BAPS with Bridget Todd

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
vest start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlyn, do you want to open up
a salon slash restaurant with me?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yes? I do?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Okay, cool, I can't do either of the things.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
Oh well, wait till you see the dance.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Okay, okay, Well I'm also really good at dancing, so.

Speaker 5 (00:34):
Let's do that. Incredible, incredible. I think that that was
a really that was strong. I was like, should we
start to deceive each other? But just in general, just
in life anyways, Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
My name's Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlyn Dante, and
this is our show where we examine movies through an
intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping
off point.

Speaker 5 (00:58):
Absolutely true.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
But what is that? Though?

Speaker 5 (01:02):
Well, there's a lot of different versions of the Bechdel's test.
It is originally created as a joke, as a bit.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
As a goof yes, boof, a goof.

Speaker 5 (01:12):
Uh by Alison Bechdel in the eighties for her incredible
comics series Dikes to Watch Out For, often called the
Bechdel Wallace Test because she co created it with her
friend Liz Wallace. Our version of the test that we
use requires that two people of a marginalized gender with
names talk to each other about something other than a
man for two lines of dialogue.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
And it should be plot impactful dialogue.

Speaker 5 (01:38):
And that's the test. Most movies don't pass this one
spoiler alert does.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
It does because the movie we're talking about today is BAPS, Yeah,
nineteen ninety seven. Same your Titanic came out. Sorry to
mention it.

Speaker 5 (01:52):
That was my first note. It's like greatest yudent film.
We have a returning guest today, is it Third Ford?

Speaker 3 (01:59):
I think time.

Speaker 5 (02:00):
That's a jacket.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, I'm like Steve Martinette Saturday Night Live. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Basically, yes, she's the host of Ihearts. There are no
girls on the Internet. It's Bridget tod welcome back.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Thank you for having me. I was telling Caitlin off
Mike that y'all could not have picked a better movie
for me to talk about that I feel more strongly about.
So I am so excited to be here.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Oh, we're so excited to have you tell us your
relationship with Baps.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, I remember very distinctly watching this for the first
time at a slumber party in the nineties. It was
one of those do you ever have memories of going
to Blockbuster and picking out a movie and being so
excited and then getting that tub of popcorn that they
had or you put it in the microwave. I have
a clear memory of my mind of like going during

(02:50):
a sleepover to rent this movie and watching it and
sitting on my stomach and like just loving it.

Speaker 5 (02:55):
I love memories like that too, where it's like I
feel like the thing that sticks with me the strongest
is like the politics among usually a group of girls
in the Blockbuster, where you're trying to reach a consensus
and there's like people calling each other over from one
wall to the other being like that this one and
then you have to debate.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
It's exciting and this is such a sleepover movie.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
It is, and so one of the reasons why I'm
so excited to talk about it is that it is
a movie that when it came out, was like controversial.
People liked it, didn't like it, people had a lot
to say about it, and I loved it from the beginning.
I loved it then, I love it now. If folks
ever watched Real Housewives of Atlanta, there's a scene where
one woman is trying to humiliate another woman when she's

(03:37):
flowing a costume party, and so she's giving everybody glamorous
Hollywood celebrities to come dressed as It's like, oh, you
come dressed as Diana Ross, you come dressed as Billie
Holliday And she's like, I want you to come dressed
as halle Berry from BAPS, And it's meant to be
like a deep insult. So it's definitely a movie that
holds a lot of wow. Co Yeah, she doesn't spoiler,

(03:59):
she doesn't do she comes dressed as halle Berry and
Dorothy Dandridge to sort of get around it, but yeah,
it was like an.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Insult, ridiculous because halle Berry's looks in this movie iconic.

Speaker 5 (04:10):
Yeah, the costuming is unbelievable. It helped me get around
a lot of plot dissonance, I.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Know, and I do feel like the joke of the
movie is supposed to be like, look how tacky these
women look, But there are multiple outfits and halle Berry
wears where I'm like, I would wear that today, no problem.
If that was in my closet, I will be very happy.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Her character Natalie Dscell reads character like they're looking terrific.

Speaker 5 (04:38):
It's true, It's true, And I speaking to your point,
Bridget I was really I wasn't aware of the discourse
around this movie when it came out. It's always interesting
covering a movie that, like the way it was received,
was so wrong, and then having to come back around gosh,
this movie is my brother's age twenty seven years later,

(04:59):
scary and sort of revisit it, which I'm glad that
some writers have, but not as many as I would
have expected.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, to prep for this, I read Roger Ebert's original
review of this movie. Eviscerated it, like skewered it. It
was worst of lists. And I, even if I don't
agree with Roger Ebert, I usually love reading his reviews
and like he could not stand this movie.

Speaker 4 (05:22):
Yeah, I'm excited to dig into that.

Speaker 5 (05:25):
I don't know Roger Ebert like when he hits, he
hits what he misses it's so embarrassing, and I feel
like we have had a feud with his ghosts on
this show for many years.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Right, Well, it's the thing that we have talked about
quite a lot where I mean this movie. First of all,
it was a box office flop, unfortunately, and most critics
hated it. But as we've talked about a lot on
the show, most of the critics reviewing movies in like
at least major publications in ninety seven were white men.

(05:58):
This is a movie about two black women made by
black filmmakers, and so a lot of critics at that
time were like, well, this movie isn't about someone who
looks like me, and so therefore it's not for me,
and therefore I don't understand it, and I don't like it.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Yeah there's and they're also we can save it for later.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
But I feel like there was a lot of like
respectability politics encoded into the reviews that I was reading,
where like it was white reviewers deciding what was appropriate
in terms of like how black women could be represented.
It was an interesting thing to get into because then
you also read interviews with the writer Troy Bayer, and

(06:37):
she's like, I hated Robert Townsend's directorial choices and I
don't like the movie, and so you're like well, a
lot of things are going on.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, that's a good point, And like, I love Robert
Townsend absolutely. Another movie that he had made was Hollywood Shuffle,
So like, he definitely has somebody who was interested in
playing with satire and stereotypes around culture and blackness. I
make a larger point, whether or not that point like
lands or false flat or whatever. I think he was
clearly doing something with this movie, and I think a

(07:08):
lot of the film reviewers maybe missed what he was doing.
But yeah, I read the same thing as you, Jamie,
that one of the screenwriters on this movie was like,
I hated it. I had a lot of issues with
the script and this and that, and so I want
to take that into account too. But I do think
that some of the reviews that make this sound like
it was just a vapid, cruel movie bashing working class

(07:30):
black women. I don't see that, Jamie.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
What is your relationship with this movie?

Speaker 5 (07:36):
I had not seen this movie before, and that's sort
of the beginning, middle, and an end of it.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
I knew of it, and I.

Speaker 5 (07:44):
Didn't know that Troy Bayer had written it. She's just
like a really interesting person. The more I was reading
about her, the Bore. I was like, she's just like
she started as a sesame street kid and she's like
Caitlin Durante Mode has.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
A million degrees and a million things.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
I would never mention it, but thank you for bringing
it up.

Speaker 5 (08:04):
Yeah, she has lived many lives, and I thought it
was interesting again because I feel like so many times
when we cover a movie, we're like, wonder how the
writer felt about how the adaptation of their work translated
to the screen, And Trey Byer was very outspoken about it, So, yeah,
I hadn't seen it before. I think there's so much
to love about this movie. It's such a sleepover movie.
It's so clear who the movie's for, and everyone who

(08:28):
is vocally outspoken about this movie were nowhere near who
the movie's for. So I'm excited to talk about it. Caitlin,
what's your history?

Speaker 2 (08:36):
I had also never seen it, though I know that
it's been a request on the show from like a
few select listeners. It's a cult classic, right, so it's
not something that like tons and tons and tons of
people are being like, you gotta cover this movie, but
like the people who are requesting it are like, you
have to do this movie. They're very fervent.

Speaker 5 (08:57):
About Baps and Muriel's wedding, Like the listeners who want
it wanted badly.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
If any of those folks are listening, who like really
have been requesting it, I hope I do it justice.
I guess I'll just say.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
That we've brought in a three timer. We've brought in
a hitter.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
No, you'll do great. This will be great, Everything will
be great. We're gonna live forever.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Should I do the recap and we'll go from there,
Let's do it. Okay. So we are in Decatur, Georgia.
We meet two friends, Nissi that's Hallie Berry and Mickey
that's Natalie to sell read rest in Peace. They work
at a soul food restaurant that's owned by Bernie Mack.

