Girls Trip with Madison Shepard

The Glossy Posse (Caitlin, Jamie, and guest Madison Shepard) take a wild trip to the podcast studio to discuss Girls Trip!

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the dol Cast. The questions asked, movies have women
and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hello and
welcome to the Becdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante.
My name is Jamie Loftus, and here are our last

(00:21):
name last names. We mean, we got exactly one last
name request and we took it right to heart. You know,
I'm doing it for the follows. I want you to
follow me and Caitlin Durante on Twitter and whatever else.
I'm doing it because I felt like someone asked me
to do something and I'm not kinda saying no. But
it also didn't seem like a bad ideas. I'm making

(00:41):
my life worse, so I'm making any one's life worse.
Hopefully all right, saying my last name making your life worse?
Please flood my mentions. Let me know I'm ruining your
life by doing truly the bare minimum. How are you?
I'm good. We are here talking about movies, specifically the
Trail of Women in Movies podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we

(01:03):
got so involved in the last names we got to say,
why we're hearing what we're talking about. That's okay, right, So, yes,
we are talking about the portrayal of women in movies.
We use the Bechtel Test as sort of a yard stick.
So it's a it's a test applied to all media
in which two women need to have a discussion, two
lines of dialog exchange about something other than a man,

(01:25):
and the women in question need to have names all true. Yeah,
not a hard test to pass. However, not a lot,
not a lot of stuff passes, and not a lot
of media in movies specifically do a good job portraying women.
So what to Hollywood? Come on, I think they're doing

(01:46):
a great show. Oh yeah, it's been historically wonderful, healthy culture.
So that's what we're talking about in the Bechtel Cast
today and every day and every day we have a guest. Yes,
and and we usually don't talk about movies. So re
I'm excited. Yes, So we're talking about girls trip. But
before we get into that discussion, let's introduce our guests.

(02:07):
She is a comic. She has been a panelist on
the pre show for Empire. Wow. Madison Shepherd, Hi, Hi,
thanks for being here. I've been here the whole time.
The most tense part of the podcast, like when do
I jump in, It's like double Dutch what I gonna get?
It was seamless. Thank you anyway, thank you for being here,

(02:30):
thank you for having me absolutely. So we're talking about
Girls Trip. Yeah, you saw the movie theaters. I did.
I saw it actually as a double feature with rough Night.
I saw Rough Night and then I went to see
Girls Trip, like within an hour and a half of
each other, because they're similar movies, and then it's a
group of women having a wild aekend or night or whatever.

(02:51):
Not an unfamiliar premise, No, not at all. But one
of them did much better than the other one, and
that was Girls Better. Yeah. I didn't see a rough Night,
and I didn't feel the need to so i'd be
interested in seeing it. I wasn't aware that in Rough
Night it takes this premise and that but they kill

(03:13):
a guy and something spoiler alert, I guess I just
I mean, I did not see either of these movies
in theater, but that they were marketed in a very
similar way, so that I was very surprised when I
was reading through this. Sy nazis for both that in
one they killed someone that wasn't that clear in the marketing.
Did not realize that either. I really loved Girls Trip. Same. Yeah.

(03:37):
I also didn't see it in the theater because this
was my pre movie Pass days. I have it now
and I've seen all kinds of movies with my If
movie Pass wants to sponsor us, because we've been plugging
your product endlessly for the past few episodes, were just like,
send me mine, I've already paid for it, right, Yeah,
So yeah, I just saw I bought Girls Trip on

(03:59):
DVD breg and I watched it twice in the past
couple of days. That feels like a lot, Can I
be honest with you. I tried to watch it twice.
I watched it one and a half time. I couldn't
do it. I watched it one time, yeah, and it
was just right. That's enough. I think my my brain
just is not good at absorbing media. I think because

(04:20):
I've just absorbed so much of it that it takes
my brain like a second viewing to really digest stuff.
Caitle and you do have not one but two college degrees.
You don't thank you. You know that. I hate to
bring it up, you know, who also has multiple degree.
I thought it's Queen Latifa and she mentions it in
the movie. That's true. Does she in real life or

(04:41):
just the character? I think just the character. But Queen
have time? I mean she was on the in Living
Single just started. I just started watching that on Hulu,
really enjoying it. I love that show. It's funny does yeah,
it's so good. Has been like in the entertainment industry
since she was like decades. Yeah, yeah, I don't think
she had time. She was twenty three when Living Single

(05:02):
came out, so and she was a star of it,
and she has not aged a day. I mean she
was looking a little old in this movie. For me,
I won't lie, but I've been watching her on TV
since I was a child, So you know, I had to.
I had to do some age checks for the main
cast in this movie because every I mean all the
main cast except for tiff is over forty yeah, which

(05:24):
I mean they're like they're all about nine or ten
years apart in age, right, right, it was I mean
from Tiffany right, yeah, because Queen with te Regina Hall
and Jada Pickin Smith are all born in Yeah. And
then I think this is all to say that very
cool that we're seeing representation of women over forty in
a movie, because you rarely do. Yeah, and I look great,

(05:47):
you know what I mean. And they're living their lives
and they're successful and doing their thing. It's great. Yeah, totally.
And they were playing women their age too, because I
think there's always such a tendency to be like, well,
they all look amazed, So let's just pretend they're thirty,
and it's like they all they're all pretty much playing
within a few years of their own except for Tiffany,
who's having nick played age, which is interesting. Well, should

(06:11):
I do the recap of the story, Yeah, Madison, feel
free to interject on the recap interrupt, don't do a
good job. Interrupted. So the story focuses on these four
main characters. Who's the actors I just named, but it
is Ryan played by Regina Hall, Sasha is queenlan Teva's character,

(06:34):
Lisa is Jada Pickett Smith, and Dina is Tiffany Hattish.
Have you ever seen a female character named Ryan before?
Because one of my best friends growing up was a
girl named Ryan, and I've never seen them before. I'm
so excited. I texted her, Wow, She's like, I know
everyone texted me for a year later. These four women

(06:55):
who all went to college together. They were this very
tight knit group called the Flossy Posse. But the dumbest
handshake ever in the world. Does that have to do
with anything. I'm like, we can leave it at denim
vest because I was very happy with they all wear
pendance with f piano. Yeah that's enough. Yeah, No, we

(07:17):
also need a handshake. And they have that one song
that whenever they hear it, it just brings them all
together and they have to I still don't know what
song that is that either, because it's not clear because
they danced to. The movie opens with voice over explaining this,
You're like, you know that one song that your group
will and don't get and then sucking voice over. But

(07:38):
so much emphasis is placed on that because it's the
first thing you hear in the movie. You think it's
going to pay off later and then it doesn't. I'm
just like, Oh, I almost forgot they had that dumb
handshake until they did it at the end. I was like, oh,
that's still stupid. I forgot about the pendance until the
end where Regina Hall grabs her necklace and then everyone
else grab their neck goes like what's happening? And I

(07:58):
was like, oh, we even we haven't seen that in
an hour. We haven't think I made that connection. Yeah,
there are so many friendship talismans, like, hey, they're all friends.
Did you know they like each other? But sometimes they
don't get along, which is pretty much the story. I mean,
this is a more much more character driven piece. Uh,
this is a character's film. Actor, this is an actor's film. Yes,

(08:21):
I would agree. So the stories basically that Ryan Pierce
is like a successful author and kind of public figure,
and she has this pretty much pretty Oprah yeah, but
connected with a dude. Right. Her brand is built around
the fact that she can have it all. So she

