Viral Article Book Club: The Politics of Race and Revolution in One Battle After Another

Summary

Podcast Summary: Glamorous Trash — Viral Article Book Club: “The Politics of Race and Revolution in One Battle After Another”

Date: October 10, 2025
Host: Tracy Thomas (guest-hosting for Chelsea Devantez)
Guest: Zach Stafford

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Episode Overview

This episode diverges from the usual viral article format to discuss the cultural and political significance of Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film “One Battle After Another,” with particular scrutiny on its depictions of Black women. Drawing on two viral think pieces—Ellen E. Jones’ Guardian article (“Jezebel’s Race, Kink and Cardi B. In One Battle After Another, Black Women are Still Stereotypes”) and Brooke Obie’s substack review (“One Fetish After Another. PTA exploits Black Women and averts revolution”)—Tracy and Zach dissect the film’s narrative, writing, political messaging, and wider implications for the way pop culture treats race, activism, and mixed identity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why This Film, Why Now?

• Tracy explains the break from viral articles: “[The film] is in conversation with those episodes … because it's a lot about how women, specifically Black women, are depicted […] what this movie can tell us about the current pop and political cultural climate.” (03:02)
• Zach frames the film as a “culmination of our lives, Tracy, as mixed kids in the most amazing way […] a product of the boom of interracial love in the 80s and 90s,” tying in both personal and cultural touchpoints. (08:20)

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2. Film Synopsis & Source Material

• Recap: The film centers on Perfidia Beverly Hill, a Black revolutionary (Teyana Taylor), her white lover/partner (Leonardo DiCaprio as “Ghetto Pat/Bob”), their daughter Willa (Chase Infinity), and a government antagonist (Sean Penn as Colonel Steve Lockjaw).
• Based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland (whose original characters are all white): “He took that book, adapted it in his own way, and made the main woman Black and her child interracial, which is a political statement onto itself.” (14:20)

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3. Initial Reactions to the Movie

• Zach: Praises the film’s visual and thematic ambition but flags its surface-level treatment of serious political issues and race, calling it “right on time” for our current, aesthetics-driven political moment:

  “The film, when you watch it, feels like it is a documentary at times. It's talking about immigration, it's talking about fascism, it's talking about police brutalizing everyday folks in their pursuit of making a proper country.” (07:40)

• Tracy: Entertained but underwhelmed by substance:

  “People kept saying like, oh, this is his most political movie. This is about this moment […] This movie has no political manifesto to it. This movie has no political understanding whatsoever. It is mostly about aesthetics.” (09:46)

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4. The Media Discourse Problem

• Tracy rails against the way film podcasts and critics are hailing the film as a “movie about Black women,” arguing instead:

  “[T]he power is the control of Black women and their bodies. That is what this movie is about.” (16:24)

• The hosts distinguish between what the film is about—white men’s interiority and power—and how Black and brown characters become props or means for white male narratives.
• Quote (Brooke Obie):

  “Because Anderson is not interested in revolution, he's not interested in vulnerable immigrants… He's not interested in Black women. He's only interested in the interiority of white men.” (41:34 — read by Tracy)

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5. Representation of Black Women: Perfidia Beverly Hills

• Both Tracy and Zach scrutinize Perfidia’s motivation—or lack thereof—and her persistent over-sexualization.
  • Tracy:

    “Her biggest want is for her dad to stop coming home late and drunk driving. We know that she's somewhat conflicted after she finds out that her mother is around…she is a caricature of a mixed kid.” (42:58)

• Zach contextualizes the trope:

  “That is the representation we've always had of Black women by white men who are very infatuated with their representation.” (21:53)

• They highlight the film’s failure to develop Perfidia’s revolutionary roots and desires beyond sex and survival, even as the script gestures at her revolutionary lineage.

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6. Sexual Politics & Agency

• The hosts dissect power dynamics in scenes of sexual coercion:
  • Tracy: “She’s about to arm a bomb. He walks in... ‘Hey, you either have sex with me or you go to jail.’ ... It skirts the line of violence because he does have so much power… Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t really give us much more after that.” (21:52)
  • Zach draws parallels to historical power imbalances like “Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson,” emphasizing “there’s no consent there.” (28:31)

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7. Mixed Kids & Interracial Relationships

• Both discuss how the film uses mixed identity as aesthetic shorthand without substance.
  • Zach:

    “[T]he question of why did she rat out her community is pretty clear and sinister, which is Black women that sleep with white men, you can't trust them. And they're not down ... And then the kids that they produce are also not down for the cause, and they are not trustworthy.” (44:11)

• Tracy rejects the shallow “mixed kids are confused” trope:

  “It just keeps going back to me of, like, if you're gonna do it, yeah, do it. But this whole movie is just about these white guys.” (45:40)

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8. Treatment of Immigrants and Brown Characters

• Tracy finds the faceless, voiceless depiction of brown immigrants in the film especially damning:

  “It is the epitome of the stereotype that is like brown, faceless masses...this is a huge plot point of the movie. Not a single brown character besides Benicio Del Toro gets any meaningful line in the entire movie.” (37:44)

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9. Aesthetics vs. Substance in Political Storytelling

• Zach likens the film’s obsession with surface to the Trump-era “aesthetics of fascism”; both hosts agree that despite using a palette of social issues (race, immigrants, revolution), the film doesn’t meaningfully say anything new.
  • Tracy:

    “It deals with the aesthetics of politics, but not any of the actualities.” (56:53)

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10. Comparison to Real Activist Legacies & Representation

• They contrast the film’s character choices with real revolutionaries (e.g., Assata Shakur) who acted out of love and collective purpose, not selfishness or sex.
  • Tracy, quoting Che Guevara via Brooke Obi:

    “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love … There is no love in Perfidia Beverly Hills. There is sex, there is power, there is chaos, but there is no love. A loveless revolutionary is just a terrorist.” (31:43)

• They note how history is misrepresented by overlaying White characters’ selfishness and lack of community care onto Black women characters.

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11. Meta-commentary: Awards, Media, and White Male Narratives

• They caution that the film’s likely awards success (Best Picture, etc.) is telling of America’s comfort with the aesthetic, not practice, of racial reckoning.
  • Zach:

    “Best Picture is supposed to, like, flag to us of, like, where popular culture wants us to sit politically. So this will win. And that is just so telling and so connected.” (51:58)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the shallowness of representation:
  Tracy: “This is as much a movie about Black women as any of Paul Thomas Anderson's other movies are movies about Black women, which is zero percent.” (16:22)

• On the agency of Black women in the film:
  Zach: “The only moment within Teyana Taylor's time with us on screen that really complicates even our understanding of her not having agency is the really complicated sexual scene with Sean Penn…But Paul Thomas Anderson doesn't really give us much more after that.” (25:51)

• On the facelessness of immigrants:
  Tracy: “this is a huge plot point of the movie. Not a single brown character besides Benicio Del Toro gets any meaningful line in the entire movie.” (37:44)

• On the reality of white protagonists:
  Tracy: “He is the most incompetent person in the entire movie, and somehow he's still the hero and everything happens for him.” (39:47)

• On the film’s actual message:
  Tracy: “No matter what, this is a white man's world, and the rest of us are just living in it.” (54:50)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:46 | Tracy introduces the episode and context | | 03:00 | Why the film is chosen as a “viral article” topic | | 07:19 | Recap of film plot and source material | | 09:46 | Initial reactions: aesthetics vs. substance | | 12:17 | Setting up the deep dive into Perfidia Beverly Hills’s character | | 20:01 | Beginning the in-depth discussion of Perfidia’s representation and criticism via articles | | 28:31 | Historical context: Sally Hemings, agency, & consent | | 37:44 | The facelessness of brown characters and failed representation | | 41:34 | Reading Brooke Obi’s critique: focus on white male interiority | | 44:11 | Mixed kids, interracial dynamics, and their narrative fate | | 47:30 | Missed opportunity for meaningful representation of mixed identity | | 50:10 | Comparing the film’s “politics” to Ezra Klein discourse | | 54:50 | The ultimate message: restoring white male centrality | | 56:53 | Aesthetics vs. politics and the recurring cycle of false revolution | | 57:16 | Click Lit Quiz: Was the film well written, and did it go deep? |

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Recurring Themes and Tone

• Critical, witty, bookish: Tracy and Zach use a light touch and humor (“can we say mulatto on this podcast?” [41:43]), but the tone is unsparing when it comes to dissecting lazy or harmful representation.
• Personal: Both bring their own backgrounds as mixed Black people into the analysis, aligning their critiques with broader cultural stakes.
• Conversation as resistance: Throughout, Tracy and Zach demonstrate how “book clubbing” pop culture, especially from a feminist and anti-racist lens, is itself a way to push back on dominant, shallow narratives.