(09:44):
Loved seeing him already. You're like, I'm in, I'm in.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Can I say one thing about this? Yeah, not to
hope this is it doesn't derail things. But I just
want to say, Bernie mac rest in peace. Before he died,
he has a chronic illness, or had a chronic illness
called parcedosis, which my father also had. And so it's
near and dear to me. But folks might not know
that the University of Illinois Hospital Center has the Bernie
mac Center for Sarcarnosi's research, and I donate every year.

(10:11):
Folks should donate. Oh my god, it's an undertreated, understudied
chronic illness that disproportionately impacts black folks, and so it's
a cause that's near to me. So please donate if
you've got extra change. And thank you University of Illinois
for studying this undertreated illness.

Speaker 5 (10:26):
Whow we will link to that. I had no idea.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, thank you for letting me give back.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
What Oh, of course, yeah, we'll support So yes, Bernie
Mack is there. He's running the restaurant. Nissi and Mickey,
they're best friends. They have similar esthetics in that they
have really long fingernails. They're always wearing elaborate hairdoos that
Nissi does because she's an aspiring salon owner.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
She's technically making sausage at the beginning. But I consider
that the hot dog representation of the movie as like,
if a hot dog doesn't show up later, this movie
still passes the Jamie Locktas hot dog test. Is there
a hot time?

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Is there a hot dog represented on screen? And close enough,
I would say for this movie. So yeah, they wear
flashy clothes, they've got the hairdos, they've got the nails,
all that. On the radio, Nissi hears an announcement that
auditions are being held in La to cast a dancer
for Heavy D's dance Girl of the World, and whoever

(11:29):
is cast in this will get ten thousand dollars. And
Nisi wants to go to this audition because she hopes
to get cast and use that money to open a
hair salon slash restaurant that presumably she would do the
hair for and that McKey would be the chef at.
I think of the idea.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Do you all think it's a good idea? Like I've
been wrestling back and forth with whether or not this
is a great idea or a terrible idea.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
I think it feels like it's at high risk for
like a fire.

Speaker 5 (12:00):
Lots of hair and also ki yeah, right, like if
someone with like a lot of hairspray and a lot
of like grease grill, like I guess it depends on
what kind of food they're serving.

Speaker 4 (12:14):
Seems like a high accident.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Well, also just seems like unsanitary and unhygienic with like
people's dander flying through the air and their hair all
over the floor and stuff.

Speaker 5 (12:26):
That's true, I mean spoiler alert, they end up doing it. Yes,
So I wish we could fast forward a year. It'd
be like, so what does Osha think?

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, right, where's baps too? Which is all about the
salon slash restaurant.

Speaker 5 (12:40):
I also it was a twist of the movie for
me to find out that the old man came up
with the term baps. Yes, yeah, I was like, what
he was just like coining on his deathbed.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Like, yeah, he uses his will to coin the phrase.

Speaker 5 (12:58):
I just didn't see.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
It coming, right, because they're like, what's baps? And then
he's like black American princesses.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
Yeah, I was like, wait, it was his idea.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, didn't see that coming.

Speaker 5 (13:10):
And this is like true of so many rom coms.
But I just thought there was a very fun, kind
of bizarre liberal use of like a vague movie score
where sometimes like something's happening that is like plot impactful,
but not like the most serious thing in the world.
And it's like dude, dude, dude, including the entire end

(13:31):
of the movie, the whole last minute there's no It
was like they're just playing the score and I'm like,
I would just like to know what they're saying, because
they're saying things, m M, maybe the sound something happened.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
And they're like, if we just put music over this
and show people's reactions, it'll be clear. Show don't tell
you know. Yeah, do you remember wire screenwriting? Okay, So
we also meet Nissi and Mickey's two boyfriends, Allie played
by Pierre Edwards that's Niecy's boyfriend, and James played by

(14:06):
Anthony Johnson that's Mickey's boyfriend. They're trying to start up
like a car service company, but right now they're unemployed.
They have questionable haircuts. They're kind of losers.

Speaker 5 (14:22):
More importantly, they're not very nice to their girlfriends. Right
if be a loser all you want if you're a
good partner.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
They are my least favorite part of this movie. I'm
sure I'll get to it, but they are my least
favorite part of this movie.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Write them out, yeah, truly.

Speaker 5 (14:39):
I mean, I appreciate that Troy Byer's been outspoken about
how she feels about the final product, but I wish
she was a little more specific. I'm like, did she
want the movie to end like that? Because it feels
like the boyfriends did not deserve that.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah. Anyway, So then Nissi sees another ad for the
Dance Girl of the World contest and takes it as
a sign that she and Mickey should definitely go to
the audition in LA. Before they leave, though, they go
out to a club because it's ladies night and they
get in free, and a bunch of guys want to
talk to them, but none of them want to or

(15:17):
can spend the money to buy them drinks, including their boyfriends.
So Nissi is all the more eager to get away
and travel to LA and hopefully meet like a rich
guy in LA. On the flight, they're trying to learn
etiquette from a book. Their hair is too big and
it's blocking everyone's view of the in flight movie, very

(15:41):
funny stuff.

Speaker 5 (15:42):
There so many like vignettes. There's so many comedy montages.
It's like, it's nineteen ninety seven, baby, we're doing comedy montages.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
True fun fact. That flight attendant who was like, can
you lower your hair? It's a severa Wilson from that TV.
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, a lot of good cameos in this movie, including
one we're about to see, which is LL cool J.
Because they arrive in La they're at the airport, they
accost LL cool.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
J nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
They do this every time they see a famous person,
because there's a bunch of cameos sprinkled throughout the movie,
and they're always accosting whoever it is and being like,
oh my god, I'm your biggest fan, marry me, sing
for me, blah blah blah. They're always making a scene and.

Speaker 5 (16:27):
Singing for me is like there's a Phantom of the Opera.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
I can really relate to that scene with LL COOLJ.

Speaker 5 (16:35):
Y'all.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
I used to I might embarrass to say. I used
to write him letters, like I had his like pictures
on my wall, and I was so obsessed with him.
People forget like in nineteen ninety seven, he was a
real sex symbol and he made like music that was
like very sensual.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
What was in the letters?

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Oh, I would be like, I thought there was a
world where we might get together, So mind you, I
was like a child. So it's a lot of like
when we meet, like blah blah blah. Yeah, I was
obsessed with him.

Speaker 5 (17:04):
Was it the sort of thing where like ll COOLJ
Industries would like send you something back, like fan mail stuff.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
God, I wish they probably were like, let's never indulge
this child's fantasy about we're.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
Putting Bridget's name on a list.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
If any even knows him, I would still accept a
form letter back to this day, I would still happily
take that.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Oh, in any case. They arrive in La they head
to the audition. There's a very long line and Nissi
kind of has like a dance off with another woman
waiting in the line, which a man nearby notices.

Speaker 5 (17:42):
I love the dance scene.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
It's so weird, it's.

Speaker 5 (17:45):
Just truly Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Then we don't see the audition, but we see her
coming out of it, and she hasn't done well. The
judges were like pass and she's feeling defeated and ready
to head back to Georgia. But then that man noticed
her earlier. His name is Antonio. He approaches Nissi and
Mickey and tells them that his boss is looking for

(18:08):
a dancer for a music video. It pays ten thousand
dollars and provides room and board in a mansion in
Beverly Hills.

Speaker 4 (18:15):
And you're like, you're being abducted.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
You're being abducted, Like this is what a scary proposal?

Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, and they're like, sounds great. So Antonio takes them
to the mansion where they meet this rich guy named
Isaac blakemore also his snooty butler named Manly. Nissy and
Mickey get settled in at the mansion. There's a bedet

(18:45):
scene where they don't know how a bidet works.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
Nineteen ninety seven comedy Montage.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yes, my first time ever seeing a bidet was this scene,
and I didn't know what a bidet was, and so
the scene I was still sort of like, so what
is the little toilet? Like? I still didn't understand like
the humor of the scene because I didn't know what
a bidet was.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
I still to this day.

Speaker 5 (19:06):
I mean, I guess I've I've seen them now, but
I've never I've never engaged.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
I've never used one. I don't trust them.

Speaker 5 (19:14):
I believe that, you know, now there's consumer bidets. You
don't need to be in the one percent to have
a bidet. I know people are evangelical about them.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
I just don't know how you dry your ass, after all.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
That's my question. Too, because from what I've read, it's
like more environmentally friendly and more hygienic because they're not
like using paper on your butt, but your butt gets wet,
so wouldn't you have to use what are you using
to dry your butt?

