June 20, 2016 • 57 mins
Romantic comedies remain one of Hollywood's most segregated film genres. In part four of their rom com podcast series, Cristen and Caroline compare the development, tropes and racial tensions within monochromatic rom com worlds.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson, and
we're the co host of Stuff You Missed in History Class.
We are a history podcast that tries to look at
the things that maybe we're overlooked in your history classes,
maybe not covered in as much detail, or frankly, maybe
covered in a way that was not accurate. New episodes
come out every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,
(00:22):
or anywhere else that podcasts can be listened to. Welcome
to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
(00:42):
and I'm Caroline, and this is part four of our
series on romantic comedies, and today we're gonna bust a
rom com myth that only white people fall in love.
You know who knew. Yeah, we're looking at rom coms
of color you could call them, really focusing though on
(01:05):
black romantic comedies. And one of the most stunning things
to realize in reading for this episode, Caroline, is how
romantic comedies are one of, if not the most segregated
genres in Hollywood. Oh yeah, for sure, it's it's romantic
(01:26):
comedies starring black people are hardly marketed to the white
audience because so many people in Hollywood at the executive
level just assume that white audiences will not be interested.
But it creates that horrific loop of like, oh, well,
they're not marketing it to us, so I never developed
(01:48):
an interest in it, so I'm never gonna see it,
And that just reinforces the executives assumptions that, oh, we'll
see larger audiences aren't going to go see these quote
unquote black romantic comedies, whereas rom com starring white people,
of course, are not called white rom coms. They're called
mainstream right white people. Yes, white people are referred to
(02:08):
as mainstream audiences. Yeah, I mean even though, and this
is a whole other tangent that we don't really need
to get into, but if you just look at the
per capita ticket sales of who goes to see movies,
African Americans and Latinos per capita like by far more
(02:29):
movie tickets than so called mainstream audiences. So the whole
you know, all these marketing arguments I think are a
bit of a stretch sometimes. Um, but if we even
look at interracial rom comms or romances, because some of
these movies were going to talk about kind of straddle
that line between rom com or just straight up romance. Um.
(02:51):
But even today, inter racial films, inter racial romances, whether
comedic or not, are considered taboo. Yeah. Um. And I
think a good way to get into this conversation is
if we go to a Jet magazine piece from ninete
that really spelled out this issue. Um. It was called
(03:13):
why Blacks don't get romantic roles in movies? So it's
been years since I've seen guests Who's coming to dinner
with Sydney Portier. Also, I can't remember the lead actress's name,
but her parents are played by Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy,
classic romcom couple. So it's such a great movie. But
(03:34):
Sydney Portier was not permitted. His character was not permitted
to kiss, touch, caress, hug anything his fiancee. Yeah. So
that goes all the way back to the Hollywood Code
I think enacted in four an anti missigenation rule, essentially
saying that people who do not have the same skin
(03:56):
color can not caress or kiss. Um. And this was
one reason, as we talked about in our episode on
the stereotyping and exotic sizing of Asian women. One reason
why a silver screen actress, Anime Wong was never really
able to break through and get all these leading roles
(04:19):
because per Hollywood rules, she could never kiss a white
man on screen. Yeah, so that was the Haze Code
that we talked about in our first episode. And the
reason that those uh like segregated couples rules ended up
embedded in the Haze Code was that the majority of
(04:41):
states in this country still had those antimsigenation laws, and
so they weren't going to have their movies breaking state laws,
i e. They wanted to make as much money as
they possibly could, and if they risked showing a movie
in a state that would be against that, then they'd
lose money. And it's for that reason that in the
(05:01):
film Fatal Beauty, Whoopie Goldberg claimed that love scene between
her and co star Sam Elliott was cut because of
studio racism because it would be too racy to show
those two having sex. But she made the great point
in that article. She was quoted in that Jet Magazine
article is saying if he had put money on the
(05:22):
table at the end of our sexual encounter, they would
have left the clip in which is such an indictment
of Hollywood racism, but so true, so accurate. To people
who just are attracted to each other having sex, that's
not okay if they're of a different race. But oh
if it were a prostitution scene, like we'll let a
black lady have sex with a white dude. Well and
(05:43):
even if it is, you know, two people of color
having sex. Willis Edwards, who was the former president of
the Beverly Hills and a c P Chapter, told Jet
Magazine that Hollywood has never wanted us to have love interests.
They feel it won't sell em Peoria or in mississiy Be.
We're looked upon as comedians, not as people who have
(06:03):
families and intimacy. Yeah, and we saw that, you know,
in our last episode on Sidekicks, that you get the
token black character who's typically two dimensionals, some kind of
either sassy woman or spiritual guide of some kind, rather
than getting the actual three dimensional character treatment. Yeah. And
it was actually for that reason that Spike Lee made
(06:27):
the films Is She's Got to Have It in nine
nineties Mobida Blues, because he figured that the only way
to change that situation was to just make the films
that he wanted to see. Um. And of course there
are black romantic comedies, there are black romances, um. But
(06:52):
the the segregation of the whole thing is really it's
just stunning to be over and over again because before
reading up for this episode, old and I am about
to show my whiteness. I'm even wearing a white button
down dress listeners, which is appropriate because I was not
aware of the depth and critical range of the black
(07:15):
rom com cannon that exists. And it's because when I
have been seeing, you know, showing those movies, it's like, oh,
well those that's a black rom com. Okay, It's like
we we grow up you and are white women, we
probably did not grow up watching black romantic comedies. Um.
In the same way, I have a feeling that there
(07:35):
are plenty of you know, women of color who are like, yeah,
I didn't grow up watching notting Hill and my best
friend's wedding. Um. But this episode for me was a
revelation in just how just how racist Hollywood is. Yeah.
I mean the only black romance I grew up watching
was hostelic At a Groove Back, which is I would
(07:58):
not classify that as a rom com. But but I
think romance in this convo, though, some romances are going
to count just because those kinds of movies are so significant,
Because how Stella Gotta Grew Back definitely crossed into quote
unquote mainstream audiences. Exactly, you're the mainstream, Caroline, Little Caroline.
(08:18):
You know I'm the mainstream now dog um, And so
it makes sense that the roots. Kelly Goff was super
not happy. But when she saw New York Magazine's list
of the top twenty five rom coms that had come
out since when Harry met Sally and saw that it
didn't contain a single black lead film. And not only
(08:38):
did it not contain a single black lead romantic comedy,
but the reasoning for that that was provided by the
two white guy critics who wrote the list is so ridiculous,
and and Goff appropriately skewers them for this. So they
basically said, or they did say, quote their movies, this
(08:59):
list needs. We have a couple of LGBT rom coms
on there, but we wish there could be more. And
while African American rom coms, as exemplified in films like
The Best Man, in Waiting to Exhale and About Last
Night have thrived during this time. We couldn't agree on
any titles we felt were strong enough to warrant inclusion
on this list, and Golf is like, are you kidding me?
(09:20):
It never occurred to you, Uh, two white guys who
were like, I don't know how to pick a black
rom com, So I'm just not going to talk about
to maybe ask a woman or a person of color
for ideas. Yeah, um, or consider the fact that maybe
maybe just one Adam Sandler Drew Barrymore rom com is enough,
(09:42):
because No, fifty First States is not one of the
best rom coms that has come out ever since when
Harry Met maybe one of the worst movies. They also
listed Her, which feels like a stretch, and also I
Love You Philip Morris, which again it's like, okay, in
what way is her a better rom com than The
(10:07):
Best Man? Which, yes, listeners, I spent this weekend watching
The Best Man and The Best Man Holiday, and let
me tell you what a delight both of them more
because A. T. Diggs does follow stuff I've never told
you on Twitter, and I kept just wanting to tweet
him how much I was really enjoying his film, because
(10:28):
you just get to see Day Diggs shirtless a lot,
but also Morris Chestnut shirtless a lot. Um, there's just
a lot of really uh really handsome chests and jawlines
and those movies. But um, my objectifying, my sexual objectifying aside,
(10:49):
they were just really enjoyable ensemble films. Um. So yeah,
just seeing seeing that was I mean, the fact that
there were no black lead rom coms in this list.
Like I said, it's bad enough, but to come out
and say, like, don't you hear yourself talking? Is my
(11:10):
question to these gentlemen, Like don't you hear the words
that you just said? Why don't you ask someone or
go watch them? Well, and it perpetuates the myth that
there are no good black rom comms. Yeah. Well, and
also it just perpetuates the point of view of the
white man being the norm, being the standard, because yeah,
(11:34):
like maybe they Okay, so maybe these guys did watch
a bunch of black lead romantic comedies. But if your
baseline for what is normal, good, funny, whatever, is only
ever going to be Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson like,
maybe maybe it's time to as critics and just as
consumers of media to broaden your horizons well, and a
(11:55):
lot of it speaks to just the marginalization of black
lead film, which is something that we've talked about before
in our episode on black female film directors. Shout out
to Gina Blythe Prince in Love and Basketball by the Way,
which I also watched, um And I will get to
it in a second, Caroline, because I have a lot
of thoughts, um, But I have a feeling there is
(12:18):
this mainstream notion that black comedy is exclusive only to
Tyler Perry today, and that it is comedy that is
inaccessible and unrelatable to white audiences and is um and
and that is as good as it gets, which really
(12:39):
couldn't be farther from the truth, especially when we're talking
about classic rom comms, because surprise, surprise, other white listeners.
If we look at the mainstream heyday, the white heyday
of rom comms, starting with when Harry met Sally and
into the nineties, you have a similar kind of heyday
(13:02):
happening in black lead rom coms as well, or just
the more rom with a little bit of calm, but
more rom Yeah. And so you know, when Harry met
Sally came out launches the nineties modern neo romantic comedy.
A year before that, though, you have one of my
favorite romantic comedies in the world, Nights Coming to America
(13:30):
with Eddie Murphy and his sidekick ar Cineo Hall. So good.
It's got the it's the full I mean, it's a
full romantic comedy. It's got the happy ending, it's got
the masquerade, the deception. Uh. And it's a it's absolutely
a black lead film. And see why then, is Coming
(13:51):
to America, which I agree is absolutely hilarious. Um, it's
peak Eddie Murphy. Um why is that not in the
those lists that are all over the internet, Because it's
literally it fulfills just about every trope for better worse
that there is that's discussed in all the rom com academia.
