Daughters of the Dust with Kenice Mobley

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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
best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hello.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
My name is Caitlin Dernte.

Speaker 4 (00:21):
My name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast
where for ten years we have taken a look at
your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Bechdel Test as a jumping off point for discussion. The Caitlin,
what is it? I do think like sometimes I'm like, ugh,

(00:42):
I can describe the Bechdel Test with ease. But then
every once in a while, if I'm having an off day,
I'm like, wait, what is it? And today's one of
those days? So what is it?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Sure? Well, you're you're feeling sick? Is that true?

Speaker 4 (00:55):
Yes, I'm at my most vulnerable.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
We'll take care of you, you, thank you, but yes.
The Bechtel Test is a media metric created by our
dear dear friend, Alison Bechtel. It have appeared in her
comic Dyke's Watch Out for in the eighties. Originally, it
has since been used as a more mainstream medium metric

(01:21):
that has many versions of it. The one that we
use requires that two characters of a marginalized gender have names,
they speak to each other, and their conversation has to
be about something other than a man, and ideally it's
a narratively relevant and meaningful conversation and not just throwaway dialogue.

Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah, not really an issue we're going to be having
with the movie we are discussing today. Spoiler alert. If
you've seen it, you know, if you haven't, get excited.
This is a movie that well, first of all, we
had to bring in our all time guests are all timer.
We haven't made the jacket, but we will. We will

(02:05):
working on it to discuss the movie that we have
been and this is there's a whole conversation to be
had around this. A movie we've been trying to cover
on the show for years but has only recently become
easy to stream and access. So we are finally covering
Daughters of the Dust nineteen ninety one Julie Dash with

(02:25):
an incredible returning guest, Caitlyn.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Wanted to introduce her. You know her, you love her
she's a comedian. She is making her eighth appearance Holy
shit on the Bechdel Cast. Yeah it's Kenny S. Mowbley. Hello,
welcome back.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 5 (02:40):
I love being here, as evidenced by the fact that
I've been here seven times.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Before Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I was wondering, if you recall the other episodes you've done.

Speaker 5 (02:51):
I remember something new, And you know what I'm gonna say.
This is because I value our friendship so much and
we talk so regularly that I couldn't possibly remember one
specific conversation Caitlin. We've traveled the world together. I didn't
keep things like that in my mind. Okay, And so
now that I've said that, to make myself sound better,

(03:12):
what were my other episodes?

Speaker 3 (03:13):
So sorry?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (03:15):
The one I remember most vividly is the House Deella
got her Groove back episode fun episode.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
Wait, I'm going through the Wikipedia.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
So I think your first episode with us, or one
of the very early ones was Casino Royale.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
I love it. I'm so happy I got to discuss
that with you.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
I love that.

Speaker 5 (03:34):
And Max Michelson is still one of my all time crushes.
I want to make out with him.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yesterday.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Well wait, wait, Caitlyn, I'm seeing that Kinese's first appearance
was perhaps on the Matreoon. Okay, that's what I was
wondering covering Back to the Future back in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
I feel like you guys, I've known you guys since
you started this podcast. I feel like it was like.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
Yeah, more then, since I don't understand why. Maybe it
was because we were mostly recording in person and that's
why it took its where for out of state guests,
that's what a because otherwise it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (04:06):
I was like, that's bizarre because both of you guys
were on my podcast when I had a podcast, and
I like a joints.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Right, But yeah, no, I think it's because we did
it as a live show at Brown University. Ever heard
of it?

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah? What wait? Why did that happen? Wow? Life is
so long? I was like, how did we end up
at Brown University talking about Back to the Future?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Right? And then the audio from that episode was not great,
so I had to like subtitle the whole thing, and
then we ended up because the audio was so bad,
we actually ended up taking that episode down, so it's
it has gone away. But it's still in our hearts.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
Life is life is so long. Okay, So, but then
Casino Royale and then She's got to have It, yeah huh.
And then the most recent one before this current episode
is Zoolander. H oh, The Range, The Range.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
And then you were also you also joined us for
an episode that we entitled Updates, Improvements and a discussion
with Cannis Mobley.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
I don't know what I was talking about something.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
If I recall correctly, it was during the George Floyd protests, Okay.
I do remember that we were basically realizing that we
needed to take a more intersectional approach to our analysis,
and so we were discussing that and what we were
going to do moving forward, and then you kind of
enough to join us for that discussion.

Speaker 5 (05:32):
Thank you for genuinely. I remember you guys have been
going for ten years. I remember ten years ago in Boston.
For me, I think, Caitlyn, you already moved to LA
or did you not?

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Yeah, I was a year behind Caitlyn. I was theory
for another year.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, wild But I'll look at us simpler times.

Speaker 5 (05:51):
Yeah, you guys moved to a warmer place and have
been employed and stuff and I chose a frozen tundra
of unemployment.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
But you know, we're all doing it. We're all doing our.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Better parties though better parties. Let's be honest.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yes, I'm stale throwing parties. I love it. It makes
me really happy.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
Well, welcome back the jacket. It just keeps getting held up.
It just keeps getting held up. Hard to say.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
Why if there's.

Speaker 5 (06:15):
Someone who's Bechdel class listener who loves sewing and giving
away jackets, you know what to do.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
Truth to me, I'm like, I've been thinking. It was
like we should do a ten year photo shoot and
we should just get jackets and also get Kidney's a jacket.
Like I want a podcast themed letterman jacket. I don't
care if it's cringe. I want it.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
We deserve it.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
I don't know. I mean, I think I think like
block color, like going full nineties block block colors. I'll
draw some stuff up. We'll discuss. We'll discuss great, quick great.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
In the meantime.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
Oh yeah, we have to take the show.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Let's do the show. So we're talking about Daughters of
the Dust. Canise, what is your relationship with this movie?

Speaker 3 (06:58):
So I first saw this movie.

Speaker 5 (06:59):
I want to say in undergrad when we were discussing
black filmmakers, and I always thought it was cool, but
I didn't really think about it much again until Lemonade
came out in twenty sixteen and I was like, oh,
I see a lot of the visual similarities in this,
and then lately I've seen it, but I also saw
it in the context of like I saw the color

(07:22):
Purple for the first time last year and seeing this
and thinking about how this came five years after the
color Purple.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
But it's so much there's so much more black joy.

Speaker 5 (07:34):
In this film and conversations between black women that I
just really liked.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
So that is my relationship with it. I'm not an expert,
but I do like it a lot.

Speaker 5 (07:45):
Oh, I guess I should say. I'm from North Carolina.
This takes place off of the coast of South Carolina.
My family had a time share on Edisto Island. I
remember like Galla Gala Island and some other things talking
about Gulla culture and those islands specifically that were separated
from some of the mainland. And I find it fascinating

(08:07):
given that my forefathers I don't know, are from South Carolina,
how they're like so excited to go to the mainland
when the state of South Carolina sucks ass, and.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Then you're just like wow, after this, But that is
kind of there's an opportunity for Daughters of the Dust
Attorney to a completely different movie very quickly, when it's
like this beautiful, like painful departure, comings, goings, all this,
and then you know, shortly after they get to the mainland,
they're like, well, this fucking blows.

Speaker 5 (08:40):
And that's like, that's how I viewed the film, where
I was like, they're so excited to go and I
know where they're going is garbage.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
I'm just like, well, aren't they gonna aren't they planning
to migreat north Once they get to the main they
talk about like Nova Scotia and stuff.

Speaker 5 (08:56):
Because goddamn South Caro And if you're a listener of
this show and you live in South Carolina, I'm sorry.
And also we will exist and you can move because
that state is awful. They have a horrible education system,
there's culture where I just it's not a good state
and you should leave that.

Speaker 4 (09:16):
Issay yisde Oh goodness, Jamie, what's your history with the movie?
Kind of similar? I mean, I I was not. I mean,
my film program failed me in so many ways, and
I did not learn of this in college, although I

(09:38):
was forced to take a course I've brought up on
the show many times. Allen. Course, that's where they were like,
this is how we're going to spend our time. But
so I think I was not. I mean, it is
really interesting how Beyonce has had a hand in giving
this movie a second life for people who hadn't seen

(09:58):
it because it was a very difficult movie to see
you for some time. I yeah, I think we started
talking about covering this movie on the Bechdel Cast in
like twenty nineteen. There was I tried to get a
ticket to see it at Vidiots last year, but it
sold out. Like it's just been a very difficult movie,
at least for me to find. I know we've tried
to because whatever show policy is, like, we want our

(10:19):
listeners to be able to watch the movie we're talking about.
And so finally, I think fairly recently it was added
to the Criterion Channel and I am engaged to a man,
so I have access to a Criterion Channel subscription, of course.

Speaker 5 (10:35):
So rats on your engagement. I don't think I said
that before.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yeah, look, just slipping it in there.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Wow, brag. It's also on Canopy.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
That's how I watched it. Excellent. Then you don't need
a man to watch.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Doctors of the You just need a library card.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
You need a library card.

Speaker 5 (10:53):
The Brooklyn Library does not have Canopy, which is fucked up.
But I was able to get it on Amazon. I
know Amazon's been no, Yeah, it was Amazon and it
was three dollars and ninety nine cents.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
So everyone, it is an accessible movie for you to
watch now, no excuses. But yeah, it was really fun
to finally get to watch it, and then even more
fun to listen to a lot of Julie Dash interviews.
She's so fascinating and so cool and has done so
much like world building off of this. She's written two
books off of this story, including one with Belle Hooks. Like,

(11:27):
there's a lot of very interesting and often frustrating lore
that comes with this movie. So I'm very excited to
talk about it, Caitlyn. What's your history?

