Eve's Bayou with Bridget Todd

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the bel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy zef in best
start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Memory is a
selection of images, some elusive others imprinted indelibly on the brain. Hello,

(00:24):
and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante.
My name's jam Lovedes. Caitlin, I thought you werena say
this summer I killed my podcast co host. I was
thirty four years old. Oh, that would have been okay,
just to get things after a really sinister begins that

(00:47):
you know what, we close enough. Honestly, I would watch
that movie even if even if I had to die
at the end. You know, I've in fact, I might
welcome it. Hi, Jamie us assured that I will never
kill you. But what if you you know, what if
in your mind you've set off a chain of events

(01:07):
that leads to like someone else, Like what if you
say something to someone and then it gets around to
so and so, and then Jack O'Brien kills and then
you're like, it's my fault. But but Jack O'Brien pulled
the trigger, so sure I would definitely feel responsible and
guilty about it, but I also don't. I hope that

(01:30):
I never, like accidentally or on purpose, do anything that
might like trigger a chain of events that leads to
your murder. Thank you so much. Ultimately, I do think
it would be funny if Jacob Bryan murdered me just
because I'm like, I just don't see it happening, but um,
it would be. It would be a wild twist in Sherwood.

(01:51):
That conversation. Um did not entirely pass the back to
the I think maybe areas of it did. I should
have said, I should have jacko Brian, you should have said,
and then it would have been completely above board. Yeah.
This is the Bechtel Cast. This Caitlin and My podcast

(02:12):
where we talk about your favorite movies and your least
favorite movies from an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel
Test as a jumping off point, which is a media
metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel. There are different
variations of the test. Ours is that two people from

(02:33):
of any marginalized gender have to have names, they have
to speak to each other and their conversation has to
be about something other than a man for at least
a two line exchange of dialogue. Not many movies can
do it, but I think you're in for a treat today. Yes,

(02:53):
you are, so with that, I say we introduce our
guests and get the ball rolling. She is the host
of the podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet,
as well as the miniseries Disinformed. It's Bridget Todd. Hi. Hello,
I'm so excited to be here. Being on this podcast

(03:15):
has been a little bit of a dream of mine,
so I'm so happy that it's finally a reality. The
time is here. We've been trained to make it happen
for so long, and the stars are finally aligned. And Jamie,
if Jack O'Brien happens to kill you, I'll always happily
take your place. I perfect. See there's a greater plot.

(03:37):
Oh that's you know what. Honestly, in the event of
my untimely death, please do not avenge me and instead
just begin to host the Baxtelcast. You can bequeath it
to me. That's the right word. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'll start my will tonight. And just just to make

(03:57):
sure everything is all set, yeah, is illegal? Exactly exactly?
Is that? Is that something that would be really funny
if you could not Funny is not the word, but interesting,
if you could leave your job to another person. Maybe
someone's done that. Someone has to have done that, right,

(04:17):
I tried to. I feel like that's just like rich people,
dynasties could do that. But it would be funny if
you're like, I'm a second grade teacher at the Kennedy
School and I leave my job to my twelve year
old son, like wild, Well, there's sounds like there's a
movie plot there. Exactly. Okay, So Bridget, we're so excited

(04:43):
to have you here. Thank you for being here. Tell
us what your history, your relationship with today's movie, which
we forgot to say is eaves By. You tell us
all about it. Yeah, so it's a movie. So I
had to really like think hard about my fationship with
this movie. I realized that my parents had it on VHS,

(05:04):
and so I think I watched it when I when
it first came out, I was like a child because
my parents just had it and it was one of
those movies. My parents didn't have a lot of movies
on VHS, so it was like one of those movies
that I had seen a couple of times just by
virtue of my parents having it. Another another one of
those movies would be Nell. You know those movies were like, Oh,
my parents randomly just had this on VHS for some reason.

(05:24):
And I remember distinctly my brother, who was a bit older,
being like, oh, I tried to watch that movie, and
nothing much happens in it, and so really thinking like, oh,
it's a movie that's like not good or it's boring. Really,
just based on this offhand comment my brother made when
I was a child, that's the best. And I could
also I could definitely see how a child watching this

(05:46):
movie would think that nothing really happens in it. Yeah,
a lot of it. As a kid, I think most
of the plot and subtexts went right over my head.
I didn't like, I could not have even though I've
seen I had seen it, most to the major plot
points I could not have articulated. And also, something I
have to say is that this is a bit embarrassing.

(06:06):
But when I was young, I went through a phase
where I was doing some like child acting and like
child modeling and child pageantry. And I don't know if
y'all know this. But the main character Eve, the titular character,
Journey Smillett, she was I guess she was a bit
younger than me, but like our era of doing that
stuff over lapped, and so I once went to an

(06:28):
audition that she was also auditioning for. But she was
like the girl like if you like she was on
a full House, she was in um that movie with
Robin Williams Jack like she was. She was like a
certain kind of young girl in in like a window
of the nineties. WHOA, that's that. You've had interactions with

(06:52):
Journey at like, I mean, I guess there's really no
The great thing about Journey Smillett is there's no such
thing as peak Journey small She's had so many phases
of her career that you could argue right now like
Birds of Prey, Journey smaller is peaked Journey smaller. You
just she's been. It's so where I feel like she
like isn't brought up a lot as like an iconic

(07:13):
child actor, which is strange because she has been so
consistently really good, yeah, and very recognizable. Um And it's
been fun to see her, like her work on Lovecraft Country,
like It's been interesting to see her have this staying power.
She is like unbelievable in this movie, like good Lord,

(07:38):
so good a child actor. I can get behind Jamie.
What what's your relationship? I am ashamed to say. I
only recently learned that this movie, uh existed. I knew
about the writer, director, Kasi Lemon's, like I had seen

(08:01):
a lot of her later work and I like recognized
her from her acting days, but I hadn't heard that
much about this movie until I was working on Lolita
podcast plug a couple of months ago and I was
looking up like kind of iconic movies that addressed child
sex abuse in one way or another, and eaves By

(08:21):
You popped up and I was like, oh, we've gotten
requests for this, and kind of like I learned about
the movie from there, so I I don't know. I
it was strange too, because it's like this movie came
out in nineties seven and appears to have been snubbed
for all of the major like most major awards, which
is really frustrating, But it was like a popular movie

(08:45):
at the time. Like I asked my mom if she
had seen it, She's like, oh, yeah, I saw it
like a lot of people saw that movie, and I
was like, why don't I ever hear about it? I
don't know, it was just kind of I'm I'm like
bummed out and like surprised that I didn't know about
it until recently. But I, holy ship, there's so much
to talk about with this movie. I'm really excited to

(09:06):
talk about it. The fact that this is her first
movie is like, yeah, who, like the bar is so high,
it's so so good for sure, Kitl. What's your history
with this movie? Um, it was on my radar for
a while, but I hadn't seen it until we started
prepping for this episode, And yeah, it's I did not

(09:26):
know how challenging of a movie it was going to be.
And I'm very like, I'm nervous to talk about it. It
It just like deals with some very challenging subject matter
and I'm like, oh no, I'm gonna funk this up.
But um, yeah, I'm excited to talk about it. I'm
nervous to talk about it. There's a lot to unpack

(09:46):
and yeah, yeah, that's that's pretty much it. Yeah, yeah,
I was really looking forward to One of the reasons
why I'm looking forward to our conversation is because when
I was watching it, I kept saying, like I forgot that,
you know, Um, I guess we'll get into it. But
I was really excited to hear Jamie since of your
work on the Lada podcast about some of the themes

(10:08):
in the film, like there I think I must have
just like blocked out that is a plot device in
eves by you when I saw, or I guess because
I saw when I was young. I think it just
like went over my head. Um, But yeah, I was like, oh,
I bet Jamie's got some interesting inside from doing so
much research for the Lida Body. Yeah, there's there's a lot.
I'm I'm excited isn't the word. But I think it

(10:30):
will be like an interesting conversation for all of us
to to talk about because I thought that, like, I mean,
there are so many movies that hand handle it so
like extremely poorly. And I also can imagine like if
I had seen this movie when I was too young,
I wouldn't have I don't know, like the way it's
presented would have been confusing to me. But I like,
I think generally like it's done like really really thoughtfully

(10:54):
and like in a way that I I don't know Yeah,
that I don't really see you very much, so I'm
excited to talk about it. Yeah, should I do the
recap and we'll go from there. Let's do it, Okay,
So this would be I think a good time. Just
for a trigger warning for child sexual abuse and incest. Um.

(11:15):
So the movie opens with some voiceover from the titular
character Eve as an adult. She's talking about memories and
she says that line that we referenced in the beginning
of the episode that she killed her father when she
was ten years old. Um. We are in a place
called Eve's Bayou, which is a small creole community in

(11:37):
Louisiana in the nineteen sixties. We cut to the Batiste
family throwing a decadent party and we meet a ten
year old girl, Eve that's Journey Smallett. Her father is
a respected doctor that's Samuel L. Jackson. Her mother roz

(11:57):
is Lynn Whitfield. She's the prettiest woman in town. And
she also has a younger brother, Poe, played by Jake Smollett.
And you can tell that they're related so much. A
light like poor Megan Good. These two kids are so related. Also,
I didn't realize that this was young Megan Good, and

(12:20):
I didn't know that Megan Good was a child actor.
I was. I'm a fan of adult Megan Good. Didn't
know she's been at this for so long, because yes she.
Megan Good plays Eve's older sister, Cecily, who had has
just turned fourteen. We also meet Eve's grandmother and her aunt, Moselle,
played by Debbie Morgan. So at this party, Eve gets

(12:45):
jealous because her dad always is dancing with her sister
Cecily and never with her, and this is also where
she catches her father having sex with another woman, Maddie
Moreau played by Lisa Nicole Parson. And later that night,
Eve tells her sister Cecily what she saw, but Cecily

(13:06):
doesn't believe her, and she kind of fabricates this more innocent,
alternate version of what you've must have seen. Yeah, the
guess it's the the rapid succession of gas lighting. Uh
that happens to even the first hour of this. You're
just like Eve, right. And then later that night Eve

(13:29):
has a premonition that her aunt Moselle's husband Harry dies
and it comes true. Um. So, Eve has this kind
of ability of foresight, as does her Aunt Moselle, and
she works as a psychic counselor and in some cases
she incorporates voodoo into her practices. Meanwhile, Louis continues on

(13:54):
with his dalliances with different women around town. Flay Grant,
by the way, I'm just like it has eyes. What
are you doing? Like there's one scene when he takes
her on his like doctor house calls and like there's
a woman who's like in a nighty in bed, like

(14:15):
I need I need some healing, and he just like
closes the door on his daughters one dinner, She's like,
wink wink could go outside. I'm like she's like she's
ten not oh right. Yeah, So that's his m o
and Eve's mother, Roz is either growing suspicious of this

(14:35):
or perhaps already fully aware, not like she knows and then,
which Eve also starts to figure out, is happening on
a pretty regular basis. So one day Roz and Aunt
Moselle stopped by a market where a woman named Elzora
played by Diane Carroll is giving fortunes and Roz gets

(14:59):
her fortun been told and Alzura says, you're in pain,
but you should just kind of stay quiet and wait.
Sometimes a soldier falls on his own sword, and in
three years you'll be happy again. Look to your children,
Look to your children. And this is like very ominous
and Ras is kind of freaking out about it. And

