The Press Box - This Week in Ringer Culture (Nov. 27–Dec. 1, 2017) (Ep. 390)

Episode Date: December 2, 2017

'This Week in Ringer Culture' features 'Jam Session' on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's BBC interview (00:52), 'The Watch' on Marvel Studios' new trailer for 'Avengers: Infinity War' (06:30), 'The Rewatchables' on the best scenes from 'Friday' (12:00), 'The Big Picture' with Errol Morris on interviewing Trump (17:15), 'Black on the Air' with Judd Apatow on using improvisation in his films (19:30), and 'Binge Mode' on Pixar's new movie, 'Coco' (26:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to this week in Ringer Culture. I am Liz Kelly. We took just a quick break last week for the holiday, but I am back bringing you the highlights from the Ringer Podcast Network. This week on the site, we wrote about Army Hammer, Jack Antonoff, James Franco. Claire McNeer wrote about a trivia game called HQ that, to be honest, behind the scenes nearly tore apart this office on Slack. Also some great movie and TV wrecks that you should be watching this weekend.

But first, we start with the biggest news of the week and potentially the year. On Monday, the royal engagement of Prince Harry and Megan Markle was announced, which sent the world and a few ring employees, including myself, and a tailspin. Most notably of that group is Jam Sessions, Julia, and Amanda. And this clip features a two talking about the engagement and the couple's BBC interview. So they started the interview with like this very like the way you have to. Like tell us about the proposal. Right. In fact, they were asked at the photo call and he was like, that will come later.

Yes. And so this all was like pretty staged. and then they launch into like pretty quickly about like two minutes later sort of how they perceive each other. And let's roll this clip at what she says about what she knew about Prince Harry. But the friend who introduced you, was she trying to set you up? Yes, it was definitely a set up. It was a blind date. And it's so interesting because we talk about it now. And even then, you know, because I'm from the States, you don't grow up with the same understanding of the royal family. And so while I now,

understand very clearly there's a global interest there. I didn't know much about him. And so the only thing that I had asked her when she said she wanted to set us up was, I had one question. I said, well, is he nice? Because if he wasn't kind, it just didn't, it didn't seem like it would make sense. And so we went and had a met for a drink. And then I think very quickly into that, we said, well, what are we doing tomorrow? We should meet again. Okay. Is he nice? I mean, like, that's the most generic thing you could share? It's great media training. Yeah. I see what they're doing here, which is just putting forward the blandest, most distant answers that they possibly can. And they're doing it really well. Before we got married to Kate, I think Prince Harry was in some ways more

famous than Prince William, because he was like, the bad boy, and he had scandals, and he had girlfriends, and he partied. And I just don't believe that she didn't know anything about it. It's, like, so bizarre. I think, I mean, I completely agree with you, though. I'm obviously a crazy person who knows way too much about them, so I can't, like, speak to this in an objective way. I guess you could just know who he is. They do a thing later on in the interview where the interviewer asked Prince Harry, you know, everyone knows so much about you and he corrects or thinks they know.

Yes. Actually, let's play that. Okay. And was that quite refreshing for you in the way that you've been brought up, you know, with a lot of people knowing a lot about you? Was it refreshing? Thinking they know. Exactly.

That clip is useful in the same context of they are really trying to distance themselves from all tabloid, all gossip, everything that has clearly rattled them, understandably. And also it's a kind of attention that I don't think anyone, but especially the royal family, has never really wanted. Can you think of another time when a royal has talked about the press coverage, so plainly like this? Yes, actually. And it was in the documentaries about Princess Diana. Oh, cool. And it was William and Harry. And with good reason because their mother died in a press chase.

