November 1, 2022 • 39 mins
This week I’m talking about one of my favorite movies, Waiting to Exhale! Listen in as I share my memories of reading the book and recently revisiting the movie and soundtrack!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:38):
Hey, everybody, Welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And last episode I was talking to
y'all about one of my favorite books turned to a movie,
The Godfather, and another book turned to movie that is
a favorite of mine is Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale.
(00:59):
So let us dive in. How did I discover Waiting
to Exhale? I feel I discovered this as as many
Black women of my same age in the early forties
discovered this because our mothers or aunts or some woman
older than us who was an adult at the time
(01:21):
was reading these books. I feel like women there are
women of a certain age that really really loved and
felt so seen by Terry McMillan's books. And there was
a time in the nineties where it was like, you
go to a black woman's house, it's an essence, it's
an ebony, it's a jet, it's one or two copies
(01:43):
of various as sundry books that Terry McMillan has written.
So I encountered the story of Waiting to Exhale through
the book first, because my mom, as I have said
here on this podcast, my mom is a person who
loves to read we always had different books just laying
around the house, or you know, books on her wall unit.
(02:05):
I think it was called. It wasn't a bookshelf, it
was a wall unit made of bamboo. Actually, Like if
somebody had that wall union today, people would pay a
lot of money probably for something that just happened to
feel pretty, something that happened to feel like anyone in
the eighties or nineties could have had this thing in
their house, but now you would pay a lot of
money for that thing. Right, So there were certain books
(02:25):
that had always been on my mom's bookshelves, right. My
mom had copies of Tony Morrison's earlier books. She had
copies of Tar Baby and copies of Beloved. She also
had copies of some of Alice Walker's earlier books, the
Temple of My Familiar and maybe The Color Purple. I'm
trying to remember. I don't think my mom had a
(02:46):
copy of The Color Purple. I think it was The
Temple of My Familiar that I remember. I read The
Color Purple young, but I don't remember. I think the
first Alice Walker book I remember seeing was The Temple
of My Familiar. And so there were some books that
I just from remember seeing on my mom's bookshelf all
the time as a child, and then there were like
the new books that sort of entered the house, and
that is how I encountered Waiting to Exhale. And I
(03:09):
really can't remember if it was a book that I
was sneaking to read or if my mom let me
read it. I don't remember those parts. Either way, I
remember reading it and thinking to myself, Oh, I just
remember thinking, um, this sounds like this is some grown
people's stuff. But it was so fascinating because a lot
(03:33):
of a lot of the earlier books that I was
reading written by black authors were either written in a
different time, they weren't written in what would have been
considered like contemporary or modern times, or the writer may
have been writing this book in the eighties or nineties,
but the book wasn't set in the present day or
(03:55):
in current times. So Winning to Exhale was also probably
Blee one of the first adult novels that I read
that was set in the present day, and that was
really really interesting to see the perspectives of these adult
black women, especially as a teenager reading this. But I
feel like I fall in the category of a lot
(04:17):
of black people of a certain age that encountered this book.
This was your first time being like, oh, she's writing
about sexies. It's nasty, but I'm gonna keep reading it.
You know those vibes. That was my first encounter with
Waiting to Exhale. Then, uh, some years later, Waiting to
Exhale came out as a movie, and I knew that
I wanted to discuss this with y'all. And then I
(04:39):
thought to myself, I haven't actually watched this movie all
the way through in a while. So my sister came over.
Shout out to my sister, my sister Mikita, that you
have met here on the podcast before for my long
time listeners, and I text her. It was like Friday
night and I was like, hey, are you busy? And
she was like what, why? What are you doing? And
(05:01):
I was like, Uh, we're just suppsed to see if
you wanted to come over and maybe watch Wedding to
Exhale with me and we could eat some snacks. And
she was like, um, yes, definitely want to do that.
So I went and ran my little errands, got our
little snacks as we as we do in the her
living room. I did that in my living room at
home as well, and sort of built myself. What I
(05:23):
have to say is probably something like a charcuterie board.
I felt very proud of it. I mean, it was blackberries.
And I've also gained some additional dishes that seemed to
be important to a charcuterie board. So I have a
couple of boards, one that's wooden and another one that
has made of some other material that I can't remember now,
(05:45):
but it's very heavy, right, Charcuterie boards tend to be
heavy like that. And I have also acquired some white, little,
small square shaped containers and that turned out to be
a perfect place to put some mixed to nuts or
to put a jam. Right, I had my little crackers out.
I will tell you I didn't quite go all the
(06:09):
way to where I could have regarding the charcooterie meets.
I was standing there. I went to Whole Foods and
I was standing there looking at some amazing Prescuto. And
I don't know if I've talked about Prescuto on here.
I really love Presciuto, y'all, like I also love my husband,
you know, And it would be difficult for me if
Preshuto were a man, you know, what I mean, like
(06:29):
it would be difficult, Like I feel like maybe Matt
and I would have to have some sort of a
conversation about my additional love for presciuto. You know, I
did not go all the way there. I just really
got into some deli meats. So it was it was
sort of an upgraded lunch able situation because some people
who are charcooterie haters, and yes, this is a thing,
(06:50):
some people who are chucooterie haters are like, oh, a
lot of people eat charcouterie is just a lunchable. That's
actually not true, because I feel a an upgraded charcouterie board.
You know, you're not just talking about the type of
ham and cheese that you would just put on your
basic sandwich. You're talking about some press judo. You're talking
about things that you buy from the deli that say hammon.
(07:13):
You know, you're talking about this type of vibe. I
didn't go there, y'all. I didn't go there. I decided
to stick to the rivers and lakes that I was
used to. So I already had some very nice smoked
turkey meat from the deli, so I decided to just
get a little bit of ham you know, because I
like to eat swine for special occasions, and I had
(07:35):
some blackberries, I had the mixed nuts, I had the
whole grain crackers, the stone ground wheat crackers. And then
just because I'm making my own charcoti board and no
one can tell me what to do, I also purchase
some guacamole because why wouldn't I do that, and purchase
some pepper jack cheese because that is one of my
favorite types of cheese. So my sister and I had
(07:55):
a wonderful little snacky time while we were watching this film.
Let us discuss the movie Waiting to Exhale now a
part of what was interesting about rewatching this, but even
before rewatching, my nostalgic feelings about this movie are very
much still connected to my mom, who was the gateway
(08:17):
for me to have read Terry McMillan's books. Then that
gave me the interest to want to watch this film,
which is one of three movies that are based on
Terry McMillan's books. We also have still a Got Our
Groove Back as well as disappearing acts were also made
into film, and one of the things that I remember
(08:40):
thinking about my mom when I was a Little Girl,
and I think I've talked about this when we did
the behind the Poetry episode on Girlfriend's Poem. When I
was growing up, my mom always had just a small
number of women friends that she really loved and was
close to them, and there was always a moment of
(09:00):
them coming over where you know, they would kind of
hang out with me or you know, play little games
with me or whatever. But at a certain time at night,
Mom put me to bed, and it was like I
talked about this and The Godfather, the scene at the
end of Godfather one where Kate is surely um where
Kay Lord, where Kay is surely realizing that her husband
(09:24):
is a crime boss, and there's that scene where like
the door is closing and she's like watching them kiss
the ring, right. Well, I had not quite that experience,
but a different kind of moment where I was sort
of felt like I was watching my mom sort of
closed the door to my bedroom and I'm getting this
little bit of window into like her and her girlfriend's
(09:46):
now you know, gathering for coffee or whatever they were
going to drink that they weren't drinking, you know, when
I was out, you know, eating cauliflower and whatever with
them and I just remember thinking, oh, when I get
to be own, when I get to be a grown lady,
I want to also do this with my women friends.