(15:21):
then Moselle has a premonition that a child gets hit
by a train, and Ras is terrified because she thinks
it might be it'll be one of her children, so
she coops them up in the house for several weeks. Well, also,
you missed the part where el Zora is so mean
to Moselle. It's like a psychic on psychic, like right

(15:43):
roast battle. I was like, oh my god. She's like like,
I don't need no catbone to tell you that you're
the black widow and any man who lays with you
is gonna die. And she the scene is actually upsetting
because she's like you old witch. And she in the jar.
This woman has been like cutting her money and she
throws it and it breaks. I gotta say, I probably

(16:05):
if I met a creepy old voodoo lady, I probably
would like not be so rude to her. I probably wouldn't.
I don't know, I would like. I was a little
concerned that she was being so openly hostile to this
woman who seemed so scary. Yeah, it's it's it's fun
because there's um there's a number of actors in this movie,

(16:26):
mostly female actors, who had really established themselves in soap operas,
and it seems like that they're like, oh, these are
two soap opera like legends, being like I'm not cursed
and like throwing a you know, shattering glass. I love
the soap opera act like you just there's so many
like amazing actors who started in soaps, but when they

(16:49):
get to like go back to their roots, it's exciting.
I'm so glad you brought that up because I mean,
Diane Carroll is an icon from Dynasty. Like, I don't
know if you'll watch Dynasty. I was definitely like young
watching it when my grandma was rewatching it. But like
her role on the old Dynasty's where she would always
you know that that expression like oh, I have the
receipts that comes from her. She originated that. There's an

(17:12):
amazing scene from an old Dynasty episode where it's like
her and she's wearing a her and she's like, I
have the receipts and she's like throwing them, uh honestly
shout out to a fucking icon legend, like so happy
that she's in this movie. And I think that she
does pump up the drama, the soapy drama in an
amazing way. It's so the way that like when she

(17:36):
like does the like the ha ha, You're like, oh
my god, that is like I had to go. I
forgot that she was on Dynasty, and I was like,
oh my god, what was her because I remember watching reruns.
I was like, what was her character's name? It was
Dominique Devereaux. It was Dynasty. And then Debbie Morgan was
on All My Children for a really long time time

(18:00):
and she was the first black woman to win an
Emmy for soap opera. But yeah, they're the soap opera
energy in that scene was really just help exciting. Also,
Moselle screams you're a horrid, lying old witch, which almost
passes the Bechdel test exception said that the fortune was

(18:23):
about men and her husband's who will die. So yeah,
I skipped over that part because there's a whole subplot
where like then Moselle like me a man and like,
but all of her husbands have died, and she like
explains all of this to Eve and then but this other,
this new man comes in and they fall in love
and she's afraid that he's going to die if they

(18:44):
get married. I just kind of I basically skip over
that in the recap, but that is a part of
the movie. I just was like, that was like one
of my favorite scenes in the movie. Yeah, the reenactment
of that, the part where she's telving up talking about
her um where Moselle is talking about her ex lovers
and it's like that that re enactment scene of her
ex lover, her husband getting shot by her ex lover.

(19:06):
I was like, my heart was like racing. It is
like it's very sopy, but the way it's acted out,
You're like, oh, this is like a play. Like the
way that it's appearing in the reflection, I was like, oh, yes,
this is like this is a Broadway Award winning play.
Like yeah, it's so good. Yep um okay. So then

(19:27):
Moselle has her premonition about a child being killed, so
Roz coops all her children up in the house. Everyone
is getting very restless. Eve has an outburst, which is
also like I think that's my favorite scene where she
like is just like screaming and she's like calling everyone
out on their ship and like giving everyone attitude. And

(19:47):
I was like, damn, that is again very good child
acting and I'm here for it. And then it was
like I was like, oh my gosh, now she's going
to talk to Moselle and Mozelle is gonna believe her.
And then Moselle does believe her, but she's like, I
do believe you, but if you speak your truth, I
will kill you, Like I will, oh right. So then

(20:10):
one day Cecily leaves against her her mother's like explicit
instructions to stay home, and she goes to visit her dad,
and then she also goes to the beauty parlor and
her mother is really upset because Cecily disobeyed her and
she hits her. And then that night Ros and Louis
argue and then Moselle's premonition comes true. My child gets

(20:34):
hit by a bus, but it was not one of
the Batiste children, so they're like so weird. They throw
a party when a kid is killed by a bus.
You're like, thank god it wasn't one of mine. I
do appreciate the grandma and that scene. She's not in
the movie very much, but she's just like, you, guys,
a child has died. And they're like, they're like, not

(20:57):
my problem. We can go out a child that they know.
They're like, oh, it's like so and So's boy, and
it's like you you know this family like it is
like it's funny, isn't the word? But I'm just like, wow,
it's it's just like there's not room in the movie
too mourn this fictional child. But it's like, oh, this

(21:19):
kid was probably friends with the Batiste kids, and they're
just like, who do they know the child by name?
They obviously I know him like in their community. Yeah,
they're I appreciated grandma advocating on behalf of fictional bus kid. Yes, truly, um,

(21:42):
but they're very excited that they can go outside again.
And then Eve goes to tell Cecily the news, but
Cecily is very upset and she has kind of shut down,
and it might be because she has just gotten her period,
it might be because ros had hit her not long ago,
and she lashes out violently at Eve and then she

(22:04):
continues to like stay like just emotionally and mentally shut
down for a few weeks, and then she tells Eve
what's really going on, which is that a few weeks ago,
the night that her parents had a big fight was
like the night of this big storm. Cecily went to
go comfort her father, but he abused her sexually and physically,

(22:30):
and upon hearing this, Eve once her father dead for
doing that to her sister. So Eve goes to el Zora,
who practices voodoo in hopes that she can help Eve
kill her father. And it's around this time also that
Eve heavily suggests to Maddie Moreau's husband that Maddie is

(22:52):
cheating on him. That's another really good Journey Smileett scene
where you can like, oh, it's especially with child actors,
like wow, you can really see the gears turning in
her head of like should I do it? Should I
do it? Should I do it? And then it's like, yeah,
it's really good and obviously like it was effective. I

(23:12):
mean I don't know, I mean maybe not the way
that she and the way that she wanted, but like
you know, part of me was thinking, like imagine being
an adult, an adult man, and a child is telling
you what is going on in your own household, Like yeah, yeah, yeah,
that that was brutal. And then the second that was like,

(23:33):
this story is so well crafted that it's like, oh,
the second that happens, I'm like, oh, like I sort
of saw the incoming, but it was like satisfying because
of how full circle, like every everything that's planted has
this significance, and yeah, if you think you know what's coming,
you might be right. So then Eve goes back to

(23:56):
el Zora and the voodoo that el Zora had performed
arm was not what Eve had expected, and she's not
sure if it's going to work. And then Eve has
second thoughts about wanting her father dead, so she goes
to him, who is at that moment with Maddie, and
then Maddie's husband shows up, figures out what's going on,

(24:18):
and shoots and kills Louis, which plays out the way
that Moselle's premonition had played out earlier, where it seems
like someone had got hit by a train. So the
family grieves the loss of Louis, and then Eve finds
a letter that Louis had wrote to his sister Moselle,

(24:39):
who had apparently accused Louis of abusing his daughter, and
in the letter, Louis explains his version of what happened,
that Cecily was the one to come on to him
and that he fought her off. Um, so Eve confronts Cecily,
accusing her of having lied a what happened, and it's

(25:01):
a very heavy emotional moment. They're both in tears and
Cecily says, I don't know what happened, and they decided
to just get rid of the letter, and then the
voice over comes back in repeating that line about memory
being a selection of images, some elusive others imprinted indelibly
on the brain. And that is the end of the movie.

(25:26):
So the last shot is like haunting. Yeah, so let's
take a quick break and then we will come right
back to discuss and we're back. Um, so I think
it would probably be best to start with kind of

(25:49):
the most sensitive aspects of this conversation and then lead
into the kind of more fun parts. So yeah, I mean, all,
I guess star there. I've been unfortunately like researching Child's
excuse for like seven or eight months at this point,
and so there's like a lot of that I had

(26:10):
watching this movie that were I mean, okay, so I
guess like trigger warning for this whole section, and we
can even like time code out in the description, like
if you want to skip over this conversation, you can
pick up here. But yeah, I thought that this was, like,
especially for its time, like a pretty authentic portrait of

(26:31):
how abuse plays out, and I really appreciated just kind
of like how it was showed for the kind of
mess that it is and how it affects families in
such specific ways. So, first of all, like this this
movie shows it shows the sexual abuse of a young

(26:54):
black girl, which is I think for for like by
and large in movies it is shown to be abused
towards six white girls, which absolutely does happen very frequently,
but not at the same rate that it happens in
black and indigenous communities. So it's like, I feel like
it's an important story to tell on that end. And
another thing that it kind of touches on that I

(27:16):
feel like is really not still kind of not understood
in any meaningful way, is that nine times out of
ten um sexual abuse experience as a child happens by
someone that you know at least somewhat, but most often
it is someone that you know well. And so like

(27:36):
we're we were raised, you know, because this happens in
the sixties. So first of all, we don't even have
these resources commonly availables, and they were even less available
in the sixties. And like we're generally taught as kids
that we should be afraid of strangers, and there's no
education and there's no kind of like attempt to raise

(27:59):
away and us that there could be a threat from
someone that you know. And then if that happens, who
do you talk to? And it's just like not a
conversation that has had even now and definitely wasn't had
in the sixties. And so I don't know, I mean,
it's I thought it was a really interesting approach, especially

(28:21):
to set up the idea of like how memories are
so complicated and like it's just science that the more
often you visit a memory, the more often it tends
to sort of change and shift a little bit. But
I think with Sicily, what it comes down to is
like she's uh, like a girl who she knows and

(28:46):
we know by watching the movies, she has no one
to turn to who's going to believe her, and she's
it's there's and we'll talk about kind of like the
generational trauma aspects of this movie and a bit, but
she's well aware that there's really not anyone in her
life except Eve who is going to receive this information

(29:06):
in a way that is not blaming her um. And
so I really I don't know. I mean, it's so
depressing to see it laid out that way. But I
feel like this movie, the points that Sicily's story touches
are it's so common and it's like you never see
it happen. Yeah, I mean, and and and even if

(29:28):
like best case scenario for Sicily at this time in
history in particular, like even if she had told her mother,
her grandmother, her aunt and everyone believed her and everyone
was like, we're here to support you, there were still
no resources legally that she would have had because it's
still such a patriarchal structure, and you know, particularly being

(29:52):
black family, like dealing with the legal system in the
nineteen sixties, like, there would have just been so few
options for her. And I feel like it so where
it's it's interesting seeing this from Eve's perspective, especially because
she's trying to understand where her sister is coming from.
But yeah, I don't know, it's just it's like it's

(30:14):
heartbreaking and shitty. And then also seeing that I didn't
see the um the letter from the dad coming through
at the end of just abusers truly going to the grave,
being just completely unable to see themselves for who they
are and like to spend their entire lives deflecting, deflecting,

(30:35):
deflecting because you know, it's like her father knows that
her word won't be believed over his where for most people,
and that he is you know, he is the most
powerful person in that family, and and he's a very
powerful member of that community that town, Like everyone looks
up to him, everyone respects him. Yeah. So at the