Speaker 2 (11:37):
I hadn't seen it before. This was my first time
watching it, and I am excited to talk about it.
My history is is it's four days long, so there's
not much to say, but I'm delighted that we're finally
covering it. Yeah, like you said, Jamie, we've been trying
to for years, and now it's the time, and I'm

(12:01):
excited that it's here. So let's take a quick break
and then we'll come back for the recap. And we're back.
I'll place a content warning at the top for discussion

(12:25):
of rape. We don't see any rape or assault or
anything on screen, but the characters talk about a rape
that happened in the backstory, so just so everyone is aware,
we open on text on screen saying that at the
turn of the century, See Island Galas, descendants of African captives,

(12:51):
remained isolated from the mainland of South Carolina and Georgia,
and as a result of their isolation, the Gulla created
and maintained a distinct, imaginative and original African American culture.
Galah communities recalled, remembered, and recollected much of what their
ancestors brought with them from Africa. Then we open on

(13:15):
Ebo Landing, which is an area of I think Saint
Simon's Island. We're in nineteen oh two.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
Also, not for nothing not to immediately center myself. I
need this incredible film about Black Joy. But this whole
movie takes place on my birthday. They were like August eighteenth,
and I was like August eighteenth, mentioned ye, that's right.
I was not around, but I felt immediately locked in.

(13:45):
I was like, all right, something amazing's gonna happen today.
I can feel it.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (13:49):
It being August, I totally forgot that, Like, I know
how hot it gets in North Carolina and South Carolina
is worse.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
And for them to be wearing so many layers, yeah,
in August.

Speaker 5 (14:02):
I'm surprised that they're not fainting, falling out like lots
of horrible things ever following them. That's all I wanted
to say.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
They're not sweating. I'm like I would be drenched.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
It was. It sounded like I was like I wish
I had time to get the book. But there was
like a lot of information about how this was made,
and there was because it would get like so hot
or there was like a hurricane that took place in
the middle of shooting because of where they were shooting
it that the actors kind of had to be just
like on call to be like, hey, it doesn't suck

(14:32):
out right, now, get your cost about it, like, yeah,
because it just sounds I wonder. I don't know what
time of the year they actually shot it. I hope
it wasn't actually August. That would that would be unfortunate.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, because there's all it's humid too, I imagine, right, Yeah, yeah,
I can't. I could not handle it.

Speaker 5 (14:52):
I would I wouldn't wish I was about to say,
I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, on my
worst enemy, Yes, I would wish this.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
A lot of lot of Yeah, just like mild but
intense discomfort is if I would love to wish that
on my enemy.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, right, Okay, So we get voiceover narration from an
unborn child will meet her parents soon. But this child
is talking about all these sort of conflicting identities she has.
She says, I am the first and the last, the

(15:26):
honored one and the scorned one, the whore and the
holy one, wife and virgin, the barren one, and many
are my daughters, which kind of sets up this like
poetic undercurrent of the whole movie. Because this is a story,
it's like a slice of life. We're getting a lot
of like voiceover and narration, we're getting some flashbacks it's

(15:48):
centering on this peasant family who are gearing up to
migrate from this island to the mainland and then head north.
But we start to meet members of the family. Mary
Pisant played by Barbara Oh Everyone knows her as yellow

(16:09):
Mary because of her lighter skin. She is joined by
her friend and possibly lover. I couldn't get a handle
on their relationship exactly.

Speaker 4 (16:21):
I was like, you know what, none of my business. Yeah,
none of my business.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Also, I have to ask, like, both of you are white.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
I've noticed, Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 5 (16:30):
Are you familiar with high yellow and yellow like black
people calling lighter skin black people yellow?

Speaker 2 (16:38):
No, I hadn't come across that before.

Speaker 5 (16:39):
No, okay, because that is like a very common thing.
That is like it's not just like, oh we picked
that name out of the hat calling someone yellow or
high yellow. We my mom's not listening to this podcast.
We joke because my mom is much lighter skin.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Than I am.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
We always call her high yellow and she hates it.
She's like, leave me alone. No, I'm like regular dark.
Were like whatever, like, can you even use band aids?
Liked the color that she is and we joke about that.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
So yes, Wow, I did. Yeah, I had never heard
it before.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
H Anyway, So Yellow Mary. She's got a companion named Trula,
and they are traveling by boat from the mainland to
the island to kind of reconvene with the family. They
link up with Mary's cousin, Viola, played by Cheryl Lynn Bruce,

(17:34):
as well as a photographer named mister Snead, who Viola
had hired to document the family crossing over to the mainland.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Who guess what we saw? And she's not habit.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Wait oh, I forgot about that.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
He's the boyfriend at the end to assault her.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
Oh wow, Okay, Well, far more likable character in Yeah Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Other members of the family include Iona Pizzant played by
Bonnie Turpin. She receives a letter from Saint Julian last Child,
a man from the Cherokee Nation who loves Iona and
asks her not to leave with her family and to
stay behind on the island to be with him, and.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
Is so handsome he's really hot.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah. We then meet the parents of the unborn child
narrator This is Ula and Eli, played by Alva Rogers
and Adisa Anderson, respectively. Ula had recently been raped and
she is pregnant and they are not sure if Eli

(18:47):
is the father of the baby that Ula is carrying,
and Eli is really struggling with that. We meet Nana
played by Cora Lee Day. She is the elder family matriarch.
She is visiting the grave of her late husband. She
intends to stay behind on the island while the rest

(19:11):
of the family migrates north. Eli, who is her I
believe great grandson, comes by looking to Nana for guidance
because he feels that his wife has been like tainted
or ruined by this rape. And basically Nana is like,

(19:35):
quit victim blaming your wife.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
Be supportive, and also like, don't push her for information
because that seems like part of what is like torturing.
Eli is like who did this? And she's like, shut up,
you know.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
It's not going to help you to know who did this?

Speaker 4 (19:51):
Yeah, right, And it's also just yeah, like whatever. Centering himself,
he learns his lesson, he does. He does, I appreciate you.
You never see men grow on screen. You just see
them repeat the behavior and then eventually be told all right, whatever.
So it was nice that he grows.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
But before he grows, he's lashing out. He trashes some stuff,
there's this kind of push and pull in the story
about the characters, and it's mostly Nana, who has like
religious practices that derive from her African ancestors. I think

(20:31):
she's practicing who do and Eli and various other characters
are like, that's not gonna help, Like it doesn't do anything.
I thought you were gonna protect me, but it never
seems to work and all this stuff. So he's carrying
on about that. Then Mary arrives on the boat and
reunites with her family, some of whom are happy to
see her, though others like Auntie Hagar and Viola, who

(20:57):
are both very very Christian.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, they are mean.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
They think that Mary is quote unquote ruined, and we'll
talk more about this. But Mary goes to visit with Nana.
Seems like they have a close bond. We also see
Mary hanging out with Trula and Yula. Oh, I don't
even realize those name is rhyme, and we get more

(21:24):
insight into why the family thinks that Mary is ruined.
She tells them about having a stillborn birth, how she
became a servant slash wet nurse for a rich family
who wouldn't let her leave for a while they took
her to Cuba with them, but eventually Mary was able

(21:48):
to leave and come back home.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
I had a lot of questions about that story.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Same I had to watch it two or three times
that scene before I started to kind of understand what
was being talked about.

Speaker 5 (22:01):
I watched the whole thing with subtitles, and I'm from
the South when I was like, nah, this guy be
subtitled deep. And she talks about nursing the child via
this wet nursing job that kidnapped her, but she also
talks about like I fixed the titty, and I was like, wait.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
What what wha what? What? What? What? What are we saying?

Speaker 2 (22:21):
What does that mean?

Speaker 3 (22:22):
What did you do to tits?

Speaker 4 (22:23):
I wasn't sure if it was possible that that was
like shorthand for something else, because I was like, was
she talking Because if she was talking about an actual titty,
I'm very confused. And I think that was like one
of the times where I'm like, I'm assuming this is
like shorthand that I don't know about.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
It's like interesting because Julie Dash like in all of
her interviews about this, like was very and like I like,
rightfully so it was like I did not want to
like over explain the world in a way that the
characters wouldn't have had the need to do. But it's
but there are moments where I was like, wait a second,
I don't know, like, not only do I not understand

(23:02):
the context, I don't even know where I would look
for the context. I don't know where I would look
to try to understand this.

Speaker 5 (23:08):
But I took it literally because as a wet nurse,
like especially if you had a stillborn birth, your body
is producing a lot of milk and you are the
wet nurse to someone else, and I guess if you're
if you're forced to continue doing that. To say fix
the titty to me would mean she did something to
make it so that she.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
No longer was producing milk, right, And in that case,
I'm like, oh no, what did you do to your boobs?

