Hollywood Remixed
”Hollywood Remixed” is a topical, diversity-focused podcast from The Hollywood Reporter, hosted by Rebecca Sun. Each episode will be dedicated to a single theme – a type of character or story that has been traditionally underrepresented or misrepresented in pop culture – and feature an expert co-host as well as a special guest whose latest work exemplifies a new breakthrough in representation. We’ll revisit groundbreaking classics and introduce listeners to hidden gems, in order to better understand how film and television in the past has shaped progress in the present. Hosted by: Rebecca Sun
Episodes
September 22, 2021 • 74 mins
In honor of Dear White People, whose fourth and final season is now available on Netflix, star Logan Browning joins the show (35:05) to talk about how the series has represented a diverse range of perspectives and backgrounds among its student body, and also to share a little bit about her own college journey. THR culture writer Evan Nicole Brown also joins to add more dimension to the discussion about college experiences for Black...
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September 15, 2021 • 68 mins
This week we're discussing undocumented immigrant narratives with two very special guests. Pulitzer-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, the founder of the media advocacy nonprofit Define American, joins us as the ideal expert who can speak both to the experience of living in this country without documentation as well as to the significance of media representation on this issue. Then, Blue Bayou director and star Justin Chon (41...
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September 8, 2021 • 103 mins
This week we'll be learning about non-binary gender identity and exploring how film and TV represent characters that are neither exclusively male or female. This episode is inspired by Billions star Asia Kate Dillon, who will join us in the latter half of the show (57:23) to talk about their groundbreaking character, how they approach their roles and why acting awards categories should be gender-neutral. THR associate editor Abbey ...
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September 1, 2021 • 103 mins
This week's theme is a special twofer: We're tackling the martial artist stereotype, and its close relationship to portrayals of Asian masculinity in Western pop culture. Our special guest is none other than Simu Liu (48:33), star of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, out exclusively in theaters on Sept. 3. To kick off this episode, I've invited my friend Keith Chow, editor-in-chief of the pop culture blog The Nerds of Colo...
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August 25, 2021 • 80 mins
Candyman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II joins the show (47:34) to discuss how the franchise’s first all-Black creative team updated the horror classic to tell stories about how American society makes monsters of Black men and other truths about the structural violence of gentrification. THR contributor Richard Newby also joins Hollywood Remixed to walk us through the history and tropes pertaining to Black representation in the horror g...
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August 18, 2021 • 94 mins
In the second season premiere, “Amplifying Deaf Representation,” Marlee Matlin joins the show (1:01:13) to share about her unparalleled career as a deaf actor, from her Oscar-winning screen debut in 1986’s Children of a Lesser God to her latest performance as the mother of a hearing daughter in writer-director Sian Heder’s family drama CODA, which was released on Apple TV+ on Aug. 13. Deaf producer and film executive Delbert Whette...
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December 25, 2019 • 64 mins
In the first season finale of Hollywood Remixed, the Rebeccas turn the spotlight on the most disproportionately underrepresented onscreen demographic: Latinas. While they constitute about 20 percent of American women in real life, on television they represent 7 percent of women with dialogue (and just 2.8 percent of speaking characters overall). Film hasn't fared much better – two-thirds of the 1,200 highest-grossing movies from th...
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December 18, 2019 • 53 mins
Onscreen, outer space is often packed with imaginative characters that come in literally all colors – but how does real-life racial diversity factor into these stories? In the seventh episode of Hollywood Remixed, the Rebeccas explore the way sci-fi has dealt with race, from actors of color being caricatured or tokenized in supporting roles to the genre's frequent use of allegories to depict racial intolerance. They'll also discuss...
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December 11, 2019 • 44 mins
In a year that has seen critical acclaim for the coming-of-age film The Peanut Butter Falcon, starring former Special Olympics athlete Zack Gottsagen, Hollywood is learning that there is a place in the industry for people living with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This hasn't always been the case – although the CDC estimates that more than 250,000 Americans have Down Syndrome, only 1.6 percent of all speaking characte...
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December 4, 2019 • 56 mins
Lesbian representation on television has come a long way since TV’s first same-sex kiss between two women, on a 1991 episode of NBC’s L.A. Law. Just look at Ellen DeGeneres in 1997, whose simultaneous sitcom and real-life coming-out made headlines around the globe (including the cover of Time magazine), and Ellen in 2019, TV’s ruling daytime queen and go-to host for feel-good, family-friendly programming. In the intervening decades...
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November 27, 2019 • 60 mins
Strippers and exotic dancers have been a rite of passage on many a major actress' filmography, from Joanne Woodward (in 1963's The Stripper) to Jennifer Aniston (in 2013's We're the Millers). But most of these portrayals tend to depict the profession as a last resort for desperate women – or simply an excuse to ogle a movie star in compromising positions. Films centered on the world of female strippers tend to fall more in the camp...
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November 20, 2019 • 49 mins
Pop culture has traditionally not been kind to nerds in general – they're usually the butt of the joke, considered romantically undesirable and portrayed as social misfits. And black nerds – both onscreen and in real life – often contend with an additional misperception: the insinuation or accusation that, by dint of their interests, hobbies or academic achievements, they are "acting white" and not being true to their race (see: Fr...
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November 13, 2019 • 50 mins
While the news media has created a narrative that often characterizes black men as absentee or deadbeat from the household (statistics dispute this narrative), film and television have, over the years, created many memorable — and very present — father figures. In this week's episode, The Rebeccas will revisit some of the best African American fathers onscreen, from those brought to life as part of the Norman Lear universe (James E...
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November 6, 2019 • 33 mins
Although Asian men have existed in Western cinema since Sessue Hayakawa in the silent era, they have often been maligned as geeks, Fu Manchus – and sometimes annoying neighbors in yellowface. The Rebeccas trace the lineage of Asian male actors in Hollywood, from Bruce Lee’s enduring (and even posthumous) struggle to be taken seriously as a leading man to the long-awaited present era, where Asian men are finally breaking through as ...
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