Watermelon Woman with Chrystel Oloukoï

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Chrystel Oloukoï make a documentary about their discussion about The Watermelon Woman.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women and um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in
best start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Okay,
it takes a little narration. So imagine I have a
camp quarter and I just turned it on and I'm

(00:22):
sitting in front of it, and I say, um, so
I'm thinking about doing a podcast, and then it cuts
to you and me and we're in the podcast studio.
That makes sense, Yeah, it does. This is not my
best intro that I've ever had. I was just referencing
the format of the movie, which if you haven't seen

(00:43):
The Watermelon Woman, I guess that would make no sense
to you. Did you have an idea for an intro?
This can all be this is an open forum. I
was gonna do love you. You're beautiful. I know that
seems so. I That was one of my favorite scenes,
just because it you keep thinking it's going to end.

(01:05):
If that it he did not ending, and she oh God.
Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
my name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our podcast
in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point.

(01:28):
It's a way to just inspire us to have a
larger conversation about representation in film. Jamie Fillum, what is
the Bechtel Test? Well, i'll tell you. The Bechdel Test
is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alice and Bechtel,
sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace test. That there's many different

(01:51):
versions of it. For this show, we require that there
be two characters of a marginalized gender with names talking
about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue,
and hopefully it's a meaningful exchange, not just a like,
hey here, you dropped your toothbrush. Okay, like one of

(02:14):
those one of those classic interactions. Yeah, I mean the
the old dropping the toothbrush trope. It's a meat cute.
It's the meat cute you drop your toothbrush and then
see if anyone hot picks it up. Oh, I'm going
to have to try that. Also, just a reminder that
the original context of the Bechtel test was that Alison

(02:40):
Bechdel's characters in comic dikes to watch out for. The
context was those characters are examining movies to see if
women talk to each other about something other than a man,
because if they don't, then Alison Bechdel's characters can pretend
like the women in the movie are queer women who

(03:03):
they can like ship together, because of course, there was
virtually no representation of queer women or queer romance of
any kind in movies back then. So just a reminder
that that's the context of the Bechtel test. The eighties
was a bleak time, which sure was. Uh, we're so

(03:26):
excited to be covering the movie that we are covering today.
We're covering the Watermelon Women today. It has been a
listener request for some time now, and the time is now.
The moment has arrived, and we have an incredible guest
here to discuss this movie with us. We sure do.
They are a writer and freelance video editor. It's Crystal

(03:49):
luk Oi. Hello, welcome, nice to be here, thanks for
joining us, Thanks for inviting me. Of course, So we
found a piece that you wrote for the anniversary of
Watermelon Woman for the British Film Institute. Will of course

(04:10):
link to it in the show notes, but the pieces
entitled the Watermelon Woman at the Black Lesbian Classic that
wears its brilliance lightly. So we were like, oh, let's
get Crystal on the show and here you are, so
we're so excited to talk to you. You covered a
little bit in your piece, but could you tell us
about your your history with this movie and yeah, your

(04:33):
connection to it, Yeah, of course. So it's kind of
one of my favorite movies. Um. That made it also
more difficult to write about it that I encountered it
at a time where I wasn't necessarily I wasn't necessarily
asking a lot of questions about my sexuality, like my
my very queer wasn't like really question I had. I

(04:57):
was just I don't know, and I would figure that,
but it wasn't like something I was thinking way deeply,
And so I just liked it esthetically at first, and
I just enjoyed it. And then I rewatched it way
later with a group of friends, a group of queer friends,
at a time where I had much more clarity about

(05:19):
being queer, and it was like a group of black
French queer people in Paris, where I'm from, and it
was just such a different experience watching it like collectively
in that way, and I just have so many fund
memories attached to it because of that, like how affirmative

(05:41):
it was in coming to terms with my sexuality. And yeah,
that's beautiful. That's so nice. Movies are magical, you know,
there are I miss watching movies with friends that so
that sounds so lovely and it's like it's so special
for like the movies that can like help us understand

(06:04):
things about the world, help us understand things about ourselves.
It's beautiful and just be really funny, dude, this movie
is so so funny, and it's also just there's something
in watching something collectively, like so many things just went
way above my head the first time I saw it
by myself, and then you watch it with friends and

(06:26):
like you understand all of those references. Um yeah, m hm, cool, Jamie.
What's your history with the movie? I had not seen
this movie before. I It's been recommended to me for
some time, and it is available on Showtime right now
in the US, so I was like, oh, this is
this is great. Um. So I watched it a few

(06:47):
times to prepare for this episode, and I was really
blown away by it. It's such a It's just it's
so good in so many ways. I didn't have a
lot of context for what it was about, what the
format was, all the different sort of connecting pieces of
this movie are also fascinating and incredible, and it's like
it's so nineties in a really fun way as well, like,

(07:10):
oh my gosh, it's I love the like experimentation with
like form and the history that is I don't know,
I feel like and because still you mentioned this in
your piece as well, like there are so many movies
that talk about really important stuff that are coming out
right now that feel really heavy in the way that

(07:31):
the information is presented. And the Watermelon Woman just does
everything so effortlessly. It was just such a such a pleasure.
It's it's and and watching it back the second time,
I caught a bunch of stuff I didn't the first.
It's just so it's so good. If you haven't seen
the movie yet, um pause this episode and go watch it.
It's so wonderful. Yeah. So I'm I'm I'm a recent convert.

(07:56):
Uh what about you, Caitlin. I don't have a long
history with it, but I did see it for the
first time last I think last summer. Um it was
appearing on a lot of lists of like, hey, here's
black cinema that you probably haven't seen, and here's some
movies that you should check out. So Watermelon Woman kept

(08:19):
appearing on lists like that. So I watched it and
I thought it was really fun and I really just
enjoyed the tone and the humor and the characters and yeah,
so not a long history, but it is pretty cool.

(08:39):
It's so cool. Yeah, should we should we just get
into it. Let's get into it with the recap. So
it's sort of like a half narrative, half mockumentary style
where we open on Cheryl, who is played by writer
director Cheryl Dounier. She and her friend Tamara are videographers

(09:04):
who shoot like weddings and things like that. They also
worked together at a video rental store. Remember those it's
so nineties. It's oh do you remember, Like they had
like the empty cases and then you had to take
the case to the counter and they'd be like the
keeper of the VHS is, Yeah, those were the days. Um.

