Ep. 7 Druski's White, Snape is black, and all hail Project Hail Mary

In episode 7 of The Blackened Tomato I will dive into some recent pop culture moments surrounding race and politics and also explain why some movies in theaters right now may be worth your time. 

pop culture moments:

Druski's conservative white woman skit

Meta and YT's lawsuit updates 

Snape has been casted black in HBO's Harry Potter series 

Movies:

Ready or Not 2

Slanted 

Project Hail Mary

Life (1999)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, welcome to the Black and Tomato, a podcast with season takes on movies, pop culture, a little politics, and always a bit of what's going on with me. Usually, I'm skipping me today because not only do I want to talk about some great movies I saw this past week, Ready or Not 2, Project Hail Mary, Slanted, and I'm also going to be breaking down a classic black film. I want to talk about life, 1999, and why it still works as a comedy, even though it's actually quite dark. But there's also just a lot going on in pop culture. I'm going to hop right into the Drewski skit. I posted something about his former skit where Drewski was a white man in the NASCAR race. And I just commented on how when black comedians make fun of white people or they are, you know, doing white cosplay, it's normally like a punching up kind of joke. And when I say punching up, I mean that they're usually rich white people or highbrow white people in suits or the guy at the office you work with, maybe they're middle class when I say punching up. But Drewski's NASCAR skit was like clearly like a lower class of white people. And it was different. I thought that made it unique. It stood out to me, like in the pantheon of what black comedians have done in white cosplay. But this time, this time, this time, this time, Drewski has decided to basically make fun of white conservative women. But when I say basically, actually, I was gonna say basically be Erica Kirk. And that obviously is not going over well for a lot of people. I think that one, I'm not completely surprised. Erica Kirk has gotten a lot of backlash about how she's been in the media after what happened to her husband, Charlie Kirk. Not everyone agrees with how she carries herself, the things that she's been saying. She's just as conservative as Charlie Kirk. If not worse, I also made a comment. I hate right now that my most liked and viewed video on TikTok was in response to what Erica Kirk was doing in the news. She was giving a speech after, you know, grieving her husband, but she just had this terrifying persona about her. I commented on that. While also saying, like, obviously, what she was going through was terrible. You don't want anyone to talk about how their children are handling the fact that something like that happened to their dad. Like it was a bad situation. But I did comment it on how terrifying, in fact, she was coming across and what she alluded to what her plans were. Because, like I said, she probably is almost worse than Charlie Kirk as far as her beliefs, who she thinks is important in America. She said things about especially, she's emphasized that if you are a young white male, she's like, especially you. You there, don't let anyone keep you back. Like, cool, not a surprise there. She's done stuff like that. So she ends up being made fun of by Drew Ski. I'm again not totally surprised by that, but I understand why people are pissed that, you know, are fans of hers because she is a grieving widow. Not that much time has gone by. When you think about it, it's been less than a year, I believe, since what happened uh to Charlie Kirk. So it's a sensitive topic. And I will say, there's no names mentioned in the video. Truwski just made it clear who he's going after because of the makeup. Shout out to the makeup team. The other thing is that um, in the first video, the NASCAR race skit, who the person that did his makeup was the same woman that did the makeup for weapons. And I don't know if it's the same person this time. Shout out to them. But, anyways, it was clear that he was portraying Erica Kirk for at least part of that video because of the makeup, the clothes he was wearing, y'all, the eye color, the way he would look at the camera after making a statement was one-to-one what Erica Kirk was doing. So that was one reason. It was pretty clear he was being her. And I guess, yeah, everything else is just like the political statements, the backdrops. There's part of the skit where there's a black man standing behind Erica Kirk. This is the skit. And Jusky makes a point to say these things where she's clearly prioritizing white people in America, and the black man is making all these expressions. The skit is funny, and the skit makes a point of how Erica Kirk is, she's making a clear statement about who she thinks is important in America. Now, I think that's fair to make fun of. Again, I understand that people feel like it's too soon and she's off limits because of what happened to her. She has catapulted herself into the media and made a point of wanting to, and I don't want to say use her husband's death. Like, is she more on the forefront now that Charlie Kirk is gone? Yes. But I'm not gonna say, like, oh, she's