Speaker 5 (23:31):
Like I'm like, I'm like concerned from like a self
harm perspective, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
Yeah, well, And also just like for the time, it's
just so it's so setting after yeah, after you know,
however much time in the movie, like hearing that Mary
is ruined and then hearing the reason, like you can
you can tell just because it's nineteen oh two, You're like,
whatever the reason is is not going to be her fault. Yeah,
but that was that was an incredibly traumatic thing to

(23:59):
not be her faults. Well, I was. She was like
trafficked basically, like it just yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Well that's what also was a little confusing to me
is that I didn't understand exactly why other characters would
perceive her experience as being the thing that ruined her.
But I was just like, it must just be like
old timey religious.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Well, was she married when she got pregnant?

Speaker 4 (24:27):
Oh? Maybe.

Speaker 5 (24:28):
I don't think she had a husband at that time,
which is probably why she ended up needing to go
be a wet nurse because she didn't have someone to
support her. So she might have been a victim of
sexual assault. But also she might have just slept with
someone but got pregnant and then had to leave the
island essentially.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
And that's why she is perceived to be ruined.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yes, okay, okay, okay, that's how I took it.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, no, I think that that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So we learn all of that. We also see other
family members throughout the movie kind of going about their day.
They're preparing food, they're packing up their belongings for this migration.
They're playing on the beach. We also occasionally get voiceover
from the unborn child, as well as like flashes of

(25:19):
her running around the island. She's sort of like watching
over different family members, almost like a specter who is
not born.

Speaker 5 (25:31):
Yet, like a helpful prespector a prespector.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
I mean, aren't we all prespectors?

Speaker 4 (25:39):
But yeah, yeah, babies are future ghosts as well.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
So.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Exactly so we see that. You can tell because I'm like,
which child is which child because we never like really
meet any of the children, But she's the one with
like the blue bow in her hair. And you could
also tell that it's her because the movie slows down
into like a really slow frame rate every time she's
on screen, so you're like, Okay, that's the ghost baby.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:10):
I thought about that frame rate so often because it's
clear that they shot it at regular speed and then
just essentially repeated every frame twice, or even if they
did slow it down a little bit, it's the amount
of slowing down you can do within the camera, So
that's like maybe like half speed, but even that doesn't
give the visual effect that you're looking for. So it's
like kind of choppy in this way that was very

(26:31):
popular in the early nineties.

Speaker 4 (26:33):
Because reminded, Yeah, it felt very nineties.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yes, and lo and behold it's a movie from the nineties,
so you can believe imagine that anyway. So we see
all these things. We also see mister Sneed taking photos
of different family members Throughout the film. There's a scene
where various women in the family talk about Nana, how

(26:56):
she is staying behind on the island, and how different
characters feel about that. Hagar criticizes Nana's spiritual practices and
thinks they're archaic. Again, it's that like push and pull
between Christianity and who do there's also at least one
Muslim member of the family, perhaps more than one. I

(27:19):
was also kind of losing track of the men because
they're rarely properly introduced.

Speaker 5 (27:25):
Yes, you're like, who is that whatever, there's the brother
and the guy he fights with that those those are
the black men, and everyone else is kind.

Speaker 4 (27:36):
Of there Eli and mister Sneed ye.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
And then there's a character named Ballal he one of
the Muslim characters. Man. Yeah, yeah, so we we like
get glimpses of some men, but it really is mostly
just aside from Eli and to a lesser extent, mister
Sneed the photographer, all the other men. I'm like, I
don't know who that is?

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
And also I mean again, just like the rare movie
where we mostly only know who the men are in
relation to the women. Yes, because it's like we really
don't know anything about Saint Julian last child other than
he is in love with one of the women. Like there,
I like that. I don't know, so rare, so rare.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah, what a treat, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
To be like who is that? Oh that's someone's boyfriend.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
I yes.

Speaker 4 (28:28):
Great.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
We also get voiceover from various characters talking about the
names they give their babies and what the names mean,
about how during slavery, enslavers did not keep good records
of black people's births, deaths, marriages, so enslaved Africans had
to keep track of their own family ties, and they

(28:51):
talk about how it's important that they keep up those
ties and the family and cultural traditions wherever they go.
Then Yula tells a story about how when their ancestors
were trafficked to North America, they got off the ship,
looked around, and then turned right back around and started

(29:12):
walking on the water back to Africa, a story that
later gets like obviously this is like folklore. But then
one of the men, again ruining the party, says like,
actually that didn't happen, and actually they all drowned, and
it's like, well yeah, but like you're ruining it at them.

Speaker 5 (29:33):
Well, it's so much more romantic you think that they
walk back to Africa than they just drowned to death.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Come on, I.

Speaker 4 (29:38):
Mean, that was that was something that I mean, I
guess again just like how poorly educated we are on
black history in American public schools. But yeah, the story
about the I mean they refer to it as a
mass suicide on Ego landing. I'd never heard about it
before I had it, and that like, I mean, it's

(29:59):
it's sounds bad because it is bad, but also that
it was this act of like mass resistance toward enslavement,
like as people should learn about it. Yeah, I bravely said, wow.

Speaker 5 (30:13):
In case you didn't know, people should learn about the
history of the country they live in, and this includes.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
I mean we've recently come to this conclusion.

Speaker 5 (30:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right now in twenty twenty six, we
value history, I'm kidding, we don't.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
It turns out if you don't preserve it, people will
just make shit up. Bro.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
I read the news today and that was on me
because I was like, oh, so these people dumb?

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Then, okay, so we just believe in anything they say? Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Oh sad but true.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah, it's scary, but let's think about this movie. That's nice,
it's pretty yes.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yes. Nana tells the other women about the family connection
they have to maintain after they migrate Worth. She's growing
more and more upset that everyone is leaving the island.
Mary starts crying, saying that she wants to stay on
the island with Nana, and then Hagar butts in it's

(31:15):
always talking about Mary being quote unquote ruined, and so
Ula is like, well, you must think that I'm ruined too, yea,
And she gives this great monologue about how maybe all
the women on the island are ruined. She says, we
live our lives always expecting the worst because we feel

(31:36):
we don't deserve any better. She talks about their generational
trauma that even God can't protect or heal them from.
She says, maybe they're migrating because they're trying to run
away from their pain and their past and their scars.
But they need to face these things head on and

(31:56):
change their way of thinking, and they need to excite
and love Mary and the family ponders this. We see
a flashback with young Nana and her husband, her husband
talking about planting things in the dust, hence the title

(32:17):
of the movie Daughters of the Dust, and then back
in the present, Nana says that she will remain on
the island and continue planting things while she's still alive.
And she's like, by the way, when I die, I
am not going to heaven because I don't believe in
all that.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Yeah, and this, I mean, Nana is such a wonderful
character for so many reasons. But I do like that
she is like not afraid to She's like, and while
you're on your way out, God is made up. God
is a fantasy. You're like, oh, awesome, awesome.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
She has made this object. I don't know quite how
to describe it, but she has bound a book and
a pouch full of her hair and her mother's hair.
There are some roots and possibly herbs like she's bound
all these things together again, like a religious artifact kind
of thing, and she wants all the members of the

(33:12):
family to kiss it as a way of like saying farewell,
and she's like that's how she's sending them off, and
most of the family does it, although Viola and Hagar
again the very Christian characters are like, this is blasphemy,
this is devilry, blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
It's like a lovely, a lovely gesture she makes that.
Of course, the hyper Christian characters are unforgivably weird about yeah,
have you heard this one right?

Speaker 5 (33:40):
It's like you don't have to believe in who doo
to just be like, hey, this is a nice moment
for us to be able to say goodbye. And then
these two ladies come and ruin shit, starting yelling at.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
Everybody, being like, don't do this.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
We're upset, and it's like, oh my gosh, if you
had like a slightly looser corset gathering thing, maybe you'd
be happier, because this is some bullshit. Also, they're the
ones with their hair pinned up in this very tight way.
It's like when someone's braids are too tight, and it's like, oh, boo.
You just need to relax, like just let those things
get loose and calm down.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
It is cool though that how like throughout there's no
like clean I sort of, I think, just because I'm
so like movie brained aka smooth brained, I was waiting
for smooth smoothie brainedmoovie. But I was I was waiting
for like the moment in the movie where everyone puts
aside their differences and has a nice moment, and like,

(34:36):
of course that does not happen like there. Instead, it's
like truer to life and there's a moment where everyone
sort of is like, all right, we gotta we gotta
muscle through this, you know, like there's not a clean
solution anything, which makes total sense given the situation. But
I was, I like wrote it down. I was like,
oh right, not every movie features like and then we

(35:01):
put our differences aside so the movie could end. It's
like no, of course not totally.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, that's a difference between this and a Tyler Perry movie.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
I mean, that's that's that's the smooth brain I'm operating.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
And I mean the direction and the writing and like
everything else.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
But also because also the narrative structure. Yes, yes, yeah,
so yeah, we have the very Christian characters being like ah,
except Viola does come around and she kisses Nana's object.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
We then cut to most of the family on a
dock waiting for the boat to take them to the mainland,
although Iona decides to stay on the island to be
with her beloved saint Julia Laschild.

Speaker 4 (35:46):
Awesome. That moment was not to bring Titanic into it,
but was very rose jumping off the Oh my gosh.
I was like, yeah, jumping off the boat to be
with your hot boyfriend. I love it on a whole course. Yeah,
very romantic.

Speaker 5 (36:04):
Yes, they did those visuals nice because he comes across
a field and then she hops on with her long
dress from nineteen oh two or whatever, and I'm like,
so yeah, you're like exactly.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
So Iona stays behind, and so do Yula and Eli.
They stay with Nana Pizzant to raise their baby aka
the Unborn Child Narrator on the island. And that's the end.
So let's take a quick break and we'll come back

(36:37):
to discuss, and we're back.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
And we're back, Canise.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Where would you like to start?

