The Color Purple (1985) with Ashley Ray

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi listeners.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Just a quick tour plug at the top of the
episode if you haven't heard. We are going on tour
in early February twenty twenty four, and for the most part,
Jamie and I are covering Barbie. So step outside your mojo, dojo,
Casa house and come see us live. First, we will

(00:23):
be in San Francisco for another show at SF Sketchfest.
This will be February first. Then we're doing two shows
in Sacramento on February second. We are doing Barbie plus
Wolf of Wall Street because we needed to double up
on Margot Robbie movies, so come to one or both

(00:45):
of those. Then we are heading to Texas. We are
doing a show in Dallas on February third, and then
heading to Austin for a show on February fifth, and
then we're coming back around to call and doing a
show in San Diego on February tenth. More details and

(01:06):
tickets are on our link tree. That's link tree slash
Bechdel Cast. Guess what, These tickets make a great holiday
gift for a loved one or for yourself, So grab
those tickets come see us live. We always do special
things at the live shows, so you don't want to
miss them. We're so excited for this and we will

(01:27):
see you there.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
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, zeph and
Vast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlin, will you write to me if
someone never separates.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Us, not if Danny Glover has anything to say about it.
And that's a great example of something that us past.
The Bechtel Test.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, it started out strong, but then.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
I fucked it up. It's okay, I fucked it up.
I'm sorry, better like next time. That's why I feel
every time you're like, well, this is in no way
reference to this movie. But like sometimes you're like, oh,
this movie's gonna be about women, and then it isn't,
and you're like, well, we'll get him next time time.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
We'll try again.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah. I guess the name of the movie was John
Tucker Must Die. But I didn't expect that they would
only talk about him. It was shocking. Well, welcome to
the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Lovetis.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
My name is Caitlin Drante, and this is our show
where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point. The
Bechdel Test is a media metric created by co created
by really Allison Bechdel and Liz Wallace. It's known as

(02:58):
the Bechdel Wallace Test in some circles, and it first
appeared in Alison Bechtel's comic Decks to Watch Out for,
examining how women don't really ever talk to each other
in movies. And there are many versions of the test.
The one that we observe is this two characters of

(03:20):
a marginalized gender must have names, they must speak to
each other, and their conversation has to be about something
other than a man, and ideally it's a conversation with
substance and not just like throw away dialogue. And that's
the test.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
There it is. And it was also written originally not
even just about women in general talking, but queer women talking, yes,
which is relevant to the discussion we're going to have today.
Oh yeah, yeah, although it should be more relevant, but
I guess we'll talk about that when we get there.
But yeah, we have a much requested episode coming out

(03:58):
today that we've been sitting on for quite some time.
We're covering the nineteen eighty five adaptation of The Color Purple,
directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the novel by Alice Walker,
starring Whoopee Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, among many other
wonderful actors. We decided we were gonna sit on this

(04:19):
episode until the new adaptation came out, which is technically
and I don't know, we can get into the adaptation
wormhole that we're getting to, where it's like an adaptation
of a book, of a movie, of a Broadway musical
and now it's the movie. It's kind of like a
Hairspray kind of narrative. Weird really, but that movie was
announced five years ago, so we've been waiting for this

(04:41):
episode for a long time. As you're listening to it,
I believe that The Color Purple, the twenty twenty three
musical version, comes out this week. So we have a
wonderful returning guest to discuss this film with us. Let's
get her in the mix.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
We do. She's a comedian host of TV I say
and you know her from our episode on Secretary. It's
Ashley Ray. Hey, welcome back, thanks.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
For having me back. I am really excited to do
this movie. It's a black classic, it's something you like
grow up watching.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
So I'm ready.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
I'm excited. I feel not quite as ready just because
there is so much like context, like context Corner is enormous. Yes,
there's lots of production stuff and adaptation stuff, and I
was like, I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Read the book. I'm pumped. I think between the three
of us, like, we can make this happen.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
We're gonna yeah, we're gonna piece this thing together.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
We will.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
No.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
I'm very excited. So, Ashley, what's your relationship with this
movie and with the book too.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah. I saw the movie before the book because it
came out before I was born. Uh, And in my household,
I think like when you have a black mom, you
are just like fed this movie as soon as you're
able to understand what a screen is. I can't even
tell you the first time I watched The Color Purple.
I just remember like my mom and aunts like quoting

(06:02):
it constantly saying, you know, hap, oh, who is this woman?
And you know, repeating the all my life I had
to fight and it becomes like a family in joke
for every black family. And it wasn't probably until middle
school that I read the book. I was finally like, oh,
I should see what this is all about. We were
in school like talking about this sort of anger over

(06:24):
Steven Spielberg directing it in that backlash. So I finally
read it and I was like, oh, this is very different.
I understand now that I in the movie is is
a lot I think for a young person to watch.
It is still very graphic, even though it is Steven Spielberg,
But the book doesn't hold back. The book is just

(06:45):
a lot more graphic. And that's when I started to
really understand Alice Walker as a writer. And then I
became one of those people who I think anyone kind
of has those phases with this movie where you like,
love it, and then you learn more about it, and
then you're like, oh, I see the problems, and then
you come back around to wait a second. This is
a brilliant movie that features like some of the best
performances from black actors, that tells a story that is

(07:08):
real and needs to be told, and it's amazing, and
I love it again.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
I love those cycles. Yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship with it?

Speaker 1 (07:18):
I had seen this movie, but so long ago that
I couldn't speak to specific plat points. I remember seeing
it at school. I think we watched it in maybe
history class. I'm not sure where we watch it, but
I remember watching this movie in school. I remember scenes
I remember. I mean, I certainly remember the performances. Stuck
with me hard because everyone in this movie is tremendously

(07:42):
famous and talented, and I didn't even realize until I
was looking into the context for this movie that most
of these actors were not like mainstream famous when this
movie came out. I mean, the casting story is really fascinating.
Woopy Goldberg. I guess stand uffs are stage actors. Counts. Yeah,
account we're valid, but like we're people too. But most

(08:05):
of these actors were successful on stage and hadn't made
the jump to on screen. And by the time I
saw it, you know, everyone was super famous, and I
remember enjoying the movie. I remember being very affected by it.
I wish I think that it is very telling. I
think we've talked about this on previous episodes, that I
did watch the movie in school. I was never encouraged

(08:26):
to read the book in school, and I wish I
had been. I'll be honest, I have not read the
full book. I read passages of it to prepare for
this episode, especially around the relationship between Celi and Shug,
which is minus the one scene which we'll talk about
is basically absent. And I read a lot of the
criticism around not just the choice of Steven Spielberg for

(08:48):
a director, but like his choices in the ways that
he Spielberg defies this story. Yeah, oh, I have so
much to say about I can't wait to hear it. So, yeah,
I had not extensive experience, but i'd seen the movie before,
and yeah, I mean, speaking to your point, Kitly, there's
like an infinite amount of analysis and you know, waves

(09:10):
of discourse over the course of the last you know,
forty plus years available on not just the movie but
also the book and also the Broadway adaptation and also
this new adaptation, and there's just so much to talk
about you. Yeah, Kitlyn, was your history.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Similarly fairly minimal. I had seen the movie once before
in my phase of like I'm a freshman in film
school and I need to have seen all those important
movies and so I watched it and that was now
like almost twenty years ago, so a lot of the

(09:46):
details were foggy.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
We don't talk about it. I had I've never talked
about this, but I also went through I considered going
through that phase. And then I watched Doctor Strangelove. Oh
I think I watched a sing Goals three Stooges movie
and I was like, I think I get it. Yeah, okay,
I did a Godfather.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
I did a Godfather and I was like, I see
yes film people.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Get that far. Yeah, I love Doctor Strange Love. And
then I was like, all right, that's basically movies, right,
and that was a good one. Let's quit while we
were a head.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, I saw Citizen Kane and that was enough for me.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
No.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
I really put myself through an intensive secondary film school
where I was like, good for you. This was back
in the day where I would have like the three
Netflix DVDs at a time, and I was just like
rotating through them rapidly. And then I was also going
to the library and getting movies on DVD from the library,
and I would estimate that I watched probably two movies

(10:51):
a day, two to three movies a day every day
for like an entire year.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Oh jeez, oh my god.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
I did have this phase. I got really into film,
like senior year of high school. But I was obsessed
with one director, which I think is even nerdier, and
I was like, I have to watch every single ingmar
Bergmann film. I have everything about Ingmar Bergmann. And I
think at one point I had rented like Wild Strawberries,
the Seventh Seal, and The Virgin Spring all at once,
and then I would like truly go get them from

(11:19):
the library too.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (11:21):
And I put myself through that. I put myself through that.
I have seen Persona so many times, and that's not
good for anyone.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Not good. We have yet to cover a Bergman film here.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
So oh my god, Persona would be a good one.
I'm pitching it now. Persona I one of the women
doesn't even have talk.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
She can't talk. Oh, I'm very down for that. Someone
else recommended that to me recently too. And we're like
heading into a phase of this show where it's like
we have run out of the movies in certain eras,
so we must look back.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
We've done every movie from nineteen ninety nine branch out.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Do you think that's true, a lot of ninety nine,
a lot of O two who knows, potent years, but
we have to move on. Good years, good years. But
sorry that.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Oh yes, I watched the movie. I didn't remember much
about it, just because it was such a long time ago,
and so upon this rewatch, I was like, especially struck
by some tonal choices that were made, especially with the score,
and I'm like, why is this the music that's playing
during this moment or this scene? And I was just like,

(12:26):
this is no disrespect to mister Spielberg and the movie itself,
but I was like, this is some weird like and
I know that this movie has gotten this criticism already,
but like this kind of like sugar coated, like fairy
tale esque version of this narrative in like, yeah, in

(12:46):
some of these like kind of stylistic and esthetic choices
that are made and just tonal choices, and I'm just like, hmm,
I was not quite expecting that or didn't totally remember that.
But we'll dive into it further.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
I mean, honestly, prior to this, I knew the main
points about Alice Walker, which is that she wrote this
book because she wrote the Pulitzer, and I didn't know
much else about her, and she is also there's a
lot going on there as well, which we'll talk about,
and I feel is important to note, as we would

(13:21):
with anybody, but even just like I was surprised first
of all, how much production information there is available about
this movie and also like how I don't mean this
like I don't know, like not a positive regat thing.
I just was surprised at how openly everyone was having
the discussion when the movie came out, because I feel
like we're so used to movies from the eighties having
it be like twenty years later. We started to think,

(13:43):
but it was like this conversation was, oh, it was
going on.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
It happened immediately because people were so angry. I mean, essentially,
Alice Walker never really cared about making this into a movie.
She heard people wanted to do it. She was like, yeah,
I can whip something up. Here's some different names, like
the color purple. She also suggested one that was the
sunset of fabric or something, but did that didn't work

(14:07):
and people were like, who are you thinking about as
a director. Obviously everyone was like, Spike Lee, it is
the eighties. Spike Lee, and a friend was like, you
heard of this Steven Spielberg. He's like, super cool. If
you really want people to see this movie, you probably
should go with see Steven Spielberg. She straight up and said,
I don't really know much about the guy, but he
seems like a big deal.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
She has seen ET and she's like yeah, sure. She
was like, yeah, that was a good one.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
That was a good one, you know, And at the time,
Spike Lee was seen as a very political choice. They
go with Steven Spielberg, and Spike Lee is pissed. He
was immediately pissed when this is announced. He starts working
with the n Double ACP before the film is even announced,
to start a campaign to discredit the film as coming
from a white director, being a whitewashed version of the story,

(14:54):
and specifically pointing out that it is the narrative is
being used by a white man to tear down black men,
that the film is being so unfair to mister and
the men in it because a white man is directing.
So they do this whole campaign. The Color Purple comes out.
It was nominated for an incredible amount of Academy Awards,
eleven I think, yeah, eleven doesn't win a single one

(15:16):
because of this Spike Lee campaign. It's such a it
was so like impactful, and everyone's talking it, like all
the black you know magazines essence, they were all writing
about this. There were all these debates about it before
it even came out. So I think that is truly
why there was so much discourse behind everything, and even
people in the midst of making it knew that they
were facing these judgments, so they tried to really document

(15:39):
the process of making it and how the black people
who were hired to be in this movie did have
a say. And I think that's the only reason that
any of that exists today.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
I also read that the Hollywood Beverly Hills chapter of
the NAACP issued a formal complaint against the Academy of
Motion Pick Arts and Scientists after the movie didn't win
any of the eleven Awards Academy Awards that it was
nominated for, saying that it was like all those snubs
were a blackout, meaning like this is the industry's attempt

(16:15):
to you know, suppress black projects, which.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Does happen all the time. And I had nothing to
do with why this movie didn't win as much as
it should have.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
It is a complicated where it is also at the
same time, people weren't you know, rushing to celebrate a
fully black cast movie at that time period, right, But
it's you also have to know the studios want Spielberg
to direct this because they knew that would give it
the chance to win something. They tied it to a
white director specifically to kind of get around that. So
I think it ends up hurting it like it being

(16:47):
both issues. Like, I think it ended up just kind
of stepping on its own feet by going, we got
to have a white guy if we're gonna get any
sort of attention, and then obviously black directors were like,
why do you have to do that? We're also going
to be unhappy. And then no one's happy, right, right
except for us the audience, because I mean, we got
a treat of a film.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
So the premiere of the movie was protested by I
think that same chapter of the NAACP because of its
depiction of rape, which again is like a very big
valid thing to discuss. And then there's so many perspectives
on this movie. I also watched a clip from Whoopi
Goldberg two years ago in which she was discussing how

(17:27):
frustrating it was to be starring in this film and
have this beer breakout and feel like there were people
in her own community that were like trying to sabotage
this movie, and it's just like, yeah, that also makes
total sense. Yeah right.

