June 2, 2021
Too Deep, Too Dark?
God knows, real-life trauma is enough. Has Hollywood veered into trauma porn territory with all the Black historical horrors and thrillers? How much is too much? The ladies get into it.
Resources:
Get Out
Us
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
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00:00:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to jay Dot in a production of My Heart Rates. Hello good people, Hello good people. I hope you are so well. Thank you so much for it's been a little time with Jay Dot Elder podcast. This is the Lady Jill Scott. What's that? What's that was up? It's La Saint Clair's so crazy. Yo yo yo yo yo yo yo. It's it's it's just as it's like killing their mama. No, I feel good. I don't know about anybody else right now. How how you guys feeling? It was in that cocktail. That cocktail this, my dear, h it's not it's no alcohol in it. It's lemon water, ginger, kayan and cucumbers and it's just lovely. We'll see what happens. A little cool, a little a little cool, a little kick. What's cool? He is the black narrative. Watching stories about ourselves, reading stories about ourselves. Being able to see our image in a reflection on a television screen or in a movie screen. That is cool. And we're seeing so much more of it. And it's about god damn time, I said, g O T it's about time. But we're also seeing something else. We're also seeing what what we call it trauma porn. Well, that is definitely the term of the times, at least a conversation about what it is, If it exists, should we tolerated? Is there such a thing as an okay amount? Is there you know how to identify it? Yeah, that's what I'm here to tell you that I want. Watched them on it was an Amazon Prime. Yeah, I watched them. First of all, I thought it was absolutely gorgeous. I appreciated that, loved the lighting, Thank you so much. I love the love that it was a completely brown family, because you know how often we see, you know, a brown skin husband and a light skinned wife with the curly hair. I was happy to see a brown family with brown babies. You no, no disrespect to anybody, you know. I realized, I'm light skins. It's a new revelation. Ladies and gentlemen bell with her. It's a new revelation. That was that was a very proud of. I just want to take this moment to say I said it proud. Thank you so much for for anybody who has been listening to our podcast. I just realized I was like skin a couple of weeks ago, and you know, it hurt my feelings. I didn't think that. I didn't. I just didn't think it. But you know, I am, and I still want to see brown families on a television screen or a movie screen. I still want to see a brown skin mama with her brown skin babies. Let me see the let you see us. You know, we're not just one kind of family. So I'm happy to see these things. I did watch them. It was traumatic, wasn't it. Yeah? It was. It was traumatic. It was so many things right, the processn't getting the age to watch was that was traumatic for me myself. Dad, I didn't even gotten to the content of a movie. But I was a little bit of a slow burn on it because well, number one, because before I could even decide to watch it, I was privy to a lot of the controversy around it. And I'm just very very careful about the things that I watched because I don't have a I don't have a problem watching difficult themes, but usually they're always it's like historic. I don't typically want to watch anything, and even with historic stuff, I just I'm really careful. I have believe vivid dreams, you know, I have a thing about imagery, So once once the conversation came up that that this particular show had some elements in it that felt, I don't know, gratuitous, you know what I mean in terms of just like to just just not necessary, but taking black folks through um, some emotional trauma that they didn't have to go through. That was some things that were being said about it, despite the beauty of it, despite obviously being able to have the beautiful cast, and you know, and then obviously in recent years seeing full on black casts emerged into something like that's horror, the horror genre and just kind of stretching the imagination in that way. So it's it's really difficult, I think for us because we always found ourselves in this place where we have to sell lebrate a first or celebrate something being new and seeing ourselves make strides in a certain way. But then at the same time, too, we feel guilty about critiquing it. And I think with black narratives, we constantly find ourselves in this place. We found ourselves in that place with the Harriet movie. We found ourselves in that place with a lot of quote unquote slave narratives. And so you know, we talked about this in a in another episode just about you know that little extra extra critical. Yeah, really go down our checklist, Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it took me up. Basically, It did take me a while to watch it, and I did like many of the same things that Jill liked about it. But my thing at the end of the day was, you know, I ain't see enough practice that and I don't know and I'm saying that because it's like, hell of black people got hurt and we're killed violently, from baby to elder, and I just didn't understand where was the payoffs in this fantasy, right, because this wasn't the real life. This on real life. When it comes to the part about you know, black people coming into these areas of the suburbs, if we have an option, this is my thing. If I have to traumatize myself in a situation where I can control the narrative, why not why not toss the trauma? Why not spread it around even Yeah, And that's the great debate, right, because it's like, but if in fact we're talking about the fifties and some of these things that happen, right, that's just the truth, Right, black people got terrorized moving into some of these neighborhoods, maybe not say some of these things. All everything that everything that happened in that movie that wasn't of the supernatural nature happened happen, but you just don't want to see it, like and I feel because I mean, it got to the point I think we all agreed that that seeing I don't even know how to describe it. With the cat in the bag. Cat in the bag. For me, that was when I was like, wait a minute, this is this is this is this is too much. But then my question is on the on the filmmaking aspect, if it is in relation to something truthful, then and it was something that happened, and yeah it is scary and it's sucked up and and the filmmaker is trying to put it in your face to say, look at this, this ship happened to us. How could you do that differently so that you don't feel the way you feel. This should happened to people, This happened to human beings. A woman in her home with her baby. You know what I'm saying, that's a person. That's a person. I am for it. I'm for it hard because um, when I when I say for it's what I mean by is I'm for the stories. I want to see them all we get so tired of. I don't want to see any slave narratives. I don't want to see why not, Obviously I have an issue with slave n That's just that was that was just the common I don't want to see black people being brutalized. Baby. If you turn on the TV in real life, whether they're in the United States or not, you're going to see brown people going through terrible traumas on a daily basis. But I think that that is there in lies the issue were if we're living with being brutalized on a daily basis, then why do we then go to our brutalization for for entertainment? That well, Hitchcock again, there is a way to tell stories, and a varied amount of stories that even have historical basis in it, without then pushing the envelope to trauma. Right, So, even Alfred Hitchcock, there's a storytelling nature to the way things are done. Because even if you look at the way that they was shot, beautiful shots, beautiful ways that they told the story, Even if you look at you know, just so the style of filmmaking and All of those things are ways that you can tell the story and keep people intrigued, but too to pain us. So did you want scenes edited out? Are you say? Because I would love to know? How could this have been? She just wanted to She just wanted the perpetrators to be affected. But that's one thing. That's one thing, that's one thing I would have liked. The second thing I feel is that I did not feel like that it was necessary to traumatize black people, which is why there was an argument about them, you know out in the world, was was that movie really for us? Wasn't more so too shock white people and let them know about the level of their of the way that they have brutalized us. It wasn't necessarily a moment that was that was for us? I feel that I'm saying, and so so would that be in the case if this was about being in your face and letting people know about what's how brutal it can be to be black. We're already aware of how brutal it is to be black. We live it, okay, So that in that sense, it's like, okay, well, then yeah, then take it up to Harvard and take it up to the out to the Midwest or wherever, out to the suburbs or whatever what the white schools are and show it to them. Oh so you're saying, don't put it on a on a large platform for the world to see. Is that what you think? Do you think that black people needed to watch that? But I think, but you have. I don't know if I'll need it. I think that I did. I did. I loved it and I wanted it, and it troubled me and I didn't sleep and I I you know, I stayed up a couple of nights with the lights on. But I was absolutely addicted to the story. That's my kind of my kind of shift, like Jigsaw. That's that movie was traumatic. You know, you gotta make a