(14:13):
I think it's because we have this idea that a
romantic comedy is inherently a white film, I would agree.
And you can have a white comedian in a romantic
comedy leading role and it's still a mainstream romantic comedy.
But you have a black comedian leading a black lead
romantic comedy and it becomes like a black comedy or
(14:35):
just a just a comedy rather than what it is
which is a true romantic comedy. Well in one of
those classics of the black lead rom coms that I
could not find anywhere on the internet to watch, which
I'm really disappointed about, is Love Jones from because it's
sited over and over and over again as the holy
(14:57):
grail of black rom ms. Um, but I couldn't find it, listeners.
I have to be honest with you, so I have
not seen it. Um. But I did watch The Best Man,
and of course then I had to watch the follow up,
The Best Man Holiday. Um, and also watched Love and Basketball.
And with all of these you see this uh familiar
(15:20):
cast of romcom leads in the same way that you
see the uh Meg Ryan's and Julia Roberts and Hugh
Grants of White films with Sna Lathan, Nil Long, Gabrielle Union,
Morris Chestnut again, Ta Digs, Tay Diggs forever. Um, are
(15:41):
you gonna get that tattooed? H? Well? You know what
after watching The Best Man The Best Man Holiday? Um,
if I had to play um uh bang Mary Kill
with Morris Chestnuts, take Diggs and Terence Howard, Um, I
I think I would, oh man, I would want to
(16:03):
look at Morris Chestnut for a really long time and
then but I did, I'd have to kill him and
then I would sleep with Teggs. But I would marry
Terence Howard. Yeah. I mean he's like, he's he's the
bad boy in both of those films. Um, but Chris
wants did you hear that? World, Kristen wants to marry
the bad boys. I mean, he's just like, he's just
(16:24):
got a certain charm um that that I really enjoyed.
And there was an interview over at Indie Wire with
the director of Um of the Best Man, who was
talking about how it's funny to him that it's always
categorized as a rom com, because he was like, no,
this isn't so much a rom com. It's just an
(16:45):
ensemble film for me. But simply because of how white Hollywood,
you know, so like narrowly interprets black film. Um, it's
it's got to be a romantic comedy because there is
some comedy in it and some rom and some rom
and plenty of calm remedy. Yes. Well, Kristen, the year
(17:08):
after The Best Man came out in two thousand, you
get Love and Basketball, and you said that there was
more you had to say about that? Oh, I got
so much to say. So Love and Basketball stars Sana
Lathan and also um Alfrey Woodard Omar Epps all star cast.
And it's a coming of age story, which I love.
(17:28):
And it's also Caroline one of the most feminist films
I have ever seen, hands down, from the get go.
It does play on some tropes of the sporty girl
gets a makeover from her sister and you know, catches
the neighbor boy's eye because suddenly it's like, you know,
the the librarian taking her hair down kind of moment.
(17:50):
But Monica sinal Athan's character is so self possessed from
the get go, knowing that not only is she good
at basketball, that she is better than the boy is
at basketball, and she's so singularly focused on her drive.
She doesn't care about looking pretty, she doesn't care about,
you know, all of these other girls who are trying to,
(18:13):
you know, hook up with her neighbor who she's secretly
in love with, played by Omar Epps Um. And there's
just all of these really fascinating relationships too, between Omar
Epps and his father, who is a retired professional basketball player,
but also Monica and her mother, who is a stay
at home mom, who have a lot of tension between
(18:35):
them because she's not conventionally like girly enough, you know,
but her it turns out, her mom thinks that she
doesn't have respect for her, you know, as a stay
at home mother. And they're just like, I don't know,
they're they're all these feminist themes that come up, and
a lot of conversations that felt very familiar as just
(18:57):
a girl who has grown up, um, and a lot
of themes that we've talked about on stuff I've never
told you before, and it just so happened that it
started an all black cast. Yeah, feminist is not normally
a word you hear thrown around when people are discussing
romantic comedies. No, not at all, not at all, um.
(19:17):
And that's why I, honestly, Caroline, I wanted to call
you so many times as I was watching it, but
it was a Saturday, and uh, because because I wanted
that should be a movie that we perhaps live podcast
or tweet or Mystery Science Theater three thousand. It's somehow
because I want to watch it with you, to share
(19:38):
this movie with you, because I really love it so much.
We get some popcorn, hang out, some sodas, yes, some
sodas and checks yes. Um So. In addition to that,
of course you have classics like two thousand twos Black Sugar,
you have waiting to Exhale too, can play at that
(20:00):
game the wood. I also last night I tried to
watch Boomerang from Eddie Murphy also Eddie Murphy young Chris Brown,
young Halle Berry, and I could not. I couldn't. I
couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Um I switched.
Actually quite definitely not a feminist film. I was going
(20:24):
to say, um it was. I bet it has a
little bit of payoff more towards the end, but there
is only so much of Eddie Murphy as a womanizer
that I could take. Although it also um co stars
Eartha kit who does do her signature Catwoman We're awl
at one point, which was enjoyable. But yeah, coming to America.
(20:46):
Much better than Boomerang, so much better. But the interesting
thing is, oh, speaking of our last rom com series
episode on Sidekicks, that's a movie where kind of like
when Harry met Sally two Sidekicks, David Allen Greer and
Hallie Berry end up getting together. Does that further the plot? Caroline,
(21:07):
I didn't get far enough. I couldn't. I couldn't tell you.
I've literally switched over to UH to white Ville on
Netflix watching Lady Dynamite starring white Ville. Isn't Lady Dynamite good?
It's pretty good so far. We'll have to do another
episode on that. We won't we won't be talking about that,
but uh. In our introductory episode to this summer series
(21:30):
Onnreamental Comedies, we did mention the film Meet the Patels,
which is it's more like of a documentary style. It's
it's not straight rom com but we bring that up
to illustrate that there are so few romantic comedy esque
films out there. I mean, let alone for a black audience,
but like, let's talk about how Indian audiences are not
(21:53):
exactly represented. Asian audiences in general are not very well
represented when it comes to romantic comedies. But I would
love to see Meet the Patel's. It's from Jada Patel
follows her brother Robbie on his exploits to find the
love of his life, although it's more his parents finding
the life yes arranged marriage um in two thousand four,
(22:17):
there was sort of a Bollywood Hollywood mash up remake
of Pride and Prejudice called Bride and Prejudice, which also
sounds like something I need to watch immediately. Um, you
also have twenty thirteens for Is this the first Asian
American rom com? Yes? Uh, in in this country obviously,
(22:37):
and we should say that when we're talking about there
are like no other rom com starting people of color
made in Hollywood and right, right, yes, that is a
good thing to specify. Yes, this is very very Hollywood
and US specific, although I believe Bride and Prejudice was
made in the UK, but it's still counted in the
list because part of it took place in the US. Yes,
(23:02):
they travel to the US. They also travel to England,
so there's a lot of like globe hopping going on.
So I've traveling traveling yes, Um, but yeah the week
at the Wedding Palace which doesn't look great. But a
lot of the commenters on that website that we were
reading defended it, saying that the author, being a white person,
(23:24):
just didn't have the same like contextual information about Korean
rom coms and culture to appreciate it. Yeah, and for
fans of Margaret Show, she does have a cameo role
in that. Um. And you're right. It was critically panned,
which is a bummer because it was at least marketed
as the first Asian American rom com. And there are
(23:47):
parts of it look really enjoyable, um, but also parts
of it that make it look tough to get through.
They're like, almost one too many twists. It seems like,
well to m Night Shamalani, but romantic and funny exactly
a little too rom com shamalan Nice. We're coining all
(24:09):
sorts of things all over the place, But one thing
they jumped out in contemporary conversations around Hollywood and rom
coms is the question of whether the genre itself is dying.
For instance, in Vulture, over in New York Magazine wanted
to know whether the rom com could even be saved
from breaking up due to Hollywood financing more blockbusters instead
(24:34):
of one offs, because those big Michael Bay blockbusters end
up making more money internationally, so they're more enticing. You
also have just the formula itself being a little bit
stale because of the rising age of marriage, the dating
landscape being completely disrupted by technology, and millennials being argue,
(25:00):
be more concerned about ourselves than finding someone else to
make us happily ever after, because it's like, I mean,
if we can post the right thing on Instagram and
go viral, like, why why do we need someone else?
It's the era of self care. It's perfectly put. Yes, um,
but I mean certain certain things Kristen are being ignored
(25:22):
in the conversation about rom coms going bust, and that
is the fact. Well, it's related to what you said
at the top of the podcast, with black audiences and
Hispanic audiences in this country paying per capita a ton
to go to the theater. That Vulture piece from twelve
pointed out that that year's highest grossing romantic comedy was
(25:45):
Kevin Harts Think Like a Man, which raked in nine million,
but they said, quote never truly broke out beyond its
predominantly African American target audience. But that's one of the
most marginalizing statements you could make about Think Like a Man, which, yes,
was based on the Steve Harvey book Think Like a Man,
(26:06):
Take My Head, Um, because to brush it aside simply
because a lot of people of color came out to
the theater to see it says a lot about the
problem that Hollywood is in not the problem that the
rom com genre is, in my mind, because that ninety
one million dollar box office Caroline knocked Hunger Games off
(26:28):
its top spot. Yeah, So the fact that you have
a film that is bringing in so much money, it
is so successful, why do you care who's going to
see it? Like, you should just be noting how much
money it's bringing in, and it is therefore successful. But
somehow it's discounted because it's bringing in an audience that's
made made up largely with people of color. It doesn't
(26:49):
make any sense Hollywood. If we've learned anything doing this podcast.
One of the things that we've learned is that Hollywood
will fund the stuff that brings in money. But is
this an exception or I mean, the dynamics here are
so confusing. I mean, well, it's all part of cyclical
marginalization based on this Hollywood idea that and and and
(27:14):
true to some extent that white people will not go
to see movies with black people, like those stories are
not for us, you know. And also there's with that
the snobbery of like, I mean, those kinds of movies
those aren't Those aren't very good movies. Why would we
want to go see something like that? And this is
something that Indiana University telecom professor Andrew Jay Weaver explored
(27:38):
in the study the role of actors race in White
audiences selective exposure to movies. In other words, Dr Weaver
was looking at, you know, if if we see too
many people with dark skin on screen, will white people
just up and flee? And we were rights, it becomes
a vicious cycle. Producers are hesitant to cat minorities and
(28:01):
race neutral romantic roles because of a fear that the
white audience will perceive the films as not for them.