(09:29):
So Cheryl is also an aspiring filmmaker and she has
been watching a lot of movies from the thirties and
forties with black actresses whose real names are often not
listed in the credits of these movies. And there's one
movie in particular called Plantation Memories where this beautiful black

(09:49):
woman is in the like Mammy role and she's only
listed in the credits as the watermelon woman. So Cheryl
is very cure used about her and wants to make
a film about her, like figuring out who she is,
what her real name is, what her life was like,
everything about her. Then Tomorrow invites Cheryl out with her

(10:14):
new girlfriend and a blind date for Cheryl named Yvette,
and this is when we get that amazing karaoke scene.
This scene is a lot like we have to get
into it. We really do. It's iconic. It's so good.
I like it. It was such a I like getting

(10:35):
used to how Cheryl Danner um paces these scenes is
so fun because I was in my I guess I
was just in my Hollywood movie brain where I was like, Oh,
it's gonna be bad and then it's going to stop.
But they let her sing the entire song. It's so funny. Yeah,
that character is so funny because she's like, I'm a
singer and I almost got a role in a Spike

(10:57):
Lee movie, and that goes to show how amazing of
a performer I am. And then she gets up there
and she's just like love, it's incredible. Shout out to
the the actor who who, like I was able to
keep a straight face through that entire scene because it

(11:19):
was a beautiful, terrible karaoke performance. Yes. Um. So, then
Cheryl starts making her film and investigating who the Watermelon
Woman is. She asks different people on the street if
they know anything about the Watermelon Woman, and then she
interviews her mom, who at first is like, I don't

(11:40):
know who that is, but then she recognizes her as
someone who used to perform at clubs. Shout out to
Cheryl Danie's real mom, real mom, Irene. Yeah. So. Meanwhile,
Cheryl meets a cute lady at the video store, Diana.
She's played by Guenevere Turner, and they flirt a little bit,

(12:03):
a little bit, and it's video store flirting too, It's
such a specific brand of flirting that no longer exists. Yeah.
She's like, here, watch this Roman Polanski movie and you
were like yeah. Um. Then Cheryl interviews a man who

(12:27):
tomorrow knows who's like basically like a black film buff.
He's very knowledgeable about early black film, but he is
not familiar with the Watermelon Woman. He says something like,
women are not my specialty. Tomorrow is like, yeah, we know. Um.
Another very funny interaction. And then Cheryl and Tomorrow go

(12:51):
to the library to do some research on both the
Watermelon Woman and Martha Page, who is the white woman
who rerected the Plantation Memories movie, but there's very little
info about anything they're looking for. And then Cheryl finds
a woman named Shirley Hamilton's who knows the Watermelon Woman

(13:14):
as Faye richards and that turns out to be her
stage name because her real name was Faith Richardson. She
was a singer. She used to perform at nightclubs in Philadelphia,
and Faye and Martha Page used to hang around together
a lot, and it's clear that they were together romantically. UM.

(13:36):
So Cheryl is not very excited because she's like, oh,
like me, she was a black lesbian. And then Cheryl
gets her hands on more movies starring Faye richards and
she watches them with Diana. They kiss, they have sex.
Diana starts helping Cheryl on the Watermelon Woman project, and

(13:56):
while this is happening. There is strain on Cheryl's relationship
with Tamara because she doesn't like the Cheryl is dating Diana,
because Diana inserts herself so quickly into the project. It's like,
and we've a really strange ownership relationship to that whole project. Yeah. Yeah,

(14:20):
I'm excited to get into that discussion because it is like,
even as a viewer, there's kind of whiplash where there.
I think it's like at that dinner scene with Tomorrow
and Stacy and Cheryl and Diana, and Diana is like, oh,
our project, and yes, Tomorrow is like, what are you
talking about? Like, Cheryl has been working on this for
months and months. You you just got here, like relax. Yeah.

(14:44):
And then Cheryl and her co worker Annie go to
New York City Ever Heard of It? To the Center
for Lesbian Information and Technology a k A. Clit Hilarious, incredible,
and they find a bunch of photos of Faye Richards,
one of which has a handwritten note on the back

(15:06):
to someone named June Walker. So now Cheryl has another lead.
They also interview Martha Page's sister, who is still living,
but she is racist and homophobic and refuses to believe
that her sister was a lesbian and was lovers with
Faye Richards But then Cheryl gets in touch with June

(15:28):
Walker and discovers that she was in a long term
relationship with Faye. So Cheryl and June arranged to have lunch,
but when Cheryl gets there, she learned that June was
just taken to the hospital, but she did leave a
letter for Cheryl which talks about phase life and how

(15:49):
it was so much more than her relationship with Martha
Page and how Martha has nothing to do with how
people should remember Faye. And then the movie ends with
Cheryl reflecting on her experience, her relationships, her friendships, and
what the Watermelon Woman a k a. Faith Richard's a ka.

(16:12):
Faith Richardson means to her and how she feels hopeful
and inspired. And then there's a title card at the
very end with text that says, sometimes you have to
create your own history. The Watermelon Woman is fiction, which
the first time I saw this movie, the whole time
I was like, oh, Faye Richards, like she must be

(16:35):
a real person like the Watermelon Woman, this this is
all real, And then it turns out nope, this was
completely fiction. Shymelon twist at the end. Um So that's
the story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll
come right back to discuss and we're back. Where do

(17:03):
we want to start here? There's there's so much to
talk about. A Yeah, Crystal, does does anything jump out
to you right away? I think yes, that question of
the video store and that specific aestetic because I think
that is that that side the video store where she
needs and where she where she works also with Tamara.

(17:24):
But there's also the video is static that comes in
and out at some point in the movie. That's really
interesting how she like records herself the camcorder. Yeah. I
don't know what you're making of this. I mean I
just thought it was a really cool way to introduce this. Again,

(17:45):
she's like making what we think is almost like when
you watch the movie, you're like, oh, this is kind
of like a documentary, Like this is like part narrative
part documentary. And unless you already know that the Watermelon
woman is not a real person. Again, I just assumed.
I was like, this, this is like a real person

(18:05):
that Cheryl, because she's also like playing herself more or less,
and it were like really kind of it just like
gets you to think that this is like something that
she's really searching and investigating, and like that kind of
grainy video footage helps to set up that expectation, and
then you find out, oh, no, this is just Cheryl

(18:27):
Dunier taking like obviously the historical context is there, because
a little context corner here is that like the journey
that Cheryl the character goes on in the movie of
like watching old films from the thirties and forties and
seeing actors who are black women in these mammy roles

(18:51):
but noticing that they're not often credited by name. That's
basically how the development of this movie started, where writer
director Cheryl Donier was like doing research for a class
on black film history, realized that a lot of black
actors were not credited in these early movies, and decided

(19:13):
that she wanted to tell a story about black women
in the early days of Hollywood. Thus was born the
concept for the film The Watermelon Woman. So you know,
she took kind of like an amalgamation of a bunch
of actors from that time and sort of invented the

(19:34):
Watermelon Woman. And just like the way it was shot
gets you to be like oh this this is real.
Oh wait, no it's not. Yeah, I really like, I mean,
I'm like she's she's like playing this like game of
like four D chess that you don't even understand until
the movie is almost over, because it's you know, she's
setting it up by wanting to educate her audience about

(19:56):
black film history, which she is doing, and then she
also says that the beginning of the movie, like I
want to put black women at the front of my work,
which she is also doing by like chronicling her own
fake process in introducing all like all these really different
characters with all these different views on the same topic,
and it just, I don't know, watching this movie a

(20:18):
second time was even more fun, like sort of knowing
what she's doing going in and just seeing how like
elegantly it's done, and like she's just doing so so
much at once with with it seems like like a
kind of classic nineties low budget vibe that is just
like so fun. For sure. Yes, there's like a real

(20:40):
sense of like freedom in the way she's just like,
let me just pick up a camera and documents. Yeah,
the way in which I'm searching for that lost ancestor,
which I don't know. It feels really like particular to
that time in the nineties and like I don't see,
like I those something so native about it, and even