Speaker 5 (36:53):
Okay, I think for people who haven't seen this, which
is I think a lot of people have not seen this.
They may have heard it in to Lemonade, but it
isn't as widely seen as say The Color Purple and
other movies that have been available consistently. For those of
you who are thinking of watching this movie, I think
it's really important that you know that it's only one
hundred and thirteen minutes. I'm like, I know that that's

(37:13):
silly and specific, but like truly, when I sat down
last night to rewatch this and was like, is this
going to be the rest of my night? And I
saw that one hundred thirteen minutes, I was like, yes,
I have time, So you have time, and you should
watch this movie.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
Absolutely. I was also, as, this is very silly and
somewhat unrelated, but I know that there's like a lot
of historical context to talk about that is also like
related to Julie Dash's family specifically, and this is sort
of like a I don't know if this I never
quite understand what auto fiction is supposed to mean, but
like it is, it is sort of a fictionalized history

(37:52):
of her family that is based in her actual family history, right,
But you know, early in the movie where we're talking
about like this specific setting and Gulla culture in general.
I was like, wait a second, why do I sort
of know about this? And it's because there was a
chill Yes, okay, canis There was a children's show that

(38:13):
was on Nickelodeon in the nineties that they would show
reruns of called Gulla Gala Island. That it was like
the best show ever. I remember it so clearly and
so obviously like it was whatever. My brain was very
squishy when I was watching it, but there was like
a like really successful children's show that there's weirdly a

(38:34):
lot of millennials walking around with a very very slight
but memorable knowledge of this culture. I just wanted to
shout that out because I hadn't thought about it in years.
But it was made by this couple, Ron Days and
Natalie Day's real life couple. Ron also, I think, similar
to Julie dash had, you know, he'd actually grown up

(38:56):
there and in college, I mean there was like a
whole short I watched about it, but in college, you know,
he was had a lot of internalized shame, specifically about
the language and dialect, and then with time was able
to realize that it was like the college's problem, not his,
and then he sort of devoted his life to storytelling

(39:18):
and historical preservation of his culture, and it ended up
being on Nick Junior for like ten years. Yes, it's
a great, great show. I feel like they're truly not
making them like that anymore.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
I did not know about this at all. You didn't, well,
I grew up without cable, so I missed out so much.

Speaker 5 (39:40):
Sounded so bad for her, like, oh, like like you
didn't have cable. Oh my gosh, that's the most classest
nonsense I've ever said. I'm sorry, don't come at me.
Lots of people don't have cable.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
I'm sorry, but this, I mean in this case, there
was like I mean again, I'm like, I don't hang
out with small children currently. I did nieces and nephews,
but like, I just don't think that there's like shows
this like culturally specific that are really around anymore. And
I loved it. I loved there. They also had like
a muppet, of course, because it was the nineties on Nickelodeon,

(40:16):
they had a muppet named Binya Binya and I had
a backpack and I was just like, wait a second,
I just I because I just hadn't seen this movie before.
I was like, I know, like two whole things, which
is more than I thought I would know. So for
fellow millennials that remember watching Gullagala Island, shout out to
all of you. Hell yeah, And I guess with that,

(40:40):
let's get into some more historical context.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Yeah, I did some research on Julie dash Yes, that
I'd like to share.

Speaker 4 (40:51):
So it's so interesting.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
I know, I didn't do any reading, and I'm so
excited to find all this out.

Speaker 4 (40:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
So one of the reasons this movie is so significan
is that it was the first feature length film directed
by a black American woman to get a general theatrical
release in the US.

Speaker 4 (41:09):
And just a reminder, this was in nineteen ninety two. Yeah,
well two's when it was like actually released. Like it
also took a full year to get distribution, even after
it did great at Sundance.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
Okay, so there were films for eighty years, yes.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
And other films by black American women, but like nothing
that actually got distributed before. I'm just like, that is
such a depressing fact, truly, But there.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
It is so very monumental film for many reasons, and
that being one of them. And then to kind of
flash back a little bit into Julie Dash's early career.
So she received a master's degree, and I'm sure she
never wants to talk about it or bring it up,
but she got an MFA from UCLA Film School. Oh

(41:58):
and she's one of the members of what is called
the La Rebellion, which I didn't know about, so thank
you Wikipedia for telling me. But the La Rebellion was
a group of black students who studied at specifically UCLA
Film School from the late nineteen sixties to the late nineties,

(42:20):
and their mission was to basically create original black cinematic stories.
They often made experimental and unconventional films that rebel, hence
the name La Rebellion against what against the racial stereotypes

(42:42):
and prejudices present in Hollywood films.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
Yes, she has like a bunch of interviews like to
this effect about how when she was going to college
and also just like growing up in general, like most
of the black art sing was blaxploitation movies, Like it
was an early goal of hers that is like very
clearly reflected in this movie to show a black experience

(43:08):
that is not a black exploitation movie, but like specifically
a gentler, more feminine story.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
And she was inspired by the works of authors like
Toni Morrison, Tony kid Bambara, and Alice Walker. And she
was basically like, I want to make movies like those stories. Yeah,
And so she began making short films. There's a small
handful that she made in the seventies and eighties, and

(43:36):
then she started working on Daughters of the Dust, where,
like you said, Jamie, she was inspired by her father's
Gola family, who migrated from a similar place around the
same time as the characters in the movie. She originally
planned it as a short film with no dialogue, basically

(43:57):
just like a visual account of this family's preparation to migrate.
But then she's like, well, what if I make it
into a feature and what if I include dialogue? And
so she wrote the screenplay for Daughters of the Dust.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
And this all took place over the course of, like
I think, over a decade. She was trying to she
was like reconceiving what this movie could look like and
then trying to get money to make it. And that's like,
I don't know, stuff I find interesting and frustrating is
just like how many no's she got when and how
like uncompromising she was and what she wanted to do,

(44:31):
because a lot of the feedback she was getting was
like in relation to like how the screenplay is composed,
where it's like a nonlinear narrative that she said was
partially inspired by creole storytelling, and how like this ritual
and this remembrance would have actually gone versus like adhering
to like once upon a time narratives and then.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
They live happily ever after kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (44:55):
Right, like the thing I was expecting of, Like and
then they're gonna put aside their religious differences whatever the hell.
But but she was very like adamant about like no,
this is this is like how this would have gone,
and this is like the lyrical way I want to
approach this, And so it just took a really long
time for her to get the funding to make it happen.

Speaker 6 (45:15):
Huh.

Speaker 5 (45:15):
It makes so much sense to me when you say
that it started off as like a silent short or
silent in the way that there's not dialogue, because there
are so many really beautiful shots in this so like
even at the beginning when the lady has placed under
her bed, like a glass and flowers in it that
looks like a painting. It's lit beautifully, and there's lots

(45:38):
of these Like it's something I noticed because it's so
pacing wise different than what we see today, where there
are these beautiful shots of people walking on the beach
or like dresses or silk and or not silk, what
is that lace? You can see the different fabricactures and stuff.
So she's really playing in the visuals in a nice
way where words aren't necessary.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
But then on top of that, there is this.

Speaker 5 (46:03):
Story where these people are saying sometimes silly things to
each other.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
I'm sorry I say it that way.

Speaker 5 (46:10):
But her speech at the end where she's like, ah,
like very upset, I was like, okay, all right, somebody's
someone's getting their capital a acting on and I see that.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
Okay, we're submitting for awards, got it?

Speaker 3 (46:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (46:23):
Just one word. So this is from the book on
the production of this movie and also featured on scholarly
journal Wikipedia. Julia Dash talking about the structure of this
movie and like why she chose to do that. She says, quote,
I didn't want to tell a historical drama about African
American women in the same way I had seen other dramas,

(46:44):
I decided to work with a different type of narrative
structure and that the typical male oriented Western narrative structure
was not appropriate for this particular film. So I let
the story unravel and reveal itself in a way in
which an African Gullah would tell the story, because that's
part of our tradition. The story unfolds throughout this day
and a half in various vignettes. It unfolds and comes back.

(47:05):
It's a different way of telling a story. It's totally
different and new, which is great. And she's also I
mean I haven't heard her, and I mean this is
I've watched like three or four interviews, so maybe she does,
but I haven't heard her speak to specific movies that
did this. But I mean it's like you have to

(47:25):
imagine that the color purple is sort of on her
mind as she is like and other stories because that's
you know, like a story by Alice Walker that was
famously adapted by Steven Spielbe, and you know, like it
just I don't know, I really admire how much she
stuck to her guns and like, Nope, this is the
way the story is being told. And if it takes

(47:47):
longer to get it made that way, then fine, agreed.
But also this it drives me up a wall that
this is like another thing we talk about on the
show all the time that she has in the years since,
really struggled to get funding for a second big feature.
She's directed a lot of other things, she's directed a
lot for television, but they're really it's like she didn't

(48:10):
get the money and the opportunities that, you know, a
white guy in the same position would have gotten. Even
though this is like considered one of the best movies
of the twentieth century. I'm like, it's just it just
makes you want up bah yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (48:25):
So I also recently saw The Color Purple for the
first time, and I read the book and I feel
like this is in direct conversation with that because it
is black people and they're not that far so these
people are in the islands off of South Carolina. That
story I think takes place Georgia, South Carolina, maybe into
North Carolina, I think is where it was filmed.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
But both of.

