's i i didn't know that god weddings are so like across cultures are so entrenched in performance yes it is like all weddings are performance yeah it's true um so then zoe returns to the uk and starts dating james the vet and such a sweet guy though like he is my favorite character in this movie he is sweet he treats her well he seems to be emotionally mature but in the she's like boo let him go yeah date someone who likes him i don't know why she stays with him because she clearly isn't in love with him and he's not the right guy for her i think i know why but it's she's it's misguided she's just such a doofus. She truly is. Then it's time for a screening of Zoe's documentary, which has a mixed response where Maimouna thinks it's beautiful and she loves it. But Kaz and his

family are outraged that Zoe included his sister Jamila and her non-Muslim husband. On top of that, James breaks up with Zoe because he knows that she's not in love with him and he doesn't want to be her, like, yeah, he advocates. Yeah, right? I was happy for him. And then Zoe gets word from the bro-y suits who are, like like funding the documentary that they are not going to move forward with the project because it's quote a diverse subject which is great but through a

white lens which is not so great and it's like well why didn't you say that before she made the documentary like why is this just now coming up? That was my confusion too. Because I was like, okay, fair point. But weird time to bring it up. Yeah. Because they already knew what it was going to be about as she pitched it. But they were so bowled over that by the fact that she was a woman

that they forgot that she was white yeah yes so they don't get the intersectional part right they're like they didn't get that maybe the funders pointed out maybe somebody said something to them and then they realized but yeah they are typical bros they don't know everything right they know very little i would say yeah and i i that was such an interesting plot point because i'm like i don't disagree with what they're saying but it's wild that they stumbled on it because we've watched her make this documentary and there has been no care taken it's like when because i think the phrase they use is white lens i'm like yeah that is quite literally what she was doing the whole time they're not wrong that's what I thought too I was like okay

good decision but too late I guess too late and why is it coming from those guys and not like Kaz's family for example like if I was them I would be like why are you a white lady the person to tell our story I think for them because she grew up being in their home maybe they see her as part of their family extended family so yeah I don't think they see her as this white woman documenting their lives um so they don't see her through that lens i guess yeah yeah that's exactly what she does anyway that's what she's doing yeah because it's i mean kaz's family is so welcoming to zoe and also it seems like her mom it seems like they are basically function as kath's family and i mean the kath character will get to her but um they're yeah they're very kind to the i had to look up their the stevenson family sure yes just whatever very rom-commy name yeah it felt like um zoe the point of view of zoe's documentary was so western in that like she she was just like

well coming in with the assumption that her viewer would not respect or approve of assisted marriage in any way and being like but i can prove that it's not all bad like it's just coming in with the perspective that obviously western approaches to relationships are healthy and great which is like so all of this stuff has happened and zoe is very depressed and lonely and defeated. And then we get a reveal that Maimouna is in love with someone back in Pakistan. And that she went through with this marriage for her family who like insisted that she get married to Kaz. And he's like, well, what do we do now? And she says, we'll pretend like everyone else brutal my head canon is that she was in love with another woman we don't see who the person

she's in love with but I guess they only are they are only referred to as someone else someone else the mysterious someone else yes anyway so she's like we'll just pretend because that's what needs to be done and then kaz has a conversation with his mom where she says that all she wants is for her kids to be happy and he's like well i just want to be a good son. Meanwhile, Zoe and her mom are having a conversation about relationships and how Kath admires Zoe's independence. But also, we all need other people. And I wish you would learn to let people care about you and not like close yourself off to everyone and you're like sure that's what you were trying to do but forcing her to date a veterinarian okay um then zoe gets an email from kaz and maymuna where we don't know the whole message until kaz shows up for Eid at his parents' house, where he reveals that he and Maimouna are getting

divorced because they don't want to pretend anymore. And he also reveals that he has invited his sister Jamila and her husband and baby to meet their family. The family finally embraces jamila and her husband and then zoe runs off to the tree house and she's like come here kaz and he's like tiki what and she's like let's kiss again in the tree house just like our first kiss and he's like haha okay and they kiss. I don't know why I was so irritated that it took them forever to kiss. So long. She keeps like leaning in and then pulling back and then leaning in and pulling back. And it's like, just kiss already. And then they do.

