The Bechdel Cast - Beauty Shop with Clarkisha Kent

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

On this episode, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Clarkisha Kent are getting their hair done and chatting about Beauty Shop! Follow Clarkisha on Instagram at @clarkishakent and on Twitter at @IWriteAllDay_   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos,

host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands

or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hey, Caitlin, do you want this donut? By the way, I don't respect women. I mean, yes, I want a donut, but not from someone who doesn't. Oh, wait, what does she say? I forget what Vanessa says in that moment.

Oh, my God. I read it. I don't eat donuts with boys who say i forget what vanessa says in that moment oh my god i read i don't eat donuts with boys who exploit women is what she says yeah so that's my response to you and the world shook on its axis in that moment yeah when that sentence was written down welcome to the bechtel cast my name is jamie loftes my name is caitlin durante and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate larger conversations about representation. But Jamie, what is the Bechdel test? Well, I can tell you.

Please. Just as we have for many years. So many. The Bechdel Test is a media metric originally created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel and her amazing collection Dykes to Watch Out For. It is often called the Bechdel Wallace Test because it was co-created with her friend Liz Wallace. Lots of versions of this test. It was originally created as a bit, but it has sort of become a very prominent media metric. And we're going to be talking about a lot of media metrics today. The version of the Bechdel test that we use requires that there be two characters of a marginalized gender with names who speak to each other about something other than a man for more

than two lines of dialogue. And it should be plot relevant. Nothing like, hi, do you want a cappuccino? No. Although in this movie that can be plot relevant. It depends. It's sort of important to the story. What is the obscenity judge quote that I can never remember? I know it when I see it. Oh, about porn. Yeah. Yes. Anyways, let's move. Let's move forward. Yes. So today we have such an exciting guest. We're so happy to finally have her on the show. She's a Nigerian-American writer, culture critic, former columnist, anduffPost, MTV News, The Root, and many, many more. She's also the creator

and co-creator of a number of different media tests that we're also going to talk about. It's Clarkesha Kent. Welcome. Hello. Hey, how y'all doing? Good. How are you? I am good. I'm good. It's a long Monday. Yes. It truly is. It's raining very heavily in LA right now. And I feel like the loud rain noises are going to pick up on my microphone. It's an ASMR episode. You know, we're going to make do.

Karkesha, we're so excited to have you on the show. We've talked about the Kent test on the show before. And you've just been like a guest we have been hoping to talk with forever. So thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm very excited. Yay, we're excited to have you. And yeah, tell us more about the Kent test and then the test that you co-created with Sydney Skyney sky g the kelly and cat test yeah so can't test is you know straightforward i would say spiritual sister to the bechdel test like it's aiming for the same thing right like hey you all hate women in media it's very obvious but you know i like to say that

americans like obvious things fed back to them right so you can say for example racism is bad and black people in health care and suffer a lot because racism bad they won't believe you to come back with this piece of paper that says hey we interviewed like 20 black people and they said racism is bad in the health care you know you need something on paper as annoying you need the headline yeah you need something on paper right so for me that's what it was like we we know that media hates women they treat us poorly etc etc right but like when you don't have it on paper it's easier for folks to gaslight you so that's what the contest was kind of born out of right so it was like specifically you know i wanted to focus on black women for first and foremost but but also tangentially women of color.

Right. So I was like, hey, our rep in media is very terrible. And while I'm very iffy, like I wrote my book about, you know, representation matters because we're in 2024 now. We're not in like Obama era representation of politics right um it's still one of those things where like for better for worse media will very much influence a public perception of certain people certain groups etc right so that's what the contest is for i was like hey they portray us poorly this has actually very far-reaching consequences for us so i was like i'm gonna get this on paper and i'm gonna walk through it different pieces i'm gonna make it accessible so that other people can use it right beyond me right I'd be like hey you know I watched this thing even though it's my favorite movie I noticed like they treated this black female character really bad and it left a bad taste in my mouth but I didn't know how to say it until you know again I had this piece of paper

in front of me so the test actually was born out of what happened to Nicole Beharie in Sleeping Hollow. Oh, yes. We've talked about that on the episode we did on Miss Juneteenth. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, especially the very last criteria on the test talks about it in terms of like turning a Black female character into a sacrifice in a way that's honestly uncharacteristic of them. Like, yeah, it was very ugly and like after that happened i was like all right i'm gonna i'm gonna put this on paper so that's kind of what happened um obviously you know when we get into like the medium we'll look at today we can go over the the requirements of the test but you know yeah that's what i was born out of and for the

killing cat test again spiritual cousin to the chem test i created with sydney sky g who's a prominent fat liberal activist i consider them a great friend so funny too so the test was born out of once again very poor representation for fat people media once again focusing on women but you know also other marginalized genders in this case we did want to include white women because the fat rep for them is also not great now again my focus is going to be you know black women or women of color but i'm gonna include that too because some of the media is very ugly especially if y'all remember because we we like the same age. Early 2000s media, very bad. Very bad.

The worst. Very bad for us. Very bad. It was very bad. The shallow hell era. Yeah. Very old. Yeah.

It is very bad. Very dark. Yeah. Yeah. The name points to specifically more recent fat characters, which would be like Kelly from Insecure and Cap from Euphoria. Yeah. A lot of it was very similar similar overlap to the contest but like also like hyper specific stuff that goes into you know styling for fat characters which is really important the clothes that they put us in

right yeah our family dynamics our relationships very particular tropes too so we tried to go into a little more detail. But yeah, that was born last year. Like I will say right before that my book came out. So that was fun. It was fun. Nice. And what is the like public response to both of the tests been? It seems I mean, like, I know that the second test is newer, but the Kent test, I feel like it's just like a part of film discussion now. Like it does make a marked difference. Yeah. Because it came out in 2018, which was the year Black Panther came out.

So that was actually the first movie I created on it. The second one was Widows. Both got A's. Love that. I love that for me. Right. And, you know, it's definitely evolved because i remember i published it in conjunction with oh my god quality for her who was run by i think claire money at the time and you know it was part

of a larger package right but the test itself just kind of took on a life of its own it's just like okay well i'm the star here i'm the beyonce of this thing so i'm out of here so it just kind of took off so it also came out on international Women's Day so I think that helped too like with the public profile so since then like you said it is it's out there you know people talk about it you know shows like this I've seen it come up in different like articles journals I've seen it pop up in people's dissertations you know in like you know like high school high school middle school you know classrooms but also like college classrooms like very sophisticated people drawing theory alongside the tests so that's been definitely interesting very humbling so i'm just like wow they got pretty got pretty far. So that's incredible. Yeah, I'm happy about that because we have to give people the tools to do better.

And that was also an important part of the test, too, because, you know, I know these people are like, you give it numbers instead of like a pass fail thing. I'm like, yeah, because it's not about pass fail. It's about I mean, if you fail, then we obviously still got to talk. Right. But it's not i mean if you fail then we obviously still got talk right but it's not about that it's about the fact that like you need to notice your own biases right like i got my own right everybody has them and i think refusing to name them makes it worse you know makes it worse less infester so that's what the test was about like yeah, yeah, you can have all the goodwill. You can have all the great intentions, like trying to make what diverse characters. I put in quotations for obvious reasons.

Right. There are characters. But like, if I go watch them and they're like some of the worst stereotypical characters anyone can come up with, then your intention doesn't really mean anything. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Inclusion doesn't automatically mean that it's good inclusion.

It's still a matter of like making sure that it's meaningful and handled responsibly. That's something I really appreciate about the Kent test is how thorough it is and how many different criteria you use to evaluate. Because as we often talk about on this show show like the Bechdel test is a useful tool for the basis of a very very basic conversation you know it can springboard into other conversations but it's very baseline and and people seem to still have a misunderstanding about its role in our show and I get it we did accidentally name the show after it but it was 2016 can't be held accountable for what I did in 2016 yeah truly but people will be like oh

so you must have liked that movie because it passed the Bechdel test right and I'm like um what no not like it's not like the be all end all so I appreciate how thorough the Kent test is and its examination of media and the Kent test is and its examination of media. And the Kent test is very relevant to the movie we're talking about today. We are covering the 2005 and boy, is it 2005 movie Beauty Shop, a Queen Latifah vehicle directed by Billy Woodruff, written by Kate Lanier and Norman Vance Jr. Clarkisha, what is your history with this movie? First of all, it's, you know, it's a Queen Latifah movie. And I love Queen Latifah.

