The Bechdel Cast - Jackie Brown with Sadia Azmat

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

On this episode, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Sadia Azmat plan a sting while discussing Jackie Brown. (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast Follow @sadia_azmats on Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture.

Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.

And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Mori Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early

and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. On the Bechtelcast, 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 Bechdelcast. Hey, Jamie. Hey, Caitlin. Can you smuggle half a million dollars out of cabo for me i need the money to get a haircut because my hair and beard are really strange classic caitlin yes of course um and i will i promise to be like everyone in this movie, really bad at it. Thank you so much. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. Oh, an iconic introduction. Welcome to the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation.

We sure do. But what is the Bechdel test? Well, we'll tell you. Yeah. So if you've been listening to this show for a long time, you very likely know what it is. It is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel originally in her comic Dykes to Watch Out for in the 80s. It was a one-off joke just sort of pointing out how infrequently women talked to each other in blockbuster movies but it has since been sort of taken on by culture at large to talk about how infrequently women talk in movies

so there's a lot of different versions of this test uh the one we use on this show is as follows we require that there be two people of a marginalized gender with names who speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue or more. Preferably, it should be a meaningful exchange of dialogue, which we made that change when, Caitlin, like a couple of years ago, because there were so many movies that it was like, well, someone talks to a waitress at one point and the waitress is wearing a name tag. So it's feminist and you're just like well okay we have to make some adjustments. Anyways that's the version we use.

Indeed and today's movie is a long time request. Yes. It's Jackie Brown the 1997 movie written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Someone who I don't think has ever experienced a scandal before, I think. No. Famously scandalous director. Yeah. Also the production company Miramax. I don't think I've ever heard a bad word about this company. No, they're really awesome.

I don't think that we'll have really much to talk about it'll be a really quick episode yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no so we're doing jackie brown we have an amazing guest with us who is a comedian author of the book sex bomb and host of the bbc podcast no country for young women it's sadia asmat hi hello welcome welcome thank you for having me hello thank you for being here and for bringing us this movie yeah so you sent us a number of uh options of movies you'd like to cover on the show and this was on the list so we're curious um what is your history with the movie jackie brown and i guess sort of like with Tarantino movies overall because I feel like it's hard to talk about one Tarantino movie without

accidentally talking about all of them true so you know what I'm not gonna lie I was going through my watch the Robert De Niro movie zone or era at that point in time so I was just I really liked him and I heard a lot about Jackie Brown but not in terms of in any detail like it would be thrown around like I didn't know if it was a real movie about like a Jackie Brown was a real person or like it's just a name that seems to crop up now and then so it felt like it was part of um pop culture in a in and I just hadn't come across it and also I don't know actually was part of um pop culture in a in and I just hadn't come across it and also I don't know actually if I was trying to I don't know if I was on my watching Robert De Niro or watching Sam Jackson zone but I don't know what that's not a zone but like in

terms of my routine if you like so I love both of them and then I just watch I didn't know it was directed by Tarantino at the time and I was was blown away because it's not even about Robert De Niro or Sam Jackson, even though they're really great. It's about Pam Grier's character. And it really felt like a portrayal of a woman who is from a minority in a way that I'd never seen before, that I felt like, obviously, I've never had to smuggle money, right? But like that I could really relate to in terms of the decisions that she had to make.

So it's like breathless and I love this movie. And talking about Tarantino. So, I mean, he's made some of the best movies ever. Like Pulp Fiction is clearly like, like oh it's so good i don't really like reservoir i'm not going to go through all of his movies by the way and just tell you why that's not very ranked that's not fair is it but there's a few that come to mind like django i think that's how you say it django chain yeah i really enjoyed it um although i didn't really like inglorious bastards and i didn't really like reservoirlorious Basterds and I didn't really like Reservoir Dogs, I think I was going to say.

And so obviously he's a genius, but I think we all know that being a genius doesn't come without its pitfalls. And I think you might know a few of them more than me. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. Like he, yeah, as you alluded to, he was, I think obviously he knew about Weinstein. But, you know, so many actors probably did. And maybe it didn't occur to them to open their mouths, even though everyone listens to them. But anyway, so I really like his movies.

And I don't know him personally. Hey, me either. Jamie what's your relationship with the Tarantino expanded universe slash Jackie Brown specifically um let's see uh I yeah I feel like we've covered um Pulp Fiction uh and Kill Bill on the show before. We still need to redo our Kill Bill episode. I know. That was erased from existence. Yes. So we did at one point. It was our first episode

ever and we didn't know what we were talking about. So we'll redo that at some point. But I mean I think like a lot of people I'm very kind of hit and miss on Tarantino. Like obviously he's very technically talented and uh you know it's I'm never gonna judge someone for enjoying his work Kill Bill is still one of my favorite movies ever for for all of its flaws so I mean yeah as far as Tarantino

goes I it feels like almost an impossible discussion to have. Creatively, he's hit or miss for me. He's made stuff that I really love. I think that it's, I don't know, his history on race is very talked about. Checkered. Yes. I don't know, he's such a complicated person to talk about because he's written women characters in particular

that I have a lot of love for and had influence on me. But at the same time, you have the Kill Bill example, when during the Me Too movement, it came out that Uma Thurman was extremely injured on the set of Kill Bill, and Tarantino did nothing to help her. And he was the reason why. Yeah, he pushed her. nothing to help her and so it's and he was the reason why like he yeah he basically instructed her to drive like basically do a very unsafe stunt and then she got badly injured because of it and I think you know sometimes even the things I enjoy about him creatively it doesn't come through in

his personal life or personal record whatsoever anyways Jackie Brown I had seen it once before. I remember one liking it, two being like, it's so long. I still feel that way now. Yeah. Caitlin, what's your history with Jackie Brown? I had never seen it before. This was, I think, the one Tarantino movie that I had yet to watch. It's been on my list for a long time, but I just didn't get around to it until I had an excuse to do so for this podcast. And I'm glad I finally watched it. I quite enjoyed it. I would rank it toward the top of my list of Tarantino movies because I think so too. Yeah, same with everyone else. I mean, he is a bit hit or miss for me. I generally like most of his

movies, but Hateful Eight, for example, I couldn't stand it. I did not like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at all. Other ones I like a bit more. Kill Bill is similarly my favorite of his. But yeah, Jackie Brown, I think it's an interesting departure to some degree from his other work. And I found it just like, refreshing and fun to watch. And I really like the characters and performances. And there's just a lot of interesting things going on that we will discuss. But I definitely agree. I think it's like one of my, especially because I think the last time I watched it, I was in college or something.

