Sinners with Mx. Dalia Belle

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask 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 with the Bechdel Cast.

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

Speaker 3 (00:19):
My name is Caitlin, my name is Jamie, and this
is our podcast where we take a look at your
favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel
Test as a jumping off point for discussion. Kitlin, it's
a thousand degrees and we have an incredible movie today,
So hit them with what the Bechdel Test is and

(00:40):
then we'll just jump in.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Happy to do it. It is a media metric created
by our best friend in the whole wide world, Alison Bechdel.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Is our way of saying we met her twice.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yes, exactly, And it's a media metric. It has many
different versions. The one that we use is do two
characters of a marginal life gender have names? Do they
speak to each other? And is there conversation about something
other than a man. And we also like it when
it's narratively meaningful and relevant to the story and.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Today, we are I think it's been a while since
we have covered a movie so close to its release date,
but we've gotten so many requests for this movie and
we're very, very excited to bring a returning guest to
discuss twenty twenty five. They wanted only Ryan Coogler's Sinners.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
And our guest today is a comedian and cat mom
and you remember her from our episode on Tangerine. It's
mixed Aliabell.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Hello, Welco, yay, thank you so much for having me back.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Oh, we're so happy to have you.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Thank you for bringing Sinners.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
That's my specialty. I'm all about sin.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, we love sin we love sinning. Over here on
the Bechdelcast, what's your Since this is such a new release,
a recent film, there's you know, not much history to
be had with it, but what's your kind of relationship? Slash?
Maybe just like overall impression of the film.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
Uh wow, that's so much to unpack.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
So slash like vampire movies in general, I guess Yeah,
are you a vampire movie head?

Speaker 4 (02:22):
I am gay so I have watched more than my
fair share of vampire movies For the listeners at home,
I am also black. So you know, Sinners hits on
a lot of subject matter and history that's pretty intrinsic
and personal to me.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
H yeah, excited to dive deeper into that.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
Oh and also, I've had a crush on Michael B.
Jordan for quite some time.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
I mean, you're not made of stone exactly. He's just
one of the handsomest men alive.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, it's like, I'm just I guess that everyone on
the Zoom Call has a rush on Michael B. Jordan,
and he's and and here I mean, yeah, what is
better than Michael B. Jordan? Well two of.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Them, yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
So I didn't really watch any like behind the scenes things,
but there are some things that happened in this movie
where I'm like, how did you do that? I imagine there's
body doubles and stuff like that. But I'm like, but
sometimes they're fighting each other and we can see both
of their faces at the same time, and it's just
movie magic.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
I just hope it's not AI. I don't know. Oh yeah,
but I also did not look into it.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
I choose to believe they cloned Michael B. Jordan.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
I think that would be the responsible thing to do. Honestly.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Mm hmmm, yeah, yeah, like a like a the Prestige style.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
Only without you know, obviously without killing the double exactly.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yeah, I'm saying that he had a good two body
double named Percy Bell.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Okay, yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie?

Speaker 3 (04:00):
I saw it right when it came out. We had
just covered a couple of vampire movies in a row,
and I was not sure I knew. I guess I
was bummed. I think this was true for a bunch
of people. I was bummed that someone tipped me off
that it was a vampire movie, because I know a
lot of people were like, c Sinners, don't look up anything,

(04:23):
because it was not really marketed that way, which is
kind of brilliant.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
It was not.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
So I was bummed that I knew it was a
vampire movie going in. I wish I could have seen
it for the first time not knowing that. But I mean,
this movie is doing so much in a way that
I feel like I didn't really fully appreciate until I
was watching it to prep for this, because it's also
you know, it's a period piece, and a really thoughtful

(04:49):
period piece of that. Like, I just I don't know,
I really loved it. I saw it twice in theaters
and just sort of let wash over me, and it
was very fun. It was fun learning how this movie
was made. Basically, Caitlyn, what About You?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
I also saw this in theaters and I was able
to go in without knowing jealous that it was a
vampire movie.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
I thought the day after it came out and someone
I don't even know who it was, but I placed
a curse on them.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
I just like kind of stay off of social media
in general.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
And I also healthy talk.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
To people question work.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
I just like I managed to avoid any spoilers, and
I was like dazzled by the movie and the twists
and everything. And vampire movies are like a subgenre that
I tend to be quite into. I love I love
a vampire. We've covered a lot of them on the show, and,

(05:47):
like you said, Jamie, a few recently.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
The vampire movie that felt like most akin to this
one that I've seen is from Dusk Till Dawn.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Which Ryan Kogler cites as one of his inspirations for Sinners.
But yeah, similar in the sense that, like most of
the movie takes place at some sort of raucous nightclub
kind of place, and then Vampire's attack.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Did you think it's important to note that this is
a very different genre a vampire for sure, you know,
like we hit Nosferatu, the sort of creepy, mothball parasitic
type vampire. Vincent Pryce gave us the very dignified kind
of sexy vampire. Then we had the era of the

(06:34):
bisexual seducer vampire from an interview with the vampire. You
had the sparkle vampire of course. Brilliant innovation from Twilight.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, incredible.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, and now we've made it all the way to
cultural vampurism.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
So yeah, there's always innovation to be had in the
vampire space.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
So true, let's take a quick break and then we'll
get into the recap and we're back.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, I guess let's just jump into it because a
lot happens.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, and my recap is quite long.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
So there's a prologue with voiceover talking about people born
with incredible musical talent that can pierce the veil between
life and death and conjure spirits between the past and future.
It's a gift that can bring healing to communities, but

(07:43):
it also attracts evil ooh, foreshadowing. We're in the Mississippi
Delta in nineteen thirty two. We meet a young man
named Sammy played by Miles Ca. He stumbles into a
small black church. He's covered in blood. He's holding a

(08:06):
broken guitar. He embraces the pastor, who is his father,
who begs Sammy to drop the guitar and leave his
sinning ways in the past, and we're also seeing flashes
of something scary that has happened, but we're not really
sure what's going on. We cut to the day before.

(08:28):
We see Sammy going about his day. He lives in
a community of mostly sharecroppers who work on a cotton plantation.
Then we meet twin brothers, Smoke and Stack, both played
by Michael B.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
Jordan, and they're doing the amazing twin shorthand where one's
wearing a hat that's one color and one where is
wearing a hat that's another color. And I just twin media,
I was getting I will say I was getting burnt
out on famous men playing their own twins, because that
was happening a lot, like maybe ten years ago. But

(09:09):
when Michael B. Jordan does it, it's just something completely different.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
Yeah, it's a special street, it.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Is, and he does an incredible job of like building
out two very distinct characters. Like when I was seeing
it for the first time, I forgot a few times
that you know, it's the same actor.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
I think a lot of people did. They were like, wait,
does Michael B. Jordan have a twin that no one
knows about?

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yeah? Like it's like, nope, Rammy Mallick style. That's one
of my Like what Rammy Malick has a twin and
his name is wait for it, Sammy Malick. Whoa wow
to something I think about a lot.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
That's totally fair.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, doesn't Vin Diesel have a twin brother too?

Speaker 4 (09:45):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Really?

Speaker 2 (09:46):
But not identical?

Speaker 3 (09:48):
That's so wild to think of two Vin Diesels at
once that I don't know if I would want.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, I don't even want one Vin Diesel.

Speaker 4 (09:54):
I don't know. I'm here for it, but I would
be for us straight to be Vin Diesel's brother. But
not identical.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
That's true. Oh my god, Vin Diesel's fraternal twin. That
is a curse of sorts.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, in any case, Yes, there's one brother who wears
blue and that's smoke and the other one wears red
and that's Stack. They have just arrived back in Mississippi
from Chicago. We learn that they were bootleggers there. They

(10:28):
have a lot of cash from that, and they meet
up with a white man named Hogwood, who sells them
an old sawmill which they plan to turn into a
juke joint. And the twins tell this guy Hogwood, like,
our business here is done. If we ever see you
or your clan buddies on this property again, will kill

(10:51):
them parentheses more foreshadowing. Then Smoke and Stack link up
with Sammy, who's their cousin and who's going to play
guitar at the juke joint that night, and they start
getting everything else ready to open the joint, which they're

(11:11):
going to do that night. And I was like, oh
my god, that's the fastest turnaround I've ever heard of.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
It's a pop up. It's a pop up.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and they put together something incredible.
So good on them. I would not have been able
to turn that around so quickly, but I.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
Did enjoy sort of the thought experiment of if literally
one person says no to the Twins throughout this day,
the plan is pretty thoroughly fucked but they just I mean,
it's to Michael B. Jordan's. They know no one's going to.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
Say now exactly. You can't say now. Yeah, yeah, yes.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
So Smoke goes into a market owned by a couple
Bo and Grace Chow played by Yao and Lee Jion
Lee to place an order for catfish and to commission
a sign for the juke joint. Meanwhile, Stack and Sammy
go to the train station to hire another musician named

(12:08):
Slim played by Delroy Lindo.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
Also no complaints on this side.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Great casting. Love Delroy Lindo the voice Alion. Yeah, truly, like,
oh god, he's just the best. I used to I
wrote fan fiction about him in college, which wow, is
a lor reveal like erotic.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Fanfic or no.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
It was literally just fiction about like what do I
think he's up to at his house?