I would like watch her absolutely anything. If she did a special where she was describing like paint drying on a wall, I would be there because she's very talented. And, you know, this is one of her earlier movies and i love it a lot it was a spinoff of you know the barbershop movies and i'm actually quite upset we didn't get no sequel or you know third we didn't get none and i'm like i know so it's a very formative movie for me too because like i said you know early 2000s fat rep was horrendous. Honestly, a crime against humanity. And, you know, there's some people out there that owe me some money for therapy bills behind that kind of era.

But, you know, Queen Latifah in that era was very important because she was like, I don't want to even say unintentionally, because I feel like when Black women do stuff, it's always intentional, even if it's like very under very understated so for her I feel like she functioned in that era as like this like countercultural thing like okay y'all trying to make fat people look bad you want us to feel bad etc etc no that's not what I'm here for so I'm gonna put out these movies because she had that she had The Last Holiday there's a couple other ones it's not more problematic than others but you know you know she put out this movie she had these interesting fashions she always casts these hot ass men

as her love interest it was really great so this movie has a special place in my heart and yeah it also was for me super enjoyable because people that you would have never thought of showing up in the movie like there's her, Diamond, Alfre Woodard, then you got Andy McDowell, then you got

Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon. Like everyone movies were fun you know when they were fun having fun yeah so yes we have like a child rapper little jj i mean we have this movie has everything it has octavia spencer in a very small role before she was really famous like yeah this movie really put me in such a specific place i was like i am in seventh grade and yeah jamie what's your relationship with the movie i feel like we've covered a lot of these movies on the show recently. This was a sleepover movie for me. I'd seen it at a number of sleepovers in middle school. I feel like it was on TV a lot as well later on.

I haven't seen the second Barbershop movie where I know Gina's character is introduced. So I cannot speak to the Barbershop expanded universe. But I've seen the first Barbershop movie. And then, yeah, Beauty Shop, I feel like it was just an obvious pick because it's 2005 and it's a Queen Latifah movie. So I was really excited about it. Hadn't seen it in easily a decade, probably more before getting ready for this episode. And I was like, what do I remember about this movie I remember Alfre Woodard starting to recite Phenomenal Woman at the drop of a hat and I remember Lil JJ the child rapper because I think

I was like he's cute and everything else I forgot so I it was a fun revisit and there's a shitload of stuff to talk about but it's nostalgic it feels like you're saying clark kisha like this movie is you know flawed but it's fun it's like i just i really enjoyed it i also did not realize it was kevin bacon until like a half hour in yes i was like we used to have fun these movies i love that we can't do that now like i know kevin bacon would he take out these highlights now i know and i think like kevin bacon and queen latifah right now are on like crime procedurals like they're not let's get beauty shop too i don't need the crime procedurals anyways caitlin what's your history with beauty shop and the barber shop

expanded universe pretty brief i had never seen Beauty Shop before prepping for this episode. I had seen the first Barbershop, but that's kind of where it begins and ends. So I've seen Beauty Shop twice now, and I also rewatched Barbershop just to see kind of how the two compare, if there was any like notable things to say. I have a couple thoughts on it,

but yeah other than that I hadn't seen it but I do love Queen Latifah so it's always a pleasure to watch her we just covered Valentine's Day in which she has a very small role that it like does not do her justice at all so it was a breath of fresh air to be able to actually like watch her in a starring role and just see all the talent that she has to offer. She's the best. I was trying to think of if there's other franchises. I feel like this has definitely happened, but I couldn't think of one off the top of my head where there was like a very male centered franchise like Barbershop. And I say this with love because i really love this

movie like they kind of mrs pac-man the spinoff where they're like here's girl this movie you like oceans 8 from the oceans 11 12 and 13 franchise yeah it's a thing it's a thing and we should have had two of them truly for me it's a better movie i agree there's still like some problematic aspects obviously but like in comparison to barbershop right yeah i mean yeah so let's take a quick break we'll come back for the recap and then we'll discuss so we'll be right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks.

Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.

I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project All you need to do is record everything like you always do One session 24 hours BPM 110 120 She's terrified

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

We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this.

Lucha Libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. A 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar.

Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. And we're back. All right, so here is the recap for Beauty Shop 2005. We are in Atlanta. We meet Gina. That's Queen Latifah's character and her daughter Paulette, played by Laura Hayes, and her daughter, Darnell, played by Keisha Knight-Poliam.

She's in her 20s, I think. And we see Gina drop her daughter, Vanessa, off at a private arts school. And then Gina goes to work at a beauty salon owned by a man named Jorge. And this is Kevin Bacon like you've never seen or heard him before. Or since, I hope. I don't think. I think not. Yeah. And his thing is that he's very shitty and condescending to Gina. And Gina

has aspirations of owning her own beauty shop. She also makes her own special hair conditioner that one of her clients, Joanne, played by Mina Suvari, just swears by. She also uses this conditioner on another client, Terry, played by Andy McDowell, and they're loving this homemade conditioner. We also meet Gina's colleague, Lynn, played by Alicia Silverstone, who wants to be a stylist. But right now her job at Jorge's salon is to shampoo the clients. So everyone wants much more than this provincial life, basically. As I was watching this, I was like, wow, I don't understand how hair salons work I was like is shampoo a job I didn't realize I've only ever been shampooed by the same person who then like cuts or styles

my hair so I didn't know that was a separate job maybe it's like if you have enough money there's someone whose job is just shampoo I don't know my hair looks like shit like i just don't know no it doesn't jamie well it's okay i accept it but it does okay all right then we see a scene where gina's daughter vanessa plays piano she's prepping for an upcoming recital we learn that vanessa's dad used to play but he has passed away. So Gina is a widow. Back at the salon, Jorge gets upset with Gina about something unreasonable, and she's had enough of him. So Gina quits and then starts investigating how to open up her own beauty shop. She goes to the bank for a loan. She gets rejected by a white lady banker who appears to have a crush on one of her colleagues.

So then Gina gives her a makeover and it changes the banker's mind and she approves a loan for $30,000, which is like over $100,000 less than what Gina was hoping for. Which means that the only thing Gina can afford is a pretty run-down, though still functioning, beauty shop. And she buys it. Gina, Vanessa, Paulette, and Darnell fix up the shop, although there's still this big hole in the ceiling with all of these electrical wires sticking out, and this loud piano music can be heard coming from upstairs so gina calls

an electrician joe played by jaimon hansu to come and fix the wires and then we're like okay love interest for gina alert yeah i want this to become a movie trope why didn't like the hot guy that plays piano through your broken ceiling become a movie trope it didn't like the hot guy that plays piano through your broken ceiling become a movie trope it's such a good idea yes it's also such a convenient relationship we're creative like i don't know i don't know what happened i love just like the writers sitting and being like okay okay okay there's a hole in the ceiling what is the best thing to put in a hole in the ceiling a beautiful man playing piano done let's proceed right because again it's a very convenient relationship he lives upstairs he's the one playing piano her daughter vanessa plays the piano so it's like wow everything's connected hot stepdad alert yeah the next day

the stylists who were already renting space at the existing salon they show up to work so we meet a few of them chanel played by golden brooks miss josephine played by alfre woodard and ida played by sherry shepherd who by the way, is extremely Gregnant. Yes. That's her whole thing. Heavy with Greg. Yes. And Gina has also hired Lynn, the Alicia Silverstone character.

But a couple of the other stylists, whose names are Mercedes and Portia, don't want to work with a white woman. So they bail. And can you blame them based on Alicia Silverstone's conduct after that? We'll talk about it. Then Gina's beauty shop officially opens. Some clients from the old shop come in and Gina does her best to convince them that they should keep coming to her beauty shop. We see just everyone, all the stylists getting into the swing of things.

Again, Lynn is doing very like cringy white lady nonsense. There's also this kid, Willie, played by Lil JJ, who's selling candy bars to raise money for his music video that he's going to shoot, which just turns out to be him shooting footage of women's butts. So that's interesting. I felt a pang of shame realizing that this was the part of the movie I remembered the most. I blame my child brain. But yeah, I wrote him down in my notes as patriarchy the kid, because we always talk about Patriarchy the Guy on this show. But this is a new twist on it. We've got Patriarchy the Kid. If you can vanquish Patriarchy the Guy. Yeah, Patriarchy the Kid. I haven't seen that one. Yeah. Innovation.

