0:03

Hey, Leela. Hey, Hannah. So,

0:06

Leela, there's this story from

0:08

when I was a little girl that I

0:10

wanted to share with you. I don't think

0:12

I have. Okay. Do share. I want to

0:14

hear it. So, when I was

0:16

younger, I loved basketball. Really?

0:18

Do you know that? I never heard

0:20

you mention that before. Yeah, yeah. And

0:23

I was always called a tomboy. I

0:26

didn't fit in anywhere. But,

0:28

you know, when I was playing basketball, I felt

0:30

great. I didn't have a lot of friends.

0:33

But then I got this new

0:35

next-door neighbor, and we would play

0:37

one-on-one all the time.

0:39

And then one day,

0:42

things got kind of heated, and

0:44

I was beating him in our

0:46

little one-on-one game. Ooh. I

0:49

was just hitting every shot, and

0:51

then he knocked me down. Wait,

0:53

Hannah. And then the

0:55

next day, he came to apologize. I looked

0:57

into his face, and I realized all

1:00

those times playing one-on-one, we

1:03

were actually really crushing on each other. And

1:07

in that moment, he leaned in

1:10

and kissed me on the cheek. Hannah,

1:12

you've then lost your mind. What?

1:15

This is the plot from love

1:17

and basketball, okay? All

1:20

right. So, you got me. So today,

1:22

we're going to be talking

1:24

about iconic black love in

1:26

movies. And

1:28

you know, Leila, when we asked stoop

1:30

listeners about this, so many people said

1:33

that their favorite was none

1:35

other than love and basketball. But

1:38

I got you. It is a classic,

1:40

though. Some of my favorites

1:43

were some of those 90s films,

1:45

you know, we got Waiting to

1:47

Exhale and Stella got a groove back.

1:49

Oh, yeah. And the

1:52

90s was a renaissance of black love

1:54

in film. But I

1:57

was wondering, do we think that just because that was

1:59

our culture? coming of age, right?

2:01

Like we grew up during that

2:03

time. We were teenagers. So

2:06

are we just ultra nostalgic

2:08

or was something else actually

2:11

happening? Like was there some

2:13

other secret sauce in those

2:15

movies that made them

2:17

so impactful? And so I

2:19

started digging into the evolution of Black Love

2:21

on the big screen. And

2:23

turns out the 90s was

2:26

really the first time we were seeing

2:28

something that had never been seen before.

2:32

It was a moment. So

2:34

are you ready? Oh, I am. Let

2:36

me get cozy. Let me get my

2:38

snacks, my fan. Cause it's going to

2:40

be hot in here. All

2:43

right, lights, camera, action. We're

2:45

stooping about Black Love in the movie.

2:48

Oh. Black

2:52

Love. Black

2:57

Love. Those

2:59

stories from across the Black Lives Matter.

3:02

What we need to talk about. My

3:04

cousins were water and grease girls. And I couldn't

3:06

be a water and grease girl. That's what I'm

3:08

talking about. Battering in the hood, we be. Look

3:10

at you. I'm not even people. When a

3:12

Black woman walks up to the desk

3:15

in labor, what

3:18

preconceived notions do you have about her? I didn't

3:20

even know we had a hair chart. Hey

3:35

there. As you probably know, this

3:37

show is a member of Radiotopia, a

3:39

network of original creator owned podcasts. What

3:42

you might not know is that we

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have a monthly newsletter called The Citizen,

3:46

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If you love our shows, you don't want to miss

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by going to radiotopia.fm/citizen.

3:58

Thank you. And happy reading. Progressive

4:30

Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and

4:32

coverage match limited by state law. Okay,

4:35

so today we wanted to look into what

4:37

led up to all those 90s

4:40

movies that centered on black love.