Speaker 4 (17:41):
She also had Alice Walker herself trying to just like
she just didn't really care for it. She was kind
of like it was fine, and then every few years
she'd be like, actually, guys, just not really a great movie,
really not happy with how they did it. And one
of her big issues was how they treated the character
of Mister in the book. He is more layered, he
has more dimensions. He is more like a grandfather figure

(18:04):
at times, not that you ever truly feel sympathy for him,
but there are more layers there, moments of kindness that's
totally gone in a Spielberg film because he needs the
big bad, the villain until he has like his moment
of redemption. So I can understand that. And obviously that
criticism fed into these complaints from black male groups who
are like, see, it's just made to make us look bad,

(18:27):
but you just can't win here.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, it's unbelievably just a shreki in number of onion
layers going on. Yeah with this discussion.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
Because it's like, at the same time, am I mad
that this is a Hollywood movie that did a twist
and made a man one dimensional?

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Not really, it's not his story, right, I mean, I
think it seems like a really strong example of what
an impossible position black creatives are put in in this
time in particular. But also ill where like you're saying, Ashley,
it's like, well, let's get the prestige white director, which
I'm sure helps with your budget, it helps with your marketing,
it helps with your chance at awards, and you know,

(19:10):
Steven Spielberg is this proven starmaking director, so it's like, Okay.
Then Alice Walker spoke to this pretty openly of she
was essentially convinced that, like, the best way to have
a successful movie with an all black cast is to
work from within the system, and she became amenable to that.
But then, like you're saying, Ashley that that's like there's

(19:31):
a tremendous amount of backlash that comes with that. There's
choices that feel dissonant and bizarre. Oh yeah, I mean
the way that as Mister is presented in the movie,
combined with the weird last ten minutes, Like, was he
that bad? You're like, yes, yeah, absolutely, yeah bad.

Speaker 4 (19:53):
Yeah. The only good side is that he doesn't bother them,
Like he sets up this reunion and just gets kind
of like, I'm gonna I'm gonna just day over here,
enjoy what I did, not come over and tell you
I did it. And it's like, Okay, that's the one
redeeming thing, but I still wish you'd sliced your throat
like we could have. In the scene where she's teaching
her how to spell, Nettie is teaching Sealy how to spell,

(20:14):
I was like, teacher, how to spell poison.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Girl, teacher, how to spell poison?

Speaker 4 (20:17):
Tea t try to sell shovel, Get her in the ground,
Get him in the ground, please.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
I also at the end, I was like, I don't
care how close they still live to each other.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
I don't like how stile like the other neighbors and
not a fan of that. Uh, just like this whole time,
she's just been living next to her weird ass stepdad
who assaulted her and okay.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Okay, yeah, I mean I kind of like he disappears
for so long.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
Yeah you by the time she goes to the funeral,
you forget his relation to them.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
You're like, who is this? Is this mystery? Truly, I
was like who is this man?

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Because I mean in the aging makeup in this he's
all over the place. For sometimes you're like, how old
does everybody? Ever? One seems to be? There's there are
scenes in this movie, and again, I really enjoyed the movie.
It's a beautiful movie. There are seeds where there's everyone
at the table. You're like, I have no idea. I
have no idea. Everyone's a different age. Yeah, there are children.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
And adults that I'm like, who are these people? Are
they grown up children of the who? And who is
this little kid? And I never knew who anyone was
unless they were like one of the core cast.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Yeah, Like this whole half second half of the movie,
Oprah's character Sophia looks older than Sealy and it's kind
of like whoopy. Goldberg was like, I just don't want
to do aging makeup, Like just not me. I'm not
doing the aging makeup. Everybody else can do it, big role, Like,
but she looks the same, like they show her when
she hits like eighteen nineteen. She looks the same for

(21:48):
the rest of the movie. Yeah, and everyone else has
like the at least like gray spray pain in their hair.
But you know, it's a choice. It's still again a
great movie.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
I under Yeah, it's like I unders say that different
characters are living different like it makes sense that they
would look older. But yeah, in a few scenes, I
was like, ah, but there's so much to talk about
with this movie that we should probably just start talking
about what happens.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
for the recap.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
And we're back.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Okay, So I'll just place a trigger warning here for
such things as rape, incest, child sexual abuse, domestic abuse.
A lot of heavy stuff happens in the story. Okay,
So we open. It's the early nineteen hundreds in rural Georgia.

(22:52):
We meet two sisters, Seely and Nettie, who have a
very close and loving relationship. We learn that their father
is sexually abusing Seely, who is the elder sister. She's
fourteen years old. Seely is pregnant. She gives birth to

(23:14):
a baby, who she names Olivia, but her father takes
the baby away immediately, which is the second time he
has done this. The sister's mother dies shortly thereafter, their
father remarries a young girl about Cely's age, and then

(23:34):
another man, Albert, also known as Mister played by Danny Glover,
approaches Seely and Nettie's father, wanting to marry Nettie, and
their father's like, you can't have Nettie, but you can
have Seely. So Albert takes Sely home. He wants her

(23:55):
to care for his three children and to cook and clean,
and he is incredibly ungrateful and controlling and abusive. One day,
Seely sees a woman carrying a baby through town and
she just has this kind of gut feeling that it's

(24:15):
her baby, Olivia, that her father took away from her.
And she talks to the woman she holds the baby,
who this woman says, oh, I nicknamed her Olivia. And
so it's like, hmm, that's the name that she gave
to her baby.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
That's nus brutal.

Speaker 4 (24:33):
Yeah, it's tough, and it's all She comes with a
really dumb lie because obviously Celia is like, that's why
would you just randomly call your child Olivia when what.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
That's not a nickname?

Speaker 4 (24:44):
And she's like, well, look at her eyes. Only an
old person would have eyes like that. So I call
her Olivia and I'm like.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well, that's not that. That doesn't connect.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Don't see the logic there. What does she think Olivia is?
Does she think it's short for old Olivia?

Speaker 1 (25:01):
I've lady eyes, Olivia, old lady eyes. That would be
I would really respect that if she was committing to
that opinion. Yeah, you know, Olivia, old lady eyes. It
makes sense to me anyways.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Bye, Okay. So then Nettie comes to stay with Cely
because their father was trying to sexually abuse Nettie as well,
so she ran away to be with Cely. Sely doesn't
want to stay in the situation she's in. You know,
this is a prison for her living there with mister.

(25:42):
So Nettie vows to go to school and to learn
to read and write so that she can teach Cely
so that they can run away together and be educated
and be able to like make it on their own right.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's not explicitly said, but it's like once is given
to mister her education.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
Oh stop stop, Yeah, yeah, she's not going to school.
She's truly there to deal with his horrible kids. They're
horrible kids, it's not rude to say they're horrible children.
As soon as she gets to the house, Harpo, the
oldest son, throws a rock at her head yeah, which
causes her to bleed, and in the book she like
has headaches throughout like her life and stuff from it.
But in the movie, they're just like, these kids suck.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Right, Yeah, Yeah, I also like that, Celi.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
That's like the first person that you hear her say
anything like truly profoundly negative about. She's like, also, this
kid sucks. I can't.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Kids are rotten.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah. She won't talk about anyone else.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
She's very just timid, but when it comes to the kids,
she's like, no, they are the devil. I hate them.
Even Nettie's like, you gotta show them who's boss, and
she's just like, no, they suck.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
There's no hope for these kids.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
They're too horrible. Okay, So one day, Albert attempts to
rape Nettie when she's on her way to school, but
she is able to fight him off and get away,
and then this causes Albert to like kick Nettie out
of his house. Celi is devastated. She calls out after

(27:12):
Nettie to write to her, and Nettie says, nothing but
death could keep me from it. Yeah. Not long after that,
some mail arrives and Ceely's hoping she's getting a letter
from Nettie. Albert is also excited because he's expecting a
letter from someone named Sugar Avery, an old girlfriend of his.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Like shug shug, shug shug.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, we're cheering and mister slash Albert tells Cely to
never open the mailbox. He like intercepts all the mail
that comes in. So if she was ever receiving mail
from Nettie, Seely has no way of knowing because he's
taking all the mail.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah, And he tells her he'sured out a way to
mess with the mailbox, so if she touches it, he'll
be able to tell it's just one of the other
ways he manipulates her into just staying captive on this farm.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Basically, yes, exactly. We cut to seven years later. It's
now nineteen sixteen. Seely is now Whoopi Goldberg and she's
still in this house with mister who is still a
piece of shit. He's getting ready to see Sugg Avery,
who's coming to town, and in all this time, it

(28:29):
seems like Nettie has never written to Seely, and she
worries that Nettie might have died because she says, nothing
but death could keep me from it. Mister's son, Harpo
played by Willard E. Pugh, is in love with a
girl named Sophia played by Oprah Winfrey. She is pregnant

(28:51):
and they're about to get married, but Mister approves of
Sophia because she is like headstrong, and he's like, I
don't rest her. So she's like, well, fuck you, then
I'll just be over here.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
Basically calls her like is he slued, shames her and
is like, oh you even know that Harpo's the dead,
and Sophie basically like sees how he's treating Celi and
is like, I don't need to be a part of
this family. When you get it together, you come find.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Me, you come to me, right, And then we cut
to some time later when she and Harpo are getting
married and they have a baby together, and Sophia again
does not put up with anyone's bullshit, and Harpo is like, Cely,
what should I do about Sophia? She's too headstrong, her personality,

(29:41):
she has a personality, and I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
I don't like that.

Speaker 4 (29:43):
How do I get her to be like you just
totally silent, giving me, you know, shaves, doing my laundry?

Speaker 1 (29:48):
How do I do that? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (29:51):
And silly because all she knows is abuse. She suggests
that Harpo beat Sophia, which he does. Sophia clearly fights back,
and then Sophia confronts See about it, being like, how
dare you suggest he hit me? Like? What the fuck?

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah? I think in like, that's one of the most iconic.

Speaker 4 (30:13):
The most iconic viline monologue maybe, and it's top five
in all movie history, delivered by Oprah.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Just Oprah to all my life. I had to fight.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
I had to fight my daddy, my mother, my siblings,
and I'll be damned if I thought I was gonna
have to fight in my own house.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
It's It's incredible.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
I'm sure every at Black listener has heard their mother
deliver this.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
It's yeah, we'll talk about this like later in the
episode two. But the continuity, I mean, and also like
Oprah's personal connection to this book. Oprah, I think it's
been involved in every single major adaptation of this book.
She's also a producer on the Broadway musical. I believe
she's also a top rank producer on the new movie.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
Like, yeah, she's a real Alice Walker stand she's super
Ino and she brings it. I mean, I truly believe
this is one of her best performances. Sophie's one of
my favorite characters in it.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
Same, Yeah, her whole arc is absolutely beautiful, and it's
set up here. I think before this moment, you kind
of think she's, you know, just gonna be another adversary
to Celi. You don't really think they're gonna end up
being supportive of each other. But this moment of honesty
ends up bringing them closer together.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
So yeah, yeah, true. So there's this confrontation and this
cycle of abuse between Harpo and Sophia goes on for
a while until one day Sophia takes all of her
children and leaves Harpo. Some more time passes. One night,

(31:48):
Albert slash Mister comes home with Sugar Avery played by
Margaret Avery. This is the first time we're seeing her
on screen. She is sick, he's drunk. We're not really
sure exactly what all is going on with her, but
she's belligerent.

Speaker 4 (32:05):
She just has early nineteen hundred's disease. She's just very flush,
she's sweaty and is just talking weird, and you're like, okay,
I get to send you.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
I don't even know what to say it. She's in
she's definitely in the bath and we're like, yes.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
Yes, I'm like typhoid fever. She has something, but she's
very just like sweaty, and you're like, oh, yeah, she's ill.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
She's ill for sure.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
According to Mister's father, she has that nasty woman's disease
quote unquote, And you're like, we're like, been there. Yeah, honestly,
we all have had the nasty friend nasty woman's disease, went.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
To a room and sat in a bathtub for a
couple of weeks, and then I was right, it's good
to go.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah, yes, okay. So mister insists on making sugar, but
he has no idea what he's doing in the kitchen,
and Shug is like, what the fuck is this? This
is disgusting. She throws it against the wall and then
cely makes a delicious meal and Shug likes it. And

(33:12):
this is the beginning of their friendship. Yes, now it's
the summer of nineteen twenty two, Harpo and his friend
Swain played by Laurence Fishburne are building a juke joint.
They open it up, sug performs at it as like
a singer and dancer. One night, Cely, Albert, Harpo are

(33:35):
all there, and then Sophia shows up with her new boyfriend.
Harpo meanwhile is with a woman named Squeaky Wheaky. We
will find out her real name is Mary Agnes later on.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
That's one of those very Spielberg moments of the film
where it's like this very serious thing and then there's
just a running joke where it's like, squeaky you name?
I thought your name was squeaky Squeaky Mary what? And
it's like do we need.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
This me this beat, mister Spielberg. Can I have a word? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (34:03):
And it's like also the actors playing that her voice
is I need to hear the notes Stephen gave her
because you can hear him going can you go higher?

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Can you go squeakier? Can you be squeakier?

