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Ep 57: Mississippi Saints and Sinners
271 Plays5 days ago
In our season finale, we review Ryan Coogler's Sinners (2025). As Mississippi Hoodoos, we have to talk about the Mississippi and Hoodoo rep in this film. We get into Mississippi racial politics as well as whiteness and assimilation as vampirism. We discuss the need to let go of representational politics and learn to appreciate art for what is is rather than what we want it to be.
RESOURCES
- "if you loved Sinners, read these books" Leah Nicole. YouTube.
- Apocalypse Still by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
- "SINNERS BREAKDOWN! Easter Eggs & Details You Missed!" New Rockstars. YouTube.
- Hess Love Instagram Post
- "The Story of Chinese Laborers and the Reconstruction South." May 2, 2022. Tennessee State Museum.
- "Inventing the 'Model Minority': A Critical Timeline and Reading List" Densho.
- Passing by Nella Larsen
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
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Apocalypse Still by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
About the Boy by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
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This podcast was created, hosted, and produced by Dani & Leah.
Our music was created by Ghrey, and our artwork was designed by Bianca.
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Transcript
Hoodoo and Ancestral Magic
00:00:01
Speaker
Hoodoo plants, mamas. Get your soul fed and your spirit ridden. This here in the trend, I possessed the power from way back when.
00:00:15
Speaker
Back when folk was stripped from all of their kin, so they had to find the magic within. Ancestors, they gather my urge. I conjure at my altar.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hoodoo plants, mamas.
00:00:33
Speaker
We just out here trying to water our plants and mind our business. Everybody from the deep south, man, everybody can't have culture like us.
Season Finale Reflections
00:00:44
Speaker
Hey y'all and welcome to the season finale of Who Do Plant Mamas. I am your co-host, Leanne Nicole. And I'm Dani B. And before we get started, Dani B, how are you doing?
00:00:55
Speaker
I'm doing okay, you know, ready to flee the country, but I'm doing my best. That's where I am today in most days. Yeah.
00:01:06
Speaker
I am a little exhausted right now. I feel like creatively spent. So I'm trying to do the bare minimum when it comes to creation, especially on like my YouTube. And then also right now on the manuscript that I'm on, i just reached 50 K words. Yay.
00:01:25
Speaker
ah hope I can finish the first draft by the end of this episode. month and then this is our season finale of this podcast I'm also excited about that because I was like I get a break and then next month I go on vacation and I get to see you next month so hey vacation period well what are you thankful for today you know what I'm gonna say i am thankful to be alive I know it can be hard to say that with everything that's going on but every day I wake up I'm like thank god
00:01:55
Speaker
What about you? I'm thankful for my friends for every day giving me another reason to stay alive because in truth, it's been hard. have a lot of questions for God,
00:02:11
Speaker
for my ancestors. And I'm not okay with the state of the world globally, you know? And I think A lot of this stuff has been going on, but it's just kind of like now visible to us because of social media. And so I'm like, why?
00:02:29
Speaker
Like, what is the point of this? So you, other friends that I have, just being in conversation with y'all about anything and everything really helps me get by.
00:02:40
Speaker
So I'm thankful for y'all. And yeah, amen.
Discussion of 'Sinners' Film
00:02:48
Speaker
today we wanted to talk about sinners we have both recently seen the movie i think it has it hasn't even been out for a month yet but sinners it is ryan kugler's latest film where these twins smoke and stack return from chicago to set up a juke joint in their hometown of clarkestales mississippi we're both raised in Mississippi so that is why we were like yes please and then also they're trying to gather the musicians cooks and business people together to start this thing while also trying to avoid the eyes of the Klan and that's kind of reoccurring in here this idea that like white folks don't go let you do this and set this up for yourself and for other black people
00:03:33
Speaker
And so opening night, everything is going good. Their biggest worry is about being sustainable because many of the Black folks are using wooden coins that that were paid on these plantations that's only able to be used in white establishments.
00:03:49
Speaker
And so the twins' younger cousin, Sammy, he sings this song. It's his debut. You know, his performance conjures spirits, present and future.
00:03:59
Speaker
it also draws the attention of Vampire Remick, who wants to convert Sammy to access his power to regain access to Remick's ancestors.
00:04:10
Speaker
So that night, instead of enjoying themselves and celebrating, now they're fighting for their lives against these vampires. And for me, this was such a rich film. There's so much to talk about in it.
00:04:22
Speaker
And after I watched it, me and you, Dani, we were on the phone talking about so much. We were talking about so much this here. But first, I want to know what your initial thoughts were after watching it So I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. I'm a person that typically avoids period piece films, especially set in Mississippi or in the South, but because they're often so heavy handed with ah both the psychological and physical violence towards Black people.
