Mississippi Masala with Durba Mitra

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Durba Mitra discuss Mississippi Masala (1991). Check out Durba's essay on the film at https://www.publicbooks.org/mississippi-masala-at-30-revisiting-a-film-classic-in-authoritarian-times/ 

Follow Durba on Instagram at @thirdworldwomen and check out her new book, The Future That Was -- https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691233604/the-future-that-was 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yep, just driving along with my auntie with twenty five
gallons of milk in the car.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Okay, And as with every every person does this in
every single movie, and it stresses me out every single time.
Why don't you turn your body around one hundred and
eighty degrees while still fully accelerating, giving every audience member.

Speaker 4 (00:36):
A panic attack, and then and then screak, crash, collide
with the hottest living man on the planet. Yeah, yes, God,
what a meet cute.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
I was like, well done, well done everybody. I liked it.
It was great. It was great. I would that would
be such a great way to meet somebody.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I would not call this a car accident. I had
a car are blooper. I would say I very lightly
tapped someone's rear. I was going like one mile an
hour top someone's rear bumper and to kiss. Really, it
was just a little smooch. Yeah, bumper to bumper, smooch.
And there was a man in like the other driver

(01:17):
was a man, but I did not start dating him.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
So, yeah, someone kisses the back of my car. I'm
just like, you know what, life's hard, and it's like,
keep driving, keep driving whatever. It's fine. No, And I
could have been falling in love.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well he ruined it because he was like, let's exchange
insurance information. There's a scratch on my car.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
I was like, yeah, right, no, that was already the
grow up.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Anyway, we're talking about this productive conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yes, welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Derante, my.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where
we talk about your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens.
And today we are in fact talking about a movie
we've gotten a ton of requests for over the years,
both when the show started and then a mysterious bump
again about two years ago. And who can say why,

(02:14):
but we were talking today about Mississippi Massala, which came
out in nineteen ninety one, directed by Mira and I
Are and written by Sunni Tara Poravalla, who I was
not as familiar with but has written almost every like
their duo that works together very frequently, for sure. Yeah,

(02:35):
should we just get into it. Let's get our guests
in here. I'm so excited. Oh wait, we should say
what the Bechdel test is. We've been doing this for
ten years. This is so embarrassing. Yeah, real quick.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Bechdel test is a media metric created by a Quier
cartoonist and best friend of the show, Alison Bechdel. It
has many versions. The one that we use is do
two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they
speak to each other? And is there conversation about something
other than a man? And we'll talk about that later,
but in the meantime, our guest today is a professor

(03:10):
and feminist historian. It's Derbamitra Welcome.

Speaker 6 (03:15):
Well, I'm so glad to be here. It's so fun
to be here. Also, just like any feminist podcast, I'm
here for it.

Speaker 5 (03:20):
So I'm ready.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yay, We're delighted to have you, truly.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah. We found your work via an essay you wrote
for Public Books a couple of years ago about this
film that we'll link in the description as well. But
we're curious to hear what your history with this movie is.

Speaker 6 (03:42):
Well, thank you so much. I think I saw this.
I saw miss Sipimsala probably for the first time when
I was eight or nine years old. I think I
saw it right when it came up out in nineteen
ninety one. And I was born in the nineteen eighties
in the American South in Shreeveport, Louisiana, which is actually
not that far from Mississippi. And I was born to

(04:03):
a single mom in Shreveport, and she had me, and
she had my older brother who was just a tiny
toddler at the time, and the experience of being in
Shreveport and being a person who was poor and a
South Asian immigrant in Shreveport was very, very formative for me.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
It was very formative for my.

Speaker 6 (04:20):
Mother, who experienced a lot of struggle and really worked
hard to create a life for us. And she watched
Missus Simi Massala when it came out in the early nineties,
and for her it was such a profoundly moving film
that probably was the first time she felt some sense
of representation on the screen. And when I first watched it,

(04:44):
I didn't understand it. And then I watched it again,
probably when I was in college, and then I watched
it again in twenty twenty one when it was about
to be part of the Criterion collection. Yeah, so it
was like it became this film that represented the complexity
of what it meant to be immigrant and diasporic in

(05:05):
America and to think about the problem of race and
racial difference not as a white Black problem, but as
a problem across racial difference. Yeah, when my family moved
to the American South, it was actually black communities who
made our existence possible, who helped my mom, support my
mom to gain access to public welfare, to gain access

(05:30):
to food, to join the church, which is what my
mom does, and I did it in that period.

Speaker 5 (05:34):
So for me, the.

Speaker 6 (05:36):
Film represents something that's extremely rare on film, which is
the intimacy of relationships in the United States that make
survival possible, but also the kind of contestations and sometimes
social violence that is also part of those relationships. And
so it really just expressed something that I feel is
not often represented in film.

Speaker 5 (05:58):
Definitely, not not to mention.

Speaker 6 (05:59):
The fact that the idea that there was this incredibly
gorgeous black woman, I mean a black man obviously, and
beautiful Basy woman Indian woman on screen like for a
South Asian American, I think for the whole generation of us.
If you saw pictures of my mom and she looked
so much like Srita, like long hair, gorgeous. Anyway, the
moral of the story is the idea of that kind

(06:20):
of representation on film was just unheard of at the time.
So he was like an extraordinary experience for so many
of us.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, absolutely, Jamie. What's your history with the movie? Had
you seen it before?

Speaker 3 (06:32):
I had seen it once before, and unfortunately, I shamefully
do need to credit a man as a part of
what brought me to Missus Simmia Massala. That man's name
is at least Zora Mom Donnie Okay, fair, So I
do feel I know we saw it, that there was

(06:52):
all of a sudden an uptick of mir and Nair's
movies in theaters and repertory screenings when my Donnie became
such a big figure in New York and then across
the world. And so I saw a screening of Mississippi
Missala year or two ago, I think, at Vidiots in
Los Angeles, and it was really fun. I had been

(07:16):
hearing about it for years but hadn't yet seen it,
and I mean, speaking to your point, derb It, It's
just like it's such a singular movie and I've never
seen anything like it. I've never seen such a specific
cultural conversation happening in a movie before or since. And
it also features two hot people making out. I mean,

(07:40):
it's just this movie is operating on so many levels
and does so many I like, looking through how many
notes I have for this movie, you would think that
it would be like a tough watch, but it everything
goes like it's effortless. How much this movie tackles in

(08:00):
centered around this love story. And Yeah, I really enjoyed
it and I'm excited to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, Caitlin, what's your history. I hadn't seen this movie before.
I had seen mir and IRE's Monsoon Wedding. That was
my main exposure to her work. I saw that probably
fifteen or so years ago, but I hadn't seen this one,
and I was excited to watch it, and I thought

(08:27):
it was really well done. I you know, it's a
love story that I'm actually rooting for. It's commenting on
a lot of different things in thoughtful ways. It is
some of the hottest people you've ever seen, not that
that's the most important thing of the movie. But worth noting.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
It's worth noting, and we'll be noting it time and
time again.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
And yeah, when I was watching it for the first
time the other day and the movie opens on Roshan
Seth and I was like, wait a minute, I recognize him.
And I realized what I recognize him from is Indiana
Jones and The Temple of Doom, and his character is
far more rich in this movie, So I'm glad he

(09:15):
went on to have better roles.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
I recognized him from something even more not not that
Indiana Jones. Recognizing him from Indiana Jones is humiliating, but
I recognized him from Cheetah Girls three, The Cheatagirls, One World. Okay,
tragically so iconic. Okay, we've listed our I.

