March 15, 2023 • 45 mins
Khalil and Ben go to the movies with the perfect partner: Jacqueline Stewart, the director and president of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. They talk about how movies shape our lives, and why representation matters… on the big screen and at awards shows (Oscars still so white).
To learn more about the museum, visit their website: https://www.academymuseum.org/en/
To see the full clip of Sacheen Littlefeather rejecting the Best Actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QUacU0I4yU&ab_channel=Oscars
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Push it. I'm Khalil Gibran Muhammad. I'm Ben Austin. We
are two best friends, one black, one white. I'm a
(00:37):
historian and I'm a journalist. And this is some of
my best friends are some of my best friends are Okay,
you get it. So in this show, we wrestle with
the challenges and the absurdities of a deeply divided and
unequal country. And you know, one of the most visible
ways this inequality has manifested in society is on the
(00:58):
big screen. That's right, at the movies. And it's Academy
Awards season. That's right, that's right, totally, totally, and you know,
since its Oscar season, we wanted to bring out our
best friend and family Jacqueline Stewart. She's back on the show.
She's the director and President of the Academy Museum of
Motion Pictures, and we're going to check in with her
(01:21):
about how she understands the movie industry in her new
role and how race, identity and politics work in the
film industry. Let's do it, hey, Khalil. It's Oscar season,
(01:43):
the Academy Awards, the movie industry's biggest night. It's always
fraught with identity and politics and race. But it makes
me think about why movies matter and then why they
matter to me, you know, what movies are important? And
I was thinking about a movie that has been really
formative in my life, and and I've got one that's
kind of an oddball, is it? I hope it's not
(02:05):
at X rated. No, no, not at all, not at all.
Only this podcast is only gum. So one day, my
brother Jake and I we take the bus from South
Shore to hyde Park and we go to the Hyde
Park Theater and we pay our way to get into
a double feature and the first movie is Blazing Saddles
and Blazing Saddles. It is this mel Brooks comedy I think.
(02:27):
I think it's from the early nineteen seventies, so this
is the early probably the early nineteen eighties. That we
go see it, and it's a parody of a Western
it's said It's said in the West. And you know,
up to that point in our lives, I'll say my
movie going experience, up to that point in my life
was pretty much tagging along with my parents, but we
(02:48):
would go see the movies that they wanted to see.
So that was my experience so far. So Jake and
I sit down in this movie blazing saddles, and you know,
it is uproarious. There the humor, it's like parody. It's
like breaking the fourth wall. It is like a barrage
of jokes. They're fart jokes. There are like sight DAGs,
(03:08):
there are like you know, it is just like building
and building and building. And at one point like like
we are just our mouths are open, and we turned
to one. I don't even know which one of us
said it. I think we almost both said it at
the exact time, and we said, they make movies for us. Yes, well,
(03:29):
all right, so my turn. So I've been thinking about
this too, And of course this film, I think for
a lot of our listeners was revolutionary, and that is
Spike Lee's do the Right Thing Comes out in nineteen
eighty nine. And for me, the issues in this film
could not have been more relevant, more personal, more connected.
(03:50):
I at the time, across most of the nineteen eighties
was living in New York City during the summers with
my father. He lived for a time in Fort Green, Brooklyn,
where Spike Lee lived and was a visible presence on
the streets. That was like the mid nineteen eighties. So
when the film comes out in nineteen eighty nine, like,
I know the world that he's created in this film.
I have experienced it. And even though we were native Chicagoans,
(04:12):
I had this incredible childhood where I got to spend
all these summers in New York. And of course the
film turns on the intense race relations of nineteen eighties
New York. It culminates in a police killing and all
the racism that is seething beneath the surface with white
Ethnics and Italians in particular, and black folks and Puerto Ricans.
(04:34):
All of it's there. Also, like that movie crazy formative
for me. I went to go see it with Danielle
in nineteen eighty nine, my wife. We were just starting
to date at that point. But after the film, like
this film with like you're just trying to process it.
It's beautiful, and we go to River Oaks out in
the in the southern suburbs to see it, which is
what you did back in the eighties. We go to
Bennigan's after to get a meal and I go to
(04:57):
the bathroom and I come back from there's a woman
talking to Danielle, a black woman, and I get back
to the table and the woman walks away and the
woman had Danielle turns to me and says, that woman
just said to me, I saw you in the theater
after seeing that movie. How could you be here with
him meeting with a white guy? And I like sat down.
I was like, was that the message of the movie.
(05:18):
I was like, I wasn't pissed. I was like actually
trying to still process the film, like that movie was
loaded in so many ways, Like was that really the message?
I don't think so. Yeah, yeah, man, you were diluting
our racial stock. The thing is, though, it's like many
years later, I got to meet Spike Lee at Indiana University.
(05:39):
I was there as faculty member, and he came to
talk about how he'd been snubbed by the Oscars so
many times in his career, and he talked about do
the right thing. He talked about Malcolm Malcolm X, it's
like a perfect movie Malcolm X. Yeah, that's right. This
guy was pissed, and I don't think I really remembered
at the time that the year that he didn't get
(05:59):
an Oscar for Best Picture or Best Director, which was
nineteen ninety Oscars, the film did get two nominations for
a Rich sporting Actor Danny I Yellow and Original Screenplay.
He didn't win any of them, so the film won nothing.
Guess what won that year? Guess what swept the Oscars?
Nineteen nineteen ninety not Scent of a Woman that's like
(06:23):
ninety two, what is it? It's driving Miss Daisy driving
Miss Daisy Man. It's like the punchline dre a joke.
Oh my god, it's so unbelievable that a film that
sort of recapitulates the you know, the old tropes of
the white savior, the black helpmate, you know, the traditional
(06:45):
subservience and stereotypes of black people. Um. Ironically enough, the
woman's Jewish and the main character, Morgan Friedman, who is
the chauffeur in this film, is black. So there we
go black and Jewish relations. But yeah, the movie swept
the Oscars. So that's that is both for me, a
story about like my coming of age in the movies
(07:07):
do the right thing, of course, Rosie Perez is no joke,
and also thinking about like this conversation today about the
Oscars being still so white, I mean, here we are,
and the way that movies matter. That both sort of
how they represent our world and how they fail to
represent and how we're sort of embroiled in that dialogue
with films. We want to see the world through them,
(07:30):
and we also make sense of the world. So we
are going to dive into the movies today and we
are doing it with the perfect person. All Right, we
have Jacqueline Najuma Stewart back on the show. She was
here on the in season one. She is back on
the show. She is the perfect person to talk about movies.
She is the director and president of the Academy Museum
(07:52):
of Motion Pictures, the movie museum in Los Angeles. Her
job is to make movies and the history of movies,
the culture of movies, make them into this giant museum,
and make sense of them, make it important to the public. Yeah,
she actually is helping to build the museum from scratch,
and in that responsibility, they have to design a program
(08:14):
which includes exhibition, which includes events, which includes film screenings.
And as the senior executive of this organization, she's got
a huge set of responsibilities the caretaker of the official
history of the Academy as well as how the Academy
teaches future generations about the meaning of movies. It's an
incredible job. And listen, and Jackie went to prim with
(08:36):
my brother high school prom. Yes, they got married, have
two children. Jackie has known me and you yeah, pretty
much since we've been kids, you know, and she is
my sister. I love her. Yeah. Just for the record, though,
this conversation happened before we knew this year's Oscars winners.
(08:58):
So we're excited about talking about the museum and learning
a lot more about the role of the Oscars itself
in shaping American culture. Yeah, yeah, so obvious. See, you know,
this conversation about Oscar so white and Oscar's still being
so white and wrestling with sort of race and culture
and American identity as part of films. That's what we're
(09:21):
gonna unpack with her. That's right, let's do it. Let's
go roll the tape, turn off the lights, hand me
the popcorn. Let's go. So Jackie, we get to say
something to you that we've not said to any guest yet,
which is welcome back. Yes, some of my best friends
(09:42):
are welcome. That isn't hot. Yes, thank you for having
me back. Yes, for those who didn't have the pleasure
of hearing Jackie last season, doctor Jacqueline Stewart was our
guest to help us unpack the meaning of interracial buddy films,
the long genre, the nuances, the lack of women in
(10:04):
these films. It was our first episode when some of
our best friends launched that conversation that we subsequently have
with Jackie. So thank you so much for coming back on. Man,
it's my pleasure, man, the first episode. I mean, that's
that's incredible. We're family here in a way that that
people don't necessarily don't. Your aunt and my mom grew
up together. I mean, like bff's for real, when I
(10:27):
was like a newborn. Yeah, and you you know, we
we've all been connected since uh, you know, since Khalil
and I I'd say probably ninth grade. You've known us,
your were we go way back. It's pretty amazing when
you actually count up the years. You know, we're getting old,
we're getting older and wiser. I feel like we have
really champion each other and all the work that we do.