Anyways, at least they do. And they live happily ever. It's implied that they get married. I think, right? Yeah. By the credits. But they're taking it slow they're taking it slow they just want to get to know each other more um really i thought they knew each other really well but anyway since childhood yeah childhood right and i like that because at the end you get in the credits you get just i don't

know if it feels very like 2007 rom-com where you're like oh it's just like a bunch of kind of like blooper-y like where are they now kind of things and Maymun is back and apparently maybe broke up with that person she was dating because she's like I finished college my parents love me see ya and I was like, yeah, good for her. You go, girl. So that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers.

And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious

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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. And we're back. All right um where shall we start sari is there anything that was um that stood out to you that you wanted to start with um a lot of thoughts i think they could have developed mahmuna's character a little more i did not see that change or evolution

of who she was why was she pretending to be the way she was during her skype calls and then in the end she says my parents love me i'm a human rights lawyer well if your parents love you you could have confided in them before getting married and they would have been fine with it so why take that journey like why was documentary the trigger for everyone to realize what was happening in their lives how shitty their lives were so i i have problem with that i honestly like aisha's character more although she is problematic in some ways but then she's the matriarch and she is who she is and she has agency i think she has more agency than zoe or mamuna i think so too like i think that honestly like and kath is such a goofy character but i

think that aisha and kath both sort of have more agency than the younger women in the movie which is interesting i mean i wonder how intentional that was. As I was watching this, I sort of, because I think that the movie, and I know that, and I guess I didn't see the interviews where Jemima Khan was saying that this was not an autobiographical story, even though it reflected elements of her life, where it's like a white documentarian marries into a Pakistani family although you know I guess that in the space of this movie

Zoe does not technically marry into a Pakistani family but I as I was watching this I feel like the movie definitely overly focuses on Zoe in a way that centers whiteness in a way that feels un like kind of icky and unnecessary and that might just be coming from the writer's experience but as i was watching this because they reference maybe it's because emma thompson's in it and they reference love actually at the beginning of the movie by calling it love contractually um but i I thought that this movie would have worked for me more if it was treated more as an ensemble cast versus putting Zoe and Kaz's relationship at the center of the movie. Because Sadia, I totally agree. I think there were all of these characters that I wanted so much more from, and I would have loved to cut away to, especially, I also wanted more jamila i was so interested in jamila's

backstory relationship with her mother yeah and like it was very like satisfying to see her accepted back into her family at the end of the movie but i wanted i mean i was just really interested in how long have they been separated for like what was her relationship with Aisha like before that like it just it felt like there was it was a missed opportunity not including Jamila as more than kind of a plot point and I think yeah she is more certainly more interesting than Zoe um as a character and yeah I just wish that there was more because I think that there is a really interesting spread of characters but we don't really get to know many of them and then Zoe making this documentary which we've already said is like her coming into this subject matter with no objectivity the whole time she's just basically like mocking

kaz's him and his his values his cultural values his family's values she's being like judgy and snarky the whole time about it in a way that like feels very like racist and xenophobic where it's like yeah these these cultural practices that are different than mine well i think they're ridiculous is her stance basically but through making this documentary she reunites this family like the sister jamila comes back and everyone embraces her at the end and that's like kind of the big climactic moment of the movie. And it's implied that that only happens because of Zoe's like interference, which makes it a white savior story. Exactly.

It does. I'm so glad, Caitlin, you said that because I kept thinking about it. And I was watching Jemima Khan's press. Like she did a lot of press around it and one of the recurring themes was oh I just want to reorient people to what arranged marriage really is and I'll be the first one to say that arranged marriage has a lot of problems like people seek partners within certain castes certain um socio-economic groups arranged marriage can be problematic but then there are

redeeming elements to it as is with anything like dating apps they can be very transactional and they can also be based on certain preferences that people have around education looks whatever and after i watched the movie i was like ah are you really saying that arranged marriage is not that bad because to me it comes across as you know what arranged marriages or she calls it assisted marriages are really shitty way to find love so yeah I mean I didn't take this whole thing off arranged marriages or assisted marriages are not that bad. Right, which is like a very judgmental way to present that, even if that's your opinion. Like, I don't know, there are so many issues I had with and it's so bizarre because I understand that the writer is like, this is not an insert for me.

