History On Screen Is a Tricky Thing

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay dot Im a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, good people, how are you? I certainly hope that you are doing beautifully. Life has been a series of ups and downs, man, I don't you in the last week or so, and I'm happy to be standing on my feet currently sitting but you know what I'm saying. And then with my foot, my sweet supportive homies, Sat Claire, that's right, we got you, bu nil and the lovely age of great danceler right to the left front of the bag. So you wipe up I have you know, sometimes that's necessary, just surrounded with support. God, damn it. I'm sorry. I mean no, Joe, I'm not gonna wipe your ass. I love you. I will help, I will I will help to pay for the nice, skilled young lady who or who has gone to school and trained and got a different kid and happy happy. I'll record them and make sure they're not doing anything wrong but inappropriate. Inappropriate, yes, cleaning, boo boo, and leave thank you guy to the back from the front to the back, by the way, how about that. See this is how it all started. My goodness. Friends, UM, I am sure at this point that a lot of you have seen The Woman King. Um, I saw it, Did you lady see it? I better late than never? Yes, I didn't see it. I'd take a better late than never. There's been a lot of controversy about it. People are really upset, saying that the movie was historically inaccurate, and there's also a documentary UM by Lupida and Youngo Uh talking about her experience going to investigate. I think she was offered the role and decided not to take it because of what she found. She was so disappointed in the truth of the story, or at least some additional truths of the story that we're not being explored through the movie, UM, namely the involvement of the Dahoma in the slave trade. So she was really, uh, I'm not happy about that, which really an understandable Did I do fully get it? But yeah, so you know that opens up a cannon warns a conversation about it, right, Well, I mean it didn't with us. We had this conversation before we saw the movie. I'm glad that we saw it regardless of these things. Yeah, so in the very beginning of this conversation, I gotta ask y'all so to see her first off to see or not to see if you have. We were consistently worried about whether or not we have representation in Hollywood run our history, around our stories and our narratives. When one comes up right and you don't feel that it for whatever reason that you have an issue with it, particularly around history, let's just stay there right Historically, you have an issue with the way and something is being represented, do you go see it anyway or do you stand behind your analysis or your critique of it and say, yeah, no, I don't you know to see or not to see. I know we saw it, it depends you know. That's that stuff got criteria and a lot of grades. I don't know about your criteria and grades because I literally was just as you was asking that question, I was like, well, when it comes to the woman King, yes, because there were some factors involved, like Viola Davis, who I have come to trust in certain ways that a lot of I might not trust other actors or actresses or black actresses in a way. So yeah, But then I thought about and I was like, but I didn't see Harriet Tubman because I just that was too much for me. I just so for you, there's like a cap on on how much inaccuracy? Yeah, and also being familiar how much like I do care if the actors and the actresses are sometimes like a track record for good and a connection and a connection to the story in a way like yeah, how about Um, I'm a movie buff like and a movie goer. I love movies alone so much, you know those That's my ship, isn't it. You're talking movies and books when we were talking art like, I'm in you know. So I looked at it and I saw an actor like you said that I trust, you know, Um, I saw a director that I trust. Yes, Oh please, I'm sorry, Jill, please say that over and over again. I trust. I just trust Gina Blackwood. Yes, yes, yeah, I a director that I trust. And um, I saw a story that I wanted to see. So I went and saw it. And the first fifteen minutes of it for me, you know, not that we normally run around critique and everything, but we're just talking about the fact that there was this movie created and causing a lot of controversy amongst us. The first fifteen minutes, I was worried because, um, it wasn't the grain that I expected, and it bothered me. Yeah, give us, yeah, give us, give us a vocabulary word. It just seemed a little more shiny than I was ready for. Wow. See, I thought that day. I thought it was it's funny you say that, because my first fifteen minutes I was like, Wow, they are shooting these brown skinned people beautifully. Then I agree, yeah, I was like, I've never seen this before. It felt like a conscious choice to be blowing in gold and red and bronze and that part. That part, for sure, I thought that was beautiful. But I kind of felt like it was a little Hollywood initially, like it was. I was like, oh, wow, okay, I see the effort, and I do appreciate that because so often, you know, for years and years we were filmed really badly, and the makeup as well, so there was a lot of gray in our skin, gray, a lot of that serious that was a that was a big problem. So this was nice. I did appreciate it. Although I was like, oh, I thought I was getting