The Blerd Spectrum
The Blerd Spectrum
2022 Melinated Solstice: Black TV/Film
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The sun stays brimming with Melinated joy as the crew tunes in to the Black TV and film that helped shape the culture and craft the creative minds of our generation also while saying farewell to a member of the crew
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Wavy Anime Type Beat "Michi" By: origami
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Welcome back to the Blurred Spectrum Podcast. This week we have a topic FOIO ass. Uh, whether you're blurred or you're just black or a member of the POC, not two POC, though single POC. Uh, we have a list. Not it's not really a list because I've I've been banned from doing any lists, tournaments, uh coagulation of topics or titles, uh, but plethora's of individual brands or assorted media. Uh, but this particular episode has been brought to you by our panelists, starting with the letter P for Pac, uh, where we are going to list off or talk about specific black TV shows, films, forms of media that if you haven't been a part of it, if you have not seen it, if you have not ingested it, we may have to check your black heart at the door. Now, does this still constitute the same thing for blurred? Because there's a lot of things that I would say a blurred would need to watch. But, you know, we'll talk about that in a couple seconds. So, of course, first off, have to introduce our panelists, our list of panelists, uh, starting with myself, your moderator, Suchino Shogun. Uh, continuing on, I have Kaze Shinryu. Hola, I have Sayone the cosplay.
SPEAKER_10Hello!
SPEAKER_03I have Skittles, I have Damo Quinzel and Shammy B. What's up? And I have The Black McCoy. So today we are going to talk about these individual titles. I mean, uh, there are several movies uh that I can instantly think of from the memes that I believe each and every one of you have seen online, which says if you haven't seen this, then you're probably not black, or if you haven't seen this, then you probably should get your black hard revoke, or uh if you haven't ingested this, then you're doing it wrong. Uh or or simply put, you're not invited to the barbecue, the cookout. So uh let's let's start with a couple of titles, panelists. Uh, what would you say is a quintessential black film movie? Uh, and we can start with the whole litany of Spike Lee films, or we could just talk about any individual. One, what movie would you say if somebody hasn't seen it, they should get their black card revoked?
SPEAKER_02Friday. What did you say? Friday. Oh, okay. I thought you said Triton. I was like, what?
SPEAKER_05What? I was just horrified. I didn't recognize what you said. I was like, did I move already?
SPEAKER_09Are y'all out already?
SPEAKER_07I know it's dusty, but let me wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02Y'all silently swiping the desk, like, damn, what the fuck? What's going on?
SPEAKER_08I didn't have to have to give it back this quickly.
SPEAKER_10Coming to America.
SPEAKER_03Oh, nice one.
SPEAKER_00Meteor Man.
SPEAKER_07Okay.
SPEAKER_02Blink man.
SPEAKER_07Ah. Oh, you petty bitch.
SPEAKER_02Baby's kids.
SPEAKER_07I was like, I'm gonna keep that one. Wait, what? Baby's kids. That's baby's kids.
SPEAKER_02That was a good one. That was funny.
SPEAKER_07I don't.
SPEAKER_02I mean, my favorite movie is New Jack City. I have no idea why, but it is. So my black heart's taken, I guess. Oh no! Oh no! That was quite we didn't even get to 10. Yeah, I know. I'm fading into the oblivion.
SPEAKER_08We're gonna add a couple of the other two Fridays. Oh, I I maybe not the third one. But you know, next Friday was good.
SPEAKER_02Next Friday, Friday after next. I don't know. I mean, they get worse after each one, but it's like you just have to watch it because it's just so stupid. But I let I love them all. Um, I think I think it's just the parody of it. I I feel like they're just uh playing parodies of how it is in Southern California. Um, and I and I love that. Um, I don't think those movies would age well for you, though.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02No, they would not.
SPEAKER_10No, they didn't. They didn't.
SPEAKER_03Don't be a menace to society while drinking your juice in the hood.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I never watched what I never watched either. No, I think I have to say that I growing up in like a Caribbean African family, there's something that they most likely are not gonna watch.
SPEAKER_03So I you see, I didn't watch it back then either. By like it wasn't it wasn't given to me. Like I happened to go from my aunt's house and it was on UPN, and that's how I saw it.
SPEAKER_09Not UPN.
SPEAKER_02You throwing it all the way, okay. So UPN, you might as well add half and half.
SPEAKER_03I mean, we we were doing movies first though.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so okay, okay, BAPS.
SPEAKER_08Yes, I have seen that movie, and I swear to god, I had like an existential crisis. I was like, why did this get made?
SPEAKER_05Baps and uh pooty tang.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, because the white man wrote that movie.
SPEAKER_08I felt like I shouldn't have watched that movie. Yeah, I didn't like booty tank.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. Oh, leprechauns in the hood.
SPEAKER_03No, absolutely not. Rejected.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay, drumline.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, would you call drumline a black movie? Yes!
SPEAKER_09Really, Mr. I went to an HBCU.
SPEAKER_03I went to an HBCU, but I wouldn't call it one of the quintessential black movies or get my black. Yes, you gotta see drumline.
SPEAKER_02That's like human was a black movie. It's a black movie. Exactly. That's like you said, oh, you shouldn't see house party. Like what? Wait, wait, wait. You can't call house party and drumline on the same movie. Yeah, they're not the same. They're not the same, but but it is a black movie, though. No one can say drumline is a is a white movie.
SPEAKER_03No, no. I never said it was a white movie, and I didn't say it wasn't a black movie. I just said it wasn't a black movie that would get my part revoked if I hadn't seen it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no. Don't give Nick Cannon in that type of power. Drumline doesn't touch your card at all.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, How High does, though. If you haven't seen How High. Oh, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_07Oh I've seen How High and that's only because I would leave the room.
SPEAKER_02I was about to say Sushi, your car got taken.
SPEAKER_03I've seen How High ten times, but again, I wouldn't call it a black card revolting. I don't think that's okay. Okay, the whiz. The color.
SPEAKER_02The whiz.
SPEAKER_03If you haven't seen the whiz, I saw the whiz in elementary school, and I saw the color purple in kindergarten. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Set it off. Set it off. Yes.
SPEAKER_10Waiting to exhale.
SPEAKER_03Poetic justice. Yes.
SPEAKER_10The best man. The best man between love and hate.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the best man between love and hate. That's a good one. You said the best man.
SPEAKER_02The best man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the wood.
SPEAKER_02The wood.
SPEAKER_08Soul food.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Soul food. Yes.
SPEAKER_08Fuck the mind. Yes, soul food. The tale of what happens when no one actually learns a lesson.
SPEAKER_02Oh, what's love got to do with it? I know everybody's doing that. Y'all heard me. How Stella got her groove back, when we include that one. Yeah. So everybody was trying to go to Jamaica with that fake ass accent, trying to get things in J. Love and basketball.
SPEAKER_03Love and basketball. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_09Brown sugar.
SPEAKER_02I didn't watch love in basketball. Brown sugar, though, I really did like. Oh, Shammy B said Love Jones. Yes. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_10Never never seen it.
SPEAKER_02Now we're going into a genre though.
unknownI don't think so.
SPEAKER_02Love Jones? No, I wasn't. I wasn't huge in romance. I'm very consistent.
SPEAKER_08I can see that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_08I'm going to be respectful and throw Candyman into the ring.
SPEAKER_02Well, Candy Man. Candyman. Absolutely. Absolutely. Candyman was. No, not for me. Candyman what? The the recent one? No. No, no, no. Either one.
SPEAKER_07I mean, honestly, either one, but like the original.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I will say this. Predator with Sinal Lathen. Because that was such a wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01That wasn't the title of the movie.
SPEAKER_02As horrible versus Predator, I believe. Now, even though it was a horrible movie, it was still a big deal to see a black woman as a female protagonist in a sci-fi movie. That didn't get killed. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_08Okay, throw in 13 years old with that one black lady that survived at the end.
SPEAKER_02I didn't even know she was.
SPEAKER_08You talking about Rod Digga and 13 Guns?
SPEAKER_02Alright, so so we doing that. You gotta add deep blue seat in because LLJ was still standing strong.
SPEAKER_08Of course. That's true. We could also add um Anaconda. He did. If that's the case, we can add Anaconda because you know Ice Cube survived that.
SPEAKER_09Oh, yeah, we didn't. Hell no.
SPEAKER_10That ain't nothing. No, I mean I've seen it, but no, that ain't quite dead president.
SPEAKER_07Yes, oh, head of state. Y'all remember head of state with Chris Rock? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I'm gonna go to Adam Blue Streak with Orlando Jones and Eddie Griffin. Wait, what movie was it? Blue Streak.
SPEAKER_07Oh, y'all up.
SPEAKER_02Belly. Belly. Yes.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Sammy B say at Hudlums. Never seen it.
unknownNever.
SPEAKER_04That was um Morpheus. Uh Lost.
SPEAKER_08Lack of Wannablues.
SPEAKER_10Did we say Poet and Justice?
SPEAKER_08We did.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Were there any black movies that everybody loved but y'all didn't like?
SPEAKER_08Oh, plenty. Um, most of the ones we bought.
SPEAKER_02Okay, like the whiz for me, I didn't like it. I didn't like the whiz. Okay, I'm glad. I'm glad.
SPEAKER_09Wait, wait, wait, why?
SPEAKER_02Michael Jackson wiz! I didn't like the I don't know. Like everybody's question is why it wasn't connecting to me. I mean, I guess the the music was cool, I guess. I didn't over it was just overhyped for me. And I didn't know that you just killed Sammy B. I wasn't I wasn't a huge Wizard of Oz fan, wasn't Wizard of Oz fan anyway, and seeing the Wiz, I understand how big it it is because of the representation of us, but I still didn't like the fucking movie. Like, I don't know. Sorry.
SPEAKER_08The biggest the biggest thing for me for that for the whiz was uh the soundtrack and you know Elon down the road, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, like the song is out.
SPEAKER_07Oh no, you know, wait a minute, hold up. Don't don't do Diana like that.
SPEAKER_02Like, we ain't even down this road. Uh-uh.
SPEAKER_08Right home is still one of those bomb ass, like, break uh break a stage songs to this day.
SPEAKER_02I understand, but I I wasn't feeling it. I don't know. Like, for it didn't, it's it didn't get to me, if to be honest. Like, I love her, and that's kind of like one of those unpopular opinions. The whiz was like not all that to me. I don't know. I don't know why. I wanted to love it like that.
SPEAKER_03When did you watch it?
SPEAKER_02I watched it in high school. Oh, see, I didn't see it until I was like probably an adult, at least I when I remember it.
SPEAKER_03That was another UPN movie for me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I watched it in high school, but I'm a musical head though. I love musical. So it's not like you know, I don't love musicals. I love musicals. I was in theater, I just couldn't gravitate to it. I couldn't it it didn't hit you.
SPEAKER_10I I feel that we didn't taste school days then.
SPEAKER_08I hated school days with a passion. I love school days. I I did not like school days. Actually, I don't like most Spike Lee films.
SPEAKER_02Oh shit, now that's that's an unpopular opinion right there. It depends on who a majority of black people.
SPEAKER_08It depends on who you're talking to. I don't like most Spike Lee films because I feel like they talk down to their viewers, and I don't appreciate that about the film.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's Tyler Perry, too. Tyler Perry has made billions basically creating black people, and I didn't like it. Like every single Real Back?
SPEAKER_03Wait a minute. We did this last time and we went into a dive on Tyler Perry. You inside you was there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, probably was. Yeah, Malcolm X. Malcolm X. Malcolm X.
SPEAKER_05But it's okay. Lean on me. I love it. Oh, oh Gash Lean On Me Yes.
SPEAKER_02We can't lean on me.
SPEAKER_08That mother and Lean On Me, she was also in the Carmen San Diego um TV show. Oh, of course. Make the treat.
SPEAKER_02Yes. What about what about Major Pain? Oh my god. Hell yeah. Major Pain. Would scary movie be a part of that?
SPEAKER_08Technically, you could say that because it was made by the wins, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_02But it would only have to be like the first two, right? Because I think yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah. I would stop at the first time.