Speaker 2 (19:39):
I know someone who had like one of those consumer
bidets that you just like install in your toilet and
then yeah, they had a designated butt towel. But then
it's like, so now your butt towels just hanging in
your bathroom with all your buttrooms all over it, and
I don't care how effective the bidet is. It's not
killing the bacteria from your ass.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
It's just water.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
And what if I'm your friend and I come over
and you're.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Accidentally touched the like what if you think it's a
hand towel and draw your hands with it.

Speaker 5 (20:08):
It's like pa mints, you know how like yeah in
the urinals, you mean know, like how anytime there's like those,
like they're delicious. Unfortunately, the mints, like outside of bathrooms,
are like at restaurants and they there was like a
test for how much urine because Americans are gross and
don't wash their hands, and it was like these are

(20:29):
one They're just calcified p and you're like, oh no,
so you can never have them out of restaurant. If
they're just out raw, not wrapped, you can't have them.
There's pea in them.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, people are out here putting their unwashed, urine soaped hands,
raw dog into a bowl of communal mints. People.

Speaker 5 (20:51):
There's science to back up peepee hands and poop poo towels.
It's a six sad world we live in.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
And food in your salons and hair and your restaurants
just a mess. Don't do it, okay. So then after
the bedet scene, they sit down with Isaac, who reveals
that he isn't actually making a music video. What he
is looking for is a woman to play a particular part,

(21:21):
which is that Isaac's rich, elderly uncle who is dying
of cancer. His story is that he was madly in
love with this woman named Lily, but he never got
to be with her or marry her because he's white
and she was black, and his family forbid their relationship.

(21:42):
But now that this uncle is on his deathbed, Isaac
wants to find a woman to pretend to be Lily's granddaughter,
and so that's who he wants Nissi to play, and
Nissi and Mickey are very touched by this story, so
Nissi agrees to do it.

Speaker 5 (21:59):
You could already tell, well, I mean just from like
the I don't know the actor who plays Isaac, but
you can just tell that, like he's up to no
good based on how he's like looking at people. But
already from the beginning, the plan is too weird to
not be secretly evil.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
Yeah, right, if they were remaking this movie, he would
be cast, well, pre allegations he would be cast by
Armie Hammer, like a person in a movie that you're like,
don't trust him. He's bad. It's not been revealed yet.
You can just tell by his face.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
Yes, I feel like Adam Brodie's playing a lot of
those parts these days. Yeah, but maybe it's just because
we're about to cover ready or not where it's like
he's a nice guy. Unless he also did that in
Promising Young Woman.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, he did it in American fiction, right, Yeah, he
plays like an agent or something, yes.

Speaker 5 (22:50):
Right, Like he plays just kind of like slimeballs.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Similar character in uh Jennifer's Body too.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, oh my.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
God, wow, Yeah, this is like a.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
A thing with him.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, it happens a lot in horror movies where if
you need like a slimy white guy in a thriller
or a horror movie, and you will and you will
need that, you cast either Adam Brody or Justin Long.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
Wow, that's true. I wonder how often they're like, Duke,
you get out to play devious short kings. We don't know,
we don't anyways.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Anyway, So the friends meet the dying uncle, Don Blake
Moore played by Martin Landau. Fun very fun at first.
He's like shocked and angry that they're there, but then
he quickly warms up to Nissi and Mickey. They have
dinner together, but Mickey's like, what the fuck is this
boring chicken? So she goes to the kitchen and whips

(23:48):
up some soul food and Don loves it. She keeps
making it for him for the next few days, and
it seems like his health is improving, although Manly the
butler disapproves. He still doesn't like the ladies.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
This is such a great seat. I love a montage
of like a black woman is coming in and taking
charge and shaking things up like This movie does not
spare on the montages, right no, Oh my gosh.

Speaker 5 (24:17):
It was kind of like, I mean, from a note
taking perspective, it was very helpful because sometimes you're like, oh,
nothing's gonna happen for a minute. Cool, I can catch
up on my not It's great, great on my first
blotch uh huh.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
So, yeah, Don is feeling better and he even feels
up to taking Nissie and Mickey on a shopping spree.
So then we get a clothes trying on montage, but
nephew Isaac is lurking nearby taking pictures and it's clear
that he's up to something. And then he's talking on
the phone with someone.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
He's doing like a vaguely evil phone call.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (24:51):
And then the actor, again, I don't know anything about
this actor, but he's kind of cracking me up with
the over the top evilness. Where his scene like talking
to someone on the phone being like, don't we'll be
very rich souon click, and then it like just pans
down to him and then he goes, good, all right,
you're bad amazing acting.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, it seems like he intends to like set someone
up or blackmail someone. We're not really sure what the
plan is. Meanwhile, Mickey and that guy Antonio who works
at the estate. They're having a secret affair, and Antonio
claims to be from a wealthy family in Italy and
he wants to spend all of his money on Mickey,
but he doesn't seem trustworthy either. He's also up to something.

(25:35):
Then Don takes Nissi and Mickey out to a fancy
dinner and they're trying to act sophisticated and classy, but
they keep seeing celebrities and they're making a scene. Then
Don wants to know more about his beloved Lily, so
Nissi like crams her mouth full of food to avoid

(25:57):
talking about her. She kind of like makes some stuff up.
You can't even understand her. It's very funny. Then back
at the estate, Mickey and Antonio are canoodling again, and
Antonio is like, I have a ring for you, but
it's in this safe, but I can't get it open,
and she tries to open the safe, and it's clear
that he's just trying to like get her to put

(26:18):
her fingerprints on the safe to incriminate her.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
Later, no, I was like, Micky, he's wearing a leather glove.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah. Yeah, they're canodling. They're like laying in bed and
she's like in a nighty and she's like, why are
you wearing these leather gloves? And yeah, I feel like
Mickey would be smarter than that, you would think.

Speaker 5 (26:36):
There's a number of times where I's like, these women
are smart.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Like, yeah, why don't they notice that they're being deceived?

Speaker 5 (26:44):
Women be being deceived in movies.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
I mean not to victim blame these women.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
Although you know there's some equal opportunity deception in this movie.
The women are are also deceiving Martin Landau.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
That's true.

Speaker 4 (27:00):
It makes you think I'm not mad about it.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
And also Martin Landau's not mad about it, weirdly, and no,
he's like very down to be deceased. He's like, I've
got forty five minutes to Liz, you know whatever.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
He loves it.

Speaker 5 (27:12):
He seems to.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
It's his kink anyway. So later that night, a burglar
comes in and knocks out Manly the butler, and it
wakes up Nissy and Mickey, so they come down and
kick the burglar's ass, and he turns out to be Antonio,
and he's in cahoots with nephew Isaac, who is trying
to defraud his uncle and take his money by claiming
that he is mentally unfit because he had brought in

(27:37):
two women from the quote unquote ghetto who were robbing
him every night. This is all explained by Don's lawyer,
Tracy Shaw played by Troy Bayer aka the screenwriter of
the movie, and once this is all figured out, Don
offers Nissi and Mickey each fifty thousand dollars for their trouble,

(27:57):
but they refuse, saying that they're there because they want
to be there, which makes Don trust them even more.
He takes them out dancing, but the guilt of lying
to Don about being the granddaughter of his beloved Lily
is really weighing on Nissi, so she writes a letter
to Don and plans to give it to him and

(28:20):
then like leave the estate shortly thereafter. But before they
can do that, the butler manly, who has warmed up
to Nissi and Mickey.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Also.

Speaker 5 (28:30):
I thought that was a fun subversion, the butler being nice.
You always expect him to be dastardly.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, and he is at first, but then he's like, wow,
we like the Sam soap opera. Let's be best friends.
It didn't take much kind of love that he has
arranged for Nissi and Mickey's boyfriends Ali and James to
come to the estate, and these guys are trying to
get their act together so that they can like deserve

(28:59):
these women. But meanwhile, Don suddenly collapses and he's rushed
to the hospital.

Speaker 5 (29:06):
He dances himself to death. The issue of his health
is a little all over the place of the movie,
because we're introduced to him as if he does not
have a lot of time to live, but then he's
very sprightly for a while. He's briefly brought back to
full health by Mickey's cooking ostensibly yeah, and then has

(29:26):
a very steep decline.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
It's very like movie health.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Right exactly.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
So then Nisi goes to the hospital and she's trying
to tell Don that she's not really Lily's granddaughter, but
he dies before she can get the words out, and
then the attorney, Tracy informs them that Don already knew
that she wasn't Lily's granddaughter because he was aware that
Lily never had any children. He just cared about Nissi

(29:55):
and McKee out of the kindness of his heart. He
just enjoyed the company. Then Tracy is like, by the way,
here's Don's last will and testament in which he leaves
everything to his baps okaya.

