The Bechdel Cast - Beyond the Lights with Maya Williams

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Maya Williams take a break from the flashing lights and paparazzi to discuss Beyond the Lights. Follow Maya at @emmdubb16 on IG and Twitter, visit eir website at https://www.mayawilliamspoet.com, and buy their new book, Refused a Second Date, at https://www.smallharborpublishing.com/books/refused-a-second-date  We're doing live shows in early February in San Francisco, Sacramento, Dallas, Austin, and San Diego! Grab tickets at linktr.ee/bechdelcast!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. Curious about queer sexuality,

cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast or wherever you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Boyfriends and husbands, do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Caitlin, you've got second place in the singing contest. No. No, you're happy about it.

Oh, yay. Now smash your trophy. You're not a champion. No. That's the part I'm not happy about. Mini driver as bully mother. You hate to see it. I think that was a strong intro.

It did go, as it tends to do, it went a little Australian at the end. But that's okay. This is a safe place. Because one guy toldlin they had a good australian accent and i chose to also take that as applying to me yeah of course of course we are a unit we are one we are a unit look at that unit uh and that unit is called the Bechdel cast. And I'm Caitlin Durante. And I'm Jamie Loftus, the other half of the unit. And yes, this is our podcast where we take a look at your favorite movies

using an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion. But wait a second, Caitlin. What's the Bechdel test? Is it a mini driver yelling at her daughter to smash a trophy? Because spoiler alert, yes, it is. It does pass. Yeah. So the Bechdel test, commonly known as the Bechdel-Wallace test, because Alison Bechdel created it in collaboration with her friend Liz Wallace. It first appeared in

Alison Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch Out For. And it's a media metric that has many versions. The one that we use is this. Do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? Is that conversation about something other than a man. And a little caveat that we add is, is the conversation narratively important in some way? Or is it just throwaway dialogue? Because ideally, it's a nice juicy conversation. It's got to have the juice. Yeah. And today we are covering a director we've covered many, and by many I think I mean two, possibly three. Well, Love and Basketball. Yes, and The Woman King.

The Woman King, right. So this is three. This is three. Little does this director know that she's about to get her Bechdel cast Letterman jacket, which is a third appearance honor. We are covering Beyond the Lights today, a 2014 movie directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. And we have an amazing returning guest. It's true. They are a religious black multiracial non-binary suicide survivor who is currently the seventh poet laureate of Portland, Maine. I said Maine. Maine.

That's not the name of the state. Their debut poetry collection, Judas and Suicide, was selected as a finalist for the New England Book Award. They also have a second poetry collection, Refused a Second Date. They recently published essays in venues such as LGBTQ Nation, Stylist, and Full Stop, as well as interviews in Black Girl Nerds. Maya was one of three artists of color selected to represent Maine in the Kennedy Center's Arts Across America series in 2020. And they were also selected as one of the advocates champions of pride in 2022

you can follow her at mayawilliamspoet.com it's maya williams welcome back i'm sorry it's not dear evan hansen but also i'm not sorry that it's okay honestly i think that there's a few people out there breathing a sigh of relief that they have escaped the clutches of evan hansen this time just this time maya will be back and and you will experience the majesty of evan hansen god i really wish we could all watch that movie together i i've never seen it so I don't even know what people are talking about when they talk about it. Or like, I obviously know what the, I know it's a movie, but I don't know why people talk about it. There's so many ways to watch that movie.

There's just a lot. Every watch a poem. But no, today we were talking about Beyond the Lights. Maya, what is your history and connection with this movie with the filmmaker, you know, dealer's choice? and I was obsessed with it at the time because I was like, oh my God, biracial representation. Oh my God, mental health. And then come to adulthood of like, oh, I don't like how she's in love with a cop. We'll get into that.

And yeah, very familiar with this director's work. I got to cover The Secret Life of Bees on the Black Girl Film Podcast. And that was a real joy and a real treat. That movie is really good. Has its flaws like any other movie. But yeah, enjoyed that. And yeah, I watched this movie twice in preparation for this. And I couldn't find a commentary to like delve into so I just spent a lot of my time just reading interviews and watching like featurette interviews so so

no commentary tidbits from me today but it'll still be damn I really I that's like of the many things that we've lost in uh the like lack of physical media And I feel like I have to keep saying like, I need to issue a formal apology to all of my friends and lovers who I roasted for having too many DVDs at their house, including Caitlin, because you were all right. You were all right. I was wrong. I accept your apology.

I think I'm really big. But I feel like one of the many things we've lost is the art of the commentary track. They just don't happen. It's embarrassing. I mean, we do get, you know, we've gained letterboxed interviews. We've gained roundtables, but we've lost the commentary. I just feel like we got to bring it back. What was the Ben Affleck commentary that was hilarious?

Was it for Armageddon? It was for for i think it was for armageddon yeah where he was just and then there's also a really good one yeah where he's just like roasting specifically from a science perspective which is just like i don't know sometimes i'm reminded that like ben Affleck is like a pretty smart person and it kind of like rattles it rattles me every time I relearn that whereas sometimes you really you hear him speaking fluent Spanish you're like wow Ben Affleck is objectively smarter than me that's wild I mean this isn't passing the Bechdel test whatsoever no but do you remember when he had a uh that cardboard cutout of Ana de Armas on his lawn when they were dating oh my gosh no I feel like that passed out of the cultural memory way too fast first of all that they did date it was like a

pandemic relationship yeah and that like I guess that his kids liked her which is great but that like led to for some reason there was a time during lockdown where there was a cardboard cutout of Ana de Armas on the lawn that the kids were like playing with that's weird I feel like I'm remembering that basically correctly no I I believe you okay well anyway what's your history with beyond the lights caitlin um i had not seen it before so this was my first watch and yeah that's kind of it i think there are some interesting things about it that i enjoyed and then there's other things that I didn't enjoy so much and we'll dive into that further yeah um but yeah short history with it what about you Jamie yeah I also had not uh this movie was not on my radar which is I thought was kind of bizarre because I'm like

a fan of Gina Prince Bythewood I just I don't know I don't know if like I'm sure a fan of Gina Prince-Bythewood. I just, I don't know. I don't know if like, I'm sure I heard about it when it came out, but this movie just missed me. I'm not really sure what happened. It was successful and it was well reviewed. So I guess, I don't know, 2014, I was, I guess I was like working at a bakery. I don't know. I was at a bakery. It missed me.

Well, it was well reviewed, but it only made like 14 million at the box office so it's not as though a lot of people went and saw this and that this was like a super popular movie right but it's like i guess all i was saying was like it's it wasn't like a flop by any means but yeah i i uh this one missed uh missed me i had a fun time based on the very vague title figuring out what what genre it was, which actually does speak to what a prolific and what's the word I'm looking for? Like when you hear that Gina Prince-Bythewood has directed a movie, you know you're probably going to like it, but she directs across so many genres that I was like, I don't really

know what to expect from this. And it surprised me. I'm excited to talk about it because I think that there's a lot of stuff about it that stands out in a way that I really liked. The propaganda kind of took me by surprise. And like how specific the propaganda got. We were like, you know how the LAPD is really good at handling domestic violence situations and you're like hold on no wait a second but there's a lot of things to like about

this movie and also I just feel like I don't know like the 2014-ness of this movie because of like what a pop culture focused movie it is was fun you were like for some reason for some reason Don Lemon participates in the climax of this movie Don Lemon is at the peak of the movie I was like live texting the movie to someone else I was like you're never gonna believe who makes a cameo at the emotional climax of the movie it is Don Lemon uh there's a lot of people in this movie who have since been disgraced it just was very 2014 in a lot of ways uh Don Lemon's at the climax of the I just like Don Lemon spoke at my college graduation it just was really taking me back to like college era yeah my college graduation the two people who spoke were Don Lemon and Jay Leno. Deeply cursed event.