Anyway, so meanwhile, Jorge has found out that Gina has opened her own shop and he's not happy about it, especially after Gina poaches Terry, a.k.a. Andy McDowell, as a client. Then we meet Catfish Rita, who regularly stops by the shop to sell her home-cooked food. We also see an inspector from the state board. So he's bureaucracy, the guy. He comes by and slaps Gina with a fine for having trash in the alleyway, which was about to be picked up by this guy named James, played by Bryce Wilson, who is an ex-con, but Gina doesn't care about that. And she hires him because she admires his braid work. And so he starts working at the shop and all of the stylists and all of the customers think James is so hot, but because of reductive stereotypes, they suspect he might be gay. It really was like, it felt like a comprehensive list of reductive 2005 stereotypes

around gay men like just when you think they had played every hit there was another one that i didn't even remember was a thing like he watches oprah like it's just unbelievably weird and specific and 2005 in the pejorative way yes exactly then gina's sister-in-law darnell gets in trouble with the law because she was riding around on her boyfriend's motorcycle which turned out to be stolen so she goes to jail g Gina bails her out of jail. And so to pay her back, Darnell starts working at the beauty shop. Also, Octavia Spencer's there in a quick scene where Chanel makes a fat phobic remark to her. And then that's all we get from Octavia Spencer. Although I wanted to point out the connection of so Gina has a photograph of Madam CJ Walker, who's like her icon. She has that image hanging in her beauty shop. And of course, Madam CJ Walker was the first American woman who is like a self-made millionaire. She

made her fortune selling cosmetics and hair care products specifically for black women. And of course, Octavia Spencer played her in the Netflix series Self-Made. So it all comes full circle. Yeah. Okay. So then there's an electrical emergency at the shop. There's a plot emergency. We've got to get the hot guy over here to fix the plot emergency. Yeah, she calls Joe, he comes and sets up like a backup generator. But she still gets another fine from the state board inspector guy. And if she gets one more citation, the shop will be shut down. So the stakes are high. Also, she and Joe are kind of vibing. And there's one point where Gina's daughter, Vanessa, goes upstairs to play piano with Joe. And then Gina goes upstairs too. And then they're vibing some more.

And then business continues as usual. Joanne, that's the Amina Suvari character, she reappears and tells Gina that she's going to hook her up with a deal to sell Gina's homemade conditioner to CoverGirl. And Gina's like, that's amazing. Which is very exciting. And also I was like, does CoverGirl, do they have hair products?

Hair products? Not that I know of. It doesn't matter. But I did pause and Google. I was like, did I miss? They were trying to get into it. Gina was going to be their gateway into hair care. Sure.

Was this also the time that Queen Latifah was like one of the faces of CoverGirl? Yeah. I want to say yes or right before because I remember her foundation. That was like the one of the first ones I got because it was one of the few that had shades that were as dark as me. So I was just like, all right, Kalee Latifah,

bye-bye your shit. Love that for me. But yeah, either then or right before, definitely. Yeah, I figured there must be some connection between like her being like one of the faces of CoverGirl and why that's in this movie. Yeah, she started working with CoverGirl in 2001. Well, there you go.

In any case, so this deal is like kind of on the table and Gina is very excited about it. She takes all the stylists out to a club to celebrate joe shows up because vanessa invited him because we have another kid trying to set up their parents with a love story so joe and gina dance and then james and lynn dance and they also start making out and everyone's like hmm i guess james isn't gay you're just like uh-huh yeah you missed out because he was a homophobe yeah right yeah don't make assumptions about people's sexuality or gender or anything and of course it's presented as a binary like there's no in this, a conversation around bisexuality, pansexuality. Like that is not a part of the 2005 movie universe.

Certainly not. So yeah, they start dating and then Joe and Gina go home together and they kiss on the lips. Woo! the lips the next day that kid willie who's always again videotaping women's butts he sees jorge pay off the inspector from the state board and it becomes clear that jorge is responsible for all these fines that gina has been getting and that he's trying to shut down her shop and willie catches all of this on his video camera again i love this plot contrivance it's great they're like who knew that the like creepy kid with a camcorder was a plant to catch kevin bacon up to no good it's just such movie logic i love it i feel like the parallel

in barbershop is the two guys who keep lugging around the atm that they stole and then it ends up paying off at the end because it's like oh there's a reward if you find the atm and that saves the shop so anyway movies this movie feels like a movie you know it's been said all right so then gina is trying to still close this deal of selling her conditioner to cover girl but then joanne gets into an argument with lynn and chanel in the shop after joanne assaults james and joanne is making a scene she wants chanel to be fired but gina refuses to fire her so joanne calls the deal with cover girl off and storms out and then that night someone i wasn't sure if it was implied to be joanne or if it's implied to be jorge or who exactly does this but someone vandalizes

the beauty shop definitely for her definitely Jorge okay but that scene takes place immediately after Joanne storms out so I'm like was it her like was she so angry about this that she it was a little unclear to me but yeah and Joanne like basically disappears after that anyway yeah I also thought it was Jorge yeah, there's so many devious people to choose from at this point. True. If you're a blonde white person in this movie, you're doing something bad in basically every scene. It's true. So the next day is Vanessa's piano recital. And Gina goes to it, but she has all this other stuff weighing on her mind, the vandalism and the deal being called off with CoverGirl. But when she comes back to the shop, the stylists have

cleaned and fixed the place back up. Even so, Gina is like, I don't know if we can keep the shop going. Like, there's not enough money. We're struggling. But then a woman bursts in the shop. She's about to go to a wedding and Gina fixes her up and uses her conditioner on her and everything's great. And let's put a pin in that. This movie is really well written. I just, there's so many play. Oh,

Chekhov's radio host. Just like Chekhov's kid with a camcorder. Right. Because before we find out who this woman is, who is about to go to this wedding, Willie comes in and gives Gina the tape of George colluding with the inspector guy. So Gina goes to Jorge and confronts him. And she's like, nice try, bitch. You're a loser and I'm a winner.

And then they're at the shop again. And it turns out that the woman who came in to get fixed up before the wedding is this radio host, Helen, played by Adele Givens, who they always listen to in the shop. And Helen shouts out Gina and her shop and her conditioner. We're all cheering. It's great. Everything's fine. Everything's good. She's got publicity and the shop is going to be a-okay. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia.

I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session.

24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out?

I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

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or wherever you stream podcasts. And we're back. Where to begin? Clarkesha, is there anything that jumps out to you or you'd like to start?

So I will say that I like the movie it's very colorful color has been drained from all our movies as of late i don't like it it's very technically fitting with the time was very dystopian right so i love that it's um super colorful and like i think we talked about right before we started the episode the cast love the cast is just again people that you wouldn't expect typically just showing up. Like you said,

Mia Savari, Anna McDowell, Kevin Bacon, Alfred Woodard, Octavia Spencer. Like, people kept showing up and I was like, this is great.

This is great. So I loved it for that reason. I also loved that it was, you know, because I did used to like the barbershop movies. I loved that it was a spinoff. Like, it was a nice

costume thing going. And like I said, said this movie i've done it before in my like uh twitter spaces before you know the rap bastard bought the platform but yeah i uh it had definitely passed the contest with like flying colors like eight out of eight excellent so yeah again it's like for me like top 10 movies so i'm definitely excited to get into like further discussion yeah i was curious how it would fare on the kent test but because it's a movie about camaraderie and friendship among black women it's a movie about a black woman being a business owner and an entrepreneur and also an examination of the obstacles she's up against in a racist classless world being a black business owner

we see the scene where you know she can't get approved for the business loan at the bank at first she's told by the white banker that she doesn't have the adequate, you know, like credit collateral or capital. But we know that black people are often denied loans for businesses and mortgages and everything because of systemic racism. And then she's only approved for a loan that's a very small fraction of what she initially requested so right all these things that she's up against including also the white guy that she works for toward the beginning of the movie who doesn't value her work he feels threatened by her he constantly undermines her there's the like bureaucracy the guy the white guy who's always coming in and like slapping her with fines I like that the movie explores all that in a meaningful way yeah well still very much remaining

a comedy too right I think this movie has a very light touch but it's not evasive in a way that I think a lot of movies are because I mean even in the scene at the bank that you're describing like Gina says explicitly like she knows why she is not being given a fair shot at this bank loan like it is very clear and even then she doesn't get what she asked for and that she deserved and that a white business person would very likely get without a lot of struggle any pushback yeah also that banker is like you know you can apply for a credit card instead of throwing around your race card and then when gina approaches her in the bathroom she's like don't kill me she's afraid that she's like it's like violence on her i'll just like get this this racist banker got a free haircut it It's not fair, but it gets the beauty shop. In any case, I was really happy to see, I don't know,

I think just like when I think of movies from this era that have a cast that's mostly women, I'm like, this is great. I wonder how they're going to somehow make it about a man anyways because I feel like we see that a lot but that doesn't really happen here I liked that I mean even in the like little JJ and uh Gina's daughter I thought that they were gonna force you know a child romance but it's like that is mercifully avoided and this is a rare example I think that we're often like oh you could cut out the love story

it's not a big deal but i really like this love story i think it's sweet i don't think it gets in the way like i think where i get frustrated with love story plots is when it all of a sudden is taking up all the air in the movie but here it's like gina deserves. He's a great guy. He's obsessed with her. He's hot. He's so supportive. And he's not, like, on screen so much that he all of a sudden sort of is taking over the movie above the community of women. And so I'm like, I'm fine with it. I like it.