Speaker 5 (30:11):
A thing he made up. It's three minutes before passing away,
which I just feel like we cannot overlook. Yeah, I
think that there's an argument that, like there's sort of
a finndom element to mister Blakemore because.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
And I love it. I've never seen anything like it
in the movie where he's.

Speaker 5 (30:30):
Just like knowingly being deceived, but he's like, let's party,
let's let's have fun. In the end, he tries to
give them one hundred thousand dollars collectively at one point,
like hmmm, he's just kind of down to clown that
mister Blakemore.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
I kind of get it, Like he's got money. His
nephew is like trying to take advantage of him. I
think he's got money and he knows he's about to die,
so it's like I may as well having a good time,
like eating soul food and dancing at the club with
these women.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
That's how I did go out.

Speaker 5 (31:03):
Yeah, I respect it. I mean, and it's like, I'm
sure if we knew more about him, because he runs
a fabric business, a textile business. I'm like, for sure,
you know, if he's that rich, he's exploiting someone. Yeah,
but this is a Cinderella story and he is the
benevolent rich guy who's kind of getting Finn dambed. I
don't hate it.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Right, Speaking of Cinderella, Natalie decel Red is in Brandy
Cinderella also from this year, from nineteen ninety seven or
was that a different year?

Speaker 5 (31:32):
I believe so, Yeah, yeah, this is nineteen ninety seven.
She plays one of the stepsisters, Minerva.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Right, She's so great, Like, I feel like she never
got her due. But I feel like if you were
watching black sitcoms in the nineties, you've seen her in everything.
She was such a gem and I just, yeah, it
makes me sad that she's no longer with us because
her current would probably be really popping today.

Speaker 5 (31:56):
Yeah, I remember her from Eve he would ever watch, Yes, yes,
even Cinderella also before we cut the brake. Yeah, because
Natalie des cel Reads no longer with us, halle Berry.
I didn't see this at the time she passed away,
but halle Berry posted like a really sweet tribute to
her when she passed.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
And I want to share it.

Speaker 5 (32:15):
Really quick.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yeah, she said.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Quote.

Speaker 5 (32:17):
Natalie represented actual black women, not what black women are
perceived to be. For that, she was often underrated, passed over,
deprived of the platform she truly deserved. But her light
continues to shine through the people who grew up watching her,
the people who knew her best, and those of us
who loved her. I'll love you forever, my sweet friends.
So nice, beautiful, and you can just feel in this movie,

(32:38):
even when the movie is weird and kind of off
the rails, that like they're having fun. They're definitely having
a hell of a time.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Oh yeah, anyways, Natalie des Sell, we love her. So
the movie ends with Niscy and Mickey inheriting Don's fortune.
Nephew Isaac is there being like what.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
The heck no?

Speaker 2 (33:03):
And then this new fortune they have enabled Nissi and
Mickey to open up their salon slash restaurant in Beverly
Hills called Lily's with a Z. Also, Ali and James
have opened up their car service. Also, Dennis Rodman is.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
There as a cameo nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
They all live happily ever after that's the movie. Let's
take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss
and we're back.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
We're back.

Speaker 5 (33:44):
Maybe where shall we start? I mean, Bridget, if you
have a strong instinct, I feel like we've already also
sort of started to talk about how this movie was received.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
I think that's a good place to start. So I
felt this way when I watched it, and it was
even more clear to me be watching it today, which
is that this movie at times, I can understand how
people think, like, oh, it's making fun of these working
class black women. However, to me, this is a movie
about black women who have goals and dreams and who

(34:13):
like can really visualize and do the work to get
them to those dreams. And the thing that gets them
to their goals and their dreams is like their creativity,
their ingenuity, right. Like there's a scene when they first
get into the car, the limo when they're going to
the mansion and they take off their wigs and they're
gonna do a whole different hairdew and it's like that's creativity, right, Like.

(34:36):
I don't think the movie is trying to make fun
of that. I think the movie is trying to be
like the reason why these women are the kind of
women who would take a flight to La to try
to get on Heavy D's music video and say yes
to these authors that seem kind of outlandish. Is because
they are creative. Is because they like possess these qualities
that are the reason why they address the way they

(34:57):
do and also are the reason when they go for
their goals. I see this as a movie about dreamers
and the creativity and foresight that it takes to really
architect a life for yourself based on that dream.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
Hell yeah, yeah. There is so much that was like
lost in the way that the movie was received because
they're super motivated. There's a piece I found that was
in Refinery twenty nine back in twenty eighteen, Remember then
No by An Cohen that sort of examines the critical
response versus how she felt, which is very similar to

(35:29):
how you feel, Bridget.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
And also, I mean it's it reads.

Speaker 5 (35:32):
Very clearly, and it feels really condescending the way that
this criticism comes off, because, in like the Ebert reviews,
the motivation and how active they are in the story
is not mentioned. The fact that they are motivated and
have dreams aren't mentioned. I think that the way it's
dealt in the movie can be a little like Uneven

(35:53):
and the way that the movie prescribes their ending is weird.
Although I am glad they got their salon restaurant. That
probably wasn't a good business idea, but that whole sort
of saga is fascinating. And what a Cohen sort of
digs into here is this movie is clearly a part

(36:13):
of the very nineties rags to riches women's story, but
it's one of the few rags to riches story about
black women, and it's received as I mean, and I
bravely still have not seen Pretty Women in my life,
so I have to take everyone else's word for how
much this movie, especially in the montage, just kind of

(36:34):
reflects things that happen in Pretty Women. What Ann Cohen
is arguing is that the reception of this movie is
when Halle Berry and Natalie des Seller doing it, it's
portrayed as trashy. When Julia Roberts is doing the same
thing on Rodeo Drive, it's presented as unbelievably charming, and
how that is mask off racist in the same era

(36:57):
of sleepover movies, and like.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
In Pretty Woman, I hadn't clocked that comparison, but I
think it's a good one. It's funny I was just
listening to Tina Fey on Las Culturista's and she was like,
when I was watching Pretty Woman, me and my cousin
would be like, are we the only people who have
realized that, like, as a sex worker, it's probably going
great this time because it's Richard Gear, but there's probably
other stories that you're not hearing from her work that

(37:22):
are like maybe not so great and not so rack.
But yeah, I think that Pretty Woman example is an
interesting one because it's like who's come up story do
we celebrate? And who's come up story is like just
like fodder for laughs, I guess, And yeah, I just
I almost think that what some of these reviewers who

(37:44):
didn't like the movie, not all of them, but what
some of them are actually saying is like, if you
are a working class woman who dresses flashy and has
really long nails and your indicator Georgia, it is absurd
that you would think you could go to LA and
like dance at a heavy D video or like make
it or have some sort of dream. It almost seems
like what they're actually saying in their mask off moments

(38:05):
in these reviews is like that premise is what is unbelievable,
not that the movie is like making fun of them
or whatever. It almost kind of reveals the way that
they're kind of like putting a negativity on that. Does
that make sense?

Speaker 5 (38:17):
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, it's so weird reading them where
it's clear that like Roger Ebert feels that he is
doing a righteous thing while still clearly putting in a
lot of his own biases. And it's also like, it's
also fine to not love a sleepover a movie. I
think that there's also a gendered aspect to this, but

(38:38):
it's far more likely for again the Pretty Woman in comparison,
because I was just looking at the original marketing for
this movie, and it's very clear in how they're marketing
baps who they want to go see it, because the
tagline is these pretty women are Clueless, and you're like, okay,
well even say in the tage, yeah, they drop two

(39:01):
similar movies in the tag line.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
You're like, okay, so this is like all the same thing,
but movies like.

Speaker 5 (39:06):
Pretty Women and Clueless are far more likely to be
you know, escalated to like, well, this is actually like
a pretty.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
Good movie quote unquote, and yeah.

Speaker 5 (39:16):
That's just racist and unfair and I don't even think
this is like an amazing movie, but it's not what
it's like. Holding it to that standard is silly.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Right, Yeah, I completely agree, And the fact of the
matter is that, like it has endured culturally, and so again,
I love this movie. I'm not gonna pretend like it's
the most groundbreaking, the best movie ever. I had my
issues with it, but the fact that it has maintained
this cultural legacy shows that there was something going on.
Like I even read that they were thinking about turning

(39:46):
it into a stage adaptation, which if they did that,
it would be a hit, no doubt. In my mind,
it would kill.