(10:49):
I definitely feel like my family is the baseline for
everything that I've been able to accomplish, and you too
are a big part of that. I love that. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
needless to say, we're proud of you, and uh, you
know been and I talked a lot about Chicago being
home base, right, and of course you share that. But
I went east, Jackie, and you went west. So you're
(11:12):
now in in the movie making capital of the world.
You are in Los Angeles, California, and we were excited
last year about your big promotion. You were then the
chief artistic and Programming Officer at the Academy Museum of
Motion Pictures and drumroll please, la da da da. Now
(11:34):
you are the president of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
That is awesome, It's amazing. It's amazing to me q
Q moving on, yes, yes, and and and of course
along the way, just as a testament to your brilliance,
you just you know, snatched a little your own little
(11:54):
Oscars for Academia, a MacArthur Genius Award in the meantime.
So we are really proud of you. So we wanted
to get this conversation started because it is Oscar season.
It is that time of year when the biggest night
in Hollywood occurs, and we wanted to learn a little
bit more about what exactly does the president of the
(12:15):
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures do great question. So the
Academy Museum opened in September of twenty twenty one. So
we're still kind of like a toddler almost almost in
our infancy. And just to give some background, so the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded in
(12:36):
the late nineteen twenties, and even back then the founders
were like, part of what we should have in terms
of amplifying the arts of moviemaking is we should have
a museum. So it's been an idea that the Academy
has had for almost a hundred years, and then over
the generations there were various attempts to try to bring
(12:57):
it to reality. But really this project in the form
that it takes now, this campus that we have on
Fairfax and willshare in Los Angeles, is about ten years
in the making. And Jackie, I visited the museum. You
gave me a partial tour, and then I walked around
with my son Jonah, and it's it succeeds in so
many different ways. I mean, I think about movies being
(13:20):
part of our culture and you know, and that were
we were fans of them, and so there's like this
kind of museum of just fandom. And then there's also
this museums are part of our history, you know, the
happiness certain moments, and they're also conveying history, and you're
telling both the history of museum of movies and the
history that they're encased in. I was so moved by
just seeing like framed screens and inside of them different
(13:44):
movies going on, different and in the way I would
be in an art museum, and to see that, to
see this beauty, um it's powerful in all those different ways.
It felt like there was something for everybody. I'm saying that,
like everyone should go because it's you're definitely going to
connect with us. That means a lot. I mean that's
our goal. That's really the goal that we have. You know,
(14:04):
there are ways that our memories are activated by the
movies that we love, our moviegoing experiences. I mean, I've
heard you and Jake, your brother talk lots of times
about memorable moviegoing experiences with the theater. Moments were like
in films that maybe you shouldn't have seen at a
younger age, which you saw them anyway, Like they're just
there's an emotional connection that people have to movie going,
(14:26):
So we want to harness that and honor that and
always use that as an opportunity to get people to
ask deeper questions and broader questions. So that gives me
I have a deeper question to ask you, and it's
actually it's actually something I don't think I've ever asked
you or I don't know, and that you're so smart.
(14:48):
You're like one of the smartest people I know. And
you could have studied black culture and identity in so
many different ways, and you chose to do it through
the movies academically as a curator in all sorts of ways.
Why why movies? Like what do you love about movies?
Was there a moment for you where you like you
fell in love with movies and this is it? Well,
(15:09):
there's like two reasons, I guess one. Yes, absolutely, there's
a kind of childhood connection. And the story I tell
is that I have three aunts. My mother and sisters
were twenty years older than she is, so they were
born in the nineteen twenties, and I was very close
to my aunt Constance, Zenobia Lee, my aunt Connie, my auntie,
(15:31):
and she was a night owl. I love that term.
So we were night owls. So my sister and my grandmother,
they go to bed after Johnny Carson went off, but
we would stay up and we would watch these movies
that she remembered going to see in the movie theaters,
movies from the thirties and forties, and she knew everything
about these old movie stars. And of course these films
(15:54):
had commercial breaks, so we go downstairs and get a
snack and talk about them. So it was really like
this super intimate experience of talking with someone who just
loved and supported me so much, and I adored her,
and we would just be up all night watching these movies.
So when I would get to college and people didn't
want to watch black and white movies because they're in
(16:15):
black and white, what is the issue there? Um? And uh,
she just made me really interested in I guess that's
another thing too. As a black woman, questions come up
all the time about how can you watch movies that
have these racist things in them? Obviously these films I mean,
like like the depictions of black women as mammy figures.
(16:36):
That's right, black and shoes shine if they're in the
movie at all, you know, yes, Um, where do you
find those points of pleasure in films? That are not
made for you, and in some cases are made against you. Um.
So I think at a very early age I had
a strong understanding, firsthand experience that people who have been
(16:59):
marginalized still find these points of pleasure, and sometimes that
pleasure is through critique, because when you would get some
you know, silly Maid or whatever. Butterfly McQueen, there's this
moment in Milder Piers Butterfly McQueen picks up the phone
and she can't figure out how to us. It's like
hello the obviously for white people. That's like a dumb
(17:25):
Negro made for us. He's playing on the idea that
this woman wouldn't know how to use the phone. So
it was really instructive to me to be able to
appreciate good acting, amazing cinematography, compelling stories, and to think
about through her, like how could she still love these
(17:47):
movies even when they have these moments that are obvious
to us really problematic, So that I didn't realize that
was working in my subconscious for such a long time.
And when I went to college, I was an English
major and Spike Lee kind of burst onto the scene
and everybody's talking about his films and I'm looking at
(18:08):
She's Got to Have It, I'm looking at School Days,
and I'm just amazed by these films. They're just stylistically
so interesting, and he's a voice that's so unique. But
the representations of women in his films, I was like,
what is going on here? And there was this kind of,
you know, contradiction that so many women of color have
to negotiate. How do you support one thing that is
(18:31):
so meaningful, potentially even progressive on a racial level, but
then raises so many problems questions when it comes to
gender and sexuality. And I end up writing my BA
thesis on Spike Lee's films, and I, you know, in
so many ways, I'm still doing that, Like you're still
(18:52):
doing that well. I firmly believe that we have to
see these films. I don't believe in censoring films that
have these problematic elements. I think we have to look
at them and talk through them. And that's what I've
been kind of training myself to do and hopefully educating
others on how to do as well. I love that, Jackie.
We are going to take a short break and we'll
(19:13):
be right back. All right, Welcome back to some of
my best friends are. We are going to talk about
the Oscars now, and this is the biggest night in Hollywood.
(19:33):
We want to talk a bit about how the Oscars
each year sort of shine a light on where the
country is and it's long and tortured journey towards racial
progress to racial justice, and of course of the past
several years, there's been a lot of ferment around representation
(19:53):
at the Oscars. So I just want to hear your
thoughts about where the Oscars are at this moment, what
it's like to be a custodian of the history of
the Oscars and in this new role. Yeah, you know,
we have an Academy Awards History gallery at the museum
and it's actually something that folks can look at online
as well, kind of scroll through and see these landmark
(20:15):
wins and nominations and how the categories have changed over time.
And from what I have been seeing, it's like because
of the Oscar So White Movement protests that happened, there
was a real effort on the part of Academy members
Academy leadership to craft a response, and so the development
(20:38):
of criteria for really pushing studios to diversify their crews
and their casts, a lot of what happens behind the
scene exactly. Yeah, yeah, I mean you know this well,
but sometimes it bears repeating that you can't resolve centuries
(21:00):
old problems in two or three years. You have to
create with a d d I initiative that you stand
up and just figures, let's see the results, that's right,
and just you know, put somebody in charge who seems
to visibly reflect diversity, and that solves a problem. What
you have to do is you have to build sustain
(21:20):
sustainable initiatives that are looking ten, twenty thirty years ahead.
And so the Academy Goal Program, I think is in
many ways planting those seeds by placing young people in
positions where they can grow and where the Academy is
calling the industry to be accountable for that growth. So
(21:42):
that to me is really a strong indication of things
that are happening now that we may not see like
immediate results from. But that's not what we want anyway.
I would say, it's about a much longer term set
of solutions that we need to build. So you know,
when we look across for example, the history of black
filmmaking and kind of you see these ebbs and flows
(22:04):
right in the nineteen seventies and lots happening. The eighties
kind of a dip, and then the nineties a lot
of black independent filmmaking and a dip and so on.