But I'm also like, let Queen Latifah be gay in more movies. If she does have to be in a hetero relationship in a movie, who better than Jaiman Hansu? Right. Who also, I think, married Kimora Lee Simmons shortly after this, if I'm recalling my Kimora Lee Simmons history correctly. Oh. I don't know if they were ever officially married, but they were together for a while a long time yeah yeah because he was like on her show right okay wow 2000s brain it's coming back this movie really did bring back some like regressed like thoughts that just like we're collecting dust like information about comoralee simmons who's also in this movie and a very 2005 cameo but yeah i mean i think that this movie does a great job at like remaining centered on the characters that are advertised which almost

never happens do we want to talk about sort of the women who work at the shop yeah we have a lot of people to choose from and again like distinct personalities everyone has their own which I feel like is also very true of the barbershop movies but I just like it's beauty shop and I like women better so this is good yeah I mean I feel like everyone has within the shop it's more like this is the woman who does this this is the woman who does this but that's very i don't know ensemble comedy ish right i felt like outside of the lynn stuff which we should probably get into i mean all the women are really cool i like that like i don't know for the most part like it just felt very community like people giving each other shit i enjoyed it lynn okay what

where do we start there are other movies that have done this i can't remember what movies we've talked about that half but that like it seems like there is the suggestion that like the racism that Gina faced at Jorge's and also in the world, as we've seen at the bank, all these different situations is comparable to Lynn at Gina's beauty shop. And it does not work at all because that's not true. Yeah, I was a little confused by that choice i'm opening the floor to the lynn situation you know once again early 2000s shit right so people their their racial politics is very what you know what what one of those things were like you know i feel like it definitely could be written better because i know what they're trying to say but they're saying it very

badly but one of those things where it's just like you know you can't be someone who is not a member of the community right and think that you're going to just be touching people's head and hair right like i don't know about other people but like for me you know i am what's that for i'm nigerian but i was like born here firmly in the states you know i grew up in a very strong robust very tight-knit black american community and you know a lot of us are just like you know if we don't fuck with you you can't touch our head like that's a whole thing like you cannot touch our head nope hair nope it's a very intimate thing for someone to just you know putting their hands in your hair

doing whatever right so i could get the distrust of this like random white girl coming here. She's about to touch my hair. Like, I don't know. I don't know. So I understand what they were trying to say in the fact that, you know, she would have to play ball with the community and, you know, like really plug in. Now, how they end up playing, it weird so weird yes you know trying to give her like this halfway black thing because then she is southern so she had that going for her so i don't know why she didn't just lean into that but like right it's weird like halfway black cosplay but not fully right you know she's there with it we recently covered save the last dance and it very much reminded me i mean it wasn't as bad as the julia styles makeover from or it's just a

different flavor of bad like i don't know but i was like this was something that happened in movies in the 2000s is i agree with you like the way that lynn talks is very like all lives mattery where she's like i've done everyone's hair black white and polka dot i'm like that's all lives matter rhetoric like that's like you're i don't know you're missing the entire point i was like you were you know you're not at 4k shop anymore where like 90% of the clientele is like white like no you are in Gina's shop where 99.9% of the clientele is black and like they don't know you so yeah you're gonna get some looks gonna get some you know standoffish clipped responses yeah that's one of those things where like you know I didn't mind some of the hairstyles, but others was like, you're doing a lot.

You know, it's just enough to, like, display that you have these skills and leave it at that. Like, focus on the skills. Like, you're trying to do this weird Black cosplay. Like, it wasn't needed. But like I said, our future thousands, racial politics is really weird. Like, it's really weird. Even from certain black stars and black celebrities lord knows so and that could be it's a whole different like honestly episode and show

true well i want to take a little detour because i i wrote out the beats of lynn's story just to be like what are any of these choices but the detour i want to take is who made this movie? Who wrote the movie? And so there's a story by credit by Elizabeth Hunter. She is a Black woman who has worked mostly in TV as a writer and producer. I don't know to what extent she wrote any draft of a script or what exactly her involvement is, but she's credited with a story by credit. The two credited screenwriters of this movie are Norman Vance Jr., who is another writer, mostly working in TV. He's a black man. And then Kate Veneer. We have talked about her before on

this show. Yes. On the Set It Off episode, because she is a white woman who wrote a bunch of movies with predominantly black casts she wrote the screenplay for set it off she wrote the tina turner biopic what's love got to do with it yeah she wrote crazy sexy cool the tlc story she wrote glitter and she wrote glitter we have to remember that she did write glitter. She's got some crimes under her belt. She has to answer for it. I haven't seen glitter in a long time. And as we talked about on the Set It Off episode, she defended these movies she'd written by saying, well, I know Black people and I love Black people.

So that gives me permission to write Black stories as if they're my own stories to tell. So that is one of the co-writers of this movie. So with that in mind, let's return back to some of these other topics. to speak to what you were saying, Clarkisha, about like the reluctance to trust her from the clientele and the other stylists at the beauty shop, like, yes, that absolutely tracks. And her conduct, Lynn's conduct, her desperate attempt to try to fit in by doing like weird, appropriative stuff like that also tracks because that is a lot of white people behavior that we see a lot of the time. But it's not done critically. Exactly. It just happens. And in fact, her arc is that all the black people in the shop encourage her to keep appropriating and change her hairstyle and like talk a certain way and then it lands her this black boyfriend who for as much as I enjoy the romance between Gina and Joe I'm like what is this romance between

Lynn and James I don't understand because it's also caught in the crossfire of the homophobic tropes that's going on so it's just kind of like a perfect storm of 2005 movie flaws yeah so her character's arc in like the way because at first like when she's engaging in all this like appropriative behavior we cut to alfre woodard and sherry shepherd like giving her looks and being like what the fuck is she doing but then by the end they're like yeah this is actually awesome what you're doing on board on the other end of that we have the mina suvari character who assaults james just like full-on although i would guess that the politics the sexual politics of 2005 probably would not say that but that's definitely what happens that micro interaction i thought was really interesting parentheses didn't like because like she grabs his butt as he's walking past her

already she just assaulted him and then lynn calls her out on it but only because james is her boyfriend not because mina savari just assaulted someone like and again very very uncritical and it's more like oh you're jealous i'm like no you just committed a crime like what again 2005 but uh yeah mina savari is really oscillating between like a full-on villain No, you just committed a crime. Like what? Again, 2005. But yeah, Mina Savari is really oscillating between like a full on villain. But then she also makes the connection with Cover Girl. Like that character was all over the place. I mean, actually, it's very true to life. If I'm being honest with you and, you know, dealings with white women, especially in these professional capacities.