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Amazing?

Speaker 3 (12:36):
It was for like a class, But anyways.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
That's a beautiful excuse.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
I was just waiting for an excuse to speculate on
what he's up to and he was. Also I think
he should have won an Oscar for the five Woods
and didn't, and I will not let that go anytime
soon anyways, and.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
You shouldn't They hire him, and they hire a man
called Cornbread to be the bouncer of the juke joint. Also,
Stack runs into a woman named Mary played by Hailey Steinfeld.
She's a former lover of his who he grew up
with and who seems like he ditched back in Chicago

(13:21):
like you do, like you do, so their relationship is
a bit contentious at the moment. Meanwhile, Smoke pays a
visit to a former lover of his, a woman named
Annie played by one Me Musaku. They have a lot
of history as well, some of it is painful, including

(13:43):
a baby they had together that died. And Smoke shows
up he wants to reconnect. He asks Annie if she'll
cook at the juke joint tonight, and then they start
smooching and having sex with each other.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
A very horny movie. As for me, I mean all
of the we'll talk about this in the discussion as well,
but just the costuming in this movie is unreal. Everyone
looks i mean, I'm assuming period appropriate, but also just
so profoundly hot. It's wild. As every character is introduced,

(14:24):
You're just like, this is the greatest outfit I've ever seen, which.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
Is very, very true for the period. I feel in
African American culture to just always be dressed the nine.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah, the tailoring and this, I hope this wins her
another Oscar. But this is Ryan Coogler worked with her
on Black Panther and Black Panther Wakonda Forever Ruth E. Carter,
and she won Oscars for costume design on both Black Panthers,
and she should win again. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Everyone looks amazing, very hot. Yes, so they're they're smooching
and then and sex and sexing. Then we cut to
a mysterious white man who seems to fall out of
the sky and his skin.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Is burning again like they do, like.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
White people do. This is period appropriate.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yes, this is just a universal truth.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
There were cursed Irish vampires falling from the sky.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
This time he approaches a house and he tells the
white couple who live there, who are clan members, that
a group of native men tried to rob and kill him,
so the couple takes him in. Now, the chalk Taw
people show up a little while later and tell the

(15:50):
couple that they're pursuing someone very dangerous, someone who's not
what he seems. Because it turns out this man Remiic
played by j O'Connell is a vampire who attacks the
couple and turns them into vampires. Yes, and speaking of
quick turnarounds, the vampire incubation period in this movie seems

(16:13):
it's very sweat a matter of minutes.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah, yeah, as long as long as the plot needs.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
And if there was any question if this couple is
wildly racist, they are sooner to uh let a man
who's obviously lying and covered in like sores and boils
into their home than have a conversation with a native person.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
Yeah, and that's called white privilege.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah. Yes, it is covered in sores and boils and
somehow got in the door.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, and had to be invited in which they do.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah. That it seems to be the one rule of
vampires here. Although you get the garlic, you got the classics,
the classic garlic, the sunlight.

Speaker 4 (16:55):
Yes, yeah, they retain the classic.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, the stake through the heart, Yeah for sure. Then
we cut to the Duke Joint. It's opening up. People
are arriving. The clientele is entirely black, aside from Mary,
who does have some black ancestry. She says that her
maternal grandfather was half black, which I believe is also

(17:19):
true for Hailey Steinfeld as well, thinks so yeah, though
she passes as a white woman. We also meet Perline
or I think we've already met her. She's played by
Jamie Lawson, and she and Sammy are vibing. Then Sammy
starts playing his guitar and singing the blues, and then

(17:42):
we get like the sequence of the movie, the one
where we see people playing music and dancing from the
past from the future, with the same voiceover from the beginning,
suggesting that Sammy has this spiritual musical talent that was

(18:03):
previously discussed and this music seems to attract that vampire man.
Remic with him is the couple that he just turned
into vampires. This is Joan and Bert, and they all
show up outside the Duke joint saying that they are
musicians and they want to come in and eat and

(18:25):
drink and play music. Cornbread the bouncer and Smoke and
Stack and everyone are very suspicious of them, but Smoke
and Stack and some of the others kind of like
weigh the pros and cons of letting them in, of course,
not realizing that they're vampires.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Well, and also like they make it disturbingly clear that
they're like, will be right over there, so they're also
like leering nearby, lingering, yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
And they realize that they could use these white people's money,
so Mary suggests she goes and talks to them to
kind of find out what their deal is. And they're
weird and creepy, and it seems like they're about to
attack her, and I think that.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Like they specifically prey on the fact that her mom
recently died, because that was the one thing that I
was like, why did we learn that detail? I didn't remember?
And then it seems like that is like one of
the tricks.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Then a short time later, Mary goes back inside via cornbread,
saying like, go ahead on in, which is how she's
able to get back inside because she's a vampire now.
And she seduces Stack and they go into a room
and start having some more sex, but oh no, she

(19:48):
bites him and sucks his blood, which Smoke walks in on.
So he shoots Mary a bunch of times, but she
gets right back up on account of being undead and
runs off into the night, and everyone's like, what the
fuck was that all about? People rush to Stack's aid,

(20:10):
but he dies kind of in the way that vampires do,
and Smoke is devastated. They send all of the patrons home,
though people like Sammy, Annie, Slim Pearlein, Bo, and Grace
stay behind, but Grace wants to leave, so Bo goes

(20:31):
out to pull the car around. Meanwhile, Cornbread had gone
off to use the bathroom and he's attacked by the
vampires and he comes back. He's acting weird. He wants
to be let in, and then Stak, whose body they
locked in the room, starts trying to get out, pretending

(20:53):
like he's not a vampire.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
I love the shots where they're having like a conference
outside being like I don't know, Oh should we? I
don't know, I don't know, And then you cut back
to him and he's like going full vampire mode at
this like wild angle. It's just it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
He's like, I'm not a vampire? What are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (21:12):
Him?

Speaker 3 (21:12):
He was like, guys, come on, come on, what's the
where is that gould happen?

Speaker 2 (21:18):
So he bursts out and runs out into the night,
after Annie throws pickle garlic on him because she realizes
they're dealing with vampires, which means the plan is to
stay in the juke joint until sunrise and gather whatever
weapons they can in case they need to fight. Meanwhile,

(21:41):
the vampires have turned basically everyone who was at the
juke joint, so it's like several dozen people into vampires
and they're all doing an Irish jig. Back inside, Annie
has everyone eat a clove of garlic to make sure
that no one is a secret vampire, and it turns

(22:02):
out they're not. But then Bo comes back around, acting
very vampirey, and Remick is right behind him, saying that
he knows everything that Bo knows because the vampires kind
of share like a collective consciousness, and Remick says that

(22:24):
Sammy is the one he's after. He wants to absorb
this musical gift so that he can travel through time,
so to speak, and be brought back to his people.
Remick is also caring on about how this vampire group
is all about like free love and fellowship and family,

(22:49):
but actually their vibes are very sinister, and Remiic threatens
to go after Bo and Grace's daughter Lisa if they
don't let the vampires inside, so Grace starts freaking out
and screams like, come on in, you motherfuckers effectively inviting

(23:09):
the vampires inside, so they russian. A battle ensues. Vampire
Stack goes after Annie and bites her, so Smoke has
to kill her because he had promised that he would
drive a stake through her heart before she turned.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
Because Annie is a pragmatist to her core, she is like,
let's stop being sentimental. This is a vampire movie, which
is always my favorite character in the vampire movie, right, right.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
So then Stak goes after Smoke so that they can
be immortal vampire brothers together, and so Smoke has to
decide if he's going to kill his brother, can he
do it? Cut to Remick descending on Sammy and he's
a to turn him, but just then Smoke gets Remick