But white audiences perceived romantic films with minorities as not
for them because they seldom see minorities in race neutral
romantic roles. Yeah, and so then Hollywood get scared about
(28:22):
creating these, uh movies led by people of color, unless,
for instance, it's a known quantity, like a bankable star
Will Smith, a Whitney Houston. God. Whitney Houston in movies
is my favorite thing. I mean, I know The Bodyguard
is a rom dram, not a rom com, but I
(28:42):
mean you've got that, You've got waiting to exhale. You've
got the preacher's wife. Oh god, what about Denzel? Has
Denzel starred in a rom com opposite a white female?
I don't think so. I don't know, but I mean
he's definitely like a mega movie star. He had that
he was the star in that admittedly terrible and not
because of him, but that airplane movie where he was
(29:05):
like the drunk pilot where and that's what it was called. Yeah,
which is totally I mean a huge movie star role
for for anyone. But um yeah, I mean I when
Hollywood does finally step on that step out on that ledge,
it has to be with an actor actress who's proven
(29:26):
him or herself, usually in music. Because you've also got
Queen Latifa, who's who's been successful in films, but she's
also been successful in music. First. Same with Will Smith
saying with Whitney Houston well in j Lo Queen Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But there's so much more significance to this than just
Hollywood box office numbers, because this really is something we
(29:47):
should care about it because at their love and basketball best,
these are stories that we all of us need to see,
especially here in the United States. I would argue because
there are stories of how black people love. And that's
something that Chevandra Harris wrote about over at the Huffington's Post. Yeah,
(30:09):
I mean Harris refers to this as an overlooked aspect
of black culture. I mean, you know, Hunter Harris, writing
for Anywire In wrote that, you know, we've got slave
drama after slave drama coming out, and that's good. We
can't forget these things. We need the visibility of films
like Selma or Birth of a Nation absolutely, and that
(30:31):
gives roles to black actors. But like, where are the
films just showing us as as people, normal people who
live normal lives and fallen and out of love like
anyone else. Yeah. Um, Chavandra Harris and that Huffpoe piece
wrote with well rounded characters, big city backdrops, in the
perfect blend of drama, sex and comedy, they managed to
(30:53):
brilliantly capture the joyous pains and complexities and uniqueness of
black men and women falling in, out and over love.
And that's so much contrast the kinds of roles that
the Film Academy recognized as people of color for. And
I think it was Hunter Harris over at Indy Wier,
who tallied up that nine of the ten black women
(31:16):
ever nominated for an OSCAR played a character who was
either homeless or on the verge of homelessness, and that
the twenty black OSCAR nominated actors played characters who had
been arrested. And more recently, I remember, I think it
was right after Sun Dance, when maybe it was Birth
of a Nation whatever. The Nat Turner um biopic that's
(31:38):
coming out received all of these rave reviews, and the
sentiment on Twitter was ya, because it's like, Okay, yes,
these are stories that need to be told, but can
we be shown as more than slaves? Please? Um? And
a lot of this perpetuates the other ring of black
(32:03):
relationships and that kind of ordinary and extraordinary black love
that Hivandra Harris loves to see so much on screen. Um.
And this is going back to Hunter Harris at Indy
Wier who says that black relationships should be visible enough
to be ordinary and not always have happy endings. You
(32:23):
should be able to have a black Annie Hall or
a black five hundred Days of Summer. Um. That was
me adding that in there not Hunter Harris. Um. Although
who would the black Woody Allen be answer? I don't
want to know, because we don't need another Woody Allen Boom.
Harris goes on to say, there's no monolithic blackness, and
there ought to be more movies that appreciate that black
(32:44):
lives don't only matter, but contain multitudes. Black characters with
full romantic lives don't always need to end in a
punch line. And that's one of the reasons too, that
we are citing some more straight up ROMs than just
rom coms, uh in this episode. And we're gonna look
at more of these tropes and formulas and caricature outlines
(33:06):
that exist in these romantic comedies when we come right
back from a quick break, Caroline. This summer, I might
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Apron dot com slash mom stuff blue apron a better
way to cook. So, Caroline, before we crack open uh
this genre, I want to make a note that of
the rom com scholarship that you and I have been loving,
(35:23):
a lot of them completely gloss over black romantic comedies. Yeah.
There was one paper that I could find, No two papers,
excuse me, there was one paper and one thesis that
I could find really examining black lead romantic comedies, even
in in like the books the full the book, fully
published hundreds of pages books, searching through them for citations
(35:47):
and explorations of the black rom com genre. Because due
to the segregation of it, I would um describe it
as its own genre. There's nothing like no acknowledgement. It's like, yeah,
you get so much scholarship on the screwball era, the
sex comedy era, and then as we get into the
(36:09):
seventies and eighties, like the nervous romances and the like
neo romantic comedy all starring white people, completely ignoring that
there is the parallel existence and flourishing of black lead
romantic comedies. Yeah, and like no history that I could
find and listeners, if you, I know, we have a
lot of cinema buffs listening. If you do know of
(36:31):
a solid history of black rom coms, please send it
our way. I mean, you know, every every black character
that you had in the era of Screwball, for instance,
I mean the women were maids, the men were like,
if they were not some sort of servant role character,
they were going to be some like horrifically trophy racist
(36:55):
sidekick um who did nothing but allow the main white
character to make fun of him. So, yeah, I would
also be interested in a more academic take on African
Americans in romcom history. Yeah. One of the earliest black
lead rom coms that I could find discussed at any
(37:16):
length was nineteen seventy four's Claudine, starring Diane Carroll and
James Earl Jones Um, which people today take issue with
because very much perpetuates the welfare queen type of stereotype.
But I couldn't find, yeah, any any explanation or exposition
(37:37):
on how more of those came to be, because it
seems like then from there the nineteen seventy four from
there you get Eddie Murphy, who becomes so popular that
he can start making his own films, and then you
get Spike Lee, it's like, I guess maybe it is
the Spike Lee school of thought of like, well, we
just have to start making the films that we want
to see us in them. Yeah, And I mean you
(37:58):
do have Gregory Hines in there. You had that quote
from him that you sent me where he said, when
I got to be fifteen or sixteen years old, I
noticed that I wasn't represented. There weren't any black people
up there making love. That's from that Jet magazine article.
And I guess, yeah, I mean, I unless people can
can give us some more info, it does seem like
it's an issue of we've got to get these things
(38:21):
made ourselves. Well, it's very reflective of our conversation about
black female directors and filmmakers who are continually shut down
by the big machine Hollywood and just have to kind
of self fund um and indie make their films. But
thankfully we do have Karen Boudre of Indiana University, who
(38:44):
is a semiologist who has analyzed in depth the black
rom com genre, and she looked at how the typical
boy meats girl, boy loses girl, and then does everything
he can to regain the girl or girl regang guy
formula is often readjusted in black lead films, starting with
meat cutes. Those are not usually seen as much in
(39:08):
black rom coms because a lot of times the romantic
relationships are already established when we meet those leads, so
there isn't a ton of the development of the falling
in love necessarily and where so many of the romantic
comedy tropes that we've discussed previously have revolved around the
withholding of sex, sex being this abstract future thing that
(39:30):
we never see but that creates all of this delicious tension.
Bodre writes about how sex commonly either has already happened
in the black rom com couple's existence, or it's something
that happens like on the first date. We also tend
to see less emotional vulnerability from leading ladies, who are
(39:50):
often tougher than her white counterparts. And to that point,
Black Hollywood producer Rodney Barnes, who has made The Boondocks
and Everybody Hates Chris, told I believe it was the
l a times that quote. Women are painted as problematic
and undesirable characters only seeking helpmates to raise their child,
(40:11):
and all their male counterpart has to do is be
sexy with no intelligence or moral values. He simply has
to take his shirt off, glisten, and wait for the
end credits. So it sounds like we have some some
issues here with this kind of rom com formula, which
Professor Boadrey says is really the long shadow of racism
(40:36):
being reflected on screen because we have seen historically the
comical devaluing and hyper sexualizing of black bodies. So as
a result, Boadre writes that quote, black characters are denied
mature relationships that are culture revers and thus the access
such relationships bring to achieving heroic or human status. And
(41:00):
that's a pretty like grim portrayal of things. Um. There
are some who just think that this different type of
rom com formula that we're likelier to see in black
lad films just more accurately reflects how people of color
approach dating and love a little bit differently. Um. But
especially when you do look at, um, the stereotypes that
(41:24):
pop up in a lot of black rom comms and
the type of calm that you find in the rom
and the ratio of calm to rom to dram to dram. Uh,
it's hard to argue against, you know, bo boadres theory
that there is that long shadow of racism, as she
calls it, on the devaluing of black bodies right and
(41:48):
reinforcing stereotypes about hyper sexuality of black people or fill
in the stereotype type here, the Jezebel, the Sapphire, what
have you. That black women are either going to be sassy,
they're gonna be angry, they're going to be over sext
you know, the cold independent, the black version of the
cold independent. Sandra Bullock in like the proposal, and there
(42:12):
was a piece over at Bitch Media that was taking
issue with the stereotyping of women in black rom coms,
um and, like you said, putting them kind of into
those buckets of a Jezebel temptress or the angry, emasculating Sapphire. Um,
(42:34):
who Shelby in the Best Man franchise definitely embodies. Um.
You also have the matriarch who would also be Mia,
I would argue in the Best Man franchise, as well
as uh, the welfare queen. And while yes, those can
be problematic stereotypes, I do wonder if it's not also
(42:59):
just a product of just rom comes in general, because
there's so much so much stereotyping. We've super trophy, yeah
that we've talked about of white leading characters as well. Yeah,
and so much of rom comes in general, So much
of their formula is i mean literally being formulaic. It's
it's presenting you with these outlines that you can easily recognize,
(43:22):
so it doesn't require hours of backstory and exposition. You
just know, like, okay, so I'm supposed to think that
she's the slutty one and he's the player, and like
she's the cold career woman. And that allows you to
quickly move through the plot and not have to be
too confused about why these two people are falling in
love because you just know from the get go. Oh
(43:43):
well we just know they're supposed to end up together. Yeah,
I mean, and well I just said two seconds ago, well, like,
well kind of two wrongs make a right thing of like, well,
white ladies are stereotyped and ROM comes to but of
course they don't come with all of that racist and
hyper sexualized baggage like in white rom coms. Even an
(44:07):
ice queen is like tacitly permitted love. We still expect
to see Sandra Bullock in the Proposal who I feel
like we've talked about more than anybody else in this series.