And I mean, I liked it the first time. I liked it even better this time because I feel like I just know more about the actors and had more interest in the context. And the context of this movie is really fascinating. So there's so much to talk about. For sure. Shall I do the recap and we'll go from there let's do it okay and sadia feels free to jump in at any point thank you okay i'll again

this is a long movie although it's not even long by today's standards every movie that comes out is three hours long and it's like only titanic should be that long anyway i mean titanic shouldn't have been that long either really come on i mean i don't i'm so sorry i didn't realize that meant so much to you i don't disagree i could do an edit of titanic that is two and a half hours which would cut 45 minutes out of the runtime so no way no way no way i i think only mob movies should be three hours long because the mob ones i love them i don't know why everybody's gonna die and lose the money i know that but i just like barbie was an hour 52 and i celebrated that both times i was like wow i didn't even know it was legal to make a movie under two hours anymore yay anyway okay so here is the recap for Jackie Brown we briefly meet a flight

attendant for Cabo Air named Jackie Brown played by Pam Greer I felt I felt very film bro proud of myself during the opening shot where I was like hey this is the shot from the graduate and it is I was proud I was like wow this is normally something that a guy would yell at me but now you're the one yelling i'm the guy yelling at no one yep so then we cut to ordell played by samuel l jackson who is an arms dealer talking about guns to Lewis, played by Robert De Niro. Ordell has a girlfriend, Melanie, who we meet, played by Bridget Fonda, who he does not treat very well, FYI. And we also learn that Ordell has half a million dollars in cash stashed in Cabo.

Then Ordell gets a call from his pal Beaumont, who needs to be bailed out of jail. So Ordell and Lewis go to a bail bondsman named Max Cherry, played by Robert Forster. Ordell pays for Beaumont to be bailed out of jail, and then he pays Beaumont a visit. He's played by Chris Tucker. And then Ordell shoots and kills Beaumont because Ordell figured that Beaumont would rat him out to avoid a long jail sentence. Then we cut back to Jackie Brown at LAX after one of her flight attendant shifts, and two cops approach her, Mark and Ray, played by Michael Bowen and Michael Keaton, and they want to look in Jackie Brown's bag where they find $50,000 in cash and they know that she's smuggling it and they want to know who in Cabo gave it to her and who in the U.S. she's giving it to. But she refuses to talk.

But then they find a little baggie of cocaine with the cash. So then she is arrested and thrown in jail for possession with the intent to distribute which is a bogus thing which they comment on but anyway she's arrested and thrown in jail and her bail is set at ten thousand dollars so ordell goes back to the bail bondsman Cherry, wanting to transfer the $10,000 bond that he paid for Beaumont and transfer it over to Jackie Brown. So Max goes and bails Jackie out of jail and he sees her and he's like, hubba hubba, awooga, who's that? He, in love at first sight, her. And then he takes her for a drink to discuss her options, like kind of what she should do moving forward.

And then he drops her off at home. Ordell then goes to Jackie's house. And it seems like he plans to kill Jackie for the same reason he killed Beaumont. He doesn't want anyone ratting him out. But she assures him that she didn't tell the cops anything. But she also realizes that his intentions might be malicious and that he might be trying to kill her. So she pulls a gun on him that she stole from Max Cherry. And then she negotiates a deal with Ordell so that he won't be put away in prison and where she will be set up financially if she does have to go to jail. The next morning, Max Cherry comes over to Jackie Brown's house to get his gun back. And she invites him in for coffee and they're listening to music and they're kind

of vibing and she tells him that she does not actually intend to cooperate with ordell and that she's going to try to make a deal with the cops because she's fearful for her future her financial security things like that I will say Jackie throughout this movie she's I mean we'll talk about what an incredible character she is but I just kept thinking about how many times if if I were Jackie that I would have forgotten something that I told someone I was like wow I'm not smart enough to play the 4d game of chess that she's playing because sometimes I'm like wait what and then like oh right she's a genius like like is she keeping a diary like I don't know how she keeps track and even just

caring about you know having that portrayal of someone caring about their like financial freedom their finances their future that's like something I never saw before either really you know so that's like she's a smart chick like she's yeah she's very admirable yeah she's so cool and just like even objectively I'm like her memory and ability to like juggle 5,000 things at once is incredible she's such a cool character for sure yeah so can I ask sorry do you ever lie Jamie because I am bad at lying so i think that's why i would have got shot like you know i would have got shot i definitely like i feel like outside of like small like like little white lie kind of things and even sometimes i lose track of those

and i'll be like oh wait i told that weird lie trying to impress someone once and now i've accidentally told them myself anyways I couldn't do what she did I would be uh dead in the first 20 minutes so same yeah I couldn't keep anything straight yeah um okay then we see Jackie meeting with those cops Mark and Ray telling them about her dealings with Ordell and And then she meets with Ordell again and makes him think that she's working with the cops as a cover and that she is still loyal to him. And they make a plan where they will need two women to be, and they specify women, they're like, it needs to be women, to be kind of like intermediaries between Jackie and Ordell as far as like handing

off the money to trick the cops into following the wrong woman during these couple different handoffs that they will be doing in order for Jackie to get this half million dollars from Cabo to Ordell in Los Angeles where the story takes place by the way ever heard of it ever heard of it then Ordell leaves this meeting with Jackie but then he sees Max run into Jackie and they're chatting and he's like what the fuck like do they know each other what's going on here so now he's suspicious he's so insecure isn't he like oh truly and it is always his downfall same with the de niro character too oh yeah for sure yep um i can't wait to talk about male fragility with these characters my favorite topic yep okay so everyone goes through with this trial run of jackie handing off ten thousand dollars to a woman named sharonda she's one of ordell's many

girlfriends and this is happening at a mall food court. And then Sharonda will then hand it off the cash to Ordell. I wrote a story about mall food courts earlier this year. And there are so many iconic movie scenes that happen in mall food courts. I think the Jackie Brown scene is way up there. It was tied for me internally with 8th grade. I was going to say 8th grade. Most impactful mall food court scene to me personally. There's some good ones.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High I feel like has. And Clueless has one. I love a mall. I love a food court. I love drama at said location. Yeah, same. Okay, so this handoff happens and the cops are there watching max is also there and it seems like max and jackie are becoming somewhat of an item

he also notices another woman simone who is involved in this handoff who the cops are not aware of. So she's like the second woman who's there to be tricksy, basically. Then Jackie goes to see Ordell and they hash out the second handoff of the half million dollars. So this time Jackie will hand off the money in a fitting room at a department store at the same mall now the exact plan with all of these like changes in the amounts of money yeah i got confused because now simone is not involved but ordell's girlfriend melanie is well because simone didn't simone get ten thousand dollars during the trial run and then she was like i'm out of here and we were like good for simone yes but it's unclear like who knows what or i forget like which information it's just like it's all a bit confusing it becomes so much about who you can trust at this point, because there's no logic and

sense has gone out the window. So yeah, it is about like your gut instincts, and who's going to let you down? Or can you afford to risk everything on, you know, this weird situation, but it was so strange, because I've never had to smuggle i have to keep saying that but um we believe you know like please believe me guys but um actually we could all do the we're three women we could do the test run no i'm just saying that true yeah it's so it's weird how how real this all felt even though the the stakes were so high and not very day-to-day. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it feels very grounded, especially for a Tarantino movie. It's probably his most grounded one. Yeah.

Anyway, also, while all of this is happening, it seems like Jackie intends to only hand off $50,000 of the money to whoever's going to get it to Ordell, and that she's going to run off with the rest. And she's kind of co-conspiring with Max about this plan. Then it's time for the big exchange. So Jackie heads to the mall, as does Max does lewis and melanie and jackie hands off the fifty thousand dollars to melanie in the dressing room and then jackie leaves the remaining half million dollars in the dressing room on purpose and then she rushes out of the store and calls for ray the michael keaton cop and she tells tells him that Melanie burst into the dressing room

and took all of the money and ran out. So she's spinning this web of lies. This yarn. Yeah. Then we flash back to this exchange from Melanie and Louis's point of view. Louis is on edge. He's being aggressive and awful.