It's really hard to not see it that way. I kind of had to have difficulty not inherently connecting her to this character. But the ethos of the movie, I mean, seems to be, it seems like this movie is for, like it seems more directed at white audiences than anyone else or Western audiences in general, people that don't have an understanding of Pakistani culture.

But it comes at it in the, I mean, I think that the movie is coming at it from the same perspective that Zoe the filmmaker is where it's like, let's myth bust. Like, okay, we all agree that this seems bad but what if it's good and you're like that's not a neutral perspective to come in on that's super judgmental and then the the way that the movie ends i feel like implies that she was right all along and yeah totally so and and i guess that the one i mean we there are relationships i know that that Kaz's brother, oh, what's his brother's name? Farouk. Farouk.

I mean, he is very happy in his marriage and that is presented. And like, I appreciate that, but they're such non-characters that it feels like it felt more like a gesture than any actual interest in exploring, like you're saying, Sad sadia like this very complicated thing and in the same way where um when kaz is first talking with his parents about what qualities he's looking for and a partner there is a reference it's like a joke about colorism and then but that's it and then it doesn't come back and there's like I don't know the way the way that this movie presented it I feel like I don't know I mean I don't know maybe Jemima Khan did collaborate I mean I read about her research process and it seems like she drew from her own experiences and then she said that she did 50 interviews with people who had had assisted marriages or gone through that process and then decided against it, which, OK, that's great.

But it still feels like her perspective is central to the way that Pakistani culture is presented. Right. Because if it's not clear to listeners. So Jemima Khan is a journalist, documentarian. She's worked, you know, as an executive producer in TV quite a bit. This is her first screenplay. But she is a white woman who was married to Imran Khan for 10 years in the mid 90s to mid 2000s she lived in Pakistan with him I think for those 10 years I believe she converted to Islam when they got married so she has had done reporting on this topic in the past um I don't know right but but she is a white woman with that perspective, like an outsider's perspective telling the story, which like, before I started doing research on who made the movie, I just saw, you know, written by Jemima Khan. I didn't know who that was. And I assumed because of her last name, oh, this is probably a Pakistani writer. But then I was like, none of this is adding up. Like, why is this a white savior story? Why is there so much like scrutiny toward this cultural practice? And then I looked up who Jemima Khan was. And I was like, oh, everything makes sense now. The movie is directed by an Indian director, a man named Shikhar Kapoor. but the artistic vision as far as like the narrative goes

was written by a white woman and i'm like oh this makes a lot of sense you know it's interesting jamaima khan first of all is revered in pakistan because of you know the way she almost adapted to a culture that was so alien to her. And she's taken more nuanced approach to Pakistani politics, Muslim identity. Her work is pretty symbolic of the nuance that she adds. After watching this movie, I was almost disappointed because I felt like the person that she is and how explicit she is about the nuances that she wants to explore through that identity whether it's Muslim or Pakistani she did not bring that to this particular movie and as you said I don't know if she was trying to appeal more to the Western audience. But then the idea should have been to give them something to ruminate over, right?

To have more conversations around rather than, ah, you know, this is what was expected. So I honestly was disappointed in this movie. That's, yeah, I wasn't aware. I mean, I'd seen some of her documentaries in the past which are all unrelated um but yeah it it felt i don't know and i know that i think she's fairly new to the fiction space in general but it it's it felt like a really poor application of write what you know because if there's like sure do that but like not when your other objective is to responsibly portray a culture that is not your native culture

um i have a quote from her that i think because i because i i was i when i learned more about her at least in the abstract because i didn't know what her reputation in Pakistan was but um yeah once I learned more about her I was like okay has she said who this movie is for and she kind of has like she I think is willing to and kind of has admitted that this movie is more geared towards western audiences to show Pakistani people in a genre where they do not normally appear. So I have a quote from her here where she expands on that. I have a lot of thoughts about it, but we'll discuss. She says, the question is, what compelled you to focus on the subject of assisted marriage as your first script? She says, quote, in part, the reason why I chose the genre of

rom-com was because I'd never seen a rom-com that features Pakistan. And I felt Pakistanis I know definitely feel their country and culture have been somewhat unfairly demonized on screen. They feel they're always seen as the terrorists, the butt of the jokes, the shady ISI operatives, or whatever. I understand there is a scary side to pakistan because i experienced that as well but there is also this incredibly beautiful side of that country and the people which i experienced when i was there whether it's the music the food the architecture the color the vibrancy the hospitality all of that i felt was worth showcasing unquote so inside of that, it feels like she is basically saying this is for Western audiences specifically. I still don't agree with her approach at all.

