When Does Hollywood’s Diversity Become Real Representation?

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Remember Oscar's So White?

With films like Crazy Rich Asians, Black Klansmen, and Sorry to Bother You Now in Theaters, Hollywood is ready to claim victory on its struggles with diversity.

Not so fast.

Is more of America being represented on screen

or just being depicted?

This is Radio Atlantic.

Hi, I'm Matt Thompson, Executive Editor of The Atlantic.

With me here in DC is Gillian White, Atlantic Senior Editor.

Hello, Gillian.

Hello, so good to see you.

So good to see you too.

Over in New York, we are joined for the first time, I believe, on Radio Atlantic by our colleague, Hanna Georgia, staff writer at The Atlantic.

Hannah, welcome to the table.

Hi, y'all.

Thanks for having me.

Hannah, this is not your first time.

This is incredible.

Do you feel historic?

Do you feel like you're a part of history?

I'm just honored to be here.

I'm going to write this down.

Thank you.

Hannah, you cover culture for the Atlantic, and you have been thinking big thoughts about culture recently.

What do you want to talk about today?

Well, Matt,

I've been thinking a lot about what happens once we go beyond the sort of basic level one, does diversity matter question?

And we get into the sort of nitty-gritty and the, you know, the 102, if you will.

So that kind of stuff.

What has brought this up for you?

Why are you thinking these thoughts?

Right, you're asking this question.

Right.

So, I mean, I think about this stuff a lot in general, right?

I write about a lot of culture stuff, and in particular, I care a lot about the work that people of color are producing and are asking for.

But I think lately, as I've seen, I saw sort of in pretty quick succession, Debbie Diggs and Raphael Casal's Blind Spotting, Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You, Spike Lee's Black Klansman, and then Issa Ray's Insecure Came Back.

So we have all these sort of really

exciting and nuanced and rich works coming from people of color with entirely different voices and ideas.

So, you know, I want to get into that.

Excellent.

So, yes, I mean, that catalog that you just listed, it sounds like there's a lot of

diversity happening.

It's like we're

eons away from Oscar's So White.

so diversity problems solved right

I wish

so you have been writing about what you are and aren't seeing in these depictions and tell me a little bit about what comes after what comes beyond diversity in this conversation right so you know I've always been particularly interested in intra-community conversations right so what happens when we're talking not just as black people, people of color, to or about ourselves in front of white people or with the idea that we need to impress them or say that our stories belong here, here's the case for us, but what happens when we're talking to each other?

And how do we relate to one another?

How do we assert a sense of belonging with each other?

Or, you know, how do we say somebody is doing something that says it's for me, but it's not?

So a lot of that has been coming up, I think, as we talk about, you know, I watched Black Klansmen and it was a little hard for me because I emerged from that theater thinking, this was really intense and I don't feel better than I did walking in.

Not that I expected to, but it felt a little explainer-y, a little racism has existed, racism continues to exist.

By the way, did you know Charlottesville happened?

In a way that to me felt like, you know, it would have been more necessary or useful for white moviegoers.

Right.

I mean, and Hannah, we've talked about this before.

I think it brings up the question, as you said, when we see these movies, these films, of who is all of this for?

Who is this supposedly talking to?

Versus, I think, especially in the case of Black Klansman, who are the people who are actually going to see these?

And does the messaging actually match and reach the audience?

Yeah.

Black Klansman is an interesting case.

I I felt like I emerged from the movie

having the thought, I wish that racism actually just was just like this all the time, that

would be useful.

All the racists just wore pointy-headed hats and were

self-evidently evil.

Right, and easy to spot.

Yes, right, and you can have more of a motivation than just to be racist, right?

Right, right.

And, you know, that movie has these sort of funny moments where, you know, Tophor Grace says David Duke does the kind of like, I wish we had a president who would abide by these policies.

And I wish that he would want to make America, you know, have its greatness again.

And it's very sort of wink-wink, nod, nod.

And that felt a little, you know, heavy, a little intense for me right now in this particular political climate to be reminded once more.

But Black Cleansman was a movie that a lot of people liked.

Yes.

A lot of people found it useful.

A lot of critics found it useful.

As we speak, the movie Black Cleansman has an 82 on Metacritic, which is a movie review aggregation site that combines scores from different movies and kind of comes up with an Uber score based on how critics have rated it.