Speaker 5 (39:54):
It's a Cinderella story. It literally is a Cinderella story.
There's so many really good, like be fun nineties rags
to riches stories, and this should be more discussed. I
hope that this movie experiences resurgence, and that would be
the perfect way to do it. Is like this movie
is screaming to be adapted into a musical.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, And I do think like there are topics that
are dealt with in the movie with humor that are
like very real pieces of cultural discourse in the black community,
like the montage when Mickey is making the food and
they're like, oh, the nutrition is said that this food
clogs the arteries and she's like, no, not the way
that I make it. And I know it's played for

(40:36):
a laugh, but like there are today like conversations about
soul food and whether or not it's healthy and this
idea that like, oh, well, collar greens are very similar
to kale, but one of those foods enjoy is like
a connotation of being health food and one doesn't, even
though they're like practically the same thing. That is a
very real cultural conversation that has endured today, and the
movie like plays with that and has a discourse about

(40:59):
that in a humorous way. Albeit but like I think
there are more serious things going on in this film
than some of these critics may be clocked.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
Which is like part of what makes Robert Townsend such
an amazing filmmaker. Because we covered Hollywood Shuffle of Gosh
a couple.

Speaker 5 (41:14):
Of years ago. Now yeah, oh nice, But that's like
what he's great at is like finding a way to
talk about hyper specific like have these conversations in a
comedy montage versus like a very didactic, serious thing. Like
it just feels very Robert townsendy, but I wanted to
just share Troy Bayer's feelings on the adaptation, partially just

(41:37):
because I love drama and because you're messy, because I
do love reading about drama, and I think it is
really interesting where like this is the sort of quote
that you always want the confirmation of, but you very
rarely actually get. And it just feels like a kind
of a good lesson for writers in general, because it
seems like what the issue ultimately was with Troy Byer

(42:00):
and Robert Townsend is that Robert Townsend is generally a
writer director and seemed to be on set very comfortable
adjusting stuff as he went because he was adjusting his
own writing. But in this case, this is the first
movie he directed that was not written by him, and
it seems like he used that same approach of like, well,
I don't quite like how that works, We're going to

(42:21):
adjust it. That ended up, in Troy Bayer's opinion, kind
of meaningfully affecting what she had written, which is an interesting,
hyper specific kind of problem that I don't think indicates
any ill will on Robert Townsend's part, but it's just interesting.
So Troy Byer gave an interview the year after this
came out, as she was promoting a movie that she

(42:41):
had written and directed after being unhappy with how BAPS
had gone, called Let's Talk About Sex. So here's her quote.
When I saw the final cut, I was so devastated
because I really believed that my words had not honestly
made it onto the screen. The director was a writer
director himself, and it was the first time he directed
someone else is writing. He took the liberty of changing

(43:02):
stuff as he shot the film. At the end of
the day, when I saw the film, I hated it.
It was really embarrassed, and it was too late for
me to take my name off the picture. Then I
got killed by critics.

Speaker 4 (43:11):
Me the writer.

Speaker 5 (43:13):
I thought, I'm just going to take the money from
this awful experience and put it into my own film.
I'm going to direct it and make sure my words
make it to the screen. If the critics try to
kill me, now, there's nothing they can say that's going
to hurt me, because I know I did my very best.
Those are my words on screen, and I stand by them.
I took the money from BAPS to make my movie Wow,

(43:33):
which is also I mean, I don't know I'm on.
I think team everybody here. This is also like Troy
Byer's first screenwriting credit. She started as an actor. She
has since gotten a master's degree in eco liberation and
community psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
Wow, she's written like, she's.

Speaker 5 (43:55):
Truly very very interesting. She's written self help books. She
was married to the guy that produced all of the
Saw movies for fifteen years. You're just like iconic. I know, know,
I was pretty thrilled to find out that there is
a direct BAPS to Saw connection, But I don't know.

(44:16):
I mean, I don't think that that takes away from
the movie, because it did just seem like a creative
chafing and kind of like a lesson that a lot
of writers learn and why a lot of writers become
directors is because that shit will happen.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
But I just wanted to share that. And also, she's
in the movie, which is wild.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
She's in the movie, so I wonder if she like
observed scenes where she's like, this isn't how I wrote this.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
Oh God, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Robert?

Speaker 5 (44:44):
Like my skin crawl? I'd be so stressed. There's like
things that I'm credited as having written and I've seen
the episode and been like, huh, well, I guess I
wrote that.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Does it happen a lot in the biz.

Speaker 5 (44:57):
Yeah, it's definitely been my And I don't mean like
there's nothing, but like there's you know, especially in like
sitcom writing, where there's like jokes that were there that
you're like, I didn't write that or I don't know.
So anytime someone's like, well the writing of this, the
writer should have been thinking, I'm like just putting it
out there, very likely they did not write that. And

(45:18):
there's also jokes I've really enjoyed that I've been credited
with that absolutely were not me.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
So it goes both ways. Yeah, it just goes.

Speaker 4 (45:25):
You do end up getting credit that you don't deserve
as well.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
So let's take another quick break and we'll come back
for more discussion, and we're back. Something I really appreciate
about this movie is that it centers to black female friends.

(45:53):
There's so few movies about I mean female friendship in
general and then specifically black female friendship. And it feels
like a really real, authentic friendship because you see them
supporting each other, they're lifting each other up. But it's
not as though they're like always agreeing on everything. Like
we see them disagree about how to handle things, we
see them trying to hold each other accountable for something,

(46:16):
usually how they're conducting themselves around a celebrity. Yes, it's
like them, you know, they're challenging each other, they're disagreeing,
but they're also ultimately just like very loving and supportive
of each other. And they're so funny together. Like, I
love to see women be funny in movies because it

(46:36):
seldom is allowed to happen because until like pretty recently,
it felt like women were not ever written to be
the funny characters in comedy movies. They were like the Killjoys,
the shrews, because they were often movies written by men
who were bringing in all of their biases. It's usually
the men who get to be the funny ones in

(46:57):
comedy movies. But like Halle Berry and Natalie desseil Read
are clowning in almost every scene, like the physical humor,
the jokes, Like everything is just so funny.

Speaker 5 (47:10):
It's so goofy. I love it. And the fact I
feel like a lot of that is likely attributable to
the fact that a black woman wrote this.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Yeah for sure.

Speaker 4 (47:20):
Yeah, and their friendship is so supportive.

Speaker 5 (47:24):
I like that. I feel like it's very often in
a friendship movie where you get like one front turns
on the other and it's like, I'm gonna have this
come up by myself and fuck you. It's like Raven
during the Cheetah Girls. Yeah, she's like, I'm the star.
But even when the other one is not making great choices,

(47:45):
they are always supportive of each other. There's never a
question that, like one person's success is not going to
be the other person's success. And I think that that's
really beautiful thing that, Yeah, you just like rarely get
in a movie about women, because we're so conditioned to
think that women will turn on each other.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah, they'll be petty, they'll backstab each other, Yeah, all
that kind of stuff, because those are the stories that
are written by men and that's what we're used to seeing.
But yeah, there's never any moment like that. They're just
there for each other every step of the way. I
also want to note that there is more body diversity

(48:22):
in this movie than you normally see. Because Mickey is fat,
there's no attention drawn to that. It's just completely normalized
a very normal part of her character. I wonder if
there is an argument to be made that, like she's
the one who is like the cook, she cooks soul food,
and you know, the thin one does hair and is

(48:45):
like more focused on like a kind of beauty oriented thing,
and if there's some kind of like veiled thing there.
But I think you'd almost kind of have to read
into that to like reach that conclusion, because at least
on like the surface or the way it's presented, it
just like all feels very normalized, at least to me.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Yeah, I would agree, and I would also even go
further and say that like in the nineties and today,
it's so easy to be like, oh, well, halle Berry
is the thin one, and so she has the fleshed
out in her world. She has the romantic partner. But
they're both kind of given like they both have partners.
I don't like either of their partners, but they both
have like a romantic arc. And I did notice there

(49:27):
were a couple of places where it would be very
easy to have Mickey be the one who was doing
physical things, like the scene with the bidet it splashes
up in halle Berry's face, and I think in a
lot of movies it was like, oh haha, have the
funny fat friend do something really physical, And this movie
takes I think takes intention to lean away from that

(49:48):
a little bit at times.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
For sure, it's like equal opportunity slapstick, physical right comedy. Also,
I think in a lot of movies it would have
been the case where the you know, thin, traditionally beautiful
by Western beauty standards character would be the protagonist and
then her friend would be like the quote unquote sidekick

(50:10):
who doesn't have any kind of subplot of her own
or any scenes where it's just focusing on her. But
she also has that like separate love story kind of
thing with Antonio, who of course ends up being like
awful and desaitful. But we see a number of scenes
where the focus of the scene is on Mickey and
Nissi is nowhere to be seen.