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Takeaways

• The film is visually bold but thematically thin—on politics, on race, and especially on Black women’s humanity and agency.
• The acclaim surrounding the film reveals the limits of Hollywood’s imagination about activism, interracial identity, and who gets interiority and history.
• The episode is a call to “nitpick” beloved culture not out of spite, but out of care—for the art, the artists, and the lives and communities portrayed (or erased).

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Further Listening & Links

• See the show notes for links to the discussed articles and the referenced “Vibe Check” episode tackling Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
• “Tell us what you think, especially if you saw the movie. I want to know everything. What did we get right? What did we get wrong?” – Tracy (59:39)

Transcript

[Chelsea Devontez]

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[Chelsea Devontez]

Welcome. Oh boy, that guy's a tool.

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[Chelsea Devontez (Pre-Recorded Host)]

Hi, it's me, your host, Chelsea. I am actually away from the podcast right now for a few weeks. I am on set directing my first feature film, which I also wrote. If you want to know more about what I am up to, I am updating people on Patreon. Also on Patreon and Apple subscriptions is where you will continue to get your bonus episodes from me every month, just like normal. We already recorded a bunch for you. And in the meantime, our viral article episodes like this one today will be hosted by a favorite guest on this podcast, my book sister and favorite person ever to debate with Tracy Thomas. I think you're gonna love it, so let's dive in and please let us know what you think in the comments.

[Tracy Thomas]

Welcome to Glamorous Trash. This is a podcast that book clubs, viral articles, celebrity memoirs and trashy discourse to elevate your life. I am your guest host, Tracy Thomas. I am the host of a book podcast called the Stacks which comes out every where. I interview authors about their new books and once a month I host a book club. Today's episode is part of our viral article series where we recap and discuss articles that go wild on the Internet as part of the glamorous trash literary world. But look, today we are going a little rogue. Not totally off the beaten track, but we are swerving a little bit left. We're going to talk about Paul Thomas Anderson's brand new movie One battle after another. Now some of you might be saying, tracy, this is a viral article episode and you're just a guest host. How dare you call an audible like this. But you know what babe? I'm just going to do it because that is the spirit of Chelsea devontez. Do what is right. And so here we are. This is rooted in glamorous trash canon. In the past, I know I have heard Chelsea talk about movies like Barbie and Wicked. And today I'm going to argue with my amazing guest that this film is in conversation with those episodes because it's a lot about how women, specifically black women, are depicted in the film and what this movie can tell us about the current pop and political cultural climate. So on top of talking about the movie in detail, we're also going to be talking about two amazing articles that deal with the conversation around black women in this film. They've gone viral in their own ways and they're dancing around some of the most viral conversations attached to the movie. So one of the articles we're going to be discussing today is called Jezebel's Race, Kink and Cardi B. In one battle after another, Black Women are Still Stereotypes by Ellen E. Johnson, which is in the Guardian. And then the other one is this incredible substack review by film critic Brooke Obi called One Fetish after another. PTA exploits Black Women and averts revolution. One last thing I want to say before we dive in is that there will be spoilers on today's episode and the movie deals with a lot of tough issues like sexual assault, violence, racism, and we're going to be talking about all of those things today, so please protect yourself if needed. Okay, let's dive in.

[Chelsea Devontez]

This is Bob Ferguson. I was a part of the French 75. Steve Lockjaw just attacked my home and I cannot remember for the life of.

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[Chelsea Devontez]

Maybe you should have studied the rebellion text a little harder. I need to find my daughter. Well, then call us back when you have the time.

[Tracy Thomas]

And now it's time to introduce my guest. I am thrilled to introduce you all to my pal, one of the smartest people I know, Zach Stafford. Zach is an award winning journalist and producer who currently co hosts the podcast Vibe Check. He is also a producer on the web series Celebrity Substitute, a kid show that brings in substitute teachers to teach the kids, including Rihanna. Zach is also a Tony Award winning producer on the Broadway musical A Strange Loop. And did I mention Zach is my friend and. And he is the best. Zach, welcome to the podcast.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I'm so happy to be here. It feels faded because what we're talking about today, only you, it's. You were the singular person that I wanted to talk to when I walk out of the film and when we began the process of booking this moment. Like weeks ago we did not know what we're talking about. And then just like the universe said, I have a gift and you are a gift to me always. But today is also a gift because like, I have been biting to have this conversation for 48 hours. So thank you for having me.

[Tracy Thomas]

I cannot wait. I saw this movie a few days before you. So I have just been, you know, Christina, the amazing producer here. We were like, what are we going to talk about with Zach? And we were talking, maybe we'll do a Charlie Kirk ta Nehisi Coates as recline moment. Maybe we'll do this other thing. And I just floated out, I said, you know, could we maybe just talk about the Paul Thomas Anderson movie? Because it's all everybody's talking about and it feels the most viral article of all the things. So folks, we are here to discuss One Bad Battle after another. A title that I can never remember. I always call it One Battle again and again over another battle. It's the title's not grabbing me. We're here to talk about this in relationship to a specific viral article which is from the Guardian. The article is titled Jezebel's Race Kink and Cardi B. In One Battle After Another, Black Women are Still Stereotypes. It's by Ellen E. Jones. It comes from the Guardian, but as I mentioned in the intro and I'll probably mention a million more times today, folks, we're talking about it through the lens of this article, but we're also just talking about it through the lens of the viral conversation that's going on. So I guess I should tell people what the movie's about and then I'm going to ask you your overall thoughts. This is a quick recap of a three hour movie, people. So I'm going to leave some things out. But basically 15 years ago, a left leaning political group called the French 75 is blowing up government buildings. They're freeing immigration detention centers. One of their most prominent members, maybe she's the leader, who quite knows. Her name's Perfidia Beverly Hill. She's played by Tiana Taylor. She's messing around with the white boy in the group, Ghetto Pat, also known as Leonardo DiCaprio. He's their bomb boy. I don't know. He's setting bombs. He's a TNT guy. She gets pregnant, she gets captured. The movie jumps forward 15 years. Ghetto Pat is now Bob. The baby is now Willa. They're living in this Northern California sanctuary city and that's sort of where the Main action of the movie starts. So broadly, what was your take from the movie?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Broadly, my take also, I have to note, because you're sitting in front of a wall of books. I did not realize until this morning that this movie is based off a book called Vineland.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yes, Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, which I have already put my hold on at the library. I got questions.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, I want to know, because all the characters are white.

[Tracy Thomas]

It's all Caucasians.