(08:41):
has this very handsome husband, but she's also got this career.
So her whole thing is like, I have a personal
life and a professional life. Clean Latifa's characters like Perez
Hilton sort of like a like a gossip blog, like
a go FuG yourself. Yeah, yeah, it's a deep. Somebody

(09:03):
brought it up like two weeks ago, and I've just
been saying, remember that website. I was obsessive. I don't
remember that. Oh god, that was like middle like I
had to sneak onto the school library computer to see anyway.
So Ryan gets invited to be the guest of honor
at Essence Fest in New Orleans, but she and her

(09:24):
pussy Posse haven't lost. I'm sorry, what did I say,
Leonardo Dicapria, what I think? I don't think of them.
I think the terrible Facebook group we were all a
part of, remember Rest in Paradise that this is for
sure not the first time I will accidentally say pussy

(09:45):
Pussey and I am sorry. You're basically tubbing the bar.
So the Flossy Posse, they haven't really spoken in a
few years and they kind of like fell out of
touch just because their lives all got so busy, as
you do as an a adult. So Ryan takes this
opportunity of being invited to essence Fest to sort of
get all the gals together because she's got like VI

(10:06):
I p Access and they're like, we're going to get
together when I'm a crazy weekend. We're gonna party and
it's going to be just like old times. She has
this is funny like plot driven vision at the beginning
where it was like she's just sitting there and then
she's talking to her manager or the Kate walking she
she was in the secret best parts of the movie.
She is great, she I love in all things. But

(10:30):
Kate Walsh goes up to Regina and Regina Hall all
of a sudden, just like I've got to get the oh,
because she sees two makeup artists who are only two
women who probably just met on the job today, you know, laughing,
and she's like, I missed laughing with other women. It's
pretty attenuous. I was like, oh, is that the inciting

(10:52):
incident when she looked to her left. Yeah, but whatever
it got the movie started, sure, So they all get together.
They go to New Orleans. You find that Ryan and
Sasha have a little bit of beef. You find that
which doesn't get explained until like fucking so deep in this,
I'm like, why don't we get a hint of it before?

(11:13):
Like why are we finding out almost at the end
what happened? You would think that that would be some
sort of like second act, like yeah, because I was
like I was at first. I was like, oh, it's
kind of cool. They're not going to tell us right away,
But they don't tell you till an hour and a
half in and then it's just shouted and it's like, oh,
you both suck. That's basically what we find out. Yeah,

(11:35):
we're you expecting this much interrupting because I'm sure it's Yeah.
So Lisa meanwhile, she has a couple of kids, she
was married and divorced, and she's this like her character
sort of built on the fact that she's like a
very nurturing, motherly person who kind of left her wild

(11:55):
party girl days behind. Yes, but I think that they
a lot of her character points are built like she's uptight, right,
she's up tight and there she's uptight now, right, but
once she gets a dick in her she's gonna losten
right up. Yeah, yeah, I thought that that character was
interesting to me. We'll get there. And then Dina Tiffany

(12:15):
had a character. She is still a wild party gal.
She had Clamidia at one point. That's her backstory that
we learned, and the words and weird fucking wigs throughout
the nineties apparently every time just like the worst fucking wig. Also,
I'm like, okay, can we just talk about that that
like scene where she has Clamidia. No one was wearing
backpacks at that point in the two thousand's we only

(12:38):
started wearing backpack persons again like last year. Like I
was also, how the funk old are they? Because in
the opening montage they're like dancing like it's like they're
on in living color, and I'm like, wait a minute,
but they graduated. I call bullshit. That's not what was popular.
And I'm just like, what they weren't in college for

(12:59):
fucking seven year or what? I'm not doing the math right,
I think that's six years? But whatever. Anyway, too many years. Well,
Queen Latifa was getting so many degrees. It takes a while.
I know this from experience I had. Yeah, I do
have nine degrees. I can't hard for well, I was

(13:20):
going to sing an in sing song that's not need degree. Sorry, guys,
that one is the hardest thing I ever do. Just
sid around and walk away pretending out so good. And
then the follow up what kind of harmonizing I'm not

(13:41):
good at harmonizing? Do you want to start that girl? Yes,
it's all you should call it the pussy Possum. And
then they follow up single Una Noche love You Just
One Night. That's a j LO song for sure. Oh
it's nicer time of that's right. What Delo has. Delo

(14:04):
has waiting for tonight. Yes, here in my arms waiting
for tonight and had a couple of minutes thing, just
let me nay on the track for a minute. Can
I reveal something stupid about myself? Which please? Whenever you

(14:28):
girls were listening to that kind of music, I was
listening to Corn. Oh I love I've seen Corn. Lie
we we could talk about. Let me tell you something.
I saw Corn on the freak on Unleashed tour back
in day. Okay. I I got in trouble because remember
when Lint Biscuit did that Napster tour and they were like,

(14:49):
we'll give you a free concert. Well, my friends all
told their mom that they were at my house, and
I told my mom I was at my friend's house,
which resulted in my big gass white mom showing up
with her bobble fucking station wagon, embarrassing the funk out
of my black ass and like grounding me the rest
of the summer and sending me to El Paso. So
I have a fucking skin in the new metal game, bitch,

(15:10):
is what I'm saying. Oh my god, that's an extreme
sound anything. I cried when I met Marylyn. I will
get into it. I almost got a twiggy tattoo out
of fucking. Anyways, we're gonna we could have a we
could talk about this. Can you tell me something embarrassing.
I don't think it's embarrassing. I think it's great. Tell
me about your time. I just basically talked over. I

(15:33):
didn't needed to be heard. I didn't do nearly anything
as hard as like going to a concert in line
to my parents about it. In fact, I didn't go
to a concert until I was like I think twenty Yeah,
I've left a very awful, sheltered life. My mom and
I went to see the Backstreet Boys the night before
nine eleven that it was basically her fault. Wow, it

(15:58):
was brutal. What a reveal. Yeah, but we didn't know
at the time. It was literally my mom at one
point because she's just like a dupe. As we were
talking about I was like, oh, yeah, that concert was
so much fun because I was like whatever, nine or ten,
and then she was just like, yeah, it really was
a simpler time. I was like, Mom, chill, it was

(16:20):
the night before, so obviously similar time. I guess you
guys could walk to the Airport Gate together. That's about
the only bit different. Well anyway, so back to girls trip, right,
all right, woman talking about our old as experience. So
the four women are in New Orleans. The first night

(16:43):
they go out and they get a little crazy. They're
at a party, but early on they learned that Ryan's
husband Stewart, has been having a possible affair with this
woman named Simone, who is an Instagram model. And can
we just talk about how every hot woman in black
media has this voice? And Simone when she confronts Queen Latifa, yeah,

(17:05):
maybe I'll give you the hot tip on your website,
and then she like pivots. I'm like, why do you
have to talk like that? Like like since like fucking
Harlem nights, like every like sexy black woman in a
thing always has this voice. I'm very upset and I'm
in parting real important information, but I can't fucking find
the breath to tell you. It's like half panting that

(17:29):
my fucking waist clinchers keeping my diet ram from fully toping.
So I don't have the breath to bait you out. Yeah,
good point breath saying, but it was spot on sounds
like yeah, she can't fully inhale. We'll get to her
character too, because the way that character is treated is

(17:52):
all over the place, like like she does have a
great but though that keeps getting brought up, and it's true,
they're never never. So yeah, this character Simone is introduced
and there's like a photograph of her kissing Ryan's husband Stewart,
another trope of the genre of like every time someone's