00:04:55
Speaker
For context, I hate the help. Okay. And that's relatively mild. That's extremely mild compared to movies like Mississippi Burning.
00:05:06
Speaker
Like it's very mild, but I hate it. Okay. But the violence, like, obviously there's violence in this film, but I feel like it's handled with care. It's not excessive.
00:05:19
Speaker
And it doesn't strip Black people of their dignity in the same kind of way as racially motivated violence. Because the violence in this movie, the killings are rooted in something beyond race.
00:05:32
Speaker
It's ultimately the main person in the movie or the villain, kind of, Remick. He wanted... Most of these people was just collateral damage for who he really wanted, which was Sammy and Sammy's gifts.
00:05:47
Speaker
I enjoyed it. I thought it was done well. And I didn't leave the movie traumatized. And that's what's really important for me. You know?
00:06:00
Speaker
am so glad you brought this up. And I think this is why i don't really hate a lot of slave movies and a lot of Black period pieces. I hate the way that white people and the white imagination has taken over that time period.
00:06:18
Speaker
And like you said, a lot of times when they present Black characters, it's full of psychological, physical, and sexual violence. I think it makes a spectacle out of that violence without ever giving dignity and autonomy to Black people.
00:06:31
Speaker
And I much prefer when Black people, except for Lena Waithe, When black people tend to talk about that time because I find that we tend to do it with more care and concern for other black people.
00:06:44
Speaker
Agreed. There's somebody else on that list too that I can't think of, but I'm i'm never going to forgive her for Queen and Slim. Ever.
Religious and Secular Themes
00:06:55
Speaker
say
00:06:58
Speaker
so the main theme of sinners is this divide between religion and the blues sammy is the preacher's son he's called preacher boy but he wants to sing the blues and his father's against the devil's music and that kind of reoccurs that this music that is super black that can conjure spirits is devilish because sometimes the spirits can be malevolent like the vampire remick.
00:07:24
Speaker
So in this, Kugler is like contrasting, but he's also paralleling the argument that it's religion versus secular and not that it's the same. Like at the beginning, the preacher's actions remixed the vampires and the same spirits that Sammy conjured in the juke joints were also there in the church.
00:07:42
Speaker
Alternatively, this idea of both the preacher And Remick being false prophets because the preachers needs tools like the Bible to draw a crowd. But Sammy doesn't. Like in the first scene where his dad's like, you need to know the book. You need to do this. But Sammy knows the book without the tool, without the Bible.
00:08:00
Speaker
Right. And he can draw an audience without that. Same thing with Remick. Like Remick needs Sammy's gifts. Sammy can conjure his ancestors with his voice. Remick needs that.
00:08:10
Speaker
Right. And so if anything, think this movie did a really good job of showing this division between sinner and saint is a false one. And we are all sinners. This is a really good point. And I can tell you in the theater, the credits couldn't even play good before folks started walking out.
00:08:29
Speaker
It was bizarre. i was in Atlanta also. I think they wanted a Tyler Perry ending. I think they wanted Sammy to put down the guitar, give his life to Christ, and then cue Earth, Wind & Fire or whatever music they play at the end after You know, after the fact, because people refuse to release themselves from like this binary thinking of good versus bad, saint versus sinner.
00:08:58
Speaker
I felt more sure of my stance because I seen videos floating around about whether or not this film was an anti-Christian propaganda.
00:09:10
Speaker
And I've also seen comments of people who fail to see the nuance in Remick's character, like the obsession with projecting Christianity onto this movie saying he represents the devil or flat out calling him Satan.
00:09:26
Speaker
Coming into this movie, coming into the movie indoctrinated in a particular way, i think it made it hard for people to grasp that complexity. On one hand, he's a literal vampire. Everybody, let's come to the table.
00:09:41
Speaker
This is a vampire movie. It's a vampire movie. On the other hand, he is chasing his ancestor roots because he's no freer as a vampire than he was as a human.
00:09:54
Speaker
I didn't feel that way initially. I'm not going to lie. Even today, catch me on the right day as he was talking out there outside of that door, trying to get them to come outside. would have went like, I would have been like, yeah, get me out of here.
00:10:10
Speaker
Take the mic because I'm done. I'm coming over there with y'all. Okay. But ultimately these people, once they became undead, they lost all the most soulful aspects of themselves. They became one, like they became like these empty vessels under this shared essence of just perpetual, like longing for something that,
00:10:37
Speaker
We know that because Remick, that's Remick's issue. He's longing for that connection. He's longing to be returned to some aspect of himself that he's lost culturally.