But I would love to know what those two people talked about backstage. Anyways, this movie is weird. I think this movie is weird. I didn't love it, but I think that there's a lot to like about it. And I'm excited to talk about it. Well, shall we do that? Let's shall do that. Let's take a quick break first and then we'll come back for the recap

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. 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. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition.

It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask.

Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. 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 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. And we're back. Okay, so before the recap, I will place a content warning for suicide, sexual assault, and domestic violence. so the story opens in south london in 1998 we meet noni jean she's mixed she is black and white

and her white mom macy played by mini driver jump scare did not see mini driver coming no she takes noni to a black owned hair salon because noni is performing in a talent contest the following day and macy doesn't know how to style black hair while a radio recording about princess diana plays in the background yeah god i love there should be because in general this movie is like not i just i think there should be like a good super cut of like clunky historical signifier moments. Because that's one where you're like, oh, is it 1997? I feel like there's so many movies that they're also like randomly apropos of nothing. They're like, are you afraid of Y2K?

Just to let you know like what it is. Anyways. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So then we see Noni at the talent contest. She does an amazing job singing Blackbird by Nina Simone. And she gets first runner up.

But her mom is furious that the judges picked another girl as the winner. Which, yeah, well, the scene that Minnie driver through was embarrassing and unfair. Giving it to, I think her name was Little Tammy. She was robbed. Yeah. She was robbed. Oh, yeah. Robbed by a bunch of white girls and, like, very shiny clothes.

And, like, which, of course, becomes very telling as to the trajectory for Noni. But, like, yeah, we can get into that some more later. Right. The point is, though, that Macy puts a lot of pressure on noni to be a winner to be the best we cut to noni as an adult she's played by gugu mbatha-ra she is now a hip-hop artist uh like a breakout like on the cusp of being like an enormous record-breaking star we see a very horny music video of hers. Which also is like so, I was like, oh, 2014. Scary. She wins her first Billboard Award for a song

she performed with her boyfriend, Kid Culprit. And also there's a 100 chance i will accidentally call him kid cuddy it's just gonna happen there well and also it's like it's also mgk which is another jump scare that you're just like okay midi driver i can accept that i like mini but then mgk and it's like 2014 mgk and he's clearly trying to like soft launch a movie career it's like 2014 MGK. And he's clearly trying to like soft launch a movie career. It's just like, what is happening? Wow. Here's my little anecdote about that is that when I saw him in this movie, I did not recognize

him because I don't know what Machine Gun Kelly looks like or who that even really is. I recognize the name. But then when I was like looking through the credits on IMDb, I was like, wait, what? Machine Gun Kelly? I know that name. Who is that person? And then I realized he plays Kid Culprit

and I'm like, oh. So he's, outside of like making a lot of bad music, he is most, I think most famous for being in a really kind of intense public relationship with Megan Fox. Okay. My brush with Machine Gun Kelly most famous for being in a really kind of intense public relationship with uh megan fox okay that's my brush with machine gun kelly was when i was working at a haunted hayride and he and megan fox took like a huge like like not a limo but like a big like uber triple like a really nice car to the hayride and paid like 300 to get the vip experience oh my gosh i was like doing my

little scary thing and then uh and then a tractor like a hayride tractor full of only michelle megan fox of machine gun kelly passed and they didn't get scared because it wasn't scary whoa i guess you should have done a better job jamie it was really humbling and seeing machine gun kelly kind of brings me to a dark place sorry well anyway he's in the movie playing kid cuddy or something um okay so noni's first album is dropping in a few weeks and again she's like on the precipice of like extreme. She's already famous, but she's like about to be a huge, huge star. Her mom, Macy, is there and she's still very, very intense. And she is now Noni's manager. That night, Noni goes into her hotel room in Beverly Hills. She's sitting on the railing of a balcony, and she attempts suicide. But a cop named Officer

Kaz Nickel, played by Nate Parker, saves her. And they have this moment where they look at each other meaningfully. And then in the aftermath of this suicide attempt more cops have shown up including kaz's dad who is the police captain played by danny glover jump scare danny glover of saw one fame that is as we're always saying his most iconic role most famous for being like who is jigsaw people people are just like danny glover oh of saw one saw one yeah he doesn't make it to saw two unfortunately i would love if they i mean there's been 10 at this point bring him back for 11 right the cannon's a mess you like you won't be disturbing any and and you know jigsaw would love to see him oh tell me about it yeah anyways daddy glover's in this movie yes and he's telling his son officer kaz to lie about what

happened who's and also kaz i'm not mistaken in saying that kaz says it's short for kazam that's correct yeah i was looking through the letterboxd also follow me on letterboxd i just started an account uh it's jamie alert but i was looking through letterboxd to see if anyone makes note of the fact that our romantic lead is named Kazam, which is a joke that only appears once. I think that like it comes back one more time where she's like, wow, Kazam, you sure know how to kiss. And it was like, his name's Kazam. His name is Kazam.

He says that he was named that because his parents thought it sounded African. Yeah. And then we just breeze past the rest of all of that right and then you're like okay well he is too old to be named after the genie that shack played so i guess that that is out right but that would be wild in my head he was named after shack gen Genie. Oh, wow. Remember that? Remember that? I do.

And you know what? It's high time we cover that movie. Oh, my goodness. It's honestly kind of shocking that we haven't covered Kazam. I cannot tell you a thing that happened in that movie, but I know that I was really into it. I saw it at a drive-in movie theater, and I also couldn't tell you a single thing, but... Definitely Shaq's name is Kazam in that movie. Yeah.

So there are two movie characters named Kazam. But isn't there that Mandela effect thing where people are like, wasn't his character's name Shazam? Oh, is that a thing? Oh my gosh. Is that it? I think so. Does that sound familiar?

I'm not familiar with that. Hang on. I have to look this up. This is important. This is a good episode already. We're like Anna de Armas cardboard cutout. Kazam. Although, oh no, wait, it's not Shaq.

It's Sinbad? Wait, hang on. It was Sinbad? It's definitely Shaq. It's definitely Shaq. Yeah, I thought it was Shaq. It's Sinbad? Wait. Hang on. It was Sinbad? No, it's definitely Shaq. It's definitely Shaq. Yeah, I thought it was Shaq. Is Sinbad Shazam and Shaq is cousin? Maybe.

Wait. Oh, there we go. What? No, Shazam is that superhero movie from DC. Oh. What am I thinking? There's some, I swear to goodness, there's some Mandela Effect thing here. I believe something about like Mandela Effect Sinbad rings a vague bell.

Yeah. Right? Okay. Okay. Anyway, let's move along. Okay, so Officer Danny Glover is telling Kaz. I just found a Reddit post from seven years ago on r slash Mandela effect titled the Sinbad Genie movie. So you are correct. Let's see.

Okay. Even the people involved like Sinbad himself claim there is no such thing. But everyone I talked to remembers it in some fashion if they're old enough to hit the demographic. So this is someone who is convinced there is a Sinbad Genie movie. I also, okay, I knew it. There's, we all remember if we're old enough. Well, I'm going to text it to you. I'm going to, just so we can link it in the description.