(24:04):
with a steak in the heart and saves Sammy. And
then the sun comes up and they watch as Remick
and the other vampires burst into flames and perish. But
the battle is not over because earlier, Remick had revealed
that Hogwood, the white man who sold the brothers the

(24:25):
juke Joint, is the Grand Dragon of the KKK, and
he intended to kill everyone at this establishment. So Smoke
gears up for another fight as he reflects on the
day before, we get this montage of all the work
that went into opening up the juke joint. We're also

(24:47):
seeing Sammy go into his father's church, the same scene
that we saw in the beginning of the movie. And
then the clan arrives at the juke Joint and Smoke
starts shooting them with his artillery of rifles and machine guns,
and he kills them all but is shot in the

(25:09):
process and starts bleeding out and seeing a vision of
Annie breastfeeding their baby, signifying that he's dying and joining
them in the afterlife. Then there's an epilogue where Sammy,
now an old man in nineteen ninety two in Chicago,

(25:33):
performs regularly at.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
This club and he's also a buddy guy.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
Very important detail.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yes what it incredible, I think one of the most
inspired cameos of our time.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
Also known as dead yes for those.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
And late one night at the club, he has two visitors,
Stack and Mary, because it turns out that Smoke never
killed his brother Stack as long as Stack promised to
never go after Sammy, which he kept his promise, and
Stack does offer to turn Sammy into a vampire to

(26:16):
make him immortal, but Sammy's like, no thanks, I'll just
die the regular way. And then he's like, but before
all that horrible stuff happened that night, that was the
best day of my life. You and Stack is like same.
That was the last time I saw my brother, and

(26:37):
for those few hours at the juke joint, we were free.
And that's the note that the movie ends on. So
let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
And we are back Dahlia in the grand tradition of
the show. Where would you like to start the discussion?
What's sticking out to you?

Speaker 4 (27:10):
Oh? Oh, there are so many places to go.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah, I know every time I'm like, oh this is
Is this a mean thing to do to our guests?

Speaker 4 (27:22):
Oh? A little bit, a little bit. There are so
many different things to choose in this film because it's
so multi layered. I guess one thing I would say
it does. It did strike me as odd because you know,
you have the grand montage scene that I think we
all took home with us in our hearts, but I

(27:45):
did expect there to be more to come of that
and a bit more exploration of that theme. So that
struck me as a little strange.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
You mean the scene where it's kind of like we're
trying through time and seeing all of the musicians.

Speaker 4 (28:03):
Yeah, and we just do it once. We just established
that it is a power that he has that he
just happens to have. I don't know that it's particularly
utilized to any meaningful impact aside from you know, incidentally
attracting vampire vampires.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, right, because there is mention that, like Remick says,
I want to absorb this power so that I can
like access people from my past. Because it's not super
explicit how old he is slash how long he's been
a vampire, but he makes reference to living in like

(28:47):
pre colonized by England, Ireland.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, and I think it's supposed to go back to
I was looking into because I was trying to figure
out like, yeah, this this movie's relationship with like time
in generational trauma is like you're saying, Dahlia, it's like
really really complex and also not at least for me.
I had to like do outside research to understand like

(29:12):
how much time was being covered because I guess canonically
the Irish vampire is from like the eleven hundreds, like
he is ancient, which is like interesting but we don't.
I don't think we technically know that, right, Yeah, I
agree with you, Dalliah, Like I think that it's such
a like it's it's the image that everyone takes home,

(29:36):
and I feel like the closest you get to a
meaningful payoff is Buddy Guy. Is that like he is
the character, which I do think is good. Right, It's
like he is the character who lives on and like
I really there is I don't know. I usually absolutely
cannot stand post credit scenes, but this one's amazing.

Speaker 4 (29:58):
Yeah, it's one of the very you justified ones.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
Right where it's like he's turning down eternal life and
I feel like, or I don't know, the way I
was like seeing the undercurrent to that is first of all,
that's a curse. We've all seen a movie. We know that.
But also that like he is immortal in a way
because he like lived to be able to make art
and like contribute to culture and like keep the legacy

(30:24):
of the blues music he was playing at the juke
joint continued, So it's like he doesn't need to live forever.
And that's like part of what is so sad about
the vampires is they didn't get to live long enough
to to have that.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
I don't know, yeh, And I think it also in
part this is very esoteric, but it does also in
a way play into an African sense of time, where
death is not definitively the end of life. It's just

(30:59):
a transition into a much larger past.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yeah, I just this is very scholarly of me, But
I watched an Instagram reel what Yeah I watch about
everyone that was it was a woman talking about the
African concept of time, and she's explaining that it's the
idea that like time is comprised of events that you

(31:26):
experience in the present and events that have been experienced
in the past, and because it's impossible to experience future
events that haven't happened yet, the concept of the future is.

Speaker 4 (31:40):
The future doesn't necessarily.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Exist right right, which I really like. But as far
as the concept of time, past, present and future in
the movie, the sequence in the juke Joint where like
time is being transcended via the music, I guess I'd
like to didn't think that much about it because I
was just like, Wow, this is so cool, and then

(32:04):
I forgot to do my job and think harder.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
But no, no, it's a cool scene that it achieved
its goal. Clearly it sticks with everyone.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yeah, I mean it, yeah, because it's like you're covering
so I mean again, it's like I don't know enough
history in general to say, like what the time period is,
but it definitely goes into the past into the future.
I like that. It also felt very cool that with
Bo and Grace, like their culture was represented near them,

(32:36):
and then there were the creepy white lurkers right outside
who I don't know. I feel like you're not supposed
to understand in that moment, but it's like part of
what makes them so horrible is like they want to
have that, but they can't conceive of having that without

(32:57):
taking it from someone.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
Yeah, and I suppose we may as well dive into
the cultural and racial component of it. I think it
would be irresponsible of us, not too obviously.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
Wait, what do you mean, No, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
I do think it's interesting that they did include the
Chinese couple, which was not a detail that I would
have personally thought to include, but it is apparently very
important historically the connection between the African American and Asian

(33:35):
American communities, particularly in the South at that time.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
I didn't know that. Yeah, I mean I learned a
lot about like this specific time in this specific place.
I knew it was the time of the Great Migration,
but I wasn't aware of I mean, I know that
this is like a failure of public schooling to some extent,
is how diverse these areas were and how diverse these

(34:04):
communities were, And actually seeing that brought to life in
a movie is like critical because there's going to be
kids who are being failed in schools right now who
will see this movie.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
And you know there's it has a role in it.
Speaking of being very scholarly, I read a piece on Medium.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Wow, I'm just getting all that. Wait, what is the
one thing more scholarly than.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Real aside from Wikipedia of course, scholarly journal.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
Yes, next thing you're going to like drop a TikTok
on us.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
I mean, look, there's things to be learned.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
I feel like that's foreshadowing. Wait, are we going to
hit a TikTok? We'll get there, We'll get there.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Maybe maybe No. But this piece I found to be
really interesting by a writer named Brian Vaden, who broke
down the motif of money and power and control and
the movie and how all of these things relate to
each other. I'll just quote this quote. We also meet

(35:07):
an Asian family running multiple convenience stores that serve both
black and white customers on either side of a segregated street.
Its placement in the film is highly intentional. It shows
how some communities figured out how to navigate and survive
between two systems, how to offer services and goods to

(35:27):
both without fully belonging to either. It's a quiet commentary
on strategy, assimilation, and the complicated intersections of race and
commerce in the post Slavery South unquote. Which the point
being that Ryan Kugler made so many intentional choices when
it comes to the motifs present in the movie. Because

(35:52):
I do want to talk a lot more about money
and currency and negotiation.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
And like that, because this Vivie very firmly says capitalism
will not save us, correct, And I just Ryan Cougler's awesome,
Like he both says that and directs billion dollar movies.
And you're like, yeah, it's working for me. I don't know,
it's complicated. I didn't realize because I didn't watch much

(36:20):
of the press junket for this movie, but that, like
Ryan Cougler gave a series of really great interviews about
various aspects of the movies, and they're like and there's
so much to talk about, but that this was like
a pretty personal story for him because he's famously from Oakland,
but he had his grandfather or no, sorry, his uncle.