(18:14):
romantic partner is caught cheating, it's in glorious, high quality
ten A d P. I'm like, took this picture. It's
like where they posing? Is this like country homes? Like
it's also like Pertie tame too, Like I mean having
seen like the real like videos and footage of like

(18:35):
people cheating, Like it's never that glamorous. Yeah, it's like
pixelated raw dogging and there's a double chin in the background. Anyways,
gorgeous cheating photos and honestly great point. So Sasha, Lisa
and Dina I'll find out about this and they're like, hey, Ryan,

(18:56):
your husband is kissing another woman. And Ryan's like, actually,
I already knew about this, and they're like, no, it
happened like last night. She's like, oh crap, So this
becomes sort of an ongoing conflict where this woman keeps
showing up because she's also there at essence fast and
Stuart's all like, no, this is all like, I'm not
going to talk to her anymore. This is over. We're

(19:16):
gonna work on our marriage, and Ryan believes it, and
then it's that storyline kind of comes to a head
and we're letting her so hard. Every single time he's
on screen. He's like, you need me, you need me,
you need me. I'm not going to change, but you
need me. But she doesn't need him. He needs her twisted.
He is cut out of the Target Walmart esque a

(19:39):
deal and what is it? Mary mart I love how
they go out of the way to not give too
much emphasis on that deal because it's like a plot point.
But I feel like, also, it's like in today's climate,
no one's like rooting for the Target deal, Like, oh,
I hope that, like this really sinister corporation comes out

(20:01):
on top no matter what. Yeah. Yeah, that's another component
of the story where Ryan and her agent Liz, although
totally but her character's last name is Develli, which I
couldn't help but notice sounds a little bit like devil,

(20:24):
which she is kind of purtrained to be. She's like,
is the devil? I mean she spends the whole movie.
It's like not that far from Kurella de Ville. Like
she's and she's not a good character. I mean she's
a good character, but she like she makes a lot
of missteps in the story. Yeah, I'm like, fire her.

(20:46):
And why is she always the funk around? Yeah? I mean, look,
I guess she's trying to like garner this deal for Ryan,
this huge Why is it happening during this fucking other
job in the middle of working the deal has to
be made during Essence Fest. Also, like shout out to
Essence Fest for fucking sponsoring this entire movie, right Jesus?

(21:09):
And I maybe really want to go to Essence fast
y'all never been? Would go? It sounded? Yeah, I mean
it was like, what was that movie? Because the framework
of Essence Fence makes total sense for this movie. Was
that movie with Vince Vaughn that's on the Google campus
and that's the Something Turns or something where he and
Owen Wilson are like where we were get Google and

(21:30):
that's the movie. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. No,
so I read the script that, like an early draft
was very good hot brag. It was in graduate school
where I did go to get a master's and screw
here in a second, I hate to bring it up.
R and Sasha the gossip blogger or both educated, strong

(21:51):
black women. So yeah, I mean that's pretty much the story.
It's Ryan trying to get this deal and impress this woman, Bethany,
her agents helping her out. She's there with all of
her friends. Uh, Stuart's cheating on her. Everything kind of
comes to a head at the end of the movie
where there's this big speech where Ryan's like, no, I
can't have it all and where I'm making my marriage

(22:12):
work and da dada, and then she's like, wait a minute,
this is not the message I want to send out
into the world, even though this is the message she
built her empire on. She's like, let me just dismantle
that really quick and say a different thing, which is
like you just got to be true to yourself and
friendship and da dada. And then Bethany is so impressed.
She's like, actually, yeah, let's still give you that deal,

(22:34):
and we're going to cut Stewart out of it, and
it's just about you being a strong independent woman, and
then she brings in Sasha and then their brands again. Yes,
I just like that Kate Walls. She's like, it turns
out single women are a huge markets, Like, oh, you
mean every person watching this movie, we don't. And that

(22:55):
is Kate Walsh's characters big takeaway from the entire she
get tired. She's like, oh, turns out I did not
know what my job was, Like, how could you? That's
your job to know. Yeah, I can't come on anyway.
So that's the story. I'm glad we got there, but
also brought up corn. We did do a full on singing,

(23:19):
bright beautiful. Yeah. I always want to be like movies
where they have like dance parties breakout are like singing
breaking out is like unrealistic of women. But we did that.
But we did do it. That happens in this movie
where there's an extended scene where they're they're in a
dance off, which is one of my favorite scenes in
the movie, where the flossy posse and then good Simone,

(23:42):
thank you. I paused and I was like, please the
pussy pussy. So the flossy posse and then Simone also
has a posse with exactly four women and then they
have a dance off as why simone at this club?
Like what what are you doing? Yeah? Well, I think

(24:04):
we've pointed out that maybe the story doesn't make entirely
a sense, and maybe isn't the most tightly written movie,
but I mean it's it's like a hugely important movie.
So we see almost no representation of women of color
in movies, and certainly not where they are framed as
the stars, the main characters. So that was just really

(24:26):
fucking awesome to see. I feel like so many movies
make just huge mistakes when representing people of color. It's
either that the movie doesn't have any people of color
in their entire movie or yea, yeah, and hundreds of
others almost a huh. If a movie does have a
person of color main character, we often don't know anything

(24:48):
about their life or their back story. We talked about
this on like the Craft episode where the one woman
of color we only we don't know anything about her
family life, or her interests or anything. I can never
go to her house, but we go to everyone else. Yeah,
so that's a huge thing. And or the person of
color character will be some sort of trope or stereotype

(25:11):
rather than like an actually fleshed out, well developed character. Yeah.
I mean, like my my boyfriend posted because he also
had to watch it a bunch of times because we
share a bed, and I was like this, we're watching it,
and he posted that He's like, well, I don't think
that it passed the Backtel test because just to speak
to what you were saying. In response to a very
lively common thread about the subject um, somebody brought up

(25:35):
what they called the DuVernay test, which is like bringing up,
you know, do the people of color have names? Are
they being comforting or supporting of like the white characters,
like are they magical or not? And I'm like, well,
I mean people of color magical, but you know what
I mean. But this movie, like you know, passes that
other one too, you know what I mean, just for

(25:56):
those reasons. Yeah, yeah, which is remarkable because we should
so few more. Yeah, yeah, yea, yeah, definitely, Yeah. I
could definitely see a movie not passing the Beckel test,
but definitely passing the DNA test, especially if it's a
movie about black men. That is the thing that see happening.
Shout out to black men, black men, You're doing great. Yeah. Yeah,

(26:19):
it's like such a remarkable thing to see. So few
mainstream movies feature even one developed person of color character,
let alone several like this movie does. And like in
the first few minutes of the movie, we we get
a clear sense of each of the four main characters.
It's four black women over the age of forty, again
representation that we rarely see on screen, and you either

(26:40):
like find out what they do for a living or
some other distinguishable trade about their character. I think you
find out what all of them to except for Tiffany Hatters,
she don't really She's works in an office some kind
of bang, get something fired. But it seems like that.
It seems like that because that seems it was super fun,
and then you get the thing that that had happened,
like that happens like every other day often. Yeah, she's like,

(27:01):
actually I do still have this job, and they're like, um, okay,
we're not going to fight, right Yeah. I mean, like
the top five minutes of this movie is like giving
all of our main characters even she's some kind of
doctor or medical professional. She's a nurse. Yeah, she was
wearing scrubs. I don't know. I saw her and I
thought doctor, especially with that house. But who knows? Right?