4:42

You know, like Love and Basketball,

4:44

Love Jones, The Best Man, all

4:47

of those movies. So today

4:49

it's all about black love in the movie. Leela,

4:52

what are some of the ones that you

4:54

love from that time? It's

4:56

the scene from Poetic Justice. You

4:59

know, with Tupac and Janet Jackson. And

5:02

they're sitting on these rocks near that ocean and

5:04

she's telling her about her family. And

5:07

then she says, look at you,

5:09

Liz. Give me

5:11

your hand. Come on, give

5:13

me your hand. And she

5:15

pulls out a nail file and she's

5:17

holding his hand, filing

5:19

his nail. One

5:23

out of twelve. She

5:28

made me jealous

5:30

because she was in law school

5:33

when she was pregnant with me. I'm

5:38

all alone now, though. I

5:43

got a kiss. A

5:46

cute little kiss. And

5:48

then he looks deep into her eyes

5:51

and then they kiss. And

5:55

then I got to tell you why I love the scene

5:57

so much. It was just so simple. You

6:00

could just feel the tension between the two of them

6:02

and the way they look at each other and the

6:05

little pouty mouth that Kupak had. Remember he used to

6:07

do that with the lips and the person who looked

6:09

all like that, remember that? Ooh,

6:12

give me my fan. I

6:14

mean, I just loved it. I just loved that

6:16

idea that there could be so much

6:18

tension and no touching. Ooh,

6:22

I mean, I love how slow moving

6:24

that scene is. You just feel the

6:26

intimacy. It's amazing. What about

6:28

you? Your favorite black love scene. Well,

6:30

I mean, for me, it's gotta be

6:32

waiting to exhale. And

6:35

there is this chemistry

6:37

between the characters that

6:39

Loretta Devine and Gregory Hines

6:42

played and that is

6:44

Gloria and Marvin. And

6:46

there's these flirting scenes between them.

6:49

But the one I love the most is when

6:51

he's just moving in next door. And

6:54

she is kind of curious about the man

6:56

moving in and he's taking things

6:58

down from his moving truck and

7:01

they have this little conversation. Look,

7:03

Marvin, I'll let you get back to your work.

7:07

I'm gonna play right on over. Thank

7:10

you, nice meeting you. Yeah.

7:12

Yeah, nice meeting you. See

7:15

you again real soon. Okay,

7:23

I hope you're not watching me walk away. All

7:27

right. You're watching home. I

7:31

just loved that scene because you

7:34

know that feeling of that very

7:36

first moment of attraction,

7:38

right? You could

7:40

feel like that very first time

7:43

the person just takes your breath away. She was like,

7:45

oh, and there

7:48

are so many incredible black

7:50

love scenes. We knew

7:52

a lot of people would definitely have

7:54

something to say about this. So

7:56

we asked our producer, Natalie, to go

7:58

see what the streets were saying. about their favorite

8:01

moments of Black love in film. I

8:05

think the scene that comes to mind

8:07

most is probably the scene in Love

8:09

and Basketball. This might

8:12

be a little weird, but I actually think of

8:15

Boomerang and Coming to America. When

8:18

they fight for the love at the end

8:20

and they play their little game and they

8:22

win. It's so corny, but I feel like

8:24

that was the first time I ever saw

8:26

a love movie, like a Black love movie.

8:28

One of the first ones is Love Jones. Love

8:30

Jones? Love Jones. She's got

8:33

a habit. Poetic justice and

8:35

Queen and Slim. Poetic justice

8:38

expresses love and the

8:40

rediscovery of love amidst and after tragedy.

8:42

It makes me really happy because it's

8:44

really corny when I think about it

8:46

now, but love is sometimes really corny.

8:48

Like you have those moments where you

8:50

find yourself fighting for love or you

8:52

just do something really corny to win your

8:54

love back. And plus I still really love

8:57

that film. His parents were

8:59

making him marry someone that he wasn't in love with.

9:01

They didn't like her because she was from Queens, she

9:03

was from New York, she wasn't you know from Africa,

9:05

but in the very end

9:07

they wanted to make him happy

9:09

and they surprised him by allowing

9:11

them to get married. Black love,

9:14

it's truly, it's

9:17

a journey. It's beautiful and

9:19

it's worth, it's worth it.

