The Complicated Oscars Night Feelings Over ‘One Battle After Another’

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Cannonball with Wesley Morris

Episode: The Complicated Oscars Night Feelings Over ‘One Battle After Another’
Date: March 12, 2026
Host: Wesley Morris
Guest: Daphne Brooks (Scholar, Yale University)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Cannonball with Wesley Morris dives into the layered and often contentious conversations around representation, Black feminism, and the politics of recognition at the Academy Awards. Using the Oscar-nominated film One Battle After Another as a lightning rod, Wesley is joined by Yale professor and cultural critic Daphne Brooks to examine the dualities of pride and pain, celebration and critique inherent in Hollywood’s portrayal and rewarding of Black women. Their lively debate captures both personal reactions and broader cultural stakes, especially amidst a year where two Black-focused films (“Sinners” and “One Battle After Another”) dominate the Oscars race.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Setting the Scene: The “Emergency” Around One Battle After Another

• Oscars anticipation and stakes: Wesley sets up the excitement and unpredictability of this year’s Oscars, emphasizing how One Battle After Another and Sinners have become central cultural flashpoints. (00:32–03:25)
• Daphne’s “Black feminist 911 emergency”: Daphne texted Wesley after seeing the film, calling for urgent conversation about its depiction of Black women, especially as the work of a white male director tackling radical Black feminism. (06:28–07:28)
  • Quote: “It's a Black feminist 911 emergency.” – Daphne Brooks [06:28]

Scene Analysis: Representation, Archetypes, and Sexualization

• The opening scene and layered archetypes: The hosts break down the first major interaction between Teyana Taylor’s character (Perfidia Beverly Hills) and Captain Stephen J. Lockjaw, highlighting how the film invokes, and perhaps recycles, archetypes found in Nina Simone’s “Four Women” and Black feminist thought. (07:30–13:11)
  • Quote: “What unfolds is one of the oldest and most familiar kinds of charged scenes of encounter between white men and Black women in the history of this country.” – Daphne Brooks [07:59]
• Weaponization of Black women’s sexuality: Daphne links the character “Sweet Thing” to Simone’s work, emphasizing how Black women’s sexuality has historically been commodified and weaponized. (09:43–11:14)
  • Quote: “Sweet Thing is one of the figures who reminds us of the ways in which Black women's sexuality was weaponized against them...” – Daphne Brooks [09:53]

Desire, Agency, and Frustration

• Perfidia's agency (or lack thereof): While Wesley is energized by the film’s depiction of Black women’s drive and sexuality, Daphne criticizes its failure to explore the character’s full interiority and legacy. She wants a deeper engagement with the tradition of Black female revolutionaries. (13:11–16:22)
  • Quote: “The inability for the film to lift up and really engage her inner life world... That is my primary frustration.” – Daphne Brooks [13:11]
• Metaphor of the erotic: The discussion invokes Audre Lorde and Toni Cade Bambara to explore the mingling of sexual and political liberation, and what gets left unexplored in Anderson’s film. (14:48–16:17)

Generational and Community Reactions

• Generational divide among Black women viewers: Daphne observes a split—older Black feminists are more critical, while younger, millennial Black audiences (including queer women) found more to love in the film. (18:10–18:53)
• Emotional tension of loving (or hating) problematic art: Wesley openly discusses the discomfort of enjoying a film that others in his community find harmful, capturing the emotional whiplash of cultural critique. (19:09–20:22)
  • Quote: “It does not feel good to love something and only have a few days to love it until the avalanche of ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’ starts coming your way.” – Wesley Morris [19:10]

Agency, Individuality, and Escaping Tradition

• Perfidia's “running” as a metaphor: The hosts debate whether Perfidia’s journey represents individual liberation or an incomplete breaking from caricature and inherited trauma. Wesley brings in the Duck Amok cartoon as a metaphor for trying to escape imposed boundaries. (20:33–23:12)
  • Quote: “I feel like Perfidia Beverly Hills...is doing Duck Amok.” – Wesley Morris [23:03]
• Need for deeper rewrites of Black womanhood: Daphne references Hortense Spillers' call for Black women to break free from constraining archetypes, wishing the film would go farther. (23:12–24:15)
  • Quote: “Let’s have Perfidia rewrite that text. But I need to see it.” – Daphne Brooks [24:11]