something else. After those fifteen minutes, I was all about it. I was in now, can I ask, just because we're still in the beginning, and I know we had this converence, We had a oversation before we all saw it. I'm gonna be honest and I'm gonna say as as much as I trusted Gina and Viola, I was a little concerned about the two white women that Maria Bella, who I'm familiar with as an actress, who did wrote we wrote the screenplay, that did the screenplay. I just I didn't know if that was that was the thing in my mind mind I was to have in one's mind. Yeah, yeah, I was. I was because I feel like on online when people were really kind of going into their critique about it, those who had not seen it and had We're not going to that that one of the big things was like, yeah, well, white woman wrote the screenplay, why are we you know? I think maybe though sometimes people don't understand how many white people write the screenplay. Yeah, I mean I think maybe the that that's pretty usual about the Google like ship right now, I mean I know for certain. And then that help Well, which is is a favorite of mine. Um was written by Tate Taylor, who happens to be you know, Caucasian dude. A dude. It's not a whole lot of it's not a whole lot of black women's screenwriters. But then even also, to let me just say this, people who critiqued this from that place right also had an issue with Some of these folks also had an issue with Black Panther. You know what I'm saying that that screen play was written by a black person, but Black Panther was based on a you know that that was a comic. It wasn't a historical saying what I'm saying that one of these things though forever right, But I'm I'm what I'm I'm mentioning it because I'm like, Okay, so we want black screenwriters, right, but then we get black screenwriters, and then we oh, I wasn't mad at Black Panther. They were mad at Black Panther. Really, the Black Panther or came from the writers of the comic book not being involved, which is uh, as we learned from Dr Sheina Howard that that's a frequent thing that happens between Marvel movies and the actual comic books. They don't involve the writers. So a lot of people were mad about that, like, how come the black writers that wrote this comic aren't involved in But no, it's funny, Glory screenwriter. It is good. I mean, this is what I'm saying. But then a lot of people who listen, they're consistent because I think a lot of people who are critical of women king are also people who just don't want to see slave movies anymore and don't like them either. So you know, but this wasn't that that is that's interesting because this ain't the typical what you would call slave movie either. We talked, we didn't see a lot of slaves, a lot of scenes of enslaved people. I feel like I don't see a lot of scenes of enslaved people at all. And it was there was one or two people shackled. Definitely saw a line of that. Okay, So I had all had known the story of the Dohma, but I was not aware of their involvement in the slave trade. That is something that came up when the movie came out that I saw online. So when that happened, and I was like, well, let me go try to do a little quick, you know, deep dive, you know, not even a deep dive, a shallow dive into this, just to see what this thing is. And my my thing was this I wasn't familiar enough with um. The the counter argument to make a stance at that point. So I kinda was like, well, I need to know more about this to stand in like a moment with it, you know. Um. But one of the things that gave me comfort in general is that, you know, maybe there's a thought here. And I wouldn't even say that this is my full opinion like that I flushed this out, but I think that maybe there's a moment where we respect history for what history is and respect storytelling from the Hollywood perspective. That's what I thought about, because this wasn't a documentary. Yeah, it's not a documentary. That a part of me of what I want to the way I feel like my brain is going is that history as a thing can never be told in this way anyway, so our expectation of it has to be different from the gate. Then there's also this kind of like pushing pull with me where it's like, well, you know, we get revisionist history all the time that positions you know, wife folks looking like they didn't do nothing bad. Oh, age, you're hold on there. I mean, I'm just saying, like I'm not mad. What's good for good for the goose. We're gonna take a quick break and then it will be right back. Do you also see movies like Django where you know, some guy strode in on a horse, learned how to speak proper English real fast, you know, and came in and killed everybody. You know. It's the movie that we always wanted to see. I was like, I need that. I wanted, you know, just just because we have movies like Inglorious Bastards, you know where that's Django was the Black. That's funny, it was the Black and Glorious Bastards exactly exactly. Yeah, you wish. I'm sure a lot of Jewish people was like, yeah, hell went the back take that? Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes if something is not presented in a way that feels we're more. Yes, some of it's art housy, right, yeah, So Django and Glorious this is kind of a very arts, very artsy Uh lady sings the blues lens to go through? But why is that? Is it artsy? Because it was Quentin Tarantino, Because really, I mean, but he he has a certain kind of lens that he does things through, right, he has a freedom to for people to look at it in that way too, where that tire a thing he will make a thing. He's into the art of the thing. Right. Then then we have these Hollywood kind of moments that are gonna give you, you know, a conflict. They're gonna give you, romanticize the fixing of that conflict and give you a nice little bow at the end. And when you tied that kind of mentality with a historical thing where we know history doesn't work like that, then it's something about the spirit that don't align. And I can respect that. And I saw the movie, so let me start there. I can respect that people are like, uh, yeah, no, it didn't happen like this, and it's it's kind of disrespectful to present it this way because this is not how history works. Yeah, but again there is a reality of that. People don't even read this kind of stuff in general. They'll they'll get their knowledge of the moment from the movie. Yeah. Yeah, because I like, you know, I'm still Sheila, Yeah still. And the gifts and the gifts have the gifts have definitely solidified this in many ways and in the social media's you know. But I'm just I want to also say, like I'm glad that movies like this still exists. It's funny when I went to see this movie and made me think about when my father made me go to the movies to see Glory, Like I remember me and my evil step sister was crying. We wanted to see a whole another movie and we were like and when I walked out of the movie, I felt guilty as a kid, like, why, oh my god, this was really kind of cool in a way, not real, right, not a true but I don't know, I just well existed. But you got you got a lot of things around the Civil War that around what our ideas of what black people's involvement was in their own liberation. That is grossly undertold. Right, So is it the responsibility that it was a white savior in this movie? Right? Is it the responsibility of the one movie to make it? So you know what I'm saying, So to to correct that, not necessarily because it's going to start a conversation, right yeah. But then, but but Glory could never be made now if it was made now trauma porn no more? Okay, not for the white savior reasons, just because of that, for the white savior reasons. And then of course there is that particular scene to Denzel Washington with the one with the one tier because we are so strong, we are so strong, honey, that only one tier from all that brutality. Right, but but but but here's the thing. But is that what happened? Is that what happened? Because this very famous photograph of the man's back with us the trees and branches all over his back, this is actual photo. Yeah, it exists. That my man only shed one tier when he got retalized like that, not a single man living. Wow. Right, right, this is this is the challenge though, you know, because I know that we want to see representation of ourselves. Sometimes it's gonna be fictitious, you know. It's it's it's a story. It's a story, it's folklore. It's messaging. Also, um, it's it's a a magnifying glass, you know, on us on how we do things, and you know how funny we are and how um spiritual and emotional and angry, you know all the things, how much we love, how love, how we love hard. I saw that beautiful Beal Street, you know, if Beal Street could talk like you know, um, and that was beautifully shot. It was beautifully shot. I'm in the frame of mind and this is entertainment. And if you actually want to dig into it, um into the film, into the the tribe as well, then that's the go do it. That's what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to spark your mind to go, wait, let me find out more about the Dahomie in a way. And it's funny also that moment Jal that you talked about just going to the movies and seeing stories, I mean, I had the moment of the wondrous moment in my brain and spoiler alert, spoiler alert, spoiler alert, don't spoil it. I'm not gonna spoil it, but I'm just saying, what if palm oil was the choice instead of enslaving your people? What if what would that have looked like? I don't know, but I don't know, and I would like to investigating. Yeah, I mean, I hate to be the wet rag on this, you know, because I'm always I'm always the wet rag come on blackness and to take it away, um well, I just think dangerous line to tread man, because we as black people are dealing with a great mini fucked up stories that or stories that have been romanticized, revision and stuff. Even even things that seem to be for our benefit. So even looking at a person like a Dr King, who is a person celebrated throughout the world. So this is a black man who was known throughout the world, you know, quote unquote American born black man out of the South, who is worldwide known for being, you know, a freedom fighter. Okay, but the the almost Hollywood upliftment of him, the romanticized version of him, is deeply watered down, deeply so revisionist at this point that it may not even actually be anywhere close to him that he actually was at the time of his death. Anyway, So there's a there's a part of this that feels good, but that might be in the long term, you know that of a of a bleached grain and a sugar. Yes, it's a comfort food, but later on down the line, it's going to settle into the sides and give you diabetes. I don't think it's gonna do that like that. I don't. I don't think that the woman King is going to do that. I think that it was really beautiful