Yes. So they are very clearly affected by that. And it is the most animated that you see either of them and the most emotional. And even a little bit angry when they are talking about the effect that the press had on their mother's lives. And it's really the only time that William ever shows any life behind the eyes, basically. He's so good at it. He's really good at it. He's likable.

charming while being very bland. Yes. It's like pretty, and I think Harry's good at it too, but he has definitely has more flavor to him. Like even he's charming. Yeah. And there's one more press club that we should talk about. There's a misconception that because I have worked in the entertainment industry,

that this would be something I would be familiar with. But even though I've been on my show for, I guess, six years at that point. And working before that, I've never been part of tabloid culture. I've never been in pop culture to that degree and lived relatively quiet life, even though I focused so much on my job. And so that was a really stark difference out of the gate. And I think we were just hit so hard at the beginning with a lot of mistruths that I made the choice to not read anything. That's like a pretty big deal.

Like not to read anything. I wonder if that's even true. I doubt it's true. But I think what they're trying to do, and I both understand it and also think it's very savvy, is that they don't want to be on this podcast basically. They don't want to be treated like a gossip story. And they have no choice over it. Sorry, people.

Yeah. And I think it's so interesting. There's a, at some point, Prentieri talks about, she would be ready for the job aspect of it. And there is a job that's built into this, which is really weird. And we should talk more about it. But they're clearly trying to position back into what the idea of how royalty wants to present itself and the kind of public relations that they want after not having a lot of control over it. Sure. Yeah, yeah.

But it is, it's pretty intense. Totally. I think because she's so good at this and also they've, like, prepared their answers, it makes them seem like less in love than they may be just because it's like very prepared and like they're so like hyper aware of like the meta narrative and like, is she going to be good at this job and whatnot? He even says it. He says like that her, that he knows she'll be good at that and it's going to be a relief for him. I know the fact that she'll be really unbelievably good at the job part of it as well is obviously a huge relief to me because she'll be able to deal with, with everything else that comes with it. That's like crazy.

And she says that she's not going to act anymore. Like she's just going to be the Duchess of wherever. You guys, mark your calendars that wedding is coming in spring 2018. Of course, you can expect full jam session coverage every step of the way. Another event, technically happening around that time period, but one I much less excited about, is the new movie Marvel's Avengers Infinity Wars. The trailer was just released this week,

so Chris and Andy share the reactions in this clip from The Watch. So we've been building to Infinity War for 10 years, right? We personally, as well as the culture. Well, Marvel, this is where it's all going. And now they have actually, the reason why I'm like, actually have some, my temperatures up on this is because they're like, everything changes in Infinity War. Everything, the stakes get raised finally.

Because I think you've even seen a couple of things where it's like there aren't really any consequences in the Marvel universe, you know, like they're, in the, in the Disney Marvel universe. But much like comic books where Wolverine dies and everyone gets excited and buys the issue and then 18 months later Wolverine Jack. Nothing really can change.

And I think that it's important to recognize that like in a lot of the things that we talk about within genre, especially within superhero or sci-fi, our concept of like consequences can be a little bit thrown out of whack. But I was just laughing to myself watching the Infinity War Trail which looks fine and it looks like I will be very very, very, very interested to see how they manage the more than a dozen major movie star speaking parts they have to shuffle. Much more than a dozen. Is the fact that one of the things that we've

always talked about is Marvel has a villain problem. There's not convincing enough heavy in this universe to balance out all the good to the extent that they've even had to, with Civil War, had to try and find tension from within the group of Avengers. But Thanos is supposed to change all of that. And I lulled. Yeah. I audibly defaude at the first shot of Josh Brolick pounding this pavement. It's a problem.

Yeah, man. It's for real a problem. He looks like a Pixar gorilla. They, the thing is this. When they first, I mean, the whole trailer is about the experiment. It's meta in a way. It's basically the trailer's about, you know, Nick Fury's voice and all their voice saying, like, we wondered if we could do this.

Like, there was such a question asked and answered. And we brought all these. totally disparate heroes together. Remember when this all still felt a little cagey and uncertain, and they were just suggesting these things would be linked in the tags at the end of the films. We first saw Thanos in the first Avengers movie, which is five years ago. It'll have been six years when Infinity War comes out.