(27:23):
That was another unclear thing because they do say she's
a nurse a couple of different times. But then we
find out again, like in that conversation very late in
the movie, that she lives with her mom, where at
the beginning I thought that she like mom was visiting
over it, yeah, to take care of her kids, right, yeah,
So I I mean, who knows. There there's some stuff
that I'm like, what what I didn't I totally missed

(27:44):
that she was a nurse? They do you mention it
at least because the job this movie. Because Regina Hall's character,
I'm pretty sure there's like one at least one moment.
It's usually directed to cleanly Tiva, but she's like she
can be very condescending to her friends and is condescending
to each of them as it pertains to like something

(28:06):
about their life at least one like where I mean
with queenly Teeth is pretty constant of like, well, you
run a gossip blog, even when queenly Teeth is like yeah,
and this is why you should listen to me because
I run a gossip blog and I know what they're
gonna do to you, but she also like sort of
makes fun of Tiffany has his character for being like
loose and like too crazy for her age. And then

(28:27):
I like does come down on Jada Pinket's character for
either being like too uptight or at one point she
was like, you're a nurse. I'm like, yeah, that's great
what you're doing. It's really good. It's weird. Yeah, I
don't know. So, like I would classify this sort of
as like a girl group movie. We've done a few

(28:49):
others of those on the podcast already, Mean Girls, Heathers,
the Ghostbusters reboot, Clueless, Love that episode, Thank You, Spice
Wirrel Old, the Craft, The Craft a league of their own.
I would even count. Yeah, we've done a lot, but
there's a ton of others that we haven't done. Bridesmaids,
Pitch Perfect Now, and then Grease, Whip It, Bring It On,

(29:10):
Charlie's Angels, Crossroads, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Josie, Josie
and the Pussycats, Little Women, Steel Magnolia's Nine, Five First
spring Breakers, Job Breaker, rough Night. There's a ton of these.
Almost all of the ones I just named have either
no people of color or one maybe in their like

(29:33):
main ensemble cast. Um of the ones that I could
find that we're like super mainstream that featured a predominantly
women of color cast where dream Girls waiting to exhale
in a movie called Set It Off, which I you
don't know about. I don't know it wasn't you gotta
get another get another black woman on here and talk

(29:54):
about set it Off? It is an important movie to
black people. It's an amazing movie. And Jada Pinkett Smith
and Queen Lantifa are both in it, and they make
a lot of references in Girls Trip to like a
couple of usually in that fight scene with the wigs
and the cool This movie it's about a bunch of

(30:16):
women robbing a bank and Queen Zita plays a lesbian
in it, and it's like full on out, which is
like awesome, and it's tighter suck yeah right away and
yeah usually um if this is a this is why
it's important that like black artists also, right, I think

(30:37):
because the reason that those movies that you all you
listed got made is because of black writers. And we
already know the statistics that came out last year, which
literally broke my heart and made me cry about like
just the lack of black writers and writers rooms. TBS
I think had zero black writers on any of their

(30:57):
writing staff. Um, which punch me in the fucking pus.
I mean, my god, my play possy pocket. Um. And
you know this movie is actually one of the first
movies in history that be directed by black people, written
by black people. And how starring black people to surpass

(31:19):
I guess a hundred million dollars? I read that I AMDB,
So it's like really an important movie totally and why
all black artists need to write? Yeah? Absolutely. I was
reading this Hollywood Reporter article entitled Girl's Trip box office
breaks are rated comedy curse proves power of diversity just
a quick thing at the topisodes. For decades, Hollywood studios

(31:41):
have operated on the premise that a film featuring a
black cast wouldn't necessarily reach and play to a wider audience.
But movie goers are taking matters into their own hands,
challenging that assumption and proving Hollywood wrong. The latest example
came over the weekend, as universal critical darling Girls Trip
opened to a rousing thirty point four million dollars the
best start bubble their budget by yeah, yeah, yeah, the

(32:03):
best start for an R rated comedy in two years,
and the best showing for any live action comedy so
far this year. Because the movie it had a budget
of nineteen million and then it grossed domestically over a
hundred and fifteen million. Makes my eyes misty. That's amazing,
so good, you know. I mean, they're not wrong in

(32:23):
thinking that a lot of black ensemble movies don't do well.
And it's also because I think there's a quality issue
and a lot of black entertainment. You know, there's movies
like Almost Christmas and all these other kind of like
we don't get a lot of like really well written
black entertainment. I think, um, and I think that this
movie kind of teeters on the brink of not being

(32:45):
particularly good in terms of like the story, you know
what I mean, Um, so it does happen. I mean,
Tyler Perry comes out with movies and in that vein,
they don't do well because they're not good. And the
reason this movie was so fucking good is to have
you know, like, if she wasn't in the movie, it
would not have done well. And I mean even like

(33:06):
looking at like if you look at that character on paper,
that's a hard character to like pull off and pull
off with like yeah, you know, she kills it. She's
so funny. She also improved a lot of her lines
and wrote a lot of her line like herself, so
like that stuff is. I mean, her stand up is
incredibly funny. Like it's no surprise. I wrote on some
of my favorite jokes from the movie and they were

(33:28):
all by her. She has all the laugh lines in
that movie. Yeah, yeah, and he wouldn't be funny without her.
She calls Stewart a milk dudhead. It's great because everyone's
thinking it. You look at him and you're like, he
looks like a whopper, looks like a milk and she says,
you look like an ugly dirty Mr. Clean. And then

(33:50):
the scene where she's demonstrating grape fruiting and then at
the end of it says, you never want to do
this with a pineapple. I almost died and that's gonna
like when she is doing it, and then she's like, oh,
she does like a little cosmy thing and then she
like licks the balls like amazing, pretends to choke. She's like,
you gotta pretend to choke, you know, you don't what

(34:10):
I want to make a man, think the man my favorite,
my favorite Tiffany had I mean, it's like it's also good,
but they're at the end of that weird late in
the movie exposition scene where she like keeps leaving and
then has like one more thing to say and kept
keeps turning around, and it's just like this long shot
of her like trying to leave the scene five different times.

(34:31):
She's like, your car because I don't want you here,
no credit, your low limit? Have an asked? She stole
everything from Ryan and she's like, fine, I'll return it,
including her idea, Like what the fun was she planning
to do? She returns everything one thing at a time
and then and then like stump. It's so good. So

(34:54):
the scene where she buys the bottle of absence and
then she keeps being like he's like this will last
you five years, She like five months, god, and he's like, no,
you're not hearing me. She's like five days. Great, and
then she leaves by saying like this is about to
be used very irresponsibly. Thank you so good. Yeah, she
she for sure made this movie. Her performance is so funny,

(35:15):
Like some of the humor in the movie wasn't for me.
Like I don't like grosshoft humor. So like the scene
where they're all like peeing on the zip line all
over everybody. I was like, first of all, who peas
via a fire hoset spreading out of there? Like that's
not I like that. Jada Pinka did it, and then
timmany Hattish did it. I think I missed that the

(35:36):
first go round. I mean she like Jada Pinka did
it on accident and Tiffany did it on there. I
mean there's like a lot of That's like part of
what is interesting about this movie to me is it
is such a set up we've seen before, but never
within all women of color casts. So there are like

(35:56):
tropes of the genre that you see of like I
love the grape fruiting scene, but there's something like that
in every like version of this setup of like a
gross out sexy and a gross up the body function
scene that's gross farting shitting, The Melissa McCarthy shooting in
the sink thing and bridesmaid singer first thing at that
and then the whole absinthe sequence is like ovary to me,