(36:45):
He was originally from Mississippi, and so a lot of
this story was inspired by both the music and the
history that he heard from his uncle when he was
very young. And you know, says basically that he didn't
really think that much about what this period of time
would have actually been like in the way that no

(37:06):
one is actually really listening to their uncles until it's
too late kind of thing, but that he realized that
he had this sort of wealth of experience through his
own family to talk about this period of time in
the South. His wife, Zinzy Kugler, who I also learned

(37:27):
through researching this movie that their first date was to
see Bring It On in Oakland, which I love.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
I know, wait, like back in ninety nine when it
came out.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah, they've been together since they were like young. It's
very very sweet. So that's just a fun fact. But
that both of their families were really helpful in sort
of like building out the historical specificity. Ryan Cougler was
thinking about his uncles, he was thinking about the generation
before them, and I guess that as Zinzi Coogler also

(38:01):
had living elderly relatives who had also lived in the
South in this time, and that this was like very
much what he was pulling from. And you can feel
that like historical specificity here even in the middle of
a vampire movie, which is like who knows how he
did that?

Speaker 4 (38:20):
And I do guess this is the point where I
because I want you to give the synopsis first, but
I will now dive into some of my deeper connections
with the film.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Please.

Speaker 4 (38:31):
Similarly, my maternal grandfather is from the Mississippi Delta and
did move to Chicago as part of the northern migration.
Also may or may not have allegedly hit some ties
with the mafia.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
Allegedly, it happens, It happens, and we're not judging well,
as this movie explores, because of the cycle of poverty
and because of racism and class disparity.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
And also, like many black people, particularly of my generation,
I had some sketchy uncles I absolutely adored, but they
were not good role models. Sadly, big bed Bill, who
went on to be known as Sweet William, passed away
before he could show me the sights. There were floating

(39:25):
quotations there for listeners at home, and I feel like
the sites are alluded to in this film as well
for those of you who know. But yeah, so in
a lot of ways, watching the film, it did hit
on a lot of my own personal family background. So
it's very personal, very real to me. Definitely touched on

(39:49):
a lot of themes of my childhood and just the
legacy that has been passed down through my family. The
other side of my mom family is also Creole, so
we do also have an entire section of the family
that we don't speak to because they were able to

(40:12):
pass as white and chose to do so.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
And I mean that might relate to a conversation we
can have at some point about Mary Mary, the Hailey
Steinfeld character. But yeah, there's so much to dive into. Yeah,
can we talk about the motif slash theme of class, money, currency, trade,
and negotiation. So, as we mentioned in the recap, most

(40:40):
of the characters we see in this movie are black
people trapped in poverty. They are only a few generations
removed from slavery. Many of the characters we see are
sharecroppers working on plantations. We see them use currency called plantations.

(41:00):
Some of that's like paper money, some of it's wooden coins.
This is currency that was paid to plantation workers sharecroppers
that could only be spent at plantation run stores. So
it was basically just a way to trap black sharecroppers
in the cycle of poverty and keep them in debt.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
And as well as I mean, I feel like there
were a series of intentional shots of and this is
like kind of demonstrated towards the beginning between Sammy and
the Twins, where Sammy, like many young people, is focused
on being like I just have to get out of
where I am, and if I can get out of

(41:41):
where I am, I'm going to be in a better place,
because anywhere is better than here, right, Like the character
we recognize and the twins who have just spent a
lot of time in Chicago, they have the sort of
wisdom to be like, okay, But and then as they're
having the conversation, they're surrounded by how even though you know,

(42:05):
chattel slavery is technically abolished, they are passing through majority
black chain gangs. They're passing through prison labor, We're meeting
sharecroppers who are being ripped off right and left. Like
the whole environment of this movie is intentionally reminding you
that white supremacy is finding a way. Regardless.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
You do bring up a good point where the montage
of traveling through time doesn't necessarily have to be dissected
more since it is the theme of the entire film,
since you know, it is ostensibly a period piece, but
the reverberations of that period are still very much present

(42:51):
even right now.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Yeah, and there's that scene where Sammy is, you know,
he's telling his cousins, I want to leave this area.
I want to go to Chicago. He seems to think
that because there are no Jim Crow laws there, that
maybe he won't have to deal with racism, and the
twins are like, that is incorrect. And they've been able

(43:14):
to to some extent escape this cycle of poverty via
you know, bootlegging and organized crime and things like that.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
But it's also like, is it stealing if it's from
fucking scumbag white supremacists. It isn't. It is not, but
it does feel I don't know, let me let me
know what you both think. It feels like at the beginning,
the twins feeling is that money is the only means
of escape, and then the movie kind of dissects why

(43:43):
that is not true.

Speaker 4 (43:45):
Yeah, And really, what the theme is touching on is
this phenomenon of black capitalism and the assumption that we
can wealth our way out of white supremacy.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
Yeah, which is like a I mean it is. I mean,
I know everyone who made this movie is well aware
of this, but it does feel, in spite of taking
place ninety two years ago, still very like we're asking
the same questions now.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Absolutely, Yeah, because there are various conversations about freedom, how
to achieve that as a black person in the gym
Crow South, And there's a line where Smoke is talking
to Annie and he's saying something like, I've been all
over the world. We also learned that Smoke and Stack

(44:36):
were World War One veterans, and we're presumably overseas in Europe.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
See, this is on my public school education, not to
say private would be better. This is on my education.
I wrote down World War two and now that you
say that was like nineteen thirty two, No, that would
not have been possible got it, got it.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
But anyway, Smoke says that he's been all over the
world and he's never seen magic or ghosts or demons,
just power, and the only thing that can get you
that is money. First of all, he spoke too soon,
because he will be seeing demons very shortly. Second, yes,
money does give people access to power, but he seems
to be of the mindset that again, he and his

(45:22):
community will achieve liberation via capitalism. But we know that
capitalism is one of the major things that prevents black
liberation or liberation of any kind.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
And again, you know, it's important to note that the
reason the vampires are essentially invited in is because the
money that is being used by the black people it's
ostensibly not good enough. You can't keep the business open
on the black dollar alone. You also need the white

(45:57):
dollar and naturally have the Uh, we're going to go
ahead and continue saying white passing, but also, let's face it,
white the white woman who has this greater proximity and
comfort with white culture, who then feels that it is
safe and ostensibly perhaps even her duty as sort of

(46:22):
a white savior figure, you know, just perhaps incidentally named Mary,
to go out and bring in the white dollar to
ostensibly rescue or lift up the black community.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Right, it's also gold coins that mister Vampire has, so
it's it's this sort of almost like universally accepted form
of currency. But yeah, because we see a man wanting
to pay for his drink with the wooden nickels that
he received as payment on the plantation, and Smoke is

(47:06):
very reticent to accept them, and Stack and Annie and
pushback say like, we need to accept the money that
they have so that we can cultivate a space where
the patrons feel like they belong here. It's for them,
their money is good here. But there's like all this
kind of push and pull on what currency is acceptable.

Speaker 4 (47:28):
And worth Noting the earlier scene in the movie where
Annie's in her store selling groceries to children for random
scraps of paper.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Yeah, this movie has such a careful relationship with colonized
people's across a very wide spectrum, right where I think
that the colonize people that we don't get to know
are the native community at the very beginning with the
chalk Tak characters, the Chalktaw people we meet in one scene,

(48:05):
which I don't think is like you know, a malicious
choice at all, but it is. It does sort of
hit the point home that because the chalk Talk community
is introduced very intentionally in relation to this fucking clan couple,
that it would have been I think, like one of
the notes I have about this movie is that it

(48:26):
would have been very possible to introduce a chalk Tak
character who we get to know and who we get
to know in relation to everyone else in the movie,
because I think that this movie, we know is capable
of presenting a very diverse and specific community. I mean,

(48:46):
we know that because the people that are trapped in
the juke joint. We have the white woman in the
form of Mary, we have a majority black clientele and management,
and we have the Chinese family. And Yeah, one of
the things that I wish and and could have happened

(49:06):
is to meaningfully include the chalk Talk characters, because they
do appear intentionally, but not in a way that we
know who any character's name is or.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
Yeah, they're just sort of these vague, magical people off
to the side.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
I know about the vampire and are chasing him, but
we don't know how they know about or what the
backstory is there.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
Which is and it's a shame because it's like, this
is a movie that is open to magic. It is
a vampire movie. Yeah, and so it's like not bringing
in the chalk talk characters felt like a clear missed opportunity.