00:10:48
Speaker
So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. I think this movie really was meant to challenge that binary thinking. um But people as they do, because some people but just don't realize Christianity is not only not the only religion in this entire world of billions of people, but it wasn't the first either.
00:11:08
Speaker
So projecting that onto this movie is just bizarre to me. And unsurprising. Because I told you people started clapping when Remick was getting close to Sammy about to kill him and he started reciting the Lord's Prayer. prayer People started clapping.
00:11:27
Speaker
Of course, they stopped and when Remick started saying it with him and all the other people started because it's like, y'all still not getting it. yeah This is a vampire. This isn't a demon. This isn't the devil. But also, y'all not listening.
00:11:43
Speaker
And that's your problem. But yeah. I think something that is very important to remember about Remick is that he is Irish, especially when it comes to Christianity. That scene you were talking about with him and Sammy, he talked about like, yo, they tried to put that onto us as well.
00:12:01
Speaker
And I think when you were talking about him having to, him trying to regain the soul that he lost by being ah vampire reminds me of like, Irish people's assimilation into whiteness.
00:12:15
Speaker
And that's what whiteness is, right right? Whiteness requires European people of many different ethnic groups. It requires them to give up their soul, to give up the different parts of their culture in order to assimilate, in order to be one in this ideology, which is whiteness.
00:12:33
Speaker
In order to gain that power, you have to give up all of the things that make you unique, all of your cultural heritage, all of your cultural ties. So I thought that that was a very interesting aspect to Remick's character as well.
Positive Portrayal of Hoodoo
00:12:46
Speaker
So let's get into the representation of Hoodoo and Mississippi in this movie so one thing that I was thrilled about was that the hoodoo was not seen as overtly negative and demonic it was actually the thing that helped to save a lot of people like Annie is the hoodoo woman she's a conjure woman in this movie The folks knew Annie. She was a part of the community, even if she lived in an isolated part of town.
00:13:16
Speaker
Her knowledge about the spiritual world was respected, even if Smoke did question it at times. But the thing that I appreciated about it was that it talked about the limitations of hoodoo. For example,
00:13:29
Speaker
Annie believed her prayers and mojo bag kept smoking stack alive, but conjure wasn't enough to keep their child alive. Like, although hoodoo can be this very powerful tool, it is not foolproof and there are limits to it.
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad you said that. I'm not going to lie. I was surprised when I finally saw the movie because I felt like people were making more of it than it was. Like, that was just Annie's way of life. And Annie is so many people that I know of in Mississippi and so many people I've learned about as an adult in Mississippi.
00:14:07
Speaker
Some are publicly practicing. Some are privately practicing. You know, folks, you never imagined. They don't have all the... bells and whistles of social media.
00:14:19
Speaker
They probably don't even explicitly call themselves hoodoo, but they... work roots and read cards for folks in the community but Annie is the epitome of what Hoodoo has always been which is rooted in that spirit and community the scene of the little girl coming to get hijined from her to take back to her mother I think it foreshadows Annie's role as a healer as a voice of wisdom I know people have issues with
00:14:51
Speaker
Annie being sacrificed there's room for that critique all right I don't really like to see the strong black woman get sacrificed in the film either but she's an important part of the community and unfortunately especially during that time period Annie does represent a lot of black women Who gave their literal lives Literally and metaphorically To keep their community alive With everything working against them We can recognize something being problematic But also recognize that sometimes People are obsessed with proving They're not a stereotype It's almost like you trying to prove to white people That you're worthy Annie is who a lot of our Grandmothers and aunties were our
00:15:41
Speaker
Okay. They would lay down their life for community. They would read the cards, read the elements, whatever they're reading and see, I'm a die tonight saving my people. And I'm a still make that choice. And it wasn't just the strong black woman, Mammy, that people keep trying project on her. She was a lover.
00:16:00
Speaker
She was loved by her man. Her man and her community. She was sexy. Like she was so many things, but she was also strong as hell, wise as hell, God-fearing, rooted in community. And like you said, she was the reason a lot of people survived as long as they did. She's the reason why Sammy and Smoke at the very least made it out.
00:16:29
Speaker
Okay. More of them could have survived if it weren't for, for, Miss Ann Mary If it wasn't for Who else I'm forgetting her name But these were the two Primary people that caused the most chaos in that movie and led people dying her name's grace yes grace so you know i don't know i don't have no qualms with annie how annie is presented i just don't like that she died but that don't mean that ain't make me hate the whole movie that's all i'm gonna say about that and get off my my tangent
00:17:12
Speaker
Because y'all not, y'all gonna get off of Annie. Now it's pissing me off. Because I done seen y'all lusting. And oh, we gonna get into all this overly being sympathetic towards the white lady.
00:17:25
Speaker
And then being mad about Annie. But we'll get to that later.
