14:00

are mostly the Jeffrey

14:02

Epstein-ish, you know, Me Too

14:04

stuff. But I also was

14:06

curious about, you know, what

14:08

this character, Frida, what

14:11

it's like to be a black woman in this

14:13

space. And I didn't get that. And it's Zoe

14:15

Kravitz, I kinda, you know, I was hoping for

14:17

that. I felt the same way,

14:20

Aisha. And I know black people are on

14:22

a monolith. I know that. Of course. But

14:24

there were certain choices that this character was

14:26

making where I was just like, absolutely not.

14:28

The answer to that is I do not

14:31

see a black woman making that choice at

14:33

this point in the movie. And I won't

14:35

get into deep, deep into it. I know

14:37

that we're all different and black people can

14:40

do a lot of different things. That's not,

14:42

I'm not saying that everyone should be doing

14:44

the same thing. But the lens of this

14:46

movie felt like a black person who was

14:49

devoid of racial thinking in this environment. So,

14:51

and I'm thinking in terms of Zoe Kravitz,

14:53

in the ways in which she grows up

14:55

are probably also indicative of how she views

14:58

herself in this world. Meaning that the choices

15:00

that she makes are not gonna be indicative

15:02

of those black folks who grew up that

15:04

may be more marginalized than her. And that

15:06

felt like way more reflected in this main

15:09

character in a way that I was just

15:11

like, what island with all these white folks?

15:14

Like, you see. And

15:16

with so many built-in power

15:18

imbalances beyond race. Yes. Yes.

15:20

She was catering and now she's on a

15:23

private jet. Like. Yeah. Yeah.

15:26

Let's get into it. Yeah.

15:29

Like, I wanna give Zoe her flowers. You

15:31

know, like, I really liked the way that

15:33

the movie was shot just overall. Like, it

15:35

firmly took place from

15:38

Frida's perspective. You know, you're, as

15:41

an audience member, kind of ferried along through the

15:43

movie. Through her reactions.

15:45

Like, very few scenes followed other people's

15:47

experiences or things like that. And so,

15:50

as an audience member, you have that

15:52

same outlook as Frida. And

15:55

considering what this movie puts her

15:57

through, I think that that

15:59

really helps. This movie stay intense

16:01

where it needs to be, while still kind

16:03

of allowing for a bit of comic relief

16:05

from time to time. And

16:07

also the music, which is something that I

16:10

loved what they did. There's this kind

16:12

of like unsettling motif that comes back

16:15

over and over. So it

16:17

feels like things are going wrong almost

16:19

from the beginning, which

16:22

is really appropriate because

16:24

whatever you learn throughout the course of

16:26

the movie, you already

16:28

know that there's something off. Like we are

16:30

doomed from the start, you know, like you

16:32

get that in the trailer to some degree,

16:34

right? Like, you know, from the time you

16:36

go into this, there's something's going wrong. And

16:38

I think the music really kind of like

16:41

underscored that quite literally. And

16:43

again, without any spoilers, I feel like

16:46

that ending, as we're kind of

16:48

talking about the way Frida as a character

16:50

was written, the ending was

16:53

not a result of a writer saying,

16:55

OK, what would happen next with these

16:57

characters? Like, what would these characters do? It was

17:00

kind of a writer intentionally saying,

17:03

how can I zag instead

17:05

of zig? Like an unexpected

17:07

ending is not always a better

17:10

ending. That ending was just unsatisfying.

17:12

And I don't I don't

17:14

think that's maybe the risk that they should have taken there. I

17:17

think the ending speaks to the

17:19

strange shape of this movie. And

17:21

Ayesha sort of talked about like I wanted a

17:24

little more backstory about her. I wanted to know

17:26

a little bit more who she was. What you

17:28

have is a very long,

17:31

slow windup to

17:33

this third act that really disrupts everything

17:35

we've seen before. And I felt like

17:37

that long, slow windup. I appreciated that

17:40

this is a pretty compact movie. It's

17:43

only about an hour and 40 minutes. But a

17:45

lot of that is windup and they could have

17:47

used some of that windup time a little bit

17:49

differently. And I think they

17:52

could have provided an ending

17:54

that didn't feel quite so abrupt. Yes. Yes. I

17:57

think some of the feelings that you take away

17:59

and end. And that experience that Ronald is talking

18:02

about of like not feeling

18:04

as strongly in favor of the movies

18:06

he did a week ago is

18:09

a little bit of a byproduct of as

18:11

you're heading home from the theater, as

18:14

you're falling asleep at night, as you're talking to

18:16

your friends about it. He snuggled

18:18

in my bed. You start to work through like, how

18:20

did that work? That's I think some

18:22

of what we're talking about is that like it

18:25

hasn't done the work to pay off the way

18:27

it could have. I think the one thing I'll

18:29

say about the ending is like, just

18:31

like both solution is this other oppressive

18:34

structure where I'm just like, no, that can't

18:36

be the. There

18:39

has to be another way. Exactly.