And then after the handoff, he keeps getting lost in the department store and then in the parking lot. And Melanie keeps taunting him about it. And he blows a gasket and shoots and kills Melanie in the parking lot. Which I forgot about and did not see coming and was quite shocked. It happens really abruptly. Yeah. Yeah. Then we get the exchange from Max's point of view where he watches Jackie come out of the dressing room

and then he goes in and retrieves the bag with the half million dollars in cash. And he leaves the mall. Cut to Lewis picking up Ordell. And Lewis is like, by the way, I shot Melanie. And Ordell is not mad about it. But he is mad when he looks in the bag and discovers that only $40,000 is in there, not the full half million. And he suspects that it was Jackie Brown who stole it. And then Lewis is like, oh, wait a minute. I did see Max Cherry in the department store, but I didn't even think anything of it. Louis. Bye. Yeah.

And Ordell is like, well, you're bad at your job. And then he shoots and kills Louis. Yeah. Which it's funny to see a Robert De Niro character being bad at crime because in most of his other movies, he's pretty good at crime.

I really enjoyed like, I mean, obviously his character is horrible but i i i feel like it's yeah it's really rare to see him in like a very like i don't know like lewis is a dipshit outside of being like he yeah he's like a total doofus like he i i don't know i think i just associate deniro characters with like hyper competence that I'm like wow he's really not gonna get he's not he's got nothing to hide he's just not good at this there's a scene I think he might be really high and that's why he's acting this way but he's

like spacing out after he has called Simone to try to figure out where she is and he's like trying to hang up the phone and he keeps like spinning it around because he can't figure out where she is and he's like trying to hang up the phone and he keeps like spinning it around because he can't figure out how to hang up this landline and it's just it's great anyway so ordell shoots and kills lewis for being bad at his job and then he hides out at Sharonda's place. Then we cut to Ray questioning Jackie Brown. And he's just like, what the hell happened? Because of what Jackie told him, he thinks that, you know, she tried to hand off this $50,000 to Melanie, and that Melanie ran off with it. And that's why Melanie got shot. And he has no idea about this half million dollars that Max has. But Ray feels that he now has enough evidence to convict Ordell because he's been after Ordell this whole time. But before the cops can get to Ordell, Ordell and Max have a conversation

where Ordell is like, okay, I know you helped Jackie steal my money. So she needs to give it back or I'm going to kill her. And so Max tells Ordell that Jackie does want to give the money back. So they head to Max's office where Jackie and the money are. And Ordell comes into the office, but it's a setup and the cops are there and Ray jumps out and shoots Ordell. Then we cut to three days later. Jackie has the half million dollars that only Max knows about, of the people who are still alive at least and she's given some of it to max for helping and then she says goodbye to max they kiss she tells him she's headed to spain good kiss it's it's fine really i was like uh i thought it was a good kiss i I don't know. Maybe it was just early. Sure. But she tells him she's heading to Spain and then the movie ends with her driving off.

So that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. We'll be right back. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know, I'm so behind.

Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge.

Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente.

And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions, like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do,

like resume specialist Morgan Sanner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career

without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. And we're back. Yes. Where shall we start? Well, let's do some context corner and then and yes go from there excellent okay so basically prior to this movie tarantino had directed reservoir dogs and pulp fiction and he had you know written and starred in a few other movies before this and all of that has had cemented him as this kind of like indie darling director that also had box office appeal, who also had this very distinct style. So he's on his way to being this like, you know, auteur status. And also, I feel like something that also carries through in Jackie Brown, it's like he was already gaining this reputation as someone who is able to revive an actor's career. Because I feel like John Travolta's career was really sort of kickstarted again by Pulp Fiction.

I feel like Pam Greer's career here. And Max Cherry, who I had not heard of this actor. Robert Forster. Yeah. Robert Forster? He was bigger in, I think, the late 60s and 70s. But by the time this movie was being cast, he didn't even have like an agent or a manager. Like his career was basically over. And then he got nominated for a goddamn Oscar.

I think that Pam Greer should have been also nominated for an Oscar. Like, but anyways, yes. Yeah. So anyway, Tarantino acquired the rights to three Elmore Leonard novels because he wanted to make at least one of them into a movie. He wasn't sure which one. One of these novels is called Rum Punch, which is the one that Tarantino decided to adapt. And it was his first time adapting anything. And so the significant thing here is that in the book Rum Punch the main character Jackie Burke is a white woman and Tarantino rewrote the character

as a black woman Jackie Brown with Pam Greer in mind specifically yes Yes, exactly. So like Jackie Brown's last name is a nod to her character in Foxy Brown, which is a famous 1970s blaxploitation film. Now, as far as why Tarantino made this change, I couldn't find anything super explicit or specific, but it just seems like he wanted to pay homage to Blaxploitation film and pay homage to Pam Greer and her career as an actor in these 1970s Blaxploitation films, such as Foxy Brown and Coffee. Right. I was reading that there is a bunch of, because I have not seen either of those movies, but I guess that there's a bunch of because I have not seen either of those movies but I guess that there's a bunch of references to them yes um within Jackie Brown I was I yeah from what I was able to gather it just it seems like what you're saying and that he just wanted to meet Pam Greer really bad question mark yeah um I was I mean especially with conversations about Tarantino and because the

Uma Thurman story kind of uh haunts me so much because I have so much love for Kill Bill and what happened to her on the set of that movie was so terrible I was like how did Pam Greer feel about working with this man um it turns out pretty good which is great I'm like I am glad that Pam Gurr had a good experience. But yeah, it sounds like he just sort of sought her out and was like, Hey, I wrote this for you. Do you want to be super famous again? And she was like, Yes, yes. Although she did not realize that the part was written for her because when Tarantino sent her the script, she didn't take it very seriously because she thought he was sending it to her because she was being considered for the much smaller role of melanie and so she was just like whatever and then when tarantino called her he's like no i want you as jackie brown

and so she's like oh yeah tight tight tight, tight. So like we said, this movie revitalized her career because she had come to fame in the 70s with these various blaxploitation films. And then her career kind of tapered off after that. She turned 40, which is not allowed. Not allowed if you're a woman. That is sort of the context that we are working with that I feel like could transition into a conversation about Tarantino's handling of race. Yeah. handling of race yeah because as we said um he makes choices and he's he's got a checkered history when it comes to treatment of race in his movies where for example you know he cast himself in pulp fiction as a character who very casually throws around the N-word. Yeah. He's also, you know, one of the few white directors of that time

who was even willing to address race in his movies at all and willing to cast, I would say, more actors of color in his movies than most other big-name auteur white guy directors of that time. Again, not saying that he handles race well every time he does it, but there are interesting things happening in this movie. One of the main ones being the thing we mentioned of him specifically rewriting, because this almost never happens, where oftentimes in a book, a character will be a person of color and then when a director gets

their hands on it they adapt it and whitewash it and now the character is suddenly white right it very rarely happens in the reverse and i mean him wanting to pay homage to blaxploitation films is i don't know i mean like explain blaxploitation to me please is that like what genre is that or you don't have to if you don't but like so it's basic so it's a it's a genre a subgenre most popular in the 1970s where a lot of black filmmakers and the casts were predominantly black so it was like a very black run and black led okay group of movies okay but they're called black exploitation movies because they are relying on different stereotypes a lot of times like the characters were like pimps or drug dealers or gun runners things like that i see i see So it's what the name suggests it to be,

exploiting the black identity in a way. Yeah. Although it does feel worth mentioning that the two black exploitation movies that Pam Greer is most famous for were written and directed by a white director, Jack Hill. True, yeah. So there are sort of like variations within the genre.