We still are fine with her falling in love, whereas
it might not be quite the same when you're playing
around with these more racist stereotypes. Um. Because Boadre says
(44:30):
that compared to black female protagonists, UM, white ladies are
usually permitted more vulnerability, They're allowed to kind of evaluate
the qualities of their ideal mates and pick and choose more. Um.
She says, they're hedgemotic notions of black womanhood that portrayed
them as over sexualized and strong to the point of isolation.
(44:55):
Not to mention that some people are concerned that a
lot of the calm that you might see more of
a black lead rom com plays up the racist stereotypes
of just black foolishness as well. So it's like, well,
what are we really what are we really serving up here? Um?
Although again I would say that white lead rom coms
(45:17):
aren't flawless either. But again then you come back to
but racism, But racism, Well yeah, but racism and also taboos.
I mean we mentioned misgenation and people's misgivings about interracial romances.
I mean, take a movie like Hitch you know, we
we did mention this in our last episode, but you know,
(45:39):
Will Smith, a black man stars opposite even Mendez, and
that was rather on purpose because Will Smith broke it
down in an article in an interview where he basically said, uh,
you know, if I were to star opposite a black woman,
(46:01):
that would have been okay elsewhere in the world, but
not in the US, because then it would have been
a black comedy. If I had started opposite a white woman,
that also would have been okay in other parts of
the world, but not in the US because we're apparently
not there yet. So they got even Mendez, who's beautiful
brown but not too dark, and she's not black, and
hopefully this makes it universal, as all of the executives
(46:22):
were saying with their fingers crossed. Yes. Smith even went
on to say that quote ironically, Hollywood is happy to
do it, i e. Like pairing up a black man
and a woman romantically if the film is about racism,
but they won't simply do it and ignore it. So
it was actually a really big deal when the comedy
(46:44):
thriller Focus came out. Not necessarily a rom Crom rom
Crom maybe more of a rom Crom because they had
crime in it. Um. But it starred Will Smith opposite
Margot Roby and it was the the first time Will
Smith got sexy with a white lady on screen. And
(47:07):
there was a piece in the Daily Beast all about
how racists we're freaking out about the movies quote unquote
race mixing. Oh come on? That was from um so
uh and Spike Lee two has said that interracial relationships
on screen are still like the number one taboo in Hollywood. Um.
(47:32):
But in terms of this, like j Lo is a
really interesting character to look at, and one that Caitlin
Mortimer in her thesis Romantic Comedy examined, Yeah, j Loo
is interesting because she is allowed, so to speak, to
have interracial romances in Hollywood, but it's because she's like
(47:52):
safely ethnic. She's also one of those known quantities that
we mentioned earlier. She proved her popularity as a singer,
as a dance there, as a general entertainer, and so
people seem to have less of a problem with her
romancing people like Matthew McConaughey or refines. Oh. But also
considering the historic hyper sexualization and fear of black men
(48:16):
praying on white women is it any wonder that it
took until for one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood,
who also happens to be black, too, star romantically opposite
a white woman. I mean, that's how strong that racism is,
and that even even then there were concerns of race mixing.
(48:37):
I mean, I think that that taboo of a of
a black man opposite a white female romantic lead is
the biggest taboo of all because it confronts all of
those fears, which is shout out to the small screen.
One of the reasons why I really do love Broad
(48:58):
City oh so much for Alana and Lincoln's inter racial romance,
which I think Alana Glazer would like spittake if she
heard it described as an interracial romance um between her
and Hannibal Baris. But it's fantastic because it's just they
just like each other, like it is what it is.
There's no um, there doesn't have to be commentary or explanation,
(49:21):
exactly as I wish we would see from a rom com. Well, yeah,
because that's how real life is. Real life and real
love is. Sure, it's messy and complicated, but also once
you fall in love with somebody, it's really no, no
big deal. Well, in one movie I Want to see
(49:42):
that I do think is more rom than rom com.
That came up a lot in things we were reading
about interracial romances on screen was Something New starring sinal
Atham who falls in love with a white gardener. Um.
He played by some handsome guy with like scruffy blonde
hair and crinkly blue eyes. You'd recognize him if you
(50:03):
saw him. Um, but apparently it's really good. I remember
seeing the previous when it first came out and rolled
my eyes a little bit. But apparently it's actually a
good example of kind of confronting those taboos. It is
pretty crazy, and I think that what willis Edwards that
former president of the Beverly Hills in the a c
(50:25):
P Said in that Jet Magazine article still stands And
why can't Hollywood seem to catch up to so much
of the rest of the country because they do still
have to play too, As he said Peoria in Mississippi,
that you still have so many people who are going
to vote with their dollars or vote by being awful
(50:49):
on Twitter about how they will not go see plotlines
like that. Yeah, but yeah, and um, I think maybe
a sign of our true cultural progress will um, when
black rom coms are just rom coms. The first thing
that came to mind as you were also saying that
Caroline was the movie Dope, which so good you've only
(51:12):
seen bits and pieces of. But wouldn't it count as
a rom com kind of sort? I mean there's a
romantic interest, Yeah, I mean, but it's a great It's
just a great movie, and it was and it was
marketed as a mainstream movie even though it had a
black leading cast. Yeah. It's funny because I literally never
saw it marketed or advertised or anything. I just my
boyfriend and I watched it on HBO. See. Also, man,
(51:35):
technology is going to change things, because you're right, Caroline,
we advertising is even changing. I don't I don't see
commercials for movies ever anymore at all. So I don't
even know what's coming out. And that's funny because the
first time I became aware of Dope was because like
one of those uh posters um on a like an
(51:57):
abandoned building across the street a brunch place I was at,
which Hi, did I mention that I'm so white? Um?
But now, listeners, we really want to hear from you
on this because there there's so much in here to
talk about, and so many films that we didn't even
have time to mention. So we want to know your
(52:17):
favorites and curious to know your thoughts on the segregation
of rom comms and the marginalization of black rom comms
in particular, and whether we can ever kind of get
over that, or if we even should get over that.
Mom Stuff at how stuffworks dot com is our email address.
(52:38):
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages
to share with you right now. I read I've got
a letter here from Mary Rose. She says, I'm a
huge fan of the podcast and especially loved your recent
episode on women in political campaigns. My first job out
(52:58):
of college was managing a state Senate race, and while
it remains one of my favorite jobs to date, it
was also an incredibly eye opening experience into everyday sexism.
As campaign manager, I worked more on political strategy and
press relations than on fundraising or field operations for which
I hired staff. Despite this, I was often confused for
either my boss's wife or his daughter when I attended
(53:19):
events with him. He was forty one at the time
and I was twenty two. Somebody even gave either drink
order at a campaign event once. As you discussed on
the podcast, there were also some misconceptions in general weirdness
due to the fact that I was a young woman
working for a middle aged male candidate, while my boss
was as appropriate and professional as they come. When I
was first offered the job, my boyfriend at the time
(53:41):
suggested it was because my boss had other intentions. Note
he didn't remain my boyfriend for long. I now work
on pay equity, and I've given a lot of thought
to compensation on political campaigns. I was fortunate to work
for two elected officials my first boss, as well as
a female candidate who paid me very fairly. But the
majority of my friends you have worked on campaigns have
done so for free or for next to nothing, especially
(54:04):
at the U S. Senate and presidential campaign levels. As
you pointed out during the episode, this hugely affects the
demographic makeup of campaigns and legislative offices, which in turn
makes for policies that don't represent the American electorate. The
gender disparity in campaign rules also exacerbates the wage gap
for years to come, considering that many of these campaign
(54:25):
staffers will go on to lateral positions in the Canada
the Legislative Office. Thank you for highlighting many of the
challenges facing women on political campaigns, and for discussing the
implications of pay inequality in politics. And well, thank you
for writing in Mary Rose. Well, I've got a letter
here from Ben, who says we can also refer to
him as Ben from Seattle. So Ben writes, longtime listener,
(54:49):
and I typically dig your work, but I have to
take you to task about the Hillary Clinton episode, and
specifically the comments made about the quote no room for fear.
One of you made a connection between that quote and
transphobic bathroom bills, and I'm sorry. I think that's entirely
unreasonable and and undermines the very real historical record which
shows her lack of leadership, especially when it comes to fear.
(55:12):
Please keep in mind that both Bill and Hillary's political
record on gay and trans rights. It's absolutely detestable, and
Hillary did not publicly support full equality for gay Americans
until very recently, and anything else but full equality would
be second class citizenship and unconstitutional right. More to the point,
fear is what drove this country to an unnecessary war
(55:34):
with Iraq, and Clinton voted in favor of that war.
Her voting record is the same for the Patriot Act,
another example of how she is perfectly comfortable making room
for fear to advance questionable domestic and international policy. Could
you please revisit this issue and address this point. Indeed,
Hillary Clinton's accomplishments are outstanding and very impressive, but let's
not pretend her life as a fairy tale. She has
(55:56):
made very serious mistakes and needs to be held accountable. Firstly,
I don't see her as a leader. Elizabeth Warren, on
the other hand, is definitely a textbook example of a leader.
Perhaps you should put a show together about her. So, Ben,
thank you for your thoughts. And Elizabeth Warren is a
total badass and she would be really fun to put
(56:16):
an episode on. I also think it's worth noting that
we stopped the episode so there is I agree Ben
that we we left out a lot and a lot
of people have written in you know, it's asking why
we didn't talk about Ben Gazzi and the emails, for instance,
But we made a very specific decision to address her.
(56:41):
For lack of a better word, her quote unquote young
life leading up to when she first landed in the
White House, which was in ninety two. So obviously a
lot has happened since then, including some questionable voting records
and some questionable support behind some policies, but that will
have to be for another episode. Yeah, I mean, uh
(57:03):
t L d R. There wasn't enough time, but Ben,
kudos to you for being informed and engaged, and thank
you for listening, Um and listeners. As always, if you
have thoughts to share with us mom Stuff to how
stuff Works dot com is where you can send your letters.