Speaker 5 (48:48):
These are groups of people whose lives are affected by
heavy segregation, racist policies all that. And in The Color Purple,
which is directed by aguish Man.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
The white people are there.

Speaker 5 (49:02):
It is a threat that they're constantly addressing here. I
love that there are no white people in this movie.
They're just not there. Like there's the mention that someone
potentially a white person raped someone, but you don't know
who it is and it's not their story. They're not
there for you to wonder about intent, nothing. It's just like,

(49:22):
this is a bad thing that has happened. We're not
skating over it. We're not acting as though this stuff
doesn't happen. But the main push of these people's lives
is not necessarily that white.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
People are making it difficult. And I really appreciated that.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, not a white person to be seen on screen.
I think someone mentions Teddy Roosevelt.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
Ye in the background.

Speaker 7 (49:45):
Yeah, but that's basically it, yeah, which is like part
of I mean so, And because the movie intentionally is
not going to give you the Wikipedia.

Speaker 4 (49:55):
Page for the Calagichi people, we will. We probably will.
So in case you did not grow up watching Gallagala
Island or you received it and you also received a
poor American education, a brief primer on who the Gallagichi
people are. We are learning specifically about this island, Egbo Island.

(50:18):
This community came obviously from people in the slave trade
who sort of abandoned society and through demonstrations like that
mass suicide in resistance to being enslaved, the Gullagichi people
were quite secluded from the rest of American culture intentionally so,

(50:41):
which is like so much of what this movie is about,
to the point where they developed their own language, their
own dialects, their own food, just an entirely separate culture
that I feel like like a lot of cultures that
were not well educated on, including indigenous cultures, is still
very much around today. I feel like everybody you know
in the same way we talk about indigenous cultures is

(51:03):
definitely worth saying, and that the Goligichi people are still
fighting for funding and land protection and these narratives that
are frustrating and familiar, but that this period of time
that is reflected in Julie Dash's personal family history is
when you know there was a fair amount of Goligichi

(51:25):
people who decided to go to the mainland to seek
out different opportunities. And that's where you get all the
Christianity of it, all the tools of the colonizer of
it all. And this internalized you know that we see
in the characters that come with Yellow Mary, is this

(51:45):
internalized dislike for Goligichi culture. And yeah, so that's very
very very basic, but there it is.

Speaker 5 (51:54):
I like how they also demonstrated that in a lot
of the hairstyles. So the hairstyles the black women ranges
from short locks of the older grandmother character to like
I don't know what the style is called, and please
don't come for me, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
They're gonna be so mad.

Speaker 5 (52:11):
But it's like where it's like very thin and then
a puff at the end and lots of little spikes
around the head.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
I think that was there. We had twists.

Speaker 5 (52:20):
We had just all sorts of different styles from the
people who seemed like happy to be there, and then
the white Christian colonizers. Their hair was shaped in such
a way as to mimic the white styles of the time.
And I like that it's starting to come down when
and I can't remember her name, she was a Christian
lady on the boat at the beginning who was like,

(52:41):
oh's so prim and proper.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
Viola viola.

Speaker 5 (52:45):
I didn't like that bitch, but she at the end,
right before she kisses the grandmother's books slash who new thing,
you can see some of her hairs come out, and
I think that that was probably a choice to demonstrate
that she has instead of being so tightly wound up,
some of her hair is now coming out of this
very strong structure, and she will go now over to

(53:08):
the book and give it a kiss because she's letting
go of some of whatever.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
The fuck was super tight. Okay, what I wanted to
say was shoved up her ass.

Speaker 5 (53:18):
But it just like the tightness of the hair corresponds
to me with the tightness of these people being uptight
and high and mighty with their Christianity.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
She's also wearing a dress that comes buttoned all the
way up to her neck.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
It's oh, it's like ninety five degrees. What are you doing?

Speaker 4 (53:39):
No, the hairstyling and costuming was like a big Julia
Dash did like this great interview kind of randomly. I
don't know like what the occasion was, but it was
like three years ago. She did this longer interview with
Vogue where she just sort of talked through the basics
of the production, specifically with styling because Vogue but was
talking about the wardrobe decisions they were making and the

(54:03):
criticism that she received at the time, specifically from white
reviewer if you can believe it. But it's clearly it's
something she brings up in a lot of interviews and
something that really stuck with her. So I'm going to
quote here from a film quarterly piece called Sisters Are
Doing It for Themselves The Contextual Labor of Black Women

(54:23):
by Garish Shamboo from two years ago. She writes, quote
addressing Daughters of the Dust sometimes obtuse critical reception, Dash
tells Belle Hooks of an early and widely read review
and Variety by a white male critic, Todd Carr, which
complained that the film, in her words quote, didn't explain
enough about the Gulla people, their culture, their religious traditions,

(54:46):
and also disparagingly liken the film to a Laura Ashley commercial.
Dash's book was partly a response to such blinkered and
incurious critical responses, but she expands in this Vogue piece,
saying that audiences and specifically like white critics of the
early nineties, were so used to, in her view, seeing

(55:06):
black women in a very particular way and styled in
a very particular way that the women in this period
piece wearing these flowy white dresses was viewed as inauthentic
and pandering. And this was a criticism that she mentions
getting a number of times curiating right, right, because it's like, no,
she did the research, this was what would have been worn,

(55:29):
and it's like and the costuming is so beautiful and specific,
and but she got a lot of pushback from it
at the time, and she you know, attributes it to
a bunch of different things. But she was just like
people were not willing to see black women as feminine.

Speaker 5 (55:46):
As feminine, as dignified, Like there's something strong and dignified
and beautiful about the women that they're showing in this thing.
And for a white guy to be like, why isn't
this movie giving me a Wikipedia article on who the
Gullagichi people are. I'm upset and these black women look
too proud and put together. Clearly this is not like authentic.

(56:07):
I'm just I'm like really pissed up now, like.

Speaker 4 (56:11):
Fuck, you know, right, So this piece continues. It's really
I don't know. The more I learn about Juliet Dash,
I'm like, God, we need more movies from her. Quote.
In the book, Dash traces the process she followed from
idea to script to production. Despite spending ten years researching
Gulla culture and traditions, Dash always envisioned Daughters of the
Dust as speculative fiction, not a piece of educational ethnography

(56:33):
to inform and enlighten a white audience. To take an example,
the hands of formerly enslaved people like Nana are blue black,
bearing the marks of past hard labor in an indigo
processing plant. In this the film deliberately flies against fact.
Authoritative sources told Dash that physical contact with indigo, however prolonged,
was not likely to leave permanent stands on human skin.
Yet Dash chose to emphasize this counterfactual statement in order

(56:56):
to create a new iconographic trope of slavery, one that
would join other more familiar ones. So it goes on
from there, but for any critic to accuse her of
not doing her research and not making very intentional choices
with how these characters are presenting and even with Nana's like,

(57:17):
Nana is one of the only women who isn't wearing
white throughout the movie, and it's because she's wearing indigo,
which was you know what she spent much of her
life planting and harvesting and anyways. We can link this
piece in the description, but it just is like so
frustrating hearing the amount of shit she had to go
through not only to get the movie made but also

(57:39):
to like defend it when it was out.

Speaker 5 (57:42):
Sorry, this is this is a dumb question, but my
mind went there, what's.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
The sissy spasic movie?

Speaker 5 (57:48):
That's like a Terrence Malick movie and they're like wheat
fields and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
I'm like the Unfortunately, when I think Sissy Space, I
think Tuck ever Lasting.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
Wow, carry I I was like.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
And Carrie close behind, but first and foremost Tuk ever Lasting. Unfortunately.
Wait what I like?

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Is it bad lambs or wasteless or whatever.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
I'm trying to look it up. Bad Lambs.

Speaker 5 (58:14):
To me, that's like, this isn't a clear examination and
tutorial on white culture, so it's not good. Why isn't
bad Lands telling me enough about the history of migration
of white people in.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Wherever the fuck that was?

Speaker 5 (58:29):
Why isn't that it's not doing its job because I
don't know and it should be teaching me.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
That's crazy.

Speaker 4 (58:35):
It's so like shitty and didactic and it's also like,
I don't know, it's like not like Julia dash isn't
encouraging her audience to learn more about Gullah culture, but
do it yourself, Like, yeah, Wikipedia dot org is a
great place to start in.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
Go to the library. Yeah, actually, be like Robert Edgars
go to the library one time. But anyways, Yeah, I'm
very glad that she documented the production process so carefully,
because it's, like whatever, a historic document in itself of
just what fucking ignorant assholes the critics of the time were.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
And she shouldn't be expected to hold the audience's hand
through the storytellings.

Speaker 4 (59:26):
It's not a documentary like and she did.

Speaker 5 (59:28):
You guys would be like, this is a boring film.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
You're teaching me too much.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (59:34):
So it's like just another example of how with some
of the critics of the time, she could not win.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Yeah, it's almost as if black women are held to
a different standard than other people.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
Almost. Yeah, that's crazy, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
Should we talk about the story in the movie, the characters?

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Yeah, sure, he wants to.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Like we said, the narrative is a slice of life
story with characters reflecting on the past, pondering the future.
They're sharing stories with each other, you know, passing down
stories via oral tradition. We see characters seeking spiritual guidance
from their ancestors. We see characters dealing with generational trauma.