film. I mean I did too. I thought it was. If you want to investigate more, then that's what you need to do. You know, it's it's the story. You think that that um that that Nat Turner film said everything about everything. It said some things, you know, some things that were accurate. Absolutely, But there's other stuff that goes along with the story. Like I've been reading Mohali Jackson and reading about her life for a long time now, and there was there were so many nuances to her personality, into her involvement, so many things that she lost because of her involvement. But that's one one of the mini books. There's other things, like there's always another thing that could add even even like Phillis Timon reading about her, you know, but listening to people, there's always another nuance. There's something that any writer could miss. Yeah, I mean the movie was I loved it. However, I would say, in defense of what you're saying that, yeah, there's like fifty movies about George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Lincoln Lincoln, and there's so many different takes on these people. And let's not even get into books thinking I'm Lincoln. I don't recall, you know, the historians having a fit that Lincoln was a vampire slayer. Up. I'm sorry, you just I can't believe you. I can't believe that's some one that I can't believe because I'm just saying, I can't believe you brought that one in. Yeah, that was kind of good, though I do movie I'm a vampire movie kind of shake it. But he was to kill ampious, that he was going at war, that he could stay on the top of a horse. Nobody told me he could stay on a horse. Why didn't somebody say that? But because white people are out here fighting for their lives, So no, they don't care that they can talk about Lincoln like that. Yeah, bless that. So at this point and with black folks like y'all, you know, we always got that extra protective layer because we're not You saw our narrative being told by us, and all of these different factors as to how our narratives have been told in our our voices. But I still want us to be able to be creative. Like I'm thinking that maybe this movie can start a conversation about the the Homie. Maybe this movie will start the new documentary about the the Homies so we can get the facts. Maybe this movie can just start us telling a bunch of different stories. Because I think that's the thing I hear crossed the board from people, because whether you agree or disagree on this particular matter, I think everybody feels is like they want to see more stories, more stories from a lens that feels like it's coming from us, and so we want to see this, we want to continue to push forward in that way. And here's the vibes. History is ugly, it's an attractive thing. It's not cool, it's not it's not it's very nuanced. And the more that you can live in that reality, the less you're gonna be looking to these very specific and narrow ways to learn it. Like you know, when Jill says there's always something else that's a product of her going out and doing the reading, she wouldn't have that perspective has she not gone to do it. So the point is that if you can get into the culture of understanding that you know, history requires this thing that you do. And I know James Baldwin says something like this, and I'm I'm I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said that history is not in the past, that history is always with you because everything that you do in the present has been informed by something that's happened in the past. So what angel you just you just you just rang a bell in me. Come on, excuse me. I think that what the problem is is that this is a film that has that that shows a flaw of our people. Yes, that's the problem. Come on that that it's saying at what it's not saying. But we're learning that this was a trial. We weren't even learning about this tripe, y'all. We weren't. Okay, the fact that they named I'm not trying to be ignorant, but I'm like, the huh if grit's ain't pop, girl, come on with it. Yes, no, no, no, you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. Please please continue to unpack that. No, please, I'm done. Yeah, that's that's That's what I'm thinking here, that that's the problem. That you're celebrating a tribe of women, powerful women, which we love. That is the best part. Yes, yes, yes they could fight, they could kill men, but all the things, they gotta hold that energy. Somebody gotta have that and to have a women women of principle. They the fact that they were not having lovers, the fact that they were completely devoted and can you believe they weren't even loving on each other, which is the other Hollywood element, because I'm like, what in the fux what just somebody was in there, somebody was loving on something about it? Because I was looking at my girl. It's okay, I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't I don't know. But but the fact is, I don't know. You know, I don't know what folks was loving on each other. I don't know if they were at hearing like monks do maybe you know, like like I don't know if they were adhering to the laws and the principles of this particular tribe. I don't know because I wasn't there, and nobody's I don't know the story. Nobody's told that particular story, So how would I know or anybody know? Right, But it's the fact. It's the fact that you've got this. This it's like a pickup and a letdown all at the same