The Burden of Representation and the Oscars Paradox

• Oscars as a site of unresolved racial tension: Both agree that the Academy Awards repeatedly serve as flashpoints for debates about Black representation, both in who is chosen, and how. (31:42–32:51)
  • Historical context: out of 97 supporting actress Oscars given, only 11 have gone to Black or brown women, with each win stirring conversation about what’s being rewarded and what it means societally. (33:05–34:51)
• Ambivalence about recognition: Daphne and Wesley discuss what it means to celebrate a win for performances or roles that may themselves be fraught, simplistic, or serve white narratives. (34:51–37:20)
  • Quote: “She’ll be the 12th winner in this category in 98 Oscars... and like, really not loving what she was asked to do in the movie.” – Wesley Morris [35:42]
  • Quote: “What the Academy is willing to award is always a source of peril and anxiety... vexation.” – Daphne Brooks [39:01]

Comparing Films and Characters

• Contrast with Sinners: They highlight how Sinners—the other major Black-led Oscar film—offers a different array of Black women’s experiences and spiritual stakes (hoodoo, healing, metaphysical themes), broadening the conversation about what is possible in mainstream cinema. (38:21–39:26)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “[PTA conjured] one of the most exciting and I would say excited depictions of and ways of thinking about Black women that I have seen in a Hollywood movie.” – Wesley Morris [04:22]
• “It’s about white male weakness, but also at the expense of women appearing as anything more than fever-dreamed, worn-out caricatures...” – Daphne Brooks [06:28]
• “The inability for the film to lift up and really engage her inner life world... That is my primary frustration.” – Daphne Brooks [13:11]
• “It does not feel good to love something and only have a few days to love it until the avalanche of ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’ starts coming your way.” – Wesley Morris [19:10]
• “Let’s have Perfidia rewrite that text. But I need to see it.” – Daphne Brooks [24:11]
• “What the Academy is willing to award is always a source of peril and anxiety... vexation.” – Daphne Brooks [39:01]
• “When they see us and they are seeing us right now in this film and you know, throwing all the praise at it, you know, what are they seeing?” – Daphne Brooks [42:44]

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Notable Timestamps for Important Segments

• Oscars context & introduction to films: 00:32–03:25
• Daphne’s “911” Black feminist critique: 06:26–07:28
• Scene analysis, archetypes, and erotic power: 07:37–14:44
• Generational divide in audience response: 18:10–18:53
• The pain and paradox of loving/hating problematic movies: 19:09–20:22
• Debate over Perfidia’s agency and the chase metaphor: 20:33–24:15
• Oscars as “racial crucible”, history of awards for Black women: 31:42–34:51
• Ambivalence over recognition and legacy of roles: 34:51–39:26
• Final reflection: What does it mean for a fraught film to win?: 39:26–43:04

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Takeaways

• This episode captures a passionate, sometimes painful, always thoughtful debate on who gets to tell stories of Black resistance and revolution—and whether those stories can ever fully satisfy, especially when constructed by outsiders.
• The conversation is steeped in Black feminist theory, history, and lived feeling. It both celebrates cultural progress (Black women’s growing recognition at the Oscars) and critiques the conditions (and compromises) attached to that progress.
• Listeners are left with the contemporary urgency of asking, when Hollywood “sees” Black women, what is actually seen? And at what cost?

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For further reading, Wesley highlights work by Van Lathan, Angelica Jade Bastién, Brooke Obie, and Daphne Brooks’s book “Liner Notes for the Revolution.” Links can be found in the show notes.

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Transcript

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[Wesley Morris]

I'm Wesley Morris and this is Cannonball. Today my baby's a runner, you are a stone. It's Oscars week everybody, and I gotta say I am actually excited about that. It's one of those who knows what's gonn happen years. Timothee Chalamet or Michael B. Jordan or my man Wagner Mora for best actor. But you know, for months it has been feeling like the biggest question is who's gonna dominate the night? Ryan Coogler, sinners, which has 16 nominations. That's a record, by the way. Or Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, which is right behind it. With 13 sinners comes with this great story. Ryan Coogler took the Jim Crow south and the Delta Blues and turned him into a popcorn movie that's got two Michael B. Jordans and a bunch of ideas and all. Last spring, all anybody was talking about was sinners. Sometimes all they were talking about was one scene from Sinners conjuring spirits from the past. Somebody take me

[Daphne Brooks]

and the future.

[Wesley Morris]

But you know, one battle after another. A whole movie you could boil down to being about a leftist revolutionary outfit led by black women.

[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

This is an announcement on a motherfucking revolution. Make it good, make it bright, impress me.

[Wesley Morris]

Who are facing off against a racist, sexist, authoritarian, patriarchal government. When that movie opened last September, just felt like it came right on time. And almost instantly it just, I mean, awards wise, it just became the movie to beat. So, you know, I mean, no matter what, we're talking about a pretty exciting night, including for many black people. But you know how it is with race and the Oscars. It is never that simple because there are some people who are not rooting for Paul Thomas Anderson's version of black feminist driven revolution. And a lot of those people are black feminists themselves. In fact, they're sending texts to people like me calling this movie a black feminist emergency. One of those black feminists is my friend, the scholar Daphne Brooks. She teaches African American and American studies at Yale University. And I have been waiting many weeks to have her on this show to ask, what is the 911 situation here.