SPEAKER_03But I'm like, I'm like if you don't think I put it on that list though.
SPEAKER_10Jason, but Jason's lyric.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Jason's lyric.
SPEAKER_05That might be the one I don't like.
SPEAKER_02So I'm gonna say something. I know that every single black person, majority, have seen it. Horrible movie, but save the last things.
SPEAKER_03Oh god.
SPEAKER_10Are we adding that?
SPEAKER_03Nope.
SPEAKER_10Is that a black movie?
SPEAKER_03Ain't seen it.
SPEAKER_02No, no, I have not seen it. No, that one's revoked. No.
SPEAKER_03I have not seen it.
SPEAKER_02At the time, I feel like a lot of us watched it. And then after we watch it again five years ago, we're like, what the fuck? I mean, it was what the fuck when I watched it the first time, if you want me to be honest, like it was always what the fuck.
SPEAKER_03Nope. Never seen it.
SPEAKER_07I mean, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05The white girl's the one on the cover. She knows that's not that's not. And that in that over in that overhyped ass dance.
SPEAKER_02Wait, it was it was how she hoped on the pair for me. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Wait a minute, because I feel like we for speaking of overhyped dances, you got served.
SPEAKER_02Oh we're gonna we're gonna R.I.P. Omarion. That's what we're gonna do. Just R.I.P. that. You got that movie. Oh Jesus. That was hard. He's gone. Mario did him enough, okay? Yeah. Eve's Bayou.
SPEAKER_10Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_10I don't remember that. I don't know about my favorites. I gotta look it up.
SPEAKER_03My favorite mama is in that movie.
SPEAKER_10Beloved and Amazon.
SPEAKER_02I didn't I didn't see that one. Uh Sister Act. Yes, and Sister Act 2. One and two.
SPEAKER_06One and two. Yep.
SPEAKER_02I would say Amazon. That was a hard movie, but I feel like all of us like watched that movie. What movie?
SPEAKER_10Amasar. I don't think I watched it. I don't think I watched that one either.
SPEAKER_02That was a hard movie to give them for me.
SPEAKER_10That shit was hard. No pun intended.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I bet it was. I'm claiming a goofy movie.
SPEAKER_01How you gonna claim the goofy movie movie?
SPEAKER_07All right. Because as soon as you said it, all I heard was Tevin Campbell's voice.
SPEAKER_02I'm like, oh shit.
SPEAKER_07I'm still trying to see who Mrs. Goof was. I know she did and everything, but I need at least a prequel.
SPEAKER_03Oh, boomerang and kid in play.
SPEAKER_02Boomerang was by the park.
SPEAKER_10Oh, yes, boomerang.
SPEAKER_02Boomerang um the road.
SPEAKER_01Kids play now. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02Ray Jones and Boomerang, and then also um Earth the Kit. Oh my god, they will Earth the Kit, Earth the Kit, Earth the Kit. I don't think I remember Boomerang. I remember Boomerang, but I'm mad up when they said not you think you remember boomerang.
SPEAKER_10Right.
SPEAKER_04I bad, I bad, I haven't heard that one. I heard leprechaun is hood before I heard tails from the hood. I thought someone said I almost said tails from the hood, but I thought someone said it on it.
SPEAKER_07No, it was leprechaun.
SPEAKER_02Okay, leprechauns in the hood.
SPEAKER_03Thousand.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um vampires in the in Brooklyn. Vampires in Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, with Eddie Murphy.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely not. Like, I don't y'all know I don't be doing like the horror stuff, but like Eddie Murphy was just funny enough for me to watch the entire thing.
SPEAKER_02Never seen it. It was the Jerry Crow for me. Eddie Murphy.
SPEAKER_05That shit was that shit was hilarious. Uh did we do Harlem Night? We didn't. No.
SPEAKER_02I haven't seen that one. What was that about? Was that like a yeah?
SPEAKER_05That was that was uh Eddie and um what's the other comedian's name?
SPEAKER_04That was a bunch of people. It was Eddie Brad Fox. Um who else?
SPEAKER_05The big black one. What's uh uh big black one?
SPEAKER_09Wow I meant big as in famous, but no, the one who's Richard.
SPEAKER_05Richard, yeah, Richard Pryor, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, right.
SPEAKER_07There's a lot of big names. Apologize to Richard from the gray.
SPEAKER_05I only remember saying Gene Wilder over your name is cause of is because of uh the the fucking candy movie.
SPEAKER_09Candy movie? Candy man?
SPEAKER_05No, the fucking uh yeah, Willie Walker. That's the only reason I remember his name.
SPEAKER_08Oh, Gene Wilder. That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the nigga was with Gene Wilder on the top.
SPEAKER_04He lied.
SPEAKER_02So I have two, Hustle and Flow, um, and ATL the Players Club.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, the Players Club, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Players Club was though. I skipped I skipped the Hustle and Flow. I'm gonna say no to Hustle and Flow. Only because MTV wrote that one.
SPEAKER_08Really? I didn't know. Big respects to ATL and Idle Wild. Idle Wild. Oh my god. Yes, people don't be talking about Idle Wild like this. It was a terrible movie, but the music was fair.
SPEAKER_10Oh, let's pull that back. I love Idle Wild. No, I can't believe it. The movie was trash, but the music was great.
SPEAKER_03I can't agree.
SPEAKER_10No, I I cannot agree. That was trash, dog. It was not trash.
SPEAKER_04No, it was not. You don't care for it. That's a different story.
SPEAKER_10It was definitely not trash. Nah, I like I could watch that movie like 10 more times. I got that shit on DVD.
SPEAKER_03There it is.
SPEAKER_10That soundtrack was definitely fine.
SPEAKER_04That soundtrack was level up.
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_09Yes.
SPEAKER_08Like despite how much we love outcast, we know 100 3000 was like the backbone of a lot of innovation for them. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05What was that bobsled movie?
SPEAKER_09Oh, cool running! Cool running! Not the bobsled movie. Not the bobsled movie.
SPEAKER_05I don't have a lot of names.
SPEAKER_02It's okay. Look, not one of them had an authentic Jamaican accent. That's what killed me. Cool running nine. I'm watching.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, cool running there and white men can't jump.
SPEAKER_09Oh wow.
SPEAKER_08Wasn't Willie Nelson in that movie? Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_07Oh, bitch, we forgot about Shafts. Disrespectful. Damn. Yes. Yo, so I was I was watching one of the Shaft movies with uh the with uh Samuel L.
SPEAKER_08Jackson a while ago. And um, you know that there's like a scene where he I think it the guy's out there's supposed to be like Puerto Rican or something. And I was like, this nigga looks familiar. And it was Jeffrey Wright. And I was like, bruh, Jeffrey Wright's playing someone who's not black. And it looked like they looked like they painted like the hairline on, like that's how it was. But I don't know if that was actually like Jeffrey Wright's hair back then. That's like I think I just watched Shaft 2, the second one.
SPEAKER_02I think that was the one. Oh shit. Yeah, because um, what's his name from the boys is in there? Who? Um the black, the black guy that I don't like right now because he be pissing me off.
SPEAKER_09Mother's milk.
SPEAKER_02Not mother's milk. Oh, A Train. Yeah, A Train. A Train crazy.
SPEAKER_09He's the third generation. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, it's the second one. He plays the one. Yeah, the second one he does play his sub. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Oh, you mean the most recent one? Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Is that the third generation?
SPEAKER_07That was that was that one came out like a couple years ago.
SPEAKER_03No, no, not third movie. I meant third generation of shafts.
SPEAKER_07No, no, no, it was the second.
SPEAKER_02That's the second.
SPEAKER_03He wasn't the grandson?
SPEAKER_02No. Oh, wait. No, it might be third, because there was a shaft before the shaft.
SPEAKER_03Right, that's what I'm saying. There was a three. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10In line between love and hate.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I was about to say.
SPEAKER_10I thought somebody said that.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay, cool.
SPEAKER_02We all can't forget the nutty professor.
SPEAKER_07We can't. One and two.
SPEAKER_02I was about to say that next. Or even get out. Every black person's like that. Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_08Nope.
SPEAKER_02Nope.
SPEAKER_08Nope as well.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I haven't seen that yet. I'm supposed to be a girl. I'm saying no because they didn't see it, but yes, we can add notes to the list. Girl strip.
SPEAKER_08I need to finish that one. You've never seen girls strip? It is hilarious.
SPEAKER_02No, um, it's not my thing that I would gravitate to now, to be honest.
SPEAKER_03So am I the only one that saw why do fools fall in love? No, I've seen it.
SPEAKER_02You weren't?
SPEAKER_03Just make it short. Oh, he he I never hear people talk about it. That's why it's because hidden figures.
SPEAKER_06Chanel Monet, all the all three of them.
SPEAKER_02Well then you you gotta add Moonlight to that. Oh, yes, absolutely. Moonlight is Dream Girls as well.
SPEAKER_08Dream Girls, yes, we can uh it's another fucking film. What is Moonlight? Moonlight.
SPEAKER_02I I got Mark made me watch that movie. So Mark, go ahead. We'll give her a synopsis.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Moonlight was one the what most people might know about is that whole controversy where La La Lai was supposed to have won the Oscar, but it was really good to be Moonlight. But uh Moonlight was pretty much coming to age story about um, I can't remember if this is in like Britain or Africa. I can't remember exactly where this was exactly. I think it was in Florida. That didn't look like Florida.
SPEAKER_07I'm I'm I don't know.
SPEAKER_04You know, they'd be like, well, pretty much Kid of the Hood uh was coming up and we're pretty much discovering that he was he was gay, but he didn't really know how to deal with it. What his mother was a crackhead, so he was dealing with that. And he was pretty much raised by the drug dealer that was. No, one's right, it took place in Miami. It did take place, okay, Miami. Oh damn, I don't know what Miami looked like in the background. But uh I was like, that didn't look like Miami, but no, like it's like all bodegas all the time.
SPEAKER_08Listen, more bugging and say you're in Pakistan. It's okay.
SPEAKER_04And yeah, it was it was pretty much a coming age story as he was getting, as he was like learning to deal with that. He also had a friend who was some we can say poppy. And um that was kind, they made it into a it was actually turned into a love story like midway through between him and a friend, as they were both discovering themselves and who they really were. And then like as you continue on, it also shows him as he's growing up. So they keep jumping back and forth between the present and him, like of his adult years going back to what led to what you see now. Yeah, and they just keep this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The way they the way they do storytelling and also the way they do um lighting, everything lighting, but the main thing is how they use colors, yes. That is in and of itself, and that's I think that's where the the name kind of more so comes from because they do everything in huge blue and purple.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, because I think the main quote that goes with that is like in moonlight, uh, black skin looks blue or something like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and it's like it's it's like the way they do that is just fucking beautiful throughout the whole movie.
SPEAKER_08And you and after you see that, you can see how a lot of other films, especially like Georgia. I see I saw a lot of note where they like handing it out when like they use that same lighting to enhance like black skin. It's it's it introduced so many wonderful things that uh black filmmakers can use, have been starting to use post uh its release and stuff. So yeah.
SPEAKER_04If you ever if you're into if you're into like how cinematography works and stuff like that, watch this fucking movie.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it was really fun. Um, I agree a hundred percent. Um, a lot of times they do the service with uh black skin, black textures, and just kind of like a lot of the lighting often looks flat um in black cinematography. Um, so in Moonlight, they just glisten, they just look so beautiful. And um, it was very artistic. It was very artistic and just how even it reminded me of when you see a lot of black artists and they paint black people, they use they don't just use black, they use shades of blues and purples and a little bit of greens, and they all mix it, mix it in and they have highlights of blues, highlights of purples to kind of see how the sun or the moon kind of hits on that skin and have it glisten. So I thought that it was beautiful. Moonlight was revolutionary um of its time because it was it was bringing something out to modern day that a lot of people didn't want to talk about. And it was black, queer men coming out and finding themselves, and for it to be as big as it was is huge because that's something also in the black community that a lot of it is very hush-hush. So um, for that to be as big as it was was just such a privilege to watch in our generation. So I agree 100%.