time, like, oh, look at us, Oh look look at us. But isn't that really what we um? What we kind of want to a degree also to is to be fully told human beings. And when we tell our stories that we don't have to overromanticize ourselves just because we've been vilified, that we can freely be people and tribes and groups and ethnic yes, diverse, done good things and bad things and and help. But you know, but you know something that the thing that has been most romanticized that was covered in this film. So it's this relationship between continental folks and us, and that that relationship between continental Africans and the slave trade. Like I do you think it didn't go down we that we don't really see it on film ever, So thank you very much, woman King, thank you very much for that because we don't see it. There was deals being made. What are you talking about? More real talk after the break. What I was fascinated by was the fact that the love interest was a man of color from the Brazilian African slave trade, like the Portuguese. Oh lord, honey, when you go to the Blacksonian between the Portuguese and the British, I don't know who whose numbers is come on, but that the Portuguese was popping so and you never get to hear that at that side. So I was just like, also to a historian, kind of did like a little quick run through on some other things that were really interesting that the women King showed about Africans during that time that was really important. One of them was around people who wrote, around tribes who were trained in horse horses and rode on horses and use them in warfare, so that was something that had never been really discussed. They also talked about the architecture and the use of large of enclosing um cities and around large walls, and how certain architecture was being shown and highlighted in the movie. They talked about They talked about religion Asia because I thought I was fascinated by the gods and because we don't know when it comes to black posts, we don't really talk about religion where we're really African religions. So obviously in this situation, and there was obviously not being vilified you know, of African traditional African religions about it. Right, There's like tons of stuff involved in the movie historically that are very on point. Come on somebody, So there's a there's a thing, you know, So it's something, it's something to be considered, which I think is really good. So if you are going to read critique, you need to read all of the you know, not just the stuff that kind of feeds into your own opinion. But that's the whole problem with critique is that everybody has one. Everybody has a critique. I mean, you can like something or not like something, but a critique in its proper sense comes from someone who has done some research and quite a bit of it. They're not new to it, They're true to it. That's the difference. Feel me. Yeah, don't be critiquing, and don't be critiquing when you ain't even seeing it. I can't stand when people do that. I'm like, I do that to myself. I have to stop myself sometimes, like let me go see it first though it's that little kid that sits at the table. Go. I don't like that, Like you didn't even try it. Taste it, taste it and see and come with your But I will say this, I certainly want you to support it. That's coming from me. That's coming from j I L L S C O T T. I am saying supported. This is the first time, honestly, other than Wakonda Black Panther, you are really seeing the skin tones baby, you were seeing natural hair, Baby pauls at the hair because literally I got emotional, like Jason was like, why are you crying? And I'm just like, because they could just be beautiful and they skinning and their hair and they just Let's also discuss the fact that the one of the women that was taken from um when they when they were at war with another tribe, and then one of the women that was taken up as a prisoner of war was from a tribe where she had a hair her hairstyle was particular to her group. And so for me, I thought that was really um cool, showing like even the diversity of Africans and and and not in just different ethnic groups, but ethnic groups that are geographically close to one another, right, because one of the things I feel is very very lost is the idea that the diversity of Africa and how close U ethnic groups can be to one another and and be so completely and utterly different. And so I think that was really really I mean, there was so many subtle moments in the movie and not to mention the heart that the good the story in terms of you know, mothering and and sisterhood and the things that we must endure, and it was it was I don't want to ruin this mo we for anybody but there were beau I cried. I ain't cried, cried that happened, yeah, and it was worth it, my goodness, quiet afterwards, like just thinking like you ain't that's what you say? Yeah, maybe we're just gonna have to put spoilers on this episode because I'm sorry, y'all. I don't want to. I really don't, because I want to. Really, if you have not since been four to five weeks since the movies against it for whatever reason, you know, I challenge you to to allow a story to be a story and if you know more, share more, inform the people around you, listen and got your share? Can we just talk about this? Please? Cut it with the got your shares? I'm sorry? What's that face? Boglina? What's that got your shares? To me? Are these things that where