Speaker 6 (09:39):
Mean I would say that, you know he I think
anyone who's seen Missipi Masala will see this that he's
one of the most sensitive and nuanced actors from Indian
and British Indian film like just extraordinary. I would recommend
for everybody here to see My Beautiful Launderette, which is
a kind of queen iconic queer British a film about

(10:01):
queer love and anyway, all of that is to say that,
you know, he's an icon for many reasons. One because
he plays you know, defies stereotypical types that would be
given to an Indian actor of his kind and his generation.
And also because he's iconic in all of these amazing
films from Indiana Jones too, of course Girls three Yeah.

Speaker 5 (10:22):
Girls three, Monsoon Weddings.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
His performance in Mississimosla is so just He's really threatened
a needle in a way that like very few people can.
It's amazing.

Speaker 5 (10:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
I also love that you see a representation on screen
of a man crying, which he does in multiple scenes,
and I'm like, yes, let it out, king.

Speaker 6 (10:46):
I mean, and also like the friendship breakup between he
and his old friend and you, I mean, that has
kind of been one of the most heart breaks. There
are so many extraordinary relationships in this film, but that
to me was like, that's the one that is incredibly hard.

Speaker 5 (11:00):
And you're like, oh, totally between he and Oklo, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, Well, why don't we take a quick break and
then we'll come back for the recap. Okay, here is
the recap of Mississippi Missala. We open in Kampala Uganda

(11:27):
in nineteen seventy two, during a period in history when
people from the Asian diaspora were forced to leave Uganda.
And we can talk a little bit later about the
historical context there, but one such person is an Indian man,
a lawyer named Jay Loha played by Roshan Seth. He,

(11:51):
his wife Knu played by Sharmila Tagore, and their young
daughter Mina pack up to leave, and Jay is especially
despondent about leaving because he was born and raised in Uganda.
I believe he's third generation Ugandan and a family friend
who we were just mentioning, okay Loo bids them a

(12:14):
tearful farewell, although Jay kind of refuses to say goodbye
to Okello for reasons that will become clear over the
course of the movie through flashbacks.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
But shout out to the actor who plays Kangabadhu because
he gives one of I think the saddest looks I've
ever seen in my entire life. It's a really really
beautiful scene, such great performances all around.

Speaker 5 (12:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
The family boards a bus to begin their journey to
leave Uganda. The bus is stopped by police. Keinu is
removed from the bus at gunpoint and her luggage is searched.
It's a very tense scene, but eventually the bus arrives
at the airport and Mina's family boards a plane and

(13:09):
they eventually end up in Greenwood, Mississippi by way of London.
For several years in the middle, but we cut to
eighteen years later, it's now nineteen ninety. We're in Greenwood, Mississippi.
Mina is now an adult played by Serrita Childriy. She
lives at a motel where she also works as a cleaner.

(13:32):
Though right now, Mina is at a grocery store with
an auntie, buying dozens of gallons of milk for a wedding.
On the car ride home, Mina accidentally rear ends a
van driven by Demetrius played by Denzel Washington. They exchange
names and addresses for insurance purposes, and the car that

(13:54):
Mina was driving belongs to a relative, Anneal, and He's
worried that Demetrius might sue him over this accident, but
Demetrius says, like, no worries, I'm not going to sue you.
After a scene where other of Mino's relatives try to
like smooth things over and be like we're not white,

(14:18):
so we got to stick together and help each other out. Yeah,
and we'll talk more about all of that.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
There's also there's like this ongoing theme of Americans and litigation,
and specifically white Americans in litigation. But this like anxiety
around like this is a specifically American thing, just suing
the shit out of each other, which it's true.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Americans are very litigious people.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Amongst other things. Yeah, amongst many other things.

Speaker 6 (14:47):
There's also the backdrop of the fact that Jay himself
is a lawyer. Yeah, right, So he's a defense attorney
back in Uganda, and we can talk about that as well,
because he's like kind of in this profession that is
actually about defense Ugandan's through systems of justice. So there's
kind of multiple forms like suing as a kind of
weirdly American thing, suing in like totally minor matters versus

(15:13):
what Jay finds to be moral of his life, which
is to try to regain some sense of justice as
it relates to his lost property in Uganda.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
But we learn more about Demetrius. He has his own
carpet cleaning business. We also meet some members of his family,
including his brother Dex and their father Willie Benn, who
works at a restaurant. Then we cut to the wedding
that Mina's family is attending. I believe it's Aneil's wedding,

(15:44):
and we see women in the community gossiping about Mina,
saying that because she's darker skinned and her family doesn't
have money, she's not good enough for someone like Harry Patel.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
And one of these gossips is Mira and Yer, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, so they're like, she's she's not good enough for
Harry Patel. Though, this Harry fellow asks Mina to go
out with him after the wedding, so he takes her
to a bar and guess who happens to be there.
It's Demetrious and he's kind of preoccupied when he runs

(16:24):
into an old flame of his, a musician named Alicia,
who is there with another man, a record producer, because
she's trying to get her music career off the ground.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, they're they're both being a little bit diabolical during
this first meeting, which I was which I was like, again,
I'm like, it's just such a well written movie and
it feels so real where I was like, wow, that
never comes back, But of course it comes back that
it's sort of like they're trying to use each other
to make someone else jealous or feel a type of way,

(16:56):
and then they end up falling in love and.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, yeah, because what happens is Demetrius asks Mina if
she wants to dance to try to make Alicia jealous,
and they get very close and cozy, and poor Harry
Patel is like, what about me? And he ups and leaves.

(17:20):
Demetrius then takes Mina home and a short time later
she calls him and he invites her to his dad's
birthday party that weekend. Meanwhile, we learn that Mina's dad, Jay,
has been working on this lawsuit for the past five
years where he's suing the Ugandan government for illegally displacing

(17:40):
his family. Mina asks her mom what happened between her
father and his friend Okaylo, but Keno changes the subject.
Then we cut to Demetrius driving Mina to the birthday
party and they're getting to know each other. Mina tells
him about her backstory. She's been in Mississippi for three

(18:02):
years before that, London for several years before that, Uganda,
and she's never been to India despite being of Indian descent.
Then they arrive at his family's house for the party.
Mina meets his dad, his grandfather, his brother Dex, his
aunt Rose, and his friend Tyrone played by Charles S. Dutton,

(18:25):
who is she's already met him, but he continues to
be rather creepily lusting after Mina. The family asks her
a bunch of questions about where she's from, about having
lived in Africa, about how Indian people ended up there,

(18:45):
and then as soon as Demetrius's ex Alicia shows up,
he and Mina leave. They go to the bayou and
walk around where they're vibing and they kiss on the lips.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
Great theme, it's so romantic.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Oh yeah, And also he asks for consent twice, which
you almost never see, but you love to see it.
Then he invites her to go with him to Biloxi,
which I had to look up, being unfamiliar with this region,
but it's a city in Mississippi on the coast and
they're enjoying a nice little vacation, I believe on her birthday.