Right. Very, you know, Dr dr jekyll mr hyde type shit um so it actually made sense that she was like that and then for you know lynn and her i'm really glad you're kind of putting them on this like spectrum right because you have lynn like let's be honest lynn is giving white trash like let's keep it a bucket she's giving white trash right and then you got me uh i forgot her character's name but she given like you know waspy white that kind of thing upscale kind of so it makes sense that they will be like fighting over this person for like the wrong reason it honestly for me is

giving like plantation politics like hey that's that's mine you know i own that you can't be touching that's my property that's what it's giving know i own that you can't be touched and that's my property that's what i was giving i was like ew right like but again because like you said it's beauty shop that it's very quick it's very subtle but it's like it's just like hey do you do you see what we're doing with this right so for me i was just like no that character makes absolute sense especially yeah that she's the type of white woman who will like engage with black people even give them her money you know her business as long as it serves her but the second anyone challenges her or i mean she demands that someone gets fired later very care

and behavior and she's not demanding that lyn, that the Alicia Silverstone character gets fired. Another white woman, she's demanding that Chanel, a black woman, get fired. And Gina's like, no, get the fuck out of my shop. So yeah, the Mina Sufari character, her behavior also tracked. We're just seeing like different versions of white women, white womening in this movie between Lynn and between Joanne, I think is her character's name. And Andy McDowell's character too, who like kind of ends up skating through the movie. And then we have the whole like butt prosthetic at the end that I did not remember. But with Andy McDowell, there are a series of like micro aggressions that she does. I mean, I feel like the one that stood out for me was trying to bring up Janet Jackson in an insulting way, which is a very early 2000s talking point. But like, if you were alive in the early 2000s, you can tell exactly what the writers are doing, where like, she's basically regurgitating the white media narrative around Janet Jackson that completely blamed her and literally called her crazy and just all these horrible, untrue things that on a long enough timeline, that narrative has shifted but you know andy mcdowell is a white woman first of all trying to connect with a room full of black women by insulting janet jack like it just is like

unbelievably misguided and in that case i feel like the movie knows that and andy mcdowell is wrong and she has to like you know get her get her shit together, kind of. Not that she necessarily does, but. And then another part of her character is at first she's like, Catfish Rita, your soul food. No, thanks. I don't eat like that. And then she comes around. It almost honestly feels like to some degree, this movie is more interested in a few of the character arcs of the white women than it is of because i would love to have seen more of a subplot of alfre woodards or sherry shepherd or um

what's the actor who plays chanel golden brooks like where are their little vignettes of their interior lives we know that sherry shepherd's character is pregnant but we don't really know much else about her except that she's also like horny for every other man she sees pretty funny but like i felt those characters were a little underdeveloped i would have loved to see more of their interior lives and more of just like their relationships with each other but i feel like there's a lot of real estate in the story given to these white women like b characters that i don't know if that was an attempt to quote unquote make this movie more marketable to a widespread audience i'm not sure but it plays out in a way that reads weird and it's focusing on characters who I don't care about.

And I would rather see more of the others. Yeah, I don't think we necessarily needed a gradient of types of white women in this movie. We do get more of an arc for Keisha Knight Pulliam's character Darnell, where I feel like this movie, I mean, again, I think I totally agree where I would have liked more detailed arcs for the women within the shop we do get some decent time with the family outside of the shop that true felt I don't know I enjoyed that where you know Gina and Darnell have this like antagonistic but loving very familial relationship even though it's very plotty I liked when Darnell came back to the shop and did want to work with Gina I don't know I I wish like I don't have that much to say about Darnell but she did have an arc I liked her and I really like Gina's daughter I think that's the story between her, Gina and Joe is so sweet.

And Kayla and I have talked to Viliatize about like, when you put a precocious child in the movie, it can go a lot of ways. Yes. It can be real bad. It can be grating. But I really thought that that balance was really sweet. I love the jazz that Joe teaches her comes back. Like that kind of brings the two of them together. I loved it.

And I love that she says my favorite line in the movie. I don't eat donuts with boys who exploit women. Okay. Can we talk about that kid real quick? Because patriarchy, the kid, Willie played by little JJj so as we've discussed he's going around shooting footage with his little handheld video camera he's always

shooting women's butts making comments on women's bodies in general he routinely gets called out for it vanessa that quote that you already shared, Jamie, and then Gina says something like, don't come back here until you learn how to speak to a lady. But he doesn't listen. He keeps coming back. But it feels like such a contradictory choice to have that behavior of him objectifying and sexualizing women be called out. But then the movie does the same exact thing by having a bunch of like the male gaze cinematography that specifically focuses on women's butts it also has women making shamey comments about other women's bodies there's a lot of early 2000s fixation on plastic surgery plastic surgery yeah and then also like the kid ultimately the

fact that he was filming women's butts is a good thing actually because if he wasn't doing that he would have never gotten that footage that incriminates kevin bacon so i didn't think of it that way but yeah that's not. He was right to do that. So I just found his character frustrating overall. According to my little brother, he was doing serviceable work over at All That. And so maybe this just wasn't Lil' JJ's big moment. His moment was on All That. Fair.

I appreciate him not sugarcoating, as you said, patriarchy the kid. Because again, it is usually just being like being like oh this adult male popped out of nowhere and he's a misogynistic ass but you know that doesn't happen until they become adults I'm like no that's not the case and for me you know I do appreciate them showing that you know because I don't

like movies that try to sanitize human behavior like now they don't show it to me and try to glorify it because you know there are some people to me that do that they're like oh this person is terrible but you know they're an anti-hero I don't want to watch that shit but um

I appreciate things like that because I remember recently I think you saw a little announcement about tweaks that were made to a certain character in a certain production with a kid who has an arrow on his head i'm not gonna say it because i'm not trying to give them i'm back but you know they were trying to make a key change to one of the uh main characters because they're like oh you know him in the original series like he started off as very

misogynistic and we wanted that but why he is a young boy that's what they do that's not to excuse it but like you need to be able to show that trajectory because you know half of his team ends up being girls and both of them both his sister and the new teammate put him in his place so then he has to start reshaping his worldview about you know girls and women. Right. Like it's the thing we talked about earlier in the show where we talk about biases. Right. Like clearly he was born with this bias because of like, you know, his tribe and what they're getting into seeing women do. Right. But like, this is not your tribe. Like this is not that time. So you're supposed to show him shifting after being checked by not just them, but, you know,

later in the series by other really awesome and very dynamic women and girls. Right. So I like when movies and media are like real about this shit. But also don't try to be like it's OK because it wasn't OK. Right. Right. Like you said, you did get routinely called out on it. Now, I wish somebody would take his camera. But, you know, you know. But, yeah, no, I do appreciate that. Like, no, don't shitcoat it because this is how.

The behavior is called out. Yes, at the very least. And this other show that shall not be named. It's important to show arcs like that because, yes, many young men and boys, they're a product of their environment and their environment is patriarchy. So they learn things that need to be unlearned. And it's important to show people unlearning their biases. And so to make an adjustment that ignores that, like, yeah. Particularly in media for kids too. Yeah.

Watching a character that you love unlearn that in real time is genuinely motivational. What else? Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss? I don't have too much else. I just wanted to shout out the director, Bill Woodruff, who we often cover the music video director to feature director pipeline. Some of the most prolific music video directors of the 90s into the 2000s, truly name a popular act at this time, particularly Black musical acts at this time. He directed truly everybody. 97, big year for him. I just wanted to shout out his 97 because the hits are great.

He did a Backstreet Boys music video this year. He did an OutKast music video. He did Ginuwine. He did Usher, You Make Me Wanna. He did Salt-N-Pepa, Are You Ready? And he did Celine Dion, My Heart Will Go On in 1997. I mean, the Titanic connection is everywhere. We found the Titanic connection.

It's everything. But he also, I mean, directed his first movie, which I haven't watched in forever, but he also directed Honey and the various movies in the Honey expanded universe. So I just wanted to shout him out. Still working today. Clarkisha, was there anything else you wanted to touch on? Yes. I just want to big up the movie for its very vast representations of Black women. We don't get that as much anymore.

I think there are some talents in Black Hollywood that are that are trying to reverse that you know i'll shout out like isa ray quentin brunson like they're really trying to over like over time trying to like in their own way right because it's not their responsibility right like in their own way they're trying to like kind of like drag us back from like what our current landscape looks like which is like you know the biracial woman standing in for like every black woman ever the aggressive colorism that kind of is really pervasive unfortunately in a lot of our work because some of these male creatives apparently have to work out their ego on screen and you know I guess their cleavities and attractions on screen right so um i appreciate i've always appreciated queen latifah's work for

like displaying black women in you know uh various ways um and also across various generations too you know because the young the old the middle age like the movie has like everybody there yeah different shades to body sizes because like i said it's not as commonplace anymore which makes me sad to say but yeah it's one of my favorite movies for that reason because like you just see like different generations of women coming together to make gina's dream come true which is big fucking deal yeah i kind of wish there were more of these too but you see scenes where they're all chatting about something. There's a scene where they're talking about like, do you get your pubic hair waxed or do you leave it natural?