And he wasn't even played by Josh then. He was just a CGI creation. And it was really just a, you know, they were casting a line in the water, saying this is a villain from the comic books. we will spend the next six years telling you about him, making you fear him, hopefully casting him, and concurrently in the comic books,

we're going to make him a big deal again and hope that that sort of trickles up. But then it was like, well, here's this big purple guy from space who's in love with death. Yeah. We are at a point now with the movies, with especially the Marvel movies,

where they feel so indestructible. It could have been just Josh, Josh Brolin and Brolick. I'm saying Josh Brolin in his, no country for old men costume. and it would be fine in a way. I don't know he needs to be purple with the ridge chin anymore.

I think we're like we've moved past fealty to the comics. And I think the other thing is this is going to be a little bit of a schism because I don't care about Infinity Stones. I don't understand them. It's a great point. Does anyone care? When he's like, check out these rings,

I'm like, you ain't Kobe? I don't know what we're talking about. You don't respect the jewelry? I just don't understand what they do. At the end of the trailer, he's got two championships with three more to come. Are you kidding me? Yeah, so I'm like, aside from the fact that like it looks like there's 37 people in this movie,

at least. It's also just like, I'm like, I don't really care about the stage. But I'm obviously going to see it. The thing about this movie in the trailer is that for whatever, whether it's good or bad, it seems like a move, like it seems like its own movie with its own point of view. When Thor shows up in this movie, he does not seem like the same dude who is lolling with everybody in Ragnarok, right? It just seems like this is its thing where we're worried about this, the fate of the world again

and everyone's going to gather together. a lot of friends are going to be there. Fine. Fine. It also makes sense stakes-wise because unlike Justice League, this has been building. They have been building

to this point where now maybe we actually will have some stakes and care to some degree about what happens to these people. But look, I got to say, when it's time to talk about the movie, we'll talk about the movie and we'll judge it on its artistic merits.

At this moment, I am just kind of impressed by, I feel like Ron Burgundy when his dog eats the cheese. Honestly, because they are just like, here's the largest thing you've ever seen and we pulled it off. And this week also, Vanity Fair has these multiple covers of like we got all these stars together. And Joanna Robinson, who is one of our favorite online culture writers. She does this interview. And I mean,

no disrespect to anyone involved when I say, no news is broken in this. The news is that they took these photos. The news is that they got them all together. The story has become, they control the story to such a staggering degree that I'm taking off whatever journalism cap I still alone and just being like, I'm just impressed with a hustle man. There's no story here other than Kevin Feigy being like admitting that all their contracts are going to lapse after Avengers 4 and it's just going to be a lot of Tom Holland and Benedict Cumberbatch hanging out. I'm not entirely sure there's any good way to transition out of that podcast clip and into this next one, but I'm going to try to read this sentence as convincingly as possible.

Here at the ringer, we know better than to mess up the rotation, so I am going to pass the next clip of rewatchables where Donnie, Hana, and Justin discuss the 1995 classic Friday. It's kind of difficult in some ways to pluck one single rewatchable scene because I think the first hour is basically a rewatchable hour. But for the sake of the podcast, I chill some and you guys can discuss. Craig getting high. Oh, yeah. That's the one at them.

It's kind of like you're waiting the whole movie for Craig to finally take a puff and he finally gets high. It's my shit. I can do whatever I want to do. Stop hitting it so hard. Oh, you're fucking up the rotation. Puff, Puff, give. Puff give.

So that's a scene. Smokey's Angel Dust flashback with the essays is kind of funny, right? People remember that. A little problematic. A little problematic, maybe. We'll get into that. Red getting his chain snatched by Debo. It's like the classic bully Debo.

My grandmother gave me that chance. Just when Debo approaches, you know, like taking out their chains. Everything is you know it's bad for him the moment he's like, I just tuck my idea. Because like, Smokey, like, rips his off and puts it in his back pocket. And Red is just like, I just tuck my idea. You're like, oh. It's not thorough at all, sir. Bernie Maxine, Bernie Mac as the pastor, you know, by Felicia has obviously become super famous.