(30:55):
end where like Cecily says, I don't know what happened
based on like conversations I had with like psychologists and
specialists in that field, it's like she's very likely being
completely honest there, like this happened to her really recently,
um by someone that she loved and trusted. Uh, she
doesn't have anyone to talk to about it. She doesn't
really have many people around her who can help her understand,

(31:18):
and there were no systems at this time to be
able to talk to a kid about something like that.
And so, yeah, I don't know, it's like heartbreaking, but
I thought it was like so well written and so
well performed by by Megan Good. So I have to say,
and I don't know if this is like So when
I watched this movie last night, and I watched it

(31:38):
with my partner and then I reread the Wikipedia entry,
I had the same read on the ending that you did.
My partner was like, oh his tape was like he
was like, oh, it seems like she was confused about
what happened and that you know, it's inconclusive. It's like,
I I hate to use its phrase, but like he said,

(32:00):
she said, Wikipedia did not help the The Wikipedia entry
on like the like plot, it says at the end,
Eve confronts Sicily and uses her second site to discover
what really happened. It ends with the sisters holding hands
gazing into the sunset. And so I had the exact
same reading that you did that like obviously the father
wrote this letter, you know, being like I didn't do this,

(32:21):
How could you think I would do this? And that
we're supposed to by the end at least I finished
that movie thinking something like that that like the way
that Cecily described it is the way that it happened.
I think it's interesting that, like there might be a
read of the movie where there's where it's more ambiguous.
To me. I had the same reaction where I was like, oh, well, clearly,

(32:43):
you know, clearly he did this. And it was funny
because when that so I have a I have a
very very like visceral reaction when sexual violence is part
like a plot device in a movie where I'm almost like,
it's almost like disorienting and I kind of can't. It
challenges so much of like what I I've seen before,
And so the beginning of the movie they go to

(33:04):
such a great pains to show that the father is
like so doting of a father, particularly to Sicily, And
so it's one of those things where you know, it's
exactly what you were saying, Jamie, where I was like,
was he were the signs always there that he was
an abuser and I just missed them. I'm I'm remembering
them as charming, but actually they were creepy. That there's

(33:26):
that there's a scene early on when they're at that
lavish party and he's dancing with Sicily and he's like, oh,
you guys can't. Isn't my daughter a beautiful dancer? And
scenes like that where you're like, well, wait, was that
indicative of something more sinister going on? And I'm and
I'm and I missed it because I was so caught

(33:46):
up in this idea of like what a good dad.
I think this movie does a good job of challenging
our understanding of memory and challenging our understanding of like
how we put a puzzle together to really show what's
actually happening, because I cause I do feel like towards
the end, it's not clear to me what I have seen, right,
it's just a it's this a doting father where like

(34:07):
his daughter got mixed up? Or is this a sexual abuser?
I think like the movie, and I think that when
these things play out, I think abusers oftentimes can use
that that same dynamic of like, well, you know there,
everyone's gonna think I'm just a good dad, Like who's
gonna believe this? I think that it could kind of
work on multiple levels. I guess what I'm saying. Yeah,

(34:29):
that's so. That is my thing with this movie. It
feels to me as though there is too much ambiguity,
and I wish that ambiguity had been just more squashed
by the end or something, because especially so I also
read it that she is a survivor of abuse and

(34:50):
he is an abuser. I think the three of us
are all just the type of people who are inclined
to believe survivors believe women. That was our read, But
both times I watched this movie, by the end, I
was like, there's just there are ways to interpret it
differently than our read. And I think that's a dangerous thing,

(35:12):
especially when dealing with a subject like child sex abuse,
which is something that if you're going to tell a
story about it, there shouldn't be ambiguity, because if there's ambiguity,
that gives people a chance to say, I don't think
it happened like that, or I don't believe them, or
it's all a big misunderstanding, especially because like we had

(35:32):
seen that other scene earlier where Cecily kind of it's like, no, Eve,
that's not what you saw. You saw this version of
the truth. And the fact that we have seen Cecily
distort the truth before, I think would also be grounds
for an interpretation that she is distorting the truth this

(35:52):
time too. I don't think that's what happened, or that
was not my read of it. But again, there's so
much ambiguity there, and at least for me there was
that I can I can see different interpretations of it.
And then after like having all these thoughts, I came
upon an interview with the cast as well as the

(36:14):
director of this movie, Casey Lemons, that was like the
twentieth anniversary special, and when asked about that scene that
plays out two different ways, one as an adult abusing
a child, and then the the second version, which is
a child having like a misguided I don't even know

(36:37):
how to just know what to call it exactly, but
the second version. This is what Casey Lemons said about
this moment in the movie quote. My intention was, what
if you explode this moment. It's actually a very innocent
relationship that they're having. He loves his daughter, she adores
her father. They adore each other, and what if one

(36:58):
night they crossed a line and we're both completely traumatized.
But it spun everything else out of control. So to me,
it wasn't controversial, it was the story. It was strange
for people to ask me why do you have that
angle there? Well, that's the story end quote. So even
Casey lemons it's not helpful at all, a little evasive.

(37:22):
I was like, I was like, okay, I was really hoping.
I was like, Oh, she's gonna come through for us.
She's gonna be like I didn't that's a little man,
that's that's a weird I mean, whatever, it's her movie.
I can't I can't be like huh, but yeah, we
can sort of be like I guess it's it's I
don't know. I feel like a number of ways about it.

(37:43):
I do agree that any movie that depicts child sex
abuse should be pretty clear about them, Like it's the
easiest thing in the world to condemn, Like, why wouldn't
you more clear they condemn it. I guess the argument
that I can see for the I mean, it's just
like it's I don't even I'm not even totally bothered

(38:04):
by the fact that we are told that he doesn't
see what he was doing as abuse. That is how
abusers feel all the time. But it's just like going
that one step further to make it clear how the
movie feels. I guess that the only count and this
is like not even how I feel, but I do.
I don't know in movies and like this it almost

(38:26):
not to bring Doubt into the conversation, but similar to
Doubt a story that it's iconic and it does address
child sex abuse, and I feel like it's like almost
I don't know, like if this is just like kind
of a movie thing that happened sometimes, but it's like
a movie that's supposed to start a discussion where it's

(38:48):
like bridget with you and your partner, you both interpreted
the ending really differently, and then by discussing how you
felt like differently about the ending. I don't know, Like
I do see value in like ambiguous endings that can
start conversations. I just don't know that like this topic
is the one to have the this much ambiguity with.

(39:08):
I remember, like leaving the theater seeing Doubt, my mom
was like, so do you think he did it? Which
is like should not be the question you're asking. It's
like we need to be asking a more sophisticated question
than that, Like yeah, well, just something I want to
say is I think that, like you know, movies like
Doubt and use by you, I mean, and Jamie, you

(39:29):
could probably speak to this as well. It is exceedingly
rare for child, for anybody, but especially children, to lie
about sexual violence, right, Like, It's just that, like, it's
exceedingly rare. And I think that movies like Doubt and
movies like Ease by You, even though I enjoy them both,
I do think it makes it. It presents a universe

(39:50):
we're in. Maybe it's not rare, but we know it's rare,
you know what I mean? Yeah, I agree, And I
might have been giving this movie maybe a little more
credit then it totally deserves on that end. It's just
I where I'm coming from is I've seen so many
movies that have just absolutely missed the mark, that don't

(40:10):
even present the possibility that a child could be telling
the truth about something like this. That the fact that
we are presented clearly with the fact that whatever happens
that Cecily is like extremely traumatized by it and alters
the course of her life. You don't usually even get
that much. And and she like shuts down, she becomes

(40:33):
like she is like displaying all these kind of like
classic symptoms of a child who has suffered abuse and
doesn't know who to turn to about it. And you
don't even usually get that much, which is really really bleak. Um. Yeah,
and it's I do think that there is some value
in kind of reminding audiences that like abusers are going

(40:55):
to you know, generally defend themselves to the grave and
like it. Yeah, I don't know, it's that's so interesting.
I think, Yeah, I'm in like a weird headspace for it.
But I for me, I was like, oh, the ending
is like even based on like the images they chose
to show Eve's um, you know, like vision at the end,

(41:17):
I thought. For me, I was like, oh, I think
that that corroborates in her reaction based off of that vision.
Is like it seems like she was like I believe you.
I'm sorry I came at you believing are like demonstrably
deceitful abusive father like her reaction. But I like, and
I'd probably have to go back and rewatch that the

(41:38):
vision that you've has at the very end. But I
feel like the like specific images that were chosen to
be included in that vision still contribute to the ambiguity
of it. Well at the end of Okay, so at
the end of the day, here's how I feel about
Like this is like something that I've been thinking about
a lot the last couple of weeks. But um, I

(41:59):
think that were like often like when we're talking about
stories like this and crimes like this, the thing is like,
even if what Samuel L. Jackson's character is saying is true,
he's still a child sex abuser, Like it doesn't matter,
do you know what I mean? Like, I think that
there's like in the case of like, I'm just like

(42:21):
fully Lolita brain. But like in the case of Lolita,
a lot of like how people have discredited her character
as by saying like, well, she had a crush on him,
and so somehow like displaying any attempt to experiment with
power as an adolescent means that you deserved whatever happened
to you. When it's like, at the end of the day,

(42:42):
whether you know whether Cecily's presentation of the crime was
true or whether Samuel L. Jackson's was. Either way, even
if it was, you know, a kid trying to experiment
with power with an adult that they trust, it's still
abuse for him to reciprocate for even a second and
then to physically abuse her afterwards. So I but I

(43:06):
but the problem is I don't think that a lot
of people understand that that even if even if like
someone initiates with you, that the power and balance is
that large and it's incestuous and all these other things,
that it is still on the powerful adult, and that
is still who the So yeah, I don't know. I'm

(43:28):
just like I've talked to a lot of survivors who
have felt guilt and have felt, you know, what happened
to them was somehow less valid because they had been
curious about what that experience would be like, and then
when an adult took advantage of them, you know it,
it was abuse, and it confused them and it caused

(43:49):
all these negative repercussions in their life. And so I
feel like it's it sucks because like, no matter what
happened in that scenario, even with Samuel L. Jackson's character
painting himself in the best possible light, he is still
an abuser. And so it's like, yeah, yeah, And I
want to add one thing to that. So I completely

(44:09):
agree with you, and I want to take it a
bit further. And this might, I mean, this might be
colored by my own you know, whatever I'm I'm bringing
to this conversation, But I agree with you and I
also would say, even if the moment between him and
Cecily during the storm never happened, you and I have
already talked about the beginning of this movie, where you know,

(44:31):
he at a party at his in in his home
with his wife and his children, he takes a woman
that is not his wife into a back room of
his of his home to have sex with her, right
and his daughter happens to be there and sees it.
He takes his daughter on these house calls where he's
very clearly there to have sex with women. So even

(44:52):
if even if the thing was Cecily never happened, he
is still a grown man introducing a very adult level
of sexuality the end of the lives of his children,
who are very young and too young to understand what's
going on. And so that's that is not how healthy
mature adults engage with their children. So I would say
that he, you know, has cultivated a vibe in his