Speaker 4 (49:48):
Agree, But the other.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
The other communities we get to know here. I mean,
I think that there was a lot made of and
I have a couple quotes here about the choice of
presenting the black characters in relation to this Irish vampire
because the.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
Irish choice is very intentional.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Very intentional, and like, couldn't be there they are doing
the dance, and so as an Irish I was like,
let's let's fight out more. And Ryan Cougler, I mean,
he had a lot to say about this choice, and
so I just wanted to share sort of his expansion
on why he chose that, because I think it has

(50:32):
a lot to say about how white communities who have
been colonized make a big deal about having been colonized,
but ultimately aligned with whiteness over other communities that have
been oppressed in the same way. So Ryan Cougler told
Indie Wire, I'm obsessed with Irish folk music. My kids

(50:55):
are obsessed with it. My first name is Irish. I
think it's not known how much crossover there is between
African American culture and Irish culture and how much that
stuff's loved in our community. It was very important that
our master Vampire in this movie was unique and specific
as the situation was. It was important to me that

(51:16):
he was old, but also that he came from a
time that pre existed these racial definitions, so that he
would be extremely odd and that it would all seem
odd to him, but also that he would see it
for what it was and offer a sweet deal, if
that makes sense, and that the music was just as
beautiful so I mean, and there's a number of other

(51:40):
interviews he gave to this, but that was how I learned,
basically that the Irish Vampire was intended to be from
the eleven hundreds, when the English first colonized Ireland, where
this character is I think intended to be targeting Sammy,

(52:00):
coming from the place of I want to steal your
culture and your music because I want it to bring
me back to my culture instead of anything else. It
is from a place of violent assimilation, which I feel
like comes through in this movie through Christianity and religion

(52:22):
like the role that religion had in this movie. I
don't think I fully appreciated at first.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
Say I have a whole spiel on that. Yeah, I
mean pre the vampire attack. There are many moments of
this movie that sent her black joy. There's this focus
on community and music and dance and fun and letting
loose and sexual pleasure and things basically things that Sammy's

(52:52):
pastor father would consider a sin. And he very explicitly
says this to Sammy, where he is like, don't hang
around those sinners.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
That's the name of the movie. And then everyone cheered
in the in the crowd, yes, exactly the ticket bar.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
But this ignores the concept of joy as resistance and
rest and relaxation as resistance.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
And music and art as resistance. I feel like that
is what that's the whole scene. The quote unquote like
the scene is about, is about how black art and
black culture has a role in joy and resistance.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Absolutely, and I feel like a lot of you know,
organized Western religion misconstrues these acts of joy and rest
and relaxation and music and sexual pleasure and things like
that as sin. And of course there's supremacy very entrenched
in that in terms of when white people do things,

(54:04):
it's considered art and culture. When black people do things,
it's seen as witchcraft or hedonism. So obviously there's a
huge double standard there. But my point is that rest
and art and music and joy as resistance is often underestimated,
but it is very important and can be very effective.

(54:27):
But then we see the white vampires come in and
interfere with this night of joy and rest and music
and try to steal from this community.

Speaker 4 (54:40):
But I do want to know that there is complexity
to it. There is, and I feel we're noting this,
but you know, there is the obvious layer of the
vampires are coming in stealing, but it's more multi layer
than that, because Remick is offering actual currency and Remick

(55:04):
is offering to bring in his music as well, So
there is an exchange. It's not being like a segregation.
There is a cultural exchange that is attempting to take place,
and Remick is offering this ostensibly gift of immortality, but

(55:31):
at what cost. So there is something being offered, it's
just a steep cost do you make that exchange.

Speaker 3 (55:41):
Which, again it feels very intentional on Ryan Kugler's part
to establish space like negative space, but space between the
KKK and the Twins and the Blackmmunity and the sharecroppers,

(56:01):
where there are like he is like getting into all
of these shades of gray of Like there are communities
of white people who have been displaced from their homelands
who have chosen to ultimately align with whiteness, and that
is the vampiric quality of them. But they exist in

(56:22):
this separate, nefarious space that I don't know, Like I
don't I haven't seen very often addressed that there are
so many layers to what the characters in this movie
are dealing with, and that like the vampires are horrible
and evil and wrong, and they also are existing in

(56:47):
a different reality than other villains in this story.

Speaker 4 (56:52):
Yeah, they are in fact better than the Klan.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Yeah yeah, which is like a very low bar to clear,
but there they are. Yeah. I that that relationship I
feel like I had never or i'd rarely seen made explicit.
And also the role that related, So getting back to
like religion, the role that religion has as a colonizing tool,

(57:17):
where there is like a very specific interaction between I
believe stack they're both Michael B.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Jordan and the brand One or the blue one.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
I don't know one of them was a vampire already.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
Oh Stack, Stack is the one who turns into a vampire.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
Okay, so Smoke. There is an interaction that Smoke has
with the Irish vampires that felt in retrospect very explicit,
where they're saying the Lord's Prayer and they're saying it
very irishly. They're using trespasses instead of sins, even though
it's the movie Sinners. And then he says explicitly, like

(58:01):
I learned you know, I'm summarizing, but like I learned
that prayer from the people who colonized us. I hate
them so much, but I still find comfort in the prayer,
and then he weaponizes it against Smoke, and like that
sort of level of all of the aggressions that have

(58:23):
to happen over a period of hundreds of thousands of
years to get to the point where no one can
align with each other and that these communities that should
actually be able to help each other won't. And it's
because that displays Irish communities are aligning with whiteness because
it makes them safer, And that's like what Mary's character

(58:46):
boils down too exactly.

Speaker 4 (58:49):
It's essentially the safety of proximity to one's own oppressor absolutely, yeah, yeah,
and the invitation to become the oppressor.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Absolutely, which most people will accept because it will give
them some sense of power, even if it's not actual power.
They'll perceive it as, oh, and now I have power
over others.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Yeah, but Sinners explicitly makes it power that is tainted
and a curse.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Well, speaking of the characters who are women, I wish
in general that women were more meaningfully integrated into the story.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
Yeah, let's talk about it. Yeah, let's talk about it.
Who was to go first?

Speaker 4 (59:40):
I'm glad that we fully praised the film first.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
The movie is doing a lot of things right, no
doubt about it.

Speaker 4 (59:48):
This was not one of them. A great, very reductive
archetypes in my view. You know you have and I'm
going to mess this up, which is why I kept
my Wikipedia window open.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Hey, we all have, we all have.

Speaker 4 (01:00:12):
Exactly make no mistake Grace. So we have. Grace and
Annie are both maternal figures, which of course gives them
a special sort of status. Parlene, sort of your rudimentary,
undeveloped Jezebel archetype.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Yeah. Perline especially pained me because the performance is incredible
and there and like, you just cannot justify her beyond Sammy,
and that sucks.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
The one thing I'll say about her that I did
appreciate is that we see a representation on screen of
a woman receiving oral sex, which we almost never see.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
It's true I wanted to get off, but that's still
in really to Sammy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
To Sammy, Yes, yes, but you could also argue that
it's like this movie goes out of its way to
show female pleasure in a way that most movies don't
bother to.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
And specifically black female pleasure. Yeah, you know. I think
it's also important to note that Annie is not this petite,
little Hollywood style vixen, but still absolutely given sexual power
within the context of the film.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Mm hmm, absolutely to the point where it took me
by surprise that she is in a sex scene, just
because I'm so used to sex scenes in movies being
between two very thin people. Obviously, I'm not surprised that
anyone would be sexually attracted to her, like Musaku is gorgeous,

(01:01:57):
gorgeous person hot, but I was surprised that there was
a sex scene with a plus size woman.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
Yes, a plus sized black woman. With Michael B.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Jordan exactly because most movies cannot conceive of the idea
that a thin, lean man who's as handsome as Michael B. Jordan,
for example, would be sexually attracted to a fat person.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
Yeah, it shouldn't be revolutionary and yet right exactly an
American cinema definitely is.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
I mean, and Andy's character in general, I mean again,
it's I think that there are a lot of missed
opportunities with women in general. But Annie is my favorite
character in the movie. I think there is so much
to love about her, even though there couldn't should have
been more, but I really appreciate it. I mean, I

(01:02:50):
feel like her relationship to Whodoo does so much to
sort of bring us into the world of the movie
in a way that is very historically. They're living in
the South. Who do is spirituality that was originally developed
by enslaved people in the South that both honors the

(01:03:13):
time and place we're in and also is like something
about her that gives her authority. And she is not
dismissed for this. She is honored for it that and
and and other reasons. But it is one of the
major factors that whichever Michael B. Jordan she had a

(01:03:34):
relationship with. I struggle with both Smoke.