An 82 out of 100.

What do you think that that reflects?

I think it's timely.

You know, I wouldn't even go so far as to say I don't like it.

I wish that it were shorter and that the sort of ending, characteristic, Spike Lee montage of current events that the movie is clearly inspired by, that that segment ended or didn't exist.

But I think that it's there are moments when it's really fun and funny.

Adam Driver gives a particularly great performance, and you know, John David Washington is fun to watch.

And there are things about it that, especially thinking about some of Spike Lee's more recent works, make it a welcome addition to his repertoire.

Yes.

Yeah, I think I would agree with all of that.

But you've mentioned you are interested in the intra-community conversation.

As we talk about a movie like Black Klansman, I'm curious, who do you think that that movie was for?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I think it's for,

you know, I think Spikely would probably say it's for everybody.

But I think it probably is most effective for either your sort of moderate white person who, you know, understands objectively that racism is evil and bad, but sort of doesn't understand the ways in which it has inspired terror historically and sort of in this contemporary moment.

And I think for black folks who want a jumping off point to talk to each other about certain things.

So I think it raises really interesting questions about, you know, does having more black police officers help solve the problem of American policing?

It raises interesting questions around what does community loyalty look like?

What does it mean to,

you know, to hold each other down, to establish power with one another?

And again, like this is the thing that you know we were talking about earlier.

What does it mean for Ron Stallworth, who John David Washington plays as a black police officer who pretends to be white over the phone and joins the Klan?

What does it mean to be able to play around with race in these ways, to sound white, to act white?

And I think, you know, if we as a community, as black people, if we come together and talk about those things, I think it's useful.

But as far as getting the message of racism existing across to us, I don't know that we needed that.

I wonder if it's also so popular because there is a segment of the population who just wants the bluntness, who wants to be kind of hit over the head with, you know, the fact that this is what's happening and I feel that it's bad.

And I just want somebody to say that over and over and over again.

And there's a form of catharsis in that.

And I do wonder if that's part of the reason why it's so appealing.

I do think there's a not super small segment of the population that is frustrated with kind of the level of nuance and care that is being taken now to discuss issues of race and politics.

And they just want, in their mind, to call a spade a spade.

And for them, Spikely does that.

Right.

Right.

Hannah, I wanted to touch on, to go back to some of the other works that you mentioned.

Sorry to bother you.

Insecure with Isa Ray,

blind spotting.

You have recently written about the sounds that we hear.

All of these works center on the experiences of black characters.

And

you wrote a piece for theatlantic.com.

That I did.

About the sound of the black universe that's depicted in each one of these works.

Tell us a little bit about what you found in this cinematic corner.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

You know, it's funny talking about this, like literally talking

as someone who,

you know, shares a similar background with Issa Ray, and that I'm, you know, a young black woman who grew up in Southern California with like a black immigrant family for whom English wasn't the first language, right?

So my first,

my own personal first interactions with English were often with white people or with other folks kind of trying to make sense of what it means to sound American.

And so I was thinking thinking a lot about that as I wrote, but I think one of the criticisms that the show has gotten is that when, in particular, Issa says certain words like the N-word or certain phrases associated with, you know, sort of black American speech patterns, that it doesn't sound right or it sounds off.

And that's a really hard thing to quantify.

And it's also, you know, it's tough that that show has sort of been saddled with the burden of representing so much of blackness because we don't have as many,

you know, we don't have as many examples of what it means for a character to be black and young and in America because those kinds of works just don't get greenlit as often.

Honey, you mentioned a particular moment in the show Insecure.

You're describing a conversation between two characters in the show, Issa Ray, the creator, and Molly, her friend, who we're going to hear from first.

Let's hear that clip.

Okay, see now I don't need your side eye.

I'm trying.

I'm telling you right now, this whole vacation put everything in perspective for me.

I'm on some next level shit.

I'm missing it.

Okay, so like vacation bae was trying to kick it with me in LA and I had to put him in this lane.

Bloop, you beat your dick.

Quentin was trying to do some long distance shit and I said, blink, stay in Chicago.

And my new job was trying to fund him out benefits.

And I said, Blam, you better give that bitch a BBO.