This feels relevant. Yeah, it does. All right. All right. Anyway, sorry, the movie. Gina Prince-Bythewood set herself up for this by naming her romantic lead Kazam. She did. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So Officer Danny Glover is telling Kaz to lie about what happened, that Noni had too much to drink and she slipped on accident in order to kind of like protect her image. Titanic vibes, big time. Okay. kind of like protect her image titanic vibes big time okay and i slipped and i would have gone overboard if mr kazam here hadn't saved me and almost went over himself okay the titanic parallels in this movie and i don't okay i don't want to make light of suicide or suicidal ideation but

specifically around this plot point there are so many titanic parallels that i will insist on saying yes okay okay anyway okay so kaz is like no i don't want to lie about this like she should be in the hospital she needs help but he is pressured to go ahead with this lie at a press conference and so now he's very disappointed in Noni and like this situation, this fabrication. And despite what was claimed at this press conference, the media, the fans, everyone is still speculating that it was a suicide attempt. And because of the sex symbol image that the music industry has cultivated for Noni, a suicide attempt, quote unquote, tarnishes that image. So the record label wants to push her album

release back, but Macy negotiates with the label to keep it as is. So now there's even more pressure on Noni to get people to forget about this story that's still circulating around the news. Meanwhile, Kaz is receiving a lot of attention since he was the person who saved Noni. And he has public exposure now for speaking at that press conference. And he is being encouraged to leverage this and use it to elevate himself as a political candidate because he has aspirations as a politician. He then goes to pay a visit to Noni to apologize for how he behaved after the press conference. And they're vibing again. And she she's like let's get out of here so they run away from her mom and all the paparazzi and they go to get some food and they watch some

planes take off at lax you know really a fun activity i think we can all agree it was something that made me laugh because they're i mean this movie and I say this with love. There's a lot of moments that are very corny. For sure. One of these moments is when they're in the car and Officer Kazam is like, you're cold. You should wear my jacket. And I was like, or turn the heat on in the car. What the fuck are you talking about? I thought they were watching this and he said the same thing.

He was like, turn the heat and if i was yeah if i was noting i'd be like uh no i don't need your crusty jacket can you please yeah gross i wonder because throughout the movie he's like well we'll get there but he's very judgy about different yes things yes and i wonder if it was him kind of implying you're showing too much skin in that revealing outfit like let me cover you up it's so like i don't know this is another movie that it's wild it's almost 10 years old and you can like feel in a good way how like the way that characters are written even in this director's movie specifically it has like significantly evolved for sure in any case they're at the airport and they're vibing until she finds a business card of a tabloid journalist who was offering kaz money for the exclusive story on

what really happened that night at the balcony and And so Noni assumes his intentions aren't great. He doesn't like what she's implying. So now things are pretty tense between them. And he drops her off at the house she recently bought in Beverly Hills question mark. And he's like, okay, bye. And she's like, actually, wait, I do trust you and let's kiss so they do and then he leaves and goes home and his dad danny glover is like be careful you're trying to be a politician but she's not first lady material yeah like and so as a professional cop like you're more so concerned for your son's political image than the fact that your son a fellow police officer is dating someone who he saved like that's that what it's really bizarre yeah i mean and i i had to keep challenging i'm like is am i like bringing 2024 brain to the way that the media cycles work

or is it like written a little behind the time it came out and i'm not totally sure because yeah i'm like in my mind if that happens any establishment person which his dad is would be like great go with this like you know i don't know people love when pop stars date cops unless they're young it would Do you remember when Lana Del Rey dated a cop? That didn't go very well. She really lost some people on that one. But it's like that. Maybe it's like we weren't at that point in discourse yet where your young fans, if they found out you were dating a cop, would be like, oh, not really into this era.

In 2014, cops were perceived more favorably by like the general public which is why i have so many questions about the ethical dilemma around around that it's like yeah it seems like a win-win i don't know this movie is like attempting to say things about pr relationships that i think is interesting but i was a little confused on like where it landed. Right. Anyway, so Danny Glover is like, you shouldn't be hanging out with her. It's bad for your career. But Noni and Kaz keep seeing each other anyway. There's a montage where she's doing different like, you know, learning dance choreography and like doing a make a wish thing and photo shoots. And he's there every step of the way. But like we foreshadowed, he's being like pretty judgy about quite a bit of it in a way that whatever, we'll get there. But he's like, wow, the lyrics to your songs also are like,

and she's like, yeah, I wish I could write songs with more meaningful lyrics. And he's like, okay, do it. And she's like, look at my box full of basically, like, I wish I could write songs with more meaningful lyrics. And he's like, okay, do it. And she's like, look at my box full of basically like just little handwritten notes of lyrics that have come to her, which honestly sharing that with anyone else. Brave. I would not. Yeah. Right. That's just me.

That would be like someone like looking through my joke notebook. God. Wouldn't be me. Wouldn't be sharing that. Yeah. I got to share a clean draft. Yeah. Of something.

If someone's interested in me. Seriously. That may be a little sad. Cause yeah, I was like, wow. Like Nody is, is really like needing connection with someone so much that she'll like

take a risk and show something that vulnerable with like objectively at this point in the movie, some guy. Yeah. Right. and then also kaz is like what about kid culprit and she's like yeah he's kind of my boyfriend and he's like okay what about us so then noni breaks up with kid culprit and he seems very chill about it and they still have a working relationship he he does say a phrase you use the press don't let the press use you right yeah so that's for like a later scene but at the same time like yeah the the later scene still it confuses me and that it doesn't confuse me but we'll but i know we keep saying we'll get to that it's there's so much like there's so there's so much

yeah yeah um anyway that will kind of come to a head in a moment but first noni does a sexy little surprise for kaz by blindfolding him and taking him on a private jet because he's never been on a plane before i was weirdly like not comfortable with her behavior because he panicked he's like let me off the let me off the plane and she's like no no babe i'm like yes babe and then she like is ignoring all of his like very obvious signals that he's very uncomfortable and then has sex with him yeah it's a consent issue and it's a like basic human safety issue i was really grossed out by that i can't believe i'm defending officer kazam in this but like let him off the plane absolutely let him off the plane yeah sure yeah um and then nani does a

live performance backstage though her mom macy is like hey kaz you're not good for my daughter because every time people see you together they see her on that balcony you know who's better for her is kid cuddy or whatever kid culprit i know that's how you know mini driver is a villain where she's like you know who'd be a great boyfriend for you machine gun kelly you're like no good parent would choose that for their child right meanwhile though on stage at this performance there's this situation where the choreography was supposed to be that she was going to remove her jacket during the performance she decides to keep it on kid culprit is then like trying to like forcibly remove it he's also becoming very violent and like rapey on stage

and then he takes the mic and he's just like you know hey everyone she didn't break up with me i broke up with her and that's why she tried to jump off the balcony it's really disgusting and then a fight breaks out between Kaz and kid culprit. So Danny Glover is disappointed in Kaz for jeopardizing his political career. Sounding like every black dad in the world. So you a thug now? And then Macy's also disappointed in Noni for reasons. I'm not even sure what is happening there. She calls her a bloody cliche and it sort of

goes back to like what she said earlier about like well listen brit britney spears and kanye west still have these stunts that they came out with albums like what makes noni any different and right anyway all this is getting to noni and she has a breakdown kaz comforts her and then he takes her on this like relaxing getaway to Mexico. Oh, and then we get a huge, like it's like a montage. It is like a five minute montage of them eating one food, getting one kiss.

You're just like, yeah, vibe. It's a vibes montage. They're on the beach you might even say she's going beyond the lights wow all of those flashing paparazzi photos all the lights camera action all the lights camera jackson remember him no but we have to keep going the movie was originally titled blackbird and then it got changed to beyond the lights yeah yes right which i i wonder what that what the reasoning was on that because i think blackbird makes way more sense uh it feels like more attuned to what the clear like to what the movie is and also she sings the song 50 times beyond the lights they don't say that once in the movie therefore how could it be the

title how could it be the title okay so they're doing all this stuff and then there's a scene where they sing karaoke and this is one of the times that Noni sings Blackbird, just like she did when she was a kid at the talent contest. But someone has recorded her singing this and they've posted it on the Internet. So Macy figures out where Noni is, as does the paparazzi. So they all kind of like crash her quiet getaway. And Noni and her mom seem to have a tender moment for once and then macy's like okay back to the grind and noni's like okay let's go but kaz is like no things are just gonna go back to the way they were which was like very toxic for you but he also sounds really judgy yeah yeah

he's shaming her he's judging her and he also like, I know what's best for you. And I'm like, surely the plot won't enforce this reality. But it does. Yeah. So, yeah, they like argue and then he breaks up with her. So Noni and Kaz return to L.A. but separately. And Noni, with this video of her singing Blackbirdbird fans are seeing this new side of her so she wants to record a new song for the upcoming album something that she writes because she's like

I have something to say and people seem to want to hear it and it seems like her mom advocates for her in a meeting with the label but it turns out that Macy was full of shit so Noni confronts Macy about how she controlled every aspect of Noni's life and career and how she turned her into this like sexy product to be sold and consumed and then Noni fires Macy as her manager. Oh, it is like, yeah, the also like 2014. I feel like it was a high for like momager representation. We had like the Kardashians approaching their peak. I was like, wow, interesting putting a momager character. Also very mid 2010s decision.