(45:15):
household with his children where it's no wonder they're confused
about sexuality. I would say that this movie wants him
to be a lot more blameless than he is for
some of the other behavior, because I feel like, of course,
like his kids can't feel safe and healthy in an
environment where he is irresponsibly sexualizing things in a way

(45:36):
that that that is far too advanced for them to understand,
because their kids, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah,
It's it's weird because it's like I think that like
we're like having like I now knowing that quote from
from Casey Lemons, I'm just like, how much of this

(45:56):
was intended? It's yeah, I know who even I mean,
it's like, I I mean, I guess if we're being generous,
like you could interpret her saying that's just how the
story goes of like you know, have the conversation. I'm
not going to answer your questions for you, which is
like valid, but I'm just like, well, you could denounce

(46:17):
child sex abuse, that would be that would be that
would be just you know, even if it's just that,
that would be great. Um. But yeah, I mean it's like, yeah,
we we all and I think most listeners of this
show we believe sicily that you know, gigantic trauma was caused,
and even with the most support possible, it's still, you know,
kind of a lifelong journey for many people to recomm

(46:39):
with this kind of abuse. Um, But yeah, I just
want to like, no matter what happened in that situation,
no matter whose account or somewhere in between is true,
he's a child sex abuser, like period, end of story. Um,
And there's and especially with children, it's like there's there
is no like perfect victim. And yeah, I think that,

(47:01):
like it's that's just like something that we even like
you know, like feminist and people who are like very
inclined to believe survivors like need to work on is
like the way that these like dynamics play out are
not cleanly, like I said no, and then he did this,
Like it is often very ambiguous and it comes down
to power dynamics and all these other things. So sure,

(47:24):
and I wonder if the intention was to explore like
that version of the ambiguity. But she told us, I
just I know, and we also like, you know, just
considering the context of the time that this movie came
out today, Like so this is like ven where steeped

(47:46):
in you know, patriarchal standards, toxic masculinity, a rape culture
that tends to believe the perpetrators of these crimes rather
than the survivors. This is our rape culture. Every generation
has their own rape culture. This is our rape culture.
So so to to tackle a story that deals with

(48:09):
this subject matter again, it has to be done so
carefully and that ambigu I really feel that that ambiguity
needs to be removed if you're going to tackle it responsibly.
And I just I can't. And it's like, sure, this
is us, you know, post me too, but even like,
oh god, that's what that's that's what this is. Why

(48:30):
this I was like so nervous to talk about this
movie and then why I think it's so challenging and well,
the other thing too, is um, the other thing that
really bothers me about this movie is the abuse that
we see happen on screen. Is us seeing actor Samuel L. Jackson,
a full adult male kiss that's Megan Good on screen,

(48:53):
who was fifteen or sixteen at the time of shooting
this movie. Underage. Yeah, I just it could have been
should have been framed in such a way where this
child actor did not have to kiss and be kissed
by an adult many. Oh, I don't like it. Like
it's not like I don't like it. I think there

(49:14):
are ways to even if you are trying to depict
like a scene. You're trying to depict on screen an
underaged girl and a grown man. You want you wanted
to pick them together. There are ways to get around
having a The actor's actually portray this right like, there
are ways to do it. I just don't like it.

(49:35):
I mean, I don't know if you have ever seen
that movie. Um, it's the it's the it's kind of
build as like a sequel to do the right thing.
The Spike Lee movie I'm gonna blank the name. Oh um,
Red Hook Summer. It's a it's a like wild movie,
but I do not recommend it, but there's a there.
It also deals with childhood sexual violence. And something about

(49:57):
that movie that really sticks with me is that the
way that it's the picked it seems so it seems
it's so egregiously like you know, you you as a
as a filmmaker, you don't want to be depicting a
child and an adult having like having a physical sexual
like relations on screen. And I feel like sometimes sometimes

(50:17):
films can get there, maybe they're trying to critique it
or attack it or what have you, but at the
end of the day, you don't want to be depicting
it on screen. At least in my book, right, I
just think that there's there's gotta be a way to
handle it differently. I think, yes, I agree, Yeah, I
this is this episode is a long plug for Lolita podcast.
There's there's like a whole, there's a whole. I I

(50:38):
completely agree, and there's it's frustrating because what I think,
just knowing is when the second Lolita movie came out,
so I'm very intimately familiar with what the laws were
with child performers in this specific year. Um So, first
of all, I feel like it is always not even

(51:00):
if you have, like there's a number of stories of
like movies that that well, this is part of the
reason that I was frustrated that there isn't a ton
of information about the production of this movie, or there
wasn't as much as I would have liked on the
subject matter I was interested in because at this time
there was a law for movies that were shot in
nine six, at least there was a new law introduced

(51:21):
where there couldn't be any like you had to guaranteed
this movie went past a lawyer to be allowed to
be released because there was a Child Pornography um Act
passed in that severely restricted what you could show on screen,
and it was like generally a pretty good law, but

(51:43):
then you find kind of all these um stories that
are people trying to skirt around this law. So I
would guess that in many of the shots that you
don't see Megan Goods face that is not her, that
is an adult body double. That seems to be the
most popular workaround that said, you do still see the
actress underage Megan good kiss Samuel L. Jackson and I

(52:05):
just two things. Is like, first of all, no matter
how much like there's sometimes like a director will be like, well,
I had a you know, a child psychologist on call,
so that if the actor didn't feel comfortable talking to me,
they could talk to this person. It's just not worth
the risk at all, like for anyone. And it's like,
if you need evidence that that's true, talked to almost

(52:25):
any child actor who has been like Natalie Portman has
talked about it extensively. There's like a number of child
actors who have done scenes like this where like I
just didn't feel comfortable, like I felt like I felt
like there's a hundred people around me whose jobs depend
on me doing this. I and I was ten, What
was I going to do? You know? And then on
top of that, one of the the the I guess

(52:46):
the one of the main notes I had for just
like how this because I do think that for eaves By,
you handles c s A in a movie like better
than almost any other movie of this year or this
series of years did, which is not to say it's perfect,
but it is definitely better because this is the year
that Lolita came out. Right, I actually have a question

(53:08):
for you. I don't I'm not to keep making you
talk about Lolita, but so I've seen that n version
of Lolita several times. There are scenes where um, Jeremy
Irons and Dominique Swain kiss There's like a scene where
like she's sitting on his lap. Is that a body
double or is that actually her? When there's it's it's
a bunch of different stuff. The amount of time and

(53:30):
it's like it ultimately obviously was not worth it, right,
But yeah, for them, it was anytime she appeared to
be nude, it was a body double. Anytime that she
kissed him, they had to run it by a lawyer.
Her parents were on set and there was a child
psychologist on set anytime she sat on his lap, there
was a pillow between them. So there are like more

(53:51):
measures than would be taken even a decade before, but
it's still not enough. Going off of that, I had
a conversation with a friend of this podcast, Eva Vivez,
who is a survivor and has you know, incorporated just
kind of the lasting effects of CISA into a lot
of her work, and she pointed out, and it's totally

(54:12):
true that um in stories about CISA, the movies and
projects that tend to be more recognized are movies and
projects that explicitly show the abuse. And she feels strongly
that that is like very telling bias and also something
that just doesn't need to happen, Like you can show
the effects of CISA without showing it, And that's even

(54:36):
true for this movie. You could not have those scenes
and still have that plot point be effective, right, Like
you don't need to show it. But the movies that
are most successful that deal with this topic always always
always show it, and the movies that just show the
effects of it are more likely to kind of get
swept under the rugs. So that's like another that's just

(54:58):
I mean, like it's it's so except voitative, and I
think it really it. I mean, I think we should
be asking the question whether or not physical depictions of
childhood sexual violence we're making that profitable and why because
it sounds like from what you just said, it sounds
like we are we are, and it's it's frustrating because

(55:19):
it's like I don't know it's there. It's a really
complicated question to even wrote, because I don't know. I
wasn't able to find out if if Kasey Lemons was
a survivor of this kind of abuse her self, but
I know of like several survivors of abuse who have
made movies about CSA that show to an extent what

(55:41):
that abuses, whether it's in montage or whatever. And so
it's like I don't even really feel comfortable being like
no one can do it. I think that when you're
when you have a child actor you it's kind of
unconscionable to do um. But in terms of like I
don't know, I mean, it's like there was that it
was like a really popular HBO movie a couple of

(56:02):
years ago. I think it's called The Act or is
that what it was by Jennifer Fox, and it was
starring La Laura Dern, and it was about Jennifer Fox's
childhood sexual abuse, and it actually it reminded me a
lot of Eve's bio to the part where I'm certain
that she has seen it, where it is about her

(56:23):
revisiting her child sexual abuse and revisiting the memories, and
the more she talks to people in her life from
that time, the more the memories kind of change in
shape and end up kind of landing on what she
believes the truth is. And yeah, sorry, it's the tail.
It's not the act that which is like I feel

(56:45):
complicated about it. That's not what the episode is about,
but it is it. It takes on similar stuff where
it shows you the abuse in a way that just, uh,
it's it's weird because it's like, I don't want to
tell a survivor like you shouldn't have done this, But
in terms of like having a child actor in that scene,
I don't think that they should have. Like it's extremely complicated,

(57:08):
but I personally, like, I personally think that you could
if I could change stuff about ease By, I would
get rid of the physical depiction of those scenes. And
I think that honestly, it can be more impactful to
hear the child and the abuser describe it in their
own words. You can have the same effect without having

(57:29):
to show that and just kind of make it a
little clearer, like you were saying, like you're boss saying
at the end that no matter whose recollection is corrected,
she is a survivor of abuse, and that that's like
something she's going to need to, you know, continue to
deal with throughout her entire life. Well, from that same
interview with the cast and some of the crew, Megan

(57:53):
Good spoke about like these specific moments in the movie,
and here's what she had to say. Again. The actor
who plays Cecily says, quote, we had to shoot it
probably fifteen times, so God, we had to shoot my perspective,
his perspective, and then the actual perspective of what really happened. Now,

(58:17):
I'm going to pause from the quote here for a
moment because it is not specific. She means by that
it is not specific what the quote actual perspective of
what really happened is. They're playing around with us. I
don't like it. I don't like it because it's possible
that that was even cut from the movie. Like whatever

(58:38):
she's talking about might not even appear, because I know
there's like a director's cut of this movie too at
different I'm not sure. But so here's the rest of
the quote. I remember the day before the scene, everyone
was so anxious. You okay, you okay. I'm like, yeah,
I'm fine. Sam was as equally nervous. That was kind
of the defining moment. That's the moment that brought the

(58:59):
movie be together and what it was based on. I
felt a huge responsibility to do a good job, but
I was definitely nerve wracked for sure. End quote. So
just to hear that, like they had to shoot it
so many times, everyone was feeling very uneasy about it,
Like those are indications that like, don't fucking put it

(59:21):
in the movie. And it really it really speaks to
what you were just talking about, Jamie, about like Natalie
Portman saying, you know, so many people's jobs and so
much money depends on me just being able to do this,
and I maybe I didn't want to do it, but
like I just had to. I just had to do it, right.
I don't think that we should be putting children in
positions who they're already so vulnerable, putting them in positions

(59:43):
where they feel this way and they feel an immense
like the fact that Megan Good said she felt pressure
to get it right that just kind of heart it's
and it says, it's like drives me, like she's not
even the only child actor that had to deal with
this exact issue this calendar year. Like that is so

(01:00:04):
absurd that it's like there are just young teens and
kids being put in this position in the first place,
where like, yeah, it's it's an unfair ask. It's also
like the fact that it's also a financial transaction on
top of that, where so even like you know, it's
like if you have even one parent who's kind of

(01:00:26):
acting in bad faith and doesn't want to rock the
boat and wants to make sure that the check has
gotten then it's not even a guarantee that Like, I mean,
this movie proves not all parents are good and like
and certainly, you know, child actors parents have a very
sordid record of acting in the best interest of their children.