So you bloop it and blip it and blap it.

And Blam and bitch, I want some know better, do better shit.

That's dope.

All right, Hannah.

Black explained this to me.

What sounded off about that clip to some listeners?

Viewers, I should say, because everybody watches this on a podcast.

Right, right.

I think one of the things that people have pointed to is the way that, you know, vowels are elongated or, you know, you hear like the blamin', like this almost like nasally quality that we tend to associate with sort of white vocal patterns.

Just little things like that that sort of clue you into the fact that maybe this is a stretch for this person vocally because it's not something that was in their kind of you know repertoire growing up.

And that, you know, acting is acting, right?

Like all actors are embodying something that is outside themselves.

But it's interesting to think about how fluid language is and, you know, sometimes is not as it concerns blackness.

Do you think, I'm curious, Jillian,

when you hear that critique of a moment like that in a show, is it just that it's not, maybe the acting wasn't that effective?

And if so, like there are a lot of cases where things might not be acted as well as we want them.

Why do you think that that,

why does it matter?

I mean, I think it matters matters because

as we get movie shows films where

people who have not traditionally seen themselves represented are finally kind of coming to the forefront and receiving critical acclaim and mass audiences I think that they just want to feel adequately and accurately represented.

So I think that in an instance like that where this, as Hannah said, kind of unfairly, has to represent for

so many black women their experience, the way they talk, the way they feel, the way they dress, the music they listen to, the way they dance, their interpersonal relationships.

Any hint that that might not be all the way correct or completely correct, I think people feel a need to seize upon.

I think one of the things that I find especially interesting about this conversation as related to voice and to vernacular and all of those things is that this is one of those areas where nuance within a community that Hannah's been talking about this whole time is so important, right?

So

if I, as a black person with a West Indian background from the East Coast, had heard some of my West Coast friends talking when I first got to college, I would have thought, that's not necessarily how black people I know sound.

It would have sounded odd to me, and it did, and vice versa.

So I think there's, in some ways, a little bit of that where we both want the nuance, but we also want everything to relate directly to us because people have been waiting so long to see representation of themselves.

Yeah.

I'm curious

from both of you.

I imagine a lot of listeners who are not listening to a clip like that or watching a movie like Black Klansmen from inside the communities being depicted on screen.

They're like,

this feels accurate.

I don't know.

This seems authentic.

How do you think a viewer or a listener

who might perceive something as authentic,

how do you approach a work like Black Clansmen Are Insecure if you aren't

a black woman who grew up in Southern California in an immigrant household?

And be attuned to the fact that you may be seeing something that's a partial representation of this experience or perhaps even a slightly off-kilter one?

I mean, I think this is one of those things that, I mean, being specific, white audiences are going to have to learn in the same way that black audiences and Hispanic audiences and Asian audiences and queer audiences have had to do for basically their entire lives, right?

Look at something that is from a background that's completely different than yours and try to parse it and figure it out.

And I think part of the reason that, for instance, people of color understand the nuances of white America or

feel that they do is in part because that culture has been represented so broadly and in so many different ways and in so many different capacities and with so much nuance and so much detail that if you're a person of color in America, you can say, oh, this is

a particular type of speech that comes from a particular

segment of the country where a particular type of white person lives or something like that.

We have never had our stories told in broad scope

and the numbers still just aren't out there.

So I think until there is a real or a greater saturation of work from people of color, you know,

I think it's going to be hard for anyone who's outside that community to really be able to parse kind of those nuances.

Right.

And I think, you know, remembering that not

there's no single story, right?

So like insecure is a specific story about some specific characters in a specific part of the country going through specific things, right?

And that not every black woman you see or encounter has had a moment like something Isa or Molly has had.

And like maybe there are moments that they can relate to, sure, but that you know, black creators or creators of color shouldn't have to speak for their entire communities.

They should just be able to create art.

And I think the more we move away from the burden of doing explanatory or like almost anthropological art, in addition to just telling stories,

that'll sort of move all of this along.

Part of what I'm hearing in what both of you are saying is this idea that

pure diversity or sheer diversity without a level of authenticity risks becoming just tokenism.

That to

it is, there is this whole other level that enriches the art potentially for everyone who comes to it of really just faithfully capturing an experience.