Also a very 2000s discussion. Then that like transitions into a conversation about like, ooh, men who cry. Is that acceptable or not? They come down on the side of no and so you know a very 2005 interpretation of that but i love the scenes of just like their camaraderie and them laughing together and reciting phenomenal woman together and just like all of those moments uh were really special and also queen latifah has done so many like ensemble movies with a black cast between Set It Off, this movie, Girls Trip. I'm sure I'm forgetting some but like she's the queen of that and I didn't even mean to make that pun. Wow look at you. Humiliated. I think the last thing

I wanted to shout out was that Queen Latifah produced this movie as well, which I feel like we are always trying to make sure we're talking about behind the camera as well. And I think, I mean, I would be comfortable betting that a lot of what this movie does right is because she also had control behind the camera. So I wanted to shout that out as well. It was one of the first, I think the first project that she produced in her movie career was Bringing Down the House, which, what a moment.

And sort of from there on out, she produced all of the movies that she was starring in, at least. And I feel like that is reflected in this movie. Her character is in charge. There is like no point where, I don't know, like the tropes of the era can't really touch Queen Latifah in her movie for the most part. And I think that that is like a really important thing for movie stars, especially marginalized movie stars to have is like control over their image and how they're portrayed because uh you cannot trust producers like and so you have to be one yourself kind of and i was reading different interviews with her and her intentions with this movie and she's like

yeah it's a spinoff from barbershop but i wanted to make it its own thing and showcase black women and like the intentions are clear i had one last little thing i wanted to chat about and i'm curious on everyone's thoughts on this but in theory this is a movie about people who work with mostly black hair a few of the clients are these white these awful white women but it's mostly black hair. A few of the clients are these white, these awful white women, but it's mostly black clientele. And I feel like there was more of an opportunity to see black hair being styled. And I feel like the movie doesn't necessarily

take a lot of those opportunities, especially for seeing black women who wear their hair natural. It might be a reflection of like the era definitely yeah reflection of that era we don't get to the uh what i call modern natural hair movement because natural hair has come in and out you know in and out of times but the more recent movement i would have said like early 20 teens i might be a little bit off by a couple years so we we weren't really there yet we were still stuck on you know the hair crack the relaxer we still stuck on that thing and i remember you know even at that time

when you started telling people that you had stopped using relaxer because it's giving you obvious perm what we call perm scabs you know and then later found out to be giving people cancer as a lot of us expected right you know when even when you were like yeah i don't use that stuff anymore they'd be like what like how do you style your hair otherwise like isn't it like hard and you know that's a complex discussion that we usually have within our community but it's one of those things where like a lot of that rhetoric is very driven by you know white beauty standards unfortunately right right yeah, no, I agree with you. There definitely technically was more of an opportunity,

but because of the hair politics at the time, they weren't going to do that. I think the most they would have done is like, if you've ever been to like a black beauty shop, they have like the very creative stack styles of hair and curls that are stacked up. You got the, you know like not quite the bang but you got the hair hanging you know hair hanging from their face and it's just like really marvelous example of like honestly black people using geometry to like bills like these styles and stack them up on their head like just real creative shit but yeah no i agree with you in

that like there there was a way to put more of those styles in there, even if you weren't focusing on the natural aspect for obvious reasons. But yeah, that that explains some of that. Yeah, that makes sense. And all the more reason we need Beauty Shop 2. All things that could have been addressed in Beauty Shop 2 2007, which for some reason we did not get. Was that like in development and it just didn't happen? No, that was just the year I think it would have come out. I see.

Two years later. That's when sequels come out. That's true. Well, Beauty Shop 2, 2025. Just putting it out there in the world. I'll take it. I would love it. Yeah, I would love it too i would love to i was just like

um none of you are dead so let's you know let's yeah you're all still kicking yeah one last thing the radio host at the very beginning because like you see her like vo her voiceover and just like her in the booth like doing broadcasts throughout the movie and at the very beginning dj helen is like that michael vick so hot right and it's like yep it's 2005 yes i know it's like wait that's not how that sentence ends today uh yeah what a time to be alive let's let's talk about a number of tests. This movie very much passes the Bechdel test to the point where it's like, it just does. I mean, like you were just sort of listing off, Caitlin,

I mean, the women in this story, I mean, there's many conversations between women that are moving the plot ahead. There's also just a lot of conversations between women, women of different races, different classes, different body types. This movie has every kind of conversation between women, which is so rare. It's great. True.

But I'd also like to talk about the Kent test because you mentioned, Clarkisha, that it is a full on pass. Yeah, it does pass it eight out of eight. So just to go over it so the contest has um points so all the way from like a to g right so first one is must not solely be a walking stereotype or truck usually i focus on one character and if it's like you know expansive piece of media then multiple right but in this case i focused on mainly gina and then you know a couple other people so you know

gina's not a walking talking black stereotype so we're good right um must have their own plot or narrative art she got it once on salon that's been her whole thing she wants to get out from jorge's tongue really straightforward stuff pass must not solely be included in the narrative for just for holding down a male character. No, we got the opposite. Joey's holding her down, which I appreciate. You know, this is her story. He's her nice accessory

slash dessert, as Cher would say. Shout out to Cher. Famous Taurus. Love her. He's just there. Nice looks like it. But it's her. It's the Gina show, right? So pass. And then you have must not slowly be included in the narrative to prop up white female character once again it's

gina show do they show up yes but you know this is this is her thing so no she's not there to like hold up you know or be some character development for you know a white girl right right then we have must not solely exist in the film slash piece of media for the purpose of fetishization aside from jjp and jj again that's not what this movie is about right yeah again it's you know this is her show she's trying to make her dream come true she's kind of trying to keep her shop open because one thing to like open it you know so many businesses are open per year but how many people like how many stay open and like right for a sustained period of time so that's

her whole focus the whole movie so pass then we have um must have at least one interaction with another black woman or woman of color duh easy whole cast is that whole cast like you she'll turn and talk to i don't know the water girl and like you know keisha right there you know there's people outside the shop she interacts with yeah i also love that in the world of made-up jobs cappuccino girl a job it's great great after-school job it's perfect i was like i love that so yeah definite pass and then obviously there's an additional point here that i put in test where it's just like it's always going to be bonus. If the women are not immediately related, which again passes because, you know, even though Darnell is a thing, you know, she all the other women in salon are people that she interacts with routinely and they're not blood related.

Right. So there's that. Oh, and the last one must not be the go-to character sacrifice in a film slash piece of media we don't even have to talk about that here because none of that happens no no one's laying down their life for random white person again this is her movie you know she's kicking it and then trying to you know be successful in this world so yeah literally eight out of eight i didn't have no notes aside from the ones we kind of already discussed which again are part of you know the problematic 2005 canon of terrible movie trope which and then how does the movie fare on the kelly and cat test so the kelly cat test on a real quick because technically me and sid haven't taken it on like a full run through a lot of these movies because as you probably suspect a lot of them are just downright

bad so we're gonna just be like they're just being like okay zero or one or like max like three you know and and for this test it's actually out of 12 versus like eight all right so in terms of yeah so i'll read the description real quick and then the points right so the kelly and cat test is a media litmus test designed to determine whether a piece of media has provided the audience with thoughtful representation of fat black women and or non-men black is in bracket so like i said you know does include other women right this test is named after kelly kelly prunny of insecure and kat hernandez of euphoria both of whom were subject to fat phobic treatment on their respective shows fat phobia is an aversion hostility or disdain for fatness or fat people so skipping down you know to the criteria like i said the least

something get zero most something get 12 points right so number one the character will be immediately disqualified if they're merely a skinny or thin actor in a fat suit like we don't even have to like zero done we don't even have to go into it. And then, you know, since we're using Gina, we'll take her through tests, right? So must have their own character arc. Got it. Must not be included in the narrative to merely support a skinny and or light-skinned person's character arc.

Nope. Got it. Good. Therefore, must not be referred to as big-boned, voluptuous, curvy, fluffy, husky, plus sized or thick at any point of the narrative. I don't think she was referred to as that. So I think she still passes. I do think I remember like big bone being thrown around.