[Chelsea Devontez]

All Caucasians. So, yes. So for me, the film is a stunning work. And it also arrives right on time, like this conversation, too. It's all very cosmic. You know, Hollywood takes a long time to get anything made. So this film's been in the cooker for a while. And the film, when you watch it, feels like it is a documentary at times. It's talking about immigration, it's talking about fascism, it's talking about police brutalizing everyday folks in their pursuit of making a proper country, which a proper country is one that does not empower black people to have power, doesn't have migrants here, doesn't have a lot of the things that we think are important, the both of us think are important as Angelenos. So the film is just so right on time. It's so daring, and I can't wait to see how culture begins to kind of unpack. But for me, it's kind of the culmination of our lives. Tracy as mixed kids in the most amazing way, and that's gonna be my hot take of the day, is that this is a film that is the product of the boom of interracial love in the 80s and 90s, which Spike Lee, which Paul Thomas Anderson's obviously, you know, pointing to Spike Lee's work like Jungle Fever and many other works about black people over the past few centuries. He's such a good student, but he's pointing to a past that created you and I and is presenting a present that people predicted and we're so untangling, which is maybe one day black and white people will come together, start a revolution, have children who will be the faces of that revolution, and they will maybe save the world. And that's what the film at the end is really about, when you have chase infinity. This is her debut. She's the young girl in the film. She's 16, 17. She's Leonardo DiCaprio's daughter. But she's kind of like the engine for us as we get past the prologue with Teyana Taylor, who is fantastic. But for me, the film is about, you know, Race, America, power. Who has power, who doesn't? Activism and revolution. And what happens when like, revolution isn't sexy and how do you stay within it? And who gets to stay within it? And who gets to take a break like Leonardo DiCaprio? Got to take a break for a long time. But at the end, for me, the Big Punch is kind of a big meditation on like mixed kids and what their role is in America today. With even American Girl, the famous song playing at the last scene of the film.

[Tracy Thomas]

So, yeah, okay, so here are my topline thoughts. I liked it. Tracy thought it.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I have to say I knew Wakata's like, Tracy is not going to love this film. It's like, I, I want to talk to her about that.

[Tracy Thomas]

Well, no, I liked it. I was entertained most of the time. It sort of got three acts. At the end of each of the three acts, I sort of looked at my watch and was like, okay, two hours. Okay, an hour and a half. But I liked it. I was entertained. I went in knowing not very much. I knew that people were saying it was really good. As soon as I walked out of the movie, I turned to my film bro friends. I went with three film bros. And they were like, it's amazing. And I kind of was like, I liked it. But my big question is, what's the point of this movie? What's the message here? And also people kept saying like, oh, this is his most political movie. This is about this moment. And we'll talk about this later because I think that's my big thing, which is like, this movie has no political manifesto to it. This movie has no political understanding whatsoever. It is mostly about aesthetics. And I think that that is what he gets right on time about this moment. Not so much that it's like, oh, we're talking about immigration. Because this country's been talking about immigration for the last hundred years pretty aggressively. I mean, honestly, through its whole career. But this particular kind of southern border immigration is more of a recent phenomenon. But he maybe is a little late on this, to be honest.

[Chelsea Devontez]

That's true.

[Tracy Thomas]

But what he's right on time with is the performance and the aesthetics of revolution. And I think of all the things he talks about, I don't even know if he's doing it on purpose. But the superficial covering of this sort of left leaning group versus, you know, we'll get to these people later. The Christmas adventurers who are the white supremacist group who are totally fleshed out characters. And then you have the left liberals that are just like, we're blowing up Tiana. Taylor's hot. What's up? So, you know, I liked it. I think it's overhyped to hell. I think they have already made this movie, an impossible movie for anyone who sees it after, you know, today to think it's the greatest movie ever, because they've already said it's the movie of the decade. I'm like, how?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. So, yes, Andrew, I think you're 1000% correct. It is very superficial. It's very thin. A lot of times, and I do think it's. For me, it's right on time in that we are living in a really superficial moment around all these things colliding, even fascism. How Trump is enacting it on the country is mostly through symbolism, through aesthetics, through a sensibility. It's about TV images, and this film is about that. It's image obsessed. It's very much about just, like, these very beautiful shots. But what are they actually saying? What do they actually mean? Because when you get into the politics of it all, which I'm sure we'll get into, you know, who are these people he's writing about? Because the people I know that are in these movements, this is not how they act at all.

[Tracy Thomas]

This is not them at all, at all. So, like I said before, we're going to talk about this movie through the lens of this article. And she starts with this line that I think is really important because I think when people start to pick apart popular culture that is beloved, it starts to be like, well, it can't do everything. And what she says is, but if a film is worth seeing, then it's worth taking seriously. And in this case, that involves asking, dear Reverend Weird pta, what is up with you and black women? I just love starting there because I just know that devil's advocate or like those bad faith arguments where people are like, well, you. You want him to do everything. He's doing the best he can. And I'm just like, okay, babe, if you want me to think this is the film of the decade, I should be able to nitpick every single line of the movie. And it should still hold up, because that is what good art does. Like, if you're gonna be mad because one of your main character is as thin as they come, we should get to talk about it. I sat through three hours. I should get to have an opinion.

[Chelsea Devontez]

You are so right. And it' and maybe we can talk about this, too. I felt an anxiety as I left the theater because as I was watching it. The first part, the prologue, we'll say with Teyana Taylor being kind of that engine, and we're getting to meet, you know, perfidia, Beverly Hills, and seeing the revolution. She's obviously playing into a lot of tropes we've seen in television and film for a long, long time. Around the even television film. All black womanhood within Western history, like the Gauge, you go back to Paris and the Venus Hottentot, and the representation of black women is always about, like, big but sexualized. The gays being white men wanting to consume them. And that's kind of like her whole thing for a long time in the midst of revolution. But I walked out being like, okay, the movie. Everyone's obsessed with this. They wanted to win Best Picture. I don't want to be that person that's like, well, what about black women? Because they're like, of course that's gonna happen. And then I realized the source material. So I want to just bring two things to the table that make our conversation important. It's Vineland, as we mentioned, is about white people. So he took that book, adapted it in his own way, and made the main woman black and her child interracial, which is a political statement onto itself. It's extra political because I didn't know this till last week that his wife is Maya Rudolph, who is a black woman. So he. I did not know this my whole life that he is in an interracial relationship, meaning he has interracial children.

[Tracy Thomas]

Four children. Four. They've got four kids. And I think three of them are daughters. At least two. I think three are daughters, yes.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And then also to make a note of Maya's mother is Minnie Riperton, who is a very famous black woman in music. So even the familial context of this is so much about historic interracial love and what it means to the culture and how it means to art. So the fact that he chose to make this character black, chose to make the child interracial, chose to set it in this contemporary moment. He wants to say something. He spent $170 million on this film. He made one of his most exciting characters, a black woman and her child black. Like, there's a reason there. And so that is write with this writer of this article by asking, what's up with black women? Because you really went out of your way. You made this choice with black people in your life watching you do this. So what are you trying to say is the question.

[Tracy Thomas]

Exactly. Exactly. And I think the choice of, like, taking this Source text Making it have black people. And I think one of the things I want to say now, because I think people will probably rightfully criticize me if I don't acknowledge this. One of my biggest issues with the movie isn't necessarily the not great choices that Paul Thomas Anderson has made. It's the way that the movie is being crowned in spite of these sort of bad choices, like, people being like, well, that's okay. Isn't this character complicated? And so a lot of my ire comes to the, like, film bros. After I finished the movie, I immediately turned on the Big Picture, the Ringer podcast to hear Sean Fennesee and Chris Ryan and Amanda Dobbins talk about how this is the film of the decade and this is a masterpiece and call this a movie quote about black women, which, listen, there are black women in this movie. But it's not about saying this is a movie about black women would also be to say this is a movie about, like, immigrants. They are in the movie. They don't have any lines or whatever. I don't. I actually don't know where the immigrants are from, because we don't.