people share information or try to educate people by be rating them for not knowing it, as if you didn't just fucking find out yourself? How do you ain't know that? You ain't up y'all out here watching this movie? But come now, y'all don't know? Nah? I mean, like, shut up, you googled it ten minutes ago, and even even I've seen some people who have done their dissertation on the dahomeye you know, and they're talking about it and they're like, you know, I would never see this because I know the truth about but we didn't. We didn't know they even existing. Yeah, that's that's ring. You wouldn't do that. You wouldn't want to see it because you did a dissertation and now you feel like you like you got you know, more than everybody else, but you don't want the other people to know what you know. People do that. That's self fitch. My thing is that I don't understand is like this, if you get your dissertation on the Dohmeade, I'm curious if you have posted on social media prior to this moment to disagree with the movie about what you learned. Because let me tell you something about academia. Let's code and and and y'all can be mad at me if you want to. But academia is a very closed space. A lot of the stuff that people, right, you can't even have. The public doesn't even have access to people's published papers, people's uh, you know, dissertations. Then we the public can't even view some of this stuff. You know, a great deal of it. So at the end of the day, you go and you spend all this money and you do all this work, and yes, you deserve the accolades that you get from it. Or if you don't share it with the average man or woman, how does this research then, and how does what you know then improve the lives of others? If it's only meant to be put out there as a gotcha when we all get fed something that we really have access to and then we get excited about having it when we can't get access to what you know? And as a black person involved in academia, how can you do it? How can you do that in good conscience? Wow? How can you do that? Your conscience ain't bothering you behind that? Please tell us we're hungry. I never forget this, and I gotta tell you all this. I never forget this when at one point, um, and still a lot of people don't understand this word. But I remember when the word intersectionality entered into like the the general conversation of the layman public us, the regular us is okay. Intersectionality really is just a way to um describe the different ways that marginalized people can fit in multiple groups like, so they intersect. So you and I intersect that being black and being a woman, So we're a part of multiple marginalized groups. So that's kind of how that works. And that can happen with age, It can happen with being uh, you know, considered overweight. It could be being uh disabled, it could be married, give game birth right right, It can be a lot of different ways that you can intersect. But it's a way to better understand how people have a specific and very unique experience in society based on those intersections. So anyway, the point is that in understanding that kind of helps you when you start to really give an analysis around race, around white supremacy, around all this stuff. You don't understand that's very difficult for you to see, um you know this kind of or participate in conversations about how to solve these problems if you don't understand intersection out. So anyway, when that kind of entered into the regular kind of public space, and forgive me if my explanation of that is not completely spot on, because again regular I agree. The point is I remember when that word entered into the regular people's face, Okay, and I remember seeing this thing on Twitter where somebody was just like, um, and they think it's so funny that people are just you know, throwing that word around. And it's existed in academia for over a decade. And I was pissed when I read it that is elitist. It was very elitist. But then it was like it pissed me off because I was just like, well, how the hell were we supposed to know? And where were you? Where were you when we needed to know that? You understand what I'm saying showing off, yes, and shout out to Kimberly Crenshaw, who has shared her work on many many platforms, is the woman who came up with the term intersectionality. She's disgusted in her TED Talk, so you make sure you look up her Ted Talk. Kimberly Crenshaw. She has her own UM, her own podcast. She has done all of the public work needed for you to know exactly what her work is about. So shout out to her and other black academics that share with the wagons. Anyway, Like I said, I remember when that happened. I was so disappointed, and it really like it sparked something in me. While I was just like us when we're out here in the world. We have to be able to have the tools to talk about these things that affect us. Need those tools, We need the education, we need, the words, we need terms. We need this kind of stuff. And if you want us to not run to Hollywood for our stuff, you gotta give us something to work with. Don't just laugh at us, don't just look at us and be shady. That's why I get all my information from agents, because she know, she just you know, she's an information the things I'm following for Kimberly Chrisha. All right now, if you thought I was feeling you like, that's Kimberly with an yeah. Absolutely, that's exactly why. Look I always love that