And so that is totally become, you know, a part
(10:08):
of my life, right And I think there was something
really beautiful about the way Waiting to Exhale expressed the
friendships of black women. And also it really was interesting
rewatching the movie and thinking that this was probably the
first modern, contemporary piece of art that I watched where
(10:34):
there were young, modern Black women admitting that they enjoyed sex,
admitting that they sometimes would have these sexual experiences with
men that they had no intention of having a relationship with.
And there were a lot of ways that Terry McMillan's
work that I can now look back on and say,
(10:56):
I wasn't a grown lady when Terry McMillen was releasing
these books originally, But those books influenced a lot of
what the black women who were older than me at
the time, you know, found to be true about their
dating lives and how they expressed that and the freedom
that they began to feel to say, maybe I am
not the traditional woman that my mother was or that
(11:19):
my aunts were in my family maybe I am older
now than they were and I haven't gotten married yet,
or maybe I'm older now than they were and I'm
divorced and trying to figure out that. So there were
a lot of those types of dynamics to this story
that I found really really interesting to rewatch at this
age of life, and to also reflect on what my
(11:40):
teenage thoughts and you know, young you know, high school
going into college thoughts were about the movie. Okay, let's
talk about this film. Whitney Houston was a gorgeous human being.
Those early scenes that are just locked in on Whitney
Houston's eye and nose and mouth. I mean, even my
(12:02):
sister and I were talking a lot about even the
sound of her speaking voice. It's like you're watching this
whole movie and her character doesn't sing in the movie ever,
but there's some sort of like really intriguing lilt to
Whitney Houston's voice. What a beautiful woman she was. Wow,
(12:23):
we have Whitney Houston playing Savannah. Leela Rashaan is playing
Robin in this film, and Leela Rashwan is that girl. Okay,
during this era, Lula Rashawn was that girl. She's still
that girl, but she was that girl back then, like
the way she was dressed in this movie, the hair
(12:43):
choices that were made, the amount of black films that
Leela Rashaan was in at this time. Yes, I love
to see her. Angela Bassett is playing Bernardine and Loretta
Divine is playing Gloria. I mean, what a cast. What
a cast these for women? Yes damn and yes, okay.
(13:07):
What are my favorite scenes of this movie? Favorite scene,
hands down is between Gloria and Marvin. Gloria played by
Loretta Divine and Marvin, who's played by Gregory Hines. And
if you're familiar with this movie, if I'm talking right
now and you're not familiar with this movie, you need
to get you some popcorn, plan a time, you know,
(13:28):
in the evening or on the weekends, and watch this
movie because it is just wonderful. Lots of things about
are wonderful. It's a little bit of a time capsule,
I'll admit, you know, my sister and I we're watching it,
and there are you know, obviously, when you watch things
that are from the nineties or from the eighties or
even before then, right, you know, there's certain eras of
time that like when you watch the movie back then,
(13:49):
some of those things didn't hit you, but you're watching
the movie now and you're like, that's a little you know,
like you have different commentary about what's happened. And so
of course there are those elements of this movie that
reflects the times in certain ways that if that movie
were being made now, some of those things would not
be commentary, or some of those phrases or terms would
(14:12):
not be said. Right. So it's always interesting to watch that.
And it was very interesting from my sister now to
watch it because my sister was just a baby really
when the movie came out, and I was only barely
a teenager myself really, you know, so it's interesting to
think about all of that now. Okay, let us go
(14:44):
back to Gloria and Marvin. Let's talk about this. Okay,
this is one of my favorite scenes because, first of all,
just Loretta divine, just Loretta Divine is everything that is,
every thing that is, all the things. She is just
so wonderful. I I want to give her an awards.
(15:08):
It's interesting, especially to think about her as an actor,
and to think about Angela Bassett as an actor also,
and just feeling like these are two actors that really
have not gotten enough of their things. I feel like
they have not received the flowers for the amount of
like they bring to so many roles, like if I
can think of like all the roles I've watched the
(15:30):
read of Divine Play and seeing this one, which is
a really important role in her filmography. And also Angela Bassett,
I think this role is very important in her filmography
as well. But y'all, this scene where here we have Gloria,
I guess I should give a little brief for those
of you that have not seen this film or read
(15:52):
the book. So we have four black women who seemed
to be somewhere between maybe like to late twenties and
maybe the oldest woman is probably maybe she's mid to
late thirties. Right, so we probably have what could be
at at largest a ten ish year span among them. Right,
(16:16):
we have Whitney Houston playing Savannah. Savannah is single, as
far as I am gathering from the context clues that
Savannah has not been married. Savannah is wanting to be
in a relationship and kind of keeps finding herself in
various states of being with men who cannot commit to her. Okay,
(16:39):
we have Leela Rashaan Lela Rashaan if if waiting to
exhale as a cast was like the Golden Girls. Lela
Rashawn is somehow the Betty White of the Click. She
is not the sharpest person of them. She sometimes is
miss saying the clues of what is going on um
(17:03):
in her life. But she is also single and it's
interesting because she and Savannah both are having moments where
they have men in their lives that are really no
good for them but kind of come in and out
of their lives and are in various states of being
in a separate relationship while also still trying to have
(17:26):
a relationship with these two characters, which just very interesting. Uh.
Angela Bassett's character Bernadine, she is married when we begin
this movie, and we watch her experience a great life
adjustment in the sense of her husband announcing to her
(17:46):
that the marriage is over as he has decided to
be in a relationship with someone else. And then we
have Loretta Divine playing Gloria. Gloria is a single mom.
She has a son who is a approaching his last
year of high school. Her ex husband is still I
(18:07):
want to say, quasi trying to be in her son's
life and also is sort of a remedy for times
that she feels lonely. Okay, so here's a bit of
where each of these characters are. So we are meeting
them just very very full circle of the film. We
(18:29):
are meeting each of them on a New Year's Eve,
and we sort of follow them for a year of
their lives, because the film also closes at where their
lives are at the following New Year's Eve. And my
favorite scene involving Gloria and Marvin. Marvin is played by
Gregory Hines, and I need to speak to this for
(18:49):
a moment. Gregory Hynes is not an actor that until
Waiting to Exhale, I would have ever viewed as someone
who is sexy or is a sex symbol of any kind.
I just I just never thought about him like that.