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook and for links all of our social
(57:24):
media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and
podcasts with our sources so you can learn more about
rom coms and people of color. Head on over to
stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
Works dot com
Hi, I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson, and
we're the co host of Stuff You Missed in History Class.
We are a history podcast that tries to look at
the things that maybe we're overlooked in your history classes,
maybe not covered in as much detail, or frankly, maybe
covered in a way that was not accurate. New episodes
come out every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,
(00:22):
or anywhere else that podcasts can be listened to. Welcome
to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
(00:42):
and I'm Caroline, and this is part four of our
series on romantic comedies, and today we're gonna bust a
rom com myth that only white people fall in love.
You know who knew. Yeah, we're looking at rom coms
of color you could call them, really focusing though on
(01:05):
black romantic comedies. And one of the most stunning things
to realize in reading for this episode, Caroline, is how
romantic comedies are one of, if not the most segregated
genres in Hollywood. Oh yeah, for sure, it's it's romantic
(01:26):
comedies starring black people are hardly marketed to the white
audience because so many people in Hollywood at the executive
level just assume that white audiences will not be interested.
But it creates that horrific loop of like, oh, well,
they're not marketing it to us, so I never developed
(01:48):
an interest in it, so I'm never gonna see it,
And that just reinforces the executives assumptions that, oh, we'll
see larger audiences aren't going to go see these quote
unquote black romantic comedies, whereas rom com starring white people,
of course, are not called white rom coms. They're called
mainstream right white people. Yes, white people are referred to
(02:08):
as mainstream audiences. Yeah, I mean even though, and this
is a whole other tangent that we don't really need
to get into, but if you just look at the
per capita ticket sales of who goes to see movies,
African Americans and Latinos per capita like by far more
(02:29):
movie tickets than so called mainstream audiences. So the whole
you know, all these marketing arguments I think are a
bit of a stretch sometimes. Um, but if we even
look at interracial rom comms or romances, because some of
these movies were going to talk about kind of straddle
that line between rom com or just straight up romance. Um.
(02:51):
But even today, inter racial films, inter racial romances, whether
comedic or not, are considered taboo. Yeah. Um. And I
think a good way to get into this conversation is
if we go to a Jet magazine piece from ninete
that really spelled out this issue. Um. It was called
(03:13):
why Blacks don't get romantic roles in movies? So it's
been years since I've seen guests Who's coming to dinner
with Sydney Portier. Also, I can't remember the lead actress's name,
but her parents are played by Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy,
classic romcom couple. So it's such a great movie. But
(03:34):
Sydney Portier was not permitted. His character was not permitted
to kiss, touch, caress, hug anything his fiancee. Yeah. So
that goes all the way back to the Hollywood Code
I think enacted in four an anti missigenation rule, essentially
saying that people who do not have the same skin
(03:56):
color can not caress or kiss. Um. And this was
one reason, as we talked about in our episode on
the stereotyping and exotic sizing of Asian women. One reason
why a silver screen actress, Anime Wong was never really
able to break through and get all these leading roles
(04:19):
because per Hollywood rules, she could never kiss a white
man on screen. Yeah, so that was the Haze Code
that we talked about in our first episode. And the
reason that those uh like segregated couples rules ended up
embedded in the Haze Code was that the majority of
(04:41):
states in this country still had those antimsigenation laws, and
so they weren't going to have their movies breaking state laws,
i e. They wanted to make as much money as
they possibly could, and if they risked showing a movie
in a state that would be against that, then they'd
lose money. And it's for that reason that in the
(05:01):
film Fatal Beauty, Whoopie Goldberg claimed that love scene between
her and co star Sam Elliott was cut because of
studio racism because it would be too racy to show
those two having sex. But she made the great point
in that article. She was quoted in that Jet Magazine
article is saying if he had put money on the
(05:22):
table at the end of our sexual encounter, they would
have left the clip in which is such an indictment
of Hollywood racism, but so true, so accurate. To people
who just are attracted to each other having sex, that's
not okay if they're of a different race. But oh
if it were a prostitution scene, like we'll let a
black lady have sex with a white dude. Well and
(05:43):
even if it is, you know, two people of color
having sex. Willis Edwards, who was the former president of
the Beverly Hills and a c P Chapter, told Jet
Magazine that Hollywood has never wanted us to have love interests.
They feel it won't sell em Peoria or in mississiy Be.
We're looked upon as comedians, not as people who have
(06:03):
families and intimacy. Yeah, and we saw that, you know,
in our last episode on Sidekicks, that you get the
token black character who's typically two dimensionals, some kind of
either sassy woman or spiritual guide of some kind, rather
than getting the actual three dimensional character treatment. Yeah. And
it was actually for that reason that Spike Lee made
(06:27):
the films Is She's Got to Have It in nine
nineties Mobida Blues, because he figured that the only way
to change that situation was to just make the films
that he wanted to see. Um. And of course there
are black romantic comedies, there are black romances, um. But
(06:52):
the the segregation of the whole thing is really it's
just stunning to be over and over again because before
reading up for this episode, old and I am about
to show my whiteness. I'm even wearing a white button
down dress listeners, which is appropriate because I was not
aware of the depth and critical range of the black
(07:15):
rom com cannon that exists. And it's because when I
have been seeing, you know, showing those movies, it's like, oh,
well those that's a black rom com. Okay, It's like
we we grow up you and are white women, we
probably did not grow up watching black romantic comedies. Um.
In the same way, I have a feeling that there
(07:35):
are plenty of you know, women of color who are like, yeah,
I didn't grow up watching notting Hill and my best
friend's wedding. Um. But this episode for me was a
revelation in just how just how racist Hollywood is. Yeah.
I mean the only black romance I grew up watching
was hostelic At a Groove Back, which is I would
(07:58):
not classify that as a rom com. But but I
think romance in this convo, though, some romances are going
to count just because those kinds of movies are so significant,
Because how Stella Gotta Grew Back definitely crossed into quote
unquote mainstream audiences. Exactly, you're the mainstream, Caroline, Little Caroline.
(08:18):
You know I'm the mainstream now dog um, And so
it makes sense that the roots. Kelly Goff was super
not happy. But when she saw New York Magazine's list
of the top twenty five rom coms that had come
out since when Harry met Sally and saw that it
didn't contain a single black lead film. And not only
(08:38):
did it not contain a single black lead romantic comedy,
but the reasoning for that that was provided by the
two white guy critics who wrote the list is so ridiculous,
and and Goff appropriately skewers them for this. So they
basically said, or they did say, quote their movies, this
(08:59):
list needs. We have a couple of LGBT rom coms
on there, but we wish there could be more. And
while African American rom coms, as exemplified in films like
The Best Man, in Waiting to Exhale and About Last
Night have thrived during this time. We couldn't agree on
any titles we felt were strong enough to warrant inclusion
on this list, and Golf is like, are you kidding me?
(09:20):
It never occurred to you, Uh, two white guys who
were like, I don't know how to pick a black
rom com, So I'm just not going to talk about
to maybe ask a woman or a person of color
for ideas. Yeah, um, or consider the fact that maybe
maybe just one Adam Sandler Drew Barrymore rom com is enough,
(09:42):
because No, fifty First States is not one of the
best rom coms that has come out ever since when
Harry Met maybe one of the worst movies. They also
listed Her, which feels like a stretch, and also I
Love You Philip Morris, which again it's like, okay, in
what way is her a better rom com than The
(10:07):
Best Man? Which, yes, listeners, I spent this weekend watching
The Best Man and The Best Man Holiday, and let
me tell you what a delight both of them more
because A. T. Diggs does follow stuff I've never told
you on Twitter, and I kept just wanting to tweet
him how much I was really enjoying his film, because
(10:28):
you just get to see Day Diggs shirtless a lot,
but also Morris Chestnut shirtless a lot. Um, there's just
a lot of really uh really handsome chests and jawlines
and those movies. But um, my objectifying, my sexual objectifying aside,
(10:49):
they were just really enjoyable ensemble films. Um. So yeah,
just seeing seeing that was I mean, the fact that
there were no black lead rom coms in this list.
Like I said, it's bad enough, but to come out
and say, like, don't you hear yourself talking? Is my
(11:10):
question to these gentlemen, Like don't you hear the words
that you just said? Why don't you ask someone or
go watch them? Well, and it perpetuates the myth that
there are no good black rom comms. Yeah. Well, and
also it just perpetuates the point of view of the
white man being the norm, being the standard, because yeah,
(11:34):
like maybe they Okay, so maybe these guys did watch
a bunch of black lead romantic comedies. But if your
baseline for what is normal, good, funny, whatever, is only
ever going to be Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson like,
maybe maybe it's time to as critics and just as
consumers of media to broaden your horizons well, and a
(11:55):
lot of it speaks to just the marginalization of black
lead film, which is something that we've talked about before
in our episode on black female film directors. Shout out
to Gina Blythe Prince in Love and Basketball by the Way,
which I also watched, um And I will get to
it in a second, Caroline, because I have a lot
of thoughts, um, But I have a feeling there is
(12:18):
this mainstream notion that black comedy is exclusive only to
Tyler Perry today, and that it is comedy that is
inaccessible and unrelatable to white audiences and is um and
and that is as good as it gets, which really
(12:39):
couldn't be farther from the truth, especially when we're talking
about classic rom comms, because surprise, surprise, other white listeners.
If we look at the mainstream heyday, the white heyday
of rom comms, starting with when Harry met Sally and
into the nineties, you have a similar kind of heyday
(13:02):
happening in black lead rom coms as well, or just
the more rom with a little bit of calm, but
more rom Yeah. And so you know, when Harry met
Sally came out launches the nineties modern neo romantic comedy.
A year before that, though, you have one of my
favorite romantic comedies in the world, Nights Coming to America
(13:30):
with Eddie Murphy and his sidekick ar Cineo Hall. So good.
It's got the it's the full I mean, it's a
full romantic comedy. It's got the happy ending, it's got
the masquerade, the deception. Uh. And it's a it's absolutely
a black lead film. And see why then, is Coming
(13:51):
to America, which I agree is absolutely hilarious. Um, it's
peak Eddie Murphy. Um why is that not in the
those lists that are all over the internet, Because it's
literally it fulfills just about every trope for better worse
that there is that's discussed in all the rom com academia.
(14:13):
I think it's because we have this idea that a
romantic comedy is inherently a white film, I would agree.