00:17:32
Speaker
So let's get into the Mississippi
Accents and Performances
00:17:36
Speaker
representation. i know you said that you enjoyed that this movie was not like... overly physically and ah psychologically violent and one thing that I noticed you know when I saw the previews and the accents oh I think for me Delroy Lindo had the most convincing Mississippi accent originally when I saw it I was like this man has to be from Alabama he's somewhere from the south and I googled it and he was born in the UK and
00:18:06
Speaker
And his parents are Jamaican. And then, like, as a teenager, he moved to California. He has no ties to the South. And I'm like, what in the world? That was really shocking to me. I think Michael B. Jordan was the most egregious accent to me. Because what was that?
00:18:20
Speaker
Easily. knew it was in the trailer. it honestly made me not want to see the movie of ah initially. Okay? Because... Who the hell is that? I was terrified.
00:18:33
Speaker
But you know what? As I was watching the movie, I was enjoying so much that I did forget about it. Most of us did for that reason. we We forgot. It got good. So I ignored it. For me, um I would say the strongest accents for me were Annie, Dale Roy, and Cornbread. I know some people disagree about Annie.
00:18:53
Speaker
But I thought she sounded pretty good, especially given her real voice. Delroy, that's an artist. He studies.
00:19:04
Speaker
And Cornbread, of course, like when Cornbread threatened whoopstack's ass, deservedly so, because he out here working. It's hot. Like, imagine how hot it was. These people, they out here trying to meet they quota, and you coming over here with this nonsense. And then he asks you, respect my wife.
00:19:22
Speaker
This is what men need to be doing. Y'all not willing to fight somebody in the defense of your yeah woman in Mississippi heat. Easily 100 degrees.
00:19:34
Speaker
And that's the problem. When he threatened to whoop his ass, he didn't, it wasn't no really much talking. He put down his equipment, his tool.
00:19:46
Speaker
And he got ready to get to going. And I said, that's Mississippi. Because it's like he already told you once. Like he told you once and you knew what was going to happen the second time. um But Delroy, Delta Slim, my favorite character.
00:20:02
Speaker
i keep telling everybody this very small moment when Delta Slim called Remick a peckerwood.
00:20:14
Speaker
I was transported. ain't never heard nobody outside of Mississippi say that. i had an uncle who said it all the time. One of my friends um who's from Louisiana, her grandfather was Native American. She said that she recalls her grand her grandfather using that term, which tracks for Louisiana.
00:20:36
Speaker
But yeah, I had never heard that. And i when he said that, it was such a small moment. A lot of people probably didn't even notice. I said... He studies, he's an artist, he's an artist.
00:20:51
Speaker
And y'all need to give him his stuff. He should have already been on the list. Whatever Oscars y'all decided on, if his name not on there, I don't really want to hear nothing else about it.
00:21:01
Speaker
Okay? He knows what he's doing in his shows. So I love that, especially because he ain't got no roots. You could have fooled me. You could have fooled me. So, yeah, I'm going have to give it to, out of the three, I said Annie, Delroy, and Cornbread, I feel like Delroy...
00:21:18
Speaker
and cornbread were the ones for me that felt very, very Mississippi. Yes.
Mississippi's Diverse Racial History
00:21:24
Speaker
I feel like with this movie being set in Mississippi in the 1930s, there were so many decisions that Coogler made that I really appreciated as a Mississippi. One, as you mentioned, there was like no long-suffering narratives.
00:21:38
Speaker
Like after the opening sequence, Sammy is returning to his small sharecropping community. He's coming out of the cotton field. He's laughing. He's joking around with his mama.
00:21:50
Speaker
People are not like super sad and miserable, although this is set during the Great Depression. It's also a time in the U.S. where, you know, the U.S. was trying and failing to outlaw lynching. And I know in the 1930s, like Millsops College, it was one of the few colleges in Mississippi that was like, hey, y'all, lynching is bad. And a lot of the government officials called them a communist college. But...
00:22:14
Speaker
Delroy Lindo's character, Delta Slim, talks about having been in a chain gang. He got out to make music for white folks. And while he drank his money away, his buddy saved it to leave Mississippi. And the Klan got to him, robbed him, accused him of stealing and raping, and then lynched him right there at the train station.
00:22:34
Speaker
And so Delta Slim kind of came to the conclusion that what he did, you know, working just enough to drink, doing nothing else, was the safest option. because it kept him alive. I appreciate him showing like this individual instance of racism, because what I've noticed growing up in Mississippi is that a lot of racism is institutional.
00:22:55
Speaker
I remember when I got to college and the Black people that I went to K through 12 with were like, yeah, we didn't really experience racism until we left our small town. Meanwhile, they had like shortened their names because our white teachers and peers were like, your name's too hard for me.