It's like, the main thing I have in my mind
(19:11):
is Gregory Hynes mostly as a dancer. But here we
have Gregory Hynes moving in as the across the street
neighbor to Gloria. We find him in a muscle shirt,
you know, moving his things. Gloria does not even peep
game that he is the neighbor based on how he's dressed,
(19:33):
and I feel the context clues based on him being
a black man in Phoenix, because the story is set
in Phoenix, Arizona. I feel her assumption was he is
helping these people move into the neighborhood. So Gloria sachets
her beautiful curvy self over across the street, sits down
(19:55):
and does a little does a little, you know, a
little t outreach. She's trying to find out from this
man who she thinks is moving the neighbor in where
full prey tail, Who who is the family, you know,
moving into this house, And of course it become this
funny exchange because he is the family, you know, he
is the neighbor, right, So when she discovers that he's
(20:20):
actually the neighbor, you know, she she does what a
good Southern woman would do. And we're we're not really
given in the film, we're not given where all of
these characters are from before they arrived in Phoenix. But
based on Loretta, Divine's accident always gives something Southern, and
she is showing me some very Southern things in her
(20:42):
way of being right. She has this moment where as
you would, you know, you would offer food to someone
who has just moved because you know, they don't have
their kitchen unpacked and all those things. And it is
my dream as a Southern woman myself, who comes from
up to at least four generations of Southern women. There
(21:04):
is something about the readiness of either having food made
if someone were too need food or come by and
need something to eat, or you end up with a
last minute you know, house guest or something. There was
something about the preparedness of a Southern woman that just
feels the need to potentially have enough of a little
(21:28):
something to eat, you know. And I'm gonna give you
all an example. My husband's aunt, his aunt Sarah. I
think they actually say aunt. I think it's Aunt Sarah
on his side. But on my side of the family
we say, you know, the vibes, you know how you
have like different families say aunt, aunt, auntie, all those things. Okay,
So on my side of the family we say aunt.
But on matt side of the family we say aunt.
(21:50):
So Matt's aunt Sarah, his dad's sister. When Matt and
I were dating, I ended up with a college gig
not far from where she lives. And those of you
that don't know about how college gigs, work. Um, it
is not a glamorous life. It can be well paid sometimes,
but it's never glamorous because a part of it is
typically you get paid a flat rate. So at first
(22:14):
the amount of money feels like a lot, But then
when you start subtracting, like how much it's gonna cost
you to travel there, how much it's gonna cost you
to get lodging there, you really end up having to
really think about your budget. So you may get what
you feel initially is a good amount of money, but
then you have to decide can I afford to pay
(22:35):
for a plane ticket or do I need to like
really be on my budget and drive. And at that
time I needed to drive, so I drove so far
and then I was like, Okay, where she lives would
be like a perfect place to stop. And she's very sweet.
I reached out to her and was like, Hey, can
I stay with you even though I just started dating
your nephew. I think Man and I had only been dating,
(22:58):
like maybe a few months at the time, but we
we had gotten serious enough by then that we've met
each other's families, and it was pretty clear with us
and with our families that our intention was to get married, right,
So she says, yes, you can totally stay with me,
you know, message me or call me or something, let
me know, you know, when you're getting close by. So
(23:19):
I did that. So, y'all, I probably get to her
house this like eleven o'clock. I'm gonna get to her
house and basically crash, and then I have to get
up still pretty early. You have to get up by
several several hours later and then drive a little bit
more ways to actually get to the gig. Right, I
pull up to her house and these are dream Southern
(23:41):
woman things. I pull up there and she's like, are
you hungry? I've got hummus, I've got salad, I can
make a sandwich. I've got like she listed like what
felt like a thousand things, and I was like, oh
my gosh. I love Southern women, to know end. I
love it so much because say thing would happen if we,
(24:02):
you know, went to my grandma's house, you know, like
we would go to my grandma's house and drive to
her house. Sometimes you get there, you know, eleven o'clock midnight.
Grandma's like, y'all hungry, y'all thirsty. I got some cool
aid I got some sweet tea. I made some tuna
fish salad. I can also like list all these things.
And this is the kind of Southern woman I longed
to be. I want people to somehow end up at
(24:25):
my house at the last minute and I'm like, oh
my gosh, y'all are hungry forget door dash. You know,
I just got you know, a little bit of fried chicken,
some candy ams and be a hamhock, you know, a
little broccoli rice castro, little collar green's a little Swiss child.
A little like this is Gloria talking to Marvin when
she was like, you know, I'd love to bring you
some dinner. Have my son bring over a plate, you know,
(24:47):
And she was like, it's not much, it's not much.
It's just, you know, some biscuits, some colar green, some
candy as, maybe a little bit of sweet potato pie
and some colar green, some sliced tomatoes. I mean, I'm
making up stuff. But you know, she listed like she
lists and what you would typically have for a holiday
dinner as something she just happened to be cooking one time.
And this is the kind of Southern woman I strive
to be. Okay, loved to see that in this scene.
(25:12):
But the best part of the scene is this after Gloria,
you know, offers Marvin dinner and Marvin's like, I don't know,
I've got so much unpacked. She's like, that's okay, you know,
I'll send my son by with a plate. Nice to
meet you, Marvin, and she sagets herself back across the
street and she has this moment where she's like, is
(25:33):
he watching me? And of course he was watching and
she looks over her shoulder, Oh my god, he's still watching.
Who y'all the best the best scene in the movie
for me. My second favorite scene is when Angela Bassett's
character Bernadine burns all of her ex husband's ship. I
(25:56):
don't even think at the time she's burning it he's
her husband. He is still her husband at this time.
And this is a man who after she got dressed
for their usual New Year's Eve activities, having to go
to some event related to his job or whatever. You know,
she's there sitting at her Claire Huxtable vanity. This is
(26:17):
the vanity that little girl Amina just really thought she
was gonna have when she became a grown woman. You know,
those of you that watched The Cosby Show growing up.
When Claire would sit at that vanity and brush her
hair every night, I was like, this is some grown
woman ship I'm a do to This sounds great, narrator.
She does not have a vanity. I do not have
a vanity. Also, I do not have the kind of
(26:39):
hair that can be brushed the way that Claire Huxtable
and Bernadine were brushing their hair. But I will just
put a pin right here and tell y'all that I
did get my hair straightened earlier this year in the spring,
and that was the first time that I really had
that experience of sort of whipping that hair around and
hearing that course down. You know, the brush makes when
(27:01):
you brush it. So I'm gonna get my hair straight
in a couple of times a year, and I will
re enact having these vanity moments where somehow you have
a brush that matches, the comb that matches some kind
of like big powder puff thing you put on your face.
This is all the stuff that I'm assuming is at
the vanity that Bernadine had that was very similar to
(27:22):
Claire Hunstable. So we find her dressed, beautiful, makeup is done,
jewelry her husband's like, mm hmmm, I think we should
have a change of plan tonight type of thing, and
she's smiling, thinking like, oh, yes, I don't want to
go to this party anyways, Maybe we could watch a
(27:43):
movie together, we could hang out. No, this man is
telling her that he's been having an affair with his
secretary and he want to take his secretary to his
work event and flaunt her around the place. And I
there's a lot about Angela Basta's character in this film
that that really touched me as a person who unfortunately
(28:07):
understands more levels of grief than I wish I did.