(21:03):
the way it starts, like so like the first few
minutes of the feeling the first time I watched it,
I was like, what's happening? I don't understand why were
we are at the wedding? Like what what is she
trying to set up? But yeah, it's like it just
feels really free in a way that I feel like
it feels very like a product of its time and

(21:24):
this democratizing of camera and video work. Um, yeah, I
just love it. Yeah. And I know you wrote about
this in your piece about like new Queer cinema and
how it like the restraints of like hetero noormative Hollywood cinema,
Like New Queer cinema basically just like breaks those restraints off,

(21:48):
and a lot of films from that time we're like,
we're just gonna do whatever we want. We're going to
tell the stories the way we want. Like a lot
of rigid conventions of like cinematic story re telling, we're
not going to abide by those, And how this is
just a pivotal movie in that movement of new queer cinema. Yeah,

(22:13):
and it's very it's very gender too, because like a
not especialist of your queer cinema, but like my understanding
of the kinds of dynamics that we're operating at the
time is um the directors, like the Sis men directors
were had a tendency to like use more film, which
is much more expensive to film with, and the women

(22:35):
directors usually were using like video and other genres. So
there's also that aspect of like, yeah, what you said,
like the low budget, which I feel like, if your
time to do something that's cinematic in a way and
that looks that correspond to like a certain normative idea
of like what's beautiful, I feel I feel it like

(22:58):
much strongly now, which is why I like there's something
really free about how she like just doesn't care about
what people deem beautiful or what people deem cinematic, and
just like you have dislike student film esthetic that's completely assumed,
like she's not trying to cover it. Yeah, She's like,

(23:20):
I want real people to be in my movie, and
I want something that feels like a real story. Like
everything just feels incredibly authentic in the way that few
Hollywood movies can deliver that sense. Yeah, and I liked that.
I mean something another thing about the format that I

(23:42):
didn't see coming, but when it happens, you're like, oh,
that that is so cool, and and never happens in
popular movies is like they are just little vignettes where
it's just like Cheryl and Tomorrow just like hanging out
for a minute and they're just like on a building
they answering, and you're like, what's going on? And then
after ten seconds you're like, no, I think I like

(24:04):
this and it's just them having fun. Like I don't
even know if that was like scripted or anything, but like, yeah,
there seems to be like a lot of also, like
distance from any kind of like rules or like plan
of what's going to happen. Yeah, I'll be honest, Like
the first time I saw the movie, because I come

(24:27):
from like a screenwriting background, so I was like, oh,
there's like a lot of screenwriting rules that are broken here,
because like the inciting incident happens off screen where she
discovers the watermelon woman when she's watching that movie, Like
that happens off screen. She just talks about it after
the fact. There are a few scenes where it seems

(24:49):
like tension is about to like ramp up, and then
it just cuts away into the scene like that's that
scene where Diana enters with that argument that that Cherylyn
Tomorrow are having about her at Diete is just like hi,
and then the scenes of he like did you hear
did you not hear? Right? Yeah? So I was like

(25:12):
I found it a little jarring the first time I
watched it because I was like, oh, all these like
all these conventions are being ignored and all these like
rules are being broken. But then you just you're like,
but it's fine, Like we still understand what's happening. You're
still emotionally engaged with the story. You're still rooting for

(25:33):
Cheryl to like find out as much information about the
Watermelon Woman as possible, and it all works. I feel
like those things have like you not seeing every single
plat point fall down on the screen. It's like part
of why I completely fell for it being part documentary
the first time, because it's like not every document like
most documentaries don't catch every critical moment, and so when

(25:54):
she's like describing something that happened a little earlier that day.
I the first time I watched, I was like, oh,
this feels completely like a documentary because you you wouldn't
get every single second of everything. So I feel like
it also like lends itself to to the format that
she's messing around with too. And we I mean we
there was such a low budget to this, where I

(26:16):
think the budget was three thousand dollars, which was a
combination of grant money, fundraisers, and donations from her friends
from like Cheryl Dunier's friends. So she's working with very
little money. So it makes sense that she would, like
you were saying Crystal about she's shot on a lot

(26:37):
of video because film is too expensive. It just was
like very clever to me that she with the resources
she had, she was like, oh, like what can I
do with this? And like what will lend the best sense?
So like just shooting on video as if she's making

(26:57):
like a very low budget documentary, it just like it
works because I feel like, so often you see a
movie where you get footage of like a home video
and this like huge budget, like major Hollywood production, and
it's like, oh, this home video was clearly shot by
a professional cinematographer because it just looks too good and

(27:19):
then it's like run through an editing program to be like, no,
this is a camp corridor and it's like, I didn't
you just do that in the first place. But I
think that's that's one of the very beautiful aspects to
the Waterman and Woman. That's like, I find the new
in that work, and even in her earlier shots, like

(27:39):
so resourceful in like doing things with what you have,
even if you don't have access to like big budgets.
And it's like even the fact that like fab Richardson
is like a fictional character, and like how much of
that is due to like not having access to like
actual archives but also not being able to pay for

(28:00):
those archives even if they exist. So yeah, I just
like there's so much creativity in what she's doing. That's like, yeah,
it's just feels like a brick collage of salts, but
that works really well. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Another thing that
I really like that we sort of started talking about was, um,

(28:21):
how she is able to get a lot of history
across but do it in this kind of effortless way
where I feel like a lesser filmmaker could have made
it like and here's the historical portion of of the movie.
But she like creates this really like kind of bizarre
character who's got a house full of memorabilia and like

(28:45):
they're like messing around with him, and he's giving like
a lot of interesting, solid information, but it doesn't I
don't know, like there there When movies I feel like
try to weave in history, sometimes it becomes like lecture mode,
and she is able to avoid it completely while still
educating her audience on on like a lot of stuff,

(29:06):
like I don't know, I learned stuff from that scene
with with the film Buff. But also at the end
it ends in this really funny way. I don't think
I've really seen someone pull it off that effortlessly before.
And that scene plays into a pretty common like motif

(29:26):
or theme throughout this movie because that film Buff guy,
he's like, women are not my specialty. I don't know
anything about women and women in film. I don't know
who the watermelon woman is, which again part of this
sort of bigger theme of their being very limited access
to information and Crystal you talk about this in your

(29:50):
piece where they are all these like gatekeepers who Cheryl
comes up against that are either kind of like withholding information,
or there's just a general limited access to information because
things were not properly documented or properly archived. Because you've
got that librarian man who just keeps being like, well

(30:14):
did you check the reference section? Did you do? You
even know how to use a library, And they're like, yeah,
we know how to use a library, but you don't
have any information in your library. And then there's like
the lady at Clint who won't let them get footage
of these photos of Fay because she's like it's confidential

(30:35):
and not just that, but like she has like any
any box full of information that is about black film stars,
she just like dumps out on the table in this
really cal's way where you're like, oh my gosh, she
really even has to rescue one of those bookses at
some point like yeah, catching it defied force. Yeah, he

(30:58):
swee is a mess in then, And I think that's
like I love what you said about how effortless it
comes across, and I think it's that way also because
I don't actually think that there is any respect for history,
like mainstream history, and it's not something like it's not
something to be passed down religiously because it's so like

(31:21):
biased and so full of erasures that it's actually like
it's more of a testament, like the I look at
the film more of a testament of like what's possible
beyond the confines of history, rather than trying to like
bring those forgotten black actresses back into the canon of