SPEAKER_03Good question. Well, yeah, greatly. Quick question. So we're talking a lot about a lot of the movies that we've named obviously took place in the 90s, like late 80s, 90s, early 2000s, and a couple that happen right now, right? So the question is, especially thinking about like the next generation, younger generation, is your black card being revoked? And we're talking about movies at the moment, specifically tied towards 90s black movies? Like, do they have to go back and watch all of the ones that we named? Or as the sliding scale of time moves on, do their movies replace the movies of old, or do they still have to go back and watch it? No, they still not know all at the same time.
SPEAKER_10Oh, they gotta go back, dog. Like because some of these movies are things that we like like we only like knew about because our parents watched. So so I mean, shit. Like, you gotta go back, dog.
SPEAKER_02Like, I don't understand you have to. Cause I don't feel like movies, those movies are nostalgic. Like, you you gotta watch those.
SPEAKER_03Well, nostalgic for us, right? But would it be a nostalgia for them?
SPEAKER_02It won't, so that that's why it's so that's a very interesting question. I mean, you can talk about nostalgia, but then what about our grandparents?
SPEAKER_09They're gonna ask us how you sing it in the rain.
SPEAKER_02Have you watched a lot of things at the time that you didn't have a lot of black people in cinematic to watch? So that's their nostalgia, you know. And so I did watch a lot of like movies and music schools from the 1950s and 60s and things like that, but majority of our generation don't watch that. So that's not a good idea. Yeah, exactly. Ginger Rogers, um, watching a lot of Dorothy Dandridge, like a like our generation doesn't watch. Yeah, so that's so like the nostalgia will change by generation. So nostalgia is is we're it's reflected on our parents' generation, maybe our grandparents, if we are privileged to have our grandparents still in our lives. So that scale is going to change. Our fa our children, if we so choose to have them, or the next yeah, and then our the next generation, they will see what we watched to have a familiarity that they want to be familiar with us, and also a lot of the movies that are coming out, they are a reference to our childhood. And coming to America, that is the cross between anybody brought up in the 1980s and 1990s. So, of course, coming to America, even though the movie was trash, that's our generation. So that the it the number it's the same title, just as the number two.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, coming to America.
SPEAKER_07You were ready to get about that bed. She was like, You better not sit on my childhood band.
SPEAKER_02I did, I listed all the way up. Yeah, coming to America too. So the next generation, yeah. What I what I love is that they're going to connect to black movies that are not typecast to coffee, and that is a beautiful thing. All we know about is black struggle, slavery, and comedy. That's but we weren't exposed to science fiction, we weren't exposed to horror, not really. Even still, when it was, it was still comedy. So now they're gonna be brought up with get out, they're gonna be brought up with nope, they're gonna be brought up with us, they're gonna be brought up with more things now, they're gonna be brought up with with Lovecraft country. So it's they're gonna have a plethora of genres to play off of that would be their new nostalgia or classic, where we didn't have that privilege to see. We only had a certain typecast of black folks with the same, generally the same type of um story. Romance was the same. Now you're starting to see queer romance. We didn't have really have that. Moonlight now is the new generation's classic, but we didn't really have that. So now we're going to be looking, we have now our old school classics and then the new school classics that we're gonna hold on to. But then again, the newer generation, they're going to see a much broader spectrum. And I think they're so lucky to have that, whereas we didn't have that. So um the classics in nostalgia is going to change, and there's no better time but now to just see black people in cinema in every single fashion. Um, another one is um, oh my gosh, it was with uh Regina King and everybody was in the Western that came out. Oh, I know she talked about it. Yeah, yeah, that was good. No, I was gonna say, Sinead, to piggyback off of what you were saying, also keep in mind that a lot of the people who are now in our age group that are these directors and writers, they're reaching back because like they're about to redo house party. So it's like if you redo that, no, they redid um it was a different movie. I can't remember which one it was.
SPEAKER_04No, they've redone the house party before, but they did, they could be but they're about to redo it again.
SPEAKER_02I forgot who it was, you know. We're gonna pray over that one. Um because I'm like, if you if you know, Maddie and Ronnie Right, right. Like if they so happen to watch that, and then my mind's like, nah, you gotta watch the original because it started from somewhere. Everybody keeps saying, why y'all 90s kids keep talking, y'all keep reaching back? So we're gonna keep talking. I agree with you. Uh this is something that I've had an issue with when it comes to cinema, when it comes to media in general, is that I wish there were, I don't know, we need more creative minds. We need more creative minds because what's ended up happening is that we're doing too many redoos. And um, it's not like it'll be like, oh, okay, that's cool. But in the new, the new generation, they're not getting it because that was old, that was our generation's humor and our humor change. Like we can't watch white chicks now and think, I mean, we're gonna find it funny because back then it was hilarious. But that shit is not age well now. Um at all. Um, we you don't even see a play on TV, but we didn't do that far. But um, you know, a lot of like even how high um it's the views on weed have changed um from how it was in the 90s. It was such a taboo. Um, like, you know, and how high was just so funny because it still was touching that taboo. Where now you're seeing weed being, you know, expressed in the media as, oh, this is this can help you now, instead of, oh, weed will kill you. So like things are have definitely changed, humor has changed. American Pie, which is not a which is not a black movie, but I'm just talking about the different, the different genres of what makes people laugh, what's funny, what's gravitate, what gravitates to people, it changes every single decade. Everybody in the 90s we thought certain shit was funny. It's not funny anymore, even to us, because that humor, we've grown, we've matured, but also that is not going to get the attention of the newer generation because they have their own view of what is humorous, they have their own view of what they can connect to. So there just needs to be more creative minds. Um, Jordan Peel cannot be the only person that's out here doing black sci-fi and horror. There has to be more because there, I feel like there's not enough people out, and I know they're there. They just need to have that opportunity to have their aesthetic and their vision brought to cinema, but we're putting too much expectations on these, you know, um, I would say, uh producer or directors, what happens when they get burnt out? We have Ryan Cooper for Black Panther, yeah, right? So we have Jordan Peel. What are we gonna do?
SPEAKER_03The scene, not that all these other creators, yeah. I was just gonna say, like, the the thing about that is like with Jordan Peel, he's he's grown to this particular position. Again, I'm not there's not an excuse. It's just more so he's had to prove to the white people, for lack of better words, that he can be trusted with money and with effort, or he built the money on his own, all the way from where he was at on Comedy Central all the way to where he is now. So it wasn't just a matter of, oh, we chose Jordan Peel and he's gonna do it all. And what is everybody else doing? It's like for us to get to that, because there's plenty of indie movies, there's plenty of movies that aren't the biggest budgeted or the ones that everybody can pay for. So the difficulty is how can we get those other directors and producers who are doing all of those things to the main screen, to the main scene where they can be seen as well? Like that I would say is the difficulty. It's not that Jordan Peel's the only one, because I agree, there are other, there should be, and there are other directors and producers and writers that are doing these things. The difficulty is black people have to work 10 times harder just to get to that stage. Like, uh a good example is Quinta. Quinta had to, you know, started on, you know, uh uh what's it called? Uh BuzzFeed. And slowly built herself to the point.
SPEAKER_08He was on, I think it was was it Vine?
SPEAKER_02Vine, yeah, but who's like BuzzFeed was on Vine back then.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, that was before she even made it to writing for BuzzFeed, like she was on Vine, yeah. Yeah, yeah, true. Yeah, yeah. I remember watching the interview, how she said how that happened, but I forgot how that's where it went.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, yeah, no, 100%. Like she had to grow and take advantage of the popularity and the the moving to the new job, moving to California, moving all the way up to this point where now she's a writer and producer of the show that she created. Like it's a it was a slow, uh fast and slow progression, but she's where she is now. So the difficulty is finding uh making it more well, we can't do it. I mean, we can try, but I don't know what we would do other than for uh promoting them. How can we get more of these black creatives to get to this place where we can have more current modern age? Because like I what one thing that you said that I've been thinking about consistently, Shine, uh Syane, sorry, is the fact that yes, and that's why I asked the question. Yes, the movies that we came to know are nostalgic, and they're the ones that we laugh about, but not all of them, as you said, have grown well or aged well, sorry. And then the the current movies that are out and TV shows that are out modern media for you know the black culture at the moment, those are gonna be their cult classics, the whatever movies they are, Black Panther or what have you. I'm not gonna go down a list. Um, so the thing is, how can we, because they're broadening, uh broadening the spectrum of the things that they can watch, the things that they can they can love and enjoy and and pass down to the next generation, the next generation can then call classics um and and nostalgia, but we have to make sure we can get more individuals there in place to be able to like we did uh there's never been a Jordan Peel the way that Jordan Peel is doing it right now. Same thing with Quinta. There's never been that. There have been black producers, writers, directors, and things of that nature. I'm not saying that it hasn't been, but not to that level where their household name and everybody on every side of the color spectrum, color wheel, is watching what they're doing. Even when you expect, you know, Nope and Us and uh uh um Get Out to be black movies, white people are watching them too, Asian, white watching them too, Hispanic. Everybody is watching Latino is watching Latinx, is watching these movies and these shows. So it's not just for the black culture, it's for everyone. I'm sure they made it specifically for a category of people, but it's for everybody to enjoy and watch. So um I agree with what you're saying. I just want to figure out how we can do that, but that's not what this topic is about today. So I'm gonna move on to from movies, because if we keep going, we'll probably find some sacrament movies we didn't even know about. Um, I did have another question, but I'll come back to it. So, second, TV shows. What are the black TV shows? Because one thing I've noticed is when you have those conversations in the in in the barbershop and in the salon and in you know with your friends or at cookouts and stuff like that, and you're talking about you know the the black card revoking, uh you're specifically talking about movies, right? Not saying it they don't talk about TV shows, but it's not the main point of the conversation. So, one question is before we list down our black TV shows, can your black card be revoked by you not actually seeing or watching a black TV show, a specific Black TV show?
SPEAKER_08No, not at all. I think even the idea that we've created, while it being facetious in some way, has formulated into its own kind of cultural normativity in the same way that the quote-unquote black has, right? That in some way, shape, or form there are these qualifying factors of blackness which are almost um antithetical to the drive of what it means to be black in the first place. And I think we've talked about this on past episodes before that, like even trying to quantify or qualify blackness to a degree, like while valid in some ways, you know, trying to gatekeep blackness is not in and of itself a horrible thing, but it's also one of those things, a very slippery slope. And more often than not, uh people with you know more varying experiences than our own, I'll say, um, have tried and to much of their available continue to fail in that aspect. And I would even go as far to say that even in their failures, it only continues to contribute to a much larger problem when it comes to viewing blackness in and of itself as not just a social but existential condition. And it doesn't create a healthy space for black people to actually create in a way that contributes to blackness. Because once you start to once you start to create a larger conversation around what blackness is and who has access to it and what they need to do in order to have access to it, especially when they are uh they in and of themselves are already black people, then uh it's it gets it gets it gets fucking murky for no reason at all. Um and it starts to disassociate and alienate more black people from their blackness, and then you create a whole new problem altogether.