And that

the level beyond diversity in part is getting there.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that's in part when you look back at things that

have been so beloved of late.

When you look at Moonlight, for instance, just the amount of nuance and detail, how, in a way small that story was

of you know one man from one neighborhood dealing with, you know, coming to terms with the fact that he was gay and dealing with all of the external factors there.

It just felt so much more authentic and important and powerful.

And I think something like that now has the ability to resonate and reach a broad audience in a way that it didn't, you know, five, ten years ago.

Right.

Absolutely.

And, you know, I think it's, again, what the sort of luxury of individuality is what, you know, people of color, marginalized folks in this country haven't had as people and also in our art.

And so the more we kind of move toward that, I think it also answers a lot of

concerns around the way that the work and the narratives of movies or TV shows work.

I think about a specific moment in Insecure Last Season when Issa's character has an issue with a particular intimate act and it really didn't resonate for a lot of viewers.

And I think the reason that fell off in that moment was that the show tried to make it a larger point about black women and sexuality, whereas it could have just been a hang-up that Issa, the character, had, and that would have worked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The challenge that you all are talking about is one that's sort of, it it cuts across all of art, right?

Like the essential elemental challenge of art is trying to find the universal and the particular, in the specific.

The more particular, the more specific the experience being depicted, the more resonant that is across a range of experiences that it touches on,

the richer the work can feel.

That's one of the things about Moonlight.

I mean, that's one of the reasons I think I can watch a movie like Call Me By Your Name, which features

a romance.

by people with a lifestyle that I can't even quite fathom.

Being able to just like summer in Italy to like, you know, find ancient archaeological artifacts in the like beautiful Capri waters or whatever.

A girl can dream.

A girl can dream

and

find pieces of myself in that.

That's incredibly powerful.

I want to ask you about another

upcoming work that

kind of poses a different question, Crazy Rich Asians.

This is a movie that I have not yet seen, but depicts a very, very, very particular

slice of socioeconomic experience.

So, and I should say, this is a movie that's getting a lot of acclaim and a lot of love from a lot of my friends that, and our film critic David Sims has an all-star cast, Constance Wu, Aqua Fina.

is and it i should add that it's not through the lens of the one percent but is depicting this very particular socioeconomic slice of life how How should we think about a movie that isn't even purporting to depict the entirety of a community's experience, but is focused on one very particular slice?

Right.

Yeah, I think, you know, some of the discourse, for lack of a better word, around it has been about whether the film can or does do that.

And I think, you know, again, it's, it's an unfair burden, right?

Like, I think that movies and, you know, TV shows are at their core art, which gives us an opportunity to enjoy ourselves and to think about the world world around us and how we relate to people and i'm excited to see it and have fun um

so you know it it doesn't have to be again the be all end all just because it's the first um ideally we would get so many more chances for people um to show different stories yeah

One of the things that's really made the conversation about diversity, particularly in Hollywood, a big matter of discussion was the Oscars So White campaign.

And now we've recently heard the news that the Oscars, the Academy Awards,

are adding a category of popular film.

And that, as I understand it, is Oscar's effort to represent a broader universe of film.

But it's drawn a lot of criticism.

Right.

Hannah, why?

Why, Hannah?

Right.

I don't know.

Put me in charge of the Academy.

I'll answer it.

No, please, please, please don't do that.

Why are people so exercised about the Academy's decision to add this popular film category?

You know, I think it feels like a cop-out to a lot of people, right?

It feels like preempting a loss in the categories that quote-unquote matter, right?

So it's a, you know, we're probably not going to give you best picture again the way that we did with Moonlight.

And even that was kind of a flub.

But here, take this kind of token award that we'll offer you instead.

So don't get too riled up again.

We can't deal with that anymore.

And that's frustrating, right?

To feel like your concerns are kind of going and being heard, yes, but not being acted upon in a way that feels meaningful.

And, you know, I was saying, you know, we were talking about this earlier, but the Academy Awards and awards in general have really big impacts on, you know, individual actors and directors' careers, but also what kind of works come from that and what kind of things we see in the future.

So it's a little, it's disappointing on that end.

I just also feel like part of the problem here is that Oscar so white and a lot of the upheaval about diversity

in who was getting Academy awards was meant to say to the Academy, you guys are deeply out of touch.