only, she's only using, she's using him. She's using him. Like, no, I think they shared a common goal. And now that he is gone, she is making sure to like step up and continue his message. I think because of how much she is making sure she's in the media and telling people what she believes, yada, yada, yada. Like, I understand that someone grieves, but I also think that in this case, or when it comes to someone that's puts themselves into the spotlight, it comes with backlash. It comes with being able to have an opinion about what you said. No, it doesn't matter if you're grieving. If you're gonna make a point of telling us that the young white males are more important to you, then someone can also make fun of you. Like that, that's that's how this game works. You don't get to be such a controversial figure here in America. And then everyone is like, well, no, no, no, we can't make fun of that person. That's too far. And the other thing is that in Drewski's skit, it's not as if he's there's nothing flat out, how do I say disrespectful in the skit? You know, like he's not showing her being nasty or gross or, you know, she's just being portrayed disrespectfully, I should say. Like it's crazy how accurate some of the stuff that he's doing in the skit is. Again, with compared to what she's literally saying to people in the media. But also, I guess the most disrespectful thing about it is that a man is dressed up as her. Because, you know, maybe if it was a woman that was doing the skit and making fun of Erica Kirk, people still would be upset about it, but it probably wouldn't go over as badly as a black man doing white cosplay being Erica Kirk. That's my stance on that. I think that skit, you know, makes a good point. I think that I don't agree, a lot of us don't agree with everything that Erica and Charlie Kirk, you know, have said, but that's what it is. I want to know more about Juicy's makeup team, and I also want him to be careful. I don't think that, you know, it's gonna, it's not gonna be great. It's not gonna be great if he keeps, if he keeps up what he is doing right now. I'm like, I don't know who is next, but obviously at some point we worry for Juicy's safety. Okay, we don't want him to step too far over the line because you know what? He's already over it. So it is what it is. But yes, I'm excited to find out more about the makeup team. I don't know if it's still the same woman that did makeup for weapons. I need to know more. But that's Drewski. Now, the other the other hot topic right now is Snape. Snape is black. People have been angry about that since it happened. I think what's interesting about it is normally when you hear about black characters being cast in roles that are already, you know, they're white. Everyone knows these characters are white. They're not always white for a reason. Sometimes they're just white because white people thought about them and created them, made them, whatever. They're white, but sometimes it's not essential, but they stay that way. What's interesting about Snape is that I've also seen a lot of black people be upset that Snape is black. Because Snape is a character that he has descriptions in the book. Again, those descriptions don't mean a character has to stay that way. But Snape has a story and a role in Harry Potter that even black people don't think, you know, it doesn't work if he's a black person. It comes across in a worse light because he is a black person, how he is treated. Everyone brings up the tree scene, which honestly, y'all, isn't an essential part of the Harry Potter story. Okay, but now that Snape is black, everyone's like, oh, how's that gonna be handled? Oh, y'all go, what was going on with the tree hanging scene? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, I don't think, obviously, that's a sensitive topic. I don't think that it has to be there for Snape to still be Snape. But I do understand that I saw, I saw a clip, and honestly, I was like, this is funny, but I also feel like y'all are racist a little bit. I saw a clip where people were, um, these two guys were like, oh, what's gonna happen? Harry Potter's gonna come to school and he's gonna be like, I don't know what it is, but I don't like this Snape guy. Something's off about him. And now that Snape is black, it'll be like, oh, Harry Potter's a racist. Oh, Harry Potter feels off because Snape is black and he associates with bad people, stuff like that. Look, I get it. You're not wrong because when things, when race sensitivities come into play, people are going to call out everything. They're gonna be like, oh, you saying that because he's black. Oh, this is a race thing. It's so easy, it's so easy. So I know that's going to happen, but I am so excited for, and I want to make sure. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to say his name correctly, but I want to attempt to because I like him. He was in an episode of Black Mirror that I really liked. I'm forgetting another, I think it was a show that I saw him in. His name is Papa Isid Isidou. His name is Papa Isidou. I'm probably saying that wrong. I'm so excited to see how he portrays Snape, how he acts like him. I think it'll work. I did, I had a funny reaction to when I saw the new trailer release, and there was an image because I don't think he's actually in, he wasn't in the trailer that I saw, but there was an image of him as Snape and he has locks. And I was like, oh, oh, we went with the locks for Snape. Why is that? I know how much thought they put into every creative decision for shows like that, especially Harry Potter. Snape's hair in the book is described as like greasy, wiry. It's not not wiry, it's like greasy and oily. It's clearly not described great, and it's supposed to make Snape be like this like grimy character that just and the way that they describe how he moves, Snape isn't great. A lot of us know his story, though. But to go with locks, I was like, oh, y'all saying locks are dusty. Y'all saying locks are nasty. Tell me what you really think. And then I was like, no, no, no. Don't tell me what you think because I posted about this. I already know how y'all feel. And I was like, what if Snape had a different kind of haircut? What if he had a fade? Okay. What if Snape had a little tight fro that he was always patting, trying to keep in line? That I'll be comedic. They probably shouldn't do that. If Snape was in the Harry Potter show and he was constantly like patting his fro down, he does some some sketchy shit and then he's patting his hair, like, man, get out, get out of my way. All right, these kids pissing me off today. Pat fro. That would be a comedy I would laugh way too hard. But yeah, he has locks. I kind of cackled. It's an interesting creative decision, but I see what y'all are doing. I see what y'all doing over there. And let's ease up. Ease up on Snape. Even black people, chill. Let's see how it goes. People are so disgusted. I hate that. And I think that I mean, it again, a fictional universe. Let's just see what happens with the story. I want us to be more excited about how different cultures and races can come into stories that we love. I know, but Harry Potter has all these books, all these movies. You can imagine Snape and you can see Snape as he is, but I don't think we should be afraid that there's a new show. But it is also crazy that when you see the comparisons for all the characters, they tried to keep everyone pretty close to what the original characters are like, except for Snape. I don't know why he is the one they decided to play with. I think someone said that Malfoy also looks Asian. I don't know if he's actually Asian, but I don't know why Snape is the one where they were just like, yeah, let's cast them black. But again, I still want us to be open to, especially something that has all this content already, I want us to be open to something different, okay? Celebrate it. And the other thing in the latest news, before I hop into some movies, I should have said, I'm going to be talking about Ready Or Not To, Project Hail Mary, Slanted, uh, I rewatched a classic black movie. I'm going to get to those. But the other thing is that y'all, Meta and YouTube was actually found liable for purposely addicting like people, in this case, a young woman that sued them, for purposely addicting her to social media and injuring her mental health, which I would love to know more about, like what injuring means. This isn't someone that took their life, thank goodness. It's not someone that I don't know details about what the injury per se is, but we'll love to know more on that. But she's now 20 years old, and they're saying the company has to pay at least 3 million in compensatory damages right now. Look, apparently there could be more fees. It's also interesting that the jury found that Meta was 70% of the blame, and YouTube was 30% of the blame. It's just the details of this case are wild. I'm shocked that they were found liable, that you know, the young woman and her mom won this case, but also that the jury could say, Yeah, Meta's mostly at fault here. You got the extra dusty design shit. Y'all are wrong for that. And YouTube's like, okay, yeah, you're okay, but watch it. Like 30% is is wild. So I am really curious how the rest of that case goes. I am also really curious what follows. Who else is about to get blamed up out here for like their design? I mean, meta again encompasses like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp now. A lot. Meta encompasses a lot. So not maybe not necessarily who else is to blame because the meta, the metaverse and YouTube is a lot already. But what other cases are going to come to light? Who else is going to maybe sue, say something? I don't know, but that is wild. That is wild. Uh, and to get into movies, it's been like 15 minutes. Sorry, y'all. A lot happened. It honestly, the last, the last like couple days before I wanted to record, and I'm recording in the morning. Normally I record at night. There was so much going on last night in the content world. I was like, I'm going to record in the morning. A lot was happening. But I'm excited to get into movies. Huge chunk of what this is. If you're still listening, I appreciate you. I got through some insane stuff I had to speak on, but gotta start with Project Hail Mary here. Gotta start with Project Hail Mary. And I'll say right away, I did not read Project Hail Mary or listen to the audiobook. I saw a really funny TikTok of someone that