I'm not entirely sure. I have to go back and like really listen closely. Other characters size is commented on by different people, but i don't know if any of it's specifically directed although the kid willie says something like you're thick or something i don't know if that counts patriarchy the child so then we'll be like yeah god damn it patriarchy the child well yeah technically yeah that would be an end so we're you know back down to two and the point of that too because i know people two and the point of that too because i know people will ask the point of that too is to make you know fat is not a dirty word

it's been made a word because of people's phobia but you know fat is a neutral descriptor it's like saying short skinny whatever it's just people's own biases have been attached to it absolutely so then we have must not easily be dismissed as a common fat phobic and or colorist trope like we mentioned with the cat test gina doesn't really have that issue because she's like a three-dimensional being you know i do want to make it clear that tropes are not inherently bad but if your character literally is like four tropes in a trench coat then you got some problems like period but you definitely are not a great writer like where's the character yeah yeah like what are we doing

so now next one six um should have at least one romantic interest if it is relevant to the piece of media's overall narrative so bam for joe's hot ass is there and you know like we commented on he is a nice little treat not the main course we love that for her a lot of movies that do afford a fat character a love interest they are paired with another fat person as if to say oh only fat people would be attracted to other fat people and never any other combination and the joe character is a muscular thin man who is very attracted to queen latifah and it was a refreshing thing to see yeah and i want to add in here that sydney particularly wanted to make sure that it should be noted that you know since, since we're thinking about, like, being sex-inclusive and gender-inclusive, right,

there are people that aren't interested in romance, or they're asexual, and we want to leave space for that. But, you know, we also put an asterisk, like, being like, you know, but you have to be careful with that, because, again, you might fall into that territory of Black tropes, where we're talking about like the mammy or someone else some other female character who's here sexless right so it's a really delicate like dance now if you're a good writer you should be fine but as we know it's a lot of bad writers out

there so yeah so next let's have at least one interaction with you know the fat person i would say every woman in that film has you know various body shapes so she does at some point interact with them you know there's octavia spencer um i would even add the radio host you know and it's not a thing where it's like oh my god look they're interacting it's just very normal normalized yeah she talks to sherry shepherd yeah again bonus point if they're not related which they aren't you know they're kicking it but they're not related which they aren't you know they're kicking it but they're not related so then we have eight

must not be subject to fetishization so that's a little difficult with JJ being there unfortunately so we can't give Sheena this point it's not her fault it's not her fault but you know he there if we were to subtract him she would have been fine

because like i said it's not okay it's not all that for her to literally focus on her very important goal of being like you know a businesswoman right so there's that nine must show no hyper fixations when it comes to food and or exercise. This one was very important to me and Sid because there's a lot of media out there. If a fat woman gets lucky enough to lead a show or film, there's some big marathon she's training for. She on some guy. Yes, yes.

Yes, it's really bad. There's some big... There's whole movies about that. Oh my God. Yeah, it even happened to Kelly at one point where she was trying to train for something yes yes it's really bad like there's some big there's whole movies about that oh my god it even happened to kelly at one point where she was like trying to train for something and i was like do y'all see how fucked up is it like we am i the only one who sees this i'm the only one okay but yeah no we were very much sick of that i was like i don't want to hear nothing about no fucking marathon no exercise no gym dinner there's no gym that i don't want to hear nothing about no fucking marathon, no exercise, no gym. There's no gym that I don't want to hear about. No fucking food.

Just be normal person. Yeah. Now, obviously, you know, life's complex. And, you know, people can also deal with some things like, you know, when it comes to food. Right. But like a lot of times that's not what they're talking about. A lot of these riders are just going straight to like gluttonous terror you know very like the tropes the stereotypes yeah yeah territory and i'm like but so you just not you're not really serious yeah you gave this no thought you just took what you already think you know and then put it in the movie and again it feels like the sort of situation where if the nuance is there you can feel it and it is most often not not there yeah so there's that so obviously gina is not once again not concerned with that shit no

just don't run her business so she good there 10 must have access to adequate styling even though we all feel ways about early 2000s fashion. For the time, she looked good. Yes. In the context of 2005, she looked great. And we just have to remember that it was a moment in time. Yeah. You know, for the time period, she was in the fashions. Yeah.

Now I've been like, girl, what do you have on? But yeah. Currently, currently I mean not currently at the time great right so she was fine let's have at least one supportive parent slash parental figure she did actually she was a little hard on Darnell or whatever

for obvious reasons too because Darnell did need to get her shit together I'm like why are you running around with these no good motherfuckers like girl get it together but you know yeah she did have a supportive uh parent slash parental figure i forget her name but you know paulette i want to say yeah her mother-in-law right yes yeah so really just encouraging her to keep pursuing her dreams despite the obvious and you know systemic obstacles that were placed in front of her right for sure yeah um so yeah passes so we got the last one which must have at least five to ten minutes of dialogue in the standard 30 minute episode 10 to 15 minutes of dialogue

in the standard 60 minute episode and at least the fourth of the total runtime of film i remember people asked first of all obviously she passes right but um yeah people usually ask me about that and and said too and they're like why did you feel the need to include that particular because very specific right the cat test doesn't mention no runtimes or dialogues or things like that right um but for here it was important because, mainly because of Kat. In the first season, Euphoria, she has her own very rich, if not mildly disturbing arc, you know. Keep it 100, because it was mildly disturbing, but I was like, you know. But it was an arc.

Yes, fat people don't have to be perfect, angelic characters. We'd be doing some fucked up shit too, right? So, very, very strong very strong obvious rich arc and we get to season two and if she gets to talk for two minutes in an episode it's a big deal like that's how sharp and ugly the drop-off was you know there are rumors that you know sam was beefing with her behind the scenes right obviously i try to respect her because you know it's complex with actors and these really weird producers and showrunners and directors and you know they still got work so i respect them not really if they don't want to put their business on front street i respect

that but you know it's very clear that some fuck shit was going on because it impacted how often she showed up and how long she showed up um she had no discernible arc that whole season no discernible arc at all it was very jarring because like when she was one of the my like favorite reasons for the first season like i would tune in like okay what's cat doing is she being the anti-fat friend again i love that for me like i remember part in the show where you know maddie you know her thinner friend calls her to bench and cat is just like basically like bitch i don't have time for this and i was like finally a bad fat friend I've waited so long for this. And finally, I got it.

Yes. Terrible. Love that for her. Selfie. Please. More. Yeah. But that's where that last one comes from.

Like the very sharp, ugly decline of her screen presence. So obviously here, Jada passes the fine colors because she is the main character. There are other characters, you know, tertiary, secondary, but she's the main character. So she passes. So let's count it up. Let's count it up. Drum roll, drum roll. Nine, ten.

So we got ten. Ten out of twelve. Ten out of twelve. Very nice. A hearty pass. Right. Pretty good. So obviously we got again 0 to 12 so um 0 to 1 is um reprehensible we're like reprehensible get this shit off my screen like what so then we got 2 to 4 we call laughable because you know an attempt was made was it a good one not really is there hope for you maybe i don't know you gotta ask then we got five to seven we called it passable we're like

hey this guy has some good bones you're not like a hundred percent terrible you do need to work on yourself you need to have a come to use moment about your biceps about that people like yeah then we have eight to ten which is you know where um you shop would fall it's um credible you did a lot of work um it looks good you know there are just some some minor points you couldn't get it over unfortunately and like we talked about in this movie technically gina the character is not at fault for the lost points. It's like other people around her that get abducted. And that's sometimes how life is.

Like, you do everything right, and somebody come along and kind of, like, give up. True. So, yeah, but good. She's good. Like, the film was good, and then, obviously, we have 11 to 12, which highest, which we call marvelous.

Like, perfect 10 out of 10 no notes i don't know if there is a movie out there that could score 12 i would really have to get with sit and be like do we think there's something out there that can do it i don't know i think the highest we will to me get if we look at i guess currently existing media would probably be like the the 10 maybe maybe 11 maybe on a good day i don't know if we'll ever see a 12 but i could be wrong i feel like this movie would have gotten a 12 were it not for the little jj character i know we really we're coming down hard on him, but look. But look, he made some choices.

He was holding us back. We lost the points! Well, that I think brings us to our nipple scale, a metric of our very own that is, you know, really prestigious and really well thought out

and carefully named and all that important stuff. But we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. So even though we've talked about some of the pretty dated things that the movie does here and there, considering it fares so well on both of your tests clarkisha i'm inclined to give it like a four four nipples i'll dock it for the stuff that we talked about such as like the lack of critical thinking when it came to lynn's arc and like how she ultimately is represented in the movie and a few other things like that. But at the end of the day, this is a movie about a Black woman getting out from under the

like oppressive force that is her white boss and opening up her own shop and having her own autonomy and financial independence and employing mostly Black women and having camaraderie with them and being a really good boss and a good mother and just a good friend all around. And it's stuff that we so seldom see in mainstream movies. So it was very refreshing to see all of that. So I'm going to land on four nipples and I'll split them between Queen Latifah. I'll give one to Sherry Shepherd because I enjoy her very much. I will give one to Alfre Woodard, of course. And you know what?