SPEAKER_02I agree. I agree. Um, I would say I probably didn't start watching a lot of black movies or films until like middle school when my quote unquote blackness was challenged. Um so I felt like I had to go out of my way, like, oh shit, I ain't black. Um but again, we are we also have to look at at this as this is we're thinking really black American films, black American shows, you know, and we're not thinking about black outside of the US. And there we can talk about West Africans, they're gonna look at us like you ain't black if you don't know these shows. You know, exactly. So that's why it's you know, it's like like the black McCoy said, it is a slippery slippery slope because black cinema is not universal. It's not um not like Nollywood is not universal either. So, you know, people cannot assume, yeah, you know, you're black if you've watched like Good Times. Good Times was not in Jamaica, you know, so um, or or even like other TV shows. So, and that's where it does get it can be, you know, very murky when you say, well, what if you had people coming from other countries that are black? You're gonna tell them that they're not black, or vice versa, because they don't know something like black cinema, black movies, black shows, they we we didn't have much of them anyway. So that was something to kind of have a a discussion piece about to find a familiar familiar point. Of reference to kind of joke or laugh or have discussions about what love is or what crime is or things like that. So when you have these discussions and someone doesn't know about it, if anything, they should just like, hey, you know, I think you should watch this because this is what I've talked about. A learning moment, you know, a reason why someone should watch it, or yo, it's all stupid shit. Like, okay, I think I like it. You know, things like that. It shouldn't be like, oh, well, I'm gonna completely disregard your ethnicity, your, your, your, who you're being because you haven't watched it. Some people might not even had access to watch it in the first place. And that's also something that a lot of people don't like to speak about. Not everybody had internet, not everybody had um cable. You know, we had to, I remember in the 90s, we had to get that black box.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_05I think that's uh I think that's another reason why it's this is it's largely a movie conversation and not a show conversation. Because uh, because like e even for a poor family, it's uh it's it can be like a rare event to go to a movie or or you went or you went and got that bootleg uh from the barbershop. And but either way, you went, you know, you went and made sure you saw that, you know, you saw those like tent pole, you know, big like black movies versus you know versus a show. You ain't had cable, you ain't had cable.
SPEAKER_06Exactly.
SPEAKER_05Um uh and also and also I think very what's very interesting is I think I think this conversation is largely going to die with our generation. Uh I think honestly. Yeah, I think I think I think it largely I think it largely sprouted from our lack of options. You know, we we we we we could say like, oh man, you're crazy, you're not black, or you're not whatever, if you ain't see this, because it because it was literally like only a handful of of things like that in existence. So it's because you know, so it was just saying, like, oh man, you ain't you ain't see this black superhero movie. It's only was only four. You ain't like so you ain't see it.
SPEAKER_08It was we only had four in the course, an entire course of like human history. What you mean? How did you miss it?
SPEAKER_05But you know, but we're you know, we're living like in a very blessed time of media, and and and and it doesn't and it doesn't remotely make sense for this to continue to uh to have yeah, to have like you know, they can all they can all watch they you know they they'll they'll watch 80 shows and and and they'll probably watch 15 or 20 that that having that that's in common. And everybody else like, oh no, what's that one? What what what what streaming service that's on? Exactly. Um yeah, especially and especially with uh like like I think streaming just over like just officially overtook cable and numbers. I believe it for the first time. Y'all don't buy cable and and we you know and we ain't going back.
SPEAKER_08Everybody can't be stuck in the past.
SPEAKER_02I do want to say that I appreciate this new generation of just black people um because they they love nostalgia even of our parents' generation too. Um they love like like stranger things. I know that's not necessarily a quote unquote black media, but seeing, you know, I remember that our generation, we didn't even like to watch shit from the 70s, like it's old and whatnot, you know, it's grainy, you know, things like some people just didn't like it because that graininess was real, because I promise. It was real. Like I like I loved it, but I remember a lot of people saying, you know, they they didn't like it because of let's say of how technology has advanced, you know, quote unquote in the 90s or early 2000s. Like, oh, I can't watch stuff from the 70s, it looks old. But I'm loving how the this new generation they like to see or like at least get a glimpse of those uh 80s nostalgia, 70s.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry, they love them 70s and 80s filters.
SPEAKER_02They do, they do. I mean, even on Instagram, they love that classic look because you know that's something they I don't know.
SPEAKER_03I feel retro.
SPEAKER_02I just sell vintage. Oh my goodness. So um I I will say that they they do appreciate the the nostalgia of it. So I don't think they're going to completely disregard the classics when it comes to the aesthetic, because as you can see, um Stranger Things, that was definitely 70, late 70s, early 80s. There was no cell phones. So I think there was an intrigue. Like, oh my god, they were not cell phones? Like, how did they survive? And and then seeing that you know they they were playing um uh not video games, maybe I think with the later Stranger Things, but they were playing with cards and DD. And so these are things that they're teaching the newer generation, like this is how it was in the past. And I love how they're gravitating to that, so that the culture and in and older history of cinema and even just how we were as black people, I still think it's not going to be lost. And that was a concern of mine when I was, I would say like younger, like, oh man, like things that we like now, I don't think the new generation is gonna appreciate at all, but they do have an interest for it. So I feel like, you know, even with like these coming to America and things like that, that's our generation. I do see that these trends of decades, the reason why we see so many things that come out over and over again is that they never really die. They never really die at all. And I do appreciate that even though, like uh Kazu was saying, that that black card is definitely probably gonna end with this generation, you're still going to see the newer generations appreciate the things that we watched and want to know more of our past. So that I do like that our past is not really gonna die off. It's just gonna be changed into something more so that we can see us in every single part, every single play that we never saw us at at all, or even thought we were going to be. Um, and then the newer generation just kind of bringing that to life. Um, you know, space, odyssey, western, uh, comedy, romance, uh, what it means to love, who what it means who to love, like all of that is changing and being more accepting as well. Like even it's even teaching our parents' generation what it means to love someone that's queer, or what it means to even see them into something they probably thought they were gonna die off and never see. And the newer generation is really starting to bring that into light, you know, so that we can all appreciate it. Three, four generations, our parents' generations, to see black cinema coming to light in things that we never thought that was possible. So that is just something that I do often reflect about and I do appreciate. So even though we talk a lot about the young generation being a shit, but they are pretty.
SPEAKER_08I think it's important though, because one of the things that I think is important to kind of recognize alongside that is that the need for nostalgia to die is it grows more and more every day because people constantly talk about their childhoods being ruined and their childhood this and their childhood that, when in actuality, like the the con like the kind of cultural connection to nostalgia is almost idiotic, in my personal opinion. And that's a very harsh word to throw out there in that in that terminology. But like even when you think about the word like nostalgia, like the the like the Greek, like what's the word? Prefix the Greek prefix nostos means home, right? And the the suffix, yes, augos is the actual suffix for it, it means pain. So like nostalgia literally kind of translates to homesickness, to like a kind of like an acute kind of homesickness, like draw wanting to go back home, a pain for not being somewhere else, or a pain for not being at a different time and place, which I think is like uh ridiculous in its own right, because like given how far we've come and given like the various progressions that have made have been made in our in our media and our representation and how we tell various kinds of stories and how those stories are written, portrayed, et cetera, et cetera. Like we like the the need to be nostalgic almost seems like it, it's as long as it pushes back against the progress that's being made, uh, just kind of on this kind of fundamental, like conceptual level. When you like want to go back to something, but you still want to move forward. It's like you kind of need to let the fuck go to what that childhood once was or what it was during the 80s or the 90s or the 70s or the 60s, because things cannot like I get the more sentimental aspects to an extent, but also if we want to move forward, we have to move beyond those kind of tropes and those kinds of representations and things of that nature within the confines of the nostalgic consciousness or within the confines of the nostalgic desire, right? Because going back doesn't simply mean going back within a specific context. You can't just put those kinds of things in a vacuum and just be like, oh, this is we have to maintain the purity of this thing. It's like, no, like once you are able to like reobserve that thing, right? You have to be able to contextualize it, yes, but you also have to be able to critique it as well. And nostalgia's not, you know, not really absolved from that kind of from that kind of light. And kind of recognizing that regardless of whether it's modern media, whether it's media from the 90s, 80s, 60s, 70s, right? Um, just kind of like Saint was saying, like, even prior to even having all that representation that we have now, right, all of those things are just simply derivative. And I don't mean derivative in like the more pejorative sense, but I mean it's kind of literally like paying homage, drawing from riffing off of all of these things that came before it. And I remember one of the things that one of my mentors told me, um, Love Her to Death. Um, she's yeah, one of my first philosophy, she's like, there's no such thing as an original idea, right? And so one of the things that's really necessary to acknowledge about black cinema, black film, black TV is that sure, it may feel it may seem like original content, but there's always something that is being played off of, right? Even when it comes down to like a number of different sitcoms or a number of different like um black films, right? We can, and even when it comes down to like modern like Marvel films and superhero films, a lot of those things are just paying homage or using tropes or are derivative or riffing off of things that things like uh kind of like the nuclear family trope or things like leave it to leaver or riffing off of things like you know, old westerns and things of that nature, right? A lot of the different tropes that we see, a lot of the different media that we consume is often just the same thing, repackaged in something else. And it's kind of similar to something Kaze and I talked about in terms of like, oh, we were listening to someone and they were complaining that uh that the MCU like is just, you know, telling the same story over again, over and over again. And it's like, well, yeah, there are only so many different kinds of stories human beings have told over the course of human history, especially the course of recorded human history, right? We're not gonna keep, we're not gonna come up with something new like every other, every like 50 years or something like that. It's gonna be relatively the same. Now, you might every now and again get something that's kind of revolutionary in the for the fact that it's being thrusted to the forefront in terms of like a moonlight, right? But at the same time, right, like a New Jack City or um or like a Meteor Man or a Blank Man or a Belly or like they're no different from they're not that much different from things like The Godfather. They're not that much different from um, you know, older Superman movies and things of that nature. Like they are still doing the same thing. You know, we just, you know, we spiced it up by adding some Lowry's and a couple other seasonings and things of that nature, right? And what's important for us, what's important for us, I think, um, kind of as Kazme was saying earlier, that nostalgia is not going to be a thing for this upcoming generation. I think that's fantastic. Because I think that making that distinction between the derivative and the nostalgic and recognizing the thread of history that's being consistent and kind of weaving itself throughout the history of black cinema and black cinema and TV is more important to acknowledge and to observe rather than this over-sentimentalized uh past that is more so a false perception or like a misappropriated consciousness or a conscious experience of things that no longer exist. And to be honest, our memories of most past events, especially given how far beyond them we are at these certain points of our lives, like especially for 90s babies and like late 80s babies, like those those views of those things, they have a very personal kind of we have a very personal relationship to them. But also at the same time, it's important to acknowledge that just because we have a personal relationship to them, doesn't mean that there weren't some very glaring problems. And I think that this new generation is more equipped to be able to deal with those kinds of things and handle them in ways that are simultaneously um progressive and also kind of juggling this notion of accountability in terms of where we've come from and where we want to go.
SPEAKER_06Interesting.
SPEAKER_03Um so the interestingly that once I asked that question, it kind of morphed or changed the purpose of what I said we would hold off from doing beforehand, because I said we were going to start listing off, you know, black TV shows, but now it's you know no longer about the um nostalgia or about the black harbor folk? Uh it's more so now about what what black TV shows would you say are beneficial, helpful uh for understanding black culture, uh Black, the Black Renaissance, uh about our history. What shows will aid an individual who may have been, who is going to be born or may have been born in the 2010s, 2020s, um, about learning about their past, what happened with their parents and their grandparents, things of that nature. What black TV shows would aid them in doing so? Um, yeah, that's the new question. Not nostalgia necessarily, but what will help them learn about what took place before? Almost like a uh what's that thing called? That thing they used to put under trees and stuff, time capsule, like a time capsule, yes.
SPEAKER_02Black, um sorry, I'm I'm about to say black cancer. I don't know why I had black cancer. Um I would say family matters for sure. Family matters such a treat for us to grow up and with um, and what I loved about Family Matters was that it wasn't a trope of black people. Um, it wasn't a caricature of black people, they weren't black people that were struggling, that had to, you know, they had their own personal struggles, but they weren't financially struggling, lived in the hood. You know, this the the constant theme that we always see in movies, but even in Disney with freaking princess and the frog, it shit annoyed the hell out of me. Like it really a black fan, uh a black, healthy family that had their own issues with either identity or what it means to be, you know, like attractive, or what it means to to really respect one another. And they always had a moral of the story, they always had some moral, something to gain. Of course, there was influences of humor in there, which was delightful, but each character they had a purpose and learned from them. And I really loved family matters from the father to the kids to to Steve, Urkel, and also seeing that you can be black and smart, and it's cool too, you know, and that was something that a lot of black people had to struggle with in school, being, you know, quote unquote too smart for your own good, or you're weird, you're a nerd. Like, no, like they it even though Steve Urkel had to change into quote quote unquote the the cool person, but you could still be, you know, you could still uh I think what what was Steve Urkel's alter ego? Stefan Arcanine Stefan at that damn machine. But the the moral was that Steve still appreciated himself for who was he didn't have to be Stefan.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I was about to say the Bruce Lee variation too.