(19:25):
But a few of Mina's relatives, including Anil and characters
named Napkin and Pontiac, also happened to be in Biloxi,
and they see Mina and Demetrius together, so they go
after them, saying like stay away from our women. A

(19:45):
fight breaks out, cops get involved, and Mina and Demetrius
are arrested. Jay bails Mina out of jail. Her parents
feel like she has brought shame to the family, but
Mina tell them that she's in love with Demetrius. Meanwhile,
Demetrius is also getting scrutiny from his family. A bank

(20:08):
loan for his business is in jeopardy, and Mina's family
tarnishes Demetrius's professional reputation around town. He goes to talk
to Mina about all of this at the motel where
she works, but Jay comes out instead, so Demetrius confronts
him for disrespecting him and his business and confronts him

(20:31):
for his lack of solidarity with other people of color. Also,
Jay has received word from the Ugandan government about his
lawsuit and they're granting him a hearing, and so he
has to travel back to Kampala for that. We get
a flashback of Jay's final night living in Uganda before
he's forcibly removed. Okaelo is telling him that it doesn't

(20:55):
matter that Jay was born in Uganda and identifies as
you gandin more so than he does Indian, because Africa
is for black Africans and Jay doesn't belong there.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
Which we saw a less in context clip of at
the very beginning of the movie.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, yes, I think this is also the flashback where
we see Jay getting arrested and then Okaylo bailing him
out of jail. Then Mina and her dad have a
conversation about why they left Uganda, and it seems as
though Jay is jaded by the fact that he was

(21:33):
expelled from the country simply because of his race and ethnicity,
and he thinks that maybe Indian people should just stick
together and not mix with other people. Then, to retaliate
for having his professional reputation ruined, Demetrius decides to sue
Anil for fifty thousand dollars after all, claiming to have

(21:57):
a back injury from when Mina rear ended him driving
Anil's car. Jay decides to take his family back to Uganda,
partly to get Mina away from Demetrius, partly to leave
Mississippi where they don't feel wanted, and partly for his
hearing and Kampala to try to reclaim his property, so

(22:19):
Mina goes looking for Demetrius to say goodbye. She finds him,
but he's upset, accusing her family of having a problem
with black people, and she's like, well, you never asked
me anything about myself because you were too busy using
me to make your girl, your old girlfriend, Alicia jealous,
and he's like, well, maybe that's how it was at first,

(22:42):
but then I fell in love with you and they reconcile.
Mina decides she doesn't want to accompany her parents to Uganda.
She wants to go with Demetrius, who also wants to
leave Mississippi, and they're gonna go somewhere together potentially start
working together, so she tells her parents. Meanwhile, Jay returns

(23:06):
to Uganda, I think without Kenu.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yes, definitely, because she is I think taking care of
the business back at home.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Right, and he learns that his friend Oklo died many
years ago shortly after Jay left, seems at the hand
of the Ugandan government, possibly for his dissent, and so
Jay laments that he refused to say goodbye to Oklo.
He realizes that home is where the heart is, and

(23:38):
his heart is his family back in the US, but
he will always feel a strong connection to his home
country of Uganda the end. So let's take a quick
break and we'll come back to discuss.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
And we're back. Where do I want to start? There's
so much to talk about.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, Derba, does anything jump out to you as far
as where to begin?

Speaker 5 (24:15):
Oh? I mean where to begin?

Speaker 6 (24:17):
As you pointed out Jamie right at the beginning, this
film is actually so rich.

Speaker 5 (24:21):
There's so much to be said about it.

Speaker 6 (24:23):
When I wrote about it, you know, I partly wrote
about it because I was talking about my own family
history as I was talking about when we started. But
I kind of feel like we should begin at the beginning.
In that kind of early moment you described it as
a meat cute. Is a hilarious meat cute because it's
like ninety style cars breaking and you know, like it's

(24:44):
two cars that are just giant metal boxes hitting each other.

Speaker 5 (24:48):
But you know it.

Speaker 6 (24:49):
To me, there's so many parts of this film that
are extraordinary. We might start at the beginning only because
I think the Uganda story in this is unusual, and
I think often most people have not been exposed to,
which is that the story of Mena's family and the
story of Jay his wife Kinu is a story of
like multiple forced migrations that happened over many, many generations. Yeah,

(25:15):
and that feeling of displacement is like, I think so
much a part of that of the film.

Speaker 5 (25:20):
Yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
To provide some additional historical context, obviously, it's a complex
history and I'm not an expert in this area, but
from what I understand, England was doing what England does,
which is colonizing a country in the global South. So
England was colonizing Uganda from the late eighteen hundreds to

(25:45):
the nineteen sixties, and during that time, the British brought
over thirty thousand Indian people to Uganda to work, including
to build the Uganda Railway, and the British invested in
the education of the South Asian minority, but did not
do the same for the indigenous Ugandans. That's right, which

(26:08):
meant that the South Asian minority tended to have higher
paying jobs and be better off financially, which led to
resentment in the black Ugandan population.

Speaker 5 (26:20):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 6 (26:21):
I mean I at the time, in the late nineteenth century,
India was like the crown jewel of the British Empire,
meaning it was the longest held area, the richest area.
That's how Britain got its wealth, and it also got its.

Speaker 5 (26:35):
Labor that way, right, And you know, what we know is.

Speaker 6 (26:38):
That the nineteenth century, the eighteenth the nineteenth century are
stories of the movement of labor, enslaved labor, indentur of labor,
and the movement of labors into Eastern Africa in Kenya
and Uganda and Tanzania. Also in South Africa. We see
this in the mines and in railroads. Is really critical
to British imperial aspirations. Yeah, you know, and so it's

(27:00):
about the forced movement of people. Exactly as you described,
we see like the British create these divide and rural policies.
And one of the things that I found really striking
in the film is actually that we get a sense
of the divide and rural policies here in the United
States as well, but we don't often use the language
like that we would.

Speaker 5 (27:18):
Describe for colonialism.

Speaker 6 (27:20):
So exactly as you said, Indians gain access to capital,
they gain access to educational opportunities when they're in Uganda,
they become the kind of business people on the ground
in Uganda, and then they gain access to property. And
we see the same in the depictions that are happening
in Mississippi because in Mississippi, like we know, for many

(27:43):
parts of the United States, Asian minorities or Asian immigrants,
including South Asian immigrants, being to get access to small
business loans, access to business ownership, usually hotels, motels, and
liquor stores. And we see that across the American South,
whereas black people from the same community have difficulty accessing

(28:06):
small business loans. We see that in Dimitrius's own experience
trying to gain access to a loan. And so the
divide and rule that is taking place in Uganda is
also taking place in the American South.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Absolutely, And the movie presents all of this in really
nuanced ways.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
In this like really thoughtful I don't know the way,
because this is history that I am still not well
versed in, but I am at least aware of now,
but was certainly not taught in you know, my American
public school. And it's just, you know, yet another reminder
of how intentionally colonialism and the complexities of colonialism aren't taught.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
Yeah, it's striking and the fact that that logic kind
of bears out in this story too, where we see
Mina sort of explaining this story to Demetrius because this
is not something that's really taught in American schools and
intentionally so and so I feel like we as audience
members are learning sort of with him essentially totally absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 6 (29:16):
And so yeah, so exactly as you describe, right, and
so then in nineteen seventy two with the displacement, they
forced expulsion of Asians. That happens under the dictatorship of Idiomine,
who comes into power through basically a military coup, takes
over the military.

Speaker 5 (29:32):
The military becomes.

Speaker 6 (29:33):
Like a militia on his behalf of his dictatorship, and
then he says, Africa's for the Africans, for the black Africans.
And by then there are eighty to one hundred thousand
Indian descent Ugandans in Uganda.

Speaker 5 (29:50):
It's a huge population of people. Where they're going to go?

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, So some of them went to the US, some
of them went to England, some of them went to
India even though they maybe were never there before. And
then in Mina and her family's case, they went to
the US to Mississippi by way of London. I think
Mina says she's only been in Mississippi for three years.
Bits of this context we learn throughout the movie, but

(30:18):
that's kind of the broad picture that contextualizes Jay and
his motivation behind the lawsuit and wanting to return to
Uganda and reclaim his stolen property, and that also informs

(30:38):
to some degree his sentiments around the Black American community
in Mississippi, because, like you said, Derba toward the top
of the episode, the movie is constantly examining different characters'
relationships to their racial and ethnic identity and how that

(30:58):
plays into racial biases, how that plays into colorism, how
that plays into people adhering to white supremacy even if
they are not white. So many things, and we see
this from many different angles, from many different characters.