choice. That was But but hold on, that was traumatic to me. You know this because it's black people. I remember in the Queues when Jodi Whiteley got got raped on that pinball table. That sucked me up. That bothered me, bothered me. I thought about that a lot. I still never forgot that even traumatic it was, and it brought attention to how somebody could be raped in front of other people and they still get off, and how you have to humiliate yourself. How do you you have to humiliate yourself, you know, in order to to get justice for yourself. Damn Well, here's my thing is that let me let me just circle back to what you said. I do think that there are just legit black folks that love horror and they love the ride that horror takes them on, and so that that, I mean, I respect that in terms of that people ain't got a like to watch the same stuff. But I definitely think that it would be helpful for us to be critical of the way our experience is put out there and how we ingested, because our experience is unique, and I just think that that is important. And so when you talk about all I'm tired of slave people saying, oh, I'm tired of slave narratives. See for me, I'm not, because I understand that that's our history. But I also don't feel that every story about slavery has to be about trauma, because even though the experience is selfish traumatic, I don't think that you have to dump in every single movie about slaves somebody getting whipped, or even if they are getting whipped, Why do we always have to see every lash, every blood, every blood drip every such some things are not necessary for you to understand what is happening there, and and and then, and I will even say it like this. In The Lion King, Okay, in the Lion King, there's a scene where Mufassa gets caught in the herd. Okay, and he gets caught in the herd. He falls down into the herd. You don't actually see the herd stop him to death, but you know that he has asked, point where if there's there's I cried at that movie every single time. And there's also a moment where the where the baby whoever is the baby want um not Mufassa uh Simba walks over to his daddy and lifts up his paw and he crawls up underneath of it. There are moments to show compassion, death, grief, violence. There are ways to discuss these things in truth without gutting people who are already vulnerable. But you do understand that Lion King was made for general audiences, so if you wanted to make for children, so if you wanted to make something like that, it had to be that you couldn't show you might not want to do that because children are watching them wasn't the babies I love I love little how Come? How come I can't be treated? You can? But it's up to your election not to watch things though, because what what sounds to me a little scary is and not saying you make perfect sense, but you can't really police if somebody is trying to make an impact, say little Marvin, his intention was to shop the funk out of white people and let them know what they did to us, right, And you can't just take that the Harvard because it got to be all kinds of white people. You got to be the white people that can't get the Harvard. They don't even know where Harvard is. So what is the white people watch this show? I don't know, I said, that's in her one. Did white people watch Get Out? They did? They did? Because again get Out? Did you did you discuss that any of us discussed this show with any of our white friends? I did? What they think about it? Sure? She says she was sorry. She was like, I am just so sorry. And then she she was like, this is very this is very shocking, very traumatic. That was you know. She was like, it's good, it's well written. She got it. Interested had a check Listen, I can't. I can't figure out what other people are gonna do with what what it is. I'm not what I'm saying. I know, I know, I know. I'm saying that I really understood the crack in that woman, in that character based off of what occurred. There was no way for her not to crack. It had to be done. And I love that that sub story right there about black women. And that's what I'm talking. Well, let me say that's what happened to hold on. Now, what happened, I get it like that is traumatic. It hurt like it hurts. What was happening to the daughter was traumatic in her mind. I've been a little black girl plenty. Okay, this is this is an experience that I've had um as far as the little girl and and the teacher wanting to please a teacher. Teachers, Now you know all of the things that went into the psychological break, and that's what I appreciate. List Then we are on the same page. We're on the same page about that. We'll be back after the break. Nobody ever investigates the cracks. Um investigate the cracks. You girl, you have somebody, you have a young man that is walking home from from wherever he's walking from home from in his old neighborhood, eating some god darned candy, wearing a hood, minding his business, and somebody comes outside and decides that he's a threat and they murder that child. That is that is trauma, and it's horror. It's horror. Two, when we watched Schindler's List and you saw how emaciated those people were, and how they would go into these these rooms of gas and and you know, never come out again, how they pile those bodies on, that was traumatic. Jewish people felt that. I wondered, now I'm they They were bawling in the movie there or when I was there. But y'all, but y'all, listen. Is about historical fact. That's not that's not the same. What what horror flick do we have about Nazis glorious bastards, But no Overlord, which is fantastic, by the way, that please please pay attention to watch it. Overlord is fictitious, but it is a horror movie. It also and has the Holocaust involved into it and Nazi Germany, and it starts a young black man. What I will say is this and I'm gonna check that out, by the way, But what I will say is this is that there were some really brilliant aspects of the show. As I want to be super clear, as much as I feel like with black art, we should be able to love and critique it, that's number one, you know, and continue to move forward in this journey with our art. So I don't believe in completely bad s these things. I want us to, you know, to really just kind of think about it. But anyway, bottom line is that there were some really brilliant aspects of the movie. And one of the things that you talked about in terms of the cracks that I think that that is really in terms of the sanity of it all, what is happening in the mind and that the that the horror of the movie really talks about what is happening in the minds of black people on a constant basis, how they are interpreting the you know, that inner battle with that kind of that inner, that that demon that is in your mind that no one else can see, that is communicating with you all of the time. And that, to me, that was really one of the most profound moments in that series, where it really kind of made that reel and all of us have had that conversation with that little white supremacist demon that wants to tell you a lie and creates a world where if that lite can live, and that that that was really profound for me, and particularly in the relationship with the father and that sambo, when the Sambo continued to tell him like, oh, you're just gonna let them? Are you? Not a man? You couldn't protect your family, you couldn't do something? Whoa It was powerful. That was powerful. That was to me, that was really powerful. And but again, you know, sad at the end of the day because again they fought these battles and no one saw it and they had to go back out that house at the very end and face a very real external demon after having exhausted themselves fighting an internal one. Goddamnitt that well written freaking crazy. The reality of that was powerful. Again, But I maintained that it was one that we ingested and that you know, I just think that was just something that we that that we have, you know, that we talked about, we ingested, we suffered, and we we suffered through and we got something from But it was a way for us to be seen by each other as many moments for black people are, and that is what I want. I appreciate all of it. Give me the stories, help me understand. I notice. You know fiction, fiction is powerful. If you've ever read Jay California, Cooper or Octavia Butler, you know a movie it's coming. I'm just saying that I want all the stories. Give me, give me all the smoke, and teaching me about it, and teach me a little something like about redlining while we're at it, because I was like, okay, okay, give me really violently though what I have enjoyed it. Yeah, y'all, y'all, y'all just gonna let her get shot from afar. Really that we're going Yeah, she couldn't have got bashed to the head of nothing. But come on, y'all, come on, listen, you got a point. There ain't no one's perfect. You know, we mentioned all these great things that he did, but I'm just saying, I mean, it was, it was a lovely death. And you know, I'm just saying, what about movies like Antebello did it too. I'm gonna go with twelve I'm gonna go with twelve years of slay. Oh, I don't know. I'm gonna that scene where Lopea in y'all Go, her character was being raped. That was that was horrible. That was horrible, and I could see why she would want to take her life like I could. I could see it, and that we as a people we end up going through some traumatic, horrible things internally externally, and the will to live is something else. It's it's we still ain't got a real movie about the Middle Passage. So I I a shudder too. It's there is so much to tell. There's so many stories. There are so many stories to tell, and they don't they do not have to be centered in the deepest, darkest part of our pain. And they don't have to be that. But and they can still be honest, and they could still be thought provoking. And we are critical thinkers and creators and we can do all of it. I really believe. But you know, this is a this is a real new genre. I want to get used to this. This is Yes. What's not a new genre is profiting off the pain of black people. That is not a new genre. I just want the stories. I want them all. I It drove me crazy that anytime you watch a horror flick. You know there's one black person in the crew. You know, they would typically get chilled. You know, they fall, they fall in the water. You know, they would get killed first. Then they started making them get killed second to last, you know. And just watching the evolution of this thing, I appreciate the stories and as a as a writer and as an actor. You want more, I want more, I want more. I'll take you. Remember Tales from the Hood. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty good. I came from, but that that was awesome. You know, people have put in some work prior to this, and Candy Man, I don't know, it's coming back. It's coming back, It's coming back. And then, I mean, what did y'all think about get Out? Because get Out was the first of its kind. I mean again, I loved to get Out here. I loved it. I loved and I love the fact that it played on the fear of most black people. Okay, but guess guess who got hacked up? All right, right, right right? And that's why you loved it so much, because they got hacked and burnt up, that hacked up, packed up, and who got away? And guess who got away and got away with all of it. Yeah, and that movie when you see that man end up killing the girl, You're like, oh yeah, and and and it was really you know, they had two endings by the way. They had an ending where there was real police that showed up, and they had an ending with the homeboy, you know. And but but yes, and see what see the options that we have in fiction that you I'm so glad you brought it because you that we have, yes, yes, to change the narrative and still be honest, and still be raw, and still pull people's emotions and still tell truths. All of that. That is the difference between Jordan Peel and Little Marvin as well. Of course, we don't all have to be the same. No, and I and I tell you this and this is really a love conversation because you know it is. This is a love conversation because I loved black creators and I don't want to see us feel like we have to please every single person on the because we cannot with this underground. So I'm here for Yeah, we don't write, but it's not gonna hit every mark. And I never forget what's the Chris Rock said, we have to have the freedom to suck. Yes, yes, you know and so, and not saying that this did because it was really good. But the point is that I get all of that, and I want to be clear that that, and even in what I'm critiquing, in my mind, I still know beauty when I see it, and I am grateful that that black creatives are getting these opportunities. But as we've learned in recent years, we have to be very careful about representation. Representation is not a win in and of itself, and we get really caught up in representation. Oh well, this is the first time a black person did this, or they're letting black people make this, or they're letting black people do that, and all of that's great, But we can be so caught up in representation that we allow things to not that we're not going to think critically about it. That's That's what I'm saying, Oh for sure, or but the fact that there's more to see and more to critique. Did anybody happen to see Sophie's Love Sylvie didn't? It was very good. I love Nami almost got it almost that's your whole name. It was very good. I just want more of that. I just want the DP to to pay attention to colors. You know, for a long time we'll be on screen looking ashy, you know that that funny gray color, you know, not not accentuating an actor. Thank you so much. You know you're gonna have a lot of different options. You've got you know, your you know Spike Lee, and you've got your Tyler Perry. You know, there's there's a lot of stories to tell, and I want to I want more of them. Agree, I agree, that's got to be more. Has got to be more and more and more and more, and hopefully we get to a point where it isn't just about you know, this is the first black movie that or this movie was black. But it's like you know so and so Spielberg or like just that another it's just a good movie or it's not. You know, it's something you want to see or some you don't, and the I just want all the options. That's that's really how I feel about it. You know, the trauma portion of it. There's going to be some trauma. I just watched a movie not too long ago. I cannot think, uh something when you're dead. I don't know what it was. It was a young girl who was attacked by some dudes in a cabin I spent on your graves, that's what it was called. It's a whole series. It's a whole series. There's I think there's like three of them, you know, three of trilogy, and it's about a young a girl who was viciously raped and they showed it and it was it was horrific. And the way she got back at them was worse than the rape. She she did the words, she did the most and I clapped, I lapped, and I wanted to watch it again, but it was the first part was hard to watch. But when you understood why it was like that, why she was so vicious with it, when you when you saw what happened to her, you were like, uh huh, I get that. I think that that movie is coming. I think that movie is absolutely coming. And remember that that cop did get shot several times and and one movie and um them. Oh, but he was an he No, I didn't mean it in the sense of me, in the sense of all those etle asked white people. He was the nices of the people. That's what I in my mind. I've seen that woman, that that singing woman, that showed up at the house. I seen her boiling, I have seen her pushed off of a bridge. I've seen a lot of things. Dogs attacking. That was a horrible, horrible thing, horrible thing. Well, you know what, we having this whole conversation that we did not mention love Cram, which caused a lot of conversation and really kind of brought this conversation up again after after us, where it was like, oh, well, this kind of fantasy horror, three historree whole actual picking, isn't it? But here, but here's what's really a horrifying picking, a horrifying picking. A twin that thing that bothered me to go to sleep after that, honey, that's got me, That's got me good. But that's really reminded me of Octavia Butler style though, and so the black horror or science fiction style really does to you all's point have that mixture of historical fiction, sci fi, horror, drama, even a little bit of comedy. So it's like it's interesting to see this kind of mesh and male mold mesh gumbo of genres all packed into some of these movies because they all had those moments. So it's it's it's interesting the black take on this genre and and and how it has to include, you know, the black experience. But to Jordan's Peel's you know, to his credit, when he did his other movie, which was The US US, when he did Us anybody to a degree, they could have stuck any color family and to that movie, so that movie was not necessarily in few is with the Black experience. He just took a black family. He just took a black family and inserted them into the into into that moment. So I mean, so you kind of have to So there's there's a kind of a place for that in US too. Yeah, and us it was like, I see, it happened to all the people around the world. Remember that the whole they just happen. They just they just happened to be a black family. That's just to be a black family. Yeah, which is so listen, I did that, right, he did that. I'm like, Okay, maybe you don't have to take us home because you gave us so many jobs. I'll do that train. We'll be back after the break. You know. I got a shout out. The just the level of creativity that we're able to see makes me so excited. To think about Watchmen. Yeah, amazing, what's my ama? Don't say his name, say his name, say his name, say his name, Jill, what's his name? His name? Man, it's only one, it's only one. Yeah, yeah, motherfucker, ya ya teen, motherfucker. Don't you tell me it ain't no black male actors up in this thing hill hunting, because yeah, it was beautiful, miss thank you, Regina, thank you. It was beauty. That was so sad that the writer didn't want to you don't continue on. That was just so I was so ready, so ready. It's worth watching again. It is at least the first episode. Get your history. That first episode gets your history. Very well done. Hey guess and guess what had happened? It's victorious? Okay, ages making more points. That's the fact that we watch Marvel. We watch all the Marvel movies. We get involved with all the science fiction stuff. We love that stuff. This, this Falcon and Winter Soldier went really black. This. I don't know if you are that deep into the Marvel, but the Anthony Malki showed it just finished Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it went it took a turn to blackness and a tuskey experiment that was just unexpected. Oh I just gotta tell you. I just want to tell the people to like if you get a chance to watch it, because oh yes, I'm sorry, I mean to your wisdom. No, not at all. I'm just saying that, you know, just the fact that we've been watching these Marvel movies, we've been supporting Marvel, We've been supporting all of the science fiction and the superheroes and all of that. And to be able to see this, you know, this is great. Ban Cougar, I love it. Thank you. I said you watchman. But just everything, y'all, y'all, just