was, I think she was listening to the audiobook as she was reading along. I've heard people do that. I should try it. But the amount of science in Project Hail Mary in the book is a lot more. They go, they go into a lot more detail about how the science works in space and the stuff that Grace is working on. I saw someone say the movie took out 80% of the science, and I was like, oh, that's a lot. I'm not mad at it because I didn't read the book. But Project Hail Mary is incredible. It's one of those movies, and I sound like a bro a broken record when I say this, but it's one of those movies you have to watch in the movies, and it makes you appreciate the art of putting something on the big screen. I saw it in IMAX. I honestly want to see it again. I don't always say that. I never see a movie again in theaters, which I sometimes regret because I critique movies. I I want to like catch details. Sometimes I take notes in the movie. Don't tell anybody. Just kidding, this isn't a podcast, but my my screen is dimmed all the way down. And sometimes I scribble notes because I watch things for the first time and I react to them. I want to catch stuff, okay? I just did it in slanted, which we'll get to in a second. But Project Hail Mary, you have to watch in a movie theater. And I have to beg people. I have to beg people. It's ridiculous because even people that don't go to the movies very often, I know which movie to say, hey, this is one of this is one of the ones. Maybe go check it out. Maybe it's worth the $15.99 or more or less, depending on when you go, where you go. But I'm like, this is one of the ones that you should check out. Please, please, please. I loved Ryan Gosling in this movie. I love learning about Rocky and Grace. Again, I didn't read the book, so it was all fresh to me, which was just, it made it even better. I have heard a lot about um everyone that read the book seems pretty happy, besides the people that are like, where's the science? People seem pretty happy with how the movie went. And I also think this is Ryan Gosling's my hot take before even seeing the movie was that I love Ryan Gosling in Crazy Stupid Love. I think he's incredible in that. This is now one of my top Ryan Gosling roles. I would have to say this crazy stupid love, nice guys, and Barbie might slide in there. I also don't, you know, he is great in Barbie. I know, but I don't hold it in as high regard as some people. They're like, oh my god, Ryan Gosling, Barbie, oh, it's the best thing that ever happened to Ryan. Whoa, whoa. Nice guys is right there. I like I like some other roles better. And Crazy Stupid Love, Ryan wasn't even, he's not the main, like, he's not even on the poster for that movie, like huge. He's on it, but like Steve Carell is the star. But Ryan Gossling's great in that role. But back to Project Hail Mary. There were scenes where, and I believe someone on the big picture podcast said that Ryan Gossling is like one of the best comedic screamers that we have. There are scenes where he's like screaming in space or trying to figure things out that work insanely well. And I'll give you a spoiler warning once I get to them. I'm not spoiling anything yet, because again, please go watch it. But there's also these scenes where he's discovering something or seeing it in IMAX and seeing some of the space effects with Ryan reacting to them or him and Rocky discovering something. They honestly felt magical. Like I said, I want to watch it again. I think that it was a really effective story about discovering oneself, about what it means to be brave, honestly, realizing what you're capable of and what you have in you. A big takeaway for me from Project Hail Mary was that, and I said this uh in my in my review, but I was like, you you got that shit in you. And he was put in a position, and now I'm going to get into spoilers. If you haven't seen Project Hail Mary, maybe skip ahead like five minutes or so or less, but now I'm gonna spoil something. To me, a huge takeaway was he had that shit in him, even though he was forced to have to be in a position to use his brilliance and figure something out, he did it. And I just like that because sometimes it's like you just need someone to push you over the edge. That's like how birds teach their little birdies to fly, they just push him out of the nest. I think that's true. You know, I I saw that in the book when I was a kid. I think it's true. I also watched a lot of Animal Planet. I like to think I don't know enough about animals, but yeah, sometimes you just gotta push them out the nest and hope they fly. And that's literally what happens to Ryan Gosling in this movie. He is pushed out the nest, and he is forced again to show how brilliant he is. He does work with someone that's even more brilliant than he is, Rocky, and just figures out how to save planet Earth. It's also this amazing story about friendship and companionship. I thought it was an interesting story about the value, the worth of someone's life, and how we should value life even if we don't understand it, even if it takes work. There's a part of the movie where he has to figure out how to communicate with Rocky. Rocky could have just been this thing, this otherworldly thing that he doesn't understand. He