9:21

It's like worth exploring, it's worth the hard

9:23

work once you find it and I

9:25

think we need more of it. I wish we

9:28

saw more imagery of black

9:30

love in like music and

9:32

movies and I'm speaking beyond

9:34

romantic love. I'm speaking like

9:36

sibling love, I'm speaking family

9:38

love, friendship love and

9:40

just neighborly love. So

9:52

Lila, a lot of those movies are in

9:54

or around the 90s and clearly people

9:57

love them, but they're all

9:59

really different, right? So, like, I'm

10:01

still wondering if there's an element to

10:04

them that ties them together. Like

10:06

a reason those are the films

10:09

that get mentioned immediately when we say black

10:11

love in film. Why? So I

10:14

talked to someone who can help us

10:16

maybe figure this out, someone

10:18

who knows all about the evolution of

10:20

black love in film and might know

10:22

where to start. My

10:26

name is Dr. Artel Great

10:29

and I am the

10:32

Marcus Endow Chair in African

10:34

American Cinema Studies at San

10:36

Francisco State University and

10:39

a professor of cinema and the

10:41

cultural critic in residence at the

10:43

Museum of the African Diaspora. He's

10:47

also an actor, right? Yeah, he was

10:49

in a number of films like Save

10:52

the Last Dance, remember that movie? So

10:55

he was one of the friends of

10:57

the main character, Neil Patrick Thomas. Dr.

11:00

Great is also a filmmaker and

11:02

the movies that he likes to

11:04

make are black romance films.

11:08

I asked Dr. Great, why does

11:10

he like that genre in particular

11:12

though? Why romance? I

11:15

worked on the adaptation of a

11:17

film, the television film version of

11:19

Their Eyes Were Watching God and

11:22

this was produced by Oprah and there's

11:25

one time where I actually was on set

11:28

and talking with Oprah and she was saying

11:30

that people are really going to be drawn

11:32

to this particular film that we're working on

11:35

because everybody loves love. Everybody

11:37

loves love. I

11:40

love that, right? It really is

11:42

imbued with this elixir of hope

11:45

because it's about promise and potential.

11:47

It's about the connection and the

11:49

fulfillment of our most innate

11:52

desires and seeing black love

11:54

on screen, I think it's very

11:56

important for our communities. I

12:00

think Dr. Great is the perfect person to

12:02

take us through time, to explore,

12:04

to take this

12:07

trip down memory lane of

12:09

some iconic moments of black

12:11

romance in film. Let's go.

12:14

We're

12:20

going to start our journey way back

12:23

in the 1800s. It's

12:25

called Something Good Negro Kissing. And this

12:28

is actually a short 30 second

12:30

film where it was

12:34

recently kind of rediscovered somewhere

12:36

in the south in someone's basement.

12:39

Someone found it and didn't know what it was.

12:42

And Leila, it turns out it was an

12:45

absolute treasure. It's believed to

12:47

be the earliest depiction of any type of

12:49

affection of black people on camera. And

12:52

it does, of course, feature two black

12:55

actors. They were both Vaubville

12:57

performers, Saint Suddle

12:59

and a woman named Gerdie Brown.

13:02

It's important to think

13:05

about and recognize that black participation

13:07

in movies date all the way

13:09

back to the very beginning of

13:11

movies themselves. And what

13:13

makes it notable and

13:16

important in terms of this rediscovery, you know,

13:18

all of these, you know, 100 years later

13:20

is that the

13:24

two actors, Saint and

13:26

Gerdie, they aren't presented

13:28

as caricatures. Yeah. And

13:31

not only were they not portrayed as caricatures, but

13:33

it was like the first time two black

13:35

people are seen on screen

13:38

being normal black people kissing,

13:41

hugging, showing physical affection.

13:44

And Dr. Gray says there was

13:46

a booming black independent film movement

13:49

during the silent film era and

13:52

throughout the 20s and the 30s. But

13:55

he says nobody talks about those films

13:57

because they weren't, quote, you know, mainstream.