And you can have a white comedian in a romantic
comedy leading role and it's still a mainstream romantic comedy.
But you have a black comedian leading a black lead
romantic comedy and it becomes like a black comedy or
(14:35):
just a just a comedy rather than what it is
which is a true romantic comedy. Well in one of
those classics of the black lead rom coms that I
could not find anywhere on the internet to watch, which
I'm really disappointed about, is Love Jones from because it's
sited over and over and over again as the holy
(14:57):
grail of black rom ms. Um, but I couldn't find it, listeners.
I have to be honest with you, so I have
not seen it. Um. But I did watch The Best Man,
and of course then I had to watch the follow up,
The Best Man Holiday. Um, and also watched Love and Basketball.
And with all of these you see this uh familiar
(15:20):
cast of romcom leads in the same way that you
see the uh Meg Ryan's and Julia Roberts and Hugh
Grants of White films with Sna Lathan, Nil Long, Gabrielle Union,
Morris Chestnut again, Ta Digs, Tay Diggs forever. Um, are
(15:41):
you gonna get that tattooed? H? Well? You know what
after watching The Best Man The Best Man Holiday? Um,
if I had to play um uh bang Mary Kill
with Morris Chestnuts, take Diggs and Terence Howard, Um, I
I think I would, oh man, I would want to
(16:03):
look at Morris Chestnut for a really long time and
then but I did, I'd have to kill him and
then I would sleep with Teggs. But I would marry
Terence Howard. Yeah. I mean he's like, he's he's the
bad boy in both of those films. Um, but Chris
wants did you hear that? World, Kristen wants to marry
the bad boys. I mean, he's just like, he's just
(16:24):
got a certain charm um that that I really enjoyed.
And there was an interview over at Indie Wire with
the director of Um of the Best Man, who was
talking about how it's funny to him that it's always
categorized as a rom com, because he was like, no,
this isn't so much a rom com. It's just an
(16:45):
ensemble film for me. But simply because of how white Hollywood,
you know, so like narrowly interprets black film. Um, it's
it's got to be a romantic comedy because there is
some comedy in it and some rom and some rom
and plenty of calm remedy. Yes. Well, Kristen, the year
(17:08):
after The Best Man came out in two thousand, you
get Love and Basketball, and you said that there was
more you had to say about that? Oh, I got
so much to say. So Love and Basketball stars Sana
Lathan and also um Alfrey Woodard Omar Epps all star cast.
And it's a coming of age story, which I love.
(17:28):
And it's also Caroline one of the most feminist films
I have ever seen, hands down, from the get go.
It does play on some tropes of the sporty girl
gets a makeover from her sister and you know, catches
the neighbor boy's eye because suddenly it's like, you know,
the the librarian taking her hair down kind of moment.
(17:50):
But Monica sinal Athan's character is so self possessed from
the get go, knowing that not only is she good
at basketball, that she is better than the boy is
at basketball, and she's so singularly focused on her drive.
She doesn't care about looking pretty, she doesn't care about,
you know, all of these other girls who are trying to,
(18:13):
you know, hook up with her neighbor who she's secretly
in love with, played by Omar Epps Um. And there's
just all of these really fascinating relationships too, between Omar
Epps and his father, who is a retired professional basketball player,
but also Monica and her mother, who is a stay
at home mom, who have a lot of tension between
(18:35):
them because she's not conventionally like girly enough, you know,
but her it turns out, her mom thinks that she
doesn't have respect for her, you know, as a stay
at home mother. And they're just like, I don't know,
they're they're all these feminist themes that come up, and
a lot of conversations that felt very familiar as just
(18:57):
a girl who has grown up, um, and a lot
of themes that we've talked about on stuff I've never
told you before, and it just so happened that it
started an all black cast. Yeah, feminist is not normally
a word you hear thrown around when people are discussing
romantic comedies. No, not at all, not at all, um.
(19:17):
And that's why I, honestly, Caroline, I wanted to call
you so many times as I was watching it, but
it was a Saturday, and uh, because because I wanted
that should be a movie that we perhaps live podcast
or tweet or Mystery Science Theater three thousand. It's somehow
because I want to watch it with you, to share
(19:38):
this movie with you, because I really love it so much.
We get some popcorn, hang out, some sodas, yes, some
sodas and checks yes. Um So. In addition to that,
of course you have classics like two thousand twos Black Sugar,
you have waiting to Exhale too, can play at that
(20:00):
game the wood. I also last night I tried to
watch Boomerang from Eddie Murphy also Eddie Murphy young Chris Brown,
young Halle Berry, and I could not. I couldn't. I
couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Um I switched.
Actually quite definitely not a feminist film. I was going
(20:24):
to say, um it was. I bet it has a
little bit of payoff more towards the end, but there
is only so much of Eddie Murphy as a womanizer
that I could take. Although it also um co stars
Eartha kit who does do her signature Catwoman We're awl
at one point, which was enjoyable. But yeah, coming to America.
(20:46):
Much better than Boomerang, so much better. But the interesting
thing is, oh, speaking of our last rom com series
episode on Sidekicks, that's a movie where kind of like
when Harry met Sally two Sidekicks, David Allen Greer and
Hallie Berry end up getting together. Does that further the plot? Caroline,
(21:07):
I didn't get far enough. I couldn't. I couldn't tell you.
I've literally switched over to UH to white Ville on
Netflix watching Lady Dynamite starring white Ville. Isn't Lady Dynamite good?
It's pretty good so far. We'll have to do another
episode on that. We won't we won't be talking about that,
but uh. In our introductory episode to this summer series
(21:30):
Onnreamental Comedies, we did mention the film Meet the Patels,
which is it's more like of a documentary style. It's
it's not straight rom com but we bring that up
to illustrate that there are so few romantic comedy esque
films out there. I mean, let alone for a black audience,
but like, let's talk about how Indian audiences are not
(21:53):
exactly represented. Asian audiences in general are not very well
represented when it comes to romantic comedies. But I would
love to see Meet the Patel's. It's from Jada Patel
follows her brother Robbie on his exploits to find the
love of his life, although it's more his parents finding
the life yes arranged marriage um in two thousand four,
(22:17):
there was sort of a Bollywood Hollywood mash up remake
of Pride and Prejudice called Bride and Prejudice, which also
sounds like something I need to watch immediately. Um, you
also have twenty thirteens for Is this the first Asian
American rom com? Yes? Uh, in in this country obviously,
(22:37):
and we should say that when we're talking about there
are like no other rom com starting people of color
made in Hollywood and right, right, yes, that is a
good thing to specify. Yes, this is very very Hollywood
and US specific, although I believe Bride and Prejudice was
made in the UK, but it's still counted in the
list because part of it took place in the US. Yes,
(23:02):
they travel to the US. They also travel to England,
so there's a lot of like globe hopping going on.
So I've traveling traveling yes, Um, but yeah the week
at the Wedding Palace which doesn't look great. But a
lot of the commenters on that website that we were
reading defended it, saying that the author, being a white person,
(23:24):
just didn't have the same like contextual information about Korean
rom coms and culture to appreciate it. Yeah, and for
fans of Margaret Show, she does have a cameo role
in that. Um. And you're right. It was critically panned,
which is a bummer because it was at least marketed
as the first Asian American rom com. And there are
(23:47):
parts of it look really enjoyable, um, but also parts
of it that make it look tough to get through.
They're like, almost one too many twists. It seems like,
well to m Night Shamalani, but romantic and funny exactly
a little too rom com shamalan Nice. We're coining all
(24:09):
sorts of things all over the place, But one thing
they jumped out in contemporary conversations around Hollywood and rom
coms is the question of whether the genre itself is dying.
For instance, in Vulture, over in New York Magazine wanted
to know whether the rom com could even be saved
from breaking up due to Hollywood financing more blockbusters instead
(24:34):
of one offs, because those big Michael Bay blockbusters end
up making more money internationally, so they're more enticing. You
also have just the formula itself being a little bit
stale because of the rising age of marriage, the dating
landscape being completely disrupted by technology, and millennials being argue,
(25:00):
be more concerned about ourselves than finding someone else to
make us happily ever after, because it's like, I mean,
if we can post the right thing on Instagram and
go viral, like, why why do we need someone else?
It's the era of self care. It's perfectly put. Yes, um,
but I mean certain certain things Kristen are being ignored
(25:22):
in the conversation about rom coms going bust, and that
is the fact. Well, it's related to what you said
at the top of the podcast, with black audiences and
Hispanic audiences in this country paying per capita a ton
to go to the theater. That Vulture piece from twelve
pointed out that that year's highest grossing romantic comedy was
(25:45):
Kevin Harts Think Like a Man, which raked in nine million,
but they said, quote never truly broke out beyond its
predominantly African American target audience. But that's one of the
most marginalizing statements you could make about Think Like a Man, which, yes,
was based on the Steve Harvey book Think Like a Man,
(26:06):
Take My Head, Um, because to brush it aside simply
because a lot of people of color came out to
the theater to see it says a lot about the
problem that Hollywood is in not the problem that the
rom com genre is, in my mind, because that ninety
one million dollar box office Caroline knocked Hunger Games off
(26:28):
its top spot. Yeah, So the fact that you have
a film that is bringing in so much money, it
is so successful, why do you care who's going to
see it? Like, you should just be noting how much
money it's bringing in, and it is therefore successful. But
somehow it's discounted because it's bringing in an audience that's
made made up largely with people of color. It doesn't
(26:49):
make any sense Hollywood. If we've learned anything doing this podcast.
One of the things that we've learned is that Hollywood
will fund the stuff that brings in money. But is
this an exception or I mean, the dynamics here are
so confusing. I mean, well, it's all part of cyclical
marginalization based on this Hollywood idea that and and and
(27:14):
true to some extent that white people will not go
to see movies with black people, like those stories are
not for us, you know. And also there's with that
the snobbery of like, I mean, those kinds of movies
those aren't Those aren't very good movies. Why would we
want to go see something like that? And this is
something that Indiana University telecom professor Andrew Jay Weaver explored
(27:38):
in the study the role of actors race in White
audiences selective exposure to movies. In other words, Dr Weaver
was looking at, you know, if if we see too
many people with dark skin on screen, will white people
just up and flee? And we were rights, it becomes
a vicious cycle. Producers are hesitant to cat minorities and
(28:01):
race neutral romantic roles because of a fear that the
white audience will perceive the films as not for them.