if you ain't saying that, you trip think and think about the My Rainy story, you know, think about that and how Chadwick's character did not get to live that dream for somebody else who's watching that and did not get to live their dream and it was right there at their hands and they've been promised this thing that is traumatic, that thing hurt, that thing hurt deep. And the fact that Glenn Turman is brilliant and brilliant and the fact that that character was taken away, that it was, and how painful it was on both sides, you know, obviously for for Glenn Turman's character and as well for Chadwick's character, Like, what did that mean? Psychologically? Give me the cuts, show me where the cracks happen, because we're people where people and cracks, and you any any sane person can crack with the level of stuff that's going on in this world, right the cracks. So when when somebody goes crazy or they do they do something that you know, even in the spirit world, you understand what had happened. I appreciate that. I love the way you find that as the cracks. I definitely think that it's just like the humanity of us is, it's so important, it's fragile, the humanity of us, to show the humanity of us. That that I feel like it's a challenge before us and that especially with our art, is to is to show our humanity and to consider our humanity. Right, But I think you're you're absolutely right. You know, we don't want to be dishonest, want to honor the human experience and then insert ourselves into the human experience and humanize ourselves for the outside world because we know we're human, but they don't have an opportunity to see us as that so that is really important. I'm not worried about that nobody else. I'm thinking about us and and the fact that we don't get a chance to see us in that way for so long. All of our TV shows and our movies are not all but a lot of them and shout shout out to the coffee show into a different world like that. That really took some blinders off and open new doors to us, because our our movies and our TV shows were you know, a lot of it was it was it was the good times. You know, it was a lot of weird, poverty stricken. But we're gonna make it work in any way necessary. And that is us too. That is us, and then or the Jeffersons. You know, here we are. We we've advanced a little more more and now we're you know, in the big leagues getting our bad you know what I'm saying. Like the progress has been slow, and sometimes it's been thwarted, but nonetheless it's been happening, and it's happening in a beautiful way because for I swear, just trying to find somebody who too could shoot a brown skinned person. Yeah you you there were the dps that couldn't even see the beauty, couldn't capture it. Uh, the DPS director of photography. So shout out to all the good ones that can, that can actually see the textures and and and the magic in skin. If you are a DP and you want to understand the magic of a brown person skin, a deep brown person, look at Besa Butler's work Instagram. You have an opportunity to see the dimension and color. I was. I was followed up follow these vickers a hashtag book on the Instagram, and they joke a lot about being an actor, and it's at an other than they're talking about, you know, hair, and that's another thing too. Was like just the just even even that moment in them where she goes to the cousin's house and she does her hair and she makes it clear that she don't wear weeds, and it's like to see that woman getting her hair pressed and getting it all done. I mean, just these are these kind of really intimate moments with with our skin and our hair and how we just interact with each other. I even remember somebody talking about this in the in an animated film in the movie Soul, where they talked about I think it's a Frank Abney is the guy who who is the is one of the animators on there, and he talked about how they made this decision about the main character was gonna come down the steps, and that when he came down the steps, before he went down, he like touched his nose and dapped up the guy that he was about to say hi to. So it's just even these kind of small ways that we narrate ourselves on screen that show we have a specific way that we present and that we looked at our actions and the way we do things and talk. It's beautiful when it tapped in, they tapped all the way in. And as we continue this conversation, I want to make sure too that we mentioned some of the names and the people who are writing these stories, like the Misia Greene, Tory, Halls of it All, the by Barry Jenkins, the d Reasons of it All. Like you just have to say, because it wasn't time where you felt like okay, Spike, like you said, Spike and Tyler, don't forget about black Lightning please. Yeah. Yeah, that's a family show. It was very very good. It's a pleasure to be a part of it. So shout out to Selina. Yeah, beautiful thing. I love it. I love it. More of it, please, please, and more please. I will say this little I haven't void watching so much of our programming over the past few years. It just has been really good to my soul. And then just the constant rollout. It's like you know something that's coming and that has been wonderful. Even and you mentioned Barry Jenkers. He did this is he's the one who did also that Christmas movie, right, jingle Jangles? Did he do that? Who did jingle jan No? That was the why er hold on jingle Jangle? It was he did. He did uh a jingle Jangle? And like I said, just to be able to watch all of this, I mean, just like the wide and diverse amount of work that's out there has been a true, true pleasure from girlfriends insecure, It's happening, happening, and everybody in between. Listen, I mean me and something. You might not love them all, but at least you've got the choices you have. Be encouraged, be encouraged and also true all that at Robin thed too. Yes, black Ladies, Yes, there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot, and still and still right, the Black Ladies Sketch Show. Oh and in Our Mother's Gardens if you want to check that out. Yes, you for an executive producer on that. Wait a minute, what is this? You even tell Joe Scott, Joan Scott, I don't tell everything, you really don't. So now I got to I got to go ahead and google this thing that's on Netflix. That's all she's gonna say. Is she gonna say, we need to watch it? But she ain't gonna tell us. Always lovely, it's so good, it's so lovely. It's so beautiful. Oh, I'm sorry. I the documentary with all the sisters and yeah, yeah, that thing. I watched it on Mother's Day. That thing good to meet you'all. I had to take it in us. But it was beautiful. It was beautiful. And sorry, it's the ray. It's all the ray. It's only distributed by It's distributed by Ray. Now. Originally it was an independent documentary as far as I know, But I just wanted to say her name because I didn't make creators, and I was like you, but look at Chill Scott making a way for other black creators to get their stuff out there. Come on, Yeah, listen, it's such a pleasure. It's such a pleasure. And then know that there's such great work that's happening, like it's just a it's a joy to see it happening, Like oh yeah, come on, y'all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, y'all. This is for the two thousand twenty ones. Let's go. Oh, let's go, let's go. There's black gardeners. There's some black doctors and lawyers and scientists and astronauts and and jaccuzzy makers. You know, it's like, we do win it all. I just want to see all the stories. Just give it all to me. Make me laugh, make me think, make we wonder, make me dream, you know, all of it. Yeah, we're doing it whether you know you want to see it or not. You know, there are options because, like Aga always reminds, we are not a monolith. No, we we are interested in a bunch of different things. And I'm just grateful, thank you so much that there's options for us. And some of that hair is straightened, some of that hair ring, some of them, some of them chicks, light skins. I'm of a Maine you know, it's it's stories. God darn it. I want more. Thank you so much for listening to Jay dot Ildepie cast with my sister friends Fly in St. Clair and Adria Grayton Danceler. Listen. The more you see, the more you dream. Keep your eyes on me. Come on, how do you eat an elephant? One by it time? Hey, everybody, producer E's here. If you haven't listened already, go back and listen to the previous episode of Jay dot Ill called We Want All the Black Stories, where the ladies get into the growth and expansiveness of black storytelling. All right, get out your pen and paper, your tablet, computer, whatever your device of choices, because I have a long list of writers and directors and shows and movies and filmmakers here. Okay, Deep Breath, Antebellum, get out them. Created by Little Marvin and ep by Lena Wait. Twelve Years of Slave, Django, Unchained Us, written and directed by Jordan Peel, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, My Any's Black Bottom, Misha Green, Barry Jenkins, Coutry Hall, Black Lightning, Jingle Jangle, The Black Ladies Catch Show in Our Mother's Gardens, Octavia Butler's work and the Ladies also mentioned Pisa Butler and hashtag booked check them out on Instagram links. In the episode description, 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. 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 Il the podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott, Laia st Clair and Age Graden Danceller. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Shawn g and Brian Calhoun's produced by Laya st Clair and me Eve Jeff Cope. The editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Christina Loranger. Okay, you gotta wrap it up with a little should write songs? You have a few strokes and then you will ever tell you that. Thank you so much. J dot Ill is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Welcome to jay Dot in a production of My Heart Rates. Hello good people, Hello good people. I hope you are so well. Thank you so much for it's been a little time with Jay Dot Elder podcast. This is the Lady Jill Scott. What's that? What's that was up? It's La Saint Clair's so crazy. Yo yo yo yo yo yo yo. It's it's it's just as it's like killing their mama. No, I feel good. I don't know about anybody else right now. How how you guys feeling? It was in that cocktail. That cocktail this, my dear, h it's not it's no alcohol in it. It's lemon water, ginger, kayan and cucumbers and it's just lovely. We'll see what happens. A little cool, a little a little cool, a little kick. What's cool? He is the black narrative. Watching stories about ourselves, reading stories about ourselves. Being able to see our image in a reflection on a television screen or in a movie screen. That is cool. And we're seeing so much more of it. And it's about god damn time, I said, g O T it's about time. But we're also seeing something else. We're also seeing what what we call it trauma porn. Well, that is definitely the term of the times, at least a conversation about what it is, If it exists, should we tolerated? Is there such a thing as an okay amount? Is there you know how to identify it? Yeah, that's what I'm here to tell you that I want. Watched them on it was an Amazon Prime. Yeah, I watched them. First of all, I thought it was absolutely gorgeous. I appreciated that, loved the lighting, Thank you so much. I love the love that it was a completely brown family, because you know how often we see, you know, a brown skin husband and a light skinned wife with the curly hair. I was happy to see a brown family with brown babies. You no, no disrespect to anybody, you know. I realized, I'm light skins. It's a new revelation. Ladies and gentlemen bell with her. It's a new revelation. That was that was a very proud of. I just want to take this moment to say I said it proud. Thank you so much for for anybody who has been listening to our podcast. I just realized I was like skin a couple of weeks ago, and you know, it hurt my feelings. I didn't think that. I didn't. I just didn't think it. But you know, I am, and I still want to see brown families on a television screen or a movie screen. I still want to see a brown skin mama with her brown skin babies. Let me see the let you see us. You know, we're not just one kind of family. So I'm happy to see these things. I did watch them. It was traumatic, wasn't it. Yeah? It was. It was traumatic. It was so many things right, the processn't getting the age to watch was that was traumatic for me myself. Dad, I didn't even gotten to the content of a movie. But I was a little bit of a slow burn on it because well, number one, because before I could even decide to watch it, I was privy to a lot of the controversy around it. And I'm just very very careful about the things that I watched because I don't have a I don't have a problem watching difficult themes, but usually they're always it's like historic. I don't typically want to watch anything, and even with historic stuff, I just I'm really careful. I have believe vivid dreams, you know, I have a thing about imagery, So once once the conversation came up that that this particular show had some elements in it that felt, I don't know, gratuitous, you know what I mean in terms of just like to just just not necessary, but taking black folks through um, some emotional trauma that they didn't have to go through. That was some things that were being said about it, despite the beauty of it, despite obviously being able to have the beautiful cast, and you know, and then obviously in recent years seeing full on black casts emerged into something like that's horror, the horror genre and just kind of stretching the imagination in that way. So it's it's really difficult, I think for us because we always found ourselves in this place where we have to sell lebrate a first or celebrate something being new and seeing ourselves make strides in a certain way. But then at the same time, too, we feel guilty about critiquing it. And I think with black narratives, we constantly find ourselves in this place. We found ourselves in that place with the Harriet movie. We found ourselves in that place with a lot of quote unquote slave narratives. And so you know, we talked about this in a in another episode just about you know that little extra extra critical. Yeah, really go down our checklist, Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it took me up. Basically, It did take me a while to watch it, and I did like many of the same things that Jill liked about it. But my thing at the end of the day was, you know, I ain't see enough practice that and I don't know and I'm saying that because it's like, hell of black people got hurt and we're killed violently, from baby to elder, and I just didn't understand where was the payoffs in this fantasy, right, because this wasn't the real life. This on real life. When it comes to the part about you know, black people coming into these areas of the suburbs, if we have an option, this is my thing. If I have to traumatize myself in a situation where I can control the narrative, why not why not toss the trauma? Why not spread it around even Yeah, And that's the great debate, right, because it's like, but if in fact we're talking about the fifties and some of these things that happen, right, that's just the truth, Right, black people got terrorized moving into some of these neighborhoods, maybe not say some of these things. All everything that everything that happened in that movie that wasn't of the supernatural nature happened happen, but you just don't want to see it, like and I feel because I mean, it got to the point I think we all agreed that that seeing I don't even know how to describe it. With the cat in the bag. Cat in the bag. For me, that was when I was like, wait a minute, this is this is this is this is too much. But then my question is on the on the filmmaking aspect, if it is in relation to something truthful, then and it was something that happened, and yeah it is scary and it's sucked up and and the filmmaker is trying to put it in your face to say, look at this, this ship happened to us. How could you do that differently so that you don't feel the way you feel. This should happened to people, This happened to human beings. A woman in her home with her baby. You know what I'm saying, that's a person. That's a person. I am for it. I'm for it hard because um, when I when I say for it's what I mean by is I'm for the stories. I want to see them all we get so tired of. I don't want to see any slave narratives. I don't want to see why not, Obviously I have an issue with slave n That's just that was that was just the common I don't want to see black people being brutalized. Baby. If you turn on the TV in real life, whether they're in the United States or not, you're going to see brown people going through terrible traumas on a daily basis. But I think that that is there in lies the issue were if we're living with being brutalized on a daily basis, then why do we then go to our brutalization for for entertainment? That well, Hitchcock again, there is a way to tell stories, and a varied amount of stories that even have historical basis in it, without then pushing the envelope to trauma. Right, So, even Alfred Hitchcock, there's a storytelling nature to the way things are done. Because even if you look at the way that they was shot, beautiful shots, beautiful ways that they told the story, Even if you look at you know, just so the style of filmmaking and All of those things are ways that you can tell the story and keep people intrigued, but too to pain us. So did you want scenes edited out? Are you say? Because I would love to know? How could this have been? She just wanted to She just wanted the perpetrators to be affected. But that's one thing. That's one thing, that's one thing I would have liked. The second thing I feel is that I did not feel like that it was necessary to traumatize black people, which is why there was an argument about them, you know out in the world, was was that movie really for us? Wasn't more so too shock white people and let them know about the level of their of the way that they have brutalized us. It wasn't necessarily a moment that was that was for us? I feel that I'm saying, and so so would that be in the case if this was about being in your face and letting people know about what's how brutal it can be to be black. We're already aware of how brutal it is to be black. We live it, okay, So that in that sense, it's like, okay, well, then yeah, then take it up to Harvard and take it up to the out to the Midwest or wherever, out to the suburbs or whatever what the white schools are and show it to them. Oh so you're saying, don't put it on a on a large platform for the world to see. Is that what you think? Do you think that black people needed to watch that? But I think, but you have. I don't know if I'll need it. I think that I did. I did. I loved it and I wanted it, and it troubled me and I didn't sleep and I I you know, I stayed up a couple of nights with the lights on. But I was absolutely addicted to the story. That's my kind of my kind of shift, like Jigsaw. That's that movie was traumatic. You know, you gotta make a choice. That was But but hold on, that was traumatic to me. You know this because it's black people. I remember in the Queues when Jodi Whiteley got got raped on that pinball table. That sucked me up. That bothered