[Chelsea Devontez]

We're never told. We're never told.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah, we know they're coming from the Southern border because the camp that we start at is at the Southern, but actually later we don't even know because we're in Northern California. Anyways, the point is this is as much a movie about black women as any of Paul Thomas Anderson's other movies are movies about black women, which is zero percent right. This is a movie about two white men fighting over power. And in this case, the power is the control of black women and their bodies. That is what this movie is about. And so I think a lot of my ire for the film is about the way it's being talked about just as much as it is what Paul Thomas Anderson chose to do. I think he did a bad job of talking about and depicting black women as human beings, as complicated people. I think he does a much better job with the white men. Shocker. And so I think part of my frustration is also that, like, this movie isn't particularly fresh. To me, it feels like the same shit. There's just black women in it. The person who drives the plot the most is Sean Penn's character, who we haven't even talked about yet, but he's sort of the representation of the state. He's Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw. We meet him in the first place. Prologue scene where they're freeing this detention center And Perfidia, who's Tiana Taylor, she comes in. There's a sight gag about a boner. He's the bad guy. He gets the hots for her. He becomes obsessed with her. Now here comes some spoilers. They eventually have sex and Teyana Taylor is pregnant. We don't know who the father's supposed to be, though I would argue we know immediately because after they have sex, we see her stomach. But, you know, people who were surprised by that twist, I'm just like, are you paying attention? Do you know the cues? You guys, come on. And so he is the driving force of this movie. His wants, his desires, his, you know, trying to get into the Christmas adventurers. He is the center of this movie. It's really an anti hero story. Everyone else is just part of it. But before I get too ahead of myself, I think we need to do sort of a deep dive on Prophetia Beverly Hills. Yes.

[Chelsea Devontez (Pre-Recorded Host)]

Okay, we're going to take a quick break right now and we'll be right back.

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[Chelsea Devontez]

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[Chelsea Devontez]

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[Chelsea Devontez]

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[Chelsea Devontez (Pre-Recorded Host)]

Okay, welcome back. Let's continue the conversation.

[Tracy Thomas]

I think we need to do sort of a deep dive on Perfidia Beverly Hills because she is the most problematic character, I would argue, in the entire movie. I think that is pretty common knowledge. And another piece of text that I want to bring into the Viral article thing in addition to this piece from the Guardian is that Brooke Obi, who is a fantastic black woman film critic. She wrote an amazing sub stack called One Fetish After Another. PTA exploits black Women and Averts revolution. We will link to all of the things we talk about today in the show notes. You can find it, but it's. But this particular piece, just a stunner. It is so good and I have so many quotes from her. But one of the things that she says about the representation of Perfidia Beverly Hills, it's a lot of choices. They don't pan out in the source material of black women in the revolution. Like, it's just not realistic. So what would you say is Perfidia Beverly Hills number one desire in this film?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Oh, that's such a good question. I think you begin the film thinking as revolution and freedom for all people, people who look like her, empowering them, freeing them, et cetera. Because literally the beginning is her freeing a group of brown people. It's like black and brown solidarity, but quickly. What Paul Thomas Anderson's ideas around her lead us to believe is that she just cares about herself. It's about her own self preservation and her own ability to gain power and survival by any means necessary, even if that means, you know, disowning your child. Your husband, Ish Leo, happily is her partner, but we don't know if they're married, if it means sleeping with a known white supremacist. Even though your entire political identity is based off the destruction and the dismantling of this person's philosophy and the state in which they represent. As an agent, the film wants you to think is that this black woman just wants to feel good. She doesn't want to have to labor. She doesn't want to do anything. She wants to feel good in that.

[Tracy Thomas]

She wants to fuck.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yes. She just wants to fuck. That's it. She wants to fuck. When a bomb's going off, she wants to fuck in the car. Like, that's all she wants to do. Which is really dangerous because that is the representation we've always had of black women by white men who are very infatuated with their representation. So, yeah, yeah, that's. And that's the disappointing thing of this.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah. Because we also find out that she comes from this long line of radicals, Right. Her mother or grandmother says to Leo, like, you're not right for our daughter. Because she comes from this long line of radical women. And I'm like, like, okay, that's amazing. If she's this really complicated black woman who has become extremely self pleasure oriented. Like, why? Yeah, how did this happen? How did this black woman who's raised by alliance of revolutionaries, you know, and obviously you don't have to be your parents, but like, I would love to know how we got this woman who eventually goes on to rat out her whole crew to save herself, right? It's like, I don't mind the bad behavior because I think that makes for interesting characters. But you've got to flesh it out in some way. You've got to tell me why this is who she is. Especially because in addition to Sean Penn, she is the big villain of this movie. And her actions are the other catalyst of this movie. The two of them are driving the entire plot of the movie. But the difference is in Sean Penn's character, we know what he wants, we know who he is. He gets time to sort of show us what's going on with his inner workings. We don't get that with her. And she's so overly sexualized to the point that it's like, oh, is this commentary? But it's never. Yeah, commentary, yeah, it's always leering.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And what's so important about what you're saying because you come from the world of theater, is that when we have a musical, for instance, you know, there's always an I want song in the beginning. So it lets you know as an.

[Tracy Thomas]

Audience, the third number, the third number.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Is that I want. So it's like, what is that person wanting? And what hurdles do they have in front of them that they need to jump to get it? And that's the whole point of watching. Will they get it or won't they? Will they or won't they? This character, we never know where they're heading, but they are jumping over so many hurdles. And the whole time, every time they jump, they fuck. So it's like, where is the why? Where is the what? How do we know what. What to look out for when watching this character? So it just is also like self serving of the other white characters because it's all just to move them forward. Like her obsession with having sex with white men and having this baby help us get, you know, Sean Penn's characters fully fleshed out. Helps give Leonardo DiCaprio motivation. For 15 years, he did nothing on the couch. He just sat there and then suddenly the child's gone. Now he has a purpose. And this is the problem, is that black women's bodies in this film are only there to give white men something to do and something to aim for. Like, when we think about Alison Bechdel, she uses the Bechdel test, which is about. If women are only talking about men, then it fails the Bechdel test. This. We could create a new test which is about, if these white men are only using black women to find themselves or to find their own pleasures, then it's not actually helping black women because it's not actually doing anything right.

[Tracy Thomas]

This isn't a movie about black women.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, it's not about black women, then. So the only moment within Teyana Taylor's time with us on screen that really complicates even our understanding of her not having agency is the really complicated sexual scene with Sean Penn when he finds her in the bathroom. So she's about to arm a bomb. He walks in the bathroom, and it's pretty much like, hey, you either have sex with me or you go to jail. And she's like, okay, let's have sex. And she goes. They engage in sex. And when she's leaving, things are complicated for her and we don't really know why. And it's supposed to present to us this kind of, like, gray area, potentially in her own kind of inner self. And what that person wants and what they're willing to do to survive, it kind of skirts the line of violence because he does have so much power in that situation. But Paul Thomas Anderson doesn't really give us much more after that.

[Tracy Thomas]

That's what I say. He doesn't treat it any different than other sexual encounters that they have. Right. He treats it almost the same. Like the same sort of playful sexual scene. Again, there's a lot of choices a director can make in telling a story. There's a lot of different ways. And I'm going to give Paul Thomas Anderson a ton of credit here because he is a great director, that he made this choice on purpose. He wasn't, like, sitting there like, this is the only way this scene could be played. He knows he's Paul Thomas Anderson. Yes. You can't tell me he's one of the great directors of our time. And then also be like, you know, there's a complicated moment. He clearly wanted us to feel like these scenes are all equal. And obviously the power dynamics are shifting. In the first sort of scene with the boner, she's got the gun. She's holding him up, though. He still has the power. He still is the state. Right. And so I think part of it is about that there's pleasure that she derives from holding the state at gunpoint. Right. She has a gun to him in this later sexual scene. And I think that there's something thrilling for her, even though the power imbalance is such that it's a violation of her, right? Like, even though what is happening on paper is a violation. You know, there are people who have sexual fantasies about things that are extremely up. And I think that, like, what Paul Thomas Anderson wants us to see is that perhaps that is what Perfidia is feeling. Or, like, that her kink is this proximity to danger. That's why we see her wanting to have sex when they've armed a bomb. And Leo's like, no, we only have two minutes. And she's like. Like, we can do it. We can do it. Like, there's something about her just extreme love of dangerous kind of sex that is, like, the only thing we know about her, right?

