Whereas we’ve come a good distance with on-screen illustration, a lot of mainstream tv and movie fails to supply relatable, genuine illustration for all. That’s the great thing about podcasts: up-to-date content material in an accessible format that usually permits completely different demographics to have a voice on the desk — or higher but, construct their very own platform. This week’s podcast picks amplify queer, Black, and Asian American creators who’re taking management of their very own narratives. They provide us a contemporary lens by which we are able to re-watch previous favorites or study media we’ve but to interact with. These podcasts will make you’re feeling such as you’re sitting in a lounge with pals, speaking about what you recognize greatest: your lived experiences.
Listed below are Girls and Hollywood’s newest podcast alternatives.
“Queer Lady Movie Membership” – Hosted by Holly, Alice, and Georgia
“Queer Lady Movie Membership”
Launched in 2021, “Queer Lady Movie Membership” is is a podcast during which “three queer ladies watch the traditional (and non-classics) of queer woman cinema and talk about,” per its description. Overlaying films comparable to Jamie Babbit’s 1999 teen traditional “However I’m a Cheerleader” to current releases like Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s “Do Revenge” starring Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke, “Queer Lady Movie Membership” is an hour-long dialog between pals that provides contemporary views on movies.
In Season 2, Episode 12, “Queer BAIT Movie Membership – Bend it Like Beckham (2002),” hosts Holly, Alice, and Georgi sort out the beloved — though not explicitly — queer movie from Gurinder Chadha. “There are a whole lot of useful conversations about movies that aren’t queer however are queer,” Alice observes. In 2002, when the movie was produced, there was a extreme lack of satisfactory queer illustration on display, which the movie trade suffers from even in the present day. Whereas discussing whether or not or not “Bend it Like Beckham” ought to have been extra forthright with its characters’ sexualities, the hosts pause to emphasise that the movie was launched whereas England was nonetheless “within the age of Part 28.” This piece of laws, abolished in November 2003, prohibited the “promotion of homosexuality by native authorities” and meant that any constructive depiction of the 2SLGBTQIA+ group was unlawful. It might have been far much less possible to have the movie made, a lot much less promote as efficiently because it did, if the 2 leads brazenly recognized as queer.
Film theaters in Oklahoma just lately posted warnings a couple of same-sex kiss in Pixar’s “Lightyear,” and even introduced they might fast-forward previous the scene. Would “Bend It Like Beckham” have stood an opportunity of being launched in 2002 with brazenly queer protagonists?
“Queer Lady Movie Membership” notes that a whole lot of queer viewers have walked away from the film with the message that “it’s okay to be homosexual even when these two aren’t.” Holly even insists that “the notion that we’re two heterosexual characters is pushing on the limits of credibility.” Because the hosts observe, “the truth that we’re nonetheless speaking about ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ 20 years later is a extremely good signal that it managed to push a dialog about queerness and the way that’s represented in British tradition.” Holly acknowledges how the movie awoke queer identities in so many viewers, and he or she doesn’t “assume that might have occurred if there wasn’t a extremely actually thick layer of queerness operating right through it.”
As talked about on “Queer Lady Movie Membership,” the film isn’t merely about queerness and even friendship. It helped popularize ladies’s soccer at a time when little consideration was given to ladies in sports activities, and it additionally shone a light-weight on the lived expertise of British Asians by the societal pressures, microaggressions, and familial expectations Jess, performed by Parminder Nagra, needed to endure. The hosts conclude that it was exceptional that “Bend It Like Beckham” was capable of symbolize, consciously and unconsciously, the queer and racialized expertise with such success.
Take heed to “Queer Lady Movie Membership” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
“Black Lady Movie Membership ” – Hosted by Britney and Ashley
“Black Lady Movie Membership”
“Black Lady Movie Membership” presents an area for Black ladies to observe and talk about films. With multi-hour episodes launched twice a month, hosts Britney and Ashley “analyze films and the movie trade from their distinctive, and sometimes underrepresented, perspective,” as described on its web site.
From Jordan Peele’s 2022 sci-fi horror “Nope” to Rob Reiner’s 1989 rom-com traditional “When Harry Met Sally,” the podcasters have just about lined all of it. Most of their month-to-month installments see the hosts chatting about two films sharing the identical theme. In Episode 80: “Passing (2021),” “Black Lady Movie Membership” mentioned the idea of passing in Rebecca Corridor’s 2021 adaptation of Nella Larsen’s novel “Passing” and Douglas Sirk’s “The Imitation of Life,” taking a deep dive into passing and “what that does to the human psyche,” whether or not it’s a Black individual experiencing the privileges of a white individual attributable to their gentle complexion, or a white individual masquerading as a Black individual to domesticate a sure (appropriative) picture on-line.