Speaker 4 (34:13):
More squeak and you're just like her line delivery. In
this scene, she confronts Harpo, who has started dancing with
Sophia and she's like you, she left you, you're my
man now, and then she starts to oh boo hoo's
this woman And it's just such an annoying squeaky I
repeat it all the time anytime I'm shocked by anything,

(34:36):
I say.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Hapo, who's this woman?

Speaker 4 (34:39):
So iconic? But at the same time, one of those
characters where I'm like, oh, Steven Spielberg really was just like,
I think we get some comedy in here.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
Let's do it, Let's do it. It felt the same
sort of thing with Mister's father, where he's sort of
this like he is kind of like patriarchy the man character,
but he's also like, you're supposed to kind.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Of be like these kind of a goofball You're like,
especially in the final scene that he's in in the
like dinner scene where Whoopy Goldberg gives this amazing monologue
basically being like, mister, you're the worst person on earth
and I curse you and I'm gonna maybe try to
kill you, but then I won't. But he's like he's

(35:18):
being such a cartoon so many is in a different
movie in that scene, Yeah, he's totally and his signes
are just like, oh Mary, what what's her name or
any And he's just like throwing lines where he's like.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
The chicken's all running the henhouse.

Speaker 4 (35:31):
This place is crazy in here, and like maybe she
can sweep the kaboos of the train. Dude, this woman
has a knife to your son's throat. Get a little serious,
let's get see history action.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
He's just like, Wow, what an interesting Wednesday.

Speaker 4 (35:46):
His final scene is so after this Celi's left and
he walks into his son's house and there's animals everywhere.
His son is just laying on the floor looking and
he's not like my son might be dead.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Oh no.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
He just like pokes him with his and is like,
I guess you've been drinking, right, It's.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
Like, oh no, Squeak. Yeah, I agree that, like the
performance she's giving feels sort of like another movie, and
I'm sure was requested, which is frustrating. And also she
is far more present in the book than she is
in the movie, and clearly like the screenplay scales down
her presence in the story pretty considerably. But also like

(36:27):
they leave in in that same dinner scene that Squeak
is like, I want to leave with Sugar and Sealy
and everyone's like, oh, Okay, great, and then she doesn't.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Oh I thought she does go with them?

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Is she in the car like she was?

Speaker 4 (36:41):
She's in the car, there's no like she does go sing,
she does leave.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
She does leave because then.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
Harpo and Sophia get back together. Okay, so like it's
implied she goes and does have fame, but like doesn't
come back. But then it's all just kind of thrown
in their very last minute for her, right feel like
an afterthought Like, oh, I guess she wanted to do
that too, Okay, whatever, who cares if she goes or
doesn't come back.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, and we're like who is she again? Like why
don't we know more about her?

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah? Like why were we supposed to care about her? Okay?

Speaker 4 (37:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
And the books she also has like a more prominent
role in like negotiating Sophia's prison sentence, Like here's other
things that she does that seem more active and like
really put her in the story as an important character
that it just felt like at some point in the
production they were like, well, we don't really have space
to include squeaks full story.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
And I also think when you get Oprah Winfrey in
a role, you know you gotta kind of just focus
on one of Harpo's love stories.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
I'm not going with Squeaky. Okay, yeah, it's true. I
mean yeah, given the choice, I'm like, but why is
it a choice?

Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (37:54):
And then why does Sophia get back together with Harpo?
He's not a good partner anyway. Yeah. So we're in
this juke joint and Squeaky sees Harpo dancing with Sophia
and she gets jealous and she slaps Sophia and then
this big bar brawl breaks out. Afterward, Shug and Celia

(38:20):
are like just kind of hanging out one on one.
They're bonding. Shug has Steely try on her dress. She
encourages Cely to smile because Celi always hides her smile
because her father had told her that she had the
ugliest smile ever. And then Shug says that she's planning
to head out of town and Ceely doesn't want her

(38:43):
to leave, and she says that, you know, mister beats
me when you're not here because I'm not you. He
beats me for not being you. And then Steely and
Shug share a tender kiss.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
Yeah on the limp.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
And that's all. That's it. Steven Spielberg was like, and
that's enough of that, and yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
This is not Lilith fair stop it, ladies, is what
he said behind the camera, and they backed away. The
book is gay, Like the book is so so gay,
they're so gay, and the movie You're just like, what
is that? What is this kiss? What is is this?
Just like, do they think this is what black ladies
do to each other? What is this?

Speaker 2 (39:29):
It's so barely there that I completely forgot that that
was a component of the movie until I rewatched it.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
That's fine, I remember that scene very clearly from what
I saw in this going. But I was surprised watching back.
I was like, honestly, and I tell you five, I'm
surprised that much was done true, Yeah, which is saying nothing.
I mean there's a lot of Again, I was like,
pleasantly surprised. I guess that at very very least. Spielberg
has come out and said that he regrets pulling back.

(39:58):
I mean, which is easy to say retrospect, but now.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
That everybody loves gay people, I'm sure you would have
loved to make it gayer.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Yeah, he's he's a fan of the people he's like, oh,
this is cool. Now I would have done that. I
should have done that, and.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
I should have. I am sorry you could have should
have would a mister Steve.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Whoa god is a god got him?

Speaker 4 (40:22):
But it's just I feel like, if you haven't read
the book, that scene probably just feels very out of place.
And I guess it does help to give you an
idea that Cely isn't like addressing Showke with anger when
she could. She could be jealous or upset that this
woman is her husband's mistress. And it just really shows
you how little she cares about mister, how much she

(40:44):
just like feels that she's forced to be in this
house and stuff. But you know what, it would be
great as a scene where they are gay.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
So yeah, which that is like one aspect of Cely's
character that I love so like it makes total sense
given her personal history. Or she is never going to
be turned against a woman, yeah, because she has no
She's been given absolutely sub zero reasons in her life
to trust men, So why would she allow You know,

(41:11):
even that attempt at manipulation will never ever work on
her and doesn't and doesn't work on really any of
the women in this story, they're like, nice, try, Yeah,
we're gonna take Seli with us. I mean that happens
with Sugar number of times too, where Albert tries to
turn her, you know, tries to pit women against each
other in a way that sometimes in real life, more
often in popular movies, is always successful. Yeah, and it

(41:34):
doesn't fly here.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
Yeah, he thinks he can say like, oh, Nettie, you're
so much prettier, You're so much I love how you
wear that dress, Nattie, And instead, Nattie just goes to
Cely and is like, isn't he so stupid when he
says all that stuff, When he's.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Like saying, my teeth are pretty? What a loser?

Speaker 2 (41:49):
What a disgusting monster? And even their father.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
You know, he gets remarried and has this opportunity to
like leave everything to his new wife, and it seems
like she could just run away with this house and
all the land. But she's like I got the money,
like you guys have the have your stuff back, like
I need to turn against other women, and Cely's like,
let's shake girl.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
I love this. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
It's just yeah, she's so good in that respect, and
but you know, maybe it's because she's a little gay,
and maybe we should explore that, Stephen.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah, maybe there's some more context there. Ever, think about that,
mister Steves. I'm just gonna call Steven Spielberg, mister Okay.
So Selly packs up her things, hoping to go with
Shug to Memphis and escape mister, but he catches Sely
and she can't escape. She remains trapped there. We see

(42:43):
a scene where Shug tries to connect with her father,
who she had mentioned she has a difficult, if not
estranged relationship with him. He is a pastor who is
very ashamed of her. He thinks that she's a sinner,
and her attempt to reconnect does not work.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
She did have nasty woman's disease, she.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Well again, that's why he doesn't want anything to do
with her.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Then we meet this white woman named Miss Milly played
by Dana Ivy. She is the mayor's wife and she
I'm excited to talk about her because there's a lot
of stuff going on with Miss Milly. But she asks
Sophia to be her maid, and Sophia is like hell no,

(43:34):
and I quote and then the mayor slaps Sophia, so
she punches him and then all the white people around
gang up on her, and Sophia is then brutalized by
the police and then arrested and put in jail for
many years. We cut to nineteen thirty, Sofia is released

(43:58):
from jail and now has no choice but to work
for Miss Milly, being her maid. She is completely dejected
and broken, a shell of the person she once was.
She hasn't seen her children in eight years. There's a
scene where Seally helps her out at the market. It

(44:20):
seems like Sophia cannot read or can't read well, so
Seely discreetly helps her with a shopping list in what
I thought was a really wonderful moment. Sometime later, Sug
and her new husband come to visit Cely and Albert,

(44:42):
and while the men are talking, Sug goes to get
the mail.

Speaker 4 (44:47):
And if you want to know what they're talking about,
it's how they both slept with Sug. That's the whole
conversation is that you had your way and I had
on my way, but we both had a let's have a.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Drink to having her And are they smashing raw eggs
on their.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yes, it's it's Easter, so the kids and then they're
all painting Easter eggs and then they just get so
drunk they just start smashing the eggs on their heads
and just being like wept with the same lady.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Life is great. So actually I am going off of
synopsis versus, but it seems like to me in the
book that the movie pushes her getting remarried ahead in
the story, so that like she comes back with a husband,
Like I think that she has a husband towards the
end of the book and all of the queer subplot
is removed from the movie. Yeah, that Celi is devastated

(45:35):
that Shug has gotten remarried and that's like a huge thing.
But instead they cut the love story between Sugar and
Cely and add the husband way earlier for reasons I
earlier understand, and it.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
Doesn't make sense, and Cely doesn't seem to really care
mine that should got married, and Mister more importantly is
like so great about it. He's like, I love this guy.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
This is so cool.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
I lost my mistress, but I've gained a friend, and
no real reason for why mister as we have seen
him up until this point within the movie would react
that way. But sure, sure, She's like, yeah, it just
kind of happens and they move on. That's the husband.
We don't also know anything about him, which.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Is like, you know, this is not a movie about men.
But yeah, that was like another character that it was
like he changes kind of from scene to scene because
he's like best buds with mister, but then when he's
also like integral and taking Celia away, there's no acknowledgment
that they were ever.

Speaker 4 (46:34):
Like, it's just confusing, and it's also, yeah, it's very
like why this guy, Like the most of it seems
like so much of shook stories about her freedom, wanting
to prove herself to her dad, and so why marry
this guy? And it does seem like she just gets
married to make her father happy. Maybe there's a whole
scene where she is standing on the road with her

(46:55):
ring with another very famous line from the movie, I
was married now, which is what my sister said when
she got married, and like my mom says it all
the time. Look, Paul, I was married now, I's married now.
And the dad doesn't care. He's like, you're still a
harlot and a whore and just keeps going.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
So talk about someone who did not earn his amazing
daughter back in his life.

Speaker 4 (47:20):
No, no, but and it's just I wish we had
explored why Shug decides to give up her freedom for
this guy. But maybe it's just because he has a nice,
really cool yellow car good enough for me.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, could be that. I was also confounded by that,
just like I was confounded by why Sophia gets back
together with Harpo.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
I mean. And also it's like that doesn't necessarily mean that,
Like I mean, I think it's confusing because in a
Spielberg movie, everything seems like and all is as it
should be, and so yeah, undercurt I feel like, very
likely undercuts. I would guess that Alice Walker portrayed that
in a more nuanced way of like, yeah, I don't
love that they got back together, but it's not inconceivable

(47:59):
that it point into history they would. Yeah, fair, there's
something like that. But the Spielberg movies are not really,
at least at this time, not capable of that level
of new life.

Speaker 4 (48:10):
Yeah, I would say Sophia's story definitely has more complexity
in the book and the movie. By the time, there's
a whole thing with Miss Millie where she like barely
ever gets to really see her family because Miss Milly's
so horrible. And finally when she is like having dinner
with the family and it's kind of clear she's like
back around more. It's because she has like dementia or something.

(48:30):
She just like rocks back and forth. She says, she's
like confused all the time, and it's clear like they
had no more use for her. So she finally like
can go home, and then she just like ran it,
like just becomes herself again. When Squeaky starts laughing at Harpo,
and Harpo says one of my favorite lines from the movie,
it's bad luck to laugh at a man. You're just

(48:54):
like it's bad luck for a woman to laugh at
a man, and Sophia just busts out laughing. She's like,
I've had enough bad luck to laugh at a man
the rest of my life.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Then and then she.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
And then she literally says, Sophia's back. Sophia's back home,
Like ah, Sophia is back. And that's how Spielberg does it,
is like that one line magically makes her wake up again.
And in the book, it's more like she sees Ceely
have her freedom. She sees like this forgiveness that's able
to happen. She realizes, you know, Harpo is the product

(49:24):
of this long line of like horrible evil men, but
at the same time he is trying to change that,
and his character also has way more that happens with
like the juke joint and him like stepping up and
apologizing about like squeaky and stuff. So it makes sense,
but for Spielberg it's just but if they're holding each
other in a field, that's all you need.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
That's all you need.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
I thought that when Sophia was like I'm back, I'm back,
and she does seem to revert back to her kind
of old self for like, you know, very outspoken, heavily,
and so I thought that was gonna lead to her
being like, and I'm going with you, you too, shugs seally,
I'm hitching a ride and I'm getting the hell out
of here also, But instead she's like hmm, hey, Harpo,

(50:07):
and I'm like what, yeh, that doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
She's like, I'm back and I'm ready to get back
to work at the juke joint. Let me pick up
a shift and.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Thank you for that context, because that arc was very
confusing to me and I mean again, it's like I'm
not necessarily complaining that this movie doesn't give me like
more information about the men necessarily, but also I feel
like there's a at least in the movie it dropped
threads between examining. I mean, you're given like three generations

(50:35):
of men under the same roof in a way that
like it's implied that their behavior is connected and learned,
but like you don't really quite get into it. And honestly,
like at first it took me a while. I had
to keep reminding myself that Harpo was Albert's son because
they look the same age.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
Yeah, the whole second half of the movie they look
the same age. They just kind of like said, just
put the same aging makeup on everybody.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
We'll figure it out.