I think it's very weird and reductive. Totally. You're absolutely right. And to me, yes, you see some smattering of redeeming qualities, right? So when Kaz talks about number 47 and number 48 are worlds apart, or when they joke about random checks at airports, I get that. I've been pulled aside for a random check. I've lived in the US for over two decades.

I'm a US citizen. And I know that happens, right? And it is extremely frustrating. And to her defense, maybe she was trying to just put it out there and let the audience see it without being too preachy. But my problem is not with what she showed in a subtle way. My problem is the overarching theme of this story, which to me, as Jamie and Caitlin, both of you said, is reductive and extremely symbolic

of the white savior narrative. Yeah, it's frustrating, especially because now I'm like, how does this, I don't know i i do it seems like her heart was in the right place when she was doing this yeah but like the character of zoe it seems like she should have meaningfully included pakistani people in the process of making this because otherwise it seemed i mean it's a very like I get it as when you're making something it is difficult to not make your perspective central to it but it's like if

if you're aware of that which I would imagine she would be because she's such an accomplished documentary producer then it is on you to bring in people who can you know give the film what it needs and it seems like that wasn't really done here and whether her heart is in the right place which it seems like it very well may be it's like it's clear that like she is the main character in a movie where she's claiming that that's not the goal of the movie. And that her like white Western colonizer perspective is actually the right one. And she's showing that by saying, yeah, because the arranged or assisted marriage thing doesn't work. See, it didn't work with Kaz and Maimouna.

It didn't happen for jamila and she seemed super happy with her family the characters who it does seem to work for are either framed as antagonistic forces in kaz's mom or they are characters who we barely get to know such as farouk and um his partner what was her name Yasmin maybe anyway and they're they're also as I got and they're a Harry Potter couple yeah it's true did either of you see the movie polite society that came out earlier this year I haven't i've heard so many good things about it and i have yet to watch it same i loved it it's so funny it's so good and it tells a similar story in the sense that it's like examining arranged marriages in specifically a pakistani family who live in the

uk from the perspective that you would want to hear that from, because it was written and directed by Nida Mansour, who grew up in a Pakistani Muslim family. So there's no white lens. There's no like, you know, it's just like a very funny, smart, clever examination of that. And I highly recommend it to everybody i loved it cool interesting you know sajid lali who plays maimuna in this film is a brilliant actress a brilliant pakistani actress and i feel like her character was not developed or exploited the way she could have been right and i'm i'm really eager to watch

the other movie now because at the end of the day it's not a judgment on love or arranged marriage i think arranged marriage in many ways is problematic and i'll be the first one to say but at the end of the day what i took away from it is it's even more problematic that people would believe it to be. Based on watching a movie like this one. What's love got to do with it? It's so confusing because I feel like, I don't know, I think it's interesting that the writer is distancing herself from the character of Zoe in this way I feel like it would be more honest and make more sense and be more like more honest to the viewer to say that like clearly for her assisted marriage for her and her ex-husband like assisted marriage was not what they wanted and like because that is their personal experience

and i feel like you know it it just feels interesting that she chose she's choosing to distance herself from it but it's like no it that is a part of like your marriage's story why distance because it makes it it at least contextualizes where she's coming from. But because it's presented in this sort of like vacant space, it's it it feels very judgmental. And it seems like the tacit statement of this movie is the Western approach to like the current Western approach to relationships is correct, which also feels confusing because the movie kind of waffles on that as well, where it's sort of implied that James and Zoe's relationship is a different kind of arrangement that Emma Thompson's character is trying to do.