doesn't value a lot because he doesn't understand it. He does, he has no reason to. But to show the process of learning someone's language, becoming close to them, becoming best friends with them, I thought it was just, it was really like a human connection. We're talking about an alien from very, very, very far away. But you get it. The point is like it was so human. It was that's possible here. Someone could take the time here to appreciate someone's culture, learn about them, learn the language, see how the person for you might be, you don't know where they might be. I thought that was part of the point. It was beautiful. The the science of it all, that apparently a lot was missing. Also, was part of what wowed me about Hail Mary. There's a scene where Rocky has to save Ryan because he is unconscious, and you see like the fumes, the gas coming off of Rocky. And it reminded me of when Ryan or Grace was trying to figure out what Rocky was made of, and there was that whole like discovery sequence, and then they there's this reveal about how Rocky exists in the environment when he's not protected, trying to save Ryan. And the way the scene is shot was dramatic. I was crying in the theater, I was weeping. It's just insanely good movie making. And that on top of like how that she that scene was shot, great. But that on top of the other stuff I mentioned, because there's some shots that I saw on IMAX that were just gorgeous. They were just gorgeous. I'm kind of rambling, but. Project Hail Mary is amazing. It looks amazing. It has amazing human insight in it. And I think that everyone should go watch it. I think everyone should go watch it. And I think we'll be talking about it during the award season for the rest of the year. It's going to be talked about for a while. To me, it is going to be in the sci-fi movie hall of fame. I love a sci-fi movie. I usually hold them in higher regard than other films. So that's me. I know some people are like, Interstellar's out there. And what's the Mars movie with Matt Damon? Is it called Mars? They're like, that's out there, all this stuff. But Project Hill Mary, top, top, top, top, top for me. I also want to get into, well, before I get into Slanted, quickly on Ready or Not To, I liked Ready or Not To more than I thought I would. If people think that's just a movie about, like, I don't know. I mean, it is a movie about someone getting hunted by these rich people, and they do it because they have to in order to stay rich and powerful and keep the devil happy and you know do all his deeds and use their money to influence the world so much. So much, which is already really interesting. But in Ready or Not To, I think it dials up the notch a bit as far as like who the like who they decide to cast. It gets more diverse. The people that are like world influencers, what they want. And also, it gives you so much more detail about how the relationship with the devil works. They have they have Elijah Wood in the movie as a lawyer that knows all the details, all the contracts for how this family, these families are basically aligned with the devil, what they have to do to keep him happy. I was I was interested in that. I was locked in. I didn't expect the twist towards the end of the movie. I didn't expect the way that loopholes are found and devil contracts. I thought that again interesting. It became more than just a hunt movie, which are already, you know, fun to watch. You see these crazy kills, but it also became commentary on how the devil is kept happy in the world and how these rich assholes stay in power. Yeah, I'm here for that. So Ready or Not Two was actually, you know, I wanted to see it because I have to go to the theater. I have like, I have like an itch to scratch. I have to go to the movies. So it was one of the ones that I, yes or no, I could go to the theater to watch. I always go if I can, but it filled the perfect gap. I was like, Ready or not too was out. Let's go. Glad I did. I also think that's it's worth watching. If you're into movies like that, go for it. But what I wanted to give some time to is Slanted. Slanted was great. And I say great, I did expect something different. I expected another level of horror in the movie. I didn't expect it to be as funny as it was. I didn't notice it was a sci-fi comedy before I went, but I think that movie is excellent. I love a movie where a woman goes to like a strange place for this physical transformation. You know, it's like sketchy, and people are comparing it. They're saying that's a crossover between mean girls and the substance, which it is. And I'll also get into Lovecraft Country in a second, but I love a movie where a woman goes to some sketchy place because she wants to do some weird physical transformation or experiment because that's what happens in Slanted. And it's about this young first generation, she's like a Chinese American young woman. She's in high school and she's had a rough go at it. She has like a self, she has basically a self-identity crisis that she's been dealing with for a long time. And she realizes that if she were white and looked more like the other women in her town, because there's not a ton of diversity in her high school, that her life would be easier. So