Hey, hello, Felicia. Remember that? Remember it. Write it down, take a bitch. I don't give a fuck. Cree. Bye, felation. Any other scenes, maybe, for not to nominate there?

I mean, I'm with you. I think it's difficult because the first hour of the movie really is, like, a procession of immaculate character bits. But they don't, you don't really break them down into scenes. Because they basically all happen on the stoop. And it's a movie that happens over the course of a day. Right. So it doesn't feel like, okay, scene A is over, now this is scene B.

Right. It feels like, it's just like, Smokey and Craig roasting people. Totally. And I think that there are, like, amazing quotes from this, but, like, I wouldn't call you ain't got to lie, Craig, the most rewatchable scene. It's just like a thing that you pull out and that kind of sticks with you. But, like, that scene itself is, what, 15 seconds long, you know? So, like.

Totally. It's like those are like memorable lines, not necessarily rewatchable scenes. But again, I think everything is pretty much rewatchable. You said the angel dust thing might have been a little. Yeah, we can get into that in a minute. Oh, okay. I get into it now. I think the reason why Craig getting high works,

it's not just because, you know, the movie and Smokey's set up the idea that, like, you're waiting for Craig to finally get high. He's so stressed out intense. You're waiting for him to get high. But it's also like once he starts smoking, the way Cube plays that and his body language shift. And he's, like, chuckling.

Yeah. Like, when he's, like, when he's, offering to make the Kool-Aid. It's just like it's, he doesn't overplay it. Right, right. It's very, for a character who, again, he's, Craig's already the straight man in the movie. And so it would be weird if he overplayed it and he was all of a sudden,

like, smoky running in front of a car with no clothes. You know what I mean? Instead, it's these very subtle shifts of him just seeming like, he's saying these weird non-sequiters and being kind of, he's just chuckling a lot. But again, that's not even a scene. It's like a progression that takes place over like 15 minutes. Right.

And it's also remarkable because, like you said, at the top of the podcast. It's like, it's Ice Cube, and you're so used to Ice Cube scowling at you. And all of a sudden, you're in this movie. And he's like vulnerable. He's like vulnerable. Yeah. You know?

And he's goofy vulnerable. He's not scared. He's not shook. He's just like. And they play, I think they play Cypress Hill the moment he, like, it's a little on the nose. My vote goes for Red getting his chain snatched by Debo just because it's like, there's a lot of moving parts in that scene. And there's like, you know, you get Debo. You get Red.

Camille, which is good, and Cuban Smoker reacting to DeVote. What's up, y'all? What's up, Red? Thanks for the bike. What you got on my 40, homie? I thought you had $200. I do. But I want to spend Reyes money.

I'm broke. That's my vote. All right. I'm voting for the Craig scene. And not even because of Craig, but because of Smokey's dancing, specifically. Like, is Michael Jackson? ass moves? Yeah.

Is that the beginning of Chris Tucker basically saying, in every single movie or public appearance, I will do Michael Jackson moonwalk. I don't know, but I hope that it is. You know what? It got him in a Michael Jackson video. Yeah. So I think that, like, clearly to many other people was very rewatchable to the extent they wanted to watch it in other places.

So therefore, it wins for me. Charity, D. You just said Craig getting out. I'm voting with you of Craig, I mean, of Red getting his chains. Wow. Okay. I'll stand alone. That's fine.

Because, yeah, it's the moving parts, and they're like the core moving parts of the movie, and they set up the end game of the movie. And I just love Debo. Next up, we have documentarian Errol Morris, who shares a story with Sean on the big picture about an interesting interaction with President Trump. How was your experience with the sitting president when you interviewed him? This may come as no surprise. I'm a connoisseur of irony.

Here I have in the green room. Iggy Pop. Jesse Norman, the opera singer, Walter Cronkite, Mikhail Gorbachev. And for the P.S. de Resey Stance, Donald Trump. What a show. What did you learn that day? It's the same thing I learn every day. Maybe it's not worth going on with it all.