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
I can't believe you can't tell Michael B. Jordan's a part.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
I know that's one is blue and one is red.
No cancel, be canceled, be no, but that it's something
that Smoke defers to her for which is another. I mean, like,
I feel like her character, even going on off on
what we were just talking about, that she is the

(01:04:01):
character that is most connected to spirituality and is never
dismissed for it, as so often we see very spiritual,
witchier characters dismissed for She is right. She is by
a wide margin, the most pragmatic character in the story.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
And genuinely moral.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Yes, absolutely where I mean, And I think like a
clear demonstration of that that I hadn't noticed till, like
my last viewing was that she is both someone who
when the Irish vampire freaks ask well, why was Mary
allowed into the Duke joint, Annie is the first one

(01:04:44):
to say, because she's a part of our family. But
Annie is also the first to realize that Mary is
a vampire now and we have to get her the
fuck out, Like she is the only person in the
attire plot, who is able to see things for what
they are and also still love and feel And I

(01:05:06):
just I don't know, I appreciate her character so much.
The performance is amazing and yeah, I just love Annie.

Speaker 4 (01:05:14):
Yeah, somehow captures a white spectrum of black womanhood despite
her limited screen time and dialogue.

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
Yes, that's the thing, is like there, and I don't
hold it against the character that, like, the last time
we see her, she is very firmly a mother, and
we know enough about her to know that is not
how her character is defined. But there's so much we
don't know about her where like we really only get

(01:05:49):
a glimpse of how clearly I mean, like when we
meet her and she is like doing that interaction with
the child when Smoke comes back, we get a clear
indication that she's very important to her community, but we
don't really get to see very much of that.

Speaker 4 (01:06:07):
Yeah. Yeah, she gets to be mother, savior and murder,
but not a lot of time to be a person.

Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
And that fucking sounds Yeah yeah, well when you put
it that way, it sucks because we know her for
such a short time and it seems like, like, I mean,
it would have been great to see her with a
close friend, you know, just someone who she was not
actively feeling either uncomfortable around or beefing with, because I

(01:06:41):
feel like those are those are the characters who she's
mostly put around. It's like someone that she has reason
to feel a little uncomfortable with.

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Also when she I think the first time I saw this,
when she is bitten by Stack, Stack's the one who
tries to turn her and then smoke her. Lover has
to kill her, and he honors her wish of killing
her before she turns into a vampire. When she is killed,

(01:07:13):
my brain immediately went to like, oh, no, like is
she being fridged? But I think this maybe doesn't really
count since pretty much every other character in the movie
dies as well.

Speaker 4 (01:07:25):
Yes, so it is very thorough in the massacre.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
But.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Pretty much everyone but Sammy and then the immortal couple
of Stack and Mary when they show up in nineteen
ninety two, they're still around. But uh.

Speaker 4 (01:07:41):
It does also always bring me a special joy to
see black women survive cinema. Yeah, and we definitely do
not get that in this film.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
We don't get that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
Here, no, which it is really frustrating because if we
meet to like Annie and Perline are both such strong
con and not to pick one er fore the other.
But how Annie doesn't get out of this movie I
will never understand exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
She's the only person with any sense from the start.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
She has all the knowledge, she knows everything. She has
the best equipped to survive the movie, right, which again
the movie contextualizes with her background as a who do practitioner.
I also feel like this is one of the few
American movies at least that doesn't paint voodoo or who

(01:08:31):
dooo or any like African diasporic religions as some kind
of like evil sorcery, because that's what most of them do.
We talked about this a lot on the Princess Frog episode.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
Yes, yeah, that the villain, Yeah, like the villain of
the Princess and the front that. Yeah, there's a whole
song about it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
But it seems like there was research that went into
this movie about you know, who do practice and healers.
I'll share a quote from Wumni Musaku in w magazine.
She was interviewed and asked about the role.

Speaker 4 (01:09:11):
You promised us a TikTok video.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
Okay, excuse me, I'm working on it. In the meantime,
she says this quote. That was the key for me
with Annie finding her anchor and the source of her power,
which is her faith and love. Whodo is a practice
that I didn't know anything about. So we had a

(01:09:34):
Hoodoo consultant and I did a ton of research. Just
being in New Orleans, I met so many people who
are either initiated or have family members who are. I
would go to House of Hodoo. I looked into the
Voodoo Museum in Voodoo Authentica, I met with witch doctors,
and I read books about the arisius and their powers.

(01:09:55):
Learning that history as a Yoruba woman myself, when I
knew nothing about it at all, really opened up something
for me. It's a part of the message of the film.
Knowing who you're from, being in touch with your ancestry,
and learning how their purpose is now manifested in you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
I really appreciate that, like in a movie that is
going out of its way to discuss religion in spirituality,
that who do spirituality is separated from the religions that
are forced upon colonized and oppressed people, because again, I

(01:10:36):
think that again in a lesser movie, any spirituality would
be painted as a very broad brush as all religion
and spirituality is inherently oppressive when the reality is your
personal relationship to it, and also where does it come
from in your lineage? And sinners is careful to delineate

(01:11:00):
who do is a spirituality and a practice that was
created by enslaved peoples that came from Africa and built
upon And whereas when we meet the Irish vampires, they're like,
so there's this thing called Catholicism. We hate it, but
here it is, yeah, and like the relationship is far

(01:11:23):
less personal and all that to say, I mean, there
is so much going on with Andy's character and I
just feel like it wasn't fully.

Speaker 4 (01:11:35):
She deserves her own film. There should be a sequel.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Is there any reason Sammy and Annie couldn't have made it?
Because I understand that Sammy is not just himself as
a character, but he represents black art and black culture
and personhood and moving forward and all of these really
important things that the movie is talking about. But like,

(01:12:01):
why not Annie? She should have made it?

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
I know, yeah, yeah, it takes us a while to
meet her as well, and you know, I know that
you know, the story has a lot to accomplish, and
it is focused on the Michael B. Jordan's but I
do feel like there was room to include her more
in the story. I mean, I do appreciate that she

(01:12:26):
is given. She is the character with all of the
relevant knowledge on how to survive a vampire attack. And
I also thought it was interesting that at first she
thinks they are haints. She uses the word haint several
times and I had to look that up because I

(01:12:47):
wasn't familiar with what that was, but it's a term
in the Gula Geechee language, and then I had to
look up what that is. This movie gave me an
excuse to learn about a new culture.

Speaker 4 (01:13:01):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
And I appreciate that all because she says hate and
I was like, what is that?

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):
Absolutely? I mean, and it's again like we talk a
lot about like it is not the job of anyone
movie to do this, that or the other, but it
is a benefit of a movie like Senators that it
stands to introduce. Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:13:24):
It covers a lot of ground.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
Like kind of an absurd amount of ground, so much.
I also thought, I mean, another woman who we sort
of get to know throughout this is Grace, who, while
I think she is a very proactive distinct character is
primarily defined through her relationship as a wife and a mother,

(01:13:49):
and correct right where it's like legionally gives an unreal performance.
And I also think, and this is like possibly my
own like short sightedness, But I can't think of many
examples in like mainstream like blockbustering media where I feel like,

(01:14:11):
very often Asian American characters don't have regional accents for
some reason for sure, And this was like one of
the few examples I could think of in a like
big blockbuster movie where we have Asian American characters who
have very clearly regionally distinct accents and a clear relationship

(01:14:33):
to their culture of origin. And like, I don't know,
I thought it was wonderful.

Speaker 4 (01:14:37):
That's good attention to detail, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:14:41):
But like Grace, it's a great performance. I like her character,
but again, it did feel like it was hanging a
little aggressively on the wife, like and my wife or
and my mother ye versus anything else, because it does
feel like her ultimate question is do I go with

(01:15:02):
my husband? And the reason she turns against her husband
is because of her daughter, and we don't really get
to know too much about her outside of that. And
again it just feels like a missed opportunity to flesh
out that character more as a person that exists as

(01:15:23):
a singular being outside of those roles exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:15:27):
Yeah, and a similar vibe with Herlene as the you know,
necessary sexual liberator of Sammy or whatever. It just seemed
very odd and I don't feel like anything else was
explored with her as a person or character at all.