(36:22):
Like there are definitely like tropes of this setup. But
that's like I don't know. It's like, well that's what
we signed up for, right, Yeah. And I mean it's
just nice to see a different version of that, like
different representation, because usually we see it by fratty white
dudes in a movie or like hot white ladies and
it's right, So it's just I mean, it's cool to

(36:45):
see black women do it for once. Yeah. Um, it's
also through our lands, so all the jokes and the humor,
it's just like, it's just it was gorgeous for that.
But one of the things I'm like most, I almost
didn't think this movie passed the back toel test because
of the amount to focus on men in this movie.
We almost lose character development and finding out more about

(37:07):
their friendship because of all of the ship about dudes,
all of the stuff about there's not so much it's
so male focused. My fear that like one thing I
was afraid of happening the whole movie because we are
forced to wait so long to find out what happened
between Regina, which was over a man. I was so
worried that it was going to be some sort of

(37:28):
falling out of her a guy. And it's sort of
it had to do with Stewart. The reason that so
the reveal is that Regina and Queen Latifa had started
a publication together, but then Regina pulled out rather abruptly
when it seemed like she could do better with Stewart,
so it did. It was sort of a round a man.
I was afraid it was going to just be like, Oh,

(37:50):
we got to fight about a guy and then we
can't be because that happens all of the s. Also, like,
why didn't Queen Latifa just play a lesbian in this
I was wondering that because she doesn't have except for
that time when she makes that with that lamp, and
she doesn't, which is amazing, what a great physical Also,

(38:10):
the best sex scene in the movie, um was Queen
land Sifa hunched on a lineup UM with her hair
swinging um like you know, she never has any romantic scene,
so it was interesting. Yes, yeah, there's not there's not
really any queer representation in this movie that I In fact,
they make some remarks that are kind of vaguely homophobic,

(38:32):
even a couple of times in the movie where they'd
be talking to a man and they'd be like, oh,
do you have a wife, No, do you have a
husband like kind of like condescending and just like not
very like what if he was gay and what's wrong
with that? And they just, yeah, I would have been
nice to see some queer representation. Queen land Sifa could
just come out already, you know what I mean, she's

(38:53):
not officially out, but like there's all the paparazzi pictures,
you know, or her and her girlfriend Abony, that's her name.
I thought this same thing about Um. I didn't articulate
this on the episode, but we recently did an episode
about the Ghostbusters reboot, and I was like, Kate McKinnon
lesbian actor could have made lesbian, yes, and that would

(39:13):
have given people the opportunity. I mean, her being lesbian
might not have served this story at all, but like
it just would have been right and it would have
given like young people an opportunity to see lesbian representation
on screen. So I was like, that would have been cool.
But but I also kind of wanted to compare this
movie to that Ghostbusters reboot because we talked about on

(39:35):
that episode that the characters in that movie and Ghostbusters
aren't very well fleshed out. They don't really have distinct
personalities save for Kate McKinnon's character being you know, a
little cookie and maybe socially awkward. I think that that
day is just like Paul Feig does not know how
to reel it in and it's like improvised, I don't know,

(39:56):
make it up, figure it out, and so then like
I don't know. But but conversely a Girl's Trip, I
think it's characters are much more fleshed out. So I'm sure, yeah,
I think it was probably to do with like the
women's improv though I don't know how much of it
was actually written in right, because Timmy Hattes She's character.

(40:17):
There's no way that they wrote that like that, you
know what I mean, She for sure like built all
of that stuff. Yeah, there's some I wanted to talk
a little bit about Lisa, So that's Jada Pinkett's character,
because there were a few moments that kind of like
I don't know, like my antenna went up a few
different times because she's framed from the get go as
she's divorced. She is hyper protective of her children, kind

(40:40):
of like a type a uptight character, and her friends
give her some ship for that. Fine. We have seen
a character like this a million times. But there's like
a few moments like Back to Bed where they go
to this hotel and there's that guy who shows up
thinks that they're like, is trying to pay three dollars
for a blowjob? I forgot about that. Yeah, that's a

(41:02):
very weird moment in this movie where I don't know,
I'm interested in what you guys think about it, because
he shows up, he is like, there's usually a woman
who gives me a three dollar blowjobreche Rochelle, And they're like,
oh no, get out, and then he spits on Regina
hall leaves and then flashes them and they all freak out,

(41:25):
but kind of in like a well this is so
weird and kind of funny kind of way. And then
Lisa as a button. I'm like, is anyone gonna say anything,
like what how is the movie viewing this scene? You know,
at the very end, Lisa's like, I don't think that
was funny at all, and that's just and that's the
end of the scene. Was like, I don't know, how

(41:46):
did you I was I thought that was the funniest
part of the scene with her button. Yeah, yeah, I
was like, well, at least someone said also, I liked
seeing dick in the movie. I was like, hey, tight dick.
We've seen eight billion boobs in movies, and yeah, we
hardly ever see dicks. So even when it's a gross

(42:07):
stick like that, dudes was and he was doing okay,
I mean for age, you know he wasn't. I just
was like, don't don't spit on her gin I missed that.
I think he spits on her face. Yeah, that doesn't
get addressed. We cut to the next scene and they're
going out and everyone's teasing Lisa for her outfit, which
is ridiculous. That's also kind of a running gag in

(42:28):
the movie where they're making fun of what she's wearing.
That was a great Tiffany Hashland to where she's like,
you looks like someone's porter you can grab. That was
queenland Tifa. Tiffany Hatrish was like, uh, and don't take
so long back they're making to Molly's or whatever that was.
But then that one too, They there's like a little
moment where they're basically like, and go shave your huge
bush has bush? Alan let her have her bush. She

(42:58):
should change, but she doesn't have to share her bush.
Dress was amazing. Can we talk about it, and I
was like, I want that dress. There's a lot of
really good looks and really weird look can we I
have never in my fucking life seeing Queen Latifa dressed
so fucking horrendously ever fucking dress I'm gonna I am so.

(43:21):
I tweeted about it at the time, and I'm tweeted
about it this weekend when I rewatched. Why why was
she dress up early? Like just because she's a size
fourteen doesn't mean that she needs to wear like just
every ugly, ill fitting thing they could find. I was like,
could she not get a fucking towards sponsorship fashion Nova
Curb couldn't step in and give the bitch something that
like showed off her waist. I mean, And it's weird

(43:43):
because they she even says in the hotel room like,
oh I have to look really good because I'm sponsored,
or but like she says when she's covering the live
having her having to return her clothes. But I'm like,
how do you How do you live in that apartment
and drive the car that was repossessed and not have
also spent some of that money like looking really good.

(44:05):
She's dressed like a rockabilly duvet at one point. I
mean another time, it's like she has a fucking target
prom dress that's also a drumper romper thing, a lot
of jumper romper things for her. I just I was
so disappointed in that. I'm just sick of like as
as a big bitch. I'm sick a big bitch is
looking ugly on screen, Okay, like everyone else gonna have

(44:25):
a cute look except for queenland Tifa. The only good
one she had is at the end in the second line.
I liked that dress anyways. Sorry, no valid points. There's
a and there's like then there was no lot like
lack of There was a lot of outfit changes in
this new for you, Like there was one. Yeah, there
were tons about so good. I liked everyone else's costumes,

(44:46):
Tiffany hash, I don't think I had a bad outfit.
I want that dress she was wearing when she's on
the airplane singing am every Woman, I was like, oh
that was that was another genre trope that it was like,
oh drunk on an plane. Yeah yeah. Can we talk
about Kate Walsh's character because so you first meet her

(45:09):
and she's like sexually harassing Stewart Number one. Yeah, it's
very uncomfortable way. I mean white women and their treatment
of white Here's the here's the thing. This is a
general statement. And before any of your white lady listeners
try to get at me and my mentions, my mom
is white, my dad is black, So I'm talking about us, girlfriends.