You're out of touch with the art that people think matters, with the art that is resonating with people, with the actors and directors and producers who are doing groundbreaking work.

You're out of touch with a changing demographic of the country.

And

for the response to that to be like, cool, cool, cool, we totally get that.

So what we're going to do is instead of giving you these prestigious awards, we're going to create this other subsection that says that you're popular, but not artistic enough.

Not good enough in our eyes.

But I don't know.

Americans who are cultural Neanderthals seem to think that you're great.

So they went to see it in mass.

So yeah, cool.

We'll give you this award.

That does not solve the problem.

It also, I think, implies this idea that popular and artistically brilliant are sometimes or are often divorced.

And that's not true.

A lot of the movies that are nominated for best film

do really, really well in the box office.

So it's also like,

why do we actually need to separate these things?

Right.

And I think we see that with music too, right?

There's a sort of derision with which people talk about pop music as though to be, you know, a top 40 song is, one, an easy thing to just stumble into.

And two, partly because those kinds of music are associated most often with, you know, women, people of color, etc.

It just feels like this really obvious sort of who do you think you're fooling with this kind of thing.

Yeah.

I mean, does

what if,

I mean, we don't know how this category will play out in practice, right?

What if

Black Panther and the rest of the Marvel cinematic universe gets the best picture?

And popular film is where,

you know, the Furious franchise finds it.

I know a lot of people will be thrilled if the Furious franchise

finally receive their due.

But do you think that that's possible?

Are we presuming a lot to assume that the popular film category is

a consolation prize for films that are blockbusters?

I don't think we've...

Go ahead, Julie.

I was going to say, I mean, to a certain extent, of course, we're presuming, you know, we do not have this crystal ball.

We can't see into the future.

My favorite part about asking this question is just hearing the sigh in both of your voices

when the question is asked.

It just does.

I think also you have to kind of look at the track record here.

Right, right.

And the track record a little bit suggests that this is going to be a repository for things that are beloved and incredibly popular, and that the Academy knows that they'll be screamed at if they don't give some recognition to, but that they don't deem artistically significant enough to include in kind of their existing framework for what makes a best picture film.

But I think part of the problem there is that the whole idea was you need to rework your framework.

Right.

That was the ask.

The ask isn't to create an additional field.

It was to rethink the way that you're evaluating things.

Yeah.

The Grammys, I understand, have also gone through some similar contortions

and have been criticized for

choosing albums and artists that they can honor

in order to avoid controversy over diversity

in their selections.

Like, what is that category?

Like best urban contemporary?

Like, what does that mean?

What does that mean?

What does that mean aside from best album made by a black person?

Like, there's no, there's no sort of grounding, unified, cohesive musical

factor that brings them together.

It's literally just the color of who makes it.

But yeah, I mean, I agree with everything that Jillian said.

Like, obviously, we can't know definitively, but this is when we're talking about the Academy, we're talking about an organization that has historically refused to even watch films made by black people.

They didn't watch, was it Girls' Trip, I think?

Which was like a massive blockbuster hit and also like an incredibly well-done film.

So I don't know that they've necessarily inspired hope or goodwill thus far.

Hannah, the title of your piece for the site the other day was what does it mean to sound black?

What does it mean to sound black?

What was your conclusion?

What's the answer to that question?

It's complicated.

That's generally the answer that I arrive at.

You know, I think that we can

point to, so I spoke with Professor John McCorder, who has written for the site before,

but a little bit about, you know, what are the speech patterns?

What are, again, the sort of phonation, the syntax, what are those kinds of things that on a really like linguistic level we associate with blackness?

And then how much of it is, you know, the ability to participate in certain kinds of shared cultural jokes?

How much of it is, you know, slang?

How much of it is knowing what beat to hit in a conversation?

conversation um

and i think it it really depends the you know the to bring it to the insecure example again i don't think the problem that people have is that issa ray or yvonne orgy um who plays molly don't sound black at all or that they don't sound black enough necessarily it's that when

We're when only certain kinds of black people are allowed in the room with, let's say, like Hollywood executives, it affects the kind of art that we get.

So if somebody who sounds more quote quote-unquote natural saying some of those words

were to walk in a room with HBO, would HBO take them seriously enough to give them a show where they could say those words freely

and in a voice that sounds, you know, less acculturated to whiteness?