But over the past few years, if you think about
just the breadth and the ambition, and I mean that
in terms of like um production values and costs, the
fact that Ryan Coogler has the career that he has
(22:25):
right now and right this is the director behind the
Black Panther Marvel series that's right, Yes, and Creed and
Creed and Creed Yes, which is amazing, reboot the Rocky series. Yes,
Sasha Penn one of the writers. Yeah, looking at the
things that Aba DuVernay is doing m and she is
(22:45):
a governor of the of the Academy. The point I'm
trying to make is just that I think that the
key right now is to ensure that the people who
are in place and getting into higher and higher places
in the industry, their voices are really being heard in
a way that I don't think was happening before. And
(23:05):
I think we're just going to see the fruits of
that in the next few years. Jack, I want to
I want to pick up something that you said at
the start of that of that you actually have an
exhibit about the Academy Awards, and I'm interested in that.
I've been to that room of sort of seeing this,
and I'm curious of you thinking about your job of
preserving that history of the Academy and the actual award
(23:26):
show and turning that spectacle of that event into a
museum exhibit. Yes, like and like, what is it? What
is it You're you're even trying to do sort of
in this conversation around diversity and representation and Oscar still
so white and like, you know, to sort of weave
that into this this h this is It's a great question.
(23:47):
And Doris, who leads a curatorial team that has really
worked on the structure of that exhibition, she drew on
the things that are really the major touch points. So
when you think about the Academy Awards, you think about
the speeches. In fact, I think if we ever fantasize
about giving a speech, it's like the Academy Awards moment
is what we all kind of like. I'd like, you
(24:09):
know that that's the ultimate stage for giving a speech
of thanking the people you love, of getting like this
major global recognition. So the gallery has a sort of
cycling array of speeches, and we see the video of
the speeches from Hattie McDaniel in nineteen forty to Ruth
Carter winning for costume design for Black Panther, and you know,
(24:30):
so we keep that up to date. Two because and
I have heard this literally from people who have won,
like Hilder Gonadottier, who was the first. She won for
composing for Joker, and she said that she heard from
young women that seeing her speech inspired them to think
that they could do work for film, like from major
(24:51):
motion things. So it's actually really a big deal in
terms of representation of seeing somebody up there on the
Oscars night. It's not it's alive in terms of that
sort of representation. Yeah, it's that validation. Yeah. Yeah. And
just to pick up this point I was thinking as
you were describing it, it's also a can to a
political speech, not just the politics that are on view,
(25:13):
in terms of how culture often is the sort of
lifeblood of our politics, yes, but also in the way
that so many of these speeches are in a formal
sense political. That's right, that the occasion for acknowledging whatever
this film subject matter is, or the individual who's being
honored for it, if it is a trailblazing role or
(25:36):
trailblazing individual, often tells us something about the country or
where the country is in its history at that moment.
Absolutely true. Yes, I'm thinking about one of pretty recent
speech by me and Neil, who was part of the
hair and makeup team that won for Male Rainey's Black
Bottom and starry Viola Davis starrying the amazing Viola Davis.
(25:57):
So Mia gets up and she gave, as we have
in our gallery, this brilliant speech, tracing the history of
her parents, the sacrifices they had made for her to
be where she is, and then she says, you know
there's going to be a time when a win like this,
this was the first, you know, black person to win
this award, that this will just be normal, Like can't
(26:18):
we imagine a moment when this it won't be a
big deal, That this is a first and our gallery
is so full of these firsts. And the goal is, though,
as she puts it so beautifully, to get to a
place where this is not the anomaly. So the symbolic
meaning even for the voters and for the public to
recognize talent in all of his forms and to then
(26:42):
provide more opportunities for people, you know, is deeply meaningful
and the Oscars is an incredible stage for that too. Jack,
I want to I want to ask you about another
person that's in that exhibit, Sash and Little Tether. She
rejects the award, and you've told me about this very
regretfully cannot accept this very generous award, and the reasons
(27:07):
for this being are the treatment of American Indians today
by the film industry. Excuse me. You know, we see
this amazing moment. There's like tumult going on in the
academy and the audience they don't know what's going on
because somebody has walked up there who's not They didn't know.
(27:30):
You told me that John Wayne is backstage and like
he literally has to be held back from like that
he's going to attack her story, that story. Yeah, this
is to get back to what you were saying before, Khalil,
this is understood to be the first political speech given
on the Oscar stage because she was wondering and um,
you know, so it gets to these questions of is
(27:51):
this a place for politics? It's already a place for politics. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, could we follow up on that really quickly?
I mean, given that it was a political speech and
for you, as the custodian of the history of the oscars,
are saying, it's really the first one acknowledges a political speech.
What exactly was the story with Marlon Brando's own winning
(28:12):
role for The Godfather, which of course is one of
the most iconic canonical films ever made in Hollywood? Uh?
And Sachin Little Feather like, how did how did that
actually come together in terms of him not showing up
in her being there in his place, right right? Well,
I can't not refer to our own Academy Museum podcast
(28:32):
episode on a Time, Okay, yes, to summarize it. Marlon
Brando and we had his daughter, Rebecca Brando here for
a program just for our own team because we wanted
to learn more about this background in history and educate ourselves.
But she talked about how passionate he was with regard
(28:53):
to UM, indigenous rights and Native American issues, and that
he was really undergoing a long process himself of learning
that he had a whole library of books about Native
American culture UM and his he was getting woke. He was,
he was getting woke. I mean, you know, he was.
(29:14):
She was really reiterating to us that he was walking
the walk as far as he could. But he also
recognized that he should not be the one to speak
on behalf of Native American issues on that stage, so
he reached out to her. So he had planned to
given the film, even though the film has nothing to
do with Native people, it was it was such a
burning issue for him at that moment, and the American
(29:36):
Indian Movement and the second Wounded Knee confrontation between the
federal government and Native populations was in the news and
a big deal, and and Marlon Brando's like, look, you
know this. It was his version of taking a knee
in the Colin Kaepernick sense of it. It's like, I
am not going to participate in this, this charade of
a country that has consistently done what it's done to
(30:00):
the Native people. Yeah, okay, I understand. I think we're
going to get you up on the stage. Who do
you want to replace? Who do you want to go
up in there? And so I'm gonna go backstage and
take care of John Wayne. That's what that's gonna be
my job. Listen, Jackie, this is yes great. I just
gonna say it really did call attention to what was
happening at Wounded Knee at a moment when the press
was not paying attention to it, and so it was
(30:22):
had material impact on that movement. Yeah. Well, it turns
out there's so much more going on at the movies
than than any of us ever imagined. We're gonna take
another break, and when we come back, we're going to
talk about another history making moment in Oscar's history. We'll
be right back. We are back. Some of my best
(30:53):
friends are with truly one of our best friends in
the world and family, Unklin Najuma Stewart, Jackie Stewart. So, Jackie,
you were at the Academy Awards last year with my
wife Dan Yelle. You guys looked amazing. You were so beautiful.
It was incredible. Nicole Kid make him up to us
and told us how good we looked. I'm just I'm
just saying, we'll listen. I just have to cut in
(31:15):
here for a second. So, since I'm not married to
either one of you, I just want a little word
picture of what you were wearing that night. How about that? Oh,
let's see. I had kind of kind of an indigo
gown that had this fabulous cape with it and it
was pretty extravagant. And Danielle had on this really beautiful,
kind of structured U pink just gorgeous, gorgeous gown that
(31:39):
was it asymmetrical structure, you know, like one shoulder four
feet high, not four feet But she was making a statement.
She makes a statement in anything, but yes, that nice.
She was pretty really really on point. All right, all right,
all right, Jackie. So you guys are sitting in the audience, okay, yes,
and listen. You know it happens. Will Smith just in
(32:02):
the middle of the ceremony walks up on stage and
slaps the mess out of Chris Rock. We all saw
it was crazy because time to process that we're watching
on TV. We can look up things on the internet.
What was it like just being there? Like, what were
your immediate reactions? So it seemed like a joke. You know,
it was so loud, maybe because of where you could
actually hear it. You could you could hear the Yeah,
(32:24):
it was so loud that I thought that was like
a sound effect. But then it became clear that it
was something that really happened. It was jarring. I would
say it was jarring to everybody in the room. Listen.