But white audiences perceived romantic films with minorities as not
for them because they seldom see minorities in race neutral
romantic roles. Yeah, and so then Hollywood get scared about
(28:22):
creating these, uh movies led by people of color, unless,
for instance, it's a known quantity, like a bankable star
Will Smith, a Whitney Houston. God. Whitney Houston in movies
is my favorite thing. I mean, I know The Bodyguard
is a rom dram, not a rom com, but I
(28:42):
mean you've got that, You've got waiting to exhale. You've
got the preacher's wife. Oh god, what about Denzel? Has
Denzel starred in a rom com opposite a white female?
I don't think so. I don't know, but I mean
he's definitely like a mega movie star. He had that
he was the star in that admittedly terrible and not
because of him, but that airplane movie where he was
(29:05):
like the drunk pilot where and that's what it was called. Yeah,
which is totally I mean a huge movie star role
for for anyone. But um yeah, I mean I when
Hollywood does finally step on that step out on that ledge,
it has to be with an actor actress who's proven
(29:26):
him or herself, usually in music. Because you've also got
Queen Latifa, who's who's been successful in films, but she's
also been successful in music. First. Same with Will Smith
saying with Whitney Houston well in j Lo Queen Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But there's so much more significance to this than just
Hollywood box office numbers, because this really is something we
(29:47):
should care about it because at their love and basketball best,
these are stories that we all of us need to see,
especially here in the United States. I would argue because
there are stories of how black people love. And that's
something that Chevandra Harris wrote about over at the Huffington's Post. Yeah,
(30:09):
I mean Harris refers to this as an overlooked aspect
of black culture. I mean, you know, Hunter Harris, writing
for Anywire In wrote that, you know, we've got slave
drama after slave drama coming out, and that's good. We
can't forget these things. We need the visibility of films
like Selma or Birth of a Nation absolutely, and that
(30:31):
gives roles to black actors. But like, where are the
films just showing us as as people, normal people who
live normal lives and fallen and out of love like
anyone else. Yeah. Um, Chavandra Harris and that Huffpoe piece
wrote with well rounded characters, big city backdrops, in the
perfect blend of drama, sex and comedy, they managed to
(30:53):
brilliantly capture the joyous pains and complexities and uniqueness of
black men and women falling in, out and over love.
And that's so much contrast the kinds of roles that
the Film Academy recognized as people of color for. And
I think it was Hunter Harris over at Indy Wier,
who tallied up that nine of the ten black women
(31:16):
ever nominated for an OSCAR played a character who was
either homeless or on the verge of homelessness, and that
the twenty black OSCAR nominated actors played characters who had
been arrested. And more recently, I remember, I think it
was right after Sun Dance, when maybe it was Birth
of a Nation whatever. The Nat Turner um biopic that's
(31:38):
coming out received all of these rave reviews, and the
sentiment on Twitter was ya, because it's like, Okay, yes,
these are stories that need to be told, but can
we be shown as more than slaves? Please? Um? And
a lot of this perpetuates the other ring of black
(32:03):
relationships and that kind of ordinary and extraordinary black love
that Hivandra Harris loves to see so much on screen. Um.
And this is going back to Hunter Harris at Indy
Wier who says that black relationships should be visible enough
to be ordinary and not always have happy endings. You
(32:23):
should be able to have a black Annie Hall or
a black five hundred Days of Summer. Um. That was
me adding that in there not Hunter Harris. Um. Although
who would the black Woody Allen be answer? I don't
want to know, because we don't need another Woody Allen Boom.
Harris goes on to say, there's no monolithic blackness, and
there ought to be more movies that appreciate that black
(32:44):
lives don't only matter, but contain multitudes. Black characters with
full romantic lives don't always need to end in a
punch line. And that's one of the reasons too, that
we are citing some more straight up ROMs than just
rom coms, uh in this episode. And we're gonna look
at more of these tropes and formulas and caricature outlines
(33:06):
that exist in these romantic comedies when we come right
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Apron dot com slash mom stuff blue apron a better
way to cook. So, Caroline, before we crack open uh
this genre, I want to make a note that of
the rom com scholarship that you and I have been loving,
(35:23):
a lot of them completely gloss over black romantic comedies. Yeah.
There was one paper that I could find, No two papers,
excuse me, there was one paper and one thesis that
I could find really examining black lead romantic comedies, even
in in like the books the full the book, fully
published hundreds of pages books, searching through them for citations
(35:47):
and explorations of the black rom com genre. Because due
to the segregation of it, I would um describe it
as its own genre. There's nothing like no acknowledgement. It's like, yeah,
you get so much scholarship on the screwball era, the
sex comedy era, and then as we get into the
(36:09):
seventies and eighties, like the nervous romances and the like
neo romantic comedy all starring white people, completely ignoring that
there is the parallel existence and flourishing of black lead
romantic comedies. Yeah, and like no history that I could
find and listeners, if you, I know, we have a
lot of cinema buffs listening. If you do know of
(36:31):
a solid history of black rom coms, please send it
our way. I mean, you know, every every black character
that you had in the era of Screwball, for instance,
I mean the women were maids, the men were like,
if they were not some sort of servant role character,
they were going to be some like horrifically trophy racist
(36:55):
sidekick um who did nothing but allow the main white
character to make fun of him. So, yeah, I would
also be interested in a more academic take on African
Americans in romcom history. Yeah. One of the earliest black
lead rom coms that I could find discussed at any
(37:16):
length was nineteen seventy four's Claudine, starring Diane Carroll and
James Earl Jones Um, which people today take issue with
because very much perpetuates the welfare queen type of stereotype.
But I couldn't find, yeah, any any explanation or exposition
(37:37):
on how more of those came to be, because it
seems like then from there the nineteen seventy four from
there you get Eddie Murphy, who becomes so popular that
he can start making his own films, and then you
get Spike Lee, it's like, I guess maybe it is
the Spike Lee school of thought of like, well, we
just have to start making the films that we want
to see us in them. Yeah, And I mean you
(37:58):
do have Gregory Hines in there. You had that quote
from him that you sent me where he said, when
I got to be fifteen or sixteen years old, I
noticed that I wasn't represented. There weren't any black people
up there making love. That's from that Jet magazine article.
And I guess, yeah, I mean, I unless people can
can give us some more info, it does seem like
it's an issue of we've got to get these things
(38:21):
made ourselves. Well, it's very reflective of our conversation about
black female directors and filmmakers who are continually shut down
by the big machine Hollywood and just have to kind
of self fund um and indie make their films. But
thankfully we do have Karen Boudre of Indiana University, who
(38:44):
is a semiologist who has analyzed in depth the black
rom com genre, and she looked at how the typical
boy meats girl, boy loses girl, and then does everything
he can to regain the girl or girl regang guy
formula is often readjusted in black lead films, starting with
meat cutes. Those are not usually seen as much in
(39:08):
black rom coms because a lot of times the romantic
relationships are already established when we meet those leads, so
there isn't a ton of the development of the falling
in love necessarily and where so many of the romantic
comedy tropes that we've discussed previously have revolved around the
withholding of sex, sex being this abstract future thing that
(39:30):
we never see but that creates all of this delicious tension.
Bodre writes about how sex commonly either has already happened
in the black rom com couple's existence, or it's something
that happens like on the first date. We also tend
to see less emotional vulnerability from leading ladies, who are
(39:50):
often tougher than her white counterparts. And to that point,
Black Hollywood producer Rodney Barnes, who has made The Boondocks
and Everybody Hates Chris, told I believe it was the
l a times that quote. Women are painted as problematic
and undesirable characters only seeking helpmates to raise their child,
(40:11):
and all their male counterpart has to do is be
sexy with no intelligence or moral values. He simply has
to take his shirt off, glisten, and wait for the
end credits. So it sounds like we have some some
issues here with this kind of rom com formula, which
Professor Boadrey says is really the long shadow of racism
(40:36):
being reflected on screen because we have seen historically the
comical devaluing and hyper sexualizing of black bodies. So as
a result, Boadre writes that quote, black characters are denied
mature relationships that are culture revers and thus the access
such relationships bring to achieving heroic or human status. And
(41:00):
that's a pretty like grim portrayal of things. Um. There
are some who just think that this different type of
rom com formula that we're likelier to see in black
lad films just more accurately reflects how people of color
approach dating and love a little bit differently. Um. But
especially when you do look at, um, the stereotypes that
(41:24):
pop up in a lot of black rom comms and
the type of calm that you find in the rom
and the ratio of calm to rom to dram to dram. Uh,
it's hard to argue against, you know, bo boadres theory
that there is that long shadow of racism, as she
calls it, on the devaluing of black bodies right and
(41:48):
reinforcing stereotypes about hyper sexuality of black people or fill
in the stereotype type here, the Jezebel, the Sapphire, what
have you. That black women are either going to be sassy,
they're gonna be angry, they're going to be over sext
you know, the cold independent, the black version of the
cold independent. Sandra Bullock in like the proposal, and there
(42:12):
was a piece over at Bitch Media that was taking
issue with the stereotyping of women in black rom coms,
um and, like you said, putting them kind of into
those buckets of a Jezebel temptress or the angry, emasculating Sapphire. Um,
(42:34):
who Shelby in the Best Man franchise definitely embodies. Um.
You also have the matriarch who would also be Mia,
I would argue in the Best Man franchise, as well
as uh, the welfare queen. And while yes, those can
be problematic stereotypes, I do wonder if it's not also
(42:59):
just a product of just rom comes in general, because
there's so much so much stereotyping. We've super trophy, yeah
that we've talked about of white leading characters as well. Yeah,
and so much of rom comes in general, So much
of their formula is i mean literally being formulaic. It's
it's presenting you with these outlines that you can easily recognize,
(43:22):
so it doesn't require hours of backstory and exposition. You
just know, like, okay, so I'm supposed to think that
she's the slutty one and he's the player, and like
she's the cold career woman. And that allows you to
quickly move through the plot and not have to be
too confused about why these two people are falling in
love because you just know from the get go. Oh
(43:43):
well we just know they're supposed to end up together. Yeah,
I mean, and well I just said two seconds ago, well, like,
well kind of two wrongs make a right thing of like, well,
white ladies are stereotyped and ROM comes to but of
course they don't come with all of that racist and
hyper sexualized baggage like in white rom coms. Even an
(44:07):
ice queen is like tacitly permitted love. We still expect
to see Sandra Bullock in the Proposal who I feel
like we've talked about more than anybody else in this series.