No, what did I learn that day? Trump complained because we took Gorbachev before him. Didn't know he was going to become president. We're there to talk about favorite movies. What's your favorite movie? because this is for the Oscars. And I tried to shoot as much as possible with certain people because I thought,

maybe there's a little kind of film that could be made at of all of this. So the piece I used in the Academy Award film was Donald Trump talking about King Kong, taking over New York. But we also talked about Citizen Kane. So he's talking about Citizen Kane, and it's kind of amazing.

I'm not even sure I know what to make. of it. And I have to be perfectly honest that my feelings about Donald Trump are clouded by what you might call his current role as president of the United States. So he starts to tell me about Charles Foster Kane, who he identifies with. And what was Charles Foster Kane's real problem? Was his problem that he was a megalomaniac? Not so much. Was his problem that he treated people around him miserably? Nah.

What was his problem? According to Donald Trump, his problem was the woman he married. So at the very end of this clip, I asked Donald Trump, would you have any advice for Charles Foster King? and he says, yeah, get yourself a different woman. So moving on, comedian, writer, and producer Jud Appetow is releasing his Netflix stand-up special The Return on December 12th. He sat down with Larry Wilmore this week on Black on the Air to talk about improvisation within his movies.

One thing I wanted to ask you about is your producing style, too, because I know you use a lot of improv when you do films and that type of stuff. Do you have a philosophy around that? Are you trying to find like more meaning? Are you just trying to find better jokes? Because there's two different tacks in that. Or is it like a combination of stuff? Are you just, you know, do you have a...

I know your movies aren't like curb where you just have an idea of what scenes are and that sort of thing. But I know that you do find a lot while you're making the movie as well, too. Well, I always feel like the actor has a lot to give. So I'm sure you know this from working with Eddie Murphy when he comes in to do a record for the BJs,

you're going to let him do his thing. Correct. And he's going to top what you have a fair amount of the time. If you're working with someone who has an inventive mind. I really respect playwrights who can write a movie and not change a word. Although sometimes I find it it's a little stiff. I could feel the writing. It's a special type of talent.

You're David Mamet, those type of people who's the words are almost music the way that it's in there. for specific reasons. And I'm happy they're not riffing during Raising Arizona. Yeah. So I respect that, but I think I'm a little more of a combination of what Harold Ramis and Reitman and John Landis did and people like Robert Altman, where you're trying to make something come alive.

And I would watch, you know, the first time I saw someone do it was Stiller. So we would do a sketch and then he would just keep going. Yeah. So if he had a line, he would just try tons of stuff and I didn't even know what it meant.

And his parents, of course, was one of the greatest improv teams, comedy teams, still are mirror. He must have understood something from his experience with his parents and just understanding comedy

that I had never even heard of. Yeah. We would do these sketches where he would, you know, play Tony Robbins. Yeah. And we'd have this,

you know, like the lines, but then he would just go, he would just then do 20 more minutes And I'd throw him ideas. Right. And then when I did the Larry Sanders show, Gary did a variation of that, which is in standing rehearsals where they're really like walking the set, he would keep it very loose.

And if anyone had ideas, it wasn't really an improv, but it was just you were allowed to look for things. And I realized, oh, you could do that improv with drama. And, you know, for me, I do a lot in rehearsals where I'll say, okay, let's forget the script. Do the exact same scene with the exact same intentions, but don't do any of the scene. So would you, did you have many rehearsals or did you not want to rehearse much and save that spontaneity for filming? I would do the rehearsals. But you would stick to the script and rehearsal kind of?

No, I would do. Sometimes I would start, you know, the one thing I've done a few times is I would know I was shooting a movie. I would know that my script was about at 60%. but I would just start reading it out loud. I guess Mike Lee does like movies where the entire script is written and extended rehearsals over months. And so I might sit with a scene where, you know, Seth and Catherine Hegel are having dinner

and she's going to tell him that she's pregnant. So I have something that I really need to tell you is kind of why I called you. Here it goes. I'm pregnant. Fuck off. What? What?