The way she sort of entered like a depression first,
where this man that she even married to all these years,
she helped him build up his company and his career,
this man just all of a sudden decided this ship
isn't convenient now. He just doesn't want to be with
(28:29):
her anymore. After she had the two kids everything, you
watch her really get into this very deep level of sadness,
and she is in this bathroom, sends her kids off
to school, and decides that she needs to burn his
ship down to the ground. And a girl has been
in therapy talking to my theorists about my anger, and
(28:49):
I actually thought to myself, like, I don't. I don't
have this type of relationship with my own husband, so
I have no reason to burn my husband's things. But
you know how they had of these places where you
can go, um smash rooms where you can go and
like bang TVs and break glass and stuff. They should
(29:10):
also have some type of a waiting to Exhale Bernadine
themed room where you somehow can go up in somebody's
Like it's like no one's closet. They just put some
random clothes there and you could take him off the rack,
tear him off the rack, and then there's a lot
of layers to how she burned up his ship. Okay,
(29:30):
she takes his stuff down off the rack, she stuffs
it through the sunroof of his car, puts the garage
door up, pulls his car out to the driveway, lights
her cigarette, and then burns everything dress, shoes, sneakers, suits,
and his car. Wow, Like, I really would love a
(29:56):
smash room themed on Burnadette where you could just go
in and basically do this whole thing she did. Like
that sounds great that I feel like that would be
some great anger expressions. WHOA Also last scene that was
kind of tender for me and my sister and I
were watching the movie thinking this was such an interesting
(30:20):
plot choice in the novel as well as the movie itself,
where once Bernadine's divorce is final, she is in the
in the bar at the hotel where she has just
sat in you know, whatever the closing room or whatever
(30:40):
they did to sign all their documents and stuff, whatever
boardroom they had there, and she's sitting in the hotel bar,
you know, just reflecting on life, as I'm assuming one
does when you're like, wow, this like really wild thing
just happened to me, and now that's over, you know.
And here we meet a young Wesley Snipe playing this
(31:01):
character that Bernady meets, and they kind of have this
interesting kinship, right Westley Snipe's character is married, but his
wife is dying and so she's been sick so long
that he and his wife do not have a physical
(31:21):
relationship anymore. And there's this interesting moment where they end
up going up to his hotel room and here they
are both contemplating am I ready to do this? You know?
She's there like am I ready to have sex with someone?
Else like this that's not this now, ex husband, Am
(31:44):
I ready to do this now that the divorce is
like final? All the things? And then you know he's there, like,
am I ready to do this even though my wife
is dying, even though I know that she wants for
me to be happy and wants from me to move
on at some point? You know? Can I have sex
with someone that's not my wife while my wife still lives,
(32:06):
even though she's not the wife that I knew from
when she was healthy. You know, all these things, and
it was very tender that the plot choice was not
for these two characters to actually have sex, but these
two characters kind of just lay in bed and cuddle together,
which is a very intimate thing to do. And the
(32:29):
way the sun came up on them, just so many things,
so many things. So there's a lot about that. When
I saw that scene, you know, I turned to my
sister and said, you know, I wonder if this book
were being written today, would this be the scene or
would the two characters have just gone ahead and had sex,
and then they would have they would have had to
(32:51):
deal with whatever the results or possible fallout for them
emotionally or whatever would have been from that choice. You know,
there's just certain choices that Tara McMillan maid in her writing,
as well as for as Whittaker made in directing this
film as well, plus the actors. You know. So it
(33:11):
was very tender. It was a very tender scene. And
I love any opportunity where you get a chance to see, uh,
these two black characters be so tender and soft with
each other in this moment. That was wonderful to see.
For me, I love a little tender thing. That's just
me and my forties. Now. Also, we need to talk
(33:32):
about this soundtrack. Keita and I were listening to this movie.
We're watching the movie, also listening to the music, and
I was like, this soundtrack is really like it's extraordinarily banging,
like wow, and it feels it feels a bit more
(33:54):
rare today that I watched a movie and also love
the soundtrack. I have quite a few movies that I
love the soundtrack of, but I have to say most
of them were made in the late nineties, mental late nineties,
and some early two thousand's maybe, But I haven't loved
a soundtrack like that from a movie in the last
(34:16):
ten fifteen years that I can think of right now
that I'm like, oh my gosh, Yes, Waiting to Exhale
had some bangers. Obviously. We have Whitney Houston's Exhale Shoop Shoop.
We also have Tony Braxton's let It Flow. We have
Brandy's Sitting up in My Room, and we have a
(34:37):
quintessential tune from this movie, Mary J. Blige on the
Not Gonna Cry. This is one of those songs that
I remember singing my guts out too in the car
or in my room listening to my little you know
clock radio that I had in my room that sounded
old as hell. Sorry y'all, anyways, like I remember singing
(34:59):
my guts out when I haven't lived through any of
these things that Bernadine went through. Because Mary J. Blige
is really singing from Bernardine's perspective. I mean she opened
up that was your lover and your secretary working every
day of the week. WHOA when Mary J. Blige you
got to that that hook right there said I'm not
gonna cry, okay, because you're not worth my tears. I
(35:24):
M Mary J. Blige made a hit right there, like
I just somehow at however old I was my teenage
self somehow became a broken hearted grown lady just belting
this song out shout out to Mary J. Blige, I'm
not gonna cry. I also want to give a special
shout out to Shaka Khan's cover of My Funny Valentine.
(35:48):
I love me some Shaka Khan, okay, but my favorite
Shaka Khan is typically fast song. Shaka Khan, this is
do you love what you feel? You know? Like that
version of Shaka Khan. That's them fast songs that tell
me something good, Shaka Khan. That's that's that's the type
of Shatka I normally like. But Keta and I were
(36:09):
watching the movie and Keta was like, who is this?
Who is this singing this? And it's almost like sometimes
because Shaka Khan has so many like dance hits, you
forget how melodious and jazz filled that vocal is. So
if you're a person who loves jazz standards, you should
(36:30):
definitely listen to this soundtrack to get Shaka Khan's version
of My Funny Valentine. Yes, okay. Other thing that needs
to be discussed on this soundtrack is count on Me.
Who I mean that song just Whitney Houston and C.
C Winan's on this song right here. First of all,
(36:50):
the vocals were just unmatched, unmatched, unparalleled. And I love
a good friendship song, you know. And there is just
something about count on Me that just it just touches
my heart every time, because I think most of us,
(37:12):
a lot of us would be able to think of
very specific people that when you are singing that, please
believe please believe me when I say you can count
on me? Who? And then at the end, when like
Whitney and CC were trade in the vocals, show kid. Yeah, man,
this soundtrack is bringing us so many gifts. I myself,
(37:34):
I'm going to have to revisit it. Yes, what can
we say about waiting to exhale? It is still even
rewatching the movie, it is still just it's just wonderful.
And I love a time capsule of black culture and
black history and black history. And I don't just mean
(37:56):
that in the cliche way. I mean in the way
that this book and this subsequent movie became this time
capsule of what we're black women concerned about, worried about
what we're black women wanting out of their lives. You know, Um,
how were our friendships impacting that at the time, this
was a little capsule of these fictional characters that really
(38:18):
were this great reflection of what those relationships are like
for so many of us as black women today. So
shout out to Terry McMillan for writing something that has
really affected many generations of black women now. And shout
(38:38):
out to the cast of this film. We really got
a chance to see even more so these characters come
to life, and I I really am missing Whitney Houston
and that we do not have her here with us
any longer, and also glad that we have this moment
to view her in this film, to see the beautiful
(39:00):
work that she and the other actors here did. So
shout out to the cast and crew of Waiting to Exhale.
If you have never watched this movie, watch it. If
you have watched the movie, rewatch it. If you have
not read the book, go read it. And if you
already read it, it it could be a good reread as well.