Firing the momager. Awesome. Yeah. decision firing the momager awesome yeah meanwhile kaz is gearing up to announce his candidacy as i think he's going to be running for city council person in la cool that's what we that's what we need another cop on city council yeah seriously noni approaches him to try to make up but he brushes her off saying that what they had started on a lie so it was never going to work and again it's just like oh right a fundamental part of officer kazam is that he values the truth i just i don't know yeah because politicians are famously obsessed with telling the truth right the lapd

really gets away with a lot in this movie the famously honest lapd right okay so then noni goes on tv her label wants her to dispel the myth that she attempted suicide once and for all but instead she tells the truth she says that she was attempting suicide and she realized that she had to stop trying to be someone who she wasn't and now she's living her authentic life this is where the don lemon yes becomes integral to the to the plot right right kaz sees this interview and he's proud that she finally is telling the truth then noni does a concert in the uk where she performs a song that she wrote which pays homage to nina simone's blackbird and then kaz shows up and he's like, hey, I love you, by the way. And she's like, cool, I love you too.

And that's how the movie ends. So let's take a quick break and we will 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. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment.

Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos!

Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask.

Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. 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 iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back okay yeah i mean maya is there anywhere anywhere that jumps out to you for a starting point here? Oh, my God. No pressure. No, like, it's, like, so much, like. Yeah. And I do feel like we need to talk specifically about Nathan Parker because his personal life is relevant to the movie.

So, yeah, Nate Parker, if you don't remember, this was a huge point of discussion, I believe five-ish years ago now, was a prominent actor and filmmaker who had assaulted and raped a student while in college in the late 90s, early 2000s, and was found guilty in the early 2000s of having done this. As we see very often, this resulted in a small settlement for the survivor and a slap on the wrist for Nate Parker. Essentially, he moved schools and went on to

obviously thrive significantly. This story became I think it became a huge cultural talking point in 2019. Although the information was always available, but it became a cultural talking point post Me Too, essentially after he had been a working filmmaker for some time and it also came out i don't remember the exact timeline of this but it was found out when it became a discussion point that the person he had raped had taken their own life several years before in 2012 yeah in 20 yeah and like right uh maybe maybe i'm getting the timeline wrong and this was coming this was happening when his birth of a nation movie came out yeah birth when birth okay 2016 yeah okay so

it's actually a little bit ahead of the me too movement wow i can't believe it was that long ago god time but yes that that the woman he'd assaulted had taken her own life back in 2012. This did absolutely impact his career, but I feel like it has sort of fallen out of the conversation to the point where honestly, when I, it took me a second for my brain to catch up. I was like, Oh, that's Nate Parker. And Oh, Oh, Oh, like there. And particularly with the subject matter of this movie, his presence is really difficult to stomach in context.

That he is the one who is... I mean, I take issue with the concept of his being the rescuer in the first place. But given the actor and his his history like it's just it's gross yeah horrifying and i mean the relationship between his character and noni plays out in a way that i find very unsettling as well. I mean, like we mentioned, there are some titanic parallels. The beginning of their relationship feels very like Jack and Rose coded,

where, so for example, Noni and Rose, they start off the movie in a relationship with a shitty rich white guy. Both women feel intense pressure from society and from their mothers to stay with this guy. Both women attempt suicide. Then in both cases, a man who comes from more humble beginnings

intervenes in her suicide attempt and saves her. There's encouragement in both stories to lie that this was a suicide attempt. The man who intervened will go on to become the woman's new boyfriend. And he will help the woman escape that world that she felt trapped in and break free from all the pressure and live a new, more authentic life. So very, very just titanic stuff happening here. Even some of the dialogue where Rose says at one point, I feel like I'm standing in the middle of a crowded room, screaming at the top of my lungs, and no one even looks up. And Noni says, I feel like I'm suffocating in the middle of the street, and no one can see me dying. And you're like, it's an updated. Yes. But I just wanted to take it back for a second, because I'm glad that you brought up nate parker's criminal history and history of assaulting women i i guess what going into this viewing and knowing that how does that inform

how the subject matter is treated in the movie does it make a difference for you i'm just curious on your take on that yeah it's like gina prince bythewood has always like like in like previous interviews and like previous commentary and stuff for like like, The Secret Life of Bees, like, she'd always talk about, like, how he was such a nice guy and, like, he was very respectful of, like, the love interest he was paired with in her films. And it's just very disappointing because, like, these consensual interactions does not erase the huge huge amount of lack of consent um in 2001 when he was at penn state and it's also quite heartbreaking because like he he gets to make movies again and you have these actors and filmmakers going like oh he's he's learned his lesson like he's going through a lot of learning and and it's just so sad. And it's so weird seeing like the concert scene where Kid Culprit is is assaulting Noni and then Nate Parker's character is framed as the hero in that situation. And it's very unsettling to watch. And it also it also doesn't help that like another way like Kid Culprit's character was sort of foreshadowing like in the in like the sexy music video in the beginning he's he's he's like strangling noni a little bit and i just have so many questions around like how are you directed in this and also like gina prince bythewood like i

i have not agreed with how she likes to place her actors in situations without their permission in order to get them in the role like she she plays jennifer hudson in a store where white men are calling her the n-word in order to prepare her for the secret life of bees um and then for beyond the lights uh she placed gugu mabathra and nate parker in a situation where paparazzi show up and he has to take care of her unexpectedly and also like i don't know like given nate parker's history i'm like don't leave him alone with cuckoo like right there but yeah i saw that referenced in a vulture interview that she did around the release of this movie and it was like i honestly

i like i was surprised i wonder if she still does stuff like that i guess i don't know how you would do that for the woman king but but it felt almost like Blair Witch Project production approaches where it's like, I'm just going to leave you in the woods. Won't that be fun? Yeah. I mean, thank you for your insight on that. And I'm realizing that the reason that I thought this had taken place in 2019 is because that's the last time he directed a movie. So he has since, in fact, directed movies since this became a publicly known story. And he's currently filming another one. So here's your daily reminder that cancellation isn't a thing.

Right. But I thought it was, I don't know. As far as the way suicidality and mental health is treated in this movie it was a little it was like all over the place for me where I think that like this movie does have something to say about how I mean it felt like in line with a lot of pop stars' stories of how extremely constrictive and controlled Noni's life is and how that pressure and being forced in all these directions she doesn't want to go in has an extreme adverse effect on her mental health to the point where she's driven to this place.

I guess I wish that the, it's a romance movie, so this was never going to happen I just wish it had spent a little more time analyzing that it felt like the way that that ends up being analyzed is in a pretty surface yeah uh surfacy kind of way that allows a lot of the abusive people kind of off the hook a little bit I was surprised surprised. I think that if this movie was made today, Noni would more likely cut her mom out of her life and not just out of her business. I felt like Macy maybe got off a little easy, but that's just my opinion, I guess.