I'm pregnant. With emotion? With a baby. You're the father. And there's so many ways he can react to that. Sure. So she says, I'm pregnant. And so now you go, all right, I might write something.

So maybe the line in the script is with emotion. And then, you know, ultimately what he said in the movie was, fuck off. Because he had some instincts that his character, would react that way. And it's 10 times funnier. I think both lines are in the movie. She's like, I'm pregnant. Fuck off. Which is just the worst thing a man can say, right? Right. But I didn't think of it at night alone.

Yeah. And so I love that some other character insight in that moment because the actor's pulling from their point of view. Yes. And they're there because they're able to do that. Right. They're a, you know, Robert Smygel played Paul Rudd's best friend and this is 40. And I knew that if they just sat around talking about how they felt about their wives, that all sorts of stuff was going to come up.

Right. And as long as it's on my theme and it's in character, the observation I have may not be as good as the one that they might reveal to me. And you're counting on that type of dialogue or what's happening there isn't going to affect the story, you know, or isn't going to affect something that maybe you're. you've already shot. Like there's another scene coming up. And if, so what it's giving is a little more,

a deeper meaning of something, or as well as being funnier or that type of thing? And a little bit of electricity, because when actors aren't sure if the other actor is going to say the scripted line, they listen differently. Okay. And so you can get in a little groove

because you know your scene, but the second you think, oh, he may not say that normally. He might out of the blue start yelling at me. You're really acting. You're reacting. But usually what happens is we write the script, we make the scene as great as we can make it, we shoot it, but then we play. And then you hit editing and you have both. Yeah. And every once in a while someone says something, we were watching the clip from the 40 Old Virgin where Leslie yells at Craig Robinson, the doorman. Yes. And the great moment is where she just starts going, you're just a doorman. Doorman, doorman, dormant. And that only happened because Leslie ran out of improv. So she just started saying, doorman. over and over again.

But we realize, oh, you know, it's this combination of scripted. And, you know, we make sure we get the point of the scene right. But Gary always said, like, he wanted to create a space where you had the script, but that something other would happen that was magic. Yeah. Just, it might even just be a look. It might, but you want those actors to lose themselves somehow. And for the last clip of the week, they are back by popular demand.

it is Mallory Rubin and your maister Jason Exception with Binge Mode Weekly. They started up again this week and for their first episode back, they're discussing representation in the Pixar universe in the film Coco. Here's the clip. Chase Serrano noted New York Times bestselling author, the guy who tells you to shoot your shot leader of the fuck out of her army, wrote about the nervousness he felt watching the rollout for Coco. And the stakes the movie had in a piece called Pixar's Coco,

thankfully meets its high expectations. He wrote, quote, The little boy, talking about Miguel, and everyone else is Latino. And what's more, they are A, Latino, while B, in a movie that is being presented, not as a backdoor totem, but as a very real, very legit,

potentially canonizable entry into the Pixar universe. Think on it like this. We have been saying for so long that our stories, too, deserve to be told and celebrate and accepted. If, when finally given the opportunity to do so, in a big budget movie

meant for worldwide consumption, that story turned out to be boring and lifeless and unimaginative and uninteresting, that would be a very real critical blow. It would be disaster, for real. It would be the worst possible thing. It would be the reason for those in charge to say, see, told you. Now bugger off, little brown people scurry away back to your Knights of Columbus halls for your quincesaneris. This is an important and trenchant point, especially today in a world where America seems

to be gazing backwards to a time when people of color, anyone who's, who's, really not a straight white dude were pushed to the margins of any kind of narrative or ability to participate in the culture at large. Pixar's house style then really is something of a double-edged sword when it comes to the issue of diversity and representation. On the one hand, the studio's computer-generated graphics allow for an unparalleled aesthetic freedom. Pixar's characters can be anyone or anything, and their settings of their films can be yawningly quotidian or jaw-droppingly fantastical, and anywhere in between, sometimes in the same scene. On the other hand, if Pixar is capable of making movies about characters of any gender

or ethnicity, why, then, with notable exceptions, having their films been more diverse? I think about the burgeoning e-sports scene in a similar way. Esports athletes play video games, thus none of the gender-based physical issues which govern traditional sports would seem to be a problem here. A female gamer can click a mouse as fast as a male gamer can. So why are there essentially no integrated e-sports teams? The answer to both questions is really excruciatingly simple. It's misogyny.