14:00

But the first mainstream films

14:02

with Black people and romance,

14:04

they came mid-century,

14:07

like the 50s. A

14:14

lot was shifting around that time. It was

14:16

the end of World War II, the

14:19

Civil Rights Movement was starting, there

14:21

were a lot more mainstream conversations

14:23

about Black life, and

14:26

a lot of plays at that time were

14:28

being adapted for the big screen. It

14:30

was definitely a movement. People

14:33

fought hard against the

14:35

minstrel and the Blackface

14:37

of that time. None

14:40

of this came easy. This came after,

14:42

in 1942, representatives from

14:45

the NAACP created this

14:47

agreement. They demanded that Hollywood

14:49

improve how Black people were

14:52

portrayed in movies. And

14:54

it was around that time that this film

14:57

came out. Dr.

14:59

Great says it's one of

15:01

the most iconic films of its time,

15:04

and it was all about Black love.

15:07

I would have to point toward a film like

15:09

Carmen Jones. That film comes out in 1954. And

15:13

Carmen Jones stars Dorothy

15:16

Dandridge and Harry

15:19

Belafonte. I mean, these are

15:21

two Black trailblazers, okay? And

15:24

they're in this room together. They look

15:27

incredible together. She's

15:29

wearing this peach

15:31

dress, and Belafonte is

15:33

like dressed down, you know, looking like

15:35

he just came in from a long day

15:37

of work. They look

15:39

amazing. But also you can

15:42

see the power that she holds.

15:44

Everything is on her terms. She's

15:46

sexy, but she's intimidating, and Harry

15:49

just seems like he's lost.

15:51

Fine, fine, Harry Belafonte. Don't

15:54

go put me on no stand. I

15:57

don't answer to nobody. She's got nothing to

15:59

hide. Do

16:01

you think I do? What do you expect

16:03

me to think? Why don't you tell

16:05

me? You

16:09

think what you want. I

16:13

don't account for no man. You're accounting for

16:15

me. I love you. That gives me the

16:17

right to own me. I don't give you no right to own me. There's

16:20

only one that does. That's me.

16:22

Myself. Where you

16:24

going? So the thing

16:26

with this film, it's a classic and

16:28

it just grabs you. Dorothy

16:30

Dandridge is playing not only

16:33

this extremely sexy character, but

16:35

she's also a woman who

16:37

is free, right? And

16:40

she desired love and also

16:42

exudes it. And

16:45

she became the first black actress to

16:47

be nominated for an Academy Award in

16:50

the Best Actress category. Because

16:53

this film was so groundbreaking,

16:56

folks had a lot to say about

16:58

it, and not everyone was excited about

17:01

this movie. In fact, in that

17:03

same year that it came out in 1955, James

17:07

Baldwin had some things to say

17:09

about it. Yeah, in his 1955

17:11

published essays, Notes

17:14

of a Native Son, Baldwin

17:16

addresses the movie and critiques the gender roles in

17:18

it, saying that Dandridge

17:20

is playing a stereotypical amoral

17:22

Negro woman and that

17:25

Belafonte is intentionally dressed to

17:27

be desexualized, so he didn't

17:29

seem threatening to white folks. Ooh,

17:31

Baldwin had some things to say. Right.

17:34

Like, on one hand, people

17:36

celebrated this movie because it

17:38

showed an all-black cast and

17:40

they're just living their black

17:42

joy, right? And on

17:44

the other hand, we start to see

17:46

this trend that Baldwin's trying to point

17:49

out, this characterization of

17:51

black leading men that kind

17:54

of keeps happening right into the 1960s, even

17:58

to some of the most iconic black actors. He

18:04

emerges, you know, in the 50s

18:06

and 60s as Hollywood's singular leading

18:09

black man. Sidney Poitier fit the

18:11

mold of what the industry felt

18:13

was safer, the consumption of white

18:15

audiences. Harry Belafonte was, you know,

18:17

he was too edgy. Poitier

18:20

emerges as this iconic figure

18:23

who plays pivotal

18:25

roles. Now here's the catch, okay? We're

18:27

gonna give you some Sidney Poitier leading

18:29

man romance, but we're gonna do so

18:31

to challenge the social norms around interracial

18:34

relationships. Mm-hmm. The

18:38

women were all white. So

18:42

here we go. Guess who's coming to dinner

18:44

in 1967? Apache

18:47

Blue 1965. These

18:50

films feature Sidney Poitier,

18:53

but in a way that focuses again, like

18:55

I said, on interracial So

18:58

Hollywood still was not ready to

19:01

see more black couples on screen. Yeah.