Speaker 6 (31:16):
I also think I find that this film is one
of the most honest in the way that it examines
anti black racism among South Asian diasporic people, and Jay's
anti black racism when he says that his daughter is
not allowed to be in a relationship with Demetrius, is
very you know, in some ways, the movie is trying

(31:38):
to tell us a story about his prejudices that comes
from a personal experience of alienation and violence that happens
between his friendship breakup essentially with Okaylo, But in terms
of her family members, we get a deep seated sense
of anti black racism in that community, which was really
interesting to me when I was writing about the film,

(31:59):
I thought that was a really important point to point out.
And I mean, I should just note there's two very
very well known Indian Ugandan or Ugandan descent South Asian
diasporic people who are in the public eye right now.
One is Auran Mamdani. Of course Mirah's son, who is
the product of this film. We can talk about that
in his and then the others Cash brtel H, the

(32:24):
I guess head of the FBI, and you get a
really different sense of the trajectory of what happens in
diasporashighly different guys, really different guys.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, yep. And speaking to the Zoramumdani of it all
and his origin story and how it relates to this film.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yes, I think without Mississippi Massala, we might not have Dani,
so we.

Speaker 5 (32:46):
Would definitely not Yeah, that's definitely true.

Speaker 6 (32:50):
Yeah, his father is mahmud Maamdani, an extraordinary political theorist
thinker who is Indian descent Ugandan who it was himself
expelled in nineteen seventy two, and in fact has recently
written a book called Slow Poison about his own expulsion
and the experience of returning back to Uganda, which is

(33:11):
worth anyone reading. But as you all probably know, on
the film, Mira did many, many different interviews with people
of u Gotten descent, in people in the American South.
She did a tour of the American South, and in
that period she met Mamou Bamdani, this famous academic.

Speaker 5 (33:29):
And there was a love story of their own. So
right at the end of the film, you can see
that she dedicates the movie to him.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
Which is so cute. And this movie, I believe comes
out the same year that Zora Mamdani comes.

Speaker 6 (33:45):
Comes out into our worlds.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah, look, Miraa and Ira was releasing in nineteen ninety
one producing this year. That's correat and all of it impactful. Yes,
But yeah, I the love story that exists, I mean,
I just I love a love story. Inside of a

(34:09):
love story, it's impossible to resist.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah, it seems like because she was married to another
man when she was doing this research.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Is a producer and production designer on the movie.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah, Mitch Epstein, it's Jenny and I don't know exactly
what happened, but my head canon is that it seems
like their marriage was already kind of falling apart at
that point, but that she went to interview her soon
to be husband mamood Mom Donnie, and she's just like, hmm,
let me put a pin in this. And then they

(34:45):
smooched and made a baby. And now that baby is
the mayor of New York City.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
Life comes at you fast, that sure does.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
And then Mira and Sunny the screenwriter, after their trip
to to Compaula to do the research there, they went
to Mississippi where they met a carpet cleaner named Demetrius
and decided to model that character after this real life person.

(35:14):
So the script comes together. Ben Kingsley was originally supposed
to play Jay, but he stepped down, which meant that
mir and I are lost funding for the project because
the funding was sort of contingent on Ben Kingsley's involvement,
but she was able to get more funding when Denzel

(35:35):
was cast.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
But there is a story about how executives were really
trying to push for the character played by Denzel to
be a white actor. They were pushed. I mean, it's
a story that she's told many times and usually with
a really funny button, which is that she would she said,
she tells the producers there will be white actors, they

(35:59):
will all be playing wait, which that's correct.

Speaker 6 (36:02):
Is iconic, incredible, I mean it's also I mean, so
mir and Ira and I work together because all of
the papers, all of the materials that are related to
the making of Mississippi Massala, but also all of her
films are held at the Slessenger Library on the History
of Women in America at Harvard, and I collected those papers,

(36:24):
and when we were working together, you know, essentially I
learned so much about her filmmaking process and so she
you know, she was like just extraordinary and remarkable for
all kinds of reasons. I mean, she was one of
the only women filmmakers doing this kind of work at
the time that she was doing it. You know, we
have so many people today who follow in the footsteps.

(36:46):
But you know, feminist filmmakers like if we're not getting
big budget films by any me and so getting funded
for this was really hard.

Speaker 5 (36:52):
And if you go into her archives. You can see
all of the casting calls for.

Speaker 6 (36:57):
Mississppi Massala and I'll just note that archive is open
and free to the public, So I just want to
note that for anyone who wants to go in, it
has all the posters, and she has these little moleskin
notebooks where she writes notes about every aspect of making
the film, like what she's doing, her decision making, who
she interviewed, and she's like a real ethnographer. She goes
and talks to lots of different people. But there are

(37:18):
all of these folders with the casting calls, with little
headshots of all of the like famous South Asians of
the period of you know, there's very few South Asian
actors at the time who were famous, and Mira's little
notes about who's beautiful and who's good looking, and who
should be in watch shot and so in there you
can see that Denzel coming onto the film was the

(37:39):
you know, the thing that made it possible.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
And also, I mean it's I mean, it's not shocking
to hear from white film executives, but without a black
actor in that role, the story is impossible to tell.
Like the entire shape of the movie changes. I enjoyed
learning a bit more about her. Oh, that's first of all,
incredible that you compile that collection. I can't wait to

(38:04):
go back home and visit.

Speaker 5 (38:06):
I highly suggest it.

Speaker 6 (38:07):
It has amazing things, and I'll talk about other stuff
in there, but I really suggest it for anyone who
wants to learn more about me and I Are. We
should be writing a thousand books about he because she's
so interesting.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
One thing I didn't know about her that I watched
a bunch of interviews with her to prepare for this.
That I know you know, but I want our listeners
to know too. We've talked pretty frequently on this show
about directors who are spotlighting, specifically like non actors that
are in a vulnerable like that are from a vulnerable community,

(38:39):
and how as a director and as an artist, can
you continue to support that community after the movie has ended,
after like the dust of something being released is I
think we've talked about it most frequently with Tangerine comes
right to mind, and Mira and I Are did this
incredible thing with her first film, which I haven't seen,
her first fiction, her first narrative films, Salam Bombay, that

(39:02):
features normal kids and has started a now thirty seven
year or like a close to forty years foundation that
didn't just support that group of children featured in the movie,
but has supported children in Mumbai for Yeah, since the
movie came out. It's called the Salam Bombay Foundation. And

(39:24):
you know, she's spoken a lot about how she was
inspired by her mother's work as a social worker in
terms of like how to build this and how to
get the right people involved. That just is a place
for I think I believe that there's also kids that
live there. There are some kids that just get access
to resources and education there, but really kind of following

(39:46):
through in this like political art mission and creating something
that's been it seems like really impactful and sustaining far
beyond the life of you know, the movie's release itself
is just so inspiring and so cool.

Speaker 6 (40:02):
I think also what you would see, So she started
first doing little documentary films, although she's always been a storyteller.
Could if you ever have a conversation with Me and
I Are, you know that she's one of the greatest storyteller,
so charismatic, so amazing. But one of the films that
I love teaching from Mer and I Are is in
nineteen eighty five documentary that she produced so that she

(40:23):
made called India Cabaret.

Speaker 5 (40:25):
Which is about the.

Speaker 6 (40:28):
Women who work in the dancing industry essentially sex work
and adjacent to sex work in Bombay. This is before
she made Salam Bombay, where essentially women who are performing
in bars you wouldn't call them struck clubs, but equivalent,
you know, sensual kind of performances. And I think from
that film you get an understanding of Mira's real commitment

(40:51):
and interest to thinking about the sexual possibility and liberation
and dreaming of women, and how those worlds are foreclosed
or policed or violently censored by the communities within which
they live, but how women try to create worlds through

(41:13):
their own systems of ideas of desire. And I think
we get that a lot in Mississippi Massala too.

Speaker 5 (41:18):
Right.

Speaker 6 (41:19):
Mina is such a defiant character. I immediately find myself
attracted to her.

Speaker 5 (41:27):
As a young woman.