But that's kind of dropped also. And like, I wasn't quite sure what the movie was trying to say there. That's a great point, Jamie, because their arrangement could also be considered an assisted something. Totally. But at the end of the day, look, marriage as an institution is problematic. After a decade, all marriages suck, whether arranged or not arranged i am not in an arranged marriage

and i still feel marriage is work in progress always so maybe we should have a movie about marriage as an institution yeah and and let's let's really dissect that first yeah well it's and i feel like this movie was in an interesting position to say more about that but then kind of chickened out on the proper way to do it because we also have um zoe's friends we have like her close friend who has the kids that she's won't stop telling these horrible boring stories to it's convoluted i was like god if that was my aunt i'd be like please just give me the ipad stop um yes what are you talking about um but her nieces they're there i think they're the kids of her friend. Yeah, Helena.

Who is sort of set up to be, it's just all nothing quite connected with me. She was trying to say something there where it was like, Helena and Harry. Okay, so Harry is cheating on his wife. And it's clearly taking a big emotional toll on her and that I feel like the movie presents as like a strike against the western approach to marriages but that becomes confusing because we know nothing about these characters and like so I guess we're I think it like the implication there is like well they didn't have an assisted marriage so it was true love and so true like it I don't I just was confused at like there were all these different

relationships presented in a very intentional way but it didn't add up to anything that made cohesive sense to me I also felt that the movie casts judgment on Zoe's character for doing anything besides like trying to be in a long term committed relationship because there are different scenes where she like goes to guy that she goes home with that she realizes is married i thought was the same guy as james the vet because they look exactly alike and i'm just like she has a type okay she's got a type she has a type because all the guys she we see like a montage prior to that earlier in the movie of various guys that she has gone on dates with who you know end up not being the one and they all look the same too and i'm like stop casting the same exact like white guy with light brown hair who's like the same height and build as every other guy in the movie you know know what? If James and Zoe ended up together,

that would be a case for assisted marriage. Right? It would have been. Yeah. This movie comes down firmly. Any kind of assisted marriage is why bother? But here's this Harry Potter couple. So I guess you could get lucky. And

you're just like, that's it. I don't know. And I feel bad. I feel like I'm roasting this writer. But I was really frustrated with her approach, because I feel like another element that frustrated me about Zoe, and kind of puts me on the defensive about Jemima Khan saying that this character is not a self insert is that a lot of this is more of like just a general feeling I have about rom-coms where I feel like rom-coms that work the romantic leads have a good sense of humor about themselves and that's sort of like why it feels relatable and easy to connect to zoe does not have a good sense of humor about herself at all she is very defensive not in the way that like i don't know this is like the same production this production company i was reading a lot of the coverage of like will this be the comeback

for this legendary rom-com production company this is the same production company that released kind of every popular um british rom-com in the last 20 or 30 years like they're it's the same company that put out bridget jones and all these other movies and like what works about a good rom-com is the calm and like the leads have a good sense of humor about like okay my love life keeps not working out but it's not like a humorless vacuum in a way like zoe takes herself way too seriously and so does kai doesn't prop fall once well i need to say i'm not saying that though i mean i don't know but like it just feels like she and she and cause in different moments but more so Zoe, just feel very self-important and judgmental. And I think Zoe is the center of that.

I don't know. There was some rum. I wasn't really feeling the calm. Not a lot of calm. Also, I don't quite even understand why Zoe and Kaz end up together at the end because they don't seem to have anything in common as far as like yes their philosophies on life love and romance and life in general they have no shared hobbies except for table tennis like why are they even together yeah you're right I didn't even think of that that makes so much sense why the whole movie is them arguing

about their philosophies on what a relationship should be well and i think it like overstates this i mean i guess because you were like why are these two together which is how we felt we've felt about a lot of rom-coms but like i think it also like overstates whatever. I think the logic of this movie and the logic of a lot of Western romance movies assumes a level of progressiveness to Western relationships. Well, characterizing assisted marriage or any really Eastern relationship as regressive. But also the ethos to every single Hallmark movie that's ever come out is like you should marry your neighbor and you're like it's Christmas time and you have to get married now yeah it's it's Christian Christmas and you have to marry your neighbor whether you like them or not and you're like well where is the where is the progressiveness like it's it's all you know like the subtext of