me, bothered me. I thought about that a lot. I still never forgot that even traumatic it was, and it brought attention to how somebody could be raped in front of other people and they still get off, and how you have to humiliate yourself. How do you you have to humiliate yourself, you know, in order to to get justice for yourself. Damn Well, here's my thing is that let me let me just circle back to what you said. I do think that there are just legit black folks that love horror and they love the ride that horror takes them on, and so that that, I mean, I respect that in terms of that people ain't got a like to watch the same stuff. But I definitely think that it would be helpful for us to be critical of the way our experience is put out there and how we ingested, because our experience is unique, and I just think that that is important. And so when you talk about all I'm tired of slave people saying, oh, I'm tired of slave narratives. See for me, I'm not, because I understand that that's our history. But I also don't feel that every story about slavery has to be about trauma, because even though the experience is selfish traumatic, I don't think that you have to dump in every single movie about slaves somebody getting whipped, or even if they are getting whipped, Why do we always have to see every lash, every blood, every blood drip every such some things are not necessary for you to understand what is happening there, and and and then, and I will even say it like this. In The Lion King, Okay, in the Lion King, there's a scene where Mufassa gets caught in the herd. Okay, and he gets caught in the herd. He falls down into the herd. You don't actually see the herd stop him to death, but you know that he has asked, point where if there's there's I cried at that movie every single time. And there's also a moment where the where the baby whoever is the baby want um not Mufassa uh Simba walks over to his daddy and lifts up his paw and he crawls up underneath of it. There are moments to show compassion, death, grief, violence. There are ways to discuss these things in truth without gutting people who are already vulnerable. But you do understand that Lion King was made for general audiences, so if you wanted to make for children, so if you wanted to make something like that, it had to be that you couldn't show you might not want to do that because children are watching them wasn't the babies I love I love little how Come? How come I can't be treated? You can? But it's up to your election not to watch things though, because what what sounds to me a little scary is and not saying you make perfect sense, but you can't really police if somebody is trying to make an impact, say little Marvin, his intention was to shop the funk out of white people and let them know what they did to us, right, And you can't just take that the Harvard because it got to be all kinds of white people. You got to be the white people that can't get the Harvard. They don't even know where Harvard is. So what is the white people watch this show? I don't know, I said, that's in her one. Did white people watch Get Out? They did? They did? Because again get Out? Did you did you discuss that any of us discussed this show with any of our white friends? I did? What they think about it? Sure? She says she was sorry. She was like, I am just so sorry. And then she she was like, this is very this is very shocking, very traumatic. That was you know. She was like, it's good, it's well written. She got it. Interested had a check Listen, I can't. I can't figure out what other people are gonna do with what what it is. I'm not what I'm saying. I know, I know, I know. I'm saying that I really understood the crack in that woman, in that character based off of what occurred. There was no way for her not to crack. It had to be done. And I love that that sub story right there about black women. And that's what I'm talking. Well, let me say that's what happened to hold on. Now, what happened, I get it like that is traumatic. It hurt like it hurts. What was happening to the daughter was traumatic in her mind. I've been a little black girl plenty. Okay, this is this is an experience that I've had um as far as the little girl and and the teacher wanting to please a teacher. Teachers, Now you know all of the things that went into the psychological break, and that's what I appreciate. List Then we are on the same page. We're on the same page about that. We'll be back after the break. Nobody ever investigates the cracks. Um investigate the cracks. You girl, you have somebody, you have a young man that is walking home from from wherever he's walking from home from in his old neighborhood, eating some god darned candy, wearing a hood, minding his business, and somebody comes outside and decides that he's a threat and they murder that child. That is that is trauma, and it's horror. It's horror. Two, when we watched Schindler's List and you saw how emaciated those people were, and how they would go into these these rooms of gas and and you know, never come out again, how they pile those bodies on, that was traumatic. Jewish people felt that. I wondered, now I'm they They were bawling in the movie there or when I was there. But y'all, but y'all, listen. Is about historical fact. That's not that's not the same. What what horror flick do we have about Nazis glorious bastards, But no Overlord, which is fantastic, by the way, that please please pay attention to watch it. Overlord is fictitious, but it is a horror movie. It also and has the Holocaust involved into it and Nazi Germany, and it starts a young black man. What I will say is this and I'm gonna check that out, by the way, But what I will say is this is that there were some really brilliant aspects of the show. As I want to be super clear, as much as I feel like with black art, we should be able to love and critique it, that's number one, you know, and continue to move forward in this journey with our art. So I don't believe in completely bad s these things. I want us to, you know, to really just kind of think about it. But anyway, bottom line is that there were some really brilliant aspects of the movie. And one of the things that you talked about in terms of the cracks that I think that that is really in terms of the sanity of it all, what is happening in the mind and that the that the horror of the movie really talks about what is happening in the minds of black people on a constant basis, how they are interpreting the you know, that inner battle with that kind of that inner, that that demon that is in your mind that no one else can see, that is communicating with you all of the time. And that, to me, that was really one of the most profound moments in that series, where it really kind of made that reel and all of us have had that conversation with that little white supremacist demon that wants to tell you a lie and creates a world where if that lite can live, and that that that was really profound for me, and particularly in the relationship with the father and that sambo, when the Sambo continued to tell him like, oh, you're just gonna let them? Are you? Not a man? You couldn't protect your family, you couldn't do something? Whoa It was powerful. That was powerful. That was to me, that was really powerful. And but again, you know, sad at the end of the day because again they fought these battles and no one saw it and they had to go back out that house at the very end and face a very real external demon after having exhausted themselves fighting an internal one. Goddamnitt that well written freaking crazy. The reality of that was powerful. Again, But I maintained that it was one that we ingested and that you know, I just think that was just something that we that that we have, you know, that we talked about, we ingested, we suffered, and we we suffered through and we got something from But it was a way for us to be seen by each other as many moments for black people are, and that is what I want. I appreciate all of it. Give me the stories, help me understand. I notice. You know fiction, fiction is powerful. If you've ever read Jay California, Cooper or Octavia Butler, you know a movie it's coming. I'm just saying that I want all the stories. Give me, give me all the smoke, and teaching me about it, and teach me a little something like about redlining while we're at it, because I was like, okay, okay, give me really violently though what I have enjoyed it. Yeah, y'all, y'all, y'all just gonna let her get shot from afar. Really that we're going Yeah, she couldn't have got bashed to the head of nothing. But come on, y'all, come on, listen, you got a point. There ain't no one's perfect. You know, we mentioned all these great things that he did, but I'm just saying, I mean, it was, it was a lovely death. And you know, I'm just saying, what about movies like Antebello did it too. I'm gonna go with twelve I'm gonna go with twelve years of slay. Oh, I don't know. I'm gonna that scene where Lopea in y'all Go, her character was being raped. That was that was horrible. That was horrible, and I could see why she would want to take her life like I could. I could see it, and that we as a people we end up going through some traumatic, horrible things internally externally, and the will to live is something else. It's it's we still ain't got a real movie about the Middle Passage. So I I a shudder too. It's there is so much to tell. There's so many stories. There are so many stories to tell, and they don't they do not have to be centered in the deepest, darkest part of our pain. And they don't have to be that. But and they can still be honest, and they could still be thought provoking. And we are critical thinkers and creators and we can do all of it. I really believe. But you know, this is a this is a real new genre. I want to get used to this. This is Yes. What's not a new genre is profiting off the pain of black people. That is not a new genre. I just want the stories. I want them all. I It drove me crazy that anytime you watch a horror flick. You know there's one black person in the crew. You know, they would typically get chilled. You know, they fall, they fall in the water. You know, they would get killed first. Then they started making them get killed second to last, you know. And just watching the evolution of this thing, I appreciate the stories and as a as a writer and as an actor. You want more, I want more, I want more. I'll take you. Remember Tales from the Hood. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty good. I came from, but that that was awesome. You know, people have put in some work prior to this, and Candy Man, I don't know, it's coming back. It's coming back, It's coming back. And then, I mean, what did y'all think about get Out? Because get Out was the first of its kind. I mean again, I loved to get Out here. I loved it. I loved and I love the fact that it played on the fear of most black people. Okay, but guess guess who got hacked up? All right, right, right right? And that's why you loved it so much, because they got hacked and burnt up, that hacked up, packed up, and who got away? And guess who got away and got away with all of it. Yeah, and that movie when you see that man end up killing the girl, You're like, oh yeah, and and and it was really you know, they had two endings by the way. They had an ending where there was real police that showed up, and they had an ending with the homeboy, you know. And but but yes, and see what see the options that we have in fiction that you I'm so glad you brought it because you that we have, yes, yes, to change the narrative and still be honest, and still be raw, and still pull people's emotions and still tell truths. All of that. That is the difference between Jordan Peel and Little Marvin as well. Of course, we don't all have to be the same. No, and I and I tell you this and this is really a love conversation because you know it is. This is a love conversation because I loved black creators and I don't want to see us feel like we have to please every single person on the because we cannot with this underground. So I'm here for Yeah, we don't write, but it's not gonna hit every mark. And I never forget what's the Chris Rock said, we have to have the freedom to suck. Yes, yes, you know and so, and not saying that this did because it was really good. But the point is that I get all of that, and I want to be clear that that, and even in what I'm critiquing, in my mind, I still know beauty when I see it, and I am grateful that that black creatives are getting these opportunities. But as we've learned in recent years, we have to be very careful about representation. Representation is not a win in and of itself, and we get really caught up in representation. Oh well, this is the first time a black person did this, or they're letting black people make this, or they're letting black people do that, and all of that's great, But we can be so caught up in representation that we allow things to not that we're not going to think critically about it. That's That's what I'm saying, Oh for sure, or but the fact that there's more to see and more to critique. Did anybody happen to see Sophie's Love Sylvie didn't? It was very good. I love Nami almost got it almost that's your whole name. It was very good. I just want more of that. I just want the DP to to pay attention to colors. You know, for a long time we'll be on screen looking ashy, you know that that funny gray color, you know, not not accentuating an actor. Thank you so much. You know you're gonna have a lot of different options. You've got you know, your you know Spike Lee, and you've got your Tyler Perry. You know, there's there's a lot of stories to tell, and I want to I want more of them. Agree, I agree, that's got to be more. Has got to be more and more and more and more, and hopefully we get to a point where it isn't just about you know, this is the first black movie that or this movie was black. But it's like you know so and so Spielberg or like just that another it's just a good movie or it's not. You know, it's something you want to see or some you don't, and the I just want all the options. That's that's really how I feel about it. You know, the trauma portion of it. There's going to be some trauma. I just watched a movie not too long ago. I cannot think, uh something when you're dead. I don't know what it was. It was a young girl who was attacked by some dudes in a cabin I spent on your graves, that's what it was called. It's a whole series. It's a whole series. There's I think there's like three of them, you know, three of trilogy, and it's about a young a girl who was viciously raped and they showed it and it was it was horrific. And the way she got back at them was worse than the rape. She she did the words, she did the most and I clapped, I lapped, and I wanted to watch it again, but it was the first part was hard to watch. But when you understood why it was like that, why she was so vicious with it, when you when you saw what happened to her, you were like, uh huh, I get that. I think that that movie is coming. I think that movie is absolutely coming. And remember that that cop did get shot several times and and one movie and um them. Oh, but he was an he No, I didn't mean it in the sense of me, in the sense of all those etle asked white people. He was the nices of the people. That's what I in my mind. I've seen that woman, that that singing woman, that showed up at the house. I seen her boiling, I have seen her pushed off of a bridge. I've seen a lot of things. Dogs attacking. That was a horrible, horrible thing, horrible thing. Well, you know what, we having this whole conversation that we did not mention love Cram, which caused a lot of conversation and really kind of brought this conversation up again after after us, where it was like, oh, well, this kind of fantasy horror, three historree whole actual picking, isn't it? But here, but here's what's really a horrifying picking, a horrifying picking. A twin that thing that bothered me to go to sleep after that, honey, that's got me, That's got me good. But that's really reminded me of Octavia Butler style though, and so the black horror or science fiction style really does to you all's point have that mixture of historical fiction, sci fi, horror, drama, even a little bit of comedy. So it's like it's interesting to see this kind of mesh and male mold mesh gumbo of genres all packed into some of these movies because they all had those moments. So it's it's it's interesting the black take on this genre and and and how it has to include, you know, the black experience. But to Jordan's Peel's you know, to his credit, when he did his other movie, which was The US US, when he did Us anybody to a degree, they could have stuck any color family and to that movie, so that movie was not necessarily in few is with the Black experience. He just took a black family. He just took a black family and inserted them into the into into that moment. So I mean, so you kind of have to So there's there's a kind of a place for that in US too. Yeah, and us it was like, I see, it happened to all the people around the world. Remember that the whole they just happen. They just they just happened to be a black family. That's just to be a black family. Yeah, which is so listen, I did that, right, he did that. I'm like, Okay, maybe you don't have to take us home because you gave us so many jobs. I'll do that train. We'll be back after the break. You know. I got a shout out. The just the level of creativity that we're able to see makes me so excited. To think about Watchmen. Yeah, amazing, what's my ama? Don't say his name, say his name, say his name, say his name, Jill, what's his name? His name? Man, it's only one, it's only one. Yeah, yeah, motherfucker, ya ya teen, motherfucker. Don't you tell me it ain't no black male actors up in this thing hill hunting, because yeah, it was beautiful, miss thank you, Regina, thank you. It was beauty. That was so sad that the writer didn't want to you don't continue on. That was just so I was so ready, so ready. It's worth watching again. It is at least the first episode. Get your history. That first episode gets your history. Very well done. Hey guess and guess what had happened? It's victorious? Okay, ages making more points. That's the fact that we watch Marvel. We watch all the Marvel movies. We get involved with all the science fiction stuff. We love that stuff. This, this Falcon and Winter Soldier went really black. This. I don't know if you are that deep into the Marvel, but the Anthony Malki showed it just finished Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it went it took a turn to blackness and a tuskey experiment that was just unexpected. Oh I just gotta tell you. I just want to tell the people to like if you get a chance to watch it, because oh yes, I'm sorry, I mean to your wisdom. No, not at all. I'm just saying that, you know, just the fact that we've been watching these Marvel movies, we've been supporting Marvel, We've been supporting all of the science fiction and the superheroes and all of that. And to be able to see this, you know, this is great. Ban Cougar, I love it. Thank you. I said you watchman. But just everything, y'all, y'all, just if you ain't saying that, you trip think and think about the My Rainy story, you know, think about that and how Chadwick's character did not get to live that dream for somebody else who's watching that and did not