Speaker 4 (51:04):
Who even knows how old black people are anyway, is
what I think Steven Spielberg said behind the camera. I
would guess that he was just like, go for it, Like, yeah,
who knows, I don't know. Every black person could be
thirty years old. To me, who cares?

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Yeah, He's like, I've heard the expression black don't crack, so.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
Yeah, so yeah, do your thing with the makeup. I
guess maybe, but at the end of the moon, Like,
I think the worst are Harpo, who suddenly looks like
he's the grandfather, Neddie, who looks the exact same she
did when she left. Meddie comes back in. He're like,
is she's still fifteen? Like, I know, she looks incredible.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Oh I felt bad for I was like, I mean,
Celia's certainly had a very difficult life, but like this
feels aggressive.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
Yeah, so it's like she's just truly like a baby
face looks the same age as Celi's children.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
I was like, what was their age gap at the beginning?

Speaker 2 (51:52):
If she looks twenty two, Yeah, it's confusing.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
I did appreciate There is a small role played by
formative childhood crush of mine, Carl Anderson is in this movie.
I love Carl Anderson so much.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
What character does he play?

Speaker 1 (52:09):
He plays Reverend Samuel like he plays the new adoptive
barely Oh oh yeah, yeah, he's barely okay, and if
for like zero seconds, but I was immediately like, oh,
because he played judas a JC Superstar and really changed
my life. And I had this like experience with as

(52:30):
a kid where I was like, I loved JC Superstar
and I loved him so much and he had like
he was just amazing. And then I found out that
it was like my first time understanding that not all
movies were made this year, because my mom was like, look,
it's Carl Anderson. I was like, why is he old?
I'm furious. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
Also a bigger character in the book, like he ends
up uh oh, okay, marrying Nettie, which I guess is
kind of implied in the movie because there's like he's there,
he's there, so and you're like, I guess that's okay,
Sure I can't.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
I'm like, I'm not complaining about it. But as I
am complaining about or intend to complain about, how much
more you find out? This was like one of the
sections of the book that I did read is Nettie's
full story that came in through those letters, which is
like really like, I mean changed it also like alternatively
changed her glossed over as it's presented in the movie.

(53:28):
But it's like a far more nuanced, like much longer story.
Oh yeah, the book.

Speaker 4 (53:33):
In the book is it's like, oh, yes, this is
a full narrative. It just like goes over the full
course of Nettie's life. How she ends up in this situation.
She ends up becoming when mister kicks her out, she
ends up becoming like a maid to the pastor and
his wife who took Sealy's children, and somehow Nettie just

(53:54):
kind of knows. She's like, I feel like these are
my niece and nephew. Like I feel it, I'm gonna
join this family. They go do mission work in Africa.
She goes with them, and we see like the whole time,
his wife is starting to suspect, like did you cheat
on me with Neddie and have our kids. There's a
whole arc there of like potential, like her not trusting her,

(54:14):
and then like slowly building a friendship when she reveals
like no, I'm not on I've known all I think
all this time. She ends up like marrying the pastor Samuel.
It's a whole deep thing. Her kids, well, I guess
Celi's kids Adam, Marys. And there's an in depth thing
into this woman he marries, who we see at the end.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
But in the books they do the facial scarring.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
Yeah, they do the facial scarring with their wedding, and
there's also a genital mutilation and it's supposed to just
be for the bride, but Adam does it with her
in order to like, you know, have solidarity. He's like,
I will also do the facial scarring.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
In the movie.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
Obviously, Steven Spielberg was like, I cannot have a beautiful He's.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Like, oh my goodness, no.

Speaker 4 (55:00):
So instead we're gonna have it be done to Cely's children,
and instead of it being a marriage general mutilation thing,
it's like a coming of age facial scarring ceremony that
we like see played over drums while Celia is possibly
gonna cut mister's throat while.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
She's shaming him now, and like they just change it.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
Completely, and it's kind of like why even keep it?
Like why did we need this?

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Right?

Speaker 1 (55:24):
That editing choice too to like didn't work for me.

Speaker 4 (55:29):
This is one of the Spielberg moments where I'm like,
I think a black director would have been like, hey,
it feels a bit here like we are suggesting this
African tribe is savage evil for doing this, and we're
presenting Celia in a moment where she may do a
savage thing of killing someone and Shoog stops her at
the last minute, Like we're kind of saying they're more,

(55:51):
you know, less savage or more human or emotional than
these people in Africa. But this is Spielberg, so he.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Doesn't get it.

Speaker 4 (55:58):
He's just like, yeah, but the drums match up, right,
Isn't that cool? And then and when Mister's like, when
she tells mister to put her head back, the kids
put their bag head back so they can get cut.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Is that cool? Cut?

Speaker 4 (56:09):
And it's just one of those things tonally where it's
a little like, Stephen, why did you do Africa this way?
What are you white?

Speaker 2 (56:18):
Truly? And then why when Adam and Olivia Seely's kids,
who I think for the first part of their lives
lived in the US. And then also, we're living in
an English speaking home their entire life, Why do they
not speak English?

Speaker 1 (56:37):
Why do they not speak English?

Speaker 4 (56:39):
Yes, this is and what I think it kind of
says is Netty is a horrible teacher.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
She taught she.

Speaker 4 (56:47):
Taught Celia how to read and stuff, and then she
never teaches her own niece and nephew how to speak English. Also,
at one point, Seely says like, my kids are in
Africa learning different languages, and I was like, they didn't
pick up English?

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Though, like what.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
What was the even though they're parents and they're like
Nanny would have been speaking English. But it's one of
those other moments, yeah, where it's like Spielberg where you
just like Africa, so let's you know, they got to
say Swahili or something right, and it's like, that's not
how that would work. And that's the whole part of

(57:20):
the book is them navigating Africa as African Americans and
the differences they face and how they're treated and some
people treat them like they're British or some people treat
you know, and he just you can tell he was
like I can't handle this. He was like, don't don't no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 (57:34):
No, no, thank you. I can't know. How about we
just have their African village get pillage, they cut someone,
We're done.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Right. In the book, there's like a whole process of
I mean again, I feel like it also has to
do with like how missionary work is presented. We're in
the Spielberg movie, it's like, well, it was going great
and then something terrible happened, where in the book it's
more subtle and Nettie becomes really discouraged with how missionary work,

(58:03):
like how that has sort of manifested in Africa. She's
over it, which of course is like not touched on. Yeah.
And also there's more background about Neddie and Celia's paternity. Yes,
that is not touched on, yo, And.

Speaker 4 (58:17):
It's a very important detail and part of the story
because you spend most of the movie going, oh no,
this poor girl victim of incest her kids by products
of it. How horrible, but she still loves them and
wants them back. And then in the movie it's just
like a blip where Celi's like, and then I found
out actually Paul was my step pa. Kids are good, right,

(58:38):
It's truly just like after the and so my kids
aren't my siblings and my kids are just my kids.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
That's great.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
Anyway, moving on, zooms through it zoomster, and it's like
this is a major thing. The person who she's at
the funeral, this person who changed the course of her life.
She finds out actually it's a whole story of like
their birth father was a store owner who got lynched.
He you know, was like respected in the black community

(59:04):
and basically imply like a civil rights leader. He gets killed.
The mother like loses her mind, and in that moment
of just depression and issue she's going through, this guy
swoops in and realizes, oh, I can get control of
her house and her store and all this land because
she's so out of it, Like I can just marry
her and also get access to her young daughters. And
he takes advantage. Which that's a compelling story. Steven Spielberg.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Why gloss over them?

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Yeah, and like erases that super super important plot point
about their mother because it's like there is a lot
I mean in this at least does come through in
the movie. Is like there's a huge connection. Like the
emphasis is put on mothers and daughters over mothers and
sons over father's and daughters. Like there's a strong I mean,
even like with the emphasis of Seally is thinking of Olivia,

(59:52):
talks about Olivia more then she talks about Adam, poor.

Speaker 4 (59:54):
Adam, which is like, okay, I mean you also knew
Adam longer, like you kept okay, you don't even cared?

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Okay, okay, sure are you guys not cool? But yeah,
Like the emphasis is put on mothers and daughters, so
why not include more.

Speaker 4 (01:00:08):
About their mother because like the mother is Celi's like
old enough to understand when her mom dies, Like they're
teenagers by the time she dies, so it's a little
like what was their relationship? Like it it's hinted at
that she the mom is aware that the dad is
assaulting her and was angry and they've like broken hearted,

(01:00:29):
but he makes her feel like she's the reason your
mom was broken hearted and died because you tempted me,
evil child whatever sick stuff. But in reality, it's like
she's never processed losing the actual father of her children.
And it's like, wouldn't that have been something to see
or have cely talk about with Nettie after they're at Mister's,
like how do they miss their mom?

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
What was their mom?

Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
And we never get that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Yeah. I feel like an absent mother is so often
like explained away by like, well, she passed before you
remembered her, and it's like, no, she knows like high
school aged.

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
Yeah, she's literally as a funeral, like pushing the funeral
because she's like, I'm gonna get married and like two
months like right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Uh, yeah, I was. I was disappointed that that was
scaled back on and it also felt like, I mean,
in the many ways that the movie sanitizes the events
of the book. That felt like a pretty significant sanitizing,
like erasing the fact that there fat there was a
civil rights leader who was lynched by white people.

Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
Yeah, and instead it feels like Steven uses it as
a way to go, ooh, you know what incest is icky,
let's backtrek right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
That feels like the point.

Speaker 4 (01:01:38):
Yeah, I guess what you're about to see a family
reunion and you don't have to worry that it's gross
with incest.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
We cleared that up. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's a very
like movie style avoidance. Yeah, like unbeknownst to me. I
mean like when I went back to read the passages,
I was like, oh, he like sidestepped five different issues
by making that choice.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
Yeah, And just the choice to make it like a
rush sentence read in a letter is so weird to me.
And just even the choice to not get into Seely's
ability to still love and want these children and to
care about them and to want to hear about even
knowing at that point like they're where she believes they
come from. All of that is like an interesting aspect

(01:02:20):
of Seely's character that I just he just didn't want
to deal with and that's the part where I'm like,
what do you think this was gonna be on the
Disney Channel? Like make a real movie seriously?

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Yeah, all right, well there's a little bit more of
the recap lift then yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
Yeah, this is a long movie.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
It's a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
It's yeah, it really is. It is very long, and
it's still left out so much. Yeah, almost like it
should have been a mini series. Maybe I decay. Yeah, anyway, Okay,
so we've come to the part where oh yeah, the
two men, Mister and Shug's new husband are cracking eggs
over their heads and goofing around. Sure, and while they're

(01:03:03):
distracted with that, Shug goes to get the mail and
she sees a letter to Steely from Nettie and Seely
reads it, and the letter says that that Nettie has
been writing to her all of these years, and so
Cely realizes that Albert probably kept those letters from her.

(01:03:24):
So Cely and Shug snoop around Albert's stuff and they
find all the letters that Nettie had sent over the years,
and she reads them all and she learns about how
what we were talking about, Nettie had been living in
Africa with Ceely's two children, because Seely's father sold the babies,

(01:03:47):
Adam and Olivia to that woman who we saw at
the beginning. Her name is Corene, and then Nettie found them.
It kind of glosses over this detail. I don't think
it even mentions it, like she became their maids, just
like I found them, and then I joined them on
this missionary trip to Africa. But guess what, we're all
coming back to the US soon, or we're trying to

(01:04:09):
or something. And then one day, when everyone has gathered
for dinner, we've got Cely, Albert Shug, Shug's husband, Sophia Harpo,
Albert's father, Squeaky is there, a bunch of kids, and
I don't know whose kids those are. But Seally starts

(01:04:30):
laying in to Albert, saying that she's leaving him. He's
a terrible person, his kids are rotten. She's had enough,
and she curses him, saying that his mistreatment of her
will come back onto him, and then Sealy, Shug and
Squeaky aka Mary Agnes leave. We cut to a couple

(01:04:54):
years later. Sometime later, Albert slash Mister is living in squad.
His life is in shambles. It seems like Seely's curse
is like coming true.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
I thought that that was well done because it's like
she didn't need to curse him. He was never fling.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
It was never gonna be okay. He can't even feed himself.
But I do love there's like those Spielberg comedy moments.
He goes to the mailbox which now has like gut
bullet holes in it, and as he's getting the mail,
like a screen on one of his windows falls, like
his whole house is.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Just falling apart.

Speaker 4 (01:05:27):
Literally, there's pigs and stuff and it's just it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we get that scene that
we were just talking about where Seely's father dies, but
it turns out that he wasn't even her biological father.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Yep boop. Yeah, they just zip through plot points he did.

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
Don't worry, no insid no, it's all good.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
And from this Celly inherits her real father's house and store.
So she opens up a clothing shop slash specifically a
pants store. She's making pants.

Speaker 4 (01:06:03):
With one size fits all, pants that do seem to
fit all.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
I was like a sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Yeah,
I wrote dud Celey founded the Sisterhood of the Traveling
Pants purely she like Harbo, who is very small man,
and Sophia, they truth like wear the same pants and
they do fit.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
They look nice on the nice.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Yeah. So one day Cely and Sug are walking through
a field with purple flowers, and Sug says something like,
it pisses God off when you walk through a field
and you see purple and you don't notice the color purple,
because purple just wants to be loved the way that

(01:06:44):
everybody wants to be loved. And we're like, oh, so
that's where Okay, they said it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
And that's the color purple.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
That's the name of the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
They have that conversation. Are like, but where as straight friends,
I would like to have this discussion with you in
a field in.