00:23:12
Speaker
And their name was literally phonetic. Like you could sound it out. But a lot of the racism that I experienced was due to me being like an overachieving Black person.
00:23:23
Speaker
And I've learned in recent years that that was what caused a lot of white anger and hysteria. That's a lot of why ida B. Wells started her lynching activism because her best friend had a very successful grocery store and he was making more money than white people. So they killed him.
00:23:40
Speaker
And that is the same for Delta Slim's buddy who was saving up all this money to leave and he was doing better than white people. So they killed him. And I think another instance of like this institutional racism is also like in small towns where you'll see the same names on the buildings and the factories and the car dealerships.
00:24:02
Speaker
And if you look on a census 200 years ago, it's that same last name. that owned like all these people that had the largest plantations. And so it's like that money is still around us and it's still very apparent.
00:24:17
Speaker
And even if we may not always be able to put two and two together. That's true. We definitely had it in our town. There were like two particular big names. There are still big names.
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah, i I resonate with everything you said. You know, for me, the best scene in the movie easily was Delta Slam telling that story.
00:24:42
Speaker
But especially right before standing up and yelling at the chain gang and telling them to hold your heads up. Hold your heads up. I don't know why that was so heartbreaking for me.
00:24:54
Speaker
I felt my stomach nodding up when he started telling the story because I was actually scared we were going to get a flashback. And I didn't want to see it. I wasn't going watch. I was going to cover my eyes like I usually do.
00:25:07
Speaker
I thought it was done so well with it as background noise. And then Delta Slim going into the humming. i mean, it was a haunting scene.
00:25:20
Speaker
It was beautiful. And that scene alone is why I think. Fuck the Oscars, right? Like, who cares? But if y'all gonna be giving out awards, that scene alone is Oscar worthy for me.
00:25:33
Speaker
And so, yeah, I think this was a Black and Mississippi story done with care. And we don't usually get that from nobody.
00:25:45
Speaker
For nobody. So do you want to take a break? Yes, let's do it.
00:25:58
Speaker
Let's get into the ways you can support the Hoodoo Plant Mamas. One is through our bookshop where you can buy the books that we've discussed with our Writing the Spirit guests. We have a Hoodoo Beginners Guide, Tarot, and Oracle Decks, as well as our top reading picks.
00:26:13
Speaker
You can also buy Leah's books. Every purchase you make helps support our show. Check us out at bookshop.org slash shop slash Hoodoo Plant Mamas, or the link is in our show notes.
00:26:26
Speaker
Other ways you can support us include rating and reviewing this podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Follow us on Instagram at hoodooplantmamas. We are no longer on the Bird app.
00:26:37
Speaker
Check out our Patreon where we share exclusive video, plant, and spiritual content for only $3 month. um ah Thank you to our new Patreons, Latavia, Andrea, and Christina.
00:26:50
Speaker
If you prefer a one-time donation, you can donate via Cash App, Cash Tag, WhoDoPlantMamas, or our PayPal, WhoDoPlantMamas at gmail.com. Let's get back to the show.
00:27:07
Speaker
So another really big conversation that came out of this show was about the race and the racial politics. I feel like a lot of people think Mississippi is filled with the Klan and slaves, even today.
00:27:22
Speaker
but i cannot tell you the amount of people in school who moved to Mississippi and they thought we were a bunch of backwards, docile, ignorant people. This is why i always tell people, I was like, I'm born, raised, and educat educated and Mississippi from kindergarten to bachelor's degree, Mississippi.
00:27:38
Speaker
But this film showed that like all types of people live in Mississippi. Everybody is in Mississippi. Yes, Mississippi is the blackest state in this country. Yes, there are racist white people.
00:27:49
Speaker
But there are also Asian Mississippians or Hispanic Mississippians. I know some of the girlies got mad, but you saw the tamale shop in there. Like, who do you think was making tamales in the 1930s? Let's be real.
00:28:02
Speaker
And there are indigenous people here, too. We do have a federally recognized indigenous tribe, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in Choctaw, Mississippi. It's not that far from where both of us grew up. It's also where Geyser Falls is, which is...
00:28:17
Speaker
a really big water park. We do have more water parks now, but, and also the casinos are there as well. But yeah, I really appreciate Coogler for showing all of that, that Mississippi is this very diverse place.
00:28:30
Speaker
And it was a diverse place a hundred years ago as well. Yes. And representatives from the Chauvin Nation were consultants for the movie, which I was glad to learn. And and I figured, cause I don't think he would have done it without that, which proves it's not that hard folks.