get to live their dream and it was right there at their hands and they've been promised this thing that is traumatic, that thing hurt, that thing hurt deep. And the fact that Glenn Turman is brilliant and brilliant and the fact that that character was taken away, that it was, and how painful it was on both sides, you know, obviously for for Glenn Turman's character and as well for Chadwick's character, Like, what did that mean? Psychologically? Give me the cuts, show me where the cracks happen, because we're people where people and cracks, and you any any sane person can crack with the level of stuff that's going on in this world, right the cracks. So when when somebody goes crazy or they do they do something that you know, even in the spirit world, you understand what had happened. I appreciate that. I love the way you find that as the cracks. I definitely think that it's just like the humanity of us is, it's so important, it's fragile, the humanity of us, to show the humanity of us. That that I feel like it's a challenge before us and that especially with our art, is to is to show our humanity and to consider our humanity. Right, But I think you're you're absolutely right. You know, we don't want to be dishonest, want to honor the human experience and then insert ourselves into the human experience and humanize ourselves for the outside world because we know we're human, but they don't have an opportunity to see us as that so that is really important. I'm not worried about that nobody else. I'm thinking about us and and the fact that we don't get a chance to see us in that way for so long. All of our TV shows and our movies are not all but a lot of them and shout shout out to the coffee show into a different world like that. That really took some blinders off and open new doors to us, because our our movies and our TV shows were you know, a lot of it was it was it was the good times. You know, it was a lot of weird, poverty stricken. But we're gonna make it work in any way necessary. And that is us too. That is us, and then or the Jeffersons. You know, here we are. We we've advanced a little more more and now we're you know, in the big leagues getting our bad you know what I'm saying. Like the progress has been slow, and sometimes it's been thwarted, but nonetheless it's been happening, and it's happening in a beautiful way because for I swear, just trying to find somebody who too could shoot a brown skinned person. Yeah you you there were the dps that couldn't even see the beauty, couldn't capture it. Uh, the DPS director of photography. So shout out to all the good ones that can, that can actually see the textures and and and the magic in skin. If you are a DP and you want to understand the magic of a brown person skin, a deep brown person, look at Besa Butler's work Instagram. You have an opportunity to see the dimension and color. I was. I was followed up follow these vickers a hashtag book on the Instagram, and they joke a lot about being an actor, and it's at an other than they're talking about, you know, hair, and that's another thing too. Was like just the just even even that moment in them where she goes to the cousin's house and she does her hair and she makes it clear that she don't wear weeds, and it's like to see that woman getting her hair pressed and getting it all done. I mean, just these are these kind of really intimate moments with with our skin and our hair and how we just interact with each other. I even remember somebody talking about this in the in an animated film in the movie Soul, where they talked about I think it's a Frank Abney is the guy who who is the is one of the animators on there, and he talked about how they made this decision about the main character was gonna come down the steps, and that when he came down the steps, before he went down, he like touched his nose and dapped up the guy that he was about to say hi to. So it's just even these kind of small ways that we narrate ourselves on screen that show we have a specific way that we present and that we looked at our actions and the way we do things and talk. It's beautiful when it tapped in, they tapped all the way in. And as we continue this conversation, I want to make sure too that we mentioned some of the names and the people who are writing these stories, like the Misia Greene, Tory, Halls of it All, the by Barry Jenkins, the d Reasons of it All. Like you just have to say, because it wasn't time where you felt like okay, Spike, like you said, Spike and Tyler, don't forget about black Lightning please. Yeah. Yeah, that's a family show. It was very very good. It's a pleasure to be a part of it. So shout out to Selina. Yeah, beautiful thing. I love it. I love it. More of it, please, please, and more please. I will say this little I haven't void watching so much of our programming over the past few years. It just has been really good to my soul. And then just the constant rollout. It's like you know something that's coming and that has been wonderful. Even and you mentioned Barry Jenkers. He did this is he's the one who did also that Christmas movie, right, jingle Jangles? Did he do that? Who did jingle jan No? That was the why er hold on jingle Jangle? It was he did. He did uh a jingle Jangle? And like I said, just to be able to watch all of this, I mean, just like the wide and diverse amount of work that's out there has been a true, true pleasure from girlfriends insecure, It's happening, happening, and everybody in between. Listen, I mean me and something. You might not love them all, but at least you've got the choices you have. Be encouraged, be encouraged and also true all that at Robin thed too. Yes, black Ladies, Yes, there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot, and still and still right, the Black Ladies Sketch Show. Oh and in Our Mother's Gardens if you want to check that out. Yes, you for an executive producer on that. Wait a minute, what is this? You even tell Joe Scott, Joan Scott, I don't tell everything, you really don't. So now I got to I got to go ahead and google this thing that's on Netflix. That's all she's gonna say. Is she gonna say, we need to watch it? But she ain't gonna tell us. Always lovely, it's so good, it's so lovely. It's so beautiful. Oh, I'm sorry. I the documentary with all the sisters and yeah, yeah, that thing. I watched it on Mother's Day. That thing good to meet you'all. I had to take it in us. But it was beautiful. It was beautiful. And sorry, it's the ray. It's all the ray. It's only distributed by It's distributed by Ray. Now. Originally it was an independent documentary as far as I know, But I just wanted to say her name because I didn't make creators, and I was like you, but look at Chill Scott making a way for other black creators to get their stuff out there. Come on, Yeah, listen, it's such a pleasure. It's such a pleasure. And then know that there's such great work that's happening, like it's just a it's a joy to see it happening, Like oh yeah, come on, y'all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, y'all. This is for the two thousand twenty ones. Let's go. Oh, let's go, let's go. There's black gardeners. There's some black doctors and lawyers and scientists and astronauts and and jaccuzzy makers. You know, it's like, we do win it all. I just want to see all the stories. Just give it all to me. Make me laugh, make me think, make we wonder, make me dream, you know, all of it. Yeah, we're doing it whether you know you want to see it or not. You know, there are options because, like Aga always reminds, we are not a monolith. No, we we are interested in a bunch of different things. And I'm just grateful, thank you so much that there's options for us. And some of that hair is straightened, some of that hair ring, some of them, some of them chicks, light skins. I'm of a Maine you know, it's it's stories. God darn it. I want more. Thank you so much for listening to Jay dot Ildepie cast with my sister friends Fly in St. Clair and Adria Grayton Danceler. Listen. The more you see, the more you dream. Keep your eyes on me. Come on, how do you eat an elephant? One by it time? Hey, everybody, producer E's here. If you haven't listened already, go back and listen to the previous episode of Jay dot Ill called We Want All the Black Stories, where the ladies get into the growth and expansiveness of black storytelling. All right, get out your pen and paper, your tablet, computer, whatever your device of choices, because I have a long list of writers and directors and shows and movies and filmmakers here. Okay, Deep Breath, Antebellum, get out them. Created by Little Marvin and ep by Lena Wait. Twelve Years of Slave, Django, Unchained Us, written and directed by Jordan Peel, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, My Any's Black Bottom, Misha Green, Barry Jenkins, Coutry Hall, Black Lightning, Jingle Jangle, The Black Ladies Catch Show in Our Mother's Gardens, Octavia Butler's work and the Ladies also mentioned Pisa Butler and hashtag booked check them out on Instagram links. In the episode description, 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. 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 Il the podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott, Laia st Clair and Age Graden Danceller. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Shawn g and Brian Calhoun's produced by Laya st Clair and me Eve Jeff Cope. The editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Christina Loranger. Okay, you gotta wrap it up with a little should write songs? You have a few strokes and then you will ever tell you that. Thank you so much. J dot Ill is a production of I Heart Radio. 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