I got the impression that she did cut her out of her life because she's not... Or I guess what I'm more referring to is like how the neighbor or hairstylist that she grew up near was sort of encouraging her like your mom loves you she'd love to see you sometime like it just felt like that door was not completely closed at the end I don't know my big concern about it is something we were starting to touch on which is to me an implication that she is almost cured of her suicidal ideation because of the romance of a man yeah i also thought and i you know you might feel different ways about this but we never see her getting

or seeking actual medical help or like getting help from mental health professionals she only mentions it she says yeah she says it but i'm getting help we don't know if that's useful to know what that means right like what does that mean is that even true and it would have been so helpful because you know there's still so much stigma around therapy and mental health in general it was even worse 10 years ago when this movie came out it would have been very nice to see a character seeking and getting that help with her mental health on screen the movie just glosses over it and basically just implies you know she was cured of this and it's the same thing that Titanic does really she's cured of her suicidal ideation

because this man helps to set her free and I don't like that implication there's an interview where Gina Prince-Bethwood is like yeah I didn't want to make a film where it just looks like

she's saved by a man and it's like well well you did well you did and like and she and she had talked about like if i wanted to take a more realistic approach like it would have been a thing where kaz died on the job and noni lost him through that way and i'm like like you like, I would have been totally fine with like their narrative ending with like, no need comes to his house and is like, thanks. And like, yeah, he's he's judgy when he's all like this. But like, I totally would have been fine with just ending in a breakup. And she continues to thrive in her music career without him. That's what i would

have loved so much better yeah like it's just i i totally agree with with what you're about to say like i do feel like in the last half hour of the movie she becomes more self-motivated and is starting to make her own choices but it starts very late in the movie for me like it I think after they get back from the trip in Mexico that is that's sort of the first time in the movie that I can think of that you see Noni start to make her own choices they're not all good choices but they're choices right because what does it Kazam is telling her like don't go back with your mom and she's like well I want to and like deviates from what she's being told to back with your mom and she's like well I want to and like deviates from what she's being told to do but prior to that it's like she is being

shepherded in all these ways which I know is consistent with the character because how she's set up her life is extremely controlled but in terms of like telling this story I sort of wanted to see her I don't know like I just don't feel like I know her as well as the movie is telling me that I know her and and because of like the context and tone of the movie you could have a therapist in this movie easily and it would be helpful as a viewer to understand like and by the time we learn more about her childhood outside of the opening scene it almost feels like kind of too late to get into because I think that like Macy is behaving cartoon villain the entire movie and like is I think that that is like we don't get a lot of

movies about mothers and daughters period much less a mother with a biracial daughter like there's a lot of things happening in this movie that you don't often see but I feel like it takes so late in the movie to understand I don't know I just felt like there were things I was missing that the movie thought I had the whole time and it fills in that space that I would like to know about and like the opportunity this movie has to comment on stardom and it fills it up with this like love story with a cop that I was not really rooting for at any point I kept wanting like no need to like break out on her own go to Mexico by yourself meet someone in Mexico like it just because even the trip was like Kaz's idea and it's

all his idea and I just don't like yeah it I think that you know he certainly poses less of an immediate exploitational harm to her than her mother does but it does feel like going from one set of controlling hands to another exactly in a way that doesn't really feel challenged by the movie and makes me feel for noni i'm like she's got a like clean house completely including the boyfriend it would feel good especially because he's also the one that kind of suggests slash gives her the idea sort of that she should write her own songs and i'm like how is that his idea how is it his idea what it just i feel like yeah there's i think there's a real important and like i like showing it makes sense to me that noni's character would be fragile in many ways and i

think you know like and we've talked about this on the show a million times how women and femmes when they're put in lead roles I think the overcorrection of she's you know girl bossing around in a way that like doesn't really square with how she was raised and what she's experienced but it still feels like it she doesn't have enough agency to the point where she's a global pop star and it has never occurred to her to write her own song and she has to be told by an lapd officer named kazam i'm like i just don't buy it i don't like that as a plot point i don't like it i wish she had more interactions with other women and femmes in the industry.

Like, all we get is her walking past Chaka Khan of Chaka Khan going, I like your hair. And that's all we get. Which was delightful. But we're like, I want more. I want more. Yeah. Why doesn't she have any friends? I feel like you could explain that away by, like, the level of mom has but even like a fellow pop star like there's i don't know even even uh extremely sheltered and controlled

pop stars no other sheltered and controlled pop stars right they could commiserate about that they collaborate all the time exactly and that's a way more interesting story i i can't get past the cop thing i just like it's so like me neither he could he could be i i it like even if it bugs me less if he's just an aspiring politician and i know that like again there's no i will never understand why that was the decision but um i i like they share this common theme that their lives are predetermined and through this relationship they need to bust out of these expectations that their parents have for them and how their lives should go i get that that is their like parallel i don't understand why he has to be a cop my guess is that as this story was being

crafted it was like well under what circumstances would she get saved because that seemed to be like writer director gina prince bythewood wanted that to be the kind of impetus for this relationship to form so it's like okay, someone needs to save her, who would save her a cop that's kind of acting as a bodyguard? Yeah, that makes sense. And it's like, well, no, it doesn't have to be that number one, it doesn't have to be every any man who saves you or intervenes in, in some kind of, you know, violence, whether it's self inflicted, or otherwise, you don't need to fall in love with them. But so many movies present that as like, well, this man saved this woman. So obviously, she's going to end up with

him. That doesn't have to be the case. I don't, you know, I respect Gina Prince-Bythewood as a filmmaker. And of course, my guess is just like, tropes beget tropes. She set out to write a love story. I was watching an interview with Variety that she was giving. And she said that she wanted to write a love story and that she was interested in what was going on in the music industry at the time, especially in regards to how it treats women. And she's like, okay, I can marry these two ideas together. That's my story. And so she set out specifically to write a love story. And she's like, okay, I can marry these two ideas together. That's my story. And so she set out specifically to write a love story. And, you know, when filmmakers write stories, they're like, okay, how do these go? Like, what? How does a movie love story go? And my guess is

just, you know, you're inspired by previous similar movies and stories. And stories and then we ended up with this. I'm sorry. I don't mean to completely drag her. Especially because it's like where we live. I don't know. Even if the cop stuff was more in the background than it is but it goes out of the way to show you

how good he is in the context of his job. Especially the domestic violence thing really bothered me yeah it was really frustrating yeah that there's this didn't even come up in the recap really because it's not necessary but there there's two different times where you see there's a domestic violence uh situation and i couldn't tell what neighborhood it was supposed to be, but in a low-income neighborhood in LA that Officer Kazam is sent to and he solves

the problem. He's a hero. The cops, and specifically the LAPD, famously do not do, and it's like they cut to this story twice. And the second time he's not in uniform. It's like, can't you be sued for like liability for that right he's not on duty um yeah there's this scene where he's trying to

basically convince the local pastors to like endorse his political candidacy and he's talking about you know oh the violence in this community and if i am elected i'll turn it all around but he's referring to like the the violence you see on screen is this like one case of domestic violence which of course is you know very real and very serious but again cops historically don't respond well to those situations. And there's no mention, if he's talking about violence, there's no mention of police brutality that targets black and brown people. The movie's just general opinion of cops is like,

no, no, no, they're the good guys. They're serving and protecting and they're the heroes and they're gonna do the right thing every time. Right, I thought it was interesting that like, I get, I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it at this point, but if we're like talking the parallels between the two characters who are in Liv, they're both being pushed by these institutions to do things that they don't want to do. But like what is presented with on Officer Kazam's side is that he's pushed to be a

politician and it's the politician system that is bad. But if he just wants to be a cop, that's fine. Where it's like, if she doesn't like, and she just wants to be a singer-songwriter. And I was like, we just, like, singer-songwriter and LAPD officer, it's not the same thing. I just, I don't know. Like, obviously, you know, like, I like I like that you know the system that is trying to

push him into uh basically you know like doing the politician thing and using all of the connections and altering how you behave and what you say and what you do to serve getting a position that is like all very well taken and mirrors Noni's experience as well. But I don't know. And that's all I'll say about it. But I don't know. I kept trying to be like shifting it in my head to be like, he's a security guard, basically.