(45:30):
Um listen. White women are the first people to jump
up and shout about sexual harassment. But yet let's even
look at like stand ups, Like white women who are
stand ups are very much like against sexual harassment and
all of this stuff. And that's great. I'm with your sister,
But then you can't have jokes in your act about
how big black men's dicks are. You can't then turn
around and completely objectify black men as these pieces of meat.

(45:52):
So that scene, for me, I was like, that's realistic.
I like seeing like white women treat like touching them
inappropriately and blick just basically taking them and making them
just their junk. You know, it happens all the time
with white women. So for me, I was like, oh,
that's a real thing. And also even though like as
an audience member, you want Regina to like fight and

(46:13):
be like don't don't want to touch you but in
real life you wouldn't. You wouldn't. Especially this woman's your agent.
She's like helping money get work and stuff like that.
I wanted your take on it, certainly, um, but I
thought it was probably a comment on that very thing
where white women society in general, but you know, especially
again fucking shitty white people, specially for sending y'all suck.

(46:36):
I'm just saying, like every election you show up and
you vote the wrong fucking way, talk to your aunties
and your alma's wherever the funk you were from. Ladies,
Ladies have them tough conversations. You're supposed to be happening enough.
I'm sorry, what was I figured it was probably, oh,
this is good. I thought her like inappropriately touching Stewart

(46:59):
was probably a comment on like the over sexualization of
black men in culture, society, media. And then that conversation,
I mean, and then doesn't that the other I think
that this is like the longest we see the month
screen together. There's that conversation between Kate Walsh and Regina
Hall that comes right afterwards, where Kate Walsh just like
not picking up on like she girl, yeah gonna get turned.

(47:24):
Yeah it turned yeah, she's using a lot of like
she's for sure like ultually appropriating a lot of language.
And Regina Jamie you mentioned this, like handles this very
well and that she's like it's crazy how well she's like,
it's like it I watched that scene two or three

(47:45):
times because it's like I don't I mean, I'm interested
in what we all think about it, but it's like
it's I was like, whoa, you know, so perfectly stated
and also is so not on her to have to say.
At the same time, it's just I appreciate to that.
Like at the end of Regina's speech there even Kate

(48:05):
Walsh not going to try to learn her character's name. Um,
she says, I'm not even offended. Thank you. That was
really touching and I get it and then turns around
and you know, obviously it doesn't get it, but like,
like I think that it was so it's what you know,
a lot of us think and feel, you know, yeah,
I feel like Kate Walsh's character was like the queen
of like microaggressions almost in this movie, because she's like

(48:25):
just borrowing a lot of language, and Regina's response is
you can't keep saying these things like, you can't keep
talking like this. You're going to Essence Fest. There's going
to be half a million people celebrating black womanhood. You
are a guest act appropriately, And then Kate Walsh, her character,
she ignores her and basically just keeps doing it. And

(48:46):
then every time after that they're just kind of like shrug,
like we tried, and I guess she's just going to
keep being an awful white woman. But yeah, I just
I thought that was like a really awesome scene to
see play out in the movie where she's actually confronting
Kate character about it, although I will say it does
come up later and it actually kind of works, I
guess to a benefit during the cooking demonstration when she's like,

(49:09):
you know, it's a colloquialism, like you know, put your
put in and slap your mama, so like that, I
think it comes back a little bit. But yeah, it was.
It was a really impactful scene. I thought, Yeah, that
was I just wish the black men were treated better
sometimes my white women. Yeah. There, and and the fact
that like Regina's character leads with She's like and I'm

(49:31):
saying this out of love and like has to do
all these like qualifying her own accurate statement before she
says it. That was a really really, really really really
good scene. Can we talk about Kate Wall's drinking a candle? Um? Um?
I was talking to Danielle Perez, who you've had on
the podcast The Pocus Pocus Up. Yeah, she's one of

(49:54):
my dearest oldest friends old emphasis on the oldest. Um.
She's like to, he's like two decades older than me.
I'm not even supposed to be here. How did I
drive here? Um? No? But like that is one of
the most memorable images for me from that movie, is

(50:15):
like Kate Walsh drinking that fucking candle back in check.
I'm like, wait that that did happen? That did happen
because she's got like the wax then like melted on
her lips for a while. She tries to pay for
their drinks with her fucking shoe. I think she could
do that. And then the button on that scene is, um,

(50:37):
Queen Latifa's like here, my date will settle this build
and she's talking about the lamp because she was tripping
and making out with the lamp, and then she was
also tripping stands up and she's like, welcome, nice to
me to the lamp. It's great comedy. Her character is
like too much in every conceivable, like, yeah, the Queen

(51:02):
of micro aggressions. And I think just like, oh, yeah,
this is something I've seen and possibly even been guilty
of myself in the past, because you know, white ladies
have to be fucking accountable. Is like of overcompensating. Um, Like,
her character is constantly overcompensating. She genuinely doesn't get it,
but also seems to want to be accepted, but she doesn't.

(51:25):
She's not putting in the work and she's not actually listening,
and so she just ends up like in every scene
she's overcompensating. In some ways it's like uncomfortable, and then
in other ways she's drinking a candle, right, And also
like the whole time making money off of black people,
black culture, which is also I think a comment on
the entertainment industry in general, like you like to make

(51:48):
money off of us, but yet you don't know us.
You know, yeah, I think she's doing it is maybe
a way to say like, yeah, I can relate to
or like, see I'm relatable, but like not putting in
any effort to listen and have a discussion and things
like that, which is timely as fun because we all
have to have these conversations. Yeah, anyway, can we talk

(52:12):
about Simone? Talk about something Simon? Simon? So Simone is
the Instagram model who Stewart is having an affair with
that Ryan sort of knows about, but she doesn't necessarily
know all the details. Then in the movie later on,
Simone reveals that she is pregnant with Stewart's baby. That

(52:33):
scene to me when Simone, because she's around and it's like,
you know, there's like the cooking demonstration where it turns
into this big physical comedy scene whatever. But that scene
with Queen Latifa, that was so bizarro to me the
way it played out, because it the first half of
that scene, I was like, oh, we're getting to know
this character a little bit, and it was before she

(52:55):
was kind of this like two dimensional, like she's just
the person that Regina husband is cheating with. But then
she comes in and she like she's she has a
few good lines in there of like I didn't make
this baby by myself, you know, like basically asking that
Stewart be accountable to her and not just totally fucking
blow her off because he you know, was an active

(53:17):
part of that relationship, and for that part, I was like, oh,
this is cool. I feel like we don't usually get
to see the other woman character treated like this. But
then she's like, by the way, I'm blackmailing you goodbye,
and then as I was like, oh, man, kind of
for me, like sold out the little bit of characterization
she was given, because then she just became the villain again,

(53:39):
like she's a person for two seconds and then she
has a villain again. And then they said she looked
like a dog, although that wasn't really funny the whole
Tiffany hash that's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah that did that?
Did I feel like she was kind of cheated out
of more an opportunity to be more like well rounded

(54:02):
character because then she I mean, sure, like movies have
to have villains, like not everyone's going to be nice,
but well, I think of movie doesn't really have to
have I don't know. I I felt like I'm talking
through this in real time, but I feel like, how
different would the movie be if that scene doesn't end
with her saying, by the way, I'm blackmailing you goodbye?
Because I feel like that the conversation between Regina Hall