[Daphne Brooks]

Daphne Brooks, Wesley Morris.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, I'll just sort of set the scene. I go to this movie with one of our producers, the wonderful John White. It's a nice September morning. I believe it is crisp. It's one of those September days where you're like, oh, yes. Not only is it time for the seasons to change, fall movie season is here, and we are about to sit down with one of the greats, Paul Thomas Anderson. And the opening shot of this movie is Teyana Taylor walking on an overpass. And she's looking down. She's doing surveillance work as part of this radical leftist organization. She's looking down at a military camp or like a. Like a migrant detention center that the military is overseeing.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't know any of that. All I know is the energy out of the gate is high for me. You are a political prisoner of the front 75, motherfuckers. You've been captured by the front 75, bitch. It's worth all of them, the police. And for the next 33 minutes, I'm watching this, and I'm just like, this is one of the most exciting and I would say excited depictions of and ways of thinking about black women that I have seen in a Hollywood movie. I mean, I know the bar is low, but it gave me something. It really was giving me something to respond to. Now I will stop there and just say that, you know, I leave the movie high as a kite. Both John and me were just like, ooh, John too.

[Daphne Brooks]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

We had a great time. And I also just felt like what was happening was I was seeing a director who I felt had gotten very comfortable living in the past, in a past that did not involve any of the people in this movie finally catching up to the 21st century. And I don't wanna say making up for lost time, but actually seeing a world that he, for whatever reason, was not comfortable or ready to depict.

[Daphne Brooks]

Can I just say that that was the reason why we went opening weekend? I. I had been waiting for this film because I was waiting for Paul Thomas Anderson to tell me some things that he'd never told me before.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, I guess he. I guess he did tell me. I guess he told you some things, right? He did. When I got. When I got home. Oh, about a opening weekend of this movie.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

There's a text waiting for me from one Daphne A. Brooks. Here is the text message. I mean, basically you start by saying, listen, I don't wanna bother you, but I need to. I had to write tonight after seeing this P.T. anderson thing. It's a black feminist 911 emergency. And then you say so much to say. I mean, I almost walked out on it. Wesley. Yes, it's about white male weakness. That's what I. Wesley said was also going on here, but also at the expense of women appearing as anything more than fever dreamed worn out caricatures, working in the service of white patriarchal anxieties and obsessions. It also struck us as deeply lazy when it came to engaging post 60s radical grassroots insurgent movements. I mean, I just want you. Can you sit with me on opening night? You and your husband Matt, go and see it.

[Daphne Brooks]

Mm.

[Wesley Morris]

When did you feel compelled to press the 9 in your 911 emergency?

[Daphne Brooks]

Right. Opening scene. Tiana is in the first frame of the film. But then soon after, very soon after, it's the scene between Tiana's character and Sean. I used to love him, Pan.

[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

What's your name, dickhead?

[Daphne Brooks]

As the indelible character of Stephen J. Lockjaw.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm Captain Stephen J. Lockjaw.

[Daphne Brooks]

Right. What unfolds is one of the oldest and most familiar kind of charged scenes of encounter between white men and black women in the history of this country, to the extent that it is highly racialized, sexualized, framed in the conditions of violence.

[Wesley Morris]

Right. So I'll just say, like, she finds him sleeping in his quarters at this detention center where all of these brown men and women are being kept.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

And the instant he sees her, his lips start getting licked by his own tongue.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And her words to him are, here's the mission, military man.

[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

The message is clear. Free borders, free bodies, free choices, and free from fucking fear.

[Daphne Brooks]

But she says something before that, which I didn't remember.

[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

Wake up, soldier boy.

[Wesley Morris]

Wake up, soldier boy.

[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

You died and went to pussy heaven, motherfucker. Put your arms to the side so I can see you.

[Daphne Brooks]

You died and went to pussy heaven and pussy heaven.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes, that's what she says. Okay, so we're already in. We're already sexualized the situation, but she has seen him. She's already seen him lick his lips.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes. So I.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, he is. He's setting the. I mean, I don't know, setting the terms. She's trying to set the terms, but she is picking up what he is putting down. Like speaking his language.

[Daphne Brooks]

Absolutely.

[Wesley Morris]

And his only response to that is another lick lip. And he says, sweet.

[Daphne Brooks]

Sweet thing.

[Wesley Morris]

Sweet thing.

[Daphne Brooks]

Sweet thing. Right. Sweet thing. Which is

[Wesley Morris]

one of the great Chaka Khan songs.