Speaker 6 (41:28):
I so find myself empathetic to who she wanted to
be and how she wanted to desire and how her
desires exceeded, you know, supposed norms for her own community
and the men who follow her into a hotel room
and then call the police on her and Demetrius.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, right, because it seems as though there's pressure from
her parents to some degree, and then just the larger
Indian Diceborg community around her in Mississippi that there's pressure
on her to specifically get with an Indian man. So
for her to get romantically involved with a black man

(42:07):
is defying that expectation. And there's a lot of anti
black racism surrounding that, where like that scene toward the
beginning after the Fender Bender where Mina's uncles go to
Demetrius to be like, hey, you know, like doesn't matter
if you're black, Brown, Mexican, Puerto Rican. You know, you know,

(42:31):
we're not white. So we have to stand together united,
we stand. Divided, we fall, and you get the sense
that maybe he does believe that, but maybe he's also
just saying that to avoid a lawsuit. And then when
they go after the lovers in the hotel room and
one of them is saying like, stay away from our women,

(42:54):
the mask comes off and it's like, oh, maybe you
don't actually believe in solidarity.

Speaker 5 (43:00):
And you know, so that's exactly right.

Speaker 6 (43:02):
The false nature of the solidarity that they expressed early
on and I think the film makes us ask like
where will solidarity come from? Like what kind of solidarities
can we forge? And in this case, you know, is
it the solidarity? Like Demetrius is a business owner, but
is doing working class labor inside of a hotel or

(43:22):
motel system that is owned by the Indian diaspora. So
these are people who are in the lower middle classes
and or lower class doing labor that no white Southerner
wants to do. And so they are in the excluded classes.
And yet the way we create hierarchies within those communities,
the nuances of those stories and those that sense of

(43:48):
violent intimacy is so profound in this film, and I think, like,
to me, you know, it's very rare that you find
that kind of there's something about this moment in the
nineteen nineties, in the early nineties, Like this movie came
out at the same time as Boys in the Hood
the same year, and that is not surprising to me,
because there's something deeply local about the storytelling that's happening

(44:10):
in this early nineties period that I love, you know,
that is trying to tell about structures of hierarchy within
communities and the stories that previously did this one never
represented on screen.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
It's so specific in a way that like I feel
like we get less of over time. I mean, I
feel like whatever, the independent movies sort of come and
go in popularity and like how well distributed they are
I guess, but it is really cool seeing this. Like
I think almost every movie we've covered from the early

(44:44):
nineties has this sort of level of very like intense specificity,
and something that we so rarely get to see in
movies set in the US is like a conflict between
obviously white Americans are involved in, but they're not centered

(45:04):
or pandered to or you know, just the things that honestly,
like I almost expect in a movie that discusses race
is that there's going to be like a sympathetic white
character somewhere, and that just is not what's happening here.
It's I hate that that feels kind of like stark,

(45:24):
but yeah, but it does.

Speaker 6 (45:26):
Right, Who are the characters that you all found to be? Like,
who's a sympathetic character to you? I mean Mina of
course potentially, but who do you find Like do you
find yourself sympathetic to.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
J I do, Yeah, I do.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
I don't think he's necessary. Like he's perhaps not perfect
in the way that no one is, but I very
much empathize with his struggle. Again, he was forcibly displaced
from his home country that he loves deeply and was
deeply loyal to. He had to take his family elsewhere,

(46:03):
and they are affected by that to some degree, but
it doesn't seem they don't seem as affected as Jay,
and he is again, like you know, the lawsuit and
the loss of his friend and all these things that
seemed to bring a deep sadness to him.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah, it's like one of the many I feel like,
it feels like it's like an impossible writing challenge to
write a character like Jay who like does display anti
black racism, like just does full stop. Is called out
to his face by Demetrius to the point where Jay
can't quite do it but like almost does have to

(46:45):
agree with him. But it I feel like it's it's
contextualized but not excused, which also has a lot to
do with rashon Set's performance. But it's hard. Yeah, I
feel like the context we get for why he's behaving
this way is not such that we would ever you know,

(47:06):
feel as he does towards this relationship, but you do
understand where it's coming from. I don't know.

Speaker 6 (47:12):
Yeah, yeah, I feel like the character who I wanted
to know more about but who is just extraordinary.

Speaker 5 (47:17):
Also is her mom Kinu.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Yeah, I also felt I was like, I want to
know more about Mina herself and like her pursuits an interest.
She says like, yeah, I'll go to college eventually. What
does she maybe want to study? What? What are her interests?
I do appreciate that in the romance between her and Demetrius,

(47:40):
they do have a lot in common. Mostly it seems
based on how they navigate the world. They have different
cultural backgrounds, but they have similar class backgrounds, similar professions.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
The thing that really stuck with me about what bonded
them or like that's manifest itself different ways, but that
they're both making very intentional sacrifices. We know that they
have both made They've both sacrificed the opportunity for higher
education in the interest of being there for kind of

(48:14):
their father specifically, which is like such a specific bond
that is like really really strong. That Again, it's like
the story makes you kind of wait to find out
you know this about Mina pretty quickly but you find
out when Mina goes to the cookout that Demetrius was
going to go to university and then ended up staying

(48:35):
behind because this mother passed and he wanted to be
present for his dad, which is like, I mean, that's
a that's a strong trauma bond to have with someone.
I thought it was like really thoughtful. I wish I
do wish that we knew Demetrius's family a little bit
better as well, where we only have like a handful
of scenes with Willie Ben, and we do get I mean,

(48:58):
towards the end, we get a scene with Demetrius and
Jay which is very impactful and like so much of
what the movie is about exists in that scene, and
then make it a scene with Mina and Willi Ben
that their relationship hasn't really been built to have that
same impact. It's more of just like a plot scene,
you mean.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
The one where she's like, where's your son?

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Yeah, that's sort of like the whole scene where she's
like where is your son? He's like, all right, he's
over there, and that's kind of the scene because they
it's like that relationship wasn't like kind of built quite
in that same way.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
I do like the birthday party scene though, where where
Demitrius's family is kind of interrogating Mina because they're fascinated.
They're like, wait a minute, you're Indian, but you're from Africa.
How could that be? And you know, she gives them
the context about how her family was brought their traffic

(49:54):
to there to build the railway, and she's like, but
I've never been to India and they're like, oh, that's
like us, We've never been to Africa.

Speaker 6 (50:03):
Yes, right, I mean that's the thing, right, which is
like all of these forced like forcibly displaced people, whether
through systems of enslavement or through colonialism or through colonialism,
and then what happens later, which is American capitalism, which
brings people to.

Speaker 5 (50:18):
The US and from the nineteen sixties on, like that
world where we are all.

Speaker 6 (50:25):
All these people of color put into intimate relationships with
one another on behalf of some other project, and we
all have to grapple with the fact that we're told
that we're not from the place. And we see that
right now in American rhetoric, right, which is like that
rhetoric that the Indian American or the immigrant is not
really from this place, right, and so you can so

(50:48):
easily expel them, and we sell that literal expulsion in
this film, which is actually from It's like, you know,
from thirty five years ago, and yet it feels so
relevant now. And the same thing for the fact that,
you know, the Black American Southern story is told not
only a story of people who are deeply located in
the South, but also as people who were dislocated from

(51:09):
a place that they never get to go to. That
story as a kind of parallel is very I think sophisticated.

Speaker 5 (51:16):
It's told very well in this film.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, yeah, because there's a contrast between the black characters
who are quite removed from their ancestral culture and Mina's community,
several of whom seem to be born and raised in India.
And there's a scene I think at the wedding where

(51:41):
I think it's Napkin gives a speech saying that just
because we're ten thousand miles away from India, we should
not forget our roots, culture, tradition, and gods. And that's
the other thing. Even though there are very few white
characters and they get very little time on screen, the
characters were following through the story very much feel the

(52:01):
effects of white supremacy that's constantly looming around them.