00:28:47
Speaker
It's not that hard to bring a cultural expert in before you just throw folks in your movies like parsley. So I said this to you in a text message, and I'm gonna say it again here, that I want my people free from the obsession with representation. And I mean this by like this expectation or need to have people represent us who likely won't do us justice.
00:29:13
Speaker
Ryan Coogler Now, let me rewind and say, he represented Mississippi well as far as like the cultural groups that were more likely to be interacting in some kind of way during that time period.
00:29:28
Speaker
But he also, in his interviews, he talked about how this movie is based on his specific interest, whether be music, different cultures that he's done reading and studying on, and his family lore.
00:29:43
Speaker
specifically his miss his uncle from Mississippi but even before knowing that I just don't go into certain movies with unrealistic expectations I'm here to enjoy this movie for what it's gonna be i love black people in horror like I love it and this was a good black horror movie that had a lot of great cultural elements Hess love And this is true
00:30:11
Speaker
fellowhootoo say it in opposed every story cannot do everything cannot feel every gap cannot reflect you hundred percent no story can and this is this is true And it really put my thoughts to a much nicer way in that he couldn't do everything in this movie. I would have loved to seen certain types of representation. Okay.
00:30:35
Speaker
Like, but we have to stop expecting it from, so from from certain people. I'm not going to assist Hat Man's movie. expecting to see people who represent the fullness of me and quite frankly I don't want to because I don't think you're gonna do a good job okay so yeah I think as far as like the racial politics I had just been saying a lot of discourse around that you know how I feel that a lot of the girls they build their platforms and businesses and emphasis on businesses, off manufactured rage, which is what social media has come into. Like they selling you something. So they come on here with this critique.
00:31:17
Speaker
Surprise. There's no insert this group of people in the movie. And then the next poster too, they're going selling you something. But that's just me. What are your thoughts?
00:31:29
Speaker
i I do agree with you. I had seen someone who made that comment and they were like, there was no queerness in that film. And I agree that we need to quit expecting representation from people who do not have the range to portray the intricacies of that representation.
00:31:48
Speaker
And yes, I also think that people have a nasty habit of not accepting things for how they are. They see some elements they like and they want it to be their story, but it's like, this is not your story, right? It's quite simply not about you. And i understand being inspired by this movie. i understand wanting to see different things come out of it i saw a request for kugler to make an indigenous vampire hunter prequel but is kugler the best person to write a movie with indigenous people
00:32:19
Speaker
no And I bet that there are indigenous artists right now who are making art, mixing folklore and horror and who need your support. So I would rather you support them instead of asking Coogler to do something he doesn't have the competency or the range to do well. This is the same thing the with apparently ah Latinos being upset.
00:32:43
Speaker
The percentage was so small back then, but also... That doesn't mean that the few handful that might have been there didn't don't deserve representation, but create that movie. In truth, y'all don't care about no Mexicans or Hispanic folks that was in Mississippi in 1930s. You don't care about that.
00:33:03
Speaker
You don't. You just, you mad. You just want to be mad. Like, you know what I mean? So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I am a queer person who loves queer movies. I love to see us and stuff. It's such a pleasant surprise when I'm watching something and I'm like, oh, I see. I see what's going on here.
00:33:23
Speaker
And sometimes I be projecting queerness on people and I don't care if y'all do make them straight. If I sense it, if I see it, they're queer. swear As far as I'm concerned, everybody in here is queer. But like, yeah, I'm not going into...
00:33:35
Speaker
This straight black man who ain't made no films at all about that and expecting that. It's getting the point where it becomes unfair to be expecting people to do things that are out of their realm.
00:33:47
Speaker
Even with all the research, like for instance, if he made an indigenous prequel, a lot of indigenous folks will go end up being pissed off. Okay. Cause they going to be like, he didn't get this right. He didn't get There's only so much research you can do some shit. You just need lived experience.
00:34:05
Speaker
You do. You need lived experience and to be within the community. So there's that. I definitely agree with you. i had a review of my book about the boy and that series is a continuous series. We follow the same main character over the course of the book And so because it's a romance, I had one review. it was like, I loved everything about this book. I'm upset that they were upset that I wasn't going into Luna's story. And so Luna is, she's of mixed heritage, Hispanic. She's Mexican, Puerto Rican.
00:34:40
Speaker
She's also queer. And for me, the reason that I wrote her was like, I grew up, I had Mexican friends growing up. As an adult, I worked around Puerto Rican people. So I wanted to see those types of characters in my stories.
00:34:54
Speaker
I also, a lot of my friends are queer, right? And whenever I read queer narratives, especially the ones for teens, they're always like, oh, I 100% know who I am.