(01:00:24):
We also see intergenerational tension as far as cultural practices,
religious practical religious tension.

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
There's gender based tension. Like another thing I really appreciated
that I feel like a lot of contemporary movies kind
of fail to do is like this movie shows different
women having different opinions on gender roles, which I think
is like a big fourth wave feminist movie. Thing that

(01:00:53):
kind of bugs me at this point is like and
we're all women and we all agree that. ABC is like, yeah,
well we're still people, and like we're like constantly in
conflict about stuff like this. And so I liked even
when it was like perspectives that were frustrating that it
was like realistic that you know, of course, women, especially

(01:01:16):
women that are living in different places, different generations, all
this stuff, like are going to feel differently about that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
I liked it. It's going to put that out.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
There, Yeah, no, it's it's really great. And we see
this bearing out in different ways. Where women are talking, well,
women are talking about men sometimes, but it'll be like Mary,
for example, saying something along the lines of like she
wants a man she can depend on but not be

(01:01:48):
dependent on.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
But otherwise, again, like the men are kind of an
afterthought for the most part.

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
They're kind of like on their little side quest on this.

Speaker 5 (01:02:00):
Yeah, like church, they had some robes on or something,
people were baptizing people whatever, something that's not important.

Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
And then again, the main man that we get to
know is Eli. By way of this thing that happened
where Yula was raped, she's also pregnant. They don't know
if this pregnancy was a result of the rape or
if her husband, Eli is the father of her baby.

(01:02:28):
Because of this uncertainty, Eli is like frantic, He's horrify.

Speaker 4 (01:02:35):
He's he's hitting in the ground, he's breaking bottles in
the tree with the bottles. He's acting, he's capital a acting. Yes,
And I don't I mean correctly if I'm wrong. I
don't think that the movie tells you what the reality
ended up being because I don't think it matters.

Speaker 5 (01:02:54):
Yeah, I think it doesn't matter, but I think it
was an intentional choice. Like the person who's playing the
little girl whose voice we're hearing throughout the movie as
the voiceover with the blue ribbon in her hair. That
act is darker skinned than say Mary or that I

(01:03:15):
don't remember the name of the woman she was with,
but that chick.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
Was light.

Speaker 4 (01:03:19):
Yeah, true her maybe girlfriend?

Speaker 5 (01:03:22):
Yeah, maybe girlfriend. I thought for daughter for a second.
I was like, I don't know what the citch is
with this chick, but yes, the very light skinned girl.
But the voiceover daughter was much darker. So I feel
like in some ways it was trying to be like, hey, no,
it's fine, it's theirs. Because also, this little voiceover baby,
not the child's name, says stuff about my father, and

(01:03:45):
she's talking about Eli. So I feel like, even if
they never say directly like but no, it's he is
the father and it's fine, they do in some ways
try to comfort.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
People a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:03:58):
That does make sense again, because you do get to
you do see her. Yeah, I guess I was. I
was like, my head canon was like, well, it doesn't
matter if someone's your biological father.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
They're your father, true, and that's fact.

Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
Yeah, but I definitely, and I will say, given that
my mom is much lighter skin than I am, and
I am darker skin than some of my sisters. I
think about color gradation quite a bit, so yeah, I'm
like that kid's darker skin. That is probably not a
mixed child, right, and that is not Hey, people come

(01:04:32):
in all different colors and shades, and some make people
look as lighter as dark as one.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Parent or the other. So that is not a clear.

Speaker 5 (01:04:40):
Indication that is based in one hundred percent scientific fact.
But I do think that there were choices made and
that that does put the audience in air quotes at
ease a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely we want her to be
Eli's child, but yes, okay, yeah, make sense to me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
But also we don't want sexual assault to happen at all, and.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
We want and we want Eli to understand that sexual
assault isn't a mark on your on your spouse. Maybe yes,
before you get married, but nineteen oh two.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
Questions nineteen o two. I also I really did like
and I feel like other movies have shown this in
the past.

Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
But the reason why she doesn't tell him is not
because like, oh it will hurt that other person, or
that she's necessarily afraid for herself, but she is cognizant
of if she tells her husband who did this, then
he will be putting himself at risk. Like I thought
that was an interesting to have to be concerned about

(01:05:50):
a having been assaulted.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
B what are you going to do with this baby?
And like raising a baby. But see, you.

Speaker 5 (01:05:56):
Want to protect your husband so that if he flies
off handle he doesn't go and get lynched.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Yeah, that's a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:06:03):
And then they also bringing the anti lynching laws that
some of the people are trying to get passed.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
I thought it was on the borders of the story, but.

Speaker 5 (01:06:12):
Not necessarily the impetus for the family drama that we
were seeing.

Speaker 4 (01:06:17):
Right right, Because yeah, that that comes up at the
at the end of the movie too, when when the
unborn child is born. But there's one line I didn't
I didn't write down which character said it, but it's
when the assault is being discussed just very offhand, the
raping of a colored woman is as common as a

(01:06:38):
fish in the sea, and just that being said so frankly,
and you know, it's just I don't know, I thought that, Yeah,
the movie did a really good and intentional job of
showing that, Like I don't know, for uh, like survivor
of assault, and specifically a black survivor of assaults. The
assault itself is kind of the tip of the iceberg

(01:07:01):
in terms of the continued trauma that like she has
to compartmentalize how she feels in order to protect her
husband from experiencing violence and just all of the I
don't know it just it makes me happy that at
very least there is like a community of women to
talk to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Yeah, and some characters understand that better than others. I
really appreciated the scene where Nana is talking to Eli
about this, where she says, because Eli is saying, like,
I look at her and I'm not even sure I
want her anymore. I feel like she's not even mine.
And Nana responds with, you can't get back what you

(01:07:44):
never owned. You will never belong to you. She married you,
And it takes him a while for that to sink in.
But yeah, I love that you have this what like
ninety year old woman like in nineteen oh two saying
things that a lot of people don't understand today in

(01:08:05):
twenty twenty six, So that was great. And then you know,
you have other like the camaraderie you see among different women,
and then also the antagonism you see from other women,
and it's pretty clear where the antagonism is coming from,
the Christianity. But the solidarity that you see, for example,

(01:08:27):
between Eula and Mary is really beautiful, and the fact
that Eula stands up for Mary during that monologue at
the end. And then yeah, like there are these beautiful
moments of black joy that we see throughout the film,
the playing that they're all doing, and the dancing around

(01:08:49):
on the beach and ye, you know, preparing dinner.

Speaker 4 (01:08:52):
And yes, I was like, this is filed under movies
that made me hungry?

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Do you like gumbo?

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
I do like gumbo. I don't know that I've ever
I haven't had good gumbo in a very long time,
but yes, I do like gumbo.

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
I grew up with gumbo. My mom still makes it.

Speaker 5 (01:09:12):
I'm gonna be honest, I don't really like it because
I don't really like I don't like okra. I like
the whole the whole thing is just like, hey, you
want like snot but as a vegetable, And I'm like, no.

Speaker 4 (01:09:22):
I love I like it. I love when food is
so dense. I love it.

Speaker 5 (01:09:29):
So like if they fry okra, I can eat it,
but truly unless it's like trapped up into little pieces
and then mostly the breading around it and then fried.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
Get it out of here.

Speaker 5 (01:09:40):
I how dare you like somehow they grew this pod
of like goop and then it just tastes okay.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
Forget it. No, but they love it in this movie.

Speaker 4 (01:09:51):
They love it and it looks delicious.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
It looks so good.

Speaker 5 (01:09:57):
The corn bread was what got me. They had corn bread,
and I was like, I love cornbread. In fact, should
I go get some corn bread?

Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
I was like, this is a movie that you're like,
maybe I need dinner at eleven am. Maybe that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
What else do we want to talk about?

Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:10:15):
What are other standout characters? I mean, it is interesting
because this movie is so beautiful and layered and a
lot happens, and also not a lot happens. I don't know,
I really I liked the structure a lot. I feel
like it makes it a little trickier to talk about,
but the structure being like, I don't know, just felt

(01:10:36):
like this whole ceremony of remembrance. There's another moment that
stuck out to me. I don't know at what point
in the movie. Because this movie is so so vibes,
but where they're talking specifically about why they're part of
why they're doing what they're doing, what the function of
storytelling is for their family and for their culture, and

(01:11:00):
you know, obviously as a tool of remembrance. But Caitlyn,
I think, like you mentioned earlier about how poorly their
lives have been documented by their oppressors and specifically by
slave owners, and the ways that they were documented and named,
like it put you at physical risk to not know
your own story very thoroughly. Yeah, I mean there was

(01:11:23):
again just like a very offhand line of dialogue, but
like you had to know who you were and where
you came from so that you weren't you know, like
to avoid incest, yes, to avoid incest, and because there's
certainly no white slave owner who is going to be
thinking about or caring about that. And it was just

(01:11:43):
like again just like one of the many lines in
this movie that you're just like, oh my.

Speaker 3 (01:11:48):
God, it's so fussed up.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
Yeah. Yeah, but like, I don't know, I liked that
there was that so much of this is like based
in I don't know, like whatever works on a number
of levels because it's this fictional family preserving their history
for each other. And also Julie Dash like trying to
imagine what preserving her own family's history would be.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
It's just cool.