You know, not all of them are necessarily relying on stereotypes, things like that. But Tarantino wanting to pay homage to those films is, I don't know, I don't know how to feel about it necessarily one way or another. And then another thing he does is he has various characters comment on race throughout the film. Mostly it's Samuel L. Jackson. Another thing to note here is that Tarantino originally wrote the part of Ordell for himself. Tarantino was planning for a long time to play Ordell. I'm so glad he stopped acting. It's so stressful watching him act. It really is. So after a long time, he decided to, you know, relinquish the part and cast Samuel L. Jackson

in the role, which I'm again, glad he did. I'd much rather watch Samuel L. Jackson on screen than Tarantino. But that lends itself to Ordell making different comments about how like when he's in Max Cherry's office, and Max wants to know, well, if you already have $10,000, why can't you just, you know, why do you need a bond? Why can't you take that money and bail out Beaumont? Andordell is like a black man showing up with $10,000 in cash. They're going to want to know how I got it. They'll want to keep a chunk of it, claiming that there's like court costs

and all this stuff. So he's saying that they're going to make racist assumptions about him and nothing will work out in his favor. Similarly, he's talking about when he wants Jackie Brown bailed out and he's commenting on the charge that he she has been charged with that she was caught with less than two ounces of cocaine, but charged with intent to distribute it. And he says, you know, a movie star gets caught with that same amount. They'd get charged with just possession possession which is a far less severe crime

but because it's a black woman she's charged with this bogus far more severe crime yeah i mean i it's again like i don't know i'm like not trying to hand it to tarantino too much uh because it feels weird too but but yeah it like you were saying earlier Caitlin it's like this is more commentary you would get from a movie by a white director than than most directors at this time and just more commentary on race and a big movie in general because this movie was super successful yeah yeah so I mean I guess my point is like, I wasn't necessarily expecting to see that in this movie. Because again, I didn't really, I knew very little about it going in just that it was a Tarantino movie. And again, he, he, based on his treatment of race and him throwing around the N-word very casually

a few years before in Pulp Fiction, but then him turning around and adapting this character to specifically include a Black woman as the protagonist of his movie and framing her in a way that, in my opinion, makes her really awesome and like a really complex character. And that plus like including other commentary about race, nothing too extensive in this movie. But again, it's more than you'd expect from a white director in the 90s, which, you know, the bar is very low and that doesn't necessarily you know mean that he should get all these prizes and recognition but I don't know it's complicated it's interesting which like there's I mean we can link this in the description of the episode too

because yeah that topic alone there has been so much written about yeah it like comes up every time he releases a movie usually because he has once again written it into the movie right and i know that he is he and spike lee have had this sort of long-standing back and forth about how spike lee feels like spike lee is it has a sort of storied history of being like this is fucking weird that you do this this much. Like, knock it off. We can link that in the description. Because it is, I mean, I think very relevant.

And also, there's like infinite. There is like 20 plus years of debate about his use of the N-word in movies, which is absolutely wild. And this movie was another example of, like, there was a wave of discourse like that in 1997. So for longer than some of our listeners have been alive, this conversation has been going on. For listeners who haven't heard, like, his rationale, if you want to call it rationale, like, does he explain it? Does he ever

own why he says it? So he's commented on it many times. I don't know. I mean, I guess everyone react the way you react. So he sort of in 2015, I think he had his all time worst response to it. When the Hateful Eight came out. He did an interview with Brett Easton Ellis, which I feel like doesn't help, and addressed this controversy again, saying, quote, if you sift through the criticism, you see it's pretty evenly divided between pros and cons. But when black critics came out with savage think pieces about Django, Django Unchained, I couldn't have cared less. If people don't like my movies, they don't like my movies. my movies and if they don't get it it doesn't matter the bad taste that was left in my mouth had to do with this it's been a long time since the subject of a writer's skin was mentioned as often as mine you wouldn't think the color of a writer's skin should have any effect on the words

themselves in a lot of the more ugly pieces my motives were really brought to bear in the most negative way it's like I'm some super villain coming up with this stuff unquote which seems like playing the victim to a pretty absurd extent yeah i really don't understand his i don't i don't this sounds like a very um like a lot of words but i didn't get any thread in in what domain must yeah i didn't get it he's so sure sentences that he said it's so bizarre too because i mean that reaction it's i again like this movie i think like addresses like there's a scene between um ordell and max where max essentially is like are you appealing to my white guilt yeah uh to get me to do this and it's like for i don't

know for a writer that is like trying to interact with those concepts and these conversations to also say that in such a clueless way it's just like um yeah baffling anyways so we'll link more but yeah um let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss further. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right?

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

the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhard in you. Oh my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind.

Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge. I? I got to hawk this slalom, Rudy.

I'm not going to hawk this slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente.

And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.

And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do. Like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 unhearts 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. And we're back.

Let's talk about Jackie Brown. Yeah, let's do it. Sadia, you had mentioned that you related to this character in meaningful ways. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that. I'm just totally blown away by the character. And this movie is about her. This is such a strong movie, given given that the cast the other cast is quite a list class but she just overshadows the whole film like the whole deal is like she's you can't stop watching her um she's sassy she's real she's vulnerable she's flawed she's um a survivor and

she's all of those things most of the time and um we're we're really with her and like we you know it's hard what she's going through and I don't know it's like I don't know I just I fell in love with her so so much and I think it's also like for me when I watched it it was just like a reminder of like I did get this kind of moment where I was like what I've never seen anybody like her so that that added to the impact that she had is that this is a figure that we really need to watch and um this is a character a person like her that I love to watch and I could have continued to watch her go to Spain and you know it wasn't even about her relationship which is really rare like I think um for women it's often

you know you want them to kind of have a partner or that's a big part of the story if not the story but this wasn't about those um that was so secondary and so for her to own everything in those in that kind of context for me it was like I've never seen it before I couldn't stop watching it I wanted her to have all the money I wanted her to win and I don't know how but it was just like it was really cool and it just felt she was very honest and she'd been through a lot and yeah just to repeat I hate repeating myself but it's just like I think it's because there's such an absence of women like her on screen that it really like touched me quite a lot right I mean because it's rare to have a movie of this