she ends up going to this place called Ethos to get like a white surgery done so that she can just become white. And it was so clever in the film. I'm gonna spoil slanted as I talk about it. I also recommend it clearly. If I'm talking about it on the podcast, I don't want you to go see it. But it was also interesting that the way the company Ethos realized that she wanted to be white is that she was using these filters that basically looked like, you know, a Snapchat filter, but she was using these filters to give herself blonde hair and a certain like look, makeup look. And the company noticed that and were and were like, hey, you use this filter all the time. You clearly want to be white. Come on down, we can we can fix that for you. I thought that was so clever. I thought it was very Gen Z and just a real world, a real world way, like modern, I should say a new modern way to show how something like that might happen. So they convinced her to come down, get white surgery, and then her life changes. All of a sudden, the popular girl at school sees her differently, sees her differently. She is different. To be clear, once she gets that white surgery, she doesn't, her own family doesn't even recognize her anymore. She's a white woman. And hats off to McKenna Grace because she did really well. As being a Chinese-American woman that is now turned white, I thought she did a good job of like discovering things or having, you know, now another kind of identity crisis. It was really interesting. And some of it I didn't want to believe, like, okay, how is the family going to react to their daughter now being white? Like, not an ounce of her looks like anything from before. But I thought that was handled well. I liked that the movie, some people are saying, like, oh, this movie isn't that funny, and it's not that scary. Like, oh, that's not boo. But I think this movie is actually really funny. Slanted is funny because it goes out of its way to display like America and whiteness. Like it's America through and through. The outfit choices, the nails, the school mascot, which I believe resembled the KKK. And I had to look at that again because I didn't even catch it the first time. But the school mascots, there's white flags in the movie. I talked about in the video I posted, the review of this film, that there's a part where she realizes the woman, the young woman she wants to be like, also did the procedure and used to be Cuban. And when she sees where she lives, she has fully delved into whiteness. Like the floors, ceilings, pictures on the wall, food, they drink and milk, everything is so white. That's why the movie is funny. The movie is exaggerated, and I think that was the point. There's a part where she's getting the procedure done, the young uh first generation girl, and she has a dream about a song that's called It's Good to Be White. The song's funny. It's funny that as soon as she wakes up, the white guy's in her face and he's like, good dream, right? I love, I love that dream. Ridiculous. It's so over the top. I think if people take the, I want to say mental capacity, but if you just take a second outside of like, oh, this story is also sad, and it's about, you know, it's an immigrant story and it's a first generation story. If you take the time outside of that to see that the movie is also, you know, it's satire, it's trying to be funny. It she's selling her lunch to her friend who loves the food. Like that, that was funny. She's getting rid of all this amazing Chinese food that her mom is cooking, giving it to her friend, her friend pays her, and then she goes to buy a regular school lunch just so she can fit in more. There's sad insight there, but the way it's played in the movie is for last. Her friend is like, oh, this is my favorite, eats the food like she's never eaten before. So I thought Slanton was really effective. I brought up Lovecraft Country because besides people saying it's a crossover between mean girls and the substance, there's an episode of Lovecraft Country that's season one, episode five, where you literally see someone race swap, but it's different. It's like it's black and white, and the black woman gets to change into a white woman for a day and see what it's like on the white side. She's treated totally differently. She has all these, I'm gonna call them perks, because that's the word they use in slanted when you're getting testimonials from people that have had their procedure done. It's it's again, it's funny. Um, but in Lovecraft Country, she gets to see these perks that she never thought she would experience because she's a black woman and people are insanely racist. The place that she works accepts her differently. She gets away with so much more. So there's a whole episode of Lovecraft Country that is pretty similar to Slanted, but again, I think Slanted is like a first generation being the child of like immigrant story. It's different. I think a different level of culture erasure happens when you're in that kind of situation. But one, Lovecraft Country is really great, and so is that episode. So I will also now say you should watch Lovecraft Country. Not just for that episode, the entire season has a lot to say about racism here in America. But I do