(31:41):
the mainstream of history. Yeah, yeah, because I think there's,
like there are real actresses who get mentioned in the
movie or like mentioned in the credits, like Butterfly McQueen
and Hardie McDaniel, which are names that like people obviously
still remember today, but there are like just as many

(32:05):
actors from that era who, like this fictional character of
the Watermelon Woman, have been completely forgotten and completely erased
because like records were never even kept in the first
place of them and their work. So and and I
like how again, like Cheryl Dania uses the kind of

(32:27):
like free for all format of this movie too challenge
the way that this history is kept, where I forget
what person she's talking to, but it's someone who is saying, like, oh,
it's impossible that that Faye and Martha could have been
in a relationship that just absolutely wouldn't have happened during
this time, and as they're talking, Cheryl edited like a

(32:49):
million photos of them together, clearly dating, and just I
don't know, like, yeah, that the not only like addressing
how the gatekeepers are acting towards Cheryl and acting extremely
dismissive or disorganized or whatever the situation is in the nineties,
but also that the history, like you're like you're saying crustal,

(33:10):
the history that she's accessing needs to be combed through
as well, because there's just so much bias in how
phase life was documented in the first place, and it's
so significant that in the end, like most of the
crucial information she gets it is like not from all
those like libraries or like official repositories of knowledge, but

(33:31):
like literally is a queer community in Philly and like
those older black lesbians. Like that's also something I really
appreciate about this film, is like seeing older black lesbians
on screen is something that's so rare and like reflecting
about like like the memories of faith that cannot like

(33:52):
clash a bit with Shares on narration and what she
wants to remember. But I don't know, I thought that
generational aspect and the way in which people preserve memories
that are not deemed worth preserving in libraries and mother
arms was really interesting, Yeah, especially because like the information

(34:14):
that Cheryl is able to find about Faye Richard's in
like books and archives and stuff all focus on her
relationship with Martha Page, this white woman. And then when
she goes and gets information from June Walker, who is
like Faye Richard's life partner for twenty years, June is like, why, like,

(34:39):
why are you focusing on this Martha Page lady? She
has nothing to do with phase life. That was only
like a small sliver like But and then like Cheryl
her sort of like conclusive thought is like, well, you know,
it's all kind of important, Like it's it's just helpful
to see the whole scope, the whole picture of at all.

(35:00):
But yeah, it just goes to show that, like what
little is available in like the quote unquote history books
still frames Faye Richard's in terms of her relationship to
a white woman, where like, again, that was only a
small sliver of her life and the rest of the

(35:21):
time she was like singing in black clubs in Philadelphia
to what does the one woman say? She's like, yeah,
all of us Stone butch Lesbians loved her, and we
she's saying to all of us, she sang for us,
that was so beautiful. But yeah, I feel like that

(35:42):
that focus on that white woman Mata page, it's not
just the doing of the of official history, but it's
Sharriers herself and what she wants to like, Like, it's
interesting this that ending um end is trying to complexity
and trying to hold all of the parts of someone,

(36:04):
but also like you're not actually holding all of the parts,
You're still focusing on some of them more than others.
And I feel like she was really like working through
her own relationship also with Diana through through fee which
like explain a bit emphasis and a bit of your
session on math page. But yeah, it's it's like it

(36:26):
talks to like what again that disregard for history and
official history and even like collective memory, but that sense
that anyone is free to an extent with like respect
of course, but to like take from the past what
allows them to like find a sense or like find

(36:47):
meaning in the present. And the fact that like that
is going to be tensioned between different generations of black
lesbians around what happened, what did not happen, but it
doesn't mean that she has to completely bye bye that
Hord or generation sense. I just found that that portrayal
of that tension was really interesting because you don't necessarily

(37:09):
entility side with Cheryl, but you also understand her desire
to hold out of those spiecies of fair together. Yeah, yeah,
I didn't see that, like the the like shades of
gray in the ending coming. I thought it was so
interesting that the choice that she makes, because when you

(37:30):
hear you know, June's that, I was like, oh, yeah,
of course, like that's nothing would be more infuriating to
someone's partner of twenty years than for them to be
defined by a way in the past relationship that was
way overblown in terms of its importance in the love
of your life's you know, lifetime. And then also seeing

(37:50):
like where where Cheryl is kind of navigating all these
ways of keeping history and all these roadblocks that she encounters,
and then at the end sort of being like, Okay,
I've talked to everyone I could possibly talk to. Here's
how I'm choosing to keep this history, and like she
is presenting it the way that is most significant to

(38:12):
her and not necessarily like what June would want, and
we don't know what Fay would want, and and and
again it's like it's done so smoothly without feeling like
you're being bashed over the head with like history it's
so complicated, which it is, but the way that Cheryl
does it is just so effortless. And and in the

(38:32):
way that these characters are written to it's like everyone
I don't know, Like no one is completely right or
wrong in their perception of anything, and it's like you're
able to connect even if you don't agree with the
character's perspective on something, you can understand where they're coming from.
And like it's just I don't know the characters are
are and the way they relate to each other is written,

(38:54):
so it just feels so real in the way that
how people deal with each other. This movie June reminds
me a lot of Tamara in some ways. Um And
as much as like you have disparity between Faye and
Cheryl and Diana and matter Page, I feel like Tamara

(39:15):
also kind of resonate a lot with that perspective of
like this kind of hostility or tension in relationship to
friends or like partners who give a lot of time
and space intra community space to the white friends or
the white partners, and the kind of dynamics at tensions

(39:38):
that that can create. And there's something in the energy
and there and the hostility in these two characters that
feels very similar, like the tone, the ending ton of
that letter and the anchor in June's voice, why do
you want like okay, that question, why do you want
to make it about matter page? It's remind in me

(40:00):
of Tamara asking like saying to Jerial, Yeah, once again,
you're dating a white woman wants to be black, right, Yeah,
there's definite parallels. And another thing that Tomorrow says like
Cheryl has ordered a bunch of these like thirties and

(40:21):
forties movies where the black characters in those movies are
all like the Mammy archetype. And Tomorrow says like, I
can't stand most of the ship that Hollywood puts out today,
let alone that like old Mammy ship, Like why are
you so obsessed with these old, terrible movies that do

(40:45):
not represent black people? Well? Which is a fair question. Yeah,
Like it's very easy to see why, Like I don't know.
It makes it like that where Tabor is like why
are you subjecting yourself of this? Like what is in
it for you? Like go you know, go outside. Uh.

(41:05):
Like there's just like this like very perverse pleasure that
Shares takes into those movies that just like like sometimes
I have questions, like I don't know, if you see
that scene where you have the TV screen where you
see Fay Richards playing into plantation memories and like comforting

(41:26):
the white mistress, I think at that moment, and then
you have Cherios face right next to the screen that's
imitating the voice, and it's like there's so much pleasure
in like you can see like she's enjoying it so
much and like trying to get into face skin, and
I'm like, what's happening. We need a bit of therapy.