[Daphne Brooks]

Okay, fair. You know, but also, incidentally, the name of the Third archetype in Nina Simone's black feminist anthem for Women, in which Nina carries listeners through this historical genealogy of black women's racial and sexual exploitation and oppression, you know, in which she's mapping out a genealogy of racialized, sexualized archetypes. Black women have had to battle against one battle after another. Right. You know, Sweet Thing is one of the figures who reminds us of the ways in which black women's sexuality was weaponized against them, utilized as kind of this major point of, you know, wealth, in terms of the production, you know, the breeding production of black women in slavery for white patriarchs to be able to accrue their power. Right. Their wealth and their power in this country. My skin is tan and my hair is fine.

[Wesley Morris]

My skin is tan.

[Daphne Brooks]

My hips are biting. My mouth like wine.

[Wesley Morris]

My mouth is like wine. No.

[Daphne Brooks]

Do it, Wesley.

[Wesley Morris]

Whose little girl?

[Daphne Brooks]

Anyone who has money to buy. What do they call me? My name is Sweet Thing.

[Wesley Morris]

Sweet Thing.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

My name is Sweet Thing.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, Lockjaw's here to play, which Perfidia responds to by saying, right now I'm a fucking feet.

[Wesley Morris]

Since we playing.

[Daphne Brooks]

Since we playing. Get up.

[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

Get it up.

[Daphne Brooks]

Get it up. Sorry, Excuse me.

[Wesley Morris]

Very important.

[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

Get up.

[Daphne Brooks]

How can I. Trying to rewrite it, even in this moment? Right. So what do we have here? We get an Audre Lorde 911, right? No, Audre Lorde, the late, great black queer feminist.

[Wesley Morris]

Because he's picked up his hat and she's picked up his gun. She's got his tools.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes. And I'm there in the theater thinking, master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. This is something Audre Lorde taught me when I was a freshman in college at Berkeley. So maybe on the one hand, it's one of Perfetia's fallacies. Her inability to recognize that core fundamental black feminist ideological view of the world from the get go.

[Wesley Morris]

Are we talking about here the. The Tiana Taylor's. The depiction of Perfidia, Beverly Hills as this sexualized creature in the world of the film? I mean, she is like, how. You know, this woman is sort of driving. She's driving the action the first 33 minutes of this movie. I mean, okay, sure, I'm offering this to you. What are you. What is your experience of what she is doing? And is this, like, is this the source of your primary frustration with the movie?

[Daphne Brooks]

Well, I mean, my source of primary frustration with the film, which in my conversations with Sisters in the Ivory Tower and Sisters at the Salon. So, you know, talk about all the different ranges of places in which we interact and collaborate and think together and express our feelings and, you know, just think about culture. My primary frustration is, you know, the inability for the film to lift up and really engage her inner life world. You know, one of the troubling kind of riddles about perfidious relationship with Ghetto Pat, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who becomes Bob later. But, you know, one of the troubling riddles about their intimacy is the extent to which we are seeing this kind of voracious coupling and sexuality, which in and of itself.

[Wesley Morris]

She wants to have sex near the blast site.

[Daphne Brooks]

Just fuck.

[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

What a bomb go off.

[Daphne Brooks]

Come on, baby. Right? They engage in these deadly operations, and she's like, come on, baby, let's lay down on the field and have sex right now. You know,

[Wesley Morris]

Bob goes off in two minutes.

[Daphne Brooks]

And, I mean, there's a kind of. There's an interesting metaphor to that. Right. Because, you know, black feminists, again, have given us pivotal knowledge about the connections between personal desire and political desire. You think about Toni Cade Bambara's famous line in which she says the role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible. Or, of course, Audre Lorde's classic essay, the Uses of the Erotic, in which she's. She's really wrestling with, talking through, theorizing the ways in which she describes it as recognizing the power of erotic within ourselves that can give us this energy to pursue genuine change. Okay, so if I'm being generous here, there's something interesting about Perfidia's claiming of her sexuality as being central to her political life world as well as. But we don't know what it is. I just want to know. I want to know about the long line of black revolutionary women who gave birth to her that's referenced by Grandma Minnie. My child comes from a whole line of revolutionaries and you look so lost She's a runner and you a stone.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, I mean, just immediately, Grandma Minnie is like, to me, like an explicit reference to Minnie Ripley.

[Daphne Brooks]

Absolutely.