like that I could relate to Slanted a bit because of, you know, being black in America and understanding that white privilege is insanely real. And a lot of people do try to they aspire to it, and in doing so, they slap their own culture in the face, they leave it behind, or like Dr. Umar accused Serena and Venus of doing, they just date white so that they could slowly, you know, dilute their blackness and give the future generations a better chance at life. I disagree with Dr. Umar about Serena and Venus, but that shit does happen. And I'm gonna quickly get into life. I mentioned a couple podcasts ago, probably I've mentioned it twice now, but I do want to start breaking down some classic black films at the end of every pod. I re-watched life again. Life is my favorite black movie, and I think it's funny that my favorite black movie is actually also pretty dark because yeah, I'm the kind of person I'm not afraid of black trauma being, you know, shown in films or being told by being told by different people. Biggest thing that stands out in the legendary like black film situation is that the color purple is directed by a white man. Like the color purple has a lot of white people involved, but the color purple has a lot of black people involved. And the color purple, while it tells a traumatic story, is it's well done, it's well acted. It's a it's a beautiful, sad, tragic story. I say beautiful because the color purple still has, you know, as tragic as it is, the ending is the ending. But the point here is that I'm not afraid to watch films like that, love films like that. Some people are like, stop making films about slavery or all this black trauma, all this, yada, yada, yada yada yada. Which I also do understand because black people are not just their trauma. It's not just we were slaves once. Tell different stories, but I'm also the friend that's like, have y'all seen Roots? Have y'all seen Roots? I think we should check out Roots. You know, even if people are like, Well, that's not my story. I I'm foundational Black American, I don't know, align with other whatever, whatever, whatever. Roots is a good story about how slavery worked in America, what it did to families, the generations it took a toll on. Like, I just think it's it's it's good to watch. Now, life isn't roots, they're different, but it's still a, to me, a dark comedy, one of the darkest comedies I've ever seen. And I think that it's a testament to Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence's talent that they were able to make the situations in life as funny as they are. The movie is about two black men, and honestly, they're not, they're not like the most upstanding black men, but they live in New York. It's the 1930s. They are borrowing money from the wrong people. They are trying to figure out, you know, their next buck. Martin, I should say, is not. Martin has this job lined up, he's so excited about. He's about to be working at this fancy ass bank. He's gonna be a bank teller, and he has a girl, even though she's begging him to propose, he doesn't want to. And that element is interesting. I'm not sure why, you know, he has this life laid ahead of him, but like proposing to his wife, his um, his girlfriend seems crazy to him. He's like, ah, that's a lot, that's a lot, that's a lot. So he might want to get that money at that bank and start messing around because we do see him also, even though he's in a relationship, he pays for a hooker at one of the bars once they get down south. But they're in New York and they get into some trouble and end up having to drive down south so they don't piss off. And I'm not sure what to call him. Crime boss, crime lord. He's someone that I think works with like placing bets and stuff. I'm forgetting the official name for that person. I'm sorry. But they piss him off. And Ray, Eddie Murphy in the movie, ends up saying, Well, hey, I can get you some money, I can run this moonshine from uh from down south, and we can make some money off that, pay you back, yada yada. The guy agrees. Eddie kind of saves Martin's life. I don't think they were gonna kill him, but Eddie kind of gets Martin out of the bad situation that they both put themselves in and they go down south. The movie is, it just gets darker and darker from there. They again end up in a bad spot because Ray realizes he's being gypped at the poker table. But when they go after the guy, and this is after Martin pays for the hooker, they go after the guy, they end up getting framed for murder because some white people, and we don't know the full story, but these white people kill the black man that was hustling Ray at the poker table. And they're timing, they run up, Ray wants to get his watch back, but they run up right as the cops pull up. And it's actually it's not the cops, right? Right as like, I should say, like lower class white people pull up and they see the black guys next to the dead body. Cool, you did it. And for all we know, the cops damn near sent them there to get rid of the body or something. But the guys are like, oh, the black guys did it, they go to jail. The white cop goes out of his way to frame them for the murder, they get sent to life in prison. That's why they're spending their entire life in