SPEAKER_02Oh Jesus You can still be the nerd and still get the girl, yes, and or whoever, whoever you chose, whoever you loved and adored, or who you dreamed of being with, all you had to do was be yourself. And that was such a oh my gosh, it was just so revolutionary for me. And I think um I always talk to my brother because my brother and I, we grew up in two completely different generations. So things that he struggled with were not necessarily things that I struggled with. And um, it always reminded me of things that he really had to struggle with, um, you know, growing up in the 80s. Uh, what it was, what that meant to be cool, what what it meant to be, you know, some to avoid being the outcast, so to speak, and all these things you had to do to wear and how you had to talk and how you had to be. And then, you know, me growing up in my generation, I was a black nerd. So, so you know, and I had my own little bit of struggles here and there, but watching Family Matters and watching shows as like, hey, you're a nerd, like you embrace that shit. My brother didn't have that, so it's just interesting seeing how each generation and how these shows are very important and they do play a part of growth, emotional growth, finding yourself, because a lot of times you don't have, you might not have a family to really know how to give you that support on how to be yourself, but watching these shows, you can connect to them, you can connect to a character. You're like, oh wow, you know, I'm I'm not the only person that's like this. Oh, and how do I navigate life, you know, just like Steve Urkel? Uh, how do I navigate life as Lara? And oh, just because they're they have pretty privilege doesn't mean that they don't go through their own issues either. So it's just it was this very it was such a beautiful show, and I really appreciate it. And I it I think it really did change the course of how we became ourselves growing up in you know, our adolescence.
SPEAKER_03Definitely. I I think uh excellent choice, first off, because with Family Matters, it was one of the few T TV shows that made it to a primetime lineup on a weekly basis, uh yearly syndicated uh television show that went against other, not other, went against white TV shows. I'll just go ahead and say it. So like it was on a you know, uh Friday Night TJF, it you know, ran up against Full House and um what's that thing called? Uh Step by Step and the rest of the shows and the rest of the shows that showed up on that on that list. And it, you're right, it gave those different concepts, those different structures, constructs for individuals to be able to find themselves with. That's an excellent choice, I think. Uh I definitely agree with what you said. That was INA Family Matters definitely showed. And I wanted to, I was hoping you were gonna say what you did about um uh him turning into Steph Stefan Arkel because that's that's true. He he at one point Steve felt like he had to be Stefan to be able to get the girl and be successful and all this other stuff. And the at by the end of the show, they showcased that Steve learned the lesson, which is you can be yourself, still get the girl, still get all the stuff that you want, um, uh uh without having to change yourself. Like it was it was uh excellent choice, excellent choice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Laura actually loves loves Steve. Um that's the funny thing about it. Lara actually loves Steve and not Stefan. I think you know it showed, like, oh, physically, you know, it's like, oh yeah, Stefan is hot, but personality-wise, she loves Steve, and that was really what mattered the most. Um, it kind of played off of like the Netty Professor in the same way as well. Um, you know, trying to get the girl, so to speak, and not having to be, you know, physically uh their version of what attractiveness is, because that's fleeting. It's really how the person is and why that person is like, I would say on a on a personality wise, why that person is just attracted to you. So I I loved it. I loved it. Um uh pretty pretty privilege is hugely a thing. Um, and uh I just I just loved um the the themes that they that they brought to the table. Um they showed each character was dynamic. Um, you know, you saw what it was and face value, but then they really gave each character their own background story. And I think that Family Matters was a classic. Um, there was no other show. Um, our parents didn't have Family Matters, they had good times. Oh, let me not talk because that that might be somebody else's. But like, but um they like each I I don't know if um we Would be the same without family matters.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Who else has one? Go ahead. Oh, oh.
SPEAKER_10Oh, okay. Um, so a different world.
SPEAKER_00Amen.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. I I I just I I know for me, like watching it growing up, it was just like, bruh, like there this is like a like an all black college. Like, like one, you know, as as a young, you know, person, a lot of times you don't realize, like, okay, yeah, there's there's historically black colleges out here. So this is my introduction into an HBCU. And I'm like, wait, there's like all black colleges, like what? Like that's a real thing, okay. So, you know, just watching the show and watching, you know, each character go through different situations and just learn from them, and just being young and black and in college and interacting with, you know, your type, your people, and then just the sit just the situations that were going on in the show between the different characters were just like like it was real, it was real, real situations that could happen, and then you, you know, they learn from it. Like there's always like this little, oh, well, this happened, and and this is how so-and-so saw whatever, and and now, you know, they've moved on, they've be become better or whatever. And it and and I think I I really appreciated that part because there's like like like family matters, there's like a lesson to be learned. There was always like a lesson to be learned uh when you know somebody was going through something or something happened or popped up or whatever. Um, and there's also like this, you know, same with family matters, there's like this comedic part, you know, there's always like these little comedy things happening. But at the end of the day, there was there was just um, I don't know, for me, it was just like wow, like like I can go to a school where they're like completely black people. Like that was that was just um different. It hit different for me because you I just feel like you know, you didn't see that type of stuff, like you see Martin and you see uh fresh prints, and you know, and they're like living in regular or fresh prints shit. That nigga was like from the hood, but we didn't see the hood, we saw the rich part, they you know, the rich college and all that stuff, and just black people acting a fool and the white people, but for I don't know, for a different world, it it was literally that. It was a different world. It was like okay, I see that it was that, it was that for me, so yeah.
SPEAKER_06I want to throw happily ever after fairy tales for every child into the ring. That was okay.
SPEAKER_08That's not that that oh my god, that's the most like quintessential thing. And I throw it into the ring because I we haven't had like a lot of animation talk, but in terms of like animated like black TV shows, that one was revolutionary. It took a lot of the typical fairy tale stories that we know and made them like more closely associated with black people. They put black people in those stories, they didn't put black people in those stories, they had Latinx people in those stories, they had Native American people in those stories. Like they took, they literally said fairy tales for every child, and they took all the people of color that they could um and thrusted them into this storytelling model. And part of the reason I put it in the because I one, I love parables. I see, you know, regardless of whether it's Happily Ever After or Family Matters or you know, Cosby Show, Different World, I I read them in terms of being parables more than like stories that are like trying to teach a specific lesson. Um and I think that, and I and I do that way because when it comes to like parables, it's not that they're trying to teach you a lesson, but trying to show you a lesson, if that makes sense. Um because I think the difference between uh parables with store parables and more often how like TV represents different kinds of storytelling is that you know TV is trying to drive you towards a certain kind of point, right? But parables are giving you enough liberty to to use your kind of own critical thinking skills. And I don't, yeah, yeah. But just the the ability to have a TV show. I think it was on HBO, wasn't it? Yes, yeah, the ability to have a show like that for chill for like black children. I I prom I was constant, I didn't even, I don't even remember when it came on, but I know that I was always up on like Saturdays or Sundays or whenever it came on. Sundays, but like I was always up trying to get to my parents' TV to make sure that I could turn it on and watch it because they had the good channels in their room, because why the fuck wouldn't they? Um and just be I don't think that a lot of I don't think that a lot of people now because I don't know how many people actually remember the show, right? You know, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05I will I will never forget that Jamaican Rumble Still skin.
SPEAKER_08Me neither! Yes, we'll be goldberg. Yes, Goldberg is Mother Goose was everything. I still hear the voice every time.
SPEAKER_05They got Jasmine Guy, Robert Townsend, Dindal, Rosie Petret.
SPEAKER_07God, Margaret Show, yeah, my budget.
SPEAKER_08Listen, only HBO had the budget, only HBO had the budget, but like being able to have that for black children is was was revolutionary, and it wasn't like it was problematic in some way, like it reflected the cultures of the people. It like it took the stories, like the classic stories, and reflected them through the lens of the culture of the people that they were using to tell the story. And not a lot of folks can do that so artfully and so like seamlessly to where it makes an imprint on a child's mind. So yeah, happily ever after, fairy tales for every child. I don't know if it's available on HBO Max, I'll have to double check, but we could stream it now. It's actually still on. Oh fantastic. If it's still going, then like that that's that's beautiful. And I'm glad that that's something that's strown. I'm glad that that's something that existed because it helps substantiate a lot of how we needed to develop black cartoons, black cartoons, black animation, black stories in a way that was truly refined towards the community and the culture of black children rather than to some larger, more digestible uh white audience. And I think that that was far more important at its time than we give it credit for more often.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, if I'm not wrong, it's still running. This the same seasons are still running on um HBO Family.
SPEAKER_02Okay, fantastic pick. Oh my god, yeah, no, definitely.
SPEAKER_03That was that was something it's a pick.
SPEAKER_02Like fantastic pick. Like that that's taking it back to like crash box to me. They're talking about like classic nostalgia, which is not not um black at all, but yeah, during that era, HBO was doing something. HBO was HBO family, yes, HBO family was doing something where every single black child or person of color was watching fairy tales for every family. Like ever like I remember I would lose my shit just trying to figure out what episode was gonna come next, and I didn't care what episode it was. As long as it was on, as long as it was there, as long as it was there, because I was getting seasoned seasonings from all over the world, and I was quite fine with that. Like I remember like I I my belly was full. Like I was I was eating some Maggie Cubes, I was eating garlic, I was eating, you know, cumin, I was eating chicken marsala, I was, I was loving it. It was food for the soul, it really was, and I really appreciated that show. It's amazing how they didn't reboot it. Like that's a show that I thought they would at least reboot or try to ignite some type of new age version of it.
SPEAKER_08Um I'm glad they didn't. Because I think it's one of those things that was, I consider one of those lightning in a bottle kinds of thing that was like it was good for when it was there. But I think given the climate that we have currently, it would be consistently, I think it would lose some of the some of the the authenticity behind it, and it would be trying, and it would come off too preachy. I think that's something that needs to stay where it's at. Like I don't, like, I don't want it to end up being a show that's like trying to cohese with the current era and end up overcompensating in the process.
SPEAKER_03It's on HBO Max and Hulu.
SPEAKER_02I I I agree. I just wish that I think what it um what it needs is just like proper direction from from every every single, I would say what if they were to redo it, they would really need everybody on board. They would need like you can't have a white person telling a story about a non-like you'd have to have you, you know, you have to have an entire team of of that own particular culture telling the story. And I think that's how that would work.
SPEAKER_08Um speaking of Ananzi, Anansi the Spider Spider, A Tale from Ashanti, that was all that's also on my list.
SPEAKER_02But I would I really would love to see that before this. I think that was something important that because that was a lost gem. I completely forgot about it until you said it. So I really do find that, and I think actually, I think that this generation would appreciate it even more because we're so cultural now. Um uh it really just boils down to direction and just having, you know, the entire team, they are getting better with it now than what it was back then. So I would have I have faith of them being able to bring that into light now with even better graphics and even more in-depth storytelling, just having fairy tales from different cultures. I would I would love for the newer generation to see that. Um, because again, that was like a lost treasure. If you didn't mention it, I would have completely forgot about it. And that's sad, because that's something that should never be forgotten about because it was so important of my childhood. Um, since everybody likes to redo shit now, anyway, they can at least redo something that was very important and that I think would actually fit in quite beautifully now because the internet has made things so cultured. Like we are able to get things around the world and people are like, what do you mean by culture? No, not like that, as more so as we're able to connect with the world a lot better than what we were able to do in our past. So we we are more familiar with other cultures that when we were children, we didn't even know it existed. Um, if it wasn't for that particular show. Um, so I do think that they of all the shows that they like to bring back and it's trash, that is a show that they can bring back and it could be something quite beautiful. Um, so I don't know. But that is a fantastic show. So thank you for that.