He's basically a bodyguard. But the movie does not let you do that. It keeps being like, and he is great at this job that is noble and effective. And I don't know very 2014 and that's i guess all i'll say about it yeah something i think the movie handles better is the examination of the sexualization and commodification of entertainers in general but especially women and femmes of their artistic talent and of their bodies.

To be clear, as we've always said on the show, we don't have a problem with an entertainer or any adult person being sexy, wearing sexy clothes, showing skin. I sound so old. Making art about sex,

all that kind of stuff. Who's the Sheen gun kelly and gina prince by the way talks about that in interviews too where where she said like i do believe there are there are pop stars who are genuine about like honing their honing their sexuality and she's like i just i just take issue with like those who are pressured into it when they don't need to be exactly it's all about like is the sexiness on the artist's terms are they consenting to this image that's being presented of them are they being given agency and choice in the matter or is it being foisted on them and as we learned

throughout the movie this like sex symbol image for noni was foisted on her by her mother by her mom by her record label yeah and she desperately wants to be seen the way that she wants to be seen not how the music industry wants to see her and she wants to you know be able to for the artist slash musician side of her to be more authentic to who she is but she can't because of all the pressure that's coming at her from all these directions. And it's all wearing on her so much, this lack of autonomy and agency and everything and that she and she feels so trapped by it, that it leads her to attempt suicide. And I think that's pretty effective commentary on just the music industry and the media and the way that you know record labels and and paparazzi and how all of that exploits artists and musicians and again her mom

and the response she gets from fans on social media like there's just so much weighing on her yeah and i thought that was handled pretty well yeah i liked how they involved when it came to like the movie making process they involve people who who have worked with pop stars that such the choreographer lorianne gibson who's the inspiration behind the movie honey really yeah oh my god jessica alba and she plays jessica alba's rival even though like looking back on it i'm like you could you just you deserve to play you in your own movie like jessica alba was chosen to play you that it for me i'm like oh that that sucks um that is not non-black person gets to play you in a movie about you but anyways um between conversations uh between the choreographer and the director like the word

that they said kept coming up was the word ratchet which made me laugh as far as like being as intentional with realistic aspects of the of like choreography as possible which i thought was very cool um and at the same time though it's like the lyrics are so off the nose like treat me like your object right there's i love i love songs written to make a point in a movie because they're all they're so uncanny valley. They're like, stick your face in it. And you're like, okay, it's not quite giving a song that exists. But I see where you're coming from. I see your point.

Yeah, I thought that the way that those names were treated felt like to be like the strength of the movie and like what I wish there had been more of. Like I would have happily swapped out the strength of the movie. And like what I wish there'd been more of, like I would have happily swapped out the majority of the romance for another pop star character to play off of, or someone within the industry. Cause it felt like these good points were made about the industry, but they were all made by like this outside party,

quote unquote, every man in a way that felt like it would be better illustrated to just like, it's a lot of telling where you could have had a lot of showing. But you still get like a lot of interesting things that I feel like have aged very well as information around the lives of pop stars that we grew up with continue to come out. Like she's emotionally abused by a stage parent from a very young age, and is clearly profited on by a stage parent who does not have her best interests at heart. That's a very common thing. I thought that like, also like the little parts of after she attempts suicide,

she's not only told that she needs to walk it back to save her career she also has to actively and repeatedly apologize to her fans and the way that it happens it feels like pretty in step with what happened in the mid 2010s i feel like the more there it would be an even more cynical approach now but then it's like i you know excessive drinking is no joke kids and i apologize and like you see pop stars doing that today with people who have young fan bases if they display humanity in any way or if they're like a person well into their 20s or 30s that are like having a night out they have to apologize to children and it's just like this very very twisted thing and the way i mean it's a little on the nose how she's criticized by the media because it's just like this very very twisted thing and the way i mean it's a little

on the nose how she's criticized by the media because it's also clear that like gail king is having fun doing this fake interview but but i thought it felt close enough to reality the record store exec the record label executives maybe felt a little over the top cartoon villain to me. Maybe, but also I feel like nobody is supposed to be the girl every guy wants to be with. That is a little over it. But the spirit of it felt true of like how controlled her life had to be. And the way that I mean, I think especially and there's been a fair amount of public conversation about this about how black women in entertainment are treated and uh and discarded where you know it's it feels

clear in the writing the performance of the story that Noni is scaling an even steeper hill in terms of how she has to conduct herself to be quote unquote respected as a pop star which I feel like comes out really clearly in uh the through line about her hair and like a big turning point in her character's story is when she takes out the lavender the lavender weave that she's been wearing for most of the movie when they're on vacation in Mexico and she starts uh just having natural hair and that's like a big I feel like that was the turning point for me where I was like I started to feel really invested but she's so helpless for so much of the movie in a way that's like you understand why she feels helpless and you know we know that she feels trapped and she doesn't have the autonomy

and agency that she wants but also the movie writes her in certain ways that she doesn't I don't know it's this complicated thing and I don't want to sound like I'm victim blaming where like oh why didn't she just advocate for herself all the time like that's a very difficult thing to do when you're so of course repressed by everyone around you you you don't have the ability to do that a lot of the time but i don't know so i just think it's more the like because i agree and i don't mean to sound like i'm like well why doesn't she just i think that the thing for me is more like it feels like the suggestion is that cop boyfriend is the solution. Right, right, right, right.

And at that point, it's been heavily suggested that that is the solution for over an hour. Right. Yeah. Yes. I just wanted to touch a little bit more on the relationship between Noni and her mother, where we see the pressure that Macy puts on Noni's life or is complicit in this like music industry false image of Noni. Where we see things like after Noni's suicide attempt, Macy clearly doesn't know how to process this and responds with anger and disappointment rather than concern or compassion look at all you have you have you have nothing to nothing to cry about she's fucking awful yeah yeah we see macy controlling what noni eats we see her that i thought was really well done like in terms of how subtle it was where there's a scene happening and she takes out the fried food and throws it at like just stuff and noni doesn't flinch this is clearly

routine for her right yeah um we see that scene during a photo shoot where noni is told to take off her top or her jacket and she's not wearing anything underneath and she's visibly uncomfortable but macy's like yeah do it like yeah and macy even asks like can we get are you planning on doing a full body shot like yeah right right right right you know you see macy trying to control noni's romantic life and wants her to be with kid culprit which is also we learned that that was like a fabrication by the label. Like, oh, they got together for press, quote unquote. And then it seemed like it turned into something more real,

whatever that even means between in a relationship with a machine gun, Kelly. But, you know, Macy's trying to control that aspect of Noni's life. Just all these different things. And then like later on when Macy's trying to control that aspect of Noni's life. Just all these different things. And then like later on when Macy, it seems like there's a tender moment between them and it seems like Macy is advocating for Noni in the meeting with the label. Turns out it was all an act.

It was just Macy doing the thing that she always does, which is manipulating and controlling i do think that macy cares for and and loves her daughter she just doesn't do it in a healthy way at all she doesn't love and support noni the way that she needs to be loved and supported which is a very you know familiar thing for for many people that's what a lot of parent-child relationships are like or just what a lot of relationships are like in general so i appreciated that it was i think a pretty realistic exploration of that dynamic where yeah macy is quote-unquote there for noni but in the most toxic way imaginable and not having her best interests at heart not because she's necessarily like inherently evil she just does she we and then we get the

backstory that kind of informs a lot of this where yeah macy had noni when she was a teenager and she had no support system when she was trying to raise her did y'all have i don't know i i guess again i'm i'm i was as as we were because that scene was really interesting to me because it's the first scene that we don't see macy being outwardly abusive she is being emotionally manipulative right yeah but not in the aggressive way that we've kind of gotten used to seeing her I do kind of and and I know that that sets up kind of the bait and switch of Noni I don't blame Noni for going back with her mom because it feels very clear that like she wants to believe the best in her mom in a way that seems really painful I guess I just like i was trying to like get i was like what is the utility of

holding that story back from us for so long like i don't know i wonder if you view like how it affects the movie if that scene comes earlier i didn't i guess it felt like a twist it like it was presented like a not like a twist but i just was i don't know i don't feel one particular way about it but i was like it's interesting that that comes up so late in the movie. Because it's like part of what I'm missing with Noni's character is like an understanding of her outside of that first scene. Yeah. Which is clear what the dynamic is, but it would have just been nice to know.