(01:00:46):
And so I don't even necessarily trust like a fourteen
or fifty year old mother to say, like, no, she
can do it, Like that may not be true, like
or or you know, there's can then there should And
I don't know that that quote reminds me a lot
of Yeah, the actor who played the lead to this,
this girl, Dominique Swain, that was like a very similar

(01:01:09):
thing of like, yeah, it was really nerve wracking, and
everyone was really nervous, and like Jeremy Irons was like
crying during the scene, and just everyone was really stressed
out about it, and I just did my best because
I knew I had to do it, and like everyone,
I don't know, I just I think that there are
ways to tell these stories because their stories worth being told.

(01:01:30):
But in live action it's not worth the risk towards
the underage performer period, Like I feel like there's not
to like hand it to, you know, Tarantino or anything.
But like how in kill Bill, like the most traumatic
scene towards a kid happens in animation instead of having

(01:01:51):
making it happen, you know, instead of putting a child
actor through the grueling, brutal, violent sexual violence that takes
place in that scene. Like if you really, really, really,
as a director, feel that this needs to be shown,
you have to work around, like you you can't make
a kid do it because you think it needs to

(01:02:11):
be done, find another way, And I think there are like,
like you just said, there's so many ways around it.
I've seen so I've seen it done. Listen, there are
ways to do it or it's like no one is
going to be confused that you're watching a scene that's
meant to be about childhood, sexual assault or something. Right,
there are so many ways around it, and I just
think like just depicting it on screen I think is

(01:02:33):
the least imaginative when there are so many different ways. Like,
if you're a storyteller, I always feel there's a there's
a way to show something in a way that's respectful,
and especially for something that's that is as fraught and
sensitive as this topic. You you got, you got, you
have to like be willing to work to find that solution. Yeah.

(01:02:56):
I wish I wish the Casey Lemons had said more
on on that, because it's like I do think that
this is like one of the better told c s
A stories of this decade, and it still makes a
series of very common missteps that end end up you know,
kind of putting definitely putting a child actor in danger

(01:03:17):
and under undue pressure for a kid. Yeah. Yeah, so
it's I don't know. I think like it's it's fucking hard,
Like I it's I I am glad that a story
like this was was being attempted to be told, but
it's certainly not told perfectly. Um so yeah, yes, I

(01:03:39):
mean it's it's challenging. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's like
there's so few, like I can't really think of many
movies that are like, yeah, nailed it, Like the closest
like this is this, Like you couldn't think of a
more different movie, but like one of the only movies
that I feel like was really praise was heaped upon

(01:04:00):
it and it had a lot to do with these
themes but didn't show abuse. Is like Spotlight, Like that's
one of the only movies that is centrally involves child
sexual abuse and doesn't show it. And I guess Doubt
does it too. But the central question around Doubt is
like did it happen? When it's like that's not the question.
It's not the question, at least in Spotlight. It's like, yeah,

(01:04:24):
it obviously happened. It happened, that we don't need to
show it on screen, but rest assured that it definitely happened,
and that works. I am glad that movies like that exists. Yeah,
and it can be like effective and you can come
out you know, if it's framed to you a certain way.
You can even have characters in the story that doubt
the truth of what happened and take you through like

(01:04:46):
the journey of like discovering Oh, like I should have
just believed these survivors the entire time, and like it
can be done because that's part of the narrative of
Like a lot of people who are survivors of abuse,
they face other people not believing them, or they face
their own like did this happen? How did it happen

(01:05:08):
at all? Happen so quickly? I don't exactly know the like,
especially when you live in a culture that is inclined
to not believe you and to kind of gas light
you into alternate versions of reality. Like that's part of
many survivors experience. But again, that's why it has to
be handled so responsibly and so carefully if you're going

(01:05:31):
to tell a story about it. Yeah, it's weird. It's
weird because I feel like they're outside of the fact
that I mean, we all agree that the actual scenes
should not have been shot, but it's like to a
one viewer who is inclined to believe survivors, I feel
like it's all there, but it's but for people who
are not inclined to believe survivors. And then also just

(01:05:53):
like straight up, I can't really put myself in the
mindset of like an adult, I don't. I mean, I'm
curious of like what the conversations were, because I'm like,
you know, they were certainly different and I and I
and I bet that there were a lot of people
that left with like, well, you know, I love Samuel L. Jackson,

(01:06:16):
so shrug, like just unclear. Yeah, especially when you cast
like huge, really famous actors and roles like that. I
feel like audiences are very often like I love sam Jackson,
I love Jeremy Irons, So I guess no harm, no foul,
Like yeah, I honestly like I almost feel like I'm
bringing a lot of my own baggage into this movie.

(01:06:37):
But you know that the scene in the movie where
Mozelle uh from blanking her name Lin Witfield, the mom
and the grandmother are all talking and it's they're having
a very adult conversation about infidelity, and uh, Samuel Jackson
comes home and Cecily is like, you need to go
down to the bar because the women are mad, mad,
like get out of the house, you know. Again, sort

(01:06:59):
of the idea of like I think Samuel L. Jackson's
presence and their household was very disruptive to the to
the young, to the girls, to his young daughters. I
think that like he in Cheap brought his sexuality into
his home in a way that made it made it
his children's business, It made it was like on their minds,
and I think, you know, it's clear to me that

(01:07:22):
there's a lot of ambiguity in the universe of the film.
But there's a scene in the film that I feel
like for me, it's it's kind of like case closed.
After he is shot and have his funeral, there's this
scene where the mom and all the kids are in
bed together and it's sort of almost this like picturesque
like a frame, And it seems to me like Samuel L.

(01:07:43):
Jackson was the cause of a lot of disruption in
their household. Now that he is dead, their household is
one of like stability and and like they're on this
process of becoming healthier and healing and so like it's
like obviously, you know, even sad that her father is dead,
and like the funeral scene is very is very rough.

(01:08:03):
But it seems it seems to me that the universe
of the film is suggesting that his presence being removed
from their their domestic life, is what gives them the
ability to like have this kind of chance, a little
more stability and a little more like, you know, a
little more like I don't even know the word for it,
like domestic just not having yeah, yeah, true, Yeah, it's

(01:08:27):
what the It's what the fortune teller says to she says,
just wait for three years and you'll be happy and right,
you'll have peace. That's why I am, like, I am
frustrated it and kind of like it to some extent,
like inclined to be like it's all there in the writing,
and it's like you didn't see it. You you didn't
see it, you know, but it's like, you know, but

(01:08:50):
in a lot of audience members didn't see it. If
there's still people in that are like, I don't know,
but I feel like, you know, I don't know. It
gets so tricky because you I just don't like, I
feel like everything you need to know is in the story. Right,
But it's like some of it is pretty subtle. Some

(01:09:11):
of it you need to like really be paying attention,
or some of it you just need to kind of have,
like I don't know, like a particular perspective that is
going to believe the children, because I feel like if
you can get yourself into that mindset, all the information
you need is there. But the fact that I don't know, it's, yeah,
it's you can't put it entirely on the artist to

(01:09:33):
be like you have to spoon feed to every male
audience viewer that this is a bad thing. Like it
sucks that it's like that that is still kind of
a reality, do you know what I mean? Like I
wish that we could make more subtle films about topics

(01:09:54):
like this, but it's just such an underdiscussed issue that
people don't fucking get it. And it's like you need
movies like fucking Spotlight where it's literally taking the little
apple sauce and putting it in your mouth of like
this is a crime, this is bad, eat your food,
don't do crimes, you know. Like it's just so there's

(01:10:14):
no like like in the way that there for for
other issues, there has been more you know room for
subtlety in art, there isn't on this issue, and I
think that that, you know, sucks for artists who have
experienced it and want to speak to it and there aren't,
Like it kind of sucks. It's like if the worst

(01:10:35):
thing you've ever been through you want to make some
sort of artistic expression of that, and then you're like,
but I have to make it really fucking obvious or
people are gonna think I'm endorsing the worst thing that's
ever happened to me. Like it's such a catch twenty
two of the Like, it's really frustrating. It's really frustrating.

(01:10:56):
Like I don't think it's necessarily like I think you
can hold Casey Lemons personally accountable for allowing that scene
to be shot and that that is like ultimately on her,
but in terms of how people misinterpret her work when
all the answers are there, like I mean, it's like
I think that it is, like it would be better

(01:11:19):
served if it were made extremely clear. But I also
don't want to be like, and Casey Lemons is wrong
for not having done that, because it's like she clearly knows,
you know, like she gave us all the you know,
it's like what if? What was that? What was that
ridiculous movie? That's like Mr Policeman, I gave you all
the clues. That's literally Casey Lemons in this script like

(01:11:41):
she gave you all the clues, you did not solve
the case. And that is on society, right, Like, yeah,
well how about this. Let's take a quick break and
really collect ourselves and will come back for more and

(01:12:07):
we're back, all right, where shall we pivot? I know,
I feel poorn, Jamie. It's like all childhood, all talking
about childhood sexual assault all the time for you, now right,
it is my new area of expertise. I hate it.
But but there's so much else to talk about with

(01:12:29):
this movie as well. Yes, where should we start? Well,
first of all, one thing that is very much worth
noting is that this is a coming of age story
for a black girl, which is something that we almost
never see in Hollywood cinema. It is a kind of

(01:12:51):
narrative arc that is reserved almost exclusively for white children.
So the fact that a black girl is the focus
is awesome. That it is a story fraught with such
like turmoil and trauma is I guess what I'm saying

(01:13:11):
is I would love to see more coming of age
stories about black indigenous people of color that are less
steeped in so much trauma and are focused on more,
you know, some of the more joyous aspects of coming
of age. But even so, um, this is kind of

(01:13:33):
a monumental film, and that it is one of the
few coming of age stories about a black girl and
black children. So yeah, and I think, like, you know,
we've talked a lot about some of the heavier aspects
of this film, but there are you know, the film
it's not it's not entirely heavy, right, Like Eve has

(01:13:54):
a good relationship with her sister and brother. You get
to see, like there are some scenes of Sicily and
Eve interacting that I that I really liked. It's like,
oh you get you get to see like the tenderness
of girlhood when she puts the snake on her brother
post pillow, like you get to see the like, you know, mischievousness. Yes,
it's like you know, I there there were parts of

(01:14:16):
it that I thought were nice to be depicted. Also,
it's like, I mean, I'm a sucker for like Louisiana
kind of that like like languid, like you know, oh
like the Bayou and the and the Weeping Willows. Like
it's quite a picturesque movie, and like it it depicts
the outdoors in a really beautiful way. And like, we