Speaker 5 (52:06):
Totally.

Speaker 6 (52:07):
I think the only white character is like, as you said,
the waiters, I think police officers, bankers, bankers exactly. They
represent capital, they represent coarsonality, which is really interesting.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Yeah, just evil systems us where we're seeing it.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
But yeah, the Indian characters have the privilege of having
closeness to their culture and being able to or at
least more closest.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 6 (52:34):
Or I would say like almost like a reenactment. It's
not even like a closeness. It's more like we will
re enact this to create a system of belonging for ourselves,
and that reenactment will also include the patriarchy, like in
case you're wondering like that, you know, like we're also
going to be your uncles who surveil you when you
go to Biloxi to try to have us love affair

(52:57):
like and these like you know, completely unfit, basy uncles
like come.

Speaker 5 (53:01):
In and try to beat them.

Speaker 6 (53:03):
And it's like such a striking story. In some ways,
it's a story to me. I guess maybe it resonates
with me as a person of the diaspora. Of the
way that diasport communities sometimes actually reinforce or actually create
new systems of patriarchy, because that gleasing of our borders
becomes more important in the place that we've been displaced

(53:24):
to than even the place.

Speaker 5 (53:26):
Of our home.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
Yeah, going off of that attack, and also how quickly
her uncles are to get the police involved. We see
that happen.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
And the cops are threatening to arrest Mina for like
soliciting sex, being a sex worker. Of course they're going
to arrest the black man involved.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
The cops are doing everything you would expect they would
do in the situation. But even on a longer timeline,
as infuriating as it is to watch play out, I
appreciate that the movie does go out of its way
to show that. I mean, it cuts from that scene
where Mina is defending herself to her parents saying, like

(54:12):
I think it was a line where it's like it
doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter, and then we cut to
it mattering to everybody in all of these really frustrating ways,
and seeing that, at least in terms of his business,
in terms of his reputation, that Demetrius does have more
to lose because of how black Americans are treated and
how you know it this rumor mill that's surrounding this

(54:35):
incident that had nothing to do with Mina or Demetrius
is going to possibly lose Demetrius his business. And just
seeing the immediate violent effects and then also the violent
consequences that happen and will not consequences they didn't do anything.
The violence that continues over time is infuriating and it

(55:00):
but it does. You know, when Demetrius confronts Jay, which
wasn't even planned, I mean that was sort of It's
Jay's fault that confrontation happens because you won't let Demetrius
and Mina just have a conversation, even though I think
Mina's like twenty four in the.

Speaker 5 (55:15):
Movie, Yeah, she's fully grown.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
Yeah, And that confrontation between them is I mean, it's
also two incredible actors, but it's so earned. And seeing
Demetrius and Tyrone have to go to meeting after meeting
after meeting, and you know, be gaslet as to why
he's losing his business and why his reputation has been

(55:40):
so thoroughly affected by this attack, you know, by Mina's uncles,
but also obviously by the police and by all of
these white supremacist systems.

Speaker 6 (55:53):
Right, and you can you can see like the difference, right,
which is like Mina is attacked on the basis of
her sexuality. She's like perceived as a prostitute. I've actually
written a book on this, which is like about the
control of women's sexuality and his is on the basis
of capital.

Speaker 5 (56:06):
Right.

Speaker 6 (56:06):
We got to take away the capital and is amazing.
I mean it was so interesting to me. I'm going
to go back to Mina's mom. Can you like who's
played by this amazing Indian actress, Charmeula Tagore. Everybody check
out Shamila Tigore, who is like, she's iconic, She's iconic
by the nineteen nineties. And so mir and Iyer knew
what she was doing by casting her in this role.

Speaker 5 (56:28):
And the mom knows that her.

Speaker 6 (56:30):
Daughter is grown, and she knows that what her daughter
is doing is not wrong. And she's mediating the relationship
between the father who's dug his heels in and the
community that's judging and you know, excluding her daughter and
you know, treating her like a sexual deviant, this daughter
who she recognizes in herself, Like that that relationship I

(56:53):
found to be really nuanced and profound, you know, like
there's so many relationships and the only really we haven't
yet really talked about is Mina's and Demetrius is.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Yeah, I like it, I love it. I think in
general they're very sweet and respectful to each other. Of course,
the basis of the relationship with Demetrius using Mina to
make his ex girlfriend jealous, he admits to it. Yeah,
and he says, yes, that is how it started. But

(57:27):
also then I fell in love with you.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
So yeah, and I also, I mean, it's not quite
the same level of like I guess strategy that Mina's
doing with Harry, But also she's not being very nice
to Harry Petel, who my understanding is didn't do anything
to deserve that. You know, I'm sure he got over
it over the weekend, but I still like, damn rough
night for Harry Patel.

Speaker 6 (57:50):
I mean, I didn't feel so bad for me Harry,
only because I was like, Harry probably thinks she's easy,
like I'm sorry, not a crude wade. But Mina is
seen as not the nice girl within that di sport community,
and so Harry, by taking her out, knows what he's
doing and then of course she exceeds that too, because
she's my like, she is my life goal.

Speaker 5 (58:12):
I want to be that defiant.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
I mean, Mina is so I just like for a
moment one so like specific and so herself and so like.
I mean, there's like that early scene right before they
go to the wedding where she, you know, it seems
like her her mother is kind of talking around mentioning colorism,
and Mina just says it and it's.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Like, sorry, it's just go dark skinned daughter.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
Yeah, but which again was just like I don't know,
like how many versions of that do we see, of
like someone talking around an issue and then there's someone
in the room who is just like, let's just say
what it is and go to this fucking wedding we
don't want to go to.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
And then yeah, cut to the Auntie's being colorist, saying
that she's not good enough for the likes of Harry.
So it almost feels like she's defying that colorism by
being like, oh, you think you think I'm not good
enough for him, Well I'm gonna use him and send
him packing then.

Speaker 6 (59:16):
Exactly, and I will just be exuberantly beautiful this whole.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Along the way yeah, yea. But yeah, overall with that
relationship between Mina and Demetrius, I mean also the sex scene.

Speaker 5 (59:33):
The way you have to talk about the sex scene.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Gotta even the scene where they're in separate rooms on
the phone with each other and they're both like just
splayed out on their beds.

Speaker 3 (59:44):
Had to me it was almost hotter than the sex scene.

Speaker 5 (59:49):
Oh that's definitely the best sex scene.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Somehow something about Denzel washing did being like what are
you wearing and charge requiring a T shirt is the
hottest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:00:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
And then like as that's happening, like her I want
to I don't know if it's like a silk or
satin sheet or something, is like.

Speaker 5 (01:00:08):
Slowly queen her sad feeling.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
The fact that she does not have underwear on, and
you're just like, oh my god.

Speaker 5 (01:00:16):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
And then and yeah, when they do finally have sex,
it is like, I just it's so like tender and sensual,
and I was like, hubba, hubba.

Speaker 6 (01:00:26):
I feel like that also kind of speaks to there's
so many beautiful elements in the filmmaking in the like
in the way we see both you know, both in
Uganda and in Mississippi.

Speaker 5 (01:00:38):
The colors on the screen.

Speaker 6 (01:00:40):
Yeah, the colors are crazy, right, And I will just
say like, as a person of color, the lighting in
this film is incredible because we can see the contrast
and the beautiful differences between skin color, which requires a
very skilled cinematography maker, Yeah, and cinematographer which is one

(01:01:01):
of mer and there's you know, characteristics of her films.
Is just the extraordinary beauty of what we get to
see on the film on screen and the.

Speaker 5 (01:01:10):
Idea that we get to see.