Speaker 5 (50:31):
Right, and there's like never any I don't know, I
feel like often when a fat character, especially during this era,
is given a love interest, it's like in this condescending way,
but like you also just have Natalie to sell and
she fucking rocks and.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
His course, yeah she's the cutest.

Speaker 5 (50:51):
But it does feel like rare. And again, the movie
is written by a woman like there's nothing for me
at least that zim Mickey's story that feels like a
reflection of her body. I do feel like, even though
we have dual protagonists here, that Nissie is ultimately more
so the protagonist than Mickey. Yeah, because we get like,

(51:15):
I don't know, it felt a little uneven to me,
which doesn't necessarily feel pointed. Also, halle Berry's.

Speaker 4 (51:22):
Famous, and I think she was quite famous by this point, right, So.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
It's funny that you would ask to like she was
getting famous. But at this time we had not sort
of accepted that halle Berry was a star star, and
so she had done interesting the Spike Lee movie Jungle Fever,
where she plays Samuel L. Jackson's girlfriend and she's like
heavily drug addicted and it's very sad. She's in that
movie Losing Isaiah, where she's another person who has kind

(51:48):
of a sad trajectory in the movie.

Speaker 5 (51:50):
She's in The Flint Stone.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
That's right, she's the like sexy secretary alongside Billy Zane.
She turns out to be like the bad guy in
that movie.

Speaker 5 (51:59):
Not to spoil Hockley, Yes, and her character's name is
Sharon stone seteeny amazing.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
She's also on Boomerang in ninety two.

Speaker 5 (52:11):
So she's like famous but maybe not leading lady famous yet.
Is that where we're at?

Speaker 3 (52:15):
That's what I would put it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's
sort of getting there. But like I think that if
there was like a star attached to this movie, it
was halle Berry.

Speaker 5 (52:24):
Right, because I was like, where is halle Berry in
her career at this point? Okay, so she's not like,
it's not Peek halle Berry quite yet.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Correct.

Speaker 4 (52:31):
I feel like that's maybe early two thousands either way.

Speaker 5 (52:34):
Yeah, I feel like Nissi does kind of get the
edge in terms of the attention that the movie pays
and think it like clicked for me meaningfully, even though
it's like it's not like Mickey is in it less,
but Nissi's story kind of takes precedence more. Her relationship
with mister Blake Moore is closer and the movie puts
more emphasis on it, and her relationship with her boyfriend

(52:57):
from home is given way more president because when Mickey's
boyfriend comes back, James, you're sort of like, who is
this guy again?

Speaker 4 (53:05):
But we've been hearing about Nissy's boyfriend the whole time.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
True.

Speaker 5 (53:09):
In that scene in the car, I was like, they're
gonna do it, They're gonna do it. Where she's like
I've been in love with someone from day one. I
was like, I've only ever seen this man yell at you.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah, no, No, the.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
Time to talk about how much I hate the boyfriends, Yeah,
lay into them. So I like a lot about this movie,
But the thing I cannot stand is the boyfriends and
the scene at the end. I feel like this comes
up in movies that y'all talk about a lot, where
Mickey and Nissi have this like trajectory where they learn
a lot about themselves, they have a lot of developments

(53:42):
all of that. Meanwhile, all Nisy's boyfriend does is, I guess,
get his driver's license and cut his hair and that
like that's meant to be like, oh he is good
enough for me now. Poor Mickey, her boyfriend doesn't do
anything but cry and be like I want to take
you out to dinner and then fall into a As
far as we know, he has no character arc, no development.

(54:04):
He has just come back and is just crying at.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Her, and he also like insults her multiple points.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
I think he's the only example I don't well, actually
which boyfriend was it. It's either her boyfriend or Niezy's
boyfriend in the Club Winner's Still in Georgia that like
calls her a heifer and like is like, that's the
only example I could find in the movie that like
her like sizes commented on in any way, and it's
by someone that loves her question mark like hate it. Fuck.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
I think what's going on here is a trope that
was like very popular in the nineties. It's still a
thing now, but like, I think we're getting away from it,
which is like, it is much better to be just
with somebody than single, right. I think that either of
these two women, especially at the end when they get
the money, would be much better off without either of
these two scrubs. But I think in the universe of

(54:54):
this movie, they're like, oh, well, better to have somebody
who calls you a heifer than nobody, And yeah, I
just I hate that so much. They would be much
better off without either of those guys.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
Yes, for sure. I don't know why they're they're at all,
or if they need to be there at the beginning
to signify like these women don't have a full understanding
of their worth yet. But then they learn that and
they learn that they're better off without these guys, and
they dump them and then they're written out of the

(55:26):
movie for the rest of the movie. But why do
they come back and why do they have like a
redemption arc? And I think it's implied that, like the
cars in their car service business that they start up
are the same cars from the estate, so they just
like get those cars for free, and then they're like,
here's our business now, and it's like, no, you guys
don't deserve any of this. You treat your girlfriends poorly,

(55:48):
and you need to get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
Yes, like the girls had an arc that led to
them getting the money, so presumably the guys are just
taking some of their money to start their and the
cars to start their business, which was lofty to begin with.
And we're meant to swoon like I don't I don't
like it. Y'all can keep that it stinks. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (56:08):
No, that was really really frustrating, And even with the
way that their loser coded feels also very like kind.

Speaker 4 (56:15):
Of entrenched in class presentation too, because really.

Speaker 5 (56:21):
All that's changed when niece's boyfriend whose name escapes me
and will continue to that's okay when he no h
make his boyfriend al Ali. When Ali comes back, all
that's really changed is how he's presenting himself. He's presenting
himself in a more upper class quote unquote respectable way.
But it's like, yeah, that doesn't change how you have

(56:42):
treated her this entire time. And it feels like this
sort of other side of a Cinderella come up narrative
where it's like if a guy learns how to dress
differently like they're richer, then all is forgiven and it
implies that like that makes him a better person, and
he does treat her better once he's wearing nicer clothes.

(57:06):
It's just like nith.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Very nineties mentality.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Yeah, there is like a thing that happens within the
universe of the film with Mickey and Nissi too, where
as the film goes on, their clothes and their hair
and their nails and their teeth get like less and
less and less outlandish. You might be like, oh, well,
they're in Beverly Hills, so they're just and they go shopping,
so they're you know, learning how to fit in with
where they're at. But within the universe of the film.

(57:34):
I do have a question of, like, well, is the
film trying to be like, oh, the way they were
dressed at the beginning is bad, and now that they're
dressed more conservative, it's good. And her boyfriend cut his
perm and so that's good, and now they are a match.
Because again I recognize that the way that they dress
in the beginning is like over the top, but like,
I don't think it's bad, and I don't think it's

(57:55):
like says something about who they are. And I wonder
if the movie is maybe saying something different, Yeah, I'm.

Speaker 5 (58:00):
With you on this journey with you, because I mean
up until that point where the ending, also, all of
the stuff about their dreams coming true happens during the credits,
and you're like why why why? But yeah, like that
aesthetic change felt pointed when that was like something I
up to that point had really liked about the movie

(58:21):
was even though they are deceiving, mister Blake Moore.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
I mean, rich white men should be tricked.