(01:14:37):
don't get a lot of movies where it's about black
girlhood on the backdrop of outdoor beauty. That's something that
like I love and you don't get a lot of. Um,
So this movie, there is a lot of like in
addition to the heavier aspects of it that we've talked about,
there is some like joy, There is some like beauty,
you know what. I think it really does a nice
job of depicting some elements of black girlhood that we

(01:14:59):
don't necessarily to see explored on screen very often. For sure. Yeah,
there are those scenes that like are scenes of levity
I love and are probably my favorite scenes in the movie,
especially that kind of chunk where they're all cooped up
in the house and everyone's just like playing pranks on
each other or um again, that scene where Eve is

(01:15:20):
just sort of lashing out and yelling at everyone. And yeah,
like you said, I mean, you see these really interesting
relationships between women and girls. You see this relationship between
the two sisters, You see mother daughter relationships. You see
even her aunt Moselle, all these female relationships being explored

(01:15:42):
again in a way that like most movies don't bother
And with Eve specifically, I mean, she's just like a
really cool character. I feel like it's like people very
I don't know, writers really often kind of missed the
mark on like making a highly motivated and like fun
child character who was also clearly constricted by the limits

(01:16:05):
that childhood imposes on you. And I feel like the
way that Casey Lemon's rights, Eve really like toes that
line in a cool way, because it's like even honestly,
like when I first read the kind of synopsis of
this movie, I thought this whole movie was going to
be like Eve being successfully gas lit by her family
that this never happened, and I was pleasantly surprised that

(01:16:29):
she For the most part, it's like she retains her
truth of what happened pretty consistently, and she is like
frustrated and confused that the people in her life are
trying to tell her it didn't happen. Like her dad
immediately is like, don't worry, that was nothing. That was nothing,
And then she goes to Cecily, which I honestly read

(01:16:49):
of like Cecily probably not like I don't know. I
I think with some of Cecily's storylines, I plugged myself
into like big sister mode and thought, like, you know,
if my little brother came to me saying that he
had seen, you know, my dad doing something awful that
I already knew about, I probably would you know, at
that age, would have like defaulted to be like no,

(01:17:10):
no, no no, no, no, no, don't worry, because you don't
want your younger sibling to take on the same like
psychic weight of how funked up your parents are that
you do. And so it's like, but Eve still knows
pretty consistently, like she tells the same story every time.
She's like, and it's more like I know it, I saw,
but everyone keeps telling me it's not true. And the

(01:17:32):
question is more like why is that? As opposed to
like I must be wrong? Like I like how confident
she is in what she saw, And it's like more
navigating her confusion of like why are people avoiding this
uncomfortable truth? Yeah, and she doesn't avoid it as soon
as Cecily tells her, She's like, let's kill Dad, Like

(01:17:52):
she like, let's set up kill him. It's amazing, Like,
and I think importantly, you know, Cecily makes up that
story of like, oh you know, uh, the the woman
fell into dad and they were laughing, blah blah blah.
And then later she's like, I I as soon as
you said it, I believed you. You know. So you know,

(01:18:14):
it's it's clear that like, you know, Cecily deep down
know she's telling the truth. And really it is it
is eves unfaltering ability to see the truth and speak
the truth throughout the movie, and that you're right. It's
important to note that she doesn't falter, that she's like, no,
I know what I saw, I know what's going on.
I'm going to continue to speak on it, right. Yeah.

(01:18:37):
That that which kind of like brings to this the
like the cycle of like gaslighting that it's I don't know,
like the yeah, the cycle of gaslighting that takes place
with the women in this family and kind of how
that is structured it like I felt somewhat familiar to
me in a lot of ways, especially I mean this

(01:18:59):
has taking place in this sixties, right, So we are
to sort of assume that her mother Roz, like there's
not a ton of career options, there's not a you know,
a lot of welcomeness to the idea of being divorced,
of being a single parent, and like her autonomy is
fairly limited by being married to this powerful man in
the community, and she seems to be very aware of

(01:19:22):
that um And so it's it's like broke my heart
at all these different points in the movie to see
these relationships between women kind of be like, I don't know,
like passing on this generational guilt and this generational trauma
onto each other because it's like, I don't know, I

(01:19:42):
don't know. I was like trying to think of how
to phrase this correctly, but I feel like at times
like ros is a shitty parent. At a bunch of
different points, she locks her kids in the house for
no reason really. When Eve confronts her with the truth,
she can't handle it, and so instead she punished as
her kids who are trying to understand what's going on

(01:20:03):
in their own household. But you know that it's coming
from this place of deep trauma that she holds and
instead of I don't know. It's just so hopeless in
some ways because it's like, well, who could Ross turn
to that could really help her, Like she knows that
she doesn't really have anyone who can help her, and
so instead like she's kind of to some extent protect

(01:20:25):
that she I think she thinks she's protecting her kids,
but in a lot of ways she's like taking it
out and her kids. It's just I just really see
the ways in this movie that the adults are making
their traumas, their hang ups, their issues, they're just putting
them on their kids, and they're really things that are
just too heavy for their kids because their kids right
right right, there's that scene to where Ros and Mozelle

(01:20:49):
are like taking a stroll and then they like come
up on that market. But before that, Ros is like complaining,
like confiding in Moselle about her like crumbling marriage and
how you know her husband who's unfaithful, and Moselle is
just like, well, um just waited around, and you know

(01:21:10):
one day he'll finally see what he already has and
he'll stop chasing for it. And it's like that's not
good advice. But I in seeing that, like I also
believe that Moselle knows that's not true. Like I don't know,
it's I guess maybe like this was my intern, but
it just felt like most of the like the grown
women in this movie were all pretty aware that like

(01:21:32):
Louis was not a good father or a good husband,
he was just a good provider. And then that was
like there wasn't much they could do about it, and
like it's just I don't know. It made me so sad.
And and the relationship between Cecily and Roz as well,
like I feel like speaks a lot too. Why Cecily

(01:21:56):
reacts the way she does in some moments where like
her attempts to rebel and challenge her her mom's pretty
like irrational ways of dealing with her kids are met
with like violence and like threats, like she is like
hit by her mom. And then when it seems like
ros might be trying to kind of like reconcile with her,

(01:22:17):
she's like, I understand, like I see a lot of
myself in you, but if you do something like that again,
you're fucked. And it's like, well, then why would Cecily
feel comfortable going to her mother with this abuse that
she experienced, Like her mother's kind of made it clear
that she's not open to hearing it, like she's very
closed off and you understand why too. So it's just

(01:22:39):
like ah, yeah, yeah, there's the scene when Roz slaps Cecily.
You know, something that I think is important to know
is that Cecily, you know, Roz has had all the
kids trapped in the house, fucking version suicide style if
they can't leave. And that's like what I was thinking
the whole time. I was like minding me of the

(01:23:00):
version suicide. Um, it's it's it's similar. Is there's some
there's some interesting you know. And also I was like, oh,
like shout out to that quarantine life. I know all
about it. Um. But so so when Cecily goes to
the hairdresser, this is just something that like I picked
up on as a like black girl who was raised

(01:23:21):
by a black mom. You know, in the whole movie,
Cecily has very long hair, and when she goes to
the beauty parlor, she comes back and her hair has
been cut, And so I know that like that, like
my mom and I have that exact same argument where
I like, I think it is a symbol of a
certain kind of black girlhood to have like long, straight
hair past your shoulders. And Cecily being like, you know,

(01:23:43):
I'm a I'm a I'm asserting my own body autonomy.
I'm going to cut my hair. When she takes off
that rain hood and her mom sees that her hair
has been cut, that's like a that's like a shift, right.
She's like, you know, this girl thinks she's grown. And
I think like that is another part of the dynamic
I think is there between them where Cecily is really

(01:24:05):
trying to figure out what it means for her to be,
like go from girlhood to like young womanhood, and her
mom is clearly not able to shepherd her over that
threshold in a way that you would want any you
would want your mom to be. That's like what we
were saying, like like her mom is not able to
be there for her, not not open to hearing what

(01:24:27):
she has to say. And I think that, Yeah, it's
not surprising to me that Cecily would be completely not
able to open up to her mom about what's actually
going on in her life because her mom has has
made it clear that what's important to her is not
how her kid is doing, what her kids needs, It's
about kind of trying to maintain some sense of order

(01:24:49):
in this increasingly chaotic household. Yeah, absolutely, and the way
that like I don't know that I thought that this
was like this was like such a story of like
women and girls processing guilt and like taking on so
much guilt for things that it's like no, no, no,

(01:25:09):
Like there's so many moments and I feel like it
happens with by the end, it happens to Eve as well.
But it's like, you know, Moselle is really guilt ridden
for feeling that she is responsible for the death of
her first husband when it's like she did not put Yeah,
but I'm talking about the specifically the one that got

(01:25:29):
shot in the joke, but like she Yeah, she's kind
of taken on this guilt and it's like I am
a murderer when it's like it is not ideal to
she done your spouse, but that does not make you
responsible for their murder, you know what I mean? And
like there's that guilt. We see Raws take on guilt
when Cecily becomes more withdrawn and it's like, is it

(01:25:51):
because I did this? I did this? And in that way,
she's kind of right because she did hit her daughter,
But like it's just like you see every woman and
girl in this story to some degree, whether they're right
to be doing it or not, just take on a
massive amount of guilt. And you don't see any man
in this story. Like Samuel L. Jackson's whole narrative is

(01:26:11):
his ability to deflect guilt and deflect the idea that
he could do something wrong, where meanwhile he's surrounded by
women who are taking on that guilt for him and
then also taking on additional guilt for things that they
have nothing to do with their own actions. Yes, like
that one guy shoots Samuel L. Jackson, that's a friend
of his. You never, like, you just never hear from

(01:26:33):
him again. It's like, oh yeah, Like they don't even
like explore it. That's why I'm really happy that at
the end, Mozelle, who has taken on all this guilt,
she meets her like long haired, jeans wearing painter lover
who like, I'm just assuming all they're doing is fucking,
and she's getting portraits of herself painted and like by

(01:26:56):
the end she's like, yeah, I'm marrying him. I don't
care what that that old witch said. I'm going to
marry him, and like maybe we'll die together, like I'm
happy that by the end of the movie she has
had a trajectory where she's like, yeah, I can continue
to I'm deserving of love. I can continue to seek
out love and marry, marry a man who loves me,
you know, and like spend the rest of my days

(01:27:18):
like getting my portrait painted. I love that she like
chooses joy at the end, and like almost I don't know,
I kind of I would really be curious of like
Casey Lemons thought about kind of that platfoint, but I
felt like that's almost like a severing of this like
quote unquote curse that it seems like a haunting this

(01:27:39):
family when it's like, no, it's she's gonna assert what
she wants. She's gonna like that's nice. I want I
want the best for her. And I thought it was
really interesting with Moselle as well, that I don't know
she's like, first of all, like the performance by Debbie
Morgan is like it's so good. But on top of that,

(01:28:03):
like where I thought it was interesting that she is,
you know, Samuel L. Jackson's sister, and to watch her
it felt very like of this time that she is
like kind of defensive about him, like if something comes
up with him, whether it's from Ros, whether it's from Eve,
whether it's from Sicily, She's always like, we're not talking

(01:28:24):
about that. I can even believe you, and we're not
talking about that. But then you find out at the
end of the movie, you know it's not enough, right
because she should be taking these women who she loves
seriously and at their word over her brother, who she
we know knows is an abusive person. How much power
she has to stop it is kind of up for question,