Speaker 6 (01:01:11):
You know, they so the number of scenes that their
skin is touching to show contrast but also to you know,
intimacy and contrast that is just like again something you
you don't get a sense of until you know. Nowadays
we hear black filmmakers talk about this often, right, which
is like so often in old films you don't see

(01:01:32):
good lighting. But this film the lighting and from what
I understand, they use different film for Uganda and for
Mississippi to capture the sense of the lighting. You know,
there's a kind of warm hue in Mississippi and we
get that a different warm hue when he's you know,
when Jay goes back to Uganda and he's holding the

(01:01:53):
baby right at the end, obviously, but yeah, and then
there's like, it's all sweaty. Sorry, I'm gonna go back
to the sex. It's all sweating, Like the sweat is good,
shout out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
To the sweat.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Yes, more sweat please, But no, you're totally right, Like,
because we are so used to in American movies, Western
movies in general, anytime a country in the global South
is depicted, it's almost always portrayed as this barren wasteland, dusty, dirty.
But like the version that we get of Uganda is

(01:02:28):
so lush and green as flowers everywhere, and it's just gorgeous.
So I deeply appreciated that. Also, back to the sex scene,
just for the flopping back and forth. Worth noting that
Denzil Washington, and this is pretty well known, but he
generally refuses to kiss white women in movies, Like he'll

(01:02:52):
avoid roles where he would be in a romantic relationship
with a white woman because he feels it does a
disservice to his fan base, many of whom are black
women who are so rarely shown on screen as being
romantically viable. Obviously, Mina isn't black, but brown South Asian

(01:03:13):
women are also typically not shown as romantic interests in
Hollywood movies.

Speaker 6 (01:03:20):
He does refuse to have romantic interests who are white women.
But one of the things that he describes is that
it's really about America, right. It's yes, his fan base
is often the black black community, but it's also about
the fact that the idea of a black man and
a white woman is so deeply ingrained in the deep

(01:03:42):
racial violence of America for sure, that white communities and
white viewers have an association with that relationship, with those
relationships that is just you know, tied to histories of
slavery and lynching.

Speaker 5 (01:03:55):
And for him, you know, being.

Speaker 6 (01:03:58):
Able to be his full set as an actor and
to serve the art requires not having, you know, to
deal with the weight of those that invocation. And that
was what was striking is the fact that he did
this film, you know so and in that sex scene
there is some real, you know, things that I would
have Again. I saw this film when I was really young,

(01:04:21):
and I think that there's like a nipple bite up
in there, Like.

Speaker 5 (01:04:23):
I think, yeah, you know, like there is, and you know,
like the idea of seeing a brown nipple. I'm sorry
for being.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Is explicit, but oh my no, we're all this is
the show.

Speaker 6 (01:04:34):
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just I just think that
it's really important, totally, Like I had just never seen
body like that.

Speaker 5 (01:04:41):
You know, it's just amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
No, it's incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
It's so hot and it's so like and you know,
like in that like imperceptible way that you can just
like feel when you watch something. It's I don't know,
it's just like it's a really well directed and love scene.
It's so good. There was an interview with Denzel Washington

(01:05:07):
in the last couple of years, I think twenty twenty four.
We're kind of just building on this. He was asked
why he didn't do more romantic comedies or romantic films
and singled out Mississippi Massala as kind of one of
the few he had done. And he I just thought
it was interesting to note that he corrected. He was like,

(01:05:27):
because I wasn't offered any because rom coms during the
time he would have been doing them in his you know,
twenties through forties or whenever. You typically do them as
a man, certainly not as a woman. Yeah, turn thirty
and you die, but but when he would have been
doing them, they weren't being offered to black actors at

(01:05:51):
least not the at the these budget levels that he
was working in in other in other genres.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Totally, anyone have other thoughts about the film?

Speaker 6 (01:06:03):
I just wanted to say, why do you think they
have to leave at the end? Who or what does
that do for you in terms of the storyline.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
I guess I was like fixated on their like the
commonality they had of having postponed starting their own lives
in the interest of their family, and it seemed at
least to me that like this was the two of
them who were already in love choosing to start their

(01:06:33):
lives and not delay starting their lives for other people
in their life, even if that comes with like I mean,
I think, especially well with both of their fathers, that
the goodbye is really difficult and doesn't happen in person
for either because it would be too painful. Even though
it's like you get those great like post credit kissing

(01:06:54):
scenes and you're like, yeah, they were it worked out,
it does feel kind of bittersweet too, because it's like
you know that this isn't their preference, but like at
some point. I don't know. I read it as like,
if I let my family stay in the driver's seat,
my life is never going to start.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
I felt that too, that they wanted to sort of
release themselves from the constraints that they felt about pressures,
societal pressures, familial pressures, things like that. And also they're
both young. Mina's twenty four. I don't know how old
Demetrius is supposed to be, but I'm guessing around the

(01:07:35):
same age, and.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
That Denzel is fully Denzel's fully a decade plus older.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Okay, Okay, got it. I wonder if he's meant to
be playing a character that's about her age.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
I think so.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Yeah, But either way, there if she's like mid twenties,
because they they hang out like three times before they're
like I love you, and I'm like, okay, that's that's fast.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
But that's those twenty something behavior. Yeah, exactly exactly.

Speaker 6 (01:08:01):
I guess I thought that there was like this feeling like,
particularly for Mina's family, and for Mina like she was
forcibly expelled from U Gonde as a kid. She's forced
to move, and Demetrius is, you know, forced to stay
home because his mom has passed. And then it's like
there's this one moment where they have like a moment

(01:08:23):
of consent or choice, which I liked the idea of.

Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
You know that like here.

Speaker 6 (01:08:29):
Peoples who have been displaced or held down or subordinated
and oppressed, and here was this idea that there was
some other vision of freedom where you choose to have it,
which I loved the idea of.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:08:43):
And then there's the dancing at the end, you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
Know, I love that.

Speaker 5 (01:08:48):
I just cry. Yeah, so good.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
And then and then Jay's like holding the baby baby, Oh.

Speaker 5 (01:08:55):
My god, baby, and the baby takes his face. Oh
my god. I can't, I can't. I just it's just crying,
weeping in the in the theater. Yeah, it was so beautiful,
so good. Yeah. How many kinds of love can you
depict on at the end of a film? That's kind amazing?

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
Yeah, so incredible, like it for almost every character, even
like things come full circle. I think, yeah, I think
maybe like the last thing, I think, just like going
back to something you said earlier, Derba, that I wish
that we had a little more with Keenu. Yeah, insight
into because I feel I feel like a lot of

(01:09:35):
it it is in the writing, but I feel like
it's more in Shre mill Tigre's performance that you have
these like like I don't know, yeah, that you get
the feeling that she really understands what Mina is feeling
and has felt that way herself, which I feel like
mostly comes across in performance, And it would have been

(01:09:58):
cool to see a little bit more of them together.
But again, it's like that's nitpicking at some point, because
it's like this movie is already successfully like drawing out
so many relationships, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
Doing so much. I agree, though I would have liked
to know more about especially Canoe's backstory, because we learned
so much about Jay's. And I also think it's worth
mentioning that, like so many immigrants to the US who
in their home country were highly educated doctors, lawyers, professors,

(01:10:36):
things like that, they come to the US and their
credentials are deemed not worthy and they are forced into
work that has nothing to do with what they studied
and things like that. And that's the case for j
where in Uganda he was a lawyer and then in

(01:10:56):
the US runs a liquor store. Not that there's anything
with running a liquor store, of course, but seems like
maybe he wanted to keep your super fronts. Yeah yeah,
but yeah, we do learn so much about his backstory,
and I would have liked to know more about Canoes
because was she born in Uganda? Was she born elsewhere?