[Chelsea Devontez]

And Lockjaw's character, too. And that's the problem inherently for me is that he presents these characters. One's a black woman, one's a white man, one works for the state, the other is a victim of the state trying to fight back and dismantle it. But Paul Thomas Anderson presents them as an even playing fields. They both are part of, like, secret societies. They have secret codes. They both are trying to dismantle different forms of power or kind of structures they don't like. But they both, Teyana Taylor and Sean Penn's character don't care. When they see power exerted, they both are turned on and they want to fuck it. And that's where, like, he's watching her literally hold a gun to a cop's head. And he is a soldier. He lets her kind of beat up these cops because he's so turned on by it. And the only thing that disrupts it is that Leonardo DiCaprio touches her butt. So he's like, oh, another white man touching her. That's not okay. That's mine. That is my thing. And then for her, she's like, ooh, we're blowing something up. Oh, we're destroying something. Oh, you caught me almost detonating a bomb. I want to fuck you. And so that's where he's presenting that. And for us as audience, we're like, wait a minute. That's sexual violence. Like, he has power. She can't say yes or no. She has no choice here. So it makes it really complicated. And it harkens back to really popular images of black and white interracial relationships like Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, where forever people have tried to argue that she was consenting to having sex with him, but it's like he's her master, like that. There's no consent there.

[Tracy Thomas]

She was enslaved.

[Chelsea Devontez]

So it's very, very complicated, but also not. And he's trying to present it as super complicated. When I'm like, I don't think it's that complicated girl. Like, okay.

[Tracy Thomas]

But she does have slightly more agency in the sense that, like, in real life, many black women revolutionaries went to prison.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yes.

[Tracy Thomas]

Right. They didn't choose to. To save themselves by having sex with the state.

[Chelsea Devontez]

1000.

[Tracy Thomas]

I'm not saying what choice I would make, but I'm just saying that there was another option presented to her. Obviously this character is into self preservation, but she had a choice in the matter and she didn't choose the revolution. And I'm not. That's not a moral judgment, that's just a plot point. But it does tie into this later piece of the plot, which is that she has this baby. She is out of sorts. We get this voiceover from her where it's like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ghetto Pat. He's not into me anymore. He loves this child more than me. It's like the child's the only thing that matters to him. I don't matter. I have heard people say that this is like representation of postpartum, which it very well might be. However, we don't know enough about this character to know if this is a departure from who she is normally. Because all we've seen her do is be self serving. And so for a woman to be like, I'm jealous of my baby because my guy doesn't like me, like, that also could just be who she is. We don't know. And again, I blame Paul Thomas Anderson because I do want to say Tiana Taylor is giving a fantastic performance. The acting in this movie is so good, given what she's been given. It's not against her. It's just like this could be a sort of mild depiction of postpartum. And I say mild because it's not fully fleshed out. Not because postpartum is mild, but it could be a mild depiction of postpartum. Or it could just be, this is who this woman is. Yeah, right. And that, you know, I'm a mom. I've been jealous of my kids before. Like, I didn't leave them. I wish I could. But, you know, it's not that any of the things that she's saying are not what women have felt or women. Some women do feel. But it's just that, like, Paul Thomas Anderson doesn't even give her enough for us to see clearly if it's postpartum or if this is who this character is. Which just, like, drives me crazy, because the only thing we know about her is she wants to have a lot of sex. Like, she's hot. She likes violence. She wants to have sex like the rest of it is, so left for interpretation in a way that none of the other characters are. And then, like, it's like she leaves her kid and Leonardo DiCaprio to go be part of the revolution, right? And, like, again, a revolution whose politics we know basically nothing about. We just know that they're left leaning. I think that's, like, what is said or whatever. She goes to do this because my assumption is that this is the most important thing in the world to her, the revolution. As soon as she is caught, she immediately rats out her entire organization. I'm just like, how can the revolution be the most important thing to you? That you're willing to give up your life? And at the same time, the moment you get caught, you throw everyone away. And this happens. You know, this movie came out on the heels or right before the day before Assata Shakur died free in Cuba. And it's hard not to see her as sort of like this stand in for Assata Shakur, but also a really ahistorical version of that, Right? Like, it's like he's invoking Assata Shakur in a lot of ways. For those of you who don't know, she was a famous black revolutionary. She was imprisoned for allegedly, though wrongly killing a New Jersey police officer. She goes to prison. She has a child in prison. She makes the choice to have a child in prison, even though the state tried to get her to miscarry. And she then escapes prison, goes to Cuba, and lives there for, like, 40 years or something. Maybe 35 years. And she is like this voice of black resistance, Right? This is a quote from Che Guevara that Brooke Obi references. He says, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. End quote. And then Brooke says, there is no love in Perfidia Beverly Hills. There is sex, there is power, there is chaos, but there is no love. A loveless revolutionary is just a terrorist. Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. And that's what's really sad, that he wasn't willing to give us that color to this character. That maybe she was more obsessed with, like, black people and their future. And their plight that she's willing to say, I'm not gonna focus on my family. I'm gonna go out there and risk my life to do this thing that's bigger than me. But even when she goes out to risk her life to do something bigger than her, she gives it all up so quickly. She's already left her family. She's now leaving all of her friends and like colleagues and comrades within an instant, not even fighting. And what people know, especially us that have studied this, is that revolutionaries have plans in place for when they do go to prison. There's mutual aid, there's resources, there are lawyers. That's why they're part of a community. That's why when we see Benicio Del Toro's character later on with his kind of like, he calls it the Latino Harriet Tubman underground railroad situation, where he's helping Latino people. Like they have people working within the hospitals to get Leo DiCaprio out. Like, there's all these systems to help Leo find his way and move to the world. But she doesn't have it. Why, when she's the leader? So it makes no sense from, like when you really dig into the French 75 and how powerful they are.

[Tracy Thomas]

And she comes from a, from generation to believe she's not new to this, this, she's true to this. And yet she single handedly takes down the whole operation by ratting people out. Like, her motivations make no sense because they're not fleshed out. And again, if we want to say that Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the great writer directors of our time, then he has to own up to these holes of the plot, right? Like, if we're going to say he's great, he has to be great.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And if I can add to not make it also personal for him. But he did take a book where this was not the characterization of these characters and used and made them racialized in this way. He also, as people who are, you know, products of interracial love are interracial relationships, et cetera. I know there were conversations being had in his house about all of this with his wife. So, like, the personal is very political here. Why didn't you, you know these histories, you know who Assata Shakur is. If he didn't have the children he had, I'd be like, maybe he doesn't know. Maybe he was just like going for it, leaning in, right?

[Tracy Thomas]

He was like, 2020 changed me.

[Chelsea Devontez]

He's like, great. I learned five years ago, George Floyd, now I'm gonna write this movie And I'd be like, okay, cool. You're still learning. Cool. But I don't believe that at all. I think he knows. So why did you choose this path? I'm not mad. I just want to know, like, why this version? Because it's.

[Tracy Thomas]

I'm a little mad, and you can't be mad. I'm being honest. Okay, but. Okay. So you brought up the Benicio Del Toro character. He's Sensei Sergio. He teaches karate in the town, I think it's called Backton cross, where Leonardo DiCaprio and Chase Infinity's characters are living after they sort of go underground. So Sean's. Penn's character wants to be part of the. Part of the Christmas Adventurers, which is a white supremacist group led by Fitz from Scandal. Literally, the moment he popped onto the screen, I was like, okay, lock me into this one. Hello. Love you mean it. Swirl time.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Oh, big swirl time.

[Tracy Thomas]

Swirl season.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Which also just lead in one of the most famous television swirls of all time. He casts him as the, like, nebulous president or something in this, so. And his wife is a television actor. So it's like, this is. He's playing with the culture, so it's just kind of like, you know what you're doing right now.