18:42

I think that's where I'm like, I felt unsatisfied.

18:45

I guess I wanted a little bit more clarity

18:47

in what exactly was happening because I was actually

18:49

kind of confused because it was because it was

18:51

so perfunctory. I don't actually mind that

18:54

this is the alternative because I do

18:56

think maybe Zoe Kravitz is trying

18:58

to say something about the

19:00

fact that like we can all be not great people

19:02

in some ways or we can all, you

19:04

know, still rely on the system

19:07

in ways that we shouldn't. She says in like her production

19:09

notes, this is not a story about empowerment. This is

19:11

a story about power. Only

19:13

sort of borne out in the way

19:16

this movie concludes. All right. Well,

19:18

we want to know what you

19:21

think about Blink twice. You might

19:23

have thoughts. Find us on Facebook

19:25

at facebook.com/pch up next. What is

19:27

making us happy this week? This

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21:10

it's time for our favorite segment of This

21:13

Week and Every Week. What is making us

21:15

happy this week? JC Howard, what's making you

21:17

happy this week? So right now I'm low

21:19

key obsessed with tennis. I

21:21

went to the Washington Open, which is a

21:23

tennis tournament in Washington, DC. All

21:26

of a sudden I'm obsessed. Even during

21:28

the Olympics, they really pulled me in

21:30

with a lot of the storylines. It

21:32

might be an aftershock of challengers, but

21:35

I'm into it. You know, like all the drama, the

21:37

intrigue, it's very easy to get into. But all that

21:39

to say, now the

21:41

US Open has started. It's one of

21:44

the four major tennis championships. And

21:46

this week was qualifying matches, but

21:49

next week the tournament really begins.

21:52

So I will say, PCHH

21:54

listeners who have heard me on

21:56

the show before, they probably know that I

21:58

don't often talk about the very... various sports

22:00

ball activities. So I will say I am

22:03

just as surprised as any of you that

22:05

I'm talking about sports. And that's the thing

22:07

that's making me happy. But what is making

22:09

me happy this week and next week is

22:11

watching the US Open on ESPN and

22:14

ABC. All right, thank you,

22:16

JC Howard, Ronald Young Jr. What's making

22:18

you happy this week? Okay, so for

22:20

much of the year, and this is

22:22

probably due to the writers and the

22:24

strike that happened last year in Hollywood,

22:26

there hasn't been much new stuff to

22:28

watch as a result. There's reality television,

22:30

but in terms of the shows that

22:32

I'm really excited about, some of them haven't

22:34

come back. And I feel like I've been

22:36

kind of waiting with bated breath specifically for

22:38

one of them on Apple TV called Severance.

22:41

I've been waiting for that for a while. But

22:43

in the meantime, the point is, I'm waiting for

22:45

all these shows to come back. Personal tragedy, all

22:47

things are going on in my life. Because of

22:49

that, I've been in deep rewatch mode, which means

22:51

that I've really taken some time to go back

22:53

to shows that brought me a lot of joy

22:56

and rewatch them. And it's fun to actually

22:58

rewatch something in a different stage of my

23:00

life that meant something different when I was

23:02

younger. So I've gone through and I've

23:04

rewatched Star Trek Voyager, Silicon Valley, Veep, and

23:07

I've been starting Law and Order, SPU, which

23:09

that rewatch will continue for the rest of

23:11

my life, I'm sure. That should kite you

23:13

over for the next 12 years. Pretty

23:16

much, I'm just, I'm good to go. And

23:18

recently I've started rewatching Community. I've been so

23:20

happy recently just rewatching these shows that in

23:22

the golden age of television that have just

23:25

been great when they came on. And I

23:27

would encourage everybody, if there was a show

23:29

that you loved recently and you're finding it

23:31

difficult to find new things to watch, just

23:34

go back and there's been shows that we all

23:36

put on our list to go back and rewatch.