We still are fine with her falling in love, whereas
it might not be quite the same when you're playing
around with these more racist stereotypes. Um. Because Boadre says
(44:30):
that compared to black female protagonists, UM, white ladies are
usually permitted more vulnerability, They're allowed to kind of evaluate
the qualities of their ideal mates and pick and choose more. Um.
She says, they're hedgemotic notions of black womanhood that portrayed
them as over sexualized and strong to the point of isolation.
(44:55):
Not to mention that some people are concerned that a
lot of the calm that you might see more of
a black lead rom com plays up the racist stereotypes
of just black foolishness as well. So it's like, well,
what are we really what are we really serving up here? Um?
Although again I would say that white lead rom coms
(45:17):
aren't flawless either. But again then you come back to
but racism, But racism, Well yeah, but racism and also taboos.
I mean we mentioned misgenation and people's misgivings about interracial romances.
I mean, take a movie like Hitch you know, we
we did mention this in our last episode, but you know,
(45:39):
Will Smith, a black man stars opposite even Mendez, and
that was rather on purpose because Will Smith broke it
down in an article in an interview where he basically said, uh,
you know, if I were to star opposite a black woman,
(46:01):
that would have been okay elsewhere in the world, but
not in the US, because then it would have been
a black comedy. If I had started opposite a white woman,
that also would have been okay in other parts of
the world, but not in the US because we're apparently
not there yet. So they got even Mendez, who's beautiful
brown but not too dark, and she's not black, and
hopefully this makes it universal, as all of the executives
(46:22):
were saying with their fingers crossed. Yes. Smith even went
on to say that quote ironically, Hollywood is happy to
do it, i e. Like pairing up a black man
and a woman romantically if the film is about racism,
but they won't simply do it and ignore it. So
it was actually a really big deal when the comedy
(46:44):
thriller Focus came out. Not necessarily a rom Crom rom
Crom maybe more of a rom Crom because they had
crime in it. Um. But it starred Will Smith opposite
Margot Roby and it was the the first time Will
Smith got sexy with a white lady on screen. And
(47:07):
there was a piece in the Daily Beast all about
how racists we're freaking out about the movies quote unquote
race mixing. Oh come on? That was from um so
uh and Spike Lee two has said that interracial relationships
on screen are still like the number one taboo in Hollywood. Um.
(47:32):
But in terms of this, like j Lo is a
really interesting character to look at, and one that Caitlin
Mortimer in her thesis Romantic Comedy examined, Yeah, j Loo
is interesting because she is allowed, so to speak, to
have interracial romances in Hollywood, but it's because she's like
(47:52):
safely ethnic. She's also one of those known quantities that
we mentioned earlier. She proved her popularity as a singer,
as a dance there, as a general entertainer, and so
people seem to have less of a problem with her
romancing people like Matthew McConaughey or refines. Oh. But also
considering the historic hyper sexualization and fear of black men
(48:16):
praying on white women is it any wonder that it
took until for one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood,
who also happens to be black, too, star romantically opposite
a white woman. I mean, that's how strong that racism is,
and that even even then there were concerns of race mixing.
(48:37):
I mean, I think that that taboo of a of
a black man opposite a white female romantic lead is
the biggest taboo of all because it confronts all of
those fears, which is shout out to the small screen.
One of the reasons why I really do love Broad
(48:58):
City oh so much for Alana and Lincoln's inter racial romance,
which I think Alana Glazer would like spittake if she
heard it described as an interracial romance um between her
and Hannibal Baris. But it's fantastic because it's just they
just like each other, like it is what it is.
There's no um, there doesn't have to be commentary or explanation,
(49:21):
exactly as I wish we would see from a rom com. Well, yeah,
because that's how real life is. Real life and real
love is. Sure, it's messy and complicated, but also once
you fall in love with somebody, it's really no, no
big deal. Well, in one movie I Want to see
(49:42):
that I do think is more rom than rom com.
That came up a lot in things we were reading
about interracial romances on screen was Something New starring sinal
Atham who falls in love with a white gardener. Um.
He played by some handsome guy with like scruffy blonde
hair and crinkly blue eyes. You'd recognize him if you
(50:03):
saw him. Um, but apparently it's really good. I remember
seeing the previous when it first came out and rolled
my eyes a little bit. But apparently it's actually a
good example of kind of confronting those taboos. It is
pretty crazy, and I think that what willis Edwards that
former president of the Beverly Hills in the a c
(50:25):
P Said in that Jet Magazine article still stands And
why can't Hollywood seem to catch up to so much
of the rest of the country because they do still
have to play too, As he said Peoria in Mississippi,
that you still have so many people who are going
to vote with their dollars or vote by being awful
(50:49):
on Twitter about how they will not go see plotlines
like that. Yeah, but yeah, and um, I think maybe
a sign of our true cultural progress will um, when
black rom coms are just rom coms. The first thing
that came to mind as you were also saying that
Caroline was the movie Dope, which so good you've only
(51:12):
seen bits and pieces of. But wouldn't it count as
a rom com kind of sort? I mean there's a
romantic interest, Yeah, I mean, but it's a great It's
just a great movie, and it was and it was
marketed as a mainstream movie even though it had a
black leading cast. Yeah. It's funny because I literally never
saw it marketed or advertised or anything. I just my
boyfriend and I watched it on HBO. See. Also, man,
(51:35):
technology is going to change things, because you're right, Caroline,
we advertising is even changing. I don't I don't see
commercials for movies ever anymore at all. So I don't
even know what's coming out. And that's funny because the
first time I became aware of Dope was because like
one of those uh posters um on a like an
(51:57):
abandoned building across the street a brunch place I was at,
which Hi, did I mention that I'm so white? Um?
But now, listeners, we really want to hear from you
on this because there there's so much in here to
talk about, and so many films that we didn't even
have time to mention. So we want to know your
(52:17):
favorites and curious to know your thoughts on the segregation
of rom comms and the marginalization of black rom comms
in particular, and whether we can ever kind of get
over that, or if we even should get over that.
Mom Stuff at how stuffworks dot com is our email address.
(52:38):
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages
to share with you right now. I read I've got
a letter here from Mary Rose. She says, I'm a
huge fan of the podcast and especially loved your recent
episode on women in political campaigns. My first job out
(52:58):
of college was managing a state Senate race, and while
it remains one of my favorite jobs to date, it
was also an incredibly eye opening experience into everyday sexism.
As campaign manager, I worked more on political strategy and
press relations than on fundraising or field operations for which
I hired staff. Despite this, I was often confused for
either my boss's wife or his daughter when I attended
(53:19):
events with him. He was forty one at the time
and I was twenty two. Somebody even gave either drink
order at a campaign event once. As you discussed on
the podcast, there were also some misconceptions in general weirdness
due to the fact that I was a young woman
working for a middle aged male candidate, while my boss
was as appropriate and professional as they come. When I
was first offered the job, my boyfriend at the time
(53:41):
suggested it was because my boss had other intentions. Note
he didn't remain my boyfriend for long. I now work
on pay equity, and I've given a lot of thought
to compensation on political campaigns. I was fortunate to work
for two elected officials my first boss, as well as
a female candidate who paid me very fairly. But the
majority of my friends you have worked on campaigns have
done so for free or for next to nothing, especially
(54:04):
at the U S. Senate and presidential campaign levels. As
you pointed out during the episode, this hugely affects the
demographic makeup of campaigns and legislative offices, which in turn
makes for policies that don't represent the American electorate. The
gender disparity in campaign rules also exacerbates the wage gap
for years to come, considering that many of these campaign
(54:25):
staffers will go on to lateral positions in the Canada
the Legislative Office. Thank you for highlighting many of the
challenges facing women on political campaigns, and for discussing the
implications of pay inequality in politics. And well, thank you
for writing in Mary Rose. Well, I've got a letter
here from Ben, who says we can also refer to
him as Ben from Seattle. So Ben writes, longtime listener,
(54:49):
and I typically dig your work, but I have to
take you to task about the Hillary Clinton episode, and
specifically the comments made about the quote no room for fear.
One of you made a connection between that quote and
transphobic bathroom bills, and I'm sorry. I think that's entirely
unreasonable and and undermines the very real historical record which
shows her lack of leadership, especially when it comes to fear.
(55:12):
Please keep in mind that both Bill and Hillary's political
record on gay and trans rights. It's absolutely detestable, and
Hillary did not publicly support full equality for gay Americans
until very recently, and anything else but full equality would
be second class citizenship and unconstitutional right. More to the point,
fear is what drove this country to an unnecessary war
(55:34):
with Iraq, and Clinton voted in favor of that war.
Her voting record is the same for the Patriot Act,
another example of how she is perfectly comfortable making room
for fear to advance questionable domestic and international policy. Could
you please revisit this issue and address this point. Indeed,
Hillary Clinton's accomplishments are outstanding and very impressive, but let's
not pretend her life as a fairy tale. She has
(55:56):
made very serious mistakes and needs to be held accountable. Firstly,
I don't see her as a leader. Elizabeth Warren, on
the other hand, is definitely a textbook example of a leader.
Perhaps you should put a show together about her. So, Ben,
thank you for your thoughts. And Elizabeth Warren is a
total badass and she would be really fun to put
(56:16):
an episode on. I also think it's worth noting that
we stopped the episode so there is I agree Ben
that we we left out a lot and a lot
of people have written in you know, it's asking why
we didn't talk about Ben Gazzi and the emails, for instance,
But we made a very specific decision to address her.
(56:41):
For lack of a better word, her quote unquote young
life leading up to when she first landed in the
White House, which was in ninety two. So obviously a
lot has happened since then, including some questionable voting records
and some questionable support behind some policies, but that will
have to be for another episode. Yeah, I mean, uh
(57:03):
t L d R. There wasn't enough time, but Ben,
kudos to you for being informed and engaged, and thank
you for listening, Um and listeners. As always, if you
have thoughts to share with us mom Stuff to how
stuff Works dot com is where you can send your letters.
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook and for links all of our social
(57:24):
media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and
podcasts with our sources so you can learn more about
rom coms and people of color. Head on over to
stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
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