[Wesley Morris]

Paul Thomas Anderson's wife, Maya Rudolph's mother and one of the great singers, you know, that we had for, you know,

[Daphne Brooks]

the 1970s, you know, and synonymous with soul music, culture and desire, you know, and pleasure and community building. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

So I guess we're thinking about what the emergency is here. And is it like. Is this movie striking you as being glib with the thing that Grandma Minnie in the movie is talking about, with this legacy, this lineage of revolutionaries which does not necessarily involve guns, bombs, and, you know, and bank robberies. It's about survival. It's about living life. It's about creation. So is the movie just. Is it being too glib with that

[Daphne Brooks]

history in some way?

[Wesley Morris]

Is it. I mean, I'm just thinking through what.

[Daphne Brooks]

Okay, absolutely. And then anybody did.

[Wesley Morris]

Was there anybody. Were there any pro people.

[Daphne Brooks]

No, no, no. But I'll tell you something. And this is something so interesting.

[Wesley Morris]

I've got them in my life. Because it's funny, like, after a month of the movie being out.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And me hearing from, you know, lots of people who were just like. Like, soul hurt.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

There was another wave of moviegoer. And I'm talking. We're. I mean, this.

[Daphne Brooks]

Like, we're.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm talking about black women.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Who were just like. I kind of loved it.

[Daphne Brooks]

Interesting.

[Wesley Morris]

This was fine with me. More of it.

[Daphne Brooks]

Okay, so here's what I'll say about that. That I have encountered this with. And it's a generational divide for me. Like, I have a wonderful goddaughter. Loved the film or liked it. I don't want to put it. Be careful about how I. I paraphrase them. Her best friend. Black queer woman. Black queer woman. Partner. Also enjoyed the film. These are millennials. Right. So, I mean, I'm kind of. I'm interested in that. And even when I've talked about.

[Wesley Morris]

You have to run a gamut.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yeah. Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

I run a gamut.

[Daphne Brooks]

Okay. Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

But I mean, I hear that, but listen. All right, so can I just. Can I tell you what I think is happening for me?

[Daphne Brooks]

Yep.

[Wesley Morris]

It did not feel good to get that text from you and then to be, well, don't feel bad. But I'm just saying, like, it didn't feel good. It does not feel good to love something and only have a few days to love it until the avalanche of what the fuck is wrong with you? Starts coming your way.

[Daphne Brooks]

Which I didn't say to you, by the way. I didn't say, what the fuck is wrong.

[Wesley Morris]

No, nobody. But it. You were. I mean, you're not an ad hominem person, and it's not personal. Right. I just don't like the feeling that people I care about. Right. People I love, you know, from. From my sister to my sister. Hate this movie that I had a good time at, and we watched the same thing. And the thing that really hurt them thrilled me.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

But listen, I.

[Daphne Brooks]

What?

[Wesley Morris]

Thrilled me about this movie.

[Daphne Brooks]

Tell me

[Wesley Morris]

to be in these 33 minutes with Perfidia. Beverly Hills. You know, she walks out on this Family in pursuit of just independence. I'll say. You know, to sort of paraphrase.

[Daphne Brooks]

I mean, she's a fugitive, more or less is.

[Wesley Morris]

She's going. She is going on the run, but she's not taking everybody with them. And her explanation for that is not, you know, I cannot endanger you people. I need to run. It's like, I need to do me.

[Daphne Brooks]

I need to do me.

[Wesley Morris]

So I think what Teyana Taylor is performing in some way are these questions of not simply human liberation, but individual freedom from a collective movement. Right, sure. Like, the running that she is doing is. Is. Is to me.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Like outside the world of the story of the movie. Right.

[Alexa Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

She is trying to escape, I think, the very thing you and I are talking about.

[Daphne Brooks]

Right, Right.

[Wesley Morris]

She is running from the problem. The way she talks about Pat and leaving Charlene.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Behind.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

And her mother and her family like this history is too much. It is too much, and I have to escape it.

[Daphne Brooks]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, I feel like the choice that is being made here is the hardest choice. It's not just turning everybody in.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Right. It's not just like betraying your organization. It is like cutting. It is like severing your limb to keep your individuality.

[Daphne Brooks]

Sure.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't know. I just. Sure.

[Daphne Brooks]

So give me. You know, let's go, Pa. Let's add another 30 minutes and see what happens when you allow a black woman to cut loose from.

[Wesley Morris]

But she's trying. You know what? I was. You know, you're gonna laugh when I say this. I thought about Duck Amuck.

[Daphne Brooks]

Duck Amok.

[Wesley Morris]

The old Daffy Duck, the Great Daffy Duck cartoon where they keep trying to draw him into the. Like, they keep trying to animate him to stay in the world of the cellular.

[Daphne Brooks]

I mean, look.

[Wesley Morris]

And he keeps being dissatisfied with the parameters being put around him. I feel like Perfidia. Beverly Hills. Teyana Taylor is doing Duck a Muck.