Because it just helps you understand her better. I don't know. I have so much to say about Macy. Please. Okay. Because what i appreciate about the hair scene in the beginning she she doesn't say do my daughter's hair she says show me she says show show me how to do my daughter's hair um and gina prince by wood talks about like

being adopted by white parents and and her white parents they get the hairdresser going like help please help um and again i'm, I'm not saying this to excuse any of her behavior in the movie, but witnessing her Black child, the only Black child amongst an array of white girls in very shiny outfits who were dancing or hula hooping the majority of the time and that being prioritized over her over her

daughter like that having like a sense like a sense of valid like i i sense that anger is as valid where she where she's like that hula hooping that's bullshit i actually like appreciate like she's yelling about that instead of yelling directly at her daughter but then she does yell directly at her daughter going like chuck it with the trophy and that's very sad and i'm like dang it um like i know it's i like that she's written to be so frustrating though like sorry continue and yeah so then you see her black daughter with like with like a weave that's straight hair and like for the scene in the kitchen nobody mentions a nose job not just the weave so it's so

it's like oh like so your white mom is continuing to tell you over the years like here's how you make yourself more european for this music industry and like and i think that's where like kid culprit comes in too because like big sean was up for the part but he didn't get it and he ended up like just having that short scene with noni going like hey you good um and i have mixed feelings about it because because on one end it's it's like would have appreciated someone with more talent in the role uh but at the same time like casting casting a white rapper and a white mom choosing the white rapper for her biracial daughter sort of makes sense especially like

when it comes to this white rapper garnering a lot of success and it's like he is your key to success and again not saying this at all to like excuse any of that behavior um and yeah noni falling in love with a with a black man and then macy going like i don't trust you right I trust the white guy I want my daughter to be with the white guy and again you can't hit that point home more clearly than choosing machine gun Kelly to be the white guy that you put your trust in yeah yeah that scene I thought was I was glad that we got a scene between officer Kazam and Macy i again it's like i wish that it wasn't more clear-cut that it's like he is the right choice and she's the wrong choice because it's i think there's an argument that there may be both the wrong choice and exactly uh noni needs to

spend some time with herself and not in someone else's quote-unquote clutches or whatever but I yeah I my I love that sort of analysis of the character where it's like she's she's really challenging and I just don't think I've seen a lot of characters like her in movies before and because and she's also objectively they're not shying away from the fact that she's an abusive parent like she's an abusive stage parent who fundamentally is willing to glaze over what is good for her daughter by and and justifying it with like a survival thing when they're clearly past the point of needing to be survival minded they're doing well and i i love i really liked um what noni says when she confronts her like makes the argument that it's like so much

of this is for you it's not all for me in the way that you're presenting in the way that i think we hear about a lot of stage parent stories of like yeah i did this for you. I did this to protect you. And it's like she, and Noni was like, I was telling you what I, that this wasn't working. I forget the wording, but like, I was telling you something was wrong when I was standing on that balcony and you, and Macy pressures her to say that nothing's wrong because Macy cannot deal with a world in which something is wrong and I can also see how a parent deludes themselves into needing to believe that to the detriment of their kid I mean it's just I don't know I still feel like Macy got off a little easy but I but it's also like a dynamic that I haven't seen portrayed in movies especially because we just so rarely get mother-daughter dynamics in movies at all

and to to see it and not have it be like a clean ending of like my mama is my life which I feel like when we do get mothers and daughters it often goes that way it's like not allowed to be messy or complicated and I really like I think Gina Prince-Bythewood does this across her work is like not afraid to get into a messy mother-daughter scenario yeah I really appreciate that about her does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss I'm gonna check my notes make sure got everything um at one point Kaz says to noni when noni shows the songwriting notes he says i've interacted with c word ableist c word people and i can tell you're you're a seat c word and like she laughs it off and i'm like we're supposed to be rooting for this guy like what then later when his dad says that c

word broad and he's like don't talk about her like that it's like you talked about her like that what are you talking about to her face yeah imagine like showing the most vulnerable thing you've ever put to paper and like you know just like things about your feelings and even just showing anything you've written to someone if you're a writer is scary. And then he is like, wow, you seem, yeah, ableist word. And she's like, ha ha ha. And it's like, sir. Just all the men in her life were horrible because, again, kid culprit. Yeah. I mean, the thing that grossed me out the most about him, outside of obviously the scene where he assaults her on national television, which, again, Noni needs to be rescued from.

Anyways, it's like the first scene that he's in and he tells her to keep it tight and her mom does not flinch. She's like, yep, no issue with this because her mom's also constantly policing her body. And you're just like, yeah, nasty. So the scene where Noni breaks up with kid culprit, he seems like he handles it okay. He's like, I won't shed a tear about it but I thought we had something good and she's like we were just kind of hooking up like nothing deeper was happening right she's like I loved I loved hearing it in the in a British accent too like we would text in and then we were hitting it and then we were texting about hitting it I was like

wow wow it sounds so fancy when you say it like that but then when we see kid culprit again you learn that he did not handle that rejection well at all his male ego is particularly fragile and it was very shattered to the point where he lashes out aggressively and violently and he sexual assaults her on stage in front of thousands of people which her mother says nothing about as it's happening her mother shames her afterwards it is like well look what happened as if and i think that what she's implying there is like because you broke up with him this is the consequence and you're just like fuck you yeah anything else i wish there was more focus on like how sexism clearly affects noni more than kaz because like

he like in his politician world like he's fine because like you the pastors, but he gets the youth vote and not even putting into consideration how Noni basically lost her job, was dropped from the label just to get back on the label but still. Yeah, he's just on an extended vacation.

Because he calls, he's like, hey, I'll be back soon. And you're like, his job is yeah his job is at no point is there risk really he's just more no danny glover dad i don't want that and danny glover's like oh i should be in another saw movie that's how he reacts to most people in every movie since saw yeah he's like you know now that you say that i really it's high time i'm in saw 11. there's apparently like some deleted like set of dialogue where like kaz tells nody about the death of his mom like where the director says that in an interview and i'm like

what well they do like reference that in one danny glover scene where he's like i don't want to be a heartbroken old man and you're like first time i'm hearing the mom is dead yeah so that makes at some other point it's interesting she talks about how like it got scrapped because like working with her husband helps her she says something along the lines of like oh working with my husband helps me like get rid of certain drafts that I don't need as well as like highlighting what love and respect could look like and I don't want to dig so much at Gina Prisbythwa's personal life, but at the same time, it's like, so I have questions because we have this black love story that is not good. And the black love story in Love and Basketball was also not good.

And you've mentioned like your husband has helped you with that. Like, I just have so many follow- questions about like what what your ideal romance is. And I know that there was like conversations earlier about like tropes come from like other points of media and so on and so forth. And at the and at the same time, it's like what are the tropey things in your romantic relationship that you were reflecting in your film right makes you wonder it sure does well this movie does pass the bechdel test a lot a lot many of the conversations are between a woman and her abusive mother. Yep. But it does pass.