(01:11:16):
What were her hopes and dreams, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
I think especially because she we see her as the
target of violence in that opening sequence by Idio means
regime that we see that and we don't really get
context for her relationship to you, Ganda feels like just
something that there is room for. I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
Yeah, well, the movie does pass the Bechdel test. I
think I kind of forgot to pay attention, as I
often do these days.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
It definitely does. There's a few I mean, it is
very often that women are either talking about Jay or Demetrius,
depending on the pairing of women. I definitely think there
was room for more women in the story, going on
to what we were just talking about. But it does
pass between Mina and her mother. I believe it also

(01:12:08):
passes once or twice between Mina and Aunt Rose, who
is Demetrius's who only gets one scene, but she's so lovely.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
She is quite a memorable character. Also between Mina and
her Auntie. They talk about milk they do, and also
Mina talks to her friend Tedisee, who is only in
one scene. I was hoping todise would come back, but
she said the scene in the bar, and she seems
to know Demetrius, So I'm like, why isn't she coming back?

(01:12:41):
Because I would have liked to explore that friendship further.

Speaker 3 (01:12:45):
I've writted out of this is like when she didn't
come back, I'm like, I feel like there's a deleted
scene with her somewhere.

Speaker 5 (01:12:50):
Yeah, could be.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Yeah, But onto the Bechtel Cast nipple scale, where we
rate the movie on a scale of zero to five
nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. Honestly,
in a rare Bechdel Cast moment, I'm giving this the
full five nipples. Hell. Yeah, I think it's doing so much.

(01:13:13):
I think it is handling the topics that it handles
with such care and nuance and specificity in a way
that few movies before or since have been able to do. Yeah,
it's just a great, great film and by our standards,
top marks across the board. So yeah, five nipples. I'll

(01:13:35):
give one to mir and I are. I'll give one
to her son, and I'm going to start referring to
Zora Mum Donnie as Myra and i Are's son.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
I mean, I think he's used to it.

Speaker 5 (01:13:48):
I will say, yeah, until like a year ago.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
Yeah, I think that.

Speaker 5 (01:13:54):
Yeah, and he was Mani's son.

Speaker 6 (01:13:56):
I should just you know, yes, incredibly beautiful rader, scholar
father who both of them, Between the two of them,
you get a sense of why their son is so
good at what he does.

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
Yeah, yep. And I'll distribute the rest of my nipples
between Charmila Ta gore So Rita, Chodri, Sunni Tera Porvala
And I don't know if that adds up to five,
but you get the idea.

Speaker 3 (01:14:26):
I'm I'm gonna be a huge bitch and go four
and a half because I know evil bad only because
I did one. A little more of kenure and a
little more insight into in a and I've been guilty
of this as well. But the it does seem like
the script is a little more interested in children's relationships

(01:14:47):
to their fathers, which is a common thing. Whatever. It
is a relatively small thing, but something that I just
wish we had more of the mother daughter relationship. Outside
of that, I mean, we've we've been saying it for
an hour and a half now. It is just like
an extraordinary movie. I've never seen a movie like this,

(01:15:08):
And the fact that this movie is taking so much
on dealing with it very gracefully and with nuance, and
there's like one of the hottest sex scenes I've ever seen,
Just like incredible. So I'm going four and a half
and I'm just going to make it easy and give
them all to Mira and I are nice.

Speaker 5 (01:15:26):
That's amazing, Deba.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
How about you, Oh, I.

Speaker 5 (01:15:29):
Get to keep on nipples. It's amazing. I'm going to go.

Speaker 6 (01:15:35):
You know, it's really interesting if you look in the
period that when this book and when this film came out.
You know, first of all, the film was depicted as
like a story of love between like a South Asian
or an Indian American and you know, African American. And
I feel like, if you think about it now, you
can see see so many other elements, like the story
of Uganda is so important in this film, and the

(01:15:57):
story of multiple displacements and the kind of divide and
rule that's part of racial regimes. All of those things,
for me, make it like I think I'm at four
and a half as well, and I'm at four and
a half, the only half being exactly as you described.
If you look in the same period, Bell Hooks actually
has like a really interesting essay on mir and IR's
film and on race relations in that time from the

(01:16:19):
nineteen nineties, from ninety two, and some of the feminists
of that period were critical of the film because they
felt that some of the feminist themes, like the complexity
of women's relationships or the stereotypical sensibility of the aunties
who are judging sureth the Childrea's character, that some of
the stereotypes were too stereotypical. I have to say now

(01:16:41):
looking back, though, that I find it to be profound,
like there is like some caricature sensibility, like when you're
in the wedding scene or in your but I don't
find them to be wrong, like aunties are aunties, like
they are judgmental.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
Sometimes they like that they'd.

Speaker 5 (01:16:57):
Be like that exactly.

Speaker 6 (01:16:58):
So I'm going to go four and a half with
the Only only because I wish that I could have
seen more of Shermula Tigre, because I love her so
so much.

Speaker 3 (01:17:07):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
Well, thank you so much for joining us for this discussion.

Speaker 3 (01:17:10):
Yeah, please come back please.

Speaker 6 (01:17:12):
I would love to tell me what feminist filmmaker we
can talk about next.

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
Helly incredible, incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
Where can people follow your work? Check out your books,
social media? Anything you want to plug.

Speaker 6 (01:17:26):
I'm on Instagram at Third World Women, and I just
wrote a book which was just came out in March,
which is called The Future. That was a history of
Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism, which looks at how communities
of women from across the Third World and women of
color in the United States. It tried to imagine a

(01:17:49):
new world where women would be free, where they would
have equality, where they would have access to equal rights
and sexual rights and reproductive rights, and how they work
to build that world and how perhaps unfore fortunately that
world has not yet come to be.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
That sounds fascinating. I can't wait to read it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
I can't wait to follow up with you about checking
out Va and irs work at Harvard. That's so cool,
That's like that just sounds like the most incredible curation
project that exists.

Speaker 6 (01:18:17):
I will also shout out there is a zoron mum
Bunny music video called Nanni yes uh, which I'm sure
many of you have seen where he is doing a
rap about Nanni's or grandmother's and the star of that
video is this incredibly famous, amazing celebrity chef and cookbook

(01:18:38):
author modu Or Geoffrey. And her collections are also now
held at the Sassenger Library at Harvard. So if you
want to see some dope South Asian women, go look
at this collection.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
Oh yeah, cool. I used to walk by that library
every day when I lived in Somerville to get to
Harvard Square the redline T station.

Speaker 5 (01:18:58):
No one goes to the li. I mean, like more
people need to go to that library.

Speaker 6 (01:19:01):
There's like great biopics and great films and great music
videos that could come out of the materials in there.
Angela Davis is in there, June Jordan. They're amazing women
who are whose papers are held in that collection.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
Shout out libraries, I know, shout.

Speaker 5 (01:19:16):
Out libraries exactly, true, free and open to the public.

Speaker 3 (01:19:20):
Yep, let's try to keep it that way.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
Yeah seriously. And then you can follow us on Instagram
at Bechdel Cast and you can subscribe to our Patreon
aka Matreon, where you get two bonus episodes. Every single
month you get access to our back catalog of over
two hundred bonus episodes, all for five dollars a month
at patreon dot com. Slash Bechdel Cast the best way

(01:19:46):
to support the show. And with that, shall we get
in our cars and lightly taps someone's bumper and have
a meet cute and then hots DEMI sex about it?

Speaker 3 (01:20:02):
Yeah sounds like a good time.

Speaker 5 (01:20:05):
I'm ready for my meet cute.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Yeah, seriously you Bye bye bye.

Speaker 3 (01:20:12):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by Me Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
And Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by
Sophie Lichtermann and.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
Edited by Caitlyn Dorante. Ever heard of them?

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
That's me and our logo and merch and all of
our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftis, Ever
heard of her?

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):
Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
was composed by Mike Kaplan.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
With vocals by Katherine Vosskrasinski.

Speaker 3 (01:20:41):
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree Slash
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