[Daphne Brooks]

Listen, you know, the end of Hortense Spillers classic essay, Mama's Baby, Papa's maybe, is actually calling for this kind of moment in which we can imagine black women being able to break out of the very caricatures that she begins her essay with, which include lines like, and this is, you know, Peaches, Brown Sugar, Sapphire, Earth Mother, Auntie Granny, God's holy fool, a Miss Ebony first or a black woman at the podium. All right. Which, I mean, also conversant with Nina Simone and those archetypes that she's, you know, moving us through in Four Women by the end of the essay, the Famous last line, actually claiming the monstrosity of a female with the potential to name which her culture imposes in blindness. Sapphire might rewrite, after all, a radically different text for a female empowerment.

[Wesley Morris]

Sure.

[Daphne Brooks]

Let's have Perfidia rewrite that text. But I need to see it.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't.

[Daphne Brooks]

I think I need to hear it. I need to feel it.

[Wesley Morris]

This is. But, see, you got less than you wanted. Yeah, I got more than I wanted. Okay, Sure.

[Daphne Brooks]

I mean, because, you know. Okay, go ahead.

[Wesley Morris]

I think this. This. This chase picture, right?

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

This chase picture, it knows. If it knows anything, it at least knows what. What. What it's running to and running from. Right. I think this is. Obviously, this movie knows that it's playing with, you know, white supremacist. I mean, I guess the movie would say evil, but it's not. It's not evil. It's like, casual. Right.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yeah. The endemic ways in which white supremacy constitutes our everyday lives. I. For me, I worry about settling with regards to a film like this that it is doing so much and at the same time, not enough. So little. I want to be careful with that. But, you know. Right. So little for some of us and that, you know, how rarely it is. Right. That we have, you know, popcorn cinema, the multiplex, you know, putting black women on screen and saying these things. Get your noses in the carpet. My name is jungle pussy. This is what power looks like. See my face? This some set it off shit. You know, make films in which you can have jungle say, I am black power. And for that to actually have some substance and some meaning behind it, I need that. I want that if we're gonna hear it for the first time, as far as I can recall, in a major motion picture in recent years, by a white director, by someone other than Spike Lee. You know, I need more and to treat. Treat these characters and this topic with some care precisely because it's been so, you know, just egregiously allied across the history of film.

[Wesley Morris]

I think my favorite thing about my relationship with you, Daphne, is. It isn't that this is not about a white man. Can't do it. This is not about, like, that kind of authority, representational.

[Daphne Brooks]

We're not drawing those kind of lines. No, we are not. No, no.

[Wesley Morris]

But what we are talking about, though, is, I think, what you do with the pieces once you put them on the board.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, do you know how to play. Do you know how to play chess?

[Daphne Brooks]

Yeah. And what do you need to know in order to play chess?

[Wesley Morris]

I. Yeah. What do you need to know. What do you need to know? What do you need to know? I mean, I feel like this is a very successful chess match, you and me.

[Daphne Brooks]

Or I think that for me, the

[Wesley Morris]

reason I have, oh, Paul Thomas Anderson's

[Daphne Brooks]

chess match should be clear.

[Wesley Morris]

You and I. I mean, I don't know what game we're playing. We're playing something way beyond that. But you know, one of the things that sort of like that hurt me about, you know, in those first couple of weeks, like, while absorbing all these really thoughtful, impassioned, cogent, Cogent, cogent ways of thinking about how this movie is lazy, failing, not doing enough, not going far enough, frustrating. But for me, the thing that hurt was, or the thing I understood about the hurt was that I have been here too. I have felt this so many other times. And I sat with John White, the producer of this show, a producer on this show, and I was like, huh, I'm not feeling the thing that I normally feel when I watch anything that involves a depiction of us. So I would like to take a break and when we come back, I kind of want to just like spend a little bit of time, like talking about the history, how it repeats, how come Oscar night it could proliferate once more in a good way and a bad way, perhaps. Who knows?

[Daphne Brooks]

In a year when sinners is in our world.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes, you're picking up what I'm putting down. All right, so we'll take a break and we'll be right back.

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[Wesley Morris]

All right, Daphne Brooks.

[Daphne Brooks]

Wesley Morris.

[Wesley Morris]

I think we just took a really meaningful walk through one battle after another. I think I was trying to articulate to you the feeling that I have not Infrequently, when there is some conversation happening just amongst, you know, black people about art, about popular art, and, you know, the many different ways to feel about it. And it really is about the depiction of us, really, no matter who's doing the depicting, to be honest. Right. And when it feels good and when it doesn't feel good. And I always find that one of the major flashpoints for this conversation about how we're feeling with respect to how we're being represented is the Academy Awards. You're gonna watch, right?