it is very regressive i don't see a happily ever after for them i really don't no they're gonna butt heads about a lot of things he's going like they are going to divorce they are going to divorce eventually as well that's that's my take on it for sure i think you know there will be problems with the in-laws because one cath is the queen of microaggressions it seems that aisha resents zoe taking an interest in her son like that yeah the relationship is never gonna work out um yeah that that brings me back to like why i wish jamila had been allowed to be an actual character in the movie where it felt very like tie a bow on a rom-com move to have jamila come over one time and have her entire family immediately accept her even though the stakes

were set extremely high as to why she was no longer welcome it just was like i need to understand why this is happening other than there's five minutes left in the movie yeah truly and something that i do like about the movie at least on its surface is you know i was talking before about how rom-coms are usually not the genre for me but for specific reasons like I'm excited by and I'm always on the lookout for rom-coms that have a compelling reason that the two characters don't get together until the end because for for many rom-coms the kind of the narrative vehicle or the narrative thrust you might say caitlin loves to say thrust and i fucking hate it it's awesome i hate it so the narrative thrust is that there is something keeping the lovers apart for most of the movie. Now, historically, in a lot of rom-coms, it's a very toxic or reductive

reason. It's like, one or both characters are lying to each other throughout the whole movie, or there's some kind of like, bet or deceit, or like, the woman is too focused on her magazine job, and she can't make time for her personal life or there's something like tropey and exhausting like that i kind of love rom-coms for that where they're like this job so well this movie does it where it's like yes her job of documentary which is looking at laptop and drinking red wine means that she can never be happy sure so i i appreciate rom-coms that subvert those tropes or try to subvert them and i feel like this movie again on its surface finds an interesting and compelling reason that characters don't get together until the end and it is one that like you know there are tropes and it is a lot of her scrutinizing

his cultural values but it is these cultural values that are like kind of preventing them to be together yeah absolutely right so i was like okay that's interesting on its surface again it's not executed very well but i did at least appreciate that that the characters although i would say that they're actually not honest with each other because if they were honest with each other kaz would just be like hey i have a crush on you and she'd be like i have a crush on you too should we kiss at the beginning of the movie instead of at the end like right well yeah that I think that that's like I mean we've talked about a bunch of issues this movie has but one of them is like we should believe that they really want to be together the whole time

or this narrative device is like far less effective right but yeah sadia i agree with you it's like i don't think that they want the same things in life and because also we don't really know what kaz wants like we just sort of he gives sort of a very generic like i'm a good guy i want a lady that has a job or not i want someone who's nice or not mean and you're like it's so vague and then we know that she she's kind of like liz lemoning a little bit and she's like i you know can women have it all and you're like i don't know uh i don't know if you can because you suck i don't know yeah like if if if you want to tell this story i feel like you have to give us two characters that it's like i need these people together yeah i'm rooting for

them and at no point was i rooting for them to be together i wasn't either and they also weren't really rooting for them like that was how i knew her i was like oh i don't i guess i don't believe in this relationship because you know that scene where they're texting and she almost sends don't get married to Mario and then she deletes it and involuntarily I was like good it's good that she didn't send that and I was like well I guess I'm not rooting for them yeah does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss? I don't think so. Yeah. My one last thing is just like a quick overview on the parents generation and how they're approaching various relationship thing like outlooks and also Kathath being like best friends with a con family but

saying nothing but racist things about them the entire time which is like pretty boomer behavior generally speaking but it makes you wonder like she seems to have been friends with them for many, many years. You think that she would scale back on her extremely offensive and reductive views about this family that she claims is like her best friends. But who knows? Yeah, it's presented very in a way that I felt like cut Cath a lot of slack. Also, they cast Emma Thompson. You're like, and you don't want me to like her? I know.

It's not fair. It's hard. I love her. But I think it's very presented like that's just Kath as if it warrants no examination beyond that's just Kath. Right. Because you also have Zoe sort of calling her out sometimes, but also only doing the bare minimum.