19:04

But then in 1968, another

19:06

movie came along, Raisin in the Sun.

19:09

When Poitier appears in films

19:11

with the black woman as his romantic partner,

19:13

which does happen in films like Raisin in

19:16

the Sun. I'm looking in the mirror this

19:18

morning, I'm thinking I'm 35 years old. I

19:21

married 11 years and I got a boy

19:23

who's got to sleep in the living room because I

19:25

got nothing to eat. Nothing to

19:27

give him at stories like on

19:29

how rich white people live. Eat

19:31

eggs, boy. Damn these eggs. Damn

19:35

all the eggs that ever was. And

19:37

go to work. I'm trying

19:39

to talk to you about me. Now

19:42

all you're gonna say to me is eat these eggs. You

19:44

never said I didn't know. I listen

19:46

to you every day, every morning, every night.

19:48

You never said I didn't know. So

19:51

you'd rather be Mr. Arnold than be a chauffeur.

19:53

So I'd rather be living in

19:55

Buckingham Palace. A

19:58

lot of the time. While

20:00

the movie wasn't really about their love,

20:02

it was really about having black stories

20:05

on screen, period. The woman that he's

20:07

partnered with as his romantic itch was

20:09

his Ruby Dee. But

20:12

the idea of romance

20:14

between black people in the

20:17

mainstream, although they

20:19

appeared on screen, that wasn't the focus

20:22

of the entire movie. It

20:25

was just a circumstance of the character.

20:28

To be honest, Hanal, I saw that movie when

20:30

I was a kid. I never even knew it was

20:32

supposed to be a love story. Oh.

20:34

Yeah, I always thought it was about black

20:37

struggle. I never associated

20:39

it with love. So

21:02

today we're stooping it out about

21:04

black love in film. And

21:07

it's time to put on your

21:09

bell bottoms and fluff that afro

21:11

with your pick, because we're about

21:13

to get grooving onto the 70s.

21:17

Ooh, the 70s. It was the

21:19

era of black exploitation films. We

21:21

have Pam Grier playing Foxy

21:23

Brown, Richard Roundtree

21:26

playing, well, you know, oh,

21:28

we know. Oh,

21:32

it's a man. Oh, excuse me. It's

21:34

a brother, man. Chef.

21:37

You dig? He's a bad

21:40

mother. Shut your mouth. I'm talking

21:42

about chef. Dr.

21:44

Grey has a lot to say about

21:46

the 1970s. He

21:49

says this is basically when social justice

21:51

issues started to come into black film.

21:54

And it was a time when

21:56

black films started, you know, like

21:58

testing the waters. to see what

22:01

was possible in black

22:03

romance. And social justice starts

22:05

to come into romance because he basically

22:07

says you can't separate black life from

22:09

black love. Amen. I

22:12

mean, they need to coexist.

22:16

It's around that time also that we saw

22:18

TV shows like Good Times, Anna

22:20

Jefferson, starting to show black

22:22

families and black couples and

22:25

love stories. Right. And

22:28

in film, Dr. Great points to

22:30

this one movie called Claudine from

22:32

1975. It's

22:34

a romantic comedy starring Diane Carroll

22:36

and James Earl Jones set

22:39

in Harlem. She's a single mother

22:41

with six children. And

22:43

you know, she works as a maid and

22:46

she falls in love with a garbage man. You

22:48

know, that's Hollywood. Like, okay, that's perfect. And

22:50

you go, you want me to tell you

22:52

something? I

22:54

think that you and me is wrong each other.

22:56

Well, I think that you and me is definitely

22:58

right for each other. Oh yeah, this is

23:01

perfect. Perfect. Nobody. Now you

23:03

just push the wrong button. Okay, I was just asking.

23:06

So they're standing there just talking

23:08

about life within this

23:10

film that's really sensual, right?