[Daphne Brooks]

Wesley? I have not missed an Oscar ceremony since 1977, which is when I.

[Wesley Morris]

That's the.

[Daphne Brooks]

That's ground zero. It's ground zero. I mean, and that was the year that I fell in love with moviegoing because of Star Wars. So I had an earache. I was laid up on our couch in Menlo Park, California, and mom and dad had wrapped me in blankets and I was crying cause I had the earache. And I just kept saying, I have to watch The Oscars, though.

[Wesley Morris]

77 Oscars. That's Rocky.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes, it's Rocky. I mean, I remember that's Rocky. Right. So it's.

[Wesley Morris]

Before Rocky was your first Oscar.

[Daphne Brooks]

It was. And I remember seeing Sylvester Stallone throwing the popcorn around. He had popcorn that he'd brough with him. So, yes, I mean, I guess I will be watching.

[Wesley Morris]

I think the reason to bring it. I mean, like, I feel like award shows really are like one of the great crucibles of race and culture in this country. It just. Am I. Am I Where, like, you agree with that, right? That's not a crazy thing to say.

[Daphne Brooks]

No, I mean, I think that you and I are special, though, in thinking that. I don't think most people think that.

[Wesley Morris]

I just sort of. I'll take you through a quick spin through the. There have been in. In the entire 98.

[Daphne Brooks]

Oh, do it.

[Wesley Morris]

Nine. 97 Academy Awards broadcasts or, you know, 90. 97 trophies have been given out for supporting actors.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

11 of them have been won by black or brown women, which is a

[Daphne Brooks]

high watermark compared to the best actress

[Wesley Morris]

category, Hattie McDaniel is the first one to win in 1940 for going with the Wind. She's the first black woman to win any Oscar. But for supporting actress, Whoopi Goldberg in 1991, Jennifer Hudson in 2007, Monique in 2010 for precious, Octavia Spencer in 2012

[Daphne Brooks]

for the help Made that Shit Pie. Sorry, sorry.

[Wesley Morris]

We got it. We'll go. Lupita nyong' O in 2013 for 12 Years a Slave. Viola Davis in 2016 for Fences. A major, major, major category fraud.

[Daphne Brooks]

But.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, not major, major, but that is category fraud. She shouldn't have been a supporting actress, best actress. A lot of those scenes by herself. Then Regina King for Beale street could talk. Who's after that? Is it. I think that's Ariana DeBose for West side Story, then Davine Joey Randolph for the Holdovers, and then last year's so is Saldana for Emilia Perez. And it's just the reason I bring this up in light of, you know, Teyana Taylor, who we've been talking about, is like, to really think about like this mix of pride and it's a mix of things sometimes, Right?

[Daphne Brooks]

Sure.

[Wesley Morris]

Like, what is the role? What is being. What is being rewarded here from the standpoint of like the. For many, many years, like a very white academy.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

What is the. What is the work being done? What is the performance being given? And what happens to the winner in the wake of her win?

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, we're thinking about Teyana Taylor possibly winning. Right. For a. For a character that has created a lot of headaches for a lot of people.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

And a lot of that is attached to what we know to be these historical problems of representation. So what. How's it. What is the divorcing here? If there is a divorce between being so happy that this woman is gonna win an Academy Award, she'll be the 12th winner in this category in 98 Oscars.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

And like, really not loving what she was asked to do in the movie. Like not loving the way the movie uses the performance.

[Daphne Brooks]

Not loving the way the. Uses the performance and uses the character and underuses the character and deploys the character for other characters interests that I think end up undermining her own character's interests. And I think that, you know, we know from some of those examples like Octavia Butler and the Help, that Octavia Spencer. Octavia Spencer. Oh, my God.

[Wesley Morris]

Octavia Butler. Octavia Butler. Give me some Octavia Butler. Like, not in the Help, but just acting in anything.

[Daphne Brooks]

We know that Octavia Spencer's Oscar winning performance in the Help was also spectacularized and infamously associated with this kind of, you know, abject form of resistance. Like, you know, she makes a shit pie whether it's her shit or not. You know, it is a kind of this. This trafficking in a very circumscribed form of resistance which is also repulsive and intimate, but does not have any kind of reflection on a larger sort of systemic intervention in the world.

[Wesley Morris]

Something Is being kept going here. Not. Do you know what I mean? I mean, there's a continuum, and it's still by, you know, 2012, it's lingered into the 21st century. And this is the thing that hurts, right?

[Daphne Brooks]

This is the thing that hurts because what keeps going in one battle after another? I mean, it's built into the name. But one of the questions about Teyana Taylor's character is to what extent is she still within the cause controls.

[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

Right.