genre you know like a crime thriller noir type movie that centers a woman as the protagonist who we are rooting for the one where she's like the smartest person in the room in any room she's in she's doing a lot of the planning she's playing all of these people like she's she's the one she comes out on top she's not hyper sexualized which yeah and you can't be mad at her like even though she's got all of the strings like you know how sometimes you hate like the villain in bond or whatever like we're so with her even though we're annoyed because we don't know what's going on or whatever we're feeling for her and it's like we're really going through it as the audience but like she's yeah she doesn't really do a lot wrong there's no victim blaming it's like this sometimes you know if there's um

you know women in crime it's like we we have only like a 1d relationship with them or something like that but even though she's a little bit flawed like like we're still with her. There's no blame here. There isn't. It's really complex. And it's kind of just enjoyable to see this. You can't stop watching. Yeah. And yeah, like you were saying, Jamie, she's the way that a lot of women in her position

as a female character in a crime thriller movie, that character would be hypersexualized and or she would be framed as like the femme fatale. But that is never how she's represented. And especially for her to be centered as the protagonist in a movie like this, especially as a black woman, and especially as a black woman who is older than 30 or 35 like these are very rare things to see and this is I forget when we talked about this Caitlin but I feel like it's like Pam Greer the actor is over 40 when this is filmed but we also I feel like often see actors who are older but they're still playing like a 37 year old and in this movie it is stated she is 44 years old and also like does I don't know like also the character matches that

because I do think that there is like even now like a pressure to eternally seem like you are in your late 30s early 40s even if you're an actor into your 50s and 60s the Sandra Bullock effect yeah totally and I and it's like has nothing to do with the actors it's all the whatever cultural pressure to look a certain age uh long after that makes human sense um but I liked that like yeah like Jackie Brown is um I don't know I liked how this movie approached age as a theme and I didn't even realize until those conversations were had between a few different characters because I think I mean Jackie obviously talks about it most explicitly when she talks about aging with Max and also points out how

aging for her is framed differently than the way it is for him. And I thought that scene was like really great and like beautifully done between them. And you also see the freaky De Niro character talk about aging too, because now he can't smoke weed anymore. But it's like everyone, like most characters, I don't know as much for Ordell but for like most characters we get to know interact with the idea of aging in a way that felt um I don't know like I guess more thoughtful than I was expecting it to yeah and I think it's like also rare to see you know Pam Greer and um oh

what's the what's Max Cherry's name again god damn it oh Robert Forster Robert Forster to see actually like age like whatever I mean I don't want to get into age gap discourse today but like age appropriate older couple as the leading romantic story is again just like doesn't really happen even now still and I just thought it was I don't know I liked how each character sort of got to explore what that meant to them and I think that scene like between Jackie and Max illustrates her motivation on why she's doing what she's doing so beautifully and so empathetically. And like, you can't watch that scene and not want her to get every cent. The other thing is as well, just on the same point as you, Jamie, is that

I'm not objectifying her. I don't know, that sounds really weird. But in terms of like, I'm not fixated with her appearance, as beautiful as she is, like, that doesn't really, like, it's not my central focal point. Like, the thing I only realised at the end when that, like you said, that kiss happened, that I'm like, she's a sexy lady. But, like, I'm seeing her as a human and out-rounded person. I'm not just, like, checking her out, like, the whole time.

Or it's not that she's yeah i think you already made that point about her um not being hypersexualized yes which is like really cool i don't know like i again i just like didn't expect it because tarantino's super hit and miss on how he sexualizes his female characters as well and you know there's a bajillion studies about about how women of color in general are more likely to be sexualized in movies that anyone is making, especially in the West. And so I don't know. I just like I loved the scene where like Max falls in love with Jackie at first sight and she's just walking like she's having spent several days maybe in jail and she's like disheveled and she wants to go to like a dark bar so that no one can see her because she's like i look like i just got out of jail but he's just like that's the most beautiful woman i've ever seen and he's not wrong like pam

has such a presence on screen like she has just a face that you want to stare at for hours and hours and hours. Like it's just, she's just so magnetic. And every man who she encounters basically falls in love with her because Max sees her. It's love at first sight. There are various allusions to Ray, the Michael Keaton cop, liking her, having a crush on her. He like takes her out to dinner several times to like discuss the case but like it doesn't need to be over dinner but he's just like i love i just want to look at her the bartender it's like a brief like two second scene but like the bartender at the cockatoo inn

is like hey baby the thing is that if characters like her can be made, why aren't they made since then? Or obviously not before Burton, but like since then, how come it's proven that this is a realistic portrayal of a character? Like, it's very rare, isn't it? Yeah, I feel like there's far fewer examples since Jackie Brown than there should be. And I don't know, like, I think this is probably all Pam Greer, but it feels so cool and rare to have a character who is sexy but not sexualized. Like, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I think it just has to do with, like, her persona and what a good good, like an amazing actor and what an amazing performance this is. But like, she's so naturally like magnetic and sexy and cool that it's like, I don't know. Like it feels like this movie just lets Pam Greer do her work and perform.

And just like, you have no trouble believing that anyone would fall in love with her and it's so like freeing because i'm not focused on her being sexualized i'm seeing so many different aspects of her that i wouldn't if she was being sexualized so i'm not saying that there's no room for sexualized characters but i think because it's just always the case that like, because I'm so preoccupied with her, like those kind of aspects of her, I'm allowed to just let go and be in the story and follow her and not just parts of her. Like I don't, yeah, it's not tokenistic at all. It's just like, you're with the character, you're not with her because of her looks or because of superficial things. Right. Totally. Yeah. You just need her. I wanted to point out one more of the age things

because I just, I don't know. I'm like, wow, age is never discussed in movies. But the cops at one point in the first scene that Jackie has with the two cops where they're going through her bag and she's holding her ground. She's not putting up with, like not taking the bait after bait after bait that they're throwing at her.

And one of those pieces of bait is related to both her age, race and class. I think all in the same sentence where one of the characters says something akin to like, if I was a 44 year old black woman with a shitty job, I don't think I would have another year to throw away. So you better cooperate with us. a shitty job I don't think I would have another year to throw away so you better cooperate with us yeah and I don't know it's just like such a vile thing to say to her and she just like does I mean obviously doesn't fall for it she doesn't fall for anyone's bullshit but it was you know I think that like that line sticks with her because it comes up in a roundabout way later in that conversation with Max. And her takeaway is like,

that's the reason she's not going to cooperate with the cops is like, she's going to get her fucking eat, pray, love story. And like, there's total, like there's Jackie Brown too. Very different vibes.