She's letting a lot of shit slide. She's also saying some kind of weird things herself sometimes. Okay, that's something I had written down. Is Cass as comically xenophobic as she acts just to make Zoe look less xenophobic in comparison. Maybe you're right. That sounds right. I would say though, with Kat's character, I can see somebody like her in her generation,

her age group saying all the things that she's saying. So I would expect that from somebody like Kat. It is super realistic. It is super realistic it is super realistic right so i think that's why i don't get mad at her as much because i'm like yeah i could see somebody like kath saying things that she's saying in this film right sure for sure i just wish that zoe had been more active about like holding her mom accountable for all the shit she was saying. But it's like, again, very bare minimum stuff that Zoe is doing. That's just Kaz.

And then for Kaz's parents, when they're like, we already alluded to this scene, but that moment when they're listing off the criteria that they're wanting in a partner for him Aisha's like yeah not too dark and um long hair and soft-spoken which to me red is like hyper feminine um there's an implication that they're only interested in someone from like a similar class or like the same like so because they're they seem to be well to do um and then the the dad says you know a woman who's not too ambitious or too into women's lib and i was like wow yikes sir and you know what i can again see somebody from that generation in pakistan saying all those things not just that generation I'm sure again arranged marriages can be problematic but I wish Kaz said something I wish he intervened I wish he said

something like oh this is so wrong I why would you say all of those things right he's just sitting there quiet as if he doesn't have anything to say yeah and that really bothered me more than his parents saying all those things totally yeah i felt like that was um i guess not in a good way but one of the things that zoe and kaz had in common was that zoe very lightly pushed back on her parents prejudice and so did kaz and i feel like that was done as a reflexive gesture by the filmmakers to be like well that's how this generation would act and this generation doesn't approve but we don't see them actually do anything or meaningfully push back about it so it sort of ends up being like well it just felt like a kind of an empty gesture to have them even react if there is no follow-up or yeah

yeah i do appreciate that kaz challenges zoe in that one scene where she's like how are we even different and he's like well you don't get asked where you're from and how often you go back to pakistan all the time you get the privilege of being able to say that you're british not british born like i have to say you know you're not expected to apologize on behalf of all brown people anytime there's a terror attack in the world so he at least does challenge her but i wish yeah there was like more pushback from the 32 year olds of this movie and that and that scene to me is one of the more powerful scenes in the movie right because it really spoke to a lot of us who've been through those situations right where we've been judged for somebody else's actions, or we've been treated, mistreated based on how some other

people are acting or reacting. So I think that really spoke to me. And I wish, as you said, he did more of that in a subtle way, because his dynamic with his parents would be different coming from an East Asian culture, he probably would be more respectful or whatever. But he could still push back on colorism. He could push back on how they were objectifying women that they were trying to, or brides that they were trying to look for him. Totally. Which, again, is a bit disappointing. Yeah.

Absolutely. Anything else? No. Does this movie pass the Bechdel test um i think so right at least between it passes between zoe and her mom a number of times it doesn't pass between characters that i wish it did i don't think it passes between pakistani women at any point in the movie really which feels again just like if whatever i mean it as we've discussed a million times the bechdel test is like not the be-all end-all of anything but i do think it's

instructive where it's like if it is a diverse movie uh and includes a white family and a pakistani family and it only passes the Bechdel test inside of the white family not great and and that's the the relationship dynamic that you get a lot more of screen time then those are the women that are being prioritized there are a few scenes where um the grandmother is telling her story of her arranged marriage and that's true Aisha is like translating and also kind of like talking to her I think also maybe toward the end when the grandmother and Jamila interact that could pass but those are very brief scenes in a movie that you would think those characters would be interacting more and I guess I was also coming from the place of like talking about marriage.

It is, I thought like implied marriage to a man. Right. You're right. I think there are a couple of conversations between Aisha and Kath as well, which is not within the same community, but those conversations about i guess food or culture are outside the realm of you know marriage dating boys men whatever totally oh and it passes when maimona says beautiful documentary zoe oh it does okay i take back what i said but also yeah that's that's the trigger point for her that's when she

you know has all the power and she gains power to to tell everybody that she's not interested yes the documentary the the documentary very judgy documentary made by a white woman empowers her to realize that's memuna free what if the documentary was not made then they would be in this relationship forever forever i kind of also love that the documentary canonically never comes out like you're just like for the best honestly for the best yeah um all right well moving on to the perfect metric on which to evaluate a movie which is of course our nipple scale where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. And I would give this, honestly, I think it's going to have to be like a split down the middle 2.5, maybe three nipples. I wish I could give it more because,