Speaker 3 (01:15:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:15:49):
And on the one hand, because I was thinking about
this right before we started, I'm like, I'm sure some
people might justify it as well. You know, it's nineteen three,
so maybe it's a statement on women's place in society
at that time. But I have a very hard time

(01:16:11):
going with that in the case of Perlein, specifically as
a blues singer. So the majority of blues singers, especially
women blues singers of the era, would have been extremely
independent women and by no means defined by their relationship

(01:16:33):
to any man.

Speaker 3 (01:16:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
And we do learn that she is married, because she
tells Sammy that when he's like kind of approaching her.

Speaker 3 (01:16:43):
Yeah, but it might as well have not have happened.
I feel like, as far as I like, I feel
like that's to establish her as the Jezebel, but it
doesn't pay off in any meaningfully way.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
That's what I mean. And also like, you know, why
why can't she be one of these like musicians who
has this of mystical abilities to connect past and present
and things like that. But I guess only Sammy gets.

Speaker 4 (01:17:09):
She's very propified.

Speaker 3 (01:17:12):
Yes, yes, and like and and again it sucks because
it's like the performance that Jamie Lawson gives, especially like
in the musical portion, is unreal. I feels like so
many of the things that you would want is there,
Like where okay, she's unhappy in her marriage, or like
she's whatever, Like she receives pleasure as we see she

(01:17:37):
goes a woga, she comes so hard, she's like, I
have to give a full blown musical performance, and so
so many of us have felt that way and been
unable to deliver what she does. And so it's very
cathartic watching a woman come and be like and I
can show you how it feels. It's great, like it's

(01:17:58):
it's so great, But we don't have enough for her
to be a full character, because we can really only
name two or three things about her, and I feel
like so much of that comes down to like, it's
a great performance, but what do we know about her?

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
What it comes down to is that this movie is
more concerned with the Smokestack Twins and the Sami characters,
and so they're definitely they get most of the screen
time and the important narrative arcs and all of that.
And then that's just part of a larger problem of

(01:18:35):
there just not being enough movies that center black women,
and especially ones that explore the themes that this movie
explores as far as like black liberation and what does
that look like? And black joy and what does that
look like? And things like that, and you know, it's
again we always say it's not any one movie's job

(01:18:55):
to represent everything and explore everything worthing, but in this
movie it does feel noticeable. And also this kind of
is a movie about fathers and sons because I mean
smoke and talking about their father.

Speaker 4 (01:19:15):
And do we even mention Sammy's mom? No?

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):
Do we meet her?

Speaker 3 (01:19:20):
No, we don't even know. We don't know if she's living,
dead existence.

Speaker 4 (01:19:25):
Yeah, there's no reference to her at all.

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
Maybe he felt from the sky, we don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:19:30):
Yeah, he just came forth from his father's preaching.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
I guess yeah, immaculate conception question Mark.

Speaker 4 (01:19:37):
Yeah, I feel like there's an extremely controversial statement, but
I would be willing to do with one less Michael B.
Jordan in favor of do you have one fully developed
female character?

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
I agree? I agree, and I also think, like I
love Twin inspired tension, but we are not exploring like
what if he had a fra Turtle twin who was
a woman, Like how would that mix things up? I? Yeah,
And this is like sort of goes back to what
my irritation with Twin stunt casting is is that it

(01:20:13):
is like, well, instead of developing other actors or perhaps women,
because outside of Lindsay Lohan, most of the doubled actors
are men, they're sort of like, what if we had
two movie stars instead of one? And this movie is
not above that?

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
Jamian, you're forgetting about the Vanessa Hudgens Princess Switch movies.

Speaker 4 (01:20:37):
Forget this right.

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
You're right, and I have seen them all. That's embarrassing. Yes, Okay,
I retract my statement, but I do feel like sometimes
there is a tendency where it's like it's fun, and
I often like it, but you know, sometimes it's like, well,
what if we could have two movie stars instead of one,
and movie stars tend to be men in a movie

(01:21:01):
that has a clear invested interest in intersectionality, I do
feel like women receive the short shrift, which again is
like this movie is doing so much, it cannot do everything.
It's not fair to lay at the feet of Mike
of not Michael B. Jordan, He's already doing so much
of Ryan Kugler to do everything. But of every intersection

(01:21:26):
presented in this movie, it does feel like women are
generally and Black women specifically, don't have the presence and
the complete narrative arcs that they should have. We get
the beginning of a lot of interesting arcs and then
they die.

Speaker 4 (01:21:46):
Yes, so.

Speaker 3 (01:21:49):
I don't love that. I did want to talk about
I know that it's hot and we're going over time,
but I did want to just touch on some of
the conversation around the release of this movie. Yes, I
have stuff on this as well, because there is a
bunch to talk about. I think that a lot of
what I remember seeing and what demonstrates a clear persistent

(01:22:15):
racism in the way that not just movies are promoted
but covered is how I mean Sinners is again, it's
doing so much because not only is it a major
blockbuster tent pole written and directed by a black writer director,
it is also an a ritual story which we are

(01:22:38):
seeing so little of. And by all metrics, it did incredibly.
This was a writer director who is beloved, who historically
has always had majority black casts, and the movie did well.
People went out to see it. It broke a number
of records I mean sort of run down the list

(01:23:02):
of but like specifically in recent history for original stories,
because we've been really plagued by IP stories for a
long long time and this felt like to me at
least that like Ryan Coogler had done his time in
the like IP world, and here is this original story
that he's writing and directing, and it was doing incredibly.

(01:23:24):
It got a ton of word of mouth marketing. It
made three hundred and sixty six million dollars at the
global box office. It was incredible. But what we saw
in terms of how it was covered was a lot
of like dubiousness of like will Sinners be profitable at
the box office in ways that you just like would

(01:23:47):
not see four blockbuster ten polls written directed and starring
white actors, directors, writers.

Speaker 4 (01:23:55):
I mean, it's tradition with blacks andem at this point.

Speaker 3 (01:23:59):
True, true, I was just like asking the most bad
faith questions possible to undercut someone's success.

Speaker 4 (01:24:05):
Yeah, phenomenal black directors and writers are always treated like
toddlers trying to throw a ball for the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
The New York Times and Fuck Them was very guilty
of this variety a few others. But it's also not
surprising that this movie was so popular because ample money
was spent on marketing to promote this movie, which often
does not happen with movies by and about marginalized people,

(01:24:34):
because Hollywood will assume that no one wants to see
that movie, so they don't promote it enough. And because
it wasn't well promoted, no one knows about it, and
that's why no one saw the movie. So it becomes
this like self fulfilling prophecy that has these sinister reasons
behind it. But this movie was well promoted and a

(01:24:55):
lot of people saw it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:56):
Yeah, even when it was well promoted, they're like, well,
should we have on that, and you're like, yeah, everyone
loved it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
And then also worth noting is the deal Ryan Kugler
was able to get for this movie, which was first
dollar gross, which means that he receives a percentage of
gross box office revenue starting from like day one of
the movie's release. So typically it would be something like

(01:25:28):
the studio waits until the film starts to turn a
profit and like make its budget back. But in this case,
he was making money off the movie from like minute one,
and that's.

Speaker 3 (01:25:39):
Just like powerful director shit too, where it's like and again,
it's like not something that we it's frustrating because it's
not something that we frequently see with black directors that
Ryan Cougler did have and was turned against him because
there's a number of examples of like, well, part of

(01:26:01):
the reasons that Sinners might not turn a profit at
the box office is because the writer director has this
kind of deal, and so it's just like at every
single step he's being undercut, even when he is getting
the kind of deal that he objectively deserves. It's being
like painted as a craven selfishness when no one would

(01:26:24):
say that shit to Scoresese or whoever else any white director.
But in spite of all of that, the movie did
terrifically at the box office. It broke all of these
records for original stories during a time that desperately needs
original stories doing well at the box office, there was

(01:26:48):
a fair amount of fan backlash to the way these
stories were being covered. There were also a number of
directors who spoke out in support of Ryan and like,
why the fuck are we talking about this this way,
including weirdly, Ben Stiller. I'm like, so, Ben, there's us

(01:27:08):
saying Ben Stiller in the Center's episode for some reason.
And I guess I'm good for that. But I am
at very least glad that that conversation was being like
noticed and had, because it was really a great jous Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
For sure, to go back really quick to the deal
that Ryan Coogler made with the studio. In addition to
the first dollar gross, he also got final cut privileges,
which is rare, especially for a black director, and then
he also got ownership of the copyright of the film

(01:27:45):
twenty five years after its released, so basically he will
own the rights to this movie again impressed after twenty
five years, which is also quite rare, And I just
I hope this sets a precedent for other marginalized filmmakers
because the directors who do tend to get this deal
are cis white men, and.