Speaker 5 (01:12:13):
I am frustrated that Julie Dash didn't get to go
on and do more. When I was watching this, also,
I thought of other things where people are in nature
in like long dresses.

Speaker 3 (01:12:24):
I thought of, do you guys remember the piano?

Speaker 4 (01:12:27):
Oh? Yes, yes, Janine Campion.

Speaker 5 (01:12:29):
Campion, Yeah, yeah, And I thought about that and I
was like, man, I think I really like stories of
women in long dresses by the beach.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
I think that's like portrait of a lady on fire anyway. Yeah,
and there is the same, yeah, like to be in
a flowy dress and to be recalling yearning, monologuing yearning.

Speaker 5 (01:12:51):
In a flowy dress with the wind of the ocean
and the beach and a river sometimes but still, yeah,
that shit's cool as hell. And when I was a kid,
I read Sarah Plane and Tall. Do you guys remember that?

Speaker 4 (01:13:04):
Oh my gosh, yes, Well I don't remember what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
Ye haven't even thinking about Sarah Plane and Tall?

Speaker 4 (01:13:10):
No, I haven't.

Speaker 5 (01:13:11):
I am a short person and when I was a kid,
I didn't know I was gonna be sh I mean,
I had some suspicion, but I am a short person,
so I don't get to be tall. But I loved
that this character, Sarah plane and tall. She had on
a long dress. It was down to her ankles, and
she went around and she did stuff and I think
there was wheat and there was hey whatever. And I
was like, I think that's what I'm gonna be like

(01:13:31):
when I'm old. I think I'm gonna be in like
a long dress and the wind is gonna catch it
and I'm gonna be dramatically.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
Looking over vistas. That's all I want.

Speaker 5 (01:13:41):
And this movie has that, and so I'm like, yep,
let's do it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
Hell yeah, I am so excited for you to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:49):
Be part of my elder commune. You know.

Speaker 4 (01:13:51):
God, we're gonna grow her hair out to our butts. Like,
it's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 5 (01:13:58):
I look all kinds of ways, we're gonna wear all
kinds of cool stuff. We're gonna plant stuff, We're gonna
build stuff. My commune is gonna be sick as he.

Speaker 4 (01:14:06):
I'll be there, We're in, We're in. There is nothing
scarier to me than a commune run by a man,
and nothing more welcoming and thrilling to me than a
commune not run by a man.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
Oh oh, And going back to things run by women, Yes,
at least in the context of this movie, the focus
on the matriarch and the women in the family. Again, men,
we don't know them, they're barely there. The character of
Nana is so mesmerizing, Like anytime she spoke, you know,

(01:14:40):
she's got this gravelly voice, she like commands this intense
presence and you're just like I could watch her for days,
Like it's She's awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:14:50):
The performances are unbelievable, and there was like a really
how Julie Dash made the production work was like was
a mix of union and non union crew members. The
non union crew members had Goula ancestry, and so it

(01:15:10):
was like partially a way to you know, teach filmmaking
to members of the Gala community that didn't know about
filmmaking as much, but also was a way to ensure
that she was being historically accurate and to help the
actors because the actors were actors and had to you know, had.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
To learn the dial the dialog language.

Speaker 4 (01:15:34):
Yeah, which I'm assuming they did a good job. Like
I'm in the last person who could make that call.
But I wanted to just sort of close out, going
back to what you were saying, Knese, But like, how
infuriating it is that Julie Dash hasn't made She's made again,
like she's made other things, but she hasn't made something
on this scale. This like, oh touristic, since this is

(01:15:56):
the last thing I'll pull from that piece. Sisters are
doing it for themselves, the contextual labor of black women.
She closes out by saying, there is an additional reason
why Daughters of the Dust has taken thirty years to
be recognized fully and properly. As is clear from the
site and sound poll, outour cinema dominates the film canon,
and outourism has historically privileged text over context in its

(01:16:19):
processes of evaluation. The outside weight to awarded to text
relative to context especially impacts filmmakers from marginalized communities, such
as black women, who tend to face greater structural obstacles
in getting films made and thus have smaller bodies of
work to their name. This disadvantages them in the a
tourist discourse and consequently in gaining wide and sustained critical attention.

(01:16:43):
Julie Dash is a case in point. Thirty years after
Daughters of the Dust, she has not been able to
obtain financing for a second feature film. While shocking, her
story is not exceptional. Two other black women filmmakers who
like Dash, made remarkable feature debuts that same decade, Colleen
Smith with dry La Longs and Leslie Harris with Just
Another Girl on the Irt likewise failed to find funding

(01:17:05):
for their second features. Both of their first films are
only now belatedly garnering significant critical visibility and praise, So
closing that loop out, I mean, it is like, it
is truly criminal that there are so many directors who
are denied opportunities to make more work, particularly because I mean,

(01:17:28):
like Julie Dash, luckily she is like alive, well in working,
but she's seventy three, and to think of how much
incredible work she could have done if she did not
have to fight tooth and nail to make literally anything,
is just like it's infuriating and we should never stop
yelling about it.

Speaker 5 (01:17:48):
I just this is so silly, and it's not a
direct comp because who I'm talking about as an actor.
But it infuriates me that Jared Litto has like eighty
Bites at the Apple even though all of his movies
have fail in the last.

Speaker 3 (01:18:00):
Like ten years, right right, and it.

Speaker 5 (01:18:03):
Is about to be in something again. It's like a
multi like one hundred million dollar plus thing. And I'm
just like, Okay, we need like the what you give
to Jared Leto. I'm not saying we give it to everybody,
but you've got to give some of that to more
people because you're just letting this guy keep being mediocre
as hell, and let's give this let's spread this wealth.

Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
A little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):
Yeah. I mean, it's like and going into like that
whatever like oh tour discourse, it's you think about, like
how many white male o tours, including the ones I like,
like whose movies never make money, Like Paul Thomas Anderson's
movies rarely make money, but they're specific and significant, and

(01:18:44):
so he gets to keep making them because he's a
why guy and like, oh tour movies, they're not known
for making money, so you like. But but it, of
course it always becomes a game of well, we couldn't
get the financing when it's a marginalized artist or it's
someone who's you know, second movie wasn't completely perfect and

(01:19:04):
didn't make a shitload of money because marginalized directors have
so much more that you're supposed to prove to say, like,
it wasn't just it didn't just break even, it made
its budget back forty times or you don't get another shot.
And meanwhile, you know Jared Lettle, Yeah, so, I.

Speaker 5 (01:19:21):
Mean, just think about the headline after Sinners, where people
were like, but it didn't make its money back versus
first of all did Blania was the one of the
highest grossing documentaries for this weekend in February.

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
You're like, wait, what.

Speaker 4 (01:19:37):
It's so like whatever, the Master didn't make its money back,
But no one in the history of the world has
ever fucking complained about that.

Speaker 5 (01:19:47):
I mean, I've complained about The Master several times, but
not because of that, but not because of the other reasons.

Speaker 4 (01:19:52):
I've never seen The Master good.

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
Yeah, I did not like it at all.

Speaker 5 (01:19:57):
I didn't like it either, and they were like, this
is what thing is about, and I was like, then
do I like acting.

Speaker 4 (01:20:04):
Like if Paul Thomas edited and again this is like
I'm randomly picking him out, But like, you know, Phantom
Thread one of my favorite movies. But if you know,
if he was a woman, if he was not white,
you know, if he was not cis like, this would
be such a different discussion. Like the Master not performing
success like well could have ended his career. I mean,

(01:20:27):
and it's like, I don't know. And the fact that
Julie Dash, I mean, she talked extensively about how her
movie did extremely well at sun Dance. It won Best Cinematography,
like all this stuff. It was very critically successful, but
it still took a full year to get it in theaters.
So it was like a full year after it, you know,
first debuted that it became the first movie by a

(01:20:50):
black American woman to be widely distributed. It just is
like it's it just is exhausting. It sounds exhausting.

Speaker 5 (01:20:58):
Is part of the reason you like Phantom Thread so
much because it is about a woman poisoning a man.

Speaker 4 (01:21:02):
Of course, of course that's why I like it. For
the first hour and a half of Fandom Thread, I'm like, well,
I don't know about this, But then at the end,
I was like, oh, she's gonna kill Yeah. They have
a freaky little relationship where she's kind of killing him. Yeah,
we should cover I think Phantom Thread. It will be
like a New Year's movie one one year.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
Oh, that's right, because there's a New Year's Eve party.

Speaker 4 (01:21:26):
It's one of the few New Year's there's not a
lot of New Year's movies, but I counted as one
of them.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
No, you're so true. But yeah, Julie Dash she was
only able to make this movie because she finally got
funding after being rejected by a bunch of Hollywood executives.
She got funding from PBS to the tune of rip, Yeah,
she received eight hundred thousand dollars. That was the budget

(01:21:53):
for this movie.

Speaker 4 (01:21:54):
That's wild. Yeah, that is wild.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
And it made back. It's It earned one point six
million dollars at the box office on the so it doubled.

Speaker 4 (01:22:04):
Its budget, doubled its Yeah. So it's like, so, what's
the problem. So, what's the problem?

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):
Anything else that anyone wants to talk about?

Speaker 5 (01:22:14):
Go see this movie, and if you do, probably don't
give your money to Amazon the way I did.

Speaker 4 (01:22:20):
You're better than me.