00:35:05
Speaker
I'm gay and I'm proud. And I've never once questioned anything about my sexuality. And I'm just like, that was just not something I had ever seen before. Like in real life, the girls were in their 20s panicking about being attracted to women.
00:35:19
Speaker
So I was like, I think it's okay to show kids like, hey, it's okay if you're questioning these things around your identity. And I was only comfortable writing that from the outside looking in because that's the only way I've experienced it is like my friends panicking about, you know, being bisexual.
00:35:38
Speaker
And so I just, because I respect that sort of experience, I'm not comfortable writing that from a first person point of view. I'm only comfortable writing that. And I think that's fine. And I think it's unreasonable to expect me to want to write that from a first person point of view. Agreed. Like it's just some stuff.
00:35:56
Speaker
But again, support What niggas need to be doing Is demanding that they put some of this money They making it off of these movies Into black, southern, queer artists You made a bunch of money off of Mississippi Put your money where your mouth is Like that makes sense But this whole You should have put XYZ in the movie We're just losing the plot at this point Y'all need to log off Okay?
00:36:24
Speaker
Don't touch the grass. Go lay in it. b Let yourself be absorbed. Okay. I'm just saying. I went forest bathing a couple of weeks ago and I'm as depressed as I've been.
00:36:37
Speaker
um still feel the remnants of that. I Needed It so bad and so many, so many folks do as well. That's all I'm saying. You're not lying. So this movie brought up a lot of conversation about the Chinese characters and what Chinese people were doing in Mississippi.
00:36:58
Speaker
um So Chinese laborers came to the U.S. during the 1800s. I think a lot, at least we were told in school that they came to build the transcontinental railroad across the United States.
00:37:10
Speaker
And a lot of them, after the Civil War, they went south for work because former enslavers were looking for cheap labor. So it is historically accurate to have Chinese people in Mississippi.
00:37:23
Speaker
And so in this movie, the wife has a store on the white side, The husband has a store on the Black side. And the daughter, she works in either store her parents want her at.
00:37:34
Speaker
And so I think the thing that is so interesting about Asian people, especially East Asian people, is that they occupy this really weird space of like, they weren't colored like Black people are, but they didn't have the full benefits and privileges of whiteness.
00:37:51
Speaker
And that's really where we start to see the beginnings of the whole like model minority myth. And that really ramped up with the Korean and the Vietnam Wars when those countries were asking what right did the U.S. have to come in there and tell them what they could and couldn't do when they were treating Asian people any kind of way in the United States.
00:38:09
Speaker
And so as a result, the United States started granting funds and opportunities to people of East Asian descent in order to justify being in East Asia. And so today we see the privileges they gained over the half century because of that.
00:38:23
Speaker
And now we're seeing that partly colored side come back in that Asians are outpacing white people and white people are using us, black people, to dismantle a lot of things that have helped build the model minority myth like affirmative action.
00:38:40
Speaker
And so a lot of history goes into Asian people and the privilege of being able to occupy both black and white spaces in the United States. Yeah, it's complicated, but I'm glad people now know Asian Mississippians exist who sound like Mississippians.
00:38:55
Speaker
um Because I realized a lot of people were surprised by their accents when they started speaking. But I can understand it if you've never been exposed to it. To be fair, first time I heard a us Chinese person from the Delta speak, I too was surprised, you know, but they're there and they proud.
Character Analysis: Mary
00:39:14
Speaker
They have blended their culture with that of the Mississippi beautifully so there's that but still a very complicated legacy in the ways that many of the them did betray black people in order to get proximity to whiteness so and speaking of whiteness we got to talk about Mary the Octoroon
00:39:37
Speaker
The woman with the biracial grandparent. I've seen so many discussions on passing and things like that, but I think Mary is a really good sign of entitlement. It reminds me a lot of the book Passing by Nella Larson. I am going to be honest. I haven't read the book.
00:39:55
Speaker
I did see the movie, but in the movie, Claire, she's one of the... mixed race women. She lives her life as a white woman. She hates being white. She thinks it's boring.
00:40:07
Speaker
So she wants to be a part of the black society. And she sees the beauties of blackness without the burdens of having to deal with racism. And I think because Mary grew up around these black folks, she thinks she's entitled to their time.
00:40:21
Speaker
Even though she lives her life as a white woman, she doesn't consider any of the black people. She sees Dak in the train station. She says very loudly that he fucked her Knowing that that could get him lynched, she constantly calls Sammy boy, which is a microaggression.
00:40:36
Speaker
And she walks around like she's entitled to the place without ever being a part of the community. Because at the end, when we see everyone working together to open this juke joint, Mary isn't there.
00:40:48
Speaker
And she ends up being the downfall of the community because she's the first one turned because she was sympathetic to the white people. Again, not caring how her actions affected the black people around her. Yeah. And Mary...