as you said, at the top, Sadia, it's a rom com that features a Pakistani family and that represents Pakistani people and Muslim people in a way that, you know, Western movies rarely do, which is great. But because of the lens that the story is being told through, it fumbles a lot and ends up just saying like, rather than like an objective examination of something like an arranged or an assisted marriage, it's coming down as like, with the same point of view as the main character who is just being incredibly judgy and mocking a lot of the time in a way that feels like there are racist undertones, Islamophobic undertones and things like that. So with that one to Maimouna. I'll give one to Jamila, the sister, and I'll give my half nipple to the grandmother who was like, I had to ride off on a horse that I was allergic to and was not really happy about the whole thing.

And then I don't know if she is Aisha's mother or if she's, wait, what's Kaz's dad's name? I think she is Aisha's mother. Okay. So like her daughter is like mistranslating to be like no it was an awesome experience full of love so um the grandmother gets my uh my half nipple uh I'm gonna give it two and a half as well I think that this movie I mean we've talked about like I think that this movie was an attempt I I want to be so generous to the writer as to say her heart is in the right place.

I think it really could have benefited from a co-writer. as she says, her attempt to be more inclusive and show Western audiences a Pakistani family in this genre, which I think is a good instinct. And it's not even like she is a completely illogical person to do that. But it felt like a collaboration would have sort of kept things in check in a more responsible way. because I do think that Pakistani families obviously should be included in all genres of movie including goofy rom-coms like this one you know goofy rom-coms where there's no chemistry between the leads everyone should be in those movies great but it did seem like if that is her goal strictly having a white british woman write it even with her connections to pakistan it doesn't totally make sense and it doesn't totally come

together for this movie um and on a personal i mean i just felt like there were so many women in this movie who i was more interested in than the lead character and it ended up being kind of a frustrating experience of like there is a lot here but the places the movie focuses are very pointed uh very white and colonial centered and also boring so kind of the worst of both worlds in some ways. But I do think, you know, I hope, you know, years down the line, this is viewed as kind of more of a stepping stone movie towards a more inclusive rom-com landscape. This one was kind of a miss for me, although it had its moments. And I love Mimouna. And, okay, so I'm going gonna do two and a half nipples

and I'm gonna give one to Mimouna one to Jamila and a half to Aisha three characters that I thought were really interesting and I wish that we had gotten to see more of them outside of how they relate to Kaz and Zoe

who to me were the least interesting characters in the movie. Truly. 100%. That's why I'm like they deserve each other. I didn't like them. You know for me I am I'm still confused as to whether I should do two or two and a half because I did have a lot of expectations from this movie and I'm really disappointed but I do agree that I would give one to the grandmother I wanted to know more about her character and her backstory half to Aisha and half each to Maimouna and Jamila because even Maimouna at times was annoying because I didn't know where she stood.

Her character was so inconsistent. It was so inconsistent and it bothered me. I was like, if she has this modern liberal family and if she is studying to be a human rights lawyer, why does she pretend to be somebody else? There are so many women in pakistan who are comfortable expressing their agency especially those who come from families like maimunas and it just was mind-boggling to me they they weren't consistent in her characterization and that really bothered me yeah well sadia thank you so much for joining us this has been a treat come back anytime yeah bring us

anything we love we love it all thank you so much for having me this was so much fun yay where can people check out your podcasts follow you on social media etc so podcastsigrantly and Invisible Hate are on every streaming platform. They can follow me on Twitter at SWK, K-H-A-N. It's SWK Khan. And don't ask me why I came up with that because Sadia is a very common name and I couldn't find another handle but um you can also find immigrantly at immigrantly underscore pod on twitter and on instagram at immigrantly pod wonderful amazing you can follow us at bechtelcast on twitter and instagram you can also scoot over to our patreon aka matreon at patreon.com slash bechtelcast where you get two bonus episodes every month

for only $5 a month. And it also gets you access to our back catalog of 150 bonus episodes. You can also check us out if you want some merch over at tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast for all your merchandising needs. And with that, let's go into the treehouse and kiss.

And take forever to kiss. Okay, bye-bye. Bye. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right?

Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and

of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation,

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