I love to see it helps talk to y'all. Se
Hey, everybody, Welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And last episode I was talking to
y'all about one of my favorite books turned to a movie,
The Godfather, and another book turned to movie that is
a favorite of mine is Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale.
(00:59):
So let us dive in. How did I discover Waiting
to Exhale? I feel I discovered this as as many
Black women of my same age in the early forties
discovered this because our mothers or aunts or some woman
older than us who was an adult at the time
(01:21):
was reading these books. I feel like women there are
women of a certain age that really really loved and
felt so seen by Terry McMillan's books. And there was
a time in the nineties where it was like, you
go to a black woman's house, it's an essence, it's
an ebony, it's a jet, it's one or two copies
(01:43):
of various as sundry books that Terry McMillan has written.
So I encountered the story of Waiting to Exhale through
the book first, because my mom, as I have said
here on this podcast, my mom is a person who
loves to read we always had different books just laying
around the house, or you know, books on her wall unit.
(02:05):
I think it was called. It wasn't a bookshelf, it
was a wall unit made of bamboo. Actually, Like if
somebody had that wall union today, people would pay a
lot of money probably for something that just happened to
feel pretty, something that happened to feel like anyone in
the eighties or nineties could have had this thing in
their house, but now you would pay a lot of
money for that thing. Right, So there were certain books
(02:25):
that had always been on my mom's bookshelves, right. My
mom had copies of Tony Morrison's earlier books. She had
copies of Tar Baby and copies of Beloved. She also
had copies of some of Alice Walker's earlier books, the
Temple of My Familiar and maybe The Color Purple. I'm
trying to remember. I don't think my mom had a
(02:46):
copy of The Color Purple. I think it was The
Temple of My Familiar that I remember. I read The
Color Purple young, but I don't remember. I think the
first Alice Walker book I remember seeing was The Temple
of My Familiar. And so there were some books that
I just from remember seeing on my mom's bookshelf all
the time as a child, and then there were like
the new books that sort of entered the house, and
that is how I encountered Waiting to Exhale. And I
(03:09):
really can't remember if it was a book that I
was sneaking to read or if my mom let me
read it. I don't remember those parts. Either way, I
remember reading it and thinking to myself, Oh, I just
remember thinking, um, this sounds like this is some grown
people's stuff. But it was so fascinating because a lot
(03:33):
of a lot of the earlier books that I was
reading written by black authors were either written in a
different time, they weren't written in what would have been
considered like contemporary or modern times, or the writer may
have been writing this book in the eighties or nineties,
but the book wasn't set in the present day or
(03:55):
in current times. So Winning to Exhale was also probably
Blee one of the first adult novels that I read
that was set in the present day, and that was
really really interesting to see the perspectives of these adult
black women, especially as a teenager reading this. But I
feel like I fall in the category of a lot
(04:17):
of black people of a certain age that encountered this book.
This was your first time being like, oh, she's writing
about sexies. It's nasty, but I'm gonna keep reading it.
You know those vibes. That was my first encounter with
Waiting to Exhale. Then, uh, some years later, Waiting to
Exhale came out as a movie, and I knew that
I wanted to discuss this with y'all. And then I
(04:39):
thought to myself, I haven't actually watched this movie all
the way through in a while. So my sister came over.
Shout out to my sister, my sister Mikita, that you
have met here on the podcast before for my long
time listeners, and I text her. It was like Friday
night and I was like, hey, are you busy? And
she was like what, why? What are you doing? And
(05:01):
I was like, Uh, we're just suppsed to see if
you wanted to come over and maybe watch Wedding to
Exhale with me and we could eat some snacks. And
she was like, um, yes, definitely want to do that.
So I went and ran my little errands, got our
little snacks as we as we do in the her
living room. I did that in my living room at
home as well, and sort of built myself. What I
(05:23):
have to say is probably something like a charcuterie board.
I felt very proud of it. I mean, it was blackberries.
And I've also gained some additional dishes that seemed to
be important to a charcuterie board. So I have a
couple of boards, one that's wooden and another one that
has made of some other material that I can't remember now,
(05:45):
but it's very heavy, right, Charcuterie boards tend to be
heavy like that. And I have also acquired some white, little,
small square shaped containers and that turned out to be
a perfect place to put some mixed to nuts or
to put a jam. Right, I had my little crackers out.
I will tell you I didn't quite go all the
(06:09):
way to where I could have regarding the charcooterie meets.
I was standing there. I went to Whole Foods and
I was standing there looking at some amazing Prescuto. And
I don't know if I've talked about Prescuto on here.
I really love Presciuto, y'all, like I also love my husband,
you know, And it would be difficult for me if
Preshuto were a man, you know, what I mean, like
(06:29):
it would be difficult, Like I feel like maybe Matt
and I would have to have some sort of a
conversation about my additional love for presciuto. You know, I
did not go all the way there. I just really
got into some deli meats. So it was it was
sort of an upgraded lunch able situation because some people
who are charcooterie haters, and yes, this is a thing,
(06:50):
some people who are chucooterie haters are like, oh, a
lot of people eat charcouterie is just a lunchable. That's
actually not true, because I feel a an upgraded charcouterie board.
You know, you're not just talking about the type of
ham and cheese that you would just put on your
basic sandwich. You're talking about some press judo. You're talking
about things that you buy from the deli that say hammon.
(07:13):
You know, you're talking about this type of vibe. I
didn't go there, y'all. I didn't go there. I decided
to stick to the rivers and lakes that I was
used to. So I already had some very nice smoked
turkey meat from the deli, so I decided to just
get a little bit of ham you know, because I
like to eat swine for special occasions, and I had
(07:35):
some blackberries, I had the mixed nuts, I had the
whole grain crackers, the stone ground wheat crackers. And then
just because I'm making my own charcoti board and no
one can tell me what to do, I also purchase
some guacamole because why wouldn't I do that, and purchase
some pepper jack cheese because that is one of my
favorite types of cheese. So my sister and I had
(07:55):
a wonderful little snacky time while we were watching this film.
Let us discuss the movie Waiting to Exhale now a
part of what was interesting about rewatching this, but even
before rewatching, my nostalgic feelings about this movie are very
much still connected to my mom, who was the gateway
(08:17):
for me to have read Terry McMillan's books. Then that
gave me the interest to want to watch this film,
which is one of three movies that are based on
Terry McMillan's books. We also have still a Got Our
Groove Back as well as disappearing acts were also made
into film, and one of the things that I remember
(08:40):
thinking about my mom when I was a Little Girl,
and I think I've talked about this when we did
the behind the Poetry episode on Girlfriend's Poem. When I
was growing up, my mom always had just a small
number of women friends that she really loved and was
close to them, and there was always a moment of
(09:00):
them coming over where you know, they would kind of
hang out with me or you know, play little games
with me or whatever. But at a certain time at night,
Mom put me to bed, and it was like I
talked about this and The Godfather, the scene at the
end of Godfather one where Kate is surely um where
Kay Lord, where Kay is surely realizing that her husband
(09:24):
is a crime boss, and there's that scene where like
the door is closing and she's like watching them kiss
the ring, right. Well, I had not quite that experience,
but a different kind of moment where I was sort
of felt like I was watching my mom sort of
closed the door to my bedroom and I'm getting this
little bit of window into like her and her girlfriend's
(09:46):
now you know, gathering for coffee or whatever they were
going to drink that they weren't drinking, you know, when
I was out, you know, eating cauliflower and whatever with
them and I just remember thinking, oh, when I get
to be own, when I get to be a grown lady,
I want to also do this with my women friends.