[Tracy Thomas]

Exactly.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Sorry. Keep going. You.

[Tracy Thomas]

You got it. Yeah. Anyways, so Sean Penn's character, they're like. He wants to be part of the Christmas Adventurers. They're white supremacists. They're like, have you ever, you know, had interracial sex? And Sean Penn is like, no. It's like, are you sure? He's like, no, not at all. And then he's like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I have, like. I got to see if that baby Chase Infinity is mine. So he sets up a whole fake ice raid situation in Back and Cross in order to also find Leonardo DiCaprio and chase infinity. So that leads us to this sanctuary city backed in Cross, which leads us to Benicio Del Toro, the Sensei. And basically, we find out he's running this Latino Harriet Tubman underground railroad situation. And then we get this scene where Leo comes to him. He's like, I need help. He's like, okay, come with me. We go to this, like, electronic store upstairs. There's, like, this whole hidden upstairs area with all these people. And after everything I've said about Perfidia Beverly Hills, this next part really cements my big thesis, I think, which is just like, this movie was not interested in the needs or wants of Black and brown people did not take them seriously for one second. We go upstairs, Leonardo DiCaprio wants to charge his phone so he can call the hotline for the French 75. And we go past all of these, you know, what we're supposed to believe, I guess, are undocumented people. And it is the epitome of the stereotype that is like brown, faceless masses. Right. It's like he introduces us to each of them. Nobody has any lines that mean anything. Maybe they say, hello, Leonard Caprio's like, oh, baby, hi. But it's just like, this is a huge plot point of the movie. Not a single brown character besides Benicio Del Toro gets any meaningful line in the entire movie. A movie that's about immigration or about issues of our time, that's all we get.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, you're so right. And I think that moment for me is the most truthful moment for not only the film itself, but maybe why Paul Thomas Anderson wrote the whole thing. I think, as I have experienced as a journalist especially, who's covered Black Lives Matter movement and been at protests, dealt with folks in the movement, when you meet white people who are very activated by the times that we live in and begin to engage in them, maybe they posted a black square in 2020, maybe they do go to protests and maybe they have black children. A lot of times these white people are only very invested in making sure they are on the right side of history, that they are perceived as good. Leonardo DiCaprio's character, for me, was only obsessed with his own vision of what being good was. He's not actually interested in mutual aid, community building, taking care. He runs to this community and actually does nothing with the community. He's hiding in a shack with his daughter and keeping her cut off from the world while other people in their community are, like, building mutual aid programs, taking care, doing stuff. Even the other people in the front 75 that are hiding, you come to learn, have networks that they're still upholding. He has been high for 16 years. He's not engaged at all. So he's only activated because his daughter, who is a black girl, is now gone and one of his pleasures are gone. Similar to Sean Penn's character, he's only activated because his future as a white supremacist is in trouble if he doesn't get this under control. So that's why he's going after the daughter. So both of their pursuits this whole time is only about keeping their life going down the track that they want. And thus we see the the issues with certain white people engaged in this work, because it's not actually about the black and brown people at the end of the day. It's about them feeling good so that they can go along with their day. And that's exactly what Leo does with Benicio Del Toro, who's just kind of sitting back, being like, dude, he says at one point, don't get selfish on me right now about him being so obsessed. And it's like that moment of being like, you're not even noticing everything going on around. There's such intelligence here of taking care of ourselves and surviving that you're just like, my phone needs to be charged. My phone needs to be charged. And that, to me, was like. I was like, I know that white man. I know him deeply.

[Tracy Thomas]

But still, all the black and brown people save Leonardo.

[Chelsea Devontez]

They save him, all of them.

[Tracy Thomas]

Everyone still bends to his will, right? He's the most incompetent person in the entire movie, and somehow he's still the hero and everything happens for him. But to your point about who he is, we find out in that very first scene, after they free the people from the detention center or whatever they do with them, we. I assume they free them, but. But we don't know.

[Chelsea Devontez]

We don't know.

[Tracy Thomas]

We don't know what happens to them because they're not really people. They're just props. He gets in the car, he starts kissing Perfidia, and they're like, oh, do you think he likes black girls? And he's like, hell, yeah, I like black girls. Why do you think I'm here? Yes. It's like, oh, you're literally just here to black girls. Like, crazy. That's crazy.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yes. Which is also the thing that we know about white supremacists is like, they are so obsessed with black people controlling their bodies because they also want to fight them. So it's like, this is where we get into, like, sexual politics are real. And just because you want to have sex with someone doesn't mean you want them to be free or to be a real person. Like, they are just a tool for you. That's what fetishizing is. And so both characters, I think, have big fetishes. One is way more pronounced. That's his whole identity. The other is more subversive. And it's the one that comes up in an America that says, mixed kids will save the day. If I just have sex with a black girl, I'll save the day by just doing this. And it's like, no, it's much Bigger than that, you actually have to do work and engage and build community and actually take care of that black girl to make her free.

[Tracy Thomas]

Okay, before we go on to the. To the mixed people thing, I want to just read this one more quote from Brooke Obi's piece where she says, because Anderson is not interested in revolution, he's not interested in vulnerable immigrants, despite the many jokes about lusting for them, he's not interested in black women. He's only interested in the interiority of white men. Whoever complained about the lack of people of color in his movies that sparked this story should have left him alone to write what he knows.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Wow.

[Tracy Thomas]

That's how the piece ends. I think it's so brilliant. Okay, we gotta talk, you and I, about. I don't know. Can we say mulatto on this podcast?

[Chelsea Devontez]

We can say it here. We're both. We both. We agree.

[Tracy Thomas]

As the future. Yes, we can say it, because we are. Like, we've mentioned, he's the dad to mixed kids. So he's, like, trying to do something here. I don't know exactly what he's trying to do, but there are so many interracial relationships in this movie, and every single one of them is like, interracial relationships are the future. They're the face of the revolution. Like, this is a subversive thing. Meanwhile, every single one is just a fucking nightmare. There's no romance. There's no love. In the piece from the Guardian, she says, in the one battle after another worldview, all interracial relationships are apparently founded on a race kink, with the possibility of genuine connection only ever a happy afterthought. Yes, PTA is in a relationship with a black or mixed race woman, Maya Rudolph. And no such personal circumstances do not absolve a filmmaker from the need to consider the points I'm raising. And then we have this character played by Chase Infinity, who is the daughter of Teyana Taylor and one of these white men. Who knows? Honestly, who cares? Doesn't make a difference, because she also has pretty much no interiority. Her biggest want is for her dad to stop coming home late and drunk driving. We know that she's somewhat conflicted after she finds out that her mother is around.

[Chelsea Devontez]

That.

[Tracy Thomas]

But, like, she is a caricature of a mixed kid. And it is this typical mixed kid stereotype of, like, I don't know who I am.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

Which I just fucking hate.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

What do you make of the mixed politics?

[Chelsea Devontez]

So much. We don't have enough time for this. But the thing that I wanted to bring to the table for this because it maybe helps answer the biggest question you've asked, which is what is motivating Teyana Taylor's character? And I think that's where what I'm about to say gets a little sinister. It makes me want to talk to PTA one to one. Because what I know most about being a black mixed kid from the south growing up in the 90s, in the shadow of Jungle Fever by Spike Lee, and a big obsession around mixed kids that were black and white is that black people and white people believed that were racist, that if you like someone of the other race, then you were not trustworthy, that you were not of the community, you did not have the community front of mind. You weren't participating in racial purity. Like, I have a white supremacist grandfather. He was mad at my mom, being like, you're tainting the race. You're doing all this stuff. The black side of my family was like, you can't trust these white girls. What are you doing? So if you take those real histories that PTA fell in love with then and was making films within then the question of why did she rat out her community is pretty clear and sinister, which is black women that sleep with white men. You can't trust them. And they're not down. Actually, they're not about this community. And then the kids that they produce are also not down for the cause, and they are not trustworthy.