(41:54):
She's like Jamie and I when we watch Titanic and
recyce the entire movie along with the characters. Yeah, she's
like doing that. She also is kind of like wearing
the costume and she's like really getting into it and
she knows all the dialogue and it's like and it
does make you wonder, like Cheryl, you know why? But

(42:17):
then it's like watching that bear out, It's like I
don't know, Yeah, like, there are are moments where you're like, sure,
what are you doing? But then she does. But then
it's like it wasn't for nothing, because she does end
up digging into and like preserving a piece of history
that wouldn't have been preserved otherwise. And so it's like
at some point you're like, I think she's just like
torturing herself for no reason. But then at the end

(42:38):
it's like, well, it wasn't for no reason. She like
there there was no effort to document this person's existence
and and their life and who they really were or
even like their name. It was like really hard to
find out who Fay was. And I loved how Tamara
and and Cheryl came at that issue completely differently because

(42:59):
both of their outlooks, You're like, oh, I get it,
but Cheryl's just Cheryl's doing the weird costplay huff. Yeah.
Talking about like Hattie Hattie McDaniel and some of those
other actresses, I think it's also significant to me. I'm

(43:19):
not sure what to make of it, but it's significant
to me that the money in those films was often
a plus size or like a fat black woman that
didn't like necessarily confirmed to like standards of like beauty,
like even in terms of like futurism and like skin color,

(43:40):
like it was often like a very dark skinned woman
and like fair Witson is like so as a complete
opposite of that, like she's like this very thin. She's
not like King, but she's not darkk in either, and
like in terms of features, she's like she doesn't have
have what has been associated with like African features quote

(44:03):
unquote like the I don't know, it's significant that Cherl
would choose that specific actress to play that role and
to play that history. And I don't know what to
make of it, because it's just interesting to see all
of a sudden, the fear of the money being sexualized
in that way and not just being like a site

(44:24):
of like comfort for like white children or like white families,
but like also like a sexual being and like a
queer sexual being. But then I'm wandering, like is it
only possible because she was made finn and like good
looking in that way. I don't know, I have so
many questions. Yeah, it is very curious because like Fay Richards,

(44:50):
the fictional person slash character is embodying this many role
but didn't look like other actors who played those mammy roles. Yeah,
so it's like that that is I don't know what
to make of it either. We got to get Cheryl
on the pod. We've got questions, yes, because it seems

(45:16):
like everything I don't know that it watching get back
a couple of times. It seems like she's making all
of these decisions really intentionally, and I wonder if she's
ever if she's ever spoken to it, because it's like,
clearly she she knows her ship. You know, she's built
that this film scholar character. She has all of the
memorabilia acts like, so I'm like, well, well she knows
what she's talking about. I wonder why that was the

(45:39):
way she chose to go with with the story. I
don't know. I wish it was like spoken about a
little more explicitly now that we're talking about it, because
then you also have the character slash real life person
Camille Poulia, who I had to do some research on
because I did not know because okay, because the thing

(46:02):
is like kavil Plia is like every time I'm supposed
to learn why she's problematic, I start to learn and
then I get really tired and I don't actually learn.
I know she's messy, but I don't know the context
of what, but like for good the details, but I think,
is it okay. I don't want to like defame her

(46:22):
in anyways, but I feel like she was defending the
use of like Rachual Slows at some point there was
a scandal like that, right that would not surprise me.
I just did a very periphery Wikipedia search about her
because Okay, so for for context, this is the like
the character that Cheryl goes to. She's like a professor

(46:45):
slash culture critic who Cheryl interviews seeing if she knows
anything about the Watermelon woman and typical typical of like
the Waterman and Woman and the documentary style, like she's
paying herself and her And it's been commented that Camille
Paulia is doing a parody version of herself, but then

(47:08):
when you read about her, you're like, I don't think
this is parody because so basically she's giving very strong
opinions in this interview, basically saying that black people's opinions
about the tropes in all old Hollywood are wrong, that
the Mammy character has been misinterpreted, and it's actually a
really good thing. That like the image of a little

(47:31):
black boy with a watermelon, that's actually a really good
positive thing in the world. Her Italian family for like
no reason, like, and then she's the character who's like
interracial relationships. What that couldn't have possibly been a thing?
That was her? Okay, that was her, and Cheryl's cutting

(47:53):
in like, uh, clearly it was. And then you read
about her on Wikipedia and real life. Camille Polia is
a libertarian. I'm pretty sure she's a turf. In the nineties,
she supported NAMBLA and supported lowering the age of consent

(48:14):
to fourteen years old, among other things. So she has
some real dogshit views. So I don't think this was
a parody of her. I think this is probably who
she really was. I RL and also, like, parody has
always been used to like masks actual racist feelings, so

(48:36):
it wouldn't be the first time exactly. So I don't
like Camille Paulia no hard paths. Every time I learned
something about her as like I need, I need to
go on a walk. I was surprised to see her
in this movie, but there are like there's a few again,
I'm like, Cheryl's gotta come on the pot I want

(48:57):
to understand like the decision making going on here, because
there was another person. Sarah Shulman plays the clip archivist
who's dumping out of boxes and she's like been a
queer activist and like an AIDS activist specifically for decades
and decades. And it's again, it's it's like, it's very

(49:18):
easy to confuse this as an actual documentary at the
beginning because there's real figures, um from academia coming into this.
It's Cheryl's real mom, like all of these people that
that actually existed. The Camille polly a thing threw me
for threw me for a loop. It was that was
very unpleasant, but it was unpleasant, but also like so

(49:44):
exactly it like it was like such an accurate representation,
like especially being in academia at the moment I'm doing
my PhD. Of like the way sometime Scota would speak
with such authority, right an arrogance about things they don't
know she about. Because this is the same people who

(50:07):
are like perpetuating what version of history we learn and
we see. And it just makes you really unsettled to
know that people like uh, that lady are teaching the
youth of America and are still pretty prominent figures too.

(50:29):
I was like surprised to see how prominent Camille Polia
still is. I uh, this is post episode j B
and Caitlin Wow love below. Um. So, I wanted to
just drop in here because I've learned a lot about
Camille paglias work since we recorded this episode several weeks ago.

(50:53):
Because quick plug, I'm working on a podcast about Kathy
comics and so and so like that comic was coming
out between the seventies and the two thousand's, and so
I've been doing research on the different feminist waves of
those times, right, and so in a book I was
reading that I recommend called Backlash by Susan Faludi. It

(51:15):
was written in the late eighties, and it examines how
a lot of the gains that the feminist movement that
is very imperfect, but but the gains of the feminist
movement in the nineteen seventies were backlashed in the pop
culture and politics of the nineteen eighties and the Reagan years.
It's very interesting, it's very long, but but Camille Paglia

(51:39):
is brought up in that book a number of times
as kind of the scholar who kind of exemplifies that
backlash where uh Camiele Paglia was famous for writing stuff
like that women who report date rape and anyone who
reports date rape like it, the onus is on them
to not get raped summarized thing there. Uh there have

(52:02):
been and I think you mentioned this in the episode,
there have been more recent scandals with her comments on
trans people on the Me Too move and she's just
I'm not aligned with her politics at all, and so yeah,
I don't recommend reading her work. I found it very unpleasant.
But the context of of her history and kind of

(52:26):
how Susan Faludi suggests that she came to prominence through
the backlash movement made a lot of sense and kind
of made me understand why this libertarian cameo. Paglia uh
had such swing in her day and still does to
an extent. So gross don't love it. Back to the episode, Oh,