And I think that's a complicated question.

It's not just about authenticity, it's about access.

Yeah,

John McWhorter, who you mentioned, also recently wrote for our site about a poem by a white author.

This is relevant, that was

published in The Nation.

That poem drew a lot of criticism.

It was a poem by Anders Carlson Wee.

And it drew a lot of criticism because it was written in black English, black vernacular English.

Some folks had criticized the authenticity of the English.

John McWhirter stepped in as a linguist to say that, in fact, it is

its textbook accurate black vernacular English

I want to ask on behalf of the folks who are listening to this and saying you know oh man first y'all made me to worry about diversity and now

that we've we've gotten more representations of these different communities and experiences on screen, now I got to worry about is it authentic enough?

I mean, Hannah, give us a closing word for the audiences that are coming to the table with that.

Yeah.

I think one of the ways that we think about stuff like this is are authors, our poets, are TV show creators, are they allowed to write in this voice or are they allowed to be this kind of person?

And I feel like that's not necessarily the most fruitful question.

I think, you know, it's better to think about it in the sense of are you doing this justice?

And sometimes the answer is by virtue of who you are, you can't.

And sometimes it's just that you need to do your research more.

And sometimes it's that you could do it justice, but maybe someone else would be better.

And so I think it's not, it isn't, you know, for lack of better words, it isn't a black or white thing necessarily, but it's often that in the case of that poem, did he need to employ that voice to get across the point he wanted to?

Was he the best poet to tell this specific story?

And often, even if the question of someone being allowed to do something,

even if that answer is yes, the sort of secondary questions might be no, or might be wait or might be, you know,

access a different part of yourself that you know better.

And that feels like a more generative place to begin rather than thinking about it as a restriction.

Yeah, I think Hannah's point of, is it necessary to use this particular voice, which is not your own,

in order to get across the same point

really, really resonates here.

What was the utility of doing that?

What was the necessity of doing that?

And if there is none, if there was another way to construct that, then it begs the question of why?

Why?

Why did you have to embody

a black person or a black vernacular in order to get that across?

And was it necessary to kind of, or was it, you know, just a provocative thing?

I think another thing that a lot of people felt about that was that

it was stereotyping.

And I just want to quote this portion from what McGorda wrote, which was, the idea that non-black people, seeing black people depicted as using their own speech form, will think that's the only way black people can talk corresponds better to another time than our own.

It assigns a rather brutalist naivete to people who, albeit hardly devoid of subtle racist biases, have come a long way from Jim Crow.

Progress happens slowly, slowly, but it happens.

And I think the level to which people might have been offended or took issue largely hinges on how they feel about that graph.

So if you feel like this concern that somebody, a white person in particular reading that, will think, well, yeah, that's how black people talk, most of them at least.

If you think that most white people would feel that, then I think there's a lot of reason for you to feel offended or upset by that.

McWhorter doesn't seem to think that, but I think a lot of Americans would fear playing into those stereotypes.

Well, thank you for that.

There's a lot that you've both given us to think about today.

In a moment, we're going to turn to our closing segment, Keepers.

Stick around.

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And we're back and let us turn to keepers in which I ask our guests and you our listeners the question, what have you heard, watched, listened to, read, experienced recently that you do not want to forget?

I'm going to begin with a keeper by someone who has been mentioned in this conversation, John McWhorter.

We caught up with him the other day and asked him the keeper question.

And here's what he said:

You know what I have experienced that I don't want to forget?

I want to not forget that in our era,

speech and podcasting, therefore, therefore, and YouTube

are the primary way of communicating with especially young people and also even oldish people.

And that is a seismic change for me because I have always thought of myself as a writer.

I'm used to being able to tame and control print.

And I've learned over especially the past year that that puts me behind and that to talk is not as ephemeral as I generally think of it.

To me, when I say something, I figure it's gone as soon as I say it and I didn't get to plan it and so it didn't really count.

Wait till I write it.

I've realized over the past year that that doesn't work.

You've really put it out there when you've said it and if you write it, that's a calling card for the people out there who still don't listen to podcasts or watch YouTube.

That is a major adjustment for me.

I have to tell myself every week not to forget that it matters to talk.