Speaker 5 (58:29):
It's truly a victimist crime. He likes it, and he yeah,
it turns him on. So whatever, Like it seems like
everyone is okay with the deception that they're involved with
even though there's like brief you know, just speaking to
like the kind of random unevenness of the movie where
halle Berry is like racked with guilt in some scenes
and then other scenes she's like my whatever, Like I'm
on the side of my whatever. But either way, like

(58:51):
outside of that sort of plot contrivance, they're themselves for
the whole movie. They're not like adjusting who are They're
not I think, outside of like a few kind of
jokes that again I thought was interesting and I didn't
miss that they didn't get into it more. But like
halle Berry has like an etiquette book, and etiquette books
are so entrenched in how to act like a respectable

(59:15):
white woman, and that's just what that whole cottage industry is,
especially the further back in time you go. But that's
dropped immediately and they're themselves the whole movie, and they
are appreciated for being themselves. And so to see that
little aesthetic change at the end felt like, well, they
were like loved and accepted for who they were.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Yeah, it feels like the movie doesn't kind of misses
an opportunity to comment on the fact that like, yes,
they feel the pressure to adhere to this like standard
of propriety that is very much put forth by like
wealthy white society, and that they're like trying to adhere
to it. Either from an etiquette point of view. There's

(01:00:00):
like scenes where someone says, like, oh, how are you,
and then like Mickey responds and like the way that
she traditionally would, and then Nissie cuts in to be like, no,
we're doing very well, thank you, like in a very
like proper kind of way. But yeah, they usually abandoned
that sort of like etiquette propriety stuff that they were

(01:00:23):
trying to learn and then they just behave like themselves.
But as far as like they're esthetic choices, which is
like one of the most memorable things about their characters,
and like the poster is like very much like look
at them and their flashy outfits and they're wacky hair
jews and stuff like that. That gets more and more toned
down throughout the movie, and I feel like the movie

(01:00:45):
doesn't fully comment on like, ye, well, why are they
like leaning into adhering to these like standards of propriety
when that's not who they are, Like, that's not how
they want to present themselves. And it just sort of like, yeah,
well they're just doing it the end. So I wish
there had been more like thoughtful examination of that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Yeah, And I think that their aesthetic choices are such
a big part of this movie and something that I
was really and I would also want for the movie
to sort of take stock of that a little bit differently,
the same as you. And I also like a quote
that was looming large in my mind when I was
rewatching this was from this fashion designer Narsha Willis, who
used to do these shirts that say ghetto until proven

(01:01:31):
fashionable because you're meant to think that these outfits are
outlandish and over the top, but if they were wearing
them today, like on TikTok or on Instagram, they would
absolutely kill. And so my god, yeah would they like kill?
And so I do think like it goes back to
what I was saying about, like when I saw this

(01:01:51):
movie as a youth, to me, it felt like, uh,
sometimes over the top celebration of the ways that sometimes
these fashion choices can be so creative, so like on
another level, so future forward, just so doing their own creative,
distinct different thing that certainly took creative know how to
get there, and today in twenty twenty four, that is

(01:02:13):
like even more salient, but within the universe of the film. Again,
I agree with you, Caitlin. I don't know that they
are aware of the ways in which people like me
are watching it and being like, oh my god, there's trendsetters,
you know. Yeah, right.

Speaker 5 (01:02:26):
It feels like a very like having it both ways,
where it's like the movie obviously knows that they look incredible,
but it's also undercut by like, but this is like
can't be quote unquote like low class incredible, where you're like, no,
this is like really influential fashion. And the outfits at
the end, you know, they look great because they're gorgeous,

(01:02:47):
but what is that that's a pantsuit?

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
It's not them.

Speaker 4 (01:02:51):
Yeah, it's like a.

Speaker 5 (01:02:52):
Hillary Clinton outfit, you know, like it's I don't I
don't love it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
It's especially frustrating considering that, like so much of American
pop culture, which permeates like global pop culture as far
as just clothes and media and all that kind of
stuff is invented by black people and black women, So

(01:03:16):
it's like, well, then why are they toning it down?

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Like ugh?

Speaker 5 (01:03:20):
I mean, also that's invented the fact that the term
baps like that existed prior to this movie, and it
is so just I don't know, like weird, maybe tongue
in cheek to just attribute it to Martin Landau and
this is very much a term that came out of
the black community. But they're like, no, it's basically Martin
Landa's idea. He was dying one day and was like,

(01:03:41):
guess what I had just thought of? Anyways, Yeah, I
don't know. There's other tropes that this movie subscribes to
that I am more tempted to attribute to, like the
Cinderella genre we're in where there is like devious nephew, right,
But ultimately the two old white men in this movie
are great guys that deserve the best, which is very

(01:04:04):
like part I think of mister Bald from Annie or whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Who's mister Bald.

Speaker 5 (01:04:09):
What's his name?

Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
Oh, mister Noah hair I can't think of his name.

Speaker 5 (01:04:14):
Daddy wore Bucks, yes, right, like just someone that you're like,
the way that they got this money has to be evil.
You can't get this much money doing something good for
the world. But in the world of this rags to
riches story, they are this benevolent force that has to
be on the side of our protagonist, which is often

(01:04:35):
a young woman or girl. Rich white old man gives
young women a lot of money. You know, I'd accept it.
But this is very much a formula that exists, and
I feel like the Martin Landau character being at the
end of the day a nice old man. It falls
cleanly into that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
What do we think he did for a living? Or like,
how do you think he made his millions?

Speaker 5 (01:04:58):
They said fabrics and I was like, oh, yeah, which
I'm like that, So I'm not optimistic about his like labor.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Right, the labor practices, I'm sure very exploitative.

Speaker 5 (01:05:11):
But we're not supposed to think about.

Speaker 4 (01:05:12):
That no or any movie like it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
I would like to draw some parallels between this movie
and Eddie murphy Haunted Mansion, because both movies, yeah, friend,
thank you so much. Both movies involve a rich white
guy who was in love with a black woman and
the family disapproved and she ends up gone in a way,

(01:05:42):
and we're not really sure what happens to.

Speaker 5 (01:05:44):
Her, even know if she's alive or not. Are they
going to say if she's alive? Is he going to
ask if she's alive?

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
I thought maybe Lily would show up me at some point,
but no, we're not really sure.

Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
Right, it seems like pointed that they weren't saying that
she had died.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:05:59):
I was like, Oh, she's gonna come back at the
end to be like halle Berry, you impostor.

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
But she doesn't.

Speaker 4 (01:06:05):
We will die with that mystery.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
We don't know we will, And I wanted to Mansion
at least we know that that woman does very dead die.
But anyway, Also, there's like a butler in both stories
who's like, they play out very differently in the two movies,
but there is a butler who's like very loyal to
his rich white guy boss. And you know, so I

(01:06:32):
think that's where the parallels end.

Speaker 4 (01:06:34):
But that's still I mean, but yeah, the butler in
Haunted Mansion ends up being quite evil.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Evil Yeah yeah, yeah, he gets dragged to hell.

Speaker 4 (01:06:41):
Playing Butler Stereo times Justice for Butler's.

Speaker 5 (01:06:47):
Sorry. I'm on Daddy Warbucks's Wikipedia.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Actually we're gonna say Daddy warbucks dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:06:55):
I was like, what did Daddy Warbucks do bad?

Speaker 5 (01:06:58):
He was an industrialist, but his Wikipedia page is very
funny and he is not real. He eventually became a
foreman in the rolling mill, married Missus Warbucks and worked
and planned for a family and house of their own.
When Daddy began they call him daddy throughout. When Daddy
began to make big money during World War One, his

(01:07:20):
marital happiness was lost.

Speaker 4 (01:07:22):
You're like, oh, no.

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
Daddy, Daddy.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
No, also a foreman in a mill. Who is this
Billy's aid from Titanic?

Speaker 5 (01:07:31):
Yeah, it is villain coded uh, Daddy. That's basically who
Martin Lantau is in this. They keep going uncle, he's uncle, Daddy,
He's daddy, And that's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
Yeah, does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about?

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
I just had one other note, which is that some
of the references in this movie were so first of all,
very of an era, but also so tight. When the
girls are fighting Antonio, they think he's burglar and they're like,
I'm gonna do them like Tyson, and she's like, oh,
you didn't see the last fight because you were in
the kitchen getting popcorn. That Do you remember how in
the nineties Tyson was known for like these big hyped

(01:08:12):
boxing matches would only last for like thirty seconds because
he would knock people out. Oh, I remember distinctly. My
parents had a fight party and my dad went to
get burgers off the grill, and when he came back,
the fight was over and they had paid, like I
don't know however much money back then, one hundred dollars
or something to get the fight on pay per view.
And it was like, well, I guess you missed it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:32):
Oh wow, okay, I did not.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
Know that some of these references are so tight, and so.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Just like, yeah, it's good, it's good. Unfortunately, one of
my favorite jokes is from one of the Loser boyfriends.
But it's when Mickey's boyfriend James is saying, how oh,
when we got to dinner, you know, we have to
watch other people eat and he's crying and he's like,
I want to eat too.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
So okay, that was a pretty good line. I'll give
him that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
That's a good joke.

Speaker 5 (01:09:05):
He had one moment, had one moment, and then he
Leonardo DiCaprio and fell into a body of water fully clothed.

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
Wait, is that a Leonardo dicaprioism.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
Yes, In every movie he's basically he will end up
in a body of water with all of his clothes on.
I made a super cut to this effect. It's stunning
and if you want to watch it, you should come
to our Shrek Tannic tour in the UK because we
will be showing it at the show.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
Really great plug opportunity.