I just I used to run a museum, the Schoenberg Center,
as you well know. So if I were the curator
of the film department at Schomberg, and certainly as director Schoenberg,
(32:46):
we would be having a meeting saying, how does this
come into our archives? It is it? Just? You know,
obviously the filming of the oscars itself is already going
to be collected and preserve, that's obvious. But do you
track the news cycle in order to be able to
help or research or make sense of this, Because when
(33:09):
we are caretakers of institutions like this, we have to
think for people who will never even know this happened
a hundred years from now, um, and for whatever reason,
a researcher may actually want to know the backstory. How
do you think today and how are you curators thinking
today about how to make meaning of it for the future,
(33:30):
because that's what that's what our jobs are in these
in these curatorial archival roles. No, that's right, I mean
that was one of the very first things I was
thinking of, sitting in that balcony was because we were all,
I'm there, the team is watching also, and we're thinking
about what that panel for twenty two Oscars that we're
(33:51):
going to put in the gallery, like, you know, we're
hoping within a month of the show. Yeah, what are
the significant moments that we're going to highlight there? It's
a pretty significant moment. What we did was not track
the news cycle, but we were waiting for the Academy's
response because there was a period of time in which
the governors were meeting and there was a lot of
(34:11):
conversation among the membership about are there going to be consequences?
If so, what are those consequences going to be? And
that's what we ended up writing up in our you know,
we talk about all the other amazing things that happened
that night, like Ariana Debout was becoming the first Afro
Latina to win an Academy award, and Troy Coster being
the first deaf actor to win an award. There were
(34:32):
so many other things that were significant, and the model
for our gallery is, you know, it's a list a
variety of things to try to give a sense of
what the important moments are, but also things that signal
cultural shifts or shifts in um sort of Academy approaches
to awards and so on. But we had to write
(34:54):
up this, this thing happened, this is how the Academy responded.
So that's one place where we're where we're documenting this
but also putting in that's the sort that's the shortest,
most immediate response and like you know, longer museum making,
like is this something that will go into an exhibit
to imagine that happening for sure? You know, we this
(35:15):
is the ninety fifth Oscars, so already we're thinking about
the one hundredth. We have five years to think about
ways that we're gonna narrate here the full century arc
of the Academy and this, you know, this ceremony and
this kind of industry self recognition that is the Academy Awards.
(35:37):
And you know, this is definitely something it's not just
a matter of like highlights lowlights. It's not that it
has to do with the way that our understanding of
stardom has evolved over time. It has to do also
with the way that we're going to think about the
racial politics of the Oscars. I mean, this is obviously
one of the things that was so jarring for me
(36:00):
and I think for a lot of other black folks watching.
It's like, this is a story about two black men
happening on this international stage, right, And then to think
too about what I think all institutions need to think about,
just like codes of conduct and expectations around behavior and um,
and what are the kinds of ways that we want
(36:22):
to create cultures where people feel safe and welcome it. Like,
there's so many things we need to figure out overall
among those lines that that became a signal moment for Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean I imagine there'll be some art or something
made of it too. I mean it was so such
a roor shock of what you said of like how
we conceive of race and gender politics and our culture.
(36:42):
Like it was so loaded in very uncomfortable ways, but
then also in ways that we can unpack. And you know,
for for the actor, the star Will Smith, who is
at the center of it and sort of you know,
broke protocol in all these ways. Um. He then it's crazy.
He goes on to win the Oscar of course moments later,
and that's to get a speech. It's just wild and
(37:03):
he's been sort of I mean he's not. He's been
banned I think from the Oscars for a long decision
was that for ten years he would not participate in
any Academy activities. But that doesn't mean that he couldn't
be nominated. I mean, his his colleagues may feel that
he turns in a performance that is, you know, worthy
of nomination. I'm glad you. I'm glad you corrected that.
(37:26):
I wasn't sure about that. Khalil actually recently met up
with him because Kalil was on the Red Table, the
show that Will Smith and his family put together, because
Will Smith had this new movie and and he invited
Khalil out to talk about the history. Khalil, did it
feel like a kind of miaculpla tour? Did it feel
like he was still responding to that moment? Oh? Absolutely,
(37:49):
I mean there's no question. This film that Will Smith
makes is called Emancipation. It's set in the Civil War
context about a man who escapes from slavery and joins
the Union army and fights for freedom. It's a really
important moment because this man becomes the most photographed formerly
enslaved person and helps just to win the tide for
(38:10):
the Union in terms of the war itself. And I
have to say for me personally, being invited onto the
Red Table to have this conversation, which was mostly about
my expertise as a historian, did create a choice, right.
It created a moment where not unlike you as a
caretaker of this institution, your institutional im premature matters in
(38:32):
a moment of controversy, my personal credibility in choosing to
be in his space to essentially to help in a
kind of diplomatic way, say, you know, it's okay to
watch this guy's film like it's complicated, but you know
not that this has deadly squad to do with the oscars,
(38:53):
but it does have to do with the choices we
all make, right, And the choice I made at that
point was that it was okay to let this film
breathe and to essentially welcome Will back to the public
space for whatever it's worth. Well, but it was also
an opportunity for you to share your expertise, right, Like
(39:15):
there are certain there are these moments when it's not
only a personal decision you're making or a career decision
that you're making, although people may try to cast it
that way at the moment how could you do that?
Do that? But it's also we have to make these
kind of measured decisions about I try to look at
(39:36):
the bigger picture, like what is the bigger the bigger picture, right,
I'm sure I had many colleagues who are like, why
are you academy because people have such like polarizing associations
with the academy. I really looked at the bigger picture.
If this is an opportunity to share my expertise, not
just like in terms of public interaction, but with a
whole group of professionals who are going to be creating
(39:58):
these moments of film, exhibition and history writing. I just
couldn't pass up the opportunity to do that. And you know, yeah,
you mean you mean just in this job that you're
in now, that's right, that's right. So the media cycle
of crazy things that happened just never never ends. And
I feel that we need to have people who are
(40:22):
and I hope that I am like an ethical person,
a reasonable person, a smart person, just in the rooms
when conversations and decisions are being made about what these
things mean, what they can mean in the future. And
that means you know that you sometimes interact with people
that you wouldn't have interacted with by choice before. But
(40:45):
but it's essential if we're going to move any of
this stuff forward. Yeah, well, for what is worth. Will
is a nice guy and so we're his kids, So
for what it's worth. And you also get to interact
with people that you admire and that you've sort of
seen from afar and you know this is that must
also be amazing incredible, It really is. Yeah, No, it's true.
(41:06):
We have so many amazing supporters and there are also
so many just incredible black movie professionals who have welcomed
me with open arms to the museum and offered their support. Um,
it's been deeply meaningful. Yeah, well that's beautiful. Thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you. Keep on doing the
great work. Uh. You know, we are your your biggest fans.
(41:28):
I'm so proud of the two of you and this
space that you've created for you know, these conversations. It
means a lot to me to be your first repeat guest.
And yeah, Oscar for best Museum President, everyd goes to
Jackie Stewart. Thank you so much, Jackie for going on
you love you both, love you too, love you too.
(42:03):
So Khalil at the Academy Museum. One of the exhibits
they have is you go into a booth and there's
a screen that films you as you accept the oscar,
actually hold up an oscar and you know, you give.
It doesn't actually record your words, but you know you
you say them and you put up your hands. It's
really awesome. I mean, you you you imagine what you
(42:25):
would say in that moment, and what's the film that
you imagined having made when you did that while you
were there? Come on, it's a screen adaptation. As some
of my best friends are, Oh, of course, what was
I thinking? Because I well, I was I got writer
actor for playing both roles, you know, like I did
like the face off thing where I had to play
(42:46):
both of us. Yeah, and it was like soul man too,
You're silly, You're silly. You know. One of the things
that just jumped out at me in this conversation was
that moment of John Wayne backstage and I the moment
you told that story and about Sashen Little Feather and
John Wayne wanting to literally come out and attack her.
(43:09):
It really was like, it's like him imagining you know,
he's this Western star and really imagining this like cowboys
and Indians fight in of American history. It turns out,
I think you know this, that there's even more to
Sashin Little Feathers story that upon her deaths her sister
came out and said that she was not Native, that
sash Little Feather was not Native, even though sort of
(43:33):
her activism throughout her life was on behalf of Native people. Wow,
it's like Rachel dolasal man Or or or or going
or going back to soul Man again, back out back
where it's all it's all circular, kid, It's all what
a crazy revent you we live in? All right? I'll
see you in the movies. I'll see you there, Love you,
(43:53):
Love you. Some of My Best Friends Are is a
production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted
by me Khalil Jibron Muhammad and my best friend Ben Austin.
This show is produced by Lucy Sullivan. It's edited by
Sarah Knicks with help from Keishell Williams. Our engineer is
(44:16):
Amanda Kawan, and our managing producer is Constanza Gallardo. At Pushkin.
Thanks to Leita Mulad, Julia Barton, Heather Faine, Carly Migliori,
John Schnars, Gretta Kone, and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song,
Little Lily, is by fellow Chicagoan the Brilliant Avery R. Young,
(44:38):
from his album Tubman. You definitely want to check out
his music at his website Avery R. Young dot com.