SPEAKER_05You're welcome, Alan. Mm-hmm. If I if I remember, I think that I think that Anasi show was literally the book animated. Yep, it was. Yeah, I think I remember it like page by but like I think I went and got my book. Like, y'all motherfuckers.
SPEAKER_08I remember I got it from the Scholastic Book Fair. Okay.
SPEAKER_09Oh my god, scholastic.
SPEAKER_02Do they still do that though?
SPEAKER_03They better not better not do scholastic book. All that money they were stealing from us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're right. Um, they do still do scholastic book fairs because I just they had to do one the last year. I was like, they were still looking for my mom and they wasn't stealing that for me because it wasn't. Yeah, but no, the so when I go in there, I just have Amazon up on my phone and not be checking prices.
SPEAKER_03I do that when my nephew comes home. He's like, Oh, can I get this tomorrow? I was like, You mean the same book and the same uh extendo pencil that you want that's $2.99 on Amazon that they want $25.42 for?
SPEAKER_02I mean, but it's still like we so with scholastic, uh, you know, we might not have been able to get all the books, but I can at least be able to find the books in the library. So I did appreciate Yeah, in the library, like in the library, not in the library in the school. Like we had a library in Columbia where like so they would do the scholastic book there in the school, yes, but they're they're the same books that I could go rent out and read in the library, like the county library.
SPEAKER_03They did not give us that uh that uh that ability. I'm sorry, I said they did not give us that ability, we did not have such benefits. That's definitely a Howard County. Oh no, most definitely Howard County.
SPEAKER_09Okay, but Howard Call is anymore.
SPEAKER_03But to um oh right, uh TV shows. So um I have one that I know people who know me know that I would probably say, and then I have another one that um, yeah, I'm gonna talk about that one too. So the first one is the Cosby Show. And you know, with all of the people's feelings about the Cosby show or the person behind the Cosby show, the Cosby show in and of itself, as people have said over the years and the decades, is an institution in where it explains a family dynamic, talkless of the fact that the mama was a lawyer and the father was a doctor and they had money because they lived in New York City in the 70s and 80s. Um the point of the matter is it explains so many different ways and how to interact with your siblings, your family, your parents, grandparents, um outside people. Like there were certain lessons that I was able to learn, as uh the Black McCoy and Sione said uh when they were watching Family Matters and Happily Ever After, as well as Miss Skittles, uh, when she was watching. Did I forget it that quick? Wait, where is it? A different world. Different world, thank you. Which is funny because it's a you know, it's a spin-off. Um, but you know, there were so many different lessons uh that I was able to learn uh while watching the a Cosby uh the Cosby show. Um and I feel even though you know people are a little antsy about still watching it, you can go and watch an episode today that is finally back on BET uh or uh TV one. Uh and you can go back and watch it, and there isn't an episode that you can't pull a moral or a uh a lesson from, even if it's a small lesson, you can pull something out of it. There's humor, there's love, uh, there's drama, there's Claire Huxtable, there's so many different things that you can pull out of the show that will specifically teach you things that you need to know about. Um but of course, the one that I uh people know I know is uh Living Single. Uh by far, Living Single is my favorite show of all time. There isn't probably a show unless I think about it that huh?
SPEAKER_10I think yes, Living Single.
SPEAKER_03100%. Like um to the point where I can recite 92% of every word of every episode of Living Single. I've watched it that many times when I was younger, up until now. I still watch it. Like I actually play it before I go to sleep on certain nights just to uh uh uh put put put my mind at ease. And and the reason why I feel like it should be one of those time capsule shows is because Living Single back then to me made I'm not gonna say it made no sense, but it was just a funny show, you know, laughter, uh jokes, you know, playing off of one another, the actors. Um, so you know, for me it was just humor. You know, it came on right after Martin or right before Martin. Um so, you know, as a child, I didn't think anything of it. But then once I got to my 20s, into my 30s, the the thought process of knowing all of the words of the show and experiencing certain things in real life, I was able to, and it's funny, I had this conversation with my mother a couple uh years ago, and she was like, you know, all the words of this show, but you don't know any of the words of the Bible. I was like, first off, you tried me. How about these? And I get I threw off a couple scriptures. She was, you know, she took a couple steps back. She was like, Oh, I got you. Um, and it's similar to what they used to always say about what they I think I see, that's one scripture I don't remember. I think it's something uh something along the lines of you teach a child in the ways, and then eventually they're gonna remember. And if you teach them the word, it'll be ingested into their heart and they'll be able to speak it later. So the fact that, you know, the idea is you absorb certain things to a certain extent, and then later on, when you are in the situation or in a situation, you can pull from those experiences from those lessons that you read up and that you memorize to be able to properly navigate, or not properly, but just be able to navigate the situation. So going back to Living Single, there were so many things that they came across and they they they talked about. Um oh, uh I guess I'll talk about it real quick. So, one experience that happened in Living Single, which was when Kyle was uh trying to get from uh was trying to do this uh uh Africa project, and uh one of uh the upper management was like, Well, you know, we were talking about certain things, and it's like, Well, we need to just change your hair. And so, my hair. What are you talking about? My hair is me, I am my hair, it's a representation of who I am. And let me tell you about how somebody in my workplace decided to say, I need to change my hair recently. And I'm like, Oh, huh, I already got my speech ready. You don't want it. Kyle Barker will live out in this situation. I ain't finna change my hair. I just grew this shit. So, you know, it's it's it's those types of situations in the show itself that allow me to know, not necessarily know what to do in the situations, but they help me digest the situations rather than getting upset immediately. Because had because if I've never experienced it before, I'm liable to become emotional about it. But what I can do is I can process it by utilizing the things that I've seen and the things that I've memorized and I've adjusted, so I can probably navigate it in a way where it is uh practical to me. And that's what Living Single does for me. And I've seen it do it for other people who have watched it. Um and uh I that's why I would love to put, you know, both Cosby Show and Living Single in Time Caps, on top of the fact that going back to what Mosquito said about a different world, I always felt like it went uh Cosby Show, a different world, living single, because just the way that they talked about, you know, uh kind of you know how you know you're out, your children, your adolescents in Cosby Show, now you're college aged, and then living single, you're fresh out of college in the real world. Like it always felt like it felt like a linear prog progress. And I was like, yo, I want to be like that. That was my thought process. I was like, you know, I was in the cosmic, I was in the hospital household, and then I got to, you know, I mean, I may not have gone to Hillman, but I did go to a HBCU, and I was like, now I'm gonna be in the real world, start my own business, make this money, live in a brownstone. I didn't get to the brownstone because I ain't about to live in New York and pay no half a million dollars. But I'm gonna do these things, and you know, it it helped me properly think about how I can do things, how I can hold on to things, how I can construct things, and 100% living single, all up in the time caps. Yes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think it I think it's low-key uh uh uh horrifying how much uh vicarious life experience we get from our media.
SPEAKER_08Like it just imitates life, imitates art.
SPEAKER_05Uh yeah, yeah, like but the the my conversations I I had where people like say things or reference things, and I'm like, no, that's crazy. But wait, did you get that from fucking this? Mm-hmm. Yes, I did. Yeah. I'm like, sweet Jesus. And it's you know, I mean, and the scary part is like, you know, that it's it's one thing where they're giving you a moral or life lesson. It's another thing where it's a joke and you didn't get it, and you thought it was a good idea. It's like, mm-hmm. But uh, but um, yeah, no, this question is like almost impossible. Oh for me, like it's like just the the honestly, like the the entire it is it is felt like literally the 90s, literally 1992, 2000 was such a fantastic time just to be on TV. Like, you know, I like I can't I can hardly think of black shows I didn't like like like like like hang like uh the the parenthood you almost said hanging with Mr. Cooper? Yeah I was gonna say that next. Oh sorry but yeah the yeah the parent you know the parenthood like you know carrying like carrying on like a whole bunch of the uh the DNA of the Cosby's and uh yeah definitely like hanging with Mr. Cooper. Oh, in the house in the house in in the house, freaking um uh a smart smart guy.
SPEAKER_00Sister sister um Cousin Skeeter.
SPEAKER_01Cousin Skeeter! Thank you, Nickelodeon.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, Nickelodeon, for that one too.
SPEAKER_02Like, like I feel like you, Jose. Like, I was sitting over here trying to find me a life lesson in these black shows that I watched back then. And I'm like, the only one that might come close to like reality for me probably would be half and half, and even that is kind of like slightly. And the only reason why I say that is because you know, it's about two half sisters and I have a half brother. But our age difference was greater than theirs.
SPEAKER_08I love the search for the adjective.
SPEAKER_02But like how um Mona, not Didi, how Mona always was like, I don't like you.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02That that's kind of how it was. I don't like you. Like I've heard so much ish about you and see the way you move. I don't like you. Like, I don't think I started really liking my half sibling until adulthood. If you want to be honest.
SPEAKER_03That was the show. That was the show.
SPEAKER_02But I mean one conversation.
SPEAKER_03Never mind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like like and I'm when I say adulthood, I mean like probably like mid-college.
SPEAKER_03That was the show.
SPEAKER_02So I say tolerate. But that that probably was like the closest. But even then, like there was never a DD in the situation where it was like, I want to be close to you. It was like, all right, you stay there and I'm gonna stay here and we'll we'll link up when we link up. Even now to this day. Like he might get mad that I breeze past his house when I come see y'all. Well, I think you're talking about it. Whatever. I see you when I feel like stopping.
SPEAKER_03Like putting yourself on blast.
SPEAKER_02I mean, but it's the reality of the situation. Like, but it's a podcast. I mean, you just put yourself, you know, on the listening, and I tell him this to the space. Who knows what it is? Exactly. Like, like he's breezed through here and asked me for food spots. I didn't tell him to stop. Like, that's just how our relationship is. Like, that's just the dynamic. But like, like I said, there was never a Didi to be like, oh, y'all should be try uh trying to be closer, or even Didi's mom, where she wanted the girls to be close, but the mothers weren't close.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it wasn't that either. So the parent that we have that shared, you know, say he was lackable. Okay.
SPEAKER_03All right. So, you know, I mean, that was the daddy in the show though.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but see, the two women were are were were arguing, but they always wanted their daughters to be close.
SPEAKER_08True.
SPEAKER_02That is not my reality.