Oh. Are there any other passes between or besides those two characters? No, which I feel like is a sign that it would be. I understand that it is in keeping with the the music industry that there are a lot of men at the top that's part of why these issues are so perpetuated and unchallenged in the long term it would have been nice to give her a woman within the music industry to talk to I think it would have like more strongly enforced a lot of the themes that the movie's handling well and getting like the romantic interest cop's take on

the music industry i guess i just wasn't very interested in his takes right there are two friends of hers it seems that get introduced but then quickly disappear from the story it's the people who are like following her to the hotel room early on right right and they're like aha she's drunk which is also weird because it's like said by macy later maybe it's just that like noni does drink and her mom doesn't know about it but her friends are like haha she's drunk but then we're later told you don't drink because in the beginning uh one of the friends tells noni when she after she wins a billboard award she's in the car i didn't notice this until the second time I watched this. But like one of the friends go, whoa, our girl is imbibing.

So not that long. Wow. So that doesn't imply that she doesn't normally drink. So. OK. OK. I missed that line. I mean, either.

God bless that line. Either way, she does have a female friend. The other guy or the other person seems to be a man i think he's a gay man because he's talking about a man he's attracted or he's you know he's queer and it's like where are those friends why aren't they helping in some way where's their support that they could be giving what's going on there the movie doesn't seem to care very much anyway we've got a nipple scale to rate the movie on yeah our scale of zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional

feminist lens for me oh i don't i wish i could give this more um because i do like Gina Prince-Bythewood's work generally. And I appreciate that she's one of the few directors who is a Black woman who's getting mainstream movies out there. And even so, like still, I mean, as we talked about on our episode on The Women King last year is still not getting the amount of institutional respect that she deserves from award bodies and for sure yeah check out our episode on the women king for more discussion on that so i i wish she had made a movie that

there wasn't so much to uh criticize about but it's so and i'm surprised that this movie is so uncritical of police based on who the direct the writer director is the romance and the movie in the implications of it not enough development of the noni character all these things you know not great i do appreciate what the movie has to say about the commodification of women but uh it just doesn't quite tip the scales enough so i think i'll just say 2.5 nipples i'll give one to gugu mbathaaw, I'll give one to Mini Driver. I like her as far as I know. I hope she's not done or said anything problematic. You never know.

It's so hard to keep track of everybody. As far as I know, she's still with us. Yeah. And of course, I'll give my half nipple to Danny Glover of Saw 1 fame. I'm also gonna give this two and a half. Yeah, I mean, I am a Gina Prince Bythewood fan. This is just like not my favorite from her, and it hasn't aged well in many regards, some of which were within her control, some of which weren't. I feel like I've come down hard on this. I don't know. 2014 still feels too

late for such an aggressive LAPD cop hero love story. I know that obviously if this movie was made today, there would be a number of things that would not be the way that they are. Nate Parker's casting to begin with, and that the world has changed a lot since this movie came out so i hope i didn't come down too hard on it i really am a big fan of this writer director i just did not really i don't know where i think this movie does work is its commentary on uh like we've talked about the commodification of women and femmes bodies in entertainment and the sort of zero-sum game for someone who wants to make art on their own terms and be successful. Those parts worked. The romance didn't really hit for me. I'm pro, like, learning yourself better

through a romantic relationship, but we just didn't really see anything outside of that, which just leads the viewer to believe that it was the romantic relationship that caused all of these things, which doesn't feel fair to Noni's character. Let's see. Okay, so I'm going to go 2.5. I'm going to give one to Gugu. I'm going to give one to Minnie. And I'm going to give my half to Jigsaw. Wow.

Yes. Wow. Yes. Maya, how about you? I'm going to give it three. I'm going to give it three. Because like it's it's very much not perfect as far as like this and the entire romance angle and the copaganda and like so many other things that we've talked about. But I just really appreciate the amount of black women involved in the making of the movie and like it took so long to get made because gita prince bythewood was advocating for gugu to be in the role like even though like a bunch of

singers and songwriters had auditioned for the role she wanted gugu mcbethra in it even though she had a musical theater background and this was before she got casted in bell and before her career skyrocketed between 2014 and 2016 and it was a black woman who was like yeah I see the promise in this film and like in like BET films got to like showcase it so I really appreciate the amount of fighting for this film that happened even though it does make me sad that like Gina Prince-Bythewood like fought so much more for like Gurgam Abathur than what she did for Sinai lathan um for 11 basketball who does make a brief cameo with this in this movie so i assume things are fine but like wait they work

together again like after that so yeah again i i assume things are fine but still it's like wow um where's her cameo i i missed it at At the BET Awards, right before they perform on stage, like where they're walking the red carpet and stuff. Yeah, like we see her for like two seconds, like posing. So she doesn't have a speaking role. And yeah, just loving how Minnie Driver took on the role, even though a lot of actresses were like, I don't want to take on this role.

She's evil. And Minnie Driver's like, I don't give a fuck about your perception of me i'm gonna be of service to this movie um yeah she's like a mini fucking driver like yeah i was in phantom of the opera 2004 uh she has a singing background too which i didn't know for like the longest time and would have been interesting to see if like that could have been included i don't i don't know she's in she was in gross point blank yeah anyways amongst other hits oh um and there's another interview where the director talks about um almost losing a loved one to suicide and therefore wanting to put that in the in the stories film and i and i in the film story excuse me and i can appreciate that even though it's not perfect and like and she's touched on suicide in a lot of her films like whether she's

written them or directed them um and i find that an interesting pattern for her and her work like she was she was supposed to be adapting a story that was about mental illness, but then it got passed to a white dude. I'm upset about that. Because like the novelist or something like wanted to work with him instead. Because like Mark Ruffalo had said like, this guy's great. God. Oh, screw that. So yeah, I'm giving three nipples um

i'm gonna give one to i wrote this down i'm gonna give one for gugu babathura and mini driver to share i'm gonna give one to the choreographer laurian gibson and gina prince bythewood to share and I'm going to give one to Chaka Khan and the actor Daryl Stevens who plays the queer black man in the beginning who we barely Hell yeah and I said like maybe I would give it 3.5 if I could give

like.5 to Chaka Khan's assistant being credited in the movie I don't even know. She was there for like two seconds. But yeah, somewhere between three, three and a half is my official answer. And Caitlin, you were going to say something. Oh, no.

I was just going to thank you for joining us on this episode. Thanks for returning. So much fun. And where can people check out your stuff plug away thank you folks can follow me at mdub16 e-m-m-d-u-b-b-1-6 on instagram and twitter and i have a website mywilliamspoet.com um i have a second book out which again thank you again for for having me again just uh because like for we did perks of being a wallflower first book came out was judas and suicide uh we're doing

beyond the lights second book that came out it's a book poetry collection called refused to second date and it's about racism and dating mental health and dating and like intergenerational dating patterns between myself and my mom. My mom is actually on the cover of this collection. And I'm still happy that she said yes. It's an incredible picture. Thank you. Yeah. And my mom is biracial, which plays a huge role into why I identify as Black and multiracial. And again, like seeing Beyond the Lights and seeing multiracial representation, like when we were getting like a spike of it between 2014 and 2016 was really impactful. And yeah, please, please buy my book.

Hell yes. This one's through a different publisher, Harbor Editions. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Bechtelcast. You can subscribe to our Patreon, where you get two bonus episodes every single month, always centering an awesome theme that's so cool and good and always has a really good, awesome name. Like the Pinocchio Wars of 2023. We just wrapped

up Dancecember we covered a couple dance movies can you believe it I'm so excited to listen to this Honey Got Brought Up that's another dance movie that we will have to add to the list and that can

be found at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. And it's $5 a month and gets you access to the entire back catalog of bonus episodes. Absolutely. You can get our merch over at tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast. And again, we'll also be linking where you can buy Maya's work because we're just simply big fans over here. Thank you. And yeah, it's an honor that you joined us again.

Thank you so much. Always happy to join y'all again. Thank you both so much. Yay. Now let's go on stage and sing a song. Wow. Powerful ending. I know.

Bye. Bye-bye. Wait, what happened to the British accents? Bye. The Bechdelcast 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. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. I'm not going to let you go. 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals.

You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.