(54:24):
and Stewart would still have happened anyways. Like, I just
I don't know why she had to be putting Queen
Lativa's character. I think given her some skin in the game,
and that's why she did it. That makes sense, right,
because then whenever that photos leaked, Regina thinks queen, which
is a weird jump. Also, I'm like, I didn't even

(54:44):
hear her one minute believed the Queen Latifa like was
doing that, because even if it set up that she's
like losing her house and like her car is getting
repossessed and all this stuff, and she's like in a
financial crisis, but her character is established and developed in
such a way that she would never sell her friend basically.
So well, that's that brings me to the point of

(55:04):
a lot of the conflict in this movie derives from
relationships between these women. So it's either like within the
group there's tension or outside of the group there's tension,
usually with Simone. And some of the conflict does derive
from Stewart and him being a piece of ship and
cheating on Ryan and stuff like that. But Gloria's high

(55:24):
definition every single time. They're beautiful. But the fact remains little.
A lot of the conflict in the movie derives from
complications between female characters, which I mean, I don't know what,
if any statement is being made there, but society perpetuates
this idea that women are caddy and there's all this

(55:46):
drama between women and women can't get along and stuff
like that, and movies that promote this. I'm always like, well, like, yeah,
I don't know, I don't know how I feel about it,
And I don't know. I mean, is there a version
of because there are so many versions of this setup,
is there a version of this setup where there are

(56:07):
main cast members so that we've got to put them
in conflict right each other or nothing happens. I don't know.
I know, yeah, I don't know, but maybe maybe that's
not true. I'm trying to think of like a counterpoint
to that, but there, I mean, there's a there's a
lot of the conflict in this movie comes from Regina
Hall's marriage and how her friends perceive it. That's true,
So that's where a lot of it comes from. Yeah. Plus,

(56:29):
I mean, if you see a male counterpart version of
this movie where you see something like Old School or
the Hangover kind of thing where it's there's also conflict
among the male characters, so it's not necessarily a gender
specific thing. It's just sort of like how these movies
are structured and where conflict is derived, because it often
is just like interpersonal relationships between the ging. The game

(56:50):
has to break up so they can get back together
at the end, and yeah, that's to cheat a girl.
I don't think I ever have Oh man, does anyone
have any other thoughts about the movie? Yeah, I would
say that, you know, the Bechdel test is it's it's
really good and I'm glad we have it because it

(57:11):
helps frame a lot of stuff. I think that this
movie it technically passes it. But I was mentioning this earlier.
I just it's so about the men. Like there's this other,
like weird subplot about like, let's talk about the end
of the movie. Like the last scene where like Ryan's
at her speech and all the they know that she's
going to get the steal and they have a night out,

(57:32):
they go see a concert. There's this monologue that Ryan
has where she's talking about at the end of the day,
all you have is your friends, and then the image
on the screen is her hugged up with this dude
who the whole time is like basically like her night
and shining armor, like shows up like nobody has uber
in this world. Apparently I can't just call this was
the Julian I kept it calling I'm like the guy,

(57:55):
he puts them in a better hotel, he kind of
picks them up after their thing with the cops, just
all of this kind the crazy stuff, and it's it's
just like, I don't I don't know if I needed
any of that. I don't think he needed to be there. Yeah,
it didn't make sense to me, and also sort of
actively goes against what it seems like our takeaway was
supposed to be. Was like and if we're talking about

(58:16):
like the dynamic between because we haven't really talked about
the dynamic between Regina and Stewart, because it's I mean,
I think that there's a lot to unpack there, but
I feel like some of it was there was a
lot of energy being put to make fun of the
other woman, although there's also a lot of energy put
calling Stewart and milk Don and a lot of really

(58:38):
really creative insults. Uh, Like every scene we see Regina
and Stewart, and I mean he's gaslighting her to some
degree and basically saying like, well, if I'm not in
your life, your career is going to fall apart. And
we know the whole movie that you know she's going
to figure out this isn't true. But yeah, I don't know.
It's like there's there's energy put into like what there

(59:00):
didn't need to be another male character. Yeah, that that
was a romantic interest, and none of the other three
characters really got a romantic interest. We didn't even talk
about jot as little Chocolate Peace. Oh that's where it
technically ends as them looking at the thing when this
guy first comes on screen. I was in Glendale when
I saw the movie. I want you to know that,

(59:21):
like every single woman in gay Dude in that audience
was like like there was such a like a loud,
physical like vibration that went through the room when he
was like smizing up at her, and it's like and
then you see him pretty much naked except for like
greape fruits on his dick later on, which was amazing.

(59:43):
But yeah, I mean she that was a kind of
a cool one. I guess I liked that just because
we got to see him. Yeah, I mean it was great.
So with's that kind of subplot with Jada Pinkett Smith's
character and this guy who's like twenty one, she's like
like twice his age or something like that, which good
on her. So with Jada's character, her whole thing is

(01:00:04):
that she's painted is this like uptight mom who's just
like focused on her kids and she hasn't had sex
in a couple of years and everyone's like you gotta
even her mom like it was like you need to
go like dust out like cobwebs, and like, yeah, I
don't love that, right because it's basically saying, especially when
it's like a hetero thing, it's like only a man
can cure you of this, right. Well, they said like

(01:00:25):
at one point, like you know, penetration is medicinal. It's like, yeah,
that's a little heteronormative. And she also is saying like
in the drunk plane scene, she's she's kind of saying
like that masturbate all that. Yeah, she's got to shower head.
And it has been very good to me of erotica.
Oh yeah, very like intense erotica or whatever. I was like, oh,

(01:00:47):
I mean she might be fine. I don't know. Yeah,
I did that that whole like uptight lady character that
we see all the time, and then the messages like
she just needs a good digging and she cured. So like,
I don't think there was such a big difference for
me in terms of her portrayal of the characters change.
I thought that her performance was a little bit flat

(01:01:09):
and when it came to this, because I think that
you can take that character and be so uptight and
then really go lucy goosey with it. And I don't
know if she did that. I don't know if she
fully completed the arc for me as an actor. Yeah,
it's what I mean, Yeah, And I think that's that's
what's the fucking There's a movie with Sandra Bullock where
she has just terrible banks and that is a lot

(01:01:30):
of them, but everything's two weeks noticed that where basically
it's like Sandra Bullock is mean but good at her job,
and then Hugh Grant fox her and her life has
changed every movie in the nineties. I mean, Hugh Grant
must have just the magical as a dick. I mean,

(01:01:53):
can call him Firth just must be ejaculating straight up
miracles may I just say, may I just say that
Hugh Grant in Paddington Too deserves an oscar really did
such a good job and the movie. I love Paddington.
I love Paddington Too. They're terrific movies. Then treat its

(01:02:13):
female characters pretty well. I would say I think they
would make for interesting episodes. Just putting it out there,
I got your ten a message were sing but information
also important. Hugh Grant does a really bang up job
in Paddington Too. There is Hugh Grant? Is that Is
he like a guy or is he Paddington? He's a

(01:02:35):
guy's in the movie as himself. He's been as himself,
but think as himself. He's like, yeah, well yeah, he's
always playing himself. Yeah, he's never playing somebody's also playing
like a washed up actor who hasn't worked in a while.
Oh is that what he's doing and that's his character
in the he's playing himself. Yeah. Can I just really quick,
I just want to bring up one. Can I just
say shout out to Mace He made a cameo during