It matters to talk, says the linguist who writes.

Jillian White, what you want to keep?

I would like to keep and hold on to the joy that viral dance challenges bring.

Tell us more.

So, I mean, anyone who has the internet or a radio or anything else probably heard Drake's In My Feelings.

And anyone who watches music videos or, again, is on the internet has probably seen the many versions of this very, very silly dance, perhaps culminating in Will Smith.

Will Smith is a master of the form.

Right.

So, I don't know.

I was at my best friend's wedding over last weekend and the song came on and people of all ages started doing it.

We were doing it the night before.

You know, I just feel like it's one of those rare things in this moment that can really bring people together.

And it's just unbridled joy and fun and silliness.

And the dances are never all that good or people are never all that good at them.

And you don't have to be.

So I find that just thrilling and great.

And I want to hold on to those.

The light fall.

Yes.

Hannah, what you want to keep?

So much.

But, you know, I've been listening to

Nikki Minaj's album, which just came out last weekend.

But I think before that, I spent a lot of time listening to some younger female rappers, Megan Thee Stallion, who's from Houston, and Rico Nasty, who's from Maryland in particular.

And the sort of brash, boisterous, incredibly cocky raps from them are just have like propelled me on days when I thought I would just need to stay in bed because the weather was horrible or whatever it was.

And there's this sort of like, again, like confidence and cockiness and just like, I'm the best at what I'm doing.

If you haven't caught on, it's your fault.

What are you doing?

Like, get with it or get lost.

Vibe that I think is just so fun.

And so, I think particularly nice in moments when, you know, I live in New York and I walk down the street, especially in the spring or the summer when the weather is nice and it's just, you know, men and street harassment and it's so much and feeling, I think, really vulnerable and fragile in public spaces can be hard.

But listening to them kind of in my headphones as I'm walking down the street is just a reminder that, like, okay, this street is mine too, and this space is mine too.

And I'm allowed to take up that space and to do with my body what I choose.

And it feels like a kind of basic reminder, but having it in their words

and with their delivery.

is particularly great.

Yes, yes,

keeper.

We are highly, highly recommending

all of these things in the show notes.

I will share my keeper.

I have had a lot of film keepers recently.

Here's another film keeper.

I watched Magic Mike XXL for the first time

and I got to watch Channing Tatum vote.

We've had this whole conversation about authenticity and representation and seeing

straight bro actor Channing Tatum take my community's

gift

of physical expressions to the world and just own it and delight in it, glory in it on stage.

It was delightful to watch.

If you haven't seen Magic Mike XXL, this moment happens early in the film.

There's a dance off at

a drag performance and

the first couple of competitors are not part of Magic Mike's crew, but but come on stage voguing.

And then Channing Tatum comes on stage and he

vokes.

He brings it.

He

just,

yeah,

he studied.

It was, I mean, it's delightful, among other things, because of him being just an excellent dancer and seeing this as another mode of expression that has its own particular beauty and just honoring that was absolutely fantastic to watch.

I watched it thrice.

I think I woke Brian up.

I think he was like asleep.

And I was like, you have to watch Channing Tatum Pog.

And then watch Pose.

Then go watch Pose.

Yes.

After you see that.

That was good.

Strong.

Strong.

Hannah George's, we got to have you on radio

again.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

It was real fun.

Jillian, it's a pleasure, as always.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you for edifying all of us.

I'll talk to you next week.

Bye.

That'll do it for this week's Radio Atlantic.

This episode was produced and edited, as always, by Kevin Townsend.

Catherine Wells is our executive producer for Atlantic Podcasts.

Thanks to my colleagues, the inestimable Jillian White and Hannah Georgias, for joining us and special thanks to Kim Lau for additional support.

Our theme music is the Battle Hymn of the Republic, as interpreted by the wizard John Batiste.

What is your keeper?

Call us at 202-266-7600 and leave us a voicemail with your contact information and what you don't want to forget.

Check us out at theatlantic.com slash radio.

Make sure to catch the show notes in the episode description.

And if you like what you're hearing, rate and review us in Apple Podcasts and subscribe in your preferred podcast app.

Most importantly, thank you for listening.

May you experience the incomparable joy as often as you can of feeling fully and deeply seen.

We'll see you next week.