[Tracy Thomas]

Which is what, Mother Superior? The child of a rat is a rat.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Exactly. And then you even have it even more on the nose when Chase Infinity, her character Willow, gets in the car and says that she doesn't have a phone, but then they find out that she does have her phone, that she's been lying to everybody this whole time. So even her. The little we know about her as a character is that she's mixed, she's confused, and she lies, and she only hangs out with mostly white people and some non binary folks. And so it's like she reminded me of everything people would say about me from both sides of the aisle as a kid, of being like, you're not actually in either community and you're not trustworthy. And that's where I think that's a really sinister way of thinking about interracial love, is that they can't be down for something larger than themselves because they're confused, because people that want to mix the races are not actually trustworthy. So that's the sinister view of this. I don't think he's consciously trying to do that. But as someone that grew up in the. The wake of those thoughts and in the demands of those thoughts, that's all I thought about. I was like, well, of course they're gonna make her a liar, because they're gonna say that this black girl doesn't even want to sleep with black men. So of course she's a liar. So that's where I kind of sit with that. I don't know. How do you think about it?

[Tracy Thomas]

I'm always, like, nervous to talk about being mixed, because I feel like people just never want to hear from us, which I get. We're annoying.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Well, they say we only want to talk about it, and I'm like, But no one ever wants to talk about it. So it's always this push and pull to us.

[Tracy Thomas]

We're so annoying. So my thing is just that, like, if you're gonna go there with interracial relationships being such a huge part of the movie, of the thing. I just wish he'd really gone there. Like, I wish that he had really explored what it means to be a black woman revolutionary who allegedly is so radical, who wants to fuck the white dude. Because why, right? I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio is, like, very, you know, handsome. I'm attracted to him. Like, would, for sure. Bones. Yeah, but. But I have a white husband. Like, I'm not pretending to be anything other than I am. And so I just, like. It just keeps going back to me of, like, if you're gonna do it, yeah, do it. But this whole movie is just about these white guys. I get why Leonardo DiCaprio wants to have sex with Tiana Taylor. Hot. She's giving this rad performance. Like, she's a badass. Right? Like, I get why Sean Penn wants to have sex with her a thousand percent, but, like, he doesn't show us why. And then the thing that he does that really upsets me, and this goes back to Tiana Taylor's character more than Chase infinities, is that, like, Tiana Taylor's a bad mom. Yeah, Right? Whether. Whether it's because she's postpartum or because she just sucks, we don't know. But it's like, he's in the grocery store getting the formula, ostensibly because, like, she doesn't want to. She's not able to. She's out doing other things. She's jealous of her kids. She's all these things, like a bad black mother. And the white man is, like, saving this child. Like, there's just so much stereotypical white supremacist throughout this movie that isn't intentional. There's obviously the intentional stuff, which I would argue the best stuff in the movie. The most well written, most thought out, most biting satire and everything in the movie is a Christmas adventurer. Oh, yeah, right. Like, that is what I think that Paul Thomas Anderson sees most clearly. Which, you know, you, you know that says. I said what I need to say there. It's like for this Chase Infinity character, for her to have no wants or desires whatsoever. And I'm gonna take this on the personal side of like, okay, if the bona fides for this are that he is the dad of interracial children, is that the level of depth that you see in your own kids? Like, is this character why you wanted to make this father daughter story? It's just so disappointing to me because Chase Infinity is really great in this. Like, the acting in this movie is so good that it's frustrating how little the black women have to do. I mean, Regina hall has nothing to do in this movie, which is insane. But also like Wood Harris has nothing to do in this movie. Yeah, I just, I hate it because I'm like, hello, Avon Barksdale, like sitting.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Right there doing nothing.

[Tracy Thomas]

He's just, he's right there kissing the Heim girl. That's it.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yep.

[Tracy Thomas]

We get one line about a hard working or good looking white girl. I couldn't tell. I saw some people quote it different ways. Anyways, it's just the thinness of this. Like, there could have been a great conversation about what it means to be interracial in this moment, and instead it's just like, she's an American girl now, raised on promises.

[Chelsea Devontez]

It's just like, oh, we're gonna play this Tom Petty song and be like, oh, she is the future. She will save herself and get herself out of here. Like, she is strong. She's like a trained for this moment and ready to meet this moment. Which is what made me think about a as kids, where people would say to me, like, due to your experience of being mixed, of having these two experiences of sitting on a fence, as Gloria Anzandua says, the feminist scholar and her book Borderlands, that we have this multiple view that it's beyond what Du Bois says with double consciousness, that we see everything and because of that, we will solve the problem. And at the end, she does solve the problem and become engaged. But it's also thin. It's not meaty. Your question of why would a black revolutionary want to sleep with a white man? Is one that's been haunting us since mlk, when he allegedly slept with a white woman. It haunts us today in Hollywood when we look at black people succeeding and people are like, why do they always have a white partner? Why do all these black gay men have white partners? These are big questions that have been sitting with us for so long. And Paul Thomas Anderson got $170 million to take a whack at it. And he said nothing, right? Nothing.

[Tracy Thomas]

And he said nothing. He said, let's talk about the white men. I'm really curious about Leonardo DiCaprio's in our life right now.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I want to know why white men are motivated to protect. Protect their legacy. Girl, I've seen so many movies about that. That question of, like, what they're willing to do. Like, they will kill their own child to protect. Like, we have seen this over and over, right?

[Tracy Thomas]

One of the things I want to talk about, which was one of the other things we might have talked about for the viral article, but when I finished seeing the movie, I said, there is a think piece that a smart person must write about this movie and Ezra Klein.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Wait, go, go. Yes, but. Go.

[Tracy Thomas]

I'm gonna do it. I'm not the smartest person. I can't do the full thing. But all I want to say is that this movie reminded me so much of Ta Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein, because it is a white man telling us what it all means and how we have to win and what this is about and our future generations and this and that. But really, he doesn't have anything to say about the politics, about the history, about the context. He has this tiny, narrow view of this one little thing that he wants to weigh in on, but he doesn't. Doesn't see the bigger picture. He can't represent the meaning for all the people that are involved in the moment. And I just. I know a really smart person could do this. So this is a call to action for those of you with brains. But it's just, what are the politics of Ezra Klein? What are the politics of this movie? Why are the most clear politics in both cases the politics of white men?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Tracy, I love you so much. We're doing vibe check. This week is literally about this, because I was prepping for this, and I was like, we gotta talk about Ta Nehisi Nazro. Because of exactly what you're saying. And what I've been really weighing. What's really been weighing on me due to that conversation, due to this movie, is this reality I'm facing, which is we all have different strategies for survival in a moment in which it all falls apart. And it can be really frightening to see how white men, their strategy for survival is very selfish. It's very self involved, very self obsessed. And what we knew from black revolutionaries, this is very community focused. They're willing to risk it all. They're willing to die in the streets, in the jails, to protect whomever. And so when we see these films that are going to be this will probably win Best Picture. Calling it here probably will be similar to how Crash also won Best Picture at a time in which America really won it in a race. Like, yeah, and all that stuff.

[Tracy Thomas]

And the Green book.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And the Green book, like Best Picture is supposed to, like, flag to us of, like, where popular culture wants us to sit politically. So this will win. And that is just so telling and so connected to Esther Klein because that conversation was like, sure, yeah. And your way of moving through the world, I guess you can focus on the past eight years as your way to define. And Ta Nehisi's like, I'm looking at reconstruction to color my thoughts of today. So it's just frustrating. And I think that's why people are so, you know, activated right now. That conversation's everywhere. Like, people I don't even think listen to the Times podcasts are talking about it, and people who I don't even think are thinking about the things we've just discussed are watching this movie and calling me and talking about it. So both are doing the same thing, hitting the same nerve. So you're right, someone does need to tie it all together. It doesn't just happen. These things don't happen in a vacuum at all.