Oh my gosh. Eat, pray, love. Well, that's the thing like her motivation is the intersection of her age her race and her class because she and her status as someone who has been incarcerated because she has a prior conviction and where she served I don't know if she served jail time, but she was on probation for a while, because it's referenced that she was formerly married

and her husband who was a pilot got caught for smuggling drugs, I think, or something. And she was his accomplice. So she got apprehended by the law to some degree and it made it so that she couldn't get work with the major airlines which is why she's working for Cabo Air which I don't know if that's a real airline or not but in the movie it's widely known that it's like the shittiest airline to work for and it's you know reference that she only makes sixteen thousand dollars a year and so she's looking out for herself and she knows that like as a black woman in her mid-40s with a prior arrest or like you know something on her record the cards are very much stacked against her and she needs to do whatever it takes to look out for herself and

that's why she's like i'm gonna steal this half a million dollars from this shitty arms dealer who's like bad at everything and uh we're rooting for her because of it did you guys sorry we talked about this very briefly at the beginning, but did you learn anything about yourselves when you watched this? Did you think you would do the same as her or was your anxiety levels like, oh my God, I couldn't do that? Like, what did you learn about yourself? I would be so afraid of getting murdered by someone that I,

and I'm such a rule follower that I'd be like. Okay, so not for you. I'm such a rule follower that I'd be like okay so not for you I'm such a baby it was hard it was hard to decide yeah I was also I I mean I think yeah I mentioned it earlier I was like I don't know if I could keep my facts straight sufficiently morally I have no scruples about what Jackie is doing yeah and if I were in a similar position I you know if I thought I could pull it off maybe I would try but I I don't know I was like I would need a someone that I trust to be like wait what lie did I tell again like I would need someone well she trusts Max and I want to just chat about that relationship a little bit more because like as you said sadia it is that relationship is like almost it's like

barely even a subplot in this movie it's just sort of there it's not really taking up any space there you know he likes her from the get-. She's not like, exploiting him or using him necessarily, because she never tries to be like, I love you. And that's why you have to do this for me. She's just like, I'm trying to do this thing. Can you help me? And he's like, well, I love you. So yes. And I was like, Hmm, I wonder if they going to like stick them together at the end. And she does like kind of halfheartedly invite him to go to Spain with her. He declines. I'm not surprised that this movie didn't do it because like that's not a Tarantino thing to do.

He usually doesn't go for those cliche Hollywood endings. endings but I think I mean I was surprised at how like I think it again like for me connected to the sexy but not sexualized thing where I don't know I mean I'm trying to think of a of a clear-cut example but again just with like women over 40 in movies I feel like it is um the older you get as an actor if you're a woman or anyone of a marginalized gender the less likely it is um the older you get as an actor if you're a woman or anyone of a marginalized gender the less likely it is that you are going to be shown as romantically viable for sure and i like that she kind of gets her little like i don't know this relationship is like very much a side quest of the movie it is there it helps move the plot along a little bit but it's like she I kind of liked where they left it where it was like yeah they didn't force the relationship and that like I don't know I mean

obviously he'll be hung up on her until he dies but that's kind of his problem yeah she's got to move on I and I love that the movie gives us you know those like book endings of jackie by herself like moving through the world and this time she's like driving with intention she's not being ushered along by this moving whatever at the airport like i don't know she's it's wow it feels very like and my life was the prize at the end of the movie and you're like i'm in control it's cool um this is from a variety piece from a few years ago entitled jackie brown at 20 meaning the movie is 20 years old jackie brown at 20 pam greer has a better idea for an ending and so pam greer's pitch for an alternate ending for this movie is this quote. In my ending, we have a nice kiss, a second kiss and embrace.

And he lets all the phone calls go to voicemail. He'll take care of them later. He turns out the lights, takes the keys, comes with me, gets in the car. I drive off and all of a sudden he becomes this chatterbox and annoying I go around the block drop him off and peel out of there oh my god that's great I like that because I think what made their it's not you can't call it relationship but their connection interesting was the whole kind of danger of this kind of smuggling deal type of thing and so if that's the sexy thing and that's kind of resolved itself then yeah maybe like the reality I think

basically it's bittersweet but it's probably more correct that they don't end up together because daily life just isn't going to be for Jackie right yeah I think he's too much of a square for her and it seems like he kind of I kind of appreciated that he seemed to have the self-knowledge to understand that and that's part of why he's like I can't I can't go on a vacation I'm I'm too boring oh Jamie's going in well I really no I really liked Max like I thought that like he was uh I don't know I think it's kind of I can yeah there's a lot about this especially for a Tarantino movie that surprised me where I feel like you don't get a lot of like gentle men not not gentlemen but like gentle men yeah in Tarantino movies but Max Cherry is you know a pretty gentle man and I appreciated him um and I

also was like would I want to go on a European vacation with him probably not I feel like Jackie is on to I truly I'm like what is the like conventional very conventional yeah and I and I also I don't know I think I'm just a sucker for like relationship subplots that are like, we like had this really weird, interesting moment in our lives that we shared together and then we moved on. I always kind of appreciate that kind of story. And it seems like they'll both, you know, remember each other fondly. And also I kind of liked that they're like, well, I didn't like this, but it was like, Max was so like, I don't know, I think inspired by meeting Jackie that he's like, I'm getting out of the bail bond game. And then he does not, which just felt very true to life. Like, I'm always like, I'm, I'm done with whoever, whatever. And then, you know, two seconds later, you're like, well, no, I actually have to pay rent this month.

So I guess I'm not done. Can we talk about the other women in the movie who are all girlfriends of Ordell? I feel like, yeah, Tarantino used up all his respect for women on Jackie's character and he had none to spare for anybody else. This is true. Yes. The character with the most screen time of those girlfriends of Ordell is Melanie, played by Bridget Fonda. So we learn very early on that Ordell mistreats melanie he expects her to wait on him hand and foot um there's a scene where they're watching um feminist masterpiece chicks who love guns i thought that was like funny satire yeah yeah also noteworthy in that scene is ordell is like talking to lewis about all of his gun knowledge and he's saying that his customers want particular guns because certain movies made

them look cool even if the guns themselves are not very good quality but he's like well they want the cool guns from the cool movies and so he's just commenting on how influential media is anyway so um melanie is mistreated if she tries to you know challenge ordell he threatens her with violence she spends most of the movie shit talking ordell to lewis saying like he doesn't actually know anything he's like he thinks he's johnny gun or something but he doesn't know shit she also later she talks lewis to his face saying like oh no wonder you got arrested and like went to jail you're really bad at this uh and then he retaliates by shooting her which we'll get to in a second.

But when you when you explain it like that, it's sort of interesting. I don't know. Maybe there's nothing to this. But like it seems like Melanie is this sort of like behavioral inverse of Jackie in a lot of ways. We're like Jackie knows that she is mostly surrounded by incompetent men but generally has enough patience to play it to her advantage yeah where Melanie does not have that patience true and I like I don't know I I'm not trying and like I I'm so curious of like what you're supposed to think about her death I didn't know what to take because i feel like there's a way that it's just like a an act of cruelty and like some sort of comment on like

masculinity about the de niro character but i also think there's a viewing of it that it's like well she brought it upon herself um yeah it's but i don't know that's the thing like she so she gets she later gets roped into this like handoff sting thing and she becomes an integral part of the plan but then she almost immediately is shot and killed in a way that like we said we do not see coming at all and it got me thinking about the other characters who are killed in the movie and why they are killed. Because the people who are killed are Beaumont, Lewis, Ordell, and Melanie. Not in that order exactly. But Beaumont and Lewis are killed by Ordell because they do something foolish. They're a liability to Ordell. Basically, they're screwing up his