You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods,
and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin
dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
(44:59):
And if you like our show, please give us a
five star rating and a review and listen even if
you don't like it, give it a five star rating
and a review, and please tell all of your best
friends about Thank you.
Push it. I'm Khalil Gibran Muhammad. I'm Ben Austin. We
are two best friends, one black, one white. I'm a
(00:37):
historian and I'm a journalist. And this is some of
my best friends are some of my best friends are Okay,
you get it. So in this show, we wrestle with
the challenges and the absurdities of a deeply divided and
unequal country. And you know, one of the most visible
ways this inequality has manifested in society is on the
(00:58):
big screen. That's right, at the movies. And it's Academy
Awards season. That's right, that's right, totally, totally, and you know,
since its Oscar season, we wanted to bring out our
best friend and family Jacqueline Stewart. She's back on the show.
She's the director and President of the Academy Museum of
Motion Pictures, and we're going to check in with her
(01:21):
about how she understands the movie industry in her new
role and how race, identity and politics work in the
film industry. Let's do it, hey, Khalil. It's Oscar season,
(01:43):
the Academy Awards, the movie industry's biggest night. It's always
fraught with identity and politics and race. But it makes
me think about why movies matter and then why they
matter to me, you know, what movies are important? And
I was thinking about a movie that has been really
formative in my life, and and I've got one that's
kind of an oddball, is it? I hope it's not
(02:05):
at X rated. No, no, not at all, not at all.
Only this podcast is only gum. So one day, my
brother Jake and I we take the bus from South
Shore to hyde Park and we go to the Hyde
Park Theater and we pay our way to get into
a double feature and the first movie is Blazing Saddles
and Blazing Saddles. It is this mel Brooks comedy I think.
(02:27):
I think it's from the early nineteen seventies, so this
is the early probably the early nineteen eighties. That we
go see it, and it's a parody of a Western
it's said It's said in the West. And you know,
up to that point in our lives, I'll say my
movie going experience, up to that point in my life
was pretty much tagging along with my parents, but we
(02:48):
would go see the movies that they wanted to see.
So that was my experience so far. So Jake and
I sit down in this movie blazing saddles, and you know,
it is uproarious. There the humor, it's like parody. It's
like breaking the fourth wall. It is like a barrage
of jokes. They're fart jokes. There are like sight DAGs,
(03:08):
there are like you know, it is just like building
and building and building. And at one point like like
we are just our mouths are open, and we turned
to one. I don't even know which one of us
said it. I think we almost both said it at
the exact time, and we said, they make movies for us. Yes, well,
(03:29):
all right, so my turn. So I've been thinking about
this too, And of course this film, I think for
a lot of our listeners was revolutionary, and that is
Spike Lee's do the Right Thing Comes out in nineteen
eighty nine. And for me, the issues in this film
could not have been more relevant, more personal, more connected.
(03:50):
I at the time, across most of the nineteen eighties
was living in New York City during the summers with
my father. He lived for a time in Fort Green, Brooklyn,
where Spike Lee lived and was a visible presence on
the streets. That was like the mid nineteen eighties. So
when the film comes out in nineteen eighty nine, like,
I know the world that he's created in this film.
I have experienced it. And even though we were native Chicagoans,
(04:12):
I had this incredible childhood where I got to spend
all these summers in New York. And of course the
film turns on the intense race relations of nineteen eighties
New York. It culminates in a police killing and all
the racism that is seething beneath the surface with white
Ethnics and Italians in particular, and black folks and Puerto Ricans.
(04:34):
All of it's there. Also, like that movie crazy formative
for me. I went to go see it with Danielle
in nineteen eighty nine, my wife. We were just starting
to date at that point. But after the film, like
this film with like you're just trying to process it.
It's beautiful, and we go to River Oaks out in
the in the southern suburbs to see it, which is
what you did back in the eighties. We go to
Bennigan's after to get a meal and I go to
(04:57):
the bathroom and I come back from there's a woman
talking to Danielle, a black woman, and I get back
to the table and the woman walks away and the
woman had Danielle turns to me and says, that woman
just said to me, I saw you in the theater
after seeing that movie. How could you be here with
him meeting with a white guy? And I like sat down.
I was like, was that the message of the movie.
(05:18):
I was like, I wasn't pissed. I was like actually
trying to still process the film, like that movie was
loaded in so many ways, Like was that really the message?
I don't think so. Yeah, yeah, man, you were diluting
our racial stock. The thing is, though, it's like many
years later, I got to meet Spike Lee at Indiana University.
(05:39):
I was there as faculty member, and he came to
talk about how he'd been snubbed by the Oscars so
many times in his career, and he talked about do
the right thing. He talked about Malcolm Malcolm X, it's
like a perfect movie Malcolm X. Yeah, that's right. This
guy was pissed, and I don't think I really remembered
at the time that the year that he didn't get
(05:59):
an Oscar for Best Picture or Best Director, which was
nineteen ninety Oscars, the film did get two nominations for
a Rich sporting Actor Danny I Yellow and Original Screenplay.
He didn't win any of them, so the film won nothing.
Guess what won that year? Guess what swept the Oscars?
Nineteen nineteen ninety not Scent of a Woman that's like
(06:23):
ninety two, what is it? It's driving Miss Daisy driving
Miss Daisy Man. It's like the punchline dre a joke.
Oh my god, it's so unbelievable that a film that
sort of recapitulates the you know, the old tropes of
the white savior, the black helpmate, you know, the traditional
(06:45):
subservience and stereotypes of black people. Um. Ironically enough, the
woman's Jewish and the main character, Morgan Friedman, who is
the chauffeur in this film, is black. So there we
go black and Jewish relations. But yeah, the movie swept
the Oscars. So that's that is both for me, a
story about like my coming of age in the movies
(07:07):
do the right thing, of course, Rosie Perez is no joke,
and also thinking about like this conversation today about the
Oscars being still so white, I mean, here we are,
and the way that movies matter. That both sort of
how they represent our world and how they fail to
represent and how we're sort of embroiled in that dialogue
with films. We want to see the world through them,
(07:30):
and we also make sense of the world. So we
are going to dive into the movies today and we
are doing it with the perfect person. All Right, we
have Jacqueline Najuma Stewart back on the show. She was
here on the in season one. She is back on
the show. She is the perfect person to talk about movies.
She is the director and president of the Academy Museum
(07:52):
of Motion Pictures, the movie museum in Los Angeles. Her
job is to make movies and the history of movies,
the culture of movies, make them into this giant museum,
and make sense of them, make it important to the public. Yeah,
she actually is helping to build the museum from scratch,
and in that responsibility, they have to design a program
(08:14):
which includes exhibition, which includes events, which includes film screenings.
And as the senior executive of this organization, she's got
a huge set of responsibilities the caretaker of the official
history of the Academy as well as how the Academy
teaches future generations about the meaning of movies. It's an
incredible job. And listen, and Jackie went to prim with
(08:36):
my brother high school prom. Yes, they got married, have
two children. Jackie has known me and you yeah, pretty
much since we've been kids, you know, and she is
my sister. I love her. Yeah. Just for the record, though,
this conversation happened before we knew this year's Oscars winners.
(08:58):
So we're excited about talking about the museum and learning
a lot more about the role of the Oscars itself
in shaping American culture. Yeah, yeah, so obvious. See, you know,
this conversation about Oscar so white and Oscar's still being
so white and wrestling with sort of race and culture
and American identity as part of films. That's what we're
(09:21):
gonna unpack with her. That's right, let's do it. Let's
go roll the tape, turn off the lights, hand me
the popcorn. Let's go. So Jackie, we get to say
something to you that we've not said to any guest yet,
which is welcome back. Yes, some of my best friends
(09:42):
are welcome. That isn't hot. Yes, thank you for having
me back. Yes, for those who didn't have the pleasure
of hearing Jackie last season, doctor Jacqueline Stewart was our
guest to help us unpack the meaning of interracial buddy films,
the long genre, the nuances, the lack of women in
(10:04):
these films. It was our first episode when some of
our best friends launched that conversation that we subsequently have
with Jackie. So thank you so much for coming back on. Man,
it's my pleasure, man, the first episode. I mean, that's
that's incredible. We're family here in a way that that
people don't necessarily don't. Your aunt and my mom grew
up together. I mean, like bff's for real, when I
(10:27):
was like a newborn. Yeah, and you you know, we
we've all been connected since uh, you know, since Khalil
and I I'd say probably ninth grade. You've known us,
your were we go way back. It's pretty amazing when
you actually count up the years. You know, we're getting old,
we're getting older and wiser. I feel like we have
really champion each other and all the work that we do.