(01:02:58):
the movie, as did he did he? Can we talk
about like how proud I am that he got his
SAG healthcare? This year, you know what I mean. I
was like, good for you, Ma, good for you. They
were good. And there wasn't one cameo in this movie
that bugged me. And also it was the perfect set
Like my thing with cameos is if it's not like
set up just so, it bugs me. Like the fun

(01:03:18):
we did the Ghostbusters, the new one, and there's an
Azzy Osbourne cameo in that movie that makes no fucking
I don't even remember it. But we're at Essence Festival
in this and so every cameo was like well contextualized
and really welcome and excited. Alba, how do you say?
You land sand But she was great And when she
confriends Queen lind Sifa, I do think she was gonna

(01:03:41):
hurt her. They cut right in time. Yeah, hey, yeah,
let's talk about whether they were not. The movie passes
the back. Sorry, I've been like talking about it since.
What a bitch. The whole point of the podcast is
too bad things. We're actually we're trying to take it

(01:04:02):
a little bit like we use the Vectel test as
like literally step one. We don't so we can talk
about everything all the time. For our version of the
Vechtel test, the bar is very low, extremely two women
talking about not a man for literally two lines of dialogue.
This movie passes pretty handily, right if we if we

(01:04:24):
were doing it like the entire scene between two women
has to pass, this movie might not not do it
as well. But with our version, it's just a two
line exchange. So in that case talks for taking another
look at the way we look at the test too,
because it's there are some movies that pass the VCTEL
tests that are so horrible to women, and there just

(01:04:45):
happens to be a scene with a waitress with a
name at one point, right, Yeah, but yes, the female
characters who outnumber the male characters may say there's scenes
where Ryan is talking to her agent liz A out
deals or the Flossy posse, or about Regina Halls titties
at one point, so that's I guess passes the death

(01:05:07):
Lisa talks to her mom about taking care of the kids.
They all talk to each other about their friendship and
all kinds of stuff. Dina and Lesa talk about how
Dina has hid pot in her booty hole. That's the
line in the movie sometimes that made it to the
previews and all that like all the commercials that. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:05:28):
so there's tons of scenes talk about everything, and they
do talk about men a lot, but they do, but
they talk about everything. Yeah, I would say these scenes
like at some point they pivot and become exclusively the
objective becomes like getting a man for a lot of them.
Once they get to New Orleans, it's like almost of them,
like they just go straight there. That's true, but still

(01:05:48):
passes and so yeah for that. Now, let's right to
the movie. On our nipple scale zero to five nipples
based on its portrayal of women. Um, I'm gonna give
it like a four and a half. Like we've already discussed,
it's just so awesome to see representation of four women
of color on screen as the main characters. They're driving

(01:06:10):
the story. We know about them, we know about their backstory,
we see strong female friendships. Yeah, it's just really fun
to watch, and especially I love women in comedy seeing
women be funny on screen. A lot of times, if
there is a comedy movie and there is a female
character in it, she doesn't really get any of the

(01:06:30):
jokes or it's funny when she gets hit in the
face with a ball, and that's like the only comedy
that she gets to do on screen. Um, so one
of my favorite She's stupid or she's mean y Also, yeah,
can I just say that the reason why does it
get a perfect score is I feel like a lot
of too much emphasis was placed on men and the

(01:06:50):
conflict around men and oh we have to get a dick,
and oh you need to get laid by a man
and stuff like that. So that's why it doesn't get
like a perfect time. I'm just giving it a pass
because I'm black and it's a black movie, you know
what I mean? And please God, in ten years, please
let me be in a movie like this. Maybe next year. Yeah,
I need new teeth, so yeah, please So yeah, give

(01:07:13):
me your nipples too. Yeah, I'm gonna four and a
half and I'm going to each each of the four
gals gets one and then my half nipple. I'm gonna
give it to Julian because he was a nice boy
and he's cute. I know, honestly, I could have done
without him. But yeah, why do you have a mohawk?
Why did he have a mohawk and fixed spacers? Come on, dude,

(01:07:38):
get your look together. Shout out to Neoum who also
made Tero. He's in anything where there's like an artist
playing live, Neo is that artist and whatever he's always
cast a butt um. Someone make an eye of dB
for Neo's cameo records. There's got to be minimum. Well.

(01:07:59):
First of all, all this movie for me would get
five large chocolate ariolas the size of your face. Shout
out to it for featuring black women, diversity in size,
diversity in shape and hair textures, lots of lovely wigs.

(01:08:21):
I want to give them to Regina Hall's lace front,
you know what I mean. I just want to like
shout out that her pretending to wrap it up at nine.
I was like, bitch, just take it off and put
on the stand. Why are you? Who are you kidding? Um?
But no, actually I take it back. Four go to
her lace front, and one goes to Neo just because
you know he was there. We can't forget that he

(01:08:43):
was in this movie. Neo is super punctual for some reason.
He does so much. I'm like, he's got to be
like so great to work with. He's in everything when
I see him. If I saw him without his hat on,
I would have no idea what he looks like, you
know what I mean, he always has that hat and
that's the only reason. No, it's Neo his signature. Look,
I'm gonna give it four and a half as well

(01:09:05):
for all the reasons that we stated. It's like just
such a wonderful thing that this movie is in the world,
and that we see women of color also mostly over
forty which it's like amazing, and the fact that it
did so well and so many people come to see it. Also,
a lot of the background is all people of color.

(01:09:26):
A ton of movies will have maybe a few people
of color main characters, but then everyone else in crowd
scenes or whatever. Yeah, they're crazy version in New York
City that's all white that we see in movies all
the time. Everything everything awful. Yes, So this movie is wonderful.
My only gripe with it would be that there was
good opportunities to put in queer characters that I felt

(01:09:47):
it was kind of a missed opportunity, especially because hello,
Queen Lantifa is literally right here. Uh So that that
was like the one thing that bugged me a little bit,
and I could do without Julian. But other than that,
it's it's genuinely a really fun movie to watch, which
movies with this setup are not always fun to watch.

(01:10:08):
And it's like, unlike any movie I've ever seen before.
I'm getting one of I'm getting each lady one nip,
and then I'm gonna give my other half nip to
this amount because I wish, because she deserved more. Yeah,
and then she has to go and have Stewart's kids sucks. Yeah. Well, anyways,
do you think they'll end up together? I kind of

(01:10:30):
get the feeling that they might. Anyways, that could just
be me projecting. Maybe we'll find out in Girls Trip
to I know, probably starring Dulcie Sloan. Please, I'm calling
that into the universe for usas Oh you love that.
I love Madison. Thank you so much for being here.
It's been so much fun. Thank you so much. Where

(01:10:50):
can people find and follow you online? Y'all? Okay, So,
first of all, I sometimes update my website. Um, and
I paid twenty dollars a month before it, so visited
squarespace promo code my pussy here. Um No, it's uh.
You can find dates and info about me at the
Madison Sheppard dot com. You can follow me on Twitter
at Madison Shepherd and on Instagram. I'm very good at

(01:11:12):
Instagram stories. I love and shouting them out for myself.
If I don't mind to toot my own horn please
at Madison Underscore Shepherd because I was too old and
got into Instagram. Anyways, it's a whole thing. But yeah,
find me there, you all, yes, do that? Find us
the becktel Cast on Twitter, Instagram, our website bectel cast

(01:11:33):
dot com. You can dot com, Facebook dot com, Facebook
dot com. You never hear dot com. It is dot
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I'm actually You can also go to patreon dot com
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(01:11:54):
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there and I yeah, that's it, uh I