operation. And so he kills them to protect himself and eliminate these liabilities. Ordell is killed because he's the bad guy who has to be taken down. He is also him getting killed to me felt like the movie punishing him for his bad behavior he's cruel to women he's he's going to kill the character that we're rooting for jackie brown so he has to die and that's the narrative punishing him but then melanie is killed because she challenged lewis's fragile ego and it's just like i don't know how to interpret it exactly like you were saying jamie i don't know and then ordell is like when lewis is like yeah um i did shoot melanie and she's basically dead and Ordell is like you couldn't talk to her you couldn't just hit her and then Lewis is like well I don't know I just shot her and so Ordell is like well if you had to do it you had to do it and which says which says to me just like based on I don't know like

it's hard to put on 1997 goggles for like watching this, but it feels like in that scene with Sam Jackson and De Niro that like, it's kind of played as a joke right after it happens because that's like such a Tarantino scene of like Sam Jackson in a car talking about a recent murder. And it's like some of the most iconic scenes that he's written. I don't know. This is not one scenes that he's written I don't know this is not one of them obviously but I don't know I felt like her I don't understand why

in a movie where I feel like I did understand most of why things were happening that felt casual and random and senseless and maybe that's what it was supposed to be. I don't really know. And I also, towards the end of Melanie's character arc, was not sure what she was trying to do either. Because we know that her motive is that Ordell treats her poorly and she wants to fuck him over in some way and that's why she's leveraging this new i don't know like awkward weed smoking hang situation with lewis to her advantage um i don't understand really what like but on the day of their plan like she is running behind like there's i I just like didn't understand what we were supposed to take away from her behavior. Like that was very unsubtle. And I think just was made to some extent to make her seem like incompetent and kind of just like a bimbo in the bad way. Not in the cool way well there are a lot of male directors who do this where they're like

yeah there are certain types of women who do deserve respect but if you're this type of woman you do not deserve respect and i think tarantino views someone like the melanie character as the type of woman who does not deserve respect and therefore she's gonna make choices that ultimately get her killed and the movie is going to basically sort of blame her for getting killed and it's like well she was asking for it basically because of the way she is that's at at least my interpretation of it. I think you could read it differently, but that's how I sort of feel. Yeah.

I'm, I'm on board with that. It's just bizarre. Cause it's like this, it, she feels more in line with like a more stereotypical Quentin Tarantino character wedged inside of this movie that pushes against a lot of what you would consider to be

stereotypical Quentin Tarantino characters. I also just like Bridget Fonda and I wish that she got a better ending. I like that at least at least before she dies you do get like this moment between her and Jackie even though it it doesn't pass the vector test and they don't even ever really meet like face to face really Because anytime that Jackie is entering I think the one Time that they might have a conversation Melanie Is leaving as Jackie arrives

But Jackie Does try to like Give her extra Like she gives her like the cherry on top Because what did Ordell ever do for either Of us yeah I liked that little moment of solidarity, even though she's got like 45 minutes left to live for reasons unclear to me. Yeah. I liked, I mean, the other two, we hear about two other characters.

They're both girlfriends of Wardell, I think. Simone and Sharonda, yeah. Yes. I don't know. The way that Wardell talks about women is just horrible. Does not have a good thing to say about anybody. I think he's talking about Sharonda when he says that he basically preyed on her dream of moving to Hollywood. Yeah. And is keeping her captive to some extent as his girlfriend talks about her like she is not smart at all.

But I believe she is also the one that takes the money and fucks him over. No, that's Simone. Oh, good for Simone. So Simone is the middle-aged woman who we meet when she's doing a little dance for Louis in this blue sequined dress. She's the kind of secret person who's there for the trial run of that first money handoff. And then she skips town with $10 thousand dollars and they never hear from her again good for her sharonda is the younger woman she's only 19 meanwhile sam jackson like his characters in his 40s late 40s presumably like you said he talks about her very disrespectfully calls her like a country bumpkin kind of thing and then later she does that

handoff and she interacts very briefly with Jackie and that's kind of all we see of the food court at the food court she eats some of her meal and then later she's in the room when Ordell and Max are talking and it's implied that she's like so stoned out of her mind. I'm guessing on heroin that she's like basically incapacitated and she doesn't even like speak or is like barely conscious in that scene. scene so those other two women of like Simone and Sharonda they are important to the story for like the different sting operations that go down but they get very little screen time they get very little characterization the characters nor the movie seem to respect them very much and then they're you know in a couple scenes and then gone so there isn't really even much to talk about with them I really do like picture Quentin Tarantino in his house with like a vial full of respect for women characters and he's like I don't know I'm fresh out I used it all up on that one I'm just

gonna have to phone it in which sucks because again I feel like we've been talking about this for as long as the show has existed I think the first time we may have talked about it was in the original Star Wars A New Hope episode where it's like movies that have one amazing woman character and then no one for them to really talk to other than men for the whole movie. Which this movie is not completely an example of, but for the most part. I don't know. I mean, it's not perfect, but what movie is? I just love Jackie Brown so much

that I want to forgive this movie for certain things. But also, you know, I'm team Bridget Fonda. She's very talented. She's married to Danny Elfman. Whoa. Isn't that fun? She's also a Nepo person because she's she is henry fonda's granddaughter peter fonda's daughter the whole fonda family is just

i mean i like them jane fonda's she's jane fonda's niece etc yes this is i'm pro fonda i'm not made of stone um does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss? No, that was, that was about all I had. Yeah. Well, we were kind of alluding to this.

There are a couple interactions between women, but as far as this movie passing the Bechdel test, I do think that an exchange between Jackie and Sharonda at the mall court does pass. It does. Yeah. Because they are, and I would say that that's their meeting is definitely very meaningful. Even though it doesn't have a ton of plot relevance, it feels, I was really happy that the movie at least took a second to introduce them to each other. They're mostly talking about food at the mall, but there's subtext. I think it counts.

But I think that that is the only time that we get, because the other exchanges are very brief. Between Pam Greer and Bridget Fonda. There's a moment of solidarity, but it's over a mutual being fucked over by Ordell. So that doesn't pass. Maybe when Melanie is like, you look really good in that suit. And Jackie's like, thanks. Oh, that's true.

Okay, feminist masterpiece. I take back everything I said. Take it all back. But on to the real end all be all of movie rating systems, the nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples, based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. So this one, oh, this is a tricky one. You know, you have such an incredible character in Jackie Brown. Again, she's the smartest person in the room. You know, she's a realistically flawed character. She you know she's highly motivated what is motivating her are interesting relatable things as far as like again the intersection of her age race and class and i like that she's not like beholden to anybody like those flaws are hers it's not like there's a whole i mean there's probably a big backstory but it's not

kind of alluded to and so there's no like you feel for her but it's not like a pity feel for her for sure yeah yeah she's highly empathetic as a character and i'm rooting for her every step of the way and you know the pam greer performance is incredible and there's just so much to love and admire about the Jackie Brown character but as we said Tarantino seems to have used up all of his respect for women on that one character and then the rest of the female characters are not offered that same level of respect or characterization and um yeah i don't know there's just melanie could have just disappeared yeah like she could have like or like we didn't need to gotten away from lewis in some respect i think the treatment of the the um smaller roles of the women it says a lot about the guys as well and i feel like it's