SPEAKER_08Oh, I'm sorry. But you don't know, I think you're touching on something that's like really important just generally speaking. Um I think that something that gets, I'll say something in in my in my reading of a number of different of these different shows um that gets lost is the the the kind of essential part to remember that these are still very much like fantasy-based situations, like fantasy-based situations. The plots are contrived, the the dynamics themselves, or the the conversations themselves are contrived, they're idealized in some way, shape, or form. And that that leans into something that's just as almost you know phantasmal or like you know fantastical and fictionalized as you would anything in like is some of like the the spook the jokes in like the proud family or something like that. And I it one of the one of the important aspects of the shows themselves, right, is that they try to, they they do their best to give their viewership something to latch on to um in terms of lessons, morals, right? But I and you know, I think this is just me as an ethicist, but not every lesson or moral kind of assertion is necessary to just consume without deconstruction. And the level of implications behind that, right? Because the number of things you one could feel as though they learn from shows could actually be lost in general, because it's like, oh, this is what they're trying to say in this particular situation, or oh, this is the thing that needs to happen. But it could just like still kind of like go over one's head in the first place, or it could be completely lost because you know, the reading that one has of like a life lesson, or one has like a moral quandary in a show, right? Or in or what have you, or you know, as the actors themselves kind of portray, um, may not actually be the best kind of thing. Like we see a number of different things that are like hyper-realized and are romanticized in a number of different ways that don't actually occur because real life is far more difficult than that. But then again, again, like that's why I think it's important to see them more so as parables rather than as things to kind of like give you a lesson. Now, like it's funny when you like every time I think of like, oh, this is the moral of the story, this is like the lesson that they want us to learn. I think of that joke at the end of Animaniacs when they had the wheel of morality and just randomly spin it. And I think that that's kind of where my mind goes because at the end of the day, when it comes down to however anyone has viewed most of these as, you know, uh ways in which to guide one's life and you know, figure out how to exist in various circumstances and scenarios and things of that nature, it becomes almost a roulette of just, you know, where does your kind of like pre-constructed value of you know, values and principles already going? Where is that already going to guide you and how you look at this in the first place, rather than putting oneself in the position to view this and say, okay, well, this is this is this is fiction, but this is also something that's trying to say something. But what are the various, what are the, what's the I don't have the degrees for like a sphere, which is weird in my head, but like, you know, when looking at it as a sphere and you look at the different nodal points of what very what different factors brought all of these circumstances together, right? Like what is the larger context or what are the various you know steps one takes to get there, right? Um I I think it largely puts us in a position to be intellectually dishonest in with ourselves about like how it is we tend to relate to a lot of media. And that's also why I don't trust a lot of nostalgia just in general, but that that kind of idea of false consciousness in terms of one's subjective relationship to a thing and the misgivings and misguidances of subjectivity in a lot of those different ways. I don't think it makes the shows themselves any less valuable, so to speak, but I do think it gives us the opportunity to place them in the annals of time in a way that is constructive of an overarching historical narrative and conversation rather than, you know, trying to immortalize them in some way, shape, or form. I mean, they're immortalized in terms of like, oh, this media's been created. But yeah, no, no, but that's that the the that that facet of the dissonance between the the fictional sitcom and the reality itself is something that um is very pervasive when it comes to, I think largely a lot of our generation and you know, just some of those shows from the 80s and 90s.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I think one thing it it made me think of like, would it be different if I did have a sister? Because I felt like maybe the sister would put more effort into it. Like in in my situation, it's always why don't I be the adult when these people are older than me? And and my answer to you is fuck you and fuck off. Um, like I'm not gonna keep being the adult. Right, right, right. So I'd be like, no. But yeah, I think it made me think like, what if I had a sister, would things be different? Or like even watching like um Suchi and Lady Legacy's relationship, I'd be like, okay, I don't want my kids to have the same relationship that I have with my sibling that they have with each other, and it shouldn't be that way just because they're in the same household. But you know, I just I would want them to be closer, like a Black Panther brother and sister, more so than my reality. What no, I'm saying I'm using them as an example.
SPEAKER_06But yeah, Jamie B.
SPEAKER_04Um, I'm gonna be honest. I watch these shows. No, but because for those who know me, uh my life has nothing to do with none of these. So I don't even have child, like I didn't watch child shows. The only cartoons I watched were probably not meant for children. I hated you know, other stuff like I didn't like other stuff like that when I was kidding, I'd like to say hated, but I never liked child shows, so anything that had to do with fairy tales, I probably didn't watch because I do respect it. So it was like so um I'll say I always if I since I couldn't find anything to really uh I couldn't find anything that really showed me life in the like real life stuff in these shows, I gotta pick characters that I would like to be like. So um, like uh over to the cow bargain from Living Sick were literally my robot.
SPEAKER_09Yep.
SPEAKER_04Uncle Phil was literally a robot over the yeah. So um those were what I most likely paid attention to. Um in terms of shows, y'all pretty much gone down a lot of everything I had watched. I think the only thing I haven't heard mentioned yet is Martin. And I think that's because of how much of a comedy it really was. And uh though we had some real moments to it, a lot of them was girlfriends. Yeah, yeah. Like Martin Girlfriend, Girlfriends is another one, too. Yeah, like I said, though, girlfriends had more real moments to it, I think, than Martin did, because Martin was way more satirical of the you know, the black living situation than what girlfriends was. Um and then Girlfriends was one of those first shows that really seemed like it was gonna roll, even though it did change after a while, seemed like it rolled with the idea of being that dude that was friends with a bunch of women, but wasn't smashing any. That was a very that was a very like permanently settled. Yeah, that was a very crazy concept at that time to a lot of men and women. But um, so it was like shows like that um were very, very um important to me, just you know seeing how how certain people, how certain people, most specifically men, should be in certain situations. Um just being in terms of me understanding or just being like a happy-go-not person, so on and so forth. Um like shows like I I was uh I can't remember his name off of um a different world, uh Dwayne. That was like that was a typical you smart as fuck, yeah, but you're still a nigga. Like that was that was one of those, that was one of those roles where it was like, oh, you can actually be that. Or like you know, you don't have to be of the of the jock situation or anything like that. Like he was a dude that came from not maybe not the roughest of neighborhoods, but it would be hood adjacent. Like on hood adjacent. And uh like he was he was still very intelligent, very learned, and also always looking to improve himself.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04Um, and his mind. So these were like he said, I I wish I could say another show that nobody else had said outside. I think Garfly is the only one I mentioned that no one else said, but like it was like the like there was no other early 90s black shows that I really because I didn't really care for cut speed at all, to be honest. I would say Moesha is another one that was really a really good comment of age story that um that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned just yet.
SPEAKER_03I thought it, but I didn't say it. What'd you say?
SPEAKER_10No, I can't, I the only reason why I can't agree with Moesha is because when like when you watch it back now, it did not age well at all.
SPEAKER_04No, it didn't.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, there are some things in there that I just like I just like damn, like we was literally like laughing at this shit. Like, like Moesha and like the Parkers and things like that. It was just like, mmm, like damn, we was really like we was fucked up. Like we was we was kind of up because there there's like you know, there's a lot of like body shaming and like sexuality shaming. Like it's just it is there's things in there you just like I don't want people to look back at that and be like, oh, that's what y'all was doing.
SPEAKER_04Like it wasn't like like in fact, um there was a show that I just brought my attention. I almost forgot about that. I didn't watch heavily that was one-on-one.
SPEAKER_00Yes, one-on-one. And that was I gotta remember that fucking Jackson, Flex Washington, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Jackson he played. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh no, remember that.
SPEAKER_00Never forget.
SPEAKER_02I didn't want to be bought back there.
SPEAKER_00I didn't know. Damn you, lifetime. I never live, I never leave here.
SPEAKER_02Uh about uh no, I was gonna say another show that that probably I'm surprised no one has mentioned not a bunch of live lessons, but still keep you heavily entertained was the boondogs.
SPEAKER_07Oh yeah. Oh, there are plenty of life lessons in the boondogs.
SPEAKER_02I said not a whole bunch, not a whole bunch.
SPEAKER_03I was like, there's like one an episode. One an episode at least.
SPEAKER_02The boondogs was like a parody of life lessons. I think that's that's really what it was. You you had to you had to already have known the life lessons. Oh, I see, so to speak, because then it brought to life about racism, uh, about um colorism for sure. But you had to have already known about it. So I I I I think like if you were just going in completely ignorant, you're like, what the fuck's going on? But like you had to definitely have known about it because it did touch base on a lot of life lessons, but it definitely was a parody of those life lessons. If you're going in there, um, I would say coming of age, um yeah, you might be you might be like missing a lot of it. Like it did touch base on um the R. Kelly trial. Um, uh it did touch base on um, you know, being of uh being of like a um interracial child, things like that. So it did touch base on the quote unquote Uncle Tom syndrome. But if if you didn't know about what that means, you would be lost. So it definitely was a parody of already learned life lessons and to some and something to laugh at, but it did teach uh I don't want to take morals. I think it did just it taught you to be be aware of your surroundings, yes. Yeah, it taught you definitely of like a woke mind of that of that kind of period in your life. Like that definitely wasn't something for kids. It was definitely it wasn't even for children, it was for our generation, like as adults, like young adults. It's very much like you have to already have been in on the joke to Yeah, it was it was definitely life lessons to learn as young adults, I would say. So coming of age into adulthood, because there could have been themes that we were told about, but things maybe there are themes that we were about to witness, so to speak, that that was kind of playing the joke on, but it was about self-aware.
SPEAKER_05Kazi, you were about to say something? Uh yeah, I was gonna I was gonna say I think uh uh boom boom boondocks is probably the best example of satire of any and satire is very inherently educational. It's is I mean, that's his that's his if you if it's if it's working correctly, like satire is supposed to make you think be you know beyond like like it's like oh this thing's really funny. Is this really how this is? And you know, and it's not exactly how it is, but now that you're thinking about it, you do think right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because you just made me think about that scene from the when the episode where they were doing the art telly child with Riley, who's like, you mean to tell me she might have just moved out the weight? Oh my god. Believe it or not, I wanted to name Ronnie Riley. Uh it still fits to me.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was.
SPEAKER_01Don't give him that fuel.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna be honest, if it wasn't for the fact that the name that he has came from somebody that I really looked up to, he probably would have named Riley. That's gonna be honest.
SPEAKER_02You know what, though? I didn't appreciate the boondocks touching on the food industry. A lot of things that we don't talk about. Like that to me was brilliant. I and it brought a lot, brought to light a lot of things, like white people like to hop on a bandwagon when it comes to certain things, you know, and it just kind of seemed like a lot of Caucasian people in the show that were flocking to get those, what was it, chicken? It was always chicken. Yeah, the loot. You know, someone there was a restaurant in DC when I used to work um at this hotel, and it was right off of um the red line. And it was a uh restaurant that used to sell the Luther, literally, to the T as the way the boondoc said it. And I was like, yo, there's no way I'm getting that type of diabetes. Like, no. I would use too. I would do it too, just for science. I'm gonna send you I'm gonna send you a mark with them double-down teas to eat.
SPEAKER_08Oh, here we go. The double down was a crime against nature, but also a momentary glimpse of the glory of human innovation.
SPEAKER_05Delicious.
SPEAKER_08I made one.
SPEAKER_05Oh too.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna say I made him one because he but I made a grilled chicken instead of fries.
SPEAKER_09I'm surprised that no one has said fresh prints.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think we danced around Fresh Prince. Uh, like I believe Miss Skittles and um and uh Shammy B mentioned Uncle Phil and mentioned, you know, Fresh Prince wasn't necessarily uh show that we could gather something from because of well, actually, Miss Skittles specifically said that she learned more from a different world in terms of college and things of that nature, opposed to Fresh Prince, where you know he's just you know being black around white people.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow. I I didn't take I okay, I didn't have that takeaway from Fresh Prince at all.
SPEAKER_03Um did I say that right, Miss Skittles? I don't want to paraphrase and that wasn't right.
SPEAKER_10No, I mean, um yes. So I I'm not I definitely not saying there wasn't like things in Fresh Prince that you know we didn't learn from or couldn't learn from. Like, like I'm pretty sure everybody wanted they they like dad to be like like you know that was a real acting moment for him. Like there was there's definitely something he won't be man like fresh prints. Um, but the whole the whole college part of Fresh Prince for me was just like uh like it it wasn't something that stood out to me. There were other things in Fresh Prince that were more uh valuable to me than you know the college like Will in college like yelling and trying to holler at every guru.
SPEAKER_03Kyra Banks working on it.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I I agree, I agree. I I would I didn't watch that for that too, so I understand. Yeah, his college experience for to me in the show was neither here nor there, like so with the fresh prints though.