(10:49):
I definitely feel like my family is the baseline for
everything that I've been able to accomplish, and you too
are a big part of that. I love that. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
needless to say, we're proud of you, and uh, you
know been and I talked a lot about Chicago being
home base, right, and of course you share that. But
I went east, Jackie, and you went west. So you're
(11:12):
now in in the movie making capital of the world.
You are in Los Angeles, California, and we were excited
last year about your big promotion. You were then the
chief artistic and Programming Officer at the Academy Museum of
Motion Pictures and drumroll please, la da da da. Now
(11:34):
you are the president of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
That is awesome, It's amazing. It's amazing to me q
Q moving on, yes, yes, and and and of course
along the way, just as a testament to your brilliance,
you just you know, snatched a little your own little
(11:54):
Oscars for Academia, a MacArthur Genius Award in the meantime.
So we are really proud of you. So we wanted
to get this conversation started because it is Oscar season.
It is that time of year when the biggest night
in Hollywood occurs, and we wanted to learn a little
bit more about what exactly does the president of the
(12:15):
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures do great question. So the
Academy Museum opened in September of twenty twenty one. So
we're still kind of like a toddler almost almost in
our infancy. And just to give some background, so the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded in
(12:36):
the late nineteen twenties, and even back then the founders
were like, part of what we should have in terms
of amplifying the arts of moviemaking is we should have
a museum. So it's been an idea that the Academy
has had for almost a hundred years, and then over
the generations there were various attempts to try to bring
(12:57):
it to reality. But really this project in the form
that it takes now, this campus that we have on
Fairfax and willshare in Los Angeles, is about ten years
in the making. And Jackie, I visited the museum. You
gave me a partial tour, and then I walked around
with my son Jonah, and it's it succeeds in so
many different ways. I mean, I think about movies being
(13:20):
part of our culture and you know, and that were
we were fans of them, and so there's like this
kind of museum of just fandom. And then there's also
this museums are part of our history, you know, the
happiness certain moments, and they're also conveying history, and you're
telling both the history of museum of movies and the
history that they're encased in. I was so moved by
just seeing like framed screens and inside of them different
(13:44):
movies going on, different and in the way I would
be in an art museum, and to see that, to
see this beauty, um it's powerful in all those different ways.
It felt like there was something for everybody. I'm saying that,
like everyone should go because it's you're definitely going to
connect with us. That means a lot. I mean that's
our goal. That's really the goal that we have. You know,
(14:04):
there are ways that our memories are activated by the
movies that we love, our moviegoing experiences. I mean, I've
heard you and Jake, your brother talk lots of times
about memorable moviegoing experiences with the theater. Moments were like
in films that maybe you shouldn't have seen at a
younger age, which you saw them anyway, Like they're just
there's an emotional connection that people have to movie going,
(14:26):
So we want to harness that and honor that and
always use that as an opportunity to get people to
ask deeper questions and broader questions. So that gives me
I have a deeper question to ask you, and it's
actually it's actually something I don't think I've ever asked
you or I don't know, and that you're so smart.
(14:48):
You're like one of the smartest people I know. And
you could have studied black culture and identity in so
many different ways, and you chose to do it through
the movies academically as a curator in all sorts of ways.
Why why movies? Like what do you love about movies?
Was there a moment for you where you like you
fell in love with movies and this is it? Well,
(15:09):
there's like two reasons, I guess one. Yes, absolutely, there's
a kind of childhood connection. And the story I tell
is that I have three aunts. My mother and sisters
were twenty years older than she is, so they were
born in the nineteen twenties, and I was very close
to my aunt Constance, Zenobia Lee, my aunt Connie, my auntie,
(15:31):
and she was a night owl. I love that term.
So we were night owls. So my sister and my grandmother,
they go to bed after Johnny Carson went off, but
we would stay up and we would watch these movies
that she remembered going to see in the movie theaters,
movies from the thirties and forties, and she knew everything
about these old movie stars. And of course these films
(15:54):
had commercial breaks, so we go downstairs and get a
snack and talk about them. So it was really like
this super intimate experience of talking with someone who just
loved and supported me so much, and I adored her,
and we would just be up all night watching these movies.
So when I would get to college and people didn't
want to watch black and white movies because they're in
(16:15):
black and white, what is the issue there? Um? And uh,
she just made me really interested in I guess that's
another thing too. As a black woman, questions come up
all the time about how can you watch movies that
have these racist things in them? Obviously these films I mean,
like like the depictions of black women as mammy figures.
(16:36):
That's right, black and shoes shine if they're in the
movie at all, you know, yes, Um, where do you
find those points of pleasure in films? That are not
made for you, and in some cases are made against you. Um.
So I think at a very early age I had
a strong understanding, firsthand experience that people who have been
(16:59):
marginalized still find these points of pleasure, and sometimes that
pleasure is through critique, because when you would get some
you know, silly Maid or whatever. Butterfly McQueen, there's this
moment in Milder Piers Butterfly McQueen picks up the phone
and she can't figure out how to us. It's like
hello the obviously for white people. That's like a dumb
(17:25):
Negro made for us. He's playing on the idea that
this woman wouldn't know how to use the phone. So
it was really instructive to me to be able to
appreciate good acting, amazing cinematography, compelling stories, and to think
about through her, like how could she still love these
(17:47):
movies even when they have these moments that are obvious
to us really problematic, So that I didn't realize that
was working in my subconscious for such a long time.
And when I went to college, I was an English
major and Spike Lee kind of burst onto the scene
and everybody's talking about his films and I'm looking at
(18:08):
She's Got to Have It, I'm looking at School Days,
and I'm just amazed by these films. They're just stylistically
so interesting, and he's a voice that's so unique. But
the representations of women in his films, I was like,
what is going on here? And there was this kind of,
you know, contradiction that so many women of color have
to negotiate. How do you support one thing that is
(18:31):
so meaningful, potentially even progressive on a racial level, but
then raises so many problems questions when it comes to
gender and sexuality. And I end up writing my BA
thesis on Spike Lee's films, and I, you know, in
so many ways, I'm still doing that, Like you're still
(18:52):
doing that well. I firmly believe that we have to
see these films. I don't believe in censoring films that
have these problematic elements. I think we have to look
at them and talk through them. And that's what I've
been kind of training myself to do and hopefully educating
others on how to do as well. I love that, Jackie.
We are going to take a short break and we'll
(19:13):
be right back. All right, Welcome back to some of
my best friends are. We are going to talk about
the Oscars now, and this is the biggest night in Hollywood.
(19:33):
We want to talk a bit about how the Oscars
each year sort of shine a light on where the
country is and it's long and tortured journey towards racial
progress to racial justice, and of course of the past
several years, there's been a lot of ferment around representation
(19:53):
at the Oscars. So I just want to hear your
thoughts about where the Oscars are at this moment, what
it's like to be a custodian of the history of
the Oscars and in this new role. Yeah, you know,
we have an Academy Awards History gallery at the museum
and it's actually something that folks can look at online
as well, kind of scroll through and see these landmark
(20:15):
wins and nominations and how the categories have changed over time.
And from what I have been seeing, it's like because
of the Oscar So White Movement protests that happened, there
was a real effort on the part of Academy members
Academy leadership to craft a response, and so the development
(20:38):
of criteria for really pushing studios to diversify their crews
and their casts, a lot of what happens behind the
scene exactly. Yeah, yeah, I mean you know this well,
but sometimes it bears repeating that you can't resolve centuries
(21:00):
old problems in two or three years. You have to
create with a d d I initiative that you stand
up and just figures, let's see the results, that's right,
and just you know, put somebody in charge who seems
to visibly reflect diversity, and that solves a problem. What
you have to do is you have to build sustain
(21:20):
sustainable initiatives that are looking ten, twenty thirty years ahead.
And so the Academy Goal Program, I think is in
many ways planting those seeds by placing young people in
positions where they can grow and where the Academy is
calling the industry to be accountable for that growth. So
(21:42):
that to me is really a strong indication of things
that are happening now that we may not see like
immediate results from. But that's not what we want anyway.
I would say, it's about a much longer term set
of solutions that we need to build. So you know,
when we look across for example, the history of black
filmmaking and kind of you see these ebbs and flows
(22:04):
right in the nineteen seventies and lots happening. The eighties
kind of a dip, and then the nineties a lot
of black independent filmmaking and a dip and so on.