about Agel. She's got so much information to share. She's like, um, she's like a knowledge junkie. She's a whole for knowledge. If you want knowledge, because someone makes me your shirt, I'm home. Fore Yeah, I like hope for knowledge. Ye all day. Look check this out and check this out real quick. The Gladiator. You guys remember that movie right? Yes? Yes, it was Maximus and Gramaus and all of those cool things. Yesha. So the movie suggests home was held back to a republic after commedist death, it reverted back, but that was not the actual case, and other inaccuracies include Aurelius outlawing the Gladiator games and commodists death, which did not occur in the arena. Y'all know, we love the arena death. Yeah, but the point is is that the death of Commedist didn't actually happen in the arena. Isn't that like a major part of the film. Isn't that like a big deal? So okay, so not, I mean part of it that's kind of disturbing, But from learning about Rome, I mean, it's not gonna stop you from learning. I don't even about it. I don't even think people look at that movie as a real life story. I think that people just old take one like a fictional take more conversation after the break. So is it that there's too much emotion attached to these things? Well? Yeah, I mean about let's think about Malcolm X right, like like like Spike Lee did a movie that was way longer than the average movie to try to fit in as many things that were accurate as possible. However, though, however, people was still like that, ain't it? Brad and Malcolm has died and in the movie, so like he did that. He did that, um, and he did die in that room. But okay, people, So yeah, when it comes to our stories, we're very very deeply critical. We like ups, but we don't. We ain't really trying to up. We funk with the downs, but it got to be right and it can't be too much slavery. We got like all kinds of uh you know, because literally with slavery, I tell you, and I look blessed will Smith's heart. You know, he got a slavery all. He got a slavery gult movie coming out. Yes he does. I'm going like, I take y'all know I've spoken on this podcast before. You can tell me a million stories about that time period. Because when I look at having been a descendant of enslaved people, as far as I'm concerned, they are amazing people. There's no shame in that for me. I'm here for all of them, except for the British ones because they ain't gett taught slavery. Let me shut up. But I want to see a movie about Maroons, about Maroons in America, about the Maroons in now in Jamaica. I want to hear about that, you know what, And I wanted to be shot well, and I wanted to have a good story, that it's a cohesive story, that it keeps my interest, that it has rises and falls and places that create a wave. You know what I mean? That is that is what filmmaking is all. There is a documentary I'm sure you know that, right Asia about the Maroons. Yeah, I've watched docs all the time. But I want yeah, yeah, Queen Nanny is from Jamaica and she's one of the most well known that community was also one of the largest. I want to believe. Don't give me the line, but I believe that's the truth. And then um, but yeah, I'd love to see a movie about Queen Nannie. You know, I am not at all because I'm just looking at what I've I've got written here and I'm not trying to justify anything that occurs with with The Woman King and other films. I'm not, I'm What I'm saying is that even as I read this, Okay, Braveheart, he was supposed to be in love with Isabella, the Queen of France, right, and made her Wallace's love interest, but in reality, she was three years old at the time. This is fiction, this is movies. They're trying to create something. You There are historians and there are movie watchers. There are people who like to live in fantasy. Some people read nonfiction all the time to learn stuff. Some people read fiction to dream. Draw a much thicker line and clearer line between entertainment, Hollywood storytelling, history, nonfiction, learning things. Then I'm gonna put that on Viola them because, to be honest, I feel like, and I've watched a couple of her interviews, I don't know if she's expressed that are super super lie. I don't know if she's expressed the super superlock that this is a you know, this story has been Hollywood ties. You know, like this is not this just the story of the homie. So I think I think ultimately what we're talking about is the reality that what we expect people to be able to do with this art form in this particular way, it's just unrealistic to expected to do what what telling and learning history does its work A conversation about it, But maybe the expectation is just we're having an expectation for a wheel to be a square. But if it's communicated then we might our expectations may be lower. It's like, technically, let's think about what we saw Woman King, and we all saw the Till trailer right now. The director of the Till trailer told you what to expect. She's like, We're not having any violence against black people. This is gonna start with black Joy, is gonna end up black Joy. I was like, they are very clear of our expectations. I haven't seen Till yet, but but I'm still saying, like I was, I found that fascinating that that was that was their trailer, you know what I mean, like being clear and communicating of what you're going to see and how this this may not traumatize you in a way. Do you think that maybe black