Speaker 4 (01:07:06):
A very straight way. And I don't mean like those
lavender lesbians. I just mean purple is nice, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
The straight color purple is the straightest colors for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Yeah, that's why the Purple Teletubby is famously the straight
just one. Yeah, well you just pulled that out like effortlessly,
had the Purple Teletubby it's in my mind.

Speaker 4 (01:07:31):
Well, so you think it when you think purple Barney.
Also yes, yeah, also so straight, very straight.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Okay. So the movie ends with a couple different scenes.
One Shug finally reconnects with her father. One day at church,
she comes like marching in, singing gospel.

Speaker 4 (01:07:50):
It's a choir battle. It's everything that happens in this movie.
And then Steven Spielberg goes, you know what, be fun
a choir battle, Like they are at the juke joint.
She's singing for a performance and the church is also going,
and the church people are mad that they can hear
the juke joint music. So they're like sing a song
in the choir and shook hearing it. Is like, you
know what, let's bring it to their doorsteps. And so

(01:08:12):
they started playing and singing and walk over and then
the church is like, okay, you guys win, you win.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
Yeah. The other soloist gracefully accepts. Yeah, she's truly like for.

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
A moment, she like comes out of the cues and
she's like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna go sing my
heart out.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
And then she's like, you know what, never mind, never mind,
never mind.

Speaker 4 (01:08:30):
It is implied at this point that Shug must be
pretty famous because mister this whole time has been listening
to her record and hearing her on the radio and
just constantly playing her famous song Sister. So it's implied
she like does blow up. So there's I guess some
probably level of that choir girl being like, oh my goodness,
the famous sug Avery's here. Maybe we don't know Steven

(01:08:51):
didn't want to let us know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
That part unclear. Yeah, I was like, is she charting?
Can I have afmation?

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
She's selling tickets like she on the Billboard top one hundred,
How big is she that?

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
Okay that she's on jukeboxes? But okay, yeah, it's you know,
very Spielberg sentimental. But I really do let the scene
where Seally doesn't know that Shug is about to sing
a song that she wrote for her and oh it's
so it's yeah, if only they had let them be gay,
like that would be gay, truly let them be gay.

Speaker 4 (01:09:21):
And yeah, I will say the church battle choir scene
also again feels very Spielberg, just in terms of how
much the church people inquire, people are smiling.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
There's this.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
To me, it felt there's just a minstrelly aspect to
some scenes where I feel a white director being like
smile Moore, smile more like I hear that note and
I feel it because like, even when they're playing the piano,
they're all just like smiling so big at Sugar and
You're just like, do they even know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
This and who she is? Like?

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
Why are they also invested in this situation? Doesn't her
dad hate her, probably never really talks about her, And
suddenly they're all just like, oh, yay, and it's just yeah,
it's so just yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
They're just excited that number one superstar Sugay America suggavery
has graced them.

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
Has graced them, and is just hugging their pastor very intimately.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
For some reason.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
They're like, Wow, our pastor knows a famous person. Yeah.
I also, as someone who has well a complicated relationship
with the concept of a father, I was like, why
is she so obsessed with trying to like when his
affection He seems like a not very good person, But

(01:10:41):
maybe that's just a me thing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Well. It also feels like, because this movie is overtly
critical of many things, religion is not really one of them,
which it seems like the book is more ready to
engage with. My feeling and again, I don't know how
Shug's relationship with their father's presented in the book necessarily,
but it felt like he was this kind of amalgamation

(01:11:03):
of like, if she can reconcile with her father, she
can reconcile with religion and like quote unquote respectable society,
or like it felt like he was also like a
symbol of other stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
Yeah, in the book, it's a lot of like he
hates her because he feels like God gave her this
voice and she could use it in church for the Lord,
but he, you know, she brings shame upon them in
the family. A lot of why she is even sleeping
with mister like how she becomes a mistress and she's
like her relationships with married men. They go more into

(01:11:38):
that because it's sort of like her trying to get
her father's attention and approval and love. So it's like
this manifestation of daddy issues. So it again just makes
more sense because Alice Walker is a writer who knows.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
What she's doing.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
But yeah, in the movie, I don't think you really
get how not having her father has impacted Shug. You know,
it feels good to I guess see them come back together.
But again it's like, why did she care so much
about getting married to impress him? Why did she care
so much about like showing him right?

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
If we knew more about it, I would have an
easier time understanding her what is compelling her to seek
out this love and affection from him, But we just
don't know enough.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
So I'm just like, right, I mean, in the SPIELBERGI
way that in the kind of eleventh hour of this movie,
there are two tacitly implied redemption arcs for men who
are abusive in different ways, where we I mean, I
think we're led to believe. I don't think that we're
led to believe that Sugar had been physically abused by

(01:12:39):
her father, but like neglected and abandoned essentially emotionally. They
have no relationship, and then he sort of like never
has to say sorry. He's just like, oh, today is
the day I decide I decide to forgive you, even
though you have done nothing wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:12:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
And then with Albert, I mean, I think, like you're
talking about earlier, Ashley, it would make I can't really
see a world where it's like Albert's redemption arc, you know,
and it's not totally redemption. It's close enough. I don't
know the way it's presented in the Spielberg movie. You're
just like he should have to move to a different
city at least, Like why is he still should have.

Speaker 4 (01:13:19):
To lose his property or something? And yeah, it'll be
I guess we're going to do this part in the
synopsis because it's like the very end that they rush
Mister's whole arc of like him just deciding, you know what,
I have been cursed, let me fix this.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
And I almost didn't understand fully what was happening because
we see him get a letter from like the federal government.

Speaker 4 (01:13:43):
Like it's the immigration and Naturalization and in the book
this is explained that basically to come back to America,
Nettie and her kids need like a sponsor, someone who's
already in America. So they've been asking Celi and they're
trying to petition and be like this is the only way,
you know, we don't know anyone else back in the States,
like we need you to do this, and there's like

(01:14:05):
a fee that they have to pay, and obviously these
letters are never getting to Cely. And then finally Mister's like,
you know what, let me do it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
I'll do it all, redeem myself by paying the fee.

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):
I'll pay the little fee.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Okay, that makes sense. I figured it must have been
something like that, but it's not.

Speaker 4 (01:14:24):
Like, yeah, like why and why would like they need
Celia or Mister to get involved in any way?

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
Like what if they went over there?

Speaker 4 (01:14:33):
Couldn't they just be like we were born in America,
we have passports and come back.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
But yes, yeah, in any case, So the movie ends
with after mister had paid the fee, Nettie returning with
Cely's children, Adam and Olivia, as well as Tashi, who
I think is Adam's wife, and then there's just this
beautiful tear reunion and then the movie ends. So that

(01:15:05):
is the color purple.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:15:08):
I mean we also get Mister looking at them and
he walks his horse into the sunset. He wist, well,
I did a good thing and I'm not cursed anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
And yeah, and then we know you have to move.

Speaker 4 (01:15:21):
You have to move, you gotta and we get the
iconic Also another famous thing that me and my cousin
used to you all the time, handshake me and you
us never part.

Speaker 1 (01:15:31):
Me and you us have one heart, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:15:34):
Yeah, so they're children again who found each other, and.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
I feel like they're among the color purple. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
When this happens, Oh yeah, it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
Makes you think, all right, let's take another quick break
and we will come back to discuss, and we're back.

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
I knew we were gonna have half a discussion in
the middle of it. It's hard not to. It's hard,
but I do. I'm glad that we I mean, maybe
we should start with the erasure of the sug and
Cely relationship, because that seems like the biggest erasure.

Speaker 4 (01:16:19):
Yeah, is that they have this beautiful relationship. In the books,
it is super gay. You understand the love they have
for each other, and that beyond just being into each other,
it is a safety that they find and each other
as women, that they've both been so disappointed by men
and hurt by men. And I think it really is
a disservice to Ceely's character because in the movie, her

(01:16:42):
ability to be romantic, to be sexual is just completely
washed away. She's basically played as though she has the
mentality of a child, like she never really like steps
into that adulthood of I'm gonna speak up for myself.
I know what I want I have feelings for this
person instead, it kind of is suggested, and then she
has this big monologue at the dinner table where she's like,

(01:17:04):
I'm gonna speak up finally. But it's so much more
beautiful when you see that in this relationship with Shoog,
she's able to find her voice and stand up for
herself and finally start to fight. So to remove it,
it's just again one of those really disappointing acts arcs
of it. I think again that's what made me kind
of fall out of love with the movie when I
realized what I could have had reading the book.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
Yeah, there's been a ton written about it. We'll link
to a friend of this show, Princess Weeks, wrote a
wonderful essay about it a couple of years ago, I
think possibly when it was first announced that this new
adaptation was going to come out. I wanted to share
there's a quote that's been pretty widely circulated that we've
referenced before, because I think it's very easy for directors

(01:17:51):
to be like, oh, I would have done this differently today. Sorry,
but you know, to hand him the bare minimum. He
didn't double down on the decision and say and I
do it again today. But the quote that is widely circulated,
I think during every round of this necessary discourse about
how this relationship is completely erased. So Spielberg says, quote,

(01:18:13):
there were certain things in the lesbian relationship between sug
Avery and Sely that were finally detailed in Alice's book
that I didn't feel could get a PG. Thirteen rating,
and I was shy about it. In that sense, perhaps
I was the wrong director to acquit some of the
more sexually honest encounters between Sugar and Sealy because I
did soften those. I basically took something that was extremely
erotic and very intentional, and I reduced it to a

(01:18:35):
simple kiss. I got a lot of criticism for that
ud quote. I wonder why, Stephen, I wonder why weird
weird that that happened. And I was curious because I
have not seen the musical, and I know that that
is that adaptation of the so in the original musical,

(01:18:57):
and I've heard I mean again, never trust a movie.
So it's like it's it's hard. There has been a
lot of talk, and I think at least press buzz
that the new adaptation will actually rise to the occasion
of the source material and include the queer relationship, which
I'm interested in seeing how it's done because it seems

(01:19:18):
like there was another round of criticism in how the
original Broadway musical plays it down.

Speaker 4 (01:19:23):
Yeah, oh, it's the musicals not gay at all, and
it's a musical, so it would be gay. It's yeah,
it's not. I saw when Michelle Williams was in it
on Broadway, and I mean, I loved it. I love
the music, I do like the musical, but I mean,
if Spielberg's goal was to make the movie Pg. Thirteen,
they were like, we got to make sure this musical

(01:19:44):
has like a g rating, Like people have to be
able to bring their six year olds to enjoy the
bright colors. So it's definitely even more just like whitewashed
and kind of like those details are missing. It's still
really fun, though, But at the same time, I've always
kind of wondered, why this story, Why is this the
story about black female struggle that is depicted so raw,

(01:20:06):
so honestly in the book. Why is this what you've
decided should be turned into a PG. Thirteen general audience affair?
Like can we be honest about it? Like can't we
have our r rated narratives because that's what this is.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
And it feels so telling, just like, and this discussion
has been had with a number of movies, but like,
what can you get away with in a PG thirteen rating?
And why is showing a lesbian relationship not okay when
we see I mean, I think that's like sort of
my central issue with the way that this movie's adapted.

(01:20:39):
There's a million ways to criticize it, but that like,
on its face, this movie is very, very comfortable with
showing the black women at its center being tremendously abused
and are not comfortable or like shy and pull away
and fade to black when it comes to showing these
same characters experiencing actual joy and pleasure, Like the pleasure

(01:20:59):
is erased or just hinted at, but the abuse you see,
you know, for the most part pretty clearly the thing
that bugged me the most. And I was like, oh,
the scene where Sophia punches the white guy in the face.
They don't show it. They have a car pass like
it's like when SpongeBob is swearing and it's like the

(01:21:21):
dolphins sound yeah they do that. I was just like,
they're comfortable showing black women the abuse the entire movie.
But they're like, but we don't want to show a
white man getting punched in the face.

Speaker 4 (01:21:30):
Oh, they do cut back when when Sophia is on
the ground with her skirt up, you see, and then
they're like, you should see this, you should see this
woman in the must I'm real.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
They show the sheriff like pistol whipping her, yeah, in
the head, and then you show the yeah. She collapses
to the ground, her skirt flies up, exposing her underwear,
Like why is that okay to show? But not?

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
I mean, it just feels like an admission of what
the creative team was comfortable showing and what they were like, well,
we cut it short of showing a relationship between two
black women that's sexual and punching a white guy in
the face any sort of abuse or humiliation. Pg. Thirteen
No problem, which is just as much an issue with

(01:22:16):
the ratings system as it is with the creative choices,
because theoretically, in a just world, there would be some
fucking pushback for that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
There's a documentary. I've referenced this on the show before,
but a documentary called This film is not yet rated,
and it explores largely how sex scenes or like romantic
scenes between or among queer people, even though they will
be framed and choreographed like basically identically to like hetero

(01:22:46):
sex scenes, the movies with queer sex depicted in them
will be given like NC seventeen ratings, where again basically
identical like choreography and like body place and like the
same level of nudity. It's not as though like you're
seeing like hardcore porn like dicks getting sucked or anything

(01:23:08):
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:09):
Well, and I think it also like is inherently connected
to just like seeing women experiencing pleasure in movies at
all is so deem. I always think about the like.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
The but I'm a Cheerleader episode. I think we talked
about this a lot mm hmm, because that movie there's
like sex scenes and that had to be largely cut
to be able to get an R rating or I
forget which, but there was scenes that like the MPAA
was like, this is too scandalous, so we're gonna give
you like either an NC seventeen or an R rating

(01:23:44):
basically make it inaccessible to people.