prison. While they're there, you realize the illiterate illiteracy issues that are in the prison. They have to read mail to them. You see someone decide to basically take their own life because they're about to be free, but the thought of them being free is just overwhelming. And they've been in prison for so long, they don't know what the real world could be like. They don't want to leave. Very sad. You see Ray and Claude go through these torture methods, which are real. The prison in life is modeled after Mississippi prison farms, which were modeled after slave plantations, really terrible places. It was all this manual labor that was terrible. It was bad conditions, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. So, what we're seeing in the movie, it's not like it's it's not far off. And if anything, it looks better than how people were actually treated in these prisons. We see Ray and Claw go through all this torture. We see a man come through the prison that, because he is a talented athlete, has a way out of prison. So we see again what black bodies are worth for white entertainment. We see what happens to black people that even though they are there unjustly, trying to go through the appeal process, not having the right avenues for communication. If I were to describe that movie and not tell people anything about the laughs or how Eddie Murphy and Martin play it, they'd be like, wow, what a depressing ass movie. That sounds terrible. But the movie is one of the most effective comedies I've ever seen. And again, it's a testament to how Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence perform. There's a film, there's a scene that I should, I should just break down that one scene. I call it the Negro Pie scene. And that happens as soon as Ray and Claude go down south. Again, they're from New York, they're experiencing some southern racism for the first time. But they walk into a place that sells pies and they just want pie. They just want pie. And during the exchange, the woman ends up saying, Well, how about I turn you into nigga pie? And that's what it took for them to be like, Oh, y'all not messing around down here. She had to threaten them with a shotgun and say, I will turn you into nigga pie for them to be like, Oh, it's that serious. Ray tries to flash money. You can't, you can't pay your way out of racism during this time in the South. And it's like this disturbing realization that it's a really funny scene. It is. I insist. And I know there's some people, I think my friend John, shout out, John. I I don't know if he listens to this, but there's some people that are just like, I don't, I don't, I don't like that movie. I don't think it, I don't think it's great, because of what it's actually making fun of, because of what like the backdrop like context is for the film. It doesn't work for everybody, but it works for me. I think life is really good. It came out in 1999. I feel like I watch it at least once a year, but I wanted to take the time to explain that yes, this is an example of telling a darker story about a very real, like black, a black story. Like this has happened, it happens. And because of how it's written, or because of who we show depicting it, because this movie doesn't work with the wrong people. It works, it works, it's a story. You should still take away like the dark pieces of it and understand that this is ridiculous, but then it's a comedian's job to take those kind of things and still make us laugh and find the parts of it that are so it's like find finding the pieces of something in a dark story and showing how it's actually crazy, funny, how it's so relatable. That's like that's the comedic genius of it all. And then again, to either you could say it's a tragic ending or it's kind of beautiful. But at the end of life, they end up figuring out how to get out, not even because they deserve to be out. That whole plan goes left because of uh what happens to the man that ends up realizing they're they're unjustly. I won't get into that part, but they end up getting out because Claude comes up with this scheme and it works. And they go into they go back to New York. I believe it's like the 90s when they get out. I think this movie goes for like the 30s to the 90s. They're very old, but they get out, and it's it could be nice. You could just be like, oh, and it kind of ends in this way where you're not sure how to feel because how much life do they have left? And also, I gotta point out again, Heavy D, for some reason, he's in this film. It feels like an Easter egg. He doesn't have a huge role, but he is burying who he thinks is Claude and Ray. Very interesting. But yeah, that's life. I will still break down some other black films as I go throughout some episodes. Thank you. If you're still listening, I am definitely going to wrap this one up. This is longer than most pods usually are. Reach out to me, OJ the Critic, TikTok, Instagram. We'd love feedback. We'd love to know how y'all think. Would love if you want me to talk about a certain film at this point. I just love having a POV on so many different things, but I definitely have strong opinions on anything I choose to talk about in this podcast. So thank you, and I will see y'all next time.