Speaker 3 (01:28:07):
Then just chatting at a few other people in the
production where while I do like this movie is ultimately
centered on and prioritizing men, we do have. We have
the producers. We have Zinzy Kugler, Ryan Kugler's production partner
and spouse they famously saw Bring It On Together in Oakland.

(01:28:31):
We also have a cinematographer, Autumn Gerald Archipa, who is
also from California, has been working for some time, mostly
with Ryan Coogler and Gia Coppola. I don't know, but
she is historically the first black woman to ever direct

(01:28:51):
a movie for Imax or to be a director of
photography for Imax, which is both amazing and while that
it took that long. And then also we have I
just wanted to again shout out the costumer who is
just like a famous figure already, but Ruth E. Carter,

(01:29:12):
who has won two Oscars with Ryan Cougler. I believe
she's the first black woman to win for Best Costume Design.
But she's also a frequent collaborator with Spike Lee and
Steven Spielberg. Movies we've covered that include her work Our
Love in Basketball. She also has done do the right thing.

(01:29:35):
What's love got to do with it? Selma Dolomite is
my name coming to America like she's a legend. So well,
I do think that this is ultimately a joint that
focuses on men. There is at least a historical priority
of Ryan Cougler behind the scenes to include women at

(01:29:56):
the highest levels.

Speaker 2 (01:29:57):
For sure.

Speaker 4 (01:29:58):
Definitely chose very powerful women. And again, even in our
critique of their overarching character development, the fact that they've
still had so much power in their presence and time
on screen regardless says a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:30:19):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
Yeah, that's pretty much all I had. Does anyone want
to have anything else they'd like to talk about?

Speaker 3 (01:30:27):
That's that's all I add.

Speaker 4 (01:30:28):
Yeah, I think we covered quite a bit.

Speaker 3 (01:30:30):
It's true, we're all drenched in sweat, and I feel
like we've fully had the discourse. Yeah, does this movie
pass the backdel test? I think maybe on a technicality
once or twice, But we really don't have a lot
of women in conversation about not either various Michael B.

(01:30:51):
Jordan's or vampires that are men. I think in general, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
It's a lot of men talking to each other.

Speaker 4 (01:31:00):
About man business, Yes, about.

Speaker 3 (01:31:02):
About and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
It is very little women interacting with each other.

Speaker 3 (01:31:07):
Little women.

Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
Yes, honestly, this is another movie where I forgot to
pay attention to Bechdel test passing.

Speaker 3 (01:31:17):
I think that it technically does, but like, I don't know,
like I'm not going to be like Sinners. I can't
believe like this movie is doing so so much. But
women do kind of fall into the rare view in
terms of like their relationships with like their characters and

(01:31:37):
their relationships with each other does feel like a big
missed opportunity, which brings.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
Us to the Bechdel cast nipple scale, in which we
rated the movie zero to five nipples, examining it through
an intersectional feminist lens. I'll go with four again. The
movie left some things to be desired when it comes
to the black women characters, but as we've discussed, this

(01:32:04):
film accomplishes a lot of great things. And I particularly
love vampire movies, horror movies, genre movies in general that
center marginalize people and communities, because so much Hollywood genre
film focuses on cis white men, so it's very refreshing

(01:32:24):
to not see that. So four nipples and I'm giving
them to any Prolene Grace, and then one to the
music which slaps so fucking hard in this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:32:39):
I'm going to give this movie four nipples as well.
And I do think that ultimately the areas where I
really wish we had seen more characterization were with the
women characters writ large, specifically black women characters, and the
chalk talk characters also felt like a big missed opportunity.

(01:33:00):
One movie can't do anything, but it felt a little
frustrated to have these characters there and very knowingly included
in this very specific moment in time, and then not
built out upon.

Speaker 4 (01:33:13):
More with so much potential, Yes to do.

Speaker 3 (01:33:17):
So absolutely and again just like this movie is touching
on so much that it couldn't possibly resolve everything. Ultimately,
I wanted more Annie, yeah, and I wanted a chalk
talk character we got to know so but but nonetheless,
this movie is doing so much more than most dows

(01:33:37):
and is also wildly entertaining. Is a genre movie did
incredibly four nipples. I'm going to give two to Annie,
I'm going to give one to Grace, and I'm going
to give one to cinematographer Autumn Duould Archapa Dollia.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
How about you?

Speaker 4 (01:33:57):
So I was going to go Withles, but given the
additional details of the production staff. I think that does
earn the film an extra nipple, an extra half nipples.
So I'm going with four and a half nipples. And
I know, you know, the production staff isn't necessarily definitive

(01:34:21):
of the story itself or how it was told, but
I think overall there was a lot of attention to
intersections in a very complex and multi layered way. So
I give the whole cast and crew collectively they can

(01:34:41):
share four and a half nipples.

Speaker 2 (01:34:43):
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us again for
this discussion.

Speaker 4 (01:34:48):
Absolutely, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:34:51):
We were so excited to have you back.

Speaker 4 (01:34:52):
And not discussing this film with like some Super Mayo person.

Speaker 3 (01:34:58):
Which which was our intent. We want to to bring
on a British white guy, and then we're like, wait.

Speaker 4 (01:35:04):
A second, that might be inappropriate.

Speaker 3 (01:35:09):
Dulia, Thank you so much for joining us again. Please
come back anytime, bring us any movie lay pleasure. And
where can we follow you and your work online?

Speaker 4 (01:35:19):
Yes, so for comedy, which is what I want people
to know me for. Please follow me on Instagram at
mix Dahlia bell. I also shit post on Blue Sky
from time to time. I know, and if you want
to get way too much insight into my actual brain.

(01:35:42):
You can make the mistake of following me on threads.
All of that is at Mixed Dahlia Bell because I'm
narcissistic and my manager insists that I have a strong brand.

Speaker 3 (01:35:53):
In that order same you can follow us also land
Instagram at Bechdel Cast. You can also contribute to the show.
We have our Patreon aka Matreon, where for five dollars
a month you can sign up support the show and
listen to two bonus episodes a month on a theme

(01:36:17):
of our choice and sometimes yours, and get access to
over I think nearly two hundred at this point bonus episodes.
So if you're like, if you've run out of episodes
on the main feed, there's a place, There is a community,
there is a whole expanded universe, so join us over
there too.

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
And with that, should we get out our guitars and.

Speaker 3 (01:36:45):
Oh yes, oh wait, I thought to say, like deis
ex daddy guitar. With that, deis because we're told at
the beginning, Okay, okay, don't that didn't resonate I? Okay,
we're told at the beginning it is a famous musician's guitar.
And then at the end, Michael V. Jordan is like, actually,
that's my daddy's guitar. Oh, and it's they say daddy guitar, they.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
Say, it's Charlie Patton's guitar. Yes, And then Smoke is like, no, Sammy,
that was a lie.

Speaker 3 (01:37:14):
It's our follow Let's just end the episode. Let's end
the episode, Dad, I was.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
I loved it, Jamie, I loved it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:20):
It's fine.

Speaker 4 (01:37:20):
I love you both. I love you both so much.

Speaker 3 (01:37:23):
We love you, We love you so much. Okay, bye,
bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia,
hosted and produced by Me, Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 2 (01:37:36):
And Me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by
Sophie Lichtermann.

Speaker 3 (01:37:41):
And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them?

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
That's me and our logo and merch and all of
our artwork, in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever
heard of her?

Speaker 3 (01:37:52):
Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
was composed by Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrasinski.

Speaker 3 (01:38:00):
And especial thanks to the one and only Aristotle Ascevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:38:04):
For more information about the podcast, Please visit Linktree Slash
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