00:41:01
Speaker
did think that she was helping but the fact that she didn't sense that something was off with them like everybody else did is telling Yeah, a lot of her presence bothered me because she was. She put everyone in danger even by showing up to the juke joint.
00:41:17
Speaker
On the other hand, I also thought it was sad how she was chasing Stack because he seems like he'd not be he wouldn't be a good partner to anyone. He ain't got no respect for women. That's why Cornbread almost got on his ass talking crazy about his wife because no, he was out of pocket.
00:41:35
Speaker
But as we do, people accept her, even though they claim the black community don't be accepting them, which is a whole and nother thing. It's weird to me watching this sort of fetishization of her, not even just the character, but the actress who does not identify as anything but white.
00:41:56
Speaker
That is a white woman. We didn't know about her grandfather until she said it in relationship to this movie. But it's part of a larger issue of the way people are overly sympathetic to the idea of passing, but not colorism. Like, but not actual colorism that impacts darker skin folks.
00:42:14
Speaker
We can hold space for the psychological impact and even the danger of existing between two worlds. Because, yeah, you could be killed if they find out that you got any kind of black in you, even if you visibly white.
00:42:28
Speaker
But once you make that choice, your quality of life is exponentially better. It's exponentially but better than the family that you left behind. And people almost make it like they had it harder than the people getting killed and kept out of schools and all of this stuff.
00:42:47
Speaker
like Or the people being a mistreated in their family because they're dark. Did y'all pretend like wasn't a thing? And you wonder why there's resentment. You never talk about It's always, they're jealous. They this.
00:42:59
Speaker
No. Everybody who grew up in the South, especially y'all know how lighter skin is regarded. So stop pretending. That's the only thing that pisses me off is the pretending. That you weren't seen as more pretty.
00:43:13
Speaker
Adults like me being not even dark, dark skin. I'm brown skinned. But standing next to a lighter skinned cousin. And everybody saying how pretty they are. And nobody saying a damn thing to me.
00:43:26
Speaker
Anybody darker than a paper bag doesn't experience that. But we're all lying. We're all making it up. So... That's partly why Mary bothered me too, because I really thought Mary was going to like pull a white woman in there against him because he was rejecting her. Like, cause it was giving so bitter.
00:43:45
Speaker
i was like, she is going to lie and say he did something to her and white people are going to come out to him. But she didn't ultimately in trying to please him and trying to get chosen and She put herself in harm's way and then ultimately then the community.
00:44:04
Speaker
So her being naive and oblivious and just like selfish really was the undoing for everybody at its core. Yeah.
00:44:15
Speaker
I agree. Overall, when it comes to sinners, I think that Coogler just, he did a really phenomenal job.
Tribute to Black Southern Narratives
00:44:22
Speaker
He said this movie was dedicated to his late uncle who was born in Mississippi. And i can tell so much care and love went into it.
00:44:31
Speaker
This is really what I want to see for more period pieces. Like, The white imagination has shaped a lot of how we see the past. And that's why we think it's all suffering and pain. But we know how black folks are, you know, me and you, we know how Southern black folks are.
00:44:47
Speaker
And we know that that's not our whole story. i really appreciate Kugler for showing that. My one complaint with this film is that it was filmed in Louisiana and not Mississippi. Mississippi has a film commission. My former filmmaking professor was the commissioner.
00:45:05
Speaker
So please give our creatives work. Please give our creatives money, especially when you are writing stories about Mississippi, set them in Mississippi. Another thing, Jacob Anderson, who is a British man who played a black vampire in New Orleans,
00:45:21
Speaker
When he had to do his accent, they tried to give him a vocal coach and he was like, nah, I'm going to go to New Orleans. And he went to New Orleans. He actually talked to people he studied and a lot of people were very convinced that that was a Creole man.
00:45:37
Speaker
and And that's the thing. It's like, if you want to set a movie in Mississippi, come to Mississippi, film it here, talk to our creatives, talk to the people here, like support us. If you want to have a movie that is showing our stories and showing our lives.
00:45:53
Speaker
Agreed. I love it. No, more period pieces without the same old tired tropes and more films filmed in Mississippi to support us, especially the Delta. Yeah.
00:46:06
Speaker
Great movie. Can't wait to see it again.
Season Finale Wrap-Up and Future Content
00:46:09
Speaker
So if you like this episode, you can like, rate, and review Hoodoo Plant Mamas on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
00:46:17
Speaker
If anything from the show resonated with you, make sure to share it with us on social media. You can find us on Instagram at Hoodoo Plant Mamas. Thank y'all so much for listening and we will see you next season.
00:46:29
Speaker
Bye y'all. Bye.