But over the past few years, if you think about
just the breadth and the ambition, and I mean that
in terms of like um production values and costs, the
fact that Ryan Coogler has the career that he has
(22:25):
right now and right this is the director behind the
Black Panther Marvel series that's right, Yes, and Creed and
Creed and Creed Yes, which is amazing, reboot the Rocky series. Yes,
Sasha Penn one of the writers. Yeah, looking at the
things that Aba DuVernay is doing m and she is
(22:45):
a governor of the of the Academy. The point I'm
trying to make is just that I think that the
key right now is to ensure that the people who
are in place and getting into higher and higher places
in the industry, their voices are really being heard in
a way that I don't think was happening before. And
(23:05):
I think we're just going to see the fruits of
that in the next few years. Jack, I want to
I want to pick up something that you said at
the start of that of that you actually have an
exhibit about the Academy Awards, and I'm interested in that.
I've been to that room of sort of seeing this,
and I'm curious of you thinking about your job of
preserving that history of the Academy and the actual award
(23:26):
show and turning that spectacle of that event into a
museum exhibit. Yes, like and like, what is it? What
is it You're you're even trying to do sort of
in this conversation around diversity and representation and Oscar still
so white and like, you know, to sort of weave
that into this this h this is It's a great question.
(23:47):
And Doris, who leads a curatorial team that has really
worked on the structure of that exhibition, she drew on
the things that are really the major touch points. So
when you think about the Academy Awards, you think about
the speeches. In fact, I think if we ever fantasize
about giving a speech, it's like the Academy Awards moment
is what we all kind of like. I'd like, you
(24:09):
know that that's the ultimate stage for giving a speech
of thanking the people you love, of getting like this
major global recognition. So the gallery has a sort of
cycling array of speeches, and we see the video of
the speeches from Hattie McDaniel in nineteen forty to Ruth
Carter winning for costume design for Black Panther, and you know,
(24:30):
so we keep that up to date. Two because and
I have heard this literally from people who have won,
like Hilder Gonadottier, who was the first. She won for
composing for Joker, and she said that she heard from
young women that seeing her speech inspired them to think
that they could do work for film, like from major
(24:51):
motion things. So it's actually really a big deal in
terms of representation of seeing somebody up there on the
Oscars night. It's not it's alive in terms of that
sort of representation. Yeah, it's that validation. Yeah. Yeah. And
just to pick up this point I was thinking as
you were describing it, it's also a can to a
political speech, not just the politics that are on view,
(25:13):
in terms of how culture often is the sort of
lifeblood of our politics, yes, but also in the way
that so many of these speeches are in a formal
sense political. That's right, that the occasion for acknowledging whatever
this film subject matter is, or the individual who's being
honored for it, if it is a trailblazing role or
(25:36):
trailblazing individual, often tells us something about the country or
where the country is in its history at that moment.
Absolutely true. Yes, I'm thinking about one of pretty recent
speech by me and Neil, who was part of the
hair and makeup team that won for Male Rainey's Black
Bottom and starry Viola Davis starrying the amazing Viola Davis.
(25:57):
So Mia gets up and she gave, as we have
in our gallery, this brilliant speech, tracing the history of
her parents, the sacrifices they had made for her to
be where she is, and then she says, you know
there's going to be a time when a win like this,
this was the first, you know, black person to win
this award, that this will just be normal, Like can't
(26:18):
we imagine a moment when this it won't be a
big deal, That this is a first and our gallery
is so full of these firsts. And the goal is, though,
as she puts it so beautifully, to get to a
place where this is not the anomaly. So the symbolic
meaning even for the voters and for the public to
recognize talent in all of his forms and to then
(26:42):
provide more opportunities for people, you know, is deeply meaningful
and the Oscars is an incredible stage for that too. Jack,
I want to I want to ask you about another
person that's in that exhibit, Sash and Little Tether. She
rejects the award, and you've told me about this very
regretfully cannot accept this very generous award, and the reasons
(27:07):
for this being are the treatment of American Indians today
by the film industry. Excuse me. You know, we see
this amazing moment. There's like tumult going on in the
academy and the audience they don't know what's going on
because somebody has walked up there who's not They didn't know.
(27:30):
You told me that John Wayne is backstage and like
he literally has to be held back from like that
he's going to attack her story, that story. Yeah, this
is to get back to what you were saying before, Khalil,
this is understood to be the first political speech given
on the Oscar stage because she was wondering and um,
you know, so it gets to these questions of is
(27:51):
this a place for politics? It's already a place for politics. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, could we follow up on that really quickly?
I mean, given that it was a political speech and
for you, as the custodian of the history of the oscars,
are saying, it's really the first one acknowledges a political speech.
What exactly was the story with Marlon Brando's own winning
(28:12):
role for The Godfather, which of course is one of
the most iconic canonical films ever made in Hollywood? Uh?
And Sachin Little Feather like, how did how did that
actually come together in terms of him not showing up
in her being there in his place, right right? Well,
I can't not refer to our own Academy Museum podcast
(28:32):
episode on a Time, Okay, yes, to summarize it. Marlon
Brando and we had his daughter, Rebecca Brando here for
a program just for our own team because we wanted
to learn more about this background in history and educate ourselves.
But she talked about how passionate he was with regard
(28:53):
to UM, indigenous rights and Native American issues, and that
he was really undergoing a long process himself of learning
that he had a whole library of books about Native
American culture UM and his he was getting woke. He was,
he was getting woke. I mean, you know, he was.
(29:14):
She was really reiterating to us that he was walking
the walk as far as he could. But he also
recognized that he should not be the one to speak
on behalf of Native American issues on that stage, so
he reached out to her. So he had planned to
given the film, even though the film has nothing to
do with Native people, it was it was such a
burning issue for him at that moment, and the American
(29:36):
Indian Movement and the second Wounded Knee confrontation between the
federal government and Native populations was in the news and
a big deal, and and Marlon Brando's like, look, you
know this. It was his version of taking a knee
in the Colin Kaepernick sense of it. It's like, I
am not going to participate in this, this charade of
a country that has consistently done what it's done to
(30:00):
the Native people. Yeah, okay, I understand. I think we're
going to get you up on the stage. Who do
you want to replace? Who do you want to go
up in there? And so I'm gonna go backstage and
take care of John Wayne. That's what that's gonna be
my job. Listen, Jackie, this is yes great. I just
gonna say it really did call attention to what was
happening at Wounded Knee at a moment when the press
was not paying attention to it, and so it was
(30:22):
had material impact on that movement. Yeah. Well, it turns
out there's so much more going on at the movies
than than any of us ever imagined. We're gonna take
another break, and when we come back, we're going to
talk about another history making moment in Oscar's history. We'll
be right back. We are back. Some of my best
(30:53):
friends are with truly one of our best friends in
the world and family, Unklin Najuma Stewart, Jackie Stewart. So, Jackie,
you were at the Academy Awards last year with my
wife Dan Yelle. You guys looked amazing. You were so beautiful.
It was incredible. Nicole Kid make him up to us
and told us how good we looked. I'm just I'm
just saying, we'll listen. I just have to cut in
(31:15):
here for a second. So, since I'm not married to
either one of you, I just want a little word
picture of what you were wearing that night. How about that? Oh,
let's see. I had kind of kind of an indigo
gown that had this fabulous cape with it and it
was pretty extravagant. And Danielle had on this really beautiful,
kind of structured U pink just gorgeous, gorgeous gown that
(31:39):
was it asymmetrical structure, you know, like one shoulder four
feet high, not four feet But she was making a statement.
She makes a statement in anything, but yes, that nice.
She was pretty really really on point. All right, all right,
all right, Jackie. So you guys are sitting in the audience, okay, yes,
and listen. You know it happens. Will Smith just in
(32:02):
the middle of the ceremony walks up on stage and
slaps the mess out of Chris Rock. We all saw
it was crazy because time to process that we're watching
on TV. We can look up things on the internet.
What was it like just being there? Like, what were
your immediate reactions? So it seemed like a joke. You know,
it was so loud, maybe because of where you could
actually hear it. You could you could hear the Yeah,
(32:24):
it was so loud that I thought that was like
a sound effect. But then it became clear that it
was something that really happened. It was jarring. I would
say it was jarring to everybody in the room. Listen.
I just I used to run a museum, the Schoenberg Center,
as you well know. So if I were the curator
of the film department at Schomberg, and certainly as director Schoenberg,
(32:46):
we would be having a meeting saying, how does this
come into our archives? It is it? Just? You know,
obviously the filming of the oscars itself is already going
to be collected and preserve, that's obvious. But do you
track the news cycle in order to be able to
help or research or make sense of this, Because when
(33:09):
we are caretakers of institutions like this, we have to
think for people who will never even know this happened
a hundred years from now, um, and for whatever reason,
a researcher may actually want to know the backstory. How
do you think today and how are you curators thinking
today about how to make meaning of it for the future,
(33:30):
because that's what that's what our jobs are in these
in these curatorial archival roles. No, that's right, I mean
that was one of the very first things I was
thinking of, sitting in that balcony was because we were all,
I'm there, the team is watching also, and we're thinking
about what that panel for twenty two Oscars that we're
(33:51):
going to put in the gallery, like, you know, we're
hoping within a month of the show. Yeah, what are
the significant moments that we're going to highlight there? It's
a pretty significant moment. What we did was not track
the news cycle, but we were waiting for the Academy's
response because there was a period of time in which
the governors were meeting and there was a lot of
(34:11):
conversation among the membership about are there going to be consequences?