Speaker 1 (01:23:47):
But even within like heterodynamics too, where it's like a
blow job can be in a pg. Thirteen movie no problem.
But if someone's going down on a maybe that's we
gotta keep that. We can't let them know. We coun't
lock it up.

Speaker 4 (01:24:03):
Only release it in France. Don't even bring it to
my shores.

Speaker 1 (01:24:08):
It's ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (01:24:09):
And yeah, just again in this I even the kiss
between sug and Cely, I feel like it's a little
just even further degraded because when Seely finally does see
Nettie again, they also share this like long kiss obviously
not sexual, they are sisters, but it makes it feel like, oh,
this is just a form of black female connection. True,

(01:24:31):
like Europeans they just deeply kiss when they really care
about each other.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
We don't do that.

Speaker 4 (01:24:37):
I think it makes sense for Nettie because she is
coming from Africa and like has these customs and is
saying her sister out for a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
But between Sugar.

Speaker 4 (01:24:45):
And Avery, no, that's not just like black girlfriends like
my lady girl.

Speaker 1 (01:24:49):
No, it's gay. It's supposed to be gay.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
He's not a sexy kiss. It's like they peck each
other on the lips a couple of times, and then
like when they finally do the deeper kiss, it immediately
like pans away to like see their hands very lightly,
like their fingertips are like kind of touching each other's
shoulders and like hip or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
But I want an oral history of that day on sets.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
Yeah, it's not an intimate kiss. It's just it's not
hot and heavy.

Speaker 4 (01:25:17):
It's just like, Yeah, I think Stephen was behind the
camera going not the whole hand on her shoulder, just
just the fingertips, just the tip tip, just just please,
little touching, not too much.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
So that was disappointing, very telling.

Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
Yeah, and I think it's like one of the most
famously mishandled areas of this movie. But there's just so
much that is I want to talk a little bit
about Alice Walker in general and specifically what her relationship
to this production was, but I feel beholded to say
Alice Walker, very famous, writer, very well respected, also has

(01:25:55):
her fair share of pretty tremendous fuck ups in terms
of expressing anti Semitic stances, spreading Holocaust denial, and most
recently siding with JK. Rowling. So yeah, we're not going
to get into those issues in detail today, but I
do want to acknowledge them because they're all from the

(01:26:16):
last ten years.

Speaker 4 (01:26:18):
Yeah, she's not Tony Morrison. Okay, there's reasons we yeah,
like some other people a little more.

Speaker 1 (01:26:26):
Yeah, I mean it particularly that I was reading her
history with anti Semitism and you're like, Alice, yeah, because
she's also pro Palestinian liberation, which is not anti semitic,
but she's also anti Semitic, and you're just like, you
are not helping. You're not helping as it pertains to

(01:26:48):
this movie. Sorry, my blood pressure just raised as Pertaises
movie because we hinted at this earlier where we're like,
how did we get to Steven Spielberg and who was
their pushback?

Speaker 3 (01:26:59):
You know what?

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
From what I can gather, Alice Walker, like you're saying, Ashley, like,
she didn't really want the movie to be adapted, especially
a story that is so rooted in black womanhood and
there's a queer relationship, Like how would you imagine in
the eighties that someone wouldn't fuck it up until it
was unrecognizable. What convinced her was what we're talking about,

(01:27:22):
where she was like, well, let's see if we can
produce a decent adaptation of this From the inside. I
thought it was interesting that her contract included that she
would serve as a project consultant, and that fifty percent
of the production team outside of the cast, which is
obviously vast majority black actors, but that fifty percent of
the production team would be African American women or quote,

(01:27:46):
people of the third world unquote. Pretty vague, Yeah, a
little vague, okay, but that she, you know, was integral
for her to approving this project at all, to bring
in people who are massively underrepresented in film into this production,
which I think is really fucking cool. Like, that's great.

Speaker 2 (01:28:06):
And one of the reasons, if not the main reason
she was reluctant to have this be adapted to a movie,
is because she knew how poorly black people and women
and black women in particular are treated by Hollywood, and
she's like, I don't want that same thing. I don't
want it to get mishandled if my movie gets adapted.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
But like we.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
Mentioned, she I read that she convened with a group
of five women to discuss the merits of accepting this
offer to have her book adapted to film, and they
were like, well, if this does get made, it could
help improve the exploitation of black people and black women

(01:28:50):
in movies, so let's just kind of yeah, it's like
an inside job, and.

Speaker 4 (01:28:55):
We get to put a ton of black actors who
haven't had this chance to blow up in a Steven
Spielberg movie.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
Let's do it, Let's go. And I love that there's
like equal emphasis behind the camera too, like ye, it's
it's really cool. And what I found frustrating was that
she so she was not a screenwriter by trade, but
she was a Pulitzer Prize winning fucking writer, and she
does not get screenplay credit. She wrote the first draft
and then they kicked it to a white guy who

(01:29:23):
had previously or no, hadn't even written Indiana Jones in
the Last Crusade yet, but they, I mean, the sole
credited writer is oh, I don't know how to say
his name, Meno may Mayeus Mayeus. Yeah, and that Alice
Walker was sort of forced to accept that, even though
she still insisted that she'd be given final script approval.

(01:29:47):
So she worked on the script throughout, but she's obviously
not credited, and which is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And she also,
I mean, I listened to an interview that she did
more recently about just like how she was learning about
movie production through working on this where it sounds like Spielberg.

(01:30:08):
You know, she had things where she was like, all right, Spielberg,
these are the things I need you to shoot. I
will not compromise on these scenes being shot. And he
was like, all right, I'll shoot him. And many of
them didn't end up in the movie. And that's how
I learned about how editing sucks. And then I think
the other really influential black creative voice behind the camera

(01:30:32):
here is Quincy Jones, who is one of the main producers.
I guess he was. I watched an interview from the
eighties where he was really integral and pushing for Spielberg
as a director, and then he also curated this iconic
Quincy Jones score, And I mean, the score of this
movie is fucking ridiculous. It's great, but yeah, I don't know.

(01:30:56):
I think it's just it's so fucking telling and frustrating
that Alice Walker doesn't have at least a shared credit, Like, Okay, yeah,
she doesn't know how to write a screenplay, fair enough,
but also, why do we have to have Meno Mayes
come in to do it like some white Dutch dude?

Speaker 4 (01:31:14):
Yeah, and I think that for me, that was when
I cause I didn't realize, you know, when you're a kid,
you don't know what all those names and the credits mean.
And as a high school after reading the book, I
realized like, wait a second, Wait a second, she didn't
write she doesn't say she wrote it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Who is this?

Speaker 4 (01:31:28):
And that yes, when I started to fall out of
love with the movie and start to question, you know,
why were certain things cut? Why are certain things presented
this way? I think then you start to wonder like, okay, yeah,
mister is a more one dimensional character. And Alice Walker
had a ton of issues because she based the character
on like her grandfather, I think, and she was hurt
by that. And then you start to be like, oh, yeah,

(01:31:50):
well we're some white Dutch guy didn't understand the complexity
of like living up to the patriarchal burdens your father
has given to you while also like harming women and
all of this. So of course it just doesn't translate
into the script.

Speaker 2 (01:32:05):
Yeah, I would say most, if not all, of the
male characters in the movie feel extremely caricatureish, slash just
like stereotypical. Now do I appreciate that at its core,
this movie is about like women sticking together and forming

(01:32:29):
bonds and friendships to protect each other against the abusive
behavior of the men in their life, and like eventually
being able to escape their abusers. Yes, but like we've said,
it fails to portray any of the nuance and any
of the contexts that explains why these men are like this.

Speaker 4 (01:32:54):
Yeah right, it's just not It's kind of the movie
makes you wonder why to Shug go to be with
mister Why does she engage in a relationship with him
if she sees how he treats Seely? And the book
does a better job of outlining like how he can
be this sweet, romantic person and you know, like he
can be everything she wants sometimes, But then there's this darkness,

(01:33:18):
and I think that makes it a little more believable
because I think, you know, for us, by the time
Seely's decided like maybe I should slit his throat, it's like, girl,
you should do on this twenty minutes ago, Like what yeah,
girls kill him?

Speaker 1 (01:33:30):
Get it? I'm over this good his ass? Right, And
even though it sounds like I mean Spike Lee had
a arguably outside's reaction, I do understand why he was
concerned about how black men are portrayed in movies that
are written and directed by white boy guy is a
very very valid concern. It becomes complicated by like that
big use to undercut or like be implied that that

(01:33:53):
is undercutting both Alice Walker and an all black cast
in an industry where at that time it rarely have
ever happened. But I also, like I do think that
I'm glad, I guess not glad, I mean I'm interested
to hear that Alice Walker wrote Albert to be less
one dimensional. Not because I think that like abusers should

(01:34:13):
have more lore, Yeah, but I do think that, like
it's We've talked about this trope a million times on
the show where it's like patriarchy, the guy just the
guy that does all of the patriarchy things, and he
is the bad guy and we get rid of him
at the end and then misogyny is solved, which it
doesn't actually do very much to move the needle on

(01:34:36):
how we talk about anything, and particularly with like white
writers and directors, it feels like there are tropes on
how black men are portrayed in Hollywood, present in these
characters because of what is taken out.

Speaker 4 (01:34:51):
Yeah, so okay, yeah, it's just really one of those like, yeah,
I guess the people who were mad.

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
I still like the movie. But everybody's right. It's just
truly right. This Spike Lee is right.

Speaker 4 (01:35:03):
At the same time, I wish that we could have
seen these other versions where maybe Spike Lee did it,
where Alice had more say in the script.

Speaker 1 (01:35:10):
But what we got, you know, is.

Speaker 4 (01:35:14):
Passed generations to generations. I don't I truly do watch
this movie probably every year.

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
With my family.

Speaker 4 (01:35:20):
It is always being played on BD. You know, the cast,
I think is what ended up making it what it became.
So you know, you get Oprah, It's gonna stick.

Speaker 1 (01:35:31):
I mean, right right, there's I haven't read the full book,
but there is an interesting excerpt slash discussion of it
written in the New Republic recently in the last couple
of years, let's say, but there is a book written
by writer Salamisha Tillett called In Search of the Color Purple,

(01:35:52):
the Story of an American Masterpiece. Just a series of
essays and just reflections on not just this, not just
the movie or the book, but how the culture received it,
I mean, which is a lot. And I learned a
little more about how Alice Walker was treated in not
even just the fallout of the movie, but the fallout
of the book, which I think again complicates that we

(01:36:15):
were just talking about, where it makes a ton of
sense that black directors and black male directors in particular
would have an issue with Steven Spielberg portraying Mister in
the way that he does in this movie, But the
fact that that same energy was applied to Alice Walker
when the book first came out reads very, very differently.
I didn't know that when The Color Purple the book

(01:36:37):
came out, an excerpt or a piece on it was
included in MSS magazine, and it was on the cover
of the magazine, and Gloria Steinem was essentially tasked with
defending Alice Walker for including her work that had black
male characters who were abusive towards black women. And how
that is a completely different discussion. I have a quote

(01:37:01):
from Salamisia Tillett sort of speaking to that her she
says quote. The controversy also took such a firm hold
because it drew upon a stereotype that at the time
was well known among African Americans but far less familiar
to white people. The black women as race trader. Likewise
till it powerfully pulls from the color Purple controversy as

(01:37:21):
an example of how black women have been asked to
silence their own pain to supposedly serve the greater cause
of racial uplift. Threaded throughout these attacks on the color
purple is the idea that the danger of reinforcing stereotypes
about black male sexuality is too great to allow room
for black women to have justice. Unquote sounds like an
interesting book. I'm just like, man, Yeah, that gets that

(01:37:42):
sums it up. Yeah, that is Yeah, that's why Spike
Lee was angry.

Speaker 4 (01:37:47):
That was absolutely you know, I think a lot of people,
even in the black community today, it's I think beloved,
Like I grew up loving it because I have a
single mom. But I do think there is still some
a lot of animosity where people want to call this
like black tragedy porn. You know that it's just this
sad thing about black women getting beaten and so it

(01:38:07):
should be written off or trauma porn, And you know,
I think that's just so far from the truth. This
is a lot of it is based on Alice Walker's
real life. I think these are stories that need to
be told. And at the time, there was a large
contingent of people who were like, if we tell these stories,
they won't give us our respects, our justice. We won't
and it's like they never will, they never will. Sorry,

(01:38:30):
well they're never going to do it, so let us
tell our stories.

Speaker 2 (01:38:33):
And it wouldn't be as much of an issue if
there were just more stories about black characters living their
normal lives, and you would be able to see black
joy and you would be able to see black men
not being abusive and being very loving, caring partners and

(01:38:54):
parents and things like that. But because especially at this
time when this movie's coming out, there were so few
exist samples of of any other mainstream stories about black people. Yeah,
of course, the kind of reaction to that would have
been like this is all we get, like the and
especially black men being represented this way, right, because there

(01:39:16):
there was very little else to look to to say, well,
here's an example of how we're not all abusers.

Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:39:26):
So yeah, you know, in another world, I wish I
could see the version of the movie that is made
with a black male director and how they would have
approached that with Alice Walker or a black woman. But yeah, yeah, Okay,
let's not get too crazy. We literally just got a
black woman to direct a Marvel movie. Let's not push it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:45):
Okay, it's getting great reviews. I'm really excited to see it.
I haven't been excited to see it a Marvel, but
I was, like, I had a lot of fun. I
was good. I got burned by doctors trade. Oh I
didn't even mister mister weird.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:40:00):
I got burned by that one last year. But I
give them one a year, and I've been saving the
Marvels for this year. It's a good one. Yeah. The
new adaptation is being directed by Blitz, the Ambassador Blackmail director. Again.
I guess I just wonder because very different dynamics, obviously,
but it also reminds me of like, well, we had

(01:40:21):
our discussion about Carrie years ago, where it's like an
adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation, and like can
you weed out these mistakes or erasures from the eighties
if you're still adapting it on that, Like, I'm very
curious how what creative choices are changed and what are not,
and like how could you we just need more original stories?

Speaker 4 (01:40:43):
I think is this this is really the answer, because
you know, seeing it, Like I know when I go,
I'm gonna want to hear the lines I love. I'm
gonna want to hear see the classic moments, like that's
what we're there for at the end of the day.
Because it's the color Purple, so it makes it hard
to expand that story. And then you add on that
it's the musical, and I think it's gonna be great,

(01:41:03):
but I am expecting, truly to see a movie version
of the musical. I don't think it's gonna really blow
my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Yeah, I really. My fear is always like, wow, it's
the like queerest movie of the year, and there's like
a little like yeah in like the background of a
scene where something else is happening and they're like, wow,
the revolution is here, folks. So you're like, all right,
but okay, of what we have in this movie, I

(01:41:33):
really genuinely do, even though it is, you know, like
very Spielberg soapy. I think we're like Alice Walker's, like
the relationship dynamics between the women in The Color Purple
are extremely complex. I really appreciate that Seely is allowed
to make mistakes throughout the story. I feel like women

(01:41:56):
are very rarely allowed to make mistakes and not encourage
the audience to turn on her. But we see relationships
between women grow and change over the years, which is
how life works. But when Cely, you know, at first,
tells Harpo you should beat Sophia, Sophia confronts her, Cely apologizes,
doesn't do it again, and they have a kind of

(01:42:19):
beautiful relationship moving forward, and it comes full circle when
you know Cely, I mean again, it's like Spielberg, where
it's like Celi said the magic words and Sophia was back,
and also putting the impetus on her as if Harpo
had no choice but to do what she said when
he doesn't even take her seriously, like it's ridiculous. But

(01:42:41):
that Cely, you know, really shows up for Sophia in
as many ways as she can, and that Sophia appreciates
that and the relationship grows, that's beautiful. I mean, the
relationship with Sugar is always going to be frustrating because
you know what's not there. Yeah, but I mean I
think of what we have, I still like what we have.
It's just like, yeah, knowing that there is more is

(01:43:02):
incredibly frustrating.

Speaker 4 (01:43:04):
Yeah, And that you didn't get more because some white
Dutch guy and Steven Spielberg, they just don't want it.

Speaker 2 (01:43:10):
It's on the this is too sexy for us.

Speaker 1 (01:43:14):
Yeah, but it's like again like the ratings thing in
the culture as it was. It also had no issue
showing mister having sex with a very young Cely, like
no problem.

Speaker 2 (01:43:27):
You know, statutory raping.

Speaker 4 (01:43:29):
Yeah her, she's like straight up fourteen or fifteen in
that scene.

Speaker 1 (01:43:32):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean we've already talked about it. But
it's just like it's so ridiculous. But I mean, women
are still very much showing up for each other, and
the way that Ceely grows as a character is almost
entirely comes from within herself and also from observing the
women around her, and it's done in a very sanitized

(01:43:53):
way in this movie. But it does happen. And I
cry when the movie told me to cry.

Speaker 4 (01:44:00):
Yeah, I'm sobbing. When Eddie's there and or and the
scarf is blowing in the wind, I'm sobbing. I'm sobbing.

Speaker 1 (01:44:07):
They got me, It's true. Two fun production facts that
I found that Oprah when Oprah was like in I
guess some meeting with Steven Spielberg. Early in the production
of this movie, she was like, Oh, Harpo's Oprah backwards.
That's weird. Yes, this is a big thing in Oprah lore.

Speaker 2 (01:44:29):
Yes, Harpo was Oprah Backwards as a young subscriber to
OH magazine as a child.

Speaker 1 (01:44:36):
I knew that story before I saw the movie.

Speaker 4 (01:44:39):
I think that's why her production company is named Harpo.
Like she names her whole thing Harpo because of that.

Speaker 1 (01:44:46):
I guess I'm pretty sure that the New or maybe
it is like technically owned, but like the New Color
Purple adaptation is like produced by Harpo, which is like
just the irony o.

Speaker 4 (01:44:57):
Yeah, her talk show was produced by Harpo, so like
she had a Harpo Studios in Chicago, like she's in it.
She was like, that was my man in the movie,
and I've taken that.

Speaker 1 (01:45:08):
Oh, I mean and just a quick mention. I mean again,
if you're if you grew up within Oprah lore, you
probably know this already. But that part of the reason
that Oprah felt so extremely strongly about this material was
that she had grown up having experiences like Sealy and
had been incestually abused, and understandably was very connected to

(01:45:30):
Alice Walker's work and lobbied for this part hard and
then killed it. It was a wonderful job.

Speaker 2 (01:45:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:45:37):
The other detail that I wanted to add, just because
I think it's funny, is there was a casting director
who I wrote his name down, casting director named Ruben Cannon,
who was choosing the main cast and recommended Whoopy Goldberg.
Whoopy Goldberg came into audition and did her stand.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
Up routine first of all, which is so weird iconic,
and second of all, did a joke about.

Speaker 1 (01:46:00):
Et smoking weed. And I just think that that is
funny because that in no way proves that you could
play the part of Seely. But she still was unbelievable,
Like I can't believe that just like has to be
the best debut film performance of all time. But she

(01:46:22):
got it by being like, what if eed smoked weed?
Yeah awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:46:26):
At the time, she was like the biggest black female
stand up in the country.

Speaker 1 (01:46:31):
Yeah, I do know.

Speaker 4 (01:46:32):
Alice Walker was actually not very happy that she was
cast because she felt that Seely should have been larger,
more overweight, and someone who is like considered kind of
like more mainstream unattractive, whereas Woobie Goldberg is like gorgeous.
So that was another thing where Alice Walker was like
I just wasn't happy. I felt like, you know, I
wrote these characters who looked like real people and they

(01:46:54):
got actors and it's like, well that's kind of how
movies go.

Speaker 2 (01:46:57):
So yeah, yeah, what Bee is incredible in this performance,
in her monologue at the dinner table toward the end
is just my favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:47:08):
Thing, so good. So I always forget that she because
I mean, she's so famously egot, but I always forget
that she did not win for this movie. She went
for Ghost. I think she won, which is a wonderful performance.
But like, of the two, you're like, really okay, okay. Sure.

Speaker 2 (01:47:29):
There's a few kind of themes or just like things
that the movie explores that I feel are like kind
of connected or just like all in the same vein
of like power dynamics in relationships between characters. There is
like characters relationships with their fathers, which again is like

(01:47:52):
very emphasized in this movie in a way that it
seems like maybe the book doesn't do quite so much,
or that it like places as much physis on like
mother child relationships. And then the way that women are
perceived by men and treated by men in this movie

(01:48:13):
where there's just you know, all these things of like
with suggavery Love, the character you have like Albert's father
is insulting her and you know, saying she's unclean, she's
a Jezebel, she has nasty women's disease, all of her
children have different fathers, things like that. It's literally sounding

(01:48:34):
like Trump in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:48:36):
Right, it's like a nasty woman if I had to
guess who you were.

Speaker 2 (01:48:41):
But right, and then you have like Seely's voiceover, and
at this point in the movie you don't really know
what dynamic Sugar and Seely have quite yet, but Steely's
voiceover is like saying, like, folks don't like it when
people are too proud or too free. And because Sugar
like this woman who has who has autonomy over her

(01:49:04):
life and her choices and her career, you know, and
she has this what's considered to be this kind of
unsavory profession where she's singing in juke joints and all
this stuff. Everyone thinks like the men especially and like
the older generation of men with like Albert's father and
her own father, like see her as this sinner, and

(01:49:29):
then you have like Sophia as this very headstrong person
doesn't take bullshit from anyone. Albert and Harpo alike are
threatened by this, and.

Speaker 1 (01:49:40):
Yeah, and briefly so is Cely.

Speaker 4 (01:49:43):
Yeah true, yes, yeah, And like I think it's so
clear in the scene where she first sees Sophia and
she talks about how Sophia and Harper were coming to
meet the dad at Mister for the first time, and
Celi is like, she.

Speaker 1 (01:49:57):
Came storming up.

Speaker 4 (01:49:58):
She's I can see him from so she's so big,
Like she's so horrible, she's so headstrong and loud, and
I think some of that is jealousy, but then slowly
she comes to kind of accept her. But I think
that is a theme, like how these three main women
all have to deal with their power dynamics against men
in different ways. Where Seely, you know, knows she doesn't

(01:50:20):
have like the privilege of beauty, so she has become
more timid, where Sophia realizes she doesn't have that, but
she decides to become more head strong and outspoken, and
she has that family support where she's allowed to do that,
you know, and even in their wedding, like her family
keeps mister away from her.

Speaker 1 (01:50:37):
And is like, no, we're not dealing with you.

Speaker 4 (01:50:39):
So she is able to do that. But then you
also have sug who isn't She doesn't have that fit,
but she does have her beauty and she uses that
to get what she, you know, needs to survive in
this patriarchal society.

Speaker 2 (01:50:49):
Exactly. Yeah, And then like to the the power dynamic
thing where there are various conversations where you know, like
Neddie says to seely, like you need to have the
upper hand over Mister's kids, and you know, you got
to show them whose boss. And then like mister tells
his son Harpo that he needs to have the upper

(01:51:10):
hand over Sophia, And there's all these like because this
is a very patriarchal society and because men are conditioned
to think that they have to control these women, who
if they aren't controlled, they'll end up like sug as
these Jezebel's quote unquote right, and you're like, oh, no,
I might be hot and talented, you'll you'll get nasty

(01:51:34):
women's disease, You'll have to sit in a tug. If
you don't control your woman, she'll get that disease. And
then but Shug has most, if not all, of the
power in her relationship with Albert. You see him like, Oh,
I'll bend over backwards for you, I'll do whatever you want.
I'll try to cook for you, even though I don't.
I can't. I don't know to cook at all. Like,

(01:51:55):
it's just interesting to see how the various characters kind
of just use what they have, like the tools that
they have, like you said, Ashley, like what they have
got going for them that they can kind of almost
exploit to not feel so powerless in a world where

(01:52:18):
poor black women have so little power, especially in like
Jim Crow era South.

Speaker 1 (01:52:24):
Yet this is taking place and the book.

Speaker 4 (01:52:26):
Is and I think this is another area where Alice
is upset in how the movie makes the men really
one dimensional, because the book is very clear that one
of the reasons these men feel they need to control
a woman is because they are also controlled in this
racist Jim Crow society is that they and we kind
of see it in the scene with Miss Millie when
she's like, oh, you know, Sophia, you can spend all

(01:52:48):
Christmas with your family and I'll drive home and then
she can't, and all these black men are trying to
help her, but she immediately is like, they're trying to
attack me, and you know, they start to be submissive
to her, and so it's kind of at there. It's
like the first time you see Harpo like stand down
to a woman and be like, oh no, missing ma'am,
we're trying to help you. And it's also one of
my favorite examples of just white feminism guilt and privilege

(01:53:10):
in that scene because she just immediately starts. But in
the movie that isn't so clear, like what is driving
their need to control. It does feel very like mister
just wants seely because he needs someone around the house
take care of his kids and clean. But in the
book it's a little more like he has this expectation
that if he is meant to be subservient in the society,

(01:53:30):
someone should be subservient to him. So that is why
he has this sealy person. Even though he does like
have romantic feelings for sug that he has a whole mistress,
like they to have sex, they hook up, but to him,
it's like, no, to prove my manhood and to have
a sense of self when my black masculinity is degraded.

Speaker 1 (01:53:49):
I need to have a Seily type. So the book
I think is.

Speaker 4 (01:53:53):
A little more interesting with that. But in the movie
it's just like, dude, are you being such a dick?

Speaker 1 (01:54:00):
That's ather' like area where like I think, like Spike
Lee's criticism is applicable where there is this void of
historical context and it's made to more seem like, well,
it's in the nature of these characters who behave this
way and because you're not given I mean it's like
you do get the year, but there's not a lot
of historical specificity.

Speaker 4 (01:54:20):
Yeah, Like none of the black men in the film
like really face any racism other than that moment with
the car, like you never it's never, you know, you'd
see Cely afraid in a shop because a white shop
owner is you know, like looking at her and it's
like you need something, missus, you know, and you see
that discomfort.

Speaker 1 (01:54:38):
You see Sophia be harmed. But like the men, it.

Speaker 4 (01:54:41):
Seems like, oh do they just like have it pretty good.
They're just like building their juke joints, having businesses, they
enjoying their farms, like what no right, you know, And
then they come in at the end with this oh yeah, yeah, No,
Actually their dad was lynched because he was a civil
rights guy, so don't so. Yeah, so the guys don't
have it easy.

Speaker 2 (01:54:59):
Because you aren't very closely listening to that one very briefs.

Speaker 4 (01:55:06):
You miss a entire you miss the whole thing. If
you don't, if you don't hear that.