And so that is totally become, you know, a part
(10:08):
of my life, right And I think there was something
really beautiful about the way Waiting to Exhale expressed the
friendships of black women. And also it really was interesting
rewatching the movie and thinking that this was probably the
first modern, contemporary piece of art that I watched where
(10:34):
there were young, modern Black women admitting that they enjoyed sex,
admitting that they sometimes would have these sexual experiences with
men that they had no intention of having a relationship with.
And there were a lot of ways that Terry McMillan's
work that I can now look back on and say,
(10:56):
I wasn't a grown lady when Terry McMillen was releasing
these books originally, But those books influenced a lot of
what the black women who were older than me at
the time, you know, found to be true about their
dating lives and how they expressed that and the freedom
that they began to feel to say, maybe I am
not the traditional woman that my mother was or that
(11:19):
my aunts were in my family maybe I am older
now than they were and I haven't gotten married yet,
or maybe I'm older now than they were and I'm
divorced and trying to figure out that. So there were
a lot of those types of dynamics to this story
that I found really really interesting to rewatch at this
age of life, and to also reflect on what my
(11:40):
teenage thoughts and you know, young you know, high school
going into college thoughts were about the movie. Okay, let's
talk about this film. Whitney Houston was a gorgeous human being.
Those early scenes that are just locked in on Whitney
Houston's eye and nose and mouth. I mean, even my
(12:02):
sister and I were talking a lot about even the
sound of her speaking voice. It's like you're watching this
whole movie and her character doesn't sing in the movie ever,
but there's some sort of like really intriguing lilt to
Whitney Houston's voice. What a beautiful woman she was. Wow,
(12:23):
we have Whitney Houston playing Savannah. Leela Rashaan is playing
Robin in this film, and Leela Rashwan is that girl. Okay,
during this era, Lula Rashawn was that girl. She's still
that girl, but she was that girl back then, like
the way she was dressed in this movie, the hair
(12:43):
choices that were made, the amount of black films that
Leela Rashaan was in at this time. Yes, I love
to see her. Angela Bassett is playing Bernardine and Loretta
Divine is playing Gloria. I mean, what a cast. What
a cast these for women? Yes damn and yes, okay.
(13:07):
What are my favorite scenes of this movie? Favorite scene,
hands down is between Gloria and Marvin. Gloria played by
Loretta Divine and Marvin, who's played by Gregory Hines. And
if you're familiar with this movie, if I'm talking right
now and you're not familiar with this movie, you need
to get you some popcorn, plan a time, you know,
(13:28):
in the evening or on the weekends, and watch this
movie because it is just wonderful. Lots of things about
are wonderful. It's a little bit of a time capsule,
I'll admit, you know, my sister and I we're watching it,
and there are you know, obviously, when you watch things
that are from the nineties or from the eighties or
even before then, right, you know, there's certain eras of
time that like when you watch the movie back then,
(13:49):
some of those things didn't hit you, but you're watching
the movie now and you're like, that's a little you know,
like you have different commentary about what's happened. And so
of course there are those elements of this movie that
reflects the times in certain ways that if that movie
were being made now, some of those things would not
be commentary, or some of those phrases or terms would
(14:12):
not be said. Right. So it's always interesting to watch that.
And it was very interesting from my sister now to
watch it because my sister was just a baby really
when the movie came out, and I was only barely
a teenager myself really, you know, so it's interesting to
think about all of that now. Okay, let us go
(14:44):
back to Gloria and Marvin. Let's talk about this. Okay,
this is one of my favorite scenes because, first of all,
just Loretta divine, just Loretta Divine is everything that is,
every thing that is, all the things. She is just
so wonderful. I I want to give her an awards.
(15:08):
It's interesting, especially to think about her as an actor,
and to think about Angela Bassett as an actor also,
and just feeling like these are two actors that really
have not gotten enough of their things. I feel like
they have not received the flowers for the amount of
like they bring to so many roles, like if I
can think of like all the roles I've watched the
(15:30):
read of Divine Play and seeing this one, which is
a really important role in her filmography. And also Angela Bassett,
I think this role is very important in her filmography
as well. But y'all, this scene where here we have Gloria,
I guess I should give a little brief for those
of you that have not seen this film or read
(15:52):
the book. So we have four black women who seemed
to be somewhere between maybe like to late twenties and
maybe the oldest woman is probably maybe she's mid to
late thirties. Right, so we probably have what could be
at at largest a ten ish year span among them. Right,
(16:16):
we have Whitney Houston playing Savannah. Savannah is single, as
far as I am gathering from the context clues that
Savannah has not been married. Savannah is wanting to be
in a relationship and kind of keeps finding herself in
various states of being with men who cannot commit to her. Okay,
(16:39):
we have Leela Rashaan Lela Rashaan if if waiting to
exhale as a cast was like the Golden Girls. Lela
Rashawn is somehow the Betty White of the Click. She
is not the sharpest person of them. She sometimes is
miss saying the clues of what is going on um
(17:03):
in her life. But she is also single and it's
interesting because she and Savannah both are having moments where
they have men in their lives that are really no
good for them but kind of come in and out
of their lives and are in various states of being
in a separate relationship while also still trying to have
(17:26):
a relationship with these two characters, which just very interesting. Uh.
Angela Bassett's character Bernadine, she is married when we begin
this movie, and we watch her experience a great life
adjustment in the sense of her husband announcing to her
(17:46):
that the marriage is over as he has decided to
be in a relationship with someone else. And then we
have Loretta Divine playing Gloria. Gloria is a single mom.
She has a son who is a approaching his last
year of high school. Her ex husband is still I
(18:07):
want to say, quasi trying to be in her son's
life and also is sort of a remedy for times
that she feels lonely. Okay, so here's a bit of
where each of these characters are. So we are meeting
them just very very full circle of the film. We
(18:29):
are meeting each of them on a New Year's Eve,
and we sort of follow them for a year of
their lives, because the film also closes at where their
lives are at the following New Year's Eve. And my
favorite scene involving Gloria and Marvin. Marvin is played by
Gregory Hines, and I need to speak to this for
(18:49):
a moment. Gregory Hynes is not an actor that until
Waiting to Exhale, I would have ever viewed as someone
who is sexy or is a sex symbol of any kind.
I just I just never thought about him like that.