[Daphne Brooks]

Of this thing that keeps going? And it is one battle after another, right?

[Wesley Morris]

It is. This is the Academy Awards to be every single one of these winners. It's worse. We have fought over most of these people and the work they're doing or the movie they're doing, the work in. You know, Monique. Yes.

[Daphne Brooks]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, we still are fighting about

[Daphne Brooks]

that, but that's why we. Woonmi.

[Wesley Morris]

Woonmi Wunmi Masaku plays who's in Sinners.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Nominated also for best supporting actress.

[Daphne Brooks]

Right. That's why Woonmi's character. And really, actually, you know, the women in that film are quite fascinating.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, pale, Pale moon all day long. Okay.

[Daphne Brooks]

You know, but I mean, there's a range of women in this film. And Woonmin, being a hoodoo conjurer, healer, really talk about the voice that is all over in the film. I mean, she gives us the kind of framing for considering, you know, the.

[Wesley Morris]

How the veil works.

[Daphne Brooks]

Right. How the veil works. Right. How super.

[Wesley Morris]

What the spiritual stakes are.

[Daphne Brooks]

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

The metaphysical stakes.

[Daphne Brooks]

The metaphysical stakes, Right. So there's that. I'm interested in the contrast between those characters. Not to pit these two sisters off because they each did extraordinary work with the material given to them. But what the Academy is willing to award is always a source of peril and anxiety. To go back to that word again, vexation. Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

All right, Daphne, I'm gonna leave you with the last word. Why is it important to talk about this film again the way that we've been talking about it? And what does it mean? What is it going to mean for it to potentially win a lot of Hollywood's highest accolade if that's what winds up happening?

[Daphne Brooks]

Well, yeah, I think this film, as much as it leaves folks like me wanting it, is laying on the table some complicated questions about especially the ways in which people of color decide to align themselves either with hegemony, with dominant culture, with white supremacist patriarchy, were in resistance to it. And we didn't even really talk about all of these different Informants who are of color or marginalized, like, you know, the non binary friend of Willa's, and, you know, there's just a whole string of them. We also didn't talk about the security guard who's shot by Perfidia, which is also very painful.

[Wesley Morris]

Black man, why?

[Daphne Brooks]

Why are we doing that? At least explain that to me what that is. So I guess I think that for this we're engaging in a beautiful struggle with each other and with the cultural object in question and living with it in a way that I initially wasn't willing to do because I felt so hurt by it. And if anything, pedagogically, me, myself, my colleagues were all trying to encourage filmgoers, music lovers, art lovers, book lovers, to just spend time, you know, to spend time with these objects and to really question them. In this case and in many other cases, especially in film, we know this is an entire community of people brought this to life. This is PTA's vision, but its entire ensemble and being able to really take seriously that labor and to fight with it and try to extrapolate meaning from it as deeply as we can, especially with the topics that this film traffics in, of course, feels more urgent than ever in 2026. And so that feels very heavy for me. And I keep coming back to, you know, the title of Ava DuVernay's brilliant miniseries about the Central Park Five. You know, when they see us. So you know, the question of when they see us and they are seeing us right now in this film and you know, throwing all the praise at it, you know, what are they seeing? And because there's so much left for us to want in this film, I. I feel an ache about what they're potentially seeing and also not seeing.

[Wesley Morris]

Daphne Brooks, thanks for doing this.

[Daphne Brooks]

Anytime. Wesley. I'm not gonna text you anymore.

[Wesley Morris]

You better stop that. You better keep texting me.

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[Wesley Morris]

Every Mazda SUV offers you an elevated driving experience and refined performance. Discover it at your local Mazda dealer today. That's our show. I should say before we go, there is so much more great writing on one battle after another and the very things that Daphne and I have been talking about by people like Van Lathan and Angelica Jade Bastien and Brooke Obie and we'll put a link to their work and a lot of other people's pieces on this movie in the show. Notes and you know Daphne's great book liner notes for the revolution. Just if you haven't already gotten it, help yourself. This episode of Cannonball was produced by John White, Austin Mitchell, Elissa Dudley and Janelle Anderson. It was edited by Lisa Tobin. Caitlin Love did our fact checking. Daniel Ramirez engineered this episode. It was recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo and Nick Pittman. Dan Powell and Diane Wong did the original music. Our theme music, as always, is by Justin Ellington. Bobby Doherty, he took the photo for our show art. Our video team is Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Que Arapa, Daniele Sarti and Tyler Scheffler. It was edited by Jeremy Rocklin, David Hare and Pat Guenther. I don't know if you know this, but we are definitely on YouTube next week. You win some and you lose a lot more.

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[Perfetia Beverly Hills (Character Voice)]

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[Daphne Brooks]

Fast.

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