(52:48):
another really funny joke from the movie is as Cheryl
is doing her research, she comes upon She's like, oh,
there's this new book. I found it a gay and
lesbian bookstore. It's called Hollywood Lesbians by Doug mcgowden. And
then she was like, I wonder if he's a lesbian,

(53:08):
which is just another example of like how like a
guy named Doug, probably not a lesbian, is writing a
book about Hollywood lesbians, and um, you know, probably not
the best person to write that book. And it's all
like white women on the cover of the book too,
is like something that pops out right away. So it's

(53:29):
just yeah, I's like another like I guess I'm more subtle,
not in in that specific joke, but just of like
who is keeping the history? Who is being put at
the front of these histories, and like, is the person
who's presenting it to you even reliable in terms of
what their biases are? Uh, let's take another quick break

(53:50):
and we'll be right back, and we're back. What else?
I wanted to just shout out that this is the
first feature length narrative film directed by black lesbian, the

(54:10):
first we know of, the first we know of. Yes true,
right like face features and made the like other uncovered histories,
that's true. I also, this is just such an interesting
movie to cover on our podcast. It just feels especially
relevant because it's a movie about how representation in media,

(54:35):
or a lack thereof, how it affects people, how it
affects the main character of Cheryl, how it affects Cheryl
the filmmaker, and how it inspires her to make a
movie about black women. And there's a part in the
movie early on where Cheryl the character, because I feel

(54:56):
like we have to distinguish Cheryl the character from Cheryl
the the director. Um Cheryl the character. She's doing like
a talking head interview kind of thing in front of
like the video camcorder, and she's talking about the project
she's wanting to work on, and she's like, you know,
I want to make a film, but I don't really

(55:17):
know what I want to make a film on. I
just know it has to be about black women because
our stories have never been told. Which is like the
impetus for her to make this documentary about the Watermelon Woman.
It's Cheryl Junier the director's impetus for like wanting to

(55:38):
make this narrative film the Watermelon Woman. There's just like
all these layers, but it's just all about a lack
of representation inspiring her to tell her own story and
to you know, tell a story about black women and
black queer women. I was interested too, I had never

(55:59):
done like a deep divan Cheryl Dinier's like work prior
to The Watermelon Woman before prepping for this episode, and
it seems like there is like a fair amount of
overlap between the character and the film the actual filmmaker
there where most of her early work is centered around
the black lesbian community. There's a lot of um and

(56:21):
I would I didn't get to watch her short films
before this episode, but there's a lot of it seems
like she's exploring the theme of like interracial lesbian relationships
a lot. And yeah, like how I would say, if
you've seen The Waterman and Woman, you've seen her earlier shots. No,
it's it's unfair. It's unfair. It's unfair. I'm just being

(56:44):
I'm just being provocative here, but it's it's a lot
of like repetition of that trope of um, the black
lesbian dating. It's like typical bourgeois white woman and like
having to deal with like Mike raig rations like racism
and like deciding if that relationship is even worthing. It's

(57:08):
I don't have questions for you as a person, and
like like how she's like working out like I understand
as an as a person, she's like working out something
through all of those shots and movies, because even like
some of her features after also deal with that film.

(57:30):
But it's just it's just the insistent on that specific
film is very striking. Um there's one that I mentioned
quickly in the piece. There's one shot that's no, I
don't mention it actually as a POTLG and the Passion,
which is basically like Chirl with her friends, like having
like like a dinner at home, and you have this

(57:52):
like canon equal white woman and like the kind of
tensions we emerge into friend groups from having that white
woman present in like this intra community space. And the
enter is another one where the title itself is like
it's called like Greetings from Africa. Yeah, yeah, and it's

(58:14):
basically like this white woman that like she dates briefly
and then she's like, oh, I'm doing all this engine
will work in Africa and like when they like it's
just like a one thing and they're like separate, and
she receives this card from this white woman who is
known Africa and it was like hey, which is kind
of hinted it in The Waterman and Woman because I

(58:36):
think Diana also has some engine work, right, Yeah. And
then she also She's like, I was born in Jamaica,
isn't that cool? And Tamara is like yeah, And then
Cheryl and her friends because Tomorrow is dating a woman,

(58:57):
is it Stacy? Is that her name? And they're all
just like, hey, why are you here again? And these
also feels very nineties, Like I feel like that's a
time where people were like really hashing out all of
those questions, which also like explains the kind of I
don't know, irritation or like to find that like we

(59:19):
can feel like we're like over it now and it
feels like very passy, but like, yeah, I think it's
also like a predict of its time in that sense. Yeah,
for sure, totally. Yeah. I mean the way that the
Ryl Diana relationship plays out is it does like as
I was reading about her older work, I was like, oh,

(59:40):
this is this is a theme that comes up for
her a lot, and it was this is a side up.
But I was like, wait, I recognize the lady who
plays Diana. It's because she's like co wrote American Psycho anyways, Yeah,
and and is in it. She plays a character in it,
and the Edwards Yeah, yeah, she's like this iconic queer

(01:00:01):
rent and so I was like, oh, that's just like
her when she was really young. Interesting. Um, but yeah,
the the way that Cheryl writes Diana too, I mean
that dinner scene is so cringe e for so many reasons.
But Diana is kind of instinct that no matter what
anyone at the table says, she just immediately finds a

(01:00:22):
way to make it about herself and like, you know,
kind of like hijacked the conversation no matter what is
being discussed. And then she's like, oh, look I'm so cool.
Oh I've lived everywhere. Oh I've done this, I've done that.
And it's like we were talking about not not even
remotely that, and she just like her instinct is to
center herself and the push and pull in that I

(01:00:46):
feel like it I don't know, I mean, it kind
of gets resolved, but it kind of doesn't by the
end of the movie with Cheryl and Tamara, where Cheryl's
kind of like, I hope we'll figure it out, Like
we don't really know what happened, but it's clear that
Hamard is uncomfortable with how passive Cheryl becomes in those situations,
which is like an interesting tension to set up. And

(01:01:08):
then but it doesn't really resolve by the end of
the movie either. That was another one of those like
screenwriting things. I was like, but where's the what's the
closure there? I want I want to know where their
friends again? No closure? Uh? Does anyone have any other fat? Yeah?
I think it's interesting to me that the thing that

(01:01:31):
like the last roof for cher All is really its
family visit, as the fact that Na is not defending
her and like not even like trying to react to
like how her relatives behavior and like the racism, like
even like a black maid passing through doing that visit.

(01:01:52):
And it's just interesting like that question of interracial relationships
and like walking it out for yourself as an individual.
But then like also when a family gets involved and
when your friends also when like what your friends are
ready to accept or not was also interesting, right Yeah? Yeah,
I mean that's the scene where Diana like, you're you're

(01:02:15):
kind of like because it's the interview with the with
the racist, homophobic sister of the White Lady director Martha Page.
I keep wanting to say, Martha Plimpton, is that a
real person? Martha Plimpton everything? Um, But Martha Page, you know,
you keep I was kind of waiting for Diana to
like say something, and she just kind of doesn't. She

(01:02:37):
freezes up, and like, I don't know that. Again, that's
just like a relationship that I would I would like
to hear Cheryl Danier talk about like how she where
she was crafting that, where that was coming from, because
it's it's it's a lot and it's really interesting, and
but but then it's it kind of it's not that
it goes nowhere, it's just that you don't really know

(01:03:00):
where they're at at the end, or like exactly how
Cheryl Danier feels about all of it. Like she's presented
all these different perspectives on this relationship, but we don't
really know like where she landed on it, which again
it's like interesting that doesn't happen in movies a lot.
And then maybe and then I was I got into
my own head. I'm like, Jamie, you're such a baby.