23:12

And intimate about their love

23:14

for one another. But

23:17

it's like real love in

23:20

the real world. She's on. We've

23:23

all been through a lot of different love projects. And

23:26

you're older, we are wiser. I

23:29

have simply, I think you have simply, we have

23:31

no gross inequalities. But the best

23:33

part about you and me is that

23:36

we don't understand each other one damn bit. What

23:40

James Earl Jones and what Diane Carroll

23:43

do with that

23:45

material is they crab something

23:47

beautiful. They smuggle in a

23:49

black reality, a nuanced portrayal

23:52

that not only challenges social

23:54

pressure and social norms, but

23:56

they offer something authentic and

23:59

realistic. in terms of black

24:01

romance within the context of the black

24:03

family and within the context of black

24:05

communities and the social issues

24:08

that have challenged us and how

24:10

that has changed or has not

24:12

changed over time. This film is

24:14

so nuanced in this

24:16

portrayal of black

24:18

romance in a way that

24:21

wasn't easy to do. I

24:31

mean, all I got to say is when I

24:34

heard that scene, it reminded me of conversations I

24:36

heard my elders having in their kitchens, the ones

24:38

I wasn't supposed to be hearing. And

24:40

I got to say, I did not make

24:44

the connection that those for

24:46

love conversations. It sounds very

24:48

intense. Wasn't that sweet, soft

24:50

love that I wanted to see

24:52

in a movie? I mean, that

24:54

would be lovely what you just said, but

24:56

we do not live in a perfect world

24:59

and there's no perfect love and we can't

25:01

be idealistic all the time. Life is real.

25:03

The life goes with the

25:05

love, black life, black love. Their struggle is going

25:07

to be in there. I'm sorry, Lela. I'm

25:11

so sorry. That's the way

25:13

it's got to be. We just bring in some short A to

25:15

make me feel better. Don't you go

25:17

to go to the ticket.

25:25

All right. It's the

25:28

80s. So this was a time when,

25:30

you know, Prince Michael Jackson, they were

25:32

dominating our Sony Walkmans. I was not

25:35

allowed to have one, actually, until I

25:37

was much older. Really? I

25:40

know I had to have a boombox, but

25:43

I had this new edition tape that was

25:45

worn out in the movies. There was

25:47

a lot going on. There's purple rain.

25:49

So it's coming to America. Spike

25:51

Lee was doing the right thing. And it

25:53

was the time for all

25:55

these black stories to be having

25:57

their moment. Right. And the. color

26:00

purple. Now that is definitely

26:03

a story about love. A different kind

26:06

of love. A sister Lela.

26:11

Lela, you know

26:13

Dr. Great says it wasn't really

26:15

until the 90s that black romance

26:17

was emerged. It

26:30

was emerging as its own genre. And

26:33

he says the 90s was a golden

26:35

era for black love stories and

26:38

romance. We

26:41

get to the 90s. There is

26:43

this shift that really brings in

26:46

a bit of diversity in terms

26:48

of the types of representation that

26:50

were being allowed to exist

26:52

on screen. Yes,

26:55

how Stella got her groove back.

26:58

The best man loving basketball. Lela,

27:10

I was also curious about

27:12

this thing. It seemed that

27:15

black love films have these booms

27:17

and busts. You

27:19

know, like with a lot of

27:21

black movies there are sometimes when

27:23

there's a lot of them and then there's sometimes

27:26

when there's just none. Like in

27:28

the 80s you know how

27:30

there were just very few black films that

27:32

showed up in the 80s. And you know

27:34

I was wondering like why. So I asked

27:36

Dr. Great to break down some history for

27:38

us. It's

27:43

always economic. And

27:45

the issue is that in moments where

27:49

the industry finds itself in

27:52

a downturn, the quickest way

27:54

to reinvigorate

27:57

the box office Is

27:59

by focusing on black lives. On the audience

28:01

that over consumes movies. That

28:04

aren't he is have to be

28:07

black People want more fills in

28:09

a to more movies historically there

28:11

any other group. So

28:13

does the same reason that we get

28:15

the blaxploitation era in the Ninety Seven.

28:18

He says because Hollywood is struggling and

28:20

they don't know what to do they

28:22

don't know was work is the sale

28:24

were less Make these seats, black movies

28:26

and a mega would see beneath. You

28:28

know maybe they'll make money. So by

28:31

the time we did to the nineties,

28:33

Barry is a lull in the box

28:35

office and an opportunity for black so

28:37

many. This is also the Clinton Administration.