23:39

Go ahead and do it. You can just feel

23:41

new feelings watching your old shows. Thank you, Ronald.

23:43

How about you, Aisha? What's making you happy this

23:45

week? Well, if you've listened to this

23:47

show for quite some time, you probably know

23:49

that I am a big fan of reality

23:51

TV. Especially the kind

23:54

that's just about average people

23:57

with no real discernible talent going

23:59

on. dating shows or seven strangers

24:01

picked to live in a crappy

24:04

beach house in Jersey Shore. I

24:06

love that stuff. So of course,

24:08

I am going to be drawn

24:10

to a really fascinating book. It's

24:12

called Cue the Sun, the Invention of

24:14

Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum. So good.

24:17

One of my favorite critics to read

24:19

and to listen to. This

24:21

book is a really informative read. I'm

24:23

only about a third of the way

24:25

through with it so far, but I've

24:27

just learned so much. You think that

24:30

reality TV started, you know, people try

24:32

to pinpoint it around the era of

24:34

cops and real world. And yes, that's

24:36

like where the modern era sort of

24:38

began. But she goes all the way

24:40

back to, you know, when radio was

24:42

king before TV was really a thing,

24:44

shows like Queen for a Day, Through

24:46

to Candid Camera, and then of course

24:48

the landmark PBS series in American Family,

24:50

which came out in the early 1970s.

24:53

And she has interviewed a bunch of

24:56

people who worked on those shows, people

24:58

who were on those shows. And

25:00

it just really does a good job

25:02

of exploring viewers fascination with both the

25:04

genre, but also the ethical and artistic

25:06

conundrums that this entire genre represents. So

25:09

I highly recommend that if you are

25:11

into that, if you're into history, if

25:13

you're into reality TV or

25:15

like just want to understand reality TV in

25:17

a way. So that's Cue

25:19

the Sun, the Invention of Reality TV by

25:21

Emily Nussbaum. All right. Thank you, Aisha Harris.

25:23

What is Making Me Happy this week? Well,

25:25

my favorite album of two years ago was

25:28

the wonderful self-titled album by the band Muna,

25:30

which just is wall to wall

25:33

bangers in some ways like

25:35

Muna Walk So Chapel Rhone could run as

25:37

far as like queer pop with

25:40

enormous mainstream appeal. What's

25:42

Making Me Happy this week is the singles that

25:44

are starting to trickle out from the singer of

25:47

Muna, Katie Gavin. Katie Gavin has

25:49

a solo record coming out on October

25:51

25th called What a Relief. Let's

25:53

hear a little bit of the song Aftertaste. So

26:00

that was Aftertaste.

26:10

She just dropped another terrific single

26:12

just this week called Casual Drug

26:14

Use that's kind of in that

26:16

same sunny, winsome

26:20

vein. She's just such

26:22

a great talent. I am very,

26:24

very eager for another Munna record. They dropped a

26:27

live album this summer. Give

26:29

me another Munna studio album posthaste.

26:32

But in the meantime, I will tide

26:34

myself over with what is shaping up

26:36

to be a fantastic solo record for

26:38

Katie Gavin. Again, the record is called

26:40

What a Relief. It's out October 25th.

26:43

But there are a couple of great songs floating around

26:45

now that I am just loving.

26:48

And that is what is making me happy

26:50

this week. If you want

26:52

links for what we've recommended, plus

26:55

some more recommendations, sign up for

26:57

our newsletter at npr.org/pop culture newsletter.

26:59

That brings us to the end of our

27:01

show. Ronald Young Jr., J.C. Howard, Ayesha Harris,

27:04

thanks so much for being here. Thank you.

27:06

Thanks for having me. Surviving is

27:08

to win. Thank you for letting me be here.

27:11

It is such a pleasure. It is such

27:13

a pleasure. This episode was produced by Hafsa

27:15

Fathama and edited by Mike Katzoff. Our supervising

27:17

producer is Jessica Reedy. And Hello Come In

27:20

provides our theme music. Thank you for listening

27:22

to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm

27:24

Steven Thompson and we will see you all

27:26

next week. This

27:32

message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta

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Stone, an expert in language learning for 30

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NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's

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