(01:03:20):
You expect people to spoon feed you. The moral of
the storage, Well, that's another interesting thing about this movie,
which is the queer cinema that makes it to more
like Hollywood mainstream is often about like centering on a
queer relationship and like a queer romance as it begins

(01:03:44):
and in its early stages in a way that and
we've talked about this on different episodes, where it's like
a male gaze fetishized version of lesbian romance, whereas this movie,
you know, it's about a woman who is working on
this project who you know, happens to meet a woman

(01:04:05):
and start dating her, but that's not the focus of
the movie. It's just presented as a normal part of
the main character's life. We also see other normal parts
of her life, like her job and her friend group,
which by the way, are mostly other lesbians, which I
feel like is very common in real life where lesbians

(01:04:26):
are friends with many other lesbians, but you don't often
see that on screen. So I appreciate that this movie
just does a really nice job of normalizing a lesbians
life with things like being in a relationship, but that
not being the driving force of her life. It's just
an aspect of her life, and we see her interact

(01:04:46):
with her friends, and especially Tamara, who whose main subplot
in the movie is that she's really horny and her
girlfriend is not having sex with her, and she keeps
me like I'm trying to get some my girlfriend keeps
not putting out and I'm really horny about Charles. She's

(01:05:08):
in grad school. Can you like cut her some slack,
she's getting her m b A. Like she she's busy,
she's stressed out. So it's just like it's a really
cool thing to see that all normalized, which is what
you get when there's a movie written and directed by
a queer person. Yeah, and and like we I mean

(01:05:30):
we just recorded an episode last week on a Portrait
of a Lady on Fire, which which is like a
movie that we both really enjoyed. But it's like, you know,
there's a lot of like it's a forbidden love. It's
a forbidden old timey love between two willowy white ladies,
and like, you know, there's a lot of I don't
know that this movie is just presenting a reality. It

(01:05:53):
like feels like a slice of life movie that like
documents uh person's community and life in a very specific place. Too.
I love how prominent Philly at multiple points in history
is and that feels effortless in terms of like how
important the location is to the movie. And it just

(01:06:13):
I don't know, this movie is doing so much without like,
like you said to your piece or stuff like without
making it seem like it's doing so much. It's really interesting. Yeah,
it says like there's a real like sense of pleasure
and playfulness. You don't like it never gets heavy in
any way. It was interesting about that Philip out like

(01:06:36):
when she says when June says that like kind of
revives that whole history of bars and places where lesbians
used to hang it specifically black lesbians, and how those
have disappeared a bit already by the time Childs start
making the movie, and like thinking even now how it
has even more disappeared. It's just like, Yeah, there's something

(01:06:59):
really sad about aspect of queer life in the city
and the space that don't exist more. Yeah, one thing
we haven't talked about yet is there's a there's a
there's a hot sex scene in the movie. I just
wanted to shout it out. Not only there's a hot
sex scene, but I just think she wouldn't really like

(01:07:21):
showing her butts in movies. I just I just like
notice that we're watching some of her film several times, Like,
first of all, she has a really nice but but
like it comes out a lot in The Watermelon Woman
and other shots and yeah, if I had such a

(01:07:42):
nice but I would also show it. We do see her,
but we see her nips. We see one of your
turner's nips as well. Yeah, I mean kind of hearkening
back to a discussion we had on the Portrait of
a Lady on Fire episode where a lot of movies

(01:08:03):
about a lesbian romance that are directed by men a
k A Blue is the warmest color. Is like, they're
so fetishy and so like male gazy, whereas this one,
it's like, yeah, the people behind the camera are Cheryl
Junier and also in front of the camera and a

(01:08:26):
lot of the scenes, but then you've got um. The
director of photography is a woman, Michelle Crenshaw. It's also
edited by a woman, Annie Taylor, So you know when
the representation behind the camera is people who are just
more interested in showing what lesbian sects actually looks like

(01:08:47):
rather than like a very site. Didn't Chryl Danner edit it?
Am I missing she? I think she edited it herself,
which is maybe why her butt comes up so much. Sorry,
I was pulled. I don't know where I let me check. Yeah,
I thought I saw maybe it was a Wikipedia Either way,

(01:09:08):
there was a woman editing editing it in it, I
don't know. I thought it was a good sex scene. Yeah,
she's the editor. Okay, so my bee. I have no
idea who Annie Taylor is. I don't know where I
got that information. Sorry. Oh wait, film editing by this
is on IMDb. Annie Taylor, That's where I got that mystery. Mystery.

(01:09:34):
Maybe Annie Taylor is Ryl Dunier's pseudonym for when she's
an editing pseudonym. Uh. Yeah that. I thought that the
like that the sex scene was enjoyable, and it also
felt I don't know what makes a sex scene nineties,
but the sex scene also felt very nineties, where it's

(01:09:56):
like a lot of like tight shots and like it
just felt like it was like being cut around, kind
of like a music video and you're like, yeah, the
music too. I can't remember exactly what song is playing,
but I was like this, it's a time machine and
I am transported right back to the mid nineties. Um,
does anyone have anything else they want to talk about?

(01:10:18):
I think that was it. Yeah. Oh does the movie
pass the Bechtel test? Yeah, of course, almost the whole time, Yes,
and also passes the Vito Russo test. Just want to
give that a shout out. Also a number of other

(01:10:41):
tests like the DuVernay test. So, uh, we've got our
nipple scale, which is zero to five nipples based on
how the movie fares looking at it through an intersectional
feminist lens, and you know, I would probably give this,

(01:11:01):
I mean it's nearly a five, if not a five.
I mean it's a movie about representation and a lack
thereof and then a like correcting of that. But it's
like basically Cheryl Dune' is like, well, there are no
movies about black lesbians. Well guess what now there is.

(01:11:23):
You're welcome. And yeah, it's just it explores some really
interesting themes that it poses some interesting questions. Uh. There
there's representation that we rarely see that we weren't seeing
prior to this. We're that we're still barely seeing, especially

(01:11:43):
in mainstream because you know, even though this is a
pivotal movie in like new queer cinema, in black cinema,
most people still haven't seen this movie. Like it is
not something that a wide audience has seen or maybe
even knows about. Yeah, that's also what makes it a
bit sad to me because like if you look at

(01:12:05):
least for like black queer cinema, that isn't like there
use some significant films that I've come out, but like
in terms of like black lesbians, there isn't that much more.
And it was five years ago, right, Yeah. It was
kind of discouraging when when we because it's like we
wanted to cover more black queer cinema and the fact

(01:12:29):
that it was like the what you know this is
I feel like it's presented kind of as as The Pinnacle,
and yeah, it happened, you know, when we were all
children like and I don't know it. I'm glad that
some progress has been made, but it's like, well, we
have a problem here if if the you know, if
The Pinnacle was in six Yeah, hopefully listeners who are