28:39

Soon as this focus on your multiculturalism

28:42

in terms of. What's going on in

28:44

the broadest? As a society? But.

28:51

By the time we do to the

28:54

nineties now we able to see movies

28:56

like Mode Better Blues. That one was

28:58

a thin sell a man I'm wondering.

29:00

When themselves and make his appearance

29:03

in a right, you know. Denzel

29:05

has to be mentioned in an

29:07

episode about Miles in Black Movies

29:09

and Know that a Blues was

29:11

all about love. It was sexy.

29:14

He played the schools. As. Before

29:17

that fill this out was

29:19

never see any roles that

29:21

were primarily focused on with

29:24

black women romance. There were

29:26

several adaptations bed said place

29:28

in the nineties. Wait is

29:30

that eggs? Hell. Are

29:33

I Lila? It's my turn

29:35

now. wait a minute. Waiting

29:37

to Exhale is absolutely one

29:39

of my favorite films with

29:41

black love. Sympathetic Little Pass

29:43

had a slap. I

29:58

loved this song. The

30:00

movie with everything and it

30:02

was a story about friendship.

30:05

this sisterhood disarm that. These

30:07

for black women, pad and they support

30:09

each other. It's to. All these ups

30:12

and downs and them Love Life and

30:14

the soundtrack. I mean, I listen to

30:16

that Cd without skipping a single. Song.

30:19

Loved that movie was like a

30:21

movement one it lucky that with

30:23

them movie was of movement for

30:25

black women it was like books

30:27

and but what's so fascinating it

30:29

had all these different lack access

30:31

is that were able to sign

30:33

in that film that I am

30:36

really love that it wasn't just

30:38

one. We had a plethora of

30:40

different black actresses who were really

30:42

sign into Nashville. I

30:56

love that are going through these areas because

30:58

we're really seeing as saying like a transit

31:00

center of relationships and how people react and

31:03

and like men and women you now and

31:05

cynically when and starting to find themselves and

31:07

sign their voices in a way that. Feels

31:09

on defense. Me: And

31:12

there's one more he can

31:14

not talk about. Nineties black

31:16

romance films with out discipline.

31:19

I now when it is

31:21

it's to be less jones

31:24

hi this is the some

31:26

other words in a new.

31:29

A call it the. Of

31:34

those, and these. Surveys.

31:53

And obviously. The

31:56

black love in know sees flourish,

31:58

where is everywhere. I mean. It's

32:00

not just what we hear

32:02

in the poetry, but it's also what

32:04

we see on the screen. The

32:07

smoky candlelit poetry

32:10

venue with all these

32:12

beautiful black people grooving

32:14

and snapping their fingers.

32:17

Oh, a spoken word. All the

32:19

sultry looks, the subtleties, the

32:21

way the people was just

32:23

eye contact. It was just

32:25

so smooth and just simple flirting

32:28

back then. The

32:31

easy way to get to know somebody. Let me

32:33

give you a look in a snap snap. Love

32:36

Jones really was the film that

32:38

embodied this idea of the 90s

32:41

black renaissance. It combined

32:44

the idea of romance

32:47

with black working professionals,

32:49

this upwardly mobile group of

32:52

black artists, a poet, a

32:54

photographer, you know, there

32:56

was this real soulful essence

32:59

that explored the idea

33:02

of black romance with a

33:04

certain nuance, but also with

33:06

a certain style. And

33:09

it was sexy and it was new

33:11

when they was dancing and they were

33:13

sweating and crying, you know what I

33:15

mean? It was just something very visceral

33:17

and very connected about the way that

33:20

film really resonated during that

33:23

time. Who am I?

33:27

Well, they all call me brother

33:29

to the nines. And right now I'm

33:31

the blues in your left thigh. I'm trying

33:33

to become the nines in your right.