Speaker 1 (01:55:12):
Yes, when it's like that. Originally it was a huge
plot weight as well. It should have been the glazing
over stuff like that just like removes historical specificity and
does make the men seem abusive in a complete void, And.

Speaker 2 (01:55:28):
It could have been such an interesting thing to examine
that tendency for marginalized people feeling so powerless and disempowered
by the world around them that some people will try
to then exert any power over anyone else that they can.
And that's obviously not something to admire. That's you know,

(01:55:52):
not good behavior, but it happens very frequently, and it's
I haven't seen many movies that really explore that very
thoughtful or in like a nuanced way, where you know,
marginalized people will marginalize someone who they perceive to have
less power than them. Yeah, and to me, it's such
a fascinating thing but yeah, movies just kind of.

Speaker 4 (01:56:14):
Yeah, I will say, if you've read or seen their
eyes were watching God as Erniel Hurston. So Oprah also
was producing this one, but they made it a series,
a limited series, so they had more time, they dig
into more things, and I thought it was incredibly done.
But that's like the only time where I really feel
an adaptation has done a great job of trying to

(01:56:37):
really capture the history, the political tone, the racism. Maybe
Oprah learned by the time he got to that one.
She was like, guys, I know, we gotta do right.

Speaker 1 (01:56:47):
Or just like had creative control, Like that's yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:56:50):
And her adaptation of Beloved is also really good. But yeah, yeah,
I think it.

Speaker 1 (01:56:56):
So I gotta put the blame on Spielberg.

Speaker 2 (01:56:58):
I mean fair, I'm comfortable. I mean, mister Steve, mister Steve,
it's on you, Steve. Oh oh, I had this is
a really goofy observation.

Speaker 1 (01:57:07):
But because we just covered Steel Magnolias Ashley, I was like, wow,
miss Millie and Clari Belcher similar the mayor's wife. Oh,
they're like alternate universe Clari Belcher. Anyways, that was just
a thought I had because that is a Southern movie
that conspicuously erases anyone who is not white from the story. Yeah,

(01:57:33):
I also thought that, I'm curious, I didn't read this
section of the book, so I don't know how sanitized
that exchange is because I know that the way that
Squeak was involved in sort of negotiating Sophia's prison sentence
isn't really Yeah, it's not in there.

Speaker 4 (01:57:50):
None of her prison sentence is really in there. It's
really detailed, like the what she goes through, the torture
they put her through, like they go visit her. Those
are deeps, like you know, bringing her stuff and trying
to help her, and how they slowly see her like
become less of herself. And then when she gets out,
her like having to work for that family is more
of like a punishment. It's more than being like we

(01:58:11):
got you. Well, the movie kind of makes it like
she didn't have a choice, like you know, this was
the only job she could get, I guess, but it
really shows that it's a more sinister act of like
white aggression.

Speaker 1 (01:58:25):
Yeah, I do agree that this is like a pretty
solid example of white woman. Multiple times, at every scene
she's in, she is weaponizing, and every scene in the movie,
she's like, but I've always been so nice to you.
I'm so good to you. So Fa, well, she's like
doing donuts in the backyard. I'm like, oh my god,

(01:58:45):
oh my god.

Speaker 4 (01:58:46):
She's just plunging so Vi in the face, like I'm
so kind to you.

Speaker 1 (01:58:49):
Why don't you accept it?

Speaker 4 (01:58:51):
And then Sophia doesn't get to spend Christmas with her family.
She has to leave immediately because Miss Millie can't drive.

Speaker 2 (01:58:58):
Yes, I'm glad that there is the inclusion of the
Miss Millie character because it does i think, maybe better
than other things that the movie glosses over, but like
it does really show her as this like specific type
of white woman who fetishizes black people. Not in like

(01:59:19):
a sexual way that we know of with Miss Milly,
but there's probably a better word for it. But like
she like is very drawn to Sophia and her children.
She's like, oh, aren't you the cutest little little kid?
Kiss kiss, kiss on the face. And she's like, Sophia,
please work for infantilizing.

Speaker 1 (01:59:37):
Yes, for sure, infantilizing.

Speaker 4 (01:59:39):
I think it's also with Sophia the mammification of black women,
where she sees, you know, this larger black woman who
she believes should want to take care.

Speaker 1 (01:59:47):
Of her and be, you know, her nanny.

Speaker 2 (01:59:49):
And yeah, and I think she's like the type of
white person who thinks they're being an ally to black
people and who like understands, i think, probably on only
a very very surface level, like the plight of black people.
But she's not an ally to them. She's still like
extremely scared of black people, and she's not trying to

(02:00:14):
be an ally. She doesn't want to be a friend.
She wants Sophia to work for her. Like, so it's
all these things where she like has this very warped
perception of like she thinks she's doing the right thing,
and yeah, she's very much not. And that is a
dynamic that still exists very much to Okay, but yeah,

(02:00:35):
I'm glad that the movie like shows that.

Speaker 4 (02:00:38):
Yeah, Spielberg got that part right. He did manage to
nail down that part.

Speaker 2 (02:00:42):
Yeah, good job, mister Steve. Is there anything else anyone
wants to discuss?

Speaker 1 (02:00:50):
I mean, we could keep going forever, but that was
about everything that I had.

Speaker 4 (02:00:53):
Yeah, I feel like we touched on everything that's at Yes,
it's just so it's such a long movie. There's so
much that happens. It's I mean truly, there's so much
that happens that at the end they're like, can we
just have a letter that like speeds this all up
just one less. She's like, your dad isn't really your
dad is stepdads?

Speaker 1 (02:01:11):
Is we on the land? By the way, your kids
are good?

Speaker 4 (02:01:14):
I got them and we're good.

Speaker 1 (02:01:15):
Gets to gets to the end of the movie.

Speaker 2 (02:01:17):
Yeah, it really does feel rushed in those like last
twenty minutes or so. Yeah, they're like, oh my gosh,
so much happened.

Speaker 1 (02:01:22):
But what I can't keep up?

Speaker 2 (02:01:24):
Yeah, well, does the movie pass the Bechdel test?

Speaker 3 (02:01:29):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (02:01:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's quite a lot. The main or at
least the moments of like Levity and this pretty heavy
movie are women interacting with each other and their friendship
and their bond and I like that very much about

(02:01:50):
this movie. Yeah. As far as our nipple scale, our
scale of zero to five nipples, where we evaluate the
movie based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens,
I'll give this I think three nipples, and I might

(02:02:12):
be swayed to give it more or maybe less.

Speaker 1 (02:02:17):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:02:17):
I think that Spielberg, mister Steve directing this movie, and
that other white guy whose name I forget, who is
credited as writing the screenplay, even though you know many
drafts were written, some of them by Alice Walker, and
she consulted on the project through the development of the

(02:02:39):
script along the way. Again she's not credited, right, Yeah,
But because when you watched the movie you can tell
that it was a book adapted by a black writer
and then like whitewashed and straight washed and things like that,
would the movie have had the budget and the just

(02:03:02):
like renown that it ended up getting if Spielberg didn't
direct it. Possibly not. So it's like this very catch
twenty two thing, but there's components of it that end
up being very disappointing because of how these white filmmakers
handled certain things. But again, at its core, this is

(02:03:24):
a movie about like sisterhood and female friendships and female
relationships and women looking out for each other and protecting
each other for the most part from the abuse that
men inflict upon them. So the premise I like very much.

(02:03:44):
The performances are great, There's just something to be desired
in the way the story unfolds as told by these
white filmmakers. So I'm excited to see the twenty twenty
three adaptation and to see hopefully a lot of course correction,
another great cast, Yes, great cast, wonderful casts, So I'm

(02:04:06):
looking forward to it. I'll give this nineteen eighty five
adaptation three nipples. I will give one to Whoopi Goldberg,
I'll give one to Oprah, and I'll give my final
nipple to Margaret Avery, who plays sug who.

Speaker 1 (02:04:21):
At the time was kind of the only famous person
in this movie, which is wild. Yeah, okay, I'll beat
you at three. I've tempted to go more only because
I love the performances so much. But I think based
on the discussion we've had, and I agree with that
you're saying, Kaitlin, like, where a lot of the production
dissonance is connected to what an impossible situation Black creatives

(02:04:43):
were put into it this time and still are often
put it to now, and that's how you end up
with Spielberg. And when you end up with Spielberg, what
are the consequences of that? And I mean, we talked
it through pretty considerably, and it feels like it makes
total sense to me why there will always be new
rounds of discourse about this movie good, bad, and different.

(02:05:05):
And I also, you know, I think that it is
a beautifully made movie. The performances are like you can't
argue with a single one of them. And also everything
we just said in the last two and a half hours.
So I'm going to say three. Let's go with three.
I'm going to give one to Oh sorry, my kitten
is like hungry and so ruining my life. I'm going

(02:05:31):
to give one to Whoopee. I'm going to give one
to Oprah, and I'm going to give one two. Oh
my gosh. Her name is ray Dawn Chong, who plays
Mary Agnes aka Squeak. Because she is Tommy Chong's daughter.
I love oh and I thought, how how fun for

(02:05:54):
a nepotism. That's a fun nepotism. Nepotism. So I will
give the final to her and that fun nepotism.

Speaker 2 (02:06:02):
Yeah, yeah, Ashley, Yes, I'm going to give it four.
I'm going to give four.

Speaker 4 (02:06:07):
I agree with everything you've all said, but I think
at the end of it, for me, no matter what
happened behind the scenes, the anger that it caused. Black
women as a community took this movie and we made
it our own. Like my mom sees her story in
this my grandmother, my aunt's. It is a language between us,
like if you see like a friend that you haven't

(02:06:28):
seen a long time, you will do the handclap motion
in the airport like it's we embraced it. I already
knew as soon as the movie was announced the twenty
twenty three one, I was gonna go see it. So
despite the shortcomings, which I think within our community we
can see and address and talk to, we're able to
appreciate this movie. It's why it's become such a big

(02:06:48):
thing for us amongst the general public. Yes, I wish
it had done a better job, but at the end
of the day, you know what Oprah's in this movie.
It's for black women, and we were happy with it.
So I'm going to give it for I will also
give it to Whoopee, to Oprah. I'm going to actually
give one to Danny Glover because he was so good
in this role that every black woman I knew hated

(02:07:10):
him for so long. He'd be in other things and
people would just be like, I can't I can't look
at his face.

Speaker 1 (02:07:16):
It's mister, I hate him so much.

Speaker 2 (02:07:18):
Being is lethal weapon.

Speaker 1 (02:07:21):
Uh, it's the one with Bruce willis Diehard. Is he
in die Hard?

Speaker 2 (02:07:26):
We're not.

Speaker 1 (02:07:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:07:28):
But he took a different turn in his career when
he realized I cannot keep playing angry men who beat women.

Speaker 1 (02:07:34):
So respect to that he.

Speaker 2 (02:07:36):
Turned it around and then he is in Lethal Weapon.

Speaker 1 (02:07:39):
I yeah, he is. I was like, is that a joke?
I was like, I have no idea. I've never seen
the little weapons, so I'm just like, well, and he's
also most iconically and Saw one.

Speaker 2 (02:07:50):
Oh, yeah, one, And that's your most famous role. We
all can agree with that.

Speaker 1 (02:07:55):
Yeah, that would be the lead on the open Tanny
Kloffer best remembered for Saw One.

Speaker 4 (02:08:01):
And I'm gonna give the final nipple to the song's
sister because if you you should just go listen to
it on its own. It's a really it's a banger,
just great.

Speaker 1 (02:08:08):
So good. I feel like diegetic movie songs are rarely good,
and this one is so good. It's so good. It's great.

Speaker 2 (02:08:15):
Well, Ashley, thank you so much for coming back and
coming on for a big old discussion.

Speaker 1 (02:08:21):
Yeah, and come back anytime. Let's talk about the musical.
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (02:08:26):
What was the Igmar Bergmann movie?

Speaker 4 (02:08:28):
Person per Yeah, I'll get you a whole list of
Bergman movies. We can talk about Persona cries and whispers.
Do someone like jam a piece of glass and their couch? Yeah,
well we can maybe talk about it someday. He does
not like women?

Speaker 2 (02:08:43):
Oops?

Speaker 1 (02:08:45):
Sure does it? Does he not? Where can we find you?

Speaker 2 (02:08:49):
Where? People? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:08:51):
You can follow me at the Ashley Ray everywhere on
the apps if you still do that, or listen to TV.
I say with Ashley Ray my podcast. Wherever you do that,
I talk about TV.

Speaker 1 (02:09:00):
So yeah, that's the best.

Speaker 2 (02:09:02):
It's great. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:09:03):
You can find us on Instagram and sometimes Twitter is
still at Bechdel Cast. You can also follow our Patreon
ak maatreon at patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast, where
for five dollars a month you get two bonus episodes
a month based around a hyper specific theme that we
choose or let you choose. You get access to one
hundred and fifty bonus episodes from the last six years

(02:09:26):
of the Matreon, So sign up for that.

Speaker 2 (02:09:29):
Wow, what a what a darn good special?

Speaker 4 (02:09:31):
What a deal?

Speaker 1 (02:09:32):
Truly deal.

Speaker 2 (02:09:33):
And you can also grab our merch at teapublic dot
com slash the Bechdel Cast and check out our link tree,
link tree slash Bechdel Cast for information about some possible
upcoming shows that.

Speaker 1 (02:09:47):
Big time We are doing big time maybe yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:09:52):
Bye bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia,
hosted by Caitlin Drante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman,
edited by molaboord. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskressensky. Our logo and merch

(02:10:13):
is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
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