If so, what are those consequences going to be? And
that's what we ended up writing up in our you know,
we talk about all the other amazing things that happened
that night, like Ariana Debout was becoming the first Afro
Latina to win an Academy award, and Troy Coster being
the first deaf actor to win an award. There were
(34:32):
so many other things that were significant, and the model
for our gallery is, you know, it's a list a
variety of things to try to give a sense of
what the important moments are, but also things that signal
cultural shifts or shifts in um sort of Academy approaches
to awards and so on. But we had to write
(34:54):
up this, this thing happened, this is how the Academy responded.
So that's one place where we're where we're documenting this
but also putting in that's the sort that's the shortest,
most immediate response and like you know, longer museum making,
like is this something that will go into an exhibit
to imagine that happening for sure? You know, we this
(35:15):
is the ninety fifth Oscars, so already we're thinking about
the one hundredth. We have five years to think about
ways that we're gonna narrate here the full century arc
of the Academy and this, you know, this ceremony and
this kind of industry self recognition that is the Academy Awards.
(35:37):
And you know, this is definitely something it's not just
a matter of like highlights lowlights. It's not that it
has to do with the way that our understanding of
stardom has evolved over time. It has to do also
with the way that we're going to think about the
racial politics of the Oscars. I mean, this is obviously
one of the things that was so jarring for me
(36:00):
and I think for a lot of other black folks watching.
It's like, this is a story about two black men
happening on this international stage, right, And then to think
too about what I think all institutions need to think about,
just like codes of conduct and expectations around behavior and um,
and what are the kinds of ways that we want
(36:22):
to create cultures where people feel safe and welcome it. Like,
there's so many things we need to figure out overall
among those lines that that became a signal moment for Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean I imagine there'll be some art or something
made of it too. I mean it was so such
a roor shock of what you said of like how
we conceive of race and gender politics and our culture.
(36:42):
Like it was so loaded in very uncomfortable ways, but
then also in ways that we can unpack. And you know,
for for the actor, the star Will Smith, who is
at the center of it and sort of you know,
broke protocol in all these ways. Um. He then it's crazy.
He goes on to win the Oscar of course moments later,
and that's to get a speech. It's just wild and
(37:03):
he's been sort of I mean he's not. He's been
banned I think from the Oscars for a long decision
was that for ten years he would not participate in
any Academy activities. But that doesn't mean that he couldn't
be nominated. I mean, his his colleagues may feel that
he turns in a performance that is, you know, worthy
of nomination. I'm glad you. I'm glad you corrected that.
(37:26):
I wasn't sure about that. Khalil actually recently met up
with him because Kalil was on the Red Table, the
show that Will Smith and his family put together, because
Will Smith had this new movie and and he invited
Khalil out to talk about the history. Khalil, did it
feel like a kind of miaculpla tour? Did it feel
like he was still responding to that moment? Oh? Absolutely,
(37:49):
I mean there's no question. This film that Will Smith
makes is called Emancipation. It's set in the Civil War
context about a man who escapes from slavery and joins
the Union army and fights for freedom. It's a really
important moment because this man becomes the most photographed formerly
enslaved person and helps just to win the tide for
(38:10):
the Union in terms of the war itself. And I
have to say for me personally, being invited onto the
Red Table to have this conversation, which was mostly about
my expertise as a historian, did create a choice, right.
It created a moment where not unlike you as a
caretaker of this institution, your institutional im premature matters in
(38:32):
a moment of controversy, my personal credibility in choosing to
be in his space to essentially to help in a
kind of diplomatic way, say, you know, it's okay to
watch this guy's film like it's complicated, but you know
not that this has deadly squad to do with the oscars,
(38:53):
but it does have to do with the choices we
all make, right, And the choice I made at that
point was that it was okay to let this film
breathe and to essentially welcome Will back to the public
space for whatever it's worth. Well, but it was also
an opportunity for you to share your expertise, right, Like
(39:15):
there are certain there are these moments when it's not
only a personal decision you're making or a career decision
that you're making, although people may try to cast it
that way at the moment how could you do that?
Do that? But it's also we have to make these
kind of measured decisions about I try to look at
(39:36):
the bigger picture, like what is the bigger the bigger picture, right,
I'm sure I had many colleagues who are like, why
are you academy because people have such like polarizing associations
with the academy. I really looked at the bigger picture.
If this is an opportunity to share my expertise, not
just like in terms of public interaction, but with a
whole group of professionals who are going to be creating
(39:58):
these moments of film, exhibition and history writing. I just
couldn't pass up the opportunity to do that. And you know, yeah,
you mean you mean just in this job that you're
in now, that's right, that's right. So the media cycle
of crazy things that happened just never never ends. And
I feel that we need to have people who are
(40:22):
and I hope that I am like an ethical person,
a reasonable person, a smart person, just in the rooms
when conversations and decisions are being made about what these
things mean, what they can mean in the future. And
that means you know that you sometimes interact with people
that you wouldn't have interacted with by choice before. But
(40:45):
but it's essential if we're going to move any of
this stuff forward. Yeah, well, for what is worth. Will
is a nice guy and so we're his kids, So
for what it's worth. And you also get to interact
with people that you admire and that you've sort of
seen from afar and you know this is that must
also be amazing incredible, It really is. Yeah, No, it's true.
(41:06):
We have so many amazing supporters and there are also
so many just incredible black movie professionals who have welcomed
me with open arms to the museum and offered their support. Um,
it's been deeply meaningful. Yeah, well that's beautiful. Thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you. Keep on doing the
great work. Uh. You know, we are your your biggest fans.
(41:28):
I'm so proud of the two of you and this
space that you've created for you know, these conversations. It
means a lot to me to be your first repeat guest.
And yeah, Oscar for best Museum President, everyd goes to
Jackie Stewart. Thank you so much, Jackie for going on
you love you both, love you too, love you too.
(42:03):
So Khalil at the Academy Museum. One of the exhibits
they have is you go into a booth and there's
a screen that films you as you accept the oscar,
actually hold up an oscar and you know, you give.
It doesn't actually record your words, but you know you
you say them and you put up your hands. It's
really awesome. I mean, you you you imagine what you
(42:25):
would say in that moment, and what's the film that
you imagined having made when you did that while you
were there? Come on, it's a screen adaptation. As some
of my best friends are, Oh, of course, what was
I thinking? Because I well, I was I got writer
actor for playing both roles, you know, like I did
like the face off thing where I had to play
(42:46):
both of us. Yeah, and it was like soul man too,
You're silly, You're silly. You know. One of the things
that just jumped out at me in this conversation was
that moment of John Wayne backstage and I the moment
you told that story and about Sashen Little Feather and
John Wayne wanting to literally come out and attack her.
(43:09):
It really was like, it's like him imagining you know,
he's this Western star and really imagining this like cowboys
and Indians fight in of American history. It turns out,
I think you know this, that there's even more to
Sashin Little Feathers story that upon her deaths her sister
came out and said that she was not Native, that
sash Little Feather was not Native, even though sort of
(43:33):
her activism throughout her life was on behalf of Native people. Wow,
it's like Rachel dolasal man Or or or or going
or going back to soul Man again, back out back
where it's all it's all circular, kid, It's all what
a crazy revent you we live in? All right? I'll
see you in the movies. I'll see you there, Love you,
(43:53):
Love you. Some of My Best Friends Are is a
production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted
by me Khalil Jibron Muhammad and my best friend Ben Austin.
This show is produced by Lucy Sullivan. It's edited by
Sarah Knicks with help from Keishell Williams. Our engineer is
(44:16):
Amanda Kawan, and our managing producer is Constanza Gallardo. At Pushkin.
Thanks to Leita Mulad, Julia Barton, Heather Faine, Carly Migliori,
John Schnars, Gretta Kone, and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song,
Little Lily, is by fellow Chicagoan the Brilliant Avery R. Young,
(44:38):
from his album Tubman. You definitely want to check out
his music at his website Avery R. Young dot com.
You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods,
and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin
dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
(44:59):
And if you like our show, please give us a
five star rating and a review and listen even if
you don't like it, give it a five star rating
and a review, and please tell all of your best
friends about Thank you.
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