33:38

Dr. Great says there was this point

33:40

in time when things were dramatically

33:43

changing for

33:45

black films overall. In

33:47

the wake of 9-11, there's a shift in

33:50

the production strategy in the film. And

33:54

so black films were already kind of low on

33:56

the Hollywood totem pole. black

34:00

romance even lower, by

34:02

time 9-11 hits, the industry

34:05

takes a different direction and they

34:07

stop making black movies altogether. So

34:10

it was a bad time for black

34:12

film overall, right? Not

34:15

just black romance. So

34:17

filmmakers basically took it

34:20

upon themselves to fund these

34:22

kind of lower budget, stripped

34:24

down movies at that time,

34:28

but they were still interesting. Eight

34:30

years before Barry Jenkins made the

34:32

Oscar winning black queer romance Moonlight,

34:36

and 10 years before he made If

34:38

Beale Street Could Talk, another

34:41

beautiful romance. Jenkins made

34:43

the much lesser known movie

34:45

called Medicine for Melancholy. So

34:49

with this slow story about this guy and girl

34:52

who spent this long day

35:18

together in San Francisco, right? They

35:21

come from different black backgrounds and

35:23

he's like challenging her in many

35:26

ways to think about race and

35:28

social justice. And

35:30

it's just like this struggle back and

35:32

forth. At the same time, they're like

35:34

falling for each other, but they spend

35:36

this amazing day in the

35:38

city and it's all over one day. It

35:41

stars Wyatt Sanac and Tracy Higgins.

35:44

And this is actually the film

35:46

that inspired Dr. Great himself to

35:49

make movies like this one. It's

35:52

called Love Walks In and it's from 2021. No,

36:00

no, I'm fine. Thank you. You

36:03

sure? Do you work here? Yeah.

36:07

I mean, not exactly, but kind

36:09

of. Bet that makes sense. No,

36:11

it doesn't. It doesn't. I'm here

36:14

a lot in this room, so I kind of know where a

36:16

lot of the books are. Oh, okay. What

36:18

book are you looking for? Uh, Devil Finds Work.

36:21

Yeah, it's a ball of the... You

36:23

know it? Yeah. Well, it should

36:25

be here, but it's not, so... It's one of

36:27

my favorites. Here. No. Dr.

36:33

Great said he wanted to make a

36:35

romance that also explored Black

36:38

history and Black culture within the

36:40

love story. Like, he

36:42

wanted the flirtation to happen

36:44

around a very Black thing,

36:47

like Baldwin. Yo,

36:49

what better way to meet somebody? Because

36:51

it's like when you are meeting and

36:53

connecting around ideas of the mind. Because

36:55

I think the success of a romance

36:57

or the success of a scene like

37:00

that really hinges on

37:02

the chemistry and the connection between the

37:04

characters. And so what I was hoping

37:06

to do in that library sequence was

37:09

to really draw people in to an

37:12

authentic moment and allow them to

37:14

feel a palpable connection. Palpable

37:18

connection. Palpable connection. Yeah, it's

37:20

the thing we're all craving

37:22

to see, you know? From the first

37:24

Negro kiss, where it's just two people

37:27

flirting, hugging, to poetic justice.

37:29

That scene where there's so much tension,

37:31

it is so thick that it oozes

37:33

out of the screen. To waiting, to

37:36

exhale, and just the joy of seeing

37:38

two Black people just being

37:40

in each other's presence and falling

37:43

in love on the screen. I

37:45

think we love this so

37:47

much because more and

37:49

more we are just seeing

37:52

us. Seeing all these layers

37:54

of us over the decades, you

37:56

can feel it. And

37:58

like Oprah said... Everybody

38:00

loves last and. New,

38:03

get some land and you get some. This.

38:37

In Mats this to the stoop.

38:39

A proud member of radio to

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Help yeah from P R Eggs

38:44

and at work as an independent

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38:48

The soup family includes producer Natalie

38:51

Parrot, editor Christina Loring, art by

38:53

Nema Ayer Sound design and engineering

38:55

by James Roland at Roof Dog

38:57

Studio. Better thanks to the Npr

38:59

Story Lad, we always want to

39:02

hear your thoughts about the So

39:04

so connect with us on social

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media At. His podcast and

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your feedback really help smooth the

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so forward. So you happen to

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Great The So leave us a

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