[Tracy Thomas]

And I want to say, just to your point, about, like, the white male politics of it, one of the things that Brooke Obi calls out is that the Weathermen, or also known as the Weather Underground, that was this, like, white group of revolutionaries in the 60s and 70s who a lot of what happens in this movie is also tied to. And they were, were publicly sort of shamed by like, Fred Hampton and Brooke Obiwanites about this in the piece. So we will link to it. But it's an interesting thing because Teyana Taylor's character ostensibly is actually living the selfish politics of the Weathermen as a black woman. Like, he's put the face of what their politic was about on this black woman, which is part of the reason why every black person who knows anything about history is like, this is so off, bro. Like, this is so off. So I just want to Throw that there. Here's the last thing I want to say. If this is a masterpiece, what is this movie actually saying? Not what is Paul Anderson trying to say, but what is this movie actually saying? One of the things I want to enter into the chat about this is that at the end of the movie, Bob and Willa go back to the house which they were found out in, and obviously, you know, lockjaw's gone. But they're still terrorists. Pat is still a terrorist of the state. He still was part of the French 75. We know that Regina Hall's character gets locked up for what she did in the past. Why are they going back there after all of this chaos has been wrought? The high school dance has been tied up. It's like the message that I take from this movie is that this is a movie about how white men, no matter how bad, no matter how incompetent, no matter what, will rally the troops behind each other. Because there is not a fucking chance in hell that Benicio Del Toro's character, he would never go back to that fucking electronic.

[Chelsea Devontez]

He can't go back because they raided it and they found his underground railroad. Like, he. Like all these systems.

[Tracy Thomas]

Pat's tunnel. Yeah, and Pat. And they're just back living there. I'm like, oh, you're just. They know where you are. You just are chill. Laying on the couch, turning back on Battle of Algiers or whatever. Algiers. Like, the message I get is, no matter what, this is a white man's world, and the rest of us are just living in it.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I couldn't say better. It's really like. And that white men are going to even kill themselves because that something happens at the end. Like, they will do anything to protect the power that is, protect their. So that white power will continue to do anything at all costs to keep it going, even if it means killing their own soldiers, which is what happens at the end. So it doesn't really give us anything. It doesn't give us a possibility model, a framework of being in the world. It just resets the clock for Chase Infinity's character to now go down the same path her parents went down. Which, if you watch this, is a very old way of thinking of activism. Like, it's not a coincidence that we have the 60s, the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the queer rights movement, you know, lead us into the burnout culture of the seventies and drugs and alcohol. And that was a way that poppy culture said, like, those activists are kind of scumbags. They're just Kind of like those liberals are going to burn out and they're going to go be drugs and become selfish. And that's what the movie is setting up is that he, Leo, is not doing anything. He's on the couch getting high again.

[Tracy Thomas]

It's a radical to complacent storyline.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Exactly. And then where she goes, she goes to Oakland, I think. So she's literally going to one of the most famous sites of resistance and restarting the clock at 18. So that's what he's just saying. We're caught in a strange loop and it's going to go like this forever and ever.

[Tracy Thomas]

Check out the Tony Award Unicle produced by Zach Stafford Plug. No, it's true. It's like I've heard people say that this is a movie about like future generations will have to do it, but do what? Why be radical and become complacent?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Like if I watch that at 17, I'd like be like, so what's the point if this is really what's going to happen? So that it's a very pessimistic way of engaging with it because it's all self centered, it's all focused on them. I think if I looked at what Benicio Del Toro's character went on to build, probably another compound to help folks or the nuns that have that incredible compound that were arrested and were growing weed, like, what are they building? Like, those would be sites of resistance in future that I'd be interested in watching. But in his version of the future, it's the white man's gonna go back to a shack with the tunnel, he's gonna get high, he's gonna eat, he's.

[Tracy Thomas]

Gonna get a cell phone, he's gonna.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Get a cell phone, gonna, he's going to learn to take selfies and then his daughter's going to drive to Oakland and become an actress and that's it, right? Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

And people are like, this is his most overtly political movie. And I'm like, again, where we started. It deals with the aesthetics of politics, but not any of the actualities of politics. Yeah, last little thing. So every time on these viral articles we do what is called the Click lit quiz. And normally I'm going to ask you about the article, but I think I'm going to ask you about the film. Since mostly we talked about the film, which is, was this film well written?

[Chelsea Devontez]

I would say yeah, I see why Warner Brothers put money behind it. I don't think politically it was the right things. But in terms of like structure, form, like I Think how he directed it was interesting. Like, I think that, like, from a technical standpoint. Yes, yes.

[Tracy Thomas]

Technically, I'm going to say no. I think that the film was not well written because I think there were so many things, like the ending that were just like, oh, you're just going back there. Like, there's so many things that were just left undealt with. With. I do think it's a good movie. Like, visually, there's some incredible scenes, but I think, like, as far as the writing goes, did the watching of this film make you want to scream about it to someone?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, I came here, obviously, literally, like, got to, like, not a fight with my partner, but we got into a big debate about it, and he was like, what are you saying? And I was like, oh, I felt so activated. I was like, wow, this and this and this and this. Politics. And I met these women, and I've been in community with these black revolutionaries, and they would never, ever. And I was like, whoa, I need to go talk to Tracy. So. So anyway, yeah, yeah, me too.

[Tracy Thomas]

A thousand percent. Anyone who will listen. I've been screaming at, like, everywhere I go, I'm like, oh, have you seen it? Let me tell you what I think. And then the last thing is, did this film deepen your thinking on this subject? And I guess that's sort of broad because there's so many subjects in the movie, but I'll let you interpret that as you would like.

[Chelsea Devontez]

No, it didn't. I. I, as someone that's already a student of these things and deeply engaged in thinking and working in these communities now, it made me want to go like. Like, spend some more time with Assata Shakur, because she passed away. And I feel like so much happened in the world that week that I, like, that news hit, and it just kind of bounced off me like everything else, because so much bad happened. So, yeah, that's it. I'm thinking a lot about Assad. Maybe I'll go listen to some Tupac, her godson, today to celebrate her life.

[Tracy Thomas]

I think, for me, this movie didn't deepen my thinking about any of these issues, but it did help me make connections around a lot of the things around, like, representation. A lot of things we talked about today, I maybe wouldn't have been thinking about in this exact way.

[Chelsea Devontez]

So.

[Tracy Thomas]

No, but, like, yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Little. Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

Zach, you're the best. You're amazing. Do you have anything you want to plug for us here where people can find you, follow you, engage with you?

[Chelsea Devontez]

I would say, come hang out with us at Vibe check. We're about to do a conversation about Ezra and Ta Nehisi and the politics of survival today.

[Tracy Thomas]

And that will that'll be out when folks are listening. So we'll link to that in the show notes for sure.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

And cookies, we want to hear from you on the Patreon comment. Tell us what you think, especially if you saw the movie. I want to know everything. What did we get right? What did we get wrong? Zach, you are the best. Thank you so much for being here. I just a dream come true.

[Chelsea Devontez]

This really made my day. Thank you so.

[Tracy Thomas]

It was amazing. And cookies, go see the movies. We can talk about it.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yes, go now.

[Tracy Thomas]

Bye.

[Chelsea Devontez (Pre-Recorded Host)]

A big thank you to our senior managing producer, Christina Lopez, our executive producer Jordan Moncada, our sound engineer Marcus Hamm and our amazing associate producer Jaron Padre. I also want to give a huge thank you to our incredible partners over at Thrive Cosmetics and every plate. We will link to those brands in the show notes. Go check them out. Everything else we discussed is also also linked in the show notes. And if you have questions, thoughts, comments, go to the Patreon sign up. There's a free tier you can join, leave a comment, chat with your fellow cookies. We will keep the book club continuing over there.

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[Tracy Thomas]

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[Chelsea Devontez]

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