(01:28:45):
but like she could. I just thought it was interesting
at the end that the movie kind of goes out
of its way to tell you that there was a
confrontation between them that where where Moselle said explicitly like
how could you have done this to my niece? What
the funk it? Like, it's clear that they came to
blows about this, and then Moselle did believe Cecily the

(01:29:07):
entire time, and that like, I don't know, it's it
just like again, it just like felt familiar in a
really frustrating way of like just how imperfectly and frustrating
these things can fall out where you can like talk
to someone and be like I don't think that person
believed me, when in fact they may have, but they
didn't know how to deal with it, and so then

(01:29:28):
they go to yell at someone else and just like
this whole I don't know the way that like trauma
could be passed on through this whole chain of events
and interactions and like it's all done so imperfectly, and
I don't know, it's just also messy, but you also
sort of at least can understand where most people are
coming from, even if you disagree, Like, ah, but isn't

(01:29:51):
that how it is? Like I mean that that quote
that that Caitlin opened the episode with this like so
is so spot on, Like isn't that how it is?
Like there are so many things from my childhood where
I'm like, oh, like this thing happened, and you know
I didn't I didn't like it, but you know, I
can understand where they're coming I can understand why she
did this, she was trying to protect me whatever. Like
I think that when you go back and you deconstruct

(01:30:14):
your memories that were so complicated and fraud I think
that it's always like this sort of frustrating and unsatisfying,
but but also kind of you can sort of see
where they're coming from, if that makes sense. Yeah, I
feel like I mean that's like I don't know, that's
like I definitely feel that way about my parents a
lot at the time of Like, God, I the execution

(01:30:37):
was extraordinarily bad, but I can like acknowledge what they
were going through while they were making those decisions and
still think they were wrong for A, B and C.
And just like that, especially the fact that this movie,
you know, it takes place in the nineteen sixties, where
like the power dynamics are even huger, and like the

(01:30:57):
disparity of how much power these women would have had
to get away from this guy. It seems like that there.
You know, it's the only reason that Moselle is kind
of like making her own living is because she doesn't
have another option. M Well, that might bring us to
a quick discussion on the way voodoo is represented in

(01:31:18):
the movie. So we talked about this on our Princess
and the Frog episode about how voodoo is often very
wildly misrepresented in Hollywood, and that really extends to any
African diaspora religion, but you know, voodoo is the one
that is most popularly depicted in Hollywood. The representation usually

(01:31:41):
paints these religions as being just like rooted in evil.
It's like dark magic, there's violence, and the demonization of
these religions has everything to do with racism. So I
was like, I was curious about just like how voodoo
in this movie is represented, because it's a pretty big
compoe of the story we see practice. I don't know

(01:32:05):
how authentic um the practices of voodoo are. I couldn't
find any writing on how well Louisiana voodoo is represented
specifically in this film, and I don't know enough about
the religion to comment on it, but I did read
the Casey Lemons said she didn't really do any research

(01:32:27):
on voodoo before writing the movie, and it shove. I
was like, it does. I was just like, yeah, I
guess that this is like all it does seem kind
of like off the top of your head, like rehashing
of things that we've seen of like how how voodoo
has been represented in other movies. Yeah, I honestly didn't
do a ton of research on this end and kind

(01:32:49):
of went in with the assumption that because I looked
into like Casey Lemons is like back history of like, Okay,
so I can't find any reason that she would know.
And then I was like, I'm just assuming that it's wrong.
Every time you see like voodoo represented in American movies,
I just kind of I'm like, I'm assuming this is
way off. But I don't know. I feel the same way.

(01:33:10):
I mean, I couldn't tell you if this is like
an authentic depiction of Louisiana voodoo. I'm going to assume
not because it was nineteen seven, and I think that, like,
you know, there are certain like visual signifiers that I
think are there that I'm like, oh, yeah, she probably
and like no offense to her. She probably was just
like yeah, put her the like voodoo practitioner in a

(01:33:34):
certain outfit and call it a day, right, Like there's
that scene where she's got her face painted white, Like
I think she was like, I want to have some
clear visual markers so that people are like, yep, this
is voodoo happening. I don't know that. I don't know
that I would say that she went too deep into it,
that's my read. Yeah, I would say at the very least,
there are some things that the movie manages to avoid
that we've seen play out in other movies where like

(01:33:57):
Eve goes to Elzora and she's expecting in return a
voodoo doll, and Elzora is like, no, that's not a thing.
I did another thing to try to kill your father,
but not a doll, because like, the voodoo doll is
not an actual thing in the real voodoo religion, or

(01:34:18):
at least not the way that is the way we
see voodoo dolls in Hollywood. That's not accurate. And I
at least appreciate that the way that Samuel and Jackson's
character dies is because he gets shot by a man
who was pretty explicitly or implicitly told that his wife

(01:34:38):
was cheating on him, and not because like voodoo killed him.
So at least the movie avoids those types of things.
But it's just that Eve thinks that that's what happened,
like they're even Yeah, I was confused. I was like,
for a second, I like almost got galaxy brain about
it because I thought, you know, it's like, okay, maybe

(01:35:01):
it's like because you know, like there's a lot of
people who present as like, oh, you know, like I
am a psychic, and they're actually not, and they're kind
of just like being touristy. I was like, maybe that's
what Elsora is supposed to be as kind of like
because that's what Moselle says. It's like, Oh, she's just
like a tourist, Like she comes to the market. You know,

(01:35:22):
she's a side show attraction because we see that misrepresentation
all the time, kind of at any large carnivalry event
of like this fraud. But then we're kind of led
to believe that she is not a fraud. But then
also I guess that was the question I left the
movie with him, like was she a fraud or not?
Because there were certain elements of her that kind of

(01:35:42):
reminded me of like that scene in The Wizard of
Oz where the wizard is going through basket while her
thing is closed. Like sometimes I was getting that by
but then other times I was like, is she a fraud?
Like I don't know. I don't know, because she gets
it right with ros right, she's like wait, wait a while.
But if she doesn't need to wait three years, does she,
like she well, maybe it takes three years for them

(01:36:04):
to like just fully recover or like heal from their grief.
It's like it's clear to us that Moselle and Eve's like,
I don't even know, Like their ability to see the
future is authentic, and that is like in text true,
But I still was not clear on whether el Zora
was legit or not. I wasn't sure. Let's also keep

(01:36:28):
in mind that Elzora charges even twenty dollars to kill
a man. That's I mean, come on, sixties money. I
actually looked it up the the inflation it will be
two sixteen dollars they're about today to kill a man.
She grifted a child, Like yeah, what are the what

(01:36:51):
are the ethics of her like accepting money from a
literal child to kill a man? Like I just have
a lot of time, It's it's murky, I would think. Yeah,
I'd be curious of like listeners who have seen this
movie what your impression was, because by the end I
sort of felt like she's the Wizard of Us, like
she only because the people who can genuinely see into

(01:37:12):
the future to some extent, we are like told visually
explicitly that that is true, and you don't ever get
that for Elzaura. So I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure.
I know that definitely, the presentation of voodoo is like
off in this movie. It's definitely not like a faithful,
you know thing. But but I wasn't sure if like
we were supposed to go through this being like, oh,

(01:37:34):
you know, Elzora is kind of like doing this touristy
act that Eve believes because she's a kid. You know,
she gave this woman two hundred dollars. Oh my god. Stressful.
But yeah, I'm I'm curious to hear from any listeners
who have a more in depth understanding of actual voodoo practices,

(01:37:59):
just how you feel about this movie's depiction of voodoo. Yeah, Um,
does anyone have any other thoughts on the movie? I
wanted to I had, I had a few things. I
wanted to just kind of shout out the team behind
this movie that we do not. I mean, it goes
without saying that black women writing and directing their own

(01:38:21):
movies is such a huge I mean, especially just was
not happening very much. And so in terms of like
the background of this movie, you will not be surprised.
It's like the I feel like, and this is true
with female directors kind of generally you get a lot
of that actor to director pipeline because Casey Lemons was
already an established director and I feel like you an

(01:38:44):
established actor or sorry, an established actor. Yeah, and then
she doesn't direct her first movie to her late thirties,
and I can think of like five women off the
top of my head who that's true for right now. Um,
and how like that is kind of it seems like
the most not to say, I mean, there's plenty of
female directors who that is not the case for, but
it seems like the most efficient current pipeline for female directors.

(01:39:09):
And that's where Casey Lemons comes from. And then she
makes like animazing. But she was like an established actor
who started writing and directing because she was dissatisfied with
the roles she was getting as an actor, these like
very you know, like oh, I'm the black best friend
or I'm just like this kind of like sidelined character.
And so she just took it upon herself to start

(01:39:32):
writing stories from her own perspective, which is amazing. And
I also every time I see the actor to director pipeline,
I'm like, why can't they Why can't we just be directors?
Why is that pipeline not available? That said, I'm very
glad that Kasey Lemons was able to create all these
like amazing media roles that she wasn't able to play originally.

(01:39:53):
We also have a few different kind of rarities behind
the scenes, which I feel like sometimes we get great
representation in front of the camera and then behind it's
like more white guys. Uh this. We have a a
female cinematographer, Amy Vincent, who you have almost certainly seen
a lot of her work. She did two of my

(01:40:15):
favorite youth movies. She also did Jawbreaker and the Lemony
Snaket movie. But she's a love job breaker. It's so good.
We've got to cover Jawbreaker. Sometimes she's done. She's done.
She's done a lot. More like she's like I think,
one of kind of the iconic female cinematographers. Um, she's
done a whole lot. She did I Hurt Huckabees if

(01:40:37):
you care, I guess, uh, and Oh my God, and
that horrible Seth McFarland movie, A Million Ways to Die
in the West, So you know, she has a wide
variety of things she's done. Um. We also have a
black female editor, which is like I feel like there's
of all the positions in Hollywood, they are overwhelmingly white

(01:41:00):
as editor like may in fact take the cake. And yeah,
there's a black female editor of this movie. Her name
is Tara Lynn shop Share. I hope I'm saying that right. Um,
she also edited Love and Basketball when they see us
Secret Life of Bees, and like, there's all these like
amazing projects in I think one of the like most
white male dominated areas of movie. Love and Basketball another

(01:41:23):
black classic, right, yes, that is a classic. So she
seems like she's just, you know, kind of an icon
in that field. Just like a lot of great representation
behind the camera as well, and like the t I mean,
everything in this movie jels so well. The and also
I didn't know Kasey Lemon's studied cinematography in college as well,
so you have to imagine she's bringing some stuff to

(01:41:45):
the cinematography too. And it's all You're like, Wow, more
movies should be made like this. There's also, um, it's
a man, but a black composer. Terrence Blanchard opposed the
score Jazz Legend and he uh guide but he plays
the trumph and then he won an Academy Award for
Black Klansman a couple of years ago. Oh that's right,

(01:42:06):
That's why I know that name. Yeah, he and and
then I guess he and I. He and Casey Lemons
also wrote an opera together, or they were supposed to,
and then COVID hit and now they're going to release
their opera later. Like I love. I love when collaborators
like working together and then they do a bunch of
like weird ship Like I'm like, yeah, sure, write an opera,

(01:42:28):
why not like Casey Lemons opera. I guess you know,
if it's safe to see, I would see it. Um.
So I just I was. I really loved just how
like how my representation there was behind the camera, definitely,
especially in those like those are like three very major roles,
you know, what is it they called like the top
like this this top six title card whatever roles, and

(01:42:52):
like they're almost always given to white men in Hollywood productions.
So yeah, that was awesome And for nineteen I'm like, okay,
pretty good. The other So shooting started on this movie
and Casey Lemons was either pregnant, gregnant, um or she
had just given birth to her first child. I couldn't

(01:43:14):
really figure out exactly what the timeline was there, but
I was like, that is cool, because like society has
this image of women that if like you're a mother,
you especially like a new mother, or if you're pregnant,
you can't work, or if you're a working woman, you
can't be a mother. So like she was just like, no,
like I'm going to make this movie and I'm also

(01:43:35):
a mother and two things can be true. Love that
for her. I think you're so right that we have
this misconception that I a woman has a baby, she
may as well just like crawl into a grave and
die for a few years. Yeah, that's I didn't know that.
That's really cool. Um. Yeah, the last two production e
Slash reception things are no, it's about men, but I

(01:43:58):
thought that they were interesting. They I think, as is
also very common in this case woman and particularly like
a woman of color making her first movie. She needed
a very powerful man to co sign on the project
before it could be made. So this project was kind
of like languishing the script. It existed for some time
and it wasn't until Samuel L. Jackson was like, I'll
star in the movie, okay, and then you could get made.