It's like, the main thing I have in my mind
(19:11):
is Gregory Hynes mostly as a dancer. But here we
have Gregory Hynes moving in as the across the street
neighbor to Gloria. We find him in a muscle shirt,
you know, moving his things. Gloria does not even peep
game that he is the neighbor based on how he's dressed,
(19:33):
and I feel the context clues based on him being
a black man in Phoenix, because the story is set
in Phoenix, Arizona. I feel her assumption was he is
helping these people move into the neighborhood. So Gloria sachets
her beautiful curvy self over across the street, sits down
(19:55):
and does a little does a little, you know, a
little t outreach. She's trying to find out from this
man who she thinks is moving the neighbor in where
full prey tail, Who who is the family, you know,
moving into this house, And of course it become this
funny exchange because he is the family, you know, he
is the neighbor, right, So when she discovers that he's
(20:20):
actually the neighbor, you know, she she does what a
good Southern woman would do. And we're we're not really
given in the film, we're not given where all of
these characters are from before they arrived in Phoenix. But
based on Loretta, Divine's accident always gives something Southern, and
she is showing me some very Southern things in her
(20:42):
way of being right. She has this moment where as
you would, you know, you would offer food to someone
who has just moved because you know, they don't have
their kitchen unpacked and all those things. And it is
my dream as a Southern woman myself, who comes from
up to at least four generations of Southern women. There
(21:04):
is something about the readiness of either having food made
if someone were too need food or come by and
need something to eat, or you end up with a
last minute you know, house guest or something. There was
something about the preparedness of a Southern woman that just
feels the need to potentially have enough of a little
(21:28):
something to eat, you know. And I'm gonna give you
all an example. My husband's aunt, his aunt Sarah. I
think they actually say aunt. I think it's Aunt Sarah
on his side. But on my side of the family
we say, you know, the vibes, you know how you
have like different families say aunt, aunt, auntie, all those things. Okay,
So on my side of the family we say aunt.
But on matt side of the family we say aunt.
(21:50):
So Matt's aunt Sarah, his dad's sister. When Matt and
I were dating, I ended up with a college gig
not far from where she lives. And those of you
that don't know about how college gigs, work. Um, it
is not a glamorous life. It can be well paid sometimes,
but it's never glamorous because a part of it is
typically you get paid a flat rate. So at first
(22:14):
the amount of money feels like a lot, But then
when you start subtracting, like how much it's gonna cost
you to travel there, how much it's gonna cost you
to get lodging there, you really end up having to
really think about your budget. So you may get what
you feel initially is a good amount of money, but
then you have to decide can I afford to pay
(22:35):
for a plane ticket or do I need to like
really be on my budget and drive. And at that
time I needed to drive, so I drove so far
and then I was like, Okay, where she lives would
be like a perfect place to stop. And she's very sweet.
I reached out to her and was like, Hey, can
I stay with you even though I just started dating
your nephew. I think Man and I had only been dating,
(22:58):
like maybe a few months at the time, but we
we had gotten serious enough by then that we've met
each other's families, and it was pretty clear with us
and with our families that our intention was to get married, right,
So she says, yes, you can totally stay with me,
you know, message me or call me or something, let
me know, you know, when you're getting close by. So
(23:19):
I did that. So, y'all, I probably get to her
house this like eleven o'clock. I'm gonna get to her
house and basically crash, and then I have to get
up still pretty early. You have to get up by
several several hours later and then drive a little bit
more ways to actually get to the gig. Right, I
pull up to her house and these are dream Southern
(23:41):
woman things. I pull up there and she's like, are
you hungry? I've got hummus, I've got salad, I can
make a sandwich. I've got like she listed like what
felt like a thousand things, and I was like, oh
my gosh. I love Southern women, to know end. I
love it so much because say thing would happen if we,
(24:02):
you know, went to my grandma's house, you know, like
we would go to my grandma's house and drive to
her house. Sometimes you get there, you know, eleven o'clock midnight.
Grandma's like, y'all hungry, y'all thirsty. I got some cool
aid I got some sweet tea. I made some tuna
fish salad. I can also like list all these things.
And this is the kind of Southern woman I longed
to be. I want people to somehow end up at
(24:25):
my house at the last minute and I'm like, oh
my gosh, y'all are hungry forget door dash. You know,
I just got you know, a little bit of fried chicken,
some candy ams and be a hamhock, you know, a
little broccoli rice castro, little collar green's a little Swiss child.
A little like this is Gloria talking to Marvin when
she was like, you know, I'd love to bring you
some dinner. Have my son bring over a plate, you know,
(24:47):
And she was like, it's not much, it's not much.
It's just, you know, some biscuits, some colar green, some
candy as, maybe a little bit of sweet potato pie
and some colar green, some sliced tomatoes. I mean, I'm
making up stuff. But you know, she listed like she
lists and what you would typically have for a holiday
dinner as something she just happened to be cooking one time.
And this is the kind of Southern woman I strive
to be. Okay, loved to see that in this scene.
(25:12):
But the best part of the scene is this after Gloria,
you know, offers Marvin dinner and Marvin's like, I don't know,
I've got so much unpacked. She's like, that's okay, you know,
I'll send my son by with a plate. Nice to
meet you, Marvin, and she sagets herself back across the
street and she has this moment where she's like, is
(25:33):
he watching me? And of course he was watching and
she looks over her shoulder, Oh my god, he's still watching.
Who y'all the best the best scene in the movie
for me. My second favorite scene is when Angela Bassett's
character Bernadine burns all of her ex husband's ship. I
(25:56):
don't even think at the time she's burning it he's
her husband. He is still her husband at this time.
And this is a man who after she got dressed
for their usual New Year's Eve activities, having to go
to some event related to his job or whatever. You know,
she's there sitting at her Claire Huxtable vanity. This is
(26:17):
the vanity that little girl Amina just really thought she
was gonna have when she became a grown woman. You know,
those of you that watched The Cosby Show growing up.
When Claire would sit at that vanity and brush her
hair every night, I was like, this is some grown
woman ship I'm a do to This sounds great, narrator.
She does not have a vanity. I do not have
a vanity. Also, I do not have the kind of
(26:39):
hair that can be brushed the way that Claire Huxtable
and Bernadine were brushing their hair. But I will just
put a pin right here and tell y'all that I
did get my hair straightened earlier this year in the spring,
and that was the first time that I really had
that experience of sort of whipping that hair around and
hearing that course down. You know, the brush makes when
(27:01):
you brush it. So I'm gonna get my hair straight
in a couple of times a year, and I will
re enact having these vanity moments where somehow you have
a brush that matches, the comb that matches some kind
of like big powder puff thing you put on your face.
This is all the stuff that I'm assuming is at
the vanity that Bernadine had that was very similar to
(27:22):
Claire Hunstable. So we find her dressed, beautiful, makeup is done,
jewelry her husband's like, mm hmmm, I think we should
have a change of plan tonight type of thing, and
she's smiling, thinking like, oh, yes, I don't want to
go to this party anyways, Maybe we could watch a
(27:43):
movie together, we could hang out. No, this man is
telling her that he's been having an affair with his
secretary and he want to take his secretary to his
work event and flaunt her around the place. And I
there's a lot about Angela Basta's character in this film
that that really touched me as a person who unfortunately
(28:07):
understands more levels of grief than I wish I did.