people just deserve to be addressed about this issue specifically because this is this is are the way we experience the world, that when we get art, that we should be addressed as if these things exist, rather than us having to do the work of disassociating ours everything that we say. Where maybe because we're not an even race. We're not we have not been in an even race. I think that there are places places, Yeah, I think that we can't see your mouth now, only her eyes. That's what she's really done with our asses. Where we want it to go down easy, that we want the answers really easily, when in reality, everything worth the dawn takes a trial and effort, maybe some failures, some fall downs, and some get backups, meaning that you run out of information. That you scanned all the books and watch all the documentaries, but there's more you want to know. And that means that means a trip. That means you've got to go and find out for yourself. If you want to know so bad, if you don't sound like a quadruple Daria or whatever, right, it wouldn't do so bad if you've got so many opinions you know about things. If you want to know so big, sign the funk out. I said it, like I said it, Find the fuck out. Oh do y'all know? Okay, So do y'all know any historical facts that are like wild that people think people would just be surprised and all our specific like event or a person in history that's, you know, maybe different from what they assume. We're no sure I do. I can't tell those things you can't know? Well, I look, I tell something. I say this listen, I'm gonna just say because these two ain't gonna say it. As far as history, there's an episode of Unsung that speaks on a certain history that all three of us were involved in. They don't have all three of us involved in it, and so I would just say that as that story goes on that you know, you I was talking about his story, that is his story. We are history. We was a part of history, and as we because as we are getting older, y'all, and as as we get older, we are now telling stories that younger people wasn't there to witness. And so if they hear it all other things, it's like, oh, that's what it was, that's important, Like that's old. I just I was just the person here. My numbers is the same and everything. Yeah, you know, so, oh snap, you know what I'm saying. So okay, But what was the change? I'm sorry that was. I love shout out to Unsung is thank you for featuring me on on two of those episodes. But you know, history is ugly. Sometimes they would just say, yeah, history it's ugly. It's hard. You know why, because we're dealing with human beings, human men, and people don't want it's hard to when it's hard to think about people that you love as full as human beings. Hello, we are dealing with that right now. Products that people have put out that you love, and then you realize that person that put up our product is a whole goddamn fool. They goddamn mind saying ship and wearing T shirts looking crazy out on these streets. It's hard. It's it's hard. And people who we who we've learned to revere and you know, you know, years after their deaths and things like that, like I said, and they've been elevated to a certain space and the story around what they did is being elevated to a certain space, and you just don't really know, okay, well, who was really behind it? Who was really such a such as I mean to think of the things that people say about folks these days, and knowing that them same folk were an intricate part of planning the March on Washington or a big part of making sure that the civil rights movement moved forward, whether that was involved complex, Oh my god, Jesse Jackson, Hello, I mean, it's damn. I had I was gonna tell you something. I had a whole thought I lost it about history recently. Oh don't do drugs. Yeah, don't just say no. On that note, I just want to say forgive me come for sharing this time with us, and I know you've come up with your own thoughts if you like to share them, you know you know you can. Um eight six six Hey you ros say hi to meom all souls, Thank you so much for listening to Jay that Ill podcast. Please please find your joy and protect your peace. How do you eat an elephant? One? By? It time? Hey, listeners, it's Amber the producer here. Whether you've seen the Woman King yet or not, African history is something we should all get into. I'm going to share an article with you in the show notes about the Dahomie people from the Smithsonian. I also want to encourage you all to understand your own bloodlines a little deeper. I also want to encourage all of you to understand your own bloodlines and deeper ways. One way my family has done this is with African ancestry. DNA kids at home test reveals the specific roots of your mother's maternal life up to two thousand years ago, and if your DNA is connected to Africa and your results, you'll receive both the country and ethnic group of origin. It's really cool. Last season, Jill, Layah, and Asia took the test and discussed their results on an episode of the podcast I'll Lead the Test, and that episode in the show notes as well. Hi, if you have comments on something you said in this episode called eight six six, Hey Jill, if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six four three nine five four five by don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott presents Jay dot Ill. The podcast m J dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.