also about the world that's been created they're not very um i don't know what the word i mean up market is probably a bad choice of word but it's like i still hold them accountable to an extent does that make sense what i'm saying like in terms of the male characters their their sloppiness towards the women is it's about them as well i do think the movie is commenting on their like fragile male egos and they're in a funk right these guys are in a funk um as you kind of said earlier about robert de niro's character like he's basically a loser so yeah i think it's like it's it's not like the best portrayal of women or it's not a good portrayal of women however i think they're also accountable in terms of they're not

great portrayals of men either right i mean tarantino does not have respect i don't know i don't know how he feels about like ordell or but I mean he seems to think Max Cherry is a pretty nice guy yeah and I can't argue with him I was like I was like I agree I like Max but also I like man we didn't oh we didn't even talk about like Jackie Brown colluding with the cops and like her cooperation with the police and you know but also maybe you just have to chalk it up to again she's gonna do whatever it takes because she also plays the cops like she's not like there to be like no you guys are awesome and i'm definitely helping you with 100 integrity yeah i wouldn't say that this movie is excuse pro cop right no it seems like she she makes it very like i think

that like especially in that scene where it's her she's like i'm going to do whatever is necessary to survive in a way where i can be happy like justifies how she games every single person in every single role right and we're like woohoo hell yeah but then like i think more the it's pro cop to make michael keaton a cop because i think he's really hot well i know someone is so sexy so that's sort of my thing casting someone is young michael keaton does it for me right casting someone as likable as michael keaton as a cop character is a little too pro-cop for my taste. But even so, yeah, it's Jackie Brown, again, being the smartest person in the room, being able to keep track of everything that she's said to everyone, anticipating things that will probably... She knows all about Murphy's Law, like whatever can go wrong will she's like

anticipating things. I also like the contrast between Beaumont who willingly gets in the trunk of a car for like, basically, no reason. It's like the reason that Ordell is like, yeah, because I need you to spring out and surprise these people I'm selling the guns to. It's just like the flimsiest thing ever. And Balmain's just like, well, okay. You know what's horrible? And the horrible thing is when that scene happened, I believed him. I was like, wow, I really would not make it five minutes into this movie.

I would have been like, yeah, I guess I owe you a fever. Sure, I'll get into the trunk of a car no problem um but when as soon as you know max tells jackie about like oh yeah um beaumont got killed a few days ago jackie's like oh well that was obviously ordell and obviously he's going to try to kill me too so i need to prepare Like she's just so good at being hyper aware of the situation and all the nuances and like anticipating anything that might happen. And she's incredible. So with all of this in mind, I think I'll give the movie, I'm kind of tempted to give

it like three nipples because there are some, maybe even three and a half i don't know wow i was even gonna go for it is that too scary that's not scary is that too scary all right i'll go three and a half because at the end of the day it is still quentin tarantino writing the n word into his script a hundred times yeah so three and a half nipples and I'm gonna distribute them between Pam Greer the actors who played Sharonda and Simone and Sam Jackson who I just love and he's the greatest so much so that I'm on a first name basis with him hey Sam wow yeah um yeah for for some reason four doesn't sit right with my uh with my spirit so i'll go i'll go 3.75 let's get let's get into some real decimal numbers jackie brown is such an awesome character i feel like yeah there's just so many elements of

like i mean we have talked about it but but centering a black woman in her 40s in a like huge movie is was really rare then is really rare now and also the like she's sexy but she's not like i don't know the camera doesn't like make a meal of her in a creepy way at any point she's really smart she's really motivated but not in a way that it's like becomes like weird Mary Suey kind of behavior like the stakes are very real and like she's I don't know she's just like the coolest fucking character and I wish that she had again just like women in her life to talk to I always think it's fascinating when you find these characters who are like these amazing women that you're like,

how does Jackie Brown not have 500 friends? Like she is so cool and so loved by everyone. She encounters that you would think if the movie allowed her to encounter more women, they too would love her. And I just, I don't know. I mean,

we don't really get into Jackie Brown's or anyone in this movie is, you know, backstory in a meaningful way, which didn't bother me, but I just, I don't know. It would, it would have been cool to see what a true,

like deep friendship would have seemed like for her, but whatever. It it's she's incredible um I think Melanie and Simone and Sharonda were all done different types and degrees of disservice um but Jackie um she's untouchable and so I'm gonna give it 3.75 and give them all to Pam Greer because it's her movie baby yeah I feel like you could have written out as much as I like Robert De Niro as an actor I feel like you could have written him out of the movie and then given Jackie Brown a friend instead of giving Ordell a friend that's my controversial this doesn't this doesn't resolve the problem but it would have been kind of fun if Robert De Niro was Jackie Brown's best friend anyway uh Sadio how about you what say you

this is so hard because it's my choice um but I think yeah I'm I was gonna go for four but maybe 3.9 but that's just weird so I'll probably let me go for four okay oh yeah because it definitely did make me see things in a really refreshing way even though like we've definitely commented and i've taken on board uh the notes about the side characters which isn't great from like obviously when we're kind of in the industry so we know that all characters should be rounded but like that's not what he's gone for really so but she is totally eclipsed everything and I think given that I really don't see women black women so real and so kind of winners inspiring um survivors all of those things it's like yeah before yeah yeah hell yeah well saudi thank you so much for joining us for this discussion tell us where people can follow you online

tell us about your book or plug anything you want to plug thank you ladies it's been so much fun and like yeah you made me love this movie again and so much more i don't know why i don't watch this like more often um so my book is called sex bomb um you can't see it because i blurred my zoom but i just oh anyway my book is my memoir it's about um kind of dating as a muslim woman um which you never get to hear about in a in a nuanced way i guess all you ever get to hear about is muslim women. I guess all you ever get to hear about is Muslim women being repressed. So I'm really excited. It's coming out in America.

I'm confused because I was told that it's coming out on the 29th of August, but my friend in America said they can already order it now. So if you do want to support, you can buy it. You can get your good old independent bookstore to order it, or you can get it from Amazon or anywhere, basically. So I really enjoyed writing that. And hopefully I can write another one. You can find me on Instagram mostly at Sardia underscore Asmat,

with an S at the end. And I also have a website, which is SardiaAsmat.com. And it has a free guide. If you want to sign up to my mailing list, it's 10 things you've always wanted to ask up to my mailing list it's um 10 things you've always wanted to ask about my headscarf but were too afraid to ask so you can download that for free and it's a little list that i made and that's my plugs amazing thank you again i'm coming to america sorry oh my god i'm thinking of another movie i'm coming to new york september

and october 2023 so i'm really excited so my first ever time in America and I can't wait I'm so excited I'll stay away from the melt wall food courts because I hear there's a lot of trouble that goes down there they're dangerous well enjoy your travels

and thanks again for coming on the show you can follow us on social media at Bechtel cast and subscribe to our matrion at patrion.com slash Bechtel cast, where you will get two bonus episodes every single month, always centering a super fun, awesome genius theme and you'll also get access to our back catalog of many many episodes all for five dollars a month imagine and the kill bill and the kill bill

uh you can also get our uh our merch over at tpublic.com slash the Bechdel cast for all of your merchandising needs. And on that note, let's get into the car of our recently dead guy we knew and drive to the airport and go eat, pray, love in Madrid. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers.

And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week, we're taking it to the next level.

The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation

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

There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel,

available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.