The way she sort of entered like a depression first,
where this man that she even married to all these years,
she helped him build up his company and his career,
this man just all of a sudden decided this ship
isn't convenient now. He just doesn't want to be with
(28:29):
her anymore. After she had the two kids everything, you
watch her really get into this very deep level of sadness,
and she is in this bathroom, sends her kids off
to school, and decides that she needs to burn his
ship down to the ground. And a girl has been
in therapy talking to my theorists about my anger, and
(28:49):
I actually thought to myself, like, I don't. I don't
have this type of relationship with my own husband, so
I have no reason to burn my husband's things. But
you know how they had of these places where you
can go, um smash rooms where you can go and
like bang TVs and break glass and stuff. They should
(29:10):
also have some type of a waiting to Exhale Bernadine
themed room where you somehow can go up in somebody's
Like it's like no one's closet. They just put some
random clothes there and you could take him off the rack,
tear him off the rack, and then there's a lot
of layers to how she burned up his ship. Okay,
(29:30):
she takes his stuff down off the rack, she stuffs
it through the sunroof of his car, puts the garage
door up, pulls his car out to the driveway, lights
her cigarette, and then burns everything dress, shoes, sneakers, suits,
and his car. Wow, Like, I really would love a
(29:56):
smash room themed on Burnadette where you could just go
in and basically do this whole thing she did. Like
that sounds great that I feel like that would be
some great anger expressions. WHOA Also last scene that was
kind of tender for me and my sister and I
were watching the movie thinking this was such an interesting
(30:20):
plot choice in the novel as well as the movie itself,
where once Bernadine's divorce is final, she is in the
in the bar at the hotel where she has just
sat in you know, whatever the closing room or whatever
(30:40):
they did to sign all their documents and stuff, whatever
boardroom they had there, and she's sitting in the hotel bar,
you know, just reflecting on life, as I'm assuming one
does when you're like, wow, this like really wild thing
just happened to me, and now that's over, you know.
And here we meet a young Wesley Snipe playing this
(31:01):
character that Bernady meets, and they kind of have this
interesting kinship, right Westley Snipe's character is married, but his
wife is dying and so she's been sick so long
that he and his wife do not have a physical
(31:21):
relationship anymore. And there's this interesting moment where they end
up going up to his hotel room and here they
are both contemplating am I ready to do this? You know?
She's there like am I ready to have sex with someone?
Else like this that's not this now, ex husband, Am
(31:44):
I ready to do this now that the divorce is
like final? All the things? And then you know he's there, like,
am I ready to do this even though my wife
is dying, even though I know that she wants for
me to be happy and wants from me to move
on at some point? You know? Can I have sex
with someone that's not my wife while my wife still lives,
(32:06):
even though she's not the wife that I knew from
when she was healthy. You know, all these things, and
it was very tender that the plot choice was not
for these two characters to actually have sex, but these
two characters kind of just lay in bed and cuddle together,
which is a very intimate thing to do. And the
(32:29):
way the sun came up on them, just so many things,
so many things. So there's a lot about that. When
I saw that scene, you know, I turned to my
sister and said, you know, I wonder if this book
were being written today, would this be the scene or
would the two characters have just gone ahead and had sex,
and then they would have they would have had to
(32:51):
deal with whatever the results or possible fallout for them
emotionally or whatever would have been from that choice. You know,
there's just certain choices that Tara McMillan maid in her writing,
as well as for as Whittaker made in directing this
film as well, plus the actors. You know. So it
(33:11):
was very tender. It was a very tender scene. And
I love any opportunity where you get a chance to see, uh,
these two black characters be so tender and soft with
each other in this moment. That was wonderful to see.
For me, I love a little tender thing. That's just
me and my forties. Now. Also, we need to talk
(33:32):
about this soundtrack. Keita and I were listening to this movie.
We're watching the movie, also listening to the music, and
I was like, this soundtrack is really like it's extraordinarily banging,
like wow, and it feels it feels a bit more
(33:54):
rare today that I watched a movie and also love
the soundtrack. I have quite a few movies that I
love the soundtrack of, but I have to say most
of them were made in the late nineties, mental late nineties,
and some early two thousand's maybe, But I haven't loved
a soundtrack like that from a movie in the last
(34:16):
ten fifteen years that I can think of right now
that I'm like, oh my gosh, Yes, Waiting to Exhale
had some bangers. Obviously. We have Whitney Houston's Exhale Shoop Shoop.
We also have Tony Braxton's let It Flow. We have
Brandy's Sitting up in My Room, and we have a
(34:37):
quintessential tune from this movie, Mary J. Blige on the
Not Gonna Cry. This is one of those songs that
I remember singing my guts out too in the car
or in my room listening to my little you know
clock radio that I had in my room that sounded
old as hell. Sorry y'all, anyways, like I remember singing
(34:59):
my guts out when I haven't lived through any of
these things that Bernadine went through. Because Mary J. Blige
is really singing from Bernardine's perspective. I mean she opened
up that was your lover and your secretary working every
day of the week. WHOA when Mary J. Blige you
got to that that hook right there said I'm not
gonna cry, okay, because you're not worth my tears. I
(35:24):
M Mary J. Blige made a hit right there, like
I just somehow at however old I was my teenage
self somehow became a broken hearted grown lady just belting
this song out shout out to Mary J. Blige, I'm
not gonna cry. I also want to give a special
shout out to Shaka Khan's cover of My Funny Valentine.
(35:48):
I love me some Shaka Khan, okay, but my favorite
Shaka Khan is typically fast song. Shaka Khan, this is
do you love what you feel? You know? Like that
version of Shaka Khan. That's them fast songs that tell
me something good, Shaka Khan. That's that's that's the type
of Shatka I normally like. But Keta and I were
(36:09):
watching the movie and Keta was like, who is this?
Who is this singing this? And it's almost like sometimes
because Shaka Khan has so many like dance hits, you
forget how melodious and jazz filled that vocal is. So
if you're a person who loves jazz standards, you should
(36:30):
definitely listen to this soundtrack to get Shaka Khan's version
of My Funny Valentine. Yes, okay. Other thing that needs
to be discussed on this soundtrack is count on Me.
Who I mean that song just Whitney Houston and C.
C Winan's on this song right here. First of all,
(36:50):
the vocals were just unmatched, unmatched, unparalleled. And I love
a good friendship song, you know. And there is just
something about count on Me that just it just touches
my heart every time, because I think most of us,
(37:12):
a lot of us would be able to think of
very specific people that when you are singing that, please
believe please believe me when I say you can count
on me? Who? And then at the end, when like
Whitney and CC were trade in the vocals, show kid. Yeah, man,
this soundtrack is bringing us so many gifts. I myself,
(37:34):
I'm going to have to revisit it. Yes, what can
we say about waiting to exhale? It is still even
rewatching the movie, it is still just it's just wonderful.
And I love a time capsule of black culture and
black history and black history. And I don't just mean
(37:56):
that in the cliche way. I mean in the way
that this book and this subsequent movie became this time
capsule of what we're black women concerned about, worried about
what we're black women wanting out of their lives. You know, Um,
how were our friendships impacting that at the time, this
was a little capsule of these fictional characters that really
(38:18):
were this great reflection of what those relationships are like
for so many of us as black women today. So
shout out to Terry McMillan for writing something that has
really affected many generations of black women now. And shout
(38:38):
out to the cast of this film. We really got
a chance to see even more so these characters come
to life, and I I really am missing Whitney Houston
and that we do not have her here with us
any longer, and also glad that we have this moment
to view her in this film, to see the beautiful
(39:00):
work that she and the other actors here did. So
shout out to the cast and crew of Waiting to Exhale.
If you have never watched this movie, watch it. If
you have watched the movie, rewatch it. If you have
not read the book, go read it. And if you
already read it, it it could be a good reread as well.
I love to see it helps talk to y'all. Se
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