Golden Brooks gets my last one. Oh, yeah. I'll go for I want to go four and a half because it's so much fun uh i don't know i don't know i'm gonna go 4.25 just to be in an argument with myself for no reason but no i think this movie is so the fact that i mean building on what we've been talking about and what you just said caitlin the fact that this movie tackles so much and it is still a comedy. It is like it addresses a lot of systemic racism. It addresses misogyny and misogynoir specifically. And it is still very much a comedy. And it's an ensemble. It's just

like all of these things that I miss in movies so much and is a really good case study for how much a comedy is equipped to handle like and i think that there's we're just sort of starting to get back to movies like that and i really really hope we keep getting them especially movies like this that we have a nearly all a cast of all black women and it's just i don't know i feel like sometimes you hear critics talk like this is not possible and it's like well but but it happened almost 20 years ago and it happened before it's happened since like i would love movies like beauty shop to be really and fully back you know docking the movie like we've talked about for the uh

regressive stereotypes are of time, mostly docking for the homophobia and a little bit of the body politics that this movie has. But it is kind of like it just speaks to like the power of Queen Latifah that none of these stereotypes touch her. They sometimes touch other characters, but Queen Latifah is just like, she is such a star, like she produces her own work. I also want to hand it to this movie for having a pretty diverse team behind the camera, which we don't often have. We have a black director, we have, you know, the Kate Lanier of it all. You can listen to our Set It Off episode for more on that. But Norman's a Vance Jr., still a very successful working TV writer today. You know, I think that it would have been meaningful and would make a lot of sense for this movie to have had a Black woman in a directorial role because we still so rarely have that, especially, you know, movies with big budgets or, you know, this movie had $25 million budget, big for a comedy of the time but there's just so much to

love about this movie it made me excited to watch it again next time it's such a comfort movie and yeah so I'm gonna go 4.25 nipples I might just go for I don'tifah. I'm going to give one to Alfre Woodard, one to Vanessa because I really loved her and it's so hard to have a child prodigy not make me deeply annoyed. So good for her. She was really playing that piano. They weren't faking it.

She was really playing. I know. There was no cut back to like clearly adult arms or like james cameron's hands uh drawing uh anyway had to get it in there had to get another titanic reference in there yeah sorry and then the rest goes to sherry shepherd and the fictional little greg uh she was carrying oh yes of course clarkisha what would you uh rate this movie i'll definitely give it like 4.5 you know i usually great either like a whole or half i'm that type of credit terrible then i'll really be petty i'll be like it was a 0.182 like i'll just be making up like

decibels because i hate your movie yeah but yeah so definitely 4.5 i would say the half would go to the radio um i keep telling but i was like thank you oh yeah because i appreciate her i appreciate when people in powerful positions pull people on because that was that's what we're supposed to do tony morris's birthday was just yesterday love her down some of my favorite authors and she has this quote and obviously i'm paraphrasing but in the quote she basically talks about you know when you get to these fancy jobs get to these positions you always manifested or prayed for you need to make sure you hold the door open for somebody else or you set someone else up or you put someone

else on otherwise if you know what this is for so i love that helen did that she was like hey she did me solid i'm gonna return the favor um now obviously she she's not in most of the movie just those small parts but you know she changes gina's life by doing that so i'm like you get the 25 girl definitely giving one to gina she's a superstar so i would give the second one to i would say alfre woodward's character too um i just love when she puts out into the you know the phenomenal woman um that's i think it's like three different times it's great yes um i love that for her i would give it to once again vanessa she's so fun she's also so like quick very witty like when she puts um jj in this place is very like oh bam and they didn't linger she's like hey i don't really fuck

with you you're not a good right and then she just watched it's not this big like moment of like look hey i'm rejecting patriarchy the kid like but no she's just like hey i've seen how you interact with other people i don't like you yeah i've got a parent trap to take care of over here i don't have time so that'll be three so the last one i'm gonna lean sherry i'm gonna lean sherry you know she does a lot but you know i do love that you know she's this pregnant woman who's very like sex positive very fucking funny and then her names that she wants to name her children is just fucking ridiculous

but you just gotta go along with it cause that's her right I wouldn't give it to Goldie but like her character is very grating in terms of like some of the you know regressive politics that we talked about on the show and even though I don't like Mina Savari in this movie like her hyper fixation on her titties is very weird to me because i'm just like listen they look good like fuck her but they look like one in a hand mirror in one shot

for the time right because we know how some of those some bad some how bad some of those can go wrong yeah yeah you know little plush there's a whole thing around them i'm sure y'all remember Some of those, some bad, some, how bad, some of those surgeries. They can go wrong. Yes. Yeah. You know, the little botched, there's a whole thing around that. I'm sure y'all remember. But yeah, definitely give it to Sherry. She's so funny. And she's so sweet. There's a fun little anecdote. I was watching a couple of videos where Queen Latifah and Sherry Shepard are talking either

on a Queen Latifah show or on Sherry Shepard. So but anyway, they're recounting this story about how Sherry was doing a scene that the producers wanted to cut, because they deemed it too silly. And it was a scene between her and Alfre Woodard. And she's like, well, Alfre Woodard isn't silly. I'm the silly one. So clearly, like, it's me and my performance that they don't like. And then so she was like feeling really bad about it and, you know, didn't want the scene to be cut, but it wasn't up to her. And then Queen Latifah like knocks on her trailer door to be like, do you do the scene the way you want to do it? Like, don't suppress any silliness. Like, be the performer you want to be.

And I'll fight for this scene to stay in the movie and they did and it worked out and Sherry Shepard was forever grateful about it I don't know specifically what scene they were talking about but yeah I'm not totally sure it's a comedy there's no such thing right exactly I'm like why wouldn't you leave a silly scene in a comedy? But anyway, so yeah, it was just like this moment of Queen Latifah lifting her up and, and supporting her creative vision. And it was really sweet. Love it. And that's the power of being a producer too, is you can advocate for your co-stars in a way that the other producers aren't going to do. True. Yeah. Well, Clarkisha, thank you so much for joining us. It was such a treat. This was so fun. Come back anytime for any movie.

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Where can people check out your work, your writing, follow you on social media, et cetera? Read your book. Oh, thank you. So my book, Fat Off Fat On, A Big Bitch Manifesto, out. Obviously, I prefer you buy from the feminist press website, which is who published it. You know, you can get it at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books A Million. You can get it mostly anywhere. Also, support your local library. If you're in a position where you can't buy my book, that is okay. Girl, I get it we end up a super recession all right but make sure you support your local library because they will have it whether it's the hard copy or a e-book or they

have like the audiobooks i did do that too they will have it support your local library get a library card make sure they don't get shut down it is one of our final third spaces people keep complaining about third spaces disappearing that's one yeah and she needs y'all's help she's you know her last leg especially in new york yes so there's that yeah there's also you can find me on you know twitter which is twitter i'm not gonna ever call x no but um so twitter i'm still, you know, at IRLday underscore. I go back and forth if I'm going to keep the account. So we're going to see. It really depends.

You know, Instagram at Clarkisha Kent. And then I'm on Hive Social, too. I haven't been there in a little bit. But yeah, I'm on there also as Clarkisha Kent. My website is currently down for construction right now because I got to move some stuff around. But you usually can find me there as well. www.clarkishacamp.com amazing thank you so much for joining us today this has like truly been years in the making we're really happy you're here yes you can find us all over the place uh twitter instagram at bechtel cast you can follow our patreon aka Matreon $5 a month gets you two bonus episodes a month and access

to over 150 episodes of Back Catalog. Gasp. You can also go to our Linktree Linktree slash Bechtelcast where you will find tickets to oh I don't know an upcoming tour we're doing in the UK

and it's not just any tour it's the shrek-tanic tour where we are covering either titanic or shrek the most important movies of our age and you can get those tickets and we'll see you there and then our merch is at tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast and uh with, should we all go to the beauty shop and get our hair done? Let's do it. Okay. Bye. The Bechdel cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky.

Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus. And a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. thing like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast,

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