Speaker 5 (01:09:38):
Yeah, that was masterful, Thank you so much, thank you.
The only other thing I had was just again pulling
from that Refinery twenty nine article that opens with just
a couple of statistics that illustrates how like we've been
talking about this whole episode, how this is a rare
movie that centers black women and also so allows them

(01:10:01):
to have fun and be goofy, and how rare that is.
And then that countered with the other thing we've been
talking about, which is how hyper critical and overly critical
critics tend to be of movies that don't really exist
very often. Yeah, how An Cohen opens the article is
with these stats that I thought, what interesting. Hollywood released

(01:10:25):
approximately one hundred and forty three movies in nineteen ninety seven.
Of those, just seventeen starred a black performer in the
top billing. Most of those roles, as with men in
black double team money talks, most wanted and switched back,
were given to black men opposite white male co leads.
Others like Amistad focused on a historic slavery narrative, so

(01:10:46):
that there's only really a couple of movies each year,
especially at this time, that centers strictly black characters at all,
much less black women. The only other ensemble movies that
came out, we've actually covered one us Love Jones and
Soul Food.

Speaker 4 (01:11:03):
So yeah, I just like speaks to like this movie.

Speaker 5 (01:11:07):
Does it have its faults?

Speaker 3 (01:11:08):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (01:11:09):
Yeah, it's also a goofy comedy from nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
It's an extremely goofy movie, I would say.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
I would say that as well representation as a goofy
black girl. We need representation for our goofy corny asses
to like engage in some screwball hijakes on screen.

Speaker 5 (01:11:27):
Yeah, we need more hijacks, more hijis. Yeah, I think
that was all I had. Does anyone else have anything?

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Nope?

Speaker 5 (01:11:35):
This movie passes the Bechdel test.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
Yes it does. The women are talking now and then
about their boyfriends or about don or Antonio, but they
also talk about hair, they talk about food, they talk
about opening up their business, they talk about dancing, they
talk about being in la all that kind of stuff.

(01:11:57):
So handily passing what about our nipple scale, though, where
we rate the movie on a scale of zero to
five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
I'm tempted to go like a three and a half
or a four on this one. I love that this
is a movie made by black filmmakers that features and

(01:12:21):
centers a friendship between two black women that is fun
and light and there's a distinct lack of tragedy, which, again,
like as we were just kind of hinting at, so
many stories, especially from this era, that centered black characters
were like rife with the tragedy of the black experience,

(01:12:44):
and this movie is just like all about like it's
a Cinderella story, as we've been saying, like it's a
fairy tale, and it's just like so fun to watch
these characters. And I don't know why the boyfriends are
there right them out of the story. There's some like
kind of class implications that I don't love, but other

(01:13:06):
than that, it's just like such a fun movie about
two black women who are best friends and they're grifting
a rich white guy and that's what should happen all
the time.

Speaker 4 (01:13:18):
So and I just can't enough how much he's loving
the grift.

Speaker 5 (01:13:23):
Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
He's obsessed. So I'm gonna give it four nipples. I
am sad on Troy Buyer's behalf that she didn't like
the final product and felt that her story and her
words in the screenplay were not properly translated to film.
But despite that, it's still a fun, enjoyable movie for me.

(01:13:47):
So I'm going to go four nipples, and I will
split them between Troy Buyer, halle Berry, and Natalie des
sill Read.

Speaker 5 (01:13:58):
I think like a three and a half because I
really feel Troy Byer's pain here and being like, it's
my big break. I've been acting for years, this is
my big screenwriting break. Black women so infrequently get to
write anything on a scale like this and then to
watch it and be like, oh, my heart is with her.
And also I think that there's so much to love

(01:14:20):
about this movie. It's so fun. It centers black women
and their friendship in ways that we almost never see
in movies. Even now. The ways that I find it
frustrating are very of its time, mostly the boyfriends. Honestly, like,
I think that it didn't become permissible until sometime in
the two thousands. For a protagonist who is a straight

(01:14:42):
woman to end up not with a man, even if
that man is not good for her, She's got to
end up with somebody, and that is the case here.
But I feel like, if you can cut through that noise,
it's just like, the performances are so funny. I love Like,
if we don't get to see halle Berry do comedy ever,

(01:15:04):
which is I feel like the dancing audition line scene alone,
You're like, well, we deserved more of halle Berry comedy movies.
And Natalie dcell is a master comic actor. She's amazing,
and I wish she had more to do here. I
wish that there was like more of an even protagonist

(01:15:25):
situation here. But I love to see her. I love her.
It's so wild that she was in two really fun, amazing,
very different Cinderella stories that centered black women in the
same year. Good for You in nineteen ninety seven and Yeah,
I hate the boyfriends, love the baps. Three and a

(01:15:46):
half nipples.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
Put that on a shirt.

Speaker 3 (01:15:51):
I would buy it. Hell yeah, is it out of
five nips?

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
Out of five nips?

Speaker 3 (01:15:55):
Yes, I'm gonna go for Obviously, I have a soft
spot for this movie. I feel any movie that you
watched with your head cradled on your hands on your
tummy while kicking your feet at a slumber party, you
can only go solo. I agree. I do feel for
the screenwriter, and I'm really happy that she spoke up.
I would love to see her original version of this movie,

(01:16:16):
like what was her vision. I also a sucker for
a movie that has a lot of random cameos people
of an era playing themselves. You know, I don't think
it's heavy v is in the movie. Yeah. So, like
there's a one scene where they go to dinner and
it's like every celebrity ever is having dinner has the
same reservation time. So I love all the fun nineties cameos. Yeah, yeah,

(01:16:38):
I just I love a screwball comedy, and I just
get the sense that the two leads were like off
screen and on screen like friends. You just can you
can just send a work from them that is really delightful.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
So I'll go for Oh beautiful Bridget, thank you so
much for joining us again. It's always such a treat
to have you come back anytime.

Speaker 3 (01:16:57):
Oh my god, thank you for having this. You know,
this was such a great way to spend my getting
to watch baths and then talk about it thoughtfully for
an hour, like thank you, this is a gift.

Speaker 5 (01:17:07):
We're so happy to do it, Like it's this movie
put me in a great mood, right I have finished.
Pacheco was like, I, oh god, it's so hard to
be in a great mood.

Speaker 4 (01:17:16):
At this movie put me in a great mood truly.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
Where can people check out your work? Follow you on
social media, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):
Yeah, you can check out my podcast on iHeartRadio called
There Are No Girls on the Internet. You can later
this month, depending on when this comes out, you can
listen to another podcast that I have with Next Chapter
Podcasts called Beef, where we are digging into the juiciest
historical rivalries that you've never heard of. Well, yeah, you
can find me on Instagram at bridget Marie and DC,

(01:17:45):
on Twitter at Bridget Marie, on Blue Sky at Bridget tad,
or on TikTok at Bridget makes Pods very nice.

Speaker 2 (01:17:53):
I just learned what Blue Sky was. How did I
miss it?

Speaker 5 (01:17:57):
I have an account and I posted once and then
I was like, all right, get them done, and you
did it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
My New Year's reolution was to use Twitter less. So
that's I'm trying to like play with blue Sky more.
So maybe I'll see all there.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
Hell yeah, yeah, see you there anyway. You can follow
us on Patreon aka r Matreon at patreon dot com
slash Bechtyl Cast. We released two episodes every month, plus
you'll get access to our back catalog of over one
hundred and fifty episodes at this point, all for five

(01:18:30):
dollars a month.

Speaker 5 (01:18:31):
If you live in the UK, you can come see
us on tour. We're gonna be touring throughout the UK
in number of cities, more days to come in late May,
so check that out. And you can also get our
merch at teapoplic dot com slash the Bechtel Cast.

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
That's right. Links to all of that stuff, including the
ticket links for our tour, are at linktree slash Bechtel Cast.
So scoot over there, grab those tickets, grab that merch,
wear it to the show, et cetera, and yeah, we'll
see you later. Wow, amazing dismount.

Speaker 5 (01:19:05):
I have a reservation along with every famous person at
Beverly Hills at the restaurant Parselon, So if you'd like
to join me and scream at various celebrities.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
That's for a yeah, And I'm gonna go there and
be like, oh my god, Jamie Loftis, I love you,
I love your book.

Speaker 5 (01:19:20):
Raw Dogs, be like easy, easy, I'm just trying to
eat hair.

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
They hated Dennis Radman for they Yes, we'll do, We'll do,
Bye Bye bye.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosenski. Our logo in merch
is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit

(01:20:00):
linktree slash Bechtelcast

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Caitlin Durante

Jamie Loftus

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