(01:12:53):
listening to this episode, if you haven't already seen it,
go see it rented. You know, it might also be
available on canopy, like your your library. I'm not sure,
but I think it is. I just I can't find
my library card. Either way, it is accessible, so check
it out. Tell your friends about it because it's well,

(01:13:15):
I mean, we talked about gate keeping a little bit,
which is like something that Cheryl the character comes up
against a lot in trying to access information. There's also
like this pretty major Hollywood gate keeping thing where it's
hard for anyone to get a movie out there and
in front of a wide audience, but especially if you're

(01:13:38):
a black woman, if you're a queer woman, if you're
a queer black woman, like you know, the odds just
keep getting stacked more and more against you, just in
terms of like we Cheryl Danier like particularly like the
way she navigates the low budget of this movie so well,
to the point where it seems very intentional and like,

(01:14:00):
but the fact that she had to do that at all.
I think this came up last year when we were
covering A Girl Walks Home Alone at night, where especially
when there's women of color directing stories that that center
women of color, it's you always heard these stories about
like they had to scrape together the money to get
this made. It was really hard to find distribution. And
even now The Watermelon Woman is more widely accessible, but

(01:14:23):
that it doesn't seem like that was the case for
a long time for like the early history of this movie.
And meanwhile, you know, you hear like stories about white
male auteurs who barely know how to hold a camera,
and they're like, I have faith in him, He'll figure
it out. Like it's here's here's a hundred million dollars
to make your movie, like right, So the odds are stacked,

(01:14:47):
were stacked against Cheryl Dounier, and yet she managed to
make a really cool, funny movie that is extremely important
and extremely pivotal. And for those reasons, I'll give it
five nipples. This is this is rare on the on
the show, we we do not often do this. So

(01:15:09):
I'm excited to give the Watermelon woman five nipples and
I'll distribute them to Cheryl tomorrow. I want to get
what's her name, Yvette, who sings the terrible karaoke you know,
she was just doing her best. I hope, I hope
Evette finds love. If it finds a karaoke partner, she

(01:15:34):
deserves it. I'll give one nipple to Faye Richards and
all the women that she symbolizes, and I'll give my
is that am I up to five nipples? Now? I
don't know, I'll give I feel like I've got one
more and June, yes, June gets my last nipple absolutely,

(01:15:56):
So yeah, that's that's me. Yeah, meet I'll meet you
at five. It's a rare pleasure. I think that there's
there's definitely I mean, like we were talking throughout, it's
like there's still just questions that I would want to
hear Cheryl Dnier's perspective on, just in terms of like
plot choices and character choices and and just like the

(01:16:17):
themes that she really focuses on for this movie. But
in terms of our show, it's like this movie is
like firing on all cylinders, where, yeah, it's a movie
about how representation affects people, it's about historical gatekeeping. It's
also like a fun rob through Philadelphia in the nineties.

(01:16:40):
Like it's just I wasn't like, I don't I don't know,
I didn't know what to expect going into this movie.
But having it be like this really light but fascinating
nineties movie, and and it's cool that. I mean, Cheryl
Dnier is very much still working. It seems like she's
mostly working in TVD stays, but she directed an episode

(01:17:02):
of Lovecraft Country last year All Rise, which I think
was a court shop. She's been, she's she's directing, she's
in there. She lives in Oakland. Yeah, and directed Sugar. Yeah,
she's like I mean, and it's I'm I'm glad that
the Watermelon Woman kind of launched her into this successful

(01:17:24):
directing career. But I also like, why haven't we given
her a hundred million dollars to make whatever the funk
she wants? You know, like I think that it's worth,
you know, scrutinizing these pipe these movie pipelines where you know,
Cheryl Danyer is killing it and she's clearly, I mean,
it seems like doing work that is important to her,
and it's really good work. But it's like, why where

(01:17:48):
is Cheryl Danyer's blank check? That is my question. But
Eddie Ways, this movie is incredible. If you haven't seen it,
highly recommend and watch it with friends. I can't wait
to be able to watch movies with friends. This is
like such a I don't know. It was so fun
and I learned, I learned stuff, and usually I resent
learning things in movies, but this made it just it

(01:18:11):
went down easy, it was and I just I loved it.
So I'll go five nips as well, two to Cheryl Danier,
one to June, one to Faye, and one to I Forget.
There was like a separate director or artist who like
curated all the images of Faye Richards and I want

(01:18:34):
to give my last nipple to her. Yes, yes, yes,
she was a director of photography. Okay, wait thought so.
I just love the thoroughness of creating this history of
Fay Richards. And I saw through some research that that
ended up becoming like an art exhibit that like went
to Mocha, Like the history of this fictional character also

(01:18:58):
has this entire like art exhibit built around her, and
and it was also auctioned off to friends, and that's
part of the film's budget. Actually, wow, wait, I didn't
do that. Yeah. Yeah, they auctioned off some of the
images and the money they got from that went to
making the movie. So something we didn't mention, but I

(01:19:22):
think that's quite significant. It's also like, um, I think
with Tongues and Tied, it's the water women in Tones
and Tired are the two movies that were funded with
like public funding, and they were like a huge debate
in Congress around like funding films and like conservatives being like, oh,
like we're funding like this awful and like a natical

(01:19:45):
and a moral stories and um, I think after that,
like they completely restructured the way films were funded, and
the specific pockets of money that made those two films
possible were no longer accessible. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah,
but it's significant that they were discussed, Like thinking about

(01:20:07):
films such as these being discussed in Congress and piecing
off conservatives, which is always a pleasure. Exactly, Crystal, what
what is your nipple rating of this movie? So I'm
hesitating between four and five nipples, and I think I

(01:20:31):
will stay with the hesitation, especially like I think there's
something to be said about her mental health comes into
and cand like like there are some jokes that are
it like nineties, But I would give one nipple to
share you Donnie as a director, one to share it

(01:20:53):
Donnie as an actress, one to her, but one one
to Tamara, who's like, I just love Tamara so funny,
and the final one to June because it's just so
nice to see all the black lastins on screen, and

(01:21:14):
I hope we see more of that. Yeah. I think
there's there's something around generations and like queerness that's really
missing for me in filmography and seeing different generations of
queer people together on screen. Yeah, there's even I think
it's in June's voiceover towards the end, she's saying to Cheryl,

(01:21:40):
you know, I just I hope you realize that like
Faye was a part of basically like a movement that
allows your lifestyle to be possible, like she we like
our generation paved the way for you and Cheryl, I
don't remember she responds to that directly, but just the

(01:22:01):
fact that it's like in the movie and like that
is put out there is something that um is important
to remember. Yeah, well, Crystal, thank you so much for
joining us and the pleasures all ours. Where can people

(01:22:22):
follow you on social media? Is there anything you'd like
to plug? I'm on Twitter and very active on Twitter
at and I'm also on Instagram m Chrystal dotniqus nice
and you can follow us at Bechtel Cast on Twitter, Instagram.

(01:22:46):
We have a Patreon a k a Matreon at patreon
dot com, slash Spectel Cast. Yeah, there's over I think
there's almost like a hundred bonus episodes there. If you
have run out of stuff on the main fade, We're
going to cover Stewart Little this month for reasons, uh
and then our t public dot com slash the Bechtel

(01:23:11):
Cast for all of your merchandising needs. Other than that,
should we all go to karaoke? Bye bye