SPEAKER_02I don't think it really focuses focused on college life per se, like a different world did. And I think that's why I didn't gravitate to a different because I I was too young to even care about like college or what it looked like at that age while I was watching Fresh Prince. So I didn't appreciate a different world. Um, I saw it and then I would click the channel because I just thought it was boring. Um just because I was at that age, I just didn't really, I didn't really care about what college life looked like. It didn't gravitate to me because mentally I just wasn't prepared to have that conversation. But um, but the the fresh prince to me was was great because it was seeing what a supportive father looked like um with comedy. Um and uh also seeing that yes, I always said that people who who who who delve into humor or humorous people are the most depressed. And I and Will's character was that for me, and I think that's why I gravitated to that. Um, every single person that I've known that are really, really funny or that always uses humor as like a self-defense, they have so many issues that they go through, and humor is what they use to comfort themselves, and that's how I saw Will's character. Um, Carlton, I love Carlton. I gravitated, I think what it was, I gravitated to Carlton so much because he was that you act white, you talk white, and he was very black, and that's what I really love too. And I think because I dealt with that in middle school, so I gravitated towards Carlton's goofy ass character more so because I was dealing with tropes of that in middle school. A different world was over my head because I couldn't, I wouldn't be able to mentally have the vocabulary to understand what an HBCU is because I just wasn't there yet. If I were to watch a different world now, I probably would have pre It was just way too it would it just wasn't it was too much for me at that at that time so I completely understand um Miss Kittle's point of view but growing up um I rushed to watch a French Prince because of the humor, but also to see a rich black family like what? Oh man, I was like wow, that's cool. Like that's so cool. Um, you know, and and also to see how white people were white people and being racist as well, and that how they couldn't fathom seeing black money. They, you know, that was an issue for them. So I I really appreciated um uh you know Fresh Prince and Um also the lessons learned, seeing Will's character growth by being in that house as well. Yeah, um, that was profound for me, aside from the humor, aside from him being uh a teenager going into you know college, um just seeing his growth and and maturity, um, even with all of his fuck-ups like we all have gone through, he still learned um from and he still took the life lessons that he learned from every single person in that family, whether it was the the you know, the cousins, whether it was the aunt, the uncle, he he took a life lesson from every single person and tried to apply his life. Um so yeah, fresh prints for me all the way.
SPEAKER_08So it's always really interesting as we kind of like talk about this. I think I think a bit more intimately, just about the relationship I have to kind of media in general, especially when it comes to like when it comes to like more like live action media um or like sitcoms and things of that nature. And it's interesting because I part I as I kind of like deconstruct why or uh I always gravitate more towards animation, it's I guess like something that I become more hyper-aware of is that when it comes to a lot of uh media regardless, when it comes to like a lot of like, you know, real life, you know, shows and that nature, it becomes more and more apparent that a lot of a lot of them are just caricatures of like the human condition in some ways, but not like caricatures in a such a way that's like really beneficial is not the word, beneficial to me in the way that I would need them to, but more so of like kind of growing up and not having knowing of and having seen a lot of these things and like watch them and so on and so forth, and become more aware of the people around me. It's like it was it's almost as like watching this kind of like weird appropriation of like identity onto oneself from these things. And that's what I mean, like sort of like the caricature aspect. It's like becoming caricatures of the black content that was supposed to quote unquote formulate us in a way, and I think that kind of contributes to what we were talking about earlier in terms of like, you know, the black card being revoked and stuff like that. Like your black card can be revoked if in some way your identity is not reflected off of any of these media in some way, shape, or form. And I find it farcical, but I also find it um I find it farcical on the grounds that like it's it's almost like this kind of weird, weird joke that didn't really fully form, but it's still being like told anyway. I find it problematic on the level of like the the the very interesting machinations of the self being just reflections of other selves that are not the self, if that makes sense. And I find it helpful because I think that as content itself, and yeah, I think I'm I'm also thinking in terms of this of like, you know, content just in general, when we think about various sorts of content, and also I'm thinking about it in a very like kind of Socratic philosophical way, where it's like when we look at different things and different regardless of whether it's you know black show, black TV and film, anime, cartoons, comics, whatever, right? There's always there's always a kind of critical juncture at which we find ourselves trying to connect with those things. And how we connect with those things is always going to be the most interesting part for me. Because I think there's not only a important kind of historical context to it, um, but I also think there's like, you know, naturally, as I'm about to say, there's a very large like psychoanalytic and social kind of component to there as well. And it's like, well, how does one formulate, how does, how do we as uh a community and how do we as like individual black people kind of formulate these uh shoddy but somewhat cohesive identities of like blackness of self, of like, you know, what it means for me to be a black person, what does it mean for me to learn and move through these different kinds of stories as a black person and still somehow find myself cementing um, you know, I uh an alleged individual identity in some way, shape, or form, right? Um, yeah, yeah. But just kind of as we're talking about this, I was processing all of that in terms of like those three kind of different aspects of like a farce of a farce of benefit and of just this kind of like problem at the same time. Because I mean, all of these things have consistently affected our lives in ways that we can't really, you know, we kind of have to manage and deal with, right? But at the same time, are we able to in full earnest and like full earnest integrity and um like critical mindset truly examine them in ways that are whole and not um what's the word I'm looking for? Uh biased.
SPEAKER_05There we go. That's the word. Yeah, that's probably impossible.
SPEAKER_07But um I'll say improbable.
SPEAKER_05But I I think uh I think an honest attempt would be uh would definitely be uh healthy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And then I was gonna say, Kaze, did you want to, I know you didn't get the I mean you said you didn't, there were too many options, but did you No, I had no, I had I had one. We just started talking about something else. Not mine.
SPEAKER_05I'm picking uh I'm picking static shot.
SPEAKER_03That's that's a accurate yet left field attempt. Gotcha. Why?
SPEAKER_05Uh I I mean, as much as being as much of a superhero head as I am, that was like literally the first show I can I can think of where the it was animated black main character superhero. Um I'm double yeah, because even the DC superheroes I saw, the black heroes I saw before, they never had their own show. They did not. Um so yeah, nope. Yeah, yeah, Stag was just it was just all automatic. Like, you know, and even you know, and even on the first, you know, the first I saw the first first episode, I'm like, and I'm like, okay, yeah, we we in the hood. I rolled my eyes a little bit. But uh, but yeah, but you know, but at the same time, I knew that was that was a lot of people's you know reality. So, you know, it it just it wasn't mine, but I'm you know, I moved on and loved the show anyway. Um but yeah, no, it was yeah, and and and you know, we and we were talking about uh you know, we was talking about like lessons and you know that uh Sag Shock was chopped full of them. It was, you know, it was animated well. Um actually, was that was that McDuffie? Was that the same dude as Justice League? Uh let's see.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean Justice League did make an appearance. That's not an impossibility.
SPEAKER_04No, but yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_05Um wrote the the milestone. Yeah, Dwayne McDuffie. Yeah, so yeah, Dwayne McDuffie, yeah, who's a yeah, uh who's who's a black man, yeah. He did uh he yeah, he he he pretty much did all the all the all the Justice League shit you love. Yep, static shock, and yeah, this this nigga is is is amazing. Um that crossover episode was brilliant. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_08Forget when the Joker tried to use his buzzer on Static Shock.
SPEAKER_04Between him and some of the other artists for the DC, for the DC animated universe. They can literally save DC's movies.
SPEAKER_09Oh my god. I was waiting for DC's movies.
SPEAKER_04We will talk about the movie. How about they let them save them?
SPEAKER_03We will talk about the savior of DC in upcoming episodes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, no, no, yeah, no, pretty pretty much. Also, also also shout out to that uh that uh I think it was a Justice League uh crossover episode where uh where stag was grown.
SPEAKER_09Yes, remember that song?
SPEAKER_03Yes, when uh when uh the Green Lantern and it wasn't Flash went back into uh the well they used the flash point to go back in time and they saw God's hand. Still touches me to this day.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I want to grow on stag and touch me.
SPEAKER_06Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05All right, talk about informative.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so to wrap up the episode, uh, I think this is extremely informative. Um uh we we definitely had an idea going into this episode, and I think all of us, each and any each and every one of us have learned something different about what we really wanted to talk about in this episode because originally we were just gonna, you know, list off the different movies and films, uh I said movies and films, the films and TV shows uh that you know are indicative of black culture. And now I think we have a different, not only view and appreciation of them, but also have a different concept of uh from, of course, the black McCoy nostalgia, and then from an understanding kind of what Sayone was explaining about you know uh the next coming generations and uh culturally what they'll be able to interact with and what they'll they'll want to uh really take on and want to see and then ingest. Um, and then I think each and every one of us have remembered because of the black McCoy, uh happily ever after. And then uh, of course, because of uh Shammy B, understood, you know, uh uh why we enjoy, well, Shammy B and Sayon A, why we enjoy French Prince. You know, I think all in all, uh there we gave our own Black life lessons and morals in this episode today. And I think each and every one of you should be proud of yourselves uh for being able to do such a thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, also also uh also Myra was best girl.
SPEAKER_07We've been sitting on there for the past hour. That is such a fact, Myra is so bad.
SPEAKER_05Laura ungrateful.
SPEAKER_02Can we do this way that uh Steve would say Myra every time? Like that shit was just so funny to me. But I love I love Myra. Like I don't know why.
SPEAKER_08I think the actress who played Myra died sometime ago.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, she did. Um, was it cancer that she was going to? I thought it was drugs. No, I thought it was a good thing. It wasn't drugs.
SPEAKER_00Well, okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it was shortly after. I know because I know at one point she had a drug problem. She did have for a long time a drug problem. Seriously.
SPEAKER_05I know she died in 98. Um, yeah, she I think she was 30. I think she I think she was 68 to 98. Yep, 68 to 98. Yep.
SPEAKER_0260 to 98, okay.
SPEAKER_08Craziness.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, she was, she was she was such such a beautiful person.
SPEAKER_09Um boy, yes.
SPEAKER_03But not not not to we're gonna go in another direction. So to wrap up the episode, let's give our panelists the opportunity to let you know how they can be reached. Uh first I'll start off, of course, with the podcast itself, the Blurred Spectrum Podcast. Uh, we can be reached on Instagram, on uh Facebook, on um Twitter, and uh YouTube. Uh and then we can also be found uh at our mailbag. Uh, all of these are the Blurred Spectrum or Blurred Spectrum Podcast, uh, or the Blurred Spectrum Podcast at Armostarcade.com or the BlurredSpectrum at wait at gmail.com. There it is. There's the mailbag. Um, and then of course, uh myself uh can be found on Instagram, Suchi underscore no underscore shogun. Um Kaze, how can you be reached?
SPEAKER_05Uh find me at uh Bear3B uh on the ground.
SPEAKER_03Uh and then Sayone Cosplay, how can you be reached?
SPEAKER_02Sayone cosplay on Facebook, Sayone underscore cosplay on IG, and SionePeriodcosplays at gmail.com.
SPEAKER_03Ms. Skittles, how can you be reached?
SPEAKER_10Uh Ms. Skittles, uh T-R underscore cosplay on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and on Twitter is M-I-Z Skittles2K02. Oh, okay, Twitter.
SPEAKER_03Uh tur. Uh, and then um the excuse me, Damo Quinzel and Shammy B. How can you all be reached?
SPEAKER_02Um, I can be reached at Blur Creations on Instagram at Blur Creations Store on Facebook. Please go on there because Ms. Skittles Zodiac Girls line is up there now. Virgo will be dropping by the time you hear this. Um, and then you can also reach us at Shampoo Bracelet on Instagram.
SPEAKER_03And of course, wrapping up today's podcast, The Black McCoy, how can you be reached?
SPEAKER_08Well, considering this is my final episode as like a main crew member for the Blur Spectrum, you can find me at the BlackMcCoy. And if you want to find me in other places, you can find me at Not BlackbyChoice on Instagram. Oh, yeah, black McCoy on Instagram. I missed that part entirely. You can find me at the Black McCoy on Instagram. You can also find me at Not Blackby Choice on Instagram as well as Facebook. And you can find me at www.notblackbychoice.com. And I do say it has been an absolute pleasure to be with all of you on this podcast. And though the circumstances uh be pure Alcalo, uh the dereliction that brought us to this point, I think that everything that the Blood Spectrum does and will do will always continue to be phenomenal. And if I need to pop back in every once in a while, just let me know.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much, uh, the Black McCoy for always giving us a lot to think about with your amazing intellectual conversations and your viewpoints. And you definitely were the the the brain of a lot of uh my thoughts and and feelings of uh all of the discussions that we had. So it's been such a pleasure and an honor, and um I appreciate you. We all appreciate you for everything you've done and have brought to this podcast. So thank you so, so much.
SPEAKER_03Amen. Definitely. Uh definitely say this podcast would not be where it is without you, and it will definitely miss you moving forward. Like you said, if you have to pop in, I'm sure any one of us will be able to blasso you of truth and pull you back in.
SPEAKER_01So let's move forward with the end of this episode, as I always say, and we'll continue to say Sayonada. I don't have to take this. I'm going