Earlier than digging into the movies themselves, Britney and Ashley discover the idea of colorism as a result of, as they observe within the episode, folks often “by no means get to the foundation” of why privileges are afforded to individuals who look a sure method. They break down Eurocentric requirements of magnificence and the way sure options would make somebody appear extra fascinating in Western society. The hosts interrogate why “these options thought-about stunning?” within the first place — and it’s often as a result of they’re rooted in white supremacist ideology, and if a facial function is akin to or has proximity to whiteness, it’s preferential.
This results in their dialogue of Corridor’s “Passing” and why a Black individual, particularly a Black girl, may need chosen to racially move throughout the historic context of the Nineteen Twenties. Britney and Ashley distill the wealthy, complicated adaptation right down to this: It’s “all about energy and company.” The act of passing, they argue, is about folks attempting to safe energy and company, and “how they’re discovering it’s by white supremacy notion of beliefs.” The hosts acknowledge how these struggles from the Nineteen Twenties ripple into the current day, typically on the earth of social media — whether or not it’s manufacturers catering to a white-established notion of magnificence, or white ladies appropriating Black tradition and trend. Passing, colorism, and all their implications are nonetheless prevalent in the present day, and because the hosts emphasize, attending to the foundation points involving picture and energy stay critically vital.
Take heed to “Black Lady Movie Membership” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
“Self-Evident: Asia America’s Tales” – Hosted by Cathy
“Self Evident: Asia America’s Tales”
Targeted on constructing “severe infrastructure for Asian Individuals to turn out to be the authors of their very own tales,” “Self-Evident: Asia America’s Tales” passes the microphone to an inclusive vary of producers and visitor hosts whereas additionally placing “tangible sources into the fingers of under-served producers, reporters, filmmakers, and listeners from each nook of Asian America.”
Podcast host Cathy, alongside producers James and Julia, dive into numerous matters comparable to reconciling with the historical past and tradition behind Spam within the 30-minute episode “Specifically Processed,” and the way music and artwork can facilitate private restoration amidst Anti-Asian violence in “Say Goodbye to Yesterday.”
In a particular bonus function early within the podcast’s run in 2020, senior producer Julia takes the reins in a dialog about Disney’s animated “Mulan,” describing the film as a “divisive and momentous time in Asian American historical past.”
The “Self Evident” hosts ruminate on Mulan’s romance with Li Shang and a number of views emerge: Julia, who identifies as Chinese language American, notes that she was upset there was a romance plot in any respect, as a result of her beloved childhood folktale had none — the unique legend of Hua Mulan featured a intelligent heroine who isn’t uncovered for posing as a male soldier. Cathy additionally admitted her misgivings, observing that Disney’s second iteration of princesses throughout the Nineteen Nineties appeared to “cherry decide a fable or a folklore from every tradition” across the globe.
Whereas James notes that, at instances, the film felt like “a white gaze on what Asian American tradition have to be like” and demonstrates how white audiences can fail to tell apart stereotypes from the truth of the racialized expertise. Cathy nonetheless appreciates Disney’s efforts to symbolize Chinese language tradition and philosophies. Julia additionally observes that many Asian Individuals like herself are drawn to “Mulan” as a result of mirrors the expertise of second- or third-generation Chinese language Individuals who’re aware of East Asian ideas, like ancestor tradition, however are nonetheless coming from their “personal bizarre, filtered American model of issues.”
Their dialog stretches past the subject of cultural illustration. The “Self Evident” hosts additionally talk about the movie’s resonance with the queer group. Apart from the extra overt gender-bending moments like Mulan slicing her hair and going to conflict disguised as a person, there are numerous subtleties that audiences have picked up on. Julia addresses the 2020 live-action reboot and the followers’ response when it was introduced that Li Shang wasn’t going to be within the movie in any respect: “Some folks had been mourning the lack of what they see as a bisexual hero within the Disney universe. He has a reference to Mulan earlier than he ever is aware of that she’s a lady and that could possibly be interpreted that Li Shang is bisexual.” She acknowledges that even when that studying was not intentional on Disney’s half, a lot of queer of us maintain this character and that storyline near their hearts.
Take heed to “Self Evident: Asia America’s Tales” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.