(01:44:22):
So it's like, you know, it's it's definitely not ideal.
That's something that needs to keep changing. But I do
like to see powerful men using that power to like
bring new talent into the folds. And so that was cool.
This was also this is kind of neither here nor there.
I just was like genuinely really surprised because we are
always talking about Roger. Yeah, I was like, because we

(01:44:46):
have been dragging Roger Ebert NonStop correctly for years, because
he just like sucks. He generally has no idea what
anyone like, any story that is not for him explode
at lee. He's like confusing, hated it, negative stars, hated
it for losers. But uh in in kind of a

(01:45:08):
shocking he'll turn here. Roger Ebert named this movie hit
the best film of Wow. That that is surprising to me.
That is very surprising to me because he I have
my own feelings about him that I find not surprising. Yeah,
I did too. I was like, wow, Okay, at least
he's a Cathy Lemon stand. I Like, it's not you know,

(01:45:30):
it's something. It might have been Chas Ebert his wife's doing.
That might have been chairs. She's like, give me this
one thing. But I wonder if his sort of championing
this movie led to another fact about this movie, which
is that it was the highest grossing independent film of
nine seven, So I wonder if he was like ringing endorsement,

(01:45:53):
like encourage more people to go see it, because it
had a four million dollar budget and it grossed fifteen
million at the box office, which again doesn't feel it
doesn't sound huge, but for an independent movie, fifty million
dollars at the box office pretty significant. Seven money too,
Like that's that, Yeah, that's big. I do wonder, Yeah,

(01:46:13):
I do, because I feel like, for all of its
issues that we have talked about at length, at this point,
I am surprised that this movie is not like that
not everybody knows about it. It seems like a real
like classic of its genre, and it does so much
that not many movies are doing. And so I guess

(01:46:33):
I was glad that Ebert pushed it. It just I
don't know. Ultimately, I'm like, I just wish more people
knew about this movie. I wish it was like more taught.
I wish it was more discussed, like and I wish that.
I think that honestly, it's the sort of thing where
at the time had the fucking and I know that

(01:46:54):
we're always like the Golden Globes are for losers, right,
oscars are for losers? Like it almost call without saying,
but being recognized in some way by those institutions does
sort of, I feel like, have an effect on solidifying
certain movies as movies worth remembering and movies worth recognizing.
And I just wish that this movie had been recognized

(01:47:16):
more by those institutions. And I wonder if if they had, like,
would it be a movie that we would just be
hearing more about now? Like, Yeah, I wish I'd seen
this movie sooner. For for all of its flaws, I
really it's doing so much that movies of its time
we're not attempting. Well, if you'd grown up in my house,

(01:47:36):
you would have had it on VHS and it would
have been one of five movies like you a Little
Cabinet that one could watch if they wanted the movie Cabinet.
My mom had the fucking CBS Ron Perlman, Beauty and
the Beast on VHS and talk about a classic, horny classic,

(01:47:58):
Linda Hamilton's and Ron that we will not be covering
it on the show, but boy have I seen a
lot of it. Oh goodness, is is there anything else
anyone wants to discuss I mean the episodes longer than
the movie at this point, I don't Isn't that true
of literally all of our episodes within the past two years.

(01:48:22):
It's true. Speaking of which, my Chicken Run posters coming
in the mail today, I'm very excited Ginger is on
her way. Hell yeah, Uh, well, it probably comes as
no surprise that this movie does pass the Bechdel test.
Women are interacting. Women and girls are interacting in this
movie with each other a lot, and the DuVernay test

(01:48:43):
as well. Yes, indeed, Um, the female characters are talking
a lot about men and a lot of scenes either
like about Louis or about Mozelle's husbands. But there are
still quite a few scenes that pass the Bechdel test. Yeah.
I guess that brings us to our our nipple scale,

(01:49:03):
where we examine the movie based on just intersectional feminism,
and I think this movie is going to break my
brain trying to assign it a nipple number. Um. I
think I want to give it three or three and

(01:49:24):
a half because, as we've discussed that, like, the information
is there that allows for a pretty clear interpretation that
Cecily is a survivor of abuse and that her father
is an abuser, and I appreciate that this movie is
trying to tackle this subject matter, and I think that
the intent was to approach it responsibly. However, I do

(01:49:47):
still feel that the movie ends in a way that
allows room for interpretation and for a different reading, which
again I think is a very dangerous thing to do
in regards to child set abuse. That said, it's still
an important piece of Black cinema and of cinema in general. Um,

(01:50:08):
I don't know. Oh gosh, yeah, I guess three and
a half and I'll kind of distribute them evenly to
Casey Lemon's Journey, Smollett, Lynn Whitfield, Megan Good, Debbie Morgan,
just just all the women in All Star. Yes, Yeah,

(01:50:30):
so that's that I'm gonna go. I'm I'm tempted to
I'm definitely doing it three and a half. I'm tempted
to even go for a four. But I'm going to go,
I think with a three and a half because I
do agree that for its time is I mean, it's
it's so hard, right because I think that in terms

(01:50:52):
of talking about child sex abuse on screen, I feel
like I can say pretty confidently that this movie does more,
more than anyone was even attempting to do it the
same at this time while also making a lot of
this same fuck ups that movies at this time we're
doing it. Is like, as far as I concert, like

(01:51:13):
never going to be worth the risk to put a
child performer in a position like that. I I feel
a little differently about the ambiguity because I do feel
like she gave us all the clues, Mr Policeman, and
so I don't want to necessarily punish the movie for
that because I do feel like Casey Lemons does give

(01:51:34):
us all the information. I do just wish that like
I guess we didn't even talk about this, But the
line that I think was cross like crossed the line
for me was when Moselle told Eve like your dad
says he wishes he had gotten that last dance. That
for me kind of crossed the line of like, so
we're gaslighting beyond the grave? Is like for real? Like

(01:51:58):
is that necessary? And so I do think that the
movie gives Samuel L. Jackson's character more than he deserves
in terms of ambiguity. I am, I don't know, I
just for sure the conversation was not sophisticated enough in
the general public then or now clearly for people to
inherently believe sicily. I think if we were living in

(01:52:20):
this fantasy world where we were as a society inclined
to believe survivors, that a lot of the choices in
this movie wouldn't bother me as much. And so I
am like, I'm it's kind of confusing because I don't
want to punish Casey Lemons or the art for society
not being where it needs to be on this issue,

(01:52:41):
but it isn't, and so I just don't really know.
I do know that I really dislike the fact that
the scene was filmed in the medium that it was
everything else, I'm kind of like, I don't know, Uh,
stories about generational trauma, I think are are really rarely
done well and thoughtfully, and this movie kind of takes

(01:53:03):
a lot of boxes in terms of like showing you,
you know, kind of the effects of generational trauma and
showing you like, yes, ros is wrong a lot of
the time, while also showing her empathy in other moments
in a way that felt really like, I mean, you
can't ask for like a harder task as a writer

(01:53:24):
than to show all of this stuff. I don't know.
I mean, I've like I am genuinely, I'm just glad
that Casey Lemons did it, and like for all of
its failures, I feel like it's a triumph that it
happened and that it was released and that it had
this cultural impact, and I don't want to punish it
for society being worthless. I don't know, I don't know.

(01:53:46):
I guess I'm gonna go three and a half and
I don't know how to feel h and broken. I'm
giving all of my nipples to Debbie Morgan because she
really she really did it with this one. Yeah, Bridge,
what about you? I think I would put this. It's
a tough call for me. I would say between three
point five and four nipples. I say for the the heavy,

(01:54:11):
you know, female lead talent both on camera and behind
the camera, I think it's I can't go lower. Um.
I don't know that I can give it a solid
for but I'm some I'm somewhere in there. Sure cool, Yeah,
I totally agree. Well, thank you so much for joining us.
What a what a treat it's been, What what a

(01:54:31):
memory this will be for all of us. Thank you
for thank you for bringing us this movie truly. I'm like,
I'm so happy that we got to talk about it. Yeah,
it's it's I'm happy that this was on the agenda
because I it's nice to have a reason to rewatch it.
And it's just nice to have a throwback of kind
of a time capsule, capsule of how we were dealing
with representing black girlhood, black womanhood on screen. It's it's

(01:54:54):
nice to look back to see kind of where we
were at then and where we've come now. So I
appreciate having the the reason to rewatch totally. Yeah, and
UM tell us where people can check out your stuff,
listen to your podcast, follow you on social media, etcetera. Well,
thank you for asking. So if you want to hear

(01:55:16):
more from me, please please check out my podcast. There
are No Girls on the Internet on I Heart Radio. Um.
Right now, we're doing this great mini series all about
disinformation called Disinformed and really elevating some narratives around marginalized people,
women of color, women, how we've all played a role
showing up online and how we have gotten to this

(01:55:36):
very kind of particular social and political moment that we
find ourselves in. So if you're interested in that, please
check it. Out. It's called They're No Girls on the Internet.
And you can follow me on Instagram at Bridget Murray
in d C or on Twitter at Bridget Murray. Yeah,
and Bridget truly come back anytime. Oh it's been a pleasure.
I'll be back y'all. You'll you'll will not be able

(01:55:57):
to get rid of me. Ah wow. Well, you can
check us out on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtel Cast.
You can subscribe to our Patreon a k a. Matreon.
Speaking of Chicken Run, I believe that episode will have
recently dropped, among many others, and that's specialist classic Chicken Round.

(01:56:21):
My goodness. Um, that's a patreon dot com slash petel Cast.
It's five dollars a month and you get two bonus
episodes plus access to the back catalog. Oh and you
can also get T shirts I always miss my cue here. Uh.
You can also get t shirts at t public dot
com slash v Bechtel Cast. We have masks amongst other wares,

(01:56:43):
so um, you know, log on in, see what you
like and until next time. Just a memory now and
it's it's it's imprinted indelibly on your brain through the
m P three file. But bye a.

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