Speaker 5 (01:22:22):
Use Canopy because your city likes that Canopy is not
in Brooklyn, is in Queen's But I don't have a
Queen's Library card. But yeah, get it, but get it
from like a nice place.

Speaker 4 (01:22:32):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
As we alluded to, the movie does not have any
issues as far as Bechdel test in the sense that
it passes it a lot between a lot of different characters,
and then as far as our nipple scale, where we
rate the movie based on examining it through an intersectional
feminist lens zero to five nipples. I mean, I don't

(01:22:58):
see any reason not to award it a full five.

Speaker 4 (01:23:02):
I feel like this is a this is a five nipple.
I mean, oh wow, yeah, what what's the argument against that?

Speaker 3 (01:23:09):
Brow to say four? Sa More like the thing is
is good and we all know it's good, but it's good.

Speaker 5 (01:23:17):
There's like, okay, imagine eating a cake, but one bite
tastes like homework like that like that, but there was
that one.

Speaker 3 (01:23:26):
Bite they tasted like homework. So I mean, if I had.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
To dock it for anything for me, it would be
I wish we would have known more about Trula and
the nature of her relationship with Mary, because I was
reading different things that like people were speculating that they
were lovers, and like that's part of why the like
hyper Christian family members were expressing so much disdain toward Mary,

(01:23:54):
and I was like, why, Like she bare like Trula
says almost nothing, we barely.

Speaker 3 (01:23:59):
I mean, yeah, it was like that she has a line.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
She has I think one line at one point, but
what is it? I don't even remember.

Speaker 4 (01:24:06):
Yeah, you see her a lot. Where is the where
is the fanfic? Where is the fan pic? Can someone
get on this? I'm assuming someone did thirty years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):
Sure. But then I was like, Okay, well, maybe the
reason that we don't really learn anything about her really
is because this story is mostly told from either the
point of view of Nana or the unborn child. So
I'm like, well, they probably wouldn't really know what's going
on with so maybe that's why. But even so, I

(01:24:36):
would have liked to because if that is a queer relationship,
I would have liked to see that explored a bit more.

Speaker 5 (01:24:42):
I mean, does she stay on the island? She something happens,
like they're doing that little prayer circle or whatever, and
then the light skinned lady runs off into the woods
or something.

Speaker 3 (01:24:51):
So I was like, where's she goes?

Speaker 4 (01:24:52):
Where she goes?

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Yeah? I don't know. Anyway, I think I'll still stick
with five nipples because this is such an important entry
into the cannon of black filmmakers in general, and especially
black women filmmakers. So five nipples from me and uh
all split them between Julie Dash and Cory Day, who

(01:25:15):
played Nana.

Speaker 3 (01:25:16):
She's got a great face.

Speaker 4 (01:25:18):
Oh I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):
That's a great face.

Speaker 4 (01:25:20):
And she's like she's acting without acting, if that makes sense.
Like it's just there's an effortlessness to what she's doing. Yeah,
I'm gonna go I'm gonna go five as well. I really,
I've I've really, I don't know what's my taste has
changed I used to.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:25:38):
I'm really into a movie that is just like doing
its own thing and is very vibes based, and I
would include this movie in that word. It is not
adhering to a specific structure. I've found myself like surprised
at the choices that Julie Dash was making, and I
just it's so specific and beautiful and cool. And I

(01:26:00):
at some point was like, I don't know a single
thing about any of the men in this movie, really,
And so for the Bacle cast, I have no choice
but to give a five. And yeah, I'm going to
I'm going to give all of them to Julie Dash
and hope that we get to see another movie from
her soon. The last big project that she discussed, wait

(01:26:25):
Hold On It, came up in the late twenty or.
At the twenty nineteen Sundance Film Festival, it was announced
that Dash's next major project will be a biopic of
Angela Davis, to be produced by lions Gate. I have
not seen an update on that recently, but she takes
her time making her movies, so I'm like looking forward
to it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:46):
All right, And then can you are you sticking with four?

Speaker 5 (01:26:50):
I'm sticking with four nipples on the nipple scale. I
want to give two to Julie Dash.

Speaker 3 (01:26:54):
I want to give one to the location, because damn,
that was beautiful. I'm sorry I.

Speaker 6 (01:26:59):
Made beautiful where I'm from, but I'm like the views
of the water, the views on the beach, the views
in the trees, them in those gorgeous dresses laying against
a tree.

Speaker 5 (01:27:10):
I was just mesmerized. And I one hundred percent see
why Beyonce saw that. Probably Beyonce's designers, Let's be real,
but saw that and was like, oh, I want to
use this as part of the basis for my lemonade.

Speaker 3 (01:27:23):
Aesthetics. So that and then the last one too. Did
you say this, Coral Li day like.

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
The old woman CORALI day.

Speaker 5 (01:27:30):
Yeah, I'm like, I want to be an old woman
in a long dress so bad. I would love that.
And she was cool as hell and she had short hair.
I love it when old like as an old lady,
you don't have to have long hair. It's like, hey,
I'm old, it's cut short. I get to live my life,
leave me alone, and I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
Hell yeah, thank you so much for joining us for
an eighth time.

Speaker 4 (01:27:55):
Eighth times the charm baby dude.

Speaker 5 (01:27:58):
Thank you guys so much for continuing to have me,
for talking about movies that I love that influence who
I am now, who I want to be artistically, and
who I will be as I age in this country.
I love you guys, and I think you guys are
the Besneys, and I'm excited when I get a chance
to be on the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 4 (01:28:19):
We love ours. Can't wait for time number nine. Throw
throw us a curveball, let's go, let's go nuts.

Speaker 3 (01:28:27):
It's jackass three D.

Speaker 4 (01:28:31):
Honestly, that would be a very interesting episode. So be
careful what you say.

Speaker 3 (01:28:37):
Because I'll do it, I'll do it. I'm here.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
Tell yeah, where can people follow you? Cut your stuff,
cutch your shows, tell us everything.

Speaker 5 (01:28:45):
Okay, so I'm Canise Mowbley. There isn't another one, so
it's me. It's hey n I C E m O
B l E y on Instagram mainly, but technically I
have I think, a TikTok, threads and I have all
those things. But I only really use Instagram because of
fascism and limiting my exposure to it. I am also

(01:29:07):
doing the Hot Guy Draft, which is an event that
is near and dear to my heart, wherein comedians formed
teams of hot guys in the audience votes to say
who has the hottest team. We did one in the
fall that was just general theme. This one is on
March twenty second at Littlefield in Brooklyn, New York. It
is themed Daddy, so you can get more information on

(01:29:30):
what is a daddy, who is a daddy, and why
is a daddy by following Hot Guy Draft on Instagram
and taking the survey rating hot guys, which is jinder
neutral in a competition to see who is the most daddy.

Speaker 4 (01:29:45):
That is just like this poetry music to my ears.
I was literally was like, I'm speechless. I wish, I
wish I could go one day.

Speaker 5 (01:29:53):
You will be in town, you will be a panelist,
you will be one of our contestants. But regardless, you
can vote because this is like a fantasy draft, because
this is what I care about more than I care
about sports, and we need stats in order to draft
with knowledge. And we get those stats by people voting
on who is hot, who is not? Who is daddy?

(01:30:15):
Who is not daddy?

Speaker 2 (01:30:16):
Wow?

Speaker 4 (01:30:16):
Incredible?

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Yeah, when is it?

Speaker 5 (01:30:19):
March twenty March twenty second, okay, May seven pm? That
is a Sunday at seven. I pushed for it to
be earlier because I am a millennial and I like
things at two in the afternoon, but they said seven
was the earliest they could do it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:31):
Maybe I'll make a trip to New York.

Speaker 5 (01:30:33):
Dude, come to this I want to do. I'm working
on another one, and this one I will be like,
figure it out, get your ass over here.

Speaker 3 (01:30:41):
It's first Crush is.

Speaker 5 (01:30:43):
The theme for the one that I'm hoping to do
in like July or August.

Speaker 3 (01:30:47):
So first Crush hot, guys, think about it. But yeah,
this is a developing thing.

Speaker 2 (01:30:53):
Love it perfect Well, thank you so much for joining us.
You're always welcome back anytime. You can follow us on
also mainly Instagram at Bechdel Cast, as well as subscribe
to our Matreon at patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast,
where you can access two brand new episodes every single month,

(01:31:15):
always on an incredible, amazing genius theme the Jamie and
I Think up, as well as access to the entire
back catalog of nearing two hundred bonus episodes, So don't
miss out. That's all for five dollars a month. Wow,
what a good bargain. And with that, should we hang

(01:31:36):
out on the beach and make gumbo? And yeah, but
not with too much okra? Canis?

Speaker 4 (01:31:43):
Yeah? Hold the okra?

Speaker 3 (01:31:45):
Yes, thank you so much. I would love that. I'll
see you on the beach. Okay, bye bye bye.

Speaker 4 (01:31:55):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by Me Jamie Lock and me Kitlyn Durrante.

Speaker 2 (01:32:02):
The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann.

Speaker 4 (01:32:05):
And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of them?

Speaker 2 (01:32:08):
That's me? And our logo and merch and all of
our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie loftus ever
heard of her?

Speaker 4 (01:32:16):
Oh My God, and our theme song, by the way,
was composed by Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

Speaker 4 (01:32:23):
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
spectel Cast

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