It's these old structures that define the fabric of our life transferred into these areas. With Coco, writer-director, Leongrich, who is white, took strides to ensure that his film depicted its characters and settings in a responsible way. He said, quote, Latino community is a very vocal, strongly opinionated community. With me not being Latino myself, I knew that this project was going to come under heavy scrutiny, side, let's be charitable and assume that even if Ungridge and Pixar were making a film about a community that wasn't as numerous or vocal as a Latino community, they would still approach the subject matter with the requisite amount of care and cultural respect.

Let's hope. Let's hope that. Ungerjors knew because the project did, in fact, come under heavy scrutiny, particularly after Disney lawyers in 2013 attempted to trademark the film's working title, Dia de los Mueros. The ensuing backlash shook Pixar, like, okay, this is not a one-to-one example, but imagine a Canadian company trying to trademark the 4th of July. Right. I imagine the outcry there, resulting in a production that was more transparent and respectful of the culture from which its material was gleaned.

Latino Pixar employees acted as soundy boards, an array of cultural consultants advised the production on everything from art design, music, plot, story points, and the attention showed in the final product. Shea again. Quote, Coco, it certainly seems, was built by people who wanted to make a movie that relied zero percent. on going, hey, look at these wacky non-white people doing wacky non-white people things, isn't it strange? And 100% on going, hey, look at people doing things, isn't it great? Which is always the best way to handle things. It's good and grand and smart and vibrant. And we get to say all of those things without a Latino qualifier in it, like how nobody said anything like Inside Out really delivered for a white film, end quote. The point about that qualifier is really

cunning. The white male experience in America is the default setting. Let's talk about the Walking Dead, which is a show I don't like, but I have watched in my life. When Glenn, Stephen Young, was killed off, I was saddened. Not just because I really liked the character, but because I knew, due to the dearth roles in television movies for Asian dudes, I wasn't sure when I was going to see this guy again. He's currently the voice of Wingspan on Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters, which basically proves my point. It's not him.

He's the voice of a character. If a film centered on non-straight white male characters, flops, or even is just a middling success, it may be years before we see a similar film get made. Brave, released in 2012, gave us Pixar's first movie with a human female lead. It told the story of Merida. A teenage princess in medieval Scotland, a skilled archer, she refuses to follow the ancient traditions of her homeland and allow herself to be married against her wishes to the son of one of her father's allies.

But even here, the issue of representation is complex. Brenda Chapman, who is developing Brave and is still the only woman to co-direct a film for Pixar, was fired, and the production was then handed to a man. Pixar has been making features since 1995. The studio should be lauded for its recent efforts to diversify. But we shouldn't ignore the lateness of the hour, especially in a medium which, as we noted, is not beholden to the same casting strictures that regular films are. And the paucity of the studio's black characters, Sam Jackson's frozoning and the Incredibles is basically it, should not escape criticism. And of course, it's important to note that diversity takes many forms, not just the ones mentioned here.

The problem, after all, is structural. As Rashida Jones, who left production of Toy Story 4 over philosophical issues noted in a recent interview, Pixar is, quote, a culture where women and people of color do not have an equal creative voice, as is demonstrated by their director demographics. Out of the 20 films in the company's history, only one was co-directed by a woman and only one was directed by a person of color, end quote. We have to be able to find the balance between applauding what they achieved with this and still saying, why isn't there more, why hasn't this been better, what's coming next? It's not enough to say this was an achievement. You're good now.

What's next? All right, that is it. That is the roundup for this week. Thank you guys so much for listening. You can find the full-length versions of all these podcasts and subscribe at the ringer.com slash podcasts.